#but what should the heroic effect do? well putting counters on the creature would work but just +1 counters would be boring so keywords too

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than raffles

Hey, the story idea that I may or may not write soon has a raffle in it!

Anyway, red commons!

And also a little bonus! I realized I've never made a bestow Elian, so I made one, and then ended up giving it heroic, and THEN ended up giving it keyword counters, so now it's part of the set. At rare, not common, I just forgot to set the rarity icon lol

[mtg-brokentoken]

Because in the Knight, we save the day!

So I’ve been working on a black/white Knight deck, and was just about finished, but looks like I will be needing some updates when Eldraine releases. Deckbox is just because it matches colors and Knights == Cavalry == Chivalry, it’s funny.

Arvel, Knight of Windgrace is a great Knight Tribal commander. It’s in two of the main Knight colors, creates tokens with good value, and can use Knights in a meaningful way, moreso than just “attack with creatures that happen to share a type. As such, I made her my commander.

Danitha Capashen is also a Legendary Knight, but mono-white. Has first strike and lifelink in addition to vigilance, and compliments Auras and Equipment well. Still, needed a multi-color commander, but a good compliment to the deck.

Josu Vess, Lich Knight is mono-black with Menace and a pretty hefty Kicker cost. He’s great for a late-game rush of creatures, and as a 4/5 creature he’s pretty sturdy, but again, mono-color Commander just wouldn’t have quite enough support.

Odric, Master Swagtician Tactician isn’t a Knight, but both versions of Odric can really take a deck using combat to the next level. This version has First Strike, and when attacking with at least 3 other creatures, you can choose what creatures block and how they block. First Strike really shines in this manner, because you can make sure what does block it will die, and whatever Knights you need to get through can as well. The other version of Odric works well with a lot of the alphabet soup you can find on Knights, sharing abilities to the other Knights (or even non-Knights) you have.

Other Odric and Kwende recommended, but they’re not in the deck-to-be currently.

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Kabira Vindicator starts as a 2/4 for 4, but can work up to a 4/8 that gives other creatures you control +2/+2.

Caravan Escort costs just one white mana, starts as a 1/1, which is a pretty reasonable first turn drop. For 10 more mana (potentially spread over multiple turns) it can be a 5/5 with First Strike.

Knight of the Last Breath costs 7 and is a 4/4. In a pinch, it can change some of your nontoken Knights into Spirits with Flying, though, and becomes 3 Flying Spirits itself, in case you need the evasion.

Wingsteed Rider costs 3 for a 2/2 Flyer. It also has Heroic, which gives it a +1/+1 counter when targeted by a spell you cast. Which might come in handy if we start seeing some white or black Adventures in Eldraine.

Dawnstrike Paladin costs 5 for a 2/4 Vigilance Lifelink creature. Vigilance pairs pretty nicely with Lifelink because you potentially gain the life when attacking as well as blocking, meaning most opponents won’t want to attack into it unless they can deal enough damage to kill it or negate the lifegain. Not a spectacular option, but again I’ll likely be updating (and finishing the deck) once Eldraine releases.

Accorder Paladin. A 3/1 for two mana and it doesn’t have First Strike, so it’s likely to die when it does attack. To make that attack have a little bit more value, it also has Battle Cry, pumping the attack of your other creatures. Giving this card a little bit more toughness or other routes to not die in combat can add a lot of value very quickly, especially if you’ve got a wide board state.

Inspiring Captain is a 3/3 for 4 that does pump your creatures when it comes out. No haste on it, but strong when you’ve already got a handful or so creatures out.

Parhelion Patrol costs 4, 2/3 with Flying and Vigilance, and when it attacks you can put a +1/+1 counter on another creature with lower power. Vigilance means potential blocker, Flying is a great form of evasion so you should be able to use Mentor again, and though Knights are normally 2/2 (too big to get buffed) there are a few cards that start small enough to get some buff. Or you can increase Parhelion’s power so it can give those counters to creatures with more power than it has originally.

Ledev Guardian, costs up to 4 but has Convoke, and is a 2/4. Convoke doesn’t give it Flash, but sometimes worth taping a few other creatures to get another body out. Another card likely to be switched once I get my hands on some Eldraine.

Knight of New Benalia is another 3/1 for 2 mana. This one is just a vanilla creature, but still has the Knight creature type.

Benalish Honor Guard costs 2 for a 2/2, but can pump itself up if your commander (or any other Legendary creature) is on your field. We’ve only got 3 others currently, but seems Eldraine might have some fruits ripe for the picking. ...because it has Food tokens. Is joke. You laugh, yes?

Knight of Malice costs two, one of which is black mana this time. First Strike is still nice, Hexproof from white is a nice little bonus, even moreso if your opponent is trying to use your own tools against you, and it gets +1/+0 if anyone controls a white permanent which most of this deck is.

Cabal Paladin costs 4 for a 4/2, and deals 2 damage to each opponent when you cast a Historic spell (Reminder text: Artifacts, legendaries, and Sagas are historic). Not many Legendaries currently, though a commander is repeatable. The deck has one saga we’ll get to after creatures, and artifacts can be your mana rocks, equipment, and some tribal support.

Cavalry Drillmaster costs 2 for a 2/1, but gives +2/+0 and First Strike the turn it comes out. Doesn’t have flash, so it isn’t a combat trick, but it can make the difference between attacking or not.

Gallant Cavalry 4-mana 2/2 with vigilance, but it also has you create another 2/2 with Vigilance. Sometimes two heads are better than one, but in this case each is only half as good... 1 4/4 can pretty safely block a 3/3, but two 2/2 still lose half the power after state-based actions. Still, we have a few Anthem effects, so going wide tends to be better than going big. Two 3/3s are better than one 5/5, for instance... again circumstantially.

Knight of the White Orchid costs two white mana and is a 2/2 with First Strike. The other ability of it is a bit of a quirky one, though. This card is often a great turn 3 play, so that an opponent has 3 lands out. Play this Knight before you play your land for the turn, that way an opponent has more lands than you, and you put a Plains out, and then you can still play your land for the turn. You played a 2-mana card on turn 3 and still have 2-mana available!!

Knight of the Pilgrim’s Road is 3-mana 3/2, but if it deals combat damage to a player it becomes a 4/3. Nice little boost, but otherwise not much to talk about. Still dies to a Bolt, but something like Odric can help it get through.

Knight of Dusk is 3-mana 2/2, but you can pay BB to destroy target creature blocking it. You do this after blockers are declared, but before combat damage. Great with Odric, but honestly pretty nice even on its own. Your opponent has to decide between overblocking it and compensating for your mana, or not blocking it so you can’t use its ability.

Craven Knight. ...It says block. It’s a typo. (No, it’s not really a typo, just updating wording. It just can’t block and is a 2/2 for 2. Might be something to switch out, gotta review things like mana curve).

Black Knight, 2/2 for 2 with First Strike. It also has protection from White, but this means you also can’t target it, enchant it with white cards, or (if it’s used by an opponent) block it with white creatures.

White Knight. See Black Knight, but reverse the colors.

Dauntless Bodyguard only costs 1 for a 2/1, but you probably don’t want it to be your first-turn play. When it comes out, you choose another creature you control, and you can sacrifice Dauntless Bodyguard to make that creature indestructible for a turn.

Lone Rider is 2-mana 1/1, but it has First Strike and Lifelink. There’s a few other Lifelink creatures we’ve mentioned, to help it transform. When it does transform it gets another 3 power and toughness and adds Trample to the list of abilities. Also stops being a Knight, but it looks really cool.

Speaking of Lifelink, Faithbearer Paladin is a 3/4 for 5 with it.

Capashen Knight is a 1/1 with first strike for two mana, but also has the ability (Firebreathing) to increase its power by 1 for two mana. Works well with First Strike.

Knight of Cliffhaven costs 2 for a 2/2, which isn’t bad, but you can invest more mana to get it to a 4/4 Flying Vigilance. If I do get the other Odric in this deck, these creatures with Flying could start pulling more weight, but even now a little evasion can be good.

Skulking Knight costs 3 for a 3/3 but it has Flanking, so basically needs to be blocked by a 4/4 to trade. Blocked by 3 1/1s? They die before combat damage. Blocked by 100 1/1s? Same thing, they dead before combat damage. But it does have the Illusion/Skulking ability that if targeted by a spell or ability it dies. Even a Giant Growth would kill it. Clarification: It’s sacrificed, so no Dauntless Bodyguard shenanigans, either.

Fallen Askari costs 2, it’s a 2/2, and has Flanking. Can’t block, but with Flanking you probably want to be attacking anyway.

Pentarch Paladin costs 5 (3 of it white!) and is a 3/3 Flanking. When it comes out you can choose a color and later use a tap ability to destroy permanents of that color. This can be devastating to a mono-color deck, or, outside of this deck, if you pair it with Painter’s Servant, EVERY permanent can be the chosen color. Yep. Even lands.

Cadaverous Knight costs 3, has Flanking, 2/2 that can regenerate.

Femeref Knight costs 3, also has Flanking, and for one white it can have Vigilance. Make sure you use that on your main phase, because once it’s declared as a blocker, it’ll tap if it doesn’t already have vigilance.

Knights of the Black Rose. 5-mana 4/4 but you put the monarch token into the game and you should be drawing a card at the end of the turn it comes out. If someone wants to be drawing that extra card, Knights of the Black Rose has them lose two life and you gain the two life. If you’re the monarch and they’re low on life, they might not even be able to attack you (unless they have enough to kill you before the monarchy moves)!

Order of Yawgmoth costs 4 for a 2/2 with Fear. It also has a saboteur ability (something that triggers when it deals combat damage to a player) to make them discard a card. Sorta helpful for card advantage, but they’ll likely pick the card they can afford to sacrifice... or something like Nullhide Ferox.

Relief Captain pumps up to three creatures with a single +1/+1 counter when it comes out, and otherwise is a 3/2.

Chieftan en-Dal gives all attacking creatures (when it attacks) First Strike until end of turn.

Knight Errant is a 2/2 for 2. Vanilla creature, can help to round out your mana curve. Will something in Eldraine replace it? Plenty more previews could change that answer.

Knight Exemplar costs 3 and is a card that finally rewards our tribal theme! Yes, like so many others it has First Strike, and a +1/+1 Anthem effect limited to other Knights... and it makes those other Knights indestructible!! Protect this, once you get it out. Many creatures have Vigilance and/or Lifelink, how much better do those get when on an indestructible creature?

