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2 | AmbroseWinters | https://imgur.com/a/72Ifkui | 3.14 | Linking advisors to instants and sorceries as independent categories is interesting to me. I'm not sure I get the thematic connection, but I like it and am willing to see it through. if it produces cool cards. With the exception of the Lion, I also note that you've got a really strong, consistent artstyle of corporate office world which I immediately noticed and liked. The three Limited cards here are Eager Associates, Courtroom Consultation, and Class-Action Defence. I like Eager Associates, though specifically granting flying feels discongruous here--I don't understand what about these guys fly when applied to sorcery. Courtroom Consultation seems quite strong, with the comparison in my mind being the very playable Forbidden Alchemy, and I wouldn't be surprised if this jumps the line to a Constructed deck were Advisors to be a Constructed tribal deck. Class-Action Defense seems undertuned to other recent white removal spells, being three mana and having a meaningful downside if used early (especially since I have no idea how expensive or cheap Advisors would be in-set; the only example I see is a four-drop uncommon). Olax is dope to me. The tax effects on Advisors seems like a common recurring theme for Constructed cards, I guess because of the Azorius association in canon, but I think this one does in the most interesting way of the ones I've seen. Seamless Takeover is easily the coolest card in this entire entry, and I wish I had seen more of this go-wide Advisor support in the other pieces here. Even the flavour text hits the beat so smooth. In-House Council also suggests this go-wide advisor, but I don't really think it's landing like the others, demanding that you attack with a bunch of guys while there isn't really that much support here for attacking with a bunch of little guys (including this creature's own statline). I think it would have been perfect if it asked for another Advisor-centric condition, though. I don't have many holistic notes on this. It was a pretty solid entry, and I'm happy with it. It's only a bit of a shame that I think the most interesting part of it, Advisor Convoke, appears on only one card, and other cards in the entry seem to ask you to not Advisor Convoke. | This entry is aggressively fine. The flavor lands on the cardnames and flavor text. I just think that pairing Advisors with spells is a bland move. There seems to be a minitheme here about different bonuses for instants vs sorceries, but Olax kind of drops the ball on that. The turn/not your turn resrictions feel almost needless. I think Courtroom Consultation's graveyard cantrip is asking too much. In-House Counsel having an "and/or" makes it read like it tutors two spells, and I'm not sure what's intended here. Class-Action Defense is probably my favorite card in the entry as it's a fun take on White's compensation removal. | Eager Associates - Oooh, that's a neat theme. I don't quite know why it is there, but it's definitely neat. Flying feels a bit out there, but I do love how each of the abilities doesn't want to be used as a combat trick, so it's on the sorcery face. Lovely bit of intentional design. Courtroom Consultation - Oh, hm. This is definitely neat. Rewards for doing the thing and sticking to the tribe. Class-Action Defense - The flavor on this is lovely. The design is awesome as well. Great job! Olax, Firm Partner - I don't think this wants to be on a 3 drop body, especially given stuff like Grand Arbiter Augustin IV. It definitely though looks like it fits what the deck/tribe is wanting, and does so very well. Seamless Takeover - Changing up convoke definitely seems like something that could happen, especially after the Amass change. Again, this hits the flavor head on and does a great job of selling what you are aiming for. In-House Counsel - Hm, I feel like this is the weakest one here. So far there hasn't been much of a go-wide angle, so having it as the capstone feels a bit iffy. Though, it definitely is fine without a direct frame like that, and accomplishes its job, though almost wonder if this wanted to just check if an Advisor dealt damage to an opponent instead. Also, this definitely looks like a human! | - Eager Associates I am mechanically into. Differentiating payoffs for instants vs sorceries adds a nice texture to a draft archetype. I appreciate that gaining vigilance is on the sorcery trigger, and the counters being on instant triggers make it more potent of a threat. This art really doesn't sell me on the creature gaining flying. - Courtroom Consultation is a neat tie-in of your themes. 4 cards is a bit to go through for a 2 mana spell, but not hitting lands and being a sorcery I think is a bigger drawback than it seems compared to similar cards, so I'd buy it as fair. The advisors from your entry all seem like creatures you'd prefer to keep to accrue value from rather than ones you're happy throwing away in combat, so the exiling Advisors part seems a bit unsupported, but the mill helps. - Class-Action Defense seems on the underwhelming end but not an embarassing card to play by any means. This card doesn't really tell me about your theme and how it plays out beyond what the other cards have already said, though it does hit a nice flavour note. - Olax has a real sweet symmetry. I think you could fold the two middle abilities into one with an "Otherwise", but I'm a fan of this. - Seamless Takeover is a difficult one to compare to something like March of Otherworldly Light. I think it's probably weaker, though not hugely. Convoke Advisor I'm not super sold on over something like a regular discount per advisor you control, but it doesn't hurt as a balancing knob. - In-House Counsel (along with Takeover) caring about going wide with your Advisors makes me wish you'd included some kind of enabler for this, maybe something with tokens. The size of the body plus the other effects is a bit more than I'd expect in blue, and tutoring for an instant that you might want to cast mid-combat as a trick not being discounted by Olax is a bit unfortunate, but it's an otherwise clean design. | Eager Associates: What? Flying? I don't think you can rationalize that to me. I like the combination of instant/sorcery payoffs here mechanically. Courtroom Consultation: Sure. I like Think Twice, and in some formats I'd be willing to trade speed and flexibility for card selection. Class-Action Defense: Flavorfully I like the ideas here. Mechanically, it's not that interesting. I think you can reasonably just destroy an attacker/blocker for three these days, so it feels like an effect with a "tribal payoff" stapled on because you had to. Olax: I'm fine with the package, though I don't think you need the distinction between your turn/not your turn for instants. I also think it might be a little goofy at mv3. Seamless Takeover: Convoke Advisor is sweet. This card is WAY more exciting as a tribal payoff than Class-Action Defense. I wish that had Convoke Advisor too. In-House Counsel: "You may cast that card as long as you control three or more tapped Advisors!" Come on! You JUST showed me Convoke Advisor. None of your Advisors really seem to want to attack, either; you put that effect on a 2/4. Overall: These capture the flavor of bureaucracy well. I should like it more, but I'm just so tilted by these dudes in business suits flying. | I like this take on Advisor-spells, and your aesthetics are pretty killer here. Overall I'm a fan. Eager Associates is a neat design, I like separating out the instant and sorcery bits, but also god damn these guys are not flyers. Courtroom Consultation feels like a really fun CA spell for an Advisors deck in Limited, I'm a fan. Class-Action Defense is a very fun flavor piece, and it definitely works as a kill spell conceptually. Olax is a little on the boring side to me, feels like a pretty clear Grand Arbiter Augustin type of riff. Seamless Takeover I love, allows you to get some lifegain and take out a big threat on-curve since you can convoke it. Finally, In-House Counsel is a fun design, and I like that it gives Advisors a little bit of an agressive bent, but weird that this is an attacking-matters card when the last card was convoking-Advisors-matters. | Advisors, with a "nonpermanent spells" focus. Feels like an interesting hook for Advisors, sort of building up off of the momentum of mechanics like Addendum. I feel like the powerlevel here is a bit weaker than perhaps was needed? Some of that evaluation might be due to lack of lower-curve Advisors in the entry, so it's hard to infer what the curves or play patterns for cards like Seamless Takeover or In-House Counsel will end up at. Takeover in particular I'm very lukewarm on, even with the Convoke. Class-Action Defense feels like it didn't need a downside as large as a Treasure for costing 1 less than Divine Verdict, even if it does end up flavorful. Eager Associates is neat, I like the play pattern of "use your interaction for a few turns, then finish off the game by dropping a sorcery and giving this flying." Olax is firm-ly my favorite card here, feels like a clever but functional twist on usual cost reduction effects. Flavorfully and aesthetically, I think this was a slam-dunk way to make your entry stand out. Overall, while I wish some of these cards were more firmly mechanically pushed, I like the space you've carved for Advisors with these designs. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
