Author: slearch

  • And Now for the Other Crap…

    The other crap. Yeah, kind of has a catchy ring to it don’t it? More like a Monty Python rip off, but really who gives a shit. You’re reading it, so mission accomplished.

    So, this little forum project has come quite a ways. Content seems to be added to the site fairly regularly, and now talks of a pod cast? DAMN IT, I don’t even own an I-pod.

    And here I’m stuck with the title spambot. Every time I enter the chat room, Pale is waving his maple soaked Vermont peen, ranting about some roadside slop joint called waffle house, people are talking about magic….which I stopped playing or I am just completely ignored. I suck at writing, or that’s the hint I seem to be getting from Stan, I must have submitted at LEAST 20 -80 articles to the site and they were all rejected. Hell, it seemed they even stopped reviewing them after the 4th one and I received back a generic response thereafter:

    Stop fucking emailing me.

    -Paz

    Salvation however offered me cash for front page submissions, and a spot as a moderator. I couldn’t be bothered mind you.

    I am doomed. Fuck this. I’m going to take a shot at a cartoon.

    Well that was an epic fail. I may have a better shot at ripping other peoples shit off.. kind of like the Garfield thought bubbles removed……

    I don’t think I am ever going to get used to this content submission bullshit.

    Fuck you Stan, fuck you and your content to hell.

    You haven’t seen the last of me.

  • Shadowmoor Preview: Holy Shift, Batman!

    Before I reveal today’s preview card, I want to talk a little bit about Time Spiral block, which was code named Reprint, Misprint, and Print. In Time Spiral, we introduced the brand new bold concept of Time Shifted cards: Cards we had printed before printed again with no change. This concept was well received, but just when players expected more of more of the same we threw a curveball in Planar Chaos with Plane Shifted cards: Cards we had printed before printed again with their color changed. As soon as players were beginning to recover from such a severe brainjob, Future Sight came along to blow their minds with Future Shifted cards: Cards we had never printed before which may or may not be printed again in the future without change.

    If you thought that was a trip, well, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. You’ve seen Time Shifted cards, you’ve seen Future Shifted cards, you’ve seen Planeshift cards and you’ve seen Plane Shifted cards, but have you seen just plain shifted cards?

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

    The beauty of this design is that you can only play plain shifted cards in a deck with all plain shifted cards, meaning we can reprint broken cards without fear of players playing broken decks. For years we have been trying to build your decks for you, but you guys keep doing unforeseeable things that break our fragile game like putting Skullclamp in decks with 1-toughness creatures and playing Flametongue Kavu against decks with creatures. But now we really can build your deck for you, because there will only be enough plain shifted cards to build one deck. Good luck slipping one by us this time!

  • “Sympathy for the Inneffable” Lyrics

    Sympathy for the Ineffable
    by
    Wall Creatures May Attack As Though They Did Not Have Defender

    Please allow me to introduce myself
    I’m a Thran with my own race
    I’ve been around for a long long year,
    Made a study of loss and hate
    I was around when Urza’s Guilt caused his moment of doubt and pain
    Made damn sure that Mishra bent his knee, and sealed his fate
    Pleased to meet you – hope you guess my name
    But what’s puzzling you is the commodity I crave
    Stuck around in Benalia when I saw it was a time for a change

    I sent Tsabo and my Negators, Gerrard’s kinsfolk died in vain
    I opened rifts, forced the planes to shift
    When the Invasion came to spread my dark gift
    Pleased to meet you – hope you guess my name – oh yeah
    Ah, what’s puzzling you is the commodity I crave – oh yeah

    I schemed and planned while your Metathran fought so valiantly
    In the war they craved
    I shouted out “What’s the cost of Phyrexian Tyranny?”

    When after all it was (U)(B)
    Let me please introduce myself
    I’m a Thran with my own race
    I saw the end of evincars
    Who bore completion scars but could not hold their reign
    Pleased to meet you hope you guess my name. Oh yeah
    But what’s puzzling you is the commodity I crave. Oh yeah
    Pleased to meet you – hope you guess my name
    But what’s puzzling you is the commodity I crave

    Just as every Plague is Engineered, and all the sleepers wake
    As life is death, just call me The Hidden One,
    ‘Cause I’m the seed of untold taint
    So if you meet me, bring back your dead,
    Give them fear or give them haste
    Give up your love, and then your flesh
    Or I’ll duress your hand away
    Pleased to meet you – hope you guess my name

    But what’s puzzling you is the commodity I crave

  • Shadowmoor Previews: Grin & Bear It

    Welcome to week two of Shadowmoor previews! Today I am going to introduce you to the first ever ultramegacycle minitheme. Shadowmoor has a minitheme of Bears, implemented as an ultramegacycle of common creatures: The Nonrarebear cycle. As you know, 2/2 creatures for 2 mana are often players favorite creatures, and they are also the easiest things in the world to design. Basically what happened here was we ran out of names and ideas simultaneously, so we randomly selected an existing card to expand into an ultramegacycle minitheme. It’s not that there aren’t more ideas or names to be thought up, it’s just that we don’t care anymore.

