Recollection Cremator1BB
Creature - Human Wizard (R)
Menace
When Recollection Cremator deals combat damage to a player, exile all creature cards from that players graveyard. Then that player reveals his or her hand. He or she discards all cards that share a name with cards exiled this way. "Bring the corpse to the furnace and you can be sure nothing will remain."
3/2
Would be a bit overcosted for just a 3/2 Menacer, and the 2nd ability isn't much of a boon in limited. Could see constructed play, depending on the meta, but likely only in Standard. It's an interesting, quirky card that sounds very powerful, but whose scope is narrow enough that it might not see much play. If it were printed, I would definitely try to break it. The name of the card does a great job of combining the two elements without feeling like it should be a red or blue card. The rules text really only covers the cremation aspect, though. I don't understand what discard has to do with recollection. (It works with the "thought" theme, just not the flavor you evoked with the name of the card)
Non-black Moon, non-green Seasons
Harbinger of Winter3R
Creature - Elemental {R}
At the beginning of each upkeep, if a player cast two or more spells last turn, Harbinger of Winter deals 4 damage to that player unless he or she sacrifices a land.
At the beginning of each upkeep, if no spells were cast last turn, transform Harbinger of Winter.
4/2 To my knowledge, he never laid a hand on anyone; still, each year I find myself hoping to catch sight of a rabid werewolf than of him. —Karl, hunter of Lambholt
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hunter's Moon [Red]
Enchantment {R}
At the beginning of each upkeep, if a player cast two or more spells last turn, that player sacrifices two lands.
I like how this card uses the standard werewolf transform method, and penalizes players for multicasting on both faces. I don't like how you're punished just as severely as your opponents. I also don't like that it's a monored card whose sole purpose is to slow down the game, nor that the "Harbinger of Winter" is red in the first place. It could have been blue and still met all the challenges. The mechanical flavor is confusing, but I do appreciate the thought put into the challenge. You have to know what a hunter's moon is IRL to get the reference, but you still get points for thoughtfully approaching a tricky flavor challenge.
Nonred Magnetism + Nonblack Void
Magnetized Horror4W
Creature - Shapeshifter {R}
Changeling
When Magnetized Horror enters the battlefield, gain control of target Equipment for as long as you control Magnetized Horror and attach that Equipment to it, then exile all artifacts you don't control with converted mana cost less than Magnetized Horror's power until it leaves the battlefield. "That thing, it looked like human, it just came out of nowhere, and like a black hole, sucked away all the soldiers' weapons and then slaughter them."
2/2
Iiiinteresting. It steals one equipment, then wipes out some other artifacts. A 2/2 for CMC5 is hard to love (and so is that flavor text, yikes!), especially with such a very narrow ability. I guess it could work in an artifact-heavy set. I don't understand the flavor here. Does shapeshifter somehow imply The Void? Magnetism can steal artifacts, sure, but if it's a "black hole," how can it hold onto one? And then why only one? Mechanically, this is all fine. Just confusing, flavorfully.
Void & Energy (Potential)
Can't be black or blue
Invoker of the Primal Spark4RR
Creature - Giant Shaman (R)
When ~ enters the battlefield, if you have one or less cards in hand, exile the top four cards of your library. Until end of turn, you may cast a card with converted mana cost 5 or less from among them without paying its mana cost. He draws on the small threads that connect nothingness with creation. 5/4
Less —> Fewer
So... 6 mana for a 5/4 body and potentially another 5-mana creature? The stipulations are pretty specific, so I guess that's doable. I'd have liked to see this balanced as a mythic instead because of how bombastic the effect is. Great work combining your elements. Peering into the possibility cloud evokes a sense of potential, and ripping cards out of nothingness covers the void nicely. Flavor text is meh. If just describes the basic function of the card, and doesn't actually add much flavor. The card would stand on its own fine without it.
Fusing metal and blood, literally...
Blood Metalist3RR
Creature — Human Artificer (R)
Whenever an artifact enters the battlefield under your control or an artifact you control is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, you may have Blood Metalist deal damage equal to that artifact’s converted mana cost to target creature or player. His unorthodox methods of weapon forging involve fusing metal scraps of dubious provenance with fresh blood, sometimes even his own.
2/3
You designed a powerful, artifact-centric card that has no place in Affinity. I love you for that.
CMC5 for 2/3 doesn't really excite me, since it isn't guaranteed you'll get any value out of him the turn he comes down. But in limited, this would only need to trigger about twice to be worth it. That's usually doable, even easy in some sets. And in constructed formats, there are any number of ways to break this. It may even be too good for Standard, though its cost is high enough that eternal formats will have no problem with it. I think rare is correct here, and you nailed the elemental flavors. I'm not a fan of this flavor text formula (an unnamed character describing the subject of the card in the 3rd person), but yours is executed very well here. "Dubious provenance" just made everyone a little bit smarter.
Red creature about Wind (blue list) and Sand (white list)
Sandstorm Elemental2RR
Creature - Elemental (U)
Whenever Sandstorm Elemental attacks, choose one —
- Sandstorm Elemental deals 1 damage to each creature defending player controls.
- Target creature can't block this turn.
4/2
On the whole, I really, really like this. I only worry that the first mode may be a bit much. It completely hoses most token strategies, and drastically reduces the whole defending board's blocking ability. And it's repeatable. I think the trigger should come with some cost, so it's not just a free Blazing Voley every turn. Flavorfully, you nailed it. You picked very synergistic elements, and your card feels cohesive and focused.
Geppetto, Dark Puppeteer1UB
Legendary Creature – Human Artificer (M)
Artifact creatures you control have menace. UB, T, Exile a creature card from a graveyard: Target noncreature artifact becomes an artifact creature with power and toughness each equal to the converted mana cost of the exiled card until end of turn.
1/4 No one noticed how realistic his toys looked – even after the children started to go missing.
As an Italian, I'm very happy to see a card inspired by one of the most famous Italian tales. I did not expect it. By the way, I actually happen to live in the same city Carlo Collodi was from, and Pinocchio is a classic children tale that literally everyone knows here in Italy, no matter if a child or an adult. Now excuse the patriotic aside and let's get to the card. Even though I love the color pie and the philosophy of the different colors, I never asked myself before what colors Geppetto would be. My first instinct would be green because he's not that far off from a Kaladesh lifecrafter such as Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter, but blue works too with its focus on artifacts. In the end, Pinocchio can be considered a noncreature artifact until he takes life, at which point he'd probably become an artifact creature in Magic terminology. What better way to represent both flesh and metal at the same time? Anyway, blue can interact with it for sure, and also black has a little artifact interaction, as does blue/black as a color pair (see Tezzeret). The Artificer creature type definitely fits Geppetto. Both the mechanics and the flavor are a little more darker and creepier than the real tale, but I have the impression that is completely intentional. I mean, the name "DARK Puppeteer" kind of gives it away... but overall it all works, and quite well! My only real remark is that I'm sure this wouldn't be called Geppetto like the real character from Collodi's tales if it were to be printed for real.
Jimmy Groove
Metal (White) + Storm (Green)
Metalstorm PhoenixRRR
Flying, haste
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may sacrifice any number of artifacts with a total converted mana cost of 3 or more. If you do, return Metalstorm Phoenix from your graveyard to the battlefield. "Thousands of razors burning with a desire for freedom and a pathological hatred of death. When it is compleated, we all shall be."
- Kelia, Auriok survivor
3/1
This one will be shorter, because I just have two simple things to say: one is that the card works just fine both mechanically and flavorfully, but unfortunately the second is that this card is missing its rarity AND its whole type line, and that's a pretty serious mistake, or at least oversight. While this is not as strict a contest as the MCC, I still feel that such a mistake can't pass. I'm sorry.
