#this was made for the inventor's fair contest this week to make a card that can target multiple things

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than flooding

Big fat combat trick to pump all your excess mana into!

Cards used as example for balancing the modes:

[inventors-fair]

Innovation Nation

Everything about us here at the Inventor's Fair, and in the custom Magic community as a whole, is about creation, pushing the envelope, finding new and amazing ways to express our ideas. And you know, WOTC does the same thing every year with their Draft Innovation set. But... what if we could do better?

This week's contest: Design a card that represents a new type of Draft Innovation Set, OR design a card that shows a new take on one of the existing Draft Innovation sets.

That's... a bit vague, I know. What do I mean by "represents"? What's a Draft Innovation Set? Let's break it down.

Draft Innovation was a concept that began with Conspiracy, where each summer WOTC would release a unique product. Originally, these were centered around drafting/Sealed, hence the name. Most still are, though there has been some deviation. You can find the list of Draft Innovation sets here.

So what am I asking you to do? Come up with a new concept for a draft innovation set! Try to figure out what the angle, or gimmick of the set is. For example, Conspiracy was "draft matters" and "multiplayer" rolled into one. Battlebond, a few years later, was "Two-Headed Giant Draft". Then there were things like Jumpstart or Modern Horizons, whose gimmicks are pretty clear. I want you to come up with an idea for a Draft Innovation set, then design me a card that will sell me on that set.

Obviously, a single card won't be able to convey the entirety of a set, but it should be able to imply the general idea you had for it. Let's look at some examples!

Agent of Acquisitions turns the entire draft process on its head by allowing you to take an entire pack, showing off the ways that Conspiracy cements its identity as the Draft-Matters set.

Regna the Redeemer gives us a couple hints to 2HG, both that "Partner With" indicates that another player can search, and that her ability references the idea of a Team.

Prismatic Piper clearly shows that it's made for a commander set, and the flexibility of color identity is pretty good at suggesting that it was made to fix the problem of color identity in draft. Take the two together, and it's pretty obvious it comes from a Commander Draft set.

Jumpstart may not be as easy to represent in a single card, but the Thriving Lands do a decent job. They're so locked in on two-color, in a way that a typical draftable set might not appreciate, so it lets you know something else is going on. You might not be able to get "two unique 20-card packs shuffled together to make a deck" from this card alone, but it at least gets you thinking about what it could be representing.

Of course, as mentioned above, you can also

This is definitely a bit of a tricky contest, but I have faith in you all, and I can't wait to see what you do! One more note- I will NOT be reading any additional descriptions submitted alongside the card (except for art). I expect the card to speak for itself, so please don't send me five paragraphs about your idea for the set. If you want to share that with me after submissions, I would be thrilled to hear it then!

Ciao,

~judge @naban-dean-of-irritation

Show us something new by submitting here!

Push the envelope in our Discord!

[stormtide-leviathan]

Kaldheim Booster Challenge

I posted this on reddit, if you’d rather check it out there, but I wanted to share it here too b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶i̶'̶m̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶s̶t̶a̶n̶t̶l̶y̶ ̶d̶e̶s̶p̶e̶r̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶f̶f̶i̶r̶m̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶.

In the third great designer search, there was a challenge to pick a set and make a booster pack full of custom cards that fit in that set. I’ve started doing this for sets since Zendikar rising, and wanted to continue that tradition here. Why am I doing this so late after the release of Kaldheim? Cause shuttup, that’s why >:(

Here’s the link to the full imgur album. There are also individual imgur links even though there are images, cause reddit doesn’t allow images directly and I’m copy/pasting from there.

Anyway, let’s get started! (Long post ahead)

Common #1:

Divine Goat 3W

Creature- Goat

W, Sacrifice ~: You gain 3 life.

Whenever you cast your second spell each turn, return ~ from your graveyard to your hand.

Here’s a top down design, based on Thor’s goats that pulled his chariot and were sacrificed for food every night and reborn in the morning. Originally the recursion triggered based on Vehicles, but with two other vehicle cards in the booster including the other white common, one had to go and this was the best option, but I still liked the flavor so I went with another of white’s themes.

Common #2:

Dwarven Elder 2W

Creature- Dwarf Warrior

Whenever ~ crews a Vehicle, draw a card.

2/2

The fabled white card draw. Yes, I am your savior. Your messiah. Bow before my wisdom. I could technically see this design in either white or blue, but I liked white better and white cares more about vehicles anyway. I based the costing off Stealer of Secrets. This doesn’t put itself in danger, but relies much more on deck building to activate.

Common #3:

Ambusher Giant 5U

Creature- Giant Warrior

Flash

Foretell 3U (During your turn, you may pay 2 and exile this card from your hand face down. Cast it on a later turn for its foretell cost.)

4/4

Foretell works really well with instant speed, so I thought a big instant speed creature would be a good fit. Since blue has a giant tribal theme, and is one of the main colors for foretell, it was an obvious fit.

Common #4:

Heated Rebuttal 1U

Instant

Counter target spell unless its controller pays 2. They can’t spend S to pay this cost. (S is mana from a snow source.)

Here’s another snow hate card. What I really wanted to do with this was discourage running snow basics where you don’t have to, and though we have the god in the set that does this I think this is an issue that’s solved with both quality and quantity. I wasn’t sure on the power level of this for standard purposes, but I’d rather this more pushed version than be too weak and have it not do anything against snow.

Common #5:

Shapeshifter’s Trickery 1U

Enchantment- Aura

Enchant Creature

Enchanted creature gets +1/+0, is every creature type, and can’t be blocked.

Not too much to say here really. This is good for the tribal synergies in the set, and is just an innocuous little aura for limited. Not everything is gonna be pushing boundaries.

Common #6:

Draugr Fleshchewer 1B

Snow Creature- Zombie Berserker

Whenever Draugr Fleshchewer attacks, mill two cards. If a snow card was milled this way, Draugr Fleshchewer gains menace until end of turn.

2/2

This originally worked with the “exile a creature card from your graveyard” subtheme, but I had to change this to snow and I couldn’t get a good snowy design that used that mechanic. So instead, it fuels it. I also wanted to have another card that cares about the existence of snow instants/sorceries because they were introduced this set and the number of cards that only work with snow permanent cards when they don’t have to is strange.

Common #7:

Arrogant Stand 3R

Sorcery

Creatures without a boast ability can’t block this turn.

Here’s a simple little card that plays around with the flavorful space of boast. You have to be very full of yourself to stand up to the oncoming attack.

Common #8:

Winterdark Ritual 2R

Snow Instant

Add three mana of any one color.

Foretell R (During your turn, you may pay 2 and exile this card from your hand face down. Cast it on a later turn for its foretell cost.)

Is the name completely on the nose? Absolutely. And I find that hilarious. This is taking advantage of the fact that foretell is payed in multiple payments to turn that into mana storage. And it’s snow, because snow rituals are new to the set, play well, and I don’t think it makes it too powerful, though this has a lot of little factors to it that might push it over the edge. Any number of them could easily be tweaked though.

Common #9:

Blessing of Koma G

Enchantment- Aura

Enchant creature

Enchanted creature has “T: Add one mana of any color.”

2, Sacrifice ~: Draw a card.

This card is secretly also a snow card. The intention is, you can enchant snow creatures with it to get extra snow mana. However, it’s not snow itself because a) I thought that made for a cool moment of discovery and b) If it was snow, a lot of players would mistakenly think the mana is snow whether or not the creature it enchants is.

Common #10:

Boulderskin Troll 3G

Creature- Troll Warrior

When ~ dies, search your library for a Forest or Mountain card and put it onto the battlefield tapped. Shuffle your library.

