Friendship is Card Games: Pie in the Sky and Copycats · 12:32pm Nov 24th, 2019
And we’re back to the mainline comics, with a blend of sweet and… well, I suppose “savory” works when discussing Fluttershy nearly eating Apple Bloom.
Pie in the Sky
… Huh. Looking back, this is the second issue with this name according to the compilations, the first being a follow-up to “Secrets and Pies.” And that one also had art by Agnes Garbowska!
In any case, with the question of the Apple parents finally resolved, we could get some semi-canon stories about them without just settling for characters looking longingly at shooting stars.
“Bad applesauce” between the two families. I suppose mentioning blood in any context in My Little Pony comics is hard to get past the editors.
Buttercup making better pie than Granny Smith seems a touch ridiculous. Though Granny never finding the recipe makes sense; the fact that there’s so much kept in the attic definitely speaks of a “shove it all up there so nothing can act as a reminder” mentality at the time of the tragedy.
Huh. Non-disclosure agreements are a thing in Equestria. Or, at the very least, Pinkie knows about them. Not a conclusive indicator for the rest of the country.
“First, we’ve discussed this before: A bowl of frosting is not breakfast.”
Okay, that is a fantastic line. And it says so much about the relationship between Applejack and Pinkie. I love it.
“Don’t hurt me, but what is love?”
… I want to complain about this, but I know I’d make the same joke.
There is an uncomfortable amount of bipedalism in this comic. Some of it’s fine, but Applejack carrying a pie from Sugarcube Corner to Sweet Apple Acres in her forehooves makes my back ache in sympathy.
Mad science Pinkie is a good Pinkie indeed.
Nice way to work in Mrs. Cake. If anyone in Ponyville’s going to know Buttercup’s baking biases, it’s her.
Though this does present an interesting issue: Nowhere in this issue does anyone call her Pear Butter, even when thinking back to times before she got married. I suppose she kept up her relationships with the various salesponies and made her opinion on her old name very clear.
Very nice touch with Bright Mac hauling the flour… but Applejack’s expression when commenting about her father feels off. I don’t know, that “Yup. He was [a good pony]” feels like it deserves more than a generic smile.
The white rabbit game is strange but charming bit of memetic warfare. And Big Mac is absolutely going to inflict it on both of his sisters.
I’m going to assume that that cinnamon tastes just as good after collapsing its wavefunction; Arty Craft is just being as hipsterish as possible.
Given how the missing ingredient is love, I’m surprised nopony’s raised the possibility of changelings. It could literally be love. Given the tone of this issue, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a charming little hive somewhere in the Whitetail Woods where Buttercup used to get it, where the queen fondly remembers her and Bright Mac contributing more than enough to replace what they'd take.
Hmm. There’s a story idea…
Applejack’s accent keeps coming in and out of her dialogue, and it’s bothering me.
Granny is quietly regretting this at this point. We’re reaching the point where she’s getting a little sick of apple pie.
Yeah, pretty obvious secret ingredient in hindsight… though the “family was love” equivalence makes Buttercup getting torn off of her family tree hurt all the more. And it’s definitely best to keep Granny from finding out how much she likes pears. That's how ponies get disowned.
A very sweet coda to “The Perfect Pear.” One day’s montage is hardly enough to get to know Bright Mac and Buttercup. There are still plenty of stories to tell about those two.
Copycats
So… how did the necklace get on that branch to begin with?
Also, this does not at all help with the question of cervine sapience in Equestria.
Huh. I’m pretty sure this is the first time we see Sweetfeather Sanctuary in the comics.
Timberwolves apparently qualify as animals, at least by Fluttershy’s standards.
Good to see she’s still working with Hardhat for those specimens too dangerous for a free-range environment. I’m going to take this as further evidence of exhaustion factoring into Fluttershy’s… questionable management decisions in “She Talks to Angel.”
Huh. An orange cat who’s always sleeping. No, that’s not at all familiar.
“Rocksville”? Rocksville. I’m just going to quietly ignore that.
Blood may be off the table, but implicit fart jokes are A-OK.
Huh. Surprising to see Trixie be part of the conversation on what Fluttershy’s deal is. Also, I do appreciate how Applejack’s exasperated by the whole Flutterbat thing. She does lose a fair percentage of her crop during those incidents.
Twilight having to admit that magical influence is the most likely explanation is great. Says a lot about her life.
