This is some of the most ingenious flavor I've ever seen. The name, art and mechanics brilliantly and efficiently convey the story of a bunch of idiots who summon a demon and get eaten for their troubles. Whatever your opinion on the card's playability, you have to admit that that's pretty cool.
This guy gets it.
Flavor has a huge impact on how we perceive and experience this game. While it's all well and good to have powerful cards with streamlined abilities and stats paired with some artwork of a fearsome monster, at the end of the day a huge part of our enjoyment comes from the stories we create in our heads as the cards interact with one another.
Cards like this are examples of the very best Magic has to offer in ludonarrative consonance — borrowing the video gaming term — and they have a much stronger effect on our connection to the game than I think we give them credit for. There exists some inexplicable mechanism that gives us a certain visceral enjoyment when casting a card with a name and art like Feaster of Fools, then watching its equally aptly-named abilities unfold within the game's rules. The very same mechanism is the one responsible for our intense dissatisfaction when observing a scenario in which a card like Silent Submersible gets chumped by a 1/1 Goblin with no abilities.
Stripping away all the art and colors and inventive names on each card, it's clear the skeletal structure of the game is still quite beautiful to behold in a systemic and mathematical sort of way. But without the contextualizing elements — flavor — to guide our imaginations and tether our wills to the outcome of each gameplay scenario, Magic doesn't live and breathe as it should. That's not to say most cards lack an adequate amount of flavor, far from it in fact! I mean to say that designing cards with an even greater focus on this phenomenon, the gratifying fusion of story and gameplay, would do wonders for enriching Magic's overall gameplay experience.
Love seeing people are still keeping this format alive. Keep at it, brother!
On the topic of the card... this guy has the potential to be bonkers. Excellent tribal synergy, nice stat line that dodges relevant removal, and tap abilities without a symbol that are just begging to be broken. Watch out for this one.
The cards you exile with Living End go onto the battlefield rather than the grave. The part that affects the battlefield is a mass sacrifice, no exiling involved. So yeah, if you had to sac 8 creatures, that would count for 8 gravestorm.
Princess Mononoke reference? Good show, Wizards, good show!
Pretty sure I've heard the same about each new spoiled boar...
Yeah pretty sure this is the only one corrupted in such a way that it almost directly resembles Okkoto in his transformed state at the end of the film... I think that certainly merits a mention here. Don't know what the people in the other threads were seeing 0_o
Snapcaster Mage would like a word with you. So would Gitaxian Probe... in fact, a deck built with any respect for this beautiful merfolk would make her absolutely amazing. I encourage you to rethink your analysis.
Aside from Lavaclaw Reaches, every manland has an adjective before a noun. "Indignation" is a noun, so the actual name of the card should be "Indignant Cliff"... which is still a pretty shoddy name. Sticks on the roof of your mouth like peanut butter
This guy gets it.
Flavor has a huge impact on how we perceive and experience this game. While it's all well and good to have powerful cards with streamlined abilities and stats paired with some artwork of a fearsome monster, at the end of the day a huge part of our enjoyment comes from the stories we create in our heads as the cards interact with one another.
Cards like this are examples of the very best Magic has to offer in ludonarrative consonance — borrowing the video gaming term — and they have a much stronger effect on our connection to the game than I think we give them credit for. There exists some inexplicable mechanism that gives us a certain visceral enjoyment when casting a card with a name and art like Feaster of Fools, then watching its equally aptly-named abilities unfold within the game's rules. The very same mechanism is the one responsible for our intense dissatisfaction when observing a scenario in which a card like Silent Submersible gets chumped by a 1/1 Goblin with no abilities.
Stripping away all the art and colors and inventive names on each card, it's clear the skeletal structure of the game is still quite beautiful to behold in a systemic and mathematical sort of way. But without the contextualizing elements — flavor — to guide our imaginations and tether our wills to the outcome of each gameplay scenario, Magic doesn't live and breathe as it should. That's not to say most cards lack an adequate amount of flavor, far from it in fact! I mean to say that designing cards with an even greater focus on this phenomenon, the gratifying fusion of story and gameplay, would do wonders for enriching Magic's overall gameplay experience.
Love seeing people are still keeping this format alive. Keep at it, brother!
On the topic of the card... this guy has the potential to be bonkers. Excellent tribal synergy, nice stat line that dodges relevant removal, and tap abilities without a symbol that are just begging to be broken. Watch out for this one.
Yeah pretty sure this is the only one corrupted in such a way that it almost directly resembles Okkoto in his transformed state at the end of the film... I think that certainly merits a mention here. Don't know what the people in the other threads were seeing 0_o
This beastie is a shining example of a limited atomic bomb... many a game will end brutally and viscerally on the back of this majestic monstrosity
Lets look at the other manlands:
Stirring Wildwood
Lavaclaw Reaches
Creeping Tar Pit
Raging Ravine
Celestial Colonnade
Lumbering Falls
Shambling Vent
Aside from Lavaclaw Reaches, every manland has an adjective before a noun. "Indignation" is a noun, so the actual name of the card should be "Indignant Cliff"... which is still a pretty shoddy name. Sticks on the roof of your mouth like peanut butter