Welcome to the second NGA Chopped tournament! Where everything's made up, and the points don't matter. Except they do, especially if you end up being a finalist.
Each round will consist of a number of criteria and a lesser number of cards to made. Each contestant must use every criteria, but not necessarily in equal amounts on each card. Submissions are due at 4PM MST each Saturday, grades and the next round's criteria will be posted at that same time. At the end of each round, the bottom 1/4 of scoring contestants will be eliminated, rounded to the nearest even number. The final round will be graded, then each surviving contestant's cumulative grades will be compared to choose a winner.
If you have questions about whether or not something fits the criteria during any round, merely write an explanation why you think what you made does. Provided the explanation is not too absurd and/or gaming the system, I'll allow it. That said, I will be available at least once a day to provide clarifications. In your submission, please indicate which criteria are fulfilled by which card. If you wish to accompany your cards with notes regarding them in the manner of Yarium last season, that is welcome and in keeping with how the reality TV show operates. Don't feel pressured to do so, if you don't want to.
Now that all that is out of the way, let's get started.
Round 1
Make 2 cards that together satisfy these criteria:
* Is a public service announcement * Is black * Is an equipment * Related to bluffing
Now, I've never had any fancy training like some of these other designers, but I've been playing Magic and designing cards since the game came out. I think some of these other designers are going to underestimate me, but I can use that to my advantage to get an edge over the competition. I've created my own sets and won cotw multiple times, not to mention being a Pro Tour Champ, but now I want to add Chopped Champion to my list of accomplishments. I'm just saying, these other designers had better watch out, because I'm coming for them.
Black Bluffer
Tavern Shark Creature ─ Human Rogue (R) Tavern Shark can't be blocked. Whenever Tavern Shark attacks, exile a card from your hand face down. Defending player may exile a card from their hand. If they do, reveal the card exiled by Tavern Shark. If your card has a higher converted mana cost, defending player loses two life and you draw two cards. Otherwise, sacrifice Tavern Shark. 5/5
Public Service Announcement Equipment:
Scroll of the Town Crier Artifact ─ Equipment (R) Equipped creature gains ": Each player draws a card." Equip Hear ye! Hear ye!
Perfect originality is overrated and often ugly. The best and most beautiful cards I've ever seen were clearly inspired by something else. Cards are not entirely unlike living organisms in this regard. All the good ones are a result of long evolution; the 'original' ones are either mono-cellular or mutant aberrations.
Cato
A true warrior seeks out the greatest foe. Their heart cries out for glorious battle, heedless even to its own end.
Last edited by Dudibus on Sun Oct 14, 2018 7:12 am, edited 5 times in total.
Hey y'all! It's Yarium, back again in kitchen stadium/hell's kitchen/the octagon/bachelor mansion/the island. I was robbed of my victory last time, but this time I won't let anyone get in my way. So Tevish? Watch out! (bang bang fingers towards the camera, which then shakes for some reason)
Bring Out The Dead | Sorcery | {R} Each player sacrifices a creature, then return a creature card from each player's graveyard to the battlefield under your control. "Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee." —Ernest Hemmingway
Notes: This design was made as the public service announcement classic "BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!", and gave into that naturally dead-feeling by making it a black card. This card can function just fine in most environments, where it's not hard to use it for a 3-for-1 advantage, but goes really crazy good in multiplayer games where you can bring back insanely effective creatures.
Pocket Aces | Artifact - Equipment | {C} Equip (: Attach Pocket Aces to target creature you control. Equip only any time you could cast a sorcery.) Equipped creature gets +1/+0. Discard Pocket Aces: The next time you clash this turn, you win. (This does not affect an opponent's clash.)
Notes: Who said anything about bluffing? Making your opponent think you have the weaker hand, when really it's the strongest, is part of bluffing. This card would be part of a gambling or circus/carnival style set that brings back clash as a means of "playing cards" in a set-themed way.
_________________
Quote:
"If you refuse to use rock, you will never beat scissors." — Galef, Dakka Dakka Forums
Last edited by Yarium on Sun Oct 14, 2018 6:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
My name is Libe. I have a doctorate in Flavor Sciences from Princeton University, a degree in Common Design from Harvard, another in Evergreen Mechanical Engineering, along with twelve other card design related degrees.
