The MCC Discussion Thread

[void_nothing]

Planning to finish my June MCC final judgments ASAP...

[Rithaniel]

Courtesy ping for @Henlock. Only 24 more hours to get your submission for the round in.

[Raptorchan]

You have about 13 more hours to participate in August MCC Round 1, guys.

[bravelion83]

Planning to finish my June MCC final judgments ASAP...

@void_nothing Any news or eta on this? It's the only thing missing to finally close June.

[bravelion83]

Ponder

Drush, Pondering Anarchist 2UU
Legendary Planeswalker — Drush (M)
Append 3UR (You may cast this spell for its append cost. If you do, add the words in curly brackets.)
Drush has hexproof as long as it's not your turn.
+1: Look at the top three cards of your library, then put them back in any order. You may shuffle. Draw a card.
-2: Exile the top five cards of your library, then shuffle. Put one of those cards into your hand, another one on top of your library, and a third one on the bottom of your library. {Until your next turn, you may play the rest of the exiled cards.}
-7: Draw seven cards, then discard cards until you have exactly seven cards in your hand. {Drush deals 7 damage to each of up to seven creatures.}
3

(2/3) Flavor - Doesn't really feel that anarchic unless appended

Thanks for the judgment, it feels perfect to me, I agree about everything you point out, and this is not a complaint. I just wanted you to know that the anarchic aspect is tied into his story. Yes, he's a planeswalker from my huge table so I know him pretty well. There are several things I could not explain about him without extra content allowed so I expected this comment.


A few things to know about this character that I couldn't explain on a planeswalker card with no flavor text and no extra content allowed:

• His name is pronounced as if the "u" were a "oo" if spelt in English. It's Dr-OO-sh, NOT Dr-A-sh. It does NOT rhyme with the English word "rush". It comes from a French influence in the origin of his name.

• As something like 90% of the planeswalkers in my table, he's not human. He's a Cyclops from an unknown plane. "Unknown" both in the sense that the public doesn't know and that I as author also haven't thought about it yet.

• His color identity is fully UR, but I used append here to make a monocolored card for him that still fits with his character. Yes, essentially append is there only to satisfy the Subchallenge. If the monocolored Subchallenge wasn't there, the 3UR in the append cost would just be the mana cost of this card and he wouldn't have append.

• I had to create append specifically to meet the Subchallenge. I liked it though, so I left it there. I could reuse it in the DCC, it's one more custom mechanic in my arsenal. And yes, the whole idea behind it is just to be reverse cleave. I find cleave not that intuitive because you pay more to have less text, and I believe this creates a dissonant feel for cleave, at least to me. If you pay more mana, the intuitive way is that you have more text, not less. I have always felt this way since cleave first came out in VOW, and that Subchallenge required a solution. And thus append was born, killing two birds with one stone.

• Why is he UR? Because he's an anarchist (his red part) but not just because he just wants to be free to do whatever he wants, like a monored character would. He's also very intelligent, he studied a lot in his life and still likes a lot to study, reflect about, and learn new things and thoughts and opinions and such (this is his blue part). His studies throughout his life have led him to believe that anarchy is actually the best form of government a society could apply, and he's very capable to explain, defend, and elaborate his thoughts on the matter. In short, he's an anarchist, but one that came to believe in anarchy by studying and that can argument very well his beliefs if you just ask him to do so. He also believes that anarchy is often depicted as a stereotype and that spreading more accurate information to people is the right way to convince people to at least respect anarchy as a possibility, if not fully convincing them that it's the best form of government as he believes. Question: how could I explain all of this with no flavor text, flavor notes, or anything except a card name? He's an anarchist, but a "pondering" one, one that has pondered all the possibilities and has come to the conclusion and personal conviction that anarchy is actually the best possible form of government. Thus the name "Pondering Anarchist". You had to know who he is to get it. I'm not surprised you didn't.

• He's a character that I like a lot because I feel he's a very different and unusual approach to UR. UR is more than just caring about instant and sorceries or about artifacts, and this is my attempt to come up with an alternative approach for that color pair.

Thanks again for the judgment.

[void_nothing]

Planning to finish my June MCC final judgments ASAP...

@void_nothing Any news or eta on this? It's the only thing missing to finally close June.

I traveled unexpectedly over the weekend, which was a pleasant surprise but limited the time I had available to finish. I should get them done tomorrow so we can declare a winner - my apologies for the delay.

[Ink-Treader]

I'm happy with my judgments, so consider my Round 1 judgments finished.

[bravelion83]

We finally have a winner for June and that's @slimytrout! Congratulations!

I will host again in September, which will be our Wilds of Eldraine-themed month.

