Imagine this: you’re playing your favorite deck. It’s round three at FNM and when you start playing your opponent, it slowly dawns on you. They’re playing the same deck as you! Sure, they’ve got a few cards here and there that are different, but it’s clearly the same type of deck. You’re going into game two, what are you to do?
Some people may be familiar with the term mirror breaker, and no, I don’t mean that one goblin guy from that plane everyone likes. A mirror breaker is a card that makes it so that if you have to fight yourself, you’ll win! And that’s what I’m going to be asking for this week.
This week’s contest: Design a card that beats the deck it goes in.
Examples include Glare of Heresy, Plague Sliver, and Last Word.
You can also be a little more indirect, such as by just having the card be better against itself, like Redcap Melee, or a card like Dragon’s Claw which saw some play in burn decks even though it was a straight lifegain card because both sides were casting red spells.
I will assume the card is designed for standard unless told otherwise. Due to the nature of the contest, I’d suggest designing for formats with sideboards.
There will be three winners: one for most creative way to break the mirror, one for most main-deckable, and one for best overall card.
This is a bit more of a technical challenge than usual, but I thought it might be fun for some of the more competitively-inclined designers we have.
If you need someone to bounce ideas off of, try chatting with some of the crew at our discord >>HERE<<.
If you’ve got your mirror-breaker all polished, you can submit it >>HERE<<.
Congratulations to our winners this week! Respectively, @col-seaker-of-the-memiest-legion wins most unique way to beat the mirror, @davriel-canes-tea-supplier wins most main-deckable, and @nine-effing-hells wins best overall card!
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Otherworldly Infiltrator
I saw you working on this in the Discord, and I liked it when it was just the activated ability. This is meant for a control mirror, and I absolutely love the way you built for that. A counter that gets around counters and even Teferi-style Silence effects is incredibly clever. I do, however, think there was a little space to have some sort of reason to cast it as a creature. Even if it just had two power, it could be some sort of way to close out a game by getting it down early when they aren’t expecting it, or bouncing it to your hand to use the ability when they least expect it. If you completely ignore the creature side, this card is really cool and clever and a great entry, easily the most interesting way to break the mirror.
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Accelerant Captain
Hellrider’s little brother! Yeah, in the mirror this is bonkers. You can still play this in the main deck, and you’d be happy to, but depending on the format this could be more of a sideboard effect. I also love the “keyword tribal” effects we see every so often, like in Ikoria with the keyword counters. I also think it’s juuuust weak enough that it feels like it’s meant for something specific rather than just being generally good. I appreciate that. The fact that it’s just a single damage stops this from getting out of hand, but also lead to some fun with Torbran and the like. I think this is a super straightforward but super fun and well-designed answer to the prompt this week.
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Demon of Peccadilloes
You made me google a word! That’s fine, it was a learning experience. This is another one of those “punish you for doing your thing but I can also force you to do it anyway” cards that I think are really neat for this contest. A 1/1 for 1 with menace is not great but almost playable, whereas if your opponent pays life even once this feels pretty good. I worry a bit about players paying too much attention to what is “paying” vs. “losing” life and falling into traps with cards like Dark Confident or Glint Sleeve Siphoner that feel like they should be “pay life” effects even though they aren’t. The ability will mostly trigger through Phyrexian life costs and fetch/shock lands, which means this guy would be a real demon in modern. In the death’s shadow mirror, this guy is going to crush faces. The menace is also super helpful in the matchup, since it lets you dodge the death’s shadow itself if they manage to stick one (hopefully you can kill the other). As I said earlier, I also like how you can force players to pay life some ways, like with Killing Wave and Indulgent Tormentor. The more I look at this card the more I like it. I could see this card being the basis for a deck, but also see it in the intended manner as a mirror-breaker. That’s a rare thing, but you pulled it off!
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And there are your winners for this week! Congratulations once again to all of our winners, it was a very tough choice this week, there were a ton of good entries. We’ll see a few more of them tomorrow with the runners-up!
Congrats to our runners-up this week! @hypexion with Destroy Imposter, @morbidlyqueerious with Sabuzeh, the Stormwind, and @demimonde-semigoddess with Curse of Wandering!
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Destroy Imposter
I understood that reference. Well, I saw the word “imposter” in a dark frame and immediately thought of shadow the hedgehog and then double checked the flavor text and was spot on. The art, though, is amazing as well. As for the card, it’s great! It’s exactly what I expected to see this week. It’s the Mystical Rebuttal of black! Well, okay, Specter’s Shriek was, technically, but this is closer. I love when removal gets cheaper under the right conditions, because limited really wants removal to be around 5 mana and constructed really wants it to be 2 or 3, so finding a way to do both is always great. While I think you could mainboard this, I could see it being a sideboard card if the meta was fast enough that four mana felt like too much. But yeah, that’s what it does. It kills things, but kills things easier in the mirror. Kind of wish there was more to say about it, but you kind of went straight to the meat of the contest.
