September MCC, Round 2: Five Suns Shining

[void_nothing]

Banner based on Arcbound Overseer by Carl Critchlow and Wizards of the Coast. Thanks to bravelion83 for the "Core Set Style" MCC Logo

September MCC, Round 2 - Five Suns Shining

Welcome to the September MCC! It's Counter Mechanics Month here at the MCC. Each round will feature a different keyword.

Main Challenge: Design a noncreature artifact card with sunburst
Subchallenge 1: Your card has two or more activated abilities
Subchallenge 2: Your card is (regular) rare

DEADLINES

Design deadline: Saturday, September 19th 23:59 EDT

Judging deadline: Tuesday, September 22nd 23:59 EDT

Clarifications

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Main Challenge: Vehicles ARE acceptable, as are DFCs with a noncreature artifact front face regardless of what their back faces are.

MCC Rubric

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Design
(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:
void_nothing
Dragoon26
Subject16

Players:
@Feyd_Ruin
@ECPmath
@RaikouRider
@Jimmy Groove
@Raptorchan
@Phyrexian Editor
@StonerOfKruphix
@jamblock
@slimytrout
@Lorn Asbord Schutta
@haywire
@BaconCatBug

[slimytrout]

Solar Skycharger 3
Artifact — Vehicle (R)
Sunburst (This enters the battlefield with a charge counter on it for each color of mana spent to cast it.)
Flying
Remove a charge counter from Solar Skycharger: Target vehicle you control becomes an artifact creature until end of turn.
Crew 2
4/4

[jamblock]

Cauldron of Body and Mind XUG
Artifact (R)
Sunburst (This enters the battlefield with a charge counter on it for each color of mana spent to cast it.)
Remove a charge counter from Cauldron of Body and Mind: Draw a card.
1, T: Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn for each charge counter on Cauldron of Body and Mind.

[BaconCatBug]

Memoria Lodestone X
Artifact (Rare)
Sunburst (This enters the battlefield with a charge counter on it for each color of mana spent to cast it.)
1, T, Remove a charge counter from Memoria Lodestone: Put the bottom card of your library into your hand.
3, T, Sacrifice Memoria Lodestone: Look at the bottom three cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and exile the rest.

[StonerOfKruphix]

Phyrexian Compleator 5
Artifact (R)
Sunburst (This enters the battlefield with a charge counter on it for each color of mana spent to cast it.)
T, Sacrifice a creature: Put X charge counters on Phyrexian Compleator, where X is the sacrificed creature's converted mana cost.
T, Remove X charge counters from Phyrexian Compleator: Exile target creature card with converted mana cost X from a graveyard. Create a token that's a copy of that creature except it's an artifact in addition to its other types.
The joyous work never stops.

[Feyd_Ruin]

Aether Portal
Artifact (R)
Sunburst (This enters the battlefield with a charge counter on it for each color of mana spent to cast it.)
, Sacrifice a permanent: Put a charge counter on Aether Portal.
, Remove one or more charge counters from Aether Portal: Search your library for a creature card with converted mana cost equal to or less then the number of charge counters removed this way, put it onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library.

[RaikouRider]

Solar Battery X
Artifact {R}
Sunburst, sunburst (This enters the battlefield with two charge counters on it for each color of mana spent to cast it.)
T: Put a charge counter on Solar Battery.
T: Move any number of charge counters from Solar Battery to another target artifact.

[void_nothing]

Less than 24 hours remain for Round 2's contestants!

[Raptorchan]

Glove of Power x
Artifact (R)
Sunburst (This enters the battlefield with a charge counter on it for each color of mana spent to cast it.)
1, t, Remove a charge counter from Glove of Power: Add one mana of any color.
t, Remove five charge counters from Glove of Power: You may cast a card from your hand without paying its mana cost.

[Lorn Asbord Schutta]

Puresteel Effigy
Artifact (R)
Sunburst (This enters the battlefield with a charge counter on it for each color of mana spent to cast it.)
Remove a charge counter from Puresteel Effigy: Prevent the next 2 damage that would be dealt to you this turn. Put a +1/+1 counter on Puresteel Effigy.
When there are no charge counters on Puresteel Effigy, transform it.
Just as steel is purified under heat of five suns...
///
Puresteel Crusader
Artifact Creature — Golem Knight
: Puresteel Crusader gains double strike until end of turn.
Sacrifice Puresteel Crusader: Target player loses all counters. Activate this ability only if Puresteel Crusader dealt 5 or more damage this turn.
... so will be Argentum under heat of war.
0/0

[haywire]

Leytap Spigot 2
Artifact (R)
Sunburst (This enters the battlefield with a charge counter on it for each color of mana spent to cast it.)
Lands you control with charge counters on them have hexproof and ": Add one mana of any color."
: Move a charge counter from Leytap Spigot onto target land.
wubrg, : Reveal the top X cards of your library, where X is the number of lands you control with charge counters on them. Put any number of lands from among them onto the battlefield tapped, then you may cast a spell with converted mana cost X or less from among them without paying its mana cost. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.

[ECPmath]

Solar Altar
Artifact (R)
Sunburst (This enters the battlefield with a charge counter on it for each color of mana spent to cast it.)
, Sacrifice a creature: Put a charge counter on Solar Altar.
, Remove a charge counter from Solar Altar and sacrifice a creature: Draw a card.
Praise the sun with blood and sacrifice!

[void_nothing]

And the round is closed (with a couple of no-shows). The top two contestants per judge will advance. Judging assignments are as follows:

void_nothing:
slimytrout
Lorn Asbord Schutta
haywire
ECPmath

Dragoon26:
jamblock
StonerOfKruphix
Raptorchan

Subject16:
BaconCatBug
Feyd_Ruin
RaikouRider

[void_nothing]

slimytrout

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Design
(2.5/3) Appeal - Txmmy likes the undercosted flying beater. Jxnny likes unusual ideas like Vehicle tribal. Spike finds this relatively efficient but it totally depends what Vehicles were available in Standard.
(2.5/3) Elegance - A bit fiddly but easily understandable.

Development
(3/3) Viability - Feels like a rare, and colorless is obviously the usual thing for sunburst.
(3/3) Balance - Okay in isolation, but three free uses is not THAT much in the long run. With other Vehicles this obviously gets a lot better.

Creativity
(2/3) Uniqueness - Midsize flying Vehicles are pretty usual, but the free-animation ability is a lot of fun.
(2.5/3) Flavor - Works for me, but could maybe have used short flavor text.

Polish
(3/3) Quality - Looks good.
(2/2) Main Challenge (*) - Done.
(2/2) Subchallenges - And done - Crew is an activated ability.

Total: 22.5/25

Lorn Asbord Schutta

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Design
(2/3) Appeal - Txmmy just wants to get a big double striker. Jxnny can sort of work with the wackiness here. Spike is uninterested because the most unique selling point is so situational.
(1/3) Elegance - I don't think it's unfair to say that this card is overcomplicated, with multiple types of counters, transform, and tons of abilities.

Development
(2/3) Viability - This card breaks a relatively hard design rule: In order to prevent it from becoming just a second life total, R&D refuses to make cards that remove poison counters outright.
(3/3) Balance - While this card is too complicated I don't think it's over- or underpowered. The creature side scales well, at least.

Creativity
(1.5/3) Uniqueness - Certainly unique aspects here, but one of them is something that Wizards isn't interested in using, and the ultimate payoff is kind of just a Skyrider Elf variant.
(3/3) Flavor - This flavor works very well.

Polish
(3/3) Quality - Looks good.
(2/2) Main Challenge (*) - Done.
(2/2) Subchallenges - And done.

Total: 19.5/25

haywire

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Design
(2/3) Appeal - Full points from Jxnny and partial from both Txmmy and Spike.
(1/3) Elegance - This is a really really really wordy and complicated card but at least it has a consistent mechanical theme/idea.

Development
(3/3) Viability - Definitely feels like a WUBRG affiliated rare.
(3/3) Balance - Starts out as a neat but relatively low-impact mana filterer/LD hate card. If you can use the WUBRG ability it has the potential to be great but obviously that depends on what you can reveal off the top.

Creativity
(3/3) Uniqueness - A lot of unique ideas here!
(2.5/3) Flavor - The whole turn-on-the-literal-mana-sink flavor is a bit silly but on a plane with mana-imbued water or something similar I can easily imagine magical irrigation.

Polish
(2.5/3) Quality - Reminder text not italicized.
(2/2) Main Challenge (*) - Done.
(2/2) Subchallenges - And done.

Total: 21/25

ECPmath

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Design
(1.5/3) Appeal - Txmmy doesn't wanna do all that sacrificing. Jxnny could use this. Spike would look for more efficient draw options but use this if nothing else was possible.
(2.5/3) Elegance - A very simple idea that's executed in a somewhat wordy way.

Development
(2.5/3) Viability - The three most similar cards to this - Carnage Altar, Phyrexian Vault, and Relic Vial - are all uncommon. I'd say this is a solid argument that this card should be uncommon and not rare. Rare's not completely out of place, however, for repeatable artifact card draw.
(2.5/3) Balance - Since Carnage Altar is repeatable the cleanest comparison here is Phyrexian Vault. That card, I'd venture to say, isn't that good - a version with a fairly significant extra ability was just printed in the form of Relic Vial. This is fairly efficient for as long as you have charge counters on it but once you run out it almost stops being worth it to use, spending two creatures to draw a card over two turns, unless you've got an all-in death triggers deck. I'm leaning towards this being kind of underpowered.

Creativity
(1/3) Uniqueness - As mentioned before there's DEFINITELY artifact precedent for this card. The sunburst is just adding a new wrinkle to an old idea.
(2.5/3) Flavor - Potentially fitting to some setting - maybe a different vague Mesoamerican world than Ixalan. But the flavor text is pretty generic and doesn't add anything to the flavor imho.

Polish
(3/3) Quality - Looks good.
(2/2) Main Challenge (*) - Done.
(2/2) Subchallenges - And done.

Total: 19.5/25

Totals (Bold advance)

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slimytrout 22.5
haywire 21
Lorn Asbord Schutta 19.5
ECPmath 19.5

[Dragoon26]

jamblock

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Cauldron of Body and Mind

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Cauldron of Body and Mind XUG
Artifact (R)
Sunburst (This enters the battlefield with a charge counter on it for each color of mana spent to cast it.)
Remove a charge counter from Cauldron of Body and Mind: Draw a card.
1, T: Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn for each charge counter on Cauldron of Body and Mind.

Design
(3/3) Appeal - Timmy likes a big spell that can make their creatures bigger. Johnny will enjoy finding ways to abuse the charge counters. Spike likes drawing two cards for GU. I think it's very difficult to design a card that appeals to all three psychographs, and while this may pull more to some than others, I feel this does a good job of having something they will each find appealing.
(2/3) Elegance - The card can be a little counterintuitive at first due to the interaction between Sunburst and color mana costs, as well as X functionally having an upper limit of five because of Sunburst.

Development
(3/3) Viability - It's a very blue-green card that isn't really breaking anything in the game fundamentally. Very much a rare for limited reasons.
(1/3) Balance - So I imagine there is supposed to be some tension between using the charge counters for drawing cards vs using them to repeatedly pump a creature. But I think I would just always play this card as a draw-two for GU. And in our current Standard environment, it scales to a draw four for RGWU. When compared to Painful Truths, Painful Truths always costs 3 at minimum and is capped at drawing three cards, and costs you life. And even when compared to other two mana draw-twos, it asks so much less of you than Chart a Course or Winged Words, and still has the ability to scale up. I think the card draw aspect of this is a lot more potent than you may be giving it credit for, and that's even before we factor in the pump ability. In limited, it's probably close to reasonable, since your individual card quality is much lower and creature combat matters much more. But I would not want to play in a constructed format where this is legal with any amount of decent mana fixing.

Creativity
(3/3) Uniqueness - I like the idea of creating tension between the two activated abilities. There are some idividual pieces of the card that aren't necessarily new, but they all combine in a way that I find is interesting.
(2/3) Flavor - Being a callback to Sword of Body and Mind, I kind of expected the mechanics to relate to the original card more. But they do still evoke the essence of "body" and "mind."

Polish
(2/3) Quality - The order of the mana symbols should be XGU.
(2/2) Main Challenge - Challenge met.
(2/2) Subchallenges - It's a rare with two activated abilities.

Total: 20/25

StonerOfKruphix

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Phyrexian Compleator

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Phyrexian Compleator 5
Artifact (R)
Sunburst (This enters the battlefield with a charge counter on it for each color of mana spent to cast it.)
T, Sacrifice a creature: Put X charge counters on Phyrexian Compleator, where X is the sacrificed creature's converted mana cost.
T, Remove X charge counters from Phyrexian Compleator: Exile target creature card with converted mana cost X from a graveyard. Create a token that's a copy of that creature except it's an artifact in addition to its other types.
The joyous work never stops.

Design
(1/3) Appeal - Johnny is definitely going to look for ways to abuse this. Timmy isn't too keen on sacrificing their own creatures, and the rate isn't quite good enough to interest Spike
(2/3) Elegance - The card is not the most grokkable, but the elements combine pretty well to paint a compleat picture.

Development
(2/3) Viability - Reanimation tends to fall more in the black or white portions of the color wheel, but we have precedent for letting that bleed given the appropriate cost and flavor (eg: Artisan of Kozilek) so I don't believe this is particularly egregious or even dangerous. There are a lot of memory issues involved with this card, and playing it straight out of a pack would be a little annoying, having to keep track of completely unique tokens. Appropriately a rare.
(3/3) Balance - This certianly requires some jumping through hoops to get things going. Notably it doesn't play well in a token generating deck which tends to abuse sacrifice outlets, but that's probably a good thing. This is a little difficult for me to rate power wise. It doesn't feel intrinsicly overpowered, and actually feels a touch on the underpowered side. But also no aspect of the card immediately jumps out that I feel could be safely adjusted to push its power level.

Creativity
(3/3) Uniqueness - There are cards that do things very similar to this, such as The Scarab God and Whip of Erebos, but this does put a different spin on it, especially from a flavor perspective.
(2.5/3) Flavor - My gut reaction says Sunburst on a Phyrexian card is very out of place, but I guess it could be like the Phyrexians are harnessing the power of Mirrodin's suns to continue their conquest. I don't know what Jin-Gitaxias sounds like, but I can totally hear it saying that flavor text.

Polish
(3/3) Quality - No issues.
(2/2) Main Challenge - Challenge met.
(2/2) Subchallenges - It's a rare with two activated abilities.

Total: 20.5/25

Raptorchan

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Glove of Power

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Glove of Power x
Artifact (R)
Sunburst (This enters the battlefield with a charge counter on it for each color of mana spent to cast it.)
1, t, Remove a charge counter from Glove of Power: Add one mana of any color.
t, Remove five charge counters from Glove of Power: You may cast a card from your hand without paying its mana cost.

Design
(3/3) Appeal - Timmy likes cheating big spells into play. Johnny also like cheating big spells into play if it helps them combo. Uh, Spike also likes cheating big spells into play if it ends the game quickly...
(3/3) Elegance - It's a one-shot Fist of Suns, so pretty easy to understand and yeah, pretty elegant.

Development
(2/3) Viability - Honestly, the splashiness of this card makes it feel more mythic than just rare, which would actually be consistent with cards like Omniscience, Aetherworks Marvel or the reprints of Show and Tell and Sneak Attack that let you cheat cards into play.
(2/3) Balance - This kind of effect is gonna be context specific. Obviously a one shot Omniscience, even for WUBRG is very powerful. I believe a card like this can exist, but how easily WUBRG can be achieved and the potential payoffs would need to be heavily scrutinized. This card could very easily turn into an Aetherworks Marvel. I'm not really sure why it generates mana other than to fulfill the subchallenge requirement. I don't think I'm ever using this card to fix my mana, especially at such a bad rate. I just realized that this can fix your mana to get full effect out of future copies. That's clever, and actually pushes its power up more than I inintially realized, which could be concerning.

Creativity
(3/3) Uniqueness - There are definitely other cards that let you cheat things into play, but this does it in a new and flavorful way.
(1.5/3) Flavor - I really hate that name. It feels a little uninspired considering Gauntlet of Power is a card. Outside of that, I like the whole "Infinity Gauntlet" feel the card has.

Polish
(3/3) Quality - No issues
(2/2) Main Challenge - Challenge met.
(2/2) Subchallenges - It's a rare with two activated abilities.

Total: 21.5/25

Results

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This was very close. Each card had its issues, but I felt they were all good submissions.

Raptorchan - 21.5/25
StonerOfKruphix - 20.5/20
jamblock - 20/25

[Subject16]

BaconCatBug

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Design
(1.5/3) Appeal – Timmy can't do anything huge with this. Johnny likes the weirdness of drawing from the bottom and scrying. Spike likes drawing cards but doesn't see the immediate value.
(3/3) Elegance – Nothing here reads wrong.

Development
(2.5/3) Viability – Restricted amounts of card draw is a very colorless ability. If it weren't for the odd-ness of drawing from the bottom of your library, I wouldn't be against putting this at uncommon rather than rare, although it may be pushing the draw rate of limited decks.
(2.5/3) Balance – We've seen a few artifacts that have the "put/remove a counter: draw a card" in recent years, the most recent being Mazemind Tome. I think that a one mana activation definitely pushes its playability, but at the end of the day it rewards playing a lot of colors with easy draw power and I think that's fine. With the right combination of cards (i.e. the 'put the rest on the bottom in any order' cards) this can be a much better quality draw than usual, but that takes a fair amount of deckbuilding know-how to achieve. It's nice that you can still use it when it's out of charge counters.

Creativity
(2/3) Uniqueness – There are few cards that interact with the bottom of your library, and none of them let you put it int your hand, but it's also a fairly standard "use counters to draw cards" artifact.
(2/3) Flavor – I feel like there's no flavour that justifies the sunburst aspect of the card. Flavour text would have been very helpful in that sense. Aside from that, a memorial/tribute to the past is an interesting way to interact with the bottom of your library.

Polish
(3/3) Quality – I see no issues.
(2/2) Main Challenge – It's a noncreature artifact and it's got sunburst.
(2/2) Subchallenges – It's got two activated abilities, and it's a rare.

Total: 20.5/25

Feyd_Ruin

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Design
(3/3) Appeal – Timmy likes getting big creatures in to play for free. Spike likes flexibility of tutoring, johnny likes messing with counters and this looks like a fun engine for it.
(3/3) Elegance – Perfecly legible.

Development
(2/3) Viability – Charge counters are definitely in the artifact domain, but I think the ability to tutor out creatures isn't particularly. Kuldotha Forgemaster and Planar Bridge are the closest cards I can picture that are similar enough. The former is artifact specific, and the latter is a mythic. Although I'm not sure this is a very colorless card, I think I can see this at rare.
(3/3) Balance – At six mana, I don't think this'll make a big splash in competitive constructed environments. I also like that it can keep racking up counters for getting big creatures. It has fun interactions with cards that make a lot of tokens like Avenger of Zendikar, but it's nice that this is limited by tapping itself (of course you can tutor up creatures that can untap this, but that's what makes this quite fun). It has potential to combo off with the right combination of creatures, but I think that requires a lot of building around.

Creativity
(3/3) Uniqueness – It has elements of a lot of different cards, used in interesting ways. We haven't had a "tutor equal to counters removed" style ability either.
(3/3) Flavor – Portals and Aether are all in the "artifacts value" wheelhouse. Sunburst and the portal gives me "phyrexians trying to get off-world" vibe.

Polish
(1.5/3) Quality – I believe that "remove one or more counters" isn't the right wording. It'd either be "remove any number of counters" or "remove X counters". It's also "less than" instead of "less then".
(2/2) Main Challenge – We've got a noncreature artifact with sunburst.
(2/2) Subchallenges – It's got two activated abilities, and it's a rare.

Total: 22.5/25

RaikouRider

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Design
(1.5/3) Appeal – Timmy likes lots of counters but doesn't know what to do with them. Johnny knows exactly what to do with them and is furiously scribbling down a decklist. Spike doesn't see an immediate payoff for this.
(3/3) Elegance – Reads just fine.

Development
(2/3) Viability – Charge counter shenanigans and moving them around are completely in the artifact wheelhouse. The double use of sunburst is what compels me to put this at rare, but it's very set dependent as to whether this is a rare you'd be happy to open.
(3/3) Balance – Like I said above, how strong this is really depends on what kinds of shenanigans you can pull off with your charge counters. The best payoffs I can think of are mana generators, Magistrate's Scepter, Sphinx-Bone Wand and Darksteel Reactor, none of which are particularly fantastic, except the scepter possibly. So it's a great enabler for charge counter decks, but not particularly good anywhere else.

Creativity
(2/3) Uniqueness – This seems like a supercharged Surge Node. Nothing particularly unique that we've not seen before, but double sunburst is nice.
(3/3) Flavor – A battery is the perfect object for storing large amounts of energy, and the name goes well with the sunburst.

Polish
(2.5/3) Quality – The wording should be "move any number of charge counters onto another target artifact."
(2/2) Main Challenge – We've got a noncreature artifact with sunburst.
(2/2) Subchallenges – It's got two activated abilities, and it's a rare.

Total: 21/25

Results

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Feyd_Ruin: 22.5/25
RaikouRider: 21/25
BaconCatBug: 20.5/25