Meandering Munitions1
Artifact (R)
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may have target player gain control of another target permanent you control. If you do, put a charge counter on Meandering Munitions. 1, T, Remove three charge counters from Meandering Munitions: Create a 4/1 colorless Construct artifact creature token named Bronze Bombshell. It has “When a player other than Bronze Bombshell's owner controls it, that player sacrifices it. If the player does, Bronze Bombshell deals 7 damage to him or her.”
I’ll preface this thought experiment with a statement: I know, and am very much aware, that free spells are broken and poorly designed 99% of the time.
That said, I had thought of this mechanic/concept and I am kind of shocked by how much design space it has, and would love to hear thoughts.
Freeplay X (You may cast this card without paying its mana cost, if any combination of lands you control could add X to your mana pool.)
<Complex Multicolor Dude> 2WU
Creature – Human Wizard (R)
When Complex Multicolor Dude enters the battlefield, draw a card for each basic land type among lands you control.
Freeplay WUBRG
2/4
Anyway, these cards are kind of terribly designed in terms of their place on the curve/relative to showing off the effect. I had just wanted to get some thoughts down and ask what people saw in this mechanic if anything. If nothing else, hopefully this leads to an interesting discussion. Thanks for looking!
Katali, Portal Master2URW
Legendary Creature – Human Monk (M)
Hexproof, haste
Whenever Katali, Portal Master attacks, create a token that's a copy of another creature card in your command zone that’s tapped and attacking. Exile the token at end of combat.
Partner (You can have two commanders if both have partner.)
4/3
So it looks like the [mana] tags are broken, but my card's mana cost is 2URW.
Flatline, that was super helpful - thank you for that post! I guess my only remaining question is if we can come to a consensus prior to the deadline about if Prowess requires being on a separate line or if not, should judges be lenient about where it is positioned on cards whose designers chose to incorporate it? Again, given that this is a relatively easy faux pas to avoid, and all the designs so far look super tight, 0.5 points could be a really big difference between making it into the next round versus not.
Sorry again, just in the spirit of competition, I want to ensure everyone has as maximally equal of a chance as one another to avoid common mistakes.
IcariiFA, is there a guide anywhere as to how one ought to order evergreen keywords? I'd hate to see people lose points on quality if the template isn't standardized. I'm sorry if this was already discussed/posted elsewhere, I just couldn't find anything via Google.
Anjali of the Thousand Blades2RR
Legendary Creature – Human Warrior (M)
Prowess, menace, haste
Whenever Anjali of the Thousand Blades attacks, you may exile a creature card from your graveyard. If you do, Anjali’s base power and toughness each become equal to the base power and toughness of the exiled creature until end of turn. “Each weapon belonged to a fallen comrade. It is only through their mastery that I can ensure their memory lives on.”
2/4
I've finally decided to take the plunge and use some of the things I've learned as a designer to restart a pet project of mine - Carnage. Carnage is a set designed to be drafted with a dedicated playgroup who already has a firm understanding of the game and incorporates mechanics associated with combat, death, and pain of all kinds. To be clear, this is not a Custom Set thread, but rather I am just dumping as much as I can here in order to contextualize some of the cards I am posting.
Set on a world where gladiatorial combat determines the social order, people are born into a life where they live, breathe, and eat battle - competing in daily competitions for everything from food to plain glory. There is no internal logic to this world. The strong survive. The weak fall. It's a simple world, but a brutal one nonetheless. There are no Gods here. There are only the sounds of steel on steel, screams, and cheers.
You may ask yourself, what kind of a being would find themselves here - never-mind declare themselves Emperor? How truly sick of an individual they must be.
Tibalt, Sadistic Emperor1BR
Planeswalker - Tibalt (M)
+1: Shuffle your library, then reveal the top card of your library and put that card into your hand. You lose life equal to its converted mana cost.
-2: Deal 1 damage to target creature. It gets +2/+0 and has haste until end of turn.
