June FCC - Final Round

[ZasZ234]

Holy crap - and I threw in one more player? What was I thinking?

Good luck to everyone and happy patronizing!

greetings
Z

[Twilight Kiwi]

Hopefully I can prove myself worthy.

Patron of the Free
Legendary Creature - Spirit
Rebel offering
When you're searching your library, you may play Patron of the Free from your library.
Whenever a creature comes into play from your library, untap all creatures you control.
"Never give up. Never surrender."
3/7

Render:

Discarded Ideas:

Patron of the Evolved
Legendary Creature - Spirit
Mutant offering
Creatures you control get +1/+1 for each creature type among nonlegendary creatures you control.
4/4

Patron of the Stonebound
Legendary Artifact Creature - Spirit
Gargoyle offering
Creatures you control gain ": This creature loses all other types and becomes an artifact until end of turn. (It is no longer a creature.)"
4/4

Patron of the Unreal
Legendary Creature - Spirit
Illusion offering
: Prevent all damage that would be dealt to or dealt by creatures you control this turn.
4/7

Patron of the Swarm
Legendary Creature - Spirit
Insect offering
Whenever a nontoken creature comes into play or goes to a graveyard from play, put a 1/1 black and green insect creature token into play.
4/4

[azathoth]

I really wanted to do a sliver but couldn't get good enough art

Patron of the Daimyo

Legendary Creature - Spirit

Legendary offering (You may play this card any time you could play an instant by sacrificing a legendary permanent and paying the difference in mana costs between this and the sacrificed legendary permanent. Mana cost includes color.)

, Sacrifice a permanent: Destroy each permanent with the same name as the sacrificed permanent.

She fights the people to atone for their leader's misdeeds.

7/5

Spoiler:

[Viroid]

Lots of competition... I hope this one suffices. The round was very much challenging.

Patron of the Deep
Legendary Creature - Spirit
Merfolk Offering (You may play this card any time you could play an instant by sacrificing a Merfolk and paying the difference in mana costs between this and the sacrificed Merfolk. Mana cost includes color.)
All lands are islands in addition to their normal types.
Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, draw a card, then discard a card.
3/5

[ShinyMan]

ShinyMan vs. the World


Patron of Gelidness

Legendary Snow Creature - Spirit
Snow creature offering
Nonsnow mana may be spent only as though it were colorless mana.
: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Any player may play this ability.
“I am the abettor of the mellow souls, the hindrance of the impure incalescent minds.”
3/3

Illus. Qianyu

Wording taken from Celestial Dawn

[RUBRDUX]

• Patron of the Dark -
  Legendary Creature - Zombie Spirit (R)
  Vampire offering (You may play this card any time you could play an instant by sacrificing a Vampire and paying the difference in mana costs between this and the sacrificed Vampire. Mana cost includes color.)
  , Sacrifice a black creature: Target opponent reveals his or her hand. Choose a card from it. That player discards that card.
  5/5

[Moss_Elemental]

Okay, pencils down. Time is up. Judges are up.

[moogie]

Avatar of Kokusho:

Patron of the Cabal
Bonus - Not a fan of the art
4/5
Balance - You made one fatal error when you made this card, allowing it to return itself with its ability, making it virtually unkillable. There are also several issues with sacrifice outlets like nantuko husk.
4/10
F - I think that the patron of the cabal should have cleric offering, imo.
C - Interesting enough, though black has gotten cards that don't allow dead creatures to stay dead before.
Q - No issues that I can see.
8.5/10
Total - 16.5/25

azathoth:

Patron of the Daimyo
Bonus - The art fits the patron theme perfectly, even if its a little weird.
5/5
Balance - The card will never be game breaking, and its a little undersized ompared to most other huge finishers. The interesting thing about this one is his ability to offer himself to bring another on into play for free, I don't think that's imbalanced at all, and adds something mechanicallyto the card.
8/10
F - While I like the self sacrifice mechanically, I don't like it flavorfuly. I don't see why this creature would sacrifice itself to bring...itself onto the plane. I also don't think that this card should be white.
C - There's alot of innovation here. New ground not really covered yet in the game, other than with the echoing cards from darksteel.
Q - No issues
7/10
Total - 20/25

Cantripmancer:

Patron of the Moonshadow
Bonus - Another good patron art, with his follower clearly visible.
5/5
Balance - This card isn't particularly game-breaking, As your opponent can potentially control how many times you can activate its ability. Its fair, if unexciting.
8/10
F - I don't like the name, perhaps "Patron of the Shadows" would be nicer to say. I also don't think that he needs to be a shade.
C - Not a whole lot of innovation here, black has gotten shades, and black has gotten global pump. This card just brings those two concepts together.
Q - No quality issues.
7/10
Total - 20/25

Cypher28:

Patron of the Dragon
Bonus - The art is good, the requirements were met.
5/5
Balance - I think this card is slightly underpowered, It seems like that in the majority of cases, you'll be trading down when you sacrifice a dragon to put this in to play. The destruction effect is interesting, which certainly adds a reason to trade, but I'm not sure how great, as most dragons are very expensive, so you might not even destroy anything.
7/10
F - You really hit it out of the park here. I love the idea of this spirit offering powerful dragons a powerful, fiery death in exchange for their life. Perfect.
C - Not seeing much innovation in the abilities. Red gets large fliers, and red gets mass destruction of permanents. You did it in an interesting way though, which helps a little.
Q - No quality issues.
9/10
Total - 21/25

Jaxal1:

Patron of the Leonin
Bonus - The art just doesn't look like a spirit.
4/5
Balance - This card is underwhelming to me, he's an undersized white legend with two potentially useless abilities. Sure, if you have a lot of cards in hand, you can turn them into leonin scimitars, but that doesn't really excite me. If you made him a 5/5 for 6, and changed the cost of getting scimitars to something other than discarding cards, I'd like it more
6/10
F - He doesn't need the spellshaper subtype, as he doesn't tap for his effect. And as it stands, he feels more like a weaponsmith than a great spirit, as he turns your resources into weaponry.
C - There's a little bit of innovation in the first ability, you took the idea from the future sight spellshapers and expanded it. But there's none in the second, as those exact words can be found on leonin shikari.
Q - No quality issues.
7/10
Total - 17/25

lgmhorus:

Patron of the Thallid
Bonus - Awesome art, all the requirements were met
5/5
Balance - I don't find this guy game breaking, but I do find him extremely powerful. If you let him go for a few turns, he can simply wreak havoc on the board. He's slow to start, but once he gets going, it'll be hard to catch up.
10/10
F - Its hard to judge the flavor of this card without flavor text, but the art really sells me on alot of it. It looks like he's coming out of the broken shell of a thallid.
C - Good innvation. Its a logical progression that some huge thallid lord would make more thallids instead of saprolings, I'm surprised WotC didn't do this in future sight.
Q - None that I can see.
9/10
Total - 24/25

piercings76:

Patron of the Dead
Bonus - The art is genuinely frightening, I like it.
5/5
Balance - This is certainly a powerful card, with or without offering it into play. As I said with azathoth, I like how this mechanically works with other copies of itself, as you can instantly replace it for free.
9/10
F - Once again, as I said with azathoth, I simply don't like the flavor of this creature's ability to replace itself. Powerful spirits with many followers would not sacrifice themselves to bring...themselves into being.
C - This card reminds alot of lim-dul the necromancer, albeit it does it differently.
Q - No issues to speak of.
7/10
Total - 21/25

RUBRDUX:

Patron of the Dark
Bonus - Menacing art, but it doesn't have a non-targetted ability.
4/5
Balance - A 5/5 for 6 with an instant speed coercion effect. I think the fact that his ability is instant makes him too powerful. Make the ability sorcery speed and the card is powerful, but also fair.
7/10
F - I don't get why vampires worship a zombie, remove the zombie type.
C - Not a whole lot going for originality here. Reminds me of cards like sadistic hypnotist.
Q - No quality issues.
6/10
Total - 17/25

ShadowStarshine:

Patron of the Vigeon
Bonus - Cool, cool art. All requirements met
5/5
Balance - This card could be potentially insane. For very little mana, you could get a very large creature at instant speed with ALOT of abilities. All that being said, I think that this guy is awesome.
9/10
F - Why doesn't this guy have graft? It appear to me that it doesn't so you'd ge tthe extra bonus point, and that's not a good enough reason for me. That being said, with graft, this guy would have been perfect.
C - I really like the idea of a patron with X in the cost. Good innovation.
Q - No issues.
8/10
Total - 22/25

ShinyMan:

Patron of Gelidness
Bonus - Art is good, requirements were met.
5/5
Balance - nice card. Not horribly overpowered, but a useful hoser. It doesn't totally lock non-snow decks out of the game, but provides them with enough trouble to be useful.
8/10
F - Don't like the name, it sounds weird, "Patron of the Snow" would have been better I think.
C - While the mana filtering effect is nothing new, I really like it for its multifaceted nature. You can fix your own mana in a pinch, but so can your opponents. Or it can simply give someone snow mana if they need it.
Q - No issues.
8/10
Total - 22/25

simic:

Patron of the Woods
Bonus - If i could give you two discretionary points for that art, I would.
5/5
Balance - It feels a little small for a big green legend, perhaps if it were a 4/6. That being said, Its a powerful engine enabler, and it has the ability to create A LOT of mana with priest of titania and other large mana producing elves.
8/10
F - The art just fits this card perfectly, and he definitely fits the role of a spirit that the elves would flock to.
C - You lose points here, the second ability is just too similar to Patron of the Orochi's.
Q - No quality issues.
9/10
Total - 22/25

Twilight Kiwi:

Patron of the Free
Bonus - I'm not feeling the art for some reason, but other than that, you got the bonus points.
4.5/5
Balance - Powerful card for sure. You can search your library for lin-sivvi and sacrifice an extra rebel in your chain and get this as well. I feel that the untap ability might actually be too powerful with the aforementioned rebel legend though, as it allows you to get a monstrously large army assembled very quickly.
8/10
F - Aside from the art, which just doesn't feel like a spirit to me, this card is the perfect rebel patron. I also really like the name.
C - The panglacial wurm text is nothing new, but I think it fits here much better than on the wurm. It actually has a real effect on this card, as opposed to just feeling tacked on like with the wurm.
Q - No wording issues.
9/10
Total - 21.5/25

Viroid:

Patron of the Deep
Bonus - Awesome art, requirements met.
5/5
Balance - Seems fair, has a lot of synergy with Lord of Atlantis, obviously. Making all of your creatures looter il-kors is definintely powerful and makes this 3/5 for 6 worth it.
8/10
F - Definitely feels like a merfolk patron, and the name fits very well.
C - The abilities don't feel that innovative. You hava an urborg for islands and a slightly sifferent coast piracy all tacked onto a creature.
Q - No quality issues.
8/0
Total - 21/25

WhisperedThunder:

Patron of the Ironwood
Bonus - The art is definitely that of a cool and weird spirit. Nice job.
5/5
Balance - So, with the help from something like scarwood treefolk, you can get this out on turn 6, and then make 6 or more saprolings. That seems slightly too powerful.
7/10
F - Doesn't seem to really do much for treefolks once its in play, which makes it not really feel like their patron.
C - An insteresting way to generate saprolings. Though its not entirely new, I like it.
Q - No quality issues.
7/10
Total - 19/25

FINISHED

[Ace]

Avatar of Kokusho:

Patron of the Cabal
Bonus 4/5- Targeting. But I am sure you know this already
Balance 5/10- Wow, infinite recursion is pretty cool. This thing will never be killed, short of Swords to Plowshares and the like. Pair this with Nantuko Husk, or any other creature that has an CItP effect and you can basically do some broken things. Hate to use reference it, but Kokusho much? This guy gets really silly through its recursion, but I would like to see a copy without the recursion. Without it, this card would be a lot better, and a lot more balanced.
FCQ 8/10:
F: Eh, it's a spirit and a patron. Nothing much can be given to flavour, due to the restraints of the Patron effect, so i'll look at tying art and name to Ability. The Cabal prizes income and the like, and this card seems to further that obsession. It works well.
C: Nothing really new here.
Q: Looking good here.
Total 17/25
Total -

azathoth:

Patron of the Daimyo
Bonus 5/5 I really don't like the artwork, but as the Patrons can essentially take any form, this can pass. Next time though, try to search for a clearer and better artwork.
Balance 6/10: Legendary offering will rarely have a large effect on playing this guy. Most legends will be up around the 4,5,6 mana range, so it really defeats the point of Offering. The sacrifice/destroy ability would be fine, if it didn't hit lands. I think that the potential for things to go wrong when you can freely wipe a mana base (yours or an opponents) is too much for this price and package.
FCQ 8/10
F: The flavour text is clunky, and leaves the viewer having to reread it just to make sense of it. The connection from the Daimyo to the ability also doesn't really make sense.
C: Legendary offering is quite new, and thinking outside the square.
Q: Nothing.
Total 19/25
Total -

Cantripmancer:

Patron of the Moonshadow
Bonus 5/5
Balance 7/10- The Moonshadow Patron seems quite balanced to me. The high mana cost is obviously reduced through black creature Offering, something which will be extremely common. Whereas offering has relied on a player playing a deck of say 'Snakes', your card will basically fit into most decks that run black as a cheap fatty. The pump ability is interesting, and I think that having it global pushes its strength. Dropping this even on a turn around 4 or so can net you a large swing on the subsequent turn.
FCQ 6/10:
F: The art is a bit dicey – more focus on the Patron itself is desirable. Shade is out of place for this creature – as the shade 'pump' ability rests solely in individual pump, rather than a global one.
C: Nothing really new here. Nothing exciting either.
Q: 'Per' should be replaced with 'each turn' or the like. It just doesn't fit here, and isn't used in Magic like this.
Total 18/25
Total -

Cypher28:

Patron of the Dragon
Bonus 5/5-
Balance 6/10 When a card says “destroy all permanents...” we have to sit up and take heed, for anything too cheap for this cost can tip a card over in balance. This Dragon seems to be a good example of a “Win-More” card. Offering was designed to reduce the cost of cards by sacrificing smaller ones to bringer bigger and better ones into the game. Patron of the Dragon will only get into play when another Dragon bites the dust, but the other dragon must have been in play, which means you must have paid around 6/7/8 mana for it to begin with. Players would rather have their Rimescale Dragons and Bogardan Hellkites in play than this Patron, who only says “I'll win this game a bit more now” when you play it. The other way to get this guy into play is by playing cheap mana increasers/decreasers, which could alter the cost of the card, enabling you to play it. This would result in essentially a 3 Cmc 5/5 Dragon bashing face. Not too good.
FCQ 7/10:
F: The flavour text has grammatical issues which ruins it.
C: Using Offering like this is very new and exciting. Good work.
Q: Issues with “You can't pay...”.
Total 18/25
Total -

Jaxal1:

Patron of the Leonin
Bonus 5/5-
Balance 8/10: Creating permanent +1/+1 effects that you can move around doesn't seem extremely good nor extremely bad. It seems a little boring, but what it boils down to is that this card's effects are pseudo-+1/+1 counters, and discarding a card for this effect is certainly not overpowered. Decently balanced, good work.
FCQ 7/10:
F: Turning your cards in hand into instant-speed Leonin Scimitars seems interesting, but is it really worthy of a Patron? Surely such weaponsmithing should be left to simple blacksmiths and the like?
C: Making equipment card tokens is interesting.
Q: Nothing here.
Total 20/25
Total -

lgmhorus:

Patron of the Thallid
Bonus 5/5
Balance 8/10 The Thallids never really were overpowered in every sense of the word. They are a tribe which can be quite decent, but were never as brutal as Goblins or as powerful as Slivers – Thallids fill in a tribe which can be perfect for casual, limited and constructed purely because they are just right in regards to balance. This Patron seems quite balanced too, as it doesn't do anything exceptionally fast nor hard, but it provides a significant boost to your tribe. The Patron relies on a deck full of thallids, whereas other Patrons do not, and I think this makes it balanced that much more. The triple mana cost also ensures that mono-green will likely be running this, and little of it will be seen elsewhere.
FCQ 9/10
F: I really do like the artwork. Good work.
C: Nothing really exceptional here.
Q: Nothing wrong in quality.
Total 22/25

piercings76:

Patron of the Dead
Bonus 5/5
Balance 5/10- Free recurring creatures is quite good, and this guy even allows you to bring them back without card or mana investment. Keeping in black's flavour, life means nothing to the player, and this guy enables so many silly little comboes. It even evades creature removal indefinitely, as it can recur itself. Seems to strong for such little cost.
FCQ 7/10:
F: Why would you be sacrificing spirits to return them? Surely it would be better explained and not restricted to a single creature type such as spirits, but rather Zombies and the like too?
C: Nothing new here.
Q: No issues.
Total 17/25
Total -

RUBRDUX:

Patron of the Dark
Bonus 5/5
Balance 6/10 Instant card discarding is frowned upon, and this is due to balance issues. Setting up with an end of turn “Target opponent discards their hand” can be devestating, and this guy can even accelerate out early with the help of Vampires. The cost for the 5/5 body is fine, but you fall a bit by not making the discard at sorcery speed.
FCQ 7.5/10:
F: It really doesn't make sense why this Patron is a Zombie, yet is Patron of the Dark and of Vampires.
C: Nothing new here.
Q: Copyright, not Copywrite. (-.5)
Total 18.5/25
Total -

ShadowStarshine:

Patron of the Vigeon
Bonus 5/5
Balance 8/10 An alternate image of Experiment Kraj perhaps? It seems interesting, and it is a bonus that this guy is either decent in the early game, quite good in mid game and fantastic late game. This is in terms of power/toughness and abilities, as well as creature abilities. I am very wary that there is some combo i'm not aware of which would break this card, but I currently am drawing a blank. The element which draws this away from a perfect balance is the fact that it is brilliant any time in the game. There is no question that there will be creatures in the graveyard from the get-go, and this guy will be getting quite insane abilities. However, you still need to get those creatures in the bin, and this guy merely takes advantage of it.
FCQ 9/10:
F: Very nice interaction with Offering and the Mutant concept.
C: Using Offering and the Graveyard abilities effect was brilliant.
Q: No problems here.
Total 22/25
Total -

ShinyMan:

Patron of Gelidness
Bonus 5/5
Balance 8/10: The potential to ruin mana bases could have been immense with this patron, but the final ability helps to balance the card out, and only halves opponents' mana bases. The cost for the body seems decent, and there is no ability here which screams “Insane”! A very nicely balanced card, if not a little on the weaker side.
FCQ 9/10
F: Both the name and the artwork are good picks, and they fit quite nicely into the ability and interaction with Snow.
C: Meddling with mana in this fashion is new and quite innovative.
Q: Nothing really new here.
Total 22/25
Total -

simic:

Patron of the Woods
Bonus 5/5
Balance 6/10: The Elf-tutoring is quite good. Being able to basically grab any elves in itself is strong, but it gets nutty when most elves are low-costed and mana-accelerators. Untaping those mana-accels with this Patron and tutoring up silly amounts of Elves is just over the top, especially when you get tutor those mana accelerants to begin with.
FCQ 8/10
F: Good connection between Art, flavour text and ability.
C: Patron of the Orochi wants its Patron ability back Other than that, it seems decent, although not new and exciting.
Q: Nothing problematic here.
Total 19/25
Total

Twilight Kiwi:

Patron of the Free
Bonus 5/5
Balance 8/10: This Patron loves to tutor, and i'm just worried that something will break this guy by pulling him out of your library and tutoring continously. But as is, this guy seems quite alright, as he fits snugly into Rebel decks, and doesn't seem too overly powerful in any other situation. When the Rebel engine gets going, this thing becomes a monster, so this is where you lose a point.
FCQ 8/10:
F: As a rebel, the flavour of this card works wonderfully. However, I really don't see the connection between Patron and the artwork/concept of the Rebel leader.
C: Good tie in with the Rebel tutoring ability.
Q: Nothing new here. Groovy set symbol
Total 21/25
Total -

Viroid:

Patron of the Deep
Bonus 5/5
Balance 8/10: This guy shouts “Play islandwalkers!”, but islandwalkers sulk in the corner because they're not playable. Poor islandwalkers. Patron of the Deep bears similarity to Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, and “Looter-fies” your creatures. Whether this means that this guy is insane, or this guy is merely a win-more card is unsure, but i'm leaning towards the latter. Thanfully this balances this guy to at least a decent card, as anything more could have been too extreme in terms of power level.
FCQ 8/10
F: Flavour seems good here, it even reminds me of Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor, and his plans to flood the world. Bwahaha /magicnovelgeekout
C: Nothing really of note here.
Q: No issues.
Total 21/25
Total -

WhisperedThunder:

Patron of the Ironwood
Bonus 5/5
Balance 6/10 A rather forgotten creature type compared to the more popular Patrons, this guy really needs a deck dedicated to it to get out fast. But that really doesn't matter, because even if it comes down on turn 8, turn 9 will net you at least 5 or 6 tokens, if not the full 9. Crazy stuff. Slamming this down earlier screams insane, as a Scarwood Treefolk or the like can accelerate this out 3 or four turns early, and when combined with green's mana acceletation, many 1/1 Saprolings will be flooding your board incredibly quickly.
FCQ 7/10
F: I don't really get any flavour connection. The artwork is fine, but why would the Patron of Treefolk make Saprolings and not Treefolk?
C: Nothing really new. Just big.
Q: No issues here.
Total 18/25
Total -

Final Scores:

ShadowStarshine (22/25)
ShinyMan (22/25)
lgmhorus (22/25)
lgmhorus (22/25)
TwilightKiwi (21/25)
Viroid (21/25)
Jaxal1 (20/25)
azathoth (19/25)
simic (19/25)
Cantripmancer (18/25)
WhisperedThunder (18/25)
RUBRDUX (18.5/25)
Cypher28 (18/25)
piercings76 (17/25)
Avatar of Kokusho (17/25)
Seryph (0/25)

[Eliminator]

This is the finals. 15 walk in, one is waylaid before the match begins, and one will walk out. I've never been to the finals before, so I'll be miffed if you blew your shot.

100% COMPLETE!!!

Bonuses:
Does not have a named ability other than offering - 1 point
Has an ability that does not target (other than offering) - 1 point
Use Mana Symbols in card (must be in both textcard and render (if submitted) in order to count) - 1 point
Supply rendered card art - 1-2 points (1 for supplying art, 1 discretionary for judges)

1. Avatar of Kokusho

Spoiler:

Bonus: (4/5)
No Other Keywords (1/1)
Ability That Doesn’t Target (0/1)
Mana Symbols (1/1)
Render (1/1)
Render Quality (1/1) - Everything's there; great art.
Balance: (1/10) – The non-offering ability is just savage. It revives itself, it can infinitely loop, oh, and it's a super Disciple for creatures. Hooray.
Flavor/Creativity/Quality: (7/10)
Flavor: (1.5/3) – I was originally going to give you a high flavor score, but this is "Patron of the Cabal", not "Patron of the Undead". Black creature offering would have been more appropriate, as the Cabal do employ human minions as well as zombies. Otherwise, the flavor here is solid.
Creativity: (1.5/3) – Ooh, it's another dark overlord. Like we needed one of those. There isn't really anything new offered here, although it's offered in an exciting way.
Quality: (4/4) – No errors in wording that I can see.

Total: (12/25)

2. azathoth

Spoiler:

Bonus: (5/5)
No Other Keywords (1/1)
Ability That Doesn’t Target (1/1)
Mana Symbols (1/1)
Render (1/1)
Render Quality (1/1) - Everything here.
Balance: (9/10) – The creature is totally worth the mana cost. The slight dip in score is because it kinda sucks in Limited, whereas in Constructed you can tell what cards will be played. It has a nice body though. I do think it can be an 8/6 or 7/7, though.
Flavor/Creativity/Quality: (8/10)
Flavor: (2/3) – This card has an interesting flavor, although I wish you could offer a bit more. Also, why is the Patron of the Daimyo a sand worm? (No points deducted for this - I actually think it looks Kamigawa-ish in its weirdness.)
Creativity: (2/3) – This card does feature a new type of Offering, but it doesn't really do anything new. However, the permanent destruction ability is interesting.
Quality: (4/4) – No errors in wording.

Total: (22/25)

3. Cantripmancer

Spoiler:

Bonus: (5/5)
No Other Keywords (1/1)
Ability That Doesn’t Target (1/1)
Mana Symbols (1/1)
Render (1/1)
Render Quality (1/1) - Everything in place.
Balance: (7/10) – It won't see much play in Constructed, because the ability needs several creatures for it to get out of hand. However, in Limited, this card ranges from good to exceptional, depending on the quality of offerings surrounding this card. This card + Kokusho = win.
Flavor/Creativity/Quality: (5.75/10)
Flavor: (1/3) – I don't quite get the flavor on this. Black creatures get stronger depending on how many there are? This is more of a green or white thing. Yes, there's the whole "fill the world with gloom", but this card doesn't do it in a black way. Also, (here's my standard "no points deducted" disclaimer) have you been playing Dragon Quest 8? Whenever I think of Moonshadow, I think of that namby-pamby fairy Ishmari and his Moonshadow Harp.
Creativity: (1/3) – This card is just a big honking huge Shade that Shades for all depending on how many black creatures you have.
Quality: (3.75/4) – A .25 deduction for using "per" instead of "for each".

Total: (17.75/25)

4. Cypher28

Spoiler:

Bonus: (4.75/5)
No Other Keywords (1/1)
Ability That Doesn’t Target (1/1)
Mana Symbols (1/1)
Render (1/1)
Render Quality (0.75/1) - No copyright text.
Balance: (4/10) – This thing's just an excuse to blow up your own Kokusho, or to crap on spot removal against Dragons. "You Mortify my Bogardan Hellkite?" Too bad, here's a Patron of the Dragon. AND I'll blow some of your crap up. The only thing about this card is that if you sac a Rakdos Pit Dragon , it blows itself up. Also, it can blow up enchantments, which unbalances the color pie. It's also ass in Limited. Also, you can play Helm of Awakening and get a 5/5 for . Your trick led to a lot of holes that can be hacked through here.
Flavor/Creativity/Quality: (5.75/10)
Flavor: (1/3) – I don't quite get the flavor of this. I don't remember there being any societies of dragons. Dragons are generally isolated. Maybe I have this old school "dragons are solitary beings that care about nothing but getting food and hoarding their treasure" mentality, but I don't see why dragons would have a patron. Also, permanent destruction isn't red. It's or or , not .
Creativity: (1/3) – There's a difference between innovation and contrivance. Your little "You cannot play this for ." is a contrivance. It's forced, it's tacked on, it could easily be or and have no such clause. This card features nothing new, and it doesn't feel novel. It should have costed {} and said "You may sacrifice a Dragon instead of paying its mana cost." Your trick hurt the card.
Quality: (3.75/4) – There's not any wording errors. My Computer Science professor told me that there's two kinds of errors in programming: syntactical and semantical. Your error is not syntactical. EDIT: I oversaw a misuse of a comma in your flavor text where a semicolon should have been. .25 is deducted for this.

Total: (14.75/25)

5. Jaxal1

Spoiler:

Bonus: (4.75/5)
No Other Keywords (1/1) (Literal interpretation of the rules)
Ability That Doesn’t Target (1/1)
Mana Symbols (1/1)
Render (1/1)
Render Quality (0.75/1) - "Spellshaper" is touching the expansion symbol.
Balance: (6/10) – This card is amazing in Limited, Cats or no Cats. The Spellshaper ability needs a , otherwise, you crap out Equipment with your unnecessary lands and drive on to victory. It's not as good in Constructed, but there might be a combo out there.
Flavor/Creativity/Quality: (6/10)
Flavor: (1/3) – For some reason, I think a Patron of the Leonin would focus more on inner strength, rather than crapping out equipment. I know they're from Mirrodin, but come on. And just how is he able to forge Equipment instantaneously?
Creativity: (1.5/3) – This card would feel novel except for the fact all these abilities have been done before, just bundled on three different cards (offering, named token, and Shikari ability) and don't do them in a new way.
Quality: (3.5/4) – .25 deduction for unnecessary quotation marks ("Leonin Scimitar"), .25 deduction for not capitalizing the first word of a part of a cost.

Total: (16.75/25)

6. lgmhorus

Spoiler:

Bonus: (5/5)
No Other Keywords (1/1)
Ability That Doesn’t Target (1/1)
Mana Symbols (1/1)
Render (1/1)
Render Quality (1/1) -
Balance: (8/10) – I can see this being annoying in Limited. It's not too powerful in Constructed, but it could find its way into a nice rogue deck.
Flavor/Creativity/Quality: (5.5/10)
Flavor: (1.5/3) – It's a big sack of Thallids. Except it really isn't a sack of Thallids, it's a sack of Fungi. It's also not really the Patron of Thallids, it's the Mother of Thallids. Other than that, solid flavor.
Creativity: (1/3) – Nothing new, it's just a super-Thallid.
Quality: (3.5/4) – Quarter of a point deducted for lack of the word "token". Quarter of a point deducted because it says to put a spore counter on all creatures you control, instead of all Fungi you control, resulting in a host of useless and needless counters.

Total: (18.5/25)

7. piercings76

Spoiler:

Bonus: (5/5)
No Other Keywords (1/1)
Ability That Doesn’t Target (1/1)
Mana Symbols (1/1)
Render (1/1)
Render Quality (1/1) - Everything in place.
Balance: (4/10) – This card is very combilicious. Basically, it's a two card combo with Martyr of Sands. It also combines with Kokoshu and a sac outlet for an instant win. Kokusho can be offered to play it in the first place then reanimated. There are so many combos available with this guy, and I've just reached the tip of the iceberg. It's also savage in Limited. If you can kill your opponent's bombs, you can steal them, provided the life cost is reasonable. And life is nothing. It can also sac itself to pay for itself, if it ever finds itself on the bad end of a Rend Spirit.
Flavor/Creativity/Quality: (5.25/10)
Flavor: (1.5/3) – I do not know what it is supposed to be, other than a ""Patron of the Dead". It gives a second (and third, and fourth...) life, but why it does this isn't adequately explained. And why limit this to just Spirits? Zombies, Ghosts, Ghouls, Wights, Specters, etc are various forms of undead that this guy discriminates against.
Creativity: (1/3) – It's just a super Reanimate on a stick.
Quality: (3.75/4) – Flavor text could use a comma, as I find myself reading it as "Even in death <pause> we do not rest." The pause indicates where a comma should be.

Total: (14.25/25)

8. RUBRDUX

Spoiler:

Bonus: (3.75/5)
No Other Keywords (1/1)
Ability That Doesn’t Target (0/1)
Mana Symbols (1/1)
Render (1/1)
Render Quality (0.75/1) - Everything's there, but you misspelled "copyright" in the copyright text. 0.25 deduction there.
Balance: (4/10) – This card is overpowered or sucky depending on whether or not you can make a combo off of it. After your opponent draws a card, you can sac a creature to make him or her discard it, then reanimate the killed-off creature and do it again.
Flavor/Creativity/Quality: (6/10)
Flavor: (1/3) – Why does this guy only go for Vampires? He's a Patron of the Dark, not a "Patron of a Certain Subset of Dark". Also, part of the art is a bit too light to be considered "Dark". There is also little connection to Vampires and discarding.
Creativity: (1/3) – This is just Mind Slash on a body.
Quality: (4/4) – No errors except for the misspelled "Copyright", but that's a Render Quality issue and doesn't belong here.

Total: (13.75/25)

9. Seryph

Spoiler:

Ignore the following if you could not post a card due to personal reasons:

You did not post a card. You got all the way to the finals and you wasted your shot. I have never been to the finals. That makes me sad, if not a tad angry.

10. ShadowStarshine

Spoiler:

Bonus: (5/5)
No Other Keywords (1/1)
Ability That Doesn’t Target (1/1)
Mana Symbols (1/1)
Render (1/1)
Render Quality (1/1) - Everything there.
Balance: (9/10) – Barring some incredibly obscure combo I don't know about, this card is AWESOME. It doesn't suck, yet it's riddled with possibilities. In Constructed, you can sculpt this card to make it powerful, and it gets even better in Multiplayer. I don't know if it'll see play in top tier decks, but it'll rule the casual tables. This is basically what Experiment Kraj should have been.
Flavor/Creativity/Quality: (9.25/10)
Flavor: (2.75/3) – It keeps with the Simic theme of +1/+1 counters, and sacrificing or engineering things to make them even better. The only problem is that it might be a bit tough for an uber-scientific community such as the Simic to believe in sacrifice, although with Graft cards that's basically what they do.
Creativity: (3/3) – The mana cost is something I haven't seen before, and it works very well and doesn't feel forced. The offering also feeds the ability, which is amazing. I love cards that allow you to "build" them. The Imprint mechanic is one of my favorites.
Quality: (3.5/4) – The ability-granting ability should say "Patron of the Vigean has the activated abilities of each creature in each graveyard." Vigean is also misspelled, both of those are .25 deductions.

Total: (23.25/25)

11. ShinyMan

Spoiler:

Bonus: (5/5)
No Other Keywords (1/1)
Ability That Doesn’t Target (1/1)
Mana Symbols (1/1)
Render (1/1)
Render Quality (1/1) - Everything in place.
Balance: (8/10) – This card limits your opponent's mana, but it's about as bad as the Arbiter. It might be an overwhelming presence in Limited, but then again, your snow lands will most likely be limited, too. It's absolutely sick with something like Detainment Spell, though.
Flavor/Creativity/Quality: (9.5/10)
Flavor: (3/3) – A Patron of Gelidness would definately want to make everything cold. The flavor text is great, and it also taught me a new word. The flavor and the mechanics of this card definately match up.
Creativity: (2.5/3) – Although the offering doesn't affect the card, green's mana fixing and white's proclivity to make rules make something that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Quality: (4/4) – No deductions.

Total: (22.5/25)

12. simic

Spoiler:

Bonus: (5/5)
No Other Keywords (1/1)
Ability That Doesn’t Target (1/1)
Mana Symbols (1/1)
Render (1/1)
Render Quality (1/1) - Everything there.
Balance: (5/10) – This guy's like a self-containing combo. Start with it, play an elf, grab Priest of Titania, grab another elf, and you're all set. The fact that green can accelerate into this, and that you only need three cards to start the combo (Patron + Elf + X spell) chain don't help. It's okay in limited, but not too good.
Flavor/Creativity/Quality: (7.5/10)
Flavor: (2.5/3) – I can get behind the flavor of this as someone who guides the elves, making sure they get maximum output. I don't quite see where the Patron is, though.
Creativity: (1/3) – This ability was already-kinda-done by Patron of the Orochi.
Quality: (4/4) – No wording issues.

Total: (17.5/25)

13. Twilight Kiwi

Spoiler:

Bonus: (5/5)
No Other Keywords (1/1)
Ability That Doesn’t Target (1/1)
Mana Symbols (1/1)
Render (1/1)
Render Quality (1/1) - Everything's there.
Balance: (6/10) – I have a sinking feeling that this is like another Lin Sivvi. It makes Blightspeaker absolutely retarded. It's absolutely retarded with Elves and Conspiracy. However, its potency in Limited depends on the amount of other Rebels there are.
Flavor/Creativity/Quality: (9.25/10)
Flavor: (3/3) – This guy makes the sacrificing fit flavorfully, what with being a martyr for the ultimate cost and stuff. The flavor text is short yet potent. It's unsourced, but yet it's subtle. It's one voice from a group of many.
Creativity: (2.5/3) – Although it's just the Rebel ability, it twists the Rebel ability and makes it feel new and novel.
Quality: (3.75/4) – .25 deduction for wording the play ability wrong. It should be "While you're searching your library, you may play Patron of the Free from your library."

Total: (20.25/25)

14. Viroid

Spoiler:

Bonus: (5/5)
No Other Keywords (1/1)
Ability That Doesn’t Target (1/1)
Mana Symbols (1/1)
Render (1/1)
Render Quality (1/1) -
Balance: (8/10) – It's not very good in Constructed, but it could be a bomb in limited, giving your Islandwalker dudes unblockability and lootering will annoy the hell out of your opponent, plus it'll let you trade useless excess lands for goodies.
Flavor/Creativity/Quality: (6.75/10)
Flavor: (1.5/3) – Patron of the Deep would probably want to make the world a whole bunch of islands, but I don't know if he has a bias towards looting. The name and race being offered fit together, though.
Creativity: (1.5/3) – It's like Urborg...but blue, and a creature. Looters have been done to death, but this is an interesting angle on it.
Quality: (3.75/4) – Offering is capitalized.

Total: (19.75/25)

15. WhisperedThunder

Spoiler:

Bonus: (4.75/5)
No Other Keywords (1/1)
Ability That Doesn’t Target (1/1)
Mana Symbols (1/1)
Render (1/1)
Render Quality (0.75/1) - No copyright text.
Balance: (5/10) – This card screams either extremely good or busted. I'm leaning toward busted. This card dominates both Constructed and Limited. Everyone'll want four copies. This card causes problems only things like Damnation and Wrath of God can fix. It's like Beacon of Creation on crack.
Flavor/Creativity/Quality: (8/10)
Flavor: (1.5/3) – I know Treefolk play along with Saprolings, but why would a Patron of the Treefolk make Saprolings instead of buffing Treefolk?
Creativity: (2.5/3) – Making Saprolings isn't anything new, but the way it does it...it screams "Feature Card!" Put this thing in a preview column NOW!
Quality: (4/4) – No wording errors.

Total: (17.75/25)

Final Standings:

Spoiler:

1. ShadowStarshine (23.25/25)
2. ShinyMan (22.5/25)
3. azathoth (22/25)
4. TwilightKiwi (20.25/25)
5. Viroid (19.75/25)
6. lgmhorus (18.5/25)
T7. Cantripmancer (17.75/25)
T7. WhisperedThunder (17.75/25)
9. simic (17.5/25)
10. Jaxal1 (16.75/25)
11. Cypher28 (14.75/25)
12. piercings76 (14.25/25)
13. RUBRDUX (13.75/25)
14. Avatar of Kokusho (12/25)
15. Seryph (0/25)

[cannon]

i'm sorry to be so late... but i really don't have time for this right now...if it can wait till friday, then i can, but not now

[Moss_Elemental]

Okay, I think I'll close this round. Here are the final scores:

lgmhorus 131
ShadowStarshine 130.25
ShinyMan 127
Viroid 126
Twilight Kiwi 124.75
Cantripmancer 121.25
azathoth 120.5
WhisperedThunder 118.25
simic 115.5
Jaxal1 114.75
piercings76 107.75
Cypher28 107.25
RUBRDUX 95.25
Avatar of Kokusho 92
Seryph 0

Congratulations, lgmhorus.