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The first installment of this series, in which I play along at home with the Great Designer Search, is here. Card designs are after the jump.

In this installment of the Great Designer Search, contestants were challenged to create ten cards to fill ten very specific holes in a set design. Furthermore, those designs had to work with art that had already been completed for the killed cards. The rules did permit designers to shuffle the art around among the cards. Fitting the designs to art was really hard, and I’m not sure that I did very well on it. To see each card with the art I selected, click the card’s name. I’ve saved my defense of some of my choices for the 150-word statement allowed the designers. In advance, I’d like to say that the Forms are my favorite two designs, and could be the seeds of a megacycle with old favorite Form of the Dragon. Form of the Child, in particular, is the result of a question I’ve been thinking about for a long time: how little mana can be charged for the effect “You win the game,” and how easy can the the concomitant requirements be? It is meant to be an ultimate high-wire act of deck design, and an homage to two great cards in Magic history, Form of the Dragon and Little Girl.

Form of the Conspiracy BBB Enchantment As you play Form of the Conspiracy, choose a creature type. Whenever no creatures of the chosen type are in play, sacrifice Form of the Conspiracy and you lose the game. You can’t lose the game, and your opponents can’t win the game.

Mana Shortening 1U Sorcery Tap all lands.

Palo, Wizard General 4UU Legendary Creature - Wizard Lord 4/4 Wizards you control have flying and “T: You may tap or untap target creature.”

Profligate Waste R Sorcery Squander — As an additional cost to play Profligate Waste, sacrifice any number of lands. For each land sacrificed in this way, add one mana of any color that land could produce to your mana pool

Stompy Dude 3G Creature - Human Warrior 3/2 Trample Stompy Dude gets +1/+1 if you control another Stompy Dude.

Gorgon’s Head B Enchantment - Aura Enchant creature When enchanted creature deals combat damage to a creature, destroy that creature at the end of combat.

Stauncher Defender 3W Creature - Human Warrior 2/* Defender Stauncher Defender’s toughness is equal to the number of creatures your opponents control. Stauncher Defender can block any number of creatures.

Firemaw Dingus-Goblin 3R Creature - Goblin Wizard Mutant 1/2 Whenever a land goes to a graveyard from anywhere, put a +1/+1 counter on Firemaw Dingus-Goblin. Then, it deals damage equal to its power to target creature.

Form of the Child 2WWW Enchantment At the end of your turn, your life total becomes 2. At the beginning of your upkeep, if your life total is 1, you win the game.

Twist 3G Instant Choose one: Destroy target land if R was spent to pay Twist’s mana cost; or destroy target enchantment or artifact if W was spent to pay Twist’s mana cost; or destroy target creature if B was spent to pay Twist’s mana cost; or counter target spell if U was spent to pay Twist’s mana cost.

Twist is complicated, but I liked the art. Land destruction usually goes underdrafted; an early Dingus-Goblin dramatically raises the value of a future Demolish. “Squander (Sacrifice x thing)s,” as seen on Profligate Waste, could be a cool tempo-exploring mechanic. The common trampler is right on the recent-sets power curve defined by Fangren Hunter et al. Stauncher Defender is predicated on the assumption that the token creatures we need to control are 1/1s. One tweak I considered to it was to have its power become equal to the number of creatures it blocks, but I thought that was over curve. Mana Shortening sits between Mana Vapors and Early Frost. Palo is a pretty big monster who buffs your other monsters so you can’t lose in combat! Gorgon’s Head is simple but has interesting implications in play. Johnny will love Forms, and I think they’re part of a really cool megacycle idea.