I mean, I get the target audience and all, but do we need to keep perpetuating that ridiculous meme of all women in any fantasy setting being ridiculously hot and deciding all the protection they need before wading into battle is a torn up piece of fabric stretched across thier heaving boobs?
Keywords make certain cards easier to process, as well as giving a common word to talk about the cards. Can you imagine having to refer to your battle cry deck as "the deck built around that mechanic that gives other creatures +1/+1 whenever a creature attacks". Why not keyword it so that we can actually talk about your "battle cry deck"? Keywording makes for a more streamlined game, as cards with a keyword you already know take less mindspace to process than cards without a keyword. Instead of reading that whole line of text, you're seeing battle cry and you don't have to read the rest of the line because you know what the card does from those two words alone.
Apart from that there is also flavor of course. Bushido is a good example of a keyword that only needs one line of text (when this creature blocks or becomes blocked, it gets +X/+X until end of turn). No need to keyword it right? Except that keywording the ability connects all the samurai cards in the set and adds to the flavor of Kamigawa.
I'm not arguing with keywording, I'm just disputing the logic behind the examples that the other person provided. I'm also all for using terminology within Magic to shorten things, such as Fish for "Midranged, Meta-esque, bear deck", Boros for "R/W aggro with burn", and Jund "R/B/G with removal as control and plenty of card advantage."... Remember, the new Esper deck in Extended is still refered to as "Affinity" by a lot of people.
I just thought it was weird that a person provided two examples of a keyword being one line long when they used the keyword in that one line of text twice xP.
Edit: The biggest advantage of Keywords is that you can print cards that interact with those keywords... As in "All creatures with flying, lose flying." or whatever. You can't truly do this if the keyword was some abstract line of text unless you wanted a questionable spell or ability that didn't make too much sense, as in Plummet wouldn't really work because it would then hit cards with things that make them only blockable as though they had flying, instead of just fliers.
The other thing to take not is how often the ability appears in a set. In the days of Affinity we had a lot of Affinity cards (even if not all of them saw play) and not all of them had Affinity for the same thing. So it was much easier to have "Affinity for _____" right up front than a bunch of text and somewhere within that the magic word of what the Affinity is for is hidden. Though in a set like Rise, there's one card with Affinity and as such we no longer see the keyword on Khalni Hydra.
We also see that at times, Wizards makes a strange call on mechanic naming, such as Exalted. The way they defined it was so rigid that they'd have cards with both Exalted and "Whenever a creature attacks alone", such as Finest Hour or Battlegrace Angel, even though they could have made Exalted more open like they did with say Threshold and condensed all of those things into one.
As a whole there goes a lot more into mechanics than just length of text, but that doesn't mean there won't be bloated mechanics at times.
2 Knights spoiled already...hopefully the 4-drop will be nice...still looking for another 2-drop (though I've been main-decking white knight with all of the vampires/infect in my current meta).
It's an instant speed 5/5 trampler for 4. Wtf do you people want seriously? It has applications in populate/ above the curve beats decks, or in Bant control/ flash. I seriously think anyone mad at this card for any reason other than losing an attacker to instant speed wurm, should go home and make their own awesome card game and leave the rest of us alone.
"This creature can only be blocked by creatures with flying or reach."
"Creatures with first strike deal combat damage before creatures without first strike."
"Creatures dealt damage by this creature are destroyed."
"Threshold is whenever you have seven or more cards in graveyard."
"Bloodthirst goes off if an opponent was dealt damage this turn."
"Affinity for artifacts makes your spells cost less if you have more artifacts."
...and so on. In fact, keywords which take more than a sentence to explain tend to be bad or overcomplicated ones-Kinship, Madness, Suspend, etc.
Some of those are good examples, some are not. Your explanation of First Strike, Flying and Deathtouch are nowhere near complete, rules-wise, they are simply an acceptable shorthand. Threshold is an ability word, so it's actually done properly.
Affinity was properly made a keyword because it allows the card to say "Affinity for artifacts" or "Affinity for islands" as a quick shorthand for the full ability.
Battle Cry, if it's worded as spoiled, should have been an ability word and not a keyword as it's just a trigger on attack, and the ability seems card-specific. It could have referenced a group of "mass pump" abilities that triggered on attack, just as Chroma references a group of abilities that count colored mana symbols, and Metalcraft references a group of abilities that require you to have 3 artifacts in play.
