Magic: the Gathering, beloved of nerds across the multiverse, allowing everypony to express their personality in the worst possible way since before Nightmare Moon was banished.
Magic: the Gathering, beloved of nerds across the multiverse, allowing everypony to express their personality in the worst possible way since before Nightmare Moon was banished. One day, the game spreads across Ponyville, with dire and nonsensical consequences. Will Ravnicolt survive the onslaught of Rainbow's dragon deck? Will Neighcol Bolas's diabolical master plan come to fruition? Will anypony make it through a whole game without facehoofing? Probably not.
A series of vignettes to no greater point or purpose. More may be added later. Or not. In spite of my best efforts to keep it simple, this probably won't make much sense if you don't have at least some understanding of the game. Cover art from Ponylude.
"So, um, I play Pacifism on your dragon. If that's okay with you, I mean."
Rainbow Dash was lying flat on her stomach on the floor of Fluttershy's cottage, her eyes drooping with boredom and disbelief in the face of her friend's green-white deck. They had been playing for two hours, and had yet to get through one game. She turned to look at the notepad paper where their life totals were recorded in two columns. Rainbow Dash's column had one number: 20. Fluttershy's column reached almost down to the bottom of the paper, every number but the last having been crossed out with pencil. That last number read: 149.
"And then, um, I cast Angel's Mercy and get seven life." She picked up her pencil and crossed out the 149, and wrote 156 beneath it.
"Fluttershy..." Dash said with a growl. "Are you going to actually attack me, like, ever?"
Fluttershy bit her lip nervously. "But... I don't want to hurt anypony."
Rainbow Dash sighed. "Nevermind."
"It's your turn again now," Fluttershy said.
Rainbow dash drew a card from her deck. Her all-red, super-aggressive deck filled with hard-hitting flying creatures and powerful fire spells. She looked at the card. It was a Mountain. She put it into play alongside the fourteen others, that were not doing her any good since she had long since used up all the cards in her hand.
She looked down at the cards laid out before her. Her fleet of vicious fire-breathing reptilian killers, who had ravaged their way across Domineighria, Whinnystrad, Mareodin and Ravnicolt, had apparently met their match in the form of one of Fluttershy's tea parties. Dash had no less than seven mighty elder dragons in play, each capable of destroying whole armies on their own. Each of the red cards had a white card lying on top of it. Two of them were enchanted with Pacifism (enchanted creature can't attack or block), two with Faith's Fetters, (enchanted creature can't attack, block or use special abilities), and three with Recumbent Bliss (enchanted creature can't attack or block, and Recumbent Bliss's owner gets 1 life at the start of her turn).
"I can't do anything," Rainbow Dash said mechanically, for the fifth turn in a row. "Your turn."
"Oh, okay, let me see, I get three life from Recumbent Bliss..." Fluttershy began counting up the various cards she had in play that gave her more life at the start of every turn. Rainbow Dash tuned her out. It wouldn't be quite so annoying if it didn't take her so long every single turn. Turned out math wasn't Fluttershy's strongest point.
"And then two from Ajani's Mantra, so that's fourteen." She crossed out the 156 and wrote 170 beneath it. "Okay, so my turn starts, and then I play Solarian Infusion for seven, and I use both green and white mana so I get fourteen life." She crossed out the 170 and wrote 184.
"Are you going to attack me?" Dash asked impatiently.
"Oh, um, not this time..." Fluttershy said, her voice shrinking. "You can have your turn now."
Dash drew a card, and smiled. Finally something she could use. She flipped six of her Mountain-cards on their side. "I play a Volcanic Dragon. It attacks you! Four damage." Great, she thought. Now I just need to do that another... her mind froze. Math wasn't her strong side either. ...lots of times.
"I play Fog. It, uh, prevents all combat damage this turn."
Dash banged her head against the floor. "...Your turn." She focused on the pain in her forehead to drown out the sound of Fluttershy's calculating.
"So that's fourteen again, so now I'm at 198. And, um, I play another Pacifism on your dragon."
The cottage filled with the rhythmic pounding of Dash's forehead on the floor.
"I play Clone, it's a copy of your zombie," Silver Spoon said. "Your turn."
"I play Cruel Ultimatum! You lose just about everything you have," Diamond Tiara said with her best vicious smirk. "We've barely started, and already you're desperately far behind me."
Silver Spoon looked uncertain. "You know, this is only the fourth turn, and you only have two lands out."
"Your point?" Diamond Tiara scowled.
"You can't actually play that card yet. See, you need to have two blue ones, three black ones, and two red ones to play it. You only have two black ones. You can't afford it."
"Can't afford it?" Diamond Tiara looked at her with horrified outrage. "My daddy is the richest pony in Ponyville! I can afford anything I please! Being poor is for losers! Like you will be once I play this card!"