Pinkie wearing a book on top hats is adorable and wonderful.
Oof. Poor Zephyr. At least the critters haven’t thrown in him in a pony-sized stewpot.
Speaking of Rainbow Dash, lovely detail with her expression of absolute loathing in that third panel.
Wait, so do a timberwolf’s broken branches mend like bones? I have several questions.
Heh. Likely unintentional, but this is actually good foreshadowing for “She Talks to Angel.” He’s already getting frustrated at how most horses just don’t know how to listen to him.
I kind of want to get context for those goslings.
Yeah, Fluttershy’s stronger than she looks. Remember, she wrestles bears. With the mentality of a timberwolf, she’s not going to hold back.
A Starswirl relic that’s been lost for centuries? I suppose we should be grateful it didn’t find its way to the human world somehow. Though it would be interesting to see the Animamulet interact with human Fluttershy’s geode.
Also, nice to see Rarity’s gem-finding spell get some use.
Xylupine Fluttershy is legitimately unsettling in this panel. I think it’s the ragged mane and tail.
Nice touch with Dash banging a pot to make Fluttershy run where they want. Good callback to “Family Appreciation Day.”
Hey, if it worked with the Diptych of Manifestation, no reason to think it won’t work something dragons are supposed to eat.
Heh. Well, wouldn’t be the first time Spike’s had to work a few canine traits out of his system.
So… do timberwolves sexually reproduce? This comic raises so many questions about these things.
Nopony got hurt and Fluttershy got some insight. I call this a win.
Some fun stuff all around, with a good mix of slice of life and adventure. All in all, this was quite an enjoyable read. Now onto the cards:
Bake Like the Wind 1W
Instant
Create a Food token. Activated abilities of Foods you control cost 2 less to activate until end of turn. (The token is a colorless artifact with “2, T, Sacrifice this artifact: You gain 3 life.”)
A Sugarcube Corner rush order risks all forms of sensory overload.
Diving Falcon 1WW
Creature — Bird
Flash
Flying
When Diving Falcon enters the battlefield, it deals 2 damage to target attacking or blocking creature.
“The Rainbow Dash of the animal kingdom. Though the impacts are intentional.”
—Princess Twilight Sparkle
2/1
Nondisclosure Agreement 2W
Enchantment — Aura Curse
Enchant opponent
You have hexproof from enchanted player. (You can’t be the target of spells or abilities that player controls.)
Contracts technically aren’t magical in and of themselves, which makes them that much harder to dispel.
Everfree Conservationist 3W
Creature — Pegasus Citizen
Flying
When Everfree Conservationist enters the battlefield, if G was spent to cast it, create a 2/2 green Elemental Wolf creature token.
“The woods insist; no ponies heed. To interfere’s a pony need.”
—Zecora, zebra shaman
2/2
Sun Dairy Cow 3W
Creature — Ox Citizen
Lifelink
What would be livestock on other planes are sapient beings on Ungula. Fortunately, cows don’t want much in life, so a dairy need not worry too much about payroll.
3/3
Operation: Operation 2U
Enchantment
If a creature dealing combat damage to a player causes a triggered ability of a permanent you control to trigger, that ability triggers an additional time.
“Your mission, should you choose to accept it, will be your accepted mission.”
Hopeless Caretaker 1B
Creature — Pegasus Citizen
Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice another creature.
“I can do this. I can do anything I put my mind to. And if the animals would just stop running away, maybe I could prove it.”
3/2
Troyus Miller 2B
Creature — Pony Citizen
B, T, Put the top three cards your library into your graveyard: Create a Food token.
“Millstones have an unfair reputation. I’ve worked here for twenty years, and none of the flour bags think I’m crazy.”
1/3
Mad Pientist 3B
Creature — Pony Rigger
When Mad Pientist enters the battlefield, choose one —
• Mad Pientist assembles a Contraption. (Put the top card of your Contraption deck face up onto one of your sprockets.)
• Create two Food tokens.
2/2
Boneseeking
(B) Creature — Hound
Whenever one or more cards leave your graveyard,
Augment 2B (2B: Reveal this card from your hand: Combine it with target host. Augment only as a sorcery.)
+2/+0
Spice Vendor 1R
Creature — Pony Citizen
T: Add R. Spice Vendor deals 1 damage to you.
“Technically speaking, some of these can only be sold as chemical weapons. But I think you can handle them.”
