Magic Cinema – Who Framed Mark Rosewater?

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It’s my first Magic Cinema in a while and I’m going to do more of a short than a single scene. Some of you will recognize the title and the poster and kinda guess where this is going, but I’m going to deviate from that a little bit. It’s said that in writing that one shouldn’t get too caught up in love with a single scene or line because that warps the whole writing; don’t let the whole work suffer because of one section.

But that’s different in parodies. You want to reference that one line or that one scene because that’s the whole point of the parody, to make fun of something while using another reference to do it. While there’s no official “laws” in comedy, I believe that there needs to be common reference points or there’s no joke. If someone doesn’t get what you’re referencing, they won’t find it funny.

That’s how a lot of stand-up comedians work: “You ever notice,” is a common start of a bit. Basically he/she is telling you “This is what I’m going to talk about. Remember it, get the reference.” Here’s a link to a short of Saturday Morning Watchmen on YouTube. If you’ve never read Watchmen or seen the movie, or know anything Alan Moore, you wouldn’t get the joke; there’s no frame of reference for you. While I won’t go into all of the jokes (there’s one in every frame) the fact that some people don’t find anything funny sometimes is because there’s nothing for them to compare it to.

So, why all this? Well, I’ve wanted to do more of a traditional Film Noir, the one with the voice over and the trench coat; typical Humphrey Bogart stuff. Trouble is, most people wouldn’t get that, so I picked the next closest thing I could find: a children’s film, something everyone should have seen. You’ll see a hybrid of “traditional” noir with Roger Rabbit thrown in. Plus, there’s a scene and a line in here (if you’ve watched the movie you’ll recognize it), that I want to parody. Really bad.

Who Framed Mark Rosewater?

EXT – INSTANT AND SORCERY CLUB – NIGHT

A guy walks down the dark ally between two brick buildings. He wears the traditional TRENCH COAT and FEDORA as any good, or cheesy, private eye would do. With his hands shoved in his pockets, he slowly makes his way to an old, beat up door.

ROBBY
(V.O.)
Being a private eye has it’s perks; you can work the hours you want, the pay can be decent if you can find the work, and you’re helping somebody out. But this time, it was different. Someone needed my help on something so stupid I almost didn’t take it. ‘Course, nothing sounds stupid when they drop an incentive so great you can’t help but take it.

INT – ROBBY’S PRIVATE EYE’S OFFICE – NIGHT

It was just like any other private eye’s office: hardwood floor, window in the door, a desk and chair sitting under the large window on the wall opposite of the door. Sitting at his desk ROBBY is playing Magic: The Gathering Online on his computer. A soft knock on the glass and ROBBY doesn’t look up from his computer.

ROBBY
Come in.

In walks a tall raven-haired woman and shuts the door behind her. Sitting down, she slides an MANILA ENVELOPE across the desk. ROBBY finally looks up and sees her.

ROBBY
(Cont’d)
How can I help you, Miss…

She takes out a cigarette from her purse and lights it, revealing her face for the first time.

ELSPETH
Elspeth. You can call me Elspeth.

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Slice of Pie – Things That May Only Interest Me About M11

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After looking through the spoiler a few dozen times, building decklists and playing a little bit on MTGO, you start to notice some things. While this isn’t a funny “ha ha” type of list, it’s just things that I find interesting. Yeah, a little anti-climatic explanation, but you read the title, you knew it was coming.

There are 15 mythics in M11. Each color has three (The Titan cycle and the Planeswalker cycle), except Red. Its Mythic is in the artifacts section for Platinum Angel. Platinum Angel has been printed three times before (Mirrodin, 10th and M10) but never in a supplemental product (Duel Deck/FtV, etc). To make up for the lack of another Mythic, Red got an extra Rare.

Of the “Baneslayer” cycle that the rest of the colors got, Blue’s was the only one that wasn’t a creature (which makes sense). Of the two new creatures in the Baneslayer cycle, both are ineffective against the Angel; Gaea’s Revenge has 5 toughness and dies to it because of first strike damage and even with Demon of Death’s Gate trample if the Baneslayer’s controller blocks with said Angel, they still gains 1 more life than they lose. Oh, and the Baneslayer still survives thanks to the protection from Demons clause. In fact, Gaea’s Revenge might be the most “original” of the three new designs; Time Reversal is a fixed Time Spiral (It a “fixed” Timetwister) and Demon of Death’s Gate is a bigger, better(?) Delraich.

Green has 8 rares in M11; 6 of them are creatures, which is understandable since Green’s the creature color. One is part of the Leyline cycle and the other is the intro pack foil rare; that of course being the only one of the that’s not a creature. For comparison sake: White 8 total, 4 creatures; Blue 8 total, 4 creatures; Black 8 total, 4 creatures; Red 9 total, 5 creatures; and Artifacts 6 total, 2 creatures.

There have been no uncommon lands since 10th (the Manlands). This is the first time since uncommon lands were introduced in 4th Edition that back to back Core sets did not have uncommon lands. Of course, some of that reason has to do with the smaller Core Sets in general.

Two of the original five boons are present (Giant Growth and Lightning Bolt). The boons had the effect of some of three for one mana, but there’s the start of another boon cycle as well, this time at two mana. Mana Leak and Pyretic Ritual both do something for three, however two cards in a cycle doesn’t make. In fact, it’s funny that both of Red’s cards in the “cycle” has a counter in the other part of the “cycle”: Bolt deals 3 damage to a creature, Giant Growth adds 3 toughness; Mana Leak makes you pay 3 more mana while Pyretic Ritual adds 3 mana to your mana pool.

Reverberate’s art looks like Michael Jackson.

Lotus Cobra is Evil – So I Married Primeval Titan…

Sixten describes the backstory:

Back when they were doing the art for the Magic 2011 Core Set, French fantasy illustrator Aleksi Briclot (of ANEYEONI) fell in love with the girl he was assigned to draw, the super-powerful mythic Primeval Titan. He asked her to marry him, and she said yes. They are married happily to this day, even if she occasionally gets drunk and puts all sorts of strange lands onto the battlefield tapped.

And with that, today’s Lotus Cobra is Evil.

My Own Private Metagame

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My Own Private Metagame

When deciding on topics to write for your blog, you have to wade through a ton of ideas, or things you want to get to (such as the winner of the Twitter Game 2 which will go up next week). Sometimes an idea is just that, or you it’s something you want to explore more in detail and you get your fingers working on the keyboard.

I was going to write about how I love to prefer to create my own decks rather than taking them from online and playing them. It’s been a hot topic online recently and I was thinking of throwing my hat in the ring. But, two things stopped me: 1) I took a net deck to SCG Seattle because I didn’t have time to test and I it was my type of playstyle so the big argument would consider me a somewhat of a hypocrite (which is ironically one of the only times I have taken a net-deck to a large tournament), and 2) Do you really care?

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