October MCC Round 1
Choose your own adventure
Welcome to Eldraine, planeswalker! This is a world of royal courts and wild lands, brave knights and scary beasts, wretches and kings, dangerous places and safe castles. The world of dreams and fairy tales. You've just materialized on this plane, you're essentially in the middle of nowhere, and you can do whatever you want here. You have complete freedom in this moment. You're about to write your own story. Maybe someday somebody will tell it to someone else, and they might be talking of you as a hero or a villain. Who knows? The choice is yours. So, what is it that you want to do now, with all the world at your disposal?
- If you wish to just look around for something to eat while you try to make up your mind, turn to the "Food" option.
- If you wish to head to a castle and try to become a noble, joining this world's aristocracy, turn to the "Adamant" option.
- If you wish to head to a castle and fight for it using your best virtues, turn to the "Knights" option.
- If you wish to live a memorable experience exploring the wilds and meeting all the simple people, dangerous places, and feral beasts they contain, turn to the "Adventure" option.
Main Challenge - Choose one of the following. Be careful because you will literally make your own adventure on Eldraine this month: your choices in each round will be tracked and will influence future rounds. Please see clarifications, especially the "additional rule".
• Adventure - Design a creature card that has an adventure.
• Adamant - Design an instant or sorcery card with adamant.
• Food - Design an artifact, enchantment, or planeswalker card that creates Food tokens or uses Food as a cost.
• Knights - Design a Knight creature card that mechanically cares about other Knights of yours.
Subchallenge 1 - Your card is exactly monocolored and has no off-color mana symbols anywhere on it.
Subchallenge 2 - Your card mentions in its flavor text all the Eldraine courts corresponding to its colors.
• You cannot mix and match the options. For example, a creature card (even a Knight) that has adamant or creates Food tokens but doesn't have an adventure or a Knight tribal mechanic doesn't count.
• You can mix and match the four referenced mechanics from Throne of Eldraine though, as long as the overall card meets one of the options. For example, a creature card that has an adventure while also having adamant, creating Food tokens, and/or being a Knight that cares about your other Knights passes the Main Challenge for meeting the "Adventure" option.
• ADDITIONAL RULE: If somehow your card meets more than one option at the same time, you MUST choose one specific option that you're going for this round and you MUST mention your chosen option in your submission post. If you don't do this, your submission will NOT count and your card DQ'ed. This rule is necessary for the proper continuation of this MCC month. Please, please, don't make me actually do this! I did say please!
If your card only meets one option, that's automatically your chosen option. You CAN mention it in your submission post, but your submission will still count if you don't.
To be sure, it's advisable that you mention your chosen option anyway. You will never be DQ'ed for that in any case, and you don't want to take the risk of not realizing that your card unwillingly meets a second option and you get DQ'ed for not mentioning which of the options you were going for, though it was obvious to you. But I and the other judges are not telepaths, we can't see what was in your mind as you designed your card, so, again, please don't make me DQ cards for this! I really don't want to!
Please note: this is a specific exception to the "don't post anything in your submission post except for the text card and an optional render" rule for this round, and counts only for mentioning the chosen option. If you post any other additional content in your submission post that is not your chosen option, normal rules apply and you WILL be penalized.
• Your card must have an adventure. A creature that doesn't have an adventure doesn't count for this option. It might count for the "Knights" option though.
• A noncreature card (that's a card that doesn't have the card type "creature" on its type line) doesn't count for this option, regardless of whether it can turn into a creature and of whether it has an adventure or not.
• Q: How should I format my adventurer card?
A: Just like if it were a split card. Write the creature part as a normal text card, then add a separator below it (a double forward slash, //, is advised), and then write the Adventure part as it would be written on the left side of a real adventurer card's text box. In the Adventure part, don't forget the "Adventure" subtype and not only you can not put rarity in, but you should not. On real adventurer cards, there is no colored expansion symbol on the type line of the Adventure part.
For example, Flaxen Intruder would be written out like follows.
Flaxen Intruder
Creature — Human Berserker (U)
Whenever Flaxen Intruder deals combat damage to a player, you may sacrifice it. When you do, destroy target artifact or enchantment.
The middle blade was just right.
1/2
//
Welcome Home
Sorcery — Adventure
Create three 2/2 green Bear creature tokens. (Then exile this card. You may cast the creature later from exile.)
• Your card must have adamant. An instant or sorcery card that doesn't have adamant doesn't count for this option.
• A card that doesn't have the card type "instant" or "sorcery" on its type line doesn't count for this option, regardless of whether it has adamant or not.
• Your card must either create Food tokens or use Food as a cost. Anything else doesn't count for this option. Notably, an artifact that has the Food subtype itself but doesn't create Food tokens or use Food as a cost does NOT count for this option. Yes, this means that for example Gingerbrute or Golden Egg don't count, because while they're Food themselves, they don't create Food tokens or use Food as a cost.
• "Using Food as a cost" means having to sacrifice Food in one of the following ways:
- as part of the activation cost of an activated ability of the card itself, or
- as part of a cost you may or must pay while resolving a triggered ability of the card itself, or
- as part of an additional or alternative cost to cast the card itself.
Anything else doesn't count for this option.
• Your card can have both an ability that creates Food tokens and another one that uses Food as a cost. For example, Gilded Goose would count for this option.
• It has to be a cost of the card itself, not a cost granted to other things. For example, "Spells cost an additional 'Sacrifice a Food' to cast" doesn't count for this option because it's not a cost of the card itself.
• A card that's not an artifact, not an enchantment, and not a planeswalker (that is a card that has none of those card types on its type line) doesn't count for this option, regardless of whether it creates Food tokens/uses Food as a cost or not.
• Your card must be a Knight, that is have the "Knight" subtype on its type line. It can have other additional creature types though. For example, a "Human Knight" is fine. An "Artifact Creature – Food Knight" would also count technically, even though I really don't know what its flavor could be. Can you really picture Gingerbrute being knighted?
• Your card must have an ability that cares about other Knights you control. A creature that doesn't have such an ability doesn't count for this option even if it's a Knight. It might count for the "Adventure" option though.
• "Caring about other Knights of yours" means interacting with one or more other Knight creatures on your side of the battlefield or Knight cards you own in any zone other than the battlefield. The interaction can be anything you can think of, doesn't matter whether positive or negative, even if I don't know why you would want to interact in a negative way with your own Knights.
• The interaction, whatever it is, has to specifically include your own Knights. For example, "Knights your opponents control get -1/-1" doesn't meet this option, while "All Knights get +1/+1" does, because it includes your own Knights too. "Target Knight gets +1/+1 until end of turn" also counts, because it can target your Knights, even though it can also target other players' ones. "Search your library for a Knight card" also counts, as you're taking your own Knights out of it. You essentially have to ask yourself: "can this affect one or more of my own Knights on the battlefield or my own Knight cards anywhere else?"
• If your Knight creature grants a bonus to "target Knight", it must be able to target other Knights you control. A Knight that can only target itself doesn't count. The fact that it's forced to target itself if it happens to be the only possible target doesn't matter. All that matters is that it can target other Knights if there are on your side of the battlefield. Of course, you can just say "another target Knight you control" and have none of these problems.
• A noncreature card (that's a card that doesn't have the card type "creature" on its type line) doesn't count for this option, regardless of whether it can turn into a creature, of whether it is a Knight or not, and of whether it has a Knight tribal mechanic or not.
- It must be monocolored, that is have only one color of mana in its mana cost. We're looking specifically at the mana cost here, not the color identity of the card. Colorless cards and multicolored cards (both traditional gold and hybrid) automatically fail this subchallenge.
- It can't have any mana symbols of any kind (including Phyrexian mana and such) of colors that are not the one color in the card's mana cost anywhere on the card.
• If only one condition is met, the card does NOT satisfy this subchallenge. Both have to be met at the same time.
• Traditional hybrid mana (like ), anywhere on the card, automatically fails this subchallenge (it's not monocolored).
