#noyan-dar

[blackdeckwins]

CFAC #49 Showcase (part 3)

One of the things I love to watch for is the card types that people tend to prefer for the week’s challenge. It’s interesting to see what gets chosen, and how the winner categories seems to influence it. I’ll admit, I’m getting a lot fewer land designs than I thought I would this week (even though I could easily see this as a land), and the enchantment designs have been pouring in (and they’ve mostly been on-point). Want to see those designs? Follow the jump to check them out!

Art by Dominique van Velsen

@outerspace-messiah:

Since the theme is “Trick or Treat” I went with a simple modal spell where each mode feels like everyone is attending this festival of pain. Trick being the first mode and Treat being the second.

Huh, interesting. It’s really unfortunate that the second ability is not only symmetrical, but puts you down a card because you had to spend a card to cast it. Though, it is at instant speed, so you at least get first crack at the cards, so maybe that’s a worthwhile trade-off for the right deck. My real critique is that since Black can damage anything, this might as well just be a pure boardwipe to hit all creatures, not just the non-flyers.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@retroactivelyours:

I feel like the phrasing of the black and white effects might be wrong, but I don’t know how else to phrase it.

So, as-is, this card is basically broken, because you just don’t cast lands. It’s in the rules that you simply play them. For this effect to work, you’d want something more like this:

Hallowsburgh Land When ~ enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless you pay {W/B}. If you paid {W}, draw a card. If you paid {B}, lose 1 life. T: Add W or B to your mana pool.

This card still has problems, though. Requiring you to pay a mana to get it onto the battlefield is actually pretty balanced, and works as an interesting design (though it may be better to go for “enters tapped unless” instead of “sacrifice unless”. The rest of the effects, though, and really unbalanced. Pay W and you get to draw a card? That’s not very White, and it’s also way too powerful (basically cycling, but you get to keep the land. Which is too good). And then the Black part costs you a life? That’s far more of a downside than this card deserves. Honestly, strip that part away and you have a much better and more reasonable card (though perhaps at uncommon instead of common).

I see that the intent of the extra “pay mana” part was to fit the theme, but it really took away from the design more than it added.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@voicesofchaos:

This card was partially inspired by Painful Quandary. The flavor should be pretty straightforward. Each turn an opponent needs to give you candy from their hand but if they are out of candy or if they hide & don’t answer the door then the town assaults the house….. I don’t know there needs to be some kind of punishment for not giving out candy to trick’o’treaters.

Jeez, is this a trick-or-treater or an extortionist? I guess there’s actually not that much of a difference between the two, now that I think about it. Based on Painful Quandry, this seems to be a solid costing of the effect, and it’s done quite well overall. Not really much to add.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@tarniyo:

I decided to go on a riff of the Council’s Dilemma mechanic from conspiracy 2 - i wanted to convey kids going up to each player and asking them trick or treat. I made the card deal damage to you because i know black doesn’t do free card draw, it lowered the cost of the card, and it being blue felt out of flavor.

Not gonna lie, that flavor text made me chuckle.

Council’s Dilemma is a good pre-existing mechanic to convey the Trick-or-Treat flavor, and this is a reasonable design for it. One major problem with it, though, is that you’d have to declare all of the target creatures before the voting begins, and it’s liable to get messy when deciding which ones survive and which ones don’t. I would change it to Expropriate’s wording of “choose a creature with power 2 or less and destroy it” instead.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@noyan-dar:

This took a lot of rethinking: you get a treat unless your opponents decide to take a trick and stop you.  I think it provides a decent way of using gravestorm without being insanely overpowered. still very powerful though. 

Storm-based cards will always catch my attention (in a bad way), but I think you’re right in that this is a less-powerful storm design. Especially since 90% of the time, your opponent is just going to let you gain that life. Like, literally, outside of a hyper-aggressive deck that’s looking to kill you next turn, you’re just going to gain life from this. The cost-to-reward is quite unbalanced; it could’ve at least been some draining to put your opponent in a rough spot where they can only let you drain it so many times.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@mtg-philocalist:

I am right there with you, @blackdeckwins, as Halloween is my favorite holiday as well, so I’m really happy about getting to participate in a challenge that revolves around it.

