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ambrosewintershttps://imgur.com/a/S0wzVkA2.14Supplicant of Iroas - This is a super cool design; feels like the lovechild of Bedlam Reveler and Venerated Loxodon. Feels like a great topend for a go-wide aggressive strategy; play this on t4/t5 to gas back up and try to crack through a stalled board with some burn or your shiny new 5/5. This really doesn't feel like a mythic, though. Also I'm pretty sure you meant Mogis rather than Iroas here, given the art.
Thraben Patrol - Yeah, this works as human tribal + tokens and cheat hatebear. It doesn't feel particularly like an MH card in the way that the other cards in your entry do, however. (Even with MH2 having a token archetype because lets be honest, tokens are just a staple part of lots of sets.)
Jhessian Deception - My immediate question is like. Why wouldn't I just attack alone with the other creature I control then. What am I gaining by putting this otherwise do-nothing enchantment into my deck? I suppose you can essentially "double up" on your best attacker/turns blocks favorable, or get psuedo-haste for a creature entering, but this feels super niche and not as much of a buildaround as a 3-mana enchantment should be, in my opinion. This feels like a card that right now will just be a "card that someone has a cool story about for limited/kitchen table," but I think it could've been both that and something that was genuinely playable/exciting to play on its own merits. Not a fan.
Paradoxical Quandry - Hm, okay. This is neat in a "this is kinda of cracked as a discard spell/would probably be too much for Standard, but Modern has Thoughtseize so this is just cool." Definitely rewards knowing the metagame/opposing lists to grab high-value targets, though you can just go Odd on the play and Even on the draw and end up pretty happy in most MUs.
Magus of the Crypt - All magi are inefficient compared to their base cards, but this one makes up for it up with the fact that Tormod's Crypt is hyper-efficient already, so you can still put it on a cheap creature and have it be neat sideboard tech for artifact aggro decks. Honestly, though, I don't know much this would see play, given even in Modern the decks that end up centering around heavy graveyard synergies require fast interaction, faster than Magus here perhaps offers. MH2 unfortunately already has Tormod's Cryptkeeper, so his ends up falling flat for me, even if it does potentially have more constructed applications.
Chattering Grotto - I think this is a card that feels like it would fit better in MH1 rather than MH2. Sure, MH2 has squirrel themes, but there are none at common, two at unc, and unlike MH1 there aren't changelings to give this flexibility. This ends up super narrow as a result, and I think that Unknown Shores-alikes really need to pull their weight to justify themselves in a way that this doesn't. It's a shame, because I love the design and theming in a vacuum, just doesn't work in practice.
Garruk Unburdened - I like bringing Garruk back after a long while of being out to pasture, and "Cascade into Beast" is an appropriately splashy way of doing Garruk's standard "make a Beast" effect. Cascade into [type] can be dangerous because it makes Cascade's ability to be cheated in deckbuilding even easier, but at seven mana and with the type being Beast of all things, its probably fine - most combo-adjacent thing you could probably do is finding Woodland Bellower. I don't think you needed the full Cascade RT here, and in fact I think that hurts this card immensely, because it leaves you with so little room for the other abilities. Both of his loyalty abilities being essentially "eh make creature big/better in combat" makes me feel like there isn't actually much play to the planeswalker itself, which is disappointing. I'm fine with the "Cascade into Beast" making this purely a constructed consideration, but if that's the case you've got to give me enough in the other abilities to actually justify this in constructed.
Saffiyah, Moonlit Mentor - Neat deep cut to the FT of Flying Men. I'm low on the "multiple instances of flying" as the mechanical hook of choice, given that it feels clunkier to build around and immediately get value out of relative to other ways you could've made Flying Men matter. Favorable Winds is already a niche archetype. This could've played into the aggressive or tempo-y applications of cheap fliers, but instead the design actively anti-synergizes with curving into Saffiyah from your flying men.		There's some cool stuff here, and there's also some weird stuff here. To an extent, many of these cards feel like they're "cards like Modern Horizons" and not quite Modern Horizons 2 cards, which I think is the biggest thorn in this entry's side.
Starting with your commons and uncommons, Chattering Grotto feels like it would be a good card for MH2 at first, but as I think about it, almost all of the Squirrels in the Squirrels deck were tokens: there are, in fact, only 4 Squirrel creature cards in the set, and none of those are at common, making it hard to find targets (though, if this were MH1, the number of Changelings would have made this dope there!). Thraben Patrol is a solid card that works well in-set as counterplay to the many tokens and could maybe be a situational player in Human tribal decks, which WotC loves to support; Paradoxical Quandry--typo in the name aside--is a dope concept for a hand hate card that really wouldn't be printable anywhere else but I would like to have exist.
The rares and mythics are the brunt of the entry and they're more hit and miss. Supplicant of Iroas is worshipping the wrong god, but I really like the cross-use of exert and convoke for a big refill and that's a very conceptually cool piece for aggressive decks. Jhessian Deception feels useless, even though I understand what it's use could be... those uses just feel niche and not worth the card. Magus of the Crypt would be a great card standalone to insert into Constructed formats, but it looks really sloppy when Tormod's Cryptkeeper already does this exact bit as an artifact creature in MH2. Doesn't feel like you did the research you needed. Saffiyah doesn't feel that intermixed with any MH2 cards or themes, but as a general premise "giving a flying deck Coastal Piracy" is cool to me conceptually, and the card's beefy enough to feel like it could work in a Constructed deck... though, to be honest, I kind of wonder if it needs to do double-flying rather than just save text and care about single flying, since that's what it tells you to play. Finally, Garruk feels like it was "Cascade into Beast" first and every other part of the card a distant second, and is another example of a concept that would have been so much better with MH1's changelings than MH2's... two total Green beasts, neither of which needs a messy seven-drop mythic that's unplayable in any format to be useful.
I think the weakest part of this entry is that theese aren't that good at integrating into MH2. Most of them are solid enough designs for a different Modern Horizons, but they miss the mark on the assignment this round, and that hurts.		Supplicant of Iroas: In a world where Seasoned Pyromancer is totally viable to cast in Modern and Ragavan is generally dead in the late-game, it's not that uncommon to have a bunch of losers on board. I do think it's a little difficult to come up with a board state where you're happy to leave three+ creatures tapped for an entire turn cycle, but the idea is at least interesting to me.
Thraben Patrol: I'm generally not a fan of single-mana taxes, but this one is easy to plan around and doesn't really exacerbate the play/draw issue because to decks where it matters it mostly will read like Thalia. I'm not sure this needed the third point of toughness and I don't know how much granting Humans vigilance is doing in practice, so I'm not sure what the goal is for this design, but I'll at least give you kudos for the single-mana tax I don't hate.
Jhessian Deception: I don't care for this card as much. I think it could do some cool things in limited where you can turn all of your t1-5 creatures into your t6 haymaker, but as a rare it feels like one of those Ravnica blue enchantments that doesn't actually do anything in practice. Put this at uncommon, and I'm listening.
Paradoxical Quand[a]ry: Seems like a fair sidegrade of MSEM2 hand attack spells. I think it's very unlikely WotC prints another one-mana discard spell that's competitive at all until Thoughtseize gets banned from modern (or IOK does). For a non-Canon set, I could see this easily.
Magus of the Crypt: This card exists, right? Yeah, it does, and it's at common. It's not easy to keep track of every existing MH2 card, so I'll give you a bit of a pass there, but this could be a common and no one would bat an eye.
Chattering Grotto: This, I like, lol. I'm not really convinced this is a good design piece for this competition, but there are some meaningful Squirrels you can pick up in MH2, and I love the idea of drafting Chatterfang and suddenly this bulk common goes WAY up in value.
Garruk Unburdened: Weird to put this in MH2, since there are only five beasts, and this only cascades into four of them. +3 is one more loyalty than I'd be comfortable with here, and the 0 is really fiddly and hard to parse. The general play pattern of "Garruk into 6-drop with haste" doesn't suck though, and I think "Cascade into X" has play patterns that make the game more fun.
Saffiyah: I'm going to assume this is a reference to some old Arabian Nights thing and not just Aladdin. The text "multiple instances of flying" is wild; it's so ugly, but it strikes me as the kind of outside-the-box thing MH2 would do. I do somewhat wish she could turn herself on for her second ability, and I suspect the deck that wants this effect doesn't want to be starting the synergy on turn 4.		Supplicant of Iroas - Iroas? Did you mean Mogis? I think I like this. Exerting convoked creatures is definitely cute and right at home in a MH set. Lovely design besides the name.
Thraben Patrol - Oh, this is very neat. While I personally dislike humans as an archetype, I think this does a very good job of not only keeping to what Humans does in Legacy/Modern, but also just feeling all around powerful in the points that it wants to feel powerful.
Jhessian Deception - This, however, does not. I think at rare it can be juiced up, even a bit. I think a good comparison is the "fair" casting of Metamorphic Alteration, which was decent in the few decks that it was in. This has a very high hoop in forcing you to attack alone in order to get the benefit only when attacking, heavily limiting where and when this is good. Yes, you can use it to get sneaky vigilance, but do you want to spend 3 mana to do that? Especially whenever Thraben Patrol is hitting those notes in such a cooler way.
Paradoxical Quandry - This, I love. I really wish that this either reference Kozilek (for the Inquisition bit) or mirrored Inquisition for Ulamog. That's super, duper minor, though. This looks like it'll be much more constructed focused in a fun way, but definitely a fan.
Magus of the Crypt - Yeapyeapyeap. This is the type of fun MH design that I'm here for.
Chattering Grotto - I feel that this could have Squirrelcycling 2, due to the Wizardcycling cards, but this is definitely a cute addition.
Garruk Unburdened - While I do love more Garruk cards, this has a pretty massive problem. There are only 5 Beasts in all of MH2, and only one in green at common. And, from that, even if you missed on the cascade, the +3 then also requires you to have beasts, and hopefully keep them going. The 0 is definitely fun and exciting, but I think this could be costed and worked in a way that doesn't heavily push you into having a bunch of beasts in your deck, especially hinting at you to go wide. I think for Onslaught-era Extended this could work, but for MH, it just isn't doing it for me. And, for Modern as a whole, this basically has hits in Elder Gargaroth and Questing Beast, which split the keywords that Garruk is attempting to give out. And, even then, the decks that are running those are ponza decks, that want to use those to immediately gain value to win, not run an even more expensive planeswalker in hopes of getting them out just to give them haste. I think in a different set, this maybe could have worked out a bit, but so much of this walker feels clunky while also completely missing the note of what makes a MH card a MH card.
Saffiyah - This, however, is a really fun MH design that does exactly what you would think. It plays with the rules in a fun way and references a super obscure character and plays well with the set. This lets you do fun stuff with Burdened Aerialist or Ghost-Lit Drifter in very fun ways. Lovely design.		Supplicant of Iroas - Interesting convoke design. I have to think about whether this asking you to discard your entire hand instead of just discarding that many on top of exerting the convokers is harsher than what it needs to be, but I like it regardless. We sure this isn't one of Mogis's, though?

