NEXUS FLAMINGO ☆ Exclusively For Custom Card Connoisseurs and Gnomes

[PanchoPonceN]

Strip Mine
Land (R)
T: Add C.
T, Sacrifice Strip Mine: Destroy target land.

What? Too powerful? Pff! OK, then my entry is this:

Curse of the Open Wound 1BR
Enchantment - Aura Curse (R)
Enchant player
Enchanted player can't gain life.
At the beginning of enchanted player's upkeep, that player loses 2 life.

IIW: Combine your two favorite mechanics.

[NinjaCaterpie]

Tunnel to Freedom WU
Sorcery (U)
Target creature you control gets +1/+1 and can't be blocked this turn. Remove all counters from that creature and exile any number of target permanents attached to it.

IIW: +1/+1 counters

[void_nothing]

Aether Pit UB
Enchantment (U)
When Aether Pit enters the battlefield, the owner of target creature with power 3 or less shuffles it into their library.
Whenever a card is put into a player's library from anywhere, that player loses 1 life.
"Chronomancy or no chronomancy, I don't make a habit of jumping into holes I can't see the bottom of." - Silgen Quickarrow

IIW: Elder ___, where ___ is a mundane animal

[Lorn Asbord Schutta]

Probably judging in 24 hours.

[haywire]

Dimensional Counterbore 2UB
Enchantment
: Exile target creature you control.
5ub,: Exile target creature.
1ub: Put a creature card exiled with Dimensional Counterbore onto the battlefield tapped under your control.
A quick escape, or an eternal torment, depending on how you look at it. Either way, those that make it through are quite... compliant, if a little disoriented.

IIW: tiny things

[void_nothing]

Judge? @Lorn Asbord Schutta

[Lorn Asbord Schutta]

I am sorry - I got to the computer at local 10 pm. and I started the crits with a CCL round 1. Now I am going to sleep few hours and at morning hopefully I would have time to do Flamingo.

[spacemonaut]

Tactician's Portal 1U
Instant
Exile target attacking creature. Return each creature exiled this way to the battlefield at the beginning of their owner's next declare attackers step. They're tapped, attacking, and can't be blocked until end of turn.
Overload 3UU
Choosing when to lead the charge is key—but if you get it wrong, there's always next week.


IIW: Overload on permanents

[Lorn Asbord Schutta]

Hold on.
I got all, yet in the middle spacemonaut provided another one. I will have to judge it as well, but of now I have to run, so I am sorry, the results will be about in 7 hours (for real this time).

[spacemonaut]

there's something thematic about doing that in the middle of this theme

[Lorn Asbord Schutta]

I have to say, that when I changed the challenge from land destruction to "holes", I was silently hoping for some cheese. But I am glad from entries nonetheless.

TacticalCelebrant

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Dig For Gold 1r
Sorcery (U)
Put a dig counter on target nonbasic land. It becomes a Wastes. It's controller creates two Treasure tokens. (They're artifacts with "t, Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color.")

Is a digging site a hole? Imagine sheet of metal. You press it in the middle, bending it, but not fracturing it. Is it a hole then? Rather not. But if we take a sheet of paper instead, we will perforate it. In likewise manner, since earth is kept on four elephants riding on a turtle big enough to treat it as a flat object on small scale, there is argument to be made that to treat digging sites as holes in earth, they have to dig through core to the other side of the globe. Yes, it might sound irrrelevant - and ridiculous to boot - but few decades ago in my country on this argument the goverment refused to patch holes in roads, since there were not holes in first place.
In terms of a card I see a small problem in that Wastes are not basic subtype. It can be seen easily by comparing Kird Ape to Walker of the Wastes that to change a land into Wastes you would have to provide full characteristics of it.
It is interesting pseudo land destruction in that it doesn't really help against color-fixing lands, but mostly against ramping lands or utility ones. Yet when I look at this card all I can thought of is a quirky Manamorphose. You see, playing it with Sunscorched Desert so it fixes you, technically it makes the desert basic land so that might be helpful in some strange cases and gives you two artifacts that can be used at any time instead of cantrip. The added possibility of hating opponent's lands is the added bonus here.
Additionally, what is with flavour when you target opponent's land? You make an expedition to uncover the riches long-buried in soil, but since you destroyed others property you have to handle them the treasure? Or do you give the opponent a treasure map pointing to one of their lands, so they start to furiously dig in? Quite a silly thought either way.

