#blue mana

[farsight-the-char]

MtG accidentally(?) reviving petty discussion around Billy by officially designating him MUTANT!

[tyger-land]

[lazodiac]

It's time again to look at Thunder Junction's cards and try and divine where each and every one of these bad boys are from.

Also just a note in case people are curious; since Tumblr has a 30 image limit per post, I'll be doing all of The Big Score at the end, after all the colours and stuff. It's my prerogative and I'll do as I please. If you missed the first part, you can find it here! So without further ado, it is time for...

BLUE

While I don't think EVERY mount is from Thunder Junction Proper... newts ARE a creature that shows up in the west. I was initially thinking this could be for Eldraine, especially given it belongs to an archmage, but... ultimately, I think this is a native to the plane.

Another native, and dare I say this is a CHARISMATIC crab. I love the crystals on its back! I also love the blue cacti nearby it? Those are real by the way!

There aren't many turtle-men in Magic. Three, in fact, before this one; the Lagoon Sage, a Quandrix student, and a Kappa from Kamigawa. The Kappa has a VERY distinct look, the Quandrix is a sea turtle, and the Lagoon Sage is a snapper just like the Thunder-Thief over here... and I'm gonna make a called shot and say this is from Bloomburrow as a result!

Homarid are a Dominaria specialty, so this racist bastard is absolutely from there.

Djinn of this type are only found on Tarkir, so this one is easy. He's taken a break from his dragon-infested plane to relax under a waterfall martial artist style, and that's just kinda fun.

This is a tricky one, since the ability is pretty plane agnostic, and the design doesn't evoke much in it... but her collar DOES have the typical three-fang Dimir tell, and it'd fit both colour and what she's doing, so lets go with Ravnica.

Sadly a cursory Wiki glance tells me only that this guy is from America.

... okay okay, taking this seriously; the wings and the scroll and the steps, the name, all the flavour suggests this is from Amonkhet for me. It could be from elsewhere, but this feels the most "correct" for lack of a better term. I wish cards like this would get flavor text reprints down the line though...

These are some home-grown ghosts, and we know from various other stories (Gideon, Elspeth, etc) that when you die you go to the afterlife of the plane you're on... so these are some newly "born" natives.

These unfortunate individuals are from the dead plane of Oregon.

... what? I already used that joke? Okay fine. There really isn't any actual signifiers here, and the only humanoid in the art is too indistinct to tell. Given the content of the card is trying and failing to ford one of Thunder Junction's mighty rivers, I'm calling this card "native to the plane" for lack of anything else appropriate.

Oh hey it's everyone's favorite running gag from Ravnica. Fblthp is an easy one, so instead of elaborating more on our mono-eyed friend instead I'll bring up a question I want any of you reading this to answer.

Didn't they say during the initial preview teasers that there was an important plot event happening in the background of this card? That never bore fruit and I can't remember the exact preview stream I heard it, but I swear I did. I want someone to confirm this for me. I'm abusing my power.

Regrettably, the flavor text makes this spell be sourced from Oko's Home Plane. I do love this weird tumbleweed creature though!

God I hate Oko he's such a scum bag (derogatory).

A personal favorite character of mine, Geralf is an Innistradi born and raised, here to investigate the Thunder of the plane- as well as test how mana bonds work for planebound folk now that they have access to planar travel. Good luck, sir.

An obvious native of the plane. I quite like the flavor of this card as well by the way, it's just a clever way to incorporate the geysers you would occasionally see in the old west.

Another Thunder Junction native! It's wild how many of these there actually are, but wild animals do make up a bulk of cards in Magic so it's not THAT unreasonable.

Fun lore tidbit; allegedly the Thunder only started after the Omenpaths opened up. No one has lived here before that so no one can confirm that is true, and this flavor text suggests otherwise.

One of the only cards showcasing the least important members of Oko's gang of ruffians! Kaervek and Satoru busting out of jail thanks to the help of Annie Flash. The framing of the card makes it feel more like Kaervek's doing the real world (valid, Satoru is a loser this entire story) so I'm gonna call it for Zhalfir here- and yes even though technically everyone from Zhalfir is from Dominaria, it's a plane all its own now. I make the rules here!

