#I wasn’t sure if this should be ‘one copy of the artifact’ or ‘multiple copies like in RPO’ | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

inventors-fair · 3 years ago

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This contest went a little haywire, and I’m not super certain why.

The basics of this contest were simple: make a card based on a mechanic. I said mechanic instead of ability or keyword because some stuff isn’t quite either. Devotion and Party are just sort of counting tools, and ability words aren’t even rules text. But some people took it a very strange direction. I thought it was pretty clear what counted, and there were plenty of things that very obviously counted, but people just kept asking about other things. While I understand that that is part of the brainstorming process, and you might come up with a cool idea and then not know if it works or not, I really wish you would have just assumed the answer was no and work on something you know would have counted. Why make a card called “Hybrid Mana” when you could just make a card out of any of the dozens of existing mechanics? It felt like you were trying to be unique at best, and purposely trying to mess with me at worst. But how uniquely you answer the prompt isn't important. What’s more important is that the card itself is good, or even clever. The prompt are just that: prompts. I am not challenging you to answer the prompt most creatively, I’m asking you to make a creative card that fits within the prompt. That was the important part.

Which gets me to the next thing. I specifically didn’t want players using the ability on the card. Part of that was just because it would be too easy, but part of that was because I wanted to see you guys get creative. What are some other ways to represent trampling? What else can life be linked to? I didn’t want to say that they could have nothing to do with it, because that’s hard. Would a metalcraft card that mentions artifacts at all count? But I think the point was still clear: I wanted to see cards that had nothing to do with their originator. Sadly, I got a lot of those. Some spelled out the ability. A lot were enablers: a bloodthirst card that dealt damage once a turn for creatures, a card named constellation that makes enchantment tokens, etc. I really wanted to see stuff completely different, and I don’t think I got that across. For that, I apologize. I should have been clearer about that, or put it in the mandatory section instead of the encouraged section.

Sorry for the downer. This was a rough week. Hopefully my commentary form here on out doesn’t sound too bitter. But here it is:

@azathoth-the-bored - Decayed

So while I specifically said that you’re not allowed to use the mechanic on the card, I also said I didn’t want you to just spell it out, as you did here. This gives the enchanted creature decayed, just not literally. If you had removed that and just had the last ability, I think this maybe would have been a fine uncommon as a slow removal spell.

@bread-into-toast - Daybound

Alright, you got me. Technically, this does not have the ability daybound. It just interacts with the day and night cycle, just like daybound does. While that’s allowed, it’s not really what I was asking for. I wanted to see a new interpretation of the ability, completely unconstrained from the originator. So, faire-wise, I’m disappointed with it. As for the card itself, I think it coils use work. The fact that it can’t transform no matter what feels like a strange restriction. A lot of the creatures are better on their night side, including abilities, so you might end up sealing a creature on their more powerful side, and when it turns to day, they will end up buffing their team better, even though they can’t attack. If you seal them on their day side, then they just attack worse at night, which I guess is fine. The fact that it can hit planeswalkers is just so weird. There’s only about 10 planeswalkers that can attack, only 2 that can transform, and only 1 that does both. Why even put it on there? It’s just going to confuse players who might expect it to stop them from activating. If it just said “permanent” I’d be fine, because then it could hit Westvale Abbey, or Poppet Factory, stuff where the transforming is a bigger deal than the attacking. What you ended up with is a card that is just trying too hard to fit a very specific role, and I think you’re worse off for it.

@decayingbooks - Fortify

I don’t think this card is as good as you think this is. I do like that it can be used defensively and “offensively,” but both of those options aren’t particularly good. If you target yourself, that’s a very small amount of benefit for four mana. To Arms does the same thing for two mana and draws you a card. If you target your opponent, it’s a fog that leaves your opponents creatures untapped. The utility of a card that does both is not worth the mana cost. This card could be one mana, and I still don’t know how often it would be played. I love the flavor though, and it’s a good way to make a card using the name fortify. NOTE: I wrote that all before you updated your submission to change it to a sorcery. Yes, it makes more sense, but it loses half of its utility, and becomes a far worse card. I think you needed to look at cards that already exist to get an idea for how to cost your cards or what players would want to play. Flavor is good, but it’s more important to make a well-designed card.

@deg99 - Dethrone

This card has a lot going on, and I think you could have toned it down a touch. The center ability is the main thing here: kill something and its controller loses life. A time-old tradition, and probably fitting at 5 mana. The fact that it gets super cheap targeting something the monarch owns is also cool! It fits the theme, and now you get their best blocker out of the way, amking it even easier to get the monarchy from them! Except then you become the monarch anyway. I think the top and bottom ability are detracting from each other. The top part punishes a player for sitting on the monarchy by making it easier for you to target them, which is good! The bottom part is just sort of insult to injury. It removes the coolest part about the monarch: the interaction among players. Most cards that grant monarchy in some way protect you, giving your opponents something they have to team up to fight through. This one sort of protects you, but is clearly made to be more aggressive, which doesn’t work well with the monarchy mechanic. Lastly, the flavor text I think kind of goes against the rest of the card. Regicide kills a creature, despite in theory killing a king. Queen Marchesa makes you the monarch, even though she is technically one. When I read this card without flavor text,I completely understood that I was killing a monarch, then becoming one. The flavor text muddies that by claming the thing you killed isn’t the monarch, and while that is technically true, it doesn’t match the flavor as well.

@demimonde-semigoddess - Escalate

What a weird little card! The name fits the first ability, that’s for sure. At first I wasn’t sure if that was just worse than a copy spell, but the second ability changes that for sure. It goes from a weird combo card to something you can just sort of play for free that maybe has a bonus bit of text. While I get the desire there, since it feels bad to have such a narrow card, I think the player playing this card WANTS it to be bad. If you see this card as a johnny or a timmy, you think of how cool that first ability is and just kind of ignore the last part. Other players will play it as just a normal tormenting voice with maybe some utility if you happen to have an X somewhere. The fact that there’s two completely different abilities means I can’t figure out which is the reason to play this and which is the extra part. That first ability does have some issues in and of itself, though. I don’t like that it’s a flat bonus. I wish it either doubled or reduced the cost or added mana. Currently, you can just cast a spell with X=0 and get three free bonus out of it. While that is sort of the point of this card, it’s freeness is a little scary. Mostly when you get to things with multiple Xs. This lets you deal 15 damage for two mana with Crackle with Power, or make a bunch of hydras with Hydra Broodmaster for 1 mana. If this card was more clearly focused on the X part, maybe just being a cantrip at one mana, I think I’d be more okay with it. If it doubled X, then at least you’d have to sink something into it. Also, I’m not sure if it’s just a typo, but so far as I know, this works with X costs that are not mana. I believe that it would affect cards like Chatterfang and Storage Lands, which could cause some problems. I also don’t know if it would affect things like Devastating Summons or Firecat Blitz’s flashback, where there’s an X in the cost, sort of. Last thing I’ll point out is you don’t need to phrase it like you did. Unbound Flourishing does almost exactly what you want, just with doubling instead of adding, but it still makes it clear you can change X with the spell or ability on the stack, not “as it resolves.” Sorry if I sound harsh, I just wish you would have committed to this being a combo card so it would feel like a fair trade-off for the amount of power it offered, or that you reduced its impact so that the X part can feel more like a bonus than the focus.

@dimestoretajic - Living Weapon

This is a strange one. First, it’s got a triple colorless mana cost. We’ve never seen a card with one of those, even 2 is reserved only for a 10 mana spell, therefore being only a fifth of its cost. But I can see why, mostly. Artifact creatures can be dumped onto the board extremely quickly, so you want a fairly restrictive cost. Even so, it being such a small creature kind of makes the restrictive cost feel even less worth it. You really need a board of creatures in play for this to be good, and it’s hard to know if this is ever better than just a chief of the foundry, who pumps toughness as well and is always castable. In eternal formats, though, this card could be a beast. The legendary clause is kind of what holds it back there, though. Again, you normally want to dump your hand, so the fact that you can’t play two of these if you have them in hand is a bit aggravating. Lastly, there’s that tap ability. Why is it there? Thematically it doesn’t seem to fit at all with the concept of a living weapon. Mechanically, it doesn’t seem to fit with the type of deck you’d want to pay this in. If you want to give your entire board of creatures double strike, you’re usually doing it because you have a lot of small creatures that want to attack. Having to tap them and him for mana goes against that strategy, and what are you even casting with that mana in a deck like that? The other thing it does is give a spell or two pseudo-affinity, which just seems unnecessary. Would a deck play this for just that ability and ignore the double-strike stuff? It all just seems so odd.Still, this is one of the better entries this week. It’s got some issues, but I like how it knows exactly what it’s here for and is very good at it, as well as working with the name. It’s just tacking a bit too much on top of that.

@fractured-infinity - Constellation

I think you’re overestimating this card. This is a 5 mana card that requires an extra three mana to do anything. Yes, it doubles itself every turn, but those copies don’t do anything other than trigger constellation. That’s good in a constellation deck, but this is a card that’s ONLY good in a constellation deck. If I play this and survive three turns and have 8 of these in play, there’s no way I’ll be able to activate them reasonably effectively. The flavor of this card is also tied too closely to the mechanic. None of this quite feels space like, or like I’m connecting things like constellations connect stars. I would suggest trying to find some other way to make it useful without the ability, or limit the number of tokens it makes but make the whole card cheaper. Right now it’s just too narrow and hard to use, and even the deck that wants it may be dead by the time it really starts being useful.

@ghoulcalculator64 - Banding

Ah, I see. It’s a rubber band joke. Fair enough. I think this card is not good. Four mana is a lot for this small of an effect. Yes, icy manipulator is a famously strong card, but Pacification array was not (though it had a lot of utility because of improvise being in the set). Two mana to tap each turn is a lot, and the fact that this doesn’t have a body like Fan Bearer or Gavony Trapper is a heavy cost already. I think you needed to do a little more research into what other cards of this type existed when making this.

@gollumni - Grandeur

Well this is a bit of a dud. It’s very hard to find a good way to use this card. It’s a fog, but what isn’t? It lets you get in one hit with one creature for sure, but at the cost of not getting to hit with anything else, and not being able to block anything for a while. The exact templating of this card has some minor issue, but I do want to point out you were clever not to make it target, so they can’t kill the targetted creature in response. Instead, you choose upon resolution. It’s a bit of a shame you HAVE to choose something, meaning you can’t just use this as a fog when you’ve got nothing in play, but maybe that’s for the best. Better to avoid turbo-fog making a resurgence. The last sentence also sounds a little off. Looking at Duneblast, I might just say “tap the rest.” I also really wish there were some way to not make this rare, but this would probably be an annoyance even at uncommon, so maybe it’s necessary.

@helloijustreadyourpost - Fateseal

Cool idea, execution is a bit off. One mana removal spells, even slow ones like this, are probably too good, especially at common. I could maybe see a card like this being pushed in a set where they really want playable enchantments, like a set with delirium or constellation. I know the big downside is that they still get a chance to swing with the creature before it dies, but I don’t think that offsets the massive upside of being an unconditional one mana kill spell. Conceptually, I like it. It’s definitely the complexity level of an uncommon, and the flavor is spot on. I think the fact that it triggers on your upkeep is mechanically a good idea, but a little awkward because a lot of people will assume it cares about the creature’s controller’s upkeep, like most similar cards. That’s not really on you, though, and if the rest of the set doesn’t do that, it’s fine. I could almost see changing it to grant the creature “sac this in your end step” instead. However, if the set has death synergies, that might matter, too. I guess this card is hard to judge because I could see it doing a lot of work in a theoretical set, but outside of any set, it’s just way too good. I like it, though, and it’s a great fit for this week, it’s just too strong.

@hiygamer - Hidden Agenda

I like the concept here, but I think you maybe underestimated it. The most obvious comparison here is Profane Tutor and Wishclaw Talisman. Both get you your cards a little later, but with some downsides compared to this Hidden Agenda. Being better than the two most recently printed tutors is a pretty big sign you’re maybe too strong. The exact phrasing also lets you pay the one during your opponents turn, so you can have the card in hand by the time you untap. Flavor-wise, I think it works. It does feel like you’re up to something, and you’ve got it hidden away, but I kind of wish it could be MORE hidden some way. Right now it feels a lot less like its hidden and more like it’s just in your hand but costs 1 more. But that’s getting nitpicky. It still feels like a good fit of card and name, which is the focus of this contest. I just think you could have pumped the brakes a little more, either making a more expensive tutor or a more hidden card.

@hypexion - Will of the Council

I was certain someone would do this. William of the Council. Bravo. But why does he have to do with voting? Surely there are other councils than Paliano’s. For this week specifically, I would have really wished you kept further away form voting. Yes, this doesn’t have Will of the Council, but it cares about it. Anyway, the card itself? I like it. I think the last ability is really cool, and adds some wrinkles to time when everybody is already agreeing on how they’re going to vote. You can also do some silly things where you purposely vote a certain way to get a bunch of treasures or get the result you actually wanted. I also like how playing him encourages you to be t he good guy: you want to make sure other people want what you want. That’s a cool way to build a deck. The first ability messes with all of that, though. First, there’s a lot of math. There 5 permanent types you’d have to count every time you vote, with the number of artifacts changing after each one. Lands would be the tough one, but creatures would be annoying, too. In a conspiracy draft, there’s also probably be some confusion to if conspiracies count, or Tribal, or Snow. Then there’s how it messes with the second ability. As soon as you get one extra vote, all of the fun of the second ability goes away. Most votes only have two options, so you just get to pick both. You were clever with the name and clever with the ability, but maybe a little too ambitious with the card itself.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes - Haunt

This card is a little weird. Flavor wise, I mostly like it. I like that the spirit is the same size but behaves differently than its originator. The name feels a bit mismatched, since this is less haunting something and more letting something else do the haunting. I would expect some sort of spirit to haunt the creature, not for it to die and come back to haunt others. As for the card itself, it’s not as good as it looks. For reference, Undying Evil, Supernatural Stamina, and malakir rebirth are all one mana. This is three mana to make a token that is almost strictly worse. It loses abilities, has to attack and block, but at least it has vigilance? I don’t understand the flavor of those abilities, either. Is it just an aggressive spirit? I would have expected it to have gained flying, but without it I don’t understand what exactly this spirit is. I keep thinking I’m missing something, but as I see it, this card is just not quite there on mechanics or flavor.

@kellylogs - Vigilance

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a card like this, but I remember the time when Mardu Ascendency, launch the fleet, and similar effects were all the rage. I like how this one specifically doesn’t create the token tapped and attacking. It sort of sells the flavor that they are leaving someone back in order to stay vigilant. I think this card is fine, but I have one giant issue: why did you specify “taps to attack?” All that does is make this card say “whenever a creature without vigilance attacks, make a token.” I know I said you’re not allowed to use the ability on the card, but specifically not using it feels even weirder. If it didn’t say that, I would feel perfectly fine with this card, maybe even make it a runner-up, but the “taps” part in there makes it clear that you didn’t feel confident enough in the design, and though you needed some way to tie the card back into the ability, something I specifically said I wasn’t looking for.

@loreholdlesbian - Encore

What a show this is. I like this card, but it’s very hard to judge. In some formats, this would be a powerhouse. Four mana for an extra turn with some extra cards is a great rate, and the lose clause is not nothing, but might be ignorable. Otherwise, though, this card could be a bulk mythic. We’ve seen two similar cards in the last few years, it’s hard to know what the rate on this card would be in this day and age. I’ll say what I can: this is a really cool concept and a really great way to answer the prompt. I just am so scared of extra turns in this day and age, what with the prevalence of them in recent years. Yes, this loses you the game, but is that enough? I just don’t know. I’m sorry, I wish I could help more. I like this card, I just am failing a bit as a judge right now.

@maispace - Bloodthirst

I think you came at this challenge from the wrong direction. It seems like you started by thinking of the ability of bloodthirst, then made a card around it. This is an enchantment that basically makes it so you always get your bloodthirst triggers. I don’t really understand how the card itself is bloodthirst. Is the idea that the creature spells are bloodthirsty? And so when you cast them, they’re “going for blood,” dealing damage? I don’t quite get the flavor. What the card does, though seems cool. It’s effectively damage that ramps up every turn. I like how it messes with strategies. Normally in aggressive red decks where you want to be playing burn like this, you also want to be playing a lot of low-cost creatures. But this card wants you to just play one creature a turn in order to get max value from it. I like that this sort of encourages a different type of aggro deck: one where you’re trying to tap out for big creatures every turn. Or maybe playing flash creatures? Or maybe you have a lot of activated abilities, so you can still use your mana? There’s a lot of cool, unique ways to take advantage of this card, and it might be worth it. If you trigger it at least three times, you get 6 points of burn for 3 mana, which is good! Feels a little odd at uncommon, but I could see this being a lame rare. I would just hope there’s enough enchantment removal in the set that this wouldn’t just be that oppressive. Even one damage a turn can add up in limited.

@mardu-lesbian - Improvise

Oh my. First, the flavor mostly works. I get that you’re sort of doing what you can with what you have, regardless of its utility. It’s a little odd that it doesn’t do things with your hand and is stead almost sort of reanimatey, but I think that’s a fine stretch to make the mechanics work without being too wordy. As for the ability, oh boy! It is very easy for this card to kill someone. I could easily see a combo deck forming from this. The random part I both like and dislike. I like it because it gives you a need to build around: you can’t just put the one big card you need in there to combo off, you’d need some way to partially empty your own graveyard to ensure it works. I also don’t like it because if you don’t keep your graveyard clean, you still have a chance of it woking anyway, meaning whether you win or lose is basically decided randomly, which is not super fun. Another strange quirk of this card is that it can actually be used relatively fairly. In a modern blitz deck, you probably won’t get more than one or two power out of it (maybe three if you’re playing those spectacle cards), but just being a spell that grants trample and maybe a bit of power is really all they need. This card being at common feels really strange as well. It’s a little bit complex of a card, in that it requires paying very close attention to the board state and also your graveyard, and needing to randomize it. While that might be fine, the swinginess of it would get tiresome in limited. It’d be pretty easy to get to the point where you have every mana value from 1 to 5 in your graveyard and your opponent is at 4 and, again, whether you win or lose the game comes down to randomness. I really like the idea of this card, but I wish it was a little less randomized.

@martianjune - Evolve

Evolving is the idea of growing and adapting to circumstances, and this catches that flavor, but maybe has one too many effects. Adding a counter is a nice base line, and growing when dealt damage is great flavor, and fighting works with the damage part and kind of works to represent evolving to adapt. But as a whole the card gets a little messy. The biggest issue is it’s not clear whether you fight when it’s dealt damage or when you cast the spell. I think you’d want to grant the creature the ability. Perhaps: “Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control. Until end of turn, that creature gains ‘whenever this creature is dealt damage, put a +1/+1 counter on it.’ Then it fights target creature you don’t control.” That would be less confusing. Unless you do want it to keep fighting infinitely. There’s also some weirdness in that this does the same effect twice back to back, putting counter on it before and after, which is a little weird, but hardened scales decks prefer it that way. As an instant pump spell removal spell with extra utility, I think this is maybe too complex even for uncommon. It also doesn’t really have a great way to include the reminder text that the creature needs to still be alive to put the +1/+1 counter on it, which confuses some new players. For the most part I like the design of this card, but it’s just too complex.

@misterstingyjack - Threshold

You’re playing with fire, here. A tutor on a land is incredibly powerful, even one as weak and slow and narrow as this. We’ve seen the incredible power of Urza’s Saga, and while this is weaker, it may fall into the same trap of assuming that cheap is the same as weak. I also don’t get the flavor at all. A threshold is like a barrier, so I kind of get that it’s a land, but is this supposed to represent specifically the barrier between the rest of the world and presumably the legendary land you’re tutoring? Okay, now that I write it out I kind of get that. But why is it legendary? Normally that wouldn’t bug me that much but A) on lands its a big deal and B) the card itself cares about legends, so it’s kind of relevant. I think if this specifically stated lands this might be fine, but this card seems specifically made to try and be broken, which I think is not a great idea.

@nicolbolas96 - Eternalize

Well that’s quite the removal spell. It even removed the oxford comma from the reminder text! Seriously, though, this card is pretty scary. While it can be used fairly as a removal spell, it also has some random combo potential, like magus of the abyss or leonin abunas, or other stuff I’m probably not thinking of. It also seems absolutely devastating in commander, where it’s entirely possible you completely remove their commander from relevance, or protect yours somehow? This is a really hard card to evaluate, because we’ve only seen one other card similar to it, one with the stars, but this is also an instant with a permanent effect. I’m not a huge fan of the latter aspect, though I appreciate that the name at least clues people in to the fact that it lasts indefinitely. I’m very glad it’s at rare to make up for the many confusions that will come from this card. Lastly, this is pretty cheap for this effect. It’s basically two mana instant speed removal in white that can’t be protected by indestructible or even reanimation. This kills things that shouldn’t be able to die. Maybe that’s fine? Like I said, hard to evaluate, but I think I come out on the side of positive. Not great, I think it’s more trouble than it’s worth, but it’s at least something new and exciting.

