Magic: The Gathering (Spoiler-free)

Hi, it's been a while hasn't it. Seems like just yesterday we were writing theories on what wedge worlds would actually look like. Anyway, I'm here to pose a few challenges: Name some Mardu colored heroes, villains, or characters in media. Now do the same for some Jskai colored characters.

I would say that John Constantine is Mardu. He's a selfish asshole (Black/Red) who tries his hardest to do things for the good of society (White). He also uses some pretty dark magic side by side with exorcisms.

I would say that Hermione Granger could be Jeskai. She's extremely intelligent and pursues knowledge above most other things (Blue). She also loves rules and laws, especially in the earlier books (White). However, she's not above breaking some rules for the good of society (WR).

I just thought of a couple. Elizabeth is quite an intellectual (Blue) that longs quite a bit for freedom (Red) but spends the entire game being pretty altruistic and has strong morals (White)

Comstock from the same game is a religious zealot (White) that wants a religious war where Columbia will "Drown in flames the mountains of man" (Red, possibly Black) to "Cleanse the sodom below" (White, Black. Definitely)

she's also passionate about her beliefs, and is courageous enough to be put into Gryffindor. Courage would be Red, right?

Depends on the context. I'd say it's Red with a small splash of White.

Although I just now remembered "gather courage" is a green card.

Everything with courage in it's name is either green, white or both, with the exception of one artifact.

Red is more about about reckless self-endangerment, which is superficially similar but ultimately not the same thing.

edited 29th Jan '15 11:46:36 PM by Elfive

"Hey bro, check this out! I'm going to light this explosive thing on fire!"

- Red, in a nutshell

I can give you one character who was both at different points.

Cornelius Fillmore from that old show Fillmore

When we meet him, he's a disciplined and dedicated safety patrol officer (W/U) who never the less is driven primarily by his emotional connections to the force and isn't afraid to bend some rules and use chaotic means to achieve lawful ends (R/W).

Then in flashbacks we see that while he's always had a sense of honor in some way shape or form (W), he was at one time a delinquent who impulsively broke rules and caused chaos to prove he could and didn't stop until someone made him (B/R).

Malcolm Reynolds feels Mardu to me. He enjoys getting into fights just for the sake of it, he's selfish, he cares a lot about his crew.

As for Jeskai, I can't come up with anything... Maybe Kaylee? Engineering genius, emotion-driven, wants everyone to get along... yeah.

Why can I only think of Firefly characters, I don't know.

Opened a Fare Reforged Fat Pack today, big winners from that are a Warden of the First Tree. a Polluted Delta, and a Soulfire Grand Master. I also got a second Dromoka and a Drgonscale General, so I'm going to be building a green/white deck that uses a lot of bolster. For foils I got a Valorous Stance, an Abzan Advantage, and an Ainok Guide.

Most "generic shonen heroes" can be seen as Jeskai. They want to make themselves better (blue) so they can fight evil (white), and are also hot-headed and driven by love, vengeance or other strong emotions (red).

As for Mardu... Knight Lautrec from Dark Souls, maybe. Psychopathic killer with religious obsessions.

Laharl from Disgaea would probably be Mardu. He's selfish, short-tempered, power-hungry and bratty, but also honourable (in a way), loyal to those who are loyal to him, and dutiful (albeit incompetent).

Opened two FRF and two KTK boosters. Got a Bloodsoaked Champion and Ugin (also Duneblast and Dragonscale General). I actually screamed "OH GOD" when I saw Ugin's border peeking from the back of the pack.

Then a friend came and told me another guy opened a foil Ugin moments ago. What a party pooper.

edited 30th Jan '15 11:48:02 AM by 2Zak

I'd say most shonen heroes aren't close at all to Blue. Not introspective or intelligent enough, not cunning, etc. Self-improvement on itself isn't blue enough to me, especially when it's not self-improvement as a person most of the time as it is getting good at a particular thing or achieving something prestigious.

