MTG Salvation

Quote from Flisch »

Quote from ThyLordQ »

It'd sort of be like putting creature type Goat Demon on a depiction of Satan.

I don't see anything inherently wrong with that. Just like how "Cerberus" was an entire group of multi-headed dogs on Theros, I could theoretically see a "race" of demons called Satans that have the creature type Goat Demon in some magic plane. Sure, it'd sound a bit silly to us but it's not problematic.

The Rakshasa of Tarkir are just based on the mythological ones, just like literally every single other creature in Magic. I absolutely don't understand how this change is necessary. And whether DnD does it or not doesn't matter. If it was done for real world cultural reasons then DnD faces the same issue. And if it doesn't, then why does Magic.

Also, the tribal thing continues to baffle me. When has "tribal" ever had a negative connotation? Savage I can understand but tribal???

There's kind of a big history of white western fantasy taking whatever the hell concepts it likes from nonwestern, nonwhite cultures and religions and just doing whatever the hell they want with it, basically just using the fact that it is a real religious/mythological thing to give it some kind of 'exotic' flair. But this can all get rather uncomfortable if you are from that background and don't get to see much representation of it, and then when you do it's just madeup fantasy creatures in a half remembered costume of it. Not to mention the problematic associations of nonwhite, nonwestern cultures happening to be portrayed as more mystical (and therefore it must be great to throw in their words), literally demonising spirits and deities (Baal is Canaanite deity, Astaroth is a Phoenician deity etc), lumping in all sorts of thing under the umbrella of western concepts, and the broader long history of using other culture's concepts as toys and props, misrepresenting and sometimes going out of their way to disrespect them.
Rakshasa as the DnD tiger demons stinks very much to me of a disrespectful attitude. Leaning on some version pulled out of thin air, with this very obvious Rakshasa=Indian India=Tigers element, plopped into western dominated fantasy lacking much of any real Hindu context that shapes their real meaning, showing a weird loyalty to continue to reinforce an existing popular inaccurate depiction. Just feels unmistakably orientalist tbh.
There's always subjectivity to this of course, but it's pretty easy I think to make a case for why it's not great and just not much of a reason to keep it this way.

Still annoys me a little that in mtg pterosaurs are dinosaurs (which they're not actually) while birds aren't (which they very much are). It makes sense for the game design, and it is all fantasy worlds, but still. Grrrrr common misconceptions.
Cool card though. Strong if it lives but still vulnerable to removal which is nice to see sometimes.

Complex and perhaps clunky but a good stab (pun intended) at a murder mystery mechanic. I like the idea of marking creatures secretly as guilty or innocent and the double sided counters is a good way of doing that I think. I do worry with all the moving pieces this has that it will be a bit of a hassle to play with and won't play out the way it's intended very often. I also worry the counters will be used often as combat tricks and if even they aren't actually used this way in any given game, the potential for it could be a headache whenever anyone conceals a crime to have to take it into consideration.

Quote from Dontrike »

Quote from DJK3654 »

I mean, the focus on Commander from WotC is them following people's interest. They are encouraging it along the way, but there is genuine popular support for it.

Don't get me wrong, Commander is popular and there are reasons for it, but them forcing every set to be Commander with obvious format plants in every single product is partly why formats aren't doing well, either due to power creep forcing it to be more expensive (thanks to those cards coming from premium sets), WotC constantly pointing them towards Commander, rather than Standard or other sets, or the lack of support for those sets (from the focus on Commander.)

Maybe that's me not enjoying there being 30+ legendaries in every set.

Mark Rosewater has said they are thinking of toning down the legendary count a little.

Quote from Evil Never Dies »

so when are the new spoilers coming now?

Eldraine's story starts August 8th. Preview 'debut' is August 15th when will start getting a bunch of cards. There might be a couple more cards seen before the debut.
Ixalan is releasing in November so story and debut will probably start in October.

Quote from Dontrike »

All decent cards. The "legend rule doesn't apply" feels tacked on and kind of useless on Gravemother, considering there's only 5 other legendary slivers and only one of them really benefits their being multiples. Now maybe there's another legendary sliver or two in this deck and that helps, but currently this just feels like a "this is nice, I guess," sort of ability.

It's there so it's own Encore ability works.

Hahaha. Incredible.
Fun how you tied it into the Convoke theme to make use of those wee little krakens.

See, this is where Universes Beyond annoys me. If they didn't do as much of it in such a shameless way I could get behind it more. Instead of doing occasional crossovers that feel special and carefully chosen, they feel more churned out and more of a cash grab. I also like the idea of a LotR set that they are doing here but it feels like first and foremost just another dart they're throwing at the board to try to pick up as many audiences as possible. Like, a crossover set is always going to be decided based on cashing in on the success of the other property over it being a labour of love, because capitalism, but it would be nice if it felt like they were trying a little harder with it.

