I love the fact that R&D is pushing the Race/Class model.
Quick aside: If you don’t know what the Race/Class model is, pick up a creature card, let’s say um, Coiling Oracle. Let’s take a look at it (Hint: it’s to the right). For the card type line we see: Creature – Snake Elf Druid. That creature is all of those types (A snake, an elf, and a druid) for every card that cares about creature types. Elvish Harbinger can search him up, can trigger Sosuke’s Summons, and can tap to Seton, Kroasn Protector. Its race (what the creature actually is) is a snake and an elf, and its class (what’s its role in its society is) is a druid. While not every creature has a class, every creature has a race (except Nameless Race, which was updated with the first creature type clean up). But remember, everything on the card type line is the creature type. Remember to check Gatherer for updates to old cards (Creature type update 1, update 2).
Why is this a good thing? Why do we need the Race/Class model in Magic? In the beginning there was “Summon X” and all was good. But over the past 15 years, Wizards have changed it, and some people think that it loses some flavor when it looks a little more structured. Sure, it’s much cleaner for rules, but it lost it’s fantasy flavor. But this is where it can make up with the fantasy fans. I’m not into D&D or WoW (don’t shoot me, I’ve got my one addiction), but I know that those fantasy games have the same race/class markup. Wizards pushed this so they could fit more with those fantasy games, something that Magic didn’t have at the beginning of the game. It added the flavor back into the game, which I love, as long as it doesn’t ruin mechanics (sorry, I’m more of a game interaction than flavor fan). Continue reading “After MaRo – Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?”