Boy, Odric, Lunarch Marshal sure can grant a lot of abilities! Here’s a look at the original design. We shaved a number of keywords after development raised concerns about “rules confusion”, “tournament time limits”, “shuffling nightmares”, and “how on earth would you even print this”. Take a look for yourself if you want to really flip out!
Renton, WA – It’s been one week since domineering parent of nerd happiness Hasbro acquired the Seattle-based Lattice Pharmaceutical. Lattice declared bankruptcy last year, a decision brought on by the massive crash in it’s stock value after allegations that it’s CFO, Michael Wassan, was a collective hallucination shared by his co-workers. In a recent memo Hasbro stated the reason for the acquisition as, “Lattice Pharmaceutical manufactured all our glue. We have a great need for the glue. Now the glue may flow more freely for our use. Now it may flow directly into us.”
And with Lattice comes its controversial practice of administering psychological supplements to all of it’s staff members. This practice, which began in the 1970s when no one cared, has already had noticeable impact inside the Research and Development Department of Magic, a game for adults who enjoy the sensation of smelling cardboard. Mark Rosewater, the leader designer of Magic spoke to me while rapidly spinning in a computer chair:
“I’m so excited, SO EXCITED, to unveil the newest idea we’ve done before: the return of you make the card! This time we are giving you not just a play-experience, no, we’re giving you a play-state-of-mind. You! It’s all you! You are free! I Disenchant your Shackles I cast Updraft and you are free and I will draw the card in my next life!” He then presented me with this before vomiting violently into a nearby Avengers-themed garbage pail:
“Think about it! No more leaks, you are your own spoiler season! Ten in a pack because of as-fan! As-fan!”
Under this new school of thought, R&D member Ken Nagle, normally confined to the closet with the paper shredder, has been allowed to roam the building and grounds. I caught up with him on the roof where he stared blankly into the sun, a seagull nesting comfortably in his mouth: “What if no-color was a color? What if that void in us, the thing we were always missing, was the absence of the absence of something? What is it like to play in this world? How might we escape it? Spike is too powerful for his own good. Johnny is too clever. Only Timmy, so large, so trample, Timmy might free himself through his hunger more more. He might pay the mana to escape the void, and like me, his food will come to him.” Then he sucked the seagull down his throat, comically burping a single white feather, and raised him arms in elation.
Perhaps no one has felt the effects of the merger more sharply than former head of R&D Hakim (formerly Aaron Forsythe). I found Hakim, hair grown long, meditating in a nearby park: “I left because I was sick. I was making possessions that owned people. But that’s not how it should be, man. Belief matters more than truth. Every moment, belief in imaginary things alters lives while truth sits unnoticed and waits. But I believe in the truth. And now my possessions nourish me.” With that he produced a Black Lotus, dipped it in a half-eaten container of cream cheese from a nearby garbage can, and jammed it into his mouth with a grotesque smacking sound. He declined to comment further only saying, “Steve Jobs is my Richard Garfield”, before drifting off into the air and waving goodbye to a distant Ken Nagle, still perched on the roof, sniffing the air.
Beyond R&D other divisions of Magic have realigned their thinking. Promotions as begun work on a Nerf Batterskull, Organized Play has declared that the format for GP Tonopah will be Mental Magic, and Magic Online has been replaced with a copy of the 1991 classic Myst. When asked if it saw these changes as a positive development Hasbro only commented, “If Magic fails we still have Kaijudo. The cards all smell the same.”
“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.”
– Rosa Parks
Hello my fellow paramours of the cardboard, I’m back again with another MtG Lists! When I say the word “purple hippo” what comes to your mind? That secret unit in Age of Mythology? Something more sinister? Or is it everyone’s favorite creature type in MtG, the phelddagrif? Since exploding onto the scene in Alliances, phelddagrifs have occupied an exalted place in the Magic community: part joke, part powerhouse. But up til this point there was no definitive ranking of the best phelddagrifs. Don’t cry. I made one. Don’t cry.
Don’t mess with the original. When Phelddagrif rolled up in Alliances it was like the world has stopped turning. I saw this card and Loved it. Legend?: Check. Rainbow?: Check. Purple Hippo?: The original Check. As a 4/4 for four mana Phelddagrif massacres the vanilla test. But look at all those abilities! Imagine this scenario: Swing with Phelddi, and give him flying. The opponent blocks with a Scryb Sprite. Give him trample, and the opponent Unsummons him. Bounce him to your hand, countering your opponent’s spell. G + W + U = Value aka an elusive One for Zero. Phelddagriff is also a main-stay in the EDH Commander format where he invented a style of play called “group hug” which forces players to interact and sort out their emotions with language instead of shipping the team. It’s rare that a Magic card makes a statement as powerful as Phelddi, but perched on his back we see that we are all one world. And that’s why he’s my pick for #1 Phelddagrif of all time.
