The Magic Halloween Cube

Lurebound Scarecrow by Nils Hamm

After drafting multiple times with two other players with my friend’s two boxes of Magic: The Gathering’s Return to Ravnica set, the experience was becoming stale. I suggested to my friends that we cube draft – something that none of us had done before. For those who don’t know, Cube is a casual format where you select at least 360 Magic cards from your collection intended for drafting or playing sealed deck with other players (typically eight people). After explaining what Cube is all about to my buddy, he desired to try this out. My soul… it’s so ecstatic. Problem, though: none of us have our own cube!

Between my friends and I, I have the most extensive Magic: The Gathering collection. I have enough material to at least be able to sculpt something fresh from among my cards and not just have it be something like Zendikar: Cube Edition. So, it was up to me to put together a cube. I was relishing this chance. I’m excited about crafting a Limited experience by my own hand for others to enjoy – this must be related to why I loved making Dungeons & Dragons dungeons during middle school.

Gimme Some Sugar Cube

What kinds of cards go into a Magic: The Gathering cube? First, what makes for a strong cube is to have a theme. Every person’s cube has a different theme just as different Magic sets have their own themes. The most popular kind of cube, however, is one full of the most powerful cards in Magic ever. In fact, for some folks, “a bunch of the most powerful cards” and “Cube” are synonymous. While I have no doubts in how fun playing with those cards can be, building a cube with this theme doesn’t excite me. Also, the most powerful cards in Magic tend to be some of the most expensive. And I don’t have these expensive cards. …I’m definitely doing something else.

Some cubers (people who play Cube; or, incidentally, people who solve puzzles like Rubik’s Cubes) have pauper (all commons) cubes or “no rares” cubes. Others have tribal cubes (cards that care about creature types and a bunch of creatures with the same creature type, so you can have Elf decks or Goblin decks and whatnot). Fittingly, I ended up building a tribal themed cube; though, I didn’t do so intentionally.

Delif's Cube by Mark Tedin

I was wracking my brain for what theme my cube would be all about when I started thinking of the kinds of themes other games tend to cover. Free-to-play games, the part of the games industry I have experience in, tend to generate a lot of content (usually weekly) with all sorts of different themes, and the kind of theme always-leveraged are holidays. So, that’s when I thought of Halloween – perfect!

Here’s why Halloween is an awesome choice of a theme:

1) It creates a deadline for finishing my cube. I tend to not define deadlines for the projects I work on (a bad habit of mine). As you can imagine, the projects I begin typically are never completed. I couldn’t let this happen, especially when there’s a friend who’s waiting on me to finish building a cube.

2) A Halloween-themed cube lends itself to being consisted of the cards I love. Obviously, because Halloween is related to horror, we’re going to use cards from the Innistrad block. Innistrad is one of my favorite blocks, but so is another block that is fitting for this cube’s theme: Shadowmoor (It's the closest to a Nightmare Before Christmas feel, which is great). Shadowmoor was the first set to be released when I had gotten back into playing Magic: The Gathering after “quitting” during Fifth Dawn (Yes, this does mean I missed the original Ravnica block, Kamigawa, and Time Spiral), so it holds a special place in my heart.

On an aside, I returned to playing Magic: The Gathering after Morningtide had already released, and partly due to the nudgings by my friend while I was in college. Another part of me getting back into Magic was getting pumped by this commercial.

So, Shadowmoor block has a lot of artifact creature Scarecrows in it (over twenty of them). Mashing it up with the races of Innistrad meant that we’d have SIX major creature types. This was instrumental in deciding that my cube would have a major tribal theme – something that Innistrad wasn’t before.

You see, Innistrad is a set with mechanical themes that related to creatures dying and spells in the graveyard; also, the mostly-werewolf mechanic of double-faced cards was a big mechanic. The tribal part of Innistrad was only a lesser component – it was never a major theme. The Halloween cube is the chance to bring back Innistrad’s Werewolves, Spirits, Vampires, and Zombies and make building a deck with a bunch of creatures of a certain creature type actually matter.

Drogskol Captain by Peter Mohrbacher

The Six Faces of the Cube

So, here’s what’s new being brought to the table with using these Innistrad cards: creature types matter even more than before, there’s a new tribe (Scarecrows), and cards from the previous tribal blocks, Lorwyn and Onslaught, would be used to support the tribal theme; so cards of old would be interacting with the new cards in a meaningful way. Lastly, for Humans, Vampires, Zombies, and Spirits: there’s a lot more older cards to use to join and/or replace their Innistrad counterparts.

Human creatures, obviously, are in all the colors. In Innistrad block, they were green-white focused. However, curiously, there are a significant number of red “Humans matter” cards when Avacyn Restored was released. There are also the red Werewolves that start out as Human before they transform into non-Human. So, when combining cards from Innistrad, Dark Ascension, and Avacyn Restored; you get Naya Humans (red-green-white). This led to me looking to stretch the colors of the other tribes to an extra ally color (yet another twist)! And because Shards of Alara block existed, there would be the mana-fixing cards to include in the cube to support a three-color mana base for decks.

Sadly, however, black Werewolves and blue Vampires are scarce (there aren’t any monoblue vampires). But how could I NOT include the original black Werewolves? Luckily, though, blue’s got access to “vampires:” The Mistform cards from Onslaught block. Also, for every color, there are the Shapeshifters with changeling (a keyword that says the creature has every single creature type ever). So, it’s not that bad to decide on Jund (black-green-red) Werewolves or Grixis (blue-black-red) Vampires. Though, Esper (white-blue-black) Zombies is kind of awkward, since there’s not that many white Zombies either. Well, besides the changelings.

I decided to go ahead with having three-color mana support cards, anyway; to shake up the two-color tendency of Limited Innistrad decks. Also, this enables the Naya Humans and Bant (green-white-blue) Spirits decks.

Vigilante Justice by Steve Prescott

I won’t provide my actual cube list because it’s not optimal as it is now – I don’t have all the cards that I would like to include, and I’m missing certain dual lands. This led to not having Greater Werewolf and Lesser Werewolf and me choosing to use some less-than-stellar cards in lieu of others I would have preferred but don’t own. But, I will tell you about some interesting things I’ve found when building the cube.

The first thing I did was grab all the Scarecrow cards I had. I had just about twenty different Scarecrows. Sadly, though, I don’t have Straw Soldiers or the original Scarecrow card (Straw Soldiers is totally going into this cube in the future)! So, in order for Scarecrows (and Werewolves) to be able to compete with the other creature types in terms of numbers available in the cube, I was going to need to build a smaller cube than some of the ones that others have.

