This has been my first time involved with this contest, so I appreciate the comments and feedback from everyone involved. These pieces have been amazing and the varying styles and approaches are awesome to read.
Blippy- Really enjoyed the limerick style of the piece, jaunty and uplifting even within a more risque subject. Though for whatever reason catamaran threw the rhythm off for me.
Inspired-Though the subject matter that has been done before, the alliteration on the last line of the second verse really stood out to me. The words are full and fun to say, though you could easily make the verbs stand out more (example: cutting "it does" on the first line of the last verse for something else)
Tomorrow- the visual is great, but I agree with others about the trouble with upper and lower case. "each Peak draped in Red and Violet and Gold and Love" was a really good switch that surprised the reader from the colors to a common abstract (which I feel could have been fleshed out more).
Burgundy- Usually straight rhyming poems don't sit well with me, for whatever reason, but there are always exceptions to the rules. This is one of them, probably because the subject matter fits the style. The lack of any commas or periods really sits well with the 'drunkard' approach, the image of thoughts and ideas spewing uninterrupted is great.
Drewid- For whatever reason I read "aneething" in a very high pitched but malicious foreign accent. Comical indeed.
Most expensive and nostalgic is probably my Grim Tutor-because I found it in my garage in a small pile of cards that my older brother used to play. Or the Chaos Orb I won at an EDH Tournament.
I’ve asked a forest or two to bare their roots,
many shook their leaves, more inclined to show their rings,
to brag of where they were and how they survived the harshest winters.
None knew how they got there.
But I’ve met an exception; a tree identifying more with a rolling stone,
with roots exposed and buried in several states’ soil. With beginnings and endings
dictated by a three year difference. Greenville. San Antonio. Phoenix.
Each a story leading to a definition perplexing that simple question;
“Where are you from?”
Her branches extended and invited to anyone willing to partake of the shade,
harnessing no preference except their company in this Midwestern heat;
Unashamed to eagerly hang with the black oaks, dogwoods or maples.
Taught as a sapling to find those roots and hold on.
Floods are frequent and unpredictable,
at some point you’ll have to follow them home.
Go ahead and play it then. Prove me wrong if you can. You won't be the first. 8 mana spells that don't ruin the opponent on the spot and or end the game don't see play in constructed. Barring a card like Pandemonium that can make use of 13 tapped zombies I just don't see it making any headway.
I'm pretty sure Concept D was based off of Delay from Time Spiral, and it's Oracle text reads as such:
Delay:
Counter target spell. If the spell is countered this way, exile it with three time counters on it instead of putting it into its owner's graveyard. If it doesn't have suspend, it gains suspend. (At the beginning of its owner's upkeep, remove a counter from that card. When the last is removed, the player plays it without paying its mana cost. If it's a creature, it has haste.)
So, the text for Concept D should be pretty similar to this.
I really like Surges idea, as well as the "All spells you control have Split Second."
...Why not merge the two? I know it's rather crazy, but then again, Nicol Bolas' Ultimate was rather crazy too.
Flavor wise, it makes sense. First of all, you have a glimpse into the future, with the Future Sight/Sphinx of Jwar Isle mix. And having Split Second creates the control of the future flavor as well. You're always going to be first, because you've already stepped into the future, and you're stalling everyone else's future as well.
The concept could work with both, but I think the Future Sight style emblem is great, maybe add another mechanic to your spells, like Flashback, or Split Second, or Retrace, something else. I might be too greedy, but hey, the guys had a lot of time on his hands to hone his craft.
[N]: You get an emblem with "You may look at the top card of your library." and "You may play the top card of your library." as well as "Spells you control have flashback/split second/retrace/etc."
OR
[N]: You get an emblem with "You may look at the top card of your library." and "You may play the top card of your library." plus a Dream Halls effect- Wayyyy too wordy, though.
