#magic thoughts

[niuttuc]

Any thoughts on how Plot and Foretell relate to each other?

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?

They both do good work, but it's interesting how simply mirroring when you pay a fixed cost completely changes the entire dynamic of similar mechanics, as designs flow from that difference.

[raviraaa]

[there is something about you, merlin,

i can’t quite put my finger on it.]

it’s magic.

of course, it always has been magic.

but the something that arthur feels immediately when they two of them meet for the first time, is what he has already experienced once before, while he wasn’t even born yet, but still surrounded by his mother’s love and surrounded by…

the very magic that gave him life.

it dies with ygraine, that inexplicable feeling of something and arthur doesn’t even know he longs to feel it again, until he meets merlin…

and it’s merlin’s magic that will give him purpose.

to become the Once & Future King, to finally establish peace in Camelot, to restore the magic to her lands and unite her people.

to finally be able to feel this warmth, this love which he was denied before and unknowingly missed desperately for all those years.

…

a.k.a.

merlin’s magic loves arthur, who is obvious as always, but can still feel it from the very first moment their paths cross

[deliciousmagician]

still not over how sense8 was cancelled. ive never been moved so much by a piece of media. the celebration of sex and queerness, the plurinational and multicultural message. the hot people orgies. ive been chasing that feeling ever since

[krys-lil-corner]

ideal life as a witch/some kind of magic user that lives in a humble forest cottage with all the modern necessities on the outskirts of town and uses magic to create enchanted items and trinkets. (Long post under the cut btw)

Spell/Magic word: Tweek/Edit. Change the item at a cost. Store bought figurines of dragons and other fantastical beasts that through equivilent exchange magic have themselves enhanced. got unrecyclable junk? Use that as matter and energy to add detail to the beings of stone, bringing them from simple sculptures to having such an intricate level of detail you could cut them open and they'd have cells, organs, bones, nerves and muscle, indestingishable from a real living thing yet made entirely of stone. They remain as figurines with impossible levels of detail. When like this it uses less magical energy to have them move and change pose, at night they curl up, close their eyes and tuck in their wings. Also useful for transporting them long distance, want to mail a client one of the little beasts? Make them tuck their wings close to their body, coil their tail around themselves and make themselves as small as possible, less likely to break and snap.

Spell/Magic word: Restore/Heal. Often used before Tweek/Edit to avoid unessisary strain while changing. Putting energy into the object yourself, letting it draw from it's surroundings to heal any damage done to it, useful for mending boxes, torn fabric or simply restoring a well loved toy to how it was when it was brand new. Wear and tear being undone before your very eyes, fabrics fibers snaking out to reach each other and fusing together once more. Can even be as simple as cleaning a surface, your pc absorbing the dust on its surfaces as sustinance to undo the damage of entropy. Maybe even just removing a stain from your favorite shirt. Once the restoration is complete, the object will return to being a regular, unenchanted object.

Spell/Magic word: Self heal. An alternate version of the above spell, this one doing the same things with the difference of the enchantment is permenent, the object will remain magical in nature and continue to heal itself if any further damage is done to it. Good for clothes and tweeks figurines as it removes pressure from the caster to manually cast the spell each time.

There is always a price to these spells, matter must be exchanged so the caster doesn't exhaust themselves magically, thankfully the prices can be pretty cheap if you know what is favoured. -Living matter will always be at the top of the list, you allow some of your own body fat to be consumed? You'll hardly have to rely on your magic reserves. -Dead matter (matter that was once alive but is no longer) also counts towards this, so you can allow objects to draw from your own shedded skin cells and you're good to go! -Byproducts of living things (shed fur from pets, hair from you, poop if you're really lazy) are also pretty high on the list, this also means things like cows milk are pretty lucritive to use. It's also a nice treat for the enchanted figurines, allows for higher magic reserves. -Matter that was never alive (waste plastic, dirt and dust and many other processed materials) are the last matter teir, but some can still be very lucritive to use.

