#Champions of Kamigawa

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Reverse the Sands

Worse than the years of aging was the burden of memory. The young monk lost his youth and gained a vicarious lifetime of hardship and woe.

Artist: Jeremy Jarvis TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[incorrect-mtg]

Flavor Text Highlights - Champions of Kamigawa

<- Previous Set | Next Set ->

Kamigawa block is my favorite block when it comes to flavor, so as a personal treat I'm giving this set double the amount of cards!

Cool - Mana Seism | Reach Through Mists

“It is the nature of humanity not to worry about tomorrow, especially when there’s a good chance they won’t live to see the end of today.”

—Kiku, Night’s Flower

“Know one part of the name, obsession begins. Know two parts, paranoia sets in. Know three parts, madness descends. Know all, and only the kami know what will become of you.”

—Lady Azami

Funny - Akki Underminer | Hold the Line

“Deep inside the Sokenzan Mountains, a band of akki discovered a cache of ancient items of power. Their ensuing spree of destruction became known as ‘The Three Days of Fun.’”

—Observations of the Kami War

“Forgive me, Master Kami, but in the interest of my people I must halt your advance.”

Worldbuilding - Unnatural Speed | Eiganjo Castle

“How can we hope to match the speed of lightning? The fury of storms? The power of mountains? The answer is simple. We cannot. I advise against this war.”

—Sensei Hisoka, letter to Lord Konda

Since the war began, the castle’s walls mark the only place on Kamigawa where no kami has ever set foot.

Emotional - Guardian of Solitude | Wandering Ones

“It seemed an easy thing, to step into the nothingness, to fall, to die. But then, for an instant, I saw it, eyes filled with endless sorrow, and I turned back to face my pain.”

—Snow-Fur, kitsune poet

“I saw them once, when I was a child. They led me to my parents’ arms when I was lost. Why have they abandoned me now? Why won’t they take me home again?”

—Unnamed beggar

<- Previous Set | Next Set ->

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Kumano, Master Yamabushi by Adam Rex

[menuthegathering]

Forbidden Orchard

Land

{T}: Add one mana of any color.

Whenever you tap Forbidden Orchard for mana, target opponent creates a 1/1 colorless Spirit creature token.

Illustrated by Dany Orizio

2004

[jaebird88]

Listening to TTC’s Scryfall Roulette, and when they had The Unspeakable up, I enjoyed the nostalgia trip when Wheeler brought up the other cards that worked with it.

I remember having the whole set at one point, but I think I only have one of the arcane spells currently. Looking at them together, Behold the Unspeakable // Vision of the Unspeakable seems like a loss in mechanical flavor.

The only constants being drawing cards and flying and trample. I’m guessing for balance purposes, the saga had to adhere to whatever else the set was doing in the meta. But I feel the saga side should at least mimic the three arcane spells to a degree if nothing else. Much like performing the ritual, reading from a forbidden scroll has the same effect of drawing out The Unspeakable.

[overgrown-estate]

[markrosewater]

I invoke the rite of birthday trivia.

Having named myself after the moon, I'd love to hear about the Moonfolk.

In the original Champions of Kamigawa block, all Moonfolk had bouncing lands to hand as part off a cost. We (mostly) stopped doing that on the return as it wasn't great gameplay.

Happy Birthday!

[jasper-book-stash]

June-August 2024 Reading Wrap-Up

Hey, sorry for disappearing off of the face of Tumblr for uhhhh three months, but I read twelve books in that time and I'm here to complain.

Religious Text

None applicable.

1/10 - Why Did They Publish This?

Moonbeams and Ashes: Tales of Mystery, Love, and the Paranormal | Margarite Stever

I picked this up from some bookstore here in Missouri under the local authors shelf. I wish I hadn't. These stories were all poorly written, and a good chunk had nothing to do with mystery, love, OR the paranormal. They weren't even bad in the fun way.

2/10 - Trash

None applicable.

3/10 - Meh

My Mother Road | Phyllis York

I picked this up from some OTHER bookstore here in Missouri under the local authors shelf. I wished this book had ended 480 pages sooner. The only highlight was at the end when the grandpa physically kicked a guy off of the porch.

