Dauthi Slayer and Soltari Priest
You may have noticed that their creature types changed to include "Dauthi" and "Soltari." We plan on doing a massive clean-up of every creature type in the game sometime during the next year or so—this is the type of changes you should expect then.
Apparently they're going to abandon their previous plan to only errata creature types when the card is reprinted.
Quote from Aaron Forsythe »
Lord of Atlantis
Speaking of creature type changes—here’s one that’s quite relevant. Once we changed Goblin King, Elvish Champion, and Lord of the Undead in Ninth Edition, I kept hoping we’d have an opportunity to make the same change to Lord of Atlantis. The Timeshifted set gave us such an opportunity, even though there are only a small handful of Merfolk available in Standard (a number that will grow as the year goes on).
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GDS1 & GDS2 entrant. Former Rules Advisor & casual-level TO. Semi-lapsed player in general.
Seriously, this decision makes perfect sense and should have been made a long time ago. There was absolutely no logic in a policy of only changing creature types on cards that have been reprinted, while at the same time treating MTGO "reprints" of sets like Mirage and Visions as if they were paper reprints for the purposes of creature type errata.
This makes my head hurt a little, I just recently went through the list to check for viability for a vintage tribal league a local store just started running.
At least I have a while before needing to recheck everything.
I... don't... want... generic... creature types!!!!! I can't stand them! Now they don't even need to reprint stuff to have an excuse to change creature types. I shall call this the Great Creature Type Genocide. I'm saddened but mostly angry. On the upside, at least there will no longer be typeless legendary creatures. But that's the only upside as Mistform Ultimus will be shrunken down by about 100 types.
whew, for a minute there, i thought merfolks were no more since they would not have existed in the "present". which would have meant no merfolk in PC. i thought maybe they reprinted a couple of merfolk just to appease us, then stop making them altogether. but, now we know that's not the case and there will be more new merfolk coming. quite a few more.
I... don't... want... generic... creature types!!!!! I can't stand them! Now they don't even need to reprint stuff to have an excuse to change creature types. I shall call this the Great Creature Type Genocide. I'm saddened but mostly angry. On the upside, at least there will no longer be typeless legendary creatures. But that's the only upside as Mistform Ultimus will be shrunken down by about 100 types.
So Dauthi and Soltari are generic creature types? Because every fantasy game has Dauthi and Soltari, amirite?
The last one was during the great Onslaught butchering, creature types need a much needed update. And remember now they arn't so worried about printing cards with oddball creature types like "slug" "bear" "fox" "frog" etc... Frogmite is going to get erratad, just as a hunch ^-~
As for Merfolk coming back, I thought them leaving magic was the biggest tragedy in ages, and it kept me from playing, to me they were iconic as goblins. And I loved being the blue mage with an under the sea deck. Sure it's silly when you think of fighting against something like goblins, but I think the fun of my deck overrides the sillyness of that. And... merfolk are cool
Not to mention... I see wizards as a creature type belonging to all colours, and I'm annoyed it got hijacked to be a "blue thing"
Everyone please join me in the "Committee to Make 'Phyrexian' A Creature Type", or CoMPACT. They are the biggest villains in the history of the game, and don't have anything unifying them other than names. Plus, it would be awesome and cool.
I'm all for simplicity, but only if it's relevant. I like tribal decks. Really I do, but I honestly don't care if Abomination becomes a horror, zombie, or anything else it "should be", just so I can add it in to some tribal deck. Giving Legendary creatures actual creature types, though, is okay by me.
I think that Abomination should be Zombie, but im all in for giving all creatures a creature type that fits them. That's all good, i think there should be multiple creature types in some of old cards as well *Read: Zombie wizard* for example, that just allows them to be played in more tribal decks than they normally would.
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and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
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So Dauthi and Soltari are generic creature types? Because every fantasy game has Dauthi and Soltari, amirite?
Oh sure, we get a couple of creature types here and there, but we stand to lose a lot more, and that's a damn shame. I also expect to see Thalakos as a creature type too, but that's about it on potentially new creature types.
The trend recently has been away from generic creature types toward more diversity. Ravnica pretty much marks the turning point with the introduction of Lammasu, Archon and Sphinx, Guildpact continued with the reintroduction of Cyclops and the frankly-better-as-elementals Weird. Dissension and multiple Frogs, a singular Devil, a worm, not to mention the long-awaited Construct (Which to be fair debuted online with Visions) continuing the trend.
Coldsnap also has some clear indicators that the hated 'lump everything into beast' is changing: For the first time, a Nishoba was printed as a Cat. We have multiple Slugs in standard. Juggernaut is finally a type.
Now, Time Spiral we see more of what to expect. Orgg as an Orgg, unlike his Trained brethren. Pirates. Kobolds. Oysters. Treefolk. Fish. Even a Homarid.
I expect to see them to err on the side of diversity rather than homogeneity this time around.
Personally I think the best thing to do is strike a balance between the extremes of having one of's like Uncle-Istvan and Nekrataal and the opposite extreme of making things like crabs and slugs into "Beasts". Basically, I think a good rule of thumb is if there's more than two of a creature type in the game's history, keep it. At the same time, I think changes like making Savanah Lions into a Cat are good. I also support adding types where it makes sense, like Dauthi and Soltari (and Phyrexian hopefully).
To sum up, get rid of silly, extremely narrow types; consolidate where it makes sense; and add types where there's good flavor reasons for doing so. I have full confidence that this is what WotC will do.
...even though they seem to be getting rid of Ships.
Uncle Istvan and Ali from Cairo aren't legends, and Shiv (where Teferi phased out) wasn't that famous for merfolk, more for Viashino and Goblins, and some knights in the Zhalfir area.
They said that they're cleaning it up, not dramatically reducing the number of creature types. Fact is, there's a bunch of creature types - like priest - that appear on only one or two creatures and which are essentially synonymous with much more common creature types. Changing these increases the orthogonality of the game. In addition, there are some very old creature types that don't really reflect how the creature type line is used today. Ali from Cairo isn't really an Ali-from-Cairo. He's a human wizard or rogue or advisor or something. I look forward to this change.
I really don't think they will be getting rid of the race-class system. There are plenty of errata'd Elves, Dwarves, Zombies, and Goblins that don't have a class. Sure, Creature - Human looks odd, but it's really no different than Creature - Elf or Creature - Goblin.
I personally am quite pleased with the impending creature type overhaul. It just doesn't make sense to have a one chunk of the Magic universe filled with Human Wizards and Elf Druids, and then another chunk filled with Uncle-Istvans and Ali-From-Cairos. Sure, they're "classic" creature types, and they were great back in the day when creature types didn't matter, but guess what: creature types matter now. A lot more than they used to. In fact, changing Uncle Istvan to a Human actually technically makes him a better card. He can now, for example, get pumped by Coat of Arms with non-Mistform creatures on the table. Besides, all the creature type changing helps to round out and clean up the game overall. I do still support some obscure creature types where it makes sense, like Slug and Crab.
Anyway, I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy that Merfolk are back! It is my absolute favorite creature type. I have been collecting them for a long time, and when they stopped printing them, I was quite unhappy.
I find it interesting that they changed Sengir Autocrat from "Creature - Minion" to "Creature - Human". Why not "Creature - Human Minion"? Does this suggest that they're moving away from the race & class double that was the rule for 'sophisticated' creatures?
My guess is that for the older cards, they are only going to go with the creature type that is obvious due to the art. For Sengir Autocrat, you can see that he is a human. It's much harder to see that he is a minion.
No one has mentioned how much this nerfs Mistform Ultimus! All those Mistform decks dominating Extended are going to be ruined because of this change. Ruined I tell you!!!
One thing that gets me is how they changed the Kor to be their own type but left the Vec and Dal alone
Well, some of the hyphenated ones I can understand but the unique ones like Villain, Shyft, etc need to have more in order to keep the bounteous array of creatures alive rather than make it a conformist regime of boringness.
'buster
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'buster
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Vec and Dals are just human tribes, like Benalish or Keldon. The thing that bothers me about the Kor deal is that only one of the new Kor has the Kor ability. And it's not even just the il-Kor that lack it, and even if it DID that wouldn't make any sense, as il denotes only allegience and not any actual difference in makeup or abilities. I'm not advocating Shadow critters with damage redirection, I'm just saying its like printing a Spike that doesn't do anything with +1/+1 counters.
While Uncle Isvan could logically be made into a legend, characters from Arabian Nights do not need to be. The set takes place on Rabiah, a plane that was refracted 1000 times, so that anyone on the original plane (Taysir excluded) had 1000 duplicates. So, while (time travel excluded) you couldn't get Sol'Kanar to meet Sol'Kanar, you could get Aladdin to meet Aladdin.
Now, here's a crazier idea I doubt they'd do, but hear me out a bit... 'zombie' shouldn't be a creature type. At least, not a SOLE creature type. Festering Goblin is a Zombie of a Goblin, and has both types; Accursed Centaur is a Zombified Centaur, and has both types. But MOST zombies ONLY have the Zombie creature type... how does that work? In my mind, Zombie should fit more into 'class' in the 'race/class' model. Thoughts on this?
And finally... keep up the pressure, CoMPACT! Some 30 creatures have to have this creature type, or it'll make Baby Yawgmoth cry.
I think a good rule of thumb would be to errata the creature types of any creature whose type and name are identical. This takes care of your Ali from Cairos, Uncle Istvans and Nameless Races, among others. Those kinds of updates are definitely a long time coming (along with giving older Legendary and Artifact Creatures types).
Creature types are hugely important for flavor and have a definitely non-trivial impact mechanically. It's shooting oneself in the foot to keep so many of these creatures type-less (or as one-offs, as that is essentially the same thing). We're not in danger of "boringness;" there are lots of cool and functional types popping up all of the time, now that we are seeing the race/class thing being executed more consistently (and I do like the idea of Zombie being treated more as a class). But the types do have to be general enough that they could conceivably fit on more than one card. Shyft might work in the vein of Aurochs, but there are lots of types whose coolness is completely immaterial, since we will never see another creature with them.
I think a good rule of thumb would be to errata the creature types of any creature whose type and name are identical.
What's wrong with Goblin Assassin and Mercenary Knight? Hehe... But yes, those are generally the critters that need a second looking-at. I don't mind consolidation to a point, but I also don't mind if evocative creatures (like Shyft, Llamasu, the heretofore absent Harpy) get types of their own. I definately don't like the idea of everything becoming a Beast... unless Beast was used in addition, simply to denote a feral type creature. That would likely be kinda hokey though, and not near as necessary as making Zombie make sense or making Phyrexian a subtype.
I'm looking forward to what they do with all the vanilla Legends from Legends. Will they all just be boring races, or will they get classes too? Will Ramirez de Pieto become a Human Pirate? (arr!). Will Tobias Adrian become a Human Advisor? Will Xira Arien become... what the hell IS Xira Arien anyway? (I know she's in the Legends trilogies... both of them... as a different character... hence confusion remains...).
Apparently they're going to abandon their previous plan to only errata creature types when the card is reprinted.
Sig banner by Xyre.
My MTG Blog (inactive)
GDS1 & GDS2 entrant. Former Rules Advisor & casual-level TO. Semi-lapsed player in general.
Seriously, this decision makes perfect sense and should have been made a long time ago. There was absolutely no logic in a policy of only changing creature types on cards that have been reprinted, while at the same time treating MTGO "reprints" of sets like Mirage and Visions as if they were paper reprints for the purposes of creature type errata.
At least I have a while before needing to recheck everything.
I... don't... want... generic... creature types!!!!! I can't stand them! Now they don't even need to reprint stuff to have an excuse to change creature types. I shall call this the Great Creature Type Genocide. I'm saddened but mostly angry. On the upside, at least there will no longer be typeless legendary creatures. But that's the only upside as Mistform Ultimus will be shrunken down by about 100 types.
........................
So Dauthi and Soltari are generic creature types? Because every fantasy game has Dauthi and Soltari, amirite?
As for Merfolk coming back, I thought them leaving magic was the biggest tragedy in ages, and it kept me from playing, to me they were iconic as goblins. And I loved being the blue mage with an under the sea deck. Sure it's silly when you think of fighting against something like goblins, but I think the fun of my deck overrides the sillyness of that. And... merfolk are cool
Not to mention... I see wizards as a creature type belonging to all colours, and I'm annoyed it got hijacked to be a "blue thing"
Think Big... CoMPACT! (lol)
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and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
Oh sure, we get a couple of creature types here and there, but we stand to lose a lot more, and that's a damn shame. I also expect to see Thalakos as a creature type too, but that's about it on potentially new creature types.
Coldsnap also has some clear indicators that the hated 'lump everything into beast' is changing: For the first time, a Nishoba was printed as a Cat. We have multiple Slugs in standard. Juggernaut is finally a type.
Now, Time Spiral we see more of what to expect. Orgg as an Orgg, unlike his Trained brethren. Pirates. Kobolds. Oysters. Treefolk. Fish. Even a Homarid.
