Flavor of the Month: Catnip Tea

//Art: Rin and Seri, by Leesha Hannigan

Someone Call Matt Damon, 'Cause We Bought a Zoo

Welcome to Flavor of the Month, where we use cards' flavor as a recipe for building decks! Today we're digging into a fan-favorite series of flavor text, the Love Song of Night and Day, a poem that appeared in snippets on 17 cards in the Mirage and Visions sets. Which means, of course, this article will be written in strict pentameter starting with the next paragraph.

I'm just kidding; that sounds miserable to write. Even though I am actually a professional poet when I'm not writing about Magic or writing for my day job (weirdly enough, there isn't a lot of money in poetry), I tend to avoid any kind of strict meter; pentameter and other specified meters and rhyme have largely fallen by the wayside in modern poetry. They're so far removed from the way we talk and write and read today that in most cases they read strangely, coming off stilted. Not to say there aren't poets today capable of making great art with stricter meter, and the pattern of stresses in every poem determines its rhythm, which is one of the most crucial elements of poetry, but I digress.

I mention this because the Love Song of Night and Day does not follow a prescribed meter and does very little rhyming. It's composed in quatrains (four-line stanzas) until the very end where this pattern is cast aside, and the lines are all on the longer side. You can read the full poem here, and I've pasted it to the bottom of this article for posterity's sake (since apparently two of the three places the full poem lived online, including the page at the official Magic website, are no longer active, hence the Web Archive link). The author of the full poem is Jenny Scott, who was an editor at Wizards of the Coast (presumably back when WotC published full books to go alongside expansions). The poem was written during the worldbuilding work the Wizards team was doing for Mirage, taking place on Jamuraa, the Dominarian continent where that set and Visions (and later, Prophecy) take place.

The entire poem isn't encapsulated on the small number of cards that bear its lines in their flavor text, which is why it's nice that we have the full poem provided to fill in the blanks. As for what's going on in the poem, it's pretty straightforward: the first half of the poem depicts a couple attending a festival together on the evening before the woman will be leaving their village, seemingly to go to war. The second half recounts the couple's long history and the impending departure, and then goes on to metaphor and myth about the sun and the moon needing each other and keeping their love alive despite so often being apart.

Sun follows Moon until she tires, then carries her until she's strong
and runs ahead of him again. I'll carry you, too, my beloved.

...

Night wears a black cloak lined with fire, studded inside with gleaming stars.
At dawn and dusk he spies his love. Across the rolling hills of sky,
they glimpse each other--so briefly.

Beyond the straightforward narrative, and where I think the best parts of this poem lie, are in the vibrant depictions of the Jamuraan festival, its people, and the wild animals and mystical beings that populate the continent and its mythos. In this poem, Jamuraa is incredibly alive: panthers, rhinos, lions, insects, and lizards are everywhere.

Even Scott's depiction of the natural landscape is exhilarating, rife with activity and personification:

So let's get started on building a deck that utilizes as many of these cards with Love Song of Night and Day flavor text as we can reasonably use, then flesh out the decklist with some on-theme cards and strategies that match the verve of Jamuraa and the Love Song.

Ingredients

What we have in the Love Song pantry is... well, it's not a lot. There are interesting cards, but not a lot of options for a clear strategy.

And as is often the case when we pull a lot of pre-Modern cards as the basis for a deck, the baseline starts pretty weak. With the exception of a couple cards in each expansion, the general power level of Magic cards back then was quite low, and I'd wager 95% of old sets have become obsolete either through narrow application or simple power creep. Compare Canopy Dragon to Old-Growth Troll for example of what a 4/4 trampler looks like nowadays. We're going to rely on a lot of newer cards to do the mechanical work in service of the Love Song's flavor.

Where do we start, though? There's some good land cards, like Early Harvest and Summer Bloom, but those will be good no matter what deck we end up with. What else do we have? Thanks to a throwback to the Love Song of Night and Day flavor text in Modern Horizons, we have something to work with: King of the Pride, plus the Love Song flavor text on the Mirage printing of Panther Warriors.

