I do agree that the choice of colors for the Abzan clothes is rather lacking. They're supposed to invoke Ottoman clothes but they could be white like they originally were in order to come across as less garish.
It's kinda nice for the side stories to get references in the cards (although the Seize Opportunity flavour text is a bit too on the nose, IMO), but what's disconcerting are the clear discrepancies between the side stories and the cards, almost as if the cards are themselves AU(!) a la Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca (Kumena never came close to ruling Orazca despite reaching it).
The discrepancies on Cruel Truths (Nishang and Sidisi never met in the Sultai side story, at least to the point that Sidisi can justifiably discipline Nishang; in order for both the card and the story to be true, Nishang needs to survive getting stabbed by Dauna and then get thrown back and exiled) and Strategic Betrayal (the card fails to even imply that those Mehtma pointed her weapons at betrayed the Abzan first) are bad enough, but the discrepancies on Krumar Initiate are awful (at least assuming the card's Cemal of House Emesh and the story's Cemil of House Fenzala are intended to be the same person). Cruel Truths and Krumar Initiate have big enough discrepancies with the side stories combined that I'm thinking story Creative and flavour text writers only collaborated so far in the past that the stories got rewritten since they last made contact.
I do think it is cool that they are focusing on the central color of the wedge this time to guide the clan identities than in the original Tarkir set where they focused on just the first color, which was a design mistake imo. So it makes sense for things like the Abzan getting more ambitious since Black is its core wedge color as opposed to being the White focused clan like in OG Tarkir. Same for the shift with Temur to Blue and Sultai to Green, those are their core wedge colors and we are seeing the clans embrace them both in the stories and in card designs. This is why the Temur land is the one with a Blue land with an uncounterable ability and the Sultai get a Green land that Scries. It is nice to see the Wedges get this update, we saw a little bit of it in Ikoria when Creative refocused the Wedges. I feel this time will be even better for solidifying Wedge identities similar to the Shards.
Not sure that's the case to be honest. The Abzan feel very green-white + white-black. The Temur are very red-green + green-blue and the Mardu finally feel like white is part of their identity, but not the dominating part of it.
Sultai is really the odd one here, probably as a result of their 180° turn. They're pretty much black-green now with no real indication of blue. (And their patron dragon is white??? Caring about virtues and passing judgement???)
The Jeskai are also a tad odd as their central goal for Tarkir is to find unity, which is a very white concept.
It's kinda nice for the side stories to get references in the cards (although the Seize Opportunity flavour text is a bit too on the nose, IMO), but what's disconcerting are the clear discrepancies between the side stories and the cards, almost as if the cards are themselves AU(!) a la Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca (Kumena never came close to ruling Orazca despite reaching it).
The discrepancies on Cruel Truths (Nishang and Sidisi never met in the Sultai side story, at least to the point that Sidisi can justifiably discipline Nishang; in order for both the card and the story to be true, Nishang needs to survive getting stabbed by Dauna and then get thrown back and exiled) and Strategic Betrayal (the card fails to even imply that those Mehtma pointed her weapons at betrayed the Abzan first) are bad enough, but the discrepancies on Krumar Initiate are awful (at least assuming the card's Cemal of House Emesh and the story's Cemil of House Fenzala are intended to be the same person). Cruel Truths and Krumar Initiate have big enough discrepancies with the side stories combined that I'm thinking story Creative and flavour text writers only collaborated so far in the past that the stories got rewritten since they last made contact.
Wizards considers retcons and loose canonicity a good thing. Like Maro explicitly said so on multiple occasions.
Also not a fan of the Sultai doing kinda the same thing as Amonkhet now does with the whole "revered dead". Why do the same thing back to back? Also using "slave" sibsig would have still worked with the new Sultai ideology if the mind of the dead person isn't brought back. Basically you let the soul rest and only use the body as it's just a tool and nothing more. Would also nicely contrast the Sultai use of necromancy with that of the Abzan and further highlight their lack of emotional attachment to dead bodies (since they're lacking red and white, see).
The zombie stuff was one of the things people of South East Asian cultures felt was problematic and something that has been talk on zombies in general. A lot of modern zombie stuff is rooted in dehumanizing and enslaving people and it gets messy when you mix that into cultures that have suffered from dehumanizing.
For Sultai, it was the fact naga in the khans timeline ruled the clan and in the dragons in this timeline so for how the representation felt as a human you where either enslaved and dehumanized (even more so as zomibes where used as objects and such) as undead under non-humans control or played into yellow peril stereotypes if alive. Thats also why a lot of the undead art in arena was changed to not have them so dehumanized, more zombie hoard vs zombie fruit bowl head. So the switch to "revered dead" likely is a way for them to keep the zombies while avoiding some of the negative tropes.
