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CardName: Challenge # 055 Cost: Type: Challenge Pow/Tgh: / Rules Text: Design a Vanguard Avatar. You must use a Planeswalker introduced in Lorwyn or later as your subject. Flavour Text: Set/Rarity: Multiverse Design Challenge Mythic

Challenge # 055
 
 M 
Challenge
Design a Vanguard Avatar. You must use a Planeswalker introduced in Lorwyn or later as your subject.
Updated on 19 Oct 2012 by jmgariepy

History: [-]

2012-10-19 04:40:49: jmgariepy created the card Challenge # 055
2012-10-19 04:42:50: jmgariepy edited Challenge # 055

With 5 days passed, and no one claiming challenge 55, I assumed it was cool to cut to the chase and just post.

Avatars have been popular in the past, but have slowly rotated out of favor. I suppose I can understand why... with no way to force players to change up their avatars, they're just 'always on' combo pieces which you can't respond to.

That doesn't make them unfun however. Since we haven't seen any new Vanguard cards since 2010, and since Vanguard always avoided Planeswalkers, it seems natural for a Vanguard relaunch to be centered around the 'new Planeswalkers'.

I'm granting bonus for 'plays well when randomly assigned to any player', since I assume that it's healthy for this casual format to not lock people into playing one Vanguard card. Also bonus points are granted for making the Vanguard card really feel like the Planeswalker in question, as opposed to just be a cool red ability that Chandra's name got slapped onto.

I admit, this is a greedy challenge. If we get enough good Planeswalkers Avatars, I totally plan to print them up and play with them...

Oh, also, if this challenge happens to go long, feel free to add non-planeswalkers like Krenko. I don't have a problem with them... it just seems like we should focus on the planeswalkers first.

Oh, and also, also, every Vanguard card's text (and some cool pictures) can be found here. (Hmm... doesn't seem to have the non-online cards. Oh well, it's still a good place to start).

on 21 Oct 2012 by Visitor:

pws were introduced as a type in lowryn, there were none before

So, um... yeah. Vanguard? Avatars? No idea what you're talking about. Aha; a linky in your second comment. That would probably help; but seems not to load for me.

And mildly miffed since I had earmarked the next challenge, but as I've forgotten what it was going to be now, not that miffed.

The link loads fine for me, but I have the problem I've never played with avatars so I don't know what abilities exist already or what would be balanced.

Edit: Vitenka, did you remember your hint on http://multiverse.heroku.com/cards/20405 ? Or you can't remember even looking at that. Yeah, I realised you'd said you might do #55, but I don't think jmg noticed. I encourage people to sign up on "upcoming challenges" if they like, having a couple in the pipeline is good.

Oh, geez, I didn't even see your card, Vitenka. That said, if you leave no comments, I don't have a chance to see it. Looking through the 'Recent Activities' log, I scan for dialogue, and ignore things like "Person X created a card" or "Person X edited a card". I assume many other people do as well.

The link works for me as well, but if there's any real confusion as to what "Magic: the Gathering Vanguard Avatars" are, you could always just Google it. That said, I'm surprised nobody picked up the baton. I know Avatars haven't been a popular concept, but I assumed that someone out there really liked the idea. It also seemed like a natural... it's roughly one of the only types of cards we haven't designed in the design challenge.

So, here's a few things for me to remember personally

  • If it's an obscure topic, don't add extra restrictions. Be happy people are designing anything on that obscure topic at all.
  • If you have an obscure challenge, don't wait for other people to design a card first, then join the fun. Make a card to lead people off with. For example Ajani Goldmane - Avatar ­
  • I made Jace Beleren -- Avatar.

    I honestly think that if Avatars would be relaunched under New World Order, they should have all-upside abilities, similar to a permanent enchantment attached to you. The life and hand size value can probably disappear.

    I want to try my hand at posting challenge 56 (unless Vitenka remembers what he'll post, in which case he can go ahead). How do I do that? What's a reasonable number of days to wait after each challenge before posting the new one? :)

    I thought the MTGO Vanguard format was still seeing some play in the casual room? Personally I've been insanely busy this week, but also I don't think I've ever played with vanguards, so I probably don't have much feeling for what would make a fun vanguard, what effects vanguard players think "I wish that existed" about.

    @noyahuid: Recommended delay between challenges is between 3 and 7 days, depending on how busy/high-traffic the previous challenge was. There's a card called (((Upcoming Challenges Scheduling))) where people can comment to reserve the next one.

    @jmg: I think a challenge for avatars is a good idea, it just seems no-one here ever plays with one so don't know what's acceptable for an avatar design... If so, I think I'm going to treat this challenge as "design an avatar based on a planeswalker from scratch as if avatars never existed before, not worrying if it overlaps with another avatar, or isn't too balanced."

    That's a fair idea. In fact, I kind of wish I went with that concept to begin with, no matter what our experience with Avatars are. High concept is always more fun anyhow. I think I'll give this some thought.

    For Liliana Vess, Planeswalker I went with a new concept for how to balance Planeswalker Avatars. You play with a mild ability, (Liliana cast Syphon Soul before the game began), then you get to play with one obviously overpowered card in your deck (Vess' Assassin for aggro decks, Liliana's Charm for control based decks). Cards with 'Boon' on them help control the environment, since, if one Planeswalker turned out to be too good (Hi Jace), when future Boons are printed, the Avatar with a crazy good boon will end up with some wacky combo card, or a too specific answer, while the underwhelming Avatar will get a new hotness.

    I did think of making the Avatar intentionally worse than a normal Magic player, so that you could, theoretically play them in Standard with your one boon card, which is supposed to balance everything... but who wants sucky avatars? Probably better to leave this stuff in casual. As for how you distribute this sort of thing... I'd kind of like to see a new silver-bordered set, but this time no humor... just meant for casual play. Seems good there.

    If this is a "design Vanguard from scratch", my suggestion would be to just design them like planeswalker cards.

    Avatar format:

    1. Before the game starts, each player chooses an Avatar.
    2. You start the with 30 life and 0 action points.
    3. Each turn, any time you can cast a sorcery, you can play one of your abilities, which also has the effect of increasing or decreasing your available action points.
    4. Planeswalker cards are banned from Avatar format.

    Avatars:

    I'll point out that jmg's cardsets printed for casual play are pretty similar to Planechase / Commander. The cards are technically legal for Legacy play, but apart from Scavenging Ooze and an occasional Shardless Agent, the new cards are pretty well targeted to casual awesomeness.

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