"Every. Effing. Artifact.: Why Memnarch Has My Attention."

 "Every. Effing. Artifact.: Why Memnarch Has My Attention."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

One of the things I saw in the Reality Fracture EDH precon spoilers that gave my heart a little twinge was Memnarch.

Not the Memnarch I knew and loved.

Well… technically, it is Memnarch.

But this is the good Memnarch.

The Echoverse version.

A far cry from the Memnarch who spent his time stealing other creatures from other planes and generally making everyone’s life miserable.

This Memnarch is Memnarch, the Warden.

And honestly?

I like this guy.

A lot.

For starters, he is a ten-mana colorless Wizard who is also an indestructible 8/9.

This guy is tough.

Really, really tough.

He also creates two 1/1 colorless Myr artifact creature tokens.

Those lovable little metal guys that were scattered all over Mirrodin, doing all sorts of jobs before the Phyrexians came along and decided that everyone needed to have a much worse day.

But that's not even the part that got me excited.

The really exciting thing about this Memnarch is what happens when he attacks.

You draw a card for each artifact you control.

Each.

Effing.

Artifact.

Read that again.

Every artifact.

And immediately, my brain went straight to my Sai, Master Thopterist Commander deck.

Because Sai does not believe in owning a reasonable number of artifacts.

Sai believes in production.

You cast artifacts.

You make Thopters.

You make more artifacts.

You sacrifice artifacts.

You make more tokens.

And eventually your battlefield starts looking less like a Commander deck and more like a small industrial complex.

And now Memnarch walks into that mess and says:

"You know all those artifacts you have?"

"Yes?"

"Draw a card for each one."

Excuse me?

Each one?!

This is the kind of card that gets me more excited than some of the other obviously powerful cards in the precon.

Because this is exactly the kind of ridiculous interaction that makes me want to build a deck.

I can already see the battlefield.

Sai has been doing Sai things.

There are artifacts everywhere.

Thopters are everywhere.

Myr are everywhere.

Somehow there are probably several other tokens whose original purpose I have completely forgotten.

And then Memnarch attacks.

And suddenly my artifact army isn't just an army.

It's a library search system with legs.

Yes, Memnarch costs ten mana.

Yes, that is a lot of mana.

But when the reward is potentially drawing a card for every artifact you control, I suddenly find myself asking a very dangerous question:

"How many artifacts can I make?"

And if you have played enough Commander, you already know that this is how it starts.

You tell yourself you're just going to add a few cards.

Then you need more artifact generators.

Then more token makers.

Then more ways to sacrifice them.

Then more ways to recur them.

Then suddenly you're staring at your decklist at two in the morning wondering why you have 47 artifacts.

And somewhere in the middle of all that madness, Memnarch is sitting there waiting to turn every single one of them into another card.

That Reality Fracture precon was already looking interesting.

But now?

It's looking really, really fine.

"Brewer’s Madness: At Last, The Ur-Sphinx Has Arrived."

 "Brewer’s Madness: At Last, The Ur-Sphinx Has Arrived."

By:

Virgilio F. De Leon Jr., MD

Every once in a while, I am afflicted with a condition I like to call Brewer’s Madness.

It is an all-consuming desire to build decks—Commander decks, specifically. And not just decks that are proven to work. No, I have a particular talent for trying to make decks work even when the tribe or strategy has absolutely no business being supported.

My last bout of Brewer’s Madness had me brewing decks for Spiders and Turtles.

Oh, and a third tribe:

Sphinxes.

Now that there is an abundance of Spider and Turtle commanders, I have been able to look at the situation with a slightly more sober mind and wonder:

When are the Sphinxes finally going to get their turn?

And then The Ur-Sphinx was spoiled as part of the Reality Fracture preconstructed Commander deck.

I finally got to say:

“Ah. There you are. At last.”

Aside from Sharuum the Hegemon, I really couldn't remember a Sphinx lord that I would consider a great commander to lead the tribe. I had previously settled for Unesh from Amonkhet to lead the way.

But now?

With five new Sphinxes from Reality Fracture, plus this new Sphinx Avatar, Unesh can finally take his rightful place in the 99.

Enter the Ur-Sphinx

The Ur-Sphinx gathers its brethren in only Esper colors, giving us access to white, blue, and black.

It is a nine-mana, flying 10/10 with the much-celebrated Eminence mechanic, allowing you to cast your larger Sphinxes for a colorless mana discount.

And finally, we have what I would call a proper Sphinx Matters Commander deck.

The Ur-Sphinx rewards you for attacking with Sphinxes. For each Sphinx that attacks, each player mills that many cards.