Anyway, I do like the lands, it's a cool aesthetic choice to go with the world, I wonder what the other land arts will be like.
The One Ring is a flavourful and fun risk/reward card. Slightly surprised it doesn't have 'the ring tempts you' mechanic that was on the leaked frodo card.
Gandalf is interesting. The first two modes seem kinda weak given you can't spam them, third mode seems the easiest to get use of, fourth mode is a downside that I guess you can activate as a way to keep recurring him especially if he's about to die. Hmm.

Quote from user-11102155 »

Ob Nixilis Reignited is a 30 cent card. she is just a variation of him. yes, to the draw you get to proliferate, but unless it is a deck that uses this ability, it is just +1 loyality.

Unless you play the card in a deck that makes good use of its abilities it's not that good? Wow, it must terrible.

Quote from user-11102155 »

the minus 2 gives ur opponent mana instead of destroying it. yes it can handle indestructable, but thats nishe.

It also stops any death triggers. On the target itself or any board wide ones like Zulaport Cutthroat.

Quote from Max Rebo »

"We need to de-sexualize mtg art"
- print anime cards
??
(oh wait, Money!)

Anime is not inherently more sexual than western art styles and I have to question why you would imply that it is.

Quote from pierrebai »

Not sure what is the purpose of this. I know from experience that since casting is now optional, it mostly enable douche players from claiming you missed your trigger if you draw your card, since the time counters are removed during upkeep. That will be the one major difference it makes. Enable douches.

I'm not sure that's actually that big an issue-- casting the card is optional, but removing the counter is not, and the cast trigger doesn't happen until the counter is removed. As I understand it*, if you forget to remove the counter, the resolution should be to back up and do so, at which point you get the cast trigger. The only way to miss the trigger would be if you remembered to remove the counter, but forgot to cast. Which could happen, I suppose, if you had multiple suspend cards and/or a bunch of other upkeep triggers to manage, but shouldn't be common.

*: I'm fairly confident about this, but not 100%. If someone whose rules-fu is greater than mine knows otherwise, I am open to correction.

Quote from HighHolder »

The exactly 2 colours thing is dumb. Why not two or more? On the other 5c niv it made sense because it was still broken even with that restriction

Flavorwise: Because the guildpact cares about guilds, not Alara shards or Tarkir factions.
Mechanically: Because it offers a unique build-direction separate from five color goodstuff.
Gameplay: Because "number of different color pairs among permanents you control that are exactly two colors" is easy to define while setting a range of X between 0-10. Imagine the confusion and arguments if it said "number of different color pairs among permanents you control" - does this mean a white permanent and a red one count for Boros? Does a WBR card just count for just one pair or all three that can be formed with those colors? (WB/BR/WR) Specificity is our friend.

Quote from HighHolder »

The exactly 2 colours thing is dumb. Why not two or more? On the other 5c niv it made sense because it was still broken even with that restriction

Because the flavor is that he's the Living Guildpact, who interacts with each of the guilds that are exactly two colors?

Quote from migrena »

Quote from Flisch »

Quote from Ryperior74 »

Going a hair off subject

apparently some people may be jumping the gun on something

when They said changing “totem armor” to “umbra armor” did it involve removing/stop using the word “Totem” from cards names as well

apparently People think cursed totem is in a way being added to the persudo reserve list because the of the word “totem” in the card.

I mean, that's the logical conclusion, yes.

nothing is stopping them from reprinting the same catd with different name since the original is not on rl in the first place. but i do not exactly follow the logic of why change affecting totem in totem armor would have any effect on totem in cursed totem. are they saying that the whole word has some unwanted conotations? if so why it does not the same treatmen as crusade?

Hey I can answer this one. The word "totem" is an anglicized form of the Ojibwe word referring specifically to their belief in a sacred object/spirit that represents a specific tribe or lineage or so on. It's sort of a word that both means clan, and also the symbols of that clan, as they are basically one and the same. A totem pole is a physical representation thereof.

Early anthropologists (the super duper racist ones) flipped their lid about this ("Look! They have Heralds just like us normal humans!") and decided to use the phrase to describe a whole lot of broadly similar practices all around the world under the term "totemism." A good century of internal and external criticisms (the associations are flimsy and several generations of anthropologists have been complaining, plus other indigenous peoples objected to a word from a tribe halfway around the world being used to describe their beliefs. The Ojibwe aren't super stoked about it either.) has lead to a declining use of the term.

