November CCL, Top 4: Hero of the Plains

[void_nothing]

CCL November Top 4/Round 3

"Hero of the Plains"


Akiri, Fearless Voyager, taken from Art of MtG, by Ekaterina Burmak 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 Characteristic Types here at the CCL, so every challenge will have something to do with the usually small, prevalent, humanoid creature types that are often used for each color.

Challenge

Design a legendary creature card that's a Cat Soldier, Kor Warrior, or Human Cleric.

Clarifications

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• Your card may have other creature types, but it must have one of those three two-type combinations IN ITS TYPELINE at minimum. A legendary creature with changeling won't count.
• Make sure to include a rarity.

Contestants:
@netn10
@shullz
@Subject16
@Komandon

Your submissions are due Saturday, December 2nd, 23:59 EST.

Schedule

• Round 1 — Open to Everyone (November 1st-8th)
• Round 2 — Open to Everyone (November 16th-21st)
• Rounds 1 and 2 Critiques (Due November 23rd)
• Top 4 — Open to top 4 finishers (November 28th-December 2nd)
• Top 4 Critiques (Due December 4th)
• Final (December, 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.

[shullz]

Tato Cesti, High Priest of Talos
Legendary Creature — Human Cleric (R)
At the beginning of combat on your turn, choose one at random —
• Tato Cesti, High Priest of Talos deals 3 damage to target permanent.
• Tato Cesti, High Priest of Talos deal 2 damage to each opponent.
• Destroy target nonbasic land.
"Hold me in your tempest, Stormbringer. Keep my strength to hand."
2/3

[Komandon]

Toa en-Kor, Wastes Survivor 1WW
Legendary Creature - Kor Warrior Nomad (rare)
Other creatures you control gain +0/+1 as long as Toa en-Kor is untapped.
0: The next 1 damage that would be dealt to, Toa en-Kor this turn is dealt to target creature you control instead.
1W: Toa en-Kor may block an additional creature this turn.
"Volrath, dead. Belzenlok, dead. Elesh Norn, dead. Only a matter of time till another despot emerges."
3/2

[Subject16]

Daksa, Pride of the Legion BRGW
Legendary Creature — Cat Soldier (M)
Vigilance
As long as a legendary creature you control has flying, nonlegendary creatures you control have flying. The same is true for first strike, double strike, deathtouch, haste, hexproof, indestructible, lifelink, menace, protection, reach, trample, and vigilance.
3, T: Create two 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens.
4/4

[netn10]

Mr. Claw, Capenna's Chief Taskforce WW
Legendary Creature - Cat Soldier (Rare)
Vigilance
Whenever a player cast a spell that's exactly three colors, each of their opponents draw two cards.
Creatures that are exactly three colors can't attack or block.
"If you stuck around this gig as long as I have, you'd learn one thing for certain: there ain't no horns or halos tearing up this city, just sinners or pretenders. The families ain't the worst of us; they're us, reflecting what we've let ourselves become, and if anyone's gonna shake up the natural order of Cappena, let it be us."
2/3

[void_nothing]

Okay, that will do it for this round - thanks everyone for on-time entries! Please critique everyone else and arrange them into a top 3. Critiques are due in 48 hours.

[netn10]

shullz

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This card radiates chaos cleric, DnD-style energy. I like it, it's a fresh take on the chaotic warriors/mages that we usually get in DnD sets. The card do makes me want to know who the Stormbringer is and about its cult. 2/3 for 2RR is obviously weak, as well as choosing at random, but the abilities make up for it. I also appreciate that if the land destruction ability is chosen, you must choose your own land - for maximum chaos!

Komandon

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This card is a love letter to old lore and new. The flavor text is obviously the recounting of Dominaria's "greatest hits", the 0 ability is the en-Kor ability and blocking additional creatures is... maybe Luminous Guardian which could be a pretty cool deep cut. Also nomad is an intersection with Nomads en-Kor. I'm actually in a rabbit hole now lol. Ok, the first ability IS a reference to Luminous Guardian. Anyways, the card is beautiful, I appreciate all the nuggets here even if the card is probably not strong enough for constructed.

Subject16

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Creating 4-colored cards is a notoriously hard task, and I appreciate any attempt to make one. This card feels very mono white, maybe green-white. The black and red, for me at least, feels pretty much tucked on. I'm amazed that the flavor of a leader granting its abilities to its subjects wasn't tried before though, so that's pretty cool but making it "any legend" instead of just the pride of the legion is a weird flavor.

