This month will about about creating cards with synergy and exploring what that means.
Challenge
Design a card that synergizes (but is not a combo) with Deep-Slumber Titan.
This round is open to everyone!
A combo is a type of synergy that results in either a) the game loss of an opponent typically starting with 20 life, b) the game win of a player, or c) a series of repeated actions, often infinite but not limited to being infinite, regardless of whether those actions are optional or not. Combos are banned.
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 Saturday, May 5th, 23:59 EST.
Your judgments are due Sunday, May 13th, 23:59 EST.
Schedule
• Preliminary Round 1 — Open to everyone (May 1st-5th)
• Preliminary Round 2 — Open to everyone (May 6th-10th)
• Preliminary Critiques — Open to everyone (Due May 13th)
• Top 8 — Open to top 8 finishers (May 14th-18th)
• Top 8 Critiques (Due May 21st)
• Top 4 — Open to top 4 finishers from last round (May 22nd-25th)
• Top 4 Critiques (Due May 28th)
• Final (End of month, winner determined by public poll)
Trial by Fire2R
Enchantment - Aura (U)
Enchant creature
When Trial by Fire enters the battlefield, it deals 3 damage to enchanted creature.
Enchanted creature has double strike and trample.
Baleful FirepowerXR
Enchantment - Aura (R)
Enchant creature
Baleful Firepower enters the battlefield with X fire counters on it.
At the beginning of your first combat phase enchanted creature deals damage to itself and up to one other target creature equal to the number of fire counters on Baleful Firepower. Few have learned to wield the balefire. Even fewer still survive doing so.
Double Duty3W
Enchantment (R)
Tapped creatures you control can attack and block as though they were untapped.
Tap X untapped creatures you control: Detain target creature with power X or less. (Until your next turn, that creature can't attack or block and its activated abilities can't be activated.)
Heya, Herald of Battles2WR
Legendary Creature - Angel Warrior (r)
Flying
When Heya, Herald of Battles attacks, you may exile target creature you control, if you do, return that creature to the battlefield under your control tapped and attacking.
3/4
Incendiary Tactician3RW
Creature - Human Soldier {R}
Vigilance, lifelink
Whenever a creature you control attacks or blocks, Incendiary Tactician deals 1 damage to any target.
3/3
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A mere ten days after the Mending, a young knight of Valeron and a young ranger of Eos made a discovery that would change Alara forever.
Rebellious Heart2RR
Enchantment - Aura (Rare)
Enchant Creature you control
When Rebellious Heart enters the battlefield, target opponent gains control of enchanted creature.
Enchanted creature gets +1/+0 and has trample.
At the beginning of your upkeep, enchanted creature deals damage equal to its power to its controller.
Painful DominationR
Enchantment - Aura (Uncommon)
Enchant creature R: Painful Domination deals 1 damage to enchanted creature. You may tap or untap it. It's hard to be lazy when thousand needles nagging your whole body.
Tok, Time TwiddlerRRWWUU
Legendary Creature - Dwarf Shaman (M) Eminence — As long as Tok, Time Twiddler is in the command zone or on the battlefield, permanents entering the battlefield tapped under your control, enter it untapped instead and permanents entering the battlefield untapped under your control, enter it tapped instead.
Tapped permanents you control have indestructible.
6/6
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Multiple instances of lifelink on the same creature are redundant.
Multiple instances of lifelink on the same creature are redundant.
Multiple instances of lifelink on the same creature are redundant.
—Eli Shiffrin, Rules Manager, on a design stacking lifelink instances
Mulaghesh, Who Leads the Charge1RWB
Legendary Creature — Human Warrior (R)
Menace
Mulaghesh, Who Leads the Charge gets +X/+0, where X is equal to the total power among other tapped creatures you control.
Dash 2RWB
3/3
Entries for round one are now closed. Please critique the 6 bames the fall below yours (starting back of the top if you come to the end of the list) and provide a top 3. You have until May 13th. Round 2 will be posted shortly!
Frenzied Fugue is already a card, exactly even. The point of this challenge is to design your own card, not find an already existing one.
This aura seems like it could be very strong, but it synergizes with the Giant really well on up of that. I would worry about this card being in a limited format with low-toughness creatures, but aside from that I really like it.
This seems like a high power card and it synergizes well with the Titan, but I feel like it might be too easily abusable in the right decks. The design is very fun though.
