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Designer's Gauntlet [Week 5] - Commence the Endgame
The Basics:
5 weeks, 5 challenges. Prizes are awarded at the end of each week event and the 'Smith with the highest cumulative total score will claim the title of Designer's Gauntlet Champion.
Scoring this week is a bit different in that we have two categories for you to pick from. The best entries in each category will receive points based on their 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
Yes, that means that there will be two winners for each spot and lots of points going around! Each other participant gets 3 points just for playing, plus each entrant who isn't in the top 8 gets 1 additional point if they've participated in a prior week and 1 more if they've done two or more prior events (so a potential 2-point bonus).
This Week's Challenge:
You have two options - divergent paths with the same goal! - choose one of the following:
Arena Booster Pack (8 cards):
Choose a non-Core set from ALA (Shards of Alara) forward. Comment the set you'd like to pursue to stake your claim! Your cards should be representative of the set you've chosen, highlighting themes, mechanics, etc. Your booster pack should include the following:
- 1 Rare or Mythic
- 2 Uncommons that don't share colors
- 5 Commons - these commons must represent at least three different card types and at least four colors
Commander Deck Highlights (7-8 cards):
- 3 Multicolor Mythic Legendary Creature/Planeswalkers with the same color identity, or 2 Multicolor Mythics and 2 Partners that complete the color identity.
- 2 monocolor Rares - Something powerful and unique/compelling for commander or multiplayer
- 1 monocolor Uncommon - Something that could go in each Commander deck that included this color
- 1 artifact/land Common - Something that would go in EVERY commander deck for that year. Think Commander's Sphere, Command Tower, etc. Not common in terms of limited complexity.
Cards must be newly created for this contest - no old designs. Please message @LuckyLooter or myself with questions!
Submissions are due on Friday, August 21st at 8pm CST. Late entries will not be accepted. Note that this is a longer time since you have more cards to work on. Hop to it! Good luck!
A helpful link:
2017 Mechanical Color Pie
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Is the entry supposed to be based on the set of choice, or an addition?
(I guess what I'm more asking is am I able to imply the existence of an alternative version of an existing cycle.)
Edit 1: Wishing I hadn't made so many for the other contest that didn't follow through... oh well
Edit 2: NEVER MIND I MADE TOO MUCH FOR THE JESKAI I CAN'T REVISIT THAT CONCEPT
i am gonna change from Eldritch Moon to Ikoria
Not finished yet, but here are some grixis horrors:
The commander of the deck is Ganleya, Peaceful Mediator because of her alternate win condition. The goal of the deck is to create permanents that your opponents can use, and then use certain cards to get those permanents into the hands of your opponents, and then finally bring out Ganleya for her win condition (assuming that you've made enough friends who will let her stay alive until your next upkeep! lol).
[Edit: I made a few "eleventh-hour" substitutions before the deadline!]
My three Multicolor Mythic Legendary Creatures:
My 2 Monocolor Rares:
My monocolor Uncommon:
And my land Common:
Here are some existing MTG cards that would go great in this deck (if it were real):
- Zedruu the Greathearted
- Ruhan of the Fomori
- Loxodon Peacekeeper
- Vedalken Plotter
- Political Trickery
- Bazaar Trader
- Puca's Mischief
- Humble Defector
- Cultural Exchange
- Perplexing Chimera
Just for flavor, and not for judging or scoring (if that's permitted) here are some other custom cards I've done for this set because of this contest:Could I take Ixalan instead?
I’m really sorry for changing again. I’ll take War of the Spark.
In this custom Commander build, we delve into the world of life and death. The ultimate sacrifice and the great return. I was originally going to design a build around the Dredge mechanic, which would still thematically work with this small sample size. But, with my signature legendary, dredge gets a little weird when your dealing with other players' graveyards. So I chose to go in a slightly different direction, and have full on graveyard recursion. I hope you like what you see, and please feel free to give feedback.
Myczil Savod Zunich, or simply Myc, was the quarter-human, quarter-Silhana and half-Devkarin son of Fonn Zunich and Jarad vod Savo. He was named after his grandfather, Myczil Zunich. He was the fruit of love between the Selesnyan ledev and Golgari guildmaster. Even though their marriage lasted fewer than six years, Myc's following childhood was divided in equal parts spent with his mother and father, learning the ways of both guilds.
Myc and Fonn found that Jarad had managed to become a kind of lich, animating his own corpse with his spirit. Myc decided to stay with his father and follow the ways of Golgari. Myc became the huntmaster of the Devkarin, wearing the traditional skull mask to denote his status.
With Myc I bring a new "mechanic" to the denizens of Commander, access to all the graveyards. This will greatly expand your gameplay and deck building schemes.
Although many discount them as an urban legend, "the assassins of the Ochran" are a Golgari cult of mercenaries operating out from the Undercity and specializing in vengeance killings. After Vraska left to become guildmaster, Xenda stepped up to lead. Seeing as she was their best assassin, and most feared.
