CCL June Signups/Round 1: Remember Your Strength

[void_nothing]

CCL June Signups/Round 1

"Remember Your Strength"


Demonlord of Ashmouth, taken from blogspot, by Lucas Graciano and Wizards of the Coast

Welcome to the Card Creation League! Everyone is free to participate in either or both of the first two rounds. Come join us!

Theme

It's Nostalgia Month here in the CCL - time to dig deep into the past...

Challenge

Design a creature card with a non-evergreen mechanic from Tarkir block or earlier.

Clarifications

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• The card can feature any non-evergreen keyword ability, ability word, or keyword action.
• Make sure to include a rarity.

Anyone can enter this first round! Your submissions are due Tuesday, June 8th, 23:59 EST.

Schedule

• Round 1 — Open to Everyone (May 31st-June 8th)
• Round 2 — Open to Everyone (June 9th-16th)
• Rounds 1 and 2 Critiques (Due June 18th)
• Top 8 — Open to top 8 finishers (June 19th–22nd)
• Top 8 Critiques (Due June 24th)
• Top 4 — Open to top 4 finishers (June 25th–28th)
• Top 4 Critiques (Due June 30th)
• Final (July, winner determined by public poll)

Please note: For this month we will continue asking first and second round contestants to evaluate seven other contestants during the critique and top 3 period, in order to increase the total number of evaluations each contestant gets.

[bravelion83]

Ghostly Crocodile 3BB
Creature — Crocodile Specter (U)
Menace
Whenever Ghostly Crocodile deals combat damage to a player, that player discards a card.
Cycling 2B (2B, Discard this card: Draw a card.)
When you cycle Ghostly Crocodile, each opponent discards a card.
3/3

[Ink-Treader]

Neoplax Shaper GU
Creature - Elf Wizard (U)
Creatures you control with counters on them get +1/+1.
Reinforce—2GU (2GU, Discard this card: Put two +1/+1 counters on target creature.)
When Neoplax Shaper reinforces a creature, put a hexproof counter on that creature.
"We've learned much from Momir's mistakes."
2/2

[Subject16]

Shinen of Tempest's Will 2UR
Creature — Spirit (Mythic Rare)
Storm (When you cast this spell, copy it for each spell cast before it this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies. Copies of permanent spells become tokens.)
Splice onto Arcane (As you cast an Arcane spell, you may reveal this card from your hand and pay its splice cost. If you do, add this card's effects to that spell.)
3/1

[RaikouRider]

Nyx-Forged Titan 3RRR
Enchantment Creature - Giant {R}
Menace
Creatures you control get +X/+0, where X is half your devotion to red, rounded down. (Each R in the mana costs of permanents you control counts toward your devotion to red.)
5/6

[slimytrout]

Roshka, Celestial Warden 2WW
Legendary Creature - Angel Cleric (R)
Flying
Kinship - At the beginning of your upkeep, you may look at the top card of your library. If it shares a creature type with Roshka, Celestial Warden you may reveal it. If you do, exile target creature until Roshka leaves the battlefield.
3/4

[kwanyeegor-ii]

Wirewood Contemplator 2GG
Creature - Elf Mutant (Rare)
Creature spells you cast cost 1 less to cast.
Morph costs you pay cost 1 less.
When Wirewood Contemplator is turned face up, draw up to X cards, where X is the number of creatures you control.
Morph 4GGGG
4/4

[netn10]

Golgari Broodmother gg
Creature - Wurm (Mythic)
This spell cost 1 less to cast and to unearth for each creature card in your graveyard.
Trample, haste
Protection from nongreen and from nonblack.
Unearth gg
20/20

[Venedrex]

Nourishing Gargaroth
Creature — Beast (R)
Trample
When Nourishing Gargaroth dies, create a 1/1 green Saproling token.
Scavenge (, Exile this card from your graveyard: Put a number of +1/+1 counters equal to this card's power on target creature. Scavenge only as a sorcery.)
3/2

[Henlock]

Tamed Arc rrr
Creature - Elemental (r)
Haste, trample.
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrificed Tamed Arc.
Dash rrr, sacrifica a mountain. (You may cast this spell for its dash cost. If you do, it gains haste, and it's returned from the battlefield to its owner's hand at the beginning of the next end step.)
5/1

[void_nothing]

Going to keep this round open for another 24 hours to allow for a few more entries.

[MonoRedMage]

Core Elemental {10}RRRR
Creature - Elemental {M}
Affinity for artifacts
Haste
When Core Elemental enters the battlefield, if you cast it, it deals damage equal to the number of artifacts you control divided evenly, rounded up, among all opponents and creatures and planeswalkers your opponents control.
8/8

[void_nothing]

And the round is closed! Please critique the seven contestants below you on this list, looping to the top as necessary.

bravelion83
Ink-Treader
Subject16
RaikouRider
slimytrout
kwanyeegor-ii
netn10
Venedrex
Henlock
MonoRedMage

Round 2 will come tomorrow.

