Three-Color Amonkhet and Dominaria Return

Deep Analysis by Jesper Ejsing

Disclaimer: this is a speculation/prediction blog post on yet-to-be-released Magic: The Gathering products (as of the time of this writing). This was published before the Spring 2017 Announcement Day (March 31st, 2017). I have not obtained access to any sort of leaked information regarding Amonkhet or products releasing after Amonkhet. If something like this doesn't interest you, I wouldn't recommend reading further.

Too Long, Didn't Read

For those who want to get right into the good stuff, here's the list of predictions I'm making:

• Amonkhet will have three-color arc (shard) Gods
• Multicolor Traps and Curses will debut in Amonkhet
• Amonkhet will have Magic's first Naya-colored planeswalker
• Amonkhet will have a Simic-colored Nissa
• Garruk will return in Hour of Devastation
• Amonkhet block's Masterpiece Series will feature gold cards
• Duel Decks: Ajani vs. Tezzeret will release in the Fall
• Commander 2017 will be five decks of two-color ally combinations
• The Fall block will take place somewhere in Dominaria
• The third Un-set will either release in August 2017 or sometime in 2018 or 2019
• NOTE: If the third Un-set product will be releasing sometime between Spring 2017 and Spring 2018, then the announcement of the third Un-set may be on either March 31st, 2017 or April 1st, 2017

No predictions attempted for:

• From the Vault series
• Masters series (Modern Masters, Eternal Masters, Vintage Masters)

Read further for details on how I arrived at the predictions:

Three-Color Arc (Shard) Gods

Amonkhet marketing material mentions five trials of the five gods. Five means color factions. Gods means return of God creature type. We need something new for Gods. We need three-color Gods.

We just had four-color cards in Commander 2016. And monocolored and two-color Gods have already been done. This leaves three colors. Khans of Tarkir was more recent than Shards of Alara. Best to do Shards of Alara's arc colors.

I also arrived at this conclusion from three other vantage points: studying the art of the Gods, the marketing material regarding the trials of the five gods, and the booster packaging for Amonkhet.

For the packaging, a large set normally has five different types of art on booster packs. Amonkhet is no different. Usually, three of the five booster packs feature planeswalkers that will be in the set (An exception to this was featuring Elspeth and two gods for Theros packs).

But the hard(er) exception to the three-planeswalkers-out-of-five-booster-pack-wrappings is when there are five factions featured for the set. Return to Ravnica and Khans of Tarkir were five-faction sets that contained five different booster wrappings. When it comes to this case, non-planeswalkers are chosen for the booster pack depictions, one for each faction. When we look at Amonkhet's booster pack wrappings, this seems to be the case, supporting the claim for five factions for Amonkhet (in this case, five three-color arc factions).

Then there's the art of the five gods that have been released gives some clues. Studying the art for each of these gods reveals the kind of colors associated with these gods. Usually, art for a card tends to use colors or depictions within the art that tie themselves toward the color(s) of the card itself. Usually.

Let's take a look at them:

The Bird God is the one floating highest in the sky. Flying is attributed toward white and blue most of all. But black has flying at third. The colors of the background show whiteness to the clouds, and blue hues overall. But also some heavy shadows, to indicate some black mana.

As for Birds, most of them are marked for white, blue, then black.

This is an Esper-colored God.

The Cat God has the most troublesome art. There's not much greenery going on in any of the God art. There's a bit for the Snake God. And the art in this shows some black going on. And there's mummies. White-aligned zombies? Anyway, other vantage points clue me in to the decision to mark this as a Naya-colored God. For example, Cats are most prominent in red, green, and white. Another push toward Naya. Lastly, the top three colors for Archers (there's a bow wielded by this Cat God) is white, green, and red (red narrowly defeats blue and black).

Finally, there have been art that uses colors or depictions that you wouldn't think tie themselves toward the color(s) of the card the art is for. An example is Athreos, God of Passage. There isn't much that leads me to believe Athreos is a white god in terms of colors used (the blindfold it has gives the sense of white).  There's so much green color. You might also think it's a mono-black God, if not a Golgari-colored God.

The Crocodile God depicts zombies, yo. Some dark ones. And there's a huge overcast. There's some black mana going on here. There's a red dusk color. Red.

Crocodiles are mostly in green. Combine all these factors together, and you get a Jund-colored God.

The Hound God. Or, the "Jackal", most famous for being a God of Death. Appropriately, this is the darkest-colored piece of art. Lots of shadow intensity. There's also a red dusk color prominent in the art. Yet, some blue is coloring the sky to make some purple look as well. With black being the center for death, this makes sense as the Grixis God.

Interestingly, the creature type association here doesn't hold up for Hounds. There's only one blue Hound, and that was a bend to make it a part of a cycle of Hounds.

Laslty, the Snake God. This one is the brightest-hued of them all, leading me to believe that there is no black color in this. There's a waterfall. Blue. But Snakes are mostly green. Its organized command over the smaller guys has a sense of order and structure that white likes. This God is Bant-colored.

