I want a merfolk deck and I want it blue. They can have legs or whatever WoTC wants to do to give their fish some flavor, but they better be blue.
Edit: I gotta start reading other posts before posting. I think merfolk should only be in blue because blue needs a race of it's own for good. (Wizards isn't blue, it's in every colour)
Want all of them, even the five color one. They all look like insane ways of just saying tribal. The merfolk one sounds interesting, sirens and all. The elements will be fun to play.
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Working on:
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I want a merfolk deck and I want it blue. They can have legs or whatever WoTC wants to do to give their fish some flavor, but they better be blue.
Edit: I gotta start reading other posts before posting. I think merfolk should only be in blue because blue needs a race of it's own for good. (Wizards isn't blue, it's in every colour)
Except for Red and Green you mean. They get Shamans
Also a side note on things people may not have considered- Maybe its not really a tribal theme but an anti-tribal theme. Cards that hate on other tribes when played and such....just a thought.
The power of 'hate' cards is directly related to the power of whatever it is 'hating'. Therefore, anti-tribal can't be powerful unless tribal is powerful. Not that it would be a good idea anyways.
Real life example: Oxidize. If Oxidize was printed in 10th, it would sit largely unused beside Demystify -- artifact hate simply doesn't need to be that focused. People would rather run more flexible but less focused counters in the forms of Naturalize, Seal of Primordium, Krosan Grip, Disenchant, or soon Aura of Silence. All of these cards are far more flexible than Oxidize, although slower and less focused. However, when Oxidize was originally printed it saw quite significant play -- because artifacts were rampant. Artifacts were very powerful, this making a highly focused counter like Oxidize desirable. If an enchantment block were ever to truly occur, I predict the same thing would happen with Demystify.
The same goes with anti-tribal. Tivadar's Crusade is useless if nobody plays goblins.
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"One skilled at battle takes a stand in the ground of no defeat
And so does not lose the enemy's defeat.
Therefore, the victorious military is first victorious and after that does battle.
The defeated military first does battle and after that seeks victory."
My biggest problem with Boggart goblins and imps and such is those don't really fit the Gaelic theme (though I would love to see some more imps). Spirits of all variety, Horrors, Merrow, Elves/Faeries/fae-kin and Giants very much do. I would bet my right leg that a large portion of the red creatures are giants in this set; seriously, how many stories about giants can you count in the isles? Alot. I can't for the life of me think of a second red race.
On that note however, maybe instead of making a huge deal about tribal bleeds, maybe they have two main races for each color (like Onslaught) were one is mostly exclusivley one color (Say, Giants for Red.) then the other is shared (boggarts in Red and Black?)
The shared tribe would probably be in friendly colors, like we see in the precons. The bleeds would be a lesser focus than the mono color race, but have the same amount of focus between the colors (like Birds in Onslaught, not relaly enough in either White of Blue, but enough together) or potentially having a greater focus in the color they were borrowed from (More Blue Merfolk then White, etc...).
actually.. what i want in a magic set are competitive decks that have flavor and themes.. just about the only place where you see themes (major single color interactions, over arching the entire deck in terms of instants, sorceries, and creatures) was some of the Block constructed decks (like Rebels or any guild based deck)..
I just want a block where the more flavorful the deck is the more potent it becomes.. and thats where tribal plays a bigger role.. as i've grown as a magic player from newbie to ultra competitive to ultra casual to somewhere in between.. I can't fight the urge to draft.. but also.. i can't fight the urge to build on a huge theme and see if it works.. a buddy of mine years ago when the Slith came out built a competitive deck using all the sliths and Bidding.. it was pretty cool.. it wasn't anything great.. but it held its own pretty well.. I hope it has a "tribal" theme.. but not just creaturewise.. I want flavorful cards all across the board.. and not ones that say "hey all elves get a cool bonus.." but just cards that are tribal but universal.. I don't think they did Onslaught right.. and its one of the few blocks that could have been really great but they kinda dropped the ball.. (especially the later two sets...) I want to see Form of the Angel, Form of the Wurm, Form of the Demon and Form of the Djinn .. I also want to see 100 card decks get rewarded a la Battle of Wits style wins.. I want there to be more then 50 Spike level cards in the block.. and I want all the uncommons to have uses outside of limited..
sorry i kind of got off on a tangent there.. but if they do a "flavor" block and its creature based.. I hope for more then a few types for each color..
Elemental theme deck sounds fun.. as does Merfolk.. who doesn't like the fish people? ...
