#teaxch

[inventors-fair]

Typal Examples and More

Many thanks to Storm for pointing these cards out, but there are a few more cards from MTG history that have properties we're looking for in this contest:

The thing about Dragon's Approach and Slime Against Humanity is that they also have the unlimited-number clause; considering that those are half the examples we have, it might be a good idea to stray away from this constraint specifically. But Step Through is a phenomenal example because the Wizards in MH2 were...varied, to say the least. They were all situated in Grixis colors (UBR) and looked for a variety of archetypes. Maybe you had a token-making Wizard, maybe it helped with Delirium, or maybe discarding Step Through allows you to cast your Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar that you picked up P1P1!

I'll also note that tokens are an interesting combination to look at. When you're browsing sets, are there any creature types that don't appear on tokens that you could make tokens for? Would that combination of token-plus-type impact someone's deck choices or card selection?

Regardless, we've been digging up a couple of examples, and want to show you what we've cooked up—

@loreholdlesbian designed a nightmarish combat trick from Ikoria that combines counters, menace-matters, and the Nightmare creature type into one horrific attack. The power of the effect makes the flavor of the Nightmare typing all the more effective—i.e. it's the creatures that are born from the psyche that are best at navigating the psychic terrain. This could just put a menace counter on any creature, but at common that would be far too easy to jam any one-mana creature with this spell; Nightmares matter here.

@teaxch brought the idea for an artifact to the table, one from the modern Amonkhet that looks to accompany the rebuilders of the world. I shaped the flavor for this one with some minor tweaks including the cycling, but most of the time this card would be used for either an artifact shell (to represent the rebuilding) or a sorcery-based tempo deck (to represent questions as opposed to the instant-speed answers). Having a Sphinx in your hand to cast would just be an added benefit that might be an extra boon for any Sphinx Commander players.

Actually, that's another note: sometimes these limited cards will significantly affect Commander! Keep that in mind for how you're designing. Maybe your card would possibly help in limited but definitely help in Commander.

And as a last note, I came up with an Ixalanian card that I should add an art description to, but I wanted to get this post up first and foremost. Scouts on Ixalan can be found across multiple groups, but if the future of Ixalan perhaps doesn't involve the heavy typal and features a variety of outcasts and explorers together, this card can represent why you might need a specialist in your party.

Hope this is a useful resource! Have fun, everyone. @abelzumi

[tumblhurgoyf]

lookingupanddown

@tumblhurgoyf wouldn't a Phyrexian werewolf both tap into the sentiment of Phyrexian fatigue people were talking about during WAR, and also not play like regular werewolves because they don't transform back?

With regard to fatigue, was that a thing with Phyrexians? Most of what I’ve seen has been that the story could have been elongated a bit, and certainly I haven’t seen anything close to the level of disdain following Eldrazi Winter. Like it wasn’t just the three set thing, but that Eldrazi were so dominant that they needed bans that Wizards was slow to put in place. I don’t think a one-off werewolf would have anything to do with fatigue on its own.

With regard to how they’d play, yeah they play differently than normal werewolves and I think players legitimately mostly don’t like that but as @teaxch​ mentions above these give you good places to sink mana and make plays in a werewolf deck without casting spells. They’re legitimately good designs for the deck they’re intended for despite not playing like normal werewolves.

Was there ever any consideration for making a Phyrexian werewolf in March of the Machine?

We did something similar in Eldritch Moon (Werewolf on front and mutated version on back) and it didn't go over well.

[elixandre]

i used to teach this one class with another teacher and i would take the class over once a week from him. well i had to be moved around bc of another coworker talking to our boss and saying hey, literally no one helps me down here except for jessica and i want her with me in the afternoons every day kthxbai so my schedule got moved around bc of it

well one of my students from that class gave me this piece of paper from one of their quiz books and told me "teacher a (a for his name) drew this for you!!!" and i opened it up and it was a bunch of hearts and she started giggling and i'm all "lol whaaaaat" and i was like "are you sure it's not for you??" and she goes, "no!! teacher!!!!"

and teacher a came back and i flash his little love note and go, "look at what i got" and he burst out laughing and goes, "oh, you got that, did you??"

oh and a different student during class today asked me, "teacher jessica, you like teacher l (l for his name)??" and MY BABY (this student really is my baby tho like straight up he can be an annoying shit sometimes but i looooove him 😭) and i'm all, "why eason?? you think i like teacher l??" and he's all, "yeahh. i see you and teacher l go home" which must've been ages ago bc it's only once in a blue moon that i walk with teacher l to his bus stop on my way to the mrt station agsjsldldjs

[quocamerarium]

HAHAHA I TOLD ON YOU IDIOT AND NOW THE EMPEROR IS ANNOYED ATR YOU FOR SAYING YOU MADE THE EMPIRE. LOSER, THAT WILL TEAXCH YOU!

Amazing, you -actually- managed to turn anonymous message on.

[inventors-fair]

Art’s Second Chance

Artist: Heather Hudson

Sometimes awesome art ends up on weak or forgettable cards. This week, you’re going to give that art a second chance in the spotlight.

