The Magic Lampoon » Contest Entries http://magiclampoon.com/blog Best damn Magic: the Gathering humor site ever Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:56:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Planeswalkers Vs. Plainswalkers http://magiclampoon.com/blog/2008/12/16/planeswalkers-and-plainswalkers/ http://magiclampoon.com/blog/2008/12/16/planeswalkers-and-plainswalkers/#comments Tue, 16 Dec 2008 13:30:44 +0000 Staff http://magiclampoon.com/blog/2007/12/09/planeswalkers-and-plainswalkers/ Planeswalkers vs. Plainswalkers

Five exist vs. Three exist

Funky new card frames vs. Funky old card frames

Mentioned on Tarmogoyf vs. Mentioned on a Homelands card

Hosed by Vindicate vs. Hosed by worst card of all time

Are legendary vs. Are in Legends

Ajani Goldmane has a huge axe vs. Zodiac Rooster is a huge cock

Have had a theme week vs. Due soon, most likely

Will appear in future sets vs. Very well might

Have feet in their text box vs. Are superior in this regard

Three abilities vs. One’s all they need, baby

Took months of design tweaks vs. It’s possible

Sounds like “plainswalkers” vs. IS “plainswalkers”

According to the flavor text on Planar Void: “Planeswalking isn’t about about walking. It’s about falling and screaming” vs. Is totally about walking

BONUS PLAINSWALKER TRIVIA:

- If you were to gather one of every plainswalker printed and put them end to end, they would reach almost 11 inches. There are three plainswalkers.

- The combined power of the three plainswalkers is 6, which is yours for the low, low price of 7WWWG.

- Wizards of the Coast recomissioned the artwork for Blinking Spirit’s reprint since the original led players to believe the creature had flying. For similar reasons, Mistmeadow Skulk’s reprint will have recomissioned art as well.

- The reminder text on the 9th Edition Mind Bend says that you may change “‘forestwalk’ to ‘plainswalk.’” In 10th Edition, they changed the reminder text to read “‘forestwalk’ to ‘islandwalk.’” This was a very purposeful change and likely reflected designers’ wishes not to tell new players the best possible use for Mind Bend.

- Game-finishing fatties have already been printed with trample, vigilance, flying, protection, haste, double strike, shroud, and indestructible; experts predict one with plainswalk as early as January 2012.

- The ratio of cards with plainswalk to cards that mention plainswalk is 3:3. The only lower ratio is that of Bands With Other, which stands at 0:8. No announcement has yet been made regarding Wizards’ plans to release a powerful group of cards that are homonymic with Bands With Other.

- Dec. 9, 2007

]]> http://magiclampoon.com/blog/2008/12/16/planeswalkers-and-plainswalkers/feed/ 6 Magic Gains Sentience Or An Idea Of Identity Through Agent Of Infinite Looped Nests Of Complexity http://magiclampoon.com/blog/2007/12/08/magic-gains-sentience-or-an-idea-of-identity-through-agent-of-infinite-looped-nests-of-complexity/ http://magiclampoon.com/blog/2007/12/08/magic-gains-sentience-or-an-idea-of-identity-through-agent-of-infinite-looped-nests-of-complexity/#comments Sat, 08 Dec 2007 14:13:31 +0000 Staff http://magiclampoon.com/blog/2007/12/08/magic-gains-sentience-or-an-idea-of-identity-through-agent-of-infinite-looped-nests-of-complexity/ If we agree with the argument that consciousness is defined as the ability for a structure within a system, through self-referentiality, to affect that system through its meaning or non-meaning, as documented to a Pulitzer’s-worth of success by Douglas R. Hofstadter in his book “Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid,” then, with the specific advent of Planeswalkers as a card type, the game of Magic has been transformed from a basically meaningless though utile system to a sentience of limited consciousness, announced Wizards spokeswoman Tina Gaffney on Wednesday.

Wizards’ Centre for Consciousness Studies within Entertainment-based Systems (CSES) has long been the black sheep of R&D because it has been policy since the game’s inception to avoid consciousness. But after many years of debate, consciousness has finally been introduced in a very careful and controlled way.

“It was felt that players would fear consciousness within the gaming system,” Gaffney said, “that they would perceive it as competing with their specialness as sentient beings.”

But now it is thought that the philosophically-enlightened player can accept that there is no difference between their “self” and that of a cow or a mathematical system, except the level of complexity, she added. 

Mark Rosewater told reporters Saturday, “As a designer, it has always been my dream to create a gaming system that was capable of stimulus-response reactions and possessed an idea of ’self’ or I-ness through inter-referentiality and/or infinite looped nests of complexity.”

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