RickyRister
Non white light/ Non black void
Blindvoid IlluminatorG
Creature - Human Scout (U)
Trample
Whenever Blindvoid Illuminator deals combat damage to a player, it gets +2/+0 until the end of your next turn. The Illuminators run ahead of the group, beating back the all consuming darkness of the Blindvoid lest the party be consumed by the horrors that live within.
1/2
Mechanically this is fine but it feels more red than green to me. Green can still do this just fine though. I think it's a little confusing: it's a 1-power trampler that when it connects it gets to attack as a 3-power one on your next attack (if it's still alive, and that's a big if). At least, I can see memory issues with this. I'm honestly not a big fan of this effect. The flavor is fine, and it somehow reminds me of D&D, I don't know if that's intentional. There is an adventure feeling that kind of matches that of the original Zendikar.
SnowBlack1021
Nonred Magnetism + Nonblack Void
Magnetized Horror4W
Creature - Shapeshifter {R}
Changeling
When Magnetized Horror enters the battlefield, gain control of target Equipment for as long as you control Magnetized Horror and attach that Equipment to it, then exile all artifacts you don't control with converted mana cost less than Magnetized Horror's power until it leaves the battlefield. "That thing, it looked like human, it just came out of nowhere, and like a black hole, sucked away all the soldiers' weapons and then slaughter them."
2/2
The rules text reads very complex, probably more than it plays, but it still leaves a bad first impression. Also, the effect looks pretty narrow. The flavor text is good and fits the mechanic, but it makes the horror look more black than white to me. It also feels like an attempt to make the complicated mechanics flow easier, but I'm not sure that attempt has been successful. Finally, I don't really understand why this needs changeling, mechanically it's just adding on top of an already complex mechanic and flavorfully I'm just not sure it's needed.
IcariiFA
Non Red Fire/Non Blue Thought
Recollection Cremator1BB
Creature - Human Wizard (R)
Menace
When Recollection Cremator deals combat damage to a player, exile all creature cards from that player's graveyard. Then that player reveals his or her hand. He or she discards all cards that share a name with cards exiled this way. "Bring the corpse to the furnace and you can be sure nothing will remain."
3/2
Fixed "players" to "player's". I don't really have much to say about this because I really like it, both mechanically and flavorfully. It's interesting that you went for a different interpretation of both fire, as in not the fire itself but one of its uses, and thought, as in not actively thinking but the corpses of the remembered ones. Very good.
Exodus87
Non-black Moon, non-green Seasons
Note: moon is actually is the white list and not in the black one, but there is no problem as the card is neither white nor black.
Harbinger of Winter3R
Creature - Elemental {R}
At the beginning of each upkeep, if a player cast two or more spells last turn, Harbinger of Winter deals 4 damage to that player unless he or she sacrifices a land.
At the beginning of each upkeep, if no spells were cast last turn, transform Harbinger of Winter. "To my knowledge, he never laid a hand on anyone; still, each year I find myself hoping to catch sight of a rabid werewolf than of him."
—Karl, hunter of Lambholt
4/2
Hunter's Moon
(R) Enchantment {R}
At the beginning of each upkeep, if a player cast two or more spells last turn, that player sacrifices two lands.
Fixed the missing quotation marks in the flavor text. One interesting thing here is how you fused both sides of the werewolf mechanic on the front side, that has both the classic transform trigger and another one with the same trigger condition that would transform a werewolf back to human form normally. Another interesting thing is that the Hunter's Moon is an expression with an in-world meaning on Innistrad, and I'm sure that was intentional. The back side also has a trigger that mirrors the werewolf-to-human one. This card is very interesting overall, even if I'm not admittedly a fan of the land destruction aspect, but that is just because of how much I hate it as a mechanic.
MCC - Winner (6): Oct 2014, Apr Nov 2017, Jan 2018, Apr Jun 2019 || Host (15): Dec 2014, Apr Jul Aug Dec 2015, Mar Jul Aug Oct 2016, Feb Jul 2017, Jun Nov 2018, Feb Jul 2019 (last one here) || Judge (34): every month from Nov 2014 to Nov 2016 except Oct 2015, every month from Feb to Jul 2017 except Apr 2017, then Oct 2017, May Jun Nov 2018, Feb Jul 2019 (last one here) CCL - Winner (3): Jul 2016 (tied with Flatline), May 2017, Jul 2019 (last one here) || Host (5): Feb 2015, Mar Apr May Jun 2016 DCC - Winner (1): Mar 2015 (tied with Piar) || Host (3): May Oct 2015, Jan 2016
• The two public custom sets I've been part a part of the design team for: "Brotherhood of Ormos" - Blog post with all info - set thread - design skeleton / card list || "Extinctia: Homo Evanuit" - Blog post with all info - set thread - card list spreadsheet
• "The Lion's Lair", my article series about MTG and custom card design in particular. Latest article here. Here is the article index.Rather outdated by now, and based on the old MCC rubric, but I'm leaving this here for anybody that might be interested anyway.
• My only public attempt at being a writer: the story of my Leonin custom planeswalker Jeff Lionheart. (I have a very big one that I'm working on right now but that's private for now, and I don't know if I will ever actually publish it, and I also have ideas for multiple future ones, including one where I'm going to reprise Jeff.)
IcariiFA : this card power level is pretty high imo.. menace pretty much ensure a deal combat damage to a player in most situation, the graveyard cleaning and hand discarding is useful in many situation. without anything in the opposing player's graveyard, you still get a 3/2 menace for 3 which is a good deal too.
Exodus87: stat wise its good 4/2 for 3R seems good for red, but this card, punishes both many spell and no spell at all. giving the slack of casting 1 spell per turn as a safe ground. this flips into an enchantment that punishes player for casting more than 1 spell per turn. i don't like how similar the front side is to its back side.
soramaro: this is Hazoret's Undying Fury on a stick except you don't need to shuffle, and you get a 5/4 and not having your lands tapped next turn, if you have only 1 card or less. which is quite easy to do in red. i felt conflicted, but i tend to see this as definitely a strictly stronger variant of Hazoret's Undying Fury.
bravelion83: Its body is rather small, but ugh, activating Mindslaver makes it deal a total of 12 damage to target player. This is definitely a build around card and not the kind that you want in limited environment. Flavorwise though, i can't really imagine how he dealt the damage, fusing his blood with scraps to shoot the enemy seems ok with the put to graveyard triggered, but i can't really imagine how it would be for the enter the battlefield effect though.
Rocco: honestly i don't understand why is this a rare when Glacial Wall serve similar purpose for less cost but more reliably. I can imagine when it dies, it causes flood sending creatures back to its owner hand a la Whelming Wave. This though to me seems like a really bad wall.. that could turn useful via sacrifice outlet.
JamBlock: honestly this is my favourite of the entry that i critiqued. i can imagine that whenever it moves, it covers the battlefield with sands thus dealing 1 damage like Scouring Sand or preventing creature from seeing this creature coming like Unearthly Blizzard. power level wise, 4 cmc for 4/2 is common for red creatures but dealing 1 to each creature on attack is not okay with just 4 mana, plus you can choose the ability. imo this should cost at least 5 or 6 mana in total.
Potential from nothing. I see it. Great job making such a concrete card from such vague concepts. You seem to be very on topic regarding red's latest color pie additions. I have no problems with your card. It's very solid.
Ah yes, I see. The moon is made of stone and stones are often used for counters, tide counters for example, and when you return creatures do player's hands, they have to play them again, so that you can counter them. Very clever. Clever indeed.
