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[Infinite Stars]

If they do a legendary card of Urza the Young he'd have to be Esper so he could mirror Mishra properly. If you're really going for accuracy you could do an Esper legend that flips into a Breya planeswalker so you can include Urza's Rage.

In terms of cycles, they've hinted pretty strongly that once they go through all the obvious cycle-able color groupings they want to switch it up and do them in more thematic groupings -- like, five decks from different planes, or five decks representing five different storylines whose characters haven't been printed, or five different mechanical themes with non-cycled color profiles, or so on. Once they get into this territory I think someone like Urza becomes a lot more viable to print.

I've heard arguments that Young Urza is Jeskai and not Esper because of Urza's Rage.

I think that when they get to the point where they've done all big groups, we're going to see something like Commander for 5C Tribal, like "Hey, here's an "OOPS ALL DRAGONS" Deck that uses a bunch of cards from DTK at Common, here's a "Slivers" deck, here's a "Allies deck", here's an Elemental Deck, and here's a "Weatherlight" deck(Featuring a Weatherlight Vehicle)."

 

[OnPoint]

I've heard arguments that Young Urza is Jeskai and not Esper because of Urza's Rage.

But it was originally printed in Invasion, long, long after he was Young Urza. I'm not buying it.

His character really wasn't very red in the early days. He was pretty cold and calculating. Esper fits him.

 

[charlequin]

I've heard arguments that Young Urza is Jeskai and not Esper because of Urza's Rage.

Yeah he really isn't very rage-y when he's younger though, it's not until he really gets super pissed off about Phyrexia.

 

[Supast4r]

The problem is that this argument probably applies to every non-Tibalt planeswalker. Tamiyo, for example, is actually really powerful, but doesn't see play because its not a good format for a card like that (or is it?)

Tibalt isn't the worst planeswalker that they have made.gideon champion of justice, Nissa ravine, and zendkiar Chandra say hello.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

The problem is that this argument probably applies to every non-Tibalt planeswalker. Tamiyo, for example, is actually really powerful, but doesn't see play because its not a good format for a card like that (or is it?)

Tamiyo sees play.

 

[Infinite Stars]

The issue with Tamiyo, FR in Standard is Vehicles. Turns out it's hard to get the best value out of her +1 when Vehicles are everywhere in the Format.

I'm 90% certain that if you can vehicles/CopyCat from Standard she'd see more play, because she's a sweet card. It' just she's good in Midrangey "Grindem out" scenarios, not in a format where the top 2 decks are either killing you on Turn 4 or beating you in with a 2 Mana 4/4 flier.

 

[Maledict]

Simic is more "I'm going to breed a Sharkman because it's sweet", not "I'm going to deliberately and carefully plot out the perfect Lineage for my master weapon".

Simic is the people who would make a Xenomorph and then go "I did it for SCIENCE".

Meh, that doesn't really work. You can't boil an entire colour pairing down to 'insane scientist, always'. Magic already tries to be too simplistic with how it matches colours to personalities (when in reality most normal people have some aspect of all the colours of magic in their personality). Not everyone in the Simic guild was a nutbag strapping lasers to sharks, they guild wouldn't function if they were and it wouldn't manage to support Ravnica like it does.

Yes, some of the big name characters will be lunatic scientists, but there will be plenty of simic people who aren't quite so crazy. Given that urza's work with the metathran, the bloodlines and the other genetic stuff he did was a clear marrying of blue and green sources it's passable to me.

The way everyone was talking it sounded like Mark had said Urza was a green character, which is obviously nonsense. But having some green in him - absolutely. He's a complicated character who did lots of stuff.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

Be careful not to conflate the UG color pair with Simic. Stars gives a fairly good description of the way the Simic guild is portrayed on Ravnica, but that doesn't mean that every UG character in Magic should behave the way the Simic do.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Eugenics conforms in no way with green. Just because breeding and genes are involved doesn't make it green. Otherwise agriculture would be UG instead of white.

 

[Maledict]

Eugenics conforms in no way with green. Just because breeding and genes are involved doesn't make it green. Otherwise agriculture would be UG instead of white.

