Pseudo-Newb and what I've actually been Playing plus Balticon

The last tournament like thing I played was FNM on May 11. It was standard and it was the first time I had cracked standard in a while.

I did not do well. The first round I remember quite clearly why I lost - I was playing a white humans build and I had no answer for the turn three wurmcoil engine in game 1 which was over very, very quickly, the second game I boarded in some artifact removal and the game became more even but we were almost in danger of playing out to a draw.

It's been two weeks so I can't remember the second round except for the fact that it was another fast green ramp and I died horribly.

Once again I realized that the most important thing for me is to keep moving the cards. I need to play. I don't need to play like the pro's do but I can't not play for a couple of weeks and make decisions quickly enough to stay competitive.  I still don't want to play MTGO so I'm really, really hoping that the Ipad Duels of the Planeswalkers app will work well. If I could play pick up games wherever I am against an AI instead of having to carve out time that would let me get my "maintenance practice" in while still having the rest of my real life that keeps eating up chunks of my time.

I did win the next two matches but I won them very quickly and definitively in a way that made me question whether I was doing well or I was just playing moderately better than my late pairings.  Luckily my last pairing for the evening was someone who was actually one of the known quality better players. In the straight round I beat him because he was playing a rouge combo reanimator deck.

(*newb note - rouge means that there haven't been 50,000 articles on the intarwebs talking about this deck and how it's awesome/evil/weak in other words it's not one of the "in" deck strategies or archetypes.

reanimator - means that it has effects as part of it's strategy where you have things in your graveyard and you have other cards that let you get stuff out of your graveyard - this is a description of strategy not an actual card or ability.

I'm still having a problem identifying when things are combos and not synergies but in this case

combo means that the deck strategy is dependent on a combination of cards to win the game in this case it was comboing Unburial Rites and Craterhoof Behemoth with something that made lots of little creature tokens so unless I killed every single creature he got on the board he'd be able to swarm with lots of those little creatures getting boosted from Craterhoof and tramply.

end of newb note   )










































So when I explained how I was feeling ( because the FNM last week made me wonder what the heck I was doing ) we had so much time that we actually played about six games against my delver spirit deck which was very mid range and my white humans deck which was not.  And I beat him enough with both his better deck than the rouge bit he was playing and he was able to play against me to identify the usefulness of his reanimator craterhoof deck.

The best part of that was that I really felt like I was actually playing Magic.

I really, really like playing Magic.

And it's important to play people who are better than me. Because everything is abstract until I'm actually moving the cardboard.

So

Preparation - I was playing my delver deck for the tournament. I just felt like I needed to to make sure I had really explored that version of it before I changed it.

Results
0-2
1-2
2-0
2-0

That is a 50% win rate for matches and out of 9 games played 5 games were won for a 55.5- % total win rate.

This needs to improve

Takeaways
If I want to play standard i need to practice with standard, no matter how much causal play or teaching with cards I'm doing it's not the same as playing for me.

So what have I been doing for the last several weeks:

Booster Smash

I've been playing multiplayer booster smash with friends to open my box of Avacyn Restored, still a great way to learn the cards and get to play with all of them but not good for Standard practice.

Booster smash - Everyone has three booster packs, everyone gets five lands of each color - don't look other than to take out the land and the token.

Play.

Commander/EDH

I spent another long evening at Mr. Pointy's house playing my own copy of the Kaalia EDH/commander deck.

I'm beginning to get the hang of it and might be ready to modify it. I learned a new variation of casual play where you "attack left" or "attack right" in a multiplayer. I went with the Perfectly Normal Husband who sat between me and Mr. Pointy. He was playing a Mimeoplasm Commander deck and sitting between me and Mr. Pointy he just got smashed to bits in the middle. Once again I seem to be running about 50% win rate when I am playing against better players and none of the games were short  most of them are kind of nail biters in the end so I think that I'm playing strategically rather than luck, I'm certainly not playing top tier decks.

The difficulty with playing commander and legacy formats is that I'm REALLY unfamiliar with all the cards that are used or the archetypes so I awlays feel like a five year old "what's that? what's that one? What does that do? . . " but the people I'm playing with are very understanding and know what I'm trying to do so it's all been good. I'm warming up to commander but I still don't really want to spend time with multiple commander decks I'll stick with one and customize it so that I have something to play with friends who like it a lot.

Intro Pack Wars


My last final was the two days before that FNM. That weekend I was going to a conference with the Perfectly Normal Husband that involved finance and taxes, I couldn't pack enough to really deck build but I did bring some decks in case we got bored. I did get to play some standard ( Humans vs Zombies, Creepy Dolls vs Zombies)  on a really beautiful wraparound porch, but he had also bought packs and snuck in land to surprise me with enough packs to play a few booster smash games on the night they were having the big Texas Hold'em corporate sponsored tournament we played intro packs in the same room so all the high falutin' networking types could find us without having to try to figure out why they keep organizing activities for CPAs that involve gambling.

