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1ogic#3398https://imgur.com/a/SBIFkJ61.33Emergance Channeler - "Emergence"? Also, where are you returning that creature card from? I'm a bit confused on this design and I feel like it's pulling itself in a lot of different avenues. A 3/2 body that self mills is already a bit weird, but instead of attacking with this, it's wanting to just be a graveyard pod (I assume). Self-feeding makes me question why it also needs to be as strong as it is, since you really don't want to be ever attacking or blocking with it, as that means you aren't doing what the deck is wanting to do. I also don't think not having a mana cost on this is that safe, especially since it is self-enabling itself.
Spectral Splitting - While Soul Separator never really did much of anything, I'm a bit suspect of this being 2 mana, especially at instant speed. I also feel like the surveil and regrowth effect on this are very distracting from the obvious cool part. It just feels a bit too busy and not quite what slots in well.
Transience Mystic - This is just weird and I don't think it's in a way that's good. It's pretty hard to parse and I think the wording wants to be cleaned up a lot. It also seems like it's a whole lot of work, especially since Emergance Channeler doesn't trigger it and Spectral Splitting only triggers it when you are doing the "worst" mode. This doesn't feel like it belongs here, and makes for a weird choice. I do think that the looting also makes it feel super self solving, as well as the bird not actually working with the trigger meaning players will probably misplay this already very confusing card.
Overall - I don't really feel like there's a good through-line here. The mystic wants you to be milling, looting, and having things die, Spectral Splitting wants you to have big huge creatures to sacrifice in order to get extra tokens to try to manipulate, and then Emergance Channeler wants you to have a pod-chain to work from, which isn't really the best with tokens, especially when the Spectral Splitting tokens don't have a mana value to attempt to cheat the chain with, which is the main reason on how pod decks work and function.		Emergance (typo?) Channeler I don't think needed to be a 3/2 when it really only wants you to tap it for the AA. Wording problem there, too, but I assume it's returning from the graveyard. Spectral Splitting is too all over the place. The last mode being a regrowth also cheapens the design, I feel. Transience Mystic is pretty interesting, although getting there halfway on its own takes away from it a bit. I understand it wants to self-enable a bit to be competitive, though.Unfortunately, it's "Emergence", without an "a". The card's pushed, but it's pretty cool for what it does, combining a strong body with a good ETB and the Fiend Artisan effect in a mono-green package, so it works to me and would definitely have the pieces to enable itself easily. Spectral Sitting helps refine what this deck would look like in terms of "cloning" its good cards in flexible ways, whether copying etb/dies abilities or just doubling power. Its other two abilities feel also kind of here, especially the Surveil, unless you're sacrificing your Archaeomancers to loop itself. Transience Mage's open-ended condition kind of weakens the aristocrat-y feel of the deck, since it's already a pretty weird set of conditions to work in the first place, and with the other two cards not being super stellar at encouraging "aristocrats" it's just kind of asynchronous. I feel like it's ended up a bit muddled.Emergence Channeler is missing "from your graveyard." I'm not sure I like the tension between the P/T and the AA here - I like pushed for constructed cards as much as the next guy, but I think that this just ends up feeling dissonant when the AA is what you're playing the card for. Spectral Splitting is the kind of card I want to like - there are a lot of neat play patterns and usecases here - but it not actually playing nice with Emergence Channeler but still having some fucked up loop lines feels like an oversight. Transcience Mystic feels like it's getting too lost in the sauce - while its a neat idea for an archetype in general, here I think it pulls focus from what an aristocrats deck wants to be doing, which is already slimly represented elsewhere. Overall, I like each of your individual cards conceptually - but the implementations were off, and I do not think they function as a package, let alone an aristocrats package.Not really a fan here, all of these cards feel like they're pulling in kind of different directions? For "Emergence Channeler", you're also missing the word graveyard in the text. It's a weird call to give it a high statline considering the card already generates a lot of value by podding from your graveyard and has the mill ability endemic to it as well. In terms of Spectral Splitting, I'm not a fan here because the tokens that this generates don't play nicely with Channeler at all - the Spirit getting the card's abilities instead of being a 1/1 copy means that you can't sacrifice it to go for a higher mana value drop than the card you already sacrificed, which feels like it would have been a cool point of interaction. I think the bulk of my issue with the card, though, is the ability to create a recursion loop that generates value each time you go through it - if you play a creature with an ETB or a dies ability, then cast a Spectral Splitting sacrificing it and making a 1/1 token of it, you can then cast a second SpecSplit that sacrifices and re-creates the token while returning your other SpecSplit from the graveyard, repeat ad infinitum. Seems fucked to pair this kind of ability with an endemic way to create a lot of value. Transience Mystic then feels like it pulls me away from "aristocrats" with a secondary requirement to also have cast a spell or milled a card. Overall these don't really feel cohesive and there are a fair number of problems I see here.Emergence Channeler: Holy Birthing Pod, Batman! The rate on this is just wild. No reason this needs to be a two-mana 3/2, especially if you're tapping it at sorcery speed to activate its ability. Probably missing the phrase "from your graveyard" on here.
Spectral Splitting: There's so much going on here. I like the idea of splitting a creature into two pieces, but I don't see why you added the bottom two modes on since you have to sac a creature anyways.
Transience Mystic: Please, please proofread for your next submission. This seems like a fine card and probably playable in standard, but it doesn't fit this archetype.
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AdmiralIvy#7438https://imgur.com/a/Zm1eu7T3.67Caerdoon Martyr feels very good for a self-standing white rare, and sac-to-flicker is sold here as a defensive tactic with the extra synergy triggers for other ETBs. Dismantler of Pride sharing a spot on the curve is a bit awkward, but it also works well with itself and with the Martyr's ETB, and that comes together well to add density to the fliers archetype. The Rhetoritician adds to that but seems very strong as two on-curve bodies with an anthem effect. That feels like exactly the power level of a Standard aggro deck and I like the way the interaction of the subtheme works together. This is a solid entry.Caerdoon Martyr - Immediately starting with an on board combat trick/counterspell is a bit worrying. It definitely feels a bit frustrating in the same way that Selfless Spirit is, and this gets compounded by both of the other cards being ETB abilities, making for even more thinking and worrying about how all combat can be manipulated. With Dismantler of Pride, even, you can do draw-step locks, which is definitely not something that is beneficial for a format.
Dismantler of Pride - This is definitely something that I love, as Ravenous Rats are a beloved type of creature. This just slotting into fliers is a lovely idea. Love the type of card, so bias is definitely showing there.
Exacting Rhetorician - This is, by itself, 4/3 in stats for 3 mana, with some of it being evasive, and also being across multiple bodies and an anthem. I think that's a bit too much, but in a testable manner. I think this is safer at rare, cause at uncommon it can be a tad bit problematic in limited. I also worry that the actual factual body on this will basically never be used, since a 1/1 three drop body basically means it is in vulnerable enchantment status, rather than anything that ever riskes getting into combat.
Overall - I think this is a pretty solid entry, as a match, but on board tricks, drawstep locks, and so on would not be something that would make for an overall healthy environment.		Caerdoon Martyr: Sure. This is a fun sidegrade of Selfless Spirit. It's a pretty obvious riff, but one that still comes with interesting design space.
Dismantler of Pride: Also sure. I don't think you can get away with this at common, but a flying rat isn't going to break the game.
Exacting Rhetorician: Kinda no reason to say "other," I tihnk she can buff herself if she gets some Arcane Wings. These cards all feel more limited-slanted than constructed, but a deck of incremental dorks can sometimes be quite powerful, so it's possible that curving Dismantler into Rhetorician is just good enough against slower formats.		Caerdoon Martyr looks annoying to be in combat with, but I suppose these types of designs can live at Rare. Dismantler of Pride I'm not too keen on being what you present as a flicker target, and it's otherwise not doing much for this submission. Exacting Rhetorician is my favorite card here, and I like the flavor text. Overall a fine entry.Big fan here, Caerdoon feels like a cool take on a Selfless Spirit that trades off preventing boardwipes and mass deaths in combat for allowing you to recur ETBs, which feels fair enough. Dismantler of Pride is a cool take on the Burgular Rat types, allowing you to accumulate flying synergy on top of mildly disrupting your opponent. Finally, I think Exacting Rhetorician maybe is a little strong but conceptually its a very cool card, especially paired with effects like the Caerdoon that allow you to generate even more flyers if your Rhetorician would be removed. I feel like everything here works in nice harmony for a cool aggressive flyers package with that flicker subtheme.Caerdoon Martyr seems neat, essentially a classic "sac to save another creature" cheap drop in white except with the upside of triggering flicker. I wonder if this ends up more annoying to play against than actually good, but the concept is solid to me. Dismantler of Pride is quite sick, honestly. I think that fliers, by virtue of being a slower aggro deck, has to index into some disruption to function, and that disruption taking the form of discard when the archetype is WB instead of WU makes a lot of sense. Not sure how I feel about this next to Caerdoon Martyr/being able to draw step discard someone, though. Exacting Rhetorician is simple but effective - again, fliers is naturally going to need some juicing to function, and I think this is an appropriately pushed incentive to move the deck into constructed. Impressive flavor texts for all three of the cards here, definitely a high point/factor that makes these stand out.
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AmbroseWintershttps://imgur.com/a/zxgGaI02.33Overall, I don't think this really counts as "reanimator". Reanimator to me is a more classical "bring back a big creature", and a more recursive strategy where you're bringing back a bunch of smaller creatures just doesn't hit that mark for me. I think all of these are cool cards for the deck they're in (Societal Recal is a cool way to pitch out the cards you don't want, I love New Beginnings as a way to bring back a couple of smaller threats, and Refittery is a very cool concept for a recursion engine as well), but that deck isn't what I would call reanimator. I'm also a little confused by what threats you're trying to land out at all, because the one cmc 3 or less creature is also a recursion engine, so I don't really know what the payoffs here are.While this entry is technically returning creatures from the graveyard to the battlefield, I do not think that it falls under the definition of "Reanimator" in constructed, which is focused on using reanimation spells as a way to cheat on mana and get out expensive, game-winning creatures that wouldn't otherwise be feasible to cast otherwise. As a result, I think this misses the prompt for me, even if it could be argued as an "interpretation" of reanimator. Societal Recalibration feels pretty pushed to me, given the instant speed plus card selection it offers on top of binning as many cards as a Satyr Wayfinder would. It being an instant rather than a creature feels like a miss given your payoffs. New Beginnings is a sick design, not much to say about it. Feels appropriately pushed to be attractive in constructed and serve as an effective buildaround. Refittery Specialist is strange to me as the only as the only creature in the submission. I suppose the point is to chain these into a large baord, but that seems like an unideal play pattern, as does two cpoies of this plus a sac outlet going infinite. Honestly, this does have shades of an aristocrats archetype to it. Overall, I think your submission was middling, with New Beginnings being a high point, but it, in my opinion, missing the brief brought it heavily down for me.Societal Recalibration - This is a weird one. I think it's a bit heavy handed in what it is doing and I think even just moving the mill to between the draw and discard will make it play out a lot smoother, so you know exaclty what you want to discard to play into, reanimation-wise. For an uncommon, the number of moving pieces isn't as big of a worry, but wow does this have a lot of them.
New Beginnings - Even without the counter bit, this is just a pretty strictly better version of Gruesome Menagerie, which is a card that sees play in pioneer and saw play in standard. Putting the counters on it just boosts it even more, making this a touch too strong for my liking. I could maybe see this at 5 mana, making it still pretty much better than Gruesome Menagerie, but not to that extreme of a degree. Love the flavor text, though.
Refittery Specialists - I definitely do not like how multiples of these and a sac outlet goes infinite, since you can keep recuring the other ones over and over and over again. This also just being a way to loop other cards in a repeatable fashion also is a bit worrisome, especially if there are any types of creatures that do silly things whenever they are no longer a creature, a la Devoted Druid.
