Choose a Side!

A few weeks ago, it was "Choose a Side" week on the Mothership. For those who have been under a rock, it refers to the war occurring on Mirrodin during Mirrodin Besieged between the Mirrans who remained on Mirrodin after Memnarch's fall and the Phyrexians who built themselves up from a singe drop of oil brought inadvertently to Mirrodin by Karn.

This war has real consequences, exemplified by the mystery surrounding the third set of the block, codenamed Action. Yes, even still, we know only the codename of the set. But what we do know is that it's either going to be Mirrodin Pure or New Phyrexia, and it all depends on who wins this war.

Who's going to win? What is the ultimate fate of Mirrodin? And what about Karn, held in the core of Mirrodin and being manipulated by the five Phyrexian Praetors to be the new Father of Machines?

No one (at least, no one outside Wizards of the Coast) knows the answers to these questions for sure, but I've certainly heard a lot of smart people making some very confident assertions.

Stay with me, dear readers. I'll tell you everything.

Today on Journey to Nowhere, we'll look at the facts, I'll give you my thoughts and conclusions, and you can decide for yourself if you want to be on the winning side (whichever one you think that may be).

Well, Durrrr!

I'm excited.

Which is to say, I'm always excited when I get to do any new deckbuilding, and th release of a new set is a prime time to do so. As I've said, one of the best feelings that I get in Magic is that of exploration. That's why I enjoy playing Limited and why I enjoy building decks.

Let's focus on the latter today, as we take a look and a half at a guy I mentioned in my spoiler review...

Spoiler Alert!

So, back to actually writing about Magic. How's about that?

This week, let's take a look at the cards already spoiled for Mirrodin Besieged. One of the things I love about Magic is the exploration. These spoiler seasons are a great time to be in deckbuilding. Possibilities are basically endless, you get to see all the ways to improve your current ideas, see if any strategies are going to get that little push over the edge into competitiveness, and try to figure out the absolute coolest (if not the smartest) things to do with the new stuff.

So, let's try and see which new Mirrodin Besieged cards I'm excited about so far:

Games for Gamers Who Like Games Like Magic, Part 2!

Yeah I'm back, what?

So it's been a while. My bad. Things got a bit crazy between work and holidays and such, but here I am talking to you about Spectromancer. Spectromancer is both a card game and not a card game, just as it is a tabletop game without really being a tabletop game. Meaningless drivel, you say? You'd be right. But I stand by that drivel.

Games for Gamers Who Like Games Like Magic (Part 1)

 Christmas! Time for a little Christmas break.

Since I won't be playing a lot of Magic until next year, I'd like to take a quick break from writing about Magic to talk about some things that were..... well, sprouted from my love of Magic.

So, less of a break, I guess.

It goes without saying that Magic attracts Gamers, being, well, A GAME. But it does attract a certain type of gamer. The type who optimizes and strategizes and likes THINKING not only about playing the game he or she is in, but about how the game is played, how it works, and why it works. To be brief about it, it attracts a startlingly high proportion of designers, strategists, and game-mechanics junkies.

To use some Magic design vernacular... Melvins.

"Ah," I hear you say. "This is going to be one of THOSE articles."

Well, yes and no. Bear with me here.

Ooze on First

So, those of you who were checking out Worlds coverage may have seen something interesting, and a little familiar.

Something a little like... this.

The Infinity Gauntlet

I love infinity. The concept of something stretching out forever is just too enticing. Something that you will learn in math is that there are many types of infinities - an infinite amount of space, an infinitely series of numbers, both countable and uncountable. There are orders of infinity too; as a computer scientist, I became aware of the way we approach infinity: racing towards it exponentially or more, or slowly but inevitably reaching it.

But in Magic, I enjoy a different kind of infinity.