Why is everyone mentioning her "needing" to be four colors? Isn't she quite literally the queen of the White Court of Ardenvale, as opposed to the
Black Court of Lochthwain, the Blue Court of Vantress, the Green Court of Garenbrig, and the Red Court of Embereth? So like... she actually represents the monarchy in control of the literally-white-mana-associated court of loyalty within the feudal structure of Eldraine. Why would she be four colors?
In the book, whilst questing in their youth, Kennreth and Linden sought to acquire knighthoods in all 5 kingdoms. Kennreth achieved this. Linden only got 4. For Kennreth this is reflected in his card having abilities abilites reflecting this. People just want to see such threads carried all the way through.
Ah, okay. That makes some sense, I suppose.
That being said, is that what the five color-activated abilities on Kennreth for sure represent? Or is that simply supposition?
Because--without reading the novel, granted--it makes 100% perfect sense that the High King of the realms has those five different color-based abilities simply because he is the monarch in control of all five mana-color-based Courts of Eldraine. As in, he quite literally has the political authority over and the power to command the use of all five courts of the realm with his word alone by virtue of being the High King, and those activated abilities represent his bringing to bear the power of a given court and its associated virtue (so loyalty for the white court, knowledge for blue, persistence for black, courage for red, and strength for the green court).
Not because he's undergone all the trials, but simply due to his political position. If the king of another court was the High King, I suspect they, too, would have five colored abilities to represent that authority over the five courts of Eldraine feudalism.
i get that she is part of a cycle
but storywise this doesnt fit, right ?
i mean the king is also white with 5 color abilities to mirror his 5 knighthoods. i get that they dont want to make her a cheap copy. so why not make her a 4 color creature instead (like a new atraxa). i am sure they got plenty other legends in the story to fill the role for the white card in the cycle
Why is everyone mentioning her "needing" to be four colors? Isn't she quite literally the queen of the White Court of Ardenvale, as opposed to the
Black Court of Lochthwain, the Blue Court of Vantress, the Green Court of Garenbrig, and the Red Court of Embereth? So like... she actually represents the monarchy in control of the literally-white-mana-associated court of loyalty within the feudal structure of Eldraine. Why would she be four colors?
This thing literally says "destroy target creature. You gain 3 life." As is, it's stats are good for the tribe and good beats are always welcome.
I think you mean "destroy target ATTACKING creature" ... not quite as strong.
Target attacking or BLOCKING creature in knight tribal. Makes it noticeably stronger; just like the tricks with Dire Fleet Poisoner enabling a smaller pirate to get in a kill on the attack when it otherwise wouldn't.
This whole colored artifacts thing seems to be closing design space rather than opening. It's literally an easier to kill Silkwrap
From a design perspective the fact that mono red will have a solution to this may well be the "opened up" design space... It's balanced now whereas as an enchantment it wasn't.
It opens up design space on multiple fronts. Not just in the way you touch upon. It also means they get to experiment with more powerful effects that wax and wane by type tailored to the environment, and also suitable for eternal formats in various ways. They play with an effect and it's a little too good on an enchantment? Try the same exact effect/cost on an artifact, and see how it plays out. The reverse is true, and something is too good on an artifact? Swap it to an enchantment, see how it plays.
It also allows format-centric experimentation. Take this very pair of cards, Silkwrap and Glass Casket. Just this pair. In normal play and eternal formats, it's more likely the artifact will be somewhat easier to remove, sure... but also easier to go grab from your deck or elsewhere, as tutoring/digging for artifacts is more common. In formats where they decide to go in another direction, like, say, Theros--where enchantments might be far more common, and in turn enchantment hate and synergy more ubiquitous--then making the exact same effect an artifact is harder to get rid of, but also harder to dig for. The opposite of artifacts in traditional sets/blocks/formats.
But the Casket is NOT merely an easier to kill Silkwrap. It's also an easier to go grab Silkwrap, and an easier to recover from the 'yard Silkwrap in most formats. Meaning it's quite literally a pure expansion of design space. You now get the same exact effect for the exact same mana cost on two fronts that each have different benefits and weaknesses. And design can play around with that space, and flip it on its head for specific formats, like a Theros-centric environment and its differences wrt enchantments.
Kalonian Hydra, Bioessence Hydra, and both Phytohydras are actually the kind of hydras that the person you are quoting is talking about. They are growing heads in some way.