Find an awesome piece of official Magic art that’s on a less memorable card (or token, scheme, etc.) and design a new card for that art.

Please include in your submission the name and printing of the card whose art you used. (E.g., Baleful Stare, 7th Edition)

Make sure that your submitted card credits the original artist

Additional Information

Submissions will be evaluated based on the overall design of the card and on how well it makes use of the art.

The art does need to have appeared on a Magic card or card-adjacent object; no fanart this week.

It’s not a requirement that the card makes use of the art in a particularly novel or creative way, although it might make your submission more interesting, and an exceptionally clever recontextualization of a piece of art will make your submission stand out.

It’s up to you to decide what counts as a “less memorable” card. You won’t be penalized for choosing art from a card that happened to be a Standard powerhouse a decade before you started playing, but the spirit of the contest is to put overlooked art in a new light, so you should avoid choosing a card that you know is widely-played and well-known.

Unless you specify otherwise, it will be assumed that your card is designed for a Standard-legal expansion.

The new card should ideally be a brand new design, not just a cheaper or stronger version of the existing card.

Submissions will not be evaluated based on how weak or obscure the card originally bearing the art is; neither the judge nor the participants are expected to have encyclopedic knowledge of how strong or prominent each of Magic’s thousands of cards are or were in every format. However, the spirit of the contest is that you should try to choose awesome art from a card that’s more likely to have been forgotten. You are on the honor system here.

Making Your Card

If you do not have access to Magic Set Editor or to other tools that can be used to produce mockups of cards, you can also ask somebody in the Discord server to help you produce a mockup. If you have no other options, you can submit an artless card, and just include the name and printing of the card with the art you wish to use in your submission notes.

I’m very much looking forward to everybody’s entries this week.

- Mod @teaxch​

Submit your cards ~> HERE <~

[inventors-fair]

Art’s Second Chance: Winner’s Circle

Congratulations to our winners this week! This was a very solid week on the whole, and it was very difficult to narrow things down to just three.

@wolkemesser​ - Kipamu League Rout-Guard (Entangler)

The Kipamu League is a real lore element, and I believe that it’s appropriate here. I like this card because not only does it have a unique ability, but its rebel typing isn’t incidental - this is a creature that you specifically want to put onto the battlefield at instant speed. Its existence in any environment that has the rebel mechanic in it significantly changes the calculus of attacking into any rebel board with open mana and the ability to call up a four-mana creature. If anything, the ability to repeatedly call up something that often does a reasonable impression of Settle the Wreckage (and in some circumstances is better, as it can do it again) might make Rebel decks a little too comfortable in aggro matchups. The card is also no slouch even when played normally, or if it was in an environment where rebels did not use their signature tutoring mechanic. I believe that this is certainly among the more pushed of the entries this week, but the lack of similar cards makes it hard to evaluate its exact power level. (It makes Foriysian Interceptor look awful, but there’s an enormous amount of headroom above that card.)

I went back and forth on whether the last ability is a solidly white ability. White can certainly destroy attacking creatures; this isn’t doing anything substantially different in practical terms from what Angel of the Dire Hour and Settle the Wreckage do. Where things feel thorny is that when white destroys a subset of creatures, it’s almost always larger and more expensive creatures, not exclusively smaller ones. (Although there are isolated exceptions.) White also hasn’t gotten the “destroy anybody I block” ability on creature in some time. This is probably an acceptable bend, in that it’s not seriously undercutting white’s weaknesses, if it’s even a bend at all, but it’s at least a bit of a twist.

The art re-use here is pretty literal, and the card even shares the ability to block extra creatures with the effect granted by Entangler.

Small wording note: I believe Spitfire Handler’s wording is the way that creatures refer their own power or toughness when comparing it to another creature’s, although Okk suggests that there may be some flexibility there, depending on the exact nature of the ability.

@illharg-the-rave-boar​ - Manic Glee - (Buccaneer's Bravado) 

This card grew on me a lot over the course of the evaluation. A six-mana aura that doesn’t generate any immediate advantage is clearly a huge ask, and the card needs you to have several nonland permanents in play when you cast it to be worth much. However, the breadth of the trigger - which is almost unprecedented in Magic - opens up a lot of avenues for the card. The overall power level is very much on the safe end of things, but the high end is high enough to be exciting, and not wanting to push the envelope too severely with a card that brings annihilator to mind is probably reasonable.

@fractured-infinity​ - Aspect of the Moon (Hunter’s Insight) 

Like Call of the Full Moon, this card interprets the Werewolf mechanic as an aura, but leans more fully into it by incorporating both halves of the mechanic, which is clever. The base rate on the card is very aggressive and it’s difficult to answer permanently, but it’s also something than almost any deck can get rid of temporarily without necessarily needing to spend any resources, and it’s ultimately vulnerable in many of the same ways that any other beneficial aura is. (Historically, the bar for beneficial auras to have an impact on constructed is very high.) The art works very well with this effect; in addition to the wolves, there are aspects that suggest time and transformation. There’s an argument that this card may be a bit swingy - if unanswered, it can end games extremely quickly - but it’d hardly be the swingiest card in most environment. Tiny formatting note - the C in “Enchant creature you control” is lowercase.

