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By: caliban17, Eric Engelhard
Nov 02 2010 2:25am
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So, it's been a while.  I was really hoping to get this series fully finished before the MED4 set list is known, but hey, life happens.  I got married in a fancy wedding, went on a honeymoon, got promoted, and many other things nice things have happened in the past 6 months.  So I had to put this away for a while.  My goal now is to do 2-4 more "full" articles, probably bi-weekly-ish, and then some quick ones where I list the remaining cards with a few choice comments when inspiration strikes.  And hopefully still finish within 2010.

Part 0: Introduction
Part 1: (#1-12): Banhammerin'
Part 2: (#13-29): The Problem Children
Part 3: (#30-46): The Ones That Even WotC Thinks Are Pretty Good
Part 4: (#47-65): The Ones That Are Also Good, and Then the Ones That Might Be Good if You Squint
Part 5: (#66-80): The Forgotten Legends
Part 6: (#81-98): Portal: My Three Kingdoms for a Horse
Part 7: (#99-115): Beyond Lies the WUB
Part 8: (#116-133): Dear Santa: All I Want for Christmas is to not Weep When I Play against a U/B deck

Red on Blue Hosers:
133a.
Red Elemental Blast
Already covered in Part 4.  Will Red ever get a hoser card this good again?  Ever in the history of humanity in the history of the universe?  I kind of doubt it.  Not even naked poker cards with redheads on them are this good.  I think.  Maybe you should send me some so I can be sure.

134.

Magnetic Mountain
So.... your entire mountain is magnetic.  And approximately 617 +/-1 metallic objects are flying towards it at high speed.  I made my brother count every single one.  So many things to say, where to begin?

-Where do you get a rock magnet that big and how is it not ALREADY coated in millions of metallic objects?  It's not like you can turn off bar magnets.  Did you keep it on the Gumby planet?  The plane of Nothing-But-Marshmallow-Frosting?

-Did you know that Magnetic force scales to the inverse of distance cubed?  As a former physicist, I was able to calculate the amount of force needed to have these 617 objects rapidly flying towards it from miles away.  It's approximately a GAJILLION foot-pounds of force.  Like, more magnetic than the entire solar system.

-What does this have to do with Arabian Nights, anyway?  Did they have even have Magnetism back then?  Flying carpets and physics don't mix very well, in my book.  It's like using a magical gateway to another plane to summon a DVD burner or an iPad.

-For the love of all that's holy, WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH BLUE CREATURES?  Are all blue creatures made of metal somehow and we don't know it?  Does Air Elemental have a favorite metal goblet that gets sucked away, and he has to chase it down?  There's not a single creature of any kind, much less a blue creature, visible in the picture.  Unless they're all invisible Air Elementals holding on to their bondage chains really tight.  If this affected artifacts, it would make total sense, but it's a major flavor disconnect that takes me right out of the game.  *sniff*

-Random trivia: It's one of a handful of early cards that imposes an "untap cost" on a creature.  And back in the day, they stacked.  Dream Tides, Dance of the Dead, Island Fish Jasconius, Mudslide, Paralyze, and Thelon's Curse slightly farther down this list, plus maybe a few random others, all stacked with each other.  When Paralyze was on a blue creature and this was out, you used to have to pay 8 mana to untap your guy.  Now, instead, you can untap them twice for 4 mana each!  It's apparently a long-term project of Mark Gottlieb's to make them all work that way again.  It's actually really tricky to do without giving them their own keyword identifier or something.  So, good luck with that, sir!

-As an actual card ability, it's not the worst ever.  At least they hadn't invented cumulative upkeep yet, or I'm sure they would have slapped it on here.  It would be great against all of those blue weenie decks that never actually happened anytime in the past 17 years (ok, Merfolk slightly excepted).
VERDICT: YES (U).  It's nostalgic, and ever-so-slightly useful.

135.

Goblin Flotilla
Ok, I get that goblins are dumb.  Really.  But you gave them a mechanic where A) they are unblockable and B) something bad happens when a creature blocks them.  Do you see the game design problem here?  Who's the dumb one, the goblins or the person who created the dumb goblins?  Chew on that, philosophy majors.

Yes, they still get this disadvantage when they're blocking and when your opponent doesn't have an island.  It's still a bad, bad design.  Like pretty much every card from Fallen Empires, it was a flavorful top-down design with little regard for the way the game is actually played.  Does it make sense that you have to pay a red mana as some kind of super Dramamine to stop them from puking?  No. Dramamine is clearly blue mana while Ecstasy would be red, if we're assigning drugs to colors.  And let's not.