3 | Badknight13#6404 | https://imgur.com/a/40M7007 | 2.14 | Ogres! This seems to link Ogres to monstrosity and in general +1/+1 counters. That seems like a pretty solid connection for the big scary monsters, and it's a simple theme that has a lot to iterate with. Bringing back monstrosity is a mechanic that makes me happy in general. This entry did a good job of definitely splitting its Constructed and Limited cards, with Buzhoz, Hilltop Bellower, and Jabal being targeted for Constructed and the other three for Limited. Belzoz's counter-growing effect is fine and good, but removing two points of stats for a single impulse draw is not a trade I'll take much often in a deck that really wants to play the board like this. Shrinking my dudes only helps me if I'm going to get even more from what I draw, and when that's a land or something, it's shooting myself in the foot to have lost that much board traction. Hilltop Bellower is just a solid lord; it's unfortunate this is the cheapest Ogre in the entry so I can't get a grasp of what this is being used with since it's only caring about Ogres, not about the counters the other cards are using. Jabal's use of a token with Monstrosity is super good planeswalker tech, but I don't like how easily it self-enables his fight -2, nor how neither -2 really does something super novel rather than just stats. Perhaps they could be combined into one ability to give him a real ult or something. For the Limited guys, Stand and Fight untapping and offering trample feels contradictory; the one encourages a blocker trick and the other an attacker trick. I've noticed a lot in Survivor so far (and in general design--so don't take this as a knock on you specifically; I don't even know who you are) that people really like handing out keywords without putting too much thought into how the keywords are used, and make discongruities like this. The Beast Tamer is a sick common that I'd pick very highly like all the time, which is dope; it uses Monstrosity well to shore up a solid baseline. The Steel-Breaker, though, feels unnecessary breaking artifacts twice, since it gives it an excessive effect when it actually applies as a 3-for-1 effect. This entry overall has a very strong foundation, and in one or two sets of iteration it'd be super exciting and appealing. I think Monstrosity is a great mechanic, though, and you did a good pick in how to assign Ogres a tribal identity. | To get it out of the way: there's a couple of (albeit minor) templating issues here that betray a lack of proofreading. Buzhoz's impulse draw, Hilltop Bellower's "have +1/+0", the missing period on the last card's Monstrosity ability. I'm assuming the first three are Constructed focused, and the last three are for Limited. Buzhoz is kind of disappointing. It doesn't feel good to debuff my own creatures for an impulse draw. Since monstrosity keys off of the monstrous state, Buzhoz doesn't even allow them to reset. Hilltop Bellower is an enticing lord, although death triggers on a menace granter is pretty awkward, though I guess it's wrath insurance. Jabal doesn't strike me as good enough as a five mana walker, but maybe the potential for 4/4s on a +1 gets it there. If anything I don't like the fight being mandatory on the first -2, and I think it could use a more impactful ability for the last one. Stand and Fight I'm skeptical on the base rate for Limited; most formats probably want this at 3mv at least. The Barid pair I have not much to say about since they don't really do anything fresh with monstrosity, which feels like a miss. Remember that this is a design competition; being intended for Limited shouldn't excuse run-of-the-mill designs. I can say they look resonably balanced for Limited, at least. | Buzhoz - In isolation, this would be pretty neat. However, given that monstrosity is in the pack, this gets an immediate ding. Unlike Adapt, which can work with counter manipulation, monstrous is a state-thing that isn't depedent on the counters, meaning you can't monstrosity again after removing the counters, leaving memory issues. Hilltop Bellower - This is a bit basic in terms of being a lord, but it definitely is still fun. Does its job well. Jabal - Ooh, this is definitely a fun walker. Putting a soft mana sink into the token it makes is an inspired idea that lets you actually put mana towards your walker to protect it even further, even after you've cast it. The other abilities are a bit toned down to compensate, but this is a fun design! Stand and Fight - I think both this and Jabal both having the Ogre clause is a bit heavy handed, but this does a fine job on its own. This is a bit above rate, given the hypothetical two +1/+1 counters instant is at 3 mana. Barid Beast Tamer - This is a pretty solid role filler, but isn't too exciting by itself. Barid Steel-Breaker - This, on the other hand, says a bit about the environment it is in by itself, and can definitely be fun. Having enough artifacts to want to do it twice, while also not wanting to be a 3 for 1 super easily is a bit of a balancing act, but one that gets to be subtlely hinted at, rather than actually addressed. | - Buzhoz not resetting the Monstrous status makes it seem like this was an intended synergy that unfortunately didn't come through. Adapt is probably what you're after here (barring flavour). Removing two counters feels like a big cost, though it's much lessened by the first ability. I don't love this-turn impulse draw as the payoff, as it can make whiffing feel real bad due to the cost of the ability ("You may play it this turn" is its own sentence). - Hilltop Bellower seems like a fine lord, if a bit plain. - Jabal the Mountain Lord's +1 is nice, though you could definitely include RT with the amount of space you still have left. -2 probably wants to fight up to one creature so you can use it just for the boost if you need (apostrophe in "it's"). I'm not a fan of cards that add both +1/+1 counters and trample counters to the same creature (which this does with Monstrosity in the +1) for memory issues. - Stand and Fight is kinda plain, and doesn't add much to this submission that isn't covered by your other cards. I don't love counter-adding in a tribe with Monstrosity, as it's leaning into the memory issues of Monstrosity (my creature has counters on it, probably because I used its monstrosity ability). - Barid Beast Tamer seems fine, though I can imagine the floor of a 4 mana 4/4 that becomes a 6/6 vigilant trampler on t5 can be very "have removal or die". Monstrosity being usable at instant speed makes me wish this untapped the creature rather than granting vigilance. - Barid Steel-Breaker is mostly fine, though it doesn't add much to this submission that Beast Tamer doesn't already. I don't love the forecasting of this destroying artifacts, meaning your opponent will simply not play them and probably feel bad about it. | Buzhoz: These effects are always a trap. Making your creatures smaller for card flow is trading resources in a tempo-negative way, and while it will often grant you a long-term advantage, red/green isn't usually the king of the long game and it is sometimes very detrimental to turn a 5/5 into a 3/3 for a card that you may or may not get to play. Hilltop Bellower: Pretty fine lord. I really hope to see a good 2-drop Ogre to curve into this. It's not the most exciting design as a contest piece because it's just a pile of red effects, but I suspect it would play fine as a constructed beater. Jabal: Tokens with monstrosity are actually a very cool idea. The first -2 feels very disjoint from the kit because it grants a temporary buff rather than a permanent one; why doesn't this give the +1/+1 counter, which would clear out room for the other -2 to be something more exciting than it currently is? Stand and Fight: Weirdly, this is actually very over rate. You tend to not get multiple instant-speed counters at lower than mv4. I don't love that the Ogre-pump untaps it, because it makes this feel more like a blocking trick than attacking, and trample works directly antithetically to that. Barid Beast Tamer: Sure. This would be a fun card to play in limited. Barid Steel-Breaker: Mm, I'm not a fan of "enters the battlefield or becomes monstrous"; I don't think you need that effect twice. I'm totally fine with a cheap monstrous ability that gives you some incremental value, but this feels like it's straddling the line in a detrimental way. Overall: Monstrosity is a good keyword for Ogres, and I think you did a relatively good job with it. There are a few design misses in the bunch, but also a few hits, making this inconsistent but promising overall. | Given that you have a lot of abilities doling out or removing +1/+1 counters, I feel like it's a little weird to go for Monstrous as opposed to something like Adapt here? Seems like it would be really annoying to track which of your creatures are monstrous or not if within the archetype itself you're playing around with counters. In terms of individual designs, Buzhoz is pretty cool, but getting rid of +2/+2 stats for one temporary card seems like not the best deal. Hilltop Bellower feels like a very cookie-cutter lord, which is just kind of boring to me - doesn't really play with any of your other themes. Jabal is pretty cool, I like token monstrosity, and it feels like a solidly designed planeswalker otherwise. Stand and Fight seems pretty cracked, I think the only instant two-counter effect at common we have is River Herald's Boon, and that's an effect with a condition rather than an upside. The other two monstrosity designs are solidly fine - seem like neat designs, "enters + monstrous" seems like cool tech. Overall I think this does a fine job at showcasing a tribe, and even though there were some things I didn't love the overall package works well enough for me. | I usually don't mind alternate uses for counters, but I think 2 vs 1 is steep, and more importantly when your counters are being used to track a state and removing the counters doesn't remove the state (as opposed to Adapt) it leads to bad memory issues. Hilltop Bellower is severely underestimating how good mass menace is, the card look absurdly powerful. I don't like Stand and Fight having both the untap and the trample - feels like they're pulling it towards different usecases. This being a permanent buff and not a temporary one also feels like its being drastically underrated here. Don't like Barid destroying both on ETB and on monstrous, and I don't get a sense of why it has that effect as opposed to a less reactive, more directly beneficial one. Overall, I enjoy the cohesion and work done to make this entry feel appropriately synergistic for a tribal deck, but it had design and power outliers that brought it down for me. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
