Contagious Undeath

One aspect of Zombies rarely addressed in Magic: People bitten by Zombies come back as Zombies. With this in play, that at last becomes reality. As your horde staggers towards the enemy, it grows ever larger with each bite, each scratch, each leaden swipe with half-rotted arm. Everything your hordes kill, or have a hand in killing, joins the shambling throng, ready to add to your numbers itself.

Councilchaos's Comments:

Originality - Nice idea. Especially for a Zombie card.

Templating- With all the tribal cards out there that aren't creatures, you leave open the chance for a non-creature zombie card to deal damage to a creature and put it into the graveyard. Not sure that repeating that the card put back into play needs to be a creature since you state it in the first few words of the card.

Balance - I think that being a color heavy card would allow you to get away with BBBBB.

Flavor - Great Art and the flavor text is right out of your typical zombie movie. Great!.

Appeal- Definitely a playable card.

Pyrosin's Comments:

Vantar's Comments:

Originality - You don't see that many cards that convert your army into a Krovikan Vampire-esque brain hungry hoard
so high marks here.

Templating - Templating is ok, but there are problems when you get cases like a morphed Zoetic Cavern.
As it is written Player A's morphed Zoetic Cavern destroyed by Player B's zombie would be returned to play under Player B's control (assuming B controls Contagious Undeath).

I am not sure if this is the desired effect or not as it makes no sense in terms of "that which was bitten by a zombie becomes a zombie" (fear my zombie land)

These problems could have been resolved by using the line "Return that creature to play" instead of "Return that card to play” or by dropping the second "If it is a creature".

Balance - Baring getting it into play turn 2 thought the joys of dark ritual this card is not broken. Might have been able to getaway with just BBBBB

Flavor - Yes this card is twice as zombie involved as Bridge from Below.

Appeal - Very appealing.

Drudge Samurai

This card has been sitting in my file for a couple of years now and is a result of playing Kamigawa and Odyssey blocks together (Don't ask why). This is decent chase uncommon i think.

He has pseudo regeneration which will allow him to survive the "Cannot be regenerated" clause on a lot of removal theses days. He has cycling to help trigger threshold and interact with other cards within the set.

Technically he is a lot stronger than drudge skeletons, but with the power creep recently, ol dredgey needs some lovin. 

Councilchaos's Comments:

Originality - Very original way to have to play the card. But you run a small problem with the conditions.

Templating - In addition to the naming of the card mentioned by Vantar, you word the comes into play ability such that even if Drudge Samurai himself goes to the graveyard, you pay 1B and he can come back into play. He is a samurai. The condition is if a samurai goes to the graveyard. Perhaps you should have mentioned when "another" samurai goes to the graveyard.... If this was your intention, then he belongs in my Grave Pact deck immediately

Balance- The coming into play effect is slightly off set by the fact it comes into play tapped. Good save.

Flavor - Nice art and flavor.

Appeal- definitely an eye popper with the missing casting cost. That gets players gears going as to how to use it in a deck.
 

Pyrosin's Comments:

Reminds me a lot of Haakon, Stromgald Scourge.  "Samurai" should be capitalized, and it should read "Whenever a Samurai you control is put into a graveyard from play ..."  I think it would be a lot better if you made "put into a graveyard" clause from anywhere, that way for 2BBB you could cycle it and then put it into play. A card that requires you to play a specific subset of cards, get one in play, and then kill it before you can play this one makes it inherently weak.

Vantar's Comments:

Originality - Head and Shoulders above Haakon, Stromgald Scourge in terms of originality in coming into play.

Templating - Your creature type is slightly problematic, Human Zombie Samurai does not make sense, since both Human and Zombie are races, it should be Zombie Samurai. Also your abilities are in the wrong order. Cycling, in every set, expect Battle Royale and Beatdown, is the last ability listed. Lastly your forgot to include the Artist's Name.

Balance - It costs you 2BBB and a creature to get him into play unless you do something tricky with him. He is hard to kill but not impossible. I am sure there is a 3 or 4 card infinite combo between this and Phyrexian Altar or Phyrexian Tower but I don't think a potential 4 card combo is overpowered.

Flavor - It's a zombie that doesn't like to stay dead, very black, very samurai.

Appeal - Yes

Light from the Darkness

This spell's intention is to work as a creature killing spell which immediately resurrects the body as a zombie (for the necromancer's convenience). The excess life leaks away during this immediate conversion from a live to an undead.

The concept of the spell is based on an idea that life has a certain quantity and cannot be lost just like that so the spell splits the original creature into it's undead form and into it's life essence at the same time. 

Councilchaos's Comments:

Originality - Planeshift's Charm cycle introduced tricolored instants but BGW is a very rare casting cost just Overgrown estate and this

Templating - Definitely not equal color distrbution of effects, but interesting set up.

Balance - The -4/-4 for the B is a little undercosted.

Flavor – Maybe should only be Black and white. Don't see why green needs to be in there. White can cover the life gain.

Appeal - Great overall effects, just wisht the templating was better to match up with what you were trying to accomplish

Pyrosin's Comments:

Vantar's Comments:

Originality - Planeshift's Charm cycle introduced tricolored instants but BGW is a very rare casting cost just Overgrown estate and this

Templating - Looks good.

Balance - No. Feast or Famine costs 3b and is destroy target creature OR get a 2/2 zombie. This costs 1 less and does both and then some. .

Flavor - While this card has elements of all three colors it does feel BGW. Target creature gets -4/-4 is black, getting a 2/2 zombie is black, and gaining 2 life is white or green. the card is 2/3s black yet the casting cost is 2/3 not black. It just doesn't fit. This also doesn't feel very much like a zombie tribal instant, more like a cleric or a necromancer tribal instant.

Appeal - While this card has problems it does a great job of showing off ideas that I assume would be included in it's the set. However it's problems detract from it's appeal.

Endless Horror

Recurring Nightmare is one of my favorite Magic cards. However it is clearly pretty broken. This I think makes it more fair by making it more expensive and harder to cycle through creatures. Zombies and graveyard recursion are a match made in heaven(?). The only thing I dislike about the card is the amount of text required to get the card to work. There was no real way around it and I think the card is fairly simple and clear. This did mean flavor text was a no-go.

The card would be fun and I think still abuseable (token making creatures? comes into play effect Zombies?) but less broken than its older brother.
 

Councilchaos's Comments:

Originality - Very little of this cards abilities requires it to be an enchantment. The re-curring ability is the only thing that keeps this from just being a really nice sorcery.

Templating - Reading this card the first time for some players may seem a little hard to grasp.

Balance - It is proplerly costed and since you can't sac tokens to play the ability it means you are limited to its use.

Flavor - nice pic and pretty related to some kind of endless horror.

Appeal - This should have been a sorcery. And does not need the recurring effect to make the card interesting.

Pyrosin's Comments:

Vantar's Comments:

Originality - Very Recurring Nightmare inspired. The Sac 2 creatures and the addition of the token are an interesting twist but not enough for high marks here.

Templating - "Sacrifice 'a' two creatures" The hazards of modifying the oracle text of an existing card. (I did the same thing with my submission last month.)

Balance - Recurring Nightmare is broken so lets see how you have hampered it. First off you added B to the cost. Thats a start but not quite enough. Next off you doubled the sacrifice requirement which would have been good if you hadn't also made this card give you an extra creature, effectively negating the double sacrifice draw back. Then the fact that is a it a zombie on top of all that means you are left with a Recurring Nightmare for one more swamp and combos with almost ever black card in a Onslaught.

Flavor - Zombies and the graveyard hard to go wrong here.

Appeal - Yeah it's broken, that doesn't mean it won't be fun to play with.

Night of the Living Dead

Inspired by an episode of South Park and all the Living Dead movies. I had to resist the temptation for flavor text... the obvious "Brains..."

Councilchaos's Comments:

Originality - Overall nice concept. Works well with the zombie theme.

Templating - Black card, decent cost, no real errors in wording

Balance - Balanced due to contingency of having creatures in the graveyard

Flavor - Nice pic for this card.

Appeal - Would definitely fit into any deck using black

Pyrosin's Comments:

 Vantar's Comments:

Originality - Midnight Ritual and All Hollows Eve are close cousins to this card but there are some clear differences between those cards and this one.

Templating - Nothing up with the wording

Balance - This seems mildly overpowered, but not quite broken, yet. The casting cost balances the powerful effect and is further boosted by the fact that this card is only as good as the number of creatures in the graveyard.

Flavor - Zombies + undeath = black, all good here.

Appeal- - I came up with more then a few deck ideas while judging and testing this card.

Overflowing Mass Grave

One thing I want to mention: I KNOW the font is wrong. I can't help it. I don't have full administrator rights to the system I use and it will not accept changes to the font folder. If this formatting issue could be ignored, I'd appreciate it. 

Councilchaos's Comments:

Originality - Lands like this are few and far between when it comes to its layout

Templating - Even overlooking the font issue warrants criticism. Having the Black Mana symbol in the background is confusing (since it doesn't tap for mana). Also Making the card black does not seem to give any real purpose to the card.

Balance - a little too powerful to put creatures into play free on the first turn.

Flavor – nice pic, although alittle disturbing.

Appeal - very broken

Pyrosin's Comments:

It's a land, but doesn't produce any mana.  They don't make cards like that anymore.  Plus if its a land, then why's it Black?  The cumulative upkeep is just way too much.  Dark Confidant did enough damage its controller with just the first ability.

Vantar's Comments:

Originality  - The similarities between this and dark confidant are many but there are a few important differences.

Templating - I'm going to overlook the font but still this card is a mess. First off you have an major ordering issue. The "This card is black" should be the first thing on the card, followed by the Cumulative upkeep, then the ability.
Secondly you added the swamp backdrop to a card that does not tap of B creating a templating error and a player confusion issue.

Balance - Putting a relevant creature type on a land is dangerous, the number of zombies in play is a very relevant things for a lot of cards. Secondly dark confidant is a strong card already you have improved it by giving the player a choice to use it or not in, addition to having the card come into play instead of into your hand. Lastly you use cumulative upkeep to try and balance it but since the effect requires life loss already most decks that will run this will have a way to deal with life loss so the effect is negligible.

Flavor – A lot of things about this card say it is black.

Appeal - You made a land that doesn't produce mana and has cumulative upkeep, it's high power level helps make up for those things but not enough.
 

Belladonna Elixir

When making this card I tried to stay within the current block and try and do something with a twist. Idea much like many of the cards were to make a card which could easily be incorporated into other color combinations and yet have a theme. Easy these elixir's could be from several different color combinations and have different effects. I hope you enjoy my submission this month. I had to photoshop the image to get something appropriate. If you look closely into the mist of the elixir you should see the zombie head...
 

Councilchaos's Comments:

Originality - Nice idea if a little too powerful

Templating - No templating issues

Balance -  incredible flexibility, but the low cost creates a balance issue. But thats where the delima is. You increase the cost, you increase the effect. So maybe reducing the cost is key. Ugh! decisions!

Flavor - properly colored for the effects.

Appeal - nice effect overall.

Pyrosin's Comments:

Vantar's Comments:

Originality - It's hybridized Strength of Night.

Templating - Wording looks good.

Balance - For BBB the effect is under cost and for GGG the effect is about right. “Target creature -3/-3” usually costs 1B or 2B so it should be more than that to get all non zombie targets. Overrun has all creatures get +3/+3 and trample for 2GGG and this is where the math gets dicey

Primal Rage is an enchantment that gives your creatures trample and it costs 1G so I estimate that the ability "all creatures gain trample until end of turn" should cost G and half a colorless so subtract that from overrun and we get all creatures gain 3/+3 costing GG and 1.5 colorless so the GGG for all zombies getting +3/+3 is in the ballpark.

Flavor - This card combines both green and black effects in a way to create something both colors can do but neither could do as well alone.

Appeal - Hybrid by it's self is appealing but a giant growth effect and a mass Last Gasp effect aren't really that high on the list of memorable effects so your are short of full marks here.