Bash Brothers

Manic Vandal and War Priest of Thune

I'm highly appreciative that the official MTG style guide now mandates enter-the-battlefield destroy effects be depicted with spiked bats. And like some other Bash Brothers, these two seem to have ingested some powerful, uh, dietary supplements. Can't wait to play some M11 limited with these sluggers.

See the original card art for Manic Vandal by Christopher Moeller and War Priest of Thune by Izzy.

My other phylactery is a dirty Econoline van.

If you're seeking a bold t-shirt choice for an upcoming Magic event, allow me to suggest the following design:



Get it here.

Keep Magic weird

Juggernaut

An Alpha original is back in M11 with new art and flavor text. Good ol' Juggs ... it sets me rolling on a destructive trip down memory lane.

When I started playing, back at the dawn of this game, cards were not readily available. I was lucky enough to purchase the last three starter decks in town and for a while my friends and I cobbled together games with that extremely limited pool. Eventually more cards were printed and I was able to play against a friend with cards of his own. New cards I'd never seen before! In those days there was no visual spoiler. In fact, Magic debuted a couple years before web browsers became widespread. Imagine that! Sure, I tried to trawl UNIX-based message boards for card info, but the card pool beyond my own was essentially mysterious. So I was mentally unprepared when my pal paid 4 to drop a relentless machine that bashed away quarters of my starting life total until there was none left. It was a formative moment, a stark lesson in price, power and tempo. We played the hell out of Juggernaut for years.

When I saw that there was new Juggernaut art I had to turn it into a real moment. Poured a beverage, dimmed the lights in The Looter's Grotto, put on an appopriate playlist (Judas Priest, Turbonegro, Andrew WK, etc), and called up the Magic Arcana with Juggy's new face. After soaking it in for a while I concluded that I don't get what is being depicted and I love that! A pinecone and a VW Bug had a baby in a zombie mosh pit. Weird and awesome!

I have a lot of affection for the art of Alpha. The riot of styles, straight-laced depiction alongside bizarre abstraction, and the seeming lack of overall direction made for a scrappy, memorable experience. After the game's initial success there was an effort to sand off the rough edges and standardize the look. This led to sets with more traditional fantasy art, restricted palettes ... boring. There were still highlights, you know, Mark Tedin never went away, but my memory of those middle years is of muddy, bland card art.

But then someone in charge got it and a beam of hot light parted the gray. That period gave way to the current era of strong art direction married to risky, fun, and weird art. Each new set blows me away. Beautiful painting! Art that tells stories! Humor! But the key for me is: weird. Give me those images that perplex, disturb and stick in my memory. Keep Magic weird!

Thanks to Wizards of the Coast and Mark Hyzer for this crazy, new Juggernaut.

Want the original drawing?

Looters draw but they also discard, so I'm giving away the pen/ink drawing for the Juggernaut piece above. How do you win?

1. Follow me on Twitter.

2. Post a comment below including your Twitter name and some original flavor text to go along with the drawing. Whatever you think goes best with the drawing. Humor is not mandatory but will probably help.

If I like your flavor text suggestion the best I will send you the drawing. Contest ends July 16 at noon PST. Any questions?

Welcome to the Jungle

Next up in the 0/1 token series:

PLANT!

I sleeved some up:


... but then I had to equip my Trusty Rusty Exacto and go all papercraft on it:




I'm hoping for a strong goat presence in Scars of Mirodin.

Here's a high-resolution PDF file of the plant tokens. Print and enjoy!

Didn't see that coming

Seismic Assault

I've always been partial to Seismic Assault (along with its ancestor) and am hoping it has a brief surge of relevance in the newly-announced Extended format. Oh, that was quite an announcement, huh? We, the Magic community, gliding along, la-di-da, Archenemy, yay, M11 spoilers, feelin' groovy, tra-la-la BAM! LAVA FIST! And then 24 hours of speculators chain-chugging foul energy drinks while trying to lock up every underpriced Mistbind Clique they could lay hand or mouse on.

Having never really had bandwidth for Extended, I like the change. Previously, if an Extended GP happened in my backyard I would not play in the main event. With the more digestible card pool, I might.

See Greg Staples' original card art here.

TT and the Grunts

"Have you seen them live? Halfway through the gig the lead guitarist disappears and comes back as some kinda freaky stone golem thing! Yes way, man!"

Yeah, I made some custom goblin tokens. Now that's a Siege-Gang that knows how to party!

UPDATE - Here's a high-resolution PDF to download if you want to print and use these tokens:
3 goblins token PDF
Print 'em up on some nice paper, cut 'em out and game!

Piles of lettuce

Vengevine

I didn't want to let all the mythic rage pass unmentioned. Without getting into whether mythic rarity is good or bad, it's clear that people aspiring to compete in Standard now must be a lot more aware of their own personal collections of little, green rectangles.

See Raymond Swanland's original card art here.