#thanatyr

@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.

@amtgplayer

no commentary

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.