On the Stack 8: A far-out idea for a Magic: the Gathering setting

For a while now, I’ve been wondering how Earth, and specifically the version of Earth we live on, might fit into the multiverse of Magic: the Gathering settings. How would a world with no magic fit into a game that’s about being a wizard and casting spells? The simple answer is that it doesn’t, but that’s no fun.

So I’ve come up with as close to an Earthlike setting as I can: a plane where access to mana, the magical energy of the land which makes everything in Magic: the Gathering happen, is somehow blocked, and people have compensated by relying more and more on machines. The mana blockage was exacerbated by the pollution and environmental degradation that came with industrialization. There are still a few people in each generation who can access mana, but never very much of it, and they’re usually thought of as witches, psychic mediums, or (these days) hippies.

Planeswalkers can still come and go, but the less magic they have access to here, the less they’re interested. Until the evil elder dragon Nicol Bolas remembers that the artificers on this plane are able to make very powerful weapons, and he has an army of robot zombies that needs arming. So what I've got for a plot is, some subset of the Gatewatch goes to this plane to figure out what Bolas wants in a place with no magic, and finds themselves in the middle of an arms deal between Bolas and the government of one of the plane's major powers, and/or teaming up with a group of environmentalist hippies to figure out what happened to the plane's mana and try to fix it.

Now, I'm reasonably certain Wizards of the Coast is never going to do a set about a plane with this little access to mana, especially since that would mean an artifact-heavy set, and those tend to be dangerously overpowered. And they're also probably never going to do a story that's basically the Iran-Contra scandal but with dragons. But it would be an interesting thought experiment to apply the color pie to a world where it basically doesn't exist anymore. Maybe I'd need to bring Devoid back.

On the Needles 13

Knitting

The Desert Bus belt is basically done. All I need to do is add Velcro. Well, that and wait patiently for the Desert Bus organizers to actually announce the craftalong. It feels good to be this close to done.

Drawing

Today is Pokemon day 516. Today's Pokemon is Simipour.

Deckbuilding

Last weekend was the Dominaria prerelease. I made a green/white/black deck that used as many of the legendary spells I'd opened as possible, and then I lost all three rounds I played with it. The good news is, I never felt like I'd made a bad decision while I was playing; I just never drew the cards I needed. Most of those good cards have now gone into my Constructed decks.

I now have six constructed decks. I'm not sure how that happened, after I promised myself I'd cut back to one deck last summer. Maybe I just build decks as a fidget. Hmm, I wonder how Shanna, Sisay's Legacy works in Tiny Leaders. Maybe I'll make Human tribal work.

On Knitting with the Geek

I love knitting things for friends and relatives--at least, when I don't already have four or five projects going for myself. I've been dating the Geek for almost three and a half years, and for the first three of those years, he didn't want me to knit him a damn thing. He just doesn't like wearing knitted things. He did ask me once early on for a sweater, but I told him about the sweater curse and he decided that wasn't such a good idea. I have made him a couple of plushies, but these days I'm much more comfortable knitting wearable things. So I've been waiting a while for him to think of something he wants me to make him, that I can readily make.

One of the plushies, a friendly slime from Dragon Quest.

Then, a few months ago, he bought a knitted necklace for his mother at an art festival. He sent me a picture and asked me how hard it would have been to make.

I said, "Not hard at all. It's just I-cord."

"So you could make yourself one? It would look good on you."

"I have no interest in knitting myself a necklace. But if you make me one, I'll wear it."

And that's where we left the conversation for a while. Then, a few weeks ago, he asked me to teach him to make I-cord.

I was stunned. I never thought he'd actually take me up on my offer. But I was not going to pass up the opportunity. The next time I visited the Geek, I dug out some rough wool and two double-pointed needles from the stash I'd left at his place when I moved to Seattle, and showed him a knitted cast-on and how to knit I-cord. He picked it up quickly, but worried constantly about whether he was getting it right and how uneven it looked. I reassured him: he was doing fine, the mistakes he was making are all things I know how to deal with, and things he'll stop doing with practice.

The updates he sent me over the next few weeks felt amazing. He was knitting in meetings to keep himself from getting distracted. His work got neater and more even. He started coming up with ideas for future projects. The best one was when I texted him to remind him to do something, and he replied "After I finish this row."

He's one of us now.

Shortly before my most recent visit, he ran out of yarn for I-cord and asked for help starting squares for a blanket. I found another skein in my stash that I didn't particularly like, but that was softer and prettier than the first yarn, and walked him through making a gauge swatch, casting on a square, and how to not make extra stitches by accident.