On a more serious note, I like how you found more space for the tidal mechanic of Bounty of the Luxa. There's an interesting mini-game going on with the second ability, turning it all on the head. Normally you'd think you'd want to attack into this while it's 0/4, so you can kill it. But it's actually the other way around, when you can't afford to lose your board like that. I doubt many people would actually be bothered by non-living walls like this, like WotC seems to believe, but as things are they'd probably shy from such flavor. But that's the only concern I have and it's not a big one.
Just putting 'eternal' and 'stonehenge' in the name seems like a cheap way to satisfy the challenge. So, Devas are semi-gods. This doesn't come across as very godly. Not even semi-godly. Not sure what you're going for here. But while I don't get the flavor, the card itself is really well designed. Vigilance plays well with Valor and Valor is an interesting mechanic. It seems to be a bit snowbally, so costing and such would need playtesting, but that's no concern for a design. Valor feels like it doesn't fit white too well, as it's not the color of big creatures, but you circumvented that beautifully with the third ability. Great design right there.
Loveforged? Aren't we all, in a sense? What a weird way to put it...
Just so you know, with the mandatory reminder text for Soulbond, you made a 10-liner here. That means microtext.
Drawing for something so reckless as scrying to the bottom feels red, but I'm still concerned about it being flat out card draw.
I'm also not sure how well this would play. I think most of the time you're just going to scry to the bottom, just to draw the card, because it's just not worth it waiting to draw the right card. Any card right now is often better than the right card sometime later. That could easily lead to feel-bad-moments. But it's an interesting design space to venture into and the card has a fascinating concept.
It's nice how the card sets up an engine on it's own, making sure it gets to trigger.
When you post a holder make sure you actually use it, I almost thought you didn't put an entry.
Metal plus Flesh makes for a nice golem. I like how the theme is continued in the abilities. Seems to be on the strong side. It's rather flavorful, actually devouring the creatures for good. A nice combination of existing concepts.
A good way to combine Moon with Soil. Not sure where Soratami connect with enchantments, but I could totally see that for a future interpretation of them. Especially their connection to lands can't be denied. I feel like the land should enter tapped. A neat little design.
So many shiny cool cards!
1. soramaro
2. Rocco
3. iphanx
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Multiple instances of lifelink on the same creature are redundant.
Multiple instances of lifelink on the same creature are redundant.
Multiple instances of lifelink on the same creature are redundant.
—Eli Shiffrin, Rules Manager, on a design stacking lifelink instances
Complete. Sorry if anything is too quick, but I have minimal free time left pre-deadline.
Jimmy Groove - I really like this design and simultaneously have no idea if it's a powerful card. At such a restrictive cost, and with the fact that the artifacts you sacrifice for it can never be tokens or free dudes (at least not productively), you do have to jump through hoops to play it and recur it. I think, personally, that this card would go from good to great, both in terms of power and design, if it had some sort of damage-dealing ETB trigger, even if it's not a super powerful one. That said, it works great for the challenge at hand.
RickyRister - There's a lot I like about this card. I like the super delayed effect duration that can have this guy alternating between 1, 3, and 5 power. I like the core concept. The one thing that I don't like is that, even though the flavor text works, I just don't feel like the mechanic here FITS with the name of the flavor text particularly well. It's a cool card, but it feels like a stretch to make it fit the challenge you were facing with the color/themes.
SnowBlack1021 - There's a lot going on here, and I guess it does all come together and make sense, but it's undeniably a very strange card. I almost don't know what else to say about it. As far as balance goes, it's probably actually fine. I think most of the time this is going to be "taking" an equipment you already control. Ultimately, it's just sort of narrow. You need there to be an equipment and you need your opponents to have a lot of artifacts for this to not just be a 2/2 changeling for 5.
IcariiFA - This is a very interesting card. I like everything about it a lot, actually, with only one criticism. Personally, I think that the power level of seeing your opponent's hand every turn could be pretty high, possibly, so maaaaybe you should only have them reveal the hand if any cards were exiled from the graveyard in the first place. That said, it's probably still fine as-is, and I like the way you've adapted a black card to fit those themes you're working with.
Exodus87 - This is interesting. I guess I just don't traditionally think of casting-multiple-spells as being a thing that red is known for punishing. It certainly limits players options including your own, but it might be fine? I think my biggest bump is just that it's doing so many things. I don't think this needed to be a transform card, and an uncommon without the flip-side and just with some sort of variant on the creature-form's first ability would have been a more elegant option. That said, I can't say it doesn't feel balanced.
bravelion83 - So it's a 5 mana 2/3 rare that "does nothing on its own" but can be absolutely devastating in the right situation. I don't know how constructed-viable it is (I just genuinely don't know - I play limited) but from my best guess,
it's probably actually okay? It's not terribly hard to provide an answer for. Still, it's dangerous, and I think I'd feel safer if it triggered on entering or dying, but not both, and had higher P/T. Still, it's a fun card that is well designed and such
Is it awesome/appealing? Does the flavor work?
I'm interested to see it in action. I'm a little bit distracted by the flavor, due to Sandstorm being famously green, but I acknowledge that this is an old-geezer way of perceiving things and the vast majority of sandstorm flavored cards these days are red. I like red creatures with fragile bodies and weird ways to push damage through.
Does it meet the challenge?
Yes.
Does it work/is it templated right?
It works okay.
I think if I were to do anything to clean up this card, I'd separate the counter toggle ability and the toughness adjustment into different abilities like so, "As long as Tallrock Dam has a tide counter on it, it gets -0/-4."
Is it awesome/appealing? Does the flavor work?
The death trigger is beautiful and I like the image that breaking the dam causes floods, but I'm not sure what kind of a dam exists that holds back a body of water with tides in it.
Does it meet the challenge?
Yes.
Does it work/is it templated right?
There is a typo in your valor keyword. Apart from that small error it is mechanically sound.
Is it awesome/appealing? Does the flavor work?
I have some minor issues with this card.
- Did you try rendering that cardname? It's very long.
- Not convinced by introduction of a new creature type without a strong flavor-driven reason for it. For optimal henge flavor, Human Druid would have been a fine typeline. That's not really where the rest of the card is going, though.
- The third ability here feels like trinket text; I'm sure there's a case where it's not, and it is certainly nice that you can recoup some losses with it if Gatekeeper is about to die, but 2 life is a pretty small number and not a very exciting effect.
- I don't feel like 'Stonehenge' is relevant to this card at all, the mechanics are straight up "a guy that's real good at guarding a place." The nature of th place doesn't seem to matter.
Does it meet the challenge?
Yes.
Does it work/is it templated right?
Seems fine yes.
Is it awesome/appealing? Does the flavor work?
I feel like it's very easy for this card to run out of control, the numbers are very likely to need tuning. There's clearly some degenerate Esper deck that churns out a lot of small dudes and eats them to pump this guy and feed his draw engine. I don't really understand the flavor of the card-draw ability; the other half is clearly a The Blob thing where it gets bigger as it eats, that works, but what, it gets smarter when it eats a robot maybe? Not sure.
Does it meet the challenge?
Is this moon themed? I'm not getting it?
Does it work/is it templated right?
"Whenever you scry one or more cards to the bottom of your library" is I'm not sure this is kosher. I understand what it does but is this the right way to word it? The world may never know.
I don't think a card draw/scry engine of this caliber should exist without blue.
Is it awesome/appealing? Does the flavor work?
I mean, it's appealing but I think there's a significant danger it's too strong and I discussed the flavor thing above.
Does it meet the challenge?
I don't understand where 'void' is coming from here?
Does it work/is it templated right?
"One or fewer" is usually the phrasing.
Is it awesome/appealing? Does the flavor work?
This is pretty awesome, I would not mind drawing it at the appropriate time in the game. Flavor re:theme discussed above, but as a card I think the flavor is fine, it suggests kind of a 'big bang' thing happening which feels appropriate. I would have looked for a different word than 'Invoker' due to the multiple cycles of Invokers with a characteristic mechanic this one lacks. That's not a fatal error though.
Ravenous Flesh Golem2UB
Artifact Creature - Golem (Rare)
Whenever another creature dies, exile it and put a +1/+1 counter on Ravenous Flesh Golem. If that creature was an artifact, draw a card.
3/3
I really like this card! It’s a nice combination of effects. This card rewards you for building around it but still gives you a nice bonus for playing the game normally and also happens to be graveyard hate. The card looks really powerful, but doesn’t feel like its been pushed because the effects come together really elegantly.
Moonsoil Cultivator1GU
Creature — Moonfolk Druid (R)
Flying
Whenever an enchantment enters the battlefield under your control, you may search your library for a basic land card and put it onto the battlefield. If you do, shuffle your library. In the clouds they grow strange gardens.
2/2
An enchantress that ramps you is the first thought that came into my mind when I saw this card. Although it’s a strange combination of effects, the flavour works well enough here to justify it. I’m not sure what the deck it’s in would look exactly, but the effect looks powerful enough to see play, and it’s a 2/2 3 mana flier to boot. If the enchantments deck from Theros-Khans standard ran blue, it definitely would’ve played this card.
Magnet Warrior2U
Artifact Creature - Golem Warrior (R)
Whenever Magnet Warrior enters the battlefield, you may attach target Equipment to it. (Control of the Equipment doesn't change.)
Equip abilities of Equipments attached to Magnet Warrior can't be activated. It only takes little modification to turn Etherium into a powerful magnet.
3/3
First off, the flavour is amazing. Secondly, the effect is super innovative and unique. Sowering an equipment sounds absolutely hilarious, and even if your opponent doesn’t have any equipments, you can still bypass one of your own high equip costs. This card feels like one of those card that won’t see play (except in expensive equipment decks) but will spike in appearance if equipments take over the meta. I wonder what this card would’ve done against cawblade. Really, this feels like a super fair hate card that also plays well in a deck built around it, and that’s just amazing design. There’s one thing that irks me though: I really don’t think it needs to be a 3 mana 3/3 (in blue no less).
Blistering Gale3GG
Instant (R)
Split Second (As long as this spell is on the stack, players can’t cast spells or activate abilities that aren’t mana abilities.)
Blistering Gale deals 4 damage to each creature with flying. A sudden change in the wind can turn into a violent storm in just the blink of an eye.
Well… I mean, it’s a card that does stuff, I guess. Although it’s true that we haven’t seen 4 damage at instant speed with split second before, this feels more like a hole filling card. It probably plays really well (especially in commander with that split second), but it just doesn’t feel that unique. It’s the unfortunate truth of custom card designs: The boring cards that fill in gaps and play well get left behind in favour of flashy cards doing flashy new experimental things.
Geppetto, Dark Puppeteer1UB
Legendary Creature – Human Artificer (M)
Artifact creatures you control have menace. UB, T, Exile a creature card from a graveyard: Target noncreature artifact becomes an artifact creature with power and toughness each equal to the converted mana cost of the exiled card until end of turn.
1/4 No one noticed how realistic his toys looked – even after the children started to go missing.
This card is great flavorwise, as it tells a story on its own. The effect is certainly unique. Someone’s probably going to have a hilarious game where they exile a ten drop and one shot an opponent, but most of the time this really won’t be used much. It’s an activated ability that requires the consumption of a pretty limited resource (in this case, creatures in graveyards that are big enough to matter) that doesn’t provide incremental advantage. The average deck just doesn’t have a high enough curve. Sure, you can smack your opponent to death over a few turns with a menancing 4/4 to 5/5 -ish pair of scissors provided there’s enough fuel in the graveyards, but I feel like more people are just going to sit back and use the ability to discourage attacks and as incidental graveyard hate. The number of big guys in graveyard is pretty limited so you really want to refrain from burning through them until it matters. In this way, I feel like this card is perfect for Commander. There’s more graveyards to mooch from, people usually run heavier creatures, you can build a deck around it (Probably a artifact creature deck taking advantage of the free menace), and you can use it throughout the game to politics others with your graveyard hate. Conclusion: I like this card.
Metalstorm PhoenixRRR
Flying, haste
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may sacrifice any number of artifacts with a total converted mana cost of 3 or more. If you do, return Metalstorm Phoenix from your graveyard to the battlefield. "Thousands of razors burning with a desire for freedom and a pathological hatred of death. When it is compleated, we all shall be."
- Kelia, Auriok survivor
3/1
Ah, another phoenix. This time around, it’s artifact based. The “total converted mana cost of 3 or more” part is interesting because you mix and match your sacrifices. The best way to use this card seems to be to with ichor wellspring and the like, since a 3/1 hasted flier that doesn’t cost cards coming out turn after turn isn’t something to scoff at. However, since the trigger is timed and the heavy colour cost easily leaves it stranded in hand, I don’t think this fits well in value based wellspring engines. Seeing as it’s so aggressively slanted, it’s probably going into some sort of artifact-ish mono red (or near mono red) aggro deck, so something along the lines of kuldoltha red or a non-pauper version of the boros wellspring aggro deck. In those types of decks this card looks to be quite the engine. Conclusion: I like this card.
Nonwhite, nonred creature with themes of MOON and STONE
(Quick science refresher: The moon's gravitational pull is the primary cause of ocean tides on Earth.)
Tallrock Dam1UU
Creature — Wall (R)
efender
At the beginning of your upkeep, if Tallrock Dam has no tide counters on it, put a tide counter on it and it gets -0/-4 until your next turn. Otherwise, remove a tide counter from it.
When Tallrock Dam dies, return all creatures to their owners' hands.
0/8
Doesn’t feel super clean. I’m not sure I understand the relation to tides. Is this echoing back to Tidal Influence? -0/-4 almost feels arbitrary.
Gatekeeper of Eternal Stonehenge2W
Creature - Deva Soldier (U)
Vigilance
Valor (Whenever this creature attacks or blocks, if you control another creature with greater power, put a +1/+1 counters on it.)
Remove a +1/+1 counter from Gatekeeper of Eternal Stonehenge: Gain 2 life.
1/4
White and stone ends up being a decent pairing. Not a huge fan of removing the counters for life. It would seem the counters are typically better on the creature, and remembering to remove them for the life gain when the creature is removed feels more like a task than a choice.
Moon & Thought (can't be white or blue). Those familiar with Le Petit Prince will enjoy the flavor text in the spoiler.
Loveforged Gazer1RR
Creature - Human Shaman (M)
Soulbond
As long as Loveforged Gazer is paired with another creature, both of those creatures have menace and "Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, scry 1."
Whenever you scry one or more cards to the bottom of your library, you may draw a card. For millennia, the night sky has kindled the ideas and passions of men.
2/3
I like the idea of soulbond and giving menace is fine, but this is insane card advantage. Red doesn’t get straight up card advantage, even if it is through combat. Only blue and green do.
Ravenous Flesh Golem2UB
Artifact Creature - Golem (Rare)
Whenever another creature dies, exile it and put a +1/+1 counter on Ravenous Flesh Golem. If that creature was an artifact, draw a card.
3/3
A simple card, it’s in-color, and I get the flavor. Nice work!
Moonsoil Cultivator1GU
Creature — Moonfolk Druid (R)
Flying
Whenever an enchantment enters the battlefield under your control, you may search your library for a basic land card and put it onto the battlefield. If you do, shuffle your library. In the clouds they grow strange gardens.
