Friendship is Card Games: The Storm of Zephyr Heights #2 · 11:49am November 3rd
As part of Hasbro’s ongoing efforts to have G5 disposed of by the end of the year, four issues of what had been intended as a five-issue series have been compressed into two double-sized releases. The end result for me is that the last comic blogs get to come out monthly. Let’s begin.
We open on Zipp’s evacuation announcement in the middle of the storm of the century… and an important oversight in it. She never told ponies to stay grounded in the ferocious gusts, and a mother and child learn how important it is when the latter goes into an uncontrolled spin.
We also get a bizarre coloring choice on the last panel of that first page. I presume the mother is trying to grab her foal, but the outstretched foreleg is clearly Sunny’s rather than said foal’s light blue fur.
Of course, when Sunny has swooped down to rescue that child by the first panel of the second page, it all works out. Meanwhile, Pipp managed to grab two at once, which is honestly a higher carrying capacity than I gave her credit for. (The rescued foals are just amazed that they got saved by the Princess Pipp Petals. Also, that horn Sunny gave Pipp in the previous issue nowhere to be seen here. No idea where Andy Price was going with that, but it’s still interesting story fodder.)
The rescuers do tell the group to stay on the ground going forward, but it still seems like vital information that got left out of the main announcement. (Also, interesting to see that the average pegasus on the street knows Sunny by name. Could’ve been her victory over Opaline, could’ve been the My Bananas meme leaving a lasting impact. Maybe a bit of both.)
“I’ve crashed while flying before, Mom! I would have been fine.”
Well, the pegasi are certainly recovering some aspects of their old culture. Rub some cloud in it.
We cut to Hitch handling the non-pony residents’ evacuation, and the colorist gave him a weirdly pale coat, #f8e7bc versus the Tell Your Tale #f6cc5e. (Thanks, Firefox eyedropper!) Also, I have to wonder how the “everyone hold two paws to form a chain” concept works with the snails.
Ah, the creature behind holds the tail and the creature in front holds a wing of one of the smaller pegasnails higher up the pile. Works as well as anything, I suppose. And is it nice to see the sheriff handling evacuation well. I imagine he’s run similar drills in the past.
Zipp goes to check on the unicorns trying to secure the route out of the city… and Misty reports that the storm may be magical. The path out of Zephyr Heights seems blocked by a wall of wind that looks strikingly similar to the original Wall of Air, one that “nopony can get through.”
For a moment, Zipp’s tempted to take the challenge, but she stops herself as she her subjects shivering in the building snow. At Misty’s suggestion, she redirects the evacuation to the palace. It honestly makes sense; the comics have established that it can hold all of Zephyr Heights, at least for a night.
Also, turns out the convenient arrows pointing ponies along the evacuation route were being cast by Izzy and Misty. And just Izzy and Misty. I have to wonder how many of the things they were projecting throughout the city.
After conveying the change in plans to Sunny and Pipp, Zipp single-hoofedly gathers all of the unaccounted-for pegasi in a two-page spread montage, intercepting snowfall, clearing doorways, and otherwise saving the day for dozens at minimum. It’s a sincerely great moment for her. (Well, series of moments, but the flow of time is always a little screwy in comics.)
Of course, this is still a temporary solution. Hitch notes that the palace doesn’t have the supplies to weather the storm indefinitely, and Misty insists the weather isn’t natural. And that to actually evacuate the city, they’d “need something heavier. Like a… boat for the air.”
And finally, in the last even remotely canon G5 story, we circle back to the Zephyr Heights airship port for its intended purpose. Zipp could never get the airship still stored within to work, but she trusts Misty and Izzy can figure it out. (And also Hitch for some reason.)
The others form Zipp’s Plan B. As the strongest fliers in the city, at least one of them will need to get through the storm and contact the other towns for help. Zipp would do it herself, but given her royal responsibilities, she recognizes that this is a case where she should delegate. (She even references her flight school in one of the earliest Tell Your Tale shorts. Belated continuity is better than none.)
… Ah. I misinterpreted her plan. It’s actually to tie the three of them together and try to work as a unit to pierce the storm. (I do appreciate how Sunny is the most nervous out of the three of them. They may have all gotten flight at the same time, but she’s the one who grew up with flight as a fantasy for other ponies, not an illusion to be maintained through wirework.)
There’s also the issue of Zipp only communicating the finer elements of her plan as she’s enacting them, though it doesn’t seem like it would have worked. The city simply isn’t big enough to build up enough speed to break through the storm, despite multiple attempts. Pipp’s the one who has to get her to try a different approach, ideally before Sunny collapses.)
