#amtgplayer

@amtgplayer

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This is a cool bit of removal that almost skirts the edge of what could be green removal. Green does get one-sided fighting sometimes and while I don’t think it would get it at 1 CMC like this, I could totally see this design being bent into green in the right environment. But in black it absolutely works as is.

Two points!

@gitblog-monster

This art really looks like some kind of Giant Growth to me. I also wanted to capture the look of fear on the mouse’s face through the unblockable clause

This is pretty solid. Looking at Kaseto and Korozda Guildmage, I think this may be every so slightly overpriced. Those aren’t perfect correlations but they do show similar boosts and unblockability that’s repeatable and cheaper. As is I think this could be bumped to an instant to provide a little extra utility for the cost.

Two points!

@sphinxs-revelation

Ever wondered how a squirrel with a knife can outmaneuver a dragon? This fantasy game obviously defies common sense, let’s fix that. The effect looks rather simple, but wording it without breaking the game in corner cases proved a bit tricky. The current wording is supposed to mean “skip +N/+N and -N/-N effects” (or skip Layer 7c&d for the rules savvy). While green is probably second in providing pump effects, it’s also the color of the natural state and fighting with what you’ve got, so the effect seems fine in this colour.

I love that flavor text! I love his name! Great job there!

This design is incredibly unique and since I saw it I have been trying to think of those corner cases but haven’t come up with anything myself. So at least on this initial pass it seems you’ve come up with some solid rules text. My second thought was “Does a color with so many pump effects really want this?” I tried to think of another color that would (perhaps blue? but that undermines some of its combat tricks that reduce power) and ultimately decided that yeah, the color that also gets the most efficient creatures as far as mana-to-size goes would enjoy a card like this, so good choice there.

Barring those weird corner cases coming to light, there’s a lot to like here.

Two points!

@rafiqueofthemany

I keep meaning to get in on this, and now I finally have. A simple little combat trick with a restrictive cost.

Woo! Welcome to the party! This is perfect for the army color. This combination of abilities has actually never been done before in mono white which seems absolutely crazy to me. They don’t have a huge amount of mechanical overlap that causes them to make sense together, but they are both in white’s wheelhouse and applied like this, can tilt the crux of a game in the right direction. It’s deceptively powerful and I think costed close to appropriately. The +3/+0 is my only real hang up. Even just +1/+0 would work (and doesn’t make your meek creature much less meek) at the same cost.

Two points!

@thanatyr

A hard to pin down informant helps with training the troops. One that can tell you troop movements, even more so. Before the mentors can train their soldiers, even they need intel. And so this informant of the Meek, an inverse Mentor of the Meek in his own fashion.

This is an interesting head game card. You opponent has to choose to give you a chance to find an answer when they play big stuff. This is essentially a white weenie deck saying “meet me in a fair fight.” This really depends on the environment it’s in as to whether it will do a lot of work for you or not--and I’m cool with that.

More from a flavor perspective, I kind of want this mouse to be a 1/1 and also for it to actually be a Rat on the type line. Magic has had rats before and mice are similar enough that I wouldn’t split the tribe by printing mice. As for the P/T, that’s more derived from how I feel about the art, but isn’t necessarily a hard constraint you’d have to deal with if this were actually seeing print--meaning the design would come first and then art that might depict a more appropriate creature to be a 2/2.

@amtgplayer

This is one bizarre take of the “PvE” idea: it fits in a normal game of multiplayer Magic, and mostly act as a normal Magic card — except with some probability, the players will then need to fight a monster together. (I took care that it only triggers in multiplayer.)

A major downside of this idea is that it is hard to describe a formidable adversary on a Magic card. Still, I think this example reasonably simulates a prison player that sits behind Ghostly Prisons. (Disclaimer: I don’t actually play multiplayer, so maybe I’m off by a lot.) Other “environmental players” can replace drawing cards with more interesting actions, like exiling cards from its owner’s library and casting some without paying the mana cost.

I don’t know how many rule problems will come with this idea, but I imagine the rule of thumb “the owner of the card makes all possible decisions” should eliminate most of them. (Yes, that means it “turns on” things like Fact and Fiction.)

