Animated Adaptation

A board state has always been more than the sum of creatures on it. Creatures often serve as the main drivers, sure, but everything on the board adds something to the dynamic of a game. Of course, sometimes the lines between what is and isn't a creature isn't quite as clear-cut as the type line. Enter the subject of this week's discussion:

Design a non-creature (and non-Vehicle) card that can become a creature.

Becoming a creature can be a strictly temporary affair a la your typical man-land, or it can be a more permanent transformation. Indeed, it could also be a literal transformation where only the back side is a creature, although in that case it does have to actually transform; no MDFCs allowed there. Similarly, a battle whose back side is a creature is fair game as well.

There's a couple corner cases, too. For example, a card turning itself face-down would actually qualify, because it inherently becomes a colorless 2/2 creature. Really, as long as at some point, in some way the card can acquire a power and toughness and the creature type (and, again, isn't a Vehicle), go wild.

Make like a tree, and design! —@spooky-bard

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Aftershocks: TDM Mechanic Runners-up!

Our runners-up this week, after much deliberation, are @izzet-always-r-versus-u, @misterstingyjack and @nine-effing-hells!

@izzet-always-r-versus-u — Together as One

It's fascinating to envision how this works with the stack. Every single creature can either get the counter or the spirit, and you have to wait for the whole thing to resolve before you get your response. Is that functional specifically? I honestly don't know, but like, of course it is—the intuition with enduring was a little difficult on prerelease night but folks are groking it enough. This card could also just get you a spirit for each creature you control, and on that note, I think it might be prudent to have each non-Spirit creature endure instead of just every creature. Although maybe it could be nontoken, just so you're not entirely screwed? Chaining these things together would be so incredibly strong in limited and even constructed. I'm imagining an EOT casting of this after a huge Anim Pakal swing and boy it doesn't look pretty. For the opponent, I mean. This is quite a strong card.

Really, the one-two punch of the flavor text is what seals the deal for me. Maybe Innistradian spirits are known for their flying, but blending some of those spiritual bonds with a world, perhaps, in which the dead are less ascending but more bound to their mortal bodies and the paths they once tread... It's possible to find a place where the flavor makes more direct sense. Maybe this doesn't have to be in a mainstream Innistrad set; as a Horizons one-off, I can imagine that there would be some pretty cool token/counter synergy that could justify a card where your spirits are standing their ground. Spirit and human fighters together feels awesome, this card feels like a first-pick, and I'm absolutely down for it.

@misterstingyjack — Sorrowful Singer

I have mixed feelings about this card, only because I want to justify a lot of the creative choices here when in reality I don't have to. In the end, it's quite powerful. Quite alone, too. The requiem, this memento mori, speaks to an aspect of black on Theros that's not often experimented with on the canonical cards. Erebos and the Underworld being a real God and a real location, respectively, puts a lot of the ennui in a different light. And yet, grief remains steadfast. Each player suffers in the song. Then death begets the return of another song, another portent, and that portent ensures nothing but a return to the grief that begat it. Am I reading too much into this card, or is it just doing a lot of work with what you've been putting into it? It's damn good, too, even if it's missing a comma between "dies" and "you" in the first creature line.

Omens on Theros are a phenomenal idea. Portent, scrying, the future—all of that is thematically there but the introduction of scrying (and its return to evergreen!) was about as far as that went thematically. I love the notion of omens and creatures with omens interacting with each other in a similar way that Adventures did on Eldraine, except it's less about "I'm returning from afar with newfound strength" and more "this is coming and there's nothing any of us can do about it" synergy. Maybe that's for the best, and maybe the mill strategy can be a little more localized into blue and black as far as archetypes go for limited. But what a way to start off this mindset, and I'm really impressed by how richly melancholy you've made this poor singer.

@nine-effing-hells — Augur of Emphara

Speaking of Theros, actually, here's a card that has a pretty cool flavor base and also deals with Omens on Theros, but with a purely mechanical bend that's really great turn one and speaks volumes about how the draft archetype wants to go later on. I love drawing cards, I love attacking with fliers, and I love a game plan where I get to swing in and, if they're not dead afterwards, draw enough cards to absolutely slay them on the crackback. I don't need much flavor justification to say that Ephara loves seeing into the future and also probably birds. I also don't need to justify having blue with a flying-themed and/or scry-themed bend in it. You've got...probably UW Fliers as an archetype, then overlap it with UR scry and GU cares-about-omens. Boom, there's your brew, there's your overlap.

