Category: Slice of Pie

Slice of Pie – An Army of One (Drops)

Editor’s Note: When I used to blog on MySpace (I’m that old, who uses MySpace anymore?), I used to have a tradition: on the week of my birthday I’d have a blog post a day. Yes, five posts (for the weekdays); imagine that, huh? Well, I’m going to do that here on MTGCP since I’ve got some posts that are half finished and mostly finished. Oh, and the next piece in the Card Kingdom series will fire off this week as well. So sit back, and enjoy all the updating, this, the week of my birthday.

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This is not a new idea. I’m not the first one to point this out. In fact, fearless leader (aka Mark Rosewater) pointed this out during Shards of Alara:

Design has little design challenges it keeps repeating. One of them is making new one drop white creatures with the ability to attack for 2. Nearly every block has at least one, often more than one. Exalted proved to be the tweak of choice for Shards of Alara.

Really? How many cards are like this?

Oh.

Let’s ask and answer three important questions:

  1. A design challenge?
  2. Why this model?
  3. Why is this important?

They’re all interwoven, so you’re not going to get some 1-2-3 answer sheet (Hooray Color Pie Philosophy!).

Continue reading “Slice of Pie – An Army of One (Drops)”

Slice of Pie – The Nature of All Things Green

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There’s something interesting thing going on with the color Green. This color has always hated artifacts (Yes, even early in Magic history). But, with the first few cards released for Scars of Mirrodin, you can see something really weird:

Really? Green working with artifacts? I mean, a keyword that wants you to have more artifacts, in Green? This is like Dogs and Cats living together. What’s going on?

Green really loves all things natural; nature is king. If anything is unnatural Green wants it destroyed. Artifacts are unnatural so Green should have a ton of fun destroying everything on a planet made of metal. But that’s the issue, everything is metal.

What we think of as nature on this Earth is much different than on Mirrodin. Metal/artifacts are natural there, so the Green beings on that planet are going to be much more in tune with the artifacts on that plane than on ours. These two Green creatures are embracing the nature of their planet, so that fits in completely.

While Green will always have spells to get rid of non-creatures on the battlefield, I imagine that there might be a decrease in that over the next year or so. While the Phyrexians are trying to make everything perfect, I can see them be the enemies of Green for the block. After all, making something perfect is unnatural. So while all the counters are floating around, don’t be too surprised to see Green not get in on a whole lot of fun.

This is been a mostly preemptive strike at people who start complaining about Green.

Slice of Pie – No Arcane for You!

I know I've seen you somewhere

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Arcane was a type of spell that first debuted in Champions of Kamigawa. It was a closed mechanic that was supposed to represent the “Spirit World” Magic which is different than “Magic” Magic and for the first time gave instants and sorceries sub-types. The down fall is that they can’t be reprinted unless Arcane is reprinted, but that was only a block mechanic. While I said that I wish that Arcane was revisited, it looks like Wizards is taking spells that were Arcane only and now making functional reprints without that subtype.

So, just for fun, let’s take a look at all Arcane spells without Splice, and see if they can be, or already are, reprinted. In alphabetical order: Continue reading “Slice of Pie – No Arcane for You!”