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Episode 232: The Melthos are Eating Well on Bloomburrow
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Welcome back to the Goblin Lore Podcast!! This week Taya and Alex discuss their favorite cards from Bloomburrow. Which of these adorable animals caught their attention? Which baker had the best flavor? Find out now! Also join us next week when writer of the Bloomburrow stories (Valerie Valdes) will be joining the show! Send us any questions on Twitter/Email/Discord!
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources
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As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
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- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
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Transcript
Introduction and Personal Handles
00:00:09
Speaker
are
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers. Welcome to another episode of Goblin Lore Pod. This is Taya. Taya transcends on Blue Sky, pronouns are she, her, they, them. And I'm joined tonight by Alex. Oh, go ahead. Sorry. yeah No problem.
Favorite Bloomberg Cards and Creativity
00:00:47
Speaker
i just um it's my monday yeah We're gonna be talking about the Bloomberg cards today and ah what are our favorites and from a Orthos and Malthus standpoint, where we're at. And we're going to start with ah the question I had was, what do you think the most creative card is? And for me, it's one of the commander cards. It's Hazel's Brewmaster. ah This is a 3-4 with menace for three and a black. When it enters or attacks, exile it to one target card from a graveyard and create a food token. Foods you control have all activated abilities of all creature cards, exile with Hazel's Brewmaster.
00:01:26
Speaker
She turns your she turns your opponents or you even your dead creatures into food. Yeah, has their has their abilities. Oh, and then all your food have the all at call that is. Yeah, that's that's fun. Yeah, I love things that give abilities to other things that normally don't have them. And this one and. He just looks super cool with that towel having this covering made out of a ribcage with spikes and this really cool robe. I love the art on this card. ah But yeah, I figured I would stick with the squirrels since I picked squirrels last week. um And Squirrel Warlock is a pretty cool class.
00:02:22
Speaker
Yes, this this ah this set has a lot of fun creature-type lines. Yeah.
Card Design and 'Season of Cards'
00:02:28
Speaker
All right, well, it's then my turn to and introduce myself. i Alex found on on Twitter at Mel underscore chronicler. My pronouns are he, him. ah for For my answer to this, I'm going to, as I typically do, not like answer the question straight. um But I want to answer, like there's there's a cycle of cards that I really love the design space with this. um And that's the the season of cards. So these are um five mythics, one in each color that
00:03:04
Speaker
are modal, and I love modal spells. I guess I'll just read the first one here. Season of the Burrow is 3 white. white for this one and You choose up to 5, it has a little paw. a symbol worth of modes, you may choose the same mode more than once, and then it has three modes, each that cost more. For one pause, create a 1-1 rabbit, creature token, two pause, exile a non-land permanent, its controller draws a card, three pause, return target permanent card with mana value 3 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield, but with an indestructible counter on it.
00:03:40
Speaker
But I love modal cards. At one point I had a modal cube and it was really hard. Yeah, these cards are really neat because you can mix and match what you want to do. Like for five mana, you can exile two nonland permanents and get a one-one. Oh, yeah. Or you can exile a nonland permanent and get back ah a permanent with an indestructible counter. Or you can just make five rabbits if you want to. Yep, I love that.
Modal Cards and Art Appreciation
00:04:07
Speaker
This design is really cool. I like this. yeah And and like I loved Charms, one of the first Commander decks I ever built was a Chromat, was the Commander, this five-color Commander from Apocalypse with like Charms, just like 30 Charms in the deck. And then we've sense a you know since then, they've kind of created some other different modal sort of structures, but I really like the flexibility of this one.
00:04:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's you know modal cards are great because they're um Give you so many options and these ones really give you a lot of options Yeah. Yeah. And I love that little bit of ah design technology, because the previous ones kind of had to try to make all the options roughly equal. Because the confluence cycle, the ones that let you choose one or more, they had to all be relatively equal power. But this one, they can have widely different power levels. Yep. And then they just have different costs. So it lets you sort of decide what is worth it at that time, you know, at at this point in the game for you. This really should be an instant. Oh, yeah.
00:05:17
Speaker
for five mana. Yeah, I think there yeah they're all sorceries. I wonder if they just, oh, but they aren't all the same cost. The green one cost and the blue one both cost one more generic.
Commander Cards and Zootopia References?
00:05:28
Speaker
It's interesting. Oh, and these all got borderless cards that are all gorgeous with fun animal art on them. Yeah, the borderless cards in the set are so gorgeous. Yeah. Several different styles that are all just gorgeous.