This design is incredibly bizarre and absolutely nothing I ever expected to see. Masu will always have at least one intervention counter so it does become a big hurdle players have to commit to pretty quickly in order to take her down. Furthermore they have to do this after having their fields wiped. I think that task might be a little too difficult as is, but this is just so weird that I couldn’t say for sure. It does make for an interesting addition to a pillow fort deck--essentially telling players to attack this instead of the pillow fort player (though if they eliminate the real player this card leaves the game anyway so maybe it just means they should put more pressure on that player).

There are definitely a ton of rules issues but the concept here is really exciting. Well done!

Two points!

@dimestoretajic

Okay, here’s the thing.

I have no clue how Rain would affect the battlefield. None. I 100% believe it could work for the fan block, possibly in the same way weather affects combat in Pokémon, but how it would work outside of “things happen when it’s raining, or sunny, or snowing, or windy”, I have no clue. But… enjoy this “weather matters” card anyway? ^^;

Also Native American block FTW. :D

So basically the Steamflogger Boss of this contest. ;p The stats are reasonable, all depending on how Rain actually functions but even it’s easy to turn on, I’m imagining something a la world enchantments or planechase planes--you only have one active at a time so other players could make it sunny or whatever to negate the bonus. Weather matters is an intriguing concept.

Two points!

@morbidlyqueerious

So, this tackles two separate things, namely “angels that don’t care” from @nine-effing-hells and darkbond from @conorace .  I’m honestly not certain if this card even needs to be black, actually.  Also, the artifact thing is mostly from the art, but maybe it’s also unneeded?

I love the story that the flavor text adds to the effect here. As far as the effects go, I think it could be either WU or WB--white typically exiles while both blue and black steal things. If you wanted to push it, since the exile is creature removal, this could be bent into mono black. But at the same time it makes it even more iconic to have an unusual mana cost like this. Basically development can tweak that knob so it fits best in whatever set it’s in, which is nice.

The effects make sense but it’s in a bit of a weird space--just exiling one creature isn’t a huge play for a big investment on an otherwise vanilla creature, whereas if you get to steal a creature (and get an ETB trigger if it has one) for the same cost it’s a much bigger play without actually investing more (aside from running stuff that gets your opponent’s cards into exile first). Other than that I think an angel without flying would confuse a lot of players and that the art here is ambiguous enough that it could fly probably.

Two points!

@origins15

My thought process was inspired by the creation of atraxa from a lore perspective, how each praetor had a keyword of their color put into the creation. This is a collaborative effort between Sheoldred and Vorinclex. Their creation is ravenous, and is only sated through blood or mana.

I chose Phyrexian mana for flavor reasons, and I also felt that having the only payment option being two life would have been a little strong.

This is clearly a rattlesnake (rattle-gorgon?) something that’ll be a great defensive option, but can get some attacks through when necessary.

Nice use of Phyrexian mana. Cards that want other players to pay for something always run into this sort of problem and being able to pay two life instead of colored mana is an interesting option.

The problem is this is a lot of text to read sitting across the table, upside down, on an opponent’s card. Most players will accept it as a menace and deathtouch wielding gorgon and forget they can change that. However I think perhaps you could make effects like this a small focus in a set and perhaps give them a special frame in order to draw attention to them and clue players into the fact that they should be reading them pretty explicitly and keeping them in mind.

Two points!

@outerspace-messiah

Reading the creative bit, I figured story telling was a very important part of this plane, so I wanted to create a story telling mechanic. Chronicle acts like haunt or cipher in that it’s exiled and attached to the creature, but when it dies, it passes the story to another. Of course, not having another creature to pass the card to means the story is lost.

For the card itself, it looks like a lot because of ETB effect, but I was merely going for something flavorful based on the art that other Chronicle cards don’t have to have. The ETB turned out to work mechanically well with Chronicle though!

And of course, my only worries for the mechanic are the same as the problems with Haunt and Cipher, but that be a lesser problem since this is an unofficial set.

