The woman in the field makes me think of the goddess Ceres from Greek myth, especially with the way her hair is obviously meant to mirror the grain growing behind her.
Just a quick point: Ceres is Roman; the Greek goddess 'equivalent' is Demeter... the god who Karametra is mainly based on. Again, points to Bant for that card.
The greek name of Ceres is Demetra. Useless info: "Karametra" is indeed a female word but it's male counterpart (with an "o" in the end) can be used to mock someone.
I kinda hope the creepy child is not a face-planeswalker. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for a planeswalker that is also a creepy bog child, but that art is so much more satisfying with a monocolored black frame. Helps the accents of color to be more prominent than a gold frame.
That said the lilypads are probably a nice texture to have behind the text box.
A quick mock-up confirms that both vertical illustrations work well cropped and the creepy child would look weird if not cropped at all, so maybe this is just artists laying out their art the way they want even if only a detail of the illustration is used as card art. Anyone remember the promotional art for the moxes?
Though the Agent of Faces certainly could be a planeswalker rather than some rare creature, it's certainly possible both ways.
They're more associated with Golgari, but spiders are also a common trickster figure, hence red. At least that's what I imagine it is.
I think it's more a matter of SPIDERS ARE ****ING SCARY. And red has been known to use fear as a weapon, so if this is a Jund Spider legend, it will very likely give your Spiders menace, haste, vigilance, and possibly a good 2 or 3 extra power to turn your army of creepy eight-legged blockers into a terrifying horde of eight-legged attackers.
Yeah, the "******* scary" part is more why they're black. (And that's a good point, too: Most of the antagonism between red keywords and reach is fixed by just including vigilance, but that keeps them out of monored.)
But I do still think a trickster archetype could be useful for "why spiders are red". A character like Iktomi or something. (Presumably more PG.) Especially since tricksters often fool themselves.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Fair enough but again the issue with Spiders is not the Commander its the other 30 to 40 odd creatures you need to fill out a Spider Tribal Deck. Even if you have some of those slots taken by mana dorks and Craterhoof.
I'm pretty sure the number of people anticipating past characters getting cards far outnumber those anticipating a second attempt at a legendary spider for spider tribal that has Red, to play one extra spider. What a narrow niche to fill. Every C18 thread has been filled to the brim with discussions of Serra, and possible Kamigawa themed cards. I can promise you a lot less people will be happy getting Spider with Red only to be told to pray for M20 to have the Kamigawa themed cards we've all been anticipating for 13 years.
Guys who the hell is talking about spider tribal? It's just a spider! No one ever confirmed spider tribal or something like that.
The mimeoplasm isn't ooze trival. Derevi isn't bird tribal. Roon isn't rhino tribal. This card won't be spider tribal. It will be a spider legend with a land-related ability. That's it. I really don't understand the hate for the creature type. Should it have been a beast? a human soldier? a elf wizard? a lhurgoyf?
And don't tell me about past characters. We are 99% sure that the jund deck will have Lord Windgrace, so it's 1 new legend and 1 old character. It's balanced.
About Serra, i agree that no Serra=fail... but why in the hell is the spider fault?
I don't know whether I trust your list's comprehensiveness after ignoring the new Elder Dragons.
I don't know where to put them honestly. Yes, they are dragon, yet the talk, go around and help humans doing stuff.
From a storyline perspective, i don't think they are comparable to Muldrotha, or Gishath, or this spider
Like I said, it's not hate for Spiders, or Spider tribal... it's the fact that this took up a Legendary slot for what could have been something in more demand, like a past character, or so other unattempted but requested Legendary. Frankly, I doubt anyone would care if we had more information and people saw what they've been wanting. But we got like 5 artworks, and one of them being something so niche was lame while we're out here waiting for Kamigawa and Serra.
I think you guys are forgetting about the color pie and the themes of the decks when it also comes to making new legends vs resurrecting or remaking old characters. You can't always have returning or old characters if they dont fit the colors and themes of the decks that are coming out... which is the first limiting factor I believe when designing this product.