2/1
Quantum Cinnamon 2R
Sorcery
You and target opponent each roll a six-sided die. Quantum Cinnamon deals damage equal to the difference between those results to the player who rolled the lower result. Repeat this process until both players roll the same result.
Baby | Dragon 2RR
Host Creature — Dragon
Flying
When this creature enters the battlefield, creatures you control gain trample until end of turn.
2/1
Relic Gorger 2RR
Creature — Dragon
Flying
Whenever Relic Gorger deals combat damage to a player, put a +1/+1 counter on Relic Gorger and that player sacrifices an artifact.
1R, Sacrifice an artifact: Put a +1/+1 counter on Relic Gorger.
2/2
Act of Predation 4RR
Sorcery
Gain control of target creature until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gains haste until end of turn. You may have it fight up to one other target creature with the same owner.
The Everfree’s savagery spreads as readily as its flora.
Cornered Timberwolf 2G
Creature — Elemental Wolf
When Cornered Timberwolf enters the battlefield, put a -1/-1 counter on target creature you control.
Cornered Timberwolf can’t be blocked by creatures with power 2 or less.
Nothing’s more dangerous than a monster with nothing left to lose.
4/3
Experimental Oven 3
Tribal Artifact — Rigger
3, T, Sacrifice an artifact: Experimental Oven assembles a Contraption.
Nopony who works at P.O.N.K. is entirely sure what they’re doing, but they definitely enjoy their work.
The Animamulet 5
Legendary Artifact
Imprint — When The Animamulet enters the battlefield, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a creature card. Exile that card and put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
3, T: Exchange the exiled card and target creature you own and control.
Secure Ward
Artifact — Contraption
Whenever you crank Secure Ward, prevent all damage that would be dealt to and dealt by target creature until your next turn.
Scour the Attic GU
Sorcery
Choose a card type, then reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a card of the chosen type. Put that card into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.
“I know I left that thing up here somewhere.”
—Granny Smith
Living Lectern 1UR
Creature — Dragon Wizard
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, if you’ve drawn one or fewer cards this turn, draw a card.
Every good wizard’s assistant can tell when their master’s had enough arcane secrets for the day.
1/1
Fauna Channeler 1RG
Creature — Pegasus Druid
At the beginning of combat on your turn, you may choose another creature you control. If you do, until end of turn, Fauna Channeler’s base power becomes equal to that creature’s power and its base toughness become equal to that creature’s toughness. If that creature has flying, Fauna Channeler gains flying until end of turn.
1/1
Note that the hexproof doesn't actually apply to your permanents, so this isn't actually true in gameplay. Go ahead and disenchant it... which works on some pretty blatantly nonmagical stuff anyway, so nothing new.
Stupid Complicated Game Alert: if he's the only creature you control, you don't have to sacrifice him, or indeed take any other kind of penalty.
Stupid Complicated Game Alert: If you can give all of your creatures shroud (and you can), then the triggered ability will fizzle and you'll get a slightly worse Steel Leaf Champion for a more forgiving but not technically lower price. However, the ability can also target the timberwolf itself so that's... actually not the only shenanigans you can pull, but the trick from the previous card definitely won't work the way you're hoping.
Step 1: have a Laboratory Maniac.
Step 2: play this naming Tribal (or whatever card type isn't in your deck, but that's probably just Tribal)
Step 3: laugh maniacally. They called you mad, but you'll show them! You'll show them all! (If you were playing for money, this step is also "profit", but I swear that's a coincidence)
Optional: have literally anything that cares about being in the graveyard and/or being sent there from the library. Think Twice is particularly hilarious in this context due to the irony of second thoughts aiding this particular game plan.
Oh yeah, and this reminds me of my headcanon for those background ponies that Pinkie Pie was the drummer for: there was a conspiracy theory that one of them had died and been replaced by a changeling... and when the band realized that the evidence could only realistically prove the "changeling" part, they just all dropped their disguises onstage. Pinkie actually left when she happened to independently discover this, commenting that she should have realized "All You Need Is Love" wasn't hyperbole for them.
Need..... wolf three drop....
Also when are we getting the definitive FOME pony sets? I need some cards for my Twilight Sparkle EDH!
Anyone happen to know the issue numbers for these comics? I'd like to reread them but it's hard to find them without the numbers since the titles aren't usually on the cover. Especially in Comixology.
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Given how Jace, Wielder of Mysteries offers the same win condition, it's arguably even funnier to imagine him emptying out the entire Apple family attic one box at a time. Especially if we apply Pinkie's Ban* and he's a unicorn at the time.
"Still not as bad as hauling cargo for Vraska."
To say nothing of the name of the band. (Also,
)
*Possibly unnecessary reminder: Whereas Feroz's Ban actively kept planeswalkers from entering Ulgothra, Pinkie's just keeps them from coming to Ungula as humanoids. She's meta-aware enough to know that humans in Equestria never end well.
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I'm flattered, but picking out 250-ish cards out of all the ones I've made isn't the simplest task. Especially the commons. I don't exactly make a lot of NWO-compliant pack filler.
That said, if your playgroup allows it, feel free to proxy cards from FiCG: Friendship is Magic if you just want the rest of the girls. Twilight's ability doesn't care if they're creatures, so planeswalker Pinkie is perfectly compatible with making everypony win.
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My apologies. These are issues #72 and 73.
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Yeah, I waffled a bit on the specifics of how to work in the "Paul is dead" meme, but that I would was never in question.
5159885
Man some of these cards are just really fun designs that I wish had an official parallel.
How dare you. Bipedal pones are a light shining in this dark an unforgiving world.
If someone were to come up with something like The Element Of Narcissism Of Minor Difference, it'd be kind of obvious that Granny Smith and Shatnerpony would be fighting over who gets it.
Same comics that have had "pork chops and applesauce" as a Jackism?
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You don't even have to dodge Tribals. You're allowed to name card types that can't go in a deck, like Scheme or Phenomenon.
Fun to see the Host and Augment creatures. And a Tribal Artifact - Rigger! Why didn't I ever think of that? All those sorceries like Finders Keepers or Incite Insight could (and should) have been Tribal Riggers! Aww, I've suddenly realised a way Unstable wasn't as cool or fun as it could have been
...Not, to be clear, that this is FOME's fault for making his cards too cool 
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Ooh. Now that's a really interesting point. Custom cardset design is something I'm interested in just as much as custom card design. And the prospect of sorting through the thousands of FICG cards looking to assemble a 250-card set from among them is a quite intriguing one. Reminiscent of the task of those who assembled the MTGO "Masters Edition" sets, except in my case I'd have rather more interesting and better balanced cards to work with
5161345
7605 by latest count :)
A refined FICG cardset sounds really cool! If you do want to try it, one thing that might make it easier is exporting the FICG set to Cockatrice (an open-source MtG client). It can be a bit of a clunky program, but the Gatherer-like search interface makes it easier to hunt down cards and build a decklist. (And it runs on everything). See here for how to export the FICG set out of PonyMTG.
5161345
In case it needs to be said, I'm entirely in favor of someone building a set from my creations.
I did try the Cockatrice export, but despite reinstalling Cockatrice from the mumble-years-old version I had, I've not been able to persuade it to import a custom set. It's not just that FICG is perhaps a teeny bit larger than it was expecting: I tried it on one of the smaller sets on PonyMTG as well and it didn't manage to import that either.
Doesn't matter much. I'm happy to use Excel initially and magicmultiverse.net after the first round or two of triage.
I'm thinking the numbers look like, once I filter out certain things like assembling contraptions that don't exist in enough density to make a sensible part of a set, if I want a colour balance then I think there's enough for about three sets just with animated media - something like one for all of Equestria Girls, one for FIM seasons 1-5, and one for seasons 6-9 plus the movies. I'm prioritising a) cards that will interact with others in the set and have relevant gameplay, and b) cards of more relevant characters or moments than some of FOME's more, shall we say, tangential associations. (The main characters with speaking roles are more likely to make it into the set than cards inspired by two throwaway words in a gag. All else being equal.) I'm not finding myself very short of commons so far; what I am finding is that FOME designs waaayyy more blue cards than any other monocolour (perhaps not very surprising), and fewest green (to the extent that I was worried I'd be short of green playables for the first few EQG movies but the numbers balanced out with the shorts). In gold, UB and UR are disproportionately overrepresented and BR is the most underrepresented colour pair.
Something I need to work out is whether I'm happy for the set to be thoroughly Modern Masters-style with a bunch of oneoff returning keywords, or whether I need to be more ruthless with cutting those as well.
