[quote from="Downdala »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/the-rumor-mill/speculation/680676-eldritch-moon-is-an-enemy-colored-set?comment=2"]What you are suggesting is a total departure of the themes and tribes of SOI which were one of the wildly popular aspects that returned from Innistrad in the first place. You would just repeat the mistake of Morningtide as well doing this.
This, a thousand times this, just post this to the top of any thread discussing enemy-colored tribes in the Eldritch Moon small set following Shadows.
Wizards knows that the allied-color tribal theme was one of the most iconic and popular aspects of the original Innistrad. They have brought that back again and, while tweaking the mechanics and feel of some of them, are trying to stay true to the first block. They are absolutely not going to flip things entirely to being enemy-colored tribes in the small set. It's not going to work with draft.
This time it looks like they've replaced the standard cycle of uncommon gold cards with a set of enemy-colored enchantments, and potentially allied-colored tribal creatures, with mono-colors and a different color activation cost.
What is causing the madness of Avacyn and the corruption on Innistrad? My speculation is that while current spoilers lean towards the Eldrazi, and Emrakul in particular, the set of Shadows of Innistrad as a whole will not reveal the true source of the corruption until the second set, Eldritch Moon.
The currently revealed Clue Token indicates Emrakul with the iconography of the signal, but the other Clue Tokens will be supporting evidence for other theories. Perhaps it's Nahiri gone mad or looking for revenge, perhaps it's the hypnotic toad Gitrog, perhaps it's something else. The spoilers so far lean Eldrazi because it's the set we are coming off of, but the spoilers this week and beyond will introduce a handful of other minor cults and fan theories to keep things interesting. WOTC will want to keep people guessing for this set on what is going on.
I'm cautiously optimistic for something Innmouth related, but I'm curious if they will be given something like "Horror" or "Spawn" as a creature type instead of "Merfolk."
I agree Ashiok is a good fit for Innistrad but their presence seems unlikely being tied up on Theros. I'm actually leaning toward Marit Lage being the sea god that was once worshiped on Innistrad.
Wait do we have confirmation of stories of sea gods worshiped on Innistrad?
I'd love to se Ashiok return and I look forward to him being a major villain in a future set, but I don't know if they would mix up planes like that. Return to Innistrad featuring the villain last seen on Theros?
I think she will be able to control her transformation, making one of her abilities being a Wolf until end of turn, a la Sarkhan's dragon transformation. She'll probably be at least Green, maybe Green-Red, which is a little disappointing as that space seems over-utilized.
Supposing there were another Ravnica block (Ravnica 3.0 or Return to Return to Ravnica), how would it be set up with the current two set approach? Would you expect all of the allied or enemy color Guilds in one set, and the rest in the other? WOTC has in general been trying to give some support for all two-color pairs in Limited, so would they deviate from the uncommon gold cycle?
I want to talk about BFZ Green cards, not any commentary on the OGW Green cards being spoiled.
Should Green be playable in OGW, what are the BFZ Green cards that could potentially make the cut for being playable in Limited?
The problem with Green hasn't just been its lack of synergy, it's been a number of bad commons and uncommons.
Focusing on BFZ Green commons and uncommons, since you're most likely to see those in the third and final pack, I'm having a hard time seeing anything but Brood Monitor. Maybe Rot Shambler in an Eldrazi ramp deck, similarly with Void Attendant.
We came up with lots of interesting ideas that felt appropriate to Kozilek's physics-warping nature, but none of them were deep enough to put on many cards and have those cards still feel distinct from each other. I decided that we could simply use all of them, and tie them together with the "C" mana symbol. Kozilek wouldn't have a keyword mechanic; he would have a slice of the "color" pie.
The color system functions to restrict which cards can reasonably be played together by requiring you to play a certain number of mana sources of the appropriate kind to reliably cast all those cards (creating a tradeoff between the spells-to-lands ratio and the consistency with which you can cast your spells). Any mechanic that does the same thing is functionally a color.
Absolutely true, but it's interesting how WOTC has squared the circle here through the use of colorless and not a new sixth color.
By linking it to colorless, they have enabled the spells to be cast, abilities to be activated through all of the existing lands, dorks, and rocks that produce colorless mana.
By limiting it to only colorless, and insisting that colorless isn't a color, they've kept it separate from all of the lands, dorks, and rocks that produce "one mana of any color."
Quick glance, "one mana of any color" has around seven Standard legal cards right now, but obviously a much wider pool to draw from in deeper formats. Colorless has a lot more, especially with the Eldrazi Scion token producing cards. Thirty-six, which including the painlands is pretty key. I think it sets up a situation where they can make a major splash in Standard, simply because so many cards are being pushed to support colorless. But it remains to be seen the broader impact based on the power level of cards. It does give the colorless-only cards future support whenever future "colorless matters" or "produces colorless" cards are made, something that a true sixth color may not always benefit from.
The black magic was from drawing strength from death. Hence, the Devour mechanic. Everything is based around killing to grow stronger.
Yeah, but I was surprised that when you look back there was only a smidge of Devour in black. I wasn't around for Alara so maybe this was already commented on.
Question brought about by the backstory for the commander Meren, of Clan Nel Toth. The UR specifically introducees with this description of the original shards of Alara and Jund:
"Ages ago, Alara was divided into five separate worlds, each of which evolved its own customs, life forms, and forms of magic. On the dragon-worshiping shard-plane of Jund, shamans and warriors braved the tar pits and jungles, trying to stay alive amidst an endless cycle of predation. Necromancy was unknown on Jund, being the sole province of the hellish shard of Grixis."
But there was black magic on Jund! So is this just saying that the black magic on Jund was specifically non-Necromancy? I hadn't been really seen before that there were restrictions to the "type" of magic on the shards.
This got me to trying to figure out what black cards are supposed to represent Jund.
So from Jund Charm and Necrogenesis there's a bit of a Black-Green graveyard synergy in play. So Black's role on Jund was benefiting from creatures being sacrifice/dying, and some graveyard synergy, but not anything involving graveyard to hand/battlefield. But then you have Charnelhoard Wurm in Conflux, which I thought still represented an original Jund creature. I guess I'm overthinking this and just found one general exception?
From a color pie perspective and picking up some of Maro's posts on the topic, the following should be major conflicts:
Azorius vs. Golgari (the other enemy of Green is Blue, the other enemy of Black is White.)
Dimir vs. Boros (the other enemy of White is Black, the other enemy of Red is Blue.)
Rakdos vs. Simic (the other enemy of Blue is Red, the other enemy of Green is Black.)
Gruul vs. Orzhov (the other enemy of Black is Green, the other enemy of White is Red.)
Selesnya vs. Izzet (the other enemy of Red is White, the other enemy of Blue is Green.)
Some of that is there, but in other aspects certain Guilds are focused more on X (such as spiritual/religions conflict between Selesnya and Orzhov) that they conflict more with other Guilds than their chief color rivals.
I consider this baseless speculation, we have no confirmation technically of a 2017 Modern Masters, but it would fit the pattern.
Regardless of if we should expect a 2017 Modern Masters, it is clear that any speculation about the archetypes selected to highlight and the cards printed is baseless.
That certainly depends on just how far WOTC will go through the sets for drawing cards. For the year after the Return to Innistrad, it could be nice if they went up through Innistrad for MM 2017.
I expect that for a Waterworld they may look to other island cultures, like Polynesian, to flesh things out so it doesn't feel just like Earthsea or Greece/Theros. You could easily work in some common tropes like pirates, cannibals, etc.
Idea: SOI could have a few Mummies in it, one of the horror tropes that went untouched last time, in order to open the door for Mummy tribal in Standard once the Egytpian set comes out?
Mummies were considered last time for Innistrad but felt too Egyptian for a full-on supported tribe. They could just tease a few cards in the set to prepare for a new Egyptian plane.
This, a thousand times this, just post this to the top of any thread discussing enemy-colored tribes in the Eldritch Moon small set following Shadows.
Wizards knows that the allied-color tribal theme was one of the most iconic and popular aspects of the original Innistrad. They have brought that back again and, while tweaking the mechanics and feel of some of them, are trying to stay true to the first block. They are absolutely not going to flip things entirely to being enemy-colored tribes in the small set. It's not going to work with draft.
This time it looks like they've replaced the standard cycle of uncommon gold cards with a set of enemy-colored enchantments, and potentially allied-colored tribal creatures, with mono-colors and a different color activation cost.
What is causing the madness of Avacyn and the corruption on Innistrad? My speculation is that while current spoilers lean towards the Eldrazi, and Emrakul in particular, the set of Shadows of Innistrad as a whole will not reveal the true source of the corruption until the second set, Eldritch Moon.
The currently revealed Clue Token indicates Emrakul with the iconography of the signal, but the other Clue Tokens will be supporting evidence for other theories. Perhaps it's Nahiri gone mad or looking for revenge, perhaps it's the hypnotic toad Gitrog, perhaps it's something else. The spoilers so far lean Eldrazi because it's the set we are coming off of, but the spoilers this week and beyond will introduce a handful of other minor cults and fan theories to keep things interesting. WOTC will want to keep people guessing for this set on what is going on.
