#runner-ups


Here you go!

2011:

Winner: Team 83 

2012:

Winner: BadWolf

Runner Ups:

* 270WinchesterLovesWishbone

* Babysharks

* fandom-orgy

* QuicklyHuge

* ROBOTHEAD

* (Sc)Avengers

* Subtext

* SuperWhoLocker

* VaticanCameos

* Widdermacker

2013:
Winner: VaticanCameos
Runner Ups:

* BabySharks

* Bicycle_Touring

* BunniesrunAMOK 

* Felix-Fandomis 

* Gishminions

* Impala

* KaleoftheLord

* Llama-nomenal

* ROBOTHEAD

* Rocket 

* Schnitzeljaeger

* Subtext

* SuperWhoLocker

* TeamLSG

* Widdermacker

2014:
Winner: Impala
Runner Ups:

* AffiliatedGeeks

* Babysharks

* Bicycle_Touring

* KaleoftheLord

* MonkeyBrigade

* Purgatorgy

* Rocket

* Schnitzeljaeger

* Shatner

* Subtext

* Swashbunnies

* Team LSG

* Vampirates

* VaticanCameos

* Widdermacker

Bonus Point Masters:

* DeusExMishina

* KnightsofTARDISia

* OnCrack

* PuddingPants

* PRETTYBOYANGELS

* RaisedFromPerdition

* RockyHorrorKaleShowLovesThe.Ghostfacers

* Unmentionables

* Wildcats

* WYSIWYG

2015:
Winner: Widdermacker
Runner Ups:

* AffiliatedGeeks

* Bicycle_Touring

* Captain

* FreeWill

* Impala

* KaleoftheLord

* MonkeyBrigade

* Purgatorgy

* RaisedFromPerdition

* Schnitzeljaeger

* Shatner

* Subtext

* Swashbunnies

* TeamLSG

* VaticanCameos

2016:
Winner: RaisedFromPerdition
Runner Ups:

* AffiliatedGeeks

* Bicycle_Touring

* Captain

* DeusExMishina

* FreeWill

* Impala

* KaleoftheLord

* Mishap

* MonkeyBrigade

* Purgatorgy

* Schnitzeljaeger

* Scrumtrulescent

* Subtext

* TrashBrigade

* VaticanCameos

2017:
Winner: Purgatorgy
Runner Ups:

* Bicycle_Touring

* Captain

* DeathLovesPizza

* DeusExMishina

* FreeWill

* Gnomad

* KaleoftheLord

* Mishap

* MonkeyBrigade

* RaisedFromPerdition

* Scrumtrulescent

* Subtext

* TeamFreeFabulous

* TrashBrigade

* VaticanCameos

2018:
Winner: Scrumtrulescent
Runner Ups:

* Brown(Trench)Coats

* CharliesAngles

* DeathLovesPizza

* Gnomad

* Goats!Goats!Goats!

* Gushwheat

* HuManatee

* KaleOfTheLord

* KissAGish

* Mishap

* MOTHRA

* PUUDDIIIINNNNNGGGGG

* Schnitzeljaeger

* Subtext

* TrashBrigade

2019:
Winner: Brown(Trench)Coats
Runner Ups:

* CharliesAngles

* DeusExMishina

* Gnomad

* Goats!Goats!Goats!

* HuManatee

* IllusiveYetis

* JellyGishDangerFingers

* KaleoftheLord

* KissAGish

* Mishap

* MOTHRA

* Schnitzeljaeger

* Subtext

* TrashBrigade

* WHES

2020: 
Winner: MOTHRA
Runner Ups:

* #

* #Mishamigos

* Bumble-Butts

* Egg

* Goats!Goats!Goats!

* IllusiveYetis

* JellyGishDangerFingers

* KissAGish

* Mishap

* Pudding

* Scrumtrulescent

* Subtext

* SurroundedbyIdjits

* Wayward_Sunshines

* WHES

2021:

Wizards & Weirdos:
Winners:

* The Knights of the GISH Pentadecagonal Table of GISHLandia: Scrumtrulescent

* The Clerics of GISHLandia: Subtext

* The Bards of GISHLandia: GratuitousKaraokeMoment

Main Hunt:
Winner: Schnitzeljaeger
Runner Ups:

* #

* Bumble-Butts

* Egg

* HuManatee

* JellyGishDangerFingers

* KaleOfTheLord

* Pantheon

* Scrumtrulescent

* Wayward_Sunshines

Distant Third Runners Up

Congratulations to our runners up, @starch255, @decayingbooks, and @misterstingyjack

Blacklance Conscription by @starch255

I love it. The flavor is so clean that I really might not have even noticed this was using three separate tertiary mechanics (mind control, type-changing, and first strike). And there’s really no other color this could be done in- the other first strike colors don’t get permanent mind control, and blue (which does) doesn’t get first strike- so black makes perfect sense. The only thing I might change is that this seems a bit weak at rare; I don’t necessarily think this should be much cheaper, considering the rates that blue gets this effect at these days. So maybe this should also give +1/+1? Or you might even be able to get away with this at uncommon, like Enslave. But all in all, I love this card a lot.