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Sabuzeh, the Stormwind
That border really threw me for a loop, I thought this was hybrid and was about to go off! However, it’s not, and is a pretty cool card! The draw two archetype has been coming in and out of standard and even had a presence in the original modern horizons, and this would be a great commander for it. It lets you pick off little creatures or shock your opponent's face every time you draw your second card, but hey, it’ll do it if your opponent does, too! The activated ability has some weird stuff going on. If your deck has mostly cards that trigger just off yourself drawing two, then you’ll want to do it on your turn, but then you’re tapped out after giving your opponent a card. Waiting until their end step is more useful, but then if they draw two cards anyway you’re not getting value off it unless you also had another way to draw a card. The activation cost is also kind of funky, both because the fact that you can draw a card with 3RR feels really weird (but I don’t think it technically breaks any rules because it’s on a card you need blue mana for?), and because it’s really expensive compared to Azure Mage, Spectral Sailor, or Treasure Trove which all do it for four mana without giving your opponents any benefit. I think you could have dropped it to four easily, or maybe keep it at five but get to pick who gets to draw, especially if this is intended to be a commander. Other than that, I think the card is really well made! It feels really strong in the mirror but also has some utility without it, and I think players would have a lot of fun with it.
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Curse of Wandering
I like how you made this a curse, so you could enchant yourself with it if you so desired. If you’re exiling the cards anyway (like with delve) then why not get some extra value? The fact that it’s a replacement effect that does what it replaces leads to some strange interactions if you have multiples, where you’ll exile a creature but then instead exile it and make a token but then instead of exiling it make a token. So you get extra tokens with extra copies of this, which if it was intentional I’m really impressed with, it’s rare that hosers do anything extra in multiples. The comparison to Desecrated tomb feels appropriate, and the fact that this makes what is almost definitely a better creature but is also harder to recur but also can hit opponents means the costing here feels good. I actually don’t know how good this would be in the mirror, and if it would just be worse than Grafdiggers Cage or the like. This lets the players move around their creatures, but you benefit off it, so they can just… not do that. There’s not a ton of forced graveyard shenanigans, so your opponent can just choose not to do them. At which point you paid three mana for a Grafdiggers Cage. But the extra copies can benefit you, so I guess that’s not that bad. As a whole I think this card is cool and I like a lot of the little ways it works. The flavor also feels really spot on, from being an actual curse to also affecting creatures attempting to be properly buried (aka exiled or “buried” under the deck).
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And that’s the runners-up! Good job all of you, I was very happy with what you all did! In general, actually I was really happy with what everybody did! This was a very technical contest, so I’m glad we had people who were up to the challenge. I was very impressed with all of you!
Congratulations, you’re playing yourself. How do you win? What is the card that you can have that would make the difference? Let’s look at some examples of deck archetypes and see what could break the mirror, in theory.
Aggro
Let’s start off with the easy one. Aggro deals a bunch of damage, usually with hastey small creatures. Normally, the way to beat that is by killing creatures cheaply, playing bigger creatures to block the smaller ones, or gaining life. The first one can be tough because pointing burn at creatures slows your clock, and playing bigger creatures is tough to do in a deck low to the ground. Gaining life is nice if you’re not in mono-red, and a lot of modern burn decks play Lightning Helix to help keep them alive. There’s also cards like Searing Blood and Searing Blaze that are able to hit creatures AND players, but at the cost of being dead in hand against creatureless decks. Try thinking of what can keep you dealing damage while removing your opponent’s ability to do so.
Combo
Your and your opponent are both trying to pull off the same combo, so what can you do to mess with them while keeping you safe? This is perhaps the time where asymmetric effects are most important. Nevermore would be awful, but Gideon’s Intervention might work. However, these hate cards still need to do something in your deck. Depending on the combo, simply being the right type of card or having an otherwise unimportant keyword. A Pithing Needle works well in an artifact-centric Urza combo deck, and the mere mention of dredge makes any card at least feasible in a graveyard-focused deck. When in doubt, though, deck manipulation is always a way to make a card more viable in a combo deck. The thing about combo decks, though, is they all work slightly differently, so I think this has some great design space. For example, a variation of Hunt the Weak might work great in the Heliod combo deck, since it plays off the counters theme, but also removes a creature.
Control
Control mirrors: the bane of coverage and chess clocks alike. When both of you are playing lands and passing, what can you do to make sure you do it best? The obvious is just putting “can’t be countered” on anything. But what’s worth not being countered in a control deck? Well, counters themselves, but also creatures that can close out the game, card draw, or anything that circumvents any of those things. Another way to get around counters is cards with activated abilities; ways to leave up mana and get use out of it if you don’t need to counter things. Preferably on a land (which you could main-deck easily), but if it’s on a cheap but hard to get rid of permanent that could be nice, too.