Really, you shouldn't even be talking to me.
PSA/Black:
Fatal Crossing Instant (U) If you control a Vehicle creature, this spell costs less to cast. Destroy target creature. Kolas learned too late to always look both ways before crossing a street in Ghirapur.
Equipment/Bluffing:
Mirrorblade Artifact -- Equipment (R) Equipped creature gets +2/+2. : Reveal an equipment card from your hand with converted mana cost X. If you do, Mirrorblade becomes a copy of it until end of turn. Equip
Rejoice, for I have decided to post in this thread.
Tangleglue Trap () Enchantment (U) As Tangleglue Trap is turned face up, exile all creatures blocking or blocked by it until Tangleglue Trap leaves the battlefield. Morph "A warning to thieves and robbers: Open at your own risk." - Message posted on the side of all shipments from Mercantis Harbor
Graverobber's Gear Artifact - Equipment (R) Equipped creature has skulk. Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to an opponent, exile a creature card from that player's graveyard. If you can't, sacrifice Graverobber's Gear and create an X/X black Zombie token, where X is the number of cards that have been exiled with Graverobber's Gear. Equip "I could really use a hand right now." - Iborn, Grafstitcher
Joined: Mar 14, 2015 Posts: 2253
Preferred Pronoun Set: he/him
Something in the Water — Enchantment — Aura (U) Enchant land Whenever mana produced by enchanted land is spent to cast a creature spell, that spell gains "This enters the battlefield with a -1/-1 counter on it." : Create a token that's a copy of Something in the Water attached to target land. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.
Stealthy Blade — Artifact — Equipment (U) Equipped creature gets +2/+2. When Stealthy Blade is turned face up, you may attach it to target creature you control. Equip Morph
Second card is subject to change. Feels kinda uninspired, but it's pretty solid.
is black, I would argue that mtg is a game of bluffing anyway
Concealed Tutor - Sorcery Search your library for a card, shuffle your library and put that card on top of your library. Then, look at the top three cards of your library, manifest one of them and put the rest on top of your library in any order.
Public announcement and equipment
Goblin Loud Hailer - Artifact - Equipment Equipped creature has ": Target creature can't block this turn and attacks this turn if able." Equip Some would argue it is an improvement.
Roguish Feint Instant As an additional cost to cast Trickster's Feint, exile an instant or sorcery spell you control. When you cast Trickster's Feint, it becomes a copy of the exiled spell. "Didn't see that coming, did you?" - Indigo the Dashing
Oblivion Engine Artifact - Equipment Equipped creature gets +2/+1 and has Deathtouch and Menace. Equip Equip to Vehicle "Attention, denizens of New Phyrexia! We have been compleated!" - Elesh Norn
Joined: Jun 04, 2014 Posts: 13479 Location: Freedom
Preferred Pronoun Set: they
ok let's friggin' do this.
so equipments are artifacts and I'm still opposed to colored artifacts, which means we can sort the criteria into two buckets: black and equipment. related to bluffing seems like a good fit for black, but I'm not really sure what a public service announcement looks like in card form. let's stick it on the black pile too, I have an idea.
Out Past Curfew- Instant Secretly choose a creature. When that creature attacks, blocks, or activates an ability this turn, you may reveal the creature you chose and destroy it. "I wouldn't be out this late if I were you."
Artificer's Tools- Artifact Equipped creature has ", : You may put an artifact card from your hand onto the battlefield." and doesn't untap during its controller's untap step. Equip "The work consumes."~Note in the margins of a text by Archyron, the Illuminated Sage
The BLOCK I'm currently pretending I'll finish:Fleets Of Ossia (complete!) | Wavebreak (complete!) | The Second Flood (in progress!) Razorborne and friends teach music theory to chumps like you:12tone
Public service announcement plus bluffing Storm predictor Creature-Human shaman(R) Your opponents can't cast cards from their hand during your turn. When cardname enters the battlefield and at the beginning of your upkeep, your opponents may exile any number of cards from their hand facedown, they can cast these cards until the end of turn. "Don't leave your house tomorrow, I repeat, don't leave your house tomorrow!" 3/2
Considered making it a 1 mana 2/1 but having to point a removal spell to get rid of the effect probably felt too bad for the opponent. Also considered using Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir's second ability and having it trigger every turn, but given that you can still bluff having combat tricks only to cast something mp2 it felt too much bookkeeping for too little gain.
