November MCC, Round 3 - Take Me Home, Country Roads

[void_nothing]

Banner based on Old Fogey, by Douglas Shuler and Wizards of the Coast. Thanks to bravelion83 for the "Core Set Style" MCC Logo

November MCC, Round 3 - Take Me Home, Country Roads

Welcome to the November MCC! It's Deprecated Keyword Abilities Month here at the MCC.

Main Challenge: Design a creature with a landhome ability that is NOT islandhome.
Subchallenge 1: Your card also has two or more current evergreen keyword abilities
Subchallenge 2: Your card is rare or mythic

DEADLINES

Design deadline: Tuesday, December 6th 23:59 EDT

Judging deadline: Friday, December 9th 23:59 EDT

Clarifications

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Main Challenge: Landhome is a now-removed drawback keyword. Landhome of a particular land type means "This creature can't attack unless defending player controls a land of this type. When you control no lands of this type, sacrifice this creature." The only cards ever printed with a landhome ability had islandhome - for examples, see Manta Ray and Fifth Edition Sea Serpent. Gorilla Pack essentially has foresthome, but it was never printed on the card.

MCC Rubric

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Design
(X/3) Appeal - Do the different player psychographics (Timmy/Johhny/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:
void_nothing
Rithaniel

Players:
@kwanyeegor-ii
@Freyleyes
@Lorn Asbord Schutta
@bravelion83

[Lorn Asbord Schutta]

Territorial Yeti
Creature - Yeti (R)
Reach, trample
Mountainhome (This creature can't attack unless defending player controls a Mountain. When you don't control any Mountain, sacrifice it.)
Whenever a Mountain card is put into graveyard from anywhere, Territorial Yeti gets +3/+0, loses mountainhome and gains haste until end of turn. It can't be sacrificed this turn.
Mess with its home and you are on its path to find a new one.
3/4

[bravelion83]

Spirit of the Woods 3GG
Creature — Elemental Spirit (R)
Reach, trample
Nonbasic landhome (This creature can't attack unless defending player controls a nonbasic land. When you control no nonbasic lands, sacrifice this creature.)
3, T: Target player mills two cards, then they exile a nonbasic land card from their graveyard. When they do, target basic land they control becomes a copy of the exiled card. (This effect lasts indefinitely.)
5/5

[kwanyeegor-ii]

Secret War Machine 4
Artifact Creature - Juggernaut (Mythic)
Lifelink, ward 7, protection from Phyrexians and from Walls
Urza'shome
T: Target opponent gains control of a land you control. Activate only as a sorcery.
7, T: Create a token that's a copy of Secret War Machine. Activate only as a sorcery.
4/4

[Freyleyes]

Thing from the Bog 2BBB
Legendary Creature - Horror {M}
Deathtouch, lifelink
Swamphome
Whenever you cast a black spell, all nonbasic lands become Swamps until your next turn.
2BBBB: Thing from the Bog deals X damage to each opponent. Where X is the number of Swamps on the battlefield.
4/4

[void_nothing]

Alright - @Rithaniel and I will now judge these pairings:

Lorn Asbord Schutta vs. bravelion83
kwanyeegor-ii vs. Freyleyes

[Rithaniel]

Judgments

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bravelion83 vs. Lorn Asbord Schutta

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bravelion83

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Spirit of the Woods 3GG
Creature — Elemental Spirit (R)
Reach, trample
Nonbasic landhome (This creature can't attack unless defending player controls a nonbasic land. When you control no nonbasic lands, sacrifice this creature.)
3, T: Target player mills two cards, then they exile a nonbasic land card from their graveyard. When they do, target basic land they control becomes a copy of the exiled card. (This effect lasts indefinitely.)
5/5

Design
(1/3) Appeal - Timmy and Spike are both a little underwhelmed by this card. Timmy doesn't feel that the landhome ability is worth it, in this case, and Spike has much more efficient beatsticks. Johnny is interested, though, because that land-copying ability has combo potential.
(1.5/3) Elegance - There's nothing strictly sloppy about the card, but it fits together poorly. The main two things to consider in this card are the landhome ability and the tap ability, which work together, but not well. The tap ability doesn't ensure you have a nonbasic land before you cast it, and the fact that it's a tap ability prevents it from attacking when you use it. So it doesn't feel natural.