In some ways it is. That's the problem with trying to put everything into ultra simplistic boxes like the colour pie.

Farming is considered white because of what exactly? I'm guessing because plains means farms, but not because of any actual flavour link to what white stands for beyond 'farming enables big communities, and white is the colour of communities and people coming together'. (After all, farmers tend to live fairly isolated lives compared to normal towns and city folk that we associate with white). I think there's plenty of room to argue that actually farmers are more green than white.

And whilst farming itself isn't blue green, agricultural science is. Breeding plants for specific traits and characterists is - using science to improve the natural order is the essence of blue/green.

So your average farmer might be white / green, planting his seeds and growing crops year in year out. But the farmer whose experimenting with crop rotation, whose deliberately cross pollinating his apple trees to improve the stock? He's got to have some blue green in him as well.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Just tuned into the Twitch Presents Power Rangers stream, and it has the Red Mystic Force ranger casting counterspells (using that exact word).

Proof that red should have counters. >_>

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

In some ways it is. That's the problem with trying to put everything into ultra simplistic boxes like the colour pie.

Farming is considered white because of what exactly? I'm guessing because plains means farms, but not because of any actual flavour link to what white stands for beyond 'farming enables big communities, and white is the colour of communities and people coming together'. (After all, farmers tend to live fairly isolated lives compared to normal towns and city folk that we associate with white). I think there's plenty of room to argue that actually farmers are more green than white.

And whilst farming itself isn't blue green, agricultural science is. Breeding plants for specific traits and characterists is - using science to improve the natural order is the essence of blue/green.

So your average farmer might be white / green, planting his seeds and growing crops year in year out. But the farmer whose experimenting with crop rotation, whose deliberately cross pollinating his apple trees to improve the stock? He's got to have some blue green in him as well.

That was actually a bad example but I'd still not put it into UG for different reasons.
Agriculture is white because it's a communal effort over generations and not empirical research.

Why I would not put it into the UG pile is because it's artificial. Similarly to how domesticated animals are white.

There's also the matter of faith to look at. Medicine is white for instance in magic when it should be heavily blue by all accounts. The foundation of genetics where documented by Gregor Mendel a priest.


This is why I don't like blue being the colour of science. Science is universal.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

This is why I don't like blue being the colour of science. Science is universal.

Historically this is why blue is OP. Blue is the color of "magic." The entire friggin' game is about Magic. So blue gets card draw, extra turns, counterspells, deck manipulation, yada yada yada.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Historically this is why blue is OP. Blue is the color of "magic." The entire friggin' game is about Magic. So blue gets card draw, extra turns, counterspells, deck manipulation, yada yada yada.

It doesn't even end there blue is also the colour of transformation. Which would technically include chemistry and a bunch of physics.

I mean alchemy is blue but pyrotechnic is red for no reason.

 

[bigkrev]

Just tuned into the Twitch Presents Power Rangers stream, and it has the Red Mystic Force ranger casting counterspells (using that exact word).

Proof that red should have counters. >_>

If the core set still existed, id keep a RR Misdirect in standard perpetually.

 

[Simply Sarah]

You need to consider Urza's goal for the Bloodline Project when labeling it with colours. It was entirely to create what he needed for the specific purposes of combating the Phyrexians and "inheriting" the Legacy. The eugenics side was as anti-natural as you can get and, unlike with the Simic, it wasn't intended to improve or otherwise modify general populations beyond what was needed for his plan.

The Metathran were even more of an ends to a means. They were tools to Urza and nothing more. I mean, they were literally designed to die out after the Phyrexians were dealt with. Just because they were organic doesn't mean there was anything remotely green about them or their development. Think of them more as organic blue "artifact" beings.

 

[OnPoint]

I would like someone to tell me how Urza is green. I get that he's a complicated character. But that doesn't make him green.

I need reasons. I can see every other color. I don't see green in him, but I'm willing to be convinced.

 

[kirblar]

Foraging and hunting is green, farming and domestication is white. It works.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Foraging and hunting is green, farming and domestication is white. It works.