There is a bit more too it but I can't find the podcast (iirc TheAsianAvenger was part of it) that had an episode featuring people from asian cultures talking on the goods and bads of Tarkir that explained it a bit better.
I do think it is cool that they are focusing on the central color of the wedge this time to guide the clan identities than in the original Tarkir set where they focused on just the first color, which was a design mistake imo.
That was due to wanting the time travel block drafting format. They came up with the time travel idea which had the first set being wedge colored and the last set being two colors. Originally they wanted it to be enemy colors but found the sets drafted too similar (since with wedges sets typically have people focus on the enemy pairs) so they switched the traditional center color of the wedges so that when it went into ally colors the focus colors would remain the same.
No it is. They said during weekly mtg after the debut stream that while the clans central color is the same, cardwise they will be getting more cards in the color and flavorful will focus more on the color they regained:
Mardu is more focused on its military unity and building community
Temur is more focused on their spell casting and the "time" elementalism
Abzan is more focused on the spirit necromancy and political scheming
Jeskai are more focused on being pro-active and living in the moment.
Sultai are more focused on the natural life cycles.
Sultai is really the odd one here, probably as a result of their 180° turn. They're pretty much black-green now with no real indication of blue. (And their patron dragon is white??? Caring about virtues and passing judgement???)
The blue comes from them using spies and information networks as well as using ambushes and other "blue" combat techniques. You can also see some blue in honored dead being brought back and valued in part for their minds and knowledge.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
What is weird is the complete lack of eftreeti in the new Tarkir. Like yeah, the creature types were merged but even creatively all the djinni we see in the art are the "blue aligned" djinni.
What is weird is the complete lack of eftreeti in the new Tarkir. Like yeah, the creature types were merged but even creatively all the djinni we see in the art are the "blue aligned" djinni.
Yeah, that is a bit strange - they have more representation in Modern Horizons 3 (thanks, Pinnacle Monk) than in Tarkir: Dragonstorm.
There's also a surprising complete lack of Alniul, Twice Whisperer (he better appear in an Alchemy card, only way I can forgive Wizards here) and Shaman cards in this set. Even given MaRo's news that they're dropping Shaman's popularity as a creature type, Tarkir is one of the best planes to still retain Shamans, as some Siberian tribes still perform shamanistic rituals and the Temur seem clearly based on Siberian and Northern Mongolian tribes (the Mardu are based on more Southern Mongolian populations).
Zurgo actually learned something from his time banding up with Ojutai - the power of organizing his fellow army - he used this soon afterward to get his people out of "perpetual battles" by becoming a rebel leader, then khan - this version of Zurgo is more willing to collaborate with other clans (to reinforce his own)
That was indeed a non-mind-controlled Taigam aiding Sarkhan(!) - the two "share a common goal" to bring the dragons back to collectively ruling over others
Felothar is trans - back during the Phyrexian invasion, Felothar pushed back the invaders with ancestral spirits and got branded a necromantic traitor as a result - Felothar is "known for only making promises she can keep" and gets snippy when wronged
Betor's personal pronoun is "we" and, unlike Shiko, gender or lack thereof is not known
Hamza was adopted as Krumar into House Fenzala and later joined the Yathan
Shiko "is the embodiment of the Way" and stems from the passion of those "fed up with the stagnation of [Ojutai's] rule"
Will show up in Alchemy: Hamza, Lam the human monk, Xho Cai the Aven
Kotis started off as a farmer from Kishla who directed Kishla to independence when the Silumgar brood got too greedy; he has a strong sense of justice and desires prosperity for all, as opposed to the decadence of the Silumgar brood
Among other things, Teval represents the new Sultai desire for "restraints on authority"
Sidisi colludes with rakshasa to this day
Tersa Lightshatter is one of Zurgo's younger cousins; she got her war name from reflecting one of Kolaghan's thunderbolts during the rebellion - she is also responsible for creating the Lightning Proving
Eshki has a wife (is she lesbian, bi, or just politically has a wife?)
Ureni's blurb notably has a grammatical error ("Even under Atarka's rule. the spirits of the land were never silenced.")
Surrak sided with Atarka during the rebellion
There may or may not be an Alniul card in Alchemy; his lack of Alchemy art in the Legends article is explicit
Still find the Ojutai/Zurgo "team up" absolutely and suspension of disbelieve breaking ridiculous. Saying that as someone who usually doesn't find it difficult to find in-universe explanations for alleged plotholes. How did Zurgo as a lowly bell striker even get an audience with Ojutai? And even if I accept that he did AND was able to convince him to fight together against the Phyrexians (which I would assume the most intelligent of the dragonlords would get the idea himself) then why in the heck would the dragon supremacist allow such a lower being to freaking ride him? None of that makes sense, and I honestly wished that they had forgotten about it. Alas, apparently this was important for Zurgo's character development. Not a fan though.
I like the overall diversity in characters, Tarkir always felt a bit more lively than other high fantasy planes because of it and I like that this continues.
