#kiran nalaar

[xantchaslegacy]

[incorrect-mtg]

Pia: Kiran, I think our daughter might be a natural pyromancer

Kiran: That's concerning... but why do you think that

Baby Chandra, sitting right in front of them: *burps out a small fireball*

Kiran: Ah.

[transitranger327]

Nothing but props for the Mom & Pop Thopter Shop

My son's first birthday was last week. Would you be willing to share an experience of when Magic increased family connection?

When we chose to go to Chandra’s home plane, Kaladesh, we knew we would have a chance to introduce her parents.

Happy First Birthday!

[zoydraft]

Damp Red Impulsive Bombardment, drafted by SJ, March 10, 2023 (2-1).

Red felt open! Emry felt right, but I never drew it. I drafted this kind of as a Prowess / Artifacts deck, but ended up without the density of non-creatures that I'd want. Goblin Bombardment was huge for me, with Siege-Gang Commander and Pia and Kiran Nalaar as capable backups. What I didn't anticipate was the grotesque amount of impulsive draw here. At one point I had Bomat Courier and Tectonic Giant triggering Laelia, and that was beautiful. I've cut Light Up the Stage and Reckless Impulse in the last little while, and this deck validated that those effects aren't worth a card when I have them stapled to creatures.

Ultimately, this deck couldn't beat a resolved Aetherling.

[hanbeihood]

Magic: the Disney-ing

Lilo & Stitch but featuring your fav Kaladesh citizens

Lilo: Young Chandra

Nani: Pia

David: Kiran

Stitch: a literal gremlin Chandra thought was a dog

[askkrenko]

I'm thinking of making a Siblings or Dating: MtG edition with friends that don't know anything about magic lore. I currently have Gisa and Geralf, Huddle Up and Vendilion Clique (apparently) as siblings. and Kynaios and Tiro, Halana and Alena, Partners, and Secret Rendezvous for Dating (point of interest to me that they're all queer, might be worth analyzing a bit deeper) Do you have suggestions for more card arts that could ride that line?

Anax and Cymede comes to mind as a straight couple. There's a very weird set of siblings on Dictate of the Twin Gods, but if you're including titles that's a very obvious one.

I searched Scryfall for Art:Siblings and got a few. Adrix and Nev are siblings, and, if you hide the flavor text, Bitterbow Sharpshooters specifies that they're siblings.

Really, the question of "are you hiding flavor text/names" comes up a lot here. But take a look!

You can also search for "Couple." I'm seeing Pia and Kiran Nalaar, Tibor and Lumia, and a few others there. These are far from all-inclusive lists though.

Liliana's Indignation is the only art I can find of just Jace and Liliana, and it's not a great picture of Jace. They used to date.

Agonizing Remorse shows Elspeth and Daxos.

Urza's Guilt shows the most important brothers in all of Magic: the Gathering.

And for a trick question, show the Double Masters version of Teferi's Protection, which is father and daughter. (Teferi, Hero of Dominaria's alt art is sadly too obvious due to the presence of the child)

[theunknowncowboy]

I love how silly power and toughness is in mtg because the existence of these two cards has a lot of weird implications

Pia Nalaar - Pia and Kiran Nalaar = Kiran Nalaar

Which leads me to believe that Kiran costs one red mana for a 0/0 that makes a 1/1 thopter with flying when he enters the battlefield. He is the malewife of mtg and Pia is clearly a girlboss who is strong enough to kill a grizzly bear in a one on one fight at the cost of her own life.

[mtgbracket]

Tournament of Champions qualifying round

Hey!  After a hiatus, we are BACK with a new project.

After including Commander Legends, there are 1,076 Legendary Creatures in Magic (including silver border and so on).  Over the next six months, the Magic community is invited to vote for their favourites in a knockout tournament until only ONE remains!

The votes will be broken up into manageable batches each day.  But the first order of business: We need to have a power of 2 for a perfect single elimination contest, and we’re a little over.  So 104 of those Legends have to earn their place via a qualifying round.  The cards and matchups were chosen at random.

