Keyword Challenge

Thanks for the win, sdfkjgh (copy/paste)!
Too bad there weren't more entries. Was a fun one to come up with.
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Next keyword: Contest

I actually haven't seen it. Watched a little snippet of the guy singing the song on his horse, and skimmed the Wiki on it/Googled the term. I'll see if I have some time to watch the whole thing over the weekend.

Why noy make it an Early Matt & Trey double feature, and watch Orgazmo afterwards?

Streetfight 
Instant
Choose target creature you control, then choose target creature or planeswalker an opponent controls. Challenge that opponent to a contest. (Each player in a contest reveals a card at random from their hand. If a single player’s revealed card has the highest mana value among cards revealed this way, that player wins the contest. Players with no cards in hand can’t participate in a contest.) If you win the contest, the creature you control hits the creature or planeswalker the opponent controls. (It deals damage equal to its power to that creature or planeswalker.) Otherwise, your creature and the opponent’s creature or planeswalker fight each other. (Planeswalkers fight using their current loyalty.)

Test of Flame 
Sorcery
Challenge an opponent to a contest. If you win, Test of Flame deals damage equal to the difference in mana values of the contesting cards to any target. Repeat this process X minus one times. X can’t be 0.
If X is 5 or more, this spell can’t be countered and the damage can’t be prevented.

Prized Hydra 
Creature--Hydra
As Prized Hydra enters the battlefield, challenge another player to a contest. If you win, Prized Hydra enters the battlefield with a number of +1/+1 counters on it equal to the difference in mana values of the contesting cards.
Trample
: Challenge another player to a contest. If you win, put a number of +1/+1 counters on Prized Hydra equal to the difference in mana values of the challenging cards. Activate this ability only during a main phase.
1/1

Test of Resolve 
Instant
Challenge an opponent to a contest. (Each player in a contest reveals a card at random from their hand. If a single player’s revealed card has the highest mana value among cards revealed this way, that player wins the contest. Players with no cards in hand can’t participate in a contest.) If you win, you gain life equal to the difference in mana values of the contesting cards. Otherwise, that opponent loses that much life.

Test of Wills 
Instant
Challenge an opponent to a contest. (Each player in a contest reveals a card at random from their hand. If a single player’s revealed card has the highest mana value among cards revealed this way, that player wins the contest. Players with no cards in hand can’t participate in a contest.) If you win, you gain life equal to the difference in mana values of the contesting cards. Otherwise, that opponent loses that much life.

EDIT: I must've been drunk when I posted Test of Wills.  Sorry, vizionarius .  This is the real card:

Test of Wills 
Instant
Challenge an opponent to a contest. (Each player in a contest reveals a card at random from their hand. If a single player’s revealed card has the highest mana value among cards revealed this way, that player wins the contest. Players with no cards in hand can’t participate in a contest.) If you win, scry X, where X is the difference in mana values of the contesting cards.
Draw two cards.



Before you say anything, yes, I'm well aware that challinging a player to a contest is just clash with extra steps.  I really liked clash, but unfortunately, it seems I was in the extreme minority.  I really wish they'd do more with clash, and I see challenging a player to a contest being used similarly.

I decided to tackle contest from a slightly different angle, that of an objection. As such, for the mechanic today:

When you contest, choose one among it presents.
After the choice was done, you cannot choose other ones when the same entity contests, for already the winner of the contest was determined.

If you contest among some activated abilities, abilities which wasn't chosen are lost. You choose one when you activate it.
If a mode is worded "subtype | something", the card gains that subtype as you choose the mode.

I'm having some trouble understanding how to contest here. Can you give an example with Mystery Novel Award? At the beginning of your upkeep, what would happen? Do players choose? Do you choose? How is the contest winner determined?

twintania

Ah! Ok, makes sense. Thanks for clarifying! The name is good.

Feedback:

melono
I like how it checks the game state as the basis for the contest. What I fear is that it can have a pretty strong snowball effect where you get even more ahead if you are already ahead. Maybe if the bonus was given to the loser as a consolation to help "catch up" instead of snowball, that might be better mechanically (though not flavorfully).

sdfkjgh
Definitely a nod to clash, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I like that your cards care about the difference, and something happens even if you lose. It makes you want to play with multiple high mana value cards, not just the one Draco, since it's a random reveal. That will likely slow down the format a bit if challenge ends up being a powerful mechanic in that format, both to keep up with others playing challenge as well as to keep winning your own challenges. Though I do like that at least in your Test of Resolve, you actually want to lose the challenge to win the game. Cool effect! (Your Test of Wills is the same as Test of Resolve).