    Without further ado, let me introduce to you the first member of the new family of Nonrare Bears.




    Exciting, isn’t it? Right? Well, maybe that’s why we spoil rares instead of commons. That’s why this week I have decided to spoil 10 commons from the nonrarebear ultramegacycle minitheme.










    Additionally, we recently made the commitment to make all blocks work well with the blocks surrounding it. Unfortunately, that requires effort and communication between teams, so we have chosen a new strategy: Each block will be released with errata for the previous block to make the two blocks seem like a continuous flow. In this case, all Bear cards from Llorwyn block have been given errata to make them 2/2s for two mana. The following is a list of the affected cards:

    • Amoeboid Changeling
    • Avian Changeling
    • Blades of Velis Vel
    • Cairn Wanderer
    • Chameleon Colossus
    • Changeling Berserker
    • Changeling Hero
    • Changeling Sentinel
    • Changeling Titan
    • Crib Swap
    • Ego Erasure
    • Fire-Belly Changeling
    • Game-Trail Changeling
    • Ghostly Changeling
    • Mirror Entity
    • Moonglove Changeling
    • Mothdust Changeling
    • Nameless Inversion
    • Shapesharer
    • Shields of Velis Vel
    • Skeletal Changeling
    • Taurean Mauler
    • Turtleshell Changeling
    • War-Spike Changeling
    • Wings of Velis Vel
    • Woodland Changeling

    Until next time, may all your creatures be 2/2s for two, and may all your google image searches for “Underwear Bear” have safe search turned on. Seriously.

  • Shadowmoor, Torment Crash M:TG Reunion Party

    The Magic: The Gathering set reunion party was off to a great start, with the MC for the evening, Ravnica, doing his best to entertain the crowd with a few off-color jokes, while a steady supply of mana beverages kept the conversational tempo flowing. Time Spiral was also featured as one of the main acts, performing his patented “vanishing” trick, as well as successfully suspending a Gargadon from his Hammerheim. The festivities quickly turned sour, however, when two of Magic: The Gathering’s self-proclaimed “bad boys” arrived at the party unannounced.

    “Guess who showed up to the party uninvited? Shadowmoor and that jerk Torment,” said Visions. “Shadowmoor spiked the punch with -1/-1 counters; we tried fishing the damn things out, but we couldn’t differentiate them from the +1/+1s that were already in there!”

    The disturbing story did not, however, end there.

    “Torment was as high as a Hypnox last night. It was pretty obvious that he was in some sort of Psychotic Haze, probably from too many hits off the Coffer. It’s really troubling when you see a guy Waste Away like that, but I mean, it’s his body to Mutilate,” mused a concerned Ravnica. “And if he thinks that he’s somehow going to have the Last Laugh over the stunts he pulled yesterday, I guarantee that he’s going to have a few Restless Dreams once he succumbs to Crippling Fatigue and passes out.”

    “Chainer’s Edict, Mesmeric Fiend,” he added.

    The DCI showed up on the scene after things started getting out of hand. One of the more gruesome accounts involved three buckets of Xtra Slip lubricant, a Manticore, and Homelands.

    “They always pick on Homelands just because he’s the smallest and weakest,” sobbed a teary-eyed Mirage. “But this time they went too far!”

    Shadowmoor and Torment are being held by the DCI while the authorities look into the accusations. One of the older members of the Magic multiverse, The Dark, understood what the sets were going through, and offered some words of advice when asked to comment:

    “A lot of people don’t realize that I was the original bad boy. I hear a lot of people say that. That I was bad. REAL bad. I take a lot of pride in that. Dark imagery, sweet cards like Nameless Race… and the name? Hello! Can’t get much darker than ‘The Dark’ can you? Also, put in how many friends I have. I have tons of friends, I have like fourty… five. Over fourty-five.”

    The Dark has over fourty-five friends that all corroborate his story. Most of them live in Canada and Hawaii and are unfortunately unavailable for comment.

