#Kaladesh Block

[beatsandskies]

deeP RECONnassaince: a Kaladeshi Second.

Continuing on from this post, let’s just get stuck into the remaining campaigns from this update of the Magic Duels game. These should be pretty balanced for “Duel Deck” type play if you wanted to throw the lists into the “deckbuilder” of a singles retailer like Card Kingdom, or otherwise good inspiration to base a new casual deck from. 🙂 Kaladesh: Mission 3 Determined to free her mother,…

[markrosewater]

Your point about Innistrad and Dominaria made me realize a key component of how it feels bad not to stay on the same plane for multiple sets: it's about the story.

The story of Kaladesh is like thirty chapters long because it was split across two sets. The two Innistrad sets we got didn't have related stories, they were just connected by a cliffhanger tease (which is better than nothing).

So I wonder if the note you're getting "please stay on the same plane for multiple sets sometimes" is actually "please dedicate multiple sets to telling the same story, act 1 then act 2 sometimes."

Do others share this desire? Would a continued story, but on a different world satisfy some of the "block feel"?

[sylvan-librarian]

The Last of the Animists: Exploring the Concept of Animism and How it Defines Nissa Revane

Prologue

Since the characterization of Nissa in the Kaladesh block is such a massive undertaking due to the density and quality of material therein, I decided at first to take a little break from my regularly scheduled programming (i.e. - having a public, frenzied, and unhinged obsession with my favorite Magic the Gathering character). However, I couldn’t stay away from the topic entirely, so here we are. 

Introduction

The source of Nissa’s magic, its manifestation within Magic’s lore, and how it is represented mechanically on cards has intrigued me to no end over the years. Mechanically, I always felt that Nissa’s cards stood out more than the other two regularly-printed green planeswalkers (Garruk and Vivien). Garruk and Vivien cards often do what you would imagine a green planeswalker would do: create 3/3 green beast creature tokens, tutor creatures from your library, give overrun effects to your board, etc. The design space across these two characters’ cards always felt limited and uninspired to me. One of the things that intrigued me about Nissa, Worldwaker (read about my love for that card here) when I first encountered it in 2014 was the fact that it played around with lands rather than creatures: it animated lands into beaters, it untapped lands, it fetched lands from its owner’s library. This struck me as a unique, inspired design at the time, and it made me feel excited to use the card.

However, while yes, I have always found Nissa’s skillset a unique design for green planeswalkers – a fact that makes the desparkening all that much more disappointing to me – my primary interest in Nissa’s magic as a deranged Vorthos is how it is described in and displayed throughout the stories. 

Nissa, as we are often told in post-“Nissa, Worldwaker” stories, is the last of the animists, a rare type of mage on Zendikar who can hear the voice of the world itself, but the plane of Zendikar rarely had anything nice to say; in “Nissa's Origin: Home,” Nissa’s mother, Meroe says that the soul of the land, which so often is a source of terrible nightmares for Nissa, “was never after anything other than random destruction.” Animism, we learn, is a taboo brand of magic to the Joraga (the tribe Nissa belongs to), and Numa, the Joraga chieftain, exiles Nissa because he, like many others, believes that the inherent anger of the land is due to some untold, unknown blasphemy enacted on the world by the animists. He tells Meroe, “[y]our people angered Zendikar and they paid the price. There is a reason that you are the last of the animists.” We come to understand that the reason for the plane of Zendikar’s anger is due to the Eldrazi Titans’ imprisonment on it. The world recoils in disgust at the eldritch monstrosities who eternally strive to break free of their imprisonment and consume and pervert every living thing in their way; the plane’s anger feels justified in this light, but almost no one on Zendikar understands this, not even Nissa or her mother. 

So in short, animism in Magic the Gathering is the ability to connect with the soul of the world itself which allows animists like Nissa to (among other things) animate the land itself into living creatures that can fight alongside them. 

However, the concept of animism has meaning beyond the lore of Magic; why did Magic’s designers label Nissa’s powers this way, and how can a real world understanding of animism help us understand Nissa in a new way? 

Part I: The Animation of All Nature 

Animism is a term developed all the way back in the 1870’s by British anthropologist Sir Edward Tylor as a method to describe similarities in “primitive” religions. Let’s take a quick moment to acknowledge that Tylor was a bearded white man living in colonial-era Britain using words like “primitive” to describe the religions and philosophies of people he will never meet, many of whom were currently unwilling subjects of his own government. This is an unfortunate commonality in academic studies. That aside, Tylor’s description of animism gives us our first understanding of this term. He writes in his 1871 anthropological treatise Primitive Culture that “[f]irst and foremost among the causes which transfigure into myths the facts of daily experience, is the belief in the animation of all nature, rising at its highest pitch to personification” (emphasis mine). In other, simpler words, animists personify the natural world, assigning traditionally human traits to immobile objects. The root of the current English word animate, after all, comes from the Latin animus, which means “soul, spirit, mind.” The “animation of all nature,” then, refers to the belief that what we might call objects of the natural world have their own interiority. Tylor writes elsewhere that animism is

[a]n idea of pervading life and will in nature far outside modern limits, a belief in personal souls animating even what we call inanimate bodies, a theory of transmigration of souls as well in life as after death, a sense of crowds of spiritual beings sometimes flitting through the air, but sometimes also inhabiting trees and rocks and waterfalls, and so lending their own personality to such material objects.

Humanity’s relationship to nature, then, becomes that of subject-subject rather than that of subject-object. 

What does this say about Nissa, though? If you’re thinking that the above description is frighteningly similar to how Nissa views the world, you’d be right. While what Tylor argued back in the 1870’s was that animism is a crude belief system that would eventually evolve to the rise of world religions and later on the rejection of religion in rational society, Nissa’s practice of animism is very much alive and vibrant. It is hammered home often that Nissa deeply respects the personhood of objects, whether they be trees, animals, or even the ground itself. We see this very clearly in this long selection from the beginning of the Battle for Zendikar story “The Silent Cry”:

Every day there was something new, something Zendikar taught Nissa that surprised and delighted her. The land had hundreds of magnificent secrets, and it was sharing them with her.   She would never have guessed that the giant mantises secreted a scent meant to simulate the odor of fresh worms and thus attract small song birds—but not for the mantises to prey on, rather for the purpose of enjoying the birds' melodies. The songs were one of the few things capable of lulling the mantises into an easy sleep. Nor would she have known that the vines draped between the close-growing, towering heart trees of the Vastwood Forest were more like arms than vines—arms that were holding hands. Each vine grew out of the trunks of two trees; it did not belong to one tree more than the other, it was shared equally between them, a tether that bound the trees. The vines connected one heart tree with its chosen companion, and allowed the two to share memories, feelings, and dreams. These trees were linked forever; they mated for life. And the gnarlids, the silly, beastly, sneaky gnarlids; they had a ritual that they managed to keep hidden from most everyone else on Zendikar. On the darkest nights, when there was no moon but the skies were clear, the gnarlids scaled the tallest trees, poking their heads above the canopies, and they laughed at the stars. Little breathy snickers that to anyone else listening sounded like nothing more than the leaves of the highest branches rustling in the wind. It was an inside joke meant only for them. Equally as impressive was the tribe of humans who lived in the lowest canopy of the Vastwood's trees—not in a central encampment, but spread out through the expanse of the forest. Five or six humans shared each treehouse hamlet, and there were over a dozen hamlets. The tribe was able to stay well informed of each other's movements and needs thanks to their ancestors, who had closely studied the language of the chatter sloths. The people sent messages to each other by speaking to the nearest chatter sloth. It was only a matter of minutes before the sloth would relate the gossip to its neighbors, who would pass it along through the network of tree dwellers. Soon all humans in the tribe would know of the hamlet's news thanks to the little gossipmongers.

It’s important here that Nissa shares equal amazement with the goings on of plants and animals as she does with the ingenuity of her fellow sentient mortals; to her, they are no different. To Nissa, the “animation of all nature” is not some crude, outdated philosophy that has been surpassed by rationality. It is her everyday reality. 