I agree hydras don't have to grow, but you are kind of proving their point a little.
Not really? Bioessence, perhaps it's growing heads, perhaps it's getting larger. And Simic? The Simic Combine is often shown making things grow larger in an uncontrollable manner. So many biohazardous experiments of extreme growing out of control.
Kalonian? Nothing whatsoever indicates it's growing heads, what with it affecting every single creature you control. So unless its theme, not shown on the card in any way, shape, or form, is "I make all of you also have more than one head!", it's much more likely it's theme, which talks only about feeding time, and shows a gargantuan monster eating everything in sight, including trees, is about magically making everything around go on a feeding frenzy that cause them to all grow more and more massive.
The phytohydras, per Sprouting Phytohydra's text, are plant-like, including not merely growing out of control, but budding into more and more and more plants. Not at all like the Lernaean hydra, and very much classic plants growing out of control type stuff.
Regardless, they have no X in the cost or in the text, and there were thirteen examples provided. The oldest of which is from Stronghold, which was released over 21 years ago in March of 1998, and has exactly nothing whatsoever to do with growing more heads.
This is a wonderful card, and one of the best of the cycle. I love the theme of turtle hydras, and of each plane within the Magic multiverse exploring classic mythological creatures in new and unique ways, including but not limited to not having all hydras following the Hydra itself, the Lernaean Hydra, unique and completely immortal child of Typhon and Echidna, who had one immortal head that could only be contained by trapping it under a rock, had heads that sprouted two in the place of one if not sealed shut with fire, whose heads could all spit deadly acid sprays, and whose blood was so deadly, a single dip of an arrow in its blood could slay any non-immortal monster struck by it. But since we're not talking about THE Hydra, and instead are talking about a whole and wildly varied class of creature since adopted into myth across the world and in many fantasy settings, I'm all for not every type of hydra having to regenerate heads like the child of Echidna and Typhon.
I'm not in love with the idea of Black and Green caring about Food, which, bizarrely, is an artifact of all things. It makes sense flavorwise, because one of the intersections of Black and Green is definitely parasitism, but it's just kind of random and slapdash, to my mind.
Artifacts just mean anything that's an object. That's it. Even natural objects can be an artifact, within the game itself. Mark Rosewater has even explained this verbatim, explictly stating that, "Because we don’t have a Natural card type. Artifact, the card type, is broader than the normal definition. Let’s say we have a magical rock. What card type would it be? It would be an artifact. Natural items can be Magic: The Gathering card type “artifact”."
In fact, the most well-known and expensive artifact in the entire game, the Black Lotus, is a flower that actually grows all over the Magic multiverse. Just grows out in nature, in certain places. It's not an object of artifice, it's just a very, very, very powerfully-infused with mana flower that grows from the ground.
Basically, they didn't use the term "object" as a card type when the game began, and they were stuck with it after many years of it being "artifact".
So Clue tokens (which could be ANY clue, not some artificial object; a Clue token could represent a patch of fur stuck on a tree, for example), and Food tokens, as well as cards like Black Lotus and Golden Egg, are artifacts within the context of Magic, because the term "artifact" in magic does NOT mean an object of artifice. It means any object at all.
Medieval fashion was quite a bit different from ours today. I see a lot of inspiration from various points of medieval fashion in the art style of this piece, from the large shoulders on the dress, the tight fitted top, a corset-looking addition, and a looser more flowing bottom part to the dress. Even the hat and veil fit in well. I think the artist did a pretty good job pulling together inspiration from various styles of courtly dress, and tying them together in a dark and sinister vibe that befits the card and colors.
Not to mention, what's considered to be sufficiently alluring and revealing differs not only from society to society, but from social class to social class within a society. In some societies, expensive, elegant clothing that hides a lot but leave just hints of where a person't curves and angles are is considered much more alluring than something revealing far more skin. Such clothing would never be considered "frumpy" by those societal standards. Frumpy means clothing that is out of date and generally very banal in appearance for the culture it is appearing in. In other cultures, the wealthier you are, the more you're allowed to walk around with very little to nothing at all on, as a sign of your status. Literally so, where a poor person could be arrested or worse for wearing little to nothing, while a very wealthy person is allowed to walk around naked as a status symbol. And everything in between also occurs. It's terribly nuanced.
