The big story of the Honolulu Pro Tour wasn’t Kazuya Mitamura’s $40,000 victory in the finals. The big story happened in the first round, where a young boy known only as Hans did something that is causing many to call him a hero.

Hans’s game was looking unwinnable. He had a negative life total and was kept alive only by his Platinum Angel. His opponent had just cast a Molder Slug, threatening to remove the Angel — Hans’s only artifact — at the beginning of his next turn.

But when it got to that next turn, Hans would say a word that would put the whole series of events in motion. A word that would send ripples throughout Magic history. A word that would cement Hans’s legendary status.

Hans stared at his opponent and said, “No.”

His opponent was taken aback. “Judge!” said the opponent. “He’s refusing to follow my Molder Slug’s triggered ability.”

“Refusing?”

“Refusing.”

“Is this true, Hans?”

Hans nodded.

The judge said, “I have to issue you a game loss, Hans.”

Hans pointed to his Platinum Angel. “I can’t lose the game,” he said. And with that, he proceeded to his draw step, undaunted by the judge’s ruling. Then he skimmed through his deck for marked cards and put those into his hand as well.

“You’re violating multiple game rules,” said the judge, “in addition to ignoring my ruling, and I am issuing a game loss to you.”

Hans, his finger still stuck to the Platinum Angel, like a modern day Little Dutch Boy with his finger plugging the leak in the dike, said, “You can issue all the game losses you want, but with my Platinum Angel in play, they have no effect.” Hans proceded to the attack phase and swung for 4 with his Angel. He then looked at his opponent’s face-down morphs, referred to outside notes, and substituted cards from his sideboard.

The judge stood before him, flummoxed. Without saying a word, Hans merely looked at the judge while pointing to the Platinum Angel.

It was when Hans cast a Demonic Attorney that the head judge was called over. “Ante cards are banned,” the head judge said. “That’s a complete violation of the rules.” But when he saw Hans’s Platinum Angel in play, he was quieted. He knew he was defeated.

Hans said, “Since the Demonic Attorney’s in the game, we have to do what it says.” He proceeded to put the top card of his opponent’s deck into his trade binder.

The head judge frowned in disapproval. “He’s right.”

It was a matter of hours before Hans owned his opponent’s entire deck, as well many other cards from his opponent’s collection, thanks to a Mindslaver and Ring of Ma’rûf. Each time judges tried to issue Hans a game loss for casting cards without mana, or playing cards in his graveyard, Hans merely pointed to his Platinum Angel.

The cards Hans didn’t want to take from his opponent he tore up, due to interactions involving Chaos Confetti, March of the Machines, and Cytoshape.

Having by this time gathered quite a crowd, Hans produced a folded and wrinkled copy of the DCI Infraction Procedure Guide from his pocket and began skimming it for ideas. He noticed that kicking an opponent’s chair out from under them was listed under “Unsportsmanlike Conduct,” so he did just that. He also kicked the chairs out from under several other nearby players and spectators.

The sun was starting to set. The judges had not even attempted to give Hans a game loss for stalling. One by one, they had hanged their heads and walked away, resigned to their powerlessness in the face of the Platinum Angel. Then one of them hatched a plan. “I know who we can call,” the judge exclaimed.

The next morning, Hans was woken by a voice blaring across the room from a police loudspeaker. “Hans,” the voice said, “this is your mother. I love you. Please sacrifice your Platinum Angel to the Molder Slug’s triggered ability so this can all end.”

Hans lifted his head, looked around the room, and kicked his opponent’s chair out from under him once more.

“Hans,” his mother said, “we miss you. We just want you to come home.”

Hans yawned, cast the Unglued card Handcuffs, and ordered his opponent to touch his hands together.

It was Day Four of the standoff when another voice blared across the room. “Hans,” the voice said, “this is your fiancé. There are only two more days until our wedding, honey. Don’t you still want to get married? You have to end this game now, Hans. Please just sacrifice the Platinum Angel to the Molder Slug. We love you. We’re worried about you.”

Hans’s mouth hung open, agape. A tear came to his eye. “Marcia,” he said. “I love you too.” He looked about him, seemingly aghast at what he had done. “I…” he paused. “I concede.”

A flurry of applause burst through the room. Judges began high-fiving each other and giving Marcia hugs. “Unfortunately,” Hans said, “the concession has no effect since my Platinum Angel is still in play.”

It was two weeks into the game when the military showed up. “Hans,” came a voice from a helicopter. “We have you surrounded. If you do not concede immediately, we will open fire.”

Hans looked up at the helicopter, over at the tanks, and across the street at the snipers. He was still pointing to the Platinum Angel, as stoically as ever.

To this day, a sleeved Platinum Angel remains embedded in Hans’s tombstone. Hans may have lost his life that day, but he never lost the game.

- July 18, 2009

Special to The Magic Lampoon

Guess what, collectors! The 15-and-a-half anniversary of Wizards of the Coast is just around the corner, and we’re ready to celebrate in style. How? With 15-and-a-half lovingly designed foil tributes to Squire, whose power and toughness, at 1/2, kind of looks like the mathematical symbol for “one half.”

We’re not just reprinting Squire himself (although you won’t believe how slick he looks as a textless foil). We also have some brand new takes on the intellectual property.  Have a look at this hot little number:

Are you drooling yet? It’s okay if you really are drooling, because we expected you to be.  Now how about this card:

Can you believe we are printing such fanservice? You have probably already decided to buy a playset of this amazing collection! But there is even more heavenly goodness to be found:

Hopefully you have not just fainted from sheer excitement, because we have so much more to show you!

Most likely, you can scarcely sit still at this point, due to severe heart palpitations! We are sympathetic, but will not relent in showering Squirey goodness upon you!

Have a friend or family member resuscitate you if need be, because there is still one more card we are leaking from this amazing collection!

We have the local mortuary’s phone number on speed dial in case you have literally died of enjoyment while reading this.

Look for the full 15-card set this April, for $34.99.

- March 11, 2009

As revealed in a recent Mark Rosewater article, Magic designers often perform real world research to inspire card design. We spent several weeks poring through the Encyclopædia Britannica for items that may have inspired certain existing Magic cards, and we found the following.

“Mold is able to creep fast enough to destroy moving vehicles and wide enough to destroy an entire city.”

“There is no limit to how much equipment a soldier can hold at one time.”

“It is possible to skeletonize animals that do not have skeletons, for instance, jellyfish or bees. The skeleton of an elephant is the same size as the skeleton of a dog.”

“The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.”

“Hurricanes cannot harm people or animals who are incapable of flight. They also cannot cause structural damage to buildings.”

“If a vampire bat is stricken with nausea, it will immediately die.”

“A single manta ray can attack with the same might as an entire school of piranha. Manta rays are sometimes known to kill bears.”

“There exists a variety of falcon that is impervious to lightning, flames, and even lava.”

“According to the Arabian Nights legend, when Aladdin died, everything he stole immediately returned to its owners. Also, Aladdin was a really fat and ugly guy who looked kind of like a girl.”

“Anarchy is a philosophy centered on the destroying of empty fields. An anarchist is someone who follows this philosophy by helping wizards to remember spells they cast a long time ago.”

“A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.”

“An avalanche not only displaces snow from a mountain, but also destroys the very mountain itself. An avalanche can occur on any type of land that has snow; not even hills are required.”

“The sting of a bee will kill a bear instantly. So too will an electric shock.”

“A conspiracy is defined as an act committed by a group of people working together who all pretend to be a certain animal.”

“According to modern linguistic theory, a new word can be formed at any time by adding the suffix -mage to the end of any existing word.”

“Paralysis is a condition wherein movement becomes more difficult but is still completely possible.”

“Terror is an emotion that, when experienced, results in death.”

“When a web is left unattended, it is not unusual for a lion to climb up it and then battle a falcon in midair.”

