There are a couple things I'd like to point out regarding our match:
Mother's Love fails to meet the challenge conditions (it becomes a creature via an activated ability, not a triggered ability as per the second requirement).
The wording for Opal Shinju is perfectly correct as is (see the Opal enchantments). To put it more explicitly, the triggered ability does not say "until end of turn" and therefore permanently overwrites Opal Shinju's properties. That is, once the ability resolves, Opal Shinju is a 3/2 Cat Beast creature with provoke until it leaves the battlefield, nothing more and nothing less. In this state, Opal Shinju is no longer an enchantment and no longer possesses the initial triggered ability, as neither of those things are included in what the triggered ability redefines Opal Shinju as.
@jaceberlin You can challenge any number people you want, there is no limit how many you can be in battle at once. However, I recommend to keep it at three or less. Because more battle there are, more slower it will appear. I am only human, not a computer.
@Jadefire You been challenged by @smax765, please accept this challenge within a week. Expiration: Oct 11, 11:59 PM CST
@smax765 Actually, you cannot move challenge to there. Because October CHALLENGED all of you guys. You can be in battle and there battle at same time. The difference is that battle will last for a month. I beileve that October mentioned you need do three trials at once.
@FireOfGolden Does Ethernal War requirement 1 mean the Werewolf has to be able to transform, but not from Day/Night, or does it mean if you choose to make it transform, it has to be from a different trigger, but transforming isn't a requirement of the card?
@Jadefire You know Daybound and Nightbound, right? They aren't allowed to use on werewolf. So, if werewolf were to transform, it cannot be from day and night. Werewolf transforming is optional, but it would be weird if it has no transformation. ?
@FireOfGolden OK, I think I understand. So the Werewolf can't utilize Daybound/Nightbound for transformation purposes (if it even transforms at all), but it does have to care about it being the day for becoming weaker.
I wanted to try something less conventional with the transformation mechanic. The front face is an aggressively costed Werewolf with a weakness to the day. When it dies, it passes on the curse that grants both its power and its vulnerability to another creature. The curse itself is also stronger during the night and can affect a second creature (we know from Incubator tokens that a transformed token is possible).
The back face has a lot of versatility since it does many things. If you can keep the game in a night state, it can give a big boost to one of your creatures. Otherwise, you can use it as removal for an opponent's creature (even if it has more than 4 toughness, since it won't fight you). It gets really interesting in a multiplayer game because you can put the back face on an opponent's creature when it's night to help them fight another one of your opponents while protecting you from that creature.
I will start with Pacting Werewolf. It's a transformation creature costs for 1WB. When it enters the battlefield, it forces to turn battlefield into night, if it's day. Otherwise it's night now. It also gives two pact tokens that requires 4 mana to sacifice for a card. It's cheaper 1 to acitvate for each creature and/or pact were sacificed this turn.
During night, pact costs 1 less to activate while during day, pact costs 1 more to acitvate. When pact costs 0 to acitvate and is activated, Pacting Werewolf will transform from it. Which is Demonic Werewolf, already white and black, has flying and trample. It has doubled power equal to the pacts that were sacificed since last upkeep. During night, it's tripled instead. When it attacks, nonpact permanent is sacificed to create two pacts.
WORDING - Deals 21 damage to rating
When it enters the battlefield, it may be not nighttime or daytime, hence, I would go for;
"When Pacting Werewolf enters the battlefield, if it's day, it becomes night. Otherwise, it's night. Inscribe twice."
Because when it says "Becomes night", 0 times 1 is 0, hence, it's not nighttime. Am I wrong there?
When preferring to this card by the name, copy and paste the name onto wording. Meaning; it should be Pacting Werewolf, not pacting werewolf.
Second ability doesn't need source to determine what does cause to cost less or more. You can go for this;
"Pact's abilities you control costs 1 less to activate. If it's day, these costs 1 more to acitvate instead."
Capitalize as well for the name of card on last ability.
On Demonic Werewolf, you should go this way;
"Demonic Werewolf's power is equal to twiced number of pacts you sacificed since your last upkeep. If it's night, triple that much instead."
I don't think you need to add reminder text to remind that transformed creature is same color the before it transformed.
BALANCING - Deals 11 damage to rating
It's easy to get acitvate cost to 0. Black don't see problems with sacificing after all. Let's say, when a player casts Pacting Werewolf with weak 6 creatures and 3 Pacts with new two pacts on first turn. On second turn, player casts Skyclave Shadowcat - Boom, it's Demonic Werewolf with 21 power... With trample. Its power can keep increasing as Pacts are free to activate now. That's a little balanced, but it has potienal to be abused, as long as, there are enough mana. Oh also, don't forget Rivalt of the Grey Cult. Yeah, imagine that.
