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inventors-fair · 1 year

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You Came, You Saw, You Innovated

GREAT stuff this week, folks! It was a tough prompt, but y'all knocked it out of the park. I have heard you, and my next one will definitely be a lot less complex, but for now, revel in the glory that you all very much gave me what I wanted to see this week.

Here's the commentary!

Abyssal Rebuttal by @nicolbolas96 **JUDGE PICK**

Starting it off strong with Dandan, a format that has approximately 3 fans worldwide. For those wondering, the format centers around a shared deck with multiple copies of a single creature, and other cards that interact with it. The original version of this deck involved, you might have guessed, Dandan as the central creature. I do think a Dandan set would be a little tricky logistically, but that’s not what I’m judging. This card is simple and clean, but the reason it deserves to be a judge pick is because of how effectively it conveys information. The reminder text is short but every inch of it is crucial and easy to parse, and once you read it you go back to the effect to understand it with new eyes. I also think the strongest design choice here is not limiting “the Dandan” of the deck to only be Dandan, which would allow for a much more healthy variety in play. It obviously brings up questions of “how do players decide what the Dandan is” and “how are those cards distributed”, but this card is a brilliant example of showing AND telling in all the right amounts.

Cathar Challenger by @horsecrash

Horde magic is also a very cool direction to take this week’s prompt, and also makes me realize that I could have simplified the prompt into making a card for a “weird” format. It’s tough to evaluate the power on this one, since Horde can vary wildly depending on what variation of the rules you use. It’s obviously calling to Cathar’s Crusade, but doing it on attack and tacking on the lifegain might make it a touch too strong. On the other hand, it not affecting your own board is pretty big, so it definitely depends how many teammates you have. This one is just really tough to evaluate in a vacuum, I think a cheaper version that scaled less strongly could definitely have been a strong contender.

Deep Water Scavenger by @i-am-the-one-who-wololoes

This is definitely a tricky one, but it’s very fun to parse with the information I’ve been given. This being an uncommon helps contextualise a few things- it does have a mill ability, but fifteen cards is such a low threshold that we’re likely talking draft deck (40 cards), or potentially even smaller. Also, since it’s such a small library, and because there’s an ability that cares about cards leaving your grave without any way to make that happen, I’m going to guess that this format involves you shuffling your grave into library instead of losing when you draw from an empty library. It’s a fun card, though the pieces seem a bit disjointed until you fit them together. The shroud is a bit of a sticking point for me- they don’t use it anymore, and for good reasons. Hexproof or ward would serve this design much better. It definitely makes me curious to see the other cards in this set, so well done.

Dreadraven by @wolkemesser

Ahh, the classic “change the name of the design last minute and forget to update.” We’ve all been there. For what it’s worth, I like dreadraven a lot better. The mana cost almost got me for a sec, I was ready to comment that mono blue doesn’t get deathtouch or lifelink, but that little black pip saves me from being all pedantic. This card doesn’t tell me much except that it’s made for a best-of-three format (or maybe even more), but a draft environment built around snowballing one win into another, or coming back from a nasty game 1 loss could make for some really interesting designs. I would be curious to see if this is something they would allow in black-border magic, since they typically seem to want every game to be a totally fresh start. Anyways, you pushed the envelope, and that’s what I asked for this week, so thanks!

Guardian Seacat by @piccadilly-blue

Whoof. I’ll admit, this one I had to look up, because I spent ages puzzling over what this could be for, and I say this as someone who’s played some Judge Tower. I honestly totally forgot about the “X is always 3” rule, but this takes an interesting spin on it. The main issue I see here is that Judge Tower is fundamentally not a format designed for fun, it’s designed as a training exercise. Add draft to that, plus the aspect of a shared library, and you’re left in a confusing spot. Plus, this just tanks a free loss, which either means there are more cards that do this, or this is the strongest card in the set. It’s definitely one of the most creative designs this week, and kudos to that, but I just don’t see how the format would work.

Hekara, Rakdos Emissary by @deg99 - **JUDGE PICK**

It is interesting that those who submitted for Commander Legends-esque sets all tackled the color identity problem. I mean, it makes sense- that’s the biggest obstacle by far, and it’s fun to see all the different angles on it. Emissary threw me for a loop for a second, but once I grokked it, I saw the possibilities. You can run her as a Rakdos commander, or you can pick up another Emissary and go with pretty much any other color combo except Azorius, Simic, or Selesnya. I also like that you tried to include incentive to play her on her own, but I think the ability comes off a bit awkward and too heavy-handed on the idea. I think the mechanic already takes care of that, as you can’t make her a rakdos deck unless you have a black or red Emissary to pair with her, so already there’s some incentive to play her alone if you’ve been pulling good Rakdos cards. That being said, I like that vein of abilities, I just think they could be a bit more subtle. Also, I don’t love the epithet considering it copies the name of the mechanic, so a shakeup there would improve the flavor immensely.