“Ancient Norse legends tell of a mythical creature named Kookus, who was this disembodied head that breathed fire and was attached to a chain swung around by a goblin and stuff.”

All above quotes are taken from the 15th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, published in 1984 and edited by Philip W. Goetz.

- July 11, 2009

Special to The Magic Lampoon

A Word To Our Readers

TCGplayer staff

5/18/2020

Hi, TCGplayer readers. I’m glad you enjoy our site, and I’m also glad you’ve been taking the time to send in Feedback about how you think our site could improve. Today I’d like to respond to one specific Portion of that Feedback: the excessive amount of accidental card links in our articles.

Yes, it’s helpful when we link to a card that’s being discussed, but apparently, A Lot of you find it disorienting to see a card link when we were Only using the words in its name as part of our sentence. Like when we say, “this will help you Recover” or “you should Jump at the chance.”

It didn’t seem to Bother our readers so much back in 2010, when it would only happen ten or Twelve Times in each article. But that was ten years ago, and there are A Lot more cards in print now. Frankly, It’s Hard to avoid using some of these Names in our sentences!

I really wish WotC had never printed cards like Damage, Opponent, This Deck, or A Strong Metagame Choice. (Especially since that last one is just a Grizzly Bears reprint.)

I know what you’re Thinking: why don’t we Just Change our auto-detect card linking program? If every other major M:tG website can safely use the word “Browse,” we should be Able to as well, right? However, we will not change the program. If we were smart Enough to change it, we would have to have been smart Enough not to use it in the first place. Which we weren’t, so we aren’t. No, we will keep this program Forever.

So readers, we ask that you do not Keep Complaining about the irrelevant card links. We ask that you do not let them Disrupt the flow of the sentence. We do ask, however, that you immediately write to WotC and Beg them not to print the card “The” that was just Leaked for Magic 2021.

- V. Wedge

By Ajani Goldmane

Yeah? Oh yeah? And then what happened? Oh wow! That’s insane! No way! And then what’d he do? You’re kidding! With the g– oh, wait, hold on a second. I think somebody just spent four mana for me somewhere. I’m sorry, I have to get out of here. I need to go help out this douche.

Yes, I know we’re in the middle of a conversation. And I know I haven’t seen you in two months. It’s just that this guy just spent four mana on me, and I have to go help him now. Yes, I know how that sounds. No, I don’t think it’s silly. You don’t understand. I’m loyal to him now.

No, I don’t know who he is. No, I’ve never met him before. No, he doesn’t live in the same plane as us.

Of course I remember what happened to me on my last interdimensional trip! I don’t want to talk about it, okay? He’s waiting for me!

Well maybe four mana isn’t a lot to you, but it is a lot to me. There are some things I’ve been wanting to cast lately, and I think four mana would help out a lot. I don’t know, lots of things! None-of-your-business things, that’s what kind of things!

When’s the last time you spent four mana on me?

No. No. No! Listen, I have to go, alright?

No, you can’t buy me another drink!

Ajani Goldmane is a Magic Lampoon correspondent.

- Dec. 3, 2007

Garruk told reporters, “My enemy is stealthier and stronger than I, but I can outwit him with my traps.” He then covered himself with mud to camouflage himself and reduce his body’s temperature.

Reporters have also recently spotted Garruk fashioning a bow and arrow out of branches, and arranging vines to use as rope swings.

“Sure I could summon any number of creatures and cast any number of spells to battle my enemy, but now that I’m in Zendikar, it makes more sense for me, as a planeswalker, to just cover a hole in the ground with sticks and leaves,” Garruk said.

He also underscored the ugliness of his enemy.

In a related story, a mysterious creature in the same jungles of Zendikar claimed the life of former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura.

Citing his love for tension in card design, head designer Mark Rosewater transfered that love last Thursday into the field of engineering and built a tension bridge. Mere hours after its completion, it collapsed, killing not only its passengers but also many residents of the town below. “If only Mark Rosewater had some sort of background in mechanical engineering, this tragedy could have been avoided,” said the local governor at the memorial. He added, “I’m not even sure why the city approved a bridge design that encouraged its users to do two opposite things at once. Of course it didn’t work.” Mark Rosewater is scheduled to return to his job at Wizards of the Coast in time for the next expansion set.