Of course, however, Magic the Gathering is a game of wizards battling each other, and its worlds and characters are full of wonder and, well, magic. The “animation of all nature” has another meaning to Nissa in that she can call out to the interior soul of immobile objects and, in a non-metaphorical way, personify them … as in, she can “animate” objects into living, walking, thinking, fighting creatures with a will of their own. In the first story of the Zendikar Rising arc, “In the Heart of the Skyclave,” Nissa and Nahiri, looking for a specific object of interest, are at a loss at which place to begin hunting for it in a giant, city-sized airborne dungeon when Nissa spots a lone fern:

Nissa crouched down to one of the ferns. Its leaves were as large as she was, but its flowers were tiny, delicate, and blue. "How is it possible for plants to thrive here?" Nahiri asked, coming up behind her. Nissa smiled. "You'd be surprised at how many things thrive in unlikely places on this plane." "How—" Nahiri began to speak again, but Nissa tuned her out. She rested a hand on the top of the fern, like a parent's hand on the head of a child. She closed her eyes and felt its life under her fingers, felt its struggle and its pride in surviving in such a foreboding place. Nissa smiled at that strength and that pride. And she called it forth. She heard Nahiri give a gasp as the elemental emerged into existence. It was a tall thing, twice her height, green and vibrant as its life force, its head a mass of fronds with small chains of blue flowers entwining its arms and neck.

The dual meaning of the “animation of all nature” is on display here. Nissa very clearly acknowledges the personhood of the fern, using terms usually reserved for descriptions of the lives of people like struggle and pride, and at the same time she animates the stationary fern into a creature, a person with a will of its own and strength to match. In the end, many elements of the Zendikar Rising arc were lacking, but I always found this particular scene to be a wonderful marriage of the best parts of Magic story: great character moments tied together with a childlike wonder at the beauty and power of magic.

Part II: Infinite Possibilities

Anthropology, however, has moved far beyond its Victorian, colonialist roots. On the same note, Nissa has grown and expanded far beyond the borders of what she previously was.

In 2006, anthropologist Tim Ingold published an essay titled Rethinking the Animate, Re-Animating Thought that reevaluates the concept of animism (there are, of course, many evolutionary steps between the philosophies of 1871 and those of 2006, but for the purposes of this piece, suffice it to say that things have changed). Ingold’s primary thesis is that animism should be considered less of a primitive branch of religious thought and more of an ontological philosophy, an experience of being present in the world. In his research, Ingold provides this anecdote:

One man from among the Wemindji Cree, native hunters of northern Canada, offered the following meaning to the ethnographer Colin Scott. Life, he said, is ‘continuous birth.’ I want to nail that to my door! It goes to the heart of the matter. To elaborate: life in the animic ontology is not an emanation but a generation of being, in a world that is not pre-ordained but incipient, forever on the verge of the actual. One is continually present as witness to that moment, always moving like the crest of a wave, at which the world is about to disclose itself for what it is.

This is a lot to unpack, but let’s use this to point out the similarities and differences between the previous 1871 understanding of animism. Like Tylor’s initial exploration of the concept, Ingold’s animists still treat the world around them with same respect and reverence; they still, in other words, still interact with the world with a subject-subject relationship instead of a more rational subject-object relationship. However, instead of fixating on the spiritual aspects of animism (i.e. - the inherent soul of inanimate objects), this modern take is more of a state of being, a practice of actively engaging with the world around you. 

Ingold, in other places, argues that, while yes, animism intentionally blurs the line between what is considered ‘alive’ and what is not, the true cornerstone of an animist ontology is the process of change:

Wherever there is life there is movement … The movement of life is specifically of becoming rather than being, of renewal along a path rather than displacement in space. Every creature, as it ‘issues forth’ and trails behind, moves in its characteristic way. The sun is alive because of the way it moves through the firmament, but so too are the trees because of the particular ways their boughs sway or their leaves flutter in the wind, and because of the sounds they make in doing so.

An animist, then, in this ontology is in a responsive, conversational relationship with the world around them. They wouldn’t fixate, for example, on the personhood of a tree, but they would know how to have a positive, symbiotic relationship with the tree.

What does this new way of looking at animism have to do with Nissa Revane, though? It seemed like Tylor’s outdated definition of animism already had both Nissa’s worldview and the manifestation of her magic pegged down. What could be added? Well, like the definition of animism, like this “world that is not pre-ordained but incipient, forever on the verge of the actual,” Nissa herself has changed drastically in recent years.

If I had the time and bandwidth, I might set out to argue that, of all Magic’s heroes in the last decade, Nissa has gone through the most character growth of any of them; she has shifted through the most colors and she has gone through the most development of any other planeswalker. However, for the purposes of this piece, I’m going to focus on the most recent story (to date) that Nissa has appeared in: Grace P. Fong’s “She Who Breaks the World.” Now, I’ve made it no secret that this is my favorite piece of Magic fiction since the Ixalan days, so I’m certainly biased here, but the narrative meat in this text is rich and vibrant.

When we pick back up with Nissa in “She Who Breaks the World,” we find her at likely the lowest point we have ever seen her at. Her agonies are manyfold at this point. To start, she is still reeling from the unbearable trauma of what the Phyrexians did to her. She had set out with a strike team of her planeswalker allies to stop the Phyrexian invasion of the multiverse, but upon their failure, Nissa, along with many of the others, were captured. Her mind was chemically altered against her will to be utterly, completely submissive to the will of Elesh Norn (the Phyrexian leader, if this essay somehow reaches beyond the MTG sphere). Similarly, her body (again, against her will) was then chemically and mechanically altered to be more in line with the Phyrexian understanding of perfection. Then, Norn used Nissa’s body, mind, and animist powers to launch an invasion of the entire multiverse; Nissa ended up being instrumental in this process because it was her animist abilities that allowed Norn to directly control the Invasion Tree.

Nissa was eventually freed from the Phyrexians’ control in the aftermath of the war, her mind given back to her, and as much of the grafted metal removed from her body as could safely be removed. However, no level of healing could “cleanse the memories of what she had done” while her mind was under the domination of Phyrexia. She understandably has trouble forgiving herself for what she did, whether she had agency in the act or not.

Secondly, if that wasn’t bad enough, after she woke up with her mind intact, she discovered that she had lost her planeswalker spark. While she is not alone in this (all of the other planeswalkers currently on Zhalfir aside from Chandra lost theirs as well), it hits Nissa particularly hard because, for one Nissa has always had a deep connection to her home world of Zendikar, and secondly, Zhalfir is full of people she tried to ruthlessly kill while under the influence of Phyrexia. She cut down in cold blood dozens, if not hundreds, of these survivors’ friends and family. While the surviving Mirrans and Zhalfrins understand that she did not have control of herself during this time and forgave her, Nissa does not feel incredibly comfortable living around people she so directly harmed. She is restlessly homesick with no feasible way to get home and stuck with people she doesn’t feel worthy enough to be around. Furthermore, Nissa’s planeswalker powers are integral to the identity she has created for herself. This sense of self is just one more thing she has lost.

And lastly, there is the issue with Chandra. While they were technically a romantic couple after they kissed at the end of the previous March of the Machines story, “The Rhythms of Life,” things are still far from well between them. Apart from the tremendous guilt and shame Nissa feels from what she did to Chandra during the Phyrexian story arc (Nissa almost killed Chandra multiple times, one time even impaling her), both of them are still dealing with the fallout of their breakup as described in War of the Spark: Forsaken (even typing the name of that book makes me feel ill). Nissa wonders if Chandra can ever love her the way she needs and if that is even a reasonable thing to ask of her after all the two of them have recently gone through.

While this was a long, drawn-out summary, I think it was necessary to show what Nissa is going through on the cusp of her metamorphosis. The depression she is feeling along with what could probably be described as PTSD has left her stuck in the past. She laments the fact that she no longer hears the voice of nature. The leyline songs are completely silent, and when she calls out to the soul she knows dwells in all the objects in the world around her, nothing answers. She assumes this is punishment for what the Phyrexians made her do. 

She’s wrong, however. Nissa and Chandra finally have a moment of understanding between the two of them, and as a part of this intimate moment, Nissa finally admits that her animist power no longer work; when Chandra expresses surprise at this, Nissa responds,

"They won't listen to me. I tried. Many times. But when I call out to them, it's like my voice isn't my own. Like it belongs to Phyrexia instead, like everything I've ever connected to is drowning me out." For once, Chandra pauses. "You know," she concludes. "You have good connections, too." "What do you mean?" "It's true—you did bad things while they had you. But everyone you've connected with over the years with the Gatewatch, we're just happy you're still here. With us." Chandra sets fire to a chunk of moist dirt that was about to fall on Nissa, turning it into a soft rain of ash. "With me." For the first time since she awoke in Zhalfir, Nissa smiles. Chandra, sweet Chandra, even if she doesn't realize it, has always understood and explained emotions better than Nissa ever could. Chandra continues, "Your connections aren't drowning your voice, Nissa. They're changing it into something new, maybe something even more powerful. Infinite voices, infinite possibilities, right?" Infinite possibilities. Nissa offers her hand to Chandra. "All right, let's try." Gripping Chandra's fingers in hers, Nissa closes her eyes. She retreats inward and listens for her inner voice. It's hard, much harder than before, but Chandra is dutifully helping her concentrate, blasting the falling rock away before it can reach her.

