Clade Dinosauria **Circuit Challenge**

Background
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Art by Raph Lomotan
I'm going to be the first to say it: the Dinosaurs of Ixalan were disappointing. Although they were a fine introduction as a fantasy version of these titanic creatures, they did two things wrong. First, of all the dinosaur cards, the number of constructed playable dinosaurs can be counted on one hand. A vast majority of the dinosaurs are either made for limited like Bonded Horncrest, or they were made with only commander in mind like Zacama and Etali. Although these cards are certainly fun in there respective formats, they leave cubers like me wanting something better. Zacama might be fun when consistantly casting her on turn 7 just wins you the game, but it's not as good when it gets countered by Cryptic Command or you're just dead to a good mono red aggro hand. You can count the dinosaurs that are good for cube/constructed on your hands, and even then some of those are pushing it.

The second issue was the aesthetic. Before previews started, WOTC was telling everyone how their dinosaurs would have "scientifically accurate feathers." This was exciting, because most of the time pop-culture dinosaurs are portrayed as scaley monsters instead of the feathered beasts that they probably were. Unfortunately, the added a bunch of random spikes and feathers where they don't belong.

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Gishath, being a Giganotosaurus, wouldn't have had all of those random spikes all over his body.

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Ceratopsians like Goring Ceratops here wouldn't have had feathers on their frills or back. If they had any feathers they would most likely resemble quills on their tale.

Worse still, WOTC calls these things dinosaurs:
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Disregarding the fact that the sunwing has feathers it should not have, Kinjalli's Sunwing is not a dinosaur. It is a type of flying reptile called a
Pterosaur. Although Pterosaurs are related to dinosaurs, they are not the same thing. On blogatog, Mark Rosewater has said that "On Ixalan, anything that is remotely related to a dinosaur counts as a dinosaur." This is WRONG. Calling a Pterosaur a Dinosaur would be a lot like calling an Elf or a Chimpanzee a Human because they are remotely related.

Between low power level, scientific inaccuracies, and general tomfoolery, I am taking the reigns of DInosaurs away from WOTC. Today, you will be making me some new stompy bois! I want to see dinosaurs that have accurate portrayals of these ancient animals.

Rules and Regulations
1. Cards should be new.
2. Cards should represent Dinosaurs, Pterosaurs or another extinct animal from the Mesozoic Era. They don't have to be creature cards.
3. If you choose to make creatures, please use appropriate types. Dinosaurs should have the creature type Dinosaur, Pterosaurs should have the creature type Pterosaur, Plesiosaurs should have the creature type Plesiosaur, and so on and so forth. If you make a mammal or something with multiple established creature types to represent it, choose the closest fit. You can make a mole, for example.
4. These should be on the power level Competetive Constructed and Cube. Not Kitchen Table, Limited, or Commander.
5. 5 entries per Smith.

I want to see Competetive Constructed and Cubeable dinosaurs, not more Limited or Commander abominations.
Here are some examples of what I want to see.
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Breakneck Carnotaurus by @Brainifyer
You don't have to use enrage if you don't want to, these are just the types of cards I want to see.

Avoid stuff like this at all costs!
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Any useful resorces?
This for uploading card images and this for forum coding.

Prizes
First Place - 1 Circuit Point and 5 Favorites
Second Place - 3/4 Point and 3 Favorites
Third Place - 1/2 Circuit Point and 3 Favorites
Honorable Mention - 1/4 Circuit Point and 1 Favorite

Submission Cutoff: May 12th, 2018.

And with that, I wish you good luck and happy smithing!
-Kramp
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Comments

  • edited April 2018
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  • edited April 2018
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    EDIT: Minor templating changes, updated creature types to be correct, and edited P/T on Predatory Torpedosaur.
  • Those are some cool designs, @bnew07! I think I wasn't clear enough with the rules, however. If you made a dinosaur, I wanted it's creature type to be Dinosaur, not whatever type of dinosaur it is. The reason why Plesiosaur is it's own type in my mind is because Plesiosaurs are a rather robust family of animals that existed for millions of years, and they are considered to be their own thing.

    Sorry for the confusion!
  • edited April 2018
    "Isn't the view great when there aren't a bunch of blood-crazed Vampires blocking your path?"

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  • edited April 2018
    Here, @KrampisZman

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    Real flavor :
    "See, it should even be legal in every league. 'Waa, I don't like commander or limited cards, waa~', boo hoo, get your stuff together, kid."
    --Pragmatic cardsmith
  • @KrampisZman
    Should I resubmit the four non-Plesiosaur cards with the creature type --Dinosaur?
  • @bnew07 That would be nice, but you don't have to.
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    This is based on Cryolophosaurus, an Antarctic dinosaur. Went for a 'freezing' theme. My only concern is that the name is cheesy.
  • @KalamMekhar Oh my god I love Cryolophosaurus. One of my favorites from that time period.

    @sanjaya666 I actually really enjoy limited and I tolerate commander when it's with my friends. About 90% of the official WOTC dinosaurs are designed specifically to fill the needs of those formats, leaving everyone who wants to play with them in some other setting in the dust. It makes sense that most cards are geared towards limited play. After all, it is rare that even a really good card makes it into constructed. However, because of the heavy emphasis placed on commander specifically when the Dinosaurs were being produced, there are really only 4 good dinosaurs for constructed. I want to see cards that can be played in a tournament setting, not just casually.
  • edited April 2018
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  • edited April 2018
    I can't delete this comment so I will say, above are my five cards.
  • How does one submit? and do we have to make our own art or can we use a website?
  • I made some dinosaur cards a bit ago, but they were made with commander in mind, so you probably won't be interested in the majority of them. Here's one that might be to your liking.

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  • edited April 2018
    @Lastjustice As long as it's actually playable in a format other than EDH it's fine. However, please note that the cards must be new.

    I really like Must go Faster!
  • edited April 2018
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  • edited April 2018
    @Corwinn Thanks!
    I think this is how I do this:
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    If not, please tell me and I will fix it.
  • I am not sure if u meant to have the image here @baryonyx69 if so that iis not what you acieved
  • Then I am unsure how to get the image here. But it is in the link.
  • edited April 2018
    Here is another I made:
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  • edited April 2018
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    I opted to keep the reminder text off to keep the space more open for elude, here's the full version.
    Elude (Can not be blocked by creatures with Defender or Flying.)

    I used art modeled off the Trex from Jurassic park, so the elude there because it always seems to sneak up on people despite being you know a Trex. (full stealth mastery is how she speced.) The quote obviously a revamp of their tagline.
  • @Faiths_Guide I absolutely love James Gurney's art. He is one of my favorite fantasy artists outside of MTG, and one of my favorite Paleo-artists as well.
  • edited April 2018
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    My first entry!
  • James Gurney is crazy good.
  • @Hinges Yeah he is! I'm actually working on a project that involves a bunch of his art... :)
  • edited April 2018
    I own all the Dinotopia novels.

    Some of his recent stuff here is awesome!
  • @Faiths_Guide That Kentrosaurus with those Jerusalem bagels is probably the most creative thing I have seen this year.
  • edited April 2018
    Im not to aware of dinos and i didnt want to mess up by making a creature ... altough i hope i didnt mess up by caling this specific dino a predator ...

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  • @icyyou All of those are predatory. The larger ones appear to be Tyrannosaurs of some sort, and the little ones are larger raptors.
This discussion has been closed.