Soundtrack Game

Jartis Hehe, that's a cool interpretation right there. I also would like to someday visit a plane that has more advanced technology (although on Kaladesh and Ravnica, there are already approaches in this regard to be seen), and you fused the ethereal smoothness of the song with it's modernity into a mystic who pushes buttons to create the beat while using his other hand to spread it with a magical sound.

The card itself however, while balanced, doesn't quite heave this flavour into gameplay. While the theme of different colors fit, +1/+1 counters beefing him up do not as good. Sure, his second ability follows the theme, but it's the first ability that would most often be the key factor, and having just a strong 5/5 body does not really resonate with him being a mystic.

The second ability would also cause too much memory issues, even when the number of colors most often align with the number of +1/+1 counters on him.

Regarding Sunburst and Converge, I think it would be better to remove Sunburst and link both of his abilities to Converge as it seems that Converge pretty much renders Sunburst obsolete (see Skyrider Elf) and it is very confusing having them both on one card.

The reason why Chamber Sentry doesn't have any of those is probably because WotC only spells out abilities in a set if there are enough cards in it which would have this ability, which is not the case in Guilds of Ravnica.

temawimag Wow, this is a really nice design for this. The beat of this song perfectly aligned with the vibe of parkouring people, the everpresent background sound with them having kind of a anti-gravitational boost, and the long etheric sounding „pauses“ with a long glide between two distant buildings, feeling nothing but the wind, sun and freedom until they land on the next ground with the beat reappearing.

Even more important, the card itself oozes this flavour. To parkour, you have to be very vigilant, and to fly, you have to have, well, whatever magic you have. I also like the group vibe of them giving each other a boost which resonates with the picture. And all this into a balanced and cool effect with fun-looking implications.

ameisenmeister
This too is a very well-rounded design I dig. I like to imagine that the more crew members the captain gets to have in his life, the more possibilities he sees when he looks at the horizon. While the flavour, especially carried by the nice flavour text, perfectly aligns with the ethereal parts of the song, I can't really find the other part of the song, the beat, in there as strongly.

Also, I am not a big fan of „flying matters“, but that's just me. But besides that, the effect itself is sweet and balanced.

Regarding my choice of songs, I am probably a little bit too cautious posting tracks with lyrics as I always think that text has the ability to distort the connection with and freedom of interpretation through the melody. But I will see what others will post in the future, and let their choices contribute to my view on what I can post and what not.

Judging a bit early, and I'm not going to leave it into any suspension and just say that kefke was the winner, largely because my problems with the other entries are mostly the same and kefke fills my personal criteria the most.

Whenever I said that I wanted to put a restriction on the entries to not have an accompanying text for design notes, the challenge was to more closely honor the song that was given in terms of mood, instrumentation, vocals, everything. While this does vary from person to person, certain factors did make sense to consider when judging (things like submitting a mono green fog effect for a power metal song wouldn't have gotten you very far, for example). To alleviate this, I gave a song that was a straightforward, aggressive power metal entry.

What it seems like a lot of the entries did, though, was take an interpretation of the chorus and try to adapt that into a card, but for the effects that resulted from it, the entries lost a lot of that speed for more deliberate and slow approach, via a slow effect that punishes libraries and hands. Even if they're mechanically sound, there's not much there to tie it to the fast and powerful instrumentation. There's more to music than the lyrics - some of the best songs in the world don't need them.

For kefke's entry, the only real fault I can see with it is that he chose to make a "you lose the game" effect at uncommon, which is a huge no-no because of how complicated "You lose the game" is. I know that sounds straightforward, the the presence of playing around it requires a do-or-die execution that asks the player to end the game on a single turn. I think that do-or-die feeling is present and apparent in the other stages of the saga, though, and the clear intensity of that final turn by bringing back everything for one final bout compliments the instrumentation almost perfectly while providing the same type of dissonance to the lyrics that makes the song good. If you weren't so foolish before, you probably wouldn't need to risk your game. Maybe you regret throwing your hand away. Maybe your hand is full of regretful cards that you don't want to keep? You don't have much time to decide which, you need to act.

kefke When will this be judged?

I won't be able to do it tonight and tomorrow is reserved for CotW stuff - but if it's not done by then, I'll take care of judging by Tuesday

EDIT: Alright, this challenge is now closed. Please no further changes of entries!

EDIT 2: And (finally) here we go!











Hope you can all agree with my thoughts and judgings concerning it wasn't my own challenge. I did not comment on how the indvidual cards fit the given music, because imho they all did so just fine.

As this song doesn't seem to refer to interpersonal truth but rather to belief as a kind of "personal truth", I thought of the hand as the magic version of one's mind, and of each of the cards as one belief. The converted mana cost indicate how "strongly rooted" or "fundamental" the respective belief is, the lower the "more fundamental". The more radical one is willing to abandon their former beliefs (choosing a low number), the more the inflow of new beliefs surges.

At first I thought that with this song giving a hopeful vibe, would be too dark. But then again, "personal truth" would be strongly connected to black's individualism, and black doesn't have to equal "bad", especially not for the single individual.

Jartis id like the simplicity of your design, but i dont like the stats on the card, like power and thougness. Im not 100% sure but i think nonlegendary creatures dont need to have name. Im giving this contest to Boogymanjunior. I feel your card more accurate to the song, since the song for me present a way of changing your mind thougts. But i wish more people participated. Up to you the new song to create a card. Thanks both for participating

Here's the next one! Have fun!