Citadel Colossus5
Artifact Creature - Golem Wall
Defender
If fortified land would leave the battlefield, instead remove all damage from it, then unattach Citadel Colossus. : Citadel Colossus gets +5/-2 and loses defender until end of turn. Activate this ability only once each turn.
Erect 3(: Citadel Colossus becomes a Fortification artifact. Attach it to target land you control. It becomes a creature again if it's not attached to a land. Erect only as a sorcery.)
0/7
IIW: ...see my previous entry's IIW. I think it was something like "first person posts whatever card they want, each person after that riffs off the previous person's card."
Tesladyne Grinder3
Artifact Creature - Construct (C)
Equipped creature gets +2/+2.
Augment 2(2: Tesladyne Grinder becomes an Equipment artifact. Attach it to target creature you control. It becomes a creature again if it's not attached to a creature. Augment only as a sorcery.)
2/2
Tesladyne Crusher5
Artifact Creature - Juggernaut (U)
Trample
Equipped creature gets +4/+3 and gains trample.
Augment 4(4: Tesladyne Crusher becomes an Equipment artifact. Attach it to target creature you control. It becomes a creature again if it's not attached to a creature. Augment only as a sorcery.) 4/3
Tesladyne Mimicker7
Artifact Creature - Shapeshifter (R)
When Tesladyne Mimicker becomes attached to a creature, put a token that's a copy of Tesladyne Mimicker onto the battlefield.
Tesladyne Mimicker and equipped creature get +1/+1 for each permanent named Tesladyne Mimicker.
Augment 6(6: Tesladyne Mimicker becomes an Equipment artifact. Attach it to target creature you control. It becomes a creature again if it's not attached to a creature. Augment only as a sorcery.) 0/0
IIW: Each person riffs off the previous person. The first person for this challenge posts whatever card they want.
Elegance U
Enchantment {R}
Fibonacci cumulative upkeep (At the beginning of your upkeep, if there are no age counters on this permanent, put an age counter on it. Otherwise, put a number of age counters on this permanent equal to the number of age counters that were on it as its Fibonacci cumulative upkeep was last paid.) Whenever you pay ~'s Fibonacci cumulative upkeep, look at the top X cards of your library and put them back in any order, where X is the number of age counters on ~. If you have fewer than X cards in your library, you lose the game. "Izzet a problem?"
IIW: A one-mana enchantment.
This ability bears the same resemblance to cumulative upkeep that "bands with other" did to banding for the longest time. Score: 4.37
Argath, Calculator2UR
Legendary Creature - Human Wizard (M) 1UR: Choose two, three, four, five, or prime and choose target instant, sorcery, or ability with a single target. Choose one - That spell or ability targets all cards with converted mana cost divisible by the chosen quality; that spell or ability targets all players that control a number of permanents evenly divisible by the chosen quality; that spell or ability target's all players that control permanents with a total converted mana cost evenly divisible by the chosen quality; and/or that spell or ability targets all cards of each card type of which the total number of that card type is divisible by the chosen quality.
...I know you can't divide by prime. Get to it, development! (and I figure illegal targets are self-evident...)
And now that think about it... this would probably workable if it only worked with creatures. (That's at least 3 quantities to choose from: Power, toughness, and converted mana cost)
IIW: Surrealism or keyword support
Welcome to Too Many Words: The Wordening. Score: 15+3i
Explosive Cognition1UR
[U]Sorcery[/U] {U}
Reveal cards from a top of your library and put them in your hand until you reveal a card with converted mana cost lower than the converted mana cost of previous card revealed that way.
Coinflip Inn
[U]Legendary Land[/U] {R} T: Shuffle your library and reveal its top card. Add 1 mana of any of the revealed card's colors to your mana pool; if you can't, lose 2 life and repeat this process.
iiw: subgames OR adventure
Coinflip Inn + Painter's Servant = an excellent idea. (The ability needs a "Activate this ability only whenever you could cast an instant." clause because it produces inconsistent mana, which means that it leads to rewinding the game state repeatedly if you try activating it at the "payment of costs" stage of casting a spell.)