This is the only red card with Islandwalk.  Ever.  No, I'm not kidding, look it up.  Somehow, despite being enemies for 17 years, no other red creatures are smart enough to have discovered how to cross water, which protozoa discovered 3 billion years ago.  Considering that this card is a goblin who has an "I'm a dumb goblin" mechanic printed right on it, and he's the only one who's ever figured it out, that's really not saying much for the general intelligence of red creatures.
VERDICT: NO.  First strike for your enemy on a two power creature is too bad even for limited.  Plus, the way it's worded, it would trigger at the beginning of every single combat every time, even if they were all Pacifism-ed out.  That's just too annoying online.

136.

Curse of Marit Lage
According to flavor text, "Our world has not felt Marit Lage's presence in our lifetime", but somehow every extended PTQ in 2009 felt Marit Lage's presence about 50 times an hour.  She does get around these days, but I guess she still totally snubbed you Kjeldoran guys.  Well, General Jarkeld is your leader, so I'm sure you're used to be being snubbed even by Kobolds.

So she sends red curses against blue things, and has blue wrath against red things in the Wrath of Marit Lage.  So one might expect a blue/red creature of some kind, and not black, but it's not like the Coldsnap guys bothered to read the Ice Age cards anyway when making the set, so I guess we'll live with it.

And I'd like to know exactly how this thing below has "thundering footsteps":

More like slimy tentacle trails.  Also, how exactly do you check gender on this thing to make sure it's female?  Are we supposed to recognize one of those spiky tentacles as the latest Paris fashion?  Call me crazy, but somehow, I don't think the designers of Ice Age had this Cthulu-meets-Eskimo-Pie abomination in mind when they created Marit Lage.  When does 'she' have time to become the best wizard of her age, exactly?  In between eating continents?

It's Choke in red for two more mana, with the slight bonus of tapping all islands when it comes into play.  Choke's actually playable, so despite being five-mana, maybe Red Burn sides it in against MUC with nothing but islands?  I'm sure that match has happened before somewhere.
VERDICT: YES (U).  Its twin Wrath of Marit Lage is already online, and it's a slightly more expensive version of a good card. It's still close, but I say let it in.

137.

Dwarven Sea Clan
No Islandwalking here, despite the fact that they have big, well-constructed, Dwarven-made boats. THAT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.  I mean, clearly they can cross the ocean to get to some Islands.  They're doing it right on the card.  Their whole ability rests on the very fact that they're "sneaky creatures who can use the water to attack things".  Yes it's more like they 'attack' the Sea Serpent ten minutes after it up and smacks you in the face.  But hey, they try.

Also, I always thought Dwarves were afraid of the water, like little hairier Mr. Ts from the A-Team, they didn't suffer no fool who crossed water.  Maybe I'm mixing up my D&D and my 80s action-adventure shows, but I swear that dwarves spend all their times in caves and such and make sweet love to rocks and hate water pretty bad.  Also plants, I think.  But they like mold, as I recall.

And for as good sailors as these Dwarves are supposed to be, it kind of looks like they are about to smack their two ships right into each other and everyone's going to be dead 2 minutes after this picture was taken.  Just thought I'd point that out.
VERDICT: NO.  Just a little bit too not good enough.  Also, you might as well give them the Pirate keyword while you're bothering to notice they exist.  They fight things and live in ships, what more do you need?

IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE ONLY ONE (RED ON BLUE): Red Elemental Blast is like if you bottled awesomeness and sold it as cologne.  Not that Magic players have heard of cologne. Magnetic Mountain could maybe see play against Merfolk if you want to run that on top of 8 blasts.

Red on White Hosers:
138.

Beasts of Bogardan
Magic's first ever Beast, a proud and deep lineage, Magic's first mention of Bogardan, and Magic's first and only hose beast.  Which I think was like a name for an unattractive girl back in the 1990s.  I have this image of Wayne from Wayne's World calling his ex-girlfriend a hose beast, but maybe that was from my teenage fanfic Wayne's World 3: No Way! Way!  So I'm not really sure if it was just from that movie, or from my head, or from California, the origin of all cool things in the 1990s.

This is not a picture of three dogs.  This is not a picture not of a three-headed dog.  This is a picture of three dogs conjoined at the butt. There's just no way to sugarcoat that.  Three dogs, sewn together by some kind of post-apocalyptic mad scientist, standing in front of a mushroom cloud.  With reindeer antlers strapped to their head, too.  Dr. Mephesto from South Park would be proud.

