The Cycle of Cards Game

I'm a bit busy this week so judging will be a bit shorter than usual.

inferno390 - Reminds me of Showdown of the Skalds tbh in that the draw is a large amount that lasts into your next turn. I think the big saving grace for this card is that it's Sorcery speed, because if it was at Instant speed it would be like a Command that got to pick 3 modes at once. That said I think this card doing multiple things at once with no clear connection brings it closer to Commands or perhaps even its own cycle. It's a good design - just not one very reminiscent of Collected Company.

captainbrochette - I wasn't sure about the color placement of this at first but cards like Acquire exist so I think this is fair. It feels mostly like a a sidegrade to Drawn from Dreams and doesn't really capture the spirit of Collected Company's ability to play a lot of spells out of nowhere. I think this is set-ready and sort of fits the cycle, but it's not a very strong connection to me.

viriss - This is clever, tying into how White cares about enchantments while letting it get to play at doing some pushed/busted things. Boros looks really good with this, The Flame of Keld, and History of Benalia. Very straightfoward adherence to the cycle but with a small and important twist. I wish this was a real card.

thaneofglamis - I was hoping someone would go the vertical route and I like what I'm seeing. The ceiling for this is probably hitting two mana dorks or Soul Sisters or basically heavily advancing the gameplan of any deck that relies on a lot of small early game creatures to get going, and realistically I think aggro decks would love to use this as gas. Great incentive to run Dryad Arbors when you don't have Green Sun's Zenith. I'd play it.

Winner: I don't normally do this but I think viriss and thaneofglamis are tied. I'm very picky about the whole idea of pushing White card advantage normally but using a cycle reference combined with a narrow but brewable type related to what a color can do does the trick for Collected Stories, and Reliable Partnership feels like a correctly scaled down version that doesn't break anything while still being an exciting card that opens up a wide variety of possibilities for weenie decks of all kinds. Congratulations.

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P.S. I don't like the change as a player (CMC is lexicon I'm very comfortable with), but like it as a designer (fewer words on the card itself). As long as people get what I mean when I say it, I think I'm willing to accept it as the new norm.

Next Challenge: make a cycle out of a famous pair of cards

These are all good entries!

Winner: ZephyrPhantom

Mythos of Chromium
Instant
Exile target spell. If was spent to cast this spell, you may cast that card for as long as it remains exiled by paying life equal to its mana value rather than paying its mana cost.

Mythos of the Traitor King 
Sorcery
Target player sacrifices a creature. Return the creature sacrificed this way to the battlefield under your control. It gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step unless was spend to cast this spell.

I want to keep this game going, so I'm going to declare gamma3 the winner. Abridged version of the judging basically boils down to this:

gamma3 and Flo00 - I like both interpretations of the creature-steal shard but the Grixis one feels more cohesively Grixis whereas the Chromium one feels a little weak on the White aspect.

ameisenmeister - I was skeptical of this cost p/t combination at first and but compared to Gaea's Revenge it's actually not that far off. I think it could be pushed to instant speed to be a little more exciting but that could be deceptively strong for Standard, maybe. It's a solid card that absolutely should see print, just probably not the most exciting one in the cycle.

ameu - It's an interesting concept but something felt off, so I did some digging and realized why - No more than two creatures can fight., and the wording is vague enough to imply all 4 creatures participate in the same fight. You would probably need to separately write out two instances of fight for this to work. That said multiple fights that aren't Ezuri's Predation is an interesting idea and I do think it deserves points for introducing an unusual enough concept that I have a hard time evaluating the actual power of it. My only complaint aside from rulings is that it doesn't feel very and the effects make it feel more like it should be Naya or maybe Jund.

(Just as an aside, I'll let the art choice slide given the explanation.)

Inscription of Valiance
Instant
Kicker
Choose one. If this spell was kicked, choose any number instead.

• Create two 1/1 white Kor Ally creature tokens.
• Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control.
• Exile target creature with power 4 or greater.

Inscription of Resolve
Two generic and two white
Instant


Kicker Two generic and two

Choose one. If this spell was kicked, choose any number instead.

• Creatures you control get +1/+1 and gain indestructible and vigilence until end of turn.
• Exile up to two target permanents then return them to the battlefield under their owner's control.
• Gain 10 and draw a card.

Thank you for the win! For this next round, create a card for the Theros Beyond Death Titan/Elder Giant cycle. Uro and Kroxa have used up UG and RB, but any other two-color pair is fair game!

Freka, Titan of Insanity’s Glee
Legendary Creature - Elder Giant
When Freka enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless it escaped.
Whenever Freka enters the battlefield or attacks, each player mills five cards, then you may return a card from among them to its owner’s hand.
Escape—, Exile five other cards from your graveyard. (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its escape cost.)
6/6