The number of 360 cards, the smallest suggested amount for a cube, was perfect. This meant 45 cards for each category: white, blue, black, red, green, artifact, multicolor, and land. And there would be just over twenty cards in each color that would have creatures – this meant that Werewolves would be able to shine, and this also meant Scarecrows, being about twenty in number, can effectively inhabit the artifacts slot as if it were a “sixth color.” Lastly, building the minimal amount of 360 cards is a great place for me to start, as this is my very first cube.

Building Blocks

Having a starting point for the Halloween cube with tribal cards very much helps narrow down the decisions you make. If it weren’t for deciding upon horror creature-type tribal, then I wouldn’t have been able to narrow in on using cards of only those creature types and tribal cards to support them from Onslaught block and Lorwyn block. It also helps narrow down the kinds of cards you need to include for every color.

Moonmist by Ryan Yee

For example, Moonmist is a Fog-like effect that is a Werewolf tribal card. Green usually has a card that has an effect like Fog. Thus, since I know I’m including this card, I was able to eliminate all the Fog-like cards I had in my collection from taking up any of the remaining twenty-or-so noncreature card slots. Rise from the Grave made the creature you bring back a Zombie, which is great for this cube, which meant I didn’t need to consider other cards that bring creatures back to the battlefield.

The same goes for the kinds of abilities on creatures. Green usually has a creature that taps to give you mana. Avacyn’sPilgrim is a Human and does fulfill that criterion – this means Llanowar Elves and Birds of Paradise are not eligible for including in my cube!

Spirits

Spirits were exciting to work with since they are found in every color. Also, there are quite a few Spirit token-making cards! Sure, there are creatures from Innistrad that gave you Spirit tokens upon dying, but there’s Funeral Pyre, Spectral Procession, and Midnight Haunting all available to be used together! Because of this, I knew there was now a tokens archetype in my cube, so I included cards like Intangible Virtue and strongly considered anything that made tokens, whether they were Humans or Zombies.  An example of this is Penumbra Spider, providing not only the reach keyword that green needs but the token that token decks care about. Finally, black has Aether Snap to combat the tokens (and counters of any kind) specifically (don’t worry, though; the other colors have ways to handle a bun of tokens, too; Evacuation in blue, for example).

And Kamigawa was a gold mine for Spirits, giving me cards like Wandering Ones (a vanilla 1/1 for blue with a creature type that matters) and Harbinger of Spring (protection from non-Spirit creatures? How tribally-relevant). The big thing was having Spirits to include that had Soulshift, a mechanic that returns Spirits specifically from the graveyard to your hand. It’s combining cards together like these that made me discover how much I love putting together a cube.

Zombies

Ghoulflesh by Igor Kieryluk

Zombies provided the most extensive amount of creature cards available to choose from, so I’ve got cards like Cemetery Reaper, Grave Defiler, and Soulless One in the cube. I was most excited by using Ghoulflesh! You see, black has a thing where it has both negative Auras (cards you’ll want to enchant your opponents’ cards with) and positive Auras. Often, the positive Auras can also be negative in that it might provide more in exchange for taking away from toughness. In Ghoulflesh’s case, the fact that it turns the creature into a Zombie matters in this cube. In fact, it might become a positive card when you want a non-Zombie you control to benefit from a card you have that cares about Zombies.

Sadly, alongside not having the card All Hallow’s Eve (a must-have for a Halloween cube) I do not own Zombie Apocalypse. Once I acquire one, it’s totally going in. And when I eventually cast it, I'll enjoy the relevance of Flight of the Conchords' "Humans Are Dead" song.

Vampires

For Vampires, I had to include the iconic staple Vampire of Magic: The Gathering: Sengir Vampire. Next, the fact that Vein Drinker is a black Vampire with as red activation cost made it a perfect inclusion. To support the potential for a Grixis Vampire deck, I had Szadek, Lord of Secrets included among my gold cards (he also supports the milling strategy).

Sengir Vampire by Kev Walker

Werewolves

Now, the Werewolf-y cards in Innistrad block didn’t just care about Werewolves – they also cared about the creature type Wolves. So, I made sure that both green and red had Wolf cards alongside the Werewolves. Howl of the Night Pack has never been so exciting! What was really cool was finding Tel-Jilad Wolf in my collection. Its ability is perfect for interacting with opponents’ Scarecrow cards! Lastly, having Tundra Wolves in white to fulfill a one-drop slot and the need to have first strike in white somewhere was awesome.

Humans

Since there are so many Humans to choose from, after auto-including the cards that mention caring about Humans specifically, I looked to include any Humans that support any archetypes. While Hedron Crab and Merfolk Mesmerist are fine cards for supporting a milling strategy, Cathartic Adept’s “Human-ness” made it more valuable as a milling-related creature in my cube.

Actually, a note about Hedron Crab: It’s a powerful milling creature. I would love using it in my own milling decks. However, it would be so wrong to include in this cube, and it’s not because it’s a Crab creature instead of a Human. It’s because the card cares about lands entering the battlefield, which detracts from the tribal theme of the cube. This is a lesson in Magic: The Gathering design – the cards you have in your set (or Cube) need to pull their weight in contributing toward the greater good, especially the commons.

Scarecrows

Because Scarecrows were going to be a major tribe, it needed to be on the same level as the other tribes. The other tribes have cards that “hate” against them. Human Frailty destroys Humans and Angel of Glory’s Rise wrecks Zombies. I needed a way for players to foil Scarecrows (but not too much – Fracturing Gust would just be mean). Thank goodness Magic R&D decided to design Boggart Arsonists. I love this card so much for specifically referencing Scarecrows AND for actually having plainswalk, a rare ability to find on a creature.

Boggart Arsonists, while awesome, isn’t enough. It’s a good thing there’s already red, white, and green cards that destroy artifacts. I actually considered including Terror for the unique situation of black NOT being able to have an answer for a creature with a major creature type when facing Scarecrows, but my cube was too small to include this destruction spell when I already had tribe-related “destroy” effects in the form of CruelRevival, Pack’s Disdain, etc. In fact, I may have too many! But I opted to include potentially too many awesome tribal effects like these rather than not have enough. Part of having a cube is that you often update it at least four times a year due to a new set releasing with new cards that would be applicable for your cube.

