#magic thoughts

And I'll share some of my favorite cards from that set (and its ancillary products.)

[there is something about you, merlin,

i can’t quite put my finger on it.]

Anyway, what's these guys' lore?

Also, what are the odds of getting the same card twice in one pack, the cyclops also has a normal, nonshiny version i got from the same pack.

Tatyova hasn't appeared in the main story yet, but we do know a bit about her. For context, she is from the world of Dominaria, the original world Magic (the game) started on, and stayed on for the vast majority of the first ten years of its existence. As a result, it is much more detailed and has had many many more events we know of happen there. In recent years, it has been focused on being the history plane, one with a lot of old relics, scars from many "end of the world" scenarios barely avoided, and complex political relationships. Most of which are actual events and civilizations players know or can learn about since they're from the early days of the game!

Tatyova herself is a merfolk, born in the vast underwater Vodalian empire that controls most of Dominaria's seas and oceans. She didn't stay there, however, going to the magical forest of Yavimaya to learn of their ways.

Yavimaya is your classic fantasy magical forest, mostly populated by elves and an array of beasts and plants, with trees the size of skyscrapers completing the picture. She studied her druidic magic with the elves there, likely with some contribution from Multani, the living elemental avatar of the entire forest, he does like to get involved. After those studies, she returned to Vodalia and became an adviser to the current monarch, Mihail II, which is how we see her on Steward of Tides.

Vodalia in the past has been very isolationist and xenophobic, but it's been getting a bit better about it in recent reigns. Tatyova pushes him to see the world as a whole, beyond his own coasts, as something previous and invaluable.

Anecdotally, Tatyova, Benthic Druid is also a very strong and very popular leader for decks in the Commander format, gameplay-wise, as she rewards the already good strategy of getting more lands into play by getting you more resources... To get more lands into play. She can snowball quite a bit.

This one will be much faster: We don't have much on this guy. It's a new card to the set and nothing in the art is a dead giveaway of which world they belong to, so what you see in the card is about the whole story: a cyclops wielding lightning magic.

If I had to hazard a guess as to origin, I would say Theros, the plane heavily inspired by greek mythology, as some cyclops there seem to share the vertical shape of this one's eye. On Theros, faith can turn myth to reality, and history quickly becomes story. Take that origin with a grain of salt, Crackling Cyclops could easily be from Shandalar, Dominaria or a host of other worlds.

As far as getting multiple copies in a pack, it's technically possible, though they have collation that makes it normally unlikely. Foils (shiny cards) are independent of that though, so it happens more often when you get a foil one and a nonfoil one in the same pack. On one occasion, I've seen one person pull two copies of the same mythic out of a pack close to fifteen years ago, one foil and one not! Generally speaking though, most regular packs don't have duplicates, unless you're opening ones for special small set. March of the Machines: Aftermath was a product infamous for only having 50 cards in it (and only 15 different uncommons!) so duplicates were very common in those packs, despite them only having 5 cards in them.

This one, however, leaves no doubt about where it's from! The armor and style are characteristic of a vampire of the Legion of Dusk, from the continent of Torrezon, on the world of Ixalan. I will give a lot of background on them because they're interesting. The vampires on this world are from an european-inspired continent that got conquered by a small (spanish-inspired) island nation there: it got access to vampirism and used its power to conquer. According to their Church of Dusk, Vampirism is a sacred burden taken on by the nobility (and some commoners who deserve it) to devote themselves to their country and religion. It was brought on by Saint Elenda, returning from a long pilgrimage across the ocean. The huge burden of power and immortality. Unlike some vampires, they don't die from sunlight. Church doctrine dictates vampires cannot feed on regular citizens, only some criminals convicted of specific offenses, and of course foreigners and heretics.

This caused an issue when they finished conquering their home continent, with the Queen now being saddled with an army of immortal, hungry vampires trained and primed for wars and no more nearby "foreigners" or "heretics" for them to drink from with all the nations converted and subjugated. She then turned to this mythical land across the sea, where Saint Elenda went to pilgrimage to, the continent of Ixalan (the world is named after that continent). She declared a Holy War there, to claim it for the church and find the Immortal Sun hidden there, a sacred relic of great power that would free the vampires from needing to drink blood and grant them true immortality! But likely mostly to get rid of that pesky army that was causing trouble inside her own country.

Hence the getup. The continent of Ixalan is heavily inspired by latin american societies (but with more dinosaurs) and the Legion of Dusk is our European conquistadors, come to do a colonialism and crusade all in one. The Sun Empire that controls most of that continent is more than ready to fight them back. The Legion of Dusk barely manages to hold a few outposts on the continent, and they launch some expeditions to find the Immortal Sun inside the Golden City. They do manage to find the Golden City, Orazca, but the Immortal Sun gets snagged before they can claim it. What they do find however, sleeping in the Golden City, is Elenda.

The saint that brought vampirism to them and the central figure of their religion, their Jesus equivalent. She does genuinely see vampirism as a burden and wants to use it to better the lives of people, so she's not too keen on learning about crusades, conquest and holy wars waged in her name. She rushes back to Torrezon and is swiftly followed by a defeated Legion of Dusk retreating. There, she decries the actions of the church and legion and reinforces her core tenets. Faced with their jesus-equivalent declaring what they're doing heretical and monstrous, the Church... Has a schism, many in the society content in their power and conquest and would rather reject their own messiah than give that up. That's about where they were at last time we visited this world, with the Queen officially on Elenda's side but trying as much as possible to avoid taking a stance and placating both of them.

The end of the last Ixalan story was marked by the Bat God that is the source of vampirism in the first place traveling towards Torrezon, and he's probably not as opposed to conquest and massacres as she is. This is all mostly background info btw, we haven't had a main story set solely in Torrezon yet!

To bring it all back to the card you opened, Soulcaller uses magic to control a flock of bats, drawing on this antique affinity. We also see him flying by turning his lower body into smoke, an ability only a small number of more powerful and/or older vampires possess. He also appears to be in some cave or underground, which isn't surprising, since our last visit to Ixalan had us explore the many caverns and tunnels between its surface world and its inside world, where gravity is inverted and the sun shines at the center of the planet. Oh, I didn't mention that yet.

This hare is almost assuredly one of the rabbitfolks of Bloomburrow! Bloomburrow is a world we've seen only a small portion of, the land of Valley, but still plenty big for its inhabitants. It has a few peculiarities. First and foremost, it doesn't have humans or elves or most other usual kinds of sapient animals. Instead, it is populated by sapient and talking small animals. On our first visit, we focused on birds, rats, lizards, raccons, rabbits, bats, squirrels, frogs, otters and mice, but we've seen some other species mixed in, hedgehogs, foxes, badgers,... In fact, a visiting human from another world got turned into an otter while he stayed on the plane (he was quite grumpy about it), showing that it's a property of the world itself and not just a coincidence.

Secondly, seasons and natural events on the planes are shaped by larger elemental animals, called Calamity Beasts, though not all of them are detrimental. It is unclear how intelligents these beasts are, but they are quite literal embodiments of forces of natures. They can be fought back, but it's much easier to divert or escape them when necessary.

The trailer for Bloomburrow is really nice, I'd encourage anyone to watch it. As we can see in it, the animalfolks of Bloomburrow live and lean and prosper besides each other. There are general trends to each, but we see in cards all kinds of animals training for all kinds of roles.

The rabbitfolks, to which Hare Apparent belong, are centered in green and white. They are gregarious, tradition-oriented and down to earth. They tend to have large, close-knit families of course, and represent a good chunk of the farmers in Valley. They like simple problems and simple solutions. They are reknowned for their cooking and punctuality. Among more martial lines, they're often healers, warriors or archers.

They're interesting mirrors of each other that as a result, are very different tools in design. Plot has a variable upfront cost, and a fixed casting cost (of zero). Foretell has a fixed upfront cost, and a variable casting cost. This actually ends up shaping most of the differences.

Plot has a variable setup cost, so it needs to be face up, otherwise the opponent could know the card from the cost anyway and it'd be a pain in general. Since it'll be face up anyway, you don't want the opponent to have to play around it too much, because playing around face-up effects is annoying for both players. As a result, it is sorcery-speed only. At its best for proactive play. This also allows the casting cost to be free (since the upfront cost can include color without restricting the mechanic, and the opponent doesn't have to play around free stuff at instant speed which is a pain). This helps significantly with some designs, and also allows things like a trigger when you plot the thing, like Aloe Alchemist up here, which wouldn't be possible with Foretell.

