October MCC Round 4/Finals: Product Integration

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slimytrout
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Post by slimytrout » 1 year ago

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(Waste Not by Matt Stewart)

October MCC Round 4/Finals: Product Integration

We're trying something a little unusual in the MCC this month, which I'm calling "You Make the MCC," after the You Make the Card promos Wizards ran where they solicited card designs from the public and turned them into an actual card.

The way this worked is that each round had an optional prompt to complete. The player who had the highest score in the round had their answer worked into the challenge for the following round.

The round is set on the plane of:


Artezia, a plane built entirely of metal, with no sightings of organic life for millennia.

And this round we're going to be designing around the mechanic:

Integrate <cost> (<cost>, Exile this from your graveyard: Target creature you control gains this card's abilities. Integrate as a sorcery)

Main Challenge - Design a noncreature artifact or enchantment with integrate.

Subchallenge 1 - Your card does not have the word "sacrifice" or the word "discard" on it.

Subchallenge 2 - Your card has at least 6 colored mana symbols on it.

Clarifications
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Main Challenge: You can assume that the comprehensive rules would include an entry for integrate that make it work, but that doesn't mean that there won't be elegance deductions if you design a card that plays into confusing rules space (say, by submitting an equipment that would give a creature an equip ability).

Subchallenge 1: You also won't get points if it says "sacrifices" or "sacrificed" or "discards" etc. etc.

Subchallenge 2: These symbols can be distributed however you want between the cost and the rules text. Hybrid symbols only count as 1.

If you have any questions, post them in the MCC discussion thread.


DEADLINES

Design deadline: Saturday, November 26th 23:59 EDT

Judging deadline: Wednesday, November 30th 23:59 EDT


RUBRIC
MCC Rubric
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Design
(X/3) Appeal - Do the different player psychographics (Timmy/Johnny/Spike) have a use for the card?
(X/3) Elegance - Is the card easily understandable at a glance? Do all the flavor and mechanics combined as a whole make sense?

Development
(X/3) Viability - How well does the card fit into the color wheel? Does it break or bend the rules of the game? Is it the appropriate rarity?

(X/3) Balance - Does the card have a power level appropriate for contemporary constructed/limited environments without breaking them? Does it play well in casual and multiplayer formats? Does it create or fit into a deck/archetype? Does it create an oppressive environment?

Creativity
(X/3) Uniqueness - Has a card like this ever been printed before? Does it use new mechanics, ideas, or design space? Does it combine old ideas in a new way? Overall, does it feel "fresh"?
(X/3) Flavor - Does the name seem realistic for a card? Does the flavor text sound professional? Do all the flavor elements synch together to please Vorthos players?

Polish
(X/3) Quality - Points deducted for incorrect spelling, grammar, and templating.
(X/2) Main Challenge (*) - Was the main challenge satisfied? Was it approached in a unique or interesting way? Does the card fit the intent of the challenge?
(X/2) Subchallenges - One point awarded per satisfied subchallenge condition.

Total: X/25
*An entry with 0 points here is subject to disqualification.



JUDGES

slimytrout
void_nothing

PLAYERS
@Ink-Treader
@CunningGabe

Ink-Treader
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Post by Ink-Treader » 1 year ago

Propagation Imperative UG
Enchantment (R)
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control.
UG: Create a token copy of Propagation Imperative except it doesn't have this ability. Activate only as a sorcery and only once each turn.
Integrate UG (UG, Exile this from your graveyard: Target creature you control gains this card's abilities. Integrate as a sorcery)

CunningGabe
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Post by CunningGabe » 1 year ago

Phlogiston Channeler 2
Artifact (R)
2U: Target noncreature artifact you control becomes a 3/3 artifact creature until end of turn.
2R: Artifact creatures you control get +1/+0 and gain haste until end of turn.
Integrate {U/R}{U/R}{U/R}{U/R} ({U/R}{U/R}{U/R}{U/R}, Exile this from your graveyard: Target creature you control gains this card's abilities. Integrate as a sorcery.)
By tweaking their fuel source, inert objects can be roused and enraged.
Winner of August '22 DCC and September '22 NCED

slimytrout
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Post by slimytrout » 1 year ago

Round is closed! We will of course both judge both entries and declare a winner.

slimytrout
Posts: 1861
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by slimytrout » 1 year ago

Ink-Treader
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Propagation Imperative UG
Enchantment (R)
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control.
UG: Create a token copy of Propagation Imperative except it doesn't have this ability. Activate only as a sorcery and only once each turn.
Integrate UG (UG, Exile this from your graveyard: Target creature you control gains this card's abilities. Integrate as a sorcery)
Design
(3/3) Appeal – An all-rounder! Timmy likes the idea of making their creatures huge. Spike likes the way this lets them spend extra mana for value, and that it gets value from the graveyard. Johnny doesn't care much about casting the card, but absolutely wants to mill it and then put it on a creature to make a bunch of copies.
(2/3) Elegance – This is mostly straightforward, but it does have the issue that unless you know the rules well you could easily mistake what the integrated version copies (the creature, not the enchantment).

Development
(2.5/3) Viability – Definitely works in blue/green, but I think this might be pretty unpleasant to play against in a draft environment due to its resilience (it basically demands multiple types of removal to be deployed at just the right time or it gets out of control), so mythic might be better.
(3/3) Balance – As I said, it's quite busted in limited, but that's not a big issue for balance, and I think it's strong but not broken in formats where removal spells (and especially wraths) are easier to come by.