(Judge’s Note - Terese Nielsen, who illustrated Hunter’s Insight, is a controversial artist, to a degree that Wizards of the Coast has ceased commissioning new art from her, with the last reprints featuring her art appearing this fall. I ultimately decided that the fairest thing for participants would be to evaluate submissions for this week independently of who the artists are.)

-------------------

It’s been tons of fun watching the submissions roll in this week! There were so many great entries, and narrowing them down was very difficult - lots of cards were in my circle of picks at various points throughout the process. The full list of entries will be up shortly, and I hope to have the rest of the commentary up soon!

- @teaxch​

[inventors-fair]

Art’s Second Chance - Group Commentary

There were a lot of great submissions this week, with every submission having some interesting things going for it! Let’s move on to the commentary! (It’s below the cut!)

@shandylamb​ - Essence Mage (Aura Extraction)

This is a very appealing design, and very strong as a potential three-for-one for just three mana. Flashing in a first-striking blocker isn’t a shabby backup plan, either. Limiting your ability to cast the spell to the lifespan of the creature is also a reasonable check on it.

The first strike may sort of be overkill on the card; I’m not sure if it was included to help make the card feel more red, but the card is already fairly potent without it.

Small formatting notes: Flash usually appears on its own line, and only the first word in a string of keywords is capitalized. Instant and sorcery don’t need to be capitalized either. “As long as you control ~, you may cast that card, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast that spell” may be slightly more standard formatting.

Scorpio System - Queen of Putrefaction (Crawling Filth)

The delta on this card between the best case and the worst case is quite large; you need to be sacrificing several creatures to it for it to be okay, but past that it quickly becomes potentially game-ending. The home of this effect isn’t well-defined in the color pie, as there aren’t many cards that tap down multiple lands for an indefinite amount of time (for good reason). Black and green are plausible fits, as they can destroy lands, although generally on the rare occasions where mass land tapping has been a thing, it’s been in white or blue.

I do like that this design also produces a fairly large body in the circumstances where it does shut down the game, which can often serve as a finisher. The art is also a great fit for this effect.

@starch255​ - Lord of Lightning (Frantic Purification)

I’m not totally certain exactly how the mechanics of the card are supposed to work; choosing a number uniformly at random between zero and the number of legal targets and then choosing that many of them at random and flipping a coin for each possible target both result in each target having a 50% chance of taking damage, but produce different distributions. The former is a little closer to what the text of the card suggests, but would be something of a hassle to actually do in play. Either way, it doesn’t hugely affect the overall power level of the card.

This is a very funny use of this art, and recasts a piece that isn’t inherently comedic into a comedic piece of art without undercutting it.

@emmypupcake - Deduplicate (Stitch in Time)

This is an excellent use of this art, reconceptualizing what it represents while still making perfect sense.

Blue is a bit of an odd home for this effect, although Leyline of Singularity provides some precedent, and every color has gotten a little bit of duplicate punishment here and there over the years. That said, the core effect is creature destruction, which is very unusual in blue; I think this may border on a break, depending on how one feels about Leyline of Singularity’s place in the color pie. The implementation also feels a bit less blue than Leyline of Singularity, which is arguably nodding toward’s blue’s ability to mess with types.

The power level also feels a bit low; while it has the potential to be a many-for-one effect, especially against tokens, and can bypass hexproof and indestructible, it feels pretty weak compared to something like Winnow, which was not particularly remarkable. (It also compares poorly to Maelstrom Pulse, but that’s an exceptionally powerful card, so it’s not necessary to measure up to that standard to be good.)

An interesting twist on this card might be to allow you to choose a creature not controlled by the player you target; that would give it synergy with clone effects. As is, it’s a narrow enough hoser that I’m not sure where you’d fit it into a deck. (Even as a sideboard card against token strategies, there are probably other options.)

@ignorantturtlegaming​ - Form of the Leviathan (Amugaba)

This is a cool out-of-the-box use of this art. While there’s nothing that specifically suggests transformation into a leviathan as opposed to just a leviathan-like creature, that’s true to a degree of the original Form of the Dragon art.

Much like Form of the Dragon, this card is something that certain decks just won’t be able to beat, but it trades FotD’s clock for a much more challenging one-turn damage threshold to meet, especially given that the card will be able to lock down all but the widest boards after the first turn.

I suspect that many games that involve this card will tend to drag a bit, depending on its owner’s own board presence and what answers, if any the other player has.

@ghost31415926535 - Rhorkahn, the Unified (Sigiled Paladin)

This card is certainly exciting; tutoring for two cards every time it attacks is very powerful, even with some deckbuilding restrictions, and its ability to find additional copies of itself makes it hard to permanently deal with. (Legendary is a very important check on this card’s power.) It’s hard for a four mana card in three colors that doesn’t generate any immediate value to be too powerful, but this certainly is a strong effect if it gets going. Making the cat the knight is a clever inversion.

