Welcome to the Card Creation League! Everyone is free to participate in either or both of the first two rounds. Come join us!
Theme
This month is all about mana! Generate it, spend it, put it in a stew (note: MTG Salvation staff bears no responsibility from injuries due to stewing mana.) We will be trying to pay homage to every type of mana from Hybrid to Phyrexian to Colorless to Snow.
Challenge
Design a card that used colorless and colored mana as part of the same cost or ability.
• At least one of the mana symbols must be colorless (C), not generic (1).
• If using an activated ability to qualify, the both the colored and the colorless symbol must be on the same side of the colon (Jungle Basin or Grinning Ignus qualifies, Apprentice Wizard does not).
• The card's mana cost is an acceptable cost for this challenge.
Stay tuned for February's CCL Final Poll. Anyone who provides critiques of the finalists' entries will receive 2 bonus points for March's CCL qualifiers!
PLEASE NOTE: This month will continue the use of the "Mandatory Top 3 Rule." For this month, you must submit a Top 3 during a round's critique period in order to receive any points for the round. Submitting critiques as well will be worth 2 bonus points in the round.
Your submissions are due Sunday, March 4th, 23:59 PST.
Schedule
• Round 1 — Open to Everyone (February 27th-March 4th)
• Round 2 — Open to Everyone (March 5th–10th)
• Rounds 1 and 2 Critiques (Due March 12th)
• Top 8 — Open to top 8 finishers (March 13th–18th)
• Top 8 Critiques (Due March 20th)
• Top 4 — Open to top 4 finishers from last round (March 21st–26th)
• Top 4 Critiques (Due March 28th)
• Final (End of month, winner determined by public poll)
Flamewrack Infiltrator2RR
Creature - Eldrazi (M)
Devoid
Flying CR: Target opponent reveals all cards he or she owns from outside the game. Until end of turn, you may cast a noncreature spell revealed this way and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any type to cast that spell.
3/4
Shateiel, Angel of SilenceUW
Legendary Creature - Angel (M)
Spells your opponents cast that target you cost C more to cast.
Abilities your opponents activate that target you cost C more to activate. The space around it gains new meaning, held still by the grip of its presence. Fear not, it rarely lingers. It’s time to stop and take a moment.
3/2
It That Understands1CGU
Creature - Eldrazi (Rare)
Devoid (This card has no color.)
Play with the top card of your library revealed.
You may play the top card of your library if it's colorless. "Mortal minds can't even begin to fathom the ways that the ancient beings perceive our world. It is fascinating as well as frightening."
—Ruins of Magosi inscription
4/5
WorldrazeXCRR
Sorcery {R}
Devoid (This card has no color.)
Worldraze deals an amount of damage to each colored creature and each player equal to twice the amount of C spent to cast it.
World Breach3CR
Instant
Devoid (This card has no color.)
You may put a creature card from your hand or exile onto the battlefield. It gains haste. Return it to its owner's hand at the beginning of the next end step. In the span of an hour, the Eldrazi Titan destroyed Valakut, then simply vanished.
Wheel Welder1R
Creature - Goblin Artificer Pilot (R) CR: Until end of turn, target noncreature artifact becomes a Vehicle in addition to its other types and gains Crew 2. When that permanent becomes an artifact creature this turn, its power and toughness are each equal to its converted mana cost.
2/1
Longing Drone4
Creature - Eldrazi Drone (R) CWUBRG: Longing Drone becomes 10/10 and gains flying, first strike, vigilance, trample, and lifelink until end of turn.
4/4 Once it was exposed to the colors of the world, the drone knew that perfection was in its reach.
Devourer of Will1U
Creature - Eldrazi Drone (r)
Devoid (This creature is colorless)
Flying
Ingest (Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, that player exiles the top card of his or her library) CU: Counter target spell if it has the same name as a card exiled with Devourer of Will.
2/1
Remnants of the Eternities5
Legendary Artifact (M)
: Add CC to your mana pool.
, 4CU: You may put a colorless creature card from your hand onto the battlefield.
As long as you've activated 10 or more abilities this turn, colorless creatures you control get +10/+10 and have haste.
Cracked-Star Moa2CRW
Creature - Bird Beast (R)
Trample, vigilance
Whenever Cracked-Star Moa attacks, you get an era counter. (You begin the game with each era counter you gained in the previous game against one or more of the same opponents.)
