Magic: The Gathering (Spoiler-free)

I like the attention Elspeth's getting in this story. It's nice to have reminders that Wizards hasn't forgotten about her.

Also appreciated Ajani's acknowledgment that it's typically The Obi-Wan who's supposed to die. He feels very out-of-place about his survival, and that helps numb the pain from Elspeth's death.

edited 5th Oct '16 1:34:25 PM by TobiasDrake

Wow. This story was an emotional roller coaster. I laughed at Ajani being known as "Mister Cat" to Tamiyo's children. I cried at his telling of Elspeth's life and death. I groaned at the edgy edgelord Shadowblayde. I cheered at Ajani's general badassery. This story had it all!

And it's inspired some fanart.

• Narset and Tamiyo hang out and be cute
• "It should have been me."
• Ajani Goldmane + Neko Atsume

That first fanart was actually made a long time before this.

Well, that's pretty much canon now. Wonder if the writers saw it.

From the moment Tamiyo was spoiled for Innistrad, I'd been hoping and dreaming that she and Narset would be a part of the same nerd squad. It's great to see that it's true.

Correlation Diagram of Planeswalkers

New story.

Whatever Tez is making, it's almost certainly going to be capable of independent planeswalking courtesy of Rashmi's invention. On the one hand, this is about to get ugly. On the other, I'm not sure how ugly it can get to reasonably threaten the entire Gatewatch and a couple plus-ones. With the whole team coming together for this chapter AND Ajani and Saheeli beside, Tez feels like the underdog right now.

Vraska's departure is intriguing. She planeswalked to a point in the Blind Eternities where no plane exists? Can't wait to see this followed up on.

edited 12th Oct '16 12:09:58 PM by TobiasDrake

I'm betting that Amonkhet is hidden from planeswalkers, somehow.

I agree. I think that's incredibly likely.

Yeah, I can't see any other way this could play out.

Tamiyo and Family

Man, Possibility Storm is the work of the fucking Devil. I played a Planechase Commander game today with two of my friends. The game basically ended when my friend with his Riku deck got it into play.

edited 16th Oct '16 3:00:33 PM by Rosvo1

New story.

Mmm. Not much of a midblock finale. It was nice seeing where Dovin Baan sits on all this but all we really got was confirmation that Tezzeret's after the one invention we could reasonably guess he was after.

This was good character work, but it feels like the kind of character work that would work better as the first chapter of Aether Revolt than as the final chapter of Kaladesh. For the midblock finale, I was hoping for more focus on Tezzeret and what he's up to.

edited 19th Oct '16 9:08:32 AM by TobiasDrake

Presumably whatever Tezerret is up to is getting its own card.

Revisiting Standard Rotation

The short version: Effective immediately, Standard is back to rotating once a year now.

As for today's story, Dovin is really having a bad day. He's one of the antagonists of this arc, but I can't help but feel sorry for him. If screaming were a thing vedalkens did, he'd be yelling "I'm Surrounded by Idiots!" right now. I also appreciate his recognition that being in a position of authority does not absolve one of having to justify one's actions. Relying of Appeal to Authority and Appeal to Force only makes enemies of others, and Dovin understands that.

Planeswalkers Guide to Kaladesh

So, my gaming group is gonna be doing a Zendikar RP using Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition which does have rules for it.

And my character is a Merfolk druid who's The Alcoholic because he knows on some level that the Eldrazi are coming and has fallen straight into nihilism.

How do Merfolk use alcohol? I guess they have distilleries on the surface? Or maybe they have ingenious vessels to protect drinks from their watery homes.

Or you could have a sleeping bag sort of arrangement that mixes booze into the water.

Thanksgiving recipies from the Gatewatch:

• Chandra's Roast Turkey Recipe
• Nissa's Green Bean Casserole
• Liliana's Mashed Potatoes
• Jace's Heirloom Eggplant Compote
• Gideon's Gravy Recipe

Assigning Magic colours to Fading Suns Houses, on the robust grounds of "because I can":

• House Hawkwood: WB (honourable and diplomatic, but also arrogant and bigoted - "the Emperor is a Hawkwood, why aren't we getting special treatment" and so on)
• House Decados: UB (deceitful, decadent and cunning)
• The Hazat: R ("they say the dire sharks of this planet are undefeatable; let's go and punch one to show everyone how tough we are")
• House Li Halan: WG (devoutly religious and capable of great compassion, but also obsessed with rigid structure; they're Nice to the Waiter, but they're sad that many waiters don't accept that their being waiters rather than waitees is the Pancreator's will and they should just be satisfied with their place)
• House al-Malik: U (technically adept, devious and secretive, but without the tendency of flaunting their wickedness that the Decados have)

January 9, 2017 Banned and Restricted Announcement

Effective January 20th;

• Emrakul, the Promised End, Smuggler's Copter, and Reflector Mage are banned in Standard.
• Gitaxian Probe and Golgari Grave-Troll are banned in Modern.

Also, We'll be getting banned and restricted announcements five weeks after a set's Pro Tour as well as when they're released from now on, if necessary.

Looks like I'll have to make some changes to some of my Standard decks. I was planning on completing my playset of Copters for my new Red/White Vehicles deck before the ban was announced, but I'll now have to replace the one that's in there now. I also have an Emrakul in my Sultai Emerge deck that I'll have to replace. Not to mention that several cards in it were chosen mainly to give more card types to reduce her cost with. To be honest, I was also thinking of dropping the Black from it and making it just Blue/Green to differentiate it from my Sultai Processors deck (and perhaps also drop green from that one), since having two Sultai Eldrazi Standard decks is kinda redundant.

edited 9th Jan '17 8:06:42 PM by Lightblade

Warhammer40k

I was thinking about what kind of decks the Chaos Gods would play. My immediate thought has been half-black decks to each of them: Tzeentch playing Blue, Khorne Red, Nurgle Green and likely built around poison, and Slaanesh White because that's all that's left and perhaps with a more fluff theme of perfection.

The Emperor plays non-Black.

Thoughts?

~

Dungeons And Dragons

Say, how much crossover is there between the properties?

~

Yu Gi Oh

How much difference is there in the play styles? At a casual glance, it would seem Magic has a lot more reliance on key words that players are expected to understand at a, er, casual glance.

~

Dark Is Not Evil

I had a thought about what a good Black faction would look like, since I haven't seen one since last I checked, although it's been a while. How to make "Corruption And Ambition" a force for good? Well, in a world where the elemental forces of Green, Red and Blue run rampant and wild, and the the force of White tries vainly to keep them under control via mass suppression, only succeeding in acting like a pressure cooker, a force of subversive saboteurs seek to tear the system down and rise everyone else up.

Also, make the associated race cute, but creepy, Creepy Cute, child-like creatures, not labelled as zombies but definitely implied to be some kind of undead, likely the spirits of children who died from all this chaos. I think kids make perfect "Good Black" forces, because their "innocent" and selfish punks.