April CCL, Top 4: Arts of Emptiness

[void_nothing]

CCL April Top 4/Round 4

"Arts of Emptiness"


Expanded Anatomy, taken from Art of MtG, by Slawomir Maniak 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 Missing Out Month here in the CCL. Designs this month will be themed around the idea of something being missing.

Challenge

Design an instant, sorcery, or enchantment card with no colored mana in its mana cost.

Clarifications

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• Your card may have colored mana symbols in its text.
• Make sure to include a rarity.

Contestants:
@MonoRedMage
@Subject16
@Henlock
@slimytrout

Your submissions are due Thursday, May 4th, 23:59 EST.

Schedule

• Round 1 — Open to Everyone (April 1st-8th)
• Round 2 — Open to Everyone (April 11th-17th)
• Rounds 1 and 2 Critiques (Due April 19th)
• Top 6 — Open to top 6 finishers (April 22nd–25th)
• Top 6 Critiques (Due April 27th)
• Top 4 — Open to top 4 finishers (May 1st-4th)
• Top 4 Critiques (Due May 6th)
• Final (May, winner determined by public poll)

Please note: For this month we will continue asking first and second round contestants to evaluate seven other contestants during the critique and top 3 period, in order to increase the total number of evaluations each contestant gets.

[Subject16]

Mantle of the Unseen 4
Enchantment — Aura (M)
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +X/+X and has ward X, where X is twice the number of face-down creature you control.
When enchanted creature dies, exile Mantle of the Unseen and the top card of your library into a face-down pile, shuffle that pile, then manifest those cards. (To manifest a card, put it onto the battlefield face down as a 2/2 creature. Turn it face up any time for its mana cost if it's a creature card.)
Morph 3
As Mantle of the Unseen is turned face up, manifest the top card of your library, then attach it to that creature.

[void_nothing]

Just checking in with @MonoRedMage/@Henlock/@slimytrout - do you think you can have your entries in by 23:59 Eastern on Sunday?

[Henlock]

I"ll try to put my entry together as soon as.possible.

[slimytrout]

Lunar Mysteries 2
Enchantment (R)
You may cast Lunar Mysteries as though it had flash as long as you spend no colored mana to cast it.
When Lunar Mysteries enters the battlefield, creatures lose all abilities until end of turn.
2, Sacrifice Lunar Mysteries: Draw a card.

[Henlock]

Egestive Spawning 3c
Enchantment (r)
At the beginning of each end step, create a colorless X/X Eldrazi creature token, where X is equal to the number of cards that left exile this turn.

[MonoRedMage]

Kozilek's Communion 5
Tribal Sorcery - Eldrazi {R}
Draw five cards, then discard four cards unless you exile two Eldrazi cards from your hand. Then add C for each card in exile.

[void_nothing]

Okay - now that all the entries are in, please critique each other contestant and organize them into a top 3.

[Henlock]

Subject16- The engine needs a bit of setup to get running, but on a dedicated morph-manifest deck this looks like it can have a place. With 3 face-down vreatures the +6/+6 buff is very nice. I do feel this could be an equipment, given all the attaching around, but the morph/manifest flavor does help a bit.

Slimytrout- This is a version of Dress Down that only works well with colorless. It doesn't sacrifice itself so it's a fine blinking or bounce target.

Monoredmage- The first part is fine and lets you exile a couple of cards. The mana production can be very huge but in you need other effects to get there.
In commander, the late game usually finds quite a few cards in exile without having had to put much effort into it. Of course this works great with exiling graveyards and cards from libraries.

1. monoredmage
2. Subject16
3. Slimytrout

[slimytrout]

Subject16

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There's a looot of text on here -- even without the manifest reminder text it's pretty close to microtext. Overall it seems cool, although I remember a Mothership article mentioning that they messed with aura-morph as a mechanic and found it to be to very frustrating to play against since players would just respond to removal spells or creature combat by unmorphing so that the spell/combat damage wouldn't happen.

Henlock

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This seems like a cool idea if it weren't for the cascade mechanic -- just add this to Modern Rhinos and you basically just get a free 15/15 to go with your 4/4's.

MonoRedMage

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I like it -- weird and potentially very strong, but requires a lot of building around to optimize.

T3

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1. MonoRedMage
2. Subject16
3. Henlock

[MonoRedMage]

1 - Henlock
2 - slimytrout
3 - Subject16

[void_nothing]

Just missing @Subject16 now - please get your crits or at least a T3 in by tonight if possible!

[Subject16]

Slimytrout: An interesting card for sure. I like that there's an incentive reason to play this in a colorless deck but no hard restrictions. That said, it's like a Dress Down with a bit of slow timing. Not too bad, and the fact that it's essentially a clue token brings it nice flavor with the whole moon/emrakul link.

Henlock Having this card look at the cards that left exile rather than the cards that get exiled is a very interesting choice for sure. It definitely wants you to use the Eldrazi Processors from BFZ/OGW, but honestly I think you'll find more consistent value with blink decks. I do wish there was some way to enable the token making by itself, because without some serious deckbuilding this card often does nothing.

MonoRedMage Draw five discard four feels like an okay rate for a colorless spell, and realistically that's often the rate you'll get, but the real kicker is the mana generation. C for every card in exile can get pretty bonkers, but it takes some setting up. It's definitely interesting and will make Johnny-types eager to break it.

Top 3:
1: MonoRedMage
2: Slimytrout
3: Henlock

[void_nothing]

With a three-way tie for second place, all four contestants will move on to the final round! The round thread will come soon.