Quote from Negator_402 »You need to learn to write without personal attacks or invectives. Your voice is so weak.
No, the 4th Amendment applies to government search and seizure. However, absent a burden of proof, the public opinion pillory becomes a witch hunt. Gee, did we ever have a history of people being black-balled due to empty allegations on a sensitive subject? Oh yes, the MCCARTHY ERA!
I ask you, on the topic of harassment: who marches in our streets and claims to punch people who are "Nazis"? Is it the "Alt-Right?" No sir, its the Alt-Left. There is no "Punch A Communist" or "Punch A Mujahideen" movement in the US, is there?
It's funny, because your posts include plenty of personal attacks directed at other posters, which I have avoided. Why are you so triggered by this?
By the way, there IS proof, which is why the offending video got taken down by Youtube for violating ToS.
yea, tempest block was pretty nuts with counterspells. You could build a DRAFT deck with every one of the spells you listed, excepting force spike.
I'm going to start it off with a possibly controversial choice Nevinyrral's Disk. I think it would be a very strong card if printed today, but I also think it would be fair, as there are plenty of ways to deal with it, especially since it sits there for a turn before you can use it (unless you have a way to untap it). It messes with the color pie a bit, because it let black kill artifacts and enchantments, and blue kill those and creatures as well, but artifacts are supposed to blur the pie, and Disk does so in a fairly balanced way. It doesn't just target artifacts or enchantments, it blows a bunch of things up at once, so its not like a black or blue mage can use it to pick off problem permanents without risking their own field as well.
I'd like to hear other people's ideas. If you pick something from the reserved list, just make sure you mention that. The discussion is about what could be printed today from a power level perspective, not considering other factors like flavor or WOTC policy.
Good point, that certainly makes them more unique. Though, to be fair, neither were Kithkin on Dominaria. Thoughtweft is specific to Lorwyn Kithkin, not all kithkin in magic. Still, it may be big enough to consider them exclusive, but it still feels more like a riff off of halflings than an actually exclusive creature, and a plane specific one at that. If we see thoughtweft on kithkin outside of Lorwyn, it will establish them a bit more, but it would still be a very close call.
Slivers being in: agreed, self evident.
Baloths: He said in or close. Personally, I think his reason for close was crap, but a better reason exists, in that Baloth is not a supported creature type, and rather they are "Beasts". If they updated the creature type to Baloth, then it would definitely be in, but as now its on the fence.
Hellions In: As far as I know, yes. They seem pretty unique.
Vedalken In: Yes, though they seem a bit grey alien to me.
Eldrazi Out: By Doug's standards, I agree, though the multiple block requirement is a bit dumb IMO. Really, if a creature was only in one block, but had a large showing, it should be counted. I can understand not counting Amphin or Surrakar, but Eldrazi are pretty important, and pretty high profile. That said, Eldrazi aren't all that unique, they're a rip of of the Old Ones. Eldrazi-like beings exist in Lovecraft and D&D, and the Eldrazi's only unique points are the name and being born in the blind eternities. Their odd morphology, bizarre nature, and unfathomable intentions, and association with destruction and madness are really blatant Lovecraft rip-offs. Honestly, even if the Eldrazi come back 10 times, I still wouldn't count them as being exclusive to magic, name aside.
Thrulls In: Agreed. An entire race bred for sacrifice and servitude, from cast off bits of flesh, is fairly unique, and the execution cements it.
Masticore, Kavu, Myr Out: Disagree. Doug got it wrong entirely on the Masticores, but that has already been discussed by other posters. His argument against the Kavu is weak, as the Phledi- flying hippo only appeared in two blocks set on Dominaria, and on far fewer cards, with far less importance than the kavu. Kavu, like Baloths, are kind of generic monsters, but the Kavu are very tied to the magic storyline, have no major analogue in non-magic lore (though I'm sure they do somewhere), have a consistent style, and a supported creature type. Myr have really proven themselves I think, very unique in style and flavor.
Pheldagriff: How is this any different than a Brushwagg? It is only known for being weird, and being used in early EDH. It is completely unrelated to the story, not well represented in cards, and just plain silly. Yes, it is unique, its a hippo with angel wings, so it deserves a mention based on that, but it fails Doug's own criteria that he judges other types by.
Viashino In: How is lizardfolk (or more accurately dragon folk) any different than cat-folk, rhino folk, etc.? Its appeared in many other forms of entertainment, including the cartoon Conan the barbarian, D&D, and Zelda. This is just not exclusive to magic, beyond the name, and Leonin, Rhox, and Loxodon all have unique names but Doug does not consider them exclusive. Doug is right to exclude them, and wrong to include Viashino.
Kor In: Albino Elves, but I'll give it a pass. They have a unique cultural identity, their white skin/hair/eyes set them apart, and the guys have chin-balls, which I've only previously seen as a joke in MIB 2.