3/2

I really wanted this card to be red. See, the legend goes that when a troll goes out in the sun it turns into rock and I thought tutoring for a Mountain when it died would be a good way to do that. However, I just couldn’t find a good way to do that which felt red, so I had to make this green. Luckily red/green are the troll colors so it could still find a mountain. I specifically chose nonbasic so that it could synergize with the snow duals at common.

Uncommon #1:

Immerstrum Berserker 3BB

Creature- Demon Berserker

Boast- 2B: ~ gains lifelink until end of turn. (Activate this ability only once each turn and only if this creature attacked this turn.)

Boast- 1B: Each opponent discards a card. (You may activate both boasts in a single turn.)

5/3

It has two boasts. Ya know how most creatures only have one boast, if any? Well not this, it has two. That’s it. That’s the design.

Uncommon #2:

Master Shipcrafter 1R

Creature- Dwarf Artificer

1R: ~ gets +2/+0 until end of turn.

Whenever a creature you control crews a Vehicle for the first time each turn, that Vehicle gains that creature’s activated abilities until end of turn.

0/2

There’s this weird tension in the set where R/W both encourages you to play a lot of vehicles, and has a lot of boast creatures, which do not work well at all together. This card is an attempt to fix that. Originally it just worked with boast, #notallactivatedabilities, but that was an extremely narrow card so I widened the scope. There’s certainly some weird combos you can do with this, but nothing too bad in limited though.

Uncommon #3:

Ring of Kinship 2

Artifact- Equipment

Equipped creature gets +1/+1

Creature spells you cast that share a creature type with equipped creature cost 1 less to cast.

Equip 1

I’m a big fan of equipment and auras that have a universal effect that cares about a quality of the equipped creature. I dunno why, but it tickles me. Creature type is a good thing to care about on designs like this though, and I wanted both an equipment and a tribal reward in the booster, so it was a good fit.

Rare:

Kvasha, God of Magic 3UU

Legendary Creature- God

Flying

When ~ enters the battlefield, create a 1/1 white Spirit creature token with flying for each enchantment you control and each enchantment card in your graveyard.

Sacrifice a Spirit: You may cast spells as though they have flash this turn.

Kvasha’s Birth 2GW

Enchantment- Saga

I, II: Until your next turn, whenever ~ or another enchantment enters the battlefield under your control, draw a card.

III: Mill six cards. Exile ~ then return it to the battlefield face-up.

I’m genuinely really sad they didn’t do a god with a saga as its backside, it could have been really cool. So I made one myself!! I wanted it to at least be feasible as a commander for a Saga deck, and since Kaldheim has a lot of enchantments running around I figured it could use an enchantress like this. The tricky part was, I had to make a blue card that could also feasibly be a selesnya card, since the saga turns into it. It also works well with the tribal themes and the spirit subtype in the set, though that’s more of a bonus than anything else. If you’re wondering why this card looks different, that’s for two reasons. One, I can’t make Sagas on MSE. And two, this overlapped nicely with the Inventor’s Fair contest of the week on tumblr, which I use mtg.design for since it’s easier to get links that way. (Check them out! @inventors-fair​ That contest is what finally pushed me to finish this booster).

Basic:

Snow-Covered Swamp

Snow Land- Swamp

T: Add B.

Look, it's a snow-covered swamp. I needed a snasic in here. I dunno what else you want from me.

So there we go!! Finally!! The booster challenge that took weeks longer than it should have. What do you think of the designs? Do you think they would fit well within Kaldheim? If not, how could I fix them? Also I probably made a formatting mistake somewhere in here so if you notice like, a wrong link or something let me know. Also, if you want me to tackle an old set feel free to request it, though since this took me weeks for some reason I can’t make any promises lol.

Here’s boosters I’ve done before:

- Zendikar Rising: Reddit

- Commander Legends: Reddit // Tumblr

[loreholdlesbian]

This was a card made for this week’s Inventors’ Fair contest, in which we needed to make a card that represents two guilds, together. This card represents Dimir + Golgari. Originally I had a similar design that was golgari + simic where the scavenge trigger doubled the +1/+1 counters on that creature, but I think I prefer this version. It encourages you to do something you *can* with scavenge, targeting your opponent’s creatures, but usually don’t want to.

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than getting paid

Made magic cards for this week's Inventor's Fair contest! Also a card that was intended for a previous contest, but I didn't submit it

Also, I saw a thumbnail a bit ago that made me angry, as it featured a yugioh card turned into a magic card. I'd paste an image of the card, but the text would be illegible anyway, so I'll just paste the text

"Cannot be destroyed by battle. Once per turn (Quick Effect): You can target 1 Attack Position monster; change it to Defense Position, also, this card can make a second attack during each Battle Phase this turn. Your opponent cannot activate cards or effects in response to this effect's activation. Once per turn, when this card declares an attack on a face-up monster: You can activate this effect; until the end of this turn, this card gains ATK equal to half that monster's current ATK, and if it does, that monster's current ATK is halved."

There is so much about this that aggravates me, it was so clearly made by a yugioh player who barely understands anything about magic.

First of all: "Choose target attacking creature, make that creature block this card." None of this works. First of all, this can't be an activated ability because there's no colon, and it can't can't be a triggered ability because there's no "at", "when", or "whenever". So this ability can't exist. In yugioh, starting an activated ability by saying "target a monster" is perfectly allowed, so that's the first clue that this was made by a yugioh player. The second is the card calling itself "this card". In yugioh, this is how that's written, but in magic, not only do cards refer to themselves by name 90% of the time, but the word "card" refers to cards that aren't on the battlefield, so this is DEFINITELY incorrect.

But enough about petty templating concerns, the real problem is that this ability somehow forces an attacking creature to block. Anyone who has Played A Game Of Magic knows that that's not how anything works. The original card's effect changes an attack position monster to defense position, and attacking and blocking are basically the same thing right? Probably? Maybe? No fucking of course not, this ability makes NO sense.

Also, is this ability free? There's no cost to it, so can you just activate this on as many attacking creatures as you want to get that many additional combat phases? Also, "conduct" is another yugioh-ism, though it's normally used for stuff like "you cannot conduct your battle phase this turn". It's been awkwardly spliced together with magic's rules allowing for additional phases. It's supposed to allow Borrelsword to make an additional attack, which is definitely not the same thing as giving you an entire extra combat phase.

ALSO, are you able to activate this on your opponent's turn? You can do that in yugioh, but it's fine because it only allows an additional attack, which you can't use. But here it gives a whole extra combat phase! Does it let the opponent attack again? Because that'd be stupid, which would fit right in. ALSO, why the FUCK does Borrelsword gain trample?! Trample is a direct equivalent to yugioh's piercing battle damage, but Borrelsword DOESN'T HAVE PIERCING BATTLE DAMAGE. Indestructible is okay because it can't be destroyed by battle, flying at least makes sense with the art, and split second is a neat (if inaccurate) reference to its ability not allowing responses, but trample? Why? Wtf?

All of this is both a horrible magic card and a horrible conversion, so I made my own.

First off, Borrelsword can't be destroyed by battle, but, very importantly, it CAN be destroyed by card effects. The obvious equivalent would be "prevent all combat damage" ability, but that takes too much text, and I think that adding First Strike would plenty of battle protection while still keeping it vulnerable to removal effects.

Next, split second is not at all accurate; Borrelsword's summon CAN be negated (yugioh-ism for "countered"), and effects can be activated in response to its summon. Meanwhile, split second completely fails to prevent responses to its ability. However, I think split second is actually a good representation. In yugioh, responding to abilities is FAR more common that responding to summons, and the goal of the "can't respond" effect can be described as "avoiding negates". There's very few negates for abilities in magic, but plenty of negates for summons, so letting Borrelsword avoid negates in a different way still feels true to the intention of the card.