Thraben Patrol - This one's bit of an odd choice. Uncommon hatebear with tribal support. I guess this is a "straight to Modern" kinda deal but on the whole it doesn't specifically feel like it's for MH2.

Jhessian Deception — This is a weird one and I don't feel it's practical enough to have a shot at Modern. Flavor's fun, at least, but kind of a disappointing do-nothing enchantment.

Paradoxical Quandry — Quand(a)ry? Now this is exciting. Inquisition of Ulamog, it seems. The competition for Modern's discard suite is tight so I don't think this lives up to Thoughtseize, but it's a cool design nonetheless.

Magus of the Crypt — Tormod's Cryptkeeper is in MH2 . . . This is more efficient, but it feels like a waste of a slot in this entry.

Chattering Grotto - No hits at common make this pretty sad, and the base case of just Shimmering Grotto on the board doesn't cut it for a Masters set. If the challenge was for MH1 I'd be more interested in this given the Changelings there.

Garruk Unburdened - This runs into the same issue as Chattering Grotto a bit with only 3 hits in-set, but I'm more forgiving of it since it's a mythic. That said, the loyalty abilities on this feel underwhelming. I suppose haste is important to provide immediate impact on whatever Beast you've cascaded into, but for a 7 mana planeswalker I expect more.

Saffiyah, Moonlit Mentor - I'll clap for this one; good choice of a blorbo to Legendary-fy. This is my favorite card in the entry, I think. I've always liked the idea of incentivizing multiple instances of a keyword as a cool Future Sight-type design, and think it's appropriate space for a Masters set to play in, too. I think this would be cooler if the bonus scaled off the number of instances, though, just so it separates itself further from just playing flying tribal.

