Milo the Gathering

What if Magic The Gathering meets Noobsville and all its friends? This project was originally proposed as a way to encourage Milo (iCe-SouL) to join his long-time friends to play MTG online.

Therefore, I started, steadily and without any intention to stop, to look for some existing software for this purpose…and guess what? I was successful. Well, this is up to you to say. Hope you enjoy it!

“Cards were thought, cards were created, images were retrieved on the web, flavour texts were made up and, eventually, cards were balaahahahahahnced.” - MTG motto.

Cards

Probably you all know that MTG has 5 different colours, plus colorless cards. Thus, scroll down to see visual spoilers!

White

Humanity is facing a severe crysis. What has been a matter of fear for the past decades has finally become true: homosexuality is no more a taboo. In recent times, the long announced rainbow prophecy fell on the justs and the unjusts. As a result, chaos and joy conquered the hearts of people and rebellions eventually dominated the public scene. Droves of men, women and some others that may be called a ‘mixture’ of them, all covered with bright colours, cast out the heterosexual majority with gentle acts and high pitched chores. Suddenly, a long curved line made of people filled the horizon, but, at the same time, some others were enjoying their accomplishment. Nonetheless, a persistent enemy still tries to hold humanity within his hands. The dichotomy of religious people and rainbow people sussists more than ever.

Black

Light cannot be without darkness, strength cannot be without weakness. In the most remoted regions of the world, far away from any civilized area, a group of ones so called humans lives peacefully. They all take part to the cult of the farmers: during the day, people alleviate earth suffering by cultivating and they take advantage of its fruits; however, during the night, strange echoes can be heard from the houses. The gentle habitants of these dark regions get possessed by spiritual demons, symbol of the greedy sin. None knows exactly what they orchestrate, but one thing is certain: anyone who unveiled this mistery has never lived enough to tell us.

Nearby human colonies, contamined forests and swamps embrace this isolated flame of damned civilization. Undead creatures infest the zone, standing as the never ending protector of its secrets. However, life still prevails in such hostile territory. Haired creatures move in packs following a unique figure, a guide who is not a guide, a master who is not a master. What does it mean?

Red

Humanity doesn’t only correlates with civilization. In the well known region of the high mountains, unthinkable events daily take place. Time seems to flow slower than usual and a sense of otium embraces all living souls. But are there any living beings out there? Sun rays bath artificial constructs that seem to recall an ancient glorious past. What is their role? Is there something to protect? Deep within mountains, creatures resembling humans may know the answer since they have bet their own lives for some hypothetical glorious treasures. Mining is the only way to resurrect old pathways, but as guardians protect the outskirts, there are also guardians in the dungeons that the mountains offer. In this apparently hostile place, a dejected race is making their way in order to settle down a new home: the forest elves, kicked by new inhabitants of the green valleys, seek a new place where to stay. Will the mountains greet this new guest?

Green

The peaceful green valley, where elves and other nature beings used to live peacefully, has undergone a sudden change. Divine guided new creatures have made their way through the forest and settled down by wish of their celestial masters. Faeries and goofy ogres kicked out the appointed inhabitants of the green valley, leaving them to an uncertain future. Forests are no silent anymore as they used to be. Awkward laughs, war cries and battle-like echoes can be heard on a daily basis. This unexpected change that apparently had to be done, provoked a profound alteration within nature equilibrium. The woods will no longer protect you, unless you offer something in exchange. ``PIZZE’’ is the way. The natural depiction of the well known divine diet: nectar and ambrosia. Still, nothing is known about this extraordinary intervention, neither faeries and ogres masters identity, nor their intentions. Only one thing is certain: you will most likely be jabbared!

Blue

If earthling are struggling with recent changes, sky domination is only attributable to a single race. Goblin technology allowed them to build entirely floating cities, deeply connected with each other. Fast wireless communication, coordinated air transports and artificial support are the core ingredients of this highly advanced civilization. However, only one problem seems quite hard to exacerbate: goblins themselves. If there’s something that could be possibly fucked up, it will certainly go that way. Civilization advancement is hard, this is indeed a well known fact, but other races may be more suitable for this everlong task. Will we assist to an artificial revolution and payback, eventually?

Artifacts

Multicolour

Lands

Tokens

Card Rules

Procrastinate

  1. Cards with this keyword have a 0 converted mana cost (CMC).

  2. Before playing a card with this keyword, choose one option in the brackets. Subsequently, exile the card and put a number of Procrastinate counters depending on the given option. From left to right, each successive option implies an additional Procrastinate counter.

  3. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a procrastinate counter from all cards you have in exile.

  4. For example, the Babysitting card below can be played after 1 turn by choosing the first option starting from left; after 2 turns by choosing the second option; and after 3 turns by choosing the last option.

Anti-mainstream

  1. Anti-mainstream cards share a common behaviour with their copies. When you play a card with this keyword, the Bonus option activates, or is activated if passive, as long as that card is the only copy on the battlefield under your control.

  2. Copies of a card under your control controlled by your opponent don’t affect your copy of the card.

  3. When another copy of a card with this keyword enters the battlefield, the Malus option gets activated, or is active if passive, as long as you control one or more copies of that given card on the battlefield.

  4. For example, the Abstract Entity card below has the Bonus passive option active as long as you don’t have other copies of it on the battlefield at the same time. Once you play another copy of it, each Malus option of the two cards (the one on the battlefield and the one that has just entered) gets activated and you have to sacrifice two permanents.

Latent

  1. Cards with this keyword have the corresponding effect activated after the specified number of turns.

  2. For example, the Battle Sister card below, creates a 1/1 white Fortunate Lover token creature after two turns that it has been on the battlefield.

Backdoor

  1. Cards with Backdoor can assign their damage as thought they weren’t blocked.

  2. For example, the Persistent Activist card below can assign its damage as thought it weren’t blocked.

Weak

  1. Cards with this keyword get more powerful as long as there are other creatures under your control that share the same creature sub-type.

  2. Each card with the Weak keyword comes with different options. Each one is active as long as there is at least the corresponding number of creatures that share the same creature sub-type.

  3. For example, the Batrider card below, gets +1/+0 as long as you have at least another Zombie creature on the battlefield. As soon as you have 3 other Zombie creatures on the battlefield, Batrider gets +2/+1 and has Flying.

Synchronized

  1. Cards with this keyword can be played at any time from the following places: hand, graveyard, exile zone.

  2. Each time you play as card with Synchronized keyword, its cost increases by the specified amount.

  3. Cards share their cumulative cost with their corresponding copies.

  4. For example, the Cloud Whale card below, can be played the first time by paying {5}{U}{U}. The second time you want to cast it, you have to pay {2} additionally. The third time you have to pay {4} additionally and so on.

Leaky

  1. Cards with this keyword have a passive effect that is repeated at each player’s upkeep.

  2. At the beginning at each player’s upkeep, create a 0/1 blue Code Bug token artifact creature on the battlefield under your control.

  3. An example is given by the Unfinished Projects card below.

Devour

  1. Cards with this keyword deal damage by applying devour counters. Damage specified by creature power is still applied.

  2. Creature cards affected by devour counters have their maximum toughness reduce by the number of devour counters on them.

  3. Players affected by devour counters have the next healing effects prevented by devour counters. In particular, each 1 life gain is prevented by one devour counter and the counter is removed afterwards.

  4. For example, the Carnivorous Plant card below deals damage by inflicting devour counters as well as dealing damage by the specified power value.

Diffusion

  1. Whenever a card with this keyword takes damage and it survives, create a copy of it.

  2. An example is given by the Legged Pus card below.

Invisible

  1. Creature cards with this keyword have hexproof as long as they are not attacking.

  2. An example is given by the Feature Bug card below.

How to Play

Download Cockatrice

The tool designed for joining together our souls is called Cockatrice (no pun intended!). The tool is extremely lightweight and straightforward to install. You can download it from the official web page.

Download MTG custom set

The next step consists in downloading and adding the Milo The Gathering (MTG) custom set to Cockatrice. You can download cards images and software specific XML file here.

Once you have downloaded the MTG custom set, all you need is to add it to Cockatrice. To this end, open Cockatrice -> Card Database -> Add custom sets/cards -> Select the custom set XML file.

Subsequently, add downloaded card images as follows: Open Cockatrice -> Card Database -> Open custom image folder -> Copy custom set cards images folder.

You should now be able to play with the Milo The Gathering custom card set. Enjoy!

Play Online

In order to play online with other people all you need to do is to Open Cockatrice -> Connect. Even if it’s your first time connecting and you don’t have an account, fill username and password fields and it will automatically prompt to a registration page. Once you have registered with your email, connect again and you are done!

Drafting

Drafting necessarily requires an external tool. The one pointed for custom sets is Planesculptors.net. I’ve already uploaded the ad-hoc MTG custom set. All you need to do is described below.

  • Create a game room on Cockatrice.
  • Only one player is required to login on Planesculptors.net (you can use any email without any kind of registration)
  • The player that has logged on Planesculptors.net has to go to Host Event -> Select draft type -> Add packs from MTG custom set -> Share the automatically generated link to other players in Cockatrice room.

For more details, feel free to check Cockatrice Drafting page.