Since this is the first puzzle, I hope you won't mind a brief introduction and tutorial, just so you know what you're getting yourself into. Each and every word in this puzzle has something to do with Magic: The Gathering, perhaps referring to cards, concepts, common slang, or even notable people. I've attempted to clue the puzzle closely in line with the style of the New York Times crossword, which should be familiar to a lot of you.
If you've never done a New York Times crossword, however, don't worry. The NYT style, basically, is to have a healthy variety of lots of different types of clues and answers. Most will be fairly straightforward, but there will be a few that require wordplay, some that demand unusual amounts of cleverness, and a couple that are obscure (but hopefully not unfairly so.) One thing to look out for in particular is any clue that ends in a question mark. That's a dead giveaway that something is afoot, and that the clue and/or answer are strange or misleading.
Another thing to look out for is agreement between the clue and answer in terms of tense, point of view, part of speech, etc. For example, if the clue is a bare infinitive (like 48-Across), the answer will be one, too. (Be wary of words that can be multiple parts of speech, though, like "heading" in 64-Across.) If the clue is plural (like 9-Across), the answer will also be plural. "And" and "or" are also reliable indicators of plurality. The answer to "red and blue", for example, will always be COLORS, not COLOR. Conversely, the answer to "red or blue" will always be COLOR, not COLORS.
One last thing. If you're relatively new to Magic or crosswords, it's understandable that you might find a lot of the references mystifying or obscure. Most of the clues are intended to be pretty easy to look up if you need to, and you shouldn't feel bad about doing so. To quote NYT crossword editor Will Shortz, quoting his predecessor Will Weng, "It's your puzzle. Solve it any way you want."
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Wow, this is really fun! I hope these puzzles keep coming.
ReplyDeleteI would just like to say thanks; this was a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to the next one.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff. I was a little disappointed in myself for having to look up more than I wanted but 4 down made me laugh when I figured it out.
ReplyDeleteyou hace kept me up a fucking hour
ReplyDeletewhen's the next puzzle :P
Impressive. I had a lot of fun with it.
ReplyDeleteThis is awesome. Had to look a lot up, but it was fun!
ReplyDelete