I was just thinking about creatures I would like to see in other colors... but for some reason WotC doesn't want certain creatures to bleed into other colors.
For example, why haven't we seen:
- Black spiders (outside of Penumbra Spider)
- More blue dragons (not multi-colored, just in a color that has them as fliers - especially since blue has drakes)
- Black wolves
- More blue zombies (since Innistrad block opened us up to the mad-scientist-made zombies, apposed to evil resurrected zombies)
- Red or blue gnomes (they seam to be artifact creatures)
- More black fungus (solid-colored, there are only 2 current solid colored fungus)
- Black Pirates (there have been plenty of evil and cruel pirates in the past and in fiction)
- Black trolls (only multi-colored trolls exist that are black/green)
Come to think of it, black has been excluded from a lot of foresty creature types, yet swamp-lands, mangrove forests, and bogs have a forest-like feel to them, just w/ a lot more stench and decay all around...
Black wolves? Kind of hard to find a justification for them to be Black now. Maybe back in Legends you could've gotten away with something like that (because back then Black was not a very nuanced color, and usually Black was anything to do with scary, 'evil' things).
Gnomes appear to be artifacts. Colored artifacts are actually pretty rare in Magic.
With Blue dragons, we have some that have Blue in them, but a pure Blue dragon? I mean, what would it do? Draw you cards? For flavor reasons it would have to be the most pointless flying body imaginable, because if you're pure Blue, then you aren't Red, and thus you aren't good at damage.
To counter your latter complaint, the majority of non-Spirit undead are represented in black, so Skeleton/Vampire/Zombie can be mixed with nearly anything that lives in a standard fashion, from a Germ to a Leviathan.
As for the main mass of the argument, it's because people who both design this game and play this game have very limited perspectives and imagination. I don't know if they come into it that way or they develop it from years of thinking about the game, but when it comes to the imagination side of the game...yeah, there's not much flexibility there.
In general, the Creative side of things (I think...), prefers to have creature types represent different colors, with "iconic" ones for a humanoid slot and an "epic monster" slot taking precedence. Why so many people lock themselves into thinking that it's impossible to have red Kithkin, a green Dragon, a black Leviathan (haven't even had a Zombie yet), a blue Druid...yes, some concepts fit the colors better, but the amount of backlash I see for anything different is, while not usually volatile, massive and just plain weird.
I think the fanbase has a narrow scope of things that's likely extrapolated from Creative's intensive focus on iconography. That's all I got.
About any "subpar" mechanics or cards: Context is king.
If I make a templating or grammar error, let me know.
The franchise MtG most resembles is Battlestar Galactica. Why? Its players exist in, at most, a dozen different models at any given point in time, with perhaps up to 3% variation, 5% if you're lucky.
Maybe it could mind control. Like, when it died, or something.
That's actually what I was getting at with the whole dragons thing.
As for black wolves, they do exist. See: Garruk Relentless. However, I think by this logic, the wolves had been corrupted by the curse, thus being black as opposed to their normal colors: red or green...which brings me to my last point.
As you already mentioned in your own post, OP, many creature types do show up in different colors every now and then, but I think it wouldn't be very flavorful to have blue zombies and black trolls in every set. Those sorts of things should be unique to particular sets/themes in my opinion. Either way, some creature types really need to have a default color to at least have some sort of organization of creature types on the color wheel. If we started seeing blue wolfs (that weren't illusions), there'd better be something really important in terms of the flavor to allow such a thing.
The cycles, such as the kamigawa dragon cycle, can make exceptions, but even still, they really need to have good justification. A cycle of wolves in each of the five colors would be really silly.
With Blue dragons, we have some that have Blue in them, but a pure Blue dragon? I mean, what would it do? Draw you cards? For flavor reasons it would have to be the most pointless flying body imaginable, because if you're pure Blue, then you aren't Red, and thus you aren't good at damage.
There's also Day of the Dragons, which is a mono-blue card which creates dragons.
And of course the obvious one. Between Illusions and the undead, there really should be more flexibility with "off-color" creature types, not to mention the Simic krases (WHY WEREN'T THERE MORE OF THOSE???)
About any "subpar" mechanics or cards: Context is king.
If I make a templating or grammar error, let me know.
The franchise MtG most resembles is Battlestar Galactica. Why? Its players exist in, at most, a dozen different models at any given point in time, with perhaps up to 3% variation, 5% if you're lucky.
Why not have black spiders? A black spider can be a creature of pure evil... Just look at how fiction has represented them in the past. There are fictional stories of spiders transforming into evil witches/sorcerers.
As far as wolves go, fiction, again. The skeleton forest (no leaves, trees are all dead, cobwebs everywhere) would have wolves in all black pelts, w/ eyes that glow red.
I just think a black spider, a blue gnome, and a blue dragon can pop up here and there without spilling the color wheel.
I just think a black spider, a blue gnome, and a blue dragon can pop up here and there without spilling the color wheel.
There could be individual creatures (probably legendary) that might pop up in other colors but there has to be a good reason other than to just check it off a list of things magic hasn't done yet (what MaRo refers to as checkbox design). Some tribes, however, are much less likely since Lorwyn because it was then that they started the big push for each color to have an iconic big and iconic small creature. While Spiders are not technically an "iconic" green creature, they have been green's answer to flying threats for quite a long time. Dragons are Red's iconic big creature, so that makes them very unlikely in other colors.
Because doing so upsets the status-quo. Some people like the same **** every time and don't want nothing different. Those that make the **** don't want to meddle around with the established methods.
It's like McDonalds burgers; they keep the menu the same, people get what they expect. There's no disorder brought about by unnecessary change.
However, some of us like change. We get bored easily and want something new. So of course there's that conflict there between those that like things the conventional way verses those that want to experiment. How does one alleviate this problem? There's less of us than them, so is might make sense to have established methods, but slowly change things over time, carefully, so as to see what can and can't work.
Black trolls would be awesome. Next tribal themed set, make black/green trolls with greater emphasis in black. Make black (and red) pirates, because flavor wise pirates make sense in the Grixis colors. Or just call theme rogues. Wolves and spiders? Print a few in the next base set and see how people react. Print another blue dragon, or maybe even a white or green one. Doesn't have to be a lot, just a little here and there to spice things up. Change things slowly over time.
I'd like to focus mainly on one of your points and that's about blue zombies.
You say that since we got them on Innistrad it should be easy for us to get them in blue going forward. But you have to ask yourself "why we got blue zombies'. You touched on it already that on Innistrad we got flesh stitching mad scientists who were creating the zombies and not the traditional necromantic zombies. What would the reaction be if for Innistrad and the next 3 blocks after that we got blue zombies created by "stitchers" and then for no reason then Wizards can we got 3 blocks of demonic red zombies? Tribal decks would become VERY hard to make and would all end up turning into 5 color monsters more then some of them already are for one.
If we are doing things like blue zombies then why not ...
Angels
hydras
demons
elves
goblins?
It was touched on by Dr Worm but "checklist" design is a bad way of doing things. It can feel super forced to do things just for the sake of doing them and saying nothing of world building and the strength of each color and what it can do. If each color got giant beasts and flight blocking spiders then what would make green special? If each color got cheap soldiers and group buffs then why would anyone play white? If every color got counterspells then why play blue? I know there are corner cases of each of these (Illusory Angel) but single cards aren't going to do any harm since there is no real way to make a "blue angel deck" with one card.
Divisions need to exist between the colors to give each of them strengths and weaknesses. If dragons could just be printed at any color and would be the big flying creature for each color then there would be no reason to print a sphinx, demon, or angel. If goblins could be printed at any color then why would you print any other race at the 1-3 power range? They can just be goblins and we can all be playing decks of goblins, beasts, and dragons and no other races.
There is a real dark side to checklist design and I hope now that you will start to see that.
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There's no proof she's being chased
by ninja squirrels either. - Dr. Wilson
Rather than MORE things like blue zombies, I think we need FEWER things like blue zombies / shouldn't have really done that in the first place.
When you make a weird random color exception and only supply a few cards for it, it is actually pretty wasteful, because it's hard to put the exception cards into the primary tribal, and at the same time, there aren't enough exception cards to stand alone (or if there are, there's only like one or two possible decks with them that make any sense). So they just sort of awkwardly take up space without being that long-term playable.
If they just stuck to the traditions, then it would instead enrich the existing tribal and make it a more interesting and flavorful and diverse deck type, and increase overall game complexity and combinatorics.
Anyhow, the best I can come up with myself is a game in the top 8 of a PTQ back during Urza block in which we were starting game 3 with time already expired, so the tiebreaker rule was that whoever had more life after 3 turns would win. And I lost to... healing salve.
With Blue dragons, we have some that have Blue in them, but a pure Blue dragon? I mean, what would it do? Draw you cards? For flavor reasons it would have to be the most pointless flying body imaginable, because if you're pure Blue, then you aren't Red, and thus you aren't good at damage.
Most unintelligent animals go in green. Those are the reasons I could see an animal going in another colour...
White: Animal is social, domesticated, or associated with purity.
Blue: Animal is associated with the seas or the sky.
Black: Animal is associated with diseases or is actually undead.
Red: Animal is associated with fire or ferocity (a bit of overlapping with green in that department.)
Unlike popular belief, being "evil" is not a black exclusivity.
For example, why haven't we seen:
- Black spiders (outside of Penumbra Spider)
- More blue dragons (not multi-colored, just in a color that has them as fliers - especially since blue has drakes)
- Black wolves
- More blue zombies (since Innistrad block opened us up to the mad-scientist-made zombies, apposed to evil resurrected zombies)
- Red or blue gnomes (they seam to be artifact creatures)
- More black fungus (solid-colored, there are only 2 current solid colored fungus)
- Black Pirates (there have been plenty of evil and cruel pirates in the past and in fiction)
- Black trolls (only multi-colored trolls exist that are black/green)
Come to think of it, black has been excluded from a lot of foresty creature types, yet swamp-lands, mangrove forests, and bogs have a forest-like feel to them, just w/ a lot more stench and decay all around...
It's what makes them special.
How To Keep Your FOIL Cards From Curling: http://youtu.be/QTmubrS8VnI
The Best Deck Boxes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEwgLph_Pjk
The Best Binders: http://youtu.be/H5IauASYWjk
Gnomes appear to be artifacts. Colored artifacts are actually pretty rare in Magic.
With Blue dragons, we have some that have Blue in them, but a pure Blue dragon? I mean, what would it do? Draw you cards? For flavor reasons it would have to be the most pointless flying body imaginable, because if you're pure Blue, then you aren't Red, and thus you aren't good at damage.
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
My Cube:Cardinal Custom Cube
A custom version of a third modern masters: MM2019
(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
As for the main mass of the argument, it's because people who both design this game and play this game have very limited perspectives and imagination. I don't know if they come into it that way or they develop it from years of thinking about the game, but when it comes to the imagination side of the game...yeah, there's not much flexibility there.
In general, the Creative side of things (I think...), prefers to have creature types represent different colors, with "iconic" ones for a humanoid slot and an "epic monster" slot taking precedence. Why so many people lock themselves into thinking that it's impossible to have red Kithkin, a green Dragon, a black Leviathan (haven't even had a Zombie yet), a blue Druid...yes, some concepts fit the colors better, but the amount of backlash I see for anything different is, while not usually volatile, massive and just plain weird.
I think the fanbase has a narrow scope of things that's likely extrapolated from Creative's intensive focus on iconography. That's all I got.
About any "subpar" mechanics or cards: Context is king.
If I make a templating or grammar error, let me know.
The franchise MtG most resembles is Battlestar Galactica. Why? Its players exist in, at most, a dozen different models at any given point in time, with perhaps up to 3% variation, 5% if you're lucky.
Cleric
Demon
Gorgon
Horror
Human
Imp
Minion
Rat
Shade
Specter
Thrull
Vampire
Are these are common black creature types. Gothic, evil, shady, etc. etc.
I think WoTC has actually done a good job giving different creature types to all colors.
Zombie
That's actually what I was getting at with the whole dragons thing.
As for black wolves, they do exist. See: Garruk Relentless. However, I think by this logic, the wolves had been corrupted by the curse, thus being black as opposed to their normal colors: red or green...which brings me to my last point.
As you already mentioned in your own post, OP, many creature types do show up in different colors every now and then, but I think it wouldn't be very flavorful to have blue zombies and black trolls in every set. Those sorts of things should be unique to particular sets/themes in my opinion. Either way, some creature types really need to have a default color to at least have some sort of organization of creature types on the color wheel. If we started seeing blue wolfs (that weren't illusions), there'd better be something really important in terms of the flavor to allow such a thing.
The cycles, such as the kamigawa dragon cycle, can make exceptions, but even still, they really need to have good justification. A cycle of wolves in each of the five colors would be really silly.
Modern Junk Primer
Legacy ANT Primer
L1 Judge
Werewolves = angry primal beasts = R/
There's also Day of the Dragons, which is a mono-blue card which creates dragons.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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I think you forgot to link Keiga, the Tide Star
And of course the obvious one. Between Illusions and the undead, there really should be more flexibility with "off-color" creature types, not to mention the Simic krases (WHY WEREN'T THERE MORE OF THOSE???)
About any "subpar" mechanics or cards: Context is king.
If I make a templating or grammar error, let me know.
The franchise MtG most resembles is Battlestar Galactica. Why? Its players exist in, at most, a dozen different models at any given point in time, with perhaps up to 3% variation, 5% if you're lucky.
I don't think I did.
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
My Cube:Cardinal Custom Cube
A custom version of a third modern masters: MM2019
(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
As far as wolves go, fiction, again. The skeleton forest (no leaves, trees are all dead, cobwebs everywhere) would have wolves in all black pelts, w/ eyes that glow red.
I just think a black spider, a blue gnome, and a blue dragon can pop up here and there without spilling the color wheel.
Breaking character isn't such a bad thing.
Treacherous and Malevolent Mushrooms!
I see what you did there.
Now this I could see. Bring back Ramirez DePietro!
