So we are getting new slivers in m14. there have been a few of them spoiled and the most bizarre thing about them is that they are now appearing humanoid. Flavor text tells us that these slivers are on Shandalar.
Just a hunch, but maybe rapid adaption and evolution shared through a hive-like mind?
Or they could be the original form of Slivers. We know that the Rathi Slivers (and by extension the later Dominarian Slivers) were modified from their original form. Maybe these are "normal" Slivers.
Or you know Wotc could just be kicking us flavor guys in the nuts...
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They don't look so different from Richard Kane Ferguson's Muscle Sliver to me. I wouldn't put it past them to have many different shapes and sizes of sliver in this set.
From what I can tell, slivers are essentially constructs anyway.
They had better be Shandalarian Slivers, 300 years between Scourge and Time SPiral and the slivers didn't change a bit, now, 8-12 years between Time Spiral and the present, and suddenly we have humanoid slivers. No! You fail science!
They had better be Shandalarian Slivers, 300 years between Scourge and Time SPiral and the slivers didn't change a bit, now, 8-12 years between Time Spiral and the present, and suddenly we have humanoid slivers. No! You fail science!
For what its worth it's been closer to 20-50 years since Time Spiral not 8-12. Still not enough for such a dramatic evolutionary leap but not as bad as a single decade...
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Or they could be the original form of Slivers. We know that the Rathi Slivers (and by extension the later Dominarian Slivers) were modified from their original form. Maybe these are "normal" Slivers.
These slivers previewed for Magic 2014 are more humanoid than the beak-headed, one-clawed, one-tailed forms we saw before. The reasons are basically twofold.
First, the thinking in Creative was that the earlier sliver anatomical design was not really adaptable enough to meet the art needs of another batch of slivers. After Time Spiral block, the range of different body morphologies of the one-claw sliver was already in danger of being played out. We had already seen two-headed slivers, two-clawed slivers, two-tailed slivers, brainy slivers, leafy slivers, spiky slivers — a lot of variations on that one design, an anatomical theme that was never actually planned out beyond the first handful of slivers in Tempest and Stronghold. M14 adds a host of new slivers, and we decided it was time to broaden their range of potential morphologies.
Second, these new slivers were going to appear in the core set. The core set is of course meant for everyone, but it’s the set that we especially like to put in front of newer players. It was felt that slivers’ appeal would be greater for a wider audience if they could be given more of a personality than the eyeless, beaked creatures could support. We wanted them to be able to look you in the eye like other fantasy races, to be capable of a greater range of body language and even, sometimes, to generate facial expressions.
The visual evolution also helps differentiate the older slivers from the newer. The designers and developers felt it was important to have these slivers’ rules text work slightly differently than before, in that your slivers only “see” the slivers on your side of the board, and don’t grant abilities to your opponents’. From Creative’s end, that rules difference wasn’t a huge impetus for the visual change in itself, but it made for a logical time to make the change.
This is not license to start bashing Doug Beyer in this thread. He's just the messenger; try not to shoot him.
"A rich man thinks all other people are rich, and an intelligent man thinks all other people are similarly gifted. Both are always terribly shocked when they discover the truth of the world. You, my dear brother, are a pious man." - Strahd von Zarovich
This is not license to start bashing Doug Beyer in this thread. He's just the messenger; try not to shoot him.
ugh, not overly inspiring to be honest. I'm quite sure they could have done more with sliver at if they really wanted to. i think the secondary reason is much greater driver, just blatantly trying to "forget" the past i think.
and don't worry kaburi, if i was going to shoot anyone from wizards, it would be Zac Hill, not Doug Beyer
First, the thinking in Creative was that the earlier sliver anatomical design was not really adaptable enough to meet the art needs of another batch of slivers. After Time Spiral block, the range of different body morphologies of the one-claw sliver was already in danger of being played out. We had already seen two-headed slivers, two-clawed slivers, two-tailed slivers, brainy slivers, leafy slivers, spiky slivers — a lot of variations on that one design, an anatomical theme that was never actually planned out beyond the first handful of slivers in Tempest and Stronghold. M14 adds a host of new slivers, and we decided it was time to broaden their range of potential morphologies.
It's clearly impossible to think of any new places to take Slivers... Hey, wait a second, have we had a cyborg sliver yet (Cyborg, not robot)? A sliver with giant bug eyes? A sliver made of electricity?
No?
I made those up in ten seconds. Creative needs to get more creative.
