Friendship is Card Games: It's About Time · 11:15pm Mar 8th, 2015
Appropriate that this one occurs out of chronological order. And that it experienced some delays. Fortunately, those delays weren’t due to a stable time loop, and it hopefully won’t be the root cause of any quasidemonic, soul-devouring centaurs rampaging through the country. Hopefully. 
To be fair, in a town with Pinkie Pie, forgetting to celebrate Arbor Day could be a sign of greater problems. Also, I have to wonder what that meeting with the Ponyville Hay Board was for. Was Mayor Mare delegating certain tasks to Twilight? (I know I would; who better than someone who actually enjoys it?)
Given that Twilight was going to try to read two books at the same time before her future self appeared, there probably would’ve been temporal shenanigans here even without the time loop.
“You are not scientifically possible.” 
That isn’t how science works, Purplesmart. If reality doesn’t match your expectations, reality is not the one at fault. I love this line for how quintessentially Twilight it is, but I hate it for how unscientific it is. (Now, if she hypothesized a wrong but logical explanation for the phenomenon, that’d be fine. But outright denying the evidence in front of her, especially when it passed the poke test? Big no-no.)
When this clip of the two Twilights was previewed, people were only half-jokingly wondering about Fallout: Equestria coming close to canon. Remember, this was the same season that gave us a canonical little Pip. Also, you are now imagining Pipsqueak as John Connor. Though I’m not sure who Skynet would be. CelestAI is alternate continuity.
It’s interesting to note how Star Swirl the Bearded’s legend has grown over time. In “Luna Eclipsed,” he had a shelf in the Canterlot Archives. This episode? He has a whole wing. I have to wonder if he’s still active, his continuing deeds reverberating through time such that his renown seems to grow from the perspective of an outside observer.
“What a mess she is!” Well, somepony’s been hanging around Rarity lately. That, or Solid Sparkle was in a shabby enough state to make an impression even on herself.
Huh. Groucho glasses imply knowledge of the human nose. Interesting…
Given that this was the age of Derpy cameos, having the Doctor laugh at the idea of Twilight being warned by her future self was most likely an intentional choice on the part of the animators. Of course, he may just be laughing for a different reason. “And she thinks she can prevent it! That’s hilarious.”
So the pegasi of one town can do a risk assessment of the entire nation? I know Ponyville is centrally located, but that says something about either the size of Equestria, the cross-country capabilities of the average pegasus, or Rainbow Dash’s logistical skills.
Of course, given that “disasterproof Equestria” seems to mean “Ponyville fix-stuff-up montage,” I suppose that should be taken with a lick of salt. By which I mean several pounds of it.
Do I even want to know where that huge checklist went? Twilight wasn’t wearing saddlebags. Either all ponies have access to hammerspace, or… Well, I’m not sure if I can finish that joke while keeping this blog work-safe.
The gates of Tartarus are less than a day away from Ponyville. On hoof. Given what we know about both Ponyville and Equestria as a whole, this should not come as any kind of surprise.
Also, Twilight probably should’ve made a checklist of Tartarus’s inmates before she did that census. After all, she missed one.
Also also, a lost dog flier? No, I think Celestia knows Cerberus has been accounted for. That, or she has a really tasteless sense of humor. (Of course, given the “Happy Tuesday!” later on…)
“Twilight! There’s a mouse right behind you!” The Bearer of Loyalty, ladies and gentlemen.
Hmm. I genuinely can’t remember whether Friendship is Witchcraft did the “gypsy Pinkie” thing before this episode.
The fourteenth moon? Either Luna is a lot busier than we thought, or Equestria’s solar system is much more than a three-body problem.
It has been said many, many times, but I will always appreciate that the animators put in the actual equations for relativistic time dilation. For more on this subject, see the always awesome Pineta's analysis.
Should I even ask about Twilight’s espionage experience? I don’t think this is the first time she’s done something like this. Have the Bearers been doing black ops without our knowledge? Or does Celestia just expect her students to be able to infiltrate Outer Heaven?
Hmm. You know, Twilight probably would’ve asked Ditzy to stop time for her in my stories. I may need to think about how this would play out with a planeswalker and time-space bureaucrats in Ponyville…
In any case, I've received an important message from myself from the future: Don't mention this mess—
Oh. Well, let's just go to the cards:
Dazzle W
Instant
Target player can’t cast spells with targets this turn.