OR
Just a Dream Halls effect for yourself. The actual wording would be something like:
[N]: You get an emblem with "Rather than pay the mana cost for a spell, you may discard a card that shares a color with that spell." - (For the Poll, I'd suggest this one)
I agree with Timewalker flavor-wise, but I suggest we take it somewhere besides "take extra turns." There are several ways to represent traveling though time in the game, and I'd suggest that the non-ultimate abilities work in those ways. Lets give her/him a reason to timewalk, too. I'd suggest some kind of research; perhaps trying to bring back glory to a dead/dying civilization? Or to solve some kind of crisis (Eldrazi spring to mind as a cross-planar threat). Should s/he be a humanoid? Should he be some other race? I can envision a brilliant and eclectic Goblin Planeswalker searching the past and future for the solution to a personal quest.it.)
I really like this idea, and I can't seem to get the idea of a Goblin Timewalker out of my head.
If this can be set up in a way to vote, I'm definitely voting for it.
Blurb: A timewalking Goblin planeswalker set on restoring his dying world, however, he's new to the experience of timewalking, so it can be kind of sporadic and random at times.
+1= Choose a card at random from your hand, that card gains suspend 2.- I know this has trouble with counters, so maybe nonland?
that gave me a crazy idea for an ultimate. Something like {-XXXX}: Take X extra turns after this one. Just throwing that out there. So ya, my vote's for a timewalker
I really like the idea, but that would mean that we'd more than likely have to set the walker below 4 loyalty, unless you'd want the ultimate going off the turn it came in.
Too much like Venser, I think, was the reason it was avoided, but I think you're right and it could be interesting to see how a suspend walker interacts with some of the cards printed after future sight.
Long as it's not an actual Jhoira of Ghitu 'walker card, anyway. That would be a no-no.
I agree about it not actually being Jhoira, but red and blue seem to have a lot of heavy ties with suspend. Even though the other colors had suspend, I think UR had the most interactions with suspended cards, with cards like clock spinning and timecrafting coming to my mind right now. I think it's pretty flavorful with UR. Maybe the 'Walker could delve in time magic.
Hmmm....I really like where everyone is going with the control aspect of the walker, as well as the polymorph concept. Maybe somehow find a way to combine the two? Like the walker has the "use it until it's of no use to me" kind of mentality.
I think this might be a little too busted of a concept, but why not
+1= Scry X- to be determined with with the cost of the walker, and what the rest of his abilities are
-X= Gain control of target creature an opponent controls maybe EOT, or maybe indefinitely
-X (Ultimate) = Mass Polymorph effect OR Gain control of all creatures (maybe nonland permanents) that target player controls, they gain haste until end of turn, sac them at end of turn.
These are just off the top of my head, and I haven't really flesh them out, but if you go with "scry," "gain control of creature/nonland permanent until of end of turn/indefinitely ," and the mass polymorph can all work together, because you can set up the morph with the scry, and get rid of a creature with the sac.
Or, the second ability could be "Sac a nonland permanent, search for a permanent of the same type and put it into play." So it's not just creatures. It sort of adds to the sporadic nature of UR.
Feel free to comment/criticize.
Edit: Of the abilities, I like the sporadic permanent polymorph the best.
We haven't had any enemy color planeswalkers, unless you count Balach. That being said, I really like the idea of making either U/R or B/G. They both seem to have a lot of potential.
What would be really cool is maybe even a tri-color planeswalker (Maybe make our own from one of the other Elder Dragons?). I know that might be pushing it, but it's something to think about.
Blippy- Really enjoyed the limerick style of the piece, jaunty and uplifting even within a more risque subject. Though for whatever reason catamaran threw the rhythm off for me.
Inspired-Though the subject matter that has been done before, the alliteration on the last line of the second verse really stood out to me. The words are full and fun to say, though you could easily make the verbs stand out more (example: cutting "it does" on the first line of the last verse for something else)
Tomorrow- the visual is great, but I agree with others about the trouble with upper and lower case. "each Peak draped in Red and Violet and Gold and Love" was a really good switch that surprised the reader from the colors to a common abstract (which I feel could have been fleshed out more).
Burgundy- Usually straight rhyming poems don't sit well with me, for whatever reason, but there are always exceptions to the rules. This is one of them, probably because the subject matter fits the style. The lack of any commas or periods really sits well with the 'drunkard' approach, the image of thoughts and ideas spewing uninterrupted is great.
Drewid- For whatever reason I read "aneething" in a very high pitched but malicious foreign accent. Comical indeed.
many shook their leaves, more inclined to show their rings,
to brag of where they were and how they survived the harshest winters.
