Friendship is Card Games: Tanks for the Memories · 1:24pm Apr 26th, 2015
Tortoise hibernation leads to pegasus frustration, songs of cancellation, and total devastation of a weather installation.
Cloudsdale is confirmed to be mobile. Interesting, though it makes sense with tornado duty. And I’m guessing there are other cloud cities supplying winter elsewhere in Equestria; Cloudsdale just provides for the Canterlot region.
I had a whole rant lined up complaining about this “first winter” thing, but as I was writing it, I realized that the show’s caught itself in a continuity snarl since the Season 4 premiere. As such, I’m reciting the MST3K mantra. Yeah, it’s several kinds of dumb. When in doubt, blame Discord. Cause and effect never seem to behave around him.
Interesting to see Tank’s rotor start to glow once Dash gets it started. Some kind of perpetual motion spell? Perhaps something that lessens friction such that the motor can act as its own generator?
Wow. So, over the course of a few months, Dash came to love her pet tortoise more than her oldest friend. Well, that’s not a fair comparison. After all, Fluttershy isn’t the one she wouldn’t be seeing for months. Three months. At which point Tank will wake up. I’m going to come back to this.
Also, shouldn’t Fluttershy have mentioned this when Rainbow Dash first chose Tank? Or at any point in the interim? Seriously, a little forewarning, and this could’ve all been avoided. Yes, Dash probably wouldn’t listen the first time, but this is about the wellbeing of an animal. This is serious to Fluttershy, or Flutterserious for short.
Taxonomically speaking, tortoises are a family. Testudinidae, specifically. So, no, not the same family as dragons at all.
I swear, Dash’s house looks different every time we see it. An advantage of cloud-based architecture, I suppose. That, or it keeps falling apart.
Very appropriate Grinch grin when Dash decided that she must stop this winter from coming. (But how?)
“Who’s on First?” with pony names. It’s been done, but it’s still funny.
This has been an incredibly musical season thus far. The only episode without a song was the conclusion of a two-parter.
It appears that Tank can walk on clouds. I suppose it’s a built-in feature of the rotor, or there's some spell permanently inscribed on his shell.
I quite liked the weather factory. There’s a lot to take in there. All it was missing was Powerhouse.
Hello again, Wilhelm.
I admit, I burst out laughing at Twilight Starkle. I missed the Larson hype train, so I didn’t see that one coming at all.
Tank has little Rainbow Dash slippers. And vice versa. That is disgustingly cute. 
I do like Fluttershy being the one to break the petless news. She’s Dash’s oldest friend present, the authority on animals… and she just may be getting a little passive-aggressive revenge for Dash’s stubborness. Applejack crying on the inside was also well done. She’s the one who’s actually had to grieve.
That being said, it seems I have a heart of stone, because I thought fourfould pony cryfest was emotionally overwrought. I couldn’t help but see a giant neon sign reading “FEEL SAD NOW.” Twilight is apparently my spirit animal.
Okay, seriously, given that this is how Dash reacts to not seeing a pet for three months, imagine how she’s going to react to an actual death. Yes, she has little sense of proportion, but all this episode was missing was Pinkie playing “Amazing Grace” on bagpipes.
Also, how was Dash not arrested? Or at least fired? Yes, she ushered in winter very efficiently, but she also caused tremendous damage to the weather factory, to say nothing of any other towns that Cloudsdale hadn’t yet supplied. I suppose she’d have to get caught first, but being in the enormous snowball when she wasn’t even supposed to be in Cloudsdale is rather incriminating. I suppose saving the world a couple times puts you above suspicion.
In all… yeah, didn’t much care for this episode. The basic premise could and should have been invalidated before it even started, and the mood was horribly overblown. There were some interesting ideas, though. What really gets me is that if Season 3 had been full-length, this would’ve fit in perfectly.
Also, this season has been dark. This is the second episode mourning something. First the library tree, now Tank. The premiere was about a cult that ritualistically mutilates souls, and "Bloom and Gloom" was built around fear of one's very purpose in life being something horrible.
Ah well. Like it or not, there was still plenty of good card fodder:
Mournful Pegasus WW
Creature — Pegasus
Flying
Morbid — Mournful Pegasus can’t attack unless a creature died this turn.
Only a greater tragedy than her own can distract her from her sorrow.
2/3
Hibernation Burrow 1W
Snow Enchantment — Aura
Enchant snow land you control
When Hibernation Burrow enters the battlefield, exile target creature an opponent controls until Hibernation Burrow leave the battlefield.
Triple Axel 1W
Instant
Untap target creature. If that creature is snow, it gains double strike until end of turn. Otherwise, it gains first strike until end of turn
”Skating’s fun! Where else is making yourself dizzy part of the sport?”
—Pinkie Pie, Bearer of Laughter
Summerize 2W
Instant
Remove target attacking or blocking creature from combat. If that creature is snow, destroy it.
Pegasus magic can chase the dog days out of their winter kennel.
Cryoclasm 4WW
Sorcery
Destroy all nonsnow creatures.
Forecast — 1S, Reveal Cryoclasm from your hand: Target creature becomes snow until end of turn. (Activate this abilty only during your upkeep and only once each turn. S can be paid with one mana from a snow source.)
Winter is coming.
Fall Finale UU
Sorcery
Lands target opponent controls don’t untap during his or her next untap step.
”The land, like all things, needs its rest.”
—Princess Luna
Icicle Team 1U
Creature — Unicorn Citizen
T: Target nonsnow permanent becomes snow until end of turn.
Ponyville tradition keeps unicorn magic out of Winter Wrap-Up. Ponyville pragmatism makes heavy use of it during other seasonal transitions.
1/2
Insistent Denial 1U
Instant
Counter target spell unless its controller pays 1. If that player does, you may pay 1. If you do, repeat this process.
Trying to change Rainbow Dash’s mind is about as easy as telling lightning where to strike.
Open the Wind Vault 1UU
Instant
Return each permanent that dealt damage to you this turn to its owner’s hand.
”Keep sealed. Contents are pressure.”
—Vault sign
Cloudsdale Infiltrator 2U
Creature — Pegasus Rogue
Flying
1R: Cloudsdale Infiltrator can’t be blocked by creatures with flying this turn.
Most Cloudsdalers disdain the earth, not understanding the potential it offers.
2/1
“I’ll Fly” 2U
Enchantment — Song
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a verse counter on “I’ll Fly”.
1U, Sacrifice “I’ll Fly”: Tap up to X target permanents, then untap up to X target permanents, where X is the number of verse counters on “I’ll Fly”.
Misled Migration 2UU
Instant
If a creature would enter the battlefield this turn, put it on top of its owner’s library instead.
”This one wasn’t my fault.”
—Ditzy Doo
Break the News 1BB
Sorcery
Morbid — Target player loses 2 life for each creature that died this turn.
”It’s never easy, but it’s always necessary.”
—Fluttershy, Bearer of Kindness
Contagious Sorrow 3B
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
When Contagious Sorrow enters the battlefield, put a -1/-1 counter on enchanted creature.
Each creature with a -1/-1 counter on it has “Whenever this creature deals damage to a creature, put a -1/-1 counter on that creature.”
1B: Attach Contagious Sorrow to target creature with a -1/-1 counter on it.
Raging Visage 1R
Sorcery
Target creature gets +1/+0 and gains intimidate until end of turn.
Rainbow Dash has all the subtlety and stoicism of a hurricane.
Slapshot 2R
Instant
Kicker 1R (You may pay an additional 1R as you cast this spell.)
Target creature you control deals damage equal to its power to another target creature. If Slapshot was kicked, it deals 3 damage to the second creature.
Winter Shipment 2R
Snow Instant
Add RRRR to your mana pool.
Cloudsdale distributes snowclouds across central Equestria. What the towns do with those allotments is up to them.
Stoic Grief 2G
Enchantment
Whenever a spell or ability an opponent controls causes you to discard a card, you may draw a card.
If a spell or ability an opponent controls causes you to discard Stoic Grief, put it onto the battlefield instead of putting it into your graveyard.
Coldrunner Sled 2
Snow Artifact — Equipment
Equipped creature has snow landwalk.
Whenever equipped creature attacks, you may pay S. If you do, target land becomes snow until end of turn.
Equip 2
Intake Hose 2
Artifact
T, Sacrifice a nonland permanent: Put two charge counters on target artifact.
Weather factories work with water, heat, and electricity, but the facilities can process almost anything.
Bottled Lightning 3
Artifact
2, T, Sacrifice Bottled Lightning: Bottled Lightning deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
”It’s a lot easier than it sounds.”
—Rainbow Dash, Bearer of Loyalty
Winter Lab 4
Snow Artifact
2: Put a charge counter on Winter Lab.
Remove a charge counter from Winter Lab: Add 1 to your mana pool.
Pegasi fill its cisterns for most of the year to prepare for Fall Finale.
Cloud Generator 5
Artifact
Cloud Generator enters the battlefield with three charge counters on it.
3, T, Remove a charge counter from Cloud Generator: Put a 2/2 blue Elemental creature token with flying onto the battlefield.
Cloudburst RG
Sorcery
As an additional cost to cast Cloudburst, sacrifice a creature.
If the sacrificed creature had flying or reach, Cloudburst deals damage equal to that creature’s power to each creature with flying. Otherwise, Cloudburst deals that much damage to each creature without flying.
Whereas I thought this was not only the best episode so far this season, but the best episode since Maud Pie. The "everyone cries together" bit was the only part I didn't care for (but RD herself turning on the waterworks worked great).
And aww, I was actually looking forward to the "first winter" rant.
3018136
Different strokes. I enjoyed the scenes, but the whole just didn't mesh for me.
And to summarize the rant, the episodes clearly do not air in chronological order. That being said:
• All of Season 1, including "Winter Wrap-Up," takes place before "Return of Harmony," because Celestia sends back the friendship reports.
• Because Celestia only sends back Twilight's reports, "Return of Harmony" takes place before "Lesson Zero," where Celestia opens up friendship reports to everypony.
• Applejack sends a friendship report—sort of—in "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000," which takes place during cider season, i.e. autumn. This autumn takes place after "Winter Wrap-Up," and thus Twilight spent more than a year in Ponyville prior to earning her wings, which "Princess Twilight Sparkle" disputes.
• Continuing this, assuming the seasons are in chronological order (i.e. all of Season 3 happens after Season 2,) then the Harvest Festival in "One Bad Apple" occurs after "May the Best Pet Win" and "Hearth's Warming Eve." After that is the Summer Sun Celebration of "Princess Twilight Sparkle." Again, harvests are in autumn, and between autumn and summer is winter. Thus this isn't Dash's first winter with Tank.
3018189
Oh, it's completely clear that the timeline of MLP makes absolutely no coherent sense in any way. Heck, I think at this point each new piece of contradictory information should be called a running joke. It does amuse/confuse me that people want to invest so much work in making a coherent timeline - but only (as far as I have seen) towards one particular interpretation, the one in which each season more or less takes a year in-show. You have to ignore vast amounts of textual evidence either way, but once you're willing to do that you can just as well go with what they've actually said explicitly on several occasions now, that the entire show so far somehow has unfolded in less than two years.
And in next week's episode, Rainbow Dash goes to prison for betraying the public trust in her capacity as weather team captain... oh wait you already made that joke further down in the post. Great minds I guess.
Seriously though, that girl has zero ability to prioritize when it comes to conflicting loyalties. Zero. As this entire week's plot was really just RD being an idiot, I was rolling my eyes instead of on the edge of my seat, especially at the cryfest.
Also, whose bright idea was it to stick a storage room full of lightning next to a room full of electrical equipment? Someone needs to call Pony OSHA, or maybe the fire marshal. Not to mention storing all the lightning in fragile glass jars, on shelves.
---
For a second I thought Cryoclasm was going to be about the four-way sobfest. Nope, that's Contagious Sorrow.
Insistent Denial: Funny. It's like an X cost counterspell except slightly more efficient and way more silly (and annoying if they ever tried to put it in a computer version of the game).
Open the Wind Vault: I like that effect and that flavor text.
“I’ll Fly”: If all you're looking at is a full attack or to double-use someone's ability, it's way too impractical, but I guess there's something to be said for flexibility in tapping and untapping any permanents.
Misled Migration: Very nice. Blue control, always ready to annoy.
Break the News: Also works on your own creatures. Boardwipes are for chumps, the real combo here is with tokens and a sacrifice engine.
Contagious Sorrow: What's the point of being able to move it between creatures? Its effects are global, all that does is stop it from going poof if the host dies. In any case, this belongs on somebody that can ping, preferably multiple targets at once.
Stoic Grief: Cute. It's sideboard material at best, but it's good sideboard material.
Intake Hose: Ok, I know for sure there's some cards that'll be broken with two extra charge counters per turn. But there's already cards that enable those combos so whatever. Funny note: this can sacrifice itself.
Bottled Lightning: Seal of Fire, it is not. Then again, when you want to steal red's specialty in white or green or blue, there are consequences.
Cloud Generator: Very cool, if impractical. Considering you can get two thirds of the effect right away from Talrand's Invocation for 2UU.
Cloudburst: So your creature is... exploding? I'm not really sure I get the flavor here.
3018189 Silly FOME, you're still assuming that the ponies, despite having complete control over the weather and the calendar, chose to make a year that goes Spring-Summer-Autumn-Winter, in that order and with equal lengths. The calendar looks like whatever Celestia wants the calendar to look like! How do you know it's not Spring-Summer-Autumn-Summer-Spring-Summer-Autumn-Winter? If I were writing the calendar I'd certainly want to give winter the short straw.
The timeline has been screwed since season 1, what are you talking about? While I know the writers take their job seriously, and are always focused on giving us (As in the people, not just us bronies) great stories...I don't think timeline is top of their list of things to care about.
Wouldn't be the first time. Will someone please explain to me how All of the first half of One Piece takes place in the span of only two months, or how FOE lasted only two months, or how Gundam Wing was only six months long. Heck, not just anime, will someone please give me a graft of the time when it comes to Avengers? I mean, really? It took two years just to get to Avengers in universe, Iron Man 2/Thor/Hulk/Captain America end credits scene happened in one year but it took Loki two to get his plans going? And where does Daredevil take place, what about GOTG? Don't even get me started on trying to convert Star Trek time to real time. The stardates hurt my head!
Though...
I have to wonder, if during the previous two winters, she just had something that took her away from Ponyville each time.
PS.
3018218
Hence my recitation of the MST3K mantra. The nice thing about taking the time to write all of this out is that it gives me time to realize how ridiculous I'm being. And, again, I can always blame Discord.
3018334
Cloudburst's flavor is, in fact, the creature exploding, much like Rupture. Where the explosion takes place depends on the highest elevation the creature can reach, no pun intended. The inspiration for the card, as the name implies, comes from that one snow cloud Dash stuffed into a tree.
As for the seasonal cycle, the Running of the Leaves seen in yesterday's episode and the Winter Wrap-Up song seem to suggest the cycle we're familiar with. ("Three months of winter coolness," "'Cause tomorrow spring is here," etc.) It probably arose as a way for Celestia and Luna to share the labor equally through oscillating night and day length. Though there do seem to be an inordinate number of autumns in there, given how often Applejack is kicking trees. Of course, that may just be earth pony magic accelerating the trees' reproduction cycle.
3018341
Yeah, temporal continuity can be hard to pull off in any franchise. Though I'm not sure how Season 1 alone managed to screw up the timeline.
As for the "winters away" theory, it's possible, but I have to wonder what would keep Ponyville's head weatherpony occupied during Fall Finale for two years in a row.
3018473
Because no one expected ponies to beat out Joes and Transformers in terms of season length. Seriously, Renegades and Prime are done but pony is still going on. HEck, Return of Harmony felt like a series finale in itself.
A couple o things, family trip that just this one year they decided to hold of. Fluttershy takes Dash somewhere far off. Random adventure to beat an ice demon one year, to save Equestria from eternal flooding the next.
Yeah, the timeline's fubar'd here, but otherwise I liked the episode a lot.
I believe this is all because the episode's purpose is to gently introduce kids in the primary demographic to loss and grief. Which it does nicely, I think.
It was especially interesting to note that their solution to essentially a three month death was depression. Sadness and realization. But you're not wrong, it has been dark lately. Take a lot of the key episodes into context...and it paints some rather despairing methods. But it's been that way in most animation lately. It's a trend. Everything's going dark, people!
3018473 Ok, but I don't remember anypony exploding during this episode. Only some machinery.
3018755 Consider the Cloud Generator. FoME is treating the clouds as Cloud Elementals, more or less.
If you mean the lines Celestia said to Twilight regarding the Summer Sun Celebration, I believe it could be taken in a couple of different ways. I thought it meant only one year had passed at first, but here's a part of a conversation I had with someone a while back, which is what led me to believe that it could be interpreted differently:
It took me a couple minutes to realize just how useful Contagious Sorrow's activated ability is...
3018529
...Except for the part where the ponies will be seeing Tank again. Now, I'm not going to comment on the existence or nature of an afterlife, but that seems like it might be setting up kids for disappointment when their pets don't come back three months after burial.
But other than that, yeah, it's probably the best way they could approach the topic. (Also, I like the mental image of Pinkie with bagpipes.)
3018540
Others have noted that Dash demonstrated a textbook case of the five stages of grief: denial ("Tortoises don't hibernate!), anger ("Do I look angry?"), bargaining ("I just have to stop winter!"), depression ("Whatever"), and acceptance ("He's ready to hibernate.") It's a fairly common model for how people react to losing those they love.
3019002
One problem with that. Here's the speech Celesta gives when she raises the sun in part 2:
Yeah. Pretty unambiguously the first solstice since the series premiere. Otherwise, why give this speech? Except, as I note in a lower comment, that timeline isn't possible. Thus, continuity snarl.
3019084
...Why didn't that part of dialogue ever occur to me?
3019084 Eh, I suppose...but I find the end better than the entirety of the stages in the episode. That they actually went with it. Acceptance isn't always a good thing, it also goes under another mantra: giving up.
(Also, Fall Out Boy's getting more attention lately. Funny.)
3019084
Well, yeah, Tank's not dead. But still, it's a good take on the subject I think.
On the Summer Sun Celebration thing, I believe it's about Luna's participation in the SSC for the first time, not that it's the first SSC since Luna came back. (I mean, the first season pretty explicitly starts at midsummer, runs through the winter, and ends sometime in early summer with GGG. Next season, Luna makes her grand entrance into modern pony society at Ponyville during Nightmare Night, so there must have been one SSC already.
Damn, I'm putting much too much thought into this!
i didn't really have an issue with the episode, sure all the emotions were very EMOTIONS but that might be how Rainbow Dash shows emotions, we don't really have much of a precedent on how she feels things like that, the others may be forming the feels ball because that's what Dash needs to be around. Also why does winter shipment give red instead of blue?
3019002
I must be missing something, because I don't see any way in which that ability is useful, except to save the enchantment from the graveyard if the creature dies in the course of normal events.
3019814
Actually, that's exactly the thing that took me a minute to realize. It seems like the longer that enchantment is able to stay on the board, the more dangerous it becomes...
3019337
I know, it's very tempting to try and make sense of the mess. Blaming Discord is a great way to get your mind to drop the subject.
3019665
Oh, the cascading is understandable, and Dash is a lot like Tank. She's got a tough exterior, but when it's finally breached, there's a big softie underneath. Under different circumstances, I probably would've teared up. (Heck, I still tear up when I hear "A True, True Friend.") It's just that lingering fact that Tank would be fine in a few months that kept me from falling victim to the feels. Twilight apparently felt the same way.
Oh, and red can be cold sometimes. It just doesn't do it frequently.
3018189
My take on this is that winter takes a long time to prepare, since they have to make all the snow flakes by hoof apparently, and it's also a regional thing, rather than a world wide event, with Cloudsdale going around Equestria delivering winter and picking up water to prepare the next one.
So maybe they just don't get a winter every single year, and not at a fixed time of the year either, the ponies live most of their lives alternating only between spring, summer and maybe even autumn, but it's always winter somewhere in Equestria as Cloudsdale makes it's rounds across the country.
Heck, maybe winter does come in cycles, but without Cloudsdale being ready to provide the massive amounts of snow and clouds required most of the winters in Equestria are just very mild extended autumns that the ponies don't even consider a true winter, except for the few regions they can afford to cover each year. That might explain why AJ spends so much time harvesting apples.
It's also why the animals need to be tended to by the ponies themselves, since the seasons aren't fixed a lot of the animals can't rely on instinctual cycles to deal with winter.
Or, well, at least that's how I justify the non sense of it all to myself.
I want Breaking the News to be a card so badly--it can become my second wincon in my Heartless Summoning deck!
3019963
I honestly can't believe that every snowflake is hoof-sculpted. One calculation puts the number at twenty trillion, a two followed by thirteen zeroes, per snowstorm. Plus, there's the fact that Dash got blasted out of Cloudsdale in an industrially produced snowball. No, the "every snowflake is hoofmade" thing is clearly just a bit of good-sounding PR.