Top 3

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1st: Komandon
2nd: shullz
3rd: Subject16

[shullz]

Critiques

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Toa en-Kor, Wastes Survivor 1WW
Legendary Creature - Kor Warrior Nomad (rare)
Other creatures you control gain +0/+1 as long as Toa en-Kor is untapped.
0: The next 1 damage that would be dealt to, Toa en-Kor this turn is dealt to target creature you control instead.
1W: Toa en-Kor may block an additional creature this turn.
"Volrath, dead. Belzenlok, dead. Elesh Norn, dead. Only a matter of time till another despot emerges."
3/2

This card feels really unique, combining abilities that haven't been done that often before.
The survival flavor shines through in pretty much all of its abilities, helping other creatures survive (+0/+1), helping itself survive (damage redirection) and helping yourself survive (blocking more creatures).
The 0-cost activated ability seemed maybe a bit too powerful to me at first glance, but is something that has been done before.

Daksa, Pride of the Legion BRGW
Legendary Creature — Cat Soldier (M)
Vigilance
As long as a legendary creature you control has flying, nonlegendary creatures you control have flying. The same is true for first strike, double strike, deathtouch, haste, hexproof, indestructible, lifelink, menace, protection, reach, trample, and vigilance.
3, T: Create two 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens.
4/4

This is a commander to unite the cat prides of the 4 most common cat colors (Poor Frost Lynx is left behind...).
Having the leaders of the prides teach the rest of the legion by example is a nice idea.
Mechanically I just don't get anything but monowhite from this card.

Mr. Claw, Capenna's Chief Taskforce WW
Legendary Creature - Cat Soldier (Rare)
Vigilance
Whenever a player cast a spell that's exactly three colors, each of their opponents draw two cards.
Creatures that are exactly three colors can't attack or block.
"If you stuck around this gig as long as I have, you'd learn one thing for certain: there ain't no horns or halos tearing up this city, just sinners or pretenders. The families ain't the worst of us; they're us, reflecting what we've let ourselves become, and if anyone's gonna shake up the natural order of Cappena, let it be us."
2/3

I really like the combination of flavour text and mechanics on this one.
The abilities are very unique. Cards that care about 3-color combinations are rare, but fit perfectly into New Capenna.
The abilities are also situational enough, that the card doesn't feel pushed for 2 mana, but can be quite powerful in EDH.

Top3

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1. netn10
2. Komandon
3. Subject16

[Komandon]

Critiques

SPOILER

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Tato Cesti, High Priest of Talos
Legendary Creature — Human Cleric (R)
At the beginning of combat on your turn, choose one at random —
• Tato Cesti, High Priest of Talos deals 3 damage to target permanent.
• Tato Cesti, High Priest of Talos deal 2 damage to each opponent.
• Destroy target nonbasic land.
"Hold me in your tempest, Stormbringer. Keep my strength to hand."
2/3

Whenever I see the name Talos I think of the Greek robot. So I googled to see what others there are besides him and the Skrull. DND god of Storms, forest fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, destruction. And you when with the chaos feel of red too. Very fitting for a priest of a deity like that.

Daksa, Pride of the Legion BRGW
Legendary Creature — Cat Soldier (M)
Vigilance
As long as a legendary creature you control has flying, nonlegendary creatures you control have flying. The same is true for first strike, double strike, deathtouch, haste, hexproof, indestructible, lifelink, menace, protection, reach, trample, and vigilance.
3, T: Create two 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens.
4/4

Seems more of a five color or mono white like Odric, Lunarch Marshal. But mono white and that would have been done before so the additional colors are nice. Just think blue should have been added. Also since the second most common color for soldiers is blue too.

Mr. Claw, Capenna's Chief Taskforce WW
Legendary Creature - Cat Soldier (Rare)
Vigilance
Whenever a player cast a spell that's exactly three colors, each of their opponents draw two cards.
Creatures that are exactly three colors can't attack or block.
"If you stuck around this gig as long as I have, you'd learn one thing for certain: there ain't no horns or halos tearing up this city, just sinners or pretenders. The families ain't the worst of us; they're us, reflecting what we've let ourselves become, and if anyone's gonna shake up the natural order of Cappena, let it be us."
2/3

🤔 Group slug and group hug in one. I like the mix.

Top 3

SPOILER

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Top three.
1st - Shultz
2nd - Netn10
3rd - Subject16

[Subject16]

Critiques

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netn10: This is such a specific kind of hate that I'm not quite sure how great it is. Punishing three colors over multicolor generally definitely leans into New Capenna. I like the idea of this being a character that's the police commissioner/only good person in a city of mafias. It's a solid design, but practically speaking it's incredibly niche. It's also way too much flavor text, it's too much even for a vanilla card.

Komandon: It does the en-Kor thing that we love whilst pumping your board so that you can spread the damage out better. The buff condition and the third ability encourage you to keep it up as a blocker, but I think it might just be cleaner for it to have vigilance to be honest.

shullz: Definitely a cool design, though I do believe that there's some funky rules going on here with a random choice that has a target. It rings well for a cleric of a destruction god to always be being aggressive with burn, but it's a little understatted for cards these days.

Top 3

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1. Komandon
2. shullz
3. netn10

[void_nothing]

And our finalists are Komandon and shullz! Final round going up promptly...