Explosive Cognition is just badly worded, not a headache. ("Reveal the top card of your library and put it into your hand. Then, reveal the top card of your library. If its converted mana cost is greater than or equal to the last revealed card's converted mana cost, put it into your hand and repeat this process." is the correct wording.) Score: fuchsia
Fibonacci's Jacket1G
Enchantment - Aura (R)
Enchant creature
Fibonacci's Jacket enters the battlefield with one charge counter on it.
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a number of +1/+1 counters on enchanted creature equal to the number of charge counters on Fibonacci's Jacket, then put a number of charge counters on Fibonacci's Jacket equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on enchanted creature.
("Excessively annoying" for development because it uses two counter types, among other things.)
IIW: Schizo Tech
Yeah, but they'll put up with occasional references to two counter types - especially charge and +1/+1 counters - on the same card at rare. Score: Φ
Boiling Blood XRR
Sorcery (R)
All creatures with toughness greater than X get +X/-X until end of turn. All other creatures get +Y/-Y until end of turn, where Y is one less than that creature’s toughness.
IIW: Alternate play costs
Six mana for "everyone gets Blood Lusted" is probably fair. This only fulfills one of the three parts of the challenge, when the request was for two. (This was kind of a running problem, though.) Score: pastrami
Feelin' Lucky, Punk? :4mana::symub::symur:
Instantaneous (R)
Put a preeminent card into the exile zone from a hand with the magic side up.
Choose a number between 1 and 10. Each opponent puts one into play. Put the exiled card into play for you. Any permanents that did this with CMC > x where x is the chosen number, get sacrificed.
If this card is entwined, do it 3 times.
Entwine
By the by, how come I can't find any pressingchess posts in the search thing? (my card is inspired by what I remember of his ones - admittedly I don't remember much and this is probably but a pale comparison to those glorious cards)
IIW: ccdd
Too Many Words: The Wordening gets another card spoiled! Score: :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:ok
Divine Declaration - 2WW
Sorcery(R)
Choose One - Destroy all creatures with power 4 or greater, or Put 2 1/1 Soldier Creature Tokens into play, or Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control.
Entwine 1W(Choose all if you paid the entwine cost.)
Deliberate Declaration - 1UU
Instant(R)
Choose One - Scry 2, or Draw a Card, or Counter Target Spell.
Entwine 1U(Choose all if you paid the entwine cost.)
Defiling Declaration -BBB
Sorcery(R)
Choose One - Return target creature from a graveyard to the battlefield under your control, or destroy target non-artifact creature, or Target player discards 2 cards.
Entwine 1B(Choose all if you paid the entwine cost.)
Devastating Declaration - 1RR
Sorcery(R)
Choose One - Destroy target non-basic land, or deal 2 damage to each creature, or each player discards their hand and draws 4 cards.
Entwine 1R(Choose all if you paid the entwine cost.)
Ancient Declaration - 2GGG
Sorcery(R)
Choose One - Search your library for a green creature card and put it into your hand, or put a green creature card from your hand into play, or Target creature is indestructible and all creatures able to block that creature do so.
Entwine 1G(Choose all if you paid the entwine cost.)
The guy who made a joke so offensive that it had to be erased from every post referencing it plays the victim card. Oh wonderful.
However, I did come here to create custom cards, not to watch you get mad.
Hordescale Headcount2GGGG
Enchantment (R)
At the beginning of your upkeep, each player chooses a number no greater than the number of creatures on the battlefield and puts that many 1/1 green Snake creature tokens onto the battlefield. At the beginning of the next end step, if the total of players' chosen numbers is equal to the amount of damage that was dealt to players this turn, target player who controls the fewest creatures puts a 6/6 green Hydra creature token with vigilance onto the battlefield. "How many circles can a constrictor form?" - Tulgri expression for "Being distracted from the real danger"
IIW: Return to Jamuraa and/or green flyers.
Funny, the set just happens to have a white enchantment that's "Prevent all damage that would be dealt to players." The only headache I'm seeing is "how do we turn this from into something that works the same with half the text?" Score: Dr. Silady's Laudanum Elixir
Immortal's CharmB
Instant (C)
Choose one — Regenerate target creature; or target creature gains lifelink until end of turn; or target creature gains deathtouch until end of turn.