00:05:47
Speaker
Yeah, I guess we can start getting into it. And I'm going to start with another commander card, um which is in the group hug deck. And it's Mrs. Bumbleflower. It's the lead um creature for that deck. It's a rabbit citizen for one and bant. It's a 1-5 for vigilance. ah Whenever you cast the spell, target opponent draws a card. Well, that's usually bad. You put a plus one, plus one counter on any creature, it gains flying until end of turn. And if this was the second time this ability is resolved this turn, you draw two cards. This is a very group hug, Commander. um I don't think this makes the cut for K and TVs. I don't play a lot of creatures in that deck to put the counters onto, but I really like the design space here where
00:06:43
Speaker
um you know you're
00:06:47
Speaker
You're getting some um benefit ah out of it, even though your opponents are drawing cards, it's very political who you can let draw the cards. And if you can do it twice a turn, you get to draw two, which replaces those two spells you cast. Yeah, and and in a a group game, that's a little like giving your opponent's cards is a little less of a disadvantage than in a 1v1 game, because here you can give one card to one player, one card to another, and then draw two cards yourself. And the advantage is a little more dispersed amongst your opponents. Yeah. you know it's You've evened out that advantage anyway. you You've let your opponents draw two cards. You've drawn two cards. you
00:07:31
Speaker
you're even on card advantage. But yeah, and you can also use it to you know help a player who's your current ally or whatever. That's one thing I love about group hug decks is you can really ah you know choose how to assign your resources based on how the game's going. So random question. Get your opinion on this. With this card and then the other legend from the that same deck, e Do you think that this is a coincidence or is this a Zootopia reference? I hadn't even thought of it. So you have Mrs. Bumbleflower and then Mr. Faxlove. Yeah, there's a fox. Yeah, a fox rogue at that, yeah yeah yeah. And she'd been a ah rabbit um ah rabbit cop or something that would have been...
00:08:23
Speaker
Too funny. Yeah, that's the the one thing where her class is rabbit citizen, which wouldn't quite fit with. But, but that is funny. I hadn't, I hadn't thought of that at all, but yeah, that's, they're really hitting the Zootopia vibes there. Yeah. I think, I don't think I thought of it with Mrs. Bumbleflower when I was reading, or Ms. Bumbleflower, but when I was reading Mr. Fox, of I was like, wait a second. Is this, I don't know. So I had a note to ask you about that. So I'm glad we started there. Okay. But, uh, my card, which is also sort of mechanically has a similar similarity to this and is also in the commander set was octomancer.
Unique Mechanics and Synergies
00:09:05
Speaker
Uh, there we are. So this is a three, three frog druid. Like I said, great creature type lines in this set for three green and a blue, um, has a gift in octopus. Uh, you, if you, uh, you may promise to an opponent, a gift as you cast it, if you do. when this enters, you create an eight, eight blue creature token, or they create an eight, eight blue octopus creature token. um I love the gift cycle. Yes, yes. And and I love what we- Gift mechanic. I love how this works with the gift. Because a lot of these cards, well, i'll just read the rest of the card and then circle back to that. It says, at the beginning of each end of step, create a token that's a copy of target creature token that entered the battlefield this turn. You said each end step.
00:09:53
Speaker
Each end step. I missed that when I read this card. Honestly, so did I, so now I'm glad I'm reading it out loud. because um But I love this, and from the ones that I've seen, I have not read every card and in exacting detail in this set, but from what I've seen, most cards in this set are all the other cards that have gift. The gift, if you do it, it specifically enhances the spell. This doesn't have a direct enhancement, but it's other mechanic keys right into that. Right. As long as nobody removes this before end of turn, you're going to get yourself an 8-8 as well. Yes. And so doing the gift also gives you that benefit, but it's not tied into the spell in the same way that it is mechanically tied into the other cards, which I thought was super interesting. But now that I see this as each step, I'm a lot more interested in this card. I have a...
00:10:50
Speaker
Oh, what was his name? Volo. I have a Volo Guide to Beast deck I never finished that the this could be really good in. Yeah, that does sound like a lot of fun. I have a Volo deck too. it is It's Simic Bullshit. It totally is. Yeah, it's yeah c Simic Bullshit, but I love the design restriction of trying to keep only one creature of each type as much as you can. but um So my next one, I want to stick with the Commander card, right because the Commander card just really knocked it out of the park this time. ah Sort of the squeak, which is obviously a sort of the meek reference, but it's two for an equipment, two to equip. Equip creature gets plus one, plus one for each creature you control with base power or toughness one.
00:11:45
Speaker
um And this is in the tokens deck where almost everything is a one one or one something in that deck ah Whenever a hamster mouse rat or squirrel you control enters you may attach sort of the squeak to that creature so it plays so much like sort of the meat, but it's specific to the um little creature ah types Yeah Yeah, i I did not catch the sort of the make reference there. Yeah, it's so clear. Yeah, it's this is going in my Tosky deck for sure. Nice.
00:12:23
Speaker
i Because that that could be a ah good five or six power boost for Tosky. Yeah, and I like the base power or toughness. Yeah, which is interesting. Cool. Right. Well, I have, I guess another one. I'm going to talk about 14 cards,
Class Cards and Their Role
00:12:46
Speaker
sort of. um I want to talk, there's a card that I found in the commander set and then I realized, oh, this is just all over this set. um So I'm going to kind of talk about these as ah as a batch, but there's a bunch of new class cards. e And, and the first one I saw was Alchemist for some reason. Somehow I missed, I'm like, I'm looking now there's,
00:13:05
Speaker
clearly one above that in this hard page on Scryfall. But the Alchemist was the first one that I saw. So these work like the classes from from the D and&D set. They're enchantments. This one is three in a red for an enchantment. When it enters the event enters the battlefield, create two tapped treasure tokens. And then it has two additional levels as level two and level three that you can you pay mana as a sorcery to level it up. Number two, one in a red. creature the Treasures you control have sacked this artifact, get two mana, and then four in a red for level three whenever you cast a spell of mana from treasure was cast, was spent to cast at this class. It deals damage equal to that spell's mana value to each opponent.
00:13:49
Speaker
um But I noticed that, and the first thing I thought of was, because I play so many pen and of paper RPGs, like there's a bunch of systems that have elkamist classes, like Pathfinder, or one that I'm playing right now. And so that was the first thing I thought. Like, oh, cool, they're kind of filling in some of the classes that aren't necessarily in D and&D. And then I noticed there's a green one, Gorman's talent, which is a food ah yeah class. I was like, oh, this is just, sort of, then there's a fishing one that's green and a blue. um And then I noticed that there's 10 in the base set. Yeah, color there's an uncommon and rare one for each.
00:14:27
Speaker
Yeah, and I just I love that these are just so perfect for this set. So I'm just going to run through the 10 classes from the base one. Just it fits the flavor of this world so much. You have caretakers and builder in white gossip and storm chasers. What I wrote down in blue. You have Bandit and Scavenger in black, Artist and Blacksmith in red, Hunter and Innkeeper in green. So it's just like really fits at this more low fantasy, if that makes sense, sort of setting here where this is just folks kind of living in a a normal life, which we were talking about last week, talking about the story that this isn't the same
00:15:13
Speaker
There isn't a lot of dragon slaying and adventurers who that's their career. Like this world, you have some people who go on adventures. You have people who go do things, but generally it's like Mabel last week like is a baker who goes and takes care of things and then goes home. And these classes really fit that. You don't have soldier. You don't have guard you know town guard. and mean know There's some people who fill those roles. You have artists and blacksmith. And to prove that i'm ah I'm a nerd for more than one thing, I saw artists in blacksmith in red, and I realized that there's, that's actually a rush lyric, where they reference blacksmiths and artists. I don't know that anyone out there is familiar with Closer to the Hard, it's one of the more famous songs, but it was,
00:16:01
Speaker
I thought that was ah was really cool to see all these different all these different classes that wouldn't be classes in like a D and&D game. These are like NPC roles almost, but in a in a normal setup like that. Yeah. And the art on them is always is really good too. Yes. I love i love that that vertical art style, that saga sort of. started, and they're finding different ways to kind of use that art style. All right, my next one is a pair of cards, which I'm going to call a Malthus Fell.
Story-Related Cards and Character Debate
00:16:41
Speaker
It's conduct electricity and dragonhawk fates tempest. ah This goes back to what we discussed last week about the art of Ral just unloading a lightning bolt on this dragonhawk.
00:16:54
Speaker
ah And but conduct electricity does six damage to a creature and two damage to one target creature token and Dragon Hawks of five five, but it didn't get it. Yep Yep Also, legendary creature Bird Dragon is fantastic. Yeah. yeah that That's i just ah just sinking into to me now that the the Dragon Hawk from that story is legendary. So they're saying there's only one. Oh, and it's a story spotlight card, even. Yeah, they both are. um But the yeah, yeah the yeah flavor text I conduct electricity is exactly what happened in the story. I like it when they wind up that closely.
00:17:37
Speaker
um But yeah, it deals six damage to a target creature and two damage stuff to one target creature token. So I like that you can just get an innocent bystander with this, but it is ah just like I called it. It is the common red removal of the set. Yep. Yep. I also like that that conduct electricity actually has the story webpage on the bottom next to the like copyright. Mm hmm.
00:18:05
Speaker
I'm going to follow that up with another flavor fail that, like this one, I suspect was just a a mechanical, um maybe draft setup. But our our hero Mabel is a soldier. Yeah. Legendary creature, most soldier. Um, like ah a fun card probably for, for archetypes and decks for soldier decks. Yeah. Um, that's why, and that makes sense. But like in the, in the story itself, she was correcting people who are like, and the people weren't calling her a soldier specifically, but was correcting people when they were trying to assign labels to her. She's like, not I'm a baker. Like that's what I do. Specifically, she is not a soldier. She does not have any professional training at yeah doing this. a tree
00:18:54
Speaker
Um, no professional experience whatsoever. Uh, so yeah, I didn't notice that she's a mouse soldier and I, I agree with you that that's kind of a, that's kind of a flavor fail. Yeah. And I get, if they put mouse Baker, it would make the card a lot harder to use and different decks. And, and that's the thing where cards have to serve more. Yeah. I mean, I'm i'm sure, I'm sure she even was happy. This is a soldier, uh, uh, I don't know if it goes in a soldier deck since it has mice synergy, but... Yeah. But, you know, we're we're here to <unk> here to talk about Maelthos stuff, and and and um on a Maelthos level I can call this a flavor for fail. Yeah. I do like that it creates Cragflame though when it comes in. Yes, which is cool.
00:19:44
Speaker
um
00:19:47
Speaker
So, she comes with her sword. Yeah. and
00:19:53
Speaker
And now I have to look at, like, I just built a white and red equipment deck. Does Mabel fit in that deck? Maybe, actually. the One of the struggles with a deck like that, that I haven't played the decks, I have no idea how well I balance it, but it's like, I want to have a bunch of equipment, but I also need creatures to put that equipment on. And Mabel does both, which is really nice. Yeah. um My next one is, I'm going to talk about Rael real quick for a second, because um we have Rael crackling wit, which is so appropriate to how you know how his text was in the
Planeswalker and Flavor Text
00:20:30
Speaker
story. And he really um was just kind of sarcastic about everything.
00:20:40
Speaker
um But what I really I love about this card is is this is one of the older style planeswalkers where it has an amazing ultimate that you're probably never going to get to. um because He starts with four loyalty and he only has a plus one. But his ultimate is draw three cards, you get an emblem with in instant and sorcery card spells you cast to have Storm. my god So even with doubling season, you can't ult this right away. Yeah. But if you do get that, that is just such a cool. I love these ultimates that are like something you have to work towards, but then have a major impact on the game. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. I doubt he's like. So I like the original rail ultimate, too, of flipping five coins and taking an extra turn. ah um Was that the one or? Yeah, yeah, something like that.
00:21:33
Speaker
um Yeah, but there was a route that I really liked and now I can't remember. Was that the one that did stuff when you copied spells too? Yeah, there there was a one that did one damage to opponents when you copied or passed a spell. Yeah, ah I tried to do something with that card for like a little bit and never actually built anything.
00:21:59
Speaker
OK. So. want I want to just just call out this pun. like i just I can't look away, but it's it's almost painful. um Oh no, did I lose the screen? Nope, there it is. Sugarcoat.
00:22:19
Speaker
ah Two at a blue for an enchantment aura. It has flash, enchant creature or food. Enchanted permanent is a colorless food artifact with two tap sacrifices artifact. You gain three life and loses all other card types and abilities. And then the flavor text is is where it really gets painful and good. ah Some jokes have the punchline baked in. Oh, gee, that's bad. It is so bad. It is so bad that it made a late addition to my list and I needed to make sure to bring it up tonight. Yeah, that is also just the kind of removal I like, too. Mm-hmm. Or it's just like, yeah, whatever your thing was, it's food now. Yep. Which also kind of fits some of the things in this set. There's a few of those.
00:23:12
Speaker
So, um
00:23:16
Speaker
my ah next thing to talk about is Kitsa Otterball Elite. I just love they got ah an Otter Wizard in here, but it's like a sports Otter. yeah there're They're playing, what is it, Blitzball from Final Fantasy X? Yep. Yeah. And there's a couple references to Otterball. Yeah. So it's a 1-3 with vigilance and prowess, but you can tap to loot or you can copy an instant or sorcery if its power is 3 or greater. So if you've either triggered prowess twice or buffed him another way, he has a repeatable copy ability.
00:24:01
Speaker
And I just really love this art too. It's Super cute. Yeah, it's really good. And then there's Otterball antics. It's the other the other reference to Otterball I saw. um Also, there is a random aside. is want to do. ah There is a a YouTube channel of this couple who live in Tokyo who have two otters as pets. Yes, I've watched that a lot. i yeah yeah Oh my god. yeah and And Hannah loves to juggle, like just move things back yeah and forth. That's the first thing I thought of when I saw the Kitsa. Yeah. ah that That is a very amusing YouTube channel. Highly recommended if you just want a dose of cute.
00:24:45
Speaker
Yes, i every so often I send videos to my team, be like, today was a rough day, watch an otter get really excited about a pool or something, like just something fun and charming that's pretty short and quick. um I'm gonna talk about, ah Murmuration, another card from Commander. This is one of two cards, ah both in the Commander set, that taught me words that, and I i love learning new weird and esoteric and
00:25:19
Speaker
hyper-specific words. ah So murmuration is an enchantment for fauna white. Birds you control get plus one plus one and have vigilance. At the beginning of your end step, for each spell you've cast this turn, create a one-two blue bird creature token with flying named Stormcrow. Which on its own it is fun. right But then, like literally, I had to look this up. Murmuration it has two meanings, and it's it's the utterance of a low continuous sound or complaining noises. Or the second one, a flock.
00:25:56
Speaker
just a flock of birds. So it's like, that is so perfect. And it's also super rare these days, you know, more than 25 years into this game's history, that they're able to create cards with a single word title, that is like a real word that isn't something they made up. Right. Yeah. I love that. I love that when they find a new one to do that with. And also, so I just love another card. This one in like standard Blackboarder that makes Stormcrow tokens. Yeah. Storm was ah not legal for play, isn't it? No, it's not. um But yeah, you you now have a legal way to make Stormcrow tokens. ah My next one is going to be Rolling Hamsphere.
Playful Cards and Art Themes
00:26:45
Speaker
ah which is a reference to two different things. It's a reference to Mere Battlesphere. ah and it's also a reference to hamster balls. So it's a seven mana, same as mere battlesphere, four for vehicle with crew three, but it gets plus one plus one for each hamster you control. And when it attacks, you create three hamsters and then it deals X damage to any target where X is the number of hamsters you control. So it works differently than your battlesphere, but it's very,
00:27:18
Speaker
Similar, but you can't you can't enter ah abuse the ETB ability and just keep creating mirror like you can with battle sphere because it actually has to attack for that to happen. Yeah, it the art also has some incredibly just adorable and awesome hamster pictures. Yeah, from Henry Peters. I'm not familiar with him. I don't know if he's a newer magic artist. um What else has he done? Uh, yeah, it looks like in a lot of universes beyond stuff. It looks like, yeah, that's all I'm seeing in here. outside yeah Well, there's, there's a battle. There's some stuff, but yeah, he's relatively new and it looks like he mostly does universes beyond work.
00:28:06
Speaker
Um, but I look forward to seeing more, uh, more from him. Yes. That is a really cool looking card. Yep. that is that that really is. um I might go to the other card that that also taught me a word. ah This is also in the the commander um set. This one is Insatiable Frugivore, which ah Speaking of great art, so I'll just read the card. I guess to start with two-four. ah For three-in-a-black who's a rat berserker, um when it enters the battlefield, create a food token, then you may exile three cards from your graveyard if you do repeat this process. It has three-in-a-black, sacrifice X food, creatures you control get plus X plus O and gain menace until end of turn.
00:29:02
Speaker
ah Yeah, a frugivore is a creature, an animal that thrives mostly on raw fruits or succulent fruit-like prudos of plants such as roots, shoots, nuts, and seeds. Yeah, that's just tearing the strawberry apart here. Oh, yeah. And and I love that because, you know, you you especially if it's like insatiable, you'd think it it was like a carnival or something like tearing into a creature. But that doesn't fit sort of the flavor of this world. Most of these creatures, but a rat just go into town on that strawberry.
00:29:37
Speaker
has a very similar aesthetic that you would expect to you know some berserker of a different, bigger species of creature going to town on just some piece of meat.
00:29:49
Speaker
e So just from ah from a lore-ish, weird word nerd standpoint, I just i've really enjoyed that card. Yeah. um It is really cool.
00:30:07
Speaker
I'm going to go next with a card that absolutely is going to make it into K and T, and it's a continuation of one of my favorite cycles, Tempting Offer, and it's Tempt with Bunnies. This is two and a white for a sorcery, where you draw a card and then create a 1-1 rabbit creature token, and then each opponent may do the same, and for each opponent who does, you do the same thing again. So it works like all the other Tempting Offer cards, but you're making a bunch of bunnies and drawing a bunch of cards. ah yeah Who's not gonna say yes to that? Yeah. And the art is just this huge horde of bunnies coming out of one house.
00:30:50
Speaker
ah it's it's It's very good. It's very good. Yeah. Uh, I would love to continue seeing more temp with cards in the future. I just, I are tempting offer. I like the, uh, I like the mechanic a lot, but then again, I am, I'm a group hug player, like I mentioned. So, uh, I know a lot of people aren't fans of tempting offer, uh, but I am here to give you cards and bunnies. Uh, yeah. You just have to accept them. yeah I love those sort of long-term cycles.
00:31:27
Speaker
um The Magus cycle was one that I collected for a long time. Well, that one, there was a full cycle in each of the three times viral sets. Go figure those are some of my favorite sets. But then they kind of did a slow cycle over the five years of Commander sets. Yeah, they had been printing them once a year in the Commander sets. They put a new Magus in. Yeah, they were doing the, like those were the sorcery cycle. So like each see a cycle was a creature that has like, oh, it was just a different spell type. There was creatures that have land abilities and one was enchantments and one was artifacts. Those are the three from time. And they were mostly things off reserve list cards. Yes. Yeah. So again, just like old stuff. I remember playing with, with my, my dad and his friends and my friends back in the early days. So that's cool.
00:32:18
Speaker
ah I'm going to go with ah back to the regular set.
Food and Creature Duo Cards
00:32:25
Speaker
Yegara, YGRA, Eater of All. um say A legend, one of the... ah Oh, were they Shadow Beasts? No, that wasn't Shadow Beasts. That was... What did they call the big elemental creatures that ah showed up? The Cataclysm. because kind of
00:32:48
Speaker
yes Yes, that's right. cattrophe bees Catastrophe Beast. So this is presumably one of that one of the Catastrophe Beasts. 6-6, Elemental Cat for three black and green has Ward, Sacrifice of Food. um Other creatures are food artifacts in addition to their other types and have to tap sack this permanent game three life Whenever a food is put into a graveyard from the battlefield put two plus one plus one counters on Gagara Yidra of all yeah, I love this design it turns everything into food which Fits for a big giant predatory cat in a world. Yeah, thanks smaller than it and
00:33:30
Speaker
Perfect, like like that is that right there is just like perfect flavor. and and Literally, it's food. Yes. yes ah But then, you know, then keys off that by getting stronger whenever food dies. um yeah Also has, I don't like so much, the word ability is, makes me nervous about games becoming just not interactable. Not that I have any particular things where that's happened, but this is one version of that that i I honestly like more than most I've seen because it specifically gives everyone a a way to interact with it. If you have other types of food, cool. If you don't, now you do. All of your creatures are food. And so that allows you to interact with this in a in a less
00:34:26
Speaker
difficult way um than than others. So I just, I really like that design space and how, again, there's three like pieces of of text in this text box and every one of them interacts with each other in interesting ways. Yeah, it's really great. The next one I'm going to talk about is just a, it's a basic uncommon removal spell and it's another one word card. I'm surprised this word has not been used yet, but it's spell. Uh, I am really surprised that word was still available, but this is a murder variant that costs the just black and one instead of black, black one, but it's a sorcery instead of an instant. It's just the same exact thing as murder destroyed target creature, basic, simple wording. And then the flavor text is, uh, when garb ordered the egg stole and the great maha communicated its anger on a universal language. Um,
00:35:22
Speaker
The art on this card blows me away. It is so pretty. ah It has the owl and the moons and it's just, it's absolutely wonderful. I love it. ah Even for just being a basic removal spell. um I can see this seeing play in ah in some budget commander decks.
00:35:48
Speaker
Yeah, its um it's not instant speed, but one in a black is a lot more flexible than one black black. Yeah, and destroy target creatures a lot more flexible than other kill spells at that at that color. You know, you go back to like terror that couldn't hit black or artifact creatures and things like that. It's like nice to... Yeah, you're right. I think that that's a really good budget commander kill spell that It has a lot of flexibility to and it's a little slower, but if you're, you know, it fits the slot and it does the same job most of the time.
00:36:24
Speaker
yeah
00:36:27
Speaker
I'm going to talk about another a chunk of 10 cards, basically a cycle. um There are two creatures in each color that are duos. I was kind of looking through this set a number of times before I realized that this was a pattern. But I love this for this world. Every one of these, there's two in each color, and every one of these is a combo of two of the different species in this world. So you have like life creed duo, one in a white, for a bird bat,
00:37:02
Speaker
So one, two with flying, whenever another creature you control enters, ah you gain one life. And then though I love the flavor text. as it All of these are like flavor texts are commut or like a short conversation between these two creatures. And this one is, why are you eating upside down? Asked the bird. Why are you eating upside up? Replied the bat. I don't know what it is about Upside Up. That just makes me laugh, but I ah love that. But this whole this whole set is so fun. You have the Sky Skipper duo, who is a frog bird, three three with for to blue with flying. When it enters ah exile up to one other target creature you control, turns to the battlefield under its owner's control at the beginning of the next end step.
00:37:48
Speaker
And then the flavor text, I don't know how to swim, said the bird. That's OK. I don't know how to fly, laughed the frog. And I just I love all of these. They're so fun and charming. And the flavor text is just wonderful. Yeah, that's that's really ah that is a neat cycle that I hadn't really noticed because I kind of overlooked that. um The next one I'm going to. I don't know if I would ever play this card, but i the art's cool and I like its design. It's perch protection. It's four white, white. Gift an extra turn.
00:38:27
Speaker
oh And you have to create, you create four, two, two blue bird creature tokens with flying. And if the gift was promised, all permanency control phase out in your life, it basically to ferries protections you if you promise the gift. so um So it's a six mana instant that creates four two twos with flying. And if you give another player an extra turn, you also took various protection. Interesting. And it exiles itself. So this has a lot of, this actually would be really fun in multiplayer. I might put this in K and T.
00:39:07
Speaker
because you could give someone an extra turn that has like nothing going on. So the cost is fairly minimal. So you, the only thing I have against, it's a six mana instant, but it does create four two twos with flying. So you do get a nice board state out of it. Yeah, and they're they're birds, which is relevant for the Ishaev vial smasher deck that I um built and then kind of dismantled a little bit and I need to re go back and tinker with but I was I built it as partially bird tribal because the whole the whole point of the deck was to just
00:39:44
Speaker
get dovescape into play and just cast big spells into dovescape. And then I thought it'd be funny if it was then bird tribal on top of that. So, or bird typals. So it, that could fit. I mean, and it's sitting right next to murmuration, which is also a good bird typal card. So I might, I might need to examine more cards in this set to rebuild that each I file, smash your deck. Yeah, I had seen, I think it was in Gavin's preview video where he said there was a card coming with gift an extra turn and I'm like, what do you get for giving away an extra turn?
00:40:19
Speaker
And apparently it's to Ferris protection. Which, you know, kind of makes sense to me actually that yeah I actually, I don't mind this because you're you're basically saying I'm out. Why don't you three fight it over? And I'm just going to be sitting over here. I don't care if you have this extra turn because I can't be touched. Yeah. Yeah. That it makes you kind of imbued into whatever effects happen on that turn. Yeah. and the rest of the turn cycle, too. Yeah, that's true, yep. Yeah, that's cool. Okay, ah another card like right here, right next to it, um that i I feel like it might be referencing something, but I don't know, but also just the card is fun, so I'm just 20 Toad Toad.
