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Post by ZephyrPhantom on May 9, 2021 23:43:12 GMT
Partially inspired by the Lift the Ban Challenge and our recent string of overpowered Standard bans, Wreck the Card is a design experiment game that's all about ruining cards or toeing the line in the most entertaining way possible. To put it another way - we have so many games about carefully balancing cards, so what if the objective was the carefully mess one up instead? The rules of the game are simple: - The judge picks a card that is preferably unremarkable or underpowered from Magic's history. -- If you want a rough guideline, I would avoid cards that have been marked as 'Spikey' - i.e. they have been banned at least once in Magic history. Note that this is not an absolute list; I doubt anyone would consider Adun Oakenshield particularly broken. -- Though dated, the ratings on Gatherer may also be a good way to check how useful an older card has been. - The judge then chooses to wreck or push the card. Wrecked cards should be so powerful that a deck can bend over backwards to accommodate it and still be extremely powerful. Recent examples include Oko, Thief of Crowns and Lurrus of the Dream Den, but the iconic example is Skullclamp - in development, it was originally supposed to not give -1 toughness, but someone did it as a last minute change that suddenly turned an innocent looking equipment into an extremely powerful combo piece. Some might argue Arcum's Astrolabe subtly falls under this too for enabling a lot of decks it really should not have. "Crazily overpowered" can be a bit more subjective in general but to try to put it in objective terms think about the consequences of an overpowered/ban-worthy card that WoTC tries to avoid printing or has banned before, and then think about how your target card could create a similar impact. Pushed cards just need to be powerful enough to make some kind of playstyle competitive or very useful. You wouldn't play Jeskai Student or Dragon Bell Monk for example because they do very little for the amount of mana you put into them, whereas Clever Lumimancer and Monastery Mentor help enable new decks because they either are cheap enough, offer a ton of value for the mana spent, or both. So it doesn't necessarily have to make an existing deck better, it is more about being good enough to constantly see play without being "crazily overpowered" like a wrecked card would be. To sum it up: Wrecks should go wild and be things WoTC would not want to (willingly) print. Pushes should have some restraint despite being powerful and should be things WoTC would definitely want to print. Please explicitly say "Wreck" or "Push" somewhere in your challenge prompt, to make sure the players know which type of challenge they're playing with. - You're probably used to this by now, but after a certain amount of time/entries (e.g. 2 weeks), the judge judges, declares the winner, and the winner becomes the next judge, repeating the process Ad Nauseam. Ultimately, I'm curious to see if turning the typical design process on its head is as fun as doing it the 'normal' way.
Your first challenge is a classic that hasn't aged all that well. I'd like you to wreck The Hive! -- Wrecking the card means to rework the card in a way that it is creatively breakable via some other cards in Magic. That said, there is a catch - to properly "wreck" a card, you need to do it in a way that's considered interesting by the judge's standards. There is a world of difference between something like Skullclamp having very unintended consequences because someone put a minus sign instead of a plus sign and just buffing Mudhole to say "You win the game." or adding 50 mana to your mana pool. -- Pushing the card means to buff it to the point where it would see constant play as one of the strongest cards in the deck. Think of it as the difference between Elite Vanguard and Champion of the Parish - both are decent one-drops, but the latter is an engine that would be an auto-include in almost every Human tribal deck under the sun if price wasn't a concern. The difference between Wrecking and Pushing is that a Pushed card should still be something WoTC would actually print - if you can unintentionally wreck a card by just adding Banding to it, that would be a great wreck, but it might not be a great push.
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Giraculum
0/0 Germ
Posts: 34
Color Alignment: Blue, Green
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Post by Giraculum on May 10, 2021 2:57:13 GMT
Hivepost Land — Locus   : Add  .  , : Create a 1/1 colorless Insect artifact creature token with flying named Wasp. This ability costs  less to activate for each Locus on the battlefield.
The casting cost can obviously go down, but I wasn't sure how far to go until I remembered Castle Ardenvale exists. That's about how far I'd go to push it, but to wreck it, I figure the activation cost should be able to go down to 0 as well. |
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Post by crashington on May 10, 2021 12:21:36 GMT
Here is my take on the wrecked Hive!
