Kaladesh has a techno-side that' prominently featured in its art. And Steamflogger Boss is spiking on MKM. Are people just speculating contraptions might become a thing?
I was wishing for a darker skintoned female walker, but Saheeli Rai would do-- Southeast Asia represent~!
Here's hoping she ain't a limbo walker like Arlinn and Tamiyo was before though. :/
And I cannot wait for the art for this set too~! I am expecting POCs outnumber, don't fail me now MTG.
Perhaps we'll finally get confirmation that Chandra is adopted. I'm not sure how I'd handle the white-washery otherwise.
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Kaladesh is apparently a plane with diverse ethnicity. deal with it.
I won't make assumptions as to how well you've kept up with the going of the world, but it's rather common to have settings (particularly in games and mainstream movies/TV shows) taking place in an ethnically diverse world, where the main character is still made to be white. The main character is still portrayed as belonging to the ethnicity or culture of the setting, but will be portrayed by a white actor.
The most current event where this is discussed could be the american live action adaption of Ghost in the Shell, where the major will be played by Scarlett Johansen. For other examples, look at the (awful) live action adaption of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Sokka and Katara are pale as moonlight, even while the rest of their clan have dark skin.
What I'm getting at is this: It'd be much easier to swallow white, red-haired and freckled Chandra being adopted by dark-skinned and red-haired parents, than having her actually be the same ethnicity as her parents but portrayed to be white in order to cater to white people. The former is convoluted, the latter is just insulting. I don't think that is unreasonable in the least.
For those who don't have the time or desire to read papers or books on the matter, John Oliver recently did a rather excellent summary of the phenomena of White Washing in contemporary culture.
Or maybe, just maybe, she was created before her plane was and they didn't want Chandra to suddenly change skin color. I mean, I might be stretching(like you are), but it's just a thought.
Red will hate or love artifacts but only in connection to another color. And while it won't be as artifact heavy as Mirrodin, it will be closer to what Esper was in Alara. Very noticeable but not the definition of the entire focus of the set.
I think Kaladesh will have a greater distribution of artifacts than Alara, but a lot of it will involve artifact tokens produced by colored nonartifact cards so the set still feels more balanced than Mirrodin did. We might see some colored artifacts as well, especially if players' speculation about Kaladesh using Etherium or something similar is true. I'm sure I'm not the only one who suspects Crucius' influence. Artifactas may not be all there is to Kaladesh, but they will be a big part of its identity much as enchantments were for Theros.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
Kaladesh has a techno-side that' prominently featured in its art. And Steamflogger Boss is spiking on MKM. Are people just speculating contraptions might become a thing?
When Chandra was created (2006-ish) Kaladesh wasn't even close to being the faintest idea of a future design. They do design blocks years in advance, but not a decade into the future. The name issue is curious, though.
Or maybe, just maybe, she was created before her plane was and they didn't want Chandra to suddenly change skin color. I mean, I might be stretching(like you are), but it's just a thought.
Her name is of Hindu origin. Chandra is Sanskrit, and means "Shining". It's also the name of a Hindu diety. Nalar means "Sensible" in Javanese.
Seeing as Wizards have blocks planned years in advance, no, I don't believe Wizards had any other intention than to make her of Indian origin when she was created. So yes, I do believe that you are stretching.
Chandra's origin story has changed once so far (she went from unloved 'red headed stepchild' and least favorite child who grew up in the hinterlands well outside the city to beloved only child who grew up in the center of a bustling metropolis). She was designed well before Planeswalkers were known to be a centerpiece of Magic's plot. Given how fast, loose, and emphatic naming is in Magic, source languages don't mean much. Unless you think Vryn is going to be America. Shining is the perfect name translation for someone who is literally on fire.
Thinking they had always planned to whitewash a plane they hadn't designed yet is pushing it, nothing in Chandra's original backstory even suggested a single trace of the plane we have now. Besides the major push to make Magic more diverse is far more recent, the rumblings were low when I came back into the game during INN block. And only gained actual ground with Theros being a lot less white, followed by Tarkir which was very not white.
Yes, but white washing, or mighty whitey as a related trope for white protagonists in non-white settings/areas, both rely on the setting/area being non-white at the time of the character's inception. Chandra's home plane was in no way designed at the time of Chandra's creation. I'm researching to see if Chandra even had red hair when we first met her (her initial planeswalker art she had fire hair). Her home plane had no details, her home life gained rudimentary details with the first novel centered on her (2009).
