Your cards don't feel like preview cards. They feel like limited filler, and they don't give you a sense of what either the card or the block is supposed to be.
Thank you for your candor. This would explain a great deal. On the plus side, at least I can design filler cards! :/
I care less about us making mistakes that lead to degenerate environments than I am when we don’t push ourselves and make something that’s boring to play. - MaRo
Definitely my favorite flavor submission, but the cards don't really do it for me.
RE Hibernaculum: I was responsible for this name, and I admit it makes limited sense, but a village isn't something that hits you in the face, either.
EDIT: But seriously, such good flavor. Makes me wish I'd done something a little lighter-hearted. "Waiting to take you astray"? Marvelous.
FURTHER EDIT: But even more seriously, pretty strange design choices. A land with no mana ability, splicing onto creature spells (how does this work?), purple as a new color that means all colors, abilities on cards as you draw them, enchantment creatures, a vastly 'strictly' superior Time Warp, a planeswalker whose positive ability actively works against you; these things baffle me. And there are even more mechanics described in the accompanying text! I wish the card designs were better, because I am completely charmed by the flavor.
A couple of the cards are misses for me, but this is a really cool submission. Ultimately, it seems like this guy might be better suited for creative than design, which is less a knock on his design skills and more praise for his creativity.
Sure, I'm game! (This is a pretty fun activity to do while anxiously waiting for the results.)
I don't get a strong sense of what your world is. I think it's important to be able to easily sum up what a block is about. Like Zendikar - the Adventure block. Lorwyn - the Tribal block. I don't think you can really do that with this. I guess maybe the attach block, though there are some problems with that, as I will get into...
1. Love the ultimate which is very fun and flavorful, really don't like the first ability. It tries to do too much. I would have preferred the counters to just give the land "when this taps for mana, add an additional mana of any color". Then the second ability could give you a wolf for each land with a counter on it. It's a lot cleaner. Less powerful since it doesn't count all your forests, but there are definitely power level issues with a card that lets you cast Howl of the Night Pack for three mana, plus gives you other options!
2. So many qualifiers on this. By the time I got to the end of the card, I had forgotten what the first qualifier of the ability was. You definitely don't need that many, this would be fine with "At the beginning of your upkeep, you may have target permanent become white and lose all abilities." Even then, there's memory issues with this card.
3. Again, does too much stuff. Also, I'm not crazy about the "Master of" keyword. It's pretty confusing for what it does, and though I know "If you control a Dragon" loses the flavor of the creature riding the Dragon, it's a lot easier to deal with.
4. 3/3 First Strike for 4 is already decent for white, being able to steal a land makes this fantastic, and being able to blink it makes it over the top. Extremely powerful card, though I think development could balance it. I am a little concerned about Conquest as a mechanic rather than a one-off card. Seems like it really favors the player who gets it going first. Stealing lands is also an even more frustrating mechanic to play against than land destruction. Maybe if you got to control the land on your turn, and they got it on their turn...
5. I like the idea here, but I would reword it to exile the lands, and then return the lands as 4/5s when it dies. The lands are functionally useless anyway once they are attached and that lets you eliminate the shroud clause and new Earthbind rules.
6. Not sure this is a common, but nice card. Unfortunately, you're definitely gonna hit lands with this card, there's not much decision for the opponent.
7. Cute. I kind of wish it was more powerful, it's worse than most dual lands.
8. It took me a while to understand this, but I still don't think it's that good. There's already cards like Soul Foundry, I don't get why this needs to be limited to Illusions except for flavor reasons. I think I would have picked a more common creature type if you want to go that route.
9. Seems very strong, but not bad.
10. Cool flavor and a build around card. I think having it be "T: Draw a card. Use this ability if you control four or more lands more than target opponent" would be fine.
Overall, I think these designs have too much tacked on. I was definitely guilty of this as well, tacking on the much used "put a token into play with this Aura attached to it" ability to an enchantment that didn't need it. The ideas involved in your set all are not bad, but I think they can be expressed in a simpler way.
Final Reckoning - the spellmorph is undercosted since it lets you do it as an instant, more than worth the price of spreading seven mana over two turns. I think making spellmorph actually work as intended may need more wording and the exile zone*
*I.e ''Turn this creature face up and exile it, you may cast CARDNAME from exile without playing its mana cost. If you don't, put it in the graveyard''
This is actually a problem I saw a lot. People are way too eager to use exile when they didn't need to. asaltzberg's version of spellmorph was the cleanest I've seen. Keep exile out of this; it just needs a reminder text tweak.
