June CCL, Round 2 - Advantages of the Land

[void_nothing]

June CCL Signups/Round 2
"Advantages of the Land"


Desolate Lighthouse, by Scott Chou, taken from here on MTGNexus

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 Activated Abilities Month here at the CCL - we'll be exploring the ability type that's basic to how the game works (in the case of mana abilities especially) and gives Magic so much of its strategic depth.

Challenge

Design a land card with an activated ability other than a mana ability.

Clarifications

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• The card may have other activated abilities as long as it has one that meets the challenge.
• Make sure to include a rarity.

Anyone can enter this second round! Your submissions are due Friday, June 14th, 23:59 EST.

Schedule

• Round 1 — Open to Everyone (June 2nd-8th)
• Round 2 — Open to Everyone (June 9th-14th)
• Rounds 1 and 2 Critiques (Due June 17th)
• Top 8 — Open to top 8 finishers (June 18th-21st)
• Top 8 Critiques (Due June 24th)
• Top 4 — Open to top 4 finishers (June 25th-28th)
• Top 4 Critiques (Due July 1st)
• Final (July, 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.

[KB52665]

Omenpath Consulate
Land (R)
Omenpath Consulate enters tapped.
When Omenpath Consulate enters, choose two basic land types. Omenpath Consulate is the chosen types in addition to its other types.
Landcycling wubrg

[EsperCormorant]

Carapace of Arixmethes
Creature Land — Kraken Skeleton (Mythic Rare)
Carapace of Arixmethes isn't a creature while it's on the battlefield.
Carapace of Arixmethes enters the battlefield tapped.
: Add or .
Scavenge
4/4

[Komandon]

Field of Echos
Land (rare)
Imprint — 2, t: Exile target creature card from a graveyard.
T: Add C.
X: Field of Echos becomes a copy of exiled card expect it's still a land until end of turn, where X is the mana value of the imprinted card. At the beginning of the next endstep Field of Echos is no longer imprinted.

[marioguy3]

Lighthouse of Discoveries
Land (Rare)
Lighthouse of Discoveries enters the battlefield tapped.
: Add or .
, Discard any number of cards: Draw that many cards.

[OneAndOnly]

Sands of Regret
Land - Desert {R}
T: Add C.
2, T: Search your library for a land card. Put it into your graveyard, then shuffle.

[Sagharri]

Yuuva Tar Pit
Land (U)
: Add .
: Create a Fossil token. (It's an artifact with " , , Sacrifice this artifact: Surveil 2.")
At the beginning of combat on your turn, if you sacrificed three or more Fossils this turn, Yuuva Tar Pit becomes a 3/3 black Dinosaur Skeleton creature with menace until end of turn. It's still land.

[netn10]

Junkyard
Land (Uncommon)
T: Add C.
T, Sacrifice Junkyard: Exile the top card of your library. You may play that card this turn. Activate only as a sorcery.
Sacrifice three artifacts: Return Junkyard from your graveyard onto the battlefield.
"This is Mr. New Vegas, and I feel something magic in the air tonight, and I'm not just talking about the gamma radiation."

[AnotherAlias]

House of Pigs
Land (R)
House of Pigs enters the battlefield tapped and with a straw counter on it.
: Add .
, Remove a straw counter from House of Pigs: Put a sticks counter on House of Pigs.
, Remove a sticks counter from House of Pigs: Put a bricks counter on House of Pigs. Then conjure a card of your choice from the Three Pigs spellbook onto the battlefield. It perpetually gains protection from wolves and werewolves.

[Ink-Treader]

Peakmeadow Carrefour
Land (R)
Peakmeadow Carrefour enters the battlefield tapped unless you control a Mountain and a Plains.
T: Add R or W.
3, T, Sacrifice Peakmeadow Carrefour: Search your library for a card that's red and/or white and no other colors, reveal it, and put it in your hand. Then, shuffle.

[wizyard]

Lost Grotto
Land (U)
T: Mill a card.
T, Exile a card from your graveyard: Add C or one mana of any of that card's colors.

