Kalen, The Flame-Fist

Legendary Creature - Human Wizard

At the beginning of your first main phase, add .

Whenever you cast a red spell, Kalen deals 2 damage to target permanent.

Partner.

2/3

Vorthrax, The Eternal Inferno

Legendary Creature - Dragon

Flying

Dragons you control have haste.

, : Dragon spells you control cost X less to cast until end of turn.

5/5

Obvious 98 is obvious.

Make two more partner cards (they don't need to be "partners with") that has a clear strategy in mind.

Syr Barth, Fist of Garenbrig

Legendary Creature - Giant Knight

Ward

Double strike, trample

Syr Barth can't have vigilance.

Syr Barth doesn't untap during your untap step.

Whenever you play a land, untap Syr Barth.

5/7

Might just be the biggest natural body to use double strike but my God is he impressive.

If we are going mono colors, which we should, I had to go as green as possible. Same way as how philias leaned into their design. Also great card advantage for white!!

2 down, 3 to go.

Consortium

Sorcery

Create X 8/8 blue octopus creature tokens. If X is 2 or greater, they enter tapped.

5 mana for an 8/8

7 for two

9 for three

But blue makes infinite mana stupidly easily so lol?

So the Dragonstorm arc is coming to its finale in April's Tarkir set.

But let's consider another idea.

A Dragon from Tarkir (Not one of the Dragonlords) made it's way to Eldraine where it immediately began to genocide all other Dragons and destroying cities.

Eldraine set all of their kingdom's problems aside and put together a band of their 5 most powerful and skilled knights to hunt it down.

Make that legendary dragon they are now hunting.

This is a Demon for Zendikar.

Archfiend of Divinity

Creature - Demon

Flying

Landfall - Whenever a land enters under your control, you may exile target permanent with mana value equal to or less than the number of lands that entered this turn. If you don't, you instead gain that much life.

Between the scourges of Ob Nixilis, Sorin, the Eldrazi, the Phyrexian and now this... Some have begun to worship destruction and annihilation itself.

4/5

Make an appropriate permanent that creates one or more 8/8 green Wurm creature token(s) with trample.

2x bonus points for being non-legendary

An unset card that cares about flavor text references?

hmm okay

Foreshadowing

Sorcery

As an additional cost to cast this spell, reveal a card from your hand. If that card has flavor text, show whether or not a named Magic: The Gathering character is referenced. If they are, you may reveal a card you own from anywhere inside of or outside of the game that has that characters name in its identity and put it in your hand. Shuffle your library if you searched it in this way.

"Did you know Nicol Bolas and Ugin are twins?" said Karn, to Jace, Chandra, Nissa, Liliana, Gideon, Sarkhan, Garruk, Sorin, Teferi, Urza, Yawgmoth, The Ur-Dragon, Borborygmus, Rakdos, Aurelia and Fblthp.

For example, you reveal Yargle and Multani from your hand, which allows you to grab Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar out of a Commander deck you have in your backpack with you.

Named MTG characters means you can't reveal and grab cards from Universes Beyond.

It DOES mean, however, you could grab ANY card with their name in it. For example, Narset's Reversal

Wild

Cards like that serve 3 distinct purposes,

• 1.) They are decent curve toppers when you've got nothing else going on. Maybe combat has been locked for 3 turns and it's not worth attacking from either side because it just opens up crackbacks and suddenly it's a war of attrition. Sort of, "If I swing out I'll lose this guy and deal X combat damage. But now I'm open and will take X myself. Then he's open and I deal X. But the turn after, I'll lose. Therefore, it's pointless to attack."

Congratulations, you've either lost the game (LOL!) or you've hit a stalemate. Either way, it isn't a win.

• 2.) It baits out removal. Maybe you pulled a mythic Planeswalker but you just know it'll get hit for removal. So you drop this mfer the turn before, bait their removal and drop your real bomb. Sometimes you gotta get down and dirty like that.

• 3.) You drop this big ass dino, find it doesn't get slapped by removal, so now you load some spells onto it and swing for the win.

Vanilla creatures come with an absurdly high utility when you are in a limited format like Draft and Prerelease because your interactions are based on that one set, and that one set alone.

A 12/8 for 6 is too slow in competitive Standard but might be alright at the table. It's definitely too slow even for casual Modern.

And while this might be an alright card for budget commander decks, once you put any meaningful money into one (upgrading lands), for 6 mana you can do far better.

So these cards are realistically designed for Draft and Prerelease, and really nothing more.

Since these are the introduction formats to both new sets and new players, they are vital for teaching the game and giving you something useful.

And that's pretty cool.

Could be an unset if there was a theme for cards named after MTG slang

Could also be another Duskmourn card if we ever return there.

Another unset card because honestly mine is right on the verge of being either-or, so I don't feel I did the challenge right.

Monk tribal, but also if you're clever enough you can do Rebound / Flashback tribal as well.

Yes, he has defender and doesn't give himself a means to lose it. Flavorfully, as a Grandmaster he should be above violence and only defend.

Wild

Vanilla creatures won't go away, because we must consider the reason cards are printed in the first place.

Despite Commander being the most "popular" format in MTG, it by far is not the "largest".

That actually belongs to Draft and Prerelease.

Cards must be printed in rotating sets to appease not only a variety of different archetypes but also a variety of different formats.

Standard, Modern, Draft, Prerelease, Commander, THG, Archenemy, etc

A vanilla creatures is perfect for Draft and Prerelease as it's usually a decent curve topper when you've got nothing else going on. A 4/4 for 6 is terrible but a 6/6 for 4 with no other abilities is really solid in those limited formats and interactions.

We may see a reduction in them, but never an extinction.

Supreme Gearhulk

Legendary Artifact Creature - Construct

Supreme Gearhulk has all keyword abilities of each other Gearhulk you control.

Whenever another Gearhulk enters under your control, copy it's enter the battlefield ability. You may choose new targets.

When this creature enters, tutor a creature card with Gearhulk in its name. Create a token copy of it. It gains haste. Exile it at the end of turn.

8/7

In Aetherdrift we only got half of the Guild cycle, and I'm sure we'll probably get the rest in Precons.

That would be, with mono-colors, 15 Gearhulks. Add a colorless one for 16 to round it out and that is far more than enough for a Precon helmed by Supreme Gearhulk.

Make another Precon commander with a very clear deck design

Totally forgot the "shuffle your library" line on SG lol

I would love it if WOTC condenses

"Search your library for ~, reveal it, put it into your hand and shuffle your library."

With,

"Tutor ~."

:3

If you have a pet card you've designed in the past, make something for it.

Otherwise, wild.

One of the most badass dreams I've ever had was this.

I was at a KISS / ACDC concert. The sky was at sundown and the crowd was in the thousands. In the dream, KISS was playing and singing ACDC's Thunderstruck.

Out of nowhere, a Boeing 747 crashed into the crowd. The plane didn't erupt into a fireball of mangled steel and debris. Instead it was like one of those Hollywood crashes where the plane remains (mostly) in tact.

From this plane, hundreds of zombies poured out and began to devour everyone while music remained in the background.

For some reason the dream very abruptly chamfered into not only Humans vs Zombies but also racially, blacks against whites.

The dream ended with a large black man firing a 12 gauge into my chest at point blank range. I still remember waking up from the dream, profusely sweating and my chest was killing me.

Timmy's Badass Dream

Legendary Enchantment

As an additional cost to cast this spell, sacrifice a crewed vehicle that you control.

When Timmy's Badass Dream enters the battlefield, put a number of Rock-n-Roll counters on it equal to the Crew cost of the sacrificed vehicle.

At the beginning of your upkeep, create a number of 2/2 black Zombie creature tokens equal to the number of Rock-n-Roll counters on Timmy's Badass Dream.

I understand not many people can remember their dreams, so wildcard is fine

Imagine having like two of those in hand for prerelease and you top deck a third lol

Box Cutter

Artifact - Equipment

Equipped creature gets +1/+1.

, : Destroy target tapped creature with less power.

Equip

"Without us, you have nothing..."

This is meant for New Capenna.

Let me know if you understand the reference, though.

Wild

I'm sure he's Human but I can't get the picture of a half-Orc out of my mind for this. Adding "Advisor" for humor

Flay Vertex, Payment Enforcer

Legendary Creature - Human Orc Advisor

Lifelink, vigilance

All spells cost an additional amount of life to cast, equal to that spells mana value.

4/4

I'm at work and unable to think of appropriate flavor text at the moment. I wanted to make puns with various card names but I'm actually studying valve charts right now lol

Wild or repeat if I didn't do him justice

What are these Vayith? I can't find a single thing online about them.

Were they created here in this thread at some point?

Bant energy, eh?

Aetherwhirl Dragon

Creature - Dragon

Flying, vigilance

When Aetherwhirl Dragon enters the battlefield, you get four

Pay 4 , : When Aetherwhirl Dragon attacks, target permanent phases out until the beginning of your next turns end step.

Pay 8 , : When Aetherwhirl Dragon attacks, return each nonland permanent target player controls to their hand.

Pay 12 , : When Aetherwhirl Dragon attacks, after this turn you take an additional turn.

4/4

Let's see another 3-color, nonlegendary mythic. Doesn't have to be from Kaladesh or use Energy, btw

Lol, removing all counters would kill the Planeswalker, KongMing. The stun counters wouldn't go anywhere :P

I think I'd rather leave lore for her up to the group, if users decide to explore her potential a bit more.

Voidloss Elemental

Creature - Elemental

As an additional cost, you may exile any number of permanents you control. Each exiled permanent pays for of Voidloss Elemental.

Ward

Whenever an opponent targets Voidloss Elemental, flip a coin. If heads, copy that spell or ability, then counter it. You may choose new targets.

"Good things come to those who wait? Why wait, when I can just take it by force?" - Elisa, Forcemage

8/8

Definitely had to do the cringeworthy pun in the flavor text lmao

More content for Elisa, or wild if you're not feeling it.

See above for the related challenge