Overall: Most of this entry feels like it was done with printing the designs straight into Modern in mind, but not necessarily specific to MH2. You have some good ideas here but some designs held you back from a higher score.		- Supplicant of Iroas I think is something I would be higher on if we hadn't had a chance yet to see Knight-Errant of Eos in action. The exerting here feels unnecessary. Power-wise I think this is fine without it, so it feels to me like it's only there to combine multiple expert level mechanics in order to make this feel like more of a MH2 card.
- Thraben Patrol combining a tribal "lord" with a very specific (and soft) hatebear effect feels like a bit of a weird place to be. Only one specific deck wants this card (and the payoff there is mid), and you probably only want it even there in very specific matchups (where there are likely better options if you really need to hate out tokens, which I imagine a tribal deck isn't super worried about anyway with how much better its creatures are likely to be - I guess it helps in the mirror?)
- Jhessian Deception is one of those rare enchantments that seems fun to read and to imagine playing with, but it never really gets there. The inefficiency between the cost and needing to both be playing big creatures worth copying while also needing to run crappy creatures worth turning into copies of other things, and slowing down your attacks to only one creature per turn, feels like too much to ask for the reward you're getting.
- Paradoxical Quandary* has some neat metagaming. I think the whiff chances are just high enough for this to feel reasonable, though I think you'll often just end up picking odd or even based on whatever amount of mana your opponent will have next turn in order to throw them off-curve.
- Magus of the Crypt is an interesting call, but I think it misunderstands what makes gravehate ideal - generally when you want gravehate, you want some combination of being cheap and able to activate immediately. This being useable turn 3 at the earliest, affected by summoning sickness and being more vulnerable to removal than artifact-based hate, makes me think this doesn't make the cut.
- Chattering Grotto being a split between a 3 mana super-specific tutor and an Unknown Shores feels like two places you don't particularly want to be in, especially in a draft format as high-powered as MH2. This feels like it would be less out of place at a higher rarity and with some more punch, maybe with its mana ability giving you some additional Squirrel payoff.
- Garruk Unburdened's Cascade Into Type is a really nice way of mitigating the swinginess of the mechanic, while also feeling very Garruk. The +3 feels very barebones, but this is supplemented by gaining 3 loyalty which feeds into the 0, and having already gotten value out of the cast trigger. The 0 making your creatures as "strong" as Garruk is a nice thematic fit.
- Saffiyah is certainly a novel direction to take. I don't love how technical the "multiple instances of" wording feels outside of rules text, in a way that takes me out of the fantasy of the game. With Saffiyah being a vulnerable creature, paying life to grant additional instances of flying to your already-flying creatures with a payoff that leaves you with no benefit after she dies makes her feel like she'll play out in a clunky way. This could have been supplemented if she gave benefits to creatures you'd played out earlier than her who already had flying, but only affecting creatures you play from t4 onwards if she's cast on curve feels like not what this kind of deck wants to be doing.		Supplicant of Iroas - Super cool! I love the encouragement to play out your hand as soon as possible, and have those cards be mostly creatures to convoke as efficiently as possible, to refill your hand and get a bunch of value. Casting this on 4, or on turn 5 for like 3 mana sounds super fun for sure.
Thraben Patrol - Seems pretty cool as a Humans-tribal hatebear, definitely powerful on stats and the hate part of it is a nice little bonus for a deck that wants to be the one going wide as opposed to letting your opponent do it.
Jhessian Deception - Just seems way too overcosted for the thing it's trying to do. Sure, it lets you attack with your best creature without risking it, but like, 3 mana for that effect means you can't play a good creature the turn you cast it - seems too slow to actually generate the value you want it to.
Paradoxical Quandary - Dope. No notes! Just a very sick targeted discard effect. Seems super solid if you have a good idea as to what the threats in your opponents deck are.
Magus of the Crypt - This set did exactly this bit with Tormod's Cryptkeeper. Same flavor, same reference, the only that that changed was -1 cost for -1 power and -vigilance. It's certainly more playable at 2, but like I feel like it's worth it to run through the setlist to make sure your card idea wasn't taken when the challenge was "make a card from this set."
Chattering Grotto - Cool concept, I don't think that there are enough Squirrels in the set to make this viable, though. Especially given that the Squirrels deck doesn't super need to splash another color since all of the Squirrels cards are in BG but one (which isn't really good for the Squirrels deck anyways), this doesn't really land for me. Would have landed better if it was like, an artifact payoff or something since the Bridges push that deck towards having 5c capability.
Garruk Unburdened - Not sure why you decided to go Beast tribal here? There are like 5 Beasts in the set proper, only 2 of them are in green, and in constructed for Modern there's not really that much that this hits that you would super actively want to be playing. I will give you that the +3 and the cascade are cool paired together, and getting to 0 on the next turn is definitely exciting.
Saffiyah - First ability is definitely fun, I like this card as a flying-granter that pushes you to pay life and be aggresive. However, not really a fan of the last ability, I think "multiple instances of flying" is clunky and feels very much like it's just a kind of parasitic tool to make the A+B work.
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Cool Beens#4885
https://imgur.com/a/HjSKCH92.43Electric Charge - Bushwhackers can be strong at common because of their strength in multiples, though trading Having a Body for the double-cast is a steep price in terms of "ability to do the kill you thing," so probably fine. I do believe that if you discard a Madness creature to try and cast this jump-started, the creature would resolve before this and therefore get haste, right? If so, that's a cool interaction. Given the Madness archetype skews pretty aggressive, I like this choice of effect for it. Could've done with more non-agnostic flavor, though.
Excavator of Ruins - Neat, simple uncommon for the GU tokens archetype. The type of thing I'm surprised they didn't already do in the set - there was Timeless Witness, but that was more a generically good card/was for the Eternal Witness/Eternalize pun.
Forge Hub - An artifact fetchland is a gutsy thing to print, but given that the only legal artifactlands in Modern are the artifact duals printed in this set, should probably be safer than it looks. No strong feelings about the activated ability, feels like something that was mostly added in order to make the card have less empty space/its splashy, but I'm not sure how many games it'll end up being relevant in - hopefully few, because if its reliably getting to Do the Thing, that's pretty annoying to interact with, especially if they hold it till a shield down turn and then crack it immediately --> activate.
Gaea, Bringer of Nature - Yeah, this is a fun, splashy bomb, appropriately gated in powerlevel by two different deckbuilding requirements. I'm surprised this doesn't reference the most iconic Gaea card, Cradle, but that's not a strike against it. Caring about basic lands does feel like a very Gaea thing to do, and I like how seamlessly integrated that part is into the rest of the card.
Goblin Chariot - I'm a big fan of this card. Incredibly flavorful, with a buildaround requirement to maximize its strength, at which point its a potent aggro threat as effectively "Just a 3/3 haste for 2" in the right deck. Might be nasty in multiples, though, especially with this having battle cry - I think this would've been a lot cooler as an uncommon without battle cry, personally.
Incubation Overseer - I don't know if I'm missing something, but this feels pretty weak, right? You want to invest a lot of mana into it to get maximum value, but the more mana you invest, the harder it is to curve it into the creatures to hold the Graft counters. I suppose you could use it as 2 mana proliferate, but that seems more like "I guess there's modality" than an attractive usecase. It's also outside of the Modular colors, so probably rare that you're gonna get that synergy in limited. Overall, feels like a clunky card that requires a lot to go right for it to work out.
Skemfar Stalker - Sure, I guess. It's a common for the WB reanimation archetype. This feel incredibly by-the-numbers for that purpose, though, in a way that I don't think the other MH commons feel. Cycling is the most obvious way for it to self-discard, so it all ends up feeling a little rote.
Splicer's Assembly - Yeah, I guess. On-curve body in white that provides two artifacts for UW's purposes. Doesn't feel like the most interesting/unqiue implementation of that concept, much like Skemfar. Art feels distinctly not magic-like, let alone MTG like - even if finding actual splicer golems was hard, this feels like not a great pull.		I'm generally happy enough with this entry. It's got some oddities and some fineagling to sort out, but all of these entries did, and the foundation I see here feels well-supported and I'm settled with it.
Electric Charge doesn't feel particularly strong since it loses out on the body of a regular Bushwhacker effect, and the existing MH2 Madness are usually able to instant-speed discard stuff out anyway so the haste isn't super useful. Does it work to madness the card you discard to jump-start this and still have it get the boost? That's the best part of the card, design-wise. Skemfar Stalker is your other common and I think it's a little too self-solving as a "clear and obvious" WB reanimator target, with the ETB surveil 1 also feeling pretty "also here" since it's clear the desire is to want you to cycle it and get that extra bonus then. Your uncommons are a strong spot, though, where the commons were meh: Excavator of Ruins is a good, appealing card that continues riffing off of the idea of the Eternalized Witness (though it shares overlap with Parcel Myr as a 2/1 Clue-boy for 1U). Incubation Overseer is sick, re-using Graft to mirror into the counters archetype and synergizing with a lot of overall pieces with a clean design. Splicer's Assembly's Clue-ness feels a bit off when white doesn't care about tokens, but it is still two artifacts for WU and it's a good reference that melds well.
Forge Hub being a direct link to the Bridges and also to Tron is a cool, good set of comparisons, but unfortunately they non-bo with each other in actual play: you can tutor for Bridges, which is dope, but that's not the deck that wants to hit 7 and grab a big artifact. I do note how the forge hub lets you bring back the Darksteel Forge, which I like as a tie-in too. Goblin Chariot is cool if you have one and seems nasty if you have multiple for a Bushwhacker effect (ironically much better than Electric Charge) thanks to stacking Battle Cry, which is a tension point I don't know how to resolve without just changing or wrecking the card. Finally, Gaea asking you to thread the needle between wooberging and playing basic lands is difficult to do, but a really cool line to walk and the card is well-worth that kind of investment if you can do it: or even just playing it as 5GG is feasible, making it a good buildaround mythich that would be dope in Commander, specifically.
I think the commons are the weakest link here, but your higher rarity cards take good effort to do novel things and still feel like they're a direct part of MH2. This week's challenge was hard, and you did a good job with what you had. 		Electric Charge: What exactly is this supporting? This is the kind of board-impact flashback common that drives me nuts because of how you have to play around it as the opponent ("oh, what if my opponent has a hasty 4/4 next turn? how does that change things?"), which really slows games down. I'm also again just not sure what this does in MH2 specifically.
Excavator of Ruins: That FT, lol. The design seems fine, if not overly thrilling. I think the Embalm cost could be more aggressive, this isn't THAT far off from costing like Think Twice.
Forge Hub: Fetchlands are inherently dangerous, and this is just as dangerous as its targets, which to be fair are not that dangerous in modern because the good ones are banned. The AA on the back half definitely can't be instant speed.
Gaea, Bringer of Nature: I appreciate that this is an Elemental, because that's really the only reasonable place that it'd be played in Modern. I think it's a HUGE miss to not cost it at WUBRG proper, because the pitch-Elementals would love to have another playable gold card to pitch.
Goblin Chariot: I don't mind the idea of "push the card down the hill then run in behind it," but this plays so badly in multiples because the timing window lets you crew like three of them with the same two dorks and then attack for a boatload of damage. Add in haste, and these just close out the game WAY too fast.
Incubation Overseer: This is a cute design, though I think it's probably too expensive to do anything meaningful. 3GG for a very, very, very slow six counters just isn't that impressive, and even with the trick mode of X=0 I don't think this gets there.
Skemfar Stalker: Ah, sure? A 6/6 that ETBs to surveil 1 feels like it's playing weirdly small ball. The cycling ability is fine, I guess, but the card as a whole feels disjoint because of how big and small each part of its abilities are.
Splicer's Assembly: I mean. That's linoleum tile, right? This art doesn't fit MTG at all. The card seems fine, Blade Splicer is historically popular, though mostly because you can flicker it. I think the clue ability is a sidegrade to that.		Electric Charge - MH designs get to be cute in terms of how they use their abilities, but I think this is a tad too much. This type of effect tends to be one that you use to end the game, which makes it a weird spot to not only be a jumpstart card, but also one where it has a backside that gives you more value. Overall, I don't think I'm a fan of how this design lines up, and I don't think it quite has a place in most decks.
Excavator of Ruins - This feels like a toooon of value, in a very fun and exciting way. 10 total mana for two cards and two 2/1s over the course of many turns definitely feels durdly, but with each part being paid at different points, it definitely is more of an "as I have extra mana" type of thing, while feeding into so many different points in the game. I do think that it could have been an ETB rather than a dies trigger. In doing so, you'd allow for the mana payments to be more drawn out. Currently, the dies + Embalm happen at the same time (since you get both options at the same time) rather than letting you spread out the value even longer. Still think it is solid as-is, but that would have made it so much more palatable.
Forge Hub - This is very spicy. I think it could easily hit a broken point, but in-set it definitely feels super exciting. Mostly to get bridges (as the flavor text points out), but getting a power depot as an option as well is always nifty. The last ability probably wants to be costed a tad differently and return to hand instead, since 7 mana rez as a flashback for your land feels like it is much too free of a cost.
Gaea - I do not feel like this is safe at all. Or at least in a fun way. WUBRG for an indestructible 7/7 is enough of a threat that it would be scary without the untapping ability, but with it feels like a bit too much. I do think this steps a bit on Scion of Draco's toes a little, which makes it a bit of a miss for me.
Goblin Chariot - Hm. 1 drops in limited are definitely a bit hard to get going, and this pushes you to get blown out with removal in order to get extra value. The one drops in mh2 aren't quite ones that I would push into a go-wide deck, especially one that wants to cast a 3 drop to give them a slight boost. I feel like I'm missing something on why it wants to have the decisions that were made here.
Incubation Overseer - This is definitely interesting. I think the base cost of this is very anemic (basically getting to put two +1/+1 counters on a new creature for 3 mana), but as you scale up, it gets more and more interesting. It does have the issue that you want to be at a point to spend a lot of mana on it, then cast creatures, but if you are already at that point, do you have the creatures to cast? I don't think that'll happen very often, which is one of the pain points of graft that this falls into in a non-satisfying way.
Skemfar Stalker - This doesn't quite feel like Kaldheim to me. Skemfar are the elves, so this is stalking elves, but... what is it? Not knocking points for it, but it doesn't quite feel like Norse-y things to me. The ability is neat, and definitely more fitting for a MH set than a non, as a lot of players will mix up the discard trigger+cycling and the order that they'll resolve. I do think the surveil 1 on ETB feels very, very anemic for a 6/6 for 7, but that's only a minor issue.
Splicer's Assembly - This looks a tad boring, but it fills a lot of roles, but I don't think this is doing anything in an exciting or clever way that I would expect from a MH set, especially at uncommon.		Electric Charge - I don't think I'm excited to play this unless I'm really desperate for discard synergy, but with my experience with MH2 that's hardly an issue. Unnecessary line breaks (talking about the faux rummage ability) are off putting to me, but I suppose that's there to make it stand out more so you know it synergizes with other discard effects.

Excavator of Ruins - I knew going in to this challenge that there would be a number of takes at common on the GU archetype with cards that do more than one token type. This is one of them but it stands out from similar cards in other entries with its more resonant, meta-MTG flavor. Messed up the closing quote on the flavor text, though, but that's tricky to get to work properly so I don't blame you (for future reference, try using a zero-width space character to force the right closing mark). The emblam cost here feels undercosted but it's definitely exciting, especially when taking into consideration that the emblamed version gives another Clue on death.

Forge Hub - Love this. Love the reference to the Bridges. The (7) ability is also awesome.

Gaea, Bringer of Nature - Fun reference to the 5DN cycle. The alternate cost should use "this spell" over the cardname, though. Tying the untap to lands with basic land types is really neat. The mana refund is a bit concerning but I think the combination of deck building requirements and being disruptible outside of destroy/damaged-based removal makes it fair enough.

Goblin Chariot - This is a weird one. I'm not sure I'm sold on the design. It feels like its trying to bill itself as an aggro-combo piece but not quite getting there.

Incubation Overseer - I think it's funny that you can pay GG and just get the death trigger right away with this. Seems fine enough with GW's gameplan in MH2.

Skemfar Stalker - This is a fine common but I'm not sure what it's adding to the table. Yes it synergizes with discard/graveyard themes in MH2 but it's doing it in ways that are well-trodden. This feels like a pretty generic design that doesn't tell me it's meant to fit in a Masters set.

Splicer's Assembly - Feels like you could get away with this being a common, even. Like what's being depicted this design feels very clinical. Where's the Masters wow factor here? It can't be that it's a nontoken Clue, as MH2 checks that box with Parcel Myr. This would be more interesting as an include for this challenge if MH2 had a Splicer theme that would make it more relevant, but it doesn't.