On its own it just creates a repleneshing wasp token, but if you can buff it up so it has more than 1 toughness,
can copy tokens or token creation it becomes pretty funky.
I hope this is still close enough to the original card?
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on May 11, 2021 0:09:23 GMT
I hope this is still close enough to the original card?
Noticeably deviating from the original card is fine, the game as a whole is more about breaking things creatively or making stuff people would constantly play.  |
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Post by viriss on May 11, 2021 0:35:03 GMT
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Post by melono on May 11, 2021 14:05:38 GMT
The Hive's Altar  Artifact Sacrifice a permanent not named Wasp: Create a 1/1 colorless Insect artifact creature token with flying named Wasp. Thought about just sacrificing Creatures not named Wasp, but this is more broken.
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on May 23, 2021 9:35:15 GMT
Judging later this week. Get your last entries/edits in.
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Post by hydraheadhunter on May 23, 2021 12:07:44 GMT
Aggressive Hive
Three generic
Artifact
When Aggressive Hive enters the battlefield, create two 1/1 insect creature tokens.
Whenever an insect creature you control dies after being dealt damage this turn, create two 1/1 insect creature tokens.
3: Insects you control gain flying and deathtouch until end of turn.
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on May 27, 2021 8:51:02 GMT
Giraculum - It's an interesting thought exercise in the sense that that this card's brokenness depends entirely on how much ]Cloudpost looms over a given format - if it isn't present, this card looks a lot more reasonable. It's a steady value engine that I think could see play and might be at the top of a meta even but not quite something hilariously busted - I can't see this doing more damage than Arcum's Astrolabe did, basically, and that was a pretty bad one for more subtle value engines. I would rate this a Push. crashington - A bit convoluted to get it going but once you figure out a way to quickly deal damage and increase toughness, it can go infinite pretty easily. It's similar to the Worldgorger Dragon+ Animate Loop via Aether Flash creating an infinite cycle of create token/death triggers (or just tokens with anthem up), which I suppose does feel like something broken but it feels a bit tasteless because you didn't give any way to exit the loop for the combos it seems meant to enable. It's a wreck but I think a may would've made it a better one. viriss - Funny design that could see print if WoTC wasn't afraid of a card not working in Commander, but still quite expensive and seems more like straight value than entertainingly busted. Would rate this a push. melono - Now we're talking. While this likely usually ends up in the same spots Viscera Seer might it can also do a lot of other incidental things like get rid of Demonic Pact and exploit anything that comes back easily (particularly Sword of the Meek - in fact, this would almost be a more tasteless version of Thopter Foundry if not for the fact it costs and doesn't gain life - as is, it's a very powerful sidegrade or potential upgrade). I think it's worth considering if an enchantment (or other typed) version of Thopter-sword in general becomes possible because of this card. Seems like a wreck to me. hydraheadhunter - Seems like getting Wasps killed was a pretty popular solution, huh. Hope I don't come across as sounding too rude about this, but unfortunately I'm pretty sure this suffers the same issues as crashington's entry - there's no easy way to break out of the Aether Flash loop it creates which seems fairly tasteless to me, though I appreciate you trying to specify "dies" to hedge against potential looping problems and extending it to other insect creatures that probably leads to some kind of Hornet Nest gimmick. A wreck but again, probably needed a may somewhere. Winner: melono
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Post by melono on May 27, 2021 19:01:22 GMT
Thanks for the win!  A card that I personally love when I play it in my Sir Carah commander deck: Wreck the following card: Burning Prophet. Probably a good way to wreck it is through having it generate even more value, but you are allowed to fill it in in any way you want. |
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Post by crashington on May 27, 2021 21:17:39 GMT
Here is the Fatereading Firemage! Designed to really take advantage of those scrys  works especially well with Birgi |
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foureyesisafish
7/7 Elemental
Posts: 388
Favorite Set: Ikoria: Lair of the Behemoths
Color Alignment: Blue, Red, Green
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Post by foureyesisafish on Jun 1, 2021 15:44:20 GMT
Burning Conjured 1R
Creature - Elemental
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, elementals you control get +1/+0 until end of turn, then create a 0/1 red Elemental creature token.
