Author: slearch

  • Experts Declare “Halo Hunter” Photo a Hoax

    Experts have debunked the recent photo of Halo Hunter as a fake. However, some still believe it to be real. You be the judge:

  • GG News: Elder Dragon Unable to Stop Man on Horse

    Noted Elder Dragon Legend Vaevictis Asmadi is accustomed to being the big bad ruler of the battlefield.

    But with the release of Master’s Edition III on Magic Online, he has been facing down some foes unlike any he’s seen before. Vaevictis was reached in his volcanic lair to describe one such encounter.

    “When I first saw it I thought, ‘no big deal’ – just looked like your garden variety Tarpan or whatever. I figured I would just fly down there, break every bone in its body, roast it in my polychromatic flame, and devour its earthly form and ethereal soul,” he said.

    But as what we know now as Shu Cavalry got closer and closer, eyewitness reports indicate that the venerable dragon’s grin slowly disappeared, beads of sweat the size of Muck Drubbs began to form on his brow, and 3 of his 7 testicles receded in an unprecedented display of terror.

    “I was like ‘SHIT SHIT SHIT’, you know? There was a horse, right, but there was a GUY RIDING IT,” he recounted, visibly shaking at the memory.

    “A GUY. Riding A HORSE,” he continued.

    As the Cavalry drew near only one thing was clear to the great Scourge of All That Lives.

    “There was no way I could go down there to stop it. Nuh-uh. NOOOOOO WAY.”

    “I mean are you even listening to me? HE WAS RIDING A HORSE. I mean, shit man.”

  • GG News: Bomb Scares Uncommon on the 10th Floor of the M Building

    Recent bomb scares on the 10th floor in the venerable M building have many of the workers there worried.

    Willis Ramo is head of security for the building and says that scares such as these, though uncommon, are nothing new to the building. As such, he claims, his staff is well prepared to deal with such threats.

    “The key thing for my men is to be alert, and that starts with a good Sleep,” Willis said. “Then if a crisis hits, like a Fireball suddenly ripping through the building, they have enough Control of their Mind to not be Overrun with emotions and effectively get all the civilians out of Harm’s Way,” he continued.

    Serra Angel,” he added.

    When asked about what measures he has in place, Willis could not go into specifics citing security concerns, but did offer one tidbit. “You know, between you and me,” Willis said while leaning in and lowering his voice, “this isn’t even the 10th floor! We put a big M10 placard over the 11th floor sign to throw ’em off!”.

  • Magical Cards Facebook Feed 2

    Bog Wraith suck it Scathe Zombies!

    July 10, 2009
    Aaron Forsythe is extremely happy with the “flavor reboot” in M10. For the first time we are presenting a compelling, cohesive, and completely intuitive fantasy world to new players.

    July 8, 2009
    Howling Mine
    I totally agree. Now that you’ve gotten rid of all the cards whose flavor made no sense, you won’t have to look for such cards ever again. Well done!
    Amnesia posted his Top 5 New M10 Cards

    June 30, 2009

    Kelinore Bats, Runeclaw Bears, Essence Scatter, Act of Treason, and Divination.

    Kaboom! Billy Mays: REST IN PEACE

    June 28, 2009
    Lifelink joined the group Cards named after abilities.

    June 27, 2009
    Fear
    Why can’t I join this group?
    Vigilance
    you’re looking for “abilities named after cards”, grandma

    Kjeldoran Knight is looking for another knight to band with. Let me know if you know anyone.

    June 26, 2009
    White Knight
    Sorry man, I’m kind of busy. I just got reprinted you know.
    Black Knight
    Will any knight do?
    Kjeldoran Knight
    Yeah any knight at all.
    Black Knight
    So you’re saying… it don’t matter if I’m black or white?
    Squire
    too soon :(
    Overrun can somebody make some damn tokens over here?

    June 26, 2009
    Elvish Archdruid
    Sorry, I only make mana!
    Llanowar Elves
    It’s ok, nobody’s perfect.