I'm enjoying this
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Be sure to let me know if there are any holes that might conveniently get filled over the course of a few weeks.
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Just to note: I have upgraded PonyMTG's Cockatrice exporter to use the more modern Cockatrice v4 format, so perhaps it might work if you try again. (It works for me for FICG at least). Also let me know if you'd like me to export FICG card data in CSV format, as that can then be loaded into Excel.
There is still a bug in Cockatrice wherein two cards can't have the same name, even if they're from different sets. This causes minor problems with FICG, as some of FoME's cards do happen to share names with existing Magic cards; what happens in these cases is that the canon MtG cards override the custom ones. It's a bit annoying but fortunately only affects a very few cards, and you can tell which ones are affected because they'll be listed as being in multiple sets.
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Hmm. Thanks. That works a bit better. I was able to import the cards from The Implicit Neighs. But when I tried importing FICG that seemed to break my Cockatrice install - it won't show the imported FICG and nor will it import any other sets like Oops I Accidentally Changelings. Maybe I need to try reinstalling Cockatrice again...
And yes, actually, it might help if you could PM me your exported FICG file. Thanks.
Despite sadly not being able to use PonyMTG I've been making good progress over Christmas. (My family are accepting enough that I had a go at explaining this latest creative project: "something like a cross between designing a board game and compiling an anthology of poetry...")
And since you ask, Fan:
5172936 That would actually be quite handy. Holes I've currently identified are mainly in places where I'd ideally like balanced colour cycles but don't have the raw material, specifically gold cards and land cards. So if you're able to come up with any designs based on anything Equestria Girls (since that's where the first set I'm doing is focused) meeting these criteria, that'd be awesome:
• A black-red uncommon. Or could be common if we bump Wasabi Overwhelming to uncommon. This is the biggest need as there's various great gold cards I'd love to include but there's not enough BR to colour-balance them at lower rarities.
• A green-white rare dual land to go with Haunted Castle, [Volcano Fortress/Coal Seam], Dessert Island and Clifftop Observatory. That won't make a conventional five-card cycle of all allies or all enemies but it'll at least be colour-balanced Ravnica-style.
• Similarly, BRG & BGW common trilands to go with Untamed Isle, Sand Citadel and Shiny City (RGU, RWU, WUB). Maybe the BRG could be based on the Daring Do jungle as seen in Leaping Off the Page and Rainbow Dash's imagination in Dance Magic. Maybe the GW rare or the BGW common is the school cafeteria?
And just to let you both know: The intro page for the set is up on MagicMultiverse here! The set is currently over-stuffed at about 350 cards - effectively a shortlist at the moment - so I need to do some serious cutting, preferably without taking out too many of the lovely synergies I point out on that intro page. And I've only filled in images for a few cards: there's plenty more trawling of Derpibooru for screencaps to be done (lots and lots of it...
) But nonetheless, you might enjoy reading the intro!
5178597
Ooh, that looks promising!
For Equestria Girls, I believe there's also a cycle of Cliques you could look at.
CSV export of PonyMTG's FICG collection (up-to-date as of the latest FICG) here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ej8Hr9LtXMJTCCz5HI2YxrxCvYb0Z52H/view
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Hot, fresh, and made to order! Also, loving what you've done thus far. Keep me posted!
Songbound Rioter BR
Creature — Human Berserker
Protection from Humans (This creature can’t be blocked, targeted, or dealt damage by anything that’s a Human.)
Songbound Rioter can’t block.
“They’re all scum, but some are useful scum.”
—Adagio Dazzle
3/1
Suburban Orchard
Land
Suburban Orchard enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add G or W.
T, Exert Suburban Orchard: Add GW. (An exerted land won’t untap during your next untap step.)
The Apples can make one acre do the work of forty.
Darkest Mareapor
Land
When Darkest Mareapor enters the battlefield, you gain 1 life.
T: Add C.
1, T: Add B, R, or G.
Sometimes Daring Do’s worst foe is the jungle itself.
Sirens’ Stage
Land
Sirens’ Stage enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add B.
T, Sacrifice Sirens’ Stage: Add GW.
It’s always darkest before the rainbow.