2/2
I quite like the flavor, but I can’t but help that this is absolutely busted, especially compared to Sword of the Animist. It comes into play untapped, and cheap enchantment spells means quick land drops. This is very, very undercosted and super, super powerful.
Magnet Warrior2U
Artifact Creature - Golem Warrior (R)
Whenever Magnet Warrior enters the battlefield, you may attach target Equipment to it. (Control of the Equipment doesn't change.)
Equip abilities of Equipments attached to Magnet Warrior can't be activated. It only takes little modification to turn Etherium into a powerful magnet.
3/3
Interesting design. It’s always very tricky to get blue to work with Equipment. I”m not entirely sold on it, but I sort of get the Equipment turning into Aura feeling here.
doomfish: I get that this is an aggressively costed creature for blue, but it still feels pretty lackluster as a rare with cards like kor outfitter out there. Maybe it'd be ok as an uncommon that costs 1UU instead? That said otherwise this is a solid card. The drawback dives it some character that it would otherwise be lacking.
proudawesome: Doesn't feel that speedy. Doesn't feel that creative. Doesn't feel rare. I'm just not a fan. Knock it to uncommon and call it a day for a functional, but unexciting design. Oh, and it's not a creature like the challenge asks.
Sub_Silentio: This is a very cool card. It tells its story through and through. Nix that Geppetto name for something else, and you've got a near perfect design. I could see this as a rare given the amount of setup it needs. It doesn't seem aggressive/splashy enough for a mythic. Otherwise though, good job.
Jimmy Groove: The name says metalstorm, but I get much more metal and very little storm. The lack of typing and rarity hurts evaluating this. I think given what I think it should be (An artifact creature pheonix that's rare), it be a cool phyrexian card. As is though, I can't give this kind an entry a top three.
RickyRister: Blindvoid feels a little forced. That said, the design is interesting. It can get a little confusing to remember, especially as the ability can overlap when you hit a player two turns in a row. It might function better with some kind of counter use. The flavor of a light wielding scout is a solid idea.
SnowBlack1021: The flavor text here is really amateurish and there wouldn't be room for it anyway. It does one too many things ability wise, it's difficult to grok without a couple passes. I think you didn't quite manage to come up with a seemless way to tie magnetism and void concepts together mechanically. While there is an interesting idea here, the execution is all wrong.
Don't know if I still manage to do the critiques, but here is my top 3 at least:
3. Rocco
2. doomfish
1. willows
Rocco
I like how the word "moon" isn't used anywhere on the card, the connection being implied through the tide counters instead. Wall of Frost is probably the the card that comes closest to this design, although Tallrock Dam's upside is conditional. Weirdly enough, its "beefy blocker" mode is probably less of a problem to aggressive decks than its "Evacuation on death" mode. Design-wise, it's neat that the wall makes itself weaker every other turn so it can die more easily. Without a sac-outlet or a kill spell in your hand, the bounce effect becomes worse since the decision is mostly up to your opponent. It's a rare people probably would complain about during spoiler season ("this should be uncommon!"), but I'm pretty sure the mass bounce makes it a rare nonetheless.
iphanx
Not sure how much I like Valor. Between having to attack or block and having to control another creature, it seems a little bit too restrictive, especially since it's just another +1/+1 counter mechanic. I think the time theme is very vague here - the only connection I see is that Stonehenge was used as a kind of calendar. It starts to makes sense and the cards kinda comes together when you think about that, but a flavor text (even a short one) would've benefited this card greatly. Also I know that "Stonehenge" doesn't have to mean "the Stonehenge" (in our world) and can refer to any random "henge of stones". However, since Wizards has been avoiding real-world connections for the past few years, I think coming up with a different name would've been better, just to avoid initial confusion.
doomfish
Pretty cool and flavorful spin on Armory Automaton. If it wasn't for the second effect, I'd say this card was either colorless or red (Vulshok Battlemaster). While that anti-stealing clause feels more white than blue -
blue usually gets to counter abilities while white disables them altogether. But the magnetism-flavor wouldn't have been so strong if this had been white. I think this is what qualifies as a "color pie bend", something you don't usually see but still is reasonable enough to make it onto a real card.
Creature - Human Wizard (R)
Menace
When Recollection Cremator deals combat damage to a player, exile all creature cards from that players graveyard. Then that player reveals his or her hand. He or she discards all cards that share a name with cards exiled this way.
"Bring the corpse to the furnace and you can be sure nothing will remain."
3/2
Would be a bit overcosted for just a 3/2 Menacer, and the 2nd ability isn't much of a boon in limited. Could see constructed play, depending on the meta, but likely only in Standard. It's an interesting, quirky card that sounds very powerful, but whose scope is narrow enough that it might not see much play. If it were printed, I would definitely try to break it. The name of the card does a great job of combining the two elements without feeling like it should be a red or blue card. The rules text really only covers the cremation aspect, though. I don't understand what discard has to do with recollection. (It works with the "thought" theme, just not the flavor you evoked with the name of the card)
Creature - Elemental {R}
At the beginning of each upkeep, if a player cast two or more spells last turn, Harbinger of Winter deals 4 damage to that player unless he or she sacrifices a land.
At the beginning of each upkeep, if no spells were cast last turn, transform Harbinger of Winter.
4/2
To my knowledge, he never laid a hand on anyone; still, each year I find myself hoping to catch sight of a rabid werewolf than of him.
—Karl, hunter of Lambholt
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hunter's Moon [Red]
Enchantment {R}
At the beginning of each upkeep, if a player cast two or more spells last turn, that player sacrifices two lands.
I like how this card uses the standard werewolf transform method, and penalizes players for multicasting on both faces. I don't like how you're punished just as severely as your opponents. I also don't like that it's a monored card whose sole purpose is to slow down the game, nor that the "Harbinger of Winter" is red in the first place. It could have been blue and still met all the challenges. The mechanical flavor is confusing, but I do appreciate the thought put into the challenge. You have to know what a hunter's moon is IRL to get the reference, but you still get points for thoughtfully approaching a tricky flavor challenge.
Creature - Shapeshifter {R}
Changeling
When Magnetized Horror enters the battlefield, gain control of target Equipment for as long as you control Magnetized Horror and attach that Equipment to it, then exile all artifacts you don't control with converted mana cost less than Magnetized Horror's power until it leaves the battlefield.
"That thing, it looked like human, it just came out of nowhere, and like a black hole, sucked away all the soldiers' weapons and then slaughter them."
2/2
Iiiinteresting. It steals one equipment, then wipes out some other artifacts. A 2/2 for CMC5 is hard to love (and so is that flavor text, yikes!), especially with such a very narrow ability. I guess it could work in an artifact-heavy set. I don't understand the flavor here. Does shapeshifter somehow imply The Void? Magnetism can steal artifacts, sure, but if it's a "black hole," how can it hold onto one? And then why only one? Mechanically, this is all fine. Just confusing, flavorfully.
Can't be black or blue
Creature - Giant Shaman (R)
When ~ enters the battlefield, if you have one or less cards in hand, exile the top four cards of your library. Until end of turn, you may cast a card with converted mana cost 5 or less from among them without paying its mana cost.
He draws on the small threads that connect nothingness with creation.
5/4
Less —> Fewer
So... 6 mana for a 5/4 body and potentially another 5-mana creature? The stipulations are pretty specific, so I guess that's doable. I'd have liked to see this balanced as a mythic instead because of how bombastic the effect is. Great work combining your elements. Peering into the possibility cloud evokes a sense of potential, and ripping cards out of nothingness covers the void nicely. Flavor text is meh. If just describes the basic function of the card, and doesn't actually add much flavor. The card would stand on its own fine without it.
