The flavor of Innistrad.

Innistrad--the badass new classical-horror-inspired Magic: The Gathering set--comes out the weekend of Sept 25-26, which is this approaching weekend at the time of my writing of this blog post.  And I am so ready for it.

There are a few things to understand before I start spouting off about how awesome this set is, though, and so first allow me to explain a few things about Magic for those that have never gotten a chance to play/look at a card.

For starters, each card always has an artist-drawn picture on the front, as well as specific abilities entailed below it and oftentimes flavor-text below that, which is generally a small quote that emphasizes something about the lore of the game or about what the card is exactly.  

"I stand for every cobbler, tanner, and fool in this town--and they stand for me."--SO EPIC.

I love playing the card game, of course, but another one of my favorite parts about Magic, and one which casual and hardcore players alike often enjoy, is the overall "flavor" of a card or set of cards.  And understand, when I say "flavor," I'm not referring to the bitter taste of shame that you get when you're defeated by your obviously luckier opponent.

No, the flavor of things in Magic: The Gathering is something that is crafted from the overall package of what a card is:  the name of the card, the artwork, the abilities of the card, the flavor-text, the background story of how the card interrelates with the larger Magic universe and most importantly the connections that the player already has with the things portrayed on the card.

Is it a dragon?  It should be huge, destructive and spouting fireball after fireball.  Is it an angel?  It should be ethereal, powerful and commanding.  Magic is all about creating a fantasy setting that people can identify with both in terms of popular myth and literature and in terms of offering things that you cannot get in any other card game, the foremost of which being an engaging, badass storyline that players can easily let themselves into. 

Thar be dragons (that blow your shit up) about.

This is horrifically nerdy of me to make this comparison, but a well-flavored Magic card often seems to me to be like what people describe as good wine: a heady bouquet of every single aspect of the creation of the item coming together in a perfect harmony that agrees with you somewhere at a deep level in your brain, be it in a sense of admiration of how the wine tastes or how absolutely cool as hell or fun to use the card is.

But now onto Innistrad itself, eh?

While I may not have much money or really plan on going hogwild over buying this set (keyword: plan), both the absolutely amazing art direction and sheer flavor of the Innistrad block is something that has enraptured me ever since I saw the first spoiler images for the cards a few months ago.

Ravenous werewolves bound, aristocratic vampires stalk, slavering zombies wander, and heroic humans wage battle against the forces of the night in the world of Innistrad.  And it is this age-old battle of light and dark that is fully realized in the stunning artwork and the epic flavor-text of the cards that is precisely why I love Innistrad.

Not only that, but a new, awesome mechanic in the set--the double-sided card--does even more to emphasize the duality between the two opposing basic forces in Innistrad, of which has never been seen before in Magic: The Gathering.  

Notice the sun and moon icons on the reverse sides of the card.  Nice!

Flavorwise, the double-sided cards are just awesome to me, mostly because they denote some kind of physical change in the creature that is depicted brought on by actions in the storyline of Magic, be it humans into werewolves or monsters caused by strange magic rituals, or vampires into bats/cooler vampires through...well... you know, the bullshit that vampires do.

The double-sided cards plus the obvious classic horror motiff that permeates the set resonate with me so much on the stringy, nerdy levels of my brain that I really can't help but love looking at and reading the abilities of the cards.

I mean, come on!  Zombies preparing to crash through a damn stained glass window! 

That same joy that I felt as a kid reading science fiction novels and "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" are all awakened when I play Magic; even more so when I look at Innistrad's list of cards, which also evoke the Brom Stoker and voluminous tomes of ghost stores that I so eagerly devoured in my youth.

Alright, I think I've talked enough about Magic: The Gathering now.  This is just making me want to spend more money that I don't have...

If you're like me and live in a city with a moderately-sized trading-card shop, there will most likely be some Innistrad release events going on during the 24-25 of September, so definitely try to check it out if you have any interest at all in playing Magic.  Now is a great time to start!  

But if not, hey, that's fine too.  Just do yourself a favor and check out some of the awesome artwork on the cards now that you know how much work goes into them.

And maybe, just maybe, try to savor the flavor, eh?  Heh heh. 

U c whut I did thar?