  • The Last Jelly Moose




    “This is the story of the last Jelly Moose. Once there were many Jelly Meese. Jelly Mooses. Game-Trail Changelings. Once there were many Game-Trail Changelings. The covered the plains of Lorwyn, crowded the forests, swam through the swamps. But one day, something changed. Somethings changed. The Jelly Mooses stopped encountering regular Mooses. We figured the elves had hunted them all. Eventually, they would meet a turtle, or a goose, or a kithkin. And then, Blam! No more Jelly Moose. Just another turtleshell changeling, or avian changeling, or mistmeadow skulk.

    “So one by one, the Jelly Mooses stopped showing up. First, you would see a couple every day. Then, one a day. Then you’d maybe see them every couple of days, maybe on weekends, then just special occasions like your anniversary or birthday. Then you walk in and see her Jelly moosing with some goddamn pretty-boy elf and then…

    “Never mind. Never mind all that. The last Jelly Moose, that’s why you’re here. So eventually, you would only see a Jelly Moose once a year, if you were lucky. You’d be talking with someone, and they’d claim to have seen a Jelly Moose only days earlier. Nobody believed them, of course. I mean, we all knew people were seeing them still. Hell, some of us still saw them occasionally. But we were seeing them less and less. Some Hunters who specialized in eyeblights might see a Jelly Moose a couple of times a week, but, I mean, who wants to specialize in eyeblights.

    “So, then, we just stopped seeing them altogether. We would meet every week at the shimmering grotto to hang out and play a game, but nobody talked about Jelly Moose anymore. Ocasionally someone would make a joke about ‘Jelly Moose knuckles’ or ‘chocolate Moose’ but we rarely laughed. It hurt too much, you know?

    “But then everything changed. The whole world got turned upside down, got darker. Nobody else noticed, but we did. Maybe because we were already dead inside. And then, it happened. On the way home from a crib swap meet, I saw it. A Moose. An honest to Vigor Moose. It caught my scent, and started to run, but I had just bumped into a Springjack and I took off after it. I mean, we were both hauling more ass than a anarchist giant soapmaker, but I was faster. I caught it. And I felt myself changing. I sprouted antlers, my legs grew longer. I turned green. I gained trample. It was amazing. Trample! I had trample! If you’re not a changeling you won’t understand, but lemme tell you, gaining trample is the best thing in the world.

    “I felt whole. I felt complete. I was a 4/4 green trampler with changeling. I was a Jelly Moose. I was the last Jelly Moose. This may be the end of Lorwyn as we know it, but man, I feel fine.

  • Second Shadowmoor Preview Booster Surfaces

    There was a lot of buzz when the Shadowmoor Preview Booster appeared on magicthegathering.com. It piqued a lot of players’ interest, but it also raised a lot of questions. What was going on with Beseech the Queen? What was up with all the hybrid mana? Would that spider get that bunny?

    I have been leaked a second Shadowmoor teaser booster and I wanted you, the good people of GoodGamery.com to be the first to see it. Without further ado…

    Behold!

  • Wizards Announces Shadowmoor Theme Song

    Hasbro subsidiary Wizards of the Coast today unveiled a new marketing scheme that will accompany the release of the next stand-alone expansion to their popular Magic: The Gathering (MtG) card game, called Shadowmoor. This new set brings back a concept not seen en masse since the Ravnica block: cards that have more than one way to pay their casting cost. This introduces a number of challenges for would-be players, while at the same time introducing deckbuilding flexibility. To help get players — new and old alike — excited about this mechanic, Wizards has tapped popular recording artist Josh Groban to write and perform a thematically appropriate song that champions Shadowmoor.

    With Groban’s work complete, Mark Rosewater (a Wizards employee) has released the final version of the song in anticipation of release week. He said that he hopes that the song will be “bigger than that Numa song.” To this end, Wizards has begun contacting some familiar Youtube.com stars in the hopes that they will generate parody videos. He has also asked members of GoodGamery.com, a wildly popular gaming website frequented by rabid Magic players, to head to Youtube and click on the song’s video to keep it on the “favorites” list.

    Here then, are the lyrics to the song.

    “O Casting Cost” by Josh Groban

    (Sung to the tune of “O Christmas Tree”)

    Oh casting cost, oh casting cost, how shall I pay for thee?

    Oh casting cost, oh casting cost, how shall I pay for thee?

    In play I have two swamps, a plains, can I now cast ‘Curse of Chains’?

    Oh casting cost, oh casting cost, how shall I pay for thee?

    Oh curse you Mark, oh my sore head, how did he ever pay for those?

