Design -
(3/3) Appeal: Timmy likes self-recurring cards and "storytelling" creatures. Johnny has lots to do with this. Spike likes the #value inherent in a duder with a useful tap ability that has vigilance AND recurs.
(2.5/3) Elegance: P/T setting effects are a bit complex.
Development -
(2.5/3) Viability: Colors and rarity are right. Slight knock is that Shadowmoor (which this card is clearly from) is associated with hybrid rather than straight-multicolor, and I think this card as-is could have easily had a hybrid mana cost.
(3/3) Balance: Strong and versatile but far from OP. Looks nice.
Creativity -
(2.5/3) Uniqueness: Has some precedent, even in Shadowmoor block itself (Inkfathom Witch) but a unique package for sure.
(2.5/3) Flavor: Pretty nice (are we meant to think of Brigadoon?) but could have used flavor text.
Polish -
(3/3) Quality: Seems fine.
(2/2) *Main Challenge: Done.
(2/2) Subchallenges: And done (definitely a white card).
Total: 23/25
(3/3) Appeal: Timmy likes self-recurring cards and "storytelling" creatures. Johnny has lots to do with this. Spike likes the #value inherent in a duder with a useful tap ability that has vigilance AND recurs.
(2.5/3) Elegance: P/T setting effects are a bit complex.
Development -
(2.5/3) Viability: Colors and rarity are right. Slight knock is that Shadowmoor (which this card is clearly from) is associated with hybrid rather than straight-multicolor, and I think this card as-is could have easily had a hybrid mana cost.
(3/3) Balance: Strong and versatile but far from OP. Looks nice.
Creativity -
(2.5/3) Uniqueness: Has some precedent, even in Shadowmoor block itself (Inkfathom Witch) but a unique package for sure.
(2.5/3) Flavor: Pretty nice (are we meant to think of Brigadoon?) but could have used flavor text.
Polish -
(3/3) Quality: Seems fine.
(2/2) *Main Challenge: Done.
(2/2) Subchallenges: And done (definitely a white card).
Total: 23/25
Design -
(2/3) Appeal: Timmy likes creatures that can get him revenge. Johnny could maybe do something unusual with the hoser abilities; Spike, meanwhile, cringes at the notion of paying that cost for narrow hosing.
(0/3) Elegance: This card is frankly hard to read. Even correctly templated ("Triggered abilities your opponents control triggered by one or more permanents entering the battlefield can't cause you to lose life. Whenever an opponent casts an instant or sorcery spell from their graveyard, you may cast an instant or sorcery card in your graveyard.") is incredibly inelegant and the abilities are at best disjointed.
Development -
(3/3) Viability: Nothing wrong with the colors. This would have been a pretty poor mythic; rare is fine.
(3/3) Balance: A fairly expensive hatebear (the marquee abilities are both straight, narrow hosers) is nothing earth-shaking.
Creativity -
(1.5/3) Uniqueness: Obviously derivative of Toshiro Umezawa as well as (I think this was your intent?) Torpor Orb and its similar effects.
(3/3) Flavor: Definitely this card's strong point; implies some things that as far as we know didn't happen in the Kamigawa story (anyhow whom did Toshi father an illegitimate daughter on? Michiko? Kiku? ...Uramon?), and I will note that Akira is vanishingly unusual but not incorrect as a woman's name, but the flavor is really intriguing.
Polish -
(0/3) Quality: Besides the need for dramatic wording corrections as noted above: Card names don't end in periods. There's no space between the name and the mana cost. There is no spacing setting off the dash between the type and subtypes. And only the first keyword in a line gets capitalized.
(2/2) *Main Challenge: Done.
(2/2) Subchallenges: And done.
Total: 16.5/25
(2/3) Appeal: Timmy likes creatures that can get him revenge. Johnny could maybe do something unusual with the hoser abilities; Spike, meanwhile, cringes at the notion of paying that cost for narrow hosing.
