Per a suggestion, we've got flavor fouls on tap this week. So our thumbs will be more indicative of whether or not we believe these cards fit well into the dialogue of Magic's Story as well as the concept of being spellcasters locked in never-ending battles to see who can use their library better.
So put on your stripes, take out your whistles, your hanky-flags, or your red and yellow cards. It's time to decide where design and story don't meet.
Here's the way they stack.
VENSER'S JOURNALIST'S PICK
Not that this card is a bad card (I love it, and it's one of the few Red cards to gain my respect), but something is seriously weird with the way this card works. First off, as a Red Defender, you'd think the power would be greater than its toughness (Wall of Torches) or you'd be able to pump it up (Wall of Fire), but no. It's a 0/5 with Reach (a typically green trait). Furthermore, it's a bounce house (Blue player scratches head, then scoops), which is great, but never in my life have I seen something this completely off-color (pun intended, with a vengeance).
Johnny Confidant- THUMBS UP
No surprise that a card from Time Spiral shows up here, I listened to MaRo's podcast about it. In it he talked about how it has confused a lot of people by messing with the Color Pie in a way that has shaken the core of magic forever. I agree and this guy is one of those examples. "Aether" X is something that usually falls into Blue being a type of illusionary magic. I like this guy, a Defender with Reach that threatens to bounce the attacker back to it's owners' hand? Awesome.
Bounce is something I love to do in EDH, and it's just as annoying as tucking a creature into a library. Players will have to re-cast the creature then wait for summoning sickness to wear off again. Killing a creature is fine and all but I'd rather bounce them back and this guy is scary enough to save a kill spell for.
Uncle Landdrops- THUMBS UP AND DOWN
The Thumbs for this week will probably be all manners of different directions and for all kinds of reasons, and this is a pretty good example.
I'm not sure this is such a gross misuse of flavor, but that's alright. Being from Time Spiral, everything was up and down and all around, so it's no surprise that this guy's off the wall. Definitely not a Red card, but I'm sure it was supposed to be designed this way, and I like that a lot. While Damnation might feel more logical switching in the color pie, this card falls victim to some of the same flavor issues of a card like Brute Force in my opinion. It's not flavor-retarded, it's just surprising, and that's the point. Being weird is one of the things that drew me to this card, and made me want to test it.
Unfortunately, this is where my Thumb goes down. I've played it, played against it, and that last ability basically makes your opponent either not want to attack into you, or even worse- influences your blocks in a way so that you don't send their Solemn Simulacrums back to their hand. I didn't like that a card on my side of the table was doing this to me, so I cut it. It's bad design, not bad flavor.
Grandpa Growth- THUMBS DOWN
This card pulls me in a lot of directions. It represents the worst of Planar Chaos' color pie chicanery: Pick a color, smash a bunch of stuff onto the card that the color shouldn't have, forget about drawbacks. Planar Chaos should have been about realligning the color pie in a way that made sense in the modern game. Unfortunately, most of the cards they color shifted didn't really live up to this.
Mechanically, I like it. Red has very little Reach and very little bounce. I don't think it is outside the realm of possibility to make these things work in Red. It just needs to elegantly combine mechanics and flavor. As far as flavor goes this is definitely a foul. Look at it. Why would any creature knowingly walk into that? It wouldn't stop any attackers. It looks like a drag net to catch thing out of the Aether and bring them IN to the plane. It also looks quite fragile, so 5 toughness probably isn't appropriate. We can't quite see the top of it, but unless it extends infinitely into the sky, it shouldn't have Reach.
GRANDPA GROWTH'S PICK
Quick recap: You're a multidimensional, super powerful wizard, who just met another person like yourself. All you can think about is murdering that person in a ritualistic duel using your spell-casting ability. Cards that you have in play and in your hand represent the territory you currently control, the minions who are currently at your side, and the spells you can cast off the top of your head. Your library is the figurative, not physical, collection of your accumulated knowledge. It contains all the spells that you know how to cast, all the minions and organizations you can control, and all of the territory you know about. Your graveyard is the figurative, not physical, collection of your expended resources and ideas that you have used in the battle so far. The physical corpses of minions that die during your battle are a part of this collection, but are presumably left on the battlefield where they died.