    Savannah Lions is friends with Captain of the Watch.

    June 25, 2009
    Serra Angel
    honestly man, you’re embarassing yourself
    Savannah Lions changed his profile picture.

    June 25, 2009

    Savannah Lions
    sup guys :)
    Serra Angel
    this is just sad
    Air Elemental
    you didn’t make it, give it up
    Magma Spray is looking for Kitchen Finks. Anyone know where I could find them?

    June 25, 2009
    Harm’s Way
    Sorry man, no idea. But you know what? I think it would be way more interesting to go find Figure of Destiny.
    Magma Spray
    Sweet, thanks for your help!
    Lightning Bolt thinks he nailed that job interview :)

    June 16, 2009
    Nantuko Husk While it used to require a trained professional to deal combat damage, that’s no longer the case: Modern combat damage is as easy as 1, 2, 3, literally.

    June 12, 2009
    Nantuko Husk
    Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
    *Turn to page 56 and find the FIFTH sentence.
    *Post that sentence AS YOUR STATUS.
    *Post these instructions in a comment to this status.
    *Use the CLOSEST book. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST book.
    Mogg Fanatic
    What a weird coincidence, I’m reading Combat Damage for Dummies too.
    Pulse of the Forge left the group Cards you can pretend are in your deck when you accidentally take mana burn

    June 11, 2009
    Braid of Fire
    Oh cheer up! Maybe we can work together ;)
    Wizards of the Coast posted a note: M10 Rules Changes.

    June 10, 2009
    We have instituted some exciting new changes to the way Magic works! Read all about them here:
    http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/46a
    Wall of Denial
    I’m pretty sure this is just a late April Fool’s joke
    Anger
    What the FUCK. I’m quitting Magic forever.
    Yawgmoth’s Bargain
    I’ve got a better idea for how you can fix Deathtouch.
    Despondency
    im going to kill myself
    Acceptable Losses
    In six months we probably won’t even remember playing with the old rules.
    Wizards of the Coast tagged Ball Lightning in a photo.

    June 10, 2009

    Ball Lightning
    what the hell
    Ball Lightning
    man, i look awful there. i don’t remember this picture at all.
    Glacial Fortress joined the group Chase Rare Lands that could have easily been Uncommon.

    June 9, 2009
    Secluded Glen
    Hi and welcome to the steadiest-growing group on Facebook!
    Yann Massicard changed his profile picture.

    May 30 2009

    Yann Massicard is feeling lucky :)

    May 30 2009
  • The Evolution of Magic’s Rules and Flavor

    With big changes coming in 2010, now is a great time to look at the past to help contextualize the new framework of magic. In this series, we’ll consider an area being updated in 2010, trace it back to its earliest roots, and look at what 2010 means to its future.

    Flavor and Terminology

    Alpha — Ice Age

    Cards were often printed with their initial inspired-by-fantasy-flavor wording, with any revisions or clarifications tacked on the end rather than represented by edits. As a result, it was common to see effects such as “Draw an extra land or spell from your library in addition to your normal draw for the turn, but only once a turn, and not if your hand is full already or you didn’t pay 4 mana.”

    Ice Age — 6th Edition

    Designers get tired of magic cards that sound like your drunken uncle trying to tell a joke he barely remembers, and standardize the wordings of common effects and meanings. Now all the cards with the same intended effect say the exact same thing, except the 90% of those cards printed either before this standardization or after one of the several changes to the standard in question.

    6th Edition — 2010’s Paper Release

    Flavor takes a back seat to functionality in card wordings. Terms are further standardized, and evocative fantasy words are replaced with mundane gaming ones. For instance, ‘cast’ becomes ‘play.’ Unfortunately, due to a rather severe editing error, the words ‘tap,’ ‘control,’ ‘card,’ ‘phase,’ ‘attack,’ and most confusingly ‘library’ also become play. Thus prompting Noam Chomsky to famously declare Godo, Bandit Warlord’s text…

    … to be “completely friggin’ indecipherable.”