Black and equipment Necromancer tome Artifact-Equipment(R) Equipped creature gains "morbid- : create a tapped 2/2 black zombie creature token, activate this ability only if a creature died this turn.". Equip .
I like the idea of colored equipments and vehicles ( I like the idea of enchantments and creatures being reflavored as artifacts less) I tried to make my card rewarding for heavy black decks by keeping the generic mana costs to a minimum, which also allows it to be more exciting without however being too broken in draft where you probably still want two colored decks and are hard pressed to squeeze more than 2 activations in a turn.
Tavern Shark - Despite the bluffing minigame, this feels really unfun to play against. Your opponent has maybe 2 chances to kill it through the bluff, and each time will be losing a high cost card. It's be one thing if the losing card returns to its owner's hand, but Tavern Shark also gives you card draw, so you have a better chance of winning the next bluff as well. All of this would be fine on something with power 3 or so, but 5 puts your opponent on a very short clock, so they have to play the bluff every time. 7/10 Scroll of the Town Crier - The flavor is a little funky. So you have an army pass around the same scroll, but each one uses the opportunity to shout something they want to announce? That's actually kinda funny. 7.5/10 Total: 14.5/20
Yarium
Bring Out The Dead - It's nice to see a rare level siphon spell, and that does look fun in multiplayer. Unfortunately, the flavor is rather muddled. "Bring out your dead!" was for collecting the corpses of plague victims. You might be able to spin the mechanics of the card as a necromancer collecting the dead and reanimating them, but the quote does nothing to suggest this. And while it is a good quote, it doesn't really have anything to do with the card, aside from talking about death. 7/10 Pocket Aces - I said something about bluffing . That said, I wish this would work on an opponent's clash, though I guess that gets around your opponent also activating their pocket aces. The unfortunate thing here is, this card being an equipment feels like a sort of cycling, that is, if you can't use it for the specialized purpose, you can at least get some utility out of it. That's not a good thing, when the entire card aside from one ability is the cycling option. 6/10 Total: 13/20
Libe
Fatal Crossing - Mechanically, fine. The flavor is kinda odd, though. If you don't have a vehicle, do you create the impression of vehicular homicide? Or maybe bribe a car driver to run over the creature? And while "look both ways before crossing the street" is a psa message, it is not delivered, and someone not following that message would hardly count as a psa. 7.5/10 Mirrorblade - Bluffing with your untapped mana and cards in hand, neat. It would take a little set up to get going, but I could see this forcing some hard decisions for opponents. Not to mention circumventing costly equip costs, this looks fun in a "build around me" sort of way. 8.5/10 Total: 16/20
Silly
Tangleglue Trap - As oblivion ring variants go, this is pretty cool. I also like the image of caravans of morph creatures, some of which are traps, some are cargo, some are guards or something. 10/10 Graverobber's Gear - While I like the flavor of sneaking into a graveyard, and eventually coming out with a big zombie dressed in those robes, the mechanics don't quite follow this. If it triggered on exiling the last creature card in that graveyard, that would be better. 9/10 Total: 19/20
Q is 564453
Something in the Water - While I do like these sorts of land contamination effects, and the decision on whether to double up or spread out, this is not a PSA. 7.5/10 Stealthy Blade - Yeah, pretty much. 6.5/10 Total: 14/20
Confused
Concealed Tutor - Makes me wish more than manifested creature cards could be turned face up. I do like how you can prepare for the manifestation, and have some self bounce to use the tutored card right away. My only complaint is that the flavor is rather bland. 8.5/10 Goblin Loud Hailer - Very goblin, much megaphone. Not really sure what it's supposed to be an improvement on, though the art would probably clarify that somewhat. 9/10 Total: 17.5/20
EpicLevelCommoner
Roguish Feint - There's niche, and then there's niche. This should either be cantripped, or cost less. Is there any other use than in case of counterspell? How is a roguish feint different from a normal one, or more relevantly, a wizard's feint? 5.5/10 Oblivion Engine - I like the difference in equip costs according to the degree of artificiality. The keywords are suitable to the flavor of being compleated. Feels weird that compleation is an equipment that can be added or removed at will. Not really sure how the name relates to anything here. 8.5/10 Total: 14/20