Synergy
Some decks just try and do one thing really well. Sometimes mill decks are in this section, tribal decks are almost always this section, and “set mechanic: the deck” are in this section, too. This might be one of the most direct mirror-breaker types you can do. Plague Engineer is going to be useful in your elf deck even if it’s not an elf. You could also aim big with cards like Psychic Spiral, which are amazing in the mirror but could also be used in less fair ways. You’ll probably have to be very precise about your phrasing to make sure it doesn’t affect your own stuff, but if you can get around that I’ll be impressed. Try and pinpoint what the critical mass for your synergies are and see if you can get closer to it while pushing theirs away. Cling to Dust is great in the current standard’s Rogue mirror, since it can keep your graveyard clear of the 7 card threshold they need while keeping your hand full.
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Those are all of the archetypes I could come up with off the top of my head. If you need any more help thinking of how a deck can beat itself up, don’t hesitate to check out our Discord >>HERE<<! Or, if you’re all done, submit it >>HERE<<.
This was a really tough challenge, but you guys brought your A-game. I was really impressed. There was a good mix of ways to fit the challenge, too! Some people had symmetrical effects so you could benefit off your opponent doing things, some people had you steal other people’s things, some people had main-deck cards for the deck that just happen to work when your opponent does the thing, too, and some people just outright said “your opponent can’t do the thing.” All of them were valid, and I was happy to see a nice spread. It also lead to some really wild designs.
The main thing I wanted to focus on this week was one I’ve been preaching for a while: think about the opponent. This was a challenge where you have to design a card for both you and your opponent at the same time. It’s hard to remember that, for every game you play, there’s at least one other player there that your cards are affecting. But enough talk, to the commentary!
@bread-into-toast
At first I was going to say “wow, that feels overly narrow,” but then I realized that, while it does serve the intended specific purpose of denying Winota her triggers, it also shuts down tribal decks! All tribal decks but one of them, humans. Which is actually a very common tribal deck. But hey, it can’t be good against everything! The body also worries me a bit. I think a ⅓ flyer for three mana is way too expensive to see constructed play unless it does a lot of work, but even in the mirror I don’t know if this is worth the cost. I do like how it curves into Winota and how it has evasion so you can get in hits with a non-human more easily, but I think Winota would rather have a token maker or a couple of cheap bodies. I think at two mana this would have been just about perfect. I like what it does for the most part, even if it is really narrow, it just really needs to earn its spot in the deck.
@dabudder - Selective Shields
In the war of tribe vs. tribe, this is what you need. A simple little way to make sure your guys are better than theirs. I also like the cycling, it makes it a little better to main deck, but I still think it’s going to stay in the sideboard, and the cycling is just if the situation to use it never comes up. It’s appreciated, though! Even in a non-blowout situation, sometimes this is just saving one creature from one other creature, or letting one creature not be blocked by another creature. And in those situations, I think this is fine, too! God’s willing is sometimes enough. Spare from Evil even saw a very small amount of play every so often. I also don’t know if the utility of this card pays off more than just playing Brave the Elements, which also protects from targetted removal or damage based wraths. The phrasing of the ability needs to be fixed, though, I think. The reminder text isn’t quite accurate. I think it needs to be phrased “choose a creature type, then choose a creature type,” as dumb as that sounds. I think this card is cool and I like it, but I think there are a lot of better ways to get very similar effects.
@deg99 - Graverobber Cultists
What cheeky little skeletons. They’re stealing my bodies! This is one of the direct hosers, but I think that’s fine. Graveyards decks are one of those things you need to call out specifically in order to interact with. I like the body on this, a 2/2 for two with flash is fine for two mana in either color, but the fact that you need both colors (and that it’s a rare) give you enough wiggle room to power it up just that little amount. Compared to hullbreacher or opposition agent, I like it. It just shuts down the one specific thing you and/or your opponents are doing, but really only once. You brought up that you were a little worried about exhume, but considering the formats that would have that are commander and legacy, I think you’re fine. If you’re not in the mirror, you get some random vanilla creature or a useless combo piece, and if you’re in the mirror this card is good anyway. I don’t really have much to complain about with this card. I think some players would get sick of it like they have with hullbreacher and opposition agent, but considering how rare reanimation is vs. tutoring and card draw, which are also more likely to interact with getting your land drops. Also, art and flavor text are on point, reminds me a lot of what we’ve seen of Modern Horizons two.
@fractured-infinity - Psychic Incursion
This one takes a bit to unpack. The cost reduction is actually less relevant in the mirror, as opposed to most entries this week that do the opposite. The way this would work in a normal game is you pay two to wheel some specific card from your hand if you really don’t like them or if you’re comboing off with persistent petitioners or something. But in the mirror (which is when you’re far more likely to play this), you get to get rid of your opponent’s win condition so long as it’s the same as yours and you have it in hand. It’s going to be very scary to be your opponent when you show them you have the win in hand and they don’t have one in their deck. I like the effect, but the costing is really weird. Four mana is already what you’re paying for cards like Lobotomy and Memoricide, so having the downside of having to have the card in hand feels really steep. We’ve even had three mana versions like Dispossess and Lost Legacy. The fact that this can let you “cycle” a card in your hand is also not super useful, since you still have to cast this card, meaning you’re down a card to swap out the rest. I think you could remove the blue or maybe the black from this and still have it work. I like the idea of it, it’s just a little too hard to take advantage of as-is.