I think you could call most of the Jojos Blue. Especially the one who ends up a marine biologist.

It does bear remembering that all the colours have physical associations as well as philosophical ones. Like Ichigo from bleach isn't all that Black as far as personality goes, but the fact that he's a half-ghost means we get it from the death aspect instead.

edited 30th Jan '15 3:58:40 PM by Elfive

Oh, Joseph (Part II) is definitely Blue. Jotaro I'd think would count. The others I don't think would, especially not the super noble and straightforward Jonathon.

Spirits can also be white and blue, so I don't think Ichigo's ghost side needs to be Black. But then the Hollow side, and his brand of "honour" (sadism) are pretty black.

Thinking about it, maybe Ichigo would be a Mardu character:

Red - Impulsive, stubborn, reckless, and violent. Often put into question if he fights to protect people or just for the love of battle, he admits at one point that protecting people isn't his sole motivator.

White - He still has a strong desire to protect people, he hates people who abuse their own allies, and he has a code of honour he abides by. And he's partially a spirit.

Black - His code of honour can get pretty fucked up. Very eye-for-an-eye orientated, against a serial killer he makes him feel the fear of being cornered and his imminent death before killing him, and there are too cases of him literally going "arm-for-an-arm" against people who hurt his friends. This might just be the "dark side" of white, rather than black, I'm not sure.

Then there's his inner Hollow, who is pretty dark. With the fact that his powers have their own personalities, there is also a theme of individuality and who gets to be the "king" of Ichigo's inner world - that sounds like it might be Black to me.

But thinking about it, Green is probably more fitting than Black (I actually thought Ichigo would be Jund until I thought of how much White fit him). His inner hollow lectures him about instinct, and the "king and the horse" stuff could be seen as Green (it's about taking one's rightful place at the top of the totem pole between him and his inner powers). Maybe I missed it on the Black, apparently Green is also pretty big on protecting friends and stuff.

I would kind of like to see more Kamigawa with mechanics that don't make me want to throw my deck at my opponent like confetti. And more ninjutsu.

I sort of feel like the problem wasn't being based on Japanese mythology, but the way it was presented. How is Kamigawa any weirder or more impenetrable than a place like Mirrodin or Zendikar? I am convinced that if they could sell us on a plane of constructs with five moons that each take turns being the sun, inhabited by such strange creatures as "Leonin," "Myr" and "Neurok" and threatened by a tyrannical fleshy golem thing called "Memnarch," they could also find a way to show us a land much more like our own, where mortals and spirits live in an uneasy balance and hollywood ninja skulk through the shadows.

I think they're showing that they learned their lesson with Tarkir, in fact. See how we're able to pick out the influences, but nobody feels like they have to have studied in a Shaolin temple to get what the Jeskai are about?

I think that if the first thing that came to mind about original mirrodin wasnt how horribly busted the cards were then people would probably talk about the bizarre flavour as well. Zendikar was built around adventure tropes so its much closer to innistrad in accessibility.

Because Mirrodin was original. It was easy to determine what the races were and what their "hat" was. The setting was easy too. It's a metal world with five suns, each one gives off mana. That was represented very well in the cards with things like the artifact lands and the beacons (and later in Scars of Mirrodin with the Sun's Zenith cards).

With Kamigawa, however, there was a lot of stuff that they didn't explain that you wouldn't know if you hadn't studied Japanese mythology prior to that. Theros was a bit better, as it took a theme more familiar to western audiences and used the "low hanging fruit." Meletis was clearly Athens, Akros was Sparta, you've got hydras, minotaurs, etc. The only "strange" things were the harpies and the Hekatonkheirs (which was at rare). With Kamigawa, the confusing stuff was at common (like a lot of the really weird spirits).

Now, I'm not opposed to another Japanese flavored set. The OVERALL flavor was kind of cool (if really, really weird and confusing), but the specifics were ungrokkable. Something with more of a focus on samurai/ninja and less confusing spirits (which are, admittedly, a large part of Japanese mythology) would be fine. They'd just need to put the low hanging fruit at common for people like me.

As Funden (and you on your last paragraph) point out, it was a thing with the presentation. Kamigawa got the deepest parts of japanese folklore and threw it our way, Theros picked more recognizable themes instead and then translated them to MTG. Mirrodin ot Zendikar, on the other hand, were presented differently, they were doing weird worlds but based on something we get. Having five, six or seventy thousand and a half moons, or having floating landmasses, won't make a world less recognizable. But Kamigawa was based on a different philosophy. It was far less approachable.

Maro's Planeswalker sitcom is now known as "Sparks".

I think it's really just how it was presented (for Kamigawa's case). Because essentially the kami are really the only difference there compared to the sets prior to Mirrodin. Oh and the Elves just turned into snakes...LOL. Goblins are goblins only with a different name, colors for the Humans in Kamigawa became more about personality (as you can still be a black Human creature but is still being opposed by a black kami).

Is this thread really just about the setting though? If not, then I've just personally confirmed, I'll just get slaughtered in Modern format tournaments. Another series of 0-2 sweeps LOL, so I forfeited the round and went to the Standard format tournament that followed, where I got a few almost wins with 1-2 scorelines. I at least got my first sweep in my last matchup.

Modern is a lot faster than most people think (for example, my deck can get a kill on turn 3 if you don't interrupt it). Your deck has to be specially prepared or it's likely to get stomped. Standard is generally easier to build cards for.

Yesterday was my playgroup's big annual Super Bowl party. It was good to see so many people at the game shop, though I didn't do so well in the games of Magic I played.

I've learned that with my new BG modern deck form an opponent playing a Kuldotha Rebirth deck that I could have won a game if I had discarded my Dreg Mangler to my Lotleth Troll and then scavenged it onto the Troll rather than hard-casting the Mangler (the difference being that the Troll had trample to get past his tokens). I got a few games in with my GU pauper evolve deck that hadn't seen any action since the tournament I built it for (which never got off the ground due to not enough people showing up). It did decently. Not perfectly, but decently.

But my most spectacular blunders came in my Commander games. I don't know if it was the noise level, the nervousness of facing new opponents, or splitting my attention between the game and The Game, but I missed opportunities all around. My first commander game was with my Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer deck, a one-on-one against a Prime Speaker Zegana deck where I got mana screwed. My second game was a free-for-all where I flashed in my Shimmer Myr right before my turn began, only to cast my Thopter Assembly at sorcery speed on my own turn and have it eat a removal spell when I could've flashed it in at the end of the next turn cycle and got my Thopter tokens right away. Granted, that removal spell was Damnation, so it might not have made much of a difference.

Then I switched to my Kruphix, God of Horizons deck. Among my blunders with that deck were missing the trigger on Bident of Thassa after a massive attack with a large group of creatures. After thoroughly embarrassing myself against that group, I joined in a game with another group that had one guy I already knew with the Kruphix deck, in which I forgot that suspended creatures have haste when they enter the battlefield from exile. Said creature was a 13/13 Aeon Chronicler. I've also found that, while playing the Kruphix deck, information overload is a very real problem for me, even more so that it is for the format in general. And the noisy environment and unfamiliar opponents I was trying to make a good first impression with didn't really help matters. Overwhelming Intellect's flavor text rang very true for me that night.

Also, for some reason, I seem to be the one people look to to stop shenanigans with both of my decks, only to disappoint them. I often get asked "Hey blue guy, you got a counterspell for that, right?" or "Hey white guy, you can remove that creature, right?" when I don't have an answer in my hand. Awkward. Is this a sign that my commander decks need more removal/counterspells, or do moments like that happen to everybody?

While the party as a whole was a success, my gameplay that day was a lot like the Seahawks'...

edited 2nd Feb '15 6:47:08 PM by Lightblade