Cloud Crusader costs 4, 2/3 Flying First Strike. Not bad.

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In Garruk’s Wake - It’s a great Wrath effect, though it is expensive. Also gets planeswalkers but leaves your stuff alone.

Profane Procession is a nice way to get some targeted removal, and maybe turn tools against their masters. Or maybe recur some creatures of your own, but less likely. Hmm. Gotta wait for more information about how/if this interacts with Adventures.

Valorous Charge - +2/+0 but only for white creatures... and not even just yours. Still, it works well with a lot of First Strike. Also sorcery speed, so not a combat trick.

Forebear’s Blade adds a little extra power and Trample, which is basically lacking from the deck. Vigilance is also nice, all pairs well with First Strike.

Behind the Scenes gives your creatures Skulk, making it a little easier to attack people with bigger creatures, and after blocks are declared you can use the Anthem ability to get in some extra damage. Btw, if you have the mana for it, feel free to spam that ability, too!

Orzhov Locket is a nice little mana rock, works well for the deck, and late game can be used to refill a dwindling hand.

Declaration in Stone is quite handy against a token deck, but could really shine against a Relentless Rats or Persistent Petitioners deck. Still, you can’t choose what your opponents bring, and a two-mana targeted creature removal spell isn’t entirely bad. Especially since you get a Clue for each nontoken.

Zealous Persecution is a rather nice combat trick, not only giving your creatures an anthem effect, but giving creatures your opponents (yeah, opponents, plural. even the ones not involved in combat or minding their own business can lose their creatures with only 1 toughness) -1/-1.

Gideon’s Phalanx creates 4 2/2s with vigilance, which isn’t a great deal for 7 mana, but also gives your creatures indestructible if you have spell mastery, and it’s an instant so you can use block with those 4 2/2s. Especially with the buffs in this deck they could be bigger, and maybe you’re just playing it at the end of your opponent’s turn to get some more bodies on the field.

Knight’s Pledge just gives +2/+2, but it has Knight in the name so... there’s that.

Unquestioned Authority has art of a Knight (I guess Knight’s Pledge did, too) and gives protection from creatures, so you can attack without worrying about it getting blocked.

Adamant Will gives +2/+2 and indestructible at instant speed, so kinda nice for just 2 mana.

Charge is a one-time instant-speed anthem effect, only costs 1 mana, so can be used for offense or defense.

Dub makes something a Knight, not that many creatures I have in here would need it. Also gives +2/+2 and first strike.

Call the Cavalry is a sorcery that grants 2 2/2s with Vigilance.

History of Benalia is an amazing Tribal card for this, boosting your ranks at first before giving +2/+1 for your Knights for one turn.

Pay No Heed is just a bit of damage prevention in case one big creature swings at you, or use it to protect some of your creatures, whatever you need. It only stops one source of damage, though, so not great against a go-wide strategy. Does kinda give “first strike” though.

Acolyte’s Reward works great in a mostly-white deck like this, redistributing damage to a place more fitting.

Gift of Orzhova gives flying, lifelink, and a little boost and can be cast with either colors of mana.

Cruel Feeding can help you get some life back when needed, helping you make it to the long game with a better board state.

Necrobite not only gives a creature deathtouch, but it also regenerates it. A creature that would die anyway can take out a larger threat this way.

I’m not gonna continue into the lands I have picked out or haven’t yet, but that’s the 62 non-lands in my Knights deck that’s still in progress. Looks like Eldraine might be a good reason to finally finish it up!!

[pauper-planes]

Yet Another Throne of Eldraine Review

I’m sure by now you’ve read a bunch of articles about the impact of Throne of Eldraine on pauper. Well, I’d be remiss if I didn’t add my voice to the mix. This isn’t necessarily a top X list of cards I think will break into the format, rather some cards that caught my interest that I’d like to talk about.

Let's start off by looking at the new mechanics.

Adamant 

Adamant rewards you for paying 3 mana of the same colour on a spell. By necessity, this means that all of the Adamant spells will cost at least 3 mana. Pauper isn’t short on mono-coloured decks, so it’s possible that there are some cards that provide useful effects.

Adventure 

Adventure is a mechanic that can be found on creatures. These cards will have a unique book-like text box. On one side is the normal creature text and abilities, the other side is the adventure. The adventure is either an instant or sorcery and you can cast the adventure at any time you could cast the spell. If you cast the creature’s adventure, you put the creature into exile. You can then cast the creature from exile later. Alternatively, you can just cast the creature. Most of the adventure payoffs in Throne of Eldraine are at uncommon, so we’ll just be looking at whether the combination of spell and creature make them worth it.

Food Tokens 

The final mechanic is Food Tokens. Many cards in the set will instruct you to create a food token. Food tokens are artifacts, you can pay 2 generic mana, tap and sacrifice the food to gain 3 life. As with Adventures most of the food token payoffs are at uncommon so we’ll just be looking at the value of the food token in its own right. The immediate comparison is to Clues from Shadows Over Innistrad. A Clue Token is also an artifact, you pay 2 generic mana and sacrifice it to draw a card. Drawing a card is definitely a more powerful effect than gaining 3 life, but food tokens seem to be a little easier to create. It’s entirely possible that decks such as Mono-Block that typically lack lifegain and often spend a lot of life to draw cards would like to have a few of these lying around. However, given the current prevalence of Snow lands and Arcum’s Astrolabe, a lot of decks are simply splashing green in the sideboard for Weather The Storm. However, these end up working out, I’ve definitely got my eye on a couple of cards to experiment with and that’s half the fun.

Right. Now that’s done, onto the cards!

Mystic Sanctuary

 Let’s start with the card that I think is the most likely to see play in the format. Mystic Sanctuary is an easy include in mono-blue decks and provides another way to recur instants and sorceries from the graveyard. The Island subtype is also very useful as it still counts for the affinity cost on Spire Golem. At the moment Mono-Blue strategies have waned since the banning of Gush, Daze and Gitaxian Probe, but this could be a useful tool for them going forward.

Idyllic Grange 

Idyllic Grange is the other land from this cycle that I’m interested in trying out. I think this could be a useful one or two of in Mono-White Heroic. In that deck, this entering tapped on early turns is a huge downside, but late in the game that +1/+1 counter could really matter. It’s important to note that Heroic only triggers off spells and not abilities, but a free +1/+1 counter from a land drop could be worth the include.

Faerie Guidemother

Faerie Guidemother is another possible include for Mono-White Heroic. The adventure is essentially a Mighty Leap, which doesn’t see play in the deck, but the possibility of being able to cast a 1/1 flyer later in the game to rebuild your board could actually sway the card into useful territory. Well worth an experiment.

Flutterfox

When I first saw this card I immediately thought of some sort of White-based artifacts deck. Ancient Den helps cast this as well as granting it flying. But in comparison to Glint Hawk and Kor Skyfisher this ends up being on the low end of the power spectrum. It’s a curious card and if nothing else I’m excited to try to brew some sort of terrible deck around this just to see how good it might be.

Mantle of Tides

Mantle of Tides intrigues me. Blue decks are not short on card draw, so getting the free equip should be relatively easy. Imagine on your opponent’s turn, letting them declare attackers and casting Brainstorm in response to move the Mantle onto your blocker and set up a profitable block. That being said, I don’t see exactly where it fits, but again I want to try to experiment with this

Queen of Ice

In Limited I keep being amazed that this card is common. The adventure is a good rate to lock down a creature, and the body that you get the following turn is also very useful. The ability to tap down a creature she does damage to is also pretty relevant. It makes attacks awkward for your opponent. That being said, this is a constructed format, but I still think there’s a possibility that Elsa here could be a real role player. When you finally cash her in as a chump blocker she stops that creature attacking next turn too.

Tome Raider

As a 1/1 flyer for 3 that draws a card Tome raider is below rate, even with the faerie subtype to power up your Spellstutter Sprites. My main reason for including it in this list is just to call out the amazing card name.

Witching Well

Witching Well is another potential blue card draw engine, it’s cheap to play and the scry 2 early in the game is very valuable. Being able to cash it in for cards later is also very powerful. Again this is another card that looks like it has real potential, but I just can’t see where it currently fits in the format.

Foreboding Fruit

I love playing Mono-Black Control. It’s a fantastic deck that is filled with similar cards to this. The immediate comparison is to Sign in Blood which costs 1 mana less. However, in Mono-Black you’re always going to be triggering Adamant, so the extra mana could be worth it for the food token. It allows you to regain the life lost to the card draw at some point in the future when you have the spare mana. This is something that black decks could find really useful especially in match-ups against aggressive or burn decks where hurting yourself to draw cards just accelerates their clock.

Lost Legion

Lost Legion might not be playable in the format, but as a 2/3 for 3 this is a decent body. The ability to Scry 2 on entering the battlefield seems like a nice bonus. I’m definitely going to be keeping this in mind in the future

Reaper of Night

I think Reaper of Night is too over costed for its own good. On face value a 4/5 sometimes flyer seems like it might be a good finisher, but 7 mana is a lot. The adventure could be impressive, turn 4 is when your opponent starts to have fewer options for discard so making them discard 2 could give you a small edge, but with so much card draw from blue decks, it might not even matter. I wanted this to be good, but I just don’t think it’s going to get there.

Smitten Swordmaster

This card might be what enables a new tribal deck. With the new cards from Throne of Eldraine, there are almost enough good Knights at common to enable a deck, making the adventure on Smitten Swordmaster a very good prospect, the 2/1 lifelink body also provides good value. This is probably going to be my first new brew for the set because I’m excited to see what’s possible.

Merchant of the Vale

We refer to Merchant of the Vale’s ability as rummage. It’s not as good as looting (draw then discard), but in an aggressive red deck if you’re flooding out, being able to spend some mana to ditch excess lands in your hand for new cards could be useful. It doesn’t have an obvious home, but there are decks that might be eyeing this up as a way to dig to your finishers.

Seven Dwarves

I don’t think a Seven Dwarves deck is playable, However, it is almost certainly going to get built as a meme deck but at least a few deck builders, so keep an eye on the League results that Wizards publish in case a list ever makes it to a magical 5-0.

Rosethorn Halberd

Mono-Green Stompy is currently a top tier deck, and in the current configuration, it doesn’t run any humans. If this ever becomes unattached it’s unlikely that you’re going to have the spare mana to equip it to a new creature, but a 1-mana way to give a creature a permanent +2/+1 buff is something that the deck could be interested in. Sadly this buff has to happen at sorcery speed which means you can’t use it as a combat trick. I’m currently struggling to figure out if the downsides outweigh the benefits. I want to start by trying at least two in a stompy build to see how it performs.

