by Bryan Hockey

it’s a graveyard then. B work, which is fine.

good. Solid, basic work. the inclusion of the proper noun that doesn’t matter and won’t come up again later sours an otherwise perfectly serviceable flavor text. Well except the wilds are green or red, and this is neither. C-.

meh. “malevolence” feels clunky as a quantity mixed with a plural, but it’s fine. …Towashi, comma….. Fragment no suggestions. Another noun that will never come up again.

better. Now we are cooking with gas. Urza appears on the card twice before we get to the flavor, and it does the right amount of fleshing that out. What regrets? ooooh how exciting. “Cave” is really weak here since a cave is a natural formation, but it’s fine. Flavor text is close; reverse the order of pronoun and proper noun, and you’re golden.

better. best of the cycle? but it’s not underground. It’s not black or red, and the art literally shows a plane with sunshine on it. Real “it’ll be great one day” energy. Blockchain energy. AI energy.

meh. worst of the cycle but still fine. proper noun drop here that actually works, because it’s modifying something we can deal with. It flavors the trolls. Good work.

bad. “Is that everything?” “this is all”. Should be was that it. I dunno, counterspell tazes are a tough sell.

better. example of quote and attribution actually working.

worse. is this an attempt at humor? I can’t tell. Good thing we’ve got king Harald and his herald Harold. Attribution was clearly cowardice here.

meh. Questions like “what are you talking about?” It’s trying to sound deep but saying nothing.

best. Quotes are okay. nice story. Leaves me wanting more. This is the job, right here.

worst. did…did ajani fuck his brother? oh boy this is confusing. (is this proper use of a semicolon?) because they mean the second version of pride, his tribe, and that’s not what you’d think going in since it’s less common, even if douseldorf here is a kitty cat. +1 for homoeroticism

goblin humor that isn’t too on the nose. meh.

bad bad. It’s so clunky in the first clause, and then because it’s “morning” and the penchant for threes you expect “day” and “evening” to follow, leading to more clunkiness. The idea is fine but good lord read it to one person.

it’s fiiiiiiiiiiiine. if this guy doesn’t matter then they should have just gone without quotes. Quote attributed to an unknown character. The flavor text explains the name of the card. It’s also a-historic to how eldrazi have been treated, but not ahistoric to how phyrexians have been treated. It’s literally a phyrexian trope, recycled here.

horrible. breaks verisimilitude for no reason. breaks anachronism for no reason. no payoff. tries to be funny. just a kitchen sink of bad ideas.

baaaad. You guys, accidental slant rhymes are not helpful. This format sucks. All the medallions are going to suck.

“king among bears.” no notes. but seriously, it does a three similar to the medallions but it’s actually good. Follows the three pattern which is one of the most powerful patterns they have. “greatest” here is an awful choice in descriptor. (adjective? Adverb?) Sets up alliteration that doesn’t pay off.

meh. agrus kos better be featured in the set.

absolutely not. you’re not funny. do you want me to say it whenever i activate the ability? I hate this author of this.

best medallion. still terrible.

good? I like that they just came right out and were like “it’s like those other cards.”

Some frogs poison the body. Some frogs poison the mind. Generic, hides in vagueness instead of saying something about the actual card you’re holding. But it’s fine. Except it doesn’t, you know, make them discard or mill, which is what mind poison is in this game.

wow this one is actually good. should have had this guy write the other four. the “it is freedom” works because the other things aren’t freedom.

aaand we’re back to bad. the red one worked because its last sentence xpanded the card; this one reduces it, like the others.

this is certainly one approach to writing flavor text. I want to hate it but it’s fine.

better. it’s somewhat routine but we need routine. contender.

no cardinal sins but sophomoric. And “her”? Your gender identity persists in mindless undeath? Weird that the subject isn’t the creature on the card, but we can still only refer to them via the creature on the card.

this is really good. The attribution is trash; the quote is fine, but you could drop the quote.

since when? because you already did this trick with zendikar. that was like…the point of zendikar.

