Mind Bomb - MTG 4E

 

Who says artists don't have a sense of humor? I mean, a literal mind bomb here? That just makes me laugh, while it also grosses me out completely.

Millstone - MTG 4E

 

One of the rules in Magic is that if you can't draw a card from your deck, because there are no more cards, you lose the game. So there is a strategy where you force your opponent to discard cards from their deck and so they lose that way. The strategy is called "Milling" and takes its name from this particular card. It is a viable strategy but is hard to make work. You basically leave yourself open to your opponent's attack and pray your milling strategy works faster than them. It's also rather boring, so you have to want to win more than play a fun game.

Of course, if you don't like your opponent and want to make them suffer, this would be a good way to do that. Grind down their soul while you grind down their deck, mwahahaha...

Mesa Pegasus - MTG 4E

 

This was a good card for its time. A flyer for cheap meant you could block some of the bigger flying creatures and while Mesa Pegasus was sure to die, it prevented all the damage to you, which is the point of a creatures' existence in the game. This was a staple in the White Weenie deck archetype. The WW was a deck consisting of a lot of small creatures that would over run your opponent, with an occasional card to help boost them. Your goal was to overwhelm and overrun your opponent before they could respond in time.

Merfolk of the Pearl Trident - MTG 4E

 

This was the only other Merfolk card in 4th Edition. The other was "Lord of Atlantis", which has been showcased already. I built a Merfolk deck, which meant that to get the prerequisite 60 cards, I had to go exploring other Magic the Gathering releases to find Merfolk card. I just looked at the official Magic the Gathering database and in 2026 there are only about 40 Merfolk cards. So you can imagine just how many there were in '95 :-D

But that kind of exploration, that was half the fun of Magic back then. There was no big internet database, so you had to comb through price guide magazines like Scrye OR go to your local game store and literally pick through their boxes of hundreds of unsorted cards. Which is great fun when you are a teenager and everything is new. Now, 30 years later, that kind of thing isn't fun for me. Scrye is now out of business, I don't really play Magic anymore and Doctor Who got his own set of Magic the Gathering cards.

Hmmmm. See, this is the problem with maundering thoughts. You never know where you are going to end up.

Meekstone - MTG 4E

 

Marsh Viper - MTG 4E

 

Marsh Gas - MTG 4E

 

Mana Vault - MTG 4E

 

Mana Short - MTG 4E

 

You are about to make a game winning move, about to cast the card that will win the game in one single turn and then BAAAAAM, that annoying blue player plays this card and just short circuits it all. Boooyahhhh. And that's why everybody hated Blue Players back in the 90's. And most blue players liked that infamy :-)

Mana Flare - MTG 4E

 

I love this card for how it looks. It captures that essence of so much power that it is literally bursting forth!

Sadly, once AGAIN (for about the 100th time) this is another card that I simply could not get to work for me, not even when I returned to Magic in 2013. I'd build a deck around it, have everything all lined up and then when I would play, my opponent would always benefit more from this card than I did and beat me to a pulp. And this time it wasn't a fun beating, but simply frustrating. I could see my path to victory, but so could my opponent and they always got there first. It didn't take very many games before I gave up the deck and using this card at all. But I do like looking at it, which is good :-)

Mana Clash - MTG 4E

 

The only reason you would play this card is if you truly like Chance in your Magic the Gathering games and were willing to lose. I don't like Chance in my MTG games and I don't like losing. So I'll give you one guess how many times I put this card in a deck.

The picture definitely looks like a Clash between Blue and Red. It doesn't have anything to do with how the card actually works, but it sure does fit the title really well. 

Manabarbs - MTG 4E

 

Man, Red just wants to hurt people, even if it involved hurting themselves. I don't think I ever got this card to work for me and I'm not sure I even tried really. Imagine those things jabbing into your thigh? You'd be hooked like a slab of beef!

Mahamoti Djinn - MTG 4E

 

Disney's Genie could totally take this guy! Just saying....

Magnetic Mountain - MTG 4E

 

I get the Bluehate from a red card, but magnetic mountain, affecting creatures? I'd expect this to affect artifacts, not creatures. Red is famous for destroying or negating artifacts. Well, if all Magic cards made sense, we probably wouldn't have the game at all. Go figure!
:-D

Magical Hack - MTG 4E

 

This guy's work would go a lot faster if he used a computer. What a schlub! Of course, maybe I could hire this guy to destroy AI data centers across the world. About time Magic does something useful.

Lure - MTG 4E

 

This looks like the kind of apple that the evil stepmother fed to Snow White. Doesn't say very much for Snow White's observational skills though does it? Tsk, tsk, tsk...

Lost Soul - MTG 4E

 

Now that is just creepy! Like something you'd see in The Sixth Sense: The Medieval'ing.

Bang! I think I just invented a new movie style, ie, The Pointless Sequel. Oh wait, Hollywood already has their ugly mitts all over that :-(

Lord of the Pit - MTG 4E

 

I've talked about why I didn't play the color black in the day, but once again, cards like this are Candidate 1 of why. Playing demons, that looked like demons and using Biblical language, that's a big no-no. It wasn't long after this time that Wizards of the Coast (the company that makes Magic) began moving away from the almost straight up Dungeons and Dragons versions of various creatures. But by that time, parents across the nation associated Magic the Gathering with satan worshipping, baby eating Dungeons and Dragons players. It was too late.

Lord of Atlantis - MTG 4E

 

I distinctly remember this card because I bought four of them to build my first real themed deck, one built around merfolk. It cost $2 a card and I was making minimum wage of $4.25 helping my neighbor who was a painter. Once I took taxes and tithes out, it cost me an entire half day to buy the four cards. Four Cards, that I could only use in ONE deck. It was a big commitment but at the time, it felt worth it. I made that merfold deck and then was promptly beaten every time I used it. I didn't win a single game against my friend, hahaahahaa. He was a better player than me and he was a better deck builder than me.

I had a lot of fun playing that deck however. Not "quite" enough to overcome losing every time, but I didn't hate playing it. I guess I couldn't have asked for much more as a teen.

Llanowar Elves - MTG 4E

 

Not your friendly neighborhood elves, that's for sure.

When elves go bad, they don't start out looking like this guy. It's a slow process, that starts with them going Steampunk, then full on punk. It takes a couple of generations to go from Steampunk Elf to Llanowar Elf. Let that be a lesson to us all.
*bows head in show of piety while wagging a finger at you all