The great aurora portrays the shift from “day” to “night” after decades ,if not centuries, of day. I plan to make a card based on Oona’s influence of the day night cycle coming to an end and it returning to the normal 24 hour cycle.
For the final round, can our card depict an event that has already canonically happened in magic lore? (in this case the end of the long day/night cycle on Lorwyn)
Amusingly this mirrors your critique of my card in a way, but I think the activated ability reads pretty ‘old-fashioned’. All that extra wording is essentially only really relevant during the turn Salia enters the battlefield, making her into a 5-mana (or 8-mana) combat trick. In most cases however, just having her make a 1/1 Servo token with haste would fulfill the exact same function. Granted, that would make it impossible for the activation cost to feature hybrid mana. But at two colored mana symbols, you have to have pretty heavy access to W and R anyway to enable multiple uses, so making it 1RW wouldn’t change this all too much.
Salia, Cunning Strategist1U
Legendary Creature - Human Artificer {M}
Flash 1(R/W)(R/W): Create a 1/1 colorless Servo artifact creature token. If it’s your turn, it enters the battlefield tapped and attacking. Otherwise you may have it block an attacking creature. Activate this ability only during combat before the combat damage step.
1/2
A key part of Salia's activated ability is that it can drop in attackers or blockers after the declare blockers step, which on your turn means that your servos are virtually unblockable on the turn they drop in as blockers have already been declared, and on their turn you can respond to combat tricks after having already declared blockers (both of which remain very relevant on turns after Salia's been cast.) The reason for the timing restriction on the ability is that you can't have a token enter tapped and attacking if it's not combat and before the combat damage step.
Edit: Or rather, I think that the rules (506.3b. If an effect would put a creature onto the battlefield attacking under the control of any player except an attacking player, that creature does enter the battlefield, but it's never considered to be an attacking creature.) may be able to support a creature entering tapped and attacking not during combat as you are not an "attacking player". I think the leaving the timing restriction off would not be worth the confusion in play that the card may cause with those not intimately familiar with the comprehensive rules.
The anti-sacrifice clause on my entry was intended to prevent you from just using a sac outlet as a failsafe. The card itself was intended to be answered by either Revoke Existence or Creeping Corrosion type effects (the latter of which outright kills you.)
For round 2: does the card have to function from our hand? or can it be elsewhere? (like your graveyard)
(this line of thought came about because I was confused by the inclusion of sorceries as a acceptable card type for this challenge.)
Legendary Creature - Human Artificer {M}
Flash
1(R/W)(R/W): Create a 1/1 colorless Servo artifact creature token. If it’s your turn, it enters the battlefield tapped and attacking. Otherwise you may have it block an attacking creature. Activate this ability only during combat before the combat damage step.
1/2
Edit: Or rather, I think that the rules (506.3b. If an effect would put a creature onto the battlefield attacking under the control of any player except an attacking player, that creature does enter the battlefield, but it's never considered to be an attacking creature.) may be able to support a creature entering tapped and attacking not during combat as you are not an "attacking player". I think the leaving the timing restriction off would not be worth the confusion in play that the card may cause with those not intimately familiar with the comprehensive rules.
Really?
(this line of thought came about because I was confused by the inclusion of sorceries as a acceptable card type for this challenge.)