Lorwyn-Shadowmoor Block and Color: Merfolk, Goblins, and Kithkin

And finally, I get to talk about the Little People: Merfolk, Goblins, and Kithkin. (Well, Merfolk might not be all that small, but I tend to think of them as small. They certainly don't have many 5/5s, at least.) These are the tribes that have changed the most over the course of Lorwyn and Shadowmoor. Each race gained a previously untouched (or very, very lightly touched) color in Lorwyn, then a second color in Shadowmoor, and a third in Eventide. Basically.

First, the Merfolk. Before Lorwyn, there were 54 blue Merfolk, plus four multicolored Merfolk from Invasion block that were blue/red, blue/green, blue/black, and blue/white. So every Merfolk printed before Lorwyn was blue, though a few brushed other colors very slightly. In Lorwyn block, there are 23 blue Merfolk, 6 white Merfolk, and the white/blue Sygg. Six isn't a very big number, but as I've said over and over again in these articles, it's still something new. So, Merfolk begin splashing white in Lorwyn.

In Shadowmoor (the set, not the block), there are 6 blue, 1 black, 7 blue-black, and 1 white-blue Merfolk. That's eight new Merfolk that can be played in mono-black decks. Again, a change. Then in Eventide, there are 5 blue, 1 black, and 3 green-blue Merfolk (the Selkies). Again, 3 isn't a big number, but it's the first time that the possibility of playing Merfolk in a mono-green deck (changelings aside) has been possible. So Merfolk have progressed from mono-blue to splashing white to splashing black to splashing green. Four color natures, as I mentioned previously.

Goblins follow much the same pattern (though of course with different colors). Before Lorwyn, there were 156 red Goblins, 2 black Goblins, an artifact Goblin, and 7 multicolor Goblins that were red plus one other color. They were decidedly red.

In Lorwyn, there are 14 red Goblins, 24 black Goblins, and a black/red Goblin Legend. TWENTY-FOUR BLACK GOBLINS. Not only is that a massive increased in Magic history's amount of black Goblins, but there are more black than red in Lorwyn! This situation can only be described as crazy-wack. Goblins had hardly even seen black before, and now they're drenched in it, like a Vermont farmboy falling into a puddle of oil. Okay, that may not be the most accurate or useful analogy, but it gets the point across.

Then in Shadowmoor, there are 6 red Goblins, 1 green Goblin, 1 black-red Goblin, and 10 red-green Goblins. That's 11 green Goblins - Spiderman's worst nightmare. And Peter Parker does in fact play Magic (scroll down to Monday, May 13). First black, now green - it's like some sort of crazy man has taken over Magic design! Oh wait, that's Mark Rosewater.

Now in Eventide, there are 2 red, 1 green, 2 red-white, and 1 blue-red Goblin. Ravnica had Boros Recruit (a hybrid red-white Goblin), the first Goblin playable in a mono-white deck (besides the artifact one), but now there are two more. PLUS, the first Goblin playable in a mono-blue deck. And to make matters worse, the green Goblin in Eventide has a green-blue activated ability. This is madness!

Madness? THIS IS EVENTIDE! Now I don't know how much of the decision to let Goblins run rampant down Rainbow Road was directly in the control of Mark Rosewater, but I don't doubt that he was heavily involved. He loves doing that stuff. He's like the Joker, teaming up with the Green Goblin, and...all right, my metaphors and analogies are getting a little out of hand. But anyway, Goblins have shifted from almost entirely red to heavily splashing black to modestly splashing green to splashing God-knows-what. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if Shards of Alara had orange/purple Goblins.

To tone down the drama a bit, let's take a look at the Kithkin. Their splashing is a bit less violent (their feet are smaller, you see), but it can still be felt by nearby color-frogs and color-fish. If this doesn't make sense, then that's good - you're still sane.

Before Lorwyn, there were hardly any Kithkin at all. There were only five, all of which were mono-white. In Lorwyn, there are 28 Kithkin, plus two green and a green/white Legend. It would be a stretch to say that Lorwyn has changed the face of the deeply entrenched Kithkin mythos, since there isn't a deeply entrenched Kithkin mythos. So although technically the Kithkin have gone from mono-white to white splashing green, their nature as mono-white was founded on a mere five cards, only one of which was even printed before Time Spiral.