"You still can't," Silver Spoon said nervously. "That's how the game works, everyone starts off the same and you can only play one land every turn."
"Well this game is stupid then. I should start with all the lands I need to play everything I want, that's my birthright, as my name is DIAMOND TIARA!" She yelled to the heavens, standing on her back legs, her front hooves held high above her head.
"...Well, you don't, is the thing."
"Grah!" Diamond Tiara threw her cards down and assumed her best sulking stance. "There should be a land called 'Diamond Tiara's house' that says I can play anything I want."
"Another Strionic Resonator," Lyra said unhappily, dropping the final bunch of cards down on the table with all the others. "That's so useless... What did you get?"
"Hold on," Bon Bon said. "Okay, I got, oh wow..." She looked at the cards she had just extracted from the plastic wrapper. "That one's shiny..."
"Are you kidding me?!" Lyra glanced over Bon Bon's shoulder. "Two mythics in the same booster?!"
"What's that now?"
"Look," Lyra pointed at a little mark on the card, beneath the artwork. "The set mark is a burning reddish orange-y color. That means it's a mythic rare card, they're the rarest and most powerful cards in the game. I bought like thirty boosters without getting one, and you got two of them at once."
"One of them is all shiny too," Bon Bon said happily as Lyra twisted and groaned, angrily running her hooves over her head and the back of her neck. Bon Bon frowned. "What are you doing?"
"Stupid hooves!" Lyra glared at her forehooves.
Bon Bon's face sank into her accustomed exasperated look for these situations. "This is one of those human things again, isn't it?"
"I am trying to tear my mane in frustration! It doesn't work without fingers. I could use magic but it would look stupid."
"I think we're far past that point, dear," Bon Bon said flatly. "This whole game looks pretty much like the nerdiest thing ever. Where did you hear about this anyway?"
"At my weekly obsessive interests support group," Lyra said. "Twilight brought a bunch of her decks and showed them to everyone."
"And you decided to go with it and buy thirty packs of cards at once because...?"
Lyra mumbled something under her breath.
"What was that?"
"...Twilight said I could make a human-themed deck."
"Huzzah! I return to the lands of Domineighria once more!" Luna cried.
Celestia grinned. She was thrilled to see her sister so carefree and happy, and surprised to learn that Luna still had her deck hidden away in the old castle in Everfree Forest after all this time. The fact that she had a simple prank in mind as well was a small bonus.
"I won't go easy on you just because you're my sister, Lulu," Celestia said with a grin. "I've been honing my deck against Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor, and it is, if I may say so myself, quite unstoppable."
"It matters not, Tia," Luna said as she drew her starting hoof of cards. "I'm just happy to play again, I remember that I adored this game before the war. You may start, if you wish."
"Very well," Celestia looked at her cards and grinned. Oh Lulu, you're going to break your pouting record with this, and I have my camera ready for it. She nudged the camera under the table with her back right hoof to check that it was still there, and began to play. "Round one," Celestia said, laying the smugness on as thick as she was able. "I play an Island, and Telepathy. You now have to play with your cards revealed, so I can see everything you have to throw at me and prepare accordingly. Your turn." Celestia leaned forward, watching closely to see Luna's reaction. To the sun princess's surprise, her sister merely scowled a little, huffed, then laid down her cards face-up on the table.
Celestia's grin froze and her eyes widened as she saw what her sister was holding. That isn't seriously a... Yes, yes it is, and that's a, no that's two of them and that's...
Luna drew a card. "Excellent! I play a Black Lotus and two Mox Sapphires, and with those two blue mana I cast two Ancestral Recalls!" Celestia watched in mortified shock as Luna began her turn by drawing an additional six cards. "Splendid! Another three Moxen and a Black Lotus. I sacrifice both the Lotuses... or is that loti? Nevermind that now. I sacrifice them for six black mana and play a Lord of the Pit. Then I cast Time Walk and get another turn." She drew another card to signal the start of her next turn. "Since I have no other minion to sacrifice to my Lord of the Pit, it deals seven damage to me. I cast another Ancestral Recall and... Oh, excellent! I cast Feast of the Unicorn on my Lord of the Pit," Celestia's stomach turned at the card, which featured a grisly image of shadowy monsters devouring a roasted unicorn. "My Lord of the Pit attacks you for eleven damage, and then I play a Will-o-the-Wisp and another Time Walk." Luna drew another card as she began her third uninterrupted turn. "I sacrifice the Will-o-the-Wisp to my Lord of the Pit, and attack you for another eleven damage, and you are dead. Thank you for the match, Tia!"
Tia said nothing, her left wing twitching slightly. "...Wow, Lulu, that was... quite something."
"Oh yes, and one other thing, sister!" Luna said. Only a second after the flash of light did Celestia realized what had just happened. "This modern photo-graphy device is a marvel, do you not agree?"
