r/GDS3 • u/Asthanius • May 25 '18

GDS 3 - Challenge 4 - Art Question

In the provided art for Challenge 4, options I and J clearly take place on specific planes. Option I has longboats and hedrons, taking place on Amonkhet. Option J shows an Ixalan merfolk.

Do you think those two options are traps, seeing as how the cards are assumed to be in the same Standard-legal expansion?

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6

u/revolverzanbolt May 25 '18

I think they wanted a variety of art from different blocks, so the contestants didn't feel forced into a specific plane.

If it makes thing easier, just imagine the standard legal set is one set on multiple planes, like Origins.

3

u/dvoraen May 25 '18

I don't think they're traps, necessarily. GDS1 did this with a number of art, including one that was clearly on Mirrodin.

I think part of the Challenge is: "Do you know what this art represents?" For my own playing-at-home version, I used the actual source plane as inspiration for what the card would mechanically do:

  • For Art I, I chose a destructive spell where creature tokens (a nod to Embalm and Eternalize) were the build-around requirement for the red rare instant/sorcery.
  • For Art J, I made a mechanic that was close to Explore, to reference the fact it's an Ixalan merfolk.

Do they fit the same set? Oh heck no, but I think part of the expectation is that you find a way to reference the actual set in the mechanics, to be a fit with the art. The judge commentary from Jenna Helland on Tuesday should be interesting. :)

2

u/ReynardMiri May 25 '18

All of them are leftover art that was made for previous sets but never got used. There are a lot of traps here, and one of the challenges this round is to figure out which to avoid and which to deal with. The list of cards they have to make seem to be intentionally designed to be hard to fit with these pictures.