Athena's Child | Hannah Lynn

A Greek myth "retelling" centering around Medusa and intercut with Perseus. It...was just mediocre. There wasn't anything interesting about what it did or changed or told, there was no taking the myth and running in a new direction with it, and worse of all we opted for the Ovid's Metamorphoses route but still used the Greek names for the gods.

4 to 6/10 - Mid-Tier

Crossword Poems, volumes 1 and 2 | Robert Norton

Two itty-bitty volumes covering what were apparently once commonly-known poems that you'd be able to remember based on half of the hint. Decent enough stuff, just kinda boring without that historical note.

Shelling Peanuts and Other Odd Odes | Howard Nelson

Another collection of poems that were ultimately mediocre with a few funny or insightful ones. Not bad, just not especially good either.

Songs of Honour | Noble House Publishers

These were, on the whole, better than the other two, but I knocked it down to 6/10 based on the fact that it took me the entire month of July and a third of August to finish. The formatting was lovely and each poem only took a page, but it was ultimately just "good-to-mediocre" on the whole.

7 to 8/10 - Good With Caveats

Outlaw: Champions of Kamigawa | Scott McGough Heretic: Betrayers of Kamigawa | Scott McGough Guardian: Saviors of Kamigawa | Scott McGough

While I personally listed Guardian as a 9/10, I figured I should keep the entire Kamigawa Cycle together. This is the story of Toshiro Umezawa, everyone's favorite fuckup self-centered protagonist dealing with the consequences of his and everyone else's actions. There were a couple times when something was referenced that didn't make sense in the setting (such as angels, Hell, or pixies), and you can definitely feel the "early 2000s white man writing a Japanese setting based on vibes alone" emanating from most of the pages, but I had a good time calling Toshi a dumbfuck over and over again.

9/10 - Very Very Good

None applicable (besides aforementioned Guardian).

10/10 - Unironically Recommend To Everyone

The Tale of Despereaux | Kate DiCamillo

In my book club, we randomly pulled this one as the one for all of us to read at the same time, and let me tell you, this book hits different when you're a queer young adult in your early twenties than it clearly hit the grown women in their 50+'s. Great book, absolutely adorable, and I love the fact that we accidentally timed it to coincide with the release of Bloomburrow.

Scaredy Squirrel: In a Nutshell | Melanie Watt

Yes, this is an Easy-level book. But somehow, this squirrel with anxiety and possibly OCD (yes, I'm projecting slightly, I kept going "he's just like me for real" aloud when I read it) is now one of my favorite fictional guys. And when he was having a meltdown, the other characters actually gave him space and respected his boundaries. Do you know how impossible that is to find in fiction? One of my favorite books now, hands down.

[bergdg]

Great Goblin Bash: Final Round

"With great power comes great risk of getting yourself killed." - Goblin Arsonist

Well this is it folks! After weeks of eye-pokes, snarls, and gut punches, we are down to the final 4 contenders for the greatest legendary goblin printed (through March of the Machines: Aftermath)!! Our champions eagerly rose to the challenge, and each represents a different plane from across the multiverse. So let's hear it for Breeches of Ixalan, Kiki-Jiki of Kamigawa, Daretti of Fiora and Krenko of Ravnica!!

Below the cut, each of our champions have prepared a short statement on why they should be named champion. But before that, we will ask one final time:

Breeches: "We fight Dusk, mess them good. VIOLENCE! We meet up. ALE AND CARDS! We are pirates. VOTE FOR ME!"

Kik-Jiki: "Wanna know what's better than one champion? Multiple copies of the champion! Wanna know what else is great? Riding a dragon up to a sky city to steal some delicious grub. So if you're awesome like me, you know just what our combo can do."

Daretti: "Where a lesser mind sees junk, I see infinite potential... in eradicating the junk that is my competitors. I've already taken down those who once opposed me at the academy. These novices don't even stand a chance."

Krenko: "Knives are such pretty things. They catch the sunlight oh so nicely, especially when they've been shanked into something fleshy, if you get me. And those rumors about a 'mysterious' Mr. Taz? Forget 'em, doesn't matter. We all know who the real boss is around here."

@askkrenko @vorthosjay @dimestoretajic @mtgbracket

[mtglore]

The Champions of Kamigawa theme deck inserts have been added to MTGLore.com!

While most players are familiar with the current iteration of deck inserts from Commander precons, featuring exclusive lore for the face commanders, it's much rarer for old product text to still have some unrecorded secrets. Which makes these a treat...

The full text of each of the four theme deck inserts are available on the site, along with links to Archive.org scans. It's not feasible to scan and/or transcribe the entire back catalog of deck inserts—I picked these four up in a lot of sixty back in March 2019—but worth it in this instance for Kumano, Takeno, and the cardless orochi Suzue to have their backstories officially recorded 19 years later.

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Jushi Apprentice // Tomoya the Revealer

Artist: Glen Angus TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[incorrect-mtg]

Flavor Text Highlights

So, one thing that I did two years ago (and have kept updated since) on twitter was my flavor text thread, where I went through each set in Magic history and picked the top 4 (or, for some exceptional cases, 8) best pieces of flavor text in my opinion.

Since then, I have regreted some choices and very much dislike the fact I can't edit the original tweets to reflect changes on the rules I followed for card selection... So I might as well use Tumblr as the place to correct all that.

Every day from now on, I will re-post a set from the list until I catch up to it, then eventually update it as new magic sets come out. The rules for selection can be seen after the linebreak below (as well as a full list of sets I've already gone through, with links). The first one can be found here.

1- Categorization

I will always try to select a diverse list of cards so as to fill the following 4 categories of flavor text types:

Cool - Boasts and descriptions that serve to make the subject matter of the card seem powerful and/or interesting.

Funny - Dialogue, descriptions or epigrams meant to get a laugh out of you

Worldbuilding - Flavor text whose biggest strength comes not from what it says on its own, but how it helps build upon either the world the set takes place in or the story of the set in question

Emotional - This one could conceivably be separated in two whole categories, but it encompasses cards that would fill the same niche as the "Cool" category but with a specific focus on either sadness or horror.

However, there will be situations where there might be a number of good flavor texts within a certain category while another is found lacking of any truly great options. In such scenarios, I will simply remove one (and in rare cases more) of the categories and repeat one of the remaining options. For an extreme example, the first Un-sets barely had any non-Funny options, so when picking cards from those sets most/all of the picks will be from the Funny category.

2- Card Selection

Cards will be reviewed only if they have new flavor text (using scryfall's "new:flavor" filter) and only if it's original flavor text (aka no real world references or quotes from literature) while sets will either be reviewed alone or grouped up depending on the amount of eligible cards in the set. Although I don't have a hard cut-off point for how many new flavor texts a set needs to be reviewed alone, the general range is around 150.

For sets that don't reach that number, they will either be bundled with an associated set (i.e. reviewing Commander precons with their associated Standard set) or bundled with a lot of other smaller products until a suitable number is reached (i.e. bundling all early Masters sets and Duel Decks together, since the amount of new flavor texts in those products is very low).

2.1 - Cycles

For some sets, a collection of cards (usually a cycle) will have flavor texts that work together, expand on each other or combine into a single theme. If said interaction is particularly good or if there isn't already a good flavor text that can stand up on its own, a cycle might be picked for a specific entry. Below, I will try to set up a list of every post for this, in order:

Alpha/Beta/Unlimited

Antiquities

Legends

The Dark

Fallen Empires

Ice Age | Homelands | Alliances

Mirage | Visions | Weatherlight

Portal

Tempest | Stronghold | Exodus

Portal Second Age

Unhinged + Unglued

Urza's Saga | Urza's Legacy | Urza's Destiny

Mercadian Masques | Nemesis | Prophecy

Invasion | Planeshift | Apocalypse

Odyssey | Torment | Judgment

Onslaught | Legions | Scourge

Mirrodin | Darksteel | Fifth Dawn

Champions of Kamigawa | Betrayers of Kamigawa | Saviors of Kamigawa

Core Sets (4th Edition - 10th Edition)

