Friendship is Card Games: Uncommon Bond · 12:02pm Oct 22nd, 2017
Time for some nostalgia critiques, where Starlight remembers it so we don’t have to.
For four hundred points, what color was Cherry Chopper’s white monkey?
I do love how Starlight’s so excited, she can’t even recognize how none of the railway workers care about her expository dialogue.
How did Starlight miss Sunburst? Or his ridiculous amount of luggage? Which was apparently still being offloaded after the train pulled out?
Also, how heavy is that one suitcase if Starlight struggles to lift it? Or is there just a lot of magic-absorbing literature in there?
So, if Twilight’s the only one who goes into the antique store, how does it stay open? I suppose it might see some patronage if we go by the “Ponyville as faux-rustic tourist town” hypothesis. Of course, going by how it’s even bigger on the inside than most pony buildings, it’s possible that it’s actually a plot device shop. in which case it’s covered under several government subsidies.
I wonder what the story is with that apparently seapony necklace. This place seems as much cultural museum as it does rummage shop, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the genuine article, assuming there’s more to underwater civilization than sirens and transmuted hippogriffs.
Palominian letter opener, eh? That’s another one for the atlas.
Sometimes stores sell unsorted inventory. Sometimes they package selections from an assortment of items in opaque packaging so you never quite know which one you’re—
Wait, sorry, that’s blind bags.
Twilight Sparkle, ladies and gentlemen. Ascended to alicornhood, but around board games, she surges like an infant.
Also, apparently Dragon Pit is based on a real board game, Fireball Island. Thanks to PresentPerfect there; I never would’ve known if he hadn’t mentioned it.
It’s been like this since the castle first sprouted, but I still love how the raw crystal support pillars have the Mane 6 color scheme that recurred throughout Season 4.
Odd that Sunburst is so body shy. I wonder what the story is there.
I do like how Sunburst doesn’t even remember something so lodged in Starlight’s mind. It shows both how obsessed she is with their shared past and how he’s moved on.
It’s a bit disconcerting to see a unicorn applebuck, but I presume the trees have been bred to conduct vibration well. (Heck, Rarity managed one back in “Simple Ways” after the dance of her people.) Plus, as we see when the camera angles up, Starlight barely got any of the apples out of it. Though she still managed to lodge one right on Trixie’s horn.
TEACUP! (Also, hobo Trixie confirmed.)
Setting off fireworks before sunrise. I bet the neighborhood’s really going to appreciate that. (Though since the closest sleeping pony is Twilight, I don’t think Trixie cares much.)
Trixie is just adorable as Sunburst fails to produce her card.
Three-cup monte doesn’t work well when the cups are all different patterns.
It’s porbably a very good thing Sunburst kept Starlight from following through on the Mirror Pool plan… though thinking about it, Maud probably heard the same stories from Nana Pinkie as Pinkie did. She could probably use the Pool herself. Probably best that she didn’t…
Also, Starlight may have killed Tom. It depends on how she defines “breaking the seal.”
I do love Maud’s series of precision strikes to unveil the vertical stratum, though that’s clearly some manner of single crystal rather than any of the possibilities Sunburst offers.
Maybe it’s just me, but when Maud said “Because of the calcite deposits,” it sounded a bit… breathier than usual.
What I’m saying is that this episode could be reinterpreted as the world’s nerdiest dating sim, with Sunburst in the protagonist role.
Interesting to see Starlight using another scroll as a spell medium. I do wonder what advantages that offers. Also, neat to see the return of both full-room illusions and age spells.
As for the spell itself, as I said, past-obsessed. Starlight has never really moved on from Sunburst leaving her, and it shows here more than ever before. He’s moved on and developed other interests. All she has is what they had as children, magic and a board game.
Oh, Trixie. Who else saws herself in half in the middle of a conversation? 
Nice Twilight-grade freakout on Sunburst’s part. And while Maud doesn’t plan on using the Mirror Pool, it seems Boulder couldn’t resist the temptation.
According to Starlight, that house was “our childhood home,” singular. That raises a few questions about just what the living conditions were like in that village. Was that a duplex or what?
No, Maud made the die. There’s only one.
I do love how the different dragon costumes have expressions suitable for the ponies wearing them.
Okay, it’s official, if Twilight’s castle has any degree of awareness, it hates Starlight.