Overall: The higher rarity cards were cool for the most part but I sensed some trepidation with the commons		- Electric Charge's synergy with Madness creatures is a nice touch, and one that feels like a natural fit in that deck. However, as a standalone card I think this suffers from the card draw not really mattering given that this is something you want to use as a kind of finisher (see Ambitious Assault playing poorly in NEO draft), and the ability to recast this not really mattering except when you're casting this twice in one turn, since if you failed the first attack with this then it probably means you've lost a good chunk of your board state.
- Excavator of Ruins is a super sweet clean addition to the GU archetype, operating on multiple axes in a positive way.
- Forge Hub in the context of MH2's artifact lands is neat and feels reasonable, though I can imagine this easily becoming abusable depending on the environment it's in. The second ability feels a bit too swingy for me given how low the opportunity cost of running this card is, and it should at least be locked to sorcery speed.
- Gaea certainly feels splashy. I like the tension between wanting to support 5c but the final payoff only working on lands with basic types so you can't just get obscenely greedy with your manabase (though I think I would've liked it more if it were limited to basic lands rather than typed lands).
- Goblin Chariot is a pretty clean powerhouse, filling a naturally solid role in an aggro deck. I think this probably wants to be limited to triggering once a turn so it isn't an easy infinite with creatures with a tap or untap trigger, and wants to specify "crewed it this turn".
- Incubation Overseer is on the weak end for a regular draft format, let alone MH2. Ivy Elementals aren't really playable anymore, and adding an extra mana while also asking that you play a bunch of creatures after this makes it perform poorly at its place on the curve, wherever that is.
- Skemfar Stalker feels on the too-plain end for commons for MH2. Cycling on a big creature is the tried and true way of supporting reanimator, and adding a trigger to being discarded doesn't really add any novelty here, especially when it's so easy to discard itself that it's only pretending to have outside utility with other discard outlets.
- Splicer's Assembly is certainly a card that would play well, particularly in WU providing two artifacts, but not one where its design feels super compelling for this competition. Calling out splicers but only incorporating the Golem-making ability of Splicers feels like a miss to me. This art choice feels very far from what I would expect from Mirrodin/Phyrexia.		Electric Charge - Sure, I buy it. Seems fun for storm as a thing that can get cast twice and also buffs your Chatterstorms, and I like the idea that you can discard before playing it on the front end to have it be a cantrip. Maybe on the weaker side, but the concept is definitely there.
Excavator of Ruins - Solidly fine, especially for the tokens deck. No complaints.
Forge Hub - Cool! I like that it has the in-set synergy with the Bridges, as well as the ability to use it late-game as a reanimator slots it nicely in a more midrangey/controlly artifacts shell which seems super fun. Constructed-wise not sure if this gets anywhere (although it probably fucks hard in like PD in Haups if that deck is still legal lol) but the concept is definitely cool.
Gaea - Weird that this is an ETB+attack instead of an upkeep like the rest of the Bringers? Feels weird to only half-invoke the bringer cycle, I feel like this should commit more.
Goblin Chariot - Concept is definitely very cool, I like the idea of a Vehicle untapping your creatures and battlecrying them along into the fight, that said this seems absolutely busted if you pick up multiples, since you can stack your battle-cry triggers for +2 attack per creature that crewed it along with two 4/3's and the 1-drops P/T themselves. Scary, maybe should have been some kind of legendary reference or cut the battle-cry.
Incubation Overseer - Idea is definitely cool, I like Graft encouraging you to slowly kill the creature off and then get a bonus once you finish, but the implementation feels pretty weak because it costs XGG - I think XG honestly would have been a better solution, or at least some middle ground.
Skemfar Seer - Reanimation target that also surveils to dig for a reanimator spell when you discard it, I definitely buy it. Seems nice as a common reanimator target, which I think WB could have used more of.
Splicer's Assembly - Sad that we're directly referencing Splicers here but not doing any sort of keying on Golems - could have been fun since you have Bottle Golems and General Ferrous in the set. Other than that design-wise it definitely functions in the artifact deck. Also, art here is just not a good choice IMO, this is clearly a Mirrodin reference and that art is definitely not anywhere in that ballpark.
4
Fleur#9674https://imgur.com/a/a8PTb1b2.14Ichorshriek - This card doesn't work - you can't modify an "as enters" with a "when enters" trigger, given the latter happens after the former.
Lingering Commando - Neatly slots into the WB Reanimator archetype. Road to Ruin supports the idea that the arcuns in this set can have be not strictly multicolored, in a Lingering Souls sort of way where you probably want to play them in a multicolor deck anyways. Road is better at self-enabling thanks to the fixing, though.
Moldering Expanse - I think the concept of this is neat, but the current rate feels pitifully slow. I think you could've folded in the spore counter to the mana ability, or just made it an upkeep trigger like lots of the other spore counter cards - even if you made that change, its a whole 1/1 every four turns.
Pelakka Coiler - Yeah, this works for the GU tokens archetype. I like the Food/Clue split as a reference to the Lifegain/Draw on the original Pelakka Wurm.
Reckless Nighthawk - Bridges BR Madness and UB Discard well. I'm a little dubious on this being a 3 power lifelinker on curve at common (with the other upsides/additional point of toughness over previous comparable examples) - I almost feel like this would've been better served with deathtouch being the base keyword, though perhaps less incentive to discard a card just for lifelink. I think some would argue that making it a 3/2 from 2/3 makes the reference land worse, but I disagree and think that it being a 3/2 makes it play better anyways, so I prefer that change. Not being able to gain flying to block feels awkward here.
Sprout of Ulasht - This seems severely overrate at common to me as a combat trick (even if only when attacking) that essentially works out to "2RR 3/2 Trample etb target creature gets +3/+2" with additional flexibility/upside. I think Bloodrush and Madness together are a neat MH-style pairing of keywords, if a bit self-solving, but the rate here is severely underestimating the play patterns of the card.
The Honorable Angelfire - Neat. No notes, seems like a cool update to an old legend that retain the non-finicky bits and adds a layer of A. immedaite value and B. buildaround potential.
Thopter Dealer - I like that this works with all of the blue archetypes in the set. Just feels like a clean curve-filler - definitely pushed, but this one feels like it's in a more acceptable and exciting way.		While there are some cards here I like a good bit, there are also some that I don't really think landed well. And one that just sort of doesn't work. That's unfortunate! This has the bones of something I believe, but it doesn't stick the landing fully.
I'm sure other people have already explained the issue with the triggers on Ichorshriek, so I'll skip over that for now. For your four commons, I think you've got one great concept (Thopter Dealer), one fine enough one (Pelakka Coiler--though I think it overlaps heavily with Jewel-Eye Cobra for the same slot in MH2 proper), and two that I don't think made it: Reckless Nighthawk feels inelegant at the reference, reads swingy if it works, and is overlapping heavily with MH2's existing discard outlets, and Sprout of Ulasht's perfect self-enabling is just sort of a no-brainer always-do-this mode that feels too self-indulgent and overtuned.
For the rest, I think Lingering Commando is actually pretty cool, with a good reference that's clear in the costs and pattern while fitting into the set well. Mouldering Expanse just feels way too slow to be worth using anywhere, and it's a bummer it can't engage in the Squirrel deck even if it is good flavour reference using the spore counters of old. The Honorable Angelfire is a Baneslayer for 2021, just sticking a massive huge pile of stats across your board. It's in the weird spot to me where it's potentially overbearing in Limited but not likely to be useful anywhere else, but I think it's worthwhile all the same just taking a card from Legends and making it cool and exciting.
The cards here I like, I really like. But unfortunately there's enough cards here I don't like that make the entry a bit jittery overall.		Ichorshriek: Not loving that we're starting off with a missed timing window. This feels a bit chunky to be an MH2 equipment, and I don't particularly like the use of exploit here since the set already had living weapon.
Lingering Commando: I like how this card would play in limited. I am a touch worried about what it does in constructed, but modern is probably so fast that this would either be degenerate or underpowered. I think it's weird to see the off-color AA, since that's not really a thing MH2 did.
Moldering Expanse: This seems like a fine enough callback to previous mechanics. I think the templating is weird, though I guess it's just meant to simulate an ETB tap to get the spore counter. The payoff is pretty small-ball, though, I don't think it's very good.
Pelakka Coiler: Holy value, Batman! This design is great, though I think it's probably a liiiittle over curve, even for MH2 limited.
Reckless Nighthawk: Not really vibing with this. The timing window means you can't block flyers, which I suppose is intentional but reads like a glitch. It's not a terrible callback, but I think the play pattern wouldn't be that fun, and any common that discards a card as a cost is a really tough sell because of how noob-trappy they can be, while over-supporting Madness archetypes.
Sprout of Ulasht: I've always loved the Hate Seed! This card is too fancy for its own good and is definitely not a common. 2RR for a flash 3/2 trample that gives an attacker +3/+2 and trample is nuts. I don't mind combining the two keywords, but you can't be that aggressive with it at common.
The Honorable Angelfire: Kinda feels like this wants to be Support and not Bolster. I guess the base case of a 5/5 is fine, but losing the keyword value feels bad and I'd rather it just incentivize you to spread out. Also weird to see "gain 4 life" since the power is either 3 or 5, just a bit asynchronous.
Thopter Dealer: Another card that feels a bit out of whack; not having the same power as the token it's making (which TMK is not canon) is weird and definitely not how WotC would print this card. I don't love tying it to the discard at common, either; another card that traps players into misvaluing cards in hand.		Ichorshriek - This has a few rules issues all around. Exploit is an ETB, which means you can't have it "as it enters the battlefield" since that event has already happened. Additionally, Exploit is an ETB, which means it'll trigger as the same time as the germ-making ability. However, as an intervening-if, since the exploit trigger is on the stack, it'll never get a chance to even be put onto the stack! I think this wanted to be a tad less cute and just "When ~ exploits a creature, create a 0/0 black Germ creature token and attach ~ to it." That'd be a lot less wordy and get the message across super clear. I think this is a pants-card to end all pants-cards, though. +4/+4 just as a baseline equipment is a *lot* of stats that just make whatever you equip onto massively powerful. MH2 already had this a bit in the modular cards, letting you stack and go past, but the equipment in the set were purposefully either evasive or not that good, letting modular take the place of the pants. Putting this alongside those cards just does not seem safe.
Lingering Commando - Ooh, this is neat. This lets WB get a few more animation pieces, which it was very much missing and does so in a very interesting way that plays with the delirium/discard types of archeytpes super well. The body letting you easily trade with cards, while also gaining you life for doing so is a neat way to push the aggression while also getting you an advantage. Lovely card.
Moldering Expanse - Hm. This is really, really slow. In order to get your first token, you have basically (including the ETB tapped) spent 5 turns and 6 mana (over it being a basic Forest) to make a single 1/1. That rate feels very, very bad. And, the second one comes a tad bit faster, but you'll get your next token in 4 more turns. Lands that make tokens can definitely be overpowered, but we're comparing to things that are doing this, or better, for 4 mana period. Vitu-Ghazi was once playable, but it definitely is not where it used to be, and this feels a bit worse. Sure, you don't have to use the mana all at once, but that definitely feels like it isn't going to be worth it. It does work with the small handful of proliferate cards in the set, but none of those are engines that are going to make this feel better, except the Daggertooth, which is entirely in the opponent's control. I do like the idea here, but definitely think the ETBT just to be able to produce green mana is not doing it any favors. I think that's the first thing that I would change out to make it at least a little more palatable.
Pelakka Coiler - I kinda dislike that this is basically taking the same space/slot as Jewel-Eyed Cobra and I feel that the deathtouch of the Cobra isn't giving it the push needed to win out against the Coiler. By not having Treasure, this basically is goodstuff/UG-tokens and limited a bit there, rather than letting it pull double duty, like the Coiler.
Reckless Nighthawk - I think the activation restriction is doing some weird things here that I'm not a fan of at common. First off, it makes it look like it can be an effective reacher, but since you have to already be blocking, the flying bit is only for aggression. The deathtouch, then is mainly to force two for ones, which isn't quite where you want to go. The main use, of course, is for a free discard outlet. But, black in MH2 at common already has two discard outlets and two at uncommon. Red, however, has one, which makes me feel if you wanted to make a discard outlet to be added, you'd want to hit Red, not black.
Sprout of Ulasht - Ooh, now this is pretty cool. Double-keywording (even if it is an ability word) is one of the most fun parts of MH sets and this does it very cleanly. I do think this wants to have a madness cost of 2R, but that's something for playtesting. Very high on this card overall, along with the flavor callback!
The Honorable Angelfire - Hm. I'm a bit torn on this. I think if this puts counters on itself, it's a bit sad, but if putting counters out, it looks super fun. But, that's one of the problems with bolster rearing its head. I think this feels a tad more rare than mythic, though. The lifegain feels a tad bit random, though, but that may be because of everything else the card is doing. First strike based on counters, though, has been a tad problematic, though, with Ainok Bond-Kin being able to just completely shut down attacks. Making this give flying as well as have that ability might be what makes this mythic, though.
Thopter Dealer - Oooh! I think the name here is a miss, but everything about this card oozes MH. Direct call out to a set, fun little tricks, a call back to Smuggler's Copter (which is why I wish the name was Copter Dealer instead). I do think this wanted to be a 1 power creature, just to sell that point a little bit more, and balance around that, but this is just a fun and joyous design.		Ichorshriek - Exploit+Living weapon as a mechanic mashup showcase. Unfortunately this doesn't work. The Germ ability has an intervening if-clause that's checked to see if it would trigger at all and then again on resolution. When the Equipment enters the battlefield, it hasn't exploited a creature yet, as the exploit trigger is still on the stack, so the second ability doesn't get to trigger. This is why exploit triggers are worded "When ~ exploits a creature".

