MTG Salvation

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It is hard being a scientist at times when watching anything science related. I always love it when the doctors on House cure an incurable disease like the brain eating Naegleria fowleri and butcher the pronunciation of the name at the same time. My personal favorite was watching the crime show C.S.I and witnessing them getting a result before the mass spectrometer had even sampled the specimen. Groan. At the end day, a person has to just let some of those things go or risk losing all entertainment value. Midi-chlorians. Stop. Stop. Just let it go.

Technically Speaking

It can always be dangerous using scientific terminology in Magic. I can understand Wizards not wanting to add the creature type Protista. With a creature like Aquamoeba though, I have difficulty understanding why it would be an Elemental Beast. If anything, I would have called it an Ooze Beast or simply an Ooze. It would make sense to me that an Ooze would have the capability of change its power and toughness since, well, it is an Ooze. Besides, it looks like an Ooze.

Chronozoa is another problem child that shows the problems when introducing names based off science. Calling it an illusion feels more like cheating. We all can see that it is an amoeba in the artwork. However, the worst of the bunch for me is Scatter the Seeds. So, it makes saprolings that are sentient fungus. Seeds are for plants and Saprolings are definitely a fungus, so they should have germinated from spores. Shouldn’t it have been named Scatter the Spores?

There are cards where it definitely works. Mycologist hits the nail on the head. Myco equals fungus and ologist is "a person who studies (blank)". Therefore, a mycologist is somebody who studies fungus. Ta da. As grateful as I am that mycologist has its own card, I think the card name lacks mythological flair. Just Mycologist? Really? There isn’t a biologist or chemist in Magic. We have Riptide Biologist or Aphetto Alchemist. We don’t have archeologists, but Argivian Archaeologist. If mycology was a more widely known area of study, I believe it wouldn’t just be Mycologist. We’d have "(blank) Mycologist".

Lichen is the mutualistic relationship between a fungus and a photosynthetic organism such as a cyanobacterium (bacteria species) or more often a green-algae (plant species). People who say it is symbiotic aren't being very specific. Symbiosis only says two organism have a relationship. A beneficial symbiotic relationship is mutualistic. When a partnership is bad for one of the organisms, it is parasitic. A third, less well-known symbiotic relationship is commensalism, when there is close proximity but no direct interaction. Birds nesting in a tree is a form of commensalism as the two interact, but don’t directly affect the health of the other.

Anyway, if somebody argues Lichenthrope had to have the creature type Plant Fungus, it isn’t necessarily true. However, since there is no bacteria creature type in Magic, we might as use Plant as an additional creature type.

Sometimes the small details matter that probably only matter to a small percentage of Magic audience. Take Vitaspore Thallid for example. Do you see anything wrong with it? There is nothing wrong per se. The fungi being tossed about are Astraeus hygrometricus so aptly named after the Greek Titan Astreaus, who was responsible for the stars and was known as “the God of the Dusk”. They are commonly called earthstars, since they resemble a star when open and found on the ground. When moisture is present or after a rainfall, they have arms that fold back to elevate the puffball to help spread their spores. As much as I like seeing sentient earthstars running about, I question why? The fact is, they're there for the sake of being there.

How does that saying go? Doing something for the sake of doing something isn’t a good reason. It’s probably stuck in my head from listening to far too many of Mark Rosewater’s podcasts. In card design, an ability shouldn’t just be thrown on a card for the sake of doing it. There needs to be a reason. I think the same should go for art, although I do appreciate this artist going to extra mile on finding something unique to represent. In this instance, I just don’t understand the reasons for the depiction of sentient earthstars.

Artistic Renderings of Fungi and Saprolings

One of the reasons I began writing about the fungus tribe was the artwork of fungi. As a biologist, none of the above strikes me as fungi in nature. I understand Magic will have its own interpretation of their creature types. We need to leave room for some fantasy. However, I don’t feel Lichenthrope and the above are good representations of the tribe. The art is simply thrope-like creatures with a blanket of bumps and mushrooms. My hunch this is simply a lack of familiarity with fungi and a concrete style guide. I understand it can be hard to ask an artist to clearly represent a creature type about subject matter they are unfamiliar with. I’m sure creative isn’t particularly familiar either. However, I think we can do better.

As we move on, we get some form and structure. I am much happier with these three representations. I can at least see the fungi in these renderings of the Fungus creature type. However, we stumble into another trap of low hanging fruit with the prevalence of the green palette. Sure, there are some fungi in real life that are green or white. However, many, many fungi have very vibrant colors that range from bright purples to blues, reds, oranges and the rest of the rainbow; quite of few of them can be found here. There is no chlorophyll in the Fungi Kingdom unless they are playing horticulturalists with other photosynthetic species. If you scan through all the fungus and saproling tokens in Magic, you get green, green, and green. Sometimes, there is a splash of color here and there, but mostly Penicillium green.

I’m sure the prevalence of green is to represent, well, green creatures. However, I think the tribe could use some flair. Take Thallid for example. Here, we have a splattering of orange in the artwork. I think it would be reasonable to have a splash of vibrant colors in the tribe. I’m not proposing a barrage of psychedelic monstrosities. Maybe, a purple stripe down the arms or patterns that future players could easily recognize it as Magic’s interpretation of fungi. It could be the tribes hallmark characteristic if you will. It would be like the medallions on the soldiers in Alara, like Rafiq of the Many. If the art for Mycoloth was previewed, it wouldn’t surprise me if people thought it was originally a plant. I just want the tribe to have a distinct hallmark that immediately hits players much like the art for Angels and Dragons do.

Flavor and Mechanics of Fungi

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So, let’s say I had to pick a shard to represent the fungus tribe. As much as I like my Ghave (better artwork, by the way), I would have to go with blue, green, and black. Really? Blue? Fungi love water. Love. Love. Love. The reason fungi can burrow into wood and rock is due to in part the hydrostatic pressure of their hyphae (the long, branching filaments of the fungus). If you were a mushroom hunter, a dry year is a horrible season for mushroom collecting. The best time to go out and collect mushrooms is a day or two after a good rainfall. Without water, the invisible fungi underneath your feet or in the wood of fallen trees are unable to sprout their mushrooms and so spread their spores. I have seen photos of mushrooms pushing themselves through the asphalt and concrete of roads. Therefore, I don’t believe white should be a secondary or tertiary color for the fungus tribe. Primary should be green, black secondary, and blue as the tertiary color. White only makes sense from a mechanical design standpoint of token creation; not a flavor standpoint.

It may sound like I am being hard on the tribe. I love the tribe and in part it is why I am being so critical. In my opinion, there is a lot of depth to be explored. I personally would be afraid to face a sentient fungus in fear of getting dissolved by its chemicals. Oh, that’s right. Fungi get their food differently than other organisms. When a fungus's hypha burrows into wood, it releases powerful chemicals, compounds and enzymes into the substrate. After dissolving their meal, they absorb the nutrients and push the hypha forward with hydrostatic pressure. Dissolve, absorb and move forward. Dissolve, absorb, and move forward. It would be like you dissolving the food on your plate and then absorbing it through your skin. I always picture hyphae moving through a substrate like miners digging through a mountain. It is why I think fungus could have the Engulfing Slagwurm mechanic. If you block a fungus, it will dissolve you with its chemicals and then absorb you. Yum!

Let's keep brainstorming what fungi can do in Magic by considering one family of fungi, the Phallaceae. The common name for the family is stinkhorns and refers to the fact many of them stink badly. If you were mushroom hunting, they are not hard to find: just follow your nose. The reason they smell is to attract insects, namely flies. Unlike many other mushrooms, their spores are on the outside and sticky. When the flies land on the mushroom, the spores cling to the insects. As the insects fly away, the spores of the fungus are dispersed. With that said, it would be easy for me to accept a Fungus creature which created flying Insect tokens. On the same note, it would make perfect sense for a Lure ability to exist on the creature type. Stinkhorns aren’t the only fungi to exploit the sense of smell. Truffles are another group of fungi that exploit the same tactic, except the mode of dispersal usually is aided by an animal such as a squirrel. Pigs and dogs are even trained to find these highly prized truffles.

So, we have some inspiration for green. The secondary color black is more obvious. Fungi are saprobes and must consume food from other organic sources. The natural instinct is to associate fungi with decay. The low hanging fruit here is to consume one’s own or opponent’s graveyard. I think that is okay. However, the consumption of resources could be expanded to other organic cardboard such as creatures, cards or mana. Parasitism in a Phyrexian fashion could and should definitely played up. Fungi are primary decomposers in the environment. Instead of trying to overcomplicate something unnecessarily, let’s just pick the low hanging fruit.

Finding inspiration for blue is much harder. A lot is unknown about marine mycology, leaving little inspiration to draw upon. In this instance, science will have to take a back seat. What does fit the blue color pie is the belief systems surrounding mushrooms. Fungi have been linked with spiritualism and enlightenment for a very long time and across many different cultures. The Greeks were known to utilize mushrooms to enhance their perception of the world. Many tribes or cultures still use mushrooms in their spiritual practices. An entire generation in the sixties used psychedelics in the counter culture movement. Whether they reall work is up for debate, but all that matters is people believe it. With that said, I can see fungi in blue being about knowledge. More specifically, I think the tribe would be about awareness. I’m talking about information rather than card advantage. I’m thinking along the lines of effects like Index or Telepathy. In spiritual rituals, the effects were used to help people talk to their ancestors and other spirits, usually aided by a shaman or priest. All those things were already there, those rituals simply helped people see what was already there. In any case, I think there is plenty of mushroom mythology that blue can delve into.

The compounds fungi produce are often complicated/unique and an area worth exploring for an overarching tribal mechanic. Besides their different metabolic pathways, these unique chemicals are produced due to the wide variety of substrates they digest. For example, one of the most prescribed drugs Warfarin/Coumadin was derived from fungi digesting the coumarin from sweet clover and converting it into dicoumarol. It was discovered when a Wisconsin farmer at his wits end with inexplicably dying cattle drove through a blizzard to the University in Madison, Wisconsin with a large bucket of unclotted blood. As they found out, his cattle were dying because they were eating the infected clovers in the fields. Once dicoumarol was discovered, chemists made many derivatives of it. Think of derivatives as slight variations of a compound. In Magic, Cancel and Dissipate are derivatives of the original Counterspell. These group of chemicals block the utilization of Vitamin K in the liver to make many of the proteins needed for clotting. One subset known as super-warfarins is what is in rat bait. I feel it is my civic duty to warn you to always use gloves when handling rat bait. If exposed, the chemicals are lipophilic and will dissolve directly through the skin. Seek medical attention, but don’t freak out. To treat an exposure, you are simply given massive doses of Vitamin K to overcome the effects of warfarin exposure.

I am not implying the fungus tribe should have deathtouch, even though there are valid reasons for it. I think there is design space to explore with giving abilities to the tribe when they digest a particular resource. Say they absorb a flying creature, they get flying. Eat an elf, they can produce mana. In a sense, they are what they eat. The other avenue is for the tribe to have sacrifice effects that are semi-established in the tribe. However, I think there is more potential to have wackier effects beyond simple pump abilities. Something with flair. To reiterate, I think it could be the theme that flows through all the colors.

Cross-Tribal Synergy

I think a trap design has fallen into is the tribal trap. Well, the solo tribe. Here is what I mean. Whenever we get a lord in some tribe, it is always a creature of the same tribe. It is maybe nit-picking. However, I think there could be more design in crossing tribes, even only occasionally. Why couldn’t there be a vampire lord that gave zombies a bonus? In Magic, we have had some association with Treefolk and Saprolings. Mostly, this was because we needed something besides fungi to make Saprolings, since they currently exist exclusively as tokens. However, I enjoy the partnership. It makes sense somewhat from a scientific aspect and in Magic lore. Probably more important, players would easily accept a plant and fungus partnership.

To be clear, I am not just talking about fungus and plants. I believe there could be an extension of this idea to other tribes. As mentioned in this article, fungi have a close relationships with insects. There is a growing interests in ecology on the importance of fungi as a food source. We already know ants are fungal horticulturalists. They pull organic matter into the ground to have it digested by fungus. Ants then eat that fungus as a food source. It would only seem fitting there to be alliances. Such an idea could be extended to other tribes. Angels and humans. Zombies and vampires. I think it would only add to the Magic mythos to create these cross tribal synergies. Those synergies would only give the game more depth. As the game evolves, the depth only adds to the game experience. It is an aspect I love about the game. Every year we add another layer of mythos.

Conclusion

It may seem like I am picking on fungus or creative. Well, maybe a little. However, the fungus tribe has a small, loyal casual following that love their fungi. I love fungi and hence this article. I believe there is a lot more room for growth of the tribe especially from a creative and mechanical aspect. A lot of flavor of the tribe has yet to be tapped and its future looks bright. If all else fails, at least they taste good on pizza.

Thanks for reading,
Meyou