@nine-effing-hells - Planeswalk

There’s some templating issues with this card that makes it unclear to me what it’s trying to do. Let’s say I have eight lands in play when I play this. I shuffle them into my deck, then each player reveals cards until they reveal 8 lands. Then I may put any number of those lands onto the battlefield. I’m going to assume under my control? It would need to says so, because right now they would just go under their owner’s control. Next, players shuffle “the rest” into their library. The rest of what? As written, it implies the lands, but I’m also shuffling the other cards revealed, right? Though they never left the library, so either way they’d get shuffled. I think you’d want to say “You may put any number of land cards revealed this way onto the battlefield under your control, then each player shuffles the rest of the revealed cards into their library.” Mas polymorph is the closest I could find to this. Anyway, the card’s mechanics: I think this is a little underwhelming. It’s a lot of counting and shuffling and stealing for very little gain. You’re doubling your mana for 8 mana, which is actually one above boundless realms or nyxbloom ancient and two above mana reflection. But with this you get to steal your opponents’ lands! That’s kind of just worse than your own lands, since they won’t tap for the right colors of mana all the time. You’re also thinning their deck by a pretty significant amount, meaning your opponent is actually getting some amount of benefit out of this (unless they’re mana screwed, in which case you were winning anyway). I think this only really has any use in commander, where the “each player” part means you’re more likely quadrupling your mana. I guess that’s pretty good for eight mana. This is also insanely good in landfall decks, obviously. I think I like this card, but there’s a lot of things pulling me from it. It’s a cool mix of scapeshift, oblivion sower, and boundless realms, but kind of feels bloated. It’s just trying to do so much, and because of that it’s got a massive mana cost and a lot of annoying to deal with shuffling and counting, nto to mention the amount of confusion that stealing lands usually leads to. Lastly, and I almost missed this, all the lands come into play untapped, which feels excessive. Eight mana to double your mana permanently that also doubles your mana the turn you play it is just begging for trouble. I think this would be a card everyone at the table would groan when they see, potentially even the player playing it. From a purely mechanical angle it seems like a good idea, but there’s just so many little issues that add up to make it a hassle of a card.

@Partlycloudy-partlyfuckoff - Dash

I think this card doesn’t do enough. I tink the “if” part is unnecessary. +2/+0 and haste is easily something worth 1 mana, even at common. The fact that it rewards targeting a creature that actually needs hast feels redundant, and I feel like it’s an attempt to get this card closer to it’s ability, which goes against the goals of this contest. I think you might have needed to step back and think about another interpretation of the word dash to try and come up with something more original.

@pocketvikings - Amass

I have one very important question about this card: why would you cast this for X anything more than 0? There’s reasons too, of course, but the card doesn’t really encourage it in any way. I can see this being played in a Rosheen Meanderer deck, but just a mana filterer, which seems weird. You can play it in a mizzix deck or other mana value matters decks, but that also feels really narrow. I think the most common use for X is cost reduction, like if you have a Baral and a Goblin Electromancer. Then that mana really is free, and it does feel like you’re amassing it. Sadly, those are the exact kinds of decks where you really don’t want to be limited to one more spell. So you have a card here that doesn’t really know where it wants to go. I think you either really needed to encourage big mana some way (like by doubling outright instead of adding), or by encouraging small mana (like just adding X mana alone, but allowing multiple casts, so you just get to double dip on mana reductions). As is, there’s just not a place for this card.

@reaperfromtheabyss - Threshold

I don’t quite get the reference with vampires. Is it a reference to them not being able to enter a house without being welcomed? Is that a threshold? Anyhoo, card seems fine. I don’t think it needed to be an artifact: plenty of walls in magic aren’t artifacts, and I don’t think they need to be. The last ability is just Baird. This is a wall that makes it hard to attack you. That’s all, folks! It hink it does a fine job of that, but it feels hard to feel that this card is necessary when Baird is already out there and has power and vigilance and only 1 more mana. I don’t think this card is bad, I just think it’s the most literal interpretation of the name.

@shakeszx - Bury

Spooky. Love the art, and kill spells are great places for one-name cards. The flavor really comes together. As with any creature-type based removal spells, you get some nitpicky things like “can you bury an elemental? Can you bury an ooze?” But that’s just what I expect pedantic players would say. I think non-spirit is fine trinket text. My biggest issue with this is that it’s very clearly a reference to the original ability. Bury got changed to “kill it and it can’t be regenerated,” and you swapped out the regeneration for indestructible, it’s current substitute. I wish I could have seen a card further from its source for this challenge, but I can’t argue against how solid of a card this is. I do wish it had found a way to stray further from terminate, which is almost exactly a reflection of this card. Also this is kind of going to be a boring rare (I say as someone who opened multiple dreadbores).

@snugz - Eternalize

Love me some gold counters! I remember putting aurification in my old defender decks. This really fits the theme. I like how you put the counter on it even though it wasn’t “technically” necessary: you could have just had it gain all those things. But the counter is a very useful tool for remembering, and the fact that it can be interacted with, unlikely as it is that you can remove the counter, it still technically gives you something you can do about it. The defender and can’t activate abilities is neat, but the other two parts seem odd. Turning it into a treasure doesn’t really do anything other than random stuff like counting towards Revel in Riches. I think you wanted to grant it the treasure ability. The fact that it can still activate mana abilities is what tipped me off to that, since that seems incredibly narrow otherwise. I also think this is closer to a white card than a black card. It’s extremely similar to both Guard Duty and Minimus Containment, both white cards. Black would be much closer to just outright killing the creature, especially for a 3 mana uncommon. Still, I like the flavor of it.

@starch255 - Extort

Well this is not something I was expecting. I can really respect the attempt to make something new with what you’ve got. You may be pushing the boundary a bit harder than I liked, but at least you had fun with it. The card is strange, but I think I like it. Haste is a weird ability because it doesn’t scale evenly, so 5 mana for 4 power haste is kind of in line. The “flying when attacking” is a nice way to power it up and down a bit, and the one toughness makes this really fragile. It also sort of helps with the flavor: high toughness is the one thing most commonly associated with turtles. Still, something about this card feels off. Even with haste, 5 mana for a 1 toughness creature is a hard sell. In the right format, this would be a beating and a half, and in the wrong format, this would be last pick every draft. Ravnica, where this card seems to be from, is famous for its many 1/1 flyers. Especially with conditional flying, you could probably have pumped up the toughness at least to two. But hey, funny card, okay in some formats probably, and a cool two color design.

@stellarlight - Encore

Visual: A magic show. Three identical magicians jump through the air with happy smiles on their faces, an outfit identical to theirs is on the floor. The audience is mesmerized.

Now this is a strange card. First off, I think this card is a little close to the original ability, which I tried to discourage, but not so close that I’m disqualifying it. I just think you maybe played it a little safe. As for the ability, how strange! At first it just seems like an incredibly overcosted Kaya’s Ghostform, but the fact that it hits opponents things means it’s a little closer to Minion’s Return. The fact that it makes a token instead of reanimating the creature has upsides and downsides: it means you can still do graveyard things with the creature card in the yard, but it means that bounce spells are kill spells. If you’re taking your opponents cards, it’s the opposite. The bonus ability on this is pretty cool, though. It makes this card really cool in blink decks, since you can enchant your guy at the end of their turn, untap, then blink it on your turn with a charming prince or something. The tokens stick around, too, so you’ll end up getting three ETB triggers in addition to the one you already were going to get from blinking it in the first place. Still, I think this card is a mana too much, maybe more. Minion’s return is the closest basis to this card, and it was an uncommon that almost never got played. This requires setup to ge the most benefit from, and still costs two more, including another color! Aura’s are already so easy to mess with, sinking 5 mana into one just to get blown out with a removal spell on the stack, or having someone mess with your blink effect before you untap is very likely. I think just four mana, or even 3 might be fine. I think it’s a really cool idea, though, and other than the cost (and the similarity to the ability), I like this card.

@wilsonosgoodmcman - Fateseal

They’ve been trying to design a card like this for years I feel, and you got a pretty good version of it. It’s a bit like spell queller and a bit like Oblivion Ring. I think the name fits pretty well, and I like how you reinterpreted the “seal” from meaning “decide” to meaning “trap.” The templating on the bottom is a bit off: you could probably steal it whole from Spell Queller. The cost also seems right on the money: just a touch more expensive than O-Ring, same price as Cast Out or Ashiok’s Erasure but with comparable downsides to both. I think this would se play in a lot of blue white control decks. Part of me wants to complain and say that this card is boring and too close to things that have been done before, but I think I’m wrong on both accounts. This is a role-player in the format, not a headliner. A good card, and a good answer to the prompt.

@wolkemesser - Grandeur

Making a Lorwyn style incarnation is a really clever way to get that name to work. Your reworking of the shuffle clause is pretty interesting, and is a clever way to set up that last ability. And that last ability sure is something. It gives this creature basically a permanent on-death effect. It still needs to be cast and die, but after it does, you’re good. Your opponent has to 20 you in one turn. But as a mythic that needs to be set up is that fine? If you play a temple garden into avacyn’s pilgrim or bird of paradise, you can get this out by turn three or so. If you play a sacrifice outlet before then, you can set up this combo nearly immediately. Even so, graveyard hate can hit it, just not all graveyard hate (many players use grafdiggers cage in historic, for example). If I were in charge of deciding if this card sees print, I would be terrified. It’s a really cool and maybe balanced ability, but I’m worried it would turn quite a few games into do-you-have-it games of combos vs. graveyard hate. It’s probably fine though. I like this card.

And that’s everybody. If you want to talk to me about anything in particular, feel free to contact me at our discord.

-Mod Mr. ShinyObject

#commentary #mtg #magic the gathering #text to title #custom magic card #inventor's fair

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ellaenchanting · 4 years ago

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Hypnovember 2020 Master List

Now that I have awoken from my post-Hypnovember nap, it’s time to post my 2020 Master List! in comparison to last year’s entries, a lot of stories this year delved more into either more intense kinks or more of my intense personal feelings than my stories last year did. Sometimes writing stories is a bit like reading my own tarot cards in that way- letting an ambiguous prompt roll around in my subconscious and sometimes being surprised or amused or even slightly unsettled by what it turns into. I hope you will find something in this group of works that soothes you, that turns you on, that intrigues you, and that most of all provokes a response. If you do, I’d absolutely love to hear about it. :)

Copying one of my favorite @jukeboxemcsa ideas, I’ve also included a HypnoBS rating for every work about how realistic the hypnosis/mind control is in each work (IMHO). In this ranking, 1 means to is absolute bullshit and 5 is a normal Tuesday night (for someone).

Icons- 📰- story. 🔊- audio 💻- technology 😍- romantic 🌈- queer 😴- regular ole’ hypnosis 🛀- brainwashing and/or character in tub 👻- spooky 🐈- at least one happy pussy ❓- bad or reeeally questionable consent 👨‍🔬 -science! 🤪 -crackfic #-#sceneideas 😭-feeeels ⭐-author’s personal favorites

Day 1: Instant M/f 📰 😴🐈#😭

Choice quote: “Sean chuckled as he moved in closer. And closer. ‘I thought you wanted to know what it was like to be hypnotized, sweetheart. To follow suggestions? To have someone else take control? It’s not real control if I’m doing something you already wanted, now is it?”

HypnoBS- 5. Read the whole thing but- IMHO totally plausible.

Fun Fact- These are the same characters from last year’s Day 5: Poison.

Day 2: Coils F/m 📰 😴 💻 👨‍🔬

Choice quote: “Daniel rolled his eyes. ‘I bet you could hypnotize me with a bar of soap if you wanted to. That still doesn’t make me like spirals.’”

HypnoBS- 5. Maybe 4 because I don’t love the induction but- maybe you will? Also- oh no poor Daniel is so conditioned that he’ll go under to anything Jamie does! How hard for him. :(

Day 3: Staged Hypnosis (Stage) F/f 📰 😴 🌈 🛀 ❓

Choice quote: “No one needed to know she was a plant. A confederate. A stooge.”

HypnoBS- 1.5. This would collapse like a house of cards. It’s a fun concept though.

Day 4: Psychic F/nb 📰 😴 🌈 😍 👨‍🔬⭐

Choice quote: “Something about the hypnosis- being in and out of each other’s heads and in and out of each other’s bodies all weekend- made her feel like she and Tris had merged in some way. Like there was a new, deeper understanding between them now- a telepathic bond.”

HypnoBS- 5. Maybe a 4.5 if you’re recognizing some nre magical thinking here. But- I’ve definitely had this feeling and this kind of experience- and I hope some of you have had it/will have it as well. :)

Day 5: Visor F/multiple 📰 😴 🛀 💻 👨‍🔬 🤪#

Choice quote: “Besides, everyone knew stormtroopers were kinky.”

HypnoBS- 4.5. Some of the exact details would need to be changed and thought through more thoroughly, but I absolutely believe you could do something like this if you wanted to. (And if you do, you definitely have to let me know. I know some of y’all out there go to Dragoncon.)

Day 6: Pendulum F/y’all 🔊😴 👨‍🔬

Choice quote: This is a trick I first learned from a science book I read in 5th grade.

HypnoBS- 5. The real thing.

Day 7: Song Aliens/the human race 📰 💻 👻❓

Choice quote: “Anna didn’t know what she was singing.”

HypnoBS- 1. I hope. Why do the song based stories always turn out so creepy?

Day 8: Performance unknown/f 📰 👻❓😴# ⭐

Choice quote: “With each snap, the gears inside her doll body click click click clicked into action. She turned, jerky but graceful. She was determined to do well. “

HypnoBS- 5 (if part of a fearplay scene, which is my headcanon for this story)

Day 9: (Hot Under the) Collar F/f 📰 😴🛀🌈 🐈#⭐

Choice quote: “She was wearing her collar. She was aroused. It was as simple as that.“

HypnoBS- 5 With time, I think you could do this. Maybe a 4.5 for the 30 minutes thing- that might lead to a bit too much cramping.

Day 10: Gentle 🔊😴

Choice quote: “Just look into the spiral....”

HypnoBS- 5. I hope.

Day 11: Summoning Sappho (Summon) eventual F/f I hope 📰 😴🌈 🤪

Choice quote: “In fact, the only ideas left to try on their brainstorming board included ‘sexy alien invasion’, ‘sexy witches’, and this. Shockingly, at this point a sexy seance seemed the most practical.”

HypnoBS-1. Although stay tuned for Femme Flirt 2021.

Day 12: Plants unknown/m 📰 😴🛀#

Choice quote: “If he focused, Chris could feel that new suggestion also growing stronger and stronger, becoming more and more firmly rooted inside of him. “

HypnoBS- 5, with the right person

Day 13: Artifact F/f 📰 😴🛀🌈 👨‍🔬 ❓

Choice quote: “She fumbled through the contents when suddenly her hand found something unexpected from her past.A red lipstick tube. An artifact.”

HypnoBS- 4? There’s different ways of reading this story, but my headcanon is that the consent here is pretty dubious.

Day 14: Tail M/f 📰 😴🛀❓👻#

Choice quote: “It was no use. She could sense her tail was still behind her. She couldn’t shake him. She should have known he’d come for her.“

HypnoBS- Let’s say 2. Although I think this could work really well for a fearplay scene in an appropriate setting (where someone wasn’t actually left unmonitored with extreme paranoia).

Day 15: Serve F/m 📰 😴#⭐

Choice quote: “He had put his heart and soul into the dish.They were hers now.”

HypnoBS- As a scene? 5 (depending on the person). As a long term effect, much lower.

Day 16: Memory F/f 📰 😴 🛀🌈 😍

Choice quote: “Mesmera waited for Galaxy Girl at the door.”

HypnoBS- 4, you could do an induction along these lines but -1 for psychic powers

Fun Fact: These characters were originally featured in last year’s Day 19: Hideout.

Day 17: Toy F/f m/f 📰 😴 🛀🌈🐈 #

Choice quote: “Dolly hated to have Bad Manners. “

HypnoBS- 4.5. This is pretty deep into headspace, but I wouldn’t want to rule it out for the right person.

Day 18: Monster m/f 📰 😴 ❓😭⭐

Choice quote: “That kind of stuff wasn’t fair to think about here. It wasn’t everyone else’s fault that she was so warped.”

HypnoBS- 5. Ouch my heart. Poor young!Ella.

Day 19: Eyes M/m 📰 😴 🌈 😍

Choice quote: “Scott looked into his partner Brandon’s eyes. Brandon had hypnotized him so many times over the years in so many ways but- this was one of Scott’s favorites.”

HypnoBS- 5. Especially in a long term relationship like this. (In my pretend Hypnovember universe, these guys are some of the patriarchs of the hypnokinky convention scene and absolutely wonderful advice givers.)

Fun fact: The story of how these characters originally got together is in last year’s Day 12: Stage story.

Day 20: Possession F/f 📰 😴 🌈 😍😭

Choice Quote- “Things that were hard to do for herself during these times became easier to do as something owned by Thadra. Taking a shower. Getting up and going to bed at the right time. Making sure she ran once a day. Making sure she ate.”

HypnoBS- Errr....4 trending upwards. Although for this to be safe and healthy you’d really need to be checking in with a therapist and working on your continuing mental health at the same time (IMHO). Please do not get relationship advice from my porn.

Day 21: Snaps 🔊😴👨‍🔬

Choice Quote- “No, that one was up.”

HypnoBS- 5. I’m not sure quite how this translates to audio but this is the kind of shenanigans I pull with friends all of the time.

Day 22: Restrict F/f 📰 😴 🌈 🐈👨‍🔬

Choice quote: “’Hmm. By ‘weird’ do you mean ‘hot’?’ asked Zahara, lounging above her on the couch. Nikki nodded. She definitely meant hot. “

HypnoBS- 2. A month is a long time and this is a strong reaction. But- maaaaaybe would work for a bit, especially within these boundaries?

Day 23: Villain there’s a m and a f 📰 🛀👨‍🔬❓#

Choice quote: “They had been planning against that damned do-gooder reporter Lizzy Lampost for months and now they were about to finally have her in their clutches. “

HypnoBS-1. But you’re not reading this one for realism, are you?

Day 24: Drink F/f 📰 😴👨‍🔬🌈 😍

Choice quote: “’Leah,’ she said. ‘I’ve found a drinking game! This might be fun! Want to try it?’”

HypnoBs- 5. With the right person. (That part of the end might be a bit harder.)

Day 25:Worship: F/m 📰 🛀🌈

Choice quote: “After all, it wasn’t the time to work right now. It was time to worship his Mistress’s cock.”

HypnoBS- Someone on AO3 told me this fic just wrecked them. Lucky that person- this one’s a 5. Maybe not with everyone, but an awful lot of people should be able to do an awful lot of the activities in this story. :)

Day 26: Fey M/f 📰😴 😭⭐

Choice quote: “Humans do not know the spells they weave.”

HypnoBS- 1 Only true in that metaphorical way. (So- really, really true. But not factual.)

Day 27: Recording F./m 📰 🛀❓👻#

Choice quote: “It’s a recording, he reminded himself. “She’s not there. No one is there.”

HypnoBS- 2 At least, I don’t know how to make this happen (outside of a consensual scene).

Day 28: Obsession M/F 📰 🛀😍👨‍🔬

Choice quote: “Some guys had cars. Some had computer systems. Some had home brewing. But Mark’s obsession was Julia.“

HypnoBS- Oh gosh. Errr...2.5? Hard to say.

Fun Fact: This started as a one-sided scenario, then it changed, then it felt really hot, now it feels like a sweet silly sitcom premise. (If you want to read some episode synopses of this hypothetical sitcom, there are some brilliant ones here! Also- feel free to send me more!)

Day 29: Helpless F/m 📰😴😍

Choice quote: “’I want to be helpless,’ he replied. Juan felt his headspace changing. He threw himself into that feeling, trusting Josie to take the reins.“

HypnoBS- 5. Not a scene log, but pretty much How I Top.

Day 30: Awaken 🔊😴👨‍🔬

Choice quote: “Aaaaaand-awaken!”

HypnoBS- 5 Hypnotist BS- also a 5

Thank you all for reading these! Thank you especially to everyone who reblogged, wrote me comments, and generally supported me through this past month. I’m going to specifically single out @daja-the-hypnokitten, @wellgnawed, and @spiralturquoise for the encouragement- y’all are the best. :) I know this is a long post, but I’d really appreciate reblogs of it!

Also, I didn’t have time to contribute myself but- if you donate to Hypnokink for Trans Lives, let me know and I’ll write you an epilogue for any of these stories that you choose.

#Hypnovember 2020 #master post #me/my accomplishments #thank you all again for reading!#seeing people actually liking my stuff gives me a ton of energy to keep going #<3 #19746 words and almost an hour of audio #an entire month of my life :P #not a novel but definitely a novella

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stormtide-leviathan · 4 years ago

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Kaldheim Booster Challenge

I posted this on reddit, if you’d rather check it out there, but I wanted to share it here too b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶i̶'̶m̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶s̶t̶a̶n̶t̶l̶y̶ ̶d̶e̶s̶p̶e̶r̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶f̶f̶i̶r̶m̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶.

In the third great designer search, there was a challenge to pick a set and make a booster pack full of custom cards that fit in that set. I’ve started doing this for sets since Zendikar rising, and wanted to continue that tradition here. Why am I doing this so late after the release of Kaldheim? Cause shuttup, that’s why >:(

Here’s the link to the full imgur album. There are also individual imgur links even though there are images, cause reddit doesn’t allow images directly and I’m copy/pasting from there.

Anyway, let’s get started! (Long post ahead)

Common #1:

Divine Goat 3W

Creature- Goat

W, Sacrifice ~: You gain 3 life.

Whenever you cast your second spell each turn, return ~ from your graveyard to your hand.

Here’s a top down design, based on Thor’s goats that pulled his chariot and were sacrificed for food every night and reborn in the morning. Originally the recursion triggered based on Vehicles, but with two other vehicle cards in the booster including the other white common, one had to go and this was the best option, but I still liked the flavor so I went with another of white’s themes.

Common #2:

Dwarven Elder 2W

Creature- Dwarf Warrior

Whenever ~ crews a Vehicle, draw a card.

2/2

The fabled white card draw. Yes, I am your savior. Your messiah. Bow before my wisdom. I could technically see this design in either white or blue, but I liked white better and white cares more about vehicles anyway. I based the costing off Stealer of Secrets. This doesn’t put itself in danger, but relies much more on deck building to activate.

Common #3:

Ambusher Giant 5U

Creature- Giant Warrior

Flash

Foretell 3U (During your turn, you may pay 2 and exile this card from your hand face down. Cast it on a later turn for its foretell cost.)

4/4

Foretell works really well with instant speed, so I thought a big instant speed creature would be a good fit. Since blue has a giant tribal theme, and is one of the main colors for foretell, it was an obvious fit.

Common #4:

Heated Rebuttal 1U

Instant

Counter target spell unless its controller pays 2. They can’t spend S to pay this cost. (S is mana from a snow source.)

Here’s another snow hate card. What I really wanted to do with this was discourage running snow basics where you don’t have to, and though we have the god in the set that does this I think this is an issue that’s solved with both quality and quantity. I wasn’t sure on the power level of this for standard purposes, but I’d rather this more pushed version than be too weak and have it not do anything against snow.

