Great Designer Search 3, Challenge #0

[Alsadius]

I've been out of MTG for a few years, so I missed the third Great Designer Search. Getting back in recently, I was really intrigued by it (not least because the eventual winner is actually someone I used to know). So I've decided to flex my card design muscles by creating cards based on those contests.

There were three "trials" to filter the contestants down, and the first two were essays and multiple choice, so I'm skipping ahead to the third trial. It's not a true challenge (hence "#0"), but it's a meaty design task. The challenge is to create ten cards, one for each two-color pairing. These must obey the following rules:

• At least two of each rarity (common, uncommon, rare, mythic)
• Exactly two of each colored card type (creature, enchantment, planeswalker, instant, sorcery)
• The two cards of the same type cannot share a color
• This is for a generic Standard-legal set - nothing should be too specifically flavoured, and no block mechanics should be used (only evergreen/deciduous).

In the original challenge, the contestants were told that the designs needed to stand on their own with no description, but that's boring, so feel free to add some commentary. Here's some other relevant resources:

• MaRo's description of how he would do the challenge, if he was competing.
• MaRo's discussion of the submitted designs.
• Links to the contestant pages, with commentary on their designs.

From reading through, it seems like the single biggest mistake people made was pushing the rarity too low - a lot of cards were submitted as "common" and got the response of "Dude, that's a rare".

I'll be posting my designs in a comment below this. Feel free to comment, as well as posting your own. If people like it, I'll also post threads for the other GDS3 design challenges.

[Alsadius]

Here are my designs, ordered from the ones I think are coolest, down to the least cool.

Dosanjai, the Dual (mythic rare)
Legendary Planeswalker - Dosanjai
RRWW
2
+2: Target creature gains double strike until end of turn.
+2: Deal 2 damage to any target. You gain 2 life.
-6: You gain an emblem with "Whenever damage would be dealt to you or a permanent you control, halve it (rounding down)".
-6: Target opponent gains an emblem with "Whenever damage would be dealt to you or a permanent you control, double it".

I feel like this one really came together super-elegantly - it started as "I wonder what a double-ultimate PW would look like", and the dualism theme grew from there. Four-ability walkers are unusual, but it didn't fit the theme at all to have an odd number, and they're not so splashy that WotC would hold them back forever.

Beastform (rare)
2GU
Enchantment
Artifact, enchantment, and Planeswalker cards you own are also considered creature cards in your hand, library, and graveyard.

This is an old favourite, won me a forum design contest around 2004 (though obviously no PW then, and I think it was mono-green). Tooth and Nail into March of the Machines/Mycosynth Lattice was my mental use case for it back then, and tbh it still sounds cool.

Venom of Razaphael's Claws (common)
BR
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant Creature
When enchanted creature deals combat damage to a player, sacrifice ~. It deals 4 damage to that player. If enchanted creature is a Devil, that player discards a card.

Auras are tough to make efficient, but this one feels like a spell stapled onto a creature, not pump per se, and it feels like it'd work well. I also really love that name, even if I can't quite explain why.

Overwhelming Assault (mythic rare)
3RRGG
Sorcery
For each creature you control, put a token copy of it onto the battlefield. They gain haste.
At the end of the first combat phase this turn, untap all creatures you control. After that phase, there is an additional combat phase.

Gruul doesn't need your subtlety. Gruul has smash. SMASH!
Seriously, this is ridiculous, but that's what Timmy mythic rares are supposed to be. The original version sacrificed the tokens, but that was too mono-red. Keeping the tokens seemed much greener.

Theudhar, Herd Leader (rare)
2GW
Legendary Creature - Centaur Cleric
Whenever a +1/+1 counter is added to ~, you may add a +1/+1 counter to another target creature.
3/3

Abusing the Legend rule for fun and profit. I'm in the middle of designing a deck around Reyhan, Last of the Abzan, so my head was in this space.

Sacrificial Offering (uncommon)
2WB
Sorcery
Destroy target creature. Target creature is indestructible until end of turn.

I think I like dualism, It makes for really cool two-colour cards, though, at least where the pairs feel naturally connected.

Guardian of the Wheel (common)
1UR
Creature - Gargoyle Pilot
Flying. When ~ is tapped by a Vehicle's Crew ability, its power counts as 5.
2/2

Commons aren't supposed to be flashy, so this one was just a simple little enabler. I'm amused by the idea of a gargoyle whose task is to protect the driver's seat, though.

Kaph, Master Recycler (mythic rare)
2UUBB
Legendary Planeswalker - Kaph
4
+3: Exile a creature card from a graveyard. If you do, create a 2/2 Zombie token.
-2: Whenever a creature enters or leaves the battlefield this turn, draw a card.
-10: You gain an emblem with "Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, create a token copy of it".

I thought of making this a Liliana, but I don't think she's blue at all. So instead I named the card after Kaja and Phil Foglio, who illustrated the original Recycle, as well as a webcomic I like.

Recovering Demise (uncommon)
2BG
Instant
Whenever a permanent you control dies this turn, you may exile it. If you do, choose a card in your graveyard that shares a type with it and return that card to your hand.

This could be over-complicated, but I think it's natural enough to play with. Feels a bit too obvious in Golgari for me to be super-proud of the design, though.

Blast of Wisdom (rare)
2WWUU
Instant
Whenever you would lose life this turn, you draw that many cards instead

If the last one was a bit too obvious, this one is even more so. A white-blue card that gains life and draws cards? Next we'll have a big creature in red-green. It was at least a different take on the theme, though. This one was the hardest for me to nail down.