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inventors-fair · 2 months ago

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Signpost Commentary: At Odds and Ends

Well, folks, it's been a long week. A very long couple weeks. Things aren't shaping up as neatly as I thought they would but that doesn't matter because we're all in it together. And you know what? I've been feeling as of late that I've just kinda gotten worse at Magic overall. I like Duskmourn a lot, but is it how I'm drafting? I've had some sets that've been enjoyable and others that have been fairly despicable, and some chaos that's panned out and some that's just plain failed. Where's the right answer? What's the right direction?

But that's a hard question to answer, because there are so many. You'd think that this would be a transition into signposts, but really, it's just me venting about having to work weekends when I just want to write about custom cards all the time. (This is mostly a joke; working at an LGS is pretty great.) And as for signposts and environments, I find it quite interesting how many different folks had basically the same consensus about some recent sets and cards. Like, a LOT of consensus. I fully expected everyone to have a completely different take but no, wow, we saw...a lot of variance in what people changed.

Is that speaking at all to what expectations were before playing the set, or are these considerations after an open mind has already approached what's ostensibly solved formats? Or is this experimentation for better times overall? Strange times indeed. Anyway, I know already that this is going to be late and also, it's going to be shorter probably. Each card I'll write about until I don't feel like writing anymore.

JUDGE PICKS are cards that I particularly liked for some reason or another, and/or they were close to winning or running, and/or there's a specific aspect of them I wanted to point out. Sounds good? Sounds good. Let's roll.

@bread-into-toast — Momir VII, Cloned Colonist

I think I understand the mechanical intent: more treasures ensures that plotting becomes easier, you can get your engines and big things online, etc. I'm not seeing the connection between Momir and treasures, though, or Momir's real connection to the plane in general. That said, OTJ did have a weird plot and flavor, so I guess there's some justification. As far as replacing the good bear doctor goes, though, I don't feel that there's too much of an argument to be made here as for why this one would necessarily be...better? That said, I don't even know if that's the argument being made at all.

There's just no specific grip on this card for me in the scheme of greater OTJ game feel or flavor feel. Plotting felt just plain good as it stood, and Doc Aurlock did a fine job as a two-drop to get some of the ramp more easily situated. Having Momir trigger off of more things that aren't as relevant feels like it's more of a first draft playtest. Maybe that's fine, though, and it would be worth seeing how he'd play in the shell. I'm not sold, though, mostly because the question of "Why Treasure?" lingers as a discrepancy. But ramp is ramp; I'll chalk this to overthinking.

@corporalotherbear — Vengeful Fighter (JUDGE PICK)

Now, the reason why I want to put this card as a judge pick is that it would've been a fantastic finisher card in the format, and it's a powerhouse for sure. I'm also of the opinion that it would be a much better rare than an uncommon. Any party overlap and you're doming for more than your fair share. Any attack turns into either chipping away or forcing lethal, assuming that you can get any number of party members to stay on board. Consistent damage is fine if it's hard to get. Signpost uncommons that can deal up to four damage on attacking OR blocking with a fair amount of consistency? It's really rough, especially if it stacks.

Consider: your opponent has a huge board, and you have five creatures, two warriors (one of which is this dude). Swing in with all of them, and those unfavorable swings that would just kill your creatures turns lethal. And maybe they don't block—well, unless they have you dead to rights, they're dead on the crackback. This would be an awesome rare, a seriously good finisher, or maybe there are places where the death could deal different amounts or whatever. I would love to have played with this card! I feel we may be a little powered up for aggro limited. Secondarily: the name is a bit generic. How could some part of this make it feel more Zendikari?

@cthulhusaurusrex — Corpsejack Source (JUDGE PICK)

Compared to the signposts of the time, this card feels oddly contemporary. I do mean that as a compliment, and I also mean to say that I don't know how it would've been printed at the time, if anything like that would've been printed at all. I guess they made weirder cards, but hey, this was before FIRE design and Modern Horizons and whatever, so. I do like it, though, and I feel that the gist of getting more bodies per body is really great for the Scavenge decks. That's all that a fungus wants to do!