[bravelion83]

Critiques (done)

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Neoplax Shaper GU
Creature - Elf Wizard (U)
Creatures you control with counters on them get +1/+1.
Reinforce—2GU (2GU, Discard this card: Put two +1/+1 counters on target creature.)
When Neoplax Shaper reinforces a creature, put a hexproof counter on that creature.
"We've learned much from Momir's mistakes."
2/2

I love cards like this that make new things with old mechanics. Not only this put reinforce in blue but it does something when you use it. It's like cycling and "when you cycle this" abilities. This really has a Modern Horizons vibe to me, and it's a very good thing.

Shinen of Tempest's Will 2UR
Creature — Spirit (Mythic Rare)
Storm (When you cast this spell, copy it for each spell cast before it this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies. Copies of permanent spells become tokens.)
Splice onto Arcane (As you cast an Arcane spell, you may reveal this card from your hand and pay its splice cost. If you do, add this card's effects to that spell.)
3/1

A mix-and-match card with storm? Yes, why not! I had to think a moment about how this worked and then I went "oh my! This gives storm to any spell?" and then I realized that, probably luckily, it's only on Arcane spells. Still, this caught my attention, and that's also a good thing.

Nyx-Forged Titan 3RRR
Enchantment Creature - Giant {R}
Menace
Creatures you control get +X/+0, where X is half your devotion to red, rounded down. (Each R in the mana costs of permanents you control counts toward your devotion to red.)
5/6

This card is fine. Not as exciting to me as the previous two, but it's just me. It's good that this already provides three devotion by itself, it shouldn't be too hard to increase the value of X. I think this card might read worse than it plays.

Roshka, Celestial Warden 2WW
Legendary Creature - Angel Cleric (R)
Flying
Kinship - At the beginning of your upkeep, you may look at the top card of your library. If it shares a creature type with Roshka, Celestial Warden you may reveal it. If you do, exile target creature until Roshka leaves the battlefield.
3/4

This feels to me in a very similar way than the last card, fine but not mindbreaking. I like kinship, a nice throwback to one of my favorite blocks and worlds ever, Lorwyn. I also like the potential of exiling multiple creatures, it shouldn't be too hard to do, the creature types are quite common.

Wirewood Contemplator 2GG
Creature - Elf Mutant (Rare)
Creature spells you cast cost 1 less to cast.
Morph costs you pay cost 1 less.
When Wirewood Contemplator is turned face up, draw up to X cards, where X is the number of creatures you control.
Morph 4GGGG
4/4

I wonder if there is way to condense the two cost reductions in a single ability, but it's not a big thing. I think the morph cost is a bit too restrictive with quadruple colored mana. I don't think the "turn face up" ability is enough to justify it. Yes, it's powerful, but it doesn't read *that* powerful to me.

Golgari Broodmother gg
Creature - Wurm (Mythic)
This spell cost 1 less to cast and to unearth for each creature card in your graveyard.
Trample, haste
Protection from nongreen and from nonblack.
Unearth gg
20/20

Ok, it's a big trampler, but I'll be honest, I wouldn't probably play it given the mana cost. Yes, it can cost less but I would be much more interested in a smaller version, both in power and toughness and mana cost, even if I understand that it being a 20/20 is kind of the point of the card. It has probably started as "how much does a 20/20 need to cost?" It certainly feels mythic though.

Nourishing Gargaroth
Creature — Beast (R)
Trample
When Nourishing Gargaroth dies, create a 1/1 green Saproling token.
Scavenge (, Exile this card from your graveyard: Put a number of +1/+1 counters equal to this card's power on target creature. Scavenge only as a sorcery.)
3/2

Back to a much more reasonable card. I like this. Even if it dies, it leaves a token behind and you can scavenge it later. Not much to say here, again, I like it.

Very hard choice this round, I wish I could vote for at least five of these cards.

Top 3

1st place: Ink-Treader
2nd place: Subject16
3rd place: Venedrex

[Henlock]

crits

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monoredmage- At first it reads quite scary,.but it is actually pretty tame against creature decks. This seems.like a solid payoff for decks that can generate large.ammounts of artifact tokens. That said, this card is an interesting spot in red: There are many effects that deal damage according to the mana value of a card. Haste and the possibility of sweeping chumpblocker away feels quite aggressive. A deck in this line would be quite likely relying on artifact ramp to offset the high mana values... Is this very powerful? I really don't know. Has it excited my imagination? Well, it did. This is a good sign.

bravelion- I remember Order of Yawgmoth very fondly, While Cycling is not really an exciting mechanic for a throwaway challenge, you are hitting the spot here with the specter mechanic, this is, evasive black creatures that caused discard on hit. Menace is a bit less wvasive than flying and fear, but all around the card seems very well.balanced.

