So, with the latest M15 spoilers, there does seem to be some support for a wide tokens theme. An uncommon cycle of anthem lords (per colour), a few new tokens (including in blue), and a possible Raise the Alarm reprint. I'm happy with where our speculation is at currently.
There is a trademark for both Dragons of Khanar and Warlords of Khanar and we know that Sarkhan's homeworld is a plane torn with wars of some warlords where all the dragons were killed. I believe that indicates that Sarkhan will return next expansion.
Especially considering that his last form was in Zendikar block which is probably longest of all planeswalkers with multiple cards.
A wizzards employee gave a hint in this same thread. it is curious that he gives exactly the same information as maro one month before. maybe he is the guy filming .
- Speaking of wedges, this could be a wedge driven block. So first set has relatively more wedge color cards and only wedge golden cards. Second set, balances
this by focusing more on the next wedge. We have 5 enemy wedges, so this could go the first block of a dual-block BIG/SMALL/BIG - BIG/BIG
- Speaking of wedges, this could be a wedge driven block. So first set has relatively more wedge color cards and only wedge golden cards. Second set, balances
this by focusing more on the next wedge. We have 5 enemy wedges, so this could go the first block of a dual-block BIG/SMALL/BIG - BIG/BIG
- Speaking of wedges, this could be a wedge driven block. So first set has relatively more wedge color cards and only wedge golden cards. Second set, balances
this by focusing more on the next wedge. We have 5 enemy wedges, so this could go the first block of a dual-block BIG/SMALL/BIG - BIG/BIG
Mich: If they do anything like this, they'll just do hybrid mana. It creates a very monocolor-dragging format that both synthesizes well with Devotion in Theros and isn't multicolor in the least (beyond the obvious technical aspects).
It also explains the color contrasts on the art we've seen (though that's nothing indicative).
Believe me, no one wants a wedge block more than me, but it just isn't in the cards.
I'm not talking about multicolor cards. Just tri-color decks with cards that give off-color support. "White spell that does x and x+y if you control a swamp"; stuff like that...
That's still a multicolour theme, even if it were possible to do that without multicolour cards which seems a bit of a stretch at first blush. Another thing they learned around the time of Alara is that what they did in Shadowmoor was not sufficiently different from multicolour to make it stand out.
As I've pointed out in another thread, Wedges are not necessarily multi color cards, instead the decks they are in are multicolor. Go look at the Apocalypse cards. They're White, Blue, Black, Red, or Green. Dega is White that interacts with Red and Black, not White, Black, Red.
As I've pointed out in another thread, Wedges are not necessarily multi color cards, instead the decks they are in are multicolor. Go look at the Apocalypse cards. They're White, Blue, Black, Red, or Green. Dega is White that interacts with Red and Black, not White, Black, Red.
Citing the capstone of a multicolour-themed block is a really weird way of proving that wedges don't have to be multicolour cards, as is doing so in response to me rejecting the exact same argument albeit sans counter-productive citation, I guess you thought this would sway me? Look, they've done it before and they considered that a multicolour theme, clearly they could do it again and not consider it a multicolour theme, because that totally makes sense. I also get the sneaking suspicion that you're expecting me to believe that Rakavolver is not a multicolour card because it has a red frame instead of a gold one, which is just ridiculous and still wouldn't have anything to do with the theme that we're talking about even if it had any merit at all.
Well I don't consider a card of a given color with an optional secondary cost in another color to be a hybrid or multicolor. The card is the color in its mana cost or in the case of weird things like double faced cards the color they indicate. I agree that I can't change your mind if you're determined to be wrong.
Rakavolver is a red card. I can play it in a mono red deck without color fixing. Its a 2/2 for 3. To maximize its effectiveness i should add white and blue to my deck in which case its a 5/5 with flying and life link for 3 WUR. Or it could be used in Boros or Izzet to different degrees of utility.
Rakavolver is an extremely flexible red creature. It is still a red creature.
Apocalypse had multicolor cards. Rakavolver was not one of them. Goblin Legionnaire? That's a Boros card. Nice smooth transitions.
Giving me a white card with black and/or red options would be a good way to make Khans compatible with the multi color of the last block without itself being overly multi color and giving us effectively three multicolor blocks in a row. Then the next block can be more mono color like Scars was. Maybe it will be Zendikar related.