Should the second ability say "other" creatures, perhaps? As in, you don't want to confuse folks with whether or not it triggers off of itself attacking. I want to emphasize, BTW, for anyone reading this: if I bring up an example of something that could possibly confuse players, I'm using the general scale of complexity that we've seen handed down/explained by MTG designers, COMBINED with questions I've gotten myself as a de facto judge at FNM. Anyway. Fungus is also an interesting choice. Ooze would've been by go-to, but I like funguses. Just to wrap up: overall, this card feels a little slow to get going, especially as a 1/1, but I see where you're coming from with it. It's here as a JP for its neatness in mechanical expansion, I'd say.

@dimestoretajic — Glitterseed Scrounger

The first of the squirrels. Why were so many folks not down with the simplicity of the signpost squirrels from Bloomburrow? Or maybe folks just wanted to see something different, I dunno. Either way, a three-mana 1/1 that on occasion makes tapped treasures doesn't really do it for me. Deathtouch feels like it could be reasonable if this is a utility creature. On the squirrel curve, that one feels particularly less aggressive than squirrels want to be; I think that's the reason that the other signpost was the aggressive body that it was.

Foraging for treasures is kind of cute conceptually, but what does that really have to do with the squirrel gameplan? It doesn't really need the ramp, and now you're mixing and matching different tokens on your board as well. I feel like it could've played fine, but treasures as a theme weren't what Bloomburrow needed, I don't think. I can feel the justification in the flavor text as well; that definitely feels like you were reaching, not gonna lie. I think that developing ideas that naturally combine into a flavor-and-mechanical blend is useful for the second go-around on whatever ideas come to mind.

@feyd-rautha-apologist — Corpseroot Mentor

Oh boy. I think mixing metaphors is a little weird here. I grok the card, but the complexity isn't what you want from a signpost. And to be fair, I think that the grokworthiness of this card would be fine for any other design standpoint! We're in the trap of good idea, good execution, and the main issue is that you're designing for the average player cracking standard packs. Offspring costs not being mana is a divergence that probably should be saved for rares, if that. You'd be surprised what the average played does or does not grok.

...I mean, would they even know the word "grok?" I hope that's common knowledge among the custom-design-corner here on Tumblr and beyond. What I also grok is that this card is designed to be a bit of an engine, and I respect that that's what you'd want from the four-drop slot here in the aggressive squirrel deck. Having played that deck (and having won only one BLB draft with that deck) I feel that this turns a little midrange-y? It's not a bad thing to have that option. I do like the triggers as well, and the amount of food that one gets is pretty nuts! To avoid rambling, what I'll say is that I like this card a lot, and I can envision the AD even. Some complexity wires got rewired, though, and I would suggest keeping in mind the base difficulty of different sets. I do love me some potential Horizons-y costs.

@hypexion — Mercury Host Stalker

There weer a cycle of landcycling cards in MOM, as well as some self-mill strategies, that could get cards with massive values into your graveyard fairly early on. It's entirely possible that this card could get a 6/6 or 7/7 Phyrexian on turn four, plus the flying body. Maybe that's magical christmas land, but is it that far off? I think that this card feels quite good and maybe my worries are less of "these are problems" and more "this is the ideal scenario." I also remember the removal in MOM being quite clunky compared to the bombs... Maybe this is just plain worrisome for no reason, y'know? But I don't hate it at all. I'm just scared of it.

Part of Halo Forager's advantage was that it could steal from any graveyard, and I think that I appreciate greatly how much you adhered to the original stats and body while creating a completely different card. I think I can agree with the argument this card is presenting, in favor of a definitive Phyrexian body instead of a potential flashback body. Between the two, I still find the forager more interactive and interesting—spell value in a control shell. This card isn't bad, of course, because in a bomb-vs-bomb format, you can match some of the huge green creatures or whatever. This may be a personal taste issue re:color intent in the formats, and what graveyard interaction would look like.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Master Forager

I'm not opposed to triggers-within-triggers myself; it's also taken me a lot longer to really get into my brain how they're supposed to work with certain cards. They're really difficult to get the timing down on sometimes! With this one, the question of targets and resolution and if-thens get really messed up. When does someone lose life? When does the creature get the -1/-1, if there are any life-loss triggers or ETB triggers for the second ability? All of these make sense on the board, sure, but again: you've got a cool card from a designer's brain standpoint, and I want to shift you into an average-player-who-doesn't-consider-design standpoint.