[kwanyeegor-ii]

Court of Heavenly Kings
Land (Mythic)
Court of Heavenly Kings enters the battlefield tapped with four depletion counters on it.
T: Add C.
T, Remove two depletion counters from Court of Heavenly Kings: Add WU.
2WU, T, Remove a depletion counter from Court of Heavenly Kings: Create a 4/4 white and blue Archon creature token with ward 2.

[void_nothing]

Okay, round is closed and it is time for critiques! Please critique, and submit a top 3 among, the six contestants above you on this list, looping to the bottom as necessary.

KB52665
EsperCormorant
Komandon
marioguy3
OneAndOnly
Sagharri
netn10
AnotherAlias
Ink-Treader
wizyard
kwanyeegor-ii

[EsperCormorant]

Reviews

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Omenpath Consulate
Land (R)
Omenpath Consulate enters tapped.
When Omenpath Consulate enters, choose two basic land types. Omenpath Consulate is the chosen types in addition to its other types.
Landcycling wubrg

Take one of the Thriving lands, now give it more versatility, basic land types, and a tutoring ability? Seems pretty good! I don't think the WUBRG land tutor is overpowered per se, but I do think it's inelegant. You can acquire any kind of land you want... but only if you already have access to all five colors of mana? Feels very tacked-on and not all that necessary for this card to be printable, which is bad in a round all about activated abilities. There's nothing wrong with the flavor but it's kind of intentionally bland.

Junkyard
Land (Uncommon)
T: Add C.
T, Sacrifice Junkyard: Exile the top card of your library. You may play that card this turn. Activate only as a sorcery.
Sacrifice three artifacts: Return Junkyard from your graveyard onto the battlefield.
"This is Mr. New Vegas, and I feel something magic in the air tonight, and I'm not just talking about the gamma radiation."

Would have loved for this to be an Artifact Land - Junk, a la Scene of the Crime. Fun design, seems balanced, the recursion ability is a nice way to round it out and I love the joke of throwing away enough stuff to refill the junkyard.

House of Pigs
Land (R)
House of Pigs enters the battlefield tapped and with a straw counter on it.
: Add .
, Remove a straw counter from House of Pigs: Put a sticks counter on House of Pigs.
, Remove a sticks counter from House of Pigs: Put a bricks counter on House of Pigs. Then conjure a card of your choice from the Three Pigs spellbook onto the battlefield. It perpetually gains protection from wolves and werewolves.

Great flavor! Mixing multiple counters is a design no-no, but then again this is a digital-only card. Bit of a tempo loss but comes with quite a nice upside at the end. After going back and forth on the balance I think it's probably fine.

I will say that I'm flabbergasted that you had this produce green instead of white mana, because a nonwhite nonblack green deck can't activate the second pig's ability. I don't like the hidden restriction this creates, and I wish you'd just made it clear upfront what sort of deck is actually getting what they need out of this.

Peakmeadow Carrefour
Land (R)
Peakmeadow Carrefour enters the battlefield tapped unless you control a Mountain and a Plains.
T: Add R or W.
3, T, Sacrifice Peakmeadow Carrefour: Search your library for a card that's red and/or white and no other colors, reveal it, and put it in your hand. Then, shuffle.

Clifftop Retreat with a more restrictive untap condition but a really good activated ability to balance it out. I feel like there's some weirdness in giving an unrestricted tutor to a white/red (technically not even that) card. Axgard Armory feels like it's getting at something similar in an overall better way.

Lost Grotto
Land (U)
T: Mill a card.
T, Exile a card from your graveyard: Add C or one mana of any of that card's colors.

Land that can mill but really wants you to have already milled; it evokes comparison to Pit of Offerings but not necessarily favorably. I don't like how awkward this is to have out early game, and in general it feels like it eats through your cards way quicker than is ideal. On the other hand, it's a land drop that elegantly serves a second role without the design feeling unlandlike at all, which is very much in the spirit of the competition. Should've been a Cave.

Court of Heavenly Kings
Land (Mythic)
Court of Heavenly Kings enters the battlefield tapped with four depletion counters on it.
T: Add C.
T, Remove two depletion counters from Court of Heavenly Kings: Add WU.
2WU, T, Remove a depletion counter from Court of Heavenly Kings: Create a 4/4 white and blue Archon creature token with ward 2.

