Set Theme Game

Have to link it as an image from the external site. If you upload the image, my assumption is that the forum keeps it with a maximum size limit, shrinking the card if it's too big.

All right, it’s Judgment time. This was a bit of an Odyssey, but eventually I got here.
I sincerely apologize for the puns, and to prove it, I’m not going to make a Torment pun.

Anyway:
kefke: Gravesoil Cultivator


Jartis: Consecrate


viriss: Woodland Familiar


Tesagk: Angel of Memory


augur: Rampaging Fireweaver


ameisenmeister: Wormfang Devourer


Winners:

Interesting choice.

fixed missing artist credit

Tainted Talisman
Artifact
*Φ*
: Add . You lose 1 life.
“Their tools and artisans may be gone, but their creations still linger.” —Elspeth Tirel

I'll go ahead and say that my odd choice of set probably contributed to low turnout.

Tesagk Setting up a child to one of the canon resistance members is a great way to tie your submission to the lore. Very Future Sight-esque. It's clever how the double-strike and cost mirror the original. The anti-infect design is a good way to represent Mirrodin being purged of Phyrexian influence. Metalcraft is a good way to reinforce the Mirrodin influence of the card, though I do note that when the Metalcraft effect is active, it can be a downside as well as an upside.

viriss This has a really cohesive design. Coloured artifact, very green type and abilities, good choice of art. I see that real-world flavour text, though. In any case, interesting choice to make the deathtouch only affect non-artifacts. I suppose it fits with Mirrodin artifact love, but it still feels weird to see.

Jartis Very flavourful card. Possibly very strong, though. I think that, especially in a block with a lot of artifacts, the option to indefinitely steal an artifact every turn is a definite game changer. Possibly too strong, and I'd say certainly undercosted, even before taking its flexibility and grave retrieval into account.

gluestick248 Interesting inversion. I like the flavour text, and the idea of a Phyrexian version of the Pristine Talisman is certainly clever. The lower cost and life loss is a good parallel to the original, though I think that compared to other mana-producing artifacts, it's a bit too high cost for what you get.

gateways7 This is an interesting design. Again, we see the infect hate, which I still think is a good mechanic for rebuilding Mirrodin. Overall, a very solid design, and not much I can really say about it. I like that while it prevents the permanent power-down from -1/-1 counters, there's still a negative rather than just turning it into a pure positive. That does a good job of showing the creatures powering through on pure anger, rather than being completely unaffected.


In the end, I pick Tesagk as overall winner for this round.

I may have went a little crazy on this one.



EDIT: Since other people are explaining their logic, maybe I should explain mine. I decided to be my usual oddball self, and rather than predicting the existence of a card, predict the lack of one. Unless the latest set proves me wrong, Ravnican lammassu have appeared on only one card ever, and then never again, implied to have been hunted to extinction by some unknown Black horror. I liked the idea that some of them would have sought protection, and struck some kind of deal with the the Boros for it.

Maybe not a "prediction," but more of a "pastshift."

24 hour last call.

Thanks Tesagk - My thought process on costing the effect was that Banding used to be considered fine for 1-drop commons, so a stripped-down version would probably have been okay at roughly the value of Vigilance in rare.


I think I'd like to go with one of my favourite sets this time around and visit Coldsnap.
And for an extra condition, something I think WotC R&D could have done when replacing Homelands: The card should be something that isn't "on colour" any more, but used to be (such as green faeries).

kefke How would you suggest we go about finding out what used to be in color but isn't anymore? Seems like too abstract of a thing to be able to easily search.

There's a few resources that can help with that. Obviously, you could just pick an old set and skim through cards for inspiration (Ice Age, Alliances, and Homelands would be the obvious ones to look at, being the original block). I'm assuming you want a bit more of a guidepost to work from, though. The first place I would suggest to look is at Mark Rosewater's "The Great Mix-Up" articles from Planar Chaos, actually. They don't directly talk much about things the colours used to do, really, but they offer a lot of insight into the concept of "things a colour could have done, but doesn't", which can help give an idea. For a more direct answer, though, the Small Change and Working Your Core articles might be exactly what you're looking for. Ultimately, it's going to have to be a bit of a gut thing, though. WotC is known to bend and shuffle the pie when it's appropriate for a set, and you kind of have to have a working knowledge of both old and new sets to see where trends have changed over time - which, honestly is a skill that's important for this game anyway, since you never know what set and its associated design philosophies you might get thrown.

EDIT: As a caveat, it doesn't have to be something a colour never does any more, just something that isn't normally done any more. For example, White still gets some cards to deal with artifacts, but not as good as they used to be.

Both of those links are broken.