Simic Command GGUU
Instant
Choose two:
-Reveal the top card of your library. You may put it onto the battlefield if it's a creature or land.
-Creatures target player controls have base power and toughness 3/3 until end of turn.
-Activate an ability of a creature of your choice without paying its costs.
-Counter target spell unless its controller pays X, where X is the total power among creatures you control.
Tree of Vitality 2GGG
Creature - Plant
Defender T: Exchange your life total with the amount of green mana in your mana pool. GGG: Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
0/7
There's a damn good reason draft works better when there are fewer strong commons, but it's not immediately obvious, and it's unclear whether WotC is aware of it, though they ought to be with all their internal data. It's a benefit to draft only - I think I'd prefer a common-defined format in sealed. Unfortunately for sealed lovers, draft is more popular.
It's all about signalling. To be a consistently great drafter you must master signalling. And signalling falls apart when too many of the highest tier cards are commons.
This is easiest illustrated by example. Let's say you make some poor life decisions and draft m19. It's pack 1 pick 4. You didn't pick any green cards in picks 1-3, but maybe you saw a few mid tier green cards, nothing to get you to bite, but also notably not a total lack of green that would indicate it's being cut. Pack 4 comes and you see a Rabid Bite. (Hint: Rabid Bite and Druid of the Cowl are the two high tier green commons in m19). There are two possibilities for how this Rabid Bite got to you at pick 4:
a) A series of players decided not to take a premium green card. Green is likely to be open from the right so long as none of them has a change of heart.
b) Somebody did take another premium green card. It was either the only other great common, Druid of the Cowl, or it was a rare or uncommon. Green will likely not be open from the right.
You can see that the inference that green is open from the right is much much more reliable when it's less likely that there were multiple premium green cards in the same pack, and that happens when the best cards are in the rare and uncommon slots. Significantly increase the number of high tier cards at common and you explode the frequency of meaningless signals. If the average number of premium cards per color per pack is 2, receiving a pack of with 1 remaining could mean that one was taken, or it could mean that it only had one to begin with due to variance. Keeping the highest power in rare and uncommon pushes that average down and makes signals more reliable.
This was all assuming you meant you want more high tier cards at common. If you meant you want power level to rise such that power variance in limited becomes flatter, there's a different problem. It would result in either power creep or its opposite.
Dr Skittles 1
Legendary Artifact Creature - Myr
Sunburst (This enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it for each color of mana spent to cast it.)
Creature spells you cast gain Sunburst.
Partner
0/0
Can't wait for someone in a feature match to cast a desperate Mission Briefing with an empty yard and hit nothing but another Mission Briefing to spin the wheel again
Alright guys. I don't know why I asked for this. I'm going to be more negative than usual because I was looking for cards with terrible abilities, and I think a lot of you missed the old school requirement.
Trowel Priggants - This one gets disqualified for hybrid mana, and maybe less so for Wither too. But worst of all, it's a limited playable card with efficient stats and an interesting ability. Not what I was looking for. I like the name though.
Clurichaun Jugsmasher - What immediately stands out is that this is a red faerie, which doesn't exist outside of Wee Dragonauts, not good. Another thing that stands out is the lack of flying, but there's precedent for that. I like the mechanic but it feels a little too efficient. If I were more explicit in the challenge I would have said "create a faerie/ouphe with unplayable abilities and a line that justifies those abilities", and that's what the banding pump does. I could have said this for the first card but I'm now realizing that I'm aesthetically offended by the Uncommon declaration when these are cards meant to predate rarity indicators. Another good name.
Miscreant Ouphe - Way way way too efficient. Missed the mark on the activation cost too, ought to be GGGG.
Scryb Queen - I like this one, but it is very plain and uninspiring. Maybe that gives it extra points in a way. I like that it gives islandwalk with no justification. If it had a random activated ability with a hideous mana cost it would win easily. To be super nitpicky, it should not be a faerie itself and it should say All faeries get +1 and islandwalk, but it's more fair to assume everybody is submitting modern errata'd rules text for old cards.
Faerieland Banquet - Immediately disqualified for the Tribal type. Cool card beyond the challenge constraints though. What the hell is going on? Would like to see it at a lower cost because activated abilities that do nearly nothing should cost a lot and cards that warp the game in a big way for example Stasis should be deployed early.
Karplusan Brownie - Liking this card, but I will continue with negative criticism and say the activation costs are too cheap. They are also a bit too relevant to a game of Magic for my taste. Another 7-8/10 submission from void.
Mischevious Monomal - Blue ouphes??? Beyond that, it fits in. Along with most submissions, this is higher in p/t and/or lower in activation cost than I'd like.
Spelldreamer's Sryb Queen takes it. It could use some extra spice, but I think it would fit in best with the other oldschool sprites.
