If I had to guess, I'd say that the Venn diagram of adult fans of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and people who have at least some passing familiarity with the Magic: The Gathering collectible card game has an overlap somewhere in the neighborhood of 100%. As a result, it was pretty much inevitable that there would be something that mashed the two franchises up, and this week, it finally happened with Shards of Equestria, a fan-made expansion focusing on everyone's favorite ponies.

Check out a few of the cards after the jump!As you might expect, the key cards in the set are the ones representing the main (or mane) characters from the show, which tend to come in both their standard forms, made to work in two-color decks, and the more powerful versions that represent the Elements of Harmony:


Of course, there are also versions of each of the characters that represent the horrifying psychological breakdowns that they occasionally go through:

Beyond just the characters, though, it's interesting -- even for someone whose Magic knowledge has withered on the vine since high school -- to see how different parts of the show have been translated to the cards. My personal favorite is the occasional use of the term "Exile" on cards. I have no idea if that's a mechanic in Magic or just a more pony-friendly term the creators of Shards of Equestria have used to replace "Kill" (which seems unlikely given that "Deathtouch," "graveyard" and "destroy" made it in unscathed), but I really like the idea of a high-stakes version of the game that involves the potential for your cards to be sent to the moon for a thousand years.


In addition to just the cards themselves, the makers of Shards of Equestria have put together a few starter decks that can be downloaded in .pdf, and I have to admit that it's almost enough to rekindle my interest in the card game and give it a whirl.

Of course, while Shards of Equestria is itself a completely fan-made project, I really do wish it was an official release. As unlikely as that sounds (by which I mean it will never, ever happen), it's not impossible -- both MLP and Magic are owned by Hasbro. Heck, they could even throw Cobra Commander and Destro in there and drag me kicking and screaming back into card games.

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