Once was a word
September 25th 2010 01:14
The Scars of Mirrodin pre-release is today, which means that some people will have the cards in their hands very soon, and everyone else will have them after a slightly longer time. The five rare lands are sure to be among the most sought-after cards, so hold onto any you get.
If you are lucky enough to get any either today or tomorrow, or next Friday, or whenever you start buying into the new block, take the time to consider how lucky we are this time around to have a cycle of mana-producing lands that have flavor text. This isn’t exactly a novel idea: the comes-into-play-tapped cycle from Invasion, the “colorless filter” cycle from Odyssey, the “not really a cycle” cycle from Future Sight, the “tribal” cycle from Lorwyn, and the three-color cycle from Shards of Alara all had flavor text. However, rare lands of this type seem to have flavor text less often than ones at lower rarities.
I am not sure why this should be. It might be because rare lands are intended for a powergaming audience or some other demographic that they think doesn’t read flavor text as often. On the other hand, rare lands usually get excellent artwork and/or game text that should appeal to every audience. On top of this, said artwork often depicts someplace unusual or interesting. My favorite example of this is Stomping Ground from Guildpact, which was clearly a bustling suburb of Ravnica at one time. You can make out a broken colonnade, an overflowing aqueduct, and something that was once a well-appointed house and is now gutted and boarded up. How did this place become a Gruul haven? And what could that story have told us about the conflict between the city’s factions?
It’s great that Scars of Mirrodin has rare lands with flavor text. It’s not great that some of the other cards seem to be so wordy. Surely now that we have not only the rulebook but also inserts in booster packs that explain new keywords and abilities, we can stop having reminder text on every card? Does having cards full of italicized text that doesn’t tell a story really fit with the new paradigm of flavor gaming – or, for that matter, with the 17-year-old institution of flavor text?
If you are lucky enough to get any either today or tomorrow, or next Friday, or whenever you start buying into the new block, take the time to consider how lucky we are this time around to have a cycle of mana-producing lands that have flavor text. This isn’t exactly a novel idea: the comes-into-play-tapped cycle from Invasion, the “colorless filter” cycle from Odyssey, the “not really a cycle” cycle from Future Sight, the “tribal” cycle from Lorwyn, and the three-color cycle from Shards of Alara all had flavor text. However, rare lands of this type seem to have flavor text less often than ones at lower rarities.
I am not sure why this should be. It might be because rare lands are intended for a powergaming audience or some other demographic that they think doesn’t read flavor text as often. On the other hand, rare lands usually get excellent artwork and/or game text that should appeal to every audience. On top of this, said artwork often depicts someplace unusual or interesting. My favorite example of this is Stomping Ground from Guildpact, which was clearly a bustling suburb of Ravnica at one time. You can make out a broken colonnade, an overflowing aqueduct, and something that was once a well-appointed house and is now gutted and boarded up. How did this place become a Gruul haven? And what could that story have told us about the conflict between the city’s factions?
It’s great that Scars of Mirrodin has rare lands with flavor text. It’s not great that some of the other cards seem to be so wordy. Surely now that we have not only the rulebook but also inserts in booster packs that explain new keywords and abilities, we can stop having reminder text on every card? Does having cards full of italicized text that doesn’t tell a story really fit with the new paradigm of flavor gaming – or, for that matter, with the 17-year-old institution of flavor text?
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