Flavor Kitchen: Shards of Alara
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Deco_y
5 June 2018
677 views
5 June 2018
677 views
Welcome one and all, I am the resident Flavor maestro Deco_y. For those unaware since it's been a WHOLE month since I posted, this is the series where we visit our favorite Planes of sets past and liven them up with some delicious flavor text.
Now I can't promise weekly updates anymore, but I'll aim to get them done every other week. It makes you appreciate it that much more right? Also, before we launch back into it, I would like to thank the great readers who commented every week on earlier entries. It wasn't always easy to hit the deadline(Sometimes I still didn't lol), but I did it because I felt enough of you were engaged in it, so I appreciate it greatly.
I had a request to do Shards of Alara in a previous article, so I figured better now than never. As someone who started when Zendikar dropped, I was never a part of the Alara generation. I always knew the names of the different parts of Alara(Jund, Naya, etc) but I had never actually looked into the backstory behind the labels. I know it's borderline blasphemous for someone who claims to love flavor to not have learned this already, but I'm extremely glad that I took the cue to learn about Alara. Finally, I was surprised to see that there were a lot of cards that already had flavor text, so I had a reduced selection to go off of. But alas, I completed my journey through Alara. Let's take a peak at the spoils.
Without further ado, let's get started.
Honorable Mention-
Kederekt Leviathan
10: Savage Hunger
What starts as a curious taste turns into an insatiable obsession.
9: Tidehollow Sculler
It patrols the underworld of Esper, leading the righteous astray and the wicked homeward.
8: Tar Fiend
The depths of despair, in form and function.
7: Resounding Silence
Silence on Bant is just as terrifying as the rumblings on Jund.
6: Caldera Hellion
When faced with the fire, Jund residents had two choices. Be consumed by it, or become it.
5: Skill Borrower
Esper Wizards can't know everything. At least, not at once.
4: Corpse Connoisseur
Inelegance in life, splendor in death.
3: Quietus Spike
For those who savor the delicacy found in agony.
2: Fatestitcher
The winds of fate are often confused for bits of string.
1: Scourge Devil
"Those who play with the devil's toys will be brought by degrees to wield his sword." - R. Buckminster Fuller
Gift of Immortality
"I am by your side, always." - Heliod, God of the Sun
Chained to the Rocks
For his hubris, the Gods trapped him far above all other mortals.
Now for those looking to get their feet wet, here's your challenge. Good luck:
Hell's Thunder
Pheardemons says... #2
"When the clouds gather, there is much more to be afraid of than thunder and lightning."
"That sound isn't just thunder, it is the screaming rage of Hell."
June 6, 2018 12:08 a.m.
ersatz_olorin says... #3
"Is that cloud... smiling?"
"As the Shards grow ever closer, strange weather patterns warn of the coming storm."
"The people of Grixis may have forgotten dragons, but the land has not."
June 6, 2018 12:23 a.m.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #4
"Never forget: the lightning starts at the ground."
One quick not: Caldera Hellion is a jund card, not a grixis one.
June 6, 2018 2:38 a.m.
"Few things are as terrifying as a living being not meant to be."
June 6, 2018 6:16 a.m.
SecretEgret says... #6
"Those who play with the devil's toys will be brought by degrees to wield his sword." - R. Buckminster Fuller
"Those who play with the devil's toys will be brought by degrees to wield his sword." - THOMAS FULLER
Not the inventor/engineer, the author/philosopher.
June 6, 2018 10:36 a.m.
Those who don't learn to fear Grixis Thunderstorm never learn to.
June 6, 2018 10:59 a.m.
Weird I found the quote from multiple sites saying Buckminster. I’ll fix that when I get home and/or confirm it.
June 6, 2018 12:24 p.m. Edited.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #10
It's the keyword. Only jund had devour. Grixis had unearth.
June 6, 2018 2:40 p.m.
"The dragons rule the skies in both life and death."
"Dragons don't merely rule the sky, they are the sky."
June 6, 2018 4:38 p.m.
BlazingAbsol says... #12
"On Grixis, death reigns from below and rains from above"
June 7, 2018 3:56 a.m.
TheRedGoat says... #13
"The skies on Grixis are never clear, only less angry."
June 7, 2018 5:56 p.m.
TheVectornaut says... #14
Should you hear the thunderclap, be grateful, not afraid. Those struck by the hellish bolts will be ash before the sound ever reaches their ears.
I've had a lot of fun with this card and Hellspark Elemental in a Rakdos aggro deck. I always found it interesting that many cards of this sort are named after the thunder rather than the far more deadly lightning. My guess is that humanity's obsession with thunder is rooted in an innate fear of loud noises. I tried to capture the relationship between that primal reaction and the legitimate danger preceding it in my entry.
June 7, 2018 9 p.m.
I feel like Najeela, the Blade-Blossom should have flavor text that goes something like "Let's do that again!"
June 11, 2018 2:49 p.m.
BlazingAbsol: Nice! very neat. Mine: Most people think that hell comes from below. Those who do will most certainly die.
Bushwhack says... #1
"On Grixis, a little rain certainly CAN hurt you." ~ Kess, Dissident Mage
This plays on the age old saying "A little rain never hurt anyone". Yeah mom. You're right. Except in Grixis.
June 5, 2018 11:14 p.m.