#gamepiece

[munitionsandsupplydepot]

Take a chance, what will you find? https://usclaireforce.etsy.com

[sabxhere]

fellow chess or checkers players, I have a question (MUTUALS, PLEASE DON'T LOOK AT THIS AND THINK I'M INSANE, PLEASE PLEASE, PLE—)

Okay so!!!! Has anyone ever been hyper fixated on those games like I believe I am??? If so, IS IT NORMAL THAT WHEN I'M DOING OTHER STUFF, I CAN PICTURE ONE OF THE GAMES HAPPENING IN MY HEAD. LET ME EXPLAIN.

I mean, I'll be trying to sleep, after a long day. "Cool", I think. "Awesome", even. Close my eyes, turn around in my bed aND SUDDENLY I'M THINKING "okay, but in this position, if two pawns were positioned this way, how would I be able to move the knight to capture one of them without it being captured back??" AND I GO "NO PLEASE, I JUST WANT TO SLEEP, PLEASE" AND IT KEEPS GOING. AND SOMETIMES YOU PICTURE IT AT OTHER TIMES OF THE DAY

FELLAS, IS IT NORMAL TO PICTURE A CHESSBOARD VIVIDLY IN YOUR HEAD AND IMAGINARY MOVES HAPPENING, THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT THE FAMOUS NETFLIX SERIES AND BOOK STYLE. FELLAS. FELLAS—

[dividedsingularity]

Artfight 2023, 9/25 - Projector (mine), Radiowave @happy-duckie, Gearshifter @cookieclover

This piece was challenging for me not because it was three characters, or even any part related to drawing my friends' characters, but because of Projector. His colour scheme and overall design, especially the legs, were up in the air at the time of drawing (and honestly, they still are), yet I had to come up with something within the day! Other than that hurdle, this attack was a lot of fun, I think the idea of our bots playing Cybertron Monopoly is solid and I'm happy with how it came out. Here's hoping their friendship will be in good enough shape after everything is said and done that they can have a nice game session together. Progress photos gif under the cut = ]

[lemuseum]

[chesclub]

Replacement Rook at the Bottom

When dealing with a replacement rook at the bottom of a chess set, a key feature to observe is the subtle but crucial bulge at its center. This bulge, though difficult to capture in images, is a defining characteristic of the piece. Measuring approximately 1mm in height and 4mm in diameter, it adds to the rook’s stability and overall aesthetic. Whether you're a chess enthusiast or a collector, this small detail is an essential aspect of the piece's craftsmanship and function.

[transangledlozengeggbutt]

[fishareglorious]

i'd like to think the dead npcs have game nights together in whatever afterlife they're in and the 1.9 shitshow massacre has suddenly like. more than twenty people showing up in the room.

schneider and kumar are about to get into a fistfight in monopoly and then the entire hymnus ad bacchus gang materializes all around them. 77 stops from yapping about the circumference of her thimble gamepiece to hofmann and evgeni and chipperly greets all of them. kumar has bankrupted schneider and the latter is cursing her in italian. 210 sits down and asks if he can join. mr karson and marian have to wrangle kumar and schneider away from each other. evgeni doesn't know how to play monopoly.

arcana then shows up like ten minutes later and majority are either surprised she's dead or squaring up to beat her. kayla has somehow bought everyone's properties when everyone wasn't looking. i've never played monopoly in my life

[carrie-er]

Honestly just getting this one off the table at this point. I've been struggling recently to keep myself painting.

It's a Clan Snow Raven Gossamer VTOL, decked out in the colors of the Gamma Garrison Galaxy.

This is a kitbash I threw together after playing one in a game (3 clan MPLs on an 11/17 mover is tasty).

I'd found a random gamepiece that somewhat matched the center-lift-fan of the artwork, and then went wild with some 3d print castoffs and greenstuff.

For comparison, the art (from TRO3145: Mercenaries)

[lifblogs]

Strange to me that people fall for Aaravos’s manipulations in the finale when the opening is literally Claudia turning to stone and crying, and then Aaravos picks her up like a gamepiece for a boardgame and smiles. AND he didn’t let her mourn Viren, so that’s another major red flag. This is the villain. He has unimaginable pain, but that does not make him a good person.

