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ajohnnygoldmain:

sarkhan-volkswagen:

blogging-phelddagrif:

brozilek:

ajanigoldmane:

markrosewater:

That is correct. She doesn’t play a large role.

something about the indian woman being kinda just.. there while some blue guy takes a bigger focus feels…. wrong

this is a very unsettling thing to read. 

And it feels very similar to what was done with Arlinn Kord, an exciting character from an under-represented demographic, revealed first to build hype, who then has little to no involvement with the story. It feels disingenuous and underhanded.

While its disappointing, and i’m kind of mad that they did the same thing this set; wizards still has come a long way and they keep improving slowly. The best thing to do is let them know about our concerns and how we feel about this so they can avoid doing this again in the future and so they could fix this in the long run.

I’d like to throw my two cents in and say that I am also disappointed to hear this. Being the face of the set is great and all, but we need prominent and active roles for these characters. This is why I mentioned the second planeswalker card being so important for these characters who deserve far more than what they’ve been given. When Narset, Saheeli, Kaya, etc return, I hope from the bottom of my heart that they have more to do.

I’m disappointed too. Saheeli is an amazingly interesting character who provides representation where there previously was none. The fact that Wizards is creating more characters with diverse identities and cultural associations is great.

In theory.

But when you have an Indian-appearing woman revealed as the first image of a set on a world with an Indian-inspired name and then the world skirts around Indianness and the Indian woman has a bit role, that’s a representation fail.

It’s also a storytelling fail. ***DON’T MARKET THE BIT CHARACTERS AS THE “FACE” OF THE SET IF THEY DON’T AFFECT THE PLOT*** Put the main character on the promotional material, or make the promotional character more pivotal. Dovin Baan is neat as a checked box for creature-type-representation on the planeswalker roster, but he’s a butthead and Saheeli Rai is super interesting.

It sounds like we’ve essentially seen the last of Saheeli for the Kaladesh story, and if that’s the case–if she never interacts with the other planeswalkers around whom the story focuses–then it’s almost like why bother including her???

If Saheeli doesn’t affect the plot then a) we get closer to racial tokenism; b) we took a slot away from the oft-requested UR artificer legendary creature; and c) we mislead the audience into thinking a character who was an instant success for who and what she represents is actually important when really she’s just kind of there.

I think Kaladesh is a great world. I think the creative team does great work. But I think they missed several marks on this one and should use this opportunity to improve on the otherwise good things they’re trying to accomplish.

I’m definitely surprised by this, but I doubt that Saheeli’s connection to this story is over, even if it’s mostly over for this set. When the portal machine starts being used elsewhere, I expect to see her there (and will be very disappointed if I don’t)

recapdrake:

markrosewater:

I would read all the flavor text from Dragons of Tarkir.

No Mark we are still salty about the wedges getting the boot

If you read the flavour text as Maro suggested you’d know that the wedges still exist. They’re rebel factions that hide from the dragon leadership.

It’s set up so that Return to Tarkir will have a resurgence of the wedge factions.

markrosewater:

From the feedback I’ve gotten so far, no I don’t think we did. Note that a lot to of things that defined Khans of Tarkir’s world are there but greatly suppressed.

Guys: In Return to Tarkir, the Clans are going to come back. Ugin maintained the balance, and Ugin is back.

markrosewater:

Depression is mostly black.

As a sufferer of depression, my two cents:

Depression is White, because it breeds selflessness. It feeds off the belief that others are more important than you.

Depression isn’t Blue, it convinces you that nothing can be done, and that the world is set in stone. It discourages learning and improving.

Depression is Black, because it is inward focused, it is something you feel about yourself. It can also be self-obsessing.
Black is the only colour that would willingly use depression as a weapon.

Depression isn’t Red. It saps both energy and emotion from you; it turns rage inwards rather than letting it flow outwards at the deserving targets.

Depression is torn with Green. It encourages you to accept your fate; but it convinces you that you don’t have any natural talents to use.

As such depression is either Abzan or Orzhov, but only the Black aspect is relevant to the card game.

lakanna:

markrosewater:

Artifacts are occasionally allowed to do things that colors cannot but usually at expensive costs that make it tricky to use. Note that we would much rather a mono green deck use an artifact to fill in a vulnerability than use a green card that’s out of color pie. An artifact that deals damage to a creature doesn’t undercut the flavor of green like Hornet Sting does.

“Anything we do on an artifact has to be something we will let the weakest color in something have access to so that keeps a few things from artifacts like enchantment destruction.” - Doesn’t one answer contradict the other? Either artifacts can do things colors can’t, or they only get effects that all colors can handle, even if only weakly?

Having access to an ability =/= having access to it within the colour.

Every colour has access to artifacts, so anything artifacts do can be done in any colour of deck, but it can’t necessarily be done on any colour of card.

markrosewater:

The skills I need to be a good designer and the skills I would need to be a pro player mostly do not overlap. There is no dissonance.

Also, while I am at the bottom of the bunch in R&D (steam filled with ex-pros) I’m a decent player. I have been playing for twenty-one years.

To design games you need to know a lot about playing games; but you don’t necessarily need to be good at them.

markrosewater:

We said at the panel that morph will show up in every clan. The preview card is a morph card from the Jeskai clan.

This makes it seem quite likely that monocolour cards in KTK will all belong to the clan that’s centered in that colour.

hexmaniacwingy:

markrosewater:

Spike wants to prove what he/she/they are capable of. Winning is the most common way to do this, but it’s important that there was a challenge. Winning a tournament against a bunch of beginners is a hollow victory.

IDK most spikes I know take a sick amount of pleasure in kicking on noobies and hearing “oh that person sold their cards”. Looking at you, assbutt who dropped a vintage-viable deck on me when I was just using out of box basic decks.

That’s not a Spike, that’s a type of Griefer Timmy. They enjoy the experience of thrashing newbies, and the suffering caused.

Either that or it’s a Spike so stupid that they think they’re actually proving their capability by beating newbies…