Entwine 2(Choose all three if you pay the entwine cost.)
IIW: Learning.
This actually had potential to fit the challenge by being a headache: just change lifelink to trample. Again, only fits one of three rather than the requested two of three. Score: 7
Prismatic Reflector4
Artifact (R)
Creatures you control have protection from creatures and spells that share a color with Prismatic Reflector.
Whenever you play a spell, Prismatic Reflector becomes that spell's colors until you play another spell.
IIW: Colorless mythic lands
Doesn't need the "until you play another spell" bit. Also doesn't really fit any part of the challenge - there's no math, no entwine, and no real headaches. Score: -1/Ω
Cardz5000: Posted too late. Sorry. Score: -∞
Missed opportunities: Seriously? Nobody made a subgame card?
Winner: Well, everyone gets a copy of Too Many Words: The Wordening to play at home. Meanwhile, I think I'll give Ink-Treader the win because I really wasn't expecting to win with what was pretty obviously a troll entry.
[THIS RESPONSE CENSORED DUE TO BEING INAPPROPRIATE FOR A MODERATOR TO SAY]
Mostly it's because I can't think of an IIW I actually want to judge right now, so I'm giving one that gives me a legitimate excuse for putting exactly zero effort into the judgings.
Crazy Anwe's House of Cheap Trinkets
Land (U) T: Add 3 to your mana pool. Spend this mana only to cast artifact spells. Whenever you spend this mana to cast an artifact spell, the permanent that spell becomes gains "At the beginning of the end step, sacrifice this." His prices are insane—and so are you if you think his products are actually built to last.
IIW: Choose two—Fun with math; or entwine with more than two choices; or excessively annoying cards to hand off to the design team (Mana costs with mixed hybrid, cards of colors that don't match their mana costs, and cards that start subgames of other games are examples of this.)
First, I'd like to comment on my card from the previous challenge: it's clearly meant as an (additional) wincon in decks that run Mana Echoes, as far as the obvious inclusion. (:grumpy: Like those decks need any more wincons than "I'm overrunning your face with a bunch of Goblin tokens.")
Second, I'd like to announce that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Winterspring forever. We begin deleting his posts in five minutes.
That card was a mistake and I try to pretend that it doesn't exist.
Furnace Enforcer3(P/R)
Artifact Creature - Warrior {U} 2(P/B): Furnace Enforcer gains deathtouch until end of turn. 2(P/G): All creatures able to block Furnace Enforcer this turn do so. 3/3
IIW: A 3/3 for four mana.
Pros: Counter-agnostic; wow, such value, so boardwipe. (Insert doge smiley here which doesn't currently exist.)
Cons: Again, I'm slightly leery about creatures that are otherwise good by virtue of their abilities being a 3/3 for 3 + 2 life. Whereas I think I'd tweak Meg's down to a 2/3, I think I'd put yours as a 3/2 instead.
Pros: Well, that's certainly different. Also, again counter-agnostic.
Cons: Missing rarity; "T1 I drop something with a 'Whenever you draw a card' trigger, then cycle the rest of my hand for free" would be a problem with these.
Ichorback Tarantula3GG
Creature - Spider (U)
Exalted, reach
Whenever a creature you control attacks alone, it gains infect until end of turn.
2/3
IIW: ccdd
Pros: It's a spider. Also, I think trading super-trample down to reach is probably worth taking one mana off Spinebiter.
Cons: Uses -1/-1 counters (because it uses infect). Especially jarring is the combination of exalted and a -1/-1 counter environment, which leads to weird timing of creature deaths (in the cleanup step, which - if there are any death triggers - leads to a second cleanup step). Ideally, it's one or the other.
Kha Scrapwelder2W
Creature — Cat Artificer (U) Workmanship — Whenever an artifact enters the battlefield under your control, put a +1/+1 counter on Kha Scrapwelder and up to one other creature you control. In these troubled times, we beat our ploughshares into swords.