Nissa is greeted by ringing deep in her ears, but she refuses to be deterred. With her connections in mind, she picks the static apart into unique melodies, the individual songs she picked up from all around the Multiverse. She arranges them, harmonizes them, and this time, when she calls to Zhalfir, her voice is amplified in chorus. She offers an apology. The plane answers. It too was cut off from everything it knew, from the connections it had made. It, too, was scarred by Phyrexia and is growing into something new. It forgives her, and Nissa can finally forgive herself. Magic floods her flesh, her blood, her bone. She hears Chandra laugh, delighted by their success.

I could literally talk forever about this scene, how it is also a marriage of everything I love about Magic Story, but let’s zero in on how Nissa’s change in perspective is similar to how animism has changed meanings over the past one-hundred and fifty years.

In the same way that Tylor was fixated on how “primitive” he felt animism was, how it was just a cultural stepping stone on the way to enlightenment, Nissa remained fixated on her animist powers. To her, the voices of the natural world were oftentimes more real to her than the voices of her friends. The songs of the leylines, the elementals she could animate with a whisper, the power she wielded in defense of the worldsoul … To Nissa, these were all in all.

However, what Nissa learns from Chandra in the climax of “She Who Breaks the World'' is to accept that life is exactly what Ingold calls a “continuous birth.” Nissa embraces this conversational relationship with the world around her, and nature is no longer all in all to her. Hand in hand with Chandra, Nissa now lives “in a world that is not pre-ordained but incipient, forever on the verge of the actual,” as Ingold puts it, and a world of “infinite possibilities,” as Fong puts it.

As the definition of real-world animism has shifted over the years, so too has Nissa’s magical animism. She used to obsess over her connection with nature with religious fervor, and even though Nissa worshiped no gods, her devotion to the soul of the world around her was stronger than many devout worshippers on Theros. However, in “She Who Breaks the World,” Nissa learns to recognize that she, and the rest of the world around her, is alive because she moves in her own “characteristic way.”

Epilogue

While I have certainly been burned by WotC’s treatment of Nissa in the past, I am cautiously excited for the stories that can now be told about her. Nissa is currently set up to grow and expand in interesting ways, and I hope (beyond hope) that future Magic stories starring Nissa will continue on the path that Fong set her on.

Nissa may be the last of the animists, but that doesn’t mean she can’t be the first of something else. I’m excited to see what that “something else” will be.

Bibliography

Every source quoted in this essay is linked directly before the quote in question. I was too lazy to create a reference page today. Sorry! 😬

[dailymtgflavortext]

So, my not-so-local store had a sale on Kaladesh block a little while ago, and a made a Decision. I wouldn't have bought any of these if there were only one or two of them, but all three? And on sale? That doesn't happen every day.

Guess I need to find the others now.

[wielderofmysteries]

one of my favorite parts of kaladesh block: liliana looking at gideon Disrespectfully

the way she seems to be genuinely irritated by him being attractive / the fact that he's completely oblivious to it is soooooooo funny

[wifelinkmtg]

Yeah alright let’s talk Tarkir

Getting this out of the way: I do not care about Alesha, so if you were coming here ready to hear anything about the first-ever transgender girl out of Magic*, sorry to disappoint.

Actually, yeah, I’m gonna talk about this for a little bit. I understand Alesha means a lot to some people, and I’m not saying they’re wrong to feel that way. I’m sure there are people who had to fight to make Alesha openly & canonically trans, and I’m not saying that this was meaningless, wasted effort. It’s nice to be able to point to someone and say, see, there’s a place for people like me here. I was excited about it at the time and I wasn’t even into Magic back then.

But like c’mon, y’all, she’s not really a character, right? She gets one story, the thrust of which is, “this character is trans, and that’s basically fine.” Alesha exists to be part of the banner image of the internal WotC LGBT employees’ monthly newsletter. She exists to be the discord avatar for every third trans girl into Magic. She exists so a massive corporation can point to her as evidence that they care in some nebulous way about trans people, and she costs slightly less than paying someone to, say, actually moderate the hate speech comments on their vids of Autumn Burchett’s pro tour games.

All of which is to say, they don’t actually care. You know this. Individual staff, writers, artists - sure, but they’re not the ones who make the final decisions. And you and I deserve better from our stories, and we’re never going to get that from fucking Hasbro, right?

So here’s my pitch: seek out actual queer stories, and I’m not talking about contemporary YA shit with a marketing budget. For readers of this specific blog I’d recommend looking up “Attack Helicopter” by Isabel Fall (you should still be able to find it online). Stories where the texture and structure of thought are queer and trans are revelatory. You don’t need to beg for crumbs from a megacorp’s table.

ANYWAY, COMMA,

welcome to Tarkir! There used to not be dragons here, but now there are. In either timeline, everyone is locked in a brutal, unending struggle of clan-against-clan, so thanks, Sarkhan? Yeah, no, I hear you, it’s definitely different now. Yeah, and better. Yeah, because of the...yeah, because there’s dragons now, right. No, you did great, buddy. You really, uh, made a difference.

JESUS, IS HE CRYING? GET ME OUT OF HERE PLEASE

Monastery Swiftspear (art by Steve Argyle)

I’ve come to think of the current era of MtG art (let’s arbitrarily say from Kaladesh block to the present) as the “Magali Villeneuve era”, and if I’m being totally honest, I kind of hate it. Everything is technically competent, clearly lit, and immaculately detailed. Everyone has amazing cheekbones. It is so, so boring. I’m not at all saying she’s a bad artist! Sometimes, as with Kaldheim, she is very nearly the only person in a set making good art. I’ve featured her work on here many, many times.

What I am saying is that her work always has this, like, objectivity to it that feels detached and even alienating, like we’re looking at these characters through a powerful telescope. There’s no stylization, and dare I say no style.

The reason I bring her up in a set in which I will not be reviewing her work (sorry, Narset fans), is that Steve Argyle makes for an interesting comparison. They are to my untrained eye very similar artists: the sharp linework, the combination of dynamics and detachment. The major difference is that Steve’s art is substantially hornier and substantially male-gazier.

And goddammit, at least that’s something.

I HAVE THIS OPINION BECAUSE I’M A BAD FEMINIST. AND I DESERVE TO BE PUNISHED ABOUT IT

Unyielding Krumar (art by Viktor Titov)

I’m not sure why Viktor made this orc look like a ripped lizard man. None of the other orcs in this block look like this. Maybe he thought “krumar” was a species of lizard folk, when in point of fact a krumar is, checks notes, an orphan of the Mardu raised by the Abzan who killed their parents in a twist of worldbuilding regrettably reminiscent of a strategy used in real-world genocides. Whoops!

Anyway, big arms. Lizard person. Sorry about your family.

WIZARDS STAY CLASSY I GUESS

Ire Shaman (art by Jack Wang)

Yeah, see, extremely not a lizard.

We’re not going to talk about armor practicality because that is very much beside the point, but we were all thinking it, and I want to acknowledge that before moving onto saying nice things about what all the leather bands are doing for her arms, and what this lamellar bustier is doing for her tits.

YEAH I KNOW WHAT LAMELLAR IS. PRETTY HOT, RIGHT

Den Protector (art by Viktor Titov)

I am not immune to mothers, nor women in furs, and I’m especially not immune to women with big two-handed weapons (in either sense, I suppose.) I really like the sense of motion in this picture, and the dynamic thrust of the landscape behind her, and... hm. Is her right-hand grip reversed from what it should be? Dammit, that’s going to bother me.

I LIKE MY WOMEN TO HAVE BETTER GRIP TECHNIQUE IS ALL I’M SAYING

Wandering Champion (art by Willian Murai)

I am trying really, really hard not to date myself by a reference to a shitty 20-year-old flash animation. Anyway! she has flexibility, power, and isn’t afraid of a little viscera now and again. All excellent qualities.

I AM HONESTLY EXERCISING IMMENSE SELF-RESTRAINT HERE

Sultai Flayer (art by Izzy)

Sorry, do you not want a forty-foot androgyne snake person to remove your skin with tender, agonizing slowness? Are you lost?

WHY DON’T YOU MARRY YOUR SKIN IF YOU’RE SO GODDAMN ATTACHED TO IT. PUSSY.