Whenever Cracked-Star Moa deals combat damage to a player, it deals X damage to up to one target creature and you create X 1/1 white Bird creature tokens with flying, where X is the number of era counters you have. Some of the emissaries of possible futures show a time after civilization.
4/5
AAAAANNNDDDD That's it for this round!
Each participant please provide Critiques and your Top 3 for the 6 people BELOW your name on the list (people near the bottom of the list will have to circle around to the top):
|Katamari|: Solid design. I could see this being printed in OGW or a revisit to an Eldrazi plane, and I think it is well balanced and leads to interactive Magic (suspense-building as well, which is good for them Twitch views!).
mirrodin71: This card does not do what the challenge calls for. Moving beyond that, I like the general direction the card is going. Color choice is good (anything in the Bant colors feels appropriate). I like the CMC of 2 which makes the effect playable and impactful.
I would make 2 changes: (1) drop the angel type. (2) the C should be 1. Not only is that more conventional, but it promotes the sort of interactivity that contemporary Magic design emphasizes (soft answers instead of absolute ones).
netn10: I'm a big fan of this design. It rifts on traditional Green abilities but asks you to build an entirely different deck with it. Drop the Blue (or the Green)! Making this card multicolor is unnecessary and limiting. I like the direction you took the challenge.
RaikouRider: The colorless symbol doesn't do anything here. Is it here just for the sake of showing that this card completes the challenge? The way it would be worded if printed would be "Spend only colorless mana on X."
Moving beyond that, I think the card is fair? Spend 7 mana to deal 10 damage to everything except what's on your side of the board. Very good with Tron, but I think Rolling Thunder and [card]Banefire{/card] would still get the nod. I don't know if I have any suggestions. I could see something like this being printed as the stock red rare sweeper that Standard often has, and the card scales appropriately (it's not too good at 3 or 4 mana, so good job there!).
Subject16: A take on Through the Breach that opens up some unique possibilities in exchange for running some colorless lands. I like it, and I think that the colorless cost addition feels judicious and flavorful. Why did you choose to have the creature return to hand instead of being sacrificed? I don't think it matters all that much for these styles of decks, but that is a significant power boost that may or may not be the right move (I suspect it's fine, but would like to hear the reasoning).
Gerrard's Mom: Good design, although this isn't the sort of ability that needs the C symbol. Big picture I'm a fan, but we can clean it up a little bit. Let's make it an Eldrazi to help the colorless mana requirement make sense. And let's have the artifact "become a Vehicle with Crew 2 and power/toughness equal to its mana cost" instead of having the vehicle acquire the power/toughness as it is crewed.
Beyond that, I like how the card opens up some interesting deckbuilding and gameplay with artifacts that do something when tapped or untapped. That seems fun, and this is a fun way to enable those sorts of things. As currently written the card could be an uncommon, and I think I like making the activated ability cost merely R to boost its Constructed potential. It's perfectly powerful and balanced as written though.
I suppose that counts for the challenge. The ability doesn't seem hugely useful but I guess we should imagine a lot of other colorless lands and producers around it. Well designed.
The "sixth color" is a pretty good approach to this and I like the Dragonsoul Knight take on it. Not sure if the colorless mana alone makes it feel Eldrazi enough though - something weird thrown on would be nice.
Seems like a reasonable take on mana stones in a C-matters world. Not very exciting.
Eldrazi Grimoire Thief. Kind of hard to evaluate, but I guess it doesn't seem worse than Meddling Mage. None of the real ingest Eldrazi cared about what they specifically ingested, iirc, so that feels slightly off.
Mana should come before the untap symbol I think. This is pretty bizarre, which I guess fits Eldrazi stuff, but I'm not sure if the blue
mana and eternities flavor are gelling for me. Took me a while to catch that it counts mana abilities, I think it's a bit too deep for me.
I feel certain that this set has Easter Island statue lands that produce C. There's definitely stuff happening, but having separate attack and damage triggers along with the Chinese-menu X trigger feels a bit off. Maybe just when you attack, get a counter and make a tapped attacking Bird token for each counter?
Interesting card that I imagine would be very useful with the right support. I don't think the third ability will get much use though, barring some card that requires a ton of colorless mana.
This is pretty much an eldrazi version of Grimoire Thief, the main differences being that it only exiles one card per attack and it doesn't sacrifice itself. The design drastically increases the range between min/max performance. Either you get lucky and land a bunch of hits/hit relevant cards, locking your opponent out of the game, or you don't, and the ability doesn't do anything.
