entirely safe and fun

(card designs after the jump)

It’s National Novel Writing Month, and while I’d love to participate, I have this job, which takes up about half of my day each day, yadda yadda. It’s not like I have a novel that’s bursting out of me at this point. And anyway, what I admire most about NaNoWriMo isn’t the torrent of mostly cruddy books that result – it’s the expansion of the do-it-yourself ethos to media of which we normally consider ourselves mere consumers. As an old punk, I can hardly stand against the DIY tide as it rises to its annual peak. My outlet: The Great Designer Search, being held by the Wizards of the Coast, makers of Magic: The Gathering. In brief: The most ingenious feature of Magic is that new cards are released about three times a year, guaranteeing Wizards a generous stream of income and satisfying players by giving them effectively a new game to play every few months. Designing so many new cards that are fun is very difficult, and a position on the Magic design team is widely regarded among those who follow games as wildly desirable, a pinnacle of the profession. So, it’s not a Tom Sawyer fence-painting thing if they offer a design job as a prize in a contest. They’ve done so, and fifteen people are in the finals. The competition among them is playing out on the Web for our enjoyment, with a new design task being assigned to the candidates every week or two. Given the level of passion many players develop for the game, and given the high number of smart people who follow it, the Great Designer Search has attracted a large number of people who are playing along at home in a sort of National Card Design Month. I’m in! By the way, if you’ve given this a shot and want to put your results up somewhere, and they won’t fit into a comment, let me know (in a comment); I’ll host anything reasonable. The current challenge is to create three cycles of cards, spanning all five colors, with a randomly selected card type at each rarity. One cycle was required to be tight, one loose, the other as you like, with no repetition of effects across the rarities, and each cycle was to be accompanied with a paragraph on the design philosophy embodied therein. I drew common artifacts (ouch!), uncommon creatures, and rare instants. Here’s my work. Format is: Name (rarity), cost, power/toughness if applicable, type, text.

Seal of Culling (C) 1 Artifact Sacrifice Seal of Culling, sacrifice a creature: Add BBB to your mana pool. Seal of Guidance (C) 1 Artifact Remove Seal of Guidance from the game: Add G to your mana pool. Play this ability only if Seal of Guidance is in your hand. Sacrifice Seal of Guidance: Put a 1/1 green Elf creature token into play. Seal of the Flame Rite (C) 1 Artifact Sacrifice Seal of the Flame Rite: Add R to your mana pool for each card named Seal of the Flame Rite in each graveyard. (Costs are paid before abilities resolve, of course.) Seal of Tides (C) 1 Artifact Sacrifice Seal of Tides: Until end of turn, when you play a mana ability of target land, add U to your mana pool. Seal of Estates (C) 1 Artifact Sacrifice Seal of Estates: Search your library for a Plains card and put it into play. Play this ability only if an opponent controls more lands than you.

Mana artifacts have historically been domestic-sedan boring. I wanted to eschew mere uniformity in favor of evoking flavorful non-artifact mana abilities associated with each color. Some historically uncommon effects have been used here at common, but nothing overpowered, I believe. I like combo potential and have embraced it.

Wonder Twin (U) 2B Creature – Minor Spirit 2/2 Other Wonder Twins you control get +2/+1 and have “B: Regenerate target Wonder Twin.” Whenever you control three or more Wonder Twins, sacrifice them. Wonder Twin (U) 2W Creature – Minor Spirit 2/2 Other Wonder Twins you control have +1/+2 and “W: Target Wonder Twin gains Vigilance until end of turn.” Whenever you control three or more Wonder Twins, sacrifice them. Wonder Twin (U) 2R Creature – Minor Spirit 2/2 Other Wonder Twins you control gain Haste and “R: Target Wonder Twin gets +1/+0 until end of turn.” Whenever you control three or more Wonder Twins, sacrifice them. Wonder Twin (U) 2G Creature – Minor Spirit 2/2 Other Wonder Twins you control get +2/+2. Whenever you control three or more Wonder Twins, sacrifice them. Wonder Twin (U) 2U Creature – Minor Spirit 2/2 Other Wonder Twins you control gain +1/+0 and “U: Target Wonder Twin gains flying until end of turn.” Whenever you control three or more Wonder Twins, sacrifice them.

My “tight” cycle is as tight as they come. The Wonder Twins riff on the Brothers Yamazaki, the Aurochsen, and Slivers. If you get two into play, they’re curve-shattering three-drops; one, on its own, is unexciting but playable and deck-stabilizing. If the Twins available to draft come up short, add:

Wonder Twin (U) 3 Artifact Creature – Minor Construct 2/2 Whenever you control three or more Wonder Twins, sacrifice them.

Finally, the loose cycle of rares:

Dismissimo (R) 2UU Instant As an additional cost to play Dismissimo, remove a spell from the stack. (If the spell is a card, remove it from the game.) Draw a card. Rainissimo (R) 2RR Instant As an additional cost to play Rainissimo, an opponent sacrifices a land. Rainissimo deals 2 damage to target creature or player. Shardissimo (R) 4WW Instant As an additional cost to play Shardissimo, remove X attacking creatures from the game. You gain two times X life. Cachissimo (R) 2GG Instant As an additional cost to play Cachissimo, return a land, creature, artifact, or enchantment card from your graveyard to your hand. Target creature gets +3/+3 and Trample until end of turn. Barterissimo (R) 3BB Instant As an additional cost to play Barterissimo, an opponent sacrifices a creature. Each player sacrifices a creature.

The rares are designed for splashiness. I was eager to hack the idea of what could count as a “cost” for a spell. It’s more elegant than Split Second, requiring no extra rules text anywhere, and embodying my ideal that swinginess should’t require loquacity in the text box.