That's the TL;DR of it, and I think I want to point out the second ability as a really nice blend of what foraging allows you to do, and what it would look like to have those choices. Maybe if there was just an ETB or combat forage? I think it's possible that the second trigger could've been one part "Whenever you ___ to forage"—but I don't actually know, because that would mean diving into some definitions of the keyword that I don't think matter in this case. Honestly, a modal foraging trigger at the beginning of combat (or whenever) could've been perfectly cool too: "[when/whenever/at], you may forage. When you do, choose one:" And then you have the life loss, -1/-1, or token. Y'know? I like what this card wants to deliver. I'm not quite on board with it yet.

@izzet-always-r-versus-u — Gratitude/Resentment

I don't think this card would fit into Wilds without it being a bit of a wild swing. Don't forget: in any given environment, even though they don't quite have mechanical significance, split cards are themselves a mechanical addition to any given set! I mean, this card is supposed to be from WOE, right? The creative choice to add a card frame/style that wasn't at all part of the set is a little baffling to me. But, big risks and big rewards, I suppose. If anything, knowing your general strengths as a designer, I'd say that this is one place to dial back. Split cards didn't belong in WOE, and postulating this as a signpost isn't at all what we were looking for.

As a card in general, in a vacuum, I like it a lot; hell, I'd even go so far as to say that it would play just fine in the WOE archetypes. It's interesting that you chose to sorta-kinda mirror the uncommon Adventure creature in the sense that there are pseudo-symmetrical effects here. Of course, they're not exact, but having that mirroring is notable by comparison. A couple indestructible effects and an additional edict ain't bad; plus, I can see some situations where Resentment would cause some fun blowouts. Again, I want to stress, it's not bad—but it doesn't fit into WOE, which was part of this contest's challenge: how well you can match and/or argue for a set's needs.

@lich-of-the-golgari — Thrull Processor

Ajani's Pridemate is the first thing that comes to mind. Having a flying Pridemate is a bit of a pain to deal with for sure. Overall, I'd say that this card groks well, but it's not especially exciting to me? Having played a fair amount of Gatecrash back in the day, I remember cards like One Thousand Lashes and Gift of Orzhova, things like that. Man, it was a different era... Obzedat was a bit of a pain, that's for sure. Anyway. I think it's really funny that it starts out as a 0/2. Could you get away with this as just a two-mana creature?

Maybe the gist of this card is defined by that bygone era, honestly. I probably wouldn't first-pick this, but it would be fine in the deck, and it's... I just noticed that it doesn't have flying, dang. If it was flying AND lifelink, well, that's a different story, but something in me was imagining the original thrull. I guess this is what they say about art and wings and making a difference. In a lifegainy set, even without flying, I think that making it big would be okay, although I'd like a little bit more of a mechanical push to make an argument of having this over any other part of a curve or even a cycle, y'know?

@piccadilly-blue — Vargrahn, the Pit Boss

I'm not sure exactly how you interpreted this contest, but let's back up a little bit. The goal was a set mechanic on a signpost. Is this card supposed to be from Ravnica, where detain was originally printed? Because it's giving a Capenna vibe, where you'd be looking at conniving as the main Obscura mechanic. Without a little more information, I honestly don't know what your goal was here, but it doesn't fit within the contest parameters unless you're really stretching the boundaries of what the Azorius were doing on RTR. Honestly, who knows what they were doing, I didn't read the story at that time.

Anyway, I'll give a quick read on this card: in a hypothetical future where detaining was part of SNC, this card kicks butt. I loved detain as a mechanic myself because I was a horrible control player at the time. The fact that you're hypothesizing a detain payoff makes me quite happy. The fact that there are only twelve cards that detain pains me to the core. That's really neither here nor there, though, because this card's clearly not from this timeline. Hey, that's...fine? I suppose? But I'd really like to know what you were thinking with this one in terms of the contest. Also: keep writing art direction. Add some composition notes and that's a 10/10.

