Card Talk 21

Cactuar card art

Time for Card Talk! Reminder how this 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 . . .

Guardia de patrulla nocturna—a common creature from Salvat 2005.

This one threw me. Salvat 2005 is a reprint-only set that was *not* produced in English, but only Italian, French, and Spanish. The set was released as 10 (or 12, in Italy) theme decks but also packs in a weekly magazine; the link in this paragraph shows the complete set. This MTG Wiki site shows the decklists.

I don't know much about this set, to include why Wizards did it in the first place. A quick web search argues that it was done to expand the game's presence in those European regions; that makes sense, but I'm unclear why they had to create a new set to do so. Anyway, it was reprints only, so I guess that made it easier for them to produce.

The above card is "Nightguard Patrol" in English, and was originally released in the Ravnica set. It has two abilities: first strike and vigilance. First strike means it does its combat damage before the regular damage step; vigilance means it does not tap to attack. Two nice abilities, but with such a low power/toughness and a mana cost of three, this is not a valuable card (you can still get it for pennies).

Until next time . . . keep exploring.