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The Advisor - Contest
I present to you the Advisor, a custom player delegation meant to be played alongside the Monarch. Similar to the Monarch, being the Advisor gives you the perk of drawing an extra card at the end of your turn. However, the privilege of being the Advisor is controlled by the Monarch. In this sense, the Advisor must try and please whoever is the monarch, which leads to interesting politics.
For this challenge, you must design a card that involves the Advisor. Unlike the Monarch, there are somewhat restrictive design guidelines that I suggest you follow:
- The Advisor only works if there is already a Monarch. Therefore, cards that make players the Advisor should 1): make other players the Monarch first, or 2): be prepared for situations where there is no Monarch yet.
- Advisor cards are focused around white, blue and green. Black advisor cards are interesting because black is primarily focused on personal power, not helping others out. Red advisor cards are also interesting because red is primarily focused on personal freedom, not becoming commited. You can design black and red advisor cards (like I did), but I urge that you reflect these tenants.
- Adding Advisors with Monarchs is already complicated enough. Be careful with commons and uncommons.
Prizes will be plentiful and will be determined. You may submit as many entries as you like. Deadline is May 5th.
Want some ideas? Here are some Advisor cards that I have created:
Have fun 'smithing!
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Comments
What's next? The knight? The servant? The jester? The jailer? Maybe the filthy commoner too?
You can read about Royal Courts and Advisors here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_court
A card based by a Camarilla (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camarilla)
A card based by a Bodyguard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodyguard)
As @MemoryHead said, how many we can do?
Unsure on the power level of this, since I don't play a lot of conspiracy, but here we go anyway.
I like how this one turned out. Not specifically made to help the Monarch or Advisor, just to make people it.
3rd place: @HeroKP with Excommunication.
Very flavorful and imaginative enchantment. Personally I think it is too niche and cute. I would remove the third line and make enchanted player unable to do something. Or even better:
Excommunication
1WW
Enchantment
When Excommunication enters the battlefield, exile target nonland permanent until Excommuniation leaves the battlefield. Its owner can't become the monarch or advisor for as long as the card remains exiled.
6: Destroy Excommunication. Any player may activate this ability.
2nd place: @Derain2 with The Devil You Know.
Clever idea of browbeating the monarch to stay the advisor. However, you forgot to credit the artist. Not only is this lazy and immature, but it can lead to MTGCardsmith getting into a lot of trouble from angry artists. If you care about this site and the work of artists, please take the 10 seconds to credit the artist.
1st place: @MemoryHead with Baron's Bargain.
Heads will explode trying to figure out politics with this card. Fantastic work! If I were to make a Monarch/Advisor set, would you mind letting me steal this idea?
Excellent work everyone, and congratulations to all of the winners!
Congrats to all people that entered, and to my other bros higher than me on the podium.
Thanks for the contest!
Palace Garden is a cool idea, but potentially too powerful. At worst, it's a nonbasic forest that enters tapped and has the potential to tap for any color every now and again (which is a decent card in the kind of four-player games that Conspiracy drafts bring). At best, it's a land that taps for one mana of any color, enters untapped and effectively draws you one (or more) cards when it enters the battlefield. That's dangerous. If I was trying to balance Palace Garden to go into a conspiracy set, I'd probably make it something like:
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Palace Gardens
Land
Palace Gardens enters the battlefield tapped unless a player is the monarch. [Now works even if you're the monarch, no longer gives you the position of advisor]
{Tap}: Add G.
{Tap}: Add one mana of any color. Activate this ability only if you're the monarch or the advisor.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
The alternative (or perhaps the tie-in) would be to make this a full cycle (one for each color). If you did this, you could also give each one a small bonus if it entered untapped based on the land's color. I'm aware both of those would change the card a fair bit from its current form and logic, though, so don't take them as gospel (or much other than me rambling).
Empty Throne is also a nice concept, but I can't help but look at it and think "There are no ways to bring in the monarch for less than four mana." I'll admit that in my entries I'm also guilty of bringing in the monarch on the cheap side, but one of those cards has a triple-black mana requirement and both have potentially crippling downsides. It's cool, but it's also a concept that needs addition or modification to work.