I mean, I get the target audience and all, but do we need to keep perpetuating that ridiculous meme of all women in any fantasy setting being ridiculously hot and deciding all the protection they need before wading into battle is a torn up piece of fabric stretched across thier heaving boobs?
I mean, I get the target audience and all, but do we need to keep perpetuating that ridiculous meme of all women in any fantasy setting being ridiculously hot and deciding all the protection they need before wading into battle is a torn up piece of fabric stretched across thier heaving boobs?
Yeah, this is one of the things I dislike most about Magic. The casual misogyny can get really disturbing in the card art, but ultimately it isn't at odds with the majority of fantasy media. Very unfortunate.
Yeah, this is one of the things I dislike most about Magic. The casual misogyny can get really disturbing in the card art, but ultimately it isn't at odds with the majority of fantasy media. Very unfortunate.
One thing I wonder is: Does WotC actually commission it like "we need a female warrior in bra and panties fighting three goblins; and be generous on the cleavage, please", or is it something the artists just decide to add, or is it just an implicit understanding between the two parties that that's how things should be?
It seems that with the currently spoiled reminder text, two creatures with Battle Cry attacking would trigger four times and give +4/+0. Is that really how it's supposed to work?
Human beings prefer to look at attractive idealized versions of the human form. Males depicted on MTG cards are NO DIFFERANT! Seriously I hate the art on Deathless Angel , yuck a beer gut, seriously. In real life people with bodies like that cover them-up. Look at the cover of Cosmo or another womens magazine and you will see the same thing, we like our idealized airbrushed half clad bodies. Even a woman prefers to look at an attractive woman and we dislike looking at fat or ugly people.
Human beings prefer to look at attractive idealized versions of the human form. Males depicted on MTG cards are NO DIFFERANT! Seriously I hate the art on Deathless Angel , yuck a beer gut, seriously. In real life people with bodies like that cover them-up. Look at the cover of Cosmo or another womens magazine and you will see the same thing, we like our idealized airbrushed half clad bodies. Even a woman prefers to look at an attractive woman and we dislike looking at fat or ugly people.
Um, it's not set in stone either. Go back 200 years and 'being attractive' looked totally different than today.
Artwork is amazing on all three cards, kudos to WotC yet again.
It's an instant speed 5/5 trampler for 4. Wtf do you people want seriously? It has applications in populate/ above the curve beats decks, or in Bant control/ flash. I seriously think anyone mad at this card for any reason other than losing an attacker to instant speed wurm, should go home and make their own awesome card game and leave the rest of us alone.
Human beings prefer to look at attractive idealized versions of the human form. Males depicted on MTG cards are NO DIFFERANT! Seriously I hate the art on Deathless Angel , yuck a beer gut, seriously. In real life people with bodies like that cover them-up. Look at the cover of Cosmo or another womens magazine and you will see the same thing, we like our idealized airbrushed half clad bodies. Even a woman prefers to look at an attractive woman and we dislike looking at fat or ugly people.
...But, apparently it isn't, since several people are saying that this isn't what they want to see.
You also realize that there is a place between "physically impossible, idealistic bodies" and "fat or ugly"?
And finally, could you please list some Magic cards depicting males going into battle in their underwear? The closest you'll get is Malach of the Dawn, where as literally every single female vampire has cleavage showing.'
Edit: anyway, to stay relevant to the topic, I'd just say that Glissa's artwork is really disappointing to me.
I feel the discussion of the art is totally relevant, actually. It may not be card mechanics, but the art of a card is a pretty big factor to me.
My take on it is, Magic is a game designed to sell, and it's designed to sell to boys and men aged 15-30. I'll give you 3 guesses as to what art subjects men of that age group like to look at, and the first two don't count.
Not only that, but as the previous poster said, we like to look at attractive people, whether they're male or female. And it would be hard to emphasize a creature's strength, power, and abilities if they were an average, pot-bellied, slightly-less-than-muscular male instead of a well-muscled, stone-jawed example of pure manliness. So the guy (or girl) we see in the art is a battle-hardened, easy on the eyes example of what it takes to be a creature worth summoning in the world of MTG.
I dunno, I guess I'm secure enough in my looks and character (flaws) that seeing a hugely-muscled dude doesn't bother me; I'd expect the same from the few girls that play the game.
