Card Talk 12

Arni Metalbrow card art

Today is the twelfth post in my Card Talk series.

Reminder how Card Talk works:

• I go to Scryfall and select 'Random Card'
• I present and blog about the card. I could discuss any aspect: the art, abilities, cost, set, impact on the game, and so on. Stream of consciousness.

Card Talk is a fun, uncurated way to look at Magic's cards, mechanics, history, art, sets, and so on. And of course it exposes some of my own preferences, biases, and memories of the game. 

Today's card is . . .

Archivist

Hmmmm . . . Archivist. A rare blue creature from Eighth Edition.

Archivist is a wizard. Wizard is the most prevalent creature type in blue, with 514 unique ones printed to date (that are only blue; my 'prevalence' link incudes all wizards regardless of color). I love tribal decks, which is why I do a 'tribal month' each February (see posts from that month if interested), but I have yet to cover wizards there because I had difficulty figuring out a mono-blue wizard tribal deck (blue/red ones are more common).

Archivist's ability enables you to draw a card. Card advantage is very important in Magic, so this ability is coveted (and popular with this color and type: 78 blue wizard creature cards have some form of card draw). With a toughness of only one, though, and no other evasion abilities, this particular creature is easily destroyed.

Archivist is from Eighth Edition, which had some unique attributes that I discussed in Card Talk 9, so I won't repeat that here. Of 61 total blue cards in that set, only seven go for more than $1 today. At $0.47, Archivist sits at 11/61 in terms of value. 

Card Talk 11

Arni Metalbrow card art

Today is the eleventh post in my Card Talk series.

Reminder how Card Talk works:

• I go to Scryfall and select 'Random Card'
• I present and blog about the card. I could discuss any aspect: the art, abilities, cost, set, impact on the game, and so on. Stream of consciousness.

Card Talk is a fun, uncurated way to look at Magic's cards, mechanics, history, art, sets, and so on. And of course it exposes some of my own preferences, biases, and memories of the game. 

Today's card is . . .

Keen-Eyed Archers

Hmmmm . . . Keen-Eyed Archers. A common white creature from Portal.

Portal was released in 1997. Per MTG Wiki, it was a starter set aimed at new players. To stand out, it was aesthetically different (examples: bold ability text in the text box, and symbols next to a creature's power/toughness). It was also simpler: there were only three card types (creatures, sorceries, and lands), excluding the three others (artifacts, instants, and enchantments) at the time. 

This deliberately 'vanilla' set, even lighter than core sets, was not overly popular (I think), though some cards have maintained nice value or seen reprints in later sets.

- 158 cards were first printed in Portal

- 45 cards have been printed only in Portal

- 42 cards were reprinted in Portal (so they appeared in earlier sets)

- 155 cards have been subsequently reprinted (I think I did that logic correctly)

This card mentions the word 'intercept;' this was an alternate word for 'block' (as in blocking an attacking creature). I don't know why they changed the word to intercept for Portal; every other Magic set says block. Normally, only creatures with flying can block other creatures with flying. In the first Magic set, Giant Spider was the first creature that did not fly itself but could block fliers:

Notice the initial verbiage: "does not fly, but can block flying creatures." As with many Magic concepts, this wording has evolved over time. Subsequent iterations of this card read:

- "can block creatures with flying"

- "Giant Spider can block creatures with flying"

- "Giant Spider can block as though it had flying"

- Reach, a keyword introduced in Future Sight (2007), replaced this text. Its ability: (This creature can block creatures with flying)

Final thought: while I don't think Portal was that popular, two subsequent sets (Portal Second Age in 1998 and Portal Three Kingdoms in 1999) followed, so I guess it had some appeal. Still, the altered aesthetics and wording are enough to discourage me from collecting.

Card Talk 10

Arni Metalbrow card art

Today is the tenth post in my Card Talk series.

