Assault on Mirrodin Party
Hello, and welcome to...wait, hang on a moment. One of the zombies just handed me something. Let me read this...uh-huh...uh-huh...right...yeah...oh. Oops. Apparently we decided to take this week off, claiming labor day as some kind of excuse. I thought the office felt a little devoid of...what's it called...life? Yeah, life.
Because I love you so much (and in no way because some very nice people associated with Wizards of the coast were kind enough to invite the NNW staff in as media to their recent PAX afterparty celebrating (and debuting cards from) the upcoming set Scars of Mirrodin) I'm going to write you an article anyway. Be warned, though: this article is all about Magic (as an aside, I know that I talk alot about Magic, especially considering NNW has nothing whatsoever to do with the game. I do so because Magic is a game that I absolutely love, and I assume (because no one tells me otherwise) that a lot of you enjoy Magic as well as D&D and other roleplaying games. So, let me just say thank you, readers, for indulging me in this, and if you want me to spend less time talking about Magic (or, alternatively, more time...) please let me know.).
So, where was I? Right. As I pray nightly that none of you are aware, before I worked for Necromancers of the Northwest I had a very brief stint with Examiner.com. It didn't turn out that well, because, at the time, I didn't really feel it would be O.K. for me to write articles with design content in them, and that I was really only supposed to be reporting things (I would later learn by the examples of others that this isn't really the case, but by then I had basically moved on from Examiner). I also suffered from the fact that, as someone who lacked inside sources, basically everything I wrote was something that you could have read elsewhere, which led me to write less articles than I probably could have. The important thing about my tenure with Examiner, for the purposes of this story, at least, is that while I was there, I managed to develop a few journalism contacts, which is why I was at the Assault on Mirrodin party with a media badge around my neck.
For those who don't know, Scars of Mirrodin is an upcoming Magic set. As in, next month upcoming. What's more, longtime fans of the game have a lot to look forward to. With only a handful of cards revealed so far (I'm getting there...or just scroll down really quick and ignore my rantings) I can only speculate about the set's mechanics. But at this point everyone and their grandmother can finally be certain that not only does Scars of Mirrodin feature the return of the plane of Mirrodin, it also features the return of Phyrexia (cue girlish fan-squealing here).
The party was a blast and...oh, all right, fine. You want cards? Here, look at cards!
There, that leave you a little more satisfied? I assume anyone who wants to see previews from the set won't be stopping by here first to find them, so I didn't bother to take pictures of any of the stuff that was unveiled at the party in Amsterdam. If you want a more complete source for spoiled Scars of Mirrodin cards, I'd recommend trying here. (By the way, if you noticed the conspicuous absence of Elspeth from these pictures, don't blame me. Somebody told her I was a necromancer, and she decided she didn't want to pose for me anymore. If you thought she was kinda snobby in the books, well...I recommend you don't try striking up a conversation with her on the street. It's always "Bant" this and "Bant" that with her, like no other plane can even compare.)
For people who avoided this year's party because of last year's, I'm sorry to say you kinda missed out. The scavenger hunt was much more impressive, the prizes were far more fabulous (more on that below), it was a lot less crowded (though still packed a little tight), and, perhaps most importantly of all, the food was now mobile, meaning that instead of waiting in line for half an hour to get a paper plate with some questionable nachos, friendly staff from the Showbox walked around with little platters of orderves, which changed depending on which moon was up.
What's that, you say? I never mentioned the moons?
That may not be the best picture in the world, but in the background you can see the big moon they had up on the stage (unless it was supposed to be Mirrodin itself...I couldn't really tell). As Mirrodin fans will know, the plane has 5 moons: one for each color of mana. As the party went on, the moons changed (and with them, the lighting, music, and, as I mentioned, food). A really cool part of the scavenger hunt involved clues that could only be read under the right color of lighting. And, of course, there was a big projector displaying Mirrodin's landscape and some flavor text extracts from as-yet unnamed cards. This was one of my favorite parts of the party (I devoured all the spoilers from the Amsterdam party before heading to this one, so only a handful of the cards were new to me), and I got some pictures. Wanna see? Of course you do!
You see that funny-looking symbol on the right? The one with the circle with the line through it? If you're a big Magic geek, you know that that symbol is associated with Phyrexia. Don't believe me? Ask Wizards. Allright, fine, well, I guess it's old news by now that Phyrexia is really coming back (those of you who took the time to look at my old Examiner page will even find that I mentioned such rumors way back when, something like a year ago), but secretly I had always feared that they were going to turn out to be false, so seeing this symbol really took a weight off my shoulders.
Apparently this symbol stands for the natives of Mirrodin, which, if Aaron Forsythe (who was running the scavenger hunt and making numerous announcements on stage) is to be believed, are called Mirrans.
Does this mean Karn is due for a Planeswalker card? I haven't the foggiest. But it certainly seems like a possibility. It does seem worth pointing out that so far, though we know that there's lots of Phyrexians around, we still can't be certain whether or not ol' Yawgy survived. Will he be making an appearance? Will that appearance be on a card? For now, all we can do is speculate and dream (or, if phyresis isn't your thing, nightmare may be the more appropritate word).
The gem of the party, however was the replica Mox Opal (pun totally intended. I know, I'm a bad person), which was given away as the grand prize in the scavenger-hunt-turned-gameshow-extravaganza.
This picture really doesn't do it justice. If you're wondering what a Mox Opal is, you fail reading comprehension for this article, and should go back to the beginning and take a closer look at those pictures.
Finally, for those of you who read this column regularly and may have been wondering: yes, I did get a chance to meet Mark Rosewater, and yes, I did manage to avoid any kind of lawsuit or restraining order. We didn't talk long (he was quite busy), but he seems like a very nice guy (though a lot shorter than one would expect). I did happen to be in the right place at the right time to watch as the bouncer for the VIP section wouldn't let him in for some reason, which was pretty comical to watch, in the same way that it would be funny to watch George Clooney be barred from getting into a private showing of some movie he did. To Mark's credit, he handled it very well, considering he was probably the biggest VIP in the room, considering he led the design team for the set that was being unveiled. He didn't get angry, he just waited until he could get the attention of someone already in the VIP section, call her over, and within about thirty seconds she was pulling him up past the bouncer, who she gave a very stern look to. He spent the next hour or so cooped up back there, but I couldn't say whether it was because he didn't want to be mobbed by fans (again, to his credit, he was very good about that later, when it was revealed he was the "spokesperson" for the Phyrexian team, and half the party suddenly swarmed up around him), or because he was afraid that if he left he wouldn't be able to get back in.
...aaaaaand that's a wrap. As I said before, we're all taking the week off here at NNW, so this is the last article you'll be seeing until Monday the 13th. To make it up to you, though, we'll be doing some stuff with our forum this week, which will hopefully increase the amount of input we recieve from all of you (thus allowing us to better provide the kind of content you want to see).
Firstly, this week is the debut of our Weekly Poll in the forums, so please drop in and tell us what you think.
Secondly, to help make up for a lack of content this week, I'm setting aside a spot in the forum where you all can ask questions or bring up topics you'd like me to discuss. If there's enough of a response, this Friday I'll put up another Dark Designs devoted exclusively to answering your questions. If there isn't, I'll still see if I can't address them in the forum.
Until then, may you get a chance to meet your hero, and may he not be a disappointment.