Paying five mana for a 2/4 that maybe draws you some cards won't see people defending it in their decks. People won't understand the strength of omens and scrying until it's too late. Casting an omen and then scrying into other omens feels so awesome when those creatures finally come down, and I think the mechanics of how this card wants to work on board speak to that. This flocking is indeed auspicious, because you've got a 1/1 flier on board that's going to be drawing and pinging and doing great things overall. Multiple copies means that you're in for a wild ride... The more I talk about this card, the further I get from the flavor of it, and you know what, this card doesn't need to display anything that's not already on screen, and good for you in that regard. I think the card strength and the immediate draw to limited without having to think about flavor is a strength in and of itself sometimes, especially because bird portents just make sense. They do to me, anyway, but I also talk to animals, so I'm a little biased.

It's a long road to judge picks, commentary, notes and beyond. I'll keep everyone updates as I chip away, and once again, thank you so much for your entries, patience, and love of the game. TDM is a rockin' set and I'm glad to share it with all of you.

@abelzumi

Together as One: i agree with the commentary and I find it a really cool card! Maybe non-Spirit rather than non-token, tbh (there's an argument for both, but I'm not sure I like it.)

Sorrowful Singer // Requiem: Ohhh, what a nice card! Both mechanically and flavourfully. Heck yeah.

Augur of Ephara // Auspicious Flocking: Yeah, everything Abelzumi said. NIce card! Also, UB tokens!

Lands Matter Commentary: All's Realm that Ends Realm

We're going into Prerelease weekend, and I'm going to be juggling judge duties, card pricing, mechanical questions, and making sure that everyone logs into Companion. So it's nice in the end to sit down for a few hours and pretend that I could ever get these done ahead of time and/or on time for once. But that combination of duties...doesn't every color have a duty to itself? It's when the landscape of those duties changes that the really weird stuff comes about.

What a forced metaphor! Anyway, strengths. The variety of cards this week was pretty much what I expected, and I'm really happy that folks took it upon themselves to examine the specific angles and to really dig into the fun of what colors might want to do together. There were a lot of scaling effects that I noticed partway through, cards that cared about numbers of other cards, and it's a curious consideration: when is that good enough in limited to make a difference? What number might you be looking at? I think when examining these cards it's important to see the realistic potential, and there's a lot of potential here.

In terms of design choices I feel we should keep in mind, color pie bends/breaks weren't actually too bad this week, although there was potential for a couple cards to do things that their colors really aren't supposed to do. As far as context and flavor goes, though, we saw a lot of variety in how people depicted their stories. And that's awesome! Lands matter, and what lands do matters, and feel free to read on about my thoughts on them.

I had to limit myself to four JUDGE PICKS this week, which if you're new here are cards that I wanted to highlight for one specific reason or another. Check 'em out.

So many cool cards! Whether "in contest" or not.

About mine: ok, go it. I wanted the lifegain to happen AFTER the life loss. First you do the "bad thing" of allying with supposedly, or certainly, evil being, then you reap the benefits. Not testing makes it so sometimes we create things that are too strong. Oh well.

in Disco Elysium I was expecting there to be some kind of “addiction mechanic” that would add a long-term downside to taking drugs, and was surprised not only by the absence of any such mechanic but also that the benefits of drugs greatly outweighed the cost. anyways fast forward to the late game and I was downing three bottles of pyrholidon and smoking an entire pack of cigarettes before attempting any check, and it was only then I realized there was in fact an addiction mechanic

honestly, i think this is why i like the way the game handles substances so much. when i was looking up playthroughs of disco elysium i stumbled across one subreddit thread where someone asked “gameplay wise, is there any point to staying sober?” and just looked at it. like, yeah. yeah, exactly. we know that harry often does drugs specifically so that he can take on a superhuman caseload - as he puts it to kim, to be a “really good detective”. it was so chilling to see a player asking the same exact question that harry would probably be asking himself. without an external punishment mechanic, without being heavy handed about it, and in a way that (as OP pointed out) is so natural as to be almost unnoticeable, it manages to put the player exactly in his shoes as a recovering (or not recovering) addict. it’s a really well-designed mechanic

“Things are harder without this substance, so there’s no reason for me to abstain” being a purely Player-Driven interaction is a phenomenal addiction mechanic. Absolutely fucking gorgeous.

Storm Count

Dragons, dragons, everywhere! Or at least a lot of places. And they're spreading throughout the multiverse!