@misterstingyjack​ - Lummi, Formless Friend (Shapeshifter Token) 

Partner cards that interact with what they’re partnered with is an interesting design vein, and I like that this art feels like an actual friend. A card that only works if it’s your commander is a bit limited, but they’ve certainly printed cards before that make more sense as commanders than as part of the 99. (The entry specified that this card is for a Commander Legends-type set, where I think it makes a lot of sense.) The ability to sort of double-down on a single partner is also powerful and interesting, and the decision to make it a 1/1 rather than a full clone is also an interesting drawback.

This card is a bit of a design risk, as it potentially limits the space for very expensive partner creatures with powerful effects, but that’s probably nothing that the commander format can’t handle. Partner is an extremely powerful mechanic, and while  the breadth that a deck gets out of having two functionally different commanders likely often outweighs the benefits of being able to double down, but this is definitely a card that with the potential for impact at many levels of the format.

@nine-effing-hells​ - Yaran-Shesh, the Keeper of Silence (Gloom Sower) 

The first line of text is a somewhat risky one, but the ship has largely already sailed on it, and this card is somewhat safer than other cards with that text due to its high cost. The most comparable precedent for this card may be Novablast Wurm, but this comes with both a greater threat of coming down early and a greater risk of getting blown out. (As you lose your creatures first.) That it keeps creatures from being played productively effectively sells the hopelessness angle.

@milkandraspberry​ - Corpse Bride (Veiled Shade) 

I’m not completely sure that I completely understand the story being told by this card, but the flavor text is strong and evocative. 

While this can technically be a very large creature for just three mana with a little work, I don’t think that giving it a creature keyword or a slightly better base body would be out of line. 

I also think that the triggered ability could be simplified a bit, if it only works on angel cards. Angels tend to, with few exceptions, have pretty close to equal power and toughness; the card could just always check the power of the exiled card without affecting its overall power level too much.

@hypexion​ - Angel of Lamentations (Angel of Flight Alabaster) 

This is a great complete package, making great use of the art. It’s not a huge creative departure from either the concept of Angel of Flight Alabaster or the mechanics on existing cards like Ghoultree, but it makes a lot of sense together. At rare, given that it specifically counts creature cards in the graveyard, it could probably go to 5WW, but that’s very minor.

@dabudder​ - Peace-seeking Bracheweft (Briarhorn) 

This card exists in the space of being a brutal anti-aggro card in what would presumably be an archetype that’s already very strong against aggro decks, making it fairly polarizing. This is a great use of the Briarhorn art, which does have pacifist vibes in its interactions with the little birds.

@abzanhero​ - True Righteousness (Soul Parry) 

This card attempts to overcome the inherent weakness of auras with just brutal raw power. Even considering the limited range of legal targets, this card is almost unbeatable against many decks if it resolves, and if you’re on the play then your opponent may have as little as two mana with which to remove whatever you target with this before it does so. On the flip side, it still has many of the weaknesses that auras traditionally do.

This is a very nice use of this art, and does what I was hoping many entries would do (and what many entries did), which is to call attention to a cool piece of art that folks may not have seen.

@reaperfromtheabyss​ - Corpsedance Duo (Grave Exchange) 

There were many cards this week that interpreted a creature card’s art as a noncreature or vice versa, and, of them, this is one of the biggest reaches - it’s somewhat unusual for creature art, which makes the final product more striking. 

Mechanically, I feel like this card has a lot going for it. The second ability has never appeared in that precise form on a creature card before, and it’s a nice combo with the first ability without that combo specifically representing a huge spike in the card’s power level. The substantial mana cost on the ability hampers most of the easy combos you’d otherwise get out of this as well. This card only narrowly missed the winners’ circle.

@demimonde-semigoddess​ - Demon of Darkening Skies (Archdemon of Paliano) 

This card is a really cool concept, but I feel like it’s held back by the fact that in almost all circumstances, your opponents will just sacrifice lands. By the time you’re casting a six-mana creature spell, a land will often be pretty expendable for them, and it denies giving Demon of Darkening skies any protection. It’s still a decent card as a flying trampler that forces them to lose something on ETB, but the unique part of the ability will rarely come into play.

@sorustyitshines - Angel of Mourning (Defiling Tears, Original Full Art) 

I love this full art, and the card itself is powerful - a conditional Ravenous Chupacabra with an easier mana cost (and playable in monowhite) and substantial additional upside. In that regard, it might even be a little bit too powerful. The total package definitely services the art better than Defiling Tears does, and the flavor text is very clever.

@tmstage​ - Truesight Maskmaker (Agent of Masks) 

Very clever use of this art. I’m not certain whether “instead it doesn’t” is intended to keep the permanent from entering the battlefield at all, or allowing it to enter the battlefield, but not as a copy of anything, but the latter is cleaner rules-wise, and because most of the time a permanent would enter the battlefield as a copies of a thing, that permanent is a 0/0 creature or an otherwise blank permanent, this effectively blanks most such cards either way.

You note that this card is designed for a Commander supplemental product, and it certainly makes the most sense in a format where clone effects are fairly common. That said, this is a quite narrow hoser, and could likely have a more competitive statline for its cost. Hoser cards also tend to be fewer colors, to increase the number of decks they can be played in, although that’s far from a hard rule.

I very much like the flavor text and the overall theming.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes​ - Dungeon Follower - (Pay No Heed) 

Improbably, this week saw two entries built around the creature types used as part of Zendikar Rising’s Party mechanic, both designed to punish other players for using them. Counting creatures that your opponents control in general is relatively lightly used design space, and while there’s probably good reasons it doesn’t turn up too too often, this is an interesting application. (I’m assuming that, for the sake of this mechanic, “the enemy’s party” is defined by the rules to mean something like “the largest party of the parties of your opponents.”)

Given that it explicitly uses the Party mechanic, this card presumably exists in an environment where a substantial fraction of the creatures are one of the specified types, but even then, the power level on this card is fairly low. That’s totally fine for a common, however. The card could probably be mono-blue; while counting enemy creatures to determine your size doesn’t feel super blue, it doesn’t really have a defined home anywhere, and I don’t know that this card is powerful enough to justify the asks that multicolor cards make in a limited environment.

@gollumni​ - Death of a Comrade - (Funeral March) 

The second of the two cards this week that punish your opponents for playing cards of the Party creature types, this is a savage three-for-one removal much of the time. In an environment with Party (which I’m assuming this exists in), this will generally have a target of one of the appropriate types, and isn’t blank even if it doesn’t. This is probably a bit slow for constructed, but always makes the cut in limited.

@koth-of-the-hammerpants - Striking Enlightenment - (Idle Thoughts) 

Of all of the submissions this week, this card was one of the hardest to evaluate. The idea of a card where the Overload cost is a drawback because it does something that you wouldn’t want to hit all targets is an interesting ones, and very Modern Horizons-y.

On the play, this card has the potential to just end the game when cast on turn two, as it will often leave an instant-light opponent with one land in play and four random cards from their deck, which is a game-losing position much of the time. As this effectively undoes the mulligan process while mulliganing down to just a few cards, there’s a very good chance of mana flood or screw happening from such a position. This does carry some risk for the caster, but the caster at least has the benefit of getting to play a second land first. Ticking the overload cost up to three almost completely solves this issue, however.

@snugz​ - Faithful’s Respite - (Angelic Curator) 

Up until a few days ago, I would have said that this card was a bit of an issue because they don’t make cards that are just better than basic lands - that lacking a basic land type and being non-basic weren’t considered sufficient drawbacks to justify a land having upside over a basic land. They’ve since demonstrated a shift in that philosophy with the Pathway lands in Zendikar Rising. That said, I think this clean level of upside on what’s otherwise as good as a plains may be pushing things a bit. Lands don’t need a ton of upside to be playable over basics even with small downside, and this card significantly changes the way white decks play in formats that it’s in.

@shakeszx - Seedsinger - (Renewal) 

The power level on this card is high despite adding the mana at a somewhat awkward time purely for the draw power it represents. Generally, cards don’t add mana during your upkeep unless the card is an odd gimmick like Braid of Fire, although there’s nothing about doing so that isn’t functional. 

@dimestoretajic​ - Repay Evil (Evaporate) 

This is one of the most interesting submissions from an art-repurposing standpoint, as it’s a white spell that depicts a spell being cast by a character that is very far from how white-aligned characters are usually coded in Magic - it’s an orc or goblin-like character in dark robes. (That’s not to say that there aren’t white-aligned Magic characters that are slightly monstrous and wear dark robes, but it’s a less common look.) On one hand, it’s a bit jarring, but it’s also a bit imagination-stirring.

The technique of making a permanent extra-vulnerable by making it an aura when it otherwise has no reason to be isn’t one that Magic uses often, but it’s reasonable here, and the flavor text does a lot of work in tying the whole package together.

@socialpoison​ - Oath of Service (Commander’s Authority) 

Commander’s Authority was one of the cards that inspired this contest in the first place, so I was really excited to see it here. I like that the effect chosen is one that has above-average synergy with the Rancor recursion clause. 

@mardu-lesbian​ - Daring Defiance (Thunderous Might)

This card feels a smidge odd in red and perhaps odder in black, but the most interesting thing about this card to me is the decision to make it a sorcery, rather than an instant. The “obvious” version of this card is for it to be an instant, because that makes it much easier to engineer situations where you loot for a larger value than two, in several ways. Making it a sorcery makes it significantly more puzzle-y to try to get that extra value off.

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I had a lot of fun with the designs this week, and I’m looking forward to the next! I believe that I’m the last of your guest judges in the rotation, so I think we may be getting back to your regular hosts next week. Looking forward to it!

