February CCL, Top 6: Plenty of Options

Post by **void_nothing** » 1 year ago

CCL February Top 6/Round 3

"Plenty of Options"

Cetavolver, taken from EchoMtG, by Gary Ruddell and Wizards of the Coast

Welcome to the Card Creation League! Everyone is free to participate in either or both of the first two rounds. Come join us!

Theme

It's Changing Forms Month here in the CCL. This month, we'll explore the many mechanical ways cards can shift from one version into something else.

Challenge

Design a card with kicker that has two or more different kicker costs.

Clarifications

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Yes, one or more of the kicker costs can be multikicker.
Make sure to include a rarity.

Contestants:

@Subject16
@kwanyeegor-ii
@OneAndOnly
@netn10
@slimytrout
@Henlock

Your submissions are due Friday, February 24th, 23:59 EST.

Schedule

Round 1 — Open to Everyone (February 1st-9th)
Round 2 — Open to Everyone (February 10th-15th)
Rounds 1 and 2 Critiques (Due February 17th)
Top 6 — Open to top 6 finishers (February 21st–24th)
Top 6 Critiques (Due February 26th)
Top 4 — Open to top 4 finishers (February 27–March 2nd)
Top 4 Critiques (Due March 3rd)
Final (March, winner determined by public poll)

Please note: For this month we will continue asking first and second round contestants to evaluate seven other contestants during the critique and top 3 period, in order to increase the total number of evaluations each contestant gets.

Subject16 · Post by **Subject16** » 1 year ago

Cemetery Upheaval B
Instant (U)
Kicker 1R and Multikicker U You may pay 1R as well as U any number of times in addition to any other costs as you cast this spell.
If this spell was kicked with its U kicker, each opponent mills three cards for each time this spell was kicked.
Exile each opponent's graveyard. If this spell was kicked with its 1R kicker, for each opponent, Cemetery Upheaval deals damage to that player equal to the number of creature cards in their graveyard exiled this way.

netn10 · Post by **netn10** » 1 year ago

Beautiful Cleansing B
Instant (Mythic)
Kicker - 1W and/or 1G
Multikicker - 2U and/or 2R
Destroy up to one target enchantment you don't control for each time this spell was kicked.
For each time this spell was multikicked, you may discard a card. If you do, draw a card.

OneAndOnly · Post by **OneAndOnly** » 1 year ago

Telcsin's Terrible Journey - uU
Legendary Instant {R}
Kicker B, bb, and/or bbb
Return target artifact, creature, or planeswalker card to it's owner's hand.
If the b kicker cost was paid, that player discards a card.
If the bbb cost was paid, that player discards their hand.
If the bb cost was paid, put a card with the same name as the targeted permanent onto the battlefield from that player's graveyard.

slimytrout · Post by **slimytrout** » 1 year ago

Nexus Fragment 0
Artifact (R)
Kicker W, and/or U, and/or B, and/or R, and/or G
Nexus Fragment enters the battlefield with a charge counter on it for each time it was kicked.
T, Remove a charge counter from Nexus Fragment: Draw a card.
1, T, Remove five charge counters from Nexus Fragment: Destroy target permanent. Return Nexus Fragment to its owner's hand.

Henlock · Post by **Henlock** » 1 year ago

Bounty of Labor 1w
Sorcery (c)
Create a white 1/1 Human Peasant creature token and put a +1/+1 counter on it.
If the kicker was paid, proliferate. If the kicker cost was paid, populate.
"The twigs that scratched your hands are the fruits that will season your wine" - Tek saying

kwanyeegor-ii · Post by **kwanyeegor-ii** » 1 year ago

Fireskull Commandant 2W
Creature - Spirit Soldier (Rare)
Kicker B and/or R
When Fireskull Commandant enters the battlefield, if it was kicked with its B kicker, you may return a creature card with mana value 2 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield. If it was kicked with its R kicker, you may put a creature card with mana value 2 or less from your hand onto the battlefield. It gains haste. Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step.
Nontoken creatures with mana value 2 or less you control get +1/+0 and have lifelink.
2/2

Post by **void_nothing** » 1 year ago

Okay - everyone please critique everyone else and provide a top 3!

OneAndOnly · Post by **OneAndOnly** » 1 year ago

Reviews

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Kicker's one of those mechanics that's been around forever (well -- since Invasion). It's also seen a lot of variations over the years, both in terms of multikicker as well as other mechanics that are really just kicker with a different skin. It's such a basic mechanic that it has virtually unlimited applicability.

So, my personal interest in this is seeing how cards "flex" when different costs are paid. Does it keep the same flavor, but intensify? Does it become, for all intents and purposes, a different card altogether? What cool stuff can we do? Since we're asking to "bend" the card two different ways -- does the card make sense worded his precise way? If we consider the card base A + kicker B and kicker C, would it make more sense as Base B + kicker A and kicker C? (Or, C-a-b -- you get the gist.) I think that determination is what really speaks to the card's essential nature.

