Friendship is Card Games: Rainbow Roadtrip · 10:38am Jun 30th, 2019
The interseason hiatus may have begun, but we have quite the animation backlog to get through before returning to the comics. And before we can even touch the EqG shorts, there’s a three-episode-long special to examine. Let’s get this show on the road.
Seeing the movie-style animation again took some getting used to, but I barely even noticed by the halfway point.
Quick intro with plenty of hyperspace luggage on display. Or just incredible packing skills. Either way, poor Opalescence.
I do like how Equestria’s scheduled weather means that you can miss a tailwind like it’s a train. (On that note, Hope Hollow is apparently one of those rare pony towns so remote that even the trains don’t go there, which is really saying something for Equestria. And given how it appears to be in Whinnysota, you’d think it would be on the Crystal Empire line.)
Spike’s apparently in charge of the School of Friendship for the duration, despite Starlight’s clear presence in the Ponyville establishing shots. Eh, she knows what she did, even if we don’t.
I do have to love how Dash shouts “Miss us!” as the girls set off. Given how the balloon had to lift her ego, it’s no wonder there wasn’t enough left for all of Twilight’s work.
Huh. So what’s the story with the giant alicorn statues?Two lovers misremembered as rivals? Whatever the case, they don't appear to be Celestia and Luna. They could be symbolic representations... or they could be evidence of other alicorns in Equestria’s history.
Dash winning an award in a contest she didn’t enter? I’m getting Luigi’s Mansion vibes. If this ends in Fluttershy using a vacuum cleaner against a giant plastic Sombra…
I see Pinkie favors bottles of pop rather than Sweetie’s choice of buckets of oats.
I honestly love how we can see the unpainted sides of the rainbow gate even as Dash is assuring the others that they’ll go right through. Though her confidence does make sense. As a former weatherworker, she knows that even if an Equestrian rainbow isn’t a refraction pattern, it must be an aerosolized liquid.
It does feel kind of dumb that the girls spend a whole commercial break panicking over the fall… though I can hardly blame Rarity. What is this, the sixth time she’s nearly fallen to her demise? (I’m not exaggerating: the series premiere, “Sonic Rainboom,” “Secret of My Excess,” “Wonderbolt Academy,” the movie, and now this. And I feel like I’ve leaving a few out.)
Pinkie’s pronking sound is different, and that bothers me to an unreasonable degree.
Hope Hollow’s desaturation is genuinely clever, exploiting the continuity of “Return of Harmony” and “The Cutie Map” to prime us (or at least me) into thinking there was some sinister plot at work. Petunia Petals’s decrepitude-defying perkiness and Sunny Skies trying to avoid the issue of color loss both contributed to that feeling that this was aremote town with a dark secret, and I love the metafictional misdirection.
I do find it interesting that Twilight either knew or assumed that the name “Sunny Skies” indicated a stallion. We really don’t have a sense of gender implications in Equestrian names. (It doesn’t help that that’s often used as a cipher for a disguised Celestia in fanfics.)
The fact that Petunia didn’t give the guests the key to a door that locks from the outside only made me more suspicious of her.
It is interesting how it takes the ponies time to determine that yes, someone’s played silly buggers with the color settings in this town. Ties in nicely with the hypothesis that the desaturation of both discording and equalization are too subtle for the equine eye, and the ponies are less color-sensitive than humans in general.
Okay folks, we need a rundown of all the side characters who will be relevant later. Nice and smooth, don’t dawdle, we’ve got a lot of narrative to go through today.
Sunny Skies is extremely lucky that Fluttershy was still willing to listen to him after beholding that garden of lies.
A kiddie pool at a Rainbow Dash-focused event. Never a good sign.
Hmm. Portable amp. That has some interesting implications about the state of Equestrian electronics… though Pinkie toting around means that said implications are rather shaky.
Apparently, Sunny Skies got a hold of the Reality Stone for that song number. His home was beautiful once.
It’s honestly kind of hilarious how, in this age of new animation styles and a diverse catalog of background ponies, we still get the occasional obvious recolor.
