Over the past month and a half, there has been a contest running in the MDV/MTP forums.  This contest entailed creating a possible mechanic for CELIXIA's next set, Powershift.  For those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about, CELIXIA is a homemade, fictional set of Magic: the Gathering cards created by John Streetz (me) for fun (which recently has been finalized for playtesting).  Anyway, of the 14 contestants, Hymnologist has won with his 'duplicate' mechanic.  To the right is the artwork that I made for one of his cards.  I will get to that mechanic and the card more, later.

There are so many possible mechanics one could use in their homemade set.  For instance, LSK, over on MTG Salvation, has an encyclopedia of keyworded custom mechanics summarized by LSK but submitted by the forum members.  This encyclopedia can be found here.  There are over a hundred mechanics created by the average player sorted by name found in this list.  It is very useful for the average person looking to build their own Magic set.  However, when I perused all of these mechanics (some of which I submitted to the list), I couldn't find anything that really fit for Powershift.  Many of the mechanics were too plain, confusing or just didn't fit the criteria for Powershift.

Powershift is a set that symbolizes a shift in the natural order of CELIXIA (the world where CELIXIA is found) where the Estos  (a magical being brought onto CELIXIA through Xiosis's portal) are beginning to shape and remake CELIXIA into a new realm.  For more information on the Estos, please go here.   As I mentioned, none of the mechanics in LSK's 'encyclopedia' really helped.  That's when I decided to post a new contest in the new MDV forums (hosted by Magic Trading Post) to seek out a new mechanic that really hit home and gave the set some 'oomph!'  Let me say I was very happy with the results.

The contest had two rounds.  The first round was for everyone to post their mechanic ideas but only one could be judged.  We discussed each mechanic and the contestants sometimes revised or even completely changed their mechanic.  Once that was complete (about two weeks of this) the judges scored the mechanics based on the following as defined by Einsteinmonkey, a forum member and the other judge:

Flavor: How natural does the mechanic feel? (to all colors - please specify if it leans towards one color, like Scry did [nothing particularly wrong with that, so long as it isn't too isolated]) How well does it fit into the main theme of the set? /10

Mechanic: How thought-out and developed is the mechanic? Does it open new design space or expand old space and create potential? /10

Balance: How balanced is the mechanic? /10

The second round was reserved for the top 5 contestants.  In this round they had to post cards that show off their mechanics and update the wording of their mechanic if necessary.  Before I go into more detail about any of this, for your viewing pleasure, here are the submitted mechanics from round one of the contest:

Scary
Whenever this creature attacks its controller may tap target permanent.

Momentum
When this creature attacks, you may put a momentum counter on it. This creature gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is the number of momentum counters on this creature.

Rearrange X
Whenever a spell or ability causes you to shuffle your library, you may pay X. If you do, reveal this card and shuffle your library, then place the revealed card on top of your library.

Powershift [Card Type]
When you play ~ you may sacrifice one [Card Type], This spell costs X less to play where X is the converted mana cost of the sacrificed [Card Type].

Chance X
Whenever ~ comes into play, you may pay X. If you do, remove the top X cards of your library from the game face-down. Your opponent chooses one card. Put the chosen card into play and shuffle the rest into your library.

Balance X
When this comes into play, if it was played from your hand, you may pay the Balance cost. If you do, each player sacrifices a permanent of the same type as this card (the types are artifact, creature, enchantment and land).

Vanish
When ~this~ blocks or becomes the target of a spell or ability, flip a coin. If you win the flip, remove ~this~ from combat or the spell or ability is countered. If you lose the flip, Vanish does nothing and this card loses Vanish until the end of the turn.

Powershift X
When you play ~, if you played it from your hand, you may pay X. If you do, put a creature token copy of ~ into play under your control as ~ comes into play.

Duplicate X
X: Put a creature token copy of ~ into play under your control. Play this ability as a sorcery.

Fury X
This creature can block up to X creatures during combat and can not be blocked except by X or more creatures.

Empower: EFFECT
If you paid three or more different colors of mana to pay for the cost of this spell, EFFECT.

Leadership X
Each other creature you control that shares a creature type with ~ gains +X/+X.

Concentration EFFECT
You have concentration as long as you have 5 or more cards in your hand.

Powershift X
When ~ comes into play, you may pay X. If you do, flip ~.