Creativity
(2.5/3) Uniqueness – We've seen many versions of the first ability, but interestingly never that exact text. We've also seen things like Progenitor Mimic but overall this feels fairly fresh.
(3/3) Flavor – Definitely too crowded for flavor text, but the name and mechanics fit together nicely.

Polish
(3/3) Quality – Looks good!
(2/2) Main Challenge (*) – Yep.
(2/2) Subchallenges – Yep yep.

Total: 23/25
CunningGabe
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Phlogiston Channeler 2
Artifact (R)
2U: Target noncreature artifact you control becomes a 3/3 artifact creature until end of turn.
2R: Artifact creatures you control get +1/+0 and gain haste until end of turn.
Integrate {U/R}{U/R}{U/R}{U/R} ({U/R}{U/R}{U/R}{U/R}, Exile this from your graveyard: Target creature you control gains this card's abilities. Integrate as a sorcery.)
By tweaking their fuel source, inert objects can be roused and enraged.
Design
(1.5/3) Appeal – Timmy is maybe interested in beating down with artifacts but less keen on spending a lot of mana to do so every turn. Johnny sees some interesting things to do with the haste granting but overall it's a little of a beatdown card for them. Spike likes that it can become a creature itself and then can integrate once it dies but is worried that the abilities aren't worth that much without a significant board presence.
(2.5/3) Elegance – Text is a little cramped (9 lines with 3 breaks) – wish the flavor could have been kept to one line. Pretty comprehensible though.

Development
(2.5/3) Viability – Definitely the activations are in the right colors. I think this could maybe be uncommon? For a rare it just feels a little underpowered.
(2/3) Balance – I don't know that this has enough to see play. Alloy Animist is only a passable card in draft, and that makes things a 4/4 rather than a 3/3. The second ability makes up for that a bit but it's pretty inefficient at 3 mana compared to, say Artificer's Dragon.

Creativity
(1.5/3) Uniqueness – Given that I just named two very similar abilities that showed up in the most recently printed set, this doesn't feel too novel other than the integrate ability which was part of the challenge.
(3/3) Flavor – Huh, never thought I'd see phlogiston on a magic card, but it does have a steampunk-y feel to it and the flavor text helps explain the concept.

Polish
(3/3) Quality – Looks good.
(2/2) Main Challenge (*) – Yep.
(2/2) Subchallenges – Yep yep.

Total: 20/25
Results
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Ink-Treader: 23
CunningGabe; 20

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void_nothing
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Post by void_nothing » 1 year ago

Ink-Treader
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Design
(3/3) Appeal - Txmmy likes the idea of creating all those copies of this card and throwing around tons of +1/+1 counters each turn. Jxnny likes the integrate ability and all the possible tricks it entails with this card in particular. Spike appreciates how flexible this card is for such a low cost, and how it can easily take over the game with even one well-protected creature.
(2/3) Elegance - Mostly fine conceptually, but the tracking is another story - this has the potential to create a LOT of token copies, some of which may eventually wind up with +1/+1 counters on them.

Development
(3/3) Viability - Absolutely no argument with those colors or rarity.
(2.5/3) Balance - It's a convoluted process, but "get card into graveyard --> integrate --> start creating copies of a creature" doesn't necessarily cost that much mana and can do some crazy things.

Creativity
(2.5/3) Uniqueness - New ideas and play patterns put together from some very familiar ideas (+1/+1 counters growing every turn and making token copies of creatures).
(3/3) Flavor - Sure, name makes perfect sense and there's probably not a lot of room for flavor text.

Polish
(2.5/3) Quality - Those mana symbols are the wrong way round - it should be GU.
(2/2) Main Challenge (*) - Done.
(2/2) Subchallenges - And done.

Total: 22.5/25
CunningGabe
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Design
(2/3) Appeal - Txmmy and Jxnny both appreciate the ability to raise an artifact army. Spike thinks this is too much mana investment and would prefer to use March of the Machines for that type of purpose.
(2.5/3) Elegance - Each ability on its own is relatively simple. However, together they make for a slightly wordy card, and there's also the sort of jarring visual effect of four hybrid mana symbols together. This card isn't inelegant, it would just possibly take new players a few reads.

Development
(3/3) Viability - The abilities are associated with the right colors here and rare looks alright to me.
(3/3) Balance - Sure - this is a two-mana card with at least potentially powerful abilities but it does nothing on its own and requires significant mana investment in order to make big plays.

Creativity
(1.5/3) Uniqueness - We've seen many similar effects to both activated abilities in their respective colors, and what's more, the ability structure of this card means that integrate just uses the targeted creature as a "second chance" Phlogiston Channeler a la many cast-from-graveyard mechanics - certainly not the most creative use.
(3/3) Flavor - I really dig this - would give more than 3 points here if I could. Always like former scientific term "phlogiston" get used as part of the "science" of magic in fantasy settings, and that flavor text is a nice little grace note letting us somewhat know the principle of how this abstract, arcane device works.

Polish
(3/3) Quality - Looks good.
(2/2) Main Challenge (*) - Done.
(2/2) Subchallenges - And done.

Total: 22/25
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