Questing Phelddagrif is good, but not quite good enough to make the list. Unlike Mistform Ultimus it’s vulnerable to Eyeblight’s Ending, and it’s not even a legend and hence can’t be played in Command Zone Format. Like, who even remembers this card? Now I’m mad! It’s a shame because the art is really good.
Seattle, Washington – Hello fellow earthlings! Today I’m Gaea’s Herald, bringing you a message that can’t be countered. Our planet is heating up. You may say, “Evan Raingiver Erwin, I know that, I listen to podcasts. There’s nothing we can do because of those Phyrexians in our Congress!” Well, let old Raingiver give you a bit of folk wisdom: don’t remove yourself from the problem. The most recent spikes in climate change have coincided almost perfectly with the recent rise in MtG’s popularity. That causation correlates, friend! Luckily, there are simple steps we can take to help the planet while still enjoying the cardboard we crave. I’ll be using my local gaming store The Dungeon Space as an example of sustainability in action!
Play Limited
Limited is one of best ways that we enjoy the Magic in our lives and is actually one of the most sustainable ways to play. Here’s a simple mind trick: cards = carbon. The more cards in your deck, the more CO2 you’ve released into our atmosphere. But limited has a deck size of only 40; that’s 20 less cards you’re releasing into the atmosphere. Plus, limited reminds us of what we have already. Rather than buying new packs cleaved from a sloth’s living room, why not crack some of those Fallen Empires boosters sitting around? Those packs only have 8 cards each so that’s almost half of the CO2 emissions of a normal draft! I had a blast last night at our Fallen Empires-Fallen Empires-Homelands draft, where I pulled a Derelor for my Sustainable Practices Cube. Plus, why not take the small deck mentality of limited and bring it into your store rules? The Dungeon Space has banned Battle of Wits, the Hummer of MtG, and 100% of people passing through our doors have respected the ban! Employees instruct every customer on the impact Battle of Wits decks have on the wolf habitat. People working together to educate each other: people power!
Proxying
Another great way to caress Gaea is through proxies; rather than own a card, why not own a card-like object? Recycled materials are obviously best for this: candy bar wrappers, extra sleeves, used lottery tickets. But why not go one step further and make biodegradable proxies? Imagine the look on your opponent’s face when you explain that this pile of leaves is Snapcaster Mage. Don’t worry about it touching other cards; it’s 100% natural friend! Need a big guy like Emrakul? Try a potted herb like rosemary or thyme. Not only will it represent the unyielding destructive impulses of a cosmic horror (Re. Congress) but will also bring a pleasant scent to the battlefield while it cycles the fetid air in your local gaming store.
If you have some money to burn but don’t have a green thumb there are tons of proxy websites who will do the planting and tending for you. Many of them even have an amazing promise: for every proxy you buy from them, they’ll send another copy to a struggling village in the Global South. Bring the joy of the world’s greatest card game to those less fortunate while you bring the pain to your opponent’s face! Of course these communities may not be familiar with Magic, so these companies often send photocopies of the card rather than the plant. Magic is for everyone.
Share Cards
The other route you can go to cut down on your cardsumption is to share. If your friend needs something, share it with him; you’d be surprised at how much you can cut back when you work together. You and a friend both playing Twin at the GP and you only have four Scalding Tarns between the two of you? Request to sit next to each other! If you explain you’re saving the planet while you pluck a used Tarn from your earthsister’s graveyard, your opponents won’t mind! You may think this slows down the game but the extra time is actually nice in this More!Now! World. I use it to prune and water my prized Tarmogoyf proxies.
Green Your Store
But we don’t just consume Magic on the level of individual players, we also consume it as stores. What is a simple way to make your store more sustainable? Change the prize structure! A typical store might award eight packs for going 4-0 on draft night, but my store does something a little more meaningful: for every pack of cards you would win, the store instead buys back that many acres of Brazilian rain forest. It makes us players play even harder since we can feel our children’s futures on the line! At the end of the night everyone is a winner.
Another place where Magic players waste a lot is in our food. All that Styrofoam and plastic and foil goes directly into our fishing stocks. The Dungeon Space has a strict compost policy: if you bring it in, you better compost it on your way out. People didn’t get the gist at first but the build up of garbage was so immense that people changed their behavior, and therefore the world. Say what you will but it added a lot of atmosphere to my Golgari pool at the Return to Ravnica prerelease!
