"Eternal FOMO: The Enchantment That Never Ends."

 

"Eternal FOMO: The Enchantment That Never Ends."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

I imagine that sometime back in 2020, at Wizards of the Coast headquarters, they gathered everyone who opposed the proposed Secret Lairs and Universes Beyond crossovers into one room and sacrificed them.

Then, using all that newly generated mana, they cast a Global Enchantment.

An enchantment that still affects us to this very day.

Eternal FOMO.

Yes. Wizards of the Coast has permanently enchanted all of us with the fear of missing out.

They bombard us with an endless cycle of previews, spoilers, reveals, Secret Lairs, bonus sheets, and announcements until we can barely think straight.

Surely you need to buy this set.

After all, look at this card.

And this one.

And this one.

And then the influencers arrive.

“This set is a banger!”

And just like that, the spell grows stronger.

Those who resist are eventually drowned beneath a deluge of new cards. Sometimes, Wizards even manages to hit that exact obscure creature type you have been waiting years to see supported.

You waited forever for a Lord for your favorite tribe?

Congratulations.

Now you have twelve cards for it.

Heck, Spiders and Turtles barely had a Lord before, and now we are practically up to our necks in Spiders and Turtles.

Eternal FOMO is real. And it is here to stay.

Case in point: a friend of mine recently bought a Hobbit Bundle.

He had barely opened it.

He probably hadn't even finished admiring what he pulled.

And before he could properly enjoy his haul, here comes the deluge of Reality Fracture spoilers, bringing with it another wave of cards that suddenly feel like absolute must-haves.

And guess what?

Once you finally buy your Reality Fracture products, the next set will already be staring you in the face.

Before you have even received your Reality Fracture cards.

Then add all the Secret Lairs.

Then add the cards already being spoiled for sets coming in 2027.

Then add whatever else Wizards has decided we absolutely, positively need to know about right now.

There is no escape.

Eternal FOMO will never die.

And MTG players, despite our supposedly strong wills, have only two choices:

Quit...

or succumb.

We complain about the endless release schedule.

We complain about the constant spoilers.

We complain about our wallets.

And then Wizards shows us one more card.

“But look at this one.”

And suddenly we're checking preorders.

Nice move, WotC.

Nice move indeed.

"3 Reasons Why Proxying MTG Cards Now Makes Sense."

 "3 Reasons Why Proxying MTG Cards Now Makes Sense."

by:

Virgilio F. De Leon Jr., MD

If you have been following Magic: The Gathering for the past six years, then you are probably familiar with two things that have fundamentally changed the way we look at the game: Universes Beyond and Secret Lairs.

One is Wizards of the Coast's attempt to bring other fan bases into Magic by taking existing intellectual properties and turning them into Magic cards. Hence, Universes Beyond.

Secret Lair, on the other hand, is Wizards' way of selling directly to players. You get reprints, alternate art, and sometimes mechanically unique cards that don't necessarily follow the traditional aesthetic of a normal Magic set.

And at this point, almost everything seems to be on the table.

All but the Reserved List, apparently.

So here are three reasons why proxying MTG cards now makes perfect sense.

1. If Anything Can Be Anything, Then Art Is an Open Frontier

If you can convince yourself that a circle is a Sol Ring, then apparently any circle can now be a Sol Ring.

And if you've looked at enough Secret Lairs, you know just how far Wizards is willing to stretch the visual identity of Magic cards.

Don't get me wrong. A lot of these different art styles are fantastic. But they have also opened the door to something else:

Why not make the cards look exactly the way you want them to look?

This is where proxying becomes particularly fun.

I have, for example, an All-Hinata deck.

It is built around Hinata, Dawn-Crowned from Kamigawa. Of course, that Hinata is a Kirin.

The Hinata I actually like, however, is the Hinata who existed long before she became Naruto's wife.

So naturally, the deck features her.

Even the lands are themed around the world of Naruto.

Maybe someday we will get a Naruto x Magic: The Gathering Universes Beyond product. It wouldn't even surprise me anymore.