• Monocolored hybrid (so-called "two-brid", like ) passes this subchallenge, because, well... monocolored hybrid is monocolored! That's as long as the color in the mana cost and the color of the two-brid mana symbols are the same.
• To see if this subchallenge is met, check your card's mana cost and note all the colors in it. Then, look at the flavor text. All the names of all the Eldraine courts that correspond to the noted colors must be there.
• Remember the colors, names, and virtues of the five courts of Eldraine:
- The white court is Ardenvale, and it's about loyalty.
- The blue court is Vantress, and it's about knowledge.
- The black court is Locthwain, and it's about persistence.
- The red court is Embereth, and it's about courage.
- The green court is Garenbrig, and it's about strength.
• The proper names of the courts have to be mentioned, not their virtues. You can also mention the virtue, as long as you also mention the proper name of the court.
• This subchallenge implicitly requires that the card is flavorfully set on Eldraine. I don't know how a card set on another plane could mention the court names. But if you find a way, you can do that. This subchallenge only cares about whether the court names are there, not about which plane your card is set on.
• Your card can mention court names corresponding to colors the card is not, as long as all the ones corresponding to your card's actual colors are also mentioned.
• If your card is multicolored, all the court names corresponding to its colors must be there. For example, a Boros-colored card (just a random example...) has to mention both Ardenvale and Embereth in the flavor text. In addition to that, it can also mention Vantress, Locthwain, and/or Garenbrig.
• This subchallenge only specifically looks at the flavor text. If the court name is mentioned in the card name but not in the flavor text, it doesn't count. Of course, you can still just mention it in both.
DEADLINES
Design deadline: Sunday, October 6th 23:59 EDT
Judging deadline: Thursday, October 10th 23:59 EDT
RUBRIC
(X/3) Appeal - Do the different player psychographics (Timmy/Johhny/Spike) have a use for the card?
(X/3) Elegance - Is the card easily understandable at a glance? Do all the flavor and mechanics combined as a whole make sense?
Development
(X/3) Viability - How well does the card fit into the color wheel? Does it break or bend the rules of the game? Is it the appropriate rarity?
(X/3) Balance - Does the card have a power level appropriate for contemporary constructed/limited environments without breaking them? Does it play well in casual and multiplayer formats? Does it create or fit into a deck/archetype? Does it create an oppressive environment?
Creativity
(X/3) Uniqueness - Has a card like this ever been printed before? Does it use new mechanics, ideas, or design space? Does it combine old ideas in a new way? Overall, does it feel "fresh"?
(X/3) Flavor - Does the name seem realistic for a card? Does the flavor text sound professional? Do all the flavor elements synch together to please Vorthos players?
Polish
(X/3) Quality - Points deducted for incorrect spelling, grammar, and templating.
(X/2) Main Challenge (*) - Was the main challenge satisfied? Was it approached in a unique or interesting way? Does the card fit the intent of the challenge?
(X/2) Subchallenges - One point awarded per satisfied subchallenge condition.
Total: X/25
*An entry with 0 points here is subject to disqualification.
JUDGES
bravelion83
Gateways7
Blydden
PLAYERS
Everyone can enter this round. Just reply to this thread posting a card that meets the Main Challenge and any number (that includes zero) of Subchallenges. Future rounds will only be open to those who advance. Come join us!
A reminder to everyone:
In the MCC, putting rarity on cards is mandatory! If you don't put a rarity on your card, expect huge deductions in both Viability AND Quality.
Please check out the MCC Guidelines and FAQ if you have the will and time. Link here and in my signature. Among the many things you can find there are a detailed explanation of the rubric (section 6.2) and the recommended card formatting (section 4) that you should use to format your text cards. Expect deductions in Quality otherwise.
BRACKETS
Judge: bravelion83
barbecube
Flatline
Freyleyes
Henlock
Krishnath
RaikouRider
slimytrout
Judge: Gateways7
archemediesx
Dragonlover
Jimmy Groove
marioguy3
Sagharri
The_Hittite
Judge: Blydden
ForestsCarl
Ink-Treader
kwanyeegor-ii
Legend
netn10
Subject16
void_nothing
Top 4 from each bracket advance to Round 2.