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I just want people who redraft to admit this:
"I can't draft objectively unless I am able to guarantee that I receive at least 3 rares. I am also better than most average/new players so I want to make sure that I get the best rares and they end up with worse ones. I care more about the monetary value of cards than actually playing the game for decent prizes."
Except for Red and Green you mean. They get Shamans
They have wizards: Armorer Guildmage red (a lot of them) Bloodline Shaman green (a lot of them)
all the Magus from time block. There's alot of them. And Shaman's in every color too. (well not white unless Selesnya Evangel can pass as one. Edit: or blue :P)
White - Kithkin
Blue - Merfolk (race Merrow ala Akki more than Mogg I think)
Green - Elves, but kind of primitive? I believe the Llorwyn novel blurb mentions an elf who is disgraced by his lost horns
Black - Boggarts (Imps? Spirits? Faerie?) i think what we know so far suggests trickster-types
Red - Giants anybody? Look at the preview art from 10th, not to mention the number of futureshifted giants in Futuresight. (In addition, Boldwyn is a rather gaelic name, no?)
With elementals being perhaps the main plotline drivers? Are there not usually large issues that drive the story of each block? Kami war in kamigawa, rifts in Spiral block.
It occurred to me too that the 5-colour precon sounds like a "story deck" - we have four precons which follow the usual pattern of one or two colours, and a fifth, unusual one with the name "Quest of the Elementals", which seems a much more story-orientated name than names as generic as "Elvish Predators" or "Kithkin Militia".
Further thoughts arising:
1. We know that Wizards will probably want to do something different from Onslaught's focus on mono-coloured aggro decks. The new Tribal card type allows control decks to be tribe-orientated. So, with that in mind, might the tribes be linked to specific play styles much like the Rav guilds? Kithkin (mono) seem obvious white-weenie, and the name of the deck supports that; "Boggart Festival" recalls Rakdos flavour - wild, demented black/red partygoers. Merfolk could be the "control" tribe, while the Elves may keep reanimation alive (as it were). I don't imagine they want to use exactly the same archetypes as Ravnica (so Boggarts may be focused less on fast aggro and discard, maybe more controllish, say), although green-black is pretty much always reanimation.
2. The fact that "Planeswalker" isn't mentioned in the names is no reason to panic - did any of the Mirrodin decks have names that included "Equipment". The names tell us that creatures of a particular type form the theme of each deck; they don't make any suggestion about what isn't there. As someone mentioned, the Onslaught decks weren't named for their tribes, but they were still tribally-based decks.
3. Yes, white Merfolk and black Elves are odd ideas. I for one don't want to see monocoloured elves that aren't green, since Elves have managed to retain their distinctive colour association long after Zombies, Goblins and Soldiers lost theirs (though in fairness, the second Zombie ever printed was non-black, so beating that record's not much of a feat). What we might see is cards in one colour that play off the tribe in the other - for example, a black card that has Elfcycling or provides some bonus related to a creature's Elfness (and can "Destroy target non-Elf creature" be far away?), in much the same way that Elves of Deep Shadow are green but benefit black (and I fully expect to see them get another iteration just as they're leaving Standard - if they weren't in the wrong colour combination they might have been basic set material).
4. I like the idea of Boggarts being Imps a lot. Makes me a lot more comfortable than black and/or red Faeries, fits both black and red (though I think red's only imp has been a portal card, while black's got a core set Goblin), and since I expect the boggarts to be mostly black rather than mostly red, it seems to make more sense than goblins.
5. I still envisage Elementals being mostly red - Wizards seems to have been pushing this with the last two blocks (though green got several elementals in Rav), moving Elementals away from "almost exclusively green" back to "mostly red and blue, with some green", closer to where they started (and which actually makes more sense). As with Elves and Merfolk, the fact that the Elemental deck is five-colour doesn't mean that all colours must contribute an Elemental. Giving white its first Elementals in TS block may be set-up for Elementals in this colour in Lorwyn, but we still don't have any black Elementals, and both colours are a long way behind the other three in Elemental representation in Standard.
All I know is that the 5 color precon must mean decent to good common mana fixing!
It means common mana-fixing - don't get your hopes up beyond that. Remember, precons aren't intended for competitive play. It may just mean we get a Rampant Growth variant, but this is hardly news.
Or we could see something along the lines of:
Gemhide Essence 1G
Tribal Enchantment - Elf
T: Add one mana of any colour to your mana pool.