So “spark” usually means a planeswalker spark, which is a noun. They should have picked another word. Who the fuck is Alrund? “like windborne embers”? like embers in the wind. It’s not passive voice but it feels like it.

bad. Like straight up destroyed by quote and attribution. Also feels like it ends with “: elspeth” instead of how it does.

from the gene’s mutation to the(?) new life’s propogation i be making adaptations, facilitating gestations, maybe you’ve got a card with fabrication.

Read the flavor text out loud one time before you print it.

“You need to expand your horizons.” Who is this even talking to? It doesn’t affect the opponent. Dumbass pun.

Taze flavor text on a counterspell. Card has a bad name. No flare in the art.

this is the better taze text for sure.

Great. Gisela beheld true divinity, and was humbled. I don’t normally weigh the art on the card too heavily, but this is a divergence from the usual style that works extremely well. Every part of this card is firing on all cylinders, including the rules text, which is about as interesting as this effect could be.

The rising moon calls mercilessly to the waves, commanding the sea to rise high enough to devour mountains. This is a reasonable bar to use as the standard by which other flavor text is measured. It’s basic in many ways, but basic executed well. It serves as an example of what we should expect. That said, this would have been much better if they’d dropped “enough”; throw in “high” as well.

meh. Towashi rhyming with kami is distracting.

If you were a comedy writer and you submitted this, you’d be fired. Boring, unfunny joke that devalues the already suspect card.

“For all his crimes, Lord Konda’s greatest legacy is his daughter. I will guide her as I can.” Good. An example of how to drop names from the lore. All the bits about Konda don’t matter; the point of the text is the relationship between the card’s character and the daughter. The bits about konda simply enrich that.

bad. snore. snoooore. quotes, attribution. mediocrity in all its forms. Reads like a note on an idea to be fleshed out later.

The least inspired shit ever. Breaks the normal timeline for a bad take on azorious.

worse. Hey maybe don’t use three proper nouns in your flavor text especially when nobody knows what any of them are.

worst. 5 word flavor text. 4 word attribution. missing a comma that makes it seem like the speaker is inquiring about a quanitity of dads. Capitalizes dad incorrectly. Wait? Seriously? Fucking shit.

good but a member of why is it a quote club

bad because of cowardice. Drop “sure” and you at least have a non-shitty version of what you were going for. Flavoring a card like this is such a great opportunity for a writer and the author here tried to get through it as fast as possible. Obviously their first thought.

it could just be from looking at this endless wall of flavor text getting me down but it seems like the tenses on this card are off. Within its body, three lineages war for supremacy. You know, because it’s a creature in play right now. We’re not writing a novel.

so simple, and it completes the assignment.

great. wins the flare context. Quotes work fine; dopn’t distract. perfectly works with the text on the card.

worst. the emptiness was vast but also not empty. come on. lazy. stupid. what even was empty? you used “vast” on a card called Kaalia of the Vast? For real?

good. hi my name if flavor text writer and though i may not be fancy, i have read the damn assignment.

there is no goddamn way on earth that this flavor text hasn’t already been seen on a green card. I found it. It’s hunting grounds. “In the heavy hush of Krosa, drawing on mana is like ringing a dinner bell.” (quotes mine).

“recommend selected titles” is a mouthful, and it follows after “long-dead librarians are still on hand”. The idea is fine but this is rough draft material. Try again.

Blockchain 3.0 Gengar. I’m sorry what? Proper noun’s famine once (? obviously once; drop this) starved proper noun into embracing vampirism. Proper noun group would not let the same happen to proper noun that could be a person or a place. Come on. Is stensia a place? Is the coven a coven of vampires? witches? waht the fuck.

awful. All who behold this lazy flavor text are driven to write flavor text reviews. A fucking mockery of the craft and everyone who reads it.

I can see understands-the-assignment guy wrote this one as well.

bad. Another one where it would have been nice if they had an editor. What does “on concact” even mean with a spotlight? Does an aether spotlight use aether to make light or does it shed light on aether? These are the questions this brings to mind, and these are not questions anyone is excited to get an answer to.

bad. Even a scrap of Phryrexian machinery Yes, yes! Keep going! can be aww yeah lethal. Oh.

