How you feel about the concept of male sirens that assist the sailors of the seas instead of preying on them...

How the fuck are female sirens gonna do anything with female pirates?

Magical charm effects, I suppose.

So you only accept black female characters when you consider them well-written.

Do you extend this same standard towards white characters and male characters?

>no one has ever complained about a poorly written white male

People birch about Jace all the Fucking time. A shotty character is a shotty character, and making them a token ethnicity for pity points should be considered insulting.

So what you're saying is that the problem isn't Wizards trying to push diversity, it's Wizards gutting the story by writing it for blog posts instead of novels.

The word is "shoddy," for the record. Also "bitch," but that one I'm certain was a typo.

It just so happens that the latter is inextricably linked to their attempts at the former in this case. Really takes the ol' shoulder-topper running doesn't it?

user is probably a filthy phone-poster
Atuocorrect changes shitty to shotty all the time. Which is funny because shotty isn't even a fucking word.

I've heard it used as slang for "shotgun." I don't know why I didn't think of "shitty" before "shoddy," but in my defense they're both about as close and appropriate in that context.

male sirens only make since because most of the pirates in Ixalan are chicks. The art for almost all the pirates in Ixalan prominently feature women pirates. Hell, we have like 4 legendary chick pirates and zero guy ones.

Yes. I fucking hate new-Jace because he's so obviously being pushed to fit what WotC believes is the stereotypical Magic player.
MaRo himself has basically said that Jace is MTG's mascot, a la Mickey Mouse.

Pandering of any kind - whether it's to hipsters, sjws, or nerds - is something to be rejected outright. It's a pro-corporate anti-playerbase move that dilutes the playerbase more and more with less dedicated players.

I think its fucking dumb. WotC keeps going out of their way to "subvert tropes" to the point that it is getting annoying. Frankly we are reaching a point where avoiding cliches has become a cliche.

>male sirens only make since because most of the pirates in Ixalan are chicks
This is actually a fairly interesting observation (and amusing when take into account)

>Hell, we have like 4 legendary chick pirates and zero guy ones.
There is at least one male captain according to lore. He will probably be in the next set.

It's possible to tell a good story in that sort of format, of one puts in the effort. They don't seem to care too much though.

What bugs me about the new female walkers though is that they don't go anywhere. Narset forcibly prevented herself from Planeswalking thanks to Autistic monk training. Samut went to somewhere else for a grand total of 5 seconds before willing herself back. Saheeli gets some backstory, but it isn't clear if she went somewhere and left or if she just stayed like Narset. It isn't going to get better with the next set either since the plane itself traps people there.

That really irks me as a whole though, since the entire point of Planeswalking, especially the initial one, is that your Spark takes you somewhere you need to be to grow and discover more about yourself. Not only that, but it helps the universe feel more connected as we get glimpses of past or future sets when people jump around.

But instead all of them have their motives so tied up in their home planes that they can't leave. They won't go on that journey of self-discovery, and they won't really grow as Planeswalkers.

Hell, my favorite Planeswalker is Domri Rade, and he does the same thing where he returns shortly after, but even his story gets across that he clearly wants to go back and see more of the universe.

Why make a character a planeswalker if they aren't going anywhere?

>inextricably linked
Nah, it's just that Doug Bayer is a garbage writer. The diversity shit came later.

It's not impossible to have well-written stories in blog format.
plz no bully

>There is at least one male captain according to lore. He will probably be in the next set.
We already have at least one male captain in this set.

I think they're referring to the Planeswalker guy. Angrath or something

Wonder will this kind of creature work this time around. Back then Mardu Strike Leader was shit even for limited.

>mardu strike leader was shit in limited

really? i dont remember that at all

What do we know about Angrath? On a scale between Sparrow and Blackbeard, where does he fall?

>new Jace
Jace hasn't changed at all.
You just are actually seeing him, instead of the out-of-character quips on flavor texts attributed to him.
He's always been a socially awkward, pasty turbonerd.

The real question is why do we still care about the writing in Magic at all.

It's gone progressively down the shitter for quite possibly over a decade. It's been plain watered-down and inoffensive fantasy. Anybody with any long-term experience with the game should at some point feel that anybody who expresses love for the game's plot has never read a book and/or thinks Game of Thrones is a coherent television show.

There are zero signs they're going to improve with the story, they've caught the social justice bug, which if you ask me, is like getting pneumonia after a long battle with HIV - you're irredeemably fucked, and they've put so little effort into their creative work that they're just wholesale jacking ideas from Earth mythology. Not that there is anything wrong with stealing from Earth mythology but it requires a combination of capturing the essence, culture, and imagery and adding your own twist (like in Kamigawa and Lorwyn) and not like this tepid bullshit from Theros or Kaladesh wholly lacking in any unique culture whatsoever or soon-to-be Ixian.

I'm just surprised that anybody can care after all the time. Ironically I'm posting this to seem like I care but I don't.

He hates the plane he's trapped on and would love nothing more than to burn the entire damn thing to the ground.
He is male.
He is a pirate captain.
I'm afraid that's all we know.

