Magic the Gathering tip: uhhhhh

Learning Magic the Gathering from my partner has been kinda hilarious cuz I find a lot of the cards will be either:

Treznor, the Eternal Flame: *3 paragraphs of text* -> Widely maligned, considered basically useless

Grey Rock: adds 2 mana -> $14,000 per copy, outlawed in 12 countries

My go to example of this phenomenon:

This is Velomachus Lorehold.

He's an ancient and powerful dragon wizard, he's got a mess of combat keywords, he casts spells on his own for free whenever he attacks, he does it all.

He's mid. A very casual card, and not a great one even in that context.

This is Gitaxian Probe.

You look at someone's hand and draw a new card. That's it.

Probe is banned in three formats and restricted in Vintage, the most powerful format of them all.

Narset, Jeskai Waymaster.

A design I hope to get printed on some card sleeves!

I've been struck with making a Villainous-type box, where attacking isn't allowed and each deck has an alternate win con they need to both find and use. It doesn't quite work yet, but it could.

This reminds me of one of the truest things I ever heard about MTG (I think Day said it), which is that it is less of a game than it is a game engine, and every new set is kind of a new game using that engine. I think things like other formats take that to another level. Like, EDH is not the same game as standard which is not the same game as cube which is not the same game as single-set draft. Weirder formats like this one take it even farther, where it is using the engine of MTG to play an entirely different category of game. Anyway, I don't really have a point to this, I just think it's cool

I finally finished reading the Tarkir: Dragonstorm story.

-------------------

The Bolas

By Loot, age 60,000

The Bolas He destroyed his cage Yes YES The Bolas is out

I just finished reading that story, too!

We all knew it was coming at some point ever since War of the Spark, but it's still extremely funny to see Ugin and Jace be like "yeah we decided to imprison him instead of killing him because we wanted something truly permanent without a doubt" and everyone else be like "YEAH WELL THAT WORKED OUT JUST GREAT, DIDN'T IT."

The meme poem makes it even funnier. Thank you.

In fairness, literally the only beings in the multiverse with the potential to mess up this version of the plan were Ugin himself or Jace and Loot together, and neither Jace nor Ugin knew that Loot existed at the time. Without Omenpaths (which wouldn't exist for a few years when the plan was made), the Prison Realm was basically locked off, and even if someone found it, Bolas was sparkless. Even with Omenpaths only someone with access to Loot or someone looking for it intentionally in the most inhospitable part of the inhospitable and unpopular backwater that is Tarkir would have found it. Even with that, almost nobody who found the plane would want to let Bolas go, and of those who might, very few would be able to overcome Ugin with the homefield advantage to do it. Basically the only fail state was what happened, and even then it was a close thing. Jace probably couldn't have done it if Ugin wasn't distracted by his other guests.

But yes, it is kind of funny.

Slaughter

The invasion was sudden.

It crashed down from Nyx, stole what it wanted, and kept going. It didn’t take long for one god after another to succumb. Heliod, Thassa, Erebos, Purphoros, and Nylea were the first, and after that fell Klothys and Keranos to these twisted invaders.

Mogis knew they were being picked off on purpose. Compleated, killed, it didn’t matter. He fought alongside Iroas, their shared Red mana bathing the plane with their unified fire and rage. When Polukranos escaped the Underworld, plated in alabaster and sinew, they charged together.

But even Iroas was faltering.

The God of Victory stumbled, and the God of Slaughter raised his battleaxe to block Polukranos’s bite. Mogis saw the oil seeping into the ground as the compleated hydra spewed it everywhere. Another strike from his battleaxe felled another head.

They had started with six and got it down to a mere three. By all accounts, they were winning.

When Iroas regained his footing, they struck together at the fourth head. Mogis’s battleaxe pivoted to catch the mouth of the fifth, while Iroas’s spear continued piercing through into the last head. Mogis roared in triumph and cleaved into the beast’s body to kill it for good.

Polukranos hit the ground.

Mogis turned to his twin and found alabaster and sinew growing across Iroas’s arm, fusing his spear into his hand.

“Brother,” Iroas gasped out, trying in vain to drop his weapon. Mogis peered into the darkness of Iroas’s helmet and realized what needed to be done.

