#note contest

It's a new year, and while that can sometimes mean falling back into the familiar and comfortable...sometimes you'd rather just shoot off into the wild blue yonder and do something far more unusual. So...

Design a card that notes something.

For the nonzero number of you who likely have no idea what I mean, I'm looking for something along the broad strokes of these:

Now, I fully admit that this is a bit of a tricky one, primarily on account of there being so little precedent to work off of. Be aware, also, that I've specifically excluded the Conspiracy cards that note during drafting—the information they note doesn't pertain to a single game of Magic. Take those out and you're left with...well, not a lot, really. Still, I personally love a good challenge, and hopefully so will you all.

Precedent is still very important this week, even if there's far less of it than usual. The crop we have serve as some good examples for the kinds of things designers would look to noting to solve. That said, if you want to expand it beyond what we've seen (and I imagine you likely will), that's going to mean quite a lot of reading between the lines on what it could theoretically do. On a basic level, you can note numbers and types, and while he's a bit out there, Magar of the Magic Strings proves you can note a card name and the game can extrapolate its effects. What else is there? Well, that's what I want to see this week.

Good luck out there! —@spooky-bard

Our runners up this week are @helloijustreadyourpost, @izzet-always-r-versus-u, and @nyxbird!

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@helloijustreadyourpost — Izzet Extremomancer

We've seen cards that ask you to cast big spells, and we've seen cards that ask you to cast a lot of spells, but we've never seen anything quite like this. To me, the optimal use here seems like a clean split between two opposed numbers—say, 1 and 6. Keep slamming the needle from one side to the other and blasting away any targets 4 or so damage at a time. That's an odd proposition, to be sure, but it doesn't seem like a particularly unreasonable one either. Even a consistent gap of 2 tags a shock onto the end of everything you cast. It's got a bit of Guttersnipe DNA, honestly, but there's enough fine-tuning here that it manages to feel fully realized by its own merits, and I find myself pretty impressed with that.

@izzet-always-r-versus-u — Bodin, Avid Birdwatcher

This one's just cute, full stop. Birdwatching is a practically elegant use of behold to begin with, but then having them literally note down the species is what pushes it over the line for me. Bird is hardly a sparsely-populated type (although there aren't that many birds supporting other birds), so a deck full of a variety of birds is eminently achievable. Do that, and you've got a really nice value engine on your hands. I especially like how this increases the reward proportional to the difficulty with finding another name to activate it with. Really feels like you're rewarded for going the extra mile, which is essential for the more unconditional cards.

@nyxbird — Rixis, Slick Operative

As much as I know what "slick" likely means in this context, I can't help but imagine—given their status as a cephalid—that it might refer to the other meaning of the word too. Uh...moving on from that thought, though, this is a very neat callback to the curious little archetype these colors had in SNC draft. Most decks naturally end up with a variety of mana values in the pursuit of a curve, but fully committing to it is a bit more complicated than you'd think. Add on the complexity of finding them in your draws specifically, plus the fact that Rixis managing to get in isn't a sure thing, and you've got yourself a delightful little build-around that I'd be happy to tinker with.

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Our winners this week are @grornt, @nine-effing-hells, and @lanabutnotdelray!

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@grornt — Combine Comission

I love me a good Build-a-Beast, although this one's a bit more literal than a lot of examples. It does really feel true to the Combine's modus operandi to have a card that asks you to cherrypick the best traits from a whole host of creatures. The necessity of providing these creatures yourself also hearkens back to Evolve—in my mind, anyhow. The ability inheritance in particular really gets the cogs in my brain turning, because there's a lot of silly nonsense you can do with the ability to bolt an ability onto an arbitrary statline and/or typeline. There's a fair bit of setup involved, but given the costs (sans opportunity cost) are quite reasonable, I don't find myself overly minding.

@nine-effing-hells — Zimone Wola

Zimone's already taught us about prime numbers, so I suppose it figures that the next concept up would be the Fibonacci sequence. Every number is the sum of the previous two (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13...), on and on into infinity. Quandrix cards are always at their most enjoyable when they commit to the mathematical gimmicks on a meta level as well, and this is a sterling example. Beyond the admittedly quite enjoyable pageantry, it's also a pretty solid card in and of itself. Churn out progressively stronger tokens, while also becoming harder and harder to remove, it's a compelling loop.

@lanabutnotdelray — Hit List

If there's one thing I'm always up for, it's when removal gets weird with it. Slap this down, and your opponent's entire board is gone...eventually. It's not a particularly fast process, but the ability to pick and choose what dies when does mean that it at least offs the most priority targets in the short term. Of course, your opponent is fully cognizant of this all happening and can plan according. That, and the obvious caveat that anything entering afterwards is exempt (well, unless they happen to have the same name). So this does end up being a sort of game within a game that both players have to play, which is where so many of my favorite cards start.

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You all should be taking note, because we have some quick example cards done by myself, @mistershinyobject, and @teaxch!

As I've hopefully made pretty clear, precedent is especially slim this week, so hopefully these will serve to give you all a better example of the kinds of things I'm looking for. The well's quite deep, though, so don't be afraid to go off in a completely different direction if it appeals, you'll likely find something just as compelling.

@benthicinfiltrator — Hokora of Transient Visions @bergdg — Fascimilie Mystic @bread-into-toast — Phenax's Path @chippyyyz — Crystalized Moment @curiooftheheart — Scrounging Goblin @deg99 — Anti-Singularity @derplingvonderp — Taysir, Blue Aspect @dimestoretajic — Corpsecounter @fluffycattens — Bingo Card @grornt — Combine Commission @harunakonomi — Bottled Time @helloijustreadyourpost — Izzet Extremomancer @hypexion — Counterforce Archaic @i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Reinvigorating Cookbook @izzet-always-r-versus-u — Bodin, Avid Birdwatcher @j2miner — Nametaker @lanabutnotdelray — Hit List @milfannihilator — Kaisham Caligrapher @misterstingyjack — Dance of the Menagerie @nine-effing-hells — Zimone Wola @nyxbird — Rixis, Slick Operative @ra-ra-ranamon — Permutational Mutation @reaperfromtheabyss — Lockjaw Skiptracer @salamileg — Temporal Prison @sparkyyoungupstart — Time Regulator @superoffbatter — Evelyn's Collection @tanknspank — Managoyf @thepeppermintpig — Hollow Omnipotence @xenobladexfan — Worldly Paradox @yd12k — Murderous Plan

@felposgreen wins free art today!!

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