Depths Plunger 4BBB
Creature - Leviathan
T: Put target creature or land on the bottom of its owner's library.
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice ~ unless you put a permanent you control on the bottom of its owner's library.
6/9
There's a saying about knowledge - you can divide your expertise into 4 categories: not knowing what you know, knowing what you know, knowing what you don't know, and not knowing what you don't know. You are in the "not knowing what you don't know" phase when it comes to sucking at Magic. You're bad and you don't know what you're doing wrong (likely you also don't know when you do things right).
If you'd like to get better, or if you'd like some closure, the best way forward is to join forces with somebody who can perceive right vs wrong strategies and have them play with you over skype/discord/twitch. You already tried simulating the success of others but that hasn't worked. Try playing with live help and have them point out mistakes as you make them. A successful friend would be the best help, but if you don't know anybody, there's always twitch chat to roast you.
I see this more as a rules question than an ethics question, because players ought to have explicit guidelines to know when they are obliged to take an action that hurts them, that way "doing the right thing" is required and more than an option that taxes kind-hearted people. I don't know the rules answer.
Back in ethics land, I think it is good to inform them that they are slow playing, for reasons broader than the single outcome of the game. Playing slowly is a bad habit. That guy needs to be told when he's playing too slow or he won't recognize his problem. One day his problem benefits you, but is that the generic case? I would expect in most cases it doesn't benefit you (especially considering it's giving him more time to think), and it's a time loss for everybody at the tournament waiting for the round to end.
Bandana of the Free 1
Artifact - Equipment R: Equipped creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn. W: Equipped creature gets +0/+1 until end of turn. U: Untap equipped creature.
Equip 2
Bandana of the Free costs 2 less to equip if you are a citizen of the United States of America
Ambitious Hermit Crab UB
Creature - Crab X, T: Attach target creature or artifact card with converted mana cost X in a graveyard to ~ and unattach any other cards in graveyards. As long as a card is attached this way, ~ gets +0/+X.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if ~ has 12 or more toughness, you win the game.
1/3
Ukor's Hex - Super sexy card. Has potential to be both back-breaking and low impact, with the most devastating case being playing this against an opponent stuck on two lands and nothing else to sacrifice, and the worst case this never interrupting the opponent in a significant way, similar to Torment of Scarabs. At first I was put off by the second color in the Echo. Can't black do this all by itself? But I appreciate that this card could be annoying to play against as an uncommon in limited, where it does belong in terms of complexity, so it's nice to limit its full effect to Rakdos players or black players paying the price of splashing red.
Pupating Hydra - I'm not much of a Timmy, but I like this big monster. It is flexible. It is modal: if you'd like, you could play it with the intention of sacrificing it to Echo to get the insects immediately; plus you get to decide the X in the Echo. I like the triple green as the minimum Echo cost because it is not as trivial to pay as a single mana but also may leave you with some mana open if that's your game plan. I like that this guy doesn't have trample because it is already a sweet rare, and I'm not a fan of piling on extra power where it's not needed.
Tibalt, Cackling Fiend - Oh boy. When I made Echo the challenge I knew I was in for cards that would be difficult to evaluate, since Echo lets you cram in more power on layaway. Now you put it on a planeswalker, the most difficult card type to evaluate! The most interesting thing about a planeswalker with Echo is that you don't need to pay the Echo if your opponent kills it before your next turn. So your opponent must decide (if they have a choice) if they want to attack it immediately or wait for you to spend more mana on it. That's a fun mini-game to play. It does look like Tibalt is the kind of guy you want sticking around, not to play for a one time effect. The land transfer ability is too weak to intend to play this and not pay the Echo, unless there's an important utility land you want to blow up. It's neat that you can target your own land with the second ability. After paying Echo, or even after playing him for the first time, you can destroy your tapped mountain and search up a fresh one. That's a big deal at such early turns when one mana is 50% or 1/3 of all the mana you have access to. It's good that he costs RR otherwise the ability might be used too often as color fixing. Overall I like him and think he's printable, which is higher praise than it sounds given how difficult it is to design a fair planeswalker with Echo.
Stitcher's Workshop - I'm a little torn here. I really like the kind of flexibility seen in Ukor's Hex, where you can play a card with the intention of not paying Echo and get fair value. You can't do that here at a steep 5 mana, and I wish you could, but I also see that it's not necessarily correct to fiddle with the costs and make it cheaper by putting some mana in the Echo, because part of the appeal of this card is that there is no mana at all in the Echo, so you can spend your whole turn paying for a creature you return. Letting go of that desire for flexibility, I see a fun card that is conservatively costed. Hitting the opponent ranges from nearly free to very difficult. To go along with the Stitcher's theme I would like to switch the combat requirement with an EOT trigger that checks whether one of your creatures has died this turn, that way you have a constant churning of corpses.