But I seriously doubt Wizards would ever make the exact Hinata-themed cards I have in my proxy deck.

For one thing, let's just say my version is a little more... niche.

And there certainly isn't going to be anything remotely resembling that particular interpretation in an official Universes Beyond product.

But that's precisely the point.

If anything can be anything now, why limit yourself to what Wizards decides to print?

Proxying allows you to take a card's mechanical identity and build an entirely different visual identity around it.

You can make it funny.

You can make it obscure.

You can make it personal.

You can even make it so specific that you are probably the only person in the world who understands why the card looks the way it does.

And honestly?

That's part of the fun.

2. The Price of Printing Can Beat the Price of the Real Thing

The first time I had cards proxied, I understood the concept very differently.

I was making proxies of genuinely expensive cards—things like Grim Monolith and the Moxen.

That made sense to me.

What I didn't understand was why people would proxy cards worth only a few cents.

Why would you spend money printing a common card when you could simply buy the common?

The card already exists.

Just buy it.

But I digress.

The reality is that even relatively inexpensive Magic cards aren't actually free.

Take something like a heavily reprinted shock land. Its price may have fallen dramatically compared to its original versions, but it is still not zero.

And if what you actually want is to play the card rather than own the collectible object, then the economics can start looking very different.

A proxy can cost a fraction of the actual card.

Now, obviously, this doesn't mean you should represent a proxy as an authentic card when selling or trading. That's simply dishonest.

But for casual play, testing decks, experimentation, and personal collections, the calculation becomes much simpler:

If I can play the same game without spending the same amount of money, why wouldn't I?

Especially when the alternative is spending hundreds—or even thousands—of pesos on a card simply because it has become expensive on the secondary market.

At some point, you're no longer paying for the game.

You're paying for scarcity.

And those are two very different things.

3. Savoring the Flavor

Nothing beats an original Magic card.

I'll say that.

There is something special about opening an actual card, feeling it in your hand, seeing the original artwork, and knowing that it is part of Magic's history.

But there is another kind of satisfaction that comes from building a deck exactly the way you imagined it.

If you're the kind of person who wants your lands to match the plane your Commander comes from, you already know how difficult completing an EDH deck can become.

Maybe your Commander is from Kamigawa.

So naturally, you want Kamigawa lands.

Maybe your deck is based on a specific character.

Now you want every basic land to reflect that character.

Maybe the deck has a particular story, joke, aesthetic, or fandom behind it.

And suddenly you're hunting for cards that Wizards may never print.

That's where proxies become incredibly liberating.

You can simply make them.

Instead of asking:

"What has Wizards printed?"

you can ask:

"What do I want my deck to look like?"

And that is a very different question.

For years, players have been limited by what Wizards chooses to print and, increasingly, by how much those cards cost.

Proxying removes that limitation.

It lets you experiment.

It lets you build the deck you actually want to play.

It lets you create something that could never exist as an official product.

And let's be honest: Wizards itself has pushed Magic further and further toward the idea that almost anything can become a Magic card.

When Magic 30 tried to pass off Alpha cards as a premium fan-service product, the message was pretty clear:

The line between Magic card, collectible, crossover, alternate art, and novelty has become increasingly blurry.

So why shouldn't players take advantage of that same creative freedom?

The Printer Equalizes Us All

I'm not saying proxies replace real Magic cards.

They don't.

There will always be something special about owning the real thing.

What I'm saying is that proxies give players something that Magic has increasingly made difficult to obtain:

creative freedom without an enormous price tag.

So brew to your heart's content.

Build the weird deck.

Make the ridiculous alternate art.

Turn that obscure anime character into your Commander.

Put whatever lands you want into the deck.

Create the card that Wizards will probably never make.

And don't worry too much about the elitists who insist that the only legitimate way to enjoy the game is to spend more money on it.

Because at the end of the day, we're still playing the same game.

And when it comes to making the Magic card you want?

The printer equalizes us all.

