The Setup

From previous winner Daniel Sexton comes this challenge:

It’s your favorite powered cube cards. So you know all the most awesome cards in magic in a super pimped out way. Things like Will, Bargain, Ritual, Brainstorm, ect….

The Sponsors

The home of the contest is the Z’s Proxy Factory Google+ Community. Our amazing friends at Mana Deprived and Face to Face Games are the proud sponsors of the contest, with store credit prizes of $40 to first and $10 to second place.

The Voting

Z, Matty, and Scotty banged their head together, locked themselves in a room with nothing more than a tiny window and 6 quarts of Whisky Pig to get them though the process. Scores are based on a scale of 1 -10 with 10 being the highest score. Judges are encourages to give feedback, but it is not mandatory.

Scotty’s Votes

Josh Enke – Elspeth – 10

LOVE the combination of the foreign language and the SDCC blackout. Super sick Cube addition

Svante Ekholm – Black Lotus – 5

The artwork did nothing for me. The allure of this contest context was to offer the super sickest pimp alter ever. This one was plain feeling.

Siro Eris – Yawgmoth’s Will – 7

Artwork was amazing, but the layout felt a little off for some reason. I think it was the transparent effect on the text box that didn’t sit well for me. Might have been better with less translucent box with artwork centered to allow for full vision of the face with an opaque box.

Matt Ince – Profane Command – 4

A little too kid like for me, and the artwork reference is lost on me. Not a pimp out

Jason Mong – Jester’s Cap – 9

Didn’t get the full effect till I clicked on it to see the playing card border. Very well done, Artwork was well selected and a good throw back to the original concept. God was it sharp.

Bryan Lundin – Tezzeret – 7

I really liked the art, and the idea here, but there were some finer details missing that kept it out of the top for me. Shading, spills, etc.

Trevor Davis – Snapcaster Mage – 8

LOVE the Art reference. Proxy was clean and neat. Not fitting for the card I think though. The issue with this pic in particular, is that it references the Empire building Walt, while Snaps feels more minion like than Boss like.

Daniel Sexton – Library of Alexandria – 8

I would have liked the super art rules text on this like the game day promos I think. Also, Art was a little blurry for my tastes, making printing suspect

Shreyas Sampat – Young Pyromancer – 7

Artwork was not for me. That saidm the coloring effects were super nice. artwork itself felt a little too amateurish to be “pimp”

Tom Stolt – JTMS – 9

This is again super nice use of the SDCC treatment. The color effect looked really great, but was a little bit more than I would expect in the SDCC Blackout. This almost was a ten for me.

Les Kershaw – Black Lotus – 7

Cutesy. Not pimp.

Z’s Votes

Josh Enke – Elspeth – 7

The middle +1 is using the neutral badge. No real definition in the textbox. The sword and or cloak would have benefited from some color as well. Tons of work went into this, well done!

Svante Ekholm – Black Lotus – 7

Nice use of the blended frame. Obviously creating the art oneself is always worthy of mention. The 5 colors could be a tad more saturated. The tap symbol in the textbox is missing it’s background.

Siro Eris – Yawgmoth’s Will – 4

Extremely turned off by the overuse of transparency here. Odd that you left the expansion symbol and frame around it at full opacity. Art doesn’t scream digging though a graveyard for answers to me.

Matt Ince – Profane Command – 6

Great art, very odd frame arrangement. The text is far too small. Personally I’d have nixed the flavor text for legibility. I’d like to see some more work on the type/textbox. Perhaps a stroke or drop shadow, just to make it an element of the card.

Jason Mong – Jester’s Cap – 8

Great art, creative use of the playing card motif. You broke the frame with the hat for obvious reasons. You could have done the same at the bottom with the artist name, etc. The bit of hat being the card name fits better overall if it’s spilled. Colorshifted this art would work for the new Bob as well.

Bryan Lundin – Tezzeret – 5

Very, very vanilla alt art render. The only challenge is the spill. I’d like to see you stretch your reach more. The textbox background is very off with the sizing/spacing. Was there a reason you did not use an expansion symbol?

Trevor Davis – Snapcaster Mage – 7

I’m not a fan of photo renders personally. You have far more talent than you show with this piece. Nevertheless, it’s super clean as always. Is the textbox background transparent? It looks like it might be the red/gold background.

Daniel Sexton – Library of Alexandria – 8

As I tend to go full Vorthos with proxies, I’d have to point out that the actual Library of Alexandra contained scrolls and not books. Nice composition. The title area needs to spill over the black border. Would have enjoyed seeing the use of an expansion symbol.

Shreyas Sampat – Young Pyromancer – 8

Good art choice, clean render. The “teachers” head is screaming for some spill. Suffers from the framing with the text. Smaller with flavor text would have filled the space better. The other option would be to resize the space, which I know you are capable of. Nitpick, the P/T is the wrong font.

Tom Stolt – JTMS – 8

Half SDCC I guess? The badges are all original over the SDCC style frame. With that approach, I’d have left in the title/type twins. The art desperately needs to be zoomed in. Jace is just forever away. Just a little more work and you’d have been there.

Les Kershaw – Black Lotus – 5

You spend such effort on the art that the rest of the card suffers rather a lot. But no blue/green? I suppose the background could stand in for the green. The rules text is ABU but the card type is not. The text is stretched vertically and the spacing is uneven. The © line is really odd in it’s order with the LLC after everything else.

Matty’s Votes

Josh Enke – Elspeth – 10+

Svante Ekholm – Black Lotus – 7

Siro Eris – Yawgmoth’s Will – 9

Matt Ince – Profane Command – 5

Jason Mong – Jester’s Cap – 8

Bryan Lundin – Tezzeret – 9

Trevor Davis – Snapcaster Mage – 7

Daniel Sexton – Library of Alexandria – 9

Shreyas Sampat – Young Pyromancer – 5

Tom Stolt – JTMS – 7 –

Les Kershaw – Black Lotus – 5

The Winners

In first, with 27 total points, Josh Enke with his amazing Elspeth.

We used the community +1’s to break the 2 way tie for 2nd. Consolation falls to Jason Mong, and the venerable Jester’s Cap with 11 over 5 against the Library.

Overall Scores

27: Josh Enke – Elspeth

25: Jason Mong – Jester’s Cap

25: Daniel Sexton – Library of Alexandria

24: Tom Stolt – JTMS

22: Trevor Davis – Snapcaster Mage

21: Bryan Lundin – Tezzeret

20: Siro Eris – Yawgmoth’s Will

20: Shreyas Sampat – Young Pyromancer

19: Svante Ekholm – Black Lotus

17: Les Kershaw – Black Lotus

15: Matt Ince – Profane Command

The Entries



Art links for each entry can be found on the contest page here.

What’s Next

Make sure to stop by The Proxy Factory and see what’s brewing for the next contest!