PanchoPonceN

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Strip Mine
Land (R)
T: Add C.
T, Sacrifice Strip Mine: Destroy target land.

Imagine settling in a local university, living your life to the fullest with many strange contraptions and chronic problems with time, when suddenly, those miners from the other part of continent over-extends their digging right under you. They die, so no more digging, and you die, so no more fast mana. That is how I always portrayed it.
And about it being too strong, there is still a debate about land destruction to keep the fast mana decks in check and I would like to state-

Curse of the Open Wound 1BR
Enchantment - Aura Curse (R)
Enchant player
Enchanted player can't gain life.
At the beginning of enchanted player's upkeep, that player loses 2 life.

And here I am sure that you can't treat wound as a hole. At least as long as you treat the world and human in synthesis manner. You can say that a human is a actually skin, muscules, bones and other tissues combined into one - as analysis states - but in the same manner there is no such thing as a car, but only diffrent parts of car kept together. So as long as this is not a piercing wound (impaling or shooting mostly) I think that wound should not be considered a hole. But at the end of a day both analysis and synthesis in philosophical sense have their own problems invalidating them, so maybe a wound is a hole - just in skin.
As for the card it is an Everlasting Torment mashed with Curse of the Pierced Heart. I have some concerns regarding if this is not a too efficient clock. Rampaging Ferocidon was banned and was easier to deal with, being a creature. Havoc Festival, while getting higher life loss, is twice as costly - and in practice, three or four times slower to get - so for it this is not an issue. And is symmetrical.
Lightning Bolt, Sovereign's Bite, then this. Coupled with other burn cards this can get out of control fast. From what I see, Havoc Festival is actually the only enchantment of those types that combines life loss with life gain prevention. Other cards either deal damage/life-loss, or just prevent life gain (this trend continues to other permanents as well, with infamous Ferocidon nonwithstanding). And they are - life prevent variety - rather symmetrical then not.

NinjaCaterpie

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Tunnel to Freedom WU
Sorcery (U)
Target creature you control gets +1/+1 and can't be blocked this turn. Remove all counters from that creature and exile any number of target permanents attached to it.

We are still digging. At least this time it is an escape tunnel, so you can treat it as an extended, horizontal hole through some kind of wall blocking the path to freedom. Actually, I am interested if there are some statistics of how most prison escapes were done. While the tunnel is a classic one (Count Monte Christo, The Shawshank Redemption), most of the war escapes from the prison camps that I recall were done either via sneaking in night, or via deception - mostly getting guards outfit, but civilian clothes were common as well.
Speakig of prison escapes, I find it ironic that this is in Azorius. Yes, it is part Distortion Strike and part Strip Bare, so mechanically it fits, but white-blue is the last guild I would associate with fighting for freedom, maybe next to selesya.
In most situation the "remove counters and attached permanents" part should considered a drawback, I am afraid. Unblockability, next to hexproof, is one of the few mechanics that make the aura card disadvantage worth the gamble. Equipment is used due to its staying power, so getting rid of it is counterplay. Not many detrimental counters I can think of, to be honest. So this is mostly anti-Arrest card. Sorcery speed makes is it rather irrelvant against Sleep Paralysis effects, or at least not as useful as it ought to be. And I do not see anyone playing more then one arrest-type enchantments on one creature (Stab Wound on arrested creature? I do not know), so this feel somewhat lackluster. It makes sense in flavour to limit it to yours creatures, but it would be an intersting tension between mass disenchanting opponents creature for getting almost confirmed hit once. But I understand that templating it to give unblockability to opponent's creature and to make it possible to cast on your turn would be headache, so here we are.

void_nothing

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Aether Pit UB
Enchantment (U)
When Aether Pit enters the battlefield, the owner of target creature with power 3 or less shuffles it into their library.
Whenever a card is put into a player's library from anywhere, that player loses 1 life.
"Chronomancy or no chronomancy, I don't make a habit of jumping into holes I can't see the bottom of." - Silgen Quickarrow

