It’s our opening round of our Design League Tournament! 9 contestants joined us as we explored Planeswalkers in a Core Set environment. Three contestants will be eliminated as we move onto our next round.
Tournament Round 1
Walk Before You Run
For our first challenge, we ask you to design three cards for a Core Set– a Planeswalker card, an instant or sorcery card, and a land card. Each card needs to be connected– a character, their signature spell, and a place that may be important to them or their story.
As an additional wrinkle, you can’t pick just any planeswalker. We would like to see a new planeswalker, which was previously only a legendary creature– Quintorius, Loremaster in MOM to Quintorius Kand in LCI is an acceptable example for this challenge. Nissa, Awakened Animist would not be acceptable, as Nissa had several planeswalker cards.
- Three cards: One planeswalker card, one instant or sorcery card, and one land card.
- Each card flavorfully and mechanically connected to the chosen character.
- Your chosen character is a canon legendary creature card that has not previously had a planeswalker card.
- Core set printing: Standard power level, generally lower complexity, evergreen and deciduous mechanics only.
- No rarity or color restrictions.
You can see what our designers did for this challenge by clicking here!
Redbay’s Top Picks!
I may not be a judge, but sometimes, you just have to gush about the cards you like:
Shrine to Blasphemy, by Provocative: I’m liking the move in canon Magic to add a little spice to the Shimmering Grotto slot, and this Madness-alike version is working for me, too. The flavor of the card is also fun to read, capturing a very rebellious Gallia as a foil to the regular Theros mythos.
Ihsan, the Cursed Immortal, by Janahwhamme: High mana value planeswalkers that decisively end the game are some of my favourites, and this is no exception. You definitely have to sculpt your deck and game plan to take advantage of Ihsan, but it shouldn’t take many activations for your opponent to see the writing on the wall and scoop them up.
Down in Flames, by Garduu: I love an excess damage spell as a way of expressing modality without having to use “Choose” and a series of bullet points. You get a great spectrum of removal spell and life drain, and finding the sweet spot in a given board state will feel rewarding each time you cast it.
And your Tournament Round 1 Winner is…
Gallia, Lord of Misrule, by Provocative!
Ludos: There’s no success like excess! Gallia is a super fun character and I’m glad she’s here. The static ability is interesting and the loyalty abilities use it to its full advantage. The +1 as a reference to old Gallia’s card but also as a way to tempt you with card advantage at the cost of randomness is super compelling, and the -1 allowing you to regrow stuff back but encouraging you to play a low curve is great. All in all Gallia wants you to fire multiple spells at your opponents and to discard for value, and I’m all for this gameplan. One small note, draw two, discard two is a bend in red, but I’d allow it since it makes the wording much clearer and concise.
platy: I’m a big fan of the Expertise cycle from Kaladesh and Fervent Preparations is definitely a cool addition to that lineage. Lots of cool plays to be made with this card. Overall I really appreciate how these cards concisely advance the story of both the character and the plane.
Mark: Aggressive, thematic, builds on the existing character well, and proposes an interesting environment with standard level complexity and power. Great job.
Congratulations, Provocative! You’ve started the tournament off right with a big win!
You can review all of the judge notes for all of our submissions by clicking here.
The Eliminated
And with the end of our first round, we say good bye to three designers. We thank you for your designs and participation throughout this season of Design League, and hope to see you again next season!
khord22
perryk
CryptRat
As always, follow our Design League challenges by checking out the Beacon of Creation Discord! Tournament Round 2 starts July 17, 2024, and the designers will need all the help they can get as this competition gets more challenging than ever!