Timing Restrictions, Part 2

 

I don't know about you, but it seems a little tone-deaf for Wizards to hold the prerelease for a set with "war" in its name on Veteran's Day/Remembrance Day. But then I guess they've already made it clear that they don't worry about this sort of stuff?

Deadly Approach

Have you seen the new card Dragon's Approach? I'm kind of a sucker for that wacky "you can have any number of this card in your deck" ability, even if it does get a little less unique every time they take another crack at it. Still, this is the first card to do it that isn't a creature, so that's certainly an interesting little wrinkle on the formula. I also appreciate that the card can contribute at least somewhat to your strategy on its own - that is, it's not useless if you don't draw many multiples of itself. The innovator Relentless Rats and somewhat more lax Rat Colony are mostly useless until you have multiples out, getting better the more there are with no ceiling. Shadowborn Apostle wants a very specific number, but until you get six out and activate them, no matter how many you draw, you're still just putting down vanilla 1/1s. Not bad if you're pumping out saproling tokens, not quite so good if each one is costing you a card from your hand.

Dragon's Approach leans more towards the latter style, where each card does what it does, but if you happen to get a whole bunch together, you get a very hefty bonus as payoff. If you cast your fifth copy of Dragon's Approach, you get to pull any dragon from your library straight into play - a creature type that needs no introduction in terms of casting a shadow over the board. Note that you need not necessarily have played all five of those copies, however - dump four into your graveyard via Faithless Looting, Tome Scour or anything else and the first one you play will immediately fire off.

The thing is... I say who needs a dragon to search up for Dragon's Approach to pay off? Dragonstorm and even Zirilan of the Claw have been pulling that trick for decades; the real unique ability on offer is having 30 of the same sorcery in your deck. Just garnish a big stack of them with Locket of Yesterdays to bring down their mana cost and Pyromancer Ascension to quickly double the damage you're dishing out. You'll be blasting your opponent's head off with six damage for one red mana in no time. It's about the journey, not the destination!

Creatures
2 Hellkite Overlord

Spells
24 Dragon's Approach
4 Faithless Looting
2 Harness the Storm
3 Locket of Yesterdays
4 Pyromancer Ascension
1 Thrumming Stone

Land
16 Mountain
4 Ramunap Ruins

Blunder Conductor

Card Name: "Zaffai, Thunder Conductor." 

 Text Box: "Zaffai, Thunder Collector."So which one is it? He conducts, he collects... as far as thunder goes, this guy does it all! He slices! He dices! Order now while supplies last! 

Somehow this card's name must have been changed mid-design and nobody (who gets paid to do this, might I add) noticed this fact. Even Magic Set Editor allows the use of a tilde symbol as a stand-in for the card's name - that is, it will change to reflect any alterations to the card's name later down the line. Is this kind of technology beyond the capabilities of the guys who actually make the damn game? Do we still have to put up with such patheitc mistakes because they can't be bothered to streamline the design process? Well, until this card gets its very sad errata, you can rest assured that his big 10 damage payoff comes from... some other card with a different name. What colour is this Thunder Collector? Does he count as a creature or is he actually a planeswalker card?

Just wait until they print "Zaffai, Thunder Collector" in Return to Strixhaven purely to save face and I look like a big idiot.

The Miller Mills Again

 He's back!

For the alternate art version of Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire, they brought back Ian Miller to do the illustration. For anyone keeping track, we haven't seen this classic fantasy artist's work on a Magic card since Weatherlight - that is, 1997. They haven't touched this guy in nearly a quarter of a century. Why not? Who were they making room for - another Eastern European schmuck named "Igor"? Regardless, it's a joy to see his art on a card again, and it feels damn fine to be vindicated by the fact that the piece is so killer. Hopefully we get more appearances put in by classic artists... if only they weren't all on promotional products!

The Absolute State of MTG

 Number of Standard bans from 2010 - 2016: 2.

Number of Standard bans from 2017 - 2020: 23.

There have been 10 cards banned for the Standard format within the past 10 months: Agent of Treachery, Fires of Invention, Cauldron Familiar, Growth Spiral, Teferi, Time Raveler, Wilderness Reclamation, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, and now Lucky Clover, Escape to the Wild and Omnath, Locus of Creation. Somehow 2020, that little year that could, is now the year with the most bans in Standard. Yes, we have surpassed even the eight bans of Combo Winter in 1999.

Speaking of which, Omnath has also (handily!) taken the record for the quickest Standard banning of a card after its printing - a lightning-fast 18 days compared to Memory Jar's tepid 45 days.