So we played Angelic Might vs Slaughterhouse with me on the side of angels and him consorting with things demonic, because you know sometimes I have to play against Type.  Angelic Might kicks Slaughterhouse's butt. So for four days of the conference I was playing at least an hour or two of magic per day. Then when we came back it was time to get ready for The Boy's gaming and anime convention that he had been working on all year.

It was his first time as con-chair, hopefully the experience will teach him not to do it for larger conventions. It's best to volunteer with a department not run the whole thing.

However The Boy's convention featured a Magic Tournament - non sanctioned. Prize was two packs.

First time it was better to be a woman playing Magic than a Guy


First things first. My experience with teenage magic players is that the come in a few different flavors, they can either clean my clock or they are super casual, or they are beginners themselves or they are really super arrogant and consider whatever they do superior to whatever else anyone is doing with the cards. There are a few other types but those are the ones I tend to run into.

This convention is open to the public but it is also The Boy's convention and I am going to support it. I put on my best ageless/mostly genderless clothing pack up my backpack full of decks and go.

Is it bad that I was kind of hoping that his school was full of the kind of teenagers that could clean my clock?  I knew given the timeframe that it wasn't going to be any kind of regular tournament. Here's the thing. I brought and FNM competitive deck, I brought the deck that I played at GPBalt which is a delver build and I brought a super casual deck with creepy dolls because I always have fun playing with it.

What ended up happening is that a boy who I knew came over and was happy to find out I'd be playing but I asked him what kind of kids/decks I should shoot for. Because if they were all kitchen table just learning players I was not whipping out a Delver deck. I don't need to win two packs that badly.  However he convinced me to actually play the tournament deck because they were just crossing over from beginning players to being in danger of being "really super arrogant" and it would be good for them to see what would happen against a competitive deck.

When I saw another kid I knew who played I felt better about that because I knew this kid has placed at FNM before so I didn't feel weird. I'm so exactly in the middle between being a new player and being a good player that this really was kind of awkward for me.

I ended up playing pick up games for about two hours before they figured out that the guy who was supposed to be running the tournament had just kind of walked away. The FNM kid was given the ability to negotiate with us an we came up with a kind of tournament that got the packs awarded. During this time maybe half of the boys knew me from outside of Magic and the other half had no clue who or what I was.

And it did occur to me while I was playing and bonding with the other magic players who were all 18-20 that if I were a guy my age coming in with different decks, actual game supplies and a tournament record ( even if it is a sucky one), if I weren't actually someone who ran a game store I would be looked at as either kind of creepy or kind of pathetic. Parents of the students might assume I'm some kind of threat to their children because we have made everything older males do with younger people seem like a potential danger.

Instead because of being female, in that environment, I was either weird and cool, or from the parents point of view just incomprehensible. (weird).

It was also more acceptable for me to be really competitive against the boys because of the sexism of soft expectations. If I were an old guy trying to beat them for two packs and a meaningless tournament I would have looked at as some kind of competitive freak. If I'm actually trying to win as a woman - well let's say I haven't seen "My Mom won our local MTG Tournament pretty much anywhere. Mom's like MTGMom help schlep their children and run support but there isn't a really big my Mom plays Magic thing.

Once again - being female gives me an out with the mainstream because I happened to be the Mom of the con-chair so other Moms would see it just like going to their kids' science fair. It was the one and only time I've ever had being a legitimate female gamer give me an out with all sides and I was extremely conscious of the fact that it would be rougher for a male gamer my age.

There are complications to that, I don't look like a "MOMTM", so most people figured I was either a friend of one of the teachers or a college student, but really that's just lucky genetics, another woman playing would still have been looked at as safe - to neutral as long as they weren't channeling "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills"  and I AM back in college so carrying the backpack is organic not something I'm doing to fit in or fake anything.  But it really does drive home how gender roles and age roles really do isolate us from each other even in something as innocuous as Magic.

Even here on the journal I am hesitant to identify myself as a parent because there are many other parents who would chatter and it's hard enough to feel like I'm being seen as a person and a competitor but the second you identify yourself as a parent people run to identify you through that label exclusively in a way that doesn't matter for men but is incredibly suffocating ( at least for me) as a woman. I don't want to have to deal with that in the game.

But when I did my review of red card art I did out myself so since this is the competitive journal an the eternal questions of how to identify myself so that I don't get niched out of Magic Culture are continuous distractions to my game play it should go here. Because finding a way to play "appropriately" at that event took up a lot of head space.

Results


I played standard again legacy decks
White Humans won 5 out of 7 games, Delver won 3 out of 4 games, unfortunately the one I lost was in a single elimination game that knocked me out of the running, so I was 3rd which I was pretty comfortable with. They were good games. I go to sling cardboard.

One Last Thing

Here's what I was really impressed with - that con was mixed race and gender all the ways races and genders can be mixed.  It was better than central casting, there were NO minorities or majorities, there was no problem with any of the fancier new gender identifiers being themselves everyone was greeted openly, almost everyone involved with the con is also an active member of their school's gay straight alliance.