Now snap back to reality. This is a 'fetch land'. It let's you dig a land out of your library. What does that mean in the game? You have control over a physical piece of some random plane, in this case let's just say you have a Polluted Delta that is meant to represent a polluted delta on Otaria. Now, unlike most other lands, it doesn't have the ability to produce mana, it is effectively exhausted of all useful resources. BUT, you can pay some life, weakening your physical health or giving up part of your soul, in order to DESTROY the polluted delta here on Otaria and give you immediate, direct, physical control over another Island or Swamp that you previously knew about (and was thus in your library). So you break open a wormhole into another section of space/time and connect to the mana energy contained in that land. Pretty bad ass. The best part though: this doesn't involve casting a spell. Even though it does the same thing that many mana ramp spells do. Even though it essentially does the same thing as Polymorphing a creature. BULLSH---- //end flavor rant//
Uncle Landdrops- THUMBS UP
No fouls because unfortunately, there are no Worm Holes here.
I think the term fetch land is perhaps the biggest culprit of flavor misdirection. As GG mentions, Your library contains a collection of figurative knowledge and the territory you know about. If that's true, what exists here is a land you know about that will, upon giving a part of yourself, help you find other lands you are already aware of. Like marking trees in the woods, if you find a familiar spot, then you know you're going to the right place. In this way, it is both knowledge and territory, because it is knowledge of your own territory. Like having good spells, fetches allow good mages to get good footing for more consistent spellcasting.
If you can't see the woods for my tree-marking analogy, here's another way to look at it. Maybe the power of a fetch land is innate, and being the incredible mage that you are, You are now able to "transform" said land from being a Polluted Delta or Wooded Foothills into the mana you're looking for. Cause you're that good.
Either way, the flavor feels Kosher. It's not a spell, but lands and mana is always just as powerful and important as spells. I think that's the important thing to take away from this Flavor debate.
Venser's Journalist- THUMBS UP
I can't really find a flavor foul in this card, unless you're questioning the physics of how a polluted delta will bring you to an Island or a Swamp; but, even that question seems to have a reasonable answer. I get that its only use is to fetch land for a small price, but it can be the key to casting the right spell with the right combination of lands.
Johnny Confidant- THUMBS UP (makes my wallet hurt though)
I understand GG's feelings with said card(s), it's in the same flavor of Evolving wilds and Terramorphic Expanse. The fact that you play a land to 'fetch' another land to color fix and deck thin can be advantageous in play. We play with 99 cards and fetch lands make me wanna sing "I got 99 problems but basic land ain't one".
Moving away from practical use,I agree the flavor is a bit off. Using Grandpa's imagery we're looking for the mana to chuck some fire in my enemies face but I'm a little short so I'd have to dig deeper into my connections to make the spell fly. LD also brings a solid point to the table, Universes you've been to and draw from should be of the strongest bonds for your spells. In the end it's not a total flavor foul, its just weird- weird and overpriced haha.
JOHNNY CONFIDANT'S PICK
Phyrexians are all about fusing machine to flesh to manipulate the world to their liking. Sacrificing a creature to destroy an artifact with a Black enchantment is confusing. Red and Green are known for artifact destruction in flavor of returning to nature and Black has a hard time destroying artifacts and enchantments, so when this came out in Antiquities it gave Black an answer it has never gained again.
Granted this was still in the early years of Magic. I would've expected this to have shown up in Time Spiral, but alas even messing with the Core of Magic still didn't give Black artifact destruction.
Venser's Journalist- THUMBS... WHA???
Johnny is most correct in saying this card has a flavor foul. Black artifact destruction is pretty much never going to be a strategy, since our Gruul friends have that base covered pretty well. The only thing more confusing than the premise of this card is the "You may not sacrifice a creature that is already on its way to the graveyard." Do they have a funeral procession phase in MTG?
Uncle Landdrops-THUMBS DOWN
I don't get how this is a gate. Am I paying a Troll Toll to go Phyrexia? If so, why would I do this? And why would this only happen at the beginning of my turn? Why can't I go to Phyrexia whenever I want to kill one of my guys? And look at this flavor text. Why is it raining grease? And why do so many Magic characters have diaries? What if I don't want to read your personal thoughts? Why does Wizards think these entries are important? And why are you giving them copies? This flavor fouling gets no sympathy from me, and basically makes me not want to play this card ever.
Grandpa Growth- THUMBS DOWN
I don't see any reason why Black shouldn't have artifact/enchantment removal. Corruption can hit flesh and metal alike. I once saw a fan made card that was just a Disenchant, except Black instead of White. It was called Disillusion, which makes sense to me. It's a sort of dream crushing kind of evil that Black would do. Not in the name of purity like White, or Nature in Green, but in the name of spreading grief.
Gate to Phyrexia doesn't make no kinda sense. Ignore the bit about it being a gate...because it really isn't. It is a machine that eats people to blow up stuff. Phyrexia is all about KILLING YOUR PEOPLE to BUILD THEIR MACHINES. So this is backwards...and upside down. And wrong. I forgive Wizards though. This was printed at the very beginning of flavor being a thing and, at that time, the color pie wasn't quite nailed down.
UNCLE LANDDROPS' PICK
Will I play this card? Yes. I have a copy coming, but like Teysa's god-awful design, I'm still left confused.
The Obzedat has little or nothing to do with said permanent's resurrection. I get aristocracy, so maybe they said, "Make it so," but they're still not actually responsible. Had R&D called it "Blessed by the Obzedat" I'd feel better.
According to the picture, it is in fact "Obzedat's Aids" who are doing the work. So the card should be called, "Obzedat's Aids' Aid," but I get that this is both confusing and insensitive towards Acquired-ImmunoDeficiency-Syndrome. Overall though, Art's cool, Aristocracy's confusing, and new Teysa sucks. Flavor's bitter for me.
Venser's Journalist- NOT SURE
Sure the whole immortality thing is a big part of Orzhov strategy, but I'm not too thrilled about paying 3WB for a rare that does only one trick, and a mediocre one at that. There is merit in it though: planeswalkers are tough to revive once they've lost all loyalty, but this will bring your Sorin back for sure. Unless you're one of the rich-boys playing Crucible, lands are mighty hard to retrieve, but this will do it (although if you're using this card on a land, you might have bigger problems).
Johnny Confidant- THUMBS UP
I'm excited for this card, but not for its cost. For 5 I'd rather use a Black or White spell for my permanents back, but this makes for a great late game finisher. As for flavor, all colors have a way of getting something back from the graveyard and combining white with Black can give you permanents with respective restrictions. So why not anything permanent with no restrictions when you pay both? It makes sense to me in flavor, but UL is right about Obzedat, they work in the background.
Grandpa Growth- THUMBS UP
My co-pilots here have gotten off course. This makes perfect sense mechanically, but UL is right. It doesn't do what the card says it does. Or rather, it isn't being done by who it says is doing it. Phew, that was a mouthful. Also, we have a cross-card flavor error here. If the Obzedat can bring stuff back to life, why can't its card bring stuff back to life? Also, the Orzhov are all about Extortion these days. Their aid should be free to begin with, but then come with a grotesquely high interest rate. What's that? Flavor reversal? Bringing people back to life in order for them to continue paying off their debts is how the Obzedat COLLECTS. This isn't aid. FEMA is aid (or it's supposed to be). This is foreclosure. Obzedat's Foreclosure.
That's all we got.
Now Go See Star Trek Or Iron Man 3. One of them has to be decent, right?
-UL
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