1/1
IIW: zombies attack
Pros: +1/+1 counters.
Cons: Seems like it belongs to an alternate Mirrodin Besieged and/or Scars than to something that's after the events of New Phyrexia.
Ichor Crawler - 1BB
Creature - Horror {U}
Haste
Unearth 1BB
Whenever Ichor Crawler enters the battlefield from a graveyard, it gets infect.
3/1
IIW: Cards for the Booze Cube
Pros: Um... yeah, it's black.
Cons: -1/-1 counters (not as bad as a problem as it was in conjunction with exalted, but still not my preference for future Phyrexian developments); also, this feels stapled together somehow, more like "Phyrexia learns of Shards of Alara and decides to imitate things" than anything else.
In Dark Discoveries, part III Bolas immunized Tezzeret against Phyrexian contagion.
Cerebral Harness3
Artifact (R)
Each player's maximum hand size is three. "These slavering flesh barons cannot comprehend the vicious elegance of true artifice."
—Tezzeret
Tezzeret brings Esperite sensibilities to New Phyrexia. Also vague Trinisphere throwback, and just as annoying on turn one.
IIW: A card belonging to an existing planeswalker of your choice.
Pros: Awesome flavor; counter-agnostic; surprisingly, not as annoying on turn one as Trinisphere unless you're playing some kind of grindy boring deck. If anything, the presence of this card in the format means the easiest way to play around it is some form of "oops, dumped my hand T1" if possible. Also, just begs for a reprint of The Rack.
Man, planeswalker powers and the glistening oil are confusingly and lazily written.
Harbinger of IntoleranceRRR
Creature - Warrior (R)
Infect
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, Harbinger of Intolerance deals damage to that player equal to the number of basic land types among lands he or she controls minus one.
2/3
IIW: Wind world and/or multicolor counterspells.
Pros: That's an awesome engine in red even without infect.
Cons: Again with the -1/-1 counters. He's a three-turn clock against a three-color deck - even Ball Lightning isn't that efficient...
Ichor Tyrannax5:sympw::sympr::sympg:
Artifact Creature - DINOSAUR (M)
Creatures you control with power 5 or greater have indestructible. 1:sympr:: Target creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
4/5
IIW: BAD CARDS or planeswalker creatures like Jace, Arbiter of the Guildpact
Pros: WELCOME TO METAL ZOO WORLD.
Cons: Does not have "bands with other Homarids" or flanking. Also his mana cost is written wrong (5(P/R)(P/G)(P/W) is correct).
I think wedge shards would be a good fit for Phyrexia. Elesh could go war / religion. Vorinclex go evolution through predation. And that weirdo Urabrask could go full 'freedom' + 'inspiration', plus forging cool equipment.
Those are the clear ones, so for Sheolred... a slivery 'dark brooding' motif maybe? And Jin-Gitaxias could get into psychadelic drugs or something. Maybe he goes nuts for Yawgmoth and tries to dream into his astral concience, exploring the 'phyrexian instincts.'
Ok, let's go with Urabrask.
Lasherclaw :2mana::symr:
Artifact Creature - Soldier (U)
First Strike.
Equip :1mana::symw: (This is a non-creature equipment while it equips a creature.)
Equipped creature has +2/+2 and First Strike.
2/2
IIW: Sad
Pros: That's a different idea, although there's at least one problem with it...
Cons: ...namely, that existing tech to do this is available (either living weapon or just putting a "Whenever you activate an equip ability of this, it becomes an Equipment that isn't a creature until the next time it becomes unattached." ability directly on it). This is just one of those situations where putting in a rules change to handle it isn't necessary.
Osseous Shard :2mana::sympw:
Artifact (U)
:sympw::sympw:, :symtap:: Each player puts two 1/1 colorless Myr artifact creature tokens onto the battlefield.
Cortex Shard :2mana::sympu:
Artifact (U)
:sympu::sympu:, :symtap:: Each player puts the top five cards of his or her library into their graveyard.
Withering Shard :2mana::sympb:
Artifact (U)
:sympb::sympb:, :symtap:: Each player sacrifices a creature.
