MSE Survivor S6: May Highlights

Written by CanterburyEgg

Welcome back to the third month of MSE Survivor! This month featured our Redemption challenge, a team challenge, and a Jumpstart challenge, really shaking things up! As usual, I'll present each challenge and the highest-scoring entries from the week. Without further ado ...

Survivor S6 Redemption Challenge

In custom formats such as Revolution and Magic Set Editor Modern, we have a tradition: every month there is a tournament, and whoever wins their tournament chooses one of the cards in their deck to get a promo printing, with awesome alt art and a cool frame.

In a different universe much like ours, there's another custom format, called Zenith, which is a "standard like format." In the last two seasons, we had seven cards that received promos for a few different decks. 

• In January, Myr got a promo for their piloting of UB Reversal Fae. This tempo deck with a combo finish was an excellent choice for the month's midrange dense metagame.

• In February, Janah got a promo for Mono White Knightfall. A no frills aggro deck, this deck managed to make a miracle run through the losers bracket to win.

• In March, Zangy's promo came from playing WRBG Last Sunrise. Largely a "good stuff" fair deck, Zangy included a small package of cards that allowed the deck access to low resource kills once its graveyard was large enough.

• In April, Scribbl snagged a promo for RW Stop The World I Want To Get Off, a proactive control list that was well suited to handle all the Last Sunrise style creature decks.

• In May, Splashcat won with BUG Big Shark Combo. In a nailbiter finals, Splashcat managed to assemble the kill through two counterspells, and three nonbasic land destruction spells.

• In June, Matt took the tournament down with BRG Unbroken Basalt, a creature based aggro deck splashing B for disruption to back up its powerful RG  Typal core.

• In July, Dodger won with UG Springtime, a midrange deck leveraging several powerful utility lands in order to go over the top of a counterspell heavy metagame.

Pick three of these decks, and design a promo printing of a central/important card for each of those three decks. You may not use frames other than the ones provided in the Full Pack MSE Download.

Highest-scoring entries

The three highest-scoring contestants won their way back into the tournament.

ItaiUukl

Holmishire

Lordpat

Survivor S6 Round 7: The Team Round

Welcome to the Survivor Season 6 TEAM ROUND! Now we test your collaboration skills as you team up—and guild up—for the next Challenge.

You will be divided into 7 TEAMS, with 3 members each.

You are tasked to design cards for a RAVNICA set. It must be a PREMIER STANDARD PLAY BOOSTER RETURN SET.

• You must choose exactly FIVE Guilds to mechanically focus on in the set, so think RTR/GTC/GRN/RNA.

• The Five Guilds you choose must be color-balanced: each color must appear exactly TWICE across the chosen pairs.

• Each Guild must have its own GUILD MECHANIC. This can be a new custom mechanic, a returning custom mechanic, or a returning canon mechanic. If you choose to return a CANON mechanic as one of your Guild Mechanics, it must be one that has NEVER BEEN A GUILD MECHANIC in canon.  (Ex.: You can't use Scavenge as a Guild Mechanic. You CAN use Surveil as a deciduous mechanic, but not as one of your Guild Mechanics.)

• REPRINTING CARDS IS NOT ALLOWED.

Your entries will be composed of:

• Team Play Booster Pack

• Individual entries for each member

The Team Play Booster Pack will be composed of the following slots:

• 1 Mythic Rare

• 1 Rare

• 1 Split Card, any rarity. May use a non-Guild mechanic.

• 3 Uncommons. At least one must be nonhybrid multicolor.

• 7 Commons. At least one must be two-color hybrid.

• 1 Land, any rarity.

• 1 Wildcard—any rarity. Must be themed for a Ravnica set and a traditional Magic card, but otherwise anything goes.

NOTE: Your Booster must represent each Guild mechanic at least once across its slots.

Then each member will submit an individual entry with the following slots:

• 1 Mythic Rare

• 1 Rare

• 1 Uncommon

• 1 Common

• 1 Card of any rarity that implies a cycle.

Highest-scoring team 

RAVNICA: CIVIL WAR (epictoast, Lordpat, and Maaaaaasterman)

To see this team's full entry, as well as all other entries, check out the GUILDS IN ACTION collection

Survivor S6 Round 8

Welcome back! I hope many of you learned valuable design insights during the team round, but now we return to our regular programming. In this challenge, you will be designing Jumpstart packs!

You will pick TWO pack names, and you will be tasked to design the following for each of those packs:

• 1 Jumpstart Title Card

• 1 Rare or Mythic Rare

• 1 Uncommon

• 2 Common

This means your imgur album will contain 10 images (2 title cards, 8 actual designs, 4 per pack).

Your packs cannot have the same color identity, and must be chosen from the following:

• SCRAMBLED

• MUSICAL

• CELEBRITY

• TIMBER

• GORGONS

• MEOW

• BRILLIANT

• BONFIRE

• GROWTH

• SIFTING

• MINUS ONE

• DIMENSION

• DEPTHS

• EGGS

• LINGERING

Highest-scoring entries

Piguy

mattelonian

The MEGAMECHANIC ROUND is currently under way, and there's plenty more spice to come. With only 13 remaining contestants, the stakes are only growing higher. Who will be the ultimate champion? Only time will tell. Check back in next month, or pop into the events channel of the MSE Discord, where we'll be inching oh-so-close to the grand finale. You won't want to miss it!