You can vote here NOW!  You need to register an account but no email is required.  Voting is open for 1 week.

The full list of matchups for today:

Ghoulcaller Gisa vs Adriana, Captain of the Guard Alirios, Enraptured vs Omnath, Locus of Rage Archelos, Lagoon Mystic vs Gorm the Great Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle vs Prime Speaker Vannifar

Arvad the Cursed vs Karn, Silver Golem Aryel, Knight of Windgrace vs Kestia, the Cultivator Lady Orca vs Avacyn, Angel of Hope Baron Sengir vs Kykar, Wind's Fury

Barrin, Tolarian Archmage vs Hamza, Guardian of Arashin Bartel Runeaxe vs Rhys the Redeemed Doran, the Siege Tower vs Borborygmos Pharika, God of Affliction vs Breya, Etherium Shaper

Brokkos, Apex of Forever vs Nylea, Keen-Eyed Cao Ren, Wei Commander vs Mikaeus, the Unhallowed Daxos, Blessed by the Sun vs Kataki, War's Wage Derevi, Empyrial Tactician vs Wrexial, the Risen Deep

Zetalpa, Primal Dawn vs Dr. Julius Jumblemorph Zara, Renegade Recruiter vs Elsha of the Infinite Emry, Lurker of the Loch vs Ilharg, the Raze-Boar Gallia of the Endless Dance vs Numot, the Devastator

General Jarkeld vs Thantis, the Warweaver Kamahl, Heart of Krosa vs Glenn, the Voice of Calm Sigarda, Host of Herons vs Greel, Mind Raker Heliod, God of the Sun vs Tibor and Lumia

Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician vs Jedit Ojanen Ixidor, Reality Sculptor vs Isperia, Supreme Judge Jareth, Leonine Titan vs Princess Lucrezia Wydwen, the Biting Gale vs Joven

Ryusei, the Falling Star vs Jugan, the Rising Star Rashida Scalebane vs Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar Titania, Protector of Argoth vs Kelsien, the Plague Kenrith, the Returned King vs Regna, the Redeemer

Zirda, the Dawnwaker vs Khod, Etlan Shiis Envoy Rona, Disciple of Gix vs Kongming, "Sleeping Dragon" Shimatsu the Bloodcloaked vs Kozilek, the Great Distortion Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix vs Nadier, Agent of the Duskenel

Scion of the Ur-Dragon vs Lu Meng, Wu General Sevinne, the Chronoclasm vs Lu Xun, Scholar General Major Teroh vs The Big Idea Stangg vs Marchesa, the Black Rose

Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer vs Ormos, Archive Keeper Odric, Master Tactician vs Morophon, the Boundless Yarok, the Desecrated vs Norin the Wary Tayam, Luminous Enigma vs Ob Nixilis, Unshackled

Phelddagrif vs Reyhan, Last of the Abzan Pia and Kiran Nalaar vs Subira, Tulzidi Caravanner Rakdos, Lord of Riots vs Zyym, Mesmeric Lord Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign vs Rhonas the Indomitable

Torbran, Thane of Red Fell vs Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro Sai, Master Thopterist vs Thriss, Nantuko Primus Yukora, the Prisoner vs Sliver Hivelord Virtus the Veiled vs Zhang Fei, Fierce Warrior

[intrepidguardian]

How Design Miscues are Failing Portrayals of Relationships in MTG

Discourse? Discourse. 

Love is a difficult topic to discuss because it can encompass so many things that aren’t “love” - you know what I mean, the kind of stuff that would get a fanfic tagged as “fluff.” My wife’s and my third anniversary is coming up, and more and more I find myself still learning about what love is. I love the study, but I know that I could fill hundreds of external hard drives with epitaphs and musings about every interaction my wife and I have had, each exemplifying a different aspect of our love and still not get the point across of just how much I love her.

