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 Post subject: The Worst flavour in MTG
PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 4:26 pm 
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What card do you think has the worst flavour (or just especially bad flavour) out all the 10,000+ cards in the game? Don't give me any lame ducks here. I want parasitic, syphilitic, sociopath duck-cripples; things that actively make you hate them.

I'll start us off with a card very far from my heart, Fasting.
Radagast said it best on the card's Gatherer page:
"I love the utter illogic behind this card. People fast to gain insight or understanding, so technically this card should work more like Necropotence - you take damage (from starving) to gain cards (insight.) Instead, we get a card that is totally useless and doesn't make any sense."

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Cato wrote:
CotW is a method for ranking cards in increasing order of printability.

*"To YMTC it up" means to design cards that have value mostly from a design perspective. i.e. you would put them in a case under glass in your living room and visitors could remark upon the wonderful design principles, with nobody ever worring if the cards are annoying/pointless/confusing in actual play

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 4:32 pm 
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Should be called feasting.

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I never take anytihng Lily says seriously, except for when I take it personally. Then it's personal.
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 4:42 pm 
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One of the most vile and hateful cards I can think of is the 8th edition Obliterate for the total butchering of one of the most tragic moments in all of Magic.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 4:43 pm 
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Loss of his dog is far sadder than the loss of all the humans. But then I am an animal person.

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altimis wrote:
I never take anytihng Lily says seriously, except for when I take it personally. Then it's personal.
WotC_Ethan wrote:
People, buy more stuff.
#WotCstaff
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 4:50 pm 
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You mean "furry" I think is the preferred term.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 5:07 pm 
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Har har no.

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altimis wrote:
I never take anytihng Lily says seriously, except for when I take it personally. Then it's personal.
WotC_Ethan wrote:
People, buy more stuff.
#WotCstaff
Spoiler

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 5:07 pm 
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Anything that quotes Jace. I'd look the cards up, but I'm not depressed at this very moment and I'd like to keep it that way.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 5:12 pm 
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Yes to Obliterate and the Jace quotes. =_=


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 5:36 pm 
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One of my (least) favorites would be... Icatian Moneychanger.

1. It's a white creature that bolts you when it comes into play. For reals?
2. Your reward for this is to maybe start gaining the life back. Because that's how money-changing works, apparently.
3. You sacrifice the creature to get the life back. Those are some awfully predatory lending tactics.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 5:40 pm 
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I don't think that the 8e flavor text on obliterate is inherently bad, it's just that you don't want anything different to replace the thing that it replaces.

One thing I hate is the "chorus of the tides" from Born of the Gods. I don't know if it's on the gatherer, so I'll just post it here:

Chorus of the Tides :3::u:
Creature - Siren
Flying
Heroic - whenever you cast a spell that targets ~, scry 1.
3/2

Now, let's pause to examine this. This is a siren with heroic. You know those creatures that use their haunting melodies to lure sailors into treacherous reefs, crashing their ships and drowning them? This is one of them, and apparently it's heroic. And what does this hero do? It scries. Because that's totally something that sirens do.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 5:52 pm 
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Cato wrote:
I don't think that the 8e flavor text on obliterate is inherently bad, it's just that you don't want anything different to replace the thing that it replaces.

One thing I hate is the "chorus of the tides" from Born of the Gods. I don't know if it's on the gatherer, so I'll just post it here:

Chorus of the Tides :3::u:
Creature - Siren
Flying
Heroic - whenever you cast a spell that targets ~, scry 1.
3/2

Now, let's pause to examine this. This is a siren with heroic. You know those creatures that use their haunting melodies to lure sailors into treacherous reefs, crashing their ships and drowning them? This is one of them, and apparently it's heroic. And what does this hero do? It scries. Because that's totally something that sirens do.


Ashiok's Adept is even worse in my opinion.
While it does what Ashiok would want, it uses HEROIC to do it. From everything I can observe of how I've put together my Ashiok deck, Ashiok doesn't CARE about targeting the creatures on your side of the field.

And y'know... HEROIC on a horrible nightmare bender.

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To deafened ears we ask, unseen / "Which is life and which the dream?"


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 5:53 pm 
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Terrible suggestions all. Icatian Moneychanger's particularly bad* but I still disprefer Fasting because it's straight-up the opposite of what it should be.

*Money as life**? Artifacts, cards and mana are all better substitutes. It's like the least suitable choice they could have made.
**And in white too? C'mon Wizards!

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Cato wrote:
CotW is a method for ranking cards in increasing order of printability.

*"To YMTC it up" means to design cards that have value mostly from a design perspective. i.e. you would put them in a case under glass in your living room and visitors could remark upon the wonderful design principles, with nobody ever worring if the cards are annoying/pointless/confusing in actual play

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 6:14 pm 
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Brown Oupheor the Whippoorwill

Ouphe is an utterly useless card, and what's with a bird that can't fly (which in real life flies all the time?). Although the bird isn't totally bad, it actually has an ability that can do something, it's still a waste of a card slot.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 6:28 pm 
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Brown Oupheor the Whippoorwill

Ouphe is an utterly useless card, and what's with a bird that can't fly (which in real life flies all the time?). Although the bird isn't totally bad, it actually has an ability that can do something, it's still a waste of a card slot.

Someone wrote a cool little poem about Whippoorwill once, though. I wish I could remember how that went... (Queue trippy flashback effect.)


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 6:29 pm 
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Googled "Whippoorwill folklore" and aparently they are believed to herald death and/or steal souls so it makes sense. Still in the wrong colour and it should still have flying but it does have an obscure connection to the ability.

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Cato wrote:
CotW is a method for ranking cards in increasing order of printability.

*"To YMTC it up" means to design cards that have value mostly from a design perspective. i.e. you would put them in a case under glass in your living room and visitors could remark upon the wonderful design principles, with nobody ever worring if the cards are annoying/pointless/confusing in actual play

TPrizesW
TPortfolioW


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 7:05 pm 
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TPmanW wrote:
Googled "Whippoorwill folklore" and aparently they are believed to herald death and/or steal souls so it makes sense. Still in the wrong colour and it should still have flying but it does have an obscure connection to the ability.

In fairness, I feel like anything as far back as The Dark sort of auto disqualifies itself. They hardly knew what they hell they were doing back then by modern standards.

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Yet on the morn we wake to find / that mem'ry left so far behind.
To deafened ears we ask, unseen / "Which is life and which the dream?"


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 7:07 pm 
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Barinellos wrote:
TPmanW wrote:
Googled "Whippoorwill folklore" and aparently they are believed to herald death and/or steal souls so it makes sense. Still in the wrong colour and it should still have flying but it does have an obscure connection to the ability.

In fairness, I feel like anything as far back as The Dark sort of auto disqualifies itself. They hardly knew what they hell they were doing back then by modern standards.

I still think they're open for ridicule regardless but you have a good point. New and old should compete in different terrible flavour leagues.

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Cato wrote:
CotW is a method for ranking cards in increasing order of printability.

*"To YMTC it up" means to design cards that have value mostly from a design perspective. i.e. you would put them in a case under glass in your living room and visitors could remark upon the wonderful design principles, with nobody ever worring if the cards are annoying/pointless/confusing in actual play

TPrizesW
TPortfolioW


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 7:34 pm 
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I don't get Batterskull, a battery ram gives vigilance?

Ouphe is kind of like a monkey, monkeys are portrayed as annoying, being not able to use a complex device because a monkey is pestering you kind of makes sense.


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 10:09 pm 
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TPmanW wrote:
*Money as life**? Artifacts, cards and mana are all better substitutes. It's like the least suitable choice they could have made.
**And in white too? C'mon Wizards!
They do the same thing with extort though.

If you consider life to be an abstract combination of things that represent your ability to stay in the game (like how hit points are abstract), then it makes more sense.

Cato wrote:
And what does this hero do? It scries. Because that's totally something that sirens do.
Sirens were divining creatures. Part of their songs' appeal was that they told the past and future in them, so...yeah, that is exactly what sirens do.

re: heroic in general, I think one has to divorce our conception of heroes from the idea of heroes here. Think more of Fable's definition of a Hero. These are people who were gifted or chosen by the gods to do great things, not necessarily examples of moral virtue. So, Chorus of the Tides is not heroic in the sense that she protects people but she is heroic in the sense that she is a mortal creature blessed, presumably by Thassa, to sing the future.

I get that things like clash don't really have flavor import but Sylvan Echoes is confusing to me.


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 10:37 pm 
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Also, as an honorable mention, I have to tip my cap to Wit's End.

Since, of all the words to possibly misspell in a piece of flavor text, misspelling "pathetic" is, well, pretty pathetic.

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