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1 | Name | URL | Score | Feedback | ||||||||||||||||||||||
2 | AdmiralIvy#7438 | https://imgur.com/a/n92hIxb | 3.17 | Mechanic - Catalyst. I think the weird frame stuff here is jumping through a bunch of hoops that make the mechanic super duper muddled. Additionally restricting it to only one counter means this gets super narrow and restricting the design space in a very weird way. Like, Agent of the Blind Eye, for example, has a very hard time of finding when/where it is best to use the counter, and how to actually utilize that type of thing. Feels very restrictive, very narrow, and also very weird for why the formatting is as weird as it is. Apprentice's Athame - I think is a prime example of where there's just so much happening here on what would otherwise be a very basic card. It's a mana filter that you can additionally use once to loot when you cast an instant or sorcery spell. Which.. okay? It uses 5 lines and an altered frame to say that. I think that this may not be the best use of a common for survivor, but I think it does highlight the messiness of the mechanic as a whole. Exile's Rose Executioner - This definitely looks spicy, though, ignoring the issues I have with the mechanic. Solid baseline that uses the mechanic pretty well, and gives some exciting moments as well. I do think that putting this at uncommon is also really good, since this isn't something you want a lot running in the same deck, while also just slotting in quite well. Agent of the Blind Eye - This is definitely a constructed plant, but one that I think highlights the super duper spikeness of the mechanic. It's very hard to tell exactly when that effect is going to be useful, and, when you guess wrong, it'll be hard to say whenever it was the correct time when you do use it, or feel very jarring whenever you use it in the wrong place. It definitely hits some cool moments in terms of combo decks, though, but that's for constructed testing. The Chain That Binds - Now, this is an awesome use of the mechanic. Very fun, very evocative, and definitely exciting. I do wish that there was actually a bigger loyalty ability, just so it had something big you could that wasn't *as* spammable. I do think this can have some issues with draw-step-locking people, since once you use the -1, you can cast cantrips in someone's draw step to just permanently deny them casting any non-instant spell. Not a big knock, since this card is really neat, but definitely would be the first thing I'd try to find a replacement for. | I think unconventional formatting can be hit or miss, but I'm a fan of what you've done with Catalyst here. It manages to cleanly delineate which part of the textbox is the Catalyst effect without being an eyesore, and feels like the type of thing that helps when scanning a pack for synergies. As for the mechanic itself, I think there could've been potential design issues with how Catalyst is a one-time effect and also free, but I think each of your cards toes the line with their balance effectively, being attractive on their own but not over the top if you manage to trigger their Catalyst effect. I like that each of your cards highlights a different archetype it could work with - slow, greedy control with Apprentice's Athame, prowess-y type aggro Exile's Rose Executioner, and tempo with Agent of the Blind Eye. The Chain That Binds is just the cherry on top, taking the mechanic and using it in a splashy, completely out there way. Overall, excellent job, I'm a fan. | Apprentice's Athame: Very sensical direction to take the keyword Catalyze. I feel like it really wants to be "Catalyze X" because that lets you scale the power of marginal effects, like this one, but it's not inherently poor as-is by a long shot. This card is pretty middling; honestly, I think you could probably just have it draw a card and then be done with it, but if you're scared to make a card that outclasses limited all-star Prophetic Prism much of the time, I'll forgive you. Exile's Rose Executioner: In general, I'm a big fan of spells decks in limited, and I particularly like Spellgorger Weirds. This style of effect lets you make your Weirds a lot more bursty and exciting, which I think will in turn look good to limited players. I think you do yourself a disservice putting haste on this body because it makes the intended use-case look more combo-y than I prefer in an uncommon, but otherwise the splash lands. Agent of the Blind Eye: This is a less exciting use of this mechanic because it's clearly hyper-specific, but it's still a very playable card in constructed formats. I'd hate to play against this as a filthy control player, but I guess I don't mind narrow tools to make players less frustrated! The Chain That Binds: This is a very, very neat way to sell this mechanic at mythic. The play patterns seem very exciting, and it can only take over a game incrementally which lowers the power ceiling substantially. Smart to not give it an ult, as well. Overall: Very pleased with this package. The mechanic itself isn't breaking any ground, and the "Catalyze" text box is quite unattractive, but you've made a compelling suite of designs with mechanical cohesion and a touch of panache. Well done. | Catalyst is workable but it's not my favorite - at the lower rarities, it feels like it functions as a sort of delayed ETB that happens as you cast a spell, which doesn't really feel like it justifies the odd framing choice. While I definitely like Agent of the Blind Eye as a spikey card with the interesting use of the mechanic, there aren't really many other conditions you can grant to a spell as you cast it that justify adding text to your spell as opposed to just triggering an ability. The Chain That Binds is confusing to me - do catalyst abilities stack? Does this lose abilities as they become catalyst abilities? Frame-wise, how do you keep track of that? Also, seems like a real chore to keep track of the loyalty and catalyst counters on one card. I like the concept of the card, but it could have used refining. | Visual elements when they're actually needed add a lot to a mechanic, but in this entry's case I think it's hurting more than it is helping. You could have just written it out Companion style: "Catalyst--Draw a card, then discard a card." The extraness of the Catalyze box/stripe doesn't look particularly good, anyway; these textboxes came out looking unappealing. Maybe you did it this way so you can design The Chain That Binds like that, but I don't think it was worth it if that was the case. The other designs for the most part are fine, and I like Agent of the Blind Eye a lot in particular, but the mechanic was the highlight of this challenge and I think Catalyst's presentation dropped the ball. | I don't know why Catalyze here needs a new frame. It already has a counter, it's not casting an Adventure or another spell that needs its own costs, it's just, like, "you can add a kicker to an instant/sorcery once". That ability is actually pretty fine and cool, and the catalyst counter is all the tech you need for that, so the frame choices are just taking away from the mechanic itself. Your common and uncommon, and rare are all pretty solid for me. They're simple effects that are appealing and add meaningful upsides, but they're small enough to be okay with selling for free, and the cards are well-costed to keep the catalyst in mind, plus they totally go in different decks from each other, which puts depth on the mechanic. I think these are great cards that do a good job with the mechanic. The Chains that Bind feels very experimental, and that's very novel... but I'm actually not fully sure how the ability works. We had some confusion over it in the judge chat. Does it remove the loyalty ability altogether and it slowly becomes an enchantment (that's what I assume the name wants), or does it double-dip on having catalysts and loyalty and stays doing planeswalker things? That ambiguity felt like a difficult line to walk, and I ended up not very confident in judging the card since those two options play very differently, but they do both suffer from double-dipping on multiple counter resources fighting for space on the same card, which is a bummer. This is one of the better keywords this week, it just suffers from being over-designed visually. Without the frames, you'd have been in business. | |||||||||||||||||
3 | AmbroseWinters | https://imgur.com/a/240yAJm | 2.83 | Mechanic - Hero's Journey. I'm not the biggest fan of this mechanic. I think it makes games go on extra long, especially when you are winning. Losing out on a creature is a pretty big deal, since that's a body that's not pushing for an advantage. in order to get later game payoff. I think for Commander and the like, it has a lot of cool designs, but for other constructed/limited environments, it will slog games down, especially since these are a tad anemic on the front side, making you really pushed to use the Hero's Journey mechanic. I do think this could work, in battlecruiser-y type of set, but that'd require a lot of warping. Not having a body, though, means that if someone *isn't* playing the wait-till-turn-9-to-attack game, you just get overrun. And, I think whenever the format goes into getting punished for the mechanic, it isn't in the best spot. Inner Seeker - This seems like an appropriate use of Hero's Journey and kind of pushes what I talked about in the mechanic review. It comes down as a slightly weak card, then when you do-the-thing, you stall out and gain life. However, I think what lets this card shine, though, is that coming back as a 4/4 vigilance promotes you to swing, attack, and end the game fast once the mechanic has finally done its thing. It is a bit weird that this will happen on turn 5, for even this low-cost Journey-er, but I think this is at least appropriately costed and works well. Mourning Widow - This is one that I'm not so sure of. Given the rate of Inner Seeker and when it transforms to be relevant, this gets to do the transform thing on turn 6, and that as a 2/3 double striker is pretty anemic. Sure, you get to draw two cards, but eh? Does a deck that wants a 2/3 double striker also want to be a value-engine? I think it can fit into some limited things, but like I suggested with the mechanic feedback, I don't think aggressive decks really want to Journey out, since losing bodies just hurts so much. Learned Academic - Now, this is one I can get down with. Because you are replacing the body immediately, you're not losing an immense amount of value for doing-the-thing, which helps out the gameplay greatly. And, getting a big and hefty reward from it as well is also very good. My issue is a bit on rate, as just a basic no-interaction game, playing this on 4 and assuming you are hitting every land drop, when you start attacking you will have attacked three times with this, dealing 12 damage. Do you really need to be getting a lot more? Ionno, feels a bit win-more-y in a way that may have issues in actual play, but I think that's best left to testing. Alina, Timorous Witch - This is definitely a fun use of the mechanic, though I do have some gameplay worries. Being a 1/1 with that ability means that this is basically just a commander bait card, as it functions much more like an enchantment rather than an actual-factual creature. It also *greatly* suffers from a disparity between if you land a 1 drop creature vs if you don't. The entire extra turn (And opening her up to creature destruction!) feels pretty big. I think the backside of this is a bit disappointing, though, as it's very much "oh, mill, neat" but the flipping back and forth is definitely a fun part of the card. I kinda wish it was a tad bit more exciting, especially in terms of payoff/play patterns, though. | We've seen the idea of "completing a hero's quest" with the Ordeal from Theros, but this is an interesting new take on the same concept. My biggest worry with this mechanic is that I don't know if there's enough actually interesting design space for this at common, and also that I think the journey halves have to be juiced to be worth giving up board presence for. Inner Seeker feels like a good example of this, where you do end up with more than you paid your mana for, but having to take off multiple turns/de-develop your board. I'm not sure what Mourning Widow adds to the entry, given Inner Seeker already represents journey completion payoffs. Same for Learned Academic, where it just feels like the takeway is "big mana sink." Alina at least is interesting in that it explores nonmana Hero's journey costs... but of course, you give up even more baord presence to enable it. I feel like there was a missed opportunity in this entry to mess with Saga synergies, length, counter manip perhaps (though less safe since it allows you to re-journey) and generally deliver on the design space that the mechanic promises and needs to have to feel attractive. | Inner Seeker: Very interesting mechanic. The timing of Saga-creatures is very precise in limited, and I wonder if losing the board presence will make this feel not worth it much of the time--maybe an alt casting cost was the way to go. I think you could probably build a limited environment around it, though, so at the very least color me intrigued; this card's costing also feels pinpoint. Mourning Widow: Not a huge fan of 2/3 attacking first strike, but double strike does make it better. The "generic color effect" on the back of "generic color creature" looked much better at common than it does uncommon; because the complexity here is higher, the effects end up looking much more disjoint. Learned Academic: This is another