Some representation is fine. Forced, propaganda style overrepresentation is not fine. Black people are not a third of MTG players.
I agree. Lately, it's been nothing but that. Don't even get me started on the female thing either. It's just suffocating. It's the worst when we have black people on planes like Theros and Innistrad, instead of Greek and German. Do I expect white or black or non-Japanese people on Kamigawa? No. Keep it accurate and true to source material and feeling natural and stop pushing an agenda. It's annoying. And frankly, I do care about the race depicted because frankly, I find white men to be the most attractive. I don't really care who this offends, we all have our type. And I tend to gravitate toward artwork I find attractive, so I do pay attention to the gender and race/appearance. I'm a Vorthos, of course I would. It's inaccurate to claim no one perceives these details. Representation isn't tainting anything. Disingenuous agenda pushing is just nauseating when it's overload like it has been.
100% on-point. The problem is that we are literally not allowed to feel more attracted/drawn to the woman depicted in Baneslayer Angel than we are in Lyra. To say so, despite being white ourselves, would be likely called racist.
That's why I say whatever I want and welcome the labels without a single damn to give. It's embarrassing to me when we can't even find white people depicted where white people belong - on their own cultural tropes. Not that "white" is some collective amalgam of abominations the left wants us to believe - so Irish, German, French, Scandinavian, Scottish, etc. But oh nine hells forbid me from delving any further in European history and phylogeny.
Tiro of Meletis is spot on. So sick of this cringey forced diversity! Amonkhet had people of Middle Eastern and African appearance with no one (besides the Gatewatch) looking white and I was totally fine with it --it helps flesh out a world by building off of the real-world source material. Jamuraa is on Dominaria, fine, but keep the Jamuraans in Jamuraa and keep the Benalish in Benalia and keep the Otarians in Otaria. Mirage and Visions were awesome sets with mostly black people depicted in them. I loved the art from that era because it not only was more interesting to look at when compared to the blurry digitally altered crap they put out today, but all of the cards together created the feel of an Africa-inspired magical realm. One "different" character appearing amongst the "norm" every now and then is not the end of the world (ex. an Umezawa appearing in Dominaria), but this multi-culti b.s. Wizards is touting these days is gross. Forced diversity sucks. White people are great. Black people are great. Asian people are great. etc. etc. etc. No one is better than anyone else. But stop trying to mix them together! In the words of Muhammad Ali "Look at nature. Red birds stick with red birds. Blue birds stick with blue birds. Crows stick with crows." I'm not going to change my view on it.
Agreed. And I'd have turned up a brow if that had been any different. No one lost a coronary to seeing Asians in Tarkir either. But at this point, I question whether WOTC sees that cultural appropriation works both ways when shoehorning in inaccuracies to meet a self-imposed quota.
Ashiok: I am sorry, but you are adding a highly unnecessary calculation to a simple equation. Black people, in the US, make up about 12-13% of the population. Using your statistics, 7 are black, and 18 are white (lets ignore the knights entirely, since their race was not made to be a prominent issue). 28% are black. There is no need for complex statistics.
No. Here you're simply doing a basic statistical error. The cards are just a SAMPLE of the whole population of Dominaria, which I'm assuming - for the sake of the argument - holds the same proportion of white/blacks than our real world. You can't just do the ratio of that sample, say that it is different from 15% (which is the actual number, not 12~13), and claim that it is not accurate. Don't you see that, by doing your way, almost all samples would end up different and therefore inaccurate? You have to see what is the chance of having the proportion that we see in the cards with an arbitrary chance of 15% of picking a black person.
If you don't understand that, I can explain it again in other terms.
I looked at the new map of Dominaria to see how believable a mass Jamurran migration to far-west Aerona was. It is not. The distance seems to be as far, relative to earth, as from San Francisco to Mongolia. Dominaria is 2.5 times the size of Earth. Seems...unlikely. And we never had a mention of a Jamuuran exodus.
Three-hundred years have passed in a world where I'm sure there are plenty of magical means of transportation. If you assume that people just went ON FOOT at 5km/h walking 6 hours a day, they would cover 30 km in a day. Near 11,000 km in a year. Earth's circunference is 40,000 km. In just 4 years they could have reached the other continent. And I'm being fairly lenient with my numbers here. Even if you want to say that they made stops along the way you can't say that they wouldn't at least get there after a whole century had passed, let alone 3.
Human beings have some of the most drastic sexual dimorphism in nature.