But yeah, TDM having a new mechanic/ability for each clan plus a new shuffling mechanic PLUS a little flavorful action keyword is...a lot. Explaining them to prerelease players took a long while, but they got them all, even with the weird stuff regarding triggers and timing. Everyone had a blast! Everyone who was playing, anyway, but I got to run through the LGS taking judge calls so, y'know, stimulation.

Now that prerelease is officially over...guess what kind of contest we're doing now? ... Oh no, not that. I've got something else in mind.

Design a card using a new mechanic* from Tarkir: Dragonstorm on a plane that is NOT Tarkir.

*For the purposes of this contest: twobrid and surveil as mentioned in this article are not considered new mechanics.

First and foremost: I want you to design a cool mechanical card using the tools given to you in TDM.

On top of that: whatever plane you choose should reflect a way that the mechanic you're using could fit into the world of that plane. And no, you're not depicting a character from Tarkir who used an Omenpath to go somewhere else—I want a view of that plane and its characters on their own merit.

Last general note: I'm looking for the mechanics in as normal a form as they appear, no major tweaks or changes. Whether you go for top-down or bottom-up is up to you, but the fundament and spirit of this contest is to use one of the mechanics as it would appear normally. Because they're fun!

I can't wait to play with this set myself. Have fun! @abelzumi

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To the Best of their Abilities: Deputized Runners Up

Our runners up this week are @feyd-rautha-apologist, @helloijustreadyourpost, and @nine-effing-hells!

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@feyd-rautha-apologist — Bloodmire Leechfisher

Probably the only time I'd want to find my socks full of leeches, honestly. I really like everything going on with this card, honestly. It feels very much like a collection of moving parts working in harmony. Plus, although it's definitely got a bit of "feedback loop" to it, that's diminished by the fact that the card is physically unable to get the loop going by itself. Even once you've found a source of lifegain, it's tricky to find ways to get the Leeches tapped down until you hit the magic number of 3. There likely won't be many opportunities to attack with their fragile selves, after all. Plus, I'll openly admit that I'm a sucker (pun not intended) for any time vampires get associated with a bloodsucker besides bats. Big fan of what this card is putting down, essentially.

@helloijustreadyourpost — Aggressive Rearmament

I think the first thing I want to address here is the choice of creature type. It's interesting that you went with Construct when the Brother's War more typically dealt in Soldier tokens. It could be passed off as simply wanting to make the tokens with an ability distinct from those without, but I feel like there's a bit more to interpret. I like Construct here as evidence of Urza's personal touch, in a sort of parallel to the perennial Karnstruct token. The flavor text has him, in essence, talk about prioritizing both form and function, so it makes sense that they'd have a bit of a flair to them, if that makes sense. Anyway, the actual gameplay of the card is good. I kind of find myself wishing it was an instant, because flashing these in as blockers makes for a very fun swing, but I can understand the hesitation. Still, it's a bit of a do-anything card with a lot of applications, and I can't ask for much more in a common.

@nine-effing-hells — False Shepherd

"Not-quite-dead demon subtly influences the living to engineer its resurrection" is a tried and true trope, but it's also one I'm a very big fan of, so you score points there. Cards that accrue value from the graveyard are always fascinating to me. The mana cost here does a lot, as while just getting a free token every turn from turn 1 if you can entomb it is a bit much, having to pay a bit each turn makes it enough of a commitment. The sherpherd is certainly an impressive body, but I enjoy how the tokens have the ability to resurrect any old demon you might have in your graveyard, especially when those demons are much more tempting to get onto the battlefield on the cheap (Valgavoth, anyone?). Plus, that way the shepherd can stay put in the yard building up a flock again. If anything, resurrecting the card itself comes off as more of a Plan B, which is a teensy bit incongruent with the flavor, but it makes the gameplay flow so much smoother that I struggle to get hung up on it.

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And now it's all over. After a bit of a hiatus, though, I'm back on my regularly scheduled on-the-Discord-for-the-rest-of-the-day-taking-commentary-requests business, so don't be shy and come on down! —@spooky-bard

Bloodmire Leechfisher: Ah yes, I loved the flavour on this one and I'm happy it got recognized.

Aggressive Rearmament: A bit more costly than 2 Sparring Constructs, but also two-in-one. Solid card.

False Shepherd: Lovely. Flavour on point, card's cool.

Congratulations!

Score One for the Little Guy: Deputized Winners

Our winners this week are @arixordragc, @deg99, and @tanknspank!