- @teaxch​

[inventors-fair]

Art’s Second Chance Entries 3/3

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes - Dungeon Follower - (Pay No Heed) 

@gollumni - Death of a Comrade - (Funeral March) 

@koth-of-the-hammerpants - Striking Enlightenment - (Idle Thoughts) 

@snugz - Faithful’s Respite - (Angelic Curator) 

@shakeszx - Seedsinger - (Renewal) 

@dimestoretajic - Repay Evil (Evaporate) 

@illharg-the-rave-boar - Manic Glee - (Buccaneer's Bravado) 

@socialpoison - Oath of Service (Commander’s Authority) 

@mardu-lesbian - Daring Defiance (Thunderous Might)

[inventors-fair]

Art’s Second Chance - Finding Card Art

When making a mockup of a card that will only be displayed digitally, you don’t necessarily need exceptionally high-resolution art. However, starting with the best copy of the art that you can manage will make the final product look a little nicer.

Especially for newer or more prominent cards, you can often find a nice-resolution version of a card's art by searching Google images for the card’s name, along with the artist’s name and/or the word “art.”

Websites such as http://www.artofmtg.com/ and https://mtgpics.com/ also contain high-quality images of many pieces of card art from recent sets. Visiting an artist’s personal webpage, DeviantArt account, or ArtStation account can sometimes also yield high-quality versions of their art.

Failing that, however, you can get a decent-sized image of most cards through Scryfall tagger.

From a card’s main Scryfall page, you can open that card’s Scryfall tagger page.

Once on the tagger page, you can click on the art for a slightly larger version of it. This isn’t ideal, but is sometimes larger than any other art available. Scryfall tagger is also useful for finding art that features specific elements, such as Tamiyo, or Skull Helmets. (Note that these tags are added by users, so they’re not necessarily exhaustive.)

The niceness of the copy of the art you’re using isn’t relevant to the contest, but this is sometimes the only way to get a hold of art that’s any higher-resolution than Gatherer card size.

- @teaxch​

[inventors-fair]

Art’s Second Chance - Example Cards

Hi everybody! It’s been fun to watch the submissions come in this week, and I’m looking forward to more.

The nature of this week’s contest is such that it’s not possible to really provide “canon” examples of cards that meet its criteria. After all, Wizards does not generally recycle old art for new cards. Here’s a few examples of cards that would fit the bill for this week.

Adam Rex’s Wicked Pact art from Portal features a style and composition in the art that’s rarely used today. While the original is a totally reasonable effect, the circumstances of its printing mean that it’s not widely played, and I don’t think it’s a card many players have ever seen. Here, the art is repurposed for a secret bidding spell. This sort of art is sufficiently abstract that I think there’s lots of directions that you could go with it.

More so than for the other examples, this card’s design was influenced by its art; all three figures are affected by the flames, which influenced the decision to build the mechanics such that all players lose the life they secretly bid. I believe that trying to build too closely around the art can lead to questionable places - it’s ultimately more important that a card plays well than that it perfectly matches what’s going on in the art, but being inspired by art can sometimes lead to more interesting designs.

One small quibble that’s possible is that the art could potentially read as a bit red, but I don’t think it’s out of bounds on a black card. (It was originally used on one.) The card also has room for flavor text, but I couldn’t come up with anything I liked.

Rakdos Firewheeler, with Slawomir Maniak art, is likely the best-known of the origin cards used in examples from this week, and thus isn’t a particularly exemplary example on that front. It’s a recent card that served as an incentive to play Rakdos in limited, even though it has never really made it into any constructed format to the best of my knowledge.

The story this card tries to tell is that as long as you keep “performing,” you keep your momentum and can continue to get the benefits, but if you miss a step, you “fall” and the performance is over. The figure is fairly small in the art, so it reads reasonably as an enchantment.

This is another example where there’s arguably some tension between the art and the mechanics; the second ability is a bit novel in red, with planeswalker abilities that add mana being probably the closest precedent. The art doesn’t lend itself to this being a red-green card very well, however.

Another card that uses Portal art, this one features Ted Naifeh’s Flux. (Unlike Wicked Pact, however, Flux had a printing in a normal expert expansion from around the same time.) Flux is a blue card, but I felt that this art worked okay for a black card as well. I’m curious to see if there are any interesting color shifts among the submissions. 

- @teaxch​

[inventors-fair]

It’s not exactly forgettable, but since it’s basically only there as an emergency button for drafting, would Prismatic Piper’s art count?

I’d say that’s fine.

There’s not really an objective way to evaluate what counts as “less memorable,” and I plan to trust each participant’s judgment about what they think qualifies. (Although if somebody uses something like Alpha Black Lotus art, I’ll probably comment on how it’s pushing the spirit of the contest.) It’s important to me that nobody feels like they need to share my precise sense of what counts as forgettable.

Prismatic Piper is a little bit of an odd case in that it’s currently probably as visible as it’s ever going to be, as one of the earliest peeks at an upcoming set, but I think it’s reasonably within bounds, and certainly qualifies as exciting art that could be on a more exciting card.