    2010’s paper release — 2010’s MTGO release

    Evocative fantasy words return in greater numbers than ever before! This brings an end to the confusion over how coming into play is different from being played, and replaces it with confusion over how three islands and an underground river can be in a field.

    2010’s MTGO release — ???

    Due to a strconst.dat error, words on cards will be chosen almost entirely at random.

    Mana and Burn

    Alpha — Legends

    In keeping with the fantasy-flavor-driven motif, mana is conceived as magical energy drawn from the land – wild and not easily contained. Likewise, mana burning is conceived as absentmindedly leaving the eldritch stove on and setting your arcane house on runic fire.

    Legends — 6th Edition

    The game checks to see if you are mana burning at the end of each phase, but only checks to see if you’re dead every turn. Because of these questionable priorities it becomes popular to intentionally burn yourself to death, then later reveal that the game takes place in a mirror universe where it is actually the opponent that has been dead all along. Although this strategy never won any major tournaments, its supporters were vindicated when the film adaptation was nominated for 6 Oscars.

    6th Edition — 2010’s Paper Release

    Death makes up for lost time and starts killing people at 0 life any time anyone has priority. Mana burn keeps up its steady pace of once a phase. R&D members realize they can create cards that use mana burn as a weapon or a balancing drawback. This epiphany opens up fascinating design space for upwards of 4 cards, which range from “sort of ok” to “reasonably good I guess?”

    2010’s Paper Release — 2010’s MTGO Release

    Instead of mana burn arbitrarily taking effect at the end of each phase, it will arbitrarily take place at the end of each step, or it would if it existed at all. Previous cards built partially on mana burn degrade from their previous quality to “nothing special” and “meh, it’ll do.”

    2010’s MTGO Release — ???

    Whenever you pass priority with mana in your pool, a dialogue box will appear asking, “do you want to take mana burn?” If you click “no” you will retain priority. If you click “yes” you’ll be removed from the event for cheating and your account will be suspended pending administrative review.

    Combat and the Stack

    Alpha — Mirage

    Combat damage and its prevention or mitigation do not use “the stack.” Instead, there is a plethora of various reactive sub-steps for damage prevention. For example, whenever a creature is played, there is immediately a sub-step in which you can pay 2 mana to prevent it from ever doing damage. If you elect not to, you’ll enter a series of steps and phases where you can pay 1 mana to nullify its ability to deal damage. Finally, if a creature somehow entered combat, its damage was immediately dealt, after which point you had one last chance to prevent its damage. As previously noted though, there was no real rush even then, as you still had a whole turn to gain that life back before anyone noticed.

    Mirage — 6th Edition

    Catino’s infamous Grave Servitude ruling at PT Atlanta sets precedents that will be pivotal to the priority and the stack understanding of magic. The idea of judges interpreting and creating the rules in the middle of a high level event may seem unpleasantly arbitrary and unpredictable to neophytes, but savvy pros know you can count on them to make decisions along party lines 95% of the time.

    6th Edition — 2010’s Paper Release

    Alarmed by its loss of market share in the adolescent boy demographic to other collectible games, Wizards re-directs its marketing to Turing-complete machines. Abilities use a first-in-last-out stack to resolve. The game no longer contains unique, reactive batches and sub-steps; each step and phase operates in the same basic fashion. Play is accomplished by explicitly passing the right to use actions several dozen times per turn. Combat damage is now an object that takes time to process and exists independent of the source it is referencing. People looking to enjoy a casual game complain that only a computer program could process these painfully rigid rules in their stated form. Unfortunately, they are widely discredited when repeated attempts to create such a program fail miserably.

    2010’s Paper Release — 2010’s MTGO Release

    While the stack is still seen as a positive device, combat damage using it is deemed too confusing to new players. In order to remedy this, a system in which combat damage is dealt upon assignment is instituted, which renders damage prevention and regeneration terribly unintuitive. In order to remedy this, an unintuitive damage-prioritizing system is instituted which renders deathtouch terribly unintuitive. In order to remedy this, the system unintuitively doesn’t apply to deathtouch. Because of this corner case, the war is lost, and all for want of a nail.