Common #5:

Shapeshifter’s Trickery 1U

Enchantment- Aura

Enchant Creature

Enchanted creature gets +1/+0, is every creature type, and can’t be blocked.

Not too much to say here really. This is good for the tribal synergies in the set, and is just an innocuous little aura for limited. Not everything is gonna be pushing boundaries.

Common #6:

Draugr Fleshchewer 1B

Snow Creature- Zombie Berserker

Whenever Draugr Fleshchewer attacks, mill two cards. If a snow card was milled this way, Draugr Fleshchewer gains menace until end of turn.

2/2

This originally worked with the “exile a creature card from your graveyard” subtheme, but I had to change this to snow and I couldn’t get a good snowy design that used that mechanic. So instead, it fuels it. I also wanted to have another card that cares about the existence of snow instants/sorceries because they were introduced this set and the number of cards that only work with snow permanent cards when they don’t have to is strange.

Common #7:

Arrogant Stand 3R

Sorcery

Creatures without a boast ability can’t block this turn.

Here’s a simple little card that plays around with the flavorful space of boast. You have to be very full of yourself to stand up to the oncoming attack.

Common #8:

Winterdark Ritual 2R

Snow Instant

Add three mana of any one color.

Foretell R (During your turn, you may pay 2 and exile this card from your hand face down. Cast it on a later turn for its foretell cost.)

Is the name completely on the nose? Absolutely. And I find that hilarious. This is taking advantage of the fact that foretell is payed in multiple payments to turn that into mana storage. And it’s snow, because snow rituals are new to the set, play well, and I don’t think it makes it too powerful, though this has a lot of little factors to it that might push it over the edge. Any number of them could easily be tweaked though.

Common #9:

Blessing of Koma G

Enchantment- Aura

Enchant creature

Enchanted creature has “T: Add one mana of any color.”

2, Sacrifice ~: Draw a card.

This card is secretly also a snow card. The intention is, you can enchant snow creatures with it to get extra snow mana. However, it’s not snow itself because a) I thought that made for a cool moment of discovery and b) If it was snow, a lot of players would mistakenly think the mana is snow whether or not the creature it enchants is.

Common #10:

Boulderskin Troll 3G

Creature- Troll Warrior

When ~ dies, search your library for a Forest or Mountain card and put it onto the battlefield tapped. Shuffle your library.

3/2

I really wanted this card to be red. See, the legend goes that when a troll goes out in the sun it turns into rock and I thought tutoring for a Mountain when it died would be a good way to do that. However, I just couldn’t find a good way to do that which felt red, so I had to make this green. Luckily red/green are the troll colors so it could still find a mountain. I specifically chose nonbasic so that it could synergize with the snow duals at common.

Uncommon #1:

Immerstrum Berserker 3BB

Creature- Demon Berserker

Boast- 2B: ~ gains lifelink until end of turn. (Activate this ability only once each turn and only if this creature attacked this turn.)

Boast- 1B: Each opponent discards a card. (You may activate both boasts in a single turn.)

5/3

It has two boasts. Ya know how most creatures only have one boast, if any? Well not this, it has two. That’s it. That’s the design.

Uncommon #2:

Master Shipcrafter 1R

Creature- Dwarf Artificer

1R: ~ gets +2/+0 until end of turn.

Whenever a creature you control crews a Vehicle for the first time each turn, that Vehicle gains that creature’s activated abilities until end of turn.

0/2

There’s this weird tension in the set where R/W both encourages you to play a lot of vehicles, and has a lot of boast creatures, which do not work well at all together. This card is an attempt to fix that. Originally it just worked with boast, #notallactivatedabilities, but that was an extremely narrow card so I widened the scope. There’s certainly some weird combos you can do with this, but nothing too bad in limited though.

Uncommon #3:

Ring of Kinship 2

Artifact- Equipment

Equipped creature gets +1/+1

Creature spells you cast that share a creature type with equipped creature cost 1 less to cast.

Equip 1

I’m a big fan of equipment and auras that have a universal effect that cares about a quality of the equipped creature. I dunno why, but it tickles me. Creature type is a good thing to care about on designs like this though, and I wanted both an equipment and a tribal reward in the booster, so it was a good fit.

Rare:

Kvasha, God of Magic 3UU

Legendary Creature- God

Flying

When ~ enters the battlefield, create a 1/1 white Spirit creature token with flying for each enchantment you control and each enchantment card in your graveyard.

Sacrifice a Spirit: You may cast spells as though they have flash this turn.

Kvasha’s Birth 2GW

Enchantment- Saga

I, II: Until your next turn, whenever ~ or another enchantment enters the battlefield under your control, draw a card.

III: Mill six cards. Exile ~ then return it to the battlefield face-up.

I’m genuinely really sad they didn’t do a god with a saga as its backside, it could have been really cool. So I made one myself!! I wanted it to at least be feasible as a commander for a Saga deck, and since Kaldheim has a lot of enchantments running around I figured it could use an enchantress like this. The tricky part was, I had to make a blue card that could also feasibly be a selesnya card, since the saga turns into it. It also works well with the tribal themes and the spirit subtype in the set, though that’s more of a bonus than anything else. If you’re wondering why this card looks different, that’s for two reasons. One, I can’t make Sagas on MSE. And two, this overlapped nicely with the Inventor’s Fair contest of the week on tumblr, which I use mtg.design for since it’s easier to get links that way. (Check them out! @inventors-fair That contest is what finally pushed me to finish this booster).

Basic:

Snow-Covered Swamp

Snow Land- Swamp

T: Add B.

Look, it's a snow-covered swamp. I needed a snasic in here. I dunno what else you want from me.

So there we go!! Finally!! The booster challenge that took weeks longer than it should have. What do you think of the designs? Do you think they would fit well within Kaldheim? If not, how could I fix them? Also I probably made a formatting mistake somewhere in here so if you notice like, a wrong link or something let me know. Also, if you want me to tackle an old set feel free to request it, though since this took me weeks for some reason I can’t make any promises lol.

Here’s boosters I’ve done before:

- Zendikar Rising: Reddit

- Commander Legends: Reddit // Tumblr

#mtg #magic #magic the gathering #custommagic #custommtg #kaldheim #booster challenge #long post #original post

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admiralty-xfd · 5 years ago

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the whole truth

The events of Biogenesis. Mulder learns the truth about Diana.

This is chapter 14, to go back to the beginning click here.

Chapter 14: The Betrayal

THE WATERGATE APARTMENTS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

JULY 1999

It’s over.

It was truly all over.

Diana sat alone in her apartment with the copy of Native American Beliefs and Practices that Spender had given her months ago in the hospital. She’d read it cover to cover multiple times, and often turned to it in times of confusion and hopelessness. It seemed she had little to live for anymore and whenever she felt that way her mind always crept back to the work.

The savior this book promised hadn’t turned out to be Gibson Praise. It hadn’t been Cassandra Spender. So who could it be?

Not only did the work feel particularly hopeless at this point, but having any kind of future with Fox felt so, as well. As each day passed Diana knew there was nothing to be done to win him back; short of kidnapping him, brainwashing him and somehow forcing his heart to feel something it didn’t, she was out of options.

She wondered why, if Fox were truly in love with Agent Scully, he hadn’t done anything about it. And why hadn’t Agent Scully? What exactly was holding them back?

She thought about her own past, and how she’d avoided romantic entanglements like the plague until Fox had come along. Even now, she couldn’t explain it; it was just something that had happened. Maybe there really was no explanation for why nothing was happening between Fox and Agent Scully either. If there was a reason, she’d probably never know it.

Alone in her thoughts, her cell phone buzzed from the pocket of her jacket, which was strewn across the arm of her couch. She dug around and looked at the caller ID.

Fox.

“Hello? Fox?” she said, answering after the fourth ring.

A familiar voice answered, but it wasn’t the one she expected. “I’m sorry, he can’t come to the phone right now.”

Diana felt her stomach drop. “...Alex?!” She hadn’t spoken to him since the fertility clinic.

“Your boy isn’t looking so good.” She heard a rustle, then moaning she couldn’t deny was Fox. She could hear him whimpering in the background, in a clear state of distress. “ Scully… Scully…” she could hear him saying. “Fucking Krycek…”

Fucking Krycek was right. What the hell was going on?

“Looks like Mulder wants to be where the action is,” Alex said cryptically. “Although I think you should come get him before somebody else finds him.”

“Alex, what action? What are you talking about? What is going on?” She could hear Fox mumbling “Scully” over and over. She couldn’t decide if she was more hurt or annoyed.

“I’m thinking maybe I called the wrong person,” Alex said, clearly enjoying the hell out of this. “Maybe I should have called Agent Scully instead.”

“No!” she responded immediately. “Tell me where you are.”

“American University, southwest stairwell of the biology building.” The phone clicked off, and she was on her way.

When she arrived she was not prepared for the sight that awaited her. Fox was curled up into the fetal position and grabbing his head, wincing in pain. His cell phone was next to him, crushed beyond repair.

“Scully...” he was moaning, and every time the name escaped his lips it pained her. “I need Scully.”

“Fox, it’s me, it’s Diana,” she said. She bent down and touched his shoulder.

“Scully…”

She didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t Scully, she couldn’t be Scully. But she could tell he was in pain and she wanted to help him.

“We should get you to see a doctor,” she suggested. She realized as the words came out how stupid they sounded, considering the only thing he’d asked for since she’d arrived had been, in fact, a doctor. But she couldn’t bring herself to call the woman she knew he was in love with.

“I just need to go home, I have to rest,” he sputtered, and she nodded, knowing that was something she could do. She helped him up slowly and they made their way down the stairs, across the campus and to her car without drawing any unnecessary attention.

When they arrived at his place she dug his keys out of his pocket and helped him inside. It was unusually hot in his apartment and she wondered if perhaps his air conditioner was broken. They made their way into his bedroom.

“What are you feeling? Can you describe it?” she asked him.

“I don’t know, I just… my head,” he said as he stumbled towards his bed. He started to take his shirt off and winced again, so she helped him undress down to his undershirt and he got into bed. “I’m hearing voices.”

This gave her pause. “Voices? What kind of voices?”

“They come and go,” he explained. “It’s hard to describe. I think… I think I feel a bit better now.”

“Just relax, Fox,” Diana said as she pulled the comforter over him. “I’m going to get you some water. Then we’ll figure out what’s going on.”

She searched his kitchen for the glasses, which he’d moved since she last used his kitchen. The tap blasted lukewarm, surely from the blazing hot weather, and as she watched the stream of water swirl around the sink, waiting for it to cool, her mind raced.

Voices. He’s hearing… voices?

She might have thought nothing of it if she hadn’t just been thinking about Gibson Praise and his abilities, and her search for the one person who was going to save humanity. But now her wheels were spinning wildly.

Eventually the water cooled and she filled the glass, taking a dish towel and dampening it. She returned to his bedside and he drank the water, sighing and sinking back into his pillow. “Thank you for helping me get home.”

“Of course,” she said, and held the damp cloth to his brow. He immediately moved his own hand to hold it, pushing hers away. She became aware in the moment he had no intention of letting her touch him in any intimate way and although he was unwell, although she suspected it was over between them in any event, it still stung.

“Can you tell me what happened to you?”

“I think I just want to sleep,” he said.

“You won’t even tell me how this started?”

He hesitated, and she wondered briefly if he was deciding how much to reveal. Things had been awkward the last time they’d seen each other, but it had been purely personal. She had no reason to suspect he was suspicious of her.

“Scully and I were investigating a case, and I don’t know exactly how, but I’m having some kind of reaction to… an object we found.” He winced again, every word probably causing him pain.

“And this object didn’t affect Agent Scully?” she asked.

“No, she…” he trailed off, again hesitant to reveal more, but seemed to change his mind. “I think it’s only happening to me. I was exposed to something years ago, something… alien.”

Ten years ago she might have been a bit more skeptical of this revelation. But she knew this was all quite real, and that by the very nature of Fox’s work, exposure was entirely possible.

Just then his phone rang. Fox turned over and made no effort to get it so she answered it.

“Hello?”

“Yes… I’m looking for Fox Mulder…? ” It was, of course, Agent Scully. She sounded confused and slightly irked, and Diana still found her behavior amusing in spite of everything.

“Hold on, please.” She held out the phone, and only because she wanted to annoy the other woman, she added, “...Fox?”

He took the phone and she sat silently next to him on the bed, listening to his end of the conversation. They were arguing about something, probably the very X-File he’d been just referring to. Fox didn’t seem to mind what Diana heard and it was a small comfort. But then she heard words that piqued her interest.

...Artifact...

...Extraterrestrial…

...Genesis...

These words weren’t uncommon in the files themselves; she’d gone through most of them during her tenure in the basement. But used together… her mind continued to reel.

This artifact, whatever it was, had been drawn to Fox. Why? Was it truly the source of whatever was causing him distress?

“Well then, go ahead and prove me wrong, Scully,” Fox grumbled into the phone.

He was exhausted and Diana knew his head hurt, and she wanted to enjoy his annoyance with his partner but she couldn’t. Maybe it was the familiarity with which he’d dismissed Agent Scully; despite his frustration Diana knew he wasn’t really angry.

Fox handed her the receiver and turned his back to her, covering his head with his comforter and seeking sleep. His body language indicated clearly that he had no more use for her; she’d served her purpose this afternoon.

It was in this moment, this final rejection by the man she loved, that a strange feeling came over her: that the timing of all of this had been preordained somehow, driven by destiny. Any nagging doubts that had clouded her mind and perhaps her better judgment over the past few months were drifting away like sand through a sieve, and she felt her old reliable modus operandi creep over her like camouflage.

The work.

Could Fox himself be the very person the Company had been searching for, for years?

She wasn’t stupid, and she hadn’t been a believer in fate her entire life for nothing. Fox had to be the one. Very suddenly, she’d never been more certain of anything. And she remembered what Spender had told her. The three of them seemed to indeed have been thrown into the mix together, just as he’d said, for a singular purpose: to finish the work.

If Fox knew, if he only knew what he was, how important he was, surely he would agree to what needed to be done. To save the world. When he came out the other side a hero, he’d understand.

It occurred to her she was at a crossroads. Her first instinct was to turn Fox over to Spender. But when she thought of Fox ending up in the hands of the man he hated, the man who’d controlled so many aspects of her own life for years, she hesitated.

She could warn Fox, tell him what was going on. Let him decide what to do. She’d never fooled herself into believing she could keep her deception from him forever, but she had entertained the hope that if he did learn of it, he might understand. That when he learned everything she’d been doing, the sacrifices she’d made, and the reasons she’d made them, it would all be worth it in the end for the truth.

For his truth.

She stood to leave his bedroom, knowing what she needed most desperately of all right now was time. She was due to check in with Spender and the unanticipated distraction of the fox had kept him waiting. Spender didn’t like to wait.

She clicked the receiver back on, dialing. She then removed her jacket as she waited for an answer.

“Yes?”

“I received a call from Agent Mulder this evening, he was in a particular state of distress.”

“Distress? Why?” Spender asked.

“I don’t know why,” she lied. “But I’m staying here until I find out.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

She hung up the phone, knowing she didn’t have long to make a decision. Her mind was reeling with possibilities, choices and consequences and feelings and it was all wrapped up in what she now suspected Fox could discern with his newly forming powers. If she wasn’t careful, he might learn everything. And there would be no stopping it.

There were questions she needed to ask him, important questions that would ascertain her beliefs and help her make the right decision. Perhaps there was a way to keep his mind off her thoughts and on something else. She began to undress, a strong suspicion coming over her that between his half-conscious state and her half-naked body in his line of sight she could easily get the information she needed.

Fox was a smart man, he always had been. But he was still a man. And from everything she’d witnessed over the past few months, everything she’d known about him since the night she met him, he could be incredibly stupid around women.

She’d just pulled her shirt off when she rounded the corner and found Alex sitting stock still in a chair in the corner of the living room.

“Jesus- ” she dared a glance into Fox’s bedroom. Still not moving. She closed his bedroom door quietly. “Alex!” she hissed. “What the hell are you doing here?!”

“I had no idea you two were still so cozy,” Alex said.

“What, are you jealous?” she challenged, hands on her hips, standing there in her bra.

“No,” he said smoothly, and she believed him. It didn’t matter. She’d never cared before, and she certainly didn’t intend to start now. “It just irks me when I’m the last one to know something.”

“There’s nothing to know,” she said, bristling. “He’s sick and he’s resting.”

“Ah,” he said, with a smirk on his face she found all too familiar. “Is this ‘nothing to know’ why you’re undressing in his apartment?”

She shrugged, crossing her arms across her chest. “It’s hot, and I’m getting comfortable. I’m going to be here for a while. As if it’s any of your business.”

“It is my business,” he said. “Especially if you have a personal relationship with the guy who’s quickly becoming the most important man on the planet.”

It occurred to her then that Alex was the link between Fox and Spender she hadn’t anticipated. She wondered how he knew about Fox, his current condition, any of it, then the answer came to her. Skinner. Alex had had Skinner under his control for months now, and if AD Skinner knew, Alex knew.

And if Alex knew, Spender certainly wouldn’t be far behind.

“It’s over between us,” she said flatly, not wanting to believe it.

“Doesn’t look over,” he indicated, his eyes raking over her body. “Surely you wouldn’t be… so foolish as to put the project at risk for the sake of your personal pleasures?”

A line straight from Spender’s playbook. She shook her head. The nerve.

“What are you doing here, Alex?” she asked. She stole a glance back towards the bedroom where Fox was snoozing away. “You have to go. If he finds us here together-“

“Then… what? He’ll know you’ve been sleeping with the enemy?" He smirked. "Seems like he’s the one who’s been doing that.”

She drew her lips into a tight line, wanting to say no more. Wanting to reveal no more. And she felt oddly protective of Fox. “I can handle him, Alex. Please go.”

Alex stood and moved towards the door. “I know you know what he is, what he's become. And the old man’s going to know now, too.”

A chill ran up her spine at this; that her suspicions were in fact correct, and she wasn't the only one who knew about it. Fox was in danger now that was beyond her control.

“Think carefully about your next move, Diana.”

He took one long look at her, then at Fox’s bedroom door, and as he left the apartment she had the crippling realization he had taken all of her options with him.

***

Fire. His brain was on fire.

It had been smoldering since Diana found him in that stairwell and brought him home. What he remembered was bits and pieces: her helping him to his feet, just barely. Walking, driving; it was all a blur. He didn’t even remember calling her. Had he called her? He only wanted Scully. But here was Diana, walking with him through the door of his apartment once again.

“Fox, what happened? What’s wrong?” he could hear her asking him.

“My head…” he answered, holding it with his hands. The pain was intense. “Before, I was hearing… voices, loud voices…”

She looked at him thoughtfully. “When did this start? Do you know what’s causing it?”

He wanted to talk to Scully; that’s who he needed to tell. But Diana was here and she had been on the X-Files, after all. And she wanted to help. “I don’t know, I…” He wasn’t sure how much he should reveal, but he knew she would probably believe him. So he told her.

Diana was silent, looking at him hard, and he wondered what she was thinking. The aural dissonance he’d experienced in Skinner’s office had been returning in fits and starts, but right now there was nothing.

She wasted no time getting him undressed and into bed, and he was in such pain he let her. He remembered asking for Scully as he drifted in and out of consciousness, knowing she could somehow figure this out, that she was the only one who could help him.

When Scully did call, he could immediately detect the annoyance in her voice.

“Mulder, where are you?”

The question was pointed, but it wasn’t the question she was really asking. She’d called him at his apartment, not on his cell phone. She knew exactly where he was.

“I’m here. I’m resting.” I’m doing exactly what you asked of me.

“Who answered the phone?”

It wasn’t lost on him that her first questions, those that would typically inquire after his health, were instead focused on the woman answering his phone. The woman whose voice she must have recognized.

Fucking Diana, answering his phone. She was too comfortable here, and he’d allowed it. He was more annoyed with himself than anything else, but his head hurt too much to care right now.

“I’m home. It’s okay.” He’d promised Scully that Diana’s name wouldn’t come out of his mouth again. This was awkward enough, and there were more pressing matters.

He wanted to tell Scully about his condition, but she clearly hadn’t been just patronizing him when she told him she’d find the artifacts. She’d actually found one. She was in New Mexico, hours away, and he’d have to wait to see her again anyway. He didn’t want her rushing back on his account; not when they were so close to the answers they’d sought for so long, again.

What she described didn’t surprise him, however; somehow he’d known the truth ever since he saw that artifact. There was something inside him that had reawakened, and he knew not what exactly, but it was most definitely alien. It had to be. This wasn’t a theory, or a hunch. He felt it deep down inside him; he knew it in his soul the same way he knew he was human, the same way he knew the sky was blue. It was simply the truth.

Scully, however, didn't have the luxury of being in his position.

“Mulder, that is science fiction. It doesn't hold a drop of water.”

“You're wrong,” he said. “It holds everything. Don't you see?”

See it, Scully. See.

“All the mysteries of science- everything we can't understand or won't explain, every human behaviorism; cosmology, psychology, everything in the X-Files, it all owes to them… it's from them.”

“Mulder, I will not accept that. It is just not possible.”

They were dancing again, and through it all, through everything they’d been through in the past several months, it felt wonderfully familiar. And as frustrating as the dance could be, he loved it now more than ever.

I’ll always want you around to prove me wrong.

“Well, then, you go ahead and prove me wrong, Scully.”

His head pounded as he handed the phone back to Diana and dove back underneath the covers, desperate for sleep. He hoped she’d take the hint and leave. It felt as if his mind wouldn’t rest, couldn’t rest.

Tunguska. This all went back to what had happened to him in Russia, he knew it. Whatever vaccine he’d been given had merely rendered the microbial alien life inside him dormant and the artifact must have had reawakened it. It was all so clear to him now.

He needed to see Scully in person. When she saw him, the state he was in, she would have to believe. She couldn’t prove him wrong this time, he was sure about that. But he also knew she’d go to the ends of the earth for the truth if she had to.

That truth was inside him now. She would have to believe.

He squeezed his eyes shut and time passed; he was vaguely aware of voices in the living room, which was odd, considering he’d thought he was alone with Diana. But his aural dissonance had been coming and going so frequently it was difficult for him to discern which voices were real. In any event, the silence soon returned and he could feel sleep approaching at last.

***

He awoke dazed, distracted, and in pain. For a moment he forgot where he was; the room was dark, only dim lamplight from his living room illuminating the form of Diana sitting on the edge of his bed.

“Fox…” she whispered.

“Where’s Scully…?” he moaned, rolling over, his back to her. “Please, go.”

“Tell me about this artifact, Fox… let me help you, please.”

“I don’t...” he said, pain reverberating within each word. “I want Scully…”

He heard her sigh. “It’s never going to work with her, Fox. You have to see that.”

Besides the fact that he was in no state to navigate this love triangle at the moment, he knew it was a fool’s errand in any case.

“I know her, Diana," he mumbled into his pillow. "You don’t.” She didn’t get it, she never would. He didn’t want to bother trying. “Please, just let me rest.”

She was silent for a minute, and then suddenly, as if switched on by his rejection, the voices returned.

“...Must deliver him to the facility…”

“...It has to be Fox…”

“...The work..”

“What did you say?” he asked, suddenly fully at attention.

“I didn’t say anything.” He couldn’t rest. He rolled over in the bed, gripping his temples in pain.

“Fox?”

“...He knows, he has to…too late…”

“...I have no choice…”

“...So many years…”

“Fox..? Are you alright?” she asked. And what had occurred in Skinner’s office suddenly became clear to him.

He was reading her mind. He could hear her thoughts.

“Who was here before?” he asked her. “I heard voices in the living room. Were you by yourself?”

“No.” he heard, plain as day. But her lips didn’t move.

“Yes. Of course,” she lied. “What kind of question is that?”

Tell me it isn’t true, tell me…

He sat up in the bed, and slid out, backing up against the wall.

“It’s starting… the artifact… he doesn’t suspect…” the sound of her voice came from closed lips.

He shook his head, it can't be... The trust he’d given her over the past few months, the trust he’d always had in her as long as he’d known her… had any of it been real? Had any of it been true?

Mulder pressed his hand to his temple.

“not possible… gain his trust… Alex...” Her thoughts continued, uncontrollable.

Alex? Could she mean Krycek? Had he been here, in this apartment? Was she involved with him?

And if she was… could that mean… Jesus, he’d been so stupid ...

“You’re lying,” he said firmly. “Someone was here. Why were you talking to Alex Krycek?”

She began scrambling, climbing off the bed. Through his haze he could see her standing there, clad only in her skirt and a bra. “Fox, you’re not well. I think I need to take you to the hospital.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” he said firmly.

Liar, she’s a liar, he thought. After everything, Scully had been right. And he’d ignored every sign, every indication. Pushed aside every shred of her evidence because he wanted to believe.

She reached for him. “Fox, please…”

“Why is it so hot in here?” He was sweating; from the pain, from the betrayal, from what else he didn’t know, but he felt like hell. “Why are you here?”

“You’re not yourself, Fox.”

“Where’s Scully?” He had a sudden urge to locate the only person he knew he could trust. The only person he should have trusted all along. He’d wanted to believe that Diana was at the very least his friend, that she was worthy of his trust. He’d wanted to believe it so badly he’d become blind. Why did this keep happening to him? Why was everyone in his life such a fucking disappointment?

Everyone except Scully, he corrected himself.

He wanted to scream, to rage at the injustice, but he had no one to blame but himself. He’d broken all of his own rules for Diana and now all he had left was shame and regret.

Trust no one.

“Why are you here, Diana? Why are you back in Washington? Was this entire thing a setup? Just to get to me, to get to the X-Files?”

“No, of course not…” She looked afraid of him, and he could hear her conflict.

“I never wanted any of this, you have to believe me…”

“Spender…”

“Tell me the truth! ” he shouted at her. “Are you working for him? For that black lunged sonofabitch?!”

He heard her searching her mind for something to say, but no words were forthcoming. It didn’t matter in any event, Mulder heard it all. The whole truth. Everything she’d hidden from him since the day they met.

“The Company… all along… the truth… the Syndicate…”

“Fox, I…”

He shook his head, the cacophony getting louder and louder. The pain was unbearable. “I don’t believe this… Diana…”

“I love you.”

He fell to his knees, this unspoken declaration the last thing he heard before he passed out completely.

GEORGETOWN MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

WASHINGTON, D.C.

JULY 1999

Scully burst through the doors of the medical facility, panicked. She’d switched flights twice, the anxiety and fear of flying completely pushed to the back of her mind in favor of the more pressing matter at hand.

Mulder’s in serious condition.

Skinner had never sounded so grave, and she worried that he hadn’t been more forthcoming over the phone. She never would have left Mulder’s side at all if she’d known he was in real danger.

The things she’d learned in New Mexico only strengthened her belief that whatever this artifact was, it held power she didn’t understand. The cosmic galactic radiation all over it indicated Mulder could be right, that whatever this artifact was, it had come from outer space. And that radiation was not only affecting Mulder, but had put Albert Hosteen in critical condition as well.

She felt a connection with the old man that was more than just sympathy; it was empathy, for she was reminded of her own cancer and how incredibly lucky she’d been to survive. Was the source of Albert’s cancer the same as hers? Could it possibly have originated from exposure to the craft: weeks and weeks of translating and handling it? It was far too coincidental not to be the case. She had no idea how much time he had left, but she sincerely hoped she’d be able to speak to him again.

And she prayed Mulder’s own prognosis was not so dire.

When Skinner grabbed her hand a fear took root that continued to grow as she saw Mulder locked in that room all by himself. Then that fear turned into dread. This was much worse than she’d expected.

How would she learn how to help him if she couldn’t even talk to him? If he couldn’t tell her with his own words what had happened to him? She couldn’t trust doctors; she couldn’t even trust Skinner.

And she certainly couldn’t trust Diana Fowley, whom she was not pleased at all to be confronted with once again.

“Thank you for coming,” Fowley said. “He was asking for you last night.”

Ignoring Fowley, she tried to listen to the doctor. Abnormal brain activity. No sign of stroke. She was trying to take what the doctor was saying and make sense of it, but thoughts of Diana Fowley at Mulder’s apartment again- at night, no less- irritated her to no end.

“...he’s a danger to anyone,” the doctor finished.

“Not to me,” she declared. She just wanted to be with Mulder, to see him up close. She knew he would never, ever hurt her.

“Can we speak in the hall?” Fowley interjected.

Scully turned to look at her, never before having wanted to punch anyone in the face so fervently. “About what?”

It was disconcerting enough that Mulder would have Fowley at his place again after everything she and Mulder had talked about over the past few weeks, but it was downright suspicious that Fowley was the last person he’d apparently spoken to before ending up in his current state. Maybe Mulder wouldn’t see it that way, even now, but Scully wouldn’t put anything past the woman at this point.

Skinner seemed to want to move the drama out of the observation room, and gently motioned for them to step out. Scully took a last look into the monitor where Mulder faced the camera and shouted directly into it. “Scully!”

The sound of her own name had never ached so much.

When they were out in the hallway, Fowley faced Scully. “When did all this start?”

You tell me, Scully thought. Mulder seemed to go from having a slight headache to being a psych ward patient after spending time with you.

“When we took this case, when Skinner gave it to us,” she said, looking at her boss.

“What kind of case is it?” Fowley asked.

“Investigation into a murder,” Scully answered shortly.

“Of whom?”

Skinner interrupted. “The case has nothing to do with what’s happened to him.”

“Agent Scully says it does,” Fowley insisted. “Now you know my background, my previous work on the X-Files. If I can help on this case…”

Scully regarded the other woman. She had no desire to tell Diana Fowley the details of what was really going on here. What was her angle? If she truly wanted to help Mulder, why was she asking for information rather than offering it?

“Why were you with him last night?” Scully asked.

He wouldn’t lie to me. He’s finished with you. Tell me why.

“He called me. I found him in a university stairwell, he could barely speak. He said I was the only one who would believe him, about an artifact.”

The only one who would believe him, Scully repeated in her mind. Not a chance.

She’d tried Mulder’s cell phone multiple times before finally reaching him at his apartment. It had been turned off, or disconnected. It was odd, because Mulder’s cell phone was never off. But she’d brushed it aside at the time, thinking maybe in his disillusioned state he’d forgotten to charge it or left it somewhere.

He called me.

Now she wasn’t so sure.

“You’re a liar,” Scully said, venom in her voice.

She glared at the other woman, daring her to argue, fed up with these games. It was more manipulation, more posturing. It was as if Fowley had taken what little she knew of Scully and Mulder’s relationship, made a huge assumption, and called her bluff about it. But Fowley knew nothing about their relationship, nothing.

She didn’t know Scully was his one in five billion.

Skinner made to protest, but she stopped him, knowing just as she had been right about Fowley, Mulder was probably right about Skinner. No one was to be trusted, not anymore. “You’re both liars.”

She turned and strode out of the hospital, frustrated at her inability to see Mulder but determined to help him in whatever way she could. Her mind raced with thoughts of the piece of the puzzle she already had: the artifact that had caused this. It was the only thing she had to go on, and that artifact had come from the Ivory Coast.

The answers were in Africa, and she planned to find them there. She would do whatever she could to find the cure; to save him.

I’m afraid… I’m afraid to believe.

She was afraid again, but this time she was afraid not to believe. Not believing could cost her Mulder’s life.

***

Twenty two hours later, Scully found herself wandering the coast of Africa. She was exhausted, hot, and desperate. Her hair was plastered to her neck and her clothes stuck to every inch of her skin, but as the breeze whipped across her face and sand stung her eyes, she saw.

She finally saw.

The waves crashed and receded, revealing the surface of what she could only describe as an enormous spacecraft.

Dana Scully’s entire world changed in a single instant.

#txf #the x files #msr #biogenesis #diana fowley #fanfic #my fic #the whole truth

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chemicalmagecraft · 4 years ago

Text

The Gamer Hero, Deku Chapter 26

A/N: What's even more fun than a Gamer getting a bunch of really awesome powers all at once?

Sidenote but wHY DO I KEEP CONFUSING ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL

xoxoxo

Yang purred as I scratched her chin. "How does fire work?" I asked her in the semi-language cats use to speak to each other.

"Things hit me and fire inside grows," she answered. "Can use fire inside to make myself stronger or warm up."

I nodded and rubbed behind her ears. It sounded like it let her absorb kinetic energy for later use. If I was right it reminded me of One For All but fire-flavored. It probably wouldn't be as powerful as All For One because it was trained up by eight people before I got it, but if it worked right it might be worthwhile to have just in case. As for how I was going to get it?

Copy (Emitter)

The ability to temporarily copy the Quirks of others by touching them. The user can only use one copy at a time and they will wear off after five minutes, but multiple Quirks can be copied at a time. Accumulated resources are not copied.

Current Quirks: I Burn (Emitter): 4:57

It was only a theory at the moment, but my guess was that the way my Quirk copying worked by somehow obtaining data on Quirks and then storing them until I decided to buy one, where it fleshed it out to a full copy. But how did it get the information in the first place? My theory was that it was in some way tied to Skill Fragments or EXP. That was the common link between every Quirk in my Quirk Shop, so maybe it also encoded some information on the person's Quirk while it was at it. Or it was just a third, invisible type of spoil, but in the end it meant the same thing. Outside of special circumstances like quests the only way for me to get new Quirks was to fight someone.

And that wasn't really ideal, so I was hoping if I had a Quirk temporarily it would give The Gamer the same information needed to put the Quirk in the Quirk shop. Which brought me to where I was now, trying to copy my cat's Quirk. I scrolled through the Quirk shop, crossing my fingers and hoping that I didn't waste 3000 SF.

I Burn (Emitter)

I held off buying it. If I was testing, I was testing every possible downside now and not finding out later. First I turned off Copy and reopened the text box for it. It said it still had I Burn on it, but the timer had stopped at 4:42. I turned it back on. The timer started again. I turned Copy back off. So it paused the Quirk as it was when it was off. I wondered if that meant that a Quirk that had a cooldown would only have its cooldown go down when it was active. That would be a little inconvenient because I could only have two Quirks active at a time if I didn't want them to lower in quality, which would probably also slow down the cooldown timer. The only way to know for sure, though, would be to find a Quirk with a cooldown and test it out.

Wow it did not take me long after getting the power to copy Quirks to get Gotta Catch 'em All thoughts... It made me wonder if that was how All For One started out...

Ignoring that dark thought, I entered an Illusion Barrier. I decided to make a skeleton barrier. The skeletons really weren't worth much at this point, even the bosses, but at the same time they couldn't really hurt me and I could at least kill the mooks without any real effort. Speaking of which, I sent my elementals out to eradicate any skeletons that popped up. Because they were part of my magic any skeletons they killed would give me spoils, so even if it wasn't much it would eventually add up.

Now that I didn't have to worry about property damage, I turned Copy (I Burn) back on and slammed my head through my room's wall. I felt heat well up in my body. It reminded me of how One For All's energy pool recharged when I used Meditate at full MP, but only for a moment. If it got that much energy, then that meant that it absorbed energy before my defensive passives, which was the best-case scenario. Now the question was if it would still charge while I was discharging. I reached for I Burn like I did with One For All and jumped with all my strength. I didn't get much energy back from the original jump at all, but crashing through the roof filled me up. While I was in the air I activated one of the two skills I earned in my fight with Kacchan, Imaginary Architect. I started simple, mana forming into solid shapes on my roof. I landed on a light blue tower made entirely of magic.

I heard creaking coming from my roof. Even though Imaginary Architect made temporary structures from pure energy it seemed to still have weight. It didn't make physical sense, but at the same time I remembered that Bound Blade had weight to it and Imaginary Architect was basically just the theory behind Bound Blade taken to eleven. I wasn't much of an architect (though with Imaginary Architect it would probably be a good idea to fix that...) but I managed to make supports that made sure my house didn't fall under the weight of the tower I just made. I dropped Super Regeneration, the second Quirk that I had active, for Float and jumped off of my tower to survey it. It looked decent, but with how much it was draining me even though I had Mantra active I decided to make it a bit smaller. I smiled with the result and went back to the top to check out my other new prestiged skill.

Item Enchantment, as the name suggested, let me enchant items, which on its own I knew I had to get out of my head and into the hands of inventors. And I knew just who to talk to about that. But it also had a minor benefit of allowing me to automatically add enchantments to anything that I create with magic, cutting some of the creation's MP cost out of the enchantment's MP cost. I formed a large brazier with a simple Fire Aura-like enchantment. The brazier lit automatically.

I jumped back off of the tower to look at it again. I'd made a pretty good lighthouse. It was a shame it'd disappear the moment I stopped supplying it mana. I mean I could probably figure out a way to make it last longer, possibly with some sort of magic longevity enchantment, but this particular tower didn't have much life left in it. I took out my phone and snapped a photo, then let it die. It actually looked really pretty while it was dissolving, so I took a few more pictures. I sat down in midair and made myself a chair with Imaginary Architect. It fell because it was a chair and didn't have the power to fly. Next I tried to make a flying chair with air magic. It fell, but slower. I guess I made a gliding chair... Third time was the charm, I made a flying chair. Well, "flying" chair. I didn't have any way to actually move it aside from pushing it, so it was more like a floating chair, but it wasn't a gliding chair. Well actually I was using a Quirk called Float to fly so...

Semantics aside, I reclined in my magical floating chair that I made just because and checked my Quirk menu. Copy was almost out of I Burn, just a minute left, so I decided to just wait it out. While I was waiting I made a marble out of mana and started playing with it. Item Enchantment was too good not to grind out a lot of uses for. I didn't manage to make what I wanted to before Copy ran out, which to be fair that was less than a minute so it wasn't likely I'd make a major artifact, but I was hopeful with what I saw all the same. Once Copy lost I Burn I checked back in the Quirk shop and smiled. It was still there. I bought it after closing the menu and opening it again to see if "updating" it did anything. It looked like it lost the energy I'd accumulated, but I didn't really care about that. I swapped Copy out for it because I hoped it would slowly charge over time.

I looked at the ground, where a few skeletons were spawning, and told my elementals to not kill them. If I wanted to charge up I Burn, then wouldn't it be a good idea to have a bunch of skeletons who couldn't hurt me at all gang up on me? I activated Air Aura and jumped as high as I could, then created a platform in the air and used it to springboard myself as hard at the ground as I could, switching Float for Super Regeneration. I slammed into the ground hard enough to make a crater, then sat up. Because I was grinding anyway, my left hand glowed green and my right hand glowed purple. Getting a better healing skill was probably a good idea, so I was just going to powerlevel Healing Hands and Draining Hands. "Okay, now I should probably look at those titles I got."

I started with the title I got from the obstacle course, Swift as the Wind. It was basically passive Air Aura except instead of generating wind it boosted wind affinity. Useful, especially if I were to combine it with Air Aura. Cavalry Leader wasn't very specific, but assured me that using it would make me better at leadership, riding, and driving and would increase EXP for skills related to them. I guess the driving part came from the robot... Still, it could be useful. Especially if I could make vehicles with Imaginary Architect. Once I got one the appropriate licenses, which would probably be easy if I had a title that increased my ability to drive. Champion of Yuuei, though, was probably the best. It increased HP and MP both by 25%, which on its own was great because it was an upgrade of my Yuuei Student title. But it also said that it improved my Quirks, which could hopefully mean...

I turned Float on without turning off my other two Quirks, but didn't use it. Success! Adding a third Quirk didn't destabilize them with Champion of Yuuei. Maybe... I added Copy to my pile. That did it. I turned Float off. I could probably increase my limit faster by going over it, but for now I was content to just have as many Quirks as I could have active at once without any downsides, especially because that would make I Burn charge slower.

"What next..." I muttered to myself as I felt skeletons ineffectually pounding on my backside, rubbing my chin with my life-draining hand. Aside from grinding until it was time to go see Shuzenji-sensei, I only had two more things that I could think of that I wanted to do. "First," I said as I summoned my Skill Grimoir, "Let's see if there's anything worthwhile in here." I flipped through the pages. Nothing really stuck out to me enough that I wanted to buy them that I wasn't confident I could eventually figure out on my own eventually. That, plus the fact that buying skills and buying Quirks used the same currency, made me decide to only really use the Skill Grimoir for inspiration. I shrugged and broke it over my knee.

Now it was time for some fun. Singularity. It was permanently active like The Gamer and One For All, which heavily implied that it was mine in a way that the copied Quirks weren't. The fact that it literally said it powered The Gamer somehow certainly added to that. It said that I could draw in anything. I decided to test that out on my house. I reached out with a muscle I'd never used before that somehow still felt so familiar and touched the wall with it. A green glow spread across the wall where Singularity touched it, and I could feel where the wall was in relation to me as if by instinct. I tugged on the link I had with it. The portion of the wall that I was connected to was easily ripped out of the rest of the wall. I checked my MP bar and even subtracting Draining Hands and Mantra adding to my MP regeneration the dip wasn't bad at all. Dang, how powerful did I have to be to rip part of the wall out? Next I tried to see if I could pull it in any direction aside from toward me. I tried as hard as I could, but I couldn't lift it up or swing it around, just make part or all of it accelerate towards me. That was different from Mom's Quirk, as she could swing objects around if she moved her hands right, but I supposed I couldn't complain that my absurdly powerful gravitation Quirk didn't also let me easily throw entire walls at people. Not that I couldn't throw a wall at someone with Singularity, it'd just be harder to do.

Next I decided to see what "pulls in the immaterial" meant. On a hunch, because according to Todoroki I could probably do it, I created a simple Mana Bolt on my finger, holding it there, and targeted it with Singularity. It changed from light blue to emerald green. "Neat," I said, then shot the Mana Bolt. About halfway through its max distance I pulled on it. It stopped for a second before coming back to hit me in the chest. "So that proves I can pull in magic," I muttered. "Can I do other forms of energy?" I pointed at a skeleton and targeted the air around it. I concentrated really hard on trying to draw warmth, thermal energy, from it. After a few failed attempts where I just pulled the skeleton towards me a bit I managed to move something that wasn't the skeleton or the air surrounding it. A few more tries and the skeleton was covered in frost. "I did it!" I cheered.

I smiled and moved on to my next idea. If I could move magic and fire... could I move light? I took a deep breath and concentrated. A green aura surrounded me, covering the area around me in a tinge of green. I pulled at all the light around me at once. "Black Hole!" I shouted as I was enveloped in darkness. This lowered my MP regeneration a bit more and I was started to feel a weird strained feeling in my stomach, probably another drawback of Singularity. I tried making a Magelight, but even the magical light couldn't pierce the darkness I'd created. "This isn't your average everyday darkness," I quoted, "this is... advanced darkness!" I smiled as I realized that the connection I'd forged with the area that let me suck all the light out also let me feel everything in the area. It'd probably take some practice to fight in Black Hole, but I could definitely see the merit in making an area of advanced darkness around me that I could sense all of.

I dropped the advanced darkness with a bright flash of green light. I winced because it hurt my eyes. I'd have to watch out for that in the future... I didn't think that I had anything else I could test out about Singularity, except maybe range, so I decided to grind for the rest of the time I had left. I sat down and made a weight set on a set of rails a bit like a guillotine over my head. It didn't hurt me at all when it dropped on my head, but just having it sitting on my head was enough to make my I Burn energy go up slightly faster. It killed the skeletons that were hitting me, though... I shrugged and went into Meditation, setting the stat that it raised to INT and the stat Mantra raised to WIS. It was time for grinding.

xoxoxo

"You wanted to see me?" I asked Shuzenji-sensei when I entered her office.

"Ah, Midoriya," she said. "Good. Take a seat." She gestured to a chair, which I sat in. "Do you know why I called you here?"

"Aizawa-sensei said it was about the Quirk healer lessons?"