Flavor-text wise, yeah I bet that Bogardan and its creatures are "volatile".  That's what happens when you nuke the crap out of some place.  And before you can say "It's a volcano", I'm sorry, there's no way that's lava, that is clearly nuclear ejecta being blown into the atmosphere.  I taught the nuclear war class at my college for years, I've watched every nuclear test video the military has released - trust me, that's a kiloton range explosion going on right behind this dude.  And by "dude", I mean three dogs sewn together at the buttocks like a non-human centipede.  I would be pissed too if I were them.
VERDICT: YES (C).  It has perfectly fine stats for limited, and it's pretty randomly one of the only cards in existence that hoses its own color and an enemy color on the same card.

139.

Quarum Trench Gnomes
Gnomes are like what, the 4th most important D&D race?  Like after Elves, Dwarves, and Humans?  And in the entire history of MTG, this is the only gnome who isn't an artifact creature made of gears and healing potion or whatever.  And there's only seven of those lame-os, anyway.  But this is the only D&D-style tinkerer gnome that's ever been made.  You'd think Zendikar would need some gnome artificers in their adventure party, but no, they drafted goblins instead...  how'd that work out for ya?

And he's soooo awful.  He's a 4 mana 1/1 who doesn't even have the decency to destroy a plains with his crazy tunneling machine.  No, he prevents a plains from producing white mana - it only produces colorless instead.  He does bumpkins times infinity against non-basic lands that produce white mana.  Considering the earliest he can do it is on turn five, the very BEST he can do is prevent your opponent from casting his Oversoul of Dusk or the 3 other SHM block white avatar dudes.  He was pretty much completely useless for the FIRST 14 YEARS of his existence, because no WWWWW spells even existed.  What kind of white deck could possibly need WWWWW vs. WWWW1 on the 5th turn?

Also, he says to "use counters", but his Oracle text doesn't use counters.  I wrote the Magic Rules guys, and they said a conscious decision was made to not use counters for early cards that produced basically "do nothing" counters.  The other early card that does this is Alchor's Tomb.  That's fine, but it annoys me that Sensei Golden-Tail gets to keep his absolute do-nothing counters going because Magic guys like fox-people more than gnome-people.
VERDICT: NO.  Despite being gnome-unique, he hoses 4 cards in the entire history of Magic!  That were printed 14 years later!  We're talking epic-level uselessness.

140.

Raiding Party
How often are you going to need to destroy all plains in a game?  Seriously, how often?  Isn't the guy playing his mono-white deck just going to quit if you manage to resolve this?  What's the point of doing it all AGAIN?  To make him vomit?  Form lifelong grudges?

And how often are you going to have a spare Orc lying around to sacrifice to blow them up anyway?  Well, by my count, after 17 years Magic has 19 total orcs in the game.  And in my estimation, almost one-half (of 1) of the 19 is a playable card.  Orcish Lumberjack gets the half-point, for the curious.  And it's not like there are tons of ways to produce Orc tokens or something.  There's not any, in fact, compared to Goblin's 25 or so.

So, it's the only enchantment with Protection from another color.  Really, that's exactly what it has.  It says "it can't be the target of white spells or abilities" (the "T" of DEBT), but enchantments can't be damaged or block anything anyway.  And the number of white "Enchant Enchantments" that you could put directly into play somehow?  Zero, since all 4 EEs are blue and haven't been printed in 10 years anyway.

It also has an enormously complicated clause where white creatures can act as firefighters when you tap them or something.  Flavor-wise, it's pretty spot on, with you having to sacrifice your Orc in a futile raid against the darn plainsfolk, who have to send some knights out to stop you from burning the place to the ground.  But design-wise, it's simply an atrocious card that all decent cards should shun and spit upon in the streets while pointing and laughing.
VERDICT: NO.  Perfect for that demographic profile of people who like playing with bad creatures, so they can play with really bad enchantments, so they can sacrifice their own awful creatures, so they can make other people cry and quit the game of Magic forever.  I think this "Elvis" needs to join Spike, Timmy, and Johnny on the list.

IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE ONLY ONE (RED ON WHITE): Um, don't bother?  Nah, Beasts is fine for limited, and Magic doesn't have enough things that are sewn together in disturbing ways.

Red on White and Blue Hosers:
141.

Evaporate
Awesome art, though I don't know why Dan Dare's enemy the Mekon is a red mage.  Red mages typically cover themselves in fur and the blood of their enemies, not nice black vestments and robes.  And they typically don't have green skin or little antennae or enormous alien foreheads (PLEASE DON'T STARE AT MY ENORMOUS MARTIAN FOREHEAD.  EVERYTHING IS NORMAL, HU-MAN WI-ZARD).