I know this brings a taboo situation to the table, never combine deathtouch and trample, seeing as they tend to be OP together. However, I feel that Xenda has some semblance to balance as she gets weaker as she gets stronger.
Dhar Rahkon was a simple ranger that grew to become a great elementalist. After a chance meeting with Myczil, that nearly cost him his life, his spark was ignited. Swearing vengeance against Myc, Rahkon set out to exact revenge. Only to later find out that Myc was not the cause of his near death, but his savior. With this, Rahkon set himself as a personal advisor and started to learn the ways of the Golgari.
Dhar Rahkon is a good work horse for the theme of this build. He works with sacrifices and graveyard fill, which in turn gives Myc the resources he needs to wreak havoc upon the field.
*Dhar Rahkon can be your commander*
Here we have our more "staple" rares for this commander block. First, Orchard Dragonfly (my own artwork) can fit into any deck that runs green, and with good effect of ramping. It's more of a new aged BoP. Soul Sacrifice, works beautifully with this deck build, and any deck that plays with sacrifices.
Deathproof was build to thematically work with "Til Death do us Part", however, it simply fits into any black deck that is looking for a way to save itself from sweepers. Placid Range was actually the hardest for me to design. How does one make a common land card, that fits into any and all decks, and hasn't been done yet. I hope Placid Range works well enough.
Pros • Myczil is able to use/abuse the graveyards as an additional resource • Black/Green color combination gives us access to many of the best removal and recursion spells of all time, which the deck heavily depends on • Because of our colors, we're able to play creatures that have positive interactions without graveyard state (i.e. Lord of Extinction) and that are abusable with Myc and Dhar Rahkon • Black/Green gives us amazing spot removal and mass removal.
Cons • Playing a graveyard based deck leaves you vulnerable to yard hate, which many/most decks play • At times Myc can be uninteractive with the rest of the table, resulting in longer turns and irritated opponents • Although our removal suite is top notch, stopping combos and heavy control can be an issue • Myc can be complicated, and easily leads to misplays.
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/the-world-machine
Firstly, an artifact commander. It controls your draws and triples your triggers, at the cost of being an extremely fragile artifact, with no way to protect it via a Swiftfoot Boots or Lightning Greaves. The commander deck itself is designed around both ETB and other triggered abilities, as will be seem later.
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/commodore-guff-7
Commodore Guff is an interesting character in MTG; he has no cards. So, I decided to make a somewhat time-shifted version of the character. While he still values knowledge, the rifts of Dominaria exposed him to the wonders of evocative magic. The concept with him is that you cheat out big ETB effects using evoke, while also being able to protect him.
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/gollim-the-great-pincher
The final of the 3 commanders is Gollim the Great-Pincher. She steals the opponents ETB triggers, and can sac them, or can flicker your own creatures. It's a flexible bit of fun for a commander.
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/empower-efforts
One of the two powerful rares. It can duplicate a Brago trigger, it can give you your opponent's triggers, and it can do some bonkers things with The World Machine. And when it's useless or not as powerful, you can cycle it away. It's essentially like a Second Harvest for activated abilities.
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/artifoul-demon
The second of the two powerful rares, which plays really well with two of the commanders. The Fabricate ability can be tripled by The World Machine, and the attack effect can sacrifice something stolen using Gollim. The card itself can also fit into Aristocrat, Artifact and Demon tribal decks, which is an impressive amount of decks for a single card to fit in to.
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/charmlord
The good uncommon for every white deck in the set is Charmlord, and for good reason. While it synergizes extra well with the world machine, it can also be a flexible counterspell (Yes, white can rarely get Counterspells), permanent removal or a thing that keeps you alive, in addition to being a 3/2 body that can chump and such, allowing it an inclusion in the other precon decks.
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/throne-of-bronze
Throne of Bronze is a simple card; there's no real explanation required. On average it should scry 3-4 times in a game, which is a good deal for a mana rock.
Cards that could go great into the deck include:
The pros of the deck are simple: you get to have some good fun with ETB's in Esper, being able to draw lots of cards and grind out a win through swingy effects.
The cons are the same with almost any Flicker / ETB deck, and I say this as a Brago player: things sometimes don't work. You might draw too many flicker effects, or you might draw too much of your recursion when nothing is dying, or your combo pieces with no ability to assemble them. You might draw too many ETB's and your Brago keeps dying the moment it enters.
I hope you like it!
https://mtgcardsmith.com/user/KorandAngels/sets/55392
Again, I'm going to try and let my cards speak for themselves, say for two exceptions, which we will cover at the end!
Commons:
Uncommons:
(Mythic) Rare:
Ok. So please take this with a grain of salt, when I say that this is an "extension" to the Return to Ravnica. The implied "Monument" cycle would replace the "Keyrunes". The existence of Scenic Thoroughfare would likely replace the position of Transguild Promenade. Thank you for checking out my entry! I'm most proud of this one!