 Oh yeah, and there are still two months left in the year for them to ban something else. I guess don't buy any cards, folks. They might be banned the next day.

When Is a Mill Not a Mill?

It's one thing to have to change your mind on something. It's quite another to be pissy and indignant about it right up until you make the change.

Ripples of the Past

This is something I just noticed, and I haven't seen any indication online of people talking about this, so I think I may have discovered a very minor and particular typo that slipped through the cracks here.

Notice how Oakhame Adversary says it costs less if "your opponent" controls a green permanent, rather than "an opponent"? It implies you'll only ever have one opponent... that's some 1994 wording right there.

The Bell Curve of Power

Regulars will know I have a habit of complaining about the state of Magic, particularly in terms of the direction it's headed. The art's getting worse, the story's getting worse, the card stock is getting worse, the strategies being supported are getting worse, yadda yadda yadda... is there no stone left unturned? What if, in an ironic twist of fate... even being worse is getting worse?

Not All That Glitters Is Gold

Well, that didn't last long. Where's that archivist I was clamouring for years back?

Sour: The Grapesening

What's the deal with all of the flavor texts involving people rationalizing their situations recently?

Is this some sort of weird subliminal effort on Wizards's part in making the players accept a slow decline in product quality? Or just a general decline in quality of life overall? "Well, at least these booster packs aren't filled with bedbugs and anthrax samples."

Yearn to Burn

The cycle of finales from War of the Spark are variable as any X-spell is, but are clearly intended for the late-game big play with that X ≥ 10 clause. There is already no shortage of mana-heavy spells that can blow the game wide open, but what intrigues me about one of the finales is what happens if it's in fact played for as small a return as possible.

I'm sure the Timmies out there are wringing their hands with the thoughts of getting to replay Time Stretch and Searing Wind from the graveyard three times each, but that's not the type of situation that's going to regularly come up in competitive play. So if cost is an issue, what happens when you only pay 1 for X?

Mono-red burn decks have been around since day one and still have a showing in even Type 1 play. These decks are often built around many cheap spells that do as much damage as possible, aiming to maximize that magic formula of three-damage-for-one-mana. So for a measly three mana, Finale of Promise could recycle a Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning from your graveyard for six damage! Not a bad addition of firepower to these strategies, seeing as their cards in the graveyard are generally fodder for Grim Lavamancer at best.

Consider playing Monastery Swiftspear on turn one, Lightning Bolt and Lava Spike on turn two, then Finale of Promise on turn three: since you do indeed cast the cards from your graveyard with the Finale (as well as the Finale itself!), each instance triggers Prowess for the Swiftspear. This means you can do those 20 necessary points of damage in three turns and with only four cards. That got you burn players salivating, didn't it?

I'm not saying that this is necessarily the ultra secret tech that all burn decks were waiting for and it will become a new staple of all legacy burn decks because... well, it won't. But it's certainly a powerful option if you can get the right setup with enough Lightning Bolt variants. Nevermind that the three cast triggers means the Finale can immediately bring back Arclight Phoenix with essentially one card, meaning this could even have potential in Standard. Even the casual format would appreciate six damage off of Guttersnipe in addition to whatever spells you cast from the graveyard. Of course, if you really want to capitalize on working smarter rather than harder, you could Finale for 0 to cast Ancestral Visions and Evermind out of your graveyard. Two red for four cards isn't so bad, now is it?

Booster Shot

I had thought maybe I was just a grumpy old man, that I had outdated tastes, that I was needlessly afraid of change. Well, Wizards went and vindicated my stance without even realizing it. They have showed us their hand, admitted their mistakes, lifted the curtain to reveal the empty-headed self-sabotage beneath.

All this in a charming majenta package.

If you haven't seen the recent article, there's a new type of booster pack available that is guaranteed to have rarer and more valuable cards contained within... for a commensurately higher price, of course. This isn't a lousy idea on its face: if you want more rares and foils, you pay more money to guarantee getting something. $25 feels like an awful lot to risk getting a dollar-rare and a bunch of trash commons and uncommons, even in foil, which leads to the same bad-feelings I got from the various Modern Masters boosters and their variants. Nonetheless, I get the more-valuable-content-versus-higher-price dynamic.

What sticks with me is the unveiling of the new 'showcase frames.'