Draw a card.
”You’d think ponies would know not to look directly at it by now.”
—Princess Celestia
Disasterproofing 1WW
Instant
All noncreature permanents gain indestructible until end of turn.
Prepare for the worst, and you’ll never have to face it.
Dedicated Inaction 2W
Enchantment
Cumulative upkeep 1 (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then sacrifice it unless you pay its upkeep cost for each age counter on it.)
You can’t lose the game and your opponents can’t win the game.
When you cast a spell or attack with a creature, sacrifice Dedicated Inaction.
Seasoned Watchstallion 3W
Creature — Unicorn Soldier
Seasoned Watchstallion can block creatures with intimidate as though it were an artifact creature.
”I’ve dealt with demon cultists, mad gods, and Twilight Sparkle. You? You don’t impress me.”
2/4
Monitor Everything 1U
Enchantment
Your opponents play with their hands and the top card of their libraries revealed.
Divination is an underdeveloped discipline in Ungula. Those who seek omniscience have to work for it.
Future Twilight UUU
Legendary Creature — Unicorn Wizard
Vanishing 1
Play with the top card of your library revealed.
You may play the top card of your library.
Whenever you play a card from your library, put a time counter on Future Twilight.
2/3
Tactical Espionage Action 2UU
Sorcery
Choose one —
• Creatures you control can’t be blocked this turn.
• Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player this turn, you may draw a card.
Entwine 2U (Choose both if you pay the entwine cost.)
Causal Loop 3UU
Enchantment
Whenever a player casts a spell, that player may search his or her library for a card with the same name as that spell, reveal it, and put it into his or her hand. If that player does, he or she shuffles his or her library.
”Time travel is even more complicated than it looks.”
—Minuette, temporal operative
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy 4UU
Sorcery
Search your library for a card, shuffle your library, then put that card in third from the top. Exile Self-Fulfilling Prophecy with four time counters on it.
Suspend 4—2U (Rather than cast this card from your hand, you may pay 2U and exile it with four time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When the last is removed, cast it without paying its mana cost.)
Incessant Pacing R
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
Whenever enchanted creature attacks, put a wear counter on Incessant Pacing.
2R, Remove three wear counters from Incessant Pacing: Destroy target nonbasic land. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.
Inexplicable Flowerpot 1R
Instant
As an additional cost to cast Inexplicable Flowerpot, discard a land card.
Inexplicable Flowerpot deals 4 damage to target creature.
“Where did that even come from?"
—Pinkie Pie, Element of Laughter
Primary Panicker 3R
Creature — Pony Rogue
Creatures can’t block.
”Okay, everypony, follow my lead!”
3/2
Wild Empathy 1G
Instant
Choose one —
• Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn by creatures with power 4 or greater.
• Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn by creatures with power 3 or less.
Pinkie's Cache 3G
Sorcery
Return a card at random from your graveyard to your hand.
Exile Pinkie's Cache.
Storm (When you cast this spell, copy it for each other spell that was cast this turn.)
"I keep emergency stashes all over Ponyville. You never know when they might come in handy."
—Pinkie Pie, Bearer of Laughter
Sage's Turban 2
Artifact — Equipment
Whenever equipped creature becomes tapped, scry 1. (To scry 1, look at the top card of your library, then you may put that card on the bottom of your library.)
Equip 1
"If you're going to be a fortune teller, you need to look the part."
—Pinkie Pie, Bearer of Laughter
Sneaking Suit 2
Artifact — Equipment
Equipped creature can’t be blocked unless defending player pays 2 for each creature blocking it. (This cost is paid as blockers are declared.)
Equip 1
Quiet as a serpent, sure as steel.
Mystical Orb of Fate's Destiny 4
Artifact
X, T: Scry X.
”Patent pending.”
—Pinkie Pie, Bearer of Laughter
Short-Term Gain UR
Sorcery
Draw three cards. Discard three cards at the beginning of your next upkeep.
The concerns of the future seem inconsequential until the moment they become undeniable.
Cerberus, Nether Guardian 6WBR
Legendary Creature — Hound
Double strike, vigilance
Cerberus, Nether Guardian can block up to two additional creatures.
Whenever Cerberus attacks or blocks, after this combat's declare blockers step, there is an extra combat damage step. Only Cerberus assigns combat damage during that step.
If a creature dealt damage by Cerberus this turn would die, exile it instead.
