Well it might not even be one of the planes tainted by karn, old phyrexians had planar portal tech and had experiments + compleation going in other planes. Things presumably stopped working at the end of the invasion with Yawgmoth being destroyed, but if the oil kept working we can assume some other tech in other planes could be still operational.
Or maybe Ajani's information about new Capenna being Elspeth's home plane was wrong somehow, maybe disinformation, maybe Ob wanted her there and did some mind trick to Ajani, we may have to wait to see
I still think this is just Serra's Realm and we're gonna see some creative writing to get around how it got back out of that powerstone.
Well, one benefit of making Gandalf a planeswalker is that they can't accidentally make them a Human Wizard. I know some people who would give them their piece of mind about that.
Honestly I would be floored if they did "Angel Wizard"
y'all are gonna be real mad when the gandalf planeswalker card drops
No actually. Gandalf makes perfect sense as a Planeswalker being an all powerful archmage. A mid level fighter or even spider gods do not make sense as walkers.
Gandalf couldn't even get himself off a tower without begging help from the eagles. "all powerful archmage" my butt.
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words
I think these exist because every engaged fan and their mothers make fun tribute sets of "what if these characters were magic cards" so there's clearly a market for that sort of thing, the same way secret lairs exist because there's a market for radical card alters and commander products exist because there's a market for people who play a fan created version of the rules.
I don't understand this pervasive reactionary idea that magic the gathering is a tiny little narrow concept instead of a broad platform or an entire medium of expression. This stuff doesn't form in a vacuum, it's a discursive process between fans and the company and it's working so much better now that the company is paying attention to the fans instead of weird upper management mandates or the tiny pro community.
And I'm all for eliminating the profit motive and collectivizing wizards of the coast so that they can solely make decisions based on what they think would be creatively fulfilling rather than what they need to do to bring their shareholders value, but that's a conversation I'm pretty sure you're not that interested in.
I know Baldur's Gate 3 is still in early access limbo (which tbh is why I'm excited to see if they spoil anything in the game here) but you should check it out. It's by the folks who did Divine Divinity, which was a really good Diablo knock-off in 2001 or the much better known and more popular Divinity: Original Sin games which in theory take place in the same universe.
I refuse to believe that the power level of commander has been seriously shaken up by these products. It's a format that doesn't have any real restrictions other than how much money you want to spend or whether you can convince your friends to allow proxies.
Which, to get back on topic, is I assume how we're gonna see demons in this. There's gonna be a high count of them literally in the set, but a low count of "demons you control are super awesome now" type cards.
I would be surprised if New Capenna had as many demons are DTK had dragons and even more surprised if it had more than a literal couple demon tribal cards. I do expect we will see a higher than usual number of demons though. But maybe 10-20. Not 25+.
I just don't think having a high number of a certain kind of creature counts as tribal. I think it's pretty clear that demons are going to have the same problem as dragons: they're by arbitrary rule high mana cost large fliers (and usually at rare) so you can't just print them up and down the scale. You cited a bunch of megamorph themed cards (note the +1/+1 counters and the megamorph required for benefit, it's not a dragon mechanic it's a megamorph mechanic with dragons stapled on) that were uncommon but also 4/4 fliers for 7, which you're not going to have many of in a deck. You can't design for these big creatures the way you can design samurai that help other samurai or werewolves that share a flipping mechanic or vampires that share a resource card at common or with flexible costs and abilities. And that's why all the "tribal" in dtk was just "reveal a card" or "cast a 5 mana three color planeswalker to make one token" or the set mechanic gargoyle.
The big benefit to the ability to make something that looks like real tribal in AFR is like I said the dragonborn cards, which also indicates a greater willingness for R&D to print cards that don't adhere strictly to archetype (which technically was a big retcon for the original innistrad, vampires used to be more strictly defined) so I would guess if we do see demon tribal we're gonna see little demon guys running around on the ground for cheap and at common.
Edit: So here's the guy being quoted in the OP on tribal:
Tribal – A keyword, ability word, theme, or set that's mechanically connected to creature types. Examples are the party mechanic or the set of Ixalan.
So by that definition, Dragons of Tarkir was not a tribal set. None of the set mechanics were dragon specific. Dragons themselves didn't have a specific unifying mechanic (like undying or, I dunno, annihilate or Transform or the skaab exile creatures requirement) printed on them either. It was a Dragon set, there were a ton of dragons in it, but it wasn't a tribe of dragons. So if we take this article from two months ago at its word and use it to interpret the response on maro's blog, it seems likely as not that we'll see a bunch of Demons and it will be a Demon set, but it will not be Demon Tribal.