Humor and Thematic Fit in Cards
00:41:07
Speaker
Yeah. 20 T-O-E-D, T-O-A-D, is three to blue for a three-three ah for a creature frog wizard. ah Your maximum hand size is 20. Whenever you attack with two or more creatures, put a plus one, plus one counter on 20 Toad, Toad, and draw a card. Whenever 20 Toad, Toad attacks, you win the game if there are 20 or more counters on it, or you have 20 or more cards in hand. Yeah, this card to me just reads for the people who like to sit back and just draw cards and not actually do anything. This gives them an alternate win con now. Yep. Yeah, I don't know that I ever play it, but reading the card makes me laugh. And so I wanted to read the card out loud. No, it would be a. It's a very mean I think obviously this doesn't actually attack until you have.
00:42:03
Speaker
um until you have 20 cards because um you know in blue attacking with two or more creature other creatures, or two or more. So that the the the thing the the first one ah triggers without it attacking at all. You get that if you just attack with two creatures. and The second one requires it to attack, but all you have to do is declare it as an attacker and you win the game if you meet the requirement. I really liked this design. I and then just seeing your maximum hand size is 20 on a card was that was. Yeah, it's it's funny because there's so many unlimited hand size too, and it's like 20 might as well be unlimited. And then you read the rest of the card to go, OK, 20 makes sense. There's a pattern. for your Yeah. um Yeah, there's. I don't know, I might consider this card for my.
00:43:02
Speaker
um
00:43:05
Speaker
Bilesmasher deck because that deck can draw a whole lot of cards. Yeah.
00:43:12
Speaker
ah There's a lot of there. There's it generates a lot of colorless mana and there's quite a few draw X card spells in that deck. So that might be a nice alternate wincon for that deck. And this is see this is the kind of alternate wincon I play. you're not goingnna I will never cast the fastest oracle, but I absolutely would cast the 20 Toad Toad.
00:43:37
Speaker
yeah I'm going to stick with another commander card. They're they're just so so good for this set. And I'm going to go with Jacked Rabbit. I'm crossing that off my list, too. Yeah. um This is X1 in white for a 1, 2 with ravenous. ah And whenever it attacks, you create a number of 1, 1 white rabbit creature tokens equal to its power. ah And the art on this is just the buffest rabbit
00:44:10
Speaker
You know. ah Holding a gourd like a mace.
00:44:19
Speaker
ah And ravenous is the creature enters with X plus one plus encountered on it. If it's five or more draw cards, if you remember what that you know that. A mechanic does so it enters with X counters on it so you can make it pretty big and then make a whole bunch of rabbits from it. Yep, and and I love the flavor text too. Yes, squash, what it is and what it does. Yes. And and ah a reference, probably. Just a Jackrabbit. Yeah, it even looks like a Jackrabbit, except... Yep.
00:44:56
Speaker
All right. um Another that's kind of more for the name than anything else, but in the in the main set there is a card called Nightfisher, which is a K-N-I-G-H-T, night. A four or five for bird night. but For three, blue-blue, it has flying. Whenever another non-token bird you control enters, create a one-one blue fish creature token.
00:45:27
Speaker
And I just, I love this is a bird night, first of all, which is just, again, a creature type that I love, but like it took a Kingfisher and made it a nightfisher instead. This might be the the only night in the set too. That's, I love that. Yeah. um My next one is going to be, it's ah it's one of the few reprints in the set, but it's, um
00:45:58
Speaker
it's It's Runaway Together, which was originally printed in Thrones of Eldraine. It's choose two creatures controlled by different players or turn those creatures to their owner's hand. This is a really good bounce spell in Commander. It should get played more in Commander. ah Because in and one-on-one, you have to return one of your own creatures. This is just two mana instant return any two creatures in Commander. Yep. i'm Owned by different players. But the art on this is an otter and a frog folk just, um you know, in a sailboat going through some lily pads. And it says, nobody bothered to look for Levo and Pula because everyone knew they didn't want to be found. This is just the cutest damn card.
00:46:47
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah, and that art is gorgeous. And from Omar Ray, Ray one ran. um Not an artist I recognize, though. Apparently, they've been doing some art. They did some stuff back in Lorwyn, Lorwyn block. And and some some Eldraine stuff too, and some other sets in there as well. ah But just a gorgeous looking art that is a different style than a lot of the other art around are around the set. Yeah, the art definitely has more of a a throne of Eldraine feel, Eldraine feel than this. It's a lot of white colors and it's like pencil work, I think.
00:47:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think it it just looks a lot like colored pencil. I don't know if it is, but... it's It's very striking, especially sitting next to the other art. There's lots of great art in this set, but just stylistically, it's it's pretty unique. It's very unique with the style, yeah. That's cool. Well, I want to talk, let's say, about the flavor. I have a flavor one, um a carrot cake. ah as As a person who who loves the human Earth Human version of carrot cake, I appreciate this, even though this is a very different style of carrot cake.
00:48:22
Speaker
um i I guess I could read the card too. So one in a white for an artifact food, when it enters the battlefield, and when you sacrifice it, create a one-to-one white rabbit creature token and scry one. And then it has the traditional food text to tap sack carrot cake, you gain three life. um it is It is in the art like carrots and lettuce and maybe cauliflower or something white, I can't quite tell, that's layered in a way that looks a lot like a carrot cake we but we might make here. no But it is clearly just a bunch of carrots, mostly. And I love it. I think it's great that you have just a bunch of rabbits in the background. I'm just noticing the one in the bottom right of the heart right now, who is not happy to be being used as a pedestal by a companion to stare at the cake more closely. Oh, that's that's really cute.
00:49:22
Speaker
So I'm going to, I think, you know, we can each pick one or two more. I'm going to quickly cover two. One of them is just a, it's the black instant removal of the set. And it's another one word title. We got saber. Another one I'm surprised wasn't used. And it's target creature gets minus two minus two until on a turn, create a food token. And it shows the reflection in the eye of this massive snake of a terrified squirrel person. And the flavor text is, edibility is in the eye of the beholder. Yep. There's a, there's a strong theme of, of some folk eat other folks sort of. Yeah. The calamity beast, especially. I mean, ah most of them
Predatory Themes and World-Building
00:50:06
Speaker
are predators. Like I mentioned last week, there's a few that aren't, there's a stag and, but almost all the calamity beasts are predators of some sort.
00:50:16
Speaker
right well I'm gonna go. Oh, so you had good I'm just gonna cover one more real quick with my last card and it's stargaze Which is X black black for a sorcery Look at twice X cards from the top of your library put X cards from among them in your hand and the rest in your graveyard You lose X life The art on this card just blows me away Mm-hmm. I was noticing it It is. Yeah, it just has this bad person contemplating the cosmos and yeah, and is is another card that has a lot of art in the reflection of the eye. Yeah, I I just love the art from the set so much. It's it's it's so good.
00:51:02
Speaker
okay ill I'll close it out for for myself with with two quick names. this is This is a thing that I kind of get into from ah the Mel side of things. Mechanically, I'm always fascinated by card names. i know we're We're talking about card names that were like single word, which is super interesting to me that they keep finding some that they can print that are new cards. Yeah, we mentioned a lot today. We, you know, there were quite a few in a set. Stargaze was another single. Yeah. And honestly, that's one I'm kind of surprised didn't get used to because that sounds like a blue theros card to me, like, yeah. But also something that I'm super interested in is cards with names that are very of the place. So they're, they're
00:51:47
Speaker
names that aren't like wasted, you know, or not wasted, but they're, they're names that get used here and can't, it wouldn't fit anywhere else. So it's a great like use of resources. At least that's how my, my brain, um, thinks about it. Like, uh, revoke privileges is the one I go back to a lot. Yes. That is, that is also one of my all time favorite art. Yeah. And so I guess carrot cake kind of fits that, but I want to hit two, two other ones in white real quick. There is hop to it. where it creates three 1.1 white creature rabbit creature tokens. you know there's There's going to be a creature tokens creating spell in almost every set in white. And so this one with a world full of rabbits, hop to it, making three rabbits is just perfect. And then also crumb and get it.
00:52:38
Speaker
which is kind of funny as well, which is an instant that costs white. Gift a food. um Target creature gets plus two, plus two until out of turn. If like the gift was promised, the creature also gains indestructible. So this is another like combat trick to protect your creature. White gets these all the time. But you It's a weird, like creating a food, other, you know, like food can show up in other sets, but that name in particular is punny enough and so perfect, flavorfully for this world that it would feel out of place in most other places. But it's so good here. Yeah. And just since you didn't mention it, I wasn't sure if you were going to mention it when you talked about ones that only work on this plane, but there's another white card, ah Jolly Gerbles.
00:53:26
Speaker
I missed that one. Yeah. look get that And that one, it's also unique because it's whenever you gift a card, draw a card. So it it triggers off of gifting, which is a white mechanic in this set. ah And Uh, the flavor texts is with all the chaos going around. We thought it might be the perfect time to take a break and have a nice picnic. Would you like to join us? You know, this is, the mary part the say it's cute, but yeah, there's, there's a lot of, uh, honey names that kind of only work in the set to be found. Yes. And, and I, I love that. That's, that's so much fun to me. Yeah. All right. Well, cool.
00:54:14
Speaker
So I think that's an episode here. um And as always, want to just throw a shout out to the Discord. We got some great folks there who who They're always fun to chat with and it isn't. Speaking of the Discord, next week we're going to have Valerie Valdez on and we're soliciting questions for her in the Discord. So if you've got questions you want to ask about the Bloomboro story, get them in there. And that's our show for today. You can find all of the hosts on Twitter for now. Hobbs can be found at HobbsQ, Tay can be found at Tayatransends, and Alex can be found at Mel underscore Chronicler.
00:54:56
Speaker
Feel free to send us any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to the Goblin Lord pod on Twitter or email us at goblinlordpodcast at gmail dot.com. If you would like to support your friendly neighborhood gobsugs, our link tree can be found on our Twitter account and in the description of today's show. This has everything from various discount codes to the link for our Patreon. The music for today's show was by Wintergotten, who can be found at vintergotten at bandcamp dot.com. The art was done by Steven Raphael, who can be found at stevereffel on Twitter. Cob and Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing forthos content.
00:55:34
Speaker
Check them out on Twitter at hipsters MTG or online at hipstersofthecoast.com. Thank you for listening and remember goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers.