#shandalar

[danco110]

“Your skill with the flute is progressing quite nicely, Rebecca.”

“Er, thank you, Lady Melissa. However, I did have a question for you…”

The older elf smiled warmly at her pupil. “Of course! Anything you need.”

“Well, it’s just…When I started studying under you, I was just hoping I could learn to play the flute better, you know?”

“Yes. And may I say, you have improved much since we’ve begun.”

“S-Sure. But I was wondering whether you might be able to teach me a version of playing that doesn’t…you know…?”

Melissa arched an eyebrow. “No, I’m afraid I do not know. Is something wrong?”

“Well…is there any way I could learn to play without summoning things?” Rebecca blurted, before promptly clapping her hands across her mouth in embarrassment.

“…Without summoning?”

“Well, summoning, attracting, whatever! I was hoping for…well, more than just woodland critters to listen!”

Melissa loosed a haughty laugh. “But what better audience is there, than one naturally drawn to your music?”

“Well, I’m not so sure about ‘naturally.’ You’ve definitely taught me some powerful magic, here.”

“And you have proven quite the prodigy at channeling it.” Melissa waved a dismissive hand at her student. “With that in mind, I’m sure you can figure out how to play without the…side effects.”

“Can’t you just tell me how?”

“No.”

“You don’t know how, do you?” Rebecca deadpanned.

“…No…”

[Shoutout to @thecornwall for inspiration on this one!]

[overgrown-estate]

Remember when we all thought this was going to be a thing in Magic the Gathering back in January 2021 until nothing came of it? It still surprises me that Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro would spend so much resources on other IPs when they haven't even researched their own. Shandalar is one of the original planes created by Magic. It may have been created for the MicroProse game back in April of 1997, but they continued to make use of it in Core Sets.

Imagine the world that could be put together if they would actually make a Shandalar set. I'm pretty sure they actually do have everything ever done with Shandalar in some computer file collecting electron dust. It's just a shame they won't ever use it. They keep on saying things like Shandalar has no mechanical identity. Well, bitches, it's your creation, give it an identity - mechanical, story, and otherwise.

There's already been plenty of lore given to Shandalar across a number of media outlets, @wizardsmagic. Do what you normally do and put it all together. It's like you don't want to touch it anymore. Get off your high horse and take care of business. Show us what Shandalar can be in this current point in time in the Multiverse.

It's nice to think something can be done to make this happen but I doubt it ever will. I might as well be screaming into the wind.

[reuxben]

Here’s our MTGinktober for “Scarecrow,“ starring Aminatou, Veil Piercer; Reaper King, and Pandora's Box. I think that enemy got the point.

Click this post’s Source link for this piece’s Making-Of.

More MTGinktober here.

Daily art updates on Instagram, Twitter, and Bluesky.

Reuxben

[tumblhurgoyf]

This is round 1 of the Battle of the Planes! Polls for the other round 1 match ups are up as well.

[vox-off]

i whinge about an extremely old computer game under the cut

so i was playing shandalar - as one does in the year of our lord 2024 - and was loitering about, picking fights, when a wizard attacked a nearby town. no biggie, i've got me a pretty bitchin' izzet burn deck, go to rescue the town, maybe get a cool card

now the wizards have all had like 14-21 starting life total up to this point. but THIS bitch had 100. i'mindanger.gif. fortunately for me, his deck sucked. well. okay i can see how his deck would be a problem for literally any other deck. his tactic was 'make everything expensive to cast' buddy a solid 28 of my 60 cards are 1 drops. i'm running 19 lands and still get flooded. i've got a core of lightning bolt, shock, fireball, opt, and ancestral recall. my 'big spenders' are guttersnipes at a whopping 3 cmc. maybe a docent if it gets dire. you can't cast shit for shit and i may be killing you 1/10th of your health at a time, but by god i am going to death by a thousand static shocks you

i beat him three times and each time, the game would crash before the 'you done beat him' screen. i got so steamed about it i rage quit and went to bed

googled about it this morning. turns out the ONLY enemy in the game with 100 life is the final boss. somehow the good good quality game of Modded To Fuck Shandalar glitched the final boss into a random city on the map with exactly zero Final Boss Time conditions met and then, presumably, crashed under the weight of its own embarrassment

[dominarianplowshare]

Fragment of some writing I’m noodling around with—

Many believe that it is an immense task, perhaps an impossible burden, to know all that can be known. This is true. But there is one task harder.