I think you guys are forgetting about the color pie and the themes of the decks when it also comes to making new legends vs resurrecting or remaking old characters. You can't always have returning or old characters if they dont fit the colors and themes of the decks that are coming out... which is the first limiting factor I believe when designing this product.
That's why I wish they'd stop giving the decks such hard-set mechanical themes. Or just design character cards that don't necessarily fit the mechanical theme of the deck, but are within those colors. People end up mixing and matching cards to make their decks in Commander anyway. I think it's too self-limiting to be so strict about what can be in decks. We could have gotten a UR Artifacts Legend without the entire deck having to be about Artifacts, for example. Or even having to be UR at all... it could have been 5c Urza with a UR Artifacts Legend, for example. The only limitation I'd put on the decks is color, because that's a commander rule - being limited by the commander's color identity. Other than that, I'd go down the list each year and shell out a bunch of legends from past lore. Every set introduces more and more characters people want to see, so they really need to catch up faster than they have been. Placing limitations on "what fits" isn't helping, especially since people take Legends out of these products and add them to other decks anyway.
Really? Tell me how many non-humanoid tricolor legends they put in a standard set during the past years.
Muldrotha in Dominaria
Gishath and Zacama in Ixalan
and then... oh right, nothing until Alara. Frigging 2008.
They don't put random tricolor legend into sets. They have to either be a tricolored-themed set, or an important storyline figures. And spiders aren't important storyline figures.
Meanwhile, m19 showed us that they can print character from the past during standard sets.
So if you really want Kamigawa characters that badly, you can also hope that m20 will focus on Tamiyo's backstory.
Meanwhile sorry if people are trying to enjoy a commander that isn't into one of the top 20 most printed creature types
Commander is the place of unusual legends. Ghave (fungus shaman), Mimeplasm (ooze) and Karador (centaur spirit) are example of cards that would have been a storm-scale rate of 8 to be printed in standard.
*raises hand*
Umm Khans of Tarkir was a thing.
Also: There is NO actual indication that the spider is a legend. Quit getting angry about something you know nothing about.
Oh yeah, Khans of Tarkir, our other tricolored block! Let me see:
A human, a human, another human, a orc and... a naga.
Wow. Many beast, many non-humanoid or non-sentient creatures.
Wait, what are you sayng? There is also Fate Reforged legends, they count as tricolor? Let me see:
A human, a human, a human, a human and.... another human. WOW!
Khans of Tarkir block prove my point. They rarely do "animal" legends, especially tricolored ones
Those of you who claim to know what Magic players want or don’t want - without any hard evidence, research, or apparent fact-finding of any kind - could you please clue me in to some winning lottery numbers? Because personally, I’m at least as enamored with the idea of (another) legendary spider as I am some Old ‘Walkers, but I’m not part of the vocal minority so I must be wrong.
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
However, Wednesday Addams has a *lot* of blank space above her head,
and I suspect that could mean she isn't a PW.
I have checked the way these arts would/could be cropped for card art and both of these have an aspect-ratio-of-card-illustration-shaped section that fills out nicely. For the person with the masks, the masks themselves define a horizontal region that fits nicely in a card frame (both if used as planeswalker, and used as illustration that crops the bottom section entirely). For the creepy kid the butterlies actually do a great job allowing the kid to be positioned in such a way that the "empty space" above sells the "this is a small person" aspect that comes with being a child, while still filling out the frame with something to look at that avoids any real "visual vaccuum" (same as above: this works for planeswalker frame as well as normal card frame, but due to the color scheme looks far better in a monoblack frame than a gold frame). It's neat and both artists deserve credit for taking this into account (assuming the art is cropped like I did - and I don't see why it wouldn't be).
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
Eh its not like we don't get fringe characters for Commander Decks makes sense cause Commander Decks don't have timeline constraints and we did just return to Dominaria. I have to check but I think we usually get a few obscure Dominaria Characters in Commander.
That's why I wish they'd stop giving the decks such hard-set mechanical themes.