Which plane? We have a few we’re deciding from but no decision has been made yet. Chronicle is a neat mechanic, and it does have its issues. For one, being a permanent type that would remain on another creature but which is technically in exile is a big headache.

While mechanically quite different, my first thought was what if you had a Bestow variant that went on enchantment creatures and basically did what Chronicle does, except it would be attaching the aura to another creature (and thus it would still be on the battlefield).  Cool card, but it’s a lot to unpack and a tough area to play in.

Two points!

@sphinxs-revelation

I hope you recieved my lengthy submission for the Arcana mechanic on MtGFanset. This card is obviously intended as an enabler for it, though even without it, it leads to some interesting choices, espescially in multiplayer. It lets you help your teammates or appease would be enemies. You might want to reveal something harmeless… or better show them why not to mess with you?

Arcana actually posted from the queue, either earlier today or late yesterday, I’m not sure which.

Numbers on the card are solid here, especially since the lifegain is symmetrical. It is really cool to see just how many cards support this sort of effect, how innate they are to the game, and how the presence of such a mechanic can totally change how you evaluate those cards.

As for Arcana, it seems like it could be big trouble developmentally. Maybe a one-off fan set can skirt that trouble. Hedron Alignment gives free reveal triggers on your entire hand each upkeep. Madcap Experiment makes this totally broken by loading Arcana cards while putting in only as many artifact cards as are necessary to keep from dying. Just something people would definitely have to be aware of when working with this.

@dimestoretajic

It’s still in the spirit of the challenge if I take inspiration from TWO cards, right? :D

I dunno, man. I just got a soft spot for Rusted Relic. I figured the least I could do for it is make it more like Solemn Simulacrum. Hope you like!

This is a neat combination of the two though I’d consider upping the mana cost a hair as I don’t think the Metalcraft requirement is a big enough barrier for that body. The biggest problem I think this card has is some potential rules confusion. Did you know if you don’t have Metalcraft and this is destroyed you won’t get the dies trigger? I was in error here. It works just fine though it sounds kind of odd.

Two points!

@conorace

A card inspired by Matyr of Sands for CFAC04. I thought about doing a card inspired by something more iconic, but Matyr of Sands is pretty neat and the art just fit with it.

Okay, this is really clever. I’ll save people the searching; Martyr of the Sands has an ability where you reveal any number of white cards from your hand and then gain three times that much life. This puts a step in between to allow it a powerful white token strat and bonus if Ladael dies. Great use of the pre-existing Sand tokens as well. This joins Dune-Brood Nephilim in being the second card to create those.

Two points!

@amtgplayer

This card is inspired by Eternal Witness, as well as the recent Wildest Dreams. At first I didn’t want to add the exile drawback because it would be awkward on a creature, and you have like a million ways to get around it anyway. However, the whole thing reminded me of the classical scene of flower-burial in Dream of the Red Chamber, where Dai-yu mourned her own destiny to be forgotten after death. It was so strong an image that I decides to leave the whole thing as is.

By the way, today I just realized that they gave Genesis Hydra a cast trigger not to make it feel like an Eldrazi, but because ETB triggers and X don’t work well within the rules. (See: the unintuitive template on Quarantine Field).

Good catch on that rules stuff. It also helps balance this--you can’t abuse flickering effects to net even bigger card advantage. Eternal Witness is one of my favorite cards so I’m excited to see something like this. But comparing it to Season’s Past, I think you’ve hampered this design too much. At 6 CMC X is 2. Season’s Past doesn’t have a body, but it probably grabs 4 or more cards for you when cast (I’ve never seen one get less) and it has the ability to let you get it back later. Season’s Past does require you select cards of different CMC, so I wouldn’t want something like XGG here, which would put 6 CMC at 4 cards, just like what I think a baseline Season’s Past is, but I think X and 3 or 4 G wouldn’t be far off. I don’t feel the exile bit is necessary here.

The alternative is to decide a set number of cards and a hard mana cost (which could then allow this to be an ETB trigger and necessitate the exile bit, which I would then change to “If ~ would leave the battlefield, exile it.”).

