Commander Game

{Judging!}Lady Mapi: I think this is a really cool card. That first ability is pretty reasonable, and allows you to get value off of your own land drops and start to fill up your graveyard, and I like it a lot as a value engine. But that second ability is an incredibly cool idea, and my favorite part about it is that it scales with the power of your opponents deck. Against a less powerful deck, you just get normal lands, which is fine. Against more medium-tier decks, you might be able to pick up more versatile lands with different ways to get advantage. But against really tuned decks, this card becomes insane, comboing with other player’s Wastelands, City of Traitors, Strip Mines, or just general lands with sacrifice abilities. This feels like a very versatile card in those different kinds of games, and I like that the natural answer to metagaming against it is for other players to make their landbase worse. Good job!

Creativity: A
Elegance: A-
Balance: A+
Flavor: B

viriss: I like the idea here - normally, red and white are limited to a style of Voltron play where it’s hard to get ahead in the game, so having a hasty Voltron commander that comes auto-equipped with an Equipment or Aura is an interesting idea. That said, it’s incredibly variant in power level - sometimes, you whiff and get an absolutely useless creature, and other times you get broken stuff like Argentum Armor, Spectra Ward, or even Eldrazi Conscription. Those kinds of effects are really broken, and there needs to be a way to limit that variance - as is, this card just feels too random for not enough bonus. (I really do like the “and/or” clause for enchantments and equipment, even though it does push a card that has a lot of potential to be really strong.) Good job!

Creativity: A
Elegance: B+
Balance: B
Flavor: A-

FLAREdirector: I like this card and I think it has fun flavor. That said, I feel like the tap ability isn’t going to be used much, as it feels weaker to create a 2/2 than be attacking with your 4/4 menace trampler. If the ability wasn’t a tap ability and costed more, I think it would lead to more fun play patterns. I do like this card can make a Horror tribal deck work, which is fun. Good job!

Creativity: B+
Elegance: A-
Balance: A-
Flavor: A

sdfkjgh: What is this trying to do? A card that deals that much damage to you can only be used on the turn you’re winning the game, but god, does it help you win the game. There isn’t any way to use this fairly, and the game effectively becomes solitaire once you land this card. Also, this is broken by any creature that enters the battlefield and gains you life, especially cards like Drogskol Cavalry that you can copy to effectively make your life total infinite. Finally, caring about phases is a really weird mechanic and would serve to make new players confused.

Creativity: A-
Elegance: C
Balance: C-
Flavor: B+

fluffydeathbringer: This is a really unique idea, but I’m not really sure how to feel about it. I think that it’s a cool choice to have a card that gives you benefits for your opponents to do anything, but in a 4-player game, if you manage to empty your hand out, you’re getting three cards a turn in order for your opponents to play optimally - something easily accomplished by cards like Wild Mongrel and other discard effects. I’m not sure on this one, but for the land ability, does failing to find a land mean that the effect doesn’t work, as you didn’t actually put it onto the battlefield? If so, this card is incredibly broken and unfun, but if not, it’s probably fine. Good job!

Creativity: A
Elegance: B+
Balance: B+
Flavor: A-

MacabreAurora: This card is a very dangerous risk to print. So far, the only time we’ve seen lifegain into card draw effects is at 2 mana, and tapping a creature is much less of a cost than that, especially in a deck that wants to convoke out your commander. Speaking of your Commander, using this as your Commander and giving you a repeatable source of lifegain card draw is very, very strong, especially in more casual decks. However, I like the convoke ability and I think with some balancing this could be a pretty fun card. Good job!

Creativity: B+
Elegance: B
Balance: B-
Flavor: B+

Xenozfan2: I like this mechanic a lot! It seems like a good way to balance drawing on life in two colors that traditionally are very bad at drawing cards. (It should read “When you gain life, you may discard a card. If you do, draw a card.” by the way.) I think that giving everything you control lifelink is a little strong, but other than that, I’m a fan of the card. Also, the pingers strategy you mentioned would be pretty fun! Good job!

Creativity: A-
Elegance: A
Balance: B+
Flavor: B+

Jartis: This card is a pretty cool take on the concept of depression, but it doesn’t seem to be legendary (traditionally, the Incarnations are just normal creatures). I think that the card is a little unfun though - it’s obviously not as much as a downside for you, as you can build around it, but your opponents are messed up by it. One more issue is that some parts of the card are more powerful than others - your opponent is almost never going to choose to skip their draw step because it’s so much more useful than attacking or casting multiple spells. I think this would be a more interesting design if you had to pay mana to do those things or some other drawback that wasn’t a straight prevention. That said, the idea is strong - good job!

Creativity: B
Elegance: B+
Balance: A-
Flavor: B-

gluestick248: There is basically no situation where that ability is getting used, as card advantage is so much stronger than the land boost, especially once you’re already able to have three lands on the board the turn after you play it. If you want to play a deck that ramps that badly, it’s smarter to just play more land-based ramp spells than waste your draws using this as your commander.

Creativity: A-
Elegance: A
Balance: B-
Flavor: A-

Tesagk: Firstly, a wording error: The second ability should just be “Creatures you control have riot.”, using Rhythm of the Wilds as an example. The second ability, like a lot of cards in this contest, offers a choice of two things that are not comparable - you’re always going to choose to make a tapped and attacking Wolf. Also, the fact that you have the Wolves coming in and attacking removes the choice that giving your creatures riot makes. Finally, the ability to make a 3/3 every single time a creature attacks along with giving all of your creatures haste is incredibly strong and broken.

Creativity: B+
Elegance: B
Balance: C+
Flavor: A-

mrlozano: Lmao I love this meme. As a card, though, it feels like there are a couple of things that are weird about it. Strictly keeping the card to artifact creatures feels weird, as a card based on Eldraine seems like it might want to trigger off of Food (either in addition to creatures or alone.) It’s a pretty weak creature (2 mana for a 1/1 haste is almost nothing, and forcing you to sac two creatures to keep it above rate, especially in Commander where even a 2-mana 3/3 haste might not even be played) keeps this from being very good. Finally, the last line should have “sacrifice” capitalized. The idea is strong though, so good job!

Creativity: A-
Elegance: B
Balance: B
Flavor: A

This was a close one, but Lady Mapi is our winner with fluffydeathbringer as runner-up.