Ancient Stirrings by Vincent Proce

Ancient Stirrings was beneficial when playing with Eldrazi back in the Rise of the Eldrazi set. Ancient Stirrings in this cube’s context means you can pick up a Scarecrow! Sa-weet. Also, blue’s Fabricate pulls more weight in this Cube with being able to tutor for the Scarecrow you need (perhaps a Reaper King?).

Also, props to Innistrad for adding one more Scarecrow, which was an appropriate decision given the setting of the plane.

Solving the Cube

Creating a Halloween cube was one of the best decisions I could have made for myself in terms of Magic: The Gathering. I’m a Magic design enthusiast and creating a cube helped my development sensibilities. As I was going through the cards in my Magic collection, I was sorting the noncreature cards by the types of effects they provide. Now, I know I’ve been involved in Magic design theory and know what sort of effects go in each color, but there’s nothing quite like seeing all the iterations of the same kinds of effects in front of you. All the Giant Growths, Murders, and Lightning Bolts; and deciding which ones will matter most with the context of the other. And when I play this cube with my friends, I’m going to see what worked and what didn’t. And that’s doing Magic development.

Doubling Cube by Mark Tedin

The decisions I was making from the starting point of Halloween theme all the way down to the individual card choices were like solving a puzzle and placing down the puzzle pieces. I love that. But, this puzzle was like solving a Sudoku puzzle. When you select a card to put into your cube, it’s not just putting that metaphorical ‘3’ in a square for a row – you’re also fulfilling the ‘3’ needed for that same column and larger square it is in. Again, Hedron Crab wasn’t quite the ‘3’ you needed for the collection of milling cards in the cube – the Cathartic Adept was. And it’s a Human, for cards like Human Frailty to care about (not that there will be many games where someone will actually cast Human Frailty on it rather than a more-threatening Human card). And it’s a creature that costs one mana, to fulfill the need for a certain number of cards in blue that cost one mana. God, I love how it all fits together.

It’s Halloween as I write this, which means I’ve got a completed cube and a Halloween board game party to attend (cthulhu-themed and zombie-themed board games!). And the after-party: Magic: The Gathering Halloween cubing! Happy Halloween, guys!

All Hallow's Eve by Christopher Rush

Gnomes in Magic: The Gathering

Bottle Gnomes by Ben Thompson

Eight. This is the number of gnome cards in Magic: The Gathering – seven Gnome creatures and one Gnome-token-creating card. Of all the 10,000+ unique cards in Magic, Gnomes are represented on a severely miniscule portion of Magic cards. To put this into perspective: the rare, mythical Yeti appears on MORE Magic cards than the Gnomes. As beings that appear prominently enough in multiple other magical fantasy-related properties, Gnomes are due for their time in the Magic spotlight. With all of the vast number of unexplored planes of the Multiverse, there HAS to be a plane amongst them home to Gnome creatures – and I’m not talking about artifact creatures.

Sins of the Flesh

There are those who prefer Gnomes stay as they mostly have been established in Magic: The Gathering – as artifact creatures. I have a problem with this. When Mirrodin was first designed, initially, Gnomes were filling in as the small artifact creatures for the metal world. Creative didn’t like them and replaced them with the more-fitting Myr creatures. Thank goodness for this decision as the kind of Gnomes that are depicted on artifact creature cards are: lawn gnomes! And if Magic chooses to stick to its guns and keep the creature type Gnome only represented on artifact creatures, the potential for a rich array of Magic cards is killed and the type Gnome stifled from continuing to see more cards printed with that type. Magic isn’t exactly yearning for more lawn gnome cards. But the “lawn variety” is how Gnomes have always been in Magic, right? …Actually, no.

The very first (and the only one of its kind) Gnome printed in Magic: The Gathering is Quarum Trench Gnomes. This is a non-artifact flesh-and-blood Gnome creature that matches the flavor found in other popular works of swords & sorcery. In Dungeons & Dragons, the Gnome race is available for you to choose for your player character. In World of Warcraft, again, fleshy Gnomes are readily-available to choose for your character. And Gnomes are not just found in popular video games – in the board game Small World Underground, one of the races is Gnome. Red Dragon Inn 3 has a Gnome character deck. With Gnomes this prevalent in fantasy works, and with Magic’s recent focus on resonance, we’d be remiss to not create a plane of proper Gnomes.

An aside regarding World of Warcraft gnomes: Interestingly enough, the story behind flesh gnomes is that they were originally created as "mechagnomes," non-flesh gnomes. Later, they were affected by the "Curse of Flesh," which transformed mechagnomes into flesh gnomes. This whole flesh-and-non-flesh existence of gnomes in WoW is eerily similar to Magic: The Gathering's artifact Gnomes and... single flesh Gnome.

Gnome Man's Land

I’ve discussed this Gnome subject before on Twitter, and it’s been pointed out to me that Dwarves, one of the strongest and most popular races to use in a work of fantasy, don’t even get a lot of cards printed. The newest Dwarf cards in Magic: The Gathering make up four in Eventide – and that was four years ago! They’ve been trumped by Goblins as the core red creature race (which is fine) which causes Dwarves to sit on the sidelines (though, there are those who believe Dwarves deserve to fill in the role of white’s missing iconic race – a thought that is supported by Eventide Dwarves being red-and-white hybrid creatures). So with the ever-popular Dwarves not getting cards printed, what hope do Gnomes have?

Actually, in his column “Thirty-Two Short Columns About Dwarves,” Mark Rosewater confirmed that there WILL be new Dwarves in Magic: The Gathering someday and even went so far as to state that there will be specific Dwarf card names printed. So, really, Dwarves are not a question of whether they’ll return, which helps the case for flesh Gnomes being a possibility in the future.

Metrognome by Jeff Laubenstein

When I sat down to spellsling with Ken Nagle, Magic: The Gathering designer, in Oakland during the Magic World Cup Qualifier; I asked what he thought about Gnomes in Magic. He brought up the fact that Creative isn’t too keen on Gnomes (as they are now). But he also mentioned that Gnomes were a bit too silly for Magic, along the same lines as Squirrels. They don’t quite match the theme of dueling planeswalkers casting spells of a more… serious nature. To be fair to Ken, since he works on the inside of Wizards, he wouldn’t want to reveal something crucial like “Yes, we’re doing Gnomes again someday,” or “No, we will never do Gnomes.” when answering my queries in regard to Gnomes.