Well I don't consider a card of a given color with an optional secondary cost in another color to be a hybrid or multicolor. The card is the color in its mana cost or in the case of weird things like double faced cards the color they indicate. I agree that I can't change your mind if you're determined to be wrong.
Rakavolver is a red card. I can play it in a mono red deck without color fixing. Its a 2/2 for 3. To maximize its effectiveness i should add white and blue to my deck in which case its a 5/5 with flying and life link for 3 WUR. Or it could be used in Boros or Izzet to different degrees of utility.
Rakavolver is an extremely flexible red creature. It is still a red creature.
But Bogardan, the rules say it's monored! There is obviously no other metric here than the precise letter of the rules! WotC certainly views it as a monored card and definitely does not take off colour costs into account during design, I mean, why on earth would a game designer want to take into account the way game elements are played? Clearly they only care about the letter of the rules and nothing more.
Look at the enemy pairs in Born of the Gods. There is Kiora's Follower and four "monocoloured" cards with off colour activations. When asked WotC indicated that they considered this equal representation of those colour pairs. They clearly do not take the ridiculously narrow view of what constitutes multicolour as you do.
Besides, even if there was any merit to this pedantry I cannot fathom how you think "They could do a multicolour theme without multicolour cards!" in any way refutes "It is too early to do a multicolour theme".
Apocalypse had multicolor cards. Rakavolver was not one of them. Goblin Legionnaire? That's a Boros card. Nice smooth transitions.
So when you said "Go look at the Apocalypse cards" you meant "Go look at the Apocalypse cards except those that I'm ignoring for confirmation bias purposes"?
Giving me a white card with black and/or red options would be a good way to make Khans compatible with the multi color of the last block without itself being overly multi color and giving us effectively three multicolor blocks in a row. Then the next block can be more mono color like Scars was. Maybe it will be Zendikar related.
Wait, do you think I'm arguing that they couldn't possibly have a single gold card in Tarkir? Theros wasn't multicolour themed, Tarkir could easily (and I expect it to) have a similar level of multicolour (including those that you think "don't count" and somehow create a loophole where there's a wedge theme but there aren't any gold cards so it can't possibly be a multicolour theme, right?). Theros had colour pairs all throughout, partly to interact with Ravnica but I think more for the sake of limited (not the Gods, obviously, but the uncommon cards). I expect Tarkir to do something similar. If there are colour triads they will likely be evenly distributed across the colour wheel, not solely wedge focused. There will not be a wedge theme, and the ability to do cards that encompass wedge colours but are not gold doesn't change that in any way.
1. The new duel deck is called Speed Vs. Cunning, just as Heroes vs. Monsters gave us a direct prelude into Theros being a strong set towards Greek theme, this means that traditionally the Mongols were known for their horsemanship as well as their speed and treachery in politics. They used to battle with archers on horseback and were known for hit and run tactics. This means that we have to go back and step up a bit.
What supports "Speed and Cunning" inside of Theros?
2. What do we know about Mongolians as seen within the context of the ancient Greeks?
-Shamans, Warriors, and Soldiers were prevalent inside of the Mongolians
3. Theros had no dragons, therefore are there any connecting mechanics towards Dragons of Tarkir?
Look at the intersections between the current block's mythology and the next, such as the Grey Wolf myth. Why would Rosewater okay Raised by Wolves, if there's a grey wolf myth in turkic mythology?
Hate to burst your bubble on your third and final point, but Raised by Wolves is a reference to the myth about the creation of Rome, as the two founders, Remus and Romulus were supposedly abandoned as children and, well, raised by a pack of wolves. So it still fits relatively closely with the greek themes of the set.
By "Go look at the Apocalypse cards" I meant the Dega, Ceta, Necra, Raka, Ata cards. They are not multicolor and they predate hybrids.
Do they serve a similar role? Yes. Which is why I suggested they could use them again as a focus for Khans which would compliment existing multicolor strategies without making it yet another multicolor matters set. Obviously there will be some gold cards in Khans, there usually are some gold cards. It won't be Ravnica or Alara though. Its a given, it would be weird without them. It isn't too early for a multicolored theme, they could have a multicolored theme every block if they wanted. I certainly find it more interesting when there are more factions.
So basically what you're saying is that there won't be many or perhaps any cards which are WBR but there will be cards which are WB and BR or W with a B ability. I agree. That's probably more likely.