When it comes to this week’s bonus challenge and the concept of trick-or-treating, I tried to go the traditional route: I thought of creatures as children on the hunt for candy, which is itself represented by your opponent’s life points. Now, whenever a child (creature) gets to the house (enters the battlefield), your opponents have the choice between trick or treat. They can either relinquish some candy (life) and thus force the children (creatures) to wait for a whole turn, as their bellies are filled (they get tapped and don’t untap during your next turn), or they can refuse to do so and instead suffer the tricking wrath of the scorned little monster (the creature gets a brief stat-boost and a few abilities to seek revenge).

I also had the idea of granting opponents the choice to pay any amount of life upon ETB and thus cause the creature to stay tapped for equally as many turns (as it slowly recovers from its sugar rush), but it got too complicated and wordy in the end, and so I chose this as my final design.

I’m always in favor of cutting wordiness to bring down unnecessary complexity, and though the “life for turns” concept is somewhat intriguing, I think you made a good call here. I also like the balance here, where your opponent can decide whether its better for them to take the three life and deal with the creature later, or if they think they have enough defenses to deal with an angry, aggressive creature. The buffs are quite pushed, but this is a five-mana enchantment, so it really needs a strong pay-off. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few numbers needed to be adjusted after playtesting, but this definitely seems like a good place to start.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

[blackdeckwins]

CFAC #43 Showcase (part 4)

And so, this week’s “build your own Magic Standard format challenge” draws to a close. This is the last of the showcases for CFAC 43, though if you submit one today (as these were all recorded yesterday) I’ll edit it onto the end eventually. Follow the jump to take a look at the competitors, check back in tomorrow to see the announcement of the winners, and join us on Sunday for the next CardsFromArt Challenge!

Art by: Erik Szczygiel

@thekillershrub:

I guess this is a staple draw spell in a madness / hellbent format? Probably not but I couldn’t think of anything else interesting. Pump is red, discard is black. Uncommon because it isnt enough for rare and too niche for a common. Cost is low since it does nothing when it enters the field. RR and tap since it is a repeatable effect and hard to get rid of.

Yeah, this really wouldn’t work as the staple draw spell for a format, especially since it’s discard, then draw. Speaking of which, you’ll want to move that “Discard a card” to be part of the cost, otherwise this is “draw a card” for a hellbent hand which isn’t how Red does its card draw.

I do like the design quite a bit, though: I would love to try it out in a Madness deck, and part of me would love for this to have Madness, you know? This could definitely work well as an anthem for an aggressive Red/Black deck, and definitely wouldn’t show up in anything else. I would probably also like the ability cost to at least be toned down to 1R; as-is it’s pretty oppressive to use.

As a final tweak, enchantments really aren’t supposed to have tap abilities: that makes them much too similar to Artifacts. I’d prefer for this to have the “only once per turn” clause.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@nine-effing-hells:

Looking at the art, it looks kind of… civil; neither foreground figure is really moving much. That ruled out destroy effects for me, and a good/evil conflict tend to lend itself to white and black color-pie-wise, so I toyed around with ways to draw cards that were both of those. I found a pattern I liked for that, messed with the numbers, and decided that it needed blue to justify drawing that many cards.

So, five mana nets you four cards, but costs you three life (and a six-point life swing)? That’s...I’m not sure. Certainly a lot of card advantage, but at a big cost. and five mana can almost draw 4 cards normally, and certainly could for three colors; the drastic downside seems a bit too pushed, but then again, maybe not. I’d have to play with it to know for sure.

I can say that such a downside would make control decks quite wary of playing it, and they certainly would play many of them; usually, the big card draw spell is used to pull ahead, especially against midrange decks, but this one may pull you ahead at the cost of putting yourself within reach of death. At least it’s instant speed, though. Definitely something to sideboard out against aggressive decks.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@108echoes:

It’d be a very strange Standard with this as the main sweeper. Some sort of white token theme would be necessary in order to make this a true sweeper, but then you’d need a token deck which didn’t mind losing its tokens. Tokens with defender, maybe?

It works just as well, possibly better, in a W/B or mono-black Aristocrats deck, where you get your card draw and death triggers, though the life loss is risky if there’s an aggressive deck in the format.

Finally, this implies a hybrid theme, which adds additional weirdness. A W/G deck could play no swamps, but still fuel the black half of Precipice with W/B and G/B creatures.

This card is...weird. I can’t peg it on power level, or really what would play it. Definitely not control, they would never have enough creatures to pay it off. Also definitely not aggressive decks, because losing creatures is death. Maybe some midrange decks could run it as a fail safe, but giving your opponent the choice of which creatures go is still rough...I think you hinted at the deck that actually wants this: a primarily White deck that can play some multicolor Black/White creatures to recuperate the lost value would likely brandish this most effectively.

