Hello! This week, I’m going to deviate a bit from the realm of building decks with existing cards. And no, I don’t mean I’m delving into Dragon’s Maze previews either. I’m talking about cards that won’t be printed on Wizards of the Coast cardboard in the coming months—but, I can hope, one of them will be official and all Standard-worthy-like in the coming years.

Before I go into the cards, I’d like to make a few notes. First, Wizards is taking submissions for card text, but card names and mana costs are not necessarily included. Card names will probably be a separate vote, and rarity and mana costs will be covered by Development within Wizards. Even things like the creature types referenced by card mechanics will probably be subject to change based on the flavor of the set the final card ends up in. Of course, I’ve included full card designs below, but keep in mind that titles, costs, rarities, and so on have little chance of carrying through. These are just my non-Development-minded ideas for what accoutrements these text boxes could have.

There seem to be two camps for YMTC4: those who want a powerful utility card that can be used in any deck and those who want to pursue their own agendas for specific cards they'd like to see. I'm in the latter camp, specifically hoping for an evocative and mechanically unique ability that I can build around. To reiterate from the end of my article a couple weeks ago:

Thus, the designs we'll be looking at today will all be to further my own agenda! Hahaha!

Finally, as a surprising twist, each person can only submit a single card. And on top of that, submissions close this Wednesday night! As of this writing, I haven’t decided which of the following designs I’ll submit, but if you like one and don’t have time to think up your own idea, feel free to submit one of these as your own, changing it however you see fit—this is a community effort after all! I’ll even throw a poll at the bottom for you to vote for your favorite, whether you submitted it or not. Let’s get started.

Dark Charisma

Dark Charisma

Rare

Enchantment

At the beginning of each end step, if an opponent lost 5 or more life this turn, put five 0/1 black Minion creature tokens onto the battlefield.

Tap three untapped Minions you control: Draw a card.

Tap X untapped Minions you control and sacrifice them: Put a black creature card with converted mana cost X from your hand onto the battlefield.

I struggled a bit with the order in which to present them, but I decided to just go with alphabetical: the order these cards are listed in my Magic Set Editor file. Incidentally, Dark Charisma is also the first one I designed once black was chosen and I started brainstorming card ideas.

The cards that most excite me are ones that offer new deck-building options and that create evocative and interesting in-game scenarios. My first thought was, “What would a black Form of the Dragon be?” Form of the Demon? Form of the Vampire? How about Form of the Cult Leader?

Dark Charisma is a top-down design that answers the question, What is it like to be a cult leader in black? First of all, how do you gain followers? Perhaps cult members would trickle in over time—perhaps at the beginning of each upkeep—but my answer instead is that you accumulate minions with a show of power: Beat up someone, and cultists will gather. The next matter is what the cultists do for you. Well, they can gather more knowledge and more power, hence the draw-a-card ability. The issue of how many Minions to tap to draw a card is a power-level one, but I went with three because of the way it scales with gathering more and more Minions. With five Minions, you can draw one card; with ten minions, you can draw three cards. Finally, everyone knows cultists sacrifice themselves to summon demons and other dark and powerful forces, and thus, we have the third ability.

Here is the deck I built around Form of the Cult Leader—er, I mean Dark Charisma. It has a few Minions to play with other than the tokens we’ll generate, and it also has some 5-power evasion creatures to help achieve the trigger the same turn we cast the black enchantment.

"Demon Cult"

• Creatures (25)
• 1 Lord of the Void
• 1 Sepulchral Primordial
• 2 Demonlord of Ashmouth
• 2 Minion of Leshrac
• 2 Rune-Scarred Demon
• 3 Bone Shredder
• 4 Bloodgift Demon
• 4 Body Snatcher
• 4 Priest of Gix
• 1 Kaervek the Merciless
• 1 Sheoldred, Whispering One

• Spells (11)
• 2 Tendrils of Corruption
• 2 Rhystic Syphon
• 4 Sign in Blood
• 3 Dark Charisma

• Lands (24)
• 24 Swamp

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Dire Phylactery

Dire Phylacter

Mythic rare

Enchantment

If a permanent would enter the battlefield under your control, you may exile it instead.

If you would lose the game, instead shuffle your hand and all permanents you own into your library, then put all permanent cards exiled by Dire Phylactery onto the battlefield, draw seven cards, and your life total becomes 20.

This card started with the idea of “Form of the Lich,” but we already have Lich, Nefarious Lich, and Lich's Tomb. So, I thought of the story behind lichdom: You put a part of yourself into a phylactery, and when you’re killed, you come back through the power of the phylactery.

Lich's Mirror simulates that return to “life,” but you have nothing going for you. I designed Dire Phylactery as a more powerful mono-black option that lets you set aside certain permanents for your unlife. Oh, and as a bonus, you keep your graveyard. Enjoy!

Hungry Void

Hungry Void

Rare

Enchantment

When no card is exiled by Hungry Void, exile target creature.

At the beginning of your upkeep, put a -1/-1 counter on the exiled card. If it has more -1/-1 counters on it than toughness, put that card into its owner’s graveyard.

When Hungry Void leaves the battlefield, return the exiled card with all its counters to the battlefield under its owner’s control.

This card is the dark side of Journey to Nowhere; Oubliette and Faceless Butcher were the original Oblivion Ring and Fiend Hunter anyway. Well, while I do agree that white is the correct color for the O-Ring effect, I think the flavor of this concept along with the -1/-1 counter throw-in makes it pretty safe for a black spell.

Having -1/-1 counters on exiled cards is a bit awkward and possibly counterintuitive for the rules, but I think Hungry Void’s text has the situation covered.

Ineffable Plan

Ineffable Plan

Mythic rare

Enchantment

You can’t draw cards.

If a card would be put into your graveyard from the stack or from the battlefield, instead that card is revealed and put on the bottom of your library.

You may cast cards from your graveyard as though they were in your hand.

I think this is the most dangerous of my designs. Just as Mark Rosewater thought he was making a safe Necropotence with Yawgmoth's Bargain, this is my take on a safe Yawgmoth's Will. I’m sure this card is breakable, but the question is whether it’s broken. Let’s give this a shot.

"Ineffable Storm"

• Creatures (8)
• 4 Memnite
• 4 Ornithopter

• Spells (33)
• 2 Culling the Weak
• 4 Cabal Ritual
• 4 Dark Ritual
• 1 Tendrils of Agony
• 3 Traumatize
• 4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
• 4 Sign in Blood
• 3 Phyrexian Altar
• 4 Ineffable Plan
• 4 Lotus Petal

• Lands (19)
• 6 Island
• 9 Swamp
• 4 Polluted Delta

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So, this card is able to fill a similar role as Ad Nauseam, though instead of casting that sorcery and drawing your library, you put your library into your graveyard early and then resolve the enchantment. From that point, cast the free creatures and rituals, mill yourself more again, sacrifice the creatures and whatnot, and since the Plan puts the cards on the bottom of your library, you can potentially loop through your library, shooting your opponent with Tendrils for more and more each time, gaining enough life in the process to keep Signing in Blood, before your opponent has finally taken enough.

This design is easily the most broken among my submissions here, but you really have to build around it to make that happen, and I think the card could be played in fair-but-still-powerful ways. I thought it would be cute for it to put the cards back on the bottom of your library, but that could easily be a mistake. If you decide to submit this to YMTC4, the choice is yours!

Infernal Hierarchy

Infernal Hierarchy

Rare

Enchantment

As Infernal Hierarchy enters the battlefield, choose a creature to be the Infernal Baron.

The Infernal Baron gets +3/+3 and has intimidate. Creatures other than the Infernal Baron get -1/-1.

When the Infernal Baron leaves the battlefield, an opponent of that creature’s controller chooses a new Infernal Baron.

This design answers a different question: Who is the top dog, and what does it take to steal that position? When you play the card, you are able to do something never before seen in Magic: You give a title to a creature. No, you’re not renaming it; it’s more like choosing war or peace with Archangel of Strife. You pick one creature (probably one of your own) to be the top dog, but when it dies, an opponent is able to choose the new top dog.

I don’t know how that decision is made—probably the same way we decide who makes Fact or Fiction piles—but it could create interesting gameplay in multiplayer games especially. The +3/+3 and -1/-1 effects, I think, could just make the card an Aura using a template similar to Necrotic Plague’s but with beneficial effects instead of detrimental ones, so for your own submission, I challenge you to come up with an Infernal Baron effect that couldn’t be reproduced were this card an Aura.

Lifeless Devotion

Lifeless Devotion

rare

Enchantment

Whenever a creature is put into your graveyard from the battlefield, if it’s a creature card, put three gravesoil counters on it.

At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a gravesoil counter from each creature card in your graveyard, then return to the battlefield each card from which the last counter was removed this way.