What we have here on the left is the 'normal' version of the card, which you'll see in regular packs. The one on the right features a 'showcase frame,' and from what I understand, you can only expect to find it in the new Collector's Boosters.
So a promo has a different look, so what? That's nothing new. But now that spoilers have started rolling out, there's a real trend of more "fairy tale-esque" art amongst the showcase versions of the cards. Primarily, this means more hand-drawn, fantasy-appropriate art, sometimes by older artists who work in traditional media.
See the problem? The "AAA Hollywood" design of art direction I've been griping about for years is had in regular packs, but the alternate frames with more traditional fantasy art can only be had by one method: buying the new, more expensive collector's pack. They're actually admitting that the old art direction has been deemed more desirable. They're admitting that the actual fantasy art is what people want in a fantasy game, so they're... charging more for it.
Fantasy art design is actually being held hostage behind more expensive packaging, and it's up to the players to pay up or settle for a more dreary-looking world. This isn't just taking things in an unpleasant direction, it's turning cozy immersion into paid DLC, in a move that somehow is even more greedy than the usual price gouging for limited print runs.

Timing Restrictions

Of all the cards to spoil on 9/11...

Indignant Return

My constant foe...!

I told you Return to the Battle for Zendikar would happen in five years' time.

I'm Done

I started playing Magic: the Gathering, in some vague way, in late 1999.

It was a few weeks before Mercadian Masques came out, and of course that has coloured my perceptions of the game. My perceptions have grown, however, alongside this ever-evolving game. Multicoloured cards, when re-introduced in Invasion block, were virtually as new to me as they were to the rest of the world during Legends. My perception that a 4/4 for four mana was undercosted was gradually worn away as power did creep and dollars lined corporate Seattle wallets. I've been with the game for a long time, an extremely long time. I have changed and made concessions - I want it to be clear that I've not merely been a stick-in-the-mud from day one. I didn't like the new look for the cards in 8th edition, but I stuck with it. I didn't like the term "battlefield," but I hung in there. I didn't like the introduction of, and focus upon, Planeswalker cards, but here I still am.

Or, at least, was.

It is important to remember that Magic is not some divine property from on high, delivered to blind, groping, shivering masses of humanity as part of a sacred ritual three times a year. In every aspect it is made by people - bored, sweat-stained people who are just doing their job. What passes muster for being printed is ultimately The Gospel According the Mark Rosewater - and I don't know if I want to follow a prophet whose greatest pride is that he wrote for Roseanne.

My point is that Wizards of the Coast is only human, they're peddling a product, and I'm not obligated to stick with that product. I may feel that way after so long simply out of habit, but it gets to a point where enough is enough. Wizards can, and overwhelmingly does, make mistakes. They're willing to admit it, too, which is agreeable. But when every piece of writing they churn out is about how lousy Magic used to be and about how amazing they're making it now, one has to wonder. Time and again they're looking back with disdain at periods where they shrieked just as fervently that the game was the best it ever was. Nevertheless the game does constantly change, and it has been made overwhelmingly clear that the overall direction of its change is one I have no interest in attending.

I've disliked the direction for a long time now. I've really disliked the direction for a couple years, and now it's evidently intolerable.

The latest insult, the upcoming Dominaria set, is perhaps the final insult. I let myself grow a little excited by the prospect of returning to our old home - why, it was Magic at its roots! What if it recaptured some of that old magic? What if it was actually good?

Silly me. It's another mess, blurring character motivations and roles into some bog-standard bore as mandated by the company line. Old characters become strange outlines of their former self or, better yet, are replaced by vaguely-similar newcomers. The Weatherlight is dredged up again for... a pleasure cruise? It's hard to get excited when the stakes are nil. Only this time, rather than churning out yet another who-cares of setting and conflict, they're desecrating old work like a rabid latter-day George Lucas.

I feel like someone who's watched his home, maybe his life, taken from around him through glib deceit and worthless trinkets. One day you wake up, you look out at the city you've lived in all your life and you wonder "Where the Hell am I?" Wherever it is, it isn't home.

I'm tired of new planes, of planeswalker drama, of what new adventure Our Hero Jace will find himself in next. I'm fed up with the game forging ahead and discarding anything and everything it ever was with a self-righteous sneer. I'm sick of seeing the vestiges of things I've loved twisted into agents of frustration. Most of all, I don't give a cool cherry fuck where Chandra Nalaar grew up.

I'm done with keeping up with Magic. I haven't cared about what it was doing for a while now, but the truth of the matter has become so blinding that it can't be ignored. I can't imagine being bothered to keep up with what it's doing any more. To stick with it at this point is like keeping a "lifelong promise" to a friend who has since turned out to be an animal abuser and date rapist.

