Niniju, the Furry Planeswalker

Before previews for Modern Horizons 2 officially begin, I thought it would be fun to do another of my Duelist-style teasers where I give tiny hints of things to come. Note that I’m only giving you partial information.

First up, here are some things you can expect:

• a legendary character best known for having his name on a powerful card (that’s been banned) finally gets a legendary creature

• a theme on only a handful of cards in Modern Horizons gets a larger presence

• a Frog twenty-six years in the making

• new split cards

• a Future Sight mechanic reused for first time

• a character that first appeared in a Magic novel finally becomes a legendary creature

• A card with the number words “four” and “fourteen”.

• a fan favorite animal character finally becomes a legendary creature

• a white enchantment with a trigger that investigates

• a planeswalker from the past that has previously only had a legendary creature card

Here are some snippets from rules text that appear in the set:

• “Whenever you cast your third spell each turn,”

• “for each other Ooze you control.”

• “If an ability of a <CENSORED> or another <CENSORED> you control triggers, that ability triggers an additional time.”

• “This ability costs 1 less to activate for each +1/+1 counter on creatures you control.”

• “you may sacrifice a Mountain rather than pay this spell’s mana cost.”

• “Trample over planeswalkers”

• “If an Insect card was milled this way,”

• “Protection from permanents with corruption counters on them”

• “choose a number between 1 and 5. Flip that many coins.”

• “instead create one of each.”

Here are some type lines from the set:

• Artifact Creature – Assembly-Worker

• Creature – Dinosaur Illusion

• Creature – Dauthi Rogue

• Creature – Skeleton Shaman

• Creature – Elemental Incarnation

• Artifact Creature – Clue Myr

• Tribal Artifact – Lhurgoyf

• Legendary Creature – Merfolk God

• Legendary Creature – Snake Elf Scout

• Legendary Creature – Squirrel Warrior

Finally, here are some of the mechanics in the set. (I replaced all the letters with x’s.)

• xxxx (4)

• xxxx (4)

• xxxxx (5)

• xxxxx (5)

• xxxxx (5)

• xxxxx (5)

• xxxxx (5)

• xxxxxx (6)

• xxxxxx (6)

• xxxxxx (6)

• xxxxxx (6)

• xxxxxx (6)

• xxxxxx (6)

• xxxxxx (6)

• xxxxxx (6)

• xxxxxx (6)

• xxxxxxx (7)

• xxxxxxx (7)

• xxxxxxx (7)

• xxxxxxx (7)

• xxxxxxx (7)

• xxxxxxx (7)

• xxxxxxx (7)

• xxxxxxx (7)

• xxxxxxx (7)

• xxxxxxx (7)

• xxxxxxx (7)

• xxxxxxx (7)

• xxxxxxx (7)

• xxxxxxx (7)

• xxxxxxx (7)

• xxxxxxx (7)

• xxxxxxx (7)

• xxxxxxx (7)

• xxxxxxxx (8)

• xxxxxxxx (8)

• xxxxxxxx (8)

• xxxxxxxx (8)

• xxxxxxxx (8)

• xxxxxxxx (8)

• xxxxxxxx (8)

• xxxxxxxx (8)

• xxxxxxxx (8)

• xxxxxxxxx (9)

• xxxxxxxxx (9)

• xxxx-xxxxx (9)

• xxxxxxxxx (9)

• xxxxxxxxx (9)

• xxxxxxxxx (9)

• xxxxxxxxx (9)

• xxxxxxxxxx (10)

• xxxxxxxxxx (10)

• xxxxxxxxxxx (11)

• xxxxxxxxxxx (11)

• xxxxxxxxxxx (11)

• xxxxxxxxxxx (11)

• xxxxxxxxxxx (11)

• xxxxxxxxxxxx (12)

• xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (15)

“As Phemeskara drank the from the sun of Felldawn, she once dreamt of sand and water~” 

ingredience

Assuming that there’s some corporate red tape preventing the writers from diving into explicit queer representation and that said writers did as much as they were allowed to do, this still sucks. I truly believe that the best intentions were at play here when going as far as allowed with Chandra and Nissa, but ultimately it just gave LGBT players false hope with no impactful followthrough. Is well meaning queerbaiting still queerbaiting? I would say yes. 

And that’s not okay.

Wizards has explicitly written stories about LGBT characters in the past and as recently as Eldritch Moon. In Theros they rewrote a play to be a gay love story, Alesha is a transgender Khan of the Mardu who had a story where this was even brought up, and the trackers Hal and Alena from Innistrad are also lovers and they are both female. That doesn’t feel like queerbaiting to me.

Kynaios & Tiro: dead 1000 years.

Hal & Alena: card????

We’re asking to show up as more than a one-off. I don’t remember if it was Maro, the Wizards official Tumblr, Allison on Twitter, or where they said it, but when people asked why H&A didn’t get a card in SOI block, they said to stay tuned because they were excited to show us what they were working on on the LGBT representation front.

Assuming that there’s some corporate red tape preventing the writers from diving into explicit queer representation and that said writers did as much as they were allowed to do, this still sucks. I truly believe that the best intentions were at play here when going as far as allowed with Chandra and Nissa, but ultimately it just gave LGBT players false hope with no impactful followthrough. Is well meaning queerbaiting still queerbaiting? I would say yes. 

And that’s not okay.

Wizards has explicitly written stories about LGBT characters in the past and as recently as Eldritch Moon. In Theros they rewrote a play to be a gay love story, Alesha is a transgender Khan of the Mardu who had a story where this was even brought up, and the trackers Hal and Alena from Innistrad are also lovers and they are both female. That doesn’t feel like queerbaiting to me.

Kynaios & Tiro: dead 1000 years.

Hal & Alena: card????

We’re asking to show up as more than a one-off. I don’t remember if it was Maro, the Wizards official Tumblr, Allison on Twitter, or where they said it, but when people asked why H&A didn’t get a card in SOI block, they said to stay tuned because they were excited to show us what they were working on on the LGBT representation front.

Assuming that there’s some corporate red tape preventing the writers from diving into explicit queer representation and that said writers did as much as they were allowed to do, this still sucks. I truly believe that the best intentions were at play here when going as far as allowed with Chandra and Nissa, but ultimately it just gave LGBT players false hope with no impactful followthrough. Is well meaning queerbaiting still queerbaiting? I would say yes. 

And that’s not okay.

Wizards has explicitly written stories about LGBT characters in the past and as recently as Eldritch Moon. In Theros they rewrote a play to be a gay love story, Alesha is a transgender Khan of the Mardu who had a story where this was even brought up, and the trackers Hal and Alena from Innistrad are also lovers and they are both female. That doesn't feel like queerbaiting to me.

But Gideon… man…

And I forgot, but Liliana is evil.  Everybody thinks so.  She’s undermining Poor Gideon.  She’s insidious.

first, you seem straight.

second, just because jace could defend himself doesn’t mean abusing him is ok! he fucking flinched when she breathed on him! when jace lost all his memories, he still perfectly recalled liliana calling him worthless. i think that fucking says something.