By Imshan AKA Sinis

When I was much younger, I was very interested in science.  More than anything, it was the application of science I found fascinating; science fiction writers had laid out the framework of a future barely believable, and science would make it happen.  I expected that we’d have teleporters, rayguns, and space travel, all in short order.  As I learned more about the nature of scientific inquiry, discovery and application, I became disenchanted.  I had hoped for a certain kind of magic, a kind of mad science with which enough guile, gumption and good fortune, the craziest things could be accomplished.  Science is still a wonderful thing and applications are constantly churning out wondrous new technologies, but I had an idea that is innately self-defeating, like complex explainable machinery surrounding an elusive and essential center responsible for something inexplicable.  My idea was of a science without bounds, with which actual science has no discourse.  For highly analytical people, there is no magic here.

A while ago, I wrote an article about how much I liked bad cards, bad mechanics, and generally bad Magic.  Part of this is born out of the fact that I am a bit of a Johnny at heart, and the more convoluted a pile of cards are, the more interested I am going to be.  As everyone knows, no Ravnican guild appeals more to the idea of unbounded science and Johnnies than the Izzet guild.  With all the Return to Ravnica pre-releases wrapping up last weekend, and release day coming up this Friday, it’s also open season on deck overhaul and new deck brainstorming. Read the rest of this entry »