Spell/Magic word: Create. The most costly of the spells listed, this one allows you to fundamentally change the makeup and state of matter and turn it into a new object. Say you wanted a custom case to store a poster in, you would gather enough matter from other objects into one place, cast, and then you'd be able to change that matter into a case for the poster. It isn't like sculpting or drawing, if you think it, it will be projected onto the matter.

[thetelekineticfrog]

Caution

Super long text blocks below. They are also disorganized and unedited

Conversely, magic is helpful to your body (goes through your blood stream and increases the efficiency of blood circulation, fights infections and such because it is directed by your will and your body really wants to survive, can form membranes in place of damaged tissue, many things) and while not necessarily malicious on it's own, your body becomes reliant on it because why continue expending resources on processes that are now happening "on their own"?

Magic will do whatever you want it to do, you need only think it. However it will not continue doing something if nothing is causing it to. This has been likened to a container of gass. If you remove the balloon, the air inside will not stay fixed in the same position. And if you stop willing magic to do anything it will stop doing that thing, as there is always thought happening. Mending another's wounds can be a horrific thing to do to someone and while it might be hypothetically possible to use magic to transform existing matter into flesh to heal someone, the magic is practically impossible to remove from the wound as you would have to think about it without thinking about it.

Magic makes your thoughts better at commanding magic, but either thoughts can draw in magic without having any, or all living things have some magic that can not leave (until they die or otherwise somehow completely stop thinking? Unknown/writer's decision)

It is horrifying that a fundamental and inescapable aspect of existing makes it dangerous to think. Thankfully it will effect you less if you avoid using it.

I just thought of a way gods or spirits could work. Thoughts can rub of on magic, and over an unknown but very long time this has, and surely still is, forming magic that is capable of thought. Spiritsand gods, like magic and all other things, can never be destroyed. They can only be changed. Thus immortality. Of course will can fade from magic over time so gods and spirits need to be around thoughts, or preferably thought about, or even better worshiped. Due to this who and what they are can be affected and even controlled by how they are perceived.

Particularly Complex thought

I am not sure whether the difference between gods and spirits lies in terminology or power, but the difference between spirits or gods and ghosts I have come up with. Ghosts were alive as mortals. A ghost is what happens when someone is fully ship of theseus'ed. Once all living tissue is replaced by magic (this can be due to dying, none of the tissue is living) your entire body must constantly be held together by your mind. This makes doing anything rather difficult, so ghosts get tired out from doing things like:

Making noise

Physically existing, even partially

Particularly complex thought

Being visible

And so on. Hypothetically a ghost could become a spirit/god, but this would take a lot of people working very hard (mentally) and/or literal divine intervention.

Since magic is controlled by thought, being more magic makes you more able to control magic, a magic user is more vulnerable to magic the more powerful they are. Kinda. The more of you is magic, the more magic you can control, but the more magic there is, the harder it is to control. So while someone with more magic would be more effected by the magic in them being altered or moved they also have more to alter or move so it is harder to do so. The more firmly planted in it is the more damage is done if it's removed, but it is easier to remove if it is less attached. Of course it is very difficult to remove magic as you would need to focus on the person or object you are removing it from and the magic without just directing the magic into what you are thinking about

Some of my favorite magic side effects:

-Nosebleeds. Never gets old.

-Coughing up blood. The good ol’ “cough into your hand and pull it back to see blood” also never gets old.

-Headaches. You keep fighting as your head pounds, desperately telling you to take a break. At first they fade within minutes when you stop using magic, but overtime, they become chronic.

-Fatigue. After a big battle, you stand triumphant, and then just fall asleep on the spot.

-In a similar vein, overuse causing you to straight up faint rather than just fall asleep. Darkness begins to overtake your vision in the middle of battle, unconsciousness abruptly looming over you.

-Any of the side effects happening to another person. Maybe two close characters are connected, and whatever side effects character A would normally endure are transferred to character B. When A uses a blast of magic B screams loudly because holy shit that hurt.

-Magic gradually deteriorating your mind. Using it too much eventually caused hallucinations and an inability to retain memories, or even larger scale memory loss. 

Feel free to add more, I’m looking for some to steal

[jacobiandragon]

Do you ever consider magic? Perhaps you wonder if it’s natural, great, explosive power lashing out at the slightest provocation. Or could it possibly be calm, focused, a steady stream pulled out and refined, long strands flowing out into squares and circles, ever interlocking pentagrams and pentacles, held just so until released, as an arrow from a bowstring? Do you ever reach out, drawing a hand through the air, only to find that there is no line suspended there, tense and thrumming, no possibility to sweep out and cleave or resolve itself into a blade, leaving instead disappointment? One’s refined, steady gait not chased by tendrils of magic in its wake, weaving themselves into the floor, ready to suffuse, to drink deep of your domain? The mundane is truly that, the boredom of every day earth to smother the boiling rhythm in one’s blood, to drown out life.

[mochasucculent]

Was looking at refs and since Viktor has two different leg braces I was wondering, do we think he wears them simultaneously?? The refs don't perfectly line up perspective-wise so it's hard to tell but parts of the one he wears during the Hexcore scenes look like they could maybe line up with the brace that he wears over his clothes, but also some parts really don't and look like they'd be super uncomfy. Also HOW does he take these on and off. Experts weigh in

[werepires]

Crush

[mcpirita]

Works by Ozy Worldy 

[tadpole-apocalypse]

Perils of dating a Wild Magic Sorcerer while trying to have a dramatic moment on your grave.

[kidokear]

Imagen how entertaining it would be if these 2 interact. And I'm a fan of possessive/jealous/protective Stolas (Which I don't see enough of <(＿　＿)>)

[niuttuc]

My Favorite Cards of 2024: Bloomburrow

The year is pretty close to over, so let’s go back over the sets released this year (with new cards at least), and go through a few of my favorite cards from that release. I’ll group together stuff released together, in this case it’ll be the main Bloomburrow set, and the commander precons. Extra reprints as courageous critters or special guests might also get a mention. I’ll probably go through one set a day for the next week, though I might skip some days for personal reasons.

I'll start with a bunch of talents that I like, a stellar second outing of the Class type in this set, outshining even their first appearance in D&D. In constructed, limited and commander, they impress and have a range of different designs, and I like them very much.

Offspring was also a very neat ability, and it's always nice when we get something to extend new abilities in a more open fashion, to older cards and sets. Of course, Zinnia goes infinite with Palinchron, but so does a worn down half-tire. Maybe someday I'll even build a deck around Zinnia, but we'll see, I tend to come back to sets a year or two down the line.

I love creative clones, and Mockingbird delivers! And a one-mana clone that can scale definitely hits the mark, a clone you never overpay for is a really good concept, and this was a good way to execute on it without shirking color.

Staying with birds for a bit, Scrap Trawler is a fun design that unfortunately breaks in half with a look. Adding colored mana certainly helps Jackdaw Savior lot, and restricting to flying creatures also narrows down what can enable it significantly. The dream of combining this with a Broodmoth or Valkyrie's Call to create oodles of value out of dying creatures is also a neat addition.

A new Wood Elves always deserves a mention, and one that can grab nonbasics definitely solidifies its role. Clifftop Lookout will stick around in commander decks of mine for years to come, at least until they print much better cards. Plus, it has sneaky reach, gotta respect the sneaky reach that will save my life at some point.

Still on frogs, Dour Port-Mage is here to exemplify the "leave the battlefield without dying" ability that was granted to frogs and was an excellent way to make an ability that's both narrow and a bit open-ended. There is some play in how to achieve that, yet it's pretty unique, and happens to play well in the colors with bouncing, which ties it well with Frogs, but also blinking, exile removal, tucking, and more. Overall, it allowed them to mostly do regular creature things, having ETBs and all, yet still feel like they belonged to the Frogs' synergies.

Gift is a fun ability that works well in both 1v1 and takes a new political dimension in multiplayer (mostly commander). Cruelclaw's Heist is a nice version of the two mana hand attack spell with upside, allowing it to be hand attack that isn't dead when the opponent is empty-handed, lowering the downside of its gift, and gift becomes even more fun in multiplayer when you can gift a separate opponent you're targeting.

Sunspine Lynx is costed fairly, punishes greedy manabases, and looks incredible in foil. Price of Progress can be a bit too brutal, but stapling half of one on the back of a creature that has a solid rate makes for a fun card in commander and constructed both. I've domed a Domain player for 13 damage with this in Standard, and I can tell you that felt very good and would have earned this cat a spot on this list by itself.

I've already said a few times in the past week that I love to have options, and Fountainport as a pseudo-trading post on a land gives me just that. For sure, I love selling my Offsprings for knowledge, my life for fish or my mana for mana. A lot more tokens around these days for this to incidentally draw cards from, and generally a useful card to spawn surprise blockers.

Catch-up cards that are good enough to be played are generally pretty neat, and Beza being a mythic legend version of that effect delivers on it. Stabilizing with life and bodies against aggressive decks, but not a dead card in grindy games, Beza does stellar work and left me trying to see if a commander deck could be viable with more opponents to compare to to make it more likely to get the full suite of effects.

Between the snazzy art and the flashy effect, Cruelclaw makes the list alongside his heist. Look at this guy/weasel! He casts spells for free! My main nitpick about the card is that given his story and flavor, I expected him to be casting those spells for free from the opponents' library, not my own. But I can forgive that, it makes the card stronger, even if slightly less fun imo.

Scavenging Ooze is an excellent design, and Keen-Eyed Curator being a variation on it plays great as well. It was neat to get it right before a delirium set, and the slight differences don't detract from its power much. It was a bit hurt by actual Scavenging Ooze being in Foundations only a couple months later, but it still manages to split the deck time with Scooze in some archetypes in Standard, and that's exactly where it should be.

That Jeskai precon was good enough to get BOTH its commanders on my list. Temporary creatures to get their etbs or other effects early is my jam, as well as attacking for value, and Arthur does both in a nice package. We were missing on neat Jeskai commanders, but with its half dozen of Jeskai precons, the year definitely delivered!

Similar to Cruelclaw's Heist, Long River's Pull makes use of the Gift mechanic. This allows a rate well above what we see in standard, a clean Counterspell, while being an interesting political tool in Commander where actual Counterspell is legal. Giving cards to people can buy an ally very quickly in commander, or make sure a player missing land drops is in the game, and this actually makes me consider this card over the classic counterspell in more than one deck.

The Calamity Beasts have a good hit rate of unique and powerful designs. The Viper has spawned a few decks around it in standard and beyond, and that's impressive considering it's a punisher effect that warps your own deckbuilding to enable. As it turns out, a 6/6 that basically wins the game if you untap with it is pretty good if you can get it for two or three mana, even if it's not on turn 2 and it dies to removal.

Making bats relevant in standard and being a pseudo-sun titan for half the cost, Zoraline handily makes it into my list. When she's around and not asleep, she's a card with a very good rate by herself that does something I like. And then she also enables the main mechanic of bats in the set enough to be one of the best card in their deck too.

Prosperous Bandit is the kind of unusual ramp I like. Creating that many treasures whenever it deals damage on a three drop captures my attention. Getting through for damage on a 3 mana 2/2 sure ain't easy, but buffing it isn't that difficult and the payoff is definitely there.

Finally, the art corner, Bloomburrow had some incredible art that struck home for me. Which isn't to say other sets in the year didn't, but these marked me a bit more, particularly as a new setting for Magic that felt richer than the other stuff we got. With art and story, Bloomburrow felt both rich and yet a small part of something bigger that could easily be expanded later on. Plus, there is a bonus category that'll be in a reblog in a few minutes, I'm running out of image slots on tumblr.

[thimblings]

get with the Crow-gram, Davrin

[ju1c3b0t]

PINKAYYYYY!!!!!!!!

[wizard-loving-wizard]

i'm so obsessed with brennan's interpretation of charisma for an extremely autistic-coded character being that evan gives up the anxiety about fitting in, he stops masking, and instead he leans into his blunt, matter-of-fact nature, and that serves him SO MUCH BETTER in social situations than constantly apologizing for being different

edit: going back to the previous AP, aabria pitched basically this exact idea to brennan so she should get credit too