Eliminate Plastics
There are a few ways we drain the planet that Wizards of the Coast has no control over. I’m talking about accessories: dice, counters, sleeves, play mats, and card boxes. But every one of these has a green alternative! Instead of dice to track life, I just follow the sun. For counters on creatures, individual drops of rainwater do the trick. My sleeves are hand-sewn from sustainable bamboo grown on a small family farm in Thailand that has been making bamboo sleeves for over a hundred years. For playmats, try a small bed of native grass or other ground cover. Unfortunately, there’s no alternative to card boxes.
The reward of practices like these is not just in saving the planet, but also in enriching your community. The Dungeon Space used to be a sweaty, linoleum-tiled nerd chamber. Now there are birds everywhere! Birds of every shape, size, and color, and they sing while we play Standard!
What up dawgs? Just MaRo Monday poppin’ in to let you know we here at Wizards pay close attention to what our customers want. Magic is a game of the people! And according to our research wizkids, junk food and MtG are inseparable! While me and Hasbro were pondering this connection at a Bohemian Grove soiree, the beings that puppet Frito Lay approached us with quite a chill idea. So for this Fall of 2015 I’m pleased to announce that the cards you love are teaming up with the taste you crave to bring you:
*Free Magic cards is limited to less than a penny draft fodder and all non-Hymn to Tourach cards opened from slightly damaged Fallen Empires packs found under Ken Nagle’s bone pile in the supply closet of R&D. Offer available for a limited time, results may vary. Snack responsibly.
Swamp, Innistrad – I’m sitting in the home of Liliana Vess, the infamous planeswalker. There are no black cats, no demonic blood runes. The furniture is pedestrian with a bit of Ravnican flair. A single print hangs on the wall, a Meloku original, the table and chairs a dark Llanowar pine. Liliana hands me a mug of tea and pulls a strand of long black hair away from her eyes, “I like to think that, overall, I had a positive effect.”
She is, of course, referring to the long and tangled history of Sexy Necromancy. How did something so innocent as animating dead bodies take on such a hyper-sexualized aesthetic? And how does the queen of exanimate action, increasingly shunned by her own subculture, fit into the Multiverse today?
How did you get your start in necromancy back before it was sensual?
“I think it all started with Animate and Raise Dead. I remember hearing about them in church. My parents didn’t really talk culture beyond Avacyn’s annoying brand of glam so it was actually my Preacher that brought them to my attention. The whole slippery slope argument: if we let people animate dead bodies, what’s next? Artifacts? Lands? But try and find me one teenager who wouldn’t want to resurrect a corpse to slay their enemies; it comes naturally with the frustrations you feel then. It drew me in. Then came Hell’s Caretaker, Dance of the Dead, and the whole cult of personality around Lim-Dûl. It got main-stream. I dabbled and of course my parents didn’t like it but they were divorced so they weren’t exactly providing me with a stable home environment. I was doing magic at the time with the whole wholesome white mage thing. Healing Salve, Martyrdom, people called me Becky. But somewhere down the line, reanimation got racier.”
What was the state of necromancy like when you joined it and what was the erotic turning point for you?
“It was under the non-knee-high, non-stilettoed boot-heel of conservative culture. No pentagrams, no demons. But boobies were fine so already things were pushing towards Adult wizardry. Mainly a lot of guys sitting in basements trying to look sensual. But if I had to identify a particular moment, it would be when I saw Coffin Queen. I was all locked up in my own preconceived notions of life and death and titties and here comes this woman who uses her sexuality as a weapon, you know besides the armies of the dead.”
It was around that time that Liliana’s spark ignited, but that only made her burn out faster. Traveling around the Multiverse, Liliana’s trademark black heels and boob window became synonymous with come-hither hocus pocus.
How did people react to your unique take on zombification?
“There was the usual outcry that you’d expect. White and green mages who of course forgot about Elvish Ranger and Serra Angel. Support from some really nice guys like Deathrite Shaman and even Scavenging Ooze, who I didn’t consider Mature but with the internet things have opened up a lot. I even remember Squire said something like, ‘I geese that all these kids care aboute is nipples and skulls, and I gesse that that’s the Dominaria we leeve in nowe.’ I put that on my fridge. It was exciting.”
But at a certain point, things began to fall apart.
“That’s the real tragedy of art isn’t it? People always want a bigger zombie and a hotter spell. You can’t keep up; no one can. I was performing huge revivals weekly, little Chainer was on the way, Sorin had totally checked out. I had just done Sex and Drugs with Chandra and was becoming very aware of how I perform for mortals. I had put myself in service to my fans, when I should have killed them and made them serve me. When that specter of fear comes over you, you just have to put your foot down and say, ‘I have to make this abomination for myself.’ It really is okay to let things go.”
How do you think people view your work in retrospect?
“My earlier work seems to be my most popular. People seemed to be confused by Liliana Vess because it just sort of came out of nowhere. But with Liliana of the Veil, then people knew that necromancy was going to be steamy. I think I’m the most fond of Liliana of the Dark Realms though. That started with a concept, ‘What if instead of reanimating one dead body, I reanimated all dead bodies?’ It was so much fun to work on and Nicol Bolas is a wonderful producer.”
You seem to have slowed down in recent years in part due to Sexy Necromancy’s popularity waning.
“You get derivatives like that Markov’s Servant girl; all Sexy, no Necromancy. It just comes across as desperate. And I’m very public on my stance that vampires aren’t even undead. They’re a disease or something right? And everyone is ramping into those Eldrazi things.”
“But I’m being too harsh; I’m very grateful for all the pain and suffering and despair I’ve been able to cause. I have enough stored away to work on the classics that I love, the Megrims and the Snuff Outs. I think that midnight loving will always have a place; wherever a boy thinks that a girl should be a pair of gray boobs, I’ll be there to support him. I’m just ready to put this all behind me and live forever.”
Do you have any comment on your relationship with Garruk?
“Who is that? What did you say? Garrook? Geruk?”
When Magic was first released in 1993 it was met with critical acclaim. The idea of taking these myths and fantasy tropes and reducing them to a collectible item, and a populist one at that, spoke to the spirit of the times. They were addicting, ironic, and above all consumable; perfect for the anger and energy of a post-Cold War, globalized world. With the success of the first set, Alpha, and the later Warholian reproductions Beta and Unlimited, the public wondered what milieu Garfield would tackle next. Arabian Nights dealt with ideas of appropriation in a U.S. becoming more embroiled in Middle Eastern conflicts (with cards like the masterpiece Juzám Djinn which pokes subtle fun at the Iran-Contra Scandal) while The Dark confronted environmental issues in a neo-gothic aesthetic (Ashes to Ashes, Brainwash, Marsh Gas).
While Magic has always been very socially conscious with its parallels, such as New Phyrexia as a parable of gentrification or Onslaught Block as a mirror of how we perpetuate genocide, I think it has become too brazen, even over-the-top, in its political statements. Gone is the subtlety of cards like Goblin Balloon Brigade. Instead we are left with shlock like Return to the Ranks. We get it. 9/11 happened. I’d like to take a moment to hearken back to a time when Magic was designed, not just manufactured, and focus on a set, half-finished yet full of promise. Magic: Motherland.
While many of you know that Richard (I can call him that) holds a PhD in Mathematics, few know that his undergrad was in Russian literature. You can see traces of the writings of Dostoyevsky and Gogol in his work, but it was in Motherland that he let himself indulge. Much as Arabian Nights was based on the titular collection, Motherland draws from the strongest and most enduring texts from the other side of the Curtain. And each card is a masterpiece. Take for example this card:
A chaotic mess from art to text box, Bureaucracy is wholly itself. Whose upkeep? Doesn’t untap ever? The life and/or(!) mana requirement further obfuscate this card, though it’s clear that it slows the game down. Also notice the counters, which become a recurring theme in the set.
Or take the following:
Taken from Chekhov’s play of the same name, Sea Gull is what the character Nina is. Empty. Pointless. Uninteresting. Limited fodder. The kind of thing that could be reprinted in 9th Edition and then forgotten about. Sea Gull is Quag Sickness is Ke$ha is Coke Zero. Art as forgettable as the card itself. A piece of cardboard to throw away. This is by no means the only card inspired by Chekhov’s work:
The story implicit in this card is palpable. Vanya is pained but powerless to do anything about that pain. And his aggressive costing as a 2/2 for 1G encourages combat. A being who only lives by the violence he inflicts, but is too cowardly to inflict it on himself. There is this card in each of us. Complimented by its wonderful art, grotesque and confronting so that we don’t have to confront ourselves.
