A Flavor Text is an italicized text printed on a "Magic: The Gathering" card that represents mood, humor, depth and other elements or lore about the game world but does not affect the game itself. These exclude italicized texts enclosed in parentheses. Flavor texts involve a little story telling and provide bits of information about the game world in general, you can look at it like those short cutscenes you see when you play video games. It is also incredible how one can bring entertainment from often few, carefully chosen words. It often involves metaphors, comedic verses and sometimes passages from classic literature.
Art and flavor texts bring unique elements in playing "Magic: The Gathering," it might have helped the game survive as it is boring to play if the cards were just flat names and abilities.
Today we list the notable flavor texts of "Magic: The Gathering."
Serious flavor
Some cards are just downright serious and suggest a solemn if not grave mood. Here are some of our honorable mentions:
- Ogre Resister - He didn't have a word for "home," but he knew it was something to be defended.
- Last Word - "Someday, someone will best me. But it won't be today, and it won't be you."
- Wayward Soul - "No home, no heart, no hope." —Stronghold graffito
Comedic approach
Some flavor texts are intended for amusement and are pure pun.
- Pacifism - For the first time in his life, Grakk felt a little warm and fuzzy inside.
- Fodder Cannon - Step 1: Find your cousin. Step 2: Get your cousin in the cannon. Step 3: Find another cousin.
- Raging Goblin - "He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged."
- Reparations - “Sorry I burned down your village. Here’s some gold.”
Classical pieces
In rare occasions, flavor texts could be derived from poetic articles that are evocative and suggestive to the art and ability of the card.
- Scathe Zombies - "They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, Nor spake, nor moved their eyes; It had been strange, even in a dream, To have seen those dead men rise." —Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
- Gaseous Form - ". . . And gives to airy nothing/ A local habitation and a name."William Shakespeare, A Midsummer-Night's Dream
- Death Pits of Rath - "Neither could I forget what I had read of these pits—that the sudden extinction of life formed no part of their most horrible plan." —Edgar Allan Poe, "The Pit and the Pendulum"
These cards only show how deep and literate "Magic: The Gathering" can be, players can take pleasure in dueling and at the same time in enjoying the flavors of magic.