Rating for Pacting Werewolf and Demonic Werewolf is 68.
Cursed Blood-Fang is a rare 4/4 Werewolf creature costs 1BB. Upon entering the battlefield, if it's not day or night, it will becomes night rather than forcing it to become night. During day, it's 1/1 rather than 4/4, making it weak and easily killable. When it dies, it becomes Lycanthropic Fate attached to target creature. If it died during night, another Lycanthropic Fate is created. Once attached, it gets +3/+3 during night and cannot attack its caster or their planewalkers. During day, it gets -3/-3 and loses all abilities.
I would say it's good for controlling the battle. Black is well known for "Sacifice for greater power." If you partner it with a creature like Dross Hopper and Cemetery Puca during night. It would be funny!
Wording looks fine here and it's balanced well since, it sometimes is almost always day... You know, there is always a blue and/or red player. However, there is one I am disappointed that you didn't include something;
APPEARANCE - Deals 12 damage to rating
To make it more of werewolf curse;
CURSED BLOOD-FANG: "As long as it's day, Cursed Blood-Fang gets -3/-3 and is a Human."
LYCANTHROPIC FATE: "Enchanted creature can't attack you and planewalkers you control.
As long as it's night, enchanted creature loses all its abilites, gets +3/+3 and is a Werewolf. Otherwise, it gets -3/-3."
Werewolves are mindless machine killing and cannot be tamed or controlled during night. So, I think that would be good favor.
The rating for Cursed Blood-Fang and Lycanthropic Fate is 88.
Jadefire won this battle with 88 rating.
Jadefire and smax765 each earned a Treasure token.
A time counter is added to Ethernal War. It has five time counters now.
Smax765 puts a time counter on their curse - Hardwork Journey - it has single time counter now.
@TheKeefMan If you haven't submitted a card after Oct 31, @smax765 may choose to either wait for another month, or end this battle as a winner. I don't want to keeping mentioning you and fill your email up, if you have any.
Wording is OK. The first ability forces the battlefield to become night, if it’s day or if it’s neither day nor night. As an ability, it costs you less mana to activate. And the second part of the second ability doesn’t need to specify, but it can.
@smax765 You may be right about first ability. "It becomes night" just makes it night, even if it's day. Or night becomes night again somehow. (If that makes sense anyway) Unfortunately, it deals a little damage to rating for between 3 to 7. Other wording issues stacks each other.
When preferring to pact's activatable ability costing less or more, take a look at Biomancer's Familiar and Embalmer's Tools for similar example. While your wording works, it's kinda more wordy than usually. If you go this way, it would produce same result; As long as it's night, activated abilties of pacts you control costs 1 less to activate. Otherwise, it costs 1 more to activate. (Wording inspired by Lycanthropic Fate)
Meaning? Your wording and this wording are same. Both don't care which abilites are and decrease or increase it by 1, as long as they belong to a card named Pact, or the card type of card is Pact. I hope that helps.
@FireOfGolden Thanks for the review and the suggestions. That would've made a lot of sense if the Cursed Blood-Fang was also a Human when in its weakened state. It never even occurred to me to do that.
@Jadefire Happy to be of a help! I am learning to be a judge, so that's why I made this contest for fun and I added the Jury in case if my ruling wasn't fair.
Do you have any advice that would improve my judging effectiveness?
@FireOfGolden That's a good way to get entries to practice judging.
I think to be a good judge, or at least a consistent judge, you have to know yourself. What are the things that matter most to you in a card's design? How do things rank relative to one other (E.g., power/balance, proper costing, creativity, wording, fun, effectiveness, colour pie adherence, lore/flavour, etc.)? Not everything matters equally. Which aspects are more important than others? This will affect how you score cards because a bigger issue in a less important area (E.g., flavour) may be worth the same or less than a smaller issue in a more important area (Eg., power/balance). When you figure this out, be consistent with weighing cards according to this hierarchy. Even if someone doesn't agree with how much you value each thing, at least they can understand where your judgments come from.
When it comes to figuring out power levels, a good place to start is comparing against real cards. New cards shouldn't be too far above or below what existing cards can do. One example is when designing lands. Any land that can do more than what a basic land can do (E.g., enter untapped unconditionally, produce coloured mana repeatedly, is nonlegendary) needs to have some kind of drawback (E.g., enters tapped or only untapped conditionally, produces colourless mana, has some other cost associated with playing or using it). Otherwise, it would be a no brainer to always play the maximum number of copies of that land instead of the equivalent basic land. Even the Mirrodin artifact lands had a drawback in that they are vulnerable to artifact removal, despite being functionally equivalent to basic lands in terms of efficiency and reliability.
