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Previous installments in this series, taking on the Great Designer Search are here, here, here and here. Card designs are after the jump.

This week, the Great Designer Search challenged us to design a rare splashy enough to be the prerelease card for a set - and also to design the entire common run in one color for that set. They’ve definitely turned the difficulty up a notch for the final test! As a bit of background, I’ve worked with my friend John to design the first set in a block (that is, a linked super-set of three sets) where we’re trying to break out of the flavor ruts of each color. In this block, Blue, traditionally a scholarly color with lots of wizardry and scholarship, is instead a color full of magical beasts, which interact with magic not like a mage might, but rather as a moth interacts with a candle. One of the themes, basically, is that Blue is dumb. Other themes of this kind: White is evil and manipulative; Green is wise and encyclopedic; Red warriors are generals as well as berserkers; Black can cooperate and nurture, in its fashion. The first set saw a Red-centered coalition of beasts, zombies, and hound-men holding fast against a magically gifted army of powerful White-aligned soldiers and mages, while drakes and leviathans annoyed both sides by constantly being wherever magic was happening. In the second set, the mana-tide that empowered the White faction has exploded and unleashed (Blue-aligned) Lovecraftian monstrosities that will force the warring parties to re-evaluate the value of their political struggle, as they face an ontological one. Most of the really nasty Blue stuff is going to be rare, but the pre-release card, The Unnamable (with a tip o’ the hat to HPL), should give a taste.

The Unnamable 5UU Legendary Creature - Leviathan (R) 6/6 Trample At the beginning of your upkeep, each other player taps all lands he or she controls. The land withers in anticipation of its cyclopean tread.

Æther Snatch UU Instant (C) Return target creature to its owner’s hand. Then, you may return target creature you control to its owner’s hand. The drake materialized overhead, its talons already closing around Emarr. She relaxed into the prospect of rebirth as the the two vanished together.

Flathead Drake 2U Creature - Drake (C) 2/3 Flying Flathead Drake can’t block creatures without flying. The protective horns on its chin leave it unsuited to looking down.

Tideride 2U Sorcery (C) You may tap or untap three target permanents. Displaced water, displaced wizards.

Aquacthon 4UU Creature - Leviathan (C) 5/5 Aquacthon can’t attack unless defending player controls an Island. U, sacrifice an Island: Target land becomes an Island until end of turn.

Toothpuddle 2U Creature - Horror (C) 1/1 Whenever Toothpuddle blocks or becomes blocked, return it and all creatures blocking or blocked by it to their owners’ hands at the end of combat. A snap of teeth, and then of æther.

Hobbled Drake 2UU Creature - Drake (C) 3/3 Flying 3 or U: Hobbled Drake loses flying until end of turn. Any player may play this ability.

Endumben 1U Instant (C) Counter target spell. Discard your hand. Magic does not travel in a vacuum.

Tentacle Flailer 1U Creature - Leviathan (C) 3/2 When Tentacle Flailer comes into play, put the cards in your hand on top of your library in any order.

Stegadrake 3U Creature - Drake (C) 1/4 Flying Though a gregarious and gentle frugivore, it hardly invites domestication.

Eddy Denizen 4U Creature - Leviathan (C) 2/2 When Eddy Denizen comes into play, put target creature you control on top of its owner’s library and target creature on top of its owner’s library.

Nevermind U Instant (C) Draw a card. Splice onto Instant — Discard a card. (As you play an Instant spell, you may reveal this card from your hand and pay its splice cost. If you do, add this card’s effects to that spell.)

 

The Unnamable is basically a huge Xantid Swarm. Timmy and Johnny will love it, because it’s the Giantest Monster with a splashy, build-around-me effect. I made sure to include some skill-testers, like the efficient-looking but actually terrible Tentacle Flailer, as every recent set has; I also put some possible constructed staples at common (Endumben, Nevermind), because I hate drafting sets where I’m going to have to toss all the commons after I’m done. I was careful to spread out costs so Blue drafters won’t get stuck on an awkward curve here as they have in some past sets, like Saviors of Kamigawa. Note that Nevermind is intended to be the simplest card here with Splice, a mechanic more heavily supported with complicated cards at the higher rarities. It may need some balancing for Constructed. The flavor is that, in the presence of the Unnamable and friends, sanity can only be maintained by forgetting.