Development
(2.5/3) Viability - Green hoses nonbasic lands, but it usually wants to punish them being on the field, rather than trying to turn basic lands into nonbasic ones. However, that's the only real complaint I have. Rarity seems fine.
(1.5/3) Balance - As a 5/5 with trample and reach for five mana, this is a little underwhelming. When you add in the landhome ability, it becomes almost weak, but not completely. When you add in the tap ability, it becomes "complicated." Like, it doesn't improve the capacity of the creature to be a 5/5 beater. If your opponent has nonbasic lands in their deck, it can force the opponent to have them on the field, but then the question is why would the opponent not just already have the nonbasic lands on the field? If it's a thing where their nonbasic lands are in their graveyard because they keep getting sacrificed, then why would bringing them back to the field preventing the opponent from sacrificing them again? Further, the fact that it's a tap ability prevents the creature from getting the benefit of attacking. So, ultimately, this card doesn't work as a 5/5 beatstick. However, that's not the end of the story, because that ability does more. In the right circumstances, this can keep your opponent color-hosed, or allow the controller of the creature to keep re-using fetch lands and thinning out their deck. However, at five mana to cast and three mana to activate, it's a pipe dream to use this in those ways. It could happen, but it would be risky to try and rely on it. Of course, there is enough potential there to give it some possible use.

Creativity
(3/3) Uniqueness - Can't fault you, here. Nonbasic landhome is new and the basic-land-hosing ability is new. Full points on originality.
(1/3) Flavor - Why does the spirit of the woods need a nonbasic land to live in? Why does it turn basic lands into nonbasic ones? Like, there's a lot of flavor that could exist here, but I don't see how it comes together with the design.

Polish
(3/3) Quality - Looks good.
(2/2) Main Challenge (*) - Yep, it's a creature with a non-islandhome landhome ability.
(2/2) Subchallenges - Yep, it's rare and has reach and trample.

Total: 17.5/25

Lorn Asbord Schutta

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Territorial Yeti
Creature - Yeti (R)
Reach, trample
Mountainhome (This creature can't attack unless defending player controls a Mountain. When you don't control any Mountain, sacrifice it.)
Whenever a Mountain card is put into graveyard from anywhere, Territorial Yeti gets +3/+0, loses mountainhome and gains haste until end of turn. It can't be sacrificed this turn.
Mess with its home and you are on its path to find a new one.
3/4

Design
(2/3) Appeal - Timmy likes this card, because the mechanics and the flavor make it feel impressive, but is a little disappointed by the landhome ability. Johnny is a fan of the fact that it's looking for mountains being put into graveyards from anywhere and wants to experiment with making it bigger. Spike is turned off by the mountainhome requirement, but might be interested if Johnny's experimentation pans out.
(1/3) Elegance - First of all, it's clever to include the "can't be sacrificed this turn" bit, to head off the fact that losing a mountain triggers the sacrifice ability before it loses mountainhome. However, the fact that you need to do that indicates that, perhaps, this card shouldn't have mountainhome. Also, the fact that haste only works on the first turn this card is on the battlefield makes me question whether it should just have haste, instead of gaining it. Not only that, but the fact that the card cannot enable itself makes it feel potentially awkward to use.