In Shadowmoor, there are 8 white, 2 blue, and 7 white-blue Kithkin. Now this is slightly more surprising or significant or whatever you want to call it, because "previous Magic history" now includes Lorwyn, which DOES have a lot of Kithkin, solidly founding them as a white tribe splashing the tiniest bit of green. With nine new blue Kithkin, Shadowmoor is clearly changing the established norm, even if that norm had only been established recently.

Then in Eventide, we get 5 more white Kithkin and one solitary red-white guy: the first red Kithkin. However, there are two other red-white spells in Eventide which, while not Kithkin spells, depict Kithkin in their art. So it's safe to say that Kithkin have become just a tad angrier in Eventide, and are splashing into red, although more lightly even than Lorwyn's green.

So the Kithkin, with their tiny feet and flattened features, have progressed from mono-white to splashing a little green to splashing a lot of blue to splashing a little red. As a relatively young tribe (aside from old granddaddy Amrou Kithkin), and a rather small one (card-wise, at least), the Kithkin don't have much of a precedent to defy. But they still change over the course of Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block, enough so that I included them in the same article as Merfolk and Goblins.

Finally, I have reached the end of this increasingly tedious analysis of color and creature type in Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block. Once again, I will remind you that I don't know what the significance of my "study" really is. It might mean that Mark Rosewater is off his rocker, or that Magic is opening up its design space, or just that Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block is weird. Or it could be meaningless and trite. (Again, I invite comments.) But I wanted to see what the patterns were, and I at least had fun relating them and trying to see how they fit together.

But now I can get back to talking about things that might be interesting: Eventide! I recently got Magic Workstation, and have since fiddled around with making Eventide sealed decks (from 5 Eventide boosters) and playing them against a (much more experienced) friend. So far, I'm liking what I'm seeing, and I hope to experiment more in the coming days. Eventide has been added to the Gatherer, and I expect the full Visual Spoiler will be up on Monday, which is very convenient, as well as totally awesome. So hopefully, in my next few articles about Eventide, I will be better informed. Already I'm learning new things, such as the power of Retrace (as my friend beat me down with Oona's Grace and Monstrify after I cut them both from my own deck like an idiot), so I look forward to being able to write articles where I almost - just maybe - might have some idea of what the hell I am talking about.

Lorwyn-Shadowmoor Block and Color: Elves and Giants

Last time, I talked about Treefolk and Faeries, races which exhibit two color natures each: a pre-Lorwyn one, and a Lorwyn-Shadowmoor one. To explain, I'll use an example: Treefolk. The color nature of Treefolk before Lorwyn was green. Yes, there was one green/black one, but Treefolk were predominantly green. As of Eventide, the color nature of Treefolk is green splashing white and black. The splashing of white and black came about with Lorwyn block, and remained fairly consistent throughout Lorwyn and Shadowmoor. Thus, they had two color natures.

Today I'll be talking about two races which exhibit three color natures: Elves and Giants. The division here is pre-Lorwyn/Lorwyn/Shadowmoor. (Later I'll be talking about Merfolk, Goblins, and Kithkin, which each have four natures.) Taking a look at the numbers (once again), we find that prior to Lorwyn, there were 130 mono-green elves, and 21 elves that were not mono-green. Of those, 5 were non-green. Elves have made their way into all five colors, with (by my previous system) 7.5 white, 4 black, 4.5 blue, 2 red, and 1 artifact. (There have never been mono-blue or mono-red elves.) With such small numbers, calling Elves "diverse" would be much like calling a private college "diverse": hilarious.

In Lorwyn, Elves are green and black. The black doesn't represent anything really sinister, though - just pride, a fairly mild sin. In any case, Lorwyn block has 27.5 green Elves and 9.5 black Elves. With only 4 other black Elves in Magic's history (only 1 of which was mono-black), Lorwyn's 9 mono-black Elves certainly stand out. Of course, there are plenty of green elves (and many more green than black), but it's still a lot of black compared to what they've had before. So far, this discussion sounds a lot like the one about Treefolk.

But then there's Shadowmoor block. Shadowmoor block has 9, green, 2 white, and 10 green-white Elves. Since I count hybrids fully in both colors, that's 12 white Elves. This isn't as big a contrast as black - there have been 3 mono-white Elves printed before Lorwyn, and Shadowmoor only has 2 - but it's still a change, and certainly a change from Lorwyn. A quick note that will become more relevant in my next article: Eventide only has 4 Elves, and they are all mono-green.