@gay-for-ocypete - Looking-Glass Lurker
I’m interested at your top-down approach to this, at least so far as I could tell. It’s cool that you took the idea of facing yourself to it’s logical confusion. I think this card has some issues, though. At the base, a five mana clone-anything is all good, though a little pricey for only cloning your own stuff, but this one comes with an effect. Good job remembering to put the ability in the copy text and not on the card itself! But I’m not sure if the game can handle it as-is. Choosing what you’re copying is done at a very weird point in the rules, and I’m not sure the game can “notice” when you’re cloning something. I think you could have just said “whenever a creature with the same name as a creature you control enters the battlefield under an opponent’s control…” It technically would have operated differently, but close enough I think, and it would have definitely worked within the rules. I also think the play pattern on this card is a little strange. Let’s say your opponent plays a clone. If they target your best permanent, then you get to flicker this guy and get an extra copy of your best permanent. In that situation, though, you already have your best permanent in play, and you’re just getting an extra one. Feels kind of win-more. If your opponent is ahead, then they’ll just copy one of their own things, and in that case your stuck with what you’ve already cloned. This requires a very specific situation to be relevant, even in the mirror. With that in mind, I think you could have made this 4 mana. It’s better than Mirror Image which is three mana, but the fact that it can’t clone your opponent’s stuff means it’s worse than Clever Impersonator. I think four mana would be perfectly fair. I like the way you fought cloning with cloning, and using the flicker to do it was really smart, but it’s a little too narrow to be worth the cost of playing it.
@ghoulcaclulator64 - Relief Agent
The taxpayer. We have much in common. I like the concept of this card. A simple way to get around random tax effects. I also think in the mirror that’s super important because you need to get down your tax pieces as early as possible, and their taxes will slow that down. I have two complaints about the card. First is the body. The three toughness is nice, even if it still dies to bolt, but the low power and lack of abilities really weakens this I feel. You could argue it’s small enough to get under ensnaring bridge, but then it would really want some form of evasion. There’s a reason “hate bear” is the common terminology: two power really helps it make an impact on the board beyond just being a killable enchantment. The second issue this ties into is the power level of this card. This is a very narrow effect with not a ton of use, and while it is very strong at that effect, it still needs to carry it’s weight somehow. Unlike with some other hate bears like Leonin Arbiter, you can’t take advantage of this one in any way, like by playing a tabernacle or Fade Away or other cards that force all players to pay a tax. I understand why, since saying you don’t have to pay additional costs for yourself would be kind of broken, but the fact that there’s no way to get extra use out of this is a little disappointing. One other thing I’ll bring up is the concern of templating. I know what you were trying to do, but I’m not sure if the game can handle it. I don’t know if the game “knows” where the taxes are coming from when you pay extra. My assumption is that this works for both Thalia and Mana Tithe, though I’m not sure if there’s a clean way to phrase that. Your templating here is a little backwards, and as written would make it so I don’t have to pay extra costs when paying for costs for things my opponent’s control. I wish I could offer advice on how to fix that, but the best I’ve been able to come up with thinking of similar cards is just an ability that gives you infinite mana that you can’t spend on anything you control. But like I said at the start, I love the concept. I like the idea of a card that pays taxes for you. It’s narrow but effective.
@gollumni - Coercive Commander
Oh hey, crafty cutpurse but it’s permanent! And in white, which seems weird, but I’ll let it slide because it’s kind of like a cross between Anointed Procession and Containment Priest, but I still think it’s a close one. I actually remember reading the M-files article where they talk about how crafty cutpurse was a permanent effect but they were worried it would lead to just a bunch of unfun games, and that it was too broad and not focused at specific cards or situations. Your answer to that was making it a once-per turn trigger, and I think that does a lot for you here. Most dedicated token decks have a mix of little token makers (Legion Warboss, bitterblossom) that you can wait to trigger and break the buffer so you can play bigger effects like Secure the Wastes or Saproling Migration. I think you could afford to make this a little tougher to kill in order to make sure the effect goes off at least once instead of getting killed in response, and perhaps to make it a bit more of a body on it’s own instead of just hoping you steal something big enough to make it worth playing a four mana creature with almost no power in a creature centric deck. Four mana is also a tough spot in token decks, since it’s where anointed procession, parallel lives, second harvest, and some other nice token enablers sit at. It’ll hard to hold up four mana in hopes of getting a big hit off your opponent. But I think you did a nice job of making a more fun and useful crafty cutpurse.
