Magic: the Folklore

[WildWillieWonderboy]

I used to post more a couple years ago, and some of you may vaguely remember me from then. Anywho:

I'm doing a field research project for my folklore class and I decided that I should discuss the numerous legends and customs that circulate through my favorite community: the Magic community.

So what do I want from you guys? I want folklore, which is the lore (writings, stories, etc.) or anything that is practiced by the folk (people) of Magic. It'd be great if for the first time you post in this thread you could post the areas and formats in which you play or have played Magic, as well as your age and how long you have played.

Also, here are some discussion starters:

Where did the terms scrub, tech, savage, broken and any other popular terms come from? Who introduced them to you? Which ones, if any, do you use? What special slang do you use instead or also? Can you think of any stories about pros or just annonymous players that have circulated in your local Magic scene or the whole community?

[Machinus]

Although not as obvious, terms like "mulligan" and "deck" have pretty magic-specific meanings.

[Komatteru]

Clearly, the most well known tale is that of Johnny Chaos ripping up his Chaos Orb and sprinkling the pieces on his opponents cards in the finals of some tournament back in 1993.  It is said that he received a game loss for having an illegal deck of 59 cards immediately after that.

Broken has been around since before I was playing, and I started in 1997.  It would take a real old timer to know the origins of that one.

I remember when Rick Swan wrote for Inquest.  Those were good times.  Inquest also pulled the most notorious April Fools Joke back in 1996 (Issue #22): the "Islands are banned" and purple cards.  Apparently, WotC customer service was swamped with calls about that, and you used to hear a lot of jokes about Inquest from WotC.

[Machinus]

Broken has been around since before I was playing, and I started in 1997.  It would take a real old timer to know the origins of that one.

Actually this one is easy, I thought. The term originated in R&D.

[Klep]

Throat Wolf.

[Necrologia]

Two of my favorite jokes were Noble Panther being able to deck Keeper, and the original Doomsday deck.

I've also heard that the term "broken" started in RnD. I know I read an article about it on WotC's site, but the only thing I can remember about the article itself was that it claimed it was originally pronounced "BAH-roken" exclusively.

The entirety of MiseTings might be worth a note as well. Plus RandomMiser now that I think about it.

[Jacob Orlove]

Inquest also pulled the most notorious April Fools Joke back in 1996 (Issue #22): the "Islands are banned" and purple cards. 

Inquest was just the purple cards. The islands thing was actually from The Duelist.

Throat Wolf was supposed to have "firstest strike".

Old Duelists actually have the origins for a bunch of lingo, as well as the definitions for a lot of terms that people don't even use anymore.

[Bardo]

Cards like Splendid Genesis and Proposal were mythical before Magic Library got a hold of some scans. Ditto for Mox Crystal.

I still love the art for Splendid Genesis:



And no folklore would be complete without the aforementioned Firstest Strike goodness of Throat Wolf. I remember those from the usenet days.

And I have absolutely no idea who Monique Thirifay (illus.) is. Sounds like a good question for "Ask Wizards."

[Matt]

"Mise" is a shortened form of "mise well" which is a slurred form of "might as well." Usually used when some fortuitous and lucky thing happens. As in: "We're both at two? Mise well draw a Lightning Bolt!"

Speaking of which, mise well include "topdeck" which is pretty self explanatory. So is "tech," short for "technology." As in: "Can you believe Jacob still hasn't incorporated the One With Nothing technology to beat Ownling Mine?"

Let's see, what else. "Burly protector" never really took off. "Pump Knight" is obvious. Superman=Morphling was because he was for a long time considered the best creature in the game, and also because his abilities vaguely looked like superman's (: Morphling leaps over tall buildings in a single bound). Dr. Teeth = Psychatog is pretty obvious when you look at the art.

"Barns" is short for "barnacles," which latch onto and ride along with "hulls."

There's a lot more here.
I've been playing since Alliances. I'm 23. I played casually for years, then T2 on apprentice, then T1 on apprentice, then Legacy IRL, and now I've added drafting to my repertoire.

[GrandpaBelcher]

I liked when to Counterspell something became to "blackchick it" because of the artwork on the Ice Age counterspell.