Charcoal Shard :2mana::sympr:
Artifact (U)
:sympr::sympr:, :symtap:: Charcoal Shard deals 3 damage to each player.
Talon Shard :2mana::sympg:
Artifact (U)
:sympg::sympg:, :symtap:: Each player may put a land card from his or her hand onto the battlefield tapped.
IIW: Alchemy
Pros: These are all reminiscent of, say, the original Mirrodin shards - though I'm not sure that "GG or G + pay 2 life or pay 4 life" is quite as catchy as what amounts to 3/ (or insert the better-rendered version that would show up in MSE here).
Cons: That said, the symmetry on these is just kind of... ouch. Charcoal Shard should never be run outside of a red deck unless Suicide Black is an archetype in the format.
Phyrexian Trampler4RR
Creature — Beast Horror [R]
Haste
When Phyrexian Trampler enters the battlefield, creatures with less than 5 power can't block this turn. "Opposing the mighty is a pointless endeavor. They will crush you and still get what they desire, one way or another."
—Mayael of the Orthodoxy
5/5
Phyrexian Crusher3GG
Creature — Beast Horror [R]
Trample
When Phyrexian Crusher enters the battlefield, it fights target creature an opponent controls with less than 5 power. "I truly pity the weak. They live such insignifant lives when compared to the mighty."
—Mayael of the Orthodoxy
5/5
Phyrexian Towerer4WW
Creature — Beast Horror [R]
Vigilance
When Phyrexian Towerer enters the battlefield, put two -1/-1 counters on each creature with less than 5 power. "The meek grow meeker so that the strong's glory can be uncontested."
—Mayael of the Orthodoxy
5/5
IIW: Time spiral's "color matters" theme
Pros: at the name of the green one.
Cons: Phyrexian Towerer + repeatable flicker = "Destroy all creatures with power 4 or less. They can't be regenerated." Also, again with the -1/-1 counters.
Twisted EqualityGWU Enchantment U
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a +1/+1 counter on the creature with the least amount of power among creatures you control.
Pros: I guess this is a thing. It's about the most boring thing for +1/+1 counters I can see showing up, though.
Cons: Either you need something to break ties, or "the creature" should be "each creature" instead. See similar effects that look at least/greatest of something among something for what you need.
Etherium Gorger4BR
Creature - Hellion Horror (R)
Devour 1 (As this enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice any number of creatures. This creature enters the battlefield with that many +1/+1 counters on it.)
When Etherium Gorger enters the battlefield, it does X damage to target creature or player and you gain X life, where X is the number of artifacts it devoured.
4/4
IIW: Common utility creatures
Pros: +1/+1 counters. Devour sort of makes sense as a mechanic here.
Cons: at "it does X damage". You know better than that.
Kavil, Master of Mechanisms - 3
Planeswalker - Kavil
+1: Draw 2 Cards and then discard 2 cards unless you discard an artifact.
-1: Put target artifact card in your graveyard on top of your library.
-5: Return all artifacts from all graveyards to the battlefield under your control.
2
Cons: I'm sorry, I can't get past the incredibly incorrect order of the mana cost. You know better than that. I've seen you post cards using the correct order for a while. DON'T DO THAT.
Plus sudden death bonus judgings for people who posted while I was judging, with 99% less content:
willows: Clunky name and I'm not quite sure what it's actually supposed to be doing.
AmShegar: That ability is badly worded ("Other creatures with the same controller as enchanted creature..." would do the trick, I believe) and should not be available that cheaply.
Missed opportunities: Some sort of "steals +1/+1 counters or gives poison counters" keyword to replace infect with; Tezzeret, Father of Machines; fortifications (:trolo:).
Winner: CC wins. HM to AI. Dishonorable mention to Winterspring for complaining that the obvious meaning of the challenge was stupid.
Next challenge: A card belonging to an existing planeswalker of your choice.
Licids sure are a paragon of sensible and modern design that don't have awkward templating.~
They were printed after the first standardization of wording, so they're at least acceptable as a counterpoint to "putting 'enchanted creature' on things that aren't always an Aura makes no sense", which was the bad argument I was referring to.