No flying because Borrelsword has no evasion, regardless of its art.

Then there's an ability that was completely forgotten on this conversion, Borrelsword's ability to steal ATK from monsters it attacks. This would be an easy conversion, but I think using Bushido would be very nice, getting across the spirit of "good at fighting other monsters" while cutting down on text. "Bushido N" means "When this creature blocks or becomes blocked, it gets +N/+N." Not perfect, but good enough, and certainly better than nothing at all.

Finally, there's its activated ability. Tapping could be an equivalent for changing battle position, but. not really. In fact, nothing about this ability translates well. However, there's a cute synergy between the Borrel monsters and another group of monsters, "Rokkets". They have effects that activate when you target them with a Link Monster's effect (Borrelsword is a link monster), so making Borrelsword target and tap your own creatures is a neat reference and adds a smooth cost to the ability. And the extra attack? I think giving menace and double strike is a good translation; either the opponent gets hit twice, or they lose two creatures.

All together, here's what I came up with

Is it balanced? Probably not, but it's 6 mana and dies to removal, so it's basically unplayable.

[inventors-fair]

Family Matters: “Next of Kin” General Commentary

It’s good to be back. You know what, even though the rotation’s been weird, it does feel like a return to form in some ways, mostly because of these writeups. I feel that it’s almost infamous how long these things can get. But there’s always just so much to talk about! Especially this week, with such a technical challenge, I feel that there was a lot that’s worth mentioning. Plus, there were a lot of entries this week. What did we learn? What did I learn?

My main positive takeaway: People still wanted to push some designs this week in a way that felt thoroughly confident. I really like that. I also appreciated the fact that there were so many different creature types represented and that those creature types represented how people looked at different races and creature types in Magic through a personally appreciative lens. With some of these there was a definite sense of joy. As a flavor aficionado, I’d like to say that there were a lot of strong opportunities that people took to make cards feel at place in the world, with some nice text on top of it.

My main constructive takeaway: There were a lot of easily fixable wording quibbles this week, and so please, PLEASE use Scryfall or Gatherer to check oracle text to ensure that your card is worded correctly, and please look into avoiding common mistakes, like numerals instead of written words, wrong triggers and specifics. But also, I think that there were a lot of cards that fulfilled the contest that didn’t feel like, well, ‘Contest Cards.’ There’s going to be natural overlap, I understand that, but looking into the depths of it, part of this challenge and part of the Fair is asking: how is my card going to stand out? If your card feels obvious for any reason, that’s a sign that you need to change it. If it’s been done before with hardly any alteration, that’s a sign. If there’s a chance you think someone could come up with the same idea, same same. It’s okay to push boundaries. Know what’s realistic, but extend yourself, until you know that you’ve made something fantastic. We get a lot of cards, but Magic is deep. Dive a little. See what you find.

For those new to my syrupy golden commentary, JUDGE PICKS are cards that have one or more specific quality/ies I’d like to point out. Additionally, hey, if you don’t read commentary usually, we do highly suggest it. The Inventor’s Fair is more fun for everyone if you learn from these examples.

~

@arixordragc — Golden Savior

The angel/cleric connection has somewhat been explored in Magic, but not enough, and you know what, I get it. Strong cards like Starnheim Aspirant fulfill some of that role and there’s plenty of interesting space between them. My lukewarmness comes from the conceptual feel of it all. I’m not sure exactly what there is to say about it, but there’s something lost in the impact. Part of it comes from the weirdness of that ability, and I know there’s no current precedent and that it’s as good as it can be, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It reads oddly and that’s nobody’s fault. The fact, though, that convoke is sitting there with no reminder text feels and reads oddly. Presentation issues aren’t usually too much of a big deal. There’s a nuance here that’s hard to explain… I think it has to do with the card’s place in the world.

Without any flavor text here, and without any context, this card tells no story. Cleric reduction places clerics clearly closer to angels in a spiritual sense, but that spirituality feels lost here because none of the rest of the card speaks to why that’s important. Cleric drafters might like this card and honestly, a potential turn-three 4/4 flier might be a little too bonkers in the right shell, and at the same time? I don’t feel the love as much. In the context of grokkable, powerful, flavorful cards, this card doesn’t stand out as strongly as it could have.

~

@bread-into-toast — Giftshell Hermit

I just had to rewrite this entire piece of commentary because I’m stuck in my own head a little. Let’s get the first minor nitpick out of the way: Based on The Ozolith, I believe that last ability should read: “...step, you may move ALL +1/+1 counters from Giftshell Hermit onto another TARGET Crab you control.” Let’s get the first major compliment out of the way: I think that this card, in the context of the Discovery/Attenborough crab conga, is adorable and would be an elegant and wonderful top-down design.

And now I have to divorce myself from that, because I just realized: is this actually based on the crab conga? I’m having a crisis over here. If so, wouldn’t the evolution mean it seeks a bigger shell and that the downgrading shrinks it which is antithetical to the crab’s place in the conga from a pure 1:1 design standpoint? Or do the +1/+1 counters represent something else, and if so, what? In terms of general crab society I can see how a fantasy crabperson or a fantasy shorecrab would break off pieces of its shell to give to other crabs, and yeah, that makes sense, but it’s a hermit crab who gives its shell away, and that feels necessarily connected to the conga, and then the design gets re-muddled for me… Etc. I think I got stuck in my own head a little bit thinking too hard about this card. I also think that that’s a small strike against this. When you evoke an idea through the card’s motions, but those motions mechanically muddle expectations, conflict on the player’s side arises. A self-contained card should answer all the questions it raises. Crabs are still cute.

~

@deg99 — Animashell Vanguard

We’ll see how this is a common theme later, but I’m surprised that we had both two turtles and two crabs this week. As much as I enjoy those tribes conceptually, it’s hard to get a good grasp on them. What we did end up getting was, to me, fairly obvious. This is something that turtle tribal in the future might need and it would be expected, and on that note there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. I want to stress that this card does what it wants to do and that’s totally fine.

I like the name as well. It’s a mouthful but not a bad one. However, the flavor text solidifies the intrinsic generality. There’s no flavor to this flavor. Why is a “deep and powerful connection” important? Or rather, we know it’s important to a way of life, but the mysticism doesn’t lend itself to a particularly deep view of what we already know. “Animal race attached to nature” is fine on the surface. The question to ask is: where is the emotional appeal? Against whom are these turtles guarding? Why do they need a connection with nature? What specificity /is/ there is hindered by the fact that the flavor doesn’t tell us anything that the card doesn’t already. I want to use this word constructively despite its negative connotation, but this card feels shallow; with that, I feel that it would benefit to dig down and carve out expectations beyond what’s being told gameplay and story-wise.

~

@demimonde-semigoddess — Lost Head

I love that direction. Even though the head is “lost,” I feel that that the head’s also ravenous and/or detached, like there’s a disconnect between base hunger and stern control of the flesh. It feels silly but you know what, not so silly that it doesn’t take away from the gruesomeness of what zombies are like here. I think that introducing the -1/-1 counters is totally fine here. The use of “stitched” in the direction makes me feel that a return to Innistrad with those counters isn’t off the table despite, y’know, all the storm scale whatevers. Amonkhet did that just fine and persistence is key.

The second ability, I gotta say, is fantastic. If there were two changes I’d make to this card, the first would be to change “Zombie” to “Zombie card” down there in the reanimation, and ooh, maybe a third, should that be sorcery speed? That’s a power level question. The other one is that first ability, and this is where I just got so unnecessarily agitated that I’m going to comically be more belligerent than anyone needs to be. … Nah, just kidding. It’s just the wording: “When ~ enters the battlefield, look at the top card of your library. You may put it into your graveyard.” We literally just had Consider printed and it’s mildly frustrating to see it spelled out like this when it doesn’t need to be. Just a brain fart, I’ll assume, with that and the “card” aspect. I think I’m getting caught up in the wrong frustrations with some of these, but this is one of those things that for the next contest could be changed up easily. Still a really awesome potentially very powerful design to get your big draft bombs out early! Very early. Ooh. Yeah, sorcery-speed on that ability, 100%.

