#I have an ETB on the way

[skyedancer2006]

The feeling when you have pokemon cards you can’t open bc you don’t have any sleeves in case you pull good cards 😭

[markrosewater]

In regards to rooms and doors. I read a couple of posts how flavour in reminder text affects them. My concern is, that these are very set specific. A mechanic „committing a crime“ fits in a western world, but not very well in another setting.

My concrete question is, why you named the half’s of a room „doors“. You could just have written „that half unlocks“, instead of door. Was it purely a flavour reason, or where you concerned about other half cards, rule wise?

(Also what happens, if the card enters without being cast? Should it not unlock one half on etb?).

Many planes have rooms. That flavor is not that limiting. Also, most worlds have people committing crimes, by the way.

[glngrbred]

Counterspells are a toxic game mechanic that manopolize interaction slots and force all control decks to play very similarly.

they also have the problem of being much easier to use than targeted discard and ""stax"" (the broadest possible term, and only 'harder' to an extent :/). I think the only times you should be able to effectively counter an effect on the stack/being played are to counter a literal spell, like instants and sorceries, since the only ways to have "spell removal" are hand interaction, which is obviously only ok when limited, and counterspells. I straight up think that no creature or artifact/enchantment counterspells should exist in a healthy card game, because those other mechanics should be inherently interactable-enough to not necessitate counterspells, and the shear dominance of counterspells as the vehicle of control decks in MTG is evidence enough that they aren't good for a game.

also the reason I care is because I'm making a card game, and effects like counterspells are something you have to choose to have at some point, since they MANOPOLIZE DESIGN SPACE >:()

if you want to see an example of counterspells used well, play the game "unstable unicorns" which is entirely Balanced around counterspells, exclusively. but even then, you have to entirely balance the game around counterspells, exclusively

Also this isn't to say "counterspells bad :(" they have a place, and that place is in games who have not balanced the power of "instantly accessible" effects (so that counterspells aren't necessary). like yeah, craterhoof behemoth and Ghalta often can't be interacted with outside of counterspells, cuz once they ETB you win the game

that is bad design and necessitates the creation, use, and frustration of counterspells. Also, designers only want to make cards like "that" if they can say "just counter it" its just an unhealthy system that necessitates itself existing the moment you let counterspells be anything more than the most simple and direct "spell removal" effects.

thats all

[franticbindings]

Doing some draft simulators for Bloomburrow, and I'm really appreciating how well they've subtly interwoven synergy between all the different archetypes. There could be a fly in the ointment that shows up after people get more experience with the set but this really feels like a master class in designing a limited environment.

And I don't think that's more clearly demonstrated than with this common:

We've had cards just like this before, plenty of times, but never have I seen this design do so much work or have so much interplay with so many different draft strategies. In the past, if you're picking up your Elvish Visionary and drawing a card or saving another creature from a Pacifism then you're capital 'D' Doing It. There is so much more going on in this set though. (Also, being optional is innately a big step up from the Invasive Species of the past)

Obviously, re-use enters the battlefield effects. But several cards that aren't normally ETB effects are in this set. The common basic land ramp spell (Heaped Harvest), the common non-creature token maker (Carrot Cake), the common colorless land searching artifact (Fountainport Bell) and the common colorless "deal with any permanent for a lot of mana" artifact (Bumbleflower's Sharepot) all interact with this.

Also obviously, blue green cares about your stuff leaving the battlefield. This is the other obvious use.

There is a lot of play with Offspring. You can play your Offspring card early for cheap, then return it and recast it for full value later. You can return a less valuable offspring token and hold onto the better base creature if you've got a 'leaves' trigger. You can go full value and get more than one offspring token out of the same card.

Lots of the common enablers for other strategies are enters effects. Picking up your 2 drop that makes a food feels pretty good if you're in B/G and there is a common and uncommon creature that do that.

It makes it easy to trigger Expend - if you return something cheap you can cast it immediately and trigger Expend, or you can bounce something 4 or more to cast again later. Picking up Alania's Pathmaker in the late game to impulse draw a card and trigger any Expend effects is going to feel so good!

It even targets to trigger valiant, though this is pretty narrow since most of the valiant triggers are better if the creature is in play, but there are still 5 that it could make sense to do this. It's not impossible that you replay the creature and then can trigger valiant again in another way.

To come back to the first point, there being a bunch of non-creature etb effects (the Class enchantments also count for this) mean that if you're in U/G or G/R then the Red and Blue cards that care about casting non-creature spells (at their best in U/R) are stronger than they'd normally be out of their designated archetype. Caring about "non-creature" instead of "instant or sorcery" on most of these cards is also a deliberate decision to make them play better outside of their dedicated archetype.

And lastly, of course, if you're out of lands in your hand then you can always return and replay a land and make this effectively cheaper. You might even get a surveil out of it.

There's a lot of stuff like this. I love that Polliwallop costing 4 but getting cheaper with frogs makes it best in frogs but means you might also be able to Expend 4 with one spell if you're in that archetype.

[lewdcookies]

Picture 1: Hugin & Munin, paired Sicaran Battle Tanks of the Raven Guard. Their machine spirits seem to be linked to each other in ways the Tech Priests can't fully explain, as every attempt to split them up has led one vehicle refusing to operate unless their companion is close by.

Picture 2: Amarok, Kratos Battle Tank of the Space Wolves. The vehicle has gained a reputation of preferring hunt by itself, seemingly ignoring or shunning other Legion vehicles in the need to kill.

Picture 3: Fides, Kratos Battle Tank of the Ultramarines. The name stemming from the vehicle's steadfast loyalty to its crew and pulling them through thick and thin without failing.

***

More tanks! Tiny ones too!

Not much to say, they're a bunch of 3D printer Epic/Legions Imperialis scaled tanks I managed to win a couple of months back.

One of two annoying parts were probably trying to magnetise the Kratos'. but that was mostly because I first glued in the turret plugs and then changed my mind after I noticed how much they scraped the inside of the mounting socket. The second one were the autocannons on the first one, both of those snapped off at a point during magnetisation, but thankfully I had spares so I could just glue those on instead.

Otherwise they were very nice to paint and got done in a couple of hours each.

The Raven Guard transfers are technically from the Thunderbolt sheet, because I didn't have any others in the right scale. And for the Ultramarines I was lucky the Intercessor sheet that came with the ETB ones had small enough emblems I could use.

[bittenrabbit]

Rakdos Blows Up

I'm so happy with my new deck! It's a potential turn 4 combo win if you get lucky! It's a combo deck that abuses the legend rule, akin to Sharuum Clone decks in EDH :D The three pieces that matter are Abuelo's Awakening, Rakdos Joins Up (Shortened to RJU), and Hulking Metamorph!

Once you have RJU and Metamorph in the graveyard, you can cast Abuelo's Awakening to reanimate it as a 1/1 spirit, and on RJU's ETB you can reanimate Metamorph as a 9/9 copy of that RJU spirit! The legend rule will force you to sacrifice one, as long as you pick the 9/9 Metamorph you can repeat the reanimation loop to ping for 18 each cycle!

The rest of the deck is filled with self mill and ways to force through the combo! I'm aiming to switch the deck up a bit to focus less on the combo, through cards like Ledger Shredder and perhaps Duelist of the Mind! :D Of note! With the Irencrag in this decklist, you could combo off as early as turn 3! I prefer having removal but you could go so hard in on it :) https://archidekt.com/decks/7395674/rakdos_blows_up

[devilkittydeckbuilding]

HELLO ALL

today i will be talking to you about one of my more recent decks that has very quickly become one of my favorites!!

it is...