Kithkin: Halfling rip-offs, which are Hobbit rip-offs, which are based on folklore. Kithkin is a unique name as far as I know, and you could argue that if Hobbits are unique based on their name and small details, than Kithkin should be for the same. Hobbits and Kithkin, after all, are really just more specific examples of yhe generic Halfling trope, so whats good for Hobbits should be good for Kithkin, right? Wrong. Hobbits get a pass because they came first in major fantasy literature, and Halflings were created as the generic, or "store brand", Hobbits, because Hobbit was copyrighted. Kithkin are just another copyrighted Halfling type, but as they did not create the trope, they cannot be considered unique (and neither can Hobbits anymore, really, because once folks start copying you, you are no longer unique). Doug's wrong, unsurprisingly.
Wurms In: This depends. As far as I know, gigantic snake things with dragon heads are fairly unique to magic, but the other kind of Wurm, the more recent one's like the ones on Mirrodin, or Zendikar, or Alara, don't have Dragon heads, and really look like Sandworms from Dune. Search Dune Sandworm on Google, then search for wurms in standard on gatherer. The only standard Wurm with a dragon head is Spined Wurm, the rest look almost exactly like sandworms or like sandworms with tentacles on their mouths. Even the reprint of Yavamaya Wurm looks like a sandworm. I'd put Wurms on the fence for this, as the recent style is clearly inspired by a very well known sci-fi fantasy creature. It would be like if wizards created a creature type that looked like Hutts but gave them different personalities and made them a bit less fat.
As for the rest, Gorgons and specters will never be magic exclusive, and I'm not sure of Archons.
This article was interesting, but some of Doug's criteria were very arbitrary, and he proceeded to regularly violate his own criteria. It seems like he rated a creature type's exclusivity based on his gut reaction or nostalgia rather than based on his own criteria, except in obvious cases like slivers or dragons that were either clearly exclusive or clearly not. This article is just another example of Doug being inconsistent. He's far to scattered to be in his position. He can be really interesting to read when he focuses on small details, and he really likes what he is writing about, but when he pulls back to a larger scope he fails badly, and he cannot tie different aspects of a story or a world together in a way that works, let alone the entirety of the storyline. He just doesn't seem to plan things out and check for consistency before he writes anything, be it an article or a novel, and that really harms the storyline.
If we discount her bio on the website, and only listen to the AoA, I have an idea that may help. What if Liliana made the pact when she was an oldwalker? We assume that the characters know as much about the nature of planeswalkers as we do, but that might not be the case. What if Liliana did not know that being a planeswalker granted eternal life, and so used her new powers to seek out the demons to gain it? If she sought out the pact shortly after ascending, then she would not have time to notice herself not aging, which I imagine is how most oldwalkers found out about their immortality. I mean, its not like a representative from the ministry of magic shows up at every recently ascended planeswalkers door and explains the ins and outs of it. This explanation would work with the mending being a recent event only a few decades old, and honestly it would be a cool way to show that the characters are working with limited knowledge of the world in which they live, and occasionally make incorrect assumptions because of it.
As for everything Mirrodin related: The Mirrodin timeline sucks. The ur-golems, ages of characters, the time between the 5th dawn and the mending, the fact that there were no signs of phyrexians during the mending but now they overrun the plane, the idea that approx 300 years have past since 5th dawn, but yet those who disappeared when the soul traps were destroyed were only the previous generation of mirrans, with the current crop being their sons and daughters. Everything about that timeline is garbage. There is no way to make sense of it, and at this point it needs major retcons to work at all.
Ah, but this is not the only reason for an alliance. By letting the Mirrans live and harass the other factions, Red gets to have its cake and eat it too. It can act on the other factions without getting blamed for it. When the Black factions mess with the white faction, Norn knows who to blame and counterattack, when the Mirrans smash the Blue Phyrxians experiments, nobody goes after Urabrask. He basically gets to start trouble without having to do anything or paying the consequences, and he gets to reap the benefits while being able to focus on his work. Also, it allows the red faction to play the game of sabotage and intrigue that seems to be defining the relationship between the factions without actually having to play it. Why waste time on setting goals and planning when you can just let the mirrans handle all that crap, and why risk your resources when someone else is perfectly willing to do so? The downside is that the red faction can't control the effects, but then red is really more interested in the messing things up part and far less in the what happens after part anyway.
There are only 6 steel thanes, since Roxith thane of rot died. Since he was killed by Sheoldred, I assume she took whatever holdings he may have had. However, the status of the thanes is fairly complicated. While Geth undoubtedly rules physical territory, it seems like some thanes peddled in influence or roles. I'm not sure that Roxith ever had much territory, but was in charge of stripping flesh from corpses. Sheoldred might not even control much physical territory, but might be the most powerful simply because of her web of spies and influence. The vampire thane's power seemed to derive solely from his control of the vampire assassins. And I remember another thane who was focused entirely on growing the mycosynth to create more spheres, and since the mycosynth is literally everywhere in New Phyrexia, his influence is everywhere, yet I don't think he has territory that is specifically his alone, so his thanedom seems to derive from the importance of his job rather than his physical holdings.
1 or 2 syllable names have a tendency to arise in multiple places in isolation. Now, if Martin introduces a character named Argus Kos or Magic introduces a character named Lannister, then that would be telling