I don't really see the need for the tap/untap mechanic, outside of the third ability. It would do the same thing if it just cost 2CU to activate. In my opinion, the abilities should have some use on their own, even if they're meant to synergize with another ability.
You're playing around in an interesting design space, and I do feel the colorlessness in it. My only concern is the interpretation that if I last played against an opponent a couple days ago (or more), I get to keep the era counters I had from the last game.
Super interesting design, I really like the idea of being able to steal cards from my opponent's sideboard. My only criticism is that flying probably shouldn't be on a red creature that's not a phoenix or dragon.
Solid, straightforward design. I'm a little worried about the ability being too easy to repeatably use, but on the other hand, it does require colorless mana and exiled cards to use. It should be fine.
1. kjsharp
2. void_nothing
3. |Katamari|
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art by Peter Mohrbacher
March CCL 2018 Round 1 - Desaturated
Welcome to the Card Creation League! Everyone is free to participate in either or both of the first two rounds. Come join us!
Theme
This month is all about mana! Generate it, spend it, put it in a stew (note: MTG Salvation staff bears no responsibility from injuries due to stewing mana.) We will be trying to pay homage to every type of mana from Hybrid to Phyrexian to Colorless to Snow.
Challenge
• At least one of the mana symbols must be colorless (C), not generic (1).
• If using an activated ability to qualify, the both the colored and the colorless symbol must be on the same side of the colon (Jungle Basin or Grinning Ignus qualifies, Apprentice Wizard does not).
• The card's mana cost is an acceptable cost for this challenge.
Stay tuned for February's CCL Final Poll. Anyone who provides critiques of the finalists' entries will receive 2 bonus points for March's CCL qualifiers!
PLEASE NOTE: This month will continue the use of the "Mandatory Top 3 Rule." For this month, you must submit a Top 3 during a round's critique period in order to receive any points for the round. Submitting critiques as well will be worth 2 bonus points in the round.
Schedule
• Round 1 — Open to Everyone (February 27th-March 4th)
• Round 2 — Open to Everyone (March 5th–10th)
• Rounds 1 and 2 Critiques (Due March 12th)
• Top 8 — Open to top 8 finishers (March 13th–18th)
• Top 8 Critiques (Due March 20th)
• Top 4 — Open to top 4 finishers from last round (March 21st–26th)
• Top 4 Critiques (Due March 28th)
• Final (End of month, winner determined by public poll)
Creature - Eldrazi (M)
Devoid
Flying
CR: Target opponent reveals all cards he or she owns from outside the game. Until end of turn, you may cast a noncreature spell revealed this way and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any type to cast that spell.
3/4
Legendary Creature - Angel (M)
Spells your opponents cast that target you cost C more to cast.
Abilities your opponents activate that target you cost C more to activate.
The space around it gains new meaning, held still by the grip of its presence. Fear not, it rarely lingers. It’s time to stop and take a moment.
3/2
Art by
Creature - Eldrazi (Rare)
Devoid (This card has no color.)
Play with the top card of your library revealed.
You may play the top card of your library if it's colorless.
"Mortal minds can't even begin to fathom the ways that the ancient beings perceive our world. It is fascinating as well as frightening."
—Ruins of Magosi inscription
4/5
Sorcery {R}
Devoid (This card has no color.)
Worldraze deals an amount of damage to each colored creature and each player equal to twice the amount of C spent to cast it.
Emille, Seven-Sting Dancer Shalin Nariya
Instant
Devoid (This card has no color.)
You may put a creature card from your hand or exile onto the battlefield. It gains haste. Return it to its owner's hand at the beginning of the next end step.
In the span of an hour, the Eldrazi Titan destroyed Valakut, then simply vanished.
Creature - Goblin Artificer Pilot (R)
CR: Until end of turn, target noncreature artifact becomes a Vehicle in addition to its other types and gains Crew 2. When that permanent becomes an artifact creature this turn, its power and toughness are each equal to its converted mana cost.
2/1
Artifact Creature - Golem (U)
You may spend colorless mana as though it were red mana.
T: Add C to your mana pool.
0/2
Creature - Eldrazi Drone (R)
CWUBRG: Longing Drone becomes 10/10 and gains flying, first strike, vigilance, trample, and lifelink until end of turn.
4/4
Once it was exposed to the colors of the world, the drone knew that perfection was in its reach.
Artifact (U)
t: Add U or C to your mana pool.
