Custom Card Challenge: Commanders

[BudgetishEDH]

please no commenting on the submissions until the 2 weeks are up

I wouldn’t have asked for feedback had I known there wasn’t supposed to be any discussion. We still haven’t heard yet if we are allowed to edit our submissions. It’s okay if not, but this was my first shot at designing any cards and I found the criticisms they received quite helpful.

[Soren841]

I'm the judge so like

[WWolfe]

Six entries so far guys! Keep 'em coming!

[calebbw]

Here are my submissions:

[BudgetishEDH]

Since I didn't know you couldn't save cards at mtgcardsmith as a guest these are the actual cards I made to go with my submission: https://mtgcardsmith.com/user/MasterD/cards

I did adjust them a little after receiving feedback so if I'm not allowed to alter them you can just ignore the changed parts but at least you'll see how the cards were supposed to look.

[Tyto Gamer]

1. Anoic the cunning guide {2}{r}{r}{g}
    legendary hound warrior
    3/3

    Creatures with morph cost {1} less to cast and to morph.

    If a creature was morphed this turn Anoic gets +1/+1 andfights target opponent creature

2. Vostud the mystical duplicator {3}{r}{u}
    Legendary Minotaur wizard
    3/4

    Instants and sorceries cost {u}{r} less to cast
    Whenever you cast a noncreature spell Vostud deals 2 damage to any target.

3. Civili Gerd the sly hand {2}{w}{b}{b}
    Legendary human advisor
    1/4

    When ever and opponent casts a noncreature spell you may create a treasure token unless they pay {2}

4. Niru Sizis the pondering wanderer {3}{u}{g}
    Legendary Elf druid

    {u}{g}{tap} Target creature gains +2/+2 and flying until end of turn

[WWolfe]

8 submissions with a week left.

[WWolfe]

Any more entries? Just a few days left.

[dexflux]

I'd love to do more, but I'm just allowed four

[MonteTribal]

I'd love to do more, but I'm just allowed four

I know how you feel :p These are my favorite posts

[ApothecaryGeist]

My theme is #CommanderDamageIsRelavent

https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/the-unknown-11


First is The Unknown.  Lets you turn your creatures or your opponent's creatures into your commander.

 https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/thunder-crawler


Then Thunder Crawler uses the amount of commander damage that you have dealt as a vaule for X.  Note that this is functional whether Thunder Crawler is you commander or in the 99.

 https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/martyr-of-the-war


Martyr of the War is a planeswalker.  Note that the "can be your commander" text is not a part of the <-8> ability; there is only so much that mtgcardsmith can do with spacing.  She uses the amount of commander damage that is marked on you as a value for X.  From a rules perspective this is similar to damage being marked on a creature.  It is looking at all of the Commander damage you have received from all players during the game.

https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/anzelya-sword-of-the-king-1


Lastly we have an equipment that can be your commander.  It kinda turns any creature in your deck into your Commander.  mtgcardsmith does not do the mono-color hybrid mana symbols.  The equip cost is each one of them, much like the mana cost of Reaper King.  This gives it a 5-color identity while being technically colorless, much like Morophon, the Boundless.  Rules note:  If the creature it is attached to has a damage modifying ability, like lifelink, deathtouch, or trample, An'Zelya will effectively negate that ability as the sword is dealing the damage now and not the creature.  (Unless of course you can somehow give that ability to this equipment.)

#CommanderDamageIsRelavent

I would have liked to have iterated on these a little more, but … deadlines.

----------------------------------------
judging stops here

As a bonus, for your viewing pleasure … the planeswalker decks usually include a mana rock each year (like Commander's Sphere.)  Here's the one I would like to see (although I am very excited about Arcane Signet)

https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/commanders-banner


Edit:  I apparently do not know what function to use to get the images to show directly in the post.  Sorry.

Edit: images from cardsmith added in.  Thanks for the help.

[Judaspriester]

Edit:  I apparently do not know what function to use to get the images to show directly in the post.  Sorry.

use [ img][ /img] tags (just remove the leading space).
Example:


an alt option would be adding them as attachment: Below the text box, "Attachments and other options", Expand it by clicking on the + and pick them for upload.

/edit: I hope at least this type of feedback is allowed. 

[ORCH1D]

The idea for my submission came from a reddit post (or it could've been posted here, I can't remember) trying to predict the next commander set. We had tribe maters in 2017, we had type matters in 2018 (apart from Aminatou, for some reason), and so why not do zone matters? Now, there are 7 zones in Magic: The Gathering, and only 4 slots for commander precons, but that doesn't matter, because it was pretty clear which ones I would leave out:
- The command zone: This is where your commander (and emblems) go. That is it's purpose. I don't think that there is much that I could design that doesn't mess with a lot of rules.
- The stack: One of the great design rules of Magic: The Gathering is "Don't mention the stack!", this is because alot of players don't know what it is and interacting with it can get confusing. Any other way of wording a card that makes the stack "matter" still kinda runs into the reason this rule is implemented, so I didn't do this.
- The library: This one is less you couldn't do it and more it would slow gameplay, as commander has 100 card decks and who wants to constantly have a deck count with that number of cards?

So, that means our remaining zones are the hand, the graveyard, exile and the battlefield. That leads me to the designs(all of which are attached at the bottom)

Belbe, Phyrexian Cyborg is my hand matters commander, and it's a colourless one! I've heard a lot of people talk about wanting a colourless commander that isn't a big eldrazi, and so here it is. Her first ability is what I came up with first out of all the commander's abilities. It's probably the most unique colourless specific ability I could think of and leads very well into hand matters, as it's more mana for more cards for more mana! The second ability is inspired by Belbe's Armor, with extra hand matters flavour ontop. I'm happiest with this one.

Chainer, Nightmare Incarnate is my graveyard matters commander. Chainer already has a card, but it's pretty old so I thought it acceptable to make a new one (and they included saheeli in C18 so, you know.) Chainer is a primarily black character, but I thought that red and blue weren't too much of a stretch for his character, so I gave him grixis colours. There are plenty of commanders that interact with the graveyard, but less that "care" about the graveyard, so the second ability is to give him something unique to do and summons nightmares, which is super flavourful. The first ability is also flavourful (his opponents are going insane as their creatures die around them) and acts as a good enabler for graveyard shenanigans.

Friggera, Avacyn's Scourge is my exile matters commander. I thought I'd take a stab at designing the mysterious fourth angel sister and it turns out designing an exile matters and a graveyard matters commander in the same set is really difficult, so this one has been through a few different iterations. What I ended up with is a kinda voltron commander that also cares about the exile, which I'm not super happy with. The mana cost, the power toughness and the flying and death touch are to link it to Gisela, Bruna and Sigarda as her angel sisters. The cost reduction is kinda to justify the fact that she's pretty expensive and links her to the theme, and the second ability is the best way I could think of to have her enable the theme without hating out Chainer too much.

Zaliki, Naya's Regent is my battlefield matters commander. I would've liked to make this a boros commander, but I didn't have green in any of my commanders and I couldn't have someone who is linked to Naya and not have them be green too. Zaliki is the last one that I had an initial design for, because, while battlefield matters is easy to design a ability for, a lot of ways to do this don't feel super unique and fun. The design I ended up with is kinda group-huggy, but I think that this is a good "everyone benefits but I benefit more" rather than a bad "I'm gonna drag this game out and eventually someone will win." By caring about the least number of creatures a player controls, it creates a unique playstyle that you won't find with any other commander and makes Zaliki worth playing.

Those are my submissions. I might not be able to access MSE or deckstats in the next week, so if I don't reply to feedback just take this as my final design.

A quick word about art (if anyone cares), I am aware that Chainer is from the original art, I couldn't find anything else of good quality to use as art instead, and it turns out that I am very bad at it. The artist credit on Belbe might be wrong. I think it is from the book Nemesis, and the illustrator on that book was Mark Zug. so that is what I went with for the credit. MTG wiki is bad at citing it's art sources, ok? I'm not sure if Zaliki's art has been on a card or not, I just googled "leonin art" (even though she is a nacatl but whatever) and that is what came up. Friggera has correct artist credit and definitely hasn't been on a card, so that's fine.

[Morganator 2.0]

If there are anymore people that wish to participate, do so now. The contest ends tomorrow.

[robort]

Great submissions but sorry guys nothing from me but again great ideas