Maybe we seriously need to introduce alien as a creature type just for the picture on this card.  Anyway, I defy anyone to figure out what the heck creature that red mage could possibly be in the context of Magic's flavor.  This is Homelands, and as far as I know, it was mostly populated by Cemetery Gates.

I like the disintegrating guy, though.  His facial expression is priceless.  "Like, NO WAY did you just turn me into sand, alien dude.  That's wick...."
Verdict: NO.  Also, one of the most overcosted damage dealing spells, ever.  Even at a cost of one it's still not seeing play.

142.

Omen of Fire
There's no omen about this.  That enormous wall of fire behind her (I think the armor is all "Wonder Woman" if you look closely)?  That's just fire.  It's not "portents of fiery doom" or "future conflagration", it's like a bunch of fire right now all up in your face.  Plus, she's summoned a comet to smash you.

I'm really puzzled by the flavor here.  So Balduvia (the red mountain land) burning is going to warm Kjeldor (mono-white castle land)?  If that's the case, shouldn't this be a white card that hoses mountains?  Exactly how does this card imply Balduvia is burning and Kjeldor is now stronger by making Kjeldor sacrifice all of its creatures?  And also steaming away all of their water?  This general Varchild appears on a few other cards, and yes, she actually seems to be fighting for Kjeldor for some reason, despite her non-whiteness.  Maybe they let her buttle at their country club or something.  Those Kjelds are snobs.

But it means they didn't just switch the words "Balduvia" and "Kjeldor" accidentally, she really is a red creature working for Kjeldor. Flavor-wise, I guess it all makes sense, except that the card still does the exact opposite of what the flavor text says it does.
VERDICT: YES (U).  Not the worst hoser in the world, the global effect of it can be good in EDH and other multiplayer games.

Green on Black Hosers:
If you have some kind of weird Oxen fetish, you've come to the right place.
143.

Lifeforce
Click this link to relive your old memories of playing with Lifeforce.

Now that that's out of the way, I've gotta say, I feel bad for the Black Mage in this situation.  You cook up this epic spell by sacrificing 10 minions, and then "POOF" it disappears just as you were about to finish summoning the dark lord of the underworld or whatever.  So you trace the source of the disruption back and you discover...

"I've just been defeated by a FETUS?  A little martian fetus just countered my spell?  WHAT?  What is this?  Creatures that haven't even been born yet can counter my spells now?"

Man, I would feel embarrassed if that happened to me.  It's even worse than having a one-year old beat you in foot race and you weren't even trying to lose.  Not that that's ever happened to me and/or my nephew.

And it's not even a normal deer fetus or something woodsy like that.  Again, aliens seem to be taking over flavor on red and green hoser spells in early magic for no apparent reason.  I guess if we can have Battletech Power Armor and Alaborn Musketeers, there's room in Magic for aliens too.

Though I love my Phantom Centaur and my Compost, Lifeforce is one of only three green counterspells and is truly the greatest Green on Black hoser ever.  It allows you to kill black creatures before they arrive!  Stop black's discard!  Stop them from killing your guys!  All for just two mana per activation, which you should have plenty of since they can't kill your Elves and Birds anymore.  So WotC, you should look into getting this for us.  Maybe for Christmas this year?
VERDICT: YES (U).  I can't wait to use my fetus-powers to start making black guys angry.  Wait, that didn't come out right...

144.

Thelon's Chant
What I said about this one's opposite number Tourach's Chant holds doubly true here.  There are now several Black creatures that like having -1/-1 counters placed on them.  In fact, this is such a bad hoser, you could now use it as an engine card to GET more -1/-1 counters on your Carnifex Demon or Dusk Urchins.  Hey, a free -1/-1 every time I play a land?  Sign me up!

Dumb card.  Dumb upkeep cost.  Dumb guy being choked by a tree while wearing some kind of 70s western leather jacket with the tassels hanging down.
VERDICT: NO.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.

145.

Freyalise's Charm
I think Margaret Organ-Kean was commissioned to paint something for Better Homes and Gardens calendar.  How it found its sorry way onto a Magic card, we'll never know.  This art was probably intended to accompany an article called "Remember When?  Christmas in the 1940s, Revisited."  I'm sure it was heart-warming.