Highspire Mantis (art by Igor Kieryluk)

I did the mantis bit in my Battle for Zendikar post, but I thought I’d actually dig into what the appeal is here: raptorial forelimbs. The inescapable, serrated hold of something that could slice you open as easy as thinking, but hasn’t yet. The smoothness of chitin, hard without being inflexible. The many strange articulations. And then either you make out or it eats your head, and it is not up to you which.

WHEN WILL WIZARDS GIVE US THE MANTIS-FUCKER REPRESENTATION WE DESERVE. ROSEWATER’S SILENCE ON THIS ISSUE IS DEAFENING.

Alright, that’s Tarkir down! Who knows what’s next? Probably a very cranky explanation of what fiction is and why it’s okay to like fictional bad guys (it’s because they’re not real.) At first I thought that was going to be a more interesting topic, but the more I think about it the more it seems like it’s...really not. I can have fun with it, though! Thanks for reading, and I’ll see y’all next time.

---------

*the first-ever transgender girl out of Magic/had to settle on a name/and the top three contenders after weeks of debate/were Alesha/and Shensu/and the Kolaghan Bomber

[zwoelffarben]

Ya know, I've been thinking about it, and I think the main problems I have wit the phyrexian invasion plan is that Phyrexia straight up ignored it's biggest strength in favor of a hyper-miltaristic show of force.

Like, the thing that caused the fall of Mirrodin was given the Oil an uninterrupted decade to worm its way through the local ecosystem and power structures until it reached a critical mass and was able to overwhelm the singular plane's ability to resist.

Engaging in open warfare on infinite fronts flies in the face of the far superior strategy of just, send several hundred oil probes to then nearest dozen or so planes in the multiverse and letting the oil cook. Then once the oil has got a plane well and truly phyrxiafucked, repeat.

How much neater would that have been as a saga? Watching as planes at various stages of phyrexianization fall, the oils changing slightly to adapt to the planes. I cringe at the mechanics a phyrexian kaladesh would present to the game, but I'd love to see what Kaladesh's aether, energy that is not mana, would do to the oil story-wise. Similarly, seeing the way color combinations of the guilds of ravnica or shards of alara react to and shape the oil in unique ways. Hell, take us to a plane we've never seen that's already fallen, and we have to piece together what the plan was like pre-phyrexia through the fromsoftian flavortext and environmental storytelling.

All of that, told over several years and dozens of sets, the heros eeking out minor wins against a slew of losses until they find a solution, a vaccine for compleation. Have a block where the vaccine is tested out, and the phyrexians experience their first loss, because they can't subterfuge properly against an opposition they cannot corrupt from within. Then they lose again and again, and as their planar terratory starts to shrink to these mounting victories, it puts Norn in the position where, we'll never be as powerful as we are now: it's time for a hail mary. And that's when the events of All Will Be One happen.

As is, the story we got, being the war of infinite fronts was an unforced error, which is in line with historic and contemporary fascist states, see WW2 era Germany and Japan as well as modern day Israel; but is, from a storyteller's perspective, a really unsatisfying as part of a narrative. Like, girl wasn't even backed into a corner when she made an objectively bad decision: She was just that stupid.

But wotc-hasbro doesn't have the paitence to do subtle years long storytelling anymore. It's all tentpole blockbusters and UB now. Sigh.

[grailfinders]

Grailfinders Viewers' Choice #18: Archetype: Earth

today on Grailfinders we’re building everyone’s favorite funny vampire, Arcueid Brunestud, a.k.a Archetype: Earth. so yeah, all we have to do is make the primal manifestation of the planet who is canonically the most powerful character in Tsukihime in dungeons and dragons.

so obviously she’s a Silverquill Bard to do whatever the hell she wants and to get a free cast of Silvery Barbs constantly, but we also dip into Circle of the Land Druid for even more free spells and some shapeshifting.

check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Race and Background

So, obviously the funny vampire has to be like, a dhampir or something right?

WRONG.

while Arc can suck people’s blood, she chooses not to, so I’d rather not pick a race that’s built around their bites. True Ancestors are naturally occurring beings that come out fully formed, and while they can suck blood, they can also choose not to with enough power. wildly enough, D&D already has a class that fits that description perfectly! hailing from the plane of Kaladesh, put your hands together for the Aetherborn!

most of their stat block is nothing we haven’t seen in other races- some Darkvision here, resistance to necrotic damage from being Born of Aether there, proficiency in Intimidation… the things that set them apart are the optional Gift of the Aetherborn, the previously mentioned bloodsucking which will start an addiction if you use it in-game, and the fact that they get three different stat boosts instead of most races’ two. you get +2 Charisma as well as two +1s in any stats you choose, like Dexterity and Constitution.

we’re also completely throwing out the rulebook on this build by picking up the  Mage of High Sorcery background, giving Arc proficiency in Arcana and History as well as the Initiate of High Sorcery feat she wouldn’t be able to get otherwise. hey look, you’re getting power from the moon! specifically we’re picking the moon Solinari to get Comprehend Languages and Shield. they technically use your Charisma to cast, and you can cast each of them once a day for free, or by using spell slots. you even get Fire Bolt for free too!

Ability Scores

Arc’s highest score is her Charisma. everyone loves Arc. you love Arc. more importantly, Nasu loves Arc. After that is Wisdom. as an embodiment of nature, it would be weird if you didn’t know much about it. Third highest is Constitution. I don’t think a +1 bonus is quite high enough to count for Arc’s nigh-invulnerability, but it’s a start. Your Dexterity is also okay, though I wish it could be higher to deal with fighting in a dress, but we’ll get something to help there later. That means our Strength isn’t great. Obviously it’s supposed to be higher, but DND characters need weaknesses, and this one can get covered by other options later. Finally, we’re dumping Intelligence. Two of your ascensions are completely unaware of the outside world, and we needed wisdom for nature stuff.

Class Levels

1. Bard 1: if you want to be the most powerful vampire, you have to learn the most powerful Spells, which you can cast using your Charisma. right now you can use Friends and Charm Person to make sure everyone loves the funny vampire, as well as Prestidigitation for various general uses, Earth Tremor to tremor some earth like the nature spirit you are, Heroism to boost the offensive power of your allies, and Longstrider to move a bit faster than the average person.

…what? we’re obviously not going to get the most powerful spells at level one. be patient.

you also get Bardic Inspiration, so you can give a d6 to your friends to improve one of their attacks, saves, or skill checks Charisma Modifier times per long rest. plus, starting as a bard you get proficiency in Dexterity and Charisma saves, plus three skills of your choice. Athletics and Acrobatics will help make up for the low scores in physical stats, and Nature just kind of makes sense.

2. Bard 2: second level bards can do whatever they want thanks to being a Jack of All Trades, adding half their proficiency bonus to any skill checks they make without proficiency. you can also sing a Song of Rest during short rests so your party heals 1d6 more if they use hit dice. like every other bard build, I have no excuse for this being here, but so few people heal on short rests anyways, it’s fine. your inspiration also becomes Magical Inspiration, so your allies can now add it to their healing and damage rolls from spells.

you can also Speak with Animals now. that’s a nature thing, probably. don’t worry, the funny vampire stuff will come.

3. Bard 3: At third level you join the college of Silverquill, becoming an Eloquent Apprentice. this gives you a free Sacred Flame, and you get proficiency in Insight and Persuasion. Soon, everyone will love the funny vampire. you can also cast Silvery Barbs. not the spell, but the feature! the only meaningful difference is that the feature doesn’t work on charm-immune creatures.

for anyone who doesn’t know how this works, you can react to any creature succeeding on an attack, check, or save within 60’ of you, and force them to roll another d20 and use the lower roll. if this causes the roll to fail, you can then empower another creature nearby, allowing them to roll another attack, check, or save they make within the next minute. as a feature, you can do this for free once per day, though the use isn’t actually expended until it causes a failure. that being said, the reason we’ll never pick up the spell in this build is because you can still use the feature again and again by spending spell slots. so yes, we now have essentially three extra spell slots, and we’re only at level three.

speaking of spell slots, you have second level slots now, and second level spells to use them with. Aid will add to your total HP as well as that of your allies’ for eight hours after casting.

finally, you get Expertise in two skills, doubling your proficiency bonus with Athletics and Acrobatics respectively. sure, you won’t be great at punching people, but with this and Jack of All Trades, you can more or less cover for having such a low strength score in the first place.

4. Bard 4: at fourth level you get your first Ability Score Improvement, so let’s round up those odd scores with a +1 to Dexterity and Charisma for stronger spells and a higher AC. if you’re really bent out of shape about your weak lil fists you can cast True Strike now to get advantage on your next melee attack. or you can spend your turn doing something actually useful like casting Enhance Ability to further enhance your skill rolls with free advantage for a minute for one kind of ability. intelligence, wisdom, and charisma don’t have anything special, but if you pick strength, you’ll also double your carrying capacity. constitution will give you some temporary HP, and dexterity prevents falling damage.