It's coming along nicely. I invite him to comment with pictures if he wants to.

On Games 6: AER: Memories of Old

I’m always looking for relaxing, immersive gaming experiences. Things like Abzu (previously), where I can follow the plot like I’m reading a novel, but also take the time to explore the world around the plot in ways a novel just doesn’t let you, and where I don’t have to be afraid of dying or disappointing anyone, or missing out on information because of the order I choose to do things in.

Forgotten Key and Daedalic Entertainment’s 2017 game AER: Memories of Old scratches all those itches. The Geek found it in a Steam sale while I was visiting him last week, and I tried it out on his computer (sadly, my laptop won’t run it at a reasonable frame rate). I couldn’t get through all of it because my hands cramped up after about an hour, but I’m looking forward to finishing it next time I visit.

AER follows the coming-of-age pilgrimage of a girl named Auk (yes, like the extinct bird) as she visits four sacred sites on the floating islands her people live on. Auk is chosen by the goddess the first site is dedicated to, who is said to have helped her people recover from the cataclysm that shattered the world and created the floating islands; she is given the goddess’ lantern, with which she can solve small puzzles to open the temples at the other three sites and find relics inside that add to the lantern’s power. There’s been some suggestion that it’s Auk’s destiny to heal the world, which is the sort of goal I love to have in a game (also one of the reasons I loved Abzu), but since my hands started hurting halfway through the second temple, I’m going to have to wait to find out.

The game has a beautiful brightly-colored low-poly aesthetic that reminds me of Astroneer, a game I would love to play if it were more conducive to short play sessions. The islands are inhabited by adorable animals, including lambs that follow you around and large wading birds that are utterly indifferent to your presence; many of the smaller islands have stone tablets that tell the story of the breaking of the world; and the holy sites feel like ancient cathedrals, so much so that I’m reluctant to run while inside. Auk transforms into a bird in order to travel between islands, and flying feels wonderful. I’m much better now at twin-stick controls (gonna thank Fortnite for that), and while  Auk flies faster than the protagonist of Abzu swims, I’ve never felt out of control in the air. The exception is when I miss a landing and either hit a tree or become human too soon and fall off the edge of an island; fortunately, there doesn’t seem to be ground below the islands, so I have plenty of time to return to bird form and fly back up to where I need to be.

For the most part, the puzzles are no harder than they have to be to be interesting. Each temple has one puzzle outside, to open the door, and one inside, to get to the relic. The only one that’s bothered me so far is the puzzle inside the second temple, which requires Auk to jump across a series of moving platforms in human form. I have hated moving platforms ever since the Harry Potter action-adventure games of the early 2000s, and while the penalty for failure is much lower in AER, simply returning you to the bottom of the level, I was still frustrated enough after four or five attempts to notice my hands starting to hurt and decide that it was time to stop.

Less frustrating, but still kind of a downside, is that there are a few places where collision detection doesn’t quite work. Nothing that’s caused me to fall off an island, but one of the stone tablets was on a platform that I could not stand on without falling through. I could still read the tablet, though, so this was more amusing than annoying.

I absolutely recommend AER: Memories of Old if you like exploration games, have ever dreamed of flying, or need something relaxing to do for an afternoon.

On the Needles 12

Knitting

I didn't do a lot of knitting this week, but here's the project I've been working on most.

This is going to be a triangular scarf. I'm using stockinette so the color changes are more visible, but that means I'm going to have to block it hard when I'm done.

Drawing

Today is Pokemon day #509. Today's Pokemon is Purrloin.

On the Stack 7: A Supplement of Slivers and WUBRG.social

I'm running low on sleep this week, so here's an anecdote from my adventures at GP Seattle (previously). Between the draft and dinner, a friend and I came up with a cycle of Slivers for the next Magic Un-set. Slivers are an old creature type unique to Magic that are known for having a hive mind; any ability one Sliver knows augments all other Slivers (or, in later versions, all other Slivers you control). Here are the names we came up with, plus color identities and some appropriate abilities.

• Sliver of Hope: White. Slivers you control have lifelink.
• Sliver of Doubt: Blue. Slivers you control get "Tap: You scry 1."
• Sliver of Shadow: Black. Slivers you control get "Tap: Target creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn."
• Sliver of Annoyance: Red. Slivers you control have first strike.
• Sliver of Wood: Green. Slivers you control get +1/+1 and "When this creature enters the battlefield, it may fight target creature."
• Sliver of Silver: Artifact. Non-artifact slivers you control have Improvise (each artifact you tap while casting it pays for 1 mana of its casting cost).

