Lorwyn-Shadowmoor Block and Color: Treefolk and Faeries

As I got to thinking more about Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block and its new and unique interactions between creature type and color, I couldn't help myself from writing another post. I already talked about the elementals, but there are still seven other tribes in the block that I need to talk about. But don't worry, I don't need an entire post for each one - just half that many. The tribes can be grouped in certain ways that allow them to be discussed together. Merfolk, Kithkin, and Goblins share a certain pattern, Treefolk and Faeries have another, and Elves and Giants, a third. As you can read in my previous post, Elementals are one of the tribes that has changed a lot throughout the Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block, at least in terms of color. For now, I'll talk about two tribes that have changed relatively little: Treefolk and Faeries.

I don't want to get too bogged down in numbers, but they're a very useful measurement of change, and that's exactly what I'm trying to do. So I'll start with some numbers, and some Treefolk. Before Lorwyn, there were 25 Treefolk. 24 of them were green, and one was green/black. (As a point of terminology, when I say "green/black," I mean a green and black multicolored card, and when I say "green-black," I mean a green-black hybrid card.) Lorwyn block added 3 white, 4 black, and one white/green/black Treefolk (Doran, of course) to the mix. Treefolk had never had any connection with white before, and only half a card's connection with black. Printing 7 non-green Treefolk is certainly a change. However, 7 is not a tremendous number. Treefolk may not be as huge a tribe like Elves or Goblins, so 7 might seem like a fairly large number in proportion to the total Treefolk population, but in the face of the entire history of Magic, it is but the tiniest fraction. So it's not that huge a change.

Then there's Shadowmoor block. Shadowmoor block adds 5 green Treefolk, plus one green-white and two green-black. Aside from the fact that they're hybrid, these Treefolk have nothing new or unusual in the way of color. There are only 3 new Treefolk that aren't mono-green, and even those ones are all hybrid green. So although the Treefolks' flavor has changed a lot in Shadowmoor (what with the canker and all), they have not changed significantly in color. And with their color changes in Lorwyn being fairly minor, Treefolk are basically one of the least experimental tribes in the double-block. But I guess that fits with their personality, doesn't it?

The Faeries are slightly different. When I went to look up the stats on Faeries, there were a lot fewer than I thought. There have only been 13.5 blue faeries printed prior to Lorwyn! (See the previous article for my tallying conventions.) And what's more, there have been 11.5 green ones, a white one (well, two halves), and even half a red one (yay Wee Dragonauts)! So when I was thinking about faeries and assumed they had a long and deeply entrenched history of being mono-blue, I was sorely mistaken. However, almost all of the green faeries are from very old sets, which I have much less exposure to than the newer ones, so my mistake was perhaps understandable. I guess green faeries have fallen out of style.

But whether or not faeries are blue or green or purple, one thing that IS true about them is that prior to Lorwyn, they had never been black. Faeries aren't evil or death-dealing creatures, they're just playful. But in Lorwyn, where everything is a sunny meadow filled with happy bunnies, black IS playful. And so, Lorwyn's faeries are blue-black. There are 15 blue faeries in Lorwyn, 13 black ones, and a blue/black Legend. That means, with Lorwyn, the number of blue faeries has increased by over 100%, and the number of black ones by a percentage so large that it's mathematically undefined! That's a lot of percents. But the blue isn't that surprising; Lorwyn faeries are as tricksy as Hobbitses, and that's blue all over. But giving faeries black is completely new to Lorwyn and, like the Treefolks' new white and black dudes, of middling significance.

Then comes Shadowmoor block with its crazy hybrids, wacky mechanics, and obnoxious kids that won't get the hell off my lawn. Shadowmoor block gives us 6 more blue and 2 black faeries (not very many), plus 4 blue-black, 2 white-blue, and one green-blue. The blue-black theme of Lorwyn continues into Shadowmoor, but they also pick up the tiniest bit of white and green in three hybrid cards.

According to the flavor of Shadowmoor, the faeries are one of the races least affected by the Aurora. Colorwise, this remains mostly true. However, the faeries do change more than the Treefolk, who supposedly changed a lot with the Aurora, but I guess that just goes to show you that flavor and color are not so tightly bonded.

In conclusion, Treefolk and Faeries are two Lorwyn tribes that have a fairly minimal impact on the relation between color and creature type. Compared to Elementals, at least, the Treefolks' 11 and Faeries' 22 new color-deviant folks are a tiny ripple in the Magical ocean. Furthermore, neither tribe changed very much at all within the Shadowmoor block. This was also the case with Elementals; although they changed a lot more between Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, they stayed fairly solidly rooted in red-black in both Shadowmoor and Eventide. The Treefolk changed only insofar as they gained some black-green hybrids (which weren't available in Shadowmoor, but were consistent with Lorwyn), and the Faeries gained only one green-blue hybrid. But faeries have already seen their fair share of green, so even that one creature can barely be considered deviant. So yeah: Treefolk and Faeries? Not very color-deviant.

So that's all for now. Next time I'll look at Elves and Giants, two tribes which, compared to Treefolk and Faeries, changed color much more between Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, though they changed about the same amount between pre-Lorwyn and Lorwyn. I need to start making my sentences shorter.