MTGNexus

Truth's Epicentre 4UUU
Sorcery (M)
Investigate X times, where X is the number of cards in your library.
When Fblthp became lost in the Meditation Realm, he was sucked into a unending labyrinth of answers, never to be found again.

IIW: Cards from the Magic: the Gathering/Shrek 2 collab

why hasn't wotc creative hired me tbh

Kadeen Armor Apprentice 2W
Creature - Human Scout (C)
Whenever an Equipment becomes attached to Kadeen Armorer, investigate.
"So you can wear two gloves, but not two pairs of pants. Interesting."
-Apprentice's journal, sixth entry
2/2

Salvage Hammer 3
Artifact - Equipment (U)
Whenever equipped creature attacks, you may sacrifice a Clue. If you do, put a +1/+1 counter on equipped creature and it gains menace until end of turn.
Equip 2

Bonus entry:
Meliran Spyfly 5
Artifact Creature - Drone (U)
Affinity for Clues
Flying
2/2

IIW: Dubious win conditions

Vedalken Detective 3U
Creature — Vedalken Advisor
Whenever one or more -1/-1 counters are put on a creature, investigate.
, Sacrifice a Clue: Draw a card, then discard a card.
3/3
"More of that strange infection... It's probably nothing."


Starring the top notch investigative prowess of the guy from Steady Progress|SOM. This would belong to a set where Mirrodin is evidently being corrupted by something, but nobody's sure quite what's going on yet.

IIW: Cards that change the target(s) of something on the stack.

Agrus Kos, Wojek Up-and-Comer 1RW
Legendary Creature - Human Soldier (R)
First strike
Whenever Agrus Kos, Wojek Up-and-Comer attacks or blocks, you may sacrifice a Clue. If you do, Agrus Kos gets +2/+0 until end of turn.
Whenever a creature dealt damage by Agrus Kos dies, investigate.
2/2

IIW: young versions of old characters, or old versions of young characters

Escaped Slush 1U
Creature — Ooze (U)
~ can't be blocked.
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, that player investigates.
Since her creation broke out its tiny pot, Oppia coudln't find peace: should have she confessed her mum? Slurpy's special passion for cats was starting to cause agitation in Duhm.
2/1

IIW: Noncreature, nonplaneswalker commanders

In a world where wotc lets us interact with lands again, these dwarven miners and other compatriots are trying to figure out the cause of destruction and cases of whole areas going missing.

Cavern Inspector 1WR
Creature - Dwarf Advisor (U)
Cavern Inspector can't be blocked by more than one creature.
Whenever a land leaves the battlefield, investigate.
3/3

Rapid Regeneration Trap 2GG
Instant - Trap (U)
If a land you controlled left the battlefield this turn, you may pay 1G rather than pay Rapid Regeneration Trap's mana cost.
Investigate. Search your library for a basic land card and put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library.

Reckless Deepminer 1R
Creature - Goblin Peasant (C)
Haste
Whenever a land you control leaves the battlefield, sacrifice Reckless Deepminer then investigate.
2/1

And of course with lands busting or going missing, we'd need ways to utilize our clues whether we have mana or not, and perhaps make more mana.

Mystical Gemstone 2
Artifact (C)
T, Sacrifice an artifact: Add one mana of any color a land you control could produce.

iiw: a card that costs 4 mana of one color (like phyrexian obliterator)

Judge?

Ojutai's Reforging
Enchantment {R}
At the beginning of each end step, if you cast a noncreature spell this turn, investigate.
Whenever you sacrifice a Clue, the next time you cast an instant or sorcery spell from your hand this turn, it gains rebound.
"My whole life, I have been Ojutai. But these writings... they speak of me, a different me, a leader of the Jeskai Way. How?"-Narset

IIW: A Greek myth/mythological figure that hasn't already been redone in Theros

Trace of Blood 2B
Sorcery (C)
Trace of Blood deals 3 damage to target creature or planeswalker and you gain 3 life. That permanent's controller investigates.
"It appears this debtor's interest capitalized...fatally."
-Eksari, Boros patrol leader

IIW: Adventures on Amonkhet

Call the Judge 1W
Sorcery (R)
Search your library for an Advisor creature, reveal it, and put it into your hand. If you can't find one, you may reveal your library to investigate twice. Either way shuffle your library afterwards.
"Judge?"