Then of course there's Tim.

It's an interesting topic.  I hope we get to see the results.

[Machinus]

Yes, I forgot about "tech." This word definitely deserves some examination and discussion.

[Bardo]

Then of course there's Tim.

Wikipedia describes the backstory well:

Despite only having a minor appearance in the movie, Tim became something of a cult character among Monty Python fans; his legacy lives on in the Magic: The Gathering card Prodigal Sorcerer[1], which was nicknamed "Tim" after him, both for a supposed resemblance in the card's art and for the similarity in flavour between Tim's shooting of magical blasts and Prodigal Sorcerer's ability. Later, the Tim name was revived as "Tim on a stick" (for Rod of Ruin[2], a card which has a similar effect) and "Tim on a ship" (for Pirate Ship[3]). The ability has since been used on many more cards and is sometimes informally called "Timming".

From this article.

[pyr0ma5ta]

Mike Long is a living legend of Magic folklore.

Similarly, so is Johnny Magic and the German Juggernaut.

[Harlequin]

I'm Suprised no one has mentioned where the name "Staks" came from.

I'm not 100% sure but I believe it originally was a take on the phrase:
"The Four thousand Dollar Sollution" 

How you ask?  Well if you abrivate it and "l337" it then you get:

"T $4k S"  Now just transpose the T and $ and you get:   $T4kS  or Staks which later became Stax.  The original name "the $4,000 Solution" was because at the time the deck was created there was basically no deck that could top 4 color control, so the deck designers build the deck.  It included all the moxen + workshops and Bazaars... wich needless to say... made the deck rather expensive (in the range of 4 grand).  Also it conveniently had a name that reflect a key card in the deck: Smoke Stack.

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Also I love the lore of the "I activate Polluted Delta ... and Find [card] Ilsand Fish Jasconius [/card]  Who as originally printed has a creature type of "Island Fish"  which means he is both an "Island" and a "Fish" as a type... therefore could be brought into play with any card that searched for an Island.  I heard there was a judge somewhere who allowed the play at a vintage tournement.  The card has sense been errated to an "Island-Fish."

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Here are some other Creature Nicknames:

Akroma, Angle of Wrath - "The Swiss Army Knife" -- presumably because she has many many useful abilities
Mishrah's Factory - "Manlands" -- because they can turn themselves into cratures
Swords to Plowshares - "Making a Farmer" - As in "I'll make your Dark Steel Collusus into a farmer"  Because of the flavor of the card (in that a Plowshare is a farm tool used to harvest Grain by hand).

[Mr. Nightmare]

Flame-Vault:  the brief period of time between the printing of Flame Fusillade and the errata of Time Vault, allowing you to do infinite damage upon the resolution of the Flame Fusillade.

[Matt]

Flame-Vault:  the brief period of time between the printing of Flame Fusillade and the errata of Time Vault, allowing you to do infinite damage upon the resolution of the Flame Fusillade.

I dunno if that's really folklore. That's just a purely descriptive name, there's little whimsy in it.

Stax did not originally run Bazaars.

Also, besides the Smokestack, it also abused The Stack, as in "I'll stack multiple triggered abilities in this way."

[Harlequin]

The original stax didnt have a bazaars??  I thought it did.  Maybe I'm getting mixed up with 7/10 or Ceribral Assasin.  Or maybe I'm just totally out of it.  I started playing vintage tournements right when Mirrodin was Released, so I was still a newb while all the stax forming was really going on.

[pyr0ma5ta]

The original stax didnt have a bazaars??  I thought it did.  Maybe I'm getting mixed up with 7/10 or Ceribral Assasin.  Or maybe I'm just totally out of it.  I started playing vintage tournements right when Mirrodin was Released, so I was still a newb while all the stax forming was really going on.

Bazaars and Uba Masks were a Vroman innovation.  I don't even think 7/10 ran Bazaars at its inception. 

[PucktheCat]

In fact, there was a thread on here years ago where videogameboy tried to convince everyone to run Bazaar in their Stax deck and it was pretty roundly rejected.  This was before Uba Mask or Crucible existed, so the synergies weren't really there yet, the only way to break Bazaar was Squee (although I suppose it was good with Welder too).

I'm also not sure that The Four Thousand Dollar Solution was the origin of the Stax name.  My recollection was that the $T4kS thing came from a Smmenen article on the archetype, but that the deck had been around in various forms before that, going by Stacks or Stax.

[Matt]

The original stax didnt have a bazaars??  I thought it did.  Maybe I'm getting mixed up with 7/10 or Ceribral Assasin.  Or maybe I'm just totally out of it.  I started playing vintage tournements right when Mirrodin was Released, so I was still a newb while all the stax forming was really going on.

"The Four Thousand Dollar Solution" To The Type One Metagame, by Stephen Menendian and Matthieu Durand

[Komatteru]

The original stax didnt have a bazaars??  I thought it did.  Maybe I'm getting mixed up with 7/10 or Ceribral Assasin.  Or maybe I'm just totally out of it.  I started playing vintage tournements right when Mirrodin was Released, so I was still a newb while all the stax forming was really going on.

"The Four Thousand Dollar Solution" To The Type One Metagame, by Stephen Menendian and Matthieu Durand

This article is really interesting.  I recommend everyone read it.  It really shows you how Stax has fundamentally changed since its inception.

Cerebral Assassin runs Bazaars because it is a Welder animation deck with the Dragon tossed in for good measure.  7/10 ran Thirst for Knowledge and Force of Will, among other things.

[PucktheCat]

Oh man, I had completely forgotten Psyduck and Ducktape.  That guy was ridiculous, but he sure did start something, didn't he?

From that article it looks like I may be wrong about the name.  The deck certainly existed in some form before the article, but I guess the name may not have.

[Komatteru]

Psyduck + Legend (or some Berkeley guys) => A Beautiful Mind.dec.  In all it's Epic Glory, here is the deck:

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=10845.msg203942#msg203942

Man, I'm sad to have missed that whole thing.

Pysduck's "tournament reports" with like 10,000 lines of Apprentice Logs were quite possibly the worst thing ever.

[Necrologia]

Heh, I completely forgot about the ABM thing. It wasn't just that one thread though, everytime one of those guys posted in a thread it turned into a flame war and had to be locked. FYI that's basically the reason matchup percentages are frowned upon. Both ABM and CooberP's Enchantress were reported to have some ridiculous win percentage vs Keeper, resulting in mass flame wars, warnings, and subsequent thread lockings.

Last time anything even remotely close to that happened though was the Herpes guy, who IIRC also created "White Power.dec", but it was okay cause his black friend came up with the name. Yeah.

Anyways, Herpes.dec. I can't seem to find the White Power thread. What a tragic loss. 

I think you mean ABM, not EBA.[/color]

EDIT: Yeah, my mistake. Changed to prevent confusion.

[bomholmm]

CANGD entry:  this term is slang for any terrible legacy deck.

[Mr. Nightmare]

CANGD entry:  this term is slang for any terrible legacy deck.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!  Hilarity ensues.

Don't forget to actually talk about why Type 1 is Vintage and 1.5 is Legacy.

[Godder]

I have memories of the Stax name originating from Stacker (decks known as Stacker predated Stax by some years) because of Smokestack and Stack tricks.

[jcb193]

This isn't as exciting or novel as some of the other ones, but back in the day before FoW, people always wary of a counterspell, would ask "tapped out?"

"Tapped Out," became synonmous with everything from a lack of blue mana to being exhausted or financially broke, to even a post-masturbatory exclamation.

JB

[Matt]

Heh, it's funny you should say it like that, because that's what "tapped out" meant before 1993.

Also: I forgot about Stacker, though the original Juggernaut-and-Welder deck was JP's (I think) and called Stacker 2, after Stacker 2, The World's Strongest Fat Burner (so named because it had artifact fat and burn cards). The etymology of the Stax name is a really interesting confluence of names and phrases and abbreviations, a linguist's wet dream.

[PucktheCat]

Wow, I never knew the background for the name of Stacker 2.  I always vaguely imagined there was a Stacker 1 out there somewhere that just never got talked about because it was outdated.

What was the story with the name of OSE?  I remember the jist of it, but someone who was actually there should tell the story.