Whatever the case may be, I disagree with the claim that Gnomes are not serious enough to be included in Magic: The Gathering. Here’s why: Faeries and Noggles. Faeries seem a bit on the preposterous side, when you judge them in works outside of Magic, especially when you consider Tinkerbell from Peter Pan going into combat. However, despite this, the flavor of Faeries has been molded appropriately enough for Magic. In Magic, faeries are tricksters, something that aligns with blue’s illusory/deception tactics. It also helps that they fly, supporting blue’s dominance in the flying creatures department. Noggles, on the other hand, are anthropomorphic miniature donkeys whose heads are comically disproportionate to the rest of their body. …They’ve only appeared in Eventide, whose setting was more accommodating for this type of creature, but I fail to see how Gnomes cannot find a place in Magic while chibi donkeys can get printed on some cards.

The Red Dragon Inn 3's Wizgille by Rose Besch

So how WOULD Gnomes fit into Magic: The Gathering? When they do make an appearance in Magic, I’d put them primarily in blue and secondary in red. Here’s why: Gnomes, in at least Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, have a favored class: Illusionist. Illusions are a blue thing. Gnomes love pranks and giving nicknames to folks in Dungeons & Dragons – something I associate with being red. In Small World Underground, the Gnome race is represented by an image of a gnome with a giant drill burrowing – quite red AND reminiscent of Magic’s Quarum Trench Gnomes. In Red Dragon Inn 3, Wizgille the Tinkerer is a character labeled as a Gnomish Artificer. Also, her tinkering sometimes blows up in her face. This feels very blue with some red thrown in (Magic’s Goblins usually gets artifacts blown up, showing red’s relationship with artifacts). In World of Warcraft, Gnomes are known to be expert tinkerers who refine their works into reliable and useful pieces of technology – something that I associate with blue. WoW Gnomes are also quite eccentric and obsessive with their engineering, something that is fitting of Ravnica’s Izzet League guild.

In fact, I highly believe that if flesh Gnomes were something that appeared before Ravnica was created in some significant manner in Magic: The Gathering, we would have seen at least a Gnome or two within the Izzet guild. For example, take a look at Wee Dragonauts; those are supposed to be Faeries strapped to that jet-like device. But those could easily be Gnomes. I actually have a more difficult time believing them to be Faeries (perhaps they were originally concepted as something other than Faeries - perhaps Gnomes?). Another example is the faerie with goggles depicted in the art of the card Electrickery. Given that gnomes love trickery and fun names like Electrickery (or Magic 2013’s Switcheroo), a gnome depicted in the art would be more fitting than a red faerie. In fact, a monored Faerie creature card doesn’t even exist in Magic! The only red Faerie creature in existence is Wee Dragonauts, and that’s already blue, a color that Faeries are a better fit for (Faeries inherently have flying while red is the second-worst color at flying).

Wee Dragonauts by Greg Staples

Gnomes, Assemble!

When Magic: The Gathering was first created, Gnomes weren’t as prevalent as they are now in popular fantasy games. Now that Gnomes have more presence in these non-Magic works, I believe it’s just a matter of timing before we’ll see flesh Gnomes show up.

Take, for example, Werewolves. Werewolves had a scant number of cards in Magic: The Gathering – until something happened in popular culture. There were a lot more horror-themed and zombie movies than before. And Twilight happened, featuring vampires and werewolves. This caused Wizards to greenlight the plane of Innistrad, the horror-themed block, thus breathing life into the Werewolf creature type. I wouldn’t be surprised if there will be more Dwarf cards making an appearance in Magic due to The Hobbit trilogy coming out, featuring thirteen dwarves.

Here’s what I imagine could happen for Magic: The Gathering at some point in the future: a steampunk fantasy-themed plane with an artifact theme. This artifact theme would be different from Mirrodin in that there would be a focus on building steam-powered technological innovations. And with a focus on this steam-powered technology, I would imagine the flavor of the world would naturally have technologies that enable land-dwellers to take to the skies and the seas. Merfolk, the iconic blue race, don’t need technology to explore the depths of the oceans, and they certainly don’t tend to fly sky high. What other core race can we use in a steampunk fantasy block with an artifact theme? Oh, yeah! Gnomes! They’re pretty good at assembling contraptions, right?

Actually, in regards to “assembling contraptions,” a steampunk world would be perfect for actually finding a home for what’s teased on Steamflogger Boss: the Rigger creature type, and “assembling” Contraptions. Assembling can be a keyword action associated with a keyword mechanic. For example, scavenge’s reminder text says to only scavenge as a sorcery; a verb! A Contraption would be an artifact subtype, and a creature with the Rigger creature type would have something to do with Contraptions.

Steamflogger Boss by Warren Mahy

Gnomes in this steampunk world would make for great blue creature replacements for Merfolk. They would sport creature types like Wizard, Artificer, and Rigger. The inclusion of Gnomes with their ingenuity and intellect regarding artifacts could be contrasted with red Goblins being clumsy and volatile with their equipment with a tendency to scrap their artifacts or blow them up.

But that’s just one possible environment for Gnomes. What’s important is the fleshy Gnome becoming a significant creature type for at least one block, whenever that will be.

Gnomeward Bound

Along the way, another way for Wizards to tell the world, “Hey, we recognize flesh Gnomes as something that are possible in Magic: The Gathering.” is to include a Gnome creature in one of the Magic Core Sets. Ever since Magic 2012 contained one strange “Salamander folk” creature named AmphinCutthroat when there have never been humanoid Salamanders before in Magic, I’ve been given hope that there might be a Gnome creature given the same treatment. Magic 2013 increased the number of cards that showed glimpses of other planes with its legendary creature cycle and the Shandalarian Rings cycle. From now on, whenever a new Core Set is released, I’ll be on the lookout for a flesh Gnome creature card.

Small World Underground's Gnomes by Miguel Coimbra

Lastly, you might ask – who cares?  Well, I know I at least care. I don’t know how many other people are as much of a fan as Gnomes as I am, but I’d like to believe that I’m not alone. Mark Rosewater was passionate about bringing poison back, and it took him well over a decade to return them in Scars of Mirrodin’s infect mechanic. In this case, my own personal passion will be getting those fleshy Gnomes printed onto a bunch of Magic: The Gathering cards. If I end up designing Magic at Wizards of the Coast someday, on my agenda will be to increase the number of Gnomes in Magic from eight to a whole lot more.

Cheers,

Bradley Rose

Guts of Glory: A Kickstarter Board Game

Too Long, Didn’t Read: If you like board/card games and are a fan of thematic/flavorful (hah, literally) games that are humorous and easy to pick up and play; check out the Guts of Glory board game on Kickstarter.  It’s a game about becoming the eating competition champion and is set in a post-apocalyptic world. Radical, right? The game’s Kickstarter has already met its goal, so you’ll know you’ll get a copy if you back the project. NOTE: The Kickstarter has just 15 hours to go, so click here to check it out and become a backer if this game sounds awesome to you.

Now, for the long version:

Kickstarter at PAX Prime 2012

It’s PAX Prime 2012, and I was walking into the Sheraton hotel where the Kickstarter area was and saying hello to a couple peeps at the Cards Against Humanity booth.  I also meandered around, looking at each of the Kickstarter booths to see if anything interested me. One booth caught my eye – there was a card game project! If any game, physical or digital, has a card-based component; my infatuation with the game automatically increases in at least the tiniest bit, regardless of whether I’ve experienced the gameplay or not. This card game I saw, and eventually played, is glorious – no, really, it’s called Guts of Glory.

Technically, it’s a board game, but it’s just as much of a board game rather than it is a card game as 7 Wonders is a board game rather than a card game. It’s got the necessary non-card components, but the meat of the whole game is within the cards themselves.

All the Glory Details

I won’t go too much into detail in how to play Guts of Glory here, as that is best explained by the creators themselves on their Kickstarter. With that said, in this game, you chew and spew (spit out) foods and condiments, competing with the other players to be the first to make it to the end of the “road to glory.” The world that this food-eating game takes place in, though, is a post-apocalyptic one – a great design choice, opening the doors for all sorts of card designs with fun concepts.

If this game were set in the modern-day world, imagine the kind of food and condiment cards you’d include in this game – the craziest you might be able to get are the tofu/veggie replacements and foods that are more unusual like frog legs (depending on your audience, this might not be unusual). Not as exciting!

Nay, with the post-apocalyptic theme, where food is scarce and meager, you then have liberty to not only be unrealistic; but, storywise, being hard-up for food means you’re masticating and swallowing some more unusual stuff.

Where this game excels – besides being a game that is more accessible to a wider audience than a complex fantasy swords-and-sorcery type of game like a lot of products out there – is its flavor. The food-eating flavor is baked right into the design of the game. Here’s what I mean:

Instead of an abstract row of three cards that each player must place more cards into at the beginning of each of their turns (like with some card games); you “refill the tray of food.” That’s so grokable (something that is easy to understand and “get” the concept of) for a player. Of COURSE you refill the tray of food – it’s an empty food tray with no food on it!

When you choose a food or condiment from the tray to put into your mouth, you “chew” it. And – get this – your mouth’s flavor (hehe) has also been leveraged into the game’s design. Your mouth has empty card slots laid out in a row: the sides (of your mouth) chew food while your tongue (in the middle of your mouth) handles condiments (because you taste with your tongue!). When you finish chewing, you swallow it and get glory.

You always have to chew something new every turn, but your mouth can get full, so you end up spewing something every now and then. That’s when other players can “catch” this spewed food into their own mouths to chew and swallow. Doing this is “more glorious,” so it becomes worth more glory points.

The foods and condiments themselves consist of cards like: the Hot Hot Hot Sauce, Dentures, and Snack Product (which looks like a Twinkie – and if you’ve seen Zombieland, you’ll know that the Twinkie, humorously, doesn’t expire and survives even through apocalypses).

Do, Do, Do, Do You Have It? GUTS!

I found out all about the game by having it demoed to me by Jesse Fuchs, one of the creators of the game. Even while I was running late for a popular panel at PAX I wanted to attend, I wanted to finish up the game session that Jesse demoing with me. I enjoyed the game and wanted to return at a later time to talk more about card games and the advice I was asking for regarding production of them. And he gave me a demo copy of my own before I left! Nice guy!

So, Guts of Glory: a flavorful game – in more than one sense of the word – that’s easy to pick up and light-hearted. Pick it up if you’re looking for another multiplayer out-of-the-box card game to enjoy that’s different from the usual popular card games you might find.

As of the time I post this, though, there’s only 15 hours left for the Kickstarter, and it’s already met its goal, so you’re guaranteed to get yourself a copy. Check it out!

Super Retro Game Review or: How I Learned Something about Super Crate Box and Loved Super Hexagon

A couple weeks ago, despite being nearly broke; I decided that spending one dollar for the iOS app Super Hexagon is worth the investment.  And it was, as one dollar buying enough content for a blog post topic is quite cheap; compared to, say, a Borderlands 2 purchase! (Besides, you know, having a ton of fun. Though, it was not my intent to buy Super Hexagon just for the sake of writing about it.) When I purchased Super Hexagon and tried it out for the first time, I was visiting friends at their place at the time.  I didn’t expect this, but the three of us got sucked into passing around my iPad trying to one-up each other’s high scores – just like at the arcades of olden times I only hear about.

A few days after competitive Super Hexagon-ing with my buddies, I fired up Steam and re-discovered Super Crate Box. I played it some time ago on PC, and I remembered enjoying the game. I was in the mood to play it again, so I did; and I noticed something: it’s not as fun as Super Hexagon.

Why was this, though? Both games have much in common: retro graphics, simple gameplay, one-hit game overs, and the goal of getting as far as possible before dying. But I have MORE fun with Super Hexagon. Then I figured it out: Super Hexagon evolves the challenges presented to the player over time during the gaming session whereas Super Crate Box does not.

Super Fun Challenge

In the Super Mario games, you encounter koopas, goombas, and some platformer obstacles in each level. However, as you progress through Super Mario, you find that there are red koopas that are “smarter” than the green koopas you first encountered, flying goombas, different enemies such as flying cheep-cheeps and spinies, and more difficult and differently-arranged platformer obstacles. The challenges presented to the player keep changing as the player progresses further into the game.

Even with the matter-of-seconds gameplay of Super Hexagon contrasting with Super Mario’s lasting-quite-a-bit-longer-than-a-few-seconds play sessions, Super Hexagon still manages to increase and vary the obstacles over time. When you start up a game of Super Hexagon, you aren’t presented with the same challenge you find when you’ve passed the ten-second mark or thirty-second marks – and you DEFINITELY don’t experience what you find after you’ve survived 60 seconds. Instead, the game is at its slowest in the beginning, and you start off with some obstacles with multiple ways to get past them before being presented with a nearly-hexagon-ish obstacle with only one way to get past them – and so on and so forth. Super Hexagon’s gameplay changes up things and/or becomes increasingly difficult as you progress further into the game.

Even better, Super Hexagon doesn’t just throw the same obstacles at you at each point in time in the game – you might get Easy Obstacle A in the beginning in one game while Easy Obstacle B is thrown at you in the beginning of your next game. But this is like icing on cake, and I’m digressing.

In Super Crate Box’s case, the game doesn’t change up the gameplay as you progress through the game. It’s the same enemies doing the same exact thing – over and over again. The same map, the same open area at the top of the screen where enemies drop in from.

Wait! Don’t worry. I’m aware of Super Crate Box’s additional maps and the harder modes that have enemies spawn from other places other than the top of the screen. This is actually what I believe to be a mistake: you can only play on one map and in one difficulty mode with each session.

When you play Super Crate Box, it’s like you’ve got a D12 die for your weapons and another die for what and how frequently enemies spawn, and you just keep rolling and dealing with the results until you end up with an unfavorable outcome and lose. If it evolved its challenges like Super Hexagon does, then the metaphorical die rolled for challenges would change over time instead of being the same thing rolled over and over again.

Super Other Games as Examples

You might point out examples such as Pac-Man where the game uses the same map with the same enemies over and over again. However, as you complete each map, the ghosts become faster and the power pellets don’t last as long as before. The gameplay still evolves, just only in the difficulty manner.

Also, I consider Ms. Pac-Man an improvement over Pac-Man for the reason that it DOES add those additional maps for a player to play through within one play session. So, Ms. Pac-Man does have both “increase in difficulty” and “variance of obstacles” as part of the evolution of challenges presented to the player and this makes it more fun.

And why is having challenges that evolve important for a game (for single-player games, at least)? People’s brains like learning things. When you learn, your body makes sure that you feel good (“You’re having fun!”), so that you can keep on learning. When we play games, we have fun because we are trying to figure out how to solve the problems in the games – we’re learning. But once a player has learned everything there is to know about the game, the game becomes tedious and simply an exercise. This is why Solitaire is not as exciting as Magic: The Gathering when you’re looking to game (for those who like Magic, that is) – because you’ve already mastered Solitaire.

On a side note, Solitaire can still be enjoyable in the sense that it’s relaxing just going through the motions. It’s why some people bake or go for a jog when they’re stressed or need a time-out. Personally, when I just want a relaxing activity, one of the things I like to do is play the original Super Mario Bros. I already know how to beat the whole game and have saved Princess Peach multiple times – but it still feels nice to play Super Mario Bros. every once in a while.

So, with Super Crate Box, when I’ve already learned that two out of the three enemies simply, drop down from above, walk straight, drop down into the fire, then become faster and run straight until they die; I’ve stopped learning. When I’ve already figured out how to use each of the thirteen weapons in the game; I’ve stopped learning. Now I’m just going through the motions and dealing with random weapons and random rates of randomly selected-from-three-available-enemy-types enemies.

Super Crate Box is Still Super Fun

Don’t get me wrong: I still have a lot of fun with Super Crate Box. In fact, whilst writing this and stopping to check out something Super Crate Box, I ended up having stopped writing for quite a while and getting sucked into playing it. Gamers gonna game.

It’s just that it’s not as fun to me as Super Hexagon is – and I am fully aware that games can only be designed well enough to a certain point to achieve fun before the fun-ness of a game becomes based upon the player’s gaming preferences. For example, I’m not much of a fan of first-person shooter games, but I’m sure Borderlands 2 is a great game and does what it does well.

But even with Super Hexagon’s and Super Crate Box’s similarities, each game has something different to offer that can’t be compared with anything from the other game. Super Hexagon has simplistic controls and music and visuals that contribute toward a unique experience. Super Crate Box is a platformer, has more personality, and has as a deeper well of unlockable content that encourages you to play over and over again.

Super Crate Box could have been better. But, keep in mind that this game is still good, and it’s no slight against Vlambeer, the developer of the game, as circumstances and certain decisions determined the overall outcome of the game. And that outcome is a fun game with many fans; a feat that I have yet to pull off myself.

Until next time, may the challenges your players face during a play session of your game do what a Pikachu does when exposed to a Thunder Stone.

How to Design a Bad Card Game

A friend of mine obtained a card game called Tentacle Bento. And as some of you may know, I kinda sorta LOVE card games. So we played it. ...And it’s bad.

I know – I’m a bit late to the “Let’s write about Tentacle Bento!” party. However, I’m not writing about how the game objectifies women and trivializes rape. There’s already been tons of discussion and articles on this topic you can find in places elsewhere on the web and within the blogospheres. No, what I’m actually going to cover is how horribly un-fun Tentacle Bento is. Tentacle Bento is bad game design!

To help illustrate how poorly-designed Tentacle Bento is, I’m going to strip away the theme of the game and just focus on how the game works mechanically. This way, you wouldn’t be distracted by all the fun flavor of capturing anime school girls with your tentacles hiding the fact that it doesn’t play all that well. This same phenomenon can be found in some video games (“Look at those beautiful cutscenes! Just ignore the fact that the gameplay isn’t all that great!”).

How to Construct a Bad Card Game Deck

The first thing you do is obtain two playing card decks and a sharpie.

Of the four Jokers, three will be a part of the deck. Write an ‘A’ on one, a ‘B’ on another one, and a ‘C’ on a third one. Set aside the fourth one to determine the Direction of Play during the game.

Of the eight Aces, mark four of them, all different suits, with a star symbol. The remaining four should each have a smiley face written on them.

Mark all the 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, 5’s, and 6’s with a triangle symbol. All the 7’s, 8’s, and 9’s should be marked with a circle symbol. Also, mark four 10’s, each one a different suit, with a circle symbol. The remaining 10’s and the Jacks, Queens, and Kings are to be marked with a square symbol.

All the cards will form one deck except for the one unmarked Joker card to be used separately from the deck during the game.

How to Play a Bad Card Game

In this Bad Card Game, the goal is to score as many points as possible by matching Squares, Circles, and either Triangles or Stars. Forming three cards of the same suit of a Square, Circle, and a Triangle or Star can score you even more points. When the players randomly draw all four Smiley Face Aces from the deck, the game ends!

Now, using that deck you constructed earlier, grab four players and shuffle the cards of the deck except for the one unmarked Joker. The one Joker card you set aside should be placed face-up on the table. As long as the Joker card is face-up, you go through each of the players’ turns clockwise. While it is face-down, counter-clockwise. Deal seven cards to each player. If any player has any smiley face Aces in their starting hand of seven cards, they shuffle them back into the deck and are dealt replacement cards again until they have no smiley-face Aces. Lastly, discard the top card of the deck. If THAT is a Smiley Face Ace, shuffle it back into the deck and repeat until you don’t get one. Now, somebody goes first.

The first step of a player’s turn is the Draw Step. There’s three ways to draw cards in this game:

1) Draw a card from the deck.

2) Draw the top card of the discard pile.

3) Draw a card from anywhere in the discard pile plus put into your hand all the cards that are positioned above it. The card you drew must then be used to form a Circle-Square-Triangle/Star match where all the cards are of the same suit.

If the card you draw from the deck is a Smiley Face Ace, you must immediately play it, setting it face up on the table, and it affects all players with a game effect. Once there are four Smiley Face Aces on the table, the game ends. The fourth Smiley Face Ace’s effects do not take effect.

After you draw your card or cards, you can play Joker cards, form matches, and add Triangles to certain existing Perfect Matches you have made. Perfect Matches are matches where all the cards are of the same suit.

Joker cards ‘A’ and ‘B’ each do some kind of game effect that restricts a player and can be passed around from player to player indefinitely. Joker card ‘C’ does a game effect that messes with a player of your choice then gets shuffled back into the deck.

To form a match during your turn, you must choose a Square and Circle card from your hand then choose either a Triangle or Star card. A match with a star card will contribute one point toward your score. If you match with a Star card instead, it must be a Perfect Match. A match with a star card will cause a special game effect to happen and will count five points toward your score. A Perfect Match using a Triangle card instead of a Star card will result in a defined-in-the-rules game effect (one of which is flipping over the set-aside Joker card), depending on which suit was matched.

Lastly, you can add any additional Triangles you have in your hand to existing Perfect Matches of yours that do not contain a Star card. Imperfect Matches cannot have extra Triangles added to them. Each match can have a maximum of three Triangle cards. Each Triangle card in a match counts as one point toward your score.

The very last thing you do during your turn is discarding. If you have any cards left in your hand at the end of your turn, you must discard a card. Then the next player according to the Direction of Play Joker card takes his or her turn.

When the game is over, count your points from the matches you have then subtract the number of points total from your hand. Each Triangle in your hand is negative one point while each Star in your hand is negative five points. Player with the most points wins!

How to Strategize in a Bad Card Game

So, to win at this game, you need to score the most points by the time all the four Smiley Face Aces are randomly drawn by the players. How do we make sure we do our best to score the most points and win the game? Well, here’s how:

Since forming matches is what scores us points, we’ll look out for matches we can make. However, the best matches to make are Perfect Matches. This is because you can freely add up to two extra Triangles to those one, scoring more points. So, we’ll avoid doing Imperfect Matches.

To further add to the incentive of making Perfect Matches, when you draw from the discard pile from any position to have that card form a Perfect Match, you get to put all the rest of the cards that were placed above it into your hand. This is a massive card advantage over the other players. You get a lot of cards, and you deny the other players those cards you now have in your hand. And now you are likely to make even more matches as well as pick up MORE cards from the discard pile to form Perfect Matches

So, with this strategy, here is how your decision-making abilities break down: Does a card in the discard pile, when put into your hand along with all the cards on top of it, contribute to form a Perfect Match? If so, do that. During your turn, only make Perfect Matches unless there are three Smiley Face Aces out since the fourth one can pop up at any time. In that case, try to empty your hand as much as possible.

Now, get out there and win doing this! So much fun, right?

How to Determine a Bad Card Game

A good game should have several meaningful choices for the player to make. Tentacle Bento fails at this miserably. When one choice is hugely beneficial as compared to the other choices, then it results in really just one choice existing for a player to make, which causes the game to degenerate into not being fun. Chess gives you a ton of choices to make, many of which are just as good as other ones. Magic: The Gathering allows you to decide whether you should cast this spell now or later or whether or not you want to cast this spell over the other one in your hand with your limited amount of mana. In Tentacle Bento, the only real option you have to win at this game is to form a match of three cards of the same suit. That’s it.

And there is a BIG advantage to waiting to forming a same-suit match with a card from the discard pile since you get to pick up so many cards and deny others those same cards. This results in those players being unable to catch up to the player that is winning. The player that gets ahead is more easily able to get even more ahead.

The Girl cards (Triangles, in my earlier Bad Game example) are all the same except for suits. It would be beneficial to the game if there were effects associated with the girls. Stuff like drawing cards, taking cards from the discard pile freely, or messing with matches that exist. That would make each girl card a lot more interesting and meaningful. I know that it adds a layer of complexity, but adding just the minimum amount of extra game text on these cards would be necessary to steer the game toward being fun.

The boon of getting all the cards above the card in the discard pile you select to form the same-suit match is just ridiculous. This has to change. It’s a huge power imbalance that randomly happens to players when they just so happen to draw the right suit and card type.

The game randomly ending with the Event cards (Smiley Face Aces in my example) isn’t an elegant way to end the game. Also not elegant: Returning those Event cards back to the deck when drawing them in your initial hand. Figure out a different way to end the game.

The Character cards are a great idea to have in this game. After all, an all-girls school still has the faculty of teachers, janitor, cook, headmaster, etc. Having just three Character cards in a deck of over 100 cards is woefully not enough. Adjust the ratio of Character cards to the other card types in the deck to allow a more-plentiful amount of Characters.

Also, the Mayhem Effects that happen (the extra defined-in-the-rules game effects from forming a Perfect Match with a Triangle instead of a Star from my example) are not significant enough to shake up the game. It’s boring. Also, since the effects aren’t written anywhere besides within in the rules, it’d be helpful if the game effects associated with each suit were easier to remember or written somewhere more noticeable.

How to Conclude a Bad Card Game Blog Post

With that said, the good things that this game has going for it are: high-quality artwork, a lot of clever and witty euphemisms, and great thematic choices for the different suits of Sexy, Cute, Sporty, and Smart along with their associated Girl, Capture, and Location cards. I feel like this game can be quite enjoyable using the same deck of cards if the rules were re-written.

Tentacle Bento: An unfun card game whose sole selling point is the theme of what one could interpret as to possibly imply as hentai tentacle rape.

Murder, He Wrote

Murder by Allen Williams

As I was clickity-clackity-ing a response to Trevor Murdock’s guest post on fellow Magic: The Gathering design blog Goblin Artisans, I found that what I had to say would require a number of words resulting in a far greater size of a reply than would be usual for a blog post comment. Then it hit me that I’ve found my next blog post topic. Thanks, Trevor, for writing about Murder and pondering about the possibilities of “The Perfect Cycle.”

At What Cost?

First of all, you saw that Cancel and Murder both cost 1CC and sought the possible three other cards in the cycle of 1CC “perfect spells.” I appreciate this endeavor as it only serves to strengthen us as designers. However, I don’t consider anything a pattern until I have three instances of such a pattern. In my case, I would chalk up Cancel and Murder’s similar mana cost to coincidence.

Additionally, Cancel used to be Counterspell, and the “perfect” effect of “Counter target spell” had already been created at UU. If Cancel was never introduced to fix the power level of Counterspell, we would have just a single card left, Murder, in a supposed perfect 1CC cycle.

What I do pay attention to, though, is the wording of the effect and the name of the spell that produces such effect. I consider both Murder and “Destroy target creature.” to be such a perfect marriage of flavor and elegance. The same goes for Cancel and “Counter target spell.” Why is this? Because every part of the card makes sense, the effect is boiled down to its simplest form, and the card couldn’t be designed any other way. As an example, Time Stop’s “End the turn.” is a beautiful design. You can’t use fewer words to produce Time Stop’s effect. And it does feel like you’re stopping time. The turn is a progression of time, and you just ended it.

Yet, Time Stop costs 4UU – six mana. That’s just a result of how powerful the effect is in terms of gameplay. The same goes for Cancel and Murder.

Painted By Numbers

I’ve noticed something when I’m trying to think of the most basic form of other effects: Spells with effects that have numbers in them often fail at being those perfectly elegant designs. Cards like Lightning Bolt and Giant Growth are fantastic staple cards of Magic: The Gathering. But there’s just one teeny-weeny thing that probably couldn’t be helped that stop them from entering the same realm as Cancel and Murder: A Lightning Bolt dealing three damage is arbitrary. A Giant Growth growing your creature three sizes larger is the same way. But they’re perfect gameplay-wise. …Just not in regards to flavor.

Divination by Howard Lyon

An example of an attempt to make sense of cards that use arbitrary numbers in the effect to go with the name is Divination. I love that “Draw two cards.” is just three words, but it actually doesn’t make sense to me why Divination is just two cards. Why not one card or three? As somewhat proof that there is something there to worry about in terms of the numbers used in the effect, consider the Magic 2013 art of Divination: There are two keys depicted. Ah, you see? Two keys in the art make the drawing of two cards make a bit more sense for Divination, right guys?

Ah, but you might say that, by this logic, all cards that require a numerical value in the effect are doomed to be “imperfect” and never be able to be considered as highly as Cancel and Murder. This is where I point out Hex. Hex destroys six target creatures specifically, yet, the name itself doesn’t just mean that something negative is happening to the targets – it also means “six.” Perfect.

 So when we’re designing cards that use numbers, if we seek to boil down an effect of say, “CARDNAME deals 5 damage to target creature or player,” we should look for why the effect is dealing five damage specifically and name the spell accordingly. For this effect, I would say that something involving a hand or foot, which have five fingers and toes respectively, would serve this purpose. The fact that we have two eyes can help serve to craft an effect that involves the number two, for example. Foresee was almost a perfect card if it weren’t for the pesky “then draw two cards” within the effect. Seeing into the future is what Scry is doing, and the play on words with “fore” and “four” means “Scry 4” makes sense. And, yes, the art is also doing what Divination’s art is doing in that it’s helping the spell make more sense to the player.

Creature from the 2/2 Black Lizard Horror Lagoon

When it comes to card types, I don’t worry about that too much for the same reason I don’t with the mana cost. These things just serve the gameplay and are not as important as the name and the effect. However, when it comes to creatures, I believe it gets a bit trickier to achieve “perfection.”

First of all, in most cases, a creature’s name can’t be as elegant as sorceries and instants due to the fact that, for example, Goblins come in all sorts of shapes and sizes across the planes. But Murder is always about killing. You can’t just design a card called Goblin (or Angel or Vampire). What kind of Goblin is it? Naturally, to help create “perfect creatures,” just like with cards like Cancel and Murder, you’d have to use names that aren’t specific to a certain plane. So, a name like Raging Goblin is perfect. While Goblins vary across the planes, there will always be rage.

Thoughtweft Trio by Wayne Reynolds

So, we’d need to leverage the name to make sense for the rest of the card. The rest of a creature card to keep in mind is the creature type(s), abilities, and power/toughness. I’d say that the power/toughness is the most difficult to just make “perfect sense” of all (I don’t believe it’s impossible. I don’t have an example in mind, but I bet a word like “trio” in the name of a creature card could help the use of “3” in the power/toughness).

For creature types, consider the type “Giant.” Giant is a race. But, taking a page from “Hex,” it has a double meaning in that it could also mean large. So, if we have, say, a Giant Warrior as a name for a card, those words could be the creature types, too. Cat Warriors exist, and it’s of type “Cat” and “Warrior,” and its 2/2 does a decent job at portraying that there is more than one of  them. Not perfect, of course, but a decent job.

If a creature has “Mountainwalk,” perhaps it is card called “Mountain Walker.” Of course, this example leads to an arbitrary power/toughness and creature types that don’t make the best of sense. But, you catch my drift. Let all the components of a creature card work perfectly together to create that card that couldn’t have existed any other way.

Here’s another attempt: Flying Warrior as a name, creature type “Insect” “Warrior,” and it has the flying ability. The art depicts a fly holding a sword. A flying warrior! That leaves the power/toughness not tying in perfectly with the name, types, and ability. Ah, well. Also, perhaps the word pun of “flying” with “fly” was too much of a stretch.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with a card that tries to be perfect in regards to the power/toughness (by employing the power of homonym puns), but must be silver-bordered, and doesn’t quite make sense flavorwise for the creature type used and how large the power and toughness is as well as what makes this Warrior of the Tutu variety (besides depicting it within the art):