GANDALF THE WHITE POLYARMORY

now, this deck name might sound confusing. but its really quite simple. this is a mono white grouphug deck with the sole purpose of copying the etb of wedding ring to give one to the whole table and marry every player. the goal of the deck is to put everyone in the game into a polyamorous relationship!!

the rest of the deck is a mixture of typical group hug elements, such as shared card draw (secret rendezvous, howling mine, font of mythos) and general etb abuse (elesh norn mother of machines, panharmonicon) and when you combine these two aspects the deck helps out all players but can also effectively control the board by triple copying a meteor golem or loran of the third path!!

i havent had the chance to play this deck all that often but when i have played it it has some real killing power surprisingly. the main thing i realized playing this deck is that doubling or tripling your etbs gets out of hand fast. like obviously it does, but youll be surprised if you decide to play with it.

this deck is rather weighted on the artifact side. i couldnt find a large amount of legendary creatures that copy with gandalf so artifacts were the obvious choice. most of them draw cards on etb or add mana, while the rest copy etbs and are just general group hug cards. this deck could easily be changed to be much more competitive if you removed some of the group hug elements and added more interaction (most of my decks have an emphasis on fun and therefore the interaction might be lacking in some of them).

there are a few cards in this deck id like to talk about as overperformers. this deck does some silly things and these cards felt especially strong from my games with the deck-

eriette's charmed apple: this card when doubled with a panharmonicon type effect (aka your commander 👀) is disgusting. nobody expects the mono white deck to untap and steal their creatures for a turn, which results in turns where you steal the biggest creatures on board and swing for lethal on someone. i nearly killed my girlfriend this way out of nowhere in her life gain deck and it doesn't seem far fetched to do that most games. there is also some graveyard artifact recursion in this deck which allows you to loop this which, in the late game, really adds up.

master of ceremonies: this one is probably obvious to anyone who has played the card before, but this was my first time. if you stick this and no one kills it (which they aren't initially inclined to do) it just spits out so much value. you get three things every one of your upkeeps, whether that be three treasures (broken), three cards (broken) or three creature tokens (yay blockers!!) or some combination of the three. this adds up so fast and gives you a huge advantage for the small price of helping your opponents a bit.

tenuous truce: this card single handedly kept me in the gane by enchanting the player with the biggest board. its crazy what people will do when they get an extra card every turn. obviously gets worse the more people know about your deck cause one card a turn wont stop your average player from swinging at who they deem a threat, but still. its still really good and much better then it seems!!

as for how to play the the deck, its mostly stay alive till its you and one other player. you can do this by killing key targets with your etbs (this deck deals with artifacts and enchantments especially well) or getting people to believe you are not a threat cause you are feeding their card draw. this deck can very easily be ran over if you don't pull a board wipe for the creature decks or if you lose to something that you couldnt interact with cause you are mono white. thats just kinda the brakes. but this deck has more staying power then i ever gave it credit for when i built it.

in closing, this deck is probably around a 6 or so in power level and i wouldnt play this at a high power table but if you and your friends want to have fun then you should give it a try!! i got to marry most of the table in my first game with the deck and it was so satisfying, plus when everyone has a wedding ring the amount of card draw and life gain going around gets out of hand fast. especially if you have extra card draw effects out everyone can be drawing upwards of two cards every single turn lmao

(also dont tell anyone but this deck has another thing in it thats fun to do with your transfem friends, and that is jinxed choker. this is an artifact that is in the deck purely to joke about how whoever has control of it at any given time is collared up. you can marry and collar your friends with this deck and both will make your gay friends go nuts at the edh table lmao)

[jones-friend]

I think everyone should try building these commanders once (electronic, not in paper)

When I built each of these I learned a whole lot about deckbuilding and piloting these decks. I have notes below the cut, just in case you want to go into this unspoiled. I also would love if you do try building these show me the link!

Rashmi 1.0 is about understanding mana curve and cheating mana value for gains. You need a balanced curve with some scry and topdeck tech to keep freecasting the top card of your library. Cards like Elder Deep Fiend with high mana values you discount to UU while having flash are huge.

I have played aristocrat strategies before. None of them operate like Athreos. The pay 3 life or I get it back trigger makes your creature selection matter, because if you sacrifice a 6 mana sun titan for someone else to let it go to hand you now need 6 free mana to recast which is hard to come by. If built wrong you end up bouncing expensive creatures instead of sending them to the gy for easy reanimation.

I recommend a lot of low to the ground etb’s that are in the 2 drop range, 3 mana maximum, who give value after cast and etb not on death. Cards that exile from hand are clutch ways of keeping power out of the game until you can drill life totals. Then play smart with Ath triggers to deal bolt damage or recur creatures as you need them.

The Jori En Two-Step. You can argue better commanders exist from Thunder Junction but being 3 mana is hugely important for the strat. Ideally you are casting 2 spells on each player turn, letting turns go around as you cast smaller cantrips for value. Jori En flies under the radar with more pressing threats netting you tons of cards per game.

OTJ commander has some new tricks but I would look into mana efficient control spells like Memory Lapse, Izzet Charm, and Stifle. You don’t need to 100% solve the problem, a Suspend on an attacking creature will take them out of the game for exactly as long as you need. Play fast and smart and needle strats to keep them at bay as your cast triggers become overwhelming.

Kathril is a precon I fell in love with in 2020 and despite not getting new additions very often at all its still a fun as heck deck! The key is to mill some while building a boardstate, drop your commander, then swing with kitted up creatures. Bonus points if you don’t go voltron.

When I built Kathril I had to establish some rules to make it work:

Creatures must have two keywords minimum. If they don’t there needs to be a very good reason to include them (like Odric 2.0)

Creatures I intend to swing with need minimum power 3+. A doublestrike 2/2 or 1/1 isnt pressing enough of a threat

Creatures should have a mana value smaller than Kathril. Some adds like Carnage Tyrant are too juicy not to, but if your whole curve is above Kathril you’re in for a slow game.

There must be a good distribution of keywords. Flying and trample are easy to come by, dig deeper for good reach and menace options.

Early game, mana efficient mill sets up the gy for Kathril to exploit. Be sure to run some mill. Carrion Grub makes for an amazing early game play, it mills, will have decent P/T, and curves into Kathril.

[n7punk]

“Embrace the Blame (Love the Fall”) Fic Notes

EtB(LtF) is done! For what feels like the first time in a while, a fic managed not to get away from me lol, it just got a little epilogue continuation but otherwise was all good.

Epilogue Life:

I have so many thoughts it’s hard cutting them off.

Adora’s trip home is hard, but it is good overall, and she realizes during it that the reason Hope hasn’t mentioned church when talking is because she doesn’t go a lot anymore (more details lower down). Adora certainly wasn’t going to go with her — Shadow is guaranteed to be there, and Adora can’t be held liable for what she does the next time they meet — but church is pretty much never brought up during her visit. Hope still isn’t perfect, but she’s trying her best, and though Adora discovers bad memories around town along with the good, it turns out to be a lot easier to process now that Catra is back in her life. She kind of tells Hope that she’d like to see her again at Christmas, but in a noncommittal way since she really doesn’t know what that will hold for them.

The rest of the summer is just good. Catra’s internship is hard but valuable, as is Adora’s job assisting Netossa, and they both still have more time than they would during the school year to just be together and have fun with their friends. It’s great for bonding and falling deeper in love, and for integrating their friend groups properly in a way they just didn’t really have time for before.

Catra isn’t ready to go home that Christmas — isn’t sure she ever wants to — and when Adora regretfully informs Hope she doesn’t want to leave Catra alone for Christmas, they take another big step and Hope comes to visit them for the first time. It’s a little weird, but Catra is more comfortable seeing Hope again on their turf, and it turns out to be a good Christmas even around the bittersweet parts. Hope expresses approval for Catra to the best of her ability and that kind of takes Catra out for the afternoon. She doesn’t cry, but that doesn’t mean she’s not emotional enough to.

When they do finally visit home again, it’s a year later, after they have both graduated, Catra a few months established in a role at the company she interned with and Adora freshly moved to a job at a pottery studio, which isn’t exactly where she wants to be, but hey, it’s in her sector. They aren’t visiting because of work, though — they’re engaged and planning their wedding, which absolutely isn’t going to be back home, or be traditional, but they come back for the visit to celebrate and to get some of Adora’s old things from Hope. It’s just a few days, but Catra doesn’t have a bad experience like she feared and she’s more willing to come back for occasional visits to Hope after that, even if their hometown is never going to be her favorite place.

(Like I said, I can keep going, so I’ll just put Shadow’s reaction to that news lower down because I need to at least break this up)

Also I fully planned for Glimmer and Bow to get together in this but then they needed to not be together up until chapter seven and there just wasn’t room to fit it in at that point BUT know that they get together over the summer and everybody ends up laughing about how dumb they were lmao.

Chapter 1:

⦁ Title is from “There’s People Watching” by Jade LeMac.

⦁ I had to edit the fic disclaimer because uhhhh a lot of things happened in this fic I didn’t initially plan. I went into this fic pantsing everything past like, chapter one, so I didn’t know the flashbacks were coming up or any of the partying stuff. Some of this stuff is things I generally avoid, but ideas adjacent to them have come up before, so I decided to just go all in on All The Stuff for this fic.

⦁ Originally this fic opened with a (very brief) flashback scene of the night Catra left, and then I moved it to the opening of chapter 2, but that just wasn’t right so I included Adora remembering that line and that was it.

⦁ The food/dining halls/library/dorms in this fic are just straight up the ones from my own college.

⦁ For non-Americans, Title IX is basically our diversity/inclusion act so like if someone is discriminating against you based on gender or whatever (in a school setting) it protects you.

Chapter 2:

⦁ Title is from “So What Now” By Renee Rapp.

⦁ There was a while there would I would spin the wheels of my little Lego tuk tuk whenever I was in a virtual appointment and that’s where the car thing came from.

⦁ Shoutout to my freshmen year neighbor who would shout “papi” while having makeup sex.

⦁ “Catra flashes her a smile, the innocent one that has always pulled on something inside Adora she never understood but somehow makes her very aware of her tongue in her mouth.” Gee it’s almost like you want to stick your tongue down her throat or something.

⦁ Adora talking about how Catra didn’t change here was explicitly to set up the slow realization that she did. The  theme of this fic is change and growth, really — both when it happens and when it doesn’t. No matter how they change, they still were those little girls and that’s so important to how they are now and they can’t let that love they had go. They can’t change in a way that makes them not love each other and even when Adora didn’t change and it was hurting Catra, Catra loved her then, too.

⦁ I mentioned it in my notes here, but I’ve written some of these story beats out of a lot of fics. Tip of her tongue was initially a hiding sexuality story, with Catra running after kissing Adora because the girl who interrupted them called her a dyke and she didn’t want Adora to have to deal with that. Catra cut her hair and everything to put the “blame” on her, it was a whole thing. I had a high school AU dealing with Adora pretending to be straight for a while that never went anywhere too. I finally “got” to do my comphet story here, by which I mean I could have done it at any time but I both didn’t and just got in my head about not wanting to when I kind of did, so I’m glad to have finally gotten it out of my head.

Chapter 3:

⦁ Title is from “There’s People Watching” by Jade LeMac again.

⦁ “Send me something cute” with a wink means “send me a selfie” but Catra’s too resigned for that.

⦁ Catra did NOT buy her sweater, it was her Castaspella Assigned Sweater her first Christmas with Glimmer’s family.

⦁ By complete accident a video about video game elevators came up and played while I was in the middle of writing the elevator scene. As Adora was trying to awkwardly say she didn’t look the narrator went “You can use elevators to force characters into awkward conversation” with a shot of an anime that I swear looked like RGU but I’ve never seen that show and don’t know if elevators exist in it, it was just a hell of a coincidence.

Chapter 4:

⦁ Uhhhh this wasn’t supposed to be here. There was a single paragraph in the last chapter talking about times they had kissed before, and then I went to do a fic note expanding on it, and I… just couldn’t stop. So this happened.

⦁ Here’s an abbreviated version of what that note looked like: Times Catra and Adora kissed: - 1 We definitely need to know how to kiss for this party - 2 I’ll show you how to kiss for your boyfriend (please like it better with me)  - 3 Weaver was being homophobic and Catra kissed Adora out of nowhere when she was comforting her, which Adora interpreted as Catra coming out to her. For two days afterwards Catra thought there was a slim chance, despite Adora’s clueless responses on the night of, that they might be dating before a Very Straight comment from Adora brought Catra down to earth. - 4 Actual spin the bottle in the hallway during a school dance. - 5 :) Wouldn’t you like to know (This is the drunk makeout scene, which I didn’t actually write because I wasn’t comfortable doing it for consent reasons. Drunk makeouts can be agreed on and fine (see Glimmer and Catra) but with all the shame Adora felt from it and with her being shitfaced, it didn’t feel good to actually outline, so I skipped to the aftermath instead, which I think better showed Adora’s internalized shame and how it caused her to reject Catra anyway.)

⦁ Whenever I need a random background NPC I just pull up the He-Man wiki and look at the characters list for something that fits enough from the original She-ra. Yes, it’s not a reliable source of information, but I’d hope it’s base character names are at least correct. Aliases I’m less confident in lol.

⦁ “He’ll want to impress you. That’s what I’d do.” That’s what you’d do? Something you want to share with the class, Catra? It seems like you’ve thought about this a lot.

⦁ Catra’s insistence on teenage boys sucking is partially the gender norms Shadow perpetuates, partially her own repulsion to the entire idea of heterosexuality she doesn’t quite have a handle on yet, and part of her trying to convince Adora of all those ideas so Adora will just ignore all those boys and only be her friends for tooooootally normal reasons <3 Definitely.

⦁ Catra was not invited to Caleb’s party, btw, it was just a (pretty obvious) condition of Adora’s attendance that Catra would be there too. Because besties don’t let besties miss out on parties or leave the other alone for their first “real” kiss. Obviously.

⦁ I just find these freshmen being sure high school is like on TV and all sophomores must have done ton of kissing hilarious, but it’s a very Kid thing to believe.

⦁ When I was a kid the game Trace Memory taught me the word crud because the protagonist Ashley said it whenever, you know, you would normally say a swear word. This led to me saying it a lot because it was something I could “get away with” before my mom informed me I could not, actually, get away with it. To this day my mom (who isn’t religious, by the way) insists that crap, damn, and hell are all Swear Words, which I disagree with. I mean those last two, sure, I just don’t ascribe to Christianity. “Crap” though? What the fuck? That is not a “swear word”. It might not be an innocent word, but it is not a fucking swear by any means. You do not have to bleep it out or limit the number of them that appear in a movie to maintain a PG-13 rating or whatever (rumor is you get one “fuck” btw).

⦁ My dark elf lore comes from Knifepoint, with Shadow Weaver’s appearance generally matching her Mystacor look and “dark elves” dubbed so because they are a race of elves with a high degree of photosensitivity that must either cover up or avoid the sunlight to avoid burns and a greatly increased risk of cancer. More info in my “Races” fic extra if you’re interested.

⦁ Shadow’s “reminders” for Adora to bring Catra are both because she thinks Catra is more likely to listen to Adora, and to reinforce for them both what a model daughter should look like. She makes Catra see Adora following expectations every time they see each other, later telling Catra that is what she should be like and slowly driving an uncomfortable wedge between them, reinforcing that Catra will never be Adora and never be good enough for her.

⦁ If I remember the puritan crime severity ranking right, it goes like Blasphemy > Adultery > Murder, which is why Adora brings it up in reference to Shadow’s own sin ranking list. That, and the rumor is that the reason Shadow’s life is how it is is because her husband left her (true) for committing adultery (ehhh it was mostly just because she was a terrible person) so she has dedicated the rest of her life to making herself appear “upstanding” by society’s standards after she “failed in her duties as a wife” (the way the church sees it — she doesn’t feel she has duties to anyone but herself, but she wants them to perceive her as capable), which is actually why she ended up fostering Catra, to appear as close as she could to the vision of a woman put together. She also… has the whole fucked up thing where she “relates” to Catra and wants to make things as hard for her as possible because she thinks she sees herself in her and life was never fair to her (she says in her $800,000 house).

⦁ The coming out scene takes place following one of the incidents Catra alludes to later at the party.

⦁ Adora vision: Oh, she’s kissing me so that I know she’s gay and for no other reason. I will not examine this further.

⦁ I’m convinced spin the bottle isn’t real tbqh, but this fic is me finally doing all the high school &college tropes I haven’t done or have only brushed against over the years, so yeah, it gets thrown in there.

⦁ Alright the spin the bottle scene I wrote in the car so the names just got pulled out of my ass.

Chapter 5:

⦁ Chapter title is from She’s Pretty by Beth McCarthy

⦁ Scorpia is watching “She Loves To Eat”, a lesbian manga/TV show that my friends have loved. It’s actually about all kinds of food but “cooking” just felt weird in that sentence (like it implies some kind of Top Chef thing) so I went with baking.

⦁ Lesbians will literally hide under the bed and call it romantic instead of admitting their feelings.

⦁ It was honestly hard to type Christmas in a fic instead of Winterfest lmao. Making Christianity exist is really antithetical to my usual views. Winterfest is a stand-in for a number of holidays, including New Years traditions, but new years is secular so I usually still leave mention of it as the name for the final day of Winterfest.

⦁ The Dean’s Spotlight is like, another version of a thing we did have at my school, shifted to the left. For this fic the spotlight is basically the faculty nominating the student they think is the best showcase of their school (academics, extracurriculars, and standards wise). Fall highlights one senior and spring nominates one junior, so you only ever have two chances of being picked, but it’s a great networking opportunity.

