November MCC, Finals: Into Portions

[void_nothing]

Banner based on Feasting Troll King by Nicholas Gregory and Wizards of the Coast. Thanks to bravelion83 for the "Core Set Style" MCC Logo

November MCC, Round 4 - Into Portions

Welcome to the November MCC! It's Food Month here at the MCC. This month will loosely deal with the Food subtype.

Main Challenge: Design a card whose text contains "you", "gain", "3", and "life", but not "you gain 3 life."
Subchallenge 1: Your card doesn't cause its controller to gain life.
Subchallenge 2: Your card contains a number other than 3 in its text.

DEADLINES

Design deadline: Tuesday, December 8th, 23:59 EDT

Judging deadline: Friday, December 11th 23:59 EDT

Clarifications

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Main Challenge: Any form of "gain", like "gains" or "gained", can count for the "gain". Likewise "three" counts toward "3".

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
StonerOfKruphix

Players:
@slimytrout
@Subject16

[Subject16]

Firemane Commando 4RW
Creature — Angel (Rare)
Flying, haste
When Firemane Commando enters the battlefield, create X 1/1 red and white Soldier creature tokens with haste, where X is three plus the amount of life you gained this turn.
A beacon of light for the Legion to follow.
3/4
{Watermark:Boros}

[slimytrout]

Xantcha's Heartstone 3
Legendary Artifact (R)
As Xantcha's Heartstone enters the battlefield, an opponent of your choice gains control of it.
At the beginning of your end step, if Xantcha's Heartstone is untapped, you lose 3 life for each artifact you control.
T: Each opponent creates a 0/0 colorless Construct artifact creature token with "This creature gets +1/+1 for each artifact you control."

[void_nothing]

And the round is closed! Let us judge.

[StonerOfKruphix]

Kudos to both finalists, the results are very close.
Also, I would like to apologize for my lateness. University is messing me up.

Subject16

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Firemane Commando 4RW
Creature — Angel (Rare)
Flying, haste
When Firemane Commando enters the battlefield, create X 1/1 red and white Soldier creature tokens with haste, where X is three plus the amount of life you gained this turn.
A beacon of light for the Legion to follow.
3/4

Design
(1.5/3) Appeal - Too costly for Spike and too small for Txmmy, but both appreciate the way this gums up the board even if you don't have some other source of lifegain. Jxnny likes this, but it's a bit too linear.
(3/3) Elegance - Easily understandable with a single read.

Development
(3/3) Viability - As a big Boros angel, the rarity is appropriate. Also, all of the things on the card fall into Red and White's wheelhouse, so everything is all right here.
(2.5/3) Balance - Definitely a high pick in draft, as this seems to be a bomb for limited, providing you with a very nice top-end for your aggressive deck. My only problem is that, at 6-CMC it could be a bit too costly for an aggressive deck, and the lifegain clause is way too much conditional for a one-time use. As it is, I don't think this would see play in standard because of the mana cost, and the same would go for older constructed decks. My Gahiji EDH deck, on the other hand, would love this, even without the lifegain condition.

Creativity
(2/3) Uniqueness - This might be just another big dumb "turn 'em all sideways" Boros card, but the token-making clause is pretty new and innovative.
(3/3) Flavor - While the flavor text might be a little generic, this perfectly represents the idea of an Angel leading a Battalion (I see what you did there) into battle.

Polish
(3/3) Quality - All correct here.
(2/2) Main Challenge (*) - Yep.
(2/2) Subchallenges - Yep yep.

Total: 22/25
*An entry with 0 points here is subject to disqualification.

slimytrout

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Xantcha's Heartstone 3
Legendary Artifact (R)
As Xantcha's Heartstone enters the battlefield, an opponent of your choice gains control of it.
At the beginning of your end step, if Xantcha's Heartstone is untapped, you lose 3 life for each artifact you control.
T: Each opponent creates a 0/0 colorless Construct artifact creature token with "This creature gets +1/+1 for each artifact you control."