Yay, this is going well. Thanks for those designs! I've been making good progress with paring down the shortlisted cards towards colour and rarity balance... Some of the cuts have been pretty painful, but worth doing nonetheless. The set will be better with only 2 or 3 red rare 4-drop creatures rather than 5! It's interesting how Fan apparently likes certain colour/CMC combinations: both green common and green rare had a problem with being massively oversupplied with 3-drop creatures, while for red it's 4-drops, and black has disproportionately many 5-drops. I'm intrigued to find out in future whether this pattern continues in the pony-side cards, as I've been restricting my attention to the EqG ones so far.
You can see the latest edits I've been making on the cardset Recent Changes page here.
Just for fun, here's a snapshot moment in time of my Stats page from the spreadsheet where I'm recording my numbers (and also some of the most painful choices I've had to make).
Pretty soon I'll be done with the cuts and have a first draft of the 259-card set! At which point I plan to generate a few 6-booster sealed pools using MagicMultiverse's booster function, and this is the point where it'd be really great if I could get Cockatrice working for deckbuilding.
It may well be that the experience of trying to build a Sealed deck or three will already show me some issues with the set and give me some changes I need to make... But after that the next step will be to find someone to play those Sealed decks against! Someone over the internet would be most natural, though it's possible one of my f2f Magic-playing friends would be up for testing.
Before I get to that point, though, I have one more request and a couple of questions:
The soulbond pair: Given that "Photo Booth" gives bonuses for being paired, it's odd to have a card with soulbond representing Applejack (Apple Peddler) but none representing Rarity. For symmetry, it'd be lovely to have a card with soulbond to represent Rarity so that the "Photo Booth" bonus for being paired is accessible either way round. (And yes, I do appreciate that in practice that increases the chances those in-game cards will end up paired with someone or something else, but that's what you get for taking a linear plot and making modular gaming cards from it
) I don't know what colour that card should be: Rarity displays traits of basically every colour throughout Rollercoaster of Friendship... but if you do design one, it'd be helpful if it's not a colour+CMC combination that's already overrepresented in the visual spoiler like green 3-drops! 
Chromatic Arpeggios: Given your recent blog post, it's notable that a couple of the Songs in the set don't match the colours that were discussed in that post. "Equestria Girls" (which I've taken the liberty of retitling "Cafeteria Song" to avoid confusion with your lovely Saga from the final EqG FICG) is a red mass-Threaten, which makes sense, but would you rather it was white? ACADECA is green, possibly the least suited colour to the flavour of the song; Shake Your Tail is blue, fitting its mechanical effect but not really the flavour of the song; and Good Vibes is white, and doesn't look at all out of place except that you blogged that the song is quintessentially green. I'm happy to proceed using the cards as designed, but I thought I'd check whether you'd like to leave them as they are or design new versions.
Flavour explanations: Usually the inspiration for any given card is clear, often delightfully so. And I know often you design cards set not in the Equestria Girls universe but on a specific Magic plane or something else like FIO. But occasionally the inspiration links are a bit too obscure for me to follow, or I'm just being dumb. So could you clarify for me (if you remember yourself!) what's the flavour explanation/motivation/inspiration for each of these cards?
Glamorous Group (is it the Dazzlings or someone else)
Royal Detectives
Howler Troop
Regretful Gorgon (the Maneiac?)
Swamp Smuggler, Trash Hauler, Orbiting Masterpiece
Intrepid Captain
Muck Delver and Sailear Mentor
Aven Operative
That'd help me to know how obscure a reference we're looking at (and especially whether there exist any suitable screenshots for the card art or not).
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With regards to the color-CMC clumps, it's not like I'm keeping track of these trends. They just tend to emerge, especially since I work on the effect first and the cost second. Most canon events fall somewhere in the two-to-four mana range.
Mechanical Rarijack: The original intention was that you'd pair two Apple Peddlers to get caramel apple girls forever.
But i can see how that doesn't translate well, especially not unless you want to do a Brothers Yamazaki multiple-art sort of thing. With that in mind, here:
Costume Coordinator 1W
Creature — Human Artificer
Soulbond (You may pair this creature with another unpaired creature when either enters the battlefield. They remain paired for as long as you control both of them.)
As long as Costume Coordinator is paired with another creature, spells you cast that target one or both of those creatures cost 1 less to cast.
2/1
Chromatic Arpeggios: The biggest problem with the Songs is the limited design space. Each one needs to have some kind of at least vaguely related scaling effect that none have done before, including the original, untyped Songs. Sometimes I had to put the color identity of the subject matter aside just to get a workable design.
Flavor explanations: Let's run down the list:
• Glamorous Group: This represents Trixie's band, the Illusions.
• Royal Detectives: Twilight and Pinkie in their detective accessories in "A Photo Booth Story"
• Howler Troop: Conceptually based on "Leaping off the Page," I don't believe there's are any visuals you can use for this one.
• Regretful Gorgon: This is specifically meant to be Sunset dressed as the Mane-iac, combining some traits from each.
• Swamp Smuggler: Part of Twilight's attempts to decipher Timber's emoji string in "Text Support.' No visuals available.
• Trash Hauler: Applejack lugging confetti in Pinkie's branch of "Best Trends Forever."
• Orbiting Masterpiece: Hmm... You know, I don't remember how I came up with this one based on the source material. Probably Sci-Twi related somehow, but definitely no visuals.
• Intrepid Captain: The pixelated protagonist of Sunset's mobile game at the start of "X Marks the Spot."
• Muck Delver: Applejack happily digging through the mud in her branch of "Inclement Leather."
• Sailear Mentor: A massive stretch on my part. One of the food carts in Fluttershy's branch of "Lost and Pound" is Dough or Donut, there is no Pie. From there I went to Yoda, then to the Magic species that most closely resembles his. Needless to say, no visuals available.
• Aven Operative: Bonbon in her owl costume. If "Costume Conundrum" doesn't offer a good shot, feel free to use one from "All's Fair in Love and Friendship Games."
Yay. Great stuff. Many thanks! (Also, bwahaha at that justification for Sailear Mentor. It's hilarious and yet I can totally see how the train of thought could end up there.)
Ahh, two Apple Peddlers, of course. That does make sense... though a little more sense when you don't have to choose just one artwork for them. Thanks for the card!
And yes, I've been realising the limited design space of Songs! Amusingly I think none of the EqG Songs ended up creating creature tokens; the only token-making Song is "Mad Twience" which doesn't really fit the set (though it would power up Throw the Horns and Sprinkleblast nicely). I'm rather looking forward to when I get to go through the pony-side FICG in detail and seeing how the Equestrian Songs compare to the Pedestrian ones (and what corners of design space you found for them over there).
I do like the songs that play around with the verse counter trigger, Music To My Ears and Let It Rain. Reminds me of Sporesower Thallid and Sporoloth Ancient. I've been wondering about adding some kind of tag to draw the player's attention to the difference, like a prefixed "Tempo —" or some such. Though it may end up irrelevant as I may have to cut one or both of them for space
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I've been following your design workshopping with interest :) Admittedly I have no clue when it comes to deckbuilding, but it looks good!
I'd like to help you get Cockatrice working if I can, but I'm not sure what I can do - as far as I can tell, the XML generated by PonyMTG is correctly formatted and shouldn't be causing any problems. On my Linux install (v2.7.2), it appears to import without any issues (aside from the same-name bug which only affects a handful of cards).
If it helps, I can usually get Cockatrice back to a clean state simply by deleting the offending set's XML file from its
customsetsdirectory (which is where they end up after being imported). On my machine, this is located at~/local/share/Cockatrice/Cockatrice/customsets. Cockatrice freshly loads all sets from its XML files every time it starts up - you can get more visibility on this by selecting "View debug log" from the menu.5182296
Thanks! And a couple of the other Multiverse regulars have started commenting, pleasingly, though so far only on a couple of cards. I am very interested to see how Piecake Eating at common works out in the set. Here's my current burndown spreadsheet.
I confirmed that I was able to import all of FICG into Cockatrice on my work computer. (My, uh, "work" computer...) So when I get to the sealed-pool stage I'm sure I'll be able to get it working on my home computer - following those tips of yours or just doing some more forceful uninstalls. Worst comes to the worst I can install Cockatrice on my wife's computer that sits next to mine.
Whew! There is a first draft of a set! 254 cards. 101 commons, 85 uncommons, 53 rares, 15 mythics. 38 in each monocolour, 34 gold cards, 23 artifacts, 7 lands.
I had to make some painful cuts. Fan's designs do include plenty of suitable commons, but there are *more* cool uncommons and rares that I'm very sad to have had to leave out. But I did need to include basically all the Equestria Girls blogs to get up to the required commons.
Now I try mocking up a few sealed pools, try deckbuilding from them, and see what emerges. If anyone's following along at home, here's the link to generate a booster for yourself.