Lingering Commando - I usually prefer sorcery speed over the tapped tech here but that's minor. Best target at common in MH2 is probably Breathless Knight. Uncommon gets us spicier things. Slick design, all things considered.

Moldering Expanse - I love the concept of a Thallid land. I think this definitely wants to have sorcery speed on the Saproling ability, though. It's slow on its own but being cheap to activate makes it feel like it'd be missed easily.

Pelakka Coiler - Fine. Slots into GU's schtick in MH2. Feels like you could have done something more exciting here with how much leeway Masters set gives you with commons. I get that the design seed here is "generate two types of tokens" but that's not novel to this.

Reckless Nighthawk - I guess this sits in the middle of Cabal Initiate and Hell Mongrel. I like it enough but it's weird that you can't meaningfully choose flying on the block. Maybe this should have flying natively instead, and rebalanced accordingly.

Sprout of Ulasht - This is another mechanic mashup but I like this a lot. It goes the route of Ichor Slick in pairing Madness with a discard mechanic, which some might think as too free, but with Bloodrush requiring an attacking creature as a target I don't think it is. I dig the reference to Ulasht as it's using one of Gruul's mechanics (maybe tying Pelakka Coiler's flavor to its mechanical components is what was missing; if it was an Innistrad ranger or an Eldraine hunter maybe it would have landed better to me). Great common.

The Honorable Angelfire - Now this is the kind of referencing I want to be seeing. It is a bit weird that its abilities kind of make you think it'd benefit from its last ability when its bolstering itself, but then it doesn't. It'd be less powerful and need rebalancing, but I think Gabriel 2.0 would be a more compelling design if it either gave a different ability (though hopefully not rampage 3) on the last static, or had only flying so it could gain the other two keywords that way. The 4 life is kind of out of nowhere too. I'd be more accepting of it if there was a lifegain theme in MH2 but it's just Nykthos Paragon.

Thopter Dealer - Now this is sick. Bridges UB self-discard and WU artifacts. Nitpicking, but I'd have made a minor edit to the reminder text to say "That Vehicle". Cool common regardless.