I expect to see them to err on the side of diversity rather than homogeneity this time around.
To sum up, get rid of silly, extremely narrow types; consolidate where it makes sense; and add types where there's good flavor reasons for doing so. I have full confidence that this is what WotC will do.
...even though they seem to be getting rid of Ships.
I personally am quite pleased with the impending creature type overhaul. It just doesn't make sense to have a one chunk of the Magic universe filled with Human Wizards and Elf Druids, and then another chunk filled with Uncle-Istvans and Ali-From-Cairos. Sure, they're "classic" creature types, and they were great back in the day when creature types didn't matter, but guess what: creature types matter now. A lot more than they used to. In fact, changing Uncle Istvan to a Human actually technically makes him a better card. He can now, for example, get pumped by Coat of Arms with non-Mistform creatures on the table. Besides, all the creature type changing helps to round out and clean up the game overall. I do still support some obscure creature types where it makes sense, like Slug and Crab.
Anyway, I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy that Merfolk are back! It is my absolute favorite creature type. I have been collecting them for a long time, and when they stopped printing them, I was quite unhappy.
My guess is that for the older cards, they are only going to go with the creature type that is obvious due to the art. For Sengir Autocrat, you can see that he is a human. It's much harder to see that he is a minion.
No one has mentioned how much this nerfs Mistform Ultimus! All those Mistform decks dominating Extended are going to be ruined because of this change. Ruined I tell you!!!
Well, some of the hyphenated ones I can understand but the unique ones like Villain, Shyft, etc need to have more in order to keep the bounteous array of creatures alive rather than make it a conformist regime of boringness.
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset.
Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
Vec and Dals are just human tribes, like Benalish or Keldon. The thing that bothers me about the Kor deal is that only one of the new Kor has the Kor ability. And it's not even just the il-Kor that lack it, and even if it DID that wouldn't make any sense, as il denotes only allegience and not any actual difference in makeup or abilities. I'm not advocating Shadow critters with damage redirection, I'm just saying its like printing a Spike that doesn't do anything with +1/+1 counters.
While Uncle Isvan could logically be made into a legend, characters from Arabian Nights do not need to be. The set takes place on Rabiah, a plane that was refracted 1000 times, so that anyone on the original plane (Taysir excluded) had 1000 duplicates. So, while (time travel excluded) you couldn't get Sol'Kanar to meet Sol'Kanar, you could get Aladdin to meet Aladdin.
Now, here's a crazier idea I doubt they'd do, but hear me out a bit... 'zombie' shouldn't be a creature type. At least, not a SOLE creature type. Festering Goblin is a Zombie of a Goblin, and has both types; Accursed Centaur is a Zombified Centaur, and has both types. But MOST zombies ONLY have the Zombie creature type... how does that work? In my mind, Zombie should fit more into 'class' in the 'race/class' model. Thoughts on this?
And finally... keep up the pressure, CoMPACT! Some 30 creatures have to have this creature type, or it'll make Baby Yawgmoth cry.
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Creature types are hugely important for flavor and have a definitely non-trivial impact mechanically. It's shooting oneself in the foot to keep so many of these creatures type-less (or as one-offs, as that is essentially the same thing). We're not in danger of "boringness;" there are lots of cool and functional types popping up all of the time, now that we are seeing the race/class thing being executed more consistently (and I do like the idea of Zombie being treated more as a class). But the types do have to be general enough that they could conceivably fit on more than one card. Shyft might work in the vein of Aurochs, but there are lots of types whose coolness is completely immaterial, since we will never see another creature with them.
Except Mistform Ultimus, of course.
What's wrong with Goblin Assassin and Mercenary Knight? Hehe... But yes, those are generally the critters that need a second looking-at. I don't mind consolidation to a point, but I also don't mind if evocative creatures (like Shyft, Llamasu, the heretofore absent Harpy) get types of their own. I definately don't like the idea of everything becoming a Beast... unless Beast was used in addition, simply to denote a feral type creature. That would likely be kinda hokey though, and not near as necessary as making Zombie make sense or making Phyrexian a subtype.
I'm looking forward to what they do with all the vanilla Legends from Legends. Will they all just be boring races, or will they get classes too? Will Ramirez de Pieto become a Human Pirate? (arr!). Will Tobias Adrian become a Human Advisor? Will Xira Arien become... what the hell IS Xira Arien anyway? (I know she's in the Legends trilogies... both of them... as a different character... hence confusion remains...).
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