Category: mtg
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Player Calls Magic Cards Mere “Cardboard”
BREMERTON, WA – The trading card game industry was reeling yesterday as Aaron Haylin, 17, of Bremerton rocked its foundations at what some are calling a “metaphysical” level.
It all started at local shop Zeus’s Mjolnir Comics and Cards, as Haylin and fellow Magic: The Gathering enthusiast Brenden Thelsby tussled over a potential transaction.
“He wanted my Hallowed Fountain but I didn’t really want anything in his binder,” Thelsby said. “So I said to him, ‘I’ll just sell it to you for 20 bucks?’ That’s when it happened.”
According to Thelsby and other sources, Haylin then said, “Are you kidding? I’m not paying 20 bucks for what really is nothing more than a piece of cardboard.”
The statement sent ripples of realization through the surrounding Magic: The Gathering players and collectors. They tossed their decks into the air and pulled their cards out of their binders, flinging them to the floor and spitting upon them. What previously they cherished, they were now tearing up, cutting up, and punching holes through.
We caught up with Haylin and he confirmed what had happened.
“It’s no big deal,” Haylin said. “The event surprised me no more than any other event. After all, events are just ‘stuff happening,’ so a particular event is really the same as any other.”
When asked if this worldview extended to anything else in Haylin’s life, he began an enthusiastic monologue. “Oh my, yes,” he said. “The other day my buddy Mike said he was ‘excited’ about a new X360 video game. But what is an X360 video game but silvery metal and plastic formed into a disc? I can get those component parts for pennies; that idiot is ready and willing to shell out $60!”
“Speaking of $60, that’s also pretty substanceless,” Haylin continued, pulling various monies from his wallet. “Look at this stuff,” he said, waving bills around. “What is this, anyway? It’s, like, just paper,” he added, before tearing his money into confetti and throwing it to the ground in audible disgust.
“I almost hesitate to call Mike a ‘friend,’” admitted Haylin. “I mean, what more is he than a collection of cells which, in turn, are just collections of various molecules? I might as well call the graphite in my pencil a ‘friend,’ since that’s carbon-based, too.”
“Some say my outlook is bizarre,” Haylin concluded, “But I think it’s pretty radical.”
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Microsoft Acquires Magic: the Gathering Brand, Announces Magic 8
REDMOND, Washington – Jul. 25, 2012 – Microsoft Corp. today announced their acquisition of the publishing rights to the trading card game Magic: the Gathering from Renton-based Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro Corp. “It seemed like a natural fit,” said Don Mattrick, president of the interactive entertainment business at Microsoft. “We’re in your living room with Xbox, in your tabletop with Surface, and now, with Magic 8, we can be on your tabletop, too.”
Starting with Magic 8, the new Metro card layout will replace the Modern card frame. The design follows the other products in the Microsoft tablet-top experience. “We’ve designed Magic 8 to give you instant access to your stats, your abilities, and the information you care about so you can spend less time searching the card and more time doing what you actually want to do. We’ve made rules text a first-class citizen. Playing with the cards is fast and fluid, with updates to card text happening in real time,” Mattrick said.
“Magic 8 represents a reimagining of Magic from the cardboard to the experience,” said Tina Gaffney, a spokesperson for the Magic 8 team. “The Magic 8 designers have had a ball making it. Will the players have a ball playing it? All signs point to yes. But don’t worry – we’re not neglecting our online players. Magic Online and Duels of the Planeswalkers for Xbox will support a fully-integrated experience with Magic 8. And we’re planning some backend improvements to Duels of the Planeswalkers for Playstation and Steam that should bring those players’ experiences much closer to playing Magic Online today.”
The Magic 8 Consumer Preview is set to release in September, with a full release planned in December. With Microsoft Surface integration for each card, the MSRP of a Magic 8 booster pack is expected to be $69.99 – well under the price point for Apple’s recently-announced iMajica trading card game offering. The Good Gamery staff are thrilled at the news and will continue to report on new developments as they flow out of Redmond.
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Life Begins in the Library, Asserts New Arizona Statute
PHOENIX, AZ (4/26/2012) — It’s not uncommon for laws to have unintended consequences, but this is one for the books. Today, a group of top-ranked tournament judges for popular trading card game Magic: the Gathering announced that, because of a bizarre quirk in the wording of a recent anti-abortion law passed by the Arizona state legislature, creature cards in players’ libraries or hands are now officially considered “alive” or “on the battlefield.”
“We were flabbergasted when we first realized the implications of the law,” said Dolph Bebox Aberez, a spokesperson for the group. “For a government body to regulate the rules of a card game, even unintentionally, it’s just – it’s unheard of,” he said.
The game’s publisher, Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, was quick to respond. “Wizards of the Coast does not condone breaking the law under any circumstances,” said Tina Gaffney, Head of Wizards of the Coast Public Relations. “Compliance with government regulations always takes precedence over both the rules of the game and what’s printed on the cards.”
The news has caused problems for the company’s online division, which has had to scramble to avoid thousands of potential regulatory violations from players playing the game through its online service, Magic Online. “We had to take emergency measures,” said Simon Blackwell, Vice President of Technology and Digital Gaming. “As of right now, if you check the box that says you’re from Arizona, the game will immediately lock up and crash. But we’ll get it back up and running for all six of you Arizonan players out there as soon as we can make sure your game client complies with local regulations.”