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@arixordragc — Ominous Swell

Sea monsters are alive and well, though in perhaps a bit of an unusual form. The progression between Tentacle and Octopus is great, going from something little that's great for stopping attacks early game—by tap or by chump—to a huge threat that impacts the board like a tidal wave. Plus, Octopuses insisting on stuffing their cards full of eights is always charming. Instant speed is doing a lot of the work here, but I mean that in a good way. It's all around very versatile. My one issue is that I do kind of worry it does too much if you can kind a cheaper way to cast it from the graveyard than the gigantic flashback. Like, dropping an 8/8 on turn 4 with a Snapcaster sounds strong, but I couldn't tell you if that's broken strong or cool strong. While the token is just a big vanilla, you'd be able to tap down their entire land base. Skipping a turn and developing a threat it pretty brutal, and could maybe warrant some tweaking, but I won't dismiss it out of hand.

@deg99 — Smokeshroud Infiltration

Futzing around with the specifics of cost is always a tricky proposition, although I can say with a reasonable amount of confidence that this should work. Probably. That aside, though, I adore the concept this was going for. This sort of etb enchantment with a mechanism to return to hand for more value is something we've seen before conceptually, but this is definitely a new way to go about it. Plus, in the context of Ninjas, this fundamentally changes the dynamic of ninjutsu—namely, that you can use it to actually widen the board. An unblockable token makes the activation very easy, and the ability also serves as a fun way to make tokens more acceptable targets for ninjutsu. I also like how the replacement effect is specifically Ninjas being bounced, because a lot of the classic ninjutsu activators actually aren't Ninjas, which forces a degree of different deckbuilding to better meet the requirement.

@tanknspank — Lifecraft Adept

A token with reconfigure already has me suitably intrigued, but it coming pre-attached as part of the creature's stat pool is what really gets the neurons firing. In a lot of ways it's sort of a reverse of living weapon, with the wielder being the printed card rather than the weapon. The card's a house, too. No keywords in sight, but a 4 mana 5/5 that leaves behind a 4/4 is no laughing matter even when the 4/4 doesn't have additional lategame utility. Ultimately not a whole lot to say here other than "I like it," but I hope I've sufficiently gotten that part across.

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As always, stay tuned for the runners up! —@spooky-bard

Congratulations!

Ominous Swell: Uhhh, upkeep of opponent's turn 4/5 Snap + this, deal 10 the next turn and possibly 10 the turn after. I like it. I like the flavour and the mechanics and the possible play patters it can have.

Smokeshroud Infiltration: Ohhh, a NINJA you control. I might have skipped that in the workshop. Now this card's much more reasonable, maybe even not that playable, but at the same time, there ARE Ninjas that are used as nijutsu "fodder", plus some other that this card would "save" from being bounced back to the hand. Nice one.

Lifecraft Adept: I am imagining this elf grabbing a Rhino, lifting it over the head and then either swinging with it or yeeting it towards its adversaries LMAO

Bowl with chili peppers, Nazca, Perus, 1-800 AD

from The Museo Larco, Lima, Peru

Deputized

Creature tokens don't do much. Sure, there's plenty of cards that benefit substantially from them being around, but at the end of the day a creature token's purpose often begins and ends at its body. Whether that body is meant to attack for big numbers or be thrown into the fire, that's about the end of it. Why should all these creatures get these fancy effects when creature tokens can't join in on the fun?

Design a card that creates a (unique) creature token with an ability.

When I say ability, I'm not really looking for keywords. Those are a dime a dozen and don't usually contribute towards giving a token a unique identity. Rather, it's anything that would be in quotation marks in the parent effect. Think Pests and their "When this creature dies, gain 1 life." Except don't think of them, because I'm looking for a token that hasn't previously appeared on a card.

Also, in case anyone thought to be cheeky, while tokens that are copies of creatures with abilities do technically have abilities, that's not going to fly on its own this week. It's specifically abilities defined by whatever effect is creating the token. Note the "on its own," however, because a copy token that adds an ability on top of what it's copying would absolutely work.

Good luck! ᴳᵒᵒᵈ ˡᵘᶜᵏᵎ —@spooky-bard

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Strangers with their Strange Lands

"Another land-based contest?"

Not exactly. Actually, you're not designing a land this week.

"Well, good—that previous land one was a little rough, even if I enjoyed my design. Flavor is hard."

Look, that's the thing—everything has the perception of flavor, and examining that is pretty difficult if you're actively looking for it. But with a lot of actually printed cards, it kind of...fades away, you know? The cards make so much sense that you don't usually think about the story behind it.

"I guess I understand—when you expect a world to look a certain way, then the cards in that world should fit your expectations, or—"

Or challenge them in ways that feel well-crafted, right.

