If you had to make a cycle of five creatures, one from each color, of the most iconic or classic creatures from each color, which ones would you pick? I'm talking about older cards that work really well as "representatives" of their color, regardless of their modern powerlevel.
Pic related was my attempt. It's weird, but I have no idea what I'd pick for green.
Green is obviously Craw Wurm
Blue is Mahamoti Djinn and Black is Sengir Vampire.
These are the 4 feel-good cards in the 30 card sample packs Wizards gives out
Can they be iconic in terms of format prevalence?
Serra Angel
Archaeomancer
Hypnotic Specter
Goblin Guide
Leatherback Baloth/Tarmogoyf
Green should be a bear.
Blue: Morphling
Black: Royal Assassin
Green: Wood Elemental
Also, I would make Red Mogg Fanatic
I would second Craw Wurm. While it's fallen out of favor lately, it certainly stands out as an iconic Green fatty
Definitely Hypnotic Spectre for Black. The 9th Edition Fat Pack box art of Hyppy vs. Serra Angel is great.
how is giant spider or a llanowar elf not a candidate for green?
also no one knows who shivan dragon is.
I would consider maybe Ball Lightning for Red, since it's more the style of hit hard, hit cheap while green fits more of the big ass creature trope.
Blue- delver, snapcaster, morphling, vendilion clique,
Black- hypnotic specter, dark confidant, avatar of woe, mindslicer, shriekmaw, phyrexian obliterator
Red- shivan dragon, goblin guide, krenko, goblin lackey
White- serra angel, elesh norn, serra ascendant, white knight, angel of thune
Green- tarmogoyf, llanowar elves, birds of paradise, noble hierarch,
Those are the creatures that come to mind when i think of each color.
>there are people ITT unironically recommending non-Wurms as the green iconic creature
Most classic:
White: White Knight
Blue: Lord of Atlantis
Black: Black Knight
Red: Goblin King
Green: Craw Wurm
Most iconic:
White: Champion of the Parish
Blue: Ertai, Wizard Adept
Black: Lord of the Pit
Red: Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
Green: Worldspine Wurm
sorry to disagree, but green is either Llanowar Elves or Birds of Paradise
Not to mention the people whp are just suggesting newer top-tier modern cards, when OP is asking for things that have been,around forever and are staple classics.
Serra Angel is a great example, and Shivan Dragon is in the same vein. They print those two over and over in core sets because they're just really classic and still pretty solid all things considered
Craw Wurm or Giant Spider for green.
I don't really see Norn as iconically white.
>White: Champion of the Parish
Are you for fucking real? There's nothing iconic about the gay-ass nuMagic """human tribal"""
>also no one knows who shivan dragon is.
> no one knows
> who shivan dragon is
wut
Aren't you forgetting someone?
>I have no idea what I'd pick for green.
oh how easily we forget Verdant Force. also a good picks: Thorn Elemental, Fungusaur (especially fun with pestilence).
It's a white weenie that sees other friend white weenies and pumps. White is all about unity and companionship and small things banding together to do great things. At least as far as creatures go.
Angels really aren't that white when you get past their imagery, which is why most of them are prohibitively expensive and rarely see play. Baneslayer's an oddity.
Immune to the Three Ps, this card's actually gotten better over time.
Path of exile, Plowshares and... Pcondemn?
>Blue
No idea
>Black
Lord of the Pit
>Green
Force of Nature
Timmy
> Serra Angel
> Lord of the Pit
> Craw Wurm (honorary mention: Force of Nature)
> Shivan Dragon
> Leviathan
Johnny
> Serra Angel
> Bird of Paradise
> Hypnotic Spectre
> Kird Ape
> Storm Crow
>White is all about unity and companionship
You really are new, huh?
Push, the new kid on the block.
It's 2017 user, it has been literal decades.
Spike
>Squadron Hawk
>Delver
>Bob
>Welder
>Goyf
I guess you're right. Doesn't make me hate Innistrad's dumb bullshit any less, but time waits for no man.