[Rithaniel]

My judgements for round 3 are in!

[Ink-Treader]

Huh, I absolutely misinterpreted the second sub challenge, but that's on me. At least I came up with something interesting in Rebellion I might make use of at some point.

[Ryder]

Hey all, just wanted to say I'm really glad CCC is still going strong after all these years first on MTGS and now here. Keep at it and have fun folks, who knows maybe I'll rejoin you sometime again :D

[void_nothing]

Hey all, just wanted to say I'm really glad CCC is still going strong after all these years first on MTGS and now here. Keep at it and have fun folks, who knows maybe I'll rejoin you sometime again :D

Well when you have the time and inclination, we'd love to have you back.

[bravelion83]

Hey all, just wanted to say I'm really glad CCC is still going strong after all these years first on MTGS and now here. Keep at it and have fun folks, who knows maybe I'll rejoin you sometime again :D

Yeah, I can't wait for you to be back either! Feel free to contact me at any time and for any reason should you need it.

Also, it shows I've had a LOT of trouble for the battle card...

About Unstitching of the Deathweave

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I've been though SEVEN different versions, and if it weren't for the deadline I would have probably done even more adjustments. Part of it is that I haven't a good understanding of what the world is supposed to be. It's world about enchantments, it has a Tapestry that's probably linked somehow with the worldsoul, people can add patterns onto it but not everybody, those who do and receive the worldsoul's blessing are considered above all else and are called "weavers". This Tapestry has what I assume is a dedicated group of people defending it and keeping it safe, thus the name "Keepers". I've considered Giterre as the leader of this last group, the Keepers. Then there is another characted, Diana, who laughs at the Keepers' lectures and is called the "Deathweaver". No, wait, that's how I misread it for days, until I realized in version 4 o 5 probably that there is no R at the end in Diana's card name. I misread it. It's not her who IS the Deathweaver (I pictured a weaver gone bad), rather she must belong to a different and enemy organization called the "Deathweave". I assumed Diana is the leader of this last faction. I also assumed members of the Deathweave made patters too, so defeating them is actually unstitching their patterns before they try to attach them to the Tapestry. I pictured a large room where the Tapestry is kept, and a huge row of Keepers and weavers, dressed like soldiers, defending the Tapestry from an assault of the Deathweave, that had managed to penetrate into that room. In the back of the Deathweave lines is Diana herself. The subsequent battle going on into the Tapestry room to protect the Tapestry from the Deathweave's assault is what's meant to be pictured on the card. The Keepers and weavers, empowered by the Tapestry itself (what the +1/+1 for each enchantment is supposed to represent mechanically) successfully deal with all the waves for the Deathweave until they get to Diana herself and defeat her, possibly killing her, and anyway unstitching the patterns of the Deathweave. Diana herself could be revealed to be nothing more than a pattern that can be unstitched.

This is how I got it, but how much of it did I get right? I suppose very little. This world confuses me a lot. What's the Tapestry, and why is it so important? Who exactly are the Keepers, or the Deathweave? Do the Deathweave want to destroy the Tapestry, and if so, why? I confess I understood next to nothing from the cards I was assigned, so I had to come up with answers of my own to fill the huge voids in my understanding of this world. I would already have had big problems designing an ordinary card out of what I had understood of that world, let alone a battle, the newest card type we have very little experience with. This and the cycle of five battles I designed for the DCC are the only battles I've ever designed in my whole life so far. To me, this round was two almost impossible challenges put together, and as a result I struggled a lot with it.

The Bounty mechanic was supposed to satisfy the "defeat this character" part of the challenge. I had to defeat Diana. Flavorfully, the Enemy is her. Then, almost at the deadline, I wondered whether such a mechanic would be better kept for a Wild West world (Outlaws of Thunder Junction hadn't been announced yet at that time). I thought probably yes, but as there was so little time before the deadline, I preferred to let it be and hope to get lucky with the judgments. I knew this wasn't a good card. To me, this was probably one of the hardest rounds I've ever been a part of as a player. I wasn't confident at all about my card. If the deadline hadn't passed, I would still be working on it right now, I'm sure, and with no hopes of getting satisfied with the result. How could I make a card set in a world I didn't understand? I still don't honestly, most of my flavor reasoning was based on my own imagination, I had no idea if it was the intended direction. Anyway, not understanding well the world I was assigned is my fault, not that of its creators in past rounds. I have been unable to understand it fully, but it looks like a very interesting take for an enchantment-based world that is different from Theros and Eldraine (according to what Maro said, Wilds has an enchantment theme too).