Lastly, there's the marketing material for the Trials of the Five Gods. The five trials are: Solidarity, Knowledge, Ambition, Strength, and Zeal.

Here's the breakdown I have:

• Snake God of Solidarity: Green, White, Blue
• Bird God of Knowledge: White, Blue, Black
• Hound God of Ambition: Blue, Black, Red
• Crocodile God of Strength: Black, Red, Green
• Cat God of Zeal: Red, Green, White

For Solidarity, I tied it to the Snake God because the card Solidarity is centered in white. But also that it seems to be standing together with its followers.

Zeal is most found in red and white. You get passionate about doing what's right, whether it's breaking free of the rigidity of law or enforcing order to prevent reckless negative infliction toward society. When you pair red and white, you can get green to meet in the middle. And when you have white, red, and green, you can have Cats. Or Archers. Tied to the Cat God then.

One way to attain strength is to collect in high numbers. That's what the Crocodile God is doing. And black values attaining strength, red using strength to solve problems, and green's natural "survival of the fittest". Strength belongs to Jund. It belongs to the Crocodile God.

The pursuit of knowledge can often be a solitary endeavor, especially as you attain higher and higher amounts of knowledge - you get less peers. The Bird God is far and away from its followers, seemingly in a state of philosophizing. Besides, blue is THE color for knowledge, which is the central color for the Esper-colored Bird God.

Lastly, we get Ambition. Black has ambition. The Hound God is most tied toward black. But, also, incidentally, for Theros - there was a similar marketing campaign, for the monocolored Gods of that world. And the black color's association? Ambition. Seeing as the Grixis Hound God has its central color in black, this one's a shoo-in.

Multi-Color Traps and Curses

Traps! Those debuted in the original Zendikar block.
Curses! Those debuted in the original Innistrad block.

So, why wheren't those brought back in the retun to the worlds of Zendikar and Innistrad? Well, besides only focusing on what was best and most memorable of the original blocks and cutting the rest (which is an important thing to do, especially when you wanna include new stuff and twists), not including Curses and Traps means you can save them for another appropriate time.

Pop culture Egyptian mythology includes traps that guard the tombs of dead kings. But also curses that can befall upon peoples. Amonkhet would be great for those to return to Magic. After all, there are TRIALS that the denizens of this plane train their whole lives for. It could be that the challenges involve traps and curses.

But what fresh twist can we do to make Traps and Curses exciting? Ah. Every Curse and Tap has been monocolored so far. Gold Traps and Curses it is!

The First Naya-Colored Planeswalker

Whenever we move to a plane focused on multicolor, it's an opportunity to have an abundance of multicolor planeswalkers. Shards of Alara block had its first Grixis planeswalker and a then a couple multicolor ones. Return to Ravnica block had Vraska, Domri Rade, and Ral Zarek. Khans of Tarkir is a little weird in that it wasn't designed to be a multicolor block. Even then, we got a Temur-colored Sarkhan Vol. As a surprise, Tamiyo became Bant-colored, which fills in yet more of the missing three-color combos for planeswalkers. And then there's this block.

When doing a three-color-focused set, we have a strong opportunity for this. Hour of Devastation will already have Nicol Bolas. And I feel having one three-color planeswalker per set of Amonkhet block would be best. So, Amonkhet - but why Naya?

I think the colors most far and away from Grixis would be good, to balance out colors across planeswalkers in the block. But also a focus on what HASN'T been done before. We're not doing wedge colors. Tamiyo did Bant. And Esper and Jund are both too close to Bolas' Grixis colors. That leaves Naya.

NOTE: When I say Naya-colored planeswalker, I just mean red, green white. Not from Naya. Though, it definitely is possible to have a planeswalker from Naya (see: Tamiyo)

Simic-Colored Nissa

When viewing the planeswalkers in any one particular block, the colors tend to try to be evenly divided across the colors. Gideon being white and Liliana being black, along with Nicol bolas being black, red, and blue. And when you take into account the Naya planeswalker mentioned above, you get the following for the number of colors represented:

White: 2
Blue: 2
Black: 2
Red: 2
Green: 1

There's some room for green for the remaining two planeswalkers. Now, let's look at something else:

If you look at each two-color combination and associate it with the most recent planeswalker card of that two-color combination,  you get this:

GREEN WHITE: Ajani (Aether Revolt, 1 set ago)
WHITE BLUE: Dovin (Kaladesh, 2 sets ago)
BLUE BLACK: Tezzeret (Aether Revolt, 1 set ago)

BLACK RED: Daretti (Conspiracy 2, 3 sets ago)

RED GREEN: Arlinn (Shadows over Innistrad, 5 sets ago)

GREEN BLUE: Kiora (Battle for Zendikar, 5 sets ago)
WHITE BLACK: Kaya (Conspiracy 2, 3 sets ago)

BLUE RED: Saheeli (Kaladesh, 2 sets ago)

BLACK GREEN: Garruk (Magic 2015, FOREVER AGO)

RED WHITE: Nahiri (Shadows Over Innistrad, 5 sets ago)

Now, you notice that a Golgari-colored planeswalker is the one that most needs a new planeswalker card. As it so happens, I'm predicting Garruk will come back, so more on that in the next section. That leaves Simic-colored planeswalker being due for a new card. And, in this case, Kiora is the only planeswalker to be Simic-colored. At least Vraska keeps Garruk company.