But yes, for a medieval style culture like Eldraine has, clothing that covers you up a great deal, including veiling part of your face, while revealing just hints of where curves are and things like lips being highlighted by veils or the like, is often considered FAR more alluring for a seductress than wearing something revealing. Only the peasantry wears such revealing clothing or so few layers of clothing in many such societies. The wealthier you were, the more layers of and complexity of undergarments and overgarments you could afford to wear. So wearing something that covers you up entirely while showing off your wealth and status would be highly seductive indeed, and the lower classes would emulate those looks as best as they could afford to whenever possible.
In fact, a lot of details on Araya's clothes match late medieval high nobility dress. That hat? Hell, yes. The form-fitting upper body clothing, but with extra layers of detail on the corset/girdle? Yep, only the very upper classes were even ALLOWED to wear metal or jeweled girdles and the like; even low-upper class people were forbidden to do so. The much larger, exaggerated shoulders? Yep, a whole lot of late medieval high fashion for woman has large amounts of extra material bunched around the shoulders rather that fitting the form of the shoulders snugly. The veil? Yep, the Church basically required by law that women wear veils, but the wealthier you were, the more sheer the veil as you could afford the richest of materials that allowed such veils. And those styles of hat were designed with the veils in mind.
This whole outfit screams cutting edge medieval upper class. The exact opposite of frumpy. This would be considered extremely appealing in upper class society.
Not to mention, physical beauty standards are subjective and related to the culture they come from, as well. What we consider traditionally beautiful today is not what every culture considered the same, or even what OUR OWN CULTURE considered beautiful mere decades ago. At all. We have no idea what is considered stunningly attractive in Eldraine society.
Think Rubenesque women being considered a sign of being wealthy, healthy, and beautiful. Why? Because it meant they had sufficient means and luxury, and that was a highly physically attractive trait. Ancient Greece, the Italian Renaissance, and Victorian England are times and places where the ideal beauty standards of the time explicitly list features such as a heavily rounded belly, prominent rounded hips, etc, were flat-out considered very beautiful. The roaring 20s in the United States were the opposite, where a flat chest, boyish figure, short hair, and androgyny in general, was considered the most beautiful of "ideal" look for a woman amongst many.
Same with things like, oh, noses and eyes. In many times and cultures, having a larger and/or sharper nose was a sign of beauty. Especially if that nose type was prominent amongst the nobility but not the common folk. Same with various shapes or types of eyes. Even some terms used indicate these preferences. Handsome women, for example. When that term was in use a lot, the term "handsome" meant sharp-featured. Literally sharp-featured. As in, sharp, angular nose and jawline, etc. A handsome woman was strikingly beautiful BECAUSE of her sharp, angular features.
There is no one-size-fits-all objective standard.
Modern beauty standards are just that: modern. They hardly represent anything resembling what even a handful of decades ago differed in beauty standards. I am quite certain there are many times, places, cultures, and people, who would and do find someone who looks like this art of Ayara to be stunningly attractive. It's most assuredly not even close to objective that she's anything approaching unattractive. And it's not even close to close that what she's wearing would be considered unsexy by the upper class in particular. Very, very, very much the contrary, what she's wearing has a whole helluva lot in common with middle to late medieval upper class standards that would be considered cutting edge, would dominate within the courts and ballrooms, and so on.
Is she intended to be akin to the Queen of Air and Darkness, i.e Morgause of T.H. White's Once and Future King iteration of Arthurian lore?
Morgause is Queen in Arthurian legendsm wife of Uther Pendragon, and mother to Agravain, Clarissant, Gaheris, Gareth, Gawain, Mordred, and Soredamor, from way back in the 13th century. Could represent her, could represent Morgan le Fay (one of Morgause's sisters, mind you, Morgan was a largely benevolent individual in the old Arthurian myths, and ally and protector of Arthur, who was a powerful healer that saved Arthur's life, then evolved into a stark duality figure capable of both profound good and uncaring evil).
So my guess is Ayara is the modern mixture of Morgause and Morgan.
Seven bags
Seven boxes on the right
Seven flames (six on walls plus rightmost dwarf's torch)
Seven red gems in the left
Seven tools (3 on the ground, 2 with center dwarf, plus two more with the other dwarves)
Seven circles in center dwarf's armor
That's what I've got
Seven diagonal pieces of wood, and seven vertical pieces of wood visible on the suspended container the upper-left dwarf is standing in.
Seven pillars with flames atop them visible on the ramp in the background.