(Also wondering about the details I’m sure he left out because he straight-up lies in the prologue of the first episode.)

[whenthesnowfelloverwinterfell]

Vatic - Chapter XIII " A Gamepiece "

Series Description : The youngest daughter of King Viserys and Queen Alicent grows up split between the two sides of her family. With dreams plaguing her sleep of people she does not know, and a war looming ahead of her. She will be forced to choose between the two sides of her family, between the love for her brother, and the loyalty for her sister. 

Chapter Description : Y/n makes her distaste for her father and for her duty as a woman known to her mother.

Warnings : Mentions of very young pregnancies, I'm pretty sure that's it? let me know if I'm wrong :)

Pairing : Eventual Aemond Targaryen x Targaryen!Reader ( cannon typical targcest idk what to tell you )

Word Count : 2.8 K

Jaeherys and Jaehera were perfectly content babes. Willing to rest in their wet nurse’s arms for hours at a time, just sleeping. Helaena did not like to hold them. Though, that wasn’t an issue. The eldest princess was four and ten years old, unprepared to be a mother to even one babe, let alone two. It had been seen as joyful news when Helaena’s maids and the maester said she was carrying a child, and although it seemed everyone else celebrated the matter, Y/n had not. Helaena had not been prepared for motherhood. It had snuck up on her not long after her wedding night. Y/n could clearly see how Helaena loved her son and daughter, she would hold them even though she did not like to. She would let them touch her though she did not like being touched and she would not react poorly. 

Was that motherhood? 

Y/n did not wish to know. But as the people of court become even more apparent to her now, she looked to Aemond for some sense of keeping herself grounded. Aegon was gone. Likely drunk in his chambers or out in flea bottom, far away from his newborn son and daughter. He had scarcely looked at them since their birth not long before Y/n’s nameday. He did not seem to hold love for the lives he had whelped upon his wife without Helaena’s say so. If he did hold any love for them, he did not show it. 

Was that fatherhood? 

She did not enjoy the new dresses she wore as of late. She did not enjoy the looks she received from the men at court. The dresses were always gorgeous, but she despised what they stood for. Her eligibility. 

The sapphire blue gown had been fitted to her over a dozen times to ensure the fit was right. The dress had been in the works for months leading up to her actually wearing it. And her growing chest kept changing the needed measurements for the gown. But they’d finally gotten it down, and she’d finally worn it to court. It caught the light of the sun shining through the windows of the throne room perfectly. Shining as though it were actually made of sapphires. The jewels around her neck, and hanging from her ears were. Her mother wanted everything to be cohesive, and hadn’t given Y/n the option in anything for the outfits she wore now. She wasn’t able to sometimes sneak a gown in anymore. Now that Helaena was married off, Alicent’s attention was purely on Y/n. 

The only thing Y/n found comfort in was the waist chain her mother had given her. It had once been Alicent’s mother’s. A gold waist chain with sapphires, and medallions in the shape of the seven pointed star. She would frequently find herself playing with the star on the part that hung down the front of her skirts when she had her hands clasped in front of her. 

Yesterday, she’d been gallivanting through the kingswood with Theobrand, bow in hand, hunting. Practicing. She’d been able to be at peace. Away from the Red Keep. The only peace she ever found now, was when she received letters from Rhaenyra, when she was with Aemond, or when she was at prayer with her mother. She had grown accustomed to the feeling of the stone digging into her knees when she prayed, she had grown used to the smell of strong incense, and the wax from candles. 

Y/n knew that Otto had told many people of the court that she was now eligible for marriage, and courting, but she did not expect some of the suitors that came her way. Lord Adrian Sunglass had been married twice before, and had nine children already. He was in his forties when he approached her. His eldest son had also approached her. 

Lord Lychester was closer to Y/n’s age, but she did not care for him. She did not find his ‘love’ for Targaryen history to be an endearing quality. Not when all he ever spoke of was dragons. He likely only saw her as an opportunity to gain more power and status. The wish for potential for any children to have a dragon. 