She nodded. "You know, it's surprisingly easy to get a Quirk healer license, as long as you can heal with your Quirk and are decently competent. I'm certain it was made that way on purpose. Even if it's illegal to use Quirks in public without a license, I figure at least some government figures decided that having anyone who can heal mortal wounds with a snap be allowed to, as long as they signed the right paperwork, of course. Speaking of..." She pulled out a few sheets of paper and handed me a pen. "As of the sports festival, which by the way I counted as part of your supervised service, you've completed all of the necessary prerequisites aside from signing these papers. Read them if you want, but you have to sign here, here, and here to get your license."

I nodded and read the papers. It seemed in order. I signed them where I was asked to. "Great," Shuzenji-sensei said. "Now because you're a minor you have to get your mother to sign there. Come back to me with it when you get back to school and I'll be able to get it to you by your work study."

"Work study?" I asked.

"Right, your class is going to have a work study with hero agencies soon. The timing felt right, so I figured I'd get it to you before you leave. If anything it'll impress whoever you choose."

"Thank you, Shuzenji-sensei. Also, do you think I could get some costume adjustments while I'm here? For one thing, with my VIT and defensive passives the armor probably isn't worth the slight reduction in mobility anymore."

"Power Loader should be in the development studio. He's the one you want to talk to about that."

"Thank you. Can you tell me where that is?"

xoxoxo

"That's interesting," Power Loader said after I told him about my copy power. "I have some ideas on how I could help with that. I've had to deal with a lot of Transformation Quirks, after all. I won't be able to make anything special for any Quirks unless you tell me which ones you want to be prioritized and how exactly they work, but I should be able to make it so that you don't destroy your costume every time you use a Transformation or Mutant Quirk. Unfortunately, though, I don't think it'll be done before your work study."

"That's okay," I said. "Do you think you could adjust my costume so it doesn't have the armor? It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I have two defensive passives and a self-healing Quirk just in case, so I think I'll take the slight increase in mobility over the armor."

"Good idea. Don't worry, I should be able to do that pretty quick."

"Thank you," I said. "Say, you're Hatsume's teacher, right?"

Power Loader froze. "...Why are you asking?"

"I got a really good spell for support gear and, well, making things in general, but it's kinda complicated, so my best idea for how to get someone else to know it is to have Hatsume watch me using it with the magic-sensing spell I taught her."

"I don't suppose you could try to teach the magic-sensing spell to me?"

I shrugged. "I could try, but I'm pretty sure the only reason Hatsume learned Eye For Magic so easily to begin with was that it was compatible with her Quirk."

He sighed. "Fine, then I'll tell Hatsume that you're looking for her. But I still want to try to learn the spell."

"Okay, so what you do first is..."

xoxoxo

That same Gamer playing with those powers!

Also I forgot to track Izuku's levels over the course of the sports festival... I do know that it should be over two higher than what it was before because tournament arc but I kinda forget what it originally was... I don't suppose anyone here was keeping track?

Also also, I have been planning the next chapter for a while. Even though I only just remembered about it... So hopefully it's good?

Elemental list: Midoriya: Halitus, Dune, Rayne, Blaise, Juniper, Mifuyu, Raimon, Iggy, Sonia, and Claude Bakugou: Pyra and Leaf Tokoyami: Corvo Uraraka: Nebula and Ion Hagakure: Lucy Tsu: Bubbles Aizawa: Charlie and Cassiopeia All Might: Seth O'Scope

#fanfiction #bnha #bnha fanfiction #the gamer #The Gamer Hero Deku #Gamer Hero Deku #GHD CH26

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magic-and-moonlit-wings · 6 years ago

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Chapter 36: Burning Riddles

Becoming The Mask

It was weird, seeing Mr Strickler in Trollmarket.

Darci got that he was secretly a troll as well, like Jim or Not Enrique. But she was so used to only seeing him at school, and so used to not seeing other (supposed) humans in Trollmarket, that this felt like that time in second grade when she'd first seen a teacher at the grocery store. Or like seeing a lifeguard wearing clothes instead of a swimsuit.

"The Triumbric Stones," he said, unknowingly reiterating what Blinky had told them before Strickler arrived, "refer to three stones magically intertwined with Gunmar's life force. They can supposedly be forged together into the only weapon capable of slaying him. A troll scholar by the name of Bodus –"

"The Dishonorable Bodus," Blinky corrected. Strickler gave him the same look he gave students who interrupted him in class. Blinky, to whom Strickler could not assign detention, seemed unphased.

"The Dishonorable Bodus, then, discovered where these stones had been hidden. Naturally Gunmar's forces hunted down Bodus and his pupils and destroyed any copies we could find of his work. But here is where the scholar proved himself to be particularly clever. Rather than writing down the path to the Triumbric Stones directly, or even in cipher, he magically concealed a message within his Final Testament … a message which reveals itself when the book is burned."

Blinky and Jim both gasped, with very different facial expressions.

"Like how The Book of Ga-Huel can update itself?" Jim asked.

"Not quite. The Final Testament of Bodus is completely destroyed in the process, not merely altered. The message embeds itself into whichever surface on which the burning occurs."

"And how do you know this?" demanded Blinky, clutching a book to his chest with all four hands. "You stood idly by and allowed knowledge to be desecrated?"

"Obviously I was the one ordered to destroy the books. Only a deeply foolish Changeling would risk accusations of treason by reporting to a superior that they'd seen a way to destroy Gunmar."

Strickler and Jim both looked at the petrified severed head Toby had been poking at earlier. Darci wasn't sure if Strickler shuddered or he was just shaking himself to get back on topic.

"Defiler!" Blinky roard. Even AAARRRGGHH's gentle hug – oh, he was lifting Blinky right into the air, maybe he was actually holding him back from attacking – didn't calm him down. "Book burner! You – this is a grave injustice! A loss perhaps on par with the Library of Alexandria!"

It was not an appropriate moment to laugh. Darci, Mary, Claire, Toby, and Jim all made sounds of amusement anyway. Mr Strickler drew himself up and began the same speech he'd given them at the start of their unit on the Crusades.

"The loss of a centralized bastion of knowledge such as Alexandria was considerable. It was not as extreme as popularly portrayed. The majority of collected volumes were copies of books that existed elsewhere. The libraries of Islamic nations were vital in preserving ancient knowledge over the centuries –"

Jim cleared his throat. Blinky had settled, and AAARRRGGHH had set the smaller troll back on his feet. Strickler deflated.

"I took no pleasure in it, I assure you. Fortunately, the method of concealment meant it was not a security risk to transcribe the text into an unenchanted volume before destroying the originals."

"And the secret message?" said Mary. "I'm guessing that would've been a security risk to keep around."

"Indeed. But as it was thoughtfully composed in rhyme, it was a simple matter to memorize it." Strickler and Jim held weirdly-significant-feeling eye contact. "Entirely as a precaution. In the event that someone else found another copy, we would need to know what they learned."

"Of course," his fellow Changeling agreed.

"So what's the rhyme?" pressed Claire.

"In darkest tide, when daylight darest wane," Strickler recited, "the Myrddin Wylt obscured a shadow's bane. Three forces elemental thou must seek, in marshland, caverns deep, and mountain's peak. Where worthy perish, ye'll prevail in night, and eclipse all who quarry with thy might."

"Okay, I have several questions," said Toby. "One, after all that, it's still a riddle? Two, what's a medi-fred wench? Three, anyone else a little freaked out by this 'evil parish' we're forming?"

"That's not what he said, Tobes."

"Myrddin was one of the earlier recorded names of Merlin," said Strickler. "There has since been some speculation as to whether it was in fact a title, akin to, say, Archbishop, raising the possibility that the legends actually refer to several different men. After the Norman conquest of Britain in 1066, the nobility spoke French, and Merlin was renamed after the species of falcon. It was presumably difficult to take seriously a figure whose name was a false cognate of the invective merde."

Darci would not call herself fluent in French, but before and during her family's trip to Paris, she had learned enough of the language to laugh now. She hastily muffled it behind her hand, so all that got out was "Pffthmmhm!"

"Daylight probably refers to Jim's sword," said Claire. "Or, well, the Trollhunter's sword. You said that couldn't hurt him," speaking half to Jim, half to Blinky.

"Using fading sunlight symbolise loss of hope is more of a human thing," Jim agreed.

"And the next couplet, that's where the stones are hidden." Claire was starting to grin. "In marshland, caverns deep, and mountain's peak."

"So we just need to find out which marsh, cave and mountain these stones are in?" Darci hated to rain on Claire's parade, but … "Simple enough. That's only, oh, about a third of the world to search."

"We already have one, which means we can skip the caverns." Mr Strickler took his favourite pen out of his jacket and toyed with it. "The Janus Order … recovered Gunmar's Eye, some centuries ago."

For some reason he was looking over Blinky's shoulder at AAARRRGGHH. Was he scared of him? AAARRRGGHH could be intimidating if you didn't know what a sweetie he was. But Strickler hadn't seemed at all concerned when AAARRRGGHH escorted him into the library, and they'd been alone together then. Plus, AAARRRGGHH has been the one to hold Blinky back when Blinky was yelling at Strickler.

"We haven't been able to retrieve the Killstone or Birthstone, but I'm reasonably confident that the marshland Bodus refers to is the swamps of the Quagawumps. Gunmar unintentionally created the Killstone when he shattered their beloved Wumpa King – a sorcerer of great power."

"Like how Voldemort accidentally gave Harry the power to defeat him!" gasped Toby.

"This sounds more like a revenge curse," said Jim. "That explains a little. I mean, it's the one Triumbric Stone that was never physically part of him. Unless Gunmar ate the body and, uh, I'm gonna stop talking now."

Everyone grimaced.

"We should talk to Glug," said Mary. "She's a Quagawump, and she has family visit from the swamp sometimes. She might know if they have it. Or if she doesn't, she might know who to ask."

"I'm all for getting an insider crash-course in swamp troll etiquette before we actually go there," said Darci.

"The Quagawumps are indeed reputed to be unfriendly to outsiders," Blinky agreed. "An insider might be our best chance of getting in and out alive."

That was like a splash of ice water. Darci shivered.

"… If I frame it as avenging their Shattered King," said Jim, paging through the book on the Triumbric Stones that had been left open on the table, "and promise to give it back once Gunmar's dead, they'll probably agree to lend me the Killstone without making any other demands."

"You're gonna build a super-weapon and give part of it back?" Toby shook his head and clicked his tongue. "Jimbo, Jimbo, Jimbo."

"It's an artifact of historical, cultural, and possibly religious significance to the Quagawumps, and it's a body part from a possibly-vengeful dead sorcerer. Yes, I'm going to give it back."

Previous Chapter (The ‘Quest for Triumbric Stones’ storyline begins)

Table of Contents

Next Chapter (Jim and Barbara meet again)

Blinky learns most of what he knows about other troll cultures from the books in his library rather than talking to other trolls around the market. This is my justification for why Glug, Trollmarket's resident Quagawump, was not introduced until Season Three when she would've been really useful to have around in that one episode of Season Two. Luckily, in this timeline, the kids are in the habit of wandering Trollmarket and gossiping with the locals.

I know Toby actually asks if the others are also "a little freaked out by this 'evil perish' poem", but I misheard him saying "evil parish we're forming" the first time I watched it and decided to throw it into the fic.

Darci mentions in Season Three that her family has been to Paris.

A cognate is a word that sounds similar enough in multiple languages (usually because it traces back to a common root) that it can be understood by a person who only speaks one of the languages; like how 'idiot' in English and 'idiota' in Spanish are very obviously the same word. A false cognate is a word that sounds like something completely different in another language; like how 'embarazada' in Spanish sounds like it should translate to 'embarrassed' in English, but actually translates to 'pregnant'.

'Merde' is French for 'crap/shit'.

Horrible Histories – a series of books intended to get kids interested in history by presenting data in easily-read, entertaining format, and leaving in some of the gross parts – has a volume on Arthurian legends, which was where I got the bit about Merlin's name being speculated to have actually been a title held by a few different guys, and that the French were the ones to change it.

The book actually said the change was made by medieval French troubadours, who were also the ones to add in the Lancelot/Guinevere thing, but I decided that Strickler, as a history teacher, needed to date-drop the bit about William the Conqueror and the influence that using Norman French at court had on the English language.

It's got a lot of other cool stuff, like there being nine sisters who co-rule Avalon (Morgan and possibly Nimuë among them, other seven names unrecorded); and how Morgan le Fay got conflated with Morgause, the youngest of Arthur's three half-sisters; or the possibility that Guinevere marrying Arthur was actually what let him have the crown, due to how Celtic politics worked, and the scandal later in their marriage (Lancelot wasn't invented yet, but the Queen had other lovers) was because Arthur refused to step down for a younger, stronger warrior when Guinevere decided to pick a new king (as was her right), which got hushed up in Medieval times because it didn't fit the Catholic church's view of how marriage worked; or that the scabbard that came with Exalibur, when the Lady of the Lake gave it to Arthur, was enchanted so its wearer would never bleed, but the scabbard was later stolen.

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rallamajoop · 6 years ago

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An update on that charity auction thing (or, how I spent several months constructing elaborate headcanons about undercover agent air hostesses instead of just writing the damn fic)

Point the first: I still have not written the auction-winner's fic which I owe from way back in January. Her request called for case fic starring one of UNCLE's recurring female cast, such as Sarah Johnson or Heather McNabb, which was all well and good.

The sensible thing for me to do at this point would probably have been to churn out something starring Sarah, who is My Favourite and the much better developed of the two (I've had half-an-idea for something along those lines for ages). Heather (who, for all her established qualifications, mostly seems to be stuck being the girl back at the office who answers the phone) gives you far less to work with character-wise -- so little that the question of how to make a case-fic starring her work at all struck me as a real conundrum.

Unfortunately, I never can resist a good conundrum, and that's the long and short of how I found myself mentally committed to filling out that auction fic the hard way.

I could ramble on about the process here,* but the bottom line is that I've had the thing basically plotted out since around, oh, May or June or so, minus a few key details that remain sticking points (like a rather infuriating innocent-shaped-hole in the story). It was there that it dawned on me that one of the little details I really ought to have pinned down about Heather herself -- at least in my head, whether or not it came up in the story -- was the dangling question of just who her roommate was.

Some context: among the few things we do learn about Heather in her very first appearance is this bit of dialogue from Napoleon:

Napoleon: Oh, no, Heather's been with us almost a year. She used to be a stewardess. She rooms with--

But Waverly cuts him off there, so we never hear who she rooms with -- let alone why Napoleon might thing it worth mentioning to his superior.

Knowing Napoleon, the obvious answer is that Heather rooms with some other attractive young woman he has dated, or would like to date -- perhaps another beautiful UNCLE girl (or stewardess). All the same, I spent some time casting for alternate possibilities before my brain inevitably went, "Well, duh, it's Wanda Townsend from S3 -- the other stewardess-cum-UNCLE-staffer, who very nearly became Heather herself? Who else would it be?"

This would call for a little context from what has become my specialty subject in the land of fandom trivia, the women of UNCLE. See, back before May Heatherly was cast as Heather McNabb, the role very nearly went to an actress called Sharyn Hillyer, who had a small role in the UNCLE pilot as the stewardess on the plane with Napoleon in the final scene (pic on the left below). I'm halfway-convinced that line I just quoted about how Heather used to be a stewardess could very well be an artifact leftover from when Hillyer was in the lead for the role, by way of explaining to the audience why a woman we'd last seen playing a stewardess was suddenly working for UNCLE as of episode 2 (it's certainly more interesting than to assume the writers were simply going "how can we make this sexy woman even MORE sexy to our straight-male-target-audience?" -- which it might still be, but I digress).

Hillyer's story on UNCLE doesn't end there, however, because she was eventually cast as a recurring UNCLE girl (the affore-mentioned Wanda Townsend) starting with The Indian Affairs Affair at the end of S2. But by Indian Affairs, Hillyer was actually making her third appearance in the show -- just 4 episodes previously, she'd appeared as another stewardess in The Project Deephole Affair (pic on the right above).

There's nothing remarkable about the same actress getting called back for multiple different roles in a show like UNCLE, of course, but the neat thing about Hillyer's parts is that you can so easily headcanon them them all into the same character. Her stewardess character from the pilot certainly seems to know Napoleon -- perhaps even who he works for -- and though it's subtler in Project Deephole, I always did like the idea she might just have been an UNCLE plant there too, helping keep an eye on the episode's hapless innocent. Heck, if UNCLE (read: probably Napoleon) canonically recruited one stewardess into their regular staff with Heather, why shouldn't there be more?

Now, I reiterate, to this point I have already dedicated north of 4K words to the subject of these characters and their place in UNCLE, from every obvious angle (and a number of less obvious). But so habituated had I become to thinking of the various Wandas as underdeveloped punchlines, and of the 60's stewardess as a one-dimensional male fantasy, that I am ashamed to admit it was only now that it hit me: recruiting stewardesses as UNCLE staff isn't just a convenient backstory for a couple of bit-parts, it's an act of genius!

Not seeing it? Let me explain!

To start with, the stewardess is the perfect courier. She might travel anywhere in the world as part of her daily routine, carrying items on and off the plane without half the fuss facing the average traveler. If there's a person of interest among the passengers, the stewardess is the one person on the plane who can walk by his seat a dozen times in an hour without looking the least bit suspicious, who can "helpfully" take an interest in whatever he's doing. Many in the job speak multiple languages, and what better job to give you familiarity with locations across the country, if not the world? Finally, after all that time in customer service, she'll have ample practice at sizing people up at a glance, quickly remembering names and faces, and maintaining a cheery smile no matter how much stress she's under (which may well include real life-or-death situations, given that air safety in the 60s was not what it is today). All invaluable skills for the budding spy!**

And if UNCLE aren't forward-thinking enough to have put all that together long ago, you can bet your liver Napoleon would be the one to rectify it. What better way to pass some microfilm to a courier than to conceal it in a bunch of roses, to be presented to his latest stewardess-girlfriend over dinner (during which he'll ask if she's ever been to Paris -- oh, you're scheduled to fly out this week? You must try this little shop -- let me write down the address -- ask for Jean-Louis, drop my name if you need to -- you won't regret it, I promise).

Heather may well have been one of his first recruits. This is all ancient history by the time we meet her, of course, as she's long since transferred to UNCLE New York full time (where, if her first bio is to be believed, she's since been promoted to head of Communications). Maybe she even personally recommended Wanda to Napoleon as another recruit. Wanda herself started out in nursing before moving to aviation (which was actually the normal career path for stewardesses back in the 30's, and far from unheard of even in the 50's and 60's -- neatly explaining how Wanda is qualified to give Napoleon all those shots in My Friend the Gorilla). Wanda was obviously spent at least a good couple of years working as one of UNCLE's stewardess-air-couriers, given she's in the same job from the pilot right up until late S2, But by this point, Heather had long-since disappeared from the office (probably transferred to some other UNCLE office elsewhere in the world), and the New York office was short-staffed, so this would be when Napoleon talks Wanda into transferring to the office full time.

This is also where it all starts to go wrong. Napoleon, inveterate flirt that he is, leaves Wanda with the impression that he wasn't just offering her a transfer, he was also asking her to go steady -- and when it comes right down to it, both of them were a little at fault for that bit of miscommunication. Gentleman that he is, Napoleon did his best not to let her down when he realised the mistake (see: dates mentioned in Monks of St Thomas and Pop Art). But truthfully he just wasn’t that into Wanda, and got far too much use out of charm in the field (see: Do It Yourself Dreadful) to stay faithful very long. (Sharyn Hillyer herself once suggested that the particular joy Wanda takes out of sticking Napoleon with all those needles in Gorilla was a subtle little bit of revenge for all that cheating, and I don't think I can add much to that.) But by the end of the season, she's come to terms with the reality of the situation. (Maybe she has a rebound office-fling with Paul Westcott, guaranteeing maximum shadenfreude when Napoleon inevitably found out about her new beau).

No-one else at UNCLE has any great sympathy for Napoleon through all this. It may not have been entirely his own fault, but he absolutely brings it on himself.

(FWIW, feel free to adopt any part of all that needlessly-elaborate headcanon for your own fic use if you like it. I mean, I’d like to hear about it if you do, but c'mon -- now that I've put the idea in your head, there's just no way Napoleon isn't recruiting stewardesses to UNCLE's cause, is there?)

All well and good, but jumping back several topics, it is now still over 6 months since I promised that fic, and excited as I am by all this backstory, I am no closer to having anything to show for it. What the hell, thought I, even if there isn't a proper fic in all this, surely I can at least get a short prelude ficlet about how Heather was originally recruited to UNCLE out of it. I'll still have the case-fic to write, but I should be able to bang it out quickly as a quick apology to my requester for making her wait so long.

Naturally, this was my cue to... start furiously researching the world of the 60's stewardess, buy two different books, track down a library copy of a third, watch a few documentaries and generally get myself so excited over the research aspect that the fic still hasn't been written.

Over air hostesses. No, I know. I was not expecting this either.

But easy as it is to write them off as an outdated male fantasy, the world of the 60′s stewardess turned out to be a mess of fascinating contradictions -- not to mention a truly enlightening (and frequently horrifying) window into the world of Cold War gender politics. In an era when aviation was still something new, exciting and prohibitively expensive to the masses, it's hard to overstate how much it meant to some of these women just to have the opportunity to fly. So many applied for every opening that the airlines could pick and choose. Many if not most had college educations, spoke two or even more languages -- a small handful even had pilots licenses, but the airlines wouldn't hire female pilots, so they took the next best thing.

Yet for all their qualifications, no-one could hope to be hired if she didn't meet the airline's exacting beauty standards, and girls could be fired for no more than putting on a few pounds or turning up in the wrong underwear. They were 'acceptable' to mores of the day only because they played a suitably servile role, usually for no more than a year or two before leaving the job to get married (wedded stewardesses were, of course, forbidden) -- but a minority still made the work into a lifelong career, used their salaries to buy homes and independence, and their image in the fight for feminist causes. And for all that the airlines had originally hired women in the belief they'd be that much less likely to unionise and make trouble, there seems to have almost never been a time before these women had begun fighting for their rights. My reading list includes two different personal accounts from former stewardesses, both of whom worked 5 years for the same airline, barely a decade apart, and their experiences could hardly be more diametrically opposed. It's fascinating.