Subject16's Cemetary Upheaval

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Subject16 wrote: ↑
1 year ago
Cemetery Upheaval B
Instant (U)
Kicker 1R and Multikicker U You may pay 1R as well as U any number of times in addition to any other costs as you cast this spell.
If this spell was kicked with its U kicker, each opponent mills three cards for each time this spell was kicked.
Exile each opponent's graveyard. If this spell was kicked with its 1R kicker, for each opponent, Cemetery Upheaval deals damage to that player equal to the number of creature cards in their graveyard exiled this way.

Okay, kicker + multikicker hasn't been done before. It's aesthetically a little weird, and makes me wonder what the in-world flavor for it would be.

The black mode is a little invisible (it's "exile graveyards"). The blue multikicker puts it around or above Tome Scour territory quickly (especially if you don't care about reanimation targets). The red bit makes sense to be kicker rather than multikicker (since you can only exile the cards once) but because it only scales with creature cards in the graveyard it's difficult to gauge exactly how much damage is likely to be done. Late-game, though, this can be a blow-out for 1RB, even if you don't mill cards, especially if you have a lot of Pyroclasm effects.

The name is a little off; "Cemetery Upheaval" sounds like a mass-reanimation effect. "Crematorium Blast," maybe?

I wonder if this card would be better as a the base being "U: Target opponent mills three cards" and the black and red effects being (single) kicker benefits.

netn10's Beautiful Cleansing

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netn10 wrote: ↑
1 year ago
Beautiful Cleansing B
Instant (Mythic)
Kicker - 1W and/or 1G
Multikicker - 2U and/or 2R
Destroy up to one target enchantment you don't control for each time this spell was kicked.
For each time this spell was multikicked, you may discard a card. If you do, draw a card.

I'm not certain what this card does if you don't pay any of the kicker costs. I think "Target enchantment you don't control" is better phrased as "...controlled by an opponent"; there might be a scenario where you need to destroy an enchantment controlled by a teammate, but that's kind of niche.

The "may" in the multikicker effect gets me; if you didn't want to discard a card, you wouldn't pay the cost.

I'm not certain if "for each time this spell was multikicked." Now, as far as Gatherer tells me, no cards with multikicker have been printed that have other alternate costs, so they haven't needed to distinguish between kicker and multikicker costs. But, following Volvers, I think it would be "For each time the X or Y kicker cost was paid..."

I see that you're showing off the mechanical overlap in certain colors -- it's "Kicker = Disenchant / Naturalize" + "Kicker = Rummage" but I'm not certain, overall, what the flavor of the card is. (But, I do like the sublte "wash your hands!" pun. Nice!)

slimytrout's Nexus Fragment

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slimytrout wrote: ↑
1 year ago
Nexus Fragment 0
Artifact (R)
Kicker W, and/or U, and/or B, and/or R, and/or G
Nexus Fragment enters the battlefield with a charge counter on it for each time it was kicked.
T, Remove a charge counter from Nexus Fragment: Draw a card.
1, T, Remove five charge counters from Nexus Fragment: Destroy target permanent. Return Nexus Fragment to its owner's hand.

In-ter-es-ting. I think the kicker cost might be better expressed a la Emblazoned Golem's "Kicker X" and "No more than one mana of each color can be spent on {this card}'s kicker cost." But overall I'm having difficulty distinguishing between this and sunburst a la Pentad Prism.

Wish it did something when it wasn't kicked!

Henlock's Bounty of Labor

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Henlock wrote: ↑
1 year ago
Bounty of Labor 1w
Sorcery (c)
Create a white 1/1 Human Peasant creature token and put a +1/+1 counter on it.
If the kicker was paid, proliferate. If the kicker cost was paid, populate.
"The twigs that scratched your hands are the fruits that will season your wine" - Tek saying

Very compact! I think you forgot to put the actual kicker costs on the card, though, otherwise I would grade this card very highly. (But, I would want proliferate and populate to both cost higher than just U or G.) Also, I'm not certain I would want to see proliferate so cheap, or at common.

I think some players would mis-read the card, though, and think the populated token came into play with a +1/+1 counter, or that you could proliferate that counter, which is unfortunate.

I do wonder if the overall effect is a little underwhelming. White gets much better creatures for 1W, and populating only once gets you to Waylay -- unless you have a better creature token already on the field. Proliferate is much more profitable (and hence why I think it should be costed higher), and white will usually have a bunch of +1/+1 or shield counters to boost.

kwanyeegor-ii's Fireskull Commandant

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kwanyeegor-ii wrote: ↑
1 year ago
Fireskull Commandant 2W
Creature - Spirit Soldier (Rare)
Kicker B and/or R
When Fireskull Commandant enters the battlefield, if it was kicked with its B kicker, you may return a creature card with mana value 2 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield. If it was kicked with its R kicker, you may put a creature card with mana value 2 or less from your hand onto the battlefield. It gains haste. Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step.
Nontoken creatures with mana value 2 or less you control get +1/+0 and have lifelink.
2/2

The card feels wordy. I would break be tempted to break it up into separate paragraphs, but uhhhh you can't do that with triggered abilities. I get that the 1R kicker wants to be a mini-Sneak Attack (literally) but lazy reading might make someone want to apply the "sacrifice" part to the black kicker bit, too. And I really feel the tension in giving one creature haste but not the other. So the wording might actually be cleaner by putting them in 1R / B order.