Overall: Decent submission, but some rules oversights and needing more polish on some designs dragged your score down a bit.		- Ichorshriek as a repeatable +4/+4 for 4 would be the bane of a slower and lower-powered format with how well it lets you milk value out of your creatures. I don't think MH2 is where it performs at its best (though it would almost certainly be too swingy in other kinds of draft formats).
- Lingering Commando is a nice support piece for reanimator, patching up early game with a fantastic blocker that also stabilises your life total. Appreciate the tapped clause here.
- Moldering Expanse is a sweet reference that feels very MH2. I think you undershot the power level here as it accrues value painfully slowly, but I'm a fan of the concept.
- Pelakka Coiler feels like a shoe-in for the GU tokens archetype, and certainly feels at the rate of MH2's commons. The callback to Pelakka Wurm's lifegain and draw is nice.
- Reckless Nighthawk seems like a solid enabler for the discard archetypes, though I think it might be too free of one for common. Not having any real cost associated with itand also being able to grant itself protection in the form of evasion (and deathtouch!) makes it very non-committal and pops off a bit too hard with Madness for my liking.
- Sprout of Ulasht combining Bloodrush and Madness is a nice bit of synergy, feeling referential to cards like Viscera Dragger. At common though, this on turn 4 feels far too impactful, and the difference in cost between casting this regularly and bloodrush+madness-ing it is so small that it feels like it's never the correct play to actually cast it (or to only Bloodrush it without the madness), lowering the agency involved in the card.
- The Honorable Angelfire is a nice package. The floor of being a 5/5 itself makes it feel like a solid buildaround. The choice of keywords plays out a bit awkward in that they all play along similar axes and start to feel redundant.
- Thopter Dealer combines each of the blue archetypes into a nice neat package. I think a 3/3 flying token is a bit on the strong end, given that this is effectively a 4 mana 3/3 flyer and a 2/3 that loots on etb with how it self-crews. I think this would feel more appropriate with Crew 2 (additionally so the crew cost matches the creature's power), and maybe a toughness cut from the Dealer.		Ichorshriek - Why doesn't this use normal exploit templating? Also, why doesn't the second ability use the living weapon text? Also also, why an extra space after exploit? The templating here just feels carelessly done - we're at the final 5, the time to step it up was probably a couple rounds ago. The design itself feels fine itself, exploit-living weapon is cool, and the +4/+4 is probably a strong enough Equipment boost to justify the base being a 4/4 for 4 with sacrifice a creature. Seems fun for UG tokens and BG squirrels.
Lingering Commando - Neat - doesn't match up super well with some of the WB reanimator that looks like it's aimed at stronger creatures, but pairing it alongside a bunch of Breathless Knights sounds like it'd be a very fun deck to play.
Moldering Expanse - Seems like it's way too slow at producing tokens, especially because you have to take the turn off of using the land for mana. Idea's cool but why not tie the spore to like, upkeep like the spore cards usually do?
Reckless Nighthawk - Seems pretty powerful as an attacker, especially with that flying on the AA, and it also having deathtouch capability definitely makes me think it might be a little overtuned as a common in the discard decks.
Sprout of Ulasht - Love the concept, numbers seem pushed - 1R +3/+2 trample as a trick is pretty good, also making it be a 2R creature and a 2RR pump + creature and a 1R madness creature just makes me think the sheer number of options, all of which seem pretty solid, makes the card too strong.
The Honorable Angelfire - Eh, it's a fine take on Gabriel, but this doesn't really do anything special for me, just seems like a game-ender for Limited.
Thopter Dealer - ~~mfw no Thopter Vehicle~~ Neat! Plays nicely into a lot of the available archetypes, the token is unique in a fun way, I can definitely get behind it.
5
Splashcat#0050https://imgur.com/a/TzwC13w4.14Arcbound Summoner - Yeah, this is a simple and slam dunk execution on a keyword-combining common. Modular having synergy with both modes of Fabricates is great. Made me go "wait, this doesn't already exist?" and do a quick scryfall, which is how you know it's a good design.
Time Unwinding - Sure, I can vibe with a simple Time Spiral riff. The grave shuffle + Delirium does seem semi-bizarre in terms of how it ends up interacting with deckbuilding incentives/creating play patterns, but outside of that seems solid.
Sengir Overseer - Yet another card where I'm solidly satisfied with it. Good flavor, and mechanically is a great engine for the BG crats deck. I think normally I would be critical of designs with repeated token creation that didn't lean into the Squirrel subtheme in BG, but here the tokens having 0 power is an important factor in the balance of the card.
Mother Luti - I mean, yeah, this slaps. Pretty standard red-planeswalker-feeling abilities, but the dynamic with the passive makes the whole card read as a lot more attractive/exciting.
Scurry of the Squirrel - Honestly, I wish this was in B and you'd found a different design for Sengir Overseer, given the UB discard archetype. Would've also done more to differentiate it from Chatterstorm. I do think this should probably be a 1G base, given the repeatability, but ymmv.
Karona, the Numinous - Sisay haters seething rn. Seriously though, Karona feels appropriately splashy for a 5c legend, with her ability to yoink abilities making sense given her flavor origins, and carving a unique buildaround niche for herself.
Surface Scrapper - You're pulling some shenanigans here with Sunburst; even on the one card with Modular - Sunburst, Sunburst is still "a static ability that functions as an object is entering the battlefield." This would require a CR patch, and to what extent that would prove dicey I'm not certain myself, but I don't think it was something that needed to be brought into question in the first place. Otherwise, though, I'm a fan of the concept; turning your run-of-the-mill Pilgrim's Eye into a wincon/leaning into the greedy decks it enables is a great idea/play pattern, even if the exact execution here leaves something to be desired.
Hedron Formation - Cabal Coffers for colorless is a slam dunk for me; is a lot harder to achieve than actual Coffers, and is a great semi-callback to the eras when Colorless lands plagued standard thanks to their ridiculous mana output. (thanks Eldrazi Temple and Eye of Ugin!)		This is my favourite entry this week. I think you've done a great job overall of combining the existing resonant archetypes of MH2 with new designs without feeling dissonant or overly indulgent.
Your three commons were the stand-outs to me. Arcbound Summoner combines the two mechanics cleanly at a fair cost while being a perfect fit, and has interesting decisions on how you use it (big counters to pass on, or a Captain's Call with extra?). Sengir Overseer not making Squirrels is notable, but the Autocrat reference makes up for it while still feeding Vermin Gorger, and the 0/1 statline on the tokens also makes it okay to make them en masse like this, and Scurry of the Squirrel is just a great role-player and is simple and cleanly evocative.
In judge chat, we debated how okay Surface Scraper is rules-wise, but I assume it works because of the Modular-Sunburst card in canon, and I love what it suggests as a standalone fixing piece that grows itself, and again works easily in the modular archetype while being open-ended for the rest of the set. Similarly, Hedron Formation being a novel riff on Cabal Coffers feels very well fitting to MH2 as a novel Constructed/Commander piece that wears its origin well. Your Mythics, to me, are the weakest part; the Delirium clause on Time Unwinding, while being strictly better than Time Reversal, just feels so meh to enable and demands you have to precount your graveyard because it flushes it. Karona is, like, a legendary tribal commander that isn't Sisay, but it does that by just kind of doing the Sisay thing while letting you be in 5c? I feel like it works, and I'm sure WotC would find a way to print it (probably mono-red with a 5c activated ability, I'm sure), but it's not super inspired. Mother Luti is the mythic I'm happy about, since the discard tech is a great way to integrate it with the set themes while being naturally useful, especially in something like cloning Lightning Bolts with the -X, and both the uptick and the regular downtick feel useful and tuned for Constructed play.
Overall, I'm very happy with this entry and I'd use it as a great "example" of what this kind of thing could/should look like if we were to re-do this style of challenge in a future Survivor season.		Arcbound Summoner: Fabricate famously was difficult to design because you so rarely wanted to take the counters. This is a great excuse to take the counters, or at least consider it. I think it'd be a bit difficult to play because it's so hard to know when to do what, but the design is very tight and hey, not all Magic cards are obvious.
Time Unwinding: Two lands feels a bit anemic to me, but it does mean you can hold up Counterspell at the very least after giving your opponent a new clutch. Also I've watched enough vintage (and cube) to know that sometimes the difference between winning or losing after a Timetwister is a single Lotus Petal, so maybe I'm just undervaluing the effect. It definitely doesn't feel like a modern card though.
Sengir Overseer: This is great for the sac decks in MH2. I think they probably want to be tokens that can't block, because the play pattern of chipping away with a Wind Drake while blanking a Brontodon isn't awesome, but the idea is interesting and it's a fun way to make a marginal effect more splashy.
Mother Luti: I'm a sucker for planeswalkers with passives, and this one is fun. The +1 shooting down 2-toughness creatures is a tough sell at 3 mana, but the -1 and -X are both pretty tight with the passive and in a vacuum. It does to a degree feel like "stock red planeswalker," though.
Scurry of the Squirrel: Yeah, retrace! Is this good? Probably not, but that's not going to stop me from liking it. At the very least it'd probably play well in some of the sac decks, though a card for a 1/1 just really isn't much of a good rate.
Karona: Yeah, sure, I'm in. I do wish it couldn't be used as a Self-Assembler, and haste feels kinda weird when it looks like it wants to be a voltron machine. I like the last ability a lot though, and think it would please a lot of players and deckbuilders.
Surface Scraper: Monstrosity-Sunburst is wild. I think five mana for five counters at instant speed might feel a bit oppressive when this is on, but the idea is really cool and it's certainly flashy to the level of MH2.
Hedron Formation: Less high on this card. The fact that they count themselves and you can daisy-chain them means you can get pretty obscene amounts of mana pretty fast. I think as a legendary land I'd be pretty in, though I know there's some stigma there.		Arcbound Summoner - Oh, I love this. This is a cute design that gives a lot of agency while also being a mechanic mashup done in a very neat way.
Time Unwinding - This is definitely playing with fire. It definitely requires a bit more playing around compared to something like Echo of Eons, but this definitely rewards you for going through that hoop.
Sengir Overseer - This is definitely fun. Letting B get an upside Wind Drake in a Horizons set is definitely the best place for that. I kinda wish that this had more of a reference to Bitterblossom or something in that regards, but that's a bit nitpicky.
Mother Luti - Oooh, this is really fun. I love how there's so many limiters here that aren't immediately apparent, but keep the card in check. I would originally be worried about that -X but since you already have to pay to cast Jaya, then it balances out on what all you can curve into, giving reasonable spots of interaction for the opponent. Having you lose out on CA in order to gain the doubling abilities lets you turn dud cards into either extra damage or into a form of Tormenting Voice. Overall a big fan of all the decision points that were made here.
Scurry of the Squirrel - Definitely fun. It gives the Squirrels deck more of what it should have had. It helps out the token deck, it helps out the storm deck. Overall a solid card that gets even better in context of MH2. Also, the flavor text is adorable.
Karona - This one, though, I'm less thrilled on. The tutor bit is fine, even if Karona is such a weirdo that it's hard to exactly put what she wants to do. The last ability, is a bit of a flag. There's a pretty good reason that these types of abilities tend to only say activated/triggered abilities or they list out the keywords that are given out. What happens if you have an Adeline and a Katilda out whenever you cast Karona? What is her power? While this isn't as much of a problem in the confines of MH itself, for the greater magic it is definitely a problem point. I also think that she's not the most exciting overall. In draft it is a bit of a dud, both in terms of being a 6 mana 5/5 haste most of the time, but in EDH she'll just be a toolbox commander in the form of Golos that just isn't that fun. For constructed, I don't think she quite gets there, so it begs the question on where she is actually fun and exciting to play with and against.
Surface Scraper - While I love all of the ideas that are on display here, I do have to question how Monstrosity - Sunburst is supposed to work, and, how much effort is going to be needed to actually make it happen. Sunburst is a static ability that alters how the creature enters the battlefield, making it seemingly very hard to get the implementation that you want here. I think this would want something akin to "Converge -- 5: Monstrosity X, where X is the number of colors of mana spent to activate this ability." or something.
Hedron Formation - This is spiffy. I do think this type of thing is a lot better than it looks, especially for Tron, but I think the exacts require a lot more playtesting than what it looks like. Though, this doesn't start online until turn 4, that does put it at least in check behind Tron. Definitely neat.		Arcbound Summoner - This is a neat keyword combination. I like all modes on this. Simple, effective.

Time Unwinding - Time really is unwinding because Delirium text shouldn't be past tense and be a cast check, and written before the shuffle.

Sengir Overseer - Repeatable token gen at common would raise eyebrows but I think MH2 can handle it.

Mother Luti - Love this design for Jaya. The ping on an uptick is a bit concerning, though, especially when you're threatening to turn it into a Shock+.

Scurry of the Squirrel - Remember what I said about repeatable token gen? This one I think is going to be pretty annoying. At least Sengir Overseer requires more set up.

Karona, the Numinous - The last ability not narrowing down to AAs/triggered abilities is a design pitfall. Too many statics mess with each other to be sensible on the same card, and when a card makes you look up layers to that degree, I think a redesign is warranted . . . Apart from that, I think this feels like a design WotC now sensibly avoids for Commander post-Golos ban. Five color CI and legendary isn't narrow enough for the format. Even disregarding that last point, it feels like MH1 Sisay did this design better.

Surface Scraper - This is exactly the Masters-set shenanigans I expect. I wouldn't commend this mechanics antics in any other context, but it works for me here. Solid fixer. Turning a Skittering Surveyor into a threat late game? I'll draft five.

Hedron Formation - I like the daring in this design, but I'm certain that the second ability needs to cost more than (2). This gets ridiculous in multiples, too.