Gingerbrute

When I first saw this I fell in love with the flavour of the card. Then I started looking at how many haste creatures are in the format. I started trying to brew some sort of Voltron deck that let Gingerbrute get really big and attack freely. But then I remembered just how much artifact hate is currently running around in the format thanks to Astrolabe and my dreams of attacking with a giant Gingerbrute fell apart. Nevertheless, I wanted to mention it just for the sweet sweet flavour.

Summary

So there you have it, these are the cards from Throne of Eldraine that caught my eye. On a first pass I didn’t spot anything that jumped out as a must-play, but to be honest it tends to be supplemental products like Modern Masters or Modern Horizons that add the most cards to our format. But it’s nice to see that Wizards are continuing their new strategy of allowing commons to have a little more complexity and power than previous sets.

Something I’m hoping to do is to come back to this set in 6-months time and see what did or didn’t make it into the format.

Did I miss a card you’re excited for in the format? Did I get too excited for one of the cards on this list? Let me know either here on Tumblr or on twitter at http://twitter.com/PauperPlanes

[pauperpedia]

Tuesday Brewsday 19: Canker Sores

It had been my mission to brew around Canker Abomination ever since it was downshifted in Ultimate Masters. I tried it in MBC, Corrupt Control, and Blitzing Black, but it wasn’t until I plugged it into Land Destruction did I start to see some success. I started to find out that by destroying opponent’s lands and setting there gameplan back, I was able to stick a beefy Canker Abomination more reliably. The combination of starving your opponent from mana while threatening with huge creatures appeals to me.

4 Dark Ritual

4 Choking Sands

4 Icequake

4 Rancid Earth

1 Befoul

4 Chittering Rats

2 Thorn of the Black Rose

4 Canker Abomination

3 Gurmag Angler

3 Sign in Blood

3 Defile

3 Chainer's Edict

1 Echoing Decay

1 Pestilence

4 Peat Bog

15 Swamp

Dark Ritual is a great card in Legacy, primarily for it combo potential. In Pauper, however, there isn’t a solid deck that can take advantage of the raw ramp power Dark Ritual gives you. When you combine it with an abundance of three mana land destruction spells or powerful creatures, you begin the scratch at the surface of what this powerful card can do. Even though we’re not winning the game on turn one, being able to destroy lands early in the game is just as enjoyable (if you’re into torture that is).

Mono Black Land Destruction has the benefit of being able to cast a total of 13 land destruction spells. This is huge considering this deck also runs Chittering Rats which stalls your opponent even further. Be forewarned though, this deck isn’t for the meek, as it is prone to anger opponents and ruin friendships. Kinda like Tron, but a deck that can actually beat Tron.

Eventually you’ll get to a point in the game where you’ve starved out your opponent of lands and they’re unable to cast a sufficient amount of creatures that get past your removal. That’s when you slam a Thorn of the Black Rose down and suck the remaining hope your opponent had. Being the Monarch allows you to draw an extra card every turn so that you can find more ways to ruin your opponent’s day.

Canker Abomination is the whole reason I decided to play with Land Destruction as its home. There was one game while practicing where I cast double Dark Ritual into a Canker Abomination on turn 1 while on the play. That’s a 6/6 creature coming at you, casted on turn 1! Even if you’re or slamming this horror early in the game, with the right amount of removal and land destruction to get in your opponent’s way, this 4 mana horror should at least be a 4/4 more often than not, and the games where it’s bigger will put a devilish grin on your face.

The last beater in this list is the Gurmfather. This 5/5 creature can also come down early in the game off of a double dark ritual if you’re lucky. Otherwise, it’s got plenty of graveyard food from Peat Bogs and your own land destruction spells to come down early enough to matter. There isn’t much removal that can stop this zombie fish outside of bounce, Journey to Nowhere, and edicts.

Sign In Blood is the go to draw spell for black. It’s efficiently costed for just two mana and can’t be beat. It helps find answers to quick aggro decks, land if you’re afraid you’ll be stuck on two, more land destruction spells, or that win con. Heck, you can even target your opponent to deal the last two damage needed to finish them off.

Since most of the lands I run are swamps, Defile is premiere removal. Especially since you’re starving your opponent for mana, there aren’t many creatures they can cast that would be outside the limits of Defile. In any case if there was, there is Chainer’s Edict to get rid of it anyways. Throw in an Echoing Decay and a Pestilence and you’ll be well on your way to sticking a 6/6 Canker Abomination!

Peat Bog is twofold ramp. Initially it allows you to cast your land destruction on turn two without the help of Dark Ritual. Then after you’ve used it twice, it can be used as Delve food for Gurmag Angler. Land Destruction probably wouldn’t exist without this land, it’s that important.

3 Crypt Rats

1 Pestilence

4 Geth's Verdict

3 Duress

2 Vampiric Link

2 Nihil Spellbomb

Against Elves, or go wide decks that don’t rely on mana, Crypt Rats & Pestilence become your best friends. Being able to wipe the board before things begin to snowball out of your control makes them perfect weapons in your arsenal.

Hexproof and Mono White Heroic deck’s are seeing some popularity lately. To combat these strategies you’ll need more edict effects, and after sideboarding these in you’ll have seven at your disposal. Hopefully starving your opponent of mana, forcing them to sacrifice their own creatures, and threatening with Crypt Rats & Pestilence is enough to keep them at bay.

The burn matchups can be tricky. They can easily kill you with just one land. That’s why you’ll need to rely on Duress and Vampiric Link to ensure your victory. Stripping them of a burn spell slows them down and if you’re able to put a Vampiric Link on a Canker Abomination or Gurmag Angler, you’ll find that’s a recipe for victory.

Even though we’re destroying lands, the Tron matchup can still be difficult. Nihil Spellbomb can help counter a Pulse of Murasa so that your Tron opponent doesn’t get a chance to get back in the game and go off. It’s also on of the few outs you have to TortEx as well.

It may be dirty, and downright frustrating to play against when the deck works, and for that I’m sorry. Hopefully if you decide to play this deck, you have plenty of patient and understanding friends... Otherwise, I hope you’re able to unleash agony upon your foes. Please visit and like my Facebook page pauperpedia, a fan page dedicated to bringing you links to daily articles, videos, and podcast. You can also email me at Pauperpedia@gmail.com if any of you have submissions as well. Till next time folks, have a happy Brewsday!

[movienotesbyzawmer]

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

December 9: Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

(previous notes: Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace)

Source: Blu-ray release, the box set with all six Lucas-era movies (2D)

I feel like in recent years I've seen a lot of rhetoric claiming that this is the worst of all the Star Wars movies. But I've always felt like the prequels improve as they go, at least a little. Like, Hayden Christiensen might not be especially good, but he's an improvement on Jake Lloyd. Is there less of the childish stuff in this movie? Let's press play and find out.

Opening crawl is first mention of Count Dooku; seems like the previous stuff was resolved and a new story is beginning. Maybe that's why it's common for people to recommend skipping Episode I, like it's not actually necessary.

We also at this point in the natural chronology don't know anything about clones. Just the title here.

Another decoy-Amidala, but this one gets blowed up right away. And that's Rose Byrne, right?

0:07:30 - Obi-wan does a "oh… oh yes…. Mm mm mm mm mm mm" thing which is stupid and I don't like it.

Wait, no Rose Byrne is a silent handmaiden lady I guess. Unless they're clonesies. Are they clonesies?

Hey, a glimpse of Coruscant's colorful nightlife scene! Or at least some commercial advertisements. Feels like we don't see much of the lives of regular folk of Coruscant much.

Super pretty imagery of this city at night with its traffic and lights and I know I say that every time but it's great.

0:14:30 - Obi-wan shooting himself through a hole in the window in pursuit of that flying robot villain is exciting! And then he just hangs onto it, and then the sniper snipes him off it and he just falls and falls! This is a good action scene.

Then later, Anakin just jumps and falls and falls on purpose like and it's fun to watch.

0:20:00 - Does the sniper have a weird disguise that goes away when she turns her head? Is that what I saw?

"This weapon is your life" says Ewan McGregor doing his best impression of Alec Guinness. I think it was supposed to be funny. And I think it succeeds. Helps to remember that EG's natural accent is Scottish. And you know what? Maybe a little bit ago when I didn't like EG's hammy delivery, I should respect that he's embracing the need for him to embody a young version of Alec Guiness's character, figuring out what that would look like while honoring the director's vision.

They're in a nightclub, and I think there's some genuinely imaginative vision around what people are doing in there.

Ooh! The sniper got sniped by someone else, and the shot of that second sniper zipping away on a jetpack is I like it.

Senator Amidala gives Jar Jar the important job of substitute senator while she goes and hides. Yeah right. Not very credible.

Now Anakin is venting to Amidala in a way that shows how cocky he is. He does the flirtation stuff so that we'll think he's sexy like Han Solo, but also visibly flawed with impatience. Meh. Okay.

Whoa, Rose Byrne just did some acting! She spontaneously shed a tear in a way that looked authentic! Acting… in a Star Wars prequel!

0:31:50 - A greasy spoon diner! I don't remember this. Obi Wan is doing some intel gathering and George Lucas decided to go all in on having this be a 50's-style neon urban railcar slop counter!

The romance. Anakin and Amidala. GL is also going all in on the overtness of that plot. Maybe it's fine? Anakin seems like a horny and awkward teen with a huge crush on someone out of his league but he's going for it anyway. Maybe we'll be convinced that she'd succumb to his charms?

0:39:00 - We're back on Naboo… this scene is oddly non-CGI-looking. Did they film this in a real place with that actual architecture?

The tension they're setting up between Anakin and Amidala is moving in a direction of NOT growing fonder of each other. She looks irritated, and rightly so. This is a move that experienced romance plot makers make, but will GL pull it off?

Meanwhile Obi-Wan is doing spycraft, going to the clone planet place and pretending he's the one who ordered the whatever. "That's why I'm here!" Kinda funny.

0:44:45 - Okay, another A&A scene. He has that line about sand getting everywhere. She looks really damn fly. They kiss a bit and then she changes her mind. See, this is a weak link in the romance plot. We don't buy it. She's not such a sucker that she'd want to kiss him now. She didn't go, "oh he was so charming when he talked about where sand goes that now I'm not only less annoyed by his churlishness but I'm actually turned on". Or did she.