"Exactly."

Let's see what we can do, then. Because I'm looking for something very, very specific that we don't have many modern examples of...

Design a monocolored card that cares about a basic land type that IS NOT aligned with its color.

Why does it work? For one, the name and flavor tie it to the mythological trope. For two, it gives the limited archetype access to cheaper and more powerful removal in a way that encourages decks to play those two colors. This card is top-down design that succeeds in mechanical strength, and as such is still relevant to these decks in a mana-efficient way. I love this card.

These cards are pretty simple but not too out of the way, and these cards would definitely be in the spirit of the contest if you were to go down that route. They encourage without being multicolored, and they give players the "aha!" moment of building multicolored decks. The framing of Zendikar brings the world to life, with a little bit of travelogue/worldbuilding flavor (except for the Nulls, but those have the vampire in the background, and that's another whole Zendikar thing).

And it's only really because of the off-color activated abilities. These cards are very good, but for this contest, I don't really want to see the mana symbol of the unaligned color on the card. I want the basic land type that's mentioned to speak for itself, and for the card's mechanics to bridge that gap without pushing too hard to make the player play those two colors.

Your number one goal is to incorporate the land types with elegance. What land type makes the player feel that they're in control, that they have choices? From a top-down perspective, what can you do to bring these cards to life?

I hope to see a range of colors, new archetypes, and rarities this week. Have fun, and remember to check your wording! Believe in your strengths.

@abelzumi

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Flavor Land Commentary: Homeward Bound

What's in a land? A permanent without any other casting requirements would be just as hard to design.

Lands really are difficult to design, especially because of expectations and rules not really inherent to any other card type. Without a cost, the balance of them is mostly based on rarity and utility. Land destruction has been a staple of the game since its inception, of course, but is it necessarily fun? I don't know about that; I'd rather keep these things around. And so would the people that live there.

I think the strengths of this week were centered around people's connections to the worlds they were making, and the difficulties centered around connecting what a land should feel like with what a land should do. Mood was not a challenge this week at all. People knew what they wanted to get out of their land—mystery, time, civilization, abandonment—and the real challenge was making a design that fulfilled that to the best of the prompt. I feel that people were focused on one side or the other, and that left me wanting a little more equilibrium sometimes. But that's the challenge of these contests, and I hope that future land/flavor designs will strive for more of these strengths that I saw last week!

There are a couple JUDGE PICKS this week for cards that I wanted to commend for being pretty close to the top and/or for a specific design aspect that I wanted to highlight. Read on?

So many interesting designs!

About mine: I thought about a different version, with an opponent creating a 1/1 red Viashion instead of getting pinged for 1 damage, but I'm glad this version got some love :3 I understand the change to sacrifice any creature, tokens included.

Standout Outsiders: Support Network Winners

Our winners this week are @curiooftheheart, @misterstingyjack, and @stareyedesper!

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@curiooftheheart — Capricious Commissioner

Yeesh, and you though your patron was demanding! As much as I wouldn't relish the idea of having a dragon for a boss, this one certainly motivates you to do some work. As long as the Bards keep flowing, so does the Treasure, and then if you don't funnel it somewhere else you can invest it all into creating a masterpiece! That's a fantastic use of Sculpture, and I love the detail that the effigies have the same body as their model. Five treasures is a big ask, but the immediate impact of sniping off a troublesome creatures does a lot to make the price feel worth it. I've got to wonder, though: is five treasures just the commission fee, or are they melting down the metal and casting it into a sculpture? Well, it's great either way.

@misterstingyjack — Lonn, Endling Caretaker

Oh, well isn't this interesting? Right out of the gate, I love the callback to Ikoria's colored types in the same vein as Kaheera. It's just, usually the intention behind calling out multiple creature types is to allow the card to go in a deck based on either, and occasionally to combine several much smaller search pools. This one very much veers in an alternate direction by outright requiring you to have all of the above to get full value out of it. Requiring entirely different types is a smart way to go about it, though, as while Ikoria had plenty of overlap there by design, the types otherwise don't have all that much to do with each other. It'd be an odd menagerie you'd have to be running, but isn't that kind of the point? A character who dedicates their life to sheltering those with nowhere else to go shouldn't result in a strictly calculated, coherent deck, should it? As an aside, it's kind of tragically funny that being the lone human does actually prevent Kaheera from being a companion, but oh well.

