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1ogic#3398https://imgur.com/a/eJEgBU72.672.672.67Baneward Priest is an awesome design and the only (minor) criticism I have for it is pointing out the missing comma in "nonland, noncreature". I like the entire package on Blood for Blood, but I think the token is too minimal of an upside on Bone Splinters for this to be considered in Constructed—at least let this hit planeswalkers! Set Sail is a fine draw spell, though I do think the move away from additional costs (while a welcome one in terms of design/play reasons) doesn't feel Core set-like. That's super minor, though. Overall a pretty solid entry, despite dropping the ball on Blood for Blood's Constructed applications.Baneward Pr[ie]st: Interesting. White getting a Brain Maggot doesn't feel entirely wrong to me. I think the rate looks right. I'm not sure (as much as I hate to say this) that a 3-mana creature with no evasion and this ability really gets there in most Standards, but I do like to hope that it makes some impact.
Blood for Blood: Bone Splinters isn't generally a card that sees Standard play except in very niche decks. I'm not sure the Blood token pushes this over the edge. I suppose if you had Cat-Oven this could find a few slots, but generally 2-for-1'ing yourself doesn't get there.
Set Sail: This absolutely should have been an alt cost. The way it's worded is bizarre. I do think bouncing your own thing is a fine way to simulate that third {U} pip it'd otherwise generally have.		- White Weenie Creature! Baneward Priest is a card that really emanates its designer's feel for Standard gameplay. I could see Tidehollow Sculler moving to monowhite in modern magic, and its options feel well-tuned for different matchups: Take removal or value from a control opponent, or get a bigger attacker/blocker in creature matchups.
- Black Removal! Blood for Blood feels on the weak end for me. Eaten Alive saw fringe play from my Standard experience, but trading the exile, ability to hit walkers, and ability to cast without a creature feels like too much to give up for a single Blood token (especially since it was far from a Standard staple). I also think this design didn't do enough over a Bone Splinters to show off much of your designer ability.
- Blue Draw! I like the idea of this working alongside etb triggers or saving something from removal or combat, but being mandatory (and not as an additional cost so the bounce can be responded to with removal) feels awkward. This also feels a good deal worse than Silver Scrutiny, enough so that this feels difficult to be worthwhile.
Overall I think you had some great ideas here, although some power level misses and derivations from existing cards were a bit of a hurdle. That said, Baneward Priest is one of my favourite designs from this round.
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AdmiralIvy#7438https://imgur.com/a/ONlWE4w433.5Ascendant Arbiter (White midrange flier) - I like how neatly this fills up your curve - gives you a turn 2 play in a pinch, but generally its just a powerful four-drop beater for weenie and midrange decks alike. I do think there's the question of "is this good enough/does this get there with just stats," but I think the flexibility it offers makes me err on the side of giving this the benefit of doubt.
Tears of the Luxa (Blue counterspell) - This is a neat design. Ends up somewhere between a Cancel, Dispel and Negate, not really usurping the role of the latter two. Functions better in control mirrors, but still isn't going to be better at tagging wincons than negate is. Simple and solid, which is ideal!
Rectify (Black removal effect) - I'm not a fan of this design. Diabolic Edict is already a very playable/powerful card - it doesn't need additional, raw upside. I suppose the cycling is supposed to offset the situations where an edict won't actually kill what you want it to if cast, but like. That's the point of edicts!		Ascendant Arbiter - I like this a lot, I think. I like that this fits into multiple spots on your curve, and the main part of the body of the card can do a lot of work. I also like that the token has lifelink, which means that if you can find a place to sneak it in, you can pick up some kind of potential lifegain trigger. While I do think it's a little janky that you're probably never actually playing the 2 drop part of this card unless you have nothing else to do with your turn, that's probably fine given that you can play this in a deck with a lot of instant-speed effects on 2, like counterspells or removal or whatever, and then just activate this ability if you're not able to use those.
Tears of the Luxa - Super cool - I like this as a sort of sidegrade-Negate-sidegrade-Cancel, where you're still punishing instants and sorceries at a solid rate, but are set back in cost for all other types. This feels simple, yet feels like a very interesting counterpart to other types of counterspells, which is pretty exciting!
Rectify - Not as much of a fan here, as this is just an existing design with cycling tacked on. I also feel like the Diabolic Edict / Sudden Edicts of the world really don't need the upside of cycling, as they're already relatively good, and keeping the same level of efficiency while making sure the card always does something is a little scary.		Ascendent Arbiter rocks as a white midrange flier. It's a good, well-costed body with a great smoothing ability to give you useable earlygame mana without going down on cards. It's a biiit rough that you have to be playing a tribal deck if you want to use that little guy for anything, but the sequencing still lands to me, and it's great at hitting the flavour note, too. Tears of the Luxa gets real close to being Negate, but it's still got real limitations that allow this kind of modality-sidegrading to shine; you get the Cancel if you have to, but in specific metagame matchups you get the good stuff. I'm a fan.. Rectify, as all edicts, is a pretty situational card; it's good primarily if there's an abundance of cards immune to spot removal. So giving it cycling also gives it extra meaningful functionality. Funny, all three of these cards are mostly just adding an extra modality onto the existing "baselines". I'm not complaining, but it means only the Angel really stands out as a novel design. Though that's not necessarily bad for just being Core Set staple slots.
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AmbroseWinters#4208https://imgur.com/a/UWzGA8Q33.673.34Adaptive Pyromancy (Red burn spell) - The third mode here needs to be reworded; I'm assuming it was ripped straight from another effect that does something similar, not taking heed of the fact that your design swaps the ordering of the clauses. Otherwise, this seems like a neat middleground between a Lightning Strike and an Atarka's Command.
Guardian of Pages (White midrange flier) - Given that this is likely a midrange topend, I'm not sure how to feel about the specific ask of "wide board" to get maximum value out of the removal, but hey assuming you're curving out into this you're still likely hitting something with MV3 at worst, which is fine. Seems like a solid design for this slot otherwise, not much to say here.
Uncharted Wisdom (Green ramp spell) - This is really interesting. It's an odd hybrid of a Cultivate and an Exploration, taking some concistency out of the tutoring of the former/requiring more explicit manabase tailoring in order to justify the repeated ramp of the latter. I think you took a risk by stretching the definition of "green ramp spell," but it ended up paying off, leading to a compelling and unique design. 		Adaptive Pyromancy slots neatly into burn and Rx aggro, but designwise that third mode makes it weird. Effects go in the order they're written, so there's definitely a better way to write the third mode so it doesn't seem like it's referencing an event that hasn't happened yet. My hot (pyromancy be damned) take? For RR I think Lightning Strike can just get all those bonuses natively. Guardian of Pages is a bit winmore for my tastes. Normally I'm fine with big beaters that double as answers, even if those usually get flack in custom spaces, but keying off of a wide board doesn't sit right with me. This is a midrage topend, I suppose, and I like the attention given to Flash getting reminder text. Flavor's fun but a bit dissonant with the effect. Uncharted Wisdom is interesting, and my favorite card in this entry. Essentially it's a Cultivate and then some; it might raise a few brows but this does its thing in a cool enough way. Some stuff here needs polish but otherwise a decent submission.Adaptive Pyromancy is definitely interesting. I think most of the time it's just going to be used as a bolt, but having options of so many niche options definitely feels like it'd slot in to basically every red deck.
Guardian of Pages feels solid, though very win more, so not the biggest fan. Slower white decks tend not to have the board presence to use this to its fullest advantage, and faster white decks tend not to want 5 drops.
Uncharted Wisdom is very strange, but very neat. I do think 7 is a bit overkill in terms of searching, but this does a lot of cool things. Secretly being a cultivate sidegrade is very fun. Lovely card.
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Applesauce#9250https://imgur.com/a/R0jn1PP31.672.34I don't think I'm too much in love with Katre. While it does fulfill the goal, it does seem a bit self-solving in a kinda unfun way. Eldraine Garruk's loyalty gaining like this felt a lot more feasible, since all of the gaining was under control of the opponent, but this is a pretty easy "do the 0 once, then become a card draw engine" in a pretty unexciting way. It definitely is solid, but I think it's a very safe and baseline entry.
Dragon of Hell's Fury feels like it heavily misses the mark on what it is attempting to do. I don't think this is close to playable in a Standard-esque environment at all, and it feels very medium. Compare this to Siege Dragon, which is 1 mana more. It has an immediate semi-board wipe (for walls even!) and repeatedly burns through the opponent's board. This just feels so medium for what it is asking.
Hellsnapper also misses the mark for me. Compare this to Verdurous Gearhulk. Same mana value, but Gearhulk itself has more p/t and distributes another counter. I think this could be neat, but Gearhulk just makes this look like a massive letdown		Katre, Agent of Hell: I suppose this is slotting into the "black card draw" effect? It's a pretty neat Planeswalker, though you fell into the trap of "downside that gets slightly less bad" rather than "conditional downside." Much cleaner card if you just lose the life for not having a Cleric. The token seems fine, if unexciting. Same with the ultimate. The four-card mill feels like meaningless text.
Dragon of Hell's Fury: This is a miss. 4/4 for 6 is not a constructed-playable rate by far, and the ETB doesn't have nearly enough reach to make up for its bad stats. I think this is a totally playable limited card at the top-end, but it would never make the cut in standard.
Aspervale Hellsnapper: A bit weird to give a proper-noun name that we've never encountered to a core set card. This is just Verdurous Gearhulk But Worse, and it's not pushed enough to be playable in the same way. That extra +2/+2 really makes the card, I'm afraid. I do think this would be a bit of a nightmare design for limited, as well, just because of the reach it provides; not part of this challenge, but still part of the implication.		Katre - Solid. Would like the +1 more if it needed a little more investment than "activate the 0 first" or "play a single Cleric" to get the bonus out of it, but the concept is pretty cool. The ult milling 4 is a weird choice because that's kind of downside for you, but I get what you were going for with the 4's.
Dragon of Hell's Fury - Cute card for a Limited, decidedly not going anywhere in Constructed. Not really much else to say it just doesn't really hit the challenge goals.
Aspervale Hellsnapper - So this is just a Verdurous Gearhulk with one less power and one less counter, which isn't great both on a "this probably is not getting there in terms of power level" way and a "interesting design" way especially because you kept the cost the exact same as the Gearhulk. Not a fan.
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Asti#8990https://imgur.com/a/Os6CtmL2.6711.84Llanowar Lorespeaker (Green ramp spell or creature) - This is not a constructed playable card. Borderland Ranger with slight upside isn't where 3 mana ramp needs to be to compete against cards like Arboreal Grazer or Growth Spiral.
Smoldering Blast (Red burn spell) - Okay, Banefire sidegrade with minor upside - we've seen some examples of this as of late. However, the design here has an upside that feels tacked on. The "only red mana" clause feels like an artificial way to push this towards big red when this is likely only going to see play there anyways, and the artifact destruction really doesn't feel meaningful/consistently relevant. As worded, it also needs an artifact target since it doesn't say "up to one," which is an unfortunate oversight.
Wingcover Seraph (White midrange flier) - This is severely underrate. Baneslayer Angel is the hallmark example of this slot, and even it has had trouble keeping up these days given the lack of immediate board impact. This compares disfavorably to even Baneslayer, trading down in keywords and stats in order to sidegrade the "Protection from Demons and Dragons" clause of it - which isn't really where Baneslayer types need additional help, they already emphatically win combat. Especially since that was one of the explicit examples given for this slot, this feels disappointing both in terms of originality and ability to gauge the intended powerlevel.

Overall, this entry unfortunately combined unimpressive card concepts with powerlevels that were far below the expected standard.		Llanowar Lorespeaker - The design is fine for Limited, but this is not going anywhere in Constructed. Just compared to effects of a similar nature, putting a land from your hand into play isn't doing much at 3 mana unless you have a lot of advantage to tack onto that.
Smoldering Blast - Design-wise, this is pretty cool, and a tool for red burn to nuke out both a creature and an artifact seems pretty fun. Rules-wise, the second ability should definitely say "up to one target", because the card as written requires an opponent to control an artifact with mana value X or less on the battlefield to even cast this spell, regardless of whether you spent all red mana or not. Otherwise, it's a little fiddly, but solid.
Wingcover Seraph - That ability doesn't feel like it's really doing much, consdering that your fliers are probably dodging combat anyways. Just feels like something that doesn't really output that much damage for being in the slot that it's in, and therefore I feel like it'd get outpaced by the threats that you would want to be playing as actual finishers.		Llanowar Lorespeaker feels like its a mashup of two cards that traditionally aren't Standard-playable, that being Walking Atlas and Borderland Ranger. The dependence on having your land drops to give you mana means this is sometimes off even when you're curving with it, and the potential to grab a typed dual Forest is still not a big win when we have cards like Llanowar Visionary that get to do both modes of this card more reliably. Smoldering Blast's callout to red mana makes it fit the feel of a Core Set, who likes to do blunt-instrument colour synergies like that, but the card's got a pretty narrow window of being good: you have to be in mono-red, you have to get a kill off of ~3 mana investment, and you have to be able to hit a small artifact as well. That's enough conditionals and requirements, especially the mono-red one, that makes it hard for me to see this Blaze effect getting play, when Blaze is not a good Constructed card itself. Continuing the trend, Wingcover Seraph also just doesn't feel like it's tuned off of a card that would see Standard play--this asks for you to be in an aggressive, flying-tribal deck that wants to play a Serra Angel, which is a big ask for a Constructed deck, too. And the reward for doing that is pretty minor--it lets your evasive creatures not die when the evasion has failed, but it doesn't turn that into further value or reach to help you get past those blockers or do anything about them. It creates stalemates where they hold their blockers back, and you keep swinging into them, but nobody gains. These cards feel like good Core Set cards, especially the angel being appealing to kitchen-table style low-power players where its body alone is super threatening, but I don't think any of them have the chops to make it into a Constructed format.
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AutomaJon#8265https://imgur.com/a/nB9U28s1.672.332Bellowing Warlord (Red aggressive creature) - I think this is a neat variation on "can't block" that allows you to price it aggressively while still allowing it to be impactful/force good trades. Unfortunately, I am suspect of whether this gets there in constructed without additional keywords, which was the purpose of this round, but it's a unique concept nonetheless.
Mitotic Myconid (Green large or X-cost creature) - An on-curve creature that, when played on turn 3 or later, slowly generates you and ever-growing army. I like it! It being an on-curve body means that it's never actively bad, and it provides inexorable value in the lategame if it isn't quickly answered. I do think that this is potentially too slow, especially given other recent X-cost bomb creatures we've had in standard that provide immediate impact, but once again, an interesting concept.
Execute a Scapegoat (Black removal effect) - The name here feels too on-the-nose. Mechanically, I don't think this makes the cut in constructed. Generally, constructed black removal ends up at two mana as a base case, with drawbacks/targets it misses, and then scales up to higher costs with minor upsides tacked on. This just doesn't measure up to those options.The condition here just being more restrictive Morbid also makes this card feel less cleanly creative than your other two slots.

Overall, while I think you had some interesting card concepts here, the balance on them was markedly under what we'd expect for a Standard environment.		Bellowing Warlord: This card is not good. Master of Diversion is a limited effect, not a constructed effect. This looks very tricksy in comparison, but in essence it does the same thing but worse. Blocking is not nearly as much a thing in constructed as it is in limited, as well.
Mitotic Myconid: This is a neat card. It does a lot of stuff, so it's hard to evaluate in a vacuum. Casting it for four eventually gets you three 2/2s... for five, eventually you get three 3/3s and a 2/2... yeah, this does some pretty cool stuff. It is really slow, so I'm not convinced it's a card that impacts Standard much, but I'm at least intrigued.
