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Together Forever
Hello everybody who sees this! captain_Pugsley here! So I was thinking. I haven't made a new contest since my first one... in February. That seemed like a really long time to me, so I brainstormed for a good month or so, and I finally came up with an idea. This idea is very generic, so please bear with me here. So, unless you've been living under a rock for the past month or two, you know that the set Battlebond was recently released, and with it a horde of new creatures with the "partner with" ability. These cards showed such bonds as family (Will and Rowan Kenrith; Proud Mentor and Impetuous Protege), friends (Pir and Toothy), Lovers (Regna and Krav), and even a Man and his Dog (Chakram Slinger and Retriever)!
The challenge here is to make a pair of balanced creatures with a type of bond between them, whether it's one that was stated above or another one you wanted to do. This contest has no set rules, just three guidelines:
1) Try to make your card all ages friendly.
2) Try to balance your partners well.
3) Try to have as much fun as you can. :-)
(Note: Rules could be added if something occurs that warrants a rule.)
So those are your guidelines! The deadline is set at August 11th 2018 at about 12 noon eastern standard time. I will try to "participate" alongside you all as much as I can (I'll just post some partners for fun and reference. :-P), but I have a tendency to faze in and out of existence for short amounts of time, so sorry if I do that. So, with that out of the way, go forth and make some partners!
The challenge here is to make a pair of balanced creatures with a type of bond between them, whether it's one that was stated above or another one you wanted to do. This contest has no set rules, just three guidelines:
1) Try to make your card all ages friendly.
2) Try to balance your partners well.
3) Try to have as much fun as you can. :-)
(Note: Rules could be added if something occurs that warrants a rule.)
So those are your guidelines! The deadline is set at August 11th 2018 at about 12 noon eastern standard time. I will try to "participate" alongside you all as much as I can (I'll just post some partners for fun and reference. :-P), but I have a tendency to faze in and out of existence for short amounts of time, so sorry if I do that. So, with that out of the way, go forth and make some partners!
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I look forward to seeing what you come up with!
Although new cards are preferred, old cards are absolutely welcome!
Okay, so a bit of context on these guys. The original concept for these cards date all the way back to my first ever custom set, Blackened Skies, which was, in all honestly, a total mess at the time. A lot of cards broke the color pie and the complexity on most of the commons was way too high, as well as there being an overwhelming multicolor presence in the set that was unnatural for a set not dedicated to multicolor pairings. This year, I decided to go back and revisit the set and remaster it, keeping a lot of the core mechanics of the set in tact and shifting flavor and mechanics to their proper colors, as well as simplifying a lot of the effects.
One of the things from the original Blackened Skies that I thought was interesting was a Bant-aligned (WUG) archetype that cared about modal spells and abilities, spearheading the archetype as commanders were the two cards you see above, however with just plain old partner rather than "partner with" for the mechanic. I figured I wanted one legendary creature for each two-color archetype that made up the bant pairing, GW and UG (UW is dedicated to a different archetype in the set), so I gave them partner so the commander deck could be bant as a whole. Battlebond spoilers started towards the end of the time I was designing cards for the set and when I saw "partner with" as a mechanic, I knew that better suited the pair, since I didn't want them to really partner with any other partner commanders as just a "value" sort of option. Thus, the cards you see today mechanically came about.
As for their connection as legendary creatures in the lore, things may seem a tad off, especially given only one of the two cards has a stroy spotlight indicator. Well, the reason for that is within the set's lore. This set takes place on a plane known as Cogsban, which geographically is known to have a large city where most of the humans live, with an ocean lying to the east of the city and a large stretch of unknown wilderness lying to the west of the city. Cogsban in the past couple decades has seen an explosion of technological progress due to the discovery of a mana-rich ore underground that can have its mana extracted when combusted. However, the combustion process of this ored also leaves behind a lot of smoke and soot, which has, over the course of the ore's use, coated the city in a clod of permanent smog, which has begun to cause health issues for residents and is even being linked to reduced machine efficiency. Furthermore, the city is beginning to experience an energy crisis; they are running out of active mines for this ore within city limits, the government has proposed simply mining outside the city and then expanding city limits to those areas for development afterwards, but a small minority within the government fears what may happen to Cogsban’s natural world under this plan. There is no knowledge of what’s beyond the city and thus no knowledge of the potential harm city expansion could cause.
Enter Buckley and Floyd, a pair of brothers greatly concerned with the issues current energy forms are causing. For a long time, they had been pushing the government to grant them funds for an exploration outside the city to retrieve information in the greater plane, but they were consistently turned down due to a lack of interest. This all changed when a young upstart in the government offered the brothers funding personally, easily swaying the small environmentalist majority within to support them as well.
Outside the city, Buckley and Floyd discover that there is actually a massive mushroom forest they have dubbed the Otherland inhabited by a civilized, intelligent race of small mushroom men known as the Sporebodied. Chief among the Sporebodied is Xhalth, who, upon hearing of Buckley and Floyd's mission, agrees to personally guide them through the Otherland, beginning a mutual friendship between the two.
With Buckley and Floyd being such pivotal characters to the set's lore, with a large portion of the set's lore following them, it felt right to make them the first of the Story Spotlight card. Meanwhile, Xhalth serves as more of a supporting characters. Rather than giving him the story spotlight indicator, other cards depicting key locations in the Otherland were given a story spotlight marker.
Phew, that was a lot ^^: Sorry that took so long to covey, but I think that pretty well explains both the mechanical and lore origins of these guys. I'm very fond of these two, particularly Buckley and Floyd, as well as BLS as a whole given it was my first custom set and all and it felt so rewarding to finish the remaster of it, and when I was this contest I just thought I'd throw these relatively oddball cards out there as entries.
It's really cool that you've come up with so much lore about these characters. :-)
You could say... the "Izzet" are "in it."
Partner with permanent with "partner with"
(When this creature enters the battlefield, target player may put a permanent card with
"partner with" into their hand from their library, then shuffle.)
If you can help me find decent matching art for Dinklage, Cultural Expert I'll make a support card for him as well!
I will keep an eye out for any art that matches Dinklage's.
Here's a pair of partners I came up with.
Updated card page to explain how commanders work!
What do you think about the above card?
Thank you, I was hoping you two would like it.
Remember everybody, only 1 week left! Get your entries in now!
Is it okay if I bump this thread with cards like our last one as single (Marriage?) cards.
Based off existing Magic characters I made them for another contest. The newly born twins of Nicol and Ugin
These two are literally together forever as they merge into one dragon. The names are taken from the dragon language in Skyrim
They merge to make...
Finally there's my themed pairs I did. There's a short story on each card page.
Knight and Day
Cat and Mouse
Beauty and the Beast
Luck and Skill
Wisdom and Power