And as far as the rest of Licid design, the main problem is that they don't actually solve the issue they were intended to solve, while Bestow does (that issue being the whole "Auras are bad because two-for-ones" problem), and that is due to requiring a cost to end the effect.
Without a cost to end the effect, the Licid template probably would have shown up at least one more time between then and now, and we probably wouldn't have gotten Bestow, because a working solution already existed.
Vivacity Licid1W
Creature - Licid (U) W,T: Vivacity Licid becomes an Aura enchantment with enchant creature. Attach it to target creature. You may end this effect at any time. Activate this ability only if Vivacity Licid isn't an Aura.
Enchanted creature has lifelink.
1/2
Yes, I made one other change to the wording: the "loses this ability" bit should have always just been a restriction on activating the ability. The result isn't any less straightforward than Bestow is (in fact, the weird interactions between Bestow and Gaddock Teeg... eh, the less said about that, the better) and arguably the result has higher utility than Bestow because you can get your creature back out of it at any time, rather than only when it'd fall off.
(Probably NSFW) So you may have heard I'm trying to write a TV series...
As a result, I'm going to lock the thread and sticky it, and we can continue with Club Flamingo 2: Phoenicopt Boogaloo.
(Probably NSFW) So you may have heard I'm trying to write a TV series...
Artifact Creature - Golem Wall
Defender
If fortified land would leave the battlefield, instead remove all damage from it, then unattach Citadel Colossus.
: Citadel Colossus gets +5/-2 and loses defender until end of turn. Activate this ability only once each turn.
Erect 3 (: Citadel Colossus becomes a Fortification artifact. Attach it to target land you control. It becomes a creature again if it's not attached to a land. Erect only as a sorcery.)
0/7
IIW: ...see my previous entry's IIW. I think it was something like "first person posts whatever card they want, each person after that riffs off the previous person's card."
(Probably NSFW) So you may have heard I'm trying to write a TV series...
Artifact Creature - Construct (C)
Equipped creature gets +2/+2.
Augment 2 (2: Tesladyne Grinder becomes an Equipment artifact. Attach it to target creature you control. It becomes a creature again if it's not attached to a creature. Augment only as a sorcery.)
2/2
Tesladyne Crusher 5
Artifact Creature - Juggernaut (U)
Trample
Equipped creature gets +4/+3 and gains trample.
Augment 4 (4: Tesladyne Crusher becomes an Equipment artifact. Attach it to target creature you control. It becomes a creature again if it's not attached to a creature. Augment only as a sorcery.)
4/3
Tesladyne Mimicker 7
Artifact Creature - Shapeshifter (R)
When Tesladyne Mimicker becomes attached to a creature, put a token that's a copy of Tesladyne Mimicker onto the battlefield.
Tesladyne Mimicker and equipped creature get +1/+1 for each permanent named Tesladyne Mimicker.
Augment 6 (6: Tesladyne Mimicker becomes an Equipment artifact. Attach it to target creature you control. It becomes a creature again if it's not attached to a creature. Augment only as a sorcery.)
0/0
IIW: Each person riffs off the previous person. The first person for this challenge posts whatever card they want.
(Probably NSFW) So you may have heard I'm trying to write a TV series...
Putting it at too low of a rarity is not sufficient headache. Score: 9
This ability bears the same resemblance to cumulative upkeep that "bands with other" did to banding for the longest time. Score: 4.37
Welcome to Too Many Words: The Wordening. Score: 15+3i
Coinflip Inn + Painter's Servant = an excellent idea. (The ability needs a "Activate this ability only whenever you could cast an instant." clause because it produces inconsistent mana, which means that it leads to rewinding the game state repeatedly if you try activating it at the "payment of costs" stage of casting a spell.)