Execute a Scapegoat: Yeesh, that flavor is chilling. It's worth noting that Murder proper doesn't see much Standard play, so this is really only good if you're turning on the cost reduction, which means control decks don't want this hard removal spell. That's not a niche I want my hard removal to fill. I think there are probably board-based decks that run a copy or two of this to wrangle in combat a bit better, but I think it pretty cleanly misses its main target audience.		The situations where I'm happy with Bellowing Warlord are the ones where it forces an opponent to block a creature that isn't the Warlord, where it connects "four damage" per turn. But it's very easy to block-kill the Warlord, and it doesn't represent a ton of damage output by itself, so you have to have them buy into the punisher to get it to land. I think it's a cool effect, but it's finnicky, and it's unreliable enough that I don't feel comfortable relying on the base 2/1 for 2 body. It needs just a bit more juice to land, to me. Menace might be too much but it's my first thought. Mitotic Myconid is a great name. Good use of the hydra slot to not be a literal hydra. It reminds me a lot of Noosegraf Mob in concept, but this is a lot more juice if it gets to live more than a cycle. Even one untap at three mana is two 2/2s, a good rate, and letting it tick down any more is an impressive amount of bodies. It's even passing the vanilla test if you have to X=0. Feels like it's costed fairly and becomes a hard-to-disrupt threat if you don't deal with it pronto, with the kind of stickiness I value out of a good Standard green monster. Execute the Scapegoat's name and flavour is a violently blunt instrument, and I think it's a bit too far, but the effect is fine. The condition is strict enough, and locks out enough decks that don't play heavy early board impact, that I don't think it's gonna make the cut in Standard, since four mana for just a destroy is below-par, but there are some decks or situations where easy access to sacrifice triggers will make it useable. Holistically I think you have more room to push with these cards for Constructed playability, though, except for the great raw rate on the Myconid. The flavour lands comfortably and feels appropriately Core Set-y and simplistic except for the last card's names, and these all are good at not having unneeded complexity and keeping emphasis on a single, important ability.
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Badknight13#6404https://imgur.com/a/t6LCPF0333Paragon of Hope is definitely a fun design that looks pretty fun as a top end. I have a bit of a worry that this basicallly just wins the game in limited, given how Glyph Keeper was given a low toughness to compensate, but for constructed, this definitely looks fun.
Cease is definitely a fun card and has highs and lows. Well done. Kinda dislike that the flavor isn't quite matching with the art, as Bolas would just fireblast/mind wipe someone to nonexistence, rather than ghostify them. But that's super minor.
Pryncips could just be Trample, ward 3 or however that Elf from AFR does it. Definitely exciting and smashy. Lovely use of gating behind an attack trigger, making it easier to play around, while still being a beating.		Paragon of Hope: Good god, Serra Angel, what's happened to you!? This card is pretty boring, and it doesn't really stabilize you in the same way a lot of 5-mana Angels do (AKA lifelink), but it probably sees play as a top-end in formats where the green decks aren't that strong (the decks that can go over the top of this). Revive is a weird pull for a core set, though.
Cease: Pretty much all the time I'd rather just have Hero's Downfall than this. Part of what removal-heavy decks thrive on is operating at instant speed, so casting this at two mana will operate counter to the style that most decks that would want this want to play. We also know from extensive experience that 2BB kill-a-threat is not a standard-playable card.
Pryncips, Chainbreaker: Ehh. It's hard to remove from the board, but Green threats that rely on another thing to be in play and attacking aren't that exciting. The Green threats that get there these days tend to generate value on their own, since you have to dedicate so many slots to just getting to six mana. I like this as a limited or EDH effect when you're more likely to maintain a board, but for standard it doesn't do the right thing.		Paragon of Hope - Seems spooky as a big body that both has evasion and vigilance to also hold up safely on blocking, as well as one layer of removal protection. Maybe fine just based on it not really doing much against go-wide or burn strategies, but damn that is a strong body.
Cease - Sure! Not sure how good the BB sorcery kill something effects are, but giving it the sidegrade mode of being able to operate at instant speed if necessary (albeit with a big cost hike) seems like it boosts it up to potentially being a fine card. I would love to test this out in a more tap-out control deck.
Pryncips - I like the synergy with mana dorks here, where you can turn them into big 6/6 beaters after you're done using them to power out this creature, and the protection on it probably goes a fair way into making sure it doesn't instantly die the second you play it. Seems fun!
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Cdnewlon#8530https://imgur.com/a/E8HMmhk333Captain of the Charge being a self-fueling Akroan Hoplite is concerning, but I like it enough. Attack trigger on 2 toughness means it's easy to kill, at least. Obstruct is clean and simple; it definitely looks like a design that already exists but doesn't. Ravage employs the same techniques as the previous card to get the Core set message across: one word name for a staple effect. This entry on the whole comes across as playing safe, but with the challenge in mind I didn't fault it too much for that. There was definitely room here for more innovation, though, and that's something to keep in mind as you progress in the competition.Captain of the Charge: This rate feels a bit insane. I dunno, maybe Young Pyromancer's rate and speed say this is fine? If you have a big board, it attacks for a ton of damage, but it's fragile, but it adds a ton of reach... not sure. I think it's interesting, if a bit clunky.
Obstruct: Yeah, I would play this. It feels pretty expensive; I think you're casting it for 2UU or 3UU most of the time, which does mean you're not doing much else that turn, but I don't mind taking the selection out of counterspells like this for a higher ceiling.
Ravage: Bile Blight saw plenty of play. I suspect this would also. It's not a particularly interesting design, but it fits a slot.		- White Weenie Creature! Captain of the Charge seems like a potent attacker if a bit swingy, with being particularly good at both immediate offense and staggering your attack with the token, but a pretty poor topdeck or card to play on an empty board. I appreciate that this only scales off attacking creatures and is fairly fragile on attacks. The final section about the token wants to be its own sentence.
- Blue Counterspell! Obstruct feels somewhat comparable to Censor - adding U to the cycling cost and making it unable to counter anything for 2 mana, but giving it scalability for more lategame spells. I think this like plays worse than Censor given that both its modes are more oriented towards later in the game, compared to Censor having a strict earlygame and lategame mode, but I think this is still a solid design.
- Black Removal! Certainly seems like a solid Standard card, and takes a similar approach to Obstruct for fitting into a Core Set. I think you could have innovated a bit further here, but it isn't terribly bland.
Overall I think you met the brief well with your submission, although you have room to stretch a bit further with innovative designs, which will be a lot more important in non-Core Set rounds.
10
Cheech_the_Beech#8413https://imgur.com/a/pVwSxb93.331.332.33Lobotomize (Black discard effect) - Random discard's usual issue is stripping opponent's lands, which this doesn't do, so a point there. Still, that's maybe the only good thing I can say about this - there really isn't any meaningful play here. The downside is completely out of your control/doesn't change its effectiveness against certain strategies. Just not a good concept for a card.
Kinsbaile Greenthumb (Green ramp spell or creature) - I like that this takes a unique approach to the idea of a mana dork. The "once per turn" limiter is also heads up. However, I think the implementation itself is strange - it doesn't actually function as a dork the turn after you play it, since it takes at least two turns to get mana, but it also pumps out a continous stream of ramp if left unchecked. Overall, I don't think the card concept here leads to an appropriate powerlevel and play patterns that this slot requires.
Jadecoil Plumedancer (Blue tempo creature) - An issue with this card is that it sort of misses out on an important factor of tempo topends - all of them want to have flash. With your early threats, you can maybe hope to get them in under interaction of meaningful threats from your opponents or sequence them while holding up interaction on later turns, but that isn't the case for your topend. I also think that this scales/snowballs terrifyingly quick - if your opponent doesn't have an immediate answer, its likely going to generate enough advantage to drown them in card advantage. 		Lobotomize - Eh. I don't think this really gets there, as a lot of the time you're gonna hit a double land or a single land and not really get to make a meaningful choice about what card you want to hit, and there's also just a chance that you can completely brick with it. I would not really be happy to play this over something like a Duress.
Kinsbaile Greenthumb - The card's interesting, because it only actually starts generating ramp on turn 4, and it's only one point of ramp then plus an increasing stream later. Honestly, this card doesn't even really strike me as a mana dork - it strikes me as a synergy piece for lands with powerful abilities that you want multiple copies of, which makes me feel like it's a little shaky in terms of the prompt. It is a dork definitionally, but I don't think you'd play this in the same place you'd be wanting to play actual mana dorks, just because of how late it starts functioning as ramp.
Jadecoil Plumedancer - This doesn't feel that much like a tempo card either, as your opponent gets a whole turn to snipe it down before it generates any value at all and takes up your whole turn 4 to play. It also seems like a scary amount of card advantage if it does get going, because at baseline its two cards a turn, which goes up and up as you keep on getting hits in. After two attacks from this, that 5 points of card advantage seems massive.		Lobotomize feels swingy in a way that's hard to take advantage of. I can do nothing wrong and still whiff my spell, or do nothing right and get a Thoughtseize in Standard. People will play this to try to get lucky, but I'm not sure that's a good play pattern to support. It also, ironically, encourages you to take the draw rather than the play, so that the opponent has one land fewer that'd otherwise decrease the odds of hitting. It's definitely playable. I don't think it's a good kind of playable for a one-mana card. Kinsbaile Greenthumb is neat, and a good kind of snowball-y: you have plenty opportunity to answer a two-mana 1/1 before its advantages scale beyond its cost, and it doesn't let you go down on land count since it can't actually replace the lands. If you have bouncelands or any other "can tap for more than one mana" effect, there's some minor worry there, but I'm not sweating over it. Jadecoil Plumedancer's lacklustre default case, of a 2/2 flyer for 4, makes it hard to rely on making contact, but even one contact certainly pays for itself. I think that level of risk is too much for most Constructed decks, since this as a four-drop without immediate impact is already making it rough to justify as the tempo threat slot. I feel like the conceit would have been more effective smaller and with some more restraint on the second ability. Lots of designers this set did a "draw two" reward for the blue tempo slot. Perhaps you all should share notes.
11
Cjencw#9588https://imgur.com/a/n4g6Bwv22.332.17Surging Hydra (Green large or X-cost creature) - In general, I'm a fan of cards that allow me to trade +1/+1 counters for other advantages, but I'm pretty low on the implementation here. It doesn't really lead to interesting choices, especially with trample - its just "attack, and then remove a bunch of counters to kill them real dead." You could argue it functions as a combat trick as well, but what opposing creatures are going to be matching this at its average size?
Angel of Guidance (White midrange flier) - This is a Fine execution of this slot. It suffices, but it's also an effective french vanilla, and more importantly a french vanilla where the sum of the parts doesn't really add up to a greater package. It's adequate, and I think it would play well, but I think we're getting to the point where we'd like to see more creativity and design intent.
Flameblade Trickster (Red aggressive creature) - This really isn't at a constructed playable rate. No keywords to help evasion or to allow it to have immediate impact, an average statline that doesn't compensate for that, and its ability isn't costed relative to these other factors that make it underrate. Just unfortunately doesn't have any factors that allow me to give this the benefit of doubt.		Surging Hydra: Historically, XG Hydras do not see play in constructed. I don't think the burst potential of this really changes that. The fact that its base body will always be under curve is the big culprit there. I also don't love how the second ability plays since it makes combat math really cryptic, with each counter representing an additional scenario to consider.
Angel of Guidance: Yeah, sure. I suspect in practice mentor will never matter on this card, but mentoring other Angels is kinda cool tech. The third white pip feels unnecessary. Not much else to say here.
Flameblade Trickster: Wha? The body is underwhelming, so I think you're only using this card for the combo potential with the AA. That combo potential is high. Giant Growth makes this 12 damage on turn 4, which feels a little stupid. I generally like "equal to its power" cards, but this particular design feels very feast or famine.		Surging Hydra is a sick mythic slot. It's a big "if I swing, you die" for the double-damage nuke. Reminds me of Bloodthrone Vampire, "nuke my board I win" swings. Looking at this around the five mana zone, where it's "ten damage" as a Ball Lightning, that seems pretty good to me, and it feels simple and provides good space for discovery when new players learn how to use it, and that sometimes it's good to sacrifice for the win. Angel of Guidance's 1WWW mana cost is a statement--that level of colour restriction is pretty unusual for a Core set--but the card being a tuned-up Serra Angel puts it in a great spot for the kind of casual-level kitchen table power format that Core Sets can really handle, although I don't think it does enough to make me interested in it in Constructed... the lack of lifelink, if nothing else, hurts a lot compared to "traditional" Baneslayers since she can't leave much behind if she kicks it. The art is also explicitly Zendikari, but the angel's name and FT are generic, which is missing opportunity to sell me more on the flavour, which the card has the space for. Flameblade Trickster is also quite good at doing the "burst damage" mode, like the hydra, since you can activate the ability more than once in a turn for a Lava Axe effect, which is the most appealing part of it thanks to the unassuming 3/2 for 3 base body. It's funny, that puts it just as much as a red finisher effect as it is a cheap little red guy. There's good argument for this to be the most playable of them all just for the three of dodge-blockers damage, though the lack of keywords hurts somewhat. It's hard to tell how playable these would be in Standard (at least, the hydra and the trickster), because they're dependent on having good mana access, and that's feasible in some Standards but not a given. They land well enough that I'm happy, though.
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continuumg#4356https://imgur.com/a/Hq3RabR2.6711.84Greatclaw Herald unfortunately isn't very great. While you dialed the Core set-ness of this card way up, I think it doesn't really pass as being Constructed worthy. This also really wants some flavor text. Carapaced Ronin is definitely a red game-closer, but I dislike Bushido triggers as it makes going into combat feel too punishing. Blades of Despair I like the most in this entry; divisible drain feels fresh to see. Overall I think having consistent theming across cards and using an ability word (Skirmish) makes this entry sell something more specific than a core-set (I get that Spell mastery exists and we have Landfall as a deciduous ability word, but I just don't see Skirmish as enabling a swath of good designs to be core-set material).Greatclaw Herald: This dies to everything and gets outclassed really quickly on the ground, so unless you're a devotion deck with no other options this isn't making it into a standard deck. Not much more to say about it--it's just too weak.
Carapaced Ronin: Skirmish is going to be a really unfun keyword in practice. Your opponent can play around it entirely when you're attacking, so it's only good if you're really pressuring life total. If you're leaving back to block, your opponent can always choose not to attack, so you end up with long, grueling stalemates trying to prevent skirmishes to trigger. The card itself is fine, but I don't think actually offers enough reach to be interesting as a top-end in a standard power-level deck.
Blades of Despair: This costs too much mana and just doesn't kill enough stuff in constructed. Any deck that wants removal like this just can't spend four mana on an effect that doesn't kill a 4/4. It does offer some interesting reach and 2- or 3-for-1 potential, but not nearly enough to be worth playing, I suspect even as a sideboard slot against aggressive red. Just too much mana.		- Green Aggressive Creature! Greatclaw Herald as a french vanilla creature with keyword reminder text sure is something I could see in a Core Set, but as a Standard-playable card and a Good Survivor Design less so.
- Red Game-Closer Creature! Carapced Ronin can certainly end games, but I don't think it does so in a super interesting way, and I dislike the choice of making Skirmish a mechanic - it doesn't lead to particularly fun play patterns.
- Black Removal! Blades of Despair letting you divide up a drain is cool space to work in, but the rate on this card feels so painful that I can't see it as a Standard staple, or really even playable. Against decks that are pressuring your life total where the lifegain matters, you really don't want to be spending 4 mana on something that can't kill anything with 4 toughness.
Overall I think you played it too safe with your entries, and undershot in terms of power level for Standard playability. The amount of empty space left over on your first two cards (although sneakily covered up by reminder text on Herald) also cries out for flavour text.
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Cool Beens#5114https://imgur.com/a/MqCb8nP3.332.673Envoy of Nature (Green ramp spell or creature) - I'm a big fan of this card. Mana dorks are cards that are hard to make feel unique, especially when their natural powerlevel and role in a deck doesn't usually lend themselves to that variety. Envoy of Nature does a great job of overcoming that hurdle, letting your mana dork punch in in the late game, but including appropriate limiters to make it so that it isn't acceleration and a wincon for free. The limiters are also neat in that they signal "hey, this works best in a stompy shell" without being too narrow/while also allowing it to function in other shells.
Samuel, Intrepid Paragon (Red aggressive creature) - This is a fine card, but a bit by-the-numbers. It hammers in artificially "hey, you should play this in monored. Did you know you should play me in monored? Hey buddy, its me, Samuel. Just calling you to let you know to play me in monored." I'm also a bit suspect of the +1/+1 anthem, given that red anthem effects usually only buff power. That being said, I think that it is similar to Envoy of Nature in that its power budget is appropriately distributed to see play in Standard - which I think is especially notable for a 3-mana aggro creature, because I feel like that's a slot that designers often struggle to goldilocks. Helps you convert a board into a game-ending threat and/or dig for burn, but unlike other aggro topends isn't that useful on his own, so has angles on which you can shut it down.