I do not get this comment. Seriously, I don't. While I will never deny that commander decks are one the few chances to get significant (whether mechanical or lore-wise) cards that don't need to pass through standard, they are decks first and foremost. They are designed to be played out of the box and having a random cards that don't work in the deck (such as shoving an artifact-matters legend into a deck without a critical mass of artifacts)... wouldn't work. Likewise, they are not 100-card (~60 minus lands) grab-bags of random goodies that happen to be okay together.
With that said, these decks often aren't as "strict" as they appear, including sub-themes that fit into the primary theme in a less direct way (such as the equipment theme in Cats or instant/sorcery cards in Wizards). As an example of what we might see here, the artifact matters deck may have a "storm" sub-theme with cards like Retract, Hurkyl's Recall, Paradoxical Outcome, Aetherflux Reservoir, Sentinel Tower, and Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain and we might see a new storm card (or storm-themed commander) with no direct relationship to artifacts.
If you disagree with what themes and colors were chosen, that makes sense to me. I can imagine someone wishing that the themes/colors of a deck were different so that Serra/Windgrace/Kamigawa Walker could sit at the helm. When someone suggests shoving dead cards into a deck just so they can get the single they are after while making the deck actively less consistent/effective, though... why bother having decks at that point?
I wonder if it could be theoretically be possible for the spider to be a planeswalker. It would be really scary to imagine a monster like this spanning its webs over several planes.
Man I would love this so much. I very much doubt it, since the art does not have the right format. Also, WotC seems to have a strong preference for humanoid or at least bipedal walkers, and they already have a big non-human walker villain with Nicol Bolas. However, I absolutely love the idea of a planeswalker spider spinning interplanar webs to catch some juicy little neowalkers. I hope we get to see some more non-humanoid walkers in the future.
Riku of Two Reflections - Copy, then copy again | Shattergang Brothers - Token Sac&Recur | Gahiji, Honored One - Multiple attack steps | Karametra, God of Harvests - Landfall, Creaturefall, Shroud | Ruhan of the Fomori - Stop hitting yourself | Zurgo Helmsmasher - Equipment&Wraths | Crosis, the Purger - Dragon Tribal Reanimator | Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - No stax, just tap and untap fun | Anafenza, the Foremost - Enduring Ideal Enchantress | Sharuum, the Hegemon - Sphinx Tribal Control | Noyan Dar - Spellslinger | The Mimeoplasm - Counterpalooza
Lists can be found here.
Still convinced the guy on Beseech the Queen is wearing a Mitra-type hat. Wake up sheeple!
That's why I wish they'd stop giving the decks such hard-set mechanical themes.
I do not get this comment. Seriously, I don't. While I will never deny that commander decks are one the few chances to get significant (whether mechanical or lore-wise) cards that don't need to pass through standard, they are decks first and foremost. They are designed to be played out of the box and having a random cards that don't work in the deck (such as shoving an artifact-matters legend into a deck without a critical mass of artifacts)... wouldn't work. Likewise, they are not 100-card (~60 minus lands) grab-bags of random goodies that happen to be okay together.
With that said, these decks often aren't as "strict" as they appear, including sub-themes that fit into the primary theme in a less direct way (such as the equipment theme in Cats or instant/sorcery cards in Wizards). As an example of what we might see here, the artifact matters deck may have a "storm" sub-theme with cards like Retract, Hurkyl's Recall, Paradoxical Outcome, Aetherflux Reservoir, Sentinel Tower, and Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain and we might see a new storm card (or storm-themed commander) with no direct relationship to artifacts.
If you disagree with what themes and colors were chosen, that makes sense to me. I can imagine someone wishing that the themes/colors of a deck were different so that Serra/Windgrace/Kamigawa Walker could sit at the helm. When someone suggests shoving dead cards into a deck just so they can get the single they are after while making the deck actively less consistent/effective, though... why bother having decks at that point?
Who said anything about dead cards? Explain to me, for example, this scenario:
Choryu, Minamo Hydromancer
1U
Legendary Creature - Human Wizard
U: Draw a card
UU: Tap target creature
UUU: Return target creature to its owner's hand.
How would having this as a creature in any deck that plays Blue, whether artifact, enchantment, or top-of-deck focused, derail the deck to the catastrophic point you suggest? How is it even dead? Decks play creatures. Drawing cards, tapping threats, etc. are all viable strategies in any deck. And yet it also happens to be a Kamigawa legendary getting a card from past lore at last.
But the prevailing design of these decks has been: "Chroyu wasn't explicitly artifact themed, or explicitly enchantment focused, or explicitly involved in top of the deck manipulation (although he could be), so we couldn't make the card for Kamigawa fans, sorry! Maybe next year's Commander product may have whatever ambiguous mechanical identity that suits this card instead of us designing an entirely new character to embody some random new mechanic we're limiting the deck design to!"
We had this issue with Ludevic, albeit approached from the opposite angle. They actually wanted to make the card for fans, no matter what, and ended up slapping on an inappropriate ability to force the card to mechanically suit the deck, rather than the lore. And again I question, why? We had Kraum, a zombie. We were in the colors of Skaabs. Sticher Geralf got it right in C14 in terms of the lore, making zombie tokens in a non-Zombie mono-Blue deck designed with a Teferi Planeswalker at the helm. Which had freaking Krakens in the 99. Why didn't they just design Ludevic to be Ludevic? Tack on a Zombie lord effect for the hell of it? Something? Why restrict so much. "Oh the deck needs a card with this effect." Says who? This is a casual format of big Timmy high mana blow-out effects. Stop designing them as if designing a set for Draft. Make an appropriate Ludevic card. Throw Chroyu into a deck with Blue.
O-Kagachi as a 6/6. Oh, we had Ur-Dragon as a 10/10, so O-Kagachi had to be smaller. Seriously? We're going to seriously be that uptight about being on curve by one card in COMMANDER?
And my other criticism is, we get new Legends every single set. I was so annoyed with last year, Runo Stormkirk ended up becoming "random nobody Grixis Legend because colors" for basically no reason. Let Commander be about finally getting the cards we can't get anywhere else, from past lore. And leave the new, random, nobodies for other sets. Where have we seen Inalla again? Who the hell is Kess? Kess's entire card could have been Runo Stormkirk (right down to powerful vampires having Flying on Innistrad) and made so many people happy, only to be a Random at the last minute for no reason. And why weren't more prominent Wizards from lore, like Choryu, in the Wizard deck last year?
That's why I wish they'd stop giving the decks such hard-set mechanical themes.
I do not get this comment. Seriously, I don't. While I will never deny that commander decks are one the few chances to get significant (whether mechanical or lore-wise) cards that don't need to pass through standard, they are decks first and foremost. They are designed to be played out of the box and having a random cards that don't work in the deck (such as shoving an artifact-matters legend into a deck without a critical mass of artifacts)... wouldn't work. Likewise, they are not 100-card (~60 minus lands) grab-bags of random goodies that happen to be okay together.
With that said, these decks often aren't as "strict" as they appear, including sub-themes that fit into the primary theme in a less direct way (such as the equipment theme in Cats or instant/sorcery cards in Wizards). As an example of what we might see here, the artifact matters deck may have a "storm" sub-theme with cards like Retract, Hurkyl's Recall, Paradoxical Outcome, Aetherflux Reservoir, Sentinel Tower, and Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain and we might see a new storm card (or storm-themed commander) with no direct relationship to artifacts.
If you disagree with what themes and colors were chosen, that makes sense to me. I can imagine someone wishing that the themes/colors of a deck were different so that Serra/Windgrace/Kamigawa Walker could sit at the helm. When someone suggests shoving dead cards into a deck just so they can get the single they are after while making the deck actively less consistent/effective, though... why bother having decks at that point?
Who said anything about dead cards? Explain to me, for example, this scenario:
Choryu, Minamo Hydromancer
1U
Legendary Creature - Human Wizard
U: Draw a card
UU: Tap target creature
UUU: Return target creature to its owner's hand.
How would having this as a creature in any deck that plays Blue, whether artifact, enchantment, or top-of-deck focused, derail the deck to the catastrophic point you suggest? How is it even dead? Decks play creatures. Drawing cards, tapping threats, etc. are all viable strategies in any deck. And yet it also happens to be a Kamigawa legendary getting a card from past lore at last.