@stareyedesper — Cenn's Shepherd

This is, no joke, the most charming card I've seen in weeks. Maybe I've just got the Lorwyn bug after re-experiencing it a bit ago, but this card just puts a smile on my face. It feels very at-home in Lorwyn the set, too, as it had a semi-cycle of a creature from a "big" type supporting creatures from a "small" type. Heck, we even had this exact combination in Cloudgoat Ranger. But this—especially with the inclusion of the excellent flavor text—has such an emotional core that it really stands head and shoulders above the rest. Plus, it slots extremely cleanly into Kithkins' go-wide-or-go-home playstyle. He helps the little ones, and once there are enough of them, they can start helping him in turn. Adorable!

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Apologies for the lateness, but runners up won't be any more late! —@spooky-bard

Congratulations!

Capricious Commissioner: 5 mana to put a flying Flametongue Kavu is not THAT much, basically. Love it.

Lonn, Endling Caretaker: I simultanously like this a lot and find it already thought off, in a sense. I like the fact that you have to get a different type from the gy.

Cenn's Sheperd: Ah yes, i yet had to cry today. I love the flavour text. Nice card mechanically, too.

Diverse Helpers: Support Network Runners-Up

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

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@bergdg — Midnight, Eriette's Familiar

Midnight here might have no basis in canon, but really, what's a witch without her pet cat? And in a more general sense, what's a Warlock without a familiar? Tying together specifically Warlocks and Auras feels a bit focused on Eriette specifically, but I feel like there is a fair bit of basis to it. Warlocks (and witches, who get lumped in) have a long history in the game of association with curses, either literal Curse cards or other enchantments flavored as such. Plus, it gives Warlocks a niche completely untouched by Wizards, which is a great move for establishing their identity. The card itself is a lovely package of effects, although the recursion is a tricky proposition when you'd really like the creature's on-field effects to stick around. But that's a decision to be made, and you know how much I like making decision.

@nine-effing-hells — Warren Gorger

While I imagine this dragon with an insatiable appetite for Goblins in particular is probably from Jund, I can't but think of parallels with Onslaught block oddball Clickslither. Like, it's a non-Goblin thing that you jam into a Goblin deck to feed it your board. While Goblins love swarming with the intent of smacking you with Big Numbers, they have also had plenty of history of caring how they die more than how big they are, so it fits nicely. Plus, I adore the idea of successively more specific devour categories with the promise of a bigger return, almost like posting a sort of bounty for something specific. I can't think of many legendary Goblins that would particularly want to be eaten (well, besides Squee, but he's his own thing), but when it comes to funneling resources into a huge finisher, thinking about what comes afterwards is usually far less of a priority.

@reaperfromtheabyss — Stringweb Puppeteer

Maybe this is just me, but I always love when something makes an association between spider webs and puppet strings. Something about it always just grabs me, and this is no exception. While I'm not sure if this is a particularly crafty wild spider or a spider humanoid with a job, I do kind of feel like either way it could stand to be an Artificer. That's not a huge deal, though. Literally puppeting your opponents' choicest creatures out of their grave is a great effect, and the shape of the body combined with menace does a good job of ensuring it can get in to do that. As mentioned in the winners post, I love the idea of a creator granting their game traits to their creation, here represented by the Toys (and Constructs for all the Stuffy Dolls of the world) inheriting the spider's keywords.

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That's a wrap! Unfortunately, I actually don't have the time to take additional commentary requests today. If you simply must know, feel free to leave a request, but I can't guarentee I'll be able to get to it in a remotely timely manner. Still, thanks for coming! —@spooky-bard

Midnight, Eriette's Familiar: Agreed, it's a wonderful card. Also, you don't need to specify "another" target enchantment, you have to choose the targets before this one goes to the GY. You could say "an enchantment not named ..." to have that effect.

Warren Gorger: This does not strike to me as a Goblin support card, tbh. The card itself is nice, though!

Stringweb Puppeteer: I love it, a lot. No notes, I'd love to see it (ingame, lmao)

Congratulations!

Magic the Gathering tip: don’t forget to thank your deck when you finish playing

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Tapping In: Flavor Land Winners

Our winners this week are @grornt, @melancholia-ennui, and @yd12k!

@grornt — Solemn Cascade

Well, I've been formatting this commentary with mechanics first and flavor second, so I'm holding off on my instincts to get down with the flavor of this card until we discuss Training in blue. Is this necessarily something that blue wants/needs? Or rather, does it really matter? Blue can increase counters just fine, and it can have a little attack nonsense. Does it care about this? The problem with my formatting is that I can't talk about the mechanical stuff without digging into why it works so flavorfully well together. Inherently, there's nothing wrong with what this card is doing, and it feels MHX-oriented. We've only seen training in GW draft archetypes, but who's to say that other colors don't need training from time to time?