Till the Fields (White sweeper) - The flavor seems to indicate a Swords to Plowshares reference, but then it gains life based on toughness rather than power - not sure what the factor(s) were behind that decision. I also think that six mana for a wipe is a steep cost without other upside, especially when the control decks that are likely to be playing this won't get much if any value out of the symmetrical lifegain. 		Envoy of Nature: Aww, boo. Putting a mana sink on a mana dork and then not letting you use them together is so sad. I like the second effect independently in theory, though you're almost definitely never activating it because it's SO much mana. Four mana to make this a 4/4 for a turn is so tempo-negative, and it has no evasion itself. This is just a two-mana rainbow dork in practice. Still good enough in some formats, but a real missed opportunity.
Samuel, Intrepid Paragon: Homie literally out here named "Sam" like I wasn't gonna comment on that. This card actually kinda slaps. I like how all the effects fuse together--menace makes your attack trigger more resilient, team buff makes your other red creatures more likely to survive combat. Pretty cool lil guy.
Till the Fields: I'm not sure a six-mana wrath that doesn't hit any permanents other than creatures really gets there in standard these days. This is a cool homage to Swords, and I'd have liked it at five, but when you're looking at Farewell as your six-mana wrath power line, this falls short.		Envoy of Nature lands well as a comfortable green mana dork. I like the combat trigger effect, and it's expensive--so it's something that's really restricted to the lategame, when you've already got good creatures around. But one extra good creature as a mana sink is good use of the otherwise-useless mana dork at that stage in the game. Lands well and feels comfortable; it's the kind of card that could maybe be a Standard role player but requires other good pieces to shine. Samuel seems insane to me, though. Three-drop lord that's type-agnostic and is also an evasion source of a lot of card advantage. The only downside he has is that he can't swing instantly himself... but that's just so much value for a lord whose only ask is to play RDW (a negligable deckbuilding cost). I like the specific call-out for red creatures though as the kind of simple colour-matters cycles that Core Sets are into; it would not take much adjustment numbers-wise for me to feel totally fine with this design as a concept. Till the Fields is a good reference to Swords to Plowshares, replicating the big in macro, but I don't think it needs to cost six mana, since you're unlikely to get much out of it, if you've built your deck right, so it's just a bit more expensive so your opponent can gain extra life. I'd like it at five mana plenty fine. Flavour text is good, and the card also feels appropriate for a Core Set, just a bit overcosted. I think overall the numbers need fiddling but the concepts land and sell themselves well.
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Crashington#5085https://imgur.com/a/okO8wPQ3.672.333Wave of Rot (Black sweeper) - This seems finicky, in a way that hurts its constructed playability. You can conceptualize as a wipe for midrange, where you just sacrifice your board to also kill theirs, but I think if anywhere this will really be used in aristocrats and midrange shells with fodder to break parity. It just seems less reliable than what you want your sweepers to be, though, given your need for your own baord presence. Very matchup dependant/has a high delta, unlike other 1BB sweepers we've seen. Overall, while I think unique card concepts are important at this stage, I think the concept here failed to capitalize on why existing black sweepers are playable and attractive in constructed environments.
Humble Exorcist (White weenie creature) - This is neat. I like the idea of a pushed version of a Banisher Priest that leaves the opposing creature up as a potential blocker as a downside to justify pushing the Priest down the curve. Overall feels like a clean design that naturally explores existing white space.
Root Raiser (Green ramp spell or creature) - This is a cool and unique concept for a mana dork, but likely undesirable for Standard given how much its usecase is dependant on it finding a way to add 2+ mana. Additionally, it not tapping itself to add the mana means that you're getting free board presence, which should be a tradeoff for ramp decks.		Wave of Rot: This card is really not good. I'm trying to imagine a situation in which you feel good about casting this card, and I just can't come up with one. Maybe if your opponent has just made six 3/3s, and you sacrifice a couple of tokens to this? It's just so hard to get in a board position where this does anything in standard.
Humble Exorcist: This is an effect that's better later in the game stapled to a body that's irrelevant later in the game. I think this will shine in the midgame, but I don't quite know how this compares to Fiend Hunter et al, given its lower cost and less powerful effect. It's a neat design for monowhite, assuming that deck gets there in your theoretical standard.
Root Raiser: Weirdo effect! I'd like it much more on a card that did more, probably one aimed for EDH, because it feels zany and combo-y. That is in stark contrast to the very lean mana-dork body and cost you've put the effect on here. This certainly has some interesting lines of play, but it doesn't strike me as a card built for standard just because it's screaming "COMBO ME."		How many creatures of my own do I need to sacrifice for Wave of Rot to be worth it? Sacrificing one makes it a one-sided Infest, which is pretty good, and sacrificing two gets it to the Anger of the Gods level, which is also pretty good. But it is asking me a lot to do that... would these fodder not just be creatures that'd die from those spells if I used them normally? Any chance this has of Standard play depends on a specific deck that can take advantage of a high amount of cheap fodder to take advantage of the symmetry-breaking here, which is context dependent but might exist? It's maybe specifically good for the mirror match, where you've got lots of small creatures and can do outsize damage to their small creatures? But as, like, an anti-aggro tool I suspect just having bodies is going to be just as good at holding them at bay. Humble Exorcist's name feels really odd with the effect, since there's nothing much humble about this, but I like the card. Letting Banisher Priest play even more aggressively at the cost of giving them a free chump blocker if they can't kill it feels fair, strong, and something Standard would want to play. If they chump, you're probably still ahead, so great! Root Raiser seems meh with normal mana, but goes great with something janky that can add more than one mana at once. Kind of like those Lotus Field combo strategies. I think that means in practice it's too niche for regular Standard play, but there's perhaps formats where that kind of jank can be very powerful--if you can sequence it right. The Exorcist is definitely the highlight here, being a Standard player no-questions asked, but all three cards ('cept maybe the Rot) land well as simple and intuitive effects without many moving parts, which set them as good Core Set cards.
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Dodger#3503https://imgur.com/a/hURMcpI34.333.67Starting off strong with Choosing Beggers! Love two mana discard cards and this not only makes sure you hit something, but also isn't feels-bad to play against by not being able to hit lands, while still letting opponents have a gameplane. Very solid design. I do wish you would have flipped the art, though, so the creature types would match up with the art order.
However, for Heavens' Gatekeeper, I am not the biggest fan. It is a bit tame, while also just basically being a semi-fog. It doesn't feel like it'll do much in terms of preventing much besides a hurdle, and not that interesting of one. Vigilance+block-everything is a tried and true method of making it relevant, which is pretty fun, but pretty mid on this.
Inspired Vagabond is definitely a hit, though. Definitely love the flavor and this definitely helps with the normal late game weakness of dorks, while also being just a solid body to soak up some early game damage. Lovely!		Choosing Beggars is neat; love the flavor here. Being a 1/1 for this typeline might not sit well with some but I'm not one to get into that sort of thing. Heavens' Gatekeeper fills the slot well while sporting elegant mechanics; notably multiblockers have gone down in favor in today's age of design but I like it here. Art nitpick: the face not being obscured makes me a little down on this being presented as an Archon, but I guess it can be friends with Ornitharch in that regard. Inspired Vagabond is likewise a similar design. There's relatively recent talk about drawing equal to your creatures is being moved away from green (to being reserved as a multicolor effect), but I'm looking past that for now. Strong entry all in all, good work.- Black Discard! Choosing Beggars' flavour is fantastic and got a chuckle out of me. I love how you tied it into the card's effect without making it feel hamfisted. My favourite Standard formats are ones where Ravenous Rats-like cards are playable, and as someone who's played a lot of Acquisitions Expert, this seems like a great spot to be for a bread and butter Standard card.
- White Midrange Flyer! Funny enough, I've played these kinds of cards more in control decks than midrange ones. It gives a similar vibe to me as Warrant/Warden and The Elder Dragon War - utility that can help a ton in certain matchups (against aggro), but in other matchups is still an efficient (if slightly underwhelming) body. Another solid Core Set-feeling card.
- Green Ramp Creature! Inspired Vagabond as a 2 mana ramper is likely enough to work out in Standard given Druid of the Cowl's playability, and it helps to answer one of the big issues these kinds of ramp decks face with bricking on top-decks with lands or dorks. I think the ability would be better worded as "for each other creature you control" just so it's absolutely clear that it doesn't count itself, but this is a good place to be.
Overall you've done a great job this round, with each card seemingly having solid Constructed applications, feeling adequately Core Set-y, and having fantastic flavour to boot.
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Dork in Distress#5214https://imgur.com/a/Jv8XsJ51.332.331.83Fell Insolence definitely wants to be double pipped, as most sweepers are. I think that this could be very dangerous, but testable as is (given double black pips) given Ritual of Soot, but wow is this exciting for control decks. Lovely pricing otherwise.
Reckoning Blaze 4 damage to any target for 3 mana my beloved. I think the cost on the "flashback" is basically too high to matter at all and I think it detracts from the design too much. It basically pushes you never to burn face just in case you get to that much mana, but I've shot 4 damage burn spells at faces many times to be mana efficient.
Renouncer Mage - hm. I'm not sold on this, I think. Being an Electromancer is definitely nice, but in order to scale up, you basically require a lot of hoops to go through, and for the opponent to play right into those hoops. I think this is a card that promises people on the highs, but will most often just showcase its lows.		Fell Insolence is neat. Sideboard material, but I'm into it as a black sweeper. Reckoning Blaze I think I'm not too huge on. That's an exorbitant mana cost on the AA, but I think I've grown tired of this type of late game reach stapled onto a burn spell. Renouncer Mage meanwhile would be a lot tighter as a design if it wasn't an evasionless 1/1 that asked you to get hits in. Despite the issues I have here I do think this is a solid entry still.- Black Sweeper! Fell Insolence seems like the kind of card that would appear in a Core Set, although it does seem a bit weaker to me than its cousins Temporary Lockdown and Ritual of Soot. Maybe the reduced mana intensity is worth that tradeoff.
- Red Burn Spell! Reckoning Blaze feels like a riff on Worldfire, which is from a Core Set. Unlike Worldfire however, Blaze has an entirely reasonable floor. Worldfire is the kind of card that you can build a deck for if you're feeling incredibly wacky, but is the kind of card that becomes miserable if it's close to reasonably playable, which Blaze is. I think this card would do more harm than good as a staple of its rotation, and is one I could easily see being banned due to its play patterns.
- Blue Tempo Creature! Renouncer Mage being a Goblin Electromancer-like in a single colour isn't a bad place to be at all, although trading off the higher stats and discount to all your I/E spells in exchange for being monocoloured and having the ability to grow doesn't feel like a worthwhile one to me, with the growing ability feeling very difficult to make happen in creature-based decks, and needing to connect three times with your control opponents (and give up on any graveyard spell interactions) in order to deal as much face damage as an Electromancer. Couple other nitpicks with this card include the lack of the Human type given the art, the art choice feeling too cartoonish and stylised for a Core Set, and wanting the word "spell" in the first ability.
Overall I think you started out with the right direction for your cards, but the execution suffered a bit from gameplay patterns or poor comparisons to other pre-existing cards.
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dragonspit999#1777https://imgur.com/a/JbCNqRy222Hm, not the most impressed by Flesh of the Ancients. I think it is a bit too meek for what it is doing. XBB is really the cost you want for these types of effects (see Meathook Massacre) as once you hit 3 for the starting cost, it starts not being able to actually do its job as a sweeper. Sure, getting a body left over is definitely a boon, but not one enough to only kill one toughness creatures for 4 mana.
Reef Thief is absolutely adorable. This definitely has a place, though it might be too anemic as a threat to do the job that tempo normally wants from three drops, but that's a testing question. Definitely feels like it'd be fun to play.
War is a solid art + name combo. I do think there should be a bit more of a choice vs blocking and not blocking here, though. Currently you just never block it, since it's never going to die in combat as a 4 power first strike (especially on the defense!) but it also will just dome the opponent for the same amount as if they just never blocked it. Not the biggest fan.		Flesh of the Ancients: Mixing generic and X in mana costs should be done sparingly, if at all, and I don't think this design is novel enough to get away with it. Reef Thief is Wavebreak Hippocamp shifted around, though it having Flash now I suppose is big for where this slots into. Losing card avantage generation does make me like this less as a rare. War, despite its flavor text, will end games quick when it sticks. I like the vibe here, and it does tick the box on red game-closer sufficiently, but I'm not sure I'm too fond of this on the defense. More misses here than hits, I think.- Black Sweeper! The combination of X and generic mana in this card's cost immediately stands out as something that doesn't feel super Core Set-y to me, with the last time this appeared in a Core Set being in M13. I think a Meathook Massacre-like is something that would generally be above what I'd expect in terms of Core Set power level, but it's simple enough that I could see it.
- Blue Tempo Creature! Reef Thief's focus on casting spells during your opponent's turn feels to me like something that would be too finnicky and too demanding of set knowledge for a Core Set to support, but Brineborn Cutthroat does say otherwise so I won't knock you there. I think this card feels on the weak end in terms of being Standard playable, especially being a Standard mainstay for its rotation, but isn't a bad attempt.
- Red Game-Closer Creature! War stands out to me as not feeling super representative of Elemental Incarnations by just being a regular beater. This combination of abilities (first strike and a creature-kill trigger) is something that's come up several times previously in this competition as not having great play patterns, since you can only punish your opponent for blocking a creature so hard until it boils down to "this creature can't be blocked".
Overall I think you captured the simplicity and cleanness of Core Set aesthetics well in your submission, but a greater focus on power level and gameplay patterns would have helped to push you further.
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Dravos Argentium#2315https://imgur.com/a/zWK70gO12.331.67Light of Life's Bounty (Green ramp spell) - Two mana land ramp is pretty strong, but this being limited to basic forests alleviates that a bit. I'm not sure what to make of the untap condition; I guess it's to make the care better in the lategame, but it feels sort of tacked on/not really necessary.
The Artistic Process (Blue counterspell) - Interesting flavor/FT - perhaps inspired by the process of coming up with these cards? :P As a design, I think this is underestimating how good slapping a wincon, however small, onto a counterspell is. Blue treasure is also something that's generally no longer in pie. I like the concept of a modal upside counterspell, but I'm not a fan of the specific modes chosen here.
Kaezhik, Who Heralds Ash (Red game-closer creature) - Pretty solid game-ending bomb for its cost, little to say about it. There is a lot of onus on 6+ mana cards in standard to have high impact, and I think this gets there with the immediate 6/6 flier at minimum, but it's a close thing/very environment dependant.		Light of Life's Bounty is a 2 mana ramp spell with possible upside, which is on the do-not-print list. The flavor here is definitely old-flavor Selesnya rather than new/current Selesnya, which is a bit iffy for a core set, which is meant to reinforce the current multiverse.
The Artistic Process feels weird, flavor-wise. This isn't a ding, but blue doesn't get to make Treasure like this anymore. The token it makes is also a bit weird, as enchantment-creautres, currently, are pretty Theros-only, and this isn't a Theros-y card. Definitely feels strong in weird ways.
Kaezhik feels much more like a glorified enchantment rather than a cool/fun creature in its own right. "At the beginning of combat on your turn". Also, basically a 6/6 haste flier that also pushes everything else? Hm, I think it's in the weird spot where it's not actually going to be played, since aggro wants to win before it drops a 6 drop (5 being a very important number for/against aggro in terms of when wraths come down) but also a bit too impactful at 6 mana. Very weird spot to be in.		Standard has not been welcoming to two mana ramp like this in a while, so I'm not sure this was wise (or at least in theory Rampant Growth-alikes have been frowned upon, but I suppose Wolfwillow Haven was a thing). The untap clause I'm not too keen on, either. The Artistic Process is pretty strong as far as upside Cancels go, and I like the flavor here, but two things of note: 1) Blue isn't supposed to get unconditional Treasure like this anymore, and 2) I think making the token an enchantment, despite playing into the flavor of the card/art, is something a Core set would likely opt not to do. Kaezhik I can definitely see as a Core set legend. Usually I'm low on cards that just grant +1/+1 counters to your board every turn you take, but this is 6 mv and is a 1/1 while putting your creatures in some amount of risk, so that's not a problem. This also feels like its more of a Casual card than anything.
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elmikkino#2135https://imgur.com/a/ISl0A8b2.333.332.83I dislike the flavor of Cut Breath. The name+FT implies a kill spell, while this is much more of a discard spell. Overall, this is a bit... okay. I think it does a good job of being solid, as shown by some other cards that have played in this space.
Dragonlamp Giant is definitely exciting. Big red big red! I do think that this is much of a "value engine" rather than a game-closer, but it definitely threads the line very closely. Still a fun idea.
Sun Ascendant is a bit overtuned, I think. Skymarcher Aspirant was solid and it doesn't take much for a lion to be good. I think the 4 life is the most frustrating, though, cause it promotes a board stall that then just keeps stalling. Or, you just grow up creatures too quickly for a "free" value engine like this, playing more and more into board wipes.		Cut Breath is fine if Ostracize ends up being playable; I just think the failcase here isn't enough. Dragonlamp Giant definitely feels like a Core set mythic, and I love the design for carrying the visuals/flavor theming here. Sun Ascendant I would like much more without the third mode; I think that's just too much life to be gaining from a Savannah Lions, and think of it in multiples, especially since it triggers the turn it comes down as well. Despite some issues here and there, this was a decent entry overall.- Black Discard! Cut Breath certainly seems like a powerful discard effect, and I think I'd argue it's on the slightly too strong end for Standard. Having no drawback makes me think this would make the cut in every black deck, and would be quite effective in putting a chokehold on creature decks in the format. I would expect this kind of card to also come with a 1 life loss rider in situations where you draw.
- Red Game-Closer! Dragonlamp Giant seems like it does a bit too much for a red 5-drop. I think flipping one card per turn would be enough, or flipping until you hit a nonland card, which would also help reduce the swinginess of not being able to control whether you flip lands or your top-end. Needing to track multiple cards in exile with this that expire at different times also has finnicky play patterns associated with it that don't feel super Core Set-y. The flavour of this card also doesn't super come through for me - where is the dragon?
- White Weenie! Sun Ascendant having the potential to be a Luminarch Aspirant as a Savannah Lion is terrifying, so I'm glad you set the threshold at a point where it's almost impossible to be live until at least turn 3. It's difficult to imagine many situations where you're picking any mode other than the counter - flying could come up against midrange or ramp decks where you just need that extra bit to win, but in the situations where the lifegain matters (against other aggro decks), I think you'd be prioritising blocking and trading with your opponents' creatures, where you probably won't be left with enough creatures for the ability to trigger. I think giving up the modality and just sticking with the counter would make this feel like more of a Core Set design.
Overall I think each of your cards would make a splash in Standard, although they felt like they overshot the mark slightly in terms of power level and complexity for a Core Set.
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EpicToast#4314https://imgur.com/a/RpLJHjc4.3344.17Thirst for Normalcy is a very neat twist on the thirst cycle and definitely one that just seemlessly fits in with Magic. I do think the flavor here is a bit out there for a core set, though.
Vanish definitely feels and is flavored more like a kill spell than a discard spell, which feels like a miss. OTherwise, this is perfectly fine, though fatesealing is a bit of an iffy, given how poorly that plays.
Uncontrollable Blaze is really neat. Love it and the flavor here.		Thirst for Normalcy: Love this. Thirst spinoffs are one of my favorite designs, and this one is new and interesting. I'd play this in standard and I'd be happy to do so.
Vanish: I've definitely designed this card before. I think the last ability is mostly just chaff because the card advantage element is too brutal otherwise, so I haven't found this effect to play really any differently from other hand attack.
Uncontrollable Blaze: I like pushed removal like this. Honestly, I think this could do 5 damage, but it's much safer at 4. This is notably a card that's specifically better in standard than other formats because standard is much more likely to have thicker threats (whereas faster formats have faster creatures). Cool card.		Thirst for Normalcy - Sweet! Big fan of the Thirst for cards, and this is a fun condition that feels unique and still very simple, which I like.
Vanish - Sure? I can't imagine you really ever hit a topdeck card with this unless there are literally no other legal targets or your opponent is about to draw like, the one game-winning out they have, but sure. Definitely is balanced compared to a Pilfer.
Uncontrollable Blaze - Simple, clean, and powerful removal! I'm a fan. I like how it encourages you to hit the biggest targets possible and potentially save your removal until those come out.
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Fleur#9674https://imgur.com/a/sN1aJzW3.332.673Blazing Salvation definitely is a super strong card, and one that I think is a bit too pushed. This has a form of Purphoros's Intervention and then a huge bonus on top of that, being a form of an on board removal that looks a bit miserable to play against. Basically pushes you to not ever cast things and just body aggro decks that thought they could play 3 toughness and lower creatures.
Lochthwain Reaver should have menace above the ETB abiity. Not the biggest fan of this, as I would rather it have bit more breadth and don't think it is that suitable as a rare. Uncommon would be a much better fit. I think this has room to be powered up or at least make a tad more interesting.
Radiant Chaplain is a very nice soul sister. Very fun card that I think would easily not only push the deck up, but also gives the deck a win con, which it normally lacks. Or, the ones that it does have get chumped easily.		Blazing Salvation: This card is definitely powerful enough to be played in standard red decks, but it feels quite clumsy in execution. The "twice X damage" feels imperfect, and the activated ability doesn't really feel like it ties in with the ETB at all. I like the inevitability of it for big red control, but the fine-tuning needs work.
Lochthwain Reaver: Hmm. I'm wondering if this effect at 3 actually gets there in standard. I don't recall seeing this be incredibly effective beyond mv2, but the body isn't totally negligible (3/2 menace with upside can get there). It feels like an appropriate flavor beat for a core set as well.
Radiant Chaplain: I'm also not sure if this gets there in standard. Soul Warden only plays if there are lifegain payoffs, and really expensive AAs like this don't generally get activated in constructed games. I also really don't like effects that scale with the size of your board, because in constructed if your board is big you're probably already winning. Top to bottom, this feels like a big limited hit and unlikely to make an impact anywhere else.		Blazing Salvation - Sure? Definitely potentially viable as a removal option with lategame inevitablity, but the card feels pretty disjointed and awkward with those abilities not really interconnecting at all.
Locthwain Reaver - Menace above the text of the card. Don't think this is really anything powerful in Standard, as the 2/1 version of the body probably just doesn't do much, but the idea is solid and it might have a home in some deck that keys off of discard effects.
Radiant Chaplain - I think this is a cool idea - maybe on the weaker side, but I like the design and how it asks you to be playing a lot of cheaper tokens or just small creatures to fuel both parts of the card. In a set with payoffs for that first ability, I could definitely see this finding some kind of home.
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Garduu#1615https://imgur.com/a/kkfnlyh433.5Hero of New Benalia is definitely pushed, and I definitely think it's smart that it doesn't count itself. Definitely a good knob to have! I think it's on the testable level, but definitely exciting.
Gleeful Saboteur looks like it may be a bit too frustrating. Get it in once and it'll be super hard to recover, but before that you basically use up so much in order to get to that state. I definitely love the flavor, but I don't know if the numbers here are hitting right.
Nassari's Prodigy is definitely exciting. I think the flavor text is a bit of a miss, cause I don't think the other colleges would care too much about her, but the card itself is definitely fun, exciting, and provides an avenue for building around.		Hero of New Benalia is a powerful Savannah Lions, but I'm into it. It still gets bodied by wraths, at least. Not huge into protection itself but at least it's not from a color. Gleeful Saboteur does not strike me as a Constructed card at all. That AA is too expensive. I'd play this in limited but I won't be happy sleeving this up for Constructed. Nassari's Prodigy is my favorite card in this entry. This counting itself on the turn it comes down on curve is neat, and the potential to swarm the board with Wizards on the following turns sounds like a good time. This is clearly meant for the red aggro creature slot, but I like that it also works for spellslinger. I'd have scored this entry higher if it weren't for the Saboteur, but overall it's still a decent entry.- White Weenie! Hero of New Benalia certainly seems like a strong fast hitter, I think maybe too much so. Only needing 1-2 other creatures to be immune to most forms of cheap interaction, and unblockable by early creatures, both in a way that only grow from there, feels incredibly difficult to overcome while also not asking you to do anything particularly different from what a white weenie deck would want to do anyway. It also feels more mathy than would be fun to actually play out with, especially with mid-combat removal spells, first strike, etc, in a way that makes it feel less Core Set-y. I think this would greatly benefit from being on only temporarily, such as an attack trigger.
- Blue Tempo Creature! Gleeful Saboteur feels a bit confused to me. The first ability only does something if your opponent has creatures, and the only situations I can imagine where your opponent is not blocking your evasionless creature is if they're on the beatdown, in which case you're probably on the backfoot and would prefer to be using this to trade up on blocks. The activated ability is also very expensive for what it provides, and sinking this much mana into something that doesn't really forward your gameplan by much (unlike Spectral Sailor) feels like the opposite of what a blue tempo deck wants out of its creatures.
- Red Aggressive Creature! Nassari's Prodigy has a super interesting final ability. I love its impersonation of Legion Warboss, especially with it seeing itself as a cast. With how much that ability asks you to cast spells precombat however, prowess sticks out as a strange include with how much tension those two abilities have with each other. I'd be higher on this card if it didn't have prowess. Wording-wise, I think that last ability would read more cleanly if it were worded "... attacks, for each spell you've cast this turn, create a ..."
Overall I think each of your cards came close to feeling Core Set-y, but all missed slightly on that for me. I appreciate that each of your cards lended themselves to some sort of creative deckbuilding or gameplay, but each of them suffered from a kind of gameplay pattern or interaction that would benefit from picturing how they would have played in practice, and what a turn involving their casting or attacking would play out like.
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Grapple#8658https://imgur.com/a/mepPiVS232.5Peerless Warrior hm. I think this is a bit iffy in terms of being viable, since there are a lot of instances where an opponent can killoff one of your bigger creatures, shrinking this, then you lose this due to the damage already on it, leading to a very sad blow out. The flavor is awesome, though.
Raise Your Shields is definitely weird. Winds of Rath say that this is probably undercosted, esepcially since creatures/artifacts/enchantments normally is enough to be "destroy all nonland permanents" which is ~6 mana. This having an option of protecting some of your own creatures pushes it over the edge for me even more. Also don't like how this plays into the weaknesses of Auras way too much.
Think Small - A tried and true card that's been in REV and MSEM and is always just solid. Definitely love the flavor here. Very fitting for Ertai and for the spell itself.		Peerless Warrior is interesting flavor and likewise interesting enough to make work in Constructed. Raise Your Shields mechanically is a bit fiddly as far as wraths go but is carried by the flavor. I like Think Small a lot. It's a functional reprint of a relatively popular custom format card, Cursory Glance, and I'm choosing to believe you weren't aware of that. Solid entry overall.- Green Aggro Creature! Peerless Warrior certainly seems like a strong hitter, but this kind of power-scaling and tracking feels like something that wouldn't generally appear in a Core Set, especially not below rare. I think this would end up playing too powerfully in Limited for what's desirable in a Core Set as well. The cardname mentioning Peerless also feels a bit mismatched with the flavour and ability.
- White Sweeper! Raise Your Shields is an interesting place to be. When the kinds of categories that a sweeper misses are niche (like enchanted/equipped creatures), that heavily suggests to me that the sweeper is intended as a kind of buildaround where you run creatures that it doesn't kill. However, the fact that this also destroys artifacts and enchantments makes it a pretty poor buildaround in that regard. If we're ignoring its applications as a buildaround and going with the default of a format where auras and equipment aren't run, I think a 5 mana card that destroys all creatures, artifacts, and enchantments is on the too powerful end. Being a full 1 mana cheaper than Farewell in exchange for not exiling, hitting graveyards, or having modality still feels like an incredibly solid place to be, especially given Farewell's playability in formats other than Standard.
- Blue Counterspell! Think Small ironically is a card that exists and has seen a lot of play in both of the two major Custom Magic formats (although I won't knock you for that because I'm assuming you haven't played either of them). Given that context, I can absolutely say that this card would see play, and is simple enough to feel Core Set-y, although I think you could have shown a bit more creativity in this submission than simply an inverse Disdainful Stroke.
Overall I think each of the cards in your submission hit part of the brief, and you had the right idea in mind for each of them. There were a few tweaks that I think could have improved each of them, but a solid entry nonetheless.
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Hizack#0178https://imgur.com/a/HFIOKZs2.6711.84Contingency is fine as far as Cancels go, and I do appreciate the inclusion of reminder text for the Stifle effect. Muster the Forces I'm not a fan of. Swingy removal that's bad when you're behind, especially after a sweeper, which the go-wide decks that would enable this would have to face. Offerings to the Abyss looks like a trap; getting this countered is a death sentence. First two cards could really use some flavor text, but I'm not sure it would have improved my rating of this entry much.Contingency: Meh. This is just Disallow but better, right? I don't feel like that's a card that really need a confusing upgrade.
Muster the Forces: This isn't really a card that sees play in standard formats. Building a wide board is generally just good enough in decks trying to do so, so having your removal rely on you already being in a good position is far from optimal. The only card I can think of that saw any play like this was Kabira Takedown, and that was only because it was a land on the other side, and not very much play at all.
Offerings to the Abyss: There's no value for X where this is playable. Sacrificing five creatures to draw five cards and make a Demon will never happen, and especially not when you factor in the six mana. In general you're only sacrificing creatures to draw cards if it doesn't cost you a card to do so, and this always will.		- Blue Counterspell! Contingency feels a bit odd for a Core Set-include, particularly with its second mode being (mostly) uncounterable (and I kinda dislike that the best way of answering Contingency's ability-hate is with another Contingency). A design derivative of (and better than) Disallow doesn't do the best job here.
- White Removal! Muster the Forces' effect isn't generally something that's super desirable for Standard go-wide white decks. The lifegain isn't all that relevant for these decks since they'd rather use their creatures to toussle with opposing creature decks, and their choices of removal tends to be ones that also produce creatures (Banisher Priest/Brutal Cathar etc).
- Black Draw! Offerings to the Abyss has a lot of asks. Needing to pay 1 mana and a creature for each additional draw makes for an excruciatingly slow scale, especially at sorcery speed so it can't be used to dodge removal. I have issues with cards like X Sun's Twilight, being X spells that get better at a certain threshold, because X spells already have kind of a functionally infinite ceiling, limited only by your mana expenditure. It's generally their floor that needs the help, not the ceiling. This also has the additional downside of each increase in X requiring an extra creature to sacrifice, which compounds the issue of an awful floor.
Overall the ards in your submission don't feel particularly well-suited for Standard, and dabble in areas of complexity and gameplay that don't feel the most appropriate for a Core Set. The amount of empty space on your cards also really strongly cries out for flavour text.
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Holmishire#0960https://imgur.com/a/OaBDRwZ222Alight (Red burn spell) - Essentially a variation on Fling that keeps the creature around a bit longer? Fling has only very rarely been playable in Standard, and by keeping the creature around longer this aims to punch the power up a bit to compensate for that, but I don't think that reflects an understanding of why this effect doesn't see play. Fling is generally a feast-or-famine effect that you don't want to push into concistency for constructed. As is, this functions the same as Fling, except its asking you to use mutliple copies in the same turn/otherwise use it as a combo piece. This tried to explore a less-often style of red burn effect, which I appreciate, but the execution fell short.
Shrinking Lily (Blue tempo creature) - The vigilance here feels tacked on - as a 2/1 body, you're not often likely to want to block with this in tempo unless something has gone very wrong. You can try to infinitely block with the "phase out" ability, but that's not an ideal play pattern itself. As a tempo creature, I think the last two abilities show an understanding of what tempo creatures want - evasion and protection - but needing consistent fuel to make it evasive makes it too weak to effectively leverage.
Immersion (Green ramp spell) - I think like the other cards, this is just underrate for standard. Three mana ramp is playable with upside, but here the additional flexibility isn't enough to justify it unless the deck has strong grave synergies. I do like that because the ramp mode is weaker, more power budget can be put into this as a lategame Regrowth/general digging tool so you don't get A+B'ed as often - however, I also think that effect takes focus away from what we asked for for this slot.

Overall, I think there were some interesting card concepts here, but in general they didn't quite hit the mark of what the slots were asking for, and were under the powerlevel we were expecting for this round.		Alight: The middle child of Soul's Fire and Fling. Neither is really a standard all-star, nor is this. This is so fragile as it opens you up to really clear 2-for-1's, and since it forces a sacrifice it basically means this is a combo piece and a combo piece alone. Also the delayed trigger means you can do weird things with its timing windows if you cast it during an end step. Overall, I just think this doesn't fit the brief.
Shrinking Lily: This isn't really standard power-level, either. Straight-up, I don't think you're ever discarding a card to phase this out unless you're doing something else with the card you discarded (madness, reanimator, etc). Two mana blue tempo creatures need to either nave flash or be doing something special in combat to make it, and this is neither.
