Friendship is Card Games: Princess Spike · 12:19pm Jun 21st, 2015
To paraphrase W. C. Fields (possibly,) never work with dragons or children. And when the dragon is a child…
Huh. Katie Cook and Andy Price’s OCs were quite prominent this episode. I wonder what city they were representing.
Griffon right there from the beginning, but they’re going on about the Grand Equestrian Pony Summit. Also, Matilda in the Spike consultation montage. And while he’s not a delegate, there’s Spike himself. Great message, guys: Uniting everyone under the banner of the most populous species.
Twilight, that’s not what they mean by “curl up with a good book.” On the other hand, librarian nesting instinct is adorably hilarious.
Cadence rather goofed on this one. Davesknd goes into further detail here, but to summarize, she never really considered the consequences of the summit's primary logistician being unconscious in the middle of it.
On a related note, it seems that Celestia’s “let Twilight do it” policy is the maximum extent of alicorn delegation abilities. Maybe there's some kind of instinctual drive to do everything they can for ponykind.
On a related note…
“Cadence, couldn’t you soundproof the room or something?”
“Sorry, Spike, but the only silencing spell I know keeps sound from leaving a room, not entering it.”
“For top secret princess meetings, right?”
“…Yes.”
How exactly did Spike get to the top of that tower to shush the bird? I knew he was studying under Pinkie Pie, but I wasn’t expecting this degree of mastery. (To say nothing of the flagrant displays of hammerspace.)
How are the power tools powered, I wonder? Magic, most likely, but by what magical means? Or perhaps Twilight’s been smuggling schematics in from the human world.
Dragonsneeze trees? A tree that causes creatures to sneeze fire at it seems like the kind of mutation that would die out pretty quickly. I suppose after dragons encountered them once, they didn’t want anything to do with them. Or they decided that reducing every dragonsneeze tree to ashes wasn’t worth the trouble. Still, why are there specimens in Canterlot? And why weren’t they trimmed before the summit began? They weren’t any less top-heavy a few days ago unless there were some especially malicious earth ponies shaping the growth.
This episode does a very good job of showing why “the princess is always right” is such a dangerous form of thinking. Blind obedience is a terrible thing on several levels. On the other hand, Spike very nearly caused a revolt against the alicornocracy, saved only by the almighty power of the script pony forgiveness.
I was not expecting them to do so much with Fluffy Clouds of all ponies. Of course, just after “Slice of Life,” I suppose it shouldn’t come as much a surprise that they did something more with the walking Abbot and Costello punchline.
Fancy Pants isn’t above politicking, it seems. Well, he didn’t climb to the top of public opinion just by being the one decent pony in Canterlot.
I kind of want to see the gemologist pony be friends with Maud Pie. They can be rock nerds together.
Leoneighdo Da Vinci! Complete with Pona Lisa as his cutie mark. I like it, even if the portrait is a parody of a Michelangelo work.
Cadence demonstrates some surprisingly Sombra-esque crystal magic when plugging the water main. The only real difference that I can see is that hers are brightly colored. Fascinating.
Maybe. just maybe, the statue symbolizing the unity of Equestria’s various city-states should be held together by something stronger than Van der Waals forces. Just saying.
I honestly didn’t much care for this episode. Really, how many times can they retread the “Spike lets power get to him” plot? This one is basically the start of “Equestria Games” by way of “Sweet and Elite.” The writers just don’t seem to know what to do with him. He’s either on a power trip or debasing himself. And that bit at the end was just cruel.
Ah well. Just because it wasn’t to my taste doesn’t mean there isn’t good card fodder to be had.
Royal Authority WW
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
When Royal Authority enters the battlefield, draw a card.
Enchanted creature has protection from nonlegendary creatures.
To question the princesses’ will is to question the sun and moon, love and friendship.
Adoring Public 2WW
Creature — Pony Citizen
Lieutenant — As long as you control your commander, other players can’t cast spells during your turn.
Their deafening cheers drown out any voices of dissent.
2/3
Canterlot Polo Team 3W
Creature — Unicorn Citizen
Whenever Canterlot Polo Team attacks, clash with an opponent. If you win, Canterlot Polo Team gains indestructible until end of turn. (Each clashing player reveals the top card of his or her library, then puts that card on the top or bottom. A player wins if his or her card had a higher converted mana cost.)
3/3
Drowsy Advice 1U
Sorcery
Target player puts the top three cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard for each tapped creature he or she controls.
”Just put the hay in the apple and eat the candle.”
—Princess Twilight Sparkle
Unicorn Mime 1U
Creature — Unicorn Rogue
When you cast a spell, shuffle Unicorn Mime into its owner’s library.