Akrasan Knight-Captain by @decayingbooks

White is tertiary in card draw and, considering the general feeling toward it, I’m frankly surprised I haven’t seen more of it in this contest. You did a good job of making a card within white’s parameters for card draw. This only works once per turn, and requires you to do something white (have soldiers). I like that while this provides a soldier, your opponent can get rid of that really easily as it’s just a 1/1 token. This is definitely a card I could see printed.

Awakened Excavation by @misterstingyjack

Ah! A lorehold flavored lhurgoyf, or a Loregoyf if you will. This is a good card. I think it’s a perfectly reasonable card in red, and the trample does a lot to help with that. Personally I think the “1+*” template is a bit ugly but I won’t fault you for that, that’s on magic. Is there a reason that, since you mentioned this is lorehold flavored, you went with elemental instead of Spirit? Other than that minor quibble, this is a solid card.

Haunting Success:Runner Ups

Hello everyone! Congrats to everybody and thanks for sending your designs! I hope you liked this week’s challenge. Let’s talk about our runner ups made by @misterstingyjack, @hiygamer, @kytheon4-4

Forgotten Ancestor: The whole card really fits the Abzan clan, and the color combination ties well with the abilities. This could be a solid build around me uncommon for a draft environment. Getting two cards from your graveyard, even on different turns can make a big impact on the game, and the ramp option is nothing negligible either! I would also like to point out a common characteristic among many submissions. While OG haunt is an ETB and a death trigger, many submissions go by “when this creature or the haunted creature dies, do X” I guess this pattern is more clear! Which one do you folks like more? Let us know, for science!

Anim, Passer of the Spark: A planeswalker with Haunt and a name like this, I was intrigued! You delivered this really bold idea pretty well, major points for flavor! Moving on to the abilities, I like that overall it has low impact on the board because Anim has a lot of staying power. I have minor issues with the exclusion of tokens in the spark passing ability but that’s the only flaw I can find.

Here are the runner-ups for the rock and roil contest! This was a very difficult contest to pick runner-ups for, so congratulations to the ones that got there!

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@ignorantturtlegaming - Seraph of Immolation

Hot mama that’s a spicy angel. So at its base its a 4/3 flying first strike haste for four mana. That’s already very playable. I like the first strike anthem, that’s a cool way to give it some landfolk synergy. The land wakening ability probably didn’t need to untap, since that makes it pretty easy to go infinite with cards like Market Festival. Otherwise, though, two mana to turn a land into a 3/1 is a good cost-risk ratio, and the first strike interacts with that in a very cool way. The last ability is pricey enough that it won’t come up often, but interacts really well with every other part of the card (the keywords on her, going wide, the first strike). Honestly, if you dropped the untap from the activated ability and added a mana to the cmc it would easily have made it to the top. It’s still really cool, but I can’t ignore that it’s a touch too strong.

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@whuh-oh​ - Morkrut Mists

This card is crazy! I jest, it’s actually just a nice card. It’s pretty smart to make a delirium card that’s an enchantment, since that’s one of the harder types to get into the graveyard so milling or discarding duplicates turns it on. I really like how +2/+2 and lifelink is a huge bonus, but having the delirium condition and only affecting horrors, a fairly weak tribe, balances it out. You have to put a lot of work into this card to make it strong, but ho boy is it strong once it gets there! The animation ability is also pretty clever, because while you will rarely use it before delirium is active, you can if you need a land in the graveyard. And then once it is active, it’ll probably be late enough in the game that you’ll have lands you don’t mind losing. I do have a few gripes about the card: I wish that it granted haste so you don’t get punished by misclicks, I wish it had more ways to help delirium other than just putting lands in the graveyard considering that’s one of the easier types to get in there anyway, and I think a +2/+2 buff is maybe too good for an uncommon if there are any other decently playable horrors in the set. But those are all still pretty minor or assumptive, so I still really like the card!

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@wolkemesser - Flowstone Flunkies

What a weird card! You can give all of your creatures +1/-1 until your next upkeep for a red mana, and you get to turn a land into a creature while you’re at it. So turn one you play this, next turn you attack for 4? Not a bad rate, but not overpowered. Similarly swinging for 10 on turn 4 but opening up your lands to 1-toughness kill spells seems like exactly the risks red should be doing. I like how this encourages you to play a lot of higher toughness red cards, something you don’t see a lot. In practice it’d probably be a lot of the 1 mana 1/2s they’ve been printing like ghitu lavarunner, soul scar mage, and swiftspear, but that’s still a deck worht making. This is a hard card to judge because of all its moving parts, but I really like how genuinely unique it is, and it’s a great take on the prompt. My only issue is I wish it gave the lands haste, because nobody wants to have to keep track of that. This was the very first card entered, and it never really left the back of my mind. The only thing that kept it from the winners circle was the complexity and possible power concerns.

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Commentary is all written up and should be out to you all soon. Good jobs all around though!

Name of the Game: Runner-Ups

A round of applause for @teaxch, @misterstingyjack,and @corporalotherbear.

Again thanks  everyone for participating. Before I get to each card, I would like to explain my reasoning behind the evaluation of all the entries for this challenge. Costing, balancing, color identity were taking into account as always, but the most important element was the name-effect connection and whether the card can tell a story, without being a top down representation of the video game in MTG. Now,let’s talk cards!

Time Dilemma is one of those cards that are so nice and simple that make you wonder why aren’t they already printed. The only reason I didn’t pick it for the winner’s post was that it lacked the “wow” factor.

Trials of Mana has a really unique effect and the name really ties into the effect, which determines your stats according to your cost! My objection (npi) is about the colors.The word trial is thematically tied to Azorius, and Green is the color that has the best stats/ mana cost ratio. Those facts, and the existence of cheap token makers like Seller of Songbirds, make me believe that it would feel/play better if it was WU instead.

Star Performers

And another round of congratulations to our runner-ups for this week’s contest, @misterstingyjack, @koth-of-the-hammerpants, and @nicolbolas96!

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Norn’s Vivacist is exactly the kind of card I was expecting to see. Devotion to Phyrexia has been talked about since the devotion mechanic was around, but the implementation of it here is excellent. I love how it gains you back the life you paid, but at half the rate. It’s very simple, pretty easy to track, and the power level seems right on the money. Great entry.

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Sukamaro, First to Build is one of those cards that’s just fun to read top to bottom for the first time. Reading the name made me think it would deal with hands, then seeing flying double strike got me excited, then the telepathy text cam out of left field, then that last ability hit me like a truck. What a wild thing to base stars on! Having a big beater that plays as a nice finisher in eggs-style decks that fill their hands with artifacts sounds really cool! Admittedly, I wish it did something more interesting that interacted with those stars, and as with every Maro, it’s awful when you’re topdecking. And sadly, I must tell you this card doesn’t work. If it’s in your deck, it’s P/T still has to be equal to the number of artifacts and enchantments in hand, but it has no way of knowing what your opponent has, so whether it could be tutored by recruiter of the guard would be up in the air. So I gave it this spot in the runner-ups to signify it as my favorite entry (of many) that the rules say no to that I wish I could say yes to.

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Spellrecycler Weird gets second place for most unique thing to track. Now, this sounds like an absolute nightmare to track at first, having to look in exile and graveyard for two card types with 5 different keywords, but in practice I think it’s more forgivable. Those cards are already usually set aside in graveyards, so it’s going to be hard to miss them, and the exiled cards aren’t going anywhere. Even so, I think the exile part is overkill, even if it’s just there to make sure the Weird doesn’t shrink by accident. Also the last ability is really good, but maybe a touch too strong. All in all, though, it’s a great card, very strong in the right deck, and a fun deck at that.

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So that’s the runner-ups! I’ve got all the commentary for the other entries written out, I’ve just got to get them into tumblr. Should be soon.

Zero to Hero: Runner ups!

@fractured-infinity A sweet twist on the level up mechanic, using triggers instead of the costly, sorcery speed activated ability that drags it to oblivion. Wish we see more cards like it in the future! On the card itself,  I think it’s a bit harsh to ask for two noncreature spells every turn, since you did a good job balancing devoted scholar by giving her a high cost for her initial stats.

I wanna be the very best runner ups

Congrats @quillpaw, @shakeszx, @yarana-stonescale​ for your fantastic designs! Fantastic as they were though, I think they needed a minor tweak to get an A+ score. Let’s talk about them.

The Winged Mirages was a nice surprise, using a multicolored card to showcase all three of the legendary birds of Gen1 in one card. Caring about the color of  spells you cast to determine the bonus effect was also  smart but I think the card itself is very restricting with its high cost and the fact that it cares only about noncreature spells.

Jirachi, the Wish Maker is on point flavorwise however its body is too good to give up so you can make the third wish. The card is good and functional as it is, but I would like it more if it had a limited amount of time on the battlefield