"The Cards We Are Dealt: Refusing to Fold"

 "The Cards We Are Dealt: Refusing to Fold"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

If you view life through a certain lens, there will never be a shortage of bad things going on.

Rains that seem to have never stopped for a month. You can probably count on your fingers the number of times the sun has actually come out.

Floodwaters that have affected work, businesses, and education, as well as the lives of those who have been badly affected by nonexistent or poorly implemented flood-control projects.

Manila now declaring a leptospirosis outbreak after the threshold for the disease has been reached, while hospitals are already struggling with the number of patients.

The ongoing increase in gas prices that trickles down to everything—from passenger fares to the prices of basic goods and services.

The inability to pass an ₱85 increase that could at least provide some relief from the rising cost of living.

Nothing seems to be going the way of the Pinoy.

And yet, we are known for two things: our humor and our resiliency.

So what do we do?

Do we blame the government again and again?

Do we blame ourselves for the choices we have made?

The truth is probably somewhere in between.

Sure, the odds are stacked against us. We can go to the streets and shout as much as we want, and I am not discounting the power of protest or the need for change.

But I have always believed that if you want change to happen, it should also start at home.

I cannot offer a magical solution to everything that is happening around us. The government will not always save you. Nature certainly will not save you. And at the end of the day, what you have is yourself and your family, if you have one.

All I am saying is that we should have the resolve to better ourselves first.

Work.

Hustle.

Learn.

Adapt.

Overcome whatever part of the stacked deck is within our power to overcome.

Low education.

Walang padrino.

Walang pambayad ng placement.

No qualifications.

Stacked odds.

And even more hurdles waiting around the corner.

One mayor recently suggested building a second floor as a solution to flooding. While that suggestion may come across as tone-deaf, one can also argue that there are neighborhoods where even having a second floor would not be enough to survive a serious flood.

There are households that cannot afford that kind of infrastructure. There are families who cannot simply move somewhere safer because they cannot afford to relocate.

And perhaps that is exactly where the conversation needs to begin.

We cannot pretend that everyone has the same starting point.

Some people are already running uphill before the race even begins.

Some families are one flood away from losing what little they have.

Some people do not have the money to simply move somewhere safer, build a second floor, go back to school, or start over.

It is easy to tell people to "work harder" when you are not the one carrying the weight they carry.

So no, I am not saying that personal effort will magically solve everything.

It won't.

We still need better governance.

We still need accountability.

We still need competent infrastructure, better education, decent wages, and leaders who actually understand what ordinary Filipinos are going through.

But while we wait for those things to change, we cannot simply wait for someone else to save us.

If there is something within our control, then we should do something about it.

Learn what we can.

Work with what we have.

Save when we can.

Prepare when we can.

Help our families.

Help our neighbors when we are able.

And when an opportunity comes, take it.

Maybe that is what resiliency should really mean.

Not simply smiling after every disaster and saying, "Kaya natin 'to."

It should mean getting back up and asking ourselves:

"What can I do differently this time?"

Because the odds may be stacked against us.

The system may be broken.

The rain may keep falling.

The floodwaters may rise.

The prices may keep going up.

But we cannot allow the difficulty of our circumstances to convince us that we have no agency at all.

We may not be able to control the hand we were dealt.

But we can still decide how we play it.

And sometimes, surviving isn't about having the best cards.

It's about refusing to fold.

"Seven Days to Prepare, Two Hours to Panic."

 "Seven Days to Prepare, Two Hours to Panic."

by: 

Virgilio F. De Leon Jr., MD

I really cannot understand the Filipino last-minute mentality.

Every week, the information is available online. It is even posted on the MyDay stories of certain groups and pages, and yet somehow, it gets ignored every single time.

People are given ample time to prepare for a fuel price increase. You have an entire week to fill up your tank before the new prices take effect. Even on the last day, there is usually still plenty of time.

And yet, for most of that week, the gas stations remain relatively quiet.

Then, suddenly, about two hours before midnight, cars seem to appear out of nowhere.

Every gas station you pass is packed.

Traffic starts building up around the stations. Cars line up along the roads, sometimes stretching surprisingly far. People wait for their turn to fill their tanks, and some even get angry when the station has to ration the fuel and they are given, let's say, only half a tank.

And I can't help but wonder:

Didn't we know this was coming?

The fuel increase wasn't a surprise.

People knew about it days in advance.

Seven days.

Seven entire days to respond to the threat to their wallets.

And when do many people actually react?

About two hours before the deadline.

I am not writing this to ridicule anyone's financial situation or circumstances. I don't know what ultimately brings each person into those long lines. Maybe they were busy. Maybe they couldn't afford to fill up earlier. Maybe they simply didn't think about it until the last minute.

There are a hundred possible reasons.

And I certainly don't want to assume that everyone waiting in those lines could have easily bought their fuel days earlier.

But what I find fascinating is how predictable this has become.

You can almost set your watch by it.

The announcement comes.

People see it online.

The week passes.

Nothing happens.

Then, a few hours before the price increase, suddenly everyone remembers that they own a car.

And the gas stations become ground zero.

What makes it even more frustrating is that the gas stations aren't going anywhere.

They will still be there tomorrow.

They are still there today.

And they were there yesterday.

There was no need to wait until the final two hours to rush there with everyone else.

This isn't really about gasoline.

It's about how we respond to information.

We are given plenty of warning about something that will affect our wallets, yet many of us seem to wait until the very last possible moment before doing anything about it.

We don't necessarily have a shortage of information.

Sometimes, we simply have a shortage of urgency.

Until suddenly...

there are only two hours left.

Then for everybody this becomes very, very urgent.

And by then, of course, everybody is stuck in the same long lines.

"Compel Brutality: When Atraxa Turns Planeswalkers Into Weapons." by:

 "Compel Brutality: When Atraxa Turns Planeswalkers Into Weapons."

by: 

Virgilio F. De Leon Jr., MD

Compel Brutality is a two-mana instant coming out of Reality Fracture, and it immediately made me think of one of my favorite decks:

Atraxa Superfriends!

The first half of the card is something we have seen before: Green's version of spot removal based on the might of the creatures it targets.

So, with an Atraxa in play, you're easily looking at four damage to an opponent's creature or planeswalker. Given that there are plenty of planeswalkers with less than four loyalty when they enter the battlefield, this already makes Compel Brutality a very respectable spot-removal spell.

But then we get to the second half of the card.

And this is something we haven't really seen before.

Compel Brutality can target one of your planeswalkers and use its loyalty to deal that much damage to a target creature or planeswalker an opponent controls.

Think about what that means.

A planeswalker isn't just generating value for you anymore.

It's ammunition.

Planeswalkers like Garruk or Ugin, for example, can enter the battlefield with a healthy amount of loyalty, making them excellent targets for Compel Brutality.

And this is where things get particularly interesting in an Atraxa EDH deck.

Atraxa Superfriends is already a deck filled to the brim with planeswalkers. Then you add Atraxa's ability to proliferate at the end of every turn, and suddenly those loyalty counters start piling up.

Your planeswalkers get bigger.

And Compel Brutality gets nastier.

That Garruk that started with five loyalty?

That's potentially five damage.

That Ugin sitting there with a mountain of loyalty?

You can turn all those counters into a very unpleasant surprise for someone else's board.

So every time you cast Compel Brutality, you're not just casting a removal spell.

You're asking one of your planeswalkers:

"How much damage would you like to do?"

Of course, Compel Brutality is only two mana, which makes this even more interesting. You're essentially turning the loyalty you've already accumulated into additional removal without having to sacrifice the planeswalker itself.

For Atraxa Superfriends, that's a pretty sweet deal.

Your planeswalkers generate loyalty.

Atraxa proliferates that loyalty.

And Compel Brutality turns all of it into damage.

That's not just Superfriends anymore.

That's weaponized loyalty.