There's something about Obi-Wan's intel gathering, realizing that this huge army of clones is being put together, that's very James Bond-y. I mean that in a good way.

Naboo countryside is hella pretty.

Oh ick. A very very stupid romance scene just happened. See, Anakin fell off a blob creature and it looked like he was hurt! This worried Amidala! She ran to him but it turned out he was okay! They laughed and laughed at this merry misunderstanding and rolled around together! Oh merry! And…. SCENE.

Now Obi-Wan and Jango Fett are having a fight on a platform place and it's pretty exciting and still kind of like a Bond movie. Even more so because of "gadgets" like the devices on JF's outfit. And a dippy little "this is not good" comment from Obi-Wan that would fit in okay coming out of 007.

A&A go to Tatooine and talk to the salvage dealer who used to own Anakin. I like where that CGI character visibly starts to recognize the grown-up Anakin.

Obi-Wan followed JF & Son to a pretty red planet with an asteroid field and it's fucking beautiful and they do this wicked sound effect with bombs and it looks and sounds mother fucking amazing. Seriously god damn. The SOUND.

1:11:40 - They're at what will be the moisture farm of Luke, et al. "I'm Owen Lars and this is my GIRLFRIEND Beru." See, because this is BEFORE they're married. She's JUST his GIRLFRIEND.

1:14:20 - Okay, they just did a weird thing where A&A have an exchange, then hug. But the camera just shows their SHADOWS. And Anakin's shadow looks like he maybe kind of has some semblance of a VADER HELMET. I'm not even that convinced that that's what they were going for. If it actually conveyed that, it'd be cooler. As is, it's a little awkward. But I wouldn't discourage a director from going for this kind of thing.

Anakin found the Tusken Raider camp where they'd brought his mom and he found her just in time for her to die. Like she was just hanging on long enough for him to witness her death. Melodramatic. Then he goes and slaughters everyone… this turns out to be important because it's the catalyst for him turning dark, but it's sort of a weak explanation for something so important.

So HC just did a rage monologue about how he killed everyone, and okay it's not good, but I really don't think it's HC that isn't good. I think he did his very best with really dumb writing.

1:34:30 - Ooh, we're back in that neat senate hall. Jar Jar was suckered into proposing that Palpatine be given special powers, and it's super easy and it just works, and the Jedi are like "oh, hm, bummer". I'm just not impressed with the story.

A&A have arrived on Geonosis and it's quickly quite actiony and rather like a video game where they have to fight robots and hop on platforms at just the right time. I dig it.

It's a little odd now… so I already forgot how A&A got captured in the video game factory place, but they're quickly hustled to an execution arena to be munched to death by monsters before a delighted audience. With Obi-Wan. Just a little odd, but now it's pretty fun action.

Oh yeah, Mace Windu cut Jango Fett's right head off! Forgot that. Another case of an interesting villain ending disappointingly. Except that it's important because his "son" witnesses it and looks vengeance-y.

1:56:40 - Yoda heroically shows up to save the good guys with a force of soldiers that look kind of like Stormtroopers. Those are clones, right? I guess so, but the movie didn't quite ensure we know that. I mean, if they're going to treat the audience like children with their jokes, maybe they could extend that same expectation to plot explanations.

Okay, so now they're in a much bigger battle. I like the flying thing that delivers a walking tank thing! Lots of exciting things to look at. It's not that clear which side is which, not by looking at the battle, but maybe that doesn’t matter too much.

They shoot down a globe-shaped ship as it's taking off and it's pretty. So is lots of this battle stuff.

How does Anakin have a lightsaber now? His was broken earlier. I'm probably not the first to ask that. I probably overlooked the explanation. Seems like they trimmed stuff out of this part of the movie to improve the pacing.

2:07:50 - This is the part that worked well enough that it's probably the main factor in holding this movie's reputation above that of Episode I: the light saber duel with Yoda! Those of us who had played the Dark Forces PC games were already familiar with how it would look to see a Yoda-type wailing on someone with a light saber, but it was a pleasant surprise for many, and it definitely worked.

Then Dooku escapes on a ship that does a really sweet-looking panel-unfurling thing. Love it. And then he goes to Coruscant. Very visibly. Which is for me to love some more.

The movie ends right after that, with Yoda observing that it's dumb to think of this as a victory because now the Clone War has started. Then we get suitably disturbing imagery of the Clone Army being imposing with, significantly, the Imperial March in the background. It's okay. Then a shot of A&A getting hitched. With, a little less significantly, the new tragic-love theme in the background which John Williams was probably pretty pleased with. And over. Okay.

Yeah, better than Episode I. Less childish. Although it's harder to point to a climax, it somehow seems less anti-climactic than Ep1. No less impressive visually, but with new locales compared with the first one. And it's true that you can get all the information you need by starting here instead of with the first one.

(next: Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith)

[journeysintowebcomics]

Worm Liveblog #28

UPDATE 28: Brockton Bay’s Finest Mastermind

Last time the Undersiders had successfully ruined the heroic capes’ party, subduing almost every threat after arriving. Only three important ones remained, and Armsmaster was the main threat among them. Skitter barely managed to defeat him, and now they’re making their getaway. The plan was a success! So let’s continue.

Who’d have thought riding oversized dogs that are jumping from rooftop to rooftop wasn’t a comfy ride. It’s even more uncomfortable when you’re carrying someone who’s unconscious, as Heckpuppy is doing, since Tattetale still isn’t awake. As soon as they can, they descend onto the ground to assess the situation. Tattetale’s the one who keeps an eye on matters such as knowing if capes are following, but since she’s currently unavailable to provide such service...yeah. Good thing Skitter made sure to carry smelling salts with her for such situations.

I nodded. “You asked if anyone had any after we put down Über and Leet.  I made a mental note to have ’em for next time.”

“I bet half of us did,” Regent replied, “The weird thing is that you actually followed through, dork.”

There’s nothing weird with being careful, besides, that’s how Skitter is, she can be good at foresight sometimes. And it does work, Tattetale starts to wake up. It doesn’t sound to me like she’s in a good state to focus on being the team’s radar, she was quite hurt. Then she proves me wrong by noticing immediately they hadn’t gotten away, just in time for Armsmaster to appear out of nowhere.

He looked worse for wear.

Boy is he going to be unhappy with you, Skitter. The situation is much worse now, before the Undersiders had a big party room to work in, there was possibility to move around. Right now this is an alleyway. Narrow, cramped...and while I imagine there’s going to be bugs around, I’m not sure she’ll be able to gather them fast or in enough quantities to stop Armsmaster from doing quite some damage. It doesn’t help that he’s not alone. A new cape for us readers, ‘Dauntless’ is here too.

Brockton Bay’s rising star.  It would have been easy to peg him as a tinker, but he apparently wasn’t.  His power let him, according to details he’d leaked when he’d appeared on TV and in magazines, imbue his gear with a little bit of power every day.  Thing was, every bit of power he parceled out had permanent effects.  Every day, he was just a little bit stronger than he’d been the day before.  A little bit more versatile.

Now that’s quite the power, but I wonder for how long this guy has been working with the heroes. After all, at the start he had to be quite weak, right? He must have spent quite some time training physically, preparing himself for the future, all that. It can’t have been a fast process, he must have been part of this since months, maybe years ago. I don’t expect to receive such details, nor I wish to demand for them, in the grand scheme of things, they’re rather unimportant.

Hey, I had forgotten to comment about Armsmaster having his halberd back. He didn’t jump from the patio to retrieve it, or anything like that, he can just summon it into his hand anytime he wants. Well that’s...that sure ruins a lot of potential plans. So! As expected, Armsmaster is restraining his anger, but it’s obvious he’s furious. Can’t blame him, everyone was humiliated, including him. Skitter managed to defeat him for long enough to make an escape, that must have hurt his pride.

No bugs. Damn it, I had no bugs, again. I’d emptied my armor of bugs when I attacked Armsmaster, and I’d left them and the rest of the swarm back at the Gallery when I made my retreat.

Once again things look bad, as they always look at least once per arc. If taking the halberd away isn’t an option...

...

...welp. I’m blank. It’s for things like these that I’m glad I have a normal life that doesn’t require thinking on my toes like that. I’d be useless, hahaha.

Surrendering isn’t an option, of course. Turns out the Undersiders stopped right near the parking garage where they had their getaway prepared. Really now? Hah, well, maybe that doesn’t change much. I’d be willing to bet Armsmaster and Dauntless would have some way to stop any vehicle – but it’d have made things a little bit easier. Many things would be better than being stuck in a freaking alleyway. Tattletale is...very firm on going to the parking garage. There has to be some way to distract them for long enough to get there...

The darkness didn’t last more than three seconds.

Okay, darkness is not an option, thanks to Dauntless having a counter for that. Heckpuppy’s dogs may be of more help, one standing on the other’s shoulders to form a wall. Maybe they could force their way through? Not through Armsmaster, but through Dauntless. Say, does Dauntless have protection against Regent’s power? Huh, maybe something could be done...

No, that won’t work. He has a force field; one I suspect would keep the dogs at bay. I’m blank once again. As another option, Tattetale tries some psychological warfare by revealing Armsmaster’s hate towards him.

“He hates that you’re the next big thing, the guy that’s going to be better than him. That you get the easy road to being a big name in the Protectorate, and he’s the one that has to stay up nights, reworking his stuff, compiling simulations, coming up with new ideas, training in the gym for hours and hours on end.  Every second of work he puts in, he gets more and more resentful of you. Why do you think you were the one member of the team he sent off to patrol the city and watch over the Wards, instead of having you come to the party?”

No surprise there. Armsmaster really wants to climb to the top of the hierarchy. Even if he gets there, Dauntless is likely to dethrone him by sheer power and skill. Tough luck. That said, some of the Wards were at the dinner, but not all of them, now that I think about it. Should I take that as it could be possible Aegis and others may be coming as back-up at some point? Hoh, I hope not, things are difficult enough already. Dauntless doesn’t pay attention at all – and the reason why is...well, check by yourself.

“Ear buds,” Tattletale sighed, “Armsmaster told him to wear ear buds, so Dauntless can’t hear anyone but him.  That’s both brilliant and incredibly depressing.”

Incredibly depressing, definitely. To counter the rest of your partners they need technology and preparation, and to counter you they just need to cover their ears. I’d be disheartened. Looks like you may be reduced to support during battles and nothing more if this technique spreads around, Tattetale.