4 | Cool Beens#5114 | https://imgur.com/a/6j9RP7G | 3.57 | judge reveal: i am not Zangy. But, all the same, accomplice is a good mechanic and I like it a lot being used here as these cyberpunk advisor spy things. The flavour, I admit, feels much more fitting to, say, a Rogue, but accomplice + advisors is neat to me all the same. Backstreet Stalker, Protection Dealer, and Weapons Manufacturer are the three I'd assume for Limited, with the other three in Constructed. Of those three, Backstreet Stalker is super good, and I love it! Protection Dealer seems... very bad, though. By itself, it's way below par, and it asks you to already be able to swing or accomplice a lot of Advisors and spend more mana to be worth it. On the flipside, Weapons Manufacturer is, like, common Luminarch Aspirant, adding free stats every turn, pretty much. That's too strong where the Dealer is too weak. With the Constructed three, Dirty Work I love, as it feels like it adds a lot more texture and interesting asks instead of Infernal Grasp and would really push some cheap Advisors for a Constructed environment. Lengthy Interrogation seems like it'll be super toxic if it's any good at all, since that's a lot of looping Cabal Therapy (thankfully, you don't have any Advisors that can just self-tap without attacking, but it only takes one of those for a removal-or-stop-playing engine). Stifling Bureaucrat is real cool by itself but as a Thalia-alike at two mana I think it does probably want to be harder to use in multiples, so if it were Steve, Stifling Bureaucrat I'd like it more. The balance on this ended up off in a way that hurts this here, but the concepts and structures are really appealing and, well, accomplice is a very good mechanic, so it was a good read and a good way to frame Advisors as advising. I think a second iteration pass would have probably made this the best entry this round. | I think this is my favorite entry in terms of the mechanical direction. I love the direction you took Advisors in. I've always liked Accomplice as a mechanic and it fits here. I'm assuming the following are Limited cards: Backstreet Stalker, Protection Dealer, and Weapons Manufacturer. I really wish Backstreet Stalker wasn't just Night Market Lookout with Accomplice stuck on it. Protection Dealer looks annoying when it can become accomplice to its own Mercenary tokens, but I suppose it is a five drop. Weapons Manufacturer I think is a mistake to print at this cost at common. The counters this gives will add up quick. Maybe if it only granted a counter to something that didn't already have one like Coiling Stalker from NEO does. Now for the Constructed focused cards. Dirty Work is flavorful while also working neatly with Accomplice; I think it's my favorite card in this entry. Lengthy Interrogation I think will lead to very annoying play patterns as it looks too easy to enable. Stifling Bureaucrat does a fine Thalia impression, I dig it. There's some balance issues here but overall one of the better entries this round. | Backstreet Stalker - Ooh, this definitely is fun. Accomplice fits advisors to a T and this does a good job of capturing the flavor and play style really well. Dirty Work - Hm, I think this might be a tad too much, but it definitely is exciting as a kill spell. Letting you use summoning sick Advisors definitely pushes for a fun pattern and gives an actual opportunity cost with accomplice. Well done! Lengthy Interrogation - Hm, while I love this as a player, I definitely can see this being a warping and unfun card to play against. Blind Cabal Therapies definitely are rough, but getting to do it over and over to offset the miss chance, while also just doing it for an easy one mana feels like it is a touch too much. Protection Dealer - I would probably put it as "Whenever ~ or another Advisor you control becomes tapped" just to make it clear, but this is a fun go wide card that helps differentiate what you get from Dirty Work in a way that doesn't feel like you are sidestepping Dirty Work's cost. Lovely. Stifling Bureaucrat - Hm. I think I'm a bit torn on this. I do think it's pretty strong, but also heavily dependent on if you are on the beatdown or not in a very interesting way. I think getting the "haste" bit off with accomplice lets it snowball a tad too much, so definitely think it should just be a blanket tax, rather than opponent only tax pretesting. Weapons Manufacturer - I've tested with this, actually, at this rate, and it always massively over performs and warps games. While that is hard to know without testing, it definitely is a fun line to go down. At common, you can easily get a few of these out and basically take over games super easily. I think uncommon would be the place I'd go now, if I were designing with the mechanic again and maybe a bit different rate (or a pushed and exciting rare)! | - Backstreet Stalker is awesome! These kinds of cards are potent early but fall off very quickly, however the way you've used Accomplice as a Pseduo-Exalted lets you milk value out of it each turn while only putting a single creature at risk (or no creatures if you have something evasive). Accomplice tapping the creature also means it isn't a trivial payoff since you're losing blockers. Fantastic direction! - Dirty Work's additional cost of tapping a creature is something we've seen before, but it adds a whole new axis here with your advisors' tap triggers. This feels like a real nice sweet spot between a synergy enabler and a worse Infernal Grasp. - Lengthy Interrogation I think would play out in a miserable way for your opponents. Turn 1 casting an Advisor, then t2 this and attack and recast it, feels like too potent of a line. And each time you bounce the card gives you more information about what to name next time. - Protection Dealer is sweet. I like this as a lord tracking the tapping of all of your advisors, and giving you a 1/1 token gives you something extra you can accomplice each turn without risking your advisors. I think it's possible that kind of loop is too good, but at 5 mana and with a payment per token I think it's certainly at least testable. - Stifling Bureaucrat seems solid, though with the tax not being all that relevant against the decks that run blockers, Accomplice feels a bit throwaway here, where it seems like you're only tapping it through Accomplice to get around summoning sickness and will otherwise just be enabled by attacking in the matchups where it matters. - Weapons Manufacturer I think is a bit too close to a Siege Veteran to be common for me. With four Accomplice cards in this submission, I think this slot would have been better utilised if it showed a different axis of the tribe - maybe an alternate way of tapping your creatures, like a Vehicle. | Backstreet Stalker: Yo, nice. This is a really cool effect. Pulse Tracker is positively malding. Dirty Work: Yeah, sweet. I'm into it. Lengthy Interrogation: This card seems like it'd be SUPER frustrating to play against. Cabal Therapy is not historically a fun card, and it only recurs itself once. Protection Dealer: This is a weird design. 4W 3/3 is basically nothing, so you're really banking on making tokens, which ... well, if you have 3/4 Advisors, I think you basically win any game where you're not being flown down. The floor is too low and the ceiling is too high here. Stifling Bureaucrat: I like this as a nuisance for constructed. Think it probably wants to be legendary, because 2/3 of these become a REAL problem. Weapons Manufacturer: This is a little insane. I don't think you can get away with this effect at common unless you have to attack or put some mana into it. Overall: Accomplice is a great keyword. The package of accomplice effects here is fine; I'm not stoked, but I'm not disappointed. | I definitely like Accomplice in this context - having an effect for cards that keeps them out of combat feels very Advisor and a lot of the effects here are definitely fun. Backstreet Stalker is definitely a sweet common for a mechanic like this, allowing it to attack for the first turn or two, potentially, and then tap itself with accomplice to continue to generate value. Dirty Work is definitely a slick rendition on Infernal Grasp, and giving the option for it to generate potential upside is very cool. I really don't like Lengthy Interrogation though - while the idea is very cool, it seems highly likely that you'd just be able to just loop it once a turn and shred your opponents hand down - doesn't seem fun at all. Protection Dealer is definitely cool, although given that it can trigger multiple times a turn it seems probably too easy to out-value an opoponent - maybe if it was once a turn and had better stats it might be a little more interesting. Stifling Bureaucrat is very cool! I like that you need to have a t1 attacker if you want its instant and sorcery cost to kick in, which introduces an interesting play pattern. Weapons Manufacturer seems cracked as a common - being able to continually buff up a creature to outvalue your opponent in combat, especially if you play two of them, seems too strong. Overall, the concepts here are definitely great, and while some of the designs are shakier overall I'm definitely into it. | Backstreet Stalker is a great card to lead your entry off with - immediately gives a sense of what your secondary mechanical hook is, uses a flavorfully appropriate mechanic to do so, and all on a simple common that had me going "hang on, are you sure this didn't already exist?" I like the idea of tapping creatures for spells being another way to trigger the "becomes tapped" other than accomplicing or attacking, but I'm not a fan of Dirty Work's design. I think constructed formats end up with more texture when the two-mana instant-speed black removal has targets it can miss, and while Infernal Grasp has proven that life loss is a real downside in aggressive matchups, it's also shown that in lots of matchups, the life loss is going to be just gravy compared to getting to kill anything and presumably stopping it from further pressuring your life total anyways. Lengthy Interrogation feels kinda fucked up to me; you can miss on the first hit, sure, but I don't like the scenarios where you can just recur this a bunch of times and tear an opponent's hand apart. I think I would have preferred this if it was a two-shot like Cabal Therapy - a sorcery with "Whenever one or more Advisors you control become tapped, you may exile this from your graveyard and cast a copy..." etc. I'm not sure how many of these really feel like "Advisors", particularly Backstreet Stalker and Weapons Manufacturer, who seem like run-of-the-mill thugs that'd be typed as Scouts or Artificers regularly - I think you leaned a little too much on Accomplice to sell the flavor instead of finding a framing for these cards that was more appropriate. Outside of these issues, though, I think this entry does a great job of carving out interesting new space for this tribe, playing into the aggression that tribal decks usually lean into for constructed success, but with reasonable knobs for other synergies. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
