Beacon of Creation

May 26th, 2024: Start Design League Season 3.
July 8th, 2024: Cut to top 8 9 tournament competitors; start Design League Tournament.
August 12th, 2024: Start the final round.
August 28, 2024: Declare the Winner of Design League Season 3.

Who had what it takes to join the pantheon of Design League Winners– Bradley Rose, or Provocative? Both participants battled hard to reach this final challenge.

The Design League Season 3 Final Challenge

Industry Standard

You will each design a standard, 60-card constructed deck (we’re letting you slide on sideboards, this time) with the following characteristics and deck skeleton.

Deckname: Jund Builder Bear
Deck Colors: Black, Red, Green
Archetype: Artifact Sacrifice Midrange
-5 four-ofs (nonland)
-4 three-ofs (nonland)
-1 two-of (nonland)
-2 one-ofs (nonland)
-1 land

Across your submission, we expect to see three new custom mechanics. Lastly, we also want to see the different sets from your custom standard represented in the deck.

-13 unique cards submitted
-No limitations on rarity and/or card types.
-At least three custom mechanics
-One card named “Builder Bear”
-At least one card designed in the Black, Red, and Green color identities.
-An artifact sacrifice deck generally plays artifacts with the intent to sacrifice them for value/board presence/damage; Midrange decks tend to hold the center of the Aggro to Control spectrum and have tools for playing both aggressively and defensively.
-Use card flavor, card names, set symbols, etc. to show off the breadth of your standard environment (3-6 unique sets represented across your submission.)
-A 250 word blurb to describe your deck (can be a sales pitch, a tournament report, a deck tech, etc.) Please keep your blurb to words.

Let’s recap who our finalists are and how they arrived at this final challenge!

Bradley Rose

Bradley “The Underdog” Rose is the co-founder of the Beacon of Creation podcast. An active participant in Design League since the beginning of Season 2, this is Bradley Rose’s first tournament appearance.

Bradley “Bradley Rose” Rose earned his Tournament spot by winning Qualifier 4 – “Coming Home,” where the designers needed to show off a Return-to-Plane Set through a Pre-Con Commander Card.

Brad has opted to submit for each challenge cards without art or art description–

“My theory regarding art for this challenge is that while I could add them, I think Provocative is better at matching art with card design than I am. So, that means, if I were to try to dance on the art ballroom floor, I’ll end up actually giving myself a disadvantage.

It’s either do a good job at using art or don’t use art at all, so I’ll stick with no art.” -Bradley Rose

You can check out Brad’s submission for the final by clicking here!

Provocative

We can’t stop saying it, but Provocative has been on a card Design competition tear over the past year. Winner of the second Card Coliseum, third place finalist in MSE Survivor 2024, and now a finalist in Design League Season 3.

And they’re our Designer to beat in this final challenge, as they have placed first place in each tournament round during this competition.

You can check out Provocative’s submission by clicking here!

What the Judges Had to Say!

Unlike the previous rounds, a lot of what the judges had to say was captured in podcast form!

You can check out Kayiu and Tim’s first impressions on Brad’s Jund Builder by listening to this episode from Beacon of Creation.

And you can check out Mark and Tim’s first impressions on Prov’s deck by listening to this episode. [Link to be released on September 4th.]

You can read the Judge’s commentary by clicking here.

And the winner is…

.

..

……

..

ahem.

From Qualifier 6 through the Finals, you didn’t miss a step and we’re happy to crown our Design League Season 3 winner. Fantastic job, Provocative!

You can now find Provocative on the Beacon of Creation Discord server with the Eldritch Blue name!

Wrap Up

Design League Season 3 was one for the books! 6 heated Tournament Qualifiers and 4 Tournament Rounds lead to–

193 unique card designs between the qualifiers and tournament rounds.
20 Tournament Work In Progress Threads
10 Beacon of Creation Design League Articles
5 Podcast Episodes
1 Tiebreaker we just couldn’t break
56,709 words shared from our Judges to our participants

If you’re coming to us for the first time, you can check out our Season 3 Links document. It has the links for all of the cards, reviews, and critiques throughout all of Season 3.

Thank you to all of our competitors and our panel of Judges for making this another successful season of Design League! We’ll see you all on the Discord. The next season of Design League is tentatively scheduled for May 2025.