Dauntless advances a bit more, shocking Regent a bit with his force field. And there we go! Just like I hoped, Dauntless has no way to counter Regent’s power. He falls! There’s the chance I was hoping for! The Undersiders manage to run towards the parking garage despite Dauntless’ efforts, his lance doesn’t deter the dogs, and when he tries to aim at the humans, Regent throws off his aim. Armsmaster isn’t faring much better, reduced to following and using the grappling hook in his halberd to have a bit more of speed. To his credit, he does manage to reach them and has them cornered once again. The fight is over and not in his favor, though, because Mr. Wildbow decides this is a grand time to throw even more new characters at the reader.

Ballistic and Circus, alright. Question: what are they doing here? I mean, judging by the fact they’re pummeling Dauntless and Armsmaster, I have no doubts they’re villainous capes, but still, why are they here? Were you expecting this, Tattetale? Is this why you insisted on coming here?

Dauntless moved to retreat, but Sundancer intercepted him, stepping around the front of the building and placing her miniature sun in the center of the entryway to bar exit.

...okaaaaay, now that’s a familiar face. Things to note: I don’t remember capes named ‘Circus’ or ‘Ballistic’ being included in the Travelers. I know Trickster is here, because Armsmaster’s halberd was replaced with a car bumper, so it isn’t like Sundancer went rogue or something. If Trickster is here, then the rest of his group must be here too. Hmmmm...I’m not sure if...Trickster would have the money to be the anonymous boss? His group is nomad, they keep moving all the time. But I could be wrong. Maybe he does have the money. Maybe he hired these Ballistic and Circus characters. Answers will have to be for later, there’s a fight right now.

A very one-sided fight, may I say. Armsmaster and Dauntless are having their rears handed to them. This isn’t a good night for Armsmaster, he’s going to receive a lot of the blame for the Undersiders’ success and escape. There goes some of his reputation.

There has to be better ways to describe Genesis’ current form than ‘creature from the Black Lagoon’, Skitter, hah. Then again, it’d be fun if Armsmaster was being defeated by the creature from the Black Lagoon.

Fearsome foe, this one.

Golly, the owners of all the cars being destroyed here better have some good insurance.

I’m not sure yet what Ballistic’s power is? There’s a lot of strength involved, that much is obvious now. Circus is what you may call a jack-of-all-trades, a master of none, but her versatility makes her a successful solo villain in Brockton Bay. You know...I find myself very fond of her right now. I love her power and the way she integrated her motif into her weapons. I like her.

Which raised the question of what she was doing here, with the Travelers.

Ask Tattletale, she’s the one that wanted to get here no matter what, and not just because the getaway vehicle is here. Once the fight is over, someone’s car honks outside. Everyone gathers...and here’s the moment I was waiting for. The boss is here. Tattetale asked to meet him after the task was done, and given that there’s a trained soldier here...I can only imagine it’s--

Coil.  I felt my pulse quicken.

--yeah, him. Hah! So I did get it right one update ago! Go me! I wasn’t really convinced about it, though, and I have no idea what motivation Coil would have to form a team like the Undersiders. He must have some sort of grand plan, that’s for sure, but I don’t know yet what it could be. So he’s the anonymous person that pays the Undersiders and provides them with equipment...what implications could this have for Skitter’s plans?

I’m not sure, but I think this doesn’t help. What advantage would the capes have if they knew the Undersiders were hired by Coil? It isn’t like Coil would be arrested or something. I guess there’s some worth in knowing about it, but yeah...all this would achieve is that her friends are arrested and Coil goes free. All she’d achieve is betraying them without even catching the big fish.

May as well just send a signed note through mail or something, informing the capes about Coil, and call it a day, because it���s not like there’s much to gain by selling the Undersiders with such a meaningless nugget of information like ‘Coil is their boss, good luck arresting him’.

Coil spoke, more as though he were musing to himself than any of us, “I was feeling theatric.  The plan was for the Travelers, Circus and Trainwreck to step out from the shadows as I made an impressive entrance.

It was an impressive entrance alright. I wonder how things would have gone if Armsmaster and Dauntless hadn’t been here. Imagine Coil’s creepy costume, him hiding in the shadows and saying in a raspy voice ‘you wanted to meet the person who’s pulling the strings?’ and he comes out slowly, composed, ‘well...here I am’, that’d be an impressive entrance. And then the heroes turn around, and the Travelers, Circus and Trainwreck are behind them without having even made a noise – it’s a fun scenario, right?

After making sure there wouldn’t be any pursuers – the only other heroic capes are two minutes from here and that’s quite the long distance – Coil invites them to enter the car. They have a lot to discuss...that’d sound a lot more ominous if they had failed the mission. There’s no fear they’ll have cinder blocks tied to their feet before being thrown into the sea from the Brockton Bay docks.

That’s the end of this chapter. So what will Skitter do now that she has the name she was looking for? It’s a bit early to think about that, first one will have to read what Coil has to say now. I’m curious about it, so I’ll continue right now. Next chapter, eighth Tangle chapter.

We didn’t dally, stopping only to let Bitch direct her dogs into three separate vans Coil had waiting at the back of the garage.

You know, for a moment I misread and thought it had said all the dogs had gone into one van. I was about to type ‘that’s one heck of a large van’, because three dogs big enough to be ridden like horses all fitting in one single vehicle? But yeah, it’s three different vans.

The Undersiders and Trickster are all in the same limousine, the inside is colored black in every way possible so Coil blends with the background, the snake on his costume being barely visible. The reason why they’re all here is so they discuss business. He did promise $250000 to each one and the chance to meet him, of course they’d need to talk. But first! A demonstration of his powers. Oh this is going to be good.

He flips a coin to each Undersider, all the coins falling on heads. Even when Skitter takes her own silver dollar to test, it falls on heads. That’s because of Coil’s power.

“Probability manipulation?” I asked him, “Enhanced luck?”

He shook his head, “No.  Just the opposite, Skitter.  I control destinies.  I decide outcomes.”

Huh. That’s rather vague, and looks like neither Coil nor Tattletale is in any hurry to explain. It sounds to me like Coil can direct fate to go in the direction he wants...if there are options to follow. Each coin had the possibility to fall on heads or tails, so he forced each one fall on heads. Or...something like that? Well I suppose this is something that’ll be better understood once I see more ways it can happen, or a better explanation, but so far it seems like a relatively interesting power. Kinda fits the mastermind type.

Tattletale was the original person in this group, it seems, directly hired by Coil and forbidden from revealing anything he didn’t want them to know. If the Undersiders failed in any way or got killer or arrested, well, ‘too bad’, he’d move on with his activities. He did help them all he could, though, that much is clear.

“Then you naturally find yourselves sitting here, proven to be capable,” Coil leaned back. “Worthy to hear my proposal, as the Travelers already have.”

...okay, so Coil also intends to hire the Travelers. He made a proposal to them, too. Something about providing them a temporary fix while he looks for a permanent solution. Then Mr. Wildbow wiggles his fingers mysteriously in front of the reader’s face, because that’s all the story tells about this – for now. Once another thing to keep in mind, okay.

Coil’s motivations and plans are simple: he wants to seize control over Brockton Bay, and he doesn’t mean just the underworld, he means absolutely everything, and for that goal he has been hiring the right people for the right jobs, as well as fighting against the current major forces – because it’s the endgame. The fruit of his labor is coming closer and closer.

Think, Skitter. Who are the major players in this city? What has changed?  The ABB is wiped out, with the very plan I proposed at the meeting.  Empire Eighty-Eight is reeling from the plays I made today, and I fully expect to finish them off in the coming weeks, hopefully with the assistance of you, the Travelers, and my other recruits.

Is that so? Well that’s great! Looks like the target for the next arc – maybe even more than one – has been established. E88 will be quite the force, this won’t be easy. Things are going to get exciting.

Okay, leaving aside the upcoming events in Worm, the reason why Coil ordered them to crash the capes’ party was to diminish the public’s trust on them. If they can’t stop a ragtag team of villains from ruining a party despite so many heroes being there, how can one trust them to keep the city safe? The New Wave hero group isn’t much better in the public’s eyes. Other assorted villainous groups aren’t a threat or can be bought easily.

And not only that, Coil has made some serious moves to place a few agents into positions of powers, people who will answer to him. He doesn’t throw his chips behind a single person, he actually is backing a few. In summary: this man is truly the definition of a mastermind. How long has he been working on this? At least a year, that’s confirmed, but I bet it has been in the works for longer than that.

Well, I thought, there goes any doubt I had about the Protectorate not caring what was up with the Undersider’s sponsor.  Shit.  Was he really that close?

Yeah, I admit everything that Coil said is valuable information. The problem here is that the Undersiders being arrested would stop nothing. Coil has planned all this stuff carefully, I’m pretty sure he has made arrangements for a situation like the Undersiders not being at his beck and call anymore. That is, if his power doesn’t interfere in Skitter’s plans, somehow. The most Skitter would be able to do right now is inform the Protectorate about what’s going on, but without leading to the Undersiders’ arrest.

I’m concerned for her, though. Would she change her objective from gathering information to doing something to stop Coil? Because that’s far more dangerous than what she was doing already, and someone who wants to be a hero and isn’t afraid of being reckless would take the chance. This has so many ways it can go wrong...

The Undersiders’ role is to keep their area of the city safe from other parahumans and gangs, now that they made a name for themselves. If they do well, they may spearhead Coil’s plans to expand to other cities – wow that’s really long term. But what will they gain? Besides power and money, that much is a given. Coil, as expected, has researched and gathered enough information to be able to make compelling offers, no matter how outlandish they are.

To Heckpuppy he offers to make sure there wouldn’t be more dogs cooped up in shelters, they’d be happily adopted. The dogs she rescued would be cared for, and she’d watch over that. All in all, dogs would have quite the happy future. Regent would have the power and chances to rise above his father. Sounds to me like a story that needs to be told sometime soon, Regent’s backstory is still a big question mark. No word about what he could use to appeal to Grue and Tattletale.

Skitter wants to derail the plans, or at least find a hole in them, so she points that in the future if anything happens to them, well, he’d be prepared to just toss them away. He refutes that in a way I didn’t think before.

“No,” Coil spoke. Then he paused for a moment.  “I understand your concern, but I have already informed you of a great deal, here.  If you were arrested, or if half your team perished in action, it would be dangerous to abandon you, because you could divulge key information.  This will continue to be the case.”

