Round 1: The Archetype Challenge
"Design a Two-Colored Signpost Uncommon, and one Common of each of those monocolors for that limited archetype."
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Lesson 1: Don’t Sweat It!

Season 4 was my first ever season of Survivor, and with my design capabilities largely untested, I was pretty worried that I’d be eliminated early. This worry was only amplified when, post-submission, I realized had typoed not once but twice on my archetype uncommon. I was pretty panicked at this point and was sure that my Survivor career would end prematurely, and then the results came in. I had placed first! Either the judges didn’t notice, or they didn’t care to dock me for it round 1, but my typos had not been held against me whatsoever. 

While of course it's important to proofread your cards, I felt pretty silly about how worried I had been. The lesson: Especially in early rounds, don’t be too worried if there are small problems with your submission.

Round 2: Stars of the Multiverse
"Choose three different canon planes, then design one rare for each of them."
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Lesson 2: Don't Be Afraid of Conventions

In this challenge, we were tasked with making rares set on canon planes. My round 1 score meant I could largely play it safe this round, so my goal was to make rares that at the very least weren’t outlandishly problematic. 

That said, certain vague categories of canon rares have been shown time and time again to be successful. These include the Recursive B 2/1 creature, Green X Creature Tutor, etc.. Sticking to these conventions (while still doing little bits of innovation throughout) left me with a submission that wasn’t just passable, but another top scorer. The lesson: Canon conventions are used for a reason, don’t be afraid to rely on them when designing rare and mythic cards.

Round 3: Mystery Box
"Assemble three cards from a mishmash of names, mana costs, and typelines."
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Lesson 3: Cohesiveness is Essential

While two of my cards in this round were largely pretty chill and uncontroversial, the third (and flashiest one) was the one that got the most feedback. Blood of the Ancients, at the time of submission, was a design I was super proud of. It has sick flavor, and three abilities that all complemented the flavor theme of death and rebirth. 

The problem, as the judges noted, was that they didn’t complement each other. Why should a creature that’s end goal is to be sacced have an ability that buffs its power? Or, put another way, why should I want to sacrifice my big lifelinking beater? While all of the abilities on this card look fun individually, they didn’t function very well as a complete card. The lesson: Make sure that all the things your cards do work together somewhat, so your designs feel more complete and appealing and less hodgepodgy. 

Round 4: The Core Set Constructed Challenge
"Design three core set-complexity, constructed-playable cards that fulfill certain classic archetypes."
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Lesson 4: Don't Blindy Trust Precedent

Again this round, the lesson I learned revolved only around one of my submitted cards: Till the Fields. I had the basic concept for this card before anything else, being “Swords to Plowshares but a boardwipe”, and after finding good art and flavor (test names included Armies to Farmies, Battlefields to Fields, Legions to Agricultural Regions, Harming to Farming, Killing to Tilling, etc.), I was stuck with the dilemma of how to cost it. 

My instincts said 5 mana would be reasonable based on how strong I thought the effect was, but looking at canon precedent, we had never seen an exile wipe below 6 mana before. Trusting canon precedent over my own instincts, I locked in 6mv, a decision that the judges largely disapproved of. After all, the 6mv exile wipes that had been printed (Farewell, and to a lesser extent Descend Upon the Sinful) had huge upsides that this card didn’t. 

And to add insult to injury, just a couple months after I was too scared to print this card at 5mv, WotC made Sunfall in MOM, a 5mv exile wipe that played completely fine. The lesson: Use common sense rather than canon precedent, especially when your points of comparison aren’t particularly useful. 

Round 5: (Planes)walkin' on Sunshine
"Design a planeswalker card for an original character and two non-planeswalker cards related to that character."
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Lesson 5: Tell a Story!

In this challenge, we were tasked with making an original planeswalker character and two associated cards. Several contestants went for a Signature Spell-type approach with their support cards, but I used those slots to tell the origin story of my pw. In this case, I had a concept for a planeswalker who was effectively the Grim Reaper, so I wrote a little story about how they were hunting down a planeswalker who planeswalked away, causing their spark to ignite with the need to follow them (In retrospect this is literally just Calix but no one noticed so w/e).

After making some pretty simple cards to tell the story on, I had an entry that, while less mechanically interesting than some of my competitors, was very flavorfully compelling. The judges were big fans of it, and I passed the round with pretty good scores. The lesson: Telling a story is a super effective way of making a group of cards feel cohesive and exciting. 

Round 6: A (Booster) Pack of Wild Designers
"Work with a team of three other designers to design a booster pack of a custom set based on a simple theme."
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Lesson 6: Collaborative Design is Rad

I went into the team round with a bit of apprehension. I’d never tried collaborative design before, and I was worried it could go wrong in any number of ways. I was pleasantly surprised to find it was maybe the most fun I’d had all season. Some of this definitely came down to good luck on my teammates, but our skills complemented each other in such a way that it was a breeze to create a final product that was incredibly mechanically and flavorfully functional. Pacifist Westwoman and I brainstormed mechanical concepts which we all helped polish, Jallaba found us a whole bunch of art in a really cool aesthetic, and Garduu made basically all of the final renders with super good mechanics and flavor. 

We ended up with something that could easily be made into a super cool final set, and our efforts were rewarded with first place in the round. The lesson: Collaborative design is cool as hell and you should try it if you haven’t already. 

Round 7: Chaos Ensues
"Create three cards for an unusually colored archetype."
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Lesson 7: Tell a Good Story

Back to designing three cards, I wanted to try using lesson 5 and telling a little story again. This time, I was making some insect cards, so I made a little thing about a hive that gets infected and exiles their queen. The problem was that this story was incredibly one-note, and was told basically the same way on all three of my cards. The judges noted and disapproved of this, noting that I should have worked to either make this story more interesting or not have all the cards interact with it. The lesson: If you’re going to try to tell a story, make sure it's done efficiently and appealingly, otherwise it can make your cards worse rather than better. 

Round 8: Multiverses of Madness
"Design a Battle - Siege, a returning legendary creature, and another card that could appear in MOM."
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Lesson 8: Don't Get Lazy

At this point in the competition, if I’m being honest, I was feeling pretty confident in my ability to not be eliminated in any given round. I had proven to myself that I was able to pump out designs of reasonably high quality whenever needed, and was also in the middle of previewing my project 108 Shades of the Multiverse. 

Point is, I didn’t feel like trying very hard this round. I made Invasion of Valakut and Mu Yanling and felt pretty good about them, but was sorta stuck on what to do for my third card. That’s when I had the mechanical idea for a card with Backup and Battle Cry- that could play pretty cool, but to make flavor sense, it would probably want to appear on a Mirran resistance fighter, art that I did not want to have to spend the time to find. Feeling like my success was probably guaranteed regardless, I submitted the card with the far inferior Eldraine flavor. The judges caught on to this, and feedback on the card was pretty negative overall thanks to an issue I was fully aware of but too confident to solve. 

I still passed the round on the backs of the other two cards, but my ego slipped a little (which was ultimately a good thing for me). The lesson: Even if you’re very confident you’ll do well, take the extra work to make your designs the best you can.

Round 9: The Obligatory Grand Mechanic Design-A-thon
"Design a mechanic from a list of names, then four cards using it."
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Lesson 9: Know the Rules!

This challenge revolved largely around designing a mechanic, and after a bit of iteration, I settled on something I thought was pretty neat. Catalyst (2, Discard this card: Exile the top card of your library. You may play it until end of turn. Add one mana of any color.) While this mechanic had some randomness to it that I was sure some people wouldn’t like, I thought it was a pretty fun cycling riff with interesting points of synergy. 

Little did I know that because the ability added mana, it was actually a mana ability, meaning it could be done at faster-than-instant speed. I still don’t totally understand how this works, but I know that it causes all sorts of weird problems. Better knowledge of the game rules could have totally prevented this problem. The lesson: Especially when you’re doing something you haven’t seen done before, check the Comprehensive Rules to make sure you haven’t committed a rules crime.  

Round 10: Worlds Away (Not That One)
"Recontextualize a canon uncommon card into a new limited archetype, then design four original cards to support that archetype."
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Lesson 10: Keep it Simple

In what was likely the most complicated challenge of the season, we were tasked with reflavoring a canon uncommon card, then building a limited archetype around it that recontextualizes its use. I don’t totally remember how I ended up with the idea I did, but my concept was “Taj-Nar Swordsmith but a wandmaker so it’s finding equipments that cast spells for prowess” which not only was filled to the brim with hoops but also… didn’t really complete the challenge? The archetype was different, but the function of Swordsmith was effectively the same. 

I would have been far better off if I had gone for a simpler and more obvious recontextualization (longest word in the article), rather than trying to be cute with it. The lesson: Don’t worry about doing something too simple if the alternative will leave you with a worse final product. 

Round 11: No Tribe Left Behind  
"Create a tribal support package for an underutilized creature type (picked from a list), with three cards of the tribe and three cards not of the tribe."
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Lesson 11: Double Check

As soon as I saw this challenge I had a pretty much perfect flavor-mechanical concept in mind. After getting approval to use the mechanic Accomplice from its original creator, Zangy, I made my submission in around half an hour, and feeling proud of myself for such efficient design, immediately submitted. THIS WAS A BAD IDEA. Most of my submission was fine, but I left in a goddamn 1 mana repeatable Thoughtseize and realized immediately after it was too late. 