The part of this that bangs out two mana for two turns and then collapses down to a steady trickle of is good. The part of this that can somewhat cheaply create mid-sized warded fliers is really good. The part that can do the latter repeatably is just insane. A land that gets you your 3-drops and 4-drops a turn ahead of schedule or pops out multiple flying tokens lategame is doing too much, mythic or not.

Top 3

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1. netn10 with Junkyard
2. wizyard with Lost Grotto
3. AnotherAlias with House of Pigs

[wizyard]

reviews

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Lighthouse of Discoveries
Land (Rare)
Lighthouse of Discoveries enters the battlefield tapped.
: Add or .
, Discard any number of cards: Draw that many cards.

solid. can help pay its own ability, so that's an interesting wrinkle. would help enable different draw-based triggered abilities. nice to the this kinda filter effect on a land, so it's there when you need it but doesn't take up extra space in the deck.

flavor's ok. lighthouses are cool.

Sands of Regret
Land - Desert {R}
T: Add C.
2, T: Search your library for a land card. Put it into your graveyard, then shuffle.

the flavor is evocative. really like the design, it's clean n simple. plays into desert synergies. dunno why the 2nd ability is split into two sentences instead of one.

anyway, love it!

Yuuva Tar Pit
Land (U)
: Add .
: Create a Fossil token. (It's an artifact with " , , Sacrifice this artifact: Surveil 2.")
At the beginning of combat on your turn, if you sacrificed three or more Fossils this turn, Yuuva Tar Pit becomes a 3/3 black Dinosaur Skeleton creature with menace until end of turn. It's still land.

ha! fun.

fun flavor, very vivid, i can picture it.

seems costly and time consuming, both to get the fossils and to animate the pit. i feel like it could be tweaked, but maybe im wrong, havent tested it. i guess it can help pay for its own ability, but still.

i like the use of surveil on bones 'cause y'know- digging! archeology! the word surveil is maybe not perfect for flavor, but i get it, it's cute. and it's buried in the reminder text where it's less bothersome lol

Junkyard
Land (Uncommon)
T: Add C.
T, Sacrifice Junkyard: Exile the top card of your library. You may play that card this turn. Activate only as a sorcery.
Sacrifice three artifacts: Return Junkyard from your graveyard onto the battlefield.
"This is Ms. New Vegas, and I feel something magic in the air tonight, and I'm not just talking about the gamma radiation."

i like lands that can cycle themselves later when u have enuff mana.

the last ability feels slightly junky to me. reminds me of Salvage Titan, but this ability returns the land directly to play, so you could surprise an opponent with an extra mana or landfall trigger that should've seen coming but maybe missed. i could seem some infinite loops being pulled with this. it's def a johnny card

the flavor's ok, like maybe it could be better but seems fine.

House of Pigs
Land (R)
House of Pigs enters the battlefield tapped and with a straw counter on it.
: Add .
, Remove a straw counter from House of Pigs: Put a sticks counter on House of Pigs.
, Remove a sticks counter from House of Pigs: Put a bricks counter on House of Pigs. Then conjure a card of your choice from the Three Pigs spellbook onto the battlefield. It perpetually gains protection from wolves and werewolves.

these pigs have learned from the school of hard knocks and grown tough.

it's a bit fiddly. there's a MagicTM design convention/guideline against mixing counters on the same card, but i don't feel folks need be bound by conventions. of course the flavor demands different counters, but of course functionally this could be accomplished with building up three of one type of counter. interesting interaction with proliferate, that you could have multiple "houses" being built at same time. interesting also to note that it's possible to go round and round and keep building up to the conjuration over and over.

flavor is a lil iffy maybe. like, i guess the pigs' houses are being referenced, but it was three different pigs building three different houses right? they might have learned from each others' failures along the way, but this card makes it seem like a linear process, even that we're turning one house into another. why does the end result get us a conjuration?

it's not too clean of a design, but we are talking about pigs here.