Arizona judge performs
procedure on player“The big question on all of our minds is, ‘how is this even going to work within the framework of the existing rules?’” said Aberez. “We’ve decided that, even if they’re technically on the battlefield, creatures in hands and libraries can’t attack or block, and they can’t be targeted. But, oh boy, the first time someone casts a mass removal spell? We’re going to have to go through each player’s cards to find everything that should be affected and put it in the graveyard. The state is basically forcing us to perform a Gitaxian Probe of each player’s hidden zones. What a nightmare.”
“It’s really stupid,” he added. “I hope they fix it soon. Players are just going to go to other states to play Magic anyway.”
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Zealous Mic-Night
STREET WRATH PEOOOOOPPLEEEE
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Vote Monster for a Fairer Innistrad
If you’ve heard the speeches from the recent Church of Avacyn party conference, you’ve no doubt heard a great deal about how the Monster party wants to kill all humans and feast on their brains.
But I am here today to offer a different viewpoint: that the Monster party is dedicated to establishing equality for all creature types across the plane of Innistrad.
As is the case with so many great planes, here on Innistrad Humans – and, predominantly, white Humans – are the single most represented creature type, accounting for about 30% of the population. And up until now, this one race has dominated every aspect of our society – industry, commerce, and, most significantly, religion. The Church of Avacyn perpetuates damaging myths and stereotypes to condition humans to think of other races as unintelligent and dangerous. You’ve no doubt read the statistic that 100% of violent crimes committed by Monster party voters are directed towards humans; but I wouldn’t put too much stock in numbers like that. After all, it is technically impossible to commit violent crimes against most monsters, since we are legally dead.
Vampires demand to
be taken seriously.Ask yourself: have you ever actually seen a vampire feeding on a human? People tell their children that all vampires are consumed by addiction, unable to contribute to society because they cannot look past their next fix of blood. Worse, people believe that this addiction is somehow contagious, and shelter their families from socialising with their vampire neighbours.
Now, I am not going to deny that the guests at the parties I have attended at castle Markov enjoy a drop of red now and again, but every vampire I have met has been fully in control of their urges – more than I can say for some humans I have met.
Now consider, if you will, the treatment my own zombie kinsmen receive. I think it is fair to say that modern Innistraddian society was built on skaab labour, and yet zombie workers earn far less their human equivalents and have to deal with abusive discrimination from their employers. While it is medically accurate to describe zombies as ‘braindead’, it is entirely wrong to assume that our lack of a functioning nervous system impairs our intellect. Zombies can think – and zombies can feel. Many humans mistakenly assume that a zombie’s only motivation is a hunger for human brains, but many of us hunger instead for self-improvement and professional pride. Under our government, human firstborns will be taken as brain tax, but this is more indicative of the economic climate than any hidden zombie agenda.
The “dead men don’t vote” act of 735 prohibited the spirit population of Innistrad from contributing to the democratic process. But as I survey this crowd today and see the faces of spirits, zombies and vampires gazing back at me, I say – aren’t we all dead? It is time for the government to recognise that a substantial portion of our society and culture is made up of the deceased, and that fact should be celebrated rather than suppressed. Many writers and artists only create their greatest works after they have died and have the benefit of a fresh perspective on life.
Break through that
glass ceiling!Perhaps worst of all is the plight of the proud werewolf. I remember a time when rural werewolf communities like Avabruck flourished, and residents were able to practise their traditional customs, like fighting, in peace. But under the Church of Avacyn, werewolves are forced to conceal their true natures for all but one night in every month. Instead of expressing their culture, they are made to live a lie if they want to get anywhere in the world. I want werewolves to be proud of their identity, and for their human colleagues not to shrink in fear from the fact that they are capable of hunting and killing them for sport.
Now, it is true that our candidate, Griselbrand, has served several centuries of jail time. But he is a reformed demon, and I swear to you, from the bottoms of my five decorative hearts, that everyone in the Monster party is committed to realising our vision. Although monsters never sleep, we dream of establishing a new Innistrad where no-one need be staked, or exorcised, or preyed upon. Where humans and monsters can share both the night and the day. Where there is always food on every plate at night – regardless of, uh, the individual’s particular diet.
Now, who will stand with me for a brighter day – and a blacker night?
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Horrorcane
Avacyn Restored is a set about the good guys. Thalia has freed the archangel Avacyn from her millenia-long imprisonment, and now a host of angels has returned to reclaim the night from the dark beings preying upon the plane.
But they haven’t won yet.If people expect the forces of darkness to just roll over and give back the world to a bunch of losers with wings, they are sorely mistaken. Demons, devils, spirits, werewolves, zombies and vampires have enjoyed free reign on Innistrad for a long time, and they like it just the way it is. What’s more, they know a thing or two about fighting dirty. They’ve got a few tricks up their collective sleeves that no-one quite expected. Here’s one of them.
If your first reaction on seeing this card is “black can’t do that,” then you obviously have not spent much time hanging around black mages. Black is the colour of breaking rules. When black is forced into a corner, you can bet it will do everything it “can’t do”. Black will do anything to win.
So while you might be right in thinking that black is not the colour of dealing damage to flying creatures, black definitely is the colour of slaughtering angels, and that is exactly what Horrorcane is best at. Black is also the colour of eating the last piece of the pie, so if green is going to leave a slice lying around, what does it expect to happen?
We asked the estimable Jarvis Yu to weigh in on this card’s impact on the Standard format:
The Estimable Jarvis Yu“Horrorcane shows that Wizards is willing to push color boundaries even further. Delver and Esper Spirits are certainly going to have problems with this card. It’s a great tool for Zombies to deal the last few points of damage on a stalled board. Esper Spirits itself can play this card for mirror matches and it has good synergy with Snapcaster Mage.”