It's clearly impossible to think of any new places to take Slivers... Hey, wait a second, have we had a cyborg sliver yet (Cyborg, not robot)? A sliver with bug eyes? A sliver made of electricity?
No?
I made those up in ten seconds. Creative needs to get more creative.
yeah completely agree. The "creativity" reason is a load of bollocks in my opinion, but i think the other reason is the explanation. Though tbh, its a pretty lame reason
The other reason just begs the question of why they're bringing slivers back in a core set at all.
^This.
The core set serves two important purposes: to provide a home for cards Standard needs outside of blocks, and to attract new players to the game.
Slivers, at least in this incarnation, might attract new people. "Hey, these are cool! They make each other better!" They'll teach the important lessons about synergy and tribal interactions.
The new slivers are so divorced from the old ones that it's going to cause confusion for new players. What happens when these new players start getting older cards? "Why are all these old slivers so weird looking? And why does my Winged Sliver give your slivers flying? Your Blur Sliver doesn't give my slivers haste!"
They're not winning older players over with sliver nostalgia here, and they're just going to confuse new players once they move beyond the initial introduction. Additionally, if sliver abilities are limited to core set-level abilities, they're not even going to be good slivers! "Ooh, first strike sliver. Oooh, haste sliver!" There's little chance of something like a Brood Sliver or a Hibernation Sliver showing up in the core set because complexity.
tl;dr
Slivers don't belong in the core set, and these sliver-ish things aren't the way to execute them.
Looking at some of the new slivers, there seem to be tentacles or worms intertwined together under their armored exteriors.
What if these "humanoids" are actually made up of little slivers merged together, functioning as tissues and organs like a true colonial organism?
There's a beetle - I actually wrote about it in one of my articles for Cracked - whose larvae clump together and emit a pheromone, which tricks male solitary bees into thinking the clump is a single female bee.
It's also worth noting that Slivers conceptually began as living fragments of one huge monster. That's why they're called "slivers" and the original set were named after body parts.
Whether or not they're sliver swarms in diguise, though, I wish these new ones weren't all leaning toward humanoid shapes. Why not slivers taking on the forms of many other creature types? Sliver wurms? Sliver beasts? It would have been interesting, terrifying and very logical - from their perspective - to take on forms displacing natural creatures. Sliver versions of everything. An invasive sliver ecology.
Interesting! You've hit some notes, at least visually, which are correct or close to what we were shooting for.
They alter their physiology in two ways... the first is their tendril 'musculature'. The tendrils are no longer just a snake-y tail, but a more-than-prehinsile mass of tendrils that serve as the base structure of their forms. These tendrils are most visible where some 'leftovers' hang behind the head... the 'dreadlocks' that keep being mentioned.
Then there are plates ontop of that. These chitinous plates (modeled after irridescent beetle shell, which is where some of the metallic impression comes in) attach and arrange over the tendrils to create their exoskeleton.
They can move both of these structures around, the internal and the external, to reflect the addition of abilities. Not just to add an arm or a pair of wings (which they clearly can do) but to take other shapes. They are not all humanoid all the time... Blur Sliver is hinting at this... they can remould themselves as they share abilities to be what they need to be to get the job done.
The problem is not that these slivers can't be explained or make no sense realistically. I mean, the game is called Magic: The Gathering. It doesn't matter if the slivers "evolved" a more humanoid shape or if they are compound creatures of smaller slivers. If they really wanted they could just say "Wizards did it." The fact that they look totally absolutely NOT like slivers flies into the face of every sliver fan like a spiked brick. Now, I realize there are people out there who do enjoy the new design, but they also would have enjoyed the new design if these creatures were a different tribe, preferably slith, or even an entirely new one.
Heck, I probably would have enjoyed the design of these creatures as something new. But I strongly dislike these as new slivers.
Really, the questions they should have asked themselves are these:
1st) Will the majority of sliver fans like the new design?
2nd) Will people who like the new design dislike it if it were a different tribe?
The answer to both of these questions is 'no'. If they made it a new tribe, people would have liked it for what it was, except for those who don't like the design anyway, while sliver fans wouldn't feel like their favourite creature type has been turned into nonslivers.
By making them slivers however all they did was alienate a big part of the sliver fanbase.
...Alright, I have to admit that's a pretty intriguing notion.
As is Mortigore's other idea. I like you, Mortigore. Stick around.
Thanks for the other information, Mr Jarvis. Any idea when we'll see some close-ups of the artwork for the cards that've already been released? Some of the backlash might be due to the fact that at card size these details aren't that visible, so getting some larger artwork would be cool. Also, it's great to see you here! Like the others said, don't be a stranger... or at least stick around long enough to see that normally people really love your art direction.
I don't know when that will happen, but it will. I like sharing concept work and the thought behind visual directions with you guys through art articles in general, which I know are typically pretty well received. So I would have liked to give a visual walk through to start with, but it's pretty clear now that I need to, which is less-than-great, as I would rather talk excitedly about art and ideas than feel compelled to defend them, but whateves, that's where we are now. This is not how Creative wanted this to go down, and yes, it's gone pretty poorly. I'll work with Trick on what kind of window I can have to talk through stuff and show ideas and the resulting final artwork.
Just hold tight, and please remember that you haven't seen everything yet...
Here's my problem with the reasoning that creative is giving:
1) If by "broaden their morphologies" you mean change them entirely all at once, then yeah, I see where you're coming from. The problem is, this is less of a "broadening" and more of a complete shift away from the original design.
2) The whole idea of making them "like other fantasy races" is partially why I dislike the change entirely. Slivers were unique. They were completely alien, totally hive-minded and only one in a million* was sentient. "Body language"? "Facial expression"? None of this is SUPPOSED to exist in slivers. That's the whole point of a hive-minded, non-sentient creature. The new slivers take most if not all of this established lore and throw it in the trash.
*approximation used
3) If you had no available art designs left (which I find hard to believe) and the card designers/developers had to change the ability from hive-mind to allies, why would you persist in abusing a characteristic creature type to the point where it's barely recognizable?
Plant a seed. Watch it grow.
Hire a snake to plant more trees. Watch them grow.
Blow up a bunch of trees, break a vase when someone tells you not to blow up your trees, surprise the trees are now volcanoes.
Modern- Grapeshot - 79% Legacy- Tendrils of Agony - 83% Vintage- Mind's Desire - 49%, 0/10 Power
Here's my problem with the reasoning that creative is giving:
1) If by "broaden their morphologies" you mean change them entirely all at once, then yeah, I see where you're coming from. The problem is, this is less of a "broadening" and more of a complete shift away from the original design.
2) The whole idea of making them "like other fantasy races" is partially why I dislike the change entirely. Slivers were unique. They were completely alien, totally hive-minded and only one in a million* was sentient. "Body language"? "Facial expression"? None of this is SUPPOSED to exist in slivers. That's the whole point of a hive-minded, non-sentient creature. The new slivers take most if not all of this established lore and throw it in the trash.
*approximation used
3) If you had no available art designs left (which I find hard to believe) and the card designers/developers had to change the ability from hive-mind to allies, why would you persist in abusing a characteristic creature type to the point where it's barely recognizable?
I have to argue with the one out of a million notion. Slivers fall into one of two overused tricks in scifi/fantasy that pop up in many multitiered medias. (the other is your borg/phyrexian/cybermen), that trick trope is the hive mind insect that evolves to it's need. Taking out how the evolution happens (which someone used to argue against this earlier) it falls into that catagory perfectly with Tyranids/Zurg/Silithid/Giant Mantis/GoW Locust army/xenothrope ect. This trope is commonly used to create one of 3 presences of natural fear in a person, the fear of an enemy that can adapt (where as the other trick is a fear of an enemy that can corrupt), the third is the unspeakable evil. (eldrazi/c'thuhlu/ect).
So no they aren't one in a million, just a trick that got a face to it in the mtg universe. I personally look at these as something like the GoW locust now, an insectile race that did take a human (almost completely in some of the morphologies) form.
I love the comment they did make to defend it too, I think that that is a great explanation and made me feel less crazy, thinking that I was the only one seeing that.
So no they aren't one in a million, just a trick that got a face to it in the mtg universe. I personally look at these as something like the GoW locust now, an insectile race that did take a human (almost completely in some of the morphologies) form.
Sorry, I should clarify. I didn't mean one in a million as a hive-mind race, I meant that one sliver in a million is sentient, with the only one known to be sentient being Sliver Queen
Plant a seed. Watch it grow.
Hire a snake to plant more trees. Watch them grow.
Blow up a bunch of trees, break a vase when someone tells you not to blow up your trees, surprise the trees are now volcanoes.
Modern- Grapeshot - 79% Legacy- Tendrils of Agony - 83% Vintage- Mind's Desire - 49%, 0/10 Power
Sorry, I should clarify. I didn't mean one in a million as a hive-mind race, I meant that one sliver in a million is sentient, with the only one known to be sentient being Sliver Queen
Ok, sorry misread your quote. I do agree with the sentient thing, but evolutions to differentiate does not mean sentient though, again I reference the GoW Locust, they weren't really sentient on some of the levels, but they could differentiate quite well. Same thing here, these slivers can tell friend from enemy and know who is on there side, doesn't make them any more sentient, just more adapted at people using them against themselves.
I can't help but be amused that our current debate has two sliver avatars at the helm.
I personally like all the incarnations and adaptations from old to new. There had been allusions to this eventual evolution such as Sliver Legion. I thought it was inevitable that they'd evolve more complex forms and such. Even earlier in the thread there was a comment stated that slivers were once a single organism to begin with.
My only complain, really was that they didn't make the transition smooth enough such that the old fans can still see what they liked while appreciate new features made to appeal to newer players. Nevermind the mechanical differentiation, it's justified enough by flavor and its existence in a core set.
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http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10159776#post10159776
Does anyone think they could guess what has caused the slivers to develop into human shapes?
Niv-Mizzet Ramp 'n' Wheel
Godo: Strap him up and turn him sideways!
Just a hunch, but maybe rapid adaption and evolution shared through a hive-like mind?
Commander Decks
WDarien, King of KjeldorW - WYomiji, Who Bars the WayW - UIxidor, Reality SculptorU
BPhage the UntouchableB - BShirei,
Shadowborn Ap-Shizo's CaretakerB - RZirilan of the ClawR(W/U)Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper(W/U) - (2/G)Phelddagrif Politics(W/U) - (U/B)Mishra, Artificer Prodigy(U/R) -
Or they could be the original form of Slivers. We know that the Rathi Slivers (and by extension the later Dominarian Slivers) were modified from their original form. Maybe these are "normal" Slivers.
Or you know Wotc could just be kicking us flavor guys in the nuts...
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From what I can tell, slivers are essentially constructs anyway.
For what its worth it's been closer to 20-50 years since Time Spiral not 8-12. Still not enough for such a dramatic evolutionary leap but not as bad as a single decade...
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Cube. The best way to play Magic. PERIOD. Come over and check it out. Also, check out my Peasant Split Card Cube.
The World of Pokemon RPG has been rebooted. Come over and check it out.
Set Creation Projects:
(W/U)(U/R)(R/W)(W/U)(U/R)(R/W)(W/U)(U/R)(R/W)(W/U)(U/R)(R/W)(W/U)(U/R)(R/W)(W/U)(U/R)(R/W)(W/U)(U/R)(R/W)(W/U)(U/R)(R/W)(W/U)(U/R)(R/W)(W/U)(U/R)(R/W)(W/U)(U/R)(R/W)(W/U)(U/R)(R/W)(W/U)
Even so, my answer would still apply.
Commander Decks
WDarien, King of KjeldorW - WYomiji, Who Bars the WayW - UIxidor, Reality SculptorU
BPhage the UntouchableB - BShirei,
Shadowborn Ap-Shizo's CaretakerB - RZirilan of the ClawR(W/U)Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper(W/U) - (2/G)Phelddagrif Politics(W/U) - (U/B)Mishra, Artificer Prodigy(U/R) -
This is not license to start bashing Doug Beyer in this thread. He's just the messenger; try not to shoot him.
@_kaburi_ on Twitter
Special thanks to Serrot_29 for Catbug'mrakul!
Theory goes:
-Sliths get dropped from SoM during development
-art gets reused for M14 Slivers
-have creative come up with an excuse.
I really wish they just created a new creature type instead of reusing Sliver for these.
ugh, not overly inspiring to be honest. I'm quite sure they could have done more with sliver at if they really wanted to. i think the secondary reason is much greater driver, just blatantly trying to "forget" the past i think.
and don't worry kaburi, if i was going to shoot anyone from wizards, it would be Zac Hill, not Doug Beyer
Niv-Mizzet Ramp 'n' Wheel
Godo: Strap him up and turn him sideways!
It's clearly impossible to think of any new places to take Slivers... Hey, wait a second, have we had a cyborg sliver yet (Cyborg, not robot)? A sliver with giant bug eyes? A sliver made of electricity?
No?
I made those up in ten seconds. Creative needs to get more creative.
Thanks to Rivenor of Miraculous Recovery Signatures!
yeah completely agree. The "creativity" reason is a load of bollocks in my opinion, but i think the other reason is the explanation. Though tbh, its a pretty lame reason
Niv-Mizzet Ramp 'n' Wheel
Godo: Strap him up and turn him sideways!