If SBAs are checked while a sorcery or instant is on the battlefield, it gets put into the graveyard. But they aren't. When you pay the spellmorph cost and turn it face up you cast it right away, so the spell is on the stack before anyone knows any better. I would like to see clarification that it goes to the graveyard if you hit it with Break Open or Ixidor, but that has to be handled no matter how you template it.
Correct, morph just happens. I don't even follow the thought process that would have it take a stop in the exile zone.
My largest problem with spellmorph was combat damage. It works very poorly with that, based on the current set of rules.
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If I was to redo my submission, based on feedback-
* I would recollapse Secret Revelations into one ability. I broke it up into seperate abilities to allow it to appeal to Johnny with interaction with older morph cards.
* I would probably make Illusions either 1/1 creatures or make them face-down token creatures. The advantage of the first is that it's easy to understand. The advantage of the second is that it expands their framework to support sacrificing real morphs. Originally they were spells that became morphs on resolution, but that led to serious memory issues.
Flavor: You had me at Otterfolk. On a more serious note, it's a little vague. I get a good sense of the world but I feel like it needs more of a catalyst to drive it's storyline through the entire block. I'dve liked to see some kind of "flashpoint" that kicks the conflict into high gear.
Mechanics Blurb: Enchantment creature isn't necessarily a knock against you, but it makes me nervous. Attaching creatures and lands to things intrigues me, but also concerns me. I like the general theme, but the devil is in the details. Let's see.
Evenki: The +2 seems a bit busy and perhaps a bit powerful for being +2. I like what you're doing with the rest and the inherent synergies there.
Midwinter: Wait, what? The main ability is really wordy and kind of confusing. Does it really need to work from the graveyard? I'd rather have him just have a way to return from the graveyard instead of having to add all these qualifying clauses. I like the idea, but the execution needs work.
Antsiferov: Interesting. Feels a little too dense. I don't know that the dragon also needs to gain indestructibility, and first strike probably isn't necessary either. Seems weird to be able to attach enemy creatures to yours, but I suppose that's the idea of "master." I have mixed feelings. The flavor is a hit but the card could use some tweaks.
Cossacks: I see what you're aiming for, the "flicker" effect feels out of place. I'd find another way to make the "roving" connection. More importantly, I'm not sure that you need to keyword Conquest. I don't think you want semi-permanent land stealing to be that big of a theme as it's pretty unfun. I really have a hard time imagining Conquest 2 or higher being any kind of fair.
Singer: Neat. I don't think you need to grant shroud to attached lands. Other than that, this is pretty cool. Great flavor.
Clearances: Hm, s'okay. Seems like one of those cards that's either really bad or really good.
Ridge: Strong. Doesn't necessarily feel like a good fit for the set, though.
Entertainer: Pretty cool. Might want to let the copy have haste, though.
Fetish: Ancestors fetish? Is that like granny porn? As for the card, it's all right. I might want to give the equipment some base effect before it gets counters in order to make the equipped card a threat worthy of killing.
Novokogysk: I think the restriction might be a bit too heavy. It already has a substantial mana cost and recurring life cost. The fact that it's a total blank if you don't have A LOT more lands than the other guy hurts it a lot. And if you do have 4 or more lands, especially through Conquest, then I think you pretty much have the game won already.
Overall: Some great flavor connections on these cards, but a few of your designs are overcomplicated or just plain unfun. I'd reconsider conquest altogether, personally. Master and Earthbind have some interesting possibilities and I think you executed the mechanic pretty well considering how awkward it could've been. You might be able to clean it up a bit more, though.
It's one of the best-executed worlds I've seen, if a lot more twee than Magic usually goes for - the core audience for Magic is ninth-grade boys, not my ex-girlfriend. On the other hand, the individual cards are sorta so-so; the Planeswalker doesn't clearly appeal to anybody (it has the dubious distinction of being a planeswalker that dies faster if you use its +1 ability; it'll never get to use its ultimate.) It's basically a 4-mana Sorcery-speed Spinal Embrace, which is a reasonable card, but its first and last abilities are nearly always meaningless in play. I don't think that a purely negative +1 ability is a good idea at all. I get that it synergizes with the second ability, but that's not a very exciting combo - especially since you just gave them a 1/1 that can trade with the one you just stole if they really care.
Gabberwonky is a cool package. It's probably too good at killing creatures, but it's a cool package. I don't know what to make of Disbelieve; it's risky to run color-pie breakage right out there in your submission, and I feel as though the card's being not castable normally Evermind-style is just kind of weird for weirdness's sake. (I'm assuming for the sake of comments that the splice-onto-permanent thing works, even though it doesn't, and that Arcane can be on things that aren't instants or sorceries, which it can't.)