Despite the fact that they're standing in a bathroom with little bathroom tiles all over, the adorable little tykes seem to be happily unwrapping their gifts.  They seem especially thankful for the gay pride medallion that their auntie Freyalise gave them.  One of them looks insanely jealous of the girl with the medallion, while the other kid looks like he's just interested in the empty box.  Sounds like my family, alright.  Overall, a tranquil domestic scene somewhere with indoor plumbing.  I didn't even know they had indoor plumbing during the Ice Age.

And compare the art on this card to the art on its DIRECT opposite hoser card.  These two are a pair.

Yes, it's that Drew Tucker artwork with the naked greased dwarf in the red room.  Cognitive dissonance much?  Has any mirrored pair in Magic ever had less appropriate artwork than these two?
VERDICT: NO. This card was intended to replace Lifeforce, and man they did a crap job of it. Comparing this to direct descendant Compost makes me feel dirty.  Like, little kids are way less useful than a giant pile of dung dirty.  That's just messed up.

146.

Pygmy Allosaurus
Dyno-Mite!  Magic's first dinosaur, Pygmy Allosaurus!  Even though he's a rare, I'm going to get 4 of them.  I can't wait to build a Dinosaur deck in Magic.  RARGHH!  Here I come!
*waiting*
*still waiting*
*more waiting*
Hey, Magmasaur's like a lava Brontosaurus!  But he didn't get the creature type, for some reason.  You can only have one creature type, and I guess being made of lava won out.
*even more waiting*
Urza's block has two dino-like beings - Pygmy Pyrosaur and Dromosaur.  Both lizards.  Well, that's ok, they're both pretty small, I guess.
*only a moderate amount of waiting*
Masques has a nice middle-size dino in Pangosaur.  Somehow, just another giant lizard on the type line, though.  I'm starting to get upset.
*interminable waiting like being stuck in the 4th level of hell*
Wicked, Allosaurus Rider is from Coldsnap and even directly references this very card!  What, because he's got a tiny stupid little Elf on his back he gets stupid Elf Warrior creature type? That's idiotic.
Ok, Imperiosaur is CLEARLY a giant T-Rex.  Not small, no rider.  Future Sight's part of the nostalgia block.  SURELY, he'll get the Dinosaur creature type.
*cries*
Grand Creature Type Update
*cries harder*

For some totally inexplicable reason, they decided to kill the "Dinosaur" creature type, even though it totally grabs every other creature type by throat and shakes vigorously.  At the same time, they added things like giving every Anurid Beast the "Frog" creature type, and giving Molder Slug the "Slug" creature type, even though there's only 5 total Slugs in Magic, yes, they kept SLUGS.  And didn't keep Dinos. They even specifically said that generic creature types like Beast and Lizard had gone too far in consolidating types, and they should add things, like say I don't know say DINOSAUR LIZARD back into Magic.  But no, somehow, they left the most-super awesome creature-type ever on the bench instead.

I hate someone real bad for squashing my dinosaur dream deck forever.  I'm just not sure who.
VERDICT: YES (C).  Also, it's the only green creature with its stats and Swampwalk.  Sure, Mire Boa and Warthog make it look pygmy, but it'll be fine in limited if you want.  And my sad faux-Dino decks.

147.

Wild Ox

148.

Zodiac Ox
I'm going to take these two together, because, you know, they're exactly the same card.  Identical.  So they comprise two of Magic's seven adorable Oxen.  They're also both from two of the rarest sets in Magic, Portal 2 and Portal 3: Times A Lady.  And like most cards in Portal 3, for Zodiac Ox they just took a card from an earlier Magic set and spread a thick layer of gooey Chinese mythology all over it.

What I find really interesting is that I looked up the definition of an Ox.  Do any of you non-hicks know what an Ox is?  It's just a castrated bull.  Like a male cow without his junk.  They aren't really a separate species at all!  I had always thought they were, being a city boy.

That also makes their love for the swamps slightly hard to explain.  Because I haven't been in all that many swamps, but I sure haven't seen a lot of cows in them.  Zero, in fact.  In general, cows don't strike me as good "swamp" material.  I figure they would kind of stand around, try and chew grass and get a faceful of swamp water instead, and then an alligator has the bestest day ever.  And where the cows go, the somehow naturally-castrated bulls can't be far behind.

This fact also makes this next card really hilarious in my eyes:

They're telling us this electric cow has no balls.  I wonder who they got to volunteer to go do the *SNIP* *SNIP* on this one...
VERDICT: YES (C).  Sure, 3G for 3/3 swampwalkers, whatever.  Put one of them in for limited if you want.  It's all good.

IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE ONLY ONE (GREEN ON BLACK): Lifeforce's fetus can beat the crap out of you.  That's worthy.  Don't tease me with Pygmy Allosaurus unless you're going to make me sad forever with errata and apologies.

Green on Blue Hosers:
Green and Blue didn't have that nicely defined relationship that Black and White or Red and Blue had. It mostly was just water trying to kill you in various ways.  On both sides.
149.

Tsunami
Why isn't this card standard legal now?  And like, for all time, no take backs?  There's few enough basics around anyway, what could it possibly hurt to let this loose again?  Green gets occasional land destruction.  Green hates blue.  Green gets to summon water and towering waves... oh, wait.  That is kind of weird - not only did Blue get a bunch of expected random water hoser effects, mostly against red, green ALSO gets random water effects, against the color of islands and water.  And it's destroying some village on land, not submerging an island or anything like that in the picture anyway.  But hey, this is the one time Green gets to dip its toe into the wide world of angry H2O flavor, so enjoy it while you can.  I sure did, back in the day.  Almost no blue non-basics without Island types back then.  Nothing like a blue mage in tears after I resolved this.  Man, their tears were so priceless I kept them in a bottle.  I wonder where I put that?

Aside from copying 18th century Japanese Hokusai and hoping no one would notice,

this card is maxx factor sweet and clearly a card that mono-green needs to make blue mages sweat a little bit.  Choke sees plenty of play, and this is at least as awesome as that.  It also complements Acid Rain, which you could release in the same set.
VERDICT:  YES (U).  I'm a non-blue mage at heart, and this card makes me want to sing.  Also, did Richard Thomas just paint the first result on proto-google in 1993?  Did he look up "Tsunami" in an encyclopedia or something and just do some light tracing?

150.

Typhoon
A Typhoon's kind of the same thing as a Tsunami.  But here, apparently, you get to summon Casper the Friendly Ghost and he spits buoyant soft-serve ice cream out of his sexy mouth.  Which lifts your toy boat about 300 feet in the air.  Where either it's struck by lightning or has ascended to the next level of divine consciousness.

From another perspective, it also kind of looks like a ghost face kissing an albino starfish that's caught on a trampoline.  I get that Anson was going for a more abstract kind of thing, but how exactly is the water around everything perfectly flat and calm?  And how many Oreos does that ghost have stuffed in his cheeks, anyway?

But most of all, for the love of art and sanity everywhere, how exactly does WIND cast a SHADOW on the calm water?  I can't answer that one.  I don't think anyone not on psychedelics can.

Ability-wise, it's decent in late-game Multiplayer.  It's some double good in 2HG, as it hits both opponents but not you or your partner.  It's no Tsunami, but it can deal 8 damage for 3 mana in green, in not astronomically unlikely circumstances.
VERDICT:  YES (U).  Tsunami should get it's slightly plagiaristic butt online first, but I wouldn't mind getting this one eventually.  Not Anson's best work, to say the least.

151.

Thelon's Curse
Thelon is a moron.  There, I said it.  All his chanting and cursing is totally pointless, because none of his hosers actually do anything.  Here, this is green's version of Magnetic Mountain, except that:
a) It doesn't feature thousands of sharp objects flying for no reason.
b) It only costs them U to untap their guy, instead of 4 mana.

That second part is sort of a big difference.  I mean, what are the odds that a Blue Mage is going to have a single Blue Mana around to untap his guy if he needs to?  What do you figure, like 98%?  99.5%?  Many good Blue creatures like Morphling have an ability that costs U to untap them, and Blue Mages don't seem to mind paying for that when needed.  There's a world of difference between 4 colorless mana and 1 blue mana, which might as well be 1 colorless mana because to hose them at all they must be running a heavy blue deck with lots of blue creatures and lands already.

And how does Thelon of Havenwood, fungal infection king, find time between his chanting, cursing, and sporulating to animate all these trees to attack people going to Renaissance Fairs?
VERDICT: NO.  Please?

152.

Pale Bears
After 17 years and 20ish Bear cards, this is the only one that isn't a regular brown grizzly-style bear.  How is that possible?  It's not like polar bears aren't cooler than regular bears to begin with, and also much cooler than kithkin while we're at it.  Did Magic get a bulk deal on Brown Crayolas years ago and they're just going to go on until they use them all up?  The other non-brown bear is Ursine Fylgja (you may have to look that one up).  He doesn't count though because he's actually made of ectoplasm, not bear-meat.  Also, he's from Coldsnap, and nothing from Coldsnap ever counts.

I like how their "Islandwalking" ability is really the ability to sit on Ice Floes until they slowly drift over to where the enemy is.  If your enemy is on the Island of Wak-Wak, it could take 3,000 miles and an epic Nature Channel documentary to get them there.  Also, how do the icebergs manage to not melt when Islandwalking to Tropical Islands?

I remember it being frustrating for people when they opened up a pack of Ice Age, and searched through it for their rare, and didn't find one.  They then complained o the shop owner, who complained to WotC, who told them that no, this clear and obvious common was actually their rare.  I will say this: rarity assignment has gotten way, way better in the past 15 years.  Also, the rules work now.
VERDICT: YES (C).  Hey, they included Bog Raiders in M11, so this kind of card is still decent in Limited formats.

153.

Zodiac Horse
A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And none can walk on the water of course
That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Zodiac! (Not the serial killer.)

Go right to the source and throw the horse
Right into a lake or river's course.
He always walks by an unknown force.
Unsinkable Zodiac! (Like not from that Jake Gyllenhaal movie?)

Creatures attackity attack and waste your time of day
But Zodiac will never attack unless he's something to slay

A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
Though he makes natural law hard to enforce
You never heard of a floating horse?
Come see Zodiac!
(That cool symbol in the background has nothing to do with the Zodiac killer.  This isn't a clue to his true identity.  I promise.)

VERDICT: YES (C).  Good for limited, plus he's a frickin' horse that walks on water.

IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE ONLY ONE (GREEN ON BLU--Tsunami.  Done.  Next!

All the Other Hosers under the Sun:
A motley crew of artifacts and multi-color cards, plus the weirdest chicken you'll ever meet.
154.

Sandals of Abdallah
I have nothing to say about Sandals of Abdallah.

Just kidding.  Of course I have something to say about Sandals of Abdallah.  It's Magic's first ever proto-equipment.  They would have artifacts for years that clearly replicate the effects of equipment without actually being equipment, until they got smart and actually invented equipment.  Note that it's a MONO artifact, which means it has an invisible tap symbol next to its ability, for anyone who thought they could go Islandwalk crazy.  I'm not sure what Richard Garfield was thinking by having 4 different types of Artifacts (How many different card types existed through Antiquities?  Like, way, way more than you think) that all did the same thing except for, you know having different rules text like different cards probably should.

So, it's one of the very, very few artifacts that hoses a specific color.  It also looks like clown shoes.  I have great respect for other cultures, but man, if grandpa Abdullah gave me magic shoes that looked like that, I'm pretty sure I would rather take my chances with my natural aptitude to walk across the ocean than wear those out in public.  They have stripes that alternate between two different ugly shades of Pink, for crying out loud.

War Barge does online what it does already, but that you can use multiple times for one more mana, and the creature dies when War Barge dies, not the other way around.  Being "pretty much as good as War Barge", the second-worst of the Time Spiral reprints, is not exactly a ringing endorsement.  Meh.

You also can buy physical copies of this card in Mint Condition for $1.50, and then cry that it's not Bazaar of Baghdad or Library of Alexandria, exactly as rare as this.
VERDICT: NO.  How many bad Islandwalking artifacts does one game really need?  Probably zero, if you think about it.

155.

Flooded Woodlands
I don't have much to say, but I just find it very odd that Flooded Woodlands here stops green creatures and makes you give up mana, but Flooded Woodland Grove here:

Somehow makes green mana.  And here, it costs ZERO mana to flood everything, as opposed to 4 big ones in 2 colors.  In art and flavor and name, these are exactly the same card, but somehow they manage to do opposite things.  Huh.

Ability-wise, it's not the worst card ever, but it's outclassed by black and blue having too many "actually useful" cards to run instead of this at 4 mana.  Like Cryptic Command.  Or Tendrils of Agony.  Or Damnation.  Or Fact or Fiction.  Or...
VERDICT: NO.

156.

Glaciers
What?  You took Conversion and made it strictly worse?  If it wasn't bad enough to begin with, you now make it only work in UW decks and able to be destroyed by a single Red Elemental Blast?  At least before, red had almost no way of getting rid of that enchantment.  Now, I think I'll float mana and Pyroblast it to smithereens, thanks.  And it's not like Standard even existed, so it's not like you couldn't play with your Conversion anyway in your UW deck.  Truly one of the more puzzling card decisions of the early years.  Take a bad-ish card, make it worse, and put it in the same environment as the slightly better card.  Also, don't forget to steal the much-better-than-Conversion-name "Glaciers" so that a future non-basic land can't possibly use it for all time.
VERDICT: NO.  Who thought this was a good idea? Slap them.  Slap them hard.

157.

Monsoon
Ok, today we have Monsoon, Typhoon, and Tsunami.  Plus Cyclone, Desert Twister, Tornado, and Hurricane.  Any easy weather words that early magic flavor guys didn't gank for their own use?  By Alliances, every single one of them was gone and squandered.  I guess blaming Magic on the weather is easier on the flavor job description than trying to come up with actual world-building type flavor.

Also, you'll notice I only list 4 cards here as part of this hoser cycle.  The missing 5th one is Ghostly Flame, which I'll get to eventually.  But even though it's part of the cycle, it's not a hoser on the legal technicalities, like how technically I'm not really Bill Gates's heir, I just tell the ladies I am.

As for Monsoon's ability, No Mana Burn made this into something even less useful than it already was, and that was pretty darn useless and unplayed and forgotten to begin with.
VERDICT: NO.  Let the cards ruined by No Mana Burn die a slow death.  Just not online where I can see them, far away like all decent old and useless folk.

158.

Reclamation
There's a huge environmental push going on now about saving the vanishing wetlands.  On the other hand, this card advocates "reclaiming" all the wetlands immediately and turning them into plains and some forests.  Do you want us to lose all of our groundwater, WotC?  Huh?  Do ya?  Do you want to kill our biodiversity ratings?  What about sediment retention?  Have you thought about that?

I mean, I guess in some sense cards like Molten Rain aren't really good for the environment either, but this card is directly advocating doing the exact opposite thing that scientists tell us we should be doing to save the earth.  Is that any way to inform the public?  I think that right now, you should make up for it by recycling every copy of this card ever printed.
VERDICT: NO.  And save some pixels too by never putting it online.

159.

Zodiac Rooster
This is the only non-white card in the entire history of Magic that hoses just an ally.  (Torment's wacky Coral Net and Flash of Defiance hose allies, but they also manage to hose an enemy at the same time).  Also one of four cards ever printed with Plainswalk.  Also it's the only card ever printed with type "Rooster".  Also it was in Magic's rarest set in English.  Is the ink made from the blood of Richard Garfield too?  Is there anything NOT special and unique about this bird?  It's like a fat Maltese Falcon.  Or one of Gonzo's chickens - weird and one of a kind.

And why did it have to be so weird?  What's this rooster's beef with flat expanses of land? The idea that Roosters can walk anywhere farther than the feed trough, much less across vast expanses of plains, is kind of ridiculous.  That this rooster is going to be SILENTLY creeping along on the ground under all the waving fields of grain (or razors, in Mirrodin's case) is preposterous.  I've never really seen a rooster up close, but everything I learned from sitcoms and movies leads me to believe that "silent and sneaky" are not words that farmers would use to describe them.  Also there's the scientifically-verified fact that a single rooster can peck multiple Grizzly Bears to death.
VERDICT: YES (C).  It actually was visibly programmed on the promo tab in the MTGO Beta for a while, along with the other Zodiacs not online, so it's likely we'll get them in some form soon.  They'd be fine for ME4 limited if not as a promo.

SUMMARY:

NEXT WEEK: WALL!  (Huh. Yeah.) WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! (Say it again, y'all!)

6 Comments

Glad to see this series continue by veralucis at Tue, 11/02/2010 - 07:43
veralucis's picture
4

Welcome back!
Really fun and entertaining reading.

I missed this series, glad to by Leviathan at Tue, 11/02/2010 - 12:07
Leviathan's picture

I missed this series, glad to see you pushing to try and finish before MED4 comes out. So many strange old cards out there. I remember playing with cards like Leshrac's Sigil and trying to make them work. Good times.

As always, a great read; my by Bazaar of Baghdad at Tue, 11/02/2010 - 15:53
Bazaar of Baghdad's picture
5

As always, a great read; my kids and wife keep on asking why I'm laughing so hard.

Epic Series! by Nagarjuna at Wed, 11/03/2010 - 10:10
Nagarjuna's picture
5

Hello,

thx for doing this, it´s so funny and nostalgic for me. When i started with magic as a kid in 1994-5 I always bought the cheap packs - homelands and fallen empires.....

I´m really looking forward to next weeks article and will read the series over again!

Great to have you back! We by CottonRhetoric at Wed, 11/03/2010 - 17:46
CottonRhetoric's picture

Great to have you back! We missed you. This is probably the best column in the site's history.
Also congratulations :)

Magnetic Mountain is indeed by Paul Leicht at Thu, 11/04/2010 - 00:23
Paul Leicht's picture

Magnetic Mountain is indeed based on an Arabian Nights story as are all the cards/characters in that set.