⦁ Hope doesn’t mention church here because she stopped going every week. She still does it a lot, but while she could go and punish herself with guilt for the rest of her life, there came a point where she just couldn’t keep doing it to Adora once it started to cost her their relationship. Adora brought a little of Mara’s glow back into her life and she couldn’t lose that joy again She did go to church the next Sunday after their phone call though, and made a point of sitting next to Shadow, who of course noticed and struck up “polite conversation” (digging for information as to why she’s approaching her since she usually doesn’t). Hope wasn’t fooled and told her she was just thinking of her because she spoke with Adora that week and she was thinking how much more they used to see each other when they were coordinating their daughters’ playdates. Shadow’s response was “Yes, that will change when your daughter goes off to college and stops speaking to you in favor of a life of sin”. No matter how coolly it was spoken it was the exact opening Hope needed. “Yes, I suppose she has been busy”. This immediately piqued Shadow’s interest because while it wasn’t the first thing Hope ever said about Catra post Catra cutting Shadow off, it was the first in a long time (she said it was not her business to meddle in family at first and barely said anything even before the fallout. She might not have hated Shadow — at the time — but she also didn’t wholly agree with what she saw of her parenting philosophies). Shadow’s response was something to the effect of “What has she gotten herself into now?” to which Hope responded “Nothing bad, making Dean’s Spotlight just takes a lot of work. It’s not an honor lightly earned. Adora could use learning some of her discipline”. Hope wasn’t actually trying to shit on Adora, just make the conversation seem more natural. It’s something she might have said back when Adora was in high school, which was the last time she and Shadow really spoke frequently. Shadow said some stuff about Adora having discipline in other important areas (unaware she came out) and tried to lightly pry for more but Hope got a lot more reluctant to speak after that.

Chapter 6:

⦁ Chapter title from Not My Fault by Renee Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion

⦁ Adora’s whole thing about Bow wanting in a different way than she does is just from how the idea that sometimes it feels like everyone else must be fine on the inside or feeling some pure ideal of emotion instead of everyone just being fucking messy like you, but when you assume everyone else is feeling the Pure™️ kind of sadness with just yearning and no Problematic Jealousy™️ you’re just setting yourself up for disaster because everyone’s emotions are messy.

⦁ Man I miss the art studio I did my freshmen year art project in. Sure, working in it was fucking miserable when it was hot out, but all the light was so great and despite the noise having a fume and particulate hood was really handy. I’ve been doing a lot more crafts project recently and I just do them in my “office” which is a tiny bedroom with a single window that’s on the side of the house that never gets any light it’s sad.

⦁ Lonnie picked up everything Catra was putting down and found it hilarious considering she and Adora were just friends. She wasn’t surprised when Adora started gushing about her girlfriend not long after.

Chapter 7:

⦁ Title from “Friendship Bracelet” by Beth McCarthy

⦁ Adora started freaking out as soon as she got on the phone with Catra for obvious reasons, but she was also internally worried that Catra had attached to someone else there who might not have her best interests.

⦁ They are having two entirely different conversations while Adora is trying to get Catra home. The second Catra says she wants something and Adora stops, her drunk mind assumes Adora knows what she wanted (her) and when she says she can have it when they get home, Catra just goes yayyy make out time! Meanwhile Adora is just like work with me here and you can get as bitey as you want okay. They are living in two different worlds as usual.

⦁ So the original outline of this scene was uh. A little darker. I’ll be honest, I find the final version of the drunk Catra scenes very funny because I love sloppy Catra, but the original outline of the scene called for her getting further in trying to kiss Adora and then crying more than she did and kind of rambling all her insecurities and outright asking Adora why she was toying with her. The final version is the right version.

Chapter 8:

⦁ If I have to tell you this chapter’s title is from “Curious” by Hayley Kiyoko I really don’t know why you’re here.

⦁ Adora does eventually convince Catra to visit the student counseling center, but it isn’t until the next semester, and Catra doesn’t make it a long term habit, just going in for a few sessions to work through some stuff and moving on. There’s processing to do, but she is also one of those people where talking about it only helps so much until it hurts instead.

⦁ Adora got that hopeful smile because Catra’s eyes blew out when she stepped into her view, just like she did the night before, and then she slow-blinked at her immediately after not denying she wanted the things she asked her for last night, but Catra as freaking out a little too much to be that self-aware.

⦁ Not to be NSFW for a teen fic but I do think this Catradora take a little longer than normal to get intimate, but once Adora is comfortable and ready she’s all in.

⦁ The kiss motivation method is an actual thing me and my girlfriend did freshmen year and yes it helps the ADHD but it also makes it worse because you’re thinking about getting the next kiss instead of the dumb textbook lmao.

Chapter 9:

⦁ Title is from “I Think I’m Growing?” by Fletcher.

⦁ This was supposed to be the end of chapter eight, but it felt more right to split it off and make it its own thing, even if it makes for a very short epilogue. It keeps chapter eight the same length as all the rest of the normal chapters (minus the 5 + 1 shoved in the middle of this fic) too, so I decided to split it off even though I was hoping not to increase the chapter count on this one. I have a really terrible habit but my policy is always what’s best for the story and not what’s best for a number so splitting off these “looking forward” scenes was right.

⦁ Entrapta’s relationship with her parents is largely transactional and they just aren’t close at all, so she has to consider the scenario where they deem the transaction “isn’t worth it” anymore. It’s not actually something that would happen, but they just have a weird relationship overall. They aren’t bad people (I mean, they aren’t Shadow), just busy and kind of neglectful, so Entrapta finds a lot more support in her friends, and wanting to be with those friends and have community she didn’t experience growing up is why she likes to share an apartment.

⦁ The waterpark is based on an actual park I used to visit that could hold (and usually did hold) thousands of people at once. The pools would just be seas of bodies, it was insane. I haven't been in years and probably won't ever again because swimming and masking don't exactly mix. It was often manned by college students in the summer rushes, though.

⦁ Okay continuing from the epilogue section: Shadow’s reaction to them getting engaged. True to the protocol of the first few years, Hope doesn’t really tell Shadow anything that’s going on in their lives after that time Adora drops hints for her to, and she sees her a lot more rarely as Hope starts to fade in her faith, so she goes back to just brushing her prying off for years. The engagement is big enough to break that form, especially because Catra drops hints again when they visit that maybe Shadow should know about it. Hope goes back to church the weekend after they leave (her first time in a month — listen, going a few weeks between visits is “falling off” for her. She visits once every month or two at this point, but she is still involved in certain initiatives she deems important, like the annual toy drive). When standing around with a bunch of the older ladies afterwards talking — Shadow included — they’re talking about their “joys” that week and Hope says that hers is that her daughter just got engaged. Shadow is immediately alert as the church ladies offer Hope congratulations and Hope is just quiet and gracious about it. When asked about Adora’s suitor, Hope just says they visited together that week and it’s good to see her so in love. She’s lucky to be marrying her best friend. The ladies just aww and talk about how it’s a shame they had to leave before Sunday so they couldn’t meet them, but Shadow knows what that means, and she’s quietly seething. Honestly it’s mostly impressive that she waits until she can catch Hope in semi-private out in the parking lot that she asks if she’s allowing that, which like, wicked not her choice dude, but it’s more like is she enabling it and acting like it’s okay. The answer is just “yes” and Hope ignores her protests otherwise, continuing on to her car. Shadow definitely considers outing them to hopefully have the rest of their congregation exert pressure on Hope for Hope to exert pressure on Adora and Catra to “correct”, but ultimately it would expose her own “failure as a parent” when it came to raising Catra “right”, so it just becomes a “painful secret” for her to bare.

Original Outline:

Since I was wicked winging this one, there really wasn’t an original outline to deviate from. Basically I had the entire first chapter outlined and then… nothing else. Sometimes it’s fun to do a fanfic off the cuff like that.

The one “big change” was my original idea had Catra living in an apartment with the BFS, but I wanted one of them to live on campus.

I also had this vague idea (inspired by “I only smoke to feel bad” by KiNG MALA) where Catra would have another friend group and they would kind of be stoners. She would have someone in that group who she sometimes kind of hooked up with (I went with Glitra instead) and after reconnecting with Adora, Catra goes to one of their hangouts, gets high with them, and then freaks out when that girl gets flirty with her because she’s in a weird frame of mind and suddenly all she wants is Adora again and this just feels very wrong. Because she’s anxious-high she doesn’t do the logical thing of “hey I’m not feeling this” and instead leaves to call Adora to come pick her up. She doesn’t explain much other than “I’m high and I want to go home” at which point Adora is immediately out the door and not leaving her to navigate the bus system. It was supposed to help push them a little more towards being vulnerable with each other as Adora takes her home and tries to take care of her, because I was envisioning their relationship as still being kind of antagonistic at that point.