By "Go look at the Apocalypse cards" I meant the Dega, Ceta, Necra, Raka, Ata cards. They are not multicolor and they predate hybrids.
Do they serve a similar role? Yes. Which is why I suggested they could use them again as a focus for Khans which would compliment existing multicolor strategies without making it yet another multicolor matters set. Obviously there will be some gold cards in Khans, there usually are some gold cards. It won't be Ravnica or Alara though. Its a given, it would be weird without them. It isn't too early for a multicolored theme, they could have a multicolored theme every block if they wanted. I certainly find it more interesting when there are more factions.
So basically what you're saying is that there won't be many or perhaps any cards which are WBR but there will be cards which are WB and BR or W with a B ability. I agree. That's probably more likely.
What I'm saying is there won't be a multicolour theme. And now you're implying that any setting with factions is necessarily a multicolour theme? Nonsense. Innistrad had monster tribes covering two colours each, but that is not the same as a multicolour theme. A multicolour theme is not "Here's an interesting archetype you might build, and it happens to be spread across multiple colours". A multicolour theme is something like Alara or Ravnica where the point is the colours not the content. It certainly is too early for a multicolour theme, as they've explicitly said.
The idea for this block [Alara] came from a discussion I had with Bill Rose. Ravnica block had been four years after Invasion because we had figured out years earlier that four years was the minimal amount of time before we could revisit a block theme. One day, Bill calls me in his office and says, "What if we were wrong?"
"We know multicolor is by far the most popular block theme with the players. Shouldn't we test to see if we can bring it back sooner than four years? If we're wrong, well, we gave it a shot. If we're right, we've just made things a lot easier."
...
So how did our three-year return go? Not great. It turns out we were right about four years being the lower cap. We can go more than four years but Shards of Alara taught us we shouldn't go less.
I don't see how you can argue that Tarkir could have a multicolour theme in this light. It says outright that they couldn't do it until at least four years after the last one (Return to Ravnica) and it confirms that WotC considers Invasion, Alara, and the Ravnicas as multicolour themed blocks, not whatever strange definition of "multicolour theme" you're using. There's nothing ambiguous about it. Tarkir will not have a multicolour theme, it will most likely have some multicolour cards but they will be the minority (Theros block had, what, 60 out of almost 600 cards total in the block?) and will likely focus on pairs because that helps limited more. It will certainly not be "wedge driven" which is what I was originally responding to.
Obviously the focus is not going to be on the multicolors. The focus will probably be on mass combat with weenies and tokens and all that. However I still think wedge oriented factions are probable. There might be a keyword for Red, White, and Black cards the way Exalted is a thing for Green, White, and Blue cards. Then again they might not. The faction in the teaser clearly has Red, White, and Black going on and Sarkhan looks similar.
Obviously the focus is not going to be on the multicolors. The focus will probably be on mass combat with weenies and tokens and all that. However I still think wedge oriented factions are probable. There might be a keyword for Red, White, and Black cards the way Exalted is a thing for Green, White, and Blue cards. Then again they might not. The faction in the teaser clearly has Red, White, and Black going on and Sarkhan looks similar.
You throw words like "probably" around way too freely. Extrapolating the mechanical focus of a bottom up set from the flavour is extremely questionable. Citing Alara as an example of how they could unify a colour triad without making it the theme of the block is pretty similar to your earlier attempt to do the same with Apocalypse. Have I not impressed upon you how ridiculous that argument is? I mean, I understand what you're trying to say in the abstract but are you sure you couldn't find an example from a set that wasn't designed with the express intent of getting people to play three colours? I'm not sure if you think that actually proves that they would do such a thing or you weren't sure if I'd understand the concept of putting a mechanic in multiple colours and decided to helpfully illustrate this with an example. The "faction" in the teaser is clearly red, but I'm not seeing how it's "clearly" white or black. It has those colours in its pallet, and in the case of white in its livery, but neither of those things demonstrate what colour it will be in game. That art would work just fine on a mono-red card.
Honestly it depends on the art. Elspeth seems a strange example since that art does look very white, I guess she illustrates that because a colour is present in some irrelevant way in the pallet somewhere doesn't mean that's the card's colour (I kind of drifted out around Scars of Mirrodin, but I can just see the "She has patches of green on her outfit! She must be a green card!") which is relevant here but I still think that's a bit of a stretch to be acting as though the card alone demonstrates this broad concept.