Peakmeadow Carrefour
Land (R)
Peakmeadow Carrefour enters the battlefield tapped unless you control a Mountain and a Plains.
T: Add R or W.
3, T, Sacrifice Peakmeadow Carrefour: Search your library for a card that's red and/or white and no other colors, reveal it, and put it in your hand. Then, shuffle.

i like that it searches for cards of its color pair exclusively, very interesting restriction.

a cycle of these tutor-lands would probably be heavily sought after and played. hard to judge, but i wonder if the cost to activate should be upped to 4 or even 5.

top 3

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1. OneAndOnly
2. Sagharri
3. marioguy3

[OneAndOnly]

Rankings

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Lighthouse of Discoveries
Land (Rare)
Lighthouse of Discoveries enters the battlefield tapped.
: Add or .
, Discard any number of cards: Draw that many cards.

The wheel effect is pretty powerful; most cards like Tolarian Winds cost a card to create the effect (the spell being cast). Putting it on a land means you can always maintain your hand size, which is a big plus. Not tapping also means that you can dig down whatever your handsize is multiple times a turn, at 4MV a pop. That's huge, especially when considering that it can fuel a lot of madness/graveyard strategies, too.

As a lighthouse, it should tap for its ability (that spinning light thing), so some points deducted there.

Field of Echos
Land (rare)
Imprint — 2, t: Exile target creature card from a graveyard.
T: Add C.
X: Field of Echos becomes a copy of exiled card expect it's still a land until end of turn, where X is the mana value of the imprinted card. At the beginning of the next endstep Field of Echos is no longer imprinted.

I feel like this is a card that's done a lot, either as an artifact or a land. "Storing" a creature is interesting, but only being able to do it once limits it to killer-combo usage. "Field of Echoes is no longer imprinted" is novel; you could possibly get away with just putting the imprinted creature into the graveyard, which has the same result but would allow it to be used again. That being said, 2+ turns just to copy a creature card from the graveyard is quite a bit.

There are some minor types throughout -- "Echos" should be "Echoes," and "expect it's still a land..." should be "except..." You need a comma after "end step," which should be two words.

Carapace of Arixmethes
Creature Land — Kraken Skeleton (Mythic Rare)
Carapace of Arixmethes isn't a creature while it's on the battlefield.
Carapace of Arixmethes enters the battlefield tapped.
: Add or .
Scavenge
4/4

Being a creature while it's in the library and graveyard opens it up to all sorts of shenanigans, especially given that it's effectively a 0MV creature. The easier path is to re-write the scavenge ability, since I'm presuming that's what your main intent with the card is. Otherwise, I hate to say it, but tech like that should not exist.

Kudos on the MTG lore, though. I suppose dying would take about -8/-8 out of a guy, eh?

Omenpath Consulate
Land (R)
Omenpath Consulate enters tapped.
When Omenpath Consulate enters, choose two basic land types. Omenpath Consulate is the chosen types in addition to its other types.
Landcycling wubrg

Universal mana fixing is always nice, although unlike the fellow above, lacking the land types while it's in the library and graveyard cuts down on its combo-tivity. The landcycling ability is almost a negative at that point: since you can get two land types by putting the Consulate into play, the only upside that I can see is getting to shuffle your library, which is often a downside.

Court of Heavenly Kings
Land (Mythic)
Court of Heavenly Kings enters the battlefield tapped with four depletion counters on it.
T: Add C.
T, Remove two depletion counters from Court of Heavenly Kings: Add WU.
2WU, T, Remove a depletion counter from Court of Heavenly Kings: Create a 4/4 white and blue Archon creature token with ward 2.

Working with multiples of depleting counters, and using them for something other than generating mana, is a novel twist. It's interesting that you could easily find yourself at 1 counter, and not enough mana to activate the third ability. So thankfully it can always tap for colorless.

Repeatable token generation (especially considering proliferate) makes this seem pretty big; four 4/4s is enough to swing many games, Needing five turns to do so makes it a little more ehhhhh ... but what else are you going to do with all that mana?

Lost Grotto
Land (U)
T: Mill a card.
T, Exile a card from your graveyard: Add C or one mana of any of that card's colors.

The name's a little bland, but other than that, I like it! Helps delirium/threshold and other graveyard strategies, looks like it will almost always provide color fixing, too.

Peakmeadow Carrefour
Land (R)
Peakmeadow Carrefour enters the battlefield tapped unless you control a Mountain and a Plains.
T: Add R or W.
3, T, Sacrifice Peakmeadow Carrefour: Search your library for a card that's red and/or white and no other colors, reveal it, and put it in your hand. Then, shuffle.

The last ability is only a drawback when deckbuilding. Four mana for a general tutor is pretty delicious, though it would likely mean waiting yet another turn to cast it, which doesn't feel very Boros.

The name's a little overcomplex; "Meadow Carrefour" or "Park Carrefour" with suffice.

House of Pigs
Land (R)
House of Pigs enters the battlefield tapped and with a straw counter on it.
: Add .
, Remove a straw counter from House of Pigs: Put a sticks counter on House of Pigs.
, Remove a sticks counter from House of Pigs: Put a bricks counter on House of Pigs. Then conjure a card of your choice from the Three Pigs spellbook onto the battlefield. It perpetually gains protection from wolves and werewolves.

Cute. I'm not certain what the Three Pigs spellbook is -- does it include instants or sorceries? -- but the flavor is on point! Unfortunately, it only seems to work once, which seems like a shame.

Junkyard
Land (Uncommon)
T: Add C.
T, Sacrifice Junkyard: Exile the top card of your library. You may play that card this turn. Activate only as a sorcery.
Sacrifice three artifacts: Return Junkyard from your graveyard onto the battlefield.
"This is Mr. New Vegas, and I feel something magic in the air tonight, and I'm not just talking about the gamma radiation."

"Junkyard" feels like it could be another psuedo-basic land type like "Wastes" is. It feels like a card searching for a combo, which I generally find to be a turn-off.

Yuuva Tar Pit
Land (U)
: Add .
: Create a Fossil token. (It's an artifact with " , , Sacrifice this artifact: Surveil 2.")
At the beginning of combat on your turn, if you sacrificed three or more Fossils this turn, Yuuva Tar Pit becomes a 3/3 black Dinosaur Skeleton creature with menace until end of turn. It's still land.

Depending on the context of the set it's in, this could be a break-out hit, or entirely meh. Unfortunately, I don't have that context to judge it with. Fossil tokens seem generally ... all right? The flavor is a little weak, given that this probably be enshrined in the CompRules, and I think surveilling deserves a better association (crystal balls, or spyglasses, maybe).

Ratings

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1. wizyard's Lost Grotto
2. KB52665's Omenpath Consulate
3. kwanyeegor-ii's Court of Heavenly Kings
4. marioguy3's Lighthouse of Discoveries
5. Komandon's Field of Echoes
6. EsperCormorant's Carapace of Arixmethes
HM: Sagharri's Yuuve Tar Pit
HM: Ink-Treader's Parkmeadow Carrefour
HM: AnotherAlias's House of Pigs
HM: netn10's Junkyard[

[Ink-Treader]

Critiques

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Komandon

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Because imprint is an ability word now and not a keyword, "imprinted" is meaningless text. That aside, this seems quite useful as a form of repeated resurrection, especially if you have creatures with a useful static ability.

marioguy3

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That activated ability really should tap the land. That's a potentially absurd amount of hand cycling in formats that support getting a lot of mana, like Commander.

OneAndOnly

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That's really neat, but probably dangerous to have be repeatable.

Sagharri

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This probably should tap to produce Fossils, but it's not terribly dangerous.

netn10

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The activated ability is free, and the land comes in untapped? This might be a little too recursive.

AnotherAlias

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That's cute flavor, though it begs a question about what's in the spellbook. Also weirdly hosed by counter removal, since it has no way to get a straw counter back.

Top 3

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1. Sagharri
2. OneAndOnly
3. Komandon

[Sagharri]

critiques

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KB52665
Omenpath Consulate - That's pretty elegant and flavourful dual land that avoid many issues of previous ones. And then there is that landcycling - yes, searching any land can be quite powerful, but cost is a little bit too prohibitive to be abusable.

EsperCormorant
Carapace of Arixmethes - Overall quite interesting plus leaves funny interactions.

Komandon
Field of Echos - Some quality issues (grammar, misspells). Also "no longer imprinted" could be replaced with possibility of only 1 card at time can be imprinted for simplicity and less memorizing.

marioguy3
Lighthouse of Discoveries - Repetitive draw limited only by mana? Umm... Nah, I don't think so. Pretty abusable and "any number" makes it even more valuable.