I think he's more Blackbeard. The flavortext so far refers to him basically wanting to burn down the plane to find the thing trapping them there. Plus, I had it pointed out that his name is similar to another Minotaur character, and one of the artworks on the packs here magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/card-preview/ixalan-promos-planeswalker-decks-packaging-and-fnm-tokens-2017-09-01 has a minotaur that's clearly got some fire magic going on.

Narset, at least, has been exploring since then - at the very least, she's been to Kamigawa on more than one occasion, hanging out with Tamiyo and her kids.

I really hope he's a minotaur. We need more non-human planeswalkers. I don't count Kor, Vampires, and Werewolves as non-human.

Old-Jace was an expert manablade fencer. New Jace literally doesn't even know how to make a fist.

Also, New Jace isn't a socially awkward pasty turbonerd: he's an idealized turbonerd with few (if any) embarrasing features. Old Jace was a believable turbonerd who actually bumbled social shit and got sexually frustrated by both Liliana and Emmara.

Yeah. Personally, I especially like it for the Blackbeard angle. Blackbeard lit fuses in his beard so he'd be billowing smoke and look terrifying, so a Minotaur with his horns on a plane without any might just use his fire magic and play up the idea that he's a demon to scare his enemies further.

>world is pretty close to being run by vampires and their dumb religion

I can see from experience where he's coming from

Why is he on pack art if he's not in this set?

Probably just some random instant/sorcery with him as flavor? Pack art is usually of walkers and creatures so it would be kind of odd. Is it confirmed that there are no other Minotaurs? Is he from another plane?

I MUST KNOW

Why do they have the type "pirate" when they are clearly not pirates and rather just help anyone at sea?

The male pirate captain is a planeswalker, a madman and most probably the real villain in the set.

Some of them murder people at sea and others find or take treasure, those are pretty pirate-y things to do.

Assist sailors? They're still pirates (the scourge of the seas), so it's cool.

If they were part of a fishing vessel I might have a different opinion.

He's from another plane. He accidently called a Dino a Dragon when he first got there and the name stuck with his crew. He's also implied to be BR by the cards he's featured in.

That's a hilarious way to reprint a card

I think that the one mana dude will replace neonate in GPG decks

doesn't really do anything similar but maybe that's okay

I dont read much lore, but was there a specefic event that changed Old-Jace into neoJace or did they simply changed the way he was written?

I'll admit, I'm just speculating. All we really know for certain is that he's male, a pirate, and most likely Red due to him having a red creature from his crew.

well he sacrifice himself to fill your yard, not as efficient as neonate but you get to counter some spells

>strong independent black woman
>spent her whole life trying to prevent her people from being sucked into a never ending cycle of death, cared immensely for the few people that were her friends and fought tooth and nail for her goddess and friends

Wow, look at all that race-baiting empowerment they put out there.

>implying the majority of people complaining about Jace have read the stories he's involved in

Their precious donut steel boogeyman is nowhere near the golden child they think he is. If anyone is deserving of criticism within the Gatewatch, it's Nissa.

Liliana killed all his friends and Tezzeret beat him brutally.
Then he went SSJ, beat Tezzeret so hard Bolas had to spend months putting him back together, erased his own mind and walked away.

so why is Liliana part of the gatewatch?

Isnt it the MTG equivallent of the justice league?

He's been fairly consistent. The only time he's been particularly strong is almost killing himself from sheer exertion to break Tezzeret.

No but he's nowhere as cool as uzra

>Glorious, beautiful elf-supremacist
>Embodies the ideals of green mana through fascism
>Turned into a traitorous hippy

Because Jace is a faggot.

I can get behind that theory

When will we get succubus (male) card

Fuck them, if they can make male sirens they can make female demons.

Dinosaurskull Summit just doesn't sound right.

I kinda always liked their female angels / male demons rule

We don't even have succubus (female) cards

We did have male angels in Amonkhet, though, so having female demons on some plane or another wouldn't be entirely out of line at this point.

Yeah, at this point I would -think- it's an inevitability since they broke the female angel rule (though the male ones were created by Bolas so maybe that's why it's different?) but I doubt they'll go for a succubus type demon

but Raptorskull Summit does

I'm pretty sure the idea with the male angels on Amonkhet was that the entire plane was supposed to feel 'off' on purpose. That's why it had White zombies and -1/-1 counters. It was supposed to make it apparent that things weren't normal around there.

We've had male angels in Dominaria and the undisclosed plane where the Malachim are from, decades before Amonkhet.
We will never have female demons because creative thinks it promotes a harmful stereotype.

Well, yeah, but Legends was dumb and the Malachim were from an alien timeline so they didn't feel like they counted.

As long as Maro is in charge we will never get female demons.

I mean if the flavor is that there is a crew that is just sirens then I'll be ok with that.

If the flavor is that sirens have more motivations than just "lol I'm going to kill these sailors by taking them to these here rocks" but they still have singing and flying abilities then that's great.

If WOTC just made male sirens for the heck of it then that would be sad

He said we won't get succubi, not female demons

It just means if we get a female demon it will look closer to Griselbrand

I mean, a demon girl with bone plates and tentacles would be much sexier than a succubus.