We need another planeswalker character to join the ranks of Simic. Could be a new character or an existing character getting a touch of blue, at least perhaps temporarily (see: Bant Tamiyo).

With Bant colors already done with Tamiyo recently, it's clear that a new Simic-colored walker is the way to go, which would still slot into Bant-colored decks just fine.

So, my guess is that Nissa will return but in Simic colors.

Garruk Returns in Hour of Devastation

Garruk the Slayer by Brad Rigney

Garruk's been away in the story a while. He's not dead. But he hunts planeswalkers. The most powerful ones. And who is more powerful than Nicol Bolas? Also, black-green needs a new planeswalker card. Lastly - who else is on Amonkhet besides the most powerful planeswalker? Liliana.

Recently, there's been a trend of four planeswalkers in the large set and two planeswalkers in the small set. The two in the small set tend to be related toward the main plotline. The large set has the most room for planeswalkers involved in a side plot. Since the new Simic walker I think would likely not be the most involved in the main characters, I'd put it in Amonkhet and Garruk in Hour of Devastation, to separate out the green walkers. And, besides - it could be that Garruk either redeems his monstrous form or harnesses it and the power of all the planeswalkers he's killed to become a very powerful force to face Nicol Bolas.

After all, both he and Bolas share the distinction of being the only two to be made a main villain focus in Core Sets (Magic 2013 for Bolas and Magic 2015 for Garruk).

Amonkhet Masterpiece Series Features Gold Cards

As of Kaladesh, Wizards announced that it would have a Masterpiece series for every block going forward, that has a theme fitting to the setting. Zendikar Expeditions was about land. Kaladesh Inventions was about artifacts. With both those colorless card types out of the way, what's the next most exciting thing that fits this gold-carded block? Oh! How about awesome gold cards?

This one's a more risky guess. It could be that desert oasis type of cards are featured. But... that doesn't seem as exciting as having awesome dual lands or utilizing those powerful artifacts. Gold cards are more exciting. We like gold. It's shiny.

Duel Decks: Ajani vs. Tezzeret

Duel Decks with planeswalkres duking it out feature the block that came before, usually. We had Nissa and Ob Nixilis fight each other in last year's Fall Duel Decks. This year's Fall Duel Decks would strongly be placed in Kaladesh.

Looking at Mind vs. Might, we already have Jhoira popping up. Saheeli would be yet another Izzet walker. And then there's red in both the Mind deck and Might deck. Best to leave out Chandra this time - to avoid yet another red-focused Duel Deck. And Nissa already had her turn recently.

With Mind vs. Might, we don't have white, green, or black represented for the year of 2017 so far. Ajani takes care of white and green while Tezzeret opposing him with blue and black would make for a nice rounding off of the colors so that any player looking at recent products might find something that appeals to them.

Sorry, Chandra. I know it's been a while since you've been in a Duel Deck. But you, Ajani, and Tezzeret have all been in Duel Decks once before. And Chandra is most likely to return yet again in a future block and might have another chance at getting included in a second Duel Deck.

Commander 2017 will Have Two-Color Ally Decks

Meren of Clan Nel Toth by Mark Wenters

This one's a really easy guess. The Commander series of products have featured each three-color combination, two-color enemy pairs, and four-color commanders. It's time to finish the pattern and put the last puzzle piece in and make Commander decks focused on two-color ally legendary creatures.

It's interesting that four-color jumped to last year instead of being the last in the cycle. There could have been multiple reasons. But it could be that it would be better to balance out the year of 2017 with three-color legendary creatures for the Commander players in Amonkhet followed by two-color legendary creatures later in the Fall (along with whatever the Dominaria-located block will have).

Speaking of Dominaria...

The Fall Block will Take Place Somewhere in Dominaria

This claim is being made for several reasons:

• Mind vs. Might Duel Decks features characters from Dominaria
• After two back-to-back blocks of new worlds, it might be time to revisit an old one
• Ravnica, Innisrad, Zendikar, Mirrodin have all been done. What's left for popular planes? Dominaria!
• Dominaria is long-overdue for a return; besides, where should a new Jace card appear in? (Last one was in Shadows over Innistrad whereas all the other Gatewatch members will have had new cards by the time the Fall set comes out.)

No Predictions for From the Vault or Masters Series

I haven't found a pattern to be able to puzzle out and confidently say what will come next for From the Fault. Some stuff like "Demons" seems obvious to do, but who knows when the correct timing for that will be.

As for the Masters series, the next year seems like a toss-up: will Eternal Masters 2018 happen or not? Did it get received well? Will there just be a focus on Vintage Masters for Magic Online? I'd rather not make a prediction.

However, the bumping up of Modern Masters to Spring is curious, which leads me to...