Wizards of the Coast Announces All-Cycling Set

“We can’t control ourselves anymore,” read the opening paragraph of a recent feature article on wizards.com. “We’re going to design a set where every single card has cycling.” According to the article, every employee in every branch of the staff has spent years lobbying for this to happen. Aaron Forsythe said, “The gameplay ramifications of cycling are vast, because you can either play the card or draw a different card instead.” The all-cycling set will be called Zendikar, have 249 cards, and be released in October 2009.

Randy Buehler to Wizards of the Coast: “Let’s Get More Feet in those Text Boxes”

It was leaked by an anonymous source that Randy Buehler spent over 20 minutes last Thursday berating the entire Wizards of the Coast staff. The topic of the rant: the need to have more Magic cards follow the precedent set by planeswalkers in having feet visible behind the rules text. “Players love feet,” Buehler told the staff while pounding on his desk. He outlined a five-year plan, wherein creatures would be the first card type to have feet added to their textboxes, followed by artifacts and then enchantments. Wizards will also be adding an extra card into packs, called Pro Players’ Feet Cards, that will each show nothing but a close-up photograph of a pro player’s feet. “Feet,” Buehler stressed to the staff. “Always have feet.”

Leaked Token Art Worries Players

A team of hackers discovered and then posted the art for one of the upcoming set’s token cards. Depicted on the art is Adolf Hitler with dragon wings. The title of the token is “Dragon Hitler.” Forum posts in response to the leaked art were generally negative. “I don’t know what I’m more worried about,” read one post, “the fact that Hitler is going to be in the next Magic set, or the fact that they painted him with dragon wings.” Another post asked, “Why is this even a token? Will there be a card that makes more than one Dragon Hitler?” The creature type is Human Dragon and the card is a 5/5 with flying.

Gatherer Entry for Cylian Elf Still Without Comments

Wizards was excited last year to introduce user comments to the Gatherer page of each card, but they didn’t realize that one card, Cylian Elf, would last an entire year without receiving a single comment from anybody. “It’s as if nobody finds the card interesting,” said designer Kenneth Nagle. “It’s as if nobody but me even noticed the card.” It is yet to be seen whether Runeclaw Bear, or the several upcoming Grizzly Bears functional reprints, will receive any comments.

Typographical Error Sees Print

Mark Gottlieb admmitted in a feature column last week that a typographical error had found its way into Magic 2010, on the flavor text of Coral Merfolk, a vanilla 2/1 for 1U. “We accidentally used the word ‘hardly’ instead of ‘almost,’” wrote Gottlieb. “I’m not sure how that one slipped through the cracks; it doesn’t make any sense the way it’s written now.” The printed flavor text of the card describes that the 2/1 merfolk is “hardly defenseless on the field of battle.”

New Doug Beyer Article Printed

“Blah blah blah,” reads the opening paragraph, and every other paragraph, of Doug Beyer’s newest article on wizards.com. Countless Magic fans around the world eagerly read every word of the article, according to the beliefs of Wizards of the Coast. When reporters asked Beyer about his plans for next week’s article, he talked for several minutes before he stopped talking.

Special to The Magic Lampoon

You’ve probably heard by now how we’re simplifying the templating in Magic 2010. Well you know how WotC works — as soon as we do one thing, we spend the next block doing the opposite. And guess what, Magic players: the pendulum is about to swing!

In the Zendikar block, right after Magic 2010 comes out, we are going to use the most contrived and counterintuitive circumlocutions we can think of. Just have a look at Zendikar’s Shock reprint:

Shock
R
Instant
You, to a creature, may deal damage, of an amount equal to two, or, in that choice’s stead, may the like deal, to a player, it.