@helloijustreadyourpost - Feign Ignorance
Mill, eh? Surprised we didn’t see more mill cards this week. I like how this works. It’s a two mana mill effect, so you will get a benefit off of it no matter what, and two mana mill 6 isn’t too shabby. You can also use it as a very strange sort of tutor, milling some cards but then eventually putting some back. It can also put any type of card back on top, which would be color pie break if this card was just blue or black, but since it’s both, blue can get back spells and artifacts and black can get back creatures, enchantments, and planeswalkers. Lands is the only weird spot, but I think that’s fine. The thing I’m most impressed by is the exact way that the activated ability functions. While the “can’t be milled” clause is clearly there just so you keep your cards no matter what, it also can be used as a sort of counterspell. If you’re targeted with a mill effect, you can activate the ability in response to protect yourself. You can even do it immediately after your draw step and have a whole turn, but at the cost of leaving those cards sit for a whole turn cycle. The other way this is more powerful in the mirror is just that you’ll end up with more to choose from, which is nice, and you can put cards on top if they’re on empty and can’t get those last four no matter what. All that said and done, though, I don’t think this card quite makes the cut. It’s cool and clever, but it just doesn’t do enough. Putting cards on top is just too slow for a lot of mill decks that need a lot of velocity. The way you lose playing mill is if you just can’t do enough milling quick enough before you die. If you play this and spend a bunch of mana to protect yourself, you’ll buy yourself some time, yes, but that mana could be better spent milling! This is a backup plan, basically, whereas I wish it could have been a little more aggressive. I think if the activation was cheaper, or there were a way to recur it, or if it was a little more aggressive in some way it would be more playable. The design is stellar, I just think it’s too slow.
@hiygamer - Recounter of Fables
I’ll admit, when I was first thinking of decks to list as examples of archetypes, Adventures jumped to mind, and I like where you went with it. It’s a card that specifically hates on adventures, but also has one! It’s also makes me happy that the adventure side is so weak in any other situation, because that’s how adventures should be: pretty weak. That said, the creature side is pretty much completely playable on its own. In fact, it might be too playable. It’s a three mana gravedigger in the right deck! Granted, Innkeeper is three mana less than beast whisperer and lucky clover is 5 mana less than swarm intelligence, so maybe the discount you get for having all of your creatures be adventures is that high? I also have some color concerns. Blue can return instants and sorceries, but they can’t return creatures. Adventures are both, but they are definitely more creatures than spells (since you can cast the creature without the spell but if you cast the spell you still get the creature). The adventure half is also hard to judge, since it’s almost closer to discard than anything else, but blue occasionally gets “can’t cast cards” effects. It’s really hard to judge the strength of a card based around one of the strongest themes in the most broken set we’ve seen in a while, but if I just look at what we saw in Eldraine, I think this is on par with what Wizards did. I think it’s a bit of a bend in blue, maybe a break, but I can see the argument at least. Perhaps this card should have been white? White gets to stop players from casting specific spells, and white gets limited creature regrowths. As is, this card is fine, a little pushed but only as much as any other playable adventure card.
@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes - Fighting Medic
I have a soft spot for first strike shenanigans, it always makes for really cool mechanics. The downside to them is that they can really get blown out against removal heavy decks, or control in general. But in the mirror, all of the sudden it has relevance! This card is meant to be an amazing blocker. It blocks and kills any two-toughness creature while saving you from taking an extra two damage. I do wonder if it’s worth the effort, though. If this card just had lifelink, I think it would be better in almost any situation. The best use for damage prevention is if they also have lifelink or some other damage-dependent ability, which aren’t as common as you’d think. I think what really would have made this feel great and useful is if it could prevent damage to any target. That would make this feel more fitting in a creature-centric deck, and it would give it a little more utility on attacks. Right now, it seems hard to get an attack in after a certain point, and if you do you aren’t going to trigger its ability easily (or use it, for that matter). As is, this feels a little too complex for what little it does, and I think just lifegain would feel more appropriate.
@misterstingyjack - Wild Challenger
This man really want to fight. Sadly, I don’t know if he’d survive. I think this is meant for big stompy decks, but I don’t know how much they want him. You would need to build this guy big enough to survive the fight, have him survive long enough to attack, hope your opponent has something he can target, and then he might just die after being blocked anyway. You said it works well with combat tricks, but it would require you casting them before players block, which is the worst time to do it, but also if your opponent has a trick it’s such a blowout. This card is either going to do a lot of damage or nothing. Load this guy up with counters and your opponent is screwed. Either you kill their big guy or they only have little guys anyway. I think this guy is enough og a build around you could have pushed him more. Maybe drop his cost by one or give him an ability like haste or trample. I really love the concept, though, I think it’s just not as useful as it looks.
@ozthearistocrat - Flame to Fists
Huh. The best way to beat your deck is to… stop being your deck. You thought I was a burn deck but now I am a goblin deck. Like a little version of Hostility. I think this is an odd mirror breaker because if you both have burn, then you’ll both be making the same change to a creature deck. But the difference is that you’ll see it coming. You can go down on life but save your burn, then drop this and a couple burn spells. Meanwhile they can’t deal that last point of damage to you because you’ve made a ton of blockers and they can’t just burn you out. It’s also great if you have this plus are siding in some other removal like a suffocating fumes or a pump spell like atarka’s command. You can of course also do fun stuff like Marrow Shards when you attack to double your force. Still, I think this is going too far into making a deck into another deck. You’re going to be using this less to combat burn and more to go wide with goblins or go infinite with impact tremors. I think this is a pretty cool card, but not really a good fit for this week’s contest.
@naban-dean-of-irritation - Through the Gates
This is a tough one to judge. While I understand that the point of this card is to fight against suicide black / aristocrats decks, but it’s just way, way better in control decks. This card says “whenever you kill a creature, gain control of it.” Decks built around multiple creatures dying in a single turn are actually better against this card, since this triggers only once. I’m also not a fan of “one or more creatures die” because there’s some weirdness there. If you deal 1 damage to each creature, then kill an Elvish Archdruid with a doomblade, will the llanowar elves dying count as a separate trigger or the same? Doomblade killed the Archdruid, but damage already there killed the llanowar elves, but they both died by the next time a player has priority. So if you would prefer the llanowar elf, can you get it? I think in order to get this sort of effect, perhaps you could get the enchantment to remove itself somehow. Like, by saying “Whenever a nontoken creature dies, you may exile ~. If you do, return that creature to the battlefield under your control, then return ~ to the battlefield at the beginning of the next upkeep.” It would mess with the card a bit, letting people flicker it for Constellation value, but I think it would make some of the templating easier. Currently though my biggest problem is still just how generically good this is. One free Grim Return every turn is incredibly powerful in a lot of decks, regardless of the matchup.
@nicolbolas96 - Beast-Tamer Acolyte
Wow, this card is doing a lot! That first ability is super strong, especially on such a high-toughness creature. Ghostly Prison is strong enough that it hasn’t seen print in standard for a while, so making a strong version on a creature that can be hit by Collected Company is a risky move. Luckily, that last ability isn’t going to be doing much often enough to really affect the power level. But that’s not to say it does nothing! As far as this contest goes, this feels really solid. Casting cards from the graveyard is mostly a black or blue (with artifacts) thing, but it exists in white as well, and I can tell this is very specifically thinking of Lurrus. Sadly, you can’t play it if Lurrus is your commander, but if you’re playing something closer to a CoCo build this guy feels perfect. It’s strong, maybe too strong, but the design is really cool and nicely specific.
@partly-cloudy-partly-fuckoff - Revel Inciter
Sucks to be them. If you’re attacking with a bunch of creatures, only being able to attack half as often sucks. It’ll also make it a lot harder to block, which is good for an aggressive creature deck! If I were playing against this, I’d groan, but it isn’t an instant win. What keeps me from really liking this card is that it just isn’t on color. This is a blue or a white effect, even if it affected just white or blue creatures (though especially if it only hit red creatures). I think blue would be a little weird, but blue aggro is a thing. But if this were a white card with no other changes, I think it’d be awesome. Red white aggro is super common, and this would shut down the opponent’s force pretty dang hard. Fix the color and this card is great. As is, it’s just too off-color of an effect.
@pocketvikings - Swordstealer
Well, that’s to the point. Your opponent has a sword, but now you do! I like how straightforward this is. I also like how it can see maindeck play as a way to attach your Colossus Hammer or whatnot easily, and the flash even has a lot of use there to get around sorcery-speed removal. The rarity seems really odd to me, since even though the effect is clearly very simple, the interactions and situational nature of it does increase the complexity of it. There’s the classic problem of players keeping this card in hand until they see an equipment in play when they really should just be playing it as a body. The fact that this “attaches” but doesn’t actually gain control of the equipment is also going to cause some issues. This has been the case since equipment have existed, but the fact that the card is literally called “sword stealer” but does not in fact gain control of the equipment is going to mislead some people. I don’t think it would have been that bad if it did literally steal it, preferably just until it was unequipped or until this guy died, just so that players wouldn’t get the wrong idea about how this worked. As a whole, though, I still think this card is pretty well made, and the concept of it is right on the money. A good mix of maindeck playability and incredible power in the mirror.