None knew how they got there.
But I’ve met an exception; a tree identifying more with a rolling stone,
with roots exposed and buried in several states’ soil. With beginnings and endings
dictated by a three year difference. Greenville. San Antonio. Phoenix.
Each a story leading to a definition perplexing that simple question;
“Where are you from?”
Her branches extended and invited to anyone willing to partake of the shade,
harnessing no preference except their company in this Midwestern heat;
Unashamed to eagerly hang with the black oaks, dogwoods or maples.
Taught as a sapling to find those roots and hold on.
Floods are frequent and unpredictable,
at some point you’ll have to follow them home.
Well...Warstorm Surge is in Standard.
Delay:
Counter target spell. If the spell is countered this way, exile it with three time counters on it instead of putting it into its owner's graveyard. If it doesn't have suspend, it gains suspend. (At the beginning of its owner's upkeep, remove a counter from that card. When the last is removed, the player plays it without paying its mana cost. If it's a creature, it has haste.)
So, the text for Concept D should be pretty similar to this.
...Why not merge the two? I know it's rather crazy, but then again, Nicol Bolas' Ultimate was rather crazy too.
Flavor wise, it makes sense. First of all, you have a glimpse into the future, with the Future Sight/Sphinx of Jwar Isle mix. And having Split Second creates the control of the future flavor as well. You're always going to be first, because you've already stepped into the future, and you're stalling everyone else's future as well.
The concept could work with both, but I think the Future Sight style emblem is great, maybe add another mechanic to your spells, like Flashback, or Split Second, or Retrace, something else. I might be too greedy, but hey, the guys had a lot of time on his hands to hone his craft.
[N]: You get an emblem with "You may look at the top card of your library." and "You may play the top card of your library." as well as "Spells you control have flashback/split second/retrace/etc."
OR
[N]: You get an emblem with "You may look at the top card of your library." and "You may play the top card of your library." plus a Dream Halls effect- Wayyyy too wordy, though.
OR
Just a Dream Halls effect for yourself. The actual wording would be something like:
[N]: You get an emblem with "Rather than pay the mana cost for a spell, you may discard a card that shares a color with that spell." - (For the Poll, I'd suggest this one)
I really like this idea, and I can't seem to get the idea of a Goblin Timewalker out of my head.
If this can be set up in a way to vote, I'm definitely voting for it.
Blurb: A timewalking Goblin planeswalker set on restoring his dying world, however, he's new to the experience of timewalking, so it can be kind of sporadic and random at times.
+1= Choose a card at random from your hand, that card gains suspend 2.- I know this has trouble with counters, so maybe nonland?
I really like the idea, but that would mean that we'd more than likely have to set the walker below 4 loyalty, unless you'd want the ultimate going off the turn it came in.
I agree about it not actually being Jhoira, but red and blue seem to have a lot of heavy ties with suspend. Even though the other colors had suspend, I think UR had the most interactions with suspended cards, with cards like clock spinning and timecrafting coming to my mind right now. I think it's pretty flavorful with UR. Maybe the 'Walker could delve in time magic.
Jhoira of the Ghitu springs to mind.
I think this might be a little too busted of a concept, but why not
+1= Scry X- to be determined with with the cost of the walker, and what the rest of his abilities are
-X= Gain control of target creature an opponent controls maybe EOT, or maybe indefinitely
-X (Ultimate) = Mass Polymorph effect OR Gain control of all creatures (maybe nonland permanents) that target player controls, they gain haste until end of turn, sac them at end of turn.
These are just off the top of my head, and I haven't really flesh them out, but if you go with "scry," "gain control of creature/nonland permanent until of end of turn/indefinitely ," and the mass polymorph can all work together, because you can set up the morph with the scry, and get rid of a creature with the sac.
Or, the second ability could be "Sac a nonland permanent, search for a permanent of the same type and put it into play." So it's not just creatures. It sort of adds to the sporadic nature of UR.
Feel free to comment/criticize.
Edit: Of the abilities, I like the sporadic permanent polymorph the best.
What would be really cool is maybe even a tri-color planeswalker (Maybe make our own from one of the other Elder Dragons?). I know that might be pushing it, but it's something to think about.