I understand what you're trying to do with that first ability, which is reminiscent of Masako the Humorless, but nowadays the design would probably just give creatures vigilance instead. The detain aspect is fairly interesting, although not especially powerful.
Trial by Fire seems like a very powerful card. It's either great removal on a small opposing creature, or a huge boost for a big fatty. It's good synergy with the Giant for sure, but double strike AND trample seems like it's a bit too good considering you'll stick it on a creature with four toughness, and for limited that's usually a creature on the 3-5 power scale and that makes it a good removal spell AND a huge finisher. I could bump this up to a rare and it'll still be strong.
Tok seems like a very powerful commander, but I think design-wise it's a bit too clunky as it makes generally "bad" dual lands like guildgates become a whole lot stronger, and having tapped permanents become indestructible enables a style of gameplay that's generally unfun: mass land destruction.
This plays nicely into red's ability to donate. A very nice synergy with the giant too. The only bit of nagging I have for you is that +1/+0 is a bit unnecessary and maybe it should have dealt damage to your opponent on their upkeep, as it all moved over to them and that'd make it easier to keep track. This way might feel unnatural.
This might seem fancy, but when you just step back and look at what this truly boils down to, it's a 7-ish/3 with Menace. For that cost, this is really underwhelming. And calling this synergy is agoing a bit far. Any other creature that is able to attack will provide the same bonus and still attack as well.
So this is very nice synergy, but what purpose has this ability in a vacuum? I guess it's a flicker effect that still lets you attack. But just giving the creature haste would do the same trick. I feel like this is just weird in order to get the synergy. Other than that it's a neat design that would be fun to build around.
Now this is a clean design that has 'unexpected' synergy with the giant. It's a bit sad that you can't attack with the giant as well, when you untap it like that, but I guess you just have to play it pre-combat to be ready next turn. The only change I would make to this card would be to change it from many individual triggers to one trigger that divides as you chose, for Magic Online.
Red isn't a color to tap creatures, but this is certainly an interesting removal with unexpected upside synergies. Funny how it untaps the giant twice, for synergies with things like Arlinn, Embraced by the Moon's emblem. Could use some blue though.
You are missing power and toughness. The wording is also off. I like the flavor and the effect is also cute. With a bit more cleaning effort I'd given you at least the third place.
1. Subject16
2. RaikouRider
3. Hemlock
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Multiple instances of lifelink on the same creature are redundant.
Multiple instances of lifelink on the same creature are redundant.
Multiple instances of lifelink on the same creature are redundant.
—Eli Shiffrin, Rules Manager, on a design stacking lifelink instances
I'm sorry to announce that LectricLlama is disqualified from the round for changing their entry to a new card after the deadline. However, this does not change the order of the list above. If LectricLlama is in your six to critique, you may forgo a critique and chose your top three from the remaining five.
Pretty severe drawback for the same cost as Battle Mastery. A bit too straightforward for me.
Hmm, I guess that's interesting but you do only get one attack out of it so it's not the best synergy, and the drawback of having all your normal stuff enter tapped seems really weird. Also why is it so color-intensive? The tensions are a bit too weird here, although I get the Twiddle reference.
The flavor is a little bit weird - the creature rebels against you and also against the opponent? Fun synergy though. Might have made a little more sense with black added or a sabotage flavor. Seems like it could lose the little +1/+0 line and be a bit cheaper.
This is a fun design, I guess I have to look at it as a return to Tarkir with a theme built around tapped creatures. In any normal context including actual Tarkir, this would refer to other attacking creatures. Potentially undercosted but three colors makes it probably ok.
Great use of flickering in this color pair.
Ends up being a pretty interesting package. For some reason I want it to be an enchantment.
This is definitely an interesting effect, but I don't think there are many nonland ways to take advantage of it, and I want more from my commander than letting me have lots of untapped duals (not to mention the drawback is very real and limits your deckbuilding choices). It has a little synergy with Deep-Slumber Titan, but since it only gets one attack before being locked down again, that's not very exciting either.
I like the concept, but in practice, this seems very underpowered. For it to be good, you need to play a big creature, then spend four mana to play this, all while running the risk of getting 2-for-1'd with removal. There's also the very real possibility of them killing you with your own creature anyway, which is compounded by the fact that they get to attack before you deal any damage to them.
Very cool card, I love that you included dash on it for a surprise kill out of nowhere. However, it's difficult to say this synergies with Deep-Slumber Titan in particular, as it works with all creatures and you probably would not want to run both in the same deck.