situation where it really feels like you should have made this an alt cost. I guess the board goes somewhat net neutral when you transform, but it being seven mana and relying on your 4-mana flier to survive for at least a turn cycle feels like a tough ask. Alina: This is pretty great. I'm a fan of the manaless Hero's Journey. This card is mechanically cohesive, flavorfully exciting, and looks like it would play in an interesting way. Overall: Big fan of the concept. Not as jazzed about the execution, but the designs are mostly tight and the whole package looks very professional. | Interesting mechanic here for sure. Generally, I think the idea of "send your creature away for a couple of turns to get some minor effects and then get it back stronger" is pretty interesting, but I do have some problems. I feel like the mechanic would be better suited to being an altcost as opposed to an AA, as that makes it so that you don't have to give up on a creature body to start getting Saga triggers - making it play more like a suspend than something that loses you a creature for 2 turns. I also feel like the creatures keeping a full strack of lore counters on them as the "has transformed" tracker is a little goofy, but I think there's not much that can be done about that. Individually, all of these cards work fine enough for me. Alina is my standout here, as I like it making the fact that flipping a Hero's Journey gives the three lore counters relevance. I also definitely like Fight with Fire, impulse draw tied to how long your saga lasts is super cool. | I'm not sure why Hero's journey is a special action instead of an activated ability, unless you wanted to guarantee getting Ch1 off on the Saga, which I can respect. I like that you showed a common here, and generally think this is a neat mechanic. Normally I'm not a fan of named mechanics that just lets DFCs transform, but this does enough in addition that makes me like it. The flavor and clean designs also help. Also like how you recognized that losing a body might not be appealing a lot of the time but offset that with extra bonuses on the creature if it has a lore counter. The exile duration on Fighting with Fire is super neat. Alina looks awesome, although I wish it had better stats than a 1/1. I like that you use lore counters as a resource for the mythic. Overall this is a pretty good spread of what I can expect to see with this mechanic in a set. Good job. | Hero's Journey is a good top-down premise that all the same feels overdesigned to me. Paying mana to transform your creature into a Saga so that at the end of the story you can transform back into a stronger creature is just a lot of steps and a lot of different effects, and while I like the narrativization of making a Saga for the literary "hero's journey", I'm not sure if that whole step really feels... necessary, especially since it's taking away your creature for the whole time, and the creatures here aren't good unless you've done the entire Hero's Journey at least once (and Alina, at least, asks you do it multiple times by removing lore counters!). The Inner Seeker is solid for being a bear on-curve, and it can use hero's journey as a lategame mana sink when the board is clogged, coming back as a much more valuable 4/4 in that time point. The Saga side suffers from being underwhelming, but that's fine, it's the common. Mourning Widow has good raw value just from being a creature + exile-draw twice, but it's slow, and much worse than Seeker as the baseline creature. Learned Academic is probably the best execution of the mechanic, I feel, since the creature front is worth playing on its own, and it replaces the board penalty you suffer from going on the hero's journey while still being synergistic with itself. Alina using the three lore counters to fuel itself is a clever resource-play that also sells the mechanic better, but there's not many designs that can really use that because of the high cost-of-investment to get there. I think there's a very solid core here that does hit the top-down beat of "a hero's journey", but I think there were more elegant solutions than the complicated back-and-forthing this one does, and while I'd say I like the Seeker and the Academic, I think the keyword overall is too slow and stall-y for how many pieces it has before it "gets good". | |||||||||||||||||
4 | Badknight13#6404 | https://imgur.com/a/v7hHO8F | 2.67 | Mechanic - Limelight. This definitely works and has been played and tested to the point that it plays super well, especially whenever warped enough. Samurai in NEO didn't quite get there, but that doesn't mean the mehcanic itself doesn't work. I don't quite know if it gets there for Survivor-stuff, but it is pretty solid. Dead Metal - I love this! Attacking alone means you normally won't be able to trade through a lot of creatures, but just giving deathtouch makes things mesh so well. I think this is a solid roleplayer for the Limelight decks and just overall feels good. Lovely package. Golden Microphone - This one, though, I'm not the biggest fan of. Exalted/Limelight-esque effects have a very fine line on where they attack and where they can go, and this is a weird mesh of design that I don't think quite fits into the mesh. In limited especially, prowess requires you using instants and sorceries to get the benefit, so this only attaching on the attack, before you can get prowess triggers from sorceries pushes me a tad off of it and I wish it had a different mechanic rather than just prowess. Even somethign like menace would have made this a stand out thing. Packed Croud - Crowd? This is a fun Rabblerouser variant and definitely one that can kill super fast. I do worry that this basically is a Rabblerouser without drawback and without a good play pattern around it, given that the tokens can just sit back safely. But, that's more for testing as the base idea here is super fun. Bony Tony - If the Starlights are important, why aren't they represented in the creature types? :( I think this feels a lot more like a rare than a mythic, personally, as it's just a slightly updated version of Dead Metal, so not a huge fan, compared to what could be done with this type of design. | I think your choice of mechanic here was somewhat risky, specifically because it's pretty close to Exalted in a round where the entire point is the mechanic itself. I do think the execution here saved it, though, with the designs themselves showing a clear understanding of what an archetype like this needs; Bony Tony and Dead Metal give it keywords to make it easier to tango with blockers, and Packed Crowd (misspelled) and Golden Microphone give it the stats to make up for the loss of the rest of your board. Golden Microphone granting prowess is interesting, signalling that Limelight may be intended to be used in a deck with a mix of creature and noncreature spells, which has a greater chance of being able to coast off of a relatively smaller board. Overall, while I think the cleanness of the designs and theming here keep this entry to a good standard, the choice of mechanic here held it back to a not-insignificant degree. | Bony Tony: This mechanic isn't new by a long stretch, so you're not gonna get many points in the "creative mechanic" department. Red-white "choose from a bunch of keywords" mythic/rare has been around the block, too, so I think the only thing that feels like a real hit for me on this design is the flavor, which to be fair does land. Packed Cro[w]d: This absolutely does not feel red. +1/+0, maybe, but the toughness boost is very out of place. Guest makes this entry feel very un-set, which is just an unfortunate drawback to the creature type. Golden Microphone: +1/+1 and prowess look pretty odd together, in my opinion. I think the flavor of your soloist taking the mic works, but the mechanics of the mic itself are ho-hum. Dead Metal: This design is in my opinion the best of the bunch, if still not incredibly exciting. I like attacking-deathtouch, though I will say that the later the game goes, the bigger you want your creature in the limelight to be, and the less deathtouch will really matter. Overall: Your mechanic isn't really inventive, but it is functional. The designs feel like they needed some more thought to really get the best out of them. | I think you probably know this, but boring mechanic idea done with a very solid execution. I don't really have much to say, other than that I think all of these designs are solid (Packed Croud Crowd is a standout for me, and Golden Microphone as a prowess-granter is also fun in what it tells me about a Limelight deck), but the mechanic choice is just a psuedo version of Exalted in a round that was all about coming up with an interesting mechanic. | The flavor throughline here is great. Love the energy, the aesthetic, and the effects line up pretty well with what the cards are representing. However the actual mechanic being pseudo-Exalted leaves much to be desired from me. Maybe part of it is the sad performance of NEO Samurais that had this mechanic, but even past that I think this is an underwhelming mechanic to submit for Survivor. It's undeniably clean, but it's not fresh, either. Maybe Bony Tony should have held off on the reunion tour. Packed Croud (Crowd?) is a cool design but feels like it should either force the token to attack each combat or have the card be white. Overall cool cards carried a lot by the theming, but Limelight just doesn't get the golden buzzer for me. | It is bold to just keyword the "attacks alone" effect in this round. I think the mechanic itself isn't particularly interesting or shows off what you can do as a designer; the one time we've seen a canon attacks-alone archetype (in NEO), it was unplayable, and it often feels like something that looks better than plays better. While I'd have no qualms seeing this keyword in a regular set, it feels very supplementary and secondary rather than the creative design that shows off your skill. The individual cards are lucky enough to carry a lot of the mechanics' inherent weakness. Bony Tony isn't super mythic-feeling, but the modal trigger is a creative way to spread out keywords and give the all-needed evasion to make it worthwhile to swing out with but a single creature. Packed Croud (pesky typo!) is a really cool spin on a Rabblemaster effect that pushes a wide board and an alpha-strike... by just being exalted. Golden Microphone and Dead Metal's uses of limelight are my favourite of all of these, since they're like Bony Tony in giving you rewards for attacking alone that actively benefits the creature attacking alone, unlike many NEO Samurai; while the Microphone seems narrow, just granting deathtouch is a great offensive ability to allow chipping in with small or evasive threats. I want to see a more creative mechanic next time, but the cards you made with this one are well-made cards. | |||||||||||||||||
5 | Cool Beens#5114 | https://imgur.com/a/qrwe0tv | 2.17 | Mechanic - Catalyst. This is a very, very odd mechanic and I don't think I'm the biggest fan. It's a big workhorse mechanic, which tend not to be the best for Survivor submissions. Additional, this feels weird as a mana ability, meaning it can't be responded to, which... is weird. I think so much of this mechanic is just begging the question on why, but not doing a good job of answering any of those questions. This does the cycling stuff, but also random mana fixing, but normally for mana fixing you tend to want to use it to actively know what you are casting, rather than guess that you are going to hit something relevant. But, if you hit something relevant, you're giving this up to not lose the chance to cast it? Additionally, Ikoria showed us how warping cycling 1 costs were in terms of warping, and this is basically cycling 1 that can't move into itself. Which... sure, but it also just begs the question on why. Sterile Laboratory - This is fine. The cycling lands are loved and always play well. This is basically those, but playing a bit worse, since you can't just wait to cycle at the end of the opponent's turn and be reactive and instead are forced to be proactive. Madcap Mutator - This is definitely something that feels unsafe, but I think that's more of the mechanic's fault, rather than the Mutator's fault. Because of how cycle-into-oblivion the mechanic can go, judging on how to play against this seems a bit horrendous to keep track of. Lots of potential "catalyst 4 cards in my hand with my 5 open mana means I swing in for 10 damage per Mutator" types of plays, especially with how weird the scaling is on doing the catalyst-ing. This definitely is a fun use of the mechanic, though, and definitely feels like a scary threat. Advancements in Necrology - This feels weird, especially with how catalyst is trying to exilecast. Since there will be times you'll be unable to cast whatever you hit from catalyst, having Advancements only be able to grab things that you've cast/discarded feels like it is a miss, again, because of the intricacies of the mechanic itself, rather than anything the card is doing. If Catalyst was a bit smoother, this could have been something that's very fun, but as is it feels a bit disjointed. Era of Progress - This card is pretty neat, but I think Catalyst here just feels very tacked on and isn't doing too much, which is part of the problem with workhorse mechanics like this, especially for Survivor. The base effect is pretty cool, especially since you get the cool gameplay loop of realizing that you get two of the card. It'd definitely need to be balanced around the format it is in, cause it can definitely cause some silly things, but that's more for testing and balancing