We had an idea for a Host Sliver that creates a Sliver token when it enters the battlefield. It should probably be green, and I don't know what to call it. There also needs to be a Sliver Augment to go with the Host, but I don't know what color it should be or what its abilities are besides making the creature it augments a Sliver. It needs to play well with the Scholarly Sliver; maybe it replaces "when it enters the battlefield" "whenever you cast a creature spell." I wonder what happens if you augment something with the Sliver Augment while Sliver of Wood is in play--does it let you fight creatures whenever you cast a creature spell?

In related Magic news, this same friend and I have just created a Mastodon instance for the Magic-playing community. Join us at wubrg.social for discussions of lore and card reveals, and hopefully some play-by-post Magic.

On the Stack 6: Grand Prix Seattle and the LoadingReadyRun fan meetup

During the weekend of April 5, Seattle hosted a Magic: the Gathering Grand Prix, a four-day series of high-level tournaments plus assorted side events that is basically a Magic-focused nerd convention. It's the sort of event where you can usually find a number of LoadingReadyRun fans, and sometimes even LRR cast members. So when I realized the GP was coming up, I texted a friend I'd met through the LRR community and asked her to help me plan a meetup.

We picked a place and time--Saturday afternoon at GP registration--and persuaded the LRR cast to spread the word for us during their Magic streams, with LRR members James Turner and Cameron Lauder also announcing that they would be there.

On Saturday I went to the convention center a couple of hours early to run some...I guess I can call them errands. The first and most important one was to give my resume to the people at the Wizards of the Coast recruiting booth. They don't have any editing jobs open, so I didn't see that actually going anywhere, but afterward I was able to tweet at a Wizards employee I follow and ask him about next steps. After that, I went and found the free Spellslinging event and played a round of Brawl against a Wizards of the Coast R&D employee who won by casting all three Modules to make arbitrarily many creatures.

Then I went looking for Dana Fischer, the 7-year-old Legacy Elves player and absolutely inspirational pro Magic prodigy, to ask for her autograph. I'd tweeted at her official account beforehand and made sure it was okay to come find her during the tournament; and when I got to her table, her dad recognized me from my tweet and made chitchat. Dana herself was about to start a match, and seemed overwhelmed, but she still signed my Arbor Elf and gave me an Elf Warrior token with a drawing of her dressed as the elven planeswalker Nissa on it.

Then I wandered around the artists' tables for a while and bought some custom tokens, plus a Dwarven Ruins, a land from the old and much-maligned set Fallen Empires, autographed by card artist Liz Danforth for the Geek, who loves the Fallen Empires lore. I found a quiet place outside the main event room to catch my breath, bought the worst soft pretzel I'd ever eaten, and took some pictures of cosplayers while I waited for the meetup to start.

And then it was three o'clock, and people were gathering, and I found myself having an actually intelligent conversation with Cameron Lauder while we stood in line to sign up for a Masters 25 draft. I'd met him the year before at GP Vancouver and been too awkward to actually say anything; this time I had things to say and I felt much better about how I was presenting myself.

For the draft, I put together a lovely black/red deck with Phyrexian Obliterator and a Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Cam passed me. While it was lovely to get deckbuilding advice from Cam (the day was full of "senpai noticed me" moments like that), the draft games themselves were a letdown. I got none of my good cards in the first round and lose very quickly, and then I found out the draft was single-elimination. So I spent the rest of the afternoon playing Commander with other people who had also lost the first round. Which was a whole different kind of interesting; one of my opponents played a card that declared that the rest of us couldn't attack for most of an hour.

The Commander game ended at about the same time the draft games ended, and then a group of us from the meetup went out for dinner at a nearby sushi buffet. That group included Cam and Shivam Bhatt, a Magic blogger best known for his Commander podcast and his commentary on the use of Indian historical and cultural imagery in Kaladesh block, which he summarized on LoadingReadyRun's own Magic podcast. The food was tasty but expensive; the conversation (both while waiting for a table and while eating) was excellent; and I went home feeling really good about myself. I planned a social thing, and it worked, and people enjoyed it. That's a new feeling for me.

On the Needles 11

Knitting

This week I've been hopping back and forth between large projects (the Desert Bus belt, a scarf, and a shirt) that don't really look like I've made progress on any of them.

Drawing

Today is Pokemon day #502. Today's Pokemon is Dewott.

 

Deckbuilding

I've had the deckbuilding bug this week. I built a mono-white Zetalpa Brawl deck, and then found a guy on Twitter who's trying to revive Tiny Leaders (like Commander, but with smaller decks and an upper limit on the mana costs of spells) and built a mostly-black Grenzo deck for that, with sacrifice and reanimator themes.