Awesome take on Galepowder Mage, there's a lot of cool little benefits with this, including using it on creatures like Deep-Slumber Titan. I also like how the ability can be a drawback by forcing the blinked creature to attack, the gameplay with this will be very interesting.
A solid submission. It doesn't really do anything that gets me thinking, but I imagine it will play pretty well.
Red doesn't get tapping/untapping creature effects, so you would need to add blue to the card for it to not be a color break. On the other hand, I do like the utility it offers. It's neat that you can lock down a creature until you get enough mana to kill it, and that it prevents you from abusing it to much on your own creatures through the pinging.
netn10: reminds me of torture a bit bit you have to invest all at once to get the thing killed. Very effective for small creatures and possibly a handy mana sink . Note that this can combo with doll nicely too. The tap/untap hurts the card a Lot as it feels very out of color. Om synergy, this turns the drawback into a upkeep which is Nice while the repeatability gives room for lots of crazy shenanigans.
Mirrodin 71: An orcish artillery versión that can ping Sincé turn two is not to scoff at Even if you need a very specific environment to have it going and working, and being able yo trade with an X/1 is good at one mana.
p/t missing, but I Will assume this is a 1/1. Synergy is really good: This can remove ocasional chumpblockers for Giant or peel one life off (works wonders with wall of forgotten pharaohs) on top nf the threat the Giant itself represents.
Jimmy Groove: Nice, but having this kind of guaranteed damage each turn might be too constricting. I Think it would have worked better if it was scalable, but that's just an opinión. Sinergy is very good, again able to remove blockers and untap the Giant.
RaikouRider: This looks too dangerous, as it's is able to trigger a Lot provided you can keep a creature count. Attacking into this is very dificult, as you are exposed to get your attackers kind of superfirtstriked away on top of the actual blocks and with your attackers this is just nasty. The Lifelink is just an overkill. Synergy is good, of Course, as your Giant can untap itself on attacking once untapped once.
Psyop: Nice, simple and not too dangerous, i Think you could have gotten away with this costing 1 less. Synergy is good, only a bit fragile as you need to keep the other guy Alice, but ir you manager yo slap this on an untapped Giant, you're great.
Art by Terese Nielsen
Theme
This month will about about creating cards with synergy and exploring what that means.
Challenge
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 judgments are due Sunday, May 13th, 23:59 EST.
Schedule
• Preliminary Round 1 — Open to everyone (May 1st-5th)
• Preliminary Round 2 — Open to everyone (May 6th-10th)
• Preliminary Critiques — Open to everyone (Due May 13th)
• Top 8 — Open to top 8 finishers (May 14th-18th)
• Top 8 Critiques (Due May 21st)
• Top 4 — Open to top 4 finishers from last round (May 22nd-25th)
• Top 4 Critiques (Due May 28th)
• Final (End of month, winner determined by public poll)
Enchantment - Aura (U)
Enchant creature
When Trial by Fire enters the battlefield, it deals 3 damage to enchanted creature.
Enchanted creature has double strike and trample.
Enchantment - Aura (R)
Enchant creature
Baleful Firepower enters the battlefield with X fire counters on it.
At the beginning of your first combat phase enchanted creature deals damage to itself and up to one other target creature equal to the number of fire counters on Baleful Firepower.
Few have learned to wield the balefire. Even fewer still survive doing so.
Enchantment-Aura (U)
Enchant Permanent
Enchanted Creature has 3 damage done to it, and gains haste until end of turn.
Enchanted creature gets -1/+1
Gorg always has fun on Revel day. Especially setting his friends on fire.
Enchantment (R)
Tapped creatures you control can attack and block as though they were untapped.
Tap X untapped creatures you control: Detain target creature with power X or less. (Until your next turn, that creature can't attack or block and its activated abilities can't be activated.)
Creature - Goblin (c)`
T: Deal 1 damage to any target. Deals 3 damage to target creature your control.
Legendary Creature - Angel Warrior (r)
Flying
When Heya, Herald of Battles attacks, you may exile target creature you control, if you do, return that creature to the battlefield under your control tapped and attacking.
3/4
Creature - Human Soldier {R}
Vigilance, lifelink
Whenever a creature you control attacks or blocks, Incendiary Tactician deals 1 damage to any target.
3/3
Emille, Seven-Sting Dancer Shalin Nariya
Enchantment - Aura (Rare)
Enchant Creature you control
When Rebellious Heart enters the battlefield, target opponent gains control of enchanted creature.
