CCL August, Top 4/Round 4: Stranger in a Strange Land

[void_nothing]

CCL August Top 4/Round 4

"Stranger in a Strange Land"


Gorilla Pack, taken from EchoMTG, by Anthony S. Waters 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 Maligned Mechanics Month here at the CCL. We will be seeing how best to fix mechanical themes that were not very successful.

Challenge

Design a creature card with landwalk of a basic land type and another creature card with landhome of the same basic land type. They cannot share a color and neither of them can be the color associated with that land type - i.e. no blue cards with islandwalk or islandhome.

Clarifications

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• Landhome is a defunct drawback keyword. It was only ever used on a printed card as islandhome, and it means "This creature can't attack unless defending player controls a land of this land type. When you control no lands of this land type, sacrifice this creature." I'm asking you to use it in keyworded form even though it's since been edited out of Oracle texts.

Your submissions are due Friday, September 10th, 23:59 EST.

Contestants:
@Henlock
@Subject16
@netn10
@slimytrout

Schedule

• Round 1 — Open to Everyone (August 1st-8th)
• Round 2 — Open to Everyone (August 11th-17th)
• Rounds 1 and 2 Critiques (Due August 19th)
• Top 6 — Open to top 6 finishers (August 24th–27th)
• Top 6 Critiques (Due August 29th)
• Top 4 — Open to top 4 finishers (September 7th–10th)
• Top 4 Critiques (Due September 12th)
• Final (September, 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.

[Henlock]

Homesick Geomancer 2r
Creature - Human Wizard (r)
Plainshome
Nonbasic lands are Plains.
He left pursuing a great power, his nights now haunted by placid dreams of freshly baked bread and songs of vintage.
3/4

Voracious Weevils 2b
Creature - Insect (u)
Plainswalk
Whenever an opponent taps a Plains for mana, Voracious Weevils gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
2/2

[slimytrout]

Underwater Peddler 5
Artifact Creature — Golem (R)
Islandhome
When you cast Underwater Peddler, you may exchange control of two target permanents that share a card type.
Though their home long ago sunk beneath the waves, the Ashetai have not let that get in the way of commerce.
4/4

Amphin Raider 2B
Creature — Salamander Rogue (U)
Islandwalk
Whenever Amphin Raider deals combat damage to a player, that player sacrifices a permanent.
"We will not know of their arrival until the first blood is spilled."
—Gor Muldrak, Cryptohistories
3/2

[netn10]

Great River Dweller 2G
Creature - Merfolk Scout (Rare)
Islandwalk
Whenever Great River Dweller attacks, target player creates a basic Island token.
"Wherever I go, my home follows me."
3/3

Coalition War-Vessel 3RR
Artifact Creature - Pirate Ship (Rare)
As long as you control less than five other Pirates, Coalition War-Vessel isn't a creature.
Trample, haste
Islandhome
Whenever Coalition War-Vessel dies, create five 1/1 red Pirate create tokens with trample and haste.
5/5

[Subject16]

Brackwater Sage 2UU
Creature — Treefolk Shaman (R)
Forestwalk, hexproof from green
Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, you may have that player and/or yourself mill that many cards.
Whether the decades of consuming salt water drove Old Sourbark mad is a point of contention in the circle of elders.
2/4

Consuming Wildfire RRR
Creature — Elemental (R)
Trample, haste
Foresthome
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice a land. If a Forest was sacrificed this way, add RRR. Until end of turn, you don't lose this mana as steps and phases end.
5/5

[void_nothing]

Well this has been delayed a while! Please critique each other contestant and arrange them into a top 3.

[void_nothing]

@Henlock @slimytrout @netn10 @Subject16 Just a reminder.

[slimytrout]

Henlock

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These are both fun! The geomancer might actually be a bit too strong, even though that sounds crazy to say about a creature with landhome, but in a nonbasic-heavy environment like modern modern this could go in some kind of Jeskai Moon deck and actually just be a better version of Magus of the Moon. The weevils ability is a little awkward, since your opponent can usually just tap their lands at a moment when it's not relevant, but the flavor is nice.

netn10

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Land tokens have some playability issues, since players tend to accidentally shuffle them into their decks and cause problems, but the overall card concept seems fun -- an unblockable 3/3 in exchange for ramping your opponent. The Pirate Ship has some weird interactions -- does it "die" if you sacrifice it while it's not a creature? I genuinely don't know the answer. It also seems like it's not that fun to have a creature that's really bad if you do have an Island (can't attack unless you have five Pirates and your opponent controls an Island) but is actually quite decent if you immediately sacrifice it for the Pirates.

Subject16

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The sage looks a lot like Woodlot Crawler, which isn't the most fun of designs because it's just so non-interactive. The wildfire seems cool and flavorful, although man is it hard to cast a triple-red card if you also have to put forests in your deck.

T3

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1. Henlock
2. Subject16
3. netn10

[void_nothing]

@Henlock @netn10 @Subject16 are you able to at least post top 3 rankings soon?

[Henlock]

In progress

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Slimytrout One thing that I like about Underwater Peddler is that it is colorless yet needs islands. I'm.not sure how it would work if you had no island, but a "If those.permanents are still.on the battlefield" clause would go a lobg way in clarity in case you would like to exchange it for a creature. That scenario.is where I am.not that sold on the design: You could give it to someone with no islands and simply steal a creature.for 5 colorless. "Noncreature" or "another permanent" would really be cleaner. In the evwnt of being exchanging control.of.lands, I quite like it. Its splashability brings a wider range of.good exchanges as it doean't demand being that commited to blue. All.around a neat idea that needs some more work.

Amphin Raider is.probably a bit too.powerful.to see.play, as it can wreck the mana.of any deck that can't deal.with early attackers. The prospect of this landing on turn 2 (or even 1!) is terribly scary. The islandwalk is the icing of the cake.

netn10: I think you mamaged to create a green unblockable creature that feels.on color. As usual, colors doing things they usually don'r do come.with a cost, and here that cost is ramping your.opponents on wvery attack. I think you can get tjis.to create the island tapped, since it is in green's interest not giving extra room.for.interaction.

Coalition.war vessel.is quite strange. We've seen a 5/5 trample,.haste for 5 at uncommon, so the body is not what you would expect as a restrained body, add it islandhome and it doesn't feel worthy of jumping the hoops. The token creation is actually wherw tje power is, but you could have probably gotten away without the not being a creature clause.

subject16: This could just attack and mill the green player for two. While being big enough to stop some aggrrssion, but at four mama I think it might come down too late and mill too little if we take into account how aggressive milling strategies have been lately. I'm not sure if this has a home in decks that pressure bot deck siza and life total, but it looks like a totally triable tool.

On tje red creature, well, three reds and caring about forests is a lot of tension. I like here how the tradition of maridating forests and mama producing creatures fits here.

1. netn10
2. subject16
3. slimytrout

[Subject16]

Top 3:

1: netn10
2: Henlock
3: slimytrout

[void_nothing]

And your finalists are Henlock and netn10! Round to come as soon as I have the energy - I'm in the last stage of a long trip.