Now we're getting into the mix, because if this card is doing what I think it's doing, then I'm quite impressed. The way that I see it, this is a meditative setting, Jeskai-oriented, and representative of takigyo training. If I didn't hyperlink a search there, and for those reading this who can't already guess, it's a meditative practice that takes place in the rush of a waterfall. If this is indeed what you were going for, then this card is awesome and justifies any mechanical bending. If not, then I really don't know what you were going for, so I'm gonna go for the former. Yeah, no, I can picture exactly what this card is doing in mood and depiction, and I'm down for it. Feels great! Blue's combat push is also important, and I'd be curious to see how it would play out in practice.

@melancholia-ennui — Kin-Tree Grove

This is a fantastic utility land for sure. A fetchable source has to be balanced in ways that matter, and this card matters a lot, because, well, it's so specific that the strategies that use it will love it and the ones that don't use it can essentially ignore it. I'm imagining... What's that spirit centaur guy, the one from original 2011 Commander? Karador, I think. That's the kind of deck that would use this card for sure. The Desert typing doesn't have any specific bearing on the card, but as a flavorful nod, it's totally okay to have cards like that. In limited, you're going to be using this a lot, I imagine, for fixing in any kind of graveyard-based deck. I'd like to think that there's some Sultai graveyard-based mechanic that also interacts with this card in whatever theoretical set would have it; Atraxa-colored slop brews, my beloved...

I don't need to espouse how awesome the flavor of this card is, but it's my job, so I'm going to do so anyway. Connecting the Abzan to their ancestors is perfectly represented here, and though it's been a long time since I've read up on Tarkir lore, I do remember some of those connections, and how important that ancestry is to the desert family. The life that is to be found in the desert, this strange stubborn oasis, allows for a connection beyond life, through life, and I'd like to think that the visitors to this tree can feel that when they tap into that mana. Living spirits and the power beyond are bound here, and I think that you did a lovely job demonstrating that.

@yd12k — Chop Shop

Limited lands, how we love thee. As much as Aetherdrift wasn't for me flavorfully, the mechanical aspects of the set are admittedly pretty awesome, and I think that this card would fit right in. Sacrificing a Vehicle is a high cost, although you can do it in response to removal, or just save it for after and get extra mana from early milling, etc. The ability to turn Treasures from other generation into Vehicle tokens is a great synergistic bonus. How many Treasure-makers are there in DFT? I don't think there were that many, but it hardly matters. Multiple copies of this land on the battlefield also synergize pretty great together, as you can eventually scrap your scrap as needed for that extra push. I really like how, if need be, you can get the mana-fixing from this card if you've got the spare metal, and that's how most players are going to use this card, I feel.

That's also how it would usually go in the flavorful sense—gotta use the scrap you have to get ahead, even if it means out on getting your cool ride with the spare parts. The flavor text here as a speaker means that the art is vivid and friendly in the mind's eye: I can picture a smirking goblin sitting on top of their ride, wrench in hand, as sparks fly and riders laugh around them. The reconstruction of metal here plays the intro to "Hardware Store" in my head, and it's a vivid example of how lands can show that people actually live in these places, y'know? This is a living and breathing space that demonstrates a macroscopic view of the world and worldbuilding. I adore how this card gets that good feeling across. Fantastic understanding of prompt and execution.

Runners ahead~ @abelzumi

Congratulations!

Solemn Cascade: I applauded. What a cool flavour win. And rememebr folks, Blue Skies (and Merfolks) are decks that existed and exist!

Kin-Tree Grove: YES. Another cool entry. I am so happy I share a contest with so many creative people!

Chop Shop: Haha. Pimp My Ride but the illegal part XD Great flavour and nice card.

Into the Maw: Flavorful Land Runners-Up

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

@nine-effing-hells — Rain-Slicked Cobblestones

Removal lands, how we love the. I imagine that this could be part of a cycle in a noir setting, where each land has a sacrifice punisher effect. -13/-13 is substantial, but at the cost of a land, and it's a great threat to leave up. I think that Battle for Zendikar did a similar cycle of lands, and those were awesome for limited IIRC, though some more than others. This one is pretty great, a threat to catch someone unawares. Black caring about tapped creatures is old-school but in a good way, and the -13/-13 is another callback that takes out some of the largest stuff but in a flavorful way, and I think is under-utilized a lot of the time. Indestructible is a heck of an ability. I wonder how necessary the sorcery clause is on this one, honestly, especially considering that the flavor implies something a little speedier.

