Can anyone point me to the latest M15 template? I want to print my playgroup's fantasy commanders and MSE quality is woefully inadequate. The files I found in the .psd thread didn't seem to have the new legend frame either.
This card feels like a triple slap in the face to me.
I know it's, probably, just coincidence but...
My custom block (I have posted it in part and in full here and on other sites and forums and such over the years) features:
-Noble as a creature type that gets prominent focus.
-A planeswalker named...Ayara (a name that, at least at the time, I had thought was something I came up with entirely myself).
-Elves that were either predominantly black or outright monoblack.
So here we have a monoblack elf noble named Ayara.
I mean, I don't know that I can genuinely say Wizards at least kinda ripped me off here, but that's too many coincidences on one card for me.
They should rip off Lorado next, that one has a bunch of real nice mechanics.
As to the argument that the set itself has an agenda, I must say that while I too feel at odds with just how many female knights are depicted, the set also gives us the maidens in distress tropes. I've always liked the "Joan of Arc" characters in fiction and games, so a powerful knight chick is appealing to me, but it's so abundant here it's kind of off putting.
Out of the 27 knights so far 10 are female and thats counting Syr Gwyn, a card from the Rowan planeswalker deck and promo art version of the shatter adventure creature.
Again, she looks like Dewey Wilkernson in a dress. Her eyes are nearly swollen shut she has a na`vi style t-zone. Her complexion is not aided by the zombie purple skintone and while I'm willing to forgive this because Magic is anything but consistent, the art is way too grim for a character who's up there with the likes of Yahenni as a selfish but not malignant mono-black character.
Yes the few pixels we see of Judith are much more beautiful, endearing and attractive. She is a celebrity, her pose and outfit show she knows it. Her expression is of unhinged exitement which ironically gives her impish appeal, and still her features are harmonic and accentuated further with make up. We also have access to art of both ladies at high resolution thanks to this wonderful thing called google.
When I read abour Ayara I pictured a modestly dressed Akroma. Not the child of Tilda Swinton on cheek botox.
I'm sorry you feel that pretty women are underrepresented in fantasy genres.
Again, I haven't read the novel, so I'm on shaky ground here, but - do we know how old she's supposed to be? Is it possible that her art is depicting just one solitary moment in the entire span of her lifetime, possibly in her older years? Is it possible that, in the years leading up to the moment of her depiction in the card, she was as beautiful as you insist she must be to match the narrative within your mind?
She's an elf.
You're going way out of your way to justify Dulcinea incarnate not being pretty. If not her, who?
Action women have been largely and understandably desexualized, and even seductress type characters are avoided and those we have to keep around like Liliana keep getting covered up further and posed in less glamorizing scenes than they used to. You may celebrate the abortion of harmless stereotypes if you must, but when the exemplar vessel of courtly love chivalry is not allowed to be beautiful ***** has gone too far.
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.
She actually doesn't closely or even partially mimic any arthurian character, she's a minor character who advocated for unity between elves and humans and ended up as lady of the black court. She's also not antagonistic, but she does have a very dangerous quest in seeking her eternity cauldron, and doesn't mind sending her seemingly endless smitten suitors on such a quest. She represents the concepts of the enthrancing sorceress and the damsel in distress of courtly love rather than a figure of Camelot.
She is meant to be beautiful, and as someone who is not below average and thus doesn't feel the pangs of jealousy at the sight of the aesthetically privileged, I'm upset that she looks like Dewey Wilkerson in an ugly dress.
Yeah let's follow the references until they don't fit in with CURRENT YEAR political agendas. A glamer-casting witch playing the damsel in distress to recover her trinket (the grail expy) is much better with a nose fit for a hieroglyphics figure and eyes nearly swollen shut than those problematic modern beauty standards because girls prettier than me are photoshopped dolls who don't exist in real life/s
Each card spoiled thus far has been a clever allusion to European folklore, not a 1:1 translation. Why does it have to be an agenda, instead of simply accepting that the cards are going to diverge from their real-life inspirations at some point?
The fairy tale flavor is almost 1:1, actually 1:1 in things like Beast and the Golden Eggs Goose. It's the arthurian stuff that's getting subverted.
Yeah let's follow the references until they don't fit in with CURRENT YEAR political agendas. A glamer-casting witch playing the damsel in distress to recover her trinket (the grail expy) is much better with a nose fit for a hieroglyphics figure and eyes nearly swollen shut than those problematic modern beauty standards because girls prettier than me are photoshopped dolls who don't exist in real life/s
She's rather frumpier than I imagined from the book considering generations of knights have been dying, literally, to please her.
Guess not every plane is populated by the likes of Teysa, Judith and Emmara.
I haven't read the book, but I would imagine she has more value than just how she looks.
She is the lady of courtly love reference, she should be the most pre-raphaelite being in Magic history regardless of her other many features.
She's rather frumpier than I imagined from the book considering generations of knights have been dying, literally, to please her.
Guess not every plane is populated by the likes of Teysa, Judith and Emmara.
I'd appreciate it a lot of they finished the BFZ, SOI and AMK land cycles before experimenting with no DL cycles or even worse more new ally color cycles.
Let's hope they're at least very playable in more than one format. Mono color rare lands don't have a stellar record.
The consensus I keep seeing about this event is that it was very fun.
Was the mistake trying to make Brawl a multiplayer casual format instead of a 1v1 competitive gateway drug to Standard? It seems so for me.
They made it sound very much like it was a kaiju world. Moreover, Mark Rosewater said on the stream that you get to "build your own monsters". So I'm guessing it's some sort of put out a kaiju that's pretty basic and hard to kill, then throw more and more things on it to make it something unique to your deck and/or this particular game.
Betting on Level Up 4.0, a terrible mechanic he can't let go off.
Knowing that we still have 80% of ELD to be spoiled. So far I feel you can pick the Faerie one, add the missing two Shocklands and a couple common/uncommon removals from Standard and be done with a great deck while the Knights deck needs three M20 Mythics.
Let's see if this actually takes off in paper, the people who got to preview them in Arena were claiming the decks were very fun.
Yes the few pixels we see of Judith are much more beautiful, endearing and attractive. She is a celebrity, her pose and outfit show she knows it. Her expression is of unhinged exitement which ironically gives her impish appeal, and still her features are harmonic and accentuated further with make up. We also have access to art of both ladies at high resolution thanks to this wonderful thing called google.
When I read abour Ayara I pictured a modestly dressed Akroma. Not the child of Tilda Swinton on cheek botox.
You're going way out of your way to justify Dulcinea incarnate not being pretty. If not her, who?
Action women have been largely and understandably desexualized, and even seductress type characters are avoided and those we have to keep around like Liliana keep getting covered up further and posed in less glamorizing scenes than they used to. You may celebrate the abortion of harmless stereotypes if you must, but when the exemplar vessel of courtly love chivalry is not allowed to be beautiful ***** has gone too far.
She is meant to be beautiful, and as someone who is not below average and thus doesn't feel the pangs of jealousy at the sight of the aesthetically privileged, I'm upset that she looks like Dewey Wilkerson in an ugly dress.
Guess not every plane is populated by the likes of Teysa, Judith and Emmara.
Let's hope they're at least very playable in more than one format. Mono color rare lands don't have a stellar record.
Was the mistake trying to make Brawl a multiplayer casual format instead of a 1v1 competitive gateway drug to Standard? It seems so for me.
Let's see if this actually takes off in paper, the people who got to preview them in Arena were claiming the decks were very fun.