IIW: Underprivileged tribes

we have in fact summoned the judge

Scientific Method 2UU
Enchantment (R)
If a nonartifact spell or ability would cause a player to draw a card, that player investigates instead. (Players still draw their first card at the beginning of their turns.)
"The only acceptable form of thought is formulaic, peer-reviewed, and approved by the Chief Magistrate."
-K'Haula Magisterium propaganda poster

IIW: A subtle knife

this one is set on the plane of MTG Nexus with love

Mysterious Absence 2W
Instant
Exile target creature. Its controller investigates. (They create a colorless Clue artifact token with ", Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.")
"Where are they? They were supposed to be here..."

(it could be black but white deserves better)

IIW: Cards that change the target(s) of something on the stack.

Wojek Detective WW
Creature — Human Soldier (R)
Vigilance
Whenever an opponent searches their library, that player may pay 2. If they don't, investigate.
"Keep an eye out for leads. There's always something shady happening in this city."
2/2

IIW: Energy.

Oko, Mischief-Maker 1UG
Legendary Planeswalker - Oko (M)
+2: Investigate.
-1: You may sacrifice a Clue. If you do, the next time a nonland permanent you control would enter the battlefield this turn, you may have it enter as a copy of another non-Oko permanent you control.
-6: You get an emblem with "Whenever you draw a card, investigate."
3

IIW: A spyglass

Oko investigates exclusively new opportunities for jackanapery

if toglerone doesn't show up by tonight i'll judge. but fair warning i'll be extremely inebriated while doing so.

Tibalt, Detective Prince RR
Legendary Planeswalker - Tibalt (M)
Whenever you sacrifice a permanent, Tibalt deals 1 damage to each opponent..
+1: Discard a card, then investigate.
-4: Shuffle target nonenchantment permanent into its owner's library. Its controller investigates.
2

iiw: new shoes

The Mystery at Hollow Oak 2BB
Legendary Enchantment (R)
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, destroy the creature that player controls with the highest toughness. If you do, you and that player investigate.
At the beginning of your end step, if there are twenty or more Clue tokens on the battlefield, the player who controls the most Clues wins the game.

IIW: Something to light your way through the darkness

Nancy Drew 2W
Legendary Creature - Human Rogue (R)
At the beginning of your upkeep, investigate.
t, Sacrifice three Clues: Nancy Drew solves a mystery. (Put a +1/+1 counter on her, you draw a card, and you gain 3 life.)
When Nancy Drew solves a mystery, if you've solved at least three other mysteries, you win the game.
2/2

IIW: A spooky creature for the Scooby Gang to unmask

Inept Sleuth 1U
Creature - Human Rogue (U)
Flash
When Inept Sleuth enters the battlefield, investigate for each nontoken creature put into your graveyard from the battlefield this turn.
Activated abilities of artifacts you control can't be activated.
1/2


IIW: innovate upon the army-in-a-can concept

Paranoid Tendencies 1R
Enchantment - Aura (U)
Enchant creature you control
Enchanted creature deals 1 damage to you whenever it attacks, and attacks each turn if able.
Whenever you are dealt noncombatant damage, investigate.

iiw: gone fishing

Investorgator 1B
Creature - Alligator Banker (R)
Whenever you sacrifice a Clue, create a Treasure token.
At the beginning of your end step, if you didn't sacrifice a Treasure this turn, create a Clue token.
2/1

IIW : grammatical error's

chetoos - Dimir Sleuth
Ok, Dimir-flavored investigate is a decent idea. If you're going to be on Ravnica, I personally think that Boros would be a better choice, both flavorfully (since they're basically the guild of cops) and mechanically (I don't think u/b needs the extra card advantage as much). Still though, I think it's a fine marriage of concepts, especially since you can interpret it with an "espionage" angle. Which, I think you should have played into more.

chetoos - Read between the lines
This is my favorite design from your cycle I think, the mechanics tie very closely with the flavor which is nice. Repeatedly casting an enchantment seems a bit strange though, I might prefer it on an instant or sorcery, which would additionally make it work better with your next card.

cheetoos - Duskmantle Infiltrator
A fine card I guess, but I think the effect fits more on an izzet card, or at least a monoblue card so that izzet could make use of it. Also I think the scry effect being symmetrical could potentially be really annoying.

cheetos - Lazav
Not a fan of this needing a clue and a 6 mana investment to even do anything, and although I think clues *can* work in Dimir, not sure how I feel about it being Lazav's main mechanic.