And my goodness, the flavor of this card is phenomenal. I'll be honest on top of it: the art is gripping me in a way that makes me ask: where the heck have you been hiding this from us? I love this sketch and it makes me want to go back to New Capenna, but in a less glitz-and-glamor sense and more of a gritty demonic horror sense. Wouldn't that be phenomenal? Something that makes you slip and crack your head on the stones, something that's definitely an accident, something that's definitely not the result of sinister forces making you pay for snitching, and that's what snitches get... Like, come on, it's so cool! This card's got an insular, claustrophobic vibe that trips up those unaware, and you really executed the whole presentation in a way that makes me smirk into my glass of scotch. Except not, because it's nine in the morning and I gotta drive today.

@reaperfromtheabyss — Quetzatl Terrace Farms

There were a few lands that worked with Food this week, but ultimately, I think that this one enamors me the most. As a fetchable utility land, it's pretty powerful, and I might even suggest that the Food-making ability have some manner of restriction (also tapping a creature? Activating only if you have tapped creatures?) to ensure that you don't get a wild amount of token value; Fountainport has already shown us how wild that can be. Color identity would also suggest that this "Mountain" should have some utility outside of being a mono-red lifegain land, and if I had any real mechanical qualms, that would be it. Limited would devour this thing (no pun intended) as a table-turning control piece with the amount of life you could stall out with each turn. If you imagine this as a colorless zero-cost permanent that entered tapped but had "{5}, T: You gain 3 life"—you see what I mean? It's an interesting balance question.

It's the way that this land comes to life that really gets me. They cut into the mountain and they make food—it's perfect. Harvesting life, the heart of civilization, a people in their element... I think this is a beautiful execution of the prompt. I love how you got the colors of the Sun Empire and the dinosaur connection and turned it into a land that makes sense, not necessarily for the associated mechanics, but for the feeling of the people that would live on that land and harvest it. That's the coolness of this, isn't it, the fact that you can demonstrate an entire other part of Magic's lore, not through a magic-strewn battlefield necessarily, but through the ways in which the world is made more whole. It's quite interesting to me.

@sparkyyoungupstart — Valgavoth's Wings

Mechanically, of course, this card is a pretty grotesquely fun way to trigger enchantments entering every turn, provided that you're willing to sacrifice your lands. I know that some players at our LGS are land afficionados, and Crucible/Ramunap plus everything here...yeesh. It's awesome, really, because they're not untouchable and a single Paraselene will make things fairly miserable if you overreach, but isn't that the point of that fragility, somewhat? The sacrifices that you make end up biting you in the end. And maybe they turn your lands into Mana Confluence. I mean, that alone is pretty wild, isn't it? Mana Confluences every turn at the cost of a land makes fixing negligible, but the eventual cost wears away at you. Is it worth the Eerie/Constellation triggers? That's for the Enchantress player to decide. It's pretty cool.

Admittedly Duskmourn was a pretty cool concept as well, at least to start. I'll withhold my opinions on cheerleaders and phones later, but regardless, the name of this land? Perfect. Like, that alone is exactly the kind of sinister encompassing that was meant to be shown throughout the story, that spreading terror, that strange and sinister warping of the world. This card makes the player feel, in some way, that they're getting the demon's power by way of utilizing their lands, turning them into semi-everywheres, turning them into horrible mirrors of what was once, as the flavor text puts it, a beautiful glade. It's the two-sentence structure of the FT that kinda stumbles me, honestly. "Once a beautiful glade, now an endless hallway." could've worked fine, or something along those lines, but I feel that it eschews poesis for something that tries to be malevolent? I don't think it's quite there, but the strength of the land saves it for sure.

We've got a lot of work to do today at the shop, but I'll commentate as we get there <3 Thank you all once more for your entries!

@abelzumi

Rain-slicked Cobblestones: I bow to the flavour. I bow to the amazing art. The sorcery speed is a flavour miss, imho, but I understand it, balancing wise. Last note, tell us if you are open to commissions LMAO because that art is *chef's kiss*. Or if you're going to do a secret lair somehow, because DAMN.

Quatzatl Terrace Farms: Today is the day I bow to the flavour. I am almost on the verge of happy tears after this second flavour hit.

Valgavoth's Wings: Ohh, this is a pretty one! Good job, I also want this to be printed HAHAHA Let's trigger all those landfall and land going to the graveyard and enchantments entering stuff!

Congratulations!