#mtg article

[douglysium]

The Flavor of MTG: Blue, the Color of Progress(Part 1)

Prologue

Before we really dive into this color philosophy I have to get the usual stuff out of the way. If you haven’t read the previous, albeit really long, article covering some of the more general aspects of the Color Pie then you should probably do so, even if only to decrease the chance that you ask a question I’ve already gone over or to make sure that I don’t have to repeat myself over and over(You can read said article on Tumblr here(https://douglysium.tumblr.com/private/672979718186975232/tumblr_r5hjo0WAWg1ycm9nu) and on Google Docs here(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y1d7vBZozSEmkARSeGYj4onyty6uAXlooaXKR9WxLOI/edit)). I should also mention that today I am focusing on MONO-Blue as a color philosophy. This means some specifics here may not apply to every color combination that includes Blue. It is also important to remember that the color pie is ultimately a vague philosophical archetype, not a personality archetype(even if a personality can be influenced by one’s personal philosophy). When I say things like a color’s “strength and weaknesses” there are definitely exceptions and know that I am speaking broadly and mostly talking about the behaviors and personalities that such a philosophy either attracts/encourages or discourages. Also, the color philosophies are all about what people find most important. So when I say something like Blue likes knowledge and Black cares about the self that does not mean that it is all those colors care about. Even Blue may care about emotions, Black may still care about others, and White often still cares about the individual. It’s just that those things come second fiddle to other things and should not get in the way of their primary goals. I should also note that because this article is about Blue and I do not have infinite time I will mainly be covering things from Blue’s perspective. So sorry if it comes off like I’m just bashing Red and Green philosophy at any point but I promise that those colors will get their chance to shine in their own articles one day. What I’m saying is don’t base your entire view of Blue’s enemy colors on this article since it probably won’t be the most flattering perspective.

General

One thing that all the color philosophies in Magic have is a little phrase that helps summarize their philosophy. This phrase basically has two parts, the end goal of the color and how they seek to achieve that. In Blue’s case, its phrase is “Perfection through Knowledge.” In this case, the end goal is “Perfection” and the means is “Knowledge.” What this is supposed to tell us is that Blue philosophy is all about perfecting one’s self and the world around it and creating a world where everyone and everything can be the best version of themselves. I think it’s important to clarify the wording here for Blue is not saying you literally need to be perfect or never make a mistake. Only that you should strive to be the best version of yourself you can be. In the case of Blue, perfection isn’t an end goal but an endless process and a mindset saying you should be constantly striving to do better. Since Blue is all about being the best you can be, its philosophy is often summarized as perfection since if you're striving constantly to become better and better constantly then you are always striving to get as close to perfection as possible. If I had to put it in a simpler way, Blue is about “Improvement/Progress through Knowledge.”

The way Blue believes we should achieve this is through the aforementioned knowledge. Blue is a philosophy that believes anything and everything can theoretically be understood and made possible as long as you have the knowledge, tools, time, and dedication. To this end, it is important to properly obtain and use knowledge since Blue believes almost anything can be achieved if you have the proper knowledge, resources, and time. In order to utilize this knowledge it is important to use your head and think through your actions as much as possible. Blue is a philosophy that strives to be open to any possibility but not too hasty to action because everything has a theoretical solution if the right amount of time, energy, and understanding is applied. This tends to mean Blue is generally against both impulse and instinct. Now Blue isn’t inherently against any and all emotions and it often acknowledges emotions as a powerful force(which makes discipline and forethought all the more important). Blue is simply arguing that you shouldn’t let things like emotions and instincts control you without tempering them with thought and reason because they often spur short-sighted actions that can hurt you in the long run. While they can grant you quick satisfaction, if improperly controlled they can come back to bite you later(or even immediately). Also, just going with whatever you immediately feel tends to conflict with Blue’s ideal of not making hasty decisions because Blue wants to strive to make the best and most optimal decision as much as possible. Part of doing that is keeping in mind more long-term goals over transient short-sighted ones and keeping the big picture in mind so that you can properly understand the ramifications of your actions and choices. Blue also understands that there are typically a limited amount of resources and time one has access to and to Blue it is important to maximize these resources by making informed, thoughtful, and considered decisions.

Similar to how White has some notable ways it tends to use structure, Blue has some notable ways it tends to approach and use knowledge. First off, since Blue believes knowledge, understanding, and thought are the key to everything it is often advocating for as much knowledge as possible and gathering any knowledge it comes across since you never know when the knowledge may become helpful in the future. There is also the fact that Blue may not always know or be aware of the knowledge it may need which can also often encourage it to collect as much knowledge as possible in order to increase the chances that it finds out something it didn’t know it needed or if the knowledge becomes helpful later. This often gives Blue an emphasis in regard to learning and education as these are some of the best tools to acquire more knowledge. This also tends to extend to a more structural level and not just individual levels. From Blue’s perspective, being the best self you can also mean that the society in which individuals reside needs to also be the best it can be. So Blue tends to prioritize things like education systems, libraries, schools, and other structured systems in regard to education. These can act as vectors for people obtaining the knowledge to become whatever it is that they consider to be their best selves as well as allow for Blue to obtain even more knowledge in order to give it an edge and allow it to overcome obstacles. If Black’s goal can be described as attempting to become as close to omnipotent(all-powerful) as possible so that it can get everything it needs, Blue’s can be described as one that strives to be as close to omniscient(being all-knowing) as possible. 

Mark has given us 4 notable ways Blue may like to use knowledge in his “True Blue Revisited” article. Firstly, knowledge can be used to control people or get them to act in a way that is beneficial for you, others, or society via withholding pieces of information. Secondly, it can act as a key, allowing those with the right info to access or do things others do not know how to do. Those who know the proper words or actions may know how to do things others cannot. Thirdly, it can act as a form of protection. It goes without saying that if you know something’s coming you can better prepare for it and if you know what exactly something even is you may be able to use it to your advantage or exploit a weakness. Fourthly, it can be used as a weapon or a form of attack. This sort of ties into the first point since while controlling knowledge gives you the ability to exercise control over others, knowing/exposing the right piece of knowledge or secret information can be quite devastating(think stuff like blackmail or exposing weaknesses to the public). 

Also, restricting someone’s information by lying, deceiving, hiding it, etc. can give a tactical advantage since they may not even realize there’s anything to fight back against or how to do it.

Blue is also a color philosophy that is more likely to take advantage of technicalities or utilize loopholes in laws and/or rules to get what it wants since it is a philosophy that is all about nuance and understanding the world around it and how they function. This emphasis on knowledge and understanding means that Blue often has a respect for science, since science is quite literally defined by the dictionary as “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.”, “a systematically organized body of knowledge on a particular subject”, or “knowledge of any kind” and science is literally all about understanding how things work. Now just to be clear, you don’t need to be a scientist or specifically engage in science first and foremost per se to be Blue, but that’s something I’ll get into later. Tying in with Blue’s themes of knowledge and understanding, Blue is a philosophy that believes every phenomenon that exists or happens has an explanation for how and why it occurs even if we have yet to figure it out. This adds an aspect of questioning basically everything as much as possible since anything and everything can theoretically be understood in due time and under the right circumstances. Where colors like White or Green may see events as holy miracles or some sort of occurrence that cannot always be explained, Blue argues that there is an explanation for how and why these events occur. Although, this is not to say that Blue could never attribute something to a god or some sort of magic(even if I would say that in general Blue would probably usually, but not always, subscribe to the “Magic is just science we don’t yet understand yet” style of thinking. Although it is important to acknowledge that for some people and places within the multiverse some sort of magic, supernatural occurrence, or similar explanation could be a valid one for them).

This brings us to Blue’s themes of perfection, self-improvement, and technology(as they are all related). As mentioned, Blue is all about being the best self one can be via knowledge and forethought. This ties in with some of Blue’s philosophy as Blue believes anything is possible and everything is a blank slate. When I say this I don’t mean Blue believes you can just magically start flying because you think about doing it hard enough or that it doesn’t believe in genetics or being more likely to be predisposed to certain things. Rather that everyone basically has infinite potential and there is a way to achieve what they want or want to be. Let me put it this way, if someone is born blind then they may be able to have perfect 20/20 vision via glasses, contacts, or surgery. 

If something is born without wings to grant it the ability to fly then it may be possible to grant it flight using something like a jetpack, flying vehicle(such as an airplane), or maybe even some crazy futuristic genetic engineering to change someone’s very DNA.

This is all to say, Blue isn’t claiming you can just will yourself to grow wings or have perfect vision but rather that with the right amount of knowledge, one can do these things in order to make themselves better if they so choose. This is where Blue’s themes of technology come in since said devices and technology allow you to alter yourself and/or do things that you could not do on your own. 

Normally, humans cannot fly but airplanes change that. Normally, nearsighted people cannot just manifest 20/20 vision but glasses change that. So Blue’s idea of a blank slate is more the idea that there is a path that allows you to become whatever it is you want to be if you take the right steps and make the best-informed choices possible and that it is possible for you to overcome and/or break free of things like genetics, fate, destiny, etc. 

Blue also has a mindset that encourages one to never give up since there is basically always a way to get what they want. In Blue’s eyes even if it were to assume there is some hypothetical that could literally never be achieved no matter how much knowledge one obtained and no matter how advanced technology became there would be no way of knowing unless you are actually trying to achieve it anyway. The best way I can put it is through an example given in Mark Rosewater’s “STRIVING FOR PERFECTION” article: “For years no human was able to run a mile in under four minutes. Physiologists at the time claimed that it was quite possibly beyond the ability of the human body and that the mere attempt at such a thing would be dangerous to the athlete that tried it. Then one day a man named Roger Bannister did it. Forty-six days later another runner broke the four-minute barrier. Within three years, fourteen more runners had also done it. Now it's the standard for mid-distance runners… It was an impossible task, that is, until someone did it. Then it became a doable task and many people did it. The only barrier was a mental one. Runners couldn't do it because they didn't believe it was possible. Once it was proven possible, it completely changed how they approached the problem. People can do things they believe they can do. If you take a task at hand and assume you can do it, guess what happens? You do it.” This type of perspective in regards to the potential most people have is what Blue’s mindset may often be likened to. In a way in order to understand what is truly possible Blue is saying we must approach everything with the assumption that it is somehow possible. All the color philosophies basically have an answer for what your goal in life should be and how to achieve that and in Blue’s case that goal is basically pushing yourself to the limit and being the very best you can be while constantly seeking to better yourself and the world around you so it can in turn encourage and facilitate ways for you and others to be better. Blue is interesting in that it stresses that one must be flexible and open to all the possibilities while also not being too hasty or quick to action(as to give yourself time to figure out the best possible decisions). Of course, like all color philosophies, Blue usually wants a society that encourages this. So it will typically advocate for citizens being granted good opportunities for education, places to safely experience things through trial and error(as outside of controlled situations you should strive to make as few errors as possible), and some way to access the best and most recent tools and technology so they to can gain the knowledge and understanding needed to better themselves, the society they live in, and the world around them. Blue philosophy is ultimately, and succinctly, revolving around self-actualization(which is defined as “the realization or fulfillment of one's talents and potentialities, especially considered as a drive or need present in everyone.”)

Blue’s emphasis on knowledge, understanding, information, and forethought means that within Magic it often has an emphasis on academics, books & other repositories of information, mind/thought, control, memory, manipulation, artifice, trickery, subtlety, complexity, and illusions. Of course, the emphasis on knowledge means that Blue also has symbolic associations with the mind, and by extension abilities and magic relating to the mind and information regarding it, like telepathy and telekinesis. On the other hand, Blue’s emphasis on utilizing your time to the absolute fullest in order to gather as much information and time to think as possible tends to associate it with time-based magic and passivity and Blue’s emphasis on progress, betterment and what could be what gives it some future symbolism. Meanwhile, Blue’s emphasis on technology, improvement, and tools gives it a strong symbolic connection to construction/technology, artifacts, and man-made items.

Requirements

As with my previous discussion about White philosophy and beliefs, I think it's important to help cement a more concrete understanding of what one needs to believe in to be Blue aligned. I’ll do this by discussing the most basic and barebone ideals needed to potentially qualify for being Blue aligned. Of course there are a couple of disclaimers. It’s important to remember the Color Pie is a vague philosophical and value archetype. The color pie is ultimately about VALUES and IDEALS. A Blue character can end up being hot headed and overemotional, although they would normally see this as a flaw/mistake or potentially have some sort of self justification for it, and not every person who values knowledge is necessarily Mono-Blue or even has Blue in their color identity at all because they may have a different outlook on life or value something more important than progress and knowledge. They may also think knowledge should be used for a purpose different from that of what Blue says. Also, this article is specifically about Mono-Blue so these requirements are only meant to apply to just Blue, and any color combinations that contain Blue mixed with other colors may not necessarily follow the same rules, for example: it is possible to be Blue-Red aligned and believe that your emotions are more important than thinking things through.

First off, in order to be Blue aligned, one must believe that theoretically anything is possible and can be understood with the right amount of time, advanced enough technology and/or a certain amount of knowledge. As mentioned before Blue isn't foolish enough to believe that you can just grow wings with the power of thought but it may be possible in the distant future to create artificial wings, jetpacks, or vehicles that could carry you just as well, or even better, than any naturally occurring wings. Blue can also concede things like the fact that being literally perfect and without flaws is impossible. It’s a philosophy that believes that everything in the universe can theoretically be understood with enough time, advanced enough technology, and/or a certain amount of knowledge and thus believes everything has an explanation even if we do not know what said explanation is at the moment. We might not be able to grow wings or understand all the mysteries of the universe now but who knows? Maybe in a 1,000 years, these things and how they work will be as common as running water or something. If it wasn’t clear from some of my examples you don’t need to believe that LITERALLY anything and everything is possible or that there are no limitations. Like Blue isn’t about to say that a random ass roaches on the sidewalk is about to start inventing advanced technology just because it wills it or that it could reach the same kind of thoughts as a human without outside interference. It’s also important to remember that one tends to only have a limited amount of resources and time(which is why Blue would often say you need to make the best decisions possible). There are plenty of Blue characters that would argue one can never become completely perfect or that achieving something isn’t feasible within a certain amount of time or time frame and for many it would be utterly ridiculous to believe that a human could do something like break the sound barrier while running through sheer force of will and no outside technology to aid them or that you can achieve omniscience and understand all of the universe with the current level of technology.

Secondly, and most obvious, one has to believe in following their mind and using forethought over one’s emotions. This also ties in with the idea of knowledge being powerful and most important since the knowledge you gather allows you to make better decisions and letting your emotions have you just constantly make shortsighted and hair-brained decisions would just put that knowledge to waste. Doing something because “I just felt like it” outside of specific situations(such as a game or something) usually isn’t going to cut it even if you can understand where it is coming from.

Thirdly, you must believe that everyone is a blank slate. As mentioned before this does not mean one needs to straight up completely not believe that things like being predisposed towards certain things via genetics or biology or even destiny and/or fate exist. Rather that it is possible, in one way or another through willpower, discipline, knowledge, technology, etc. to change, overcome and/or break free of these things in one way or another. 

Essentially, these are not the end-all-be-all limits for what we can and can’t do as long as we have the technology, time, and/or knowledge to do so. Blue philosophy tends to fall under various types of tabula rasa style schools of thought(that the human mind receives knowledge and forms itself based on experience alone, without any pre-existing innate ideas that would serve as a starting point. Tabula rasa thus implies that individual human beings are born "blank" (with no built-in mental content) and that their identity is defined entirely by their experiences and sensory perceptions of the outside world… ).

A Colorful Quote

In order to hopefully better understand where each color is coming from, even if you may ultimately disagree with it, I thought it would be helpful to pick a quote that I felt really resonated or matched with the color's themes/ideals in order to help package the color in a philosophical form of thought you may be more familiar with or understand.

The first quote is Lao Tzu’s “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.” I feel like this quote does a pretty good job of showing why Blue tends to put all its stock in knowledge and understanding. As that knowledge allows you to do anything and can also be used to aid and better yourself. Understanding and knowing how to fish and how fishing works puts people in a better position than just never accumulating the knowledge while continuously buying fish without thought. Teaching people how to fish instead of just hoarding the knowledge can also allow for a better society and the world. Since dispensing the knowledge of how to fish allows more people to gather food which means society has more food. Having this knowledge also puts one in a position of power since if you know how to fish but your clients do not then they are more likely to have to rely on you and do what you say for food. “Knowledge is power” as they say(a phrase we’ll come back to later). Similarly, the famous Sun Tzu quote “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle” also shows how a philosophy that puts all its stock in knowledge might be appealing to Blue, and both quotes display that when Blue is faced with a problem it almost always advocates to tackle it from the angle of knowledge. The first quote also shows how knowledge can be used to make the world a better place, by teaching others, and this Sun Tzu quote also displays that while knowledge can be used to make the world a better place it can also act as an offensive or defensive weapon by understanding a situation or knowing something your enemies do not.

"Mind over matter" is a popular phrase and is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as  “-used to describe a situation in which someone is able to control a physical condition, problem, etc., by using the mind.” As mentioned before, Blue doesn’t necessarily believe you can say just start growing wings through sheer force of will but I feel like this quote still tends to embody a very Blue mindset or goal. Mind over matter situations are going to be the types of situations Blue tends to gravitate towards, and views problems as, because Blue believes that knowledge, willpower, and time can allow you to overcome many different kinds of weaknesses and problems. 

The emphasis on mind over matter is also why in the game of MTG Blue tends to get things like telekinesis, an ability that allows one to perform physical actions using the mind and may even allow them to do things they could not do physically. While Blue can still believe in getting jacked and perfecting one’s body/physique it will argue that the best way to approach this is through knowledge and understanding. At the end of the day if you can understand the why and how something works it is possible to exert your will over it in some way and get the desired result. You may be able to increase your stamina while running by pushing yourself to the limit and exercising or by using some specific running technique. As pointed out earlier, from the perspective of Blue how can we know what truly is or isn’t possible for both the world around us and ourselves if we don’t push ourselves. I’m sure everyone had a situation or thing that they thought they would be bad at but turned out to be actually decent at or enjoy it. Or maybe you thought something like “I’ll never be a good artist” only to see how far you’ve come a couple years later.

“Knowledge is power” is a phrase that one could argue may apply a bit more to Dimir(Blue-Black) philosophy but I think it also applies to Blue quite well, and while Black and Blue do overlap in an emphasis on knowledge, Black sees power somewhat differently than Blue and doesn’t always see knowledge as being synonymous with power. However, I’ll get into that later. Of course, the color philosophy that believes knowledge and understanding can be used as a way to achieve anything would also see those things as the vectors for obtaining power and control if it really wants or needs to. This quote is also meant to emphasize the importance of passing on knowledge and education which is usually going to be important to Blue philosophy. Knowledge gives you the power to gain control over your own life. Similarly, Martin Luther King Jr’s “Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control” hits a lot of the same beats(even if it might be overall a more White-Blue or Bant(Green-White-Blue) quote).

“Measure twice cut once” is a quote that I feel perfectly encapsulates Blue’s ideals of trying to take as much time as possible while using the knowledge you have to make the best possible decisions. One only has so much resources and so much time so it is best to avoid careless mistakes or accidents as much as possible. You shouldn’t just go with whatever your emotions or gut tells you but always be trying to use your brain. Your emotions and what you want aren’t always the things you need and may sometimes only offer short-term gratification at the expense of more important or long term goals. You also shouldn’t rush things and try to take the time to understand a situation/problem as much as you can. Doing this can also save you even more time down the line than just rushing in would have.

Finally, “knowledge is its own reward” is probably one of the most Blue quotes out there. Out of all the colors Blue is the one that is most likely to be concerned about knowledge for knowledge’s sake because it wants to accumulate as much as possible since you never know when said knowledge may come in handy and it may reveal yet another bit of knowledge you didn’t know you needed. While Blue does have its own reasons for wanting to obtain knowledge, such as perfection and self-betterment, the other colors, such as White and Black, are less likely to care about knowledge for its own sake and are more likely to see it as just a means to an end.

Philosophical Strengths

Despite all of Blue’s themes of perfection, nothing is truly perfect and that goes for all color philosophies, including Blue. However, before I go over Blue’s philosophical weaknesses it is vital to go over Blue’s philosophical strengths in order to show some of the upsides and positives its philosophy can often encourage.

Blue’s most obvious and noteworthy strength is how it can encourage the use of knowledge and information. Blue does not only seek to figure out the best ways to acquire knowledge but also how to properly use knowledge as a tool. This encourages a way of approaching things that involves taking the time to utilize said knowledge by looking at the big picture/plan, and trying to figure out the consequences of each and every action they take. Blue strives to never act careless or without great thought and this can lead it to being less likely to make obvious or avoidable mistakes and consequences(but this does not make them immune to them mind you. No one is perfect). This also ties in with how Blue values restraint due to prioritizing using one’s knowledge and forethought over letting one’s emotions control them. This is another factor that can encourage the avoidance of careless mistakes. Blue argues for preparing for the long game and big picture and tries to not let its emotions ruin more important or bigger term goals for short term gratification. Blue’s prioritization of knowledge and understanding also makes it more likely to notice, understand, and/or utilize nuance(s) that may otherwise be missed. 

Going back to knowledge being a powerful tool, it is important to remember that one such way it can act as a tool is by being a weapon. It’s easy to see Blue and assume it just wants to spread knowledge constantly at all times but since Blue sees knowledge as vital when it’s approaching an opponent it seeks to not only use its own knowledge but restrict the knowledge of its opponent. This means Blue is more likely to lean into things like secrets, trickery, disinformation, and lies. By restricting someone’s access to information/knowledge you gain a tactical advantage because at the end of the day there’s only so much someone can do if they don’t even know they’re in any danger or what you even plan to do. 

Due to this, Blue can have a bit of an underhanded sneaky quality that some people may miss when discussing its color philosophy, but I mean it is ally colors with Black(a color that’s all about doing literally whatever it takes to get on top.) so this trait is to be expected to one degree or another. 

Philosophical weaknesses

Now for the weaknesses. A philosophy all about knowledge and understanding may be seen as being objectively all upside by a lot of MTG players at first, but nothing is perfect. Even Blue still has some weaknesses.

For one, Blue philosophy is one that can encourage being very passive to a fault. Striving to think just about everything through and utilize all the time available to do so can make quick decision making or taking immediate/spontaneous action difficult unless you already knew something was coming. This means that Blue may be prone to being outsped by others or opponents taking initiative and making a decision before it can figure out the best course of action. Simultaneously, this can also severely limit Blue’s flexibility. Blue is ultimately a philosophy that is extremely adaptive since it's all about “anything is possible,” and “everyone is a blank slate” but it is not the best at encouraging on going with the flow and/or being flexible enough to change and adapt on a dime. Blue is all about finding answers and improving but via an overall slow process of carefully considered knowledge and thought. This also segways nicely into my next point. While it can act as a strength, Blue’s restraint can also become a weakness when pushed too far. Due to Blue doing all it can to take its time and fully understand what’s happening in order to make the best decision possible it may end up becoming paralyzed and not making a proper decision. Think of it this way, Blue is all about being the best you one can be and part of doing that is trying to make as few mistakes as possible while also making the best decisions one can make. This means that Blue can sometimes end up becoming “paralyzed” while it tries to figure out not just what choice(s) to make but what is the very BEST choice(s) it can possibly make while considering all the nuances and trying to avoid any mistakes. 

This can encourage inactivity and even potentially not making any choices at all or not making a choice in time out of fear that one may make a mistake, bad decision, or a suboptimal choice. This is another factor that can encourage a mindset that leads to one not making decisions fast enough.

Another way that Blue’s emphasis on knowledge can end up acting as a weakness is that Blue is a philosophy that tends to want to put all its eggs in the metaphorical basket of  understanding what’s going on. This can once again add on to Blue’s weakness of acting too slowly or not at all, as Blue may struggle to come to a decision if it is put in a situation in which it can’t or has trouble understanding what’s going on. The other colors are more likely to advocate for taking action or make a choice even if they don’t or can’t completely understand the full picture of what is happening or what they are facing. This also means that Blue is usually the slowest out of the five colors in mindset, flavor, mechanics, and gameplay.

Another thing to consider is that Blue believes almost anything is possible. Which can, when pushed too far, encourage an outlook that pushes someone way too hard or tries to force things to change/happen in order to prove something or because it feels like it can. This can be sort of seen with some of the Green-Blue Simic Combine’s, the Blue-Red Izzet League’s experiments, as well as some of the horrifying creatures created by Innistrad’s various Blue mad scientists and Black-Blue stitchers. The best way to think about it is there is a sort of Victor Frankenstein side to Blue. The idea that everything can be known and mastered. This can sometimes lead to this philosophy pushing things a bit too far in the same way most people agree that Victor probably shouldn’t have been messing with life in the way he did. To Blue, The world is everyone’s sandbox in a way, anything can be improved and fiddled with.

Sometimes Blue encourages one to push themselves, others, or the world around them too far just to see if it can or in order to better understand it. To Blue, the world is its canvas in a sense.

Common Misconceptions

This brings me to what is becoming one of my favorite parts to cover in regards to color the Color Pie. One thing I’ve noticed about the Color Pie is there tend to be a lot of misconceptions about it in general. This is understandable because most people aren’t losers who will read and listen to all of Mark Rosewater’s Color Pie teachings and probably won’t technically need to know much about it outside of general gameplay mechanics. Although, of course, I still want to tackle these common misconceptions to show some of the work and understanding that Magic’s designers and writers have that people may overlook. I also want to hopefully make any conversations someone may have about the Color Pie more informed, nuanced, and productive. 

One of THE MOST common misconceptions I see is that being Blue makes you smart, or that being smart must mean you’re Blue. This also tends to extend to people who begin to self identify as Blue and identify other people as Blue because they are smart and not because they actually agree with Blue philosophy. First off, just thinking a lot or appreciating thought doesn’t make one any more Blue then having emotions makes someone Red, having to eat makes someone Green, or wanting rules/regulations makes someone White. The color pie is a VALUE system; it ultimately comes down to what one values as more or less important. The other colors can all value or like being smart or intelligent but may not see gathering knowledge and information in order to improve yourself as the most important thing we should strive for. Furthermore, it also comes down to how you would argue one should use said knowledge. Blue would argue you should use knowledge and understanding to better oneself(although if you want to include multicolored identities it is possible to have Blue in a color identity and see knowledge as a thing that should be used for some other goal. However, my point still stands). This brings me to the other point. Blue VALUES knowledge but simply valuing something doesn’t automatically mean you have it in spades. Just valuing information doesn’t mean you have it and just valuing being smart doesn’t mean you are smart. Let me put it another way, not all Black aligned characters are powerful just because they value power and ruthlessness and not all White aligned characters are kind and just people simply because they value those things. That’s like saying that just because you want to be rich that means you are rich. You can have weak Black aligned characters and asshole White aligned characters. Likewise, you can have stupid or uninformed Blue characters. 

The truth is, just merely being smart is a trait that anyone of any color or color combination can have in the same way that something like being emotional or shy is. This kind of goes hand in hand with the misconception that the Red alignment is somehow inherently stupid even though Red can be quite smart. 

In fact White, Black, AND Green all greatly value knowledge in their philosophies, but just in their own different ways. 

Now it is important to acknowledge that personal philosophy can influence traits or personality even if they aren’t one to one. You don’t need to be super emotional to be Red aligned but, since Red is all about following your heart and doing whatever your emotions tell you one could argue or acknowledge a Red aligned character is more likely to act emotional. So one could argue that a Blue aligned character may be more likely to come off as smart or knowledgeable because they are likely to reward themselves for going out of their way to seek knowledge and information, and a Black character is more likely to seem powerful because they have a philosophy that rewards being power hungry. However, there can easily be an overly emotional Blue aligned character who struggles to control their emotions, sees their emotions as justified, or feels that they aren’t letting their emotions control them even if they actually are(people are weird and aren’t always perfectly rational. Sometimes people convince themselves that what they are doing fits in line with their world view or is justified). I would also be remiss not to mention the impact Magic’s cards themselves may have on the general public’s perception of a color. It is important to remember that most(but not all) cards are depicting things from their associated color(s) perspective. 

So the reason Blue cards may often come off as “smart” is the same reason so many White cards may invoke heroism and all kinds of heroic and “good” traits. That’s how the color itself tends to view said action or person being depicted on the card. Blue wants to be smart and make the most calculated and logical moves by utilizing all the information it has available. Also, being Blue doesn’t mean you are well rounded in your knowledge or have a perfectly even field of expertise on almost all subjects while spouting fun facts the entire time. Blue is ultimately all about using knowledge to better yourself so if your best self involves idk becoming an artist or something then one may tend to seek out information regarding art and art techniques and is less likely to go out of their way to understand how a car engine works. 

I mean, yes Blue will argue you should obtain knowledge as you can because you never know if it will be useful or reveal something you didn’t know would help you(I mean I’m sure everyone has heard stories of how say a football player learning ballet helped them play football better and the like) but Blue also acknowledges that most people have limited time and resources. Which in its eyes, making careful and considered decisions through knowledge in order to avoid as many mistakes as possible and make the best decisions possible is so important. Not everyone has the time to read through an entire library so it is important to carefully pick and choose what you want to do so you can better yourself. Additionally, Blue isn’t even saying you need to be good at everything. Your best self may specialize in a very specific category or may not be a jack-of-all-trades. The point here is that Blue philosophy isn’t one that is just about being the smartest person in any given room. It is about self-improvement.

[eclipsemeteor]

Commander Is Subjective

Magic's becoming a monster of a game, franchise, and corporate beast that's growing and changing beyond comprehension. And further within that scope, Commander is always a contentious hot button topic due to its more lofty, somewhat ambiguous, and vibes focused goals.

Opinions both online and offline span across the entirety of the format and game, and while you can find amicable discussions among friends and collaborators, you'll find the sheer difference from an enfranchised player vs a disconnected one to be head-spinning. Thus, people look for some sort of structure that's concrete and easy to follow to make this disconnect less disorienting. But what else can you do beyond the format's mission statements and ban list?

My name's Cole, I'm a host of the Hero's Blade Vibe Check Podcast and the former host of Uncommon Commander. Playing commander since 2012 or so has given me a lot of perspective and opinions on Magic, but mostly (exclusively) on Commander.

(Of course, this means you should take my opinions as a player and consumer with a grain of salt, but also keep an open mind because what I'm gonna talk about is not based on cold hard facts and statistics, it's solely vibes and feels based. It's how I operate.)

(Thanks Mark Rosewater for this lovely meme template. We will now run with it)

Commander/EDH exists everywhere: Gameplay videos, podcasts, written articles, tweets, Tiktoks and actual games you experience. In most situations, you're always gonna hear or have an opinion on an individual card, a commander, a strategy, a color/color combination, or even on a person, while also hearing about someone's opinion on something you enjoy.

Commander at its core is about creative expression via deck building, how you bling out or customize your decks visual appearance and socialization! With 27,349 unique cards as of this posting (and excluding the ban list), there are many different permutations for self-expression.

(for example, I'm a big believer in Odric Blood-Cursed, and this is the deck that I've been tuning for 2 years. I've had a lot of fun with it, and have made heads turn)

With that many different ways to build a deck, you're bound to run into things you don't like, and sometimes they're not quantifiable.

The reason for this article, and no doubt others have discussed this at length and much better than I, is that Commander is first and foremost a social experience. It's meant for multiplayer, it's Singleton, and the only stakes are what you make. You start adding quantifiable or monetary incentives, you take away the spirit of Commander. If you make a narrower or broader ban list, you take away from the spirit of Commander. You try to enforce or advocate for a separate ban list, rules committee, etc?

You're right, you take away from the spirit of Commander.

What you make Commander is up to you, but it can't be what it's been for people since its inception without participating with other players. You can goldfish all day, but Magic doesn't exist without the Gathering. That means compromise, healthy discussion, an open mind and heart, and a line in the sand to say when an experience isn't for you. We can sit and discuss how social bans make no sense, so why doesn't the Rules Committee ban mass land destruction? Why does Sol Ring get a pass while Mana Vault doesn't?

At the end of the day, despite how we may socially desire structure, hard enforcement of rules might make this beloved format lose its luster. Looking at it with a finite perspective will deny you opportunities for growth and expansion. Looking at Universes Beyond as only a cash grab will deny you the ridiculousness of having a table consisting of Optimus Prime, Gandalf, Chun-Li and Cloud Strife, but also the well designed cards made with care by people.

None of this would exist without people making the cards, illustrating these stories, characters and landscapes. People who made the rules, people who made this format, and the people who sit down and play this format.

People, like you or I, who are flawed, and have expectations and choices that are different than what we want as individuals. They may be people you respect, you admire. They might be people you love, hate, or feel indifferent about. But they are still people who make this game work.

To like everyone you encounter would be a ridiculous ask, but I ask that you give people a chance when you can allow yourself, and know it's ok if you don't. But I think most people are a lot cooler than you think, if given the chance.

Whether you're as enfranchised as I am, or more or less so, what you owe yourself and the others you play with is a genuine enthusiasm for playing and engaging the format. Take chances where you can engage with new people, be patient as new cards enter your view, and try to find and foster friendships so that the next time, the games are even better when you learn about this game better through the lens of friendship and the Gathering.

Keep an open mind! Be excellent to each other.

[tumblhurgoyf]

would y’all be interested in a mechanics super bracket of polls perhaps as early as next week?

it’d be a lot of 24 hr polls to determine the best magic mechanic. like initially 8 separate brackets running at the same time in the first week to seed the top 32 in a final bracket for the overall winner

so like a LOT of polls. I’d tag ‘em all but I also don’t wanna do all the work and flood blogs with polls unless people are interested in that

[slygirlboy]

[3-slugcat-pilots-7-ornithopters]

Hey does this video spoil the end of MKM?

[silvergifting]

i don't think anyone that has had the pleasure of working with wizards of the coat is surprised that they sent the pinkertons after oldschoolmtg; they're just that insane by nature

[mowu-moment]

Mob Rule: Realmbreaker, the Invasion Tree

My name is Mowu, and if there's one thing I hate as much as I hate rules, it's cards. What do you mean someone can play a card and mess with my stuff? We can't let them have any of those, and this hole in the sky that opened up behind me seems to agree. Welcome back to Mob Rule, a blogpost/article series about Rule Zero commanders, a unique(ly bad) deck tech around them, and what legendary creatures to substitute for them if the lawmages get too much on our backs.

Turning of the Handle

Since we've yet to have a colorless Praetor, there are three parts to Realmbreaker we get to focus on: mill, lands, and abilities. Mill is fairly straighforward: put cards in the graveyard. Colorless affords few great options, but enough good ones: Sands of Delirium, Whetstone, and Keening Stone all capitalize on our oodles of mana, while Ghoulcaller's Bell, Altar of the Brood, and Codex Shredder come down early to help our commander get rolling.

Spinning of the Grave

Mill goes hand in hand with graveyard synergies, and similarly has a few good pickings for colorless. A sampling of reanimation with Grimoire of the Dead and Portal to Phyrexia, a taste of big creatures with Bonehoard and Unlicensed Hearse, and a few funnier things like Myr Welder and Dermotaxi. While Realmbreaker takes its share of the lands, these cards pick up the creatures and artifacts that get milled in the process, so nothing is wasted.

Reaping of the Sown

Lands are harder to find additional synergy with, the only standout cards being Blackblade Reforged and Seer's Sundial. However, there are replacements for Realmbreaker should our tree be chopped down: Canoptek Scarab Swarm bombs a graveyard in exchange for a board full of tokens, Mirran Safehouse (ironic, I know) gives us the much of same potential outright taking the lands does, and worst comes to worst, we can twiddle our own thumbs with a Crucible of Worlds (along with a good package of sac-lands).

Spreading of the Tree

The greatest thing about ability copying, like the new Abstruse Archaic, is that it not only applies to our commander, but anything that might come attached to the realms we break (except mana abilities, but things like Inventor's Fair or Maze of Ith are still welcome). We also run some untappers like Voltaic Servant and Manifold Key to spread our infection a few more times each turn.

Staying of the Hand

We're a mill deck, so combat is nowhere near a focus, but we still need a solid package of creatures for the Vehicles and Equipment that we need for the strategy. To make some use of them, we're either taking creature-based removal, like Bladegriff Prototype and Steel Hellkite, or anything that can slow the board down, like Silent Arbiter and Rug of Smothering. If one had the budget, they could opt for a graveyard shuffler like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, as a failsafe if they mill themselves too much, but we won't do that today.

Replacing of the Commander

This time around, there are very few options for proper commanders as a whole, much less ones that can do anything for the strategy. There are two self-shufflers we could choose, but they won't do much from the command zone. If you want to make a point to your playgroup, I'd go for Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, as his exile ability resembles mill if you squint, and can make decking an opponent a viable strategy. If they're scared, Hope of Ghirapur works as a board-staller as well as a good body to hold Equipment (even if there's only four).

The full decklist can be found at https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/mob-rule-first-i-break-your-realms/ .

[willows-goat-farm]

smh. With these new story articles it really feels like wotc doesn't care about their older players and they are instead pandering to a newer audience. I mean, there is a Phyrexian 'impostor' that Karn says 'can travel through the vents'. At some point someone even says among us. It's not even subtle.

[douglysium]

The Magic of Planeswalker Art

You can read this article on Google Docs here- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b0_XVTfn8m3ecpSDEFO_UkcnrC_5WINzjtA5L_B2yKs/edit

One thing that I think is kind of cool and isn't really talked about enough is a lot of the art techniques Magic the Gathering uses and how the game can still have a general recognizable vibe, design philosophy, or design tropes in general thanks to the incredible skill, art direction, and vision of many of the artist and art directors. However, to get even more specific, one thing that I have seen people talk about even less is how Planeswalkers generally tend to pop out of their card art while most creatures, spells, and scenes are perfectly contained within the designated card art area.

Also, for the sake of clarity, I am talking strictly about normal card art and not alternate or special edition card art. But getting back to the point, the fact that Planeswalker's usually pop or leak out of their art comes down to, what I would argue at least, are two main design reasons. First off, having the planeswalkers be like the only card type to consistently do this helps draw attention to their importance and how MTG basically revolves around planeswalkers. Heck, canonically every MTG player is a planeswalker themselves. 

To go even further, if Magic the Gathering had a main character it would probably be Jace or Chandra… BUT if MTG had a second main character it would be planeswalkers in general. This makes sense when you consider the fact that generally planeswalkers are one of the few things that can traverse the different planes of the multiverse, much less with any sort of ease (well they WERE during the time of writing this but the events of March of the Machine seems to have given non-planeswalkers more options for traveling to other planes. But a lot of the points I’m mentioning still stand as planeswalkers seem to still have the easiest time traveling from plane to plane and don’t need to wait for portals or interplanar omenpaths) and because of this we tend to follow the narratives and stories of planeswalkers the most and they tend to be some of the more consistently recurring characters, as they are not as bound to specific planes (meaning that they can easily show up in just about any set if the writers want them to). The second reason one may want to show planeswalker’s leaving card art is more lore-related. See, it’s well know that planeswalkers can traverse from plane to plane(hence the name planeswalker). So, by having planeswalkers leaving or extending outside of their card frames you are physically showing that planeswalkers are not bound to planes in the same way that normal entities are. In essence, they are capable of leaving or simply stepping out of the world or place depicted on the card, unlike most normal creatures.

A planeswalker’s ability to just leave planes or areas just about whenever they want is also something we see addressed in the story of MTG.

“I’ve heard it said that a Planeswalker is someone who can always run from danger. But Gideon’s right: we’re also the ones who can choose to stay.” —Jace Beleren

Planeswalkers have a level of choice and freedom that most other creatures do not have. Honestly, the artistic technique we see on planeswalker cards reminds me of how comic artists may play around with things like the panels by doing things like having characters reach outside the panels to show how powerful a character is, that a character is not bound by normal logic, and/or that the character/panel in question is just super important.

The panel above is from the Webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell from page 1068 (https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1068) and it depicts the character Coyote. I wish I could think of more strong examples (and feel free to leave your own). In this page we can see Coyote’s reality warping power emphasized as he begins to reach outside the frame with his hand in the second panel and then in the third panel he takes in a more abstract form as he freely spills out into the areas below and next to the panel. You could also argue that this shows that what we are usually seeing is actually not Coyote’s true/only form and that he is a being that is just on another level of existence. He is not bound by the same physics, rules, and laws that most other characters are. 

Back to MTG though, I know some of you are inevitably going to say “Okay cool, but what about Marit Lage?” and my response to that is "Wow what a throwback…”

The rest of you are probably going to ask about the Eldrazi for the same reason. 

Now, the Eldrazi aren’t Planeswalkers so despite their ability to travel from one plane to another they don’t use the exact same art techniques that planeswalkers do because they are telling a slightly different story. One thing some may notice about the Eldrazi is the fact that they fuck with the borders of the card. More specifically you can see the rest of their art near the border of the card and outside the rest of their art frames in the default printing.

Not to mention that with a lot of them you can see the entirety of the art behind the various text boxes in general. This shows us that while, yes, the Eldrazi are similar to planeswalkers in that they are free to travel from plane to plane they are different in that they aren’t bound to our frame of reference of the symbolic frame of planes we are seeing. Unlike planeswalkers, the true body of the Eldrazi resides outside of any plane and within the Blind Eternities themselves. A fact that one could argue is kind of represented by the fact that there is more of the Eldrazi outside of the picture frame. 

In essence, if you only look at the card’s art frame then you are not getting the full picture of their existence and their true form doesn’t even really fit into the scene they inhabit so we have to zoom all the way out and look at them from outside the moment/world/plane that they are currently inhabiting. This is also further emphasized with just how fucking massive the Eldrazi titans themselves are. They are so big that they don’t even completely fit into the card they are on despite having almost the entirety of the card to portray their form. Their physical form in of itself is not the Eldrazi’s true form and to look upon only its physical form, massive as they may be, does not create a complete picture of what they are. Additionally, their strange card art and borders just highlights them as unusual, important, eye-catching, or something you don’t see every day. Especially when you compare them to normal creatures.

The fact that the Eldrazi extend outside of where a Magic card’s art is normally contained could also reference their ability to travel from plane to plane. However, the way they do so is different from that of Planeswalkers. While planeswalkers are capable of crossing the borders of planes and stepping from one metaphorical scene to another Eldrazi just don’t have any borders, at least not in the same way a normal plane dwelling entity does. Planeswalkers jump from plane to plane but Eldrazi merely move in, out, and through the Blind Eternities to get to another plane. Even then, as mentioned earlier, it is not their true form that enters a plane as their true form still lies within the Blind Eternities themselves. So in essence the Eldrazi are just sort of “reaching” into planes they want to interact with.

I guess if I had to explain this in the simplest way possible I would say that the fact that planeswalkers almost always have bits of their body sticking out of the art frame is a representation of both their importance and the extra level of freedom and movement that comes with planeswalking. A freedom that normal creatures, spells, and other things don’t have access to. 

Additionally, in the cases of instants, sorceries, and enchantments. planeswalkers usually seem unable to cast spells mid planeswalk (at least to my knowledge). Casting spells from the Blind Eternities if you're a planeswalker isn’t something that you can just do which would explain why these kinds of spells would still be more contained within their art frame even when they are being used by or associated with planeswalkers.

Then you have artifacts. While some artifacts can be brought to different planes by a planeswalker it is important to remember that artifacts are a way WAY broader and vague category than a lot of Magic players seem to assume. While artifacts can represent some types of inorganic material or technology, most of which a planeswalker could take with them when they planeswalk, they can also just represent inanimate objects. Which can often include things that are organic and thus cannot be taken off a plane via planeswalking.

For example, most food we see is composed of organic material and thus attempting to planeswalk with them would cause them to be destroyed in the blind eternities. However, it’s more likely that artifacts not having the same border crossing art treatment as planeswalkers is simply connected to the fact that even artifact that can be safely carried when planeswalking do not necessarily have the ability to planeswalk on their own or by themselves and would thus need a planeswalker, or I guess an Omenpath as of March of the Machines, in order to leave a plane. Their ability to leave a plane is not intrinsic to them in the same way it is for planeswalkers.

Meanwhile, the art of the Eldrazi and their associated cards along with how said art plays with the art frame tends to represent that while they aren’t planeswalkers they aren’t limited to a plane and the metaphorical frame that normal creatures are. Their influence extends from outside of our frame of reference and comprehension.

As I mentioned earlier we are only focusing on default card art and not alternative art, special editions, secret layers, etc. because they often have an incentive to break these rules in order to make more interesting art that would otherwise normally not make sense in a given set. However, even excluding these alts there are still exceptions. For example, Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter is a planeswalker card that depicts Tibalt sitting cleanly inside his frame. 

On one hand I think it can be easily argued that this is simply due to his posture and position within the piece. But that then raises the question why would the art be done this way then? If we actually take a second to put ourselves in the shoes of an artist or art director who wants to keep the motif of planeswalkers going one could easily do so by simply raising Tibalt’s position higher so that his arm barely sticks out of the frame, outstretching his right arm so that his fingers stick out a little bit, or even just making one of the many coins raining down on him spill out of the bottom of the frame ever so slightly. Not to mention that you can still see a bit of his art behind the textbox like every other planeswalker so why would you stop there when it comes to planeswalkers. These factors don’t rule out the possibility that it was a coincidence but make me lean more towards the idea that this might have actually been intentional on the part of one or more parties. I think a possible answer lies in Kaldheim’s story in which Tibalt disguises himself as one of the plane’s inhabitants and gods, Valki, God of Lies (which I have to admit I find a little funny because if I was going to disguise myself as someone choosing the one guy who’s famously known for being untrustworthy, and a liar is quite the move).

From this perspective we could argue that the reason Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter, sits inside his frame is because it is supposed to mirror Valki in the sense that Tibalt is disguising himself as one of the normal inhabitants of Kaldheim and would thus appear to be on their level from a sort of metaphysically metaphorical perspective. So in this way the art of Tibalt on this card shows a metaphorical connection to his disguise of Valki.

Thanks for reading, or skimming, this article. What’s your favorite planeswalker art that is not an alternative art and why? Also, I do have more articles if you're interested such as pieces discussing the Color Pie in relation to Kamigawa, Innistrad’s factions, and longer form pieces discussing the Color Pie in general, such as White and Blue. I hope to see you later.

You can check out the list of all the articles I’ve written so far with this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ita3Eh8P2SdNtF9eCorKbhchtLXrrKJheK5_6OpRFSs/edit

[starlit-mansion]

was not able to get loot dicebag plushie unfortch but my partner did get me the kellan playmat so a little guy like me can have one son

[nudityandnerdery]

It's a great day to consider the vast array of other RPGs out there other than D&D. If you want that style of game, Pathfinder is great. And if you feel like trying something new, there's so much to explore...

Amazing timing for this article to come out the day Critical Role opens the beta for their own RPG system...

[cyrenesavage]

Selections From "The Dark Side of Multiplayer"

Originally published in Serious Fun on Daily MTG, January 29th, 2002

There are three kinds of power in multiplayer Magic: the power you project, the power you consolidate, and the power you have over opponents. (There’s also the carbo-power you and your friends can only get from rewarmed Tacquitos and leftover salsa, but that’s a different article.) Not every color uses all three powers effectively. Black, on the other hand, maxes out on all three. You don’t have to go any further than Torment’s own card list to see examples:

Projected power is your direct show of force: swinging with creatures, cleaning off the board, locking down the situation, whatever. It is your active participation in your own victory.

In every expansion, black has at least two black cards that project enormous power – typically some variant of Pestilence, some enormous and impractical fatty, and another efficient weenie for a rapid-deploy army. Torment is certainly no different, offering up three Pestilence-style cards (Last Laugh, Mutilate, and Sickening Dreams), a clearly angry pet in Hypnox, and the ultra-quick Nantuko Shade.

Consolidated power: If projected power is the kinetic energy of Magic, consolidated power is the potential energy. Your resources – particularly cards and life – need replenishment.

Again, black has made a long career of doing both. With Drain Life, Syphon Soul, and Subversion to provide life fuel, and Necropotence as the king of card advantage vehicles, you can restock your supplies very easily in this color. Add on black’s penchant for recurring creature cards, and the resources can seem endless.

Torment’s take on this advantage comes through three incredibly powerful recursion cards: Dawn of the Dead; Chainer, Dementia Master; and Ichorid.

Note that the very act of playing mono-black does carry one large burden that sucks away your projected and consolidated power: your inability to deal with enchantments and artifacts. No matter how many removal cards you draw, fat creatures you recur, or life you gain, Light of Day or Nevinyrral's Disk often presents massive problems for you. Faced with these elements, you need someone to help out.

Manipulative power is your power over other opponents, to get them to do what you want them to. While many players mistake “staying quiet” for the best way to win a group game, in truth the most effective and reliable way for reaching your goals is to play actual spells and permanents that pave the road.

While it has enough scary creatures and permanents – the type seen in projected power above – to divert many sorts of attacks, black also has had more “subtle” cards, such as Plague Dogs and Mindslicer.

Torment adds to this list with Shambling Swarm and Faceless Butcher, which many opponents may find more useful alive than dead. A manipulative strategy using these cards requires your opponents to play superior creatures; but in a casual group game that should happen all the time. [...]

Wizards didn’t put in a ton of pro-black creatures into Odyssey and Torment just for white and green tourney mages to stick in their Block Constructed sideboards. If you are part of a multiplayer Magic group, you can reasonably expect at least one half of your friends to sport at least one mono-black deck within the next month or so. What do you think you should do about that?

I don’t need to go through a comprehensive list of “protection from black” cards right here. A simple search engine anywhere on the Internet will give you what you need. I would point out a couple of particularly efficient choices, such as Mystic Enforcer and Paladin en-Vec. And the Paladin isn’t just good because of the dominance of black…

Any grizzled multiplayer veteran worth his salt will see his group paying a great deal of attention to black, playing pro-black creatures and such… but no pro-red. And why should they? There is scant mention of that ability in Odyssey block, perhaps one or two cards at most. Many casual groups tend to play the newest and most exciting cards, letting older expansions fade out of memory here and there. How quickly we forget Ghitu Fire, Illuminate, and Prophetic Bolt. How easily our spoiler-happy eyes will slip over Violent Eruption and Devastating Dreams (well, perhaps not that easily).

And so it may seem that red, in fact, gets the largest advantage because of black’s dominance. Until you consider that red’s reckless manner in casual play plays right into blue’s patient hands…and also that Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor just got six more subjects to play with.

These are the kinds of details that will matter most in the early days of Torment. Much like a tournament pro, to succeed in your own group’s play you will need to comb through the new cards and find those most likely to surprise your opponents. Unlike a tournament pro, you can worry about things like how many cephalids there are.

[jacebeleren]

Your posts and essays have inspired me to do my own digging into the MtG lore. Do you have any recommendations on where a fledgling Vorthos should start? Is it better to pick a character and trace their journey through the stories? Or should I try to go as far back as possible to start with some of the very first stories and work my way chronologically?

I am SO GLAD YOU ASKED!! I've been waiting for an ask like this.

You guys probably don't know this, but I'm a co-admin on MTGLore.com, the BEST resource for any fan who wants to get into Magic lore. It's basically like Scryfall but for Magic Story.

For fans new to Magic Story, we have a convenient "Where to start" page. This can give you some direction for where to start, depending on what you're interested in.

There's A LOT of Magic Story out there, so I wouldn't recommend starting from the very beginning to literally anyone. Personally, when I got into Magic Story, I also took the "comic book" approach (picking one favorite character and only reading all their stories), and then I went back and read all the other ones.

To find the stories with your favorite character, you can use our VERY robust search tool. You can search by characters, authors, time period, setting, type of article, set/expansion, etc etc. It'll list all the results with most recent at the top and oldest at the bottom.

But if your favorite character is Gideon, Jace, Liliana, Chandra, or Nissa; Origins is a perfect place to start. That's where the modern era of Magic Story really starts, with the Gatewatch arc. If you want to read starting there, we have a very cool "Origins to Present" page, which is a complete timeline of all the Magic Story web fiction from Origins onward.

A lot of those characters have stories from before Origins, too. So I think it's also worth it to use the search tool to go back and find those too!

[thecreaturecodex]

Mind Flayer, General Information

"Elder Brain Variant" © Wizards of the Coast, by Nino Is. Accessed at Art of MtG here

[While the OGL 1.1 debacle was going on, I said that I was going to keep my distance with Wizards' IP for a while. Why the change? Well, Wizards accidentally (on purpose?) released a bunch of previously Product Identity monsters into the Creative Commons, including the mind flayers. And I had been contemplating the illithidae as my next D&D monster project for a while, since I was commissioning art for the modron hierarchs.

My take on the mind flayers is going to be, like many of my versions of D&D monsters, somewhat iconoclastic. Namely, I don't like the elder brain very much. At least, not as they are typically interpreted, as the masters of a hivemind of unquestioningly obeying illithids. That makes the basic illithid into a minion and a drone. The combination of controlled by elder brains and the ever-increasing emphasis on ceremorphosis makes the mind flayers feel like the Borg. Which is less interesting than the original 70s and 80s version, where it was a species made up entirely of evil masterminds. I want to re-inject some of the respect for the normal illithids into this version.

My flavor text draws inspiration from all of the various mind flayer interpretations that have come before. A major source of inspiration was "The Sunset World", an article from Dragon 150. The various creeds were a big deal in 2e, as illithids played major roles in both Planescape and Spelljammer, but have been all but forgotten since them. I'm ignoring the time travel element from 3.5's Lords of Madness, but I am using their interpretation of mind flayer emotions. I am also finally giving them a mechanical weakness to bright lights, which somehow has been flavor only for the last 47 years.]

Mind Flayer The mind flayers are a species of hyper-intelligent, imperialist aliens that view other creatures as slaves and cattle. Their empire spans over dozens of planets, but is currently in something of a declining period due to slave revolts, conflict with the Dominion of the Black and other misfortune. Mind flayers are known for their decentralized organization and various means of travel and conquest. Some use spaceships, but most travel from planet to planet using the Astral and Shadow Planes as corridors. The mind flayers hate bright light, and the late stages of their planetary conquests include changing the atmosphere or stars of planets in order to reduce their illumination to a comforting red hue. The hub of their empire, although it is likely not their home world, is Ssirik-Akuar, the Sunset World.

As the name suggests, mind flayers use mind-influencing magic to control their enemies and allies alike. But they are also avid consumers of brains. A mind flayer can survive on an omnivorous diet of meat, fungi and plants, but grows listless and unhealthy if it does not regularly consume the brains of sapient creatures. A mind flayer can inject its tentacles straight into the brains of its victims, pithing them. Most of the time, this brain-dead individual’s brain is consumed by that mind flayer, but pithed victims are required for the mind flayer’s bizarre reproductive cycle.

What are thought by some to be different species of mind flayers are in fact different stages in a complex life cycle. The most commonly encountered mind flayers, illithids, are the equivalent of males. The elder brains that illithid colonies gather around are the equivalent of females. Illithids periodically fertilize the elder brain’s eggs, and the elder brain lives in a pool of slime crawling with mind flayer tadpoles. Illithids insert these tadpoles into the pithed body of a Medium-sized, mammalian humanoid in order to allow their young to reach maturity. Inside a host body, the tadpole insinuates into the remaining nervous system and eventually replaces its tissues like a cancer, transforming the body into an illithid. A few tadpoles, fed special enzymes by the elder brain, grow into ulitharids instead. An ulitharid is essentially an immature elder brain that spends decades learning as much as it can and coordinating the efforts of illithids before metamorphosing into a new elder brain. Most mind flayers do not concern themselves with matters of gender, and most of their bodies have lost the secondary sexual characteristics of their former lives.

Mind flayers are supremely arrogant, and their interactions with other species are usually exploitative and predatory. They present themselves as being without emotion, but in truth they are capable of regulating their emotions more directly than other creatures by consciously releasing chemicals. An illithid’s emotions are typically disdain, spite, arrogance and a lust for power. They rationalize their fears as concern and self-preservation. Almost all mind flayers consider themselves part of one or more “creeds”, which are philosophical callings that influence how mind flayers pursue their goals of conquest and consumption. Mind flayers do not discriminate between sources of power, and arcane, divine and occult magic, as well as alchemy, are common pursuits.

Mind Flayer Deities The primary god of the mind flayers is Ilsensine, the God Brain. Mind flayers consider Ilsensine to have been the first elder brain. According to the Venerator Creed, Ilsensine’s priesthood, when an elder brain dies, its knowledge passes to Ilsensine. Ilsensine’s unholy symbol is a green brain with two tentacles, and its favored weapon is the tentacle. Those few worshipers of Ilsensine that aren’t mind flayers treat unarmed strikes as their favored weapon. Ilsensine is lawful evil, and their domains are Charm, Evil, Knowledge, Law and Magic. Ilsensine’s subdomains are Hatred, Memory, Slavery, Thought and Tyranny. A cleric of Ilsensine can use the Hatred subdomain to modify the Evil domain.

A recent emergence in mind flayer culture is the rise of the Creed of Thoon. Thoon is a mysterious entity associated with the Plateau of Leng. Thoon’s followers are devoted to violent expansion, extracting vital essences from their victims along with brains and harnessing them into strange constructs that blur the line between living and non-living. Thoon’s unholy symbol is a complex rune made of tentacles, and its favored weapon is a heavy flail. Thoon is neutral evil, and its domains are Artifice, Evil, Madness and War. Thoon’s subdomains are Alchemy, Construct, Nightmare and Tactics.

Mind Flayer Mechanics “Mind flayer” is a subtype of the aberration type, with the following characteristics:

Spell resistance equal to 15 + the mind flayer’s CR

Affectless (Ex) A mind flayer gains a +4 racial bonus on all saving throws against emotion effects

Light blindness

Sunlight Sickness (Ex) A mind flayer in direct sunlight is sickened, as well as suffering penalties from its light blindness

Pith (Ex) A mind flayer can make a coup de grace attempt as a full round action without provoking attacks of opportunity against a helpless or pinned opponent. The coup de grace must be made with a specific natural weapon, listed in the mind flayer’s entry. This coup de grace does not function against creatures that have no head or no brain, and creatures with multiple heads are not killed if they fail the save (although that head is no longer functional).

[corvidcall]

there was an article going around on mtg twitter about which IPs wizards could license for their universes beyond sets to attract the "shes, theys, and gays" and YEAH. it made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. it was even worse because all the IPs the writer suggested were for little bitty babies. no i do not think a magic the gathering set or secret lair branded after the fucking CARE BEARS is gonna attract a lot of marginalized people to the game. please youre hurting me