March CCL, Top 5 - Rev It Up!

[void_nothing]

March CCL Top 5/Round 4

"Rev It Up!"


Shorikai, Genesis Engine, taken from MTG Wiki, illustrated by Wisnu Tan

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 Anticipation Month here at the CCL! We currently know an unprecedented amount about upcoming major Standard-legal Magic sets, so each round this month will be loosely inspired by one of those sets.

Now that we are in the penultimate round, we're beyond the pale of sets with known names and release timing. That means that this round will have to do with the 2025 set with a "Death Race" theme. And any big race needs tricked-out rides.

Challenge

Design a legendary, mythic rare Vehicle card.

Clarifications

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• Make sure to include a rarity.

Contestants
@OneAndOnly
@Henlock
@Raptorchan
@AnotherAlias
@Lorn Asbord Schutta

Your submissions are due Wednesday, April 3rd, 23:59 EST.

Schedule

• Round 1 — Open to Everyone (March 3rd - 9th)
• Round 2 — Open to Everyone (March 11th - 17th)
• Rounds 1 and 2 Critiques (Due March 19th)
• Top 8 — Open to top 8 finishers (March 22nd - 25th)
• Top 8 Critiques (Due March 27th)
• Top 5 — Open to top 4 finishers (March 31st - April 3rd)
• Top 5 Critiques (Due April 5th)
• Final (April, winner determined by public poll)

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

[OneAndOnly]

Vacha's Rollicking Ride -- 5
Legendary Artifact - Vehicle {R}
Dethrone, renown 3
Whenever Vacha's Rollicking Ride deals combat damage to a player, trigger each renown and monstrosity ability of creatures that crewed it this turn.
Crew 3
7/7

[AnotherAlias]

The Flying Dutchman
Legendary Artifact — Vehicle (M)
Flying
Whenever The Flying Dutchman attacks a player who controls Old Letters, create two 1/1 white and blue Spirit creature tokens with flying that are tapped and attacking.
Crew 2
Forecast — Tap two untapped white and/or blue creatures you control, Reveal The Flying Dutchman from your hand: Target opponent creates an artifact token named Old Letters. Scry 1, then, if each of your opponents control Old Letters, draw a card.
4/4

Forecast

[Lorn Asbord Schutta]

Samildánach, Fomori Mothership
Legendary Artifact — Vehicle (M)
Whenever a creature crews Samildánach, Fomori Mothership, exile it until Samildánach leaves the battlefield.
Samildánach has all abilities of creature cards exiled with it.
: Remove Samildánach from combat. Put all creature cards exiled with it onto the battlefield under your control tapped and attacking. Activate only if Samildánach is attacking.
Crew 3
6/6

[void_nothing]

Quick ping and reminder for @Henlock and @Raptorchan.

[Raptorchan]

Mist Drifter 2wu
Legendary Artifact — Vehicle (M)
Whenever Mist Drifter attacks, create X 1/1 blue Spirit Pirate creature tokens with flying that are tapped and attacking, where X is Mist Drifter's toughness. Exile those tokens at the beginning of the next end step.
4wu: Spirits you control get +1/+1 until end of turn.
Crew 2
0/4

[Henlock]

I'll try to get something designed soon. I've been sick (still am) and didn't really connect with the challenge.

[Henlock]

The Flying Nimbus
Legendary Artifact Land - Vehicle (m)
Flying
The Flying Nimbus cannot be blocked by creatures with reach.
: Add . If The Flying Nimbus is a creature, add one mana of any color instead.
Crew 2
2/3

[void_nothing]

Okay, with everyone entered, round is closed! Please critique and T3 all other contestants.

@OneAndOnly
@Henlock
@Raptorchan
@AnotherAlias
@Lorn Asbord Schutta

[OneAndOnly]

Reviews

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The Flying Dutchman
Legendary Artifact — Vehicle (M)
Flying
Whenever The Flying Dutchman attacks a player who controls Old Letters, create two 1/1 white and blue Spirit creature tokens with flying that are tapped and attacking.
Crew 2
Forecast — Tap two untapped white and/or blue creatures you control, Reveal The Flying Dutchman from your hand: Target opponent creates an artifact token named Old Letters. Scry 1, then, if each of your opponents control Old Letters, draw a card.
4/4

Spoiler: Most of what I know about the Flying Dutchman comes from Pirates of the Caribbean, which I understand is a non-canonical source.

The forecast ability really needs to be first on this card. I get that most cards with forecast have it last, but holy smokes is it opaque who or what Old Letters is at first, and whether it's one thing or multiple, or a status like having the City's favor (which is what I expected).

If you don't forecast it, it's a rather weak card -- 4/4 flying for 3MV/crew 2 is kind of meh. Once it's in play, you no longer can forecast it (one of the weaknesses/strengths of that mechanic), and only being able to give the Letters to one player per turn makes it rather slow to deploy .... if you want to deploy it. It actually feels stronger as a perpetual draw machine (two creatures = scry 1 / draw 1), which given the Dutchman's legendarily cursed status feels really weird.

Samildánach, Fomori Mothership
Legendary Artifact — Vehicle (M)
Whenever a creature crews Samildánach, Fomori Mothership, exile it until Samildánach leaves the battlefield.
Samildánach has all abilities of creature cards exiled with it.
: Remove Samildánach from combat. Put all creature cards exiled with it onto the battlefield under your control tapped and attacking. Activate only if Samildánach is attacking.
Crew 3
6/6

"Mothership" has a very sci-fi feel, while "Samildanach" draws from Celtic mythology. I would say the same for Fomori, but they feature rather centrally in Thunder Junction, too. Overall, it feels like a bit of a mash-up, not in a good way, of flavor.

That triggered ability is pretty big! It's a weird form of a UW "safekeeping" mechanism. I always overlook that you can crew as an instant. The middle ability starts me wondering what combinations of abilities I could create with it. That's kinda cool.

The last ability feels like it could even create a new attack phase for the newly returned creatures.

Mist Drifter 2wu
Legendary Artifact — Vehicle (M)
Whenever Mist Drifter attacks, create X 1/1 blue Spirit Pirate creature tokens with flying that are tapped and attacking, where X is Mist Drifter's toughness. Exile those tokens at the beginning of the next end step.
4wu: Spirits you control get +1/+1 until end of turn.
Crew 2
0/4

The name doesn't quite feel legendary, and 4MV for a 0/4 feels a little underwhelming, even if it can create a lot of bodies. The fact that those bodies are only temporary means you can't pull as many shenanigans with them, which I think is part of the fun of creating lots of tokens.

The second ability is expensive enough to nearly qualify as trinket text.

Being a Vehicle makes it difficult to throw permanent buffs on it, so you're limited to anthems, exalted, and similar effects. That makes for a rather limited number of decks it might work in.

The Flying Nimbus
Legendary Artifact Land - Vehicle (m)
Flying
The Flying Nimbus cannot be blocked by creatures with reach.
: Add . If The Flying Nimbus is a creature, add one mana of any color instead.
Crew 2
2/3

Mmm, pretty vanilla? The fact that it's a land is interesting, but not really a drawback. I'm not certain why I would crew it just to add mana -- and a 3:1 ratio is pretty poor for that. A 2/3 nigh-unblockable for 0MV, on the other hand ...?

Ratings

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1. Lorn Asbord Schutta's Samildanach, Fomori Mothership
2. AnotherAlias' The Flying Dutchman
3. Henlock's The Flying Numbus
4. RaptorChan's Mist Drifter

[Raptorchan]

Crits

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OneAndOnly
Quite a specific card. Still, maybe a bit too effective for its cost because it easily becomes 8/8 and then 11/11. But no evasion, though...
Henlock
Doesn't look like a card that can go wrong. Crew cost is fine for adding 1 mana, and being able to attack as a creature has its upsides and downsides. Probably fine as a legend.
AnotherAlias
Looks fine, maybe just a bit pushed. But mostly fine. Also feels like Azorius card intended for a slow deck and Forecast mechanic plays well here.
Lorn Asbord Schutta
Scary but expensive. Can see some scenarios where it %$#% everything up, but that's an expensive, splashy mythic card after all.

TOP

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1. Henlock
2. AnotherAlias
3. Lorn Asbord Schutta

[Lorn Asbord Schutta]

Vacha's Rollicking Ride -- 5
Legendary Artifact - Vehicle {R}
Dethrone, renown 3
Whenever Vacha's Rollicking Ride deals combat damage to a player, trigger each renown and monstrosity ability of creatures that crewed it this turn.
Crew 3
7/7

The triggering renown would mean checking if the crewing creature is already renowned, then if it is not, putting counters and renowning it. Looking at the current renown creatures not really a big deal for most, while some would benefit from such safer way of triggering renown. Monstrosity on the other hand... In some cases you could really cheat on mana, monstrosity gives overall more counters on average and there are some sweet triggers for becoming monstrous. While not relevant in many cases, you could exploit the fact that you can crew multiple times per turn, even when the Vehicle already is a creature. I don't get the flavour though, sorry. Who is Vacha and why caring about renown and monstrosity? And what is dethrone doing there?

The Flying Dutchman
Legendary Artifact — Vehicle (M)
Flying
Whenever The Flying Dutchman attacks a player who controls Old Letters, create two 1/1 white and blue Spirit creature tokens with flying that are tapped and attacking.
Crew 2
Forecast — Tap two untapped white and/or blue creatures you control, Reveal The Flying Dutchman from your hand: Target opponent creates an artifact token named Old Letters. Scry 1, then, if each of your opponents control Old Letters, draw a card.
4/4

I am trying to figure out if you could pull out the first forecasting by the second turn, but I think you need a 0 mana value artifact like Bone Saw, Island, An Offer You Can't Refuse and two one mana creatures, which together with The Dutchman are six cards, which is firmly christmasland. If anyone has a simpler combo send PM. Still, in 1-vs-1 formats and proper deck this will almost always get you possible Opt by turn three. There is also the fact that this card, despite being legendary, plays very nicely in multiples: you have one copy on board to generate bodies, some of which you then use for your copies in hand. I have a nagging feeling that this card was designed more with commander in mind, where both the setup is harder due to multiple opponents and the singleton requirement doesn't allow it to combo with itself.

Mist Drifter 2wu
Legendary Artifact — Vehicle (M)
Whenever Mist Drifter attacks, create X 1/1 blue Spirit Pirate creature tokens with flying that are tapped and attacking, where X is Mist Drifter's toughness. Exile those tokens at the beginning of the next end step.
4wu: Spirits you control get +1/+1 until end of turn.
Crew 2
0/4

I have personally a sweet spot for 0-power creatures that have an attack trigger, I think they carry untapped mechanical flavour and can create some interesting gameplay dynamics. And this is one of them: do you let the easily chumpable token in, taking down their producer, or do you block the tokens, but allow the Drifter to still threaten you later? Or at least this would be, if either tokens did not have flying, or Drifter would be a flyer as well. For many decks the only option will be blocking the Vehicle. The spirit anthem obviously synergizes with produced tokens, but could be used even without crewing the Drifter if needed, which is nice. And I like the mental picture this card paints in my head.

The Flying Nimbus
Legendary Artifact Land - Vehicle (m)
Flying
The Flying Nimbus cannot be blocked by creatures with reach.
: Add . If The Flying Nimbus is a creature, add one mana of any color instead.
Crew 2
2/3

Quite efficient in the right shell, it could find its place in creature-based aggro decks, as it can come early, is quite evasive and dodges creature wraths on opponent's turns. Also fixes mana if needed. The legendary supertype looks almost like a preventive measure, more then a flavour decision, but that's not a problem - legendary exist for both of those reasons after all. I wonder if this should have haste. The corner case of two Memnites and this card in opening hand might be not worth the not readily apparent fact, that if you crew the Nimbus the turn you played it, you won't be able to tap it for any mana at all.

TOP 3
1. Henlock
2. Raptorchan
3. OneAndOnly

[Henlock]

Quick Crits

@OneAndOnly A vehicle for bigs stuff. I've done the numbers and this can theoretically attack for 20 in two combats provided your life total is low enough. Monstruosity is pretty expensive in most cases, so cheating it for free can be pretty interesting, but the Ride lacks any evasion so as to make it easier.

@AnotherAlias The way it is worded makes it feel like something thught for commander. I think the base 4/4 flier for 3 that can make two tokens is powerful enough. The forecast minigame is fun, I know nothing about the Flying Dutchman so as to appreciate the lore behind it.

@Lorn Asbord Schutta I had to read this a couple of times to fully understand what you meant to do with it and I think I quite like it. At first I thought the numbers were a bit of the too-high side, but the fact that you can get everything back after blockers are declared should make this costly. What I like the least about this one is that the stats as a plain vehicle are kind of underwhelming, so you're to be using this to go full-shenaningans.

@Raptorchan Althought it feels weird to have a 0 power vehicle I kind of like what is happening here. First, having four triggers of creatures etb'ing and four triggers of creatures dying is a lot of value if you find what to do with it. I also like how you can use instant-speed tricks like Refuse to Yield to make lots of tokens. Weird overall, but it makes me want to try it.

1. Raptorchan
2. Lorn Asbord Schutta
3. AnotherAlias

[AnotherAlias]

Lorn Asbord Schutta — I mean, it's certainly interesting. I don't really know what else to say about this card, other than that I don't understand the use of Samildánach as its name.
Raptorchan — This name doesn't quite scream legendary to me. I'd think this itself would have flying, but. Also, that activated ability seems nigh useless. The triggered ability and the rest of the card is quite neat though.
Henlock — I mean, sure. Cannot should be can't, but that's just a little nitpick. It is very evasive, and uh.
OneAndOnly — Very specific card you got there. I don't know, it looks like a lot of stats. Renown is fine to trigger, but monstrosity, well that's a whole other thing.

Top 3:
3rd: Henlock
2nd: Raptorchan
1st: Lorn Asbord Schutta

[void_nothing]

And our finalists are Henlock and Lorn Asbord Schutta - final round to come shortly!