As a biologist, I can confidently say this is utter horse*****. Human beings are VERY similar to each other across sexes, even if there exists general mean differences. Just as a reference point, the difference between male and female gorillas in bodyweight is about 50% while in humans it is only 15%, and I'm not even gonna get to invertebrates because there is some DRASTIC differences there.
I will stop here because it is no use to address multiple points, becomes tedious. You're being higly inaccurate about the things you're claiming that I know something about, so excuse me if I suspect your claims of things that I actually don't know something about, like the effects of diversity initiatives in comic books and the new pacific rim movie. My honest opinion is that you're looking for something to be outraged about, either because other people influenced you to think that way or because things are changing and people are often scared of change.
Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
Tiro of Meletis is spot on. So sick of this cringey forced diversity! Amonkhet had people of Middle Eastern and African appearance with no one (besides the Gatewatch) looking white and I was totally fine with it --it helps flesh out a world by building off of the real-world source material. Jamuraa is on Dominaria, fine, but keep the Jamuraans in Jamuraa and keep the Benalish in Benalia and keep the Otarians in Otaria. Mirage and Visions were awesome sets with mostly black people depicted in them. I loved the art from that era because it not only was more interesting to look at when compared to the blurry digitally altered crap they put out today, but all of the cards together created the feel of an Africa-inspired magical realm. One "different" character appearing amongst the "norm" every now and then is not the end of the world (ex. an Umezawa appearing in Dominaria), but this multi-culti b.s. Wizards is touting these days is gross. Forced diversity sucks. White people are great. Black people are great. Asian people are great. etc. etc. etc. No one is better than anyone else. But stop trying to mix them together! In the words of Muhammad Ali "Look at nature. Red birds stick with red birds. Blue birds stick with blue birds. Crows stick with crows." I'm not going to change my view on it.
Is your argument seriously "keep the races apart"? You get that Dominaria is inherently a multicultural plane, right? And that it is completely realistic to depict the plane's diversity in the cards for a set heralding the return to the plane?
Sorry Ashiok, what you said makes no sense. The question is representations IN THE CARDS versus the population of the real world. We cannot say what the population of Benalia is.
You are dead wrong about dimorphism. The strength and athleticism gulf between human male and female is broader than, I would venture to say, most advanced mammals, including lions, whose dimorphism is famous.
You can cite to your biologist credentials, and I will cite to my attorney skillset. You arguments are poor because you move the goal posts to whatever you think favors you in order to distract from basic and obvious conclusions. And suggesting someone is influenced by the opinions of others is condescending and hilariously myopic, since chances are I am older and more well-read on a breadth (if perhaps not biology) than you are. You should learn to argue before doing so with such ferocity.
I don't care what the characters on the cards look like, where they come from, what their story might be, what demographic group they are designed to represent, or what their history might contain. I certainly don't identify with the characters on the cards, nor do I base any of my self-identity or self-worth on whether a card represents "me". The only things which matter about a card are what effects is may have based the zone it is in or whether I can use it in a particular deck. Clearly, I cannot be the only person with this viewpoint but perhaps if more people would adopt this point of view then conversations like the current one, which has completely derailed this thread, would not even exist.
*************
Benalish Knight--very useful in any x/white token strategy; could also be useful in a blue/white fliers decks in Standard. I am uncertain if there are enough knights for a tribal deck--haven't looked into it yet.
People do not owe it to anyone to re-examine their biases. I am allowed to feel the way the way I feel, and the way I feel is logical. Diversity being "more good than bad" raises the question: for who? For you to feel good about yourself? For the sliver of people who now feel not only represented, but over-represented? Not for the large swath of people who feel lectured about "admitting your biases" and "striving to improve ourselves through diversity." We do not want to, because we do not agree about what "good" is. And if you cannot appreciate that without saying "wow" as if it is an argument, you are an ideologue.
Part of my argument is that multicultural societies are not better than mono-ethnic societies. In real life and in building fictional worlds.
If I'm going to make a fictional world and I want it to feel like Africa, I'm going to populate that fictional world with people who appear African. The same goes for Asia-inspired worlds. And Oceania-themed worlds. And Meso-American worlds. It only seems like European-themed worlds get the forced diversity (not just in Magic, but in other media too). Wonder why that is?
Tiro of Meletis is spot on. So sick of this cringey forced diversity! Amonkhet had people of Middle Eastern and African appearance with no one (besides the Gatewatch) looking white and I was totally fine with it --it helps flesh out a world by building off of the real-world source material. Jamuraa is on Dominaria, fine, but keep the Jamuraans in Jamuraa and keep the Benalish in Benalia and keep the Otarians in Otaria. Mirage and Visions were awesome sets with mostly black people depicted in them. I loved the art from that era because it not only was more interesting to look at when compared to the blurry digitally altered crap they put out today, but all of the cards together created the feel of an Africa-inspired magical realm. One "different" character appearing amongst the "norm" every now and then is not the end of the world (ex. an Umezawa appearing in Dominaria), but this multi-culti b.s. Wizards is touting these days is gross. Forced diversity sucks. White people are great. Black people are great. Asian people are great. etc. etc. etc. No one is better than anyone else. But stop trying to mix them together! In the words of Muhammad Ali "Look at nature. Red birds stick with red birds. Blue birds stick with blue birds. Crows stick with crows." I'm not going to change my view on it.
Is your argument seriously "keep the races apart"? You get that Dominaria is inherently a multicultural plane, right? And that it is completely realistic to depict the plane's diversity in the cards for a set heralding the return to the plane?
Its not a remotely multi-cultured plane. It is a plane with various ethnicities in various places, concentrated. Its a salad, not a soup. There are no soups in reality, and none in Magic. Except maybe the Tolarian Academy, but that is like an Ivy League school.
White people are great. Black people are great. Asian people are great. etc. etc. etc. No one is better than anyone else. But stop trying to mix them together! In the words of Muhammad Ali "Look at nature. Red birds stick with red birds. Blue birds stick with blue birds. Crows stick with crows." I'm not going to change my view on it.
I find a couple things wrong with this:
a.) "Race" doesn't cause major problems with mixing in and of itself, but culture does. If blacks from Jamuraa decide to head to Benalia for reasons and end up being assimilated into the culture over the course of many years, then the difference ultimately ends up being only skin-deep.
b.) Crows stick with crows because they're the same species. Species differences are a far cry from human racial differences. I get what you're trying to say, but the comparison is flawed.
Instead of just liking or disliking the card for what it is and what it does, we're losing our minds because Wizards is apparently trying to play catch-up with representation.
All I know, is I'm going to put Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, in my UWR deck, because I dont care that he's a black dude.
And I would have preferred, if this guy, looked like some British/Arthurian Knight.
Secondly, I think if you have to that far on a limb to justify your complaints about depictions of diverse people, your issue is much larger than one card.
You could have said all of that without going here. This is why I never get involved in these arguments. “If you don’t think this way, well, you might be(in this case, racist)blank”. In my youth, I jammed to Diddy, Biggie and Snoop, I don’t recall ever saying “Boy, I wish these dudes were white, it would be so much better”, as I continued to act as if I was a real OG with my hat sideways and pants around my knees. They didn’t need to be white for me to take anything I could away from it. I’d argue the vast majority of players feel this way in terms of their representation in this game. I’d be willing to bet that nobody really thought about it until somebody brings it up to them.
My main point is, having a problem with this particular cards ethnicity does not a racist make. Judging somebody’s character based on their reaction to something like this? This is the real problem.
Sorry Ashiok, what you said makes no sense. The question is representations IN THE CARDS versus the population of the real world. We cannot say what the population of Benalia is.
You can't say what is proportion of white/blacks in Benalia, therefore you use the real world as proxy, which is exactly what I did.
You are dead wrong about dimorphism. The strength and athleticism gulf between human male and female is broader than, I would venture to say, most advanced mammals, including lions, whose dimorphism is famous.
Now you're drawing your line in mammals (for some arbitrary reason) when before you said 'in nature'. And you will say below that I'm the one moving the goalposts? Tsktsk. Anyway, even if you stop on mammals I would venture to say that... you're wrong. I'm not a specialist so I won't claim for certain, but bunchs of non-human primates have greater dimorphism than humans, such as gorillas, oranguntans and mandrills.
You can cite to your biologist credentials, and I will cite to my attorney skillset. You arguments are poor because you move the goal posts to whatever you think favors you in order to distract from basic and obvious conclusions. And suggesting someone is influenced by the opinions of others is condescending and hilariously myopic, since chances are I am older and more well-read on a breadth (if perhaps not biology) than you are. You should learn to argue before doing so with such ferocity.
