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Designer's Gauntlet [Week 4] - Arting is Such Sweet Sorrow
The Basics:
5 weeks, 5 challenges, participate in as many or as few as you'd like! Prizes are awarded at the end of each week and the 'Smith with the highest cumulative total score will claim the title of Designer's Gauntlet Champion.
For greater transparency, my fellow judge and I review each entry and discuss it in light of the week's criteria. We then arrange them based on their design merits and highlight the top 8. Points are awarded each week based on placement as follows:
1st - 20 points, 2nd - 16 points, 3rd - 12 points, 4th - 10 points
5th - 8 points, 6th - 7 points, 7th - 6 points, 8th - 5 points
Each other participant gets 3 points just for playing. Additionally, those who aren't currently in the top 8 are eligible to receive additional points from bonus challenges. This week, the bonus is worth 2 additional points.
This Week's Philosophy:
Less philosophy this week, more fun!
This Week's Challenge:
We've selected eight pieces of artwork that we like and your task is to use FOUR of them that inspire you. A few restrictions and a bonus:
- Your cards must be appropriate power level for your choice of either: a Standard Limited set or a Commander Precon product. Please specify which mode you've selected as this impacts how we evaluate your cards!
- Your four cards must include three different card types
- Your four cards must represent at least three different colors
- Your cards must be newly created for this contest (no old cards)
- Bonus (for those not currently in the top 8) - You score the bonus if your four cards cover four different types and at least four different colors!
We're often at the mercy of the art we have to work with. Unless you're pulling out your own ink and easel (say, for Artful August?) then you'll only have limited resources to work with when designing. In this case, we'd like to see one or both of two things:
- Clever top-down design - starting with a broad concept (or picture in this case) and building a card around that idea
- Thoughtful utilization of artwork to communicate the card's mechanics
Here are your art options with links and artist credit:
https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/000/100/064/large/victor-adame-mongobo-publish.jpg?1402530624
Victor Adame Minguez
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Vd8VgZ (You may use either version of this image)
zhihui Su
https://www.deviantart.com/shahabalizadeh/art/Forgotten-Forest-481832895
Shahab Alizadeh
https://www.deviantart.com/pindurski/art/Sisters-Last-Stand-585781029
PINDURSKI
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/g6boe
Randy Vargas
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/VYBqn (Lots of cool art here but please use the one displayed below)
Conor Burke
https://www.deviantart.com/naksx/art/Sleeping-Giant-261525329
nAksX
https://www.deviantart.com/oakks/art/Sketch-Poop-461064383
Stephane Lopez
Submissions are due on Sunday, August 9th at 8pm CST. Late entries will not be accepted.
A helpful link:
2017 Mechanical Color Pie
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Will do more cards later. Mynoxis might not be the commander, but the cards are definitely for a commander environment.
Oh ya, im entering twice with all 8 cards since im way behind in points. I figured that is a better attitude than complaining "this sucks i cant win."
for commander:
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/in-the-eye-of-the-beholder
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/pi-ell-akki-horse-thief
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/path-to-another-world-1
For Standard:
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/light-in-the-dark-8
My example card:
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/tushiro-deaths-undoing-1
https://mtgcardsmith.com/user/KorandAngels/sets/55113
for the limited set option, does the flavor of the cards have to be restricted to a single set/plane or can the cards all have different flavors like a core set?
@bnew07 They don’t have to be thematically linked, though you certainly can! We’re primarily interested in consistent power across designs. Does that answer what you’re asking?
White combat trick that can be political.
Green/Blue "combat matters" helper with fun art.
Red equipment "aggro/voltron" enhancer with combo potential.
Black removal-on-a-stick (and I've been playing way too much Ghost of Tsushima). You can play "dishonorably" with the flashed effect, or take the "honorable" approach with the better vanilla body.
... and this bonus card below is the Honden that the commander (Eihei, the Stone Fang) is guarding... but which is actually corrupting him!