So the one problem here is that you meant “Freyalise’s power,” not “Freyalise power,” unless that was her band’s name.

great.

badbad. How many cards have this exact flavor text? Seriously.

it’s fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine i guess.

bad? good? it grows on me. discuss.

good no notes. tells you about phyrexians without saying phrexian again in the flavor text.

this is pretty good! Surprised they didn’t quote it. Took real guts .

Mediocre test. Textbook example of hiding behind a quote and attribution.

good. wanted to hate it. couldn’t. not great but extremely solid lore.

baaad. Gotta mention skies just in case you didn’t realize the birds nest guy who is a bird with flying was going to fly. is it supposed to be a joke? you are not funny.

passable text once against hiding behind attributions, quotes.

if you put an exclamation point in your flavor text you should probably delete it and start again.

…i’ll allow this humorous, attributed quote.

BAD. says nothing. is stupid. possible worst.

No legs to quake, no lungs to bellow, but if you see it’s teeth, it’s still too late.

You had me in the first half and lost me in the second. Let’s improve.

No legs to quake, no lungs to bellow, no heart to tire, no gut to sate.

not bad! simple, to the point,. Could feature this one

ruined. this was going to be quite good but for the name of the creature who died, which, notably, is probably a goblin, while the art depicts a human.

good to medium, hiding places, other people

I mean…how? I’m looking at the art. How would that even work? You’re not funny.

Taze blue card that should be bad but isn’t. An example of humour that doesn’t suckass.

PUN

it doesn’t really work but it’s swinging for the moon

possible top 10 good. when you see flavor text like this it really showcases how awful the other text is.

“Fire hurts them almost as much as the chaos that follows. Almost.” on Disorder

The forest was too lush for the brothers to despoil—almost. on fertile ground

it’s one thing to copy designs off of old cards and even to copy flavor text, but copy good flavor text. Notice how the text on fertile ground works absolutely fine without being like “EHY A PERSON SAID THIS”. Of course they did. It’s words.

FUCK. A fucking sports chant. Fuck you.

good, short. no abzan has ever stood alone. Being a quote still not necessary but this was short enough to not be distracting. Still muddles.

good lore. works fine.

this would work if there weren’t so many jokes in the set on other cards that undermine this, leading to reading it as a joke. I’ts a bad joke. It’d be great otherwise.

BAD. Joke. Quote. Attribution to nobody character. Exclamation Point. jebus

oh hey another joke by people who aren’t funny.

this not funny person at least had the good sense to let the flavor text be informed by the card.

GOOD. A QUOTE THAT AIDS THE TEXT HOLY SHIT

is this also funny? I can’t tell anymore. I think it’s getting dragged along.

this is an unglued card. the art is a joke. the flavor text is a joke. no. funny.

great flavor text made mediocre trying to be funny.

oh great more humor. almost works. is it even humor? it is. oh god.

feels like a basic placeholder but it does technically fulfill the assignment.

great! lore.

maybe actually make a decent rhyme if you’re going to do that. this sucks to say aloud, and sucks to remember later.

needs reworking but could be good. include

solid B.

a joke. a bad, bad joke. a bad, anachronistic joke.

it’s actually fine? somehow?

good.

machine orthodoxy. B+. A-? good.

took a chance and got it. good.

perfect green text.

more humor? I don’t even know. Maybe it’s fine.

great!

clunky.

six words and it’s gold. A

i’m not sure this makes sense. it’s good in a sort of unimpressive way. oscar bait.

one word to jokify it and it’s ruined. funny. fixable.

good. razorgrass. lore.

A man who used an exclamation point and lived! good.

goooooooooooooooood. beloved pet, turned to necromancy.

you don’t usually get something this long and this bad without an attribution.

minor offense. bad. exclamation. quote. attribution okay. repair it again!

did the guy just stand there or something? you can’t gaze at something that walked away.

B. maps must shift as well.

ooooooooooooh!

more jokes.

worst joke all time.

unnecessary comma. good.

good lore.

bad lore.

humor that isn’t a joke is okay.

a nothing sort of text that ultimately works well. bread and butter.

the author couldn’t hide more than this. feature.

…more funny…

yes! like we already did this way better on grim lavamancer, but still!

c+.

c+

i like it.

medium.

acceptable

holy shit this is lazy

if you want to do lighthearted, this is how.

super meh work.