You are trying to make a plot hole in the space where Wizards is actively making the world more diverse when, and this might surprise you, a white father and non-white mother can have a fair skinned redheaded daughter. Especially one whose blood is 90% fire and snark.
Guys... Kalandash is Persic (India-Egypt). I do not look at etnic groups. I just look at the buildings (it is also my job to do that). If you ever played prince of persia you will know the style. Tarkir is Mongolia not because of the asian people, it is because of the huts and steps.
Tarkir is Persia/Macedonia + China/Tibet + Nepal + Mongolia + East Siberia, if you ask me.
We're getting Off-Topic. If you want to talk about what influences you hope Wizards might draw from the source material go ahead, but Chandra's origin and the ethnic make up of the plane belong in Storyline.
Kaladesh is NOT India, just as Tarkir was NOT Mongolia/Tibet/Thai. These are worlds inspired by places and cultures on Earth, not trying to emulate them. It will be Kaladesh, with whatever phenotype the habitants will have and whatever architecture and culture will be found there.
I'm interested to see how black, white and green interact with the theme of the plane. In Origins, Blue and red made thopters and interacted with them.
I'd like a new Tezzeret, he's one of my favourite walkers who we haven't seen in a while
Kaladesh is NOT India, just as Tarkir was NOT Mongolia/Tibet/Thai. These are worlds inspired by places and cultures on Earth, not trying to emulate them. It will be Kaladesh, with whatever phenotype the habitants will have and whatever architecture and culture will be found there.
Well said, and bonus points for using "phenotype" in real life
I hope the new planeswalker isn't UR. It's my favorite color combination, but I feel between Ral Zarek, Dack Fayden, Nicol Bolas and Sarkhan Unbroken both having UR, and a good chunk of mono-colored walkers being either U or R that the colors are a bit over done at this point. A lot of the color combinations for walkers aside from UR and RG seem under represented, particularly recently. It would be nice to get another GW or BG walker.
Though based on the art and the fact that it's at least artifact-centric if not a full on artifact block, it seems highly unlikely she won't be in Jeskai colors.
Usually, the best way to tell someone's color identity in Magic is to look at their clothing. Creative tries their best to make their color scheme match the color of the card face that represents them (card face and not color identity, this is why characters like Bolas have lots of gold tones).
Saheeli seems to be wearing a lot of red, a lot of blue, and a lot of gold, which tels me she will likely be both red and blue.
Edit: Please excuse my horribly offensive bit about getting a lot of new female characters in a row. It was pretty insensitive of me. I'm sorry.
Psh, they're getting enough female characters to make a harem anime about Jace always being too embarrassed to talk to all the super attractive chick planeswalkers. Taking bets on whether Chandra or Lilly will be more tsundere, and I don't even know what that means. And then Garruk kills everyone.
Where is he, by the way? He kinda was all about murdering Lilly and any other PWs that came his way (except Jace, cuz yanno) and he kinda just.... disappeared.
Also, not to shoot down female representation in Magic, but I think this puts us at 4 blocks in a row where the new planeswalker character (and by "new" I mean a character who has never been mentioned or represented before) is female. The last brand new male planeswalker we had was Xenagos if you don't count Daretti, which was only a few months later. Again, I'm not complaining about women in Magic, I just don't really want this to turn into Waifus: The Harem-ing.
Thats because up to Theros block, there were 14 male walkers and 7 female walkers, twice as much boys than girls. If anything, Wizards is trying to even the unbalance.
Or maybe, just maybe, she was created before her plane was and they didn't want Chandra to suddenly change skin color. I mean, I might be stretching(like you are), but it's just a thought.
Her name is of Hindu origin. Chandra is Sanskrit, and means "Shining". It's also the name of a Hindu diety. Nalar means "Sensible" in Javanese.
Seeing as Wizards have blocks planned years in advance, no, I don't believe Wizards had any other intention than to make her of Indian origin when she was created. So yes, I do believe that you are stretching.
Or they just went full oldschool, took a name that sounded cool and stapled it onto a random character. Just like Ramses Overdark isn't exactly oozing with Egyptian flavor
Psh, they're getting enough female characters to make a harem anime about Jace always being too embarrassed to talk to all the super attractive chick planeswalkers. Taking bets on whether Chandra or Lilly will be more tsundere, and I don't even know what that means. And then Garruk kills everyone.
Where is he, by the way? He kinda was all about murdering Lilly and any other PWs that came his way (except Jace, cuz yanno) and he kinda just.... disappeared.