Just in general like a lot of these big broad words we use for generalized indigenous concepts are done in a way that flattens cultural distinctions. You say, "hey you here yanomami snuffing yakoana, you are the same as these here !Kung chewing a psychotropic root and running through a fire." Which, like, sure on a surface level is fine but referring to both of them as shaman (a Russian word originally used for Siberian indigenous healers) and referring to their beliefs as "shamanism" as a third party is what they call these days linguistic colonialism. The colonizing part really comes in when you start noticing that despite the traditions in, for instance, pentecostalism or catholicism being virtually the same (entheogens have always been a huge part of catholicism, for instance) those practices are considered "religious" and not "shamanic." We take for granted that our shamanism is a real and valid thing and the silly little practices of those barbaric savages is "the beginnings of civilized thought."

It's, uh, no mistake that all of these terms were invented in like British Empire/ French colonialism days.

The emphasis is on it being a little bit easier to use as a one-off. There's still all the problems you've mentioned.

https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/733388825429213184/1-props-on-kindred-its-a-really-good#notes

It's explicitly mentioned in this article, and MaRo has talked about it on Twitter and his Tumblr.

They also don't use Tribe in VtM. They use Clan. Even then, I'd be iffy about using VtM as an example. The newer books are much much better, but the original is from 1991, and it's horrifying how much bigotry is in that book that was old even for the time. I love VtM, but it's far from flawless.

Here's an article from the SPLC from 2001 talking about the trouble with Tribe.

EDIT: And I want to stress, this isn't a "You're racist for using tribe!" type situation. It's a "This language isn't as useful as it could be." type situation.

Quote from pierrebai »

Quote from ThyLordQ »

Tribal as a term to collect every single creature of a type is sort of like saying "Well, they're both in the EU, so the people of France and Italy are the same."

Yes,, they're both Europeans. They must be all mad being Europeans like that!

I sure hope they don't start any wars over all that.

Quote from Caranthir »

Or this kind person telling the "Latinx" (whatever that is), despite "not being one of them" why and how they shall be angry because of their "moment" being spoiled by "another big White dominated pop culture thing

Is Latinx just a way of saying "Latino or Latina or Latin-other?" To include all three in the same group. Traditionally you'd say Latinos to refer to everyone in the group, and that works, but some might reasonably accuse it of being sexist. Shrug

I agree that D&D rakshasa are different from the magic ones, and even though they are indeed shapeshifters, their true form is as a cat-humanoid. The Tarkir ones can really be anything they want them to be.

I think the reason "Tribal" is a problem is a little more sinister than you guys describe. People speak of tribalism and culturalism as a reason for why racism is perpetuated and why different cultures don't integrate well into the American system. It's a good discourse to have because we need people to come together and stop hurting each other, but not everyone is ready to talk about it, and certainly not during a preferably politically agnostic/neutral game of magic.

On nagas becoming snakes- They probably should have been. It would be nice to see Viashinos become lizards. Maybe some zombies and vampires that are clearly human can become Human Zombies/Vampires since we have Elf Zombie/Vampires, Cat Zombie/Vampires, etc. Just more consistency would be great.

Quote from Simto »

Quote from Grixh »

Quote from Djau the Jackal »

I mean, the same thing happens in return with Western religious beliefs and mythology. I don't think its strictly just a Western thing. I'd argue that the presence of Angels in Ixalan recently was equally offensive if we take a similar approach. Aztecs don't have claim to Judeo-Christian mythology.

After their forcible conversion to Christianity, I think they have plenty of claim.

I'd rather have an angel forced on to me than having my throat slit by some shaman dude because it's the chieftain's birthday

You know the direct sources we have for the idea that the savages of the aztec empire were barbaric and bloodthirsty animals were the spainards invading them? And a lot of that was informed by the relationships of convenience that the spainish formed with rival political groups who were lobbying to get the spanish to displace the mexica bc they thought they could ride the wave to the top. They would tell the spanish these awful stories about how mean the mexica were bc frankly the mexica were still pretty fresh off a lil conquering war and had many dissidents. Google Tlaxcaltec sometime.

It's like when you get into the stories about indigenous cannibalism and you find out that there was no actual evidence of cannibalism, just hearsay from various tribes who would be like "yeah we're cool and we don't eat people, but those dudes over that ridge eat babies." Like at best you had some weird ritual stuff done with the heart of yer slain enemies whomst you were killing for non-food reasons but now you have something like 70 years of american cultural shorthand that the natives are gonna shrink your head and eat you or whatever.

Also someone upthread said all the aztecs are dead. Emphatically not true.