OneAndOnly
Sands of Regret - Tutor lands into graveyard... I am only not sure if it isn't a bit too cheap.

kwanyeegor-ii
Court of Heavenly Kings - A bit too much. If you would remove any of these abilities I think that I would find it fine. Otherwise it is just too good - like you want to wait for proliferate? Just generate colorless mana. Lost all counters on mana or token? You can still generate colorless mana and be ahead because of earlier mentioned resources. And to be worse you can take 4 of these.

top 3

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1. EsperCormorant
2. KB52665
3. OneAndOnly

[Komandon]

Critiques

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Carapace of Arixmethes
Creature Land — Kraken Skeleton (Mythic Rare)
Carapace of Arixmethes isn't a creature while it's on the battlefield.
Carapace of Arixmethes enters the battlefield tapped.
: Add or .
Scavenge
4/4

Can't see this as mythic. I understand the reason to make it a creature instead of just a non-creature ability to add counters but all land animation abilities and spells give the lands its own p/t. So only the type of creature can benefit while on the battlefield. A non-black skeleton is odd. I'm sorry if I'm misunderstanding your card.

Omenpath Consulate
Land (R)
Omenpath Consulate enters tapped.
When Omenpath Consulate enters, choose two basic land types. Omenpath Consulate is the chosen types in addition to its other types.
Landcycling wubrg

Though it has landcycling and the ability to be two basic land types coming into play tapped and being all colors for its tutor ability doesn't seem like a rare but maybe an uncommon. I like the concept.

Court of Heavenly Kings
Land (Mythic)
Court of Heavenly Kings enters the battlefield tapped with four depletion counters on it.
T: Add C.
T, Remove two depletion counters from Court of Heavenly Kings: Add WU.
2WU, T, Remove a depletion counter from Court of Heavenly Kings: Create a 4/4 white and blue Archon creature token with ward 2.

I liked the depletion mechanic back when it came out. Nice twist on it. I don't understand the Archon creature type though.

Lost Grotto
Land (U)
T: Mill a card.
T, Exile a card from your graveyard: Add C or one mana of any of that card's colors.

This is interesting. Nice to think of build arounds.

Peakmeadow Carrefour
Land (R)
Peakmeadow Carrefour enters the battlefield tapped unless you control a Mountain and a Plains.
T: Add R or W.
3, T, Sacrifice Peakmeadow Carrefour: Search your library for a card that's red and/or white and no other colors, reveal it, and put it in your hand. Then, shuffle.

I can see this as a cycle but it's kinda too powerful for it's tutor ability cost.

House of Pigs
Land (R)
House of Pigs enters the battlefield tapped and with a straw counter on it.
: Add .
, Remove a straw counter from House of Pigs: Put a sticks counter on House of Pigs.
, Remove a sticks counter from House of Pigs: Put a bricks counter on House of Pigs. Then conjure a card of your choice from the Three Pigs spellbook onto the battlefield. It perpetually gains protection from wolves and werewolves.

Should have been a real card available on arena when WoE came out.

Top 3

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1st: wizyard
2nd: Ink-Treader
3rd: AnotherAlias

[marioguy3]

Komandon: Cool card. I like the imprint idea on a land. Not too broken I think

EsperCormorant: I like this land. It's a unique design I'd likely enjoy to see a bit more of in Magic.

KB52665: This is another cool, unique landcycler card. Five colored mana is steep to landcycle but I think worth it for any land at instant speed to hand.

kwanyeegor-ii: Solid design with a fun double mana ability for removing counters. Not sure if the ratio of creature power to cost is fair enough.

Wizard: Simple, clean looking card with plenty of synergies of mill to go around.

Ink-Treader: Super strong tutor ability at instant speed. Probably would have restricted it to sorcery speed at that cost.

Top 3:

3rd place: Komandon
2nd place: KB52665
1st place: EsperCormorant

[KB52665]

Top 3

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1 — Oneandonly
2 — Wizyard
3 — Sagharri

[void_nothing]

And with critiques closed, our top 8 contestants are:

Sagharri
EsperCormorant
Ink-Treader
OneAndOnly
marioguy3
wizyard
netn10
kwanyeegor-ii

Next round to come soon!