Get in the hug, Maud.
Oh hey, another Journal of Future Plot Significance. I suppose we’ll see if this one results in wings for anypony.
In all, a fun episode that shows how far Starlight has come and how far she has to go. She’s making progress; the friends she has attest to that. But she still has almost as much baggage as Sunburst, and it’ll take time to unload it all, especially with regards to him. But next time…
Well, we’ll get to that in a week. On to an activity that’s fun for all ages:
Sheepish Scholar 1W
Creature — Unicorn Wizard
Sheepish Scholar can’t attack unless it’s enchanted or equipped.
”I feel naked without clothes.”
2/3
Expose Strata U
Sorcery
Target player reveals cards from the top of his or her library until he or she reveals a land card, then puts those cards into his or her graveyard.
Landfall — If you had a land enter the battlefield under your control this turn, repeat this process once.
Magus of the Network U
Creature — Unicorn Wizard
Each player plays with the top card of his or her library revealed to all other players and held against his or her forehead. (Each card’s owner can’t see it unless another effect lets them.)
“Is this my card?”
1/1
Prestidigitate U
Instant
You may tap or untap target permanent. Scry 1. (Look at the top card of your library. You may put that card on the bottom of your library.)
“It’s not much, but it’s what I can manage.”
—Sunburst, imperial crystaller
Trick Chains U
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature doesn’t untap during its controller’s untap step.
Whenever enchanted creature’s controller casts a noncreature spell, untap enchanted creature.
”Ta-da?”
Sleight of Hoof 1U
Sorcery
Look at the top three cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
Hoofcraft — If you control three or more Ponies, Pegasi, and/or Unicorns, put up to two of those cards into your hand instead of one.
Baggage Claim 1UU
Sorcery
Exile the top three cards of your library face down. Put those cards into your hand at the beginning of your next upkeep.
”How in Equestria did my bags end up in Appleoosa!?”
Luggage Porter 2U
Creature — Unicorn Citizen
Luggage Porter’s toughness is equal to the number of cards in your hand.
”Always tip the ponies handling your necessities. They more than deserve it.”
—Rarity, Bearer of Generosity
2/*
Heavy Reading 2UU
Sorcery
If you have fewer than seven cards in your hand, draw cards equal to the difference. Lands you control don’t untap during your next untap step.
”With Sunburst’s reading habits, it feels like Twilight’s here with us.”
—Shining Armor
Tar Delving 1B
Sorcery
Choose one —
• Search your library for a card and put that card into your graveyard. Then shuffle your library.
• Return a creature card from your graveyard to your hand.
Entwine 2 (Choose both if you pay the entwine cost.)
Blind Buy 3R
Instant
As an additional cost to cast Blind Buy, discard your hand.
Draw three cards.
”Reward favors risk.”
—Old Ponish proverb
Speleothem Elemental 4R
Creature — Elemental
First strike
Land creatures you control have first strike.
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, you may have target land you control become a 3/3 Elemental creature with haste until end of turn. It’s still a land.
4/2
Dragon Pit Trap 5RR
Instant — Trap
If an opponent sacrificed a land this turn, you may pay 2RR rather than pay Dragon Pit Trap’s mana cost.
Create a 5/5 red Dragon creature token with flying.
Cracking the crust draws the attention of things slumbering beneath it.
Crystal Tourist 1G
Creature — Pony Scout
Whenever Crystal Tourist deals combat damage to a player, put a +1/+1 counter on it.
Though far from the Heart, every sight they see makes them shine brighter with the joy of discovery.
2/2
Scale Up 1G
Instant
As an additional cost to cast Scale Up, you may reveal a Dragon card from your hand.
Target creature gets +4/+4 until end of turn. If you revealed a Dragon card or controlled a Dragon as you cast Scale Up, that creature gains trample until end of turn.
Nostalgia Trip 2G
Sorcery
Return up to one target land card and up to one target nonland permanent card from your graveyard to your hand.
Starlight’s magic returned her body to a time her heart had never left.
False Hoof 1
Artifact — Equipment
Equipped creature gets +1/+1.
Equipment swap 2 (2: Exchange this Equipment with an Equipment card in your hand.)
Equip 2
”Look carefully. Nothing up my cannon, and…”
Sparklite Deposit 2
Artifact
T: Scry 1.