One other thing, on the "Just because all five decks are named after tribes it doesn't mean the set will be tribal":
So far the anti-Tribal lobby has, quite reasonably, pointed out that such things as the Tribal card type only imply that a tribal set will occur in future, stressing that there is "no more evidence that Lorwyn will be tribal than that it will be anything else". But while this was reasonable at the time, it is not reasonable to keep trying to find ways to maintain this position once it has become untenable.
The tribal theme decks ARE evidence that Lorwyn is probably tribal. There may still be some chance that it isn't, but it's no longer credible to say that it's not likely Lorwyn will be tribal, or that other alternatives have as much evidence in their favour. Though this isn't really the place, let's run through specific pieces of evidence:
1. Kithkin Rebels. Most of the TS block Kithkin have the Rebel type. Rebels are designed to work together as a tribal deck. This seems to be telling us (a) Wizards wants Kithkin to work together as a tribal deck, rather than just increasing the number of Kithkin creatures in the game, and (b) it wants them to be used in this way before TS block rotates out (since the rebel-searchers are nostalgia theme cards that we're unlikely to see in future blocks).
2. Tribalcycling and Tribal. Wizards likely inserted several of the keywords into Future Sight in order to introduce keywords they plan to use in Lorwyn, so that they have more freedom to add other new keywords in the set itself (as players will already be familiar with the FS ones). There's nothing that particularly demands either Tribalcycling or Tribal be used in Lorwyn rather than another block, but when we have cards pointing at a future tribal theme and then the next block has tribal theme decks, there's only so much you can put down to coincidence.
3. An Elfcentric storyline and returning Merfolk. Again, these two could be dismissed as coincidental and having little bearing on the actual set direction ("You get tribal cards in every set", "Mirrodin had an elf in the storyline" etc.) But when we start to see that Elves aren't just big storyline players but have their own theme deck, and so do Merfolk, and that they're joined by three other tribal decks (coincidentally enough, enough tribes for each colour), having elves in the story becomes interesting corroborating evidence.
One other note:
On the "all colours have had more than one tribe in past blocks". Agreed. However, Wizards will, at a guess, want to work this block differently from Onslaught. I'm wondering if, instead of, say, giving red a lot of Elementals and fewer Giants and Goblins, or making a lot of green Elves and a few Faeries in the supporting cast, Wizards might split the tribes by set as they split the Rav guilds. So Lorwyn would be the "Elf set" (and Elemental/Boggart/Kithkin/Merfolk set) and each subsequent set would emphasise one of each colour's other tribes (so we might get a Faerie theme deck, a Giant theme deck etc. in the next set). As far as Zombies are concerned, I'm not aware of them having much of a place in Celtic myth, so we might see them sidelined nonetheless.
Maybe its possible, since they are going with the whole traditional fairy tale kinda sub-theme, that faries will be their right color- Black. since the old stories of faries depicted them as being evil and such.
The Tooth Farie was once considered a deciple of the Devil that would steal the souls of children who didn't throw their fallen out teeth into a fire. (This is actually true, not making this up.)
They may do a cycle of Elementals in the next set. Like dragons but in Kamigawa. But with the kind of things most Elementals do what would a black one do?
Giving white its first Elementals in TS block may be set-up for Elementals in this colour in Lorwyn, but we still don't have any black Elementals, and both colours are a long way behind the other three in Elemental representation in Standard.
[quote=Night Child;/comments/5244241]They may do a cycle of Elementals in the next set. Like dragons but in Kamigawa. But with the kind of things most Elementals do what would a black one do?
You mean what would it be themed to? If fungus, dawn or dust can be elements, anything's up for grabs... Death Elemental is a card I came up with for a set I made (with its green counterpart in Life Elemental, naturally). Plague Elemental? Mire Elemental? I swear, they just come up with these things in random name generators. Logic's got nothing to do with it (I'm sticking to my belief that naming Sulfur Elemental after an actual element - a first in Magic history - was a happy accident. I don't forsee Argon Elemental anytime soon).
Looking at the way all the cards sound, and assuming that we can use the FS 'duals' as a template, the closest bet would either be the 'lifelands' (Grove of the Burnwillows) or the 'playlands' (River of Tears). Least likely candidate will be the 'guildfilters' (Graven Cairns).
Grove of the Burnwillows seems to play to theme, but my guess would be on the mana-fixers (Nimbus Maze) - they're generic, simple, work equally with all colours (which is not true of the Burnwillow lands, since giving the opponent 1 life is more of a drawback to some than others), and help to deal with the perennial problem of mana/colour screw. Wizards (and everyone else) likes cards that stop colour screw because screw makes the game no fun.
Phil
Phil, I enjoy your contributions to these discussions, but please, don't double post. Use the edit post button if you wish to add more in future... Che bro
Really? Oops, I thought it was Humans, Soldiers and Knights... nevermind then
There's one that gives a bonus to birds, isn't there?
The only Bird Lord I know of is the blue-white multicolour from Invasion. White does, however, have Zuberi, the Griffin lord. But I've said elsewhere that I don't think Wizards really makes the 'class'/'race' distinction. A creature type is a creature type. Soldiers have been white's core tribe since their introduction in Fallen Empires, equivalent to the elves, zombies and goblins of other colours.
So if the merfolk-esque subtheme and race is allied with W/U, would this be a shift away from their traditional semi-malevolent role in magic? The vodalians seemed to represent a purely blue flavor through pride and trickery. The rootwater clans seemed about as evil as they were helpful. There's also laquatus who was in cahoots with the blackest of mages. I know the azorious guild set up a template where W/U was certainly less than noble, but I would be interested to see what a more benevolent merfolk people would be capbable of in both gameplay and art/flavor text. I'm probably leaving out some trustworthy merdudes/ladies who've popped up over the years (I took a break from about masques until ravnica) so sorry if I left some of the friendlys out.
Masques did indeed have the (comparatively) friendly Merfolk. They were also mercantile Merfolk, which might tie into the canal idea. Then again, until Ravnica Elves weren't usually evil (though there were two previously black-associated ones in Elves of Deep Shadow and Urborg Elf). It seems the set is going to be tied closely to Celtic myth, in which case the roles of these races' equivalents in that mythology will override the Magic tradition.
yeah, the tribal theme in this set is really kind of... not doing it..for me. I truly hate tribal because, well it kind of limits the possibilities thjat the set could otherwise have.
It's premature to say this without knowing how it will be used. We now know we can have Tribal enchantments (and potentially artifacts or lands, but that seems less useful), which means that tribal decks no longer have to be aggro decks or even creature-based. I also suspect there will be a heavy aura or more general enchantment focus in this block - auras obviously play well with creatures, Future Sight has given us cards like Daybreak Coronet, Arcanum Wings, Emblem of the Warmind and Spellwild Ouphe that introduce new ways of using auras and a new aura-related keyword (Aura Swap - which performs a similar game function to Onslaught block's morph, when you think about it, allowing surprise tricks to be played using cards that are in play). I can see quite a lot of scope for developing tribal themes. It seems that there's a lot of hate going around for tribal, but mostly that seems to be because players have bad memories of Onslaught. Odyssey lost my interest so fully that I left Magic (and that's as a fan of graveyard mechanics), but that doesn't mean I hate the graveyard or don't think a future graveyard block could do better.
A five color pre-con? The only way this would work is if you had some sure-fire way to get all five colors. One possibility:
Flaming Planeswalker
Lands you control have "T: Add one mana of any color to mana pool"
Starting Life: -3
When you control 5 or more lands, sacrifice ~ He wears his colors with pride.
So, again, like Vanguard - you can start with this guy in play. This may be why there are 5 pre-cons (4 regular, 1 with Planeswalker). My 2c
A five color pre-con? The only way this would work is if you had some sure-fire way to get all five colors. One possibility:
Flaming Planeswalker
Lands you control have "T: Add one mana of any color to mana pool"
Starting Life: -3
When you control 5 or more lands, sacrifice ~ He wears his colors with pride.
So, again, like Vanguard - you can start with this guy in play. This may be why there are 5 pre-cons (4 regular, 1 with Planeswalker). My 2c
Joiner Adept is in 10th, it has: Lands you control have "T: Add one mana of any color to mana pool". Why make a card that makes a card that they just put in a core set useless?
Also if they make Planeswalkers in the set then I don't think they will have no mana cost and start out in play like the Vanguard because everyone will end up using them no matter what colour they are.
The only Bird Lord I know of is the blue-white multicolour from Invasion. White does, however, have Zuberi, the Griffin lord. But I've said elsewhere that I don't think Wizards really makes the 'class'/'race' distinction. A creature type is a creature type. Soldiers have been white's core tribe since their introduction in Fallen Empires, equivalent to the elves, zombies and goblins of other colours.
Also, I look forward to seeing new takes on the tribal theme. As far as I'm concerned Onslaught was a failure and tribal as a whole is very weak design as it feels like WotC is just handing you your deck -- but I trust in MaRo and Co. to do a damn good job of breaking that belief.
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"One skilled at battle takes a stand in the ground of no defeat
And so does not lose the enemy's defeat.
Therefore, the victorious military is first victorious and after that does battle.
The defeated military first does battle and after that seeks victory."
You know back in the days we played a theme deck against a guy with a tourney pack and the tourney pack (being 5-colored by default) smashed the pre-con... prooves not much, but certainly that pre-cons aren't tier 1 and therefore fivecolored is possible (and it's not the first one IRC - somewhere in Invasion block there was a deck containining Last Stand, no?)
There was a 5-Colored precon from Apocalypse, as was there one in Fifth Dawn that abused sunburst. 5-Color precons aren't terribly hard to do, and are quite a bit of fun.
Wow, this block looks awesome. Freaking adorable creatures in black (with frogs on their heads!), midgets to punt, and a bunch of overcompensating elves. Judging from the picture, they have hard times with doors. The main character prolly snapped his off getting to a bathroom. Yay, Lorwyn!
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"The imagination is not a State: it is the Human existence itself." - William Blake
Edit: I gotta start reading other posts before posting. I think merfolk should only be in blue because blue needs a race of it's own for good. (Wizards isn't blue, it's in every colour)
Favorite decks:
:symu::symb::symr:Spike Mishra:symr::symb::symu:
:symb::symr::symg:Timmy Kresh:symg::symr::symb:
:symw::symu::symb::symr::symg:Johnny Conflux:symg::symr::symb::symu::symw:
MBC
Working on:
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"Stasis is impossible. Change is inevitable."
Except for Red and Green you mean. They get Shamans
Real life example: Oxidize. If Oxidize was printed in 10th, it would sit largely unused beside Demystify -- artifact hate simply doesn't need to be that focused. People would rather run more flexible but less focused counters in the forms of Naturalize, Seal of Primordium, Krosan Grip, Disenchant, or soon Aura of Silence. All of these cards are far more flexible than Oxidize, although slower and less focused. However, when Oxidize was originally printed it saw quite significant play -- because artifacts were rampant. Artifacts were very powerful, this making a highly focused counter like Oxidize desirable. If an enchantment block were ever to truly occur, I predict the same thing would happen with Demystify.
The same goes with anti-tribal. Tivadar's Crusade is useless if nobody plays goblins.
And so does not lose the enemy's defeat.
Therefore, the victorious military is first victorious and after that does battle.
The defeated military first does battle and after that seeks victory."
On that note however, maybe instead of making a huge deal about tribal bleeds, maybe they have two main races for each color (like Onslaught) were one is mostly exclusivley one color (Say, Giants for Red.) then the other is shared (boggarts in Red and Black?)
The shared tribe would probably be in friendly colors, like we see in the precons. The bleeds would be a lesser focus than the mono color race, but have the same amount of focus between the colors (like Birds in Onslaught, not relaly enough in either White of Blue, but enough together) or potentially having a greater focus in the color they were borrowed from (More Blue Merfolk then White, etc...).
Maybe it looks something like this?
White - Kithkin (Mono-Color) - Merfolk (with Blue) - ? (with Green)
Green- Elves (Mono-Color) - Elves(Authoritarian?)/? (with White) - Faeries (with Red: Tricksters, capricious, forest spirits, etc...) or Giants (Primal, instinctual, etc...)
Red- Giants (Mono-Color) - Faeries/Giants (with Green) - Boggarts (with Black)
Black - Zombies/Lycanthropes/?(Mono-Color) - Boggarts (with Red) - ? (With Blue)
Blue - Faeries (Tricksters)/? (Mono-Color) - ? (With Black) - Merfolk (With White)
I just want a block where the more flavorful the deck is the more potent it becomes.. and thats where tribal plays a bigger role.. as i've grown as a magic player from newbie to ultra competitive to ultra casual to somewhere in between.. I can't fight the urge to draft.. but also.. i can't fight the urge to build on a huge theme and see if it works.. a buddy of mine years ago when the Slith came out built a competitive deck using all the sliths and Bidding.. it was pretty cool.. it wasn't anything great.. but it held its own pretty well.. I hope it has a "tribal" theme.. but not just creaturewise.. I want flavorful cards all across the board.. and not ones that say "hey all elves get a cool bonus.." but just cards that are tribal but universal.. I don't think they did Onslaught right.. and its one of the few blocks that could have been really great but they kinda dropped the ball.. (especially the later two sets...) I want to see Form of the Angel, Form of the Wurm, Form of the Demon and Form of the Djinn .. I also want to see 100 card decks get rewarded a la Battle of Wits style wins.. I want there to be more then 50 Spike level cards in the block.. and I want all the uncommons to have uses outside of limited..
sorry i kind of got off on a tangent there.. but if they do a "flavor" block and its creature based.. I hope for more then a few types for each color..