Huh. The Skies family has led this town for three generations. Well, you can’t spell “mayoralty” without “royal.” And it would certainly explain how Sunny kept the position after that debacle. What elections?
I do have to wonder how the Cutie Map missed this. Maybe this was one of the missions that they missed after Starlight crashed the thing, and by the time she and Twilight rebooted it, Hope Hollow was past the point of no return.
It’s kind of sad that I was happy to see Twilight actually get a chance to be useful as a mage and researcher rather than as a princess. You don’t really see that that often anymore.
“So, what kind of magic did you use on the generator?”
“Well, to fit in what I wanted, I had to delete this file that didn’t seem to be doin’ anything called ‘system32’…”
First thing I noticed about Kerfuffle, even before her proper introduction, was her prosthetic leg. There’s a story there. Also, given the joints on the thing, it looks like Equestria already has the technology seen in Crystal War-timeline Dash’s wing.
Turns out Dash’s fans are the Barrel twins, which makes the colt Pickle Barrel. No one tell Pinkie. She’ll insist on finding him a fillyfriend named Kumquat. (Also, barrel roll joke goes here. I’m pretty sure pegasi don’t have ailerons.)
And boy is it bittersweet seeing these two where I’ve wanted see Scootaloo in for years.
It seemed like the solution sprang up too early; I kept expecting something to go horribly awry and undo that slow progress. I really didn’t think it would snowball like that.
Rarity asking Kerfuffle why she didn’t make her own designs hit a little close to home.
Side note: Kerfuffle is an amazing pony name.
It’s interesting how a lot of the residents of Hope Hollow weren’t avoiding the festival out of cynicism so much as they were unaware it was even going on. Sunny really could’ve worked on the advertising there. I suppose he thought the guests of honor would help with that.
The multiple magic sections in the town library raise the question of what qualifies as arcane magic and what as elemental. To say nothing of any other subdisciplines it might be missing.
So… Who ran that bakery, anyway?
Let that be a lesson, folks: Exaggerate your description of Pinkie’s actions and she will demonstrate how wrong you are.
That’s a dollar in the “20% cooler” jar.
Have the twins ever gone to flight camp? Really, that question could be asked of a lot of groundborn pegasi.
“Everypony’s got to learn the basics before showing off,” says the mare who left more of an impact on Ponyville’s landscape than the entire Apple family.
The Hoofingtons—though not the Hoofington Hoofingtons—sounded very familiar to me, but I checked the VAs and they’re not voiced by the same people as the Oranges or Jet Set and Upper Crust. I suppose everyone involved just has similar “rich snob” voices.
Interesting to notice the contrast between the earth pony- and unicorn-raised apricot trees. Sure, Moody Root uses more fertilizer, but still.
There’s something strangely amusing about grown adults needing what amounts to an after-school special on socialization.
Speaking of earth pony magic, Torque Wrench not only repaired a magical amplifier, she rebuilt some of the components. Very nice.
Dang it, Applejack. All you had to do was say “I’ll turn it on after you look at this.” We could’ve saved a good five minutes of bookhorse sadness.
“Big doofus” strikes me as some of the harsher language we’ve heard out of Friendship is Magic.
The Discord comparison has some weight to it. “Hopeless magic” certainly seems like a form of applied disharmony. Given how Moody Root and the Hoofingtons needed the concepts of communication and trade explained to them, there may have been some mental effects as well. Still, in most of the citizenry, the desaturation was just a visible symptom of a long-present disease.
Meanwhile, the Rainbow Festival shows parallels to the Crystal Fair, with positive emotions yielding bright, prismatic visual displays.
I won’t lie, that was a touching proposal.
And while I’m being honest, that wing bling is really freaking toyetic.
Good thing the town has so many ponies whose mane and coats are close in color. Otherwise that ending number wouldn’t have worked nearly as well. 
All told, this was definitely fun stuff. Didn’t go in the direction I expected, and I like that. It does feel a little drawn out in places, especially when waiting for ponies to notice the color returning to objects up to and including a foal’s mane, but still a considerable amount of fun.
Now, let’s see what festival activities I can offer:
Safe and Sound 1W
Instant
Up to two target creatures gain indestructible until end of turn.