Notably this mechanic does not work under the current syntax, with players themselves not able to attack or block. That being said, I argue such a change could be done. Most players already refer to themselves attacking and blocking, ergo "I attack you with Delver." and "I block it with Scryb Sprites." Such a syntax change would be intuitive and would help out with text density.
I chose Santris to be the face commander. Santris is splashy, fun, and clearly conveys the deck's theme. He would stand out to new players curious about commanders, representing the silly stuff Commander is renowned for. Also, can you tell I'm still miffed Naya got the populate theme in 2018?
Asil is for established EDH players, as they are unique and rewards clever deck building. I still wonder whether I should have made the face commander have Initiative since it was designed as the set's gimmick. Maybe I should have, maybe not.
Ilethia represents a commander for those who aren't sold on the token theme. I noticed that there's a big overlap between tokens and instant/sorcery spells, especially ones that make more tokens. Each mode represents what each color can do, with the Scryb Sprites one being especially egregious to highlight Magic's history.
I liked designing the rares the most because as with most Commander set rares, it isn't as important that they fit in with the deck theme. Druid of Silent Strength returns to Green's roots with gigantic stupid Stompy things (and none of this card-advantage bullcrap, I won't stand for it!) Also there's a bunch of cool stuff you can do with it in other decks, like negating drawback abilities, mass application of +1/+1 counters, and crippling decks that rely on special interactions.
Belligerent Scout is a card I've been wanting to design for a while. It engages players to attack people (other than you!), and making them guess what has been exiled. Belligerent Scout also helps people smooth out mana screwing/flooding. It also take just a couple of copies to make milling out opponents a real threat. I think this is the card I am most proud of.
For my card representing a larger uncommon, I designed the "Aspiring ____" cycle, representing five creatures of each color featuring the Initiative mechanic and similar flavor text.
My final card probably took the most work. Commander's Monument is a lackluster mana rock, but it can transform into your commander in a time of need. Sometimes when your commander is stuck with absurd commander taxes, just having your commander around for one turn is all it takes. It may not be as essential as Arcane Signet or Command Tower, but many, many decks would appreciate it for what it is.
My first card tries to address two deficits for the RW Aggro archetype. 1) the shortage of token makers and 2) the lack of good combat tricks. This card does Both while also using the reflexive trigger technology to add additional functionality, allowing the player to target the newly created token with the pump effect.
Edit: I'm done. Phew!
Wow. This was SUPER last minute...
Here are the cards:
The Commons
Final Blessing - This card is meant to do a few things. It supports the GW archetype with it's populate effect and looking at Cruel Celebrant, WB will have some aristocrats theme in it, so this will help support that at common. In addition to that, this also helps give benefit to you when you end up losing a creature and an aura.
Chaotic Assault - This supports the BR sacrifice archetype and also pushes the RW combat tricks archetype in a new way. This is also meant to show some of the dreadhorde in War of the Spark.
Suicidal Blast - This also pushes the BR sacrifice archetype in addition to WB aristocrats. Since UB also has lots of amass build up and some proliferate combined with a control-y theme, this is a great card to use when your army can't get through. It also nets you a card which can be quite helpful in many circumstances. Suicidal Blast also represents the losses many citizens of Ravnica obtained during the war.
Flux Wielder - This helps push the UR noncreature spells (mostly focused on instant and sorceries), UB amass control, and WU Flying/Control archetypes.
Escaping Chance - This card helps you return planeswalkers to your hand when they're about to die or helps your nonland permanents evade some spells/abilities. This focuses on the shutting down of the immortal sun when many planeswalkers escaped. There is an argument against this card using Rescue, making this slightly strictly worse, but this says nonland for both flavor reasons and the fact that WotC has reprintend cards that are slightly strictly better/worse.
The Uncommons
Scheming Finale - This is meant to highlight the dreadhorde army, yet again, this time focusing on Bolas's evil schemes. This card would definitely be of value in BR sacrifice, BG deathtouch, and sometimes help in UB control.
Vernadi Guardian - The vernadi are organizations in the Selsnya Conclave formed around trees like Vitu-Ghazi (except smaller). This elemental is meant to represent a protector for them! This helps the GW proliferate theme, GU proliferate theme, and RG high power/damage to face because it helps your creatures grow quickly. In addition to that, many of these themes appreciate having 4+ power, so I made sure that this had at least 4 power and trample for RG and synergy with its other ability.
The Rare
Dack, Cunning Thief - Dack was a huge character in the lore, but he was never part of the cards, so here is a card I made for him! I set his planeswalker at rare because he has importance in the plot, and because I can't really make a planeswalker on mtg.design or cardsmith with 2 or 4 abilities.
I hope this is okay! Good luck to everyone in the final round. this has been such an amazing contest!
(Also, @DomriKade I didn't end up using the card you gave me feedback on because I thought that would be rather unfair and because I felt it may have been a little complex.)