    2010’s MTGO Release — ???

    Changes function exactly as intended; are reported broken by hundreds of players unfamiliar with the new rules.

  • Magical Cards Facebook Feed

    Will wrote on Architects of Will‘s Wall: “Happy Mother’s Day!”

    May 10, 2009
    Nacatl Outlander completed the quiz “Which Invasion block card are you?” with the result “You are Yavimaya Barbarian”.

    May 9, 2009
    Yavimaya Barbarian
    Bullshit!
    Progenitus posted a note: My 25.

    May 8, 2009
    You all know the drill. Write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits or goals about you. At the end choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.
    1. I have protection from fireflies
    2. I have protection from angry mobs
    3. I have protection from most household cleaning products
    Stun Sniper
    lol #19 is totally me
    Wrath of God
    why do i never get tagged in these things :(
    Identity Crisis joined the group Black White Tokens Sideboard Cards.

    May 7, 2009
    Head Games
    Hey man, welcome aboard! Make yourself at home, we’re like a family here!
    Ajani Goldmane
    awkward
    Enlisted Wurm is friends with Wrath of God.

    May 6, 2009
    Enigma Sphinx
    :hifive:
    Enigma Sphinx is friends with Enlisted Wurm.

    May 6, 2009
    Deathbringer Thoctar poked Spirit Token.

    May 5, 2009
    Deathbringer Thoctar poked Spirit Token.

    May 5, 2009
    Deathbringer Thoctar poked Spirit Token.

    May 5, 2009
    Deathbringer Thoctar poked Faerie Rogue Token.

    May 5, 2009
    Deathbringer Thoctar poked Faerie Rogue Token.

    May 5, 2009
    Jund Charm gave two +1/+1 counters to Deathbringer Thoctar.

    May 5, 2009
    Wall of Denial was tagged in a photo.

    April 30, 2008

    Wall of Denial
    that’s not me
    Progenitus posted his Top 5 Borderposts

    April 21, 2009

    Fieldmist, Firewild, Mistvein, Veinfire, Wildfield

    Maelstrom Pulse joined the group Type 2 Chase Rares.

    April 20, 2009
    Blitz Hellion completed the quiz “Which Invasion block card are you?” with the result “You are Shivan Wurm”.

    April 18, 2009
    Jund Hackblade and Figure of Destiny are in a relationship.

    April 16, 2009
    Meddling Mage completed the quiz “Which Invasion block card are you?” with the result “You are Galina’s Knight”.

    April 16, 2008
    Meddling Mage
    wtf
    Terminate
    you’re doing it wrong
    Ardent Plea is friends with Hypergenesis.

    April 15, 2009
    Stun Sniper poked Steward of Valeron.

    April 14, 2009
    Steward of Valeron
    n e time baby ;)
    Wilt-Leaf Liege
    cool ur jets hussy, he’s got work to do
    Tidehollow Sculler posted 5 Things I Could Grab from Where I’m Sitting: No Cheating

    April 2, 2009

    Wren’s Run Vanquisher, Profane Command, Twilight Mire, Treetop Village, Cloudthresher

    Spectral Procession
    grab the thresher pls
    Progenitus is wondering why he never gets friend requests :(

    March 31 2009
    Magic Online posted a note: “Sorry all the events are crashing. We will now be taking entries manually.”

    March 31 2009
    Pumbles Mumbles
    CAW
    Samwise_GeeGee
    CAW
    Wizards of the Coast posted a note: Prismatic out, Kaleidoscope in.

    March 20, 2009
    Marcio Carvalho left the group Pro MtG Players.

    March 1, 2009
    Marcio Carvalho posted on Lukasz Musial‘s wall: “Hey man, what cards you got there?”

    Feb 21, 2009