AuthorDaniel Crane

Mark Rosewater informed us that the next big expansion, Mirrodin, will not take place on Dominaria. But we’ve got a little problem: So much happened in Legions that has to be dealt with – there’s such great possibility left open to Scourge that I can hardly believe that all the ends will be tied together. I see two main possibilities that might appear in Scourge to try to bring some finality to our long visit on Dominaria… And one of them is that it might be destroyed.

Haven’t read the Legions novelization yet? Curious to know what’s going on with all of those wacky pitfighters – Kamahl, Akroma, Phage, Ixidor, Braids, and the as-yet-uncarded The First and General Stonebrow? Daniel neatly summarizes the latest plot events for you, and provides a capsule review at the same time!

It’s that time again – time to see what windows the flavor text commission of R&D opened up into the world of the Magic storyline. As always, this”real story” installation is intended to give those who don’t have the time or interest to read the Magic novels a picture of what occurs in them.

If I’m just going to”deal” with the problem, then I’m going to use Urza’s Saga Rewinds, thereby keeping most of my deck”old school.” In this way, Wizards will be losing my Eighth Edition money; however, there’s no real impact here because most players with cards from older sets tend to use those rather than their non-foily white-bordered editions. So the money Wizards”loses” from me wouldn’t actually be theirs anyway.

The biggest complaint I get from beginning Magic players is that they don’t have the money to invest in all the rares for those decks, thus disqualifying them from tournament play. My response to this is always”trade for what you need.”

When I asked a fellow player recently,”Do you mind if I play you with a totally broken deck that’s illegal in all formats?” he was intrigued and said no. When he saw that it wasn’t High Tide or Replenish, he was even more interested – and I got to show him the joy of complete and utter insanity.

I haven’t yet had time to read the Onslaught spoiler. Usually, I print the new spoiler and take it around with me to read in my spare time in order to have it read as soon as possible. So why am I waiting for enough free time to read the spoiler directly from the computer? Because I don’t see the need to be on the cutting edge of the new environment.

Almost everything is ready – the only missing link is one of the most important. We have yet to determine a flavor text for the creature! Daniel discusses the various flavor texts and states which ones he likes… And which ones he doesn’t.

I found so many Judgment flavor texts that stated nearly blatant falsehoods, at least according to the book Judgment (upon which we can only rely for the”truth” about the storyline). Similarly, there are some incongruities in Onslaught.

Like I said before, I think that the Cycling mechanic is a very interesting one and will definitely interact well with existing mechanics such as threshold. Like Madness, though, it appears that Cycling has a few bombs and a few duds. I’ll be taking a look at what I consider to be the best or most interesting cycling card in each color.

Personally, I think that morphing is going to be a staple in decks of the new Standard environment, and that will only proceed to make morphing better.

So how was it possible for me to I have fun if all my hopes couldn?t come true? The key was the people who I played with.

You have to know your deck and your strategy all the way to the marrow. Once you know yourself well enough not to ask,”What am I going to do now?” you can focus on asking the question,”What is my opponent going to do now?” And that’s what wins games.