Overall: Power level execution on some of these are wack but in general you had great ideas here.		- Arcbound Summoner combining Modular and Fabricate is sweet! While the difference in timing of these abilities is a teeny bit clunky to me personally, I imagine this would play out in a super slick and clean way, and Modular synergising in different ways with both modes of Fabricate gives players even more agency, which I love.
- Time Unwinding is missing an "as you cast it" phrase in the Delirium ability. While I like that untapping two lands effectively makes this cost the same as Timewinder as a nice riff, and how well it can enable combos, it does feel a bit tacked on with how small it reads on paper combined with how the shuffle undoes the work you've put in for future delirium casts.
- Sengir Overseer is a super interesting card. Instinctively I don't love the amount of chump blockers you're getting out of this at common, but the life loss is important at mitigating that. I think the ability wants to be a "may". Love this for aristocrats.
- Mother Luti feels very clean and compact, and her kit is diverse enough to have a lot of interesting choices while not feeling overstuffed. The +1 wording wants to be flipped so the mandatory targeting comes first. A 3 mana walker having a creature ping on a +1 feels on the strong end compared to what we've seen for that ability on previous walkers, particularly with the passive meaning it can kill 2 toughness creatures. I'm a huge fan of how the -1 interacts with the passive. The -X feels the most out of place with the passive, given that both abilities ask you to use a card from your hand - I imagine this one will often be used without the passive, but it will occasionally come up and be meaningful.
- Scurrry of the Squirrel I think is probably reasonable power-wise in MH2, but given how poorly they perform in multiples, common doesn't feel like the right place for it. Featuring a discard mechanic outside of the dsicard archetype's colours makes this a bit of a miss for me.
- Karona is certainly splashy. I imagine this card is unplayable outside of Commander, but it feels very much like the kind of card that demographics there would enjoy. The final ability counting All Abilities rather than just activated or triggered abilities, and being live at all times rather than having some kind of timing window associated, will I think lead to more confusion in practice than anything else.
- Surface Scrapper is an ambitious repurposing of Sunburst, but in a way I'm all for given how canon mechanics (and even Sunburst itself) have been repurposed in similar ways in the past. This is a really nice way of enhancing Skittering Surveyor in a way that feels appropriate for MH2. I appreciate the tension between wanting to run a basics in your deck as tutor targets, while Sunburst inherently asks that you play gold lands.
- Hedron Formation is a flavour win, but I think scaling off itself as well as other copies of it makes the 2 mana cost too non-committal. That said, the terminology "can't produce colored mana" is super cool, and I love that this also works with nonmana lands like fetches.		Arcbound Summoner - Definitely a fan! I like the choice between a 3/3 modular or three 1/1's one with modular, feels balanced for common and definitely would love to play around with it in one of the Modular decks and use that modality as a tool. Perfect combination of mechanics.
Time Unwinding - Feels like this should maybe have the delirium first so it can just check your graveyard before the shuffle happens, but otherwise I'm a fan. I like that it encourages you to fill up your graveyard to power up delirium and then prevents you from losing the game from milling yourself out. And of course, definitely cool to get mana back on that shuffle, although 2 mana isn't that much.
Sengir Overseer - Seems fun for crats, overall just a very solid common that I would love to jam on in that BG deck. Love the Sengir theme to it as well, sick!
Mother Luti - Super hype! Love the passive, especially paired with the last two abilities - I think they both make that passive definitely feel relevant and exciting to triple-cast a spell or get two cards and an RR to try and generate value. Maybe a too pushed in terms of like, -X=1 and discard, triple cast a Bolt or something but the concept is very very cool.
Scurry of the Squirrel - Feels pretty cheap for the cost late-game, especially alongside some of the Squirrel pieces, and also feels a little weird considering Chatterstorm is the same gimmick of "Make a 1/1 with mechanic that lets you make more Squirrels".
Karona - Neat! A little basic in concept, but I like toolboxy stuff, would love to stack abilities and try and get weird combos going with it in Commander.
Surface Scraper - Love this as a Skittering Surveyor-type that gets pumped up if you can get to the late-game and play a deck with a lot of colors, especially with the duals in this set it feels fun in like 5c artifacts or something similar. I think it works rules-wise because of 702.44c, not 100% sure, but the concept is cool and the execution is solid!
Hedron Formation - Super cool! Definitely strong in a mono-colorless deck where you can get away with playing no colored lands. Terrifying in multiples though, since unlike Coffers they count each other (and themselves) as lands. If you can get away with going purely, like, OGW C Eldrazi though, this might be a fucking house of a card, but I definitely would love to try it out.
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Sunsethttps://imgur.com/a/ng8sWRm2.29God-Pharaoh's Cruelty - So, I think the very discard synergies that you're pointing out on the card here are also a reason that I'm not sure I like this effect. I think there's a reason that the only card that makes opponents discard below rare is Tourach's Canticle, which doesn't give them the choice of what to discard - it means that they can't get a targeted benefit from cards like Recalibrate and Dihada's Ploy, or more broadly Madness itself. I also don't think that this need the "gain 3 life" over traditional torment effects - the life loss itself is very effective when treated as "free" out by opponents, who then suddenly lose before they can stabilize.
Thirst for Revolution - Sure, works well for UB and UR as well as the 5c greedpiles archetypes, and is a lot more achieveable in limited than it would be otherwise thanks to common multicolor cards. I'm still a little low on this given that iterations on "Thirst" cards are dime a dozen/don't really offer much room for designer skill expression, and I'm not sure that the specific drawback here feels as meaningful to MH2's particular environment as others would be, but it is heads-up with regards to the archetypes in the set, so ymmv.
Profane Ritual - Impulse Draw Is Better Than You Think - Here's An Article About It . In general, I think the downside here compared to Reckless Impulse (one more red pip, not being able to play both cards in a single turn) are far less than the upside offered here by the modality. I like the concept of "impulse draw until next EOT into ritual to make it easier to play that spell," but this is basically either a 2 mana draw two or a cantripping ritual, which isn't particularly safe on the same card.
Arcbound Paladin - Oh, this is really interesting. It's sticky and hard to deal with through combat, and is an excellent receipient for Modular counters, but even if they use removal on it, you still get some neat value. The Modular only being relevant on removal-based deaths is a cool. It's also possible to cleanly answer with the exile removal at uncommon, which feels like it keeps it honest.
Antiri, Roiling Convergence - So basically green Valakut, huh. I'm not sure how to feel about this as a slot - I think that its basically constructed only, but I suspect that Scapeshift would still just play Valakut for the instant kills, or it would end up in a Field of the Dead kind of niche, neither of which feel particularly ideal.
Lumbering Craterling - I think comparing to how Slashing Pangolin played in multiple formats, this is probably fine, though maybe could've used more juice for its triple-pipped cost.
Genesis Stone - Fun Oblivion Stone riff. The costs here are certainly pushed, but I appreciate trying to make it a little more attractive than a kitchen table card.
Harmonious Stewardship - The Food and Treasure mode feels far less attractive than the others, especially given you probably already have your colors and ramp set if you're casting this for a bunch. Feels like its just there to tie it into the UG archetype. Otherwise, seems like a splashy and fun payoff for Converge. I think double-pipping the green is a heads-up and very important balance knob here.		This entry felt, overall, middle of the pack. There's some stuff here that's certainly neat, but some stuff that feels fiddly or awkward, and I'm not sure how it comes out of the wash holistically.
God-Pharoah's Cruelty feels inelegant and somewhat jumbled. It's a madness card that encourages me to not madness it? And it lets people discard stuff as an "out" when MH2 has so much support for Madness and other self-discard archetypes? Adding the gain three life to let it look like Alms of the Vein also loses you out on the Bolas torment resonance. At uncommon, Thirst for Revolution is fine, but not standout; it works solid enough with MH2's extra multicoloured cards and can specifically fuel the UB deck by letting you pitch stuff too, but we've got a ton of these effects already and I don't think this opens up any niches or novelty anywhere that didn't already have a Thirst for X. Profane Ritual feels pretty dangerous adding a ritual as the "creep" to Reckless Impulse, even if it's technically got different sequencing, and I'm not sure anything it'd do over the very solid Impulse is healthy. Arcbound Paladin is my favourite of these, easily, since it's a good sticky condition that makes it hard to manage (removal spell = four counters, blocking = shrinking but untradeable) and demands you chump, pushing back against stuff like the Squirrels deck in MH2.
For your rares, Antiri is a novel riff on Valakut and is a neat Constructed piece, but I don't know if it's actually doing its job better than Valakut (or Field of the Dead) would do for those decks. It's neat in Commander, at least? Lumbering Craterling's trample is big, but it doesn't really wow me that much to deserve the triple-pip since it is really just a Keldon Warlord effect with some bigger starting stats, and those guys are fine enough. It can take advantage of the Squirrel tokens in-set, though, since by going GGG you're losing Vermin Gorger and other sacrifice payoffs for those Squirrel tokens. Genesis Stone is really cool to me as a reverse Oblivion Stone, and while I wonder if it wanted to mirror the costs, I do like that this does feel distinct by having a different set of numbers attached. Harmonious Convergence has two dope modes and then the Food and Treasure mode is a whiff to ever cast (this card assumes you already have mana and fixing! Why would I want Treasures?) but overall it's a fine, wordy mythic, and I like how it's pipped in a way to still be worth making two Elementals for GGU.
I noticed here that it's your simpler designs that land better to me, with Arcbound Paladin being the best in the bunch for sure, and while I note the emphasis on higher-rarity cards does let you lean away from MH2's set themes, it doesn't feel like all of these have been integrated that well with the stuff the set has going on, mostly feeling more like "neat Constructed riffs that couldn't be in a Standard set".		God-Pharaoh's Cruelty: This card is a bit hard to evaluate, because the value of a single torment is not worth a card, but a madness? Maybe. Two torments is basically just Mind Rot but really bad, and I'm not that thrilled about the front mode for that reason, especially with the delta when their hand is empty.
Thirst for Revolution: I don't think you can get away with a Thirst riff at this point in the competition. It's a fine riff, but this is an opportunity to show off your design chops, and you didn't really design this card at all.
Profane Ritual: I don't like this card for a few reasons. Adding mana in your upkeep is not likely to be that useful; the mana replacing itself is weird, I don't know why you'd ever not cast this for card advantage on the front side; and the "until the end of your next turn"s overlapping would make this annoying to track, especially in multiples.
Arcbound Paladin: Really hate the combination of the +1/+1 counter protection and modular. If this dies after four damage prevention triggers, it'll just grant zero counters, which feels to me like a waste for five mana. I guess it does stick around for quite a bit of time, though it's not like MH2 had a dearth of chump blockers.
Antiri: I like pulling a Valakut reference in here. I'm waffling on whether this should grant the land haste, because otherwise you can accidentally lock yourself out of mana, but I still like the concept and it feels very MH2, if a bit derivative of Valakut specifically.
Lumbering Craterling: Hmm. I'm not really sure what this card is doing here, to be honest? It's big if you're ahead but it sucks if you're behind, and the GGG mana cost looks out of place.
Genesis Stone: This is a pretty interesting design, and a cool riff on Oblivion Stone. Feels like it'd be a real nuisance to play into an untapped copy of this, because your opponent can just take your best thing with it basically whenever they want, so I'm not sold on the play patterns.
Harmonious Stewardship: Really weird to put GG in the mana cost of a Converge X spell. So I guess for WUBRGG you can get five 2/2s, or draw five cards, or... well, making the Treasures doesn't make a lot of sense because you're spending six mana to get five. Maybe if you're trying to cast an Emrakul? I'm not really impressed, it doesn't feel like the payoff adequately matches the flash.		God-Pharoah's Cruelty - Hm. I don't think I'm a fan of this. Torment effects can be fun, but this does so in a weird and shifted way. Having the madness vs normal casting feels like you aren't getting the cool bits for doing the madness gameplay loop, which doesn't feel the most appealing, especially on a card you want to use later in the game to solidify a kill (either for the player or a specific creature). This also seems to play really poorly with madness in the set, making it in the mill vs self mill angle of set design.
Thirst for Revolution - This is definitely a neat riff on the Thirst cycle and could do neatly for MH2, but overall this type of riff has been seen hundreds of times and isn't the most exciting for a Survivor-type competition.
Profane Ritual - This is definitely a neat use of rebound and definitely fun. I do think that the mana here wants to be lasting-mana, since you very rarely storm out in your upkeep, especially in the "creature storm" variant that MH2 uses for its GR archetype. I think this could attempt to cost 1R, so it's easier to cast in the decks it wants to go in. I think with a few more sanding around the edges this could have been a solid card.
Arcbound Paladin - Ooh, this is fun. I really love these types of effects, and this definitely fulfills the gameply patterns that I love. I do think this could have been a bit stronger, but I don't quite know by how much. Modular is nice, but also feels a bit weird, since combat won't let it ever transfer counters, making it more of an anti-kill spell angle, which works, but still feels a touch weird given how modular normally plays.
Antiri - What's Antiri? I feel like this could have called out a more Zendikar reference (like how Valakut is a known mountain on Zendikar) rather than making up a new name. Go deep and bring out references! That's the fun of Modern Horizons sets. I get what this is trying to do, especially given Valakut and Field of the Dead and how they've played out, but this feels a bit less exciting given Tatyova, Steward of Tides doing the same type of ordeal.
Lumbering Craterling - This is definitely something. I think I like the blanket simplicity of it, even if it is a horizons set. Triple green is a bit weird, given how multicolor the set is, but I think I can forgive it for that.
Genesis Stone - Oooh, this is a fun riff. Not too much to say, but this is a fun example of how to do a riff that isn't just a copy of what its doing, but also just make it fun and exciting to play.
Harmonious Stewardship - This feels very weird in terms of costing and figuring out what it is actually trying to do. I also dislike that this gives you an immediate discount, in a way, that also pushes to feed itself with the Treasure token not ETBT'd. It does help by the double green sneakily being in the mana cost, but I think that type of doubling mana is going to be a tad unhealthy (And much more in the GR-types of decks). I almost think this wanted to be a rare and monogreen and do things in that line, cutting the draw a card and making it more managable to play with and around each of the individual choices. That'd let it play nicely with more archetypes, while also even hitting low hanging fruit of creating a Squirrel token. Many minor changes would have made this more solid, I think.		God-Pharoah's Cruelty - I dig this a lot. I like the cast-from-hand rider as an attempt to make it more appealing when you aren't madnessing it.

