I didn't slosh through the last 10 pages of comments, so this might have been brought up already, and if so, I apologize,
BUT,
This card is surprisingly relevant in current type two.
Colorless free spell that can be played main/board against anyone,
If you kill their first squad hawk, you can fetch the other three out of their hand and make them RFG the whole lot.
or
After peeking with an inquisition, you can cabal therapy their hand for free if they have a same-named card in their yard (like perhaps the one you inquisitioned).
And, of course, most obviously, it deals with Vengevine and Bloodghast.
Of all the arguments against common Planeswalkers, flavor is by far the weakest. It's easy to think of stories where they would make sense.
4. Planeswalkers are really common on Plane W for some mysterious reason which will be revealed in the third set.
3. Evil Organization Z has discovered how to artificially create Planeswalker sparks and has created an army of Planeswalker Grizzly Bears.
While I agree that concepting a common planeswalker for the sake of it being a common planeswalker is ridiculous, I also think that there are justifiable reasons to do it. Maybe I'll just post all of my thoughts up in a new thread so that it can be critiqued outside of a vacuum as it was intended...
1RR
Common
Planeswalker
-1 Deal 2 damage to target creature.
2
There's no rule the planeswalkers need to be complex, have abilities that add to their loyalty, or be extremely powerful. I recognize the argument that planeswalkers should be powerful for story reasons, but after the crap that happened in TimeSpiral, having the spark just isn't what it used to be. Honestly, I see no reason why a card couldn't attempt to show a planeswalker who just received the spark and is just learning to grow their power.
If I had made the round three, I would've submitted a common planeswalker, as the theme of my set was examining the planeswalker spark.
No, I'm not trolling.
1. The inclusion of the word "target" in B. makes E. the only valid choice. I missed this one too because I read "next time" and missed "target."
2. Millstone can mill indefinitely and Trigons are complex (and generally affect the board a fair amount). A better comparison is to Tumble Magnet and Necrogen Censer, both of which are deservedly common, since the card can only mill six cards on its own.
3. You missed the point of the question. Green doesn't care about the individual but in the hypothetical round-table discussion where the colors argue about their various philosophies, green might say something like, "Each person's life unfolds according to a pattern. Accepting this fact is the key to harmony." The key distinction is that this is an overall philosophy, making it hard to execute in practice. However, I wouldn't associate white with a passive stance on life at all, since self-improvement is a big white ideal, for instance the trope of advancement from squire to knight to lord to king.
4. I declined to speculate on the meta-frequency of double-French vanillas and focused on whether the card should come up frequently in Limited. A card that causes a 6-point life swing when your opponent is tapped out should not be common. It's that simple.
5. Did you answer "Clone?" That card is a classic Johnny card, I figured it was a gimme. Fauna Shaman was the only one that could have been argued as more of a Spike card than a Johnny card, but even that is more open-ended and allows more interesting play than a card that sacrifices some lands and makes a couple tokens that can...attack your opponent? To try to use Devastating Summons as a combo piece is more in the realm of Uber-Johnny, and I don't think that's what the question was asking.
1. I can't agree that E is the only logical answer for a number of reasons. Had the question been worded "Which of these abilities could be printed on a creature without flash?", that would have been one thing, and then, yes, E would be correct, but the question was "Which of these wouldn't we do?" Mystic Snake, Briarhorn, and Haze Frog necessarily rule out 3 of the answers. That leaves "deal 2 damage to target attacking or blocking creature", a very white combat trick, and "double the damage of one of your spells on the stack", a very red trick. Now, let's look at them printing that white card. Does white get that ability often? Yes. Does white get flash creatures often? Compared to red, yes. Does red get this ability often? No. Never in fact, it's always tied to a permanent. Does red get flash creatures? Compared to the other colors, almost never. Would the white one's ability work well and play intuitively? Yes. Would the red one's ability work well and play intuitively? No, having to maintain priority while casting a spell, isn't something that should come up super-often. Sure, fork and such, but that's not a common occurrence. If the white ability was being printed on an instant, would someone say "hey, why don't we tie a body to that"? Yes, that would be very white. If the red ability was being printed on an instant, would someone say "hey, why don't we tie a body to that"? No, that's not really part of red's pie.
In short, I think that B is the only logical answer to the question as it is worded.
2. I bounced back and forth on this one. In the end, I did a study on milling effects and on cards with charge counters, and most of them were not common. I thought about opening a pack in a draft in triple scars, and thought about how absolutely useless this would be and how even in multiples it wouldn't effect anything. It would be a narrow, weak, build-around-me card that no one would want in limited, so I put uncommon. If it had support (a decent bit of proliferate, another bit of milling, etc.), I could see it being moved to common, sure, but in a vacuum, if this card were printed at common, I'd be upset every time I opened it in a pack in limited.
3. I'm missing the point of the question because I didn't imagine a scenario that isn't mentioned in order to contextualize it enough for it to make sense? Let's parse the question:
"Each Person". Who cares about the individual. White does sometimes, Blue, Red, and Black do all the time.
"Life". Black cares about life, as does Green, White too. Blue doesn't really talk about it and would be sad to not have life, Red... m'eh, life's just when I have my fun.
"Unfolds according to a Pattern." So, who believes in fate, destiny? Not Red, they're too busy smashing and having fun. Not Black, they make their own destiny. Blue might, but probably only insofar as it can be manipulated. Green believes in instinct, and the cycle of life and death, and living to your place in the universe. White believes in fate. They believe that every life has a meaning, and that everyone fighting and working and saccrificing themselves at the appropriate time is the meaning of life.
"Accepting this fact." Which color wants you to accept something. Black doesn't care what you think, nor blue, nor red. Green ~feels~, but honestly it feels with respect to itself. White is the only color who has a vested interest in proselytizing.
"Is the key" Who holds the believe that the actions of one person are very important in unlocking the future for everyone? Oh yeah, White.
"To harmony". Who wants harmony? White and Green.
So yeah, all in all it seems like the question strongly favors white to me. Green was my second choice, but the voice of the question promoting the individual so strongly made me go with white.
4. Cards which cause six point life swings can't be common? What about Bloodrite Invoker? That's a repeated 6 point life swing (on a 3/1 body just for humor's sake) at common that isn't even interactive with your opponent (being tapped out or not). I see his argument that 3 power lifelink guys haven't been printed at common, but honestly, I don't think that "double french" or "wrecks limited" are fair reasons to bump it to uncommon, and I'm not sure how anyone would have known that "no 3 power lifelinkers" is one of the rules for commonality. Common ~ 4B 3/1 lifelink haste, doesn't seem too bonkers to me.
5. I did pick Clone. The other four are total "build around me and show me what cool stuff you can do with me" cards, while Clone is just a utility creature that only helps once you already have your pieces assembled, if it had been Rite of Replication, then yeah, Devastating Summons is the least Johnny, as I know Johnnys who love that card, but it's because of the kicker, I don't know a singly Johnny who gives a crap about Clone.
If anyone is curious after reading this TL;DR response, I also missed 48, as I got sucked into the concept of the term without simply obeying the letter of it. I voted against Canyon Minotaur, as it's simplist category is "vanilla" and therefore falls into no more complicated categories, and voted against Ambassador Oak, as I got caught up on the clause about board complexity, and since the creature adds 2 vanilla creatures to the board, it is not in fact "a simple vanilla creature for purposes of evaluating the board state". I'm not very upset at missing that one, as I kind of expected to miss it, as I could see it going any number of ways.
I also missed 29, as I thought that there were no trick questions, so I imagined ties between each of the abilities, in short, changeling and flying appear in all colors, and there is a flavorful interaction, exalted and lifelink are white abilities that encourage you to go all in on one guy, infect and first strike don't share a color theme currently, but WotC did like playing with first strike and wither, as it makes for powerfully unblockable creatures, which is exactly what infect wants, and landfall and haste are both very aggressive mechanics focused on keeping all of your draws live and bringing your opponent to zero quickly. The only one I couldn't imagine a link between was echo and deathtouch.
Sorry if this came off as *****y, but to be so close and miss it by the above questions really bothers me, as I don't really think that those are 'wrong' answers at all.
I'm even more upset with my 43 now that I know that briarhorn is apparently unprintable, Millstone/trigon averages out to common, green cares about the individual, Blackcleave Goblin and Crypt Ripper are uncommons, and Johnny doesn't like 1 mana spells that let him sac all of his lands (for, say a combo with the cheese stands alone, or balance, or...).
Well, I really like the concepts that you're getting at here, but a few of the implementations are a bit off.
Let's start at the top,
an emblem gaining counters on it is awkward. I'm not entirely sure how to fix it, but here's a thought. "You gain an emblem that says 'during your upkeep, target player gets an omen counter. Any player with 3 or more omen counters loses the game." That way it's still you gaining the emblem, it still has the targeting restriction you seem to have wanted, they still die after 3 of their turns (yes, technically if you would be decked on the third turn, this version is slightly functionally different), and it's more useful in mulitplayer.
Big Rock is really cool, and I like the idea, but it suffers from the same problem that shuriken suffered from. Sure, the tap to equip has never been done before, but that's not really a problem in my mind. The tap it so that it can't be equipped again this turn thing doesn't work. First of all, it costs 5 mana to use... it's doubtful that many people would be able to get 2 activations out of it in the first place, more relevantly though, the wording only actually keeps you from getting 3 activations per turn out of it. And, well, to be honest, if you have 15 mana, you deserve to win anyway.
So, you have the rock attatched to one of your guys at the beginning of the turn, you tap the rock to attatch it to another creature you control, but while that's on the stack, you pay 5, tap the creature and throw the rock. It bolts a guy, then the attatch resolves, and you can now pay 5 and tap the new guy to throw the tapped rock again.
In short, either remove the 'and tap the rock' clause as it does nothing, or add tapping the rock along with the creature to the activation cost. Unless, of course, your goal was to keep the rock from being thrown 3 times per turn with 15 mana...
I know that your red walker has the words "flip a coin" on him, so anything he says clearly must be red. ... but the abilities after flip a coin still have to be at least vaguely red.
Each opponent player discards a card at random is black. Each player draws a card is blue. Permanently gaining control of non-land permanents is blue (yes it says until you lose a coin flip, but honestly, you could just pay RRR, slap this guy down, -1 him twice and go on with your life, or +1 him twice, then -1 him 4 times... he would get played that way, never flipping a coin after you steal their dudes, and permanent dude stealing isn't very red.) The ultimate should maybe cost 5, as playing the 2.5 best cards out of your hand +5 for free seems really really really strong. Also, "RRR, suspend 2, draw 5 cards" alone is ... well... not red yet again. If you added "then discard your hand" to the end of his ultimate it'd feel a lot more red.
Again, I really like the ideas you're having, just the implementation is a little off.
The alternate ultimate is quite simply broken. 1/4 of your spells for the rest of the game are free. 1/2 of your spells for the rest of the game you get to either pay normal mana cost for, or cycle for free. 1/4 of your spells for the rest of the game you may pay double their mana cost, or simply cycle for free. Especially in red, this is devastatingly broken. Imagine that you're sitting across from someone who does this. They play a devastating force, and flip their coins. Op, only 1 heads, m'eh, I'll let it be countered, draw to replace, play inferno titan, oh, it's free, cool. Bolt you at eot, lose lose, yeah, I'll pay RR for my bolt. Heck, you actually could even chose to draw a card even if you won both flips if you just wanted to cycle for free.
Raven of omens is great. I love it. Don't change a thing.
I hated Elini at first, but the more I reread her, the more I think that she's fine. Honestly, she costs 7, you could probably even bump her up to 12 loyalty.
The mark is fine except for one thing: It's titled 'mark of'. When I read it first, I assumed it was an aura. The name implies that a creature has been marked, but then I reread it, and it's a global enchantment. Change the name, keep the text.
Grats Ghoul and Mom, I'm happy for you both. I think I'm gonna stop participating for a few days to let my emotions cool. Best of luck to you both, and to anyone else who made the top 100.
BUT,
This card is surprisingly relevant in current type two.
Colorless free spell that can be played main/board against anyone,
If you kill their first squad hawk, you can fetch the other three out of their hand and make them RFG the whole lot.
or
After peeking with an inquisition, you can cabal therapy their hand for free if they have a same-named card in their yard (like perhaps the one you inquisitioned).
And, of course, most obviously, it deals with Vengevine and Bloodghast.
How interesting!
QFT.
Best draft formats of all time:
RGD
RoE x 3
MD5
Probably in that order.
Yup. That's the story.
Common
Planeswalker
-1 Deal 2 damage to target creature.
2
There's no rule the planeswalkers need to be complex, have abilities that add to their loyalty, or be extremely powerful. I recognize the argument that planeswalkers should be powerful for story reasons, but after the crap that happened in TimeSpiral, having the spark just isn't what it used to be. Honestly, I see no reason why a card couldn't attempt to show a planeswalker who just received the spark and is just learning to grow their power.
No, I'm not trolling.
Instant
Pay half your life, rounded up, target player gains 3 poison counters.
1. I can't agree that E is the only logical answer for a number of reasons. Had the question been worded "Which of these abilities could be printed on a creature without flash?", that would have been one thing, and then, yes, E would be correct, but the question was "Which of these wouldn't we do?" Mystic Snake, Briarhorn, and Haze Frog necessarily rule out 3 of the answers. That leaves "deal 2 damage to target attacking or blocking creature", a very white combat trick, and "double the damage of one of your spells on the stack", a very red trick. Now, let's look at them printing that white card. Does white get that ability often? Yes. Does white get flash creatures often? Compared to red, yes. Does red get this ability often? No. Never in fact, it's always tied to a permanent. Does red get flash creatures? Compared to the other colors, almost never. Would the white one's ability work well and play intuitively? Yes. Would the red one's ability work well and play intuitively? No, having to maintain priority while casting a spell, isn't something that should come up super-often. Sure, fork and such, but that's not a common occurrence. If the white ability was being printed on an instant, would someone say "hey, why don't we tie a body to that"? Yes, that would be very white. If the red ability was being printed on an instant, would someone say "hey, why don't we tie a body to that"? No, that's not really part of red's pie.
In short, I think that B is the only logical answer to the question as it is worded.
2. I bounced back and forth on this one. In the end, I did a study on milling effects and on cards with charge counters, and most of them were not common. I thought about opening a pack in a draft in triple scars, and thought about how absolutely useless this would be and how even in multiples it wouldn't effect anything. It would be a narrow, weak, build-around-me card that no one would want in limited, so I put uncommon. If it had support (a decent bit of proliferate, another bit of milling, etc.), I could see it being moved to common, sure, but in a vacuum, if this card were printed at common, I'd be upset every time I opened it in a pack in limited.
3. I'm missing the point of the question because I didn't imagine a scenario that isn't mentioned in order to contextualize it enough for it to make sense? Let's parse the question:
"Each Person". Who cares about the individual. White does sometimes, Blue, Red, and Black do all the time.
"Life". Black cares about life, as does Green, White too. Blue doesn't really talk about it and would be sad to not have life, Red... m'eh, life's just when I have my fun.
"Unfolds according to a Pattern." So, who believes in fate, destiny? Not Red, they're too busy smashing and having fun. Not Black, they make their own destiny. Blue might, but probably only insofar as it can be manipulated. Green believes in instinct, and the cycle of life and death, and living to your place in the universe. White believes in fate. They believe that every life has a meaning, and that everyone fighting and working and saccrificing themselves at the appropriate time is the meaning of life.
"Accepting this fact." Which color wants you to accept something. Black doesn't care what you think, nor blue, nor red. Green ~feels~, but honestly it feels with respect to itself. White is the only color who has a vested interest in proselytizing.
"Is the key" Who holds the believe that the actions of one person are very important in unlocking the future for everyone? Oh yeah, White.
"To harmony". Who wants harmony? White and Green.
So yeah, all in all it seems like the question strongly favors white to me. Green was my second choice, but the voice of the question promoting the individual so strongly made me go with white.
4. Cards which cause six point life swings can't be common? What about Bloodrite Invoker? That's a repeated 6 point life swing (on a 3/1 body just for humor's sake) at common that isn't even interactive with your opponent (being tapped out or not). I see his argument that 3 power lifelink guys haven't been printed at common, but honestly, I don't think that "double french" or "wrecks limited" are fair reasons to bump it to uncommon, and I'm not sure how anyone would have known that "no 3 power lifelinkers" is one of the rules for commonality. Common ~ 4B 3/1 lifelink haste, doesn't seem too bonkers to me.
5. I did pick Clone. The other four are total "build around me and show me what cool stuff you can do with me" cards, while Clone is just a utility creature that only helps once you already have your pieces assembled, if it had been Rite of Replication, then yeah, Devastating Summons is the least Johnny, as I know Johnnys who love that card, but it's because of the kicker, I don't know a singly Johnny who gives a crap about Clone.
If anyone is curious after reading this TL;DR response, I also missed 48, as I got sucked into the concept of the term without simply obeying the letter of it. I voted against Canyon Minotaur, as it's simplist category is "vanilla" and therefore falls into no more complicated categories, and voted against Ambassador Oak, as I got caught up on the clause about board complexity, and since the creature adds 2 vanilla creatures to the board, it is not in fact "a simple vanilla creature for purposes of evaluating the board state". I'm not very upset at missing that one, as I kind of expected to miss it, as I could see it going any number of ways.
I also missed 29, as I thought that there were no trick questions, so I imagined ties between each of the abilities, in short, changeling and flying appear in all colors, and there is a flavorful interaction, exalted and lifelink are white abilities that encourage you to go all in on one guy, infect and first strike don't share a color theme currently, but WotC did like playing with first strike and wither, as it makes for powerfully unblockable creatures, which is exactly what infect wants, and landfall and haste are both very aggressive mechanics focused on keeping all of your draws live and bringing your opponent to zero quickly. The only one I couldn't imagine a link between was echo and deathtouch.
Sorry if this came off as *****y, but to be so close and miss it by the above questions really bothers me, as I don't really think that those are 'wrong' answers at all.
Seems broken.
Obviously starting life changes... but still, seems... unfun.
So, I was sitting here thinking, and this idea just came to me, and I thought "surely WotC wouldn't be crazy enough to do that... would they?".
Anyway, the idea:
Affinity for ~Faction~ (Mirran / Phyrexian)
This spell costs 1 less to play for every Mirran/Phyrexian watermark among permanents you control.
Tell me I'm crazy and they'd never do that... right?
Let's start at the top,
an emblem gaining counters on it is awkward. I'm not entirely sure how to fix it, but here's a thought. "You gain an emblem that says 'during your upkeep, target player gets an omen counter. Any player with 3 or more omen counters loses the game." That way it's still you gaining the emblem, it still has the targeting restriction you seem to have wanted, they still die after 3 of their turns (yes, technically if you would be decked on the third turn, this version is slightly functionally different), and it's more useful in mulitplayer.
Big Rock is really cool, and I like the idea, but it suffers from the same problem that shuriken suffered from. Sure, the tap to equip has never been done before, but that's not really a problem in my mind. The tap it so that it can't be equipped again this turn thing doesn't work. First of all, it costs 5 mana to use... it's doubtful that many people would be able to get 2 activations out of it in the first place, more relevantly though, the wording only actually keeps you from getting 3 activations per turn out of it. And, well, to be honest, if you have 15 mana, you deserve to win anyway.
So, you have the rock attatched to one of your guys at the beginning of the turn, you tap the rock to attatch it to another creature you control, but while that's on the stack, you pay 5, tap the creature and throw the rock. It bolts a guy, then the attatch resolves, and you can now pay 5 and tap the new guy to throw the tapped rock again.
In short, either remove the 'and tap the rock' clause as it does nothing, or add tapping the rock along with the creature to the activation cost. Unless, of course, your goal was to keep the rock from being thrown 3 times per turn with 15 mana...
I know that your red walker has the words "flip a coin" on him, so anything he says clearly must be red. ... but the abilities after flip a coin still have to be at least vaguely red.
Each opponent player discards a card at random is black. Each player draws a card is blue. Permanently gaining control of non-land permanents is blue (yes it says until you lose a coin flip, but honestly, you could just pay RRR, slap this guy down, -1 him twice and go on with your life, or +1 him twice, then -1 him 4 times... he would get played that way, never flipping a coin after you steal their dudes, and permanent dude stealing isn't very red.) The ultimate should maybe cost 5, as playing the 2.5 best cards out of your hand +5 for free seems really really really strong. Also, "RRR, suspend 2, draw 5 cards" alone is ... well... not red yet again. If you added "then discard your hand" to the end of his ultimate it'd feel a lot more red.
Again, I really like the ideas you're having, just the implementation is a little off.
The alternate ultimate is quite simply broken. 1/4 of your spells for the rest of the game are free. 1/2 of your spells for the rest of the game you get to either pay normal mana cost for, or cycle for free. 1/4 of your spells for the rest of the game you may pay double their mana cost, or simply cycle for free. Especially in red, this is devastatingly broken. Imagine that you're sitting across from someone who does this. They play a devastating force, and flip their coins. Op, only 1 heads, m'eh, I'll let it be countered, draw to replace, play inferno titan, oh, it's free, cool. Bolt you at eot, lose lose, yeah, I'll pay RR for my bolt. Heck, you actually could even chose to draw a card even if you won both flips if you just wanted to cycle for free.
Raven of omens is great. I love it. Don't change a thing.
I hated Elini at first, but the more I reread her, the more I think that she's fine. Honestly, she costs 7, you could probably even bump her up to 12 loyalty.
The mark is fine except for one thing: It's titled 'mark of'. When I read it first, I assumed it was an aura. The name implies that a creature has been marked, but then I reread it, and it's a global enchantment. Change the name, keep the text.
Hope that helps.
~Lon-Pii