"Darksteel Angel: The Platinum Angel That Finally Learned to Survive"

"Darksteel Angel: The Platinum Angel That Finally Learned to Survive"

by: 

Virgilio F. De Leon Jr., MD

Though I have always been surrounded by Magic players, it was only around 8th Edition that my brother and I really started getting serious about the game.

I have often joked that if 8th Edition was my handshake with Magic, then the following set, Mirrodin, was when I started French-kissing the game!

Mirrodin introduced so many things to Magic, including one of the mechanics that would eventually become a staple of the game: Equipment.

And then there was that one Angel that kept appearing from time to time.

An Angel that, on more than one occasion, was able to save me.

The card was, of course, Platinum Angel.

Platinum Angel was always a headache for opponents when it landed on the battlefield. As long as it remained in play, your opponents couldn't win and you couldn't lose. It was the kind of card that immediately demanded an answer.

Unfortunately, it had one little problem.

It was surprisingly easy to squish.

Spot removal? Straight to the graveyard.

Mass removal? Also straight to the graveyard.

For all the protection Platinum Angel gave you from losing the game, it wasn't particularly good at protecting itself.

But now, in Reality Fracture, a new and improved version of the Platinum Angel has appeared.

Behold...

Darksteel Angel!

Many older players may recognize this card as something that was teased back when the Phyrexians finally besieged Mirrodin. It was one of those great cliffhangers in Magic history.

Would the Mirrans prevail?

Would the Phyrexians win?

And as a teaser for what was coming, the image of the Darksteel Angel was released.

Well, we eventually found out how that story ended.

The Phyrexians won that round.

But now, all these years later, the Darksteel Angel is finally coming to reality in Reality Fracture—and this version is a considerably tougher evolution of the beloved Platinum Angel.

While it doesn't have Hexproof, Ward, or Shroud, this Angel has something arguably just as important:

Indestructible.

So go ahead. Target it with your spot removal.

Darksteel Angel will still be there.

Throw a normal board wipe at it?

It just shrugs it off.

And what about things like Wither, Infect, or even Black Sun's Zenith?

Well, Darksteel Angel has an answer for those too.

Creatures you control can't get -1/-1 counters.

So not only is this Angel difficult to destroy, it also protects your creatures from one of the nastier ways of getting around Indestructible.

Of course, there is a price to pay.

Darksteel Angel costs nine mana, two more than the original Platinum Angel's seven.

But honestly?

If you're spending nine mana on an Angel, you'd probably like it to stick around.

And with Darksteel Angel on the battlefield, you can finally breathe a little easier while your opponents desperately scramble to figure out how they're supposed to get rid of it.

After all, Platinum Angel taught me how to survive.

Darksteel Angel just made sure nobody could squish her quite so easily.

"An open letter to that lady who stood in the middle of the elevator earlier tonight."

"An open letter to that lady who stood in the middle of the elevator earlier tonight."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

Maam,

Gusto ko lang pong tanungin kong first time niyo po bang nakasakay ng elevator sa buong buhay ninyo?

Kasi kadalasan ang tamang gawin eh manatili sa kanan para makadaan ang mga bumababa at para mabilis ding makasakay ang iba kaagad. 

Di ko alam tuloy kung bakit nasa saktong gitna ka ng elevator tapos para tuloy gusto mong mag lips to lips kayo ng unang baba eh, yun ba talaga gusto mong mangyari?

Siguro ok na sa akin yun kaso ikaw pa yung mukhang galit nung may mga walong tao na bababa at napilitan ka din na umalis sa gitna para sila makadaan. 

Nakakabigla ba na may bababa ng elevator sa mga oras na yun eh uwian na ng ibang shift yun? Ikaw pa talaga yung nainis eh.

Siguro nga nagmamadali ka lang. Pero kaya naman magintay ng olang segundo lang sa mga gilid ano? For sure di naman mababawasan yung late mo kasi mukhang late ka naman na. 

Yun lang naman. Promise next time na makita kita itutulak na lang kita para sure na yung lips to lips mo. Maging sino man yung bababa.

Pekmans. Mamatay ka man.

Di Nagmamahal,

Doc June