The playmat artwork for Garruk looks like it wouldn't translate well to the back of a sleeve. He's shrouded in mist and subdued. Maybe they figured the close up would look better for the smaller products, and only used his real art for the playmat?
Garruk is the face of this set, and even with the giant pre-release version of him, it's pretty clear that he's going to be in the set, just like Chandra was in the last one. The going theory I see floating around is that he'll be GB because of the chain veil, but what if it's something differnt entirely?
Today we saw some ultrapro products with walker art on it:
There's six walkers pictured (just like there were six dolls), and we all but know the colors of all of them. Core sets usually don't have multicolor cards (with Bolas being the exception), so while there's precedent for Garruk to be GB in the core set, and in his past cards, I'd have to think that Wizards wouldn't make him multicolored if they could help it. So here's where my theory comes in. What if the chain veil, instead of infusing him with black mana, is just draining all of the color out of him entirely? He isn't acting particularly selfish or trying to get power, the traits normally associated with black. In fact, the only black parts of his portrayal are 1, the curse being done by a black artifact (which probably won't actually be black in the card), 2, the purple smoke around him, and 3, he's killing people, which is bad, and black is usually the bad guys. In the DotP trailer, everything behind him loses it's color dies, which is how post Eldrazi Zendikar is portrayed in the Ravinica ebooks. It would make perfect sense flavorfully if they decided to go this route.
Next, knowing the roster of planeswalkers, there's a striking connection between them and the Soul cycle. Each color's soul is themed around the world that the color's planeswalker was last seen:
Theres one more Soul and one more Planeswalker. We know the Soul (Soul of New Phyrexia) is colorless. Perhaps the planeswalker is too? The obvious problem is that Garruk has no connection to NP, but they can't have two Innistrads, and the only colorless plane would have to be either New Phyrexia or Zendikar post-Eldrazi, but they already used it for green. It's a neat way to complete the cycle without using multicolor cards or Karn, the obvious planeswalker to pair with New Phyrexia.
Having Garruk be colorless also sets them up pretty well for the future. Wizards is eventually going to have to deal with the Eldrazi, and the first time they did it, they used Sorin, a lithomancer, and Ugrin, a colorless-but-not-artifact walker. They still have Sorin, and they're close to a lithomancer with Koth, so maybe they can finally complete the group needed to seal them away with a colorless-but-not-artifact Garruk. I always assumed Karn would be close enough to use colorless magic, but this would be even better.
Quite frankly, the story would work either way. The chain veil did make him black before, but that could have been his reaction to the fact that he was cursed, and not the curse itself. Back then he was trying to fix it. Now it seems like he cares about nothing. He's a monster now. Also, the card In Garruk's Wake has been spoiled to be black, which also points to him being GB, but you wouldn't expect every single spell he's attached to to be colorless. That wouldn't fit into a core set well. Another issue is that UR has an artifact theme in this set, which means that two colors that Garruk has no connection two will care the most about the colorless cards in the set.
The playmat for Garruk, which has a good picture of the art for In Garruk's Wake, also looks like it would work either way. It's art for a black card, but the art itself is very subdued, and there isn't a lot of color to it. It's another one of those things that would work pretty well either way.
In the end, there's some evidence to support this idea that Garruk has lost all color, and very little (most of which being easily explainable) that would go against it. I could see it going either way, but it would be a really cool thing, if that's what they are hinting at, and I haven't seen anyone else mention the possibility.
Today we saw some ultrapro products with walker art on it:
There's six walkers pictured (just like there were six dolls), and we all but know the colors of all of them. Core sets usually don't have multicolor cards (with Bolas being the exception), so while there's precedent for Garruk to be GB in the core set, and in his past cards, I'd have to think that Wizards wouldn't make him multicolored if they could help it. So here's where my theory comes in. What if the chain veil, instead of infusing him with black mana, is just draining all of the color out of him entirely? He isn't acting particularly selfish or trying to get power, the traits normally associated with black. In fact, the only black parts of his portrayal are 1, the curse being done by a black artifact (which probably won't actually be black in the card), 2, the purple smoke around him, and 3, he's killing people, which is bad, and black is usually the bad guys. In the DotP trailer, everything behind him loses it's color dies, which is how post Eldrazi Zendikar is portrayed in the Ravinica ebooks. It would make perfect sense flavorfully if they decided to go this route.
Next, knowing the roster of planeswalkers, there's a striking connection between them and the Soul cycle. Each color's soul is themed around the world that the color's planeswalker was last seen:
Soul of Ravnica and Jace
Soul of Theros and Ajani
Soul of Innistrad and Lilliana
Soul of Zendikar and Nissa
Soul of Shandalar and Chandra (IE the core set based in Shandalar that she was the face of).
Theres one more Soul and one more Planeswalker. We know the Soul (Soul of New Phyrexia) is colorless. Perhaps the planeswalker is too? The obvious problem is that Garruk has no connection to NP, but they can't have two Innistrads, and the only colorless plane would have to be either New Phyrexia or Zendikar post-Eldrazi, but they already used it for green. It's a neat way to complete the cycle without using multicolor cards or Karn, the obvious planeswalker to pair with New Phyrexia.
Having Garruk be colorless also sets them up pretty well for the future. Wizards is eventually going to have to deal with the Eldrazi, and the first time they did it, they used Sorin, a lithomancer, and Ugrin, a colorless-but-not-artifact walker. They still have Sorin, and they're close to a lithomancer with Koth, so maybe they can finally complete the group needed to seal them away with a colorless-but-not-artifact Garruk. I always assumed Karn would be close enough to use colorless magic, but this would be even better.
Quite frankly, the story would work either way. The chain veil did make him black before, but that could have been his reaction to the fact that he was cursed, and not the curse itself. Back then he was trying to fix it. Now it seems like he cares about nothing. He's a monster now. Also, the card In Garruk's Wake has been spoiled to be black, which also points to him being GB, but you wouldn't expect every single spell he's attached to to be colorless. That wouldn't fit into a core set well. Another issue is that UR has an artifact theme in this set, which means that two colors that Garruk has no connection two will care the most about the colorless cards in the set.
The playmat for Garruk, which has a good picture of the art for In Garruk's Wake, also looks like it would work either way. It's art for a black card, but the art itself is very subdued, and there isn't a lot of color to it. It's another one of those things that would work pretty well either way.
In the end, there's some evidence to support this idea that Garruk has lost all color, and very little (most of which being easily explainable) that would go against it. I could see it going either way, but it would be a really cool thing, if that's what they are hinting at, and I haven't seen anyone else mention the possibility.