I’m not even going to try to cost this appropriately, though the new card from Kaladesh, Eliminate the Competition, hints that you’re around the right cost. I’d actually like to remove the life loss part, since you’re already dumping your entire field and sacrificing a creature to draw a card is quite Black.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@sofacoin:

I tried to go for all three, while maintaining elegance. Sadly, I fell quite short of squeezing in real card draw without cluttering things up.

I’m 50-50 on costing this a mere 3BB: it might be more reasonable to cost it at 4BB due to the innate flexibility. Thing is, I’m a sucker for board wipes (they bring out my inner Timmy), so I decided to go with my gut!

I’ve said before that I value flexibility, but I’m also careful with costing it, so I might would side on the 4BB side, or maybe 2UBB, or even 2UWB in the right block, as hitting a creature and drawing a card feels a tad weird for a mono-black card. I could definitely see this being played in a Standard format as-is: a board wipe that isn’t totally useless against other creature-light decks is always welcome for control, and one or two would likely show up in a midrange deck.

We had a similar card yesterday that also involved cycling, and some of its feedback could apply here, if you want to take a look at it.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@retroactivelyours:

Couldn’t think of a good “pillar” effect that wasn’t already done. Also wasn’t really sure what to cost this as.

So, I see what you’re going for here, and it’s kind of interesting, but it has one major problem: the game can’t track lands by what mana they produce, so “white land” is meaningless to the game because all lands are colorless. You could search up a Plains, sure, but I doubt you really want to trade three of your lands for three more Plains, especially when it took four white sources to cast. So, this is basically happening, what, on turn seven? Other than trigger landfall and thin your deck a tiny bit, this card doesn’t really do much. Plus, the effect is a lot more Green than White.

So, what if we took this basic idea, transforming a bunch of your lands, and tweaked on it a bit. First, since this kind of effect is more Green than anything, lets shift it over to that color. Next, let’s widen the flexibility a bit, and let it transmute to any of the basic land types, but restrict it to getting all the same type. Finally, for the sake of templating and letting the player that just wants to turn a Forest into another Forest be happy, lets take away that restriction. A little cost adjustment, and we’ve got this:

Blessed Rejuvenation 2G Sorcery Sacrifice up to three lands. Choose a basic land type. For each land sacrificed this way, search you library for a land of that basic land type, then put them onto the battlefield tapped. Then, shuffle your library.

I bet there are plenty of Johnny ways to abuse a card like that.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@noyan-dar:

Conditional targeted removal, I’ve no idea about strength because in the right situation this can really mess with people and in the wrong one it does almost nothing. maybe would do better at instant speed or common rarity.

Yeah, I definitely think I would push this down to common, and let it be at instant speed. In fact, that would make an instant-speed version of Wretched Banquet, which this card is a slightly more flexible version of. And while it may work as an early-game bit of removal, it doesn’t seem quite powerful enough to cut it in a constructed format. Then again, I wasn’t around during Conflux, so maybe it was?

Another option (though poorly worded) would be to “destroy target creature with the least power or toughness or tied for the least power or toughness among creatures its controller controls.” That way, at least you having a small creature doesn’t make this totally useless.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@ubervores:

Alright so hopefully no one did this already but I didn’t check the showcase because I’m a bit scattered tonight I drew pretty directly from the art this week but here’s my reasoning for this card: What player doesn’t love a big flashy boardwipe? and whats flashier that a double X spell? No one and nothing are the answers to those questions and whats better than wiping the board?wiping the board and getting ahead so I’ve stapled not one but two giant skeletons to this choking smog.

So the nuts and bolts I’m really not sure how this card should be costed at first I was toying with a Gelatinous Genesis style card but that seemed too strong with the blighted board so I stuck with the two skeletons we saw in the art but i still think that maybe the cost is a little weak and maybe it should be xBB or xxB but I decided to play it on the safe side and the skeletons are horrors because that’s what black has in my dream set (although the aetherborns are very cool and have a look that I envy)

Skeleton Horrors for life, yo.

I’m a fan of board wipes that have alternate uses: at least against creatureless decks, this can make a couple of skeletons. Costing on effects like this is really weird; it definitely needs to be XX because of all the value you get from it, but it also takes a lot of mana to effect the board in a meaningful way? Maybe tagging on a bunch of black mana would balance it out instead....I don’t know. It would be a lot easier to cost if it was just one Skeleton. Perhaps it’s not what a control deck wants, anyways.

A Black-based midrange deck, on the other hand, could really exploit that it only shrinks nonblack creatures, so I could see it as a one- or two-of, or sideboarded against aggressive decks. 

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@luckylooter:

My official submission, for the Bonus challenge. (metaphorical giant skeletons)

This kind of a board wipe would have a weird effect on a Standard format, similar to Crux of Fate, where a specific type (or types, in this case) would be at an automatic advantage. Unlike Crux of Fate, however, this card has nothing to do against Zombie decks or Skeleton decks (or, God forbid, Zombie-Skeleton decks). And I imagine, with this kind of artwork in the set, there will be Zombies and Skeletons that you’ll wish this boardwipe could handle. 

As a result, I’m not sure how much I like the idea of this being the “premiere board wipe” of the format, as an entire strategy could just invalidate it, making the control matchup almost an auto-win. I’d like for it to have some kind of fallback, like Crux of Fate, or at least Cycling so you can do something with it.

Also, I get that artifact creatures aren’t really “killable” in a flavor sense, but there’s really no reason to tack on another condition to this board wipe.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

[blackdeckwins]

CFAC #31 Showcase (part 2)

Another day, another round of CFAC submissions! Remember, if you’re looking to enter this week, you have until Friday, and you can check out the full challenge here!

Today, we’ve got cards from the 3′s and 2′s, with creatures, an enchantment, and even a sorcery! Follow the jump to check out these awesome entries!

Art by Alena Velichko

@outerspace-messiah:

The dryad in the art looks very nurturing and seems as if to be holding excess mana, so I tried to convey that through this card. I set it to uncommon because this feels a little strong for common.

I’m a sucker for a good Ramp strategy, and this looks like a key piece for a limited go-big archetype. Ramping from four to seven (with the next land drop) is definitely bit game.Costing all the way around looks good, and the flavor text is spot on.

3′s all the way around. Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@acting4life97:

So one thing that magic doesn’t have yet is a legendary creature that fits an enchantress strategy that isn’t just your regular voltron commander. Even though I feel like she may be a little more fair at a ¾, I think it’s fair as a 3/3 that becomes a 6/6 once she becomes enchanted. I actually really like how this design came out, and I tried a few different things with the buff she granted, but landed on this. I felt the ability could be pushed since she has a high cost, so I pushed it a little more than I normally do. While I’m not sure exactly what world/plane she would fit in to, I think she would make for an interesting character to be interacted with and I think I will be exploring some with her myself moving forward in working on worldbuilding.

Seven mana is a lot of mana, but this looks like it’s pretty worth it. Sure, it’s just a 3/3, but casting a single enchantment after it is a guaranteed card draw, and two enchantments basically covers the full card’s value, not counting if one of them was an aura to buff this up. Snagging an enchantment from the graveyard is also pretty powerful.

3′s all the way around. Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@planeswalkergarrett:

So, using only one number? At first, I saw this as incredibly restricting, but then I just had to go overboard. So, a planeswalker I made. Jalessa, the Dryad of the Ulvenwald has remained in the shadows of Innistrad, keeping her forests safe from the terrors of the cities and the madness of the angels. Calling wildlife to her side, swelling the strength of those who protect her, and lengthening their lives with her magic, she has kept the Ulvenwald and its spirits alive for centuries.

All in all, I just had to make something ridiculous. Admittedly the -2 seems a bit underwhelming, but given that it’s a repeatable source of 4/4 bears, I figured it all balanced out.

Four-mana planeswalker that +2′s to put out a 2/2? Unfortunately, that alone puts this in the “overpowered” category. Any other planeswalker that can make a token that big either 0′s or minuses to do so. So, that ability definitely needs a change.

The other two abilities are closer to reasonable. +2 to gain two life may sound unappealing, but remember that it’s basically gaining 4 life because it makes Jalessa harder to kill, keeping you alive longer by proxy. Ajani Goldmane actually has this ability as a +1. -2 to pump the team is close to appropriate. Garruk Wildspeaker gives +3/+3 and trample for -4, so this seems like an okay starting point to test from. Basically, the first ability is more appropriate as a -2 than a +2, and planeswalkers really shouldn’t be restricted to one number.

2′s all the way. Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@noyan-dar:

Tried to think of as many numeric green abilities as i could and i came up with something nice. I think it looks expensive for all those effects since each one is quite small but 3G seemed too cheap. maybe bumping it up to instant speed could work but that would just be confusing to do in response to something. Maybe should be uncommon instead of rare too.