razorborne
Out Past Curfew - What's the point of secretly choosing a creature, just say "For one creature this turn, when a creature does things you may destroy it", and- (Stalking Leonin)- WotC, you are dumb. At any rate, I like that this is a statement of curfew, and that it makes your opponent play around it in interesting ways. 9/10 Artificer's Tools - I like the mystique around the tools, though I wish it had an artificer tribal exception on the drawback. The idea of tools using you isn't exactly uncommon, but I like the subtly here. 10/10 Total: 19/20
Hello World
Storm predictor - It seems fairly rare that a card you own one-sidedly gives your opponent a chance to bluff. The name is painfully bad, and the flavor text feels like it's set in modern times. Ironically, I wouldn't be opposed to an ultramundane setting described in magic card terms, such that a weather man would be a shaman. But, without a greater context, this is rather jarring. Lastly, I know green has access to tef's second ability, but the rest of the card makes it feel blue, or possibly red. Some sort of multicolor is necessary, to get that pseudo-discard. 6.5/10 Necromancer tome - I like the flavor of something dying, and then a whole bunch of people using this opportunity to twist life and death to get themselves a zombie. The high cost of black mana to keep this going makes it feel almost ritual-like, with the tome as a catalyst. 10/10 16.5/20
EDIT: Yarium is eliminated. Thank you for playing.
In light of the current number of contestants, the number of eliminated contestants each round will be the closest whole number to (total)/4. This would not result in a difference until total = 5, and at total = 3 there otherwise would be no eliminations, which makes the old algorithm somewhat pointless.
At any rate, _________________________________________________________
Round 2:
Make 2 cards that together satisfy these criteria:
* Disenchant variant * Includes an element of chance without using coins or the word "random" * Is a non-black skeleton * Uses X or in some way.
The BLOCK I'm currently pretending I'll finish:Fleets Of Ossia (complete!) | Wavebreak (complete!) | The Second Flood (in progress!) Razorborne and friends teach music theory to chumps like you:12tone
Oh, I understand. I'm just saying the "choose secretly" effectively operates on an honor system, which should either be recorded, or have it be ambiguous which you will kill in any case. Like this sort of wording: "Secretly choose a creature and record that choice. When that creature attacks, blocks, or activates an ability this turn, you may reveal the creature you chose and destroy it." or "When a creature attacks, blocks, or activates an ability this turn, you may choose that creature and destroy it. You may only choose one creature this way."
Perfect originality is overrated and often ugly. The best and most beautiful cards I've ever seen were clearly inspired by something else. Cards are not entirely unlike living organisms in this regard. All the good ones are a result of long evolution; the 'original' ones are either mono-cellular or mutant aberrations.
Cato
A true warrior seeks out the greatest foe. Their heart cries out for glorious battle, heedless even to its own end.
Rattling Bonewalker Artifact Creature - Skeleton Construct (U) Trample Delve Rattling Bonewalker enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters on it. When metal is scarce, some artificers turn their eyes towards more... creative materials. 0/0
Creeping Growth Instant (U) Destroy target artifact or enchantment. Then, reveal the top card of your library. If it's a land card, return Creeping Growth to your hand. They try their best with wards and barricades, but nature is nothing if not persistent.
...that's what I get for numbering the standings this way. Well, rather than flip a coin or something, Q and ELC are back in. Thanks for the catch, Yarium.
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: Each player draws a card."
: Reveal an equipment card from your hand with converted mana cost X. If you do, Mirrorblade becomes a copy of it until end of turn.
) 
. That said, I wish this would work on an opponent's clash, though I guess that gets around your opponent also activating their pocket aces. The unfortunate thing here is, this card being an equipment feels like a sort of cycling, that is, if you can't use it for the specialized purpose, you can at least get some utility out of it. That's not a good thing, when the entire card aside from one ability is the cycling option. 6/10