Look, when you're pulling from a small list of old cards from well before the Age of Commander, sometimes two cards is the most synergy you find. We take what we can get, and in this case, what we got was one new card in the last 27(!!!) years that points us in a clear direction. Is Cat typal fitting with the Love Song of Night and Day, though? Absolutely. The poem has references to many, many animals, so a creature-prominent deck is fitting, and quite a few of those animal name-drops are of the felidae variety: leopards, tigers, lions, and panthers.

We wanted a deck that matches the animal-full liveliness of the poem, so let's make this thing a zoo. Plus, as the poem is teeming with life in every direction, can we do some lifegain shenanigans too? In Selesnya colors, we barely have to try. Cats in Magic are often tied to lifegain mechanics (as is their patron planeswalker, Ajani), so we're already set up for success.

Now it comes time to figure out what commander can lead this deck. As mentioned, most of the cards with Love Song flavor text are white and green, with a smattering of blue, black, and red. It would be easy to go to the default cat-mander since 2017, Arahbo, Roar of the World, but let's add one more color and use a commander that says "love" all over: Rin and Seri, Inseparable.

I have no idea if there's any official MTG lore to Rin and Seri's story, and if they're inseparable in love or just in friendship (or how much anthropomorphizing we're doing just by asking that question), but friendship is its own important kind of love, after all. Plus, who doesn't love a YouTube video of two different animals who are unlikely friends? Cats and dogs historically are supposed to be enemies, if you believe our idioms and classic cartoons, and they may make for an unlikely pair, but so do Night and Day.

So we have a commander, a clear direction, and can start building. I wonder if we have any other on-theme cards that we can work in?

Of course, they literally made a saga in Dominaria United called Love Song of Night and Day, so there was no way we weren't going to run it. But it's actually a fitting card both in flavor and mechanics: it shares bounty lovingly with another player at the table, makes a lil' wild beastie of the bird variety, and then makes two creatures stronger for the experience.

Nothing says love like a good kiss, which can permanently clean up any pesky artifacts or enchantments without putting us down a card (which I love), and while Crash of Rhinos is empirically a Bad Card, I'm happy to have the rhino from the poem represented alongside absolutely perfect flavor text:

Love is like a rhino, short-sighted and hasty; if it cannot find a way, it will make a way.
--Femeref adage

We also have Wedding Ring, which would have been a natural inclusion even if it wasn't very powerful and lifegain-synergistic already, and if you don't think that everything about Selfless Savior is pure love and that it's actually the saddest and most beautiful card in the game, I don't know what to tell you.

Preparation

There are two tried-and-true ways to win with a lifegain deck: Test of Endurance and Felidar Sovereign. However, Zendikar Rising recently gave us one more, Angel of Destiny, which is a lot less efficient, since it can only knock out one opponent at a time, but way more fun, since it stacks with creatures that already lifelink.

To get to these higher life totals, we're going to rely on an army of Cats (with the occasional Dog thanks to Rin and Seri, Inseparable's triggered ability), preferably lifelinking ones, and support cards that will grow our 'linkers and keep us in the game.

Some standout Cool Catz include Leonin Warleader, which spits out lifelinking kittens that don't even need to wait to attack; Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist, who pulls double duty setting up effective attacks while protecting us from retaliatory swings; and Regal Caracal, which can hit the field and make our feline forces gain us an ungodly amount of life right away.

(Also--why have I never seen anyone play Krosan Vorine? With a few counters on that cat--something decks like this can achieve easily--it's just a kill spell for anything that isn't ginormous every turn around the table.)

Brimaz, King of Oreskos is perfect for any combat-centric deck, especially one that wants to make Cats, and we'll be in combat quite a bit with this deck, make no mistake. Note that when it makes an attacking Cat token, that Cat can go at any player (or planeswalker, or battle) you want; it doesn't have to go in the same direction Brimaz is attacking. That can keep the 1/1s it creates alive and well to grow later with the +1/+1 counters we'll be stacking on our wide board, because if we can't win with Test or Sovereign, we'll just beat down our opponents spread the love with our ever-growing creature base thanks to Nykthos Paragon and Archangel of Thune.

Both of the above pair nicely with token-makers and "soul sisters" cards like Soul Warden and Ajani's Welcome. Speaking of Ajani, we're rocking six different versions of the most enwhiskered planeswalker in the multiverse (at least he was, until Commodore Guff showed up). Ajani's multiple versions care about lifegain, creating Cat tokens, dumping counters on creatures (and other 'walkers), and doing silly things like wiping all opponents' boards or gaining 100 life at once. We're here for all of this.

As for other notable cards, Congregate can output a lot of life for just four mana, especially with the number of creatures we plan to have, and if you come across a go-wide or token strategy in a pod (which honestly feels like a coin toss every game), you're going to end up with silly numbers gained off the spell. At instant speed, it can get us past the threshold for Test of Endurance and Felidar Sovereign at the end step before our turn, giving opponents little time to react.

Marisi, Breaker of the Coil is a classic at this point, and for good reason. It'll keep each player's armies swinging back and forth, making room for your lifelinking kitties (and keeping damage away from you), and if there's a better finisher to pair alongside a board of Cats in Naya colors than Jetmir, Nexus of Revels, I haven't heard of it.

Finally, if you're wondering "Hey Brandon, it's the Love Song of Night and Day; did you forget to put in daybound cards that will introduce night and day to the games?" Nope, I did not forget!

Despite my love of Brutal Cathar in Standard and Pioneer matches, there are three reasons I held off on including any daybound cards in this deck. First, they're just about all Werewolves, and though we aren't at 100% Cats, they really don't thematically fit. The whole vibe is off. Second, fitting another theme into the deck would require weakening what was here, which is intended to be flavorful but still functional and approaching something like powerful. Third, and most importantly, tracking day and night for the rest of the game, as you have to do even after your daybound creature gets smote, is not a fun experience for anyone. It's counterintuitive, easy to lose track of, and for newer players can add a level of uncomfortable complexity to the game without any real benefit to go alongside it. A miserable play experience is, again, a vibe that we are off of for this one.

Yield

Now that we've got our ducks in a row (cats will never line up in a perfect row, you know that), here's the list we end up with:

I hope you've enjoyed our little literary detour into a storied piece of Magic's history. Are there any other in-universe works of art you'd like to see riffed on for a deck build in future of installments in the series? Let me know in the comments below.

As promised, I leave you with the full text of the Love Song of Night and Day.

Love Song of Night and Day by Jenny Scott

Wrap yourself in your best bright clothes, your red and purple scarves of silk.
Run with me to the festival, where we will dance until sunrise.
The dwarves will beat their funny drums of zebra skins and hollowed trees,
while stiltwalkers perform, and the musician blows his bamboo flute.

And late in the night, the poets and storytellers entertain,
delight us with their dancing words, as we listen, clapping by the fire.
Enchant me with your tale-telling. Tell about Tree, Grass, River, and Wind.
Tell why Truth must fight with Falsehood, and why Truth will always win.

I will tell my father's stories: how the giant mantis fooled Death
by holding still as a felled tree; how the elephants trampled
the leopard cub, and its father, though he knew, killed nine goats instead;
how pirates gambled with a djinn and lost the thing more dear than gold.

Tonight we'll eat a farewell feast. Cold corn porridge is not enough.
Let's peel papayas, pineapples, and mangoes, drink coconut milk,
and bake bananas. We'll dine on crocodiles, wild birds, and turtles,
perhaps a hippopotamus--if only you can catch it first.

I'll build a palace made of stone. Two hippo-headed guards will serve,
and tigers carry in your meals. I'll capture flying zebras
for your steeds, and fill the stable with every kind of unicorn.
Butterflies and salamanders will decorate your garden.

I'll strand long strings of beads for you, blue, the color only kings may wear.
I'll carve a soapstone lioness, a wooden box to lock it in,
girded with sapphire amulets, ostrich feathers, ivory.
These things will protect you while I'm gone, remind you of my love for you.

Your voice resounds like a songbird's, every word is a sweet, soft song.
When you run you're graceful and swift, sleek as a powerful panther.
Mysterious chameleon, you're a thousand women at once,
sharp and strong as a lioness, yet gentle as a striped gazelle.

On this our last day together, let us walk across the grasslands.
Hold my hand and let's walk slowly, seeing everything as children.
Let's walk on the Daraja Plains, where leopards hang from trees, dosing,
tasseled tails swaying in the shade, near villages of tree-dwelling elves.

Glorious, to walk again across the savannah with my beloved.
A lion walks commandingly, a general among his troops,
camped the night before a battle. A snake, colorful and coiled, loops
around his bough, mischievous, hanging over the village path.

We'll find termites in their nests, hard tall towers above the plains,
and point-eared cats, taking their turns, guarding their many entrances.
We'll find the basket-nests of birds hanging from the acacia tree.
Rhinoceroses and dragons for once will let us walk in peace.

When lightning tears the sky's dark cloak and heaven's bird beats the water
on the muddy plains with its big wings, termites and frogs escape their homes
toward the lamps in the nearest village. Spiders dry themselves indoors,
the spotted lizards that never fall from ceilings suddenly appear.

In the forest, fires light the sky as the black clouds unfold their weight.
The black-and-white sacred monkey holds her children to her, and waits.
Love, like lightning hits suddenly. It sparks the heart with blows of light,
its fire extending, bends, expands, beats and breaks your hiding places.

***

Remember when we were children, herding the sheep together,
leading them over the grassy hills with long sticks. Your silly songs
made me laugh, and in the evening, you'd enchant me with your stories,
lying on your back beside me. Even then my heart was yours.

I remember your sacred rites. You were so funny, so grown up,
so stiff and serious, all arms and elbows. You went in a girl,
but you returned a warrior. You marched back with the others--
your hair was cut, your eye tattooed with the red triangle of war.

Tomorrow I must go, my love. I will tattoo my head with braids.
My shield will bear a shining sun so you will always be with me.
Inlaid with gold, it will shine like glowing embers. I will return
with lizard skins for your sandals. Paint your eyes black and wait for me.

I am the sun, you are the moon. Wherever you lead I will go,
following across the wide sky, as long as I live and you love.
Sun follows Moon until she tires, then carries her until she's strong
and runs ahead of him again. I'll carry you, too, my beloved.

My love, we are not Sun and Moon. Instead we are like day and night.
The old ones say Day is a woman, who works only while it is light.
She herds her goats and catches fish, fills her fields with golden corn,
shows her children what is just and protects them from the cobra.

Day loves Night, who works in darkness, walking through heaven's milky sky
collecting stars with his quick arms, piling them into a basket
like a child collecting lizards and piling them into her pot
until the pot overflows with lizards, 'til the basket overflows with light.

Night wears a black cloak lined with fire, studded inside with gleaming stars.
At dawn and dusk he spies his love. Across the rolling hills of sky,
they glimpse each other--so briefly. They throw each other kisses, cry.
Their tears spill over Jamuraa. Mixed with blood, they wash everything red.

But once, with a magician's help, Time was stopped and Day stood still.
Night spread over Jamuraa, wrapped Day in his dark cloak and held her.
In their miraculous embrace, the two became as One. Until
pulled from Day's arms, Night sank, commanded by the western horizon that always beckons him to come.

I won't give up hope, my love.

Our love is like the river in the summer season of long rains:
For a little while it spilled its banks, flooding the crops in the fields.
But soon it will evaporate with the dry heat. Like Day from Night,
I'll live my life apart from you, just glimpsing you across the sky,
because you cannot change, my dear, and nor can I.

[Italic lines in the poem are "he" (night) and plain text is "she" (day). The breakdown of who is talking I pulled from this 2013 page at the fan site "No Goblins Allowed." The official Wizards post about the Love Song and its full text is giving 404, but thanks to the Wayback Machine we can see an archived version of that page that confirms the full text.]