#mtg colour philosophy

[dailyadventureprompts]

Good morrow to you Dapper! I was wondering, when worldbuilding, how do you give each sentient species (elves, dwarves, orcs, etc.) a cohesive identity while also acknowledging the fact that real world peoples, cultures, and countries are a lot more fluid than the PHB would leave us to believe?

To be honest, I don't? Motly in that I don't approach worldbuilding in such a way where I need to block off each individual ancestry/species into their own distinct thing. I also don't have a set world that my adventures take place in, and tend to create settings and assign them details on an at-need basis.

I tend to work from a "culture as story element" perspective, creating a tablau of different peoples based on what the drama needs at any particular moment, and then adding on details as needed.

Say my party is on the borderlands of a big wilderness region where one or more "settled" societies are butting up against eachother and the nomadic peoples who call the wilderness home. Each group gets a name and enough detail to give the players an idea who they're dealing with, and it's only after that where I start at all thinking about demographics.

Likewise I could say forinstance that "the Kal'Ghrine nomads are primarily of orcish decent" but if I express to my players that the defining features of the Kal'Ghrine are being tough as nails survivalists, canny traders, and highly protective of their sacred sites, then that image of what the Kal'Ghrine people are like is going to stick in my players heads, supplimenting their idea of what to expect from an orc. As a bonus it means I can throw in human, woodelf, even hafling or gnoll members of the Kal'Ghrine for texture and my players won't bat an eye

I like thinking about it in terms of the MTG colour pie, multiple groups/philosophies can band togeter for a common cause, and individuals within those groups can express different aspects of that larger union.

As for change over time time, that's an interesting wrinkle. I tend to presume that longer lived species (elves, dwarves, gnomes) tend to have an undertanding of power structures that overlay current kingdom level politics and treat the affairs of their shorter lived kind as children squabbling. If the elves of the ladenbough forest stopped trading with their human neighbors every time they had a succession crisis, rebelion, border dispute, or unification war they'd never get anything done.

[harpagornis]

MTG Analysis: LGBT and the color pie

So this is something a bit out of left field since its not Pride Month but I felt like writting this so sue me.

MTG has had a long history with LGBT topics and characters, from Xantcha from the early days to an explosion of LGBT characters in recent years. Officially, homophobia doesn’t exist in the Multiverse (I call bull if you’re familiar with older canon) and that’s fine and dandy, not everyone needs bigotry in their escapism.

However, I like to keep things real, and the matter of fact is that the color pie is philosophical. So I though it’d be fun to see how the colours interact and react to LGBT topics.

White

White I think is the easiest to depict as homophobic/transphobic. After all, real world religions and politics have persecuted LGBT individuals, and White is all about marginalising the outgroup, imposing restrictions on community and using faith as means to dictate one’s life. Conversely, White is also likely to be shown as an ally, since it often also fights for the meek and vulnerable.

An interesting way to depict White in this regard is the different double standards it may have. For example, in some real world cultures trans individuals are accepted because they’re seen as a way to enforce gender roles, while non-binary or gay individuals are shunned because they dismantle gender roles. Conversely, homosexuality may be seen as means to reinforce military bonds, which plays in White’s love of community + militarization.

Overall, because White often governs over society and factions I think there’s a real potential for worldbuilding.

Blue

On the surface, Blue can appear as rather accepting since it believes in reason and science. Its philosophy of one being able to do anything one desires to improve oneself also plays well into accepting trans people. I don’t think there’s a coincidence that the two first non-binary planeswalkers are Blue aligned; one even defied fate for crying out loud!

However, Blue’s belief in tabula rasa also means that it doesn’t believe anything is inherent. Therefore, Blue is the most likely to believe in conversion therapy. Worse, given Blue’s factions penchant for amoral science it is the color most likely to dispense “cures” for homosexuality and make straight designer babies.

In conclusion, Blue’s allyship is highly dependent on what it feels self-improvement entails. On a good day, it rallies for LGBT rights. On a bad day, it makes White look reasonable in comparison.

Black

Black, being the colour of individuality and giving the middle finger to societal norms, is most accepting of all letters of LGBT. This comes with a big caveat, however: it is focused on the individual foremost. So if going to a pride parade displays one’s power and charisma, it will do so. If being a closeted bigoted politician provides that, it will be so. Black has no morals or obligations, why should it care if it can be a hypocrite or profit off pride?

A very fairweather ally, but a staunch supporter especially to spite bigotry.

Red

Red is the colour of freedom and self-expression. It has no patience for those tearing others down in the name of society and laws. Naturally, I think it’s a no-brainer that it is the most LGBT positive colour. It loves who it loves and indentifies as it identifies, and unlike Black it has a sense of empathy and a healthy dose of disregard for authorithy in any way shape or form. And its always down to experiment!

That said, I can see some violently homophobic characters being partly-Red aligned, with some other color to provide reasons as to why Red’s normal love of self-expression is restricted.

Green

Green, like White, is a double edged sword. It fundamentally believes in fate, tradition and genetics; on one hand, it can decry such things as “unnatural”, but on the other it can be supportive, especially if it sees such things as “always meant to be”. Unlike Blue, it believes things are inherent, so it is less likely to believe in “cures”. This in particular is why its dichotomy differs from White, as unlike it Green derives its beliefs from philosophical concepts rather than morality.

It’s opinions on trans topics in particular can be pretty interesting: does it see an individual’s body as the natural truth, or the soul? Loreley Writes once wrote a post I can’t find that Green magic could theoretically work with a person’s own identity to modify the flesh; that’d be a cool use of biomancy if made canon.

So in conclusion

I respect WOTC for not wanting to deal with topics that could backfire horribly, but I just can’t help myself!

[aeronics]

thank u for the tag @fizzy-watches-dps :)) this is the first time ive been tagged in one of these sorry about the wack formatting it needs to look good to appease my little monkey pea brain top 5 books: lord of the flies, wuthering heights, cant think of any others rn

top 5 shows/movies: dead poets society, midsommar, little miss sunshine, the batman [2022] [are you seeing the paul dano theme yet], there will be blood, dont hug me im scared

fav movie genre: idk the weird slice of life ones that have no point like little miss sunshine or just psychological horror

top fandoms you're in: dead poets society, south park ig, some of the og lets play youtubers (markiplier, jse, etc.), life is strange 1+2, metal family

top fandoms you’d like to join: scp foundation stuff, the welcome home arg

top artists you listen to: abba, ghost, gorillaz, la dispute, crywank, wilbur soot's old music, msi [i dont support their actions at all]

top songs currently: to be alone with you - sufjan stevens, voulez-vous - abba, tous les mêmes - stromae

a song that describes you perfectly: iris - goo goo dolls

top music genres currently: [according to spotify stats] rock, pop, permanent wave, indie, modern rock

favourite music genre: oh god idk uhhhh id just say rock if i had to pick

love language you're most comfortable giving: acts of service

love language you like receiving: physical touch, quality time

favourite aesthetics: liminalcore?? grunge, gross boyish boy things idk how else to word that [maybe transmasc-core]

characters you kin: stephen meeks [dead poets society], kinda charlie dalton [dead poets society], ches [metal family], richard cameron [dead poets society, listen i have my reasons], red guy [dhmis], nathan prescott [lis], max caulfield [lis], dwayne hoover [little miss sunshine], todd anderson [dead poets society], scott tenorman [south park, idc he listens to radiohead too], michael/tall goth [south park]

fav colour and why: grey, nice n neutral and chill or red bc it looks good on everything

interests i would like to talk about: just random obscure facts i have collected [..whales sometimes explode when they die], also the dark web, also morbid history things, also dead poets society and how we were robbed of the deleted scenes, also the 4th dimension, also philosophy and politics

fav animal/s: raccoons, cats, basking sharks

favourite season: summer or winter i can never decide

favourite weather: sunny with a breeze or violent thunder and lightning

sixteen personalities type: intp-t

mtg colour quiz results: planeswalker of the jeskai way, a combination of blue, red, and white apparently

kinda not serious fears: baby birds opening their mouths to be fed [its fucking horrific]

random tags [sry if u have already been tagged!]: @elistudies @springlikesmile @taciturnpoet @pinkobsessedfreak @dpsthinker and anyone else who wants to

[polygonate]

ive been a pretty avid yugioh player all my life but recently, after seeing the amazing proxy art made for magic the gathering cards, ive started learning it so i can eventually make my own cool proxy deck and in doing so ive had to relearn deck building. what ive noticed when it comes to deck construction in yugioh vs deck construction in mtg is that yugioh decks run with a range of 40 - 60 cards with up to 3 copies of one card in the deck, and a maximum of 15 in the extra deck, this leads to designing play around 19 - 25 unique cards.

mtg on the other hand has a deck size minimum of 60 cards with up to 4 copies of each card in said deck, alongside that, there are land cards which arent really cards, theyre resources. the standard number being around 24 in one deck. this leads to designing play with only 9 unique cards, maybe 16 if you wanted to play sub-optimally.

this leads to yugioh cards working with more complicated abilities, restricting cards to archetypes, building subsystems like bushido counters which only work with six samurai decks, or toon world which is required for the toon archetype, and mtg cards to work with more simplified abilities and operating with a significantly more open design philosophy, any card being usable alongside seemingly any other card.