(0/3) Elegance: This card is frankly hard to read. Even correctly templated ("Triggered abilities your opponents control triggered by one or more permanents entering the battlefield can't cause you to lose life. Whenever an opponent casts an instant or sorcery spell from their graveyard, you may cast an instant or sorcery card in your graveyard.") is incredibly inelegant and the abilities are at best disjointed.
Development -
(3/3) Viability: Nothing wrong with the colors. This would have been a pretty poor mythic; rare is fine.
(3/3) Balance: A fairly expensive hatebear (the marquee abilities are both straight, narrow hosers) is nothing earth-shaking.
Creativity -
(1.5/3) Uniqueness: Obviously derivative of Toshiro Umezawa as well as (I think this was your intent?) Torpor Orb and its similar effects.
(3/3) Flavor: Definitely this card's strong point; implies some things that as far as we know didn't happen in the Kamigawa story (anyhow whom did Toshi father an illegitimate daughter on? Michiko? Kiku? ...Uramon?), and I will note that Akira is vanishingly unusual but not incorrect as a woman's name, but the flavor is really intriguing.
Polish -
(0/3) Quality: Besides the need for dramatic wording corrections as noted above: Card names don't end in periods. There's no space between the name and the mana cost. There is no spacing setting off the dash between the type and subtypes. And only the first keyword in a line gets capitalized.
(2/2) *Main Challenge: Done.
(2/2) Subchallenges: And done.
Total: 16.5/25
Design -
(3/3) Appeal: Timmy, Johnny, and Spike have very similar reasons to like a creature that can die over and over and refill your hand as it does so.
(3/3) Elegance: Very elegant indeed.
Development -
(3/3) Viability: Colors, rarity, and indeed creature types all spot-on.
(2.5/3) Balance: Strong stuff - strong enough to take over Limited games; but the ability is expensive enough that it can be dealt with before an engine can get started, which is helpful.
Creativity -
(1.5/3) Uniqueness: The ability is sort of "obvious" and the card itself vaguely resembles Heartmender.
(3/3) Flavor: Solid.
Polish -
(2.5/3) Quality: Flavor text appears to need quotation marks and a period.
(2/2) *Main Challenge: Good.
(2/2) Subchallenges: Done.
Total: 22.5/25
(3/3) Appeal: Timmy, Johnny, and Spike have very similar reasons to like a creature that can die over and over and refill your hand as it does so.
(3/3) Elegance: Very elegant indeed.
Development -
(3/3) Viability: Colors, rarity, and indeed creature types all spot-on.
(2.5/3) Balance: Strong stuff - strong enough to take over Limited games; but the ability is expensive enough that it can be dealt with before an engine can get started, which is helpful.
Creativity -
(1.5/3) Uniqueness: The ability is sort of "obvious" and the card itself vaguely resembles Heartmender.
(3/3) Flavor: Solid.
Polish -
(2.5/3) Quality: Flavor text appears to need quotation marks and a period.
(2/2) *Main Challenge: Good.
(2/2) Subchallenges: Done.
Total: 22.5/25
Design -
(3/3) Appeal: Timmy likes weenie beaters and blowin' stuff up. Johnny wants to make an engine. Spike salivates at a threat that's also recursive removal.
(3/3) Elegance: Pretty elegant stuff.
Development -
(3/3) Viability: Nothing wrong with white and rare but this really feels like it could be mythic.
(2/3) Balance: Pretty similar to the previous card I rated (Liadd) but with a counter removing ability that's an order of magnitude stronger for the same amount of mana; this card seems all-in-all hard to balance. The costs seem okay at first blush, though.
Creativity -
(1.5/3) Uniqueness: The love child of Heartmender and Mangara of Corondor.
(2.5/3) Flavor: Good but somewhat generic flavor; if this had been an Archon I think I would have given full points.
Polish -
(3/3) Quality: Good.
(2/2) *Main Challenge: Done.
(2/2) Subchallenges: And done.