This week I went to Commander night at the card shop below my apartment for the first time. The group was overwhelmingly male but not assholes; in fact, I wasn't the only person in my pod with an elf deck. And the woman behind the counter lent me some very fancy tokens and helped me update both my Commander decks.

I also played 60-card Kitchen Table Magic with a 9-year-old boy who came in with his dad. He beat me with Relentless Rats; I got mana flooded with my Zetalpa deck, but I did win in other ways: after talking to me, he told his dad he wanted to build a Commander deck.

On Games 5: Updates to Pokemon Go

I hate to say it, but my enthusiasm for Pokemon Go has waned in recent months. Sometimes I feel like I'm the last person playing it, even more so now that I'm working from home and no longer have access to my old workplace's raid group. And being depressed on and off is not conducive to leaving the house to catch things. But now I live on top of a PokeStop, so I've started checking the game more, and the latest round of updates is actually pretty cool.

The biggest thing they've added is a quest system, in which players do research for Professor Willow (who, by the way, competes with Pokemon X and Y's Professor Sycamore for most attractive Pokemon Professor) and are rewarded with experience, items, and in theory, access to legendary Pokemon. You get one set of quests from visiting PokeStops and another directly from Willow in short cutscenes. This update has gotten me back into playing regularly, and even looking forward to going outside. (Doesn't hurt that it's spring, and therefore sunnier and warmer out.)

The in-game community events have also become more regular. Every two weeks or so, a particular Pokemon will appear more commonly than usual for a couple of hours. These are often at odd times, especially if you work full-time but if you can get outside at the right time, they're worth it. And yesterday was the start of a weeklong event focusing on Gen 1 Pokemon, which allowed me to finally evolve a Sandslash and an Alakazam and get very close to evolving a Dodrio. I hope to see Scythers and Charmanders later in the week.

One thing that does bother me about all the new content in Pokemon Go is that sometimes it doesn't look like the developers are spending enough time refining existing systems. The big one of these is the weather system that was added in the last major update, which makes certain types of Pokemon more powerful in certain kinds of weather. The in-game weather is supposed to match the real-life weather, and it often doesn't. Better weather data would help the game meet its goal of being "like real life but with Pokemon!" But until they make that more precise, I'm happy enough catching Pokemon that like rain on sunny afternoons.

On Games 4: Fortnite Battle Royale (iOS)

I did not expect to enjoy Fortnite as much as I am. I get frustrated too easily when I'm outmatched, and I'm not a fan of combat-heavy games in general. But my brother streams Fortnite, and at some point a few weeks ago I decided that playing it would be a nice way to spend time with him. Especially since the mobile version of the game had just come out, and I find mobile game controls are much easier on my hands than either keyboards or console-style controllers.  So when my brother announced that he was giving away download codes for mobile Fortnite on his Twitch stream, I asked him for one for my new iPad.

For those unaware, Fortnite Battle Royale is the more popular game mode of Epic Games' Fortnite. (The less popular mode is apparently "a co-op sandbox survival game," from whose characters the Battle Royale player characters are randomly selected.) The game is basically a more brightly colored copy of PlayerUnknown's BattleGrounds (PUBG): one hundred player characters parachute onto a deserted island littered with guns, ammunition, and places to hide, and a terrifying energy storm gradually shrinks the habitable area of the island until only one player, or squad of two or four players, is left standing. Fortnite adds a construction mode to the formula, allowing players to destroy trees, buildings, and cars and turn them into shelters and platforms. The mobile version also allows cross-platform play, so I've been able to play on my iPad with both the Geek and my brother on PC, and we've had lots of fun exploring the map and seeing how long we can stay in the game.

I'm not good at the game yet; most of what I do is sneak around collecting items until someone starts shooting at me, and then shoot back, but not quickly or accurately enough. And the game can be frustrating when I go in specifically to practice combat and then die repeatedly without eliminating any of my opponents. But the gameplay loop is short, even if you're doing well, and that makes Fortnite a lot less anxiety-inducing to play than a lot of other games. (This is, notoriously, why I've never finished a Pokemon game, even though I love Pokemon. I feel like the games demand too much of my time and focus at once.) Fortnite feels like I can drop in and out at any time, and I feel like I'm in complete control of how many games I play in one sitting.

But what really excites me about mobile Fortnite is the control scheme. One of the things I find frustrating about modern 3D games is the need to move my character and the camera at the same time, which requires a kind of coordination I will not be able to develop before my hands cramp up permanently from clutching a controller or keeping my fingers in one place on a keyboard. Mobile Fortnite has a circle at the bottom of the screen where you press in a direction to move your character in that direction. Swiping outside the circle moves the camera, and tapping outside the circle attacks. I can do that forever. Or at least for much longer than I can use other control schemes.

I do have a couple of complaints about the controls: first, and more importantly, I would like there to be an option to change the distance between the buttons along the sides of the screen. My hands are probably smaller than average for Fortnite players, and sometimes it feels like a stretch to both reach the aim and jump buttons and keep my hands out of the way of the action. The other complaint is that some wise guy put the jump button below the crouch button, which contradicts what I think are natural assumptions about the metaphorical locations of jumping up and bending down. I can and will learn the layout, but it seems absurd to me for the moment, and it's really annoying to find myself jumping and revealing my position to my opponents instead of quietly sliding into a bush or behind a wall.

Fortnite is cool for what it is, and I love the added accessibility of the mobile version. I'm aware that PUBG (again, the game Fortnite's Battle Royale Mode is copying) also has a decent mobile port with cross-platform play, but it costs significantly more. If someone wants to send me an iOS copy of PUBG so I can review it, let me know.

On the Needles 10

Knitting

This week, I made a dice bag.

I also gave up on seed stitch entirely; the back half of the Desert Bus belt will be stockinette with a garter stitch border.

Drawing

I started Generation 5 and a new sketchbook yesterday. For some reason, Gen 5 starts with a legendary Pokemon
Today's Pokemon is #495, Snivy.

Deckbuilding

I've made a few changes to my Merfolk Brawl deck. The biggest one is that I now have Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca, and I will be trying him out as my Commander instead of Tishana. (I'm keeping Tishana in the deck, though, because she's awesome.

I have made bigger changes to my Pirate Standard deck, which I think I can officially say is a control deck now, since its goal is to keep my opponent from having cards in their hand while I build up the mana to cast bigger, meaner pirates, or a Rekindling Phoenix, or Tetzimoc, the black Elder Dinosaur.(I never thought I'd actually be using the Elder Dinosaurs that don't go in my dinosaur Commander deck, but the blue one works in Merfolk and the black one works in Pirates. Cool.) I still haven't played my Pirate deck, and I'm still really looking forward to finding out if it actually works.

On Music 1: Canadian genres

While I was a grad school student in Canada, I learned a lot about Canadian music. There are plenty of Canadian bands that have become a big deal in the US--think Heart or Rush--but there's also quite a few genres that don't get as much attention from down south. Here are some of them, ranked from least to most appealing to me personally.

• Disaster music: I do not seek out music that makes me sad. I'm very good at getting sad for no reason, and often need music to make the sad go away for a little while so I can get stuff done. So I stay well away from Canadian disaster songs, which are traditionally written to help communities cope with both natural and human-made tragedies. My one exception is Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," because my parents like it, so I'd heard it and gotten used to it before coming to Canada.
• Comedy songs: There's a few types of these.
• Gross songs and songs about dysfunctional relationships: 
• "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies 
• "The Mounted Animal Nature Trail" by the Arrogant Worms
• "Carrot Juice is Murder," also by the Arrogant Worms
• Songs mocking the US: Look, I know we deserve it, but it's kind of like having a younger sibling standing behind you, pointing and laughing at everything you did wrong. There's some that are okay, like the Arrogant Worms' "I Am Not American" (for which LoadingReadyRun did an amusing music video), but the one by Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie about burning down the White House is just not cool.
• Songs that are actually funny:
• "Every OS Sucks" is also by Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie, but I sympathize with it a lot more for some reason. (It also has a cool LoadingReadyRun music video.)
• "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate" by the Arrogant Worms is just so much fun. (Edit: I thought this one was by Captain Tractor, but it turns out they just did a really well-known cover.)
• "If I Had a Million Dollars" by Barenaked Ladies is also  lot of fun. I grew up with this one, and was pleasantly surprised to find out just how Canadian it is. 
• Fiddle music: the eastern coast of Canada has several rich fiddling traditions. I have played the violin for literally half my life at this point, so I can appreciate good fiddling. (I'm less excited about the rich Canadian tradition of bagpipe bands.)
• Raffi: Technically just one artist, and not a whole genre, but since I've been a fan of his music since before I knew what Canada was, he goes on the top of the list. Here's some hits that will automatically make your day better.
• Baby Beluga
• Bananaphone
• The Changing Garden of Mr. Bell
• One Light, One Sun