Flavor Kitchen: Zendikar
Features
Deco_y
28 March 2018
976 views
28 March 2018
976 views
This is a new TappedOut article revolving around flavor. As long as I have played Magic: The Gathering, I have loved the flavor text on the cards more than anything else. Along with the art, which in itself is completed by world class artists that WoTC recruits, the flavor of a card is often held in as high regards as the abilities of the cards themselves.
As great as the art created for the cards is, as someone who cannot draw worth a damn, creating something of that caliber is simply out of the question for people such as myself. By a tenuous extension on those feelings, I have always been attracted to the flavor text on cards as someone who aspires to one day become a fantasy author. I love the way flavor text can convey specific emotions in order to help with the emotional wallop a card can exhibit onto a card's beholder. Prime examples being Vampire Nocturnus or a card like Near-Death Experience.
Around a month ago, as part of my rehabilitation back into Magic after taking many years off, I revisited my old Zendikar cards and gazed upon some of my favorites, such as Bloodghast. As great as the art is for Bloodghast in particular, it always made me a little disappointed that every card doesn't ship with flavor, due to space restrictions or just to opt for a clean look in the text box.
From that thought a metaphorical Lightning Bolt hit me from above. If the cards didn't ship with flavor text, what's stopping a schmuck like me creating some for them? Which is why I bring to you the Flavor Kitchen! An article series where I, resident self-proclaimed flavor text guru, go set by set and create Flavor Texts for cards that didn't ship with it, but very much deserved to.
Each article, I will go through an individual set, and give flavor text to each card that wasn't lucky enough to receive official text from Wizards. I'll take my favorites and create a top ten list to showcase to the TappedOut Community. As an added feature, I will issue a challenge for the readers to create flavor text for one card I couldn't quite nail down myself. The winner will be showcased in the following article!
Without further ado, let's get started.
Honorable Mention-
Archive Trap
I really liked how the explorer was searching for secrets and will most assuredly pay for it, which reflects the card's abilities as well.
Blade of the Bloodchief
This one was actually surprisingly hard. Since the card is all about people dying, I immediately thought of a river of blood with Vampires drinking from it. I just changed it up a bit to where it ended.
10: Bloodghast
True darkness will never die.
I used Bloodghast quite a bit in Standard, so I'm familiar with just how often it comes back. It has some very prototypical black abilities, so I coined this guy with his lofty title.
9: Journey to Nowhere
"You'll be dead long before you ever hit the bottom."
Funny enough I played against this card and back in my day I never really played with enchantment removal, so I never got my creature back usually until the game was over. Hense not seeing the bottom(the card back) until I was dead.
8: Vampire Nighthawk
"As darkness chills the land, the Nighthawk rule the skies. If you leave your home and force their hand, say your last goodbyes." - Zendikar proverb.
Nighthawk was THE Zendikar card for me as a primarily black player when I started. I wanted to make sure the flavor text made it seem like anything that happens on Zendikar went through them, which it did for me.
7: Goblin Bushwhacker
Not all Goblins are stupid. Some are crazy.
Honestly I love funny flavor for Goblins, so I just did the best funny text I could think of while looking at it.
6: Eternity Vessel
The stories of the past may be forgotten, but they will never be gone.
I love the idea of there being a place where you may have moved on from and forgotten it, just like a memory, but as soon as you remember it you relive it vividly. I wanted to capture that in the text, like the abilities on the card do.
5: Obsidian Fireheart
The land moves and breathes with life, and by extension, there exists a way to end that life.
Blaze counters need to come back, and I love the reminder text "The land continues to burn...". But I imagined the burning killing the land that if often described as alive on Zendikar.
4: Gigantiform
Where power talks, some have learned to scream.
Power comes to mind when you think of Zendikar, and this one just popped into my head.
3: Luminarch Ascension
"The Eldrazi push us back and tear at the lands of Zendikar! I shall leave here and ascend to the heavens, and my fury shall descend upon our enemies."
I really needed to think of a reason as to why you would want or need to summon a bunch of angels. So, I imagined an emboldened preacher attempting to save his plane by ascending to get help.
2: Burst Lightning
As the cracks in the soil grew deeper, the cracks in the sky grew brighter.
Easy. As you use more mana, the more impressive the magic. So I figured that cracks in the ground and cracks in the sky would be an impressive visual.
1: Bloodchief Ascension
"As she drew upon me, our eyes met. I had never experienced anything so magnetic; so lovely. As she sunk her fangs into my neck, I could only pray it would never stop." - Torn page from an explorer's journal.
I imagined an explorer stumbling upon this beautiful, mesmerizing vampire in some sort of dark cave and her beckoning and seducing him. The lost of life was pretty straightforward visual as fangs.
That's all I have for you this time. Look out for future entries in the series. Feel free to suggest what sets you'd like to see featured here, but until then here is the reader challenge for this entry:
Rite of Replication
Haha the one that I came up with was very similar to your second one. Good work.
March 29, 2018 1:47 a.m.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #3
"His rite embodied his right for multitude."
March 29, 2018 8:27 a.m.
Easybr0wnies343 says... #4
"As I finished the chant, I heard voices behind me exclaim, in unison with my own, 'Yes! It's finally worked!'"
~Filtys, River Invoker
March 29, 2018 10:13 a.m.
"Yeah, I've seen him. Come to think of it, I think I saw five of him!" ~ Zada, Goblin Landbreaker
April 1, 2018 5:57 p.m.
Pheardemons says... #8
"Do you feel alone? Well, there is a way to fix that."
"The ripples in the water showed him infinity, and he whispered to himself 'I'll never be alone again.'"
April 2, 2018 8:20 a.m.
spottedmink says... #9
"The roil of Zendikar does not always destroy the past. Sometimes it shapes the future. -Nayon Dar"
"The relics we seek are not always treasures. -Thada Adel"
"The merfolk provided an army to match the other Ally's combined force."
April 2, 2018 3:45 p.m.
Journey to Nowhere's one definitely sounds more like a black removal card and not white.
April 2, 2018 11:04 p.m.
crazyr3dd I don't know, White has a very strong sense of Justice. Justice can include the death penalty in many cultures so I feel it still fits. I feel like if the card was black it would be more... torturous?
But fair, in the next article I do another white exile enchantment that will feature more uniquely white flavor.
April 3, 2018 12:53 a.m.
Deco_y Something kinda cheeky referring to life being a journey and not a destination (that sorta thing) would work nicely.
April 3, 2018 1:13 a.m.
That would be good as well, though it would probably take me a while to figure out how to phrase sufficiently how one would take a journey forcibly, because that's how I view the card. But I really like that.
April 3, 2018 1:27 a.m.
"For gwyllions, the phrase 'He took a trip' could mean anything from a moonlit stroll through the moor or the recollection of someone falling through an empty world that has no beginning and no end."
How's this?
April 3, 2018 2:57 a.m.
It's good! I do feel like something short and sweet should be the winner. We'll find out tomorrow!
Cipher001 says... #1
I, too, love flavor text! Here's a few quick ones for Rite of Replication:
"Two is company, but five is a party."
"As Elshic/any name gazed into the scattered reflections of the pools before him, he realized that some of them were staring back."
"We all need some time to reflect."
March 29, 2018 12:51 a.m.