Aemond was preoccupied with Helaena and the babes. He had been curious about their new niece and nephew since they had been brought into Helaena’s chambers to see them. He often commented that they were smaller than he had expected them to be. Both of them had been too young to remember Daeron’s birth, and the birth of baby Joffrey had been so long ago that she could not recall how large or small the Velaryon babe had been when Rhaenyra had carefully placed him in Y/n’s arms as she sat beside Luke and Jace on a loveseat, looking down at him curiously. 

She had not held Jaehaera or Jaehaerys since their birth. She had gazed upon them and made note of their existence, but she did not wish to hold them. She could still hardly look at Helaena or Aegon since their wedding night. 

As Lord Lychester continued to drone on about Y/n’s own house, and their dragons, she began to pick at her fingers. Her eyes nervously looked around the room, watching the lords and ladies converse with one another. She could see Lady Ceira Lannister in the corner, gossiping away with Lady Genna Yarwyck. She watched as Maris peacefully chatted with other young maidens of the court, and as Aegon took a glass of wine from a tray a serving girl was carrying, saying something that caused her to scurry away from him. 

She wanted so desperately to escape. To find solitude, away from prying eyes, alone with her thoughts, dreams, and the tune she could not seem to escape from in her dreams. 

“I met your sister, Princess Rhaenyra not long ago. My brother and I went to Dragonstone. She spoke of you frequently.” Lord Lychester informed her, finally saying something interesting for once in their interactions. 

“Rhaenyra?” Y/n asked, her eyes now on him, her head craned to look up at him. He nodded with a small hum that sounded more like a chuckle.

“Yes. She seems to be quite fond of you.” He added. Looking out at the hall as well. “You seem to be more alike to her than the ladies at court.” He then peered at her from the corner of his eyes, as if to gauge her reaction. 

“I do not know what you mean.” She tested. 

“Oh, Princess. . .” He began, looking around them before looking back down at her. “I see the way you look at them all. You wish to get away. . . I could assist you in that. If you wished to spend most of your days at Dragonstone with Princess Rhaenyra, I would allow it. I would not force you to stay confined to Lychester Castle.” 

Y/n blinked up at him for a second, before she opened her mouth to speak. “Pardon me, my lord.” And as she ended her sentence, she did not wait for a response, and instead turned away from him and began in quick strides towards her mother, who had now also joined Aemond, Helaena, the babes, and their nurse maids. 

As Y/n reached her mother, Alicent noticed her, and her face changed from that of joy surrounding the twins, to one of concern for her youngest daughter. 

But she did not say anything as she arrived, instead only standing beside her mother, watching as Aemond spoke to the twins in High Valyrian. They looked up at him without any thoughts behind their eyes. Only curiosity to do with the one eyed prince. 

She could not help but look at them as well. Silver hair like the moon, and pale lilac eyes following his every movement. She could see a hint of Aegon’s nose in Jaehaerys. She could not help but stare. Is that what her and her siblings had all looked like when they were fresh from their mother’s womb? Pale, and completely innocent of any sin or wrong doings, awaiting for the day when their innocence would be ruined?

Was that childhood? 

Were all babes so innocent? So unaware of the truths around them? Was that the truth of coming of age?  Finally understanding the cruel truth of the world they were born into without choice? How could anyone knowingly bring a child into the world with the knowledge of cruelty? Every potential terrible fate that could befall their child? How could a woman possibly bear the idea of carrying a babe of someone they did not like? Y/n did not understand how Alicent had done it. Or how Helaena could have done it at an even younger age than their mother. 

Y/n knew she would not be able to do it. Was that why her mother insisted that Y/n choose her own husband? Was it so clear who she would become, to those around her? Or was it a hope they had for her, that she would be unable to fulfill? 

Y/n felt a pain in her chest at the very idea. Looking at Jaehaerys and Jaehaera, she could not imagine looking down at her own child and not feeling guilt. Guilt for her child at who their father was, and who they would inevitably become. 