1/3
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Post by melono on Jun 2, 2021 15:45:38 GMT
Will also be jugding this in the weekend!
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Post by bazzboda on Jun 4, 2021 4:22:18 GMT
Burning Prophet  Creature - Elemental Wizard When ever you cast a non creature spell, look at the top card of your library, then you may put it into your graveyard. If you do, ~ does damage equal to the number of red mana in that cards mana cost to each opponent. 1/4 Very compatable with Demigod of Revenge. |
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Post by hydraheadhunter on Jun 4, 2021 8:34:21 GMT
Cassandrian Doomsayer A generic, a red, and a black Creature - Human Shaman Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, Cassandrian Doomsayer gets +1/+0 until end of turn, then draw a card. At the beginning of the next end step, Cassandrian Doomsayer deals damage to you equal to its power unless you discard a card. 0/2
Rulings: - Cassandrian Doomsayer triggered ability creates a delayed trigger which happens at the beginning of the end of the end step. It will normally trigger and resolve before the associated +1/+0 buff expires in the clean up step.
- If Cassandrian Doomsayer's ability triggers during an end step and resolves, it will create a delayed trigger which will resolve at the beginning of the next end step which will happen after the delayed trigger's associated buff expired during the current end phase's clean up step.
- If Cassandran Prophet leaves the battlefield before the delayed trigger triggers or resolves, it's last known power will be used as the delayed triggers resolves.
- You cast murder targeting your Cassandrian Doomsayer, its ability will trigger making it a 1/3 until end of turn and drawing you a card. Assuming murder resolves killing it, at the end of the phase: the delayed trigger will trigger, remember Cassandrian Doomsayer as a 1/3, and deal 1 damage to you unless you discard a card upon resolution.
- Each resolution of Cassandrian Doomsayer's ability creates its own delayed trigger, each of which resolve seporately.
- You cast two non-creature spells in a turn. Cassandrian Doomsayer prophet becomes a 2/4 and creates two delayed triggers. When they trigger, Cassandrian Doomsayer will deal 2 damage to you unless you discard a card, twice.
- Your options to resolve these two triggers are: take 4 damage, take 2 damage and discard a card, or discard two cards.
It's a card draw engine for storm with a difficult to avoid (unless you literally play in your endstep) and exponentially serious drawback, and a discard engine for madness; and it's a pretty good beater if you get your prowess count high enough. Definitely breakable given the correct meta, but fair enough in a vaccuum (imo). The thing that makes it a bit trixxy for the archetypical izzet storm deck is it's a rakdos card, but that can be built around, and while it's not the most color-pie friendly effect for rakdos, it works flavorfully enough to in my opinion justify the bend.
Flavorwise it feels like a prophet giving very specific instructions to avoid doom (draw a card, but do not play it so you have a card to discard) and then not being listened to, hence the name "Cassandrian Doomsayer" I can see a lot of storm players killing themselves on Cassandrian triggers when they fail to storm off. |
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Post by melono on Jun 6, 2021 10:30:37 GMT
{Spoiler} crashington - Fatereading Firemage: an absolutely ridonculous card which is a straight upgrade, where scrying is even better than it already is. In any kind of (artifact) storm deck this could become absolutely ridiculous. That it’s cost lowering also works with other scrying is neat. Only thing I really have against this card is that you’d have to constantly keep track of yet another count next to storm count: your scry count. foureyesisafish - Burning Conjured: Young Pyromancer’s big elemental brother that does it all. It can pump itself and other Elementals you’ve played. In addition, it makes the pumpable elementals by itself, so you don’t actually have to think about the correct creature-to-non-creature spell ratio. Just loot/draw to this with spells, then go nuts with the rest of your spells. It is good that the elementals it creates don’t have haste as well, because it’d likely be a one-turn death otherwise. Though all those tokens would still be hard to get rid of. Thing here is, you get some annoying math within one card. Pump create, pump create, pump create. So now you have a 0/1, 1/1, 2/1. You’d need enough tokens spread across your board, showing the pump that all have received in order. With how out of hand storm counts can get, and added to it possible pump-spells, this can become quite a board-state nightmare. bazzboda - Burning Prophet: So first, surveil instead of scry. No more pump. Higher cost. Less consistent. But lord can it get out of hand. A repeatable Riddle of Lightning, with a different damage calculation. This is really a Johnny card for those wanting to build a deck around it. (and your mentioned card really helps with such a deck). I’m that Johnny hydraheadhunter - Cassandrian Doomsayer: Now that’s a strong Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain with upside. The downside of having to discard a card or lose some life? Peanuts. And sometimes even desirable. The winner is: |
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Post by bazzboda on Jun 6, 2021 19:56:27 GMT
Thank you. The challenge is pushing Mortician Beetle. I will judge on this upcoming weekend. |
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Post by hydraheadhunter on Jun 7, 2021 5:27:22 GMT
Mortician Maggot
A generic and three black
Creature - Insect
Mortician Maggot gets +1/+1 for each other creature it shares a name with.