Development
(3/3) Viability - Nothing seems particularly out of place, here. Rarity and color identity all feel appropriate.
(1.5/3) Balance - So, this card is a beatstick, but is it a good one? Just by itself, it's a 3/4 with reach, trample, and mountainhome, making it fairly weak. However, if you can dump mountain cards into your graveyard in some way, it can become a 6/4, a 9/4, or a 12/4 with haste, reach, and trample without much difficulty. As soon as you get two or more mountain cards in your graveyard at once, it becomes a very aggressive beatstick. It won't remain aggressive, but when you swing with a 9/4 trampler, you generally won't mind. That being said, this cards is pretty weak if not enabled, and it doesn't enable itself. In a vacuum, this card is too weak, but in the context of other cards, it could be good enough to warrant constructed play. However, this heavily depends on if the niche it could fill is an actually viable niche, which is quite difficult to tell.

Creativity
(1.5/3) Uniqueness - There's nothing really new here, except perhaps the "can't be sacrificed" bit, but that's not enough to call it a truly unique design.
(3/3) Flavor - This flavor is good. It's all about this yeti that lives in the mountains and defends its home. It comes across quite well.

Polish
(3/3) Quality - Looks good.
(2/2) Main Challenge (*) - Yep, it's a creature with a non-islandhome landhome ability.
(2/2) Subchallenges - Yep, it's rare and has reach and trample.

Total: 19/25

Freyleyes vs. kwanyeegor-ii

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Freyleyes

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Thing from the Bog 2BBB
Legendary Creature - Horror {M}
Deathtouch, lifelink
Swamphome
Whenever you cast a black spell, all nonbasic lands become Swamps until your next turn.
2BBBB: Thing from the Bog deals X damage to each opponent. Where X is the number of Swamps on the battlefield.
4/4

Design
(2/3) Appeal - Timmy loves this card, in spite of the landhome ability, since it's so impressive and splashy. Johnny doesn't see a whole lot of fun combos to play around with. Spike, meanwhile, is in love and wants to make this as his EDH commander with a deck of 99 swamps.
(2/3) Elegance - The biggest issue that I can see in the design is the "cast a black spell, turn things into swamps" ability. It's not a big issue, but it caring about spells being cast doesn't click with the rest of the design. Further, a smaller issue is that the name doesn't really feel like a legendary name.

Development
(3/3) Viability - It's impressive enough to be a mythic and nothing in the mechanics seem out of place.
(0.5/3) Balance - Okay, I think this is a bit too much. Everything in this design comes together to make this too aggressive. If you just put it in a mono-black deck with a bunch of swamps, that last activated ability is too good, just on its own. In a 1v1 game, it's a repeatable corrupt. That's an incredible amount of direct damage. Just put that on an enchantment by itself and that enchantment is too good. With the minimum of six mana, it's a repeatable swing of 12 life. If you happen to have seven swamps, it's 14 life. With eight swamps, it's 16 life. Add in the fact that if doesn't just count your swamps, and if becomes even bigger. Further, it has the ability to make even more swamps. This card, if working well, can take a player from over 10 life to nothing with a single activation of that ability. Then, in multiplayer games, it just gets worse. The landhome ability doesn't even matter. Give it defender and it's still busted. The only real saving grace is that it is a bit difficult to get out onto the battlefield. It is too impactful for what it does cost, but it at least costs something.

Creativity
(1.5/3) Uniqueness - Black getting a Blood Moon effect is reasonable to see and relatively new. But that's a small part of the card and the only real thing, aside from the swamphome ability, that this card is doing that is new.
(1/3) Flavor - The flavor is bland and nebulous. There is no flavor text, and it's just described as a "thing." The only way to have less flavor would be to have it be named "Placeholder."

Polish
(3/3) Quality - Looks good.
(2/2) Main Challenge (*) - Yep, it's a creature with a non-islandhome landhome ability.
(2/2) Subchallenges - Yep, it's mythic and has deathtouch and lifelink.

Total: 17/25

kwanyeegor-ii

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Secret War Machine 4
Artifact Creature - Juggernaut (Mythic)
Lifelink, ward 7, protection from Phyrexians and from Walls
Urza'shome
T: Target opponent gains control of a land you control. Activate only as a sorcery.
7, T: Create a token that's a copy of Secret War Machine. Activate only as a sorcery.
4/4

Design
(2.5/3) Appeal - Timmy likes the idea of building a secret army, and so is a fan. Johnny loves how neatly this card pairs with the three main Urza's lands, and already has ideas for how to build the deck, not to mention ideas for other decks that somehow work off of donating lands. Spike is uncertain, and has reasons to like this card and reasons to dislike this card. Spike is most likely to pass on it for being circumstantial.
(2.5/3) Elegance - The only thing I would comment about in this design is the fact that having both protection and ward might confuse a few players, but I think that's the only real issue with the design, and it's a minor issue at that.

Development
(2/3) Viability - Colorless lifelink is a bit of a stretch, but, other than that, everything feels appropriate.
(2/3) Balance - Alright, so, this card's landhome ability is a weird one. It really restricts what circumstances you can play this card in. Not every deck will be running Urza's lands, so that makes it pretty situational, but let's suppose that you have Urza's lands to support it. With that in mind, it's a 4/4 for four mana, which is good, particularly for generic mana. The ward ability essentially gives it hexproof, and the protection is an afterthought, by comparison. The lifelink is good. However, it's pretty safe to assume that the Urza'shome ability would function like defender, which is where the first tap-ability comes in. Essentially, you enable this 4/4 to attack by going down two tempo and giving it a "second turn of summoning sickness." That's pretty expensive just to attack with a 4/4, but there's also the second tap-ability. It's an expensive ability, but it allows this 4/4 to slowly build into an army of untouchable, lifelink 4/4s, that you can unleash by tapping one and surrendering a land. But the question is: Is it worth it to pursue? There are a lot of angles to analyze, with this, and I can't go through them all. My evaluation is that the tap abilities and how expensive they are, tempo-wise, means that it winds up being a bit too slow, unless you have the Urza's lands you need, in which case it ends up too fast. So, the design is quite swingy, varying between bad and too good. With that in mind, I don't think it has the best balance, but I can't take off too many points.

Creativity
(2.5/3) Uniqueness - Urza'shome is definitely unique, and surrendering lands unconditionally is also new. I think the spirit of the design is a little well-trod ground, though.
(1.5/3) Flavor - I like how the flavor and the mechanics work together, here. The "secret" part is clearly expressed in the protection and ward abilities and the fact that a clear strategy is to quietly build up an army of copies before unleashing that army. That being said, the flavor isn't super-new flavor, either, and it isn't clear why a war machine is making other war machines.

Polish
(3/3) Quality - Looks good.
(2/2) Main Challenge (*) - Yep, it's a creature with a non-islandhome landhome ability.
(2/2) Subchallenges - Yep, it's mythic and has lifelink, ward, and protection.

Total: 20/25

Results

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First Pair:

• Lorn Asbord Schutta - 19
• bravelion83 - 17.5

Second Pair:

• kwanyeegor-ii - 20
• Freyleyes - 17

[void_nothing]

Lorn Asbord Schutta

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Design
(2/3) Appeal - Not much of a Spike card, but Txmmy and Jxnny (especially the latter) can get behind this goofy self-pumping keyword-having Yeti.
(2/3) Elegance - Due to the mechanical quirks of landhome, this card sort of needs to be stuffed with clauses - understandable, but still contributing to inelegance.

Development
(3/3) Viability - Yup, no color or rarity issues.
(2.5/3) Balance - There are probably silly combos here with Zuran Orb or somesuch, but they may not be very practical. Still, something to watch out for.

Creativity
(2/3) Uniqueness - While ultimately this is "just" a beater that can rapidly increase its power, it's also got some unique ideas.
(3/3) Flavor - Perfect. Captures exactly what a landhome creature should be and even provides a nice flavorful "out" - which all the entries actually do.

Polish
(2.5/3) Quality - That reminder text ought to say "When you don't control any Mountains..."
(2/2) Main Challenge (*) - Done.
(2/2) Subchallenges - And done.

Total: 21/25

bravelion83

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Design
(2/3) Appeal - Txmmy for the size and keywords, Jxnny for the activated ability. Spike does not much care.
(2/3) Elegance - As interesting as that activated ability is, it's wordy, unintuitive, and increases the card's rules AND memory complexity. (Plus, it doesn't really solve the central problem of landhome - not that THIS landhome ability is a big hurdle.)

Development
(2.5/3) Viability - I'm not at all sure what color that activated ability should belong to. The land manipulation is certainly green. But making anyone mill, even by a tiny amount like two cards, caring about nonbasic lands, and turning things into copies of other things points to blue.
(3/3) Balance - This card does one unique thing in particular, but it's not compelling from a power standpoint at all. Nonbasic landhome is a non-drawback in most any Constructed format - it's almost trinket text. The body and abilities are certainly fair for the cost - even underperforming compared to many green rare creatures.

Creativity
(2.5/3) Uniqueness - That activated ability is very unique - almost confusing because even forcing creatures into copies of other creatures isn't done that often and there are plenty of rules questions newer players may have.
(1/3) Flavor - First, the pros: I have a soft spot for "Elemental Spirit" in the typeline, and being able to terraform any land into something more like its home is something I'd expect for any "Spirit of the (place)". However... besides the generic-seeming name, which can sometimes be fine, this just doesn't come off as a "Spirit of the Woods" at all. It's a spirit of the city, or something like that, a la Dryad Sophisticate. Even being a spirit of the parklands would make much more sense. A card with this name absolutely ought to have foresthome, not at all nonbasic landhome.

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

Total: 20/25

kwanyeegor-ii

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Design
(2/3) Appeal - This is too slow and complicated to use for Spike, but Txmmy and Jxnny both have reasons to use this as a wacky toy in a Tron deck.
(1.5/3) Elegance - There is a lot going on here in the name of making this card flavorful in terms of referencing Urza.

Development
(3/3) Viability - Definitely feels like an artifact and yeah, I can see this being a deliberately odd mythic.
(2.5/3) Balance - Assuredly underpowered - I'd expect higher p/t and/or lower mana cost as a reward for slotting something that requires giving up an Urza land in order to use properly into a linear deck.

Creativity
(2.5/3) Uniqueness - Can't deny there are multiple unique ideas here!
(2.5/3) Flavor - I appreciate the fact that making a token costs the total amount that the Urzatron trio produces when together and that it has protection from Phyrexians for being an Urza related card and from Walls for being a Juggernaut. The name just seems oddly generic though.

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

Total: 20/25

Freyleyes

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Design
(3/3) Appeal - Something everyone can get behind! Txmmy likes the big damage, Jxnny likes the unique aspects, Spike likes potentially locking opponents out of their nonbasic lands and the possibility of finishing off multiple people at the table and gaining a ton of life.
(2/3) Elegance - This card has a lot going on - I mean a lot - but most of it is comprehensible individually.

Development
(3/3) Viability - Definitely black and mythic.
(3/3) Balance - Sure - blasting out Corrupts repeatedly is game-ending, but it's also expensive to do.

Creativity
(2/3) Uniqueness - The pseudo-Blood Moon clause is interesting here as both a way of getting around swamphome and, more relevantly, a way to make EVERYONE'S lands fuel the activated ability.
(1.5/3) Flavor - Not the biggest fan of the name. It doesn't feel legendary and, more than that, it just feels generic - although it does capture the idea of caring about Swamps.

Polish
(2/3) Quality - The text of the activated ability should have a comma, not two periods: "to each opponent, where is the number..."
(2/2) Main Challenge (*) - Done.
(2/2) Subchallenges - And done.

Total: 20.5/25

[void_nothing]

And our finalists are Lorn Asbord Schutta and kwanyeegor-ii! Round to come...