Thanks to Rivenor of Miraculous Recovery Signatures!
^This.
The core set serves two important purposes: to provide a home for cards Standard needs outside of blocks, and to attract new players to the game.
Slivers, at least in this incarnation, might attract new people. "Hey, these are cool! They make each other better!" They'll teach the important lessons about synergy and tribal interactions.
The new slivers are so divorced from the old ones that it's going to cause confusion for new players. What happens when these new players start getting older cards? "Why are all these old slivers so weird looking? And why does my Winged Sliver give your slivers flying? Your Blur Sliver doesn't give my slivers haste!"
They're not winning older players over with sliver nostalgia here, and they're just going to confuse new players once they move beyond the initial introduction. Additionally, if sliver abilities are limited to core set-level abilities, they're not even going to be good slivers! "Ooh, first strike sliver. Oooh, haste sliver!" There's little chance of something like a Brood Sliver or a Hibernation Sliver showing up in the core set because complexity.
tl;dr
Slivers don't belong in the core set, and these sliver-ish things aren't the way to execute them.
@_kaburi_ on Twitter
Special thanks to Serrot_29 for Catbug'mrakul!
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Heck, I probably would have enjoyed the design of these creatures as something new. But I strongly dislike these as new slivers.
Really, the questions they should have asked themselves are these:
1st) Will the majority of sliver fans like the new design?
2nd) Will people who like the new design dislike it if it were a different tribe?
The answer to both of these questions is 'no'. If they made it a new tribe, people would have liked it for what it was, except for those who don't like the design anyway, while sliver fans wouldn't feel like their favourite creature type has been turned into nonslivers.
By making them slivers however all they did was alienate a big part of the sliver fanbase.
Here's my problem with the reasoning that creative is giving:
1) If by "broaden their morphologies" you mean change them entirely all at once, then yeah, I see where you're coming from. The problem is, this is less of a "broadening" and more of a complete shift away from the original design.
2) The whole idea of making them "like other fantasy races" is partially why I dislike the change entirely. Slivers were unique. They were completely alien, totally hive-minded and only one in a million* was sentient. "Body language"? "Facial expression"? None of this is SUPPOSED to exist in slivers. That's the whole point of a hive-minded, non-sentient creature. The new slivers take most if not all of this established lore and throw it in the trash.
*approximation used
3) If you had no available art designs left (which I find hard to believe) and the card designers/developers had to change the ability from hive-mind to allies, why would you persist in abusing a characteristic creature type to the point where it's barely recognizable?
Modern-
Legacy-
Vintage-
I have to argue with the one out of a million notion. Slivers fall into one of two overused tricks in scifi/fantasy that pop up in many multitiered medias. (the other is your borg/phyrexian/cybermen), that trick trope is the hive mind insect that evolves to it's need. Taking out how the evolution happens (which someone used to argue against this earlier) it falls into that catagory perfectly with Tyranids/Zurg/Silithid/Giant Mantis/GoW Locust army/xenothrope ect. This trope is commonly used to create one of 3 presences of natural fear in a person, the fear of an enemy that can adapt (where as the other trick is a fear of an enemy that can corrupt), the third is the unspeakable evil. (eldrazi/c'thuhlu/ect).
So no they aren't one in a million, just a trick that got a face to it in the mtg universe. I personally look at these as something like the GoW locust now, an insectile race that did take a human (almost completely in some of the morphologies) form.
I love the comment they did make to defend it too, I think that that is a great explanation and made me feel less crazy, thinking that I was the only one seeing that.
Sorry, I should clarify. I didn't mean one in a million as a hive-mind race, I meant that one sliver in a million is sentient, with the only one known to be sentient being Sliver Queen
Modern-
Legacy-
Vintage-
Ok, sorry misread your quote. I do agree with the sentient thing, but evolutions to differentiate does not mean sentient though, again I reference the GoW Locust, they weren't really sentient on some of the levels, but they could differentiate quite well. Same thing here, these slivers can tell friend from enemy and know who is on there side, doesn't make them any more sentient, just more adapted at people using them against themselves.
I personally like all the incarnations and adaptations from old to new. There had been allusions to this eventual evolution such as Sliver Legion. I thought it was inevitable that they'd evolve more complex forms and such. Even earlier in the thread there was a comment stated that slivers were once a single organism to begin with.
My only complain, really was that they didn't make the transition smooth enough such that the old fans can still see what they liked while appreciate new features made to appeal to newer players. Nevermind the mechanical differentiation, it's justified enough by flavor and its existence in a core set.