What we have here is art with fire and orcs and what looks like a dragon so it's pretty red, and FirstAmongEvils is seeing what he wants to see which causes him to imagine that it's Dega (why not Raka? We may never know)
Elspeth seems a strange example since that art does look very white, I guess she illustrates that because a colour is present in some irrelevant way in the pallet somewhere doesn't mean that's the card's colour (I kind of drifted out around Scars of Mirrodin, but I can just see the "She has patches of green on her outfit! She must be a green card!") which is relevant here but I still think that's a bit of a stretch to be acting as though the card alone demonstrates this broad concept.
The first picture we got of Elspeth Tirel's art had a lot more green than the art that made it onto the card. An absurdly large portion of the MTGSalvation community took this to mean that she was absolutely definitely without a doubt W/G, and anyone who said otherwise was a blind idiot. It was pretty bad.
The first picture we got of Elspeth Tirel's art had a lot more green than the art that made it onto the card. An absurdly large portion of the MTGSalvation community took this to mean that she was absolutely definitely without a doubt W/G, and anyone who said otherwise was a blind idiot. It was pretty bad.
Which is exactly why, when the MTGS community is going crazy over the KTK picture and about how it's "Dega" without a doubt, I just chuckle.
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Old enough to know better, much too young to care.
The first picture we got of Elspeth Tirel's art had a lot more green than the art that made it onto the card. An absurdly large portion of the MTGSalvation community took this to mean that she was absolutely definitely without a doubt W/G, and anyone who said otherwise was a blind idiot. It was pretty bad.
Which is exactly why, when the MTGS community is going crazy over the KTK picture and about how it's "Dega" without a doubt, I just chuckle.
Well, let's be fair here. It's one guy, not "the MTGS community". I'm just cautious about the overzealous interpretation that says "This fire-breathing dragon-like thing is probably not red, because it is completely impossible to infer colour from art". It's certainly true that there are no black elements in that art and white is only in the banners and uniforms.
The first picture we got of Elspeth Tirel's art had a lot more green than the art that made it onto the card. An absurdly large portion of the MTGSalvation community took this to mean that she was absolutely definitely without a doubt W/G, and anyone who said otherwise was a blind idiot. It was pretty bad.
Which is exactly why, when the MTGS community is going crazy over the KTK picture and about how it's "Dega" without a doubt, I just chuckle.
Well, let's be fair here. It's one guy, not "the MTGS community". I'm just cautious about the overzealous interpretation that says "This fire-breathing dragon-like thing is probably not red, because it is completely impossible to infer colour from art". It's certainly true that there are no black elements in that art and white is only in the banners and uniforms.
I think they are taking from the fact that the flags are R/W/B.
The first picture we got of Elspeth Tirel's art had a lot more green than the art that made it onto the card. An absurdly large portion of the MTGSalvation community took this to mean that she was absolutely definitely without a doubt W/G, and anyone who said otherwise was a blind idiot. It was pretty bad.
Which is exactly why, when the MTGS community is going crazy over the KTK picture and about how it's "Dega" without a doubt, I just chuckle.
Well, let's be fair here. It's one guy, not "the MTGS community". I'm just cautious about the overzealous interpretation that says "This fire-breathing dragon-like thing is probably not red, because it is completely impossible to infer colour from art". It's certainly true that there are no black elements in that art and white is only in the banners and uniforms.
I think they are taking from the fact that the flags are R/W/B.
They aren't. They are red and white. There are no black flags. It's only wishful thinking that causes one to interpret that picture as Dega. Even if livery were an indication of the card's in-game colour, there's no black livery.
What I'm interested in is whether Siege Dragon implies that there are more walls coming (though Hellkite Tyrant came out in a virtual artifact-free block), and also that Jallax, Master Polymorphist demonstrates that despite maro's protestations (and the wording of curse of the swine) blue cards are still getting "destroy" effects. At least in this instance it's your own creature instead of the opponents.
The first picture we got of Elspeth Tirel's art had a lot more green than the art that made it onto the card. An absurdly large portion of the MTGSalvation community took this to mean that she was absolutely definitely without a doubt W/G, and anyone who said otherwise was a blind idiot. It was pretty bad.
Which is exactly why, when the MTGS community is going crazy over the KTK picture and about how it's "Dega" without a doubt, I just chuckle.