Overall - I think this was a really neat idea to go into UW reanimator with, since you are following what white naturally does, and then supplementing it with U's strengths of filling the graveyard, even if that way of filling the graveyard is a bit hamfisted. I do love the overall flavor, even if the power level/knobs on some of the cards need to be tuned.		Societal Recalibration is pretty neat. Very versatile and looks like it's the glue that makes the deck come together. New Beginnings looks a shade pushed than what I'd expect out of this mana value. The +1/+1 counter puts it over the line, I think. Refittery Specialists is all right. Not the best attacker so I think this being a titan trigger takes away from the design a bit. Overall I'm torn between deciding whether this fit the bill of reanimator or not, but I think ultimately I lean on liking the submission.It's a little bit cheaty to run the reanimator archetype with the normal white aggressive recursion, but hey, it works. Societal Recalibration is a good enabler for filling your yard while creating a body, and I do definitely notice it not being a creature itself so it can't fuel its own reanimation. New Beginnings is definitely the level of good top-end overall value that makes it exciting and worthwhile to tie the deck together. Refittery Specialists is really cool for re-using ETBs "for free" while letting you recur bodies altogether if you've got the mana space. The ward 1 feels a bit unnecessary. I like the cheekiness overall of this being the "little" reanimator and it feels like it's solid thing altogether.Societal Recalibration: This is a weird card. There are a lot of moving pieces to it, and I don't really see how it all fits together. The 1/1 tokens doesn't make much sense in a reanimator archetype. Why is the milling tied to drawing? Very strange design.
New Beginnings: Reanimator typically is about getting big haymakers for cheap. This is explicitly doing the opposite. It is cheating on mana a bit, and it's exploring an interesting design niche, but it's not reanimator. I do think this card would be pretty fun to resolve.
Refittery Specialists: Very interesting effect. I really don't think this needs the value on both ETB and on attack, especially since it can pick up copies of itself. Ward 1 feels arbitrary here. I think there's a version of this card I'd really like, but this needed some more design knobs turned to get it to a playable state.
5
Badknight13#6404https://imgur.com/a/dSOSblU2.83Thallid Gardener shows an understanding of what aristocrats decks want, being a creature that dies into more creatures. No point for originality here, though, given that this is just Nested Shambler but swapped to toughness, a knob that doesn't actually matter with the stat-boosting we see later in the pack. Feels like a miss given the potential design space that exists for this slot in green. Swiftwater Champion does not feel like a constructed playable card, sitting next to something like a Suspicious Stowaway. I like the instinct here of cheap card with a free sac outlet with a payoff that isn't too abuseable, but I think the implementation here misses the mark. Bioessence Engineer is a neat engine that gives you value on your creature deaths, not much to say there. Overall, I think you had the right idea for what aristocrats as an archetype needs, you just needed to exercise some more creativity and intentionality in designing for those roles.Thallid Gardener - I'm a tad bit worried about this, given how Nested Shambler has played out in pauper, and a bit disappointed on how much of a riff that card this one is. Yes, it fits, but just flopping toughness from power is a bit uninspired.
Swiftwater Champion - Interesting. This is definitely not a standard way of using Aristocrat bits, but it definitely is a fun one. Having a free sac outlet where the benefit is more in the sacrificing itself is definitely one of the fun play patterns of 'Crats decks, and this doesn't disappoint. I do wonder if this plays a touch awkwardly in terms of how it'll actually attack in, but that's only a minor worry.
Bioessence Engineer - This is where I'm a bit worried and showcases where Thallid Gardener has some issues. These three cards together feels like combat is a basic nightmare, while also giving people false opportunities in terms of ward. If all three creatures are out, you basically have to play around two floating +1/+1 counters on everything, and, if you have more creatures it just expands outward at a ridiculous rate. And that's before getting into Thallid stacking. For the ward bit, having the instant speed and free sac outlets can be a soft trick into thinking that you can give ward in response to a spell being cast in order to save one of your creatures, and as a package, I think would be best to avoid.
Overall - I think even with the small nicks here and there, this is a pretty average submission. I'm not the most thrilled by the entire package, but it does do its job pretty solidly.		Love the Sarpadian Empires FT. The Thallid Gardener is a clear riff on Nested Shambler, but that's a sick card that does cool enabling so I'm down for this one too. Unfortunately the FTs on the second two cards aren't as good as Sarpadian Empires, but their cards do a solid enough job all the same. Swiftwater Champion is a good use of a free sacrifice outlet for being a "conditional" reward that feels just a bit undertuned, but clear and to the point about it plays and why to want it. Bioessence Engineer is a stock-standard GU reward engine, although just by their nature the combination of +1/+1 counters and sacrifice creatures to build "tall" boards has interesting play and works well together. I note that the mode where it's just a 3/4 on entry may be a little too much by itself? The three cards also synergize quite well with each other. It works for me!Thallid Gardener: This immediately sets me up to expect +1/+1 counters or some other sort of toughness-boosting that's incidental, because you're very rarely going to want to waste those effects on a 1/1 otherwise. We'll see what the rest of this package provides; on its face, this is an adequate 2-for-1 1-drop.
Swiftwater Champion: I don't think this card is very good. Would Looter il-Kor be a constructed star in this standard field? This feels like an interested piece for a blue limited sac deck, but in constructed I think it requires too much setup for not enough payoff.
Bioessence Engineer: Very Simic. It feels very fiddly, and I think it introduces too many decision points. The counters are a way to pay off the Gardener, but I'm not convinced it'll ever be right to buff your 1/1 and not just something more threatening. Yeah, the more I look at this, the more I think it just makes combat way too complex, especially alongside free sac effects like Champion's.		Thallid Gardener is asking for trouble since toughness boosting comes cheap, but I suppose that's an interesting deckbuilding consideration. Swiftwater Champion looks mediocre for Constructed. Compare it with Suspicious Stowaway. Wish the AA did more. Bioessence Engineer looks exciting enough. Think that flavor text needs another pass, though. Overall a decent entry given the prompt.Big fan here - feels like a very cleanly aggressive and fun aristocrats strategy with a lot of points of synergy (both of your first two creatures getting bonuses for boosting their power with Bioessence Engineer) in addition to the crats theme. One minor point of issue is that the Thallid is pretty derivative of Nested Shambler, the switch from power to toughness feels meaningless when the only buff in the cards you've shown is a power buff, but whatever. Missing "go" in the Bioessence FT.
6
Cool Beens#5114https://imgur.com/a/eUclnLY3.67Azeba is a good riff in a flying deck for explicitly not flying itself. It's a good anthem and I like the indestructible condition "changing" based on whether you have to target it first or you can't target it first. Glintblade Guardian is a little sceptical, pie-wise, for this broad of a counter conditions, but they are all defensive so I'm willing to make it work. It's unfortunate that there's the little typo though. Plagued Hive is a good Bitterblossom riff, though I'm not sure the benefit of making the Insect tokens tapped. I love the interaction where you can ice your own Insects without benefit, but I do note unfortunately that it's rough with the Guardian being only a 1-toughness creature in its own right. I think they come together well as a package altogether, and I especially like the oomph on Azeba. The Bitterblossom riff is a great way to add black into this traditionally white-blue deck.Azeba - Ooooh, this is really cool and has so many pieces that work together in so many wonderful ways. Being able to help, but not immediately trigger its indestructibility is definitely a fun lever to maintain its balance, while being nonflying itself is too. Being 5/5 in stats by itself is a bit of a worry as a baseline, especially as an anthem, though Angel of Invention covers that a bit and does the job in a lot of better ways, so it's probably fine. Also, really love the flavor of the insects guarding their queen. Additionally, I think that this not having flying by itself really pushes for a lot of combat tricks and math to actually matter, as nonfliers in flier decks tend to just stall on the ground, and giving this situational indestructible really helps fill that niche.
Glintblade Guardian - Hm. I do think this iks a bit of a pie break in the way of countering things that are targeting your *opponents* creatures, rather than your own. However, that's definitely the main goal of the card and I think this is a really cool way of not only pushing all of these pieces together, but also make a solid card that's good outside of the archetype, while also just solid inside the archetype as well. Well done.
Plagued Hive - Ooooh. This is a very lovely design. I think this suffers a slight amount because of how bad it is while behind, but this is definitely very intriguing. Very lovely.
Overall - I think this submission did a good job of not only knocking it out of the park, but also just solidly defining an archetype with a lovely bit of worldbuilding. I do kind of wish that the story beats on each of the cards wasn't basically the exact same thing (queen is down, fungus is trying to take over the hive), but that's super minor compared to how solid these designs are.		Azeba: Seems fine. This isn't the world's most interesting design, but the flavor scans for a hive queen, and it makes sense as a top-end card for a white deck with a lot of tokens or other little fliers.
Glintblade Guardian: Sure, works for me. Looks like the right power level for a standard player, and the opportunity cost feels appropriate compared to a card like Spell Queller, which occupies a similar niche but is much more frustrating.
Plagued Hive: Very unique. This is a fun way to incentivize attacking; I wonder if this is too powerful as-is, but once again the power level would definitely see play in standard, and I'd be interested to see it play.		Insects always gets the top score, surely this won't be an exception, right? Azeba is the kind of card that is at a pushed, fucked-up rate, but it's kind of okay because its power is bounded by the deck that it needs to go in, which itself isn't typically that strong. Glintblade Guardian says "a you" - typos become less and less acceptable the further the season goes on, so make sure to re-read your cards thoroughly before submitting. Otherwise, though, I think its a solid shoutout to the interactivity the deck needs to leverage in order to make up for its loss of speed relative to other aggro decks. As a concept, I think Plagued Hive makes sense - again, the downside of fliers is that it ends up slower than other aggro decks, so giving it an engine to grind out decks that would otherwise try to stabilize with just removal into wipe is solid. However, I think the choice of downside here feels too feast or famine to me. Either you play aggressive and use flash creatures like Glintblade to dodge the downside entirely, or there's a worry of not being able to play your creatures for fear of them dying instantly/not being able to use them to hold out on blocks. Azeba looks awesome and definitely feels like a contemporary Standard design. Glintblade Guardian similarly looks great and a good use of countering in white. The flavor text reads a little silly but I suppose hive takeovers by mold isn't a laughing matter for them. Plagued Hive I like less than the other two, though it's a decent Bitterblossom riff. I think at this point I just dislike -1/-1 counters, but this design makes interesting use of them at least.Azeba and Glintblade work pretty well for me as flying-matters beaters. "A you" in Glintblade is a typo, though. Both seem pretty fun. Plagued Hive, I'm less certain on, mostly because you can't play hasteless/flashless creatures (good call with making your 1-toughness creature here a flash so that it doesn't just autodie after it comes down), but it's a neat concept to push aggression with an army of flyers. It just feels a little dangerous, especially if your opponent has even a little bit of flying/reach defense - you just get hard fucked by playing Hive.
7
Crashington#5085https://imgur.com/a/iQR6RbO2.67Leafstorm Dryad looks like a potent threat for Storm, but I'm not a fan of the Accord mechanic. Surge, but narrower, and I already wasn't a fan of how Surge made sequencing awkward. These two being Instants also begs the question of what flash creatures you're running. Nature's Bounty looks like a fun Manamorphose variant, at least.Leafstorm Dryad - Hm. I think this is a bit too weak as a base to be too much of a player and I think Haste isn't doing it many favors. Spellslinger decks really want to be low to the ground, and this probably isn't swinging in carefully on turn 3 at all, especially without a ton of free spells, which are problematic in other ways. This also has a slight issue in being just super-prowess and killing people completely out of nowhere, especially with multiples of Nature's Bounty in a way that I don't think is the most healthy. It plays out in a "do nothing and then immediately kill the opponent once all the pieces are together" which tends to be very frustrating to play against.
Blossom - This is a bit weak of a name, but pretty neat of a card. Accord feels weird in terms of a name for the mechanic. I do think this gets a hit against it for being a very high memory issue. Being able to cast one or all means you don't have to track too much, but since you are having to keep track of what types of cards you are casting, I don't think this wants a "next turn" rider, and instead just be until end of turn. Other than that, this feels solid.
Nature's Bounty - Now, this, I don't think is safe. Manamorphose is pretty fabled for being a card that smooths over a lot of pressure moments for storm decks, and this just pushes that into a more binary existence. And, letting it have an instant speed option to just cycle and set up for future turns makes this a touch too dangerous and safe for the storm deck in a way that I don't think is healthy.
Overall - I think this is a really neat idea, and definitely ties everything together, but I worry a bit on both power level and in terms of play patterns. Connecting Gruul Spellslinger into creatures is a good way of maneuvering the cards into feeling RG, but kills out of nowhere, and pushing people to constantly hold up removal tends to always be a bit problematic, especially when there are so many safe options that let you go off on later turns. This is a bit of why Galvanic Relay is such a solid card, since it lets you do smaller storm turns, and still be able to go off on the next turn, which both Blossom and Nature's Bounty are playing into.		Leafstorm Dryad: I really hate tracking storm, but if you're going to convince me that's okay, this is probably okay. I'd rather it have a bigger body and not haste, because as-is it looks like a degenerate combo piece and not an actual spellslinger payoff. I do like Kiln Fiends though, so there's definitely room for this to be a lot of fun.