3/9
Scour the Archives XGUB
Sorcery
Each of up to X target cards in your graveyard gains dredge Y until end of turn, where Y is 2 plus that card’s converted mana cost. (If you would draw a card, instead you may put exactly Y cards from the top of your library into your graveyard. If you do, return that card from your graveyard to your hand. Otherwise, draw a card.)
Draw X cards.
Exile Scour the Archives.
Canterlot Archives
Land
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
3, T, Sacrifice Canterlot Archives: Return an instant or sorcery card at random from your graveyard to your hand.
If a spell can’t be found here, it can’t be found anywhere.
Chilled Chateau
Snow Land
Chilled Chateau enters the battlefield tapped
T: Add W or B to your mana pool.
”All flavors sealed in frozen cream,
Made for one held in high esteem,
Seen only in a dragon’s dream.”
—The Dynasty of Dessert Kings
Spike, Scourge of Frozen Delights RGU
Legendary creature - Dragon
Whenever Spike, Scourge of Frozen Delights enters the battlefield you may exile target snow permanent, at the beginning of the next upkeep you may exile target snow permanent.
Spike, Scourge of Frozen Delights gets +1/+1 for each snow permanent exiled by this card.
Whenever Spike, Scourge of Frozen Delights leaves the battlefield return to play all permanent exiled by Spike, Scourge of Frozen Delights
2/2
Temur colors because reasons that would take too long to explain.
I receive messages
From the potential future
In form of haiku
They rarely make sense
And often start with the line
"For future ref'rence"
(Future-me is kind of a cheater)
You seem to have put the Equip abilities for the Equipment in this batch after the flavor text
Hm, interesting take on a Triple Strike ability. I do have to wonder what is Black about Cerberus though. None of its abilities are black in any way. Double Strike is WR, Vigilance is W, Triple Strike is all flavor, and exiling cards is W.
I like the scry cards. I like the scry mechanic in general.
I like how you described "the poke test" with a definite article. Perhaps it should also get capital letters. Perhaps even a card!
The Poke Test U
Instant
Rebound
Flip a coin. If you win the flip, return target creature to its owner's hand.
When you can't believe the input of your senses, perhaps it's time to involve more of them.
As for Star Swirl, how's this theory: Every time Twilight returns to Canterlot, she adds two books to the Starswirl section of the library. It started out as just one shelf...
I can't help but feel like you're giving Twilight way more credit than she deserves for her stealth abilities. Considering she was A: Breaking into a place she was allowed to be in with guards who wouldn't bat an eye at her behaving oddly and B: Got through the door by being "caught".
Anyways, cards. Loved the cards this time.
Dedicated Inaction looks hilarious.
Seasoned Watchstallion also has hilarious flavor text, though that ability seems a bit limited for the cost.
Future Twilight actually looks really cool. A deck with her in it would probably be really fun to play. All your cheap spells are now cantrips, or double-cantrips if they already were! I wonder if you could pull off a monoblue deck with nothing costing more than three mana...
Causal Loop looks pretty powerful. There's a lot of cards that'll go really well with that, but it'll usually work for your opponent too.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy--Third from the top and automatically recasts itself every four turns? This card gives me a headache. (Also you'd need a lot of card draw or other library shenanigans before a tutored card 7 draws from now will ever see play. It'd probably be more fun if that suspend cost was just U so you can plop it down right away and reap the benefits later.)
Incessant Pacing--Haha, she's so bad she destroys a land with her pacing... more than once. (Of course it'll take six turns for this to not just be a terribly slow Stone Rain, but I guess if ANY deck has that kind of time to spare its a dedicated land destruction deck).
Inexplicable Flowerpot--Another funny one, if kinda obvious.
Primary Panicker--And another funny one. Also incredibly powerful, but balanced since it goes both ways.
Mystical Orb of Fate's Destiny--Yeah, that sure sounds like Pinkie named it to me.
Short-Term Gain--Want this, so bad. Though I feel like I have seen more-or-less the same effect before.
Cerberus, Nether Guardian--Triple Strike! I'm a little confused though, does he deal his bonus damage before or after everyone deals normal damage (I think before)? It'd be clearer if you said "before/after the combat damage step". Either way that is monstorously expensive but if you slap even a measly Rancor on him the game is over.
Scour the Archives--Just how much do you want me to mill myself in one turn? Worth it though.
2860686
Exiling cards from a graveyard is more black than white, though; and the exile ability is closer to that than to 'exile target creature'. Plus, flavor, via the connection to Tartarus. (Even though it's not a given that the Equestrian Tartarus is the underworld.)
2860714
The Poke Test 0
(G) Instant
Choose a target creature.
Perfect for dealing with illusions!
2860966
I guess? Though really, the only Black card with that ability is Leyline of the Void. Though, from the cards I looked through with similar abilities, exiling instead of hitting the graveyard doesn't really seem to be tied to any one color. In fact, it actually shows up on more Red burn spells than anything else. The other main example of the ability appearing in Black, Anafenza, has the ability purely for flavor reasons, not because of anything mechanical.
Also, I love the Poke Test there, a card with that effect is something I've long wanted. Though I shudder to think how it would be used in Prowess/Heroic/Storm decks.
2860966 Ok, your Poke Test is even better than my Poke Test.
2860994
Actually, I've found six black cards with abilities along those lines. Two of them, Anafenza* and Purgatory, are also white. The others are Planar Void, for which the Leyline was named, Yawgmoth's Agenda, and the degenerate combo card, Yawgmoth's Will.
My point is, it's more black than you think. Furthermore, in terms of effects that exile cards after they've hit the graveyard, black outdoes white 58 to 14, counting the three white-black effects. And that's not taking into account the various cards that exile cards in graveyards as part of a cost. White has two. Black has thirty-six. (This isn't taking effects like unearth and flashback into effect, but it is counting delve.)
*Who, for the record, had the exile ability tacked on in development for purely mechanical reasons, as Sultai hate.
2861106
Well, technically, cards exiled by Cerberus never hit the graveyard. Actually, they don't even die.
Huh, I just checked, and yeah. It seems Anafenza's exile was added for metagame stuff. Weird, I could have sworn that I remembered Maro saying that it was added to tie in to the flavor of her grinding her enemies' bones to dust.
*Dessert.
It does fit in with the sort of intellectual arrogance, this automatic conviction that she knows better and the others are wrong, that is one of Twilight's biggest character flaws. (She's been getting a lot better on that aspect!) It's best seen in Feeling Pinkie Keen, where she starts by investigating how Pinkie Sense works, but very quickly is trying to disprove it, just to show Pinkie that she's wrong and Twilight's right.
2862171
Yeah, that was supposed to be the message of 'Feeling Pinkie Keen', that that's not actually how you do science. Too bad they flubbed it so hard, though.
2860644
Honestly, that's green-white.
2860652
Though reminder text
Wishes union with flavor,
Equip comes between.
Vigilant readers
Correct my hasty errors.
Many thanks to you.
2860714 2860966
Your Poke Tests are both fantastic and you should both feel fantastic.
2865957 he is G/R/U mostly due to how I see Spike as a character, also I may have a thing for making cards three colors (it's a problem) blue shouldn't be there but why would he be white?
2866173
The temporary exiling. He's like Leonin Relic-Warder with a space heater.
2866215 I actually did look at detention sphere for wording, guess I should have taken the color as well.
Man, Future Twilight. Now that's what I call top-decking!
And the Self-fulfilling Prophecy. You created a time loop card, and I love you for that.
Scour the Archives: I must have this card for my Tasigur/Sidisi Brood Tyrant deck. It's just so perfect of a fit! (Interestingly enough, the deck works just as well with either commander, if a bit different for each.)
And Cerberus (which, apparently, is Greek for "Spot," by the way) has firstest strike in addition to the other two damage steps. This is wonderful in a similar vein to Rocket Powered Turbo Slug's super haste.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy - We only know that the Time Counters are to signal 'Time to Return' from the Reminder Text? But perhaps that's fine? Else, perhaps something like:
3911513
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy is based on a cycle of "resuspending" cards from Future Sight, such as Reality Strobe. As you can see, it works fine as is.
Why doesn't Cerberus just have triple strike?
4342129
For some reason, the folks at Wizards insist that last strike isn't possible, despite first strike acting as a precedent. I don't get it either.
4342283
Of course, last strike is fine in silver border. I think the reason is that last strike is a negative (usually), so adding headaches to allow a negative keyword is a bad thing. I'll change it to just say 'triple strike' in my version, OK?
4342313
Fine by me.
“You are not scientifically possible.”
Obviously she thinks she's hallucinating, at first. It's a reasonable thing to say to something you think isn't actually there.