Reminder how Card Talk works:

• I go to Scryfall and select 'Random Card'
• I present and blog about the card. I could discuss any aspect: the art, abilities, cost, set, impact on the game, and so on. Stream of consciousness.

Card Talk is a fun, uncurated way to look at Magic's cards, mechanics, history, art, sets, and so on. And of course it exposes some of my own preferences, biases, and memories of the game. 

Today's card is . . .

Hanna's Custody

Hmmmm . . . Hanna's Custody. A rare white enchantment from Tempest.

Tempest was released in 1997, before rarity was indicated by the color of the set symbol (that started with Exodus in 1998). This was before mythic rares, too (those started in Shards of Alara in 2008). So 'rare' was the top of the line—supposedly the most powerful cards. This card, though, can be purchased for ~$2.11, which (due to its age and the fact that it hasn't been reprinted) indicates that it is not overly powerful. One things players learn in Magic: the rarity on its own does not guarantee value.

Hanna's Custody is an enchantment—one of eight card types in Magic. (The others are land, creature, artifact, planeswalker, battle, instant, and sorcery, as I discuss more here.) This enchantment in particular protects artifacts, another card type. 

Enchantments are permanents, meaning they stay on the battlefield once cast. Six of the eight card types in Magic are permanents; only instants and sorceries are not (they are cast, their effect resolved, and they go to the graveyard). 

The ability on this card was eventually given a keyword: Shroud. The official rules text for Shroud:

“This permanent or player can’t be the target of spells or abilities.”

Though the concept of shroud has been around since Legends (1994), the keyword didn't start until Future Sight (2007). Here are the cards with the Shroud concept (keyword or not), though this search picks up a few cards with shroud in the card name but not in ability. 

Shroud has some downside—you cannot target your own permanent, either. So the more valuable hexproof keyword was introduced in Magic 2012 (released in 2011). Hexproof's rules text, with my highlight added:

“This permanent or player can’t be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control.”

The benefit of this should be obvious: you can cast spells on your own creature, but your opponent cannot. As a result, hexproof has largely supplanted shroud due to its increased utility; Here are the cards with the hexproof concept. (The only new cards that have shroud are in Modern Horizons sets, I think.)

Card Talk 9

Arni Metalbrow card art

Today is the ninth post in my Card Talk series.

Reminder how Card Talk works:

• I go to Scryfall and select 'Random Card'
• I present and blog about the card. I could discuss any aspect: the art, abilities, cost, set, impact on the game, and so on. Stream of consciousness.

Card Talk is a fun, uncurated way to look at Magic's cards, mechanics, history, art, sets, and so on. And of course it exposes some of my own preferences, biases, and memories of the game. 

Today's card is . . .

Solidarity

Hmmmm . . . Solidarity. A white common instant from Eighth Edition. 

This version of the card is foil. Foils are now commonplace in Magic packs; they used to be far less prevalent. As of this writing, the foil version of Solidarity goes for $2.93, while its non-foil counterpart sells for $0.25. Every Eighth Edition card had a foil variant, which were black-bordered to boot (Core sets had white borders until Magic 2010, so the black borders for a core set back in 2003 were a big deal).

White is often about defense. This instant buffs up the toughness of *all* creatures you control, enabling you to either 1) withstand an attack, or 2) survive an assault of your own. That makes sense and pairs well with the commonplace 'white weenie' deck: a deck that got many small creatures onto the battlefield. And in this expansion, 12 of white's 31 creatures had toughness greater than power to begin with; this card makes them even tougher.

Eighth Edition was released in July 2003—Magic's ten year anniversary year. To celebrate, they included at least one card from all prior non-reprint Magic expansions that had never been reprinted before. And this edition heralded a lot of changes, from cards included to rules tweaks to card frame changes. That last one is probably the biggest deal: the card frame was overhauled, and font and symbols changed (see below example of a card from Seventh and Eighth Edition, respectively)

The Card frame change upset a lot of people, but it did make the text easier to read.