”I do not trust them, but I tolerate them. For now.”
—Princess Luna
3/3
Busted Main 1UU
Instant
Tap all nonblue creatures.
The infrastructure of Canterlot is among the most advanced in Equestria, which gives it the most potential for disaster.
Whinnyapolis Delegate 2U
Creature — Pony Advisor
T: All creatures get -1/+1 until end of turn.
”Now let’s all just take a breather there and talk about this nice and easy.”
2/2
Grand Summit 2UU
Sorcery
Each player draws a card for each creature on the battlefield.
The frank, peaceful sharing of ideas is essential to running any nation as vast and diverse as Equestria.
Sleepless Night 3U
Sorcery
Creatures target opponent controls don’t untap during his or her next untap step.
Draw a card.
”I tend to dreams, but I can do nothing for those who cannot enter that realm.”
—Princess Luna
Abuse of Power 3B
Sorcery
As an additional cost to cast Abuse of Power, you may reveal a legendary creature card from your hand.
Target player discards two cards. If you revealed a legendary creature card or controlled a legendary creature as you cast Abuse of Power, that player loses 4 life.
Manehattan Delegate 3R
Creature — Pony Advisor
T: All creatures get +1/-1 until end of turn.
”Hey, you got a problem? Come up here and say it to my face!”
2/2
Concrete Cracker 4R
Creature — Unicorn Citizen
Whenever Concrete Cracker deals combat damage to a player, each player sacrifices a nonbasic land.
”I just run the jackhammer. Filling in the hole is somepony else’s job.”
3/3
Double Booking 3GG
Enchantment
Whenever an opponent casts a creature spell, reveal the top card of your library. If it's a creature card, put it onto the battlefield. Otherwise, you may put that card on the bottom of your library.
Schedule hiccups are a natural part of the diplomatic process.
Monument of Unity 3
Artifact
1, Tap two untapped creatures you control that share a creature type: Put a charge counter on Monument of Unity.
2: Until end of turn, Monument of Unity becomes a Pony artifact creature with power and toughness equal to the number of charge counters on it.
Droning Gemologist WU
Creature — Pony Artificer
W, T: Tap target creature.
U, T: Untap target artifact.
Her expertise is surpassed only by the time she’ll spend expounding on it.
1/1
Crystal Plug 1GU
Instant
Counter target activated ability. At the beginning of your next precombat main phase, add X to your mana pool, where X is that ability’s converted activation cost.
Only ethics and economics keep Cadence from using the spell on every annoying courtier.
Dragonsneeze Grove 2RG
Enchantment
Whenever a creature with flying attacks you or a planeswalker you control, that creature deals damage equal to its power to itself.
Allergies can conquer what even the bravest knights cannot.
Resentful Mob 2RG
Creature — Pony Berserker
Trample
As Resentful Mob enters the battlefield, choose a card type.
Resentful Mob’s power is equal to the number of cards of the chosen type in all graveyards.
They have so many scores to settle that they can’t be angry about all of them at the same time.
*/3
Royal Fiat 3(ur)B
Sorcery
Target opponent reveals his or her hand. You may cast an instant or sorcery card from that hand without paying its mana cost.
”It’s by order of the princess.”
—Spike
Pruning-Saw Pegasus 3UB
Creature — Pegasus Citizen
Flying, protection from green
Whenever Pruning-Saw Pegasus attacks, defending player reveals cards from his or her library until he or she reveals a land card. Pruning-Saw Pegasus gets +1/+0 until end of turn for each card revealed this way. That player puts the revealed cards into his or her graveyard.
2/2
Hasbro's Citizen Kane, Princess Spike.
way ahead of you
There are trees that use fire, which clears out the competition, as part of their reproductive process. This must be a magical variant that adapted to create the fires themselves
As for why they have them in Canterlot, the same reason as any other tree: they look nice, and they make people who are allergic to them feel properly unwelcome.
*Glowers at the birch tree in the garden*
Ponies are racist, or at least gleefully, obliviously ethnocentric in all walks of life. :B
Hmn...the one time I want pictures to something you're talking about, it's to an episode that I didn't care for...or watch to completion.
3167755
It was a phoenix. Peewee was a phoenix.
3167777
3167778
Good point. I hadn't considered that the trees might want to get burned. Also, another bit of subtle racism, or at least lack of consideration, on the part of ponies.
3167817
Probably more the latter than the former, more ignorance than malice. Except Celestia and possibly Luna. They don't get that excuse.
3167829
Which pictures?
3167845
What in God's name are you talking about, man?
I liked it for the showing of politics, inasmuch as it would/could. This might also seem to confirm that the Griffon Kingdom really is a vassal or otherwise subservient to the Equestrian Crown.
I can't help but think that the flip side is that most regions seem to have a large degree of autonomy themselves though.
And Cadance being able to generate crystal might have been the highlight.
I like to see him as Celestia light. He is very good at manipulating the social and political landscape, but is entirely benevolent. I wonder if Celestia would find that attractive...?
Er, the Flavor Text on the first card needs it's tags fixed...
3167778
But birch makes for such lovely light colored wood in Minecraft.
3167845 Most of the things after the Dragonsneeze trees in your narrative...I kinda started skipping through at that point...
To be fair to Fancy Pants he likely couldn't have become the delegate from Canterlot without promising to try to get them something, plus he is the only(?) confirmed good guy in Canterlot so it's for the best.
3167778 On top of that, maybe Dragonsneeze trees are fireproof? Spike certainly wasn't able to cause them any harm. It's also possible ponies would cultivate them (or did at some point in the past) specifically to make certain places unpleasant for dragons to visit if, say, they were looking for a quick snack (Hey, wouldn't you rather go eat that village over there which isn't surrounded by something you're allergic to? Ponies weren't always sunshine and harmony).
On an unrelated note to anything anyone's said so far: What the hell is up with that statue? It is butt ugly. Having watched all the new Steven Universe episodes a day before this, I couldn't help but imagine that the statue was the "monster" from Keeping it Together.
---
Royal Authority: Looks fun in an enchantress deck. Really, that's a pretty big effect to be a cantrip.
Drowsy Advice: That looks like a fun combo card. Play after Sleep for best effect.
Unicorn Mime: Funny ability. Also, I like how the mime turned up during Spike's search for noisy things that might wake Twilight.
Busted Main: Assuming you're all-blue and they're no-blue, this is just Sleep that doesn't let you attack the turn you played it. Which is fair, if a bit weak.
Whinnyapolis Delegate: Ooh, I like that ability. Makes defending much easier, since it's really 2 extra toughness for all your blockers (and 1 less damage from anything unblocked).
Grand Summit: I'm surprised there's no green in this card. Well, you're probably not going to play this unless you're splashing another color for a mob of creatures, and green's actually not the ideal for that.
Manehattan Delegate: Yay for mirror image cards! Also yay for this card's equally fun (but less unique) ability.
Double Booking: Cool spell in the right deck. But if you want to be really mean, keep U open so you can cast Brainstorm in response to any creature spell, and guarantee the best creature in your hand (or the next three cards) is your freebie.
Monument of Unity: That looks less like a statue made out of gems and more like everyone combining to form Voltron.
Droning Gemologist: At first I thought you said she could untap a creature, and I was deeply confused until I realized it said artifact.
Crystal Plug: Sadly you can't really use this for any form of planned combo, since it doesn't counter triggered abilities. (And if you did want to use it for that there'd be cheaper alternatives anyways)
Resentful Mob: Looks great in exactly the kinds of deck that neither green nor red can contribute to: Mill and discard.
Royal Fiat: "Ok, I cast Vision Skeins right before the end of your turn so we each draw two cards, and then Font of Mythos and Howling Mine make me draw my three extra cards, and now I cast Royal Fiat. Show me your hand." Or just cast it right after they tutor for something. Or for even best-er effect, run alongside something that lets you see their hand or the top card of their library, so you know when they have something good. (Just don't let YOUR hand be revealed--this is sorcery speed!)
I feel like Grand Summit could just as easily be in green; it's like a bigger, friendlier version of Collective Unconscious
3168057 Royal Authority does seem pretty strong, but without the cantrip it's strictly worse than Spirit Mantle, unless you need devotion (but even then, it's probably still worse)
I took a look at next week's episode synopsis, and it seems to also take place at a disastrous friendship summit. Might this have been the beginning of a stealth multi-parter?
It wasn't my favorite episode, either, but it got a lot better the second time I watched it, this time with a friend.
Oh well, onto the cards. Looks like you took a little inspiration from Dragons of Tarkir for one card. Another one shows that chainsaws also work as trepanation blades. I don't know the last time I saw a card with clash, so bravo for that. Come to think of it, a clash/suspend EDH deck could be fun...
3167852 Rosebud
I enjoy reading your cometary on the episode when I have not seen said episode, very entertaining.
As for the cards they all look fun and balanced. Though I must say the mill is strong with this one, and I like it.
3167860
Yeah, Equestria seems to be more a loose federation of city-states than a single continuous country.
Cadence's crystal magic was freaking awesome.
And I quite like the interpretation of Fancy Pants as Tia Lite. It makes sense, and that's the most I can ask out of headcanon.
3167861
Fixed. Thanks for the catch.
3168018
Well, the princesses and Twilight's family seem to be pretty nice, so there's that.
3168057
Royal Authority: Compare Unquestioned Authority.
Grand Summit: See my reply to G S tol Kriaal below.
Monument of Unity: I was trying to capture everyone working together to reassemble it.
3168140
Given Biomantic Mastery's hybrid nature, this one seemed like it could go either way. Blue tends to makes opponents draw more than green does, so I went with water drops over trees.
3168338
Fun fact: Trepanation Blade's playtest name was "Chainsaw." I had to include that ability on the pruning pegasus; it wouldn't have been right otherwise.
3168468
Nothing says "mill cards" like a plot that requires everyone involved to be idiotic, insane, or both.
3168599
This is amazing. I did not know this before now, but I know it now. Thank you, sir, for improving my life.
3168599 point taken, a better way to say it would be only confirmed good guy in the unicorn nobility.
Re: dragonsneeze trees: the longneedle and shortneedle pines which grow in my area are partially dependent on wildfires for natural propagation. The bark of pine trees is somewhat fire-resistant, and the pine cones open up under heat to release their seeds into an environment which has just been cleared of competing undergrowth. Dragonsneeze trees could be taking the same evolutionary strategy up to 11.
What we're dealing with is the same sort of stupid oversight that lead to what watchers of the comic strip For Better Or For Worse call "Farleygate." The timeline of the whole thing is as follows:
1) Main character Elly and her sidekick Connie noticed that for some reason, three-year old April had the magic power of somehow pulling a Houdini and opening 'securely' latched gates.
2) Elly looked out the window and watched April open the really cheap latch with a handy-dandy stick.
3) Instead of going to a hardware store and getting a really kid-proof lock, Elly's clever plan was to tell April to ask "someone" because she's the same sort of imbecile Cadence is here and forgot that to a small child, "someone" doesn't mean "me or your dad" but simply means 'someone'. Said someone could be her reflection, a voice on a radio, someone who doesn't know she's not allowed off the property and so on and so forth.
4) While planning a cruise with herself and her husband, Elly lied to April that there'd be nothing for anyone to do; when she got back, she boasted about all the stuff she did within April's earshot because she thought April would have forgotten what Mommy said.
5) She leaves the property to play in a flood-swollen river while Elly is tuning out irritating noise about keeping small children away from flood-swollen rivers because she's been established as having the mental defect of assuming that children will stay where last seen.
6) Farley the dog has a heart-attack and dies after keeping April's head above water until rescue when she falls into the river imbecile Elly has to be told she's probably drowning in.
7) Charles Schulz and like a zillion other idiots blame the whole mess on April's being stupid while considering Elly's chronic stupidity and criminal negligence to be a minor factor.
8) When her son Michael ends up buying the house twelve years later, the first thing his wife does is say "We can't depend on heroic dogs to save our kids so we're finally going to put a child-proof lock on all of the gates on the property."
Given how dumb Cadence was here with her assuming sight unseen that the moral equivalent of one of the cast members of Arthur would know that "running decisions by her" was implicit, it's a miracle some of her charges haven't died.
3180421
"Three's a Crowd" made it clear that the Crystal Empire is going almost too smoothly. Cadence may be accustomed to mature advisors... though she was a babysitter once. Really, this one comes down to bad writing, much like Spike's sudden inability to keep house in "Spike at Your Service."
3180534 Prepare for more bad writing and a need to demonize a sitting-duck antagonist in about seven months from now. They're going to release a junior novel about Trixie and she's going to get crapped all over for not genuflecting to Twilight. It's like one of the Buddy Bears episodes on the Orson's Farm segment of Garfield and Friends because The Complainer Is Always Wrong.
3168599 This makes it like the Holy Roman Empire which was neither holy, Roman nor an empire. It's just a patchwork of fiefdoms and free cities bearing allegiance to somepony whose primary bargaining tool is "Play nice or to the moon, goon."
3183673
Of course, unlike the HRE, the various bits of Equestria never elect a new princess. (Though I will note that Celestia only ever sent one pony to the moon, and she needed the Elements of Harmony to do so. Now, Luna? Luna can probably send ponies to the moon whenever she wants. And, of course, Celestia is probably more capable of sending ponies to the sun.)
3183700 Luna also has "Give us what we want or face eternal darkness" as a stand-by tactic.