Good Gamery

Tag: GyantSpyder

  • Nations Agree to Mill the World’s Bombs

    In an act that has excited citizens and civil authorities around the world, the G-20 and the United Nations have simultaneously voted on a mutually binding resolution to mill the world’s bombs. These bombs, rather than being dropped or mailed or windmill slammed, will be ground into a fine powder that will be used in high-school science labs, novelty moustache-drawing devices and nutritional supplements for impoverished, iron-deficient children in the developing world.

    “This is a proud moment for all us,” said U.N. Secretary General That Korean Guy Whose Name Nobody Knows. “To see these bombs put in a place where they can’t hurt anyone anymore – you have to admit; that’s a pretty great feeling.”

    The milling condition goes into effect in 2015, and, at the behest of the permanent members of the security council, does not effect bombs that have already been produced, bombs currently in production, or any bombs designed and manufactured before the ban takes effect.

    “This is an empty piece of self-congratulation that doesn’t affect the board,” said Netherlands U.N. delegate Franz Blarsten. “Unless it is changed to mill all the weapons in the world – starting immediately, and completing within the year – it will not affect the ability of the nations of the world to make war, either against each other or against their own citizens.” During Blarsten’s remarks, the lights were turned out, and all the other delegates went for sandwiches.

    Libyan Leader Mu’ammar Al-Qadhafi was slated to speak in the opposition, but he instead launched into a 94-minute rant about the shuffler.

  • R&D Pup Fetches Lands

    That lovable scamp, Wizards of the Cost R&D puppy “Li’l Tapper,” is at it again! It was a rare sunny day in the Pacific Northwest, and Li’l Tapper was stuck sitting inside the Wizards offices — between the Pepsi machine and a giant fiberglass statue of Goblin Ski Patrol — with his widdle nose pressed against the window, just wanting to play.

    So, when Card Designer Nenny Kagle made his way toward the fire doors, it was no surprise that Li’l Tapper bounded alongside him.

    “No, Li’l Tapper!” said Nenny. “I can’t play now. I have to do something important.”

    Nenny’s task, which he did not relish, was to briefly leave the heavily fortified Wizards compound, and, with all the strength of the mighty right arm of Wizards R&D, cast Onslaught Block, including the powerful and beloved fetchlands, out the door, far into the distance, and out of Extended.

    “You’ve had a good run, Onslaught,” said Nenny, “but it’s about time we all see what the world is like without you for a little while.” He sobbed. “By which I mean still play faeries.” He sobbed again.

    But as he cast open the door, blinded momentarily by tears and the rare encroachment of sunlight, he didn’t notice Li’l Tapper slip through his legs and out into the parking lot. Nor did he notice Li’l Tapper streak out after the cards he hurled into the distance, nor spot him scooting back in through the closing door as Nenny trudged up the stairs and back to his cube.

    In fact, he didn’t notice anything at all until he saw the spoiler for the latest Magic: The Gathering set, Zendikar (which is Yiddish for “Please summon a limousine.”). Sure, enough, there were the fetchlands! They were a little torn up, not quite how they’d used to be, but there was no doubt about it — that pokey little puppy had managed to get yet another reprint into a Magic set!

    “Oh, Li’l Tapper!!!” said Nenny. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Because that furry little ball of fun had managed to squeak out that door, the fetchlands were going to stay in Extended for another fifty dog years.

    When asked how chewed-up scraps of paper left under a chair coated in slobber managed to get into a Magic set, Magical Developer Pom LaTille said:

    “People think all we try to do is kill magic. This simply isn’t true, especially nowadays. We’ve worked very hard to improve our processes, tighten up our review standards, and do our best, especially in the most recent sets, to make Magic the most fun, varied experience it can be.

    But I admit, it is nice every once in a while to get back to our roots. Sometimes I try to kill Magic with two hands at the same time, and I imagine myself diving sideways and hovering in the air with the camera zooming around me in wide circles, catching every tense moment of the action as I just click at random adding or deleting cards from a set.

    We all pretty much think of it the same way. This one time, Tike Murian brought in a crate full of doves, and he kept them under his desk for a year, feeding them and caring for them, just so that he could release them and slide across his desk in slow motion the moment they shipped Tarmogoyf off to print. It was beautiful.

    So, yeah, we pretty much do whatever we think the puppy wants. Who could say no to that face?”

    Li’l Tapper is a black and white Border Collie — which means he is loyal, friendly, good with children, and fond of reprints, a trait he shares with the Nantuko Dachshunt, the Phyrexian Spaniel and the Poodle Aristocrat, which, despite having different breeds, turn out to be functionally identical.

    Various Wizards employees have tried, halfheartedly at best, to say “No” to Li’l Tapper’s antics, with the unexpected result that Cancel has been scheduled for print in every Magic set through 2012.

  • Go Stag™ with Great Sable Stag

    Are you disappointed with your life? Wondering where things went wrong? Never getting what you want while everybody else you know has great jobs, perfect hair, nice houses, and beautiful families that love them? That’s what I was like before I got off my butt, decided to make something of myself, and recognized the power — and the elegant, natural majesty — of Great Sable Stag.

    Now, I know what you’re asking. “Gregory,” you’re asking, “sure, Great Sable Stag has gracefully arched horns and firm, brown muscular flanks, and sure, it has a snow white belly as soft as the morning sunshine, but I have real problems. I have a mortgage. I have kids. I’m dyslexic. What can Great Sable Stag do for me?”

    Let me tell you: Plenty. Going Stag™ can make the difference between being just another nobody who owes Blockbuster $15 and having the lifestyle you’ve always known you deserved, but never knew how to get, let alone sustain over any length of time without going into crippling debt.

    (pictures of champagne, yachts, beautiful women, etc.)

    First of all, and I love this, Great Sable Stag is a magical deer from the deep, primeval forests of fantasy. That’s something we can all use. Am I right?

    ‘Yeah!!’

    Second, it’s resonant.

    Third, it wrecks faeries. Totally and completely. Faeries isn’t in the room. Faeries just took up badminton and moved thousands of miles away to pursue it professionally. Faeries might as well have never been born. It’s one card that can beat an entire deck — and not just any deck, the best, most powerful, most unfair and unfun deck ever made, played by the worst human beings who ever existed!

    ‘Boooo!!!!’

    That is literally months of worry that you won’t have to endure between now and the next rotation.

    Tell me the truth, half of you would still run that if it cost twice as much!

    (audience laughs, applauds)

    But the really impressive thing is the way Great Sable Stag makes you FEEL. Am I right!?

    (audience cheers!)

    We’re not just talking confidence, we’re talking Great Sable Confidence. The confidence to run out there on turn three and start beating down with your soft nose and magically long tail. The confidence to start a small business, learn a new language, or finally take things to the next level with that cute babysitter with the lip piercing. Am I right, fellas?

    (audience laughs)

    But that’s only the beginning. Just listen to these testimonials:

    “I haven’t been able to make love to my wife, despite years of therapy and drugs. But when I saw Great Sable Stag in my opening seven, I get excited. REALLY excited. Now I just make sure to draw it every twenty minutes or so, and it’s like I’m a teenager again!”
    — Richard Franks, age 42
    “When I know a man is packing a Great Sable Stag, it gets me all hot and bothered. His body just takes control. There’s no way I can counter it.”
    — Mandy (name withheld), Age 22
    “I like to hug Great Stable Stag when my dad comes home from drinking. It makes me think I also have protection from black and blue.”
    — Tyler Hudson, age 9
    “Double block with Mutavaults.”
    — XXXxxxxx



    At this point, you may be asking yourself, “Gregory has a good point, but how much does he expect me to pay for all this?”

    Would you believe me if I said 3WUBRG?

    2WUBRG?

    BBRG?

    BRRR?

    BRGBRRWUUBRG?

    Well, today, right now, you can start your journey to victory and self-love for the low low price of 1GG.

    That’s right; for less than the cost of a Brooding Saurian, you can beat the best deck in the format, impress your friends, admire the shapely shoulders and thick, luxuriant fur of an untamed, wild, pure-spirited wild animal of the Wyld — AND find the self-esteem and courage to pursue your dreams, leaving your life of mediocrity in the graveyard.

    BUT THAT’S NOT ALL!

    Act now, and you get the full set of Great Sable Accessories:

    You get the Oakenform


    The Lifelink


    The Firebreathing


    The Other Oakenform


    AND the Jump

    For just three easy payments of 4GG, WR, and U.

    That’s a six-for-one! It doesn’t get sweeter than that!

    But you’ll know how sweet it is — the first time you hold up the ineffable and incorruptible Great Sable Stag. I know I did, and my life has never been the same.

    Go Stag™ with Great Sable Stag and never be effed or corrupted again.

    (Results may vary. Not available against Kithkin.)


  • Sakura-Tribe Elder: “I Will Fight No More Forever”

    Facing an overwhelming force intent on expansion, redrawing the map and its resettling and modernizing its traditional homelands, the Elder of the Sakura Tribe has declared an end to years of armed retreat and asymmetrical warfare by surrendering to Magic: The Gathering rules manager Mark Gottlieb. The surrender took place on October 5, at Miren, the Moaning Well (now a national historic site), about 40 miles south of the Canadian border.

    While the Sakura Tribe has responded to repeated attacks by giving up its traditional lands for years, it had long engaged in a practice of putting damage on the stack, wherein a rear guard would inflict a single point on the advancing army before committing ritual suicide. This practice made the tribe folk heroes among many Magic players, who, while they still settled into the seized lands, applauded the snakes’ courage, resourcefulness, and ability to keep counters off Umezawa’s Jitte.

    “I always liked Steve,” said powerful wizard and Baylor College freshman Ankur Kartamian, using the common racial epithet for the tribe. “He was a good man, a common man. Sometimes he even got there, but mostly, he showed us to die as we lived, and to never make a choice between the two.”

    “I am deeply saddened by his surrender,” added Kartamian’s roommate Mitchell Hart, as he tapped seven of the tribe’s ancestral mountains, plains and islands to cast a Bull Cerodon and have it enter the battlefield, “Some of us are getting together to protest this. We are considering a strongly worded e-mail, or maybe quitting Magic.” Hard then ordered Kartamian’s blockers and cast Unsummon before damage for a 2-for-1.

    The Elder’s surrender was as eloquent as it was saddening:

    “Tell Mark Gottlieb I know his heart. What he told me before, I have it in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed; Seshiro is dead, Shisato is dead. The Kamigawa Block is all dead. It is the Coatl who say yes or no. He who put damage on the stack is dead.


    It is cold, and we have no blankets; the little Orhan Vipers are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have left the in-play-zone and run away to the removed-from-the-game-zone, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are—perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find, collect and trade with my friends. Maybe I shall find them among the dead.

    Hear me, my chiefs! My mana neither floats nor burns; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.”

    Claims that this speech was written by Wizards of the Coast poet laureate Doug Beyer, and not in fact by a playing card with a snake on it, remain unconfirmed.

    Gottlieb responded to his longtime foe with a knowing respect, “It is true, many of the Elder’s children have left the battlefield and gone into exile. And I wish we had made this change earlier, before so many of the Sakura Tribe had to die. But this game has a bright future; a Manifest Destiny.

    The Sakura tribe is part of that destiny. It is very hard to explain to our own children the lives that are lost in what is already a decided conflict. It is merely the march of history. To live together as one people, we must put an end to these senseless murder-suicides, as courageous as they may be.

    Or else the whole country might collapse, replaced by a larger budget for Monopoly or other such bullshit.”

    “You just watch,” said Sachi, daughter of Seshiro, a longtime advocate for a more violent, fireball-based Orochi policy. “This will change nothing. The Sakura Tribe will keep getting played and killed by the white man and giving him land until there is none left in its library. This amicable surrender is just a fog effect for genocide. The only choice our Elder has made is to die rather than fight.”

    While the exiled Orochi were promised basic land, rumors are flying they have instead been forcibly relocated to the Dust Bowl.

    “Whatever the damage this has caused, it has been assigned, and it is now too late to prevent it,” mourned Sachi.

  • Lord of Jund to Nationalize Dragons

    HARRIS FAMILY DINING ROOM TABLE — In a bold, costly attempt to end instability and conflict brought on by the summoning spells of mighty wizards, Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund announced the nationalization of all dragons on Tuesday. The move puts a variety of key economic functions under the direct control of Karrthus, including Hunting, Harvesting Devastation, Igniting and Awakening, as well as the tides, most of the stars, and the Game-Trail department.

    If successful, Lord Karrthus would come into play, assume sole control of all dragons, and untap them with state resources. The plan does not require the consent of the dragons, and, upon execution, would be permanent. Current dragonholders would be wiped out.

    “We know this will take massive resources and has a low probability of success,” said Karrthus during a recent whistle-stop tour of five mountains, a scrubland and the City of Brass. “But these dragons represent an unacceptable systemic risk that only the government can properly untap and administer.”

    When asked whether the Karrthus administration would put restrictions on the dragons to prevent them from continued ravaging, Jund Press Secretary Flameblast Dragon said, “All dragons are on the table at this point.”

    It is by far the most expensive and broad dragon nationalization on record, although Karrthus has been quick to point out that dragon seizures are fairly common during periods of interplanar conflict. Previous plans, however, tended to take place at half the cost, in one color, with broad legislative support, and with counter backup.

    Even in those cases, the plans were unpopular, and this one is not without its detractors.

    A coalition against the nationalization, led by former Nicol Bolas minion Malfegor, has mobilized in protest. In support of the effort Malfegor is, through a third-party vendor, selling limited-edition posters of Lord Kathara teabagging him.

    “We’re not sure he knows what he means,” said one zombie on the condition of anonymity, “but we’re willing to humor him if puts that uppity Jundie in his place.”

    A press release from Malfegor’s staff office read, “This is more tap-and-spend from a government that has run out of ideas. We’ve all heard of big plans like this before, but how many of those plans ever resolved? All our swamps are still tapped from the Debtors’ Knell he tried to play last turn, and we’re not seeing that anytime soon. A DRAGON WILL NOT BE RULED!”

    When asked about Malfegor, Karrthus remarked, “Of course dragons can be ruled. That’s the basis for the entire dragon system of government. As Mr. Malfeagor knows all too well, there is always a greater power.”

    “Also, you can do pretty much anything for seven mana.”

    Karrthus confirmed that, barring counters, the action would be completed with haste.

  • A Letter from Grizzly Bears

    Dearest Mother,

    I hope this letter reaches you. I have paid the messenger the last of my cigarettes and several other things I dare not mention, in the hopes that my words might find your eyes. I fear my own may never gaze into them again.

    What you suspected is true, and I am deeply sorry for doubting you — this camp is little more than a slaughterhouse. They have cast us into a pit, they battled us against each other for their amusement, and they have made it known that only half of those who remain will make it out alive.

    We are so young — each of us is only 15. We have done everything they asked of us. And I have seen them, one by one or in clusters, all the others, gone, dead, drifting to the earth like cherry blossoms. They bring in fresh meat all the time, and they churn through it at a terrifying rate — I’ve seen hundreds, thousands of faces come and go — mauled and twisted, pressed into servitude, and, finally, cast aside.

    A group of us had made a pact to hang together, to survive. The Evercore. We joked we would drink whiskey at the launch of 20th edition. Sixteen of us have made it this long, and we thought we were safe.

    But they have made their intentions clear mother. Nothing is safe here. Not Scathe Zombies. Not Regeneration. Not even your face.

    They shot Goblin King yesterday. They just dragged him — the King! — out in the street like a stray dog and put a bullet in the back of his head. They left him in the dirt with his crown over his broken nose to rot and be eaten by vermin. I’ve seen it many times, and I had even become used to it, but I feel a new dread. The dread I first felt when I saw Sedge Troll lying facedown in the mud. We had all joked about how he was invincible. When I saw him there, I thought, “This is my year — this is the year I go.”

    Life has been hard since then, but there was a natural rhythm to it. I am beaten and broken (well, not broken. I was never broken. I have seen others here broken — they’d always vanish shortly after — but not me.) by the other prisoners on a daily basis. Every year I’m further outclassed and humiliated. Every two years, I’m reprinted anyway. You know I am tough. You know, no matter how bad things get, I attack for two.

    The stories have helped, too. Telling all the little bears — so many bears, mother! — about when the King wore Gauntlets of Might, and he used to show us the calluses on his knuckles from it. He used to thump against the cinderblock wall of our cell and joke about playing the war drums, and I’d tell stories about Granite Gargoyle and Grey Ogre splitting up and crossing the Raging River, about the time we all climbed on the wall to dodge the Chaos Orb, or about the time Thicket Basilisk proved he was better than Cockatrice.

    They’re just stories now, and when I go, they will be lost. Just like all the other bears that came before me. I guess I should be grateful. Most of those other bears didn’t get reprinted once.

    I should feel glad of my long life, but I’m not. I wanted to be Evercore. I wanted these days, grim as they are, to last forever.

    People tell me to trust in God, but even that seems hopeless. They’ve pulled him out of bed now, and they’re trying to shove him in a van.

    You were always good to me. I am sorry I will never return to your hand again.

    Love,

    Grizzly Bears



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  • Economic Crisis Breaks 13-Year Stasis Lock

    AURORA — 26-year old Stephen Prohashkos was released from a 13-year Stasis lock today, as ongoing global economic and credit turmoil finally rendered 33-year old Walter Phillips unable to pay a blue mana during his upkeep. As a result, Prohashkos has finally untapped and, according to family and friends, is ready to move on with life.

    “It’s a hard time, what with the layoffs and all, but having Stephen out of that lock is a real silver lining,” said Stephen’s father Zorba. “I know his mother is glad she won’t have to give him any more sponge baths.”

    In the spring of 1995, 13-year old Prohashkos sat down with his neighbor and Miami of Ohio freshman Phillips to play the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering. Prohashkos had learned the game from playmates at school, and Phillips, who had often babysat Prohashkos as a child, seemed enthusiastic that the two shared an interest.

    It is unclear what happened next, or how exactly Prohashkos was trapped by what eyewitness accounts say is a “blue two mana enchantment” and “totally cheap.” We attempted to reach Magic publisher Wizards of the Coast spokesperson Tina Gaffney for comment but could not get past the balls.

    Regardless of the specific timeline, the lock proved remarkably resilient, pacifying Prohashkos and rendering him incapable of interacting with his opponent, and, it appears, the world at large, provided that Phillips made minimum payments during each of his upkeeps. After establishing the lock, Phillips returned to college, continuing to maintain the lock out of student loan funds, early wages and, later, a home equity line of credit that was recently withdrawn by Phillips’ bank due to concerns about his creditworthiness.

    “Honestly, once I set the thing up to autopay, I kind of forgot about it,” said Philips. “Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have played that deck against a kid, but if you refuse to play against good decks and cards, you never learn anything. I was pretty young at the time. In retrospect, I guess I should have included a win condition. He must have been playing with a pretty big deck – I guess that makes sense, since he was prepubescent and all.”

    “I never thought this day would come,” said teary older brother Thomas. “I would have done anything to bring Stephen back. There are times when I even thought about extreme measures. But Walter also had a Moat. That son of a bitch.”

    “Mom says I have to finish reading Bridge to Terabithia before dinner,” said Prohashkos as he shaved off a three-foot beard. “But after that, I want to get a copy of Scrye and see what my Chromium is worth now. Snoochy Boochy!”



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