Modern
RBig RedR
GMean GreenG
WWW AlliesW
BGScavengeBG
WUVenser SilenceWU
EDH
RWAurelia 1 vs 1RW
GWURoonGWU
GWSaffiGW
well played good sure
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
. . . . .
Because doing so upsets the status-quo. Some people like the same **** every time and don't want nothing different. Those that make the **** don't want to meddle around with the established methods.
It's like McDonalds burgers; they keep the menu the same, people get what they expect. There's no disorder brought about by unnecessary change.
However, some of us like change. We get bored easily and want something new. So of course there's that conflict there between those that like things the conventional way verses those that want to experiment. How does one alleviate this problem? There's less of us than them, so is might make sense to have established methods, but slowly change things over time, carefully, so as to see what can and can't work.
Black trolls would be awesome. Next tribal themed set, make black/green trolls with greater emphasis in black. Make black (and red) pirates, because flavor wise pirates make sense in the Grixis colors. Or just call theme rogues. Wolves and spiders? Print a few in the next base set and see how people react. Print another blue dragon, or maybe even a white or green one. Doesn't have to be a lot, just a little here and there to spice things up. Change things slowly over time.
Or make another Planar Chaos set.
You say that since we got them on Innistrad it should be easy for us to get them in blue going forward. But you have to ask yourself "why we got blue zombies'. You touched on it already that on Innistrad we got flesh stitching mad scientists who were creating the zombies and not the traditional necromantic zombies. What would the reaction be if for Innistrad and the next 3 blocks after that we got blue zombies created by "stitchers" and then for no reason then Wizards can we got 3 blocks of demonic red zombies? Tribal decks would become VERY hard to make and would all end up turning into 5 color monsters more then some of them already are for one.
If we are doing things like blue zombies then why not ...
Angels
hydras
demons
elves
goblins?
It was touched on by Dr Worm but "checklist" design is a bad way of doing things. It can feel super forced to do things just for the sake of doing them and saying nothing of world building and the strength of each color and what it can do. If each color got giant beasts and flight blocking spiders then what would make green special? If each color got cheap soldiers and group buffs then why would anyone play white? If every color got counterspells then why play blue? I know there are corner cases of each of these (Illusory Angel) but single cards aren't going to do any harm since there is no real way to make a "blue angel deck" with one card.
Divisions need to exist between the colors to give each of them strengths and weaknesses. If dragons could just be printed at any color and would be the big flying creature for each color then there would be no reason to print a sphinx, demon, or angel. If goblins could be printed at any color then why would you print any other race at the 1-3 power range? They can just be goblins and we can all be playing decks of goblins, beasts, and dragons and no other races.
There is a real dark side to checklist design and I hope now that you will start to see that.
There's no proof she's being chased
by ninja squirrels either. - Dr. Wilson
When you make a weird random color exception and only supply a few cards for it, it is actually pretty wasteful, because it's hard to put the exception cards into the primary tribal, and at the same time, there aren't enough exception cards to stand alone (or if there are, there's only like one or two possible decks with them that make any sense). So they just sort of awkwardly take up space without being that long-term playable.
If they just stuck to the traditions, then it would instead enrich the existing tribal and make it a more interesting and flavorful and diverse deck type, and increase overall game complexity and combinatorics.
Contrary to what you may believe, the first few werewolves were in fact black.
As far as black spiders go, I'm actually surprised they haven't printed a few.
I definitely expected to see a Black Widow by now if nothing else
Umm... Quicksilver Dragon
-LEGACY-- RUR SpellDelver UWU Superfriends with Benefits
-MODERN- GBG B/G GoodGrief GRG R/G Go[o]dstuff
-CHROME- GGG Mean Green WUB Spirit Tribal
-PAUPER-- WBG Enchantments RUG RUG Delver
-1v1 EDH-- UB Lazav's Grindhouse BB Death by Sheoldred
If I had a dollar for every time I missed playing a Counterspell ...
I'd be missing my Mana Drain s instead.
White: Animal is social, domesticated, or associated with purity.
Blue: Animal is associated with the seas or the sky.
Black: Animal is associated with diseases or is actually undead.
Red: Animal is associated with fire or ferocity (a bit of overlapping with green in that department.)
Unlike popular belief, being "evil" is not a black exclusivity.
Yes, another list of decks sig.
R Daretti, Scrap Savant
WBR Zurgo Helmsmasher Equipment
BBB Erebos, God of the Dead Goodstuff
UBG The Mimeoplasm
URG All Creatures Animar, Soul of Elements
WB Teysa, Orzhov Scion sac and combo
WUB Sydri, Galvanic Genius
WUG Rafiq of the Many Aggro-Control
UBR Nekusar, The Mindrazer
WRG Mayael, the Anima
Casual:
BB Ad Nauseam Combo
BB Burn
Also, there have been a very small amount of Blue Dragons.