Specifically the difference is between reducing the probability of drawing another forest/land by 2 cards or leaving that probability intact but still getting some extra forests. It seems small, but that's one of the things that makes ramp decks work so well, by sucking all the lands out all they have left to topdeck is their big creatures and stuff.
The funny part about that argument is that I've read multiple times that swapping other lands for fetchlands (e.g. Bloodstained Mire) is generally not worth the life cost - i.e. this deck-thins too little per game for deck thinning to be your only reason to make the swap.
Conjure does smack of requiring a Yu-Gi-Oh!-style Extra Deck or an abuse of your command zone to emulate on paper, but the ability to abuse your command zone and outside the game Dungeon-style, possibly with face-down cards, does mean that seemingly the only barrier to Conjure in paper is your tournament organizer's willingness to stock up on every Conjurable card.
Yeah I shouldn't overstate it and there's no good non-landfall reasons to be running a bunch of evolving wilds in constructed, but it's real when you're playing like 8 cultivates.
I mean I assume it's going to be like dragons of tarkir, where there's a lot of dragons but comparatively few dragon specific effects.
Dragons of Tarkir had a bunch of dragon tribal cards and was very much a dragon set. SNC should have significantly less than DTK.
No, go back and look, there were 26 dragons and one single cycle of "reveal a dragon in your hand" type spells. Nothing like the ninja or samurai support in NEO. It's a whole design issue because you can't really do tribal with a bunch of creatures that have to have flying and tend to cost 3+ and be 3/3+. The set mechanics were like Bolster and Megamorph.
Yes there were 26 dragons in DTK. Plus a cycle of mana rocks that turned into dragons and three cards that create dragon tokens. There were also 18 different dragon tribal effects, excluding dragon tribal cards that were also dragons or create dragon tokens, that's 11 (more than one cycle). This makes 45 dragon relevant cards.
How much ninja support is there in NEO? There are 22 ninja cards, four cards with ninja tribal, two of which are ninjas, and 17 with ninjitsu, all of which are ninjas. Which makes for a total of 24 ninja relevant cards. If you count rogues, that adds 4.
Dragons of Tarkir was definitely a dragon tribal set.
I don't think it's a tribal set if you don't have anything like a Silver-fur Master let alone prosperous thief or kami of restless shadows. Just having rocks that turn into dragons or dragon token creators or whatever isn't actually tribal. You have to be rewarded for building a deck around a certain creature type and for dragons the best you had were the reveal a dragon cards and one single Dragonlord's servant. AFR had moredragonbenefits than tarkir did, probably because they were able to print dragonkin without flying so jaded sell-sword carried draft all on its back.
Which, to get back on topic, is I assume how we're gonna see demons in this. There's gonna be a high count of them literally in the set, but a low count of "demons you control are super awesome now" type cards.
If the Spring Commander decks' color identities have absolutely no influence on the set, why does the idea of Wedge colored triomes exist in Ikoria? Why are back to back spring sets some sort of faction set?
If all the Commander Decks' color identities, since Ikoria, were not revealed, would you be able to tell, buy looking at the set only, the color identities of each deck of a non-spring set, compared to the spring set? For non spring sets, there is no way, but for Spring sets, I can easily tell what they are going to be.
Stop pretending that a sequence of two is a pattern and you'll feel better about... probably everything.
Almost every set is a faction set, spring or not. We have had zero non-faction sets since Zendikar Rising. Zero. In a game about conflict, it makes sense for the combatants to have a side in the fight. No brainer, really.
As for why they are color based more often than not (again, regardless of if it is a spring set or not. The loosest color focus on factions in the last two years was Kamigawa, and even that has heavy leaning. One could even argue that Zendikar Rising, not being a faction set, still had mechanically identifiable factions with set color combos in the individual classes that made up the party mechanic) it's pretty simple: the color pie is baked into the game. It is the reason that the game exists. They rarely ever do factions that are not color based. Tribal is probably the only way they do factions outside of color, and even then, each tribe typically falls into 2 or 3 colors.
You're rambling conspiracies that make no sense, are established parts of the game since '93, and have no impact or harm caused at all.
imo kamigawa is a pretty strict monocolor faction set without actually saying so. white -> imperials red -> rebels blue -> technologists black -> yakuza green -> hippies
They just had a lot of overlaps with creature types, but their colors pretty clearly showed who they worked for. All the blue ninjas worked for the futurists, for instance.