...and 2K more words of meta later, I still have not written my fic.

It's coming, I promise. It’s just not exactly written just yet. >.>

(Quite possibly there is yet another post’s worth of shameless history-geek-out over the world of the airline stewardess coming too, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone at this point.)

* Did I mention I also spent some of those months finishing a PhD and starting a new full-time job again for the first time in years? I don’t mention this to boast, it’s just, well, that sort of thing does get a bit distracting. Ahem.

** Lest you imagine I’ve come up with anything remotely original here, I’d point out that while researching the topic, I also discovered that idea of stewardesses as spies was a major plot point in the short-lived 2011 series Pan Am. It wasn’t a particularly great show -- I barely made it two episodes in -- but it did spark enough online discussion that I have seen former flight attendants (and various other commentators) both dismiss it as ridiculous, and suggest there was no way it didn’t happen -- especially once regular commercial Russian flights began. So take that as you will.

#The Man from U.N.C.L.E.#The Man from UNCLE #Heather McNabb #Napoleon Solo #Wanda Townsend #Wanda #aviation #fic #headcanon #the women of UNCLE

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wizardsnwookies · 6 years ago

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Blog 071918 - Lessons Learned

This coming Monday will be the last session in the first adventure in the Protected Realm campaign setting, and with it -- what I consider at least -- my first real experience as a DM. Yes I’ve run games before, but this is the first time where I really threw everything I had into it. I chose a module for this so that I can really focus on the immersion I wanted to create, as well as my execution of game mechanics and role playing for the players. Overall, I am happy with how it turned out, but I do have room for improvement.

So what did I take away from the experience? What lessons did I feel like I learned? What do I feel I need to work on for future games?

1. The DM “screen.” - I used multiple windows and tabs when running this game through roll 20. At any given time I had Roll20, the campaign module, and the 5e conversion notes open and free to access. However, I still felt like I was scrambling to keep up. As much as I wanted to be mindful of the environment, I do wonder if having a hard copy of the my notes would be more helpful as opposed to trying to scroll through a PDF. Especially when it comes to maps. Sadly, I only thought to put the key numbers on ONE of my maps...which was a big boner on my part.

2. I love flavor, perhaps too much. - I really wanted to give an immersive feel for my game, give the players something to picture in their mind. Something they can feel and smell. While this is a good thing, I wonder if I got too carried away with it, sometimes repeating myself or just plain bogging down the game by describing what a room smells like. It’s a tough balance that I need to fine tune.

3. LORE HELPS. - I was worried I put too much work into the background of my campaign, but once I started running I was damn glad to have it. Little things like cursing or exclaimations taking the worlds’ gods names in vain help make things a little more real. It also helped with motivations and business for NPCs. I can only see this becoming a more and more valuable tool the more I run in this world.

4. Check everything. - I was super bummed when I didn’t bother to check all the loot items in the module and accidentally gave away that one of the artifacts they recieved was a super fun old school cursed item. I LOVE cursed items, they are a fun way to keep people on their toes. It would have been fun to see them use it during a battle and have to deal with the consequences. Especially since I’ve been careful to make them examine any magic item they get as opposed to telling them they got a +1 shortsword off the bat. I just tell them, “this item gives off a warm tingling sensation.” It’s just a lot to juggle, and I took it for granted. Oh well, next time.

5. Don’t be afraid of making anyone upset. - This is a big one, as I have a real self esteem issue and tend to worry too much about how people think of me. I don’t like myself very much so I’m obsessed with making sure others like me. Because of this, it’s difficult for me to not pull punches as a DM. I’m not saying I’m a sadistic asshole who’s out to play their characters, but I should be making my decisions based on the logic of the game and NPC motivations as opposed to whether or not one of my players will be pissed because they got poisoned. If they make a mistake, that’s on them. If a Troglodyte has an opening, it will take it. This is isn’t personal, it’s just a game.

6. Keep combat interesting. - Nothing is more boring to me than combat where everyone stays put and spams their most powerful attack until stuff dies. That’s a very efficient way to play a video game, but not role playing. I felt like I fell too easily into this trap and found myself pulling myself out of it by taking drastic or sudden actions that came out of nowhere. It wasn’t until the end with the Naga fight that I felt like I was really feeling like I was getting into the head of the NPC and fighting logically within their world and motivations. I need to do this more, not just when I run, but when I play as well.

7. The money problem. - Gold in 5e is kind of broken. You get an ass-ton of it, but there’s not as much to spend it on as there are no mechanics for buying magic items. I’m trying to help fix this by being strict on encumberment as I can --although I need to be better about it as I frequently fall pray to #5 when I try to enforce it-- but that only goes so far. Also, when your group has been used to greedily hoarding every coin over several previous editions worth of D&D games, old habits die hard. I still haven’t really come up with a good solution. I’m toying around with the idea of a tax and banking system, but haven’t landed on something solid yet.

8. You’re never as bad as you think you are. - I’ve had sessions where I really felt like shit afterwards and asked our most senior DM for advice on how it went, only to hear that I really wasn’t that bad. This might be due to aforementioned insecurities, but I also think it’s a good rule of thumb. Things that you notice, little flubs or mistakes, are almost never noticed by the players.

Buy Me a Coffee

#dungeons and dragons #dming #role playing games #blogs

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notspoondere · 7 years ago

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February 2018 List Re-Review

As an fun little thing, let’s go over my previous analysis and talk about what I predicted and whether or not it was correct!

I can’t think of anything better, so let’s just go off of a simple metric of “correct/maybe/incorrect” and I’ll tally up the results at the end.

Apoqliphort Towers

Before you get scared, Scout is still at one. Hit that with Cosmic Cyclone and you win the game instantly.

But yeah, Towers is back. Thankfully, we now have Utopia and Borrelload and a bunch of other cards to deal with it, so I really don’t expect Qliphorts to ever be a problem again. But with Genius, at least they can be played again.

Qliphorts saw zero competitive play, so I’ll say this was spot-on. Correct.

Grinder Golem

More degenerate token spam got hit, but I feel like this just makes it a slightly worse Gofu that’s just as sacky.

It’s sort of that, but in practice, nobody plays it at 1. I’ll say a maybe since this isn’t exactly wrong.

Performage Damage Juggler

As far as practical application goes… the verdict is still out. I don’t know if 1 Juggler is enough to see competitive play. Consider the following:

The typical Lightsworn combo off of Scorpio uses Trick Clown because it makes you take damage, which triggers Thousand Blades for a free Rank 4. If you send Juggler instead, you get Clown in hand, which is neat, but you need to Normal Summon or discard him in order to get his effect.

Invoked can use this card (with Aleister the Meltdown Invoker) to turn any hand of Aleister + Brilliant Fusion into Aleister + 2x Mechaba and 3 cards in hand, but it can do that with another combo anyways.

We’ll see on this one. I like it being back, though.

I was visibly on the fence about this, but I’ll admit I got this wrong. Juggler is an excellent card and has seen plenty of play since it was unbanned. It turns out that Hat Tricker is a much better card than I expected, and everyone makes Curious, the Lightsworn Dominion with EARTH monsters anyways.

Still love it being back, honestly. Great card.

Monster Reborn

We all know what this card does, we all know how ridiculous it is. Get ready for this card to “enhance” all of your mirror matches. I personally cannot wait to start sacking games with this card. Can anyone say Lonefire Reborn Lonefire?

Monster Reborn has seen play! Who could have expected this!? Correct.

Solemn Judgment

Another step toward TCG/OCG parity, “God says ‘NO!’” has finally been put to one copy per deck for the first time in I don’t even know how long. This card speaks most closely to Counter Fairies (given the recent support), but it could see play in virtually any deck not running Destrudo.

I don’t really like negation or backrow, but I guess it’s neat to have this back. Check with me in six months and I’ll want every copy of it burned, though.

This card’s great!

I fucking hate it, but it’s seen tons of play. Correct.

Artifact Moralltach

This card was not $7 a day ago, I swear. The hype is real.

Artifacts have strong potential for Side Deck play, and possibly in the main with Sanctum as accessible as it is, though that hasn’t been too successful since the days of Artifact Invoked Windwitch. Keep an eye on this for sure.

Moralltach is still sitting around $5, but has seen no play. This one was definitely wrong.

Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning

Who ever expected to see this card at 3 again?

Burning Abyss is the only competitive deck regularly playing this card, but it actually excels at two things BA can’t really do that effectively: permanent spot removal and dealing with multiple big threats. This card deserves to be at 3, but it won’t be totally irrelevant there, either.

Still sees play, though I don’t think anyone plays three copies since it’s kind of a brick that doesn’t contribute to a board. I’ll say this was correct, though you can feel free to correct me if BA decks have actually cut it since then. (I sold it a few months ago for Shaddolls, sorry...)

Card Trooper

Step 1: Troop. Summon Card Trooper, it doesn’t matter how.

Step 2: Dupe. Activate Machine Duplication, targeting Card Trooper. Thankfully, chances are that there won’t be more than one target on the field, so it’s hard to mess this one up.

Step 3: Scoop. Pick up your cards and leave because your opponent dropped Ash Blossom on your Machine Duplication, or because you didn’t draw your unsearchable 2-card combo, or because pushing 5700 damage isn’t enough to win the game anyways. Whoops.

Unfortunately, I don’t expect this to make huge waves competitively, but… yeah, this combo is super fun, and I’ll probably try it with Phantom Knights or something for laughs. I guess it doesn’t hurt to have it back.

Card Trooper DID see play! For like a week. It showed up in two regional lists. I’ll admit that I was wrong, but clearly it was phased out for a reason.

Mind Control

Now THIS is actually an interesting prospect. This card has not seen an errata of any kind, and is arguably still playable going second. Taking control of monsters actually breaks Co-links and the card itself doesn’t prevent you from using your opponent’s monsters to summon from the Extra Deck, so this could actually be a strong counter to some strategies. Mind Control is definitely a card you should keep in mind.

This was absolutely correct. Mind Control has seen Side Deck play and occasional Main Deck play in strategies designed to go second like Mekk-Knight Invoked.

Bottomless Trap Hole

Another interesting unhit. Trap cards in general were thought to be powercrept, so Konami has been taking strides in releasing a number of the most powerful ones ever, such as this. Note: HAT did not have 3x Bottomless. Also note that HAT will not come back because of this and Moralltach, and that Bagooska is still pretty much a better card than Rafflesia.

I feel fairly confident in saying this card isn’t good enough to be played even at 3, but I feel as though there’s a small chance I could be proven wrong.

Was absolutely 100% correct on this, it saw no play whatsoever. I don’t think I met anyone in the few days after the banlist that wasn’t hyped about this, but even then, I felt it was pretty obvious that this card was not good enough to see play without substantial Trap Hole support.

Torrential Tribute

ahahahhHAHAHAHHHHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAH

This card being at 3 is complete insanity. Full power Zoo format had a few people side decking Blind Obliteration, a card which is almost strictly worse than this, and now they won’t ever need to.

I know in a week I’ll come to hate the absolute hell of playing through 3x Torrential, but for now, I can’t wait to see how people cheese their way through majors with this card in triplicate. It’s more than powerful enough, in any case.

Once again, 100% correct. ABC, Trickstars, Burning Abyss, and Paleo Frogs all found success with this card. I don’t think this was a surprise to anyone though.

And that’s it. SPYRAL is probably dead, Magicians are hurt badly, and several rogue/tier 2 archetypes got a small boost.

SPYRAL dropped off really hard, but was still played. Magicians require a bit of thought: Technically, this list did absolutely nothing to stop them from being the best deck in the game, but it would have been much worse (like +3 or +4 on top of Vortex/Norito/Dweller) if Iris or Joker were still in the game. I’ll give this a maybe, but I admit that’s kind of generous.

EXTRA: Card That Did Not Get Hit, Somehow

Trickstar Reincarnation

I asked our local Trickstar player what he thought of the banlist. He reached into his deck box, pulled out Maxx “C” and Gofu, and gave me a shit eating grin.

Despite topping multiple events, this deck somehow did not get hit in the slighest. The searchable 2-card combo that banishes your hand whenever you search or draw a card is still totally, 100% legal. Konami says it’s cool. This is fine.

This is NOT FINE. Welcome to the best deck of the next format.

Okay, something you have to understand about this format: Draco vs. full power SPYRAL was by far Draco’s worst matchup, while Trickstar vs. full power SPYRAL was a fairly solid matchup for Trickstar thanks to the fact that Trickstars are practically an engine for a deck of hand traps, normal traps, and Scapegoat, all things SPYRAL are really bad against.

It turns out that Trickstar isn’t THAT great against everything else, though I hold that it is still a viable deck.

In terms of results, the deck was absolutely not the best deck of the format, though it was Tier 1/2 for a while until Draco came back. It actually won a YCS once, I believe.

I’ll say this was wrong, but hopefully you can see it was close to being right.

Final total:

Correct: 7

Maybe: 2

Wrong: 4

Correct + Maybe = 9

Correct + Maybe / Total x 100 = 9(100)/13 = 69.23% Not Wrong™. Nice.

Strictly speaking, I got a bunch of other stuff right by making no comment on cards I thought were totally irrelevant, but hopefully this is a reasonable/conservative metric of how good my predictions are.

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i-w-p-chan · 7 years ago

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Connections, Part 2

“Oh, there you are!” Ren waved at the Thieves once they entered and Ren caught a glimpse of them.

Yusuke blinked at Ren, “Ren-san?”

“Kitagawa-kun!” Ren beamed, “Come, sit! You too, Tantei-san!”

While Ren manhandled Yusuke and Goro to the same seat as them, Ann, Ryuji and Morgana slipped into the seat opposite them.

“You know Ren-chan, Yusuke?” Ann asked, leaning forward in curiosity.

“Ah,” Yusuke started, seemingly not bothered with Ren sitting very close to him and sending cheeky smiles to Goro who sat on Yusuke’s other side, “We met a year ago at one of sensei’s exhibitions.”

“Was that another reason why you accepted our request, Ren?” Goro cradled his chin on the palm of his hand.

“Ren…?” Ren narrowed their eyes at him, “Ren?”

The Thieves blinked at Goro, wondering what they missed, and hadn’t Goro said that Ren made him refer to them by their first name?

A blush crept up Goro’s neck until he ground out, “Ren-chan.”

Ann covered her gaping mouth with a hand while Ryuji didn’t bother muffling his snickers and Morgana grinned deviously, clearly enjoying Goro’s predicament. Across the three, Ren seemed to share Morgana’s sentiment, if the grin on their face was any indication. In between Ren and Goro sat Yusuke, unfazed by the byplay.

Goro cleared his throat, uselessly trying to force the blush away, “About today, how did things go?”

“Oh, things went smoothly, honey.” Ren waved a hand, “Madarame didn’t suspect a thing. Did it even do what you wanted it to do?”

Goro seemed to be ignoring the term of endearment Ren threw his way, “It did. Out of curiosity, what did you find in there?”

“The Sayuri,” Yusuke murmured, attracting attention towards him, “He had the Sayuri hidden in there. The original one.”

Ren lightly squeezed Yusuke’s shoulder and continued when he seemed to be lost in thoughts, “The original Sayuri among multiple copies.”

“Copies?” Goro’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully before he turned to look at Ren, “You’re not planning anything, are you?”

Ren blinked at him innocently, “Who? Me? Why would I be planning anything?”

Goro quirked an eyebrow and Ren chuckled lowly, “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not.” Ren shrugged and Goro sighed.

There was a lull in the conversation; Goro kept staring intensely at Ren who stared back with lips quirked in faint amusement.

The silence was broken by Ren who turned to the three sitting in front of them, “Well then, guess I’ll be seeing you later in case Tantei-san decides he’s in need of more of my services. Take care, Kitagawa-kun, hope to see you around. And Tantei-san.” Ren leaned over Yusuke to whisper to Goro with a seductive purr, “Hope to see you on our next date.”

With that said, Ren stood up and sauntered out of the diner.

Goro frowned as he stared after Ren, “’Next date’? It has been quite some time since the last one. I believe they’d think it’s time to stir things up again.” Goro hummed thoughtfully.

“Date?” Ann wondered out loud, propping her chin on both her hands.

Goro waved a dismissive hand, “Never you mind that.”

Morgana frowned, “Never mind that? We can’t do that, Goro, and you know it. You’re involving Ren with what we do but they’re still someone we barely know much about.”

“It’s for your own good, truly. You’re better off not knowing. Plausible deniability.” Goro leaned back in his chair, taking out his phone to check something on it.

“Plausible deniability?” Ryuji asked with a frown.

“What could Ren-chan be involved in to warrant wanting to keep us ignorant about as many details as possible?” Ann turned from Goro to Yusuke when the former refused to answer her, “Yusuke, do you know?”

“Hm.” Yusuke cocked his head to the side, “I am uncertain of what Goro may be referring to, but could it be about Ren-san’s family?”

“How so?”

“In the art world, it’s a badly-kept secret that the Amamiya family has amassed a collection of stolen artifacts, jewelry, paintings and other items, and Ren-san is the heir to the family. When Ren-san’s grandfather took over the family, he didn’t keep up the ‘family trade’ and neither did any of his children.”

“So Goro suspects Ren-chan is a thief?” Goro seemed amused by her musings, if the faint smile on his face was any indication, and Ann didn’t know whether it confirmed what she just said or whether it was so outrageous that Goro couldn’t help but smile.

“You said it’s a badly-kept secret,” Ryuji said, “Couldn’t the police get them then if people knew?”

“Lack of evidence,” Goro said, “While ‘everyone in the art world knew’, there was no evidence. Besides, it’s not like it’s actually common knowledge.”

“And then what?” Morgana prodded, “What brings Ren to all of this?”

“A couple of years ago,” Yusuke continued, “Certain paintings and artifacts that were previously in the Amamiya’s possession started finding their way back to their rightful owners.”

“Isn’t that a good thing then?” Ann wondered.

“If that was simply it,” Goro said, “But it’s not. While there were objects returned, they weren’t returned with the knowledge of the receiver, and there were objects stolen as well.”

“So, whoever was returning them was breaking in to do so, and stealing things while they were at it?” Morgana was confused, “Why?”

Yusuke shook his head, “I do not know much about this topic, I’m afraid.”

Goro smiled lightly at them all, “Maybe you should do some research about the Phantom Thief Joker? Have at least some basic understanding of your fellows in the phantom thievery industry? At least that wouldn’t be very suspicious. You could pass it off as curiosity about phantom thieves in general after what happened with Kamoshida, and all the information you’ll be able to find can be explained as knowledge available to the public.

“Now, didn’t you want to eat?”

Ann stretched her arms behind her back and turned in her seat to face her friend, Akira, “It’s lunch break! How about we go have lunch on the roof?”

Akira looked at her, his bangs and glasses hiding his eyes like usual, and hummed inquisitively in response.

Ann waved a hand dismissively, “Don’t worry, you won’t be intruding at all! I’m sure it will be fine, we’ll be dragging Ryuji with us, too.” Not like Goro would mind Akira spending lunch with them; it wasn’t like they could discuss Phantom Thief business out loud without Yusuke now. And maybe she could coax Goro into gaining another friend who had nothing to do with the Phantom Thieves! “Besides, you’re my and Ryuji’s friend, too!” She beamed.

Goro was already waiting for them when she arrived with Akira and Ryuji in tow; Morgana was lounging on one of the desks.

When Goro saw them, his eyes landed on Akira, most likely curious about him as he hadn’t met him, what with his work as a detective and with the group’s Phantom Thief activities; Goro’s eyes roved over Akira before lingering on his legs for a moment, making Ann wonder if there was something specific that pulled his attention there, then Goro wrenched his eyes upward to stare at a point above Akira’s shoulders, cheeks slightly pink.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Morgana sighed and draped himself down on the desk he was perched on, “I can’t believe this.”

Akira cocked his head to the side while Goro cleared his throat and strode forward, “Excuse my rudeness. I’m Akechi Goro, a third year student.” He stretched his hand forward for a handshake and Ann’s eyebrows climbed high on her forehead at that.

Ryuji leaned on her shoulder, watching the two, “Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”

Akira reached his hand out to shake Goro’s, “Kurusu Akira. Second year.” Akira’s voice was soft but clear and the pink tinge to Goro’s cheeks darkened.

A few moments passed before Akira turned his eyes down to their still joined hands, “Akechi-senpai?”

“Oh!” Goro seemed to shake himself out of his stupor and retracted his hand, “Apologies, Kurusu-kun. It appears that I zoned out a little bit there.” Goro coughed lightly to hide his embarrassment.

Morgana sighed yet again.

The group settled down for lunch, with Ann and Ryuji making most of the chatter and conversation as Akira was naturally quiet, Morgana was content sending Disapproving Looks Goro’s way and Goro was too busy trying to put himself back together to function.

Not that Ann found the situation unsalvageable; she knew a threat to tell Ren-chan about what transpired would be enough to kick Goro into high gear, because god knew Ren-chan would never let Goro live it down.

(He might be their leader and senior, but he was also Ann’s friend, and what good were friends if they didn’t blackmail their friends back into functioning and to stop being a mess over a cute guy?)

The group gathered after school a couple of days later for the (hopefully) last leg in their infiltration of Madarame’s Palace to secure the route to the Treasure.

“What are we waiting for?” Yusuke wondered, his phone out and ready to use the app.

“Items,” Goro merely said.

“Items?” Ann looked at him in curiosity.

“Indeed. We’ve run out of lockpicks and are dangerously low on smokescreens.” Goro frowned, “Unfortunately, I did not have a lot of time and materials on hand to make any, and so I asked the one person who could provide me with some.”

Ann put her chin on her hand, “’The one person’? It’s Ren-chan, isn’t it?”

Goro sighed and nodded. He opened his mouth to speak again when his attention was pulled in a different direction, his cheeks going pink.

The reaction was very familiar; Ann blinked as she and the rest of the Thieves looked in the same direction, their eyes landing on Akira.

Uh-oh. Ah, no. There was no way- he didn’t overhear them, did he? Ann plastered a smile on her face, readying herself to distract Akira when he headed directly towards Goro, forcing him to back away until Akira had him pressed against the railing.