~

@dim3trodon — Embalmer Adept

This would be fun with Lost Head right up there, wouldn’t it? Mechanically, this card would make new players do a small double-take, I feel, as it’s explained that yes indeed you can go about and embalm it with itself. It’s a tempo-y body with that cost and suggests late-game power, and I like that a fair amount.

The strength of having it make your embalmed zombies stronger is nice flavorfully, and that’s about all I can say about it, which is where my main criticism comes in, if indeed there is some. The name isn’t especially interesting to me, and the card itself doesn’t push any buttons. As a mechanically-inclined card, I get that it’s doing everything that it needs to do. It makes your other embalmed zombies into bombs and it makes itself help with late-game recursion, and I guess the gist is that the obvious nature doesn’t stir anything. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this card in the shell that wants it. With a middle-of-the-road name and no direction, with the context of Amonkhet and the reliance on that as its only base, I just don’t feel particularly tickled is all.

~

@dimestoretajic — Anaba Symbolcrafter

Non-enrage Enrage is totally valid! Wow, I was surprised that there were just so few minotaurs printed prior to modern stuff. Like, there were as many Minotaurs in the RTR block as there were in Homelands? Weird. Anyway There’s a lot I like about this card. The feeling is very strong here, of this minotaur’s role in her tribe, how the other minotaurs need her to do her spiritual work. I think the flavor text could definitely have been more concise and a little more poetic, but not too much. Simplicity works here, like: “Come. We shall mark your endurance.” or something in that vein. The words are fine and the feeling is great and I like how the counters can either reflect prowess learned (a one-time deal) or strength gained (with no limit).

The ability wording is vague and needs editing. I believe it should be “Whenever another Minotaur you control is dealt damage, put your choice of a trample counter, a menace counter, or a +1/+1 counter on it. (It must survive the damage to get the counter.)” It’s wordier but would have shown your mechanical knowledge more. Everything about this card’s intent feels great and works wonders in even a minimal minotaur shell, and minotaur players, well, those are some dedicated folks. Getting the wording down to be only your minotaurs and with more specific counters is key here.

~

@fractured-infinity — Smoke-Wreathed Sensei

So yeah, there were two ninjas this week, both working with the theme of returning ninjas to your hand. What’s the difference? Firstly, this card does not grok well. Ninjutsu already makes combat complicated, and this card requires several triggers to be manipulated in a way that makes board states a mess to understand for new players and makes trying any sort of combat trick just plain frustrating. Responses upon response with confusion about damage ensure that this card raises an inordinate amount of questions. It took me a bit to get what this card was even trying to do, and that’s a huge strike against it at uncommon at the very least.

The flavor and art direction could use some work as well. The wordiness of the text could be more precise and pointed. Why is the weapon a detriment, exactly? What does that have to do with ninjutsu costs? The opponents not being able to see, I get that. That much I like, and I think that this card’s intent with the flavor comes across fairly well, nothing wrong on that front. The art direction is a little frustrating to read alongside that because, well, picturing it, I’m getting flashbacks to Craven Hulk. The point of having a card depicting a character is to have that character be the focus in some way. If the sensei is barely visible on the art, then the art inhibits the point of having it be of a character at all. The card Masterful Ninja kinda speaks to that, right? If the point is to not see something, you have to use art to give a sense of dramatic irony, where WE see the character but the OTHER in-game characters don’t. In short, I feel that this card’s smoke/intent obscured the bigger picture.

~

@grornt — Cogwork Doppelmeister

As a card, I like it. Therein lies a small issue—it’s a card that works as a card. Puppet Conjurer from Shards of Alara is an example of this phenomenon. There weren’t that many Alaran homonculi (read: 1), and there weren’t enough to make the Conjurer really useful for anything, but you got free colored artifacts and you could make use of them with death triggers and whatever however you wanted. You didn’t need to make a homunculus deck, and here, you don’t need to make a Gnome deck. You just need to run a whole bunch of nontoken artifacts and you get free Gnome tokens. The tribal aspect of this contest, whose intent was to make a card that looked at the big picture, is lost on this particular card.

And literally everything else about it is amazing. Seriously, if we were doing a colored-artifact contest or w/e, this would be up there in terms of neat things and commendation. I love how it works in limited to get bodies on the board even with itself. I love how it makes me wonder if this limited environment plays with sacrifice and death triggers, or if there’s a token component, because there’s definitely an artifact component, and I wonder what it does. I love the name, and the art is stellar, with those eyebrows and the detail and the direction, the self-assembly—gah! I seriously love all the work that went into this card! It’s just for the wrong contest, in the pitfall of tribal execution vs. contextual tribal intent. I could see this card being in a set with no other gnomes at all, but I see how it would work well in a gnome-y set too. A rough choice and good thought experiment. Please keep doing art, too, because you’ve got great work here.

~

@helloijustreadyourpost — Corpse-Snatch Stitcher

This is where art direction and sketches come in handy. I can immediately picture this in the same vein as Vedalken Anatomist or something similarly nasty. The little smirks are excellent, and I can just sense that smug black awesomeness that comes from zombies of this flavorful ilk. The flavor text is awesome, the use of “stitcher” more literally works for me, and I think that this definitely fulfills the feelings you’re going for.

I’m not sure about the ability. Having two targets here is a bit of a pain for me. I think that the ability should read: “T: Exile target creature card FROM a graveyard that was put there from anywhere this turn. When you do, return UP TO ONE target Zombie card from your graveyard to your hand.” This way, you can use it to exile cards without necessitating that you also have a zombie in the graveyard. The wording for these effects can be a bit of a bugbear but when you’re doing all these things at once it’s imperative to know what you’re doing when. Keep that in mind, alright? A great feeling is marred by the technicalities. Correct wording can make a card great instead of…sew-sew~

~

@hypexion — Ichor Splitter (JUDGE PICK)

This card, appropriately enough, evokes a visceral feeling from me. Poison’s one of those things that came out when I was just getting a real footing in Magic, and Phyrexians as a type are far more recent. Come to think of it, it’s a little surprising we didn’t get more Phyrexians in this contest. Regardless, though, let’s get small criticisms out of the way: “Sacrifice” should be capitalized, firstly, and the flavor text I think could be less obvious. When is this required? We get that it might be, like, a last-ditch effort, but perhaps we could get a tiny bit of context as to why this is happening; we already know that the ichor is being extracted because that’s what the card does.

The fact that it’s doing it at all is, to me, super neat honestly. I think that this is an incredibly powerful limited card and would see play in casual poison decks across the board no question. Magic’s landscape has changed drastically over the years, but it remains awesome how the evolution grows with it. Watching in my mind’s eye as a mindless imp or beast is split apart, struggling to fight with animal anger as this minion slurps its oil, just feels so quintessential. It works with the body, it messes with the mind, it’s got a great name, and it’s just plain good rolling around the flesh of real life. I wouldn’t be surprised if a return to poison saw something similar to this. You captured two really neat aspects that are worth commending hands-down. Bravo.

~

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Spellshaping Familiar

Mechanically, I like this card a lot. Spellshapers are just one of those silly things that are grandfathered into magic that are nice enough to enjoy no matter what, y’know? I understand what’s going on there, and having a card on-curve that can just belch out some mana and give more advantage later is radical. I think for 3R you could have even made it two mana, but that’s asking a lot, and the effect is powerful enough in limited anyway. I don’t know much about the lore, but I trust that the horse and dwarf feelings are connected and make sense. I can see the powerful close-up of the spell, you know?

