Soundtrack Game

viriss' entry made me realize that using a quote from the lyric would be more bamf, so I will try to add it later, but I think this suits:

The fiendish tales, all the myths are true

Well...it's technically been a week now, and while there's a few hours to go, I'm up right now. I'm going to weigh the possibility of more entries coming in against the rate at which the current entries came in.

Alright, we've got a decision from the judges, and I say I'm going to go ahead and start the music, and the judging.


Jartis: An interesting take to make a variant Forest. Temporary exile is normally White, but I think that flavour trumps colour here, and the use as a combat trick definitely feels more Green. The concept of an attacker wandering into the woods and then finding themselves back home with a chunk of time missing and no idea how they got there does a good job of evoking the feeling of something mysterious going on. With it triggering ETB effects, counting as a basic land type, and generating mana, though, it is a strictly better Maze of Ith, which was already a pretty strong card, and a rare (uncommon in its initial printing, but always at least rare since).

Tesagk: I sure do get a sense of menace from this card. Which is a little impressive, considering its effects are fairly mild. I think that comes down to the aspect of recursion, though. Recursion can lead to stale gameplay, but the use here, looming in sight and fuelled by death - and more importantly, giving the opponent more opportunity to respond and break the cycle - elevates that a bit. The choice of colour not only makes sense, but also means having access to lots of sacrifice effects to fuel the recursion condition, which helps with what would otherwise be a fairly overcosted card. Though, being an Enchantment with ETB means it also has to do its work on your main phase, regardless of when you retrieve it. Even with it being a bit wordy already, this card is balanced conservatively enough that I actually think it would have been improved by giving it flash.

viriss: I had to read this one a few times to get where the flavour was going, but I think I get it. It feels like you were going for a warrior gaining knowledge of what came before and using it to become stronger, which I actually like. It has a pretty simple design, which is good at common. Cost wise, three mana isn't great when you get a 1/1 out of it, but fantastic value as you get more permanents out. It's interesting that it cares about opponents' cards as well. That lessens the hoops you have to jump through to get good value, though it also means that it can punish opponents in an unexpected/unpredictable way. I'm not sure how I feel about it being an ETB effect, since it means there's bound to be a lot of second guessing about the right time to play the card, but at the same time I'd be interested in seeing what other effects could be tied to the Lore Seeker ability word. A last, minor nitpick, though..."Tribal" isn't actually classified as a permanent type.

gateways7: Theming here feels pretty strong. It's literally setting up a legendary battle. I worry a little about power level, but CMC 2 for fight with a bonus is within the realm of reasonable. The main issue, I think, comes from not being able to properly evaluate glorifying in a vacuum. I like the concept of a creature that would die being immortalized and its "legacy" carrying on, but how useful it is will depend a lot. In certain matchups, turning a troublesome creature into an enchantment could be a win condition. In others, it might mean very little. Also, the fact that the glorifying is what happens if you lose the fight means that there's essentially two versions of this card - one where you snipe an opponent's creature, and one where you sacrifice a creature to create an enchantment with its abilities. Ultimately, I think it's probably an okay balance, but might be a bit too confusing / advanced a card to be at common.

temawimag: Not to worry about getting in your card a bit later! You were still well within the cutoff. Mechanically, I'd say this is a fairly solid card. Essentially Boomerang, trading a narrower focus and need to split your mana base to give a little more tactical setup. The flavour...feels a little disjointed. We've got a good "spooky" name and art, and flavour text lifted from the song (a common trend, though by no means a requirement), but I'm not really able to wrap my head around how it all ties together. Is the creature being bounced the apparition? Is the apparition causing them to go missing? Am I scrying because I'm so confused at what just happened? Am I investigating what happened? Is that why science is providing explanations? I do find this card mysterious, but I don't think it's for the intended reasons. I can tell you have a good grasp of mechanics, and that you got some inspiration from the music, but it feels like it didn't quite jell.


After considering all the entries, I pick viriss as the winner. Congratulations!

I'm not sure why, but the idea that most resonated with me listening to this song was a young Tamiyo, her spark not yet awakened.



I'm not happy with the art, but it's the best I could find.

temawimag I'd consider a legendary fog!

viriss - Nudge here too.

Thanks for the win! The next song:




Your Challenge: Design a non-creature card.

If I won the challenge before the last, I was going to submit Voice in the Dark, so a little Blind Guardian is more than welcome.



I'd like to think that if this card was printed, the set would have a token for it that just has a punchout for like the Amonkhet tokens, except for the entire rules box so that you could just slip it over legendary card.

(As a side note, can anyone tell me where this art is used? I found the art for this card by searching Shannon Associates and noticed a few of their artists worked on MtG cards).

There was honestly only one thing that song could bring to mind. I just had to pick the right part of the story.

Song of the Forgotten  
Instant
Creatures you control get +1/+1 until end of turn, then put a +1/+1 counter on each face-down creature you control.

Thanks!

Since the song I was going to submit before was from Blind Guardian, let's not not do them again. In fact, let's go the complete opposite direction from folk metal and power metal.



(This one might be 9 minutes, but I won't blame you guys for only looking at the first 6 or so. If you're worried about there not being any lyrics to inspire you, take a listen to a certain track from an album Jon helped produce. If you can understand why I'm using the original instrumentation instead of the Coldplay song which sampled this, then you're probably going to do well in this round. ).

Beautiful song.



So, let me go over my thought process here. The melody of the song has this dreamy quality to it. I was put in mind of faraway places and a journey to adventure. The tempo suggested racing along toward one's destination, and the beat reminded me of the clatter of rails from the times I rode trains when I was younger. Combining all of that gave me the idea of a magical train, able to go places that no one has ever been before. I modelled the card after the trains in Kaladesh, especially the Untethered Express, but using Explore, coupled with an inability to block, to capture the idea of visiting new places and deliberate trailblazing, rather than just being a runaway train.