Creature — Human Artificer (R)
Whenever an artifact enters the battlefield under your control or an artifact you control is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, you may have Blood Metalist deal damage equal to that artifact’s converted mana cost to target creature or player.
His unorthodox methods of weapon forging involve fusing metal scraps of dubious provenance with fresh blood, sometimes even his own.
2/3
You designed a powerful, artifact-centric card that has no place in Affinity. I love you for that.
CMC5 for 2/3 doesn't really excite me, since it isn't guaranteed you'll get any value out of him the turn he comes down. But in limited, this would only need to trigger about twice to be worth it. That's usually doable, even easy in some sets. And in constructed formats, there are any number of ways to break this. It may even be too good for Standard, though its cost is high enough that eternal formats will have no problem with it. I think rare is correct here, and you nailed the elemental flavors. I'm not a fan of this flavor text formula (an unnamed character describing the subject of the card in the 3rd person), but yours is executed very well here. "Dubious provenance" just made everyone a little bit smarter.
Creature - Elemental (U)
Whenever Sandstorm Elemental attacks, choose one —
- Sandstorm Elemental deals 1 damage to each creature defending player controls.
- Target creature can't block this turn.
4/2
On the whole, I really, really like this. I only worry that the first mode may be a bit much. It completely hoses most token strategies, and drastically reduces the whole defending board's blocking ability. And it's repeatable. I think the trigger should come with some cost, so it's not just a free Blazing Voley every turn. Flavorfully, you nailed it. You picked very synergistic elements, and your card feels cohesive and focused.
Sub_Silentio
Not Green, Flesh - Not White, Metal
Geppetto, Dark Puppeteer 1UB
Legendary Creature – Human Artificer (M)
Artifact creatures you control have menace.
UB, T, Exile a creature card from a graveyard: Target noncreature artifact becomes an artifact creature with power and toughness each equal to the converted mana cost of the exiled card until end of turn.
1/4
No one noticed how realistic his toys looked – even after the children started to go missing.
Jimmy Groove
Metal (White) + Storm (Green)
Metalstorm Phoenix RRR
Flying, haste
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may sacrifice any number of artifacts with a total converted mana cost of 3 or more. If you do, return Metalstorm Phoenix from your graveyard to the battlefield.
"Thousands of razors burning with a desire for freedom and a pathological hatred of death. When it is compleated, we all shall be."
- Kelia, Auriok survivor
3/1
RickyRister
Non white light/ Non black void
Blindvoid Illuminator G
Creature - Human Scout (U)
Trample
Whenever Blindvoid Illuminator deals combat damage to a player, it gets +2/+0 until the end of your next turn.
The Illuminators run ahead of the group, beating back the all consuming darkness of the Blindvoid lest the party be consumed by the horrors that live within.
1/2
SnowBlack1021
Nonred Magnetism + Nonblack Void
Magnetized Horror 4W
Creature - Shapeshifter {R}
Changeling
When Magnetized Horror enters the battlefield, gain control of target Equipment for as long as you control Magnetized Horror and attach that Equipment to it, then exile all artifacts you don't control with converted mana cost less than Magnetized Horror's power until it leaves the battlefield.
"That thing, it looked like human, it just came out of nowhere, and like a black hole, sucked away all the soldiers' weapons and then slaughter them."
2/2
IcariiFA
Non Red Fire/Non Blue Thought
Recollection Cremator 1BB
Creature - Human Wizard (R)
Menace
When Recollection Cremator deals combat damage to a player, exile all creature cards from that player's graveyard. Then that player reveals his or her hand. He or she discards all cards that share a name with cards exiled this way.
"Bring the corpse to the furnace and you can be sure nothing will remain."
3/2
Exodus87
Non-black Moon, non-green Seasons
Note: moon is actually is the white list and not in the black one, but there is no problem as the card is neither white nor black.
Harbinger of Winter 3R
Creature - Elemental {R}
At the beginning of each upkeep, if a player cast two or more spells last turn, Harbinger of Winter deals 4 damage to that player unless he or she sacrifices a land.
At the beginning of each upkeep, if no spells were cast last turn, transform Harbinger of Winter.
"To my knowledge, he never laid a hand on anyone; still, each year I find myself hoping to catch sight of a rabid werewolf than of him."
—Karl, hunter of Lambholt
4/2
Hunter's Moon
(R) Enchantment {R}
At the beginning of each upkeep, if a player cast two or more spells last turn, that player sacrifices two lands.
Top 3
1st place: Sub_Silentio
2nd place: IcariiFA
3rd place: Exodus87
MCC - Winner (6): Oct 2014, Apr Nov 2017, Jan 2018, Apr Jun 2019 || Host (15): Dec 2014, Apr Jul Aug Dec 2015, Mar Jul Aug Oct 2016, Feb Jul 2017, Jun Nov 2018, Feb Jul 2019 (last one here) || Judge (34): every month from Nov 2014 to Nov 2016 except Oct 2015, every month from Feb to Jul 2017 except Apr 2017, then Oct 2017, May Jun Nov 2018, Feb Jul 2019 (last one here)
CCL - Winner (3): Jul 2016 (tied with Flatline), May 2017, Jul 2019 (last one here) || Host (5): Feb 2015, Mar Apr May Jun 2016
DCC - Winner (1): Mar 2015 (tied with Piar) || Host (3): May Oct 2015, Jan 2016
• The two public custom sets I've been part a part of the design team for:
"Brotherhood of Ormos" - Blog post with all info - set thread - design skeleton / card list || "Extinctia: Homo Evanuit" - Blog post with all info - set thread - card list spreadsheet
• "The Lion's Lair", my article series about MTG and custom card design in particular. Latest article here. Here is the article index. Rather outdated by now, and based on the old MCC rubric, but I'm leaving this here for anybody that might be interested anyway.
• My only public attempt at being a writer: the story of my Leonin custom planeswalker Jeff Lionheart. (I have a very big one that I'm working on right now but that's private for now, and I don't know if I will ever actually publish it, and I also have ideas for multiple future ones, including one where I'm going to reprise Jeff.)
IcariiFA : this card power level is pretty high imo.. menace pretty much ensure a deal combat damage to a player in most situation, the graveyard cleaning and hand discarding is useful in many situation. without anything in the opposing player's graveyard, you still get a 3/2 menace for 3 which is a good deal too.
Exodus87: stat wise its good 4/2 for 3R seems good for red, but this card, punishes both many spell and no spell at all. giving the slack of casting 1 spell per turn as a safe ground. this flips into an enchantment that punishes player for casting more than 1 spell per turn. i don't like how similar the front side is to its back side.
soramaro: this is Hazoret's Undying Fury on a stick except you don't need to shuffle, and you get a 5/4 and not having your lands tapped next turn, if you have only 1 card or less. which is quite easy to do in red. i felt conflicted, but i tend to see this as definitely a strictly stronger variant of Hazoret's Undying Fury.
bravelion83: Its body is rather small, but ugh, activating Mindslaver makes it deal a total of 12 damage to target player. This is definitely a build around card and not the kind that you want in limited environment. Flavorwise though, i can't really imagine how he dealt the damage, fusing his blood with scraps to shoot the enemy seems ok with the put to graveyard triggered, but i can't really imagine how it would be for the enter the battlefield effect though.
Rocco: honestly i don't understand why is this a rare when Glacial Wall serve similar purpose for less cost but more reliably. I can imagine when it dies, it causes flood sending creatures back to its owner hand a la Whelming Wave. This though to me seems like a really bad wall.. that could turn useful via sacrifice outlet.