(Btw I love you Ash and thank you for helping me edit this)

So how could you get an idea as complex as love across in the 25 words you’re allowed on your average Magic card? More to the point, why bother portraying love in Magic: The Gathering?

"Players won’t care until they are cards.” - Matt Cavotta, Senior Art Director for Wizards of the Coast, discussing the motivation for implementing Planeswalkers as a card type. 

A few years back, and I’m sorry that I can’t find the actual post, someone asked Mark Rosewater something to the effect of “Red is supposed to be the ‘emotional color,’ yet the only emotion we tend to see out of Red is anger. WTF?”

Mark responded that R&D was working towards showing different aspects of the emotional spectrum in Red, but was hampered by the fact that Magic: The Gathering is a game about fighting and it was difficult to portray anything other than MAD RED in a game about fighting.

“No, my battlefield only has room for more Goblin Chainwhirlers.” - Solid Snake, probably. 

A little while later, they apparently cracked the love code and printed Cathartic Reunion in Kaladesh, which was meant to portray Chandra finally reuniting with her mother Pia Nalaar, when both thought that the other had died years ago. 

Shoutout to all my Dredge opponents that keep beating me with four-card hands thanks to this card.

Like yeah, it’s a nice moment and a nice piece of art. It’s not romantic love, but it’s familial love. You can see the love between Chandra and Pia in their embrace, and I think this might be one of the first portrayals of a hug in Magic: The Gathering [someone prove me wrong]. When you only have 25 words to explain love, the art and flavor text can pick up the slack. But mechanically, what is this saying about maternal love, or love in general? Is love just more inherent deck consistency? Is drawing cards the greatest display of love in Magic: The Gathering? Artistically and flavorfully, this card is trying to say a lot. Mechanically, this card could have easily been called “Super Rummage” or “Elicit the Dredge” and no one would be able to tell the difference. This card is trying to show what love is, but without any sort of mechanical tie-in, Cathartic Reunion just tells you what love is. 

Wow, my opponent loves me A WHOLE LOT!

I would say that the best way to explain love is to show love. And I think the best way to show love is to show people who love each other interact positively with one another. Like, love is hard to explain but is easy to see. When you see two people who love each other interact, you can just tell. Maybe it’s small physical gestures or communication purely through facial expressions, but when love is there, it’s obvious. Yes, the art of Cathartic Reunion clearly shows a tender love between Chandra and Pia, but both Chandra and Pia Nalaar were given cards in Kaladesh! Show us how they interact where we are most likely to see both of them: on the battlefield!

What are these cards doing for one another when both are on the battlefield? Not a lot. Chandra’s second +1 makes enough mana to use Pia’s first activated ability one additional time. 

That’s cool, I guess.

Pia has a tag-along flying creature that can block for Chandra once, so Pia is essentially two blockers for a planeswalkers.

Yeah, but Whirler Rogue can make a bunch of Thopters to block for Chandra, so what does that mean? There’s no love between Chandra and some random Vedalken just because the three-drop blocks real good. 

</3

There isn’t any mechanical unity here. Chandra doesn’t care about artifacts, and Pia doesn’t care about card advantage or incidental damage. They can do some things for each other, yes, but there isn’t anything for a deck builder to go “Hmm, how can I maximize this?” It’s the mechanical equivalent of Pia and Chandra getting Amazon gift cards for each other for their birthday - a display of love, but not a particularly meaningful one. 

Well, here you go. -Chandra

But maybe this isn’t fair. Pia Nalaar’s card maybe wasn’t supposed to work well with Chandra, it was supposed to convey a sense of emptiness from missing Kiran, her husband who had actually been killed. They had been shown on their own card in Magic Origins, which is powerful enough that it hovers around Modern whenever Jund or Grixis are good. Pia’s card is cheaper, but comparatively weaker, and even when you look at the art, Pia Nalaar is significantly dimmer and emptier than the card Pia and Kiran Nalaar.