But the prevailing design of these decks has been: "Chroyu wasn't explicitly artifact themed, or explicitly enchantment focused, or explicitly involved in top of the deck manipulation (although he could be), so we couldn't make the card for Kamigawa fans, sorry! Maybe next year's Commander product may have whatever ambiguous mechanical identity that suits this card instead of us designing an entirely new character to embody some random new mechanic we're limiting the deck design to!"
We had this issue with Ludevic, albeit approached from the opposite angle. They actually wanted to make the card for fans, no matter what, and ended up slapping on an inappropriate ability to force the card to mechanically suit the deck, rather than the lore. And again I question, why? We had Kraum, a zombie. We were in the colors of Skaabs. Sticher Geralf got it right in C14 in terms of the lore, making zombie tokens in a non-Zombie mono-Blue deck designed with a Teferi Planeswalker at the helm. Which had freaking Krakens in the 99. Why didn't they just design Ludevic to be Ludevic? Tack on a Zombie lord effect for the hell of it? Something? Why restrict so much. "Oh the deck needs a card with this effect." Says who? This is a casual format of big Timmy high mana blow-out effects. Stop designing them as if designing a set for Draft. Make an appropriate Ludevic card. Throw Chroyu into a deck with Blue.
O-Kagachi as a 6/6. Oh, we had Ur-Dragon as a 10/10, so O-Kagachi had to be smaller. Seriously? We're going to seriously be that uptight about being on curve by one card in COMMANDER?
And my other criticism is, we get new Legends every single set. I was so annoyed with last year, Runo Stormkirk ended up becoming "random nobody Grixis Legend because colors" for basically no reason. Let Commander be about finally getting the cards we can't get anywhere else, from past lore. And leave the new, random, nobodies for other sets. Where have we seen Inalla again? Who the hell is Kess? Kess's entire card could have been Runo Stormkirk (right down to powerful vampires having Flying on Innistrad) and made so many people happy, only to be a Random at the last minute for no reason. And why weren't more prominent Wizards from lore, like Choryu, in the Wizard deck last year?
They’re decks, not a set. Don’t hold your breath waiting for them to design them top-down.
Hey does anyone think we'll get another interesting command zone ability, like eminence from last year? If so, any ideas? One idea is that it could turn on after being cast from the command zone twice so it's not automatically online. I also think it would be cool if they did more partner cards.
I wonder if it could be theoretically be possible for the spider to be a planeswalker. It would be really scary to imagine a monster like this spanning its webs over several planes.
Man I would love this so much. I very much doubt it, since the art does not have the right format. Also, WotC seems to have a strong preference for humanoid or at least bipedal walkers, and they already have a big non-human walker villain with Nicol Bolas. However, I absolutely love the idea of a planeswalker spider spinning interplanar webs to catch some juicy little neowalkers. I hope we get to see some more non-humanoid walkers in the future.
They would more likely do a Drider planeswalker than a nonhumanoid Spider planeswalker. That way you have the obvious Spider theme while also having some humanoid traits convenient for storytelling purposes.
Hey does anyone think we'll get another interesting command zone ability, like eminence from last year? If so, any ideas? One idea is that it could turn on after being cast from the command zone twice so it's not automatically online. I also think it would be cool if they did more partner cards.
I'm all for more Partners. I'd like to think Will and Rowan Kenrith were plugs for Planeswalkers with Partner, but it's possible the two year rule may apply here.
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.
I wonder if it could be theoretically be possible for the spider to be a planeswalker. It would be really scary to imagine a monster like this spanning its webs over several planes.
Man I would love this so much. I very much doubt it, since the art does not have the right format. Also, WotC seems to have a strong preference for humanoid or at least bipedal walkers, and they already have a big non-human walker villain with Nicol Bolas. However, I absolutely love the idea of a planeswalker spider spinning interplanar webs to catch some juicy little neowalkers. I hope we get to see some more non-humanoid walkers in the future.
