Bitte for the jitte, baby
OK, flavour. It adds depths to your games, and to those who want it, make the games more entertaining. Getting straight to the point here, though, is that flavour has a problem: being translated into the game, a lot like english being translated into chinese.
 For example, it makes sense flavourwise that Glissa's card can destroy Memnarch, but it seems contraditory that she also could kill Bosh, as he helps her out so much in the book. OK, not contradictory so much as very unseamly. The same goes for Michiko forcing a player to sacrifice their lone Umezawa, or a Viashino who's casting a spell rather than slitting a throat.
Now critters with weapons and armour makes sense too, and is rather nice flavour for equipment, but only on humanoid critters, it would seem. You think that Bird of Paradise is having a fun or even easy time carrying that unwieldly sword you gave it? You think that two-armed Leonin Skyhunter could really wield those 2 Warhammers, a Morningstar and a Scythe, all while riding a bird and swinging a Bola? Heck no, says flavour, but in the game the Rules are saying "A OK! Just adjust the stats and abilities of that over-equipped critter and hope no one Terrors it."
So Flavour to Game doesn't work one hundred percent of the time, but what about Game to Flavour? Well naturally it works, that's how Kamigawa was totally envisioned. But just think: instantly all Ninjas become uber powerful! They have the abilities to mimick each other creature in the game. Ever. No seriously, they can chew out your library, be Pests, birth themself from ash, act like artifacts, turn things into artifacts, Super-haste-Ninjutsu themselves the turn before they were cast, fly, anything! The point here is, flavour-wise, a Ninja can disguise itself as any other creature! But that's Flavour. In the Game, that ultra-powerfull flavour becomes a rather simple, sneaky ability.
So as an exercise in Flavouring your game, take a new point of view, say, that of dreaming up a lovely flavour-some situation and turning it into a realistic game situation, I'm thinking of...Ink-Eyes... ninjutsuing out of Akuta, Born of Ash. There, great flavour - giant spirit bursting into an even bigger, and more impressive, Rat Ninja. Now, how do you turn that from Flavour-Magic into Game-Magic?
Obviously, nab both cards. You can also add a few more cards depending on how exactly you see the events occuring. Me, I picture Akuta bursting from the ground, throwing ash and ground everywhere. There's bits stuck on his head, falling off behind him, dusting up the air, as he screams across the battle field and meets the opposition, whom the game refers to as Your Opponent.
Just as he's finished clamping down a good hard bite on Your Opponents hand, they realised the worsts not done, as there's a strong grip from inside the mouth, and Ink-Eyes starts to tear the bloody carcass of Akuta apart, and then [CENCORED], after which she throws the rest of the body aside, proceeding to [CENCORED], [CENCORED] and finishing it all off with a nice [CENCORED] to the head, just for style.
How would the game see this? You hit your opponent with both Akuta and Ink-Eyes. How's it that done? First strike, then once thats resolved, Ninjutsu. For this we'll have to introduce a third card, one that grants a creature first strike, and preferably on colour because... well, how about no colour? I love Mirrodin and Sparring Collar seems to be a good, colourless candidate. Perfect.
 So make sure you have a bigger hand than your opponent, and a Swamp to sacrifice. Return Akuta to play, equip the Sparring Collar and swing. Once he's dealt damage, and this is assuming he wasn't blocked, pay a bit more mana and have Ink-Eyes tear through her incredibly well-made Legendary Spirit costume. It's in tatters, sure, but she doesn't mind. Then she strikes your opponent for another 5 damage, and if they had any creatures that weren't black, they soon wont.
Oh my god, revelation! The above paragraph proves that Ninja's, atleast flavour-wise, also have psuedo double-strike! Is there anything they can't do (flavour-wise)?
Alright alright, so that's Flavour to Game, Game to Flavour, and then a little walk through on how you can do about making your own little stories to go along with your probably confusing game tactics, that will have the newer, less rules suavy players saying, "what? Double strike? First strike and normal happen at the same time, just first strike first!" If this does happen, tell them to check out the web sometime, it'll help a lot.
Now how about Flavour that Doesn't Fit. Well seeing we're looking for Flavour that Doesn't Fit, we'll begin with a card that doesn't seem like it fits... how about Ornithopter? In Mirrodin, it was an artifact, and an older card (first printed in Antiquities), so Wizards wanted to bring it back, for new and old players a like. That's all good, but how did they go about explaining it's presence? Antiquities was yonks ago and on Dominaria, if my brains and memories are anything to go by. What's it doing on a totally singular planet, where everything happens to be made of metal? Flavour text comes to save the day! Not only does Flavour Text happen to be Flavour's best friend, but it's also very usefull for sorting out this situation. Let's have a look, shall we, at Ornithopter's Flavour text?
"Regardless of the century, plane, or species, developing artificers never fail to invent the ornithopter."
 Ahh, so it's the artificiers we have to thank. Who happen to be around in quite a few numbers in Mirrodin. Why's that make sense? Well that's an easy one, we're on a plane made out of metal. Not only that, but I hear some of these artificers are Legendary...
To put an in Game spin on such like Flavour, that is, Flavour that Doesn't Fit, I remember playing a game using large green beats with a fellow player, Prowler. My opponent became boggled however when I slapped down a Mindslaver and proceeded to take over his next turn. "That's not very green," he commented, and I totally agreed, but beyond that it's relation to this article is used up. Sometimes bad flavour in deck design can stand out like a sore thumb. Although often this is known as Not Caring, or Building a Tournament Worthy Deck, often done by Non-Casual Players.
How about Game situations where the Flavour is more rank than anything else? That's an easy topic to address, have you ever heard of the format Tribal? Thought so, that stuff's rank with Flavour (at least as far as the creatures go).
So, you ask, what is the point of this deep and meaningful foray into the Flavour of Magic? Why, it's a mental exercise, of course. It's a focus on the game of Magic and how it can never be simply played, but constantly studdied. Most players don't need to read card names to know what's what, they can tell by the pictures. They coin up cute phrases like "In response to your attackers, I Shock Ishi." They spend hours pouring over card choices, percentages, this card versus that card for maindeck artifact hate and whether Jitte is worth such dedication, how much a playset of Watery Graves is worth - ad infinitum. There's a million extra revenues of Magic to explore, for Casual and Tournament players alike, for people who've been here from the start to those who've just heard about it, for the old and poor, boys and girls, mums and daddies, grandma and--
Ahem. You get the point. Magic is more than turning cards sideways and proclaiming someone's dead. Flavour is just one aspect of Magic that I've covered - very well or very poorly, it's your call - in this article, but it's also an example of how many different articles can be written about Magic. Indeed, you could write an article about articles on Magic if you wanted to! The options are unlimited as your deck designs are*, so while I'm done for this article, I hope to be reading one of yours very soon!
Fox Murdoch, written while in Prague.
Beginning of Sentence Not Valid if Your Card Collection is Equal to or Less Than 500. Sorry, but you'll have to wait.
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