Why the reverse exalted? It was meant to reflect the "selfishness" side of the Deathweave, that same selfishness that I reference in the flavor text. I pictured the Keepers and weavers fighting together (that fits nicely for a GW faction) against solitary assaults (them "attacking alone" mechanically) from members of the Deathweave, who, at the contrary of the Keepers and weavers, didn't coordinate between one another at all, and this would be the cause of their defeat, this unwillingness to work together. The needle that will unmake the Deathweave is their members' selfishness itself, and that's what the flavor text represented.

Here are all the versions of the card I went through in chronological order as I was trying hard to get a better understanding of the world and of what this battle was supposed to represent. You have no idea of the sheer number of times that I've reread the two cards from previous rounds set on this world (Tapestry of Dirae and Diana herself). Oh, and to add to all of this, who of what is Dirae? I don't know nor have been able to understand. I'm sorry.

Version 1

Unstitching of the Deathweavers XB{G/W}{G/W}
Battle (R)
When Unstitching of the Deathweavers enters the battlefield, put X +1/+1 counters on each of up to X target enchantments and/or creatures you control. Each of them becomes a 0/0 enchantment creature for as long as it has a +1/+1 counter on it.
When the last defense counter is removed from Unstitching of the Deathweavers, destroy each nonland permanent that has no +1/+1 counters on it.
6

Version 2

Unstitching of the Deathweavers 2B{G/W}{G/W}
Battle (R)
Each enchantment and/or creature you control is a 3/3 green and white enchantment creature. (It loses all other colors and card types.)
When the last defense counter is removed from Unstitching of the Deathweavers, for each player, choose three enchantments and/or creatures they control. Destroy the chosen permanents.
"The deathweavers' selfishness itself will be the needle that unravels them."
—Giterre, Keeper of the Tapestry
6

Version 3

Defense of the Tapestry 4B{G/W}{G/W}
Battle (R)
Each enchantment and/or creature you control is a 3/3 green and white enchantment creature. (It loses other colors and card types.)
When the last defense counter is removed from Defense of the Tapestry, destroy all creatures and enchantments.
"The deathweavers' selfishness is the needle that will unravel them."
—Giterre, Keeper of the Tapestry
6

Version 4

Preservation of the Tapestry 4B{G/W}{G/W}
Battle (R)
(You are this battle's protector. Any other player can attack it. If it's defeated, put it into its owner's graveyard.)
All creatures you control must block each combat if able.
Whenever a creature attacks alone, destroy that creature.
"The deathweavers' selfishness will be the needle unraveling them."
—Giterre, Keeper of the Tapestry
6

Version 5

Preservation of the Tapestry 3WBG
Battle (M)
At the beginning of your upkeep, create three 1/1 green and white Shaman enchantment creature tokens named Weaver.
Creatures you control block each combat if able.
Whenever a creature attacks alone, destroy that creature.
"The deathweavers' selfishness will be the needle unraveling them."
—Giterre, Keeper of the Tapestry
6

Version 6 - It was at this point that it was mentioned that reminder text would just be ignored if it didn't fit, so I didn't worry about it being there and its length anymore. I could make reminder text as long as necessary regardless of any constraints, of that was the message as it got to me, and I also noticed my misreading of Diana: it was not "deathweaver", it was "deathweave" with no "r"!

Unstitching of the Deathweave 3WBG
Battle — Bounty (M)
(As a Bounty enters, you choose an opponent to become its protector and a creature they control to be the Enemy. For as long as this battle is on the battlefield, the Enemy can't block and can't leave the battlefield. You and your teammates can attack this battle. When it's defeated, put the Enemy into its owner's graveyard.)
Creatures you control get +1/+1 for each enchantment you control.
Whenever a creature an opponent controls attacks alone, destroy it.
"The Deathweave's selfishness itself will be the needle that unravels them."
6

Version 7 - The deadline hit here, otherwise I'm sure there would have been even more versions in this list. I still didn't worry about the length of the reminder text, I had understood that it would just be ignored if it didn't fit, so it could have taken the whole box, it wouldn't have mattered, it would have been just ignored. But then why is the length of the reminder text noted in the judgment? Wasn't it supposed to be ignored? Anyway, no reply is needed, I deserve this loss anyway as I think I've just explained. Good luck to the finalists!

Unstitching of the Deathweave 3WBG
Battle — Bounty (M)
(As a Bounty enters, you choose an opponent to become its protector and a creature they control to be the Enemy. Each other player can attack this battle. For as long as this battle is on the battlefield, the Enemy can't block and can't leave the battlefield. When this battle is defeated, the player who defeated it gains life equal to the Enemy's total power and toughness, then put the Enemy into its owner's graveyard.)
Creatures you control get +1/+1 for each enchantment you control.
Whenever a creature an opponent controls attacks alone, destroy it.
"The Deathweave's selfishness itself will be the needle that unravels them."
6

Again and finally, I deserve this loss. I'm sorry to the creators of this world for not fully understanding what they have created (which, again, is my own fault and not theirs), and best of luck to the finalists.