Immersion: Yeah, I think this is again just too weak for standard. Three-mana Growths are good in limited, but they're usually way too slow for standard. This has the added effect of being a Regrowth, but three mana for a Regrowth is also just too expensive for standard.		I love Fling. Alight is Fling+, with some situations where it gets to be Temur Battle Rage instead. Just being able to dome someone with your biggest creature for extra reach is a good time, a good move, and an appealing card, and it gets to play into good space to teach new players with, how to finish games and the value of expending creatures. Very little else needs to be said; it's good, I like it, and it's the kind of card that crops up just enough in Standards to make it hit the power level marker. Shrinking Lily has an awkward timing, where it asks you to play out your spells and draw your cards precombat, so you can't leave mana up for tricks or counterspells like a tempo deck wants, which hurts its viability--but it still works well in the tempo battleplan of "creature that attacks for a benefit + protects using that benefit" that makes you start snowballing and keeps the pressure up. I'd just want something that lets you hold up mana and not play your cards precombat more. Immersion is a great bit with the art and FT puns; being both literal and scholastic. Card seems great, too; it lets you use it proactively to be a ramp effect and fill the graveyard, or you can use it as a Nature's Spiral, or you can use it just to dig for a permanent. Very flexible while retaining elegance and simplicity. Top-tier card, and definitely could justify some Standard play if there's a slower green deck that wants to leverage the graveyard. The green ramp spells, I think, have been some of the best entries in this whole round. At least the ones I've seen.
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Jallaba#5984https://imgur.com/a/4MHVwZI2.672.332.5- Blue Tempo Creature! Stargrazing Dreamer (Stargazing I assume was the intention) seems like it would be an annoying threat for control decks to handle (generally how tempo creatures go), although it feels quite poor into creature-based decks, needing a lot of mana sunk into it over time (which is not where Tempo generally wants to be). I think the triple abilities is something Core Sets tend to avoid, but more than that, the 9 lines make this feel not super Core Set-y to me. I think you could have lost two lines with a shorter card name, and using "it" in the first ability in place of the second cardname.
- Black Removal! Killed During the Night (capital D) feels overly pushed to me, and not in a way that would play out super interestingly. I don't think this design feels particularly Core Set-y with how fiddly the discount is. I think the flavour is kinda cheesy, and would have read better with a subtler cardname.
- Green Ramp Spell! Seeds for the Future seems like it would play out quite interestingly, not helping you ramp to 4 mana on turn 3 but getting you to 5 early. Only fetching Forests is a safety toggle that I could see not being necessary, but I appreciate the inclusion anyway. The stun counter feels kinda too cute for a Core Set, but I think this would likely play out positively.
Overall I think you were headed in the right direction with your submission. There were a few hurdles, but nothing incredibly major.		Stargrazing Dreamer (I assume you wanted Stargazing) - This feels pretty weak, honestly? Against nearly any creature deck, this is going to require a ton of mana put into to generate advantage, and phasing it out is a pretty big cost considering that it costs you a turn of building up counters (two turns if you're phasing this out in response to an instant spell on your turn), as well as effectively making the mana you spent into it for those one or two activations end up being a waste. The design is very cool conceptually, and the idea is there, but the execution is a off. I think it also might have been worth it to cut down on text by cutting abilities or finding other ways to save space, as this feels cluttered, especially for a Core Set card.
Killed during the Night - Sure? While I think the design is fine, it just feels a little derivative, which I don't super love but also isn't really a big deal in the Core Set challenge. Not sure where it stacks up power-wise: might be fine based on Damn, but it does seem a little spooky. Overall, a fine enough card.
Seeds for the Future - Cool! I like how this would make a ramp deck play differently, setting up for a big turn 4 rather than a big turn 3. Seems like it would shift around the types of threats you'd want to be playing, which I think is a cool distinction. Simple and clean, and also pretty interesting!		Stargrazing Dreamer (Grazing? Like she eats them?) lands well as a solid tempo card, combining an efficient slith-condition with evasion and removal protection that's fair-balanced by its lacklustre start and mana-hungry activated ability. There's weird typos and general oddities with the card's formatting, though, like the extra space before the colon in its last ability, the extra space after its 1 power, and, well, stargrazing instead of stargazing. Double check for these things! These are nasty formatting errors that hurt a lot at this stage in the competition. Killed During the Night is potentially a little too good, but I like the two modes of it, where you either get Hero's Downfall, or you get the classic black Constructed kill spell at two mana as a sorcery. It comfortably does its job, feels simple like a core set effect, and is strong enough that I'd probably start with a few copies in any black deck I'd make. Minor quibble: don't put spaces in the flavour text's ellipses. It should just be "...". Seeds for the Future is a great use of a stun counter. Really clever way to do a ramp spell: you still get the coveted noncreature two-mana ramp, so it's guarenteed results, but not being able to use that mana on turn three is a big tempo cost that more proactive midrange decks can't take good advantage of, softly forcing it into slower decks and increasing the time an opponent can go under it. Easily my favourite card here. It's great.
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Legion#9189https://imgur.com/a/VSdqj022.332.332.33Crossbowman's Retort is today's Char, exchanging the loss of 1 generic to do away with the self-Shock. Clean and simple and potent; definitely Core set material; most Rx decks would be happy with this. Similarly, Desecrate tries to be on that level of Core-set simplicity, but the question here is where do you play it? I've tried printing this card too, and the feedback I received then still feels pertinent now: Control would appreciate the creature wipe, but getting rid of its own planeswalkers isn't enticing. Devour Odium rides out this submission on the same simple train but falls flat on being something I'd interested in in Constructed. Flavor text for these is sufficient but I wish the effort that went into making these cards Core set-like also went into their Constructed applications.Crossbowman's Retort (Red burn spell) - It's a Char sidegrade, though generally an upgrade given that the single additional red pip doesn't matter much. I think this underestimates the potential warping 4 damage for 3 mana, especially at instant speed and with no other conditions, could likely do to an environment.
Desecrate (Black sweeper) - Sure, it exists. It's just a five-mana wipe that hops on the recent trend of "also destroys planeswalkers" in common black removal, not much to say about it. One knob of note is that killing PWs means that this would likely require control decks that run this to have non-PW finishers, but that's not too big an ask.
Devour Odium (White removal spell) - This is the weakest link in the entry. This type of "destroy attacking/blocking creature" removal generally hasn't been playable since Immolating Glare, and even then it was the efficient rate that brought it there. You could argue that against aggro, the lifegain is meaningful upside that justifies this being playable despite being more expensive, but I think it ends up dubious.

Overall, I think this entry had card concepts that were too simple, failing to draw out unique designer intent or play patterns.		Crossbowman's Retort is definitely a basic version of the effect, but still lovely. Love the flavor text!
Desecret is also a bit basic, but, does the job well.
Devour Odium feels a bit too much and I don't think it belongs at common. Having a punisher like this at common pushes games to stall a bit if the mana is left open, which pushes games to just last way longer than they should. For constructed, I think this does a lot of the same types of bits as Settle the Wreckage in a kind of unfun way.
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Lordpat#1042https://imgur.com/a/PDNcIik33.333.17Empty the Mind (Black discard effect) - Seems solidly Fine, though I'm struggling to think of scenarios where you'd really prefer to cycle this over grabbing something from an opponent. Still, maybe later in the game if you really need a wipe or piece of removal, the cycling is just additional flexibility, so it isn't bad - I just don't know how meaningful of an upside/knob it feels to me.
Lura, Wilderness Incarnate (Green aggressive/stompy creature) - Lura scales terrifyingly quickly, starting out effectively as a "3/2" for 2, and only getting bigger from there. I'm suspect of how cheaply it allows you to never run out of lands, especially since its really only costing you 1 mana a turn if you have a land drop open. I kind of wish this was less straightforward and potentially had a different rate on the ability, but otherwise I think it suffices as a scaling green creature.
Nomad Researcher (Blue tempo creature) - I like that this requires fodder to be effective, so unless you're going cantrip --> counterspell, this won't be live t3 consistently without additional support. I think it also bouncing nonland permanents might lead to it doing too much on its own - counterspell, Man-o-War, and 3-power flying threat. Still, I think the combination of Flash, evasion, and temporary interaction shows a good understanding of what tempo creatures require to be effective.		Empty the Mind - I like Pilfers-with-upside, and this is a pretty interesting way of doing that. I like the option for cycling the card late-game where you either need to dig for something or just whiff on hitting any cards, and I feel like this is solidly balanced compared to other Pilfer+'s like Agonizing Remorse.
Lura - Not sure how to feel here, I think this is likely too efficient. Just seems like a really efficiently growing creature, especially because it ignores the primary drawback for landfall, which is that lategame you might miss your triggers, as it lets you pick up potentially multiple lands a turn if you have nothing to do with your turn or any amount of mana open.
Nomad Researcher - Super cool! I like that you have to play a spell on turns 1 and 2, or two on turn 2, if you want to play this on curve on turn 3. I do think that the power level is a little worrying, as on base it is a 3-power flyer for 3 with a lot of potential upside, but generally I think it's a fun card.		If I'm playing Distress, I'm going to be taking a card from their hand. The value of Thoughtseizes is that when I trade card-for-card, I trade up. That makes the upside on this pretty negligable, since I don't think I'm often going to take it unless I'm already in a great place and my opponent doesn't have anything good in their hand. It's strictly-bettering Pilfer, but not in a way that I think opens up the card to any new opportunities or effects Pilfer doesn't already do... so it's probably Standard playable, but very functionally as a reprint. Like, it can cycle? That does negate a topdeck weakness, but not in a way I'm impressed by. Lura seems great. It's a scaling threat that allows you to turn excess mana into extra cards. Who cares if they're Forests? Cards are cards. It has a lot of similar vibes to Tireless Tracker, but reversed, and that's a good card. Plus this is cheaper! I'm pretty interested in this as a Standard power-level card, either as an aggressive body or a midrange enabler. Nomad Researcher's name doesn't make sense to me, but the card lands as a great tempo threat. 3/1 flash flyer for 3 is already real good, and being able to lategame get a Venser, Shaper Savant out of it at the cost of having done something you already do? Sounds great to me. There's no point in the game where I'm unhappy with this unless the rest of my deck hasn't been functioning, but there's very serious timing windows where it's not online that keeps it in check. Sounds great for Standard.
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MBTree#8051https://imgur.com/a/He6YK1O54.334.67Planeswalker familiar tempo creature that's strong and exciting to play, check. Flavorful (but generically high fantasy flavorful) Savannah Lions for white aggro, check. Awesome mythic Iconic finisher for control/big red, check. You nailed this round, and that's really all I have more to say.Teferi's Emissary: This is a very niche card, but it's definitely playable in that niche (Elemental tribal mirroring Spirits, or blue Curiosity aggro). I think it's a cool and flexible effect for that style of deck. I also quite like the flavor!
Forgotten Heir: Feels weird that this is a 2/1 on its base. Gaining just one power when it becomes a Knight doesn't really track to me. The effect is neat (as much as I personally hate effects like this at instant speed), but I don't think the numbers are quite right. On that note, also not a fan of the effect being instant speed but granting vigilance. A bit of a nonbo.
Tempestheart Dragon: Neat. This definitely ends the game for a big red deck, though six mana is a bit of a heavy price tag these days. I like doing the Chandra thing on cards that aren't Chandra, and 3 damage feels like about as much damage as you can deal without it being the obvious right answer to just shoot every time.		- Blue Tempo Creature! Teferi's Emmisary feels a bit derivative of Zephyr Sentinel, but not setting you back mana by bouncing something probably helps a good deal in a tempo deck where you care less about things like etb triggers, and not being tribal-locked makes it seem more generically good for more open-ended tempo decks with flash or instant-speed themes.
- White Weenie Creature! Forgotten Heir is probably playable just by nature of being a Savannah Lion with upside. The "if it's a Peasant" terminology makes me feel like it's intended as a reference to Figure of Destiny-likes, which makes me wonder why it doesn't have another ability of the same kind, or if not then why it calls out the Peasant type at all. Only gaining 1/2 worth of stats is a bit underwhelming for the ability itself (not power level of the card overall since that's definitely fine), and I could see the creature maybe wanting to become legendary itself if legends is a theme, but these are mostly minor gripes.
- Red Game-Closer Creature! Tempestheart Dragon certainly closes out games. As much of a cost that 6 mana is, I feel like this does a bit too much. If your opponent uses removal on this on their next turn after you've cast it, then it's done 10 damage already, so I think it could stand to lose the "dies" part or have the damage reduced to 2. That said, this is certainly an exciting and compelling reason for red decks in the format to want games to go slightly longer.
Overall I think you did a solid job all around, with each card feeling Core Set-able and Standard viable. I think some tiny tweaks could be in order for the last two, but nothing major that detracts from a good entry all up.
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Meat Thins#5352https://imgur.com/a/OWNk18022.332.17Arson (Red burn spell) - I think this is a heads-up condition, making use of the fact that aggro decks tend to empty their hands faster than their opponents do.
Nomadic Hero (White weenie creature) - Attack triggers are use "whenever," not "when." Also, as written, Nomadic Hero gains indestructible forever. If that was intentional, then should've used a counter or mentioned it was indefinite in reminder text, but I suspect it wasn't intentional. Reading it as such, it has Adanto Vanguard vibes, trading dodging removal for being generally more effective against creature decks. Unfortunately, as written, it ends up unweildy/ not up to the standard that's expected.
Thought Harvest (Black discard effect) - Mind Rot really isn't a constructed level effect, and I don't think this gets there even with the ability to "draw" one of discarded cards. Just too slow for the decks that would otherwise most benefit from low-resource games. 		Arson - Solid idea! I like that this pairs nicely with red burn decks, since you're going to empty out your hand with cheaper cards, and then this condition lets you score for a bunch of damage because of it. There definitely is the fear that this is too efficient as a game-ender, as you could absolutely catch your opponent stuck up with cards in their hand and obliterate their life total. I think it's likely fine because of the double red in the cost, though.
Nomadic Hero - Sure - a little derivative of the last idea, but generally a 3/1 1W with this style of conditional indestructible is a cool idea, and I like that it really encourages you to go all out on playing your cards. Wording-wise, you have two errors here with "when" instead of "whenever", and the significantly more major issue that the indestructible as written lasts forever instead of going away at end of turn.
Thought Harvest - Huh. While I do really like this concept, and would love to play it somewhere if it saw play, I'm not sure that this is seeing play anywhere. Mind Rots don't usually make the cut, and I think getting one of the two worst cards in your opponent's hand doesn't really make up for that.		How big does the card differential have to be for Arson to be worth it? If they have three, and I have none, I pay RR for Lightning Strike (or five mana to get Lava Axe). If I have more or they have less, the rate gets rougher, and it doesn't really work at all in the early-game when we both have lots of cards in hand. I think that restricts this in practice to a narrow range of useability where they have a mega hand and I have nothing, because I definitely don't want to play this when I'm not getting a big discount, as the base rate being mostly Blaze is not really Constructed playable. So the narrowness here feels like a fault for reliable playability, but perhaps as a sideboard tool to punish greedy control decks it can maybe just be seven to the dome from nowhere, which will win games. Nomadic Hero as-is gains indestructible forever, which I suspect is not intended. Funny how this works off the same beatdown-control cards-in-hand disparity as the last one, but this one's much more assertive in the earlygame and can much better take advantage of even one-card differentials, which means typo aside, it does the job a lot better. I think there's some missing syntax words in Thought Harvest's ability, too, but the effect seems neat. Letting you get further up in card advantage from a discard spell is the kind of raw value that might make a Mind Rot Standard playable, and players love stealing, so getting to do it on simple cards like this is a great Core Set shoutout. It's just a question of how much you value their worst card in hand--except the situation where they can bin two lands and you get nothing, but they lose out on two land drops. I'd double check your formatting for next round, because the perma-indestructibility is a rough mistake on an otherwise reasonable entry.
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Mikkjal#1063https://imgur.com/a/mseWDF733.333.17Desolate (White sweeper) - Simple, but effective, which I feel like is going to be the tagline of this entry. The natural downside of wipes is that they give your opponent a chance to rebuild before you, or in control decks, more likely that it gives your opponent a "shields-down" moment where they can resolve threats without worries of interaction. Desolate adds a simple task to make that task more difficult, especially in swarming out multiple creatures, while still remaining balanced due to its MV and inability to stop noncreature threats likes planeswalkers and face burn.
