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.

Card in Review - Haakon, Stromgald Scourge

While throwing creatures at your opponent's face is a good time, nothing's more frustrating than having them killed off. Between blockers, kill spells and you occasionally being forced to chump-block, it's not often a critter can stick to the board for long. So rather than try to fight the inevitable, why not embrace it? If they die, so be it - bring them back as many times as you need!

Sounds a little lofty, doesn't it? We can't all be Nether Spirit. Well, so long as you don't mind cavalry charges, you can play all of your creatures from your graveyard just as easily as from your hand - while your crucial card is in play, that is. If you're picturing some mana-hungry behemoth like Debtors' Knell or Sheoldred, worry not. All you need is 3 paltry mana and a little creative deckbuilding, and the Dead Men of Dunharrow will be yours to command!

Doomed to Repeat It Repeat It

Ahh, Ixalan! A fresh new set on a brand new plane. New frontier, new horizons, all new experience to be had and a new world to be conquered.

Pirates in red! Merfolk in green! Vampires in white! Dinosaurs in something other than the junk bin! Yessir, it's a whole new take on everything you once knew. New abilities, new mechanics...

...and the same old mistakes.