1, t: Add UU or CC to your mana pool.
UC, t: Add UUU or CCC to your mana pool.
Creature - Eldrazi Drone (r)
Devoid (This creature is colorless)
Flying
Ingest (Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, that player exiles the top card of his or her library)
CU: Counter target spell if it has the same name as a card exiled with Devourer of Will.
2/1
Legendary Artifact (M)
: Add CC to your mana pool.
, 4CU: You may put a colorless creature card from your hand onto the battlefield.
As long as you've activated 10 or more abilities this turn, colorless creatures you control get +10/+10 and have haste.
Creature - Bird Beast (R)
Trample, vigilance
Whenever Cracked-Star Moa attacks, you get an era counter. (You begin the game with each era counter you gained in the previous game against one or more of the same opponents.)
Whenever Cracked-Star Moa deals combat damage to a player, it deals X damage to up to one target creature and you create X 1/1 white Bird creature tokens with flying, where X is the number of era counters you have.
Some of the emissaries of possible futures show a time after civilization.
4/5
I̟̥͍̠ͅn̩͉̣͍̬͚ͅ ̬̬͖t̯̹̞̺͖͓̯̤h̘͍̬e͙̯͈̖̼̮ ̭̬f̺̲̲̪i͙͉̟̩̰r̪̝͚͈̝̥͍̝̲s̼̻͇̘̳͔ͅt̲̺̳̗̜̪̙ ̳̺̥̻͚̗ͅm̜̜̟̰͈͓͎͇o̝̖̮̝͇m̯̻̞̼̫̗͓̤e̩̯̬̮̩n͎̱̪̲̹͖t͇̖s̰̮ͅ,̤̲͙̻̭̻̯̹̰ ̖t̫̙̺̯͖͚̯ͅh͙̯̦̳̗̰̟e͖̪͉̼̯ ̪͕g̞̣͔a̗̦t̬̬͓͙̫̖̭̻e̩̻̯ ̜̖̦̖̤̭͙̬t̞̹̥̪͎͉ͅo͕͚͍͇̲͇͓̺ ̭̬͙͈̣̻t͈͍͙͓̫̖͙̩h̪̬̖̙e̗͈ ̗̬̟̞̺̤͉̯ͅa̦̯͚̙̜̮f͉͙̲̣̞̼t̪̤̞̣͚e̲͉̳̥r͇̪̙͚͓l̥̞̞͎̹̯̹ͅi͓̬f̮̥̬̞͈ͅe͎ ̟̩̤̳̠̯̩̯o̮̘̲p̟͚̣̞͉͓e͍̩̣n͔̼͕͚̜e̬̱d̼̘͎̖̹͍̮̠,͖̺̭̱̮ ̣̲͖̬̪̭̥a̪͚n̟̲̝̤̤̞̗d̘̱̗͇̮͕̳͕͔ ͖̞͉͎t̹̙͎h̰̱͉̗e̪̞̱̝̹̩ͅ ̠̱̩̭̦p̯̙e͓o̳͚̰̯̺̱̰͔̘p̬͎̱̣̼̩͇l̗̟̖͚̠e̱͉͔̱̦̬̟̙ ̖͚̪͔̼̦w̺̖̤̱e͖̗̻̦͓̖̘̜r̭̥e͔̹̫̱͕̦̰͕ ̗͔̠p̠̗͍͍̱̳̠r̰͔͎̰o͉̥͓̰͚̥s̟͚̹̱͔̣t͉̙̳̖͖̪̮r̥̘̥͙̹a͉̟̫̟̳̠̟̭t͈̜̰͈͎e̞̣̭̲̬ ͚̗̯̟͙i͍͖̰̘̦͖͉ṇ̮̻̯̦̲̩͍ ̦̮͚̫̤t͉͖̫͕ͅͅh͙̮̻̘̣̮̼e͕̺ ͙l͕̠͎̰̥i̲͓͉̲g̫̳̟͈͇̖h̠̦̖t͓̯͎̗ ̳̪̘̟̙̩̦o̫̲f̙͔̰̙̠ ̹̪̗͇̯t͖̼̼͉͖̬h̹͇̩e͚̖̺̤͉̹͕̪ ͚͓̭̝̺G͎̗̯̩o̫̯̮̟̮̳̘d̜̲͙̠-̩̳̯̲̗̜P̹̘̥͉̝h͍͈̗̖̝ͅa͍̗̮̼̗r̜̖͇̙̺a̭̺͔̞̳͈o̪̣͓̯̬͙̯̰̗h̖̦͈̥̯͔.͇̣̙̝
Each participant please provide Critiques and your Top 3 for the 6 people BELOW your name on the list (people near the bottom of the list will have to circle around to the top):
kjsharp
|Katamari|
mirrodin71
netn10
RaikouRider
Subject16
Gerrard's Mom
Jimmy Groove
rkohn1357
Raptorchan
Hemlock
IcariiFA
void_nothing
Crits and Top 3 are due by March 12th 11:59 PM PST
mirrodin71: This card does not do what the challenge calls for. Moving beyond that, I like the general direction the card is going. Color choice is good (anything in the Bant colors feels appropriate). I like the CMC of 2 which makes the effect playable and impactful.