-8: Target opponent gets an emblem with “Whenever you cast a spell, take damage equal to that spell’s converted mana cost.”
[3]
Of course you probably saw that coming. What you will not see coming is the individual who Tibalt is using as both his champion and favorite target for torment.
Garruk, Gladiator Champion5BG
Planeswalker - Garruk (M)
Whenever a creature dies, put a loyalty counter on Garruk, Gladiator Champion.
-2: Target creature gets -2/-2 until end of turn. If it dies this turn, create a 2/2 green and black Wolf creature token.
-X: Garruk, Gladiator Champion becomes an X/X Human Barbarian creature that’s still a planeswalker. It fights each creature target opponent controls.
[4]
I can't promise this set uses a lot of new design space, but I like to think there are a few cool things here. I mostly centered the set to have emphasis on Exalted(WUb):
Malignia, the Lone Blade4WB
Legendary Creature - Human Knight
First strike
Exalted
Whenever a creature your opponent controls attacks, if it was not attacking alone, that creature gets -X/-X where X is the number of attacking creatures that player controls.
3/3
Morbid:
Soulstitcher GlinaGU
Legendary Creature - Elf Shaman (M)
When Soulstitcher Glina enters the battlefield, search your library for up to three creature cards and exile them. Then shuffle your library.
Morbid — 1GU, T, Return a creature card from exile to your graveyard: Create a token that’s a copy of it. Activate this ability only if a creature died this turn.
1/4
And Bloodthirst, though I don't have any particularly cool multicolored mythics to show that mechanic off. But let me assure you that this is a very combat-centric set, with a ton of equipments, and a lot of reasons to rush into battle and get some creatures in your graveyard:
Artilius, the Battle-Mad2RW
Legendary Creature - Human Barbarian (M)
Haste, menace
Whenever Artilius, the Battle-Mad deals combat damage to an opponent, put the top card of your library into your graveyard. If a creature card is put into your graveyard this way, untap this creature and after this phase, there is an additional combat phase followed by an additional main phase.
3/2
Other, sub-mechanics will include Equipments, and a Morbid variant that is unnamed, which triggers abilities only if you've lost life this turn. But, finally, for my UR friends I don't want you to feel left out from the enemy color legendary brigade. For you, I did something a little different.
Stormcaller Shinzan1UR
Legendary Creature - Djinn Wizard (M)
Flash
Prowess
When Stormcaller Shinzan enters the battlefield, create a 0/1 red and blue Elemental creature token with prowess for each noncreature spell you own on the stack.
1/2
Anyway, I know this is getting long, and is kind of a lot of information. I'd love any suggestions or comments below - maybe some things you'd like to see from these legends, and possibly stuff regarding my mechanic choices or even any cool reprints that you think should make the cut! This was only an hour's worth of journaling at work today, so things are pretty rough. Hope you enjoyed!
Sacred Respite1WU
Enchantment (R)
When Sacred Respite enters the battlefield, exile all cards from all graveyards.
Creatures with power greater than the number of cards in their controller’s graveyard can't attack. “Speak not about your future near a graveyard, lest the spirits get jealous.”
Celedorn, Locus of Adaptation3GGWW
Legendary Creature – Elemental Beast (M)
When Celedorn, Locus of Adaptation enters the battlefield, search your library for any number of creature cards with flying, first strike, double strike, deathtouch, haste, hexproof, indestructible, lifelink, menace, reach, trample, or vigilance and exile them.
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may put a card exiled with Celedorn onto the battlefield.
4/7
Momir’s VR Goggles8
Artifact – Toy (M)
For the rest of the game, players can’t cast spells.
When Momir’s VR Goggles enters the battlefield, exile all other nonland permanents until Momir’s VR Goggles leaves the battlefield. X, Discard a card: Create a token that's a copy of a creature card with converted mana cost X chosen at random. Any player may activate this ability any time he or she could cast a sorcery and only once each turn.
