"Emrakul Is Back—and Apparently She Has a Job to Do."

"Emrakul Is Back—and Apparently She Has a Job to Do."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

When the current Reality Fracture lore videos featured a conversation between Emrakul, appearing in human form, and Tam, Jace's creation, many MTG fans immediately began speculating that Emrakul would be making an appearance in the upcoming set.

That speculation became even more interesting when the conversation revealed something about the role of the Eldrazi—specifically, our favorite spaghetti monster.

Apparently, the Eldrazi's purpose is to consume certain existences before they can fully become reality.

So when this card was finally revealed, it essentially confirmed what many of us had already suspected:

A new version of Emrakul!

Behold:

Emrakul, the Exigent Doom!

Costing a whopping 10 colorless mana for a 12/12 creature with flying and trample, Emrakul has apparently lost her old powers of annihilation.

But she has gained something else.

A lot of something else.

When you cast her, you get to untap all your lands.

That ability is absolutely ridiculous in a dedicated Eldrazi deck.

If you have enough mana to cast Emrakul, suddenly all those lands are available again. This means you could potentially cast another Eldrazi Titan on the same turn—or simply have enough mana left over to deploy whatever you need to end the game.

It's the kind of ability that makes you look at your mana and say, Wait… I'm not done yet?

Her ward ability, requiring you to sacrifice three permanents, isn't exactly a bad deal either.

Sure, sacrificing three permanents is painful.

But if your opponent wants to get rid of a 12/12 flying, trampling Emrakul, they're going to have to make you pay for it.

And considering what Emrakul has been through, she does seem surprisingly squishy compared to some of her previous incarnations.

Maybe spending all those years trapped inside that moon above Innistrad weakened her.

Maybe she just needed to stretch her tentacles.

Who knows?

Then we get to one of the most interesting parts of the card.

For three mana, you can exile Emrakul from your hand and have a target land gain the ability to tap for two colorless mana.

In other words, the land basically becomes an Ancient Tomb without the pain.

And here's the really interesting part:

You can still cast Emrakul while she remains exiled.

So instead of simply sitting in your hand as a gigantic 10-mana creature, she can actually contribute to your game plan much earlier.

You can exile her, turn one of your lands into a two-mana-producing monster, and use that extra mana to accelerate your board.

Maybe you cast a two-mana mana rock.

Maybe you ramp into your bigger Eldrazi.

Or maybe you simply start preparing for the turn when Emrakul finally decides that reality has become sufficiently annoying for her to intervene personally.

Either way, she gives you something to do with her before you can actually afford to cast her.

And that's what makes this version of Emrakul particularly interesting to me.

She isn't simply a gigantic creature waiting at the top of your mana curve.

She's part of your ramp plan.

She's part of your late-game payoff.

And once you finally cast her, she gives you all your mana back so you can potentially do something even more absurd.

All in all, Emrakul emerging from the moon was a very pleasant surprise.

The bigger question is what she actually intends to do once she's here.

She might end up consuming the Echoverse, serving as an unexpected instrument in thwarting Jace's plans.

Or she might very well become the thing that brings the multiverse to an end.

Again…

Who knows?

She might be in a mood.

And honestly, who could blame her?

She's been cooped up inside a tiny moon for years.

Maybe after all that time, Emrakul just wants to stretch her tentacles, eat a little reality, and remind everyone exactly why we were afraid of her in the first place.

"An Open Letter to Those Who Naruto Run in Pedestrian Crossings in BGC."

 "An Open Letter to Those Who Naruto Run in Pedestrian Crossings in BGC."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

Dear People Who Naruto Run Across Pedestrian Crossings,

I have always been acutely aware that there are certain pedestrian crossings where drivers need to slow down, stop, and give pedestrians the right of way.

And then there are the pedestrian crossings where people apparently decide that the proper response to an oncoming vehicle is to Naruto run for their lives.

You know who you are.

If you see a vehicle speeding toward a pedestrian crossing, the natural instinct should be to stop, wait, and let it pass. Unfortunately, some people seem to have a completely different survival strategy: Run across and hope for the best.

Sometimes it works.

The driver sees you from a distance. They slow down. They stop. Everyone gets to wherever they are going.

Congratulations.

But all it takes is one distracted driver. One person looking at their phone. One driver fiddling with the infotainment system. One person who simply doesn't see you in time.

You don't get a second chance to discover whether your strategy was statistically sound.

So please: slow down, stop, look, and listen.

You were probably taught this when you were a child. It remains surprisingly good advice even after you've grown up and started commuting around BGC.

And please understand this: a pedestrian crossing is not a magical force field.

The white stripes painted across the road do not stop a vehicle from moving. They do not create an invisible wall around you. They certainly will not stop an 18-wheeler truck from turning you into the least successful pedestrian of the day if you happen to run directly into its path.

And then there is the other behavior I genuinely don't understand:

Why do you start running the moment one car stops?

One vehicle has stopped.

Wonderful.

But you are not crossing a single-lane road.

There are still several other lanes between you and the other side.

Why do you suddenly assume that every vehicle in every other lane has also seen you, stopped for you, and agreed to participate in your carefully choreographed attempt at survival?

BGC has its fair share of kamote riders and drivers who seem to believe traffic rules are merely suggestions. Some will squeeze through gaps, accelerate when they shouldn't, or come flying through a lane that you thought was clear.

And when you are already running across the road, you have given yourself very little time to react.

I have already seen enough accidents involving pedestrians who took unnecessary risks at crossings.

Another one always seems inevitable.

And I really don't want to see it happen.

So, to everyone who Naruto runs across pedestrian crossings in BGC:

You don't get bonus points for crossing quickly.

You don't have to prove that you can beat traffic.

You don't have to trust that every driver has seen you.

You don't have to sprint simply because one car has stopped.

Just stop.

Look.

Make sure the other lanes are clear.

Then cross.

There is nothing cowardly about waiting a few extra seconds to make sure you get to the other side in one piece.

The goal of a pedestrian crossing is to get you safely across the road—not to determine whether you have the reflexes of an anime protagonist.

"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.