Masterpiece

Warning that this post gets nerdy!  And I admit to 2 fictional character crushes!* 

This October, Magic (MTG) is going back to Ravnica in the Guilds of Ravnica set. The hype is strong for the set. It usually is for every fall release (which in the MTG world is akin to summer movie blockbuster season) but this one is high because people love Ravnica. I didnt play when it first came out but I get. The world (about the size and equivalence to a planet in our real world) is one giant city. And a city built and rebuilt onto itself with green spaces, junkyards, halls, plazas, markets, etc. It is layered with stories moving across and vertically as the cityscape changes.

So that's neat. But it also has gangs! Well, guilds. Each guild is made up of a 2 color pair in the game. This is hard to explain without knowing the game but...the game has 5 colors and your deck can be 1, 2, 3,4 or all 5 of those. Players refer to their decks, often, by the names within the game for those colors. So...instead of saying this is my blue and white deck one can say..."This is my Azorius deck." Its branding but also fun since you can identify as a color identity. Its like a horoscope or a Myers Briggs but for Magic. Like I personally identify as Bant (White, Blue, Green) and it is why I am always one of those "do the right thing" type people. Albeit the amount of yelling I do with my kids may make me a bit Boros or Jeskai

This is also the 3rd time we have gone to Ravnica so people who like that world (and people really keen on these guilds) are excited to build on it. No other world has gotten that many go arounds. MTG's original plane, Dominaria, had many years of exploration but that is before MTG committed to making planes with clear identities.

Not that MTG (technically their parent company, Wizards of the Coast, subsidiary of Habro) needs more hype but they teased masterpieces.

What are those? 

Masterpieces are cards not technically in the set but still available in packs of it. They were featured in the last few (about 3 years) big sets and they helped boost sales. They have district art, framing and often were big money cards. It was like a Golden Ticket type promotion. And rare...like 1 in every 1000 packs. For context a whole box of packs has 36. 

I only ever opened 2 from the first time they did this. One was a gorgeous Sol Ring...a card with a lot of MTG history and a lovely $300 retail value. 

For Ravnica 3, MTG has masterpieces. It is not magical items or locations but planeswalkers. This is unique to the game but they are powerful wizards/warriors with the ability to travel between the planes of realtiy at will. Like Quantum Leap! The game treats them like superheroes and villains and the story is set around their adventures.

Ok...so cool...alternate art versions of key characters. Lets go!

Well...the good news is you can buy all of them in one swoop! Neat...no more luck of the draw. Bad news...well the whole set is $250 and only available in a limited print run from the Hasbro store. MTG has had other collectors only type products but you have been able to get them on Amazon or most importantly your local game store. So while these are in the same vein as the other masterpieces they don't have that treasure feel. And I have never used the Hasbro store but I hear that it is a clunker of a website akin to how I used to register for classes in college. Can I wax my modem to try and make it go faster?

A lot of time and energy has been spent on why this move feels bad by people supremely more talented than I. I suggest reading/watching them. Mine is more personal

One of the fancy planeswalkers is Elspeth. Specifically, Elspeht Knight Errant. For certain chracters there are different versions based on their time/place in the story. 

Here is the card:

And here is high res full art by artist @zack_stella

OMG...i'm in love. 😍 Well I have always been since learning about her character. She is one of my fictional character crushes. No, its not weird! As a younger man I had a major crush on Sailor Moon. Its not weird It's not. Stop laughing. Ok, it can get weird. This is the Internet and Rule 34 but its not that here.  How is it different than liking the werewolf guy from Twilight. Is that still a thing? Stop laughing.

She is a bad ass knight who escape her home home world after it was invaded and has fought trying to keep those people off other planes. And her story has ups and downs with wins and losses and...then...they killed her off. Fuck. Why?!?!?!? If you notice in the art she has has a hole in her armor where the God of the Sun (who betrayed her after she saved him) stabbed her. It's all quite the Greek tragedy (which makes sense since this happened on a plane inspired by Greek myths) and lame. She got "refrigerator-ed" and, yes, I know she will come back one say. The art hints at it since she is in the underworld and the gold mask lets her come up to the living world but....when!? Or ever!?

But look at it! The eerie colors and general smoky dreary sfumato of he underworld cut by the fire of her torch and the glint of the mask. She is coming back! YAASSS! She usually wears a hood (Hoods make any character 100% times more bad ass. Nothing is better than pulling up a hood and running into battle!) but she looks good without. She obviously has been through a lot (note the fraying on the sash and the damn hole where the Sun God betrayed her) but she will come back! YAAASSS!

I hope...😭

Stop laughing! Laugh at the other posts!

All that said she is an awesome character. Bad ass and looks good without the "female armor" trope. She isn't fighting plane hopping monsters in a bikini. She isn't fighting to save a boyfriend. She isn't a token girl character. SHE KICKS ASS! She is awesome and I want that card but I need a combination of $250 and luck on 10/3/18 when these go on sale. Considering that I could get 2 whole boxes of the latest set and still have about 50 bucks leftover spending that at my local store (Or that I would have $250 to drop at one time on MTG) it is a pipe dream. On the secondary market the cards will likely be even more. Nearly double. And there are other versions of Elspeth and other printings of Elspeth Knight Errant with lovely artwork to. And no I don't use her in any of my decks but I may make a kitchen table casual white weenie deck and all her versions would rock in it. 

*Its Sailor Moon and Elspeth if you dont want to read all this. Don't @ me!