Well, let's be fair here. It's one guy, not "the MTGS community". I'm just cautious about the overzealous interpretation that says "This fire-breathing dragon-like thing is probably not red, because it is completely impossible to infer colour from art". It's certainly true that there are no black elements in that art and white is only in the banners and uniforms.
I think they are taking from the fact that the flags are R/W/B.
They aren't. They are red and white. There are no black flags. It's only wishful thinking that causes one to interpret that picture as Dega. Even if livery were an indication of the card's in-game colour, there's no black livery.
Evidently you haven't noticed the black flag right under the nose of the dragon, nor the one off to the very left. I'm not saying it's a wedge block (I personally think it's not, though I'd be ecstatic if it was (like my opinion of Kiora being in BotG, which I was adamant wasn't true until it was announced and now I love her to bits)), I'm just trying to help you understand why some people think it is.
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Was it Rincewind?
Why does everyone keep suggesting this? They aren't going to do multicolour themes less that four years apart. I love wedges too but be patient, RtR was just a year ago.
To be fair, Maro also said they are willing to break their rules: http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/86390407578/does-r-d-have-any-ballparks-or-hard-and-fast-rules
But I agree that it seems too soon for another multicoloured block.
The thing is this rule was already tested once with Alara, the result means they're far less likely to break it in the future than other rules.
And even so, two years is clearly way too short.
It also explains the color contrasts on the art we've seen (though that's nothing indicative).
Believe me, no one wants a wedge block more than me, but it just isn't in the cards.
That's still a multicolour theme, even if it were possible to do that without multicolour cards which seems a bit of a stretch at first blush. Another thing they learned around the time of Alara is that what they did in Shadowmoor was not sufficiently different from multicolour to make it stand out.
Citing the capstone of a multicolour-themed block is a really weird way of proving that wedges don't have to be multicolour cards, as is doing so in response to me rejecting the exact same argument albeit sans counter-productive citation, I guess you thought this would sway me? Look, they've done it before and they considered that a multicolour theme, clearly they could do it again and not consider it a multicolour theme, because that totally makes sense. I also get the sneaking suspicion that you're expecting me to believe that Rakavolver is not a multicolour card because it has a red frame instead of a gold one, which is just ridiculous and still wouldn't have anything to do with the theme that we're talking about even if it had any merit at all.
Rakavolver is a red card. I can play it in a mono red deck without color fixing. Its a 2/2 for 3. To maximize its effectiveness i should add white and blue to my deck in which case its a 5/5 with flying and life link for 3 WUR. Or it could be used in Boros or Izzet to different degrees of utility.
Rakavolver is an extremely flexible red creature. It is still a red creature.
Apocalypse had multicolor cards. Rakavolver was not one of them. Goblin Legionnaire? That's a Boros card. Nice smooth transitions.
Giving me a white card with black and/or red options would be a good way to make Khans compatible with the multi color of the last block without itself being overly multi color and giving us effectively three multicolor blocks in a row. Then the next block can be more mono color like Scars was. Maybe it will be Zendikar related.
But Bogardan, the rules say it's monored! There is obviously no other metric here than the precise letter of the rules! WotC certainly views it as a monored card and definitely does not take off colour costs into account during design, I mean, why on earth would a game designer want to take into account the way game elements are played? Clearly they only care about the letter of the rules and nothing more.
Look at the enemy pairs in Born of the Gods. There is Kiora's Follower and four "monocoloured" cards with off colour activations. When asked WotC indicated that they considered this equal representation of those colour pairs. They clearly do not take the ridiculously narrow view of what constitutes multicolour as you do.
Besides, even if there was any merit to this pedantry I cannot fathom how you think "They could do a multicolour theme without multicolour cards!" in any way refutes "It is too early to do a multicolour theme".
So when you said "Go look at the Apocalypse cards" you meant "Go look at the Apocalypse cards except those that I'm ignoring for confirmation bias purposes"?
Wait, do you think I'm arguing that they couldn't possibly have a single gold card in Tarkir? Theros wasn't multicolour themed, Tarkir could easily (and I expect it to) have a similar level of multicolour (including those that you think "don't count" and somehow create a loophole where there's a wedge theme but there aren't any gold cards so it can't possibly be a multicolour theme, right?). Theros had colour pairs all throughout, partly to interact with Ravnica but I think more for the sake of limited (not the Gods, obviously, but the uncommon cards). I expect Tarkir to do something similar. If there are colour triads they will likely be evenly distributed across the colour wheel, not solely wedge focused. There will not be a wedge theme, and the ability to do cards that encompass wedge colours but are not gold doesn't change that in any way.