for those. | I'm a big fan of cycling variants - smoothing an environment will usually result in less nongames/allows you to place more color-heavy cards at lower rarities where they usually couldn't be supported, etc. - but I think when you're riffing on an existing mechanic, and one of the simplest mechanics at that, you really have to focus on showing why the changes you made to it matter. I don't think Sterile Laboratory and Madcap Mutator do a good job of that, with Sterile Laboratory really doing nothing to demonstrate how the mechanic would play, and Madcap Mutator using discard triggers just like cycling. Advancements in Necrology hint at it supporting a 5c deck, and Era of Progress supports the impulse draw aspect of it, but I think there needed to be more space - and more explicit space, in the case of Necrology - devoted to those aspects of the mechanic. Advancements in Necrology as a card also seems debateably cracked at its current cost. | Sterile Laboratory: This is not particularly convincing to me as a cycling-like. It's VERY random and not particularly suited to early-game use, which is part of the draw of cycling--to give your expensive cards some value early in games. It'll feel bad to miss on a playable; it'll feel bad when your opponent hits a playable. This design does to some degree make sense with the mechanic, but I can't see much design space here. Madcap Mutator: This design is fine, if a little swingy with "Discard a card:" effects. Catalyst isn't doing anything here Cycling wouldn't, and I believe is actively doing a lot less. Advancements in Necrology: I'm sensing a theme here. Fine design, synergizes with the mechanic, but the mechanic just isn't strong enough to rationalize it. I think it's pretty weird to show this alongside a colorless common. Era of Progress: This is a very, very specific synergy with your mechanic, so I'll appreciate it for that. I think this needs an "X can't be 0" because of existing cards, but that's a nitpick. The design is exciting, I will say. Overall: I like your designs, but the mechanic doesn't do enough work here by a long shot. I would say you could staple cycling onto the first three and have a very interesting suite of designs. Just put Era of Progress in a set with madness and call it. | Catalyst is definitely a solid filler mechanic, and it feels cleanly made. I like giving you mana to play the thing you flipped, letting it effectively cost 1 to activate as long as you have another spell to cast, and I like that it's a color fixer as well. I think all three of your nonland cards also do a pretty good job of keying on the different parts of catalyst - discard, color fixing, and casting from exile. The mechanic is definitely on the boring side, and there are some balance issues (Necrology seems mad busted), but the execution is solidly done. | I'm not sure if you realized it when you made this, but Catalyst being a mana ability doesn't seem ideal. It's pretty clearly a workhorse mechanic, and you do just enough with the individual designs to make it more than that, but it still doesn't strike me as exciting for a competition . . . I guess I like that this has other synergy points that cycling doesn't, as shown in "outside your hand" triggers with Era of Progress. Not a bad submission, but I wasn't overly impressed by it, either. | Catalyst wears its cycling forefathers on its sleeve, and while I can't say I ever dislike cycling mechanics or what they do for an environment, I'm not sure this version really sells itself on being different enough from cycling to let it stand on its own. It does a good job of feeling like "red cycling", if cycling wasn't already red. Giving a mana refund is nice and it asks you to use it a bit later in the game to more reliably cast what you hit, but that timing restriction feels worse compared to cycling. Your common and uncommon also don't do a great job of showing what makes this different. Sterile Laboratory is just Drifting Meadow, an existing cycling card, and Madcap Mutator's a cool structure of a weak double-striker that grows under the set condition, this is also the same kind of thing you can just do already with canon cycling, not something that justifies this version. Advancements in Necrology suggests that this mechanic supports something five-colour, but that's not seen anywhere else, and the card is very strong if you just ignore the catalyst anyway for letting you draw so much in already-strong gold decks. Era of Progress is the one that's selling the "new space" this mechanic justifies, and the card is fine and solid in itself, but it's somewhat standing alone here. I'm sure there are reasons to use this over just regular cycling in a set, but I'm not really seeing the kinds of things here that make me feel like it'd be worth doing right now, since this isn't doing enough different. | |||||||||||||||||
6 | Crashington#5085 | https://imgur.com/a/jiDvDzW | 2 | Mechanic - Catalyst. "Enters with a +1/+1 counters? :P I've seen this mechanic in reverse a lot of times (Specific cards that you can reduce the cost by removing counters), but I don't think I'm a big fan of this version. The creature versions have the weird pattern where if you actually get them in combat, you risk just spontaneously killing the creature from that 1 toughness mattering. It being on creatures makes it a lot harder to tell where different cards are getting to be balanced from, as turning so many creatures in to mana dorks can get very problematic very fast. Experimental Assistant - I think I like the base idea here, but I don't think I like the impmentation. The idea is that you can remove the counter, cast something, then something else gets the cool counter. But, you can't ever give the counter to the thing you are acutally casting, which I feel will be something that will be misplayed a nonzero amount of times, especially for a common. Additionally, 1 mana dorks, even one shot, can be finicky to balance out, since getting 3 drops on turn 2 has a history of doing some silly things. Hulking Homunculus - I think this is definitely too dangerous of a design to have at uncommon, as it pushes a lot for duplicates to just get silly. I think it also wants some reminder text to make sure it doesn't get confused for infinite mana with two of them. I do like the design, but I feel like it's more appropriate at rare. It is a neat rare, though. The Sage's Stone - Immediately this redflags for me as an on board combat trick, and one that just gets really messy very quickly. And, that being the main play pattern of the card (along with being a mana rock*) makes me think this wanted to have a bit more restriction on it. And, being a mana rock is immediately going to be problematic for a lot of formats, so even less of a fan. Liyon - This is definitely commander bait, but one that I think I really like. This looks like it'd be a super fun commander to play, though, I don't know if it really needs deathtouch/lifelink, but it does help sell the flavor a bunch. | Experimental Assistant says "with a +1/+1 counters." I think the mechanic itself it workable as long as you're cautious with counter allocation and have breakpoints where the cost reduction can be meaningful even if small. However, I'm not a fan of the execution here. Hulking Homunculus being able to loop with another copy of itself feels like it should've been an obvious usecase that was accounted for, Sage's Stone creates incredible on-board trickiness just by itself, and Liyon's use of both populate and proliferate don't feel like they add anything to what would otherwise be an interesting balance between a catalyst 1 creature combined with death triggers. Proliferate alone I could see, but the populate just feels tacked on, especially since that combination of keywords is usually a siren song for custom designers. | Catalyst: This feels very, very Simic. It's also pretty swingy, I'd imagine, but I don't mind trading board presence for speed in general as I think it opens up interesting lines of play. This card is a very bare-bones implementation of the mechanic, which I'm fine with. It makes sense as a common, and probably is very playable. I do think the environment has to be balanced around Llanowar Elves to a degree, and I don't love that it's just a Treasure token going from 1 to 3 mana, but it at least makes sense. Hulking Homunculus: Not as big into this design, mostly because of how it plays in multiples (i.e. poorly). This mechanic is already quite fiddly, and the more +1/+1 counter manipulation you do, the more fiddly it feels. I'd rather have seen something that explored how this mechanic would be used outside of ham-fisted +1/+1 counter synergies. The Sage's Stone: The activated ability is a combat nightmare. I like any design that rationalizes +1/+1 counters on noncreatures, but I'd rather this design be a little more focused to the counters on the Stone itself, because as-is it looks suuuper frustrating to play into. Liyon: Don't capitalize keywords unless they're first in the list. This card is a big miss for me; no reason to use three expert-level keywords in one box, especially without RT on any of them. The upkeep trigger is fun and I like the idea of a stitcher creating Homunculus Treasures, essentially, but there's again way too much fiddling going on in the text box. Overall: Mechanic is pretty clear-cut, and makes a lot of sense. I would have preferred to see more generically interesting designs than hyper-focused synergy pieces, and I think you missed the mark on power level by a fair bit. | Definitely a fan of the mechanic for sure - I like the kind of convoke-like idea of paying some cost from your creatures to cheapen spells, and counters is a good choice as any, and feels like an interesting choice to make between keeping a strong creature and ramping out. However, the individual cards are a lot weaker - Experimental Assistant not being able to counter the thing you're casting feels like a miss, Hulking Homunculus seems tailor-made to go infinite somehow, Sage's Stone is weird as an onboard combat trick (and also a 2 mana rock that additionally gets you board advantage), and Liyon having three mechanics with 0 RT is not the move in my opinion. | Automating the reminder text is your downfall because the plural check on counter(s) isn't set up correctly, and typically these should use "This creature" or "This artifact" rather than the card name. Some issues about the individual designs: Kind of disappointing that Experimental Assistant cant put its counter on a creature spell you're casting; dislike The Sages' Stone's AA being an on board trick (slap sorcery only on it!); and I'm not a fan of the multiple unreminder'd mechanics on Liyon (who is a mythic, but still; and lifelink shouldn't be capitalized on it too). I'd have given this entry a higher score if it weren't for the misses on the designs themselves, since I do see the potential in the mechanic, but alas. | Catalyst here is a bit of a finnicky mechanic, but I think it has solid potential as just trading immediate stats for immediate acceleration, depending on what you need more. That is, of course, a tricky line, but convoke proved it was doable so I'm into it conceptually. I don't feel these cards landed it, though. Experimental Assistant lets you do the same Llanowar Elves turn 1 acceleration plays, and then rewards you further for hitting your three-drop early and stomping, while also trying to dodge one of the weaknesses of late-game drawing a mana dork by letting it move its power to other creatures. Hulking Homunculus just... loops with another copy of itself, where removing a counter from one puts it back on the other, so it's infinite Ballista or other X-cost effects. The Sage's Stone is just a pile of on-board tricks because there's no sorcery-speed restriction, allowing you to immediately shift all counters to whoever's blocked so they win combat every time, and then spread them back out again or protect value against removal. Liyon's use of populate and proliferate here feel commanderbait in the negative way; I don't think either of these mechanics are really adding that much to the individual design or catalyst (populate especially) and take away from the interesting loop of just generating catalyst by itself. I think this mechanic would have had stronger legs if it was put with better individual designs. Llanowar Elf acceleration, self-loops, and extra keywords all took away from the core and made me more nervous of catalyst than excited for it. | |||||||||||||||||