Explosive Cognition is just badly worded, not a headache. ("Reveal the top card of your library and put it into your hand. Then, reveal the top card of your library. If its converted mana cost is greater than or equal to the last revealed card's converted mana cost, put it into your hand and repeat this process." is the correct wording.) Score: fuchsia
Yeah, but they'll put up with occasional references to two counter types - especially charge and +1/+1 counters - on the same card at rare. Score: Φ
Six mana for "everyone gets Blood Lusted" is probably fair. This only fulfills one of the three parts of the challenge, when the request was for two. (This was kind of a running problem, though.) Score: pastrami
Too Many Words: The Wordening gets another card spoiled! Score: :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:ok
No headaches, just decent examples of how to pull off three-way Entwine. Score: 33
Funny, the set just happens to have a white enchantment that's "Prevent all damage that would be dealt to players." The only headache I'm seeing is "how do we turn this from
This actually had potential to fit the challenge by being a headache: just change lifelink to trample.
Doesn't need the "until you play another spell" bit. Also doesn't really fit any part of the challenge - there's no math, no entwine, and no real headaches. Score: -1/Ω
Cardz5000: Posted too late. Sorry. Score: -∞
Missed opportunities: Seriously? Nobody made a subgame card?
Winner: Well, everyone gets a copy of Too Many Words: The Wordening to play at home. Meanwhile, I think I'll give Ink-Treader the win because I really wasn't expecting to win with what was pretty obviously a troll entry.
Next challenge: Surrealism or keyword support.
(Probably NSFW) So you may have heard I'm trying to write a TV series...
(Probably NSFW) So you may have heard I'm trying to write a TV series...
(Probably NSFW) So you may have heard I'm trying to write a TV series...
(Probably NSFW) So you may have heard I'm trying to write a TV series...
(Probably NSFW) So you may have heard I'm trying to write a TV series...
Mostly it's because I can't think of an IIW I actually want to judge right now, so I'm giving one that gives me a legitimate excuse for putting exactly zero effort into the judgings.
(Probably NSFW) So you may have heard I'm trying to write a TV series...
Land (U)
T: Add 3 to your mana pool. Spend this mana only to cast artifact spells. Whenever you spend this mana to cast an artifact spell, the permanent that spell becomes gains "At the beginning of the end step, sacrifice this."
His prices are insane—and so are you if you think his products are actually built to last.
IIW: Choose two—Fun with math; or entwine with more than two choices; or excessively annoying cards to hand off to the design team (Mana costs with mixed hybrid, cards of colors that don't match their mana costs, and cards that start subgames of other games are examples of this.)
(Probably NSFW) So you may have heard I'm trying to write a TV series...
Back to my regularly scheduled pizza, already in progress.
(Probably NSFW) So you may have heard I'm trying to write a TV series...
Second, I'd like to announce that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Winterspring forever. We begin deleting his posts in five minutes.
Pros: Counter-agnostic; decent utility.
Cons: It's a little large for its cost; I'm not sure the untap ability isn't perfectly safe at 1(P/U) instead.
Pros: Counter-agnostic; wow, such value, so boardwipe. (Insert doge smiley here which doesn't currently exist.)
Cons: Again, I'm slightly leery about creatures that are otherwise good by virtue of their abilities being a 3/3 for 3 + 2 life. Whereas I think I'd tweak Meg's down to a 2/3, I think I'd put yours as a 3/2 instead.
Pros: Well, that's certainly different. Also, again counter-agnostic.
Cons: Missing rarity; "T1 I drop something with a 'Whenever you draw a card' trigger, then cycle the rest of my hand for free" would be a problem with these.
Pros: It's a spider. Also, I think trading super-trample down to reach is probably worth taking one mana off Spinebiter.
Cons: Uses -1/-1 counters (because it uses infect). Especially jarring is the combination of exalted and a -1/-1 counter environment, which leads to weird timing of creature deaths (in the cleanup step, which - if there are any death triggers - leads to a second cleanup step). Ideally, it's one or the other.
Pros: +1/+1 counters.
Cons: Seems like it belongs to an alternate Mirrodin Besieged and/or Scars than to something that's after the events of New Phyrexia.
Pros: Um... yeah, it's black.
Cons: -1/-1 counters (not as bad as a problem as it was in conjunction with exalted, but still not my preference for future Phyrexian developments); also, this feels stapled together somehow, more like "Phyrexia learns of Shards of Alara and decides to imitate things" than anything else.
