Hello everybody, and welcome to 'Name That Card'! I'm your host, John-Michael Gariepy.

We're going to be trying something a bit different with this set. I'm going to be putting up card designs without a name, and your job is to give that card a name. Best name, according to me, is given to the card. Why is it that I'm the only person who gets final say? Because life is arbitrary and unfair (and because more democratic means aren't reasonable with a small audience. It happens.)

I plan to post one card per week, and we'll see how far this goes. But for now... Name That Card!

Huh. If only Strip Mine wasn't already taken...

Rainbow Factory

Mana Excavator

Compleated Verge

when i thought about what the flavor for this card might be, this personally gave me the flavor of the world no longer being suitable (due to pollution, disease or damages) and so humans are using these artifact for survival, or maybe more magicky, wizards are using it for mana they can no longer draw from the land..

In that way, it reminds me of Zendikar, where the land has become a barren wasteland which cannot produce (colored) mana...

What about 'Hope of the Zendikari Wizard'? Definitely not similar to the other ones here though...

Also inspired me to make a mythic rare version of this card, which can be seen here: http://www.magicmultiverse.net/cards/112303

T should have been . That was the edit.

Link, by accident, is tapping into my love of learning odd words. I'm going to have to be careful not to automatically award the person that made me run to the dictionary. ;)

thesaurus gang rise up

Sprawling Metropolis

@Froggy, that name is probably way too long and inelegant. "Zendikar's Hope" gets across pretty much the same ideas.

@continuum, I like the flavor behind that one.

@jmgariepy, which word? Compleated, or Verge?

Feels almost like a Mox to me... Maybe Mox Pyrite?

@Link: Verge, Merriam-Webster definition #2. I wanted to comment more on it, but I also didn't want to gush over a word while the 'contest' was still going on. Seemed like bad form.

For what it's worth, I'll be going through the all the entries individually when suggestions are closed. I can't guarantee I'll do that for all the cards. But while I'm still feeling my way through how this is supposed to work, I'll probably be over-doing my role.

Lev, from what I've seen, every mox gemstone has a cost of . But you are right, this is very mox like. I think it could be some kind pf Chalice.

It's the kind of thing you'll play on turn one, and you'll probably use it on turn one to cast your first spell. If not, its the only thing you'll have on the field but at least you'll have plenty of cards in your hand.

Wellspring Chalice

Definition 1. The place something comes from or starts at, or the cause of something.

Definition 2. An abundant source of something.

Yeah, moxen need to cost 0 and lotuses need to make 3 mana. That's the rule

(Not counting singular Lotus Petals, or Lotuses from Un-sets, I suppose.)

If black lotus doesn't have precisely three petals I can guarantee you this game is literally unplayable.

This does give you two mana turn 1 without setting you behind the curve unless it gets destroyed. It's pretty strong.

Mmm; on the flip side it's only a bump that one turn you play it, though the all-colour part is always useful. So it's maybe not ridiculously good.

I wouldn't be surprised to see this cost , but it's not horribly aggressive at . There is, after all, a limited amount of horribleness you can do with 2 mana.

Well, you can play any number of these turn one with with no drawback, so there's that.

Not... ah. The returning is an effect, not an additional cost. Hmmm. Yeah; that would be bad.

Oh wow I didn't even notice that. You should probably fix that. Unfortunately I haven't seen returning something to your hand used as a cost. It would be strange.

actually this is three mana on turn 2

tap land, play this and bounce land, tap this, play and tap other land == 3 mana + one tapped mana rock + one tapped land for next turn.

Here's a weird balancing idea. Make it cost instead of .

And i think it's more like 5 nana on turn 2 (if you get lucky.)

Turn 1

Play Mountain

Play (Chalice 1)

Return mountain to hand.

Play (Chalice 2)

Play (Chalice 3)

Play (Chalice 4)

Play whatever one-drop you want.

Turn 2

Untap 4 (Chalices)

Play a Mountain.

Play a F**king Niv-Mizzet, Reborn

Whoops. I don't know how I missed that. I get why Vitenka would argue that there's more powerful stuff out there, but there wouldn't be any reason not to play four of these in every deck, if it could ramp with no true drawback.