SecondBestFriend - Baral's Patsy
Kaladesh steampunk world sounds amazing actually, and the clues being artifacts add mechanical synergy to it too. It might have been cool to see something that uses investigate, then has an effect based on the number of artifacts you control - essentially feeding into two different synergies at once.
As for the card itself, it has pretty good flavor, though the mana cost seems pretty expensive to me considering that it would kill itself if you use it twice anyways. I'd like to see the cost lowered, so that you could potentially raise it's toughness by equipping it with something and go to down.

SecondBestFriend - Shady Scrapper
I think the rarity of this card should be swapped with your last card. Repeatable removal at low rarities is pretty nuts, and it essentially bypasses the downside of clues, which is that you have to pay mana to get a cost out of them. This ability should probably also have a cost to make up for that. Still, you get points for the flavor here.

SecondBestFriend - Baral, Public Enemy
Nice, this looks just as obnoxious as the original Baral, good job including that quality. No but really, the triggered ability is a nice callback to the original Baral without explicitly having the same effect. I do think clues inherently play well with countermagic, so if that's what you were going for, good job isolating that play pattern and building a card around it.

Mellifluoresce - Truth's Epicentre
Unironically one of the better entires so far. I actually like the idea of making an arbitrarily large amount of clues as a top-end ability, essentially letting you convert your mana into cards until the end of the game. The main problem is that making all the clues at once opens up all kinds of degeneracy with other things that sacrifice artifacts. Anyways you had the best iiw too, the main reason wotc hasn't hired you yet is probably because you keep leaking all their best ideas on a winner-is-judge style custom card creation forum game that started in 2010.

Cythare - Kadeen Armor Apprentice
Alright we're on Mirrodin now, and instead of investigating the Phyrexians we're uncovering the secrets of pants-wearing, that's a bold decision I like it. I think I'd prefer this if it was straight up "whenever you cast an equipment" since the clues themselves already fill the space of using up your excess mana, but I like how you tied the effect to the flavor text.

Cythare - Salvage Hammer
I don't really like sacrificing clues for alternate effects. This is actually a pretty nice uncommon, but nothing about this card or its flavor indicates that it *has* to use clue tokens, they could be scrap tokens or just generic artifacts and it would play out the same way.

Cythare - Meliran Spyfly
Ayy this is cool I guess

Spacemonaut - Vedalken Detective
I always wanted to know more about the lore and backstory of the steady progress dude so it's nice to see him personified in a card. Being able to "cash out" your clues for cheap is an interesting effect as well, I was prepared going into this challenge to handwave anyone's design that sacrifices clues for alternate effects but this is probably fine. Still this feels to me like two separate designs stuck onto one card, I think your earlier version did a better job of combining the two effect together.

NinjaCaterpie - Agrus Kos, Woke Up-and-Comer
Not gonna lie, this dude is pretty much exactly what came to mind when I thought of investigating outside of innistrad, so props for that. The second ability is good, but not a fan of the first, since I don't like clues being sacrificed for alternate effects, but I actually would like it if it just triggered whenever you sacrificed a clue instead, which is what I'll pretend you submitted. Also I think you aimed this card to be an efficient small beater, but considering that it's commander in Boros colors centered around card advantage, I would have like to see it more commander-focused since apparently white is having some trouble over there right now. But overall pretty deece concept and design.

Avatarz - Escaped Slush
Actually really cute flavor. I wish it had more upside than just an unblockable weenie, but potentially I could see this released in an commander or multiplayer product?