They would more likely do a Drider planeswalker than a nonhumanoid Spider planeswalker. That way you have the obvious Spider theme while also having some humanoid traits convenient for storytelling purposes.
Boy, I wish they'd do this, but I doubt they will.
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The greek name of Ceres is Demetra. Useless info: "Karametra" is indeed a female word but it's male counterpart (with an "o" in the end) can be used to mock someone.
Marath, Will of the Wild
Friendly Kess Twin Combo
Tatyova - Sir Bounce A Lot
Gonti's Luxury Pie
Prime (Eldrazi) Speaker Zegana (Retired)
Kinda looks like it, doesn't it. And Sorin standing behind him.
That said the lilypads are probably a nice texture to have behind the text box.
A quick mock-up confirms that both vertical illustrations work well cropped and the creepy child would look weird if not cropped at all, so maybe this is just artists laying out their art the way they want even if only a detail of the illustration is used as card art. Anyone remember the promotional art for the moxes?
Though the Agent of Faces certainly could be a planeswalker rather than some rare creature, it's certainly possible both ways.
Everyone who wears a hood is Jace. Everyone with white hair is Sorin. And Academy Journeymage is Narset.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
(W/U)(B/R)GForm of Progenitus, Shape of a Scrubland
BRGJund Tokens with Prossh, the Magic Dragon Foil
URGAnimar, the RUG CleanerFoil
RRRFeldon of the Third Path 2.0 Foil
BG(B/G)Not Another Meren DeckFoil
UR(U/R)Mizzix, Y Control and X Burn Spells
(W/U)(B/R)GHarold Ramos - The 35 Foot Long Twinkie (In +1/+1 counters)
UB(U/B)Dragonlord Silumgar
Yeah, the "******* scary" part is more why they're black. (And that's a good point, too: Most of the antagonism between red keywords and reach is fixed by just including vigilance, but that keeps them out of monored.)
But I do still think a trickster archetype could be useful for "why spiders are red". A character like Iktomi or something. (Presumably more PG.) Especially since tricksters often fool themselves.
On phasing:
|| 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 ||
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
|| 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 ||
*raises hand*
Umm Khans of Tarkir was a thing.
Also: There is NO actual indication that the spider is a legend. Quit getting angry about something you know nothing about.
So? Why is that a thing people care about?
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
the one with the ladie with the mask and the other with butterflys
i hate to tell you guys this but those could be the walkers
the arts are vertical next to always planswalker art is vertical and not horizontal
Others have pointed this out.
For mask lady I'd say there's a good chance you're right.
However, Wednesday Addams has a *lot* of blank space above her head,
and I suspect that could mean she isn't a PW.
Reprint Stasis!
Control needs more love.
EDH:
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm
WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW
WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
I have checked the way these arts would/could be cropped for card art and both of these have an aspect-ratio-of-card-illustration-shaped section that fills out nicely. For the person with the masks, the masks themselves define a horizontal region that fits nicely in a card frame (both if used as planeswalker, and used as illustration that crops the bottom section entirely). For the creepy kid the butterlies actually do a great job allowing the kid to be positioned in such a way that the "empty space" above sells the "this is a small person" aspect that comes with being a child, while still filling out the frame with something to look at that avoids any real "visual vaccuum" (same as above: this works for planeswalker frame as well as normal card frame, but due to the color scheme looks far better in a monoblack frame than a gold frame). It's neat and both artists deserve credit for taking this into account (assuming the art is cropped like I did - and I don't see why it wouldn't be).
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
I do not get this comment. Seriously, I don't. While I will never deny that commander decks are one the few chances to get significant (whether mechanical or lore-wise) cards that don't need to pass through standard, they are decks first and foremost. They are designed to be played out of the box and having a random cards that don't work in the deck (such as shoving an artifact-matters legend into a deck without a critical mass of artifacts)... wouldn't work. Likewise, they are not 100-card (~60 minus lands) grab-bags of random goodies that happen to be okay together.
With that said, these decks often aren't as "strict" as they appear, including sub-themes that fit into the primary theme in a less direct way (such as the equipment theme in Cats or instant/sorcery cards in Wizards). As an example of what we might see here, the artifact matters deck may have a "storm" sub-theme with cards like Retract, Hurkyl's Recall, Paradoxical Outcome, Aetherflux Reservoir, Sentinel Tower, and Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain and we might see a new storm card (or storm-themed commander) with no direct relationship to artifacts.
If you disagree with what themes and colors were chosen, that makes sense to me. I can imagine someone wishing that the themes/colors of a deck were different so that Serra/Windgrace/Kamigawa Walker could sit at the helm. When someone suggests shoving dead cards into a deck just so they can get the single they are after while making the deck actively less consistent/effective, though... why bother having decks at that point?
Tamanoa - Welcome to the Jungle
Lists can be found here.
Choryu, Minamo Hydromancer
1U
Legendary Creature - Human Wizard
U: Draw a card
UU: Tap target creature
UUU: Return target creature to its owner's hand.
How would having this as a creature in any deck that plays Blue, whether artifact, enchantment, or top-of-deck focused, derail the deck to the catastrophic point you suggest? How is it even dead? Decks play creatures. Drawing cards, tapping threats, etc. are all viable strategies in any deck. And yet it also happens to be a Kamigawa legendary getting a card from past lore at last.
But the prevailing design of these decks has been: "Chroyu wasn't explicitly artifact themed, or explicitly enchantment focused, or explicitly involved in top of the deck manipulation (although he could be), so we couldn't make the card for Kamigawa fans, sorry! Maybe next year's Commander product may have whatever ambiguous mechanical identity that suits this card instead of us designing an entirely new character to embody some random new mechanic we're limiting the deck design to!"
We had this issue with Ludevic, albeit approached from the opposite angle. They actually wanted to make the card for fans, no matter what, and ended up slapping on an inappropriate ability to force the card to mechanically suit the deck, rather than the lore. And again I question, why? We had Kraum, a zombie. We were in the colors of Skaabs. Sticher Geralf got it right in C14 in terms of the lore, making zombie tokens in a non-Zombie mono-Blue deck designed with a Teferi Planeswalker at the helm. Which had freaking Krakens in the 99. Why didn't they just design Ludevic to be Ludevic? Tack on a Zombie lord effect for the hell of it? Something? Why restrict so much. "Oh the deck needs a card with this effect." Says who? This is a casual format of big Timmy high mana blow-out effects. Stop designing them as if designing a set for Draft. Make an appropriate Ludevic card. Throw Chroyu into a deck with Blue.
O-Kagachi as a 6/6. Oh, we had Ur-Dragon as a 10/10, so O-Kagachi had to be smaller. Seriously? We're going to seriously be that uptight about being on curve by one card in COMMANDER?
And my other criticism is, we get new Legends every single set. I was so annoyed with last year, Runo Stormkirk ended up becoming "random nobody Grixis Legend because colors" for basically no reason. Let Commander be about finally getting the cards we can't get anywhere else, from past lore. And leave the new, random, nobodies for other sets. Where have we seen Inalla again? Who the hell is Kess? Kess's entire card could have been Runo Stormkirk (right down to powerful vampires having Flying on Innistrad) and made so many people happy, only to be a Random at the last minute for no reason. And why weren't more prominent Wizards from lore, like Choryu, in the Wizard deck last year?
|| 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 ||
They’re decks, not a set. Don’t hold your breath waiting for them to design them top-down.
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#BLM
#DefundThePolice
Inalla, Archmage Ritualist UBR
Whisper, Blood LiturgistB
Gishath, Sun's AvatarWRG
Jodah, Archmage EternalWUBRG
They would more likely do a Drider planeswalker than a nonhumanoid Spider planeswalker. That way you have the obvious Spider theme while also having some humanoid traits convenient for storytelling purposes.
I'm all for more Partners. I'd like to think Will and Rowan Kenrith were plugs for Planeswalkers with Partner, but it's possible the two year rule may apply here.
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.
Or maybe populate other planes with its children
Boy, I wish they'd do this, but I doubt they will.