The Great Cardsmith Designer Search - Stage 1: The Design Challenge

Greetings Cardsmiths!

Welcome to the first stage of The Great Cardsmith Designer Search (GCDS)...the design challenge!

For more detailed information on this months-long mega contest, click the link below:
http://forums.mtgcardsmith.com/discussion/3922/the-great-cardsmith-designer-search-stage-0-gathering-entrants/p1

Here are links to some reading on the mechanical color pie and actual GDS that I think you will find helpful with this challenge:
Mechanical Color Pie: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/mechanical-color-pie-2017-2017-06-05

GDS1: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/great-designer-search-2006-08-21

GDS2: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/great-designer-search-2-2011-03-07-0

GDS3: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/great-designer-search-3-meet-top-8-2018-03-09

The Design Challenge
This challenge is designed to test your nuts and bolts design skills, your knowledge of the color pie, and card balancing. Only the 8 Cardsmiths with the best submissions will move on to the top 8 and will participate in weekly single elimination challenges until a winner is crowned.

So here is the challenge...

Your task is to design 5 enemy color gold uncommon cards that could be printed in a generic standard legal set.

Entry Criteria
1) All 5 cards must be submitted as one post. Incomplete entries will not be judged. Entries can be edited until the judging deadline.
2) All card’s must be traditional multicolor (no hybrid, two-brid, phyrexian, snow, etc mana)
3) Each enemy color combination must be represented once on a single card (BG, UG, UR, RW, WB).
4) No double-sided or split cards will be accepted.
5) You must submit at least one of: Creature, Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment. Your fifth entry can be a second instance of any of these card types (your choice). Planeswalkers, Artifacts, and Lands will not be accepted.
6) All cards must be uncommon in rarity.
7) All cards must be made on or after October 6, 2018. No old cards will be accepted.
8) Only named evergreen mechanics or ability words can be used. No cards with custom or non-evergreen abilities will be accepted.
9) No joke cards.

Only Cardsmiths who have already indicated they want to participate may enter at this time. Anyone else who is interested must message
me if they want to enter.

Judging Criteria
Each individual card will earn a maximum of 20 points, so each submission will be graded out of 100 points. Each and every card of the top 8 scorers will get feedback and be graded on the following categories according to this holistic scale. Anyone is welcome to message me for feedback as well.

Rarity (3 points)
3 - Appropriate as an uncommon in a standard legal set.
2 - Borderline as an uncommon in a standard legal set.
1 - Should be a common or rare in a standard legal set.
0 - Should be a mythic rare in a standard legal set.

Flavor (2 points)
2 - Strong flavor connection between card name and mechanics
1 - Moderate flavor connection between card name and mechanics.
0 - Weak flavor connection between card name and mechanics.

Templating (3 points)
3 - No spelling, grammar, templating, or magic phrasing errors.
2 - One spelling, grammar, templating, or magic phrasing error.
1 - Two to three spelling, grammar, templating, or magic phrasing errors.
0 - Four or more spelling, grammar, templating, or magic phrasing errors.

Color Pie (5 points)
5 - Card is in color pie for both colors and could not be done in either monocolor.
4 - Card is in color pie for both colors but also could be done in either monocolor.
3 - Card is a borderline color pie bend.
2 - Card is a minor color pie bend.
1 - Card is a major color pie bend.
0 - Card is a color pie break.

Card Design (7 points)
This category is subjective but here are some general things I am going to be evaluating (including but not limited to):
-Are there play pattern / repetition issues?
-Does the card show novelty and/or creativity?
-Is the card different from similar cards made before it?
-Does the card show a good fusion of the two colors?
-Is it an appropriate power level for limited?
-Would it cause problems in constructed formats?
-Would it be fun to play?

Prizes
Every entrant into this contest will receive one favorite of my choice on one of their entries into this contest.

The Top scoring 8 Cardsmiths will advance to the next stage of the GCDS.

The top 3 scoring Cardsmiths will receive:
1st: 3 faves of your choice.
2nd: 2 faves of your choice.
3rd: 1 fave of your choice.

As a reminder, the Grand Prize for the winner of the GCDS (the whole thing, not just this challenge) is 30 faves of their choice, 1 featured card, and 3 months of premium!!!

Deadline
This contest will close for judging on Saturday October 13th at 4:00 PM EST. No late entries will be accepted.

Also, no "delay time" will be able to be used for this challenge. If you want to find out more about delay time, click on the link at the top of this listing.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the thread below.

Happy Smithing!!!
«13456

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