Seven candles in the right-most dwarf's possession. Four in his arms, two on his belt, one on his head.
Could be an oppressive card. Also, you absolutely get access to all exiled cards whenever any rogue attacks.
Conditions to be met for ability to be triggered:
1. Robber needs to attack.
2. Your opponent must have more cards in hand that you.
3. If conditions 1 and 2 are met, Robber exiles the top card of their library.
4. During any turn you attacked with a Rogue (Robber or other), you may cast THAT card. (Does not specify other cards exiled in this way that were not cast, only the most recent one exiled after the first three steps)
5. If you cast that card, you may spend mana as if it were any color to cast it, blah blah.
Reading it a line at a time, it's quite clear. Nowhere on the card does it explicitly specify that any card BEYOND THE ONE YOU HAVE CURRENTLY EXILED is playable, and thus, the Rules Committee will need to make a ruling on what this card ACTUALLY does.
If it DOES end up allowing you to cast exiled cards from past turns, then this is a pretty good card. If it's only the most recently exiled card, it's not quite as amazing but still has applications, most likely in midrange and control decks.
Each and every card gets it's own distinct "that card" statement. It does not in any way, by the way it's worded, overwrite any of the previous "that card" instances. Quite the contrary, it would have to specify that only the most recent card is the valid one for it to only affect the most recent card as worded. Turn 2, you attack and exile a card? THAT card has a bubble. Nothing on the card, not one thing, says that bubble goes away. Turn 3 you attack again and exile again? THAT card also has a bubble. NOTHING on the card says THAT bubble goes away either.
Look at the wording for Thief of Sanity: "You may look at and cast that card for as long as it remains exiled, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any type to cast that spell." Thief, too, only specifies "that card" gets the clause. But we absolutely 100% for sure know each and every card exiled by a Thief of Sanity is forever affected by that individual "that card" clause.
When one of your Rogues attacks, each and every card exiled by any Robber of the Rich individually trigger, full stop, because nothing on Robber says they do not.
The "that card" on Robber is precisely the same as the "that card" on Thief, in that nothing on the card specifies that goes away after the card is exiled.
I'm not even going to start touching upon the BLM movement, because we're skating on thin ice here as it is.
*snip a whole lot of stuff*
This post is most likely going to get moderated because it's controversial and barely on-topic.
You're literally the person that brought the subject up, then got a response addressing the very same controversial topic you yourself brought up to begin with. Indignation at a response to the very provocative subjectyou initiated comes across... fascinatingly. Not that's it's particularly SHOCKING a level of indignation, mind you.
A little thought experiment to show you how your initial question sounded. Change your initial post to something involving different dominant and marginalized groups, read it, and think about the type of response IT would garner: "You ever notice how, whenever a character of one race is dominating a character of a different race in the art, it's always a person of color dominating a white person? Why don't we ever see the reverse? It's hard to call it equal representation when the representation isn't actually equal."
Do you see how that just MIGHT be perceived as quite a problematic statement? Switching which dominant and marginalized groups are involved, especially to one with an even longer deeply heated and oppressive historical context, doesn't... change the problematic nature of the statement. At all.
But really. You brought this up to begin with. Did you truly expect no responses the likes of which you received? Honestly?
Next time, it might be a great idea to simply... not interject such "subversive", as you put it, thoughts into a forum about a game in a discussion about a card within that game? And you won't get the kinds of responses you then acted rather indignant towards. So yes. Back to the card at hand, rather than the controversial subject you yourself interjected into the conversation.
If this is truly a "Kaiju"set with all the above-mentioned flavor - I could see Suspend making a comeback. Much like Zendikar sets, there need to be a way to enable battlecruiser magic. Monsters will take forever to cast, no doubt, unless they start small and just grow with +1/+1 counters (booooring). Suspend could be a great mechanic to capture the flavor of a monster coming through a portal, or as @Wraithe mentioned, slowly approaching the coast from the ocean horizon. Much like Greater Gargadon, the suspend counters could be removed through certain accomplishments - sacrificing lands or artifacts, depending on the monsters. You could even ADD suspend counters to get an added effect - "If Kaiju is suspended, you may add a suspend counter to destroy target artifact" - etc.
I could also see the Kaiju monsters affecting the board in some way each time a counter is removed. Like:
Fungal Kaiju Monster
Creature - Monster Fungus
Suspend 6 -
Whenever a time counter is removed from this card, you may exile a card from your graveyard: Create a 1/1 green Saproling creature token.