Two points~

@thekillershrub

I love the Magus Cycle. Lots of them reference powerful lands, and I feel like Valakut is powerful enough to have one. Multiple of these is scary, so 5 mana instead of 4. 

This is definitely scary. Great take on expanding a cycle that’s pretty much all about referencing other cards. You have altered the Valakut ability in a significant way though--Valakut requires five other mountains so it only triggers on the sixth and beyond. This would count the fifth and trigger earlier... except that if you cast this on curve then you’ve already played your land for the turn and can’t get the trigger right away.

I also was wary of the body and entering tapped bit--doesn’t feel red to me--but it’s growing on me as this would help to enable a mono red control archetype as both a repeatable free Bolt and a win con. Still think the body might be too big since you don’t want to attack with this anyway, so I’d knock it down to a 3/3 probably.

Two points!

@ubervores

Who doesn’t like burn? the person on the other side of the table that’s who but nonetheless banefire has some pretty sweet art so a referential card would have equivalently sweet art (in my opinion this is the better art.) So I mean what more can I say than Its bane fire lady? I didn’t want this to be goblin guide with a banefire stapled to it so she costs three when not spitting fire making her a haste-y bear with an almost banefire stapled to it.

I hear ya! Technically red gets can’t be countered on instants and sorceries and green gets it on creatures, but this is a fair bend in my eyes. (Akroma is exception and she was printed in Planar Chaos, which is not a real precedent) Otherwise this looks like a whole lot of fun to me. I think you could probably split the difference so to speak on casting cost and put it at XRR. A haste bear for RR is definitely not breaking anything and at mythic X should be pure bonus.

@thereliquarytower:

For the “Trick or Treat” theme, I decided some word change was necessary. Boon and Bane took up their place, and both represent parts of the phrase. Boon is a stand in for treat, but also shows too much of a good thing is bad, while Bane stands in for Trick, but that the bad thing has it’s own rewards.

A nice fantasy take on the words Trick and Treat (which would be much more at home on a silver-bordered card). I have a feeling that, outside of a Madness deck, the drawback on that first ability is never actually going to come up, but this is probably better than locking it into fixed conditions. I do like the card; it captures the spirit of the challenge and the art quite well.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@tealovingperson:

no commentary

Took me a bit of reading this to really get what’s going on, but I think I got it. Basically, whenever a creature with both counters attacks, you have four options:

Your opponent loses five life and draws a card.

Your opponent gains five life and discards a card

Your opponent discards a card, then draws a card.

Nothing (by virtue of your opponent losing five life and gaining five life).

This is definitely a really interesting effect, and although the execution allows for some interesting combos (Proliferate, anyone?) it should probably cleaned up a bit, though I’m not sure what the best way to do that would be. I would recommend having it distribute the counters on each creature currently on the battlefield instead of ones that hit later, though, so it has more of an instantaneous effect that your opponent can work around.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@dragonwithgoggles:

This is my first time participating in the CFAC but I’ve been making custom cards for quite some time, so here’s my take on the art provided!

Right off the bat I wanted to do an enchantment, and I felt like a curse with the flavor of “the enemy’s creatures are going insane and tearing at each other or themselves” would be a sufficiently creepy way to go. Wither is also one of the darker-sounding keywords in magic, so it lined up nicely.

Field-wipes and similar effects are typically priced at around 4 mana at rare, but wither gives a lot of combo potential and can go through indestructible, so I figured 5 was an appropriate cost.

Yep, this is definitely what happens to opponents that don’t give me candy.

Since it’s a slow board wipe that combos well with both damage-based removal and literal combat, I’d say the costing is fine for a start. Definitely an interesting effect, though.

Minor template thing: Curses are still Auras, so the type line should be Enchantment - Aura Curse.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@thanatyr:

In some places, Trick or Treating is more about the choice to have the evil spirits paid off to leave you alone. Don’t deal with the devil, and there will be trouble. Basic idea is the casting player adds in some mana as it’s cast, likely 2-3. Enough to warrant other players on the table to see if they can beat 10 mana in to stop the damned thing, locking down the land for a turn. Else, the devils come out to play!