Third Un-Set in August 2017 OR Sometime 2018 or 2019

I know, a more broad prediction. This one's the wild card. As it should be.

Conspiracy 2 was last year. And we can't have a repeated Conspiracy 3 this year - at least not an equivalent. Will From the Vault try to fill in those shoes in August with something cool? Or will there be something else for the Conspiracy-loving crowd?

The players that love Conspiracy has some overlap with the players who love Unglued and Unhinged. And Modern Masters got pumped up to Spring this year. And Conspiracy was last year. What to do? Release Un-set 3. Also, Annoucnement Day is taking place March 31st, 2017 - in the evening. Which is awfully close to April 1st, 2017. April 1st has been a time when Unhinged was announced. Perhaps the same will be utilized here.

Keep in mind that, since Un-sets are unconventional, so may be the announcements. The announcement may be delayed until April 1st. But also may just happen during March 31st, to prep you for the site's update on April 1st, whatever that will look like (Daily MTG has had a joke makeover before for April Fool's Day). The announcement could also be quite hidden.

What makes me doubt whether the third Un-set will release in August 2017 is the full-art lands in Amonkhet. Un-sets are notorious for the full-art lands. Since Battle for Zendikar block and then Amonkhet block featuring full-art lands: it seems like we should wait at least a year for the third Un-set just because of the full-art land.

And if we wait for 2018, that's when Conspiracy 3 might take place. So then the off-year of 2019 would be great for it.

Lastly, 2018 would be Unglued's 20th year anniversary. It might be a good time to bring a third Un-set into Magic for that year.

But, yeah, if a third Un-set is coming this year, August 2017 is the time to do it.

Appropriately Long, Did Read

Some predictions I have more confidence in than others. But I figured I'd do a little bit of reaching anyway for some of the ones I'm not so confident in. Just in case it'd be a fantastic guess. Thanks for reading the lengthy part of this post. =)

Amonkhet Promotional Art, Artist Unknown

Having a Good Knight

Art by Jason Chan

Over on Goblin Artisans, this weekend's art challenge is on knights. Five pieces of art were provided for use, though, other knight-related creative commons art can be used.

Here's the challenge prompt:

Hello to you all! This week we re-examine knights!
White Knight and Black Knight have been re-imagined many times over in mtg. Nowadays we do not have protections to mirror those knights!
Choose one of the illustrations and re-imagine what a knight does when it is tied to a specific color.

Knight Life

The very first Knights in Magic have the abilities of first strike and protection. With protection not being an ability that is only supported rarely lately, this begs the question: what makes a Knight a Knight in Magic?

I reviewed many Knight-related Magic cards and have concluded that one or more of the following may be true for any one particular Knight-related Magic card:

• If the knight or knights depicted within the art each riding a steed, it sometimes means the card's design has bigger power and toughness stats than if the art depicted a singular creature without a mount. For example, Goblin Roughrider is a Goblin creature, but the 3/2 body for a vanilla Goblin only makes sense because it is riding that crazy mount.

• Knights have vigilance for one or more of a few reasons: 1) they're riding steeds, so they can gallop forward to do an attack and then gallop back to your side to defend you; 2) Knights swore to protect you and are vigilant to not fail in that regard; 3) Knights are great at combat. Truefire Paladin is an example of a steed-less Knight that still has vigilance - so numbers 2 and 3 may apply toward this guy.

• Knights are great at combat. This overlaps with the last bullet point. One of the expressions of this may be vigilance, as seen above, but it could be one of many combat-related abilities. The "first" expression of this fact was on White Knight and Black Knight having first strike. Later Knights have had vigilance, double strike, and flanking. Sometimes, a block-related keyword is used instead, like battle cry. For these abilities, they can be expressed for different reasons, whether the Knight just has more training in combat, because they're wielding a lance, or they're riding a horse. For example, a Knight depicted riding a horse is reason enough for flanking. In addition to Truefire Paladin above showing off its ability to have both vigilance and first strike (and without a horse - what a badass!), Femeref Knight is an example of Knight showing off its multiple awesome-at-warfare abilities but not necessarily a larger body for horse reasons.

• Sometimes, a Knight is a Knight only because it rides a steed. But this is useful because some mounts have flying which in turn enables creature types that wouldn't normally be able to fly to be able to fly. How else are you going to get flying cat people like Leonin Skyhunter, especially when white is the piece of the color pie that is supposed to be great at both creatures and flying? Well, besides making comical, makeshift hang-gliders like Goblin Sky Raider does.

•  Knights are sworn to protect us from and destroy evil. Now, remember that "evil" does not mean the color black. Evil is whatever attacks your values. So each color's Knight is going to consider different things as evil. White Knight had protection from black. Silver Knight has protection from red. These are pure expressions of how white considers what red and black do as evil and are devoted to that cause. Granted, white is really good at going after evil. See Pentarch Paladin, Tivador of Thorn, Fiendslayer Paladin, and Lightwielder Paladin. Lastly, renown and exalted are other examples of how Knights may care to head into combat to destroy the evil that is your opponent. Phyrexian Crusader is a good example of this devotion to destroy evil. It eschews the fact that black usually hates on green and white in favor of the fact that the mirrans are aligned mostly in white and red, so this Phyrexian has no problem hating on black's ally color, red.

•  Knights are great at rallying the troops. Literally rallying in the case of Hero of Goma Fada but this is expressed in other ways as well, such as with Kabira Vindicator boosting your armies and doing nothing else. Hero of Bladehold gets bystanders who might not otherwise have decided to fight to jump into the fray as 1/1 Soldiers. Wilt-Leaf Liege and the rest of the Liege cycle are excellent examples of how a Knight can purely be about rousing your armies and not expressing its Knight-ness via other ways such as first strike or vigilance.

 Bonus: some red-aligned troop rallying:

•  Knights have status. Well, it's probably how they got their horse or their excellent armor or was able to be afforded good training in combat. Or, in Attended Knight's case, you have a Squire.

 Knight in Gale

 

With the above established, I sought to design a Knight but which color do I choose? I chose to go with the color that hasn't been as fleshed out with Knight execution: green. Green has a whopping 1 creature that is monocolored, Gladehart Cavalary.

Moreover, this card was just released today to the public, in Oath of the Gatewatch! Welcome to the Knight Club, mono-green. Notice that this Knight is expressing its Knight traits by having a large body and by supporting its troops.

Besides, green's knight art for this Weekend Art Challenge has a moose and that's adorable. Check out the art I'm working with:

Art by blayrd

If you've followed my Daily Card Redesign series in the past, you'll know that I often like to match my card designs with what's going on in the art, so I'm going to let that influence me in addition to coming up with a design that also fits what I envision a green knight should currently be or do design/gameplay-wise. A confluence of both those things.

To Knight

 

Now, expressing all of a Knight's aspects as pointed out above would be nearly impossible, I'd imagine. It's all right to just focus on one or two. This happens with any sort of concept, like the idea of Goblins.

Goblins are portrayed in Magic as being dumb, like with the flavor texts of Goblin Piker and Skirk Fire Marshal. Goblins are expendable, as seen in Goblin Sledder and Goblin Grenade. They also like to tease or play pranks, shown in the cards Jeering Instigator and Goblin Battle Jester. Lastly, they tinker (read: poke, prod, and eventually blow up) with artifacts, like with Goblin Welder and "Goblin Archaeologist."

I'm not sure there's ever been a Goblin depicted as dumb, expendable, pranking, and tinkering all at once. But that sounds like a fun challenge for another time. Anyway, back to Knights - we only need to show Knight-ness in at least one way for this green Knight.

The most important thing to do for this assignment, though, is to create a Knight that might be lumped in with category of Knights that White Knight and Black Knight are - what Knights used to be. Blood Knight was a later addition to this "grouping" of classic Knights. Re-imagine and design like that for nowadays. So, we'll examine what aspects of Knights above that would remind us of the classic Knight design of White Knight and Black Knight.

Knight Vision

 

White Knight and Black Knight exemplified qualities of "swearing to destroy evil" (protection) as well as its ability to be adept in combat via first strike. This "destroy evil" thing intrigues me, so we'll go with that.

I did some brainstorming off-screen here, and it's a messy (but awesome) process sometimes, and I landed with caring about abilities that represent the enemy colors but are shared with green as well. The same applies for every other color in this cycle. I'm only mocking up green, but here's the text form of what each color would care about:

• White: lifelink, first strike
• Blue: hexproof, prowess
• Black: deathtouch, lifelink
• Red: first strike, prowess
• Green: deathtouch, hexproof

So, for each color, the Knight would have those abilities (not bad, for each creature) and then would not able to be blocked by any creatures that have either of those abilities. We're not doing protection anymore, and I wanted to find a simple perhaps-combat-oriented way to show the hate so that it could still prevail against this "evil." I chose "can't be blocked" as the way the Knight prevails and the "evil" to be represented by the abilities its enemies also share.

You might say it's ironic that this creature can't block an opponent's copy of this Knight. Perhaps, as a show of respect to each other's devotion, they don't hurt each other. And what about fellow green creatures that have hexproof and deathtouch - perhaps this Knight's mastery means it knows how to evade such creatures that shares its traits.

Lastly, coming back to the art, you might be wondering why a moose-riding, unassuming Knight can do hexproof and deathtouch. If you look more closely at the art, there's magical, glowing green vines surrounding the Knight. These vines can restrain and choke creatures to death as well as wrap around the Knight and protect him or her from spells. =)

Knight Cap

So, here's my design:

I decided to have "card name during development" fun and did a double pun for its title. "Jaded", like with the color green; and "Vineguard", as in "vanguard", because he or she is a Knight. But has vines surrounding him or her.

Anyway, so, a black Knight in this cycle would have deathtouch and lifelink and it would also say "CARDNAME can't be blocked by creatures with deathtouch or lifelink."

I also made this a Human instead of Elf (seems dressed like a Human, anyway) since Humans can be any of the five colors, and that'd be fitting to mirror the creature types for the cycle as "Human Knight."