Common Ground is the worst card in the submission by a huge margin. It breaks design principles for no good reason, it's not a good BoaB card, and you'd never, ever play that in limited under any circumstance so the "more appealing in draft" comment is kind of suspect. Even if there's multiple good legendary lands at common (hugely unlikely), you'd never play that in limited. It's a bad card on every front; it would have been much better to actually show one of the cool legendary lands instead of hinting that they exist. If i see this card in the current standard, what am I supposed to be excited about using it with? There's a whopping one legendary land in Extended right now!
Spellbound is the best card in the submission. Frozen in time is an interesting card, but it errs in hiding a super-powerful effect behind rules text that you need to have a somewhat high level of system mastery to appreciate.
It sounds like I'm being harsh on the set, but I actually like it; it feels like the designer has good instincts but doesn't have all the design principles nailed down. (The submission is also really stretching the boundaries of "every color represented", with white only appearing in a five-color card and a three-color card, and green only appearing in the five-color card.)
(For the sake of this review, I'll say that the whole sorcery-morphing thing works.)
Krast the Illusionist - This is one of the best planeswalker designs I have seen. It's good at protecting itself, although it costs you cards to do so, and it paints a very coherent picture. The power level might be a bit lowballed, but that's very hard to judge. The only sadness is that the ultimate is kind of parasitic, but not much more so than Nissa's.
Final Reckoning - About a brazilian people did the Spellmorph mechanic, but it's a cool (if obvious) innovation. I would have probably not run it out on the preview card as a super-wrath, but it's not a bad effect to pair with it. Is regular morph in your set? I assumed it was, but you don't mention it. That significantly changes the way these cards play.
Death Wind - This is another card that I like. It probably could have afforded to just be a "normal" wrath, but that's nitpicky.
Deny Hope - This card and mechanic don't make a lot of sense in a vacuum. Bearkicker? In a set with a different, much stronger 2/2-making mechanic? This looks a lot like evoke, but way less flexible. Obviously it plays better with your theme than evoke, but it's still just bad evoke. And why does phantasm also make you exile the card?
Shaper of Realities - This card sort of helps justify the Phantasm mechanic; it's not clear from the submission which portions of the Spellbind effect are the actual mechanic without reverse-engineering it from this card and the next one.
Channelspear Goblin - They never use that reminder text for first strike, and it's typo'd. While it's not The Great Templater Search, it's weird that this instance of Spellbind switches the order of "instant" and "sorcery". (The right order is to have "instant" first, incidentally). The card is fine, and is probably decentish to goodish in limited, depending on the number of playable instants/sorceries and the amount of stuff that makes 2/2 creatures. (The Kiln Fiend deck was pretty cool and funny, but Kiln Fiend lived in a slow, slow set with Rebound in it.)
Reality Definer - I get what this card does, but I don't really get why. Taken as a whole package, it's sort of a convoluted way to get a somewhat dubious "recycle all my spells" effect, but the splashy-but-worst third ability sort of draws focus from the first two. It feels like several cards piled into one.
Secret Revelations - The second ability on this card is kind of weird; what happens if the facedown card is a creature? Do you put it on the stack and then it comes into play under your control? What if it's a land? This is another card that feels like it could be two cards.
If only we had time during the competition for this kind of solid feedback, am I right?
Anyone else counting the days? Top8 or not, I need certainty. I keep oscillating between hope and melancholy.
Some good reviews in the last couple of pages, I don't have much more to add to those submissions. Soon the community is going to be so damn good at reviewing and guiding each other GDS3 will be impossible to compete in.
Agreed. We should make a pact or something, so that if one of us get in, everybody helps out. Then again, there's actually a non-zero chance that two or more people from this thread will get in, since there are somewhere between ten and twenty entrants on here; this could cause trouble. I think it's obvious that the actual contestants would have to be self-interested, but would everyone else try to help both, or would people pick sides?
FzGhoul, oscillation between hope and melancholy is a very good descriptor of my emotional state. Come November second, I will either be crushed (~92.1% chance) or elated in preparation for future crushing (~7.9%). There will be no middle ground! Unless I can talk myself down between now and then, which I should really do for my own well-being.
Kirblar, I hope you found my PM useful.
EDIT: Other people have said this before, and I've already posted some of my favorites, but I'm curious which submissions people think are best. Give us your predictions!
