This article is a Summer of Emilevin’ contest entry. This 6 week contest gives out both weekly prizes and final prizes of booster packs! You are invited to participate and compete by making some awesome and/or hilarious content of your own! Click on the Summer of Emilevin’ banner above for more information.
This article is a Summer of Emilevin’ contest entry. This 6 week contest gives out both weekly prizes and final prizes of booster packs! You are invited to participate and compete by making some awesome and/or hilarious content of your own! Click on the Summer of Emilevin’ banner above for more information.
“I Have Wings, Yet Cannot Fly”
by Whippoorwill
I have wings, yet cannot soar;
Your river boa is no more.
I cut through this insipid fog
Who needs a Bojuka Bog?
I have wings, yet cannot glide;
These en-Kor I will not abide.
Flinging damage ’round the field
Now their own Kor fates are sealed.
I have wings, yet cannot fly;
No dragon, sphinx or djinn am I.
Yet I wish I could reach the sky
When ground tremors, and I die.
This article is a Summer of Emilevin’ contest entry. This 6 week contest gives out both weekly prizes and final prizes of booster packs! You are invited to participate and compete by making some awesome and/or hilarious content of your own! Click on the Summer of Emilevin’ banner above for more information.
For years, Shapeshifter children who were displaced from their original homes — so-called ‘Crib Swap Babies’ — have suffered from an undeserved social stigma. They may look different to those around them, but given the proper love and care they can develop into fully-functional adults.
We want to bring people together today to end the discrimination and recognise the contributions that children from crib swap families have already made to society. We talked to legendary creature Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile about the difficulties she faced growing up.
“Yes, I was a crib swap baby,” she told us, her perfect Kinsbaile accent belying her origins. “It was tough at first; all the other Kithkin at school always teased me about how weird I looked, which I thought was unfair given that they had squashed faces.
“But when I hit puberty,” she said, “my body began to accept its Kithkin surroundings. Now the only things that set me apart are my sharp eye and my hideous dress sense.”
An Immaculate Magistrate, who preferred not to be named, also had a heart-warming story to tell.
“I was extremely lucky not to be killed at birth, really,” he said. “Elvish society is still a bit behind the times when it comes to matters of political correctness. But an old oak tree offered to take me in, and raised me like I was his own sapling. When I was fifteen, I became the handsome elf you see before you!”
The interviewee is now working as a fashion designer.
Whether it is to a Merfolk or Goblin family, whether raised by Faeries or Giants, crib swap babies can blossom into responsible and high-achieving adults with, if anything, a wider range of career options open to them than other people. Crib swap babies today can be found employed as Advisors, Allies, Archers, Artificers, Assassins, Assembly-Workers, Barbarians, Berserkers, Brushwaggs, Citizens, Clerics, Cowards, Deserters, Drones, Druids, Elders, Flagbearers, Knights, Mercenaries, Minions, Mongers, Monks, Mystics, Ninjas, Nomads, Pests, Pirates, Rebels, Riggers, Rogues, Samurai, Scouts, Shamans, Soldiers, Spellshapers, Survivors, Warriors, and, of course, Wizards.
We would also like to give special thanks to Mistform Ultimus, without whose support and funding this campaign would not have been possible.
This article is a Summer of Emilevin’ contest entry. This 6 week contest gives out both weekly prizes and final prizes of booster packs! You are invited to participate and compete by making some awesome and/or hilarious content of your own! Click on the Summer of Emilevin’ banner above for more information.
(This article contains language.)
An alleged metal-coated crab appeared on the coast of Zhalfir earlier this morning, causing quite the commotion on the normally peaceful region.
According to witness reports, the large crab appeared out of a glowing ball, and asked passers-by for their clothes.
“I was holding a whispersilk cloak for a friend at the time,” said a local merfolk. “My friend would kill me if I had given it to some oversized crab, so I took the cloak on my right hand and extended the left one to the crab. Thankfully, it wasn’t very bright, so it put on a piece of nothing and went on its way.”
The voluminous crab then asked a number of people if anyone knew a man named John Connor.
“Motherfuckin’ crab was crazy, y’all,” said one fellow. “He was all like, ‘Have you seen John Connor?’ Fuckin’ crabs, man, you know what I’m saying?”
“It’s the same thing every year,” said a local man. “A person can’t enjoy a nice walk on the beach, some punk has to appear out of nowhere and ruin everybody’s good time. The world coming to an end, it’s understandable. Being invaded by an army of mechanical horrors, we can live with that. But having to put up with this crap, it’s just unacceptable. Damn crabs!”
Reports indicate the hulking crab then proceeded to hijack a knight’s mount and run off with it. Zhalfirian authorities have no further leads on the alleged crab’s whereabouts.
People employ many different strategies to beat the summer heat. But nothing’s more refreshing than popping open a crisp, ice-cold booster pack of M11. To celebrate the great tasting, less filling new Core set, we’re having another content contest.
Contest
Every piece of humorous and/or awesome content you submit between now and the end of AUGUST is automatically entered, whether it be fake cards, funny articles, or even set reviews and tournament reports.
Wow!
How Do I Submit an Entry?
I’m pleased you asked. Please take a look at these instructions.
Two Ways to Win!
The total prize pool consists of a BOOSTER BOX of M11 and a BOOSTER BOX of Rise of the Eldrazi. There are two ways to win packs from this pool: weekly Best Content Item awards, and final Best Overall Contributor awards.
FIRST WAY TO WIN: Weekly Awards
Each week during the contest, the Good Gamery community will vote on which single ITEM was the best ITEM of the week.
Each winner may decide his or her ratio of M11 to RoE packs.
SECOND WAY TO WIN: Final Awards
At the end of the contest, the Good Gamery community will vote on who were the best CONTRIBUTORS to the overall contest. In the past, this has generally been determined by quality, but quantity can help, too.
First, we’ll have a vote that narrows it down to the top 3. Then, we’ll have a run-off vote to determine the order of the top 3.
Each winner may decide his or her ratio of M11 to RoE packs from the remaining prize pool (1st picks first, etc.).
Get involved! Team up!
Need ideas? Don’t know how to make cards? Want to collaborate on one or more items (and work out any prize splits for the weeklies yourselves)? Get on Java chat! Get into the contest thread and post! Everyone is welcome to participate. And even if you don’t win, you’ll always get constructive feedback to help you for next time.
How Do I Submit an Entry, Again?
Alright, one more time. Please take a look at these instructions.
The Ultimate Emilevin’
Soon after the contest ends, the biggest event of the summer begins: GGC 2010! Make your way to Portland, OR USA to attend GP Portland on the weekend of September 11, 2010, and you’ll simultaneously attend the Good Gamery Convocation!
GP events during the day, tabletop gaming and partying at night.
M11. 211. September 11.
(remember to snag a shirt in time for the event)
This week, Wizards of the Coast revealed that the second set of the Scars of Mirrodin block, codenamed “Camera”, will be released before Christmas this year, two months earlier than the anticipated date.
In his “Making Magic” column, head designer Mark Rosewater hinted that that the set will also represent another first in Magic history. We tracked him down to learn the reason for all the fuss.
“Designing Magic all comes down to innovation,” he explained in a phone interview on Friday. “Ninety percent of what we designers do boils down to determining what we’ve never done before, and then doing that. We set a high bar for ourselves With Rise of the Eldrazi: a large third set, big-mana limited format, and colorless spells were all significant innovations.”
“When developing Scars, we needed something to make the block really pop. We decided that the second set of the block would need a twist. I spoke with [M11 lead designer] Aaron Forsythe about ideas he and his team were pursuing for the next core set. They were examining what it was that made M10 so successful. The large number of functional reprints we introduced in M10 proved to be extremely popular with players.”
“I was unimpressed. Printing the same cards with new names hardly seemed groundbreaking at all. Then all of a sudden, a billion tiny creative flashbulbs went off in my head all at once,” described Rosewater. “Functionally reprinting an entire set was the natural evolution of that idea.”
The new set, which will be named Halberd of the Thopterlord, will contain all 143 cards originally printed as part of the Nemesis expansion. As with functional card reprints, players will have a chance to rediscover the cards in a whole new context.
Rosewater elaborated: “the set will play completely differently this time around. Previously forgettable
cards like Kill Switch and Complex Automaton may turn out to be the most relevant ones of this block,” he gushed. “And forget everything you thought you knew about Air Bladder.”
“This is going to revolutionize Magic,” he said.
Designing the set took more effort than you’d expect, Rosewater explained. “Though the cards are the same, the set is completely new. Halberd will have a brand new back story, a new expansion symbol, and updated Oracle creature types.”
“We’re even going to have a new prerelease card. Rathi Assassin was pretty crappy.” MaRo paused. “Granted, Assassin will also be in Halberd. But it won’t be as terrible this time. Well, it probably won’t. In any case it won’t be the prerelease card,” he emphasized. “The prerelase card will be Mossdog.”
If the set is a success, wizards will consider functional reprints of other sets. “I suggested that we should reprint Alliances next, and this time, call it Dalliances,” confessed Rosewater. “We’re still workshopping that one.”
Halberd of the Thopterlord will be available in 15-card booster packs and goes on sale December 21st.