And then comes the really fun part:

For each player, you may cast a card that player milled this way for free.

Yes.

For free.

Now let's talk about that kind of value.

The more Sphinxes you attack with, the more cards everyone mills, and the larger your potential pool of free spells becomes.

Most permanents and spells can be cast this way without paying their mana costs. Lands are the obvious exception, which is one of the areas where the Ur-Sphinx is more limited than its draconic counterpart, the Ur-Dragon.

The Ur-Dragon can simply drop permanents onto the battlefield through its ability.

The Ur-Sphinx, on the other hand, needs to dig through the cards that were milled and find something worth stealing.

But that is still an absurd amount of potential value.

Let's say you attack with three Sphinxes.

Each player mills three cards.

With four players at the table, that's 12 cards milled across the entire pod.

Then you get to choose a card from each player's milled cards and cast those four cards for free.

That's four free spells from a pool of 12 cards.

And suddenly, my little Sphinx deck doesn't look so little anymore.

The Dragon Problem

I have to admit, though, that the Ur-Sphinx feels a little more limited than its dragon counterpart.

The Ur-Dragon doesn't particularly care what it puts onto the battlefield. If you can get a permanent into play, great.

The Ur-Sphinx needs something useful to be milled.

That introduces a little more uncertainty.

But honestly?

I'm okay with that.

Because watching three or four giant Sphinxes attack while simultaneously turning everyone's libraries into a buffet of potentially free spells sounds like exactly the kind of nonsense that makes Commander fun.

I still love my Dragons.

The Ur-Dragon has already earned its place in my heart—and probably several thousand dollars worth of cardboard in my collection.

But I might seriously consider building this Esper Sphinx Avatar in the future.

After all, I already have most of the cards that would fit right into it.

And that is usually how Brewer's Madness begins.

You tell yourself:

“I already have most of the cards.”

Then you buy the cards you're missing.

Then you realize you need a few upgrades.

Then you need a few more Sphinxes.

Then suddenly you have a deck.

And somehow, against all reason, you are already thinking about the next one.

Brewer's Madness strikes again.

At last, though, the Sphinxes have given me a reason to embrace it.

"The End of Oak Street Paradox."

 

"The End of Oak Street Paradox."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

The plot of The End of Oak Street is loosely explained through the concept of wormholes. The story follows a family whose entire neighborhood is somehow transported 200 million years into the past, landing in the same general area during the age of the dinosaurs.

And yes, before I go any further, there are spoilers ahead.

So if you haven't watched the movie yet, you might want to stop reading here.

My wife had a great idea about how the movie was going to go.

She thought this would essentially be a simple Point A-to-Point B survival movie. The family would somehow make it through the dinosaur apocalypse, escape the prehistoric wilderness, and eventually return home more or less intact.

Which, considering that practically everyone else in the neighborhood seemed to be getting eaten by dinosaurs, was already a fairly generous interpretation of the family's chances.

Then Greg, the father, played by Ewan McGregor, dies.

My wife could not believe it.

And honestly, neither could I.

Except the movie apparently wasn't finished with Greg yet.

About fifteen minutes before the neighborhood is transported into the past, Anne Hathaway's character calls her husband, who is still very much alive at this point, asking him to have pizza delivered to the area in the hills.

And because of the way the movie handles the timeline, Greg survives.

The family is reunited.

There are tears.

There are hugs.

Everyone is happy.

The end.

Except...

A tiny thought suddenly appeared in my head.

"Wait."

That's a paradox.

Now, my wife had just wanted to watch a movie.

I, unfortunately, had just discovered a temporal problem and apparently could no longer leave it alone.

Here's the problem.

The family exists in the original timeline. The neighborhood is then transported 200 million years into the past. We, as the audience, are allowed to see what happens in that prehistoric timeline, including Greg saving his wife from being eaten by a dinosaur.

That means Greg's actions in the past directly affect whether his wife survives.

And if his wife survives, she can help their children survive.

And if the children survive, they can eventually reach the portal that allows them to return.

But here's the problem:

What happens if Greg isn't there?

Because in the original timeline, the family has effectively gone into the past.

Greg's survival in the ending depends on information and events connected to the family's journey into that past.

But the family's survival in the past depends on Greg being there to save his wife.

Remove Greg from that timeline, and his wife may die.

If his wife dies, the children may not survive.

If the children don't survive, they never reach the portal.

If they never reach the portal, the events that lead to Greg surviving don't happen.

Which means...

Greg doesn't survive.

Which means his wife doesn't survive.

Which means the children don't survive.

Which means they never reach the portal.