Whenever Fungal Kaiju Monster attacks, it gets +1/+1 until end of turn for each Saporling creature token you control.
3/3
Hive Mother Kaiju Monster
Creature - Monster Insect
Suspend 3 -
Whenever a time counter is removed from this card, target creature you control gets gets +1/+1 until the end of turn.
5/5
Although WotC would need to be careful with this and not make anything super busted.
The only problem with Suspend is... MaRo said it was a mechanic they've never used before. Therefore, I don't think they'll use Suspend, even if it would be an interesting take.
How will they do a Godzilla set when the average creature should start around 10/10 at minimum?
The monsters probably start small and get bigger with this “build your own monster” mechanic.
Or they start out incapable of attacking or blocking (and likely being very difficult to remove from play) until certain conditions exist, or certain cards are played on them. So similar to Theros gods, but possibly without the animation condition being on the card itself?
Think of a massive potential-threat sitting on the board waiting for the right time to become an actual threat. Everyone sees it on the horizon coming, knows it's extremely difficult if not impossible to remove from play, and your opponents are hoping to defeat you before it arrives, or be able to slow it down (see: remove the things that currently allow it to attack/block) long enough to win.
This would even fit with the kaiju theme. How much of a kaiju film is watching the monster(s) wreck other things far away, or be on the move, vs the time spent with the monster(s) actually in the thick, fighting and destroying what's right around the audience's perspective?
Hell. Perhaps they even start off only able to affect other behemoths? Maybe they get to attack one another directly normally to accomplish some effect, but not players or planeswalkers, until cards allow them to attack the latter. This would allow them to be quite cheap with massive bodies, since behemoths are starting off only interacting with one another.
The looming distant threat slowly revealing what it's capable of, then finally having something set it off in a dangerous way, feels like something that's never been done (another thing MaRo said, this is a mechanic "they've never done before"), and also feels very kaiju to me.
Deathrite Shaman is the only 1-drop creature in Magic's history that can ramp you and gain you life and it is banned in Modern and Legacy. DRS isn't even self-fueling. I don't feel crazy for thinking this might end up as the most important card in the set.
Nope. I think many people are woefully underestimating this card.
Very often, a mana-ramp creature is used once, maybe twice, then it's done all it's likely to do that game. This card mana ramps in any color, flies, and has a 2-toughness butt. Then for the rest of the game, if left unchecked, generates lifegain or feeds Food tokens to other effects. If the card never does anything but let you ramp to three mana on turn two, or ramp to four mana on turn three, gain 3 life, it's likely still been a strong play. Worth its weight in gold, so to speak.
But no, I don't think you're crazy at all. I think far too many people are dismissing this card way, way too swiftly.
Ah, okay. That makes some sense, I suppose.
That being said, is that what the five color-activated abilities on Kennreth for sure represent? Or is that simply supposition?
Because--without reading the novel, granted--it makes 100% perfect sense that the High King of the realms has those five different color-based abilities simply because he is the monarch in control of all five mana-color-based Courts of Eldraine. As in, he quite literally has the political authority over and the power to command the use of all five courts of the realm with his word alone by virtue of being the High King, and those activated abilities represent his bringing to bear the power of a given court and its associated virtue (so loyalty for the white court, knowledge for blue, persistence for black, courage for red, and strength for the green court).
Not because he's undergone all the trials, but simply due to his political position. If the king of another court was the High King, I suspect they, too, would have five colored abilities to represent that authority over the five courts of Eldraine feudalism.
Why is everyone mentioning her "needing" to be four colors? Isn't she quite literally the queen of the White Court of Ardenvale, as opposed to the
Black Court of Lochthwain, the Blue Court of Vantress, the Green Court of Garenbrig, and the Red Court of Embereth? So like... she actually represents the monarchy in control of the literally-white-mana-associated court of loyalty within the feudal structure of Eldraine. Why would she be four colors?
Target attacking or BLOCKING creature in knight tribal. Makes it noticeably stronger; just like the tricks with Dire Fleet Poisoner enabling a smaller pirate to get in a kill on the attack when it otherwise wouldn't.
It opens up design space on multiple fronts. Not just in the way you touch upon. It also means they get to experiment with more powerful effects that wax and wane by type tailored to the environment, and also suitable for eternal formats in various ways. They play with an effect and it's a little too good on an enchantment? Try the same exact effect/cost on an artifact, and see how it plays out. The reverse is true, and something is too good on an artifact? Swap it to an enchantment, see how it plays.
It also allows format-centric experimentation. Take this very pair of cards, Silkwrap and Glass Casket. Just this pair. In normal play and eternal formats, it's more likely the artifact will be somewhat easier to remove, sure... but also easier to go grab from your deck or elsewhere, as tutoring/digging for artifacts is more common. In formats where they decide to go in another direction, like, say, Theros--where enchantments might be far more common, and in turn enchantment hate and synergy more ubiquitous--then making the exact same effect an artifact is harder to get rid of, but also harder to dig for. The opposite of artifacts in traditional sets/blocks/formats.
But the Casket is NOT merely an easier to kill Silkwrap. It's also an easier to go grab Silkwrap, and an easier to recover from the 'yard Silkwrap in most formats. Meaning it's quite literally a pure expansion of design space. You now get the same exact effect for the exact same mana cost on two fronts that each have different benefits and weaknesses. And design can play around with that space, and flip it on its head for specific formats, like a Theros-centric environment and its differences wrt enchantments.
Not really? Bioessence, perhaps it's growing heads, perhaps it's getting larger. And Simic? The Simic Combine is often shown making things grow larger in an uncontrollable manner. So many biohazardous experiments of extreme growing out of control.
Kalonian? Nothing whatsoever indicates it's growing heads, what with it affecting every single creature you control. So unless its theme, not shown on the card in any way, shape, or form, is "I make all of you also have more than one head!", it's much more likely it's theme, which talks only about feeding time, and shows a gargantuan monster eating everything in sight, including trees, is about magically making everything around go on a feeding frenzy that cause them to all grow more and more massive.
The phytohydras, per Sprouting Phytohydra's text, are plant-like, including not merely growing out of control, but budding into more and more and more plants. Not at all like the Lernaean hydra, and very much classic plants growing out of control type stuff.
Regardless, they have no X in the cost or in the text, and there were thirteen examples provided. The oldest of which is from Stronghold, which was released over 21 years ago in March of 1998, and has exactly nothing whatsoever to do with growing more heads.
"Supposed to"? By what metric of "supposed to" in a fantasy world?
I mean, we certainly aren't talking about the Magic the Gathering multiverse, right?
This is a wonderful card, and one of the best of the cycle. I love the theme of turtle hydras, and of each plane within the Magic multiverse exploring classic mythological creatures in new and unique ways, including but not limited to not having all hydras following the Hydra itself, the Lernaean Hydra, unique and completely immortal child of Typhon and Echidna, who had one immortal head that could only be contained by trapping it under a rock, had heads that sprouted two in the place of one if not sealed shut with fire, whose heads could all spit deadly acid sprays, and whose blood was so deadly, a single dip of an arrow in its blood could slay any non-immortal monster struck by it. But since we're not talking about THE Hydra, and instead are talking about a whole and wildly varied class of creature since adopted into myth across the world and in many fantasy settings, I'm all for not every type of hydra having to regenerate heads like the child of Echidna and Typhon.
Artifacts just mean anything that's an object. That's it. Even natural objects can be an artifact, within the game itself. Mark Rosewater has even explained this verbatim, explictly stating that, "Because we don’t have a Natural card type. Artifact, the card type, is broader than the normal definition. Let’s say we have a magical rock. What card type would it be? It would be an artifact. Natural items can be Magic: The Gathering card type “artifact”."
In fact, the most well-known and expensive artifact in the entire game, the Black Lotus, is a flower that actually grows all over the Magic multiverse. Just grows out in nature, in certain places. It's not an object of artifice, it's just a very, very, very powerfully-infused with mana flower that grows from the ground.
Basically, they didn't use the term "object" as a card type when the game began, and they were stuck with it after many years of it being "artifact".
So Clue tokens (which could be ANY clue, not some artificial object; a Clue token could represent a patch of fur stuck on a tree, for example), and Food tokens, as well as cards like Black Lotus and Golden Egg, are artifacts within the context of Magic, because the term "artifact" in magic does NOT mean an object of artifice. It means any object at all.