“What does Kiran bring to this relationship? DO THE MATH!” -My Grandmother-in-Law, maybe

Maybe before we can show a good example of familial love in card mechanics, we need to show people in love working together on the battlefield! 

So let’s grab some examples. Three couples right now in Magic that people are really talking about are Jace x Vraska, Tomik x Ral Zarek, and Chandra x Nissa. If you wanted to show some cozy couples, what’s cozier than being in a deckbox with your significant other?

Jace x Vraska

Well, these cards could maybe work together? Not a lot of decks can make two blue mana on turn three and then turn around and make black and green mana on turn six.  

Mana problems aside, they kind of work well together. Jace is looking for creatures to get through combat damage and Vraska makes difficult to block creature tokens thanks to Menace. However, there’s also a cost problem here, which is that Jace wants to come down turn three and Vraska, the muscle of this relationship with all the free blockers, doesn’t come down for another three turns, so Jace has to try and hide behind a Bird that goes away if you look at it too long while Vraska’s trying to get mana together. If you can find a way to get both on the battlefield in the same deck, maybe it works, but it’s a lot of work without a lot of payoff.

Okay, what about a more recent example? Chandra and Nissa both got new cards in War of the Spark and they’re supposed to be canon, so they probably have something going on between their two cards. 

Chandra x Nissa 

This is a pretty symbiotic relationship - Chandra finds extra cards to cast, and Nissa makes a lot of mana to cast those extra cards and creates blockers so the player has time to do so. It’s the RG formula we see in a lot of ramp decks in this color combination - Green makes the mana, red makes the otherwise-unwieldy payoffs. But much like Chandra’s mechanical relationship with Pia, this doesn’t feel special or unique. Yeah, Chandra finds extra cards, but she also comes into play before Nissa, so there’s a turn of vulnerability where Nissa might arrive too late to actually help Chandra. And anyone could  do that “find extra cards” job. See, look:

It’s like the dating game, but for really, really sad people

They all can do the same “get extra cards” thing for the player the way Chandra can, and all benefit from the blockers and extra mana that Nissa produces.. Mechanically, there is some synergy between Chandra and Nissa, but there’s nothing that speaks to the relationship between the two characters - it feels more like a convenient coincidence that these two cards work together rather than two people who finally came together when it mattered most. 

Maybe what we need is a mix-up - people represented on different card types could have more design space for synergistic effects. 

Tomik x Ral

So the last pairing is Tomik x Ral. I don’t know if any of you have bought a “Planeswalker Deck,” but a big selling point to those cards for beginners is that there is usually a creature in the deck that benefits from having that deck’s planeswalker in play. They’re flavorful and fun to get out ahead when when you find your planeswalker, but they’ve never been really viable for tournament play. A planeswalker like Ral being in a relationship with a non-planeswalker seems like the perfect fit for creating a competitive-level combination of creature and planeswalker and could really highlight the relationship between Tomik and Ral. 

Yeah, they didn’t even try with this one. Double white on turn 2 into Red and Blue on turn 4 is already a tall order, but these two cards have entirely separate goals. Tomik, a card designed for Legacy, really wants to hate on his opponents trying to manipulate their lands. 

Ral doesn’t have the word “land” on his card, and is a card designed with card advantage and maybe some combos in mind. 

They’re two totally different cards designed for two totally different decks. I get that. My point is that they shouldn’t be. Wizards clearly knows how to design “planeswalkers matter” creatures, had an opportunity to do so, and instead opted to design a Legacy card to hate out cards that don’t exist in Legacy anymore. 

You barely even deserve this, WotC.

That last bit was a little dense. I get it, it’s hard to read without caring a lot about flavorful mechanics, but I am trying to get my point across that Wizards had so many opportunities to make cards that could work together and mechanically create a sense of a relationship between characters and repeatedly chose not to, instead prioritizing other design goals. If I’m coming on a little strongly, it is because I know Wizards knows how to do this. In fact, Wizards had the opposite problem to the Chandra x Nissa issue, waaaay back in Battle for Zendikar. 

“...and the Lord of the Multiverse said to Gideon, “It is not good for a planeswalker to be alone,” and so the Lord created Nissa and brought her to Gideon who jubilantly exclaimed: ‘Voice of my voice! Planeswalker of my heart! I shall call you Nissa, Voice of Zendikar! Together we shall grow plants and make Ally offspring and they shall have dominion over the entire plane of Zendikar!’ And the Lord of the Multiverse saw that it was very good...” -A very tongue-in-cheek quote by Craig Wescoe discussing Nissa, Voice of Zendikar in the upcoming Oath of the Gatewatch set. 

Do you see this? Do you get it? 

These two cards were made for each other. 

There are a lot of similarities between these cards, and because they’re similar, they work well together in a lot of ways, all of which scream “PLAY US IN THE SAME DECK.”

1. Both Planeswalkers make tokens without losing loyalty. 2. Both Planeswalkers have an ability that gets better with more tokens, and can boost each other’s tokens.  3. Nissa curves into Gideon and can help make a safe battlefield for him. 4. Nissa coming down late is still good for Gideon, and she can even boost him with a +1/+1 counter when he’s a creature.  5. Both Planeswalkers have the same naming convention: Planeswalker, Whatever of Zendikar. We’re battling for Zendikar, of course I want Zendikar’s Ally and Zendikar’s Voice!

“But wait!” somebody wanting to say something said. “Two green mana on Turn 3 could be tough, and needing two white mana on turn 4 is even tougher!”

Well, hold on there buckaroo, because have I got the love note in a Magic card for you:

We didn’t see it, but Gideon planeswalked to a high school on Theros and had a popular girl fold this card up into a little triangle before giving it to Nissa.

This card is the perfect mechanical tie-in for a Nissa x Gideon deck. Card selection has rarely ever been afforded to white decks, and GW token decks have often struggled with getting their mana right to cast their white payoff cards without making room for superfluous mana decks, and even then that might not fix it (just ask Richard Bland about his GW Tokens deck in the Worlds 2011 finals). And as a little bonus, this card can get either Nissa or Gideon or, you know, whatever creatures you wanted, and what color combination was going to have more efficient creatures AND planeswalkers than Green and White Mechanically, these cards work so well together and they look like they’re supposed to work together. 

In fact, this was the core of an incredibly powerful GW Tokens deck that won Pro Tour Shadows over Innistrad in the hands of Steve Rubin. 

And when I was younger and looking at this deck for the first time, I thought Wizards would leap at the opportunity to pair these two up. Two reasonably popular planeswalkers paired up together to save a plane and worked really well together when I sleeved them up together? For a time, I was locked in - I thought Nissa x Gideon was going to be canon, and the lead-up to Kaladesh was where we’d see a little fluff between the two, or at the very least some genuine bonding between the flagship planeswalkers of the two colors most-interested in community. Instead, we got this:

Nissa: You’re being a little extra for me.

Gideon: My bad lol. 

I was a little salty about that interaction (mostly because it felt like every color combination in the Gatewatch has had a good or at least interesting interaction, except green and white), but I was down with Nissa x Chandra. It seemed like they had some chemistry in the story, and I was excited to see that chemistry reflected in the cards. Instead, we got a whole lot of nothing, which is infuriating because Wizards knows how to mechanically tie-in planeswalkers. 

Okay Wizards, here’s your second fifth chance...

So why is all this important? Why go into this deep dive about card mechanics trying to convey something that is decidedly not a mechanic in Magic: the Gathering? 

It’s because love can be expressed in this game’s mechanics, which is really hard in a game about fighting, but also a very unique opportunity. A card can care about what another card is doing, can subtly emulate what another card is doing or how it is presenting, and other cards can tie the two together. That kind of mechanical interlinking has a real-world analogue: a genuine, deep love for another person. Wizards has clearly struggled with the problem of portraying relationships in a way that its multiple player bases will care about and want to play with. The solution to that problem is creating powerful cards that mechanically care about one other and attributing those cards and mechanics to characters that emotionally care about each other in its stories.

