This is very good writing. Out of all the things I could say to you, I think the advice I should give is this: it is important to let the stream of life's events flow as they may, and to not ever try and wholly reshape the structure of its riverbank. However, there is nothing wrong with placing pebbles into the stream, and watching carefully to see where the water decides to move next.
Thank you for writing this, and good luck.
Gavin
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Member for 19 years, 2 months, and 30 days
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Apr 8, 2009Lesurgo posted a message on Anime Puppet Conjurer (done)Excellent work!Posted in: PJ Blab
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Feb 23, 2009Lesurgo posted a message on My Late EpiphanyKingcobweb was the prophet of MTGSalvation.Posted in: {bloggyG}
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Oct 16, 2008Lesurgo posted a message on Deck: The Little Naya that Could, Pt. 2Overrun? All of the "I win", with none of the $18 planeswalker.Posted in: Alacar's Design Zone
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Aug 14, 2008Lesurgo posted a message on Web ComicsEven though it's seldom updated, I love PBF. http://www.pbfcomics.com/Posted in: Pet Snakes Corner
Penny-arcade (penny-arcade.com) is basically the webcomic. It's a huge "franchise", if that's what you want to call it, and the granddaddy of most modern webcomics. They even have their own gaming convention. Now that's big. -
Aug 14, 2008Lesurgo posted a message on Web ComicsYeah, xkcd is awesome. You can just get lost by going through the archives (yeah, I've read every single one.... But it wasn't on purpose! It just kind of happened). There are a lot of good ones, but this is one of my favorites and led to a lot of in-jokes with other people who have read the comic: http://xkcd.com/325/Posted in: Pet Snakes Corner
A lot of the velociraptor ones are also hysterical. -
Jan 20, 2008Lesurgo posted a message on Is enjoying playing bad Magic cards a crime?No. For every Standard City Champs at the two stores I have attended (all of them), so far I have built my decks haphazardly in roughly under an hour. I have played with some pretty sketchy numbers, including cards such a Arbiter of Knollridge, Rimescale Dragon, Time Stop, and more.Posted in: Bitsy's Guide to the Fraggable Lifestyle
Uthden Troll, however, is not a card I would typically play with in constructed, mainly because it doesn't do anything special. For example, if you play Judge Unworthy instead of Condemn, it's not ridiculously worse and you get a bonus. Uthden Troll is just worse than most other cards I'd be playing. -
Jan 9, 2008Lesurgo posted a message on Gaijin, InterruptedThis is interesting to me. Please write more when time permits.Posted in: The Weary Gaijin: The Chronicles of Mr. Stuff
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Dec 24, 2007Lesurgo posted a message on Building a CubeI don't know if you already have, but check out this thread if you need ideas or would like feedback and comments.Posted in: YuanTi Has a Blogs?
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=96682 -
Nov 29, 2007Lesurgo posted a message on Sad but trueWell, I don't know about both "local Maddox follower" and "not to be taken seriously blogger", but maybe we could have a "user that embodies the essence of the phrase take a chill pill" award.Posted in: The zombie zone
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Nov 25, 2007Lesurgo posted a message on My Renewed Faith2005 awards are in here:Posted in: {bloggyG}
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/forumdisplay.php?f=112 (Scroll down a little bit)
Why the administration chose to hide them after voting, I don't know. (Only staff can get to that link) -
Nov 12, 2007I've seen him play at a couple Grand Prixs, and he plays well. In addition to his playskill, he's good at mind tricking opponents to find outs where they would otherwise be none.Posted in: TeknoBlog
I'm not saying that he's necessarily innocent, but that he does have a solid technical and mental game. -
Oct 24, 2007Lesurgo posted a message on Waaaaarrrrpppp Wooooorrrlllllllddd!There used to be a warp world deck that abused a little rules loophole. Tokens you give your opponents count as permanents you own. By using cards like Forbidden Orchard and the Hunted creatures from Ravnica, you can ramp into huge numbers of cards you get to flip off warp world, and actually make your warp world count increase when you're going off by constantly adding more tokens on every iteration.Posted in: Alacar's Design Zone
Hope that helps. Warp World was always a fun casual deck. -
Oct 4, 2007Lesurgo posted a message on Wow, we have blogs?Oh, hey, I remember seeing you at Nationals - I recognize you from that picture. Didn't see it before now. We should have said hi.Posted in: Jaelan Blog
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I used to put up a forum-wide announcement when I was an admin. I contacted the Admins about doing that for me, but they haven't gotten back to me yet. Hopefully they will soon. The more people that know this is happening, the better.
For the fourth consecutive year, the MTGSalvation Holiday Magic Card Exchange will return! Each year has been bigger and better than the last, and I expect this year to be no different. The firsts three exchanges can be found here: 2007, 2008, 2009 .
What exactly is going on here? Let me explain! (If you've done this before, skip down to the bottom and read the cliff notes for important changes.)
The premise is simple. First, MTGSalvation members from all over the world send me personally altered cards. Then, as Christmas nears, I randomly send their cards to someone else who participated. It's a fun gift exchange that's always a blast.
What do I mean by personally altered? Does that you mean you have to be as good as the people over in the official altered art thread? Not at all! What's important is that you personalize your cards. For example, here are just a handful of cards done over the past few years:
As you can see, there is a lot of variation in what people choose to do. There is a wide range of artistic talent, from doodles to full-blown alters. Just make it fun. In general, if you wouldn't be happy with receiving it from somebody else, you should alter it until you would be.
Participating is easy! Just send me a PM with your address, and I'll send you mine back. All you have to do after that is send me your cards along with a self-addressed and stamped envelope. After that, just relax and wait for your return package to make its merry way to you. It's that simple!
All participants must have their cards to me by December 15th. They will be redistributed and sent off over the weekend, and hopefully everybody will have theirs by December 25th. Please remember to budget enough time for your cards to arrive. For reference, I live in Washington state, USA.
Brand new accounts are excluded to avoid gaming the system. If you try and game the system to get more presents, I will catch you. Please don't do it. It will just result in a sad face for both of us.
Over the past three years, I've seen a lot of cards come through. Here are some recommendations to help make the holiday exchange fun for everybody!
And finally, here's the cliff notes version of what to do. Think of it as your own personal submission checklist.
International readers: If you're mailing internationally, we can work that out on a case by case basis via PM. In general, I'd appreciate if you sent a label with your address on it along with something like an international reply coupon or money for postage.
I'm looking forward to receiving your cards! Every year for the past three years this had made my holiday season incredibly special, and I look forward to seeing what you all come up with again this year! Have fun!
Please post any questions below.
Yeah, there's no good way to force people to not reuse cards. The logistics and potential semantical arguments are not worth any kind of enforcement.
However, with that said, the basic idea is that the voting system keeps reusing the same card in check. In other words: you are the enforcement of this idea. If you think somebody is using an idea that they've already showed off time and time again, don't vote for them. Simple as that.
In any case, while the rules can't be ignored, they're much looser in a design competition. If you want to make a block with spell morphs work, you can change the rules to make it work and, as MDenham makes pretty clear, it's a change that could be made. As long as you aren't doing anything that should very obviously be off limits, I think that kind of outside the box thinking (granted, spell morphs aren't that original) and drive is beneficial.
Mark has pointed out several times where he has pushed designs that didn't work within the rules. Sometimes they make it, sometimes they don't. As a designer, your job is to at least try.
Dave Niehaus was the Seattle Mariners' broadcaster from the northwest. His talent for broadcasting was only surpassed by the love of the game. His enthusiasm and spirit always showed up, and he would regularly become about exciting plays - even if they were done by the opposing team.
Niehaus has been broadcasting for the Mariners since their first year in 1977. While the M's had few opportunities to show off his wonderful ability on the big stage (notably 1995-2002 or so) due to their mediocre performance, listening to him was always a joy. His talented vocals came back year after year, regardless of how poor the Mariner's were set up to do.
When many celebrities die, I don't feel any real attachment. For this one, I do. He's like the soundtrack to my childhood, a true baseball legend, and I wanted to create a thread on this before it passed by.
Rest in peace Dave.
Efizel has a couple of issues. First, do you want the emblem to work on your turns too? If so, it's pretty unintuitive. Second, it just seems like a planeswalker that will infuriate your opponent and drag games on. The problem is not the sense that "oh, I'm being demolished by Nicol Bolas, I can see it happening and should concede" but one of, "well he's at 30 life and gaining 10 more a turn... but I guess I have to slog this out to see if I can win." That's not really what you want a planeswalker to do. There's a fine line between power and frustration.
I also dislike how its abilities have no real synergy. Nothing it does works well together or makes flavorful sense together other than "I'm going to gain you life!" Even somebody like Koth is fairly Mountain-centric. It makes sense. With this planeswalker, I'm not feeling how its abilities line up. What were you trying to get at with its abilities? If you can give us a better idea of that, then maybe we can craft it into the shape you want.
I think Boiltoad is well done, except it should probably have one less toughness. Horned Turtle is the standard in blue defense for three mana, and while this is multicolored, I see the multicolor adding the ability, not an extra toughness. Finally, If you are doing hybrid mana in your set, I could see making the activation cost U/R. Otherwise, 1 is fine.
Learned Goblin is totally fine.
I think the best way to fix Plasmotrion to do what you want is just to add "may." Then you eliminate the unwanted spell or creature/legendary creature problem altogether and can make him a legend, too. Otherwise, awesome design. I've made similar cards before and they're always a ton of fun. I am tempted to give him haste to help push him a little, but he can probably stand on his own.
I feel like Whipwind Drake might be too good, mostly because I don't feel the second half is a drawback. The card seems all-upside, and far too much of an aggressive flier for limited. Compare to Sewn-Eye Drake. I see what the haste is trying to do in synergy with ability number two, but I feel it's actually not necessary overall. I think it is a lot more interesting card without the haste.
When I first saw Continuum Replicant, I had to pause and go into the tank on how to best use it and what kind of synergies it has with other cards. That's the sign of a good Johnny card for me! I can't help but feel like it's a little random and swingy - but that's precisely what a card like this intends to do. I like it! Well done.
Good match of cards in general, Pharmalade.
Winnowed Thought 1U
Sorcery (Uncommon)
Look at the top five cards of your library. Put one into your hand and exile the rest.
I would probably add an G activation cost to Root Seer. With that said, I have to ask myself, "Why?" I don't see exactly why green is doing this, or what hole this card fills. Sure, you have cards like Momentous Fall which are rare and "recycle" your creatures, and commons like Elvish Visionary which kind of fit with green, but something feels off about Root Seer. I don't think it's too powerful or anything, but unless it fits well into your set theme, there are likely other cards that could better fill that hole.
Pain Inverter. Sure. It's a weird Johnny card. The only concern I have is that, for all the work you put into it, Johnny doesn't get a ton of payoff, but I'm sure they can find a way to make an opponent "sacrifice creatures" in their draw step each turn. It also makes effects not work the way you want them to sometimes. I might consider making it a may effect. On that note, though it isn't relevant to design, "whenever" doesn't work with "instead" clauses. I would change the wording too, "If a spell or ability other than Pain Inverter would cause a player to X, you may have that player instead do Y." Finally, I would also make it legendary just to help stem confusion of what happens when two are on the battlefield. (Such as Krark's Thumb did.)
I like the Infernist a lot, though the effect feels splashy enough to be a rare.
I love Tactics Training. Excellent, elegant design. The only thing is I might consider making it "Enchanted Creature has "T: Tap target creature" as that's a more prevalent ability, but either way I think the functionality is fine.