I find it great that the "dissenters" (Surrak, Sidisi, Taigam, for some reason Abzan and Mardu get more clan supporters instead) who were closely allied with the dragonlords don't just become "seeds" for their potential return, but instead show the negative results of their colonialism on oppressed individuals:
Surrak is left alienated from his former peers and lonely; used and broken so much by Dromoka that he felt like he had to support her against those that wanted change for the better, Sidisi used her status to amass power in the draconic supremacist system and is blindsided by the rebellions, leading to her having to deal with Raksasha to retain at least a fraction of what she had (which doesn't bode well for her in the long run), and well, we saw how much Taigam (in contrast to Narset) couldn't overcome the dragon supremacist biases that had been instilled in him by Ojutai, ready to plunge Tarkir into chaos just for the chance of reinstating the dragon rule.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DKFQ7Q38/ a book based on Lusitanian Mythology
The discrepancies on Cruel Truths (Nishang and Sidisi never met in the Sultai side story, at least to the point that Sidisi can justifiably discipline Nishang; in order for both the card and the story to be true, Nishang needs to survive getting stabbed by Dauna and then get thrown back and exiled) and Strategic Betrayal (the card fails to even imply that those Mehtma pointed her weapons at betrayed the Abzan first) are bad enough, but the discrepancies on Krumar Initiate are awful (at least assuming the card's Cemal of House Emesh and the story's Cemil of House Fenzala are intended to be the same person). Cruel Truths and Krumar Initiate have big enough discrepancies with the side stories combined that I'm thinking story Creative and flavour text writers only collaborated so far in the past that the stories got rewritten since they last made contact.
Not sure that's the case to be honest. The Abzan feel very green-white + white-black. The Temur are very red-green + green-blue and the Mardu finally feel like white is part of their identity, but not the dominating part of it.
Sultai is really the odd one here, probably as a result of their 180° turn. They're pretty much black-green now with no real indication of blue. (And their patron dragon is white??? Caring about virtues and passing judgement???)
The Jeskai are also a tad odd as their central goal for Tarkir is to find unity, which is a very white concept.
Wizards considers retcons and loose canonicity a good thing. Like Maro explicitly said so on multiple occasions.
The zombie stuff was one of the things people of South East Asian cultures felt was problematic and something that has been talk on zombies in general. A lot of modern zombie stuff is rooted in dehumanizing and enslaving people and it gets messy when you mix that into cultures that have suffered from dehumanizing.
For Sultai, it was the fact naga in the khans timeline ruled the clan and in the dragons in this timeline so for how the representation felt as a human you where either enslaved and dehumanized (even more so as zomibes where used as objects and such) as undead under non-humans control or played into yellow peril stereotypes if alive. Thats also why a lot of the undead art in arena was changed to not have them so dehumanized, more zombie hoard vs zombie fruit bowl head. So the switch to "revered dead" likely is a way for them to keep the zombies while avoiding some of the negative tropes.
There is a bit more too it but I can't find the podcast (iirc TheAsianAvenger was part of it) that had an episode featuring people from asian cultures talking on the goods and bads of Tarkir that explained it a bit better.
That was due to wanting the time travel block drafting format. They came up with the time travel idea which had the first set being wedge colored and the last set being two colors. Originally they wanted it to be enemy colors but found the sets drafted too similar (since with wedges sets typically have people focus on the enemy pairs) so they switched the traditional center color of the wedges so that when it went into ally colors the focus colors would remain the same.
No it is. They said during weekly mtg after the debut stream that while the clans central color is the same, cardwise they will be getting more cards in the color and flavorful will focus more on the color they regained:
Mardu is more focused on its military unity and building community
Temur is more focused on their spell casting and the "time" elementalism
Abzan is more focused on the spirit necromancy and political scheming
Jeskai are more focused on being pro-active and living in the moment.
Sultai are more focused on the natural life cycles.
The blue comes from them using spies and information networks as well as using ambushes and other "blue" combat techniques. You can also see some blue in honored dead being brought back and valued in part for their minds and knowledge.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Yeah, that is a bit strange - they have more representation in Modern Horizons 3 (thanks, Pinnacle Monk) than in Tarkir: Dragonstorm.
There's also a surprising complete lack of Alniul, Twice Whisperer (he better appear in an Alchemy card, only way I can forgive Wizards here) and Shaman cards in this set. Even given MaRo's news that they're dropping Shaman's popularity as a creature type, Tarkir is one of the best planes to still retain Shamans, as some Siberian tribes still perform shamanistic rituals and the Temur seem clearly based on Siberian and Northern Mongolian tribes (the Mardu are based on more Southern Mongolian populations).
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DKFQ7Q38/ a book based on Lusitanian Mythology
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/feature/the-legends-of-tarkir-dragonstorm
Found in there: