Just last year, only 3 out of the 5 face commanders were human. 2 out of 5 were from Alara. 2 out of 5 had keyword mechanics from old blocks.
In C15, only 3 of the 5 face commanders triggered off of casting spells of a certain type. Of those, two also cared about the spell's CMC.
In C14, only 3 of the 5 'walker commanders produced an emblem for their ult.
In C13, only 3 of the 5 face commanders got an effect that was boosted by the commander tax.
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain
I can twist the statistics for Commander products in the same way and disprove your point.
C11, Each face-commander was Wedge and was accompanied by two other wedge commanders for each deck.
C13, Each of the five face-commanders utilized Commander Tax in a beneficial manner and included two other shard commanders for each deck.
C14, Each face-commander was a mono-colored planeswalker that included two mono-colored legendarys.
C15, Each face-commander was an enemy colored legendary that utilized experience counters in different manners and included two other dual-colored legends.
C16, Each face-commander was four colored and that each deck included also three dual-colored legendarys with the partner mechanic.
Therefore: Each C17 face-commander will have a cohesive theme and mechanic (avatar, tribe and eminence) while also including two legendarys of the same color (Dragons = Ramos, Dragon Engine and O-Kagachi).
And as for what other tribe she could possibly be, I'd like to remind you (and everyone else in this thread) that art is not definitive proof of anything. She doesn't really look like a wizard, but she still might be one. She doesn't really look like a white card, but she still might be one. Things like UBR wizards or WB clerics are not off the table by any stretch. It wouldn't be the first time, and almost certainly won't be the last time, that the art didn't perfectly match the card it was on.
They are going off of the box. Which has two identifiable symbols. They are blue and black. The question is if it is dual, tri or quad colored.
I think it is very safe to assume that all four face cards are avatars, since all four of them logically should have eminence as their new keyword.
Avatar:
1) the descendant of a deity to the earth in an incarnate form or some manifest shape.
2) an embodiment or personification, as of a principle attitude or view of life.
The dragon and cat use the first definition of the word, the vampire and lady use the second. Avatar doesn't have to strictly be like Avatar of woe, especially if they are going for a running theme for their keyword eminence.
The Ur-dragon was worshiped as a God by the other dragons according to flavor text, this cat seems godlike, Edgar is the progenitor of vampires for an entire plane, and this lady looks important enough to be bowed to for something. All four cards have supplicants bowing, serving or hanging out with their avatar.
Jesus, not this again.
There's no reason why eminence needs to be attached to avatars, and two data points isn't enough to establish a pattern.
Eminence tied to a legendary who is also an avatar to a tribe makes sense and is cohesive in card design. Not doing so is more baffling as what makes 50% of the face legendarys (Cat and Dragon) so important that they get to be avatars but the other half (Vampires and ???) are not as important to be avatars to their respective tribes. That is the reason they would need it.
Especially with Edgar Markov who started the Vampire lines in the first place on Innistrad. That he was the first of the Vampires on Innistrad. He is effectively the Adam of his kind. If that doesn't make a Vampire an Avatar, I don't know what would.
If they decided to design some of these cards for commander and don't print those cards in black-border then I think perhaps the easiest solution would be for WOTC to include the text "this card is legal in Commander" somewhere on the face of each of the cards.
Seems legit.
Keyword
Static/Triggered ability
Legal in commander clause.
Possible flavortext if room allows for it.
In the works since January 2011? Dang. That is a long time for a MTG set. But if the fun looking artwork, new full art lands, foil tokens in a set meant to be drafted are anything to go off of, this will be totally worth it.
Why Esper Clerics? I would think red has more to offer a Cleric deck than blue.
Art direction suggests blue and not red.
True, but think of it from the designer's point of view: if they wanted to do cleric tribal for some reason, what would be the point of including blue? There's hardly any blue clerics, and most of them are from Amonkhet and very unlikely to be reprinted because they're so recent. If they were going to do clerics, they would have done just WB.
kinda sad theyre wasting really good artstyle on an unplayable set and leave the normal magic with generic boring *****
Well if the reception for it is quite positive, they might consider tapping into this art style again for black border magic in the future.
If they do decide to use this kind of style in normal sets again, I would hope they don't overuse it.
The "realism" they use in normal sets, to me, have their place in setting the tone of what's going on.
You have a good point, they can't use this too often, but the art does have its place.
Take the art for League of Dastardly Doom, or even Explosioneers or Crossbreed Labs. For the League that art looks like it could fit into Innistrad or perhaps for Izzet on Ravnica while for Explosioneers it could be in a Core Set or possibly Lorwyn, and as for Crossbreed Labs that could be possibly be seen with Simic on Ravnica.
You are right that they can't place the art style like this all willy nilly, but it can certainly fit if given the right areas. This type of art could really show up in Core Sets or products with new cards that don't need a specific place to fit in, like Commander or Planechase.
Plus we can have cards that are meant to represent the Toon Plane for Unstable in black border. Which means more Squirrel cards. As it was really hard, apparently, for them to justify Squirrel cards in normal sets. Like we could have a Squirrel Rigger that creates basically an Acorn Catapult when it enters play.
FYI, Unsets in the past touched on the humor/cartooniness that sums up Hearthstone, today. The artwork wasn't always so serious. But yeah, Magic was doing it way before Hearthstone was ever a thing It's just been a while.
Very true. As the style is much more akin to a Saturday morning cartoon like from a Disney cartoon or episode from Loony Toons. Which is great for the kind of zany humor that both Hearhtstone and now Unstable want to go for.
Honestly, I never got all the people clamoring for contraptions.
Steamflogger Boss was explicitly created as a joke, and as an example of a futureshifted card from a future that would never come to pass. But people took the joke seriously, and started demanding that WotC find a way to make it work. The thing is, they worded it specifically so that the card didn't work. And you guys are shocked that they couldn't make work (outside of silver-border) the mechanic that was never meant to work?
There was only ever going to be one of three outcomes to this: WotC gives up, and contraptions never happen; contraptions get shoehorned into the game in an unsatisfying attempt to make people happy; or they only happen in silver-border land. Asking for contraptions was like Calvin & Hobbes fans asking for a write-up for the rules to Calvinball.
Its a joke card with a cult following and through this we got a unset, seems like a win-win. Also about them Calvinball rules...
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain
I can twist the statistics for Commander products in the same way and disprove your point.
C11, Each face-commander was Wedge and was accompanied by two other wedge commanders for each deck.
C13, Each of the five face-commanders utilized Commander Tax in a beneficial manner and included two other shard commanders for each deck.
C14, Each face-commander was a mono-colored planeswalker that included two mono-colored legendarys.
C15, Each face-commander was an enemy colored legendary that utilized experience counters in different manners and included two other dual-colored legends.
C16, Each face-commander was four colored and that each deck included also three dual-colored legendarys with the partner mechanic.
Therefore: Each C17 face-commander will have a cohesive theme and mechanic (avatar, tribe and eminence) while also including two legendarys of the same color (Dragons = Ramos, Dragon Engine and O-Kagachi).
They are going off of the box. Which has two identifiable symbols. They are blue and black. The question is if it is dual, tri or quad colored.
Especially with Edgar Markov who started the Vampire lines in the first place on Innistrad. That he was the first of the Vampires on Innistrad. He is effectively the Adam of his kind. If that doesn't make a Vampire an Avatar, I don't know what would.
Keyword
Static/Triggered ability
Legal in commander clause.
Possible flavortext if room allows for it.
Clerics in
- Steamflogger Boss