Shit be Gold!

There is an Alara Reborn preview card, minus rules text

It is the first card in the set. And it's gold. What could this mean?

• They're changing the sorting order. I hope this isn't the case. The current sorting order is good. The only problem is the way it deals with multicolor cards, but they shouldn't have to mess up the entire order to fix it.
• The entire set is gold. That would be crazy. And Wizards has done some crazy shit in the past. If that's the case, I'm going to be pessimistic about it now so I'll look better if it turns out badly. I worry that they're going to mangle the color pie.
• They're just fucking with us. Unlikely.
  

Adios, Bitch

DMK has been slain.

Card of the Day - Liquify and Tie to Infinity

Exciting times. The people (all eight of 'em) are speaking, and they will be heard. Or, if the current poll results are any guide, about three of them will.

Portend was originally a joke mechanic, until I realized it wasn't funny.

That was a joke right there.

Hah hah.

You can stop laughing now.

Portend was originally I SAID STOP LAUGHING a joke mechanic but I realized that it wasn't needlessly complex and didn't pose the rule issues that a lot of my other joke mechanics did. I did cap the turn at three, though. After that, it just becomes too difficult to keep track of. I've fooled around with portend some, but free cards are spooky and I try to steer clear of them.




This is the kind of card I really like designing. You can play it on turn two, but it's worse then. There is no text on the card that says this, but you are not likely to have many good targets for it. Unless your opponent's playing aggro.
Note that the art is unacceptable because it contains a modern city. I am so ashamed.




Big-Ass Demon isn't a card. It is an example of what not to do with portend.

Original Art - Liquify
Original Art - Tie to Infinity
Original Art - Big-Ass Demon

Card of the Day - Mossmurkel

The largest creature in magic should be vanilla. Why? It's so damn big it doesn't fool around with stupid things like abilities.

The extended art is something I've done with all the vanillas in my set. I kinda like the look of it, but my some of my friends say they it is wonky (they didn't use that exact expression).

Once again, I shamelessly plundered the name from the art.

Original Art

Card of the Day - Drakyn

Looks like the mechanic poll is really heating up. And by "heating up" I mean "two more people voted". What's interesting to me is the frequency with which votes change. I was about to write about how it was a five-way tie but I decided to check to make sure and there is again a clear leader. Of course, a single vote has the capacity to completely change the outcome of this poll, so we won't know until the final day which mechanic will claim victory. Isn't it exciting?

Drakyn used to be a 3/1 for [1][R] that couldn't block. He changed to his current form after I decided that I needed more instances of fervor. Cards with fervor often appear to be much better than they actually are and that amuses me.

And yeah, I did kinda take the name from the art. Names are hard!

Original Art

Land Friday

I am unreasonably proud of this cycle of lands (yes, it is a cycle). They do so much, but the text says so little.
You could have it come into play tapped.
You could (in effect) tap a land to play it.
You could let it die, getting 1 mana before it goes.
Also, since it is both an Island and a Swamp, it opens up all the possibilities that having a land type entails.

If you haven't heard the news about Magic 2010, I suggest you check it out. Here is an excerpt:

"There has been some speculation as to which set of existing dual lands will be in the next core set, and the answer may surprise: none of them. We wanted to make a cycle of powerful dual lands that risk-averse newer players would like, which meant coming up with something that didn't involve losing life. Sorry, painlands, fetchlands, and Ravnica duals. Trust me, the new ones are awesome!"

I hope that the new lands are something like this. I don't believe it is quite as useful as the painlands or Ravnica duals, but if printed (at uncommon) it would certainly be a lot cheaper. And I'm not talking about mana cost or power level. I'm talking about dollars or, ideally, cents.
It is unlikely that the new lands will be like Shardcrown Fortress, but stranger things have happened before and Wizards is in the habit of stealing my ideas. We'll see.

NOTA BENE: Wizards of the Coast is actually incapable of "stealing" my card ideas as I have no copyright for them and no intention of getting one. Anybody and everybody is free to use the cards I have posted here (or the mechanics/ideas behind them) for whatever purpose they please although if they intend to use any card on this site for commercial purposes, they should to talk to the artist first. Links to the original art (and, from there, the artist's DeviantArt account) are very conveniently located at the bottom of any post that involves fake cards. Hey, look! There's one right down there!

Original Art

What is a Grell?

I took the name Grell from the Dungeons and Dragons monster (a floating brain with beak and tentacles) but over time I have come to associate it so much with myself that to see it in its original use shocks me. Regardless of this shift in attitude, I recently made up my mind to find an image of a grell to post on this blog. It was much trickier than I expected. The google search I initiated returned only unsatisfactory images. So I went to DeviantArt. THAT was interesting.

It seems that I share my name not only with a D&D aberration, a comic book artist, a former labor party politician, and a cricketer, but also with a...

How to describe him?

I'll let Wikipedia do it.

"Grell Sutcliff (グレル・サトクリフ ,Gureru Satokurifu?) is a flamboyant, cross-dressing, and homosexual shinigami who works as Angelina Durless's butler. He is initially portrayed as worthless and is often seen in the anime adaption trying to commit suicide after mishandling tasks. Eventually, Angelina put him under Sebastian's care, so he could learn to be a better butler. After this, he becomes infatuated with Sebastian. As a shinigami, he is characterized with red hair and shark-like teeth. Grell often refers to himself as a female and verbalizes his infatuation with Sebastian, much to the latter's disgust. He met Angelina while she was murdering a former patient. Although he was to remain neutral without killing for enjoyment, Grell and Angelina forged a partnership and continued the murders. They were known as "Jack the Ripper" thereafter. Grell's shinigami scythe is illegally modified to look and function like a chainsaw. When cutting someone with his Scythe, their past memories are played out like a video reel; this is referred to as "Phantasmagoria Theater". In the end, Sebastian almost kills Grell with the Grim Reapers' own scythe, but Sebastian is stopped by William Spears. William beats Grell and takes him back to headquarters. Grell has not appeared afterward. However, he has made a reappearance in the anime adaption, where his role is lengthened through missions William has assigned him to investigate. He is and his scythe is confiscated. Grell has to rely on scissors which are able to cut through anything. He is able to be easily manipulated with promises of "alone time" with Sebastian."

(From the Wikipedia article on a list of Kuroshitsuji characters)

Grell Sutcliff is a cross-dressing, gay demon butler with suicidal tendencies who wields a chainsaw that is actually an illegally modified scythe. He has, it seems, a great fan base on the DeviantArt. It is somewhat worrying.