#cfac 05

@origins15

As I picked a part of the art to focus on, I panned around the image. My interpretation of this art is that some kind of rebellion either stole or deployed the larger ship, distracting the enemy forces from a key operation happening in the city.

This would be a great finisher for any R/W deck, pushing through for that final damage. The flavor is that you send your creature out to be a decoy, and your other troops are inspired by the sacrifice, becoming temporarily stronger.

Everything about this design is hitting its mark. It’s fairly costed, in colors that make sense, and the flavor is coming through strong. The creature sacrifice is the one bit of this I’m a little less certain of (I’m not sure it feels super red/white to me despite the flavor) but that’s a small quip really. Outside of that, the most obvious knob to turn on this card is the bonus it grants your creatures. That can be tweaked pretty dramatically to get the power level just right though what’s here is just fine. I think this effect could be mono red if you wanted.

Two points!

@aethernalstars

Another vehicle based design, more vehicle token generation, and maybe more cost issues… Anyways, hordes are fun, especially when you can almost make one from a single card. These will probably sit around most of the game, swooping in for one final attack lead by the flagship. Part of me wanted to put a coat of arms style effect on there too, but I’m pushing the text box as is. Mass token generation effects are rare and repeatable ones are even rarer. I’m split on how it should be costed, between XX and XXXX. Right now it seems simultaneously over and under costed. In any case, this whole card was hard to put numbers on, from mana cost, to crew, to base pt. Nothing seems right, both too powerful and too expensive.

First of all, sorry I don’t have a Vehicle template installed.

I think you’re close. It seems like, especially considering you have to pay into the activated ability here so heavily, this thing could stand to be bigger. My main comparison here is Aethersphere Harvester. Or else a base CMC of 2 maybe. The token creation is unusual for the reasons you mention, though it’s also a bit different from typical token creation since none of these are actually creatures by default. Instant speed access to blockers is a big board trick. This is less so. Three mana for a 2/2 that isn’t really a 2/2 is a big investment. Six mana for two of this is huge. I’d leave that right where it is.

That last ability is a nice tough. It feels really cool and unique. I think you might want to simplify in this though. Gamblignant is an odd word and actually confused me a bit when reading this card. I’m cool with that word, but I’d reference it less. The changes I’d make are “Crew X, where X is the number of Vehicle tokens you control plus 1″ and “When you crew Flagship Sophronia, all Vehicles you control becomes creatures in addition to their other types until end of turn.” That is functionally different and that last bit is a huge shift in power that would need testing/adjustment, but it’s a lot more straight forward to me.

Two points!

@the-lonely-demon

I’m not 100% sure about the formatting on this but I decided to go with an ambush type flavor

I think the biggest thing here is that this would use Sneak Attack wording for the first bit. This is fantastic! Likely too powerful--I’d guess printing something like this in Kaladesh would have to be 4RR and maybe at mythic.

Two points!

@thanatyr

Damn, those restrictions were something. Looking at this, it’s a definite sudden assault on a ship, but doing something with just one vehicle means targetting. So instead, full on aerial attack on opponent’s vehicles. I did have to tweak the middle text so it couldn’t be abused to turn your regular vehicles into creatures.

This has a lot going on. Being a colorless sorcery not related to Eldrazi puts it in a weird place just within Magic itself. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just odd. This is one expensive potential partial board wipe that’s severely limited based on what your opponent is playing. Even if they have a dedicated vehicle deck, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re running a whole lot of vehicles. I haven’t checked recently but outside of banking on Start Your Engines for a win, decks focused on vehicles run about 10 or 12 tops (compared to creature heavy decks running perhaps double that) because you still need creatures to crew them.

I like this twist on Ezuri’s Predation that keeps from being a color break by dropping colors entirely. It’s another unusual bit that makes this card really stand out. But I think the whole thing could be relatively simplified (and functionally this is quite different) by making a Release the Gremlins that makes vehicle tokens instead of gremlins.

Two points!

@shadowknight1224

This is probably the nichest board clear that’s still actually viable. Red forcing others to sac stuff is probably a bit of a bend, since Red would prefer to flat out destroy, but I feel this is an acceptable bend because it preserves Red’s own Vehicles (which fits the sabotage flavour better and it respects the White/Red affinity for Vehicles that was pushed in Kaladesh). It’s probably a bit cheap, but I couldn’t in good conscience justify paying more than 3 mana for a super conditional board clear that you’ll be paying 1 mana for most of the time anyway.

Nice use of trap! Super niche but entirely appropriately and just spot on with the flavor in this art. Really I think this would use destroy most often but agree that red forcing someone to sacrifice an artifact is a reasonable bend for this effect.