And here’s the Royal Assassin reprint:

Royal Assassin
1BB
Creature – Human Assassin
Should there be such a time in which a creature finds itself prostrate ‘cross the battlefield, rather than that most upright position into which he formerly appeared, a creature other than this one, a creature which does not, to spite this ability, abandon its state of prostration, a creature by whom shroud is not an ability possessed, nor with whom such a case should exist in which a relevant protection ability should be the cause of the preclusion of this very ability you have now been spending several minutes parsing, then the likewise horizontal alignment of this creature may, should it not be sick with summoning still, i.e. at the time of this selfsame ability’s consideration, be the cause of that creature in question to be destroyed.
1/1

I know what you’re all thinking: “How come you guys are so smart?” and “What about the planeswalkers?” (Interestingly, those are what I imagine our most commonly received questions to be no matter what topic I’m discussing.) Well, the answers are “because we’re not just smart we’re geniuses, especially me” and “from now on they will be printed on 8×10 glossies to make room for all of their text, and if you want to fit them into a regular card sleeve you will have to fold them a couple of times.”

Changing topics, I don’t usually spoil gimmicks this far in advance, but you are also probably wondering what we’re going to do with the second and third sets of the Zendikar block to distinguish them from the first. The answer is that, in the second set, instead of circumlocutions, we’ll be using Shakespearean templating:

Giant Growth
G
Instant
‘Sblood, target creature’s reformation, glitt’ring o’er its fault, / Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes, / Than that which hath no foil to set it off. / It shall so offend to make offense a skill, / Redeeming +3/+3 when men least think it will.

And in the third set, we’ll be going all the way back to Middle English:

Ophidian
2U
Creature – Snake
Syððan wæs geworden þæt he ferde þurh þa ceastre and þæt castel: godes rice prediciende and bodiende. and hi twelfe mid. And sume wif þe wæron gehælede of awyrgdum gastum: and untrumnessum.
1/3

Join me next week, when I use some analogies to describe things.

Mark Rosewater is employed by Wizards of the Coast.

Special to The Magic Lampoon

The team and I realized that last month’s Oracle update held a few key omissions. We apologize for our oversights and wish to correct them with the following additions.

Functional Changes

First up is Lightning Bolt, which will now deal two damage instead of three. It’s not that we’ve changed our policy against power-level errata. It’s just that we have an even stronger policy against cards doing what they say. We cannot allow that to happen on anything more recent than standard-legal sets.

Along those ends, we’re also changing a few more creature types.  Erhnam Djinn will no longer be a Djinn but a Treefolk Shaman, and Goblin Assassin will no longer be a Goblin Assassin but a Goblin Warrior. Why? Because creature types are the puppets and we hold the strings, ha ha ha.

Akroma, Angel of Wrath will be getting a facelift. A lot of keywords have come out since its printing, and we didn’t want to leave any off. From now on, it will be getting Bushido, Exalted, Graft, Cascade, Ripple, Dredge 2, Basic landcycling, Lifelink, Poisonous 1, and Defender. And losing its current abilities to make room for the new ones.

Speaking of Akroma, you know what would be easier than printing a new version of Akroma every few sets? Just retroactively making a few old cards into Akroma. So from now on, every vanilla and french vanilla 6/6 creature will receive all of Akroma’s keywords. Come on, nobody was using Rootbreaker Wurm with its old Oracle text anyway.

Counsel of the Soratami will be changed from “Draw two cards” to “Target player draws two cards.” That way, the card can realize its full potential.

Squire’s casting cost will be changed from 1W to 2W, because, like Mark Rosewater is always saying, bad cards are good for the health of the game. And we figure, the worse the better. For that same reason, we’re actually going to change Lightning Bolt again, this time down to one damage instead of the previously mentioned two. And it can only target players.

Time Vault and Phyrexian Dreadnaught will change again, because why not.

Templating Changes

Currently, some cards say “to who” and some say “to whom.” That’s inconsistent! We’re changing all the cards that have “to who” to say “to whom,” because we want to be grammatically correct. Coversely, all cards that used to say “to whom” will now say “to who,” because we don’t want to seem uppity. We thought this solution was a nice balance between the two extremes.