Hall of Infinite Echoes - I like that although this has nearly zero immediate impact, it can have some immediate impact if any permanents entered last turn. 5 mana looks right. Extra curses are always appreciated. Might want to be legendary. The blink effect seems too good even at 10 mana. Not that 10 mana is too cheap, but that you can do it repeatably. It needs another meaningful cost, something that stops you from spamming it over and over, maybe exiling some number of cards from your library like Arc-Slogger, or sacrificing two lands. Other than that, sweet prison card.
Lots of great cards this challenge. Win goes to void_nothing's Ukor's Hex because I'm biased towards simplicity and lower rarities designed for limited.
Next: Alternate win conditions on things other than enchantments and/or alternate win condition keywords.
Instant
Choose two:
-Reveal the top card of your library. You may put it onto the battlefield if it's a creature or land.
-Creatures target player controls have base power and toughness 3/3 until end of turn.
-Activate an ability of a creature of your choice without paying its costs.
-Counter target spell unless its controller pays X, where X is the total power among creatures you control.
IIW: cards with off-color activated abilities
Creature - Plant
Defender
T: Exchange your life total with the amount of green mana in your mana pool.
GGG: Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
0/7
IIW: a whale creature or whale-themed spell
It's all about signalling. To be a consistently great drafter you must master signalling. And signalling falls apart when too many of the highest tier cards are commons.
This is easiest illustrated by example. Let's say you make some poor life decisions and draft m19. It's pack 1 pick 4. You didn't pick any green cards in picks 1-3, but maybe you saw a few mid tier green cards, nothing to get you to bite, but also notably not a total lack of green that would indicate it's being cut. Pack 4 comes and you see a Rabid Bite. (Hint: Rabid Bite and Druid of the Cowl are the two high tier green commons in m19). There are two possibilities for how this Rabid Bite got to you at pick 4:
a) A series of players decided not to take a premium green card. Green is likely to be open from the right so long as none of them has a change of heart.
b) Somebody did take another premium green card. It was either the only other great common, Druid of the Cowl, or it was a rare or uncommon. Green will likely not be open from the right.
You can see that the inference that green is open from the right is much much more reliable when it's less likely that there were multiple premium green cards in the same pack, and that happens when the best cards are in the rare and uncommon slots. Significantly increase the number of high tier cards at common and you explode the frequency of meaningless signals. If the average number of premium cards per color per pack is 2, receiving a pack of with 1 remaining could mean that one was taken, or it could mean that it only had one to begin with due to variance. Keeping the highest power in rare and uncommon pushes that average down and makes signals more reliable.
This was all assuming you meant you want more high tier cards at common. If you meant you want power level to rise such that power variance in limited becomes flatter, there's a different problem. It would result in either power creep or its opposite.
Instant
Counter target spell that has four or more lines of text.
IIW: a Starfish with an additional creature type
Legendary Artifact Creature - Myr
Sunburst (This enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it for each color of mana spent to cast it.)
Creature spells you cast gain Sunburst.
Partner
0/0
IIW: inspired by / named after candy
Trowel Priggants - This one gets disqualified for hybrid mana, and maybe less so for Wither too. But worst of all, it's a limited playable card with efficient stats and an interesting ability. Not what I was looking for. I like the name though.
Clurichaun Jugsmasher - What immediately stands out is that this is a red faerie, which doesn't exist outside of Wee Dragonauts, not good. Another thing that stands out is the lack of flying, but there's precedent for that. I like the mechanic but it feels a little too efficient. If I were more explicit in the challenge I would have said "create a faerie/ouphe with unplayable abilities and a line that justifies those abilities", and that's what the banding pump does. I could have said this for the first card but I'm now realizing that I'm aesthetically offended by the Uncommon declaration when these are cards meant to predate rarity indicators. Another good name.
Miscreant Ouphe - Way way way too efficient. Missed the mark on the activation cost too, ought to be GGGG.
Scryb Queen - I like this one, but it is very plain and uninspiring. Maybe that gives it extra points in a way. I like that it gives islandwalk with no justification. If it had a random activated ability with a hideous mana cost it would win easily. To be super nitpicky, it should not be a faerie itself and it should say All faeries get +1 and islandwalk, but it's more fair to assume everybody is submitting modern errata'd rules text for old cards.
Faerieland Banquet - Immediately disqualified for the Tribal type. Cool card beyond the challenge constraints though. What the hell is going on? Would like to see it at a lower cost because activated abilities that do nearly nothing should cost a lot and cards that warp the game in a big way for example Stasis should be deployed early.
Karplusan Brownie - Liking this card, but I will continue with negative criticism and say the activation costs are too cheap. They are also a bit too relevant to a game of Magic for my taste. Another 7-8/10 submission from void.