Imperial Protection by @nine-effing-hells

Ahh, emperor. The solution to “Well, we have six players and eight hours, what are we going to do?” This one is cool, again following the philosophy of not making the card useless if you aren’t the emperor, but making it just a bit better if you are. I do think hybrid is a bit iffy here because white anthems and green anthems don’t really overlap in size or function, but it’s a bend at most, so eh. Just like the archenemy cards though, I’m curious how you envisioned the actual drafting experience. Is it a shared pool like 2HG? Do teams draft 3 at a time or separately? Do teammates sit consecutively or staggered? The fact that I’m asking these questions is a sign you’ve piqued my interest, and now I want to go play more emperor, so... good card?

Isrun, Gravewhisperer by @real-aspen-hours

More identity fixing! Last one was limited to two colors, this one to three, both with a very clever take on how to do it. This one has a more strict limit, but allows you to double up on partners with the same colors, and also allows you (the designer) to put a solid mix of 1 and 2 colour commanders for some mixing and matching. The creative element is going over my head a bit I think, since the mechanic is clearly alara-themed, but the flavor text says Tarkir. Is it a mashup of all the 3-color faction sets? If so, neat, but maybe the mechanic deserves a more general name that isn’t tied to only one of the 4 (or 5) planes you’re giving some love to. The card itself is fun, playing into some abzan graveyard themes and their whole “fury of the small” kinda thing.

Logistics Accountant by @hypexion - **JUDGE PICK**

Oh man, Coup in magic. That... honestly, I kinda wanna do that now. Seems like a lot of fun. Seems like these are more public roles though, since the treasurer would have to be public information. I want to know how big these teams are. Is there a set number of roles that are distributed? Are they chosen from a pool at random? Do players get to choose their roles before the game begins? Can you have more than one role? The second ability would seem to suggest so, and also that they would have various activated abilities. I can see the Treasurer having an ability that (obviously) lets them spend coin counters, which is very clever. Whatever this format is, I want to play more of it, and if you invented it, I demand a full write-up of the rules immediately. Anyways, uh... yeah. Good card.

Loyal Toadie by @helloijustreadyourpost

Scheeeeeemes. It’s a fun word to say. Anyways, another take on archenemy, and this one comes at a different angle than the others. While the other submissions had one effect for the archenemy and one for the team, this one wraps it up into a single effect, basically allowing you to scry or fateseal, either to pull a better scheme or avoid a nasty one. Unfortunately, I’m not quite sure it works as intended, since “setting a scheme in motion” refers to the act of revealing it and triggering the ability all in one go. That being said, it’s a fairly easy fix to make it just counter the scheme ability in exchange for allowing them to set another one in motion. Alas, nitpicky rules are nitpicky. Apart from that it seems very fun, and I love how this can be a competent henchman who supports your evilest plans, or a bumbling buffoon that ruins your moment of greatness. Excellent flavor.

Malack, Butcher of Worlds by @certification-wizard

Much like one of our examples this week, this submission implies a long, drawn-out event over the course of multiple days, since it both asks you to defeat five or more players, and it references prize packs that are also drafted, implying that you can add to your pool post-construction- as well as a “campaign”, which carries its own weight. What’s interesting to me is the typal element, and the specific commander callout. This is some form of draft league event with commanders, which sounds like a very interesting premise. However, being so reliant on your opponents to be playing different decks is pretty rough, and the ability is ambiguous enough that I don’t know if it would count defeating U, B, and UB commanders as two or three for the count. Finally, the last aspect here is how heavily typal it is. What does the set environment look like, where you can expect to see two demons per pack? Also, if you’re drafting, that messes up card parity, which is a no-no. See cards like Cogwork Librarian, who always keep the same number of cards in the pack to avoid this issue. This is a really cool idea, but the elements feel a little scrambled, and hard to unify into a single idea.

Mask of Elesh Norn by @lanabutnotdelray

Eugh, who would want that mask? Creepy. Also no eye holes. I’ve already made commentary on the idea of an archenemy set, so let’s look at the card instead. More dual effects like this, where one functions as the archenemy and one functions on the team (and in other formats), are definitely a cool way to address the idea of Limited. However, I... don’t know how this would work? Is it subtracting from each “kind” of token (which I’m not sure is an actually rules term for tokens), or just one overall? If your opponent has a Tireless Provisioner, would they choose which one they make, would you, or would they make none? The idea is really clever, but it seems there’s a reason they haven’t tried to implement this effect before. Definitely a cool premise, and I’m right up there with Maro in my love for token doublers, but this one gives me a bit of a rules headache.

Mercenary Auction by @flightyquinn

Hoo boy, okay. This is WILD, and I think I mean that in a good way. This card reads to me as one that was designed for a specific format, but also made ambiguous so it could be played in other formats, and so I say to that... what the hell happens if I make my commander opponent into my teammate? Is it all of a sudden one 2HG team vs two individual opponents? Do the other two team up? Is this meant to be a signifier with no rules baggage like “friend or foe”? It makes my head spin. For that matter, even in the format this was made for, is that really... fair to your teammate? Like in a social sense? You and your buddy are all excited to go to this new draft event, then your opponent says “nope, you’re with me for the rest of the day, or until I play this again.” It’s possible I might be wildly misinterpreting this card, but teammate does have actual rules meaning, so y’know. As for the rest of the card, I LOVE the bidding aspect, where they’re incentivized to show good stuff so they don’t have to discard. However, you’re likely not gonna have much mana left over after paying 5 for this, so I think you could even play it for free without being too busted.

Omenpath Reveler by @salamileg

...Funny enough, I am literally about 2/3rds of the way through making a planechase draft cube built around the idea of omenpaths. That’s pretty funny, though admittedly it’s an easy idea to go for. This one is simple, but encourages planechase on a few different levels. It wants you to get chaos, obviously, but also wants you to roll as much as possible first. It definitely wants you to be able to roll at instant speed, but too bad so sad for the poor little satyr. The flavor text is great, though the use of the word chaos is a bit on the nose. Obviously there would be some logistics issues with trying to draft oversized cards, but we can assume the business people will figure that out. Nothing much else to say, this is a solid uncommon with a lot going for it.

Radar Bauble by @sparkyyoungupstart

Okay, so originally I had only a vague idea what this did (and to be fair, the card does a fairly good job of conveying some of the information), but, like a vision from the heavens, my phone saw fit to grant me a clip of TCC playing what I can only assume is the format this was made for. Now I must ask, in your set made for this format- can you only submit cards with the Treasure subtype? Any artifacts? Is there a minimum and maximum submission, or can you just mooch off of your opponent’s artifacts? The rest of the card became fairly clear, though I don’t think that’s quite how the second one would be worded. I think this would definitely be a fun one to explore more, maybe with the classic caveat of “one guaranteed treasure in every pack” for logistic’s sake.

Ranger’s Axe by @bergdg

And so we reach our last commander card. I built something similar to this a while back, but I think mine had a key difference- namely, it functioned like Backgrounds, where you could only run the equipment if your creature commander had the appropriate keyword. This seems to say that you can add green to the color identity of any commander you want, with no downsides, drawbacks or punishments. As you can imagine, that gets pretty scary, and is probably something best to be avoided. However, if we move on and assume that it’s meant to be restricted to a specific subset of commanders, the rest of the card is great! You can run it in the 99 for a decent buff, but if you have it in the command zone, it’ll automatically start by giving +2/+2 and trample, and scales really nicely if you have a cheap commander. I do think it could stand to be a touch cheaper either on the mana cost or equip cost, but dealer’s choice.

Waters of Wisdom by @squeezyboi

Framing it almost perfectly as the first and last cards, here is our second of two Dandan submissions. Normally, I try to avoid comparing cards, but it’s hard not to here. The card itself is a nice functional uncommon, but some parts of this confuse me. One of the key features of Dandan is the shared library, so does your format do away with that aspect? It’s not a terrible idea to make it work in draft, but then it does change the format significantly. In the second half, this card falls into a bit of a trap that the other one avoided- forcing the singular creature to ALWAYS be Dandan means that the decks always have to have blue, there’s no variation in the creature aspects, and it severely limits what the rest of the set can look like. I think to make this design work, you want to give yourself more freedom.

Yulius, the Protean Shadow by @spooky-bard **JUDGE PICK**

2 headed giant? In my commander? It’s more likely than you think. This one plays really well, and honestly it was hard to not give it a podium spot. Point is a neat ability, though admittedly not hugely impactful on most designs, and it makes me curious to see what anchor would be. Going off of fighting game terms that my friend had to teach me, the point is the first one you send out, and the anchor brings up the rear. With that in mind, I assume it’s some kind of protection or survivability, but I’m not sure what’s small enough to match up with +1/+1. Anyways, the battlebond-esque flavor is off the charts, the draftplay and gameplay here seem lots of fun (as long as you use the 2HG rules of being able to pick two cards at a time and have a shared team pool), and altogether this appeals to my personal sensibilities quite a lot. Nicely done!

So long, thanks for the engagement, and I'll see you all in a few weeks!

~judge @naban-dean-of-irritation

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventor's fair #commentary #innovation nation

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