Before you panic too much, understand that I'm not washing my hands of the game completely. I still have all my thousands of cards, and they aren't going anywhere. I will still play and, heck, I know I'll even still buy cards. I'm even fairly certain that you'll see articles trickling out of here now and then, about old ideas that I've had kicking around and still want to put to words. But there will be a cut-off here, where I'm no longer going to claw for spoilers, learn what every card does, understand roughly where the metagame was at year by year.  Like with all things that change for the worse, I can cherish memories - and better than that, my card collection is a frozen image in time (gosh, why does that sound familiar.) I can always play with what I have and enjoy what it represents, and for that I still respect Magic.

But I'm done.

Card in Review - Overlaid Terrain

Between forums, up-to-the-minute strategy articles and online repositories for decklists, it's easier than ever to tap into the well of fine-tuned net tech. Everyone in a play environment will know the best cards, the strongest strategies and the most degenerate combos to look out for. More often than not, the top 8s in high-level play will be a series of mirror matches, with each player running a slight variation of the same damn deck once it's identified as the most optimal choice. We end up seeing the same cards over and over, always being used in the same ways as part of the same strategies.

By gum, one gets tired of optimized play after a while. I want to see some rubbish!

In today's episode of Card in Review, we're also dipping our toes into the well of Bad Card Made Good - a feature that hasn't been given a nod in a long time but which is often one of the most fun exercises in deckbuilding. So who's the lucky loser for today's feature?

Didn't You Already Say That?

Just wondering: how many times are they going to use this flavour text, exactly?

So sometimes Wizards re-uses flavour text with minor rewordings. We've got Krosan Avenger and Flame Javelin, or Foriysian Brigade and Tenth Edition's Manabarbs, or Daring Leap and Zephyr Sprite, or Hammer Mage and Goblin Gaveleer, or Saprazzan Outrigger and Goblin Raider, or Guided Strike and Fencer's Magemark (with Gilded Light as a sort of devil's advocate?) There's even the oddballs like Goblin Snowman and Winnow, who have nearly the same flavour texts yet somehow the opposite meanings. Okay, I get that they have a lot of different flavour texts to write and it can be hard to keep them all interesting. But did we really need this same bad joke four times? I'm seeing the imitation, all right, but nothing about it is sincere.

Art Direction, Take Two

Is there a database somewhere that tells you which artists are commissioned for which cards?

This is clearly a rejected, yet recycled painting of Prying Blade, but art direction and gestalts dictate that this image is more focused on other things aside from the subject

This was also true for Rampaging Hippo and Defiant Greatmaw, and many others I've seen throughout the last decade. What's going on here?

On the other hand, I know fully well they aren't going to commission multiple artists to do the same card, as it runs afoul of their long-standing policy of paying as little as they possibly can for art. This hypothesis has a lot of possible evidence, but it's hearsay evidence, and it's ultimately unlikely due to the fact that Wizards are goddamn cheapskates. This may or may not have anything to do with the fact that you may have noticed a lot of Eastern European nobodies creeping into the artist lists in the past several years. And on top of that, Wizards micromanage art descriptions way too much for this to happen in the first place... which is of course its own huge problem.

 

Card in Review - Tamanoa

If you think of a burn deck, you've probably got a very specific picture in your head. Get as many 3-damage-for-1-mana spells as you can in a single deck and round it out with some classics like Fireblast and Ball Lightning: you're trying to go as fast as possible here. Cards like Jackal Pup, Flame Rift and Barbarian Ring damage you while you're at it? Hey, no problem, so long as your opponent's life total hits 0 faster. There might not be much in the way of complexity involved, but the purest burn deck is going to be speed, speed, speed - and to hell with the consequences.

Why only have one way of doing things, though? By gum, if No-mar decks can make do without Dromar and Necro decks can exist without Necropotence, then there must be a way to do Burn without a self-destructive bent.

Safety First

We often talk about games here, and it's important in any recreational activity to observe a proper degree of safety. For cycling, that means wearing a helmet. For rock climbing, having a partner and a well-maintained harness. For boating, a lifejacket and maybe a signal flare. Now I know what you're all thinking: what safety equipment is required for massacres...?

Er... also a helmet!

Sometimes I can't figure out my fellow man. Who was this guy who happened to have a sticker of a bicycle helmet? Did he go through the bins looking for a picture it would fit on? Or did he make up his mind to stick it to a copy of Massacre, regardless of whether it would be a good match, and found the results pleasing? Or - just maybe - did he custom-make the sticker expressly for this purpose?

And at the end of it all, why play catch and release? Wouldn't you be proud for your efforts after so painstakingly looking for the card that would accommodate your sticker? Only Crovax's hairdresser knows for sure.