Well, at least I got 10/10 KISSes on my mock submission!
I really do have Limited on the brain, it's true (thoughtshift wouldn't exist otherwise, probably). I just didn't think I had Limited on the brain THAT much. Apparently I need to stop chaining up the more wild side of me and go design and not development on cards.
I'm the worst person at picking favorites or likes ever. I'm not sure I actually even appreciate my own opinion anymore, I never pick things I like more than others.
All I got to say is, if I Top8 I will likely be helping whoever else top8s, more than I've helped thus far. There are too many submissions for me to give pointed feedback and I'm really drained from the whole contemplating crushed dreams. But with only 8, that means I can really drill down. Which will probably end up in me losing the chance at the job, but, hey, I cannot fathom trying to be uber-cutthroat. Not in my nature.
Sure, but if I were top 8 I would feel like a jerk if I somehow prospered by way of another contestant's ideas. I would probably just keep to myself, but who knows? In the actual situation I'm not sure what I'd do.
RE different people reacting differently to submissions: man is that a fact. Some people's favorite cards are other people's least favorite. I don't know what's good anymore. As an aside, I hope the judges take the mechanics essay seriously, because I guess my Lighthouse-wonder-that-your-slaves-build is not a concept that makes sense to most people. Whoops!
RE pronunciation: if the sound you're looking for is a voiced version of the 'shhh' sound, I think it's transcribed zh these days.
EDIT: I've seen multiple submissions themed around stealing other people's lands. This seems intensely unfun. Talk about a slippery slope.
I think that by the time it's down to eight - or even fewer, there's a small enough amount of stuff happening that if your assistance to another contestant is on the wiki (and valuable), that's likely to count some in your favor. I think I'd play it a little conservatively until it's clear to what extent they're looking at the process that went into each submission versus just the final submission itself. If they are looking at the process, I think it's fair game (unless otherwise prohibited) to comment on other contestants' designs - but it's risky unless you're able to do it without looking spiteful or petty, and you absolutely want to be absolutely sure that your advice is good.
Now, for this round, they're just looking at the submission itself, since holy cow 101 is a ton, but later on they might look at the process. I mean, I'm absolutely sure that they expect you to look at the feedback they're giving to everyone; GDS1 was full of instances where warnings to a single designer for doing X were intended to be general cautions to everyone. (The only thing worse than doing something that's a bad idea is doing it a week after someone else was told that it's a bad idea.)
@awheywood: While I did not participate because of my inability to enter the contest, I did spend some perusing some of the entries availible and found yours to be amongst the best offered. The concepts were definitely more clear and concise than some of the outlandish and overly complicated ideas some people submitted.
As an aside, I hope the judges take the mechanics essay seriously, because I guess my Lighthouse-wonder-that-your-slaves-build is not a concept that makes sense to most people. Whoops!.
Heh, that card makes a lot more sense to me now. Though I already thought it was a neat idea.
The variety of opinions here is really making me reconsider what the judges will pick. Really, there's so many angles one could take on the test: cards matching world, cards playing well together, cards being innovative, cards being easy to understand, cards being crazy. I suppose the best submissions can do all these things, but what I took from the differing favorites is that people really look for card design to do different things, and you can't please everyone.
If I remember right, MaRo said that the submissions of the first GDS were too tame and they were looking for more out of the box stuff, which is why I like Fables of Gabaldon. Plus the purpose of this test is to see one's ability to portray a cohesive world via exciting cards. Many people have designed decent worlds but lack exciting cards imo. But man I'm excited to see what makes the top 8!
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I care less about us making mistakes that lead to degenerate environments than I am when we don’t push ourselves and make something that’s boring to play. - MaRo
If I remember right, MaRo said that the submissions of the first GDS were too tame and they were looking for more out of the box stuff, which is why I like Fables of Gabaldon. Plus the purpose of this test is to see one's ability to portray a cohesive world via exciting cards. Many people have designed decent worlds but lack exciting cards imo. But man I'm excited to see what makes the top 8!
That statement kind of vexes me, actually, because it's terribly vague. It could mean an "out there" mechanic like inventing Wither (before Shadowmoor), or something even more zany like inventing Levelers (before Eventide OR Rise). Or it could just mean something cute and clever that exists within what we already have (rules changes that make sense and/or are interesting).
Heh, that card makes a lot more sense to me now. Though I already thought it was a neat idea.
The variety of opinions here is really making me reconsider what the judges will pick. Really, there's so many angles one could take on the test: cards matching world, cards playing well together, cards being innovative, cards being easy to understand, cards being crazy. I suppose the best submissions can do all these things, but what I took from the differing favorites is that people really look for card design to do different things, and you can't please everyone.
