#mtg predictions

[inventors-fair]

Predicting Prehistory Entries

Charging Styracosaurus by @saltdust-crusader

Pesc, Primal Schoo by @wildcardgamez

Biotic Glaciation by @lich-of-the-golgari

Bone Spear by @bowtochris

Terami, Firestarter by @misterstingyjack

Ripclaw Raptor by @bergdg

Aerial Kick by @jerdle

Altonian Storyteller by @phyrexiandreadthot

Rapid Carrion by @the-gboi

Horned Guardian by @nordicfatcheese

Glyphbreaker Altisaur by @sombramainexe

Darting Meganeurid by @nine-effing-hells

Torchlight Meganeurid by @corporalotherbear

Jenka, Scarwitch Disciple by @salamileg

Cave Art by @i-am-the-one-who-wololoes

Underfoot Trapper by @an-anarchist-shapeshifter

Stonehewn Spear by @tanknspank

Evolutionary Explosion by @dabudder

Reduce to Prey by @helloijustreadyourpost

Fang Moonseeker by @horsecrash

Megalania Overlord by @cthulhusaurusrex

Marble Trilithon by @hypexion

Necrosaur's Rampage by @curiooftheheart

Gravefeaster by @just--a--penguin

Spiral Ammonite by @yourrightfulking

Saurid Ambusher by @reaperfromtheabyss

Corvid Weaponsmith by @maypletreeway

[hannah-bot]

Realistically i know Vraska is probably stuck on ravnica bc of desparking but Im hoping shes on the wild west plane bc if i see Vraska in cowboy getup I'll [REDACTED]

[hideyseek]

hi. no deadline but im liveblogging writing again

[franticbindings]

If I was designing a Paul Bunyan card that made a */* Ox token, the token would have power and toughness equal to the number of differently named lands you control.

[gcu-sovereign]

Planting my flag on 40k2

The next time Games Workshop and Wizards of the Coast make a magic set together, the commander decks will be built around

Azorius Tau

Gruul Orks

Jeskai Eldar

Rakdos/Sultai/Dimir Drukhari

[homeostasister]

With how hard the Brothers’ War story is going so far on the horrors of war theme, I’m thinking (hoping) it’s going to end on the realization that maybe they shouldn’t be trying to detonate the Sylex, even on New Phyrexia. That, and/or Teferi gets compleated and teaches the Phyrexians how to use it.

[leidensygdom]

Despite how WOTC/Hasbro have sworn off using AI several times (and then got caught using it, like here or here), and then casually firing +1000 employees this year (many of them being artists), their CEO is predictably musing about how to incorporate it, and readily making use of the technology for some other products, and testing how it may be of use for DnD/MtG.

I had mentioned it was just a matter of time, and even when some people were very eager that WOTC would never, well. Who would've thought. It's the same company that showed again and again no respect for its audience, their creators or even the biggest fans. (The OGL mess was about a year ago. They sent the Pinkertons to a fan less than a year ago). Because delivering a quality product isn't really their goal, nor is it to actually compensate artists fairly.

I don't think this is breaking news, but I'm mostly bringing it up in case people wonder where they stand. They also have a poll where you can tell what you think about them (no actual written feedback, only "pick from these 5 options"). And as a final note Margaret Weiss (creator of the Dragonlance, who had some big disputes with them- Including a lawsuit towards WOTC) has come forward to tell how little WOTC has respected her series. Not long ago a book set in the setting (Fizban's Treasury of Dragons) got released, and it cared very little about being respectful towards the world or her work. Which tracks with their usual behaviour, because Eberron was also mangled quite badly.

Just, as a reminder, there's many wonderful TTRPGs that are far more worth to support monetarily, or even available to play for free. (Recently all of the PF2e remaster has been posted on Archives of Nethys- A page that has all the mechanics from all the books for free, which is endorsed by the company itself.)

But yeah. As a small creator and artist, it's surely lovely to see how much the biggest TTRPG company out there respects us.