I would make 2 changes: (1) drop the angel type. (2) the C should be 1. Not only is that more conventional, but it promotes the sort of interactivity that contemporary Magic design emphasizes (soft answers instead of absolute ones).
netn10: I'm a big fan of this design. It rifts on traditional Green abilities but asks you to build an entirely different deck with it. Drop the Blue (or the Green)! Making this card multicolor is unnecessary and limiting. I like the direction you took the challenge.
RaikouRider: The colorless symbol doesn't do anything here. Is it here just for the sake of showing that this card completes the challenge? The way it would be worded if printed would be "Spend only colorless mana on X."
Moving beyond that, I think the card is fair? Spend 7 mana to deal 10 damage to everything except what's on your side of the board. Very good with Tron, but I think Rolling Thunder and [card]Banefire{/card] would still get the nod. I don't know if I have any suggestions. I could see something like this being printed as the stock red rare sweeper that Standard often has, and the card scales appropriately (it's not too good at 3 or 4 mana, so good job there!).
Subject16: A take on Through the Breach that opens up some unique possibilities in exchange for running some colorless lands. I like it, and I think that the colorless cost addition feels judicious and flavorful. Why did you choose to have the creature return to hand instead of being sacrificed? I don't think it matters all that much for these styles of decks, but that is a significant power boost that may or may not be the right move (I suspect it's fine, but would like to hear the reasoning).
Gerrard's Mom: Good design, although this isn't the sort of ability that needs the C symbol. Big picture I'm a fan, but we can clean it up a little bit. Let's make it an Eldrazi to help the colorless mana requirement make sense. And let's have the artifact "become a Vehicle with Crew 2 and power/toughness equal to its mana cost" instead of having the vehicle acquire the power/toughness as it is crewed.
Beyond that, I like how the card opens up some interesting deckbuilding and gameplay with artifacts that do something when tapped or untapped. That seems fun, and this is a fun way to enable those sorts of things. As currently written the card could be an uncommon, and I think I like making the activated ability cost merely R to boost its Constructed potential. It's perfectly powerful and balanced as written though.
2)|Katamari|
3)Subject16
HM: Gerrard's Mom
mana and eternities flavor are gelling for me. Took me a while to catch that it counts mana abilities, I think it's a bit too deep for me.
2. Jimmy Groove
3. void_nothing
2.- Subject16
3.- Gerrard's Mom
Interesting card that I imagine would be very useful with the right support. I don't think the third ability will get much use though, barring some card that requires a ton of colorless mana.
This is pretty much an eldrazi version of Grimoire Thief, the main differences being that it only exiles one card per attack and it doesn't sacrifice itself. The design drastically increases the range between min/max performance. Either you get lucky and land a bunch of hits/hit relevant cards, locking your opponent out of the game, or you don't, and the ability doesn't do anything.
I don't really see the need for the tap/untap mechanic, outside of the third ability. It would do the same thing if it just cost 2CU to activate. In my opinion, the abilities should have some use on their own, even if they're meant to synergize with another ability.
You're playing around in an interesting design space, and I do feel the colorlessness in it. My only concern is the interpretation that if I last played against an opponent a couple days ago (or more), I get to keep the era counters I had from the last game.
Super interesting design, I really like the idea of being able to steal cards from my opponent's sideboard. My only criticism is that flying probably shouldn't be on a red creature that's not a phoenix or dragon.
Solid, straightforward design. I'm a little worried about the ability being too easy to repeatably use, but on the other hand, it does require colorless mana and exiled cards to use. It should be fine.
1. kjsharp
2. void_nothing
3. |Katamari|