Every time Rainbow Dash saved the Barrel twins, she felt a new appreciation for what her parents had gone through.
Study the Wreckage 2W
Sorcery
Return target artifact card from your graveyard to your hand.
Draw a card.
“If there’s enough left to stick back together, it’s not broken yet.”
—Torque Wrench, handymare
Augmented Seamstress 2WW
Artifact Creature — Pegasus Artificer
Flying
Artifact and enchantment spells you cast cost 1 less to cast.
Whether shawls, hats, or limbs, she wears her greatest work with pride.
2/2
Arcane Spelltwiner 1UU
Creature — Unicorn Wizard
Whenever you cast your first instant or sorcery spell each turn, you may cast target instant or sorcery card from your graveyard. If you do, if those cards would be put into a graveyard this turn, exile them instead.
1/1
Singing Trout 2U
Creature — Fish Band
Finale — Whenever you sacrifice a Song, target permanent becomes the color or colors of your choice until end of turn.
Applejack never knew why she felt compelled to mount the performer on her mantle.
3/2
Mare of Many Hats 3U
Creature — Pony Citizen
1U: Until end of turn, Mare of Many Hats becomes a copy of target creature you control and gains this ability.
Small towns can have more positions than ponies able to fill them.
3/3
Scheduled Tailwind 3UU
Sorcery
Creatures you control get +2/+0 and gain flying until end of turn.
Suspend 3—1U (Rather than cast this card from your hand, you may pay 1U and exile it with three 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.)
Face of Terror 2B
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature has menace.
Whenever enchanted creature deals combat damage to a player, that player discards a card.
Insanity is funny until it starts happening to you.
Hollow Hopes 2B
Sorcery
Devoid (This card has no color.)
Target player discards two cards. If you control three or more colorless nonland permanents, that player exiles two cards from their hand instead.
Believe in nothing and your beliefs will be affirmed.
Sorrowsoot 2B
Creature — Elemental
When Sorrowsoot leaves the battlefield, target player loses 3 life.
Evoke B (You may cast this spell for its evoke cost. If you do, it’s sacrificed when it enters the battlefield.)
3/1
Deep Gloom 2BB
Enchantment
Black creatures get +1/+1.
Green creatures get -1/-1.
White creatures get -1/-1.
“Innistrad doesn’t have a monopoly on menacing ambience.”
—Ditzy Doo
Bygone Glory 3B
Sorcery
Devoid
Choose a color. Target player loses life equal to the total number of cards of that color they own in exile and in their graveyard.
Golden ages tarnish in hindsight.
Manehattan Emigrants 3B
Creature — Unicorn Citizen
Lifelink
When Manehattan Emigrants enters the battlefield, it deals 2 damage to target player or planeswalker.
Big city attitude doesn’t end at the city limits.
3/2
Wave of Resignation 3BB
Sorcery
Devoid
Creatures target player controls get -2/-2 and become colorless until end of turn. If a creature that player controls would die this turn, exile it instead.
Bleak souls beget bleak bodies.
Blind Tinkering R
Sorcery
As an additional cost to cast this spell, sacrifice a nontoken artifact.
Shuffle your library, then reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal an artifact card. Put that card onto the battlefield and the rest into your graveyard.
Crumbling Infrastructure RR
Sorcery
Kicker — Sacrifice a Gate. (You may sacrifice a Gate in addition to any other costs as you cast this spell.)
Crumbling Infrastructure deals 2 damage to each creature and planeswalker. If this spell was kicked, it deals 2 damage to each creature and planeswalker you don’t control instead.
Blundering Twins 1R
Creature — Pegasus Child
Flying
Blundering Twins can’t attack alone and can’t block.
Battalion — Whenever Blundering Twins and at least two other creatures attack, you may pay RW. If you do, transform Blundering Twins.
2/1
Junior Wonderbolts
(RW) Creature — Pegasus Soldier
Flying, double strike
3RW: Junior Wonderbolts gets +1/+0 until end of turn for each attacking creature.
“I don’t expect military discipline, just no biting.”
—Rainbow Dash, Bearer of Loyalty
2/2
Spurting Mud 1R
Sorcery
Target player sacrifices a white or blue permanent.
“Please excuse me, I need to scrub my fetlock down to the bone.”
—Rarity, Bearer of Generosity
Curse of the Barren Prism 2R
Enchantment — Aura Curse
Devoid
Enchant player
Permanents enchanted player controls are colorless.
“Unfortunately, it’s not the rainbow part that gets me.”
—Discord
Prismatechnics 3R
Sorcery
Prismatechnics deals 2 damage to each of up to X targets, where X is the number of colors among permanents you control as you cast this spell.
Wide-Eyed Spider 1G
Creature — Spider
Reach
Wide-Eyed Spider can block an additional creature each combat.
It only wants to make you comfortable and give you a place to stay.
1/2
Hope Hollow Hermit 3GG
Creature — Pony Druid
When Hope Hollow Hermit enters the battlefield, create four 0/1 green Plant creature tokens.
Plants you control have “T: Add G.”
When Hope Hollow Hermit dies, put a +1/+1 counter on each Plant you control.
1/1
Mayor’s Top Hat 2
Artifact — Equipment
Creatures you control that share a creature type with equipped creature get +1/+1.
Equip 2
“A key aspect of leadership is looking the part.”
—Rarity, Bearer of Generosity
Personal Amplifier 2
Artifact — Equipment
Whenever an ability of equipped creature is triggered, if it isn’t a mana ability, copy that ability. You may choose new targets for the copy.
Equip 2
It’s easy to be the life of the party when you’re twice as loud as everypony else.
Guardians of Canterlot 3
Artifact Creature — Golem
Alicorn (This card is also a Pony Pegasus Unicorn.)
Defender
Tap three untapped Ponies, Pegasi, and/or Unicorns you control: Until end of turn, Guardians of Canterlot has base power 5, loses defender, and gains flying.
0/5
Traveler’s Valise 3
Artifact
When Traveler’s Valise is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, draw three cards.
Rarity doesn’t pack light. She packs dense.
Rainbow Generator 4
Artifact
T: Add one mana of any color.
4, T: For each color among your unspent mana, add two mana of that color.
“It really helped bring the town together… until I ruined it.”
—Sunny Skies, mayor of Hope Hollow
“The End of the Rainbow” 1(rg)
Enchantment — Song
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a verse counter on “The End of the Rainbow”.
Sacrifice “The End of the Rainbow”: Add X mana in any combination of colors, where X is the number of verse counters on “The End of the Rainbow”.
Elemental Adept 1UR
Creature — Unicorn Wizard
Whenever you cast a blue spell, Elemental Adept gains flying until end of turn.
Whenever you cast a red spell, Elemental Adept gains first strike until end of turn.
“Harmony? I’ll stick to elements I can see.”
2/2
“Living in Color” 1GW
Enchantment — Song
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a verse counter on “Living in Color”.
1GW, Sacrifice “Living in Color”: Multicolored creatures you control get +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of verse counters on “The End of the Rainbow”.
Hope Hollow Handymare 2WU
Creature — Pony Artificer
When Hope Hollow Handymare enters the battlefield, return target artifact card from your graveyard to the battlefield with a patch counter on it. If that artifact would leave the battlefield, exile it instead of putting it anywhere else.
2/2
Vibrant Restoration 4B(gw)
Sorcery
Return a permanent card from your graveyard to the battlefield, then return another permanent card from your graveyard to your hand.
Once the ponies’ hope was restored, turning on the rainbow generator was little more than a formality.
Rainbow Gate
Land — Gate
T: Add C.
T: Add one mana of any color. Rainbow Gate doesn’t untap during your next untap step.
Once a symbol of Hope Hollow’s community spirit, the gate now only reminds them of what they lost.
Arcane Spelltwiner may be one of the most busted custom cards I've ever seen.
5081870
Agreed. That effect breaks so many things it's not even funny. "Exchange control of two each permanents" anyone? (For those playing at home, overloading things that weren't meant to be overloaded)
EDIT: I can't actually take credit for finding that interaction; it's adapted from a Blogatog ask suggesting that existing Splice cards be opened up to all instants and sorceries, and a third party who pointed out a specific pitfall therein.