so deck building with yugioh builds from the archetype down, choosing a card that you like and piling all its friends together, seeing what other cards or archetypes would help the archetype maximise its output, and deck building with mtg seems to build from the colours (which define what kind of resources you'll play with, and what cards you can choose from, you wouldnt put a card in your deck you dont have a way to play after all) and then filling up the mana curve (something that you have to plan around when you're playing a game with resources) so you're able to play something every turn. beyond those restrictions, it seems like you can use any individual card from any set or release you'd like

with this in mind, you can notice one thing, yugioh archetypes are usually released at the same time or are released in bunches, by the same artist or following the same art style. mtg has no way to do this though, sure they can keep specific aesthetics and concepts in the same colour and keep all of their card art within the same generic high fantasy setting but artists art are not gonna look the same, you see this with how the goblins are drawn inbetween releases, you see this especially clear when putting older and newer cards in the same deck where even the cards graphic design can't even stay consistent

i think this is why yugioh doesnt really have much when it comes to yugioh proxy art and why mtg seems to have an entire community around it

[thiaquiche]

Sudden urge to assign MtG colour identities to the Omori cast lol thoughts under the cut, it’s a little long and also references full game spoilers for the Sunny Route. I waaaay overthought this, considering I mostly just wanted to make this to come up with cool magic stuff for them lol

I tried to assign most of the Faraway gang two colours, save for Sunny and Basil, and the Headspace gang one colour, save for Omori and Basil. This was intentional - the Headspace gang are, of course, imaginary, simplified versions of the real people they represent, so of course their colour philosophies/identities would be less complex than their real human counterparts, and Sunny, Omori, and Basil are exceptions because of each of their unique circumstances. The Headspace folks (or at least Omori and Basil) are given their colour identities as much or more for the roles they play in Sunny’s psyche as for their actual character traits.

Faraway/Real World Gang:

Sunny Mono-blue, later Simic (Blue-green) in the True Ending

I assign Sunny blue mana less because of any particular personality traits he has and more because of Headspace. It’s an ideal world built on illusions, and while it lacks the intellectual, inquisitive quality usually associated with blue mana, it just seems to fit really well. I think by the end of the True Route, especially in a universally-loved run or just having completed a fair amount of tasks around town to have lots of flowers in Sunny’s hospital room, it makes a lot of sense for Sunny to connect with the green mana philosophy of acceptance and interconnectedness as well.

Aubrey: Boros (White-red)

Aubrey is passionate and intense, but she’s also desperately looking for peace in her life. Her anger when she finally saw Sunny out of the house was related to the way his sudden presence upended the uneasy peace she had clawed together, and she lashed out.

Hero: Selesnya (White-green)

Chose white for him because he’s a fucking people pleaser lmao half serious about that, actually, he cares a lot about the people around him and wants to be there for others. He’s going through to be a doctor, ffs, and white mana is heavily associated with healing and protection. Green is a sort of secondary colour for him the same way white is a secondary colour for Aubrey, its philosophy of accepting your place dovetails with his specific rendition of the white colour philosophy. He’s a doctor because his parents want him to be, he had considered being a cook because Mari wanted him to be, he was the responsible one in the group because that’s what they needed from him. He constantly lets his role be decided by the people around him, and he seems pretty okay with that.

Kel: Boros (White-red)

Kel and Aubrey are both Boros, but they are very different flavours of Boros. If Aubrey is red with a white bent, Kel is white with a red bent. Like Hero, he puts others first, he’ll take whatever you throw at him but won’t stand for anyone mistreating his friends. His impulsivity, though, serves his caringness, like when he rushes in to defend Basil from the Hooligans both at the Park and at the secret hangout spot.

Basil: Sultai (Blue-black-green), later Simic (Blue-green) in the True Ending

Basil’s hard because of how little we get to know him, so this colour selection was based as much on wanting it to sort of work narratively with my selection for Sunny’s colour philosophy as it was actually based on what we see of him. I like the thought that Basil’s colour philosophy was complicated after Mari’s accident, to contrast Sunny’s simplifying, and I like the thought of them healing towards the same colour philosophy. The green is for plants, and him having a place and a role in the friend group, the blue is for idealizing the friend group, and the black is for clinging to what he had with all his might after Sunny pushed Mari, no matter what heinous things he had to do to maintain the illusion. In the true ending, I’d like to think he stops clinging on so hard, and that lets him drop the black bent.

Mari: Dimir (Blue-black)

For obvious reasons, this is all just based on Sunny’s memories of her, but I think I can make a good case for her being Dimir given what we’re shown. She’s repeatedly shown to be a perfectionist, which is a very blue trait to have, and the black comes in with how hard she’s willing to push others (namely Sunny, the day of the recital, but arguably also the way she seems to almost pressure Hero to become a cook for her in the memory at the hangout spot) in order to achieve her ideal vision for the world. I don’t doubt that she cares about them, and caring for others is admittedly not a very black trait at all, but (and maybe this is just me, maybe I’m just reading her uncharitably, maybe I’m stretching here) at times she almost feels a bit manipulative. Maybe she’s just too much of a tease for me, but she rubs me wrong at times.

Headspace Gang:

Omori: Dimir (Blue-black)

I’ve already characterized Headspace as a very blue place, and I think Omori just brings a black bent to that. He is motivated by self-interest - and, being part of Sunny, also by Sunny’s self-interest. Black is not inherently evil, just focused on power and looking out for oneself. Omori protects Sunny from the truth of what happened, burying it away beneath the pastel veneer of Headspace, because that is what it takes for Sunny to not have to feel that pain. It’s only when Sunny learns the truth that Omori seems to turn on him, and even then, as part of Sunny’s mind, he’s just giving voice to Sunny’s own thoughts. Committing suicide is a way to end that pain, when it’s no longer possible to suppress it, to block out the imperfect and painful world around him permanently. It’s textbook black: Death is a tool. He even aligns well with blue-black strategies mechanically, turning the enemy’s strength into weakness and misery into power, able to strike precisely and hard. (Or maybe that’s just how I tended to build him, I didn’t really experiment with builds as much as I maybe could have.)

Aubrey: Mono-red

Aubrey in Headspace is as strong-willed as she’s ever been, staunch in her beliefs and more impulsive with youth. She lacks the yearning for peace that Faraway Aubrey developed after Mari’s passing. Mechanically, she aligns well with red’s philosophy of hitting hard and hitting harder.

Hero: Mono-white

Hero in Headspace is still a people pleaser lol and mechanically, he still leans very white as well, being the party’s main healer and generally not hitting very hard unless you actively build him that way. He does his best work when he’s supporting others. (I can see there being an argument for him being Selesnya or even mono-green, and I welcome other opinions, this is just what I went with.)

Kel: Mono-red

Headspace Kel’s whole thing is his impulsivity. He’s the ultimate little gremlin free spirit. Plus, the Kel Nuke (and his overall glass cannon status) just feels very red, honestly.

Basil: Mono-green, mono-blue, or Simic (blue-green)

The fact that I’m not listing a singular colour philosophy right from the get-go kiiinda shows just how uncertain I am about Headspace Basil. I haven’t played or seen much of the Hikkikomori route, so I’m aware that I’m potentially missing out on some characterization for him, and I just don’t feel that I have enough information to be able to narrow it down beyond the obvious of blue for the illusions of Headspace and green for the acceptance (and with him being hidden away whenever he triggers Sunny, rejection) of the past. Thoughts for him are especially appreciated.

Mari: Mono-blue

The reason for this is twofold: One, she is an idealized version of Mari, who already has a blue bent but who supports Sunny/Omori no matter what, never pressuring him to be what she wants him to be like the real Mari seemed to. Two, she is the culmination of Headspace’s promise of perfection, her very existence and continued life is impossible idealism.

MtG colour philosophy summary I looked at for this in case anyone wants it:

“Pie Fights” by Mark Rosewater (hyperlink)

I’ve put a fair bit of thought into this, but it still feels a little half-baked to me, and I would love some other opinions. I’m not really an MtG lore or philosophy buff, I just happened to have MtG and Omori ping off each other in my braincan and went off about it lol if you’re seeing this, thanks for reading through all of this, I hope it was worth your time :P

[river-oceanus]

Me: “I want to build a Magic: the Gathering deck around this character, and I’m pretty sure they are primarily Red-White but there’s something missing.”

This color quiz: This character is pretty solidly Red-White-Green actually. ( | White: 252 | Blue: 182 | Black: 137 | Red: 273 | Green: 247 | )

Me: ... I am beginning to think I play too many strongly green characters.

Green wants harmony. The other colors are all focused on how they'd change the world to make it better. Green is the one color that doesn't want to change the world, because green is convinced that the world already got everything right. The natural order is a thing of beauty and has all the answers to life's problems. The key is learning to sit back and recognize what is right in front of you.

White wants peace. White wants to create a world where there is no unnecessary suffering, a world where life is as good as it can be for each individual. The key to making this happen is teaching individuals the importance of taking actions which benefit the group as a whole, even if those actions might not benefit them personally.

