Middle"Death couldn't contain the slivers. What made us think we could?"—Riptide Project researcher
Ah Magic, an extremely old CCG and yet also extremely progressive and increasingly popular. Yes i am bias, but Magic was cited by Hasbro in 2011 as part of the reason for their 10% profit growth, it has moved into highly successful digital forms on PC, consoles and mobile, updated its rules and card design, changed how its sets work and has an estimated 6 million players worldwide.
Ive always thought these guys have tightened their belt since Mark Rosewater stepped in as Head Designer. All of a sudden, rules got improved, core sets changed from mind-numbing reprints to yearly iterations that enticed new players with simplicity and old hands with new cards. - An annual celebration of what Magic
IS. Risks were taken frequently over the years and mostly payed off; - a new multiplayer variant? Yes please! - Actually new places to visit in the sets? don't mind if i do! But some of these risks aren't all warmly received and Mark knows this personally. By reading vast quantities of 'fan-mail', Mark is like some kind of Santa Claus for angry nerds. All of which brings me to why I'm writing this. I want to complain. Moreover, i want to complain about something relatively small in the scheme of all things Magic, but nevertheless means something to me and is all the more baffling for its seemingly meritless transgression....the new Slivers.
Beginning"One would think I would be accustomed to unexpected returns."—Hanna, Weatherlight navigator
Let me begin this Catharsis by introducing you to a basic history of Slivers. They are a Creature Type. They are tribal (they support other Slivers - including your opponents'). People built exclusively Sliver tribal decks because they loved Slivers and/or their tribal mechanics.
First appearing in Tempest block, they were popular enough to reappear in Onslaught block a few years later and were popular enough to reappear in Timespiral block a few years later and were popular enough to reappear a while later in it's own Premium Deck Series form. I guess they were well liked huh? Well they've changed now. Why? Shush, I'm getting to that.
First, Slivers used to have something like '
all Slivers have 'x'' see example A
.
Now, they have something like '
All slivers you control have 'x''. I'm ok with this as it makes the board less chaotic and unpredictable when your opponent has played or may play an opposing Sliver. This ability still seems to appear on
every sliver, so they are still the most tribally of tribal creatures and still, for the most part, feel the same. What i object to for the purposes of this article, is the complete visual transmogrification of what we know of and recognise as Slivers.
More MiddleAs the time streams grew more and more unstable, Dominaria's creatures struggled to adapt. The intense pressures led to many dead ends but also to lethal new forms that appeared as suddenly as the ashen rains.Time to argue some points here.
1. They look nothing like old slivers.
I'd say this example is the mid-point in terms of what your average Sliver looks like (from what we've seen so far). The differences are numerous or even absolute. Hey, they have
hands,
legs AND
a face with a nose and mouth. I mean, all have dreads, but one visual similarity between creatures does not make them the same species in my opinion. Rastafarian's have dreads, are Rastas also mutating, deadly lab experiments? - Don't answer that.
Anyway, i see this and i don't see 'Sliver' (i see something else I'll witter on about later). Here is a link to a gallery that shows all Slivers spoiled thus far:
http://www.examiner.com/slideshow/new-slivers-from-magic-2014?slide=61818531#slide=618185462. They are yet another humanoid monster. Magic in recent years has had Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves, Golems, Gorgons, Goblins, the list goes on. Slivers used to be different from any other creature, now they are not. They are a lot like golems from 'Mirrodin' (and 'Return To'..) block who all looked slightly different and had different abilities that visually matched. They look like another Magic creature type altogether.
As an addendum, they are like mutated Predators. Disturbingly so. Hey check out this flavour text from one of the new cards;
One emitted a strange series of buzzing clicks and gutteral commands...
Sure, they used to do this in the past, but with their new image change they remind me of something...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnfDXznMf0E3. Nothing was wrong with the old design. I mean, i guess someone somewhere thought otherwise, but i disagree. It was unique. Matt Groening designed The Simpsons so that their characters were recognisable from their silhouettes and i think this is a great design point to make monsters unique and recognisable. Slivers looked like nothing else i had ever seen before or since. Original flavour Slivers weren't even visually disliked. I'm sure mechanics alone weren't the only reason people liked them and looked forward to their two other reincarnations. As for their 'in-universe' practicality as physical & deadly creatures. I'd argue the old design was deadlier and more able-bodied. So the new ones have legs? The old ones kind of hovered over that impending deadly terrain. New ones have hands (that they aren't using to manipulate anything)? Old ones had a massive claw of puncture-death. New ones have faces? Old ones didn't
NEED faces to hunt and kill you. Is the humanoidation of Slivers a construct of ingrained subconscious beliefs about human superiority? Yes, yes it is.
4. Why? Why change? Observe some counterpoints for this monstrous mockery;
a) We can show the Slivers' adaptations better. Humans
ARE an easy base point to recognise freakish mutations on i suppose, but what you have is a freakish human/golem/predator. I think some good art direction from my man & MTG Art Director Jeremy Jarvis would have been sufficient to compel artists to emphasise an Oldskool Sliver gaining double its' power in the form of a second, giant claw or razor-sharp beak.
b) We can show their more amorphous nature. Sure, they have always been able to shape-change into other species, but it wasn't a common mechanic. Most didn't. In terms of mutating, the new Slivers do vary in size greatly but vary in physiology little. Sure, the great old ones didn't change much, but their mutations were visible anyway. Signature 'Sliverisms' of a beaky-face, claw-hand and tentacle-tail could have been kept and extra limbs added/rearranged as appropriate. Also, if you change a creature too much it will just become visually incohesive.
c) The old design was flawed. I've already argued the design issues in Argue Point 3 but I'll continue to shout at the internet anyway...Sure the old sets generally pale in comparison to the thought put into todays cards, but people do like the look of old Slivers. Also, you're changing a popular creature design after it's appeared in three different blocks. Why now? It was clearly good enough in three other bocks and still leaves a legacy of Sliver fans to this day. I will now trot out the old saying 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' (Which leads me to subsection d!).
d) Change is good. My irrefutable old adage disagrees, - your fictional statement is situational. In my opinion, the only 'bad' thing were the creature's mechanics AND YOU FIXED THEM. Change for the sake of it is silly and ignores my very important opinion.
e) New players and stupid people can understand a humanoid monster more and associate more with them because they will think they are cool like batman and those Avenger types. "Yeah! I'm a sliver! I kill mercilessly because I'm the ultimate killing machine!" Said Timmy the mal-adjusted child. These are bad guys (sort of), at best they are wild animals, red in tooth and claw. Don't make them associable. Vampires are a good reason not to. - Laughing stock of all right-minded nerds everywhere. You are homogenizing monsters & Magic creatures, it is visually unimaginative, derivative & derogatory.
End'The end of evolution'I had to get all of this out so i can sleep tonight without this running through my mind over & over and now i am satisfyingly knackered. The end of an epic rant.