Well, let’s do some research and see how much each of these costs.

Scry 3 - Augury Owl and Mystic Speculation point this to about {1}.

Untap three creatures - there’s no precise precedent, but I would call this somewhere between {G}{G} and {2}{G}.

Shuffle three cards - Gaea’s Blessing puts this at about {1}.

Gain 3 life - Various cards put this value at about {1}.

So...yeah, that totals 3GG. Good enough for me.

3’s all the way through. Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@nyx-fleece-bamf:

So I decided to be boring and go with a creature, and was inspired by a previous Dryad from Darksteel? (Don’t quote me on that) But its a creature that cares about cards in opponents hands much like the Darksteel dryad cared about artifact lands!

There are several small wording tweaks that should probably be made here, but they’re not super important. What stands out to me, though, is that these are not really the colors for this kind of ability: this feels like a Blue or Red card. Blue/Green would probably be most fitting. It could also probably stand to have a slight stat boost, but of course, the challenge. Tanglewalker is the card you’re looking for, by the way.

2′s all the way through. Thanks for the submission! Two points!

[blackdeckwins]

CFAC #29 Showcase (part 3)

Another afternoon, another round of submissions! If you want to get in on the CFAC action, there are still a few days left to enter! Check out the challenge’s information here!

Today, we’ve got a bevy of lords and removal spells, along with a single enchantment that branches outside of the obvious Black/White options. Follow the jump to take a look!

Art by Conor Burke

@amtgplayer:

What’s funny is that, when I looked at this piece, both parts of it reminded me of Valorous Stance. Therefore I decided to make a variant of Valorous Stance.

Confrontation would be an Entwine-like mechanic which flavorfully represents the conflict between a Human faction and a non-Human faction on a plane like Innistrad or maybe FRF Tarkir. The design space may be somewhat small (must be on modal spells that can reasonably target either/both your creature or/and your opponent’s creature), but I believe it’s not hard to make one or two cycles out of it.

I agree that it’s quite a small design space, though it may be worth keywording for a few cycles; this feels like a keyword for a supplemental product rather than a main set, though that’s not a bad thing. 2W sounds fine for the costing: my gut reaction for cards like this is “cost it more than it would if you could only choose one, but less than you would if you could always choose both.” 1W is the former and I’d say 3W or maybe 2WW is the latter, so 2W sounds like a good compromise.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@nyx-fleece-bamf:

So as a fan of Dark Souls and Bloodbourne, I decided to go and make an “against all odds” type enchantment for all the knightly types out there. And what says chivalric, boisterous, knight-errant better than Don Quixote W/R? I decided to make an enchantment that supports knights, a oft-looked over type like Warrior, or Wizard that has some support, but not much. And I think that should be rectified.

Well now I want a windmill-fighting card.

I like the design. It may be a tad complex, and a bit too powerful: I would tag a mana cost to giving it the buffs, and maybe remove the one from getting a token. If I didn’t reduce the cost, I would say make the token bigger: 1/1′s are the realms of soldiers, and Knights should be slightly larger. And the vigilance in the top ability is pointless, because your creature is already attacking. I would shorten it to just +2/+0 and indestructible.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@acting4life97:

Took a step back to some simpler design this week. The flavor of more knights on a team making it easier to take down whatever foe they may be facing seemed to be a good way to take this card, but I wanted to use it in a way that incorporated the creature type idea. This kill spell may be somewhat situational, but if the whole set was designed around medieval type mythology such as that portrayed in the art, I think it would see plenty of use.

We do have past removal spells that targeted a specific creature type, so that’s not out of the question. I’m not a huge fan, though: it’s just so likely to be dead in a lot of situations. I would prefer a card that for example, tapped a creature, but if it was a Demon or Zombie, destroy it.

Affinity for Knights is also an interesting concept, but I would be hesitant after it’s been so broken in the past. I would probably put this at 2WW, because if the “affinity for knights” part is going to be relevant, there have to be a lot of knights, and if there are a lot of knights, this card gets really cheap.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@keyla-lovely:

The art isn’t Innistradi in nature, but the first thing I thought when I saw this art was a Champion of the Parish after being killed and raised again, still with some semblance of what his purpose once was.

I suppose it does have that type of stance/feel about it. Part of me wishes there was something more “zombie” about it other than being a higher-costed version of Champ. Perhaps also having Diregraf Colossus’ ability to get counters for the zombies in the graveyard, in addition to what it currently has?