Can I use this post as my signature? I laughed so hard!
By the way, Kaladesh have Etherium? I thought only Esper has that kind of metal/alloy.
Also, I guess it's thopterfest time.
Kaladesh powers everything with Aether, which has the same root word as Etherium, and the artifacts do have some similarities in design. That said, most of the metal on Kaladesh seems to be a bronze or gold color, and Etherium seems to be more silver based. I don't think the two share it.
That said, Etherium's creator was Crucius, a planeswalker. So it's entirely possible it's on other planes.
It could be almost a case of multiplanar convergent evolution, where Esperites... Esperantos... erm.. the citizens of Esper discovered a magical living metal and called it Etherium while across the multiverse the Kaladeshi (?) arrived at a similar conclusion, yet applied it differently. The Espers utilized the filigrees to improve themselves, while in Kaladesh everyone prefers to augment their lifestyle with gadgets and create automatons rather than begin a syncytium of man and machine.
It could be a case of Crucius spreading knowledge of his particular style of artifice to other worlds.
Is it possible Saheeli is RWU? Because I have been longing for some RWU artifact love.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
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Many thanks to DNC at Heroes of the Plane Studios
Actually, red's philosophy towards artifacts is generally one of having fun with them. That just so happens to involve breaking them or making them blow up most of the time. Red also occasionally gets Equipment focus, like Goblin Gaveleer or Kazuul's Toll Collector.
I think Kaladesh will have a greater distribution of artifacts than Alara, but a lot of it will involve artifact tokens produced by colored nonartifact cards so the set still feels more balanced than Mirrodin did. We might see some colored artifacts as well, especially if players' speculation about Kaladesh using Etherium or something similar is true. I'm sure I'm not the only one who suspects Crucius' influence. Artifactas may not be all there is to Kaladesh, but they will be a big part of its identity much as enchantments were for Theros.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
Thinking they had always planned to whitewash a plane they hadn't designed yet is pushing it, nothing in Chandra's original backstory even suggested a single trace of the plane we have now. Besides the major push to make Magic more diverse is far more recent, the rumblings were low when I came back into the game during INN block. And only gained actual ground with Theros being a lot less white, followed by Tarkir which was very not white.
You are trying to make a plot hole in the space where Wizards is actively making the world more diverse when, and this might surprise you, a white father and non-white mother can have a fair skinned redheaded daughter. Especially one whose blood is 90% fire and snark.
Tarkir is Persia/Macedonia + China/Tibet + Nepal + Mongolia + East Siberia, if you ask me.
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UR Mizzix of the Izmagnus ~~~ Build your own win-condition: Finite Spellslinging
UR Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer ~~~ We are the Borg. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.
WUB Oloro, Ageless Ascetic ~~~ A Guide to dying slowly
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose ~~~ Marchesa's undying Marionettes
RGW Mayael the Anima ~~~ All Hail the Big Chungus
GWU Chulane, Teller of Tales ~~~ Permanents Only ETB Shenanigans
BGU Sidisi, Brood Tyrant ~~~ Sidisi's Restless Servants
WUBRG The Ur-Dragon ~~~ Dragons eat your face
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StaffI'd like a new Tezzeret, he's one of my favourite walkers who we haven't seen in a while
Well said, and bonus points for using "phenotype" in real life
Though based on the art and the fact that it's at least artifact-centric if not a full on artifact block, it seems highly unlikely she won't be in Jeskai colors.
Saheeli seems to be wearing a lot of red, a lot of blue, and a lot of gold, which tels me she will likely be both red and blue.
Edit: Please excuse my horribly offensive bit about getting a lot of new female characters in a row. It was pretty insensitive of me. I'm sorry.
Where is he, by the way? He kinda was all about murdering Lilly and any other PWs that came his way (except Jace, cuz yanno) and he kinda just.... disappeared.
Or they just went full oldschool, took a name that sounded cool and stapled it onto a random character. Just like Ramses Overdark isn't exactly oozing with Egyptian flavor
Can I use this post as my signature? I laughed so hard!
Also, I guess it's thopterfest time.
Kaladesh powers everything with Aether, which has the same root word as Etherium, and the artifacts do have some similarities in design. That said, most of the metal on Kaladesh seems to be a bronze or gold color, and Etherium seems to be more silver based. I don't think the two share it.
That said, Etherium's creator was Crucius, a planeswalker. So it's entirely possible it's on other planes.
Go right ahead, friend.
Is it possible Saheeli is RWU? Because I have been longing for some RWU artifact love.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.