JamBlock: honestly this is my favourite of the entry that i critiqued. i can imagine that whenever it moves, it covers the battlefield with sands thus dealing 1 damage like Scouring Sand or preventing creature from seeing this creature coming like Unearthly Blizzard. power level wise, 4 cmc for 4/2 is common for red creatures but dealing 1 to each creature on attack is not okay with just 4 mana, plus you can choose the ability. imo this should cost at least 5 or 6 mana in total.
1. JamBlock
2. Icarifaa
3. Bravelion83
On a more serious note, I like how you found more space for the tidal mechanic of Bounty of the Luxa. There's an interesting mini-game going on with the second ability, turning it all on the head. Normally you'd think you'd want to attack into this while it's 0/4, so you can kill it. But it's actually the other way around, when you can't afford to lose your board like that. I doubt many people would actually be bothered by non-living walls like this, like WotC seems to believe, but as things are they'd probably shy from such flavor. But that's the only concern I have and it's not a big one.
Just so you know, with the mandatory reminder text for Soulbond, you made a 10-liner here. That means microtext.
Drawing for something so reckless as scrying to the bottom feels red, but I'm still concerned about it being flat out card draw.
I'm also not sure how well this would play. I think most of the time you're just going to scry to the bottom, just to draw the card, because it's just not worth it waiting to draw the right card. Any card right now is often better than the right card sometime later. That could easily lead to feel-bad-moments. But it's an interesting design space to venture into and the card has a fascinating concept.
It's nice how the card sets up an engine on it's own, making sure it gets to trigger.
Metal plus Flesh makes for a nice golem. I like how the theme is continued in the abilities. Seems to be on the strong side. It's rather flavorful, actually devouring the creatures for good. A nice combination of existing concepts.
So many shiny cool cards!
2. Rocco
3. iphanx
Multiple instances of lifelink on the same creature are redundant.
Multiple instances of lifelink on the same creature are redundant.
—Eli Shiffrin, Rules Manager, on a design stacking lifelink instances
Jimmy Groove - I really like this design and simultaneously have no idea if it's a powerful card. At such a restrictive cost, and with the fact that the artifacts you sacrifice for it can never be tokens or free dudes (at least not productively), you do have to jump through hoops to play it and recur it. I think, personally, that this card would go from good to great, both in terms of power and design, if it had some sort of damage-dealing ETB trigger, even if it's not a super powerful one. That said, it works great for the challenge at hand.
RickyRister - There's a lot I like about this card. I like the super delayed effect duration that can have this guy alternating between 1, 3, and 5 power. I like the core concept. The one thing that I don't like is that, even though the flavor text works, I just don't feel like the mechanic here FITS with the name of the flavor text particularly well. It's a cool card, but it feels like a stretch to make it fit the challenge you were facing with the color/themes.
SnowBlack1021 - There's a lot going on here, and I guess it does all come together and make sense, but it's undeniably a very strange card. I almost don't know what else to say about it. As far as balance goes, it's probably actually fine. I think most of the time this is going to be "taking" an equipment you already control. Ultimately, it's just sort of narrow. You need there to be an equipment and you need your opponents to have a lot of artifacts for this to not just be a 2/2 changeling for 5.
IcariiFA - This is a very interesting card. I like everything about it a lot, actually, with only one criticism. Personally, I think that the power level of seeing your opponent's hand every turn could be pretty high, possibly, so maaaaybe you should only have them reveal the hand if any cards were exiled from the graveyard in the first place. That said, it's probably still fine as-is, and I like the way you've adapted a black card to fit those themes you're working with.
Exodus87 - This is interesting. I guess I just don't traditionally think of casting-multiple-spells as being a thing that red is known for punishing. It certainly limits players options including your own, but it might be fine? I think my biggest bump is just that it's doing so many things. I don't think this needed to be a transform card, and an uncommon without the flip-side and just with some sort of variant on the creature-form's first ability would have been a more elegant option. That said, I can't say it doesn't feel balanced.
bravelion83 - So it's a 5 mana 2/3 rare that "does nothing on its own" but can be absolutely devastating in the right situation. I don't know how constructed-viable it is (I just genuinely don't know - I play limited) but from my best guess,
it's probably actually okay? It's not terribly hard to provide an answer for. Still, it's dangerous, and I think I'd feel safer if it triggered on entering or dying, but not both, and had higher P/T. Still, it's a fun card that is well designed and such
1. Jimmy Groove
2. IcariiFA
3. bravelion83
Yes.
Does it work/is it templated right?
Seems ok.
Is it awesome/appealing? Does the flavor work?
I'm interested to see it in action. I'm a little bit distracted by the flavor, due to Sandstorm being famously green, but I acknowledge that this is an old-geezer way of perceiving things and the vast majority of sandstorm flavored cards these days are red. I like red creatures with fragile bodies and weird ways to push damage through.
Yes.
Does it work/is it templated right?
It works okay.
I think if I were to do anything to clean up this card, I'd separate the counter toggle ability and the toughness adjustment into different abilities like so, "As long as Tallrock Dam has a tide counter on it, it gets -0/-4."
Is it awesome/appealing? Does the flavor work?
The death trigger is beautiful and I like the image that breaking the dam causes floods, but I'm not sure what kind of a dam exists that holds back a body of water with tides in it.
Yes.
Does it work/is it templated right?
There is a typo in your valor keyword. Apart from that small error it is mechanically sound.
Is it awesome/appealing? Does the flavor work?
I have some minor issues with this card.
- Did you try rendering that cardname? It's very long.
- Not convinced by introduction of a new creature type without a strong flavor-driven reason for it. For optimal henge flavor, Human Druid would have been a fine typeline. That's not really where the rest of the card is going, though.
- The third ability here feels like trinket text; I'm sure there's a case where it's not, and it is certainly nice that you can recoup some losses with it if Gatekeeper is about to die, but 2 life is a pretty small number and not a very exciting effect.
- I don't feel like 'Stonehenge' is relevant to this card at all, the mechanics are straight up "a guy that's real good at guarding a place." The nature of th place doesn't seem to matter.
Yes.
Does it work/is it templated right?
Seems fine yes.
Is it awesome/appealing? Does the flavor work?
I feel like it's very easy for this card to run out of control, the numbers are very likely to need tuning. There's clearly some degenerate Esper deck that churns out a lot of small dudes and eats them to pump this guy and feed his draw engine. I don't really understand the flavor of the card-draw ability; the other half is clearly a The Blob thing where it gets bigger as it eats, that works, but what, it gets smarter when it eats a robot maybe? Not sure.
Is this moon themed? I'm not getting it?
Does it work/is it templated right?
"Whenever you scry one or more cards to the bottom of your library" is I'm not sure this is kosher. I understand what it does but is this the right way to word it? The world may never know.
I don't think a card draw/scry engine of this caliber should exist without blue.
Is it awesome/appealing? Does the flavor work?
I mean, it's appealing but I think there's a significant danger it's too strong and I discussed the flavor thing above.
I don't understand where 'void' is coming from here?
Does it work/is it templated right?
"One or fewer" is usually the phrasing.
Is it awesome/appealing? Does the flavor work?
This is pretty awesome, I would not mind drawing it at the appropriate time in the game. Flavor re:theme discussed above, but as a card I think the flavor is fine, it suggests kind of a 'big bang' thing happening which feels appropriate. I would have looked for a different word than 'Invoker' due to the multiple cycles of Invokers with a characteristic mechanic this one lacks. That's not a fatal error though.