Of course Gogol and his work make an appearance. Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin is a poem. Much like Uncle Vanya, so much is carried in so little text. The detail of not specifying “counter” in the second line causes us to think of the overcoats that we attempt to put on ourselves day in and day out. A marked improvement over its predecessor Pearled Unicorn, except for the art which Richard’s father stood for. Richard’s work was by no means limited to the Russians; Czech and Polish literature provided a fertile ground for ideas to take root:
I see a lot of parallels between the work of Richard and Franz Kafka; the shuffling, the obsession with paper and numbers, the competitiveness over small shifts in prestige. Wizards of the Coast itself has become that shadowy bureaucratic authority that Richard and Kafka set out to critique. And Gregor Samsa is a scathing critique. Life as a process of toil until death. The specification of it being Gregor Samsa, the totally arbitrary change counters, all of this speaks to the minimum wage jobs Richard was working as a starving artist at the time of Magic’s conception. And finally, my favorite card of the bunch:
This card is a home run, oozing with flavor and artistic flair. The mounting action of its murders, the weight of the counters making the card heavier and less easy to manipulate, the mere cost of a mana to kill again. Some believe the green background was a printing error but Richard was sending us a message about the savagery that lives inside of each of us.
With the slog of beat-you-over-the-head sets being released today, Battle for Zendikar being only the newest and worst in an egregious line, its important to look back at our roots. Magic was a game about self-expression made by a starving artist on a basement Xerox machine. However, I do think that Magic is coming out of a dry spell: Magic 2010 tried to recapture the essence of what made Alpha such a powerful statement, Modern Masters is a wonderful stab at nostalgia and how it alters our patterns of consumption, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited to see David Lynch’s direction in the upcoming Magic movie. As usual, the Technocrats of the Coast have not invited me to attend the Richard Garfield Memorial Hotdog Eating Contest this Sunday in Renton, but he will be in my heart.
Peace.
Evan Erwin in a Beret is a Good Gamery correspondent.
The Progress Engine Convention Center, New Phyrexia – Yesterday Phyrexian leaders gathered again for a third straight day of climate talks. This year marks the eighth annual Climate Summit, a time for the leaders of the Phyrexian community to discuss the environmental issues that threaten them all. As it was the previous seven years, the question on everyone’s minds was “How can we spread more oil?”
The summit began with the five praetors posing for photos in the Panopticon around the near-comatose body of Karn. Tensions were briefly raised when Urabrask accidentally brushed against Sheoldred’s breast, but Karn’s whimpering pleas for release quickly lightened the mood.
Delegates from all sections of New Phyrexia have arrived to make their voices heard. The air is electric, with swarms of flying flesh robot alien things filling the skies and maybe-a-human clerics and wizards trading information and ideas on the Convention Center floor. I spoke with a nameless, faceless horror who was attending with its grassroots organization New Phyrexians for a New Phyrexia, “Its such a positive experience to be here with all these hard working… robots? Zombies?” A broodmother of thousands, and recent nursing school graduate, the abomination still finds time for community engagement, a running theme this year. “Of course we all want more oil. But there are so many approaches we could take to meeting that goal. Everyone says that the plane is going down the tubes but then you come to a place like this and, well, its just goes to show that civil discourse and small-town values are still the heart of New Phyrexia. I’m excited to see what the convention brings.”
The attendees are as diverse in their goals as they are in monstrous body-types. Just a sampling of some of the issues on the table are: hitting nine poison counters by 2030, unbanning Blazing Shoal, rying to find a use for Mycosynth Fiend, and what’s the deal with Snake Cult Initiation? Veteran climate champion Phyrexian Rager noted the role that paying life was playing this year, “Back in 2001 with Gix, the only thing you could spend life on was drawing a card. One card! And you didn’t even have a choice. You tell these kids that and its unthinkable. They spend life on panthers and counter magic. You ask these people who Gerrard is and they don’t even know. He’s kind of a big deal.”
The Praetors themselves are removed from the main frenzy, having private talks deep in the fleshvats of the Convention Center. I was briefly able to speak to Vorinclex’s chief aid Glissa the Traitor, “Our goal is to increase oil emissions 10% by 2021, but what this conference is really about is our children. What values do we instill in them? So much of our society is focused around consumption we often forget to propagate or let the strongest emerge as dominant. Democracy is messy. That’s why we have oligarchs.”
Of course not everyone is feeling the community spirit. A small group of leonin and humans gathered outside the Panopticon doors this morning carrying a giant paper mache puppet of a morbidly obese Elesh Norn smoking a cigar as well as carrying signs reading “Free Karn” and “Sunburst power is the only way.” Slowly, as a group they began chanting, “Your complaetion’s made you blind, its not too late to change your mind!” Though the group itself was absent from the Convention, I found its elected representative Jor Kadeen slumped in a hallway, eating a Cup-of-Noodles, “Our demand is the same as it is every year. Reprint Leeches. Then we can start a dialogue.”
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