And, you know, as a dude, I like staring at pretty things.
I feel the discussion of the art is totally relevant, actually. It may not be card mechanics, but the art of a card is a pretty big factor to me.
My take on it is, Magic is a game designed to sell, and it's designed to sell to boys and men aged 15-30. I'll give you 3 guesses as to what art subjects men of that age group like to look at, and the first two don't count.
Not only that, but as the previous poster said, we like to look at attractive people, whether they're male or female. And it would be hard to emphasize a creature's strength, power, and abilities if they were an average, pot-bellied, slightly-less-than-muscular male instead of a well-muscled, stone-jawed example of pure manliness. So the guy (or girl) we see in the art is a battle-hardened, easy on the eyes example of what it takes to be a creature worth summoning in the world of MTG.
I dunno, I guess I'm secure enough in my looks and character (flaws) that seeing a hugely-muscled dude doesn't bother me; I'd expect the same from the few girls that play the game.
And, you know, as a dude, I like staring at pretty things.
I agree that artwork is important for a lot of reasons but they are not necessarily important to make the card a success. Some of my favorite cards are terrible cards with good art, like windwright mage and the like from alara which will never see constructed play. That doesn't make them successful cards on the tournament scene but it does make them successful in the sense that people remember and appreciate them.
The best cards for me are the ones that are great cards and see tourney play and have beautiful remember-able art.
It's an instant speed 5/5 trampler for 4. Wtf do you people want seriously? It has applications in populate/ above the curve beats decks, or in Bant control/ flash. I seriously think anyone mad at this card for any reason other than losing an attacker to instant speed wurm, should go home and make their own awesome card game and leave the rest of us alone.
Scars of Mirrodin has plenty of shirtless dudes, look at half the white and red cards.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Don't you see that the whole aim of Moderators is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make infractions literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.
Various sites have speculated on the missing words on the Hero, but some posters are claiming they've had confirmation of the text, or even received the actual card. I'm completely new to future set speculation, are any of these claims reliable, or is there no actual way for the card to have been completely spoiled at this point?
On the subject of over-sexualisation on the cards, I never really paid attention to it, until my girlfriend brought it up while looking at some of my cards (especially the vampires). It does look bad, but I've always seen it as part of the flavor of fantasy in general. Strange how unaware of it we are
Originally Posted by joande
Human beings prefer to look at attractive idealized versions of the human form.
Yes, that's the classic argument for oversexualization, down to the phrasing. So based on that, we should elect our politicians, choose our taste in music (this is already happening) and hire our employees on looks.
Or maybe we should consider that sometimes, in anything from politics to Magic, there are other qualities to pursue than simple, instant gratification. In politics that could be political qualifications. In Magic it could be, for example, a sense of believability in the portrayal of warfare or life on another world.
For example, if you're a fantasy reader, try contrasting a series like the Belgariad, a shallow, horribly constructed series where people are always beautiful and one-dimensional, with a series like A Song of Ice and Fire, where people can and will be anything from beautiful to disfigured to pockmarked to lame. The attention in the latter to how people would likely *actually* look in a world like that makes the people a lot more believable than in other series (or Hero of Bladehold and Magic's obsession with the anorexic airbrush culture in general).
Given the amount of thought the Magic designers put into considering how the special rules of the different planes would affect their inhabitants, I'm kinda surprised that they'd choose to yank us right out of it again by making us believe that Chandra takes time to put on eyeliner and lipstick in the morning or that Hero of Bladehold would look at her wardrobe and go, 'Hmm, yeah, I think I'll choose the boob suit today, that should come in handy during the battle'.
Sure, you may not care a lot about immersive qualities on a Magic card, preferring instead some quick upskirts shots. But I can assure you that the Design team does, which is why there are clearly two opposing agendas at work there. Personally, I find that Magic's gameplay is good enough that I'll endure the constant awareness that I'm playing a game which is aimed at pubescent boys, flavour-wise. But I wish it was different, as I believe the gameplay is good enough that Magic could be taken out of the strict male-nerd zone and into broader territory, given a little less stereotypical and more sophisticated packaging. But that's WotC's call.
In real life people with bodies like that cover them-up.
Just a quick side question: Do you think, perhaps, that people with imperfect bodies feel a need to 'cover them up' *exactly* because we're promoting an airbrush culture? And what do you think we should do about it?
I mean, I get the target audience and all, but do we need to keep perpetuating that ridiculous meme of all women in any fantasy setting being ridiculously hot and deciding all the protection they need before wading into battle is a torn up piece of fabric stretched across thier heaving boobs?
I'm not arguing with keywording, I'm just disputing the logic behind the examples that the other person provided. I'm also all for using terminology within Magic to shorten things, such as Fish for "Midranged, Meta-esque, bear deck", Boros for "R/W aggro with burn", and Jund "R/B/G with removal as control and plenty of card advantage."... Remember, the new Esper deck in Extended is still refered to as "Affinity" by a lot of people.
I just thought it was weird that a person provided two examples of a keyword being one line long when they used the keyword in that one line of text twice xP.
Edit: The biggest advantage of Keywords is that you can print cards that interact with those keywords... As in "All creatures with flying, lose flying." or whatever. You can't truly do this if the keyword was some abstract line of text unless you wanted a questionable spell or ability that didn't make too much sense, as in Plummet wouldn't really work because it would then hit cards with things that make them only blockable as though they had flying, instead of just fliers.
The other thing to take not is how often the ability appears in a set. In the days of Affinity we had a lot of Affinity cards (even if not all of them saw play) and not all of them had Affinity for the same thing. So it was much easier to have "Affinity for _____" right up front than a bunch of text and somewhere within that the magic word of what the Affinity is for is hidden. Though in a set like Rise, there's one card with Affinity and as such we no longer see the keyword on Khalni Hydra.
We also see that at times, Wizards makes a strange call on mechanic naming, such as Exalted. The way they defined it was so rigid that they'd have cards with both Exalted and "Whenever a creature attacks alone", such as Finest Hour or Battlegrace Angel, even though they could have made Exalted more open like they did with say Threshold and condensed all of those things into one.
As a whole there goes a lot more into mechanics than just length of text, but that doesn't mean there won't be bloated mechanics at times.
You talking about the White and Black Knights? Because the 4-drop isn't a Knight and was spoiled yesterday as mentioned a few pages back --->
http://forum.tcgplayer.com/showthread.php?t=247216
Sucks, I was hoping the 4-drop was a knight too... hopefully there will be more than the double-striker.
Some of those are good examples, some are not. Your explanation of First Strike, Flying and Deathtouch are nowhere near complete, rules-wise, they are simply an acceptable shorthand. Threshold is an ability word, so it's actually done properly.
Affinity was properly made a keyword because it allows the card to say "Affinity for artifacts" or "Affinity for islands" as a quick shorthand for the full ability.
Battle Cry, if it's worded as spoiled, should have been an ability word and not a keyword as it's just a trigger on attack, and the ability seems card-specific. It could have referenced a group of "mass pump" abilities that triggered on attack, just as Chroma references a group of abilities that count colored mana symbols, and Metalcraft references a group of abilities that require you to have 3 artifacts in play.
0 Karn
W Darien
U Arcanis
B Geth
R Norin
G Yeva
UW Hanna
RB Olivia
WB Obzedat
UR Melek
BG Glissa
WR Aurelia
GU Kraj
BRU Nicol Bolas
RGB Prossh
BGW Ghave
GUB Mimeoplasm
WUBRG Sliver Overlord
GWU Treva, the Renewer
EDH Spike:
U Azami, Lady of Scrolls
Trades
oh well, guess I can compensate with Sun Titan and whatnot
Trade List
MTGSalvation trade list
---------------------------------------------------------
"If you kill me now, it is I who will live, not your damned apples."
"Just mention a firing pole with balls and he's
already thinking about 'that'..."
Decks Played:
Dark DepthslBWG (Legacy)
Coralhelm KnightsGWU (Modern)
Vengevine the Rerevengeancening BRG (Modern)
I think you mean stereotype, not meme...
Yeah, this is one of the things I dislike most about Magic. The casual misogyny can get really disturbing in the card art, but ultimately it isn't at odds with the majority of fantasy media. Very unfortunate.
One thing I wonder is: Does WotC actually commission it like "we need a female warrior in bra and panties fighting three goblins; and be generous on the cleavage, please", or is it something the artists just decide to add, or is it just an implicit understanding between the two parties that that's how things should be?
Um, it's not set in stone either. Go back 200 years and 'being attractive' looked totally different than today.
Artwork is amazing on all three cards, kudos to WotC yet again.