Wizards, you clearly know how to do that, so...

[inventors-fair]

The Descendants

I love me some Dragon Broodmother. And there’s the Mother of Runes, the son and daughter of Seshiro. Almost every character in Magic has to have parental lineage, and we see how important that is to themes of honor, growth, learning, and love. Chandra and Pia are a great example of this as seen on the card, and Pia and Kiran Nalaar are just good parents in general. I know that we all call @flavoracle a kind of “Magic dad,” but I’ve been thinking about this, and I think we should explore some of these feelings.

Design a card that thematically or flavorfully relates to parents/children in some fashion. You can choose to either submit a card with strong flavorful ties, or strong mechanical resonance. These do not have to be “human” connections, nor do they necessarily have to be “positive,” as long as they fit in the theme.

This contest is sorta informally dedicated to Dave. And if you can, take the time to thank a parent in your life today - any parent you feel is a good parent, yours or otherwise. Let your heart tell you how love works.

>>> Submit your entries HERE! <<<

Thank you <3

[gamerdragon13]

Check out my short story “Moving On” on Fanfiction now!

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12462366/1/Moving-On

[xantchaslegacy]

[truetgirl]

Favorite Planeswalkers Part 3: Enemy Color Pairs

Much hotter on the heels of the last part than part 2 was on part 1: my real wheelhouse in the form of enemy colors.

Well it’s an awkward start in my favorite color pairing with a character whose guts I hate with all my soul but who has had 2 cards thus far I can totally get use out of, this being the better of the two. I really want more Boros walkers that stay freaking Boros cause much as I love Ajani and Huatli both of them have been confirmed to have completely dropped their red at present (make one of them our first Naya walker card you COWARDS).

My second favorite commander deck helmed by my second favorite planeswalker in the story right now. I’ve loved Saheeli since she was first introduced, I’ve always loved Izzet artifacts since my first intro deck in Origins with old Pia and Kiran Nalaar, and I love casting big spells that go boom. You can imagine, then, how quickly the deck I wanted to make with this commander came together the nanosecond I saw her for the first time.

Despite a literal 5 options, Simic is a tough pick for me. Right now I’m gonna lock in with Nissa here but on another given day I might go with new Tamiyo. No matter what though, uncommon Kiora keeps a respectable advantage over her mythic versions.

YAR-HAR FIDDLE-DEE-DEE BEING A PIRATE IS ALRIGHT WITH ME, DO WHAT YOU WANT CAUSE A PIRATE LIVES FREE *sounds of somebody shutting me up*. Right, well, what can I say? She’s just straight up goodstuff on a character I like represented in the part of the story that made me fall in love with her with my favorite art she’s ever had just to top it off. Also YOU ARE A PIRATE!

It was actually a really close call between this and a few different Sorins but OG Kaya just has, in my opinion, the coolest design ever played around with on a planeswalker. A planeswalker with no plus abilities and no ultimate but instead value abilities and the ability to reset itself? And that flavor ties into her abilities to go incorporeal and go about solving problems in ways most just can’t? Sign me the fuck up I love this card.

[markrosewater]

Speaking of entire families having individual cards, I'd like to request that Kiran Nalaar get his own card.

A fine suggestion.

[doctor-roman]

Okay! List of what I have vs what I want to include in it is up! 

Right now the main combos I have planned for it are:

-Breya / Pia and Kiran Nalaar / Wurmcoil Engine + Ashnod’s Altar / Krark-Clan Ironworks + Nim Deathmantle

-Sharuum the Hegemon + Phyrexian Metamorph / Sculpting Steel

-Thopter Foundry + Sword of the Meek + Ashnod’s Altar / Krark-Clan-Ironworks

Any and all suggestions welcome!

[drantlers]

Must a been real weird for Pia and Kiran Nalaar, new parents, to see their infant calmly burst in to flames.