- @teaxch

[inventors-fair]

Art’s Second Chance Entries - 1/3

@nine-effing-hells - Yaran-Shesh, the Keeper of Silence (Gloom Sower)

@shandylamb - Essence Mage (Aura Extraction)

Scorpio System - Queen of Putrefaction (Crawling Filth)

@starch255 - Lord of Lightning (Frantic Purification)

@emmypupcake - Deduplicate (Stitch in Time)

@ignorantturtlegaming - Form of the Leviathan (Amugaba)

@fractured-infinity - Aspect of the Moon (Hunter’s Insight)

@ghost31415926535 - Rhorkahn, the Unified (Sigiled Paladin)

@misterstingyjack - Lummi, Formless Friend (Shapeshifter Token) 

[inventors-fair]

Art’s Second Chance Entries 2/3

@reaperfromtheabyss - Corpsedance Duo (Grave Exchange)

@milkandraspberry - Corpse Bride (Veiled Shade) 

@wolkemesser - Kipamu League Rout-Guard (Entangler) 

@hypexion - Angel of Lamentations (Angel of Flight Alabaster) 

@dabudder - Peace-seeking Bracheweft (Briarhorn) 

@abzanhero - True Righteousness (Soul Parry) 

@tmstage - Truesight Maskmaker (Agent of Masks)

@demimonde-semigoddess - Demon of Darkening Skies (Archdemon of Paliano) 

@sorustyitshines - Angel of Mourning (Defiling Tears, Original Full Art) 

[inventors-fair]

Media Mayhem - IP IP Hooray Examples

Hey, folks! Here are some lovely examples for this week from our Judges and Mods!

@teaxch kicks it old school with a card from the Scottish Play (spoilers for Shakespeare. Sorry, but if you haven’t read it by now, that’s on you). The flavor text pretty much sums up the action that’s happening here, and it’s a unique flavorful take on land animation- this isn’t literally animating the land through magic, it’s simply soldiers disguised as land, which is such a fun way to do it. Mechanically, this scales well since you have to pay ~half your lands to animate the other half, but the hexproof is certainly nice protection.

@mistershinyobject brings us an enchantment from the Outer Wilds, a very cool puzzle/exploration game that you should definitely go check out. I haven’t finished it myself, but the time loop is a pretty basic premise of the game, and this is a super interesting take on a time loop. You might expect blue for something like this, but the idea of “flicker one creature until you don’t want to, then explode the board” is very white, and offers a lot of really interesting gameplay scenarios. It’s like a nuclear deterrent when you have this on board, which is always a lot of fun.

@abelzumi gives us Wind God’s Aria, from The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker- which he has never played. However, that goes to show that you don’t need a hyper-specific reference to be successful this week. Abelzumi’s card is primarily just a good card, with the flavor nod coming in second to support the whole card and make it feel solid. I’m not expecting anyone to create a card from an IP they don’t know- after all, this is your chance to write a love letter to your favorite things in the form of a Magic card- but make sure that “is the card good and fun?” is the first question you ask, and flesh out the flavor afterwards.

One other thing to note! Enchantments are probably the easy way to go this week, but consider the value of a well-developed instant or sorcery that represents a big story beat or a momentary ability! Not to say that you shouldn’t design what you want to design, but... well, exercise your options!

‘Till next time,

~judge @naban-dean-of-irritation

[inventors-fair]

To-ken, y’ken? ~

Let’s see some examples from our folks:

@mistershinyobject made us Brace for Diamond Storms! Fragile walls are good for death triggers, quick blockers, surprise bodies for use on other turns, and more! As a common, the name’s pretty tell-all, but it portrays a world where there are diamond storms, and heck, the crystalline structure was only hinted at on Ikoria and I’d like to see it more on other worlds. I get the sensation quite well. I imagine this being on a good handful of cards, maybe less at rare.

@teaxch made us In the Kennels of Caedlborg! Yep, no notes. There’s a land where mana flows (ooh, like leylines!), there’s a location with a Middle-Earth-y name that holds them, there’s someone named Chernogoth who has these dogs and they’re ferocious, insatiable, and there’s either limited resources OR there’s that mood of conflict. Stellar. These tokens are quite aggressive attackers and change up combat a LOT. Monocolor, perhaps? 

@naban-dean-of-irritation made us Thrallhunter’s Brand! This is one of the ones that we workshopped a lot in the modhouse, because it’s a tricky one with a lot of interesting ideas behind it. Aura tokens have been done before, but they’re rare for a reason. What are the complications? Enchanting other permanents with triggers can be odd sometimes, but the board state full of grudges won’t be that hard to track. Heavy draw-matters gameplay, combat choices, and a dangerous world—very fun!

@stormtideleviathan made us Mothcaller Disciple! This card is a good limited card and an abhorrently good constructed card. Any draw and you’re going to go nuts. I think these tokens would be like the fish from SNC, I think, small quantities that show up on a common or two and then on a few frustrating rares like this. Blowing people out of the water and into the air, eh? Man this card’s rough and fun. Hm. 1/3 maybe? Or am I being paranoid.

~

And there we go! These were fun to workshop between us. I hope this shows how much fun you can have with these tokens; there’s a balance between good and complicated. MTG’s complicated as-is already! Work with how the gameplay games before worrying about words. And, sincerely, have fun.

@abelzumi

[inventors-fair]

Question Compendium

These are all the questions that have been asked so far on Tumblr and Discord! Be sure to check this post every so often, since I’ll be updating it instead of making new posts!

Discord:

whats ur all time favorite creature type? (ghoulCaclulator) Hmm, it's a tough one, but I think the answer is (just barely) Fractal.

Favorite color pair that doesn't include your favorite color? (Curio) Oooh that's a very interesting question. Gonna go with Rakdos.

which is better, doubling something or copying something (Viser, 3 rats in a toad suit) I... Love them both? Honestly gonna say copying.

I think I have already figured out from your favourite cards but just to be sure: aggro, control or combo? (NicolBolas96) Depends on the format, honestly. I play EDH the most, and there i like a healthy mix of midrange/control.

Favourite faction that isnt a guild? (y12dk) Might be some recency bias here, but I do really like the vibe of the Maestros.

favorite non mtg franchise? (GlassBass) Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive! That being said, please keep submissions within Magic IP for this week.

Recent limited/constructed archetype you felt was done dirty? (bearscape appreciator) Hmm, gonna need more clarity on "done dirty". As in, I liked the archetype in theory but the cards themselves just didn't support it? In that case, Prismari Big Spell from Strixhaven.

 Favorite plane? (Pocket) That one's actually a three way tie, but I'm not gonna tell you all of them, so pick a number between 1 and 3 (Picked 3) Arcavios.

...of the cards you've submitted to the fair (or as an example, doesnt hafta be an entry), which is your favorite? (Florence) This might not be my absolute favorite cause I've done wayy too many submissions, but after a cursory search, I remember being very happy with this one:

10. Between 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck, what animal encounter do you feel you would have the easiest time surviving, and by what method? (Abelzumi) 100 duck sized horses, easy. As someone who worked with horses, they only things that are remotely scary about them all depend on their size. Their kicks and bites at normal size would turn me into paste, but at duck size? Barely even a bruise. Plus, ducks are MEAN and a horse-sized one wouldn't even fear god like normal ducks do. I would perish just from making eye contact with it. 11. Do you like proactive, reactive, or flexible effects more? (Allie) I was wondering if people would pick up on that throughline, haha. Flexible for sure. 12. Are there any examples of printed cards where you initially didn't like the design, but you eventually came around on it? (Teaxch) This is taking your question a bit to the left, but when it first came out, I really didn't like how Boast looked to me, but after playing with it I loved it. 13. what is your favourite interaction between two printed cards ? (could be a combo or a nonbo) (SimSim) Hmm, that's tough. Off the top of my head, I like [[Hinata]] and [[launch the fleet]]? Or any X card that Hinata basically makes free. 14. If you could make it so one commander-format-legal card had never been printed, what card would you unexist? (Reaperfromtheabyss) Honestly, I think I have to say [[sol ring]]. It's probably the cop out answer, but it just creates such a split early game between haves and have-nots, and usually ends up with one person getting ganged up on even well after they lost the advantage from the ring. 15. what's your favorite graveyard recycling mechanic? Stuff that only works once like flashback, embalm, scavenge, etc.  (demimonde-semigoddess) Hmm, if it has to be a one-time-only thing, then Encore. Otherwise, Retrace. 16. who is your favorite non-planeswalker character in the Magic universe? (excluding Un- sets and Planar Chaos Alternate Timelines) (Gollumni) It’s probably Yahenni. 17. Tonally, do you generally prefer cards/sets that are more lighthearted or serious? (HIYgamer) Honestly, gonna kinda cop out here and say... both? My favorite part about Magic is how wildly different the tone can be set-to-set. If it was all serious or all lighthearted, I think I would get bored. So, the answer is, I like a good balance between the two.

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Question for Naban, in regards to this week's contest, which set is your favorite limited format, if any? (deg99) You might be seeing this answer for a few different questions, but Battlebond is by far my favorite Limited experience!

For Naban... LEAST favourite type of permanent? (dimestoretajic) Hmmm... I dont know if I can really say I dislike any permanent type. They all do different, neat things? I like them all, but if I absolutely have to pick one that I dont like quite as much as the others, it would be lands, since they're helpful in playing other cards but rarely stand on their own as cool cards.

For the Inventor's Fair contest.  What is your favorite color combination for Commander? (azathoth-the-bored) That's definitely a difficult one to answer. As someone who is going through the 32-deck challenge, I find that there's a lot of fun stuff to do with pretty much any color combination. That said, the only combos I have multiple decks of are Boros, Grixis, and 5-color, so make of that what you will!

For the inventors faire contest, do you enjoy cascade as a mechanic? (nemat0n) As a mechanic? Yeah, absolutely. In terms of "cards I've seen with cascade I actually want to play with", there aren't that many. Cascade is a mechanic I like the potential of, let's put it that way.