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@noyan-dar:

I couldn’t decide between Zombies and Knights so i went with both. Thematically it sorta works as if the presence of the giant lich dude turns other knights into zombies and zombies into knights, hence the vigilances and deathtouches. I was considering hybrid mana instead of straight-multicolour but it would make it too easy to use in both decks.

You would also have the mess of a Black creature with vigilance and a White creature with deathtouch if you went with hybrid, so I’m glad you didn’t. I like cross-over tribal cards, and I think tribal-leaning blocks definitely need them to allow color pairs to coexist properly. It seems appropriately costed and flavorful for the art.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@magicarasa:

Righteous Stand is a bit of stretch as far as white removal goes but it targets creature types that are predominately black, all monsters that white sees as inherently evil threats to the world and worthy of destruction.

I think this falls flavorly into “preemptive justice” and mechanically for “removal with restrictions” for White, so it seems fine to me on that front. I’m less of a fan of hyper-niche removal, but I suppose a set with this in it will be loaded with targets. At the point that it reaches, though, there’s almost no reason for this to not be “destroy target black creature” (outside of the bonus challenge, of course).

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

[blackdeckwins]

CFAC #28 Showcase (part 2)

Hello everyone! It’s Tuesday, so it’s time to dive into the second round of CFAC #28 entries! Yesterday may have held our first Planeswalker on CFAC, but it certainly was not the last! Today includes two more, alongside two Legendary creatures and two non-Legendary creatures. Follow the jump to check them all out!

Art by Benjamin Ee

@acting4life97:

So the challenge this week was pretty tough, so I had to figure out how I could design a card that felt Black without using many of the key ideals of the black color pie. So I eventually landed on a Planeswalker that harnesses the power ofNecrogenesis, as in she creates life from death that surrounds her, which felt fitting for the artwork. Instead of making zombies, she likes to use zombies, corpses, or the like to create new life on the plane she is on, wherever that may be. She originally comes from Jund on Alara, but is regularly seen learning among the Golgari on Ravnica and the gloom of Shadowmoor.

Planeswalkers are hard, especially when you make just text versions of them so you don’t see how tiny some of the abilities look. I do like this idea of a Black/Green walker, one that kills but uses the dead to create new life. I definitely think I would cut the life gain from the ultimate and make them 1/1s or bigger, both to balance the text better and to leave behind something with a little more power behind it. The -X is very reminiscient of Chandra, Flamecaller, but I’m pretty sure to balance such a powerful ability, the card can’t have an “Ultimate” ability. It’s also awkward that two abilities are board wipes; I would probably look at changing the -X into something else.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@noyan-dar:

It sorta looks like she’s using the corpses to grow something? so i went with that instead of an easier reanimate effect. And since we’re on Innistrad she’s a vampire with madness.

Full-art frame because nice vertical art.no madness flavour text because room and my version of MSE doesn’t have the updated version of that.

I like that flavoring of a vampire farmer “growing” your creatures with the corpses of the dead. I would even go so far as to say it could get away with being a 2/3 for three mana, though that may be pushing it. 

Thanks for the submission! Two points! (I’ll let Madness slide since it’s in the reminder text)

@goblintinkering:

Commentary: The little vines growing from her brood remind me very much of the Thallid creatures, and so I decided to interpret it as such. Perhaps this is in a world where the fungus are once again among us; I do love the Thallids and wish to see the mechanic again soon. I hope that having the creature be black doesn’t disqualify me from the bonus challenge!

I definitely like the callback to the Thallid mechanic. However, all of the modern spore counter designs remove spore counters to make Saprolings, and then sacrifice Saprolings to do some kind of effect. That’s one of the defining things of the Thallid mechanic that sets it apart from being just flavorful charge counters, and I think sticking to that is a better idea than using them for other effects. Of course, you couldn’t use a sacrifice ability and meet the challenge, but a future version of this card probably wants to sacrifice Saprolings, and maybe have a way of making them on its own.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@diamondfodder:

no commentary

I like that this card has an effect for both your creature dying and your opponent’s creature dying. I would probably adjust the wording on the first ability to reflect Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet’s ability; partially because it works better in the rules, and partially because completely hosing graveyard strategies isn’t fun. At least let the tokens die!

Thanks for the submission! One point!