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, untap Sparklite Deposit.
After Twilight’s ascension, veins of a strange purple mineral began to form beneath Ponyville.
Map of the Helm 3
Artifact
3, T: Target creature you control explores. (Reveal the top card of your library. Put that card into your hand if it's a land. Otherwise, put a +1/+1 counter on that creature, then put the card back or put it into your graveyard.)
Aquastrian Relic 4
Artifact
Blue spells you cast cost 1 less to cast.
T: Add U to your mana pool.
Gold never rusts, making it one of the few metals seaponies can work with.
Prop Saw 6
Artifact
4, T: Exile target creature you control. Create two tokens that are copies of that creature, except they aren’t legendary and have haste. At the beginning of the next end step, exile those tokens and return the exiled card to the battlefield under its owner’s control.
I am in awe of prop saw. Such an interesting card!
The apples also fell randomly instead of in neat piles. But yeah, the trees may be bred and conditioned to respond to vibrations from anything, not just earth ponies.
This story was a bit predictable, but it did go in a slightly different direction than I expected. When Trixie showed up, I thought she was going to get jealous of Sunburst because Starlight was spending time with him, but instead, Sunburst and Trixie got along well.
All in all this is a good episode, and it nicely sets up the season finale.
Also note that this is the opposite of a regular cup game, in which the ball is under none of the cups right up until the dealer reveals that you picked the wrong one and lost your money
She should have used teacups.
If you listen to MitchH, it quickly gets rather dark.
Prop Saw is begging to be in a propagate deck.
One thing that felt a bit weird at the end if you follow the comics is how Sunburst ended up with that book. He gets it in the Legends of Magic series as well but in an entirely different way. Kind of jarring since that series is tying directly into this season.
Given that we see a suspiciously Star Swirl-ish journal from a mysterious mystery barrel they sold to Sunburst, I'm going to go with plot device shop.
Speaking of Teacup, I like to think that she teleported the teacup away to someplace directly above Twilight.
i.chzbgr.com/full/9086939392/hBFD2C697/
Anyone else amused by Twilight's creeped-out face when Starlight mentioned exactly what her spell did?
Nice pun on Scale Up.
This makes alicorns sound like eldritch beings that warp the landscape just by existing nearby. This idea warrants further investigation.
Adoracute Trixie is one of my favorite things about this episode on rewatch. Also, it's not so much "hobo Trixie" as it is that her traveling wagon is also her "home" and she sleeps wherever she can bed down for the night, like traveling performers and tradesmen of old.
And yeah, nerdiest datesim ever.
This last pair of episodes were pretty decent. I wish I'd seen them first when the leaks occurred, instead of skipping straight to the finale. I think I would've had a better time.
I feel strangely ripped off.
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It gets kind of disgusting in the best possible way with powerful ETB triggers. Sawing a Regisaur Alpha in half is fun in the Dwarf Fortress sense.
4705004
I do wonder how that vibration conduction could be used in conduction. Come to think of it, the resonant effects might explain why the Apples keep losing barns.
4705054
When in doubt, blame time shenanigans, whether Discord's or Starlight's.
4705065
Twilight's face was pretty fantastic there.
I am happy with how well Scale Up works. They scaled up the game to LARPing scale, the ponies scaled up in dragon costumes (
"Offenseive ones,") and the spell enlarges the target.
Odd how Canterlot's abandoned crystal mines still seem to have so many crystals left in them, isn't it? Almost like some incredibly strong source of earth pony magic induced accidental petriculture or something...
4705107
Duly noted. Even if the secret to the Best Trixie Ending involves giving her a star-print bindle.
4705161
It's generally best to do this sort of thing in order.
4705222
Were you hoping for a triple bullseye? (Er, horseshorn?)
4705224
I believe you mean that Sawing a Regisaur Alpha would lead to !!fun!!.
Regarding the crystal caverns: You'd think you'd see more Celestia-colored crystals down there. Or perhaps iridescent ones, with the occasional pink gem.
I'm a geology major, and this bit drove me nuts. I still have to keep myself from yelling at my screen when I see it.