5. Bard 5: at level five bards get their biggest level yet. your inspiration die becomes a d8 now, and you become a Font of Inspiration, letting you recharge your dice every short rest instead of just long ones. you can grab third level spells now, but I’m going to hold off on that for a level to pick up Shatter. now you can punch really well, and you have a spell that can hit multiple enemies, which should start being useful around now.

6. Bard 6: if you’re going to be a powerful vampire, you need powerful feats, like Countercharm. hah, just kidding, that sucks. Inky Shroud is pretty cool though. you learn Darkness for free, and you can cast it once a day without spending a spell slot. on top of that, casting it for free lets you see through the darkness, and creatures starting their turn there take psychic damage with no save!

you can also manifest your naturey powers with some Plant Growth, which you can cast in two ways. the short-term growth creates difficult terrain in an area, while the long-term version will improve crop yields, if you ever feel like being nice to the NPCs.

7. Bard 7: at seventh level you get a lot more mobile thanks to Dimension Door allowing you to teleport up to 500’ away as an action, and you can even bring a willing friend along for the ride!

8. Bard 8: okay, I’m done with all this boring crap. grab that last Charisma boost from your ASI and learn Polymorph. admittedly this spell is stretching things a little, but you do get compared to Enkidu sometimes, and they can shapeshift out the wazoo. with Polymorph, you can turn yourself or a friend into any beast of a challenge rating equal to or lower than their level, fully replacing their stats and HP.

9. Bard 9: ninth level bards can play a better song of rest, but more importantly they get fifth level spells. with Hold Monster you can now use your rainbow mystic eyes to paralyze any one creature in place if they fail a wisdom save and aren’t undead. you can even use it on multiple targets by upcasting it, though I imagine you’ll have better uses for a ninth level spell slot. (aid, obviously.) this gives your allies advantage on all attacks against the paralyzed enemy, with instant critical damage for melee attacks. you can’t really take advantage of that yet, but give it a hot second.

10. Bard 10: now that a hot second has passed, let’s get down to business. real quick- your inspiration is a d10 now, and you have expertise in Persuasion and Nature (everyone will love that vampire).

you also learn some Magical Secrets, so you can pick up any two spells from any spell list in the game. for your regular cantrip pick up Blade Ward for some more unkillability. then for your secrets, Primal Savagery lets you turn your hands into claws and attack people, dealing acid damage when you hit. since it’s a spell attack, it’ll use your charisma (good) instead of your strength (bad). you can also craft a Wall of Stone. stone is natural, you make nature happen.

11. Druid 1: we’re only bouncing over to druid for a few things, but you do learn some Druidic while you’re there, and you learn even more cantrips. Shillelagh lets you make any staff magical, though it’ll still only use your wisdom to hit. still better than strength. you can also gain Resistance to magic thanks to an extra d4 on your next saving throw, and you can Mold Earth.

most importantly, you gain access to the druid Spell list, one of the most powerful in the game. and I don’t have to tell you exactly what to pick this time since anything that makes something natural is fair game.

your druid and bard spell slots kind of blur together, so check your handbook to see how many spell slots you have at a given time.

12. Druid 2: Second level druids can use a Wild Shape twice a short rest, turning into a beast of cr ¼ or lower as an action. Polymorph is much stronger at this stage, though being able to keep your intelligence and concentrate on another spell can have its uses. you can also use this to turn into Neco-Arc without wasting a fourth level spell slot.

alternatively, you can summon one as your Wild Companion, letting you cast Find Familiar for free instead.

as a druid of the land, you have access to another druid cantrip like gust. wind is natural, and we hadn’t picked it up yet. more importantly, your Natural Recovery lets you recharge spell slots over a short rest, with the total level recovered equal to half your druid level rounded up. yes, we’re taking multiple levels in another class just to get Breath of the Planet. you know I wouldn’t leave you hanging, fans of Breath of the Planet. can I call you breathheads? I’m not sure if that’s a fan nickname or a slur, it sounds a little like both.

13. Druid 3: third level druids get second level spells, and as a land druid you get some extras depending on the kind of nature you’re representing. while the moon may have a lot of seas, the forest circle has spells we actually want. Barkskin will supercharge your AC for a short period of time, while Spider Climb lets you do the classic “crawling up the walls” vampire thing.

14. Bard 11: now that our random detour is over, you get sixth level bard spells like Eyebite. It’s an even better and more literal Rainbow Mystic Eyes skill! each turn for a minute, you can use your action (including the casting action) to force one creature you can see to make a Wisdom save. if they fail, you can force them asleep, into a panic, or make them sickened.

15. Bard 12: using aid to bump up your health is getting less and less feasible at this point, so use this ASI to bump up your Constitution for an extra 15 HP this level.

16. Bard 13: blah blah better song of rest who cares it’s Mirage Arcane time baby! you can now make the millenium castle, as well as just about anything else you’d like, as long as it fits within a square mile of space. it takes ten minutes to cast, but it lasts ten days, and despite being an “illusion”, it even feels real. it also says it can’t change the general shape of the terrain, but then it immediately gives suggestions where it does exactly that, so it might just be poorly written.

17. Bard 14: fourteenth level strixhaven bards are a little weird. most classes get four subclass features, but bards don’t, so we have to pick between two different features this level. that said, Word of Power is obviously the stronger option. whenever your silvery barbs succeeds, the failed creature gets a vulnerability to one damage type for the rest of the round. you can’t capitalize on this, but if your paladin friend got a better initiative than you you can cause some serious damage.

alternatively, you can use your reaction to give a creature resistance to a type of damage they’re taking, with you taking the blocked damage as a psychic hit. boom, third skill done and dusted.

you also get another round of magical secrets, so pick up Haste for some actual super-speed and Wall of Thorns for some more plant growth. the former gives you doubled movement speed and an extra action for dashing, the latter makes a wall of thorny bushes that is 60’ long and 10’ high. creatures in the area upon its creation take piercing damage, and movement through the wall is quartered. moving into or ending a turn in the wall also deals slashing damage.

18. Bard 15: your inspiration grows one last time to a d12, and you can now cast eighth level spells like Glibness. for up to an hour after casting, all your charisma checks can automatically get a 15 on the die. there is no longer any point in resisting. you will like the funny vampire.

19. Bard 16: for our final ASI, we’re picking up a feat! no, we’re not grabbing Tough. instead, pick up Adept of the White Robes to get those fancy outfits you like wearing. thanks to this feat, you can now cast Fortune’s Favor once a day for free, and it’s added to your spell list as well. it takes a minute to cast, but for an hour afterwards the target can end the spell to roll another d20 when they make an attack, check or save, and use either option. this can also be used when someone attacks them. essentially, it’s a use of the lucky feat. things just kind of go Arc’s way. it’s mostly thanks to being the ultimate lifeform, but being the author’s favorite doesn’t hurt. 100 gold per casting is pretty costly, but when you upcast it you can give your whole party pseudo-Lucky, so it’s well worth the price.

you can also make a Protective Ward using your Charisma. when a creature takes damage nearby, you can use your reaction and a spell slot to reduce the damage they take. it’s kind of like Word of Power, but it’ll usually help less, though not having to bean yourself to make it work is nice. your roll the spell slot’s level in d6s, add your charisma modifier, and that’s how much damage it saves. you technically don’t have a use for your ninth level slot yet, but I still think there’s better uses than eating 9d6 damage, probably. but if it’s that or someone disintegrating go nuts.

20. Bard 17: our final level of bard gives you the most powerful bard feature ever made. mankind weeps at its coming… because the improved Song of Rest die is actually really bad. it scales terribly. the ninth level spell is cool though, especially if you pick Foresight. after a minute of cast time, you can spend the next eight hours with future sight, preventing you from ever being surprised. you also get advantage on all attacks, saves, and checks, plus anyone attacking you has disadvantage. it costs nothing, and it doesn’t use concentration. go nuts.

Archetype vs. Arc

normally, this is the part of the post where I post the strengths and weaknesses of the build. but this is a chance to simp for Magical-Biche’s Arcueid build, so instead I’m going to compare the two here and see if Earth can stand up to the original.

for anyone who doesn’t remember, the other Arc is a Vengeance Paladin and a Champion Fighter, as well as a Barbarian for flavor and unarmored defense. assuming they’re fighting one-on-one at level 20 it’s a pretty even match, with Arc showing up with way more HP and a more physical fighting style than Earth. however, Earth’s Foresight pulls a lot of weight to put her back in the lead, especially by giving Arc disadvantage on all attacks and using either shield or silvery barbs to beat back anything that still gets through.