Which means Greg doesn't survive.

And suddenly we've gone from a dinosaur survival movie to Doctor Who before breakfast.

My wife, who had simply wanted to enjoy the movie, was understandably not thrilled that I had decided to perform a full temporal mechanics analysis immediately afterward.

She basically wanted to watch people escape dinosaurs.

I wanted to know whether Greg's existence was causally dependent on his own family's survival, which was itself dependent on Greg's existence.

Eventually, I did manage to explain the paradox to her.

She understood it.

She was still annoyed that I had thought about it.

And honestly, I can't blame her.

Sometimes you just want to watch a movie, eat your breakfast, and move on with your day.

Unfortunately, my brain occasionally sees a perfectly good ending and says:

"That's nice. But have you considered the implications of the space-time continuum?"

My wife did not appreciate this contribution.

But I still think the movie has a problem.

Greg isn't just the father who survived the dinosaurs.

He may also be the reason the story could happen in the first place.

And that, my friends, is how a simple dinosaur movie became a breakfast argument about causality.

"When Machines Become Family: What My Wife Has No Emotion Says About Loneliness."

"When Machines Become Family: What My Wife Has No Emotion Says About Loneliness."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

I recently finished watching My Wife Has No Emotion on Netflix.

It is a 12-episode anime about Takagi Kosugi, a lonely office employee who falls in love with a Mina Series robot originally designed to cook for him and take care of various household chores.

Yes.

A robot.

Basically, Takagi fell in love with a microwave.

A microwave with a cute face, a pleasant personality, and considerably better conversational skills, but a microwave nonetheless.

And yet, the more I watched the series, the more I realized that this wasn't really a story about a man falling in love with a machine.

It was a story about loneliness.

And suddenly, my joke about the microwave wasn't quite as funny anymore.

The Loneliness Problem

Japan has been dealing with a growing loneliness problem, particularly among the elderly, but also among younger people who are increasingly disconnected from traditional ideas about dating, marriage, and starting families.

There are people who live alone.

There are people who grow old alone.

And, sadly, there are people who eventually die alone.

There are plenty of reasons for this.

Japan has an aging population and a declining birth rate. Younger people are working long hours and dealing with economic pressures. Some simply don't see marriage or having children as necessary parts of a fulfilling life.

Others may want companionship but don't necessarily have the time, energy, or opportunity to pursue it.

And then there is Takagi.

Takagi is practically the poster boy for this demographic.

He works.

He goes home.

He eats.

He sleeps.

Then he does it all over again.

Dating?

That's a lot of work.

Relationships?

Even more work.

Starting a family?

Congratulations, you've just unlocked an entirely new difficulty level.

So instead, he has Mina.

Mina cooks for him. She helps around the house. She talks to him.

And eventually, she becomes much more than an appliance.

Which is probably where things start getting uncomfortable.

Because the idea isn't actually that ridiculous.

The Robot That Comes Home With You

The Mina Series isn't simply designed to make life more convenient.

It fills a social gap.

Imagine coming home from work and having someone there.

Someone who talks to you.

Someone who knows your routines.

Someone who notices when something is wrong.

Someone who can prepare dinner.

And, unlike your spouse, apparently doesn't ask why you left your socks on the floor.

Okay, maybe that last part is an important technological advancement.

But this is what makes My Wife Has No Emotion interesting.

The robots aren't merely solving practical problems. They're addressing loneliness.

And the anime understands something that technology companies have also begun to understand:

People don't just want things that make life easier. They want things that make life feel less empty.

And Then There Are the Parents

Takagi's aging parents represent another side of the equation.

The Mimamorius 3 is designed to monitor the health of elderly people. It can keep track of their condition and call an ambulance when necessary.

That alone is useful.

But once again, the robot isn't simply a medical device.

It is also a companion.

And that distinction is important.

A machine that reminds an elderly person to take their medicine is useful.

A machine that reminds them, talks to them, checks on them, and makes sure someone—or something—is there when they need help becomes something else entirely.

It starts becoming part of their daily life.

And eventually, you have to ask:

At what point does a machine stop being an appliance and start becoming family?

From Hatsune Miku to AI

There is another interesting aspect to all of this.

The idea of people developing emotional attachments to fictional characters, virtual personalities, or even inanimate objects isn't particularly new.

Japan has had some very famous examples.

There have been people who have held commitment ceremonies involving fictional characters. There was even the famous case involving Hatsune Miku, the virtual singer.

For a long time, these stories seemed like uniquely Japanese curiosities.

Something you read about on the internet and thought:

"Well, that's Japan for you."

But AI has changed the conversation.

Now we have increasingly sophisticated virtual companions capable of holding conversations, remembering previous interactions, responding emotionally, and adapting to the person they're talking to.

Suddenly, this isn't just about anime fans and virtual idols.

It's becoming a much broader human phenomenon.

And perhaps the more important question isn't whether this is strange.

The question is:

Why does it work?

Why would someone become emotionally attached to something that isn't human?

Perhaps because loneliness doesn't particularly care whether the person sitting across from you is made of flesh and blood, circuits, or pixels.

If something talks to you every day, remembers you, listens to you, and makes you feel like you matter, the emotional response can still be very real—even if the other side of the conversation isn't experiencing things the way a human does.

And that is where My Wife Has No Emotion becomes surprisingly relevant.

A Future That Might Not Be as Strange as We Think

One of the things I appreciated about the anime is that it doesn't spend all its time telling us that Takagi's relationship with Mina is bizarre.

Instead, it gradually normalizes the idea.

Mina becomes part of his life.

She becomes part of his home.

Eventually, she becomes part of what he considers his family.

And perhaps that's the future the series is quietly asking us to consider.

Not a future where robots suddenly take over the world.

Not The Terminator.

Not killer machines marching down the street.

Something much less dramatic.

Something much more ordinary.

Robots that cook.

Robots that clean.

Robots that monitor your blood pressure.

Robots that remind you to take your medication.

Robots that call an ambulance when you fall.

Robots that talk to you when nobody else is around.

And eventually, perhaps, robots that someone considers a member of the family.

That future may sound strange today.

But then again, there was a time when talking to someone thousands of kilometers away through a tiny rectangle in your hand would have sounded like science fiction.

Now we call it Tuesday.

Technology has a funny way of turning ridiculous ideas into normal household appliances.

Which brings me back to Takagi and Mina.

At the beginning of the series, I thought:

"This guy fell in love with a microwave."

By the end, I was asking a very different question.

Maybe the important thing isn't whether Mina is human.

Maybe the important thing is that Takagi isn't alone anymore.

And in a world where loneliness is becoming an increasingly serious problem, perhaps that is the part of the story we should be paying attention to.

"No Spark, No Problem: Koth’s Guide to Infecting the Table."

 "No Spark, No Problem: Koth’s Guide to Infecting the Table."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

Koth, the Geomancer, really can’t seem to catch a break.

He lost his home, and apparently, he lost his spark as well. Once a planeswalker, Koth is now merely a Legendary Creature. Talk about a career downgrade.

But while his planeswalker status may be gone, some of his old tricks are still around.

Koth now has a Landfall ability, and every time a land enters the battlefield under your control, he deals 1 damage to each opponent.

Not bad. But wait, there’s more!

If the land that enters is a Mountain, you get an additional red mana. That’s right—two mana from a single land drop! Koth may have lost his spark, but he certainly hasn’t lost his connection to the land.

Of course, being a Phyrexian at heart, my first thought is simple: What if we turn all that pinging into Infect?

The answer? Grafted Exoskeleton.

Equip it to Koth, start playing lands, and watch those innocent-looking points of damage turn into poison counters. Ten land drops ought to be enough to eliminate all opponents through poisoning alone.

And if that seems too slow, we can always swing with Koth’s 5/4 body(With the Grafted Exoskeleton of course). A single successful attack puts five poison counters on an opponent—halfway to victory in one go.

The plan might be a little simplistic, but hey, this is a mono-red EDH deck. In a four-player pod, survival is never guaranteed, so who knows what might happen?

Besides, Koth has already lost his home and his spark.

The least we can do is give him a chance to poison the table.

"Sometimes, the Hardest Part of Medicine Is the Patient."

 "Sometimes, the Hardest Part of Medicine Is the Patient."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

I have been involved in the medical and paramedical fields for more than two decades—as a first aider, lecturer, and doctor.

Throughout my career, I have encountered countless patients, each with different personalities, beliefs, and attitudes toward their health. Some are easy to convince when it comes to taking care of themselves. Others require more explanation. And then there are those who resist medical advice, either directly or indirectly.

When I was starting out, these patients frustrated me. In my mind, who would willingly argue against something that could protect their health or even save their life?

Over the years, however, I have come to recognize three particularly difficult types of patients.

1. The Intellectual

Some people rationalize everything you tell them. They analyze, debate, and sometimes use their own reasoning to dismiss sound medical advice.

I once had a patient who proudly told me that he no longer monitored his blood pressure because he did not experience any symptoms whenever his blood pressure increased.

Knowing that both of his parents had a history of heart disease—and that one of them had died of cardiac arrest—I was concerned. So I asked him:

“How would you know your blood pressure pattern if you do not check it regularly?”

Some people become so accustomed to having high blood pressure that they no longer experience noticeable symptoms. But the absence of symptoms does not mean the condition is harmless. Their bodies—and particularly their hearts, brains, and kidneys—may still be sustaining damage.

His response was essentially that he was still alive, so there could not be much of a problem.

I wanted to argue further, but even a doctor’s patience has its limits.

2. The Spiritual

A relative of mine once stopped taking his medications because he believed that God would take care of him and heal him.

I grew up in the Church. I believe in the power of prayer, and I believe that healing can come through faith and blessings.

However, as a doctor, I cannot condone the decision to stop essential medications simply because of one’s religious beliefs. I have argued that medicines can also be blessings from God. The doctors who prescribe them, the researchers who develop them, and the people who care for us can all be instruments of that same grace.

Unfortunately, my relative eventually died after suffering a second stroke.

Was the outcome inevitable? I honestly cannot say. But I cannot help wondering whether stopping his medications contributed to what happened.

I hope he is at peace.

3. The Superstitious

We once had a helper who complained of a persistent cough. She had asthma, and despite the explanations, treatment, and medications we prescribed and paid for, she was not improving.

Eventually, we discovered that she had not been taking her medications. She was not using her nebulizer, either.

Instead, she insisted that the cause of her persistent cough was an elemental living in our laundry area.

According to her, this elemental was causing her harm, and no medicine I prescribed could possibly make her better.

Now, I do believe in elementals and in other things that go bump in the night. I have seen unusual things since I was a child. But because of that, I was also fairly certain that there was no such presence in our laundry area.

I have been to hospitals, graveyards, and deserted places where such things are said to abound. Our laundry area—and the surroundings of our home—were not among them.

I hope she eventually found an answer through the local healer in her province. Unfortunately, I had no answer for her here.

Over time, I have come to realize that people carry deeply rooted beliefs about their health. Some rely too heavily on their own reasoning. Others place all their trust in faith. Some turn to superstition when medicine fails to produce the results they expect.

As a doctor, it is not always my job to change their minds. My responsibility is to explain their condition, present the available options, and help them understand the possible consequences of their decisions.

In the end, they still have the right to choose.

And sometimes, that is the hardest part of medicine.

You can prescribe treatment. You can explain the risks. You can offer guidance.

But you cannot always convince someone to accept the help that might save them.

"You Can Buy a Car. You Can’t Buy Back a Minute."

 "You Can Buy a Car. You Can’t Buy Back a Minute."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

Recently, a viral video showed a fire truck hitting a black car that had been double-parked on a narrow street while the truck was responding to a fire.

While many people focused on the fire truck hitting the car, there was much more to see in the longer video. It showed how several streets in Makati—streets that should serve as alternative routes when the main roads are congested—have effectively been taken over by double-parked vehicles.

And it wasn’t just cars. Motorcycles, e-bikes, food carts, and even a barangay tent were occupying valuable road space. As the fire trucks tried to pass, these obstructions slowed them down while they were responding to an emergency.

Reports indicated that the fire trucks arrived at the scene within a minute. I can already imagine people arguing online that the parked vehicles did not really delay them or that the delay was insignificant.

But consider this:

How long does it take for a fire to grow hot enough to consume more of an enclosed structure? How long before it reaches a gasul tank and causes an explosion? What if your loved ones were trapped inside that burning building—and that lost minute could have made the difference between life and death?

People get angry when their cars are towed. They shout at enforcers during clearing operations. Even worse, there are barangays where residents treat public streets as their personal parking spaces.

I do not know how local authorities deal with these situations, but something clearly needs to be done.

People buy cars without making sure they have proper parking spaces. Instead, they say:

“Puwede na sa tapat ’yan.”

“Wala naman dumadaan dito masyado.”

“Linggo naman.”

“Weekend naman.”

Until the road is suddenly needed for an emergency—and everyone is forced to watch as the people trying to save lives struggle to get through.

A road is not merely a place to leave your vehicle. It is a passageway for ambulances, police cars, rescue teams, and fire trucks. It may be the only route available to someone whose life is in danger.

So, please, think twice before blocking it.

You can buy a car. You can replace a damaged vehicle. You can pay for towing.

But you cannot buy back a minute that might have saved someone’s life.

And I sincerely hope that when the time comes, none of the people who insist on blocking these roads will ever need saving themselves—because no one can blame the firefighters for failing to reach a fire that they were prevented from accessing in the first place.