But how powerful is this guy, that he can create an Angel strong enough to support a whole plane's worth of white magic, even if she's boosted by people's faith? Did he use some powerful relic, or recruit the soul of a powerful dying Angel, or something?
Don't forget that this all was done thousands of years ago, i.e. before the mending. The planeswalkers' powers matched those of gods back then. They could create whole planes, and angels seem to be a popular thing to make, everyone knows how to make your own angel :D
Don't forget that this all was done thousands of years ago, i.e. before the mending. The planeswalkers' powers matched those of gods back then. They could create whole planes, and angels seem to be a popular thing to make, everyone knows how to make your own angel :D
Yeah, back in the good ol' days you couldn't walk down the street without tripping over a pile of angels .
Gotta' say I'm loving all the love we're seeing in DKA. My current favorite deck is a B/W human/demon/angel deck.
During GDS 2, didn't MaRo come down on one or more candidates and say something about how a planeswalker preview wouldn't be given to a column like Serious Fun or Savor the Flavor? Strange to see Sorin debut in this column so soon thereafter
I don't remember that, but it's seems strange, since most planeswalkers are directly linked to the story. Sure, they often appear on the first Feature and not on Savor the Flavor, but this time there was no Feature (other than the mechanics article), so it does fit.
During GDS 2, didn't MaRo come down on one or more candidates and say something about how a planeswalker preview wouldn't be given to a column like Serious Fun or Savor the Flavor? Strange to see Sorin debut in this column so soon thereafter.
Also you got it backwards. While he would have said that about Serious he says outright that they can show up in Savor the Flavor "Savor the Flavor
This card represents a chance to talk about some feature of the setting or storyline—a legendary permanent or planeswalker card that represents an important person, place, or thing in the storyline, a representative of a new or newly prominent tribe, or some other card that highlights an important creative element of the set."
Planeswalkers are supposed to transcend their original natures, i.e., creature types, as a result of their sparks igniting. They are "planeswalkers," not "creatures," or whatever they were at first. Doug is saying Sorin is still a vampire, but I cry foul on that one. If this is the case, why isn't the "Vampiry" nature somehow enabled on the card? At the moment, only Gideon "becomes" human, implying that there is, in fact, an implicit nature still to be had. Thus, the exclusion of creature type from the cards are purely mechanical and not flavorful.
I don't get what your getting at. You have a problem with him being a vampire, but you say why the creature type doesn't show on the card, it is a mechanical thing. Even ahen a creature becomes a walker they will still be a artifact, a cat, a vampire, etc. Just when shown in card form the walker status is the key thing.
Planeswalkers are supposed to transcend their original natures, i.e., creature types, as a result of their sparks igniting. They are "planeswalkers," not "creatures," or whatever they were at first. Doug is saying Sorin is still a vampire, but I cry foul on that one. If this is the case, why isn't the "Vampiry" nature somehow enabled on the card? At the moment, only Gideon "becomes" human, implying that there is, in fact, an implicit nature still to be had. Thus, the exclusion of creature type from the cards are purely mechanical and not flavorful.
I don't get what your getting at. You have a problem with him being a vampire, but you say why the creature type doesn't show on the card, it is a mechanical thing. Even ahen a creature becomes a walker they will still be a artifact, a cat, a vampire, etc. Just when shown in card form the walker status is the key thing.