Overall I think Earth would probably eke out a win here, but going up against Arc at any other level isn’t even a question. Arc’s simply way too aggressive for Earth to handle, even if she’s given setup time to cover for all of her bardic squishiness. it’s especially bad considering her most powerful attacking spell a) uses a save, which Arc’s paladin aura defangs handily, and b) deals physical damage, which Arc can resist.

I still think the Earth build is cool, it has a lot more utility than Arc does, but in a straight fight Arc stomps the competition.

[theworldgate]

Okay, so, I get why people are annoyed at the Universes Beyond standard-legality (though, realistically, that means that the aim is to aim for that power level[1]), and I really get why people are annoyed at the reduction in the number of Magic IP sets per year (because, like, that means less story and longer gaps between the story[2] and posting about the story is the one reason I ever seem to use Tumblr nowadays)... but the Spongebob Secret Lair?!

Like, distinctive aesthetics and characters, well known, already the subject of a bajillion alters... it's kind of the ideal fit for a Universes Beyond Secret Lair?

I mean, my guess is that one's on the perennial people who hate WotC for Going Woke and readily jump on any mass community complaint, because otherwise, like, really?

[1] Not least because, like, WotC won't be able to reprint the UB cards as readily in a supplementary set (though conversely: there's an MtG finance guy at the Bank of America who might like the idea and/or attack Hasbro for not making the hard-to-reprint-stuff powerful. God capitalism is stupid sometimes.). Though I'm actually not necessarily looking forward to the full Spiderman takeover of Magic Arena.

[2] Though I doubt they'd ever kill the story, if only because of the perennial hope of franchising it out, and because Hasbro needs a fallback for the 2030s when the Franchising deals have dried up. I'd say "damn, that's a long time" but we're closer to that than we are to, like, Kaladesh block's release.

[jacebeleren]

Do you think that during the Kaladesh block, the rest of the Gatewatch were shouting saturday morning cartoon hero phrases at Tezzeret like "You're no match for the power of friendship!" and "Your evil ways stand no chance against the Gatewatch!" and Jace was just thinking "This man emotionally and physically abused me"?

i mean thats pretty much what happened (<-- me when i lie) except it was liliana who was saying "this man emotionally and physically abused jace"

[thecornwall]

Cornwall's Random Card of the Day #820: Tranquil Expanse

Tranquil Expanse is an uncommon from Oath of the Gatewatch, shown here in its common Magic 2019 printing.

This is clearly part of a cycle of vanilla tap duallands, and if you don't understand any part of that sentence, welcome to Magic the Gathering! I think Tranquil Thicket has been the name of a green cycling land before, so this is just a sorta rename of that. But EXPANSIVE! This is an example of WotC using generic names for cards they think will be reprinted a lot: lots of things can be an expanse.

Speaking of reprints, this was originally a land set on Zendikar but is in this printing set on Kaladesh. I do like seeing other parts of a plane that might not have been the focus during the block that plane featured in, something we could use core sets for back when they were a thing. There IS a life outside the big city in Kaladesh.

[inventors-fair]

Perspective Commentary: All Sides

Like I mentioned in the chat, there were a lot of entries that caught my eye, and narrowing them down was a process. There were also a lot of cards that made me uncertain about how to proceed, and we’ll get there, but here are my majors for this week.

I really liked the way that people utilized card types to either enhance or shift the perception of the story. That was the main goal of the contest, and turning moments into monuments, or characters into dramatizations, really worked well for me. I’m glad obviously since that was the goal of the contest but all the same, really impressed by how people chose to use that.

I feel mixed about the complexity this week. There were a lot more grounded cards to be sure, and there came a point where I found myself impressed by the down-to-earth nature of it, but there were still come less-than-elegant choices that make me feel that people are pushing for a horizon for the sake of it. Wording was really awesome this week, though.

The most improvement I want to see is the practicality of cards. There were some strong mechanical entries, but there were a lot of pragmatic pieces where I feel people needed to take a step back and examine the card on its own merit. In greater environments, there are combos and interactions to watch out for, but many cards’ choices assumed things that didn’t come across in a way that made me ask questions, but rather, made me question the intent and/or the necessity of that intent.

Take a look at Judge Picks if you want to see cards that I feel stand out for specific reasons. Check ‘em if you want to pick up on some design chops.

@0woah — Feroz’s Ban (Feroz’s Ban)

There’s...a lot of questions I have, but my first one is about that mana cost. Whatever compelled that colorless-and-white combination, it’s a strange and off-putting restriction that doesn’t feel relevant or necessary here. Perhaps there’s compelling evidence in-story, but gameplay-wise, it’s not something that needs to appear here. As for the card’s application, four-mana planeswalker wrath is not the worst thing in the world, but it’s extremely narrow. In most cases, I imagine it simply stops creature spells for a turn, and the fact that you have to have a legendary creature/planeswalker to cast it in the first place feels more demanding than not.

Despite a lack of practicality, the story aspect of players not being able to cast creature or planeswalker spells feels good enough. The ban itself, from what I’m reading, didn’t actually destroy anything—or anyone, rather—so I hesitate to see how that applies itself exactly. I didn’t know much about Ulgrotha, though, so that peek into history is nice. The representation is more modern, and I’l give you that much. Overall, though, there’s a lot about this card that handles too clunkily for it to have a home even in sideboards.

~

@bergdg — Detaintment Corps (Confiscation Coup)

One of the first examples we had in the modhouse was based on this card, ha! As a story moment it does feel compelling to make it into another card that doesn’t use energy. The blink is definitely the best part about this, and the flavor text ain’t too bad either; I can really hear the robotic grind. Having the representation of the Consulate be blue and white feels great; Dovin was a jerkwad and I’m glad that those colors really showed their antagonistic side in the Kaladesh block.

My main critique is the handling of the first trigger. IMO, there was no reason for this not to be just a Thopter Arrest on a stick? Or rather: “When ~ enters the battlefield, exile target nontoken artifact or creature until ~ leaves the battlefield.” You could make it “you don’t control” if you really wanted to, but why not tokens, actually? I want to blink the heck out of someone’s thopters, and in a set where (presumably) thopters and servos exist (or at least a world) there’s nothing wrong with doing so. The “nonland” part is just silly to me. If my opponents are playing Seats of the Synod, I wanna O-Ring the crap out of that, and it’s frustrating that I don’t have the opportunity to because of what I presume is flavor reasons that aren’t relevant except in formats where this card probably wouldn’t be played. Y’know? This card is potentially fantastic—patrolling, chasing the big enemy, locking down, patrolling again. Just that little bit more polish could make it stellar.

~

@bread-into-toast — Rekindle Hope (Wrenn and Realmbreaker/Wrenn’s Resolve)

* JUDGE PICK

So I’m gonna talk a lot about modal spells and story choices here further on because there were a few that irked me. This one doesn’t and I’m really wracking my head trying to figure out why exactly I’m more lenient with it. I think it’s because it illustrates something important about the story: the inability to fulfill every choice on a single path, where every choice needs to be made and yet can’t be made. Wrenn wants to enact destruction, fire upon the enemy, and grow herself with her tree. And she doesn’t have the strength for all of it! So you have to do everything you can and sacrifice one thing. That feels like character growth—a non-binary choice of strengths based on the needs of the moment.

That’s the gist, innit? This is probably one of the strongest story cards for sure. It just happened to be up against a week where there are a lot of mechanically perfect cards as well, and in my judicial opinion, searching for two lands at instant speed on a mode feels a little too strong without playtesting. Am I wrong? Shoot, probably. It’s genuinely probably fine. I’d love to play this in a beefed-up Xenagos deck with duals and whatever, but that hardly matters. God, maybe that’s wrong and I’m nitpicking because of arbitrary numeric choices, but that’s besides the point. Story-wise this is the best modal usage of character choices that one could’ve asked for, and I want to hold it up as an example for that at the very least.

~

@certification-wizard — Guilt of Unmaking (Anguished Unmaking)

You know, I have to wonder: how guilty is Sorin, really? Does he feel that guilt with everything? He’s kind of a vampire. You know, a guy that...eats people. Avacyn was...like a fusion of magnum opus and daughter to him. Does he feel that kind of guilt every time he kills something, or is it, like, just the one time? I genuinely can’t think of a reason for this to be a curse flavored this way in the story, sorry. It’s definitely a unique take, though, and the name kicks ass for sure. I’m glad to see weird cards like curses find their way into contests where they belong.