You're just claiming here that I'm moving goalposts without pointing out where I did so, so I will just ignore that. I'm just venturing a guess regarding you being ingluenced by other since you quoted Jeremy in one of your posts, but I'm sure you could have come to these conclusions on your own. I'm just saying that you're basing them on an incorrect assessment of the facts. I already countered your points on the calculation of the proportion, on the migration probability and on the biological difference, so I don't see what in my argumentation is 'poor', unless 'poor' is code for 'destroys my point of view and therefore I don't like it'.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
Let's try to stay on-topic, guys. The discussion surrounding card demographics and the social implications and commentary therein detracts from actual mechanical discussion, which I imagine most people are coming to this thread for.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Oh the card? Card is awesome, but likely in that Ernham Djinn camp of great in a vacuum (amazing really) and would have been amazing 18 years ago, probably does not fit now. Especially since with Wizards printing rare dual lands constantly, paying WWW is probably harder than paying UWR.
Oh the card? Card is awesome, but likely in that Ernham Djinn camp of great in a vacuum (amazing really) and would have been amazing 18 years ago, probably does not fit now. Especially since with Wizards printing rare dual lands constantly, paying WWW is probably harder than paying UWR.
Not once the enemy checklands are available. Turn 1 either Irrigated Farmland or Scattered Groves allows for 5 different x/white checklands; this doesn't include plays such as Aether Hub into Servant of the Conduit (but you probably won't be playing this card with those...unless you are doing something weird).
This whole discussion is way too tiring for me to delve into, so I'm just going to cast my vote for it being completely ok that some knights are black. Like, I didn't actually think twice about it.
Spark Trooper is a soldier made out of electricity, but knights must be all white? That sounds like baloney to me. If this was something like half snake, half human, nobody would bat an eye. Make him black, suddenly we have a discussion. Why?
Edit: Sorry, saw the mod post just now.
Edit2: Wow, the post above mine. Smh
Forced diversity sucks. White people are great. Black people are great. Asian people are great. etc. etc. etc. No one is better than anyone else. But stop trying to mix them together!
As a biracial individual, statements like this make me feel unwelcome on MTGS. It's great that, even in my recreational pastimes, I get to encounter people who consider me some of sort affront to nature.
Sure glad to see racism is alive and well here this morning.
Pretty excited about this guy, honestly. He slots right into the strong knight tribal we have going on with History of Benalia, Knight of Grace, Knight of Malice and Legion Lieutenant (and all the vampire knights). I'm also pretty happy to see this in Brawl for my G/W tokens deck. In tribal formats, running this guy alongside other knight lords might be pretty good.
As far as his ethnicity? Jamuraa and Benalia have been stewing for hundreds of years, at this point it is plausible, nay, LIKELY that it would happen. I for one didn't even notice until reading this post. I'm actually pretty disappointed that's what people chose to focus on.
Yeah, I think it's shameful that some of these comments just received infractions for ignoring the Mod note, and not for being edicts of bile poison that have no place on an MTG forum dedicated to inclusivity. I have messaged the Mods individually.
As for the card: I guess I never realized that this is the first universal anthem effect on a creature*? I guess white is the color of universal anthem effects... I'm just hoping we end up seeing a little bit more color fixing in this set, at common, for the sake of draft purposes. Unless the intent of this set is that we see a lot of mono-colored decks in draft.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
No. Here you're simply doing a basic statistical error. The cards are just a SAMPLE of the whole population of Dominaria, which I'm assuming - for the sake of the argument - holds the same proportion of white/blacks than our real world. You can't just do the ratio of that sample, say that it is different from 15% (which is the actual number, not 12~13), and claim that it is not accurate. Don't you see that, by doing your way, almost all samples would end up different and therefore inaccurate? You have to see what is the chance of having the proportion that we see in the cards with an arbitrary chance of 15% of picking a black person.
If you don't understand that, I can explain it again in other terms. Three-hundred years have passed in a world where I'm sure there are plenty of magical means of transportation. If you assume that people just went ON FOOT at 5km/h walking 6 hours a day, they would cover 30 km in a day. Near 11,000 km in a year. Earth's circunference is 40,000 km. In just 4 years they could have reached the other continent. And I'm being fairly lenient with my numbers here. Even if you want to say that they made stops along the way you can't say that they wouldn't at least get there after a whole century had passed, let alone 3. As a biologist, I can confidently say this is utter horse*****. Human beings are VERY similar to each other across sexes, even if there exists general mean differences. Just as a reference point, the difference between male and female gorillas in bodyweight is about 50% while in humans it is only 15%, and I'm not even gonna get to invertebrates because there is some DRASTIC differences there.
I will stop here because it is no use to address multiple points, becomes tedious. You're being higly inaccurate about the things you're claiming that I know something about, so excuse me if I suspect your claims of things that I actually don't know something about, like the effects of diversity initiatives in comic books and the new pacific rim movie. My honest opinion is that you're looking for something to be outraged about, either because other people influenced you to think that way or because things are changing and people are often scared of change.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
Is your argument seriously "keep the races apart"? You get that Dominaria is inherently a multicultural plane, right? And that it is completely realistic to depict the plane's diversity in the cards for a set heralding the return to the plane?
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
You are dead wrong about dimorphism. The strength and athleticism gulf between human male and female is broader than, I would venture to say, most advanced mammals, including lions, whose dimorphism is famous.
You can cite to your biologist credentials, and I will cite to my attorney skillset. You arguments are poor because you move the goal posts to whatever you think favors you in order to distract from basic and obvious conclusions. And suggesting someone is influenced by the opinions of others is condescending and hilariously myopic, since chances are I am older and more well-read on a breadth (if perhaps not biology) than you are. You should learn to argue before doing so with such ferocity.
*************
Benalish Knight--very useful in any x/white token strategy; could also be useful in a blue/white fliers decks in Standard. I am uncertain if there are enough knights for a tribal deck--haven't looked into it yet.
If I'm going to make a fictional world and I want it to feel like Africa, I'm going to populate that fictional world with people who appear African. The same goes for Asia-inspired worlds. And Oceania-themed worlds. And Meso-American worlds. It only seems like European-themed worlds get the forced diversity (not just in Magic, but in other media too). Wonder why that is?
I find a couple things wrong with this:
a.) "Race" doesn't cause major problems with mixing in and of itself, but culture does. If blacks from Jamuraa decide to head to Benalia for reasons and end up being assimilated into the culture over the course of many years, then the difference ultimately ends up being only skin-deep.
b.) Crows stick with crows because they're the same species. Species differences are a far cry from human racial differences. I get what you're trying to say, but the comparison is flawed.
Instead of just liking or disliking the card for what it is and what it does, we're losing our minds because Wizards is apparently trying to play catch-up with representation.
And I would have preferred, if this guy, looked like some British/Arthurian Knight.
Thats it, thats all.
Spirits
You could have said all of that without going here. This is why I never get involved in these arguments. “If you don’t think this way, well, you might be(in this case, racist)blank”. In my youth, I jammed to Diddy, Biggie and Snoop, I don’t recall ever saying “Boy, I wish these dudes were white, it would be so much better”, as I continued to act as if I was a real OG with my hat sideways and pants around my knees. They didn’t need to be white for me to take anything I could away from it. I’d argue the vast majority of players feel this way in terms of their representation in this game. I’d be willing to bet that nobody really thought about it until somebody brings it up to them.
My main point is, having a problem with this particular cards ethnicity does not a racist make. Judging somebody’s character based on their reaction to something like this? This is the real problem.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Not once the enemy checklands are available. Turn 1 either Irrigated Farmland or Scattered Groves allows for 5 different x/white checklands; this doesn't include plays such as Aether Hub into Servant of the Conduit (but you probably won't be playing this card with those...unless you are doing something weird).
Spark Trooper is a soldier made out of electricity, but knights must be all white? That sounds like baloney to me. If this was something like half snake, half human, nobody would bat an eye. Make him black, suddenly we have a discussion. Why?
Edit: Sorry, saw the mod post just now.
Edit2: Wow, the post above mine. Smh
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
I honestly don't think that's much to ask for WWW.
Now... If we can have a Dark Ritual for W... Hahaha
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
Pretty excited about this guy, honestly. He slots right into the strong knight tribal we have going on with History of Benalia, Knight of Grace, Knight of Malice and Legion Lieutenant (and all the vampire knights). I'm also pretty happy to see this in Brawl for my G/W tokens deck. In tribal formats, running this guy alongside other knight lords might be pretty good.
As far as his ethnicity? Jamuraa and Benalia have been stewing for hundreds of years, at this point it is plausible, nay, LIKELY that it would happen. I for one didn't even notice until reading this post. I'm actually pretty disappointed that's what people chose to focus on.
As for the card: I guess I never realized that this is the first universal anthem effect on a creature*? I guess white is the color of universal anthem effects... I'm just hoping we end up seeing a little bit more color fixing in this set, at common, for the sake of draft purposes. Unless the intent of this set is that we see a lot of mono-colored decks in draft.
*Edit: For 3 mana
GWUBRDraft my Old Border Nostalgia Cube! and/or The Little Pauper Cube That Could!RBUWG
Modern:WDeath & TaxesW | RUGRUG DelverRUG