Every other round I’d spent long enough with my designs that problems like this weren’t too common, but I’d sped through this one, leaving a glaring error in what otherwise could have been a pretty perfect submission. The lesson: Even if (and especially if) you’re super confident, wait a little bit so you can double check your submissions with fresh eyes.

Round 12: Beyond the Horizon
"Design 8 cards that could reasonably appear in the set Modern Horizons 2."
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This challenge called for us to make 8 cards that could fit seamlessly into the set Modern Horizons 2. They were judged individually rather than as a group, so rather than having one big lesson, I’ve got 8 mini-lessons!

Lesson 12.000: Consider Play Patterns

Electric Charge was designed to fit into the set’s discard archetype (to be played alongside Madness creatures), but the haste ability caused a big issue. If EC is in your graveyard, your opponent has to play as if any creature you have could have haste at any given time. This significantly complicates the board in a way that’s pretty bad to have at common. The lesson: Think about how your cards might play in a real game.

Lesson 12.125: Judges Don’t Always Agree

While all the judges thought Excavator of Ruins was at least fine, some thought the Embalm cost was too aggressive, while others said it could be even lower, and even more said it was perfect as is. The lesson: Don’t always treat the first feedback you get as gospel, others might disagree.

Lesson 12.250: Obvious Stuff is Fine

I was pretty worried that Forge Hub would be too obvious of a design and would be panned for it- “artifact fetchland” was the first thing I thought of when I thought MH2, and I was sure someone else would as well. Turns out everyone thought it was cool and exciting. The lesson: Things that are obvious to you likely aren’t to others.

Lesson 12.375: Reference Canon Always

Gaea, Bringer of Nature got a whole lot of feedback on all sorts of attributes, but a huge amount of it was talking about how it was cool how I’d referenced canon, or how they wished I’d referenced canon more, or if they wished I’d referenced canon differently. The lesson: Referencing canon is a cheat code to make enfranchised players happy, especially if you go really deep with it.

Lesson 12.500: Consider Multiples

This is a mistake I make all the time. Goblin Chariot is a super cool card that would probably play great- as long as you only have one of them. If you have a second, the whole puzzle sort of falls apart, letting you crew both for free. Bummer! The lesson: Make sure your cards play okay in multiples, and make them legendary if they don’t.

Lesson 12.625: Push Shit

No one likes a weak card, and basically all of the feedback I got on Incubation Overseer said it should be stronger. The lesson: It’s always better to overshoot than undershoot, especially in the context of a fucked up set like MH2.

Lesson 12.750: Mono-Purpose Commons are Cringe

I tried to make Skemfar Stalker good in reanimator and discard, but it leaned so far towards reanimator that it was useless anywhere else in comparison. I should have pushed the discard aspect of this card somehow so that it could be good in more than one archetype. The lesson: idk really what to put here, I think I’ve made it pretty clear what the lesson was and I’m getting tired of mini-lessons.

Lesson 12.875: Don’t Get Lazy on Art

I put a goddamn linoleum tile floor in my semifinal submission, what was I thinking? No one liked this card or the art on it, and better art could have maybe distracted from the card’s mediocrity. The lesson: Never settle for bad art, there’s always something better or infinite other possible designs to fill the slot.

Round 13: The Finals
This challenge was complex enough that it’s impossible to summarize, but you can read about it here
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My Submission

Lesson 13: You Can Do Anything! 

The final challenge, for lack of better words, was fucked up. We were given a crazy theme with random bits of work done unwillingly for us and had to work from a broken base to build something functional. I knew a winning submission would have to solve all of the prompt’s problems, have nice-looking cards, have cross-faction archetypes, and everything, but it felt like a nearly insurmountable puzzle to make it all work. 

So what did I do? I laid in my bed for hours just grinding possible archetype combinations until I got one that worked. Then I spent hours grinding mechanic ideas until I had polished ones that did everything I needed them to. Then I spent hours making sure every final card contributed new information to the final submission. It was a grueling process, but the final product was of quality that I never would have imagined I could get from such a difficult prompt. 

The lesson, and really the lesson of this whole season: With enough hard work, knowledge of the game, and willingness to start over again and again, you can create exciting and quality designs about anything. You can finish projects so ambitious you’d hardly want to start. You can win competitions you have no business winning. In Custom Magic, you can do anything!