There are scholarly disciplines for every topic on earth, save one, which we will touch on in a moment. Geologists plumb the earth’s hidden depths, whilst geographers array before our eyes the manifold marvels spread across it. Botanists diagram the inner lives of plants, phlebotomists diagnose the infernal flows of blood, physicists master the manner of the cosmos, and physicians manage the mortalities of our bodily matter. And this is to say nothing of the magical arts! Allomancy, cryomancy, pyromancy, illusionism, duplimancy, hieromancy, keuranomancy, mimeomancy, lumimancy, oneiromancy, necromancy, thaumaturgy, viromancy—a mere triskadecaton of the manifold numerosities found in the study of magic, most of all our native Shandalar, infused as it is with our native magics.

But whether we name sciences of the body or earth, alchemies of fluid and chemicalism, or magics of ice, flame, death, or light—in all these disparate sciences we may grasp a common thread weaving amidst the chaos, which is this: the vocation of unveiling, that is to say of making the unknown known.

But I invite you to imagine the reverse. Can there be such a science as makes the known unknown? That is to say, a science that mystifies that which we take without faith, that clouds those sunny days of our intellect, that casts over our knowledge a pall of obscurity and allows us to know nothing but this: that our world is not what we believe it to be?

Such is the science I propose to you. Such is cryptohistory.

[beatsandskies]

deePRECONnaissance: early two coloured decks from Shandalar

Diving into some Old School 93/94 precon decklists today, courtesy of the #Shandalar #MTG game from 1997. I'm looking at 5 decks wielded by the "two-colour lesser" tier of enemies and these are fantastic! They'd be a great way to try out #OldSchoolMTG.

[almostlookedhuman]

[overgrown-estate]

I really hope we get a set taking place on Shandalar. If there's any fantasy setting I'd want in a Standard set, it's Shandalar. There's so much that's taken place there in core sets and other media. I wish WotC would actually use it for a premier set.

Does the Brothers War set underperforming reduce the chances of a set focusing on Shandalar?

I find a lot of the lore from that era of Magic to be really interesting so I am sad that it might not get the spotlight I think it deserves because one set did bad.

It doesn't help, but doesn't make it off limits.

[brastrophobia]

Doing that thing where I bounce between like 8 different games before never settling on any

[leafdrake-haven]

How we feelin’ about that First Look y’all?

[danco110]

“I never would’ve thought so many people would come back…both to life, and to the shop.”

Jornald could only watch in dismay as the crowd of undead surged towards him. Scorched, rotting hands seized the blacksmith’s sleeves, but he only sighed as he was pulled over the counter and into the mob. Yet another sigh escaped him when he was thrown out onto the main floor of his shop, the horde abandoning him in favor of mauling his cash register.

“Yes, that’s right, take it all! Vultures…”

“No. Vultures are more Isareth’s thing.”

Jornald jumped from the rasping chuckle behind him. He turned away from the fiscally gruesome scene to see another zombie, this one fixing him with a withered smirk.

“…Zul,” Jornald growled in reluctant greeting. “I didn’t think you would stoop so low as to ruin my business. I thought maybe you’d kill me instead but…robbing me?”

“Robbing!” The undead necromancer Zul Ashur somehow adopted an even more aghast expression. “I’m doing no such thing. You made these people a promise - either fully fireproof equipment or a full refund. I’m merely giving them a chance to find the latter, since the first obviously didn’t come to pass.”

“Well, this mob eating into my profits sure beats eating into…me. But still, why? This all seems a bit theatrical for a lich like you.”

Zul gave a literally and figuratively dry laugh. “Well, I wasn’t always so. I was once a bright-eyed girl, eager to begin her first adventure…”

“I…I think I remember you now.”

“She was looking for questing gear on a budget. Boy, was she a fool!”

“All right, I can take a guess why, now.”

“She found this nice little shop, run by-”

“ALL RIGHT!” Jornald shook his head. “I’ll give you a refund too…out of whatever they leave behind,” he groaned, as he pointed to the now near-empty register.

“No. This is all for them. I won’t accept a single coin.”

“Hmph. And here I thought you were cutthroat.”

“No, I was burned.”

Jornald gnashed his teeth.

[overgrown-estate]

A character from Shandalar in a Standard set? OMG! And he cares about modal spells? Can you even make a deck that's predominantly modal spells? This is interesting!

[reuxben]

Here’s our MTGinktober for “Wander,” starring Balan, Wandering Knight; Fblthp, the Lost; and Cairn Wanderer! When you need an expert crew of explorers to sorta travel around aimlessly, Balan and the Bald Bois are the best in the biz.

Click this post’s Source link for this piece’s Making-Of.

More MTGinktober here.

Daily art updates on Instagram and Twitter.

Reuxben

[virhe]

🌩️🌩️🌩️ INSTANT WOMBAT STRIKE 🌩️🌩️🌩️

[vox-off]

okay. updated and modded shandalar both slaps extremely fucking hard and also sucks major ass