Sanfonier of the Night
I like that you are making game objects do the contest, instead of players. Adds a neat new element. Using the mana value as a metric will lead to you always knowing what wins, though, so it could lead to the cards mostly saying: "Destroy target artifact or enchantment with lesser mana value than a permanent you control" or "Target creature deals damage to another target creature with lesser mana value."

Idea
Using contest as a verb, nice! Good flavor in the lines of "I object!" I like that it gives permanents spells flash by default, and can change the cost to cast, it really opens up design space as you have highlighted. Also, the game state that allows you to contest is common enough (but not too common) where the ability is meaningful yet still has a limited use, so you wouldn't necessarily want to flood your deck with contest cards. Well done! I like your specific card designs too.

hydraheadhunter
Fun fact: I played Shahrazad in my first EDH deck (when it was still not banned [pre-2011]). I loved it; other people didn't. So this is straight up my alley!
Does a subgame of Jenga within a Magic game count as a non-Magic game for Game Knight (in general, is a subgame within a game count as the game-type of the subgame, or just a part of the main game)? Also, that planeswalker is amazing! I imagine super emblems being like Pokemon gym badges.

twintania
I understand the concept, but this feels a lot more like selecting a mode and then having that mode be permanent; it doesn't really feel like a contest to me since all you do is just make a choice. I do like the modal aspect of your cards, and the abilities are neat.

ameisenmeister
A nod to clash, which I like, as mentioned in my feedback to sdfkjgh . I like that it has an effect for both players, regardless of who wins. Also, you can't easily re-use the same card over and over to keep winning the contest, since it's now gone. It can have utility in multiplayer formats by helping an opponent draw a card in hopes to help deal with another opponent's threat, and you can force-lose the contest by ditching something so they don't get punished for helping you out. Works great with madness and graveyard theme decks as well. The more I think on this the more I like it. Great stuff!


Result:
This was really a tight one between ameisenmeister and Idea ; two very different abilities. ameisenmeister wins by a small margin in part because the effect feels to fit the term "contest" better, though I did really like both, and good submissions all-around.

Guys, I think I might have fixed storm:

Bladestorm 
Instant
This spell deals 1 damage to any target.
Flurry of blows (When you cast this spell, copy it for each time a source you control dealt combat damage this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)

Martial Boon 
Instant
You gain 2 life. Then if this spell is a copy, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.
Flurry of blows (When you cast this spell, copy it for each time a source you control dealt combat damage this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)
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Trust in your training, and you’ll always strike first!

Battle Report 
Instant
Draw a card
Flurry of blows (When you cast this spell, copy it for each time a source you control dealt combat damage this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)

Revel in the Slaughter 
Sorcery
Choose one. If this spell is a copy, you may choose a different mode—
• Target player loses 2 life.
• Target player discards a card.
Flurry of blows (When you cast this spell, copy it for each time a source you control dealt combat damage this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)

Rile the Gargantuas 
Instant
This spell can’t be countered.
This spell costs less to cast, where X is the total amount of combat damage sources you control have dealt this turn.
Create a 5/5 green Beast creature token with trample.
Flurry of blows (When you cast this spell, copy it for each time a source you control dealt combat damage this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)

The keyword I bring today is Wordflurry

Wordflurry: As you cast CARDNAME, you may pay . If you do, it loses the effect in brackets and target creature gains that effect until one of those creatures leaves the battlefield.



Picture a wind blowing as your creature arrives, moving the text onto another creature. Now, there's a few quirks to this mechanic, the first being the flexibility. The mechanic passes on an effect to another creature if you pay, may you choose not to in order to keep that effect on the original creature. A negative effect for instance might be kept on the creature to for instance play a bigger body for cheaper, or you might want to pay an extra to pass it along to reinforce creatures you control- even attach it to creatures which you don't control.




This not only lets you weaponize negative effects, but it can also be used to create new targets for certain specific effects, such as seen below on this spiteful goblin. There is a great range of design space for making the cards, and some cards may have a great deal of flexibility on their use.




One thing to note, however, is that the effect only lasts as long as at BOTH of the creatures involved remain on the battlefield. If, say, the creature that got the effect grafted onto it dies or gets bounced, the effect returns to the original, with all it may imply for interactions with the rest of that card.




While in most cases the effect of using Wordflurry will be strictly positive or nearly that (Blightflight Drake is always better for not getting -1/-1 counters each turn and Spite Scribe is just a raging goblin but it can turn into a haste for a better creature or a ping if you really need it) sometimes the effect will just be different, and circumstances will be what dictates which mode you want moreso than cost.

Also, unlike say, an enchantment aura, the effect is being put on the target creature itself. So references to 'you' will apply as if that text was originally on the creature, which means if an opponent controls that creature 'you' refers to them.




Some notes on artist credits:

Spite Scribe's artwork came from a reddit post, but the poster claims to be the original artist: www.reddit.com/r/Art/comments/jhogbi/goblin_scribe_me_digital_painting_2019/

Since there might be some legibility issues, Raiyur Interpreter's credit is: Official art from "Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting" by Matthew Mercer. It's possible the artist is credited in the book but from information I was able to gather it's not on the page where the art is, so where I could find it it was marked as 'unknown artist'. I've posted the source.

Thanks for pointing it out! It's fixed now.

Judging time!

sdfkjgh
Encourages combat, copies spells and has the potential for various interesting build arounds. I love it! Balancing cards with mechanics like that can be really hard, though.

vizionarius
I thought about weather mechanics myself but was taken aback by the fact that I (presumably) had players to keep track of them all the time. Your flurry mechanic neatly avoids this by being a temporary weather phenomenon rather than something constant. I really like the idea but I'm critical of the issue that you yourself are not allowed to attack with three creatures or more if you don't want to lose your effect.

Idea
It's very good that you added the until one of those creatures leaves the battlefield. clause to avoid the memory issues. To improve flexibility, you could turn the from wordflurry into an alternate casting cost, similar to cleave, so the donated abilities don't always have to be worth about two mana.

twintania
Having keyword mechanics use other keyword mechanics is a pretty big no-no in my book (and in wotc's). However, you could just rephrase it to Exile XY's card. At the beginning of its controller's next upkeep, they may cast it without paying its mana cost.

This mechanic is cool but has the potential of being highly annoying and also quite busted if used repeatedly. Delaying Tactician would likely be a misery to play against and also create an easy lockdown with Arcane Laboratory, Eidolon of Rhetoric and the likes.


Thank you all for participating!

Brought this one back up from the depths of hell just for you.




Due to the massive potential variety Union Symbol cards can have, each iteration of them has historically either featured as one-offs that enabled various draft archetypes or as part of a dedicated set like Fleur's From the Vault: Union. This updated iteration demonstrates the potential verbal creativity/chaos that can be sowed by the existence of such a mechanic while uniting it around a dedicated counter subtheme, and is treated as a 5-color keyword with keywords-matters support skewed towards .

The original version of each keyword used has been added has been linked in each keyword's usage.

Counter Generation: These are some examples of counter generating cards that would generate counters (or exploit their existence) while working in a vacuum in a given set. As many keywords work with counters this serves as a way to use the union symbol to draw on many disparate effects while keeping a somewhat unified theme.



Archetype Support: While the union symbol is not mentioned directly, these demonstrate the appeal of it as a keyword - namely, to enable cards that check that you are running as many unique keywords as possible.



Other Cards to Demonstrate the Use of Union:

Primarily here to demonstrate how a set could be filled with Union-relevant effects without needing the counter strategy.



As I developed the cards more I realized this was a great opportunity to do labor union puns so some of the cards like Revolt Against the Barons and Union Forecaster are flavored accordingly.

sdfkjgh I'll do the full 5-10 if you're interested in humoring this as an entry.

WIP, Expect more entries over time.

EDIT: 10 cards straight from the madhouse. Hope you enjoy.

Can anybody tell if this card works the way intended?

 
 
Anyway here is another card.