The only real "old lady" moment I had was when I realized the genders were about 50/50 ( with nuances on both 50's)  and the color mix was melting pot ( not just black and white either) and not a single one of them noticed or cared.  It wasn't even that things that happens sometimes where it's like 50% white and 50% everyone else. Plain old Caucasians were maybe about a third of the attendees.  It was just gaming and anime fans and my god it was fucking awesome. And when I realized it I cried, because no one there felt awkward at all. (except me, just cause I'm old).

Diversity, they've got it, because their culture is accepting, friendly and loving. And they mean it.

I hope they take over the fucking world.  Or at least gaming.



The other thing I've been doing while I could not play regularly:

So if you are actually a visitor reading here because I gave you this link and you're super bored and waiting in an airport you may or may not know about the ongoing art controversy and gender issues in Magic Online culture re: the art for Avacyn Restored.

And lo it occurred to me that when they talk about women's reactions to the art they are frequently either citing the opinions of girls who already play with them or the mythical " woman who sees the art" so I decided as service to the Magic community to actually record my impressions of "looking at the art" so there was at least one live woman who does play Magic who will not tell you that the art is just fine or tell you that it's so offensive I'm going to quit the game.

So I'm snarky and sardonic and I am 4/6 of the way through my art Review of Avacyn cards

The thing I wrote that started is is here

Pseudo Newb and the Trite Artwork rated PG 13

And then there is the first entry in the Art Review

Pseudo Newb - One Female's Reaction to the Avacyn Card Art   White is on this page

You'll be able to bounce around if you're interested


 Blue is currently Live      Black is Currently Live      Red is currently live     

Green due soon   Other due soon


Balticon is it's own entry later.  I played commander, standard, taught a bit and got about 500 Kamigawa cards. 


The End


Back to the art review for me. Maybe I'll make it to Draft tonight 

Pseudo Newb- One Female’s Reaction to Avacyn Card Art: Red

Pseudo Newb- One Female’s Reaction to Avacyn Card Art: Red

Ah Red. It's the color I always want to play and rarely do. 

It's Time for the Red Cards

When I'm done I will put a full Table of Contents with the intro and link but for right now the review with all of the appropriate warnings and an explanation of who I am and the data for you to pre-judge me is here in the Review for White. and if you read that but missed Blue Blue is here if you read those and missed Black, Black is here. 

The problem with Red

So here's the thing about red in the color pie. Red is supposed to be the color of passion, "freedom, fire and impulse" at least according to the official Wizards shpiel. 

However "passion" and "impulse" seem to exclusively indicate 
"anger and burning things down" and occasionally "blowing things up" and "nature hates you"

also "freedom" to me equals "choice" not " so-stupid-I-only-do-random-shit-that-might-screw-up-any-incremental-advantage-I-might-get-because-of-random-luck"

Senseless risk taking does not equal " freedom" or "impulse" mistaking risk taking for "freedom of choice" explains an awful lot of political and corporate decisions made in the last 20 years and perhaps bears some explanation of the extremely limited imagination applied to the interpretations of red. 

For instance I personally hate the "angry fiery amoral redhead" trope of Chandra and infinitely prefer the witty, shrewd and powerful dark haired Jaya Ballard as a representative of red.

In mechanical flavor I would like to see things that are more "freedom" or "choice" based like red spells that break enchantments OR cause 2 points of damage.

In "impulse" I'd rather see things that look like they would be fun or pranksterish instead of having a "damage you"burn your hands" downside. Like a boring effect or a crazy effect, the boring strategic effect burns you but the "fun' chaos effect doesn't.

Red should also be the color of intense joy, not just unfocused anger. 

Red should be the color of impassioned love ( you can do that without sex honest - Call me WoTC ) Red is where you go on the quest because of the joy of ADVENTURE!! Not just the sense of Duty that makes all the good Zealots go white. 

There have been mothers in Magic and those mothers have been red:

 

Sooo . . .  right from this we can gather that only Goblins have babies? Quick let's do a search on the word "mother" in the Gatherer and see what we get?

So Old women damage you, Actual Moms taunt the dying and Dragon Moms spawn and sacrifice each other to make bigger spawn. Because other than Phyrexian Vatmother this is all you get. 

Oh wait  . . .  here's one more actual mother doing exactly what "actual mothers" do - dutifully protect you from all the big bad stuff  . . . . but she's a wuss at 1/1.

So why do I bring this up = because when I think of passion, impulse and I'M GOING TO BURN DOWN THE FUCKING WORLD AND START WITH YOU!!!! It's never something I see depicted that would turn an otherwise normal civil human being into a fire filled rage machine.  Hurt me dude and I'll be all Blue on your ass. I'll wait until you sleep. I'll plan and screw with your life goals. If you're hurting or going after me I've got time. 

Try to destroy a country group or law that I feel is necessary and I'll be hanging around in white with Duty and Righteousness and all of the angels ( or the angry mob that I've incited) on my side. Hurt or oppress something I think needs protecting and most likely I'll turn Black with a little Royal Assassin or easily sacrificing things I value less than the things I am trying to protect ( and by the way a little more positive portrayal of "ends justifies the means but without crawling bloody guts" would be nice in Black too). 

