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2 years ago ::
Oct 20, 2011 - 5:54PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2008
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This thread is for discussion of this week's Latest Developments, which goes live Friday morning on magicthegathering.com.
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2 years ago ::
Oct 20, 2011 - 9:21PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Apr 16, 2007
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The poll is actually interesting as it hinges on a lot of possible variables.
I vote for the zombies in the long run though.
If both vampires and zombies exist at the same time, Humanity is most likely not long for this world...which means the Vampires will run out of food regardless of how many zombies they can kill.
Granted, this doesn't seem to be the case on Innistrad, in which case I vote for the Vampires.
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2 years ago ::
Oct 20, 2011 - 9:29PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Oct 11, 2005
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Zombies will rule the world, because Vampires will all starve to death. :D
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2 years ago ::
Oct 20, 2011 - 9:30PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Jan 24, 2011
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Would you consider the Vampire's stealing life as another mechanical way to do Vampires? I mean since the Vampire push back during Zendikar we've had at least one gaining you life each set.
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2 years ago ::
Oct 20, 2011 - 9:32PM
#5
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I can vote in the poll! Yay! To celebrate, I will explain my vote (which was Vampires). Zombies are only good in numbers. Individually, they're slow and very vulnerable (given enough time, they'll rot on their own). If zombies occurred in real life (at least the slow, shambly kind) instead of in the movies, they wouldn't stand a chance, because in the real world you wouldn't stop to scream and let them catch you; instead, you'd run. And they don't exactly have the option to be stealthy, with the whole rotting thing, and the inability to speak. Vampires, on the other hand, are good individually. They're better than humans in almost every way (with their enhanced strength, toughness, lifespan) unlike zombies, who are stronger but otherwise worse than humans. Vampires wouldn't necessarily run out of food: vampires, unlike zombies, retain their intelligence, which means they'd recognize the danger of extincting humanity and elect to domesticate them, keeping them around as cattle  . Also, unlike zombies, vampires can playact as a regular human in order to get close to their victim. Finally, in a fight of vampire vs. zombie, well, the zombie can be killed by almost anything, whereas the vampire is only vulnerable to a stake through the heart, typically. Also, in terms of Magic, I prefer vampires because they allow us to see more shades of Black than "mindless, shambling undead". Zombies are fodder; vampires are characters.
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2 years ago ::
Oct 20, 2011 - 9:33PM
#6
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I'd say because zombies as a whole are dumb, they wouldn't have powerful magic of ANY sort. Except maybe for a small number of Necromancers. Meanwhile Vampires and Humans are going to have powerful mages of some sort. Plus if worse came to worse, humans would set up some sort of deal with vampires - one of the main areas on Innistrad they talk about how humans wtih good blood live in a golden cage for the vampires, in exchange for supplying the vampires with their blood. Some sort of deal like this would be set up between humans and vampires if zombies threatened them both. (Threaten the vampires by virtue of killing their food source.)
So, I'd say vampires. The sort version is if vampires and zombies exist at the same time, (and humans, which are a constant pretty much anywhere but Lorwyn/Shadowmoor) then you have two forces fighting for the survival of humans - humans AND vampires.
Also, I love the second poll. Can you vote in this poll?
Reminds me of something from when I was younger - if your not here, raise your hand.
...
I should have voted no for shenanagins.
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2 years ago ::
Oct 20, 2011 - 10:32PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Aug 25, 2003
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Love the second poll. Thanks for the laugh.
Zindaras' meta is like a fossil, ancient and its secrets yet to be uncovered. Only men of yore, long dead, knew of it.
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2 years ago ::
Oct 20, 2011 - 11:27PM
#8
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Date Joined:
Feb 26, 2004
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Unfortunately, it also doesn't play very well. How often will your opponent allow a creature to get into combat with a ..."autoCardWindow(this)" onmouseover="OpenTip(event, this)" class="nodec">Sengir Vampire if it's obvious the Vampire will win? Are you supposed to play ..."autoCardWindow(this)" onmouseover="OpenTip(event, this)" class="nodec">Giant Growths to win fights with ..."autoCardWindow(this)" onmouseover="OpenTip(event, this)" class="nodec">Serra Angels and ..."autoCardWindow(this)" onmouseover="OpenTip(event, this)" class="nodec">Air Elementals?
