Friendship is Magic: the Gathering

[Agetian]

To all who may be interested:
It looks like we have at least several people on the boards who are familiar with and potentially interested, to one degree or another, in the famous Hasbro animated show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. There has been some discussion over in the Quest Decks thread, which started as a for-fun discussion mostly, about what the decks could be representing various MLP characters.

I thought that if there is enough interest in this, why not try coming up with actual deck lists and, if we end up accumulating enough valuable material, maybe even making an out-of-tree "fun quest world" based on Equestria and its characters that could be installed as a separate "mod"?

I'll quote some of the relevant posts from the other thread outlining the basic ideas for some of the decks, as proposed by Marek14:

Let's see... Twilight, as the Element of Magic, would be probably combo/control, winning only after long and careful preparation. Blue/White, most likely.
Applejack, as the Element of Honesty, would use no tricks, just pure midrange. She's probably most physically powerful, so Red/Green, which also corresponds to the green trees and red apples. As a farmer, she could make use of various green ramp spells.
Rarity, as the Element of Generosity, would be definitely a group hug in commander, but I'm not sure what she would do in duel.
Rainbow Dash, that's pure aggro. She's all about speed, so her deck would be about winning as fast as possible. Blue/Green, based on blue fliers and green pumping should fit her. Possibly blue/black since she is very self-centered at times and she's quite assertive.
Pinkie Pie doesn't really care about winning, she is just random and funny. That means probably mono-red or blue/red deck which tries to confuse the game state as much as possible via things like Confusion in the Ranks, Grip of Chaos, etc. -- and while the random effects mess up opponent's plans, Pinkie accidentally wins through Chance Encounter and various coin-flipping cards. Pinkie could be also concepted as a mill deck because she usually doesn't win by overpowering her opponent but more like by tiring them out.
Finally, Fluttershy. Her deck is definitely green/white, with her ties to nature and community. Fluttershy is not aggressive at all, so her deck could be very defensive control with Ghostly Prison, etc. Epic Struggle would be a great win-condition for Fluttershy with all her animal friends.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders could have a goodstuff deck with all five colors. It could be great if it comes correctly, but it wouldn't be extra-cohesive -- they are chaotic when together and their plans work as often as they don't.

As for the main antagonists:

Nightmare Moon - blue/black, definitely, with nightmare theme (Torment nightmares, possibly Ashiok as well).
Discord - like Pinkie, but worse. While Pinkie would work as blue/red, Discord is definitely black/red. Madness would be a good theme.
Queen Chrysalis - as a changeling, Shapeshifters are definitely a theme, both smaller Lorwyn changelings and various clone effects. Blue is a must, and as a secondary color, I'd actually use white. For one thing, it would give the deck access to Crib Swap, which would be a fun flavor, but also, white is almost required for anyone who is a monarch (even Marchesa picked up white). But there's still lots of black, so I'd say that Chrysalis is Esper.
King Sombra - the Sombra from the show is basically an eldritch abomination, so black with powerful Eldrazi seems good. With the character development from comics, Sombra might even lose his black in favor of red as he's guided by his emotions a lot.
Lord Tirek - mono-black, as he cares about power and nothing else. Master of Drain Life effects.
Starlight Glimmer - her community/cult building would make her white/black, which would fit with the Starfield of Nyx deck I suggested.

And finally:
Celestia - as the ruler of the whole land, it's only appropriate to give her a domain deck using all five colors to good effects, although white would, of course, be primary.
Luna - Red/white seems nice for her. Why? Well, white corresponds to her dreamwalking and protecting of other ponies' sleep, and red is her emotional instability that led her to things like creating a monster for the express purpose of torturing herself. But more importantly, red has some moon-related cards like Blood Moon or Moonhold. Or, extend to green as well and let her use Werewolves with their lunar addiction problems.

<On Derpy>
Hmm, it's hard because Derpy's main characteristics is that she makes mistakes and messes things up. You know what -- she could actually be good with a Goblin deck. Her work ethics seems similar to theirs

Later, there were also a couple interesting suggestions from timmermac and Marek14:

Pinkie should have Mana Clash.
And for Discord -- Game of Chaos.

So, if anybody is interested in making this come to fruition, feel free to come up with:
- Specific deck lists that you believe would work for certain characters (try to account for the fact that they will be played by the AI);
- Additional ideas for either other characters or for the characters mentioned above.

If you decide to go with this, thanks for your interest
If you're not interested in helping out or in MLP in general, no worries, just ignore this thread

- Agetian

[Marek14]

Actually, I wonder whether anyone is working on the software that could play the MLP card game. It has surprisingly robust rules with comprehensive rules document that rivals MtG in detail!

[Agetian]

Actually, I wonder whether anyone is working on the software that could play the MLP card game. It has surprisingly robust rules with comprehensive rules document that rivals MtG in detail!

Hehe indeed, that's what I've been thinking too. I'm actually surprised that, knowing the overall high level of creativity in MLP fandom, no one has come up even with a basic implementation of the game yet (at least as far as I could tell). I couldn't find a single working project or prototype for it...

- Agetian