The mythical Renardeaux, Quebec, the nation’s best-kept secret

I was struggling to figure out how to express another problem, but I just thought of how to say it. This deeply entrenches metagaming into the game’s formats, since competitive players will even more greatly want to keep secret strategies in their pockets so the wider scene only finds out after they’ve already reaped the benefits.

Basically, it’s the Magic version of arbitrage. Everyone in Modern is sleeping on Séance, so you keep quiet about your Séance brew until it’s Pro Tour time and you get to cheese wins with an undercosted Séance.

Tangent time! During Pro Tour Amonkhet, there was a cheesy WU snake deck in draft. Some of the competitors expected Slither Blade to be badly underpicked, so forced decks full of those and Trials of Solidarity. It worked. Once this archetype went public, it stopped working because people were actually trying to pick that snake now. As far as I know, there was no other deck for Slither Blade, so this was basically insider metagame trading.

Okay, okay, paragraphs. I know you said this was about more than just Magic, but I don’t have enough confidence in my game design or macroeconomics knowledge to say anything insightful in that regard. I mean, some board games have auctions.

One obvious problem would be that some cards are good no matter the cost. I’m going to reanimate an Emrakul even if the card costs 40 mana. Manaless dredge will still be manaless.

In some formats, this would be an excessively obtuse ban list. Obviously oversimplifying, if anything with mana value 4 or higher is utterly unplayable in Modern, any popular cards that “price out” is effectively just banned. People are playing Llanowar Elves to hit 3 mana on turn 2 for a Stone Rain or something. If the price of either changes, whether up or down, that just kills the point of trying to play them.

Could this work in a game that’s explicitly designed around live market prices? Yeah, I’m sure NFT games are ready for their comeback :P.

And now, I present without comment that time Valve tried dynamic pricing in Counter-Strike: Source and people could spam buy cheap guns until the server crashed.

Newgrounds is dead serious about preserving its content, even with the death of Flash. Ruffle, the Flash emulator, was created by a former employee and Newgrounds is a major sponsor of the project. The most important movies have been converted to video as well.

When Newgrounds adopted high-resolution thumbnails about a decade and a half ago, there was a big volunteer campaign to recreate thumbnails for the entire back catalogue of the portal.

Thanks to Ruffle, people can and are still submitting Flash content to the portal, in addition to web-friendly content!

Strictly mechanically, it’s pie-compliant. Just because no card like that was printed prior to that Great Designer Search quiz doesn’t mean it’s a break. As a comparison, flying trample is typically mono-black, but there’s no issue with those two abilities on a blue-green creature; blue provides the flying and trample provides the green.

Oh, hey.

(2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, and 31 are prime numbers.)

Proper Quandrix representation

bunboat

Bork

My prerelease promo was Maha. I had enough lizards to run the BR lizard snowfireball. I won the event without losing a game. In one game, I kept a hand of just five lands and Maha!

I also had a very interesting game involving Iridescent Vinelasher. I had it and the offspring copy out alongside Flamecache Gecko. Late in the game, I burned out my opponent by discarding the castable cards I topdecked; I actually wanted to draw lands so I could play them for 2 damage every turn.

Yeah, Junk tokens felt like a natural setup for this set, even though it was probably developed independently.

Wanderhome and Root: the RPG are existing takes on this style of setting as an RPG. There’s a whole world of role-playing games beyond just that one!

Fountainport

The gang makes it to Fountainport, King Glarb’s 🐸 city. While they wait to get an audience with him, Helga explains that she was expelled from her apprenticeship under him because of a very embarrassing spellweaving mistake.

It was Glarb

They tell King Glarb about all the stuff. The attacks, the egg, Cruelclaw, etc. Getting suspicious, Helga 🐸 figures him out and yanks off the curtain behind his throne, revealing the egg.

“The Calamity Beast egg?” Helga reeled from shock. “You have it?”

“I should hope so,” King Glarb replied. “I paid Cruelclaw extremely well to bring it here.”

He plans on hatching and raising his own Calamity Beast in the hopes of defending Valley from the existing ones. He orders the mercenaries to get rid of Helga and company. But Helga is tired of thinking herself a failure.

Chaos

A lot of fighting breaks loose in the throne room. That gets put on hold when the storm dragon from the last episode shows up and attacks Fountainport. With Helga’s help, Mabel 🐭 gets high up to attack the dragon when it swoops in.

Coming in with a steel chair!

By god, it’s Maha, tackling the dragon from the side and clearing out the storm with a curtain of night! Maha bites off some of the dragon’s tail feathers, driving it away. The owl then perches at the edge of the floor, staring at Mabel. She suddenly realizes what Maha is here for and picks up the egg, offering it to the owl. It takes the egg and leaves peacefully.

Aftermath

• King Glarb and Cruelclaw fled, locations unknown. Some of Cruelclaw’s lackeys surrendered instead.
• Helga is now officially a hero and decides to stay in Goodhill, the town where Mabel lives. She briefly becomes possessed by a vision:

  “The kings in the dark will return. The mage in blue will bring about the end.”

• Before Ral 🦦 leaves, Mabel offers him a gift: a muffin and two decorative buttons, for him and his husband.

Unanswered questions

• Where is Jace?
• What’s going to happen with Pondside?
• What about that dragon?
• Maha was looking for its egg. Why are the other Calamity Beasts attacking?

“You’ll always be welcome here,” Mabel told him, stroking the gray, fuzzy leaves. “Perhaps we’ll journey together again.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Ral replied. “Can’t say I’ve loved having a tail, though.”

What?

Here comes the summary for episode 4!

Into the cave

An elder rat orders the others to stand down and invites the bloom gang to tea.

• Some mercenaries had come by recently. One was a weasel in a red hood: Cruelclaw. He led Maha to the swamp outside.
• Cruelclaw stole an egg of a Calamity Beast, which could be how he’s able to control them.
• Mabel 🐭 is determined to return the egg.

With encouragement from Zoraline 🦇, Helga 🐸 tries to meditate to get a vision of where Cruelclaw’s band went.

Fountainport. The home of King Glarb and her “greatest failure” under him.

Through the dandelions

The gang leaves for Fountainport. They take a shortcut through a dangerous dandelion field.

Ral 🦦 opens up a bit. He admits he’s a foreigner and that he misses his husband. He’s never had someone to miss before.

A storm is coming.

That’s not a Calamity Beast

A giant flying creature emerges from the storm clouds. It’s a four-winged hawk-bat, like what Helga drew in episode 1. She thought it was the Sun Hawk, but Ral calls it a dragon.¹

They try to sneak past, but the dragon notices them and attacks. Zoraline screeches to disorient it, and with Finneas’s 🐰 conductive arrow, Ral tases the dragon, driving it off.

Luckily, no one’s hurt. Ral dismisses the storm and they continue on.

[1] The dragon seems to have been transformed by Bloomburrow’s “animal rule”.

“May I ask where you hail from?” Finneas asked.

“Far away,” Ral replied.

“The Outer Woods?”

“Farther.”

Summary of episode 3.

Going to Pondside

Mabel 🐭, Helga 🐸, and the gang head to Pondside to see the aftermath of Maha’s attack. They chat about their pasts as they walk over.¹

Pondside is destroyed. No one is left. Footprints suggest that everyone fled to Haymeadow.

Squirrels

They spot two squirrels digging in the ruins and the gang eavesdrops on them:

• Maha attacked another place recently.
• Someone called Cruelclaw assigned them to this job.
• Their colleagues are going to Three Trees City.

The gang fights off the squirrels and their skeleton army. They decide to head to Three Trees City to track down those squirrels and investigate Cruelclaw.

Before leaving, Helga takes an etched copper orb and a wand from the ruins of her grandparents’ home. This feels like foreshadowing.

Three Trees City

The gang arrives by river boat. Mabel and Finneas 🐰 ask around if anyone has seen those two squirrel necromancers but stumble upon a boisterous otter.

The otter’s also looking for someone. Unknown species, blue cloak, and… tattoos? What are tattoos?

Helga shows him a drawing of a vision she had of a fox that matches his description. Things get tense when the otter starts hassling her for more information and Mabel steps in.

Flood

Before the altercation gets worse, panic erupts at the docks as the tide rises absurdly fast.

The Flood Gar, a Calamity Beast, arrives, carrying in a huge wave. Together with the otter, the current sweeps the gang away from Three Trees City. They climb out of the water into a damp cave, face to face with a bunch of rats that don’t welcome them.

[1] Small talk

• Helga was born near Three Tree City and later moved to Pondside. She got along well with her grandparents but not the rest of her family. She learned magic under King Glarb until she got kicked for a “mistake”.
• Finneas is a farmer from a long lineage of farmers. This is his first time leaving Goodhill.
• Gev 🦎 and Hugs 🦡 once travelled past the Outer Woods. Gev claims they fought squirrel necromancers, but he’s probably masking a traumatic experience.

“He’s not alone. There’s a lizardfolk, with green and black scales, and yellow eyes. And another small creature who’s hard to see. A dark cloud follows them.”

Summary of episode 2.

Helga wakes up

Helga drifts in and out of consciousness. She dreams of Maha, the Night Owl attacking various places, and in each place was a weasel in a red hood. When she wakes up, she finds herself in Mabel’s home. She tells her story to Mabel and the mayor: the visions, Maha’s attack on Pondside, coming over to get help. Mabel believes her and invites her to join her birthday party outside, reassuring her.

Mabel grabs Cragflame

While at the party, Mabel privately considers going to Pondside to help. She decides to bring out her family heirloom, Cragflame, after all. When she picks it up, it glows like fire, which she’s never seen it do.

The mayor gives a toast to Mabel, famed in Goodhill for her courage, then Mabel herself gives a speech. She commends Helga’s bravery for coming to warn of Maha. She holds up Cragflame, to the awe of the crowd, and calls on the townsfolk to join her in an aid mission to Pondside. Several volunteer. The audience is briefly stunned, but gradually start cheering.

Who’s coming?

• Helga
• Finneas, rabbit
• Hugs, badger
• Gev, lizard
• Zoraline, bat

Bedtime

Mabel and her family prepare for her departure and go to bed. She’ll leave in the morning.

Bonus exposition

• Long ago, the Calamity Beasts were more active in Valley
• The animals of Valley learned magic and wielded swords to fight them off
  • Notably, Lily of the Valley, wielder of Cragflame

Cragflame

• Lily of the Valley wielded this sword
• Crafted from the fang of a Calamity Beast
• Vaporizes wielders that don’t deserve to hold it

Mabel chewed pensively, then swallowed. “Everything is so peaceful here, but it feels fragile. As if a storm is about to break.”

Here’s a summary.

Helga

Helga is a frog artist who gets a vision of the Sun Hawk, a Calamity Beast. As she runs off to report her vision, warning bells ring and Maha, the Night Owl, attacks Pondside village. Helga survives the attack and flees, heading to the nearest village to warn them of Maha’s arrival.

Mabel

Mabel (the lead mouse) and her family are preparing for her birthday party. The nosy rabbit mayor prods her about bringing out her precious family heirloom (presumably Cragflame), but she refuses. Their conversation is interrupted when an exhausted frog shows up in town. The frog mentions an attack by a Calamity Beast, then collapses, unconscious. While rescuing the frog, Mabel wonders how she’ll bring this up to her family.

Ral

On Ravnica, Ral is lying in bed, malding about Jace and what he did on Thunder Junction. Ral wants to kill him. With a clue from the Wanderer, he follows Jace’s trail and planeswalks away. When he lands, he is shocked to find out he’s been transformed into a literal otter.

“I’m going to kill him!” Ral shouted, his eyes filling with lightning as he shook his paw at the sky.

My unsubstantiated guess is that it’s 2B, to work with the new booster pack structure. Mark my words in spoiler season.

Magic R&D coming out of hibernation to convince me to play this set. I’ve straight up not cared about anything else from the past few years.

Once Upon a Time is perhaps the greatest gameplay-flavor integration win Magic has ever had. For a while, standard matches all began with someone saying the name of the card.

RIP