Commander Game

{Judging and Winners}
sdfkjgh: Rhyzen, Incarnate of Potential should not really be a mythic. It’s a WUBRG 7/6 with a bunch of abilities, which is not really mythic-worthy. My main problem with the card is that it does spiritually violate the challenge a little - if you’re playing this in commander, there’s almost no reason to ever play this for 1 mana, so it’s really just a five mana keyword monster. I do like that it’s a WUBRG voltron card, but there’s nothing interesting in the card itself other than the fact it has lots of keywords.

Flavor: C+
Creativity: B-
Elegance: B
Interactivity: C+
Overall: B-

viriss: Jown, Princess of Shade is a really nice card! I do like the Marath-esque ability that makes it necessary to repeatedly play over and over again, and the touch of exiling cards instead of putting them into graveyards works well with both the flavor and playing against graveyard decks. The deathtouch also helps to make her relevant later in the game, which is cool. Good job!

Flavor: A-
Creativity: B-
Elegance: B+
Interactivity: B+
Overall: B+

gluestick248: Kem, the Trickster is another good card. Converted mana cost 1 matters is such an interesting idea for commander, where generally big spells dominate the game, but there are one mana powerhouses like Worldly Tutor, Mystical Tutor, BOP, Divining Top, various Elves, Mana Vault, Burgeoning, and the ever-present Sol Ring. It makes me think of a ramp deck where all of your ramp cards are CMC 1, and then give Kem trample or unblockable and bash in. You could also put this into something Bogles-esque, or try and put something like CMC 1 storm with a lot of green ramp and the new green storm card from Modern Horizons together. The one thing I don’t like is that it isn’t CMC 1 itself, but whatever. Great job!

Flavor: A-
Creativity: A
Elegance: A-
Interactivity: A
Overall: A-

Lady Mapi: Gravetender Sadia is a good Commander in that it gives you a lot of different methods of use with minimal rules text. In just one line, it gives you the options of running it in a graveyard focused deck where you use her ability to put cards into your graveyard and benefit with other cards, a deck with high-cost spells that uses her as a way to ramp, or a deck where you try and mill specific combo lands onto the battlefield. There are so many places this can go, and I love it.

Flavor: B+
Creativity: B+
Elegance: A
Interactivity: A
Overall: A-

melono: Corossus, Rotmiller is an interesting card. I like the idea of filling up your graveyard without actually using the cards in there as a resource. However, the ability to put +1/+1 counters on Corossus seems kinda underwhelming, as it’s a lot of work and resources spent for a creature that can very easily be killed by a kill spell, a bounce effect, or anything. The second ability is interesting though, but the fact that it doesn’t protect against RIP style effects does hurt it.

Flavor: B
Creativity: B+
Elegance: B-
Interactivity: B
Overall: B

Jartis: Soulsiphon Djinn is an interesting card. The ability to have a really strong creature in short bursts or a decently sized creature for a gradual loss of life. The problem is that you can knock somebody out of the game with one swing, which is super unfun, and if you pay too much life and get removed, you’re basically out of the game. There’s too much insecurity and massive variance to work as a Commander. Also, it doesn’t really feel like a legendary creature.

Flavor: C+
Creativity: B
Elegance: B-
Interactivity: C-
Overall: C+

Tesagk: Riabald, the Playful Jester is a really cool idea, as we’ve never had a planeswalker that’s “friends” with another card before. I think the thing that sours me on it is that the idea isn’t executed in the rest of the card, as there’s nothing that would combo with a Tibalt planeswalker on the card. The Tibalt bonus, abilities of the planeswalker, and “this can be your commander” honestly are all good in concept, but don’t make sense together on the same card.

Flavor: A-
Creativity: A
Elegance: C+
Interactivity: B
Total: B+

Sanfonier of the Night: Convoker of Souls is a really cool card in a format like commander, because incentivizing a bunch of different colors of mana means you can use cards that add mana of any color to get green and red mana despite not needing it for the rest of your deck. I also like the UB ability that has a dual usage from both the battlefield and the grave. I have two issues though - firstly, you don’t want to cast this from your hand usually, as it only gets one Spirit, so you should almost always send it to the command zone instead of bouncing it from the battlefield or graveyard, and secondly, the ability feels more green or maybe even red than it does blue or black, and having Esper colors for the commander feels wrong. There are also a couple of text errors in there, but that’s not a big deal. Good idea though.

Flavor: B-
Creativity: A-
Elegance: B+
Interactivity: A
Total: B+

Xenozfan2: Lina the Warflame isn't very powerful at all. It’s also not that creative: you took a card from Core 2020 and added lifegain onto it. Honestly, I’d rather play the black one because you get better sacrifice options in those colors.

Flavor: B
Creativity: C-
Elegance: A-
Interactivity: C+
Total: C+

palorius: The Great Stag should be a 0/0 instead of a */*, and there are a couple of wording errors. However, I do like the template of getting a bonus for the more mana you spend to cast the commander (as my judgement of a couple of these other cards shows), and that last ability combines with that ability really well. There might be some memory issues with that last ability, and you can’t really build around this card, but overall, you did a great job.

Flavor: B+
Creativity: A-
Elegance: B-
Interactivity: B+
Overall: B+

ludvikeverviolet: Tomy, Soul of the Party feels a little weird in mono-red. Firstly, the high-toughness matters theme is almost always exclusively in Bant colors, and moving it to red doesn’t fit color-pie wise. It’s also hard to build an interesting deck around, because there are only so many red sacrifice cards (apart from Fling or Thud) that make the creature stealing worth it. However, this can be used as incredibly efficient, and even overpowered removal if you add an Altar, so it does balance out.

Flavor: A-
Creativity: B-
Elegance: B
Interactivity: B
Overall: B

mrlozano: Tristin, Frogified is a fun card. The idea of turning blockers into frogs that trade with it is pretty funny. It does a pretty good job of moving attacks away from you. However, you can’t really make a deck around this card, as the whole point is that it makes cards for your opponents with no upside for you, like with something like Zedruu. Also, the first ability is worded in a way that basically creates a perma-Fog - I know that’s not what you intended, but it should be worded “Prevent all damage that would be dealt to and dealt by ~.” Overall, good job.

Flavor: A
Creativity: B+
Elegance: B-
Interactivity: B-
Overall: B

Well, that was a shit-ton of cards. There were a couple that I was really debating over for the winner spot, as everyone did a really good job. However, I ended up deciding to give the win to gluestick248, with Lady Mapi and Sanfonier of the Night as close runner-ups. As a note of advice, a lot of cards for this round, even our winner, used +1/+1 counters and power bonuses as a way to make their card stronger. I just want to say removal is so rampant in formats like EDH, and the life totals being much higher, that having a 20/20 or something like that maybe isn’t as powerful or as good design as it seems. And with that, thanks everybody for participating, and I’ll see you in the next one!