On another note, one takeaway I got from this episode was that Ponyville is built on top of geological Swiss cheese. You've got Rarity's gem mining cave, which connects to Maud's little paradise cavern, which is connected by all those twisty little passages to the Mirror Pool's cave... it wouldn't surprise me if a future episode had a tunnel going all the way to Canterlot's crystal caverns.
If the show (or some fanwork or another) ever feels like bringing back the Diamond Dogs or doing a Journey to the Center of the Earth-type story, that's a perfect hook for it right there.
Story-wise, it was nice to see Trixie get the chance to be something other than an annoying loudmouth for once. She was genuinely adorable and funny in this episode, and I'd love to see this trend continue.
Oooh. I like this flavor text. Now I wonder, alicorns have the magic of all three tribes combined -- if they can affect the geology in this manner simply by ascending or being in one place for extended periods of time, what else could they do? If Twilight can create new minerals simply through her extended presence, I wonder what long-term affects she may end up having on Ponyville's plant life and weather, or magic and spellcasting in the town's vicinity.
You're not a proper wizard without a cloak or robe of some sort. He seems like the type of guy that puts high importance on appearances so being seem without his wizard garb is very
dedressingdistressing for him.She messed with the table. You. Do not. Mess with. The table.
The castle is going to get its petty revenge for as long as it was that Starlight messed up the timeline. How you interpret how long that might mean is up to you.
On Prestidigitate: Kinda surprised they haven't used this name yet. It's a good generic name that could fit on any world and it's already the short hand for this mechanic, sans scry at least.
On Fake Hoof: I wish we'd get more Aura Swap. Equipment swap would be neat as well.
On the flavor text: I hope she has a bone in her cannon. Though it is a false hoof... still, that saying doesn't work as well as 'sleeve' does.
I was disappointed that this line:
didn't lead to a card. One got made in my head after reading it.
4705044
Did you mean "populate"?
Though "propagate" is a good name for a mechanic. You'd have to distance it from populate and proliferate somehow though.
Sweet Celestia, these cards call to me. I'm going to have to mock up Magus of the Network on my own. Maybe Prop Saw too. Maybe Scale Up too.
4705579
Yeah, I do. I remembered it wasn't proliferate and ended in -ate, so I guess I mixed it up.
4705012 True. Only in Equestria would there be a ball under ALL THREE cups in the monte.
4705360 Ponyville's geology is
dependent on plot convenienceinteresting, yes. Consider Mt. Canter not too distant, the mountains of the Everfree, and Ghastly Gorge downstream along the same river that apparently runs from Canterlot through the town. Leaving aside the (probable) influence of magic in crystal development, it all strongly suggests that Ponyville and environs lie on an alluvial plain overlaying an ancient karst landscape altered by faulting and compression into hills and ridges. (I haven't read enough geology to figure out how well that ties together.)The key point for me in the episode is that Starlight Glimmer's quest for revenge devoured her. Sunburst had a normal childhood and developed normal interests and hobbies. Starlight developed a monomania that crippled her as a person, and with the obsession gone there's not much left of her. All she has is her obsession and a few scraps of young childhood memories like a board game.
It might be interesting to hand Starlight off to the CMCs and say, "She understands her cutie mark. She needs help with absolutely EVERYTHING else."
4706128
That's an interesting interpretation, and there's nothing I've seen to require that that be not the case. A karst or otherwise carbonaceous lithology would explain all those caves.
The other thing, of course, is to figure out where all those huge gems everywhere come from. No other explanation for that but magic, I'm afraid.
I've actually been trying to figure out Equestria's geology for a lark. The most I've come up with so far is that it probably formed from the collision of two tectonic plates, one from the north and one from the south. The lines of mountains running generally east-west down its middle would be formed along the "suture line", like the Alps and Himalayas were in our world. The Badlands also have the look of a tectonic basin or dome, heavily eroded.
Of course, this is all assuming that real-life tectonic forces are a major force in Equestria's world, or that it even operates on the same deep time that our world does. It could have been created fully formed in quote unquote historic times by literal deities, for all we know.
4706132
I like that. Good interpretation.
I may be a bit late, but no one mentioned that the hole Starlight fell through had exactly the form of Twilight's cutie mark. I wonder wether that happens to all breaks and holes in the tree's crystal?
4783851
That's actually a really interesting question. And ties into the implications of Sparklite Deposit. A tree's roots can spread in unexpected ways...