7 | Dodger#3503 | https://imgur.com/a/OWlVtfL | 3.67 | Mechanic - Slam dunk. This is a definitely slam dunk and amazing job. I've played around with excess damage as a mechanical theme and it definitely is a lot harder and more warping than it looks. However, this version just takes basically every issue that I had with the mechanic's play patterns and solves them single-handedly. This gets around the issue of removing blocking as a mechanic, since your opponents do have a choice in terms of how they are blocking and trading. This gets around the snowbally nature by being a mana sink, so you aren't able to just constantly accrue an advantage. Then, the flavor on this is also just a slam dunk, showcasing a clean win. Lovely design. Team Player - This is the type of card that could easily be problematic, but the statline and costs make it perfectly sync up. Very good job keeping this simple, flavorful, and still exciting. I do think that this probably wanted reminder text, a la fungasaur, to make it clear that she would have to survive in order to get the counter herself, but that's super minor. Alley-Ooper - I think the wording on the passive could be a lot easier to parse, like "~ has flying as long as you've attacked with two or more creatures this turn" but that's not the most important. The Slam Dunk ability here is definitely fun, since you can go the easy way with the flying route, but also just utilizing auras/equipment/etc to get through. I don't know how it would entirely fit in the set, but this with a bunch of 1/1 flying tokens just seems like a match made in heaven for it to draw all the cards it ever wanted. Power Forward - Again, pretty solid pretense and solid execution. The cost probably is prohibiting this a whole lot, but overall looks excting to play, has direct points on where and when it is strong, and lets you attempt to go even bigger without feeling snowbally and unbeatable. Amiel, the Undisputed - Another solid design. Being able to alter the base math and how blocks are able to funcion is one of the biggest bits of warping that you have to do with excess damage mechanics and this card just sums them all up in one neat package. Being able to grow, but by doing so, you limit how many cards you can draw, is definitely a very fun and spikey gameplay loop that I find very exciting. Lovely all around. | I think the choice of "unblocked or excess" was heads-up here; without excess damage, this becomes much harder to trigger/it's sad for your combat mechanic to be useless in board stalls. Team Player is my favorite of the cards here, with the 3/1 statline putting the excess damage front and center, and the cost of the ability is cheap enough to reliably trigger. I also like Amiel's Firebreathing mattering both for the Slam Dunk and for the excess damage portion. Note that you "get" stats and "gain" keywords, though. There's also something to be said for the mindgame of holding up mana and your opponent not knowing if its for combat tricks or for your Slam Dunk abilities. Power Forward seems strange to me, I'm not sure what it adds to the entry; Alley-Ooper at least demonstrates how evasive cards with Slam dunk would be designed and costed. I would expect a green slam dunk card to once again show me some interesting excess damage triggering, but Power Forward doesn't do that. It also made me realize that I don't like how every Slam dunk ability is expensive, or even has a mana cost in general. It makes it so the mechanic gets subtly worse in density, moreso than I think it needed to, and also gates its effectiveness in the very aggressive decks it seems to be designed for. I also think exploring nonmana costs would've been an interesting thing to do at your higher rarities. Overall, I think the concept here was neat, and some of the cards delivered, but overall I was underwhelemed by the execution. | Team Player: Already you get a bonus 0.1 points for the sheer gall of this entry. Typing basketball players as Mercenaries is hilarious, as well. I like the terminology, "unblocked or excess combat damage." The card I'm lukewarm on; I'm generally not huge on medium mana sinks like this, because they only halfway solve the problem of "what happens when I flood?" The flavor is an absolute slam dunk though. (I typed that before I realized what I was doing.) Alley-Ooper: These are legitimately so funny. This is a much better mana sink than team player, which makes sense at uncommon. No complaints here. Power Forward: The old "we have LeBron" recruitment strategy, I respect it. Another really quality mana sink. This feels like a very appropriate rare; it's not going to do much in constructed, but it can win a game in limited when not answered while being pretty easy to answer. I like it. Amiel: Don't like the AA to give Amiel flying. That doesn't really feel red at all. I do like his Slam Dunk trigger. I wasn't convinced by making all your slam dunks mana sinks early on, but you've done a good job convincing me. Overall: The flavor is nails. The mechanic looks a little raw, but nothing here looks like a particularly big problem, just some knobs that need tuning. | Appreciate you for taking a risk with slam dunk. In terms of the mechanic itself, I definitely like "excess or unblocked" as a concept to trigger on excess while also giving you recourse if your opponent isn't blocking in order to avoid you getting the triggers, so that element of it works. However, the fact that all of these have a heavy mana requirement to trigger makes me a little more wary - while I get the idea of wanting to make it so that you don't snowball too much, all of these effects basically taking up your whole turn as opposed to casting a spell or something else because of the 4+ mana requirements make me a little worried about how much you're actually going to use these abilities at all. Individually, I like Team Player and Amiel a lot - Team Player is cool because it can trade with something and then pass two +1/+1's to another creature, which feels super in line with the basketball and FT theme. Amiel is cool on the level of giving itself a lot of different abilities to fuel that Slam dunk - either becoming able to attack with haste, getting past blockers with flying, or boosting the effect with +1/+0's. | All right. You got me. Slam dunk looks fun. I'm trying to divorce it from the flavor being inherently fun and I think it plays out well, too. I have some issues with the individual designs: Team Player is a bit rulesy at common with it being unable to save itself with the counters (so maybe as a Team Player it should just say "another target creature you control"), Power Forward's tutor is too expensive, and there has to be better wording for Amiel's AA that doesn't lump P/T boosting with "gains". Everything else about this entry is awesome. The art might raise some eyebrows but I imagine you didn't have a lot to work on, and the mechanic is really the main point of the challenge anyway. You earned that mechanic name. | Slam Dunk feels like a mechanic that had its play patterns down pat. Caring about either excess or unblocked allows you to still translate saboteur abilities into a clogged board by going over them, without demanding evasion... or you can just use evasion, and it supports two different deck strategies. That also allows basically all colours to use it well, which often disproportionately would reward flying and trample with only one or the other. I'm not sold on it always costing mana, since that really makes you have to go all-in on it, or punish you for playing a lot of slam dunks (which it seems the cards want you to build a full roster) as they compete with regular spells and mana, but it is an easy signal and adds more counterplay which is nice. I think your three cards here that emphasize the different aspects of how you trigger slam dunk (Team Player's 3/1 for 1W statline, Alley-Ooper's flying, and any choice from Amiel's activated ability) are all dope, and land really well to me. Amiel's got notable tension with both of his abilities being so mana-hungry, though. Power Forward doesn't hit it for me. It's mostly just an overstatted green creature, and while it can tutor a Craterhoof, and it is a good top-down bit for a set-up, it's so expensive to do so! I think it'd probably be played just ignoring the slam dunk ability altogether since it doesn't "do anything" for itself. This is one of the better entries this week so far, and I liked it. It's funny seeing legit just NBA basketball trying to translate itself to M:tG ideals--Human Mercenary--and I wonder how viable that would be conceptually. The mechanic does a good job of balancing its asks and sticking to flavour while feeling meaningful and having multiple supported decks. | |||||||||||||||||
8 | Garduu | https://imgur.com/a/g9acpbi | 1.17 | Mechanic - The Limelight. As a start, having the foil treatment here is very cute. This is definitely a fun riff on Monarch, but I think it is definitely one that looks like it'll play worse than it. There are very few decks that actually want/have effects that trigger this, making it a lot less universal than "have creatures or make them" in a way that will definitely affect how this plays. I've actually playtested a version of this (different reward, but same base effect) and it just does not impress for how fiddly it actually is. Mob of Fans - "Human Citizen"? I don't believe you. The wording here is so weird. I'd definitely expect to originally get the limelight, you'd get more flavorful words with like "~ takes the limelight" or something. Definitely feel the wording here could be cleaned up. This design, though, is defintely weird. It's a 2/2 for 3 with haste that doesn't do anything else until something is finally targeted and when it does, it pushes for your opponent to have the limelight. However, there are other cards in this set that really, really want you to have the limelight, making a bit of a disconnect for how the play patterns are actually supposed to be, especially with this as a common. With Monarch, there were cards that gave you the monarch and pushed for ways for you to gain it if you ever lose it. For this, since attacking doesn't matter, it isn't actually pushing for you to do extra cool things with the mechanic, and instead just doesn't work with the rest of the cards in the set, especially when you are giving the opponent a Treasure every turn. The Wizened Old Mentor - I think this just pushes my dislike for this mechanic. If the opponent has a way to actually take the limelight, this card is very very bad. You get a 1/1 and then your opponent takes it and you never see it again, especially whenever removal just messes with the Limelight to such an massive degree. But, if the opponent doesn't have a way to deal with it, at uncommon, this just feels like it'll just spam fliers. But, that amount of disparity and work does not match the pay off. It also feels a bit weird in WU, but Monarch in W has the same issue. Scheming Understudy - This feels much more at uncommon and doesn't feel the most exciting. I think this reminds me of the sabotage mechanic from MSEM and I have a very big distaste for how it plays. Removal is good. You don't need to do much to make removal better. This is rewarding your removal with win cons, making for some miserable games. Critical Acclaim - This is a bit of more of the same type of gameplay issues that I have had in the other bits, but it at least gives you immediate value in a way reminiscent of Progenitor Mimic in a good way. I think I like this design, but I think with the safety valves that it has, it is much more palatable as a rare, rather than mythic. | This entry and mechanic feel like they went for flavor over function. Not really given a clear indication of why the Limelight's payoff is treasures. It seems like it's a state that is supposed to naturally pass around, given it has an inherent benefit but also cards that work against it particualrly well, but unlike Monarch it isn't as simple to pass around. Not sure what's special or different about Roles as opposed to curses, and why it justifies the sketch frame. | Mob of Fans: Well this art is horrifying. I feel like you could have reduced the text on the limelight ("turn on the limelight" or something) because this box feels very cramped. That's probably the fault of the flavor text, honestly. I think it's interesting that the first card you showed me wants your opponent to be in the limelight; that's something I'd expect to see at higher rarities, but at common giving +1/+1 is definitely not worth the Treasure-per-turn you're giving away. The Wizened Old Mentor: Why is this in the sketch frame? I guess to indicate that it's a Role? I like the idea of storytelling being in the limelight. Wait, what happens when a creautre gets Doom Bladed? Do they get the limelight and then die? I think because permanents can take the limelight, designs with the effect are really tricky. This either takes over the game or gets lost immediately, but I will cede it's very context-dependent. Scheming Understudy: The flavor text is really cramping these text boxes. Man, it feels like you're trying to do everything you possibly can with the limelight. As a result this entry feels stretched very thin; there's no mechanical cohesion whatsoever through the cards I've seen so far, and they all need to be evaluated very differently. Really not a fan of giving your opponents the Treasures, still. Critical Acclaim: Again, this feels too complicated for its own good. Really no need to copy the Aura IMO. The flavor does hit, but I don't love how dependent it is on keeping the limelight on that creature; again, it feels like this whole mechanic is just waiting to be blown up by a Doom Blade. Overall: I think you tried to do too much. The limelight is flying around the battlefield on these entries, and the fact that it also has the hidden "create a Treasure token" mode with very little indication of what those treasures might be used for makes me feel like I'm missing something, but I don't think I am. | Limelight is definitely an interesting concept here, but I'm not sure how well this execution lands. I like the idea of a condition you can get with targetting, but I think it is a little weird that it goes on players and creatures - feels like it'd be fiddly with effects that key on where your limelight is. With four places a limelight could be (you, your creature, an opponent, their creature), effects like Mob of Fans and Scheming Understudy seem like they'd be limited in actually getting the limelight to where you want it long enough to generate a lot of value from it. "This spell's target gets the limelight" on both of the Auras also feels pretty weird - feels like it might be better suited to a cast trigger, just for clarity. I do like a lot of the designs in theory, but they feels mismatched when you're trying to support all 4 at once. | It seems that external card reminder mechanics are the future of Magic, but I'd be honest and say that they need to clear a high bar for me to like them. The Limelight, while comparatively simpler than its canon ilk, doesn't get there for me. I think the mechanic verbage here is unwieldy, and I'm not a fan of the ETB ones requiring additional set up. I'm not sure why The Wizened Old Mentor is in the sketch frame; perhaps to signify that it's a Role? But then it doesn't look like it does anything mechanically different to warrant the special frame, so it just comes off as an odd choice. Not a fan of the clunky second trigger on Scheming Understudy. The flavor here in general checks out but I think the way this mechanic has been set up just made for jarring textboxes. | I'm confused by the Limelight. It feels very flavourful to tie it to Heroic conditions, but it's difficult to spread around since it takes much more deckbuilding work than just hit combat damage, and many decks aren't naturally inclined to give out the limelight except via... removal spells. Additionally, the treasure reward falls off pretty significantly in the lategame where you'd be fighting for the card advantage of the monarch, which means there's a narrower window for when this mechanic does things you want. It feels like very good top-down flavour, but the mechanic doesn't land itself in a place where it's justified the structure it has as a stand-alone pass-me-around. Mob of Fan's art creeps me out. The card's wording of how it gives the limelight also feels weird and unnatural, "it's available for the rest of the game" without actually giving it out is just awkward, and how it seems to want your opponent to have it also doesn't hit. Scheming Understudy does the same thing, where it seems to want your opponent to take the limelight for its abilities to function... so you want to hurt that creature, but not kill it, so that you can pay mana and tap it? It seems so much worse than just killing it, which turns off the limelight anyway. The two auras also have weird wording with "This spell's target" rather than just being an ETB effect, which seems very doable with the mechanic as-written, and I don't really get what a Role enchantment type is or why it has the frame. Those two cards have solid abilities, at least, that ask you to keep the limelight around. Overall this entry seems muddled. I'm not quite sure whether it wants you to keep the limelight or give it away, and I don't see good reason to do the latter, and the mechanic that's underlying it is fraught with weird wording and seems to put flavour before the mechanics. | |||||||||||||||||
9 | Lordpat#1042 | https://imgur.com/a/csOqFJE | 1.5 | Mechanic - Barter. I'm definitely not a big fan of this. I think that this creates a lot of decision paralysis in terms of having to overthink if a random card is better than the card you bartered away, while also just creating a lot of looping gameplay with how you are pushing it to be implemented. With two different barter cards, you can just keep looping them, creating a lot of stale gameplay loops that aren't actually interacting or interactable in a meaningful way. Additionally, the placement of where Barter is differs, while Exile in the reminder text should be capitalized. I actually think that having bartered away triggers here soiled the mechanic for me as a whole. Scorching Salamander - And this is a good example. With two of these, you get an effective enchantment that says "1R: ~ deals 2 damage to each player". It pushes you to get ahead on board, then just nuke people down until you win, not caring about the actual body at all. And, you can do so at instant speed, while also just protecting your pieces from basically any form of interaction. Hand attack gets responded to and you save the creature, and coutnerspells just don't work. Garden Kitties - This doesn't have a barter trigger so I'm much more in tune with it, but this feels very meh as an overall card. It's Reclamation Sage, with a slight downside and a barter upside. Barter helps, sure, because you can save it for when you need it, while also making it more maindeckable, but then this also goes into the weird bit where it stops counterplay from things like targeted discard from being a thing that can save you, while then also hanging it over the opponent's head. White Owl - As a rare, this feels a bit disappointing, since mechanically it's just doing what Scorching Salmander is doing, while also just being more fiddly without achieving anything. Being a 4/4 for 5 also makes it in the territory of ignoring the body for the loop, pushing it even higher to just being a bit sad to actually cast. Xanthrid's Manuscript - Again, this has the uninteractable gameplay loop of just using it as an enchantment (and actually combos in a very unfun way with the common (2BR: Each opponent loses 2 life, you mill two cards). Being a tap ability for such a low cost makes me think this wants to just be a once a turn trigger instead, since paying 6 mana for the start just makes it seem a bit disappointing, especially compared to a lot of other types of these effects (God-Pharoah's Gift, as an example). | I like cycling-alikes, generally, but am also an advocate for putting heavy emphasis on how your mechanic differs from its canon counterpart. Unfortunately, I think this entry did that a little too effectively - I think the bartered away triggers or the ability to grab back bartered cards would both be fine independantly, but together they allow you to create loops of bartered away triggers in a way that feels unintended and creates subpar gameplay. Otherwise, I'm not sure what this entry tells me about the mechanic's utility - Garden Kitties basically has the same mode as Wilt. White Owl and Xathrid's Manuscript both overlap in that they're "expensive things you don't eant earlygame, but might want to dip into lategame." I almost feel like this entry needed to show what a cheap card with barter would look like in this environment, so we could see what we'd want to barter away to get back White Owl or Manuscript that isn't just as much of a bomb. Overall, though, all of that comes second to the unfortuante gameplay loops this generates, which holds it back significantly. | Scorching Salamander: Visually it's tough to look past the non-capitalized "exile" and the capitalized "Market." It's too late in the game for visual syntax errors like that. This reminds me a lot of the market from Eternal Card Game (no worries if you've never played it), in that you can swap cards in and out of it as you need them. Really not a fan of "when ~ is bartered away" at common, I'd much rather see simpler designs for a complex mechanic like this (7-drops, situational spells, etc). Garden Kitties: A decent example of what I'd rather have seen at common; not a good card to run in your main deck, usually, unless you're in a high-A/E environment. Barter makes this defensibly better than Rec Sage, which I think is a safe place to be these days. White Owl: Yeah, I really am not into the minigame of bartering things away for incremental value. It starts to feel very fiddly, and since you can't interact with it the effects can't be very powerful either. I think it's mostly a trap because it looks very flashy but doesn't get you any tempo, and it introduces so many decision points that the designs start to suffer. Xathrid's Manuscript: I at least appreciate that this is a high-cost, low-barter card, but that's what I'd expect to see at common. You've leaned into the "barter for bartered cards" minigame in this entry, and I'm just not jazzed about it. Overall: The mechanic, in another world, is a very clean Cycling-like that lets you build your deck in a very interesting way in limited. As implemented, it's trying to be too clever for its own good, and it suffers as a result. | Not really a fan of Barter at all here. I get what you were going for, with a semi-cycling idea, but the fact that these are loopable is insane. If you have two cards with Barter, it's likely optimal to just start bartering them back and forth with each other, generating a lot of repetitve value. With the cards you've shown, Scorching Salamander seems super potent at common to just repeatedly start burning out your opponents for 2 damage per 2 mana and going in for a kill, and generally I don't think it's an interesting play pattern at all. You also have a reminder text error, exile should be capitalized, and all of your flavor is basically nonexistent other than a random reference to Xathrid. | I think you did a good job representing bartering as a concept without falling into the usual design tropes associated with this flavor, so good job. You have a couple of templating errors that I expect to be corrected/proofread at this stage of the competition, though, specifically on the reminder text: Exile should be capitalized (as it's the first non-symbol cost in an activation) and market (as a counter name) typically shouldn't. I'm on the fence on whether I like having two terminologies here "bartered away/obtained through a barter" since I suspect there's a more streamlined way to go about it, but as presented it's intuitive enough that I ultimately don't mind. As for individual designs: Garden Kitties I would have expected to be an "up to" on the ETB, White Owl does the "Magic color word in a card name while not being that color" that peeves me (yes I know canon is guilty of this too on some cards but that doesn't change how I feel about it), and Xathrid's Manuscript I could see an argument for having the AA be written as the first ability. The thing that hinders this submission is how easy it is to loop "bartered away" triggers. I think there was some level of awareness of this and is why Scorching Salamander shocks you too, but its too uninteractive and repetitive enough to be concerning. Despite that, I think this is a decent entry, and I like the recognition that barter designs should avoid messing with combat since they'd be exiled face up. | Barter here seems designed to create loops with itself, thanks to the "bartered away" triggers allowing you to go back and forth between any two barter cards and get rewarded for spinning your gears like that. I think the mechanic would have been better without those triggers, since trading cards in hand for value that you can then trade back in a self-parasitic deck strategy is cool and novel, and fitting to the flavour profile of barter, but it's overshadowed by just doing a back-and-forth loop at the opponent's end step. Scorching Salamander is a big example of the loop issue, since with two copies of itself, it's just 1R: deal 2 to your opponent, over and over again. Since the cards are only ever in exile or in your hand, too, it's uninteractible, and it's definitely much better than actually playing the 2/1 for 1R. Garden Kitties can't loop, and sells this mechanic so much better, since then Barter is just a more flexible but self-parasitic cycling: when you don't need the cat, barter it away, but it's always there again if you need it later! That might honestly be a form of visible removal as I think it out, but I like the core loop that barter does on cards like this. White Owl does the same issue as the Salamander, except that it's not really that impactful to be bartering for or looping with, and scales poorly with being repeatably bartered. The card feels like it's much moreso showing off that you can care about both sides of the barter exchange than doing something good with that, and I'm already not sold on the bartering triggers. Xathrid's Manuscript is a major flavour jump from buying and selling little animals, but I like the intended read from bartering it early for mill and life, and then getting it back later from another barter card when you can actually play it. That's another expected structure I was hoping to see on other cards here, since that seems like the best advantage of bartering over cycling. I think overall the mechanic of bartering itself is good, and while the kinds of cards you can make with it need some restrictions (so it's not a floating removal spell or whatnot), there's reasonable design space, especially in the cycling-but-it-can-come-back earlygame/lategame that the Manuscript suggests. Unfortunately all the juice in this entry was put into bartering triggers which I don't think is the direction this wants to go in, even if you make it un-loopable so you actually engage with trading different cards around. | |||||||||||||||||
10 | MBTree#8051 | https://imgur.com/a/ChCDtDa | 2.83 | Mechanic - Baneful. It's actually a bit hard for baneful to do too much, in a way that I think looks like it plays better than it does. Glory, from the custom set Svergard is in this type of boat as well. I think Baneful allows you to have a lot of leeway with backside/frontside differences, but I think it still runs into the same types of problems in making sure it triggers, how to get it to trigger, and making so it actually matters in a meaningful way. Like, playing through a lot of constructed with the set, it's just super hard to get the Glory to actually matter, and that's where the backside is free! I do like that you get a turn to do the thing, but I don't think that matters too much, as you normally cast in main phase 2 anyway, making so the extra turn isn't really needed. But, that's super minor. I also think that the baneful cost should just be the backside's cost, so it's easier to parse and actually play with (since you can transform it and attach it to a can-cast token and go from them). Noctum Hatchling - I think this kinda showcases the ceiling/floor between how swingy these types of mechanics can get. On the defense, it's a 3/2 for 3, which is very meh. But, when it attacks+dies, you get a 3/2 lifelinker that draws you a 3/3 creature for 3. The difference between the two worlds is staggering, greatly separating the ceiling/floor and *heavily* punishing you for being on the backfoot. Hellpit Rager - Again, this kinda showcases the floor/ceiling a whoooole bunch. Luckily, this is the type of card that really, really wants to be blocked, and does so while actually pushing for the importance of the baneful-until-next-turn bit. I'm not the biggest fan of "fireball you, you die" types of gameplay patterns that these types of things promote, but being gated behind an attacker like this makes it work a bunch. Though, definitely can present a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't type of play pattern when you attack with a whole bunch of open mana. Charred Flameripper - Dragon is a dragon. I normaly would be very meh with the front side of this being as basic as it is, but the backside being as choice-and-word heavy makes me glad that it isn't doing more. There are a lot of choices here that I think I really, really like, but I think it comes back to the mechanic's pain points as well. Having a lot of baneful means that if you haven't cast the baneful sides, your graveyard will be a bit empty if you've achieved the dream. But! Then this card gives you an out for that. I do think it's a weird pattern that if you cast this main phase 2, the creature will then sacrifice during your opponent's combat end, which feels a bit not-intended to me. I do think that, once again, this pushes the ceiling/floor of baneful in a very bad way, as the difference between getting it off vs not is staggering. Void Knight - Hm. I think this is the design out of these that I like the most, especially since the floor/ceiling is a lot closer and a lot less staggering than the others. The flavor here is very disconnected, but the entire piece is definitely very fun and interesting. Didn't think I'd like it as much as I do. | Hm, I'm generally not a fan of this type of mechanic where your opponent has an opportunity to turn it off by simply not blocking, and the timing restriction on casting it means that opponents can even further influence your ability to use it by blocking and killing multiple Baneful creatures/putting you in a position where you can only get value out of one of them. Hellpit Rager putting more pressure on them to block it due to the firebreathing is neat, but I wonder if it ends up as a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario thanks to the backside also being a mana sink to kill you. Charred Flameripper having flying make the Baneful even more difficult to trigger. I appreciate Void Knight having ward to make removal less of an option, but with the ability to tutor up additional copies with Last Wish, its likely that your opponent will just chump it more than anything else. Overall, I'm not a fan of this mechanic's play patterns, and while there are some heads-up design decisions, there are also some negative ones too, failing to elevate the entry beyond the weight its mechanic puts on it | Noctum Hatchling: Really not a fan of "until the end of your next turn" mechanics at common. When you have them stacking, it makes it really hard to track when things are timing out. I also would have attached the cost to the backside because it does take a bit of parsing as-is. The card itself seems a little overtuned to me (3/2 attacking lifelink for 3 is a totally fine rate). I do appreciate aggressively incentivizing attacking. Hellpit Rager: Neat dichotomy between the front and the back. I think this would be really, really frustrating to play against because once your opponent hits six mana sometimes you'll just die to this no matter what you do, which isn't great gameplay. I'd have gated the Fireball a bit more so it doesn't feel like as big of a death sentence. Charred Flameripper: The front side of this is barely reviewable as a card, but obviously very powerful in limited and potential top-end in Standard. The backside is very hard to parse. I guess this is a design you couldn't make if baneful was this-turn-only, but I'm not convinced this is a design you SHOULD make; it's hard to read, tricky to evaluate, and very easy to accidentally lose to. Void Knight: This is very pretty, but also very "stock black mythic." Flashy non-mana ward, Demonic Tutor. Sure. Overall: Baneful has legs, and I like any entry that tells new players to attack with their creatures, but I don't think any of these designs really show off what the mechanic should be doing. I will say they do all feel cohesive as front and back halves, which is a plus. | Big fan here. I love the idea of a spell that you get for only a short period of time when your creature dies, and the choice of timing feels just right for something that has a short window but still lets you make an interesting choice of whether you want to cast your backside spell or just play your turn normally. I also definitely like the call to go "while attacking" so as to not make these back-faces function at instant speed. Second Awakening has a text error, the "can't block" needs to be an ability in quotes I believe. Huge fan of Hellpit Rager, love the mirroring of firebreathing and the X cost X damage, seems fun for limited. The dragon is weird - that thing is not dying in combat, but other than that I'm big into this entry. | Normally I don't like named DFC mechanics like this, but the breadth of design space showcased in your submission definitely marked up my score for it. Noctum Hatchling looks like a potent common. Second Awakening should be worded with the token innately having the can't block ability (look up the Satyr tokens from THB), and that flavor dump needs a line or two cut from it. Hellpit Rager is fun and I like how the firebreathing on the front alludes to the Blaze on the back. Blazing Afterimage is a bit convoluted for my liking, but it's a pretty cool design for a Dragon with set mechanic. Void Knight is awesome and probably my favorite design here. Great stuff. | Baneful is a fine, comfortable mechanic. I like a lot how it's an attacking mechanic, so it's a form of evasion since your opponent gets to choose when it works, but by the same token, it's unfortunate how it demands that my opponent let me get to cast the second half of my spells, especially on the big creatures like the dragon that's legitimately really difficult to kill in combat even if the opponent wanted to. It seems like it's at its best on small or middling creatures that aren't that hard to kill, so that your opponent gets the most opportunity to really make the choice, which is limiting to its design space somewhat, especially on your rares and mythics. Noctum Hatchling is probably the cleanest execution of this mechanic, apart from the overabundance of FT text on the back. It's comfortable, blunt value on an appealing creature. It's perhaps a little too much stats, being two 3/3s for 2B + 2B (or looking at the front as a 3/2 lifelink with soft evasion for 2B), but it hits the beats of why this mechanic is worth doing and what it brings to the table. Hellpit Rager is a good little uncommon that is definitely a lot of threat potential in the mono-red deck that can afford to hold up that much firebreathing, which is a neat deckbuilding restriction. Rage Burst also particularly flows together with the front-side to show mechanically how the two sides link together. Charred Flameripper seems very difficult to have die while attacking. It's a giant flying dragon. I like the effect of Blazing Afterimage, but I just don't know how often it's actually going to get cast. Void Knight has about the same issue; thanks to menace, the ward is still actually even the better deal since you're likely to trade downwards to block it effectively and then the Baneful effect comes into place, and the package overall is just super un-interactive since you get drowned by poor trades any avenue you have to deal with it. I think this is a very useable mechanic on the commons and uncommons because they're small, and you can treat the effects like soft evasion forms that "punish" the opponent for blocking. But that only works when they can meaningfully trade with the creatures, and for big guys like the dragon the most reliable way to trigger it is... actually some sort of instant-speed sacrifice effect, just because he's so big and evasive combat isn't how you deal with it. I can also see the fact that you have no innate outs against removal spells so they just shut down your mechanic also something that may be a feel-bad in play. It overall leaves me with the feeling that this mechanic is powerful for raw value but doesn't have a ton of design space to where I can use it effectively and have its choices matter. | |||||||||||||||||
11 | Orion Rings#2903 | https://imgur.com/a/84enC7A | 3.17 | Mechanic - Barter. This is definitely fun. It's a variable downside mechanic, but one that you get to play around with a lot. Lovely. I don't think I'm a big fan of the altered frame, though, as it's pretty much a reverse-kicker-esque mechanic, rather than one that greatly alters how the card functions on the stack/battlefield/etc, like something akin to Mutate. There isn't a lot to say about the mechanic, as each design can utilize the mechanic in many, many cool ways, but I definitely am a fan. Having a direct out, as well, lets the mechanic play a lot better and a lot more interesting as it gives you a choice between full benefit immediately, or having it on layaway. I don't know if it is intended or not, but black being the color of removing counters, by things like Render Inert, makes me love this mechanic even more, as black would be the color that attempts to get out of its debt in an unconvential way, rather than having to pay the price that they agreed to. Covert Courier - This is a simple and clean execution of the mechanic and is something that looks like it'll play super well. I do think it could use an attack trigger or something, as the "full" cost as a 4 mana 3/3 is a bit anemic, but this definitely is pushing you to always go down the barter route, and, if you need, you can always get buy it wholesale if needed. The flavor is a bit lacking, though, but I think overall I'm a fan of how this would play out. Captivating Beauty - I'ma bit iffy on this, though, I think I'm getting around to being mid on it. I'm wary of draw engines like this at common, especially when they can level up in the late game, but the base idea here is definitely fun. Not a fan of the flavor, though. Loan Collector - Now, this is fun. Not only does this just play super neatly, but it also just gives you some advantage if there are cards that have debt-collection-removal triggers on their own. I almost wish that the last ability was worded more like "Creatures can't attack or block unless their controller pays 2 for each debt counter on them" so you can hugely stack them on one single creature, then costed to compensate. But, overall, just an overall fun card that gets the flavor 100%. Lovely. An - Now, this one I'm a bit confused about. There's a lot of moving parts that are working in a lot of different ways, and I don't think I'm getting how they are all supposed to be used together. It definitely supports debt tribal, but does so through giving you a reward of just more mana, but the entire point of barter is to get mana reductions. So, it's a bit self-defeating in the gameplay loops (you cast things at a reduced cost to...get mana to pay for the difference, while losing life in the meanwhile). Sure, you can use it to cast other things too, but by itself, the card's story is a bit weird. | Yeah, this is neat. I think simple alt cost mechanics add a lot of flexibility to environments, and the ability to pay them off later leads to interesting choice points if appropriately costed, which these generally are. I also like that there's some acknowledgement of potential alt uses for the tracking counter, with Loan Collector imposting penalties on opponent's creatures and An giving you other incentives to go into debt. I do think Loan Collector's slot should maybe have been cheaper, to help punish early debts from opponents more effectively. Overall, I think this entry gets the job done. | Covert Courier: Okay, already I'm pretty excited about this entry. It's always difficult to find an alt-casting-cost mechanic that doesn't just feel like "kicker but more specific," and I think you've done well to make something that would look horrible as kicker. The card itself is fine, though a 3/3 for 3G doesn't do much these days, so I'd rather have seen a more exciting main body. Captivating Beauty: After the first card I was left wondering how you'd possibly use this outside of "combat downside when in debt"; this gives me a good idea. The card seems great. If you can continue to innnovate throughout this entry, I'll be very pleased. Loan Collector: I'm going to assume that you can always pay {3} to remove debt counters so this doesn't just put some poor chump in permanent debt, lol. Also at this point I want to say that the mutate frame is starting to not make a lot of sense with this entry at all. I don't mind this card mechanically, though it feels a bit clumsier than the previous two (meaning it looks like you're reaching to force debt synergies juuuust a bit). An: I don't really understand the flavor of this card at all, but I guess it's kinda neat. Mechanically putting aggressive ramp into Esper feels off to me in a big way. Overall: I like your mechanic! I don't really think it has the legs to fill out a full set, but feel free to prove me wrong. The designs were hit-and-miss, but the concept was very clean. | Interesting idea, not sure if I really like the execution. Mutate frame here makes no sense to me at all, just feels like a choice you made because you felt like it, which I definitely dislike. Other than that, the concept is definitely there, I like the idea of these counters being a modality option for your cards, and you've showcased a couple of interesting ways to play around with the idea. My favorite here is definitely Loan Collector - I like the idea of using its ability as a method to generate downside for bartering it as opposed to straight up keying on one. | One thing I value a lot about mechanics is their visual presentation on a card. On that note, I think Barter has no real reason to be on a mutate box. Also not feeling the debt counter removal as a special action over an activated ability, but maybe that was done to save space (though that might have been less of an issue if you hadn't confined it to the mutate box). The mechanic being essentially "this is cheaper for a downside" doesn't give it much of a strong identity, which is fine, but my overall impression of it is that it's less interesting than it actually looks. I like that there's a built-in way to overcome the downside, at least. Covert Courier I think could have a keyword so it isn't so disappointing to just cast normally, but for the most part the designs here make sense with the mechanic. I think the biggest thing here keeping me from enjoying this mechanic is that it doesn't feel like it fits the word at all. Sure its using debt counters to prop up the flavor, and I get traditional game expressions of bartering doesn't do well in Magic, but this execution just didn't land for me. | I don't think Barter needed the mutate frame. You're not stacking the cards, and you have the debt counter as a reminder. Think it would have been better as just a regular alternate casting mode without the extra bells and whistles. The mechanic itself is quite cool! It's a good form of a "kicker" effect that feels intuitive and a good top-down fit for the keyword name, so I am a big fan of it... I'd just be a bigger fan of it without the unnecessary frame. Covert Courier is a good twist on a recurring staple common, the strongly-statted defender. I think playing it as the Hill Giant mode will always be disappointing, but the 1G 3/3 mode is good, and letting it remove defender in the lategame is a good one-off mana sink effect. Captivating Beauty is just generally good. It's appealing on both modes and feels good and powerful to go into debt over, and to get out of debt with, and it's an exciting uncommon to see that's likely quite strong but not too strong. Loan Collector's downside of taxing itself is a really clever use of effect in a good way, and while I think the card's undertuned right now, the premise of this as an effect on a few cards is a great way to expand the mechanic further. However, that same tech is a miss on An, which encourages you to go into large amounts of debt in a tribal deck--but that means you don't get to use the full effects of your cards, nor are you encouraged to actually un-barter yourself, so it tells you to not do the mechanic's two halves. I think a design that put the debt on An but didn't ask you to keep it on everyone would fill the same tribal Commander niche while still letting you play with your other cards to their fullest. When the mutate frame's off the cards, this is one of my favourite of the mechanics so far, and I think it's a good, flavourful twist on a modal effect that does it cleanly and effectively, and the lower rarity cards especially sold me on the concept and the design space it has. I'm a fan. | |||||||||||||||||
12 | Queen Emily#1312 | https://imgur.com/a/YhwBctt | 2 | Mechanic - Wildcast. I think the flavor here is completely off. The main ways that you get mana from nonland sources are mana dorks, treasure tokens, or artifacts. The majority of times, nonland sources for mana are unnatural, constructed, or things that aren't pushed into the "wilds". Granted, Wildcast could mean a bit more, but the flavor on things like Autumnal Vulpine, Ivier, Don't Wander at Night definitely imply that you are trying to capture the "the wilds are dangerous and mysterious~" vibe, which just feels very disconnected from what the mechanic is wanting. Mechanic-wise, this is something that works, is harder to make work than it looks like, and tends to be more worth it than it is worth in most set construction. There can definitely be ways of making it fine, but those warps should probably be coming with other bonuses, rather than just Wildcast. Wildcast I think is definitely more of a workhorse for other, more interesting mechanics. Sunwoods Predator - I feel like this could use a touch more oomph, given how 3 drop 3/3s have been doing in canon, but it's only a slight disappointment rather than too much. The flavor is neat, but this feels very much like a filler card, rather than a fun and exciting Survivor submission. Don't Wander at Night - This definitely will be a high pick and something very good, as it's an instant speed Chup as long as you have a treasure or mana dork lying around. I think this pushes it into being a touch too good, especially given how Chupacabra was, but not being reanimated/flickered/etc definitely helps the case here. Autumnal Vulpine - I don't think I'm that much of a fan here. It does the thing, but I don't feel like too much of the card here is doing too much with the rest of the card, and is instead more of a piece-by-piece design rather than something that's compelling and complete by itself. I think this could definitely be fine in a set, but as a Survivor submission to showcase the mechanic, I think it falls just a tad flat. Ivier - Hm. I don't think I like this card that much. It doesn't quite capture the flavor of a god, and I think even just being an Elk Avatar or something could have sold this a bit more. I don't think it has much reason for being red, but multicolor can get away with that a tad. It just definitely feels very meh and pure stat-stick-y for a mythic, rather than something compelling in of itself. | I don't think the designs land here for me, and a decent chunk of that lands at the feet of the mechanic. Paying off for nonland sources itself isn't a bad idea, but when you need only a single nonland source and the entry doesn't give us an indication of how you're expected to trigger it, it raises the question of how much of a "real" cost it ends up being if all you need is a single dork. If we had some indication of temporary mana sources from treasures or instant or sorceries, would be able to better gauge where the mechanic will land. Which, to be fair, its obviously difficult in some regards when all your cards have to use the mechanic, so you don't want them to both be payoff and enabler, but that should've been a redflag that popped up when designing cards for this mechanic. The individual designs themselves feel very shrug to me. I don't feel as though I have a grasp on why the specific benefits are being given. | Sunwoods Predator: The body is certainly too big here, especially in an environment that will be aggressively supporting wildcast. I think wildcast makes a lot of sense as a meaty keyword for a wilderness-themed set. I just think you can't really have 3-mana 4/4s running around next to Llanowar Elves. Don't Wander at Night: Sure. I think the wildcast needs to be on its own line. This is the perfect payoff for a wildcast spell; marginal, but not negligible. Ivier: I love it. I wonder if this wants to have some sort of MV gate, because reanimating Griselbrand with a 5/5 is insane, but maybe the many gates the card already has are enough. For standard, probably, and this definitely isn't doing anything anywhere else. Yeah, I've convinced myself this is fine. Autumnal Vulpine: Eh, I'm really not a fan of hyper-aggressive 3-mana haste creatures for limited. I guess this is a rare, so not much of a concern, and it would be interesting to see how this would be enabled in constructed. The design makes sense, at the very least. Overall: This mechanic doesn't have much crunch to it, but it does a perfectly fine job rationalizing itself and all of these cards make sense for that world and that environment. | While I think Wildcast is a fine enough mechanic idea, I feel like you're not showing me how this thing is going to be triggered in most games. Casting from nonlands is a tricky thing to do sometimes, and not all colors have access to a wealth of mana dork effects. Is there a set theme that works with this, are you expecting decks to play mana dorks (in which case I think it's a bit of a non-condition), or Treasures (which might be odd in a wilderness-themed set)? The cards don't really do anything for me either, none of them feel particularly interesting, they're just cards that have a conditional bonus that doesn't really match up to anything. | I've seen some attempts of this check before in custom spaces, and I dig your implementation of it enough. I do think the best approach to Wildcast is have it be a scaling mechanic instead, since I dislike the idea of a lone mana rock just turning it on too easily. The cards are all serviceable in that they're well costed and make sense for their rarities, though a bit one note. To stand out in this challenge I think you really have to showcase the design space of your mechanic, and I can think of some angles to go about Wildcast that weren't shown here (maybe a card that also cares about artifacts, for example). Just "cards with a bonus if you did the thing" doesn't cut it. | Wildcast is fine. With how much nongreen ramp there is these days, this will definitely be doable across colours and has some notable ask, but of course it's also not super exciting, and only needing one source means this is much more of a "did you draw your dork" check mechanic than something that changes and scales across games. It's also a bit of a shame there aren't any cards that enable wildcast here, so I just sort of have to guess at how this is going to be set up as an enabler-payoff split. Sunwoods Predator and Don't Wander at Night are both solid, fine effects that show that this does have pretty wide design space. It seems to assume that this is more difficult than I'm kind of thinking it is, since really, all you need is one mana dork, but in return you get a Ravenous Chupacabra and a 4/4 for 2G. The delta between Ivier returning a creature to hand and returning to the battlefield is massive, and him being just a virtual vanilla with an ETB is also disappointing when it's typed God. Feels very un-godlike, and would have been better at rare. The Vulpine is fine, it's functional, and there's not much to say. The mechanic feels like it'd be a fine workhorse for some sort of set that applies to it, but I think it's got wide design space and low ask, so it's not particularly flashy or memorable or exciting, especially when it's near-mandatory for several of these designs to be useable. | |||||||||||||||||
13 | Splashcat | https://imgur.com/a/7tNZyAv | 2.67 | Mechanic - Incantation. I don't think I like the implementation of this card and would much rather it be a DFC, like Fabled from A Tourney at Whiterun. The simplest of these cards is 7 lines, and that's for a very basic effect, while also just being hard to parse what's happening at a glance. DFCs just solve this in a way that is so much more readable and actually gives you space for flavor text, which I don't think most of these get the benefit of having. Tragic Lament - I don't think this card belongs at common at all. I think it's cool and fun, but getting multiples of this just create such an unfun experience that make existing hard. Stacking things like Shrieking Affliciton is something that ends games and really pushes people to just not play the game in an unfun way to try avoid the damage. I think at uncommon this would be sweet and awesome, actually, but at common it just has too much of a chance to show up way too often. Enchanting Lullaby - This I think feels better as a common, but only because of how it plays more like a Capture Sphere-esque type of card moreso than anything else. But, I think think that even though it plays like those auras, the actual frustration factor of them just feels like so much more. Having to do the song and dance of removing/adding counters over and over whenever it will probably just not ever matter outside of how a lockdown aura normally functions makes me think it'll just be too fiddly for its own good. I do like how the front/back sides are basically connected, but overall, not a fan. Rousing Speech - This is definitely a simple and clean execution of the mechanic that has a throughline that uses the mechanic well, even if I'm not a fan of the mechanic tiself. Definitely a fun flavor as well, though like the rest of the cards in this submission, I don't think it has room to have flavor text. Shimmering Echo - This is definitely fun card, though I wonder how much of that is because of my bias for clones and copying things. I don't think I'm a fan of how this is effectively giving a creature a turn haste, nor am I a fan of it only making tokens of creatures, while the incantation works on all permanent types. I think if this was cleaned up a bit, I think I'd be more of a fan, but atm it just barely misses the mark. | I like the highlight bar representing which parts of the textbox are the enchantment text. I just like