As for the card itself, I wish it wasn’t quite so narrow, because the concept feels akin to Karmic Justice, which I’m sure was the basis for this kind of card. In a premier set, the amount of times you’re going to encounter this in limited is so narrow that I doubt it would do more than just get rid of one of your own creatures. Commander, though? Perhaps it would be stronger. I think that you could have pushed for a broader punishment for the crime on the mechanical side of things. Three life does add up, but the punishment could be more severe for the infrequency of the crime. Great concept, and an interesting card angle. I’d like to see a bit more of a push on the power and a nudge on the story.

~

@halfsilveredmirror — Tainted Cure (Tainted Remedy)

Now I get to be all hither and thither about modal story moments. What exactly is this supposed to represent? The thing is, only one things happened here. Liliana may have been hoping for something to happen, but the curative power of her medicine isn’t flavorfully sensible to do on a draw spell. And we know what happened: her brother became a lich. Admittedly, the first story moment represented by Tainted Remedy is a little bit odd as an enchantment, but it’s about a moment locked in time, and requires that wiggle room. This card has several outcomes for a singular moment, and I’m really not sure what to do with it, because I’m failing to see how the modes connect to the outcome.

Mechanically this card is pretty weird, too. The most favorable outcome I can see are modes 1 and 3 happening together, which means your opponent gets the life you lost, as well as a card, but they lose a creature. That’s...not great. This card overall isn’t favorable. I’d much rather play the instant-speed of Diabolic Edict and the straightforwardness of Night’s Whisper than whatever this is trying to do. For two mana, there aren’t going to be any stellar ways of going about casting this card. I can’t find any specific weird use for it as a limited selection or a constructed place. For the future, I’d strongly consider the kinds of normal board states you’d see in a premier archetype and compare how you want to affect those states with other cards that do similar effects. You’ll see the disparity easily enough.

~

@helloijustreadyourpost — Release from the Helvault (Avacyn, Angel of Hope et. al.)

I really want to like the weird kind of cheap reanimation that you’re going for here. Honestly, I’m going to take a step back: I have to imagine this card, not as the moment in reality where Griselbrand was released, but rather, as a representation of the story being told canonically to someone else in reality. It’s only then that I can stop grousing about how the angel is only a representation of Avacyn and how it wasn’t a reanimation precisely, and on and on. No, I like this card as an out-of-time retelling. I’m knocking points for it not precisely being its own in-the-moment moment, but what’re you gonna do?

Mechanically it’s great. Seriously, it’s pretty awesome! It’s a rough drawback for sure if you wanna get your bomb out, especially if it doesn’t have flying itself, but it’s seriously cool that if you reanimate Griselbrand your opponent gets a copy of Avacyn’s representation. Cheap creatures giving your opponents cheap fliers hardly matters if you’re ahead of the race, and there are other ways to get rid of tokens that can be used in conjunction with this card. Heh, reanimating a bounce creature would be fun for sure. It’s not a card that’s gonna break any formats because of the drawback, but premier sets getting this kind of cheap reanimation is still totally fine. Not bad. I’ll let braver people play this card.

~

@hiygamer — Unwavering Devotion (Cruel Reality)

Okay, I think I’m feeling what your goal was. Instead of Gideon’s mindset, you wanted to bring yourself closer to what Djeru was having to go through. Checks out. I’m really surprised that this hasn’t seen the kind of printing, you know, the whole sacrificing thing. I can imagine it’s a bit of a pain—but whatever, we’re talking about this card. It’s still quite interesting gameplay-wise! It’s certainly balanced enough at that cost with a symmetrical effect. Honestly, I have the feeling that in the next however many years, we’ll see something similar if not exact. Does exactly what it says on the face.

As for the story, I think I’ll have to sort of concede that this isn’t the perfect example but that it would fit the bill? The name’s great, and the flavor text is quite well-written—even if there’s a song with that line in it that I have in my library and canNOT recall the name of and it’s been driving me nuts—and it would make sense to have sacrifice be a major part of the Amonkhet storyline. It’s a shame that there’s not like, the one creature left standing to represent Djeru? Cruel Reality is a weird one but it’s designed to support Amonkhet’s cutthroat gifts to the gods and to instill that sense of awful dread I suppose. Here, it’s probably more emotionally personal to Djeru, his mindset. I don’t have to match it 1:1 to feel that. In the heart, this card’s still good.

~

@horsecrash — Contested Reservoir (Invasion of Kaladesh)

* JUDGE PICK

Wow I (jokingly) hate this. Not that I wouldn’t play this card and make people mad, but the second that it’s played against me, I’m going to growl and snarl and be a real jerk about the whole thing. I think that this card suffers from the fact that multiple copies make it absolutely miserable, and someone is going to 100% do that in a stax deck and be mean about it. Still, as a clock, and as an inverse of the Aetherflux version, it’s one heck of a card. What a defense.

The story is neat, too, and the flavor text is superbly written, another one where I legitimately thought that it had been copied. But no, it’s a horsecrash original, so heck yeah to that. The readiness of the Kaladeshians pinging the Phyrexians for their invasion feels awesome. There’s no boom, but there’s sure as heck sparks. “This is OUR resource, and your attacks and advances mean nothing because they’re costing you and I have the energy you don’t.” I wonder, if it WAS legendary, if you could’ve made it inverse as well, where you get the lifegain. Maybe that would’ve been too much, but what do I know, they’ve printed worse. Take out the spaces around the emdash and this card’s pretty darn good. Narrow, but good.

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@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Love’s Betrayal (Phyrexian Arena)

Oddly enough, this feels like a bite or fight effect? I think the wording is a little off, or you could say “you don’t control” instead of “an opponent controls” to make it, like, less weird, but... Huh. Mechanically—oh yeah, sorry, comma after “this turn”—mechanically this card is pretty good, actually. It’s strange to see this effect in BW but not unheard of, at least for the part of it where it’s a killspell, life-loss, counter-Phyrexian thing. I would go so far as to say that this card implies a BW toughness matters draft archetype, which is nice to see.

What’s up with the white, though? That’s what I’m really scratching my head over from a story perspective. The black is clearly Phyrexian, but neither Vraska or Jace have any white in them whatsoever. This card could’ve been any black-X combination except for white or red, in my opinion. Mechanically it could be any black-X, that’s all fine. In the flavor, blue or black could have been perfectly fine. You know, looking at the Phyrexian Arena reprint, I’m a little confused as to what’s happening to merit that moment on that card, barring locale. What about Jace and Vraska’s meeting merited it? Here, we’re sort of in the same state, but if it wasn’t for the color, then it would pass just fine, I think. As for the flavor text, I’ll commend that it’s poetic, perhaps a little flowery, but a good try. Huh. I’ll be honest? If this card had nothing to do with Jace/Vraska I’d be a lot less picky about it.

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@just--a--penguin — Dragonlord’s Trophy (Dragonlord Silumgar)

I feel frustrated at this card’s ties to the original Dragonlord. Part of what this contest was supposed to be about was a complete mechanical departure from the cards on which they were based, and this one is cozying up with its predecessor. I’ll judge it on its own merits from here, but I want to point out what the prompt was asking beforehand. Anyway, this card’s got teeth as it stands. It’s simple enough, which is fine, and I think it could even be uncommon for its cost compared to other mind-control effects where you get to attack with the creature afterwards.

Seeing things from Tasigur’s perspective is pretty cool, despite him being a 99-cent Claire’s discount item now. Also, I just spend the last thirty minutes rereading the Khans-block storyline, and lemme tell you, the audience that Tasigur wanted was not one of pleasure. He was annoyed, and then killed, and he’s not exactly... Well, he’s not exactly pleased or displeased. More dead. It would be interesting to represent that by the brittleness—like, if the aura leaves, the creature gets destroyed or something. All the same, though, the audience part doesn’t quite mesh with what we know about what happened. If it had, this card would be pretty awesome—again, on its own merits.

~

@lanabutnotdelray — An Offer you Can’t Refuse (An Offer you Can’t Refuse)

* JUDGE PICK

Like I mentioned previously, I’m a little frustrated that the specificity of the two treasure tokens was brought to this card too when I wanted them to be completely distinct, and I’m even more frustrated, not at you, that this card depicts the event so much better. Xander enlists Elspeth in the story! Straight-up! It’s exactly how your card’s depicting, to some extent! The flavor text would have been perfect, too—coercive and despicable and sly and elegant and grungy all at once. So that’s something to keep in mind, right? What an odd coincidence.