Sure, counters can exist in the graveyard! Just ask Skullbriar, the Walking Grave. I don’t even think this would be too hard to track; there’d be four groups in your graveyard: no counters (died before Lifeless Devotion hit play; at the bottom of the graveyard), 1 counter (near the bottom of the graveyard), 2 counters (in the middle of the graveyard), and 3 counters (at the top of the graveyard).

This mechanic might be a better fit on a Bloodghast-type creature, but as we’re submitting enchantments here, this is what you get! Besides, who doesn’t want all of his or her creatures to be a timed Bloodghast? It’s like everything has suspend from the graveyard.

Moonrise Hunt

Moonrise Hunt

Rare

Enchantment

Vampires you control have lifelink.

: Regenerate target Vampire.

While you’re searching your library, you may tap three untapped Vampires you control to cast Moonrise Hunt from your library without paying its mana cost.

Panglacial Wurm is the only card that can be cast from the library through its own power, but not if Moonrise Hunt makes it through voting! Maybe taking away the mana-paying process will clean up the rules a bit.

I thought of this mechanic for an enchantment, but Vampires might not be the perfect tribal choice, though black doesn’t have a ton of options, and I did feel that a tribal support card was the right direction in order to steer the card away from Panglacial Wurm while treading similar ground. Note that both lifelink and the regeneration ability are redundant with multiple copies—granting +1/+1 or some such could easily become too good when you’re able to cast the spell multiple times virtually for free. Keep this in mind as you make your own variation for YMTC4 submission.

Necromancer’s Shroud

Necromancer’s Shroud

Mythic rare

Enchantment

Whenever you cast a black spell, return target Zombie permanent card that costs less from your graveyard to the battlefield.

This card most exemplifies the mana-cost issues I mentioned at the beginning of this article. My first draft of this card cost , as I felt that was a fair amount for the effect, and I had it at rare. It was very similar in feel to Grave Betrayal. Then I thought maybe it could be a mythic rare and perhaps wasn’t too cheap after all. At that cost, it becomes a very different card, possibly allowing a powerful Zombie midrange attrition deck into the format. In fact, this feels a lot like what “could have been” for Innistrad if it had existed instead of Endless Ranks of the Dead, a potentially powerful card that unfortunately hosts a very win-more mechanic. Contrariwise, Necromancer’s Shroud lets a player come back from behind a la the recently-banned-in-Modern Bloodbraid Elf.

"Endless Ranks"

• Creatures (24)
• 2 Dakmor Ghoul
• 2 Noxious Ghoul
• 2 Phyrexian Prowler
• 2 Waning Wurm
• 4 Corpse Connoisseur
• 4 Diregraf Ghoul
• 4 Geralf's Messenger
• 4 Rotting Rats

• Spells (12)
• 1 Needlebite Trap
• 1 Nemesis Trap
• 1 Public Execution
• 3 Annihilate
• 3 Waste Away
• 3 Necromancer's Shroud

• Lands (24)
• 24 Swamp

Buy This Deck

I made this list mono-black, but including a few multicolored cards such as Bituminous Blast and Lava Zombie could be quite potent. This is a more straightforward relentless Zombies deck, but with the card-availability restrictions of Standard, I could still imagine a Jund-styled deck with Geralf's Messengers and Diregraf Ghouls, with Necromancer’s Shroud replacing cascade. Alternatively, I could imagine a Standard Grixis Esper deck with some of Innistrad’s blue Zombies, such as Diregraf Captain and Armored Skaab, and a lot of multicolored black spells to trigger the Shroud.

When considering submitting this card, perhaps a legendary version would be better so you don’t generate multiple triggers off a single black spell. Then again, if you have a bunch of Zombies in your graveyard, you earned them, and it’s not as though Maelstrom Nexus plays fair.

Conclusion

That’s it for now! I hope you found this peek into my design mind entertaining, and please feel free to submit/steal/manipulate/critique these to your heart’s content. After all, this is You Make the Card, not I Make the Card. But no matter what you submit, make sure to submit something. Each person only has one submission, so that means we’ll need everybody participating to give Wizards of the Coast plenty of options for the next round of voting.

If you do submit one of these, though, or if you just happen to kinda like of the designs, please vote in the poll below! And while we’re on the topic, please feel free to share your own designs—whether you submit them to YMTC4 or not and whether they have anything to do with mine or not—in the comments below!

[poll id=232]

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com