Pros: Awesome flavor; counter-agnostic; surprisingly, not as annoying on turn one as Trinisphere unless you're playing some kind of grindy boring deck. If anything, the presence of this card in the format means the easiest way to play around it is some form of "oops, dumped my hand T1" if possible. Also, just begs for a reprint of The Rack.
Cons: Venser's corpse demands a cameo as well.
Pros: That's an awesome engine in red even without infect.
Cons: Again with the -1/-1 counters. He's a three-turn clock against a three-color deck - even Ball Lightning isn't that efficient...
Pros: WELCOME TO METAL ZOO WORLD.
Cons: Does not have "bands with other Homarids" or flanking. Also his mana cost is written wrong (5(P/R)(P/G)(P/W) is correct).
Pros: That's a different idea, although there's at least one problem with it...
Cons: ...namely, that existing tech to do this is available (either living weapon or just putting a "Whenever you activate an equip ability of this, it becomes an Equipment that isn't a creature until the next time it becomes unattached." ability directly on it). This is just one of those situations where putting in a rules change to handle it isn't necessary.
Pros: These are all reminiscent of, say, the original Mirrodin shards - though I'm not sure that "GG or G + pay 2 life or pay 4 life" is quite as catchy as what amounts to 3/ (or insert the better-rendered version that would show up in MSE here).
Cons: That said, the symmetry on these is just kind of... ouch. Charcoal Shard should never be run outside of a red deck unless Suicide Black is an archetype in the format.
Pros:
Cons: Phyrexian Towerer + repeatable flicker = "Destroy all creatures with power 4 or less. They can't be regenerated." Also, again with the -1/-1 counters.
Pros: I guess this is a thing. It's about the most boring thing for +1/+1 counters I can see showing up, though.
Cons: Either you need something to break ties, or "the creature" should be "each creature" instead. See similar effects that look at least/greatest of something among something for what you need.
Pros: +1/+1 counters. Devour sort of makes sense as a mechanic here.
Cons:
Pros:
Cons: I'm sorry, I can't get past the incredibly incorrect order of the mana cost. You know better than that. I've seen you post cards using the correct order for a while. DON'T DO THAT.
Plus sudden death bonus judgings for people who posted while I was judging, with 99% less content:
willows: Clunky name and I'm not quite sure what it's actually supposed to be doing.
AmShegar: That ability is badly worded ("Other creatures with the same controller as enchanted creature..." would do the trick, I believe) and should not be available that cheaply.
Missed opportunities: Some sort of "steals +1/+1 counters or gives poison counters" keyword to replace infect with; Tezzeret, Father of Machines; fortifications (:trolo:).
Winner: CC wins. HM to AI. Dishonorable mention to Winterspring for complaining that the obvious meaning of the challenge was stupid.
Next challenge: A card belonging to an existing planeswalker of your choice.
(Probably NSFW) So you may have heard I'm trying to write a TV series...
(Probably NSFW) So you may have heard I'm trying to write a TV series...
And as far as the rest of Licid design, the main problem is that they don't actually solve the issue they were intended to solve, while Bestow does (that issue being the whole "Auras are bad because two-for-ones" problem), and that is due to requiring a cost to end the effect.
Without a cost to end the effect, the Licid template probably would have shown up at least one more time between then and now, and we probably wouldn't have gotten Bestow, because a working solution already existed.
Creature - Licid (U)
W,T: Vivacity Licid becomes an Aura enchantment with enchant creature. Attach it to target creature. You may end this effect at any time. Activate this ability only if Vivacity Licid isn't an Aura.
Enchanted creature has lifelink.
1/2
Yes, I made one other change to the wording: the "loses this ability" bit should have always just been a restriction on activating the ability. The result isn't any less straightforward than Bestow is (in fact, the weird interactions between Bestow and Gaddock Teeg... eh, the less said about that, the better) and arguably the result has higher utility than Bestow because you can get your creature back out of it at any time, rather than only when it'd fall off.
(Probably NSFW) So you may have heard I'm trying to write a TV series...