Total: 22/25
(3/3) Appeal: Timmy likes weenie beaters and blowin' stuff up. Johnny wants to make an engine. Spike salivates at a threat that's also recursive removal.
(3/3) Elegance: Pretty elegant stuff.
Development -
(3/3) Viability: Nothing wrong with white and rare but this really feels like it could be mythic.
(2/3) Balance: Pretty similar to the previous card I rated (Liadd) but with a counter removing ability that's an order of magnitude stronger for the same amount of mana; this card seems all-in-all hard to balance. The costs seem okay at first blush, though.
Creativity -
(1.5/3) Uniqueness: The love child of Heartmender and Mangara of Corondor.
(2.5/3) Flavor: Good but somewhat generic flavor; if this had been an Archon I think I would have given full points.
Polish -
(3/3) Quality: Good.
(2/2) *Main Challenge: Done.
(2/2) Subchallenges: And done.
Total: 22/25
Design -
(3/3) Appeal: Timmy likes getting all his creatures back. Johnny has plenty of combos here. Spike sees degeneracy.
(3/3) Elegance: Solidly elegant.
Development -
(2/3) Viability: Cauldron of Souls suggests this effect needs to be rare. White's probably fine, though.
(2/3) Balance: As noted below, Cauldron of Souls is a strong combo card as-is - this card removes its internal stopgap against degeneracy.
Creativity -
(0/3) Uniqueness: The card is pretty much exactly Cauldron of Souls without the ability formatting that prevents doing things like, say, going infinite with anything that ETBs with a +1/+1 counter and any sac outlet.
(3/3) Flavor: Definitely the best point here. Locating persist on New Phyrexia has obviously not been done before but it's not impossible to imagine (although Phyrexia is about "perfection", not coming back lesser), or as a one-off card in a Commander product that features persist.
Polish -
(3/3) Quality:
(0/2) *Main Challenge: This card does not have persist or undying, nor, indeed, can it even gain one of those abilities itself. DQ.
(0/2) Subchallenges: The card is not legendary, nor is it a white card with persist nor a blue card with undying.
Total: DQ (16)/25
(3/3) Appeal: Timmy likes getting all his creatures back. Johnny has plenty of combos here. Spike sees degeneracy.
(3/3) Elegance: Solidly elegant.
Development -
(2/3) Viability: Cauldron of Souls suggests this effect needs to be rare. White's probably fine, though.
(2/3) Balance: As noted below, Cauldron of Souls is a strong combo card as-is - this card removes its internal stopgap against degeneracy.
Creativity -
(0/3) Uniqueness: The card is pretty much exactly Cauldron of Souls without the ability formatting that prevents doing things like, say, going infinite with anything that ETBs with a +1/+1 counter and any sac outlet.
(3/3) Flavor: Definitely the best point here. Locating persist on New Phyrexia has obviously not been done before but it's not impossible to imagine (although Phyrexia is about "perfection", not coming back lesser), or as a one-off card in a Commander product that features persist.
Polish -
(3/3) Quality:
(0/2) *Main Challenge: This card does not have persist or undying, nor, indeed, can it even gain one of those abilities itself. DQ.
(0/2) Subchallenges: The card is not legendary, nor is it a white card with persist nor a blue card with undying.
Total: DQ (16)/25
Design -
(1.5/3) Appeal: Timmy sort of likes potentially massive lifegain, but also dislikes cards that cause pr encourage things to not happen. Johnny could do some dumb things here, blinking for a lock or some really strange combo with the lifegain ability. Spike is not much for the sheer cost, small size, and symmetricality, except if he's doing one of the Johnny things mentioned.
(1/3) Elegance: Multiple triggered abilities which have to be watched for, usually at least twice per time this is played. One of them involves phases skipped across multiple turns, another involves nonintuitive math. I would hate to have to keep track of all of this in Commander...
Development -
(3/3) Viability: Colors and rarity seem right.
(2.5/3) Balance: This card is quite swingy. When it's "off" it's innocuous and when it's "on" it makes games a painful slog.