Whenever a player sacrifices a creature not named Mortician Maggot, create a copy of Mortician Maggot.
0/1
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Jun 7, 2021 18:02:29 GMT
Mortifying Armorer  Creature - Insect Artificer  Whenever a player sacrifices a creature, you may choose a creature. If it didn't have a +1/+1 counter on it, put a +1/+1 counter on it and draw a card. Otherwise, put a +1/+1. 1/1 "Bone is as valid a material for arms as wood and iron. Have you seen how dragon javelins fly?"Trying to do a more political take on the idea while still making a pushed one-drop.
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foureyesisafish
7/7 Elemental
Posts: 388
Favorite Set: Ikoria: Lair of the Behemoths
Color Alignment: Blue, Red, Green
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Post by foureyesisafish on Jun 8, 2021 15:08:38 GMT
Deathcrown Hedonist Creature - Beast Noble CTrample Whenever you sacrifice a creature, put a +1/+1 counter on Deathcrown Hedonist. 0/1
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Post by bazzboda on Jun 13, 2021 5:39:34 GMT
hydraheadhunter, I like the card a lot, it certainly is a more impactful card that scales in a way that makes it very good to build around. However you don't have a rarity, I personally am going to assume this is a mythic, also with the higher mana cost you could probably make this a 1/1. On a very small nitpicky side of things, maggots are the larva of flies while grubs are beetle larva. Its not a big deal, all 3 magic cards that are meant to be grubs do not feature grubs in their art. ZephyrPhantom , very much like the card, the fact that it can situationally draw is fun and a good way of insuring that you can get a return even if it is later removed plus spreading some of the power. I also like the idea of insects folk being a more common occurrence across magic. I think this is a very powerful card that could fit in a lot of decks. I hadn't really thought about the poitical formats but I apprecaite that the abilities extra utility still works in 2 player formats. foureyesisafish , I do appreciate that it is a common so it can be used in pauper just like the original card can, however considering that the original card was common shifted and it didn't make much of a dent on pauper you could have probably kept this as a 1/1, it also probably didn't need to lose the "a player" part of the ability. The winner is ZephyrPhantom On a side note, is the main differnce between wreck and push that cards that get wrecked should end up as cards that are extremely powerful when built around while pushed cards end up as cards that are more suited to improving an already good deck?
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Jun 13, 2021 6:00:14 GMT
On a side note, is the main differnce between wreck and push that cards that get wrecked should end up as cards that are extremely powerful when built around while pushed cards end up as cards that are more suited to improving an already good deck? Wrecked cards should be so powerful that a deck can bend over backwards to accommodate it and still be extremely powerful. Recent examples include Oko, Thief of Crowns and Lurrus of the Dream Den. Some might argue Arcum's Astrolabe subtly falls under this too for enabling a lot of decks it really should not have. "Crazily overpowered" can be a bit more subjective in general but to try to put it in objective terms think about the consequences of an overpowered/ban-worthy card that WoTC tries to avoid printing or has banned before, and then think about how your target card could create a similar impact. Pushed cards just need to be powerful enough to make some kind of playstyle competitive or very useful. You wouldn't play Jeskai Student or Dragon Bell Monk for example because they do very little for the amount of mana you put into them, whereas Clever Lumimancer and Monastery Mentor help enable new decks because they either are cheap enough, offer a ton of value for the mana spent, or both. So it doesn't necessarily have to make an existing deck better, it is more about being good enough to constantly see play without being "crazily overpowered" like a wrecked card would be. To sum it up: Wrecks should go wild and be things WoTC would not want to (willingly) print. Pushes should have some restraint despite being powerful and should be things WoTC would definitely want to print.