I'm sorry you do not get what I am saying. I never said I had a "problem with him being a vampire," and I'm not sure what I said to give this impression that I was having an issue with him being a vampire. The difficulty lies in where that is on the card. Gideon is a Human, but one that also happens to be a planeswalker; this is only mechanically apparent when he uses his 0-loyalty ability, otherwise, he is not Human. In fact, the problem is reversed: The problem is that the cards do not have their creature types on them, despite them all being "depowered" PWs, so that when creature types matter, so should theirs. Elspeth does not make humans but a class-type (MaRo says he "chooses" a creature type on his Twitter for tokens to be, which of course is hogwash because there are plenty of multi-type tokens from the last several years that disrupt this, especially during Lorwyn Block), while other token makers make either Beasts or Vampires or Wolves or whatnots. In a way, despite more concientiousness toward creature types, this practice of caring about them was swiftly abandoned (and note this has nothing to do with Tribal, which inherently does nothing). The issue, in many ways, stems from the narrow element of trying to have multiple cards care about the same things in different ways, or intersect. Planeswalkers represent powerful creatures you can summon to your side, but they interact with the world differently than typical creatures, but this doesn't explain why they aren't creatures, or at least have the creature types relevant to the card for flavor purposes alone. This is why I'm bringing this up in a Flavor column, not a Development/Design column.
"Possibilities abound, too numerous to count."
"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)
"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion Backs)
Odd to go from 3BBB Superevil! to an ambivalent 2WB. Even with the backstory.
He was never really "superevil"; if you read the Zendikar novel and surrounding fiction, it's pointed out that while he's utterly ruthless in the pursuit of his goals, his goals themselves tend to be greater-good kinds of things, though not at much of an expense to himself. He's basically a classic feudal warlord (or an underworld capo by modern standards), trying to keep order in his fief and perfectly willing to moiderize anybody who gives him too much "disrespect", but he doesn't do acts of pure evil just for the lulz like Liliana, he's got more of a sense of proportion. I really don't think "responsibility" is an inappropriate word here. There's no reason why black characters can't feel like they need to step up to the plate and deal with something because nobody else can be counted on to. Innistrad "belongs" to Sorin, in his own mind, because he grew up there; it would annoy and perhaps even depress him if it was destroyed utterly, especially if it was destroyed utterly because he didn't try hard enough to keep it intact. Being selfish is NOT the same as being willing to let everything other than oneself go straight to blazes; black-aligned characters are still people, they can have feelings of attachment and involvement, they just draw a sharp line between that which is "of them" and that which they have no interest in unless it's useful somehow (in a way, favorite toys and places and people, that are "of them", are "useful" in the sense that the character likes having them around and thus he "exploits" them to make himself feel better). White-aligned characters feel that they have to stick to their responsibility no matter what it costs them, as a matter of principle, to set examples for others. Black doesn't trust others to follow that example and thus doesn't bother setting it, and they won't be enslaved to a duty which they don't get any personal satisfaction out of obeying. But if that satisfaction is present for any number of reasons, they can be just as dutiful as the White-Aligned; this is the whole reason there are Black Knights, as opposed to just armored sword-wielding killers on horseback.
As 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
I have found my new favorite card. And it's not even close.
It's White/Black, my favorite color combination. It's Sorin, my favorite planeswalker. It creates tokens, my favorite planeswalker ability. It creates VAMPIRE tokens, my favorite tribe. With lifelink, and life stealing is my favorite mechanic. And that ultimate is just perfect. All for four mana, the best mana cost for Planeswalkers to have.
As for the story in the article... I thought Innistrad was a cool world before. It had some nice details put into it, such as the different provinces and how monster activity varied throughout. But I'm always a fan of backstory more than the present. And finding out that Sorin created Avacyn took Innistrad from "cool" to "epic." I have absolutely no criticism for you all today. You have done a fantastic job on this card, and on this world. Please, pat yourselves on the back.
I would just like to say that everything in this article, from the trailer to the writing to the card, blew me away. Congratulations, Wizards, on writing an amazing twist and developing a character whom I plan to follow avidly from now on. I honestly haven't been following many of the new planeswalker's stories espeically closely, but most of the time they seem to be busy with their own affairs. Sorin, however, is in the middle of, and even at the center at, something huge. I haven't been this interested in a planeswalker since Urza.
Oh, and I really like the wording on Sorin's last ability. It's pretty similar mechanically to the much shorter phrase, "Gain control of up to three target creatures and/or planeswalkers," but having them actually destroyed and brought back gives a whole new level of badassery to the ability.