5 | Dodger#3503 | https://imgur.com/a/VGHnXxT | 1.29 | This is a really, really weird mechanic, and it's not doing any favours here. Feels like colour-coding different predefined Fish tokens is just like adding so much unnecessary complexity for... Fish, of all things, and this is also a mechanic that just sort of lies to you in its RT, because my first read of this was "make a 1/1 of a certain colour?" not "makes one of five different unique Fish". The power level differences between the different Fish is also really high, with the different Fish also having different levels of complexity and being difficult to remember or pattern... this whole mechanic feels like there is no juice, only squeeze, and it needs a lot more time in the oven. I'm reading the Guppy, Vicious Schooling, and Makeshift Rod as the Limited targets... and all of them are fine, I guess? They're pretty much all just go-wide Fish tribal effects, and they don't even play super nice with the different kind of fish; you just sort of always pick blue or red if you have the mana free that because those are the strongest default fish. For the Constructed ones, Wizened Carp suggests that there's reason to diversify your fish, but I don't think it's actually worth doing that diversification (why am I ever picking Sunfish), and it doesn't land as a mythic at all, either. Angler's Fortitude is a cool design but it doesn't actually engage with Fish beyond go-wide, either. I appreciate how much you went and did something wild and wacky here, that is pushing boundaries, but I think I have to throw this fish back into the ocean. | Its super weird that the mechanic is being tied to "create a Fish token" when it's doing more than just predefining a new token type. WotC has remarked that investigate would likely just have dropped the action word in favor of making it a predefined token, but this is a case where naming the mechanic is warranted. The actual mechanic I do not find compelling, especially when it doesn't look like the tokens are balanced against each other, which is always the struggle with this kind of mechanic. Favorite card here would be Swordfish, which I assume is a Constructed slot for red aggro. I also appreciate Wizened Carp as the obligatory "can make any Fish" slot, and it's fun to realize all of them can be done in GU. (There's some weirdness going on in its art crop towards the sides, though). Overall the mechanic being a sinker tanked this entry for me. | Progenitor Guppy - I'm very much not a fan of the Fish token. I've been working on a mechanic that's sorta similar to this, and you really need to bake the options into the card itself, cause it's very hard to remember what each color of fish you can make. Additionally, it seems like the Goldfish is just a bit better than most others, especially the earlier in the game you get. I think the base rate of this is fine, but having so much option paralysis in regards to what you'll actually do for it seems like a big mess. The arts are adorable, though. Makeshift Rod - This definitely is cute, though, I'd almost want something that cares about getting the extra fish, rather than just pushing for going as wide as possible. I don't think that's super problematic, as the fish-making is a lot more complex heavy than anything else here. Vicious Schooling - Urge to Feed, but destroy rather than -3, but 3 more mana to do. I don't think I'm a fan of fish cards being double pip'd, since the mechanic really wants you to splash as much as possible to get all the options open (or at least, the good ones). As a sorcery, as well, this feels a touch too slow and leaves you super open, making the play patterns very odd. Swordfish - This is definitely solid, but I am always weary about death-based mana payments, since you dont' really get to control when this dies, most of the time. Angler's Fortitude - Hm, this once again promotes more of a "Go wide at any cost" which I feel is a bit at odds with "paying a bit extra to make sure your creatures get to engage with and utilize this new mechanic". The flavor is definitely really cute, but I think this is definitely brought down by the fish-making mechanic once more. Wizened Carp - The art here isn't cropped quite right, as there are grey lines going down both sides. This design, however, is definitely fun, though, I do think it begs the question on if it is a color break/bend or not, since it, by itself, lets you make the damage-y fish and the lifelink fish which aren't quite in simic's range of abilities. If ignoring that, though, this design is pretty neat, though I would like it split up a bit. Having both pieces on one card makes it very obvious what you are doing in a way that feels self solving, rather than something that pushes the player to make choices. In a way that's helped out by the fish mechanic being a ton of complexity, but I think opening all the options at once feels a bit cheat-y. | - Progenitor Guppy introduces Fish Tokens, and the fact that this doesn't use original terminology and instead just uses "Create a ~ token" makes it ambiguous in the context of other token-making abilities. I think this could play out in a fun way, though it feels difficult to work in paper, and the varying complexity and strength among the different tokens is a point of concern for me. Guppy itself essentially being a blank canvas that you're using to showcase this mechanic means it doesn't really add anything to this submission that isn't already covered by your other Fish-making cards. - Makeshift Rod is neat. As an equipment with innate mana and tempo sinks, I think the ability to get a regular token and not pay mana for it is very beneficial to its play patterns. I do think the tokens the Rod makes (or maybe Fish in general) should not be able to make further Fish tokens. Having a single Flying Fish that can create a new one each combat seems too inevitable of a win condition. - Vicious Schooling is a neat throwback to Urge to Feed. I like it mechanically, but this isn't the kind of card I'd want a deck to have multiples of, so it's a much better fit for uncommon (and maybe a mana cheaper). - Swordfish showing that this set will have Fish beyond just the Fish Tokens from the mechanic makes the mechanic feel less iconic of the set. I think this is probably fine as an individual card. - Angler's Fortitude is neat as both a flavour hook (aha) and mechanically working nicely as a top-end for a deck that goes wide in the early game. With this being Affinity rather than something like Convoke, I can definitely imagine this being too cheap. - Wizened Carp feels underwhelming for a mythic, but the combination of a mana ability and sink in the Fish tokens is neat. I appreciate that the mana ability is also desirable alongside the mana sink of Angler's Fortitude. | Progenitor Guppy: Wow, you're going to have to work REALLY hard to convince me this is worth its design complexity. The fact that the tokens aren't all just 1/1s with a single keyword is a huge miss to me, as well. There's so much happening behind the curtain here, and tying it to "create a Fish token" is bizarre since fish already exist in Magic as not this at all. Makeshift Rod: I'm evaluating this based on blue, since I think the 1/1 flier is probably the best of the bunch; on attack, pay U to make a 1/1 flier seems well off the mark power-wise, especially since you can just put the rod on that flier after the attack anyways. Vicious Schooling: This is a kind of clumsy removal spell we don't see a lot of anymore, because they're generally not efficient enough to actually rationalize playing in today's limited. I think the ceiling of "and now my 1/1 fliers are all Wind Drakes" is a bit absurd as well. Hard to know how often that would come up, but it scares me that it could. Swordfish: Bleh. I mean, you've really hinged this entry on a keyword I strongly dislike, so none of these designs are really landing on me. What does the red Fish even do? Oh, it's a Fable token? Cool. Angler's Fortitude: This card hits home flavorfully, in that the more Fish you catch, the better Fish you can get. The mechanical design is fine but it's mostly just a Green Sun's Zenith. Wizened Carp: I guess this design was coming if you're attaching your Fish to specifically colored mana. Looks like a green-blue Bitterblossom to me, and I think it gives you a lot of fake options when the flier is going to be the right choice much of the time. Overall: I can't get behind this mechanic, so I can't get behind this entry. | Why is this not a new mechanic, as opposed to create? I get that this tries to use Clue language, but the fact the actual creation is modal means that this probably doesn't want to just get handwaved in the CR for predefined tokens. In terms of the mechanic itself, I feel like there's too much of a delta between the power levels of each color's fish? Sunfish seems absolutely terrible, while Goldfish at least pays for itself in a turn, Lionfish can become a late-game threat by pumping mana into it, and Flying Fish is obviously very good comparatively. In terms of your designs, Progenitor Guppy seems like the baseline common design, Makeshift Rod seems like a pretty fun token-maker, Vicious Schooling is cute and I like that it gives your Fish with abilities like lifelink and flying a buff to make those matter more. As for what looks like your three Constructed designs, Swordfish seems... not that good? Maybe I'm underestimating it because the stats are pretty small but it just doesn't seem like the kind of thing you want to be doing. Angler's Fortitude on the other hand, I definitely like - cool that it encourages you to go crazy with your Fish and play out as many as you can in the early game to find something big. Finally, while I get that Wizened Carp is supposed to be ramp and token-making value, it just does not really feel mythic at all, which is a little dissapointing. The design leans simple and doesn't really have any kick to it outside of a simple "ability that adds mana of any color + payoff for using specific colors of mana". | An immediate strike against this entry for me is the redefining of what "create a token" means here, burying the lede in the RT. This feels like something people would very easily miss/gloss over if they were seeing this card in a pack, and I really don't see the advantage of doing this over simply using a new named mechanic to call-out the variable token creation going on here. Outside of the framing of the mechanic, I'm lukewarm on the mechanics of it - I could perhaps see this working conceptually in a full set, with appropriate support for each of these themes/different archetypes using different fish, but there isn't space here to demonstrate an understanding of how to effectively do that, so it just comes off as random in-color effects. I think there could've been something to nail in the "+1/+1 counters matter" thing that seems t be going on between Gloomfish, Lionfish, and Vicious Schooling, and also to a lesser extent how well Sunfish and Flying Fish hold those counters. Also not a fan of how red gets disproportionate access to the other Fish tokens thanks to the treasure creation. Past that, the tribal theme here just sort of seems to be "go-wide," which isn't really that unique given that all tribal archetypes want to achieve a density of their creatures. Even excepting that, I feel like a way this could've stuck to that and still done something unique with it is leaning into the different-colors aspect with Convoke or adjacent mechanical space. I'm not sure Swordfish needs to haste to be powerful, though I appreciate that you were probably trying to make it abundantly clear that that was a constructed-pushed slot. I like the interplay of "mana dork + Fish token creation" on Wizened Carp, but it really doesn't feel like it justifies itself as a mythic to me. I really appreciate the art direction and flavor texts in this entry, even if I wasn't a fan of it mechanically. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
6 | Orion Rings#2903 | https://imgur.com/a/Hz6c8oM | 1.86 | Rouse is a cool mechanic for Golems, playing into the animation aspect of them, but I am a little worried about its complexity and its balance, since Equipments are a pain in the butt--see how many different versions of Weapon tokens exist in custom sets. Formatting also needs some adjusting somehow, it's clunky as-is. I also feel like the emphasis on Equipment for stats and abilities makes these Golems feel uncharacteristically small? The biggest statline here being a 2/4 (though teeechnically a 4/4) hits funny. Rubble Runner and Seeking Spirit are easy two pinpoints for Limited. The third effect I'm not super confident on. It might the Longsword, but that doesn't seem particularly good in either side, especially since it discourages using the Golem set mechanic by asking to be the only Equipment, but the other option is Guardian which seems much too aggressive for Limited. I'll lean the sword since that benefits you more, but either way, I'm not super happy with the Limited set-up here, because both Seeking Spirit and the sword non-bo with rouse, since rousing doesn't activate an equip ability. It feels like you forgot that the mechanic auto-equips, since these would work a lot better if it didn't (though the sword still isn't working here). For the Constructed three, the two white cards are fine but nothing super exciting; really the effect that carries this whole entry is Threnodian Pummeler, which uses the Equipment really well to scale itself and threaten and has a lot of novel play effects while producing cool instant-haste value and rewarding both it having the haste from rouse and rewarding passing it around. This entry felt like it had a solid core concept in Rouse, but didn't know how to use it well, especially in Limited, where it ended up feeling muddled and fighting itself. I think there's a way to make this mechanic work but I didn't see it how I wanted it here. | I'm not convinced on Rouse as a mechanic. Varied Equipment tokens just sounds like too much. The formatting being awkward also doesn't help. Seeking Spirit begs to be broken by Equip (0). Normally I'd shift the blame on Shuko and its ilk but this entry being Equipment-focused feels like it should've showed more awareness and accounted for those cards. Then you realize it also don't play nice with Rouse, since the mechanic auto-equips. Colossal Longsword actively nonboing with your named mechanic makes it a sad include. Steel Song might be my favorite card here. While I like the idea of pairing Golems as a tribe with Equipment, I think on an individual design level, this entry ultimately missed the mark. | Rubble Runner - Should be - Rouse - "Equipped creature gets +2/+0. Equip 2" in terms of order, but I feel like this could be formatted in many other ways that would have gotten this done much clearer. Things like the adventure frame, DFCs, etc would have all helped out. Rouse is neat, if a bit seen many times in the customverse. I think it is pretty neat here, as golems leaving behind chunks of themselves definitely feels like a neat flavor win. Wizened Guardian - The equipment here wants to be worded as "Whenever equipped creature and a creature with greater power attack, put a +1/+1 counter on equipped creature. Equip W." Equipment have to give the abiltiies to the thing they are equipping, or key off of that, cause the equipment won't ever attack (outside of some silly animation shenanigans). Threnodin Pummeler - Oooh, I really like this. Definitely a fun use of the equipment token and a pseudo-lord. Lovely design. Seeking Spirit - Hm, I feel like this wants reminder text on how it nonbos with the auto-equip of Rouse, but definitely is a bit neat. I do think this gets into a weird engine, especially with lower cost Equip abilities, since you can just keep equipping the same creature over and over, turning Wizened Guardian, for example, into a "W: Scry 1" machine, which definitely feels like a bit too much for limited and feels a bit nonintended. Colossal Longsword -- This feels a bit odd. If golems are all about getting equipment, then why have something that directly nonbos with having other equipment? This feels like it's going against what the round wants you to do, even if it is cheaper to equip golems, all the golems come with equipment attached! Steel Song - This is more like it. It's definitely a fun way to keep bodies out and as long as you keep the creature around, you get around the endless token generation, since you can't just unequip equipment. Definitely neat and fun. | - Rubble Runner introduces Rouse. I think this mechanic probably plays well enough (solving the issue of running too many equipment by also providing a body), though as a mechanic I'm not a huge fan of how limited you are by space in terms of what you can actually do with it. This seems like a fine common if a bit weak. I think it could be cool if the equipment tokens mirrored the creature that made them in some way, like granting the same keyword to tie them in together (less synergistic with that creature of course, but I don't think that's a downside as it's less self-solving). - Wizened Guardian's token is a neat payoff for Equipments without explicitly calling them out - am a fan. - Threnodin Pummeler is an interesting Haste payoff, though it doesn't tell me much about the Golem/Rouse-specific stuff that the previous cards didn't already. - Seeking Spirit feels like a bit of a trap. A 1/3 flyer is probably a better body to stick equipment on than your Golems, and the Rouse tokens auto-equipping on ETB and not triggering the Spirit feels like a bit of a miss. - Colossal Longsword I think is a fine standalone card, but doesn't seem like it compliments the strengths or patches up any weaknesses of the archetype as you've presented it. Golems alrady coming with Equipment innately reduces the value of running actual Equipment cards, and the bonus only being granted if no other equipment are present removes the Voltron axis that a player with multiple equipment could normally lean into. - Steel Song worries me a little with expensive equipment, with how well it facilitates draws with more of those inconsistent equipment than its creatures, and how it forces opponents to answer either this or the equipment because answering the creatures no longer really has permanent impact. I appreciate the knob of this occurring on end step though, to allow for some counterplay for the opponent. | Rubble Runner: Not a fan of the templating of Rouse, but I like the effect. Equipment tokens are fun (though a NIGHTMARE to balance) and have a lot of design space. This particular card seems fine. Wizened Guardian: Hmm, okay. This is a moderately interesting rouse effect, though it does feel a bit small-ball for a Golem. Threnodin Pummeler: Ooh, this is very interesting for constructed. Putting the pieces together to see just how big this becomes was a fun little puzzle. I wonder if it's a little TOO strong, but I'd like to see it tested. Seeking Spirit: Mm. Does this trigger off of Rouse? I don't think it does, which has me low on it. The idea of 1/3 flier with marginal value is one close to my heart, but this doesn't quite hit home. Colossal Longsword: Not a fan. No reason you should incentivize dequipping your Rouse tokens; I get that it's a fun little game of moving things around so you can get the biggest buff, but it plays against the main theme you've presented and not in an interesting way. Also this card would ruin limited. +4/+4 is so many stats! Steel Song: Weird effect. I don't think this really rationalizes the ward {1} buff. It also is dying to combo in some degenerate Hammer Time deck, and it does so REALLY efficiently, which is probably no good. Overall: The idea is there, but the implementation feels pretty loose. It feels like the play patterns weren't actually considered after the initial design, because multiple cards here have format-breaking effects. | Not a huge fan of Rouse - the templating looks really ugly (maybe worth using Adventure frame?) , and it seems pretty messy to track regardless. Rubble Runner is a fine baseline common but doesn't really tell me anything. Don't super love Wizened Guardian, as it adds a constant source of +1/+1 counters on your board in addition to a rotating cast of Rouse equipment, which probably gets complex, although I think the design conceptually is cool. Threnodin Pummeler is definitely a solid design, I like the passive incentivising you to pass the Equipment around as much as you can. Seeking Spirit just seems annoying, would much rather have a better ability that triggers once a turn to get around the equip 0 (or even equip 1 just going back and forth with this seems like it'd just take forever with each scry being an individual event) problem. Colossal Sword is a nonbo and also +4/+4 is crazy for an uncommon Equipment, and finally I think Steel Song is a very cool way of making sure that Equipment that fall off can stay in play without pumping mana into them. | Okay, so Golem tribal, with an equipment component. I'm not super feeling the tribal here - Seeking Spirit is the only one here that feels like a real payoff, and it's a real lukewarm one just being a Scry 1, something the judges have mentioned as low-impact previously. Colossal Longsword technically calls out Golems, but because you've estabhlished all of the Golems having rouse, you're still paying about the same amount for the equip by having to move the Rouse equipment to something else and then equipping Colossal Longsword. Steel Song feels like a card you don't play with Golems at all - just play it in a HammerTime style deck to abuse the free equip. The ward, while technically meaningful, feels like trinket text even when you are playing it with Golems, given that an opponent probably isn't going to was removal on something that's immediately going to be re-equipped. Overall, this doesn't come together to give me a sense of tribal identity or cohesive play patterns, despite the equipment underpinning. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
7 | Queen Emily#1312 | https://imgur.com/a/o9Z9Lt2 | 2.86 | Artificers and Artifacts. Yup. The three cards I'm seeing for Limited are Tervex Armourer, Blacksmith's Hammer, and... I guess Ferrosect? All of these but the hammer feel like they're better targeted for Constructed, with the Armourer scaling so well with copies of itself it probably wants to be an Uncommon to better affirm its goal as an Elite Vanguard, and the other Limited-potentials being a 4/4 menace for 3 if you can enable it, or a Young Pyromancer that also has a loot attached. I guess I'd read it as Ferrosect but the line here is blurred. Dragonborn Hexblade is super dope. That's no questions asked the standout card here that rocks. It reminds me a lot of a really fun "combo" deck that existed in the very old custom format Custard, where you'd similarly burst out a bunch of artifacts for one big finish, and this one encourages a novel loop twist to boot, which is awesome. However, Clockwork Strix just being... a giant, evasive beater with low cost and cheap, easy removal protection makes it hard for me to see the trees for the forest here of cards that are just too tuned, or pushed in uninteresting ways. I'd have been super excited if this whole entry was doing the same thing that Dragonborn Hexblade does. Unfortunately, that is not the case, and the cards feel like they don't come together holistically beyond raw power. | This entry is fine. My biggest issue with it is how it went for the lowest hanging fruit you could do with Artificers: making them care about artifacts. I think if you focused on a more defined mechanical aspect that involve artifacts it'd convince me of it better, but the generic synergy being presented here makes it feel no different from what we usually find in artifact sets . . . The Limited/Constructed split comes across well, at least, and I have to choose Automech Combatant as my favorite design here. | Tervex Armorer - Hm, this is a bit expected in a meh way, I think. Artificers just wanting you to have more of them and have artifacts is a bit of a tread ground, even if there isn't too much to do with them beyond that. Blacksmith's Hammer - The equip abilities want to go in the other order (see: Ceremonial Groundbreaker). This is again a bit expected and not the most exciting. Automech Combatant - This feels a bit busted. Third Path Iconoclast is definitely doing work and doing a slight shift doesn't feel like you can get away with the second ability, especially given how much Sai, Master Thopterist is doing in formats. I do think this is neat as a package deal, but seems a touch too much. Ferrosect - This is workable, again, if a bit nonexciting. Control one/both is definitely good, but the Armorer already hammered that point home. Dragonborn Hexblade - This feels like it'll be rife with an infinite combo somewhere (something with Memnite and Conspiracy or something :P) but definitely feels like a fun idea. A bit weird that none of the artifacts here want to be bounced, and, in fact, want to stay around (4/4 menace, equipment that you pay to equip on to something, and a flying threat). Definitely feels like this wanted the Ferrosect slot to be something to fill that role instead. Clockwork Strix - This is pretty neat, if probably a bit frustrating to play against. Sticky scaling threats are always something to be worried about, and this definitely is one of those. Though, it definitely does the job well of pushing the themes together. Overall - I feel like this entry was really safe and nothing here was out of what would be expected, especially after things like Kaladesh. | - Tervex Armorer I think is not particularly great in Limited. Even if you're reliably getting both of the abilities enabled, the payoff isn't really there. That said, a crappy 1/1 is generally what Equipment decks want. - Blacksmith's Hammer is a good approach to making an Equipment tribe work, but 2 mana for Equip 1 and +2/+2 is cracked at common. This is a very significant boost over Inventor's Goggles and kills people very quickly, while also stacking very nicely due to the cheap equip cost and only needing one Artificer to work. - Automech Combatant's first ability is something an equipment deck would be very happy with. Its second ability is such a high commitment for such a small reward, that it takes more away from the design for me than it adds to it. - Ferrosect is neat. Menace is nice with equipment, and since this is a WU archetype that doesn't have menace generally, it lets it perform on a different axis than most of the other creatures you'll have in that deck. - Dragonborn Hexblade is sweet! I love how these two abilities feed into each other in a way that isn't too free or absurd, requiring some amount of tempo setback, but also in a way that lets you build around it with Artifact ETB abilities. Including an artifact in this submission that has an ETB worth resetting would make me higher on this, but it's a small gripe. - Clockwork Strix I think scales a bit too quickly for how cheap of an evasive and slippery threat it can be, though this is mitigated by how much the deck looks like it wants to play at sorcery speed and may struggle to do things with the mana it's holding up for the hexproof ability. I generally wouldn't love that this lets you tap Equipment which doesn't impact how the equipment is played, but since that ability doesn't scale and isn't proactive, I can buy it. | Tervex Armorer: Two of these turning each other into 2/2s feels a bit loose. I'd rather see it at one artifact => three artifacts. The card is a classic design though, so I'm happy enough with the potential play patterns. Blacksmith's Hammer: Would rather see this as a +2/+1 equipment because the second point of toughness has a huge effect on combat at common, but the design tracks. Automech Combatant: I kinda think you can get away with just the first ability here, though I guess it's a little trickier to build an all-artifact deck than an all-instant/sorcery deck. Only a little, though. Ferrosect: Probably wants to be a 4/3. I like it though. Dragonborn Hexblade: Yeah, this is a sweet buildaround for constructed. I can't really imagine the deck, but I'd love to see someone much better at deckbuilding than I perfect this list. Very cool card. Clockwork Strix: This design kinda sucks. I really hate seeing big, cheap, evasive threats that protect themselves. Where's the gameplay against this? Hope you can race it, or kill everything around it and hope you're not dead by the time you do? Overall: A few highlights, a few lowlights. This made me more excited about "artificers and artifacts" than I initially expected, so I'll give you props there. | Tervex Armorer is a cool idea, but I think it's a little messed-up power-wise that they key off of each other - two copies of it become two 2/2's as early as turn 2, which is definitely scary. Blacksmith's Hammer is a cute Limited design for the deck, I'm a fan. Automech Combatant is definitely spicy, and I like the ability to attack with your tokens to generate cardflow while you try and go-wide with your artifacts and Artificer tokens. Ferrosect is definitely exciting, if not a little strong if you can trigger both abilities by turn 3, but I would definitely love to play it in some kind of aggressive tribal shell. Dragonborn Hexblade is a cool design that allows you to chain artifact ETBs and use them in an aggresive deck alongside that pump ability, which seems very fun. Finally, Clockwork Strix doesn't seem the most fun since it's very cheap to keep itself protected and can grow very large really quickly, especially alongside cards like Automech Combatant which generate a lot of tokens. Seems scary. Overall though, power level concerns aside I love the concepts here and there are a ton of cards I would love to test out. While the core concept is on the basic side, it works for me. | This entry ticks most of the boxes for me. The idea of making Artificers care about artifacts isn't particularly original, but I think the execution here of the dual-tribal is heads-up and shows an understanding of the curves and play patterns required to keep both halves attractive. I think the sole exception might be Automech Combatant, which functions without any other Artificer support in an Artifacts deck. Tervex Armorer is neat, puts me in the mind of Toolcraft Exemplar - I like that he more immediately attractive bonus here, the stat boost, is predicated on the tribe and not artifacts. Dragonborn Hexblade is an innovative way to create a lord, allowing you to stack artifacts for massive pumps. The loops with Automech Combatant are brutal, so this might have wanted to be more expensive, as with a single one-mana artifact that cantrips you can easily be killing someone in one swing while also drawing 3+ cards. I think the one thing this entry is missing for me is a sense of "splash factor" - most of these designs feel fairly by-the-numbers/treading on well-worn ground. Dragonborn Hexblade is the one exception, but even it is more of an engine piece than something genuinely eye-catching. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
8 | Splashcat | https://imgur.com/a/57wC7lU | 2.43 | Advisors I expected to be one of the most popular tribe picks. I'm not sure how I feel about elect; it does feel like a mechanic for its own sake but I can see some validity in using representatives as "exalted" style gameplay without being as all-or-nothing. The three Limited cards show themselves well being the Advocate, Filibusterer, and Record Keeping, with the other three as Constructed pieces. Advocate and Filibusterer are both solid, reasonable staple elect effects; Advocate I think is the exact kind of clean "default set mechanic usage" that I'm glad is not the only example in this entry, while Filibusterer's filibuster is a bit awkward since it turns off as evasion becomes more important when the board clogs, but it is good flavour. Record Keeping being tribal Divination is fine and good and I dig it. For the Constructed three, I like Running Mate as a good top-down bit to expand Electability though it's likely not good enough for a Constructed deck with the Elect effects shown, I think the Proofreader's lack of innate flying or other evasion makes it lacklustre in a tempo/aggro deck, and Aysun is fine, particularly combined with Running Mate. I think the Limited cards were the stronger half of the entry even though they are very plain and basic, but this will probably end up as one of the stronger entries in the round... depending on how much the other judges penalize the typeline typos. | I've seen elect crop up in custom spaces a couple of times, and I'm generally neutral on it. You gave it good flavor here, which at least helps. I think the reminder text calling out first combat is strange, though. The Limited oriented cards are pretty clear, and they're all fine designs. For the Constructed cards I think Running Mate is my favorite design, even though I think it's lacking some oomph in terms of viability. Meticulous Proofreader (why is this and the Filibusterer not Human type, by the way? Lack of meticulous proofreading, perhaps?) I'm not too fond of these Spiketail-type designs. I wasn't blown away by this entry but overall it was comparatively fine. | Tireless Advocate - Hm, I'm not the biggest fan of Elect. I've playtested it a bit, and a lot of the times it just feels very hoopy on what it is actually doing and accomplishing that you can just instead be a trigger like Battle-Rattle Shaman or something with elect feeling like you aren't actually doing too much. It also makes it really hard to be on the backfoot, since so many of the cards with it basically do nothing on opponents turns, making it an attack-only mechanic, heightening the beatdown dichotomy. Grandiloquent Filibusterer - Even with elect being what it is, this type of on-board pay-to-block tends to be super unfun to play with/against. It pushes players into not wanting to curve out and play cards in hopes they don't just get got by a big unblockable creature, while also really hammering home if someone is on the beatdown or not, making it harder and hard to actually stabilize and try to turn the tides. Also, creature type! Running Mate - This is a bit of a fun twist on Elect, but again pushes the negative play patterns of Elect to the forefront. Record Keeping - This is a bit of a bland entry, even if it does work as a base pillar. It just isn't a very exciting pillar. Meticulous Proofreader - This card didn't get proofread itself! The first ability feels a bit weird in blue, but in a creature-y strategy it might be fine. I dislike on board counterspells like this, but this is definitely more of a tax than anything, which is a fun flavor bit. Aysun - This is definitely neat, but also just goes into some of the play patterns with elect being a bit disapointing. You basically have to telegraph everything so openly that you won't really get this to go off unless the opponent is already super far behind, which is what all of the other elect-based cards are pushing for in such an unfun way. | - Tireless Advocate is a fine card. It introduces Elect, which doesn't feel like it warrants a mechanic personally. It feels like a lot of extra space that you could save by just wording out a beginning of combat trigger. While the terminology "your chosen representative" is flavourful, I don't love the use of the word "chosen" here given that the word already has a predefined meaning in Magic (chosen modes etc.) - Grandiloquent Filibuster seems to be missing a creature type. Again this is probably a fine enough card, but my comments for Tireless Advocate apply here too, in addition to the two of these cards not really offering anything to your submission that the other didn't already cover. - Running Mate is an example of a use of Elect that shows what it can do beyond just a regular beginning of combat trigger, but the use of the mechanic here rather than just spelling out what it does makes it feel more complex to me than it needs to. - Record Keeping seems like a fine individual card, though it not interacting with Advisors in any kind of similar axis to where Elect is operating on makes it feel disconnected from the rest of the submission. - Meticulous Proofreader also seems to be missing a creature type. Seems like it would do well in Constructed. - Aysun the Strategist seems like it could be obnoxious to play against, especially if you're on the play and have a 1-drop, giving you a card immediately if your opponent doesn't have 1 mana interaction or a t1 blocker. I'm conceptually into this, but not with these numbers. | Tireless Advocate: This is a REALLY good way to do "attacks alone" triggers without actually forcing you to attack alone. This card is cool too. Grandiloquent Filibusterer: What a great name for this flavor! The effect makes sense to a degree. I don't love taxing unblockable effects that much because of their variance in terms of game state, but it's certainly not a bad design. Running Mate: I think there's a way to word this that is much cleaner than it's currently worded, but I like the concept a lot. Seems like it'd be good in a white weenie strat. Record Keeping: Divination+ is a good place to be these days, and this lives there comfortably. Meticulous Proofreader: Gives me Fish vibes. I'm not sure it's that good because the p/t buff feels like it doesn't really track with the timing payoff, but it's a tried-and-true effect. Aysun: I'm a little surprised we're not seeing any Advisor tokens, given that this is basically begging you to overextend otherwise. I like the general idea of "draw cards" though. Overall: There's obviously a lot more that you could have shown me here, but the foundation is solid. The limited cards were much more exciting than the constructed package, but hey, I'm a limited guy, so well done. | Can't say I'm particularly interested by the mechanic, but it seems functional and flavorful so I can rock with it. Tireless and Grandiloquent are both solid role-fillers for this kind of archetype, and Grandiloquent is cool in that it puts the onus on your opponent to have mana up every turn to make sure you can't freely hack in. Running Mate is a fun little Limited rare that synergizes with this kind of a deck as well. Record Keeping is a solid design, Meticulous feels like it definitely tracks for an Advisors theme and I like that it also gets to be a 1 mana 2/2 sometimes if you're going hard into tribal, and Aysun is a pretty neat design that allows you to stack up card advantage if you have evasive attackers. | Hm, I don't think elect on its own is unworkable, but I'm not sure about this place for it. Tribal is usually all about "stronger together" type density encouragement, while elect is very much an exalted-style "this one dude is gonna mess you up so bad." Yes, you can attack with your other creatures, but in delegating space for elect, it makes it harder to have the traditional play patterns/niche that tribal needs to fit into to justify itself in constructed. I like Running Mate as a semi-acknowledgement/bandaid for this, allowing you to doubleup on your Elect triggers. My biggest issue with this entry is that it feels like the tribal elements are overshadowed by elect - the scry 2 on Record Keeping feels mostly incidental, and Aysun, while being a good tribal incentive, is also very much playing into elect space/is pretty fine on its own as a difficult-to-remove two-drop that heavily punished not having a t2 play by immediately drawing a card. Meticulous Proofreader has a traditional tribal payoff, at least, with a neat nod to a tempo-esque gameplan that Filibusterer and obviously Aysun also point to. Two of your cards here are missing Race creature types - especially ironic considering one of them is named "Meticulous Proofreader." Overall, I like some of the individual designs and the clear intent for this to be a tempo archetype in constructed, but don't think the pairing of Advisor tribal and Elect is doing the former favors here. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
9 | Sunset | https://imgur.com/a/0AsAPdB | 2.71 | This entry takes Nomads and sets them based on exploring and lands-matter. That seems like a pretty intuitive link and tracks to me, though, ironically, I don't think most real-life nomads are truly exploring. I'm uninterested in Established as a mechanic (it doesn't feel like it's doing anything novel or interesting, especially as a state change rather than a pseudo), but the rest of this has something solid behind it. It's difficult for me to read which cards here are for Limited and which are for Constructed. Pieces like Motley Caravan suggest to me Limited, but that's definitely not an appropriate common design (similarly, Tcalni Lifeshaper is doing so much engine-work it seems an inappropriate uncommon), so it's leaving me unsure what things are supposed to be going where. I'd guess those two and Commune with the Land are Limited-targeted and the other three for Constructed? But Commune with the Land being an Explore+ also suggests Constructed intent. Individual cards also feel somewhat messy at times, though in large parts I suspect that's just because of the choices of keywords. Lifeshaper missing explore RT is rough, but, well, the card is already doing so much it just isn't really possible to have RT. Bounteous Celebrant's kind of just cloning lands, so I don't understand why it specifically says mana value 0 permanents, and established is muddying the second clause. Hideback Populist being a full-anthem in green is, like, fine, but also double-stacking anthems on the same card (especially as an uncommon you can get in multiples) is annoying to track. Things like that end up feeling like they're overcomplicating the premise, to its detriment. Overall, I understand what was happening here and what you wanted, but I think you got lost a bit in the execution and ended up with something that didn't stick the landing. | Nomads caring about lands make sense, and for the most part I like the different directions you went with here to showcase that connection. Tcalni Lifeshaper is a bit too busy for my tastes as far as tricolor uncommons go, and I think it probably wants to simplify the two tap abilities into one, especially considering you had no room for explore reminder text as is. Bounteous Celebrant caring about mv 0 I think is the most interesting thing in this submission; conversely, I think established is a boring mechanic to name. It didn't work for me with Quandrix, and naming it gives it more importance that it doesn't live up to. I suppose it's functional, but this is a case I think where naming it hurts the entry more than it helps. I like Motley Caravan but this much potential CA is suspect at common. Tian is clean if a bit unexciting as a design for a legend. The other cards I don't have much issues with. Overall a fine entry. | Tcalni Lifeshaper - I feel like this is doing a lot on its own in a way that's really overwhelming for an uncommon. Three AAs with a passive and most of them do not feel connected except to fuel itself in a way that pushes you to stop playing the game and instead feed into it. Bounteous Celebrant - I think the ETB here is trying to be a bit too cute. Just say token or land. The attack trigger is definitely spicy and feels very impactful for when you achieve it in a very fun way. Established feels a bit weird, though. Does htis mean the nomads are no longer nomadic because they've settled and established themselves somewhere? Hideback Populist - Uncommon? Lords at uncommon are already strong, so a double lord (that pushes itself as a weird anemic 1/2 at start) feels like way too much, even if you have the hoop to go through. I would much rather the floor/ceiling be closer in regards to how much this is givng, and instead just give a +1/+1 and then if you're established, you get a keyword or two. Motley Caravan - The wording on this feels off, but I don't know what it'd actually be, so won't ding for that. This is definitely a fun use of explore triggers. Commune with the Land - I don't think this is a safe way to creep Explore, a card that already doesn't need to be crept. Getting to guarantee that you are hitting that second land just feels like it'll warp any environment it is in, especially the smaller you go. Tian - This feels a tad bit anemic and I think it'd want the bodies switched around, just so it feels more impactful to be a legendary creature itself, rather than as an enchantment that is doing the same type of thing. 1/1s for 4 mana are more of a detriment than something that feels evocative and fun to play as an actual creature. | - Tcalni Lifeshaper ties your themes together in a subtle and elegant way. I'm a fan of the overall concept here, but there's a bit too much going on. The first ability is generally not doing much in Limited (where I assume this is aimed), so that'd be the one I'd cut. Leaves you room for Explore RT as well, which I'd definitely expect below rare at least. I appreciate the sorcery speed restrictions here. - Bounteous Celebrant sneakily combining populate and ramp is a great connecting thread for your themes. I like that the second ability pays you off in different ways depending on whether you copy a land or a creature. Established I think would work better as an Ability Word or just as a theme rather than a mechanic. - Hideback Populist is certainly a good payoff for Limited. I think the two abilities affecting different subsets of creatures (and only one affecting Populist) makes this play out too mathy and difficult to track, so I think the second ability being kept to only Nomads (or spelling out Populist and other Nomads) would play more cleanly. I like the direction though. - Motley Caravan does too much for what I'd expect from a common. The second ability is pretty swingy in a way that better suits uncommon, where I think you could justify maybe a 2/2 body. - Commune With The Land is an exciting combination of effects, and I like that you continued the duality of payoffs for both Land Stuff and Nomad Stuff by making the land option more desirable with the extra land drop. That said, I don't think this is an appropriate strictly bettering of Explore. - Tian looks like a solid Constructed buildaround for the right format. Centering the tribe in green both here and on Lifeshaper is nice continuity. I wish it did slightly more unique of a thing to make it stand out more from the rest of the submission, but as a standalone card I'm a fan. | Tcalni Lifeshaper: Holy textbox, Batman! This card does tons of things. It does most of them well, which is a little concerning to me. I don't think you're spending a lot of time exploring when you could just be pumping out 1/1s here, though maybe I'm wrong. It's hard to read the play pattern when there's so much variation to it. I don't like explore on an uncommon without RT and I think this probably just does too much for its own good. Bounteous Celebrant: Weird to not have anything else with MV 0 in this package, because to me this just says "land." No, I take that back--you have two tokens, though they're not particularly exciting populate targets. Established probably isn't worth the keyword, it's not hard to say "if you control eight or more lands." The card probably plays well, but it's a rough read. Hideback Populist: Really not a fan of this. Trying to do the math of how many stats each of your creatures get feels like a nuisance here, especially when you combine them. Splitting the buffs across two lines just makes the card feel very clunky. Motley Caravan: This is distinctly not a common effect. I think it'd be cool on an uncommon. Commune with the Land: This effect makes sense with the tribe, though the card isn't particularly exciting as a design piece. It IS exciting as an Explore variant, where I suspect it's too good. Tian: Sure. I think this is a constructed payoff, and I could see it passing in some standard formats, though I kinda doubt formats of late. It's really small-ball. Honestly, I could see this being an uncommon signpost at this power level. Overall: Nomads-and-lands is a pretty obvious flavor package, and I don't think you've done much to elevate the concept beyond a few cards that are very tricky to parse. | Tcalni does a lot, but for the most part I like the concept? Seems like you'd primarily be focusing on that token ability. Also, definitely not a fan of leaving out explore RT on an uncommon, that's a sign you should probably be cutting the last ability. I definitely like the Bounteous Celebrant using MV 0 as shorthand for "tokens and land", which is a fun concept. That said, not a huge fan of established not being a ability word, feels like a thing that doesn't need to be a condition. Hideback Populist seems a strong with the ability to double-pump your Nomads, as well as hard to keep track of especially since it's a Nomad but only its second buff applies to itself. I think something like "Other Nomads get +1/+1, if you're established instead other creatures you control get +1/+1" and a statbuff to compensate would be easier to track. Motley Caravan is a neat Limited piece, and I really like the concept of adding Nomads to the things you can draw from explore while still keeping the counter. Commune with the Land is definitely an exciting Explore variant, and although it might be a little on the strong side the idea definitely is exciting. Finally, Tian feels like a fun final piece - putting Path of Discovery and attaching it to a 1/1 and a 2/2, both with relevant typelines, is definitely a very cool concept. | I like tying Nomads and lands-matter together, but estabhlished seems like the most boring and knobless way to explore that concept - it's like Ascend but worse, almost. Speaking of explore, I think it was a heads-up choice here, both flavorfully and mechanically - a lands mechanic that also helps with the "tribal wants to have a big board and creatures." Bounteous Celebrant made me expect more large creature tokens that I'd be invested in copying over a land, but it felt like that didn't show up in the entry. I'm a huge fan of Motley Caravan and Tcalni Lifeshaper - the former feels like a heads-up way to do a tribal payoff, and the latter is an engine that just looks like it has a lot of play to it. For the amount it does, really feels like it should be a rare, though. Commune with the Land definitely isn't a strictly better Explore, but like. I think its reallllly pushing it to a degree I don't think is safe. Overall, this was a mixed bag for me. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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