Comparing to existing cards is also the best way to go when it comes to judging wording. You can do word searches on sites like gatherer.wizards.com. If you put your search terms in quotes (" ") it will give you all results with the words in that exact order. This is how I figure out how to word obscure effects or the right order in which to list keyword abilities or even the right order to list the coloured mana symbols in costs or subtypes on the type line. If I don't know how to say something, I type in the words I want to use without quotes and let the site return all results with those words in their textbox. I can then Ctrl + F and search within the results for the words in the order that I think is right to see if it exists on any cards.
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That's good to know. @jaceberlin, you been bested by Cadstar369. If you feel that this battle is unfair, you always can ask for juries. ?
Ka-boom you guys get a Treasure token and Ethernal War has four time counters.
You can challenge any number people you want, there is no limit how many you can be in battle at once. However, I recommend to keep it at three or less. Because more battle there are, more slower it will appear. I am only human, not a computer.
@Jadefire
You been challenged by @smax765, please accept this challenge within a week. Expiration: Oct 11, 11:59 PM CST
Actually, you cannot move challenge to there. Because October CHALLENGED all of you guys. You can be in battle and there battle at same time. The difference is that battle will last for a month. I beileve that October mentioned you need do three trials at once.
The October Challege!
https://forums.mtgcardsmith.com/discussion/6091/haunted-battle-mystery-card-the-octobers-challenge/p1?new=1
So you can focus on only Halloween event
A rematch, eh?
As Ethernal War Roars...
(Has four time counters on it)
It can be only white and/or black
The rarity is rare
Ethernal War - Night and Day doesn't affect Werewolf's transformation
Ethernal War - Werewolf gets weaker during Day
You know Daybound and Nightbound, right? They aren't allowed to use on werewolf. So, if werewolf were to transform, it cannot be from day and night. Werewolf transforming is optional, but it would be weird if it has no transformation. ?
Note that, @smax765, because it's important for you too
Are you there yet?
Hey there, it been two weeks since smax765 submitted a card. You and he been given a chance to redraw that will not happen again ever.
I simply pinging you to make sure you don't forget about this. ?
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/lycanthropic-fate
I wanted to try something less conventional with the transformation mechanic. The front face is an aggressively costed Werewolf with a weakness to the day. When it dies, it passes on the curse that grants both its power and its vulnerability to another creature. The curse itself is also stronger during the night and can affect a second creature (we know from Incubator tokens that a transformed token is possible).
The back face has a lot of versatility since it does many things. If you can keep the game in a night state, it can give a big boost to one of your creatures. Otherwise, you can use it as removal for an opponent's creature (even if it has more than 4 toughness, since it won't fight you). It gets really interesting in a multiplayer game because you can put the back face on an opponent's creature when it's night to help them fight another one of your opponents while protecting you from that creature.
Thank you for your patience!
During night, pact costs 1 less to activate while during day, pact costs 1 more to acitvate. When pact costs 0 to acitvate and is activated, Pacting Werewolf will transform from it. Which is Demonic Werewolf, already white and black, has flying and trample. It has doubled power equal to the pacts that were sacificed since last upkeep. During night, it's tripled instead. When it attacks, nonpact permanent is sacificed to create two pacts.
WORDING - Deals 21 damage to rating
When it enters the battlefield, it may be not nighttime or daytime, hence, I would go for;
"When Pacting Werewolf enters the battlefield, if it's day, it becomes night. Otherwise, it's night. Inscribe twice."
Because when it says "Becomes night", 0 times 1 is 0, hence, it's not nighttime. Am I wrong there?
When preferring to this card by the name, copy and paste the name onto wording. Meaning; it should be Pacting Werewolf, not pacting werewolf.
Second ability doesn't need source to determine what does cause to cost less or more. You can go for this;
"Pact's abilities you control costs 1 less to activate. If it's day, these costs 1 more to acitvate instead."
Capitalize as well for the name of card on last ability.
On Demonic Werewolf, you should go this way;
"Demonic Werewolf's power is equal to twiced number of pacts you sacificed since your last upkeep. If it's night, triple that much instead."
I don't think you need to add reminder text to remind that transformed creature is same color the before it transformed.
BALANCING - Deals 11 damage to rating
It's easy to get acitvate cost to 0. Black don't see problems with sacificing after all. Let's say, when a player casts Pacting Werewolf with weak 6 creatures and 3 Pacts with new two pacts on first turn. On second turn, player casts Skyclave Shadowcat - Boom, it's Demonic Werewolf with 21 power... With trample. Its power can keep increasing as Pacts are free to activate now. That's a little balanced, but it has potienal to be abused, as long as, there are enough mana. Oh also, don't forget Rivalt of the Grey Cult. Yeah, imagine that.