Not to mention, what's considered to be sufficiently alluring and revealing differs not only from society to society, but from social class to social class within a society. In some societies, expensive, elegant clothing that hides a lot but leave just hints of where a person't curves and angles are is considered much more alluring than something revealing far more skin. Such clothing would never be considered "frumpy" by those societal standards. Frumpy means clothing that is out of date and generally very banal in appearance for the culture it is appearing in. In other cultures, the wealthier you are, the more you're allowed to walk around with very little to nothing at all on, as a sign of your status. Literally so, where a poor person could be arrested or worse for wearing little to nothing, while a very wealthy person is allowed to walk around naked as a status symbol. And everything in between also occurs. It's terribly nuanced.
But yes, for a medieval style culture like Eldraine has, clothing that covers you up a great deal, including veiling part of your face, while revealing just hints of where curves are and things like lips being highlighted by veils or the like, is often considered FAR more alluring for a seductress than wearing something revealing. Only the peasantry wears such revealing clothing or so few layers of clothing in many such societies. The wealthier you were, the more layers of and complexity of undergarments and overgarments you could afford to wear. So wearing something that covers you up entirely while showing off your wealth and status would be highly seductive indeed, and the lower classes would emulate those looks as best as they could afford to whenever possible.
In fact, a lot of details on Araya's clothes match late medieval high nobility dress. That hat? Hell, yes. The form-fitting upper body clothing, but with extra layers of detail on the corset/girdle? Yep, only the very upper classes were even ALLOWED to wear metal or jeweled girdles and the like; even low-upper class people were forbidden to do so. The much larger, exaggerated shoulders? Yep, a whole lot of late medieval high fashion for woman has large amounts of extra material bunched around the shoulders rather that fitting the form of the shoulders snugly. The veil? Yep, the Church basically required by law that women wear veils, but the wealthier you were, the more sheer the veil as you could afford the richest of materials that allowed such veils. And those styles of hat were designed with the veils in mind.
This whole outfit screams cutting edge medieval upper class. The exact opposite of frumpy. This would be considered extremely appealing in upper class society.
Not to mention, physical beauty standards are subjective and related to the culture they come from, as well. What we consider traditionally beautiful today is not what every culture considered the same, or even what OUR OWN CULTURE considered beautiful mere decades ago. At all. We have no idea what is considered stunningly attractive in Eldraine society.
Think Rubenesque women being considered a sign of being wealthy, healthy, and beautiful. Why? Because it meant they had sufficient means and luxury, and that was a highly physically attractive trait. Ancient Greece, the Italian Renaissance, and Victorian England are times and places where the ideal beauty standards of the time explicitly list features such as a heavily rounded belly, prominent rounded hips, etc, were flat-out considered very beautiful. The roaring 20s in the United States were the opposite, where a flat chest, boyish figure, short hair, and androgyny in general, was considered the most beautiful of "ideal" look for a woman amongst many.
Same with things like, oh, noses and eyes. In many times and cultures, having a larger and/or sharper nose was a sign of beauty. Especially if that nose type was prominent amongst the nobility but not the common folk. Same with various shapes or types of eyes. Even some terms used indicate these preferences. Handsome women, for example. When that term was in use a lot, the term "handsome" meant sharp-featured. Literally sharp-featured. As in, sharp, angular nose and jawline, etc. A handsome woman was strikingly beautiful BECAUSE of her sharp, angular features.
There is no one-size-fits-all objective standard.
Modern beauty standards are just that: modern. They hardly represent anything resembling what even a handful of decades ago differed in beauty standards. I am quite certain there are many times, places, cultures, and people, who would and do find someone who looks like this art of Ayara to be stunningly attractive. It's most assuredly not even close to objective that she's anything approaching unattractive. And it's not even close to close that what she's wearing would be considered unsexy by the upper class in particular. Very, very, very much the contrary, what she's wearing has a whole helluva lot in common with middle to late medieval upper class standards that would be considered cutting edge, would dominate within the courts and ballrooms, and so on.
Morgause is Queen in Arthurian legendsm wife of Uther Pendragon, and mother to Agravain, Clarissant, Gaheris, Gareth, Gawain, Mordred, and Soredamor, from way back in the 13th century. Could represent her, could represent Morgan le Fay (one of Morgause's sisters, mind you, Morgan was a largely benevolent individual in the old Arthurian myths, and ally and protector of Arthur, who was a powerful healer that saved Arthur's life, then evolved into a stark duality figure capable of both profound good and uncaring evil).
So my guess is Ayara is the modern mixture of Morgause and Morgan.
Seven pillars with flames atop them visible on the ramp in the background.
Seven candles in the right-most dwarf's possession. Four in his arms, two on his belt, one on his head.
Each and every card gets it's own distinct "that card" statement. It does not in any way, by the way it's worded, overwrite any of the previous "that card" instances. Quite the contrary, it would have to specify that only the most recent card is the valid one for it to only affect the most recent card as worded. Turn 2, you attack and exile a card? THAT card has a bubble. Nothing on the card, not one thing, says that bubble goes away. Turn 3 you attack again and exile again? THAT card also has a bubble. NOTHING on the card says THAT bubble goes away either.
Look at the wording for Thief of Sanity: "You may look at and cast that card for as long as it remains exiled, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any type to cast that spell." Thief, too, only specifies "that card" gets the clause. But we absolutely 100% for sure know each and every card exiled by a Thief of Sanity is forever affected by that individual "that card" clause.
When one of your Rogues attacks, each and every card exiled by any Robber of the Rich individually trigger, full stop, because nothing on Robber says they do not.
The "that card" on Robber is precisely the same as the "that card" on Thief, in that nothing on the card specifies that goes away after the card is exiled.
You're literally the person that brought the subject up, then got a response addressing the very same controversial topic you yourself brought up to begin with. Indignation at a response to the very provocative subject you initiated comes across... fascinatingly. Not that's it's particularly SHOCKING a level of indignation, mind you.
A little thought experiment to show you how your initial question sounded. Change your initial post to something involving different dominant and marginalized groups, read it, and think about the type of response IT would garner: "You ever notice how, whenever a character of one race is dominating a character of a different race in the art, it's always a person of color dominating a white person? Why don't we ever see the reverse? It's hard to call it equal representation when the representation isn't actually equal."
Do you see how that just MIGHT be perceived as quite a problematic statement? Switching which dominant and marginalized groups are involved, especially to one with an even longer deeply heated and oppressive historical context, doesn't... change the problematic nature of the statement. At all.
But really. You brought this up to begin with. Did you truly expect no responses the likes of which you received? Honestly?
Next time, it might be a great idea to simply... not interject such "subversive", as you put it, thoughts into a forum about a game in a discussion about a card within that game? And you won't get the kinds of responses you then acted rather indignant towards. So yes. Back to the card at hand, rather than the controversial subject you yourself interjected into the conversation.
The only problem with Suspend is... MaRo said it was a mechanic they've never used before. Therefore, I don't think they'll use Suspend, even if it would be an interesting take.
Or they start out incapable of attacking or blocking (and likely being very difficult to remove from play) until certain conditions exist, or certain cards are played on them. So similar to Theros gods, but possibly without the animation condition being on the card itself?
Think of a massive potential-threat sitting on the board waiting for the right time to become an actual threat. Everyone sees it on the horizon coming, knows it's extremely difficult if not impossible to remove from play, and your opponents are hoping to defeat you before it arrives, or be able to slow it down (see: remove the things that currently allow it to attack/block) long enough to win.
This would even fit with the kaiju theme. How much of a kaiju film is watching the monster(s) wreck other things far away, or be on the move, vs the time spent with the monster(s) actually in the thick, fighting and destroying what's right around the audience's perspective?
Hell. Perhaps they even start off only able to affect other behemoths? Maybe they get to attack one another directly normally to accomplish some effect, but not players or planeswalkers, until cards allow them to attack the latter. This would allow them to be quite cheap with massive bodies, since behemoths are starting off only interacting with one another.
The looming distant threat slowly revealing what it's capable of, then finally having something set it off in a dangerous way, feels like something that's never been done (another thing MaRo said, this is a mechanic "they've never done before"), and also feels very kaiju to me.
Nope. I think many people are woefully underestimating this card.
Very often, a mana-ramp creature is used once, maybe twice, then it's done all it's likely to do that game. This card mana ramps in any color, flies, and has a 2-toughness butt. Then for the rest of the game, if left unchecked, generates lifegain or feeds Food tokens to other effects. If the card never does anything but let you ramp to three mana on turn two, or ramp to four mana on turn three, gain 3 life, it's likely still been a strong play. Worth its weight in gold, so to speak.
But no, I don't think you're crazy at all. I think far too many people are dismissing this card way, way too swiftly.