...But, apparently it isn't, since several people are saying that this isn't what they want to see.
You also realize that there is a place between "physically impossible, idealistic bodies" and "fat or ugly"?
And finally, could you please list some Magic cards depicting males going into battle in their underwear? The closest you'll get is Malach of the Dawn, where as literally every single female vampire has cleavage showing.'
Edit: anyway, to stay relevant to the topic, I'd just say that Glissa's artwork is really disappointing to me.
My take on it is, Magic is a game designed to sell, and it's designed to sell to boys and men aged 15-30. I'll give you 3 guesses as to what art subjects men of that age group like to look at, and the first two don't count.
Not only that, but as the previous poster said, we like to look at attractive people, whether they're male or female. And it would be hard to emphasize a creature's strength, power, and abilities if they were an average, pot-bellied, slightly-less-than-muscular male instead of a well-muscled, stone-jawed example of pure manliness. So the guy (or girl) we see in the art is a battle-hardened, easy on the eyes example of what it takes to be a creature worth summoning in the world of MTG.
I dunno, I guess I'm secure enough in my looks and character (flaws) that seeing a hugely-muscled dude doesn't bother me; I'd expect the same from the few girls that play the game.
And, you know, as a dude, I like staring at pretty things.
I agree that artwork is important for a lot of reasons but they are not necessarily important to make the card a success. Some of my favorite cards are terrible cards with good art, like windwright mage and the like from alara which will never see constructed play. That doesn't make them successful cards on the tournament scene but it does make them successful in the sense that people remember and appreciate them.
The best cards for me are the ones that are great cards and see tourney play and have beautiful remember-able art.
Don't Trust Your Secrets To The Sea...
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RUB
Really?! Ratchet Bomb and Glissa has to count somewhere.
It's probably going to take a full block for Scars to come full effect but, imo, the few MBS spoiled cards are shining down on Scars.
fixt
On the subject of over-sexualisation on the cards, I never really paid attention to it, until my girlfriend brought it up while looking at some of my cards (especially the vampires). It does look bad, but I've always seen it as part of the flavor of fantasy in general. Strange how unaware of it we are
By the way, an example of a thread that has received 'confirmation' is here... http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/26511569/MBS-ICD_Hero_of_Bladehold?pg=last
Soldier tribal deck
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails EDH (in progress)
Trying to make basic pauper cube with friends
Yes, that's the classic argument for oversexualization, down to the phrasing. So based on that, we should elect our politicians, choose our taste in music (this is already happening) and hire our employees on looks.
Or maybe we should consider that sometimes, in anything from politics to Magic, there are other qualities to pursue than simple, instant gratification. In politics that could be political qualifications. In Magic it could be, for example, a sense of believability in the portrayal of warfare or life on another world.
For example, if you're a fantasy reader, try contrasting a series like the Belgariad, a shallow, horribly constructed series where people are always beautiful and one-dimensional, with a series like A Song of Ice and Fire, where people can and will be anything from beautiful to disfigured to pockmarked to lame. The attention in the latter to how people would likely *actually* look in a world like that makes the people a lot more believable than in other series (or Hero of Bladehold and Magic's obsession with the anorexic airbrush culture in general).
Given the amount of thought the Magic designers put into considering how the special rules of the different planes would affect their inhabitants, I'm kinda surprised that they'd choose to yank us right out of it again by making us believe that Chandra takes time to put on eyeliner and lipstick in the morning or that Hero of Bladehold would look at her wardrobe and go, 'Hmm, yeah, I think I'll choose the boob suit today, that should come in handy during the battle'.
Sure, you may not care a lot about immersive qualities on a Magic card, preferring instead some quick upskirts shots. But I can assure you that the Design team does, which is why there are clearly two opposing agendas at work there. Personally, I find that Magic's gameplay is good enough that I'll endure the constant awareness that I'm playing a game which is aimed at pubescent boys, flavour-wise. But I wish it was different, as I believe the gameplay is good enough that Magic could be taken out of the strict male-nerd zone and into broader territory, given a little less stereotypical and more sophisticated packaging. But that's WotC's call.
Just a quick side question: Do you think, perhaps, that people with imperfect bodies feel a need to 'cover them up' *exactly* because we're promoting an airbrush culture? And what do you think we should do about it?
Very true.
fixt
Even more true.
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