Elemental theme deck sounds fun.. as does Merfolk.. who doesn't like the fish people? ...
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They have wizards:
Armorer Guildmage red (a lot of them)
Bloodline Shaman green (a lot of them)
all the Magus from time block. There's alot of them. And Shaman's in every color too. (well not white unless Selesnya Evangel can pass as one. Edit: or blue :P)
Favorite decks:
:symu::symb::symr:Spike Mishra:symr::symb::symu:
:symb::symr::symg:Timmy Kresh:symg::symr::symb:
:symw::symu::symb::symr::symg:Johnny Conflux:symg::symr::symb::symu::symw:
It occurred to me too that the 5-colour precon sounds like a "story deck" - we have four precons which follow the usual pattern of one or two colours, and a fifth, unusual one with the name "Quest of the Elementals", which seems a much more story-orientated name than names as generic as "Elvish Predators" or "Kithkin Militia".
Further thoughts arising:
1. We know that Wizards will probably want to do something different from Onslaught's focus on mono-coloured aggro decks. The new Tribal card type allows control decks to be tribe-orientated. So, with that in mind, might the tribes be linked to specific play styles much like the Rav guilds? Kithkin (mono) seem obvious white-weenie, and the name of the deck supports that; "Boggart Festival" recalls Rakdos flavour - wild, demented black/red partygoers. Merfolk could be the "control" tribe, while the Elves may keep reanimation alive (as it were). I don't imagine they want to use exactly the same archetypes as Ravnica (so Boggarts may be focused less on fast aggro and discard, maybe more controllish, say), although green-black is pretty much always reanimation.
2. The fact that "Planeswalker" isn't mentioned in the names is no reason to panic - did any of the Mirrodin decks have names that included "Equipment". The names tell us that creatures of a particular type form the theme of each deck; they don't make any suggestion about what isn't there. As someone mentioned, the Onslaught decks weren't named for their tribes, but they were still tribally-based decks.
3. Yes, white Merfolk and black Elves are odd ideas. I for one don't want to see monocoloured elves that aren't green, since Elves have managed to retain their distinctive colour association long after Zombies, Goblins and Soldiers lost theirs (though in fairness, the second Zombie ever printed was non-black, so beating that record's not much of a feat). What we might see is cards in one colour that play off the tribe in the other - for example, a black card that has Elfcycling or provides some bonus related to a creature's Elfness (and can "Destroy target non-Elf creature" be far away?), in much the same way that Elves of Deep Shadow are green but benefit black (and I fully expect to see them get another iteration just as they're leaving Standard - if they weren't in the wrong colour combination they might have been basic set material).
4. I like the idea of Boggarts being Imps a lot. Makes me a lot more comfortable than black and/or red Faeries, fits both black and red (though I think red's only imp has been a portal card, while black's got a core set Goblin), and since I expect the boggarts to be mostly black rather than mostly red, it seems to make more sense than goblins.
5. I still envisage Elementals being mostly red - Wizards seems to have been pushing this with the last two blocks (though green got several elementals in Rav), moving Elementals away from "almost exclusively green" back to "mostly red and blue, with some green", closer to where they started (and which actually makes more sense). As with Elves and Merfolk, the fact that the Elemental deck is five-colour doesn't mean that all colours must contribute an Elemental. Giving white its first Elementals in TS block may be set-up for Elementals in this colour in Lorwyn, but we still don't have any black Elementals, and both colours are a long way behind the other three in Elemental representation in Standard.
It means common mana-fixing - don't get your hopes up beyond that. Remember, precons aren't intended for competitive play. It may just mean we get a Rampant Growth variant, but this is hardly news.
Or we could see something along the lines of:
Gemhide Essence 1G
Tribal Enchantment - Elf
T: Add one mana of any colour to your mana pool.
