Hello! Today I am announcing the first (of hopefully many) design contests for Algomancy!

The prompt for this contest is:

Simple Yet Deep Abilities

For this contest I am looking for ability designs that are impactful on their own and have the potential for some interesting combinations with other abilities, but not in an overly complicated or oppressive way.

With the recent rule change to how combat in Algomancy works (That was blog post #2, for those who haven’t read it), creatures that are adjacent vertically combine their keyworded abilities. An example of this might be the following 2 creatures.

The electric ability of Animated Spark makes it so that excess damage can be directed to adjacent creatures, and Death Cap has the Deadly ability, meaning any damage from a deadly source is lethal. When you combine these two together, you get an extremely deadly chain lightning effect.

Another good example of an ability with combo potential is Sluggish or the phrase “Whenever ~ is dealt damage, put a +1/+1 counter on it” (which I could turn into a keyworded ability). We can combine the above card with something like the Defending ability above to draw in damage towards our creature, then hit back for a boosted effect!

Rules

You can submit designs in my discord (there will be a tournament channel created shortly for this purpose). You are also welcome to share design ideas in the comments here, but I cannot guarantee these will count towards the contest.

The design submission format is: Ability name: (Reminder text). Description of potential use.

For example:

Sluggish: (Sluggish creatures deal damage last). Great for creatures that get stronger when hit or as a way for balancing larger creatures.

The ability name must be an adjective. It goes as a descriptor for the creature. So when coming up with a name, put it before a card type to see how it sounds. “Sturdy Flower”, “Powerful Goose”, etc.

The ability description needs to be simple and easy to understand. If your description is 4+ lines long, it is probably too much.

You can submit as many abilities as you like, but spamming the submissions may disqualify you from the contest. (basically, if you have a lot of good ideas go for it. But don’t spam a bunch of nonsense).

Prizes

Any ability that makes it into the final Algomancy product will receive a $100 credit in my store (which can be used towards the purchasing of Algomancy in the future if you wish) and a signed copy of every card with their ability that makes it into the game..

Abilities must be distinct enough from ideas that have already been discussed to be eligible for a prize. Basically, it has to be clear that you came up with the idea. For example, if you submit: Spark: (Excess damage dealt by sources with spark spread to adjacent creatures). That is very close to Electric and hard to give credit for. Also verbatim re-skinned abilities from MTG will not be eligible. (unless they have a relevant and interesting change).

If you have a better version or significant improvement to one of the existing abilities, that will be acceptable though.

Existing Abilities

The current list of abilities to draw inspiration from is: (Names are still in progress).

‘Electric‘: ‘Excess damage dealt by electric sources can be directed to an adjacent creature.’,
‘Overwhelming‘: ‘Excess damage dealt by overwhelming sources is dealt to the defending player.’,
‘Flying‘: ‘Flying creatures can only be blocked by other flying creatures.’,
‘Quick’: ‘You may cast quick spells at any time.’,
‘Deadly‘: ‘Any damage from a deadly source will kill a creature.’,
‘Ranged‘: ‘I couldn’t come up with something for this yet’,
‘Assassin‘: ‘Whenever an Assassin damages a player, it deals that much damage to a creature that player controls.’,
‘Preemptive’: ‘Preemptive creatures deal damage first.’,
‘Devastating‘: ‘Devastating creatures deal damage to the three creatures in front of them.’,
‘Friendly‘: ‘Friendly creatures count as all creature types.’,
‘Sluggish‘: ‘Sluggish creatures deal damage last.’,
‘Reckless‘: ‘Reckless creatures deal damage to all surrounding creatures, even allies.’,
‘Defending‘: ‘Defending creatures receive all combat damage that would be dealt to their surrounding teammates.’,
‘Poisonous‘: ‘Poisonous sources deal damage in the form of -1/-1 counters.’,
‘Sturdy‘: ‘Double the health of Sturdy Creatures.’,
‘Powerful‘: ‘Double the attack of Powerful Creatures.’,
‘Rapid‘: ‘Rapid sources deal damage twice’,
“Mirroring“: “Mirroring creatures gain all abilities of opposing creatures across from them.”,
“Illusory“: “Illusory creatures cannot be targeted by opponents.”,
“Indestructible“: “Indestructible creatures don’t die from damage.”,
“Unblockable“: “Unblockable creatures can’t be blocked”
“Decaying“: “Decaying creatures receive damage in the form of -1/-1 counters”