this mechanic in general, to be honest - straightforward alt cost that opens up new synergies and design space that wasn't previously available mixes the best of both worlds from "simple and flexible" and "splashy and exciting." All of these designs are reasonably costed, having attractive and playable frontsides, with the kickers all synergizing with the base mode of the card in neat ways. Overall, not much to say about this entry - just feels clean to me. | Tragic Lament: Really not a fan of how this looks visually. Three line breaks is rough on a common, I'd rather just have not seen the flavor text. Incantation is cute, but it's just inverse evoke for enchantments, which doesn't jazz me up. Mechanically this card is probably fine and fun, but the difference between 1B and 2B is negligible compared to the power you get from landing the enchantment half, so it doesn't really feel like it has two modes. Enchanting Lullaby: Stun counter tribal, eh? I think I'd prefer this to just stun something that's tapped, because right now it looks VERY parasitic with itself and as such not worth the 2UU cost. It's also a card that will very rarely get played for its base mode, but at least the costs are different enough to rationalize it. Rousing Speech: Not an overly surprising design to see here. I like the triple-white density as a way of rewarding you for being able to hit the Incantation cost. Shimmering Echo: Huh, weird. This looks like a very buildaround mythic for casual play that doesn't really impact much anywhere else. As that, it's probably fine? Weird that it can become a land, I'd say. Overall: The mechanic being just backwards evoke meant that you really had to raise the bar with what these designs are doing, and I don't think you've done that. The cards are clean, but I'm not really excited by them. | Not sure how much of a fan I am of this. I feel like the wording and framing is a lot more awkward than something like just making enchantments with evoke would be, and these feel complex and text-heavy as a result. The call to give nearly all of the cards FT as well exacerbates this problem, as even the "common with set mechanic" ends up being an 8-liner with 3 linebreaks because of it. Also like. re the evoke point, this is just evoke but you switched the modes around, which is a weird in the "make a mechanic" round. That said, these as individual designs are all pretty well-done. All of them seem like fun cards for Limited, and some of them give me the vibe that they'd be really fun to build around. I do think Tragic Lament in particular should probably be an uncommon because of the power of stacking that enchantment side, but other than that the designs do definitely work towards bringing this entry back up for me. | Resolves into an enchantment is something that surfaces now and then in custom magic, so the concept here isn't new to me, but it works enough. Seeing this rendered with a stripe to highlight the enchantment ability is new to me, so that part is neat, but Tragic Lament and Enchantling Lullaby have no space for flavor text. Now to get on to the individual designs. Tragic Lament I think is costed too efficiently as a Pilfer+ for common, but I like the combination of its effects. Enchanting Lullaby feels a bit contrived, though I'm intrigued about the stun counter-matters this implies. Rousing Speech is awesome as a Glorious Anthem with set mechanic, and I think it's the best design here. Shimmering Echo ends the entry with a pretty cool Clone riff. Overall a good mechanic with most of the designs utilizing it well. | I feel like you'd be served better by doing this flipped: frame it in the way evoke does, where it's an enchantment "on the card" and you can play it as a sorcery instead. That would allow you to skip past the d20 formatting and save space and time, including for the reminder text. (And you need that space! These are cramped cards, especially the common, which really shouldn't have had space for flavour text.) Ends up simpler and cleaner while still doing the same thing. Being able to have a modal sorcery or enchantment-with-ETB is a solid, fine effect; as evoke has shown, it does its job well, and has some cool synergies and ways to use it. But isn't particularly flashy or novel coming back here, since it's not really doing a ton different. Tragic Lament is one of the few static enchantment texts I could see working at common, and even then I'm a little suspicious of how supportable this would be in a Limited format. This would have been a great space to have flipped and used enchantments base with sorcery mode, so you could use Auras and expand the design space for more common utility. Enchanting Lullaby may also honestly have been a better idea for the common, since in play it's most often a Claustrophobia effect unless you have some stun counter synergies I can't see in the entry. Rousing Speech is a good solid staple effect and I like how both modes are baseline functional, with the triple-white pips affirming a specific deck this should be for Constructed. Shimmering Echo is a good gimmicky mythic; while it doesn't seem particularly good to use it as an Incantation for its cost (kind of just giving your creatures safe-haste), it's still novel and a bit silly and feels fitting for the kinds of splash-first mythic designs that tend to land well. Holistically I think this would have benefitted heavily from being swapped to enchantment base sorcery optional, as that opens up your design space a lot more, specifically at common where this seems very hard to make work. The rare and mythic were pretty solid to me; I think the common and uncommon probably should be swapped for impact and power level--as more of a sign of the difficulty making this mechanic work at lower rarities the way it is right now. | |||||||||||||||||
14 | Sunset | https://imgur.com/a/rgFIUyt | 1.83 | Mechanic - Incantation. Sagas! I love token sagas a bunch, having been messing with this design space for a while. However, I don't think this gets the mark. I do like that you can put a lore counter on any of your *S*agas, but because Sagas naturally enter the battlefield with one already, this basically is a Suspend-2-esque mechanic, when it looks like it's going to be a lot more. These also have a bit of an issue in that it's a bit hard for them to be super impactful, since most of the time, you either have the mana to cast the full cost or don't, as you will be hitting that type of mana on the turn that you would incant either way, in a way that feels a bit by-the-books (at least for the R and C of these). I think with a bit of cleaning up, this mechanic could be awesome, but the current iteration is still a bit messy. Boundless Intellect - This is definitely a way to do this. Though, I think that it's a bit too much at this rate. Cast this at the end of your opponent's turn 2 if they didn't cast anything, then on your next turn, you're at 3 counters, and then on turn 4 you draw two. Might be fine, but it definitely feels a touch too strong, but I don't know a good way to effectively nerf it in a way that matters. Definitely plays into the reward now vs later, though. Tasha - This is definitely neat, though, it does turn every Incantation into a cantrip immediately, which is a tad weird. The mana portion is weird, and I don't know if it entirely fits in a neat way, especially as the point for Incantation is that you are trading time away for a mana reduction, so getting mana back feels a tad odd. This definitely feels a bit more rare, though, rather than an uncommon. Wildway Savant - This is... weird in a negative way. It's definitely fine, but definitely feels like you got this and Tasha switched rarity-wise. I guess that Ulvenwald Oddity exists in this space, but it just feels a bit lacking in what I'd expect from this slot. Swelling Animosity - This is what I'd expect out of the rare slot, actually. It does a quirky thing but, the incantation just being a slow Rift Bolt feels a bit weird. Actually, the more I compare it to Rift Bolt, the less I like, as it's Rift Bolt + 1 turn for the possibility of just being a better fireball effect. Which, I don't think blaze effects want to get better at the doing-damage bit, so not a big fan. | Okay, so suspend with additional potential synergy points. I could buy it. Incantation having six lines of reminder text does make me wonder how many commons it could reasonably go on/how much design space it has in general. We see this in your rare, which is just a generic beater instead of telling us something new about how you can use the mechanic - mostly because the reminder text takes up 6 of his 7 lines of text. The mythic also doesn't do anything that you couldn't already do with suspend, essentially being a sidegrade Rift Bolt. I like the idea of Incantation having the in-built ability to speed up the progress of your other Incantation Sagas, if there's a previously played one you want to speed up. Tasha showing how the Saga part of the mechanic actually matters is neat, and really elevates this entry. | Wildway Savant: I think there's a lot that you haven't gotten quite right here. First of all, this mechanic is not fundamentally different enough from suspend in my opinion. I don't like that you can sometimes spike a chapter on a non-Incantation Saga, and I don't think it makes sense that you can use your incantations to force other incantations through sooner. Also Sagas start with a lore counter, right? So technically these only suspend for ... two turns, I think? It's very complex and I think most of the intricacies are net negative for gameplay. As for the savant, there's very little to comment on as a 4/4 for 4, so it's really all in the mechanic here. Boundless Intellect: I knew this was going to say "draw two cards" before I saw the text box. Again, not much to say here beyond the mechanic, which for me falls short. Tasha: Okay, THIS I can get behind. I don't think this is doing enough to rationalize the mechanic's shortcomings, but it's at least a very exciting card for limited. It pretty clearly doesn't want to actually have Incantation itself, but in this submission I get that you had to do it. Swelling Animosity: This is too clever by half. The XX2R mana cost is really unappealing, and the incantation being a very confusing Rift Bolt makes this design fall apart, for me. Overall: Tasha makes me want to like the mechanic, but it just doesn't land for me. Too many little things that it does that I think overall hurt the gameplay loop. | I get that suspend-alikes have a lot of text, but six lines at common is a hard sell for this kind of mechanic. That said, I think it's an interesting one - I like the enchanment synergy this has, and the choice of dropping a lore counter somewhere to speed up certain effects is a neat idea. One problem - I think the fact that this effectively means your Incantations can come down on II will get lost in the shuffle of that massive block of reminder text, which is something worth considering. As for the individual cards, big fan of Tasha keying on that Sagas synergy by letting you get a bunch of effects as you go through your incantations, which is definitely a cool concept. Swelling Animosity is strange with that very awkward mana cost (and like with 3+X as the baseline I feel like it could just cost, like, XRRR/XRRRR or something), but the concept is interesting as an early game burn option or a late-game killshot as well. | The set that this goes into better have atrocious enchantment removal, because getting your Saga blown up before getting the card is going to be a major feelsbad. Incantation, which is really Suspend (with more words), does a lot. I'm not sure if you realized Sagas innately enter with a lore counter on them, so if you wanted, these really say Suspend 2 with the bonus lore counter you get at the end. It's also kind of dissapointing that all but the uncommon here don't do anything as designs other than have the mechanic (I get that the reminder text doesn't permit a ton of room, so maybe it's a flawed premise to begin with). Tasha does the obvious ways to make the mechanic more than just Suspend, so I appreciate that design, at least. | Incantation is just Suspend... 2, right? You play it, since it's a Saga it enters with a counter, then you put another counter on, then you wait two turns. I guess since there's an enchantment on board it's a bit different, but it manages to be very functionally similar to suspend, but more restricted, and somehow with longer reminder text. I know of many variants of Saga mechanics people have tried in the last few years, and I've not been sold on most of them, and this is like that. It's going to have an uphill battle to show me the worth of this over just being Suspend. I'm not sure how well the cards here are doing that. Wildwood Savant is just a french vanilla, like, it's a fine card as a 4/4 for 4 with haste, but it's not particularly doing anything special or remarkable, or interacting with the mechanic here. The amount of reminder text seems to hurt it. Boundless Intellect is about the same, where it's clearly strong, but very plain. Tasha is the one that holds this entry together, by actually caring about the Saga and adding parts to it, the one thing that this has over Suspend, and that's good. Swelling Animosity unfortunately is just sort of a Rift Bolt with more words on it, which is also unfortunate. I think there are arguments for this mechanic being better or meaningfully different from Suspend. I'm unsure if these cards actually were able to justify those arguments. Tasha tries, at least. | |||||||||||||||||
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