Mischevious Monomal - Blue ouphes??? Beyond that, it fits in. Along with most submissions, this is higher in p/t and/or lower in activation cost than I'd like.
Spelldreamer's Sryb Queen takes it. It could use some extra spice, but I think it would fit in best with the other oldschool sprites.
next: Design a legendary creature with Partner.
Creature - Leviathan
T: Put target creature or land on the bottom of its owner's library.
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice ~ unless you put a permanent you control on the bottom of its owner's library.
6/9
IIW: old style faeries or ouphes
If you'd like to get better, or if you'd like some closure, the best way forward is to join forces with somebody who can perceive right vs wrong strategies and have them play with you over skype/discord/twitch. You already tried simulating the success of others but that hasn't worked. Try playing with live help and have them point out mistakes as you make them. A successful friend would be the best help, but if you don't know anybody, there's always twitch chat to roast you.
Back in ethics land, I think it is good to inform them that they are slow playing, for reasons broader than the single outcome of the game. Playing slowly is a bad habit. That guy needs to be told when he's playing too slow or he won't recognize his problem. One day his problem benefits you, but is that the generic case? I would expect in most cases it doesn't benefit you (especially considering it's giving him more time to think), and it's a time loss for everybody at the tournament waiting for the round to end.
Artifact - Equipment
R: Equipped creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
W: Equipped creature gets +0/+1 until end of turn.
U: Untap equipped creature.
Equip 2
Bandana of the Free costs 2 less to equip if you are a citizen of the United States of America
IIW: Explosive things
Creature - Crab
X, T: Attach target creature or artifact card with converted mana cost X in a graveyard to ~ and unattach any other cards in graveyards. As long as a card is attached this way, ~ gets +0/+X.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if ~ has 12 or more toughness, you win the game.
1/3
Pupating Hydra - I'm not much of a Timmy, but I like this big monster. It is flexible. It is modal: if you'd like, you could play it with the intention of sacrificing it to Echo to get the insects immediately; plus you get to decide the X in the Echo. I like the triple green as the minimum Echo cost because it is not as trivial to pay as a single mana but also may leave you with some mana open if that's your game plan. I like that this guy doesn't have trample because it is already a sweet rare, and I'm not a fan of piling on extra power where it's not needed.
Tibalt, Cackling Fiend - Oh boy. When I made Echo the challenge I knew I was in for cards that would be difficult to evaluate, since Echo lets you cram in more power on layaway. Now you put it on a planeswalker, the most difficult card type to evaluate! The most interesting thing about a planeswalker with Echo is that you don't need to pay the Echo if your opponent kills it before your next turn. So your opponent must decide (if they have a choice) if they want to attack it immediately or wait for you to spend more mana on it. That's a fun mini-game to play. It does look like Tibalt is the kind of guy you want sticking around, not to play for a one time effect. The land transfer ability is too weak to intend to play this and not pay the Echo, unless there's an important utility land you want to blow up. It's neat that you can target your own land with the second ability. After paying Echo, or even after playing him for the first time, you can destroy your tapped mountain and search up a fresh one. That's a big deal at such early turns when one mana is 50% or 1/3 of all the mana you have access to. It's good that he costs RR otherwise the ability might be used too often as color fixing. Overall I like him and think he's printable, which is higher praise than it sounds given how difficult it is to design a fair planeswalker with Echo.
Stitcher's Workshop - I'm a little torn here. I really like the kind of flexibility seen in Ukor's Hex, where you can play a card with the intention of not paying Echo and get fair value. You can't do that here at a steep 5 mana, and I wish you could, but I also see that it's not necessarily correct to fiddle with the costs and make it cheaper by putting some mana in the Echo, because part of the appeal of this card is that there is no mana at all in the Echo, so you can spend your whole turn paying for a creature you return. Letting go of that desire for flexibility, I see a fun card that is conservatively costed. Hitting the opponent ranges from nearly free to very difficult. To go along with the Stitcher's theme I would like to switch the combat requirement with an EOT trigger that checks whether one of your creatures has died this turn, that way you have a constant churning of corpses.
Hall of Infinite Echoes - I like that although this has nearly zero immediate impact, it can have some immediate impact if any permanents entered last turn. 5 mana looks right. Extra curses are always appreciated. Might want to be legendary. The blink effect seems too good even at 10 mana. Not that 10 mana is too cheap, but that you can do it repeatably. It needs another meaningful cost, something that stops you from spamming it over and over, maybe exiling some number of cards from your library like Arc-Slogger, or sacrificing two lands. Other than that, sweet prison card.
Lots of great cards this challenge. Win goes to void_nothing's Ukor's Hex because I'm biased towards simplicity and lower rarities designed for limited.
Next: Alternate win conditions on things other than enchantments and/or alternate win condition keywords.
judging either late tonight or tomorrow afternoon