....this illustration does not hold up at the enlarged size. Her right arm is at a sickeningly painful angle and she appears to have only 4 fingers a hand, though for her left hand it's hard to say. And... what on EARTH is going on with that clothing of hers? Is this some kind of bell-bottom dress that doesn't cover the waist at all? It looks set to fall off or sway to the wrong side at any moment. And she's got a giant copper shoulder guard? What? Her right breast also seems about twice as wide as the left. Just... bizarre, and not in a good way.
At least the general idea of "branches growing toward the glowing light in hand" gets across well and is cool, for all the connection isn't clear to Saprolings.
....this illustration does not hold up at the enlarged size. Her right arm is at a sickeningly painful angle and she appears to have only 4 fingers a hand, though for her left hand it's hard to say. And... what on EARTH is going on with that clothing of hers? Is this some kind of bell-bottom dress that doesn't cover the waist at all? It looks set to fall off or sway to the wrong side at any moment. And she's got a giant copper shoulder guard? What? Her right breast also seems about twice as wide as the left. Just... bizarre, and not in a good way.
At least the general idea of "branches growing toward the glowing light in hand" gets across well and is cool, for all the connection isn't clear to Saprolings.
I was going to write a more involved comment, but I'll settle for agreeing that the art is bizarre.
I...actually came here to say much the same thing. I love the design of the card itself, and the art is exceedingly well detailed; I love the flowering branches coming in towards her hand, and the coloring and details are all well-executed. But the anatomy (and that dress...thing) threw me for a total loop, especially on the larger version of the image. The pose seems painfully awkward; the positioning of her arms and the twisting of her torso seem almost grotesque if you look at them for too long. The dress...honestly, the only thing I can think of to explain that design is cheesecake.
Taking a second look at Azure Mage now, I see the same sort of spine-twisting going on there. That just can't be healthy.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
For linking a card to Gatherer without writting the name of said card for readers, use the autocard brackets together with and equal sign and right the name of the real card. Then put the message you want inside the tags, like you would do with autocarding. Like this:
I like storm crow because I really like crows in real life, as an animal, and the card isn't terribly stupid, but packs a good deal of nostalgia and also a chunck of the game's history. So it's perhaps one of the cards I have most affection to, but not because "lol storm crow is bad hurr hurr durr".
Although I do assume you deliberately refer to them (DCI) as The Grand Imperial Convocation of Evil just for the purposes of making them sound like an ancient and terrible conspiracy.
Now, now. 1994 doesn't quite qualify as "ancient".
Oh, it's a brilliant plan. You see, Bolas was travelling through shadowmoor, causing trouble, when he saw a Wickerbough Elder with its stylin' dead scarecrow hat. Now, Bolas being Bolas took the awesome hat and he put it on his head, but even with all his titanic powers of magic he couldn't make it fit. He grabbed some more scarecrows, but then a little kithkin girl asked if he was trying to build a toupee. "BY ALL THE POWERS IN THE MULTIVERSE!" he roared, "I WILL HAVE A HAT WORTHY OF MY GLORY." and so he went through his Dark Lore of Doom (tm) looking for something he could make into a hat that would look as stylish on him as a scarecrow does on a treefolk. He thought about the Phyrexians, but they were covered in goopy oil that would make his nonexistant hair greasy. He Tried out angels for a while but they didn't sit quite right. Then, he looked under "e" (because in the Elder Draconic alphabet, "e" for Eldrazi is right next to "h" for Hat) in his Dark Lore of Doom and saw depictions of the Eldrazi, and all their forms. "THIS SHALL BE MY HAT!" he declared, poking a picture of Emrakul, "AND WITH IT I WILL USHER IN A NEW AGE OF DARKNESS -- ER, I MEAN A NEW AGE OF FASHION!"
And so Nicol Bolas masterminded the release of the Eldrazi.
The last couple days have been roughly every perverse fetish imaginable, but it only got "creepy" when speculation on Mother of Runes's mob affiliation came up?
I like to think up what I consider clever names for my decks, only later to be laughed at by my wife. It kills me a little on the inside, but thats what marriage is about.
Of course, the best use [of tolaria west ] is transmuting for the real Tolaria.
Absolutely. I used to loose to my buddy's Banding deck for ages, it was then that I found out about Tolaria , and I was finally able win my first game.
Browbeat is a card that is an appropriate deck choice when there's no better idea available. "No better idea available" was pretty much the running theme of Odyssey era.
Modern is like playing a new tournament every time : you build a deck, you win with it, don't bother keeping it. Just build another, its key pieces will get banned.
I always find it helpful when im angry to dress up in an owl costume and rub pennies all over my body in front of a full body mirror next to the window.
Dymecoar:
Playing Magic without Blue is like sleeping without any sheets or blankets. You can do it...but why?
Omega137:
Me: "I love the moment when a control deck stabilizes. It feels so... right." Omega137: "I like the life drop part until you get there, it's the MtG variant of bungee jumping"
Zigeif777:
Just do it like Yu-Gi-Oh or monkeys: throw all the crap you got at them and hope it works or else the by-standers (or opponents) just get dirty and pissed.
Normally it's difficult to pick up on your jokes/sarcasm. But this one's pretty much out there. Good progress. You have moved up to Humanoid. You'll be Human in no time.
I like the look they came up with for the Jade Mage, though I agree that she could have done without the random one-arm-and-two-shoulders armor. But I mostly just don't care for the kind of smudgy, dark look of the art. Crisp photorealism would have been the way to go here I think. And as the compulsive cycle-completist that I am, I wish the Alabaster, Onyx and Crimson mages had each had a "spell" that works without having to target another creature. Giving lifelink and deathtouch are both fairly boring, and giving haste is very boring. I would have loved to see these cards blowing up creatures, gaining or stealing life, and maybe exiling graveyards or even doing something akin to Dimir Machinations .
As far as the benefit of the rest of Magic is concerned, gold cards in Legends were executed perfectly. They got all the excitement a designer could hope out of a splashy new mechanic without using up any of the valuable design space. Truly amazing. --Aaron Forsythe's Random Card Comment on Kei Takahashi
So, it's a cycle. Of course, that was anticipated, although it seems two do not fit so well. Why? Alabaster, Sapphire, Onyx, Ruby and Jade are all mineral; like Leeches, they tend to encompass a unifying thread; however, Azure and Crimson imply these aspects are color-based, despite the fact that none of the minerals listed, unless the two colors, are actually color-restricted. Alabaster is not always or even common "white," jade can come in many, many colors of which only the rarest is green, and onyx is actually rather rainbow-y and, like jade, is more commonly non-black than black, and tends to be more red than other colors (as in sardonyx). I know the guys up there at WotC are smart, but the intentional oddness of then skipping this naming convention then by adopting more clear-cut color terms but keeping ambiguous terms is ... odd.
"Possibilities abound, too numerous to count."
"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)
"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion Backs)
Kicker Aggro (Invasion Block)