O.K., that's it! What do you think?

Concerns I have: I know, it costs 4 mana and that sucks, but I think I had to cost it that high based on how much it should cost to get hexproof, let alone deathtouch, onto the table. Also, I wonder if this Knight would end up being un-fun to play with if you just left this forever on your side as a good threatening blocker (like you do with your Deathtouch Snakes and Rats). Then again, protecting you IS Knight-like. In the end, it should feel fun, but I haven't playtested this card.

Also, not sure if I got the order of abilities of "deathtouch" and "hexproof" correct along with the rest of the templating. I THINK so, but not sure.

Cheers,
Bradley

Commander 2015 and Enemy Dual-Color Commanders Speculation

Kruphix's Insight by Igor Kieryluk

Let me start by saying that this is a speculation piece on a theoretical future Magic: The Gathering product. A product called Commander 2015, as of the time of this writing, has not been announced by Wizards of the Coast. I am not privy to any leaked information related to such a product. Lastly, while this blog post itself does not contain any card designs that aren't released Magic cards, some of the links in this post do lead to unofficial, original card designs.

Too Long, Didn't Read

The short version of this blog post: Commander 2015 will be announced this weekend at San Diego Comic-Con and will have enemy dual-color commanders.

On Four-Color Cards

I know I might sound like a broken record when it comes to talking about four-color cards. I've written an article series on designing a four-color set. I've speculated that Dragon's Maze would have four-color cards (Dragon's Maze fell short of my prediction of four-color cards by releasing three-color cards). I've also re-surfaced the four-color subject recently with my writing on solving the problem of easily communicating to players what cards are vanilla creatures if there were to be a four-color "faction" that cared about vanilla creatures in a "four colors matters" set.

I firmly believe four-color cards have a place in Magic: The Gathering beyond the mere five four-color Nephilim cards that were printed years ago. Some folks point out how difficult it would be to design four-color cards. This is very true. I'm not discounting that an expansion set with a world featuring "four colors matters" would be hard to create, but I don't think it's impossible. If Magic is going to survive for many more years, "four colors matters" has to be a design space that is mined at some point in the future.

It's because of these factors that I passionately talk about four-color cards so much, until they're proven to be a thing by Wizards of the Coast. I guess if it weren't for four-color cards, I'd be talking about Gnomes in Magic: The Gathering more. This is the part where I say, "But I digress."

Hypothesis

Wheel of Fate by Kev Walker

For this writing, I'm speculating once again - this time about Commander 2015. The hypothesis I have is that there will be five pre-constructed decks, just like with each of the previous Commander products (except Commander's Arsenal, of course), each one with a color identity that is one of the five four-color combinations enemy color pairs. The reasons why I say this has to do with what has already been released in previous Commander products, timing, and current needs in the Commander format.

So, during my writing and research, I came to a conclusion that the Commander 2015 product will feature enemy dual-color commanders and NOT four-color commanders. I began writing this with the original hypothesis for four-color commanders and came out of it believing the opposite!

Wedge Commanders

Riku of Two Reflections by Izzy

Back when just Commander 2011 was released, the color combinations that were chosen for the decks were the three-color "wedges." It was a strong choice for two reasons: 1) three-color commanders are popular; and 2) there was only one commander choice for Commander decks with a wedge color identity. In fact, this need for more wedge-color commanders was called out on the product information page for Commander 2011:

These combinations have been woefully short-supplied on legendary creatures, so each deck contains the corresponding Planar Chaos Dragon (such as Intet, the Dreamer) as well as two new legendary commanders in those colors, plus oversized foil versions of all three.

Additional new commanders of note, released in other products in-between Commander 2011 and Commander 2013:

• The colorless Eldrazi
• Some mono-color commanders in Magic 2012
• A few new and a few reprinted commanders in Planechase 2012
• A whopping 20 two-color commanders that were created during Return to Ravnica block.

Shard/Arc Commanders

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician by Michael Komarck

For Commander 2013 (there was no "Commander 2012" product), the three-color "shards" (or, "arcs") were chosen as the color identities for yet another set of five precons. A safe choice, since three-color commanders, as stated before, are popular. The two-color combinations could have been pursued, but they weren't because Return to Ravnica had already done good work on two-color commanders, as noted in Mark Rosewater's article on designing Commander 2013:

The team examined one-, two-, three-, four-, and five-color options. It decided against two-color decks because the product was going to be coming out shortly after the Return to Ravnica block, which would be hitting the theme strongly.

Then Theros happened, and gave us more commanders, with at least one for every possible mono-color and two-color combination.

Conspiracy also provided five reprints and five new commanders, of varying color combinations.

Mono-color Commanders

Teferi, Temporal Archmage by Tyler Jacobson

When it came to Commander 2014, the next-most-popular color combinations were chosen to be featured in five precons, which turned out to be monocolor, as Ethan Fleischer noted when seeing Devon Rule's article, "1,000 Commander Decks,":

I had recently read an article by Devon Rule, "1,000 Commander Decks," where my fellow Great Designer Search 2 finalist and current Commander rules committee member broke down 1,000 decklists submitted by members of the mtgcommander.net community. Hmmm...monocolored decks were surprisingly popular!