She did not trust any of the men at court. She did not truly trust the kingsguard nor did she truly trust the men in her family. Aegon was to never be trusted, Viserys could not be trusted to bring any justice, Otto was willing to marry her off to a stranger for his own gain, Daemon had not seemed worth trusting from the little she remembered of him at Driftmark. 

She only trusted her mother, Maris and Aemond. And what would Aemond become when those around them considered him to be a man? She did not know if he would still be kind and gentle to her, or if the tendencies to be cruel in the training yard would consume him. She loved Aemond, He was her beloved brother, and yet, she did not know if she’d be able to trust him once he was a man. 

“Let’s see you to bed, darling.” Alicent beckoned, guiding Y/n by her shoulder away from the crowds. And as Y/n sat in her nightgown on the floor, holding a seven pointed star pendant, staring out the window as Alicent brushed her hair free of knots and tangles. 

They had not spoken a word to one another when Alicent helped her undress, and undid her hair. They had been comfortable in their silence. The sound of the hearth cracking, and the brush running through Y/n’s hair was all that could be heard. 

“Do you hate Viserys, Mother?” She suddenly asked, not moving a muscle in her body as she continued looking out the window, her eyes darting from each bright dot in the dark night sky. 

Her mother’s movements halted, and she could practically see her expression. “Your father-”

“Viserys.” Y/n interrupted, running her thumb along the medal star in her hands. “He may have been the one who sired me, but he is no true father. I wish for you to speak your mind on the King.” She heard her mother exhale quickly through her nose, and when she turned her head to look at her mother, she saw a bittersweet smile on her face. 

“Mother?”

“He is our king, darling. I respect him as such.”

Y/n shook her head. “You still respect him? Do you even hold love for him? After his negligence on Driftmark? He made you out to seem crazed over Aemond’s loss, he did nothing to defend his own son.” 

It was not something that Y/n had attempted to keep secret, her distaste for King Viserys since Driftmark. She did not trust not respect him since his disregard of Aemond being mauled by their nephew. She did not wish for Luke to lose his eye in exchange, but she wished for him to be held accountable for his actions. 

“Y/n. . . I do not need to love him. He is my husband and king, he has my respect and loyalty.” Alicent spoke, reaching down to cup the side of Y/n’s face so gently that she could barely feel her mother’s touch, just the heat of her hand. 

“He does not respect you.” Y/n’s voice cut deep as she mostly turned to face her mother. 

Alicent’s lips went into a thin line as she and Y/n held eyecontact. Y/n had not intended to say it, but it had forced itself out from her mouth. Yet it was true. Viserys disregarded Alicent as though she were just another lady at court and not his wife and mother of five of his children. 

“It’s not fair. You and Helaena are expected to respect your husbands, and yet neither of them respect their wives. Viserys does not respect you even as the mother of his children, he does not even hold love for the children you gave to him, Mother. And if you were to pass Helaena’s chambers after Aegon has gotten drunk, you can hear her crying. He makes jokes at her expense, makes her out to be a fool to everyone else at court. Why is it only expected for ladies to respect their husbands but not for the lords or kings to respect their wives?”

Alicent sighed, shifting herself in her heat to lower herself down to the ground to sit eye to eye with Y/n. “Men do to not frequently care for the feelings of women. Most matches are made politically between strangers. I understand your fears.” Alicent grabbed Y/n’s hands in her own. “I wish for you to be happy. . . that is why I have allowed you to make your own match.”

Y/n’s brows furrowed as she looked down to where their hands met. Alicent’s thumb stroking the back of her hand in small circles. 

“It is Targaryen custom for a brother and sister to be wed to one another. . . I have two unbetrothed brothers, who you could marry me to. Why would you not just marry to Aemond or Daeron?” Y/n questioned, looking back up at her mother, who now looked rigid. 

Y/n remembered the conversation she’d had with Aemond. He’d once asked Alicent something similar, and their mother had shut it down quicker than he could even ask. 