I forget if you mentioned it, but I think that if it was only one treasure token, this card would be a nice rare. I don’t feel that it would be a healthy uncommon in any premier format. The story of New Capenna doesn’t need radical stuff to make play rougher. Something like, I dunno, Lullmage’s Domination works because the really expensive stuff is slower and the UUU investment is a pain in the butt in most limited formats. Regardless: I wanted to showcase this card for being similar, but not quite the same, but also a little cooler, but also not pushing the envelope of, the card on which it was originally based. Good stuff, I say.

~

@misterstingyjack — Danitha and Radha (Heroic Charge)

* JUDGE PICK

Kickass. I mean, you already know that, clearly. This card kicks so much ass that it’s dented its Swiftfoot Boots. There are...lots of weird little wording quirks and strangenesses that make me pause, but the concept is solid enough as a team-up. I think that taking the new sensibility route for the card that’s basically draft chaff otherwise was a great and bold call and I’m surprised we didn’t see more of that. Story exists on cards other than story spotlights, after all! Just having these lovely ladies together is already doing so much good work.

First strike comes before vigilance, though. C’mon! I don’t believe you need the “then” in the third ability. Mechanically... I mean, this card’s already good, you don’t need me to tell you that. Is it the best Naya commander? Probably not. Is it the best equipment/aura Naya commander? That depends on whether or not you want to spend enough to bling your Uril deck (Jeez, a foil ARB Uril is seventy bucks??) and/or go wider. But are you gonna throw some equipment down and start going crazy? Even when it’s on a single creature, it’s awesome. Two or more? You’re in business. I really like the restrictions that make this card complicate combat. I love the feeling that you’re going for. In short, story-wise, who gives a hoot, but I just really love what you’ve done bringing these ladies to a bloody meeting of the minds.

~

@nine-effing-hells — Sunder the Helvault (Avacyn, Angel of Hope et. al.)

I honestly thought we had more than two Helvault cards in this contest but I’m mistaken. Whoops! Either way, this one is the one where I’m a little less inclined to be charitable. It’s clearly depicting the moment of release, and we already know what happens. I’m actually a little confused as to what this card is supposed to be alluding to as its predecessor, because I put that it was about Avacyn and the rest, but I’m actually not sure. I quite clearly remember the Avacyn Restored trailer, which was kickass, but the only card that actually mentioned the event was Avacyn herself, so... I guess it’s a ‘before’ card, sure.

All the same, the reanimation spell was a stretch, and this card just doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the event in question. Thalia made the choice to destroy the Helvault; is that the reanimation part of this card? What’s the destruction supposed to be, then? An alternative? But it didn’t happen at all; there wasn’t anything that happened that could be tied to that mode and it’s not representative of anything that occurred in the story. Having a modal option on a story-based card should be representative of the events in question, OR the multitudinous possibilities that don’t affect further outcomes. This is, of course, my opinion, but it’s what makes the most sense. Nonlinear stories call for different options; not every card can be Crux of Fate, which is in a wheelhouse of its own. I...rambled too long and didn’t talk about the mechanics. It’s commendable enough as a boardwipe. It’s hard to get excited with the aforementioned issues, but.

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@stupidstupidratcreatures — Urza, Sworn to Yawgmoth (Phyrexian Arena)

Envelope, consider yourself pushed. Well! This card is...definitely a card. I want to say that this card is a leap and a bound, but it’s quite weak overall. There’s no way for Urza to continue, so for three mana, you get either four mill options over four turns or a couple mills and one exile. Hm. Okay, it’s not THAT bad, actually, but there’s a lot to be desired personally. There’s no way to keep him around and there’s no way to make him anything more than a recursive-ish removal-ish card assuming he doesn’t die. I think he would be pretty okay in a control deck? But like, yeesh, compared to any other control card, he’s not the strongest, and I wouldn’t know personally what the hell to do with him.

The story of the Urza block at least comes in little chunks, so the Arena portion was easy to see. Do I understand fully what you’re going for? Kinda, a little. I don’t feel still that its the best use of a mythic slot or a planeswalker slot considering the power with which Urza operated to have his severed head become part of the legacy weapon, but what are you gonna do when your head gets chopped off, right? I think that I don’t hate this card, but I don’t love it, either, not compared with a preconceived notion of planeswalkers and a desire for a board state to encompass XYZ qualities. I’m genuinely curious to see what parts of the story you wanted to bring across in a 1:1 way, because I’ll admit to not fully understanding what I’m supposed to be evaluating.

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@wolkemesser — Pulled to Ground (???)

Without a “then,” the second sentence in this card doesn’t do much to the fliers. Aside from that, holy cow, this is a cool card. I like the pseudo-freeze and exhaustion and this is one heck of a rare. It might be a little strong, and 2WG might have been better, but that hardly matters. I think this is a great instant to support an archetype where you might have to face some creature-heavy boards, and that part of the card comes across quite well.

As for the story, what the hell is this supposed to be precisely? I genuinely cannot find the right card to show what this is, and maybe it’s obvious to someone who knows the story, but I’m lost, because you went to LEGENDS and pulled this out of thin air. Does it accurately represent what these Mercenaries went through? I don’t know! Maybe this is part of my lack of knowledge, or maybe I can blame this on over twenty years of story happening in a time probably before I could read well enough to know that Magic had novels. Either way, I’m not seriously upset in any regard, but I’m sure wishing you submitted what card you chose beforehand, because I’m at a loss and I REALLY wanna know.

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Thank you all for your entries! New contest tarmarroew. Hecka. —@abelzumi

[markrosewater]

I like the new system of unique worlds better than the old block system, but I do wish that “build around me” mechanics could bridge sets. Examples: bant colored exalted on Alara followed by black exalted with Domnaria’s Cabal, or kaladesh aether energy followed by a tweaked Vyrn mage-ring energy, or maybe Innastrad Day/Night followed by a different style on lorwyn/shadowmoor. I just like mechanic decks and get sad when they go away.

Here’s the problem about putting linear (what you call “build me around”) mechanics in back-to-back sets. Play design can’t push the mechanics because they have to leave space to advance in the next set.

That makes the first impression of the mechanic poor. And if they miss, which happens, and overshoot, then the second set can’t have any powerful cards with the mechanic. If it’s bad enough, we have to pull the mechanic from the second set which causes all sorts of issues.

Both happened frequently with blocks, and was one of the reasons we moved away from them.

We do pick mechanics that are synergistic allowing cards to mix between sets, but that’s a lot easier to manage.

[sylvan-librarian]

I read through the Ixalan block during the last few days. I'd been focusing on Nissa-centric Magic stories recently (both for the writing I've been doing and because I am obsessed), so it has been a while since I tackled them.

And damn.

As much as I love the Kaladesh arc, Ixalan was really when the Gatewatch-era Magic story team started firing on all cylinders. Just a gorgeous, heart-breaking, and heart-healing set of stories.

[meatyhandbag]

Pro-Tour Kaladesh Format is Amazing

Pro Tour Kaladesh is my favorite standard format ever. It’s incredibly diverse, very complicated and suprisingly low power despite having such amazing bombs. This is a format where a 1/2 that makes a clue is one of the strongest cards in the format, sitting next to a literal eldritch titan that warps sanity and threatens to destroy the format.

It is because of that particular Eldrazi, Emrakul the Promised End, that people bemoan this format, but the thing about Emrakul, is that at the highest level of play, people were prepared for her, and there was a LOT of available hate.

But before we get into the hate, we should explain Emrakul and why she was so powerful.

Emrakul, the Boogie-Thing

Emrakul is a 13/13 for 13 mana that costs 1 less to cast for each card type in your graveyard. As a cast trigger, so before she even enters the battlefield, she creates a lingering effect that at the end of your turn, you get to steal your opponent’s turn. Cast their spells, attack with their monsters, draw from their deck. Then, at the end of that turn, your opponent gets a free turn to do whatever they can with their new resources. She also has Flying, Trample, and Protection from Instants, meaning instant cards cannot target her or deal damage to her. Or block, but WotC hasn’t given us an Instant that can attack or block… yet.

Now, because Tribal wasn’t getting printed, and Battles don’t exist yet, the maximum number of card types you can get in your graveyard is 7, meaning the cheapest you can get her out at is 6 mana. Or 4 if you’re an aetherworks deck.

Y’See, there were two different schools of thought when it came to Emrakul, and those ideas came to blows with the final match of Pro-Tour Kaladesh. Black-Green Delirium or Temur Aetherworks.

[wielderofmysteries]

some days i remember theres a draft of Kaladesh block story where Chandra and Nissa kissed and its still on someones computer out there and i feel like a wild animal