Creativity -
(2/3) Uniqueness: All sort of cobbled together from multiple cards - the likes of Stonehorn Dignitary and Martyrs of Korlis, of all things.
(2.5/3) Flavor: I get who the character is from this card but the flavor is somewhat generic.
Polish -
(1.5/3) Quality: Reminder text needs italics. There is no "attack step" (there is a "declare attackers step"); what should be skipped is combat phases. The flavor text needs quotation marks.
(2/2) *Main Challenge: Met.
(2/2) Subchallenges: Done.
Total: 18/25
(1.5/3) Appeal: Timmy sort of likes potentially massive lifegain, but also dislikes cards that cause pr encourage things to not happen. Johnny could do some dumb things here, blinking for a lock or some really strange combo with the lifegain ability. Spike is not much for the sheer cost, small size, and symmetricality, except if he's doing one of the Johnny things mentioned.
(1/3) Elegance: Multiple triggered abilities which have to be watched for, usually at least twice per time this is played. One of them involves phases skipped across multiple turns, another involves nonintuitive math. I would hate to have to keep track of all of this in Commander...
Development -
(3/3) Viability: Colors and rarity seem right.
(2.5/3) Balance: This card is quite swingy. When it's "off" it's innocuous and when it's "on" it makes games a painful slog.
Creativity -
(2/3) Uniqueness: All sort of cobbled together from multiple cards - the likes of Stonehorn Dignitary and Martyrs of Korlis, of all things.
(2.5/3) Flavor: I get who the character is from this card but the flavor is somewhat generic.
Polish -
(1.5/3) Quality: Reminder text needs italics. There is no "attack step" (there is a "declare attackers step"); what should be skipped is combat phases. The flavor text needs quotation marks.
(2/2) *Main Challenge: Met.
(2/2) Subchallenges: Done.
Total: 18/25
Design -
(3/3) Appeal: Timmy likes hasty beaters that recur and throw damage around. Johnny has his reasons for playing this. Spike loves the speed and value, as well as the potentially high-tier combos.
(2.5/3) Elegance: Somewhat fiddly, but overall elegant.
Development -
(3/3) Viability: Colors and rarity seem correct.
(2.5/3) Balance: Obviously a pushed card and one with crazy combos that can be done, but nothing where a better combo can't be found, which is what matters.
Creativity -
(2.5/3) Uniqueness: Probably one of the more unique counter-removal cards of this round.
(2/3) Flavor: "Czar" is an odd name due to it being a real-world title.
Polish -
(1/3) Quality: It's "resilient." Mana symbols are in the wrong order. Persist shouldn't be capitalized and you're missing a couple of commas.
(2/2) *Main Challenge: Done.
(2/2) Subchallenges: And done.
Total: 20.5/25
(3/3) Appeal: Timmy likes hasty beaters that recur and throw damage around. Johnny has his reasons for playing this. Spike loves the speed and value, as well as the potentially high-tier combos.
(2.5/3) Elegance: Somewhat fiddly, but overall elegant.
Development -
(3/3) Viability: Colors and rarity seem correct.
(2.5/3) Balance: Obviously a pushed card and one with crazy combos that can be done, but nothing where a better combo can't be found, which is what matters.
Creativity -
(2.5/3) Uniqueness: Probably one of the more unique counter-removal cards of this round.
(2/3) Flavor: "Czar" is an odd name due to it being a real-world title.
Polish -
(1/3) Quality: It's "resilient." Mana symbols are in the wrong order. Persist shouldn't be capitalized and you're missing a couple of commas.
(2/2) *Main Challenge: Done.
(2/2) Subchallenges: And done.
Total: 20.5/25
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EDIT: I"ve been toying with doing a similar mono white weenie or w/g weenie, and i've been a fan of Wrath of God as I'm an old school lover and remember being dropped on me back in the day. Is it obsolete now or can I still run *** as a 2/3 of in weenie?