Card of the Day - March, 2012 | MAGIC: THE GATHERING

By Monty Ashley

Confiscate – Eighth Edition common. Core set cards, like the Eighth Edition version of Confiscate, sometimes have flavor text from the real world. This one was picked by the website's readers in Selecting Eighth Edition. One of the other options was Charles Dickens, which would have worked better for this week's Card of the Day theme.

Rohgahh of Kher Keep – Legends rare. During playtesting, Rohgahh of Kher Keep was named "Ur-aah-ah of Kher Keep," and then "Uriah of Kher Keep." It was changed late in the process because it reminded people too much of "Uriah Heep."

Artful Dodge – Dark Ascension common. Wondering what kind of creature is depicted on Artful Dodge? It's a mystery! When you're walking down a street in Innistrad, sometimes you see something out of the corner of your eye that might be an escaped lab experiment or might be a mutant alligator. And before you get a good look at it, it's gone. Watch out!

Bleak Coven Vampires – Scars of Mirrodin common. Although vampires on Mirrodin (the plane that's now New Phyrexia) have slightly pointed teeth, the way they normally drink blood is by stabbing their victims with the elongated metallic spines on their fingers. Bleak Coven Vampires gives a great look at them.

Curiosity – Exodus uncommon. In the art for the Exodus version of Curiosity, Mirri, Cat Warrior is following Crovax the Cursed, who has just killed Selenia. She's about to attack him and die in the ensuing fight. But the Planar Chaos card Keen Sense shows an alternate reality, in which Mirri the Cursed attacks Crovax, Ascendant Hero.

Lord of the Pit – Limited Edition Alpha rare. Lord of the Pit was the largest creature with flying until Devouring Strossus was printed in Invasion. And a bigger Demon wouldn't get printed until Kuro, Pitlord in Champions of Kamigawa!

Szadek, Lord of Secrets – Ravnica: City of Guilds rare. The obvious way to use Szadek, Lord of Secrets involves milling. But the +1/+1 counters can also be put to use through cards like Spike Rogue and Arcbound Fiend, if you're determined to make things more complicated.

Lord of Tresserhorn – Alliances rare. Lord of Tresserhorn was known during playtesting as "Good Buddy." Why? Because he's a 10/4, and because some of the playtest group still remembered old CB radio slang! In fact, the card was changed from a 9/4 to enable the silly nickname!

Chaos Lord – Ice Age rare. Chaos Lord is one of those cards that's simple conceptually (it changes sides a lot and attacks whoever's in its way) but complicated to put in "rules language." At one point, it had Haste but lost it the turn it entered the battlefield. These days, it can attack "as though it had Haste," but not on its first turn.

Sorin, Lord of Innistrad – Dark Ascension mythic rare. With the printing of the white-black Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, Sorin becomes the fifth Planeswalker to have two cards with different colors. His first version was the all-black Sorin Markov. The others are Ajani (Ajani Goldmane/Ajani Vengeant), Garruk (Garruk Wildspeaker/Garruk, the Veil-Cursed), Sarkhan (Sarkhan Vol/Sarkhan the Mad), and Tezzeret (Tezzeret the Seeker/Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas).

Last Kiss – Rise of the Eldrazi common. Last Kiss is functionally identical to Douse in Gloom (from Guildpact, which is also very similar to Vicious Hunger (first seen in Nemesis). Since Rise of the Eldrazi, this effect has shown up again as Sorin's Thirst, this time as an Instant costing only

Crabapple Cohort – Shadowmoor common. According to the flavor text, Crabapple Cohort is trying to get revenge on the women who plucked its apples for pies. At seven apples per pie and seven pies per woman, that's 343 apples! You can also read it as being one apple per pie, but that's not much of a pie.

Dwarven Miner – Mirage uncommon. The flavor text for Dwarven Miner is thirteen words long. Here, Mark Rosewater shares 600 words about writing it.

Lost in the Woods – Dark Ascension rare. There's a tactic in Dark Ascension-Innistrad draft where you sideboard into a Lost in the Woods and a lot of Forests to ride out the win. That's interesting, but is it as interesting as the fact that the people in the art are upside down?

Mirror Mirror – Unglued rare. Although there's a lot of text on Mirror Mirror, the effect is pretty simple: the players change seats and finish the game with each other's decks. Bad news if you were playing Blacker Lotus!

Nevermore – Innistrad rare. The effect seen on Nevermore has previously been seen on Meddling Mage and, of course, Look at Me, I'm the DCI.

Razor Pendulum – Mirage rare. According to its flavor text, the Razor Pendulum was constructed by Telim'Tor. Here's something interesting about Telim'Tor: his name comes from anagramming a Wizards of the Coast employee whose nickname was "Mr. Toilet."

Buried Alive – Weatherlight uncommon. Although cards like Animate Dead had been around since the beginning of Magic, the idea of the graveyard mattering didn't really get investigated until Weatherlight. Buried Alive turned Ashen Ghoul from a gimmick into a powerhouse.

Deathmask Nezumi – Saviors of Kamigawa common. Nezumi is pronounced "nay-ZOO-mee," and in Kamigawa, it's short for "nezumi-bito," meaning "ratfolk." The nezumi mostly stayed out of the war between the humans and the spirits, preferring to stay by themselves in Takenuma Swamp.

Black Cat – Dark Ascension common. Black Cat is both a Cat and a Zombie. The marble table it's sitting on is actually the corner of a coffin! Or possibly a sarcophagus!

Decree of Justice – Scourge rare. One of the few cards that can produce Angel tokens (like Angelic Favor), Decree of Justice is also remarkable for its ability to produce two different types of creature tokens.

Arrest – Scars of Mirrodin common. The Scars of Mirrodin version of Arrest sets the scene in Bladehold, a Mirran city. You can learn more about Bladehold in the reports of Ria of Bladehold on the Mirrodin site, which chronicled the Mirran-Phyrexian war.

Posted in Feature on March 1, 2012

Card of the Day - March, 2012

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