And so mono-colored Commanders were created for Commander 2014 - a planeswalker commander, a new legendary creature, and a reprinted mono-colored commander.

Continuing the contributions the year of 2014 made toward mono-colored commanders:

• Dragons of Tarkir contains four new mono-colored commanders.
• Also, Magic Origins, which will be releasing later this month, will provide ten more mono-colored commanders, five of which will be planeswalkers. 
• There are also a few reprints of mono-colored commanders in Modern Masters 2015. It's an exciting time for mono-colored commander fans.

Besides mono-colored commanders created during Fall of 2014, there have been these multicolored ones, leading up until now:

• Ten ally dual-colored Dragon commanders
• Five sneakily-three-color commanders
• Five not-so-sneakily-three-color commanders

Commander 2015 Commanders = ???

Teferi's Puzzle Box by Donato Giancolo

So what color combinations should Commander 2015 be? Since Commander 2014 had just done mono-colored commanders, that option should be thrown out. All three-color combinations have already been done at least once. That leaves two-color, four-color, and five-color.

For two-color commanders, ally dual-color commanders shouldn't the focus for Commander 2015 since we just got ten new ones during Khans of Tarkir block.

Enemy dual-color commander representation, though, haven't seen any new ones created since Journey into Nyx. It's been over a year! Though, one could say that each of the five sneakily-three-color commanders can be played as if it were a two-color commander, but it's pretty weak for enemy dual-color commander representation, I would think. Battle for Zendikar, if it's going to be anything like either of Zendikar block or Rise of Eldrazi, then we're probably not going to see enemy dual-colored commanders in that set.

I have this belief that Wizards has this tiny goal of trying to make sure there's a bunch of new commanders for as many color combinations as possible within a reasonable amount of time. Let's take three-color commanders as an example. Wizards did a good job with Commander 2011 having three-color commanders which led to Commander 2013 having three-color commanders. Just when you thought that might be the end of the road for a while for three-color commanders, a block was done that had three-color commanders.

Another example are the dual-color commanders. Return to Ravnica block gave new commanders for every one of the ten combinations. Following that, Theros block did the same, with the Gods. Even Khans of Tarkir block had the ally dual-color Dragons in a block that started off with wedge three-color commanders.

Lastly, the mono-color commanders have had excellent support in the Core Sets as well as within Khans of Tarkir block and Commander 2014.

Whether it's Archenemy, Planechase, Conspiracy, Commander, or a new block; Wizards has plenty of opportunities to ensure new commanders for various color combinations.

And it's at this point where I realize that the possibility for enemy dual-color commanders is higher than four-color commanders. Given the following facts:

• I think Wizards might care a little bit about the commander crowd seeing new commanders for their favorite color combinations within a "reasonable amount of time" (2 years), at least until there's PLENTY of options to choose from for commanders of any color combination
• May 2014 was the last time we saw new enemy dual-color commanders
• Battle for Zendikar might not feature enemy dual-color commanders
• One of the reasons for not doing four-color commander decks for Commander 2013 is because there were no four-color commanders that already exist that could be reprinted, just like what has been done for each commander product for their respective color combinations: two new commanders and a reprinted commander

Even if the summer product in 2016 has enemy dual-color commanders, that feels like it's too long to wait for new enemy dual-color commanders. It's time to do new ones this year in Commander 2015. 

Four-Gone Conclusion

Ancestral Vision by Mark Poole

Sorry, four-color commanders. You're going to have to wait. You might just have to wait until a four-color set is released at some point then wait a bit more to have the commanders in that theoretical four-color set to be reprinted in the even-more-into-the-distant-future Commander product.

Fall Commander products have historically been announced in July, during San Diego Comic-Con. The past couple years, Comic-Con was around the end of the month. This year, though, Comic-Con is earlier in this month. In fact, this weekend! Will Wizards still have a Commander announcement during their panel? I think so! And maybe the announcement will be that there will be new enemy dual-color commanders (perhaps with some exciting new twist or mechanic?). And if I'm wrong and it's four-color commanders, I'll just shed a tear (of happiness). 

Card Core Design #4: Origins

Art by Karla Ortiz

Magic Origins was announced. I was wondering why it hadn't been announced before the time it did due to the previous Core Sets usually being announced earlier than this. But it looks like the decision was made to announce it was during Pro Tour Fate Reforged, which was pretty great!

The set was originally announced to have 277 cards, but it actually has 272 cards. Five cards. Five planeswalkers. Speculation on reddit is stating that these extra five is probably due to the fact that each of the planeswalkers are probably double-faced cards, one side legendary creature, the other side planeswalker. This theory goes hand-in-hand with the theme of the set - the origins of each planeswalker, before their spark ignited, before they were planeswalkers.

Fork

Working on this Core Set, I knew that since this was the final core set to exist for now that all the rules that had been established for Core Sets before can be thrown out.