One other thing, on the "Just because all five decks are named after tribes it doesn't mean the set will be tribal":
So far the anti-Tribal lobby has, quite reasonably, pointed out that such things as the Tribal card type only imply that a tribal set will occur in future, stressing that there is "no more evidence that Lorwyn will be tribal than that it will be anything else". But while this was reasonable at the time, it is not reasonable to keep trying to find ways to maintain this position once it has become untenable.
The tribal theme decks ARE evidence that Lorwyn is probably tribal. There may still be some chance that it isn't, but it's no longer credible to say that it's not likely Lorwyn will be tribal, or that other alternatives have as much evidence in their favour. Though this isn't really the place, let's run through specific pieces of evidence:
1. Kithkin Rebels. Most of the TS block Kithkin have the Rebel type. Rebels are designed to work together as a tribal deck. This seems to be telling us (a) Wizards wants Kithkin to work together as a tribal deck, rather than just increasing the number of Kithkin creatures in the game, and (b) it wants them to be used in this way before TS block rotates out (since the rebel-searchers are nostalgia theme cards that we're unlikely to see in future blocks).
2. Tribalcycling and Tribal. Wizards likely inserted several of the keywords into Future Sight in order to introduce keywords they plan to use in Lorwyn, so that they have more freedom to add other new keywords in the set itself (as players will already be familiar with the FS ones). There's nothing that particularly demands either Tribalcycling or Tribal be used in Lorwyn rather than another block, but when we have cards pointing at a future tribal theme and then the next block has tribal theme decks, there's only so much you can put down to coincidence.
3. An Elfcentric storyline and returning Merfolk. Again, these two could be dismissed as coincidental and having little bearing on the actual set direction ("You get tribal cards in every set", "Mirrodin had an elf in the storyline" etc.) But when we start to see that Elves aren't just big storyline players but have their own theme deck, and so do Merfolk, and that they're joined by three other tribal decks (coincidentally enough, enough tribes for each colour), having elves in the story becomes interesting corroborating evidence.
One other note:
On the "all colours have had more than one tribe in past blocks". Agreed. However, Wizards will, at a guess, want to work this block differently from Onslaught. I'm wondering if, instead of, say, giving red a lot of Elementals and fewer Giants and Goblins, or making a lot of green Elves and a few Faeries in the supporting cast, Wizards might split the tribes by set as they split the Rav guilds. So Lorwyn would be the "Elf set" (and Elemental/Boggart/Kithkin/Merfolk set) and each subsequent set would emphasise one of each colour's other tribes (so we might get a Faerie theme deck, a Giant theme deck etc. in the next set). As far as Zombies are concerned, I'm not aware of them having much of a place in Celtic myth, so we might see them sidelined nonetheless.
Phil
The Tooth Farie was once considered a deciple of the Devil that would steal the souls of children who didn't throw their fallen out teeth into a fire. (This is actually true, not making this up.)
Dawn Elemental was the first white one. Celestial Ancient is one too. But still no mono-black ones.
Favorite decks:
:symu::symb::symr:Spike Mishra:symr::symb::symu:
:symb::symr::symg:Timmy Kresh:symg::symr::symb:
:symw::symu::symb::symr::symg:Johnny Conflux:symg::symr::symb::symu::symw:
You mean what would it be themed to? If fungus, dawn or dust can be elements, anything's up for grabs... Death Elemental is a card I came up with for a set I made (with its green counterpart in Life Elemental, naturally). Plague Elemental? Mire Elemental? I swear, they just come up with these things in random name generators. Logic's got nothing to do with it (I'm sticking to my belief that naming Sulfur Elemental after an actual element - a first in Magic history - was a happy accident. I don't forsee Argon Elemental anytime soon).
Grove of the Burnwillows seems to play to theme, but my guess would be on the mana-fixers (Nimbus Maze) - they're generic, simple, work equally with all colours (which is not true of the Burnwillow lands, since giving the opponent 1 life is more of a drawback to some than others), and help to deal with the perennial problem of mana/colour screw. Wizards (and everyone else) likes cards that stop colour screw because screw makes the game no fun.
Phil
Phil, I enjoy your contributions to these discussions, but please, don't double post. Use the edit post button if you wish to add more in future... Che bro
bog elemental and desecration elemental just off the top of my head. Also for white dust elemental and squall drifter.
lies! No one can know the name of and spell desecration
joke
but ya I even have them both in a deck and forgot about them <_<
Well then it'd be more sacrifice a creature like stuff.
Edit for your edit: I was naming white ones from sets before TS block. Just didn't think of drifter.
Favorite decks:
:symu::symb::symr:Spike Mishra:symr::symb::symu:
:symb::symr::symg:Timmy Kresh:symg::symr::symb:
:symw::symu::symb::symr::symg:Johnny Conflux:symg::symr::symb::symu::symw:
The only Bird Lord I know of is the blue-white multicolour from Invasion. White does, however, have Zuberi, the Griffin lord. But I've said elsewhere that I don't think Wizards really makes the 'class'/'race' distinction. A creature type is a creature type. Soldiers have been white's core tribe since their introduction in Fallen Empires, equivalent to the elves, zombies and goblins of other colours.
Masques did indeed have the (comparatively) friendly Merfolk. They were also mercantile Merfolk, which might tie into the canal idea. Then again, until Ravnica Elves weren't usually evil (though there were two previously black-associated ones in Elves of Deep Shadow and Urborg Elf). It seems the set is going to be tied closely to Celtic myth, in which case the roles of these races' equivalents in that mythology will override the Magic tradition.
It's premature to say this without knowing how it will be used. We now know we can have Tribal enchantments (and potentially artifacts or lands, but that seems less useful), which means that tribal decks no longer have to be aggro decks or even creature-based. I also suspect there will be a heavy aura or more general enchantment focus in this block - auras obviously play well with creatures, Future Sight has given us cards like Daybreak Coronet, Arcanum Wings, Emblem of the Warmind and Spellwild Ouphe that introduce new ways of using auras and a new aura-related keyword (Aura Swap - which performs a similar game function to Onslaught block's morph, when you think about it, allowing surprise tricks to be played using cards that are in play). I can see quite a lot of scope for developing tribal themes. It seems that there's a lot of hate going around for tribal, but mostly that seems to be because players have bad memories of Onslaught. Odyssey lost my interest so fully that I left Magic (and that's as a fan of graveyard mechanics), but that doesn't mean I hate the graveyard or don't think a future graveyard block could do better.
Phil
Soraya the Falconer is now the new bird lord. (it's been edited) There's Kangee, Aerie Keeper too
Favorite decks:
:symu::symb::symr:Spike Mishra:symr::symb::symu:
:symb::symr::symg:Timmy Kresh:symg::symr::symb:
:symw::symu::symb::symr::symg:Johnny Conflux:symg::symr::symb::symu::symw:
Flaming Planeswalker
Lands you control have "T: Add one mana of any color to mana pool"
Starting Life: -3
When you control 5 or more lands, sacrifice ~
He wears his colors with pride.
So, again, like Vanguard - you can start with this guy in play. This may be why there are 5 pre-cons (4 regular, 1 with Planeswalker). My 2c
In Irish mythology, the Fomorians, Fomors, or Fomori (Irish Fomóiri, Fomóraig) were a semi-divine race who inhabited Ireland in ancient times.
Joiner Adept is in 10th, it has: Lands you control have "T: Add one mana of any color to mana pool". Why make a card that makes a card that they just put in a core set useless?
Also if they make Planeswalkers in the set then I don't think they will have no mana cost and start out in play like the Vanguard because everyone will end up using them no matter what colour they are.
Favorite decks:
:symu::symb::symr:Spike Mishra:symr::symb::symu:
:symb::symr::symg:Timmy Kresh:symg::symr::symb:
:symw::symu::symb::symr::symg:Johnny Conflux:symg::symr::symb::symu::symw:
Also, I look forward to seeing new takes on the tribal theme. As far as I'm concerned Onslaught was a failure and tribal as a whole is very weak design as it feels like WotC is just handing you your deck -- but I trust in MaRo and Co. to do a damn good job of breaking that belief.
And so does not lose the enemy's defeat.
Therefore, the victorious military is first victorious and after that does battle.
The defeated military first does battle and after that seeks victory."
Beautiful.
Uhh...they really went all out with the horned elf thing.
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There was a 5-Colored precon from Apocalypse, as was there one in Fifth Dawn that abused sunburst. 5-Color precons aren't terribly hard to do, and are quite a bit of fun.
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Cool, but the first thing that ran through my mind was: "That's one horny elf"
heeyyy-oooooo
But the art looks neat. It should be an interesting set, both flavorfuly and visually
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Now we know what a boggart looks like. Seems like it'll be an imp to me.
and that elemental looks sweet.
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