“Akechi-senpai,” Akira murmured before leaning into Goro’s space.

The blush on Goro’s cheeks darkened considerably, “K- Kurusu-kun!”

Akira rummaged through his bag and pulled out a cloth bag, which he handed to Goro, “This is for you.”

Goro gaped at the bag for a second and his blush intensified when Akira wound his arms around Goro’s shoulders.

Ann was aware that she was gaping; Ryuji was as well, except his gaping involved a more amused air, and the stretch of his lips seemed headed into the direction of a wide grin. Morgana had flopped to the floor and was pressing his front paws to his face. Yusuke had pocketed his phone at some point and was busy staring at Akira and Goro through the frame he made with his fingers while humming thoughtfully.

Akira then grinned a devilish grin and Ann thought she could easily forgive Goro for swaying in place due to being the focus of such an expression.

“My, detective~” Akira purred, and it was Ren’s voice coming out of his mouth, “You don’t recognize me, honey?” Ren batted their eyelashes at Goro and leaned in even closer, almost pressing their face into Goro’s neck.

Goro’s brain appeared to have crashed as he was staring blankly ahead, face still glowing red (the steam rising from his head couldn’t have possibly been good for his health).

“Ren-chan!” Ann smiled, pulling the majority of Ren’s attention from Goro to let him recover somewhat (they were going to Madarame’s Palace and they needed their leader to have his wits about him), “Why did you pick this appearance?”

Ren quirked their head to the side and smirked (and damn, they wore Akira’s face so well, the out of character expressions looked completely natural), “A little birdie told me that if I wore this face for my next meet up, I’ll receive satisfactory results. And I haven’t been disappointed.” Ren gestured to Goro who finally managed to shake himself out of his stupor.

“Ren-chan,” Goro started, trying to act like the past few minutes didn’t happen, “I’m absolutely thankful for your aid, but I’m afraid we’ll have to part ways as we have business to attend to.”

“Aww, honey.” Ren pouted, “Don’t sound so excited to keep me around, I may get the wrong idea.” Ren then grinned, “But oh well, go get your business done with. Anything that drives you to ask me for lockpicks is definitely a worthwhile endeavor in my books.”

Ren turned to the rest of the Thieves, “Take care of Tantei-san for me, will ya?”

The Thieves chorused an agreement while Goro shook his head, “Why are you all like this?”

Morgana shot towards Goro and twisted around his legs, “You know we love you, Goro,” He said cheekily.

After Madarame’s confession, the Thieves had to put any Metaverse related work on temporary hiatus due to their leader getting caught up in a case of his own and being unavailable for days on end.

Unfortunately for the rest of the Thieves, their hiatus was forcibly ended by Niijima Makoto making her way into their lives.

Ann did not like where things were going. At all.

She’d been asked by the Student Council President herself to meet her at the Student Council’s room and, given that Ann knew Niijima was investigating the Phantom Thieves and had been following both Ann and Ryuji around school with her face in an upside down comic, Ann knew that nothing good could come out of the sudden meeting.

And she was right.

Ann stared blankly at Niijima’s phone as the damning recording of her and Ryuji’s voice completely implicating the two of them as Phantom Thieves played.

Niijima stopped the recording and looked Ann straight in the eye, “What do you have to say about this, Takamaki-san?”

What should Ann do? She was all on her own, no Ryuji, no Goro, no Morgana, no Yusuke, and her response could very well make or break them.

Ann’s mouth stretched into a smile so fake she felt it with all her being and almost cringed, but stopped before digging herself a deeper hole, “Ah!” Her voice was high and so, so fake, she wasn’t fooling Niijima but she had to try, “Wow! That sounded so much like me and Ryuji! Where did you hear it?” She punctuated her question with a fake laugh, “I certainly don’t remember such a conversation!”

“Takamaki-san.” Niijima’s voice was serious, her face set into a determined frown, “I know Goro is working with you.”

Oh no. Oh nonononono. Not Goro. If she and Ryuji were stupid enough to get caught then that was on them, their mistake. The rest of the team didn’t have anything to do with it- it was not their fault; Morgana needed their help to look for clues about his past; Yusuke had his life upended very recently; Goro- Goro was a detective working with the police, he had a job, the consequences he’d suffer were much graver than the ones the rest of the Thieves would face if the truth were to come out, especially with the public’s not-so-favorable opinion of the Phantom Thieves.

Ann looked Niijima dead in the eye and lied straight through her teeth, “Akechi-senpai has nothing to do with us. Please, Niijima-senpai, if you are going to accuse someone, get your facts straight first. Akechi-senpai is a detective, he has no reason whatsoever to be working with a group of Thieves.”

Ann could not believe what she just said but she wasn’t going to take it back. God help her and may Goro forgive her for this, but she was ready to admit that she was one of the Thieves and use the chance to lead Niijima away from the rest.

Niijima’s frown smoothed out, and she folded her hands together in front of her on the table, “Takamaki-san, there is no need to lie to me about this.”

Ann didn’t respond.

“Takamaki-san, I am aware that my connection to Goro is a closely-guarded secret, and as much as I’d love to first ask Goro if he’s willing to divulge it before I think of approaching you about it, it would simply tip him off that I am onto you and I don’t want him to get involved in this. But, in truth, Goro is my brother.”

Ann gaped.

“I am not lying, Takamaki-san, Goro and I grew up together and I like to think that I know him very well. Regardless, I knew for a while now that there was something weighing on his mind more than usual in these past few months.”

Ann was silent as she attentively listened to Niijima speak.

“Particularly since he started investigating Kamoshida. A few weeks later the situation with the Phantom Thieves happened. He’d been working more than usual, considering that his main phantom thief target hadn’t pulled a heist in months.

“Please, Takamaki-san, I ask you to introduce me to the rest of the Thieves without alerting Goro. There’s a favor I have to ask of you, and in exchange for your help, I’ll delete the recording.”

Ann hesitated for a moment before speaking, “How sure are you that Goro won’t know?”

Niijima tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, “The phantom thief I mentioned? He is the one Goro made his life goal to chase and capture in the act, and he pulled a heist sometime around Madarame’s confession and Goro is busy handling the crime scene, so Goro will be busy for quite a while.”

Ann bit her lip and thought for a moment.

What should she do now?

She reached for her phone and opened her chat logs, staring pensively at the various icons before a thought occurred to her.

Ren-chan would be a great help.

Ann sent them a text, asking for their help, and their response was almost instant, inquiring about what she needed from them and Ann asked them if it was okay to meet up today. When Ren replied with a ‘yes’, Ann sent messages to Ryuji and Yusuke telling them about the situation.

It took her a while to calm them down long enough to talk them into agreeing to meet; then she went and sent a text to Ren telling them where to meet up.

With some of her work finished, Ann looked at Niijima who was simply observing her without interrupting her at all.

“Guess you’re in luck, follow me.”

(As she exited the school building with Niijima, Morgana hurried from the side of the school gate where he’d been waiting to walk next to Ann, a worried and conflicted expression on his face- he clearly heard what transpired between her and Niijima.)

End Part 2

#akechi goro #amamiya ren #kurusu akira #takamaki ann #kitagawa yusuke #sakamoto ryuji #morgana #p5 morgana #niijima makoto #connections #persona 5 #p5

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inventors-fair · 3 years ago

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Missed Opportunities Commentary

Thank you all, once more, for a fantastic week. I wish my schedule allowed me to do this more often, since it really is so much fun. Now, then, let’s get into it! All 14 remaining submissions are under the cut, card and commentary included.

We’re going to be going in reverse alphabetical order this time, so let’s start it off with @shadowtag‘s submission, Traumatic Reunion

This is an absolutely beautiful callback to Cathartic Reunion in both function and flavor, but this is not a black effect. The only color allowed to return any card type from their graveyard to their hand is green, and spells that return multiple cards at once all exile themselves (or otherwise remove themselves from your graveyard like Seasons Past.) Very good job on the flavor, but unfortunately the mechanics don't quite pull through.

@misterstingyjack Tocasia’s Ingenuity

A deep pull to be sure, but not an unwelcome one. Although, given that Primal Plasma is blue, and blue is the central overlapping color between Urza and Mishra, I don't see why this wasn't a blue card. The fact that it makes a token with all the abilities of the card is strange to me too, as with Soul Separator from Shadows Over Innistrad there is precedent of making token copies of things in graveyard with different characteristics. That aside, an artifact focus was 100% the right direction to take here, even with the Elementalist spin, and the card is well balanced, all things considered. Unrelated to the judging, you mentioned Darksteel Colossus in the notes, but unfortunately that wouldn't work. Darksteel Colossus shuffles itself into your library if it would be put into a graveyard, so it's impossible to interact with it in the graveyard (Blightsteel Colossus does this as well.)

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes The First Battle

I always love to see the Demon Leviathan given the attention it deserves. The lore on this is absolutely wonderful, but it's also way too much text to put on a Saga. If it did fit, I'd suggest swapping the first two chapters so that you can better set up the killing blow, but as it is I think it should just be an instant or sorcery that makes the planeswalkers fight and adds the counters immediately.

@ozthearistocrat Mistmeadow Jack

I also had to look this one up, and flavorfully I'm liking what I'm seeing! Unfortunately, this is not a white card. Stealing things, even temporarily, is not a white effect. If this card were blue to cast with a white activation (or keeping the hybrid activation) it would have been perfect.

@snugz Khanfall

Choices were a big part of Fate Reforged, and Khans block in general, so it makes sense that a splashy mythic set in that time would have a choice attached as well. However, given that the card is named Khanfall, and there's only one way that can go down, it seems strange to me that there's a choice at all. The mechanical aspects of this card are wonderful, but I think it should have done only one of these things rather than try for both.

@starch255 Hyperi, Titan of Sky’s Tyranny

I'm definitely a fan of the concept, and I'm glad you caught on and made the Helixing optional, but my feelings on Hyperi are mixed. The two Titans we have fit into a playstyle of "Good spells on turn 2/3, good value engines later in the game," but Hyperi doesn't. It's an absolutely backbreaking card late game, especially since grave hate powers up future versions, but on curve it most likely does nothing at all. You would have been better served making it either flat damage + lifegain or tied to a number other than cards in exile.

@gollumni Hurrik, Savior of Gods

There's a lot to say here, so let me start by assuring you that I really wish this card worked. If you activate this and target any creature that then dies to damage or 0 toughness, it creates an infinite loop of replacement effects that ends the game in a draw, because it doesn't remove marked damage or debuffs, so the creature will die again to state based actions so the replacement effect, which lasts until the end of the turn, will grab it ad infinitum. If it said "the next time" and removed damage, or it exiled and brought it back under your control, then it would work perfectly. It also saves your own creatures without the downside, which I don't think was intentional based on the wording.

@hypexion Hack the Guildpact

Maybe I have a skewed experience with this sort of thing, but this looks very easy to win with. If you have even three unique color pairs and a proliferate card, you'll win in three turns. But worse than that, the card doesn't do anything aside from winning the game. If it gets to 9 counters and then gets blown up, it didn't do anything. Cards which say "win the game" on them usually have either some sort of protection, like Helix Pinnacle and Darksteel Reactor, or some other effect to help win or survive, like Approach of the Second Sun and Simic Ascendancy. Maybe it could have a ramping scry/surveil based on the number of counters, and then win at 10.

@teaxch Gvar, Krumar Commander

It's simple and clean, although it doesn't quite carry the same flavor as what the Krumar really are. The mechanics of this card imply that they defeat the children and then take them, and although the flavor text describes it properly, it's still at odds with the functionality. A better way to do this might be to follow the example of Offspring's Revenge, and have Gvar make 1/1 token copies of opponent's creatures that die, with appropriate stat balancing.

@bread-into-toast Glimpse of Perfection

I get what you were going for, and I like it, but it's messy. It's a counterspell and a stealy card, but the fact that it namedrops the Shadowspear specifically means it's very niche, and the fact that you're paying more than usual for the counterspell, and then 4 life (or UU) for a 1 mana artifact that you don't always keep forever makes the card underwhelming even when it does work. I think a better way to accomplish this flavor would have been to make both the counterspell and search effect on etb, and make the steal effect search for any artifact with mana value 1 or less.

@morbidlyqueerious Glimpse Beyond

Mechanically, this card is perfect. Blue and green are the perfect combination of colors for this effect, weaving together cards like Commune With the Gods and Investigate the Mystery seamlessly. My only gripe is that, looking at this without the flavor text, I would not know what it's representing. It's a great effect, and I do love me some Rashmi, it's just a little too nonspecific.

@shakeszx Dack’s Fate

Very on the nose. Normally, most things about this card would be working against it, but in the specific context of War of the Spark, it fits very well. Legendary sorceries would have been great in a set with 36 planeswalkers, as well as planeswalker specific removal. I'm not sure why this is white, though. Nicol Bolas has never been associated with white, least of all the Eternals, and everything this card does can be done in mono black.

@wolkemesser Clockworking

Mechanically, this card is fine. I think it should have been a delayed trigger to choose one ("when you win" instead of if), and the "use" should be changed to "activate" but the card works as written. Apart from that, the effects are of wildly different power levels (compare Raise Dead to Disallow). Flavorfully, I'm very confused why you re-used a Lorwyn mechanic for the Scars of Mirrodin story, let alone one as divisive as Clash.

@col-seaker-of-the-memiest-legion ______, Planeswalker

This is a wonderful example of a card that is only silver bordered due to flavor. It functions exactly as intended in black border, without any changes to the rules or mechanics of the game, but is still a card that would never be printed outside of an Unset. That being said, the card itself does need a bit of a templating update. It needs to specify that you can look at cards exiled with it, otherwise you won't be able to play any of them, and I assume you meant for the last ability to be less than or equal to the number of land counters on the Planeswalker. Mechanically, there's a few changes that would need to be made to get it to the right spot in terms of balance. The cost, for one, is a mess. Twobrid mana isn't used anymore for good reason, and while I understand the intent behind its use here, it drags the design down. The fact that all of the abilities subtract loyalty means that even though it starts with 20 counters, you're likely not going to be able to play anything off of it. It playing the land in the second ability is more restrictive than you might assume, since the opportunity cost there is both drawing a card into the planeswalker and your own land drop for the turn.

And that will do it for us today! It was a genuine pleasure to host this for you all, and I look forward to the next time our paths cross in such a manner.

-Mod @illharg-the-rave-boar

#mtg #custom magic card #Missed Opportunities #commentary #:boar:

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housebeleren · 4 years ago

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My Double Masters Wishlist

Before jumping in to this topic, I’ve decided to make some changes to what I post here. I won’t be posting Limited card reviews or format reviews anymore. Other sites & professional content creators do that already, and they do it better. Plus, it takes up a huge amount of time that ultimately, I don’t particularly enjoy. Instead, I’ll try to post more things that are fun and personal to me.

With that in mind, Double Masters previews begin soon. Instead of reviewing it, I thought it would be more fun to post a wishlist of cards I hope to see printed. Obviously, we know a few already, like Doubling Season (a slam dunk), and Mana Crypt (A chase card that needs reprints anyway). But here is the rest of my wishlist:

The Slam Dunks

Of all the cards that could possibly be reprinted, I can’t imagine we won’t see at least one of the Reflection cycle. Three of them haven’t been printed in a over a decade, and the most expensive one (Mana Reflection) is pushing $50. These cards are Commander favorites, and I’d love to see the whole cycle printed in this set. Hopefully if they do include this cycle (or some number of them), they’ll have already contracted new artwork, but given the timeline, I won’t bank on it.

I am constantly amazed at this card’s ability to be expensive. But, as far as iconic creature types go, this is one of the best that fits the “double” theme. I have a strong feeling we’ll see it.

Savage Beating hasn’t been reprinted in forever, and this is not just a double, it’s a double-double! You double your damage, double your combats, or double both! It’s a card that shouldn’t be as expensive as it is, and would be a super fun inclusion.

It really doesn’t feel like it’s been that long since Origins, but it’s been 5 years now, and this card keeps creeping up there. I’d really like for this card to always be in the $10 range, and a reprint here would get it back there. Again, it’s also a double double. Double your card draw, double your lifegain. Win/win!

This is the second Entwine card on this list, and for good reason. But again, this card has so many perfect “double” elements going on, I really think it should be in the set. It gets 2 creatures, lets you put 2 creatures from your hand into play, lets you choose both options, and even costs 2 to Entwine. It’s a slam dunk card and would be a super fun inclusion.

This card is only a few years old, and it’s already iconic, and a Commander staple, to boot. This is a card that should see reprint soon, to keep the price low and accessible. And even with a reprint, it would still be a few bucks, so it wouldn’t be a total junk rare.

I’ll end this section with the card I’m probably actually most hopeful for, Rings of Brighthearth. This card has evaded reprint for so long, and Double Masters is quite possibly the most perfect product for it to finally make an appearance. If Rings isn’t here, the price will quickly grow even further out of hand (it’s nearly $50 now). Since it hasn’t been printed in over a decade, a lot of the price in this card is just due to scarcity, and it will drop quite satisfactorily once reprinted. This means they really should rip the bandage off now. Here’s hoping.

Huh, lots of Artifacts out there.

The Stretches

Ha ha, it’s a stretch. Stupidity aside, this card is a super unique effect that has warranted inclusion in some of my more ridiculous EDH decks. (casting this with Rebound in my Taigam, Ojutai Master deck is... a nice way to never get invited back to game night.) It’s less of a slam dunk, since it’s the type of card that doesn’t play well in Limited, and so they’d likely have to move it up to Mythic, which would take up one of the few coveted chase spots. They could conceivably put any extra turn spell here, since that’s “doubling your turn”.

This card is a weird one, because it comes down early, but you have to have 6 mana in your mana pool to break even on its ability. That said, it’s a surprisingly expensive card, and there are some Commanders that want it (Kruphix & OG Omnath come to mind). It would definitely be an interesting choice.

I have no stake in the Modern debate about whether this card should stay banned. All I know is that it’s a fun card and is still over $15 despite being banned in the main format that would use it. An unban would cause the price to spike rapidly, so maybe they’re waiting for a convenient place to reprint it before they do so? Either way, it’s a super fun card and could enable some super cute draft combos. But probably a stretch unless an unban is planned.

It’s simple, it’s cheap, and it’s a card that will creep back up to $10 in not too long. Personally, I’d love for this card to be reprinted in Standard, but they’ve been giving this effect to Red or Red/Blue more recently. Not a high priority, but definitely a card I’d consider.

Maybe this one should be a slam dunk, but it’s borderline. Either way, it’s a card that’s WAY too expensive, hasn’t been reprinted in years, and fits the theme of the set. I mean, he’s literally doubled in the art. I’d be stoked to see Riku make an appearance (or two).

I’m calling this a stretch, not because it wouldn’t make sense from a price/reprint standpoint, but thematically. Still, I think the idea of “reflecting” isn’t too far away from the “double” idea, and this is a land that needs a reprint sooner rather than later. Personally, I think this should be in just about every annual Commander release, but what do I know?

The only reason I’m putting Bramble Sovereign on the “stretch” list is because Battlebond really wasn’t that long ago. But this is a great card that’s very thematically appropriate, and as quickly become one of the more expensive cards from the set.

Flavor Wins

These are some cards that aren’t going to be “exciting” from a reprint perspective, but would be great flavor wins for the set.

Starting here. Seriously, the Brothers Yamazaki would be an incredibly flavorful inclusion, particularly if they show up at twice the frequency at Uncommon, so you could really draft multiple copies more often. The one weird thing is they’d probably have to errata the middle ability to say “if you control exactly two...” to avoid situations where you control 2 copies, then your opponent plays one and suddenly the legend rule applies to them again. But still, I think it would be worth it.

Vorel has been reprinted enough times he’s definitely not an exciting inclusion, but he’s kinda the poster child for Legendary Creatures that double things. I can’t imagine there won’t be a counters sub-theme in the limited environment, and Vorel would be a perfect Rare to draft for that purpose.

In the same vein, I would be shocked if we didn’t see Deepglow Skate make an appearance. Fortunately for us, Wizards has been reprinting this card enough to keep the price reasonable, which is great. So why not keep up the good work and print it again here? It’ll be a fun Rare for draft and it’ll keep that price down where it should be.

This card isn’t particularly exciting, and I bet nobody is “hoping” to see it, but there are SO. MANY. TWOs on this card. You flip 2 coins, get a bonus when both coins match, and the bonuses are Double Strike (x2 damage) or Menace (requires 2 or more blockers). Plus, he has Two in his name and all numbers on the card are multiples of two. An absolute flavor win.

It’s kinda a weird pick, but I like ending on weird picks. This land is so unique, and I think it would be a really fun inclusion. They should probably downshift it to Rare if they want to reprint it here, otherwise this would be a disappointing Mythic. But it would be a fun Rare to open up in the set, and it’s just getting to the age that the price will start creeping up if it isn’t printed soon.

So that’s it. Those are the cards on my initial list. I’m sure I missed some, and there are tons of little cards that are obviously great I didn’t bother including. What’s on your wish list?

#double masters #MtG

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selenelavellan · 7 years ago

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Wizarding World AU

(This is a separate AU from the Hogwarts AU, let’s clear that up right now)

Dirthamen, Falon’din, Pride, and Uthvir are @feynites

Ana is @lycheemilkart‘s

Victory (mentioned) is @justanartsysideblog‘s

It had been ten years since Dirthamen's twin brother had vanished.

Ten years since the world had declared Falon'din dead and gone, destroyed in an instant by an unknown magic.

Thirteen years since Dirthamen had turned his back on the people that raised him. Publicly denounced them and the way they used magic, refusing to assist his brother in his plans. Well, their mothers plans really. Twisted and shifted to fit Falon'dins particular brand of cruelty, and terrifyingly effective when implemented.

Thirteen years since Dirthamen had become a father. Since he and Selene had married and settled down in their cottage. Small and cramped, a victim of their financial distresses. But it was their home, and his old family could not find them here (An unlikely scenario with the lot of them locked away in Azkaban, but not one he would put past them all the same).