“Yes. It is Targaryen custom. But you are not just Targaryen. You have my blood as well, you are also Hightower. Aegon and Helaena were married to keep Aegon. . . safe. I did not want to have them married, but it was the only option. I do not agree with the customs of house Targaryen, and I do not want you married to Aemond or Daeron because they are your brothers, and they should remain as that. I do not want you to be forced to follow the path of almost every other Targaryen because it is considered to be custom.” 

Y/n slowly nodded in understanding, though she did not understand. Yes, she had Hightower blood in her viens, just as Rhaenyra had Arryn in her’s, but she was just as much a Targaryen. But she supposed it was different in some ways. 

“What if you did not force me? Mother I am not comfortable with the men at court. I would much rather be married to someone I know and am comfortable with.” She tried to explain, but Alicent’s expression did not change. She would not waver on this matter, that was becoming clear to Y/n. 

“It is a sin in the eyes of the gods. You pray to them everynight, you go to the sept on Maiden’s Day every year, you carry the symbol of the faith. You know it is wrong. Please, Y/n, please tell me you know that?” 

Y/n did know. She’d known since she was young, the way the septa would always teach about the faith to her and Helaena. She knew it was wrong because everyone else in the seven kingdoms would not dare to marry their brother or sister. It was an ancient tradition from Old Valyria that the Targaryens received special dispensation to continue, because everyone knew it was wrong. But it did not stop her from asking. In the hopes that perhaps her status as a Targaryen princess would allow her to marry someone she knew she could trust rather than a man who would likely always be a stranger to her. 

“Yes.” Y/n replied quietly. 

She felt as though her fate had been chosen for her. She had no choice in the matter. She was just a piece in a game, being moved about the board at her grandfather’s will, and her mother was doing her best to keep her hidden from it. But it was not working. Y/n was well aware of the truth. Otto Hightower would advise the King to only accept a match that Otto had deemed acceptable, and then would manipulate the King to agree to it. 

She was utterly useless in the matter.

Add yourself to the taglist !!

@disneyprincessbuffyannesummers @winxschester @blissfulbluenights @ghostlypineappl @dreaming-of-the-reality @strangersunghoon @shesjustanothergeek @floralsightings

[gaycavendish]

once again thinking abt cavendish ballerina gamepiece and dakota Old Gum gamepiece. theyre so awesome

[aokozaki]

God I love Miorine Rembrant. She's prickly and difficult, needy while still being distant and cold, but she still desperately needs that affection because her attitudes are only the results of how she's been raised as someone to be sold off for marriage.

And ironically in trying to free Suletta from being associated with the political backstabbing that reduces people to gamepieces, she's ended up repeating her own father's mistake's verbatium, and hurt Suletta much more than she realized.*

And then when the penny finally drops and Miorine realizes she's been used, again, by an adult as part of a complicated political gambit, she doesn't curse out Prospera at all - Miorine simply looks at the gurella warfare before her and says "I did this".

Because oops! She got played!

*(Of note, unlike the audience, Miorine doesn't know about Eri. When Suletta talks about Aeriel being her sister, Miorine just lumps it in with the rest of Suletta's "odd mercurian bumpkin" traits. She didn't realize Prospera's proposed plan literally involved stealing Suletta's sister from her!)

[pink-blue-red-from-everhood-zero]

I suppose- now with multiple cool & attractive

women reblogging specifically my reblogs of @roborosewater-masters -

that I should write a little ditty to the effect of "I really like this 'bot specifically because it, as a multimedia art toy^ producing obviously unsaleable derivative work

("magic card" is, for decidedly worse, already an un-fan-marketable category; anybody buying proxy cards with new art is going in with a gamepiece firmly in mind, and commissioning a multiply-context-dependent artwork with a specific demand for the in-imitable creative agency of the artist)

is a neat little demonstration of the ethical cohabitation of the things with an existing art market, as specifically an exploratory tool for trends, biases, and logical axioms

(the player is a rules object, individual effect texts are only given meaning beyond their logical operation by the format of the game they're in, you WILL Vote for Death Goblin^)

within that market.