Please note that this is designed for a silver bordered set.
Hey so I really want to follow up on some comments made in the adjudication of my card and at least discuss them broadly to get thoughts so that I don't make the same mistake again/ensure that these things were correctly understood. Given how close my bracket was, any one of these critiques being given in error would have pushed me into advancing in the next round, so I did just want to have the discussion.
Flavor
While I personally have no big problems with it, we know that guns are best avoided in official Magic. That doesn't mean there is no place for them in the game, there is some precedent and some guns might be in Unstable, but if the purpose of the contest is to make realistically printable cards, I feel there might be some problems with this card. If the purpose is to make un-cards or cards for custom sets, it could be fine. Except for this, I have no problems with the name in a vacuum or with the absence of flavor text (no room for it).
To be clear on where this design came from, it was designed as a card in my Piracy set, and was intended to be more historically representative of a pistol/gun that could only shoot a few times without being reloaded. I do understand that Wizards has tended to avoid guns in their cards, however, it strikes me that in the right context of a set, anything like drinking (e.g. Sleeping Potion), sex (e.g. Alluring Siren), etc. can all be done. Additionally, I am not clear on what is distinct between a gun and a sword and a gun or a cannon - both of which were featured in Ixalan. I definitely understand guns have a squeamishness about them, especially in light of recent tragic events in the US, and I am one of the biggest gun control people out there, but I also am concerned that this deduction of 1.5 points was a pretty dramatic hit. It seems to me that given that Magic is a 13+ game, and that as long as the card isn't using guns in a grievous way, I don't really see an issue between it and something like Pirate's Cutlass. I only ask for a distinction to be made here that isn't rooted in "guns are bad."
Formatting
"Whenever you equip" is not standard template. Auras and Equipment "become attached" to creatures, so this should be "Whenever Flintlock Pistol becomes attached to a creature, put two charge counters on Flintlock Pistol." (-0.5).
This was intentional. Lots of cards in my set had "attach" effects (e.g. Balan, Wandering Knight), so I had phrased it as such in order to correct for those types of effects. This would normally be something in the design notes, so I am less upset about this than I am about the flavor, I had just wanted to offer my rationale here and ask for future contests how one might try and do something a little bit less than normal without being docked for it.
Anyway, to be clear, I am not mad or upset. I am disappointed in the flavor side of my card being docked "on principle" that a multibillion dollar company is too scared of its image to print cards with firearms on them, particularly since forum cards do stuff like this all the time when we don't have shareholders to answer to. (See all the Star Wars sets out there) I hope Wizards loosens this standard a bit in the future, because it does strike me as incredibly inconsistent, but se la vie I suppose.
Flintlock Pistol3
Artifact - Equipment (R)
Whenever you equip Flintlock Pistol, put two charge counters on Flintlock Pistol.
Remove a charge counter from Flintlock Pistol: Flintlock Pistol deals 2 damage to target creature or player. Activate this ability only once each turn.
Equip 2
Artifact (R)
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may have target player gain control of another target permanent you control. If you do, put a charge counter on Meandering Munitions.
1, T, Remove three charge counters from Meandering Munitions: Create a 4/1 colorless Construct artifact creature token named Bronze Bombshell. It has “When a player other than Bronze Bombshell's owner controls it, that player sacrifices it. If the player does, Bronze Bombshell deals 7 damage to him or her.”
That said, I had thought of this mechanic/concept and I am kind of shocked by how much design space it has, and would love to hear thoughts.
Freeplay X (You may cast this card without paying its mana cost, if any combination of lands you control could add X to your mana pool.)
Freeplay V1
<Freebear>
Creature – Bear (C)
Freeplay 1G
2/2
<FreeCounter>
Instant (R)
Freeplay 1UU
Counter target spell.
Freeplay V2
<FreeBear> 1G
Creature – Bear (C)
Freeplay 2GG
2/2
Freeplay V3
<Multicolor Dude> 1WW
Creature – Soldier (U)
Exalted
Freeplay 1B
3/3
<Complex Multicolor Dude> 2WU
Creature – Human Wizard (R)
When Complex Multicolor Dude enters the battlefield, draw a card for each basic land type among lands you control.
Freeplay WUBRG
2/4
Anyway, these cards are kind of terribly designed in terms of their place on the curve/relative to showing off the effect. I had just wanted to get some thoughts down and ask what people saw in this mechanic if anything. If nothing else, hopefully this leads to an interesting discussion. Thanks for looking!
Legendary Creature – Human Monk (M)
Hexproof, haste
Whenever Katali, Portal Master attacks, create a token that's a copy of another creature card in your command zone that’s tapped and attacking. Exile the token at end of combat.
Partner (You can have two commanders if both have partner.)
4/3
So it looks like the [mana] tags are broken, but my card's mana cost is 2URW.
Sorry again, just in the spirit of competition, I want to ensure everyone has as maximally equal of a chance as one another to avoid common mistakes.
Legendary Creature – Human Warrior (M)
Prowess, menace, haste
Whenever Anjali of the Thousand Blades attacks, you may exile a creature card from your graveyard. If you do, Anjali’s base power and toughness each become equal to the base power and toughness of the exiled creature until end of turn.
“Each weapon belonged to a fallen comrade. It is only through their mastery that I can ensure their memory lives on.”
2/4
Set on a world where gladiatorial combat determines the social order, people are born into a life where they live, breathe, and eat battle - competing in daily competitions for everything from food to plain glory. There is no internal logic to this world. The strong survive. The weak fall. It's a simple world, but a brutal one nonetheless. There are no Gods here. There are only the sounds of steel on steel, screams, and cheers.
You may ask yourself, what kind of a being would find themselves here - never-mind declare themselves Emperor? How truly sick of an individual they must be.
Planeswalker - Tibalt (M)
+1: Shuffle your library, then reveal the top card of your library and put that card into your hand. You lose life equal to its converted mana cost.
-2: Deal 1 damage to target creature. It gets +2/+0 and has haste until end of turn.
-8: Target opponent gets an emblem with “Whenever you cast a spell, take damage equal to that spell’s converted mana cost.”
[3]
Of course you probably saw that coming. What you will not see coming is the individual who Tibalt is using as both his champion and favorite target for torment.
Planeswalker - Garruk (M)
Whenever a creature dies, put a loyalty counter on Garruk, Gladiator Champion.
-2: Target creature gets -2/-2 until end of turn. If it dies this turn, create a 2/2 green and black Wolf creature token.
-X: Garruk, Gladiator Champion becomes an X/X Human Barbarian creature that’s still a planeswalker. It fights each creature target opponent controls.
[4]
I can't promise this set uses a lot of new design space, but I like to think there are a few cool things here. I mostly centered the set to have emphasis on Exalted(WUb):
Malignia, the Lone Blade 4WB
Legendary Creature - Human Knight
First strike
Exalted
Whenever a creature your opponent controls attacks, if it was not attacking alone, that creature gets -X/-X where X is the number of attacking creatures that player controls.
3/3
Morbid:
Legendary Creature - Elf Shaman (M)
When Soulstitcher Glina enters the battlefield, search your library for up to three creature cards and exile them. Then shuffle your library.
Morbid — 1GU, T, Return a creature card from exile to your graveyard: Create a token that’s a copy of it. Activate this ability only if a creature died this turn.
1/4
And Bloodthirst, though I don't have any particularly cool multicolored mythics to show that mechanic off. But let me assure you that this is a very combat-centric set, with a ton of equipments, and a lot of reasons to rush into battle and get some creatures in your graveyard:
Legendary Creature - Human Barbarian (M)
Haste, menace
Whenever Artilius, the Battle-Mad deals combat damage to an opponent, put the top card of your library into your graveyard. If a creature card is put into your graveyard this way, untap this creature and after this phase, there is an additional combat phase followed by an additional main phase.
