Friendship is Card Games: For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils · 2:38pm Mar 23rd, 2014
First, let's get this out of the way/my system: She toils for thee.
Also, I must report a refutation of part of my headcanon. The fifth birthday party confirms that ponies age like humans. I had thought they matured in about two-thirds of the time. Drat.
Now for some thoughts:
I was very surprised to see that Sapphire Shores is still a thing. Using her in the background is one matter. Making a character not seen since Season 1 a major plot point is quite another.
Luna is quasi-officially Dream of the Endless at this point. Her ability to create flawless flashbacks may either be accessing dreamers' memories, or indicates that she is also Destiny. Depending on one's headcanon, she may or may not be the pony psychopomp as well, making her Death. And, of course, the tale of Nightmare Moon is one of Desire, Despair, Delirium, and Destruction, roughly in that order.
This episode did a much better job of portraying the surreality of dreams than "Sleepless in Ponyville." Abrupt transitions, spontaneous glue-hooves, cackling older-sister-faced thunderclouds, drooping star-cliffs, all seem far more familiar than straightforward narratives of fear and pursuit. Of course, that may just be me and my experiences with dreaming...
Speaking of "Sleepless," kudos to Scootaloo. I'm pretty sure she beat her old hangtime record.
On a similar note, this makes Luna two-for-three for Crusader oneiromancy. Do the fillies have some greater destiny? Does Luna have some degree of omnipresence in the dream realm? Does she keep an eye on those close to the Bearers? Did she intervene on a national security issue? (After all, if Rarity goes full spider-hermit, the Lockbox of Harmony probably won't ever be opened.) Was this just a massive coincidence? Truly, Luna is as full of mystery as her night...
Also, chase scenes appear to be similar to musical numbers in terms of compulsory behavior. Why else would Rarity not simply lift the box off of whichever Crusader had it?
Right, enough random thoughts. Card time:
Amateur Seamstress 1W
Creature — Unicorn Artificer
All artifacts have "At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice this artifact unless you pay 1."
Enthusiasm and the will to succeed can do a lot, but they can't firm up shoddy stitching.
1/1
Overtaxing Workload 1W
Enchantment
Spells each player casts cost 1 more to cast for each spell that player cast this turn.
Rarity doesn't consider her schedule full until she's violated causality.
Pure Class 1W
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature has protection from converted mana cost less than its own. This effect doesn't remove Pure Class.
"It's nothing personal. I'm just better than you."
—Diamond Tiara
Pony of Pop 2W
Creature — Pony
Vigilance
Pony of Pop's power and toughness are each equal to the number of Songs you control plus the number of Song cards in your graveyard.
"It's not enough to be good. In this business, you've got to be larger than life."
—Sapphire Shores, pony of pop
*/*
Dream Therapy 3W
Sorcery
You gain 2 life for each tapped creature on the battlefield.
Flashback 5WW
"Rest, my pony, and ease the burdens of body and mind."
—Princess Luna
Eager Assistant 3W
Creature — Unicorn
Enchantment spells you cast cost 1 less to cast.
T, Sacrifice Eager Assistant: Search your library for an enchantment card, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
"Let me get that for you!"
1/2
Stern Bouncer 3WW
Creature — Pony
If another creature would enter the battlefield, any player may pay 3. If a player does, exile that creature until Stern Bouncer leaves the battlefield instead.
"Sorry. You're not on the list."
3/3
Photonegation U
Instant
Each creature becomes the colors it isn't until end of turn. (For example, each white and blue creature becomes black, red, and green instead.)
"Everything a pony denies lurks within her sleeping mind, a shadow cast by her waking light."
—Princess Luna
Recontextualize 1U
Instant
Counter target spell with one or more targets unless its controller chooses different targets for it.
"There is more here than one pony can see. Let me widen your perspective."
—Princess Luna
Dream Logic 2U
Instant
Counter target spell unless its controller pays 1 for each tapped permanent he or she controls.
"You can't make it rain tubas! The Pickle King still holds the Scepter of Kumquats!"
Lasting Trauma 2UU
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature doesn't untap during its controller's untap step and has "At the beginning of your upkeep, put the top two cards of your library into your graveyard."
The line between sanity and madness can be thin at times, and one push can send a pony across the border.
Lucky Dolphin 3U
Creature — Dolphin
Islandwalk
U, Sacrifice Lucky Dolphin: Counter target spell that targets you or a permanent you control.
To dream of dolphins is to know a greater being keeps watch over you.
2/2
Personal Matter 3UU
Sorcery
Each player chooses a creature. Return the rest to their owners' hands.
"Let's not get in the way."
—Princess Twilight Sparkle
Banish Fear B
Sorcery
Choose one — Destroy target black creature; or exile target Nightmare.
"And though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will know no fear, for I am the most terrible creature therein."
—Princess Luna
Lunar Consultation 2B
Sorcery
Look at the top card of your library. You may pay 1 life. If you do, put that card on the bottom of your library and repeat this process. Otherwise, put that card into your hand.
Luna's lessons are taught through grim futures and uncomfortable truths.
Irrational Outburst RR
Instant
Irrational Outburst deals X damage to target creature or player, where X is 5 minus the number of cards in your hand.
"Calm? Calm!? I'll show you calm! I'll be so calm, my hoof will be sticking out the back of your head!"
Impatient Foals 1R
Creature — Pony Child
At the beginning of your end step, if you didn't cast a spell this turn, sacrifice Impatient Foals.
"We're bored."
3/3
Heartfelt Rant 3R
Sorcery
Target creature you control deals damage equal to its power divided as you choose among any number of target creatures and/or players.
"And another thing!"
Hermit's Sanctum 2G
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant land you don't control
Whenever enchanted land becomes tapped, you may put a 1/2 green Spider creature token with reach onto the battlefield.
She kept cats once. They aren't here anymore.
Long-Term Memory 3G
Enchantment
G: The next time you would draw a card this turn, return the bottom card of your graveyard to your hand instead.
"Sapphire Shores never stopped being a thing."
—Pinkie Pie, Bearer of Laughter
Eager Egotists (gw)(gw)
Creature — Pony
Whenever Eager Egotists becomes the target of a spell, put a +1/+1 counter on it.
"Fillies and gentlecolts! You may now tell us how much you love us!"
1/1
Industrial Sabotage UR
Instant
Choose one — Counter target artifact spell; or destroy target artifact.
The production process is a perilous one. Everything has to go just right. A single fault, and it all comes tumbling down.
Delayed Appearance GU
Enchantment
Whenever you cast a creature spell, you may exile that spell with a time counter on it. If that card doesn't have suspend, it gains suspend.
Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control from exile, put a +1/+1 counter on it.
Sibling Rivalry 1(rg)
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature has "(rg), T: This creature fights target creature that shares a creature type with it."
Family breeds contempt.
Cackling Stormcloud 2UB
Creature — Nightmare Elemental
Flying
(ub), T: Tap target creature. That creature's controller loses 1 life.
"Far from the strangest beast my subjects' minds have conjured."
—Princess Luna
2/3
Distract the Masses X1(wu)
Instant
Tap each creature with power X or less.
If cake is enough to make Celestia pause, what chance do mortals have?
Dammit, I want Pony of Pop to also be a Lhurgoyf even if, and especially because, it doesn't make sense.
1948715
"Ach, Hans, run! They're almost out of T-shirts!"
1948729
"Ach, Hans, run! It's the BIEBER!"
And that was how Hans died.
Although it would fit in pretty well with the lore of Lhurgoyfy: something that eats those already dead (the entire record industry management, plus every single dead famous musician), but is still entirely controlled by something else and without any free will.
Photonegation is probably the weirdest color-changing thing I've ever seen.
There's really only one thing to say about Lucky Dolphin: "So long, and thanks for all the fish."
Also, unrelated to any of the cards, psychopomp is a fun word. It sounds like the name of a weird metal band or something
Rules clarification on Photonegation: A five color creature becomes colorless.
I was fine with the Power Ponies cards using the "Hero" creature type because that was the whole point of the episode and all but I do not like the use of "Child" here, since the "Child" type is only on three silver border cards and is only used once in this set it fells very out of place to me.
Long-Term Memory would not be printed because they've stopped printing cards that care about graveyard order. In fact there was some talk about removing that rule that prevented reordering the graveyard (404.2.) like how they removed Mana Burn, but it was just decided to not print cards that cared and to add the line that you can reorder in most tournaments. So long as no cards care about graveyard order in the format you are playing you can reorder things around.
If you introduce a card that does care about graveyard order into Modern you'd get a lot of people irritated at you, mostly the ones that play such as Unearth or Flashback.
Though you could do a random card a la Fossil Find without any trouble but that wouldn't really fit the them your going for here.
Really this card is mostly a meta-joke (not that there is anything wrong with a meta-joke mind you) so... eigh, just, rubs me the wrong way.
(Disclaimer: I have not watched the relevant episode yet so this card would lose its Metaness if there was some remark about Sapphire Shores and her being mentioned again after so long in the show.)
Delayed Appearance flavor text: Never be on time. Always be fashionably late.
Well, hello there Kataki 2.0!
Good ol' Kataki may pack more of a punch, but this seems like an even more extreme sideboard card, since multiples just hoses that dirty affinity player all the harder.