Explain hunting rabbits and pheasants? Or using pigs to forage truffles?

 

[Maledict]

Foraging and hunting is green, farming and domestication is white. It works.

But you can easily see otherwise. A stereotypical farmer living in tune with the seasons, planting his crops, not demolishing the local wildlife - how is that not also green?

Again, farming communities were often very isolated, and farmers in particular were known for living lonely lives (shepherds!). That doesn't fit with whites communal theme at all, and far most sits with greens 'living as you will in nature'.

It could go either way really. In most games outside magic that have a similar colour scheme, it's green that is the magic of crops and growth, not white. That's how you increase your crop output in fantasy strategy games! ;-)

 

[Angry Grimace]

Every morning

I wake up and its

Urza is green/Urza is not green

Urza is dead guys

 

[bigkrev]

Every morning

I wake up and its

Urza is green/Urza is not green

Urza is dead guys

They literally had him beheaded,kept alive by powerstones in his eyes, and then had those stones clawed out of his head by Gerrard to power the Legacy Weapon

There is comic book dead, and then there is what happened to Urza

 

[Royal_Flush]

But you can easily see otherwise. A stereotypical farmer living in tune with the seasons, planting his crops, not demolishing the local wildlife - how is that not also green?

Again, farming communities were often very isolated, and farmers in particular were known for living lonely lives (shepherds!). That doesn't fit with whites communal theme at all, and far most sits with greens 'living as you will in nature'.

It could go either way really. In most games outside magic that have a similar colour scheme, it's green that is the magic of crops and growth, not white. That's how you increase your crop output in fantasy strategy games! ;-)

But that's not really how farming works. Farming is not natural. Gatherers are green, but farmers subject nature under their control by cultivating big areas of crops that wouldn't grow in such quantities in untouched nature. It therefore makes perfect sense for farming to be white. And I didn't even dwell into the argument that farming is considered a huge step in the development of modern society and those also fall into white.

 

[OnPoint]

Every morning

I wake up and its

Urza is green/Urza is not green

Urza is dead guys

Soon we'll be having conversations on unbanning Stoneforge Mystic and unbanning Jace and how great equipment is or how bad the Gatewatch is all over again.

The topics in here get pretty cyclical.

What's sad is talking about Urza is more interesting, to me at least, than talking about just about all current day Magic anything.

Spoiler

And still nobody can tell me how he's green

 

[ultron87]

I just really hate Pongify.

 

[aidan]

Soon we'll be having conversations on unbanning Stoneforge Mystic and unbanning Jace and how great equipment is or how bad the Gatewatch is all over again.

The topics in here get pretty cyclical.

What's sad is talking about Urza is more interesting, to me at least, than talking about just about all current day Magic anything.

Is Cryptic Command a balanced card?

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

I just really hate Pongify.

You and me. The flavour in the art is nice but effects like that should be enchantments and this one is the worst offender.

 

[Santiako]

Soon we'll be having conversations on unbanning Stoneforge Mystic and unbanning Jace and how great equipment is or how bad the Gatewatch is all over again.

The topics in here get pretty cyclical.

What's sad is talking about Urza is more interesting, to me at least, than talking about just about all current day Magic anything.

Spoiler

And still nobody can tell me how he's green

What about guns in Magic? Is Nahiri the bad guy?

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

What about guns in Magic?

triggered!

 

[OnPoint]

Is Cryptic Command a balanced card?

What about guns in Magic? Is Nahiri the bad guy?

Ah yes, there are the other ones!

If we could never have ANY of those conversations again without new information or reason, that would be great.

 

[Joe Molotov]

Every morning

I wake up and its

Urza is green/Urza is not green

Urza is dead guys

Mold is green.

 

[Violet_0]

I take it nothing interesting happened lately or is going to happen until Amonkhet is out

 

[OnPoint]

I take it nothing much interesting happened lately or is going to happen until Amonkhet is out

MM2017 just came out and everyone (but me so far I guess because why did I make a reservation on a box?) has gone over their haul. Spoilers aren't for a minute so we have little to talk about. So we start working the topic circuit.

I should make an image for this.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

I could talk about EDH. I still wonder where Saskia will end up for instance. She has such a powerful effect and the lack of blue is negligible with having access to all 4 other colours.
There's simply not enough good singleton infect cards and aggro decks just aren't particularly great in 40hp 4 player ffa.

I've toyed with Saskia goblins but nothing concrete yet.

I still don't entirely understand Atraxa's popularity but Breya is busted, she's just all combo if that fails still a ton of value.

 

[Simply Sarah]

There's always the old standby of "Comment about random jank from early Magic". That could eat up half a day or so.

I could talk about EDH. I still wonder where Saskia will end up for instance. She has such a powerful effect and the lack of blue is negligible with having access to all 4 other colours.
There's simply not enough good singleton infect cards and aggro decks just aren't particularly great in 40hp 4 player ffa.

I've toyed with Saskia goblins but nothing concrete yet.

I still don't entirely understand Atraxa's popularity but Breya is busted, she's just all combo if that fails still a ton of value.

While I can't say why Atraxa remains popular I can certainly explain why she was a draw to me originally. She has good colours, is a powerful creature by herself, and the auto-proliferate is an interesting mechanic. +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters, planeswalkers, poison, other random counters, etc. In the end none of it turns out to be that great but she still encourages running all sorts of fun and silly jank.

 

[Joe Molotov]

So LSV and Gaby hooked up, right?

 

[charlequin]

Meh, that doesn't really work. You can't boil an entire colour pairing down to 'insane scientist, always'. Magic already tries to be too simplistic with how it matches colours to personalities (when in reality most normal people have some aspect of all the colours of magic in their personality). Not everyone in the Simic guild was a nutbag strapping lasers to sharks, they guild wouldn't function if they were and it wouldn't manage to support Ravnica like it does.

This is true, but it's also true that experimenting with heredity isn't innately green, either. The reason Simic bio-experimentation is blue/green is that it's built off of using what nature provides as a source and using artificial evolution to reach "natural" ends (see: Simic Vedalken unlocking their dormant second pair of arms with bio-magic.) The Bloodlines project doesn't have that at all; it's explicitly about rejecting the natural altogether and using breeding to produce magical descendants who serve Urza's extremely blue goals.

Again, this gets back to the "what is a four-color character?" thing for me. The reason I think Urza's clearly four colors is that his personality and behavior are pretty much defined by being in opposition to green. This is thematically why the mutual "enemy" of Urza and Mishra in the Brother's War is Argoth (which they destroy without mercy) and why even though he makes it his life's work to destroy Phyrexia he's actually really easily tempted to their side when the chips are down. If you look at everything he's ever done there's surely bits that can touch on green subjects, but the best way to show off his opposition to the philosophy is to make him Breya colors.

You need to consider Urza's goal for the Bloodline Project when labeling it with colours. It was entirely to create what he needed for the specific purposes of combating the Phyrexians and "inheriting" the Legacy. The eugenics side was as anti-natural as you can get and, unlike with the Simic, it wasn't intended to improve or otherwise modify general populations beyond what was needed for his plan.

The Metathran were even more of an ends to a means. They were tools to Urza and nothing more. I mean, they were literally designed to die out after the Phyrexians were dealt with. Just because they were organic doesn't mean there was anything remotely green about them or their development. Think of them more as organic blue "artifact" beings.

Yes, exactly. I think if Invasion was something they did in the modern card-design era (i.e. at a time where they actually vaguely cared about story and mechanics lining up) the Metathran would all be enchantment creatures or colored artifact creatures or have some shared mechanic to establish this.

I take it nothing interesting happened lately or is going to happen until Amonkhet is out

We're in the classic pre-spoiler lull period and the last significant thing that happened (MM3) was good enough that people don't have lingering complaints to bitch about for the most part.

I still don't entirely understand Atraxa's popularity

You don't understand the appeal of Atraxa, a general designed to play with counters, the single most popular individual design mechanic in commander?