Six years since he had managed to gain a career working for the ministry of magic. Not publicly, of course. The wizarding world would call for his immediate resignation if word got out that the twin of the Dark Lord Falon'din were working in the Department of Mysteries. But they had had little choice but to hire him, after several years of failed attempts to decipher the artifacts found in his old family home.

Dirthamen had never been very talented at curses, he knew. But wards and protection spells; those he was rather clever with.

More clever than his mother, it had turned out.

He had felt guilt, leaving Selene alone at home to watch the twins when they were born, bringing their total child count so far to four. But she had assured him she could handle it, that she and their children would be fine, and she would still continue her work in the arithmancy field; just a bit slower than she had been.

It had worked out well so far; Selene was able to put out about one book every two years, and it always pulled in a tidy sum to take care of leaking roofs and school supplies and even to mange to leave a few galleons in their Gringotts account at the end of the month.

And then a month ago, his dreams had turned sour.

His brothers face and voice back to plague him, calling him a traitor and a coward and screaming all too familiar threats towards him and his family.

Dirthamen knew Falon'din had not died ten years ago. He had not felt the pull or the ache that should have accompanied it. But the world had seemed so relieved, a day of parties and merriment and celebration when he had disappeared. Dirthamen did not wish to ruin that happiness for everyone.

Now though, with two of his children preparing to go back to school and the voice of his brother still ringing in his ears each morning, it was difficult to feel at ease.

“Ana and Pride stole the car,” Selene sighs over breakfast, sliding a plate of eggs down in front of him and each of the twins; too young for such hi-jinks, so far.

“Which one?” Dirthamen asked. In truth, they were not supposed to have any cars. But Melanadahl in the Misuse of Magical Artifacts department was often interested both Dirthamen and Selenes input on the more curious cases that passed by; a lingering habit from their own days in school, he supposes.

“The one you rigged to fly,” Selene says, shooting him her familiar 'that thing you knew you weren't supposed to do but did anyway while I looked the other way and now the children have found it' look. “Likely they went to pick up Uthvir from their home. They haven't received replies to even a single letter all summer.”

Dirthamen nods in understanding. It is often difficult to get messages out when your family disapproves of sending them. It is a problem familiar to him from his own childhood, when Falon'din would frequently try to poison or harm Dirthamens own owl, or those his friends sent to him until they decided the risk was not worth being his friend.

There is a loud crashing noise from the front yard that pulls him out of his memories, Selenes head snapping towards the front door. She strides towards it, head high, swinging the door open and huffing down at their oldest children.

“Pride, Ana, you two are in so much trouble! Do you have any idea how worried I've been? What if you'd been injured, or spotted?!” She cries. Selenes face softens as she places a gentle hand on Uthvirs head and gives them one of her warmest smiles “Hello Uthvir dear, it's good to see you. I'll have the pancakes finished in just a minute, why don't you go have a seat at the table?”

Uthvir nods slowly, looking briefly at Ana and Pride before sitting down at the table farthest from Dirthamen's own seat. He is aware of their discomfort around him, and cannot blame them; his brother had attacked them when they were only an infant, after all. It is a wise survival instinct to avoid him, he supposes, although he would never purposely cause them harm.

Selene continues berating Ana and Pride for borrowing the car, even as she makes them plates of eggs and pancakes, with blueberries and bananas on top of Ana's and whipped cream with chocolate chips for Pride. Uthvirs own stack is twice the size of theirs (And Dirthamen is not surprised; Selene has mentioned her concerns over how thin they are beneath the multiple layers and robes they wear to conceal it, and often gives them larger portions than is wholly necessary, often taking a smaller piece for herself) and she lays out several bowls with extra toppings on the table for them to choose from, placing several strawberries on top of her own to show that it is alright to do so. She finally stops lecturing Ana and Pride, carefully placing a single pancake on each of the twins plates before taking her own seat at the table.

It is a good meal, Ana and Prides moods quickly improving from Selenes speech to share the events of the summer with Uthvir; quidditch rankings and major news stories, as well as a classmate of theirs that has apparently 'bounced back' from a rather poorly thought out transfiguration prank during their last year.

They are all standing to bring their dishes to the kitchen when a stream of owls comes in through the windows, dropping off letters for Ana, Pride, and Uthvir in a dark green ink; class and supply lists for the upcoming year.

“Well, at least they know you're here with us Uthvir,” Selene smiles, handing them their letter. “I suppose we should make a trip to Diagon Alley today, if you're alright with it.”

Uthvir, caught off guard with pancake still in their mouth, simply nods in agreement after a failed attempt to swallow.

“Mom,” Pride calls “Do you still have any copies of your second Arithmancy book?”

“Of course,” She nods, whisking the empty plates through the water running in their sink with her wand. “Why do you ask?”

“It's one of my textbooks.”

“Mine too!” Ana pipes up.

Selene blinks, dishes freezing in midair “Really?” she calls as she dashes back to the table. “That's wonderful! One less book we have to buy, and it means a sales boost from the others in your class purchasing it, too. Goodness, we might finally be able to get that new bed-One moment, they're up in the attic.”

She disappears up the stairs, as Darevas giggles and flings a spoonful of scrambled eggs into Prides hair. Pride groans, moving towards the mirror to pick the flecks of egg out of his braids while Selene reappears at the base of the stairs, three hardbound copies of her second book on Arithmancy in hand.

“Now I wasn't sure if you needed one as well Uthvir,” She admits, handing one to each of her children “But if you aren't taking it already and decide to next year, this'll give you a leg up on it. Arithmancy is fascinating really, one of the most interesting classes offered at Hogwarts-”

“Uh...Mom?” Ana squeaks, holding up her copy of the book and pointing to a scribble in the bottom right hand corner of the page. It appears to be someone in the middle of a rather lewd act, and-ah, yes. Someone has made a flip book in the corners of her book.

It is not difficult to discern precisely who the culprit was.

Selene's face turns a rather interesting shade of red as she marches back up the stairs, screaming “Des!”

Dirthamen carefully takes Prides book from him, even as he is trying to discern the exact nature of the act by turning it to different angles, and sets it down beside him. It appears to have been done recently, so it should be simple to remove with a basic cleaning charm.

It is not the first time their ghost has pulled pranks like these, although they usually do not make such blatantly sexual pranks where the children can see them. Dirthamen supposes Des did not expect her to give the books to Ana and Pride or Uthvir; a mistake he can hear her yelling at him for even from here.

Des's ghost floats down to the table, a bored look on his face as he reclines in Selenes seat “Really, she's overreacting,” he tsks. “It's not like the pictures are moving on their own, and it's soft-core at most.”

“It is still inappropriate,” Dirthamen chides. “Please do not put any sort of pornography where the children might see it.”

“Oh fine,” Des sighs. “I'll just keep it all in your bedroom then.”

Pride makes a grossed out face, his tongue protruding from his mouth as Dirthamen corrects their resident ghost “That is unnecessary. Selene and I do not require pornography, we are quite skilled at coming up with our own scenarios and interactions.”

“Dad!” Pride cries indignantly as Ana turns a red deep enough to match her hair and covers her ears.

“What?” Dirthamen asks.

“Don't-Don't talk about that in front of us, please. We just ate!”

“Would it be more appropriate to discuss after our food has settled then?”

“No!”

“You are getting older Pride. We should probably discuss these things soon, before you go off to school this year. If you are uncomfortable talking to me about your sexual growth, your mother is also avail-”

“Please stop talking,” Pride groans, pulling his ponytail of braids and beads down to cover his face and yanking Uthvir out of their chair and up the stairs to his room, nearly pushing Selene out of his way to get there.

Dirthamen looks curiously to Ana, his eldest. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Not really,” Ana assures him. “He's just embarrassed because he has a crush.”

Dirthamen blinks, looking up the stairs where his son had disappeared and then back to his daughter. “On Uthvir?”

Ana laughs. “No. I mean, maybe? Pretty sure it's this girl on the Quidditch team he can't stop staring at though.”

“Pride has a crush?” Selene asks as she re-enters the room just as Des vanishes from it.

“Don't tell him you know,” Ana says “Or else he'll get all weird and defensive about it.”

Selene frowns, but nods in understanding. “Alright. If they become a thing though, I trust you to write home about it.”

Ana nods in agreement, giving each of the twins a kiss on their pancake crumb covered heads before going up the stairs to join Pride and Uthvir.

Selene lets out a tired sigh before practically collapsing into the seat beside Dirthamen. He takes her hand in his, rubbing his thumb over the back of it soothingly. She gives him a tired smile before looking out the front windows at the damaged car on their front lawn.

“I swear, I don't know where those two get their troublesome streak from...” she mumbles.

Dirthamen raises an eyebrow accusingly. “Oh? I seem to recall you being quite the prankster in your own school days. One of the reasons Des followed you home, I imagine.”

“And I've regretted it every day since,” She teases back, loudly enough that the eavesdropping spirit can hear.

Dirthamen shakes his head fondly. “I also remember you also used to sneak Victory into Hogsmeade, when he was having difficulty getting his permission slip signed. Or that time you helped Melanadahl pass his flight class, with those enchanted glasses you made-”

“Well it's cruel to punish children for things that aren't their fault,” Selene points out.

“Precisely,” Dirthamen says. “And it is hardly our childrens fault that they inherited such a strong sense of right and wrong from their mother that they feel the need to act on it to help their friends.”

Selene scoots her chair closer, until she can lean her head on his shoulder “You're very good at turning my parenting flaws into strengths you know.”

“That is one of many things I am here for.”

“Mm-hm,” Selene murmurs. “I suppose it's also not the childrens fault that their father felt the need to enchant a car to fly and conveniently left the keys out all night, either.”

“I was hoping you would not have noticed that,” Dirthamen admits.

“I always notice,” Selene says with a sigh. “I wonder if Uthvir would be open to us adopting them. I know they're a bit older already, and we'd only technically have them for a a few years, but even a few less years with those awful people might do them a whole lot of good...”

“If you wish to discuss it with them, I would not stop you,” Dirthamen assures her with a kiss on top of her hair.

“Mm,” Selene hums. “I'll have to think about it. Maybe send out a few owls with inquiries about how I would even go about it. In the meantime,” she says as she straightens. “We should get ready. We'll need to stop by Gringotts before we can pick up the school supplies, and Pride's grown out of his robes again so he'll need to be refitted. I was thinking Ana is old enough to care for a pet now, and she's been hinting at wanting a toad, so I'd like to see if we could manage to get her an early birthday present if you're alright with it.”

“I am sure we could make it work,” Dirthamen agrees, standing to push his chair in. “I will clean the twins while you get the others ready.”

“Taking the easy job I see,” Selene jokes, staring at Darevas and Felasel and their egg and pancake coated faces and fingers.

He simply nods as Selene goes to tell the others to get ready, donning her own cloak and bringing his own down, along with the floo powder.

Dirthamen swallows, watching as each of his children goes through the fireplace one by one.

Perhaps this time, if he is very careful and thinks only of positive things, he will not see his brothers face in every dark corner of Diagon Alley. Will not hear him whisper in his ear with each cold burst of wind. And perhaps, if he is very lucky, the scar on his back will not even ache every time the bell tolls.

#Wizarding World AU #Dirthalene #*Takes all the reincarnation au children and smooshes them together* Yes Good #I reread some of the Harry Potter books while the power was out and got struck by this idea

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commandertheory · 7 years ago

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Amonkhet Commander Set Review

For each new set, I write an article discussing the new legendary creatures and the nonlegendary cards that I think will be relevant in Commander. This review is obviously a bit late, as I was taking a hiatus from the blog when Amonkhet got released, but the review might benefit from having a few months to play with the set and get a more accurate impression of the cards.

The Commanders of Amonkhet

The token generation is pretty inefficient compared to some other white commanders, and although double strike will help her get to 21 commander damage, the limitation on her ability to attack keeps her from reaching her potential as a Voltron commander.

Seems like a strong commander for monoblue control. He allows you to hold up counterspells and cash in your unused mana for cards right before you untap, while also potentially serving as a late-game threat once you’ve got a full grip of answers.

The relatively low power and the weak effect of her activated ability makes me think that the payoff for building around her is not worth the effort. That being said, she’s easily one of the best commanders for breaking symmetry on The Abyss, Magus of the Abyss, and Spreading Plague.

Like Bontu, the rewards aren’t really worth the trouble of activating Hazoret or bringing her online. The life totals in Commander are way too high to waste time dealing damage 2 at a time (Purphoros notwithstanding).

His activated ability is not much of a reason to run this guy as a commander, and the Voltron potential implied by his power-to-cost ratio is, of course, diminished by his requirement that you commit to playing other creatures instead of focusing on dealing 21.

I try to keep an eye out for potential themes in need of a commander, but BG -1/-1 counters wasn’t really on my radar. Hapatra ended up being a pleasant surprise, as it turns out there was enough tech available for her that she added a new archetype to the Commander metagame.

Most effective tribal commanders are ones that take a tribe with a lot of borderline playable creatures and give them just enough of a boost to create a viable deck. The problem with Neheb is that most Minotaurs are not on the borderline; they are unplayable. +2/+0 and first strike is not going to be enough to make Cursed Minotaur and Gnarled Scarhide playable in a 40-life multiplayer format with tons of board wipes.

However, Neheb might do some good work as a discard outlet for madness/reanimator strategies and as a way to repeatedly trigger things like Geth’s Grimoire or Waste Not. Here’s a rough list.

Double strike and haste make for a strong Voltron Commander, so throw together some ramp to get her down early and some decent auras/equipment (Hero’s Blade, Grafted Exoskeleton, and any saboteur equipment will probably be good in this deck) and call it a day.

He can’t use his ability to help deal commander damage (even when he’s embalmed), so you’re stuck trying to eliminate multiple opponents with giant tokens (or ones with brutal saboteur abilities) sliding past their blockers. Overall, the plan seems kinda weak, but there are a few cute things you can do to make the unblockability more relevant.

The Maindeck Cards

In this set review, I’ll be using two five-point rating scales to evaluate the nonlegendary cards, one that measures how many decks a card is playable in (we’ll call that “spread”), and one that measures how powerful it is in those decks (”power”). Here’s a brief rundown of what each rank on the two scales means:

Spread

1: This card is effective in one or two decks, but no more (ex: The Gitrog Monster). 2: This card is effective in one deck archetype (ex: self-mill decks). 3: A lot of decks will be able to use this card effectively (ex: decks with graveyard interactions). 4: This card is effective in most decks in this color. 5: Every deck in this color is able to use this card effectively.

Power

1: This card is always going to be on the chopping block. 2: This card is unlikely to consistently perform well. 3: This card provides good utility but is not a powerhouse. 4: This card is good enough to push you ahead of your opponents. 5: This card has a huge impact on the game.

Spread: 1

Power: 3

Banishing Light is good because it’s cheap and hard to get rid of. Angel of Sanctions trade those two advantages for the ability to deal three in the air and return once after it gets killed, which I think is a pretty raw deal. It also compares really unfavorably with Admonition Angel.

However, embalm does work well with populate, so Trostani ought to get more value out of it than most commanders.

Spread: 2

Power: 3

If your deck has a heavy token theme or your Commander makes tokens, this should be an easy inclusion.

Spread: 3

Power: 3

This card is great in token decks, hate bear decks, decks with lots of mana dorks, and Doran builds. 3+ power kills most of the threats in the format while protecting your little dudes. Plus, even if your (nontoken) weenies get killed later, the second half of this card regrows them for you. Great value.

Spread: 1

Power: 1

Maybe in some Ad Nauseam combo deck as the third copy of Angel’s Grace (with Phyrexian Unlife being the second)? He doesn’t do much since he’s pretty easy to remove later on in the game when people are actually winning.

Spread: 1

Power: 3

It’s obviously most effective in Kemba and Raksha. You might be tempted to run it in a token list or a blink deck, but I think in those situations it fares poorly compared to other options at the same price point.

Spread: 2

Power: 1

These types of effects often create combo potential, but the combination of an end step return and a limited scope of targets handicaps the Vizier to the point of unplayability.

Spread: 1

Power: 1

Assists with Persist combos and generates infinite mana in combination with Devoted Druid. Unfortunately, it doesn’t accomplish anything by itself, which makes it less appealing than other combo pieces in the same colors that are effective in isolation.

Spread: 2

Power: 3

It acquires counters too slowly to be of much use outside of decks with extremely low average CMCs, and only getting one free spell per turn is likewise pretty limiting. However, decks with lots of cheap counterspells that frequently cast them on their opponents’ turns ought to be able to milk much more mana out of this card than the other decks in the format. In Baral, Azami, etc, this could easily end up producing a great deal of mana if you can manage to get two or more counters on it.

Spread: 4

Power: 2

Commit can keep just about anything from killing you and is basically an Utter End when you’re responding to a shuffle effect. I’m not sure how often you’ll pull the trigger on Memory, but having the option to refill your hand is sweet.

Spread: 1

Power; 3

There aren’t a whole lot of Blue decks that discard often enough to make Drake Haven worthwhile, but Baral control might be one of them.

Spread: 4

Power: 4

The strongest X mana draw spell in monoblue ever printed. I would play this in any deck already running Blue Sun’s Zenith and Stroke of Genius.

Spread: 1

Power: 2

Sift is far too weak for most Commander decks, but this could do good work in Brago decks that were already blinking Oath of Jace.

Spread: 2

Power: 3

In decks that have enough self discard this card is comparable to Elesh Norn. It even cycles which makes it easy to reanimate and smooths out draws. Plus, if you’re playing it in a green deck, you can find it with Survival of the Fittest, cast it, and then use Survival to cycle through a bunch of creatures and pile counters on your opponents’ stuff.

Spread: 4

Power: 1

Very expensive, only hoses one person, and 5 life per turn cycle is not the fastest clock.

Spread: 2

Power: 2

She's a Zombify with a couple of tokens attached. That’s probably good enough for a Zombie tribal deck but I don’t think she’s good enough for decks that aren’t interested in Zombie synergies since cheaper reanimation exists.

Spread: 2

Power: 2

Lumping these together because both of them are limited to Zombie tribal decks. I think both cards are a little on the weak side, but it’s not like Zombies were a strong tribe to begin with, so they ought to fit in just fine.

Spread: 1

Power: 3

Hapatra can use it to generate more bodies to power her sac outlets or swing with, while The Scorpion God can keep stinging scarabs to farm cards.

Spread: 5

Power: 2

If you want this effect, Hero’s Downfall is just a much better card, since being able to interact with your opponents on their turn is way more relevant to most games than a smidgen of graveyard hate and a 2/2.

Spread: 4

Power: 3

This is a decent card that suffers from an abundance of strong competitors. It’s probably the fourth-best mono-Red artifact destruction spell (after Fiery Confluence, Vandalblast, and Shattering Spree), but that might be too low on the totem pole to make it into most decks.

Spread: 2

Power: 2

Joins the long list of cards that infinite combo with Kiki-Jiki. Also goes infinite with other copy effects and is serviceable in aggro decks, as well.

Spread: 1

Power: 1

It’s flashy, but it’s mostly worse than Final Fortune, and it’s not like anybody was playing that card.

Spread: 2

Power: 2

Repeatable red removal, even if every other turn.

Spread: 1

Power: 3

The only deck I can think of that would be interested in both the haste and the sacrificing would be Marchesa, the Black Rose.

Spread: 1

Power: 3

It’s a little reductive to call this a Cleaver Riot, but that’s the easiest point of comparison for evaluating this effect. I think most Red decks will pass on this card, but Heartless Hidetsugu needs damage doublers so he can eliminate any player foolish enough to let their life total settle on an even number.

Spread: 5

Power: 3

Really good in metagames with lots of mana dorks and utility creatures. Plus, cycling means that it’ll never be a dead card. High ceiling + high floor = probably worth running.

Spread: 3

Power: 2

It mostly seems worse than Elvish Piper (and it’s not like Elvish Piper is that great), since it requires you to risk it in combat, it only works every other turn, and you can’t surprise anyone by dropping fatties in during combat/at end of turn. It's probably also worse than Frontier Siege in terms of total mana generation.

Spread: 2

Power: 2

There are plenty of Green decks that are dependent on mana dorks, and a decent number with token themes, but I still wouldn’t expect this to regularly ramp out more than two lands until you get to the late game (at which point the ramp is not very impactful).

Spread: 4

Power: 3

Comparable to Reclamation Sage. Manglehorn is stronger in metas where fast artifact mana is prevalent since it greatly slows down development in exchange for flexibility and a superior creature type. It’s pretty reasonable to run both. Also relevant is how it shuts off Winter Orb the turn it comes in, removing the surprise factor.

Spread: 2

Power: 3

I think this card could have legs in Enchantress builds. Enchantress builds tend to be Pillowfort-y and have a lot of mana lying around, so paying 8 mana to shut out flyers isn’t far outside of what those decks were already doing. Plus, Enchantress decks tend to be low on win conditions, which a steady stream of 5/5s ought to ameliorate.

Spread: 3

Power: 3

Only good in creature-heavy decks, and especially strong in Animar and Momir Vig. Unlike Oracle of Mul Daya, you might not get immediate value out of him in the early game since the creatures will cost mana that you might not have and it’s harder to chain together multiple creatures. Solid in Monogreen since the creature density tends to be higher and ramp spells shuffle the deck for a redraw.

Spread: 4

Power: 1

Doesn’t protect itself, and it’s not guaranteed to get you card advantage unless you go through the trouble of setting it up. The ultimate is also pretty weak in this format.

Spread: 1

Power: 2

There aren’t a whole lot of Red/White Voltron commanders that don’t already have double strike, but I think Zurgo will be eyeing this as a means of shortening his clock.

Spread: 4

Power: 2

Every new cycle of duals with basic land types makes fetches that much better, and obviously cycling makes these lands more useful in the late game than most other mana fixers. I’d consider these a staple part of a Commander manabase, although I’d be wary about running them in decks that desperately need all their lands to come into play untapped (decks with really tight curves and/or decks that need to get a lot done in the first few turns of the game, for example).

Wrapping Up

Let me know if you think I’ve misjudged any of these cards or if you’ve discovered any other cool uses for cards from Amonkhet that I didn’t think of. Thanks for reading!

#set review

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