5081870 5081876
I completely forgot to consider the overload-splice interaction. I've thoroughly modified the Spelltwiner.
5081876 The problem here is also one of value and cost. It means every instant and sorcery card in your hand now has free buyback. Compare to cards like Charmbreaker Devil--give you a single card every turn at random (6 mana)--and Mnemonic Wall--give you a single card back (5 mana). Three mana to never have to waste your cards again is ridiculous. It could cost 4UU and then it would be much closer to being balanced.
5081878 While the new version is slightly better, and the exile helps it from being completely degenerate, it's still way too ridiculous to cost just 1UU.
Again, most effects of this nature only allow you to do it once a turn. Kess, Dissident Mage costs four mana in three different colors, and she still only allows a single flashback a turn.
5081882
Kess is also a 3/4 flier, but I see your point. Spelltwiner has been given a once per turn restriction and a strongly worded letter from Princess Celestia.
That's a quirk of English spelling, and doesn't even give you more than an anagram. The French maire, from which "mayor" is derived (as is "major," as in the Army rank), does mean "superior."
Elections are in no way incompatible with political dynasties. Witness the Daleys in Chicago, for a mayoral example.
Your thoughts on this special mirrored many of mine.
Also, Blind Tinkering is insanely broken. It should only let you sac nontoken artifacts, otherwise you can do busted stuff like this:
Turn 1: Thraben Inspector, exile Simian Spirit Guide for {R}, play Blind Tinkering to sacrifice the clue token, hitting Blightsteel Colossus, which is the only actual artifact in the deck
Turn 2: Kill your opponent
5081880
Oh, I know. I just couldn't help but do a bait-and-switch, and you have to admit that concerns about power level pale in comparison to crashing the game engine.
5081893
I mean, if you make a variant of Tinker and it isn't broken, are you even doing it right?
In all seriousness, good point. Why-We-Can't-Have-Nice-Things Colossus has been accounted for.
Did anybody else get vibes of those G3 (3.5?) specials that show up on the channel once in a great while? (The rounder character designs didn't help.) Just a bunch of dialogue about rainbows and feelings amid a halfhearted attempt at a plot. So the town and its citizens were largely in grayscale because they had lost hope? But hope was restored because everybody stopped thinking only of themselves and learned to appreciate their neighbors again? It all had an air of "it's only for six-year-olds, who cares if it makes sense." Take out Applejack getting trapped in the wall bed and her later being frustrated that Twilight wouldn't listen to her, and this could've been in a 1980s direct-to-video bin.
I don't know whether the town consisting mostly of recolors of Ponyville citizens was intentional or just a budgetary measure (I don't remember whether the movie had as wide a range of background ponies as the series now has), but yeah... that blue Big Macintosh was really distracting.
Surprised you didn't mention the TARDIS Balloon Basket where it's as big as a ship's deck in some shots while in other shots no pony is a more than a hoof length away. I might turn that into a clopfic
Also did you notice that the balloon itself has a subtle patch on the side? Presumably from when it got popped in Sparkle's Seven. Then again it gets popped half the time it goes out anyway...
Trixie: "Of course being a school counselor is a big responsibility. But always being at work isn't fair to anypony. Especially me."
So through this entire sequence, my shipper's heart was awaiting for them to go "Oh no! There's only one bed. I guess we all have to share~"
They had more than one bed, but one was a double and I was waiting then at the edge of my seat to see which pair would get the double. Then they faded to morning and I yelled "Cowards!" at my screen.
Cadance: "So. I've always wondered. I'm a princess that rules over a Crystal Empire which we took over from when King Sombra ruled."
Celestia: "That's right. You're just like old Princess Amore before him."
Cadance: "Shouldn't I at least be a Queen?"
Celestia: "Don't be silly. You need to be able to shapeshift to be called that. Also make sure to name the leader of your army and airforce Captains."
Novo: "And if you have any water up there call your admirals, generals. They love that.
Tree of Harmony: "Sorry about that! That was back when I was busy for a season hypnotizing Twilight into building me a school for added friendship capacity. Once she moves into Canterlot and plants me in the gardens there. I'll be able to extend my range to world-wide coverage."