Ink-Treader: Reinforce seems very fit for Simic given its traditkon of dealing with +1/+1 counters. The use of ability counters adds up quite elegantly by bringing something cintemporary. Pretty sure this can be a cycle.

Subject16- This is actually pretty exciting. I used to pilot an arcane storm deck so I am pretty aware of the degeneracis this can lead up to. I like the fact that you are getting permanents to be copies on the stack as it is something ftules have figured nowadays. The prospect of granting storm to stuff like Glacial Ray or Dampen Thought is quite exciting, but the power it gives to Desperate Ritual and Psychic puppetry has the potential of resurrecting those decks.

RaikouRaider: I wonder if the kind of decks that would want this have as much time so as to cast this. This would be probably better on a smaller,.faster to cast, creature.

slimytrout: Cards that care about the top of your library can be pretty unreliable, but tjis two tribes help by being quite common. They don"t allow you to lean into colots with better topdeck manipulation, tho. Two successful hit from this can mean game in most cases.

kwanywgor- This can reduce the cost of a morph creature with trigger by 2, which can be quite intrresting for the flow of a morph deck. The turn-face-up ability is a bit too expensive. I understand that you can get back some of the mana by the discount you'll get for what you just drew, but the cost looks quite burdensome to achieve.

top3

1. Subject16
2. Ink-Treader
3. monoredmage

[Ink-Treader]

Subject16

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Well now, this is an exciting card. Lava Spike and Desperate Ritual I suspect would be the most popular combos. The creature itself is decent enough, but without any evasion it'd be more of a last resort.

RaikouRider

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The fact that the creature has an odd number of mana symbols seems a bit inelegant. That aside, this looks to be quite a potent finisher in a creature heavy red deck.

slimytrout

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Seems fun. Reminiscent of Admonition Angel, but you can't get (nigh) immediate value. Seems fine since it's legendary.

kwanyeegor-ii

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Feels kind of weird. I do like that it gives you something to do if you draw it late game though. It might end up a bit pushed, but I think both the mana cost and the morph cost could be reduced by 1.

netn10

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Specifically requiring creature cards to be cheaper might keep it in line, but I suspect there's reliable ways to get this out worryingly early.

Venedrex

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Simple card, but not weak. Bet it could be uncommon.

Henlock

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Ball Lightning with Dash. Might need to have its power pruned by 1. Could then give it a little extra toughness to make the Dash a bit more relevant.

Top 3

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1. Subject16
2. slimytrout
3. Venedrex

[MonoRedMage]

Just a top 3 for now.

1 - Subject16
2 - RaikouRider
3 - slimytrout

[slimytrout]

Just a T3 unless/until I start to feel better:

1. Ink-Treader
2. Venedrex
3. bravelion83

[Venedrex]

Top 3
1. bravelion83
2. Subject16
3. Ink-Treader

[RaikouRider]

slimytrout: This is a pretty cool Angel tribal commander and new use of the kinship ability word. Angels needs more real tribal support like this. Good stuff.

kwanyeegor-ii: Solid rate on the body and first two abilities. I don't think the morph cost needs to be quite this high. Perhaps 4GGG? I like the "draw up to X cards" touch a lot.

netn10: What a combo card this is. If you can make this work, a 20/20 with trample and haste should win you the game on the spot. I could see this being used on turn 4 or 5 in formats with sufficient self-mill. This is a great concept, but I think the protection pushes it over the top. Remove that, and this would get my number one spot.

Venedrex: This is another good submission blemished by a single mistake - this really should be at uncommon as written. This isn't efficient enough to be a constructed rare. The design itself is solid, but the rarity needs to be bumped down or the care should be pushed a little more.

Henlock: Repeatable Ball Lightning by sacrificing a mountain? Sign me up! The repeatability on this pushed many other variants of this card out. Very cool use of the dash keyword and an unusual sacrifice trigger. Of note, this could still sacrifice at end step and still work how players intend.

MonoRedMage: Daretti players everywhere love you. The only thing I don't like is how this doesn't scale well in multiplayer.

bravelion83: My only real complaint is every Specter in Magic flies. Perhaps the Spirit type would have been better? I like the rate on both modes of this.

You should be proud of yourselves - I wish I could vote for five of these cards.

1) slimytrout
2) netn10
3) Venedrex