1948715 Given that Pony of Pop's wording cares about the battlefield (proper goyfs only count graveyards) and control (proper goyfs don't care about whose graveyard), it reminds me more of Unbreathing Horde. Of course, FoME's version doesn't use +1/+1 counters, but the "what it counts" similarity makes me want to do some insane thing like:
But then it occurred to me that a Song violating expectations by starting with verse counters and not gaining one a turn is probably a bad idea.
Question: considering the Theros block, shouldn't the dream creatures (and things) also be Enchantments? Or were there dream creatures outside the THeros block that weren't and so that gimmick is reserved entirely for Theros?
You know, with all of the scenes of Luna in the dream realm, I am surprise that I am the only one who has had Luna and Freddy Kruger fight each other. You would think doing a story where Luna hands Fred his butt would be story #2 on the list (followed by the clop). But no! Come on, Sword to Finger glove brawl with Kruger and Luna.
1948808
The word is a personal favorite. And I would totally listen to a band called Psychopomp.
1949172
re: Photonegation: The converse is also true. Most artifact creatures become all colors, the nephilim become monocolored, and Nyan Manticore is sad.
Your second two points are made under the misapprehension that I'm making a set. I'm not. Remember, the season is more than half over. If I were making a set, a few coherent themes would've solidifed by now. (Granted, Songs are something of a theme, but that's just to justify the subtype's existence.) I'm just translating bits of the episode into cards, using whatever regions of design space seem most suitable, even the ones abandoned by the actual Magic designers.
Also, I have set a precedent for using silver-bordered concepts. See Goof-Off.
Also also, note that I had to make an entirely new creature type for Lucky Dolphin, since dolphins are neither fish nor whales. (Hardly the only taxonomic oddball in Magic, but still.)
As for the flavor text, I'd totally use that if I weren't trying to make room for suspend's reminder text. I may not be making a set, but I'm still trying to make these cards work. More or less.
1949431
Yeah, I knew Kataki Belle would be iffy. Still, if you can stack much less killable Energy Fluxes for just one mana more, it seems somewhat safe.
Besides, the mental image of Sweetie wearing War's Wage is both awesome and adorable.
1949537
It's certainly a neat idea, but it does deviate a bit too much from what Songs usually do. I thought about making Pony of Pop a quasi-Cantivore, but Sapphire Shores does not do covers.
At least, my brain-Pinkies assure me that such is the case.
Still, the idea of Songs having a sort of quasi-modular is an intriguing one. I may have to see if I can crowbar that in somewhere...
1949582
Dreams and nightmares have populated Magic for much longer than Theros block. The magic of Nyx (the realm of the Therian gods, not the alicorn OC,) is limited to that plane, much as etherium is, with a few exceptions, limited to Esper (the shard of Alara, not the Final Fantasy summons.) So yes, that's a plane-specific gimmick, even with Luna's propensity for star motifs.
1949845
To be fair, you really do want that artifact hate down as early as possible, especially against the affinity decks Kataki kills, but yeah, I think she'd still be fine, and yes Energy Flux is just straight up brutal. It's not like she's strictly better either, Kataki would still be plenty strong to compete.
Tiny marshmallow ponies clad in living, vengeful samurai armour also sounds like the kind of thing I could get behind.
what? sapphire shores isn't a legendary? :p
1951469
There are other divas out there.
1949845 Re: taxonomic oddballs, if the dolphin in question resembled the heraldic beast, it could be a Fish Beast. Chambered Nautilus makes me want to say that it, Squids, and Octopodes aught to be folded into a single "Cephalopod" type, even though that's probably been brought up and shot down before.
Also, I seem to have become obsessed with making a functional Song Pony:
Reminds me of this quote:
Both badass boasts, from oposite sides of the good vs evil deal.
1952113
)
Sadly, it doesn't, no more than lions do. (Just imagine a race of leonin based on heraldic lions. Yikes.
Ensemble Number could probably cast 1WW, but that's largely interchangeable with 3W. In any case, very nice!
Just noticed something while I went back through these to add them to my Magic Set Editor list of your cards: Pony of Pop's effect is slightly more wordy than necessary. I say this because it's very similar to Soulless One's effect. Wingshreds, the only differences between the two are colour, vigilance, type, and Pony of Pop costs one less and only uses your stuff.
Which is a much longer list than I was expecting it to be.
Regardless, couldn't it simply be worded "Pony of Pop’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of Songs you control and in your graveyard."?
2047276
Take another look:
gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=205373&type=card
The reason for the seeming repetition is Magic's very insistent terminology. If an object on the battlefield, it's a permanent. If it's on the stack, it's a spell. If it's in any other zone, it's a card. If neither "spell" nor "card" is used, an effect refers to permanents.
2047306
Huh. Been a while since I played my Zombie deck, I guess I just forgot. Nevermind.