Chandra was the face of Magic 2014. Garruk was the face of Magic 2015. Liliana had a reprint as a planeswalker card in Magic 2015 leaving her due for another new version of her. Nissa, Jace, and Ajani had room to be reprints for another year for this year's Core Set. So, I thought we would get a black planeswalker as the face, either Liliana or Sorin.

Each core set starting from Magic 2011 had a returning keyword mechanic. Undying was an eligible choice for this year's core set. But the final core set being a final core set changes the rules. Thus, Magic Origins.

I've got a few paths I could take, two of which being obvious choices: 1) Attempt to emulate what Magic Origins will eventually reveal itself to be with my designs from now on; 2) Continue making an undying core set and pay no mind to what Magic Origins will turn out to be. I've chosen path #2.

It's more important to me to design a set I can call my own than for those moments where I can say, "called it!" Even though the latter is satisfying when you arrive to that answer through Magic design-minded conclusions. So, I'm going to branch off into the Core Set: Undying path.

Fork by Amy Weber

Christmas Time

Let's get back to it, then. Last time, I established what basic card effects were present in the colors white, blue, and black - and chose which effects and in what number they will show up in this core set. Let's finish this for red and green.

	Undying	M15	M14	M13	M12	M11	M10
RED
Direct damage to creature or player	2	2	2	2	4	2	2
Power buff	2	3	2	2	1	1	2
Destroy artifact	1	1	2	1	1	2	1
Grant first strike	1	1	2	1	1	1	1
Direct damage to player	1	1	1	0	2	1	1
Direct damage to creature and player	1	0	1	1	1	1	0
Land destruction	1	0	1	1	0	1	1
Looting	1	1	2	2	0	0	1
Creature(s) can't block this turn	1	1	2	1	0	0	1
Small buff	1	1	0	1	1	1	0
Direct damage to creature	1	3	0	1	0	0	1
Grant haste	1	1	0	0	1	0	1
Temporary creature steal	1	0	1	0	1	1	0
Grant firebreathing	0	0	0	0	1	1	1
Grant "can't be blocked"	0	0	0	0	1	1	0
Grant mountainwalk	0	0	0	1	0	1	0
Add mana to mana pool	0	1	0	0	0	1	0
Destroy Equipment	0	1	0	1	0	0	0
Creature token(s)	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
Creature attacks this turn if able	0	0	0	0	0	1	0
Destroy creature with defender	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
GREEN
Small pump	2	2	4	1	0	2	2
Life gain	1	1	2	1	2	2	1
Prevent combat damage	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Mana acceleration	1	2	2	1	1	1	1
Destroy artifact/enchantment	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Destroy flying creature	1	1	1	1	1	1	0
Give +1/+1 counter	2	3	2	1	1	0	0
Search for land, put onto battlefield	1	0	0	2	1	1	1
Search for land, put into hand	1	1	1	0	0	2	1
Big pump	0	1	0	1	1	0	0
Fight a creature	1	1	1	1	0	0	0
Grant regeneration	0	0	1	0	1	0	1
Card draw	1	1	0	1	0	0	1
Pacifism	0	0	0	0	1	0	1
Grant hexproof	1	1	1	0	0	0	0
Recover card from graveyard	0	1	0	0	1	0	0
Grant forestwalk	0	0	0	0	0	1	0
Direct damage to creature or player	0	0	0	0	0	1	0
Grant deathtouch	1	0	0	1	0	0	0
Get a creature token	1	0	1	0	0	0	0

And here's the results expressed in card slots form:

CR01	creature, small, vanilla
CR02	creature, small, intimidate
CR03	creature, small, first strike
CR04	creature, small, haste
CR05	creature, small, firebreathing
CR06	creature, medium, vanilla
CR07	creature, medium, haste
CR08	creature, medium
CR09	creature, medium
CR10	creature, medium
CR11	sorcery
CR12	sorcery
CR13	sorcery
CR14	sorcery/instant
CR15	instant
CR16	instant
CR17	instant
CR18	instant
CR19	instant
CR20	enchantment, Aura
CG01	creature, small, undying, defender	Wall of Bamboo. G. Plant Wall. 0/2. Undying. Defender.
CG02	creature, small, deathtouch
CG03	creature, small, hexproof
CG04	creature, small, reach
CG05	creature, small, mana acceleration	Elvish Mystic reprint
CG06	creature, medium, vanilla
CG07	creature, medium, undying
CG08	creature, medium, reach
CG09	creature, medium, card draw
CG10	creature, large, vanilla
CG11	creature, large, trample
CG12	sorcery, life gain
CG13	sorcery, fight
CG14	sorcery, small pump
CG15	sorcery, token-making
CG16	sorcery
CG17	instant, destroy flying creature	Plummet reprint
CG18	instant, +1/+1 counter	Battlegrowth reprint
CG19	instant, destroy artifact/enchantment	Naturalize reprint
CG20	enchantment, Aura, grant hexproof and small pump

There's not much written here, but I've, sadly, run out of time once again. So, enjoy the reasoning for some of these choices, and I'll see you next week!