He’s not wrong about that, now that I think about it. Abandoning the Undersiders if anything happens to them would be quite dangerous. This, in turn, may ruin Skitter’s plans, because if the Undersiders are arrested then Coil would find a way to break them free, and she’d have a huge target on her back. Things got much more difficult for her now.

Skitter is the one person Coil isn’t sure what she would want, so he asks her – and Tattletale leans forward to hear it too. Oh boy, better not slip up now of all times. Skitter goes with the safe option: after he takes over the city, he must make it work, make it thrive. That is...well, yeah? I mean, if the city goes to hell in a handbasket then the effort to take over it would have been wasted. This much goes unsaid, and it seems Coil knows it, because he does specify he wants Brockton Bay to thrive, it’s a matter of pride.

If the Undersiders don’t want to agree to Coil’s offer, then it’s fine, the former arrangement can continue, to which I suppose he means he can give them the odd job here and there, and help them in the ways they ask, but without having any hand in the future of Brockton Bay. Honestly? I admit I’d take the offer. Sounds too good to reject. How foolish I am shall be revealed someday, but I know I am rather foolish.

Coil shall be informed of their decision in less than a week. I’m still not sure how Coil’s powers work, but...yeah, chances are this will go like he wants it to go, so yeah, they’ll accept, won’t they?

The last few paragraphs are them being told how they’ll be paid, being left in the Docks, and the dogs getting off the van – van they left in an absolutely nasty state, golly.

I have it. I’ve got what I need.

I just didn’t know how I felt about it.

It’s a tough situation, yes. Skit—no, Taylor, you better think this carefully, because...this really isn’t as simple as telling the Protectorate about it. There’s something big going on, and she’s part of it now. Better not to rush and do something reckless.

I think I’ll stop now, because this looks like the end of this arc. Those are great sentences to end it with, aren’t they? So I suppose next time comes an interlude. I’ll leave that for next time.

Next update: three updates

[shipbuildings]

WE ALL HAVE STORIES TO TELL.

But this much I'm certain of: it doesn't happen immediately. You'll finish reading and that will be that, until a moment will come, maybe in a month, maybe a year, maybe even several years. And out of the blue, beyond any cause you can trace, you'll suddenly realize things are not how you perceived them to be at all. For some reason, you will no longer be the person you believed you once were. But you won't understand why or how. You'll have forgotten what granted you this awareness in the first place.

Then no matter where you are, in a crowded restaurant or on some desolate street or even in the comforts of your own home, you'll watch yourself dismantle every assurance you ever lived by. And then for better or worse you'll turn, unable to resist, though try to resist you still will, fighting with everything you've got not to face the thing you most dread, what is now, what will be, what has always come before, the creature you truly are, the creature we all are, buried in the nameless black of a name. And then the nightmares will begin.

This is not for you.

Six years ago, a class of fifty walked into a forest in BC. A group of university freshmen much like any other; there were the prerequisite jocks, cheerleaders, loners, partiers, technology junkies, etc. etc. Every cliché one could possibly imagine was represented in this group. Ecology 123, after all, was a gen. ed. So its student population was rather varied.

As they often are.

But the point is as follows: out of the fifty that entered that forest during that fateful summer, only three walked out alive. As for what happened in-between – well. That is a bit of a subject of debate.

Again. As they often are.

The official story of what happened is this; some of these students found a rather large patch of Psilocybe semilanceata. Use of these so-called ‘ magic mushrooms ’ quickly spread throughout the group. And under the influence, a student ran off a cliff. Which proceeded to happen forty-six more times. Question further and you’ll get vague references to the Mumbai ‘ sweet ‘ seawater incident, the Tanganyika laughter epidemic, and the Dancing plague of 1518. A horrible tragedy, said the University. Or so I would like to think. There were settlements. Non-disclosure agreements. Each family was well compensated.

Including my own, in case you were wondering.

But what really happened is slightly more … disturbing. And possibly the reason why that official account is so laughable, but never challenged. Sometimes the truth is simply much too terrible -- terrible to the point that a lie may seem like a kindness in comparison. In that way, those who lost their lives are immortalized; now martyrs, now victims, pretty little packages wrapped up in a name, their sins buried along with them and long forgotten by the living left behind. 

As I’ve said before. 

The story with the animals is always the better story.

But those words aren’t mine. They don’t belong to me. That observation was made by another -- a long, long time ago, much before I had realized that there was never a tiger hunting us down, picking us off, and there never had been.

His name, in case you were wondering, is Richard Battle. He lives in Toronto with his boyfriend, Elliott Broodmoor, and bartends at some needlessly trendy restaurant chain mid-town. They are some of the only survivors. And we haven’t spoken since I left them for dead and joined an Organization populated almost exclusively by psychopaths to save my own skin.

It’s a long story.

But I digress. If I wanted to speak with Richard to find out what he knew and when he knew it, I realized I’d have to confront him face-to-face. He wouldn’t take my calls, after all. Or answer my increasingly desperate emails.

So that’s how I found myself at 1090 Don Mills Road, drinking some ‘ Artisan ’ craft beer that was probably cut with Budweiser behind the counter.

* * * 

It’s a quiet night, the bar mostly populated by people pecking away at smartphones and laptops, noses buried in the blue-grey light of whatever so happened to be currently catching their interest. As for me, I kept my book bag slung over my shoulder and my notebooks packed, making sure I had a clear sight-line to the nearest exit... and a clear footpath. I may have been desperate for answers, but that doesn’t mean I was stupid. Or no more stupid than usual, anyways.

“Mmm, drinking alone, huh? Did your date stand you up?”

When I turn to face him, the glass he’s cleaning slips out of his hands and shatters on the faux-marble tiles.

Nobody so much as flinches. But the look on his face... well. It probably shouldn’t be graced with a description for both our sakes.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. Just got caught off guard, is all. Can you sweep that up? I’m going out for a smoke.”

He shimmies out from behind the bar and I silently stand, downing the rest of my pint and the shot belonging to the distracted businesswoman sitting beside me, slapping a fifty on the countertop before I finally follow.

Not my finest moment, I know. But in my defence, I was reasonably sure he was going to punch me.

Since it’s summer, the sun hasn’t set quite yet despite the fact that it must be just past nine pm. Children play in the park across the street, their parents eating overpriced gelato from stale waffle cones as they watch their charges splash through fountains and dart about on fresh-cut grass. Richard stiffens as I stand beside him, a cigarette perched between his deft, nimble fingers, work apron slung over his shoulder.

“You smoke yet, Philososhit?”

I nod, no, as he watches me from the corner of his eye.

“Damn shame. Maybe it would help keep your mouth occupied, instead of it spewing all the garbage it normally does.”

His expression is humourless as if he is a man walking to his own execution.

“Hello to you too.” I reply quietly, keeping my voice low. “Glad to see not much has changed since we last spoke.”

“We still wouldn’t be speaking if it was up to me.”

“As I’m well aware, but I couldn’t just let this go. And I think you understand why, despite how much you despise me.”

There’s a lull for a time -- me, wishing I was unaware of the gravity of what is taking place right now, and him, mouth drawn in a thin, grim line.

“You shouldn’t’ve come here.” He finally says. “No good comes from chasing ghosts, bookman. You should know that by now.”

“And yet you’re here, alive and well. Unless I’m mistaken, and we’re somehow conversing from beyond the grave.”

That manages to illicit a slight upwards turn of his lips.

“A joke? That’s pretty unlike you.”

“And the domestic life isn’t unlike you? The Richard Battle I knew was obsessed with heroics, and I can scarcely recall a time when you didn’t have your switchblade in your hand.”

He snorts dismissively.

“One: don’t you know it’s the tragic hero that always dies in the end? And two: the whole knife-nut thing kind of came with the territory of being trapped in a living nightmare with a bunch of psychos formerly known as my friends.”

“So are you saying that the Richard I knew is effectively gone?”

“All that shit went down years ago. Even if it hadn’t happened, he’d be gone anyways, just like how your dramatic evil alter-ego --”

“Oh god, don’t remind me.”

I groan, burying my head in my hands, and he laughs, smiles.

It looks good on him.

“Okay, okay, I think I’ve put you through the wringer enough. So, what brings you to my neck of the... town?”

Nice save. He taps ash from the rapidly advancing line of glowing embers, watching them, his shoes, the passing cars being parked by the valet... anything but me. But now that I finally have his attention, I’m not quite sure what to say. Countless questions rise and die in my throat within the period of a second, then two, tasting of bile and hops.

“I wanted...” I start, then stop, quite possibly speechless for the first time in forever. He doesn’t interrupt, though, and eventually I finally manage to speak of the unspeakable.

“Richard... how did you know? How did you know that what we were seeing, what we thought was happening, it wasn’t --”

“Real?”

He laughs again, but this time the sound is bitter. He grinds his cigarette into the pavement with the heel of his sneaker with more than a hint of prejudice.

“You’re littering.”

“I know.”

It is his silence, not his answer that speaks volumes. The way his gaze looks through me, but doesn't really see me, the way he suddenly seems to be very, very far away tells me everything without him having to say a single word.

Sometimes the truth is simply much too terrible 

“...if you really gotta know? We were all starving, dehydrated, half out of our minds with grief and god knows what else.”

Terrible to the point

“I didn’t know what I was saying. Just like you didn’t know what you were doing.”

That a lie

“Sorry you came all this way to not find what you were looking for.”

May seem like a kindness in comparison

“... I suppose some mysteries are best left unsolved.”

As per usual, Mr. Battle can be read as easily as Dr. Seuss; he can’t hide the relief that washes over him, relaxing the tension in shoulders. But now I know, just like he knows. And he was right.

I really wish I didn’t.

This is his revenge, I suppose. Any sort of violent retribution he could direct towards me would have accomplished nothing. No one would mourn me. In fact, it’s doubtful anyone would even notice I was gone. Perhaps after a few weeks of no word my colleagues would finally send someone to look for me -- the police only called when the door of my apartment seemed to be holding back the scent of petrichor and rot and pennies. And my death, I imagine, would be ruled a suicide, a result of long-repressed trauma that I spoke of sparingly. Such a shame, would say my professors, my peers, and under their breath they would mutter good riddance. But that sort of ending would be too good for me. No, what Richard will instead kill me with is the little-death, the death that brings total destruction. It is the death that comes not from knowing too much, but rather that comes from knowing just enough to make you wonder.

It is the echoed question: what more could I have done?