Holes in fabric of universe, in time and space. But this is an even more convoluted then digging holes - where this hole should get us and through what it is made? Maybe it is time to redefine hole - a hole is an abrupt addition of another dimension of space made with a lack of mass instead of adding it, mostly seen of flat surfaces that suddenly become three-dimensional. Or is it only reserved for the adding of third dimension? Because there is no way of signaling the second dimension on perfect one-dimension line with ridding a part of it - even if we do erase part of such perfect line, the gap itself is one dimensional still. It is not similiar to a metal rod, where after cutting it in half we can measure its radius on the newly made surface, as the perfect line observed from the point of cut would appear as a point. And I am not versed enough in additional-dimensions models to theorize about them. Moreover, time is not similiar to space - on physics models there are x,y,z dimensional axes and parameter t, standing for time. It is not a fabric you can pierce, only a number. How do you get hole in something that is not physical space? Other then a loopHole, ofcourse.
Actually there is no straight "shuffle creature into owner's deck from the battlefield". There is a lot of putting on bottom or top, but the outright shuffling is done on Unravel the Aether (artifact/enchantments) and Rishadan Pawnshop (only permanents you control). Void Stalker is effectively the same, but there might be something I missing. That said, the "power 3 or less" is more an Orzohv speciality then dimir, but it works here.
The other part is interesting. The obvious weaponizing is to mill opponent, then shuffle the graveyard back for possibly outright winning amount. Other then this it improves tucking, hates on Sensei's Divining Top and Brainstorm, and I am not sure of interaction with Anticipate effects or scry. I think the cards themselves do not change zones, but those effects instructs to "put" on the bottom of library. Do they trigger life loss? If such, this becomes a powerful anti-control and anti-combo (as most combo decks need to filter their draws with those effects) tool.

haywire

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Dimensional Counterbore 2UB
Enchantment
: Exile target creature you control.
5ub,: Exile target creature.
1ub: Put a creature card exiled with Dimensional Counterbore onto the battlefield tapped under your control.
A quick escape, or an eternal torment, depending on how you look at it. Either way, those that make it through are quite... compliant, if a little disoriented.

And now we have digging hole in the fabric of universe. Great. Sadly - or maybe not, depending how entertaining it was - I do not have any more comments on that matter.
Tapping enchantment. It was not done for so long. Other then monocolored Theros gods' weapons and two Planar Chaos cards it was nver touched upon. While many enchantments grant abilities to enchanted permanents, I think that lack of tapping on enchantments is mostly to preserve their identity that contrasts with artifacts. Earlier artifacts were only colorless and could tap, enchantments were colored and could not. While their are flavour diffrences, with the advent of evergreen colored artifacts, there is shrinking mechanical diffrence between those two types.
It reminds me both of Helvault and Profane Procession // Tomb of the Dusk Rose. The fact that returning a creature does not require additional tap makes it the most interesting. While one could see only complicated Flicker in first ability put into Dimir instead of classic Azorius, due to its instant-returning-on-demand it actually turning a creature into Hired Blade, which is spot on with mind-control flavour. Likewise, the cost of theft is hefty and while it can be paid in parts, it still takes so much resources, that opponent can turn it to overcosted Deadly Rollick with right timing, so in this regard I find it well balanced. There is a temptation to exile few rattlesnake blockers with deathtouch and threaten the opponent with them, but while it might provide great defences, at the same time it backfire, as it is putting all eggs into one basket, similiar to Parallel Thoughts. There is this suicidal or greedy nature in it, which makes a nice black impression.

spacemonaut

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Tactician's Portal 1U
Instant
Exile target attacking creature. Return each creature exiled this way to the battlefield at the beginning of their owner's next declare attackers step. They're tapped, attacking, and can't be blocked until end of turn.
Overload 3UU
Choosing when to lead the charge is key—but if you get it wrong, there's always next week.