In the meantime, the world of my Predation Ground from Round 1 has gone straight into my huge table. I will make it, taking some of the inspiration from how netn10 developed it in Round 2.

What that "some" inspiration means in detail (netn10 in particular might like to read this)

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Predation Ground
Legendary Land (R)
T: Add B or G. If Predation Ground entered the battlefield this turn, add C instead.
3BG, T: Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control. That creature gains deathtouch until end of turn, then it fights up to one target creature you don't control.
On a plane that has never known and will never know the presence of sapient humanoids, the only balancing force that exists is that of nature, the only law that exists is survival of the fittest, and the only relationship that exists is between predator and prey.

Watcher of the Proving Grounds 2CC
Legendary Creature - Elder Beast (Mythic)
Territorial 6 (When this creature enters the battlefield, choose a land you control and put six defense counters on it. It becomes a Battle - Territory in addition to its other types.)
Whenever you tap a Territory for mana, add CG.
Legendary Territories you control have T: Draw two cards.
In the six Proving Grounds, myriad skills are tested, ancient as the Primal Dawn. Was The Watcher born before The Sacred Rules, or was it their maker? No beast knows, nor dares to ask.
6/6

I love the idea of multiple Grounds, collectively called Proving Grounds, testing various skills needed to survive in such a world, and I will absolutely keep it, though I don't like the number of them. Six? Why six? Predation Ground is supposed to be one of them I guess, and it's an enemy color pair, so I could consider five enemy colored ones (which I will probably do), but what was supposed to be the sitxh one? Colorless? My intent was not to focus on colorless mana as a cost, so I will not keep that part and I will have no colorless Proving Ground, making them either five (an enemy-colored cycle) or ten (all color pairs) and not six in my version of this plane. I like the idea of a "Primal Dawn" being the moment of the creation of the plane, and I think I will keep that, though I have no idea of how it could influence the plane as it is today. I see the flavor behind turning lands into Territory battles, but I think it's too radical mechanically and in the rules, I don't think I will keep that part. I can see a character being "The Watcher of the Proving Grounds" that oversees, or maybe even created, all of them, but as I said I will not focus on colorless mana here, so it would need to be colored. I can see it being a five-colored mythic, and maybe I will do that, I haven't decided yet. As I have absolutely no idea what "The Sacred Rules" are supposed to be, I will not keep them.

So, things I will keep in my version of the plane:
• Multiple Proving Grounds, each testing a different skill. Either an enemy-colored cycle of five or a full cycle of ten. No colorless one. Beware not to get too close to the Trials of Amonkhet.
• The "Primal Dawn" as the moment of the creation of the plane. I will figure out a way to make it still relevant today in-story.
• Maybe "The Watcher of the Proving Grounds" as a character, but it won't be colorless. I could see a five-colored mythic for it.

Things I will NOT keep in my version of the plane:
• The sixth Proving Ground, whatever it was supposed to be.
• Lands turning into Territory battles.
• "The Sacred Rules", whatever they are supposed to be.

I will think more about this plane, and it obviously still needs a name. Once I have thought more about it and have a more concrete knowledge of this plane, you all might start seeing cards from it, probably as DCC entries of mine. Nothing bigger, at least for the moment.

Thank you, netn10, for those ideas that I liked and that I will incorporate into my design of this custom plane, that for now is just a "plane that has never known and will never know the presence of sapient humanoids". For those who might wonder, that's still different from both Bloomburrow as they presented it and Extinctia, the custom plane/set I 've worked on a long time ago by now. There is a scale, based on anthropomorphicness and sapiency. Extinctia is the most radical version: no sapient creatures at all. This one, what I'm calling the "Predation Ground world" for now, is in the middle, as it allows sapiency but not anthropomorphicness (no humanoid, not even only in pose, for example, a dragon is a humanoid to me, just check how Nicol Bolas and Ugin are depicted). Bloomburrow goes one step forward, allowing the sapient animals to be anthropomorphic even if there are no humans on the plane. As you can see, the "Predation Ground world" lies right in the middle of the scale, different from both Extinctia and Bloomburrow, so I'm not worried about that. Thanks again to netn10.

[Rithaniel]

Now, hold on Leo, the round isn't over yet. I may have judged your card harshly, but @void_nothing is still working on his judgements.

Part of it is that I haven't a good understanding of what the world is supposed to be.

Yeah, this is something that I knew was going to be an issue. When you only have two cards to work from, there's not a whole lot of lore to utilize. In that position, with gaps in information, you have to bridge things and fill in gaps with stuff that makes sense to you. I will admit that the Tapestry world was pretty vague, but I think you did well on the flavor front.

This is always a hurdle you have to jump over when doing collaborative worldbuilding. Each person is going to be adding details based on their own understanding of what the world is, and each person's understanding can be a little bit different. This is where design documents come from. A person collates all the details about a world into one document so that a creator can look through it and try to understand what the world is supposed to be. In this round of the MCC, instead of a design document, you were working from what amounts to a few design notes. With that in mind, I think you did great.

I still didn't worry about the length of the reminder text, I had understood that it would just be ignored if it didn't fit, so it could have taken the whole box, it wouldn't have mattered, it would have been just ignored. But then why is the length of the reminder text noted in the judgment?

I gave you full points on quality. I did ignore the reminder text for the purpose that I stated: microtext. The issue was that your reminder text was not viable as a game mechanic. Again, the purpose of reminder text is that some cards will have it so that other cards might get a chance to forego it. But, with the reminder text you gave, no card could be printed with it, except for some cards with only a single line of non-reminder text. That is not good set design. Some cards need to be able to use the reminder text so that the player gets more of a chance to learn it.

Versions

I think my favorite is probably version 2, but I also really like the "no subtype" reminder text you put on version 4.

[Raptorchan]

My judgements for August MCC Round 1 are done.

[Riria]

@bravelion83 My intent when I made Diana was that a deathweave (lowercase d, unfortunately hard to communicate in card names) was not an organization, but a type of weave. So, she is not a deathweaver, she is a hieromancer who specializes in deathweaves. Sort of like how a frost mage is a mage who specializes in making ice cream. More specifically, a type of weave that recycles life energy (moving it around places, hence why Diana both protected and killed creatures in the same ability). And the reason why this is disruptive to the rest of the Tapestry is because everyone else draws from Leylines only. Probably obscure: Diana was inspired from the Valdemar books and contrast between Gifts vs Blood Magic. Having said that, I think your spin on the flavor is cool too!

Edit: As for Diana's motivations, she doesn't want to destroy the Tapestry per se. She just wants to save people, and is ruthlessly utilitarian about it. It's just that her weaves damage the Tapestry in a way analogous to air pollution, but with mana, and she doesn't care. She's a "tradition is the corpse of wisdom" type of antihero.

@Rithaniel So here was my design procedure when deciding on 6 defense for my siege:
1. I initially planned to make Gauntlets a true free for all, attackable by everyone and defendable by everyone. 6 defense was chosen with this in mind.
2. I realized that version of Gauntlet took a billion lines of reminder text and I couldn't make it shorter. So I made it asymmetrical instead.
3. I forgot to adjust the defense after I did that :D

[void_nothing]

Will be posting my July round 3 judgments later today!

[Rithaniel]

Alright, scores for July Round 3 are:

bravelion83 - 38.5
Riria - 44

Henlock - 40.5
Ink-Treader - 41.5
slimytrout - 42.5

This means our two finalists are Riria and slimytrout!

[Riria]

@Rithaniel Questions:

1. Would a devoid-like mechanic break the first subchallenge?
2. Would making two colorless cards break the first subchallenge?

[Rithaniel]

@Rithaniel Questions:

1. Would a devoid-like mechanic break the first subchallenge?
2. Would making two colorless cards break the first subchallenge?

Good questions. The way I worded it, I specified color and not "color identity," so devoid would be a valid way to get a card with the same color identity, without sharing colors. Also, colorless is not a color, so two colorless cards can't share a color.

I'm fine with keeping this the way I originally worded it, because I'm not convinced that trying to make colorless instant or sorcery cards will necessarily give a player any advantage.

[Riria]

Sure, I was just asking because sometimes "follows the letter but not the spirit of the subchallenge" has been a reason to subtract points in the past (which I do think is valid).

[Raptorchan]

12 more hours to finish your designs for August MCC Round 2, guys.

[void_nothing]

I am working on my own entry. Besides me I think @slimytrout is the only other contestant who hasn't entered August round 2.

[slimytrout]

Also working on it.

[Venedrex]

I am working on my own entry. Besides me I think @slimytrout is the only other contestant who hasn't entered August round 2.

Also working on it.

Well, the good news is, banding + storm on a creature still hasn't been done yet. See, because storm gives you multiple tokens of the creature, and then banding... does something with those creatures. I'm just saying, something to consider.