Blossom: Ah, I see why your Dryad has haste. I like incentivizing two different types of spells, I think that's a fun angle for the two-spells archetype to lean. This looks perfectly playable and it's pretty interesting.
Nature's Bounty: I like this card less, especially because it occupies VERY similar space to Blossom. Cheap treasure tokens are very difficult to balance and I expect this would not find a lot of fair play. Mostly I'm dinging this because it's just too much like Blossom.		Sure, RG Storm is pretty cool here, and I like the idea. Leafstorm Dryad I'm not super sold on, mostly because of how quickly you can BS a kill out of nowhere, and how weak it is if you aren't able to generate that kind of value quickly. However, I like the other two effects fine enough, and I don't love Accord being a pretty big downgrade from Surge as an altcost mechanic, I definitely get what you were going for with these effects and think it all comes together to make a pretty interesting storm package.While spellslinger decks naturally tend towards being blitz-y, I think Leafstorm Dryad is in an awkward spot. At three mana, its not phrohibtively expensive for the strategy, but it is at a spot on the curve where you usually want to be casting noncreature spells rather than threats. It being more expensive also makes Accord sequencing more awkward. On the other hand, this kills people excessively well, the stacking prowess combined with trample making this terrifying efficient/a bit too "oops you're dead" for my liking. I know some of the other judges had issues with Accord being a weaker version of Surge, but I think making strictly worse versions of mechanics is fine as long as they'e pushing for specific play and deckbuilding patterns (which this does) and the effects are adequately pushed to compensate. (Which this does - maybe to a degree that itself is inappropriate, though.) Blossom is my favorite design here, being strong and attractive whether you're According it or not, but Nature's Bounty feels like the base case is meaningless/it exists solely to be accorded. Overall, I like the core mechanic of your entry, but the balance and play patterns of your cards needed to be better.Leafstorm Dryad feels like it takes a lot of work to get going for its bonuses. A 1/2 haste for three mana is rough, and while it scales up really fast, it's stunlocked to this one deck being viable. Accord as a keyword is weird; I'm not really sure what it gets being unique over surge, especially when it anti-synergies with the storm style Leafstorm Dryad is fighting for. Blossom's text at least has a way to push for both a creature and a noncreature spell at once. Nature's Bounty also I think misses some of the strength of how Storm works, relying on a smaller amount of large rituals, where this is but the smallest ritual possible if you're already in a chain. I think that's a bit narrow, and overall I feel like the interplay between noncreature/creature storm is rough to do when this doesn't give greats ways to get us to Storm in the first place.
8
Dodger#3503https://imgur.com/a/wSAyUCD2.83I like the deck that this suggests, being a something that's a funky mix between an aggressive deck and a ramp deck combining acceleration with combat tricks in Field Experience. With Magecraft appearing on the next card, Culminate here feels a little odd since it doubles-down on the same thing, and being able to ice a player for four while killing two little dudes also is hefty power-wise. Wildbond Primalist ties this deck together and it goes great to me, perfectly encapsulating the rampy-aggro transition style that I like a lot as a good twist in RG.I like the flavor throughline here. We're seeing what appears to be a rival, allied-colored school to Strixhaven, emphasizing practical application of magic over theory. I think still using Magecraft for this is a bit of a miss, though, but that's more of a comment on flavor rather than mechanics. Field Experience looks fine. Earth-Shattering Blow looks swingy with Culminate. I also think Culminate as a mechanic is unwieldy to design for. Wildbond Primalist seems decent. Overall an okay entry.Field Experience is really cool, I'm a fan. Both functions as a green "cantrip" and has an upside that pushes it towards these aggressive spellslinger-y decks rather than the slower ones these Lay of the Land effects are usually used for. Earth-Shattering Blow is pretty solidly not okay, given that on culminate its 3 mana dome them for 4 kill two things or kill one big thing. It being relatively underwhelming on the base mode makes me think that Culminate is going to be unwieldy to design for - I like second-spell stuff in general, but the delta between the base and culminate cases are usually going to get massive, and I don't know how much design space exists as a result. I like that Wildbond Primalist has a built-in safety valve to stop it doing Birgi thing, while also still having a high ceiling as a double mana dork or a 4/3 attacking mana dork. I like the flavor throughline here as well. Overall, I think this was a solid entry that was unfortunately brought down by Culminate and its representative in Earth-Shattering Blow.I like the overall idea you have here, I like the idea of a Gruul spellslinger deck that's focused on being a more rampy, creature-based kind of thing. Field Experience is a cool way to demonstrate that sort of idea. Earth-Shattering Blow, conceptually, I'm definitely into, but practically this seems worryingly strong with being 2R 4 damage to a player and either 2 damage to two things or 4 damage to one thing when you cast it for Culminate. Seems like a pretty massive delta for a mechanic to have, and just seems a touch too powerful. Wildbond Primalist is very cool though, I like the idea of it functioning as ramp twice if you need the mana or just tapping it once, then casting two things to untap and pump it.Field Experience: Huh. I'm not sure about the power level here? I guess instant-speed Lay of the Land+ isn't going to break anything, but I will say it feels disjointed. "Up to one target creature" is typically reserved for effects where "choose one or both" can't be fit in, I think.
Earth-Shattering Blow: I like Culminate, it feels more fun to me than Surge.This particular card seems medium. I'm not sure I'd play it in standard.
Wildbond Primalist: Magecraft and culminate fit hand in hand. Primalist is a totally fine design, I think it fits standard power level but it's not overly interesting.		Field Experience - Ley of the Land is something that can get a lot of minor things stapled onto it and be fine. I do not think giving an optional buff spell like this follows that, especially whenever you can get the lay of the land bit countered by someone removing the creature in response.
Earth-Shattering Blow - This definitely feels a touch too strong. Searing Blaze has a bit of a build around in the same way as this, but I think that while Blaze is better early, this just scales a touch too much to be safe. Not only having more damage, but being able to hit two things makes this a bit too blow-out-y for me. I do have worries about how swingy Culminate is, as it really pushes you for hitting double spells, and the disparity btween hitting it or not is definitely too much of a delta, I think.
Wildbond Primalist - This is definitely pretty neat. I do have some worries in its play patterns, as it heavily pushes you into certain patterns, but I think culminate definitely makes this a bit too easy in terms of how it is activating and I think overall Culminate in a set with Magecraft is just asking for the weakening of Magecraft to a point that it's not as exciting.
Overall - I think this is a perfectly reasonable submission, but it's not really standing out as super exciting due to the slight flaws that each of the designs has, especially in terms of how much they want you to interact in very specific ways, rather than naturally playing out.
9
Fleur#9674https://imgur.com/a/5xCjyus1.33Qualatz's Guile unfortunately has a typo for keeping a P/T box despite being an enchantment, raw. The card seems a bit weird to me? I don't think I understand what it's depicting, flavourfully, nor do the abilities seem super resonant to each other except the basic "drawing cards allows me to discard cards". I like the instant-speed trick of animating the enchantment, and it has a pretty meaningful but workable cost to doing so, but the card holistically feels kind of weird. Talon-Cursed Apostle is doing a very blunt Thragtusk reference, and while that's a great card, I think this is saved a lot by the Evoke mode for 2G "two 1/1s, 4 life, and a death trigger". (minor note: evoke goes last in a text box) that's really justifying it, especially justifying it in-archetype, where the deck really likes the self-sacrifice of the Evoke. This is otherwise less threatening and less resilient than the ol' Tusk. Voice of the Olden Crops seems essential for putting together this deck, as it's the one that offers raw power off of its ETB-and-attack Podding, and it also feels a bit incongruous (especially the odd protection clause) but does a good job being something appealing that I could see myself building a deck around. I'm not sure how much this package lands altogether, though? The Apostle is kind of just a good midrange card, being a Tusk, while the other two feel like they're much better at being different decks than "aristocrats", the former being just a solid value card and the Voice being some sort of specific combo-loop, and neither really want me to just sacrifice things for value, especially not aggressive value, which I think aristocrats is associated to. It double hurts that the Apostle's 1/1 tokens are terrible targets for the Voice's sacrifice, and all these cards are three-drops when they're supposed to be together in one deck. I think that made this entry overall feel a bit... messy.Qualatz's Guile: This doesn't really feel blue. Blue just doesn't really care about its creatures dying; just because the prompt said it should doesn't mean you can port a black card into blue and get a pass. I don't mind the draw/discard duality, though why does this start with P/T?
Talon-Cursed Apostle: Evoke is a good way to do "dies-matters" in blue/green. I think this card is a fun design, but it's basically just reskinned Thragtusk. I would also be very sus of this card at uncommon.
Voice of the Olden Crops: Lots of typos in this entry, it's too late in the game for that. (search for a nonland permanent ... put that creature ...). I like the general gist of inverse pod effects, and this card seems fine, though I have no idea why it has protection?		Qualatz's Guile's activated ability forgets to turn it into a creature, and that P/T box is superfluous. Discarding two cards to it also seems like a big ask, even if it's a permanent transformation. The design as a whole feels incoherent. Talon-Cursed Apostle I think could definitely use more base stats, but I do like this as a piece for GU Aristocrats. Voice of the Olden Crops I would like more if it couldn't sacrifice itself to its own ability.At first blush Qualatz's Guile seems cool - caring about creatures dying is directly what aristocrats wants to be doing, and card draw is an appropriate payoff for in blue. It's also kinda just an angle that aristocrats plays to anyways, accuruing advantage from actions that otherwise would put you down on resources. The rest of the card is a head-scratcher, though. Why does this have a 4/5 P/T box marked? Why does the ability not turn it into a creature? Why is this discarding two cards? What does any of this have to do with aristocrats? Typos of this sort aren't really overlookable at this point in the season, and that only becomes more true when the design concept itself is flawed. Talon-Cursed Apostle is solid, functioning as a Thragtusk variant that you can pop earlier on the curve as a sorcery that gets you token fodder and death triggers. Heads-up to have this curve from Qualatz's Guile. Voice of the Olden Crops definitely wants to say "another" for balance and flexibility purposes, and despite referring to a nonland permanent earlier on, says "creature" in the last line - another typo, likely from a previous version or from copy/pasting this from similar canon precedent. I also think this going down on the curve rather than up could've been an interesting knob if the entire point of the archetype wasn't using tokens for value. Qualatz's Guile - This is missing out on some words, and has a p/t box when it doesn't need to. I do think we're a bit far enough into the competition that these types of typos shouldn't be as common. As for the card itself, it's a bit underwhelming. I don't quite get what the discard is an attempt to do, since aristocrats, historically, really wants to use the normally under-par individual cards to build into something builder. Removing the cards you are getting just to make a threat to kill feels like it isn't achieving the goal in the best way.
Talon-Cursed Apostle - Evoke goes at the bottom of the text, a la Aethersnipe. Overall, this feels like a bit disjointed of a card. The ETB is nice, as shown by Thragtusk, but this just feels like a worse off Thragtusk... with evoke. Two 1/1s helps for Crats sacrifice triggers, but Guile specifically only wants one creature to die a turn and the Voice specifically wants you to sacrifice things with higher mana value, makes this feel like it doesn't quite have as much breadth as what Thragtusk did, nor quite the same synergy factor that it did.
Voice of the Olden Crops - The protection here is pretty neat, though, I'm a bit confused on what this is trying to do. Getting lesser mana value means you're not really getting all the direct value that you normally get off of pods, and instead are just getting etb/dies triggers, which... if you sacrifice Talon-Cursed Apostle, you're wasting the 4 power body that can definitely do more work than a probable 3 drop, while if you sacrifice Guile, you're losing your draw engine. So, I'm a bit confused on what the intent here is. I also don't quite know how much I like that this is also just a tutor+freecast any 2 or 1 drop in your deck. Things like that definitely want to be "another" permanent, just so the card itself matters, rather than being a sidestep to something else, especially if that's not the goal.
Overall - I'm not really that impressed by this submission, as I think that it's attempting to do something neat with 'Crats, but not quite understanding how 'Crats decks are supposed to function and how they are able to achieve what the intended strategy is meant for. Like, with Thragtusk, the value isn't in sacrificing and getting rid of the 5/3 body at the first chance, but to use to bludgeon the opponent in the face and, if they remove it, you use your synergy cards, like Resto-Angel to make them feel silly for attempting to interact with you.		Qualatz's Guile has a couple of major templating issues - has a power/toughness despite the fact that it's an enchantment, and it's ability doesn't even actually make it a creature. We're, what, 7/8 rounds in at this point? At this point I expect mistakes like that not to be made. Mechanically, two cards feels like a really major cost to turning this into a creature, especially since if it gets removed you've just 3-for-1'd yourself, and the discard doesn't feel like it's doing anything special for the aristocrats theme. Talon-Cursed Apostle is fine, no major issues here, although it's probably on the weak side. Finally, Voice of the Olden Crops just feels like a pretty odd choice, considering that Aristocrats is more of a "sacrifice small creatures" rather than blowing up your bigger dudes to try and run loops. It also feels a little incongrouous with the choice to make your Apostle create 1/1's, since you can't actually sacrifice those with this without just fully losing the creature. I also think it's odd that all three of your cards are probably being played for 3 mana - feels like you've overcrowded your curve for three cards that are supposed to be a package. Ultimately, this doesn't really feel "Aristocrats", it feels like Morbid.
10
Garduuhttps://imgur.com/a/0NYhCQ73.33I think overall the designs here are just a bit under what I was expecting powerwise. Maybe Mana Rig Worker gets there, but I don't think I'd be excited to jam the other two in today's Standard. They're reasonably designed, at least, and all three fit the deck archetype enough without feeling forced, which was something that a lot of the other submissions struggled with.Mana Rig Worker: This seems fine. It's not particularly exciting, and it requires the artifacts you're casting at 4-5 to be impactful for this to be worth playing as a 1/2 for 2. I'll be expecting to see those in this entry.
Search for the Spark: Also seems fine. I think at two mana the floor of this card can be 3 or less. I guess this is an interesting way to use either the 1/2 or the powerstone in the previous entry, but turning a 2-mana removal spell into Hero's Downfall is not good enough synergy to rationalize this being a deck. Let's see what card three brings.
Halcite Corpsecoil: Well, at least this is a reason to use powerstones. Again, it's a totally fine card; there's nothing in this entry that's particularly interesting or that makes me want to play these cards, but the power level is probably fine (though don't underestimate modular) and the deck seems playable.		My overall impression of this entry is "clean designs with a solid idea of the role that each card needs to play in order to make the archetype function, but could've used a tiny bit more juice powerwise." I think there's a good "answering of questions" as this entry goes on - Mana-Rig Worker says "hey, this archetype is playing slower. What is this ramping into, and how are you surviving until that point?" which each of the next two cards answer. I do think Mana-Rig Worker could be a 1/3. Search for the Spark feels like an appropriate mix of Bloodchief's Thirst and Bone Shards, and gives us an alternate use for the Powerstone token. Halcite Corpsecoil is good topend to ramp into with Powerstones, with Modular further incentivizing running artifacts, but being off-curve by one here means that this could have a little more strength allocated to it, in my opinion - maybe another keyword, to keep it simple. Overall, though, not much to say - just a solid interpretation of what GB artifact could look like, riffing on normal midrange slots while still ensuring that the "artifact" portion of the prompt wasn't lost.Mana Rig Worker -This is definitely a strong start to a way for an artifact deck to function. Immediately getting two artifact fodder for sacrifice, as shown with Search for the Spark means this is going down an aristocrats-y type of pathway, which fits for artifacts and fits for the color pie as well. I do worry that this may not be strong enough for a constructed environment, since normally this type of body for a mana producer is around a 1/3, but the second body might just push it there.
Search for the Spark- This, however, does not spark as much joy. Being at the base a bad Fatal Push is already a bit suspect, especially since you aren't able to go mana positive with it, but the sacrifice ability feels like it is fighting against both other cards in the collection. While sacrificing the Corpsecoil seems like it'd be worth it, it'd push your opponent to specifically playing 1 drops and you wanting to waste a removal spell on it, which feels more cute than good. Sure, you can do some modular things, but that's more cute than good.
Halcite Corpsecoil - I think this is definitely more cute than good. Yes, the modular ability is really good, but starting off and always being being blow curve does not bode well for a hydra. Playable hydras at this cost basically have to keep growing, immediately have impact, or they just end up falling off. Modular does help a lot, but I think it's doing less work here than intended and, in most canon cases, Modular really wants to be doing other things than just being a body that's weaker than the cost.
Overall - I'm not the most impressed with this entry and really wish it was a bit... more. While both Mana Rig Worker and Halcite Corpsecoil are super simple, Search for the Spark seems overly complicated to attempt to try to get everything to mesh together, but does so in a very unfufilling way. 		Powerstones are a clever way to make BG get to do traditional BG things while still rolling with artifacts. The Mana-Rig Worker stands out in particular as being strong and appealing (especially in a Constructed context) while feeling fair and printable, since it is just "a mana dork", though done with a good twist. The fact that you can sacrifice either side of it to Search for the Spark is good bonus, too, which also lets you do artifact theming while keeping traditional with BG strategies. It's a good blend of concepts and lands well, feeling pretty reasonable as a core for a Constructed deck, much the same way sacrificing Food and Treasure is often good in Jund Pioneer shells. I suspect Search for the Spark is undertuned, as it's very rough to not play it like Bone Splinters, and it'd rely a lot on the chump-block-sac pattern to be worth two mana as a Bone Splinters. Corpsecoil also seems lacklustre on base rate but the idea of keeping those stats recurring with Modular is appealing, and if you really have to, it can be sacrifice fodder, though it's rough to cast on an empty board. Altogether, this is a very solid entry that does a great job hitting the needed beats while still feeling appropriate for the colour pair. I could have seen this kind of thing existing in the Brother's War, which lands well for you.I appreciate what you have going on here. I like the aristocrats spin on an artifact deck, and it takes your prompt and makes it feel very BG while still adhering to the challenge. Mana Rig Worker is pretty cool as a ramper that importantly a. synergizes with the artifact theme via Powerstones and b. generates two permanents for you to sacrifice as opposed to just one with a single play. Search for the Spark is the piece that brings this entry together, demonstrating a way to sacrifice your artifacts and turn them into value, even if it's a little on the weaker side. Finally, Halcite Corpsecoil gives another use to the sacrifice themes with a Modular mechanic, allowing even your smaller artifact creatures (like Mana Rig Worker) to be useful as bodies in the late game that can have a bunch of counters shunted onto them. Overall, I feel like everything here works pretty well as a package to end up pretty cool!
11
Grapple#8658https://imgur.com/a/LLg3kL31.33Greed's Reward not even being a shock at base feels very weak for 2 mana and multicolored. There's also immediately some anti-synergy with Map of the Cursed City, which wants to be removing counters. You can say that it curves into Map, but it makes the sequencing of the cards awkward in the midgame and leaves the question of whether the archetype is about accruing or spending counters. I like that they both have burn components, though, leaning towards a tempo theme. Obstinate Garygoyle is just bad, straight up. It's a 2 power flier with no other abilities that doesn't function on curve, and you can't even use its counter for anything because it disappears at the beginning of the next upkeep. Overall, I think this entry severely missed the mark, choosing an interpretation of UR Counters that put you on the backfoot, and then a subsequent implementation that only further exacerbated its issues. Greed's Revenge feels a bit odd being in blue, when I think every part of it can go fine in red, and I don't think it would be too strong as mono-red. Map of the Cursed City is an odd instant thematically (and an odd art, too!), and is great at being a generically-strong, very modal all-in-one-spell, and it pushes me to escalate but is perfectly fine without it. Obstinate Grotesque just feels underwhelming. I see the reason to play it for the stun counter, but it doesn't really change anything being slow like this nor does it really "last" long enough for the counter to work for the escalate or the counting-counters in general. This reads more like a Limited archetype than a Standard deck package, and I really would have liked some better enablers for how I want to stack up the counters and make it tick, rather than the one-off counter use, which makes the archetype seem more aggressive without backing it up.Greed's Reward doesn't feel like it's greedy enough; this has to consistently be dealing 3 damage before I'm happy with it. Obstinate Grotesque shows me the plan is to also use creatures that come in stunned, but the Gargoyle itself doesn't look appealing to play in Constructed. I'm not sure what's going on with Map of the Cursed City flavorwise but it feels pretty clunky and kind of fights against Greed's Reward.Greed's Reward: This doesn't feel balanced at "any target"--oh, wait, different kinds of counters. That's a little better. I think at that point it actually feels pretty weak; I kinda wish you could put a loyalty counter on something also? It just feels like you have to spend a lot of effort just to make this a bolt. Definitely more than I'd want to spend.
Map of the Cursed City: This card doesn't really hold together. It feels very much like Izzet Charm, and the flavor doesn't make much sense at all. Why are you spending counters to make your map better? Why is your map generating these effects in the first place? Weird cohesion, very basic Izzet effect bank.
Obstinate Grotesque: This isn't standard playable. You have to increase the stats way higher for this to make standard impact. As-is, I wouldn't even play this in limited unless the format was very slow.		Greed's Reward - Hm, I'm not the biggest fan of this not targetting, as I think that offers a good amount of counterplay overall. This also feels very weak, especially in terms of the floor. At the base, this is a double pipped 1 damage and requires a ton of build around to make work. And, I think that there aren't actually that many cards that you would want to play together that are able to utilize counters in this way, that I just don't think this gets there, in terms of power level.
Map of the Cursed City - And I think this kind of pushes it in a partially weird direction. Greed's Reward's power fantasy is to be able to build up a huge swath of counters and types of counters, but then Map is wanting you to remove them. And, when you don't have that many different counters, because they are spread out into *types* of counters, this just makes it feel even worse to have to Escalate. As a card, I think Map is fine, even if the flavor is very odd, but I think it just feels extra weird next to Greed's Reward, and not in a good way.
Obstinate Grotesque - I think this captitalizes on this submissions failings together. Even if they are fighting against each other, Greed's Reward and Map of the Cursed City want you to have a lot of counters. The Grotesque gets a counter (yay!), but this counter very quickly goes away (ohno!). To utilize this counter, you need to be casting the grotesque and in the same turn cycle, cast Greed's Reward so you can get a shock, or have another option already out to get extra value out of the Map. And, you only have that exact one turn in order to accomplish this goal, which I just do not see happening much in a constructed environment. Too many things have to be lined up in such a specific way (especially whenever it's removal/counterspells), that this just doesn't work for me.
Overall - As I've said, I don't think this works as a cohesive unit. Each card is trying to fight in different ways that just doesn't seem like it'll be a deck that can actually function and instead is just floundering by trying to do cute things. 		Not really a fan here - all of your cards feel like they're pulling in pretty different directions, which makes it tough to appreciate them as a package. Greed's Reward tracks different types of counters, which is cool, but then MotCC only turns on when you start removing counters from your permanents, making them anti-synergistic effects. Then even further, your last card comes down with a stun counter, which disappears at the beginning of your next untap step, meaning that if you play this creature on curve you don't actually get any value out of that stun counter. It feels like you made three cards that vaguely cared about counters without any care to how they would interact with each other.
12
Jallaba#5984https://imgur.com/a/pPz8KNm2.67A little suspicious of the power level on Condolences, being a white Doom Blade with a very manageable downside, but it's a generically strong white removal spell that'd definitely work with a control gameplan. Prakrti's reminder text has unfortunate grammar typos, as well as an extraneous period after "indestructible". I like the framework of using a land and a ramp strategy to enable a controlling game-plan, especially when I see the third card here, which goes insane for letting me wipe the board and get away with it thanks to Prakrti not being online by turn four. I think board wipes plus land creatures provides a great package to figure out a deck, and I feel like these cards land it there, hehe.Condolence - I do not think that this is a safe design. Two mana removal that hits anything, and cantrips, even if it is cantripping for the opponent, that leads to just a lot of card flow that pushes these types of decks into feeling unbeatable. Remand is something that has fallen a bit out of favor, but requires a lot of direct timing and doesn't actually deal with the threat
Prakrti - The second ability of this is just worded really, really oddly. Besides that, this just looks really, really overpowered. The easiest two comparisons as 3 mana creatures that don't turn on until you have a lot of lands/things are Wayward Swordtooth and Topiary Stomper. Both of these creatures are weaker than the Titan (4/4 vigilance and 5/5 vs 6/6 indestructible vigilance) in raw stats, but also just in efficiency. Stomper basically ramps you the same amount as the Titan (one land), but the titan then just massively outscales anything the Stomper is attempting to do and does it faster. Sure, Stomper gets you a land for your troubles, but Prakrti gets there faster and then just pushes for even more mana by doing so. For Swordtooth, it does let you scale with other permanent types, but also doesn't push for mana in the same way, instead just helping you if you have excess lands. I don't think the balance on this is okay, and I don't think control really wants to be taking turn 3 off to ramp at the same time, making this a very weird inclusion.
