Life in Ravnica; or, The Basics of Non-Basic Basics

There comes a time when every mage must refresh his or her mana-bonds. To return to the places that are meaningful around them and draw energy from the land. For some mages, this is as simple as a meditation on a mountain peak, or a hermitage in the deep forest, or any number of suitably unspoilt pastoral venues. But for others, it is not so simple. What do you do when none of the land around you is "basic"?

There's been a lot of talk lately about a return to Ravnica. And why not? It landed squarely in the sweet spot of great design and gameplay tied to a very evocative creative premise. But that key creative conceit poses a striking problem: How do you have plains, islands, swamps, mountains, or forests when the entire plane is a city? The fact that Ravnica is one of the most beloved planes in Magic is very telling of how successful the creative team was solving this problem, hmm?

The Great Wave off Kamigawa; or, Let's Get Kraken

Two weeks ago, an article on Joystiq unveiled a deck from Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 belonging to a brand-new planeswalker character: Kiora Atua. Then just last week, at the end of Doug Beyer's Savor the Flavor article we got our first real peek at her, and this blurb:

"Kiora Atua is a merfolk planeswalker who commands the powers of the depths. Kiora venerates the huge creatures of the sea—krakens, leviathans, and other denizens of the inky depths—because for her they are evidence that even the most persistent forces can be endured: time, water, predation, and darkness. Kiora is a blue- and green-aligned Planeswalker. She seems calm and wise, but her dreams are bizarre beyond imagining."

Now tell me you don't get a little Lovecraftian shiver down your spine from that last line.

So. A new planeswalker? This is the sort of thing that gets Vorthos going anyway, but this one is particularly exciting for me for several reasons:

1. She's U/G! New planeswalker color-combination ahoy!
2. GIANT OCTOPUS
3. She is deep. Really, really, deep. No, deeper than that. She is deep! Even with so little revealed, I feel like I could go on forever talking about her.
4. KRAKENS-KRAKENS-KRAKENS
5. Just look at that art! In fact, dive in and look at that art after the jump.

Evening Out an Odd Couple; or, Melvin, Vorthos, Legendary, and YOU

I've been quiet for a while, mainly due to being busy for other reasons, but let's just jump right in the deep end. In his article this week, Mark Rosewater outlines the design issues with the legendary rule, but also asks an open question:

How can the Legend rule be better?

With a question like that, how can I resist attempting a little freelance game design?

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.