DWK still has the best summary (rough language) of how far our librarian mare has come.
If this was 6 years ago I would have made somepony like Kerfuffle my OC. I fell in love with how she made that 'pffftt' noise with her mouth for her name's fs
Hey that's a lesson plenty of people still need today!
I rather enjoyed this special. For once pony didn't have that neck snapping pacing we are so used to. A pity they didn't give us a hour long special for other pivotal moments in the show. Or heck, make pony an hour long show to start. It makes so much room to give jokes, setting, emotion, and moral some space to breathe at a unhurried pace.
It makes me a little sad though to hear that this might have been the scrapped remnants of what the MLP movie 2 would have been. In many ways I sort of wish this special was the MLP movie that was in theaters. Sure it's a slow, low tension plot. But it showcased all the main six without too much exposition and is something you can show a newcomer and then they go and watch season 1 and probably not feel too much disconnect from all the slice of life.
Eh. I'm not surprised by the little bit more revelation of Equestria's tech. It's pretty spot where I thought it was.
Also- we've seen shades of similar stuff to the Dashwing in a couple places, as well as portable amps (The Washouts)
ALSO also. Ailerons actually somewhat mimic the function and design of the trailing edge of a bird wing (forget the specific feathers) but if you tipped one side one way and the other the other way it would work out the same way. Pony aileron rolls are probably just minor shifts in wing shape. Given how pegasus wings seem to work, you could probably argue it's an airfoil of some description.
alsoalsoalso
hi c:
Really nice to see the movie animation again, hopefully, they'll fully switch to Toon Boom for G5.
Honestly this special was pretty dull, it was fine and all but it didn't need to be as long as it was. I mean the solution to the problem was found in like the first 30 minutes and after that, it just felt like they were running out the clock. The story really needed an actual villain or maybe another song to fill up the time.
5081895
26 years has given them lots of time to print cards in that vein. As mentioned, I feel like designing a card with the name "Arcane Overload" just to make Eli Shiffrin reflexively cringe without knowing why (Shifting Borders is why) and those old "graveyard order matters" cards do unpleasant things to tournament rules for every format they're legal in. Millikin's interaction with Panglacial Wurm is obnoxious even by the standard of Panglacial Wurm interactions, although it's probably still not as bad as replacing one of several cards drawn by a single effect with a library search and then casting the latter (for the record, close inspection of the rules says that this doesn't let you then use an "end the turn" effect to save your rear while getting some but not all of a lethal/infinite card draw effect. Back to the drawing board, I guess...)
5082013
Another weird thing I uncovered while going down the rabbit hole to parse that last interaction (to be clear, I'm trying to sacrifice an Infinity Elemental for the Greater Good and survive without just using Laboratory Maniac like a sensible person): I finally discovered why Morophon and the two other cards that do what he does end up specifying that they can only reduce colored costs instead of just letting the rules do that for them. It involves adding a generic cost to Khalni Hydra through some effect not named Trinisphere. There's a reason I stole the "stupid complicated game" meme from KoL to use for Magic the Gathering, and it's stuff like these two posts.
I was a little entertained that this small backwater town had a big enough magic section to contain stuff she hadn't already memorised.
Yeah. My thought process wasn't quite the same, but along similar lines: I was thinking that those little moments indicated the beginning of hope, but Twilight would still need to do something to accelerate it and get it to apply to the houses.
Hee. Yeah, it does feel like the show has reached the stage where they're never going to outright say earth ponies have growing magic, but they'll imply it wherever they can.
Mm. I was a bit dubious at that. I mean, I was expecting the character to fix it given how the special had depicted her so far, but still, a device whose operation nopony understands that includes complex magical components?
On the other hoof, I guess the amplifier itself was just built by Sunny's grandad. So maybe the whole town just has a tradition of homemade magical engineering.
You're definitely correct, but it is at least lovely to look at. Something that can't be said for Pinkie's portable karaoke set, which I have a horrible certainty will also show up as a toy.
That's the way the show tells it. But it doesn't make any sense. They put up fences, stopped talking to each other, and gradually lost hope. Then just before the machine was activated, the whole village spontaneously lost colour. Why at that moment?
I do like the twist of the three photos being in the wrong order - that was clever - but the whole mechanism of the disappearance of colour was hoofwaved so much that it still feels unsatisfying.
You're definitely on form with the cards. Arcane Spelltwiner is extremely exciting yet looks balanced and not broken, and same for Personal Amplifier.
It's disconcerting how well you made the traditional mechanical associations of Devoid ("exile it instead") fit with this special. I'm not sure I wanted thematic associations between creepy MLP villages and Eldrazi!
Is Scheduled Tailwind a bit closer to Overrun than blue should normally get?
Bygone Glory is an interesting "alternate" wincon for mill decks. I'd certainly put it in my Phenax deck.
Mayor's Top Hat is a long-needed Konda's Banner that doesn't need to go on a legend.
Rainbow Generator: Hmm, so even making 6 other mana has you still just breaking even. (I guess it'll let you cast Armada Wurm off 4 colourless sources and a single Selesnya Sanctuary.) It's only going to actually ramp with 7 other mana in at least 3 colours. Given the upsides that Manaliths get to have (Chromatic Lantern, Astral Cornucopia, Cultivator's Caravan) I think this could just cost {3}.
Am I right in thinking Elemental Adept and Arcane Spelltwiner are just inspired by the books in the library rather than any specific characters? I couldn't match the (attitude behind the) quote on Elemental Adept to any of the unicorns we saw here.
I love the mechanics of Hope Hollow Handymare. Flavourwise it feels a little off - what Torque fixes is at least as good as new, not fragile - but I imagine it's necessary for balance.
And the flavour elements are great on loads of these, particularly Hollow Hopes, Prismatechnics, Wide-Eyed Spider, and many more. Thank you as always!
This special was . . . fine, and I liked Kerfuffle, but the plot was very bland and could have easily been shortened to 45 minutes, if not 22 minutes. This was the first pony-thing in a long time that reminded me that I was watching a show aimed at little kids. It was mostly fluff. When the most exciting part of your special is crashing into a rainbow billboard in the first 7 minutes, you've got problems. I even got Corn & Peg vibes from the pegasus twins, despite both of them being pegasi. I hope this isn't a sign of what's to come with G5, but I'm trying to stay positive. It wasn't bad, but I don't know if I ever want to watch it again.
It also felt weird to introduce "hopeless magic" so late in the series . . . But now that I think about it, it's not too dissimilar to the Crystal ponies losing their luster in the absence of their national symbol. Still, you'd think that an instinctive, emotion-based magic would be more studied.
5082397
Why would you think that? That's exactly the kind of magic that doesn't get studied, because it doesn't get more effective when you study it.
5082370
Arcane Spelltwiner: as the comments show, it had to go through several iterations; the original version was not only insanely overpowered, but resulted in a game-destroying paradox (Go ask Eli Shiffrin what "exchange control of two each lands" would mean. Bonus points if you can do it in person and have a camera ready. Granted, it's possible his only response will be a resigned sigh and an "it means some card designer forgot about Shifting Borders")
Rainbow Generator: Furthermore, the difference between having access to 4WUBRG and having access to WWWUUUBBBRRRGGG is primarily academic. Either one is more than enough to win the game with.
5082444 True. It's still to FOME's credit that he can tone down an overpowered/broken design to something that's not broken and is yet still interesting and exciting
5082444
Maybe "studied" is wrong word - it's not like ponies are using the scientific method to learn about it, but you'd think ponies would talk about it more and write about it happening in the past.
Something I have been wondering about for a while. How do you think this would translate to the Oversaturated world? I know it's a bit odd since it's an Equestria set special, and Oversaturated is in a variation set in the human dimension, but there's something about it that feels like it would fit in there.
Yeah, same here.
...The first 5+ minutes of the special made me feel strangely anxious. The use of the 2017-movie animation style made me expect something to explode the entire time, and it just wasn't happening.
Eventually the feeling faded, though the special definitely went into an entirely different direction than what I expected.
This is certainly up there in the "Top 10 Went Completely Different Than Expected based on Prior Information"-episodes.