So Elves have three color natures: heavily green, heavily green splashing black, and heavily green splashing white. The splashes are fairly small - like the Treefolk's - but they are noticeable. The difference between Lorwyn and Shadowmoor is explained by flavor - the Elves are now the "good guys" - but from a purely color perspective, it's still something rather new. And now on to Giants.

Before Lorwyn, there were 31 red Giants, 10.5 white Giants, 8 black Giants, and 5.5 green Giants (including multicolored cards). Giants have never touched blue (they are stupid). Giants are invested most heavily in red, but there are practically as many Giants of other colors as there are red ones. They're much more diverse than Elves, Treefolk, and even Faeries. Still, it's clear that they prefer red, and this theme carries over into Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block.

In Lorwyn block, there are 15.5 red Giants and 8.5 white Giants. This is not a huge difference compared to previous Magic history: a ratio of about 2:1 red:white, where previously it had been 3:1. Even so, that is a large number of Giants to add to the pool (24). Lorwyn block increases the total Magic Giant count by almost 50%. Now the thing is, when I started writing this article, I thought there were fewer non-red Giants, and when I went to do the research just now, I saw a lot more than I expected. So my initial statement about three natures is not quite accurate for Giants. And by not quite accurate I mean totally wrong. Read on.

In Shadowmoor block, there are 7 red and 1 white Giant, but also 2 green and 3 red-green ones. Now, five isn't a huge number (see my discussion of Treefolk previously), but...no, it's just not a big number. I was wrong. Damn.

So although Giants change between Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, they don't change completely (there's still a white one in Shadowmoor, even though he's a Spirit), and their changes are not particularly significant in light of previous Magic history. Nevertheless, Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block added a ton of Giants into the mix, giving them a tribal unity that was previously lacking.

Well, that's it for now. I guess I was somewhat off on my intuitions today; there were more off-color Elves and Giants that I had expected. But I have already done my research for the next article, and I assure you, it is infinitely more shocking.

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.

What Lorwyn-Shadowmoor Block is Doing to Color

I'm going to take a break from talking (exclusively) about Eventide to talk about Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block as a whole. But first, a few more quick comments about red-white in Eventide.

First of all, it seems that the red-white Avatar has flying and not haste. This means that although he is slower, he also has evasion, which is something red-white doesn't get much of, so it's welcome. I'm not sure whether it's strictly better or worse than haste for this card, but I don't think the overall effect on gameplay is significant enough to change my mind about whether or not I'd draft it. I still think it's a powerful card, it's just powerful in different ways now. The red-white aura is also a bit more useful on him when he has evasion, allowing you to hit the enemy for more direct damage (at least 7) and gain that much life. Pretty cool.

And now that the rest of the Eventide cards have finally been spoiled (though, as evidenced by the previous paragraph, they're not entirely definitive), I can talk about the final red-white card. It could have turned out to be some lame dude that doesn't do much, or another combat-based instant, but instead it's a nice little creature with an ability that fits right into the red-white theme of power pumping that I mentioned before. It's a 2/1 for 3 mana, but his 2-mana untap ability gives attacking creatures you control +1/+0 until end of turn. This means that he's basically a 3/1 with vigilance, and if he can be given first or double strike, all the better. A welcome addition to red-white's arsenal, to be sure.

And now I can get to what I actually wanted to talk about: Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block and color. This is mostly a set of observations; I'm not sure what to conclude. But I'll talk about that more later, and hopefully I can get some feedback.

Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block does things with color that break a lot of rules, conventions, or just patterns that have developed over the years of Magic, specifically with regard to creature type. Lorwyn is about creature type, and Shadowmoor is about color, and the way these two features interact is quite interesting in both miniblocks. I tend to think about it on a tribe-by-tribe basis, so that's how I'll explain it. I'll start with perhaps the most unique tribe in terms of color: elementals. (There's enough to say about elementals alone that I'll leave the other tribes for another time.)

Throughout Magic's history, elementals have basically been random magical dudes that do neat things, with little tribal cohesion. I did some research about elementals and color and drew up some numbers - the number of elementals of each color printed before Lorwyn. Since this is mostly a flavor issue, I ignored changelings. I considered "elemental" to be any card with the creature type Elemental, including Tribal cards. As for color, I counted multicolored "gold" cards as half a point for each color, and hybrid cards as a full point for each color. I ignored artifact creatures since there was only one.

So here's what I found: prior to Lorwyn, there were 3.5 black elementals, 9 white elementals, 25 blue elementals, 41 green elementals, and 47.5 red elementals. This broad range was somewhat interesting: black and white have hardly any, green and red have a ton, and blue has an amount somewhere in between. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, and it kind of makes sense: elementals are often made of fire (red) or are creations of nature (green) or intellect (blue). White tends to have a lot of humans and humanoid races with little interest in magical entities, and black has mostly zombies, undead, and things that smell bad. What's also interesting is that red and blue are both elemental colors - fire and water - and green is sort of a general "nature" color, also containing the element of wood. White and black, however, have no connection to elemental magicks; white is the color of light, and black is the color of death, neither of which is easily manifested into an elemental form. So it basically makes sense.

Then I counted the elementals in Lorwyn block. There are 6 black, 7 white, 8 blue, 6 green, and 5 red elementals, plus 20 red flamekin and Horde of Notions (which is all five colors). What's unique about Lorwyn elementals is that they have both one and five colors, unlike the other tribes, which either have a solid two colors, or have one main color and splash into one or two others. But elementals are split into two types: the classic random magical beasts, which are distributed evenly among the five colors, and the flamekin, which are all red. However, each of these categories diverges significantly from previous Magic history, and in quite different ways.

The flamekin are unique in that they are a cohesive tribe. Previously, elementals were just random magical dudes, but in Lorwyn, they have a consistent shape, color, and creature subtypes. Never (or rarely) before have elementals had sentience, tribal unity, OR subtypes. This makes the flamekin quite unique as elementals, but of course they fit right into Lorwyn, where that's the norm.

The other elementals are unique in the mere fact that they are evenly distributed among all five colors. There are more black elementals in Lorwyn block than in the entire history of Magic before that. This is partly because the elementals in Lorwyn have a certain unique Lorwynness that separates them from previous ones. They're weird combinations of animals, mostly, and a lot of them have Evoke. The black ones aren't manifestations of death, they're combinations of pigs and centipedes, snails and crabs, or...well, a lot of them are difficult even to identify. But they're NOT manifestations of death, even if some of them deal directly with it (Shriekmaw). They're just...weird...things.

So that's all right. Elementals now have a foothold in all five colors, and are pushing red even further ahead in the lead. But then there's Shadowmoor block.

In Shadowmoor, elementals gain black. This is part of the flavor and story of Shadowmoor - the red, fiery flamekin burn out and become the vicious, resentful cinders. Black is the color of decay and withering, so of course, flavorwise, it makes sense for them to shift into black. But when you look at the data, it is almost astonishing. In Shadowmoor block, there are a whopping 26 black elementals. That's more than SEVEN TIMES the number of black elementals printed before Lorwyn, and the number is still THREE TIMES as many if you include Lorwyn into the mix. Now, the number 26 includes red-black hybrid elementals (and other hybrids), but they are no less black for also being red (or other colors). You can still play them in a mono-black deck, and they definitely have aspects of blackness, so it is fair to count them on par with mono-black cards. This pushes the number of black elementals almost past blue in the grand total. Going from a black-to-blue count of 3.5-to-25 to 35.5-to-38 is a massive leap in proportion.

Of course, elementals are still red, too. There are 20 red elementals in Shadowmoor block (including hybrids of course), which brings red's grand total for elementals even further out in front. No big surprise there. And the other three colors each have a few more elementals of their own, several of which are hybrids, pushing those numbers up further as well.

So for a final bit of number crunching, I calculated the percentage that each color has increased their total elemental count since before Lorwyn, and the grand totals for each color as of Eventide. Black's elementals increased 914% for a total of 35.5, white's increased 156% to 23, red's increased 95% to 92.5, blue's increased 52% to 38, and green's increased 32% to 54. Red now has a huge lead over all the other colors, and black has surpassed white, leaving white at the bottom. Now here's the thing: I DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS. Does this mean that Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block is ruining sacred traditions of Magic? Is it exploring and opening up new design space? Is this entire study irrelevant? If there's anyone out there who can answer this question - or who at least has SOME opinion on it - I would love to hear it.