Hate to burst your bubble on your third and final point, but Raised by Wolves is a reference to the myth about the creation of Rome, as the two founders, Remus and Romulus were supposedly abandoned as children and, well, raised by a pack of wolves. So it still fits relatively closely with the greek themes of the set.
Do they serve a similar role? Yes. Which is why I suggested they could use them again as a focus for Khans which would compliment existing multicolor strategies without making it yet another multicolor matters set. Obviously there will be some gold cards in Khans, there usually are some gold cards. It won't be Ravnica or Alara though. Its a given, it would be weird without them. It isn't too early for a multicolored theme, they could have a multicolored theme every block if they wanted. I certainly find it more interesting when there are more factions.
So basically what you're saying is that there won't be many or perhaps any cards which are WBR but there will be cards which are WB and BR or W with a B ability. I agree. That's probably more likely.
What I'm saying is there won't be a multicolour theme. And now you're implying that any setting with factions is necessarily a multicolour theme? Nonsense. Innistrad had monster tribes covering two colours each, but that is not the same as a multicolour theme. A multicolour theme is not "Here's an interesting archetype you might build, and it happens to be spread across multiple colours". A multicolour theme is something like Alara or Ravnica where the point is the colours not the content. It certainly is too early for a multicolour theme, as they've explicitly said.
I don't see how you can argue that Tarkir could have a multicolour theme in this light. It says outright that they couldn't do it until at least four years after the last one (Return to Ravnica) and it confirms that WotC considers Invasion, Alara, and the Ravnicas as multicolour themed blocks, not whatever strange definition of "multicolour theme" you're using. There's nothing ambiguous about it. Tarkir will not have a multicolour theme, it will most likely have some multicolour cards but they will be the minority (Theros block had, what, 60 out of almost 600 cards total in the block?) and will likely focus on pairs because that helps limited more. It will certainly not be "wedge driven" which is what I was originally responding to.
You throw words like "probably" around way too freely. Extrapolating the mechanical focus of a bottom up set from the flavour is extremely questionable. Citing Alara as an example of how they could unify a colour triad without making it the theme of the block is pretty similar to your earlier attempt to do the same with Apocalypse. Have I not impressed upon you how ridiculous that argument is? I mean, I understand what you're trying to say in the abstract but are you sure you couldn't find an example from a set that wasn't designed with the express intent of getting people to play three colours? I'm not sure if you think that actually proves that they would do such a thing or you weren't sure if I'd understand the concept of putting a mechanic in multiple colours and decided to helpfully illustrate this with an example. The "faction" in the teaser is clearly red, but I'm not seeing how it's "clearly" white or black. It has those colours in its pallet, and in the case of white in its livery, but neither of those things demonstrate what colour it will be in game. That art would work just fine on a mono-red card.
See: Elspeth Tirel
Honestly it depends on the art. Elspeth seems a strange example since that art does look very white, I guess she illustrates that because a colour is present in some irrelevant way in the pallet somewhere doesn't mean that's the card's colour (I kind of drifted out around Scars of Mirrodin, but I can just see the "She has patches of green on her outfit! She must be a green card!") which is relevant here but I still think that's a bit of a stretch to be acting as though the card alone demonstrates this broad concept.
What we have here is art with fire and orcs and what looks like a dragon so it's pretty red, and FirstAmongEvils is seeing what he wants to see which causes him to imagine that it's Dega (why not Raka? We may never know)
The first picture we got of Elspeth Tirel's art had a lot more green than the art that made it onto the card. An absurdly large portion of the MTGSalvation community took this to mean that she was absolutely definitely without a doubt W/G, and anyone who said otherwise was a blind idiot. It was pretty bad.
Well, let's be fair here. It's one guy, not "the MTGS community". I'm just cautious about the overzealous interpretation that says "This fire-breathing dragon-like thing is probably not red, because it is completely impossible to infer colour from art". It's certainly true that there are no black elements in that art and white is only in the banners and uniforms.
They aren't. They are red and white. There are no black flags. It's only wishful thinking that causes one to interpret that picture as Dega. Even if livery were an indication of the card's in-game colour, there's no black livery.