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inventors-fair · 4 years ago

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Animal Planet - Full Commentary

Like I mentioned earlier, there were a lot of great entries this week. Full commentary below the cut. - @teaxch

@bread-into-toast - Indomitable Tardigrade

Tardigrades are famous for their ability to live through anything, and indestructible plus protection from everything covers almost every effect in the game that might remove a creature, with only non-targeted non-destruction removal getting through. I also like temporarily gaining indestructible on a tardigrade more than I like it on some other creatures that have gotten it as a replacement for regeneration (Drudge Sentinel, Icehide Troll), because Tardigrades really do become indestructible, rather than just putting themselves back together.

@deg99 - Anikole-Watusi

The flavor text is doing a lot of work on this card, helping justify an ability that otherwise would be a bit incongruous. With a reasonable statline at base rate, the card is less reliant on the second ability than the similar Stormwild Capridor, and it’s also threatening enough that preventing it from being bolted or fighted to death is valuable even if you have no ways to trigger it yourself.

@demimonde-semigoddess - Beetle Colony

The design of this card is interesting in that it is both a card that you don’t want to play in a deck with no forests, but also has incidental added value if your opponent is playing forests. (You could play the card in a deck with no forests, with the intent of only ever using the last ability, but that’s pretty far below rate, so I don’t think it makes the cut if you’re on that plan.)

The big boundary-push on the card is that it’s an aura that taps, and one that goes on a card type that people often tap pretty casually. Tapping enchantments appeared in Future Sight as a thing that Magic hadn’t done yet, but otherwise haven’t appeared. I’m not sure that this card crosses the threshold of what it would take to be worth breaking that rule on its own (as opposed to being an additional upkeep trigger or something), but it would be reasonable in a set that included other tapping enchantments.

@dimestoretajic - Bara, Friend to All

This is a strong tech piece; a fair number decks across a range of formats have few, if any ways to deal with a card like this mainboard. It’s fast enough that it’s not practical to go under it, it requires specific pieces of removal to handle, and even if it is handled eventually it can often put an aggressive deck effectively out of the game. (That said, most decks do have answers for something like this in the board, although not reliably great ones.) This might be safe in a product that skips standard, but it’s not totally clear whether this is something that would make it in a commander-focused product. (It’s not too powerful for Commander as a format, but it’s not something that all commander-product decks have many good ways to deal with.) I’m also not sure whether this could go in a product meant to be drafted. If this was introduced into certain non-rotating formats, it could certainly be an interesting role-player.

@fractured-infinity - Cunning Cuttlefish

There’s currently no shapeshifters in Magic that use this technology in quite as straightforward a way as this - Cryptoplasm might come the closest, with Dimir Doppelganger also playing in that space. This was one of a few Cuttlefish entries this week, and shapeshifting with controlled size is a pretty clever way to implement a Cuttlefish’s abilities. This card also allows for some shenanigans if you control an evasive creature and a creature with a saboteur effect. I wasn’t initially sure whether this should only last until the end of the turn, but precedent suggests that it’s fine for it to persist.

@ghoulcaclulator64 - Snake-Head Larva

Morph and saboteur abilities go together naturally, enough so that Headhunter, Silent Specter, and Haunted Cadaver all play in this space. For its morph cost, this card has a fairly brutal saboteur effect, and it’s appropriate to put it at rare for that reason. That said, as long as it only connects once, it’s pretty fair, and if the other morph cards in the set obey the KTK-forward soft rules about the size of creatures with cheap morph costs, then it can at least be blocked safely.

@gollumni - Zhalfiran Zebra

This card homages two existing cards, Master Decoy and Zhalfiran Decoy, rather than alluding directly to something that the animal is known for outside of Magic, which is a novel twist on the prompt. The card entering the battlefield tapped presumably references those two cards needing to tap to use their abilities. It reads a little oddly in a vacuum, as it’s not a drawback that appears often on white cards, but the connection to the second ability helps to to feel part of a piece. I do think that there’s room to push this card a bit - even at common, sorcery-speed tapping for one turn isn’t worth a huge amount.

@grornt - Nude Defenders

Surprisingly one of three cards this week that made use of the Skulk mechanic, Nude Defenders is a spin on Rat Colony that’s more insular and that has less power, but gains the aforementioned mechanic. I’m not sure whether Skulk plays well into the fantasy offered by the rest of the card of building up a large group of creatures that are themselves individually large, however. It still has some utility in that it can help get a last few points of damage in and generally prevent very large creatures from blocking (the Defenders in many circumstances will at least trade, rather than just getting eaten), but the two parts read as negative tension.

@helloijustreadyourpost - Clever Octopus

The second of the skulk entries this week. It’s clear what this card is doing - it steals small objects when it attacks (including things like food and treasure, which octopuses value) - but executing that ends up requiring a lot of text. I see the value in keeping your opponent from sacrificing whatever it is you target with the ability by preventing sacrifices of artifacts entirely, but most card just accept the fact that sacrificing a permanent is an answer to abilities that would steal it. I think that the extra text may be worth it here because the set of things that the octopus can steal includes a lot of things that can easily be sacrificed, but it’s on the line.

@hypexion - Abyssal Angler

I really like this design overall. “Creature that can force a creature to attack, but also must block the attacker” is a combination of abilities that I was a little surprised doesn’t already exist on a creature, given the very clear story it tells. I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not I like the subtle drawback of the ability being mandatory; if your opponent has only a 4/4, you must commit your Angler to blocking that creature if it’s untapped, which is a missable but relevant interaction. It does tell an interesting story of an Anglerfish in over its head, however.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes - Battle-Ready Emu

It’s hard to do a card with a single short line of rules text that’s both novel and a complete and understandable reference to a real-world phenomenon (or event, in this case), and I think this card pulls it off. In many environments, the Protection is largely trinket text, but as evergreen colored artifacts allow Wizards to print more and better equipment at lower rarities, it’s something that has a growing chance of mattering.

@jsands84 - Eclipse of Moths

Cards that allow your opponent to escape part of their effect by paying a certain color of mana aren’t common, but I like this more than Quenchable Fire for two reasons. First, the hybrid cost to buy out of the effect means that more, but not all, decks have the option to do so. Second, the repeatability of the effect means that the cost can legitimately add up over time. There are shades of the not-so-popular Rhystic mechanic, but I think in small volumes it’s fine, especially when tied to clear flavor, as this is.

@juggernaut-is-a-metalhead - Decaying Waverider

I wasn’t completely sure what to make of this card; the card mostly holds together, except for the art (although the dog is very cute), and doesn’t seem to be a top-down representation of the animal depicted, unless I’m missing something. Skulk and the ability to destroy cheap things on ETB is an interesting combination, as depending on your opponent’s curve, this might remove the only creature that can block it.

@loreholdlesbian - Coveted Rabbit

This is a strong design for a card that goes in a deck with spells that target your own creatures, specifically because it itself is a creature. The simplest execution of the mechanics of this card would be to just make the foot itself an equipment card, but this implementation allows you to up the creature count in an aura- or combat-trick-heavy deck by being a creature itself.

@misterstingyjack - Beaver Dam

The bulk of the power of this card is vested in its last ability. Being able to pitch lands for business is worth a lot in the late game, and the defensive nature of the card as a whole helps support a longer-game plan. The rest of the card tells a nice and flavorful story as well. +0/+1 counters aren’t a tool that’s used any longer, and I’m not sure if this card crosses the threshold for making it worth bringing them back; the card could use another counter type and scale with the number of those counters, if +0/+1 counters weren’t being used.

@nicolbolas96 - Protective Mother Boar

I’m not sure if there are any “mom will fight you if you hurt one of the other ones” cards that represent the mother creature itself rather than the baby, which is an interesting point of novelty. This card represents potentially quite a lot of face damage, but cleverly uses the Crested Sunmare trick of tying a powerful effect to a tribe that tends to be used for limited filler rather than for serious constructed shots. (Although the number of Constructed-interesting boars has gradually crept up over time.)

@nine-effing-hells - Aposematic Display

Menace and Deathtouch as a combination mean that blocking the creature is very costly, so there’s some synergy there - your opponent will generally treat the creature as unblockable. (Which is completely fair for the card’s cost - in blue, auras that make creatures unblockable can cost a single mana.) What I mostly want to talk about is the interaction between menace and the last ability. Because of the nonobvious way those abilities interact (if your opponent has only one creature that can block the enchanted creature, they don’t have to block it, but if they have two or more, then the targeted creature and another creature both have to block the enchanted creature), putting the two abilities on the same card is probably a complexity flag, but the card is uncommon. The specific combination has the interesting (but not necessarily desirable) effect of making Menace a drawback a significant fraction of the time, as the second ability is nullified entirely as long as your opponent doesn’t leave up two or more blockers.

@reaperfromtheabyss - Sandfish Skink

I didn’t think much of the ability at first, but the more I thought about it, the more impressed I was with its flexibility. It spoils a range of combat tricks, it lets the Skink block a large creature and then swap to a small one, and it allows the Skink to block things it wouldn’t normally be able to block. There’s a lot packed into a simple ability, which makes for an impressive design.

One small note - it should probably be limited to targeting attacking creatures that are attacking you or a creature you control. While I believe the game rules can handle the circumstance where you target one of your own attacking creatures, the Skink itself, or a creature attacking another player in a multiplayer game, it’s probably better to sidestep that entirely by limiting the legal targets.

@snugz - Bombardier Beetle

This is an interesting design, and another in the category of cards that seem like they should already exist. The big question with this card is: Is it green? Almost all similar effects (with a fixed amount of damage) are red, and in practical terms the ability functions a lot like Double Strike, but only against creatures. Not every card needs to be in the color that’s number one in something, but this ability feels borderline in Green, which doesn’t have a long history of creatures being able to one-sided fight nonfliers without external help. (That said, I guess the fact that it’s blocked or blocking is sort of like it’s fighting?)

@starch255 - The White Whale

This is a wrath attached to a large body, with a bit of a twist that players o-ring one creature each instead. Putting a card that some players will interpret as a Whale tribal card in a color with no Whales might disappoint some players slightly, but it’s a pretty on-flavor way to keep the card from affecting itself or other copies of itself. This is currently one of the easiest to cheat out/reanimate/blink wraths in the game - it’s pretty standard for creatures that wrath on ETB to only get that effect when cast from hand, or to require some additional investment or action.

@typical-davinci-impersonator - Leyline Cuttlefish

This is already a bear, so the card is basically serviceable in limited even if the ability doesn’t end up mattering, but I’m assuming that this exists in an environment where color matters. Depending on the way that color-matters is implemented, there’s an argument that this could maybe cost 1 instead, but given that 2/2 for 2 isn’t a statline that colorless gets much, the ability can be pretty marginal and this is still an interesting card. Being directly tied into what Cuttlefish can do in a very literal way limits the environments where it makes sense as a card, but makes it quite resonant if there were a reason to print it.

@walker-of-the-yellow-path - Blue Glaucus

I had to look this one up - for the benefit of anybody who’s in the same boat, this is a slug that preys on jellyfish-like creatures and actually stores their stinging cells in its own body for defense. It’s also immune to the stings of some such creatures.

The card has a lot going on, and a lot of it is novel, although most of the text directly references the abilities of the actual organism. The third ability is interesting in that it can be proactively built around, although Deathtouch creatures more often die on your opponent’s turn than on yours, making the mana potentially more difficult to use.

I’m not totally sure that the creature needs morph, but morph + deathtouch is a good combo, so it’s reasonably justified if the set it appears in already has morph.

@wolkemesser - Magical Hat

If I had done Honorable Mentions this week, this would definitely have made the cut. It’s super rare that such a clear and clever story can be told with just one relatively straightforward line of rules text. I respect the decision to leave off flavor text even though cards with three lines of rules text almost always have it; the card doesn’t need any help explaining what’s going on. I had a hard time gauging the rate on this card, but I think it’s within the band of fair.

#Inventor's Fair #if-animal planet #commentary #MtG #custom card

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