Wonderful - Cavern Inspector
Yoo, this is some really inventive flavor. The best thing is that, by tying investigate to lands, it feels entirely different than it's use on Innistrad, which is something I don't think the other entrants really tried to go for.

Wonderful - Rapid Regeneration Trap
We're bringing back traps too? I really like this, the design seems to naturally follow the concept.

Wonderful - Reckless Deepminer
I'm not sure if this is nuts strong or not, I guess it really depends on how the limited environment looks like and how often lands are leaving the battlefield.

Wonderful - Mystical Gemstone
Very nice to include an enabling card here too. I'd actually like to see more about this plane because it just sounds like a good idea mechanically and flavorfully. I do think it could be really obnoxious if land destruction is too prominent or players are forced to sacrifice too much of their land base in order to use the effects that they want. But if it leans more towards terramorphic expanse-type effects and land recursion, it could potentially be a really unique environment in the way it plays out. Either way, the fact that you got me excited thinking about the possibilities here is always a good sign.

Haywire - Ojutai's Reforging
Now this is an interesting interpretation, investigating the alternate realities on Tarkir. Good job making the effect a trigger instead of an alternate sacrifice cost *cough Cythare*. I think this would have been fine on an actual Narset creature card, and it might have gotten the message across better too. Also I understand the reasoning behind the mana cost, but it just looks like something straight out of mtg cardsmith and I can't get that out of my head.

Cythare - Taste of Blood
Dang this is really elegant, it has one effect but two completely different potential uses. My main problem is that there's nothing about the card that indicates it's not on Innistrad, except the flavor text. In fact, I think this exact is more Innistradian than it is Orzhovian.

SecondBestFriend - Call the Judge
What happens if you "can't find" an Advisor but there's actually one in your deck and your opponent finds it ? I guess you'd really have to call a judge then.

Cythare - Scientific Method
Wait that's actually really nice flavor, and a useful hosing effect as well. I wish I read this earlier because then I wouldn't have put as much effort into judging your other entires, since I think this is your best one.

Spacemonaut - Mysterious Absence
This is a fine removal spell, my main problem is the flavor not being distinct enough from Innistrad.

Chemtrails - Woke Detective
Nice I like it and I have no constructive criticism. From the onset of this challenge I had Boros investigate in mind and this is basically a really good realization of that concept. Plus anything that hoses searching is a plus in my book

Cythare - Oko, Mischief-Maker
The ultimate is great actually, this is what I was looking for in a high-end "infinite clues" effect that I mentioned in an above judgment. The +2 is a nice callback to the original as well. I can definitely say with complete confidence that this is more balanced than the original Oko ! Just not a fan of the alt sac effect in the middle.

Wonderful - Tibalt, Detective Prince
Oh %$#% it's my boy. I really like the + ability, the main problem with original Tibster is that looting is apparently too strong on a 2 mana walker, so they tried to fix it with random discard but that was terrible. Investigating instead might genuinely fix it though. The only issue with this card is a flavor one, there's no real indication what plane it's on and in fact this probably would fit into Innistrad the best considering that's where Tibs appeared originally, which doesn't exactly meet the challenge.

Cythare - The Mystery at Hollow Oak
The "war of the clues" concept is pretty nice actually, and it forms inherent tension in a way I haven't seen before. I just think that the The Abyss effect is inherently very obnoxious and this card would be used for that instead of the cooler alt win condition the vast majority of the time.

Cythare - Nancy Drew
Now this is a card I can get behind

Mellifluoresce - Defective Detective
Really like the concept for this, it makes you a bunch of clues then you have to find a way to get rid of it before you can actually use them. The flash is perfect because it lets you throw it in the way of a blocker to get it off immediately. I might suggest triggering the clues off of something other than creatures, since blue isn't really a creature color, but I'm not actually sure what to replace that with.

Wonderful - Paranoid Tendencies
Isn't this an Innistrad card ? Solid design though.

Edit - Millifluoresce - Investigator
Now this is a card I can get behind


Winner: Wonderful for the lands-matter plane concept.

HM: Anyone where I said your flavor was cool.

Next: A card that costs 4 mana of one color (like phyrexian obliterator)