Design
(2,5/3) Appeal - Txmmy likes the idea of eventually getting some huge tokens, Spike likes this kind of punisher card, as it has little investment cost but provides nice returns, either in the form of damage or bodies. Truly a Jxnny card, as they could fiddle with some Twiddle effects to maximize the punishment.
(2.5/3) Elegance - A bit complex, but all of its parts are easily grokkable.

Development
(3/3) Viability - Giving this a "rare" rarity is very appropriate, as ongoing effects of this kind often deserve it. Also, we've seen artifacts (and colorless in general) meddle in both damage dealing (Jinxed Choker) and creating scaling tokens, as evindenced in Karn, Scion of Urza), so all correct here.
(2.5/3) Balance - Whoo boy, this is kind of a hard card to evaluate, since it's very swingy: if you cast it on turn 3 your opponent is definitely in for a lot of pain, but in late game it's a whole other thing, since once the board stabilizes the effects might not be as strong. But just for the first part, I think this would be a very high pick in draft (but I wouldn't say a windmill slam). Thankfully it's legendary, so you can't stack 'em up on your opponent's side of the board. Standard-wise (and Historic-wise) this could find a home in an artifact-based deck, but it would depend on the choices of cards you got available to you (compare, for example, this standard's card pool with the one when Kaladesh came out). I'm sure this could also be some kind of sideboard card, since if you sneak it under some counters you could give the Control player a huge headache. For older formats, I guess this might be some sort of win-con (imagine this paired with Winter Orb) in Stax decks. In EDH, this would definitely see play in some Group Slug strategies.

Creativity
(2.5/3) Uniqueness - Even though some parts of this card have been used already somewhere else, the whole package feels very fresh.
(2.5/3) Flavor - We may have recently have had a very nice card representing Xantcha in Xantcha, Sleeper Agent, but this perfectly represents all of her "sleeper agent" motifs. Would've loved to see some flavor text on this, though, especially since we know that her heartstone became Karn's personality core.

Polish
(3/3) Quality - All correct here.
(2/2) Main Challenge (*) - Yep.
(2/2) Subchallenges - Yep yep.

Total: 22.5/25
*An entry with 0 points here is subject to disqualification.

Results

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slimytrout 22.5
Subject16 22

[void_nothing]

Subject16

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Design
(2/3) Appeal - Full points from Txmmy. Half points from Jxnny - the path to use this is obvious but you can build around it - and half points from Spike - works less well with lifelink but at least it's always 6 hasty power.
(2.5/3) Elegance - A bit of necessary wordiness to accomplish an effect that, in the end, is simple.

Development
(3/3) Viability - Perfect colors and rarity.
(3/3) Balance - Pretty spot-on: this can be incredibly strong but requires help.

Creativity
(1.5/3) Uniqueness - Lifegain matters is not new, and Boros has made those tokens many times before, but this is a new synthesis of old parts.
(3/3) Flavor - Really like this, especially the subtle Lightning Helix connection.

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

Total: 22.5/25

slimytrout

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Design
(2.5/3) Appeal - Txmmy doesn't get it at first, but when they do they're delighted. Jxnny is all over this - wacky times with Null Rod and friends! Spike wants to like this more, but the opponent choice and giving everybody tokens in EDH mark off for them.
(2/3) Elegance - This is a fairly complicated card for several reasons but nothing beyond the pale.

Development
(3/3) Viability - All checks out.
(3/3) Balance - I wouldn't call this overpowered. Potentially swingy at the EDH table? Yes, but it usually only serves to take out one player.

Creativity
(2/3) Uniqueness - That token has been used several times at this point, but this is a pretty new spin on Sleeper Agent!
(2.5/3) Flavor - Fits perfectly but only works if you know the storyline in question.

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

Total: 22/25

[void_nothing]

Subject16 22 + 22.5 = 44.5
slimytrout 22.5 + 22 = 44.5

Well... we have a tie.

CONGRATULATIONS @slimytrout AND @Subject16, co-winners of the November MCC!