Zipp decides to try going up to see if the winds completely cover Zephyr Heights. Though lightning, hail, and freezing conditions, her drive to save her city sees her through it. There’s even… an attempt at her cutie mark glowing. At the very least, it gets a focus panel with action lines emanating from it.
And once the trio breaks through, they find themselves on the remarkably intact streets of Cloudsdale.
Cue the abrupt transition that would have marked separate issues, including a shift from Kate Sherron’s art to Andy Price’s. We open what would have been issue #3 with ominous narration reviewing the situation and praising the one pony who braves the worsening storm to carry back “the future of all Zephyr Heights.”
Also, at some point the airship bay acquired a surface level entrance. That or the city grew an airfield with hangars for the purposes of this story.
Said brave pony is Hitch… and for some reason he’s asking whether somepony get something as he comes in from the cold. Nopony in that panel seems to understand what’s going on with the word balloons.
Also, interesting to see non-pegasi among the the ponies in the hangar. We’ve seen non-pegasi in Zephyr Heights, but it wasn’t really reflected in the first half of this issue.
It turns out the future of Zephyr Heights lay in twenty-seven blow driers, which Izzy starts eagerly smashing so she can extract the heating elements and pass them up to Misty, who’s at least getting some degree of payoff as the magical prodigy of this generation by serving as the lead engineer for this project. And she’s “about to defy the laws of physics!” Always nice to see women in STEM.
Also, we have an Izzy in the hull along with the one on the ground floor. Don’t worry about it. Are you worrying about it? Don’t worry about it.
The line about defying the laws of physics was actually a segue back to Cloudsdale, where Zipp insists they’re doing the same simply by standing there. Both pegasi are baffled to learn that the legends were true, while Sunny basks in vindication. (Funnily enough, she had her horns and wings out through all of the first half of this issue, but now that she’s in a cloud city, she’s retracted them. Either the cloudcrete sidewalks are still able to support earth ponies, or there are less visible parts of alicorn magic that she can’t turn off.)
Also, the city is eerily well preserved. The Cloudosseum and Fluttershy’s parents’ house are both clearly visible in that first panel. Even the rainbow fence is intact. Sunny guesses that being above the clouds means the city didn’t have to worry about weather wearing it down which… doesn’t really make sense. Especially considering the Ebb of Magic. But this is hardly the first time MLP has very carefully not thought about how Cloudsdale would interact with a global loss of magic.
Pipp accidentally kicks an oddly hard cloud, which hatches into a sort of faerie-winged piglet… just outside of the Mogwai Curio Shop. Which has a convenient notice in the window on the dos and many, many don’ts of looking after an “arkan sonney.” (A Manx fae creature that does indeed take the form of a pig and brings good luck.) And true to the name of the store, the big no-nos include getting them wet, feeding them after midnight, and especially not exposing them to bright light.
Which Sunny finds out just as Pipp takes a selfie with her new friend with the flash on. 
… Heh. Tony Fleecs may not be involved in this issue, but we still got a cloud gremlin. Kind of.
Pipp has service, which… kind of makes sense with Cloudsdale situated directly above Zephyr Heights. However, she doesn’t have the wherewithal to listen to the others as they try tell her she’s made a terrible mistake. Not while she’s setting up a livestream, anyway. And true to the other meaning of arkan sonney, the creature reveals itself to be a hedgehog. One can shoot its quills. (Any relation to pukwudgies is speculative at best.)
Back in Zephyr Heights, the lightning’s getting to surface level, and has set at least one skyscraper ablaze. Plus, the power grid’s starting to hiccup. The good news is that they’re ready to test the engine, complete with Misty donning goggles and hoof gloves before throwing a Frankenstein-grade switch.
The good news is that it works. The bad news is that in its current state, it only works for a few seconds. They still need a significant power source to jump-start the system. Cue another thunderbolt and Hitch having “one really really bad idea.”
Also, I do love Misty’s “I always new Opaline forcing me to do things without giving me any resources would come in handy.” It’s not just funny, it makes perfect sense.
Back in Cloudsdale, the three mares are still running from the arkan sonney.
Thump
Arkan sonneys. Zipp tripping over another cloud-egg at speed was enough to make that one wake up angry. And it seems they’ve started calling in reinforcements. That or, like gremlins, they reproduce through budding.
In any case, the mares are able to find shelter in the Cloudsdale library… which has a concerning high number of windows for a shelter. (It also looks remarkably like the one at Canterlot High.)
As a nice touch, the library uses the same typeface as Zephyr Heights. Good sense of historical continuity… along with things like Somnambula having been lost to history until Sunny saw a statue of her. (The alicorn of hope not knowing of its Pillar. Ah, irony.)
Pipp is surprised to see that Zipp is so sad while standing in the literal city of her dreams. Aside from the whole “her own city is on the verge of destruction” thing, the reality of Cloudsdale is far from Zipp’s expectations. She was hoping for a lost city of “incredible, fast-flying warrior pegasi like in Mom’s old stories,” which raises some fascinating questions about just what the royal family retained in the intervening years. Instead, Zipp has found an abandoned shell. The city may be real, but what she hoped to find is long gone.
Side note, I do love Best Pony sneaking her way into Zipp’s mental image of the warriors of old. Also, apparently Spitfire was meant to be Zipp herself flying alongside these fabled heroes, but the colorist never got the memo. Whoops.
What isn’t are surprisingly sophisticated information kiosks. It looks like Twilight had time to bring some human technology to Equestria before everything went wrong. They’re even voice-activated! And they project a holographic recording of Flash Magnus to provide an overview of pegasus history.
Most importantly, it brings up one aspect G5 had barely ever touched on until now: Weather magic. Cloudsdale was made from “the seven great cities of pegasi,” united into a logistical hub for weather production and control on an industrial scale. And sure enough, it’s the weather factory that’s gone out of control and producing the storm that’s threatening Zephyr Heights.
Additional side note, pegasus Fred Flintstone may be one of the more cursed things Andy Price has ever drawn.
Zipp exits the library with her mission clear (and the arkan sonneys thankfully worn out.) “We have to save Zephyr Heights from Cloudsdale.”
In all, this is outstanding. I do love both how the G5 comics will be bookended by trips to Old Equestrian cities and the matter of meteoromancy finally coming home to roost. Goodness knows I’ve brought it up enough times during card blogs. I’m eagerly looking forward to the conclusion of this line next month, bittersweet as the last official G5 media will be. At least it seems to be ending on a high note. Let’s hope this blog follows suit.
Also, with Foundations fully spoiled, I will grudgingly follow WotC’s formatting shift from “CARDNAME” to “this (permanent).” I don’t like this one, but it is what it is.
The Founding of Cloudsdale 2W
Enchantment — Saga
(As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
I, II — Create a 1/1 white Pegasus creature token with flying.
III — Tap any number of untapped artifacts and/or creatures you control. Distribute that many +1/+1 counters among creatures you control.
Tactical Engram 2WW
Artifact Creature — Illusion Soldier
Vigilance
Whenever you attack with three or more creatures, draw a card.
Twilight refused to let the Pillars’ knowledge be lost a second time.
3/3
Airship Engineer 3W
Creature — Unicorn Artificer
When this creature enters, create a 5/5 colorless Vehicle artifact token named Zeppelin with flying and crew 3. (It has “Tap any number of creatures you control with total power 3 or more: This Vehicle becomes an artifact creature until end of turn.”)
Whenever one or more Vehicles you control deal combat damage to a player, you may return this creature to its owner’s hand.
3/2
Champions of Bygone Skies 4WW
Creature — Pegasus Spirit
Flying
This creature enters with a +1/+1 counter on it for each creature you control.
If damage would be dealt to this creature while it has a +1/+1 counter on it, prevent that damage and remove a +1/+1 counter from it.
3W: Exile this creature, then return it to the battlefield under its owner’s control.
0/0
Cloudsdale Expedition 1U
Enchantment
Landfall — Whenever a land you control enters, put a quest counter on this enchantment.
Remove three quest counters from this enchantment and sacrifice it: Put a flying counter on each of up to three target creatures.
Wall of Wind 1UU
Creature — Wall
Flying, defender
Whenever this creature blocks a creature, return that creature to its owner’s hand at end of combat.
For centuries, the trapped contents of the wind vault grew more agitated. When they finally escaped, they celebrated with the worst storm Equestria had ever seen.
0/5
Evacuation Alert 2U
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, if there are six or more nonland permanents on the battlefield, sacrifice this enchantment. If you do, return all nonland permanents to their owners’ hands.
“This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill.”
—Zipp Storm, regent of Zephyr Heights
Omnipresent Assistant 3U
Creature — Unicorn Artificer
Myriad (Whenever this creature attacks, for each opponent other than defending player, you may create a token copy that’s tapped and attacking that player or a planeswalker they control. Exile the tokens at end of combat.)
Artifact spells you cast cost 1 less to cast.
You may cast artifact spells as though they had flash.
3/3
Cold-Hearted Edict 1B
Snow Sorcery
Each player sacrifices a nonsnow creature of their choice.
The windigoes went extinct during the Ebb of Magic, but unnatural winter can still exact a heavy toll.
Brownout 1BB
Instant
Creatures your opponents control get -1/-1 until end of turn. Artifact creatures those players control get an additional -1/-1 until end of turn.
Without anypony maintaining the generators, the question was not if but when the Zephyr Heights power grid would fail.
Bitter Remembrance 2B
Enchantment
When this enchantment enters, each opponent discards a card.
Whenever one or more cards leave your graveyard, each opponent loses 1 life.
Setting hoof in an empty Cloudsdale left Zipp more disappointed than if she’d never found it at all.
Gremlin Umbra 2B
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +2/+0, has flying, and can’t block.
Umbra armor (If enchanted creature would be destroyed, instead remove all damage from it and destroy this Aura.)
Aggressive Scavenging 2R
Instant
As an additional cost to cast this spell, sacrifice an artifact or discard a card.
Draw two cards and create a Junk token. (It’s an artifact with “T, Sacrifice this artifact: Exile the top card of your library. You may play that card this turn. Activate only as a sorcery.”)
Sometimes you just need the adhesive.
Arkan Sonney 2R
Creature — Faerie Boar
Reach
Whenever a player casts a white or blue spell, Arkan Sonney deals 2 damage to that player.
They’re incredibly lucky for anyone who finds them. No one said that was exclusively good luck.
2/3
Accomplished Assembler 6R
Creature — Pony Artificer
Affinity for artifacts (This spell costs 1 less to cast for each artifact you control.)
Trample
Blitz 4R (If you cast this spell for its blitz cost, it gains haste and “When this creature dies, draw a card.” Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step.)
6/5
Burning Skyscraper XRR
Artifact
This artifact enters with X brick counters on it.
At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a brick counter from this artifact. When you do, it deals 2 damage to each creature, player, and planeswalker. Then if there are no brick counters on this artifact, sacrifice it.
Chain of Critters 1G
Sorcery
Create a 2/2 green Beast creature token. Then choose a player who controls the fewest creatures. That player may mill three cards. If they do, they may copy this spell.
“Hold on tight, everyone. This will get rough.”
—Hitch Trailblazer, Maretime Bay sheriff
Bundled Scavenger 2G
Creature — Pony Survivor
This creature enters with a shield counter on it. (If it would be dealt damage or destroyed, remove a shield counter from it instead.)
Survival — At the beginning of your second main phase, if this creature is tapped, return target permanent card from your graveyard to your hand.
2/2
Vicious Crossbreeze 2G
Sorcery
Kicker 1B (You may pay an additional 1B as you cast this spell.)
If this spell was kicked, it has deathtouch.
Vicious Crossbreeze deals 3 damage to each creature with flying.
The wind didn’t just bite, it chewed.
Royal Intervention 3G
Instant
Permanents you control gain hexproof and indestructible until end of turn. Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn. You become the monarch.
“I’m not letting this city fall. Definitely not on my first day on the throne.”
—Zipp Storm, regent of Zephyr Heights
Information Kiosk 3
Artifact
T: Each player who has drawn one or fewer cards this turn draws a card.
“Twilight focused on education so we wouldn’t face another catastrophe born of ignorance. The irony keeps me up some nights.”
—Dragonlord Spike
Somnambula’s Memorial 4
Legendary Artifact
At the beginning of your end step, you gain 2 life. Then if you have 0 or less life, sacrifice Somnambula’s Memorial.
Fateful hour — As long as you have 5 or less life, you can’t lose the game and your opponents can’t win the game.
“Let hope guide your path.”
—Memorial inscription
Straining Infrastructure RGW
Enchantment
All artifacts, enchantments, and nonbasic lands have “At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice this permanent unless you pay 1.”
Built during the Ebb of Magic, Zephyr Heights was never designed to withstand the elemental fury of a malfunctioning weather factory.
Runaway Production 2UB
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant nonland permanent you control
Enchanted permanent and each other permanent you control with the same name as that permanent have “At the beginning of your upkeep, create a token that’s a copy of this permanent.”
When you control eight or more nonland permanents with the same name as one another, you lose the game.