That statement kind of vexes me, actually, because it's terribly vague. It could mean an "out there" mechanic like inventing Wither (before Shadowmoor), or something even more zany like inventing Levelers (before Eventide OR Rise). Or it could just mean something cute and clever that exists within what we already have (rules changes that make sense and/or are interesting).
I think they're more looking for stuff they haven't done yet in tandem with wholistic world design skills. Which is why I think the multiple choice test should have been more lenient, requiring only a 'C' average as opposed to a 'B'. So that those who are neither ignorant nor anal about the rules would have had a chance to show their stuff during the design portion where they shine as they have a natural tendency to think outside of the box to begin with. Multiple choice tests aren't a good measure of abstract thinking, which is a huge factor in part three. Being a good test taker doesn't equate to imaginative design.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. - Einstein
Einstein failed tests and was laughed at by his colleagues. If you're an Einstein designer who failed the multiple choice test, this post's for you.
Funny you should mention 'inventing wither before Shadowmoor', because it is a really old idea on fantasy forum archives. I thought of it myself years before Shadowmoor, only to discover later that at least two other people thought of it before me. WotC didn't invent the Eldrazi either btw - I did.
I care less about us making mistakes that lead to degenerate environments than I am when we don’t push ourselves and make something that’s boring to play. - MaRo
I think the multiple choice test should have been more lenient, requiring only a 'C' average as opposed to a 'B'.
...
Multiple choice tests aren't a good measure of abstract thinking, which is a huge factor in part three. Being a good test taker doesn't equate to imaginative design.
Getting the internship isn't based very much on the multiple choice test. It's based on your essays and design test, which will allow them to judge critical, abstract, and creative skills.
The more design tests and essays they have to read, the more time this whole things takes. They told us from the start that 100 was the magic number.
If you're looking to get the 100 people with the best understanding of the color pie and modern design sensibilities (characteristics that a designer needs), a multiple choice test is pretty good. And it's very time efficient.
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Past Ruminations
Links are broken, will fix in near future.
- Kaladesh
- Zendikar
- Rise of the Eldrazi
- Alara Reborn
- Innistrad <- Personal Favorite
- Dark Ascension
- Avacyn Restored
- Theros
- Return to Ravnica
- Tarkir
The Slowking emblem is even more terrifying.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
RE Hibernaculum: I was responsible for this name, and I admit it makes limited sense, but a village isn't something that hits you in the face, either.
EDIT: But seriously, such good flavor. Makes me wish I'd done something a little lighter-hearted. "Waiting to take you astray"? Marvelous.
FURTHER EDIT: But even more seriously, pretty strange design choices. A land with no mana ability, splicing onto creature spells (how does this work?), purple as a new color that means all colors, abilities on cards as you draw them, enchantment creatures, a vastly 'strictly' superior Time Warp, a planeswalker whose positive ability actively works against you; these things baffle me. And there are even more mechanics described in the accompanying text! I wish the card designs were better, because I am completely charmed by the flavor.
A couple of the cards are misses for me, but this is a really cool submission. Ultimately, it seems like this guy might be better suited for creative than design, which is less a knock on his design skills and more praise for his creativity.
Sure, I'm game! (This is a pretty fun activity to do while anxiously waiting for the results.)
I don't get a strong sense of what your world is. I think it's important to be able to easily sum up what a block is about. Like Zendikar - the Adventure block. Lorwyn - the Tribal block. I don't think you can really do that with this. I guess maybe the attach block, though there are some problems with that, as I will get into...
1. Love the ultimate which is very fun and flavorful, really don't like the first ability. It tries to do too much. I would have preferred the counters to just give the land "when this taps for mana, add an additional mana of any color". Then the second ability could give you a wolf for each land with a counter on it. It's a lot cleaner. Less powerful since it doesn't count all your forests, but there are definitely power level issues with a card that lets you cast Howl of the Night Pack for three mana, plus gives you other options!
2. So many qualifiers on this. By the time I got to the end of the card, I had forgotten what the first qualifier of the ability was. You definitely don't need that many, this would be fine with "At the beginning of your upkeep, you may have target permanent become white and lose all abilities." Even then, there's memory issues with this card.
3. Again, does too much stuff. Also, I'm not crazy about the "Master of" keyword. It's pretty confusing for what it does, and though I know "If you control a Dragon" loses the flavor of the creature riding the Dragon, it's a lot easier to deal with.