At first glance, what do you think?  Can you point out the mechanics that are too bland or too confusing?  If you were making your own set, which mechanic would you score highest?  Below are the round one scorings as judged by Einsteinmonkey and myself.  Note that the scores below are the total of each of our scores in each category.

The above lot of mechanics was a great mix of good and bad mechanics.  Some of the mechanics that were scored lower were scored lower for reasons including bad-application to the block as a whole, confusing wording, or color restrictions.  Crash's 'scary' mechanic was very limited in nature as you could only see it in blue or white and the name really didn't fit either of those colors. The mechanic overall was weak. King Krispy's ''momentum' mechanic was basically the text on the real green card, Momentum; unfortunately this isn't exactly what I wanted out of a mechanic for Powershift. BaneofFire's 'chance' mechanic fit well with the 'shuffling' themes of the block, but it was a bit too powerful for a mechanic in this set. Captain Cornbread's mechanic was just too confusing and wordy and involved coin flipping as a mechanic. This was a definite no, no. Then there was ThatOneGuy's 'Powershift' mechanic.. which involved card flipping... another no, no for Powershift cards. There aren't any flippable cards.

Flavor seemed to be the most common problem throughout the mechanic submissions.  Flavor in a mechanic is so very important to a set.  For instance, Betrayers of Kamigawa had Ninja's ninjutsu mechanic which was very flavorful to the set full of Ninjas.  Then there was Nemesis that had the  fading mechanic which was very symbolic to the state of creatures and effects in that setting.  Really, the flavor of the mechanics defines a set.  Two of the mechanics for CELIXIA (which will be seen throughout the block) were Ambush and Reclaim.  Ambush was a flavorful mechanic that really puts an emphasis on combat tricks while Reclaim really supports the shuffling 'unnamed' chaotic mechanic of the set.   Again, if you would like to find out a little more on the mechanics found in CELIXIA, please go here.

Back to the scores, the mechanics highlighted in darker red in the above score table were the top five scorers.  Hankroyd, Aether Reaper, Smeghead, Hymnologist and Zephyrus advanced to round two.  Round two was very important because it was a chance to show off your mechanic via card applications.  The objective was to create a white, blue, black, red, green, artifact and gold card that showed off the mechanic.  Each card they created was judged on a 20 point scale based on Flavor, Playability and Originality.

The cards submitted by the contestants for their mechanics were also a wide range of power levels.  Some cards were just broken while others were too weak.  After reviewing them, Hymnologist was dubbed the winner with Aether Reaper in second and hankroyd in third.  Here are the cards submitted by Hymnologist:

When I originally saw Duplicate, I thought it was way too powerful.  Being able to Clone your own creature multiple times in a turn seemed broken and degenerate much like the untap your lands mechanic from Urza's Saga.  However, when Hymnologist combined the mechanic on creatures with effects like "sacrifice a permanent during your upkeep", the duplicate ability seems much more balanced.   I fell in love with the mechanic after I saw the cards posted.  Duplicate did represent a theme of the set very well.. the power of the Estos growing and shaping CELIXIA as a world.  One thing both I and Einsteinmonkey agreed on is that the costs for Duplicate should be very color intensive with double or sometimes triple color costs (i.e., 1WW, 2WW or WWW).

The final scores for round two are below:

Hymnologist
Final Score - 278

Aether Reaper
Final Score - 244

hankroyd
Final Score - 243

Zephyrus
Final Score - 208

Smeghead
Final Score - 190

Congratulations to Hymnologist on the win. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this contest.  It was fun to see the interesting mechanics all of the contestants submitted.  Concentration was interesting as it is very similar to the theme mechanic for Saviors of Kamigawa of hand size matters.  Then there was Rearrange by Aether Reaper which just seemed amazing for a mechanic.. being able to tutor cards out of your deck.  However, it was too powerful and thus scored just slightly lower than Duplicate. 

Keep watch for future contest in the forums for sets like CELIXIA and it's sub sets.  I plan to have a flavor text writing contest in the near future for existing CELIXIA cards.  Until then, enjoy the following card as designed by Hymnologist which will appear in Powershift, second set of CELIXIA:

Note how this card combos well with Gliding Estos.

Thanks for visiting Magic Deck Vortex and reading this brief article by me!  If you would like to see the entire thread where this contest took place, please click here.  As I mentioned earlier, there will be more contests for CELIXIA sets and if you want to take part in them, please join the forums and voice yourself in them. 

~Streetz~

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.

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