Clean Slate - Again, I don't think this is okay at all for a standard like environment. Wraths at 4 pips that don't have a drawback tend to be costed in this way, and this is just way too much of a bonus. These types of effects tend to be niche playable at 6 mana, and when offered a choice between the options, like Cleansing Nova, it's still a solid and staple effect.
Overall - I think some of the base design bits are neat, but the power level here is just way, way too high for any standard-alike environment, which just sours the submission as a whole.		Condolence: I like this. I'm mildly concerned about the balance, but I think it'd probably play fine. The white isn't the part of this archetype that I'm worried about though, so I look forward to seeing what your green cards do.
Prakrti: The text box here is a bit of a mess, with some typos and syntax errors. I don't mind "land that turns into creature" but I think "land that turns into creature that generates a ton of mana" doesn't really say "control" to me. I wish the final effect was more impactful for a long game.
Clean Slate: Sure. Makes sense in Selesnya, good control piece.		Not sure how I feel about Condolence - while I think it's certainly an exciting card that asks you to exploit its own symmetry, 1W "destroy target creature or planeswalker" with a rider that's barely even a downside just feels much too efficient to be fair. Also, typical templating would have all of this on one line. Speaking of templating issues, Prakrti has a litany of them - shouldn't be a period after indestructible, should be a period in the RT, you want "five or less other lands" as per these I believe, "it's" not a creature. Also needs some big balance changes, as this getting you a 6/6 indestructible on turn 5 (without any other ramp) is kinda vile, especially considering it taps for GGGGGG on top of that. Doesn't strike me as a control card either, as it's just a straight-up 6/6 beater that also makes you take your turn 3 off to ramp instead of, you know, controlling. Clean Slate does work for me though, this kind of sweeper effect in WG makes sense and I like that Prakrti can dodge with that indestructible.Condolence feels exciting and skill testing. Praktri could do with some number tweaks but I'm a fan; that reminder text needs some proofreading, though. Clean Slate is true enough to its name and looks like a powerful wrath; I definitely like how Praktri survives it. Mind the Oxford comma next time when listing down card types (and precedent orders these alphabetically, so artifact would be listed first). Minor things aside I like this entry a lot, definitely gives us GW's own flavor of control.Condolence is powerful and face-value exciting, but I think it ends up as a miss. Without a clear series of targets that it misses or a meaningful downside, (symmetrical draw really isn't one) it feels like it'll trivialize choice of removal and threats. Also, the strength of white's removal suite isn't something that needs to be sold with regard to GW control - white does good wipes and removal, we know that fromt he plethora of UW control decks that exist. What does it bring to the table in the context of being paired with G specifically? Prakrti has a bunch of miscellaneous typos, unfortunately. As a design, it is just kind of fucked up, being a 6/6 vigilance indestructible for 3 starting t5. The ramp also feels out of place for what control wants to be doing, as well another factor that adds to it being a power outlier. I suppose this has indestructible as a point of protection/to dodge your own wipes, but I think as a creature-based wincon for a control deck, it doesn't leverage other factors that control wincons usually play into and that green has access to ie flash, card advantage, stabilization, etc. Clean Slate is the one card I like here, demonstrating what an overlap of green and white can do; while white does get to destroy noncreature, nonland perms, putting them together lets you push the rate on this. I kind of wish this had modality/demonstrated more of what green could bring to this pairing, but its a simple and effective design. Also makes me wish your wincon slot was a planeswalker that could dodge this wipe. Overall, I think this entry missed the mark on balance, and failed to demonstrate an understanding of what green as a color could bring to this archetype.
13
Lordpat#1042https://imgur.com/a/zv25H5b2.67I think this is all fine? Calix is a solid enough defensive walker that seems to work pretty solidly as a card advantage engine, as well as using recursion to pull out more control from your graveyard. Dubious Sentence is a little more, well, dubious for me, as I don't think that this is ever really going to get removed unless you have no other enchantments (which should not be happening in this enchantment control deck), so I don't think "draw a card and gain 4" is a big enough reward for getting rid of the enchantment compared to removing the creature. Also, that FT is super played out and this doesn't really iterate on the joke in a fun way. Finally, I get what you were going for with Gairax Awakens being a Saga you play early then recur with Calix, but I feel like it would be a total feelbad to jam this on turn 3 because it really doesn't do anything compared to like, a removal or CA type of effect. Overall these all kind of work but I'm not really in love with anything here.The crop of Calix is a bit weird, but the card is pretty cool. I like how the uptick doesn't self-enable with the 0, so it provides you a direction you need to be building for to maximize the benefit rather than just generically strong. Dubious Sentence feels undertuned, considering we can just have O-Rings for three mana, but the downside seems like it'd be a good, fair trade-off if it were just a little cheaper. Gairax also provides a slow value structure to ramp itself and give you a lategame reward for doing that with good interplay in the graveyard-enchantment plan. I think it's a bit hard to differentiate a control strategy from a midrange strategy when it's just card advantage cards, and so I was hoping for more going on than just good cards.Calix is neat! I like the idea of Enchantress being how GW does control/how it generates card advantage. Could've done with a removal ability, perhaps, and I kinda of wish the ult was an actual wincon/didn't just nonbo with the 0. Dubious Sentence is a powerful O-Ring variant, playing into the "alternate recompense" space that Skyclave Apparition introduced - I'm a fan of this design space exploration. Gairax awakens is solidly Fine, but it does something I don't like, in that it pushes this towards a more generic midrange deck than a controlling one. I like the idea of a Saga slot as another enchantment that also puts itself into the grave for Calix, but I wonder if exploring what the nonperms in this deck look like would've been more effectiv at solidly estabhlishing this as a control deck. Overall, I think this is a solid shot at the archetype, despite the missteps in some of your choices.Calix - I really wish that this was moved just a tiny bit up higher, artwise, so it'd be easier to have Calix himself in frame. Hm. I think this version of Calix is a bit clunky of a design. Not being able to gain loyalty on his own is definitely a choice that I think works out with how powerful the -7 is, but I do think Calix protects himself a touch too well in order to get that type of ultimate that fast. Sure, it takes 3 enchantments, but being able to stand behind a stream of 2/2 reach lifelinkers means it's going to be pretty hard to actually get through to either harm him, or by the time that Calix is dealt with, you've gained a lot of time and value from just sitting behind that wall of Soldiers. And that's before even getting into the draw engine that he provides. I think this could have some number tweaks and be in a good spot, though, so definitely something that testing could put into a nice and healthy spot.
Dubious Sentence - Hm, I'm a bit torn by this. Normally O-rings have a hard time actually leaving the battlefield, especially whenever they aren't able to hit each other. Granted, this is very much dependent on how the breadth of removal functions in the environment, but I don't know if this is the right cost/drawback. Since they don't get the creature back when they remove it, it basically turns enchantment removal into a gain 4 life cycler card, which, I don't think is really going to be worth it, especially whenever it is in an enchantment-based deck. I'm also not a big fan of reusing a pretty popular flavor text in Reparations.
Gairax Awakens - This feels very anemic whenever you aren't able to get the 5/5s, but overly strong if you are able to in a way that feels very feast/famine. I do like the idea, but kinda wish it was a bit less reliant on hitting or at least had some fail case, rather than as big of a win case.
Overall - I feel like this doesn't quite hit what a control deck is wanting in a weird-ish way. Enchantment based lock is definitely something, as evidenced by Solitary Confinement Enchantress decks in legacy. But, those types of decks really need certain things to line up well to be on the control end, rather than be just generic midrange decks, which is pretty much what this feels like. It's definitely a weird line, as midrange decks can play on the backfoot and be control decks, but I feel like this submission just doesn't quite hit that role of a control deck to me, especially whenever it is pushing a pretty standard enchantress-ramp package. Lastly, I really don't feel like there's much of a room for these to all belong to the same set, even a core set. 		Calix's art placement is so rough. Move him up! The card looks fine. Pretty reasonable abilities to expect from an enchantress version of this planeswalker. Dubious Sentence looks good, too. Gairax Awakens is the weakest link here. I don't really like that Chapter III can just do nothing. Overall okay entry; running with "enchantment-based control" for GW is sensible for the color pair.Calix: Well this just feels like an enchantress card. I realize enchantress decks can play control, but "whenever you cast an enchantment spell, draw a card" is a pretty direct reference to a common archetype that this challenge has not asked you for. The card feels more like a midrange wincon than a control wincon.
Dubious Sentence: I like the Thought-Knot Seer form of "temporary exile," so I'm pretty into this. It trades tempo in a different way, and control decks will clearly not care about the life.
Gairax Awakens: This is a long-game card, but it doesn't really play control. It looks more like an over-the-top ramp card than anything. When I think of control, I think of controlling the board and winning with invitability; these designs play on the fringe of that, but they don't really fit that niche properly in my book.
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MBTree#8051https://imgur.com/a/4TUR4qJ2.83I like where you took the direction for this deck. Cling to Fantasy seems dangerous but it's a fun enough design. Watchful Inbetweener feels like it could be pushed a bit more. Sybil I like more for the concept than the actual execution (and I suspect the static would need to be broken up into two abilities), but steering reanimator into cheating out enchantments/planeswalkers as opposed to creatures makes me like this entry well enough.Cling to Fantasy is too strong for a standard environment - four mana reanimation isn't something that standard gets anymore, and the flashback here is overkill - Unburial Rites is no longer a standard-appropriate card either. Watchful Inbetweener feels like a card that incidentally would be fine in this deck, but doesn't strike me as a reanimator card. On the plus side, it puts cards in grave, and is a fine blocker to buy you time to combo. On the other hand, its pretty slow at doing so, and the payoff here is much more well-suited to a midrange deck. I think it shows some consideration as to what reanimator needs - early grave filling and ways to stave off aggro - but the implementation misses the mark slightly. Sybil exists. She's fine, but really at this cost you could put most any text on her and it'd suffice. That's not to say expensive cards can't have interesting effects, though, and her passive is cool given the archetype, but overall most of her text doesn't really matter. Perhaps they were chosen because expensive walkers are an anomaly, so wanted to be clear that's what the usecase was for, but I think that's an inference that would've been appropriately made/I don't think she adds much to this entry.Cling to Fantasy - I'm a really big fan of this. I don't necessarily know if this needs flashback, especially since reanimation from the graveyard can be a bit frustrating to play against. But, these options both feel very WU, but also directly fit into the Reanimator slice of the competitive wedge. Flavoring on this is also just fantastic.
Watchful Inbetweener - This is definitely a low-key roleplayer that I think will be overlooked, but does such a lovely job of existing. Having a low cost selection card that also defends you from smaller threats, giving you time to activate the delirium ability is just a recipe for success.
Sybil, Unified - This one, however, I'm not the most impressed by. I think the +2 does work, but is a bit basic, and the -5 is just Ulamog2's trigger all over again. It feels a bit by-the-books in a way that I'm not thrilled by, and I'm not quite sure I know why. It's definitely a bit of a letdown compared to the others, but she's not dragging this down too much.
Overall - This was a very clever way of making the archetype work, and doing so in a way that showcases what the deck is doing in order to achieve that goal. I wish the payoff was a bit more exciting for the deck itself, but pushing into a colorless payoff does limit your space quite a bit.		Not sure how I feel here? Cling to Fantasy is pretty cool, but feels like an odd choice to have it call out enchantments specifically as opposed to just planeswalkers or even any noncreature nonland perm when it's just planeswalkers that are getting the bonus here. That's a minor nitpick though, other than that I like it. Watchful Inbetweener, on the other hand, feels like a miss for me - mostly because it I feel like you're presenting it as "the way to fuel your graveyard" but if you're playing this on turn 2 and your Cling on turn 4, there's only two possible chances to hit a big planeswalker to slam down. Would have much rather have seen a more consistent way to get a planeswalker into your graveyard in this slot (draw/discard effects seem like the obvious choice.) That said, the call to give it a mana AA when the bulk of your value is going to be manaless-ly activating planeswalker abilities is a pretty cool idea. Finally, Sybil doesn't really bring it home for me? I think it wanting another planeswalker in your graveyard further kind of exemplifies my problem with Watchful, because now if you want to curve out with it as your graveyard enabler, it's got to hit two planeswalkers for maximal value. Apart from that ability, which is cool in the abstract, Sybil just seems pretty bland - again, not a major issue, but don't love it.Cling to Fantasy's flavour seems a bit obtuse to me, but the card lands. Probably not really a point in returning enchantments since it's kind of a "trap" to not recover a planeswalker, but the idea of WU doing a planeswalker-based reanimator feels appropriate for the colour pair and allows it to function well. Considering that stuff like Refurbish was enough to make big white-based reanimator decks function in its Standard era, I feel the flashback is overkill to this card's functioning, especially considering the "explosive" pop of getting to uptick and downtick whatever massive planeswalker you pull in the same turn (I see the flashback as Unburial Rites style GY-proofing, but, like, that's okay to let happen? the combo should have fail cases considering what it does). Watchful Inbetweener doesn't really hit to me, though. It's not a particularly good body, it's not a particularly good topdeck, and it's very slow at actually filling your graveyard, especially if you want to hit Cling to Fantasy on turn 4 (you do.). It provides a link to justify the enchantment text on Cling, but I don't think I actually want the card in the deck; if it's doing something, I probably haven't been able to reanimate my guy and I am in a bad place it can't help. Sybil seems pretty brutal coming off of Cling, since she gets a third ability proc just for having built your deck with redundancy, and her +2 even heavily fuels that passive. Karn Liberated gets a ton of his power from being able to get a bunch of loyalty fast, and Sybil's multiple ability procs allow her to do that even faster while also killing stuff. I think Cling + Sybil is probably a bit too good for Standard together, but they do synergize well and perform a great job of making a UW reanimator package; the Inbetweener is just sort of stuck in an awkward in-between state that muddles it a touch.Cling to Fantasy: Clever way to do reanimator. Unburial Rites was a hugely popular card in standard when it was played. The Standard Power Level has shifted quite a bit since, but I still think the inherent incredibly powerful 2-for-1 could be an archetype. I'm not convinced this needs to double-activation rider, but I'm also not convinced it doesn't.
Watchful Inbetweener: Pretty compelling glue piece. All of the pieces make sense together, except the art doesn't really look like a flier; that's a minor nit. The package works with the archetype and looks powerful enough to play.
Sybil, Unified: I think this is too complex of a card to include in this entry. I don't mind the idea, but you're already doing a reanimator theme. Your payoffs don't need to be enablers. The "planeswalker lord" ultimate does fit in with the theme, but I think it's trying to hard to fill a hole that isn't there.
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Orion Ringshttps://imgur.com/a/dOr10Z83I think a big part of the challenge is making sure your cards fit the assigned color pair while maintaining a level of organicness to their mechanics. Wilted Roses might be a plant but organic it is not; it feels like it is only blue because the prompt demanded it be blue. I understand decayed is in blue also, but if you look at the designs with it in canon it's used as a rider/reward for blue effects, so simply having it on something meant as sacrifice fodder doesn't feel in-color at all. Druid of the Eternal Cycle is a neat uncommon but I am not confident in it being something exciting for Standard. The activation is understandably sorcery speed but that's hampering it a lot. Then Anrahim wants the deck to be tribal, too, which I would buy if the entry included a Plant that was enticing enough. Being cleanly answerable and providing not much value on its own does not make me optimistic about running it also.Wilted Roses - This is a very lovely and cool card. I think this looks like a major bend in blue, in terms of being a lot stickier in ways that blue doesn't get, but it does so in such a lovely and simple package that it just ties everything together. Getting a double body for aristocrats, while also just being a good early chumper sums up what a lot of cheap aristocrat decks want, and even if this doesn't have flying and other bonuses like Doomed Traveler, I could see this slotting in quite well into those decks.
Druid of the Eternal Cycle - I'm a bit less convinced of this. While I'm glad that this is sorcery speed only, so you don't just make combat miserable, I think this may be a touch too weak in terms of what it is wanting to do. Having a mana cost on your sac outlet definitely has a history of existing, but also a history of just being a very painful experience in trying to actually go off. I would definitely expect a sac outlet that's a bit more enticing but also a bit more stable.
Anrahim, Perennial Strain - Now this is a 'Crats trigger. This ties everything again together, with Wilted Roses not having a token-creation, but instead being another copy of it. Lovely tie back and pushes you to build your deck in a very fun and interesting way. I do wonder if this wanted just a tiny bit more spice in some way, even if it was just a keyword or so to make it less of an enchantment-feeling effect and more of a cool and active creature.
Overall - I'm pretty impressed with this entry, even if the Druid of the Eternal Cycle is dragging the submission down a tad. I think this is a cool and fun take on 'Crats and tying the tribal aspect to it makes Anrahim know that you're getting hits from each death. Very lovely submission overall!		Wilted Roses: I'm wondering how powerful Doomed Traveler would be in a standard sac deck; I'm guessing marginally, and this is much worse. In general I'm much more interested in seeing the sacrifice payoffs than the enablers in this archetype, since basically any color can get little recursive dorks.
Druid of the Eternal Cycle: Aw, I think your name set me up for a Birthing Pod-style effect and instead delivered some pretty marginal bonuses. Eating a creature to boost your plants is a great way to get yourself 2-for-1'd in constructed, especially when you limit it to sorcery speed. I just don't think this does enough.
Anrahim: This is a more interesting sac payoff, though it looks underdeveloped. If you have five creatures die, you're cascade-drawing five times, which is just a lot of card movement (even in digital). I think the plant theme is cute, but restrictive, and these don't look like cards that would be reasonably constructed-competitive.		Neat! I think all of these come together for a cool tribal Crats deck. Wilted Roses is definitely on the weak side, but it makes a lot of sense as a Plant you can sacrifice twice. Druid of the Eternal Cycle is very cool, and although I think it might also be a little weak, it's a very cool Aristocratty payoff for the Plants theme and allows you to grow your creatures into being serious threats. I do wish this wasn't a targeted bonus, because you lose out on a pretty clean point of synergy with sacrificing Roses and then putting counters on the decayed token. Finally, Anrahim feels like a super solid piece that ties the entry together and lets you generate CA for blowing up your creatures.Wilted Roses shows an understanding of the assignment, being a cheap two-bodies-in-one creature that all aristocrats decks love. I do wish this achieved that goal in a way that was more directly or recognizably blue. Druid of the Eternal Cycle is another card that shows an understanding of the assignment - every aristocrats deck needs a sac outlet to get value from, and the ability here allows your tiny creatures to become big threats. I do think the sorcery speed rider, while necessary to not make combat math a headache, also removes some of the regular strength of these effects ie removal and wipe protection. The mana cost on the ability also does this to a lesser extent. I think you had the right initial instinct for this slot, but the implementation leaves something to be desired. Anrahim is more of what I was expecting as a sac payoff ie card advantage! I do wonder if four mana is too much for a regular crats deck, especially when this doesn't have an aggressive body or keywords that allow it to function as a curve-topping game ender. Overall, though, while I had issues with this entry that prevent it from being great, the solid understanding it demonstrated of what its archetype wants to be doing leaves it in a reasonable spot.Wilted Roses is a good Young Wolf style riff. I think returning as a 1/1 again may be a touch underwhelming, but hey, two bodies for one card is still appealing and grindier shells will like this amount of redundancy. Druid of the Eternal Cycle's great rate of counter-application is a good twist to separate the wheat from the chaff, and I like it for feeling very appropriate as a green sacrifice card. It's very visceral. I'm not sure if that's appealing enough for Constructed play considering the rate of sacrifice pieces we get these days, such as Priest of the Forgotten Gods, but I like it all the same. Anrahim puts all the pieces together so this whole deck package "makes sense" though, explaining specifically Wilted Roses returning with decayed rather than doing the "normal" thing of making a token, as well as this specific flavouring so that they're Plant creatures. I especially love how all the heft of Anrahim is on that one ability, so it's streamlined and one-focused while still being fragile and pushing you to rely on the synergies instead of that and good stats, as well as the lack of restrictions (no "one or more") that allows you to chain Plants together using the Disciple's lack of tapping. It's an efficiency package that seems very reliant on Anrahim but in a good way, and it leads to a cohesive entry with good and interesting "lines" for running it in the specific Dead Plants archetype.
16
Pacifist Westwoman#0784https://imgur.com/a/VYXUWqN1.83Elyssa is a good on-board engine with the special twist of benefitting from the graveyard that feels good as an RG spin for it. Feels good where it is mana-wise and being able to translate double-casts into bodies is dope. Phoenix Gaze seems pretty nuts? Two shocks for one card, two mana, that's a really efficient rate that takes an extra level over very strong Firebolt. I don't think Firebolt+ is the kind of thing that's okay for Standard. Leymane Predator is just sort of there; it's a good rate but it's nothing super special; I do find it a bit unfortunate that it's on the same point in the curve as Elyssa, when I might have appreciated just generally another flashback enabler for Elyssa that said more when Gaze is just a generally good removal spell.Elyssa could potentially become risky depending on the cantrip densty in the format. I'm not a fan of how she does something completely different if the spell was cast from grave, instead of an adjacent-but-different effect. Phoenix Gaze is just straight up busted, Shock does not get this much upside. It feels like in your haste to make a design that worked with Elyssa you didn't consider the play patterns of this. Either RR burn four face or kill two things and netting you two prowess/spell triggers is nuts. Absolutely could not be a common, couldn't be printed for constructed period. Leymane Predator at least salvages the entry, being a simple and effective scaling threat that has green-appropriate built in evasion. Elyssa: I hate cards like this that have two completely unrelated effects as part of the same ability. Untapping a land and creating two tokens don't make a lick of sense together, and I don't really get the flavor at all. The first part of the ability is a fancy Electromancer effect, which feels out of place in green, even if you make the trigger a "green" effect.
Phoenix Gaze: This card is resoundingly not a common. Flashback is a fine way to do "multiple spells matter" and the synergy is clear with Elyssa.
Leymane Predator: Yeah, sure. This is a very, very basic design.		Elyssa - This is already dangerous. Birgi is a card that provides so much mana and lets decks do a lot of things outside of what they would normally be capable of. This letting you hit lands, lets you not only "save" the mana like Birgi does, but also just gets extra value from flashbacks in providing an army as well. And, just like Birgi, this does a lot of silly things with cantrips and unlike Birgi, this does a lot of silly things with lands that can tap for more than one mana or other utility lands.
Phoenix Gaze - This is just not safe. RR for 4 damage, divided, and 2 to you is getting past Char value, which was a solid card. Add onto that this is effectively on board removal, at common, that is also super cheap to hold up just does not work for me. This letting you trigger prowess and Elyssa just makes it way too much for any standard alike environment. And, with Elyssa, this is effectively free, making it even more worrisome. A comparison would be Firebolt, which has a flashback cost of 4R. I don't think 2 damage to self makes up for a 4 mana discount.
Leymane Predator - I think this is a touch too strong, and think it should probably have a tone down in some way, but it definitely is exciting and flashy.
Overall - I think that you pushed these a bit too much with the power level, with the only one being testable being the Leymane Predator. The other two are just definitely too much at their base.		Elyssa is a pretty neat card - generating mana on spells cast is always a cool proposition for Storm-style decks, although it does seem probably a little too powerful with those stats/keyword as well as the ability to generate board presence with a stream of Elves. Phoenix Gaze is hard broken - this is effectively RR 4 damage you take 2, except you can split 4 into two 2's if necessary and you can also pay each R on different turns. Furthermore, this is onboard removal at instant speed, which is not the greatest idea especially as a common. Finally, Leymane Predator is like, a fine card, and the numbers seem about right, but it's pretty straightforward and not really doing much new.Elyssa seems like a risky design that's in need of some adjustment in terms of numbers. Phoenix Gaze meanwhile I'm sure is overtuned, and I'm not a fan of it being instant speed flashback interaction at Common. Leymane Predator is a pretty straightforward design but is exciting enough, at least.
17
Queen Emily#1312https://imgur.com/a/RxuENpH3.83Ritual Saberfang feels like a decent bear for this deck. Ovinya Brute I liked before seeing it's meant as a rare. I think the flicker safety valve isn't needed here, too. Pyre Charm looks like a pretty standard charm design. Overall an okay entry, if a bit feeling like it played on the safe side of things.Ritual Saberfang is cool. It's simple and elegant, and I love the interplay of exiling instants and sorceries for bonuses in spellslinger, it's just a good pattern to work with. Ovyina Brute using the random-pull tech is a stellar way to push an archaeomancer without making it easily loopable, and the "cast" tech keeps it even more in check to be a good aggressive E-Witness. Pyre Charm's good modality allows these prowess creatures to sneak in for extra damage past blockers while having other generally-good use. This archetype isn't shooting the moon, but it's solid and doesn't have any issues, and feels really nice for a Standard power level, especially Ovyina Brute.Ritual Saberfang - I love this as an uncommon. Solid threat, sells the theme, and just overall feels like it'll slot easily into a spellslinger type of deck.
Ovyina Brute - "enters the battlefield, if you cast it," This feels a bit too much, while also feeling like it wants to be an uncommon. I do think it's neat, and definitely has tools in check to make sure it doesn't go infinite, a la flicker effects. I do like how it plays with the Saberfang, in that you can sculpt your graveyard in a way to make sure to hit exactly what you need. I'm not the biggest fan of the flavor text, as I feel like it feels a bit flat, but overall a solid card.
Pyre Charm - This is definitely a solid charm and neatly plays into what Gruul Spellslinger can want to do with its noncreatures. This is versatile, strong, and just overall lovely.
Overall - I kinda wish I was able to see more of what the noncreatures are doing here, as those I think are a real good piece to showcase what the deck is actually doing, but overall this is pretty impressive for what you're allowed to submit.		I don't really have much to say about this entry, just seems really solid. Love how Saberfang can control the state of your graveyard to make Brute more likely to hit. I do wonder if Spellslinger archetypes want an Archaeomancer effect, though, instead of just straight threats and spells - that's the one factor that brings my evaluation of this down slightly. Pyre Charm is neat - I think a charm is a great way to allow a constructed deck to run combat tricks. I do wonder if the selection of modes here is the most balanced or appropriate, but I think it clears the bar for the most part. Ritual Saberfang: This card does not look green at all, but I don't think it does anything to violate green's weaknesses, so I'm here for it! Pretty simple card that looks playable.
Ovyina Brute: I think the power level is a little high here, but I like this as a way for red to recur instants/sorceries at an aggressive rate. It will never feel bad to cast in constructed, so this is about where I'm comfortable leaving random effects.
Pyre Charm: +4/+4 looks a bit big for this, but in general I like tacking Fling onto a charm because it's so situational but can be dynamite in some decks. Once again the power level looks high, but I appreciate you pushing boundaries rather than hiding behind them.		No complaints here at all honestly - Saberfang looks like a super fun prowess bear that you can protect, Ovinya Brute seems like a fun way of introducing cheap recursion (and I love how Saberfang can interact with it by trimming away certain spells until only the one you want is left in your graveyard), and Pyre Charm being a dual +4/+4 trample pump effect as well as a Fling to close out games seems solid, with that artifact mode as a nice bonus. A little bland, but really well executed in my opinon.
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Splashcathttps://imgur.com/a/sNldsaW4I like the modality in how Wildfire Stag encourages you to play, both being something that lets you scale up while also rewarding you for getting there, collectively pulling for a neat "rampy" style of spellslinging. Growth After Fire does the same thing, being a way to accrue card flow while hitting extra land drops and ramping yourself up even more, and chains with itself and protects chains with flashback and exile-draw. Blazing Genesis is the ramp piece I was exactly looking for that rewards this spell-scaling up and together that makes the deck package work well together in a way I'm happy with.Wildfire Stag is neat and I like that it has extra incentive to play bigger spells. Growth After Fire looks very neat. That flashback is formatted wrong, though. Need an em dash in there (see Conflagrate). Blazing Genesis is one hell of a removal+threat rolled into one, and I think I'd like this better if it was tuned at 4mv (so it can still trigger Wildfire Stag's +1/+1 counter bonus). Overall though this feels like a fresher take on Gruul Spellslinger than the others in this round. Good work.I like the ways you've shifted around the themes of spellslinger to make it slot into RG while still tracking as Spellslinger. Using Treasure and extra land plays in place of rituals like you might see in a storm deck makes a lot of sense for RG, and both Wildfire Stag and Growth after Fire seem like very fun tools that in addition also get you board presence and card advantage respectively. Wildfire Stag especially feels like a fun bruiser for this kind of deck. Blazing Genesis seems also pretty domineering in a fun way, and it seems like a cool way to generate value that still prevents you from getting 2-for-1'd if your creature gets destroyed, since you already sniped down another thing.Wildfire Stag - Oooh, this is definitely a fun way to look at spellslinger. I love the idea here. Very solid.
Growth After Fire - This is another pretty solid card. I have some worries about how undervalued stapling on the explore text on cards, but this is definitely testable.
Blazing Genesis - This definitely is an answer-threat. I think this is trying to warp itself into fitting the archetype, while opening itself up to a lot of unfortunate avenues. Because the only target is the damage bit, if they somehow remove the creature/walker that this is targetting, then you don't get your life nor your 5/5, which is a super feels bad moment. However, if you do get it all off, this is just such a beating in terms of value. But, if you don't get that value, you just wasted so much time/energy/mana into nothing, which I'm not the biggest fan of that dichotomy. Also, I just think 5 damage may be just a touch overtuned, as that's just such a massive swing.
Overall - I think this is a quite different take on what I'd originally feel is spellslinger, but it does it in such a neat way that fits for Gruul. Lovely overall, even if there are a few tweaks I'd do to Blazing Genesis (like making it a modal spell with targets on each bit.)		Wildfire Stag: This is my kind of Kiln Fiend. I'm looking forward to seeing the MV-3-or-less and the MV-4-or-more spells that you've filled this entry with--don't fail me now!
Growth After Fire: Seems like a fun Escape the Wilds variant, though it doesn't really do anything we haven't already seen in canon.
Blazing Genesis: This card oozes "mythic rare." Love the idea of resolving this in standard; Magma Opus is nearly my favorite card ever printed, and this feels like a Gruul love song to it. Again, it's not particularly inventive, but it fits the brief and looks exciting.		I'm slightly torn on this entry, because while I do enjoy the unique direction its gone with playing larger spells, I do wonder if that defeats the purpose of spellslinging/makes it function more like a traditional ramp deck. Still, the individual designs here do an effective job of selling me on the concept/make me give it the benefit of doubt. Wildfire Stag is a neat engine and payoff - tapped Treasure means you aren't just using it to chain cantrips but actually for its ramp function, and once you've ramped you don't just get more of the same/actually get to leverage it as a threat. Grow After Fire is great, functioning as card advantage to get you more spells to sling as well ramping you towards topend. I question if it needs the flashback given that it already is netting you card advantage, though. Blazing Genesis is great, having excellent Melvin aesthetics (though all the fives on a six mana card is gonna give someone Griselbrand sads) and does everything you'd want your topend to do, being removal, a threat, and stabilization all in one. I think the aesthetics and flavoring here are excellent as well.
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Sunsethttps://imgur.com/a/XKVUPbQ2Propogate feels kind of weird being a strictly-better populate, but I guess that's not an impossible thing to have happen in reality. I like the twist to using cards in your graveyard for copying to try to push this for sacrificed creatures and usung the regular 1/1 mode of propogate well. Deepwoods Prowler feels a bit underwhelming as a rare, but it does a good job being a creature that you want to get some sacrifice fodder for. Phasic Manipulator seems like a pretty fine value creature, and it can sacrifice itself for good benefit. This deck kind of collectively feels loose as a packagel I think you could tell me this was a graveyard deck and it'd make just as much sense. I think that only having one-off sacrifice and self-sacrifice doesn't do enough to hit aristocrats and Evolution feels kind of like a separate deck, so I'm not sure it coalesces properly into the sacrifice deck I am expecting.Enduring Evolution - Propogate is definitely a very fun ability. I do have some worry that the activated ability on this is a really, really unfun on board trick, especially in terms of how much info your opponents have to play around. Definitely think this isn't going to be as fun to play as it looks, especially play against.
Deepwoods Prowler - I'm not quite sure how safe this is. While people meme on Bayou Groff a lot, it does see a lot of Pauper play, and a few times it has popped its head up in legacy. -1/-1 and + trample and haste does feel like a tradeoff that seems fine as a starting point, especially with a rarity bump, but these types of effects tend to have a harder time existing in other environments.
Phasic Manipulator - This feels like an odd card to include in this submission. It is a low to the ground, ready to be sacrificed whenever needed, but it doesn't really play into any type of actual aristocrats deck. It is a delayed Divination, sure, but I'm not really seeing what it is doing here.
Overall - I think this submission doesn't quite hit the feelings, or strategies, of what an aristocrats is actually wanting or trying to do. Enduring Evolution does make two bodies, but... that's not what an aristocrat deck revolves around. It wants things that benefit from creatures dying, and doing it multiple times. That's why the multiple bodies matter. Sacrificing one for Deepwoods Prowler can help, but it doesn't actually fulfill what the deck actually wants. Phasic Manipulator doesn't quite do anything in that regards either. Sure, it sacrifices itself, but that doesn't actually accomplish too that the decks actually want. I think some of the intended strategy is to get Enduring Evolution to turn token copies into other things, then have other sources of propagate in order to get cool synergies that you normally get with populate, but since Enduring Evolution has you propagate twice in the ability, you don't actually get a chance to respond to do that cool thing. And, if you are using it to just turn your 1/1 tokens into Phasic Manipulator, you are paying 3 mana to draw 2,, which, while not anemic, isn't really the end goal of what aristocrats wants to do. There is a cute line of turning a token into Phasic Manipulator, and then after no blockers, turning it into Deepwoods Prowler, but that requires so many hoops to go right, and in the correct order, and for you to already have so many direct things in your graveyard, I think it's much too pie in the sky to be something that will consistently go off. 		Enduring Evolution: I like propagate as a higher-floor alternative to populate! Evolution seems like fun. I like how it ties the graveyard aspect of sac into the archetype more than the actual sacrifice effect.
Deepwoods Prowler: Great with tokens, obviously. I think it could stand to be a 4/4. In general I don't think 4/4 trample haste no ETB effect is good enough in standard, but I do appreciate the synergy it has with Evolution (costing only 2 mana to transform a token).
Phasic Manipulator: Weird card. Not really sure how it fits in with the rest of the archetype, other than letting you sac your tokens for cards. The pseudo-unblockable effect doesn't make sense to me at all with the rest of this kit.		Not too much of a fan of Enduring Evolution's activated ability being a gotcha for players, and I don't feel strongly enough about propagate being a named mechanic over the similar populate. Deepwoods Prowler needs the Dominaria treatment ("This spell", not cardname) and looks fine. Bit so-so for a rare. Phasic Manipulator is a strange Divination. Overall I feel like there's traces here of wanting to be GU aristocrats, but it doesn't clear the bar.Propagate is interesting as a "fixed" populate, but I think this card sends confusing signals; am I meant to be using these tokens as sac fodder, or my nontokens so the tokens can become copies of my other creatures? It is not a design that I would connect to "aristocrats" without knowing the prompt, feeling a lot more like a generic graveyard archetype or token archetype card. Neither Deepwoods Prowler nor Phasic Manipulator seem like they'd be standard playable under normal circumstances. Deepwoods Prowler is one step away from being a Bayou Groff, and Phasic Manipulator is very underrate/doesn't have the synergy points that usually justify one-drops in aristocrats and constructed in general. I dislike that Deepwoods Prowler asks the question of "ok, what am I curving into this?" and then the entry gives me a one-drop that doesn't actually get value from being sacced to stuff other than itself. Even if this challenge was asking for a limited interpretation of this archetype, I don't think this approach would be sufficient - it doesn't have the necessary elements of accuring value from creature deaths that defines aristocrats. I feel like you have three cards here that are graveyard/sacrifice themed but don't come together in a way that indicates "aristocrats" to me. Propogate is cool in theory (probably sounds too close to populate for me to like it as a mechanic considering its a direct riff) but the way its ability synergizes with your creatures feels less "aristocrats" and more "funnel cheap creatures into your graveyard to copy them for even cheaper", especially with the Deepwoods Prowler, turning creatures into 4/3 tramplers for 2. Your last creature also doesn't feel aristocratty because it only sacrifices itself, meaning it doesn't work with effects like Deepwoods Prowler since you can't actually get that draw if you're sacrificing it to another effect like would be normal for aristocrats.