@real-aspen-hours - Sanguine Ignition
I really like this card! Four damage for two mana is one of those things that’s both ridiculously powerful but pretty reasonable. We’ve seen it only once or twice before, ever. 2 damage for two mana, however, pretty bad, but not completely unplayable, as we’ve seen with stomp. I really like this card because it’s really powerful in the mirror, but in the exact way the mirror plays out. You can use this to hit pumped up prowess creatures as well as faces, but have to plan around it just the smallest amount. It isn't’ fancy, it just gives you a great rate on burn. There’s only two things holding it back. First, you can trigger it yourself a little too easily. Simply playing City of Brass gives you access to this. I think that’s a little too easy. A simple “by spells or abilities or opponents control” would have fixed that. The other problem is that it’s both hard to maindeck this card but hard to put it in your sideboard. If you’re building your burn deck, putting extra burn in the sideboard doesn’t really feel good. But at the same time, if you put this in your main deck, you’ll have just a weak two mana shock about half the time, which is not what you want even in standard decks. You could argue that these two problems cancel each other out, and that you can main deck it more easily if you’re playing pain lands and the mirror match just makes it easier, but in that case I think the painland issue wins out and the card’s just too good. However, if you put this in a very specific standard environment with a few ways too deal damage to yourself but not a ton, this card could hit just the right sweetspot of playability. And like I said at the start, I really like this card, and think it’s doing a lot of stuff right.
@snugz - Notus, Trustbreaker
Ah, planeswalkers, They never seem to get along. This is actually a clever way to hate on planeswalkers without calling them out directly (one of the reasons proliferate worked well in WAR was for that reason). I like the first ability, as I’m a big fan of modifying things based on how you did a semi-automated action. I do think it’s a little weird that it still hits you, seeing as how you’re the one building around proliferate, but I guess that’s the tradeoff for a powerful plus ability. The minus 3 is fine but I don’t think it is templated correctly. If a card has different types of counters, it’s unclear how they’re dealt with and by who. I’d say something like “Remove X counters from target permanent or player, where X is half the number of counters on that permanent or player. You gain X life.” Functionally I like it, though. It’s a high cost ability considering how situational it is, but with how powerful the other abilities are I think it’s fine. The ult I think works fine, though I’m not sure if you could do things like put flying counters on players or poison counters on creatures, but I’ll assume the comprehensive rules will update to regulate that. Also, based on how Reverse the sands is phrased and the rulings on it, I’m not sure if you can just suck up every counter. But if I assume the best possible scenario (put any counter anywhere), I like it. Also implementing it digitally would be an absolute pain, but I don’t count that against you. So yeah, in total, the card has some weird quirks that I don’t think make it a bad card but do make its place in a deck feel kind of weird. It definitely feels appropriate this week though.
@starch255 - Grand Minimus
Hoo boy, a one mana 2/2 haste. Those have historically been very powerful! What’s the downside? 2 damage basically very time you cast a spell? Okay, that’s close. Balancing aggressive cards like this is very, very difficult. Burn players already play a lot of ways to hurt themself for now reason, like playing fetchlands in mono-red. This doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch. The alternative, goblin guide, draws your opponent cards, which seems like much more of a downside than this! However, you’re right to put this in the contest this week, since if you play this against a burn deck you’re basically getting a half-price eidolon of the great revel, and if your deck is a certain way you may be able to get around it! My biggest issue with this card beyond the raw power of this in the main deck is how good it is on the play. Burn mirrors are already basically decided by who goes first, and this just makes that issue so, so much worse. If you play this and just go swinging every turn and let your opponent shock themselves over and over means you’re just going to win. That’s going to lead to some sad games. But, I think you were going in the right direction. I just wish this could be used more as a comeback card than a push the advantage card.
@stormtide-leviathan - Dementia Drinker
I like where you’re going with this. Discard tribal is a strong archetype, and making a card that benefits off of either player discarding is great! Maybe too great. For comparison, cards from Amonkhet that cost two mana would have effects like granting +1/+1 until end of turn or a little ability. This grants permanent counters. Playing this into burning inquiry (already a card being played in discard-focused decks) gives you a 7/7 flyer. Yikes! Even though this card is clearly aimed at 8 rack decks, and I do love it’s synergy with Raven’s Crime specifically, I think it may be a bit too much of a powerhouse in any format. But I love the design! Like I said, cards that make both players discard already see a little play in discard decks, so it’s an especially good place to make a mirror-breaker. The escape cost is also really clever, since your opponent is going to want to make you discard this for sure as soon as possible, but you can get it back as soon as they (or you) get enough cards in your graveyard to take advantage of it. So very good job with the card, I think it might just be a little too oppressive to see print.
@teaxch - Magnetic Grips
The equipment that lets you firmly grasp it. If you’ve got an equipment heavy deck, this card could do a lot of work. Free equips are very valuable, whether the memey colossus hammer or the backup plan with a batterskull or just a little extra value with a sword. The fact that this can target opponents' stuff almost feels like an afterthought, but once put in the context of this challenge is anything but! Slowly but reliably stealing equipment from other players is hilarious and terrifying. It’s not an instant win (which is nice), but does feel a little insurmountable, which I think is good for a card like this. My two gripes are that I think it could be a little cheaper considering how little you get out of it sometimes. You need this, a creature, and another equipment, and a reason to not just pay to equip. Though I could see keeping the price, and it just needs something else going for it, maybe a little more P/T or an ability, like haste. I also wish that it would let you steal the equipment until they become unequipped. There’s so many weird interactions, like sword triggers benefitting the players they just hit, except sometimes not? Feast and Famine for example would make your opponent discard a card but they’d still untap their lands. If this just stole the equipment temporarily it would be a lot clearer. I still love this card and this effect, and I think it’s a really cool and clever way of making a card that you would play in your main deck as a combo piece that’s weaker than others in general but amazing in the mirror.
