March CCL, Top 8: Land of the Slain

[void_nothing]

CCL March Top 8/Round 3

"Land of the Slain"


Halls of Mist, taken from echomtg.com, by Mark Poole 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 Mythos Month here in the CCL! Everyone knows Magic draws heavily on real-world mythology to make its settings and stories. In this month we'll be doing what R&D's Creative department does - adapting myth-based concepts from around the world into the multiverse of Magic.

Challenge

Design a land card based on a place from Norse mythology.

Clarifications

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• Make sure to include a rarity.
• Your card can, flavorfully speaking, be set on any plane.

Your submissions are due Saturday, March 21st, 23:59 EST.

Contestants:
@Ink-Treader
@slimytrout
@Henlock
@Subject16
@RaikouRider
@jamblock
@kwanyeegor-ii
@netn10

Schedule

• Round 1 — Open to Everyone (March 1st–7th)
• Round 2 — Open to Everyone (March 8th–14th)
• Rounds 1 and 2 Critiques (Due March 17th)
• Top 8 — Open to top 8 finishers (March 18th–21st)
• Top 8 Critiques (Due March 23rd)
• Top 4 — Open to top 4 finishers (March 24th–27th)
• Top 4 Critiques (Due March 29th)
• Final (Aoril, winner determined by public poll)

[RaikouRider]

Endless Abyss
Land {R}
T: Add C. If it's your turn, put a charge counter on Endless Abyss.
T, Remove X charge counters from Endless Abyss: Exile X target cards from graveyards. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.
From nothing, the world came. In time, the world shall return to nothing.

[slimytrout]

Rainbow Bridge
Land (R)
T: Add C
Raid - T: Add one mana of any color. Activate this ability only if you attacked with a creature this turn.
"When the horn calls the gods to battle, their path is paved with every hue."
-Stolli Haraldson, Saga of the Elder Days

[Ink-Treader]

Corpsefeeder Strand
Land (U)
T: Add C.
2, T, Exile a creature card from your graveyard: You gain 3 life.
The barges of the vilest souls find themselves tossed upon the shores of the Rootgnawer's lair.

[Subject16]

Halls of Contest
Land (Rare)
Raid — At the beginning of your end step, if you attacked with a creature this turn, untap Halls of Contest.
T: Choose an opponent you attacked this turn. Add one mana of any color that a land that opponent controls could produce.
The Einherjar spend their days practicing war, preparing for the last battle.

[netn10]

Realm of Fire
Legendary Land (Mythic)
At the beginning of each player's precombat main phase, that player adds RR. Any unused mana added with Realm of Fire deals 1 damage to its controller.
The most unwelcoming realm of the Nine Worlds, it chooses its inhabitants for itself, preferring those who can wield its fires with pride.

[jamblock]

Rivers of the Storm God
Legendary Land (R)
T: Add U or R. Rivers of the Storm God deals 1 damage to you.
Whenever an instant spell, sorcery spell, or God creature you control deals damage, you may untap Rivers of the Storm God.
Each day, Khor waded through the rivers Hortam and Ortam on his way to the trials, not realizing his journey was a trial itself.

[kwanyeegor-ii]

Branch of the World Tree
Land (Rare)
Branch of the World Tree enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add C.
3GG, T, Sacrifice Branch of the World Tree: You may put a green creature card from your hand onto the battlefield tapped.
T, Sacrifice three other lands named Branch of the World Tree: Transform Branch of the World Tree.
//
Drokkedell, the World Tree
Legendary Land
All Elk, Squirrel, Goat, and Bird creatures you control get +2/+2 and have reach and vigilance.
T: Add GGGGGGGG.

[void_nothing]

@Henlock If you need an extension, I can grant one.

[Henlock]

Please. Things got quite crazy around here and I didn't even think of this at all.

[void_nothing]

Okay, just try to get your entry in ASAP.

[Henlock]

Lair of the Nogharg
Legendary Land (r)
: Add .
: Exile a card in your graveyard: Add one mana of any color.
6, , Shuffle Lair od the Nogharg and six cards you own in Exile into your library: Create green 6/6 Legendary Wurm creature token with hexproof named Nogharg.

[void_nothing]

Okay, looks like the gang's all here. Please critique and submit a top 3 for all of the other contestants. You now have until Wednesday, March 25th.

[kwanyeegor-ii]

raikourider - fitting with ginnungagap flavor but as a hoser its kinda slow. probably your opp will just use their graveyard combo by the time you exile the pieces lol

slimytrout - super fitting and Bifrost using both rainbow (all colors) and attacking is good. a bit generic tho

ink-treader - another hoser, prolly more efficient but I think too cheap for colorless

subject16 - wow this is really cool... loving the fellwar stone… conquer lands with your einjerjar! super strong but fun

netn10 - mana burn lives!!! I love it, so flavorful to muspellsheim and eladamri's vineyard homage is great

jamblock - wow the rivers kormt and ormt are super obscure but you did them justice, gj

henlock - seems fine, reminds me of tomb of urami, definitely cool to charge it up and then use it

1 subject16
2 jamblock
3 netn10

[jamblock]

Raikou: I dig this card. It seems like a perfectly viable utility land in certain match-ups and it's far from broken. Feels like something they'd print, and nice flavor.
slimy trout: This feel pretty flavorful, and adequately strong. The flavor is on point too, and it's nice that it's simple.
Ink-Treader: This is probably fine. I wonder if that could be an aggravating ability to have repeatable on a permanent as resilient as a land, but it's probably not, so this is good.
Subject16: Interesting that it ONLY does anything when you have attackers. That feels like it is making itself unnecessarily fragile, and the benefits don't seem to outweigh the risks.
netn10: Glad it's legendary because it's brutal in multiples. A very strong ability with a fun flavor behind it and a unique way to bring back an old effect.
kwanyeegor: Very flavorful, no one can deny that, but ultimately maybe just a little too silly. I'm not sure I'd even want to transform it!
henlock: I like the flavor here, but I am not a fan of things that let you put that many exiled cards back into the game in as functional a place as the library. I wish it had to be cards IT exiled at the very least.