I think that just says we won't get succubi. We could still get demons who are feminine, but, y'know, in an inhuman monstrous sort of way, like the way other demons are inhumanly monstrously masculine. Pic may or may not be a good example.

Normally, I don't mind a little bit of SJW pandering. While the arguments can go a bit too far, there's usually an understandable core issue they care about that does need addressing (despite falling into the pessimism trap of everything is hate).

The way MtG does it, however, irks me terribly. The whole idea of the Gatewatch matches the attitudes that "those from outside who have the power are morally obliged to make others have the same views." It's just validating attitudes that cause all the injustice (for lack of a better term) in the first place. Just because you morally agree, it doesn't mean that they're not doing the same thing that those in the past did whom are condemned today. Pandering while trying to promote the Gatewatch just feels wrong.

I just get bugged by a lot of the hypocrisy sometimes. 'We have to prove women are strong and equal! By coddling them like children!' or 'All races bring value with their diversity! Which is why we're going to treat them like a boring checklist to pander to!'

All they're doing is stifling the creativity and freedom of the designers and then saying it's in the name of freedom and creativity.

MaRo doesn't want demon girls that's not the only post where he's said it won't happen.

Well as long as we get more thigh high big titty angels I'm fine with it

Can we at least get a qt Eldrazi-influence planeswalker?

...

I'm not even asking for succubi. I love succubi and everything they represent, but I don't want them in mtg. Fuck anyone who directly asks for succubi. If it happens, fantastic. If not, then drop the subject. Not everyone is fine with semen demons, and that's OK. But ruling out female demons all together seems silly to me.

>I have no counter argument to a valid point so I'll just insult this guys grammar
Go circle jerk somewhere else fag

So we have mannatees.

haha.

>siren creature type
Wtf The Grand Creature Type Update called and want their useless tribes back.

I didn't say I disagreed with him.

They basically threw that out the window with Theros

Reposting for a more relevant thread.
I strongly feel that MTG needs characters like Taarna.
Because you know what? People strive for this shit. Cards like Liliana, Avacyn, and Tesya are extremely popular, both because they're good cards, but because they also have high sex appeal. Tons more people showed up to the EMN gameday because the promise of the Liliana Champion mat is so much more alluring than the anguished unmaking in the last gameday. Strong women can be sexy, so how come they seem to be pushing for the opposite? Why is Admiral Beckett Brass a fat old woman standing in a stoic pose and why are all the swashbucking pirates around her fat? Why did Samut look like a quarter chimpanzee? Why does Tishana look like Tishana?

Sorry for posting this twice in one day, and I really hope this doesn't come off as "I NEED MORE SEXY CARDS", but I've been thinking a lot about this lately.

What's the point then?

But she is an unrealistic object of manlust.

I honestly think it's a problem with the art direction in general. It feels like they're trying to play it 'safe' in many regards, which, when combined with their new reliance on more digital art, means that you get more characters in plain styles with lame poses, most likely because someone higher up demanded it.

To use Samut as an example, her creature card looks very off. The chestpiece on her armor bulges out, and her facial expression looks ridiculous. It's very much something that seems like the artist didn't care or had drawn something and then was told to revise it several times to make her armor less sexual or make her look angrier or something.

Then you look at her planeswalker card, where she's just sort of standing there with two swords looking stern. Not only that, but her armor is not only less bulky, but the straps have swapped direction. Again, this just feels like they had put it off and simply needed to get it done.

Pic related, however, is a much better depiction of her. She's properly in focus, the pose gets across the fact that she's supposed to be a very fast character. Her expression is angry and serious, but not to the degree that it is silly or boring. Not only that, but her face also doesn't look like somebody erased it 50 times due to someone demanding they redraw it, probably because this art was simply on some random common.

We aren't going to have important cards with good art anymore I feel, because those are the ones that will be most subject to scrutiny and be art designed by committee. And even that doesn't work, because they'll mess up simple shit like the straps on someone's armor.

Wait, that's samut? It doesn't look like her at all!

It's those SJW's man. They see the people that want sexy cards for the sake of it and the people like you and can't distinguish the two.

Yep. It's from Blur of Blades. Flavortext says it's her, and they even used it for one of her article stories.

The big difference is here, she actually has good art, looks nice, and has a normal facial expression.

This. I expect each world to just be worse than the last, and so far I don't seem wrong. Cthulhu monsters, cthullu monsters in gothic land, indian steampunk, plain old egyptian mythology, and now we're at hearthstone-levels of pirates versus dinosaurs RAWR!

I'm actually curious as to how they will shoehorn the return to Dominaria into their new, narrow imaginations. I think MaRo already said that they will try to give Dominaria a "theme" like all the other recent sets, but I'm wondering exactly how they plan on doing that (and how badly it will mar what is currently a really cool world).

Samut actually looks really cool here. Her armor's pretty dope

Yeah, I actually really like it composition wise. You can actually pick out a lot of details of her outfit that you can't from other angles due to the range of motion she's showing off.

I guarantee you'd have half as much bitching about her if this was her actual card art instead.