4. 3/3 First Strike for 4 is already decent for white, being able to steal a land makes this fantastic, and being able to blink it makes it over the top. Extremely powerful card, though I think development could balance it. I am a little concerned about Conquest as a mechanic rather than a one-off card. Seems like it really favors the player who gets it going first. Stealing lands is also an even more frustrating mechanic to play against than land destruction. Maybe if you got to control the land on your turn, and they got it on their turn...
5. I like the idea here, but I would reword it to exile the lands, and then return the lands as 4/5s when it dies. The lands are functionally useless anyway once they are attached and that lets you eliminate the shroud clause and new Earthbind rules.
6. Not sure this is a common, but nice card. Unfortunately, you're definitely gonna hit lands with this card, there's not much decision for the opponent.
7. Cute. I kind of wish it was more powerful, it's worse than most dual lands.
8. It took me a while to understand this, but I still don't think it's that good. There's already cards like Soul Foundry, I don't get why this needs to be limited to Illusions except for flavor reasons. I think I would have picked a more common creature type if you want to go that route.
9. Seems very strong, but not bad.
10. Cool flavor and a build around card. I think having it be "T: Draw a card. Use this ability if you control four or more lands more than target opponent" would be fine.
Overall, I think these designs have too much tacked on. I was definitely guilty of this as well, tacking on the much used "put a token into play with this Aura attached to it" ability to an enchantment that didn't need it. The ideas involved in your set all are not bad, but I think they can be expressed in a simpler way.
This is actually a problem I saw a lot. People are way too eager to use exile when they didn't need to. asaltzberg's version of spellmorph was the cleanest I've seen. Keep exile out of this; it just needs a reminder text tweak.
If SBAs are checked while a sorcery or instant is on the battlefield, it gets put into the graveyard. But they aren't. When you pay the spellmorph cost and turn it face up you cast it right away, so the spell is on the stack before anyone knows any better. I would like to see clarification that it goes to the graveyard if you hit it with Break Open or Ixidor, but that has to be handled no matter how you template it.
My largest problem with spellmorph was combat damage. It works very poorly with that, based on the current set of rules.
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If I was to redo my submission, based on feedback-
* I would recollapse Secret Revelations into one ability. I broke it up into seperate abilities to allow it to appeal to Johnny with interaction with older morph cards.
* I would probably make Illusions either 1/1 creatures or make them face-down token creatures. The advantage of the first is that it's easy to understand. The advantage of the second is that it expands their framework to support sacrificing real morphs. Originally they were spells that became morphs on resolution, but that led to serious memory issues.
Flavor: You had me at Otterfolk. On a more serious note, it's a little vague. I get a good sense of the world but I feel like it needs more of a catalyst to drive it's storyline through the entire block. I'dve liked to see some kind of "flashpoint" that kicks the conflict into high gear.
Mechanics Blurb: Enchantment creature isn't necessarily a knock against you, but it makes me nervous. Attaching creatures and lands to things intrigues me, but also concerns me. I like the general theme, but the devil is in the details. Let's see.
Evenki: The +2 seems a bit busy and perhaps a bit powerful for being +2. I like what you're doing with the rest and the inherent synergies there.
Midwinter: Wait, what? The main ability is really wordy and kind of confusing. Does it really need to work from the graveyard? I'd rather have him just have a way to return from the graveyard instead of having to add all these qualifying clauses. I like the idea, but the execution needs work.
Antsiferov: Interesting. Feels a little too dense. I don't know that the dragon also needs to gain indestructibility, and first strike probably isn't necessary either. Seems weird to be able to attach enemy creatures to yours, but I suppose that's the idea of "master." I have mixed feelings. The flavor is a hit but the card could use some tweaks.
Cossacks: I see what you're aiming for, the "flicker" effect feels out of place. I'd find another way to make the "roving" connection. More importantly, I'm not sure that you need to keyword Conquest. I don't think you want semi-permanent land stealing to be that big of a theme as it's pretty unfun. I really have a hard time imagining Conquest 2 or higher being any kind of fair.
Singer: Neat. I don't think you need to grant shroud to attached lands. Other than that, this is pretty cool. Great flavor.
Clearances: Hm, s'okay. Seems like one of those cards that's either really bad or really good.
Ridge: Strong. Doesn't necessarily feel like a good fit for the set, though.
Entertainer: Pretty cool. Might want to let the copy have haste, though.
Fetish: Ancestors fetish? Is that like granny porn? As for the card, it's all right. I might want to give the equipment some base effect before it gets counters in order to make the equipped card a threat worthy of killing.
Novokogysk: I think the restriction might be a bit too heavy. It already has a substantial mana cost and recurring life cost. The fact that it's a total blank if you don't have A LOT more lands than the other guy hurts it a lot. And if you do have 4 or more lands, especially through Conquest, then I think you pretty much have the game won already.
Overall: Some great flavor connections on these cards, but a few of your designs are overcomplicated or just plain unfun. I'd reconsider conquest altogether, personally. Master and Earthbind have some interesting possibilities and I think you executed the mechanic pretty well considering how awkward it could've been. You might be able to clean it up a bit more, though.
Gabberwonky is a cool package. It's probably too good at killing creatures, but it's a cool package. I don't know what to make of Disbelieve; it's risky to run color-pie breakage right out there in your submission, and I feel as though the card's being not castable normally Evermind-style is just kind of weird for weirdness's sake. (I'm assuming for the sake of comments that the splice-onto-permanent thing works, even though it doesn't, and that Arcane can be on things that aren't instants or sorceries, which it can't.)
Common Ground is the worst card in the submission by a huge margin. It breaks design principles for no good reason, it's not a good BoaB card, and you'd never, ever play that in limited under any circumstance so the "more appealing in draft" comment is kind of suspect. Even if there's multiple good legendary lands at common (hugely unlikely), you'd never play that in limited. It's a bad card on every front; it would have been much better to actually show one of the cool legendary lands instead of hinting that they exist. If i see this card in the current standard, what am I supposed to be excited about using it with? There's a whopping one legendary land in Extended right now!
Spellbound is the best card in the submission. Frozen in time is an interesting card, but it errs in hiding a super-powerful effect behind rules text that you need to have a somewhat high level of system mastery to appreciate.
It sounds like I'm being harsh on the set, but I actually like it; it feels like the designer has good instincts but doesn't have all the design principles nailed down. (The submission is also really stretching the boundaries of "every color represented", with white only appearing in a five-color card and a three-color card, and green only appearing in the five-color card.)
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Copernicus's submission -
(For the sake of this review, I'll say that the whole sorcery-morphing thing works.)
Krast the Illusionist - This is one of the best planeswalker designs I have seen. It's good at protecting itself, although it costs you cards to do so, and it paints a very coherent picture. The power level might be a bit lowballed, but that's very hard to judge. The only sadness is that the ultimate is kind of parasitic, but not much more so than Nissa's.
Final Reckoning - About a brazilian people did the Spellmorph mechanic, but it's a cool (if obvious) innovation. I would have probably not run it out on the preview card as a super-wrath, but it's not a bad effect to pair with it. Is regular morph in your set? I assumed it was, but you don't mention it. That significantly changes the way these cards play.
Death Wind - This is another card that I like. It probably could have afforded to just be a "normal" wrath, but that's nitpicky.
Deny Hope - This card and mechanic don't make a lot of sense in a vacuum. Bearkicker? In a set with a different, much stronger 2/2-making mechanic? This looks a lot like evoke, but way less flexible. Obviously it plays better with your theme than evoke, but it's still just bad evoke. And why does phantasm also make you exile the card?
Shaper of Realities - This card sort of helps justify the Phantasm mechanic; it's not clear from the submission which portions of the Spellbind effect are the actual mechanic without reverse-engineering it from this card and the next one.
Channelspear Goblin - They never use that reminder text for first strike, and it's typo'd. While it's not The Great Templater Search, it's weird that this instance of Spellbind switches the order of "instant" and "sorcery". (The right order is to have "instant" first, incidentally). The card is fine, and is probably decentish to goodish in limited, depending on the number of playable instants/sorceries and the amount of stuff that makes 2/2 creatures. (The Kiln Fiend deck was pretty cool and funny, but Kiln Fiend lived in a slow, slow set with Rebound in it.)
Reality Definer - I get what this card does, but I don't really get why. Taken as a whole package, it's sort of a convoluted way to get a somewhat dubious "recycle all my spells" effect, but the splashy-but-worst third ability sort of draws focus from the first two. It feels like several cards piled into one.
Secret Revelations - The second ability on this card is kind of weird; what happens if the facedown card is a creature? Do you put it on the stack and then it comes into play under your control? What if it's a land? This is another card that feels like it could be two cards.
The last two cards look fine.
Anyone else counting the days? Top8 or not, I need certainty. I keep oscillating between hope and melancholy.
Some good reviews in the last couple of pages, I don't have much more to add to those submissions. Soon the community is going to be so damn good at reviewing and guiding each other GDS3 will be impossible to compete in.
So much good feedback here.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
FzGhoul, oscillation between hope and melancholy is a very good descriptor of my emotional state. Come November second, I will either be crushed (~92.1% chance) or elated in preparation for future crushing (~7.9%). There will be no middle ground! Unless I can talk myself down between now and then, which I should really do for my own well-being.
Kirblar, I hope you found my PM useful.
EDIT: Other people have said this before, and I've already posted some of my favorites, but I'm curious which submissions people think are best. Give us your predictions!
It's interesting how many of the cards provoke very different reactions in different people.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
I really do have Limited on the brain, it's true (thoughtshift wouldn't exist otherwise, probably). I just didn't think I had Limited on the brain THAT much. Apparently I need to stop chaining up the more wild side of me and go design and not development on cards.
@FFluff: Pronunciation guide: xih-NAR* deh-vor-AYN.
* I have no idea how to type out the phonics to this; this is my best guess. The sound is similar to "je" in French.
Past Ruminations
Links are broken, will fix in near future.
- Kaladesh
- Zendikar
- Rise of the Eldrazi
- Alara Reborn
- Innistrad <- Personal Favorite
- Dark Ascension
- Avacyn Restored
- Theros
- Return to Ravnica
- Tarkir
All I got to say is, if I Top8 I will likely be helping whoever else top8s, more than I've helped thus far. There are too many submissions for me to give pointed feedback and I'm really drained from the whole contemplating crushed dreams. But with only 8, that means I can really drill down. Which will probably end up in me losing the chance at the job, but, hey, I cannot fathom trying to be uber-cutthroat. Not in my nature.
RE different people reacting differently to submissions: man is that a fact. Some people's favorite cards are other people's least favorite. I don't know what's good anymore. As an aside, I hope the judges take the mechanics essay seriously, because I guess my Lighthouse-wonder-that-your-slaves-build is not a concept that makes sense to most people. Whoops!
RE pronunciation: if the sound you're looking for is a voiced version of the 'shhh' sound, I think it's transcribed zh these days.
EDIT: I've seen multiple submissions themed around stealing other people's lands. This seems intensely unfun. Talk about a slippery slope.
Now, for this round, they're just looking at the submission itself, since holy cow 101 is a ton, but later on they might look at the process. I mean, I'm absolutely sure that they expect you to look at the feedback they're giving to everyone; GDS1 was full of instances where warnings to a single designer for doing X were intended to be general cautions to everyone. (The only thing worse than doing something that's a bad idea is doing it a week after someone else was told that it's a bad idea.)
Heh, that card makes a lot more sense to me now. Though I already thought it was a neat idea.
The variety of opinions here is really making me reconsider what the judges will pick. Really, there's so many angles one could take on the test: cards matching world, cards playing well together, cards being innovative, cards being easy to understand, cards being crazy. I suppose the best submissions can do all these things, but what I took from the differing favorites is that people really look for card design to do different things, and you can't please everyone.
Past Ruminations
Links are broken, will fix in near future.
- Kaladesh
- Zendikar
- Rise of the Eldrazi
- Alara Reborn
- Innistrad <- Personal Favorite
- Dark Ascension
- Avacyn Restored
- Theros
- Return to Ravnica
- Tarkir
I think they're more looking for stuff they haven't done yet in tandem with wholistic world design skills. Which is why I think the multiple choice test should have been more lenient, requiring only a 'C' average as opposed to a 'B'. So that those who are neither ignorant nor anal about the rules would have had a chance to show their stuff during the design portion where they shine as they have a natural tendency to think outside of the box to begin with. Multiple choice tests aren't a good measure of abstract thinking, which is a huge factor in part three. Being a good test taker doesn't equate to imaginative design.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. - Einstein
Einstein failed tests and was laughed at by his colleagues. If you're an Einstein designer who failed the multiple choice test, this post's for you.
Funny you should mention 'inventing wither before Shadowmoor', because it is a really old idea on fantasy forum archives. I thought of it myself years before Shadowmoor, only to discover later that at least two other people thought of it before me. WotC didn't invent the Eldrazi either btw - I did.
Getting the internship isn't based very much on the multiple choice test. It's based on your essays and design test, which will allow them to judge critical, abstract, and creative skills.
The more design tests and essays they have to read, the more time this whole things takes. They told us from the start that 100 was the magic number.
If you're looking to get the 100 people with the best understanding of the color pie and modern design sensibilities (characteristics that a designer needs), a multiple choice test is pretty good. And it's very time efficient.