The Fomorian made star-key to open up their vault on Thunder Junction, I feel like it is safe to say this was made here. It's got little arcs of Thunder and even looks like a deputy star, so it fits the vibe.

Fun fact; being a six pointed star, plus the fact that in the story they mentioned the sixth slot started glowing purple, I briefly had the idea that they might be implying the Fomorian's know of Purple magic and we'll get it in the big Space set we're getting down the line. Then I remembered Cosmium is purple and a major energy source for the Fomorion people, so nevermind.

I can't confidently say this is from Bloomburrow, given we don't know how big the people of that plane can get- so far they've maxed out at Badger and Fox- but I really don't know where this guy could be from otherwise! Maybe Ravnica? So lets call this Bloomburrow until corrected otherwise.

Incidentally this is one of my favorite pieces of art in the set. Love this fucking guy.

Beyond all the art signifiers, I believe it was straight up said on twitter this is a Therosian Sphinx, so she's from Theros. Good for her. Why is she wearing spurs...?

I'm fairly confident this is meant to depict Stella Lee, and she's from the Atiin people, so that's where this is from! Rundo meanwhile sounds like a Ravnica, but that's just some trivia.

This one I'm not fully sure on. The little bird like flecks of white in his magic, the watery energy... I feel like I've seen it somewhere before, but I can't quite place it. The red and blue suggests Izzet but then he's a Slickshot, the red-blue faction on Thunder Junction. I'm gonna go with my gut and say Ravnica, though.

Shit like this is why I wish we'd gotten a planeswalker guide...

Blue, so far, has some of the most easy and obvious ones to place, and for this I'm thankfully. This guy is a Stitcher, so he's from Innistrad. Easy as.

She's got some of the Sterling Company aesthetic going on, but I'm a stickler for stupid jokes so I'm gonna say she's from Zendikar. The armor could evoke Sea Gate, and they've always been good with ropes so why NOT translate that to combat?

Like with the earlier ghosts, dead-then-revived means you're native to Thunder Junction... but also this guy is clearly an Obscura from New Capenna, using some of his old magic, so I'mma call it for the big city here.

Oko's big bad gang preparing for the heist of the life-time. Since it's Oko's big idea it's from Oko's stupid plan.

The sort of misty blasts of fire and ice we're seeing here is aesthetically similar to the "gunfire" magic of New Capenna. I love this guy by the way.

Hey wait a second Ashiok can't do stuff like this. They can only read nightmares, not minds!

YEah for those of you who don't know, the Ashiok in this set is actually Jace in disguise! So this is from home-grown celtic Vryn mind-shredding. Our hero(?) ladies and gentlehommes.

An actual Sterling Company goon, though at least this one has a funny joke to his card. I still really like the work they did in making sure every weapon used in the set has the needed arcing loop for Thunder to channel through it.

Oh right the reason why we're here. I'm gonna say New Capenna again, because there's basically no defining traits here. Also god I just realized he's missing the front brim of his hat and it looks terrible. Graywater pay your men properly they can't even afford complete hats!

It took me a bit to realize what was happening in this card. The lady in the back is only choosing the final Spree option here, swapping around the Outcaster and the Hellspur's clothing. Rude!

Clothing swap spells seems like a funny prank to pull at magical college, so Arcavios is where this is going.

I think in cases where I just cannot make any reasonable assumptions based on art, I should look at mechanics. Flashback is usually in Innistrad... but this lady's neckline is WAY too exposed for that Even accounting for the new plane... honestly I give up, the only real identifying factor here is her little lockpick device, which... kinda looks Kamigawan? Lets go with that.

The vibe, the way she wears her hat, and the little phone cord(?) on her belt makes me think of New Capenna. Look some of these are really difficult and I gotta go by vibes!

And that's the 30 card limit, give me a half second for part two!

[runjumptaco]

I'm back and I brought my MIND BOMBS!

Ok so I have about 1 fan for these silly little posts and I have decided that now is the time to start doing them again. I took a break because of college but also because I like procrastinating and didn't feel ready to push myself to write more silly little analyses. Enough about me though its cardboard time. Mind Bomb to me has very vivid imagery. It was created originally in 4th edition before magic started being wholly coherent. Magic was still finding its footing and the border is a testament to that. I ended up with this card as one of my first MTG cards; my dad had bought me a random 1000 card job lot off of ebay and in it was contained a bunch of cards from across a massive portion of magics history. Some Lorwyn, some Futuresight and many more but this one and many of the other classic cards had always struck me with their bizarreness.

The card itself works in quite an interesting way with it allowing any effected player to substitute its damage for discard instead. I view this is in a way where one word of its name is emphasised more than the other, mind and mental effects usually being associated with the loss of cards whilst the bomb being a clearly vicious and destructive physical force. Another thing of note is its cost, there is no real narrative behind this card at least not one I know of so seeing its cheap cost mixed with its art clearly depicting multiple dropping as our detonating one does implies that this weapon is commonplace in its plane. The art has many things of note to it to really sell the player on the impact of its effect. For one the splitting shell as it comes down with bolts of mental lighting zapping to the now loose casing. The bomb itself being in almost regal tones, the golds and reds giving it an air of power and decadence. Yet upon closer inspection this weapon may not be as impressive as thought. The metal is dented and worn with clear signs of aging and the insignia with its bold red colouring is not done to uniform or at least doesn't to be with its asymmetry and hints of dripping. The detonation we see central to our card may not even planned as we can see the straps that hold its shell together flailing in the wind, falling apart, as the two others in view descend cleanly. These are relics. Whatever war these were a part of, whatever nation they once served is gone. Wiped clean. Whatever once stood is no more and perhaps it was their own doing. We will likely never revisit this card or its plane of origin as whatever once there has been forgotten. Could these bombs have been their undoing. We could ask them, if they still know. I hope you enjoyed this slightly dumb rant about an irrelevant card these are fun to do and I actually have some lined up now which is good. No hints though. I have two final notes a slightly lighter one and a slightly less so. Lets start heavy. There is a TTRPG called normality, the premise is similar to my final little statement where in which the world is hit with psycho-nukes that make the entire planet stupid. This idea of a mental bomb that strikes and destroys civilisation is probably what crept into my mind at the end there; the game itself is batshit and almost impossible to play with the GM being encouraged to lie to the players to only make matters worse for them. It seems cool and I want some friends to torment with it. Might try it on my college group. Try it today! Lastly this card reminded me greatly of the thing that first got me into card games. In season 4 of Adventure Time there is an episode called "Card Wars" later in life I would learn this was a parody of magic made up for the show but at that young age I was completely drawn in by the cool monsters, little scenery and the way the players interacted. This card reminded me of cerebral bloodstorm, a card played by Jake that backfires and kills his own husker knights. That's all. I CAN REST AT LAST.

[threestarsbazaar]

Another lot today is the spell scroll for “Redirect” a fun little number that makes for a slightly more pointed response than “counter spell”

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Magic: The Gathering

Now I’ve never played MTG, but I love it from a game design perspective and I just LOVE he artwork.  Everyone I knew growing up collected Pokemon cards, but nobody actually played Pokemon, and I guess I’m the same way now with other TCGs.

I want to get into Magic though because I like how complex the rules are; myown trading card game is inspired by its core mechanics (still in development, for those of you who’ve been following along at home).  I like the color system, and after taking multiple personality tests I can definitively say that I am an Azorius player; blue and white are my big two specialties, with a hint of red (green and black, not so much).

I bought two Azorius decks online from RelentlessMTG so I could study the cards and use them to better balance my own game.  I’m going to map out the mana costs and power/toughness stats to see how everything looks, then compare it to my own game.

Wish me luck.

[isekaifantasybullshit]

The Azorius Senate, a playlist by Vladrek Ravenbane on Spotify

(White/Blue) "The Azorius Senate’s ultimate goal is the perfection of society. They want to protect the people of Ravnica and foster a community of peace and harmony. A society’s values, they contend, are reflected in the laws it creates." - GGtR

[tags5colors]

Planeswalkers who use blue mana

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