@thedirstside - Betrayer of the Brood
For the Eldrazi mirror, or the tron mirror perhaps more likely. A very expensive and very restrictive counterspell/removal spell, but hey, worst case it’s a 6 mana 5/5 that blows up a land. At 6 mana I think land destruction is fine, especially when you have to build around it, and it’s just weak enough at that that you would really only want to use this in the mirror. That’s what I was looking for! I also like how, despite there already being a ton of hate for Tron in modern, this is a completely different way to do it, and one that’s strong in the mirror (you wouldn’t exactly want to play Dampening Sphere in your tron deck). One awkward part is that, while it can target a spell on the stack, a lot of the bigger colorless spells have triggered abilities when they’re cast, and it would have been really cool if this could have caught those as well. The last thing I’ll say is that it’s very vanilla for an Eldrazi. Once it’s in play, it’s just a 5/5. The triggered ability is also hard to abuse in the decks that would play this, there isn’t a lot of recursion or bounce in those decks. I think this card is pretty well made, but it’s a little too focused on just doing one thing pretty well for a deck that really wants to constantly throwing haymakers.
@vasnirada - Salt Dunes
This is a very narrow card, but as a land I think that’s for the best. A simple land that lets you combo off when your opponent plays a land if you’ve got a landfall-heavy deck. Good against valakut or field of the dead. But I think you’re really underestimating how good this is. You fixed the fact that it goes infinite with itself, but I still think it does too much. For comparison, Ancient Freenwarden, doubles your landfall triggers and costs six mana, though it does have an extra three mana effect. Getting the three mana effect left over with just a land drop is really strong. This card is less of a mirror-breaker and more of just an auto-include in any landfall deck. I like the fact that it takes what your opponent is doing and lets you do it as well, but I think it was a bit too powerful. Perhaps if it specified lands put into play that weren’t played? Like, triggering only off of lands that enter from the library. I think that would cut the power enough to not be broken in a way that keeps its intent as a mirror-breaker.
@wolkemesser - Gluttony
Well, gluttony seems like the logical conclusion to a food deck. At its base, this is a 4 mana 5/5 with a strong ward ability, that’s pretty strong! But the heavy casting cost helps. The triggered ability is what you’re here for, though. It’s got a lot going on. If anybody does it, this guy gets bigger and harder to block, which is good, but you don’t really want to do it yourself because you’ll get hit for some pretty big damage. I’m mixed on that. I kind of like that it lets you just go “y’know what, I’m just not gonna sac my food any more, I’m just going to kill you,” sort of a transformative sideboard. But it would be hard to do that considering how much sacrifice is in the usual sac deck, but hey, you can still sac to grow this guy!... and get hit for a ton. It’s really risky to play this card in the mirror. If they play a Liliana, Dreadhorde General they could end up hitting you for 8 and killing two of your creatures, and possibly taking no damage in the exchange. I think this card could have been just as good and powerful and fun without the damage effect. It just sort of muddies the utility of this card, and it’s already doing me so much. Don’t take me wrong, though, this is a great entry, and you really got the idea of this contest.
Check out some card made by our mods! I’ve been seeing some people having some trouble designing for this contest, so hopefully these cards can help illustrate how to design for this contest.
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Abel gives us a mass reanimation spell that gets cheaper if a bunch of your creatures died and/or if your opponent cast an expensive spell. It’s pretty clear what this is meant to do: protect against a wrath. If you’re playing a go-wide white deck, then if your opponent casts a Wrath of God you’re out of the game, and in the mirror where both players are playing white, it’s entirely possible! So here’s a way to get all your creatures back easy. It also has some utility against GW Collected Company versions.
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Follower of Liliana gives us Frenzied Cresento. This one takes a different angle at the prompt. Rather than stopping your opponent, why not benefit off of them? If both players are just going to smack each other with burn, then all of the sudden this card is going to be two mana for 4 damage, and the fact that it can be split means it’s great at taking out the small creatures your opponent has in play. I could see this being main-deckable as well, similar to Chandra’s Incinerator back in its heyday, and I love that “each player” effects like Flame Rift can cheat the system a bit.
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My card, Graveescourge is intended to be both simple and versatile. My first thought was “hey, exiling graveyards with a sac effect is a great way to hate on sacrifice decks while being one.” But then I realized that would be pretty weak, so I gave it Unearth. That means all of the sudden this card is also good in a dredge mirror! I aimed for one deck and got another one for free.
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Remember, for this challenge all you have to do is pick a deck, then make a card that beats it that can still be played in that deck. You can pick any type of archetype, broad or narrow. What I’ve seen so far from people I’m very impressed with!