You can see how that idea became the party scene. There were  some things with that I just didn’t want to write, and I think the party version is way more fun, more logical with the set up of the world and characters (which didn’t exist when I had that first idea), and more fitting for where they were in the story.

Aside from that and stuff previously mentioned, it was all off the cuff.

Meta:

Playlist

Upcoming:

To be 100% honest next I’m going to work on my SPOP Big Bang fic which y’all aren’t going to see for months, but then I’m probably going to do the ******** AU. Not saying exactly what that is because a certain subset of people are going to be feral for it  and I know it’s at least going to be a bit before I’m ready for it, but since there’s a whole fic between here and there my whims could change too. We’ll see! Updates on my Tumblr as always.

[icarusfrommars]

Custom MtG Destiny Card Day 4: Classes and Subclasses

Design notes and card text format below!

Sorry for not writing these ones out. There's a lot of words on them and I have a lot to say about these. I'll put the full write out for all of them below the design notes.

First, I want to discuss the classes and how I made each of them, especially regarding their colors. Each of them share a color in white, with each class taking a different color slice that white is in. Titan is Bant (WUG), Warlock is Esper (WUB) and Hunter is Naya (WGR). I felt like each of these color combinations really fit each class's identity as well, with Titans seen as the stalwart defenders, Warlocks seen as the intellectual strategists, and Hunters seen as the swift opportunists.

I also tried to lean heavy into promoting three different playstyles for each class.

-Titans in-game use the light to enhance their bodies and protect their allies, so their card is focused on maintaining a board presence, putting up blockers to protect yourself, and promoting a certain creature which can lead the charge for the rest of your board to follow suit.

-Warlocks in-game manipulate the light to decimate their enemies and understand the fundamentals of paracausality, so their class card is interested in spell slinging and deck manipulation in order to control the board and the game.

-Hunters in-game imbue their tools and weapons with light in order to venture out into the wilderness and take care of humanity's threats before they get the chance to become one, so their class card is interested in getting your creatures equipped and scouting out new locations. Along with that, the Hunter card cares about exotics, which will be shown off at a later date.

Along with the base class enchantments, there are also subclass token enchantments based on each of the five (released) elements within Destiny 2: Arc, Solar, Void, Stasis, and Strand.

I knew that as soon as I started work on this set, each of these elements was immediately going to be color coordinated. Each of them play in ways that fit extremely well into the established color of Magic the Gathering already, so I knew that utilizing them this way was perfect, especially for promoting mono-color options. However, they also improve immensely if you have a corresponding class enchantment, meaning that their ETB trigger will occur on each of your upkeeps for as long as you have one of the three class enchantments.

Solar is represented by White, and they fit perfectly together. Solar is all about two things: taking down big targets and healing through any damage that comes your way. Both of those easily fit into White's own color identity in a very neat and tidy way. The Solar Subclass, then, gives you life for having a strong board presence, along with taking down any large threats on your enemy's board.

Stasis was pretty easy subclass to nail down the color for as Blue. Stasis is all about slowing, freezing, and incapacitating your enemies. Blue is very well known for being associated with the cold, which is often seen in magic as tapping down creatures to keep them out of action. Pair that with being able to keep those tapped creatures down thanks to stun counters, and Stasis and Blue easily go hand in hand together.

Void was extremely tricky to tie down its actual abilities, since even in-game it's a bit murky exactly what Void does and what its role is. It's pretty much a jack-of-all-trades subclass, able to lifesteal, go invisible, provide protection, and weaken targets all at the same time. Which is why it fits well with Black, which is similarly Magic's jack-of-all-trades color (from my perspective). I felt like the Void Subclass option should be one that's more subdued and focused more on gaining the advantage for yourself and preparing for the best time to strike through manipulation, since that mentality fits well with Black as a color. I'll probably take a second or third look at Void to change it around, but its current iteration is fine for now.

I'll be honest, Arc annoys me. Not because I don't think it fits very well in Red, since both are interested in both dealing with their problems through high bursts of damage and aggressive, reckless playstyles that can put you in high tension danger up close and personal with your opponent. No, I think Arc and Red are perfect for each other. Arc annoys me because of the fact that it's colored blue in Destiny, which mean the art has a tendency to clash with the borders of cards which it is found on. This token is pretty simple though, but then again so is Arc. Chain lightning and going fast are what Arc is all about, and both of these effects are meant to speed up the game and put pressure on your opponent, just like a good red deck should.

Strand is Green and the reason I started making this set. It's the greeniest Green to ever green and yet it was surprisingly difficult to make a subclass that felt like it was properly Green. In recent years, going wide has kind of become White's playstyle while Green has specialized in going tall, but with Strand's focus being very much on weaving the fabric of the universe to the user's will, creating elemental constructs like tangles and threadlings, it felt weird to not allow this to be a token making machine. That's why I think I found a pretty healthy middle, where the subclass token can make Threadlings, which can then be buffed to deal more damage.

I know that not all aspects of the Destiny elements fit nice and neatly into the MTG color pie. Solar has elements of fire and burn to it, Stasis is also good at clearing out large groups of enemies with high bursts of shatter damage, Void places a big focus on shields and protection, Arc uses a lot of blinding effects to its advantage when in the heat of combat, and Strand really likes to have controlling effects on enemies like suspending and severing. However, that's why I've added a second layer to subclasses which directly rewards the player for utilizing a certain subclass and sticking with it, which I'll reveal in the next few days with the common rarity Lightbearers, each with a Charged with Subclass ability which expands upon both what the creature can do and how the subclasses are portrayed in card form.

And remember, all of these cards are unofficial and are not in their final designs yet. I'm still working on finishing the set as a whole, and so far we've barely scratched the surface on it. I'm very excited to keep showing off my work and I hope you've enjoyed it so far!

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The Immovable Titan Cost: 1WUG Uncommon Enchantment - Class (Gain the next level as a sorcery to add its ability.) When this card enters the battlefield and at the beginning of your upkeep, choose a subclass (Create a subclass token enchantment for the subclass you choose.) Level 1: At the beginning of combat on your turn, choose a creature you control. That creature gains indestructible until end of turn. Level 2 (2W/U): Create a 0/3 white Wall creature token with Defender Level 3 (3WU/G): Add the following ability to level 1: “The chosen creature also gets +0/+3, Reach, and Vigilance until the end of turn. Untap that creature. It may block an additional creature until your next turn.”

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The Learned Warlock Cost: 1WUB Uncommon Enchantment - Class (Gain the next level as a sorcery to add its ability.) When this card enters the battlefield and at the beginning of your upkeep, choose a subclass (Create a subclass token enchantment for the subclass you choose.) Level 1: Whenever you cast your first instant or sorcery each turn, you may scry 1. Level 2 (2U/B): Return up to 2 target instant or sorceries from your graveyard to your hand. Whenever a creature you don’t control dies, you gain 1 life. Level 3 (4UW/B): Search your library for an instant or sorcery with converted mana cost 4 or less. Reveal that card, shuffle your library, then put that card on the top. If you draw that card this turn, you may cast it without paying its mana cost.

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The Observant Hunter Cost: 1WRG Uncommon Enchantment - Class (Gain the next level as a sorcery to add its ability.) When this card enters the battlefield and at the beginning of your upkeep, choose a subclass (Create a subclass token enchantment for the subclass you choose.) Level 1: Tap an untapped creature you control: Prevent the next 3 combat damage that would be dealt to you this turn. This may only be activated once per turn. Level 2 (1W/G): Search your library for a land or equipment. Put that card into your hand then shuffle your library. You may play one additional land on each of your turns. Level 3 (2GR/W): Put a land or equipment card from your hand onto the battlefield. If the equipment is an exotic, you may equip it to a creature you control without paying its equip cost.

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Solar Subclass Token Enchantment - Subclass (You may not have more than one subclass at a time) When this token enters the battlefield, if you control a class enchantment, you gain 1 life for each creature you control. 3WW: Destroy target creature with power 4 or greater.

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Stasis Subclass Token Enchantment - Subclass (You may not have more than one subclass at a time) When this token enters the battlefield, if you control a class enchantment, you may place a stun counter on up to three target tapped creatures. 2UU: Tap target creature. It does not untap on its controller’s next untap step.

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Void Subclass Token Enchantment - Subclass (You may not have more than one subclass at a time) When this token enters the battlefield, if you control a class enchantment, you may surveil 2. (Look at the top two cards of your library, then put any number of them into your graveyard and the rest on top of your library in any order.) 1BB: Draw 2 cards. You lose 3 life.

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Arc Subclass Token Enchantment - Subclass (You may not have more than one subclass at a time) When this token enters the battlefield, if you control a class enchantment, deal 3 damage to any target. 1RR: Deal up to 5 damage to up to 3 target creatures, divided how you choose.

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Strand Subclass Token Enchantment - Subclass (You may not have more than one subclass at a time) When this token enters the battlefield, if you control a class enchantment, target creature you control get +1/+0 for each other creature you control and gains reach until end of turn. GG: Create a 0/1 green Threadling creature token.

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Threadling Token Creature - Threadling Whenever this creature deals combat damage to any target, it deals that same amount of damage to that target. Then, sacrifice this creature. P/T: 0/1

[loreholdlesbian]

Murders at Karlov Manor Booster Challenge

With every* set since zendikar rising, I've done a booster of custom cards meant to be a part of the set. This is based on a challenge from GDS3, so my goals are to not just to make cards that feel like a part of the set but also ones that Innovate which is a rather difficult balance to strike. I try to cover a wide variety of themes, colors, and mechanics. This is the first set using the new play boosters which I thought would make things more different than it did; it's basically just one fewer card and one slot that's flexible in rarity- I decided to make it uncommon, and I grouped it in with the other uncommons because it really doesn't matter which takes the flex slot.

Rare

Worldsoul's Justice 3WW Sorcery Choose one or more- * Destroy all colorless creatures. * Destroy all monocolored creatures. * Destroy all multicolored creatures. “You all profited while Ravnica screamed! You are all guilty!” -Oba

Art link

This is a flexible board wipe that takes advantage of the variety of colors you might have on board in this set between the light multicolor theme and the disguise mechanic to let you sculpt it to your needs.

Uncommons

Increased Surveillance 1U Instant Surveil 1, then surveil 2, then surveil 3. (To surveil, look at that many cards from the top of your library. Put any number into your graveyard and the rest back on top in any order.) Rumors of the Dimirs’ fall only aid their all-seeing eyes.

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We've seen something kinda like this before in Cryptic Annelid, but i think scry vs surveil makes a big difference here. This is a great card for filling up your yard to collect evidence, while sculpting your future draws.

Midnight Investigator 1BB Creature- Vampire Detective When Midnight Investigator enters the battlefield, each player may collect evidence 5. If a player doesn’t, they lose life equal to the total mana value of cards in their graveyard. (To collect evidence 5, exile cards with total mana value 5 or greater from your graveyard.) 3/2

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One thing that's cool about collect evidence that only one card played with is that it's something anyone *can* do. I made this symmetrical rather than just opponents to reward building around the mechanic, but i like the way that the life loss effect essentially has a cap.

Chaos Seal 3B Enchantment Sacrifice Chaos Seal: Exile the top three cards of your library. You may play those cards this turn. Disguise 1R (You may cast this card face down for 3 as a 2/2 creature with ward 2. Turn it face up any time for its disguise cost.) The Rakdos excel at finding novel uses for Azorius containment spells.

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In theory this card could be part of a cycle but I wasn't finding a lot of other effects that fit the bill. I needed something that wasn't problematic as an on board trick but also that you don't always want to use immediately after playing, and that benefited from being able to come out "cheaply" with a disguise cost. Impulse draw was a good fit because the amount of mana you have available really matters.

In Hiding G Enchantment Ward costs of permanents you control cost an additional 1 to pay. When In Hiding enters the battlefield, you may cloak a card from your hand. (To cloak a card, put it onto the battlefield face down as a 2/2 creature with ward 2. Turn it face up any time for its mana cost if it’s a creature card.)

Art link

I went back and forth between white and green for this card. White is a little better at this kind of weenie and I feel like the re-ward fits it a little more, but neither is a bad fit for green and green is more of the disguise color so in this particular set it might make sense there. In the end I went green to differentiate this card a little more from the white common that is a noncreature permanent that has a minor effect and makes a 2/2 on ETB.

Commons

Compiled Case Notes 1W Artifact When Compiled Case Notes enters the battlefield, create a 2/2 white and blue Detective creature token. 1, T: Surveil 1. Activate only if a Detective entered the battlefield under your control this turn or was turned face up under your control this turn.

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I like the detective typal stuff and wanted to make a card for it; here's one that works fine in a vacuum as essentially a bear with kicker 1: Surveil 1, but gets a lot more interesting if you have other detectives which is a place I like my common typal rewards.

Detain the Suspect 1U Sorcery Tap target creature then choose two. You may choose the same mode more than once. * Put a stun counter on that creature. (If a creature with a stun counter on it would become untapped, instead remove a stun counter from it.) * Investigate.

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One cool thing you can do with stun counters that you couldn't with old "doesn't untap" effects is make a variable amount of turns. Investigate is clearly the better option synergy wise in this set, but being sorcery means tapping doesn't stop an attacker, and stopping an attacker for a turn or two can be *very* valuable. I think this card's in a good spot of how often you choose each of the three modes (two stun counters, two clues, counter and clue)

Kidnap 4U Instant This spell costs 1 less to cast for each card you drew this turn. Target creature’s owner puts it on top or bottom of their library. In a city as big as Ravnica, it’s all to easy to fall through thr cracks.

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The set already has some of this with the split cards and morphs, but I just wanted to add another spell that's expensive but can be cast cheaply to fill up your yard with expensive stuff for the sake of evidence collection. This was the cost reduction effect I found I liked best for this set.

Golgari Scapegoat 3B Creature- Elf Assassin 3B: Suspect Golgari Scapegoat. (A suspected creature has menace and can’t block.) Whenever Golgari Scapegoat deals combat damage to a player, if it’s suspected, surveil 2. 3/4 After the Invasion, the other Guilds are quick to blame the Swarm.

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This is a kind of design I always love doing with a set mechanic- give it a way to turn itself on so it works fine on its own, but cost it such that you'd much rather find another way to turn that effect on if you can.

Mysterious Bloodstain B Artifact- Clue When Mysterious Bloodstain enters or leaves the battlefield, suspect up to one target creature. (It has menace and can’t block.) 2, Sacrifice Mysterious Bloodstain: Draw a card.

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This is a cycle of clues that all do an effect when they enter or leave the battlefield. This is the one I like best because I think a card like this would do a lot of work in getting the BR suspect deck online; more than any of the others this one feels the most like a card you can only make here.

Covert Operations Head 1R Creature- Goblin Soldier Face-down creatures you control have haste. 2/1 Though once goblins filled only the lowest Boros ranks, after the Invasion devastated Boros numbers those who survived quickly rose.

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Fairly straightforward disguise reward here. I wanted to cost it to be 2 mana, since coming down before turn 3 is hugely important for this particular card, so it basically built itself from the initial idea.

Anzrag's Escape 2G Sorcery Choose one- * Return target card in your graveyard to your hand * Return target card you own in exile that you collected as evidence this turn to your hand.

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Simple enough idea here, it's a regrowth that doesn't compete with the set's graveyard mechanic. I don't think this breaks the spirit of the rule that cards shouldn't be able to get cards back from exile because of how specific it is; it doesn't at all prevent using exile as a safety.

Elephant in the Room 4G Creature- Elephant Detective Disguise 4G. This cost is reduced by 2 if Elephant in the Room is attacking and isn’t blocked. (You may cast this card face down for 3 as a 2/2 creature with ward 2. Turn it face up any time for its disguise cost.) 5/5

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I wanted a card that lets you use disguise to sneak a big creature out early without breaking the rule of five, and I came up with a design I quite like to get around it.

[is-the-snake-video-cute]

Do you know what a good body condition is for emerald tree boas? I'm watching this video from Clint's Reptiles where he's talking about them, and the northern he's holding seems like it might be a little overweight to me. It's mostly because if you look at the green "stripes" on the sides of the body during close-up shots, they look like the scales themselves are actually folded and damaged from fat rolls.

The spine also looks really sunken in toward the middle of the animal. I know some species can have somewhat sunken in spines and still be in ideal body condition, so I'm not sure if this is normal for ETBs or if it's like ball pythons/colubrids where that's a sign of being overweight.

I have no experience with ETBs, so sorry if this is all normal for them!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkJnUKk3WJs

Hello hello - the snake in the video does look to be overweight, yes. The folded scales from fat rolls are the biggest giveaway, like you mention - textbook sign of an overweight snake - and this one also looks noticeably too chunky around the middle.

Emerald tree boas are quite a bit more stocky in build than a lot of other arboreal snakes, but they should still look quite slender. The sunken-in look to the spine, though, is a typical trait of ETBs when they stretch out even at an ideal weight!

The best way to tell if an ETB is overweight - aside from the tell-tale scale folds that come with just about any overweight snake - is to check the spine when they're curled up in their typical coil on branches. In that position, their spine should stick out noticeably.

Obesity is unfortunately very common in pet ETBs - they don't need to eat very often at all, but they're garbage disposals who will almost never turn down a meal.

[fearlesscomfort]

just got done with a sharpie cube and i wanted to post my top five favorite cards in my deck

5: Cation “create a token that’s a copy of target create five of those tokens.” this was involved in most of my turn one wins, this ranks fifth because i barely pushed this card to its limits, the way we were ruling this could copy spells and abilities but i only ever exiled it with Mo’s Ridge and created six copies of Mo’s Ridge.

4: Unto Nature “destroy target destroy target exile card.” removal was kind of dogshit because even though all creatures have haste (home rule) creatures usually do their shit on etb. our rulings were on the fly and terrible though so this could destroy cards on stack. cannot stress enough the importance of counter spells when a card that reads “glimpse hole” is the the draft. boring but also really funny to counter a turn one play and then remove two lands.”

3: D “you may have D etb as a copy of any card d.” very funny, when i made this my only thought was a one mana copy spell. @jodahpologist cracked this card wide open and cast 12,000 copies of her and won with Exodia + Venser, that shit really does say “any card.”

2: Mo’s Ridge “hideaway (this lands enters the battlefield when it does, look at your library and exile one face down and put the rest on the bottom of your library.) T: add G. you may play the exiled card without paying its mana cost.” i adore this card, obviously good however we had a home rule where you put a land from hand onto the battlefield turn zero so the second player could like counter a spell or something. as a result most of my wins involved Mo’s Ridge turn zero targeting Cation.

1: Worm “Create 3,366 9/9 blue kraken creature token.” god i love this card, i love Reef Worm as a regular magic card and drawing on her was the only time i had the “what am i doing i’m ruining such a beloved and wonderful card” thought during the whole cube. but my sacrifices paid off i have a big dumb grin looking at her while i write this.

[goqmir]

with a big chunk of the Fallout set spoiled, its time to talk about what this means for my favorite EDH deck, [[Rocco Street Chef]] Naya Cast From Exile. the advent of Junk tokens is changing the game, and they printed this time around some of the strongest pieces I've ever seen for the CFE archetype. so, welcome to the Top 5 Fallout Cards for the Discerning Rocco Player!

Honorable Mention: Mister Gutsy

Mister Gutsy is, theoretically, one of the top targets ever printed for Rocco to throw +1/+1 counters onto-- if you have the shell to make that a worthwhile venture. Mister Gutsy can get very big very fast from Rocco's counter targeting, and then eventually impulse draw so many cards for you to get value from using Junk tokens. This would be great if your opponents were incentivized to kill it-- unfortunately, no evasion makes Mister Gutsy's big body pretty worthless in Commander unless you can provide it evasion somehow. The Junk tokens would be great as long and you can make sure Mister Gutsy dies-- this is similarly difficult in Commander (unless your opponents are incentivized to kill it, which they are not) unless you have ways to sacrifice or destroy your own artifacts consistently. Mister Gutsy would be great in the right decks, but my Rocco shell can't support him the way he needs; I don't think he's finding his way into my decklist.

Number 5: Junk Jet

Junk Jet's 3 mana and sac an artifact to double equipped creature's power is a decent effect, and if you'd like to play Junk Jet, Rocco is the perfect deck for it. It's on a good curve against Rocco's 3 CMC, Rocco makes more than enough artifacts to pay its costs, with often a lot of mana through Food payoffs. Furthermore, it creates a Junk on ETB, which in a Rocco deck is like an overtuned cantrip. While I'm not sure Junk Jet can compete with too many of the cards in my pile, this is a very strong and particularly fun option :)

Number 4: Crimson Caravaneer

Crimson Caravaneer is one of my favorite cards printed in this set, and is a wonderful target for Rocco's +1/+1 counters. this on the battlefield alongside Rocco will terrify your opponents-- it grows so strong so fast, becoming incredibly difficult to kill in combat almost immediately. If you can get a hexproofing equipment on her it might win you the game on its own-- making up to (and often!) TWO Junks whenever it attacks, which is such an engine for Rocco. this is a worthwhile inclusion.

Number 3: Junktown

It's Junktown! One of the strongest drawlands they've ever printed, I think, but particularly strong for Rocco-- if you've slowed down and are struggling to play the game, Junktown alone gets you three cards and three CFE triggers for six mana. That rate isn't great until you realize it's on a land that enters untapped-- if you aren't too worried about paying pips (im not! :3) Junktown is basically a free inclusion that alone has the potential to turn the entire game around. I'm definitely making room for this one.

Number 2: Rose, Cutthroat Raider

Rose here is Rocco's premiere Junk token maker. like holy shit. all you have to do is attack each opponent to make that many Junk tokens per turn, and Rocco is amazing at getting creature tokens that are either too big to block proper or too expendable for it to matter, churning your deck forward with so many cast from exile triggers a turn. and then, sweetening the deal so much-- your junk tokens are now treasures. holy shit.

Number 1: Wild Wasteland

god, what a print. we've spoken before on this post and others about how impulse draw is far better than traditional card draw in a Rocco deck because it lets you get your cast from exile triggers, which can build up very fast in a Naya Cast From Exile deck. Wild Wasteland not only says impulse draw one extra card on each of your turns, but fuck it-- that card you usually draw is now an impulse draw too. You are paying three mana and consistent instant-speed interaction for two extra CFE triggers a turn, which are the lifeblood of the Rocco player. please play this card.

[inventors-fair]

Second Selection: Mix and Match Runners-Up!

And our runners-up this week are @bergdg, @capnsoapy, and @helloijustreadyourpost—congratulations!

@bergdg — Umbral Choir

I've been grousing internally about what exactly to say about this card, but I think if I had to give a single criticism, it's the lack of perfect cohesion between the name, art, and effect, even though they do all work well together in a way that forms a genuinely good card. Seriously, this is a card that I'd play in many a deck, and I think that it's solid design all around. In limited, giving everything Afterlife is a damn good ability, and following that you can fit it into a BW shell quite easily. Spirits want it, aristocrats want it, Daxos the Returned wants it badly—you know? Thinking through the cast stuff, I like how it doesn't just put things onto the battlefield; it gives a response window, it allows for flash shenanigans if you got 'em, and cast triggers mattering is valid too.

I suppose that the connection between the choir, the enchantments, and the tutoring feels less like this card took its design from the precise name and more that the ability evolved from what the name had initially started with and became its own card. And it's a good card! It's seriously a phenomenal card! I can start to make the connection between the bodies—like how the choir is sorta summoning the enchantments?—but it feels like something that has to be flavorfully explained more so than it's a natural moment. I almost feel like I have to justify criticism because of the mechanical strength. Take that for what you will, I suppose?

@capnsoapy — Plentiful Generosity

I don't think that white plays enough into being a forceful good guy. Either you're a group hug player or you happened to stumble upon a really interesting multiplayer design. Does it necessarily matter? I imagine that this card isn't going to shake up any meta, but in small playgroups, this is a fun little effect that allows you to go a bit nuts with engining things out. I'm kinda stoked about how many cards or Treasures could be added in a single turn, actually. It's quite fun, and rebound makes it all the more fun.

Considering that this is probably commander-focused, it makes sense that the card's less about the flavor of a specific world and more about generic magical powers, Core-Set-style. I honestly don't mind that. It's not going to make me delve into the secrets of this generous world, but at the same time, this card isn't asking me to meet it halfway on that front. White card advantage and white ramp and group additions are all that matter here; what else could one ask for? Actually, the one thing that we could ask for is that you have "Starting with you" at the beginning to ensure there's no confusion about timing. But that's all!

@helloijustreadyourpost — Unbound Spirit

Keeping it simple ensures that you have some fun moments of design and interaction, and you know what, this card works for me. It's an aggressive-ish card that forces one to use combat tricks to pump it up, but that's only if you're looking to do that. It dies to instants/sorceries, but what doesn't? I like how, in a world of stronger creatures/ETBs, this card doesn't care about channeling or plotting or whatnot. ... Oh, hm, actually it does. Does it? Wait, so, does it not have protection from permanent cards, e.g. could Twinshot Sniper target it, or does "permanents" apply to any card that would be a permanent in any zone? I am...uncertain, but I'm also not gonna bother, because this card's still good, so what do I care.

And what does this spirit care? I feel that you're touching on a unique side of blue that is joyful in a way that's leaning into black more than white as an ally. Does that make sense? White is a color of binding, community, roles and regulations that keep the civilization it's built happy and fulfilled. This creature cares not for those notions, and it's so individually aligned in its formlessness that it rejects that mindset entirely. I think that that's really cool for reasons I can't fully explain, but you've touched upon a nuanced emotion for the color philosophy.

I'll be typing for a bit, but Commentary might be a tomorrow thing. We'll get there when we get there and I'll update folks on Discord.

@abelzumi

[jarad-vod-vevo]

Been getting back into MTG through Arena. Been enjoying Bloomburrow a lot.

I've been enjoying the challenge of building decks around new mechanics and cards, using the limited resources of my collection (I just started Arena at the end of Outlaws of Thunder Junction).

I'm kind of surprised I haven't seen hardly any use of the Gift cards. Parting Gust might be the exception but even that I hardly see.

So I decided to make a deck based around Gifting and I had a lot of fun playing it today so I wanted to share it somewhere. So anyways, here's Kambal's Birthday Party:

The deck idea is based around two cards: Kambal, Profiteering Mayor and Jolly Gerbils.

Most of the Gift cards give a token, so Kambal feels like a great card to build around. Plus, I've had a fair amount of good experiences with this card this set thanks to all of the Offspring tokens running around.

So this is the deck: Give gifts and Tokens, make profit.

Since I'm now looking at black and white, there's a great selection of removal, specifically with the gift mechanic:

This is where Jolly Gerbils shine: (Most of) your spot removal are now cantrips. Its nuts. (As a side note, I don't know why Nocturnal Hunger isn't seeing more play in Bat decks. Like its a great way to trigger life loss if you don't have the pain lands: but maybe pain lands are the reason)

Parting Gust doubling as a protection spell provides some good versatility, but most of the time I use it for removal (and giving my opponent a fish is just funny. Like "Oh you want to hit me with your mid-range beatdown creature? Well, have a fish instead!") Most of our creatures want to stay at 2 power (is that foreshadowing?), so we don't usually really want the +1/+1.

So we are sitting as a sort of control deck. Lots of spot removal and lots (and I mean LOTS) of card draw. My selection of board wipes is kind of bad so my list doesn't include any, but I might consider changing that.

We also have some non-gifting removal:

Savor is great for dealing with early threats. There's also always a need to keep the board clear of 2/2 blockers so the our little creatures can swing in (Ooo more foreshadowing). This is good versus mono-red, killing those Heartfire Heros before they get to big and you won't take any damage to boot. The food token is a bit of icing on the cake, but it does trigger Kambal which is great!

Stroke of Midnight is an honorary gift. Sure it doesn't trigger Gerbils, but it does trigger Kambal. It hits any nonland permanent so its super valuable.

We are going to include some more lifegain on creatures in a bit, and we have a lot of food tokens running around, so Gumdrop Poisoner is a really nice piece. Often its good to just kill a 3/3 with the ETB and then trade her with another 3/3. Corner case use where you use Parting Gust to flicker her to protect her from removal, but would usually rather her eat a removal spell and use Parting Gust as removal or to protect your Gerbils.

Now I just need to fill in some more creature slots.

Delney is just amazing. Honestly, its mostly just that you get the doubling effect for only 3 mana. This is essentially a way to get more card draw out of Gerbils: having two Gerbils is really good, and their 2/3 body makes them really good for swinging into 2/2 blockers.

Kambal's drain for 1 also triggers twice, but unfortunately his copy effect is limited to once a turn so you don't get to double up there.

I have a full playset of Vadmir for some reason (I'm only running 2 at the moment in the deck), but, man, do we commit a lot of crimes. Building him up, he makes a good blocker. Once you hit 4 counters and start swinging, you're basically on the road to winning with a 6/6 Menace Lifelink.

Deep-Cavern Bat can get a lot of chip damage in in the right match-up, and even if your opponent uses removal on it, well that's one less removal spell on your value engine pieces. If Delney is on the field, you can even steal two cards, which is pretty sweet, but that's by turn 4 and doesn't happen too often where your opponent even has 2 cards left.

But that does bring up protection. We have a lot of pieces that are fairly small and fragile, so we need some ways to keep them alive, or bring them back.

I've had two copies of Dawn's Truce since the beginning of the set. It seems like a really good card: you can fizzle removal, it can be used as a combat trick, and you can save your board from (some) board wipes. You need to keep mana up, but you are often holding your mana to use removal on your opponent's turn anyways to try to 2-for-1 them, so it works really nicely here. With Gerbils out, I even find it useful to use the Gift effect just to draw more cards from the deck, even if you don't need the indestructible.

I'm trying out Dewdrop Cure. Its part of the reason why I'm running Vadmir and Deep-Cavern Bat. Once opponents figure out the gift plan, the Gerbils get a big target. Because you draw so many cards, you often end up with multiple Gerbils either in play or in the graveyard. As I mentioned with Delney, getting multiple Gerbil effects really makes you go off. I've only got one of these in my collection, but if it performs well, I'll definitely increase it.

Cruelclaw's Heist helps deal with removal better than Deep-Cavern: if you gift the card, you can use your opponents removal against them! There's also a really great play where you open with Bat, take a look at their hand and take some mediocre early / mid-game card, then follow up with a Cruelclaw's heist if the opponent has anything good (you need to decide to gift the card as you cast the spell, so you don't want to wiff and give your opponent a card). I've only got 1 in my collection, and I don't have the wildcards to invest right now (I've been trying to invest in my mana base so that my two-colour decks are smoother and three-colour decks are viable), but it might be a worthwhile investment in the future.

Also, Consumed by Greed from our removal suite has its own gift effect letting us bring any of our dead creatures back to hand. This is good since Dewdrop can't hit Kambal or Delney.

To close out the game, I'm just using some big bodies I've got on hand:

I've got 1 Beza and 1 Viper in my collection. Beza is probably only good for the life and a big body as you are often fairly low on life by the time you take control of the game. Between your removal and hand disruption, you don't often get to draw the cards or get the fish tokens off Beza so it's kind of mid. Could probably just run another big creature with lifelink and you might get better value.

Viper is interesting: because of the removal and hand disruption, your opponent often has to take the life or sacrifice artifacts and enchantments that we don't have much removal for. We also often end up with spare tokens thanks to Kambal and Savor, so it can be pretty easy to get a cost reduction.

I've got 2 copies of Season of the Burrow. It's unfortunate that the 2-print effect doesn't say gift a card, but it's still good removal for their big payoff cards. The three-print effect can be game winning on a Vadmir or a Delney. Indestructible Vadmir give you a win-con that's hard to deal with: just keep swinging and gaining life. Delney provides so much value in the deck that the indestructible just keeps them protected. Do note that Kambal triggers once per effect that creates tokens, so if you decide to make 5 rabbits, he will only trigger once. Usually I do a 2-3 split, but I could see a 1-2-2 split being viable to remove 2 big threats and give you a token.

That's pretty much the deck. I usually like to play mid-range strategies, and find control kind of boring, but the synergies going on here are a lot of fun. Jolly Gerbils is really undervalued in best-of-one, so you often get a few card draws off before your opponent figures out what your doing. By then, they've probably wasted their removal on your other creatures. The protection and resurrection effects really piece it together at that point as you have the mana to spare to hold up protection while casting removal spells.

Honorary mentions:

Coiling Rebirth felt like a great inclusion. I've got 2 in my collection, but often the only thing I can bring back is a legendary creature, so we can't reliably use the gift. It is nice when you bring back a Gerbil and get a Gerbil token. If I get more Vipers, I'll probably include these again, because double viper effect (or triple with Delney as they will double the token's effect) is absolutely nuts. Cut from the deck: too expensive to resurrect a 2-mana or 3-mana creature.

I started the deck with Builder's Talent because of the synergy with Kambal and gifting tokens, but 1) its very much just win-more, 2) it only works with Kambal and Savor, 3) there are no targets for the level 3 effect, and 4) I only ever want to put the counters on a Deep-Cavern Bat, Vadmir, or Gumdrop Poisoner. I'm committed to finding a deck for Builder's Talent (it can be like Innkeeper's Talent but can trigger more than once per turn...), but this is just to clunky for this deck.

I have one copy of Starfall. We also usually have more than 1 creature on the board so even with the gift it doesn't feel great. Good with Beza though. Sideboard worthy, I suppose.

Crumb and Get It could be more protection. Because of Delney limiting most blockers to 2 power, and Gerbils' 2/3 body, we don't often need the pump in combat. A food token is a better trade than a card gift, so an argument could be made for Crumb and Get It over Dawn's Truce. Something to experiment with for sure.