It is the echoed question: why didn’t I save them?

It is nothing I don’t deserve, and it is nothing I would ever blame him for. This is how a life is taken; slowly, gently, deliberately, with feeling. And this is how justice is served when your crimes go unpunished: an eye for an eye for an eye.

Richard looks at me oddly, and it takes me a moment to realize that I’m smiling.

“You okay, Walt?”

It’s the first time he’s called me that since I left him for dead, and I didn’t realize until now how much I missed it.

“... no, I’m not. But I think you will be, one day. If you aren’t halfway there already.”

“Huh. I guess some things don’t change, ‘cause you’re right on the money. I mean, as always.”

He reaches into his pants pocket and holds up something at my eye level, a small black box nestled in his palm. I stare, and after an awkwardly long moment he finally opens it.

It’s a ring. Simple, honest. For all I know it could be platinum, white gold, silver, steel. But I have a feeling that’s not what matters.

“I figured Elliott would call me a sap if I got anything more, uh, complicated. Plus, all my tips can only really get me so far...”

“He’ll love it,” I reply without hesitation. “In his own typical Broodmoor way. Expect teasing of only the half-good natured sort.”

“Wouldn’t count on anything else.” He snaps the box shut, the clack emitting an air of uneasy finality. “Maybe we’ll even make it official one day; file with a justice of the peace or somethin’. I’d invite you to witness, but. You know.”

He shrugs noncommittally as I shuffle from one foot to the other, shifting my weight in an attempt to make my focus follow.

“No, I...” I sigh, frustrated by my two word strong vocabulary. “I understand. I never expected to be forgiven --”

“Ding-dong, you are wrong. Guess there’s a first time for everything.” Richard looks at me from his sidelined gaze, eyes moving over me from head to toe. “It’s not that we can’t forgive you, or that we haven’t. We were kids, you included, and we all made choices we’re not proud of. But we can’t keep looking back like you do, like you have to...”

His voice goes low, an accusation almost as much as a confession.

“The way you are now, after everything... you probably would’ve been better off dead.”

A small semi-circle of dark grey appears on the pavement. Then another. Then another. 

“... Yes, I believe so.” I answer, staring bleakly at the sky. Droplets gather on the lenses of my glasses, leaving wet trails where they existed once, and have existed, but do not exist anymore.

We stand there, alone together, lost in reverie, or perhaps just watching the world pass us by as if nothing has happened.

“I should get back to the bar.” Richard finally speaks, voice level and quiet. I try to memorize every dip, every peak and valley with what amounts to reverent worship, but I’ll likely soon forget them just as I did once before.

Life is very long.

“Ah, I see. Well, it was a pleasure, Richard, even if you can’t say the feeling was mutual.”

He stops, pausing. For a moment I think he’s going to hug me, and I almost recoil in revulsion.

But instead he slugs me right in the face, a perfect right hook that I would’ve never saw coming even if I had been prepared for it. Which I wasn’t. 

Obviously.

“Yeah, it was.” He says with a grin, knuckles raw and cracked and bleeding. “Take care of yourself, Walter. You owe it to them to do that at least.”

And that’s how he left me; sprawled on the pavement, glasses askew, nose bloody, a nasty shade of purple and sickly yellow-green blooming on my skin.

* * *

I suppose now you’re wondering -- why did I write this?

Telling you this story accomplishes nothing. I accomplished nothing. The only thing I learned was something I already knew. But perhaps that is what I needed all along. Perhaps I needed to share it with you, too. And while I know it is exceedingly unlikely that anyone will read this -- and even more exceedingly unlikely that you will understand it -- ultimately, we do not write for the sake of others. We do not write because we expect it to be read. The very act of putting words on a page is akin to shouting in a canyon; the only thing you hear back is your own echo. But that does not mean you can fight the compulsion forever.

Writing about writing only ever happens in the epilogue.

I know, however, that there are no happy endings. There will be no marvellous, touching reunion where the past six years are revealed to have been an elaborate hoax, no cathartic cry-session where my soul is magically cleansed. As time passes, I have grown no stronger, no wiser, no better than I was when part of me was cleaved from myself. I will have to bear the scars forever. And I will have to carry the weight of what i’ve done with me until I die.

So I ask myself: Did I do any good? That question, it seems, comes up a fair deal. It follows me endlessly, the Shadow casted over my every action.

But maybe I’m mistaken. Maybe what I’m really asking myself is: Did I do enough? 

And my answer, of course

is a quiet 

resounding 

no.

[overseer2020]

Closing the Circle 1

So, I spent yesterday’s blog setting the stage for my supervillains, my Masterminds. Surprisingly late in the process, I realized that it has been well established that heroes mostly only ever react to the situations they find themselves in. Disasters happen. Crime happens. And heroes put aside their own thoughts, feelings and personal needs to rush in and save the day. That’s what makes them heroes. That’s what makes them worthy of our respect.

It’s somewhat less heroic when a hero goes looking for trouble, or worse starts it in the first place. That’s what villains do.

Villains need to have plans. They will have very clear goals they need to reach. So, when I started to design (or redesign in some cases) my main Masterminds, I determined what some of the most effective and/or nefarious strategies a player could employ in Magic: the Gathering and assigned one to each of the ten main Masterminds. It worked out surprisingly well. Mostly. Once I had a better idea of what each of them would be trying to do on the battlefield, I could then draft the cards that would represent them. Note that Magic does print several versions of certain Planeswalkers and Legendary creatures, either in different stages of their life or with different temporary goals in mind.

Let’s start with an easy one. And one that’s not only the first alphabetically, but also the character that is opposed to the hero I think of first when I try to list these guys (even though he should be fifth).

In terms of being a dark reflection (“You and I are the same, really”), I managed to get my villains to share a color with their respective hero. The converted mana cost, however is flexible. I’m not sure how much generic mana to put on Alexander here. Nor is his p/t set in stone, though as a normal human, he might just cap out at 3/3 or 3/4.

I also tried to pick out some villains that weren’t the same as ‘their’ hero, but evil. Lex always managed to come at Supes from odd angles, though lately he’s being portrayed as a human superman, trying to be the best he can be for the good of mankind. My version is reminiscent of the movie versions of Mr. Luthor -- concerned with large scale real estate.

Moving down the card, we have an abstract image as is my preference. He was Black/Red for a moment, but I see no reason to change the placeholder image right now.

Legendary Human Mastermind. No surprises there...

Ah! now we get to the MacGuffin. If you’ve played Magic enough, you will know that it won’t be hard to trigger the charge counters getting added to The MacGuffin. This has given me a good idea of how many counters will be required to enact certain Endgames. (If Unhinged can assemble Contraptions, I can enact Endgames.)

Anyone who doesn’t automatically bypass reminder text will also note that the keyword action profit has changed since we last spoke about it. First, I decided not to use all of my new “basic” artifact tokens that I created to be evergreen inclusions in any set. Instead, I went with Clue, Food and Gold tokens (I like that they’re all four letters, btw). Clues still have a place in Part I because of the Investigate keyword action. But for the purposes of Parts II and III, Clues are replaced with Books. 

The term Book doesn’t require any mysteries to be in the offing and I didn’t want profit to be tied to the idea of there being some central mystery on any plane that would use the keyword in the future. In the time periods depicted in Parts II and III, the mystery still hasn’t been solved, but there are more distractions in the world, making figuring out where Magic came from of lowered priority.

Finally, I came up with some flavor text I’m rather proud of. You’d think one of the many incarnations of Lex, especially one of the land-happy versions would have made this observation. Or maybe one of them did. I’m sure I’ll hear about it from one of you. (Current Followers:0)

Next: Another Mastermind and another look at how these guys fit.

[hereticaloracles]

Full Moon Libra- Alliances

“You can have peace. Or you can have freedom.Don’t ever count on having both at once.” – Robert A. Heinlein

Effective Date: April 11th, 2017

Helios– Welcome, dear Heretics, to the Royal Retrograde Rumble stream! Except this isn’t a stream and everything’s on fire. The current retrograde count is at Four= Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn, with Pluto on deck. With all of these planets at cross-purposes, and having no clue as to what it is that they truly want, not to mention taking place against the backdrop of the Cardinal Signs, how in the world are we expected to survive, let alone thrive? Well, there is only one planet we can turn to- The Moon in Libra. Yes, Heretics; It’s a good day for Diplomacy. I know, I just vomited as at the idea of relying on Libra as well. Gods help us.

Artemis- This one is already pissing me off and it’s still a few days away. It seems that at every turn we are finding new enemies, death and destruction, imbalance and chaos. That’s Uranus/Eris/Mercury Rx/The Sun bombarding Jupiter Rx and the Moon, giving us no safe place to hide. Well, that’s because this is not the fucking time to hide, Heretics. As we warned you during the Aries New Moon, you are in the middle of a battlefield and the punches wont stop just because you are tired. If you want to live long and prosper, you must seek exactly what these horrible events are attempting to teach you; for their lessons are here to give you a greater competence. Without the consequence of falling off the training line, the tight rope walker could never scale higher feats. “Adjustment,” that will be your mantra for this full moon. If the tight rope walker rolled around like a sorry ass soccer player every time they fell, they wouldn’t be able to craft new instincts into their body to be able to master their craft. Bless the oppositions, Heretics, for without them and learning their lessons – and being able to grasp both at once  – we couldn’t get to the center of things (aka Truth and Understanding). It is not the smartest or the strongest creature that evolves. It is the one most adapt to change. It is the one that adjusts.

The Sun, Moon, Mars and Uranus– Well this is an… interesting combination. One thing that strikes me right off the bat is that this whole Lunation is very light on Minor Planet action. In fact, the Sun and Moon only have one contact- The Transneptunian named Chaos. That should tell you everything you need to know about this Full Moon… but since its literally my job to explain I might as well expound on that! That particular Chaos is only overwhelming and random strife if it is not given a purpose. When it is focused and directed, it is realized as the pure potential of the absolute. Put plainly, the disruption you feel is actually an opportunity to reshape your life as you see fit. If you harness the bold energy of Aries Season in the midst of all the seeming confusion and choose to create instead of turn the destructive energies on yourself and others, then you will find the peace and success that you crave. This time demands action, not indolence.

