TomB's 3/8/00 article

[Spiderman]

I don't know if this is where I should put comments on articles; do I send a note privately to the author? Or post it here?

Anyhoo, an observation and a comment on TomB's article.

Observation: I thought it interesting that you commented on Mike Pratt's article about his title not really saying what the content was about, and then you had perhaps 1-1 1/2 paragraphs about the social aspect of Magic and then went on to comment on the bannings and flavors of colors.

Comment: I disagree with your assumption that if it was in Alpha, it's in the flavor for the color. Alpha was the first cut of cards and I just think they wanted to get ideas in general in print. Thus you have alot of cards that have rotated out because they were two powerful: power nine, Two-Headed Giant (or is that River?), Fork, Juggernaught, you get the idea. They just didn't have any previous experience on what "game balance" was and went for cool ideas. As for Savannah Lions, you tie together "Savannah" and plains for white. I don't think it had anything to do with white's theme. Same for the Knights.

Looking at the Arabian Nights expansion, Garfield said (after the fact and probably around 4th ed) it was probably a mistake to design it after the Arabian Tales rather than keep in themes of each color. Thus you have white more aggressive than usual. But the point is in the beginning, I think the game designers not so much as worried about "color flavors" as opposed to getting new cards out to appease the masses.

 

[Quill]

hmm..whats so powerful about Juggernaut?

 

[Dune Echo]

Juggernaut is just cool because it shows a little guy getting crushed!

Aw, hell. We all do or don't want the Power Nine and high-priced cards back. I'd just like to see a version of the Lotus with the new wording and correct tap symbol, same for any card that gets errata'd. Personally, I think eventually WotC will have to reprint if sales lag too far or the demand from players in regards to Vintage tournaments becomes overwhelming. But, until then, happy waiting.

-Dune Echo
Wailing away at Hasbro in hopes they take a more active hand in the Reprint Policy.

 

[Mr_Pestilence]

How about a "Master Set" that reprinted EVERY card ever made with the current errata. It wouldn't have to be tournament legal, and a set with a few thousand cards should keep the collector's happy, since "rare" cards would only appear once in about every couple dozen boxes.

***************

 

[Ura]

I think the idea of a collectors master set could be cool but rather than putting errata'd cards on it just put the entire banned and restricted list from T1 on it (except ante cards) insted along with some of the other really cool cards people liked. Maybe hold a concensus on what people liked and didn't like.

Otherwise back to the original post, I have to ask since many people don't seem to know or all have differing opinions on it.
Just what is the correct flavor for a color?
Certain colors like green, blue and red are fairly obvious. Green is big critters with fast mana to get them out, yet dragons are pretty big and they're red for the most part. Red is for chaos and "burn", yet its got great mana boosters like mana flare. Blue to me has always been the color of psionics (remember Psionic Blast?), water, and the ability to just say no.
But what about black and white. Originally they were two sides of the same coin, one pure good the other pure evil. While I agree that Savanah lions were great, they weren't quite whites thing, the knights however were perfect. White Knight and Black Knight were perfectly fitting cards to the colors as well as all they're cousins. Things like angels and demons were also perfect representatives for the colors being symbols of pure good or evil. But we can't have demons now, so we get beasts. Thats why I thought dark rit was a great black card. Evil had a ritual to gain a temporary burst of power. It makes sense to me, but maybe I'm just to old in ideals for the game after being in it for 7 years.
So it comes down to whats in flavor for a color? I think there really is no perfect answer as we all have differing ideas for what they should and shouldn't be. Theres just some guiding borders to what each color can and can not do.

 

[Mr_Pestilence]

Black's "theme" is powerful cards with big drawbacks. Look at Phyrexian Negator - sure, you can get it out 1st turn with a Dark Ritual, and crush your opponent in 4 turns, but, on the other side, if your opponent has a Shock, you're out 3 cards and have nothing in play.

White's "theme" is defense in the form of damage prevention, life gaining, and the ability to kill any type of permanent. If you control of the board, you don't need much of an offense, so the basic White Weenies are enough to win with.