Snack Sphinx 3WU
Creature — Sphinx Citizen
Flying
When this creature enters, create a Food token. (It’s an artifact with “2, T, Sacrifice this artifact: You gain 3 life.”)
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may reveal the top X cards of your library and separate them into two piles, where X is the amount of life you’ve gained this turn. If you do, an opponent chooses one of those piles. Put that pile into your hand and the other into your graveyard.
3/4
Lost to Obscurity 3BG
Sorcery
Destroy target permanent, then exile all cards that share a card type with that permanent from its controller’s graveyard.
“The worst part isn’t knowing how much we’ve lost. It’s seeing how nopony else cares.”
—Argyle Starshine, journal
Abandoned Hangar
Land
Hideaway 4 (When this land enters, look at the top four cards of your library, exile one face down, then put the rest on the bottom in a random order.)
This land enters tapped.
T: Add W or U.
WU, T: You may play the exiled card without paying its mana cost if you control four or more creatures and/or Vehicles with flying.
Notably, castles were historically intended for something close to this. Keep the civilians in a secure building while your soldiers deal with the siege.
EQG Izzy says hi.
And it was annoyingly plot-adjacent the last time too.
Inside Baseball Alert: "Whenever you attack with three or more creatures" started out as the ability word "battalion", the second attempt at a mechanic for the Boros Legion. While this card isn't part of The Implicit Neighs continuity, Omnipresent Assistant will pretty regularly need to find a third Izzy from somewhere and Izzet Moonbow is less likely to cause trouble than her counterparts from the more canon alternate universes (which would be explicitly villainous).
Stupid Complicated Game Alert: Wall of Wind, due to its wording, will still return the creature it blocked to hand even if that creature manages to kill it.
Stupid Complicated Game Alert: There's nothing stopping you from putting Gremlin Umbra on an opponent's creature to prevent them from blocking while you push for lethal. It's unlikely to come up outside multiplayer politics shenanigans, but it's a legal move.
Stupid Complicated Game Alert: Copies of Chain of Critters will maintain their "chain" ability. Players can keep milling to get more tokens until someone with the fewest creatures gets concerned about decking themselves out (or outright doesn't have enough cards left to do the mill). Side of Inside Baseball Alert, as this was a real cycle. Note that the canon ones had either a naturally limited scope or a real cost. There's going to be a whole lot of critters in this one.
Stupid Complicated Game Alert: Information Kiosk is almost certainly meant to be tapped during an opponent's turn after they've already drawn a card from both their draw step and some other effect. Yes, this is allowed.
Happy to see G5 is at least able to do well in the comics. I haven't read that many but those I got have been quite fun.
Honestly, the art style of the first half of this double-header would stick out even without the sudden jump over to Andy Price's art; Part 1's art rather inconsistent and wobbly beyond the usual stretching of character models for visual flexibility or the artist not yet having a handle on the character designs. And the fusion of these two issues only rhos continuity errors like Pipp's horn into further focus. Though getting some Andy Price artistic flourishes in the expression and in-jokes throughout, even at this reduced rate, is very welcome. And he just draws so well, right down to the arcan sonneys (neat to have folklore creatures in MLP again!, which I'm sure sounded ridiculous in the script.
This two-parter yet again hits a solid high-for-G5-comics by being largely plot with some character work sprinkled on top of it. I won't lie, that does make it rather lacking in nourishment, though the game attempts to insert some resonation with things like Zipp's disappointment in Cloudsdale (which probably would have had more pathos if I'd read this back-to-back with the first issue, so I won't hold that against the issue) or Misty's having an offhand reason to be this resourceful in how she had to work under Opaline.
Indeed, Misty's whole mage-scientist thing she's had going on since Opaline's defeat is an admirable direction, but one that's largely fizzled due to how poorly TYT is suited to showing that development, instead just having the odd moment where she seems to have progressed, and the comics being unable to do better than remind us it's a thing and use it as a plot device at times. So moments like these are welcome.
And otherwise, I liked this coming full circle back to the old station, and some gratuitous G4 Easter Eggs aside, the use of Cloudsdale here is rather graceful and well-modulated. Hay, even the new lore makes some sense, if not total sense.
This miniseries is still basically only at surface level enjoyment for me – hard to be otherwise when to achieve its best, G5 has to be mostly about plot, unable to sustain a character-driven story without faceplanting somewhere. But I am looking forward to seeing how it ends, even if I seriously doubt it will be satisfying (most comic multi-parters aren't, so that's not a dig).
Is intentional that you can choose yourself with Chain of Critters?