Humans

Printing Process of Tokens

New 18 Jul 2024 Asked by justforaskingmaro 7 Comments

There exists a number of tokens, or variations of, for example one with Throne of Eldraine "human 1/1" (the villager woman) where the other side has the exact same token too. Is this a mistake, a necessary quirk of the printing system, or is there some real reason to do so?


When we make tokens, it gets printed on a sheet. Depending on how many copies exist of a single card in the sheet will dictate how many “versions” of it there are with different backs. If only one appears on the sheet, it will always have the same back.

Gleemax's Fate After Retirement of Forums

New 17 Jul 2024 Asked by standtoarms 7 Comments

What happened to Gleemax when the Wizards forums were retired? Did the alien brain retire to its home planet? Is it still in the basement at Renton, endlessly playtesting eight draft seats in its mind? Is it depicted on the card Elder Brain? Are you its human avatar?


Eeway on’tday alktay outabay eemaxglay.

Raccoons and Junk Tokens

New 14 Jul 2024 Asked by jeskaisekai 10 Comments

Were junk tokens considered for raccons? I think they would have been fun


They were not. Raccoons digging in trash is more about then living in a world with Humans.

Number of Animals in Bloomburrow

New 13 Jul 2024 Asked by imogenbits 12 Comments

I really love animals and how many different species there are. When you started talking about Bloomburrow's mechanics not being directly typal, I was hoping that there'd be a lot of one-off animals. But almost all of the cards revealed so far are one of the main 10 animals, with the main exceptions being the calamity beasts.Was there ever a point in development where the focus was more on showcasing a lot of different animal species rather than selecting a smaller number that act as draft archetype groups?


I talked about this in my first Bloomburrow preview column. Here’s a snippet:“Once it was on the schedule, I did a little advance work on the genre to familiarize myself with it. I realized that there were two ways it’s traditionally done.Take #1 – Animals represent groups of people. These people are mice, those people are badgers, and these people are otters. Each animal type has qualities that are consistent among that group, usually things that feel resonant with the real-world animal. In this version, the setting is usually a biome, and all the animals in it are ones who would live in that biome. The animals are roughly proportional to what they would be in the real world.Take #2 – Animals represent individual people. This person’s jumpy, so she’s a frog. That person’s sneaky, so he’s a fox. This other person rushes into things, so they’re a rhino. Each animal is used to represent personality qualities. In this version, the setting is usually something more human in structure, often a city, and the variety of animals is much larger. The animal selection here is not limited by biome, so you can have animals living together that normally would never see each other in the real world. The animals are loosely related in size (a racoon is smaller than an elephant), but the scope of scale is compressed.Take number one is easier for worldbuilding. There are less unique types of animals, and they’re organized by creature type. Because animals are used to express groups of people, they tend to act more similarly to traditional species creature types, like Elves, Goblins, or Merfolk. This pushes us more toward a factioned typal theme.Take number two is easier for design because the designers have access to a lot more animals and can make more individually cool designs. The twelfth Mouse card, for instance, is a lot harder to make different than the first Giraffe. This approach pushes us more toward mechanics that tie into a larger animal theme. It’s more likely we’d create an environment that was about a lot of different animals working together, putting the focus more on individual top-down card design.Aaron was more interested in doing take number one, while I was more interested in doing take number two. So, we did a bunch of market research. It came back exactly even. Half the people we polled preferred take one, and half preferred take two. In a tie, Aaron’s original vision won out, so we did take one. (Also, I believe more people internally wanted to do take one.) I do want to stress that both takes would have allowed us to make a cool set. They just head down different paths and would have ended up in very different places, mechanically and creatively.”

Gift a Token Variations

New 12 Jul 2024 Asked by thunderweb 2 Comments

"Gift a tapped Fish" creates a tapped 1/1 blue Fish creature token.If a card says "Gift a Human" or "Gift a Vehicle", would those tokens have different power, toughness, and color?


They could. It would be defined (most likely in reminder text).

Bloomburrow Animals' Strength

New 11 Jul 2024 Asked by bhogal83 8 Comments

Do the animals on Bloomburrow have super-strength? Like, many of them are small mice/frogs/etc, yet they have power/toughness higher than humans from other planes.


Making all creatures have fractional power and toughness wasn’t on the table. : )

Simic Guild Symbol Story

New 09 Jul 2024 Asked by ashe-cloud-phoenix 38 Comments

the simic guild symbol sticker from the Return to Ravnica prerelease guild kit has been on my family's sliding glass door for over a decade now, serving as a way to make it obvious whether it is open or closed to birds and humans alikei just though maybe you'd get a kick out of hearing that : )


I do.

Estrid Enchantment Magic

New 18 Nov 2019 Asked by captainjackharness 53 Comments

Is Estrid an "enchantment planeswalker", like Karn is an "Artifact planeswalker"? Or is she a normal human with enchantment magic? If she's not, is that something that could happen on a theoretical setting standpoint like Theros?


When Karn wasn’t a Planeswalker, he was an artifact creature. If Estrid wasn’t a Planeswalker, I don’t believe she would be an enchantment creature.

Non-Humanoid Planeswalkers

New 20 Oct 2019 Asked by blaze-1013 64 Comments

Not sure how non-humanoid people want Planeswalkers, but almost year has at least 1 non-human and most don't look human even if they are still humanoid. The fully break down for those curious. 2019 Oko and Wrenn. 2018 Windgrace. 2017 Angrath. 2016 Dovin (Arlinn hits the monster niche too imo). 2015 Ugin. 2014 Kiora, Daretti, and Nahiri (Nixilis was human on his first card). 2013 Xenagos and Ashiok. 2012 Tamiyo, Tibalt, Vraska. 2011 Karn. 2010 None. 2009 Bolas, Nissa, Sorin. 2008 Ajani.


FYI

Humanoid Walker Compromise

New 17 Jul 2019 Asked by boltedmonkeyman-deactivated2023 72 Comments

Don't get me wrong: I love it when you do less-human walkers like Wrenn and Six, Ugin, and Karn, and I also personally don't care if we get a non-humanoid walker or not (I agree it would be mostly unpopular). But for the purposes of the discussion, it should be made very clear that Wrenn and Six, Ugin, Karn, Xenagos, Bolas, Ajani, etc. ARE humanoid. They all have roughly-human posture, features, and intelligence. Citing them as examples of non-humanoid walkers seems to misunderstand the request.


I’m not saying they’re humanoid. I’m saying nonhuman humanoids *is* the compromise we’re making to have more “less human” planeswalkers. For nonhumanoids, there are two dragons and a promise that one day we might get things like a Centaur or Sphinx. That’s the best I got for the nonhumanoid planeswalker crowd.

Karn's Gender Identity

New 18 Dec 2016 Asked by askingmaroquestions 137 Comments

Personally, I prefer Karn as a "he." It makes the character more human to be a creation which identifies with a specific gender. The ability to understand gender and identify with one gives Karn (like Ultron or Pinocchio) an extra degree of sentience and self-awareness. Them assigning gender to themselves prioritizing identity above origin is similar to NGB (non-gender binary) people. Taking that away in canon makes him more like the default construct. I vastly prefer Ashiok for my NGB fix.


My point was that Karn has never been “refer to me as he”. People refer to Karn as “he” because he seems more “he” than “she” from outward appearance and Karn’s response has been “whatever”.This isn’t a topic that’s ever really been discussed in story, so all I was saying is maybe one day it will. And maybe it never will. I was just pointing out that Karn, by definition, doesn’t actually have a sex or gender.

Nonhumanoid Planeswalkers

New 25 Mar 2016 Asked by jugglervr 76 Comments

Mark, you've said before that you greatly prefer humanoid planeswalkers because you feel the audience needs to connect with them... How's your market research on nonhumanoid 'walkers? I personally vastly prefer video games in which I can play something non-human and ideally nonhumanoid, and I NEVER play as humans if I have the chance to be something else. In MTG, Vraska, Bolas, and Ugin are the coolest walkers just because they're "not just another human". PLEASE start branching out more. ~20%?


Ajani is a Cat.
Kiora is a Merfolk.
Karn is a Golem.
Daretti is a Goblin.
Sorin is a Vampire.
Arlinn Kord is a Werwolf.
Ob Nixilis is a Demon.
They’re not all Human.

Marvel vs Magic Ideas

New 31 May 2015 Asked by mathhombre 132 Comments

In the spirit of Marvel vs Capcom, whom would you want to see in Marvel vs Magic Duel Decks or video game? The idea that got me started was Nicol Bolas vs Fin Fang Foom.


There all sorts of fun match-ups: Chandra vs. the Human Torch
Gideon vs. Captain America
Ajani vs. Tigra
Karn vs. the Thing
Kiora vs. the Sub-Mariner
Sorin vs. Blade
Tibalt vs. Daredevil
Ral Zarek vs. Storm

Tezzeret's Species

New 14 Jul 2014 Asked by epicexperiment-blog 17 Comments

RE Tezzeret as a Vedalken: The asker was asking about Tezzeret being a Vedalken in species, the same way that Tamiyo is a Moonfolk, Ajani is a cat, Tibalt is a Devil/Human hybrid, Kiora is a Merfolk, Karn is a Golem, Nicol Bolas is a Dragon, Nissa is an Elf, Sorin is a Vampire, Vraska is a Gorgon, and Xenagos is/was a Satyr.


That is a Doug question.

Karn's Gender Identity

New 20 Jun 2014 Asked by tarrandus 173 Comments

Some quick stats on 'walkers based off of Doug's article: there are currently 24 Planeswalker characters with cards. 16 are male, 7 are female, and 1 is Ashiok. 13 humans, 1 half-human, and 10 non-humans, counting Ashiok as non-human. (Not entirely sure on Ashiok, but face-have is generally a human trait), 1 is dead, 2 are dead*


Karn, by the way, is actually not gendered. People refer to him as “he” but Karn is a golem and doesn’t have boy or girl parts. EDIT: Sorry. Let me be clearer. Karn does not have a gender identity because he does not associate as either male or female. Above I was actually trying to state that he is not biologically male or female. I apologize if I offended anyone.


Portions of Marodigest are unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Wizards of the Coast Fan Content Policy. The literal and graphical information presented on this site about Magic: The Gathering, including card images and mana symbols, is copyright Wizards of the Coast, LLC. Marodigest is not produced by or endorsed by Wizards of the Coast. All other content © 2024 Webscape Internet Engineers. All rights reserved.