Toto, I have a feeling we're not dealing with holes anymore. From piercing the earth, to piercing the dimensions to straight up portals. But that is okay, in diffrent countries and diffrent cultures there might be few diffrences between what is considered a hole and what is not. It is some kind of a problem with translations - if a subject in question was very important to language in first place, the users of the language would create many synonyms to differentiate between small details in the named object and likewise, if the subject is mostly irrelevant, then there would be much less words corresponding to it, which might prove hard in translation, especially if it filtered through additional layers. For instance in my language there are four diffrent words to call male magic-user (we have gendered nouns), which is not enough to translate even "warlock" properly, not to mention some more obscure words, like "hexer". On the other hand we have our national motto: "awruk!", with its many variants suited to particular situation, that are translated into same english word. In this regard I adore skilled translators, especially the comedy-books ones, as they are usually against a hard task of both understanding subtle influences of language or culture in the authors text and translating them in a way that preserves those subtle language tricks (with word plays being classic example), while still being understandable in new language. For instance Terry Prachett's Discworld books were translated by the same man for my language in exception to few and those few stands out as less funny simply because the translator missed quite a number of hidden gems or was not able to translate them properly.
As for the card itself, what a strange way to phrase Fog. I understand that what you really want with this card is to overload it on your alpha strike, possibly after few of attackers got targeted with removal, then cast Fury of the Horde (unless you can pay for more costly alternatives) and win the game. But, without the second combat on your turn, this on overload makes you absolutely open for counterstrike, so I would rather use it against opponent's alphastrike and then try to squeeze him before their creatures will return, or use the removal on them in their new, unblockable attack. But the same could be said about overloading your own attack, when seemingly opponent has no way of killing you in one turn. Those layers upon layers on seemingly straightforward effect is definitely a flavour win.
There is also a standard version, in which additional effect of exiling can be seen more clearly - dropping auras and counters. Like I said before, unblockability is a sweet thing for auras and in this particular effect you cannot drop on target creature Curiosity to get cards from hitting face - even more so, as the creature return outside of main phase, so only instant buffs are a fair game - but it could be used against those pesky 0/0 hydras opponent controlls. Moreover, this card is a death sentance against token-swarms, but it goes unsaid. Returning to target version of card, it creates a fun problem for your opponent: "do I buff this unblockable creature only to get into removal


Winner(s): spacemonaut, for a card that creates fun mindgames, the thing blue should be known for - but being the most removed from the challange idea;
haywire, for a card that delivers its flavour in both great and balanced manner and is in colors despite first impression - but being a tapping enchantment, which is a design space I dislike;

So to actually decide between you two, I had to flip a coin.

Winner: @haywire

Next: Tiny things

[TheRavenManIsSquee]

Curse of Shrinking. 2BBU
Enchantment - Aura Curse (R)
Enchant Player
At the beginning of enchanted player's upkeep, you choose 2 creatures they control. Put a -1/-1 counter on each of those creatures.
"Looks as though you aspirations have fallen a little short, cathar." -Runo Stromkirk

IIW: a mythic from Innistrad 3

[void_nothing]

Helpful Mice 2W
Enchantment (U)
Whenever you cast an artifact or enchantment spell, create a 1/1 white Mouse creature token.
Tap two untapped Mice you control: Add C. Spend this mana only to cast an artifact or enchantment spell or activate an ability of an artifact or enchantment.

IIW: Return to Eldraine

[spacemonaut]

Annex Armorer 1WW
Artifact Creature — Horror Artificer
Vigilance
Equipment you control has living weapon if it doesn't already. (When an Equipment you control enters the battlefield, create a 0/0 black Germ creature token, then attach that Equipment to it.)
: Add . Spend this mana only to cast Equipment spells or activate abilities of Equipment.
2/2


(This needs a small CR update for that "if it doesn't already", because stacking living weapon would not be desirable since players would have to remember they create two germs and one dies, which can matter a lot.)


IIW: Overload on permanents

[PanchoPonceN]

Leyline of Dust 2WW
Enchantment (M)
If Leyline of Dust is in your opening hand, you may begin the game with it on the battlefield.
All permanents have hexproof.

IIW: Combine your two favorite mechanics.

[haywire]

Judging in approximately 10 hrs

[haywire]

TheRavenManSquee

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Curse of Shrinking is a solid endgame style enchantment as a control finisher. The fact that it gets around hexproof is interesting, but I think acceptable considering its cost, activation delay, and fragility. I can't see a place for this outside of hard dimir/esper control, but it does well in that role.

void_nothing

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Wow, these mice really are helpful! I've always been a fan of storm styles of decks, and these seem like a great enabler along the lines of Sai, Master Thopterist in past standard, and yhese seem to be an equally good one. Two of these on board lets you cast trinkets for free while building a board, and the flexibility for enchantments and artifacts is very nice.

spacemonaut

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well, you definitely can't have a tinier thing than a 0/0 germ. The CR alteration sounds a little clunky, but I could see it happening, and the overall utility of this creature is very powerful. This is a strong build around, and can present some extremely powerful threats using the low cost/high equip cost artifacts.

panchoponcen

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This is a very powerful leyline, and one that's likely too powerful, due to the level of protection it gives itself. This can pretty easily lock black/red decks out of the game, as even if they can splash into green or white for critical enchantment removal, sideboarding a generally higher pip enchantment boardwipe is much more difficult.

HM: spacemonaut
Winner:void_nothing
Next: Return to Eldraine

[chetoos]

obligatory joke entry

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Oko, the totally fair card ug
Legendary Planeswalker - Oko
+3 - Create a food token
+1 - Creatures and artifacts your opponents control are 3/3 green elk creatures.
-5 - Gain control of all creatures you don't control, your opponent creates a food token.
4

Syr Elspeth, Knight of all 2WW
Legendary Planeswalker - Elspeth
+1 - Create a 1/1 white human soldier creature token. Put a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control.
0 - Target creature you control becomes a knight in addition to its other types and has base power and toughness 5/5 until end of turn. When that creature dies this turn, return it to your hand.
-7 - You get an emblem with "Creatures you control get +2/+2 and have indestructible."
4

another joke entry

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Divine Hand Grenade of Ardenvale 2W
Artifact
T: Divine Hand grenade of Ardenvale deals 5 damage to target attacking creature. Creatures you control gain lifelink until end of turn.
"Thou shalt count the number to be 3, then toss the grenade at thy enemy, who in my mercy, shall snuff it." -- Armaments, chapter 3, verse 12

IIW: Big green idiots.

[void_nothing]

Thanks for the win. I'd like to judge tomorrow if possible.

[TacticalCelebrant]

Cobbling Faeries 1U
Creature - Faerie (U)
Flying
At the beginning of your end step, you may sacrifice a Food. If you do, create a colorless Equipment artifact token named Shoes onto the battlefield. It has "Equipped creature gets +1/+1" and "Equip: 1".
0/2
Cobble Together G
Sorcery - Adventure
As an additional cost to cast Cobble Together, discard a card.
Create three Food tokens.

You don't have to judge these.

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Racing Tortoise 2G
Creature - Turtle (C)
Racing tortoise enters the battlefield tapped.
When Racing Tortoise enters the battlefield create a 2/1 green Hare creature token with haste. Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step.
1/4

Faerie Food 1UU
Enchantment (R)
When Faerie Food enters the battlefield, each opponent creates two Food tokens.
At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, that player sacrifices a Food. If they can't, Sacrifice Faerie Food, and gain control of target creature that opponent controls.

Gruff Billygoat 1G
Creature - Goat (C)
Gruff Billygoat enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter for each Goat in your graveyard.
2/2

Cry Wolf w
Sorcery (C)
Create a 1/1 white Dog creature token. If there are two or more cards named cry wolf in your graveyard, create a 5/5 green Wolf Horror creature token instead.

IIW: Multicolor -1/-1 counters.

[TheRavenManIsSquee]

Fall of Embereth. 1GB
Instant (R)
Choose one:
Destroy target nonlegendary creature
Destroy up to 3 target artifacts and enchantments
"A resounding crack echoed through the square, and the Great Wall finally fell as the witches spell reached between worlds, the fabric of space torn asunder"
IIW: A mythic from Innistrad 3

[haywire]

Looking back at my last set of judgements, I have to apologize for the rambling and repetition; I was clearly a little too tired at the time those were done.

Now, onward!

Wishful Mermaidu
Creature- Merfolk
Storybook- Whenever a Human enters the battlefield under your control, if Wishful Mermaid has less than three page counters on it, put a page counter on Wishful Mermaid.
Whenever a page counter is put on Wishful Mermaid, scry 1. Then, if Wishful Mermaid has three or more page counters on it, it becomes a 3/2 white Human with vigilance and protection from Humans.
The things we give up in pursuit of impossible dreams...
1/2

Iiw: 3 casting costs (in some combination of alternative, additional and mana costs)

[void_nothing]

Hopefully there will be more entries but four is enough; I'll judge tomorrow morning regardless.

[PanchoPonceN]

Oath of the Circle W
Sorcery (U)
Put a first strike counter and a vigilance counter on target Knight you control.
Whenever a Knight enters the battlefield under your control, return Oath of the Circle from your graveyard to your hand.
"Unto this were all the knights sworn of the Circle of Loyalty, both old and young. And every year were they sworn at the high feast of the Quests."
— Le Morte d'Kenrith, Book III, Chapter XV

IIW: Combine your two favorite mechanics.

[void_nothing]

Judging now.