@nyx-fleece-bamf:

Black Veil Bride anyone? No? Okay. Well, being immersed in the return to Innistrad, as we all are, I of course saw this art and immediately thought “BURN THE WITCH!” I originally didn’t want to make her Legendary, but felt that her ability was a bit much to be able to use repeatedly without releasing the previously captured creatures.So here you have it! The infamous Witch of the Shaderose, luring men into her hypnotic embrace! The design challenge proved considerably more difficult than I anticipated, I mean, the artwork is a lady in black, with weird zombie-plants (which were the original focus of my idea, a B/G witch who summoned weird colorless Plant Golems) so both Zombie and Black were difficult to avoid, and then you had to go and throw in Target, Sac, and Discard! But, such is life. Hope I did a decent job!

A bit of insight into why I chose the words I chose: this artwork was very clearly going to be a Black spell, and I wanted to make sure you all had to spend extra time designing it, instead of just getting to make an easy Black card. So, first, I banned the word “Black.” Then, I figured the easiest thing to do would be to make a Zombie-token maker, so I nixed “Zombie.” I also wanted to avoid cop-out removal spells, so I killed “Target” and “Sacrifice”, and “Discard” for good measure.

As for this card, that is a lot of conditional riders for that ability. I think it’s definitely interesting, though: it’s likely to get one creature, or could steal multiple tokens quite easily. I think it’s reasonable, especially for a Rare power level. You may even be able to get by with a little extra toughness.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@amtgplayer:

Irina used to be a human botanist mage before some unknown circumstance destroyed her home plane and ignited her spark. Her first planeswalk was to Ravnica, where she arrives right in the Golgari territory. She learns necromancy in Golgari, and develops her unique kind of necromancy, before she was driven away from Ravnica by Vraska because she has no interest in participating in Vraska’s shadowy plans. Now she wanders from plane to plane, with no home she could return to.

Despite her title, Irina is really more experienced at dealing with plants than dealing with corpses. She could only make the most out of fresh corpses, so she sometimes has to take risks collecting them. Anyway, she hates waste as much as the next member of Golgari, so she seeks to find a use for everything she could put her hands on, although some may criticize that her rash methods are not the best for fully utilizing available resources.

//

Well, I guess my character profile sucks, since I’m bad at creative writing and I’m not even a native speaker of English. Nevertheless, this is my flavor explanation for my necromancer planeswalker who eschews black Zombies in favor of green Plants, cares about cards going to a graveyard rather than discarding or sacrificing, and avoids targeting in all three of her abilities.

Also, I would love an MSE template for planeswalkers with one very long ability and two short ones, like Gideon, Champion of Justice, but I couldn’t find one, and making one myself seems like too much work (actually I don’t even know how MSE templates work, although I’m willing to explore).

And it may be a little too early to worry about typesetting anyway, because this card probably need a lot of development changes…

Don’t sell yourself short: creative writing (and writing, and speaking languages, and card design, and basically everything) is a product of practice;  the more you do it, the better you get at it. If you enjoyed writing that character profile, I encourage you to keep doing it, and you’ll slowly find yourself getting better at it :)

I also applaud you for working around MSE’s unfortunate template to make something workable for that second ability. That’s definitely my favorite ability on this card, by the way: it’s super interesting, and gives the card a cool recursion effect without being too “breakable.” It should probably just be your creatures, so you can’t use her to turn your removal spells into Mind Controls.

I also like the plant token angle, and giving them defender reflects her apparent tendancy to be more defensive. The giant overrun effect at the end is certainly flavorful, as well. The +1 is the one that I’m the least optimistic about. I could easily see the graveyard had being wiped and just letting it be a 01/ token producer (or maybe two, since they have Defender).

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

[blackdeckwins]

CFAC #27 Entries (part 2)

Hello again, everyone! It’s time to take a look at another selection of jackal-filled entries to CardsFromArt Challenge #27! Today, we’re taking a look at five cards; three from experienced challengers, and two from relative new-comers. We have hungry jackals from @nine-effing-hells, @noyan-dar’s kid fleeing from jackals, a curse from @ubervores that haunts you with jackals, the most aggressive jackal of all from @ancient-chaos, and a full-pack fight spell from @voicesofchaos! Follow the jump to check out all of the jackal-laden madness!*

*note: none of these jackals actually have madness

Art by Tomasz Chistowski

@nine-effing-hells:

Upon doing a bit of research on jackals I found that the only jackal which lives outside Africa (and would thus show up in an “Arabian-inspired set”) is the golden jackal, which has a habit of living in the ruins of cities. So it’s pretty clear that those humans in the art have been poking around somewhere they maybe shouldn’t have, and it’s about to bite them figuratively and literally. One of the classic “you’re out of line, buddy” cards is No Mercy, so I used that as a starting point. The rider that you have to have a creature is because, well, you’re safe attacking (i.e. going off into not-your-territory) if there aren’t jackals around. The second ability synergizes with the first, and represents the jackals eating carcasses. It’s a second ability because jackals can be scavengers, not just hunters.

The phrasing on the first ability was tricky, as just saying “Whenever a creature deals combat damage to you, if you control a creature, destroy it” is too vague; the entire statement refers to two different creatures, either of which could be the “it” in the last clause.

Ah, the joys of the English language and pronouns. Another option could’ve been to swap the ordering of the conditional and the “if”:

Whenever a creature deals combat damage to you, destroy it if you control a creature.

It may not be the usual way things like this are templated, but it’s grammatically sound, conveys the same message, and saves a full line of text.

There’s a fair chance this card is costed a bit too high, and could definitely be tuned down in cost. I’m not positive this effect is still considered Black mechanically, but it certainly fits flavorfully.

Thanks for the submission! For meeting the art prompt and the design challenge (title!) you’ll be awarded two points.

@noyan-dar:

I think this is interesting because of some of the flavour implications. The Jackal is hunting this lone human, and will kill it if given the chance, yet the human is powerless to this.

Mechanically it works interestingly because it’s a very good value creature that comes with a large downside.

Holy cow that’s a heck of a downside. I know 3/2 lifelinkers have costed four mana in the past, but man, that’s a heck of a way to balance it. I would certainly be interested in tweaking various numbers in various places to make this card a bit more reasonable. Definitely an interesting (and appropriate) design, though.

Thanks for the submission! For meeting the art prompt and the design challenge (flavor text!) you’ll be awarded two points.

@ubervores:

Rationale: Curses are cool and the art reminded me of Innistrad and thats it man

Well, can’t argue with that logic.

This is a really interesting angle for a Green “control” strategy, as it gives you blockers for opposing creatures to “fog” while you answer threats, and eventually works as a pseudo-win condition. I like the design quite a bit, and the costing seems fine for a start, and it has several knobs available to change if needed.

Thanks for the submission! For meeting the art prompt and the design challenge (rules text!), you’ll be awarded two points.

@ancient-chaos:

Jackals are generally red, and the art felt very Jund-y, unfortunately, anything tricolor felt forced and green was the odd color out, so hyper-aggressive Rakdos jackals it is!

Finding the right power and toughness to balance this around was a bit difficult but, as far as I can tell it should be fine - maybe slightly above curve. Regardless, it makes for some interesting choices by granting haste and, functionally, unleash. 

I’m always on board with an aggressive engine card like this. I like the thought behind the design and everything, and giving all of your creature spells Bloodthirst 1 is definitely a good way to push aggressive strategies. The problem, however, comes from the ability it grants to creatures with +1/+1 counters.

You see, the most common way to enable bloodthirst is by attacking and dealing damage, and this card can do that fairly well. However, if the rest of your creatures get bloodthirst through your creature attacking, then they will enter the battlefield after combat, meaning the haste is useless, so it’s basically a downside-balancing mechanic, which at that point is no fun.

Sure, there are ways to enable bloodthirst without attacking (like pingers and burn spells) but this card would play much better if it could just enable them on its own. Perhaps it could grant them trample, or the Ashmouth Hound ability to dissuade your opponent from blocking, or even Hellrider it?

Thanks for the submission! For meeting the art prompt and the design challenge (title and flavor text!), you’ll be awarded two points.

@voicesofchaos:

NOTE: For some weird reason my Magic Set Editor does not do italics! I click on the italics button and just nothing happens :( But obviously the bottom line is flavor text.

Pretty simple and straightforward design this time. It simply combines Prey Upon with Sorcery speed Might of the Masses. I think this card have easily been 2 CMC but I wanted it to be common and not push the power-level too much. Although I do feel the combination of cards does have a nice synergy and that in general Sorcery buff spells don’t get enough respect.

Power-level wise, it’s in a good place to start with, and may realistically need to be upped: with a couple of creatures, this is a straight-up removal spell, and may buff your creature enough that it can still attack without fear of death! It’s a solid card that fits the art quite well.

Thanks for the submission! For meeting the art prompt and the design challenge (flavor text!), you’ll be awarded two points.