Text predictors/recognizers have already established a nefarious use case in business contexts, where profit maximizing business agents who were traditionally kind of forced to pay for real creative labor (this was a good thing) can now spin up a reserve labor scab-imp out of electricity and capital-

between this; the outsourcing of massive black-box generators to facilitate this "on the DoorDash model"; the exploitation of foreign labor to train and moderate these generators; and even, understandably,

(though inadviably- that is NOT how they work and you do NOT want to give legal ammo to NFT Guys!)

artists who're afraid that Big Business has found a way to right-click and sell your art (they could already do that, it's called "the last time the original writer won a plagiarism lawsuit and recieved compensation in excess of their legal fees was in 1977"^);

I will be refraining from reblogging any generative AI work that doesn't fall into that "clearly demarcated shitpost from a homebrew LLM with a known and credited artist pool (e.g.magic card artists)" bracket.

And I'll be tagging it. "LLM" and "AI Image" should do it.

----

[lazy citation: patricia-taxxon for the "art toy producing nondiscrete subworks" framing]

[lazy citation: txttletale for use as an art toy, death goblin joke]

[lazy citation: hbomberguy for the Brillo/Robocop/Futurecop thing]

[I DON'T count Nintendo as an individual original author- they are a corporation filing for rent on works by original artists who have frequently either quit or died. They're patent trolling right now. They sued the Yuzu guy into debt-slavery for contempt of business model. Not a meaningful proxy for indie artists.]

[eulchu]

This situation with George being used as other ccs' gamepiece and and toxic stans babying him are two sides of the same coin. He's just a disposable pretty face to them and they don't realise he'll actually get upset with them for betraying Dream trust.

☹️theydont know my baby like we do

[tlgtw]

Gideon's Scepter. And Gideon himself

This is an excerpt from the article "Excerpts from Snake-Eyes's Diary (Observations That Didn't Make it into the Show)" from Issue #0 of the Kinda-Monthly Newsletter. Available here: https://ko-fi.com/post/Official-Fanclub-Members-Only-Kinda-Monthly-Newsle-T6T0QZG87

As a reminder, the massive 90-page Issue #1 of the Kinda-Monthly Newsletter is free for all, and includes the supplementary article "ERwSET; What Exactly are the Demihumans? (And All That Entailed)" is available for all, for free. If you enjoyed my powers from my YouTube show, you will enjoy these as well: https://ko-fi.com/post/Official-Fanclub-Members-Only-Kinda-Monthly-Newsle-W7W2YN36Q

---

"The pearl stands for the world, the heavens, and an eye, representing the many forms of knowledge, never fully attainable."

"The world, the heavens, and an eye" by the by representing; - that which objectively exists--the world. - That which subjectively exists--the heavens. - And the individual conscious by which a person can observe such things' existences--the eye.

The world and the heavens being the many forms of knowledge, and the single eye, of Gideon being merely a single person, being why it'll never be fully attainable. If Gideon wasn't a fucking idiot he'd remember that there exist these things called 'schools.' Where more than one person is involved in the pursuit of learning things. But this is, of course, the fatal flaw by which Gideon's character is defined. It's so beyond his comprehension to act in any kind of cooperative, non-transactional way, that in response to you getting Nepheli the throne in Limgrave, he apologizes for 'the hassle' you took to do it, and literally nothing else. As if, in some roundabout way, you were helping Nepheli for Gideon's sake--cause Gideon's obviously the most useful person you know, instead of just helping Nepheli for her own sake, because she's a hot babe your friend. The same as it is with Ensha. Upon being killed by you, Gideon doesn't even give a shit. "As his master, I'd like to express my regret. But now, Ensha is slain and gone. Finished, forever more." Ensha (or, more specifically, the 'unspeaking adherent of Sir Gideon the All-Knowing' wearing the armour made from, this guy who was called Ensha.)'s goal was to get the Haligtree medallions. He failed. And that's the end of that. People are considered like gamepieces, to Gideon, with him being the most valuable piece of them all, and 'a player' all to himself. With the player-character, our Tarnished, incidentally, becoming the one exception to this at the end: The first time, and the last time, that Gideon considers if his mantle of the 'all-knowing' could possibly be shared. In this way, Gideon Ofnir can perhaps represent the 'patriarchal academic.' A name I just made up. Whose personal impetus for learning about the world is, effectively, to just more totally control it.