@wildcardgamez — Alabaster Armory

It's interesting that you chose this card as a representation of signposts because this card was actually designed before a time where signposts were integrated into set design. Seriously! Some sets were designed for draft after a few years of MTG's creation, but an actual-genuine signpost wouldn't show up in packs until the set after New Phyrexia—original Innistrad. Even then, they weren't multicolor, not until Dark Ascension. Whew. That sent me down a drafting rabbit hole, but the point is that this card is interesting compared to where it would want to be.

As a signpost, though, I don't think I'm sold. It's a contemporary card in a retro shell—unless you were intending for this card to be part of a different set, in which case I really don't know what you were going for. Living weapon being printed before the Phyrexian creature type is a little bit of an odd duck, and if this was indeed from the original New Phyrexia, I'd say that having almost every single creature being Phyrexian would make this more of a Bastion of Remembrance card than anything specifically tied to the type. But B/W equipment might've been an archetype, I dunno, anything was possible back then. What theoretical applications can be applied to a card that's not in conversation with its origin? It's hard to determine.

@xenobladexfan — Maestros Defector (JUDGE PICK)

I'm gonna copy-paste the personal commentary I gave from Discord because a) I can and b) this commentary post is late enough as-is:

I think my favorite part of the card is the intersectionality it opens up between Maestros and the Treasure synergies of the set, actually, which is itself the intersection of Cabaretti and Riveteers. I do feel that between Blitz, Treasures, Casualty and the common labs cycle, you risk a card with exceptional advantage comparatively. For three mana and a 3/3, the ability to generate a card possibly every turn is wild. I'm also thinking of formats where Mayhem Devil is played, yeah? Like, that itself is a smash hit, and while this one isn't a wincon in itself, you can't deny that it's a little pushed. Not that it's a bad call, though, and I feel with a little numbers tweaking it could be easier to get balanced for uncommon. I might also word it to only trigger for the first one you sacrifice during each of YOUR turns, to encourage Blitzing.

I think the flavor is a little awkward for SNC? In a set ostensibly designed to introduce the families, having a card that's a Riveteer- mechanic focus but that's about a defector feels a little odd to me. Plus, something tells me a defector wouldn't last long on the streets. They're good at making things go away. Maybe if the flavor was about why the Maestros don't go after him? But either way, I think that a focus about what the Riveteers ARE would've been stronger, because right now the name suggests a character motivation that isn't delivered in this iteration.

@yd12k — Bloodtithe Harvester

There's a certain boldness in this card's presentation that I appreciate. Overall, I'm not opposed to the original BT, but it seems that there are some redesigns that more than one person wanted to change, eh? Blood tokens were such a good mechanic. Tying up a draining effect with that is a real pain in the butt, but in a good way. Looking at VOW in general, I honestly don't know if this effect is necessary though. There are a few cards that have you gaining life, there's one with an activated ability to drain, there are plenty of cards that repeatably create Blood tokens... It's hard to argue the necessity of this card in the grand scheme of the set compared to an on-board removal spell.

But it's still good, and if there weren't a massive amount of Blood effects in this set already then I'd say this was a thumbs-up. Maybe there was just an oversaturation that's diminishing my good graces. Maybe it's even better than the original and I'm misremembering how good the original was (although Standard would argue differently). I think that having to sacrifice Blood to drain would encourage you to go though your deck even faster, and that's fine as a wincon assuming you can get through with your bloody dudes for damage faster. Chip damage is always perfectly fine and having multiples would be even finer. The question of "what does this card do for me in the larger shell" isn't answered as well as the original BT, though; extra blood making extra removal on an aggro body is a little more directional than the winmore that this version provides.

Have fun with the current contest, phew. Lots to get through.

@abelzumi

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventor's fair #commentary #entries #signpost redesign contest

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inventors-fair · 3 months ago

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Signpost Winners: Going for Gold Again

Our winners this week are @bergdg, @sparkyyoungupstart, and @tanknspank!

@bergdg — Izka, Slizt Clan Shanktail

Bloodthirst Aggo was certainly a powerhouse in its time. I imagine. It was long before my time, I'll tell you that, and it was also a time before the proliferation of uncommon legendary creatures. As it stands, this is one of them with quite an interesting and hard-to-deal-with board presence, but as far as creatures go, I think it's just plain strong. You do have to have quite a bit of bloodthirst to get it going, but what I like is that it strongly would've rewarded the color combo because, well, it was a set with Orzhov and Izzet as its other main colors; this slots you firmly into strictly bloodthirst or at least strongly rewards that.

In this day and age the ability to put a lot of counters on a lot of creatures makes the pinging pretty lethal once you get there. An environment strictly based around hurting this kind of effect wouldn't be too hard to deal with, though, because it's designed to be balanced around bloodthirst being in the set at all. The lethality on a first-striker can be a pain, yeah, but there's no nail-biting contention, and I'd say that it also raises players' awareness of precombat effect necessity. A modern take on old-school clashing!

@sparkyyoungupstart — Blackmail Courier

This card is here because I really, really hope that it works. I mean, it groks, but good lord was Cipher a mechanic that had a lot of baggage to go with it. Groking how to encode cards was fairly easy, or at least it was in my opinion. Conceptually it was awesome. There was always so much reminder text that it made things hard to work with for sure... But hell, the creatures needed to be good, and they needed to have some way to outpace the Boros nonsense that was happening around that time in limited. Deathtouch is a great way to make sure that the massive jerks on the other side of the table had to think twice.

What I really like is how deathtouch discourages blocking but at the same time the encoding makes it necessary. You're not going to get too many encoded creatures unless you're getting a huge amount of cipher-to-other-spell ratio, and depending on what those encoded cards are, this turns a matter of "can I trade up" into "you will deal with me." The choice of damnations is excellently done, and I also love the name that you came up with for this creature. It takes a second for the tongue-in-cheek to fully hit.

@tanknspank — Stromkirk Sommelier

Look, I'm going to level with y'all—I actually liked a lot of the signposts that some folks chose to replace, and more than that, I really did like Bloodtithe Harvester (and so did a lot of standard players at the time, though not for Vampires). I think this card is still really good, though, and I want to start with the fact that mechanically, it's just plain fine. This was a weird format that did tend to make a lot of Blood tokens fairly easily, but having the ability to draw blood from Vampire tokens as well—I'll give you that that's fairly novel. It's actually really funny that Edgar and Sorin were the only cards to actually make Vampire tokens on their own, but regardless, Blood was valuable enough that I'll give this card a pass.

The flavor is where this one really shines through for me. What I like about the connection is that this sommelier is the one who's more interested in blood than the characters around them, and a) that means that they're going to produce more blood to one-up the other blood glasses brought to them, and b) whenever a new unnamed vampire comes around, boom, here they are with a bottle to show off. I think that that aspect is pretty funny to think about, and the flavor text there is just the right kind of dry horror to send a shiver down the spine while bringing a smirk to the fangs—er, face. I like my cards how I like my blood: dark, and also my own, and also usually red unless I'm feeling fancy.

Runners? Oh yeah, coming up <3

@abelzumi

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventor's fair #commentary #winners #signpost redesign contest

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inventors-fair · 3 months ago

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Opening Number: Signpost Entries ~

@bergdg — Izka, Slizt Clan Shanktail @bread-into-toast — Momir VII, Cloned Colonist @corporalotherbear — Vengeful Fighter @cthulhusaurusrex — Corpsejack Source @dimestoretajic — Glitterseed Scrounger @feyd-rautha-apologist — Corpseroot Mentor @hypexion — Mercury Host Stalker @i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Master Forager @izzet-always-r-versus-u — Gratitude/Resentment @lich-of-the-golgari — Thrull Processor @misterstingyjack — Skybound Skirmisher @nine-effing-hells — Feaster Upon Heroes @piccadilly-blue — Vargrahn, the Pit Boss @reaperfromtheabyss — Scaleblessed Guardian @sparkyyoungupstart — Blackmail Courier @tanknspank — Stromkirk Sommelier @wildcardgamez — Alabaster Armory @xenobladexfan — Maestros Defector @yd12k — Bloodtithe Harvester

I'm seeing some recurring themes here. Well, on with the show, and thank you for all your entries!

@abelzumi

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventor's fair #entries #signpost redesign contest

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inventors-fair · 3 months ago

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Signpost Runners-Up: Strong Contenders

Our runners-up this week are @misterstingyjack, @nine-effing-hells, and @reaperfromtheabyss!

@misterstingyjack — Skybound Skirmisher

I'll concede that I didn't really remember how important cycling was to Ikoria until now. Some part of me wants to begrudge this card for being a cop-out because Cycling is now a deciduous (if not evergreen) mechanic (I honestly forget), but no, Ikoria really did care about that. Ah well, down the hatch. I don't feel actually judgemental—this card would be perfect in the Zenith Flare environments and I think that it encourages itself to be played rather than cycled. The flexibility is there for sure, and I like the carefully chosen wording.

Did we necessarily need a flying-hasty thing in a set with that little faerie dragon card? Maybe this would be the one to replace that, but I digress. There was a kind of spellslinging Ketria deck and a cycling Jeskai deck if I recall, and I wonder if that overlap (plus the fact that this card slots well into both) would be too much. You can cast a spell with cycling, bump the spell-guys and this, swing in for a million, etc. But the only thing I personally knew about Ikoria limited was that the cycling deck was fairly oppressive, and I guess the question is whether or not this strong flyer would push it over the edge, or just be an awesome piece of tech within that shell. I'll go for the latter, because it's fun.

@nine-effing-hells — Feaster Upon Heroes

These kind of effects are always welcome. Personally, Theros had its random monstrous shell, but the fact that there were no major payoffs for it did feel a little awkward in this day and age. Maybe I played a little too much of it though because I actually don't remember it being that bad despite the fact that the "signpost" was a destruction spell where literally all the other ones were creatures. Was it because it was the most creature-based combo that they thought they didn't need it? I dunno, but either way, I like this card all the same. "It's a messy eater" is an awesome line there, and I like how that really would set the tone for the artist. Hey, artists reading this: I recommend giving this one an exercise.

What I also like is the fact that any red or green heroic cards that you have would gain the trample if they have counter-based Heroic triggers; those cards were pretty hefty in this set and in the block as a whole, though mostly in white. Maybe it would be a bit of a flavor fail, but this card knows its niche and doesn't care about the rest of anything at all. Monstrosity wasn't a mechanic that maybe necessarily needed a signpost of its own, I think, because the gameplay was big and stompy, and there was a lot of trample (or at least it felt like it) in the set in general. I think that the strength of this card is fine enough as a body with a little extra evasion to make it count as a better aggro signpost.

@reaperfromtheabyss — Scaleblessed Guardian

Now we're really getting into the territory of me being a MTG boomer, because I really enjoyed the cycle of signpost dragons from DTK, and replacing them with a dog makes me cross my arms. That said, there could've been two multicolor cards, and that would've been probably fine, right? The set could handle it; the block certainly could as a whole even better. Bolstering could've used a few extra steps, perhaps, as I didn't feel that it was the absolute strongest in such an aggressive and/or evasive format. I will say that I didn't draft as much DTK as I did KTK, but that's another story. This card's slightly different game plan sets it apart.

Warrior tokens to get underneath the extra bolstering can put a lot more bodies onto the board than before, and that can match up nicely with the warriors and larger bodies of Atarka's brood while also letting the evasion of Silumgar and Ojutai kinda match it, y'know? Know your strengths and weaknesses. I think the second ability groks a little weirdly, but that's just the best way to put it considering the effect that you were going for. In today's day and age I feel that there would be some kind of built-in bolster to ensure that players knew just what the card did—like, an activated Bolster effect with the trigger then put on afterwards. As a support card, though, I think it's perfectly reasonable and a good flavor demonstration of what dragon scales are supposed to do.

Hoo boy. So. We're opening earlier than usual for a F&B tournament, and at time of writing I'm rushing to get out of the house. Commentary is again going to be later in the day if not in the week, but we're getting there. Thanks for all your patience and once again for your entries. Discuss away in the meantime, and I'll get back to y'all after the tournaments are through!

@abelzumi

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventor's fair #commentary #entries #runners up #signpost redesign contest

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