What the Flavor?

Okay, so, upon seeing this challenge, I knew I wanted to do something with lab rats. I also knew there was a statue commemorating the sacrifice of lab rats in furthering our understanding of DNA. So I borrowed a bit of Lorehold's "spirit statue teacher things" idea and came up with this. It basically turns rats into food tokens, which is...kinda sadly accurate, particularly before the modern era. But yeah, rats have been irreplaceable in medical advancements, and they make great pets, and honestly don't deserve the bad reputation they get. I didn't watch the video, so if any of this was already mentioned, I apologize XD

just some mono red rat pyromancers.



akarpi runner
creature - rat wizard

haste

when akarpi runner dies, it deals 3 damage to any target.

evoke , discard a card.

1/1



lagal, the emberstorm
legendary creature - elemental rat wizard

when lagal, the emberstorm enters the battlefield, create X 1/1 red rat tokens with haste, were X is the number of spells cast before it this turn.

, tap another untapped creature you control: flip a coin. creatures you control get +1/+1 for each coin flip you won this turn.

3/3

That's a hard one. I'll have to think about it for a while.

EDIT: I just can't come up with a decent challenge. Just give me some blue treefolk or red merfolk.

So, did I make a red merfolk or a blue treefolk?

Yes.




A merfolk doused in red, defined by a pull of vengeance and an uncontrollable obsession, plotting in the name of a mysterious master to create some monster... And that monster happens to be a treefolk.

I took some common mechanics I found for treefolk and merfolk, and tried to give them a differently-colored twist.

Last call for entries! Judgement is upon you!

hydraheadhunter seems I nina-edited you
Strong card that opens up interesting lines of play. I'd put her in a Dino deck together with a bunch of Rain of Embers.

So I figured I would make equipment that both in effect and appearance would make sense to equip to something non-anthropomorphic.

Pointy Bug
Artifact Creature — Insect Equipment
Equipped creature gets +2/+0
At the beginning of your end step, if ~ is attached to a creature, sacrifice ~ and put a +1/+1 counter on equipped creature.
Reconfigure
2/1

Some great submissions so far! Judging tomorrow.

Alright, a little bit of backstory on my attempt.

First things first, the problem here has a major roadblock: It's simultaneously very lore / concept dependent (Aka there isn't an obvious mechanical way to automatically categorize creatures types into how strong they can be, at least not in any way that could fit into a card). This means any effect you use would be unable to change the inconsistency to a consistency in a mechanical route, and thus you still have to contend with the inconsistency given any other card you use alongside it.

If mechanics fundamentally can't fix this, then the next best solution I think is to give a lore fundament. Fortunately, the answer is right there in front of us: Mana. I'm not saying we should chalk it up to "a wizard did it" (at least not for purposes of this challenge) but I do think we can go back to a concept as old as time, the idea that more magic = more power. This power isn't necessarily directed towards raw physical strength, after all you can produce magic from mana, knowledge can be engraved in it, and so on. Sure your soldier has a lot of skill in battle, but the magic inherent in his form may be lesser, or part of it may go into things that are not meant for combat.

Lastly, where best to exposit this but with the Elder Dragon who studied the blind eternities until they gave him the power to transform their energy into matter (mechanically known as manifest)?


So, this is my entry:





In the spoiler you will find previous versions I made of the card. Sunken costs dictates I really don't wanna just scrap them after all the work they gave me, but given how the text is partially covered I don't think these versions could work. But still, I wanted to at least show them, though to be clear my entry is only what is above, not the versions in the spoilers.

This challenge definitely made me think!

Yes, technically. I had it that way first, but then there is this mess of an interaction with Humility where it's a headache to figure out what happens if its animated in some way. Check out the mess of a ruling note here:
scryfall.com/card/tpr/16/humility

While the concept of animating enchantments is not really a common event, I did want to prevent that interaction up front.


EDIT: gluestick248, would you like to judge?

Thank you very much for the win gluestick248 !

Now everyone, I want you to picture this: You are a milenia old being of once immense power, however you lost that power and now would do anything to get it back. With your unfathomable cunning, you scheme to create a plan that will once and for all return you to omnipotence.

You destroy a civilization in a certain plane, twisting the very leylines of the plain to you and thus corrupting the gods that inhabit to your will. The population is massacred, leaving only children too young to remember, who will come to be raised into a civilization whose entire purpose is to perfect their bodies their whole lives, competing in every field, learning to work in unity, to demonstrate their strength, their minds, their skill, devotion, cunning, ambition, commitment... and only one, only the most successful out of these people perfecting themselves their whole lives get to die a worthy death. Oh but this isn't the end, for these worthy devotees are then coated with a magical metal, preserving and augmenting their skills in life, whilst also adding the ruthlessness, obedience, fearlessness, tirelessness and capacity to fight through any damage characteristic of undead. A plane turned into a factory of death, producing a swarm of elite undead soldiers, and to top it all off, even the gods of the plane were converted into your loyal undead.

But this isn't the end of your plans, only the tip. For while this army was being prepared, you also arranged for one of your minions to use the inhabitants of a plane of invention to craft a device capable of something not seen since the mending: The transportation of large quantities of non-living mass. Sure you couldn't bring organic things through it, but that's hardly an issue for an army of the undead coated in metal.

There is also the gathering of an artifact that could prevent planeswalkers from planeswalking out of a plane, the infiltration of several loyal minions into the top positions of several guilds on Ravnica, and another agent who construct a device that could call planeswalkers to your plane of choice. You carefully monitored threats like phyrexians and eldrazi, and after a magnificent defeat of the gatewatch, you recruit one of its members using a hidden clause in the contract she used to gain power, binding her to your service on pain of death. Sure you could control your undead army yourself, but you want to focus on the legendary spell you uncovered in Dominaria, that will allow you to steal the sparks of planeswalkers and attain godhood.

So the day arrives, you send your army through the portal, begin the great genocide and...



Frankly the psychological damage seemed more dramatic and effective than the army of elite zombies:




Of course, it would be a mistake not to mention there were definitely cards showing the eternals winning... But when they were losing against nameless random Ravnica citizens and the grand total of what three named planeswalkers? Makes one question whether it wasn't just that they happened to run into some pretty weak and inexperienced planeswalkers.

And cherry on top of the cake, you suddenly find the necromancer you attempted to bind with a contract, one known for basically turning on everyone else she ever made a deal with, has turned on you and you seemingly have no contingency plan for that. Guess that kinda slipped your mind in the milenia of planning. Whoops.

---

---

By now I'm guessing you may have a good idea of where I'm going with this, but still that was a long introduction so I hope you had fun reading it at least. The challenge today is to design cards that live up to what the eternals are supposed to be. Cards that show their victory, or at least more properly convey the supposedly nearly unstoppable, extremely skilled and intimidating force they are supposed to be. You can use the amass mechanic but you don't have to (feel free to come up with your own eternal mechanic if you'd like in fact) because frankly, a very vulnerable slow building army is part of the problem.