Mistakes get made sometimes. My goal isn't to make a more interesting card so much as to make the most neutral fix. So it now enters the battlefield tapped to prevent those shenanigans.

Congratulations Lost Fblthp! You win the first Name That Card challenge!

As I mentioned beforehand, I'm breaking down why I didn't choose the other names. I don't plan to do this for every card. But since this is all new, I thought it was important that players got a chance to see how the judge 'thinks'. Before I do so, I just want to point out that all the names people gave me were perfectly fine choices. The nature of the game is spurious and capricious, so don't read too much into my choices.

Rainbow Factory & Sprawling Metropolis

I have a hard time imagining an artifact with a casting cost of being any larger than a pony. It's not that I'm not willing to accept it, but the flavor has to be spot on for it to work.

Mana Excavator

Also suffers from size issues. Though, I'm more willing to believe that a mana excavator could be the size of a pony. Referencing the word mana in the title is also a minor tic off in my head. I do like the idea of 'digging up the ground to get mana, though. You'd think, though, that an excavator would keep digging and not stop once it digs up one land. These are all rather minor points, admittedly.

Hope of the Zendikari Wizard

The connection to Zendikar is spot on. And I like the story that this infers. But the name makes the artifact sound like it is Legendary, or an intricate puzzle piece, or belongs to the game Duel Masters. :)

Mox Pyrite

I also thought of Moxes when I looked at this card. I also think using Pyrite, or Fool's Gold, is a strong idea for a card. And I get the connection you're going for here that this isn't real gold, because you need to return a land. But this artifact still provides 'gold' mana, no matter how you got to it. A perfect connection would be if the artifact produced some sort of 'fake' mana, which it doesn't. Add to the fact that, yeah, I got to agree with Dude. If it doesn't cost , then we probably shouldn't call it a Mox.

Compleated Verge

Like I said, I love learning new vocabulary. This one has two nice juicy words to break down.

Most dictionaries just list 'Compleat' as an archaic spelling for complete. When it is used other than for archaic purposes, the focus seems to be on 'accomplishment'.

Magic the Gathering has an extra take on 'compleation', though. It's 'the state of Phyrexian maturity and perfection'. Neat. Since we can't just throw a word like 'compleation' around in MtG without expecting people to think it has something to do with Phyrexia, then this artifact is now either Phyrexian, or confusing.

A 'verge' beyond meaning a 'precipice' is also a ceremonial rod for swearing fealty, and is usually used for swearing in to civil offices. It also was traditionally used for measuring borders (which is where the name comes from.) Wikipedia also tells me that 'virges' also used to be used for corporal punishment, and as a riding crop... which dates back to a time when verges were more like switches than like rods.

I should also point out that Link may have been thinking about verge escarpments, which are the mechanical gears in (usually) pendulum clocks that help regulate a perfect pendulum swing. And yes, these clocks do look rather Gothic and Phyrexian when you open them up.

While this is all really interesting, none of it seems like a perfect match for what this artifact is doing. I am happy to hand wave that for the sake of abstraction. We haven't seen either verge in Magic. Maybe they make mana. I'm down for that.

But we got another problem, and that's the Phyrexian connection. While I think it's cool to imagine Phyrexian clocks or courts with swearing in procedures that involve verges, saying the verge is 'compleated' infers the verge has matured to a final state. Which infers that the verge has some sort of soul. I don't think you need an artifact creature for that. But I don't see how this small artifact is worthy of compleation.

Wellspring Chalice

Which brings us to Wellspring Chalice. I chose this because it ticked off a number of boxes. A chalice feels like a cost artifact. The association of water with a mana is a good connection. Wellsprings are continuous, and this artifact provides mana every turn. And while a well isn't necessary for a wellspring, the inference that can be made is that we dug a well (returned a land to a player's hand) and now we have a continuous flow of water. The artwork could include both the chalice, and the connected source of water in the background.

Check, check, check, check. I don't plan to judge every card by pure Melvin sensiblities. But this one checked out rather well, so it takes the name.

Okay! Onto (((Name That Card #002)))!