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ThatDamnPipsqueak#7787https://imgur.com/a/c8L3jnz2.83Tome of Insight - This is definitely an interesting card. I really like how you get to select which type of advantage you are going for with this. I think if this wasn't a reanimator deck, this wouldn't be as thrilling, but this type of colorless advantage is still always loved, a la Mazemind Tome or Reckoner Bankbuster.
Face the Veil's Reckoning - Super minor, but the shouldn't be capitalized in the card's name. I don't think this card would be good enough to push through a reanimator deck by itself, as 5 mana reanimation wants a little more oomph than being a bad kill spell. I do like the duality of it, but I don't think that translate to the card being that competitive. 5 mana for removal, especially whenever it's meant to be your combo piece, is not the makings of a solid card.
Archangel Shaziel - Hm. I think this is a bit disjointed in how it wants to actually play out, but I think the more that I think about it, I like it. It's one of the types of reanimation targets that is the "you can't kill this threat" rather than one that gives extra advantages, but I don't quite know if this is quite good enough to do that. A big part of Nezahal's/Dream Trawler's ability to be the threat that it was was because it was able to protect itself without having to invest any mana, even if you were going down on cards. Having to not only have cards that you could cast, but cards that you can use in response to removal makes me a lot lower on this. However, if you are able to utilize it once (or reanimate it), you are able to cheat that first turn, doing the Dream Trawler problem of forcing double removal. Which, I think makes this much more interesting as a Reanimation target and lower as a control win con, which is a very nice niche to put it in this submission.
Overall - I think the more that I look at this submission, the more impressed I am with the first and third cards, but more and more let down by the second card. Sorcery speed 5 mana removal, even if "freely" attached to your combo piece, just feels like a trap option more likely than not.		Tome of Insight: Spending {2} to loot each turn is too much mana; I think that infinitely getting to spend {2} to draw is too little mana. Looters are a good way to incentivize reanimator strategies but this card just costs way too many resources to get there, and I think the actual play case is in permission-based control decks where I think it's too good.
Face the Veil's Reckoning: Neat flexible card for limited, but I doubt this makes waves in constructed. There's no world where you're happy using this as a 5-mana sorcery-speed removal spell in standard, and 5-mana one-shot reanimator spells don't get there either.
Archangel Shaziel: This is too tricksy. Reanimator targets that get played either win the game or generate serious advantage when they ETB, or they're castable. This is really neither. Reanimating a 7/7 flier doesn't really impact the game very much, and the text box is filled with "clever" text that won't do much in practice.		Graveyard filler, reanimate spell, reanimate target. This is definitely a reanimator package, but it feels very by-the-numbers in a way that feels unexciting to me. I don't feel like the "WU"-ness of this deck comes through enough. Best thing I like about the entry is the modality of the reanimate spell.Your artifact here being a functional way to pitch your reanimator targets while also functioning as a pure draw engine if you have the right mana feels balanced and solid. The reanimator spell definitely feels like a Limited card being used in a Constructed context with that destroy mode probably never really coming up in Constructed, but I think it functions fine as just a reanimator effect with a very thin edge case in your deck and that's not a major issue. Finally, your payoff Shaziel is pretty cool in that it has a solid layer of protection, as well as the ability to protect itself if you cast instants. My only major problem is you not showcasing any instants or flash spells that would turn that last ability on, as that feels like the whole purpose. Other than that, this is a little bland but ultimately gets the job done.Tome of Insight is an adequate way to get cards into grave, but I suspect too slow at seeing cards for Reanimator's purposes. Would work in a slower, more controlling shell where reanimator is the wincon, though. Face the Veil's Reckoning feels very weak and boring. It's an appropriate rate for a Standard reanimator spell, but the removal mode feels tacked on as it is very much not worth at this rate, and the resulting package doesn't feel like a compelling design. For Shaziel, the "if it wasn't cast from you hand" clause feels too on the nose for "reanimate me!" in a way that really isn't needed given its cost. It is neat how sticky it is, and a 7/7 flier does close games quickly, but it doesn't have the immediate value that we've come to expect from game-winning reanimator threats. This didn't affect my scoring here, but I am a sucker for Akieva flavor, and it is really neat to get a card for Shaziel, who's referenced throughout the set but never got a card of their own in the original set.The demand for UU in the Tome of Insight seems odd here, but, as I think about it, I actually like it more. It feels like a card that's being repurposed organically for this deck rather than a specially-made card that works perfectly directly for WU reanimator to exist, and it has cool structures of being able to loot to enable reanimator, or just draw if you've got your mana sequencing right. Though I do feel like asking to pay two mana to loot is rough, and this card doesn't seem like it's great as an enabler for such a tight enable-payoff curve demand for reanimator unless you're unlucky enough to need to pitch your target. So it has a great feel but actually may feel like a subpar choice for the deck? It's expensive and slow for a deck that needs to "explode". Face the Veil's Reckoning is a good modal twist to a white reanimator spell and I like the duality while retaining simplicity; this lets you enable reanimation while also being a removal spell in excess, or in a pinch, even if it's not a great removal spell. I like that clean modality. For Shaziel, I'm not sure I've ever seen a reanimator target that rewards you for reanimating it; normally these big guys punish you for reanimation instead of hard-casting, hah! The combination of shield counters and flickering seem a little cute? It creates an endless unkillable monster that technically does have some outs (double kill spell in one turn w/no mana open) but feels so repeatably invulnerable I wonder if this shouldn't just be indestructible. The card comes across as a bit overcomplicated, when it's so much just a stats monster that doesn't die there's a lot of ways to enable that. The entry overall does the job asked for and does it well, but it's got some incongruities to it that make it feel a bit awkward while it's happening.
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TheCatsEighthLife#2031https://imgur.com/a/82u3E5t2.17Kircan seems underwhelming for a card that'd be supposed to seeing Standard play. I recognize the "hit" of caring about self-milling your artifacts, but a four-drop with no protection, no combat abilities, and being reliant on a pretty narrow synergy hook for small pings or small lifegain, especially with a "one or more" restriction, seems like it wouldn't do enough to make it in a Constructed format, while being a passable Limited signal signpost instead. Study the Scraplands seems sick, though. I like the ability to use it to dump important cards into your graveyard, which graveyard decks love to do for safety's sake, and being able to "self loop" by pitching either gas or garbage makes a great way to churn through your deck and dig for the pieces you want. I'm a big fan of it. Scraplands Rise seems like the thing that makes this deck "work" as an artifact specific package, though. Kircan wouldn't make the cut and Study would be playable in any graveyard deck, so this is the thing that specifically tells me the GB Artifacts of the challenge, and I like it. It's a huge amount of value with a pretty hefty cost of set-up and enabling, and it gives this deck a "combo finish" that still has a chance to counterplay by being a sorcery-speed effect. I think instead of Kircan, I'd have liked to see an example of the kinds of artifacts this deck wants to play and put into their graveyard, since that seems much more relevant to the entry, but the latter two cards in here do sell a cool deck pattern that seems like it might make a splash in a Standard somewhere.Ballsy choice to make a submission for the artifacts deck and not actually include any of the artifacts, cannot say it lands for me. Generally, I get what you're going for here - Kircan + The Scraplands Rise is a cool piece of synergy and gets to dome your opponents for a bunch, and Study the Scraplands also works well for the "recursion-matters" thing Kircan is going for. However, even though the synergies exist, I doubt Kircan is nearly powerful enough to make it as a piece for a deck like this in Standard, as it's an understatted body that probably doesn't trigger all that often (also wording issue, "one or more artifacts are put into your graveyard from anywhere" i believe), and even though Study the Scraplands fuels your graveyard, the discard mode feels actively bad unless you're able to directly curve into the reanimator effect. Something like a more consistent mill engine I think would have been a cooler inclusion. Finally, I feel like the choice not to include any artifacts bites you with Scraplands, because I think the cool part of Scraplands is getting to play a bunch of artifacts out with weird abilities that are synergistic with being creatures, but I don't know what those are because you didn't actually include any artifacts.Kircan: 4-mana 3/3 doesn't really track to me as a constructed playable. I think if you want this to make a splash in standard it has to be WAY overstatted or cost less. The effect is interesting, I like the idea of caring more about artifacts in the yard than in play. We'll see how you support it.
Study the Scraplands: This design doesn't land for me. I'm on board basically up until "and discard a card," which seems really unnecessary. This effect can also be at instant speed and at common.
The Scraplands Rise: You didn't show me any artifacts. Very strange choice. The synergy between Kircan and this is disappointing, in that you only get one trigger since they all come back? I'd much rather have not seen Kircan at all and gotten a self-sacrificing artifact instead. Right now, this package feels potentially interesting, but very incomplete.		I dislike Kircan using "enters" for its first ability. It reads fine here, but it's jarring enough when taking into account existing mechanic reminder text that shortcuts ETBs to just the first word. Kircan has the space to spell it out anyway. The actual design is fine but I think not working with artifact tokens is a big miss. Study the Scraplands feels like it'll get repetitive quick, but I like the boldness of the design. The Scraplands Rise feels more of a kitchen table design than one meant for Standard Constructed power level, but it's a cool enough design that I like it anyway.Kircan's first ability should be phrased as "whenever one or more artifact cards are put into your graveyard from anywhere...." This isn't a card that's at a constructed-playable rate - too expensive, with too little immediate impact and frankly too little impact period. The nickel and diming this is doing isn't ever going to be worth the card slot. I can't decide if I like Study the Scraplands because of the unique conceit it has as a "fixed" Life From the Loam, or hate it for carrying over some of the repeitive play patterns of it, but I'm leaning towards the former. Still, I don't think was a good choice of effect to riff on/in fixing it, you've made it somewhat weak. The Scraplands Rise synergizes with the previous two cards in the entry, and is the only one that feels strong enough for Standard - maybe too strong, as the potential for getting back 12-20+ worth of stats off a single card is a balking proposition. I think this entry is particularly disappointing because I don't think it engaged with the prompt/the "spirit" of the prompt. The submission is effectively just a normal GB graveyard archetype with a cursory effort at adding an artifact coat of paint to it, without grappling with what knobs and options the artifact type actually brings to the table. I do want to shout out the flavor and worldbuilding here, it's quite impressive and well-written. Kircan - "Whenever one or more artifact cards are put into your graveyard from anywhere". This doesn't really feel like it's going to be a constructed player at all. Sure, if you happen to have a lot of Unlicensed Hearse effects, you might get to gain some extra life, but this is definitely not a worthwhile plan. Especially since Hearse and those types of effects are much more effective at removing the opponent's options, rather than attempting to limit your own. Sure, it can do some cute things with Study the Scraplands, but at most, you're gaining 2 life from each casting of Scraplands (one from the mill, one from the returning or discarding) and that's just definitely not worth it. Even with The Scraplands Rise, since Kircan has the one or more restriction, you're gaining 1 life for casting your big spell. Definitely feels low powered and non impactful as well.
Study the Scraplands is just a very weird card overall. Selection cards having an out is really neat, most of the time. But, in order to do so, you basically have to accept it as a do-nothing mill card, and paying mana to mill just three meager cards tends not to be worth it and not a good way of filling up the graveyard. Compare this to Stitcher's Supplier and how well that fills up graveyards, while still interacting with the opponent and the other cards in the deck. This specificially isn't helping out due to being a non-artifact, but also just not interacting with anything other than your graveyard. Super minor, as well, I feel like this is a very disappointing rare. This feels a lot like an uncommon, but only because of the repetitive game actions it causes.
The Scraplands Rise - This feels like it's a bit too good, on the face. Even without the 4/4 bit, this effect tends to be costed at 7ish mana, a la Brilliant Restoration/Wake the Past, and 6 mana gets you a symmetrical returning in Open the Vaults. Sure, those hit enchantments too, but I don't think that's enough breadth to then give the bonus to turning them all into beaters. The easiest comparison is also Dance of the Manse, which has seen a lot of play. Dance lets you return things at lower rates (3 mana to get one thing, and so on), but the "big bonus" isn't on until you are hitting 8 mana. I definitely feel this is undercosted and could use for a bit less upside.
Overall - I feel like this submission misses the mark. Sure, you showed off some cards that could theoretically lead a deck, but I don't think most decks, especially in standard, would want to use Study the Scraplands and Kircan in any way and feel like those slots would have been better showcasing the actual artifacts that you are using to accomplish this goal.
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