3/2
Other, sub-mechanics will include Equipments, and a Morbid variant that is unnamed, which triggers abilities only if you've lost life this turn. But, finally, for my UR friends I don't want you to feel left out from the enemy color legendary brigade. For you, I did something a little different.
Legendary Creature - Djinn Wizard (M)
Flash
Prowess
When Stormcaller Shinzan enters the battlefield, create a 0/1 red and blue Elemental creature token with prowess for each noncreature spell you own on the stack.
1/2
Anyway, I know this is getting long, and is kind of a lot of information. I'd love any suggestions or comments below - maybe some things you'd like to see from these legends, and possibly stuff regarding my mechanic choices or even any cool reprints that you think should make the cut! This was only an hour's worth of journaling at work today, so things are pretty rough. Hope you enjoyed!
Enchantment (R)
When Sacred Respite enters the battlefield, exile all cards from all graveyards.
Creatures with power greater than the number of cards in their controller’s graveyard can't attack.
“Speak not about your future near a graveyard, lest the spirits get jealous.”
Legendary Creature – Elemental Beast (M)
When Celedorn, Locus of Adaptation enters the battlefield, search your library for any number of creature cards with flying, first strike, double strike, deathtouch, haste, hexproof, indestructible, lifelink, menace, reach, trample, or vigilance and exile them.
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may put a card exiled with Celedorn onto the battlefield.
4/7
Artifact – Toy (M)
For the rest of the game, players can’t cast spells.
When Momir’s VR Goggles enters the battlefield, exile all other nonland permanents until Momir’s VR Goggles leaves the battlefield.
X, Discard a card: Create a token that's a copy of a creature card with converted mana cost X chosen at random. Any player may activate this ability any time he or she could cast a sorcery and only once each turn.
Please note that this is designed for a silver bordered set.
"Enchant non-creature permanent"
Flavor
To be clear on where this design came from, it was designed as a card in my Piracy set, and was intended to be more historically representative of a pistol/gun that could only shoot a few times without being reloaded. I do understand that Wizards has tended to avoid guns in their cards, however, it strikes me that in the right context of a set, anything like drinking (e.g. Sleeping Potion), sex (e.g. Alluring Siren), etc. can all be done. Additionally, I am not clear on what is distinct between a gun and a sword and a gun or a cannon - both of which were featured in Ixalan. I definitely understand guns have a squeamishness about them, especially in light of recent tragic events in the US, and I am one of the biggest gun control people out there, but I also am concerned that this deduction of 1.5 points was a pretty dramatic hit. It seems to me that given that Magic is a 13+ game, and that as long as the card isn't using guns in a grievous way, I don't really see an issue between it and something like Pirate's Cutlass. I only ask for a distinction to be made here that isn't rooted in "guns are bad."
Formatting
This was intentional. Lots of cards in my set had "attach" effects (e.g. Balan, Wandering Knight), so I had phrased it as such in order to correct for those types of effects. This would normally be something in the design notes, so I am less upset about this than I am about the flavor, I had just wanted to offer my rationale here and ask for future contests how one might try and do something a little bit less than normal without being docked for it.
Anyway, to be clear, I am not mad or upset. I am disappointed in the flavor side of my card being docked "on principle" that a multibillion dollar company is too scared of its image to print cards with firearms on them, particularly since forum cards do stuff like this all the time when we don't have shareholders to answer to. (See all the Star Wars sets out there) I hope Wizards loosens this standard a bit in the future, because it does strike me as incredibly inconsistent, but se la vie I suppose.
Artifact - Equipment (R)
Whenever you equip Flintlock Pistol, put two charge counters on Flintlock Pistol.
Remove a charge counter from Flintlock Pistol: Flintlock Pistol deals 2 damage to target creature or player. Activate this ability only once each turn.
Equip 2