Thirst for Revolution - Normally I wouldn't be excited for riffing on the Thirst cards here but this actually does neat things for UB discard and UR delirium. The fact that there's also common multicolor cards in MH2 makes it neat, too.

Profane Ritual - This is asking for trouble, but I suppose only getting the rebound mana on upkeep makes it more difficult to use, and the base ritual doesn't really accelerate your mana. Modal rebound is cool and something I've wanted them to do since the mechanic was introduced. If anything I like the guts of this design.

Arcbound Paladin - Sweet modular design. If this was purely colorless I'd say it would feel right at home in original Mirrodin, even. Getting the Arcbound aesthetic on the art is also a nice bonus.

Antiri, Roiling Convergence - New land, who dis? Green Valakut, it seems. Really wish it gave the land haste, just so you don't make the mistake of declaring that you're having it become a creature then realizing you need to tap it for mana but can't (summoning sickness!). Haste does make it more of a blowout, though, so I also understand why it doesn't grant it.

Lumbering Craterling - Kern needs to learn what hooves are. Or what do I know, maybe it's got them on the hind legs. Anyway this feels like the weakest include here (in terms of design, not power). I understand it's supposed to emulate a miniature Craterhoof but "Warlord ability with trample" doesn't excite me much.

Genesis Stone - I would expect the second ability here at sorcery speed, just so it's not such of an on-board trick. The costing here is a nice 1-2-3 to mimic O-Stone's 3-4-5 but this feels a tad too cheap for what it does. Still, I love this as a reversal of O-Stone and is the kind of design I expect out of a Masters set.

Harmonious Stewardship - I dislike the double green pip here with this being a multicolor converge design, but I understand that you needed the floor to be 3mv. Seems like a lot of value and a design that feels good to cast.

Overall: Pretty happy with this submission. Good work.		- God-Pharoah's Cruelty is a card that I mostly like in the vacuum. I don't think the lifegain was a needed addition to the torment effect, but Madness feels like a nice addition, and I appreciate that you made the madness version of this worse quality-wise than the regular cast. Specifically in MH2 however, I think this effect is a poor fit, given how easy it is for your opponent to get value off this with the existence of Madness, and the discard and delirium archetypes more generally.
- Thirst For Revolution is an entirely fine card on its own, and works alongside some of the archetypes and set structure of MH2. However, a riff on the Thirst cycle does very little to showcase your design talent in this competition. A Thirst riff was designed by a contestant in an earlier round of this season even, and they received the same feedback there,
- Profane Ritual feels like a very cool direction, but one that comes with a lot of risk. Reckless Impulse with an extra red pip that allows you to further stagger your draws and also have the option of adding mana feels like not a safe change to make to that card.
- Arcbound Paladin combining the damage-counter-conversion effect with Modular to help protect it from destroy-based removal is sweet! A 5 mana 4/4 feels like a bit of a tough sell, but I think undershooting rather than overshooting to stay safe was a good call for what is a cool concept.
- Antiri is an interesting kind of split between Valakut and Field Of The Dead. I think without granting the creatures haste, the payoff feels kind of too fair and vulnerable to really pop off (though with haste it would almost certainly be too much). Tough one to judge. I like the concept, but I do wish it weren't so close to a direct riff on Valakut.
- Lumbering Craterling is a sweet concept. Kinda funny that ramping this out as your 3-drop of choice through a Llanowar Elves actually makes it kind of weaker since you haven't had the chance to develop your board state wider, but I do like the idea. I think it's possible this could have been bigger at base stats-wise.
- Genesis Stone's costs feel a bit on the high end for a card that does nothing until you pop it. 6 mana total, while being able to split it up over multiple turns, to copy a single permanent is a hefty baseline, though at the same time stalling out a game and then copying each of your opponents' best things and saving your removal until after you nab their board is a play pattern that I could see as being not super fun to be on the receiving end of, where it beomes the right decision to just not cast your good permanents.
- Harmonious Stewardship's second mode feels like it won't come up, with how inefficient it is compared to the rest, and with the treasures being a poor payoff for an X spell that wants you to have a bunch of mana already. Beyond that, what effectively boils down to XG: a split between X 2/2s and X cards drawn feels on the pushed end, but one I could see working out.		God-Pharaoh's Cruelty - Cool concept, I'm a big Torment fan (guess which judge I am it's not very hard) and I definitely think the idea of "double the spell if you didn't madness it" is pretty cool. Throwing a gain 3 up on the life part of torment is a little weird to me, since I think as-is tormenting twice definitely makes the 3-life mode stronger than you think it is. Other than that, definitely a fan.
Thirst for Revelation - I mean, sure, it's a Thirst card. Seems solid in the format as a set where 5c is definitely viable, but it's not really the most creative choice. Also, why Theros here? I get the point is like, "the gods are mono-colored so the opposition is multi-colored", but seems like this slots a lot more nicely into Ravnica or Tarkir or Alara or whichever 2/3c faction set.
Profane Ritual - Jeez that's powerful. Definitely a fan of the idea, but this is a ton of modality on an already powerful effect of just using the card for its first mode both times. Seems especially strong, of course, in Storm where you flip the first card then add the mana to play it on the next turn, as well as starting the turn on storm count 1. In the storm deck this just seems viciously powerful.
Arcbound Paladin - Not the biggest fan here - modular doesn't do anything unless this gets hit with a destroy effect, and this seems pretty weak at 4W 4/4, especially as the body starts shrinking as you chump it.
Antiri - Sure, Valakut riff, seems less immediately deadly but stronger in the fair case, I rock with it.
Lumbering Craterling - Definitely seems like a fun card to play, especially as a potential T2 play off of an Elf followed by other midrange threats. Into it for sure!
Genesis Stone - Definitely cool! I like that it encourages you to use it quickly, since once your fate-counter targets are destroyed, you don't get them back later. Fun riff on O-Stone otherwise, and it just definitely seems fun as a way to generate value in a very cheap sort of way.
Harmonious Convergence - Definitely a neat concept - while the Food+Treasure is on the weaker side of the modes, the draw/creatures modes definitely make this appealing, and it seems fun to have a nice 5c payoff at mythic.
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