First Place, Grand Prize
Centerstone Sentinel by poptabkid2
- Corwinnn:
The top card for me is this beast of a card! It has some of the coolest flavor, and it tells it's own story. "Build" a wall... it gets a little sentinel. "Build" four walls, and now you have a castle with four staunch defenders and one very watchful eye. Nice job!
- Faiths_Guide:
The name already has me interested, let's see what exactly has been designed here. Art, check. Tribal benifit, check. Flavor, quintuple check. Balance, close, could use a couple tweaks. My thoughts regarding this masterful creation have become jumbled in my awe. He packed an absolute flavor/tribe overload into this offering and it got my vote (and that's saying something with no flavor text, just raw mechanics)! The only thing out of wack (slightly) with this guy is power level. Suggestions might include: Legendary, Defender (him and tokens), and then perhaps a P/T increase and this guy would be perfect. Definitely a stellar submission out of @poptabkid2! Well done!
- StrongBelieves:
Where do you find gargoyles? Walls. The concept seems almost obvious and I'm jealous I didn't think of it myself ages ago. While this this guy is on the overpowered side and would benefit from some tweaking, the flavor is on point and the mechanics are among the most interesting of any card submitted. When it comes down to it, this card is just really, really cool.
Second Place:
Suwash, Corsair Stormcaller by delrethius
StrongBelieves: This card happened to be my favorite among the entries. It ticked all of the boxes for our judging criteria and lost out to the supreme flavor of Centerstone Sentinel by a hair. It captured the seafaring pirate humans theme the way we were all hoping for. The mechanics are interesting and useful, the flavor is great and it is even balanced flavorfully. Suwash is the kind of card you want to draw to unleash your foul-smelling pirates on your opponent in a way that fits blue perfectly.
Third Place:
Gathering of Swans by Ludos
Faiths_Guide: This card has a feeling of the simple yet complex card design that makes good smiths who they are. Without forcing you into it, this card begs to be in a Tribal Bird list. Has good flavor text (also a bit mysterious), is well formatted, again might be (slightly) overpowered, but sorcery speed does a lot for it in terms of balance. Very good show of "Smithing Prowess", Ludos. Not a whole lot of tweaks to suggest here. Well done!
Winning Tribe: Gargoyles
Gargoyles as the winning tribe as not something we were expecting going into this contest. It seemed like a dark horse at first because most people seemed to think there wasn't as much mechanical flexibility in them as the other tribes. Well, we were mistaken. Gargoyles had a surprising number of cards that made it into our judging discussions and even managed to take the 1st place position for the contest. We felt that the Gargoyle tribe really showcased some of the most interesting mechanics, solid balance and even great flavor. On top of that, many of the Gargoyle submissions would synergize very well together. Each of the judges have picked their favorite Gargoyle (excluding Centerstone Sentinel) and each of these cards will be a Featured Card very soon!
Thanks to everyone who participated in this stellar contest! This contest was an excellent showcase of creativity given specific outcomes, and its clear the community responded with full force.
We also want to thank our patrons over on Patreon.com/mtgcardsmith who made this contest happen for all members with their dedicated support! If you enjoyed the contest, please consider joining them in supporting the site.
Original Contest Info:
Contest Dates: April 11 - 24, limit 1 entry per person.
Rules:
- One entry per person and no re-entries, so make all corrections before entering the card! (Note: Using multiple accounts to have multiple entries will result in disqualification.)
- You card must either be a tribal supertype card or a creature card of one the types listed above. To explain, you can make any kind of bird you want with any additional subtypes, but it must contain the subtype Bird.
- Your card must be realistic, in that it can be played in a game of MTG.
Judging:
This contest will be judged by three community members: @Corwinnn, @strongbelieves, and @Faiths_Guide. Our judges will be deciding the top 3 cards for prizes based on the criteria of cleverness, balance, fun, flavor and how well it would work with the tribe. One tribe will also be selected as an overall winner based on the quality of all of the cards entered for it combined. Judging will take from 3 to 7 days depending on the number of entries.
Contest Prizes:
This is what everyone came to see, right? Well, I'm happy to announce we have one heck of a prize pool lined up for this contest thanks to the patreon supporters.- Grand Prize: 9 packs, 3 months of full premium MTGCS membership
- Second Place: 6 packs, 2 months of full premium MTGCS membership
- Third Place: 3 packs, 1 month of full premium MTGCS membership
- (International Prize Option: A digital copy of Magic 2014 or Magic 2015 for PC)
Reward booster packs will be a mix of Oath of the Gatewatch and Shadows Over Innistrad.
All participants will also unlock a unique Runestone avatar for their MTGCS account!
Design & Entry Tips:
- Submissions must come from an MTG Cardsmith member account
- Previously "Featured" and contest cards are not eligible, sorry
- Capitalization and spelling are important
- Card power and balance are also important
- Artwork must be attributed to the artist
Official Rules
Eligibility - Entrants must be over the age of 13 to redeem prizes. Residents of the United States or Canada are eligible for physical prizes. International contestants are eligible for digital prizes: Magic 2014, or Magic 2015 for PC, through the Steam gaming platform. Contest begins April 11, 2016 and ends April 24, 2016. Three (3) winners will receive prizes worth a total estimated prize value of $86.00. Winners will be announced during the week of May 1. Prizes will be delivered 2-4 weeks weeks after announcement. Cards/accounts deemed to be "gaming" or cheating the community voting system will be removed from the contest. Each entrant/address may only win one prize. Each entrant authorizes their card submission & username for contest and future promotional use by MTG Cardsmith. By following the contest entry steps listed here you agree to the terms and rules of the contest. Limit 1 entry per person. No purchase necessary (of course). Have fun!
