What the Flavor?

oh, then those are out too

How about skeletons in W?  White deals with death and graveyard recursion regularly.  Undead falls squarely within the purview of W, as Spirits are very common.  I feel like White deserves a corporeal undead.  Within MtG I feel like skeletons have a little less necromantic connotations than zombies, making them a better option for white.  Thematically, white skeletons could be those whose sense of community binds them to the living.  Finally, bones are white.

Determined Hero
Creature - Skeleton Warrior
: Regenerate ~.
Even death cannot keep him from his righteous cause.
1/2

Venerated King
Creature - Skeleton Advisor
As long as ~ is untapped, other Skeletons and creatures with mana cost 2 or less you control get +1/+1 and have ward 1.
The peasantry all knelt before the throne of bone.
2/2

Eternal Beloved
Creature - Skeleton Knight
When ~ enters the battlefield, choose another creature you control.
Whenever the chosen creature would be dealt damage by any source, prevent it.  The source deals that amount of damage to ~ instead.
: Regenerate ~.
3/4

Judging in 24

Thanks for the win, fluffydeathbringer !

For the next challenge, I would like to see a humanoid creature without a class type.  That is, some race types appear both with or without class types (Rhinos, Cats, etc).  Humanoid races (humans, elves, etc) almost always have a class also.  Please design for me a humanoid creature that makes sense flavorfully to not have a class type.

Good luck!

I'm mostly looking for something like Ambush Commander. If you want to create a race and show examples both with and without classes, that works for me too.

Edit - not that Ambush Commander is a particularly good example of a winning submission as it could be a Warrior or something.  A few words explaining why your creature doesn't need a class would be appreciated.

Idea Excellent question and helpful because I haven't actually fleshed out this idea in my own head.

I supposed one of the likelier interpretations would be basically a feral humanoid creature.  Especially with my reference to Cats and Rhinos.  The ones with classes are sentient, the ones without are unintelligent animals.  So I was thinking maybe, not unintelligent, but just kind of feral and living a core existence of that race.

Thinking about this more, that is a terrible idea if humans are in the mix.  So let's say no Humans for this challenge.

Otherwise, I would like to see basically a raw version of that race.  What makes that race special, regardless of their developed culture?

My submission to this challenge would look like this:

Lonesome Hurler
Creature - Giant
, , sacrifice an artifact: ~ deals damage to target creature equal to the sacrificed artifact's mana value.
Everything looks like a rock to him.
4/4

He's a big dude who hangs out throwing whatever junk he can find at passersby.  He's a Giant. Could he have a class like Warrior or Barbarian? Yeah.  Does he need one?  That is the question I would like to be asking while judging.

As to the specifics you asked about:

1- Human Beast, call it Elf Beast given my change of rule above, is a really interesting corner case as it hits the "feral" element.  Generally speaking I don't want to see anything like Human Spirit or Human Vampire where the flavor is coming primarily from the secondary race type.  Elf Beast could maybe qualify but the card needs to show the flavor of Elf moreso than Beast.

2- I hadn't even considered this group of types.  If you think it helps convey the flavor of the race to make a card like Merfolk Egg or something (idk how they reproduce tbh), then go for it.  This is primarily a flavor competition so be careful.

3- Correct, these ones are clearly all excluded.

I hope this helped more.  The more I think about my own prompt the less I like it so if no one feels inspired I will try to think of something else altogether.

Rustpass Ambusher
Creature - Ogre
When Rustpass Ambusher attacks, you may have target creature defending player controls with power 2 or less untap and block it this combat if able.
Both too large and too cowardly to pick on his own size.
3/3

(So, not sure if something should be done here. I would like to see this contest back on track but with moweda gone for now, not sure how we should proceed)

I'll be keeping the following question in mind as I judge:



fluffydeathbringer - Nice straightforward answer to the prompt, definitely reads like something WoTC would actually print. Captures the flavor of the demons true brutality well.

SilentKobold - I had to look through a bunch of existing Ogre cards to see how I felt about this one and there are enough non-Warrior Ogres that manipulate combat enough that I think this would pass. It's kind of risky though since he's smart enough to ambush people flavorwise.

Idea - Ambitious idea and it's interesting to see the use of an Incarnation-type type to avoid going for a class, let's see how it holds up. Biggest immediate nitpick is that Bestow + Keyword wording does not get templated that way - Chromanticore and similar show that keywords should be on a separate line from Bestow. I was a bit iffy on the use of Bestow at first but I think the type changing is sufficiently novel even if there's a bit of a flavor disconnect on why creatures are turned into the records of what they're reading. I guess they're 'infused' with the spell of the the tribe, kind of like an animal-aspect-shaman type thing but with more magitek?

On further review I think the use of "Child" type while understandable in flavor is a bit odd in-vacuum - like I think more "Simulacrum" or "Essence" or some other abstract word (or perhaps Incarnation, but that one's taken. =P), but I get what you were going for even if it strays towards a very story-specific flavor as opposed to a general Magic one. Record Maker seems super janky and the connection to the cycle is a bit shaky, I think the effect could be more straightforward and still nail the same flavor - say, choose a creature type that three cards in your graveyard share, and just create an enchantment creature token of that. Needs some refinement, but I think this is a great idea for a precon deck or commander deck. Would recommend you flesh it out.

I'm curious what the white member of the cycle looks like.


Question here was pretty much a matter of whether being extremely risky beat out making a practical straightforward design and if I was sitting at a printer right now I'd say the straightforward design is ready for printing and the experimental one isn't.

fluffydeathbringer wins with Idea as runner up, though I would encourage Idea to refine this idea further.

ZephyrPhantom thank you for the help and the review! To clarify a small detail, the records are more like simulacrums of the essential aspects of the species. When they bestow, it would be basically being infused with that essence in a sense, becoming part of that species on a deeper level that embodies what they are generally all about.

The dragon tempest, the birthplace of dragons in the plane of Tarkir. Once, the death of the spirit dragon Ugin had ended this magical phenomenon and given the Khans victory over dragons, leading to the extinction of the later. But history was changed and even now with the khans conquered and subsumed by the dragon broods, the dragon tempest rages on, spawning the mighty beasts.

In recent times, a new phenomena appears. Dragons, born of the dragon tempest, but these ones are not born mighty lizards, breathing fire as they soar through the sky on wings the size of houses. They were of other races, humans, orcs, even goblins. Their soul and spirit were of dragons, indeed they were dragons in all but form, and yet they were a strange new thing. What were they... and what did they represent for Tarkir? A symbol of unity of clan and dragons? An omen of a possible rebellion against oppressive dragon lords and war raging upon Tarkir once more? The few who are aware of Tarkir's old history might even question whether this phenomena is kind of lapse of time, history trying to restore itself or connect the two pasts and futures.

The new beings are coveted by dragons and clans alike, and feared by both as well. For their part, most see themselves as children of the dragon tempest, dragon in a mistaken form they cannot escape. They fight to prove their might and worth, and to tune themselves to their fundamental nature and their soul's heritage. Whether by ferocity or precise tuning of self-control, by testing their resilience or striving to awaken through dark magics, they ascend among the ranks of the dragon broods, and their fate as well as Tarkir's remains to be seen.

For those unfamiliar, Estrid is a mask-making enchantress who seeks out different beings to make masks out of, as she can adopt their power and skills by wearing these masks. Pretty much no information seems to exist on her past or home plane, so I took the liberty of adding a little tidbit:

this is actually emberfire17's