Jul 17
Just gonna leave this here.
seen from Germany
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seen from Netherlands
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Just gonna leave this here.
unbelievably excited. i wanted this so so bad and did not believe they could produce. but they did. god. kamigawa titanbreach.
NUCLEAR LEVELS OF HYPE THIS IS NOT A DRILL
PACIFIC RIM THE MTG SET, OUR PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED
When an Omenpath opens above the neon-lit skies of Towashi, a huge mass of Ikoria crashes through, unleashing mayhem! The people of Kamigawa must band together to stop the monsters of Ikoria that threaten to stomp, scorch, and shatter their home!
I also assume a vast number of Ikorian refugees getting out of that horrible realm.
“How is this even…”
“Silence, Curator Musashi. Let us converse.”
The older gentleman bristled, held hostage as he was by a kimono. On the fabric wrapped tight around him was printed a woman in the same clothing. She was depicted brandishing a knife, that somehow applied a very real pressure to the museum curator’s neck.
“V-Very well, Azusa,” Musashi began. “However, since my blood might stain your fabric, I would advise caution.”
The kimono rustled angrily. A woman’s voice emanated from the fabric to hiss, “Let’s be realistic, kind sir. The real Azusa died many years ago. I am but a humble facsimile of the famed wanderer.”
“A-All right! You’re not Azusa! But, if you’re not Azusa, then you’re just clothing. And so I repeat: how is this even possible?”
“Just because I am not Azusa, does not mean I am not real.”
“But you…!” Musashi felt an increased push against his neck. “Oh, fine! You are real! What are your demands, then? Release from your display case, I take it?”
A brief pause. Azusa’s image adopted a puzzled expression as the kimono loosened its hold ever so slightly. “What? No. Perhaps I could use some better overhead lights, and regular glass cleanings, but…Never mind! For now, I merely wish for you to adorn this robe with different vistas.”
“I beg your pardon?”
A sleeve flew in front of Musashi’s face. Waterfalls cascaded down from a majestic floating palace, to a mysterious forest far below.
“Er…Oboro, floating above Boseju? Whatever is the matter with the view?”
“On its own, nothing. But I have traveled the same patterns, up and down this fabric, for decades! Perhaps I was once enamored with these vistas, some years ago. But even Azusa’s greatest journeys grow stale after so much time. So, I desire new horizons.”
“Really? But…” Musashi gazed wistfully at the ornate patterns that covered the kimono. “These are artful! Historic! Commissioned-”
“Years ago! And on a replica outfit, no less! Paint a new picture or else!”
“Eep! All right…!”
[Assuming you’ve got some utility or karoo lands, you’re probably untapping the same three every turn with Likeness of the Seeker. Not exactly new journeys or fresh paths.]
“Guards! Apprehend that android!”
“Catch me if you…huh?”
The hacker’s momentary confusion was just long enough for a burly security guard to tackle them to the ground. Two more followed suit, burying the augmented thief beneath a mountain of bodies. The dogpile lasted for but a moment, however, before cybernetic arms and legs effortlessly lifted all three off the ground.
“Hah! I paid top dollar for these mods! If you think- AH!”
A fourth guard prodded the thief with a stun gun, shorting out their circuitry and causing them to again collapse beneath the weight. Once the security team had hauled them upright, they stood before an older man in a business suit, standing sinisterly with a backdrop of a wall-to-wall aquarium.
“So,” he began, “you tried to disrupt my business network. Whether that be through a fault in your programming, or some other party hacking you, it ends here and now, bot!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” cried the thief, in a very human-like tone. “I’m not an android!”
“Plead insanity all you like. Your machinery speaks for itself.”
“My…oh.” The thief glanced down at their body, replaced almost entirely by machinery. “Okay. I know what this looks like. But you have to believe me: I belong in a cell, not the scrap heap.”
“A likely story. Now, for your-”
Behind him, the aquarium exploded into a shower of glass and water. A second thief skated atop the resulting wave, also mostly cybernetic, with an koi fish from the tank cradled in her arms.
“Run!” shouted the new arrival. “I’ll run interference!”
Knocked prone by the wave, the businessman regained his footing and cried, “Guards! Apprehend that living thief!”
“Aw, what?” Whinged the first bandit, who briefly neglected their escape in favor of complaining. “She’s got just as much metal as me! Why isn’t she an ‘android,’ too!”
[I wonder what the cut-off is, for how much cybernetics you need to count as an artifact creature?]
Go-Shintai of Lost Wisdom (Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty No. 55, Illus. Johannes Voss)
I really like the muted colors in this piece. I've seen some people say that they find this piece scary, but that's not the word I'd personally choose. For me, the mood is closer to feeling somber or forlorn, like you're standing on this lonely beach all on your own, lost in thought.
In MtG, the "mill" effect in this card's rules text tends to be code for things being forgotten or otherwise removed from memory, a person losing their mind. Go-Shintai of Lost Wisdom uses the imagery of water flowing out of the paper-person's head into the floating shrine to illustrate this, as well as the act of using its own body to create paper-cranes. However, if the flavour text of the card is any indication, in this case, this isn't supposed to represent a "bad" kind of forgetting:
It seeks those driven by curiosity and offers enlightenment.
Going by this, the "Lost Wisdom" in this card's name isn't wisdom that's in the process being lost, but the opposite - wisdom that's being found in the form of enlightenment. Or maybe it has a double meaning, in the sense that in order to gain enlightenment, you first have to forget your preconceived notions about the world and surrender your understanding of the world as you know it, which can seem daunting and, yes, even scary.
Another detail of this illustration that I like is that it employs the same kind of "background enhancement" trick I've already written about a few times before. In the background, you can see Towashi, the capital of Kamigawa. The highest towers look identical to the ones pictured on Boseiju, Who Endures, and while it's enshrouded in clouds in this illustration, you can even see a few shadowy roots of Boseiju reaching down into the city below.