**************

 

[Wizard2000]

Black's place has usually been creature destruction, hand destruction, and quick power at a price. Terror and Dark Banishing were always my favorite creature killers. Discard has always been within black. I don't know of any cards off hand from other colors that force discard except the artifacts if you count them as "brown". Black has the cheap power at a price cards as mentioned before.

White is based on the opposites of black with creature protection, protection for you, some card drawing (though not as good as blue) to slow the discard attacks, and powerful creatures like Serra Angel that are not cheap, but are not so easy to kill. No other color has creatures that don't tap to attack.

I always saw green and white kind of being on the same side. They both have efficient creatures, regeneration, and counters for black. Black and Blue seemed to always be teamed together... having creature and/or spell manipulation. Red always seemed to stand alone in the pile. Holding its own with direct damage and counters for both blue and white. I guess this could be why the colors appear as they do on the back of the cards.

Some cards do seem to get too deep into another colors territory. This deters people from trying to mix colors. If WotC would refocus the colors it would help create more diverse decks and maybe spawn some new ideas.

 

[TomB]

Spiderman,
Oops. I guess you're right! I did sort of go off about the color thing again, didn't I?

<font size="2" color="#FF6000">* TomB looks somewhat sheepish</font>

I really didn't realize it at the time, but I DID forget to add a /Dark Ritual Rant onto the title.

My bad.

The point on the Social aspect of the game is still valid though. House rules do work while you're in the house, but once you take it on the road you've still got to deal with tournament rules, as they are the accepted standard. That's why a ruling like this affects even casual players like us, and that's why we're still talking about it.


The argument about the "flavors" of the colors is an old one. In my opinion the flavors have been re-defined through the years, and have drifted significantly from their original intent. Some see this as a positive, and it can be, when it expands on what a color can do, but I don't like it when it takes away from what a color does best.

I feel that the game should grow by augmentation, not subtraction. I think it's OK to give Black, or Red, enchantment control with a price, like by using Nevinyrral's Disk. Augmenting Blue with additional bounce characteristics was a positive. So was giving Green some really good beatdown creatures. Assigning Red the "haste" ability is another good idea.

Each of these is an example of giving a color IMPROVED abilities in an area where they were weak, or somewhat neglected. By changing things this way, a color's flavor "portfolio" is expanded, not restricted, and the game grows.

By taking away things that a color does well, either by banning, or by cycling key cards out of the environment, the game's continuity is affected, and it's growth is stunted. I feel this is bad.

Anyhow, thanks for reading, and please, feel free to comment anytime. I appreciate it.

TomB
CPA Member

 

[Spiderman]

Back from the weekend...

TomB: I wasn't complaining about your house rules part; I agree with it. I was just mentioning the discrepancy between the title and actual subject matter

And I just felt I had to comment because you mentioned Savannah Lions as part of white's "flavor" and I never felt they were; the only connection was "Savannah" and white's mana comes from plains. Other than that it was an unintentional "design mistake".

I honestly haven't thought about colors drifting out of their "flavors" but off the top of my head I haven't noticed any significant additions (well, maybe's blue's bounce) or detractions so I won't comment.

Quill: Juggernaught isn't really so powerful (especially with Bolt in the card mix at the time) but WOTC wasn't just starting to get into Sealed and was rating cards on their construction strength vs. sealed strength and it was decided Juggernaught was too powerful in sealed.

All: Flavors.... here's what I gathered about them:

Red: burn, land destruction, haste

White: protection, first strike, life gain, enchantment/artifact removal

Green: perm mana, big creatures (some with drawbacks, some library manipulation, regeneration

Blue: counterspells, bounce, library manipulation

Black: hand destruction, big creatures where drawbacks are the norm, life drain

 

[Dune Echo]

Spiderman: I think you should add these as well.

Blue: HEAVY library manipulation , and card drawing, the "best" flyers.

Black: Sacrifice for gain.

Green: Trample.

 

[Spiderman]

Dune: I haven't really played since Urza's Legacy so I don't know how the creatures are now, but before then I wasn't impressed with blue's flying guys in general (though I know they were supposed to have the best fliers). I agree with everything else.