The name and flavor text. I’m having a hard time saying something constructive here. The short version is that they’re painfully obvious. This is something I feel we keep coming back to and I don’t want to repeat myself too much, but it’s difficult. “Spellshaping” feels redundant because we already know that they’re spellshapers and that this is spellshaper tribal, but I guess “Zombie” or “Elf” also does the same thing in that vein, so that’s marginally forgivable. The flavor text is not as easily forgiven for its redundancy. We know it’s a familiar already, we know they work with spellshapers, we know they’re a single spell, we know exactly what’s going on and the text is merely repeating the action in front of us as if the audience doesn’t know what’s happening. I don’t know how else to put this that I haven’t already for cards before, I’m sorry.

~

@kamoegoi — Avarax Alpha (JUDGE PICK)

Usually I think you’ve shown some really nice flavorful cards, but this particular card I’d like to focus on the mechanics on. Because wow, this is invoking some massively simple and powerful evasive maneuvers. If this set does have beast tribal, which it does by the indication of the ability, then your turn 5-6-7 plays are even more massive, and this is not a card that messes around. It’s a frustrating beater that doesn’t lock anyone out, it’s within burning range, and at the same time it’s a card that you /need/ to take care of. I’m thinking limited for this kind of effect, and it’s just plain good. It’s the big uncommon creature here, what more can you want?

That flavor text needs to be shrunk a little. It’s minorly bloated, and there feels like two conflicting sentences here for the direction. The first one feels more intimidating, like this is the loudest one and that’s what matters about the card, its menacing nature. The second is that the call isn’t menacing to the other Avaraxes, and that’s not antithetical to the first sentence, but it feels like it’s pulling the focus away. What do we want to look at here? Is there a way to either consolidate or merge them in a meaningful way? Both sentences are decent on their own and could only need minor touch-ups. The strength feels downplayed by the split focus. Keep the simplicity in mind when marking your flavor text and you’ve got a much stronger card on your hands, which is a lot considering the strength of this card as-is.

~

@knightofthelivingtable — Jontun Overseer

This is another card with everything right except for the flavor text specifically, and I have to wonder if that’s something that’s wrong with me—and, look, it probably is, I’m a stickler, but this card’s simplicity with a known effect means that the rest of the card has to do some exceptional work. Don’t get me wrong, this card would get me mechanically excited to play it in whatever G/n shell that Giants are for this draft set, but there’s something else to consider about the Jontun side of things with how simple the mechanic is.

Once again, it’s obvious flavor text, and once again, it’s personal. I don’t find it particularly humorous, evocative, or telling. I get exactly what it’s trying to do, and the humor should come from the giant earnestly sidestepping a barrier because it’s so big and strong, sure, but it’s just not something that speaks to me. There’s no relationship here, and the joke just isn’t landing. I guess there’s not much to say about it beyond that, and I don’t know if it’s an issue with the card or an issue with me, but the name and the actions feel like they’ve been done before. Mechanically, sure, it’s surprisingly rare and this is another card with strong evasive action on the board. I guess I just wanted to be thrilled, and I’m not here. With two cards that have equally challenging footholds, the one that attempts to excite will always win out in judgment over the card reliant on the surface-level aspects.

~

@misterstingyjack — Packleader Kerosah

Beast tribal seems to have a foothold here, don’t it. Huh. Well, let’s start with the fact that this is a decent card and man, AI have really done weird things to card art. I think that I really like your artist credit, and that’s a weird thing to point out, but “Generated with [program]” probably should be our baseline going forwards. I like it. The fact that you’ve powered down the toughness a little is a nice confident boost here, isn’t it? Like, that this effect will be strong enough and you’ll have enough support that having a 3/2 will be fine for four mana instead of a 3/3 or something.

It’s just that the effect tries to do too much contingency and should’ve been simplified. The fact that it targets both a creature your opponents control AND has to target an attacking beast you control is a little too much. It could untap a creature an opponent controls, sure. It can force a block by a beast. I think I would have made it a Hunt Down effect that specifies beasts, maybe at sorcery speed? Maybe that’s unnecessary too. Hm. This effect is complicated, and I think without the attacking clause it would have been fine. Regardless, flavor text again. I know Lukka is obvious and not very eloquent, but this definitely could have been pared down and made just attributed to Lukka. A “keen, strategic insight” is just… I’m not feeling like I’m being told anything that Lukka isn’t already saying, and because he doesn’t have the strongest foothold in terms of personality, I’m left a little floating. I like what you’ve done with the card. It still definitely needs tidying up.

~

@morbidlyqueerious — Sanctified Warden

This is a strong mechanical card that uses ward in white well and strongly emphasizes the way that these creatures work together. It’s great for a curve and works well in terms of stalling the board for more evasive cards later. That much works well. As for the name and direction, I’m looking at this, and once more, it’s just not exciting. There’s only so much we can work with here. I don’t know what world it’s on, I don’t know what they’re warding against, and I can eloquently picture what’s happening (mostly), but I don’t have any sense of why it matters outside of a fantasy sense. Does it matter? Not really—it’s fine to have cards that just plain do things, I get it. You can have core-set-ish cards and that’s totally valid.

I guess the reason I’m so down on it is that I don’t feel as much of a sense of love here that I feel from other cards. This is a tangent about the nature of contests, I think. I’m in a place right now where I really want to be excited. I want to enjoy talking about each and every card. And understanding comes second to excitement, assuming that all the fellow contestants are going to submitting cards that have as strong a mechanical edge. A warden who wards, a cleric who is sanctified, we already know that these things exist. It’s okay to push more, and I encourage that you do, in any way you can. How can you go from a design to an artisanal design? How can we make those clerics feel alive?

~ @nine-effing-hells — Synapse-Sucker Skaab (JUDGE PICK)

What a bomb. What an intense, insane bomb. You get yourself a bunch of tokens and you schlorp them up, you curve and your curve, you boost if you can, and then you’re milling half someone’s library on turn six here. You have to force it, sure, but good lord. I think that this card is far more powerful than I’m accounting for even here, and it’s almost first-pickable. Making it happen is definitely worthwhile. And even moreso, reanimation and blink and recursion make it a beast to deal with. And you can mill yourself! Criminy. This card makes me want to brew.

And you know what, the flavor isn’t half-bad. The flavor text could use a little fluff either to shorten it or to extend the creepiness, but there’s something that just makes sense about it and how you’ve named it. It sucks synapses. It’s a mouthful, that’s for sure, and I almost wanted to write this entire paragraph in alliteration when I first saw it, but regardless. I can see the mouths extending to slurp a brain. Just go ahead and schchscslp it up. Lovely and terrifying. Is this too powerful? I say nah. It’s a finisher like any other, and I think it’s honestly kinda old-school, you know? Less about the limited midrange curve-out-aggro and more about building interesting decks. I do love it, genuinely. I would have liked to see your direction for it and I would’ve liked to see exactly how powerful zombies were to make it happen in the world. I’m not 100% seeing how the two are related at this very moment.

~

@partlycloudy-partlyfuckoff — Sycophantic Squire (JUDGE PICK)

This one got a lot of buzz in the workshop. And you know what, it checks out! It fulfills a role mechanically while having a neat little emotional pinpoint. I’ll get the criticism out of the way firstly, and that’s that squires are by definition /not/ knights. They should be more soldiers or peasants, working their way up to some kind of nobility. That’s the major gripe that I would call an objectively necessary change. In terms of the flavor text, you know what, I wonder if it’s too real. There’s that inherent smugness, but also unawareness, a sense of hierarchy that leaves a bad taste in the mouth but with a good storytelling feel. We know better than this squire, and that’s enough to make us feel good about playing, because, well, we certainty don’t act like that, with the obvious ridiculous takes. It’s a weird place, y’know?