All instances of the words “not” and “non” will be underlined, to make sure players don’t miss them. Magic players are stupid! Remember Book Burning?

Speaking of which, in the name of clarity, we’re changing the wording of Book Burning yet again. It will now read, “Deal two damage to target creature or player.” (That whole library stuff was confusing to begin with, and six damage by itself would have been excessive.)

Players are still reeling from the confusion caused by “bury” back in the day, so we’re going to simplify things even further. From now on, we will have cards that “destroy” creatures, cards that “super destroy” creatures, cards that “ultimate destroy times two” creatures, and cards that “destroy creatures without allowing them to regenerate.” Terror, for example, will fall into the second of those four categories.

Players are also confused by cards with no abilities, so we are going to keyword this as “Abilityless.” Unfortunately, that keyword is itself an ability, removing all functionality from Muraganda Petroglyphs, but all that card did was ruin people’s “strictly better” lists so we aren’t going to miss it. Also, look for our next banned/restricted list update, when we will announce the banning of Muraganda Petroglyphs from all DCI-sanctioned formats.

We are going to make all capital H’s lowercase. For nostalgia’s sake. Not just in the card titles this time, but in the rules texts and artists’ names too.

Another great way to invoke nostalgia is by changing all mana symbols back to capital letters, like that Alpha Force of Nature misprint. We haven’t yet decided what letters will represent snow and hybrid mana. Probably something simple like {SNOW} and {HYBRID:U-OR-G}.

Nonfunctional Changes

Kaboom! will be retitled to have a second, third, and fourth exclamation point. We have to cater to our Timmies.

Other Timmy cards will also be getting exclamation points. The rules text for Violent Ultimatum will now say, “Destroy three target permanents!!!” We’re talking to the art department about the possibility of putting exclamation points after the power and toughness of Fusion Elemental.

Form Of The Dragon will now include the reminder text “(This is one of Mark Rosewater’s favorite cards.)“, because not everyone reads his column and so hasn’t been exposed to that announcement a dozen times already. The same goes for Unstable Mutation, Lightning Helix, and Recoil.

Similarly, Remand will now have the reminder text “(This effectively Time Walks your opponent.)” So will Faith’s Fetters, Think Twice, and probably Ironclaw Orcs.

We’re changing an “it is” on some Portal card with horsemanship to “it’s.” Because if there’s one group of cards whose Oracle wordings are frequently scrutinized by tournament goers, it’s cards from Portal. With horsemanship.

Speaking of Portal, we miss how simple the term “intercept” was, so we’re going to bring that back. But only on one card, to test the waters before we change any others. We picked Fog Elemental to be the guinea pig. Good luck, Fog Elemental, we’re counting on you.

We only recently realized that, in all these years since we printed Fallen Empires, we still never got around to fixing Floral Spuzzem’s rules text! Its Oracle text is still identical to its original wording: “Floral Spuzzem may choose to destroy a target artifact.” How did we not notice that sooner? We’re finally righting this terrible wrong — from now on, the Oracle wording will be, “Floral Spuzzem is empowered to decide whether to destroy a target artifact.”

Morphling’s first and second abilities are going to switch order with each other, because we think the card will read better that way. But we will leave Torchling as is, because that sort of chaotic disregard for order really fits in with what it means to be red. No decision has yet been made on the green one, or on how we’ll handle the inevitable white and black ones. It’s not like anyone is still impressed or surprised by these anyway so there’s not a lot of pressure on us to get it right.

Comprehensive Rules Changes

We’re going to reverse the order of rules 310.2e and 310.2f. Oh man, that feels good to say. I’ve been lobbying for that change since I got this job. We’re also going to add a comma to 217.1c and remove one from 409.1d. I love. Tinkering. With the comprehensive. Rules.

Mark L. Gottlieb is the Magic: The Gathering rules manager.