Not everyone who plays Paper Magic enjoys draft / sealed and WotC doesn't realize that you can't please everybody. They think they can but realistically they can't. Having too many Paper formats has a detrimental effect on the game's Secondary Market and creates a potential pay wall to prevent other players from being able to play in their preferred format of choice unless you're playing Pauper because Pauper.
Oh are you caught in that weird mental trap where you think that human interactions are a competition where one person wins and the other person loses (zero-sum thinking)? If wotc does something for draft then they're automatically screwing non-drafters etc?
I think they've done a better job pleasing more people than ever before by printing a lot more cards for a lot more groups every year. Used to be commander people would just get a couple of decks once a year now they're getting whole sets to themselves. The chief complaints are like "too many cards" which is goofy from every perspective /except/ the secondary market because they rely so heavily on scarcity value. I don't especially like the change to booster draft but I get it, especially if they're trying to phase out set boosters and finally raise prices. I really wish these companies wouldn't just lock themselves in regardless of inflation and so on.
Tribal as a term to collect every single creature of a type is sort of like saying "Well, they're both in the EU, so the people of France and Italy are the same."
Yes,, they're both Europeans. They must be all mad being Europeans like that!
I sure hope they don't start any wars over all that.
Or this kind person telling the "Latinx" (whatever that is), despite "not being one of them" why and how they shall be angry because of their "moment" being spoiled by "another big White dominated pop culture thing
Is Latinx just a way of saying "Latino or Latina or Latin-other?" To include all three in the same group. Traditionally you'd say Latinos to refer to everyone in the group, and that works, but some might reasonably accuse it of being sexist. Shrug
Yeah it's the same reason in english-speaking folks stopped using "Mankind" to refer to all humans, or defaulting to -man suffixes for jobs that are also done by women. Or avoiding using "He" as the default pronoun and instead using "he or she" or "his or her" which was the woke thing to do back in the 90s when magic came out and implied that women exist and might also play the card game.
And it's controversial for the same reasons by the same folks too.
I think the reason "Tribal" is a problem is a little more sinister than you guys describe. People speak of tribalism and culturalism as a reason for why racism is perpetuated and why different cultures don't integrate well into the American system. It's a good discourse to have because we need people to come together and stop hurting each other, but not everyone is ready to talk about it, and certainly not during a preferably politically agnostic/neutral game of magic.
I'm not sure it's about "integrating into the american system" as much as "the american system explicitly exists because europeans moved to this continent, where people were already living with their own various iroquois or seminole or cree or hopi or taino systems, forcibly displaced them, and then subjected their children to christian indoctrination and outlawed their language and cultures" sort of thing.
But aside from that americans also broadly believe that native americans are all roughly the same group of people and don't really recognize tribal differences and using the word tribe to describe all members of a certain group rather than, you know, a designated subset of those people united by tradition and/or lineage is just flatly the wrong use for the word. You could build a case for it being "all these folks are a subset of Creature" but that's kind of flimsy and just doesn't quite fit how we use the word tribe in english.
I mean, the same thing happens in return with Western religious beliefs and mythology. I don't think its strictly just a Western thing. I'd argue that the presence of Angels in Ixalan recently was equally offensive if we take a similar approach. Aztecs don't have claim to Judeo-Christian mythology.
After their forcible conversion to Christianity, I think they have plenty of claim.
I'd rather have an angel forced on to me than having my throat slit by some shaman dude because it's the chieftain's birthday
You know the direct sources we have for the idea that the savages of the aztec empire were barbaric and bloodthirsty animals were the spainards invading them? And a lot of that was informed by the relationships of convenience that the spainish formed with rival political groups who were lobbying to get the spanish to displace the mexica bc they thought they could ride the wave to the top. They would tell the spanish these awful stories about how mean the mexica were bc frankly the mexica were still pretty fresh off a lil conquering war and had many dissidents. Google Tlaxcaltec sometime.
It's like when you get into the stories about indigenous cannibalism and you find out that there was no actual evidence of cannibalism, just hearsay from various tribes who would be like "yeah we're cool and we don't eat people, but those dudes over that ridge eat babies." Like at best you had some weird ritual stuff done with the heart of yer slain enemies whomst you were killing for non-food reasons but now you have something like 70 years of american cultural shorthand that the natives are gonna shrink your head and eat you or whatever.
Also someone upthread said all the aztecs are dead. Emphatically not true.
You are completely undervluating shadows. In limited, it can win the game by itself by making every block a trade while you gain life, then giving you back 3 cards. It's huge card and life advantage on a single card. Just attack with a 4/4 or 5/5 with it and you'll be extremely ahead.
Right, you need to keep a creature on the field and attack alone 3 times and maybe by turn 6 you can draw one extra card per turn for a few turns. I won't say it's totally unplayable but it's a very fragile win-more card that drops on a turn you would be better off playing, idk, the new chupacabra guy. Mephitic Draught in this lineup is a more flexible variation of this effect and playable turn 2 where it's less a big deal that you're playing a card that doesn't do anything on its own.
Now if grasping shadows cost two I would say totally for sure do it.
Not having to expose her to risk by attacking with whatever else you got (preferably yer miner's guidewings) really plugs a hole in a lot of these cards. very achievable linear ramp.
In standard it's worth testing out with various phoenix's and swiftspear types.
if the answer is yes I definitely need to make room in tazri' stalwart survivor, it has the lorwyn untap cost creatures so they can be used to go infinite with the whip and their own abilities (you need a Kinnan effect though)
Yes, the creature has the ability so the cost reduction does apply.
Lol basically the same flavor text as Zombie boa. I think at this point they should just cut out flavor text a lot of times. They usually end up repetitive and/or cringe.
Yes basically the same flavor text as *squints* a card from 25 years ago.
Crucially, Risen Reef triggers off itself, unlike this card. I don't see this as having much potential in Modern. T2 this guy T3 Jadelight Ranger may be worth a shot in Pioneer. I don't rule its chances out in Standard though,Vodalian Hexcatcher is one hell of a lord, and the new Jadelight Spelunker right after this guy can put you in a very strong position, I hope we get a viable Merfolk deck to fight for the tempo archetype with Dimir Faeries.
Yeah but now we got map tokens to let us trigger it whenever we want.
Oh are you caught in that weird mental trap where you think that human interactions are a competition where one person wins and the other person loses (zero-sum thinking)? If wotc does something for draft then they're automatically screwing non-drafters etc?
I think they've done a better job pleasing more people than ever before by printing a lot more cards for a lot more groups every year. Used to be commander people would just get a couple of decks once a year now they're getting whole sets to themselves. The chief complaints are like "too many cards" which is goofy from every perspective /except/ the secondary market because they rely so heavily on scarcity value. I don't especially like the change to booster draft but I get it, especially if they're trying to phase out set boosters and finally raise prices. I really wish these companies wouldn't just lock themselves in regardless of inflation and so on.
Yeah it's the same reason in english-speaking folks stopped using "Mankind" to refer to all humans, or defaulting to -man suffixes for jobs that are also done by women. Or avoiding using "He" as the default pronoun and instead using "he or she" or "his or her" which was the woke thing to do back in the 90s when magic came out and implied that women exist and might also play the card game.
And it's controversial for the same reasons by the same folks too.
I'm not sure it's about "integrating into the american system" as much as "the american system explicitly exists because europeans moved to this continent, where people were already living with their own various iroquois or seminole or cree or hopi or taino systems, forcibly displaced them, and then subjected their children to christian indoctrination and outlawed their language and cultures" sort of thing.
But aside from that americans also broadly believe that native americans are all roughly the same group of people and don't really recognize tribal differences and using the word tribe to describe all members of a certain group rather than, you know, a designated subset of those people united by tradition and/or lineage is just flatly the wrong use for the word. You could build a case for it being "all these folks are a subset of Creature" but that's kind of flimsy and just doesn't quite fit how we use the word tribe in english.
You know the direct sources we have for the idea that the savages of the aztec empire were barbaric and bloodthirsty animals were the spainards invading them? And a lot of that was informed by the relationships of convenience that the spainish formed with rival political groups who were lobbying to get the spanish to displace the mexica bc they thought they could ride the wave to the top. They would tell the spanish these awful stories about how mean the mexica were bc frankly the mexica were still pretty fresh off a lil conquering war and had many dissidents. Google Tlaxcaltec sometime.
It's like when you get into the stories about indigenous cannibalism and you find out that there was no actual evidence of cannibalism, just hearsay from various tribes who would be like "yeah we're cool and we don't eat people, but those dudes over that ridge eat babies." Like at best you had some weird ritual stuff done with the heart of yer slain enemies whomst you were killing for non-food reasons but now you have something like 70 years of american cultural shorthand that the natives are gonna shrink your head and eat you or whatever.
Also someone upthread said all the aztecs are dead. Emphatically not true.
Because that is objectively the best way to play this card game.
Right, you need to keep a creature on the field and attack alone 3 times and maybe by turn 6 you can draw one extra card per turn for a few turns. I won't say it's totally unplayable but it's a very fragile win-more card that drops on a turn you would be better off playing, idk, the new chupacabra guy. Mephitic Draught in this lineup is a more flexible variation of this effect and playable turn 2 where it's less a big deal that you're playing a card that doesn't do anything on its own.
Now if grasping shadows cost two I would say totally for sure do it.
In standard it's worth testing out with various phoenix's and swiftspear types.
Yes, the creature has the ability so the cost reduction does apply.
Yes basically the same flavor text as *squints* a card from 25 years ago.
Yeah but now we got map tokens to let us trigger it whenever we want.
Oh are caves gonna be land slivers??