He's the undisputed master of the mountains of Shiv, dummy
White: Serra Angel, Thalia, Avacyn
Blue: Snappy, Delver, Lord of Atlantis, Storm Crow, Clone
Black: Bob, Sengir Vampire, Griselbrand, Death's Shadow
Red: Goblin Guide, Shivan Dragon, Swiftspear, Eidolon/Mentor, Spark Elemental
Green: Birds/Llanowar Elves, Craterhoof, Goyf
Colorless: Ornithopter, Ravager, Wurmcoil, Ballista, Eldrazi Titans
I actually thought of this guy right as I hit submit, actually! I was sort of out of room on the list, anyway.
>Johnny
>a french vanilla card that does nothing
Isn't Johnny the combo guy? And Kird Ape needs a Forest alongside it, so I don't know if I'd call that one exclusively red.
> He's the undisputed master of the mountains of Shiv, dummy
couldn't explain it better
yeah, I think Kird Ape is more like a Spike sort of thing
>Wood Elemental
White=Serra Angel
Blue=manowar?
Black=Sengir vampire
Red=Shivan Dragon
Green=Birds of paradise
tfw squirrel tribal is dead
Now, are we going by which creatures best represent their colors, or which ones are most well known? Cause that's a big difference. Shivan Dragon fits the latter but not the former IMO.
I was going by both, but the second one especially.
Why doesn't Shivan Dragon represent the color? It's a dragon with firebreathing. It doesn't get much more red than that.
Mechanically, I mean. Red's all about being quick, doing direct damage and high risk/high reward. Course it has big creatures but that's not really its strength.
If you're going old school, probably Mahamoti Djinn, Hypnotic Specter and Birds of Paradise?
Shivan Dragon isn't that great, although iconic. Maybe Ball Lightning or Jackal Pup?
I think he means in the sense of philosophy. A very red card would be cheap, fast, and sacrifice long term potential for short term gains.
Shivan is iconic, but it doesn't overly fit the traditional Red philosophy, since it requires a lot of mana, doesn't have haste, etc.
>lately
It hasn't been relevant or useful in decades. Multiple consecutive decades!
Yeah, it's weird that green is the color of fatties, but it doesn't really have any very iconic fatties at all. At least, not on the level of Serra Angel for white.
modern?
white: aven mindcensor
blue: snap chink
black: confidant
red: dunno
green: goyf
or this:
For black I would go either Lord of the Pit or Phyrexian Plaguelord
Excuse me?
I think that's due to just how many they get all the time though
>At least, not on the level of Serra Angel for white.
re-read the OP. I'm not talking about modern/format saturation, like Craterhoof in EDH. I'm talking about classic cards.
That must be it.
Yeah. Looking over the original sets I think Force of Nature would have been better as an iconic green fatty, but the problem is it's just kinda some lumpy elemental that isn't interesting.
So they just keep printing new giant green monsters in hopes of making a more iconic one.
I think at the end of the day the answer is Llanowar Elves. While the fatties might change, the mana dork has stayed pretty much the same.
Probably representing the iconic races
Black Lord of the pit
White Serra Angel
Red Shivan Dragon
Green Mistcutter Hydra? It seems the most basic hydra
Blue Sphinx of Magosi, or sphinx of ulthuun..
This is limited of course to the iconic tribes. Demon, angel, hydra, Sphinx, and dragon
This is like the only sensible and thought out response.
Ya'll don't play much magic do ya?
He listed Delver, Snapcaster, and Vendilion Clique for Blue.
That's very much not in line with what OP asked, since he was looking for classics not just the best creatures in each color that people know well from playing them so much in modern.
Like, when he posts Serra Angel and Shivan dragon, it should be pretty obvious what he's looking for.
>this is like the only sensible and thought out response
It definitely isn't.
>CTRL + F: Bear
>One result
For fucks sake. Grizzly Bear should be green. It is the reason why people call creatures that vanilla 2/2s "Bears".
If you say regardless of power, then make Green's Craterhoof
>that gif
>50 yo
>older cards
>Avacyn restored (2004)
"No."
Blue Merfolk Looter
Black Hypnotic Specter
Green Llanowar Elves
This post looks like a faggot made it, I say yes.
