Card of the Day - August, 2010 : Daily MTG : Magic: The Gathering

Card of the Day - Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro – Champions of Kamigawa uncommon. The introduction of Snakes as a playable tribe (as opposed to just an unrelated group of creatures) meant that for the first time, players could look forward to drafting an entire family. In 2005 GP Leipzig, Niki Jedlicka successfully drafted Seshiro the Anointed, along with two Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro and Sosuke, Son of Seshiro for the full Snake set!

Card of the Day - Monday, August 30, 2010
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV – Dissension rare. Although Grand Arbiter Augustin IV is presumably the fourth Augustin, he was only the second Arbiter in Magic. The first one was Silent Arbiter in Fifth Dawn. Thanks to Arbiter of Knollridge and Angelic Arbiter, there are now four Arbiters. Augustin was just ahead of his time.

Card of the Day - Friday, August 27, 2010
Timber Wolves – Alpha rare. Rare? Yeah, it has banding. Oh. Can you explain banding without looking at Gatherer? Probably not, but then I'm guessing you can't explain a 4-Out 1-In Motion Offense either ....

Card of the Day - Thursday, August 26, 2010
North Star – Legends rare. You might have forgotten about this mana-filtering artifact, since it was released in 1994. Or was it 1993? With North Star you can cast that Progenitus, Coalition Victory, or Sliver Queen with mana of any color. Just remember you'll have to pay that extra four colorless to activate it.

Card of the Day - Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Lovisa Coldeyes – Coldsnap rare. Legendary leader of the Balduvian tribes, Lovisa Coldeyes has it out for the "ice wizards," sports a rare Baulduvian-blonde mop of hair, drinks from a punch-bowl-sized goblet, and could cut through any pack of rivals with that axe of hers.

Card of the Day - Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Splinter Twin – Rise of the Eldrazi rare. Splinter Twin features a single human female that creates, and I quote the art description here, "her wild-eyed double." With Doubling Season in play, you'd triple her.

Card of the Day - Monday, August 23, 2010

Lake of the Dead – Alliances rare. Turn three, tap a Swamp, play Lake of the Dead, sacrifice the tapped swamp, tap your second Swamp, activate Lake of the Dead, sacrifice your second tapped Swamp, then tap Lake of the Dead to add 4 more black mana to your mana pool for a total of 6. Is it good math? I don't know, because next turn you’ll have 4 black mana at best, if you draw, play, and sacrifice another Swamp. Just hope no one annexes this land from you after all that.

Card of the Day - Friday, August 20, 2010
Tooth and Nail – Mirrodin rare. They say you should never play an extremely expensive spell unless it's going to win you the game. That's usually what Tooth and Nail does, so even though it's a seven-mana sorcery, it has a long and distinguished history of dominating tournament play.

Card of the Day - Thursday, August 19, 2010
Knucklebone Witch – Lorwyn rare. The art for Knucklebone Witch can be seen, in all its creepy glory, in this arcana, which shows what the Creative department looks like when a lot of original art comes in at once.

Card of the Day - Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Lifeline – Urza's Saga rare. Some cards just cry out to be used in abusive combos. Other cards require more work. And then there's Lifeline, which is so combo-ready, it's actually more of a challenge to come up with a way to use it that isn't broken in some weird way!

Card of the Day - Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Burning Palm Efreet – Mirage uncommon. Theme decks didn't exist when Mirage was created, which presented a problem when Magic Online started selling Mirage. So new theme decks were created in a variety of ways, including on this very website. And that's how Burning Palm Efreet got to be in a theme deck eight years after it was printed!

Card of the Day - Monday, August 16, 2010
Stonehands – Ice Age common. The flavor text on Stonehands is spoken by Lovisa Coldeyes, who would get her own card years later in Coldsnap. So there's still hope, Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar!

Card of the Day - Friday, August 13, 2010
Zodiac Snake – Portal Three Kingdoms common. The Zodiac creatures of Portal Three Kingdoms represent a very unusual cycle: seven commons, four uncommons, one rare. Three black, three red, six green. All but one of them has some form of landwalk. But here's something neat: their twelve flavor texts tell the story of the set! That is, if you know the right order.

Card of the Day - Thursday, August 12, 2010
Goldmeadow Dodger – Lorwyn common. Goldmeadow has dodgers, harriers, lookouts, and stalwarts. Wondering what else goes on there? You can learn all about Goldmeadow in this Savor the Flavor from 2007.

Card of the Day - Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Mountain – Arabian Nights common. The answer to the trivia question "What is the commonest basic land?" is "Mountain," thanks to its inclusion on the Arabian Nights common sheet. Fascinating!

Card of the Day - Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Boldwyr Heavyweights – Morningtide rare. Boldwyr Heavyweights holds the distinction of being the biggest Giant in the game of Magic, although Akron Legionnaire has as much power. And for once, we don't need to clarify by saying "not counting Changelings," because Changeling Titan is only 7/7!

Card of the Day - Monday, August 09, 2010
Monk Realist – Urza's Saga common. At two mana, the Monk Realist destroys enchantments. But sometimes, the uncommon three-mana Monk Idealist comes along and brings the enchantment back out of the graveyard. The lesson? These monks should get together and decide on a plan ahead of time.

Card of the Day - Friday, August 06, 2010
Reknit – Shadowmoor uncommon. In what appears to be a rare case of an accidental hidden message in a Magic card's name, Shadowmoor's "Reknit" is "Tinker" spelled backwards—a fact that has, well, nothing whatsoever to do with the infamous card Tinker.

Card of the Day - Thursday, August 05, 2010
Reassembling Skeleton – Magic 2011 uncommon. Magic's original bony buddies, Drudge Skeletons, executed on the flavor of fantasy skeletons using the regenerate mechanic, which also appeared on creatures as diverse as trolls and swamp ghosts. Reassembling Skeleton delivers more directly on the flavor of, well, reassembling.

Card of the Day - Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Reflecting Pool – Shadowmoor rare. Originally printed in Tempest, Reflecting Pool reappeared in Shadowmoor with the Lorwyn Vivid lands and Shadowmoor hybrid lands to play with. The pool shown on the Shadowmoor version reflects a vision of a very different place indeed: the sunny plane of Lorwyn, idyllic counterpart to the creepy twilit world of Shadowmoor.

Card of the Day - Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Relentless Rats – Magic 2011 uncommon. On Twitter recently, director of Magic R&D Aaron Forsythe (@mtgaaron) posed the question: "How many Relentless Rats are in a playset?" Answers ranged, rather unhelpfully, from 0 to infinity, but our favorite answer came from @MikeXIV: "There are 2 playsets of relentless rats on the planet - every paper copy and every MTGO copy."

Card of the Day - Monday, August 02, 2010
Reverberate – Magic 2011 rare. Based on the flavor of forking lightning, red has had the ability to copy spells from the very beginning. Saviors of Kamigawa's Twincast moved the cleanest version of that ability to blue, but with Magic 2011 and Reverberate, red takes it back—this time, without that goofy "the copy is red" text from Fork. The cosmic ballet goes on ....

Card of the Day - August, 2010

Sunday, August 01, 2010