The title of the special is "Rainbow Roadtrip". It's using the MLP-movie style. It's 60 minutes long. And before s9 even started, I saw a leaked / promotional (?) screen cap of Twilight from this special sporting what looked like "Rainbow Wings", aka, Rainbow Power.
I figured it'd be about a, well, roadtrip revisiting the sights and characters from the MLP-movie, and a climax involving use of the more, ah, arcane variant of the magic of friendship.
Instead, this was basically a normal episode, but given three times as much space to show what was going on. If anything, you can't complain about anything being "rushed" here. Can't say I didn't like it, just totally different than what I was expecting.
...And the twist that the "rainbow wings" were just "wing bling", oh, I had to laugh out loud.
And we never saw her again.
You'd expect Rarity to have unpacked her things as soon as she arrived, and Opalescence was on top in that luggage... Huh. Where'd that
pancakepan-catcat go?Hah! I didn't notice that. That's clever!
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...Why plastic, though? Sombra is often found in a gaseous aggregate state, while regular plastics can't be gas, since "their molecular weight is simply to high to have boiling temperature below decomposition temperature".
( okay I admit, I totally just ripped that from the first page of google search results :-P )
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Chipper despite the circumstances, giving off an eery vibe? Bouncy curls? Has freckles?
I thought she was gonna turn out to be Cozy Glow's mom or something.
So... all those times Celestia went incognito... Oh. Oh my.
...Huh. Huh!
Ponies are less color-sensitive. I guess that flies in the face of any "Brony turned pony"-stories we've ever seen, where the first thing they marvel at are the bright colors.
But I guess it'd make sense from an evolutionary standpoint. If everything around you is brightly colored to the point of assaulting your irises, your eyes would adjust to compensate.
There were like three different Lyras sharing two Bonbons. That must get awkward.
And of course Blue Macintosh.
...You know, being gray-scaled for most of the movie, I've expected some confused double-take on AJ's part.
"You have 6 missed calls".
Too bad nopony ever wrote a fanfic about that.
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Not to mention, "Twilight and Twilight at Twilight's castle".
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Hmm.
I'm not really happy with the "innate magic of ordinary ponies causes town-wide magical effect"-explanation. We'd see this sort of thing / other variations of it all over Equestria all the time if it were, and it'd be way more well-researched and a lot less "special and unusual" as a result.
The way I understood it, the rainbow machine was actually mainly a magic amplifier with some extra "rainbowy" bits to it that it was then amplifying. So if anything, I'd figure it merely amplified the "Hopeless magic" effect the moment it got activated, especially since Mayor Sunny Skies (seriously that name will take getting used to not thinking of Celestia in disguise) just revamped the amplifier to give it more "oomph".
So, the "Hopeless magic" was already there, but it was the amplifier that, ahem, amplified it. Then it also broke, possibly because of being incompatible with the Hopeless magic it was channeling. Or maybe the part that "broke" which caused moods to sour even more was the "rainbowy bit", but not the amplifier. Eh, the three photos seemed a bit too weak as evidence to dissuade me from my own headcanon.
Makes more sense that way if you ask me. °shrug°
...Was it just me, or did Mayor Sunny Skies and his forefathers look an awful lot like Trixie?
I totally mistook that photo of himself as a colt for a filly-Trixie.
....Nevermind, I wasn't the only one:
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[source]
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Lastly, I can't not express that the use of gray scale contrasting with color in this movie was beautiful.
It added an element of subtle surrealism that I can't wait to see realized in the art community.
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How would you even call that? "Under-saturated"?
And how isn't this a major problem in larger cities where people don't even know each other?
When I saw "Blundering Twins 1R", I misread it as "Blundering Twits". I wonder if that reflects more on me, you, or the twins.
It's that a typo (e.g., you meant "Add G" or "Add B")? If not, what's "Add C" supposed to mean? Colorless?
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It does mean "Add a colorless mana to your mana pool," yes. Colorless mana has gotten its own symbol since Oath of the Gatewatch.
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I'm familiar with the existence of the colorless mana symbol. I just didn't make that connection at first. Thanks for the clarification.