Doesn't explain sphinx demon or vampire demon.
I love this forum
I still think this is just Serra's Realm and we're gonna see some creative writing to get around how it got back out of that powerstone.
Honestly I would be floored if they did "Angel Wizard"
Gandalf couldn't even get himself off a tower without begging help from the eagles. "all powerful archmage" my butt.
I think these exist because every engaged fan and their mothers make fun tribute sets of "what if these characters were magic cards" so there's clearly a market for that sort of thing, the same way secret lairs exist because there's a market for radical card alters and commander products exist because there's a market for people who play a fan created version of the rules.
I don't understand this pervasive reactionary idea that magic the gathering is a tiny little narrow concept instead of a broad platform or an entire medium of expression. This stuff doesn't form in a vacuum, it's a discursive process between fans and the company and it's working so much better now that the company is paying attention to the fans instead of weird upper management mandates or the tiny pro community.
And I'm all for eliminating the profit motive and collectivizing wizards of the coast so that they can solely make decisions based on what they think would be creatively fulfilling rather than what they need to do to bring their shareholders value, but that's a conversation I'm pretty sure you're not that interested in.
I refuse to believe that the power level of commander has been seriously shaken up by these products. It's a format that doesn't have any real restrictions other than how much money you want to spend or whether you can convince your friends to allow proxies.
fomo buying seems like a caveat emptor kinda situation there. I'm not buying any of these cards lol
I just don't think having a high number of a certain kind of creature counts as tribal. I think it's pretty clear that demons are going to have the same problem as dragons: they're by arbitrary rule high mana cost large fliers (and usually at rare) so you can't just print them up and down the scale. You cited a bunch of megamorph themed cards (note the +1/+1 counters and the megamorph required for benefit, it's not a dragon mechanic it's a megamorph mechanic with dragons stapled on) that were uncommon but also 4/4 fliers for 7, which you're not going to have many of in a deck. You can't design for these big creatures the way you can design samurai that help other samurai or werewolves that share a flipping mechanic or vampires that share a resource card at common or with flexible costs and abilities. And that's why all the "tribal" in dtk was just "reveal a card" or "cast a 5 mana three color planeswalker to make one token" or the set mechanic gargoyle.
The big benefit to the ability to make something that looks like real tribal in AFR is like I said the dragonborn cards, which also indicates a greater willingness for R&D to print cards that don't adhere strictly to archetype (which technically was a big retcon for the original innistrad, vampires used to be more strictly defined) so I would guess if we do see demon tribal we're gonna see little demon guys running around on the ground for cheap and at common.
Edit: So here's the guy being quoted in the OP on tribal:
from here
So by that definition, Dragons of Tarkir was not a tribal set. None of the set mechanics were dragon specific. Dragons themselves didn't have a specific unifying mechanic (like undying or, I dunno, annihilate or Transform or the skaab exile creatures requirement) printed on them either. It was a Dragon set, there were a ton of dragons in it, but it wasn't a tribe of dragons. So if we take this article from two months ago at its word and use it to interpret the response on maro's blog, it seems likely as not that we'll see a bunch of Demons and it will be a Demon set, but it will not be Demon Tribal.
Yeah I shouldn't overstate it and there's no good non-landfall reasons to be running a bunch of evolving wilds in constructed, but it's real when you're playing like 8 cultivates.
I don't think it's a tribal set if you don't have anything like a Silver-fur Master let alone prosperous thief or kami of restless shadows. Just having rocks that turn into dragons or dragon token creators or whatever isn't actually tribal. You have to be rewarded for building a deck around a certain creature type and for dragons the best you had were the reveal a dragon cards and one single Dragonlord's servant. AFR had more dragon benefits than tarkir did, probably because they were able to print dragonkin without flying so jaded sell-sword carried draft all on its back.
Which, to get back on topic, is I assume how we're gonna see demons in this. There's gonna be a high count of them literally in the set, but a low count of "demons you control are super awesome now" type cards.
imo kamigawa is a pretty strict monocolor faction set without actually saying so. white -> imperials red -> rebels blue -> technologists black -> yakuza green -> hippies
They just had a lot of overlaps with creature types, but their colors pretty clearly showed who they worked for. All the blue ninjas worked for the futurists, for instance.