Ugh, fine. Apparently because some people can't figure out the simple rule to have different passes on different sites I am forced to join my twitch and M:TGsalvation accounts. All this does is do it so that if Twitch is hacked, they get access to all our different account. It will not make us safer, it will only make Twitch a bigger target.
But fine, whatever.
Eh, it differs from plane to plane, and from god to god. In Theros the gods are empowered by their worshipers (thus being enchantment creatures and use devotion), but in Amonkhet they are expressions of the leylines of the plane (as shown by Nissa's vision, and no devotion). Illhag appears to be some sort of elemental creature and an expression of Ravnica itself.
It's even more obvious in non-mtg fantasy games. In some realms the gods require worship to retain power, while in others, such as the Forgotten Realms, the gods will have power regardless of whether they are worshiped or not.
I would not say no to some of the older uncommon land either, as long as we don't get more vivid lands. >.<
Both sparks and names can be restored.
Milling one opponents entire deck in one turn isn't degenerate?
Anyway, can't say I am surprised on either of the bans. Honestly, Iona should have been banned as soon as Dominaria was released due to one particular equipment in that set allowing you to effectively shut down all colors but white over the course of a few turns.
Their reasoning for not streaming it is a load of bullcrap. If everyone else are allowed to stream from SDCC, then there is no logical reason WotC can't other than they don't want to. And if they don't want to, they should tell us to our faces instead of saying "sorry, were not allowed to stream from SDCC", particularly when it is very obviously a lie.
I think the reason that Infect isn't really a thing in commander is the distinct lack of infect cards in each individual color. As it stands now, infect really wants to be three or more colors, and there aren't really enough cards with infect to support that. Green and Black has the most infect cards, but only black has a legendary creature with it. One could potentially build an infect deck around Atraxa, but that would do the exact opposite of what Atraxa wants, which is to play with -1/-1 counters instead of growing. It doesn't help that except for very few cards, most cards with infect are very fragile, so you'd need a way to recur them as well. All in all, it's not really a solid strategy for multiplayer.
So would I, I've always been fond of the Naya combination, and I rather like Temur as well. And both Dimir and Abzan can make for some hella fun decks. With that said, it entirely depends on the decks themes and how they are built.
Morophon was a bone for the tribes with few if any creatures, like Brushwagg or Dreadnaugt. We got other tribal legends both in MH1 and in Core20. One does not preclude the other.
As for -1/-1 counters for a theme, I could see that, particularly considering the large number of cards they have created with them over the years, some from prior to the new frame that have yet to be reprinted and that are not on the reserved list, like Fevered Convulsions.
You do know that three of the legends you listed aren't *tribal* legendaries, right? Only Edgar and Varina care about their tribes. Tuvasa is very much an enchantment commander, Shattergang is about sacrificing permanents, and technically, you can't call Kethis a tribal commander, as he cares about a supertype rather than a creature type. Which means that those three color combinations (BRG, GWU, and GBW) still need their tribal legends (Goblins, Merfolk, and Elves respectively).
As for knights, although we do have several legendary knights, we don't have a legendary knight with tribal abilities that cares about the colors we actually need, specificly, the tricolor combo of Mardu (BWR). It's like the difference between Ishkanah, Grafwidow and Thantis, the Warweaver, while the former is a fine tribal legendary, it was only in two of the three colors people had asked for and needed to their spider tribal decks. While the latter has the colors, but lack the tribal component. WotC are brilliant in giving people what they ask for without actually giving them what they ask for. It wasn't until the last batch of tribal decks they actually managed to give people the tribal legends in the colors that people actually wanted, and even then they partially failed (People wanted Grixis vampires, we got Mardu, the only reason people haven't complained loudly was because of the large number of white vampires in Ixalan block).
Because snow-based decks needed support in modern. Which was the entire point of Modern Horizons, a way to give tier 2 and tier 3 modern decks a boost to create a more varied metagame as well as to add a few old cards directly to modern without going through standard first.
If we get tribal we can expect two popular tribes and two that WotC thinks would be fun. Last time we got Dragons and Vampires (popular), as well as Wizards and Cats (wizards because of Dominaria's minor wizard tribal theme, and cats because it seemed like fun).
For the popular tribes, I could see Slivers and maybe Angels, for the two others, just about anything goes.
More likely in supplemental =/= as not going to appear in a standard legal set.
He said the same about Madness, and then Shadows over Innistrad happened. Anything that isn't an 11 on the Storm Scale can technically appear. And that means pretty much everything but Bands with other and substance can technically appear in a future standard legal set, it's just more or less likely.
Historically, no, no they were not. I've studied the topic extensively. >.<
It did happen that some Lords hired Ninja to spy on (or assassinate) rivals, but the ninja were never in their direct employ nor were any Samurai ninjas. Samurai were all of noble birth, and were trained in the way of the Japanese nobles from an early age. Traditionally, it was the oldest son (or in some cases sons) of the family that took on the mantle of Samurai and served the local lord, but it did happen on more than one occasion that a daughter took up the mantle instead. Usually because all eligible males in the family were dead.
Ninja on the other hand, almost exclusively were from the lowest rung of society, the downtrodden, who started to rebel against oppression by their lords, mostly because Samurai had a tendency to rape farmers daughters and kill the male peasantry, without any fear of retaliation. There is a reason why nearly all early ninja weapons and tools can trace their origins back to farm implements. Eventually the ninja got organized and created clans to oppose abusive lords/samurai from the shadows, training and raising their children to become future generations ninja in secret. However, when the feudal system started to, well, get phased out in Japan, so was there little need for Ninja, and they quietly disappeared. Some traveled to the west (I.e. Europe and the US), where they founded various martial arts studios or just blended in, leaving their old lives behind.
The flavor disconnect on that would annoy me to no end. The creation of the Ninja clans was a direct reaction by the populace to oppression from the Nobles/Samurai.
I wouldn't mind either Samurai and/or Ninja's, but not in the same deck. And I would not mind either expanding into a third color.
And she wasn't even the first. There were references to things like that at least as far back as the Tales of Scheherazade/Arabian Nights (It's what Jandor's Saddlebags references).
*Sigh*
Garruk no longer hunts Planeswalkers as of his DLC to Duels '15. Jace inserted a hedron in him that got the curse under control, and Garruk said he would stop hunting planeswalkers. He'd still kill them if they got in his way (or were Lily), but he no longer actively hunts them.