1. netn10
2. slimytrout
3. RaikouRider

[Subject16]

RaikouRider: An interesting utility land for sure. It seems like it encourages playing on your turn which is nice. It seems quite easy to amass a fair amount of counters, and I feel like because of this it might be a little unfun for any graveyard based deck to play against.

slimytrout: A simple design (is it rare-worthy?). It rewards you for attacking which could be seen as crossing the Bifrost to invade enemy territory. Also bonus points/high five/shoulder tap for using Raid as well.

Ink-Treader: It's a nice design, but not very sexy. There's good flavor, but it doesn't scream to me as something that would be worth playing.

netn10: There's always something spicy about lands with no mana abilities. A mix of Eladamri's Vineyard and Manabarbs. It brings back mana burn in a way which is cool, but a part of me almost feels like it would be better for punishing people who spend the mana rather than if it's unused, but there's an appeal to both sides. I very much like this design.

jamblock: This feels very flavorful considering there are two colors (one for each river), Keranos already being the Storm god on theros and the synergy with Storm-style decks. This would generate a lot of mana with something like Grapeshot, and so the self-ping aspect definitely helps curb the huge potential this can offer. Plus if you somehow turn this land into a God creature, it untaps itself.

kwanyeegor-ii: Feels a bit weird that part of a tree doesn't produce green. A Dramatic Entrance on a land is definitely powerful. The flipped side is nice? but probably a little too narrow a reward? You get four times more mana and an anthem to some specific types. I think that the reward should be a little more powerful/broad to show how important/relevant the World-Tree is to norse mythos.

Henlock: Another reference to the Niddhog, and one I like more than RaikouRider's. A little dissapointing that it itself isn't a Lair card, but it's having a 6/6 hexproof token as a reward for your pseudo Deathrite Shaman land is pretty nice, but it also feels like an underwhelming reward when you compare it to something like Azor's Gateway/Sanctum of the Sun.

Top 3:
1: netn10
2: jamblock
3: Henlock

[slimytrout]

RaikouRider

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Endless Abyss: A fun card, but flavorfully I don't think it quite makes sense. It's clearly referring to Ginnungagap, but that was the void that came before the world existed so why would it have anything to do with the graveyard?

Ink-Treader

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Corpse-Feeder Strand: An interesting double utility land for life gain and graveyard hosing. Not too exciting, but has great flavor with Nastrond (I'm not even going to try to get the accents right).

Subject16

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Halls of Contest: You also had the raid idea, and flavorfully this is a good fit for Valhalla, but I don't think this card really works mechanically. You untap it in your end step once you've attacked, but then you can't use it on your opponent's turn because you haven't attacked them and it doesn't tap for C. So your only opportunity to get a second use out of it is in your own end step, which isn't really when decks that are attacking (or really any decks other than Nexus) are trying to spend mana.

netn10

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Realm of Fire: Very fun land, very flavorful. Only note is that I think the phrasing is off, as it should probably be the Realm that is dealing the damage, not the unused mana itself - that could get really weird really fast.

jamblock

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Rivers of the Storm God: Love it. Great flavor, great mechanics. Only note is that I don't think it's so powerful that it needs to be legendary - R&D has stopped making many of those for a reason.

kwanyeegor-ii

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Branch of the World Tree: A lot of work went into making this flavorful, but it ends up feeling kinda clumsy and I don't think it would play well. Like, you want to have all four out to get the big payoff, but up until then it only gives you utility by sacrificing it. Plus the big payoff doesn't have hexproof, and it rewards a very random collection of tribes but not ones that interact with lands, which makes it very difficult to actually assemble the world tree.

Henlock

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Lair of the Nogharg: I'm not a huge fan of bringing cards back from exile, but shuffling them into your library is probably safe enough (although I'm not even sure about that). Otherwise fine, although definitely marred by some typographical errors.

T3

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1. jamblock
2. netn10
3. henlock

[Ink-Treader]

slimytrout

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I like this. It's vaguely reminiscent of Glimmervoid, trading the sacrifice clause for the ability to tap for colorless and a tougher condition for the rainbow mana.

Henlock

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Interesting. I kind of wish the last ability was a little cheaper manawise to reward working to get enough exiled cards fast.

Subject16

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I think this needs slightly different wording, but I appreciate what's going on here. It's harsher to make use of than slimytrout's card, but gives a higher payoff.

RaikouRider

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Ginnungagap eh? This is kind of boring for a rare, though the rarity is probably justified.

jamblock

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Definitely a dangerous card. Can do utterly nutty things with replicate or storm spells.

kwanyeegor-ii

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Could probably tap for green since it's already coming in tapped. Honestly the last ability feels like trinket text. Remove the transform part and this is probably a perfectly reasonable card.

netn10

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It's certainly interesting, but giving your opponent mana is a hell of a drawback.

Top 3

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1. slimytrout
2. Subject16
3. Henlock

[Henlock]

only top this time

1. slimytrout
2. netn10
3. RaimouRaider

[void_nothing]

And your top 4:

netn10
slimytrout
jamblock
Subject16

Round to come very soon.