2. JamBlock
3. netn10
2.Sub_Silentio (Geppetto, Dark Puppeteer)
1.doomfish (Magnet Warrior)
White and stone ends up being a decent pairing. Not a huge fan of removing the counters for life. It would seem the counters are typically better on the creature, and remembering to remove them for the life gain when the creature is removed feels more like a task than a choice.
I like the idea of soulbond and giving menace is fine, but this is insane card advantage. Red doesn’t get straight up card advantage, even if it is through combat. Only blue and green do.
A simple card, it’s in-color, and I get the flavor. Nice work!
I quite like the flavor, but I can’t but help that this is absolutely busted, especially compared to Sword of the Animist. It comes into play untapped, and cheap enchantment spells means quick land drops. This is very, very undercosted and super, super powerful. Interesting design. It’s always very tricky to get blue to work with Equipment. I”m not entirely sold on it, but I sort of get the Equipment turning into Aura feeling here.
( ancestral on Custom Magic Discord server )
( mproud on reddit )
proudawesome: Doesn't feel that speedy. Doesn't feel that creative. Doesn't feel rare. I'm just not a fan. Knock it to uncommon and call it a day for a functional, but unexciting design. Oh, and it's not a creature like the challenge asks.
Sub_Silentio: This is a very cool card. It tells its story through and through. Nix that Geppetto name for something else, and you've got a near perfect design. I could see this as a rare given the amount of setup it needs. It doesn't seem aggressive/splashy enough for a mythic. Otherwise though, good job.
Jimmy Groove: The name says metalstorm, but I get much more metal and very little storm. The lack of typing and rarity hurts evaluating this. I think given what I think it should be (An artifact creature pheonix that's rare), it be a cool phyrexian card. As is though, I can't give this kind an entry a top three.
RickyRister: Blindvoid feels a little forced. That said, the design is interesting. It can get a little confusing to remember, especially as the ability can overlap when you hit a player two turns in a row. It might function better with some kind of counter use. The flavor of a light wielding scout is a solid idea.
SnowBlack1021: The flavor text here is really amateurish and there wouldn't be room for it anyway. It does one too many things ability wise, it's difficult to grok without a couple passes. I think you didn't quite manage to come up with a seemless way to tie magnetism and void concepts together mechanically. While there is an interesting idea here, the execution is all wrong.
2nd: doomfish
3rd: RickyRister
2. doomfish
1. willows
Rocco
I like how the word "moon" isn't used anywhere on the card, the connection being implied through the tide counters instead. Wall of Frost is probably the the card that comes closest to this design, although Tallrock Dam's upside is conditional. Weirdly enough, its "beefy blocker" mode is probably less of a problem to aggressive decks than its "Evacuation on death" mode. Design-wise, it's neat that the wall makes itself weaker every other turn so it can die more easily. Without a sac-outlet or a kill spell in your hand, the bounce effect becomes worse since the decision is mostly up to your opponent. It's a rare people probably would complain about during spoiler season ("this should be uncommon!"), but I'm pretty sure the mass bounce makes it a rare nonetheless.
iphanx
Not sure how much I like Valor. Between having to attack or block and having to control another creature, it seems a little bit too restrictive, especially since it's just another +1/+1 counter mechanic. I think the time theme is very vague here - the only connection I see is that Stonehenge was used as a kind of calendar. It starts to makes sense and the cards kinda comes together when you think about that, but a flavor text (even a short one) would've benefited this card greatly. Also I know that "Stonehenge" doesn't have to mean "the Stonehenge" (in our world) and can refer to any random "henge of stones". However, since Wizards has been avoiding real-world connections for the past few years, I think coming up with a different name would've been better, just to avoid initial confusion.
doomfish
Pretty cool and flavorful spin on Armory Automaton. If it wasn't for the second effect, I'd say this card was either colorless or red (Vulshok Battlemaster). While that anti-stealing clause feels more white than blue -
blue usually gets to counter abilities while white disables them altogether. But the magnetism-flavor wouldn't have been so strong if this had been white. I think this is what qualifies as a "color pie bend", something you don't usually see but still is reasonable enough to make it onto a real card.
netn10
kjsharp
willows
bravelion83
doomfish
JamBlock
Rocco
IcariiFA
proudawesome
iphanx
willows
The next round will be up shortly.
I̟̥͍̠ͅn̩͉̣͍̬͚ͅ ̬̬͖t̯̹̞̺͖͓̯̤h̘͍̬e͙̯͈̖̼̮ ̭̬f̺̲̲̪i͙͉̟̩̰r̪̝͚͈̝̥͍̝̲s̼̻͇̘̳͔ͅt̲̺̳̗̜̪̙ ̳̺̥̻͚̗ͅm̜̜̟̰͈͓͎͇o̝̖̮̝͇m̯̻̞̼̫̗͓̤e̩̯̬̮̩n͎̱̪̲̹͖t͇̖s̰̮ͅ,̤̲͙̻̭̻̯̹̰ ̖t̫̙̺̯͖͚̯ͅh͙̯̦̳̗̰̟e͖̪͉̼̯ ̪͕g̞̣͔a̗̦t̬̬͓͙̫̖̭̻e̩̻̯ ̜̖̦̖̤̭͙̬t̞̹̥̪͎͉ͅo͕͚͍͇̲͇͓̺ ̭̬͙͈̣̻t͈͍͙͓̫̖͙̩h̪̬̖̙e̗͈ ̗̬̟̞̺̤͉̯ͅa̦̯͚̙̜̮f͉͙̲̣̞̼t̪̤̞̣͚e̲͉̳̥r͇̪̙͚͓l̥̞̞͎̹̯̹ͅi͓̬f̮̥̬̞͈ͅe͎ ̟̩̤̳̠̯̩̯o̮̘̲p̟͚̣̞͉͓e͍̩̣n͔̼͕͚̜e̬̱d̼̘͎̖̹͍̮̠,͖̺̭̱̮ ̣̲͖̬̪̭̥a̪͚n̟̲̝̤̤̞̗d̘̱̗͇̮͕̳͕͔ ͖̞͉͎t̹̙͎h̰̱͉̗e̪̞̱̝̹̩ͅ ̠̱̩̭̦p̯̙e͓o̳͚̰̯̺̱̰͔̘p̬͎̱̣̼̩͇l̗̟̖͚̠e̱͉͔̱̦̬̟̙ ̖͚̪͔̼̦w̺̖̤̱e͖̗̻̦͓̖̘̜r̭̥e͔̹̫̱͕̦̰͕ ̗͔̠p̠̗͍͍̱̳̠r̰͔͎̰o͉̥͓̰͚̥s̟͚̹̱͔̣t͉̙̳̖͖̪̮r̥̘̥͙̹a͉̟̫̟̳̠̟̭t͈̜̰͈͎e̞̣̭̲̬ ͚̗̯̟͙i͍͖̰̘̦͖͉ṇ̮̻̯̦̲̩͍ ̦̮͚̫̤t͉͖̫͕ͅͅh͙̮̻̘̣̮̼e͕̺ ͙l͕̠͎̰̥i̲͓͉̲g̫̳̟͈͇̖h̠̦̖t͓̯͎̗ ̳̪̘̟̙̩̦o̫̲f̙͔̰̙̠ ̹̪̗͇̯t͖̼̼͉͖̬h̹͇̩e͚̖̺̤͉̹͕̪ ͚͓̭̝̺G͎̗̯̩o̫̯̮̟̮̳̘d̜̲͙̠-̩̳̯̲̗̜P̹̘̥͉̝h͍͈̗̖̝ͅa͍̗̮̼̗r̜̖͇̙̺a̭̺͔̞̳͈o̪̣͓̯̬͙̯̰̗h̖̦͈̥̯͔.͇̣̙̝