    Oh wait I know, oh now I’m dead, three Demigods: I am hosed

    You tap a swamp, and I can’t tell, the color of, your creature spell

    Oh casting cost, oh casting cost, how shall I pay for thee?

    I have to think, which I despise, I should have quit after revised

    Oh casting cost, oh casting cost, how shall I pay for thee?

    Generally regarded as possessing an incredible voice and knack for writing, and with one of the best-selling Christmas albums in recent memory, this is not what Josh Groban’s fans have come to expect. When asked about the song, Groban said that he “put time in commensurate to what I was paid. And in reality, I know nothing about the game. Is it related to those Pokemon toys?” One can only hope that more time (and money) was put into designing Shadowmoor than was put into marketing it, but considering a major theme is recycled, prospects do not look good.

    (or do they! – paz, ‘Grobaniac’)

  • Shadowmoor Nights, Part I

    Forget it, Sid. It’s Shadowmoor.

    Sid Burns reclined on his darksteel armchair, tapped a mountain, and lit his cigar against his forehead. Bitter, too bitter; but the way business was going lately, Tattermunges were the best he could afford. The chair wasn’t comfortable either, but he needed something that could survive his temper. He fished out a bottle of Ballynock from his desk drawer and took a swig. It burned. At least something still worked.

    The flamekin private detective’s office had seen better days. Back when Ingrid, his kithkin secretary, was still working there, the place had been spotless. She was a good kid. Then she went missing, and Sid next found her at the bottom of a five-toed grave. Sid tracked down the giant responsible, but, favor of the mighty being what it was, he couldn’t deal even 1 damage and would have ended up in the graveyard if he’d tried.

    Things weren’t the same after that, and soon his business started to fall off. Now, it was all Sid could do to burn through his cheap boggart-made cigars and work his way to the bottom of his last bottle of Ballynock single malt.

    A knock on the door derailed his train of thought. The veil of cigar smoke parted to reveal the tall, lithe figure of an elf. One look at her, and Sid got +2/+0. The color of her deep brown eyes, the sheen of her long hair, the gentle curve of her horns: this one was a knockout, and the -1/-1 from the smoke made her features all the more delicate. Sid knew she was trouble—there were only two kinds of elves, and green creatures don’t wear dresses like that—but he didn’t care.

    He said: “Won’t you sit down, Miss?”

    “Larissa,” she replied as she sat down. “Larissa de Feuilledor.”

    Sid gestured toward the Ballynock still on his desk, but she shook her head. She was trying to look strong, but Sid figured she only had 1 toughness left. She smiled, poured herself a double, and took a long drink. All moonglove, this one.

    “What can this eyeblight do for you, Miss de Feuilledor?”

    She considered her answer. The building was quiet at this late hour, and Sid could hear the cackles of caterwauling boggarts from somewhere down the street. This wasn’t the kind of neighborhood that could expect warren-scourge patrols, and that meant gangs of boggarts coming out nightly to set tarfires and pursue all manner of shenanigans. Just as Sid began to wonder whether she’d heard him, Larissa spoke up, this time in a soft voice that forced him to lean toward her.

    “Could you—?” She looked downward, then shot Sid a captivating glance, moving so close that his heat became almost painful. The words spilled out: “It’s about my sister, Tess. She moved here with her new husband, Jack. She’s not like me— They were… Are. Good creatures. Green creatures. I don’t know why, but he started working for a merrow, Conrad Finn. He’d work late, and she’d call me up, crying that this time he wouldn’t make it home. One night, she turned out to be right. The cloudgoat rangers discovered the body in such bad condition that they couldn’t even make out his subtype: if not for his veteran’s armaments at the crime scene, she might never have figured out it was him. Of course, when she saw the pictures (he’d been hit with a volley of shards and then inverted), she couldn’t take it. I warned her what that meant: someone wanted him dead and bad enough to take a one-for-three, but she wouldn’t listen. She went to Finn’s place in the Hotel Juzam. I heard that she’d been pounding on Finn’s door, screaming at him from the hallway, and they had to have security bounce her. Nobody’s seen her in play since then. She’s a one-drop; she’s never been away this long.”

    Larissa’s composure started to crack. Sid handed her the handkerchief from his suit’s front pocket, careful not to set it alight. He put his hand on her shoulder as she sobbed gently. If this was an act, Sid thought, she was good enough to play the Ancient Amphitheater.

    “Miss de Feuilledor,” he finally asked, “how long ago was this?”

    “It’s been six— No, seven turns now. You don’t think she’s been discarded?”