Your next challenge is to push Natural Selection, but you CANNOT use effects that card draw or make the player add cards to their hand. Good luck! |
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Jul 14, 2021 2:26:57 GMT
Seems like the challenge I gave was too niche, so let's give this one more try, just to see if interest is still kicking. If not I'll let it float to the bottom until someone wants to revive it: You next challenge is to push one of the lowest rated cards on Gatherer: Numai Outcast! |
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Post by hydraheadhunter on Jul 14, 2021 4:02:06 GMT
I coulda sworn I made a card for the natural selection; I'm on my laptop right now and my desktop is the machine I keep my sets on so I can't check right now. It didn't get posted regardless though so I guess it doesn't matter. My bad.
Honorable Outcast
A black
Creature - Human Samurai
Bushido 4
Two generic Xs, a black, and pay five life: Choose X from among first strike, haste, lifelink, trample, and vigilance. If X is greater than four, you may also choose from deathtouch, double strike, hexproof, and indestructible. Honorable Outcast gains the choosen abilities until end of turn.
1/1
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Jul 30, 2021 7:48:29 GMT
One more bump for entries. I'd really love to see more of Magic's most underpowered and jankiest cards featured in general, so I'd like to encourage everyone to give this a shot.
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Post by ameisenmeister on Aug 3, 2021 21:42:53 GMT
EDIT: I realized that, with the old wording, you could just always activate the indestructibility as a reaction to the bushido trigger, this way you'd never lose more than 1 life.
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Aug 7, 2021 5:37:18 GMT
Cheers. I'll judge in the next day or two unless some last minute entries pop up.
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Aug 8, 2021 3:50:28 GMT
Solid submissions folks, thanks for having a little faith in the game. ameisenmeister - I was super excited for a second because I thought it added mana (in a very Neheb fashion) and then I realized what it actually did and got a bit sad, lol. Has Bloodsoaked Champion/ Gutterbones vibes, and could probably go down in cost accordingly even with the sort of big body because if you never block it it's just a Changeling Outcast or a 5/5 with pseudo-defender. I'd take a page from Phyrexian Negator and make this cost  or maybe - seems to scale somewhat appropriately vs. other drawback creatures like Bayou Groff or Ammit Eternal. hydraheadhunter - At first I was wondering what the point of paying so much for the skills were and then I realized it synergized with Bushido in combat. I'm a bit hesitant for it to be this cheap but like I said to ameisenmeister the floor does tend to be a Changeling Outcast or a 5/5 with pseudo-defender. The punishment of combat is interesting and very on-flavor for samurai, and while the payment is expensive the aggressive costing of bushido makes up for it somewhat. I'd say hydraheadhunter made the better push by costing more aggressively but it was pretty close overall. Both entries did something very interesting with the bushido that I didn't expect. |
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Post by hydraheadhunter on Aug 8, 2021 16:31:51 GMT
Thanks for the win. I feel that bushido as a keyword is overcosted in the canon, so I started from what I felt would be an actual reasonable bushido card might look like, then gave it a dangerous ability on top of that for the final spice.
We've seen lands get banned (og artifact lands), so why not do it again?
Away from Basics: Push or wreck a basic land type. The final card doesn't need to have a basic land type, only be based on one.
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Aug 9, 2021 0:52:24 GMT
Lands are an interesting challenge because they don't get that many abilities and the most dangerous ones have generally been very straightforward in what they do. Unstable GladeLand - Forest (Playtest Frame)(: Add  .)~ enters the battlefield with a rift counter on it. (Whenever a permanent with a rift counter on is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, it does 1 damage to target opponent.)TEST CARD: Not for constructed playInspired by Volatile Counters. I figure there has to be some way to break this between a good sacrifice outlet, Fastbond-type effects, and Crucible of Worlds. This would be a cycle. |
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works especially well with 