 

[Santiako]

I could talk about EDH. I still wonder where Saskia will end up for instance. She has such a powerful effect and the lack of blue is negligible with having access to all 4 other colours.
There's simply not enough good singleton infect cards and aggro decks just aren't particularly great in 40hp 4 player ffa.

I've toyed with Saskia goblins but nothing concrete yet.

I still don't entirely understand Atraxa's popularity but Breya is busted, she's just all combo if that fails still a ton of value.

Saskia Infect is a scary, scary thing. It appeared in one of the Game Knight episodes (which I recommend to everyone btw if you want to watch some commander that's not 2 hours long like Commander VS).

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/saskia-infect-craig-game-knights-1/

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Saskia Infect is a scary, scary thing. It appeared in one of the Game Knight episodes (which I recommend to everyone btw if you want to watch some commander that's not 2 hours long like Commander VS).

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/saskia-infect-craig-game-knights-1/

Saw that, am a patron, but Greg really had to play some bad creatures, that's just the issue with infect. You'll be able to take out 1 or 2 players but that's it.

You don't understand the appeal of Atraxa, a general designed to play with counters, the single most popular individual design mechanic in commander?

Counters are obnoxious in commander, you never have enough dice. Atraxa decks are just so much more powerful than Atraxa. She's pretty powerful but there are commanders that do the counters much better. Not in 4c OTOH.

 

[Simply Sarah]

Counters are obnoxious in commander, you never have enough dice. Atraxa decks are just so much more powerful than Atraxa. She's pretty powerful but there are commanders that do the counters much better. Not in 4c OTOH.

Well, I stand by my initial reaction to Atraxa when she was revealed: She's a 4 cmc 4/4 creature with a keyword from each of her colours + proliferate (because Phyrexian) all stapled on. The result is that the two halves don't really synergize with each other at all so she's less impressive than she could be.

 

[Firemind]

I would like someone to tell me how Urza is green. I get that he's a complicated character. But that doesn't make him green.

I need reasons. I can see every other color. I don't see green in him, but I'm willing to be convinced.

Urza could be mono red fam

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Well, I stand by my initial reaction to Atraxa when she was revealed: She's a 4 cmc 4/4 creature with a keyword from each of her colours + proliferate (because Phyrexian) all stapled on. The result is that the two halves don't really synergize with each other at all so she's less impressive than she could be.

Yup. Atraxa is the scariest when there's just a bunch of counters on her, otherwise she's really nothing more than an efficient creature providing some extra value.

 

[cuc]

So I searched for green cards with "Urza" in flavor text, and got exactly one card that possibly represent something done by him: Retaliation, an Urza's Saga enchantment depicting the moment he confronted Mishra and realized the latter was no longer human. The rest are nearly all about how pissed off Gaea and green mages are at him.

 

[OnPoint]

Urza could be mono red fam

I mean, no? But I'd listen to reasoning that he might be and see if it makes sense.

 

[Nazgul_Hunter]

So LSV and Gaby hooked up, right?

Where's this from?

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Where's this from?

inside joke. Dumb reddit comments IIRC, Gaby hadn't been streaming and turns out she was separating from her husband. Redditors claimed it's because she had an affair with LSV and that's why he wasn't streaming either. In reality he just had a kid.

 

[Firemind]

I mean, no? But I'd listen to reasoning that he might be and see if it makes sense.

Urza studies artifacts

Red is the colour of artifacts

Ergo

Spoiler

Red isn't all about RAAAAAGEEEEE and BUUUUURN

 

[Jhriad]

I've refreshed this page a few times just to be absolutely certain I wasn't re-reading posts I remember reading not that long ago.

 

[alternade]

So how would space/reality be handled in this game? I am certain that eventually we will be going to The Blind Eternities at some point and this would be the perfect time for such theme. I don't think it would focus on Eldrazi though as they are just the physical manifestation of what lies there to our world.

 

[OnPoint]

I've refreshed this page a few times just to be absolutely certain I wasn't re-reading posts I remember reading not that long ago.

Hah I mean, at this point I've made the "stop with the cyclical posts" argument in here several times as well.

It's like: