Category: Magic: The Gathering

Design Class – See, This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things Anymore

The only time you'll see this spell in the new border?

For anything to be called a standard means that people have accepted it and measure everything else that they come into contact with it. In Magic, it’s something that players constantly do; it helps us judge cards from the past and how they reflect on them in the present. If we accept that you can do 2 damage at a target for R at instant speed (Shock) is the standard for dealing damage you can compare every other Red burn spell that sees print. Let’s compare it to some of the other comparable burn spells from Lorywn to now (Zendikar):

  • Burst Lightning (Better, since you can kick it later for more damage)
  • Flame Jab (Worse, Sorcery and loss of a card in hand to repeat the ability)
  • Lightning Bolt (Better, 3>2)
  • Magma Spray (Worse, since it doesn’t hit players. Exiling a creature is only worth it once in a while)
  • Needle Drop (Worse, 1 damage, have had to been dealt damage earlier, but you get to draw a card)
  • Shard Volley (Mixed, you lose one of your lands, but it deals 3 damage)
  • Tarfire (Better, since it has the Tribal card type)

There have been some better and some worse cards than Shock, which is perfectly fine; the standard can’t be the best there is, just a good accepted value to compare. We’re not looking for the best card in relation to mana cost, but the common accepted standard. There are always going to be good cards, better cards and worst cards in for everything we can think of, it’s just part of the game. This is just a simplified view to get a yardstick of measurement (Don’t worry, I’m not going to go a complete Mike Flores on you. – MtGCP).

The most common complaint in today’s game is that Blue sucks. It doesn’t have a good counterspell (nor even its namesake) or instant speed drawing. Today’s standard for countering a spell is 1UU, but it didn’t always used to be that way. It’s been years since it saw legal play in Standard (and a year or two in Extended), but Counterspell is still card everyone thinks about for making sure your opponent didn’t cast that card they were hoping to use.

UU, Instant, Counter target spell.

That’s the standard for countering a spell in Magic. And you’ll never get it back.

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Hooptedoodle – It’s Your Upkeep, Battlemage

Hooptedoodle = this guy, just doesn't matter

(Editor’s Note: Being a fiction writer, sometimes all that comes out of my fingers when I write is prose that just meanders for a while. Elmore Leonard explained that the term is called “hooptedoodle” and sprung from John Steinbeck’s book Sweet Thursday (fixed). It’s a non-sense word that doesn’t mean anything; the author is just going to write a while for fun. This is one of those times. Some of you might like this, others will think I’m wasting your time and for that I apologize. You may skip this post, and I wouldn’t be hurt. This isn’t required reading by any means, but I wanted to get this Magic-related story down. – MtGCP)

I was intrigued by the mid-20’s man lounging in the chair infront of me; his constantly smiling toothy grin, the wool-knit cap covering his matted hair, the eyes that lit up whenever he played a card. He came up in the middle of a game of EDH I was engaged with another player who he happened to know. Asking us if we wanted to buy any cards, he started to pull out his boxes. He had decks upon decks that he was proud to show us.

This was his Angel deck.

This was his Dragon deck.

This was his counterspell deck with unblockable creatures.

This was the deck his friends didn’t like him playing because it had the purple atog in it.

While the cards were worn from gameplay (most of them unsleeved), it wasn’t because they were just thrown around his room haphazardly; they were loved. They were shuffled over and over again from the kitchen table games he played with family and friends. Today, the cards were trying to get him a little extra money. While looking through them, nothing interested me but the other player bought a couple of older cards he couldn’t find for trade around here. The man was obviously a little sad to see the pieces of cardboard go, but it’s nothing that couldn’t be replaced.

As we continued to play our EDH game he took a look at my General: a Japanese Vorosh, the Hunter (Don’t worry 99EDH fans, you’ll get the sweet decklist soon enough. One word: Landfall). He examined it for a minute, he said he hadn’t see the card before; said it was pretty cool. A turn later, my opponent was facing 14 4/4 beast tokens with a +1/+1 counter on them and he couldn’t find any outs in his deck. We all laughed at how this happened (the link will be here when I write about the deck), and the man with the heavily shuffled cards started to put his stuff away. My original opponent had to leave after our game and the stranger asked if I wanted to play. Of course I did, it was Magic.

Continue reading “Hooptedoodle – It’s Your Upkeep, Battlemage”

Magic Mechanics in Real Life

Somethings best stay in the fantasy world

This all started with @Mulldrifting‘s tweet:

Re: blog on MTG stories/chars @mananation I want a blog on how game mechanics translate to books/real life. B/c some of its hilarious.

Some of my other posts are still in the works and this seemed like something fun and light to do. Yes, it’s a shorter post, but that’s alright. Let’s do this.

Kicker

Kicker [Cost]: [Effect]

Magic: Conqueror’s Pledge

Real Life: “For an extra $50, I’ll throw in HBO and Cinamax free of charge,” said the cable guy during installation.

“Flicker” Effects

Magic: Flicker

Real Life:

Notes: Also works for Phasing effects, but no one talks about those cards.

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The Year That Wasn’t

Guy on the left? He's from the awesome timeline where these posts were actually published.

Title suggested by @TheSundry.

If you write for a blog, or a blog, or just write, you know that not every post is your best. There are drafts upon drafts that some writers write to finally get that piece up. Coming from a fiction background I don’t write the usual Magic related posts (From my “Interviews” with MaRo, to my scripts, to deeply personal pieces).

You also know that you don’t use every idea you come up with either. Sometimes I don’t get a post done in timely fashion (as the time has passed for it to be relevant), or I don’t like where the post is going and it gets canned. As the sole writer and editor for this blog what I say goes, which can either be a good thing (all the content I want gets posted), or bad (such as non-deadlines).

Quick aside. Here’s something that some of you might not know: I don’t get paid for blogging. As you may have noticed, there’s no ads on this site, no one’s selling anything, nor any card site banners. There’s nothing wrong with that (as I have several blogger friends who do, and it’s perfectly fine), it’s just that I write when I have the time (and Wife, job and life comes first).

I’m not going to give you an end of the year review where I go back and revisit my top articles I posted. Today, you’re going to find out about articles that I didn’t post this year for one reason or another. If one thing had been different, you might have seen one of these posts up on this blog. But it wasn’t, so you get this reality we live in.

This is my Planar Chaos.

Continue reading “The Year That Wasn’t”