[sexhaver]

so i am 100% on your side about the yugioh having ridiculous rules about bluffing thing. but what do you think of probably the most infamous pithing needle bit where the guy named borborygmos at a modern tournie and his opponent argued and successfully won with borborygmos, enraged since that wasnt the card that was named. should he have been given that?

yes, imo, with the caveat that obviously the "patch" to tournament rules to stop that from happening in the future is good and necessary and should have been there since day 1. since it wasn't, though, he didn't break any rules, and he closed a loophole in one of the most bombastic ways possible. like he did what sovcits think you can do in an actual court

personally my favorite Controversial MTG Moment was when Pascal Maynard was drafting his deck at GP Las Vegas. drafting is a format where you open a pack, take a card from each, pass them to the the player sitting next to you, and then repeat this process with three packs until you have enough cards for a 40-card deck. since this was a sanctioned event, the cards in these packs also came with a unique watermark stamp to make cheating impossible and make the cards more valuable afterwards. Pascal is drafting a red burn deck, so he's looking for red burn spells. he opens his second pack, which contains Burst Lightning. this is exactly the kind of spell he's looking for.

the pack also contains Tarmogoyf, a two-mana green creature Pascal's deck has no way of casting.

a foil Tarmogoyf.

a foil Tarmogoyf with a unique watermark.

non-foil, non-stamped Tarmogoyf, at the time, was a $200 card.

he picks the Tarmogoyf.

while being livestreamed.

pros lose their fucking MINDS

i can't find many more tweets to screenshot here because a lot of them were deleted in the years since, but trust me, there was a sizable contingent of pro players who thought this signaled the death of competitive integrity in Magic. this contingent named the event "Goyfgate", which is the best name for anything ever.

Pascal ended up coming in third at the event, missing out on a potential first prize of around $10k (i couldn't find an exact number for GP Las Vegas 2015 specifically but this seems in line with other events at the same timeframe), in large part due to the absence of Burst Lightning from his deck.

he then turned around and sold the Goyf in question on eBay, and because of the controversy stirred up by Goyfgate specifically, it ended up selling for literally $15,000 instead of the $1000 people had predicted beforehand. Pascal then gave half the money to charity and still made more money than he would have by coming in second place. truly a story for the ages and a great barometer of how seriously people take card games

[simonalkenmayer]

For those of you unaware of what is happening in USA politics right now, it’s absolutely historic. This is how the Republican Party began, and this time it’s them collapsing.

The Speaker of the House is third in line for the Presidency. It is an elected position within congress. Often it goes to the majority leader, but the majority leader is Kevin McCarthy. He’s being challenged right now from 20 house members of his own party. Which means that minority leader Hakeem Jeffries has 212 votes out of the 218 necessary, while McCarthy has only 202. If McCarthy cannot get 16 more votes, he cannot become speaker. Hakeem Jeffries is in line to be only the second black speaker in history. It looks as if those 20 will stand their ground. If they continue to hold the election hostage, we cannot place a speaker. Stable republicans might switch sides just to get it over with.

The last time this happened was 1856, when the government collapsed beneath Lincoln. And then yes…SC seceded of course, and but a bit later we began the civil war.

If Hakeem Jeffries flips just 6 republicans, he does something doubly historic and the country, in my opinion, will be much better off. If McCarthy gets 16, he does so at great cost. He’s fucked either way for the duration of his career.

Keep your eyes peeled. They voted 3 times today and adjourned to tomorrow. The record is over 133 votes.

Why am I telling you this?

Narcissistic collapse. Remember I predicted a bit ago that we would begin to see infighting and the narcissism of small differences? Well…they’re all bitching and moaning at each other and bickering over the carving of the carcass and how much they’ll get. They aren’t thinking at all about people. MTG did nothing but bemoan her lack of committees. McCarthy bemoaned his results and claimed he was being unfairly squeezed and so on.

Watch it. See what patterns you notice

[markrosewater]

I just saw a collection of 7 screenshots from 2011 thru 2018 from this blog where you repeatedly shoot down the idea of doing mtg crossovers. You said "We think it's important that Magic is one cohesive game, and not a hodge podge of different things." This hurts to hear because it's verbatim sentiment that has been expressed to you about UB which you shot down as unreasonable, and you never addressed the contradiction. I know things change, but how can we trust what you say to us here?

I've never said anyone's feelings are unreasonable. People can and should feel justified believing whatever they want. My goal on this blog is to share with you my best sense of where Magic design is at that moment. Often Magic moves in directions I can't predict.

If you asked me ten years ago, as many people actually did, I wouldn't have predicted Universes Beyond. But now that I'm knee deep in it, and I've seen a lot of data based on the ones we've released, I'm a convert. I believe it is something that will bring lots of happiness to Magic players. For example, I was in a playtest for a Marvel set the other day and it was one of the most fun playtests I've had in years.

I'm a huge fan of Marvel, and, obviously, a giant fan of Magic, so bringing those two loves together is quite joyful. It really hammered home to me the power of Universes Beyond.

Trust is a thing to be earned, and I've worked hard for twenty-eight years to form a trust with the players. I've never lied to you, but I have said things that I didn't think would happen that did. Saying something not knowing the future isn't lying. I 100% believed the thing I said when I said it.

Also, I always stress that I couch future talk with the mindset that I don't use my future knowledge. If I know we're doing thing X next month, I'll act as if I didn't know that when asked about it, because it's important for me to not ruin the surprise of what's to come. This is much more like not telling someone they're having a surprise party than straight up lying, but yes, whatever you want to call it, me not ruining future surprises is something I do regularly on this blog, and I'm totally transparent that I do it.

[mtgtips]

MTG tip: Your opponents can't predict what's in your deck if you don't know either.

(Based off of a LoR freebuild deck I made with 20 champions)

(also sorry if this one's been done before lol)

Magic the Gathering tip: here at magic the gathering tips we reuse the same jokes over and over and you schmucks reblog them anyway. blue player counterspell am i right everyone

[inventors-fair]

Predicting Prehistory Winners!!!

Jenka, Scarwitch Disciple by @salamileg

I really like this!! It’s a fun design that encourages getting your creatures into combat and rewards risking them. It’s a very solid design that I really don’t have much to criticize.

Reduce to Prey by @helloijustreadyourpost

Only thing I’d change is turning “target creature you control” into “up to one target creature you control”. I think it would be good to let this have a mode where you can still deabilityize a creature even if you don’t have a creature you can or want to let fight it. Otherwise, this is great. It’s a fun way to evoke the feeling of vanilla matters without actually… doing that.

Rapid Carrion by @the-gboi

That’s an interesting limit since it means it’s rare it’s gonna trigger during combat, being the biggest thing around, it mainly is gonna trigger through removal which makes the haste of the tokens more meaningful. I like this!

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

wotc/hasbro apparently see "great future" in using AI in D&D so. that should be enough reason as any to jump ship!

https://www.wargamer.com/hasbro-ceo-ai-predictions folks it's so over that it's never even started

[livwritesstuff]

More steddie dads content I really want some Eddie centered like teaching the girls guitar or dnd especially since Robbie is like him I think that they’d bind over a shared interest and he’d teach her stuff from when he was younger!

lol yeah the last few have def been more steve-centric (and also kind of a bummer) so let's switch up the vibe a bit

So, yes, Robbie is Eddie's daughter through and through.

She's stubborn and brazen and loud in her opinions and beliefs. She can be a little flippant about other peoples' feelings when she's not careful, and sometimes struggles to acknowledge the validity in other experiences outside of her own - in other words, she's Eddie to a T. She's even got the same big curly hair (though it's way more well-maintained than Eddie's had been thanks to Steve).

As for hobbies, Robbie is the only one out of Eddie and Steve's three daughters to really take an interest in music.

Eddie is thrilled about this, especially in the early days when Robbie is seven or eight and dying to try out any instrument they put in front of her. She has a natural proclivity for nearly all of them, which is fucking wild to Eddie, but the violin is the one she takes a particular shining towards.

Eddie can't say he'd ever had a resounding interest in classical music, but he wants to support Robbie so he dives into it right along with her.

That shit...

is metal as hell.

Seriously rad.

Eddie anxiously waits for her to be old enough to try out his old electric guitar. He waits until she's fifteen years old - the same age he'd been when he'd gotten his first electric - and then he digs it out of storage and bestows it upon her like the exquisite treasure it truly is.

In true teenager fashion, Robbie is...unimpressed.

She humors him for a bit, and to her credit, she does seem at least a bit intrigued by the almost forty-year-old guitar, but when Eddie offers to show her how to play, she only shrugs.

"I don't want to mess with my technique," she tells him, as if she's not shattering his heart into a bazillion tiny pieces.

"What does that even mean?"

"I dunno," she shrugs again.

Later, once the guitar has been safely put away, Eddie recounts the exchange to Steve.

"I just don't get it," he laments, "She'd be so good at it! I don't get why she won't just give it one chance."

"She's you, my love," Steve tells him, "Are you forgetting all the years you spent rejecting everything outside of what you deemed acceptable. You grew out of it. She will too."

So Eddie resigns himself to waiting it out. Robbie ends up deciding she wants make a career out of playing the violin, and she goes to New York to get her bachelors in music.

Just as Steve had predicted, once she hits college and grows up a little bit, she starts seeing the value in the world outside of the small corner of it she occupies. She comes home from her first semester regaling them with all the things she'd learned, and she catches Eddie by surprise when she asks him to bring out his old electric guitar.

Eddie and Robbie jam in the basement for like five hours before Steve insists they go the fuck to bed, and that "Hazel has school in the morning, in case you lunatics forgot."

(As for dnd, looking at it from the perspective of teenage girls, Steve and Eddie's kids absolutely do not want to think about their dad DM-ing. Eddie can't even breathe the wrong way without his daughters calling him out for being cringe or whatever, never mind executing a whole campaign. They'd die of embarrassment - guaranteed.

Robbie does get super into MTG in college, which Eddie absolutely takes as a personal F-You from his daughter. He gets his revenge by refusing her offers to teach him to play, even though it honestly sounds like a fuckin' blast, but that's a hill he's willing to die on)

[bace-jeleren]

This shit turns 10 this month, so I'm probably gonna draw some art, because for as flawed as this shit is, it was so fucking special to me. I wouldn't be here, spitting up 320k+ word-long Kaito/Wanderer fanfiction without this weird MtG highschool AU that predicted War of the Spark.

So, like, expect some Jaciana. Like, other things, too (*looks directly at Baltrice*) but this was a Jaciana fic first and foremost ♡

[etirabys]

I'm considering getting into Magic the Gathering. Going to game houses on MtG nights and stuff. Meeting randos is kind of chancy to start with and the most common blockage to friendship I've found is politics , so I'm considering a new strategy

my old strategy with people I meet outside of rationality* was to play down disagreements and subtly avoid politics conversations, but this led to conversations where someone would like, ask me straight out whether I'd shown up to vote for X (as it happened, I was in fact strongly for X, but I resented the hell out of the question)

* there are plenty of rationalists I disagree with politically, but the rationalist community has "be civil and charitable and open-minded and focused on facts/predictions" norms about politics. I'd rather discuss politics with someone who votes very differently from me but abides by those norms than with a random American who votes identically

I'm considering a new strategy of saying, the first time someone talks to me about politics, "I probably don't share your politics, I don't consider myself aligned with any well known coalition, and I won't discuss most politics. If I'm in the right mood I might debate the merits of various voting systems with you, or whether a policy is likely to have X or Y effect, but I'm not going to talk to people about topics where I sense that they've lost the ability to see their ideological opponents as intellectual peers."

(Sidenote: I have my topics where I have trouble seeing my ideological opponents as intellectual peers, I'm really not happy about this, and I don't like to talk about those topics because I sense my brain isn't working)

helck. the thought of saying that makes me anxious – I'm bad at using my face and mouth to communicate to begin with – so maybe I'll print the difficult-to-say-cleanly part out on a card and show it to people, bookending it with the correct mouth words. also maybe the card can say "sorry I had to resort to printing this on a card. I find this a difficult boundary to articulate and set"

or maybe I could get a similar effect by saying I'm a monarchist. possibly it would be even better for my growth as a person to go tell outrageous lies. I could look through my sci fi worldbuilding notes for the most hilarious-yet-defensible ideology (Challism?) and go to bat for it with a straight face