The last ability (non-token creatures) makes an already wordy card wordier. I get the benefit to the smols, but it seems a little try-hard. I'm not certain I would cast it without paying either or both kickers, if only because free or discount creatures is just too great a temptation.

Ratings

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1. subject16's Cemetary Upheaval
2. slimytrout's Nexus Fragment
3. kwanyyegor-ii's Fireskull Commandant
4. Henlock's Bounty of Labor
5. netn10's Beautiful Cleansing

Post by **void_nothing** » 1 year ago

@Subject16 @netn10 @OneAndOnly @Henlock @kwanyeegor-ii please post at least a top 3 ASAP!

netn10 · Post by **netn10** » 1 year ago

Subject16

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Kicker and multikicker on the same card are very cute. Your card is a clean package, and yet bursting with possibilities, each kicker feeds into a new one. For B, it's graveyard hate. With U, mill deck all-star. Add R to the mix, and now it's a control finisher. Some bad stuff: I can't imagine this as an uncommon, rare maybe. It's wordy, and what the card does without a kicker is locked between two lines, but I like it a lot.

OneAndOnly

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Legendary instant... a forgotten mechanic, but I like it as a drawback.
The kickers don't line up for me - if you pay the BBB, you won't want to pay the B. I understand why the bb is below the others, but aesthetically 1-3-2 is pain. For what the card is - it's very cool and I would love to see a cycle of it, but it lefts me wishing for more, especially for all three abilities feeding each other.

slimytrout

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This CCL was challenging because for me, at least, it was pigeonholing into very complex and/or wordy cards. You managed to design a clean one, I just wonder if I like the single non-U "draw a card". Giving Boros a two-mana draw two is concerning, possibly color-pie breaking. Other than that - I like this a lot, very flexible and clean.

Henlock

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Oh no, the first line, the "kicker" line is missing!
I guess it's "Kicker U and/or G"..
I love this card because I love commons that just make sense. On top of creating a simple design for a challenge that tempts you to create a complex design, you managed to create a simple card with many implications, that plays differently every game, and has a decision tree. I can imagine this in a Modern Horizons set, and it reminds me of my favorite card designs - Twisted Reflection and Smiting Helix.

kwanyeegor-ii

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This card is wordy, but it's a neat and powerful package. White cares about small creatures, and the other colors support that care in their neat ways. Of all the cards in this challenge, this one is the safest - we saw these kickers with Archangel of Wrath. All in all, solid stuff.

Top 3

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1st: Henlock
2nd: slimytrout
3rd: Subject16

slimytrout · Post by **slimytrout** » 1 year ago

Subject16

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I like a lot of aspects of this, but my one major concern is that a sneakily large amount of power is actually hidden in the base card: B: Exile each opponent's graveyard. We've never gotten the ability to exile each other graveyard for one total mana, especially not at instant speed. If there were just one more mana in the base cost this would have gone from cool card to an awesome one.

netn10

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I'm not sure this card really works as written, since there's no such thing as being "multikicked." In addition, I don't love that the base card has you pay B to do nothing.

OneAndOnly

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This card has some cool elements, but just a little bit too much going on -- three different kickers, one of which is subsumed by another one, it can target four different permanent types but not the fifth, plus its a legendary instant (which I didn't even notice on first read) -- it just needs to be pared down a bit.

Henlock

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Other than not actually listing the kicker abilities, I have no notes! Really fun, clean design.

kwanyeegor-ii

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There's a bit too much going on here between multiple wordy kickers plus a static ability, but overall it seems like a fun card that would lead to cool decks.

T3

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1. Henlock
2. kwanyeegor-ii
3. Subject16

Henlock · Post by **Henlock** » 1 year ago

Netn10- I think this needs to draw two cards for the blue and red kicker, ala Tormenting Voice so as to have a better rate for that effect if.you have no targets. Considering it destroys or discards, it might be nice to have an effect with no kicker that take advantage of cards put into the graveyard.

Subject16- I like that it pressures both deck size and life total. Nice to.use according to your needs. I always loved Haunting Misery, my to-go finisher for many years, and I like that, tho I think this needs ro be tested for balance

OneandOnly- I think it looks very cool but you might have gone too far with the restriction. It's very mana intensive, needs a legendary creature and its plain effect doesn't hit enchantments (or tokens) and leave them.out of the prospect of stealing.

Slimytrout- This has a very good rate for card drawing, and another very powerful ability to.top. I think this needs rebalancing, as it reads as a repeatable 1wubrg removal that can be used for advantage otherwise.

Kwanyegor: By itself, quite a nice weenie lord, and the kicker effects keep varing about those small creatures. I think you have made a very good use of the color.pie here.

TOP:
1. Kwanyegor
2. Subject16
3. OneandOnly

kwanyeegor-ii · Post by **kwanyeegor-ii** » 1 year ago

t3

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1 subject16
2 henlock
3 slimytrout

Post by **void_nothing** » 1 year ago

And our top 4 contestants are:

Henlock
Subject16
slimytrout
kwanyeegor-ii

Next round to come!

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