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

Living Lands - MTG 4E

 

This is the same exact kind of card as Kormus Bell, except it is a green spell instead of an artifact and it affects forests instead of swamps. The fact that it is a green spell affecting forests leads me to believe it was meant to turn your own forests into creatures at the end of the game and overwhelm your opponent in one last wild, mad rush.

It would have made a great cover for Kenneth McKenney's "The Plants" too. I read that at about the same time I was getting into Magic. It was an obvious ripoff of du Maurier's The Birds, but I hadn't read that yet, so it was all good to my teenage self. I've never been tempted to re-read The Plants though ;-)

Living Artifact - MTG 4E

 

Another disgusting organic looking "thing". I never understood why artists would do that. Eh, whatever.

Life gain is definitely a "green" thing, but it is like a slow drip coffee maker. You only get 1 extra life each turn, which is fine if your opponent is playing a slow deck, but if they are playing a more aggressive deck, you'd want some other cards in your deck to deal with that instead of this. Once again, it would take a very creative mind to find a good use for this card. I probably wouldn't play it anyway, just because it looks gross :-)

Lightning Bolt - MTG 4E

 

While Sol Ring might be the face card of Magic the Gathering to me, to the community at large, Lightning Bolt IS the card that embodies every aspect of Magic the Gathering in one distinct picture. Part of that is the card itself. Doing three damage for one red pip is about the best you can hope for. But the image as well just sits in your mind. Everyone has seen lightning at one point or another in their lifetime and they can relate to this image in some way. Some of us love lightning, some of us hate lightning, but none of us simply shrug lightning aside. That is why I think this became the face card of Magic for the general community.

If you disagree with me, well, I play Lightning Bolt and kill your argument, which is only a 2/2 creature, ha! ;-)

Lifetap - MTG 4E

 

Oh noez! An evil vampire leprechaun is hurting da treez! Won't somebody doooooo something?

*announcer voice*

As Adventurer [insert your name], it will be your job to stop Lucky, the Evil Wizard Leprechaun, from stealing all the Lucky Charms from the Tree People. And remember kids, knowing is 713/1425th's of the battle!

This Magic Card brought to you by Hasbro, the money whore of the world.