Ravnica: City of Guilds | Guildpact | Dissension

Coldsnap

Time Spiral | Planar Chaos | Future Sight

Lorwyn | Morningtide | Shadowmoor | Eventide

Duel Decks

Shards of Alara | Conflux | Alara Reborn

Magic 2010

Zendikar | Worldwake | Rise of the Eldrazi

Magic 2011

Scars of Mirrodin | Mirrodin Besieged | New Phyrexia

Commander Precons (Commander 2011 - Commander 2019)

Magic 2012

Innistrad | Dark Ascension | Avacyn Restored

Magic 2013

Return to Ravnica | Gatecrash | Dragon's Maze

Masters Sets

Magic 2014

Theros | Born of the Gods | Journey into Nyx

Conspiracy + Conspiracy: Take the Crown

Magic 2015

Khans of Tarkir | Fate Reforged | Dragons of Tarkir

Magic Origins

Battle for Zendikar | Oath of the Gatewatch

Shadows Over Innistrad | Eldritch Moon

Kaladesh | Aether Revolt

Amonkhet | Hour of Devastation

Ixalan | Rivals of Ixalan

Unstable + Unsanctioned

Dominaria

Battlebond

Magic 2019

Guilds of Ravnica | Ravnica Allegiance | War of the Spark

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Mothrider Samurai by Mark Zug

[thecornwall]

Cornwall's Random Card of the Day #698: Honden of Seeing Winds

Honden of Seeing Winds is an uncommon from Champions of Kamigawa, seen here in its Historic Anthology 3 version, thus the terrible quality.

Kamigawa played around with signifier subtypes for enchantments. In this case, shrines. Individually they could be a bit weak, and they were legendary, so you HAD to have different types to make things work, and they were in all 5 colours, but if you put them together they started snowballing towards a win. Shame there was no 5 colour archetype support in Kamigawa. This was the block which chose flavour first, functionality second, and it shows.

In Neon Dynasty, they bring the shrines back as enchantment creatures, which goes a long way to making them a lot better. Overall you can see putting them into decks which only have a couple, since having just one isn't such a disaster.

[gemthegerm]

[inventors-fair]

Compleat Success

Congratulations to this past week's champions. Arise, and become the new generals of Phyrexia.

@corporalotherbear - Elspeth, Red Sun's Champion

Planeswalkers are notoriously difficult to design, what with having three distinct abilities to balance against mana cost and starting loyalty. Add to that the recent keyword featured on Tamiyo, Compleated Sage and Ajani, Sleeper Agent, and you end up with a design nightmare for someone who has a max of five days to make a complete and finished card. It is not something that I recommend, for all those who partake in these contests and are reading this. Which is exactly why I believe this is a winner. Everything seems to be reasonably costed, whether you shock it in or not, and the coup de grace for me is the realization that while yes, you could use the last ability if it sticks for two turns un-shocked, it would only be an issue if you kept your other creatures around in the meantime. This is still a bomb in limited, but it's been curtailed to leave it merely powerful rather than busted.

@hypexion - Futurist Outcast

This is a really nice card, depicting what happens when a drive for progress begins to get out of hands. I like the nod to phyrexian mana without using the symbol, and I like how proliferate ties both to infectious New Phyrexia as well as a new modified Kamigawa. This seems like it would be a pleasant signpost uncommon, and I'd love finding myself building around it.

@bergdg - Phyrexian Ingenuity

I like red. Red is one of my favorite colors, as well as undeniably this card. In fact, I can summarize the three main parts of this card, and explain why it's red. Both choices either lead to something in red's wheelhouse, either being impulse draw or burn. But one thing in particular that I adore, is the aspect of randomness. Now, given that this is a game where you have a deck of 40-100 cards to start out with, it's not nothing to say that chance is anything new. But red is the color of gambling, chaos, and praying to RNGsus. Basing a card that is red around the mana value of your next draw is ingenious, and I honestly wish that I had thought of it myself.

~

Now, I know that part 2 of To Arms Commentary isn't out yet, and I'm very sorry about that. I'll try my best to finish it up tomorrow night, as well as get out runners-up for this contest. I realize that I haven't been the best judge, and I should at least be putting in an amount of effort that this community does each week. For that I am truly sorry, and I hope you believe me when I say that one way or another, I'll make sure that this is given the amount of respect it deserves. Thank you.

-@gollumni​