Senate Hearing (Blue draw effect) - While Senate Hearing maintains the simplicity of Desolate, its appeal comes from doing something that usually isn't the focus of the four-mana draw spell slot - encouraging you to play it with creatures! Usually these sorts of spells are played in control decks, but this points it towards Ux tempo shell. I think there's a question of whether the rate is constructed playable/if the deck that wants this will reliably exist in standard, but I think the factors exist to make this appropriate as a speculative design. Simple but intriguing, which is where I think designs for this challenge should land.
Keranos' Faithful (Red aggressive creature) - I don't think this card is bad, but it certainly feels a bit more by-the-numbers than the others. Prowess 1-drops are naturally threatening, and Faithful also makes all of your burn hit just that little bit harder. I think this arguably has too much impact for a 1-drop in Standard. In general, I would've liked some more spice from this slot in mechanics rather than powerful, but it suffices.		Desolate: This is... weird. I don't really feel like the tax is going to matter. Even if you're casting this on curve, it basically just stops your opponent from casting a five-mana creature on their fifth turn, which generally won't matter? I dunno, I'd have to see the format and see how many decks are trying to go 2+3 on turn five, but I suspect this is just Wrath of God with no other text.
Senate Hearing: This is... fine. I like the idea a ton for limited, but generally decks that want to play instant-speed draw-twos are not putting a lot of expendable bodies on the board. I'm wondering if this sees play in blue tempo decks. Probably not, right? You really need to be attacking with those creatures. Yeah, I don't see the deck that wants this.
Keranos' Faithful: Soul-Scar Mage still sees play just by virtue of being a 1-mana prowess creature. With that context, this card seems cracked. Assuming there are playable burn spells, the idea of this doing 2-3 extra damage a game alongside its prowess effect puts it at the level of Swiftspear to me, which has proven to be a top 3 burn creature of all time. I wonder if it's even better, since it doesn't have to attack to make use of its second effect. Neat concept, but terrifying execution.		Desolate is definitely a word I'd guess some Portal Three Kingdoms uncommon would have stolen from us. Good grab. I don't think its extra effect is that actually impactful on a game, but I like it, as it's the kind of "little extra" that bumps the wrath up to the five mana zone. It's just that decks punished by board wipes best tend not to be held back by an extra mana on turn five. Referencing Amonkhet is a good move for a Core Set, but I think I'd want it to be a bit more explanatory since the goal is to make a player interested in Amonkhet--not remind a player who already knows about it that it exists. Senate Hearing's convoke is a good use of the slot, and using convoke for a blue spell while still signalling Ravnica works for me as a fun kind of twist you couldn't actually do in Ravnica. Numbers here feel fair, maybe you could do 3U, since it does mean you have to take a turn off attacking to get the card draw, so it can't be Chart a Course. Will re-iterate the flavour; I think this works for people who are already comfortable with Ravnica, while a Core Set wants to draw un-knowing people in. Keranos' Faithful feels pretty reasonable in Standard and pretty nuts in any format with a viable Burn deck, since it nearly outpaces Swiftspear, something that doesn't need more redundancy. I like it a lot as a Standard card, though, where it'll maybe form a pet deck but would be hard to make tier 1 just from the size of the format. This FT lands better at selling me on what Keranos is and why it's cool--he's got unseen powers of lightning! That's sick, I wanna know more about Keranos, whoever that is. Good entries all around.
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morgan (FLAREdirector)#7800https://imgur.com/a/jZIKEaM1.673.332.5Pass Judgment is a bit of a chin scratcher. These types of effects tend to not be used too often, since they don't scale very well, but this one has a lot of neat options to it, that I think are really neat. I think overall I'm positive on it, but it definitely requires a certain type of environment for it, reminding me a lot of the random one-offs that get printed in core sets a bunch.
Warlock's Wrath is a bit medium, though. While decent and kills most things, the upside feels a bit iffy, since you normally want to just use this to kill creatures anyway, so the life loss isn't actually helping you stablize at all. Most kill spells in decks nowadays want to be in the 1-2 mana range, so I don't think this does the best job of being a base of a Standard deck.
Biting Flames, however, definitely fits. Lovely design and lovely flavor all around. It is a bit more niche than I think would normally be in a core set, but that's the only minor nitpick I have on it.		Pass Judgment is a really cool removal spell . . . but I don't think it's a good enough answer for Constructed. Flavor's great, at least; very Core-set vibe. Warlock's Wrath (unfortunately not a wrath) is in the same boat of "interesting removal, but probably not for Constructed". I like the flavor text alluding to the color pie. Now Biting Flames is a bit more enticing when it comes to removal for Constructed, but ultimately it's just Shock->Bolt, which isn't groundbreaking, though I suppose it passes the Core-set vibe again. Flavor here is also decent. Honestly, flavor is what's carrying most of my score for your entry, in that all three cards I can believably see in a Core set, but should you continue into the competition I'd get to sharpening those Constructed sensibilities in future challenges that ask for it.- White Removal! Pass Judgment is an interesting way of giving your cheap interaction piece some extra utility, with potentially working as a niche anti-combo piece, or working nicely against small creatures with death triggers. I think this effect is slightly too cute/finicky for a Core Set, and the card feels a bit underpowered in terms of a Standard staple, but not by a huge margin.
- Black Removal! Warlock's Wrath having Justice Strike as Standard-playable precedent helps, trading an extra mana for being monocoloured, reducing stats instead of dealing damage, and shooting face for 2. I think the kinds of decks that want these kinds of spells would generally prefer the cheaper interaction of Justike Strike over thse extras, but not so much to be damning here. However, these small add-ons, and the inclusion of "you don't control" (which feels unnecessary) makes the card feel slightly more finnicky than what I'd expect from a Core Set.
- Red Burn Spell! You have a type, eh? :P I think this compares relatively evenly to Frost Bite, which is a good place to be, and encourages deck styles that are a good deal less restrictive than Bite.
Overall your submission met the brief in terms of Core Set feel for the most part, and I could see each of them having Standard applications. However, choosing the three most similar prompts offered by the challenge made your submission feel a bit cornered in terms of showcasing your range of designer ability.
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n3onblue#4339https://imgur.com/a/Z0yckgF1.673.332.5Reveler of Blood (Red aggressive creature) - Huh, this is neat. A variation on 3-mana token makers like Rabblemaster, making the base body more defensive and making tokens only on damage to shift some of the power budget into the tokens themselves. I don't think the first strike damage interaction here is one that would be in a core set without additional RT, however.
Revision (Blue counterspell) - Like the previous card, this feels finicky in ways that I don't think a core set card would normally aim to be. The situations where you'd want to Stifle your own triggers are niche, and in general this just functions as a hybrid Negate + Disallow.
Serra's Sanctifier (White midrange flier) - This is the best card in the entry, in my opinion. Takes the simple base of a Baneslayer, gives it more inherent protection, and also gives it an ETB with potential immediate impact. It isn't anything fancy, but it shows an adequate understanding of what this slot asks for.		Reveler I don't think wants haste at its rate. The floor feels a bit too spread out from the ceiling here that I don't think the haste is helping in a good way.
Revision is definitely fun. Throwing a bone to Stiflenaught types of things is always fun and making it so it doesn't hit fetches and the like without an actual cost is definitely a good move.
Sanctifier is simple, good, and strong. Lovely design.		Reveler of Blood is really cool. Whether a Core set rare would delve into the esoteric nature of the first strike combat damage step is up for debate, but at least it throws the player a bone with custom reminder text (mind your capitalization next time, though; and your contractions too—"that's" vs "that is"). Revision is an interesting Stifle/Negate riff, though it doesn't feel very Core set material either. Serra's Sanctifier meanwhile does feel sufficiently at home in a Core set; clean Iconic rare gets you there. What takes me out of it is the space after the long dash in the flavor text attribution; pretty minor, but the angel is in the details. A couple of proofreads on this entry would have gotten it a higher score for me, but it's still a decent entry as is.
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ndb#0909https://imgur.com/a/bCP5ZGo33.333.17Herald of Dawn (you sure you didn't want to call this Dawnherald?) is simple while being exciting; rare Iconic definitely was an easy way to evoke Core set-ness in this challenge. I'm not a fan of stun counters personally but that doesn't detract from my opinion of this design; while currently stun counters are a blue-only thing I think a Core set is a great place to introduce changes to evergreen distributions, and when being used as soft removal it makes sense to give it to white. I like it a lot for that. Lavaborn Tyrant is a potent top end. Normally I don't like things that ask you to sacrifice lands, but at this cost it isn't a problem. Scaling off of lands in the grave also solidifies this design. This really wants to have a reflexive trigger, though ("When you do" vs "If you do"); as is it makes you target something even if you don't choose to sacrifice a land. Amonkhet solved that issue; use that tech! Outfox has certain qualities that really lands the Core set aesthetic: from the one word cardname, to depecting Teferi in the art but having generic flavor text, and to the simplicity of the design. Great work here, all things considered.Herald of Dawn: I don't particularly like cards that have a whole block of text that your opponent gets to choose whether or not to interact with. This is a fine standard card insofar as it's a 4/4 flier for four, but the defensive effect seems to run counter to the idea of beating down with big Angels since white midrange decks like this generally have a faster clock than any other deck once they establish board presence. I'd much rather see this second ability be something that helped on attacking or kept your creatures alive. This isn't the kind of card that needs to care about slowing down races in any way other than just blocking.
Lavaborn Tyrant: Part of what makes Thundermaw, Cavalier, and Titan all fit the niche of "red game-closer" is that they deal damage to face (if for Hellkite only by having haste). The other part is, if your opponent untaps and kills your creature, you've already gotten value out of it. Tyrant fulfills neither of those criteria. I think it's a kinda cool design (although it doesn't need the triple-pip), but I'm not really into the body and effect for this slot.
Outfox: Quench+ sees play, but I'm not sure you're that excited about this variant. The cycling doesn't add that much value to this card because you're only playing this for the counter, so if you're not getting that it's a pretty miserable rate. It's a counterspell so it fits the slot, but it doesn't make me want to sleeve up control in this hypothetical format.		-White Midrange Flyer! In a vacuum this design feels solid enough, although it feels a bit at-odds with its role in a midrange deck. A white midrange deck generally wants its top-end to help you finish the game and/or grind out against more defensive opponents, where it can use its earlier drops to toussle with more aggressive creature decks. Sacrificing the more offensive potential of your top-end flyer for better defense isn't exactly where I'd think that would play out best. That said, I'm open to using a Core Set to expand stun counters into another colour, despite my personal dislike for the mechanic.
- Red Game-Closer! Lavaborn Tyrant caring about lands in your graveyard is fun space that I like to work in, although it feels difficult to enable in a Core Set specifically - if there is a focus on getting lands into your bin in other sets in the same Standard, I would expect this card to printed in that/those sets. With enough support, I think this is a potent enough threat, but not having any immediate value (i.e. Dies To Doomblade) makes it feel lacking compared to other recent cards that fit this slot's criteria.
- Blue Counterspell! Outfox is something I could easily see played in Standard with the floor of Quench being playable. I appreciate the art choice and flavour text for a Core Set. The failcase of drawing when your opponent pays the tax feels a bit odd in a Core Set as a weird bit of complexity that I would expect from a more expert set, but giving a quench a cycling mode for when the tax is less relevant is certainly net positive for its playability.
Overall I think your submission was solid, featuring some new directions and design space for Core Sets that don't feel too strange in a Core Set. There were a couple tweaks I think could improve the individual cards, but nothing huge.
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Nix#7104https://imgur.com/a/qQ8s4h32.332.332.33Crackle (Red burn spell) - Standard gets straight-up Lightning Strike, so I'm not sure why this is just a strictly worse version of that. Obviously the power of burn can be rotation-dependant, and there's always a question of burn density, but the change made here making it effectively unuseable in controlling shells while also making it bad at doing what burn wants to be used for (closing out the game when your early threats are answered or wiped) makes me generally low on this design.
Loneliness (White weenie creature) - A Banisher Priest where you can move around what it's o-ringing. Simple and effective, though I think the recast cost could stand to be higher. I also think this does some potentially fucked up things with being able to use this as a way to cheaply flicker your other creatures, on top of a very solid base case.
Try Again (Blue counterspell) - I think this is kind of terrifying; Memory Lapse is no joke, and the Scry 2 is minimal given you're only seeing one additional card. In general, Standard 2-mana counterspells should have some targets they miss, and this not having drawback makes me low on it.		Crackle - "Worse Lightning Strike in multiple ways" is not the place you want to be for Constructed, as you can't cast this without a creature in play, and your opponent can use a removal spell in response to 2-for-1 you. Yes, the idea of letting your creatures deal damage is interesting with abilities like deathtouch, lifelink, whatever, but in a vaccumn this is just a lot worse than the alternative, especially in Constructed.
Loneliness - I like this in theory, as a Banisher Priest that feels better coming down early, as you can change what its exiling later, is pretty cool. Two wording things that make me not as much of a fan - first, this isn't "up to one", which means that this would be forced to hit your own creature if you want to play it in a situation where your opponents don't control any creatures. Secondly, this lets you blink your own creatures, and I think it's way too efficient for effectively being a 3 drop with 1W blink target creature as an activated ability. Just seems brutally good in blink decks, especially because you can activate the ability multiple times and on the last time choose to exile an opponent's creature.
Try Again - I think I like this - while the power level might be on the high side, this is a very cool concept, and it incorporates the "choose to put on the top or bottom of your deck" that we've seen a lot in the last year of tuck spells in a different way than usual. I think getting to scry in this situation is cool as well, because you have multiple options in terms of keeping the spell as well as getting the choice between keeping or bottoming another card from the top of your deck, which is cute.		It's a shame we're not in an era where we can just have Lightning Strike. This is Lightning Strike with a pittance of a downside, so it's basically just Lightning Strike in all but the most dedicated "i don't play the board" UR decks. It certainly works, and it'll certainly see play. The FT's tense has ended up awkward; the second sentence in particular is a passive-voice sentence fragment, and I think you want it to express a direct action to give it more power behind its words. Lonlieness being Prison Term on a body, albeit a pretty weak body, feels like something will want to use it in Constructed, since it's a mana tax to always lockdown their best creature. It'd definitely be appealing if it were a 2/1. I'm not sure how I feel about Wander in a Core Set? I had a few questions about it as a judge, so it seems like it's a high-enfranchisement mechanic to fineagle flicker triggers. Try Again is a nasty tempo swing. I am reminded of Aether Gust, though thank God this can't also hit permanents on board. I'm into it for the decision-making it forces on the opponent vis-a-vis the scry, though it's a bit silly to be optional; even if they're keeping the card on top they have no reason to not scry. It's definitely the card I like the most out of this set, and the one that feels like it does the most interesting thing.
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Orion Rings#2903https://imgur.com/a/0O6q7lE343.5- Blue Draw! Skystreaks is an interesting shift of Morbid-ish into blue. This card is difficult for me to place in a deck - being sorcery speed, creatures need to die on your turn, so it wants to be in a proactive creature deck that hopes to run creatures into blockers to trade off; or it wants to be in a control shell with sweepers and other sorcery-speed removal. These feel like a bit of a stretch, but I think I'm probably reading too far into what is a nice clean card that has a reasonable floor if you're not enabling it. 8-line commons should generally be avoided, especially in a Core Set (although the flavour is lovely).
- Red Aggro Creature! I think this is a fun revisiting of Momentum Rumbler tech, in a way that plays out quite similarly to Prowess. Although, despite two spells making this deal the same amount of damage as Prowess (4), it lacks the extra damage prowess would grant from 1 spell, and Prowess would have a higher ceiling than this for 3+ spells. They both act similarly in terms of discouraging your opponent from blocking it, so all in all I think this card is generally going to be weaker than just a Prowess creature, with the exception of spells that grant power buffs like Ancestral Anger. That interaction is enough for me to give the benefit of the doubt as to this card's Constructed playability.
- White Midrange Flyer! Lillion, Dawnherald (wrong challenge for Dawnheralds :p) seems like a solid defensive option with doing the equivalent of tapping down an attacker each turn, but returning the creature tapped also means it's not bad at getting attackers through either. It also works pretty nicely with your own ETB value creatures, and returning those creatures tapped likely hurts you less than your opponent, since you'll be building around this with creatures that have their value loaded into abilities rather than stats. This looks like a fun one.