“We also have an idea for an exciting new trading card game in the works”, he said.
As the title indicates, this event was originally slated to take place on modo. That idea was scrapped when someone pointed out that as a level 5 judge, modo was entitled to participate, and it couldn’t figure out how to play on itself. So we all met up in person instead.
My opponent plays what he assures me are a lot of modal effects with linked abilities that resolve in different layers (contingent on dependencies) and may or may not be characteristic-copying. I don’t know what any of this crap does, but I know none of it deals me 20 damage. I defeat him handily in 2 games.
1-0
Even the simplest actions like untapping and drawing a card take my opponent several seconds. I call over a judge, my round 1 opponent, and accuse him of slow-play. I begin to methodically lay out my case that he was stalling, then my current opponent reports me to his round 1 opponent for slow-explain. I guess those guys were pretty sore about losing last round and having their second round interrrupted, because they award us respective match losses. We appeal those decisions to the head judge, who it turns out is me. I recuse myself due to the conflict of interest, and without any way to resolve the situation, the match goes to time and ends in a draw.
1-0-1
My opponent is immediately very rude. He asks me to sing a Beatles song of my choosing, then tells me my voice is absolute rubbish and I don’t have the star quality to succeed in this competition. I’m feeling pretty down about this until one of his barns tells me to keep working at it and calls me his ‘dog.’ At this point I notice he still hasn’t presented his deck, and doesn’t even appear to have one. I disqualify him from the event, but not before he tells me America has voted me into the bottom 2 and probably won’t be returning next week.
2-0-1
A nice, quiet guy playing an impressive new deck of his own devising. He didn’t make any mistakes all match long, and saw a lot of plays I never would have. By game 2 I had begun to suspect he was a ringer. I considered calling someone over to check his certification, but decided that it was better to lose gracefully than risk a repeat of round 2.
2–1-1
This guy was a real stickler. He made me tap my lands one at a time, untap everything simultaneously, announce each time I was passing priority, and go through spell announcement step by step in the correct order. At one point twelve identical “gain one life” triggers happened at once, and he asked me what order I wanted to stack them in with a straight face. Things were close but looking good in game 1 until accidently pointed at the wrong guy when choosing what would have been lethal attackers, and he wouldn’t let me take it back. I then disgustedly told him “I give up” and he asked if I was sure, yes or no. I said yes, and it turned out I had just conceded the whole match instead of the game.
2-2-1
I’m about to head home when the top 8 is announced, and I am in. I point out that this should be mathematically impossible given my record, but it turns out they just ran way too many rounds of swiss. I hit the bathroom before heading to the final table, and the rest of the top 8 is already there. My round 2 opponent says he needs the rating points for byes and we all agree to let him win his matches in exchange for the lion’s share of the prizes.
I get paired vs the agreed-upon winner. Our games go quickly as I just mana burn for the maximum amount each turn.
We are proud to reveal what we’re pretty sure is a new card… we think… maybe. Hold on wait, didn’t this used to be a sorcery? No? Are you sure? I think it might have had arcane. Anyway, we think this will have applications in constructed formats all the way to vintage. Vintage is the one where you can draw on cards to make them other cards, right?
Look at that, it’s uh, it’s incredible! It… uh, it kills a guy, maybe?
Ah the hell with it, that’s really bad. I’m going home.
Kjeldoran Knight gave the following quote to Good Gamery earlier today in an exclusive that marks the end of The Beebles, the most successful Magic band in history. The Beebles have been at the forefront of the public consciousness since they formed in Liverpool during the Declare Attackers step. Since then they have released a string of global hits including ‘Ticket to Ride the Dilu Horse’, ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’, and ‘A Hard Day’s Knight’.
“I mean, we’re just going our separate ways, you know? We worked great together for a few steps, but this is a new phase and me and the boys have a few different ideas about where we’d like to go from here.
“I still consider them my friends, and I hope we’ll be able to collaborate again, of course. Kjeldoran Escort in particular is a great guy – he reminds me of myself after four mana. I’m sure you remember the band’s giant dog phase, which was fun at the time, but the rest of us have moved on.
“Kjeldoran Warrior and I have sure had our differences, but I think a lot of that stemmed from the older brother-younger brother relationship we have. To me, he’ll always be the guy who was summoned on turn one.
“As for Shield Bearer, well, Shield Bearer’s a good kid. I don’t know if he’ll ever be a Skyknight, really, but he played a very important part in the band and I’m grateful for it.”
Kjeldoran Knight decline to comment on his recent Cathedral of Serra marriage to legendary creature Ayesha Tanaka, known for her avant-garde artwork such as putting a skirt on a suit of armour.