Foretell has a fixed setup cost. This means it is a generic cost and has to be. Which means the variable casting cost will include colors, if the cards are colored, because color pie and all that. Having a generic setup cost does, however, allow you to set it up face-down. This, in turn, means it's hidden information, both a guessing game for opponent, and potentially a bluff for you. Just like cards in hand, except there is a smaller pool of possibilities with just Foretell cards, so it can be easier to guess, and also more rewarding to game knowledge. Because playing around hidden information is much more fun and two-way for both players than playing around revealed information, foretell is at its best with reactive spells. Counters, removals, protection spells and the like. And as such, it is allowed and encouraged to play at instant-speed. But it does mean you can't do anything with the mechanic that'd work while foretold, or foretell opposing or revealed cards. What would be the point without hidden information?

Ok, this first one is very weird and personal. I have actually never played with the card, nor do I own any copy, but I still remember this card quite clearly. At the time, I was already translating cards as they were previewed, see, and this one I remember was previewed in Russian. At the times, magic cards got printed in Russian. Anyway, I don't speak a lick of Russian, but I do speak magic rules pretty well, so for most cards, I can get along translating abilities from something very rough and approximate, which is what machine translations provide. Though I do need to double check finer details against other cards in the language when I do that.

What that doesn't help as much with is flavor stuff. Names and flavor text. Thankfully, while I do not know Russian, I know people. I believe it was @northernweird that contributed time and knowledge to help me for this. Now, for Names, there is some more help: the collector number depends on the English name of the card. So depending on the collector number and other cards already previewed in English around it, one can typically know the first letter of the card name, or have a small range for it. Protean isn't exactly the most common word in English or Russian, so it was a tough one to guess at. "Polymorph" was our first guess with it but it was hard to make it into a good-sounding name. Polymorphic Thaumaturge? And it didn't match other Polymorph cards translated into Russian. Because of the greek nature of Theros, I did have a thought, and the result...

I got it right! With a word like Protean in the English name, it's something I still feel a little proud about whenever I see the card even five years after the fact.

Between Broodmoth, Valkyrie's Call and now Nightmare Shepherd, it's not really a secret that I really like this kind of effect. Nightmare Shepherd was the first, too, coming before the other two, and it was such a cool card at that time.

It's also no secret I like Pod effects, and Enigmatic Incarnation is one of these that mixed card types. It's really cool that years later, thanks to Leyline Binding and Duskmourn's Overlords, it became a competitive deck in Pioneer, but even at the time with Fires of Invention it was a fun deck in Standard. Love me a toolbox.

Soul-Guide Lantern defined the new standard for graveyard hate artifacts, finally a worthy competition to Relic of Progenitus and Tormod's Crypt that had been the go-to options for a decade prior. It's not doing anything particularly new, but it's a good package for a cheap price, and a good enough of one to be brought back in Wilds of Eldraine... And then in Foundations, as one of the fundamental elements of the game.

Elspeth Conquers Death, or ECD as it was known in Standard at the time, is great value if you have the time to wait for it. The exile removal upfront is all you want, but the planeswalker or creature reanimation is a really nice addition that makes it well worth the five mana. It's not the most efficient removal or reanimation, but it's both at once at not an insane rate.

Uro and Phlage did break things a tad (a lot), but the design behind these titans was still really cool, and Kroxa was a potent tool that wasn't as oppressive for a while! It also makes me think of the Theros Beyond Death prerelease. It was the last prerelease in a while, on account of it being 2020. I pulled both an Uro and a Kroxa at that prerelease, sadly I didn't feel like building a deck that could support BR mana into 1UG into BBRR into UUGG at prerelease, so I went the cowards way and only played one of them.

Extra fun fact: Uro was our exclusive preview card for the set! You can still find that article, and I think Seth nailed it, here are a few choice quotes:

I have to admit—when I got my first look at Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, my jaw dropped. The way Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath is formatted somewhat obscures how obscenely powerful the card really is.

At the risk of going too far and overhyping the card, I'll say that I think there is a very real chance that it will be the best midrange threat in all of Standard, and could very well end up one of the best cards in Standard period.  The hardest part of Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath is figuring out where it's bad.

Sticking with Giants, Tectonic Giant I really like the design of. It lets you pick between what you want to do in a red deck, whether you're being aggressive and need some damage, or you're on the backfoot and need some more cards right now. Its attack trigger that also works when it's being targeted and killed is also a neat way to make sure you get at least one trigger, while making it a bit less oppressive than a Titan ETB or attack that you can't do anything about other than a counterspell. A shame the card didn't end up seeing much play anywhere.

The demigods were neat, and I enjoy this kind of Master Biomancer effects. I've toyed with a few decks playing around with this kind of stuff in commander, and some day I might actually commit to it.

Omen of the Sea is a pretty whatever Cantrip design, but the omens in general were very fun, and this one in particular was very played. You don't overpay much for this considering the extra later value, and being on a permanent opened a lot of synergies that we hadn't seen too much before that. With Yorion, of course, in the next set, but even with Doom Foretold, and other such effects. I think one can draw a line from these to the designs that led to the Pixie/Self-Bounce decks we see in Standard today, and those are very neat and fun decks to exist... When they aren't the best deck in the meta.

I'll only go through new cards in the set to try to keep things short!

Demonic Pact is the standout design of the set, I think, complete with the last clause being left for the very end of the card text. The fact it actually was good enough to see play, AND with ways to twist the downside to your advantage as well, is just the cherry on top of gameplay enhancing the flavor of the card. And that was even a viable strategy in Standard, without breaking anything! Perfect card.

I have a lot of enchantments on my list, I guess we'll start with those? Temporary copies is a part of red's color pie I love (enough to have an entire deck dedicated to it) and Flameshadow Conjuring is from a time when it was a rare treat instead of something WotC made more of every set. It's good for value, it's good for damage, it gives a disposable body to use otherwise... It's a bit clunky as a 4-mana do-nothing, doubly so in red, but I still like it.

Elemental Bond is from Origins? Uh! While it's not the only effect of its kind in green, for a long while it was the only one to key off of 3 power, and that's still rare to this day. Combined with the fact it can trigger off tokens and there's actually quite a few ways to make exactly 3/3 tokens in green, this card has even more potential than most of these kinds of cards in commander! It doesn't just draw from you casting big creatures, but also from activating a Vivien or getting Beast Within'd, and as such makes its way into a lot of my green commander decks, though a bit less now that Tribute to the World Tree exists. Still, as an uncommon it's still cheap and that's great.

Opalescence is weird and old and reserved list and symmetrical. Having a second version of this effect to use in enchantress decks to actually win the game at some point is a blessing, and the bonus enchantment reanimation is nice too. The fact the animation doesn't work until you're set up to probably kill someone is also an upside in disguise, since it avoids you getting blown up by creature removal before you're ready.

I love how adding a very small tweak to a Power 9 card made it fine to print into standard even in 2015, and it's not even a massive downside that makes it unplayable either! I'm glad the card has found homes since it released, although not as glad that it's mostly alongside Narset, Parter of Veils.

Hangarback Walker was a ton of fun to play in Standard, yet a fair card overall. During the three months after Origins and before rotation back then, I had a ton of fun playing the Ensoul Artifact deck turning Darksteel Citadel into an indestructible 5/5, and having this as a solid play all along the game that could either be buffed thanks to being a 0/0 with an ensoul or on one of the conveniently-flying Thopters was pretty nice! But even beyond that deck it was a solid card throughout standard.

While we're on that deck, Whirler Rogue was another card in there and one I still believe is underrated nowadays. Getting 4 power and toughness, half of it flying, across three bodies, including two artifacts, and an extra ability is a lot for 4 mana at uncommon. There is plenty of commander decks even to this day that could make great use of this card. Unblockable Karnstructs, anyone?

Picking what your opponents keep is always a fun way to balance a sweeper, keeping your best stuff and your opponent's worst stuff, and Tragic Arrogance did it great. If there weren't SO MANY options for sweepers in white, I'd recommend more people play it, but there's a bit too much competition that's just as good or better. Still, not a bad card even to this day!

Mana George was from Origins? I love Mana George! What's more to say, a 3-mana 15/15 trample is pretty good, and it reaches that in a turn cycle or two in commander. It's always funny because you can't really play around it, and most people just hope it doesn't come their way... Hope you got removal!