Overall you had an incredibly clean entry, with each of your cards feeling suitable for a Core Set as well as having Constructed applications. I appreciate that you included a range of rarities here too! Well done.		Skystreaks - Cool concept! I would love to play this in some kind of aristocratsy deck where you want/have to be sacrificing the cards during your turn. I also like the choice to make this a common, as it seems like a balanced card for Limited there, although that's not super relevant to this judging. Seems fun!
Powerfist Brawler - I like this idea a lot. Seems like a really fun variant on Prowess with the caveat that the creature has the ability to protect itself in combat if it can kill your opponent's creatures first, and I love the interaction here with a pump spell. Overall seems really deadly, and I would definitely love to play a deck with this.
Lillion, Dawnherald - hm where have i seen this name before I like this idea a lot! I like the duality here of the lockdown of one of your opponent's creatures each turn, as well as the value generated by repeating a ton of ETB effects. Feels clean, simple, and solid.		Skystreaks is a good blue card draw spell. The cost reduction functions very similarly to a raid effect in practice, but also goes well with chaining a sorcery-speed removal spell or a sacrifice effect, and that it can scale down to one mana is appealing. I don't think it'd take much support for this to see Constructed play, in the same vein as Chart a Course did. That means its doing its job well, and the card is simple and elegant, making it an overall success. Powerfist Brawler is a good Ravnica reference and a good goblin joke, which both sells it very well as a core set kind of card. It's not the best as a Kiln Fiend, since you have to burst with it to get any gains, but it's an easier scaling condition and doesn't need you to go as all-in. Satisfying red aggressive creature. Lillion is a novel read on the white midrange creature, but it lands to me, for being a Conjurer's Closet on a stick. Being able to recur your own good ETB effects and also soft-lock an opponent's creature at the same time is an appealing set of characteristics, but like the previous two, it sticks the landing at being simple and clean, relying on a single exciting effect rather than raw quantity. Very good entry all-in-all.
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Pacifist Westwoman#0784https://imgur.com/a/wyAEsHG333I don't think I'm sold on Inexorable Repetition. Part of the good of rebate counters like this is that you can counter the next spell they cast, or you can push for casting a card draw spell or something to help get ahead. Untapping the opponent's lands means this doesn't quite work out, so I don't know if this will actually achieve some of the goals. Flavor is on point though.
Venerated Wardshield is definitely fun. Love it. Pushes your opponent to target and kill this, rather than your more important targets.
Zealous Phoenix is definitely fun and exciting. Lovely flavor as well.		Inexorable Repetition (Blue counterspell) - I'm not a fan of this. I get the idea, potentially allowing you to cast cantrips if they don't have the mana to play another threat, but in a Standard setting, it's more likely for an opponent to have a two-mana threat than it is for you to have a two-mana piece of interaction. I think this ends up in a lot more awkward scenarios than the best case would suggest.
Venerated Wardshield (White weenie creature) - I think putting "ward" in the name here is a bit too on the nose for me. Otherwise, this is solidly fine, protecting your other creatures from spot removal/functioning as a flagbearer.
Zealous Phoenix (Red aggressive creature) - This is cool. Phoenixes always make for compelling aggro topend, and the condition here is neat - disencentivizes chumping for fear of a bigger, less blockable threat coming back, so puts your opponent between a rock and a hard place.		Inexorable Repetition tries to be a cheaper Rewind, but I'm not sure it succeeds at that while being interesting for Constructed. It rebates mana enough for another counterspell but I don't think that's enough. Nice shout to a pre-existing flavor text character, though. Venerated Wardshield is simple enough, as Core set cards are inclined to be, but I'm once again uncertain whether this does enough to be Constructed worthy. The tongue in cheek flavor text doesn't work when the Wardshield itself dies to 3 damage. Reminder text on this should have also been modified to account for it being board-wide granting. Zealous Phoenix I like the best out of this entry. Top downs a Phoenix concept pretty well, and seems sufficiently potent.
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platypeople#5549https://imgur.com/a/A57W5Zy2.332.332.33- White Weenie Creature! Colour Hate is generally not something that plays very well, although it is something wotc has done in a core set as recent as M21, so I can't fault you there. Hexproof plus the second ability makes this seem like a phenomenal sideboard choice against red decks, although its power ceiling there makes me wish it didn't have such a high floor as a 3/2 for 2. I think this would likely be a miserable card for red decks to play against, which isn't something I love rating highly.
- Red Burn Spell! Awaken the Earth seems reasonable on paper, but in practice it feels like it could be a bit awkward. Higher-power creatures are generally going to cost more, so you're not getting much of a discount until when you have more mana and need it less. Still, I imagine the 5 damage to face is pretty devastating when you need it. I don't follow the mention of Giants in the flavour text and how that connects to the art or cardname.
- Green Ramp Creature! Paradise Dryad's name tells me this is intended as a riff on Paradise Druid, and to me it doesn't do enough of a job to feel distinct from Druid. I don't love what Ward offers here over Druid's hexproof. If you're on the draw, then your opponent can use 1 mana removal on this before you get a chance to use it. If you're on the play however, your opponent can't answer it before you use it (similar to Druid), and then they need specifically 1 mana removal to be able to answer it in order to prevent you from getting a second use out of it, which feels huge. By the time the ward stops mattering, you'll have ramped into bigger threats that demand answers a lot more than the Dryad.
Overall I think your cards all stand a solid shot at being Constructed playable, and all feel printable in a Core Set. There are a couple of play-pattern issues among your cards, however, that would benefit from imaging scenarios of how your cards would play out, and how players would interact with and against them.		Weathered Forgemaster - Cool concept! I like this take on a burn hatebear, as it protects itself cleanly from most red removal and really mitigates the power of burn. I do think this is maybe a little much at 1W 3/2, as the baseline mode is already really efficient against burn decks, but other than that I am on board.
Awaken the Earth - Interesting. I'm not sure what the right rate on this kind of effect would be, but I like the idea of getting to use it as a removal spell at around turn 4, and it also being a nice burn spell to close out a game once you're in the late game. Maybe a little worrying in doubles, considering you can easily play two in one turn in the late game, but the concept is there in my opinion.
Paradise Dryad - Kinda wack that it's so clearly riffing on Paradise Druid considering all you've done is swap out "untapped hexproof" to "ward 2". While the design is functional, it's functional because Paradise Druid is functional, which doesn't really tell me much about your designer skills.		Colour hate is an ambitious subject to broach; I think it's a blunt instrument of an anti-strat tool and I don't think it's something that has many designer fans. But it is something WotC does a lot, especially in Core Sets, and Weathered Forgemaster's very specific sideboard strategy being an anti-Burn tool is a good restriction on it, and provides the justification to give this Constructed play without ending up stupid like Mystic Dispute or Aether Gust-tier colour hate effects, while still hitting the beats of a solid white weenie. Awaken the Earth being able to hit face will end games out of nowhere, and a Lava Axe that can cost 1RR or cheaper without much extra support is scary, especially in multiples. I like face-burn as a way for red decks to get reach, but I think this is too efficient at it. Stoke the Flames was very strong, and that at least required you to take a turn off of attacking. This is instant-speed, too! It's a good concept and I like its gameplay intent, it's just too much bang for buck right now. Paradise Dryad is the kind of silly riff that lands well in a Core Set, and it wears its predecessor on its sleeve. I'm half of the mind to give it high marks because it does its job very well, and half the mind to penalize it because it's so aggressively derivative it doesn't feel like you, the designer, are designing anything. I think generous wins today, but it's a very cheeky card.
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Provocative#7517https://imgur.com/a/1rlpyX42.671.332- Black Discard! I am a sucker for Constructed-playable discard, but I don't think this quite gets there in terms of playability. It takes a bit for Mind Rots to work out. Here you also have the option to Pilfer for an additional mana, but Pilfer (and discard in general) becomes a lot worse the more expensive it gets, and the modality here feels like it'll play out quite awkwardly with you needing to make your choice before seeing your opponent's hand. This would've worked a lot better if it were formatted like Reckoner Shakedown (although I'm not sure that would be enough). You want a space after "Choose one".
- Green X-cost Creature! That final ability is a really cool direction to take a Hydra, and more than makes up for the tempo loss generally associated with Hydras, as well as not punishing you too hard if you need to cast your Hydra early to fill your curve. I don't think this needed trample or 1 toughness, and those inclusions make it feel a tad less Core Set-y to me than it otherwise would. The typo of the X not actually affecting the hydra tokens unfortunately means I need to grade this lower than I would otherwise, despite knowing what you intended.
- Red Game Closer Creature! Moving Bay Dragon is a neat effect, and I think it does well as a Punisher creature in that its options aren't too drastically different in power level (although I think the Annex mode will only ever be chosen when it doesn't matter). I think this is a solid card, but its effect feels overly fiddly for a Core Set to me, whereas it would be fine in another kind of set.
Overall there were some solid playables in your submission, and your cards mostly felt close to feeling like they're from a Core Set. Some minor tweaks could have helped out, but certainly a solid entry.		Creeping Despair - While I think this is a cool Limited card, it is absolutely not making the cut in Constructed - Mind Rot isn't really getting anywhere for Constructed, and a overpriced targeted discard effect is not doing anything to fix that. It does feel Core-Set-y, which is cool, but the power just isn't there in my opinion.
Territorial Hydra - I like this design idea - the idea of it coming down as a sort of XGG make two X/X's is cool (or at least, an X/X and an X/X+1, which is a little weird), and I like the synergy that the card has with counter decks. You do have a pretty major error here in that the tokens you make are 0/0 and don't get counters, which means they die instantly, but that's a typo thing.
Moving Day Dragon - Not sure how I feel - while the concept of the design is cool here, I feel like even though it's supposed to be in the finisher slot, this design doesn't really feel suited to that? Giving your opponents the out of "losing a land" instead of taking damage in the stage of the game where you're playing your finisher just feels like they're probably going to hand one over, which shouldn't really affect them in the late game.		Creeping Despair doesn't seem powerful enough to make it into Standard--neither effect at three mana is worth doing individually, and raw discard isn't usually a desired card effect. So it's a little undertuned. If this were at common and aimed for Limited, I'd really dig it though; the card is good slot compression using staple effects that are valuable in Core Sets and fit the feel. Territorial Hydra has an unfortunately nasty typo, where the second Hydra... doesn't actually have any +1/+1 counters put on it, so it instantly dies. I get the intent of what's supposed to happen, where you get two smaller Hydras for the price of one, and that card seems very fair and reasonable, but the card right now is missing very important words there. Moving Day Dragon feels like it's trying to be Goldspan Dragon at home, and I appreciate that restraint. Not having haste makes this likely too slow for Constructed, but there's enough justification for "giant monster with a solid ETB and good attacking value" that I could see it played on the fringe, and that's a better place for it than Goldspan. All three cards (assuming your intent for Hydra) land well as solid core set cards and do their job, with good simplicity and elegance, but the Hydra's error hurts.
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Queen Emily#1312https://imgur.com/a/86LqneG3.6733.34- Green Aggressive Creature! Terrapin Guardian seems like a solid buildaround, although the hexproof feels a bit finnicky to get use out of without something like Gruul Spellbreaker's haste, and with it being difficult to get a counter on it the same turn that you cast it from its second ability. I think this ability feels not super Core Set-y, especially below rare. I could see it having Constructed applications though.
- Blue Counterspell! Going for a monocolour-focused Core Set here I see :P. Tidal Wave's Rebuke just being a Cancel on turn 3 and becoming a Counterspell turn 4 onwards at best feels like the right place to be, and is something I could certainly see monoblue taking advantage of in Standard. Affinity isn't something I would have believed could be Core Set-able until recently, but I could see it, and I appreciate how you kept the rest of the card simple to make room for it.
- Red Aggro Creature, and/or Game-Closer Creature? A fast hitter early that has lategame utility if you flood out or run out of gas seems like a decent place to be, although the fact that the activated ability mostly boils down to a +1/+1 and a flying counter that can only be used once makes it feel a bit smoke-and-mirrors-y, which makes me lower on it. I think this ability would be much more useful on a smaller and cheaper creature. Keyword counters also don't feel super Core Set-y to me.
Overall I think you had the right idea in mind in terms of Constructed playability and Core Set feel, although there were a couple stumbling points. Still, a solid shot with your submission.		Terrapin Guardian - Not a huge fan here - the concept is neat, but an "evolve" creature with square stats is a little odd, as part of the draws of using the mechanic is using creatures without square stats so that it's significantly easier to pick up evolve triggers with them. Using square stats here just feels a little odd. The protection ability is also a little weird considering this doesn't do anything the turn it comes down, which means your opponent can just snipe it down the second it becomes their turn. The idea is definitely there, and I do think it'd be a fun card, but it's a bit awkward.
Tidal Wave's Rebuke - Cool! I like this as a card for mono-blue decks getting cheap countermagic - you have a Cancel on turn 3 and a Counterspell on turn 4, which seems super fun. Simple and fun!
Dragonsoul of Krevatz - Very nice, I like this a lot as an aggressive creature that can become bigger and deal a ton of damage. Might make a little more sense as a 2-drop with smaller stats, to increase the time between the creature coming down and the ability bing activated, but I don't think that's a big issue.
Overall, great job on having these entries feel very "Core Set", in that they're all clean and simple yet powerful.		Terrapin Guardian's hexproof reads unassuming, since it's not actually stopping it from dying, but the inflexibility it forces on an opponent is actually neat. Combining that with an evolve-like effect that demands you keep scaling up your curve, it ends up as a very solid and comfortable Big Green Meanie that would not take much support to be appealing in a Standard environment. Tidal Wave's Rebuke putting affinity in a core set is an ambitious statement, but one I'm willing to work with here; I think it's a little undertuned for what it asks (in mono-blue, it's still Cancel on turn three) unless there's good typed dual lands around, but I like the conceit and the lategame Counterspell proper is still appealing. Again, wouldn't take much support to make me want to try out this blue counterspell in a Standard. Dragonsoul of Krevatz is a hybrid slot of sorts; its mostly an aggressive creature, but it's also able to turn into an alright top-end. I think its undertuned for a rare, since especially the base cast isn't a particularly strong card, but the transformation is flavourful and evocative, and it's a good shout to explain the keyword counter even if I think they're generally intuitive enough. I'd probably expect it at uncommon as-is, targeted for Limited, but wouldn't take much juicing to make it end up a good Constructed slot. I wouldn't write home about any of these cards, but I'm still satisfied and comfortable with where they've ended up, which is sometimes better for Core Set cards.
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Splashcat#0050https://imgur.com/a/0qtLUsW4.3344.17- White Sweeper! Final Trumpet seems like a solid enabler of an artifact and/or enchantment control deck. As someone who's been piloting Wx control decks in Standard, Farewell (and most other good removal) not hitting Planeswalkers comes up a lot and it sucks. I could easily see this popping up in a Core Set. I wish it had a bit more going for it design-wise to show off a bit more about you as a designer, but it's clean.
- Red Aggro Creature! Staggering Blastmage is exactly what I'd ask for out of an aggressively-slanted creature for a Spellslinger deck. I appreciate that you're showing us a new kind of space here compared to the kinds of creatures those decks would normally run.
- Green Ramp Creature! Wildsoul Druid as a 2 mana ramper is likely enough to work out in Standard given Druid of the Cowl's playability, and it helps to answer one of the big issues these kinds of ramp decks face with bricking on top-decks with lands or dorks. I think the ability is a bit too expensive, and I would've liked to see some kind of twist to make it more interesting like Shadow-Rite Priest, but this is a solid shot.
Overall you had an incredibly clean entry. While I think you had a bit more room to stretch in terms of splash, each of your cards felt suitable for a Core Set as well as having Constructed applications.		Final Trumpet - Solid, I like this idea a lot! It's the kind of simple design that feels natural and is something I'm surprised doesn't exist already, and I like how nicely this slots into a deck with artifact/enchantment wincons, getting rid of all of the other types of threats. A little basic, but it definitely works.
Staggering Blastmage - Sick - I think this is a cool idea, and I like the reframing of a prowess-like idea to be based on nerfing your opponents creatures rather than buffing your own. Feels very fun to run down with like, a turn 1 creature and then starting to slam spells out on turn 3 if your opponent is on one blocker or something.
Wildsoul Druid - I like this a lot for ramp decks, as it fulfills the role of being a decent ramp engine as well as sacrificing to work as a toolbox once you've generated enough mana to be able to play those types of effects. Just feels like a very clean sort of design that generates a lot of value in all stages of the game.