Red wants freedom. Everyone seems preoccupied with the meaning of life. Red's not, because red already knows the answer. You see, your heart tells you what it needs in order to be fulfilled. All you have to do is listen to it and act accordingly. It's not a mystery. You are literally bombarded with constant feelings that guide you down the correct path. The problem is all the other colors ignore the message.

[markrosewater]

Afternoon, Mark! Been playing for... 7ish years now? Time flies. I've been reading up on MTG's colour philosophy lately and I'm curious about the Vedalken. Is there any interest in bringing them back as a characteristic race for Blue, even if it's only a secondary one? It seems like they fit Blue's "perfection through knowledge" philosophy pretty well!

That's exactly what they were designed to do. Unfinity has some Vedalken. I hope to see more in other future sets.

[radramblog]

MtG: The Dean Problem

The newest Magic set, Strixhaven: School of Mages (a subtitle I was better off not knowing existed), has provided an absolute bounty of legendary creatures for commander players to fawn over. A new set of Elder Dragons with splashy and interesting abilities, another Planeswalker commander, and a full cycle of uncommon legendaries for those who love the design they bring to the table (like me!).

And then there’s the Deans.

These are not proving popular, and there’s pretty good reasons for that…but why?

The Deans, in my eyes, are the culmination of a compromise between multiple design elements that didn’t quite come together right.

The first of these is Partner. Partner, and Partner with, have proved incredibly popular commander designs, though a large part of this can be attributed to some of them being incredibly potent. The simple idea of having two commanders instead of one is just appealing to a lot of people, not to mention the customisability involved with the unpaired ones. They were an excellent solution for Commander Legends draft, and a way of making it so your options for certain colour combinations, particularly 3-4 colour ones, weren’t as limited as design philosophy and practicality (it’s often hard to fit 3C cards into a set when the set isn’t built around tricolour, and not many are) would normally make them.

The other is double-faced cards in general. Not many transforming commanders exist, but the Deans do share this trait with the Gods from Kaldheim. They have a modality that lets you build around one or both sides, many of them have cool and splashy effects, and perhaps most importantly, they are unique and interesting. The transform commanders have their own issues, but most of them (just pretend Ulrich doesn’t exist) are powerful enough, unique enough, or popular enough characters that people are going to be playing them.

The Deans do not fit either mold, and it’s to their detriment. It’s pretty clear that the design inspiration for each of them were the Partner With pairs- two monocoloured legends with effects that play off each other. Shaile puts counters on creatures so that Embrose can get value from them. Augusta lets you use Plargg’s ability extra times. Imbraham dumps cards to benefit Kianne’s ability. And this is all well and good for 60-card formats, where drawing a second copy of your Legend is normally a downside, but you can just play the other half and get some synergy out of the deal. But in Commander, you only get one at a time.

The key difference in commander is that you don’t get to play both halves of these cards. Outside of shenanigans like Supplant Form (which only Uvilda/Nassari and Kianne/Imbraham get to play), it is nigh impossible to play both halves of these commanders at the same time unless your playgroup rule 0’s to let you do so. And while this is also the case with Kaldheim’s Gods, many of them are clearly designed with this in mind, following one of two MDFC principles. Either A., their modes are differently powerful depending on a situation but a deck helming them wants both anyway, such as Halvar being a bloke or a sword in a deck that often lacks one or the other, or Jorn ramping early on and his staff being better for value lategame. Or B., they just, can come back to your hand, like so you can play both, like with Alrund and Toralf. These cards are far from perfect, and have a lot of the same issues as the Deans, but it isn’t as pronounced.

The other biggest issue with the Deans is that they’re…kinda mid? Pretty meh? With the Partners, you’re often playing one as your commander and the other for the colours- like I love me an Ishai, but everyone’s just playing him so they get White and Blue in their Vial Smasher or Reyhan decks (though they at least synergize with the latter). The Deans wouldn’t be so bad if individual halves of them were interesting, and the deck got to play that as the commander but with an extra colour, but they’re…just not? Of the 10 faces of these cards, there are maybe 2 (Nassari and Augusta, who I’ve kinda come around on) that I’d even consider playing as solo acts with a colour bonus. This is kind of an inherent limit of the designs of these characters- they’re all teachers, which in this case means they need to be humanoid and therefore not super huge with fun splashy effects, and they’re modal, which means they can’t have a million lines of rules text so people don’t get too overwhelmed (not that that stopped some of these, whoof).

At time of writing, the Dean cycle occupies 5 of the bottom 6 most built commanders out of Strixhaven (I’m surprised to see Mavinda among them, but I guess Feather exists). This was not a shock to me the way some of the other placements here are (people are catching on to Quintorius lets gooooo), and it’s pretty clear why. I’m pretty sure at this point most people are sick of MDFCs in general, considering we’ve had 3 sets worth of them and not a huge number have caught on- while price isn’t always a good gauge of playability, it’s rather telling that 2 of the 68 printed managed to break a 10 dollar price point.

It’s unclear as to whether this experiment is going to return, but I’m very concerned it will with the Innistrad sets releasing later this year. Considering Innistrad was the first set with any double-faced cards in the form of the transform cards, we’re very likely to see some DFC action show up in there. And not to inject too much of my opinion here, it would kinda ruin it for me if they went back to MDFCs for them. The transform cards are not only more interesting from a gameplay standpoint, they’re much better for storytelling and flavour. The Werewolves worked so extremely well, as did many of the beasties the set came with. A huge flavour hit comes just from whether or not the card can flip back to its front face, the difference between modality and a permanent transformation. The difference between a recurring, endless cycle and a step you take that you can’t come back from.

The difference Deans, and MDFCs in general, don’t have.

[girl-in-the-tower]

Dorm Prefects as MtG Colours + Requests

Ok, so I know that the number of Magic the Gathering fans that are also Twisted Wonderland fans must be low, but I’ve been playing with this idea in my head for a while now and said ‘screw it! I’m gonna make it anyway!’

For those not aware, MtG is a card game that’s been around for a long time now and there are basically five main colours that each represent a particular type of magic. Those colours are White, Black (the best colour, btw), Blue, Red and Green. They also represent five different ‘philosophies’ (ie, the way in which a person sees the world around them and their relationship to it) and by combining these colours you get even more possible ideologies. 

So what I am about to do is to try and match each dorm leader with the colour or colour combo that I think best suits them based on their personality and Unique Magic. Some of them may even have a counterpart in a specific card or playing style which I will mention in this short analysis. (I am excluding Idia, Malleus and Vil from this part given that we don’t know their Unique Magic yet.)

Anyway, I mentioned requests! So basically if your interested in this and are curious to see what ‘philosophy’ best fits your OCs, go ahead and send me a link to your OC or OCs profile(s)! You can also contact me via DMs!

What I’ll do is match your OC with a colour philosophy, give an explanation as to why and try to find either a specific card or playing style that I think is similar to your OC’s Unique Magic. 

Now, without further ado, here are the matches for the dorm prefects! 

Riddle Rosehearts - Azorius (White/Blue)

Riddle was pretty much the first one that came to mind when I was thinking about this crossover and it became immediately obvious to me that he was an Azorius character. Why? Because it is the colour of ‘structure’ achieved through order (White) and knowledge (Blue). Basically, Azorius people believe that happiness can be achieved through adherence to rules and regulations.

Riddle is obviously a model student who made it a point to learn all the rules that Queen of Hearts has instated and he literally Overblots due to people not following said rules.

Moreover, both White and Blue are the colours most likely to lock down an enemy. White has ‘Pacifism’ which makes it so your creatures can’t attack or block anymore, while Blue has counterspells which basically kill your card before it has the chance to enter the battlefield. It basically leaves you completely defenseless to their attack, which reminded me of his Unique Magic.

Azul Ashengrotto - Dimir (Black/Blue)

Azul was the second character that came to mind, as his philosophy was a pretty good match for Dimir. Like I said before, Blue is the colour of knowledge and those that are characterized by it are often people who possess an intrinsic need to understand things as well as finding other people’s secrets. Black seeks power and independence. Black players always seek to subvert things to their benefit, so the overlap between these two colours can be pretty high.

As we all know Azul is the type of character that uses knowledge to advance and his main concern is to gain power. His whole backstory is about how he used other people’s desires for his own benefit with magic that he learned for that express purpose. 

Dimir has a few archetypes, but the one I had in mind for Azul would be the ‘Surveil’ mechanic. Surveil basically let’s you look at the top cards of your deck and lets you decide whether you want to keep it or trash it for something better that may come along. Moreover it has cards such as ‘Thief of Sanity’ which lets you steal from your opponent’s cards and use them as your own. 

Leona Kingscholar - Rakdos (Black/Red)

Leona was a bit difficult to pin down, because while I was sure he would fit in with the Black philosophy, he wasn’t 100% in sync with it either. Black’s main concern is independence, which makes it similar to its neighbour on the colour wheel, Red. Red, as the colour of passion, seeks to avoid coercion and pressure from outside sources. Rakdos as a result characterizes people that are dismissive of society’s standards and pretty much just march at the beat of their own drum.

Like I said, Leona is a good fit for Black because he is cunning and uses underhanded techniques to achieve what he wants. But he also is surprisingly passionate and impulsive at times and it’s clear that he dislikes people interfering with his way of life.

Rakdos does not have any particular cards that would fit Leona’s magic, but the main strategy of Rakdos players is to beat their opponent into submission through sacrifices. There are a big number of creatures whose main job is to get killed and then inflict additional damage upon the opponent in order to reduce their life points. You just need to be smart about what to sacrifice and when. 

Kalim Al Asim - Selesnya (White/Green)

Kalim was also a pretty easy fit for Selesnya, as he matched quite well the White philosophy. Though White is the colour of order, it is also the colour of peace. White is often said to be suffering from ‘good guy syndrome’ in that it has a very low number of ways to actually kill an opponent’s creatures. The best they can do is pacify it, exile it or imprison it temporarily. Green meanwhile is the colour of harmony as it seeks to live life according to the natural order of things. Selesnya places a big emphasis on community and they both believe in the greater group taking precedence.

Kalim immediately brought to mind this notion of suffering from ‘good guy syndrome’, as well being very big on community. He is the sort of person that doesn’t seem to stress out over smaller stuff and is ready to just accept things as they are.

The biggest similarity with Kalim’s magic would be White’s hexproof ability, basically it prevents an opponent from targeting your creature with a spell, and the prevalence of creatures with Lifelink, which means that when that creature does damage the players gains life equal to the damage done. Oasis Maker is said to have healing properties which reminds me of these two concepts, as it seems to cure ailments and fatigue, much like White would protect a creature from being killed.  

Idia Shroud - Simic (Green/Blue)

Idia was another difficult character to pin down (not as difficult as Vil or Malleus, but still). He obviously fits in the Blue philosophy which is characterized by progress, knowledge and technology, but also has some Green traits too, as it is the colour of preservation and restraint. Simic combines these two notions and creates a philosophy whose main goal is to improve upon the already present foundation. In its view, change is natural and technology merely speeds up the change that it would inevitably go through.

Idia’s talent for tinkering is in line with the Blue philosophy, but him being based on Hades, the Greek God of the Underworld, also brings to mind the colour Green. Yes, Black is the one associated with death, but the Underworld wasn’t only Tartarus, it was the Elysium too. For me, Idia embodies that notion of preserving life through the intervention of technology.

Malleus Draconia - Bant (Green/White/Blue)

Malleus was hard. I’m not gonna lie. Dragon boy has a lot of traits, but none that really stuck me as belonging to any particular colour combo. So I decided to approach this differently. Instead of thinking about which colour best fit him, I thought about which colour didn’t and the answer I came with is Black and Red. Black is the colour of those that work only in their self-interest and Red is too extroverted for someone like him. Malleus seems to me more of a White person, he’s a good guy and even a dork in some instances, with a bit of Blue as well since he’s a fairy with a bigger lifespan than normal humans, so he must know a lot of things even at a young age. But he didn’t really fit the Azorius character either and it seemed to me that the missing element would be Green, which is the colour of maturity and serenity.

Bant people can be characterized by a calm and patient attitude. They are certain of the stability that they posses and work towards evolving and bettering themselves through the acquisition of knowledge about the world around them. The colour that is primary for Malleus is Green, as it centers the other two quite well.

Vil Schoenheit - Grixis (Red/Blue/Black)

Vil was hard too, but after I applied the same thought process that I did for Malleus, I realized that his main colours would be Black, Blue and Red. Black is the colour of independence, as mentioned before, and while Red’s passionate search for authenticity compliments it well, it needed to have Blue’s quest for perfection added in order to properly represent Vil’s character. 

Vil is definitely concerned with expressing himself and going against society’s restrictive norms, but he is too focused on perfection for Rakdos’ taste, which revels in chaos. Instead he fits with Blue, whose personal goal is to achieve excellence through knowledge. Similarly Vil excels in potions and is often looking for way to expand his knowledge regarding beauty.  

[drkungfus-customs]

Mtg Custom Card Competition Round 1: Rabiah

Hello everyone and welcome to the first custom card competition for mtg cards that I have judged. For this round, submissions were gathered from a discord server and the results have been judged by myself and my partner in crime Alyssa. The theme this week was Rabiah. Participants were asked to design a card that could have been printed if the set Arabian Nights was designed in 2019 with modern design sensibilities.

Alyssa says:

Flavourwise, it’s real fun! Trade as a method of getting white card advantage is really nice, and the art, name and flavour text all flow together. It’s not really that exciting, though. There’s nothing particularly mystical about the capitalism of antiquity!

Remember to capitalise Human and Treasure. Is it meant to scale to every Human everyone else plays too? If so, that’s a little too strong. Keep it to Humans you create.

The draw effect being “free” mana-wise isn’t that much of a problem. I’d add a tap to the ability so you can’t abuse it so freely. If this were blue, and cost 3 mana, then that effect would maybe fly, but white doesn’t get that.

Michael says:

So this card seemed a slam dunk at first, it has excellent flavour, very pretty art, and an appropriate white effect as we have seen the colour move into treasure generation a lot more in recent sets to compensate for its core weakness of mana ramp. This was until I got to the last line. Card draw in white is something that must be carefully monitored as it is one of the fundamental aspects of colour balance in magic. A good litmus test for this kind of effect is mentor of the meek, if a card can draw better or draw easier than mentor it probably crosses the line from a bend to a break in white.

Because the card itself produces treasure at a considerable rate, on a good body (thankfully still within bolt/push range), there is no real opportunity cost to the drawing as the treasure tokens also come incidentally by doing things a mono white deck wants to do. If this was a tap ability or had some kind of limiter the card would probably be acceptable but as it stands it represents a potent draw engine in any creature heavy deck, and god forbid what would happen in a Selesnya token strategy or an EDH deck running smothering tithe.

While the human type rider does help to limit this card, it is the most common creature type and so more often or not this card will provide good value even in decks not built around the card. Overall I really dig the treasure creation as a reward for building to a theme but the card draw is far too powerful and generic to be considered acceptable in mono white.

Possible improvements:

o   Currently this card is a break in white, either adding blue or limiting the rate of card draw would bring it into line with whites modern design philosophy.

o   It shouldn’t activate from your opponents Humans, symmetrical tribal effects have been retired due to poor gameplay.

o   It feels a shame to tie it to Humans, which are such a supported type. Making it rewarding to a more obscure tribe such as Advisors could be interesting.

Grades:

Formatting – 4/5

Function – 2/5 (would be a 4/5 with the drawing ability fixed or removed)

Flavour – 4/5

Alyssa says:

The formatting here has several notable issues:

o   As-written, the cast from hand effect gives temporary unblockability but the combat damage Treasure-making effect is permanent because you haven’t given it a duration.

o   Every time you define a token on a card, unless you’re writing a modifier for how many of the same type of token are produced by the same effect under different conditions (like Increasing Devotion, Gather the Townsfolk or Saproling Migration) you need to define those tokens again, so you’ll need to write out the Treasure text for the second effect. Make space on the card by omitting the reminder text on Flashback.

o   Magic uses numerals to refer to life, damage, stats and costs, but everywhere else they write out the numbers, so you create five Treasures rather than 5.

o   The destroy effect on casting it from the graveyard should just be sacrifice. You don’t need to make it a targeted destroy just because the original effect destroys, because you can use the cast-from-graveyard replacement effect to override its targeting, just like how Overload makes a targeting spell into a non-targeting one.

It’s fine as a card, but it feels kind of weak and the two effects don’t feel connected. The first cast feels like a good effect with good flavour ties, but I’m not sure how the second effect ties into it. The first incentivises high creature quality (giving a big beater evasion) while the second incentivises low creature quality (sacrificing a worthless token to get advantage) and while the environment for those two interacting can exist (read: Rise of the Eldrazi) it’s rare.

Triple black feels far too colour-intensive in an effect we’ve seen at 2B and 1B before. I am also not entirely sure what is happening from a flavour perspective when the creature gets destroyed. If it’s being closed off in the Cave of Wonders, how the hell do you get the treasures out?

Michael says:

The flavour on this card is very apparent, showing off an iconic scene with using the alternate flashback effect to progress the story of this card. I very much enjoy how well the flavour and mechanics have been integrated on this card especially in a way that is in-colour for Dimir. However the templating very much needs work, the effect can be unclear on a first read. Something as simple as a paragraph break between the regular and flashback effects would do wonders to the overall card. 

In addition when designing black costs, sacrifice is usually a preferred choice both flavourfully and mechanically as the flashback just becomes a seething song when you possess an indestructible creature. I think this card has very strong flavour and story but has a few formatting concerns that take away from its impact. While the card can go mana positive I think the card is balanced well enough to not create any dangerous situations. Solid workhorse uncommons are just as important as flashy mythic rares and this card could help to signal a more aggressive or saboteur based blue black deck in the limited environment, although the card is a little disjointed in effect possibly due to it being created to match the flavour rather than the other way around.

Possible improvements:

o   Formatting changes as Alyssa has acknowledged.

o   Changing the effect so that it doesn’t split the card’s focus. If you want to get increasing Treasure value, perhaps just make it mono-blue, the flashback cost 2U and make the damage dealing effect create three Treasures instead.

o   Perhaps a small pump of +1/+0 to help solidify its role in limited decks.

Grades:

o   Formatting 3/5

o   Function 2/5

o   Flavour 3/5

Alyssa says:

Flavourwise it’s fine, but not particularly imaginative. Genie wishes have been done before a lot and this doesn’t really do anything new with the effect except some ridiculous efficiency. (I’ll get into that later.) Formatting wise, it’s mostly fine. “It gains suspend” should be its own sentence. You missed “on it” for the land card drop.

Are the extra cards put on the bottom of your deck? I feel like you’re trying to make the “cost” of the effect be that it mills you slightly, which isn’t really that dangerous for reasons I’m going to get into, because the card is ridiculously strong.

It’s not hard to just casually spin this in your opponent’s end step with basic tutors or Brainstorm-like effects to find your best card, put it on top of your library, exile it with suspend and one time counter on it and just drop it like it’s hot. Five mana Emrakul, the Promised End with its cast effect? Anything that isn’t a land obtainable for free as long as you wait till your upkeep for it?

The second effect really doesn’t need to be there and is still really strong. Even though you can whiff, it can still effectively mean colourless 0 mana ramp every turn even if you lose the lands eventually. But it’s not like you’ll really want an effect like this when you’re doing top-deck manipulation to drop your biggest and best cards for free. It’s just overkill at that point.

Michael says:

This card feels intended to be fun but I believe has accidentally became far scarier than intended. I believe this card is firstly a lot more complex than it needs to be. The second ability that searches for lands adds a lot of extra complexity for this card and doesn't really add much to the overall playability. I believe it could be cut without losing the core effect of the card.

I would express serious concerns over power level however. Its nature as a colourless artifact means any deck can include it, miracle shells and cards such as sensei's divining top and scroll rack allow for significant levels of top deck manipulation which would make its random nature a lot more controlled especially in older formats and EDH. Being able to activate this card in your opponents end step for almost no cost also takes away any kind of risk to playing this card as even played fairly this allows for serious cheating on mana costs with a bit of luck.

There is also the slight problem that there is no rider to return the exiled cards to the bottom of the deck which would be standard for this kind of effect. While I assume this was accidental, it means that as submitted this card can mill your entire deck for a jace/lab man kill. There is clear potential in this card as a fun semi-random value piece but as it stands right now it has too few safety valves, and there is a clear risk of variance where one game you mill twenty cards to get to a one drop and the next where you rip Ulamog off the top on turn four. If anyone tried to play this card unfairly, as competitive players will certainly try to, this card will fundamentally break the mana system. Adding a mana cost to the effect and possibly increasing the casting cost is going to be the easiest way to preserve this card's intended purpose without being used as a combo piece, or just tying the suspend cost to cmc as opposed to how many cards milled. Also don’t forget the artist credits, that’s always important to have on custom cards.

Possible improvements:

o   Remove the second ability entirely. It’s superfluous at the best of times.

o   Jack a hefty mana cost on that ability. To keep the artifact at 4 mana, I want to make the ability cost 5 or 6. Alternatively, make you shuffle your library as part of the effect to make it a bit less spooky. Compare to Temporal Aperture or Mind’s Desire, which have a similar effect but deliberately shuffle your library beforehand. One thing you could do is make it a static suspend value, maybe 3, rather than however many cards you flip, because if you have to shuffle your library for that you might get stuff exiled with suspend 7 or whatever.

Grades:

o   Formatting – 4/5

o   Function – 1/5

o   Flavour – 2/5

Alyssa says:

Beautiful flavour. This card looks gorgeous and makes me very happy to read. Your formatting is flawless as well. The flavour clearly stems from his portrayal in the original arabian nights stories so I appreciate the top down design here.

Unfortunately, this card kind of pays for itself with what might amount to an upside in a bad spot by making additional chump blockers/sac fodder, like a bargain bin Bitterblossom. Additionally the downside is also relatively small, as is the payoff. I wouldn’t have a problem with leaving him tapped for a few turns which I feel isn’t good for a sexy black 4 mana 6/6: those stats and that colour want to have a stronger downside for a stronger payoff. Think Phyrexian Obliterator or Death’s Shadow: Black’s big creatures go hard on the pro and harder on the con. I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything if he doesn’t make a big splashy impact on the board.

Michael says:

This card I quite like. While it’s unusual to see humans as powerful as a 6/6, that is about the maximum I would realistically expect to see for the tribe so that isn't too much of an issue. The flavour of a mono black king who uses his subjects is absolutely on point though and feels very in fitting for the feel of arabian nights so good job on that front. My foremost concern with this card is that there is no real downside to this card, while the king requires a sacrifice in your upkeep he has a built in method to mitigate this in his automatic ability to create soldiers. However there is a really easy fix to this, just include a cost to his ability to create tokens. Replacing this with a repeatable activated ability for an amount of mana feels too white so instead I would propose adding a cost to his end of turn trigger, possibly discarding a card to ensure that there is a price to splashing the king. Although given humans are the most popular tribe and many cards are incidentally human, I imagine that there will be plenty of sacrifice fodder in both constructed and limited. Overall good work on this one, a strong design that just needs a few tweaks to be good to go and really screams arabian nights flavour (in a good way).

Possible improvements:

o   Include a cost for the human token production. Perhaps “At the beginning of your end step, you may discard a card. If you do, create a 1/1 white Human creature token.” The card disadvantage is a real downer, but you have an option not to if you can’t.

o   Go a bit harder on his power level. Something on the level of a keyword ability such as menace for example wouldn’t hurt.

o   Make the damage life loss. Possibly amp it up to 3.

Grades:

o   Formatting – 5/5

o   Function – 3/5

o   Flavour – 4/5

Alyssa says:

The flavour is nice, perfectly evocative of what Aladdin is. Perhaps it’s a bit too safe? This is what I’d expect Aladdin to do: maybe I was hoping for a little more. The formatting is mostly good, but as of now the steal effect is permanent and not tied to Aladdin staying in play. Was this intentional? Permanent steal effects are Blue’s wheelhouse, not Red’s, making it a colour bend. (Red does get to steal stuff, especially artifacts, but it very rarely gets to keep it.) I wouldn’t be averse to seeing this effect on an Izzet Aladdin for example.

It’s a simple, clean effect that has the potential for sick card advantage. I like it! It feels like something you could open in an artifacts matter set. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar card when we return to Kaladesh.

Michael says:

This card is interesting. As a four cmc legendary creature that fixes a core problem with mono red in an in-colour way, this card is clearly very good in EDH. However this card also is a significant tempo play and value generator in an environment that is heavy on artifacts which would probably give it legs in standard, albeit constrained thanks to the legendary supertype. My main concern with this card is that there is no condition or limitation to the steal effect. Indefinite stealing of cards is a very blue effect, while playing with artifacts is red, so I would like to make this an izzet card, but the flavour clearly does not support blue. Therefore to make this card more in line with the colour pie I would add either an end of turn clause to the steal, a limit on the cmc of the artifact, or at the very least have stolen artifacts return when this card leaves the battlefield. Return on leaving the battlefield seems the most appropriate option to me to help avoid flicker abuse in commander while still preserving the flavour of the card. Other than that good job, this is an excellent effort to provide a balanced and flavourful red card that I believe would excite people to play with.

Possible improvements:

o   Address the colour pie bend, or otherwise tie the stealing effect to Aladdin’s survival.

Grades

o   Formatting 5/5

o   Function 4/5

o   Flavour 4/5

So congratulations to Shanobi and her submission of Aladdin, Prince of Thieves as the winner for this week. It was a close race between Aladdin and King Shahrayah but where we could point to a few areas of improvement for the King, Aladdin felt perfect with just a minor tweak to bring his effect more into red’s area of the colour pie. 

It has been a fun week to judge and hopefully we should see these competitions continue if there is renewed interest in our judging. If any of you have any feedback or improvements to our judging style, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

Thank you all for your hard work and submissions!

As a bonus Alyssa and I worked briefly on what our theoretical submission could have been to this contest which we based off a monster from Iranian folklore and posted for fun here in Zahak, Hunger-Cursed.

[diegrootkrokodil]

The Russell Report - UR Gifts Storm - 27th at GP Birmingham

Although it has been a bit late coming, I have finally got around to writing a report from my Top 32 12-3 finish at GP Birmingham earlier this year. I had started out 8-1 and managed to run moderately well Day 2 to cash my first event and make a good start to the Pro season for 2017/8. 

Although it has been a bit late coming, I have finally got around to writing a report from my Top 32 12-3 finish at GP Birmingham earlier this year. I had started out 8-1 and managed to run moderately well Day 2 to cash my first event and make a good start to the Pro season for 2017/8.

Background

Prior to the event I had managed to roundly 2-3 two MTGO Competitive leagues and go 3-1 at a friendly mid-week paper event down at Dark Sphere in London. Although my results were far from stellar, I more or less understood why I was losing games and was making steady progress to knowing how the deck is supposed to play. My closest corollary thus far in Modern is UG Infect.

Infect requires you to be able to do two things; the first is a tight balance of composed and patient play, amassing a critical number of cards and forcing through the win over a long and drawn out game. The other is having a good read for the situation and knowing when to go “all in” on a turn and be stone dead if they have the right card, with the prize usually being winning the game on the spot. Storm more or less plays the same way, with the debate on playing a turn 2 cost reducer usually being matchup dependent and/or how critical the Baral/ Electromancer is to your ability to win.

Why Storm?

Having established that I wasn’t doing very well in my initial testing, you might very well be wondering what ponderous set of decisions led me to registering what most people consider to be a challenging deck to play at a GP. Well, let me reveal a little secret to you about Storm in Modern: it isn’t that hard to play.

While I don’t put it into the category of Titanshift or EldraziTron which both genuinely have very few meaningful decisions and whilst the Storm deck has a lot of sequencing optimisations to consider, it really only requires you to be able to do basic maths and and count to something like 20. Or at least, I think that is true for the in game decisions, which are typically only truly interesting with the second Gifts pile you make. The “hard” decisions I believe are mostly made in sideboarding and mulliganing, where experience in the matchups comes to play an extremely important part of the decision making process. Many decks while sideboarding are not necessarily boarding into hate for your opponents sideboard cards. You are also typically not pivoting in a totally different way or even removing what might appear to be your slam dunk namesake card, something that is quite unintuitive to some players.

Storm is fundamentally good for the following reasons:

1. It has a reliable Turn 3 goldfish kill. Speed and consistency are everything in Modern, the format where dying on T4 is usually guaranteed.

2. It can kill on Turn 2 with the perfect hand using grapeshot and pseudo kill on Turn 2 /3 with goblins a greater percentage of the time. Even the bad matchups can sometimes be won, meaning that you’re never truly cold when you sit down to play.

3. The deck is very redundant with 8 cost reducers, 12 rituals and 8 cantrips. Most hands with a Bear, Cantrip and some Rituals are a keep.

4. Two colours and many basics means you take minimal damage from lands/ the coloured requirements are quite good. This allows us to sometimes play Blood Moon and register 3 basic islands in our deck.

5. Most decks don’t have good graveyard hate game 1, meaning that they have very few axis to interact with you on.

6. The opponent tilt value from playing storm.

The Event

Started 2-0 with byes, a critical aspect to success at Grand Prix.

R3 Titanshift 2-1

R4 Elves 2-0

R5 Eldrazi Tron 1-2

R6 GB Tron 2-1

R7 GW Company 2-1

R8 4C Shadow 2-1

R9 Jeskai Control 2-0

R10 Bant Eldrazi 0-2

R11 Eldrazi Tron 2-1

R12 Abzan Coco 1-2

R13 Abzan Midrange

R14 Eldrazi Tron 2-0

R15 Burn 2-0

My List

Maindeck

4 Baral, Chief of Compliance 4 Desperate Ritual 1 Empty the Warrens 3 Misty Rainforest 4 Gifts Ungiven 4 Goblin Electromancer 3 Grapeshot 3 Island 4 Manamorphose 1 Mountain 2 Past in Flames 4 Pyretic Ritual 4 Remand 4 Scalding Tarn 4 Serum Visions 4 Sleight of Hand 4 Spirebluff Canal 3 Steam Vents

Sideboard

1 Negate 2 Dismember 2 Dispel 1 Echoing Truth 2 Empty the Warrens 3 Lightning Bolt 2 Pieces of the Puzzle 2 Shattering Spree

There are a few rules in Modern and one of the main ones is that you have to be as proactive as possible. The inherent variance of the format mostly comes in your match-ups which means that you often have lost the round when you sit down to play. A good example of this is Titanshift against most fair green midrange decks. As the fair deck you are something like sub 20% to curve out and kill them fast enough before the inevitable Primeval Titan or Scapeshift kills you all whilst you are busy durdling about.

Storm bucks this trend and has the ability to more or less win against anyone given that you have the speed and resiliency necessary to beat even your tough matchups. Landing a turn 2 Baral or Goblin Electromancer puts them to the test immediately and usually means they have to respect the possibility of dying the next turn.

My Sideboarding Guide

Storm is the kind of deck where sideboarding is very important to get right, as you aren’t bringing in your generic haymakers and the rest of the maindeck is a finely tuned engine meaning you can’t start cannibalising all the parts whilst still expecting it to function.

Without further ado:

Grind through their heavy removal and kill with Goblins matchups (Abzan, Jund, Grixis Death’s Shadow etc.)

The philosophy here is to transition to a more value orientated deck that is probably not going to go off early and instead try to slog through their removal. You can pivot your win condition from Grapeshot to Empty the Warrens and make their spot removal suffer as you offer them a paucity of good targets. Lightning Bolt and Fatal Push don’t line up very well to lots of Goblins and you can usually hold onto the mana bear until such time where it is actually useful in play. Do not run them out into certain death for no value, you must be a patient Peter.

Pieces is great against graveyard hate and lets you dig for the right pieces whilst also filling up the yard for future Past in Flames. Empty is the backup win condition and is generally quite hard to beat for these sort of spot removal heavy creature decks. I personally like Dismember against the Angler/ Tasigur/ Goyf decks as a way to stop you randomly dying to creature beats. I might cut these on the play in favour of leaving in a few Remands, especially against the Delve threats or sweepers.

Cutting gifts might not seem very intuitive but as many decks board into Leyline of the Void, Rest in Peace or Surgical Extraction you are usually incentivised to reduce your vulnerability to those cards. The third Grapeshot is less essential given the newly diversified threat base and Remand isn’t very good at stopping the cards we really care about in these matchups (it also sucks against Inquisition or Thoughtseize).

-          + 2 Pieces of the Puzzle

-          +2 Empty the Warrens

-          +2 Dismember

-          - 4 Remand

-          - 1 Grapeshot

-          - 1 Gifts Ungiven

Kill them as fast as possible matchups (Burn, Tron, Affinty, Titanshift, Elves, Ad Nauseum, and Infect etc.)

Other combo decks frequently feature Artifacts that we care about. Even Titanshift will usually board into a mix of Relic of Progenitus, Grafdigger’s Cage or Chalice of the Void. We are really looking to go as fast as possible and try to race them, which usually means not playing around things too much apart from stuff we cannot beat or want to try and head off. Most of these decks also don’t have a plethora of removal for our bears, which means that we can often keep hands with only one and even board down to 6 in favour of more meaningful interaction such as Shattering Spree or Echoing Truth. The plan is to be prepared for their interaction and also prepared to beat them on a slightly different axis. Having access to lightning bolts against decks like Infect, Elves and Affinity allows us to win on the draw and slow down their fastest possible starts. Often T3 with no interaction on the draw against Affinity spells doom. Burn is sometimes called an unwinnable matchup, which is usually true in the face of an Eidolon game 1, but is quite beatable in post board games. Lean on your bolts and be careful using them. That Goblin Guide might kill us in the long run, but if you can’t take an Eidolon off the table then it’s game over my friend.

-          + 2 Shattering Spree

-          + 3 Lightning Bolts

-          +1 Echoing Truth

-          - 2 Electromancer

-          -1 Empty the Warrens

-          - 2 Remand

-          -1 Gifts Ungiven

Patience and knowledge of the stack matchups (UW, UWR Control etc.)

The name of the game here is once again becoming patient Peter and forcing them to interact on one of their main choke points, which is usually either mana or cards. What this means practically is waiting, playing out land and then finally going over the top of their counter magic using our Remands (which are great on our own spells) and making use of Past in Flames / Gifts to grind them out of cards over the course of a longer game. Spell Queller can be a pain, so be careful not to walk into that one. I typically find this matchup to be favourable if you don’t run Gifts or another crucial spell into counter magic for no gain.

N.B. This is not an exact guide but more following general themes. Please do not bring in Shattering Spree against Elves or Lightning Bolt against Titanshift.

A quick matchup rundown of the Top 10 decks on MTG Goldfish:

Storm: It’s the mirror. Don’t mess up.

Affinity: Great for you on the play, still probably favoured on the draw.

Jeskai Tempo: Moderately favoured.

Eldrazi Tron: Draw dependent for them, probably a slight dog if they draw averagely.

Titanshift: The unlosable matchup.

GDS: Not good. Can storm them out if they go low enough. The critical mix of disruption, stubborn denial and removal makes this tough.

Tron: Moderately favoured.

Eldrazi and Taxes: The bears can help overcome Thalia, otherwise a moderate dog.

Burn: You’re going to die. Can maybe win if they don’t land Eidolon T2.

CoCo Decks: Favoured. They can’t usually interact with the combo Game 1 and Game 2 they are relying on a small list of cards to interact meaningfully (Eidolon of Rhetoric, for which we have Dismember/ Echoing Truth and precious little else).

A few more closing points regarding UR Gifts Storm:

1.       Try to play around graveyard hate by boarding into Pieces and away from Gifts/ PiF.

2.       Try not to expose yourself to Surgical Extraction if possible, this should be done by not putting your Grapeshots in the graveyard unless absolutely necessary. Try to draw them naturally if you suspect a Surgical. You can set up Gifts piles with cantrips and more Gifts to do this.

3.       The magic number for mana left over after a Gifts is 3. With 3 red mana they are dead and it doesn’t matter which two cards they put into your hand from the classic “ PiF, Desperate, Pyretic, Manamorphose” pile. You will always have enough to cast PiF and keep going off.

4.       Early Goblins can often do the trick, you need the stomach to go in hard on what can appear to be quite risky. Know when it is a good idea and when they are likely to just have a Ratchet Bomb to make your day go south quickly

5.       Shattering Spree is very good against Chalice. The copies can go through the trigger and blow up multiple annoying artifacts.

6.       Remanding your own Grapeshots is an easy way to generate more Storm without using the graveyard.

7.       Don’t forget your loots from Baral when countering spells. This is also a good reason to hold excess lands.

8.       The god hand is a Turn 2 kill. “Land, land, Baral, Desperate, Desperate, Manamorphose, Gifts” can often turn into a win if you draw a second ritual off a manamorphose or a cantrip you find along the way.

That’s all for now but I’ll be playing Storm in Madrid on one of the Mana Gaming Teams we send there for the team event. I’ve also been attempting to grind out a few wins with the deck in recent PPTQs to no notable success as yet.

Until next time:

Tom

[allisonperryart]

The Business of Art w/ Jeremy Cranford (Blizzard Entertainment) @ The Art Institute of California Inland Empire (7/29/17)

Special thanks to Jeremy Cranford and Thomas Brilliante for making this event possible. For more updates on future events like this in the southern California area, please consider following Inland Arts on FaceBook. (Text-only version of this document available on FaceBook)

James Cranford’s life

Humble beginnings: migrant parents, food stamps, etc.

Attending college was difficult because of finances, but he ended up studying graphic design because he got a scholarship

After doing graphic design for years, he got an art directing job with "Magic the Gathering” and working in games/illustration since 1996

Worked on “Metal World” style guide for “Mirrodin” set (2002)

What would environments look like on a metal planet? Rust, things hovering with magnetism, rolling silver plane, big metal spikes, mercury seas, retina green forests

Environments help you solve what the humanoids/creatures will look like in the environment

The humanoids/creatures? Enamel/scabs is replaced with metal, big metal bracers on humanoids

Also worked on "Spirit World” style guide for "Kamigawa” set (2003)

Started with the desire to help MtG sell better in Japan, which was a challenge because traditionally MtG is based on Arthurian lore/visuals

Unsure about just having American/Western artists riff on Japanese imagery, so he hired some Japanese artists to create more authentic content, which resulted in a very different feel

Example of a brief he didn’t like that he turned around into an engaging project

Also worked on “Ravnica” style guide

Brief: “overdeveloped urban fantasy setting”

Mountains = smelting buildings

Lead was very against having buildings on land cards, but this is an example of Jeremy challenging convention… why could land cards have buildings!?

Risked his job on this point because he really believed in it, and it ended up being a great decision

The creative solution may be an uphill battle, but it will always win out

Plains = created by the tops of buildings, inspired from looking out at the city from the World Trade Center

Swamps = city sewers, obviously

Forest = where they grew their food

First set when they started mixing colors (which are like “cultures” in MtG lore), which was an awesome opportunity to expand and develop new ideas

Blue/green = technology elves

Black/green = voodoo elves (inspired by New Orleans)

Black/red = fire demons, obviously

White/black = basically Catholicism

Red/white = military

Blue/red = mage + technology

First set to have a promo video (inspired by game cinematic trailers, intended to introduce the world)

Began working on World of Warcraft at Blizzard when they released a trading card game

Style was a bit of a learning curve (less realistic, more stylized)

Soon after, started working on miniatures game, which taught him a lot about manufacturing and allowed him to travel to China, etc.

He took a risk and left Blizzard to start a start-up with his friends called Solforge

It was fun for about 6 months, but he never regretted the experience because he learned a lot 

Goal was to push things more sic-fi (nuclear winter world) 

His philosophy over the years has been to take risks, embrace junctures in life, and have faith in the direction you’re going

Every time he took a risk, the pay off ended up being worth it 

The universe has a way of showing you the path that’s most right for you 

He says most of what he’s tried never works out, and he just ends up doing the next best thing - which turns out to be his career 

Doesn’t always know what he wants to do, but definitely knows what he doesn’t want to do 

Always wants to challenge convention 

“Don’t try to make the art you do what you think it should do, rather let the art take you where it wants to go.” - Ben Thompson 

“Leap, and build your wings while you’re falling.” - Ray Bradbury Finds inspiration from Borge Ousland (first human to go from Russia to Alaska)

Saw people’s discouragement as feedback/critique 

Constant failures for 10 years, but learned a little every step of the way that led to his eventual success 

Stick with it

Also finds inspiration from Richard MacDonald (inspirational sculptor, experienced a lot of misfortune, embodies the blind faith Jeremy talks about)

Advice for mastering your craft, building a portfolio, and being a professional

Being an art director is like being a coach - if the product isn’t performing well, the company looks to replace the art director 

It may take you longer to master your craft than 4 years in college (DaVinci took 7 years)… be patient with yourself! 

When he looks for an artist, he looks for a professional

Master your skills

Master drawing, anatomy, and rendering light onto form

Go to life drawing regularly… even if you’re not in school 

He oftentimes looks at the hands

Master design, not just drawing realistically

Creaturebox is a great example 

Large, medium, small shapes 

High density detail (busy) vs. low density detail (rest)

Master painting and color theory

Nathan Fowkes is a great example 

The best color is not always the most “realistic” colour

Master composition, eye flow, value groups, and negative shapes

Wayne Reynolds and Frazetta are great examples 

If you’re struggling, check out Edgar Payne’s book on composition 

Have a plan before you paint and add all your detail 

Jomaro adds “working in threes” is a good idea - working in twos becomes “equal” and too “balanced”

Master story, emphasis, mood, and point of view

Ian McQue's work in the “John Carpenter” art book is a great example 

Just because your rendering is perfect doesn’t mean people will care about what you’re drawing 

What are you trying to communicate? Write that down and make sure you execute it! 

Creating without a clear objective is a waste of time

Don’t cheat yourself - if you’re trying to hide your flaws… fix them!

Don’t use effects/tricks to hide your shortcomings

After you master your skills, target a market and advertise yourself (ArtStation, DeviantArt contests, etc.)

Send out cold-emails 

See if you can get current employees to refer you to art directors 

If you get rejected, evaluate your work and actually assign yourself tasks to improve on it

Pro life tips!!

Don’t be a drunk (why party when you can improve your skill?) 

Dedicate yourself to your career/something higher/something you love 

Have some range (in your portfolio) - never say “that’s not my style!”

Consider: reality vs. fantasy (in content), realism vs, abstraction (in style)

“I’m on it!” Never be an emotional tax on your team/leads - art directors will always go back to the artists that make things easy

This doesn’t mean be a pushover

"Show me the Money!” Think about how much you’re being paid and how many hours you’re putting in… are you even getting paid minimum wage?

If you’re being paid less than you’re worth/less than minimum wage, it’s not worth it… and you’re hurting the whole industry! 

You’re better off investing in yourself - work at Starbucks and build a strong portfolio at night/on the weekends

As your skills go up, the money goes up (you need to go from good to great if you’re going to make it) 

Do you know why you do what you do?

If it’s for the money… maybe you should just go into banking, because this isn’t really a path to make money 

Jeremy does it because he simply enjoys it, which takes the pressure off

"You’re okay, I’m okay”

Growing up, Jeremy had a lot of depression because he was seeking external approval 

If you get your approval from within, you aren’t giving the power to others to put you down 

You’re the final authority on how you fell about yourself, how you treat others, and what you love and want to do

There’s beauty in diversity - just be good to each other and celebrate your differences

Question time!

Where should I go to school?

Depends on what you want and how your learn best - really successful people have not gone anywhere and really unsuccessful people have gone to great schools 

Maybe consider non-traditional schooling like GumRoad and New Masters Academy 

At the end of the day, you need the skills, and however you get them doesn’t really matter

How do you manage your time to develop range and show that range in a portfolio?

When you email an AD/recruiter, consider attaching 3 images that highlight what that contact is looking for in the email… and then lead them to the rest of your work if they’re interested

That’s all you need for “portfolio geared to a company” - you don’t need a full portfolio geared to a portfolio if you have 3-5 images you can attach to an email

Keep your portfolio updated! Don’t leave up bad work from a long time ago! 

Even when you’re not asked to, following up on feedback from ADs/recruiters with new work is a great way to stay in contact and establish your worth 

If you gear your portfolio towards one company and you can’t get into that company, you might have trouble getting into other companies 

However, if you have a very rangey portfolio, sometimes all you need is an art test to prove you can execute the style 

Know your stylistic limitations, too - if you know you can’t do something, don’t waste your time and the AD/recruiter’s 

Having trouble focusing? Set an explicit goal for yourself/make an assignment for yourself… and set a deadline for it (or else you’ll never finish it)!

How do you connect with an AD without being annoying but also not getting ignored?

ADs are busy people, at the end of the day 

Consider joining a forum/contest… sometimes your peers are better critics for you than an AD 

Develop a circle of trust (people you trust to give you good feedback) 

When you do meet an AD, remember “everyone is people…” don’t be weird about it! 

Don’t be embarrassed/ashamed of negative feedback… own it and be fearless! 

Remember: it’s normal to ask ADs/recruiters to look at your work… just ask for permission, give them an opportunity to say “no,” and if they do say “no,” offer to follow-up or leave your email/card 

Also remember to maintain relationships with professionals, because they might be keeping an eye on you and hire you in the future… address their feedback, explain how you improved, etc.

How do you form a good narrative in a painting?

“Create a picture that has a gap for the viewer to fill in”/“Don’t answer/render everything” (Jomaro adds - “like a trailer!”) - Frazetta is a great example of this 

Engage the viewers curiosity and get them to want to know what’s happening 

Maybe look at storyboard artists/sequential artists 

Also maybe identify a feeling/single word/etc. that embodies your piece… and strive to communicate it fully! 

You can execute a complex idea in a very simple way

Do ADs judge you on your backlog/old work?

Always be producing work, or else you’re stagnant! 

Always update your work with your newest stuff 

ADs love seeing jumps in quality! 

ADs aren’t gonna judge you for old work they find in a deep-dive, but be sure to put your best foot forward and have that easiest to find

What can you do to stay in touch while you’re waiting for a response on an art test?

Once you submit the test, it’s out of your hands 

If it’s been a week, try following up with HR asking if there’s anything else you can do 

If you get radio silence, it’s not the end of the world - be positive about your experience and open to future opportunities

Do you need to master digital/PhotoShop/ZBrush/etc. just like you master anatomy/colour/etc.?

If you’re skills and design are good, they’ll show through in any medium, but at the same time, not knowing PhotoShop at all can get you dinged when working in-house

What was your favourite project to work on and what did you learn from it?

“Ravnica,” because he struggled with self-doubt and had to put his job on the line for something he believes in 

HearthStone has also been a blast

Is there anything outside of art that helps you as an artist?

Everything he’s told you not to do, he did himself, which is why he’s trying to help you avoid it 

Letting go of the idea that his self-worth was determined by how other people saw him… compete only against yourself 

It helped to stop taking himself so seriously and just have fun… eliminated the pressure and lets the creativity flow

Stop trying to get everyone to like you and your work! 

Don’t just be a theory expert… put things into practice! 

The biggest thing people are lacking is the mileage

Don’t get deflated by feedback… actually integrate it! 

Don’t get discouraged by people who are better than you that have been doing it for longer… that’s normal!

[harpagornis]

Phyrexia and Black mana

As much as this man was an entitled incel, he still believed in a specific philosophy.

Phyrexia in MTG has been tied overtly to Black mana. In old flavor all phyrexians were black aligned (barring a few errata'd ones) and even by the time of New Phyrexia, when Phyrexia had access to all colours, it is still predominantly in Black (though in Scars of Mirrodin Green was framed as the second most phyrexian color, and an All Will be One and March of the Machine White has essentially become the de facto phyrexian color after Black).

A lot of this essentially boils down to three things: "elemental" aspects of the color pie, old villains being mostly Black, and marketing.

Is Phyrexia a Black system/philosophy?

I'd argue no, not really. "Progressive evolution" as Phyresis means simply means acquiring perfection through mettalurgy (Blue) and eugenics through survival of the fittest (Green). Both new and Old Phyrexia had strict religious hierarchies and scriptures, so White always felt at home. Overally, I'd see Phyrexia as a civilisation as a dark take on Bant, which seems to be the direction New Phyrexia under Elesh Norn is heading.

Now, Yawgmoth WAS Black aligned. The Thran throughly depicts him as an entitled, narcissistic freak, and you can argue that by the later stages of the Weatherlight Saga he abandoned all philosophy for the sake of petty revenge. But given his philosophy at least in The Thran, there's an argument to be made that he is Sultai, since he does believe in phyresis in its eugenicist purpose.

Ultimately, Old Phyrexia was mono-Black simply as an extension of Yawgmoth, and even then I'd argue other colours were present. The pneumagogs, for example, were pretty white aligned.

The elemental reason

MTG may have complex philosophies, but often things are of a certain colour just because that color controls an element. This is why you often hear of "wet blue" among the vorthos, where giant creatures better fitting in Green are mono-Blue due to being aquatic.

Phyrexia is matter of factly an undead faction. Phyresis destroys the body and implicitly the soul (though the Pneumagogs and Jin-Gitaxias experiments show that the soul can be preserved), so a compleated being is always brought back as a husk via necromancy. Black is the colour of necromantic magic, so it makes sense Phyrexia is Black aligned due to that.

However, other colours have steadily have had necromancy. Best seen is in the Lorehold College of Strixhaven, where spirits are ressurected, the mummies of Amonkhet which are mostly white aligned (albeit thanks to some curating and embalming) and the various Blue zombies we've had since Innistrad. Both Green and White have ressurection mechanics, so it's not out of flavor to depict them as engaging in necromancy, albeit perhaps a more "bring back to life" style than Black's puppet style.

Thus, while the elemental aspect probably means phyrexians will always be at home in Black, other colours can do it too.

Fundamentalist Shenigans

During the late 90's/early 2000's, MTG banned demons due to evengalist protests. The satanic scare wasn't satisfied with Pokemon or Harry Potter, so even an innocent card game had to pay. On the plus side, we've gotten quite a biting satire in the form of the Church of Tal.

To replace demons, horrors became Black's iconics, replacing the satanic with the lovecraftian. And Phyrexia was horror-haven, so for a while they were depicted as THE Black aligned faction. This endured even well after demons returned to the game.

Note that White here is represented by an angel while Black is represented by a horror, presumably phyrexian.

Prior to phyrexian being a creature type, horror was the default type for phyrexian creatures, so unsurprisingly this further enhanced their image as horrorland.

Eventually, horrors would spread to other colors, and eventually so did phyrexia.

Tentative Steps

Scars of Mirrodin was when New Phyrexia debuted, the glistening oil charged with the mana of all five suns of Mirrodin. This meant a phyrexia now equally divided into five colours. Even then, there was still the overt connection to Black; all colours were given mechanics and effects more in line with Black than how they usually operate, and the default phyrexian token, the germ, was still Black aligned.

From Kaldheim onwards, Phyrexia has been become more "normal" mechanics wise, the only deviation being White having access to poison counters. The redesigned praetors are now not out of place for normal MTG cards of their colours, and the germ was replaced by the colourless mite as the default phyrexian token.

Conclusion

Had phyrexian been designed today, I guarantee a five colour menace would be there since day one. As it stands, we see a slow but meticulous process of lessening Black's role in the Phyrexian identity, and I hope more non-Black phyrexian cards are to come in March of the Machine.

[magus-of-the-color-pizza]

Abzan have always baffeled me, how does the two most community driven colours cowork with black? And if it's not too much to ask for, could you give examples of non mtg characters?

How do the most order oriented colors collaborate with Red in Jeskai? How do the most emotion oriented colors collaborate with Blue in Temur? How do the most opportunism oriented colors collaborate with Green in Sultai? How do the most individualism oriented colors collaborate with White in Mardu?

It’s because each clan has formulated a very complex philosophy that spans many different aspects. In some, the duality emerges as strongest. In others, it is the individual color. This is mostly clear in the transition from Khans of Tarkir to Dragons of Tarkir. Look at how the clans change and you will understand how the enemy color influenced it. In the transition, the Abzan lost their worship and practices of kin-trees and kin-tree spirits. They lost the tradition of having krumar. They lost the tradition of having separate families coexist within the clan, instead turning it into one big amorhpous family. These were all elements of Black that coexisted within the Abzan way of life.

The key is finding the middle ground. White and Black have contrasting philosophies most of the time, but they have some points of agreement. In addition, dual-color philosophies are usually about finding a new middle ground between two ideas. This was exceptionally done in the case of the abzan, in my opinion. The idea of several families coexisting within a large unit is very White and Black. The idea of Kin-trees and kin-tree spirits is mostly Green and Black. Krumar are just straigh-up Black. And as for White and Green, well, I think it’s not hard to see it in the Abzan.

The only example of an Abzan character that comes to my mind as of now is Nagato from Naruto. He’s an idealist-turned-slightly-less-idealist; He wants peace, but is willing to hurt anyone and everyone to make them realize the necessity of peace. In addition, his strong connection to the rinnegan makes him believe that he is destined to do great things. And in the end, when he sees the error in his ways, he is willing to give up his own life to repent.

[breezybeej]

So, what MtG two colour combination do you identify with?

Definitely a simic person. But not like the guild, more like the Theros Blue-Green philosophy. I find peace with nature and I learn from it. I use it to make my own methods better rather than making nature better with my ideas. Embracing things as they are and exploring my curiosity through that. I don't have any relevant flavor texts but I do appreciate Ensnaring Bridge for really getting me and Norin the Wary for representing me in the most fundamental way.

[internationalspacehobo]

I wish more of my players were into mtg because I actually think, in its modern form, mtg colour alignment is more useful for conveying character philosophy than d&d alignments