1.6 - Well, Sh*t Explained by Mingy. Ok, let's see what I can un-confuse about today's strip. You'll notice that there's some talk about this thing called "countering". Countering is when one player plays a spell, and in response, another player plays another spell (usually an Instant) which causes that first spell to be rendered useless. The first player's spell then has no effect, and it goes to the graveyard, or discard pile. Basically, that spell was a wasted investment, because they still had to expend resources to use it, and it didn't do anything. For the most part, spells that counter will contain the words "Counter target spell." The most common, and usually the best, of these is the card named Counterspell. For 2 blue mana, Counterspell counters any spell, end of story. It's simple and very effective. Another spell that is mentioned in this strip is Absorb. Absorb is a multicolored spell that costs both blue and white mana (It costs 2 blue mana and 1 white mana to play). The added bonus to playing Absorb is that it counters a spell, and gives you 3 life. I should also make a quick mention that spells that counter can also be countered. In other words, if you play a spell, and I counter it, you can counter my counterspell. This means that my counterspell is rendered useless, and your original spell will resolve as usual. Another card mentioned is Wrath of God. Wrath of God is a very simple card to explain. For four mana, it destroys all creatures in play. In other words, all the creatures on the table are scooped up, and placed neatly in their respective discard piles. The last card to explain is Nether Spirit. Nether Spirit is a 2/2 black creature for 3 mana. Not too special, but what makes up for this is that Nether Spirit is very difficult to kill completely. You see, if he is the only creature in whatever graveyard he happens to be in, he comes directly into play at the beginning of that player's turn. While he doesn't seem that bad because he's really not a very big creature, he is EXTREMELY annoying to deal with because he keeps coming back from the dead. Over and over and over... The last thing that I feel I should explain is this "mana burn" thing that I mention at the end of the comic. In Magic, when you use any means to gain mana, you are essentially first putting that mana into a pool, then you take mana out of that pool and use it to pay the costs of things. Let's look at a real world example...sort of. Say you are cooking something with beans. But these are special beans that need to be placed into a cup of water before they are put into your food. You take the beans out of the bag, but but before you put them into your soup, you put them into a cup of water. Then you can take them out of the cup of water and put them into the soup. Also, the beans that are in the cup of water cannot be put back into the bag, so essentially if you put too many beans in the water, you waste them. Mana works the same way. Any mana put into that pool cannot be put back. The only problem is that you can't just simply throw those points of mana out. For every point of mana still in that pool at the end of each phase of your turn, you lose one life. Losing life as a result of unused mana in your pool is what is known as "Mana burn". Sometimes, a player that is losing will mana burn themselves to death, so as to avoid the humiliation of being defeated. Make sense now? Go back to this comic. Legal Stuff Magic: The Gathering and all related trademarks and products mentioned belong to Wizards of the Coast. Any other trademarks and products mentioned are the property of the companies that produce them. Any card art is copyrighted by the artists and Wizards of the Coast. The use of these trademarks, products, and cards should not be construed as a challenge to those rights. All other content is © Copyright 2002 Burnham/Dominguez/Wacker/Yarrow. Contact Us Art: Bryan Yarrow (aftershock@tenchiclub.com) Scripts: Cal Wacker (reverend16@excite.com) Cooking: Andrew "Mingy" Dominguez (andominguez@fordham.edu) Website: Ted Burnham (tburnham@abacus.bates.edu) Come chat in the FlopJocks IRC Channel at irc.netfrag.com #flopjocks