Enchanted creature gets +1/+0 and has trample.
At the beginning of your upkeep, enchanted creature deals damage equal to its power to its controller.
Enchantment - Aura (Uncommon)
Enchant creature
R: Painful Domination deals 1 damage to enchanted creature. You may tap or untap it.
It's hard to be lazy when thousand needles nagging your whole body.
Legendary Creature - Dwarf Shaman (M)
Eminence — As long as Tok, Time Twiddler is in the command zone or on the battlefield, permanents entering the battlefield tapped under your control, enter it untapped instead and permanents entering the battlefield untapped under your control, enter it tapped instead.
Tapped permanents you control have indestructible.
6/6
Multiple instances of lifelink on the same creature are redundant.
Multiple instances of lifelink on the same creature are redundant.
—Eli Shiffrin, Rules Manager, on a design stacking lifelink instances
Legendary Creature — Human Warrior (R)
Menace
Mulaghesh, Who Leads the Charge gets +X/+0, where X is equal to the total power among other tapped creatures you control.
Dash 2RWB
3/3
netn10
mirrodin71
LectricLlama
PsyOp
Jimmy Groove
Gerrard's Mom
rkohn1357
doomfish
Subject16
willows
Hemlock
RaikouRider
1. Rkohn1357
2. PsyOp
3. Jimmy Groove
2. RaikouRider
3. Hemlock
Multiple instances of lifelink on the same creature are redundant.
Multiple instances of lifelink on the same creature are redundant.
—Eli Shiffrin, Rules Manager, on a design stacking lifelink instances
2. willows
3. RaikouRider
This is definitely an interesting effect, but I don't think there are many nonland ways to take advantage of it, and I want more from my commander than letting me have lots of untapped duals (not to mention the drawback is very real and limits your deckbuilding choices). It has a little synergy with Deep-Slumber Titan, but since it only gets one attack before being locked down again, that's not very exciting either.
I like the concept, but in practice, this seems very underpowered. For it to be good, you need to play a big creature, then spend four mana to play this, all while running the risk of getting 2-for-1'd with removal. There's also the very real possibility of them killing you with your own creature anyway, which is compounded by the fact that they get to attack before you deal any damage to them.
Very cool card, I love that you included dash on it for a surprise kill out of nowhere. However, it's difficult to say this synergies with Deep-Slumber Titan in particular, as it works with all creatures and you probably would not want to run both in the same deck.
Awesome take on Galepowder Mage, there's a lot of cool little benefits with this, including using it on creatures like Deep-Slumber Titan. I also like how the ability can be a drawback by forcing the blinked creature to attack, the gameplay with this will be very interesting.
A solid submission. It doesn't really do anything that gets me thinking, but I imagine it will play pretty well.
Red doesn't get tapping/untapping creature effects, so you would need to add blue to the card for it to not be a color break. On the other hand, I do like the utility it offers. It's neat that you can lock down a creature until you get enough mana to kill it, and that it prevents you from abusing it to much on your own creatures through the pinging.
1. Hemlock
2. willows
3. RaikouRider
Mirrodin 71: An orcish artillery versión that can ping Sincé turn two is not to scoff at Even if you need a very specific environment to have it going and working, and being able yo trade with an X/1 is good at one mana.
p/t missing, but I Will assume this is a 1/1. Synergy is really good: This can remove ocasional chumpblockers for Giant or peel one life off (works wonders with wall of forgotten pharaohs) on top nf the threat the Giant itself represents.
Jimmy Groove: Nice, but having this kind of guaranteed damage each turn might be too constricting. I Think it would have worked better if it was scalable, but that's just an opinión. Sinergy is very good, again able to remove blockers and untap the Giant.
RaikouRider: This looks too dangerous, as it's is able to trigger a Lot provided you can keep a creature count. Attacking into this is very dificult, as you are exposed to get your attackers kind of superfirtstriked away on top of the actual blocks and with your attackers this is just nasty. The Lifelink is just an overkill. Synergy is good, of Course, as your Giant can untap itself on attacking once untapped once.
Psyop: Nice, simple and not too dangerous, i Think you could have gotten away with this costing 1 less. Synergy is good, only a bit fragile as you need to keep the other guy Alice, but ir you manager yo slap this on an untapped Giant, you're great.
Yop3
1.Psyop
2. Mirrodin 71
3. Netn10
1) Gerrard's Mom
2) PsyOp
3) Jimmy Groove
Emille, Seven-Sting Dancer Shalin Nariya