Oh maybe it's the Revenge of the Homarids?!
Wait do we have confirmation of stories of sea gods worshiped on Innistrad?
Should Green be playable in OGW, what are the BFZ Green cards that could potentially make the cut for being playable in Limited?
The problem with Green hasn't just been its lack of synergy, it's been a number of bad commons and uncommons.
Focusing on BFZ Green commons and uncommons, since you're most likely to see those in the third and final pack, I'm having a hard time seeing anything but Brood Monitor. Maybe Rot Shambler in an Eldrazi ramp deck, similarly with Void Attendant.
Absolutely true, but it's interesting how WOTC has squared the circle here through the use of colorless and not a new sixth color.
By linking it to colorless, they have enabled the spells to be cast, abilities to be activated through all of the existing lands, dorks, and rocks that produce colorless mana.
By limiting it to only colorless, and insisting that colorless isn't a color, they've kept it separate from all of the lands, dorks, and rocks that produce "one mana of any color."
Quick glance, "one mana of any color" has around seven Standard legal cards right now, but obviously a much wider pool to draw from in deeper formats. Colorless has a lot more, especially with the Eldrazi Scion token producing cards. Thirty-six, which including the painlands is pretty key. I think it sets up a situation where they can make a major splash in Standard, simply because so many cards are being pushed to support colorless. But it remains to be seen the broader impact based on the power level of cards. It does give the colorless-only cards future support whenever future "colorless matters" or "produces colorless" cards are made, something that a true sixth color may not always benefit from.
Yeah, but I was surprised that when you look back there was only a smidge of Devour in black. I wasn't around for Alara so maybe this was already commented on.
But there was black magic on Jund! So is this just saying that the black magic on Jund was specifically non-Necromancy? I hadn't been really seen before that there were restrictions to the "type" of magic on the shards.
This got me to trying to figure out what black cards are supposed to represent Jund.
Tar Fiend (has Devour), Scavenger Drake (part of Jund cycle), and Deathgreeter (flavor text and mechanic fits) are all I could come up with.
Then there are the multicolor cards. Broodmate Dragon, Carrion Thrash, [card]Goblin Deathraiders
[/card], Hellkite Overlord, Jund Charm, Kresh the Bloodbraided, Necrogenesis, Sprouting Thrinax, and Violent Ultimatum.
So from Jund Charm and Necrogenesis there's a bit of a Black-Green graveyard synergy in play. So Black's role on Jund was benefiting from creatures being sacrifice/dying, and some graveyard synergy, but not anything involving graveyard to hand/battlefield. But then you have Charnelhoard Wurm in Conflux, which I thought still represented an original Jund creature. I guess I'm overthinking this and just found one general exception?
Azorius vs. Golgari (the other enemy of Green is Blue, the other enemy of Black is White.)
Dimir vs. Boros (the other enemy of White is Black, the other enemy of Red is Blue.)
Rakdos vs. Simic (the other enemy of Blue is Red, the other enemy of Green is Black.)
Gruul vs. Orzhov (the other enemy of Black is Green, the other enemy of White is Red.)
Selesnya vs. Izzet (the other enemy of Red is White, the other enemy of Blue is Green.)
Some of that is there, but in other aspects certain Guilds are focused more on X (such as spiritual/religions conflict between Selesnya and Orzhov) that they conflict more with other Guilds than their chief color rivals.
Regardless of if we should expect a 2017 Modern Masters, it is clear that any speculation about the archetypes selected to highlight and the cards printed is baseless.
That certainly depends on just how far WOTC will go through the sets for drawing cards. For the year after the Return to Innistrad, it could be nice if they went up through Innistrad for MM 2017.
For reference, the past years:
2013
White/Blue- Artifacts
Blue/Black- Faeries
Black/Red- Goblins
Red/Green- Suspend/Storm
Green/White- Tokens/Thalids
White/Black- Rebels
Blue/Red- Splice/Arcane
Black/Green- Graveyard/Dredge
Red/White- Giants
Green/Blue- Ramp/Sunburst
2015
White/Blue- Affinity/Metalcraft
Blue/Black- Proliferate
Black/Red- Bloodthirst
Red/Green- Domain (multiple lands)
Green/White- Tokens/Convoke
White/Black- Soulshift/Spirits
Blue/Red- Elementals
Black/Green- Tokens/Sacrifice
Red/White- Voltron/Double Strike
Green/Blue- Graft
What are people hoping for next time?
Mummies were considered last time for Innistrad but felt too Egyptian for a full-on supported tribe. They could just tease a few cards in the set to prepare for a new Egyptian plane.