As an overall note, I like how clean and Core-Set-like these designs feel.		He do be honkin' though. Final Trumpet is a great kind of sweeper effect that very notably hits a major traditional weakness of heavy control decks, a resolved planeswalker. That definitely pushes this to be seen somewhere in Constructed, and the fact that it demands you slow-play your own planeswalkers is added bonus to regulate itself. The flavour being Book of Revelations-y is interesting, but since it's a soft allusion it lands well and matches the feel. Staggering Blastmage's name is weak, but the flavour text is a good gag. I think the card's a great spin on the red aggro creature slot; its a good ask to make the red aggro deck have to tilt into noncreatures, even if its just burn, since that's usually harder to do in a Standard-level environment, and it's a simple gated effect that provides the reach these decks want. Wildsoul Druid I suspect could have a bit more juice to him; maybe an extra point of toughness, and maybe dropping the tap on the sac-tutor so he can feed himself. But as-is, it still does its job admirably and is a mana dork that's appealing, and subtracts two major weaknesses of a traditional ramp deck since it's a good sink if you don't draw your big boys, and it can turn into a big boy if you topdeck it, instead of a dead draw. The cost to doing either of those is significant, so it's fair, but it's a good read on what ramp strategies want.
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Stroodle43#8144https://imgur.com/a/q0G8Zp5222Goblin Vault Robber (Red aggressive creature) - I think this ends up in an incredibly swingy spot. 2/2 haste for one is obviously huge, Goblin Guide was the best red 1-drop ever printed for a while because of it. On the other hand, giving your opponent a treasure is a pretty meaningful downside - to the point that it could invalidate Robber by letting them get their gameplan out faster. Rather than balancing out, I think these two extremes just lead to the card having a high delta, resulting in non-games for at least one player at the table.
Quell (White removal effect) - Ah, its the "what everyone wanted Divine Gambit to be" card. I think this card sort of has the same problem as your previous one and Divine Gambit, in that they're very feast or famine; either they don't have a threat that costs less and your removal spell has no downside, or they do and all of a sudden you might not actually be generating tempo.
Nightveil Infiltrator (Blue tempo creature) - I think the instincts of "tempo creatrues typically have flash, are evasive, and want to generate you some mounting advantage" are all sound. The exact implementation, however, leaves something to be desired; Spell Mastery is such a non-cost/mechanic that even if this isn't drawing you cards if you play it on turn 1, it'll rapidly and freely turn into an endless card advantage engine with little to no additional investment required. 		Goblin Vault Robber - Treasure should be capitalized. Not a huge fan here? I feel like it's a design that's not really going to be that fun to play, considering that either your opponent has a creature body they can ramp out with the Treasure you gave them and start dominating combats, or they can't and you just roll them over. I feel like there are more interesting conditions to throw on a Goblin-Guide-type.
Quell - I think this is solid enough, as getting rid of a creature for only the potential downside of losing a little tempo when they're able to play out a card they could just play on their next turn seems like a fine balancing point.
Nightveil Infiltrator - This is like super broken right? If you're able to just cantrip twice on turn 2 or something, this is drawing you a card a turn as early as turn 2, and even if you're not dedicated to turning on the condition you can pretty easily get there around turn 3. Way too much CA for too cheap IMO.		Goblin Vault Robber's FT feels a little too mean to the guy. He's certainly doing a good job if he can rob the bank. That's the hard part. I suspect that giving a Treasure is too steep a cost to make him playable; that accelerates your opponent's ways to stabilize against your aggressive deck, so him hitting turn one needs to be enough to balance out them getting a board wipe turn four. I don't think it does. It's also even worse if you're on the draw and they're on the play, since you let them play two mana up on you. Don't forget to capitalize the Treasure, too. It's a subtype. Quell I like a lot. Its unconditional, flexible removal that is really good at punishing smaller creatures in midrange-y decks, since it's the hardest for them to hit replacement rate there, and it also works lategame when most decks don't have many cards in hand. That's enough situational usefulness against common matchups I could see it making a Standard cut. Nightveil Infiltrator is my favourite of these three cards. It's a cheap little creature that has to be answered because it can turn into an engine if not dealt with, and you can hold up the mana you'd use to play it for other cards thanks to flash--which then feeds into it, if you play those cards instead. Even if you're not playing many creatures, something this cheap being so easy to get past replacement rate is a big pull to using it. All three of these cards also land as Core Set cards, with good elegance and central abilities without much cruft, and flavour that's flexible and provokes a curious player to ask questions while still working without knowing the knowledge of what "Nightveil" is on Ravnica.
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Sunset#8019https://imgur.com/a/rPbPqN133.333.17Starting off strong with Treacherous Triumph! This is an awesome card and has just amazing flavor text. Lovely card.
Logic Lapse is another strong, but simple card. Clues are something that I feel like you could bake in, like Treasures, but that's nothing to distract from this.
Orator is another really jneat card, though I fear it might be too easy to pick when to tap vs not, based on beatdown vs not, but the flavor here is lovely. I think this is the weakest link of the three cards, but that's not mark against this.		Treacherous Triumph: This design has been done to bits in the custom community, but it certainly fits the bill here. This would see play likely in multiple formats (though being Sorcery speed hurts a lot in modern+), though it gets worse the slower your format is, interestingly. The sweet spot is probably formats with very strong three-drops, which standard can definitely fulfill.
Logic Lapse: Interesting. I think this probably doesn't fit the bill for standard control decks because the card advantage matters so much. Much more likely this sees play in combo-heavier formats where you just want as cheap of interaction as you can muster. I could certainly see begrudgingly sleeving a few of these up, though, in formats with less aggressive counterspell options.
Inspiring Orator: Still not a fan of cards that put this much power in your opponent's hands. I don't know that this is flexible and powerful enough to make it in many standard formats, since it doesn't have evasion and it gives your opponents a lot of control over the hate part. I'm not even entirely sure the second ability unconditionally would be playable in standard, and this is strictly worse than that.		Treacherous Triumph - While this definitely looks scary at first glance, it's probably fine given that it's a sorcery and really encourages you to use it to take out smaller creatures. I think it's chill and a neat idea.
Logic Lapse - Neat. I think that the power of the card is definitely based on whether your Standard is faster or slower, as the more time your opponent has to activate that Clue, the worse the card becomes. Other than that, this is a cool Fateful Absence-type of investigate card, and I think it'd definitely be fun.
Inspiring Orator - This is probably just a worse Imposing Sovereign, no? I guess that point of toughness does matter, but your opponent getting to ignore the tap-down effect for even one creature can definitely matter a lot of they're able to time it right to stop some kind of lethal attack or bring a hasty attacker down for relatively free. I doubt this would really see all that much play because of that.
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ThatDamnPipsqueak#7787https://imgur.com/a/WyOQRbb3.333.333.33Haruspicy is definitely spicy, if a bit worrying in terms of its ceiling. Pierced Heart Remenant (typo or a combination of Revenant and Remnant?) seems like a lot of fun but it forgot to give the token the Aura subtype. Kinda worrying in multiples, though, and I think Curse tokens are just a bit out there for what I expect in most Core sets. Refute is a sleek, solidly designed Counterspell. Overall a decent entry.Haruspicy (Black draw effect) - I think this card is actually too strong for Standard; you're fine with this not being live on curve if it's functioning as a Night's Whisper to gas you back up in the midgame, and in lots of matchups this is better than Night's Whisper, which is a terrifying prospect.
Pierced Heart Remanent (Red aggressive creature) - You're missing the Aura type on the token here, and the name is misspelled. Otherwise, seems like a fun and unique aggro creature - easily traded away, but if it sticks around, it puts inexorable, stacking pressure on the opponent/makes it difficult for them to stabilize. I think given the stacking nature I might reccommend an evasive keyword instead of haste, to give a larger window to answer it.
Refute (Blue counterspell) - Hm, I'm not sure I like the powerlevel here. I think in Standard, your 2-mana countermagic shouldn't always be live. You could argue that bouncing rather countering doesn't count as "live," and it is certainly worse, but it isn't dead in the way that other 2-mana interaction is in these scenarios.		Haruspicy is definitely Haru-spicy. I think it *may* be just a touch too good and might want to be BB or 2B instead, but it is definitely really cool.
Pierced Heart Remenant is a cool call back but I wonder if it may be a touch too strong. Big-Chandra has this as a + that lets her basically conclude a game super easily, and that's the only damage that she's doing to an oppoenent. This also attacking for 3 makes me think it might want menace or something over haste, so it's not an immediate sign for death for slower decks.
Refute is definitely fun, though might be a touch too strong, but that's what testing is for. Fun design.
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The Gamemaster#9910https://imgur.com/a/WaoIjuD32.672.84Draining Demon calls to mind The Meathook Massacre, and I like that for it. A clean Iconic design at rare definitely feels suitably Core set-like. I wish it was a bit tougher than it is, but that's minor. Cold-Water Caller meanwhile receives the cold shoulder from me; this not being limited to targetting only your opponents stuff drags it down as a design, and I don't feel like it does enough for Constructed anyway. Raptor Ranger meanwhile I can definitely see being ran in white weenie decks, and I like the eye for evergreen reminder text here (though on the flying reminder it should say "It" rather than "This creature"). Good job on 2 out of 3 of these.Draining Demon slots in very well for what it is meaning to do and does its job well. Very solid. I almost wonder if it could be a tiny bit stronger, either through +1 power, menace, lifelink or something to help give it the last bits of strength that I think it wants.
Cold-Water Caller definitely should either be a may or only target opponent's creatures. Otherwise, you are pushed to just keep it in hand, which isn't the most fun. Also, these effects tend not to be super useful in tempo, so I'm not the biggest fan of it here. Also looks like it has some space for flavor text.
Raptor Ranger feels solid, if a bit strong. I don't think I could see this as a common in a core set at this rate, but definitely feels like it could be an uncommon.		Draining Demon (Black sweeper) - Not to much say here, just neat. Feels like a good mix of Meathook Massacre and Massacre Girl, but in a lot more straightforward and less oppressive fashion.
Cold-Water Caller (Blue tempo creature) - Not sure if the FTK type targeting was a deliberate powerlevel choice, but I don't think it was ideal either way. This feels about on-rate for limited, but definitely too weak for constructed - when's the last time you've seen a Frost Lynx or adjacent effect make its way into a Standard list? I think this is a big miss in an otherwise solid entry.
Raptor Ranger (White weenie creature) - This is a simple but effective creature for white weenie - giving you two bodies and 3/3 worth of stats with keywords is enough to make this worth a shout, especially in density-based lists like aggro. Constructed aside, I am sus of this being at common, though.
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TheCatsEighthLife#2031https://imgur.com/a/SOLCZf42.672.332.5Forlorn Elegy is a bit weird, though very intriguing. Definitely a big fan. Lovely flavor too.
Prowling Akaname might be something that grows a bit too much, but definitely looks like a testable and fun card. Well done.
Starving Seraphim feels like it breaks a bit from core flavor, especially with how much the other two are already doing it. But, that's not too much of a concern, cause I think the card here does not do something that core sets normally want to do. This feels like it has a lot of flavor statements attached to it and I don't think those types of statements are appropriate in a core set, which is supposed to showcase what the colors all mean in the most basic of forms.		Forlorn Elegy: It's really weird that this has an additional cost and then you lose the life on resolution. That should have all been stitched together. I think it's really unlikely that this makes it in constructed because it requires SO many resources to fire. Actually it's quite similar to Cathartic Reunion, which has not historically been a big hit in constructed and is I think a fair bit better than this.
Prowling Akaname: I strongly doubt this is flexible enough as a hate piece to see play. Part of what makes Scavenging Ooze so powerful is that it can operate at instant speed, and it can grow three or four times in one turn. This can only grow once, doesn't grow if you hit the most important type, and grows at a very predictable time. It looks like Ooze, but it won't play like it.
Starving Seraphim: Huh. Desecration Demon was powerful because it started overstatted, so any single hit from it would be devastating. I'm not sure that a smaller version gets there. 3/3 flier for 1WW isn't itself a standard-playable card, and this is quite a bit worse than that.		Forlorn Elegy - Neat! Not sure how good this is going to be with the requirement to get rid of a creature, but if you're able to get it into a deck with cheap creatures and maybe death triggers or something, this could be a very powerful way of refilling your hand.
Prowling Akamane - I don't think this is going to be strong enough to do much of anything unless you're playing cards that mill your opponent (which is a little weird in green), as it seems like there are a lot of creature-heavy decks where this is just never going to be able to trigger without killing itself in combat. Maybe interesting as a sideboard option for a more spell-heavy deck, but I don't think it really slots in as a "stompy creature".
Starving Seraphim - Considering we already have 1WW 3/3's with pretty damn good upside (Resplendent Marshal, Resplendent Angel), a 1WW 3/3 with a strict downside just seems like it's not going to do anything in Constructed. I feel like this misses the mark.
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Trickster#5333https://imgur.com/a/6BScoA21.332.672- Green Ramp Spell! Elemental Migration is super neat. I think it's possibly a bit too pushed, but I like the idea, and I could see this appearing in a Core Set.
- Red Game-Closer Creature! Flamewing Expert feels kind of confused to me. Prowess falls off a lot the further up the curve it goes, and this card asks you to make a deck that wants a 6 mana understatted creature with no evasion that still demands you continue storming off turns 7 onwards. Flamewing and Phoenix flavour make me wonder why this isn't a flyer, as it could certainly stand to receive one or several buffs. With triple prowess you really want to have custom reminder text, as the default is misleading.
- Blue Counterspell! Historian's Rebuke is a sick concept. I think it might prove difficult to fill your graveyard with enough variety of types fast enough to be worth running over other more consistent counters, so it might want a higher base cost that can counter anything, but gets cheaper if it targets something that meets the condition. Still, I like this direction a lot, and it's something I could see a Core Set visiting, if barely. I assume the Harbin in your flavour text isn't the same Harbin from canon magic based on the epithet and flavour.
Overall I think you did well to meet the Core Set part of the prompt, and there were some good ideas in your submission. A bit of extra polish, and thinking about what kinds of decks would be interested in running your cards and why, is a fix that could help you out moving forwards. Your flavour texts could also use an additional pass over for missing commas.		Elemental Migration - Feels pretty sweet! I love this as a thing you could potentially ramp into on turn 2, push 4 damage into your opponent, and then play a 5 drop the next turn in a format where Elves might be available. Also seems sweet as a turn 3 value play.
Flamewing Expert - Not as much of a fan here - I don't really think there's a Prowess deck that I've seen that actively wants to be playing a 6-drop. Furthermore, this is hard to class as a finisher because it has no evasion, no trample, no ETB effect, which means that most of the time it's just going to get instantly shot down by a removal spell, especially with that 3 toughness. It doesn't feel like it has a home, nor does it really fit into its role, in my opinion.
Historian's Rebuke - Love this! I really like it as an interesting take that comes packed in with a cool Delirium-esque deckbuilding requirement, where you have to be playing a lot of different types and a lot of different ways to get them into your graveyard, and it feels like a very efficient counterspell if you're able to achieve that goal.		Elemental Migration is a novel, but appealing, green ramp spell. It's the kind of thing I'm surprised they haven't done in canon yet (I know there's a similar Strixhaven card, but that one's permanent but smaller, I believe?), as it allows you to get some acceleration on-board without taking a turn off and losing that tempo. Unfortunate it can't block, 'cuz it'd be amazing if it could block, buying you a turn against aggressive decks while accelerating, but it's probably for the better it can't. I'd try out a few copies of this if I were making a Standard ramp deck, especially the midrange-y ones where I only need to be up one or two mana. Flamewing Expert I assume is meant to be the red finisher, but I don't think it's actually that good at finishing: it's a six mana Kiln Fiend without haste or any enters-the-battlefield value. Triple prowess is flashy and exciting, and feels like the kind of thing a core set would do since it's big Timmy energy, but this card doesn't actually end up playable at the numbers its at. It also wants custom reminder text to explain that triple prowess stacks--it is a core set, after all, and I assume the Expert is the one speaking in the flavour text, so it needs quotation marks. Historian's Rebuke is a pretty cool counterspell, and I love how open-ended its ask condition is, while being a sharp gate if you don't have it. Its best use is probably in a creature-heavy deck that uses, like, self-mill, but it's got good risk-reward and a strong "on" condition that makes me want to test it. Please format the em-dash correctly in the flavour text. I have had to say this multiple times in every round so far. Em-dashes do not have spaces before or after them. Two of these three cards land well overall, but Flamewing Expert is just not getting there, unfortunately.
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