His essence ached as the battleaxe was raised and brought down. Not to Slaughter, but to spare.

All of Theros felt the loss of Victory.

I finally finished reading the Tarkir: Dragonstorm story.

-------------------

The Bolas

By Loot, age 60,000

The Bolas He destroyed his cage Yes YES The Bolas is out

I just finished reading that story, too!

We all knew it was coming at some point ever since War of the Spark, but it's still extremely funny to see Ugin and Jace be like "yeah we decided to imprison him instead of killing him because we wanted something truly permanent without a doubt" and everyone else be like "YEAH WELL THAT WORKED OUT JUST GREAT, DIDN'T IT."

The meme poem makes it even funnier. Thank you.

Haunting the Halls

Marina feels like she's stuck in a dream.

She didn't use to dream, she knows this. Her nights were once an escape from all the issues in her life, sweet oblivion for a time before they came back with the rise of a new day.

But now... it is almost like all those issues are gone.

In their place, she now freely wanders the halls of her house. She hears her father playing the piano in the living room and smells her mother's cooking coming from the kitchen, but their presence is distant. Never do they tell her to go to school or, worse, ask how it's going.

So she's content to explore the hallways of her house, always finding a new room, a new curiosity.

(Was the house always so big, that she could forget the number of rooms within? Surely, for if it wasn't she wouldn't be exploring. Houses don't just grow extra rooms.)

Sometimes she finds some places better left unexplored. A room whose door crackles with heat, a hallways with darkness far too ominous. But that's how exploration is supposed to go, is it not?

(Is it? Is her house not supposed to be safe? Maybe she should tell her parents?)

And then, on rare occasions, it is like her endless dream turns into the worst of nightmares: the wallpaper around her tears apart and the wood under them rots away, she hears monsters whispering just outside her sight and all lights turn off. Strange people, their clothes torn and their faces gaunt, sometimes pass by her running from something unspeakable she never sees. Sometimes they even try to drag her along with them.

(In the nightmare she remembers her crime. Remembers giving her classmates to the demon in her basement. Is this her punishment?)

Surrounded by horror, she always does the same thing: she curls up in a corner and cries. Cries for her help, for her parents, for her friend Valgavoth.

Valgavoth always comes.

(Why don't her parents? Can't they hear her? Did they leave the house when she wasn't looking?)

Val is always there, comforting her. He tells her that he would never let anything harm her. He sings her sweet lullabies and assures her that all she needs to do is go to sleep, that when she next wakes up all of the horrors will be gone.

She always does, and wakes up to new dreams.

(Is this her fault? Is she the one that made the horrors that now haunt her?

In the smallest, most hidden recesses of her mind she wonders if Val is truly her friend, is actually keeping her safe…Or if she is just a cherry on top of the cake, being saved for his final meal.)

“A race…AND I WASN’T INVITED!”

The nezumi informant recoiled away from his boss’s rage. “Y-Yes, boss. Er, no, boss! Uh-”

“Why not?”

“Well, I, uh…”

“TALK!”

“M-Maybe you just don’t fit their bill!” squeaked the other rat, shrinking in fear. “They’re trying to, you know, reform the whole thing. It’s not a street racing thing anymore.”

“But their street racers get to enter? The ones already there?”

“Well…they got the whole thing start- EEK!”

The informant ducked, narrowly dodging a knife Greasefang had hurled his way in her blind rage. As he scurried away, his gang leader slowly but surely calmed herself. Her breathing coincided with a new sound - a low rumble, growing steadily louder.

“Ah. Great. I bet it got invited.”

The roof of Greasefang’s garage abandoned the confines of its walls. Daylight flooded into the dimly lit space, before disappearing again beneath a colossal shadow - belonging to the massive mech now holding the roof. But both this new arrival and the falling debris failed to startle Greasefang.

“Enough with the shock value, Shorikai!” the biker shouted skyward. “Did you hear? About the race!”

The mech’s faceplate slid open with a menacing hiss to reveal a pilot in a white suit. “Shorikai says yes, but it was not invited,” she droned in an emotionless tone. However, she paused as a wire connected to the back of her head began to glow. “Wait…Shorikai says it does not truly ‘say’-”

“I get it!” Greasefang shuddered. “I guess since you’re making your own pilots…Anyway, it’s outrageous, right? Them not inviting us?”

“Shorikai says it is flattering. The officials must think you and I would be an unfair matchup for the rest of the competition.”

“Heh, yeah right…Hey, yeah! Nothing else makes sense, really. We’re both drivers…or pilots. And we’d both play great with the crowd!”

Again the pilot’s wire pulsed. “Shorikai disagrees with regards to you-”

“Both play great with the crowd! And we’ve got some cool-looking rides! Right?”

“…Shorikai agrees with this point.”

[I don’t especially care for Aetherdrift, but I think they missed a golden opportunity to have the Reckoners or mech-riding Futurists as racers!]

Busy right now but be prepared for me to be obnoxious about Magic Story later

The Story Of My Life.

Who would you want as a dentist?

Unfortunately, I think it has to be Liliana. While technically they both have surgical experience, Geralf and Jin-Gitaxias both view people on their table as spare parts, not patients. Garruk only does dentistry in the form of punching in teeth. Jace has no medical experience, and while he could probably steal some, I'm not sure I'd fully trust it, plus as of now he's having a bit of a "burn it all down" villain arc, so... Sorin probably does have medical training, but has recently been in a depressive funk, has great disdain for mere mortals, and prefers excruciating efficiency to any slightly slower but more humane method. Liliana has medical training, is currently acting as a college professor in a med school analog, and, though she doesn't really care about most lives other than her own, prizes long term relationships and reputation as a way to manipulate people, meaning she would make you happy with her work as a dentist.

Yes, but do you know the last thing Sorin did before the Phyrexian invasion was take in the injured humans that survived the wedding and allow them to live in Markov Manor so he could utilize his vast catalogue of medical texts to nurse them back to health in a safe place for a few months?

“Left unspoken is that Sorin didn't make the journey with them. He said there were things to which he still needed to attend. Cryptic, as always. She suspected that it wasn't just brooding obfuscation on his part this time. He stayed behind to help them attend to the fallen, to the injured. Anyone who needed long-term support was moving into Markov Manor for a few months. He insisted it was only because he had access to medical texts the others could only dream of.

And maybe it was.

Or maybe it was something else, and he just didn't want to admit it.

Thus—"I have other matters to attend to."

Thinking of it does bring a smile to her face. She knew there was a heart in there somewhere.” -

Till Death Do Us Part - K. Arsenault Rivera.

Crimson Vow was Sorin getting out of his depressed funk and starting his character arc into becoming a better person including allowing himself to empathize with and care about other people again. I still think Liliana is a pretty good option (and probably the safest one tbh), but Sorin does have his merits, especially when it comes to the fact that his magic specializes in controlling parts of people’s anatomy. He might be able to make the whole thing pretty painless.

fair point

Honestly, I see the argument for Liliana here, but I had to pick Jace just because it seems like the most likely option to get me a relatively normal dentist experience.

Liliana, as far as I know, hasn't actually practiced medicine in many, many years. She's been busy being a necromancer for all her time as a planeswalker, and now she's busy being a school admin. Sorin may or may not have some medical knowledge, but being a medic or even a doctor still isn't the same thing as being a dentist, especially when his home plane has only a medieval European level of technology.

Jace, meanwhile, has the means to pull actual dentistry knowledge from an actual modern dentist if he needs to! And while I recognize he's having some sort of villain arc right now, I don't think that having some sort of grand scheme to radically transform/destroy the Multiverse would actually make him into a worse dentist - I would just be way beyond the scale of his villainous plans, so it seems fairly irrelevant! His bedside manner might not exactly be great, but I think he's still empathic enough to actually care about my general well-being, as my dentist anyway.

There is a group of people I play multiplayer mtg with, but as a competent deckbuilder who is not dating any of them I am cast into this role I have dubbed "The vizier". Meaning, I am, by this definition, the clear villain, but must advise players and alert them to the schemes my keen eyes spot across tables to survive.

"You must listen to me closely. I hold not threat to you. I am mearly trying to survive... I may be gaining counters, but he is one card away from completing his combo. You must fear the squirrels my lord, do not be deceived. They plot for your demise"

"Do not listen to his pleas of innocence. He carries with him the means for colorless mana. The stench of the eldrazi. You must end him before he becomes a threat not just for you, but the whole kingdom"

"think carefully with your target of banishment my lord. When have I harmed you? What is a single lifepoint between friends? But there across the board lies a much greater target! I ask you, what use would a man such as him have for double strike?

I hate to admit it, but if I got 'advice' in this style, I'd be very hard pressed not to trust it implicitly.

Then you understand the value of my words and I trust you also carry the wisdom to give them the weight they so deserve. Now, cast your eyes across the table. See how that man grows fat on lifepoints... Lifepoints gained off of your efforts.

Aetherdrift Play Booster Challenge

I always like to make a custom booster pack of cards to accompany a set release. (Once we start getting more UniBey sets this might change; I didn't do one for LotR cause I'm not overly familiar with it and that's gonna be happening more and more.) This is styled after a contest from GDS3 and in that vein, I try to make cards that not only would feel appropriate as part of the set, but also that are pushing in new directions.

Art Links

Risky Shortcut

Rido's limp body lay prone six feet from the wreckage of their ride. Once back on Avishkar, he had decided to go around the other racers by cutting through a market street. Stalls and booths loaded with various wares went flying as Rido hit the accelerator. However, the other end of the street had been blocked off by a security barricade. The next thing he knew, another pair of hands was grappling the steering column and the world twisted violently.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dwine's parents had always told him he was born on the same day the last drop of water disappeared from their clan's oasis. Born in the final moments of their world, Dwine rarely knew peace or security. Once it was determined their oasis would never hold water again, their clan joined the numbers of nomads seeking that same resource.

Gastal was a burning hot plane prone to dry storms of lightning and dust. Dwine's father died defending the roaming caravan from marauders searching for both water for themselves and fuel for their vehicles. His mother would follow not too long after having refused food or drink for herself, giving what could be found to her only child.

Only when the roaming nomad clans were eventually whittled down to less than a dozen, were they approached by Far Fortune. Her offer was simple - join her crew or die. Dwine and the younger folk took her offer, while their elders did not.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the Omenpaths opened up across the Multiverse, Far Fortune took her gang of Endriders and they drove as far as those wormholes would take them. They traveled across a number of planes before running out of fuel on Avishkar. One of those was the plane of Alara where the crew ran rampant across Bant and Naya, stockpiling water and food wherever they could fit it into their vehicles.

One day, Dwine happened upon a clutch of eggs in a cliffside nest. The first of these had hatched and was calling out to be fed. A Naya Sojourner told the young man that Scavenger Drakes don't raise their young, they either make it on their own or they die. Dwine couldn't let that happen and took the drakeling with him. The young beast imprinted on Dwine and the man gave him the name Clax.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dwine had grabbed Rido's steering wheel before he could plow through the Grand Prix's security barricade. He had only been a member of the racing crew once Far Fortune had entered them in the GGP. He had been assigned as Rido's navigator, who hardly listened to his directions on practice runs.

Some would call him soft, but Dwine wasn't into causing pain and misery for the sake of it. He would suffer much haranguing because of his stance. Still he didn't want to see a bunch of bystanders get hurt. So he jerked the steering wheel and their ride swerved, briefly speeding up again until hitting a tree.

Clax, who had been flying alongside them, had lighted upon a market staller's fruit cart and was staring at Rido's motionless body. His master was moving slowly, attempting to climb out his side of the wreck.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dwine took in the aftermath of their crash. Rido, six feet away, dead or unconscious, he couldn't tell. Some bystanders were angry at the crash and the possibility of what could have happened. Others, clearly witnessing the state the co-driver was in, sought to provide assistance but were too afraid of the drake that had landed.

Dwine took all of it in. He could hear the race as it was being broadcast live. There was no way their ride was going anywhere. Rido, who never listened to his navigator. Rido, who always had a plan. Rido, who took risky shortcuts.

Dwine looked passed the merchants and onlookers, back towards the beginning of the street and saw a familiar light blue shimmer - an Omenpath. The man quickly dusted himself off and straightened his posture. He called out to Clax to come, follow. Let Far Fortune deal with Rido's antics. These two friends were going to explore a while.