This definitely makes an interesting mind game with your opponents (especially if there are multiples) where they have to balance losing lands for a turn against letting you drain them and Devil them. Its current templateis a bit clunky, but I’m not entirely sure what the best adjustment to that would be. Maybe go for something closer to Lightning Storm for the template?

And I have no idea how to balance this for power level; I’d need to play games with it to get a better sense of that.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@dimestoretajic:

So, I took a quick scan of the art, and I realized that I kinda wanted to turn the pre-established Trees into the start of a cycle. So, I pretty much made the exploding tree from Earthbound. Enjoy!

Well, it does somewhat fit that “cycle”: 0/13, defender, taps, something about life totals. The “sacrifice” part of it feels very off from the rest of the trees, though, because that makes it non-repeatable and means it doesn’t care about its toughness. I don’t know exactly what could be done to do that, but I think I’d like to see a bit more tweaking on here. The current effect is fine, and I actually really like a Red removal spell that deals damage equal to your life total, because it’s certainly going to get worse the later the game goes. It’s just missing some of the mechanical feel of the other trees.

Definitely on the “Trick” end, but your opponent does get a “Treat” from you removing this huge freaking blocker. Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@amtgplayer:

It’s hard to look at the phrase “trick or treat” without thinking of punisher effects. The problem is they are often weaker than they looks, but I believe that’s actually a better problem than things being stronger than they looks (which can simultaneously seem lackluster and be dangerous).

Here, one half is an undercosted Diabolic Revelation, and the other half is a Rally the Ancestors with no mana cost restriction. I have no idea if this is balanced, but I love the fact that if your opponent is reluctant to treat you with free tutors, then this will be a nasty combat trick.

Well. That’s....that’s certainly a thing. I believe the default effect for your opponent to do would be to just let them reanimate for a while removing any creatures that would provide you a powerful lasting benefit, and also removing any that would give your team haste. I can see this being used for some powerful combos by Johnny players, and for that reason I think I would like to raise the mana cost a bit, probably to five or maybe even six mana.

It’s a really interesting effect, and it is a Punisher effect, so you’ll probably never get exactly what you want, but man is it cool.

@narset-translucent:

no commentary

This is a pretty interesting design. It’s got the classic drawback of “sacrifice a creature” at the beginning of your upkeep, though with a slight benefit, and then has an outlet to expend that benefit when you don’t really need the life. The Night’s Whisper ability seems a bit cheap to me, but with the steep cost of sacrificing a creature every upkeep is already a pretty hefty price, so I’m not sure (though I would still bump it up to, like 1BB).

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@amtgplayer:

This artwork gave me a vibe of “super onyx mage”, so I designed him as such. I imagine this is the heir of Arimaya of Clan Onyx, although actually I don’t even know if Onyx Mage had anything to do with Clan Onyx. Old MTG lore is so obscure.

I know approximately nothing about “Old MTG Lore” so I’m gonna roll with it. I like this design of a creature that spreads around deathtouch (complete with a reminder), though the ability is simply too cheap: two mana for permanent deathtouch, not to mention the ability to grant it to others, at instant speed, is simply too good. I feel like it would have to be close to 2BB to be reasonable. The design overall is solid, though, and I’m going to guess the fact that this card isn’t legendary is more of a typo than a purposeful decision.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@thanatyr:

“What would happen if Vela and Szadek performed a fusion dance?” I asked myself. This was a compromise, a specter of death that ushers in doom, a fallen version of one of my favourite blue/black commanders.

Really interesting fusion of those two creatures. It still mills instead of damages and gets bigger with each hit, but it also floods the board with small creatures that provide the pump to your creature. I would recommend swapping intimidate for menace because it’s better gameplay, but beyond that I definitely like the card (even if it has the potential to roll out a ton of creatures very quickly).

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@dimestoretajic:

So, I really, really like Cipher.

I know, I know, it’s a worse form of an Aura, the most maligned of all evergreen card types, but… cards you effectively get to cast twice on a bad day, guys! Come on!

So yeah. This guy screamed “old dude who helped found/is descended from the founder of House Dimir”, so I made him a bit of a Cipher lord, upping the power level of cards that get encoded and allowing you to get encoded spells back to your hand. Oh, and the “discarded cards” thing, why did I add that?

Transmute spells, of course. Gotta show love for the OG Dimir mechanic!

Seriously? Two cipher cards in the same challenge? Not what I expected, for sure (you can read my anti-cipher rant from yesterday in this post).

However, I do like the idea of making a guild leader that synergizes with both mechanics from the guild. I think the one that buffs encoded creatures and makes them unblockable takes the challenge out of cipher; menace, I could’ve gotten behind, or maybe just a power pump so the opponent has to chose whether to trade their creature to stop the cipher or let you get a copy of the card.

The “discard-buyback” ability is a bit worrying to me; I can’t find a comparable ability to test the costing, and letting a player loop tutors sounds very, very dangerous. I’d have to play with it to know how dangerous, but my gut says this is an effect that doesn’t really need to happen.

I definitely like the idea here, but I imagine it would work better for other guilds. Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@outerspace-messiah:

Obsessed with prolonging his life, but failing nonetheless, Tol’s father imbued his own spirit into the child so that they may find a way to escape the inevitable.

Though they grew into an incredibly powerful necromancer in life, Tol too failed to overcome death. However, Tol’s ambition did not halt in the land of the dead. With an eternity ahead of them, Tol honed their skills even further and plans to escape the underworld with an army of likeminds.

“Why should the dead be confined for eternity when the living have the entire world for mere moments?”

I designed Tol to be like a graveyard version of Yisan, the Wanderer Bard. However, I wanted to stay in flavor and had Tol only be able to bring back creature types that you may find wander out of the underworld. I also wanted the Skeleton ability so I went with a sort of reverse Norin the Wary or something like Shirei, Shizo’s Caretaker’s kind of ability.

So, the first ability is too good on this card. It already generates a ton of value for you by reanimating so many creatures over time, and feeding any crazy reanimation strategies you have. It doesn’t need to be so freaking difficult to kill, unless you really want to ramp up that mana cost. Norin’s ability is much different from this, as is Shirei’s: Norin doesn’t have another crazy ability stapled to him, and Shirei doesn’t reanimate himself. I would honestly cut this ability completely, and (like Yisan) let the big ability speak for itself.

As for the big ability, I’m actually quite intrigued. Is it too strong? Perhaps; Yisan did have the restriction of having to match the number of counters, which balanced the fact that it tutors out a creature every turn. My biggest problem here is that if your opponent doesn’t deal with Tol, then even if they kill the creatures you’ll bring back them plus more every turn.

Personally, I would make it mill you more every turn, to make that an actual clock (it’s laughable in something like Commander). I also feel like I would either restrict it to reanimating one creature, or make you always match the number of doom counters with the total, or you get nothing.

Thanks for the submission! Two points!

@awildloganappeared:

You know, between designing a personalized cube, keeping up with this and good news on the school front, this has been an awesome day. Hope you enjoy this one, I’m fairly proud of it. I’m sure once I do enough of these, I’ll have a full set to work with and tweak.

Good days are always good to have. Hopefully my feedback won’t harm that ;P

I like the first ability, letting you turn cards in your graveyard into giant Zombies (or tiny zombies, if you roll that way). And it’s also quite necromantic, befitting a Skeleton Wizard. I would be interested, though, in changing it to not require you to tap it but costing an extra B for every activation. That way, you could make multiples and spread out the power if you want, but couldn’t just turn every card in your graveyard into a 1/1 cheaply. Also, you don’t have to spell out what X is in the ability, as having it for the mana cost and requiring X cards communicates that.

The second ability feels kind of out-of-nowhere, though. Sure, it’s a Blue ability (although White gets a lot more repeated tappers) but what does it have to do with this guy? The zombie aspect felt unique and has interesting play to it. This ability feels like it’s either filling space or just tagging a Blue ability to make this a Blue card. I would’ve loved for this ability to do something to fill your graveyard, maybe self-milling for an amount and then having a small effect that fits Blue, or maybe a Taigam’s Scheming effect.