No card printed in 2004 is a "classic" card on par with the rest of the examples given earlier, many of which were first printed in Alpha.
Who cares, duck your rules. Craterhoof is well know, often used, it's works in a number of combos, everyone knows and loves the Craterhoof, it's so green. People think of it when they think green.
In EDH, not other formats
regardless, it's not iconic
Not really? It's a Mythic from Innistrad. There are plenty of people who won't know or care about it or consider some other big green fatty to be more iconic.
The only correct answers for OP's Criteria are Bird of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, and Giant Spider.
You want something everyone fucking knows? It's probably the Elves or Spider. The bird has fallen off lately. Llanowar Elves is still getting printed for Commander and side material, while Spider was in nearly every core set along with even being in the most recent block.
>2004
2012. Avacyn restored was 2012. 8th edition, the beginning of the modern card frame, was 2003. Alpha was 1993.
I looked up the date before I posted that, but in between switching tabs I somehow forgot it.
Please excuse my limited, number-exclusive retardation and please focus instead on how this does show that Avacyn Restored came out even sooner than I said it did.
I'm not someone who cares about the argument, I'm just a driveby autist that noticed the date was wrong, and then supplied relevant "big change" dates in magic's history for comparison and to maybe help with people deciding what makes a classic card.
Either way, I appreciate the correction
FUCKING PEASANTS
Hi Sean
Has there ever been a complete cycle the represents each color perfectly? Pic related is about as close as I can think.
perfection
Serra Angel
Morphling
Juzam Djinn
Shivan Dragon
Craw Wurm
Has Craw Wurm always sucked so hard? If that's the only big green creature from the old days, then how is it basically worse in all regards than Shivan Dragon?
Different times, different thoughts on what made creatures good.
Craw Wurm and Force of Nature were the best green fatties.
Then again, Green was considered the turboshit color for the first...seven or so years of the game.
Also consider that Craw Wurm was always a common so it's possible that it was the biggest creature that a lot of players owned and it was probably the big creature that players encountered most often. It's not necessarily that it was the best at the time, just the most present.
And the reason why every one of them has a fractional power or toughness?
So they can all be half-assed.
That makes it a bit more understandable if it were common. Still, I think 6/6 wouldn't be too much to ask.
Force of Nature seems much more reasonable. It's 8/8 for 6 with trample at least, even if it does eat up your later turns and require a heavy focus on Green mana.
I can also see why it's only been reprinted a few times, since it's just sort of a generic looking plant lump.
There was a time where this guy was considered one of the iconic Magic creatures of all time.
Time can be damn cruel.
I'm term of iconic and classic, these. Wish they represented their colors a little better.
...
white: stoneforge mystic
blue: snapcaster mage
black: dark confidant
red: goblin guide
green: tarmogoyf
legendary
white: Thalia (either one) / Isamaru
blue: Teferi / Barrin / Venser
black: Braids / Crovax / Griselbrand
red: Krenko / Jaya / Ashling
green: Rofellos / Yisan / Mirri
Stormcrow
Zombie
Goyf
Personally for legends I see it as
Green Mollimo
Black Ascendant Evinicar
Red Kambahl,
Blue Arcanis
White Akroma
Kamahl, pit fighter sorry
>I'm talking about classic cards.
Isn't this guy pretty classic?
Nobody ever remembers pic related.
I'd go for cheap creatures that fit the color theme. not as iconic but easy to compare in terms of effects:
Red: Lavamancer - direct damage, cheap. Unusual ability, but eh. If not, Jackal Pup
Green: Llanowar Elves - ramp. If not. Scattershot Archer. If not, Rogue Elephant.
White: Soul Warden - lifegain. If not, Mom, or Devoted Caretaker
Black: Death's Shadow. If not, Carnophage, or Vampire Lacerator,
Blue: Phantasmal Bear - strong and classic drawback. If not, Cursecatcher or Sage of Epityr.
>Black
Body snatcher
Archfiend of Depravity
>Blue
Morphling
Hedron Crab
>Red
Thunderblust
Kurkesh
>Green
Kalonian Hydra
Phyrexian Hydra