Planeswalkers are supposed to transcend their original natures, i.e., creature types, as a result of their sparks igniting. They are "planeswalkers," not "creatures," or whatever they were at first. Doug is saying Sorin is still a vampire, but I cry foul on that one. If this is the case, why isn't the "Vampiry" nature somehow enabled on the card? At the moment, only Gideon "becomes" human, implying that there is, in fact, an implicit nature still to be had. Thus, the exclusion of creature type from the cards are purely mechanical and not flavorful.
I don't get what your getting at. You have a problem with him being a vampire, but you say why the creature type doesn't show on the card, it is a mechanical thing. Even ahen a creature becomes a walker they will still be a artifact, a cat, a vampire, etc. Just when shown in card form the walker status is the key thing.
I'm sorry you do not get what I am saying. I never said I had a "problem with him being a vampire," and I'm not sure what I said to give this impression that I was having an issue with him being a vampire. The difficulty lies in where that is on the card. Gideon is a Human, but one that also happens to be a planeswalker; this is only mechanically apparent when he uses his 0-loyalty ability, otherwise, he is not Human. In fact, the problem is reversed: The problem is that the cards do not have their creature types on them, despite them all being "depowered" PWs, so that when creature types matter, so should theirs. Elspeth does not make humans but a class-type (MaRo says he "chooses" a creature type on his Twitter for tokens to be, which of course is hogwash because there are plenty of multi-type tokens from the last several years that disrupt this, especially during Lorwyn Block), while other token makers make either Beasts or Vampires or Wolves or whatnots. In a way, despite more concientiousness toward creature types, this practice of caring about them was swiftly abandoned (and note this has nothing to do with Tribal, which inherently does nothing). The issue, in many ways, stems from the narrow element of trying to have multiple cards care about the same things in different ways, or intersect. Planeswalkers represent powerful creatures you can summon to your side, but they interact with the world differently than typical creatures, but this doesn't explain why they aren't creatures, or at least have the creature types relevant to the card for flavor purposes alone. This is why I'm bringing this up in a Flavor column, not a Development/Design column.
Ok, so bolid is the question/problem yes?
If so
"One of the biggest design questions about this card is this: why isn't Tezzeret an artifact planeswalker? He is. Tezzeret is from the shard of Esper and every living creature on the shard has evolved into becoming an artifact. Then why isn't he an artifact planeswalker on the card? Interesting question. The answer actually comes in two parts.
The first issue actually happened back in Lorwyn development. The five original planeswalkers all have races—to the best of my knowledge they're four humans and a leonin, but don't take me as a definitive source as I have consulted absolutely no one. Why doesn't Ajani (either Ajani) say "Planeswalker – Ajani Cat" or possibly "Planeswalker – Cat Ajani"?
A) It sounds dumb.
B) The rules don't allow it. Cat is a creature subtype. The only way to use it on another card type (and yes, planeswalker is another card type) is to use tribal technology. That means that the card would have to read "Tribal Planeswalker – Ajani Cat". Assuming that all fits, it sounds even dumber than the type line I ripped on up in A).
C) The creative team felt strongly that the planeswalkers had to transcend their individual qualities. Ajani is not defined by being a leonin, but by being a planeswalker. The idea is once you get to that level, nothing else is relevant.
Now let's hop over to issue number two. What happens if we make an artifact planeswalker? I should stress that such a thing is possible in the rules. Two permanent types mixing works just fine. The issue isn't one of rules but of degeneracy. You see, one of the things that helps keep the planeswalker card type in check is that there are very few cards that let you manipulate them. We avoid a lot of shenanigans by simply not letting players do certain things to planeswalkers. But once we add "artifact" on the card, that no longer applies. Just put the word "artifact" in Gatherer (searching rules text only) to see all the nuttiness we've let you do to them over the years. Even if we were philosophically okay with having artifact on the card, the degeneracy would probably force development to yank it.
So to sum up, Tezzeret is not an artifact because we don't want him to be, and we couldn't allow him to be even if we were okay with it."