Gideon talks of aiming to learn everything, but without telling us why. I think, however, the reason why is clear, when we see what happens to Gideon upon finally learning something he was not equipped to face. "Knowledge begins with the recognition of one's ignorance. The realization that the search for knowledge is unending. But when Gideon glimpsed into the will of Queen Marika, he shuddered in fear. At the end that should not be." With the end of the Elden Ring would be the end of the Lands Between as we know it. The paradigm of the continent itself, and maybe even the entire planet, would be completely different, without the dictating magic of the Erdtree over it. No more Erdtree or Elden Ring-related incantations, no more Runes, no more Grace. What Gideon learned, that he was not able to handle emotionally, was the prospect of change. Something whose existence he could not fathom. But since he's supposed to be All-Knowing, if he can't fathom it, that must mean, it itself, is not possible. (This being the reason why it's 'should not’ instead of 'could not.’ The sentiment is specifically Gideon's opinion.) Out of desperation thus he concludes--and prominently, incorrectly concludes--that the task itself is just simply impossible. The whole Tarnished quest was a farce, "a man cannot kill a god," and the rest of his whining as we know. And as we also know. That old man gets fuckin' owned!!

Reason for Exclusion: Was replaced with the thing at the start of Episode 2. Which fit better with the rest of the content of that episode.

[magicwithclass]

Veteran Bodyguard was printed in limited edition Alpha so that means it also has printings in beta, unlimited, and revised. Furthermore, veteran bodyguard has printings in collector's edition and international edition as well as Magic 30th anniversary edition. In this post, I will be discussing the revised edition as that is the cheapest tournament legal printing of the card. I will discuss my thoughts on these other printings at another time. It shocks me that there are any reserved list cards in limited edition that are bulk or near bulk. While revised had a much larger print run than some other reserved list sets, I still believe that these cards are undervalued. There will come a day when even revised, reserved list cards will break the bank. Currently, veteran bodyguard can be purchased for between one and two bucks. Since the card is still budget friendly than the card must be unplayable as a gamepiece, right? I do not agree with that statement. A 2/5 for five is below rate in terms of stats but the ability seems under costed. Redirecting damage is not a commonly used effect. Very few cards redirect damage in the modern era and this is a static, continous effect. Surely, mtg has printed the veteran bodyguard effect on more efficient creatures. A quick search shows that this is not exactly true. Pariah is an aura that offers this ability for three mana but you need to provide your own creature to enchant. Palisade giant and protector of the crown also offer the same effect with upside but those cards cost 6 mana so the mana cost if less efficient. Likewise, weathered bodyguard can morph on turn 3 and flip on turn 4 but that is 7 mana total across two turns. Thus, veteran bodyguard has never really been power creeped. It is so strange that they have never made a more efficient version of the bodyguard effect when the card came out 30 years ago in alpha. The card has never been considered overpowered but this effect is not in favor so I am not sure if we ever get this ability at 4 mana. Can we also note the flavor? A bodyguard jumping in front and taking the damage for you is just spot on. Giving Veteran Bodyguard indestructible is also a strong synergy. Tapping the veteran will turn off the ability which is an issue that some of the other versions of this card do not have. There are not many decks that can utilize this card or this effect. Jared carthelion true heir has a similiar theme and stuffy doll decks may have a need for this. Rune tail kitsune ascendant commander decks work perfectly with veteran bodyguard and it seems like a staple in that deck. Unfortunately, rune-tail decks are not particularly popular. I did not even know the commander existed until today but I do enjoy a flip commander. The card did spike in 2018 to 3 dollars which is still relatively low but there were some reserved list cards that remained flat. The fact that this card did shoot up means there was some interest. 9.50 was the high in 2021 and I still think that is low. Should any playable reserved list card in limited edition be under 10? I think this card is one competitively viable commander away from spiking. Just look at the effect bloomburrow has had. Seeds of innocence was also the most efficient version of an effect and it was still bulk for years even after seeing legacy sideboard play. Will this follow that same trajectory?