Yes, obviously. You don't have to be terribly bright to figure that synergy out. What would have been ideal is if there had been a black version of Giant Growth that works only on vampires and similarly appropriate black creatures, along with maybe a black version of Lure (though Nettling Imp  was flavorful enough, apart from being a little demon instead of a humanoid Renfield who more obviously goes with the vampire).
This one is also hungry every turn, but it slakes its thirst by taking a bite out of you. It is also randomly blue. That made sense in context in Ravnica, but looking back, it seems a bit out of place.
Blue is easily an appropriate secondary color for vampires, who are notorious schemers and often have mental powers of various sorts. Black encompasses those tropes, but then black encompasses everything, that's part of the parasitism angle it does. Nearly everything any other color can be corrupted and polluted into a black equivalent (even if the black equivalent of enchantment-destruction has so far been "kill the player who controls the enchantment").
This fellow, originally from Rise of the Eldrazi, likes eating things just as much as ..."autoCardWindow(this)" onmouseover="OpenTip(event, this)" class="nodec">Ravenous Vampire and ..."autoCardWindow(this)" onmouseover="OpenTip(event, this)" class="nodec">Sengir Vampire. It seems to be worse at keeping them down, though, as the boost it gets from them doesn't last very long.
I really wish Wizards of the Coast employees would pay attention to the genders of the cards they worked so hard to create.
This one walks through the swamps. This makes sense, because they live in a bog. I guess. Sometimes it is best not to think too much about these things.
Bog Raiders was never really supposed to be a Zombie; it was originally printed in Portal and its art showed that it was clearly a bunch of human ruffians, but Portal cards didn't have printed creature types and I guess whoever looked in the Portal file and grabbed Raiders as a reprint didn't look up its art before deciding what its creature type should become. Annoyingly this retroactively made the Portal printing of the card a Zombie despite its art. One of Magic's many embarassing incidents, which I would go back and fix if I had a time machine.
You've probably heard this story already, though, as this happened in design. While cards like ..."autoCardWindow(this)" onmouseover="OpenTip(event, this)" class="nodec">Ghoulraiser and ..."autoCardWindow(this)" onmouseover="OpenTip(event, this)" class="nodec">Army of the Damned express the "hordes of slow-moving zombies" trope, cards like ..."autoCardWindow(this)" onmouseover="OpenTip(event, this)" class="nodec">Skaab Ruinator and ..."autoCardWindow(this)" onmouseover="OpenTip(event, this)" class="nodec">Makeshift Mauler represent the other kind of Zombie.
Who is not in fact a zombie at all, at least not in the most famous such story. The whole point of Victor Frankenstein's experiments was to create LIFE, not undeath. I don't know if there are any Victorian-age stories where a similar creature was more obviously a mindless undead thing, but certainly if there are, they've remained obscure, while the story of the Modern Prometheus who was tormented and slain by his definitely-not-mindless creation is the one we remember.
My New Phyrexia Writing CreditsMy M12 Writing CreditsAs far as the benefit of the rest of Magic is concerned, gold cards in Legends were executed perfectly. They got all the excitement a designer could hope out of a splashy new mechanic without using up any of the valuable design space. Truly amazing.
--Aaron Forsythe's Random Card Comment on Kei Takahashi 
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2 years ago ::
Oct 20, 2011 - 11:51PM
#9
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Date Joined:
Mar 25, 2005
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I voted "No" on the second poll.
Let's see how long it takes before the universe collapses.
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2 years ago ::
Oct 21, 2011 - 12:27AM
#10
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Date Joined:
May 18, 2002
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I really wish Wizards of the Coast employees would pay attention to the genders of the cards they worked so hard to create.
Cardboard doesn't acually have gender.
No mention of Hexmage? Seriously? Just a list of the crappy and grossly obsolete Vamp/Zoms?
Hell, half of the cards in the article require a gatherer lookup to even know what it's supposed to be.
Unless this article is really meant to be "Remeber when Sengir was vaguely playable? Remember how crappy vampires and zombies used to be? Did you even know that these cards became zombies or vampires in 2005 or so?"... I don't get it.
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