Card of the Week Contest #253: It goes both ways

This actually gave me a chance to explore a little more with a concept I came up with elsewhere on these boards. The idea is that Implements are special, powerful items that only a planeswalker can use, either because they're too strong to control or because it takes a planeswalker's spark to draw out their power. I've been looking for ways to show that kind of mythical power. Enter my submission for this week, a deadly weapon fit for the Reaper himself (herself?). Dodge as long as you can, no one can, no one can escape death forever, and eventually the spirit of the scythe will manifest to take matters into its own hands, hunting until it finally kills its prey and returns to its slumber.

Mechanically, this gave me some trouble. I knew pretty much right away how I wanted the changing back and forth to work, and that was definitely going to be one of the two abilities I gave it. That left me one active ability and a passive on the planeswalker artifact side to work with, going off of the basic rules I've established for myself on how I want to design these. I knew the passive was going to have to "reset" the planeswalker side, though. (I couldn't find a ruling on if loyalty counters would be lost when a planeswalker transforms into a non-planeswalker, so I went off of how a double-faced planeswalker works instead.) So that left me just an active to play with. I wanted it to be powerful, but aside from "One plus ability, one minus, and a passive.", one of the other rules I've given myself for designing Implements is that offensive abilities are the player "attacking", and so the "defending" player needs to have a way to respond to it. Originally, I went with a mana cost to save the creature, but it felt unsatisfying. Mechanically, it was sound, but thematically the weapon was getting "hungrier" whether it got "fed" or not. The next version was a straight "Destroy target untapped creature you don't control unless it's controller puts a loyalty counter on THIS.", but that didn't feel like much of a choice. I just couldn't think of many situations where someone wouldn't prefer to get the transformation out of the way to continuing to lose creatures. I added the tap condition basically to give it a sunk cost, changing the choice from "keep the creature or delay the transform" to "keep a creature you can't use right now or delay the transform". I'm still not 100% on it, but it's already pretty wordy.

Edit: Following people's feedback, I made the alternative to killing your creature a little nastier, and the avatar of death a little nastier, so that people might have more reason to let their creatures die, and you might get more value out of the creature before it changes back.

I'm thinking of a flippable Saga. But I think I'll have to hack something together to make that work.

Edit: I don't have a Saga DFC, I did some photoshop.

Everlasting Chalice
Artifact
: You gain 1 life.
At the beginning of your end step, if ~ is in your graveyard or in exile, return it to the battlefield transformed.
//
Cursed Chalice
Artifact
: Target opponent loses 1 life.
At the beginning of your end step, if ~ is in your graveyard or in exile, return it to the battlefield transformed.

Edit: Fleur I forgot this game is bullshit (still love it) and stuff like that exists.  Thanks.
Also bumped it down to common.

I made this card a coulpe of days ago for a set/block I'm currently working on. It comes from the last part of the story so I don't know if it would have ever seen the light if I hadn't submitted it here. By the way, the second half is red just for flavor/story reasons.

Fleur I actually had a lot of concern about that, as I mentioned. I did consider what I could do to make it more of a dilemma, and I may yet make changes before the end of the week. I'd say that this is a product of prototyping it so quickly. It's definitely something I need to give thought to.

Here is my entry for which I will probably make some art. Feedback on the design (and flavor text) is appreciated, as I've never made a transforming card.

One of the Masses
Creature - Human Horror
Skulk (This creature can't be blocked by creatures with greater power.)
Tap two untapped Humans you control: Transform ~.
It goes among the people, its suppressed instincts choosing who is next.
0/2

That Which Murders
 Creature - Horror
Menace (This creature can't be blocked except by two or more creatures.)
, : Destroy target creature. Transform ~.
It forgets its humanity, letting loose its horrors. Then it takes another's.
2/2

Entry: (New balancing. Up the rarety and took of one damage on the ETB/transform trigger.)

Awesome! I have a card in the set I'm working on that completely fits this bill! It's simple, yet elegant and powerful. A 1/1 for 1 white flyer isn't unheard of in MtG, but it can spawn a potential blocker after it dies and eventually revert back to it's original form. A pretty decent common card to fill out any white set. The Legacy ability (Whenever this would be put into the graveyard from the stack or the battlefield, transform it and place it into your hand.) was always intended to be one directional with an eventual path towards the graveyard/exile but with a 'comeback'. With this card, Legacy is on both sides; allowing it to continually bounce back and forth.

Boogymanjunior I can't help but notice the "transform him" in the card text. As a general rule, cards don't use gendered pronouns.

Tesagk I believe when you change your entry, you're supposed to put the edit in the same post, and spoiler the old entry.

My apologies for missing the intent, then.

I think personally that it loses a bit of its identity in this version. The older version felt a bit more flavourful to me, with the Rise side being all about growth, and the Fall side being all about loss and decline. This version of it feels a lot more muddled, with diminishing effects on the Rise side, and growth on the Fall side. Also, I don't know if this was intended (since both versions were this way), but as written it would transform back to the Rise side and then just die anyway since it still has three counters.