But yeah, no, I do like where you came from with this card. The emotional pull of seeing this jerkwad talk to their fellow man like this takes us out of the seen-it nature of the text. There’s a detachment that draws us in, a sense of obvious wrongness we want to correct, and mechanically, well, there’s the small note that you have to word it in two lines like Bramblewood Paragon, I think, but aside from that, it’s niche and not so much about making-tribal-happen as it is supporting the possibility for tribal in limited while more acknowledging that tribal support isn’t the focus. This person is indeed a sycophantic squire. What more is there to say?

~

@partytimesdeluxe — Mist-Trick Sprite (JUDGE PICK)

You know, it’s odd how much blue tribal there was this week. You don’t really consider how much blueness needs and/or wants it, but here we are. Odd. Anyway, this card caught my eye because there’s something new about it, something weird. And I like it. I’m not sure what design space it’s playing into or what’s happening here, uncertain why there would be a manifestation theme with faeries. I think that you probably need to put in the rules text for manifest, like many non-premier keywords, but that’s besides the point. You know what? This card is both new and good, and I think that’s what really gets me.

Yeah, it should probably be “~ or another Faerie” for that trigger, clarity and all, but man. You get bodies, you get appropriately costed bodies, and you can outpace and fly and trick and blink and do weird stuff. I understand that these faeries are using the mist to make illusory aspects of creatures that may or may not be other tricksters, and I get that the power level ensures you can only get one which may or may not be a faerie. And it’s cool! This card makes me want to play it and see the rest of the set. It’s certainly unusual and doesn’t really fit into what we currently know about faerie tribal, but does that really matter right now? This is asking for something definitively new. I think that I like that push.

~

@pocketvikings — Millstone Crab

I don’t have much to say about this card. The ability, cost, type, P/T, that’s fine. And… Maybe I need to take a break from the computer for a few minutes and get up. As it stands, my initial thoughts are things that I’ve said before about other cards, and it’s hard to get worked up one way or another about how this one’s going. One moment. This is all in writing, so you don’t have to wait for me, but I’m letting you know.

Right. Nope, there’s still too much practicality in the flavor text and name. I get the callback and I understand the intent. The fact that there’s so much potential in having the crabs live near a coastal millstone that’s just wasted here is frustrating to me. I don’t know how to express nuance here, and this is actually less me being critical of the flavor text and more about me being unable to explain myself precisely. What makes flavor text good? One of my professors explained once that good poems require an element of surprise, anticipation followed by the unknown. I suppose the disconnect between flavor and mechanics here in everything but name hindered some of the success, but on top of that, there really isn’t surprise here. What is the intended emotion or information gleaned from the fact that the crabs have physical protection? Why is that associated with luck? Honestly, what is the millstone doing in a place where there are crabs in the first place? I think the crabs’ cuteness with the milling identity just doesn’t translate to this card. If you want crabpost to happen, it needs to be more resonant than this.

~

@reaperfromtheabyss — Ichthian Schoolmaster

You know, both of these abilities have issues that I gotta point out, and it kinda makes me sad, because this card is damn cute. Seriously cute. Amazingly, genuinely heart-touchingly nice to look at and consider. I love how simple this art evokes a feeling of calm worldbuilding and how there’s a FISH in a CLOAK, come on, that’s worth it! This is just so nice. But yes, no, the mechanics have to be nitpicked, because that’s my job.

Because of this card’s high-cost, any attempt at a curve in the tribe will most likely result in giving these fish so much warding that it might as well be hexproof at that point. The Tarrasque isn’t the best card to look at for this, because, well, that’s the same issue but on a wide scale. If it gave your other fish that ability, it might be better, but what about if it gave them ward equal to the number of cards in your hand? That way it could tie into the combat damage and encourage resource management without the board eventually getting muddled by untargetable fish. With the second ability, it’s just plain worded incorrectly. “Whenever one or more Fish you control deal combat damage to an opponent, you may draw that many cards. IF YOU DO, discard that many cards minus one.” The may and if need to be together. With those, THEN you have a fishy tokeny swarm full of barbel-babies. I want young catfish scholars now because of you. I hope you’re happy.

~

@scavenger98 — Etherium Eulogist

I hate to pull back the curtain on you, but, uh, you remember in your resubmission where you mentioned that this needed to be a nontoken Artificer dying to prevent infinite loops? You might need to double-check your files, because I went back, and I think you accidentally submitted your card without that change. It happens, so let’s ignore that. ANYWAY. I don’t hate this card. I like how you worked with the tribal aspect to really drive home that you gotta have artificers in order to make it work and that you should get as many as possible. That much I like a lot. There are a couple things I’d’ve changed.

Firstly, the fact is that the eulogist feelings kinda gets muddled, even though it’s the etherium-sided part of Esper, where they’re a little more haughty; the text makes it feel worried to the point of being selfish? I don’t really dislike that, but it feels a little odd to me that… Well, how exactly does the weaving mean she’ll be remembered? Is she weaving parts of herself? Is she trying to ensure that her work will make her stand out and people will remember her eulogizing? It isn’t super clear right now. As for the mechanics, this really is a decent card. I think that, honestly, this could be better in another contest without the tribal part and/or without specifically etherium. I love this concept and want to steal it and/or laud it, don’t get me wrong. I feel that if she made Construct tokens, then that whole problematic loop would be negated, and that it could also just work off of nontoken artifact creatures if you wanted to make this for a cube or something and didn’t have specifically Artificer tribal. There’s a lot to love and work with with this card still, and I hope that the takeaway is a) check your work and b) polish off a cohesive feeling.

~

@shakeszx — Crain, Pact Signatory

Name, really awesome. Numbers are great. Typeline checks out. The ability should read “..if you control a demon, YOU draw a card and lose 1 [numeral] life.” And then we get to the flavor text and, if you’ve read through all the commentary thusly, I’m sure you know what I’m about to say. I just feel absolutely nothing here. This guy is neat. I like his relationship to demons. I think he’s got some chops. The direction, though, on top of that… I get it, but what’s a Man here? Is this someone that looks like Yawgmoth, or Kynaois, or Syr Konrad, or… What’s the mood? Is this person sworn to demons with contracts and wizened, ready to be killed, or is he like Liliana, ready to spring upon them? The context clues feel like they’re expecting us to reach a conclusion that doesn’t really exist right now.

I think I’m going to ask that you be more specific for future contest things, because the rest of it really is decent, minor templating issues aside. Without that specificity and with a reliance on “this is a demon feeling, this is what demons do,” to carry it, the tropes don’t have as much emotional impact. If you’re going to go all the way, then you gotta distinguish it from what the audience might already know. Otherwise, I’m grasping at what awesomeness is there (especially the name, seriously, what a cool name) and wanting to have the tropes just shoved aside completely in favor of the newness you’re introducing.

~

@simsarwel — Shore Rummager

What is up with crabs this week?? Three crabs! I’m not complaining but I’m slightly baffled! Is there some sort of crab resurgence that I missed? Anyway, this card’s fine. I was mistaken about “toughness of” verses “among,” so thank you for teaching me about that inadvertently. I guess that at this point, we have the crab conga, which was unique, and then two milling crabs, and I have to wonder how things coincided here. It’s one of those things where there were a lot of great ideas that came together and the most obvious answers mean that I can’t drum up that much excitement, and that’s nobody’s fault.

I think that you’re a good flavor text writer. I think you also wrote a little too much here. Turn this into a poem, sure, but the language and verbage is a little unnecessarily purple and could lend itself to being pared down. “The Sarpadian [capitalized!] coast is constantly evolving [active verbs], each new cove and dune drawn by scuttling claws [the how of it all].” That’s a first draft, but the point is. Pare, snip, etc. I think the coloration and mood comes through well, too. I would like to say that this is probably too powerful a mill card, because in a 12-crab style deck, you’re going to be hitting so many crabs that… Let’s see. Turn one, Ruin Crab, turn two, fetch, Shore Rummager, turn three, another Ruin Crab, fetch, activate Shore Rummager. By that point, you’ve milled 25 cards, excluding the possibility of Archive Traps. Yeah, that’s… Yeah. Maybe too much.

~

@snugz — Resbow, Spikeshell Monarch

It’s again unfortunate that we have the second turtle card with almost the exact same text as another turtle. There’s stuff about this particular turtle that I like a bit more, though. The design is thoughtful with how this character interacts with other turtles and what its role is, although I think that it definitely should’ve been a Turtle Noble all things considered. But maybe that doesn’t work on this plane? In that cast, should the honorific have been “monarch?” Anyway. I really like how this turtle has its butt in place here, but it itself isn’t a butt-attacker, and rather, it gives that to the other turtles. This one? They’re a snapper. You discard to lash out. I think that that’s really neat. Does the discard work in conjunction with other cards in the set? Possibly, but it’s uncertain, and this effect shows up often enough that I can’t really say.

And that’s really about all I got for this particular card, unfortunately. I like it as a character and I like where it’s going. With the slightly unusual and nonspecific flavor combined with the first ability that’s more-or-less expected of turtle tribal from MTG players, it seems, then we’re left with the fact that it’s a Good Turtle and it’s not buffing my shell, so to speak. Not galapagosing my islands. Not, uh… Argh. Sorry, I wish I had more here. I guess the balance between pushing boundaries and creating nice designs is fairly narrow, ain’t it.

~

@starch255 — Mulch Creeper (JUDGE PICK)

The minor templating change is: “mill THREE cards.” And for the Bloom ability, I don’t think there should be spaces around the hyphen, looking at abilities like Suspend and how those interact on MSE. But, those are small. Everything else about this is really, really, really damn good. You’ve reached out with making a new mechanic, and a couple people did that, sure, but this is a new mechanic that really works well. By itself, a bear that blooms means you can run it just about anywhere, but this a) suggests that there is plant tribal that allows for self-milling, and b) it shows why self-milling is important for this card. That’s all I wanted from this contest, really! Why does this ability matter, can you show how? And yeah, you did it.

This is a really strong judge pick, and you know what, I hope that whoever is reading this looks at this card in particular, because I think that it does the job well enough that had I rewound time I really would’ve made this a runner-up so that it got more publicity. I think that if you’re reading this and you know that someone DOESN’T read the general commentary, have them take a look at this card. What else is there to say about that’s not gushing that I haven’t already said? This card makes me want more of it. It’s quite self-contained as far as designs go, saying what ie needs to say, and those are the best ones for this type of contest. An exhibition that leaves enough room for more wanting while giving that wanting plenty of wiggle room. Good shows all around. It’s bloomin’ nice, innit.

~

@wolkemesser — Kor Caretaker (JUDGE PICK)

…I’m going to try to keep my composure here. For those of you not in the know, there’s an old MTG meme-thing, and here is the link to one of the posts, and it’s, well, not NSFW, but it’s of a nature that I usually wouldn’t put on the mainblog, and yet it’s part of MTG canon, I suppose, maybe. It makes it hard to take this card as seriously as I want to, because, well, it’s actually a really solid card. A 2/3 for 2 with all upside might be a little too strong—in fact, I’m positive that it’s too strong—but everything else works out. Seriously, this is one of your most solid designs in terms of mechanics. I think if I changed one thing about the wording then it would be to put the counter on a “Kor you control” but that’s it.

Do we have to talk about the flavor? Yes, so I’m going to be the bigger man (i.e. bigger than the immature meme-liking part of me) and say that I do actually like it. Making food and gaining life and being an adventuring provisionist feels good here. Divorcing it from context is…difficult. I think that in the end it might have been better to go for a more “expedition food scavenger and cook-person” above this so that there would be more of a serious aire, and also bump it to 2W, but yeah, no, this is a card that makes combat interesting and I seriously think that it’s a diving into deciduous Food production, Kor tribal (severely underrated), and limited synergy that’s probably some of your best work.

~

Once more, thank you all for your entries! New contest tomorrow. Be prepared. Or don’t! Your call.

@abelzumi​ <3

[inventors-fair]

WELCOME TO THE INVENTOR’S FAIR

Salutations! Here’s a quick guide and FAQs to help you along the way. Scroll down for the most recent posts and contest!

What is the Inventor’s Fair?

This Tumblr is a collaborative custom card competition blog for Magic: the Gathering. Each week, one of our rotating judges creates a contest prompt, and then people submit their entries. At the end of the week, the cards are judged and winners are chosen.

HERE is a general weekly schedule, updated for 2021.

Why is the Inventor’s Fair?

Since perhaps the inception of the game, players have been making their own cards. The creation of the internet, fandom, and online communities have led to many people sharing those cards online. Part of the love of the game is through creating new mechanics, ideas, stories and interactions. This blog exists as a challenge space for people who enjoy sharing their ideas in a low-stakes competitive sphere.

Wait, you already have an FAQ page. What’s this, then?

The FAQ page felt a little outdated, and people were asking questions that were there, so it’s clear that not everyone is using it. This is a pinned post with all the available information, starting points, etc.

Click the readmore for everything you need to know!

I’d like to submit a card. Where do I begin?

Fantastic! Good to have you on board!

Firstly, make sure that you’re following this blog! That’s the most important part, so that you can get updates and see future timing.

Secondly, if you’d like, join Discord and jump into the server! Our Discord has general channels, MTG chat, and most importantly, a workshop where you can show folks your designs and get feedback.

Once that’s set up:

If you’re on a PC, it’s recommended that you download the program Magic Set Editor, which is the gold standard for customization. MSE has a Discord as well where you can ask questions and troubleshoot. If you’re on iOS or Android, you can download the Artificer app. Other browser-based card creators are easily searchable if those options don’t work. And if all else fails, you may submit as a text, which a mod/judge can put into a program as an image.

Every Sunday, a new prompt will be announced. It will be under the “#announcement” tag on the blog, in the Announcement channel of the Discord, and easily scrollable on the blog. If you can’t find it, just ask and someone will tell you.

I’ve never designed a card before, though.

That’s alright! If you’d like to start, there aren’t too many resources, but there are lots of suggestions.

“Design 101,” by Mark Rosewater (head of MTG R&D). This article goes through some basic design principles and links to other parts of MTG design.

Do you know what you want your card to do? Look up cards that have similar wording on Scryfall! The Oracle text on cards, which is much different than the printed text, will give you an idea on how to properly word your cards.

Sometimes you might like to use a mechanic or idea, but it’s been out of the game for a while. Modern design sensibility changes things. Feel free to fight against the meta, but keep in mind that there are things which have changed over time.

On this blog, we give commentary to all entries. Here is the tag to all the commentary that the judges have given on winners, runners-up, and entries alike. See what individual judges say, see what things repeat, see what corner cases there might be, etc. Hopefully that’ll help show what a winning card looks like.

Okay, I made my card. I’m ready to send it in!

Well, we got a submission box just for that purpose. Here you go!

PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR CARDS AS EXTERNAL LINKS OR EXTERNAL IMAGES. Tumblr doesn’t like that and we can’t view them. And in the event that you don’t respond, we can’t count/judge them because we can’t see them, and that sucks for everyone.

...I’ve submitted my card, but I want to change it.

You are free to submit again. Your newest entry will always supersede your previous entry, so make sure that you’ve fixed everything that you need to fix. Use Oracle wording and Workshop feedback to make sure you’ve done everything you can!

But please, don’t spam the box with a bunch of iterations. We don’t want to have to impose limits.

Important FAQs:

Can I submit more than one card to be judged?

No. Some contests will ask for multiple cards, such as a Meld contest, but that is the only time. If you send in multiple cards, the most recent card will be the judged one.

Regarding other double-faced cards, modal DFCs (such as in Zendikar Rising and Kaldheim) are effectively more than one card and should not be submitted unless asked for. Transforming DFCs (such as in Innistrad or Ixalan) should be taken with a grain of salt. Making a tDFC without a specific contest or strong justification may impact your chances of winning depending on the judge and contest.

That said, there will be tDFC contests, mDFC contests, and multi-card contests in the future. Anything is possible.

Can I submit silver-bordered cards?

We have had silver-bordered contests in the past, as well as contests that specifically allow for silver-bordered cards to be submitted. However.

A majority of Magic's design is based in black-border interactions, an understandable rules system where balance and universality is key. Silver-bordered design often ignores or circumvents those balances. The designs are more difficult to judge against other black-border designs because the criteria are wildly different. For that purpose, we ask that you only design for black-border unless otherwise specified.

Can I use art for my cards?

Yes, as long as the artist is properly credited. “Unknown” is not an acceptable credit for obvious reasons. “Deviantart” is not an acceptable credit because they all have usernames and in some cases have their real name attached, which you should use. “Getty Images” is not an acceptable credit, as they too have names/usernames.

If you’re the artist (which, by the way, is wonderful), you do have to credit yourself! You’ll be reminded of that. You’re free to just use your username, but you have to have something besides “me” or “self.”

Art does not impact your chances of winning. Art does not impact how your cards are viewed. You 100% are not required to use art.

Come on, I just want to use art. Do I have to get credit?

Yes. This is not negotiable. Arguments, multiple infractions/reminders, and belligerence will result in a ban.

Why? Because on principle, it’s theft. No, it’s not a 1:1 felony, but it’s a selfish, lazy practice to purposefully ignore the work of artists and photographers. Every Magic artist is credited appropriately, and for good reason. We have standards, and will hold you to them.

What’s the purpose of winning?

Inventor’s Fair does not make profit, does not have monetary prizes, does not ask for money, does not do ‘raffles,’ and does not have sponsors. So why are we here?

We’re here because we love the game.

Most people don’t play Magic for fame and fortune. Commander, kitchen table, cube—none of those are done with monetary value in mind. You play the game because it’s fun, winning feels fun, and even if you don’t win then participating feels fun.

The bottom line is: if it’s not fun for you, don’t do it! You’re free to observe and to watch and comment and do all of those things without the stress of engagement. This blog has far more followers than we do entries. And that’s okay! You are under no obligation to submit if you don’t want to.

What makes a winning card?

There’s no one right answer. That said, each week’s contest will have their individual criteria and will tell you what that judge is looking for.

In general, just good balance and design based on listed expectations is key for getting onto the podium. Each judge has different things that they’re looking for, we’re on a rotating schedule, and we all have different quibbles and tastes and whatnot. So if you want, you can always try to play to the judges, but that’s not as recommended as making something that you like yourself.

Also, keep in mind: We do not work for WotC, Hasbro, or MTG. We’re not professionals, we’re not published well-known game designers by any means, and we’re only human. We go off of what we go off of, and that’s that. Disagreements about what makes a winner will occur, but keep in mind that this is pretty low-stakes and that we’re only doing our best. We ask that you do your best too.

I’m [neurodivergent/POC/disabled/LGBTQ+/etc.]. Is this a safe place for me?

Yes.

Magic mechanics don’t discriminate, and neither do we. In the workshop, submissions, comments, and any other places, we aim to create a welcoming environment for everyone.

If you have concerns, please contact a judge or moderator.

Additionally, this is important to keep in mind: Inventor’s Fair isn’t really for kids. What that means: Explicit material is not tolerated, but there might be some swearing and whatnot.

Keep in mind, the Fair is not a place to take your heavy topics. This is a Magic: the Gathering blog and channel. We’re not therapists, we’re not babysitters, we’re not life coaches. Please use your best judgement.

If there are any other questions you might have, send an ask, send a message, @ a judge on Discord, or ask the community! Be well, and welcome.

—Inventor’s Fair Judges and Moderators, 2021

@3smuth @abelzumi​ @follower-of-liliana @illharg-the-rave-boar​ @mistershinyobject @teaxch @thatboonguy​ @yeens-human​

[inventors-fair]

Decree of Mashitude (aka contest winners)

Earl of Squirrel, by Milivoj Ceran

1. Best general mechanical design:

@wapulatus - Sparkling Dwarf. This card has some serious mechanical potential. I’ve never considered this ability much, and I think it’s a great red combat-player that works in multitudinous formats for all sorts of reasons. Aggressive, thoughtful, and devilishly interesting.

Best flavor:

@starch255 - Radiant Sky-Island. So, this card is pretty insanely powerful? I think? It’s certainly better than a lot of uncommon utility lands I’ve seen. I think it’s GOOD, but - anyway. There’s exactly what we need in this card to make it come to life before our eyes. It’s a haven for griffins, birds, angels, sphinxes, spirits... I can just feel this card. It’s pretty awesome.

Most creative use of trope/word:

@mistershinyobject - Ethereal Hobbit. You were dealt a pretty weird hand here, I’ll admit. But damn if you didn’t do an amazing job! This powerful and peculiar card utilizes Lorwyn’s setting to take a word we wouldn’t ordinarily put there and make it work pretty amazingly! Great job.

And before we go, insanely honorable mention:

@tmstage - Sacred Gate. This card stuck with me. It didn’t fit any of the categories specifically, as it was a little too powerful for design, and kind of had to be bent for flavor. But as a card, this fortification - one of two submitted to us! - really got to me and made me wish this card existed. So, tmstage, you’re an honorary winner this week.

Thank you all for your submissions! A masterpost of all contestants will be up soon.

-The Inventor’s Fair and @abelzumi

[inventors-fair]

Come one, come all to the great inventors-fair!

Calling all inventors, designers, and creators both great and yet-to-be great! Come to the proving ground here to compete for glory!

This is a MTG card design contest blog run by @yeens-human and @krazybomb ! Contests will be run weekly alternating between the two of us. They will be announced on Sunday and submissions will be taken through Thursday. Winners will be announced Friday with all other submissions posted throughout Saturday.

To be eligible for the contests, submissions must follow these requirements:

Each individual card must be submitted as an image through an online card creator of your choice. Cards submitted in text will not be eligible for entry.

Submissions must be made through the Submit button. Submissions sent through message or as an ask will not be eligible for entry.

Submissions will only be accepted from Sunday through Thursday.

Entrants are allowed submission per week.

If you have used a card already, you cannot submit a card by the same name again. These entries will not be counted. However variations on the same theme are welcome (if you make a Dimir mechanic, you are welcome to reuse your Dimir mechanic in new ways).

Winners will be selected based on three categories: Best in Design, Best in Flavor, and Dealer’s Choice. Dealer’s Choice is a category that will change contest to contest.

This week’s challenge comes from @yeens-human ! For this week:

Create a Kaladeshi inventor’s fair participant and their invention. The creature must be Legendary and be of the races of Kaladesh. It may be whatever color(s) you decide are best. Submissions must include (1) the Legendary Creature (2) the Artifact they bring to the fair. Synergy not required.

Dealer’s Choice: Best in Show (Given to the best Enter the Battlefield Trigger)