No Reservations II, pt. 7d—Ice Age

{Oh gods, where do I start?}
Reality Twist; I’m not even certain how to rate this. I’ll give a final verdict at the end.
Price


Arguments For:

• The cumulative upkeep cost is prohibitively high.
• Doesn’t hit , so it does nothing against other decks.
• Doesn’t hit lands without the mentioned subtypes, which is actually relevant in these modern times, what with all the nonbasic multilands running rampant.

Arguments Against:

• Fucks over everything but Islands, making the game unplayable by everyone else.
• Doesn’t hit Islands, so the player is allowed to continue playing their own game of “Haha, you can’t do anything!”
• We already have the listed examples of cards that screw with the mana system, do we really need such a drastic “Fuck you” as Reality Twist?

In the end, I think there’s only one logical solution: Banish BOTH Reality Twist & Naked Singularity to The Burn Pile for such blatant disregard for the game, for balance, for interaction, and for The Color Pie. 83 & Naked Singularity. I doubt we’ll need to make any more categories, but, knowing The Reserved List & early design bullshit, this is just a hope at best.

{WE JUST FUCKING DID THIS!!!}
Ritual of Subdual 84
Price

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, WIZARDS?! Nowadays, you have this many cards devoted to doing the same or similar things in the exact same set, it’s automatically & immediately considered to be a mini-theme of your set. FUCK!!! People complained about Mirrodin block, when The Mana System meant nothing & you could do whatever you wanted, but this proved that there’s an equal and opposite side of that coin, where The Mana System means nothing & you can’t do jack shit! My Melvin is fuming right now!

{”73 men sailed up from the San Francisco Bay…”}
Skeleton Ship 87, reprinted as a Skeleton Pirate.
Price


”…got off of the ship, and here’s what they had to say”, though we would’ve also accepted Nigerian Skeleton Crew.

I know for a fact that many players have been clamoring for a reprint of Skeleton Ship specifically, so this is for them. Personally, I see nothing wrong with it, especially since it’s much less debilitating than that godawful Cunning Sparkmage/Basilisk Collar debacle.

{I think I just lost 3 SAN reading the Gatherer text, & I STILL can’t understand it! What the actual fuck, Wizards?!}
Snowblind 85
Price

Thank god for the Gatherer comments, or I would’ve never understood what the hell Snowblind does, or why it deserves The Burn Pile.

{It’s the art that does it for me.}
Soldevi Golem 88, downgraded from to , as per Masters Edition IV.
Price


I think I’ve milked the “Why was this a rare?!!?!!Oneoneone” joke enough. Let’s all agree that they were ignorant¹ at best, bloody stupid at worst, and move on. (There’s not much to say about Soldevi Golem really, beyond the fact that it’s a perfectly serviceable .)

{This would’ve been a perfect card to reprint for Neil Patrick HarrisNew Phyrexia}
Spoils of Evil 89
Price

There really isn’t any equivalent card of which I’m aware, unfortunately. The only real problem with both this and the next card is that their names and their illustrations are similar enough that I often confuse them with each other, and I know I can’t be alone in this confusion. I’m glad that nowadays, they’d avoid such close similarities.

{As a Jew, it’s hard for me to look at this card and not think of things like Schindler’s List.³}
Spoils of War 90
Price

Again, not very many cards I can think of that are like this. The only one that comes to mind is Thrive (Price), and that doesn’t have the same customizability among the targeted creatures that Spoils of War does. Actually, the most interesting thing about it is its restriction of locking down the value of X so that it MUST equal some quantity outside of the card itself or the mana available to cast it.

I wonder why haven’t Wizards done this more?

{Oh gods, this one breaks The Color Pie so hard it makes my head hurt!}
Storm Spirit; See below.
Price


There’s a war raging inside of me right now between my Melvin & my side that wants to reduce The Reserved List as much as possible (let’s call it Slasher). Slasher at least acknowledges Melvin enough to recognize that Storm Spirit breaks The Color Pie too hard to EVER be allowed back into Standard, and so, wants to give it a supplemental reprint. Melvin is just running through the Barbeque section of the local House of Orange, grabbing all the matches, incendiaries, and accelerants it can get its intransigent little fingers onto, all while screaming at the top of its tiny chibi lungs, “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEGETITAWAYFROMMEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!KILLITWITHFIRRRRRRRRRRREEEE!!!DESTROYTHEABOMINATIONN!!!”

Mel, bubeleh, you’re not really helping your case with such hysterics.

*sniff*But, it’s just so horrible! It brings great shame upon Baramizu-sensei and his Shikisai hyōgi-kai. only deals direct damage to attackers or blockers; hates fliers, so it only deals direct damage to them, and consequently is the least likely color to have flying; and has only ever done direct damage in conjunction with . Storm Spirit makes no くそー sense! Diamond Faerie, yes, but not this abomination!

Slasher, do you have any rebuttal?

Storm Spirit is a 6-mana, three-colored 3/3. Lightning Bolt—

If you say anything even REMOTELY similar to “It dies to removal”, I, I, I’ll sic Jund-senpai on you!

Oh, please leave me out of this fatuousness, you deformed, upstart onigiri. I swear, too small to bother devouring, too irritating not to at least try to gouge out whole muscle groups. Next time you feel the need to wake me from my beautyrest, remember what happens to all the little Goblins on Myself, and further remember that when I get sleep-deprived, EVERYTHING LOOKS LIKE GOBLINS!

What a thoroughly unpleasant plane!

Aw, he’s just cranky ‘cause he’s tired.

And what’s he like normally?

A bit wittier, a lot more erudite, and certainly much more creatively violent with his prose.

I like him already.

I stand by my previous statement, but with additional emphasis!

Can we please get back to Storm Spirit?

It’s your decision.

God, you two sound weird in unison! Never do that again!

Okay.

I thought I told you–y’know what? Nevermind. Ruled in favor of a Commander reprint. 39

{Let’s just move on to—Oh, what the fuck is this shit?!}
Trailblazer 86⁵
Price


Trailblazer is objectively a bad card. Bad to our modern eyes, and bad on its own superlatively dubious merits. Mono- should NOT get straight up unblockability, that’s ’s thing. Mono- gets trample, it gets Rhox’s ability, it gets Steel Leaf Champion’s ability, but NOT “can’t be blocked”!

Think of the Shikisai hyōgi-kai!

{Crap, I’m glad this is ove–*SLAM!* OF COURSE! Of course I plow right into a massive wall of text! Why the fuck should I expect ANYTHING less?!!}
Winter’s Chill 87
Price


40OZ TO FREEDOM SO I’LL TAKE THAT WALK!

{Footnotes}