Commander Game

{Judgment}Mistform Dominus, while the idea of changeling tribal is fascinating, this card seems to fall short of the mark. Or, rather, it overshoots the mark entirely. Part of me wonders if this was intentional, knowing you.

{Judgment}Liana the Boomsmith, well, you're right, it's an adorable concept. I loved the flavor and idea of this. My only concern was the fact that being able to do 3 damage pretty much any time you brought in a goblin (not exactly every time, I understand) seemed a bit strong. If there was more randomization, less damage from the effect, or if it didn't also make the bombs so easily it would have been right at the top.

{Judgment}Anta, Head of the High Council, is an interesting card. Part of me enjoys the white weenie aspect of it. However, overall, it just doesn't seem to scream "tribal leader." I really do think it makes for an interesting commander though. A part of me wonders what the black mana is meant to be there for. Are blue, white, and black the only colors with advisors? None of the cards effects seem particularly black.

{Judgment}Gorotha, Fossorial Monster, is a fun looking card. I wasn't even aware of the mole type. It's cute, but the card is also sort of underwhelming. I love the idea behind Undermine and it's a mechanic worth exploring. Hopefully we'll see it explored some more in the future?

{Judgment}Lupercal, the Great Mother, this is probably my favorite mechanic of the cards presented. However, as much as I like the wolf token creation, it doesn't really make sense with the rest if the card text. Don't get me wrong, it's very tribal-y and makes sense with being the Great Mother. But I would expect this ability to stand out on its own, making way for something more interesting than creating saccable pingers.

{Judgment}Viggs, King of Fools, was probably the most interesting card of the bunch. Somehow I couldn't quite get past all of the uses of laugh and laughter, but, syntax-ally speaking it seems to make sense and laugh was up there with Stalk in terms of mechanics that I thought had some really interesting gameplay possibilities.

{Judgment}Order of High Skirsdag, had a lot of flavor. However, mechanically speaking it didn't feel as interesting as it could have. I'm not sure what I'd put my finger on. Obviously ravage is more costly than convoke, but that's balanced out by the secondary effect. I do have a hard time seeing it as a commander though, both flavor-wise and mechanically.

{Judgment}Craobe, the Rot Nourished, I mean, this was the winning entry, so... what to say? There's actually more Treefolk than I would have guessed, and the GB pairing would cover virtually all of them, while also being perfect flavorwise for using the existing Undergrowth mechanic. To top it all off, Undergrowth sounds like a Treefolk sort of mechanic (though there are currently no Treefolk with it, hence the entry.)

{Judgment}Baelai of the Second Wind, I meant to respond to this and never did, which is entirely on me. The interaction with Prowess, while neat, flavorful, and seemingly balanced, still didn't really give me a sense of "new mechanic for monk creature types" which is what kept this card out of potentially placing.

{Judgment}Sionin, Flourishing One, I liked this card. In fact, it was very close to placing. However, I wasn't sure about the balance of the mechanic. You gave it an appropriately high mana cost to help with things but I ended up still uncertain as to how I felt about the Bloom mechanic and this card's interaction with it. Also, the mechanic literally only functions with the Commander in place, another problem area, though one easily resolved by including it in a set with more dryads and interaction with the keyword. I wonder if a
Bloom 1 [i](When this creature enters the battlefield, put a bloom counter on up to one target land. Lands with bloom counters tap for an additional mana of the type they produce.)[/i]
might be an interesting refinement on the overall concept.

{Judgment}Arata of the Nine Tools, I'm stoked at the Kamigawa flavor given my example of an entry using Samurais. The thing that kept this out of the top spot was mostly its hyper-narrow focus and the fact that the commander itself doesn't do much to benefit other ninjas. There's a fair bit of reminder text too, but I think you kept it as concise as you possibly could. Would have loved to see this guy maybe give other ninjas Substitute.

{Judgment}Batreth, Stillguard Captain, this is a cute card. It didn't place because it feels a little unplayable. In addition to the Gargoyle tribe already lacking cohesiveness as a tribe to begin with, this card feels like it does a little too much and the result is a high cost that makes it difficult to play.