BUT  . ..  you want impulse, passion and hardcore sexy I DO NOT CARE WHAT ELSE AROUND YOU BURNS . . . . 

Go after one of my kids. I only have two and frankly they've both been raised so they can protect themselves for the most part, which means if you hurt them and they didn't deserve it, or you found some soft underbelly of theirs there will be no part of the earth that will let you rest if my anger towards you had the power of plane walkers behind it. 

If you actually killed my children ( or sacrificed them for a bonus) I would then get all Ming the Merciless on your ass. My whole life ( and if I were a card my whole battlefield existence) would be dedicated to destroying everything you loved. 

That's how you transform a perfectly average mother of two 

Into the person who sets up an entire Empire in underground caverns just to destroy you. And maybe the planet you are standing on. 

Yeah that's right - they're both really me. Those kids are my spawn. I've got a whole Evil Overlord wardrobe just waiting in case someone tries to mess with my kids. 


How would an actual passionate protectiveness or rage work:

How about - the maternal card creates spawn tokens at  1/1 it's maybe a 2/2 or a 1/3 while it's doing that - if you destroy one of it's babies it goes from what it is to something that will grow each time you hurt it's offspring.

Or if you kill some full grown creature on the board that has the same type as it it will destroy all your creatures or destroy all your artifacts and get plus counters.

Or if you damage it's offspring it causes double that damage directly to you

Or it gives it's offspring protection from planeswalkers specifically because planeswalkers are outsiders trying to take her children. 

And BTW I will be sexy as hell while I'm destroying you.  If you really understood motherhood, you'd understand that sex was needed in most cases to change non-moms to moms. We don't roll up and die or become sloppy goblins or monsters just because we reproduced. 

I realize that the target demographic of Magic is the supposed 15-34 group of males but I don't think most of them experience their own mothers as breeding pits or careless goblins or that the only point of a maternally based card is to create things to sacrifice.  And also I happen to notice a lot of Magic Writers are writing while they are getting married and starting families and perhaps some kick ass mom portrayal in red and green where it belongs instead of White ( motherhood stopped being a "duty" in this country around 1978) kicking some ass would be appropriate here. When I think of the big impulse emotions they come from two places being in love ( the positive and negative sides) and being responsible for the life of something that almost killed you bringing it into the world.

And as for the other kind of Passion - you know the love someone kind - You guys watch Dr.Who? I didn't until last year. I watched because of River Song. You know that part at the very end where River stopped the entire f*cking space time continuum because she wanted the guy she loved just to know that he wasn't really alone? 

Yeah. 

And because she didn't want to be the one to kill the guy she loved. 

The Doctor: But I have to die!
River: Shut up! I can't let you without knowing you are loved. By so many and so much. And by no one more than me.
The Doctor: River, you and I, we know what this means. We are ground zero of an explosion that will engulf all reality. Billions and billions will suffer and die.
River: I'll suffer if I have to kill you.
The Doctor: More than everything living thing in the universe?!
River: Yes.

That's hardcore red impulse and passion right there WoTC how about we explore that space? 

Or just bring me back Jaya and some Wit - Ok? I miss the pithy . . . 

Inferno
"Some have said there is no subtlety to destruction. You know what? They're dead." - Jaya Ballard

Also WoTC Artists - I should probably point out that I've spawned and I look a lot more like Jaya than either Mother of Runes or any of the other Red Moms. 

(Just a reality check - I was wearing that outfit before I ever knew there was such a card as Jaya Ballard - someone else pointed it out to me when I started playing in September. I do admire her general sense of style 
: P ) 

Ok now that my suggestions for Red are over lets see what WotC brought to the table for Avacyn Restored

Aggravate

OK so when I first saw this card  I thought wussy vampires were attacking bigger things and then I saw that maybe the artist was showing the aftereffects of the poking when you poked at the vampires and they were coming to get your little Thatcher Revolt bits. 

It's a pretty good board sweeper but this just looks like angry vampire horde art and doesn't make much sense if you don't read the flavor text. 

I would also like to take this opportunity to once again point out that some of these vampire chicks are like the ultimate fashion victims. 

"Oh well I couldn't decide between Jersey shore club wear and Rococo period farthingales so I split the difference and enslaved my dressmaker to make sure she did it." 


I do realize that I just used a bunch of insider terms that people who pay no attention to the history and mechanics of fashion will not recognize so "clubwear" is specifically worn to night clubs. It's meant to be trendy, sexy and disposable

Brought to you by Great Glam - you can see more clubwear here

And the Rococo period is kind of Baroque on Steroids which brought us things for women to wear like this:

I figured it was better to show the real things than drawings of the things. In any case that seems to be the cross influence of the Innistrad Vampires - Jersey Shore Nightclubs and the court of Louis XIV.

I don't have a problem with it and the art and texture and consistency of the clothing is good - it's also painted in oils because it Matthew Stewart. I'm just saying a lot of vampires are really, really tacky. 

I would not wear it. 

Archwing Dragon

First Impression - It's a dragon. It's red. I like the pick on the Moonveil Dragon better. I like the functionality of the card on this though.


Nothing wrong with the little Thatcher's revolt style blinking dragon here.

But if you're wondering how it's from Innistrad ( or at least if I was ) the clue is down at the bottom left of the card where you can see this:

 See the Dragon is fighting guys wearing the very important hats from the Ministry of Funny Hats that is so vital to Innistrad and their shields may well be the kind that Kruin Striker will be using later on.

Ok so they're less than 15mm on the card but HEY! INNISTRAD TRICORNS!  

It's all about the hats.  

Banners Raised

I like this card. I like the smoke in the background, I like the angles, I like the composition. I like it's relationship to the card name. 

I think this is a great use of art to coordinate the card and the flavor without being showy since the flavor text sort of moves the story along ( you can read this and realize that the silly humans weren't rioting mobs forever) but doesn't really give the artist anything to focus on.

Battle Hymn

First Impression - Really, you came up with bedraggled looking pirates for a red card where Angles are all over the place AND the flavor text represents angels AND there's an angel that has red as a color and you bring me zombie pirates shaded in blue for BATTLE HYMN?

WTF? Did they buy this art for something else? 

I hope so or Imagination Fail. 

Bonfire of the Damned

Everyone loves this card to the tune of making it over 17.00 on the secondary market at instant speed. However the Miracle frame is the most interesting thing about the art, although I do like the biblical pillar of fire creating the Bonfire. Once again there is nothing specifically wrong with the art except for the fact that every single burny red card is a red wash with come fire and some burning hominids. So there's nothing to really recommend or detract from it. 

Burn at the Stake

First Impression - which creature is that? Oh you know what I think it's the thing the Dungeon Geists were trucking down the stairs.

I wonder if that thing is the new Stuffy Doll in "Serious Magic Art World" 

Second Impression - Excellent use of Innistrad Tricorns

This card did well for me in Sealed

Dangerous Wager

First Impression - Well it's about time!
Love the color  and composition. It's got a little "meant-to-be-on-a-card -but-still-a-little-Caravaggio" influence going on :






Fun Fact - this painting by Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio is called the Cardsharps. 

Also the picture in Dangerous Wager looks a little like John Corpora to me who's column 52 FNMs has been something that I really enjoy reading.

I really like that this is small everyday impulse, freedom, choice without anything being set on fire and destroyed. 

My Innistrad Tricorn's off to you Drew Baker, for following in the footsteps of Carravagio himself and using everyday life to illustrate larger themes. 

Demolish 

First Impression - Is that the Mad Prophet Demolishing things? It would be so awesome if that was the Mad Prophet.

Second Impression - Read the flavor text - meh with a side of meh. 

It's still the Mad Prophet to me. I want to believe . . . 

Dual Casting

So spoiler alert - there were only three cards who's art I found "offensive" as a female and thought were in bad taste for the game of Magic and focused on boobs to the disruption of the actual art - there are 244 cards in the set so that meant that 241 cards didn't offend me at all as a proud carrier of a uterus. 

What surprised me was when the full art was spoiled I noticed some similarities in composition that made the focus go to the point were it was exploitive and was surprised when I found out it was the same artist for all three pieces of art.  So I searched the set to find a piece of   art by that artist that wasn't boob centric to the detriment of the artwork itself, and found one piece of an old guy casting a spell. And I said - well OK at least this shows some originality but the outfit is kind new and different and I'm not sure how it fits in Innistrad but at least it's not more queasy making boobage. So I gave him points for that at least. Until I found the same old guy done much better on this card.  Then I realized cool asian styled old mage must be a character in the stylebook. 

I would like to point out that 3 out of 244 cards is .012 percent of the total art of Innistrad which isn't bad for a game that has to commission that much art and exists on Fantasy tropes and a limited view of what it's target market is. The fact that you can get rid of the art I find actually uncomfortable by either re-educating or not hiring a single artist is pretty impressive. Johanness Voss unfortunately proved that that particular artist wasn't really adding anything to the set as far as I'm concerned. I'll ID him - or you'll figure out who he is during the wrap up. 

So - First Impression - Oh Sh*t, there goes the originality points for artist X, and How MUCH  do I LOVE Voss's use of form and color? 

Lots. 

Now I'm kinda curious about asian robes guy. Did he study with Tamiyo? Did he come here with her and go native?

Falkenrath Exterminator

First Impression - My Name is Falkenrath, James Falkenrath

Second Impression - I know red cards have to be red but can maybe some stuff NOT be bathed in red light all the time?

Fervent Cathar

First Impression - I've never been so happy to see gray green in my life, Also looks like Cliff Claven became a paladin.

"Did you know that buttons on a man's jacket sleeve have absolutely no purpose. They originated on the uniforms of Napoleon's army when he discovered that his soldiers were using their sleeves to wipe their noses." - Cliff Clavin, Cheers.

Gang of Devils

This card makes me happy. It's not Demonic Horde but it's still playful and works with the flavor text. plus it didn't swath everything in red. 

Guise of Fire

First Impression - Pretty, technically excellent - especially the buildings although there could have been a bit more play of light from the burning guy, but boring. 

Hanweir Lancer

This has a very asian style to me I think its the curve of the lines and the shapes where the color is used in a simple form for visual impact along with the style of the helmet. 

Not boring. Not exciting either. 

Heirs of Stromkirk

First Impression - so this is what the more tasteful vampires are wearing.

The costumes actually have a real sense of opulence and seem to actually be made out of fabric. The body proportions are really people sized body proportions and I'm going to have to assume that all of the vampires are wearing the open squared show your mammaries corset because of a style book suggestion by the art director. 

The French Hood style with the neck wrap still looks kind of dumb if you're going for the "I'm practically topless - see my inner cleavage" look on top.

What I really like about this though is that these vampires look like they are headed to Vampire Court to talk nasty gossip about the Blood Connoisseur's attachment to feathers and how far that poor bloke has fallen that's been reduced to taking the Hearse driving job just to get near "recently live" blood, and congratulate themselves for staying low enough not to piss off Sorin when he decided to Barter in Blood. 

Avacyn and Sorin and Lilliana made a difference, but they restored an eco-system. they didn't eradicate the vampires at least. Werewolves are a different story. 

I would also like to point out why the skin shown by this vamp isn't exploitive even though there's lots of boob and leg on display. 

She's not posing for the male gaze - she's on her way somewhere, she's on display but it's for action not for consumption. 

Her proportions are realistic and the clothing she is wearing looks like clothing, not a color-in-the-lines afterthought. Also while exposing bunches of everything it's not fetishistic or relevant to real-life memes other than perhaps the red carpet, but actually it's even less reference to that because she is not stopping to pose. 

She's not indicating any sexual invitation whatsoever - she dressed that way to impress Olivia, not her date, for social status, not for sex. Dressing that way is a method of showing power "We still survive, we are not prey, we  have not fallen, we have not compromised there is no risk for us in exposing skin or wealth . . .  can you say the same?"

Hound of Grislebrand

So Grislebrand has a two headed pet. OK what'evs I guess it makes sense with the Double Strike 

Kessig Malcontents

First Impression - 
"Do you hear the people sing? 
Singing a song of angry men? 
It is the music of a people 
Who will not be slaves again! 
When the beating of your heart 
Echoes the beating of the drums 
There is a life about to start 
When tomorrow comes! "

Second Impression - OOH look a red card with direct sunlight - neat.

Kruin Striker

First Impression - I'm sad that such an awesome card is depicting a vengeful bigot. If it's good enough for actual angels it's should be good enough for you. It's not like you live somewhere where you have to guess as to whether or not there are divine beings. 

I'm going to have to go with the flavor text being the weird part here since they're all carrying shields by Avacyn so you'd think that Avacyn might kinda directly take umbrage at having her miracle undermined. 

Lightning Mauler

Perfectly serviceable yet boring thing. It's like yet another dragon or yet another zombie

Lightning Prowess

First Impression - what the hell is wrong with her boobs. It's like she stuck oranges in her bra. Why are they so far away from her face? How are they both small and too big at the same time?

Wow these boobs while not offensive or exploitive are really distracting from everything else that's happening in the picture which would have been much better if he'd just let the hood of that costume fall below the breast line. 

Boobs - not always a good thing. 

Also the flavor text is stupid.  

Ok it wouldn't be stupid if say, Alex Kingston were saying it, but as stand alone text it's stupid. 

Mad Prophet

First Impression - I think the Mad Prophet should be an anime show. He's adorable. 

Malicious Intent

First Impression - He sort of reminds me of a skinny red Tick from the Tick

Malingus

Ok this is kind of cool if completely abstract and unrelated to practically everything. Actually it kind of reminds me of a snowcone.

Electrical Fiery Sentient Snow Cone . . . . .  of RED DEATH

Pillar Of Flame

First Impression - Isn't that really more of a Bonfire than a Pillar? 

Second Impression - Could that be the Mad Prophet too? The Mad Prophet raining fire on everything totally makes sense to me.

I also like this art because I can easily distinguish it on the table. It's not overdone. 

Raging Poltergeist

First Impression - h looks it's a fiery thing in a cave. This differentiates it from all the other fiery things in mountain settings how?

It's a red spirit creature type. It's in Innistrad - shouldn't it have been causing some indoor domestic havoc or some horror based spooky battlefield havoc or something?

Conclusion - incredibly generic. 

Reforge the Soul

First Impression - This card is beautiful - here's another red thing that's about fire that should happen - it should be about fire as cleansing and transforming. 

Now I do find the fact that the person who is on fire is specifically painted in such a way as to indicate that she is wearing some sort of top sort of entertaining. 

And that it's super subtle so that it's not actually calling back to this :

Now I never had a problem with this card - she's a fire elemental, her clothes are not going to really survive contact and this is a card that made me feel like a strong empowered female (5/4 no less) was in the game. Her nakedness isn't that big a deal even though it's a little male gazey she really looks more like she's enjoying the cracking apart of volcano more than looking to impress a guy. 

But the reason that Reforge the Soul has successfully managed to kind of skirt the naked breasts with something that looks like a sports top issue is that the artist did not paint her breasts individually. 

You'll remember in the Black review where I was ranting about Lilliana's dress in Killing Wave not actually looking like cloth, I linked to a site that makes latex clothing, and earlier in this review I linked to a site that made skin tight clubwear -- Heck, in my first rant about Triumph of Ferocity I linked to a site that actually makes costumes for strippers. If you clicked through to any of those you might have noticed something about skin tight clothing and women's breasts. There are NO fabrics that individually outline each individual breast, even Bikini's create some sort of smoothing connection or fabric gathering or something. So reasonably sized realistic breasted Reforge Soul Sister up there looks like she's wearing a shirt specifically because we don't see the individual breasts. Unlike this lovely new Planechase card:

You see how somehow her "top" covers each breast individually without seams and somehow becomes a single smooth dress against the rest of her body? Yeah NO FABRIC DOES THIS EVAR. Not even latex.  

Artist guy - it looks like you drew naked breasts and painted them colors. Three points for making them large, elongated and with gravity though. I'm not reviewing Planechase so I won't go on for long here unless I find out that you're the one artist who made the three other cards that actually offended me. I'm not looking this up right now. 

But yeah - Reforge breasts aren't porny and look covered, Fire Elemental's breasts are kind of 80's porny but happy and not looking like she's come hithering or doing anything besides enjoying some nice chaos and this planechase card would have done better to paint some fabric onto the dress instead of just painting some color onto the tits and then highlighting them with gold light. 

Riot Ringleader

First Impression- Why does that sword look like a candelabra?

Do you think when they're done with the vampires they're going after the Archwing Dragon? They look like what he was about to snack on. 

This feels like it's connected to Innistrad I like that the artist just didn't throw everything out. 

Right of Ruin

First Impression - I feel like I should recognize that building from somewhere else in the set but I don't.

The color choices make yet another angry mob burning yet another thing look distinct. I like the triangular composition so it's pretty. I like the intermix of the geometric and organic as well and the light almost pastel quality of the yellow in the flame.

So this is very pretty but not spectacular, I will recognize it as distinct from the other pictures of angry mobs and fire though. 

Rush of blood

First Impressions - long boob is long and where the heck are her nipples? 

I wonder if guys ever think about these things when they see the breasts on pictures? Are they just like " whoo breasts" or are they more like "well it looks a little off but I don't know why?" 

Most of the time something is supposed to "look sexy" but just kind of pisses me off instead is because it looks either actively painful ( almost every outfit involving metal in fantasy illustration and video games), or it looks somehow deformed . So here's the thing in real life that corset is either cutting across her nipples or she's wearing some sort of form fitting white shirt which is why we don't see her aureola,or the artist used a real life model with a photo and got one of those super weird angles that happen in still shots when the model is actually moving.

That's actually why people look a little weird in screen caps when they don't during the film. 

This is another one of those cases where if the artist wasn't using the low cut square neckline at the super low setting the angle around the breasts wouldn't have been distracting. 

And to be fair looking at the level of detail that shows even in the card I'm willing to bet what's bothering my eye might make more visual sense in the full scale art, but the cut of the corset and the general firmness of the vampire chick indicates that her corset at that angle isn't really holding up or covering anything and if she's got her cleavage covered that makes her the first vampire in Innistrad to do so.  On the other hand her hair rocks and she's not sporting that weird french hood.

And yet I still wonder - where the hell are her nipples? Even if that is a blouse/shirt non exposed cleavage thing.

Scalding Devil 

First Impression - I wish this were the bright red devil from Fleeting Distraction or Malicious Intent giving the Mad Prophet a hot foot instead of this picture. 

There is nothing wrong with this picture - I just wish the other one was real. 

Somberwald Vigilante

First Impression - Cool he looks exactly like the kind of guy I used to hang out with at the Renaissance festival that made his own weapons and would go vigilante in a world made by Hammer. 

Second impression - that Nicola Telsa inspired basket hilt guard must be a massive pain to wear sheathed. 

I do like it. It has personality.

Would it be petty of me to point out that the gentleman being portrayed is not young, not muscular or trim and not overtly sexy but yet still apparently worthy of being portrayed front and center as a badass?

Could one imagine a female subject being portrayed in exactly the same way instead of being the Mother of Runes What Protects You from Others? 

Just sayin'. 

Stonewright

First Impression - there is no way the guy in this picture is a 1/1. The dude is wearing stone fire dragon gloves on his arms. He misses Johnny Bravo Syndrome because his legs are the size of small trees. 

THIS, this is a fun card with fun art that is not doing the same damn thing every other damn red card is doing. 

I love this card - I wish I were better at using mana activated effects ( timing on that and instants is still a very weak area in play for me - remember I'm doing this review but it's still my competitive journal  . . . oh and flash. I'm not great with when I use flash) however, this card is so much fun to see I'm going to use him to work on getting better at that. 

Plus he's a shaman.  I keep wanting to make a Kitchen Table deck with Mondarin Shaman

Thatcher Revolt

First Impression- I sort of picture this card like a Monty Python skit.  Three people sitting around BSing about how they are being oppressed and working themselves up into running out and declaring a revolution, then realizing no one is behind them: 

Three things can happen:

1: They attack get to the other side say "Well then" and trudge home leaving the raging battle behind them

2: They run into battle get picked up by a local cultist or demon or vamp for a light snack and a buff effect

3: They run into battle and right smack dab in the middle of a holy war they turn the tide because of Honor of the Pure and Intangible virtue and everyone celebrates by carrying off the Champion of the Parrish on their shoulders  leaving them alone in an empty field with the dead and they still shrug their shoulders and go home because they need to patch the roof before the next war. 

I just wish they hadn't used the economy sized Igor thatcher to be the red human token. He's both bland and uninterestingly ugly, he didn't need a callout. 

Thunderbolt

First Impression - I like the use of grays and the cherry-vanillia colored lightning. 

I like this card very much for practical reasons. 

Red is about freedom of choice *** evil grin ****

Thunderous Wrath

Oh Look - it's another pillar of flame moving through a mountain range. 

Is fire the art world's boobs? When they tell you to do something in red is that all you can think of?

Thunder, just for the record, isn't combustable. Just sayin'

Tibalt the Fiend Blooded

First Impression - Neat!  And I got to play him in the pre-release. So now is the time for a little competitive journal stuff again - I like really random effects. I like inversion of systems but one of the reasons I want to be a really good player is so that I can play randomness in a knowing way like a puck style character instead of in a "what the hell? Why not?" way. 

And I did think he was pretty, I'm a little disappointed with his backstory because it feels more black than red.

I kind of feel like the humor has been squashed out of Magic and with it some of the playfulness that would also perhaps keep people from taking the game so seriously that they do things like tilt.

I think his backstory might only be in the fatpack book so far. But bottom line I would have liked to see more actual humor in the devils and a devil based planeswalker and less gross-out malice. I get it, humor is hard, but the overdesign of devils is another symptom of crushing the charm out of the bad guys and lowering the mass appeal of the game. 

The interpretation of devils as written is very, very limited in both design and execution, and choosing to make Tibalt's story so bleak reinforces a kind of cognitive dissonance "you're telling me this is humor but it just reads like a really dark story of someone succumbing to a gambling addiction and pathological insecurity instead."

Tyrant of Discord

First Impression - Giant Burning thing in a town.

Well we've only seen this three or four times in this set, I guess we can stand another one. 

Uncanny Speed

First Impression - Is this the vamp from Predator's Gambit having thrown on a shirt because that corset really didn't cover her tits when she was bouncing around on rooftops?

Gentleman I cannot explain to you how obnoxious sore nipples from a corset are, unless you've ever had to wear something constricting with a seam that cuts across your testicles all day. And to be honest not owning any, I'm not really sure how sensitive the skin around testicles themselves are. So maybe it's not comparable, but I'm hoping that it's close so that perhaps you'll understand. Also cheap lace is itchy and irritating too and therefore not sexy. Please stop thinking cheap lace is sexy and therefore they will stop making it.

Now back to the card - if this isn't the Predator's Gambit vamp then it begs the question - who is in charge of enforcing the code of funny hats in Innistrad, because EVERYONE is wearing the Ming the Merciless TM french hood if they're a vampire and the tricorn if they're a human. Are there sumptuary laws that define these things? If there are I'll bet the Bloodflow Connoisseur is on the committee. Those hats are NOT flattering. 

Vexing Devil

I've got one, It's great in limited, I'm not sure it's a 10.00+ card. It feels more like it should be 4 or 5 but whatever. 

On a design level it's effective because I can recognize the card right away it doesn't blend in and it can't be confused with other cards easily. 

Also I do like the flavor text on this one. 

Vigilante Justice

Oh look an angry mob in red. There are only six other ones in this set so yeah, this was totally the only way to express this concept. 

The art's fine, I just don't care. I'm at least happy that they used high contrast red and blue so it doesn't look like all the other cards. 

The Avacyn symbol lantern is a nice touch. 

But this sort of limited visual thinking - this is where I start envying the Melvin types, if you don't care about anything other than the card text you can't be disappointed by the subjects illustrated. 

Zealous Conscripts

Love this card, she's so badass she'll take you over to her side by force if necessary, even though she's obviously a tight lacing fetishist, hardcore waist training corset wearer. 

I do not say that mockingly. I've said to many a young ingenue being laced into a corset for the first time - "this is the theater, breathing is optional". 

They still have to sing dance and belt out arias wearing a corset and they manage to do all that stuff. 

So go Zealous Conscription Lady, because I love that your waist is in an underbust corset, your tits aren't hanging out but still look awesome and your thighs look like they both hold up the body that has tits that size and that they can power you into battle to go get recruits. 

Zealous Conscripts is a sexy, sexy card. ( I also love playing effects where I can steal my opponents stuff. It might be a thing with me . . .).

This is the end of Red

If you missed White it's here.

If you missed Blue it's here.

If you missed Black it's here.

Green is next after this and it's here

the end