Rating for Pacting Werewolf and Demonic Werewolf is 68.
Cursed Blood-Fang is a rare 4/4 Werewolf creature costs 1BB. Upon entering the battlefield, if it's not day or night, it will becomes night rather than forcing it to become night. During day, it's 1/1 rather than 4/4, making it weak and easily killable. When it dies, it becomes Lycanthropic Fate attached to target creature. If it died during night, another Lycanthropic Fate is created. Once attached, it gets +3/+3 during night and cannot attack its caster or their planewalkers. During day, it gets -3/-3 and loses all abilities.
I would say it's good for controlling the battle. Black is well known for "Sacifice for greater power." If you partner it with a creature like Dross Hopper and Cemetery Puca during night. It would be funny!
Wording looks fine here and it's balanced well since, it sometimes is almost always day... You know, there is always a blue and/or red player. However, there is one I am disappointed that you didn't include something;
APPEARANCE - Deals 12 damage to rating
To make it more of werewolf curse;
CURSED BLOOD-FANG: "As long as it's day, Cursed Blood-Fang gets -3/-3 and is a Human."
LYCANTHROPIC FATE: "Enchanted creature can't attack you and planewalkers you control.
As long as it's night, enchanted creature loses all its abilites, gets +3/+3 and is a Werewolf. Otherwise, it gets -3/-3."
Werewolves are mindless machine killing and cannot be tamed or controlled during night. So, I think that would be good favor.
The rating for Cursed Blood-Fang and Lycanthropic Fate is 88.
Jadefire and smax765 each earned a Treasure token.
A time counter is added to Ethernal War. It has five time counters now.
Smax765 puts a time counter on their curse - Hardwork Journey - it has single time counter now.
If you haven't submitted a card after Oct 31, @smax765 may choose to either wait for another month, or end this battle as a winner. I don't want to keeping mentioning you and fill your email up, if you have any.
You may be right about first ability. "It becomes night" just makes it night, even if it's day. Or night becomes night again somehow. (If that makes sense anyway) Unfortunately, it deals a little damage to rating for between 3 to 7. Other wording issues stacks each other.
When preferring to pact's activatable ability costing less or more, take a look at Biomancer's Familiar and Embalmer's Tools for similar example. While your wording works, it's kinda more wordy than usually. If you go this way, it would produce same result;
As long as it's night, activated abilties of pacts you control costs 1 less to activate. Otherwise, it costs 1 more to activate. (Wording inspired by Lycanthropic Fate)
Meaning? Your wording and this wording are same. Both don't care which abilites are and decrease or increase it by 1, as long as they belong to a card named Pact, or the card type of card is Pact. I hope that helps.
Good match @smax765.
Happy to be of a help! I am learning to be a judge, so that's why I made this contest for fun and I added the Jury in case if my ruling wasn't fair.
Do you have any advice that would improve my judging effectiveness?
I think to be a good judge, or at least a consistent judge, you have to know yourself. What are the things that matter most to you in a card's design? How do things rank relative to one other (E.g., power/balance, proper costing, creativity, wording, fun, effectiveness, colour pie adherence, lore/flavour, etc.)? Not everything matters equally. Which aspects are more important than others? This will affect how you score cards because a bigger issue in a less important area (E.g., flavour) may be worth the same or less than a smaller issue in a more important area (Eg., power/balance). When you figure this out, be consistent with weighing cards according to this hierarchy. Even if someone doesn't agree with how much you value each thing, at least they can understand where your judgments come from.
When it comes to figuring out power levels, a good place to start is comparing against real cards. New cards shouldn't be too far above or below what existing cards can do. One example is when designing lands. Any land that can do more than what a basic land can do (E.g., enter untapped unconditionally, produce coloured mana repeatedly, is nonlegendary) needs to have some kind of drawback (E.g., enters tapped or only untapped conditionally, produces colourless mana, has some other cost associated with playing or using it). Otherwise, it would be a no brainer to always play the maximum number of copies of that land instead of the equivalent basic land. Even the Mirrodin artifact lands had a drawback in that they are vulnerable to artifact removal, despite being functionally equivalent to basic lands in terms of efficiency and reliability.
Comparing to existing cards is also the best way to go when it comes to judging wording. You can do word searches on sites like gatherer.wizards.com. If you put your search terms in quotes (" ") it will give you all results with the words in that exact order. This is how I figure out how to word obscure effects or the right order in which to list keyword abilities or even the right order to list the coloured mana symbols in costs or subtypes on the type line. If I don't know how to say something, I type in the words I want to use without quotes and let the site return all results with those words in their textbox. I can then Ctrl + F and search within the results for the words in the order that I think is right to see if it exists on any cards.
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