Since we’re talking about action, lets address Mars and Uranus; The fact that both of them are presenting a united front on this Moon means that this is a wakeup call of the highest order– you’ve been smashing the snooze button for years, and you are about to be late if you don’t jump out of that comfortable rest and get your ass into gear NOW. Guys, you have been milking this whole victim routine for a while, and it’s gotten old. Suck it up, buttercup, and get to work- You have plenty of time since whatever knocked you off your path happened, and no one is giving you any more pity. It’s not enough to ride on potential anymore, now you have to prove your worth. You have your battle plan, now put it into action already!

(Minor Planets used: Chaos, Haumea, Vesta, Thereus, Niobe, Isis)

The Sun (The Star), Moon (King of Cups), Mars (Empress), and Uranus (7 of Swords)–  So here is our issue, Heretics, we are inserting war into our lives for a reason that is not immediate to us (Uranus as the 7 of Swords). We want to eradicate all the slights and the uncomfortable situations, so we either set ourselves on fire for revenge or drown ourselves in the waters of guilt. Could this be because we are all afraid we are going to lose some sort of freedom if we do not seek justice in our relations with others?  Do we feel that somehow we will be caged if others think ill of us and our path, even though they live in their own ignorance?  This is hard for a lot of people to swallow, but Justice is an idealism and ideal states do not exist outside of the conceptual.  Unfortunately, Heretics, we live in a “fallen” world where Eden is no longer possible due to who we innately are.  The universe works in waves, tic toc, back and forth, and balancing and re-balancing is eternal.

One must see peace inside of war and war inside of peace, like a yin yang, in order to see that both at the micro and the macro they must be balanced in order for life to continue. “Justice and Peace,” if you’re looking for them, can only be found in  yourself and in  your relation to self because they are wholly subjective concepts.  And once you grasp it, like the wind, it is gone and you must chase it again. But it is this eternal hope at obtaining “Eden” once again that we continue to love.  We get glimpses of it in the midst of laughter with friends, a longing kiss from a lover, or the explosion of our heart in the sight of nature’s grace.  But we also realize that the beauty of these instances is their mortality as well, and being cast down from “heaven” into the “earthly realm” is the only reason we can have “freedom.”  Eternal peace is also eternal stagnation.  Heaven is just as frozen as Hell, and the center playing ground that is Earth is the envy of all the gods.

Honestly, Heretics, “I fuck with myself more than anybody else” (alla Saint Banks).  And once we realize this, we can finally feel at ease being ourselves. Without the eternal war inside of you, there would be absolutely no change. There is not a single human being on this planet that doesn’t feel they are in exile from something – be it love, be it prosperity, be it whatever the fuck, we all believe we are being cast out of some club we desperately want to be in. This is also so that we may strive, Heretics.  There is fertility in this strife (Mars as Empress).  We can only grow the grains if we break the soil to till, and it takes constant attention to obtain fruition. And once we make the bread and eat it, we are back in the fields again. I know it is hard, Heretics. I know.  But you must be thankful for the heart break, and you must be thankful for the slights and punches you take daily, because it is these very things that bring you the joy of mutual friendship, of heroic aid, of “miracles.” It is the mixture of oppositions that creates the possibility for existence – of time and of experience -and although it may seem counter intuitive to bless your “enemies,” they are the very reason for the existence of your “friends.” Funny to think of those fucks as your spiritual allies, but truly, love the haters, Heretics 🙂  What’s a hero without a villain? 

Mercury– Socrates is quoted as saying “The ancient oracle said that I was the wisest of all the Greeks. It is because I alone, of all the Greeks, know that I know nothing.” Well, you pompous and self-aggrandizing ass, we are the Modern Oracles, and in the 21st century you really have to know exactly who you are. Mercury is wasting no time in ripping what you thought you knew about yourself to shreds, and he has a good reason for it- You are becoming something greater than you have been. Now is the time to allow yourself to evolve, even though from your perspective it looks like your death has come for you at last. If you stop trying to make things happen for yourself then they will stop happening. This is a time to trust in yourself first and foremost. Trust in the process of your evolution and allow no one to stop your progress.

(Minor Planets used: Orius, 1992 QB1, Lachesis, Hidalgo, Sauer)

Mercury (4 of Swords)- It’s transmutation time, Heretics, and this dose of medicine is being administered by our retrograding buddy Mercury.  Let the mistakes and miscommunication transform you, refine you, turn you from a caterpillar to something truly beautiful and free from the things that damaged you.  As the philosopher Sartre said, “Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.”  Mercury will be opposing Jupiter in Rx in Libra from his early station in Taurus (dangerously close to Aries everything is on fucking Fire land), so we are truly re-evaluating our mental faculties when it comes to partnerships of all kinds.  How do we want to go about it this next time, after all the suffering we have had to go through for trusting in all the wrong ways?  Mercury will be sitting just on the outskirts of Aries, so he is able to rest… if only for a moment.  And in this rest, he is able to integrate.  This will be a time of great change for your mind, as you digest everything shit as fuck going on around you and let it transform you into a new version of yourself that is far more capable of handling the truths of the world that have been presented to you.  It’s time for a mental weapons upgrade, Heretics, because your sword wasn’t sharp enough the first time.

Venus and Saturn– Category is… Butch qween, first time in drags at the ball! For the vast majority of you who don’t understand that reference, these two have HAD IT. They’ve had it with each other, themselves, and most of all with absolutely everyone and everything else that exists in this world. We are showing our strain, and we are fraying at the edges. This Lunation shows that we have all gone waaaaaaay past the straw that broke the camels back, and the question is where to go from here? There are only two options for us- Fall into despair and despondency, or keep going and find a way to make it work. So in truth we have only one option, when you get right down to it. Saturn won’t let us stop, not for anything- but even as we go along our road, we have to remember what it is that truly matters to us, why we are doing all of this in the first place. Venus tells us that all of this has a purpose, that her retrograde has yet to reveal. Keep the faith.

(Minor Planets used: Chiron, Nemesis, Asclepius, Rhadamanthus, Hephaistos, Orpheus)

Venus (The Chariot) and Saturn (8 of Wands)- These two jerks…  They are both sure moving fucking fast with the cards they chose! They don’t have time for our human drama because they are trying to get us somewhere… Where are they taking  us?  Fuck if I know. They are asking us to trust in them, regardless of how much pain they are putting us through right now. It is all necessary in order to get us where we need to go.  I mean, that’s not such a hard thing to grasp, is it? If it weren’t for all of the pain of your past, you wouldn’t have the vast knowledge that you do now.  And without your knowledge now, you cannot make well calculated moves into your future.  Burn your fucks in a fire, Heretics, because you are being called to be a warrior for peace.  Paradoxical much?  Well, the earth is paradox-land, and it couldn’t exist otherwise.  A raging river can be rafted properly if one has the competence that comes from the understanding of consequence.  Now put to use your lessons, Heretics, for if we were perfect we wouldn’t have to make a climb. And if we didn’t have to make a climb, we wouldn’t have passion and strife. And who the fuck wants to live in ice kingdoms without passion or strife? That, my friends, is the land of the dead.  Now, to be or not to be, that is the question, is it not? And to be, we must teeter from one side to the other.  The tic and toc of time, of movement, of life itself…     

Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto– What? The three brothers are together, and WORKING IN UNISON? I’d say Heaven help us but I’m not sure that would be enough- Especially since the only one who is in direct motion right now is Neptune! I’ve actually been thinking about Neptune a lot lately, and how more than anything, he wields far more power than I’ve ever given him credit for- Neptune is the one who is always pulling the strings in your life, secretly guiding and molding you by merit of his machinations. From the shadows, he is working both sides of this lunation, keeping them at each others’ throat and ensuring that he comes out on top.

While Neptune plots and schemes, Jupiter is down on his luck, vulnerable and desperate- and so are you. Neptune seeks to take advantage of this, and use Jupiter’s glory and talent as the vehicle to his success by selling Jupiter a dream of grandeur. If you’ll remember I said that Neptune is the savior of Jupiter back in the retrograde post, and that is certainly how Jupiter sees him; But what does salvation mean to you? What dreams are you being sold?

On the other hand we have Pluto- He is solid in his placement, but he is looking forward towards the future. He knows his position as King of the Hill is not a permanent one, and his legacy is in question. He fears the future and he is living in the past- But when he turns his attention back to the present he is a veritable force of nature. He doesn’t seem to realize that his indolence and being paralyzed by fear of the future will cause the darkest timeline to assert itself- and not in the way he usually likes.

Neptune may be a manipulative and sleazy asshole, but he is the only one who can harness the powers of both Jupiter and Pluto, and get them to work together for the common good- and yours! If you stick to your vision and do not allow doubt to distract you, then there is no way that you can fail. Neptune realizes that Jupiter and Pluto are the answers to each others problems, and if he can soothe the warring gods, and the warring forces in yourself then you will succeed.

(Minor Planets used: Sila-Nunam, Teharonhiawako, Cyllarus, Requiem)

Jupiter (7 of Pentacles), Neptune (5 of Wands), Pluto (7 of Swords)- Come at this lunation swinging, Heretics, for it will be swinging right back at you. If you have been sitting on your ass, you are going to need to act.  The New Moon in Aries spurred a fire in your belly, and now you must take action with the epiphany you earned. It’s not enough to talk about all the things you want to do. You must actually get out there and do them, and this can be terrifying. The thing is, this combination doesn’t care if you are ready or not. So slap on some bravery, because the monsters are coming to your door – yes, those monsters that you have been avoiding and hoping desperately that they will go away. This moon will bring a lot of volatile energy into your life, but it is because it is forcing you to play the diplomat. You must settle the score so that you can tip in the next direction – so that there can be life and growth and so that you can move the fuck on. If you just take a moment to stand still in the middle of the full moon battlefield, you will learn that you can feel the rhythm of the zeitgeist. You will be able to sense, quite instinctively (thanks Aries season) where you must go next – what you must say next. The only real question is, are you going to have the guts to go there?

Sometimes we must go into scary, murky places in order to emerge with eminence. Afraid to transform? Afraid of the fight? Well, fuck, Persephone was having a grand old time picking flowers before Pluto kidnapped her and sucked her into the underworld. It doesn’t matter what you want, Heretics, transformation is not a choice in the end. Don’t let the forces around you choose for you where and how you want to transform. In the end, you must learn the lesson of being the master of your own fate. If you don’t step up to the plate and take a swing at the divine game, you’ll always suffering under the thumb of perceived “bad fate.” Again, Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to  you. How many times do you have to learn the same god damn lessons before you decide to step outside of your comfort and fix the damned thing?

Full Moon Libra- Alliances was originally published on Heretical Oracles