    “Let’s not jump to conclusions, Miss—“

    “Larissa. Please call me Larissa.”

    “Miss de Feuilledor,” Sid contined. “She might be hiding out from removal. I’ve heard of Mr. Finn, and he’s the kind of merrow who’s put the scare into 4/4’s, let alone one-drops like your sister. I’ll tell you what, though, I’ll start looking for her this turn.”

    “Thank you. And about payment?”

    “Three red mana per turn, plus expenses.”

    “Of course. I’ll have to stop by the Grotto. You’ll understand if I don’t carry red mana on me.”

    She meant the Springleaf Drum, but Sid was too polite to correct her. A broad like her could have any color of mana she wanted, as long as she was willing to tap herself to get it. Hard times had kept Sid away from the Drum, but he knew the kind of girls they had there—long on legs, short on scruples—and he doubted that the Grotto would let Larissa in, even to filter her mana.

    She returned the handkerchief to Sid, and strode out of his office. Her scent lingered, which Sid finally recognized as black lotus. Her sister might have been a one-drop, but she wouldn’t come cheap. Her story was almost convincing, but this business about the husband didn’t add up: to have been killed like that, he either had at least four toughness, or someone was taking card disadvantage to send a message. Whatever he’d gotten himself into, it was bad news. Sid drank another Ballynock, then followed Larissa into the night.

    *****

    Sid knew the way to the Hotel Juzam. He arrived outside just to see a frustrated kithkin shaking his fist upwards. Some faerie had stolen his hat, and were playing a game of Frisbee with it around the fourth story, illuminated by the hotel’s neon sign. He looked about ready to do something, but, apparently having thought the better of it, just shouted a curse and left. The flamekin have an expression: “You may as well try to swat a faerie.” It means “impossible.” Sid didn’t know what a white creature was doing in this part of town, but at least he had the sense to run off before he lost more than just his headgear.

    Sid approached the front desk. He heard a distant melody coming from the bar, but he didn’t have much interest in the music when there were no other flamekin around. He’d attracted other attention, though: from the corner of his eye, a squat boggart wearing a spiderwig looked up from his newspaper to stare. Sid got Finn’s room number from the desk, slipping the boy a generic mana. He took the stairs up, and, hearing footsteps, he ducked into an alcove and waited until the boggart passed. Sid noticed an ill-concealed Thornbite Staff under the boggart’s suit. He snuck behind the boggart and tapped him. That boggart wouldn’t be a problem until next turn, but, to be safe, he also shattered the staff.

    After a knock on the door, another rough-looking boggart let him in without saying a word. Sid didn’t think much of boggart goons: most of them would sacrifice their own aunties just for +2/+2. Still, he had to be wary of anyone who had enough cards not to worry about his flunkies ending up in the graveyard.

    The boggart seemed to be leading him into the bathroom, but just as Sid was about to ask a question, he noticed the huge bathtub full of water, holding the fattest merrow he had ever seen. His chubby fingers were clawing at a changeling steak, which metamorphosed into a different meal with every bite. Sid shuddered, as the food briefly took a form resembling his own face in between shifting from a potato to crème brulee. The boggart poured Sid a glass of wine from the merrow’s bottle; the wine was cheaper than he’d expected, but it steadied his nerves.

    “Welcome, Mr. Burns,” the merrow drawled. “I am Conrad Finn. I understand you’ve been looking for me. I sent Miss de Feuilledor over because I knew you’d head right here.” Sid was about to speak up, but Finn put a hand up and continued. “You’ve had some business with a mutual friend,” Finn laughed, “He told me that you’d never come if I asked. So I sent that elf over, and here you are. Did you like her story? Someone makes trouble, who should know better than to make trouble, who was warned not to make trouble. Then the troublemaker disappears.”

    Finn stuck his finger into Sid’s glass, making a whirlpool motion in the wine. At the same time, the room around him began to spin.

    “You could say I’m an expert in making things disappear. Of course, I wanted to see who could make trouble for our mutual friend, first.”

    Sid’s image once again appeared on the changeling steak, before settling on rack of lamb. Finn tore off a piece, chewed, and swallowed.

    “I’m not impressed. I don’t think Miss de Feuilledor would really have first-picked you anyway. A good detective would have known better. How do you like the wine? It’s a Pestermite.”

    Sid collapsed.

    *****

    Sid untapped to find himself tied to a dolmen. He looked over to see an enormous foot, which he recognized as belonging to Hugo Rhodes, the giant who’d murdered his secretary. As he struggled, he heard a voice, high above him, laughing.

    TO BE CONTINUED