General CBS

[Chris Taylor]

Transracial, at least at the moment means black --> white, at least in the popular consciousness, mostly from this woman:

So even if "Transracial Tefari" as West African --> East African makes technical sense, it seems unlikely that's the default reaction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transracial_(identity)

That whole wikipedia article is hilarious by the way. I'm no expert, but usually these articles are a touch more clinical in their approach. The one on white nationalism reads like a historical account, but this one on the other hand:

Transracial people are not real. Individuals who assert a racial identity for themselves which differs from their birth ethnicity.[1][2]

It's probably just the prominence of the article (it's very short) but

 

[sigh]

Seems more like anotak just didn't feel the statement made was worth expounding on, which I agree with. Not every discussion point needs to be surgically precise, conversations would take forever.

 

[CaptnIrony]

Seems more like anotak just didn't feel the statement made was worth expounding on, which I agree with. Not every discussion point needs to be surgically precise, conversations would take forever.

Maybe, but I also think that's a really lazy way to dismiss an argument.

As for the above. Maybe the most people think black -> white is what transracial refers to, I doubt people use that definition for Teferi, seeing as, well, he's always been black.

Well shit, I got into it.

 

[sigh]

Lazy isn't the right word, simply conversationally efficient. In the vast majority of accepted definitions of race, African and other African-descended peoples all fall under one race of 'african' or 'black' etc. This isn't confusing Koreans with some other nation (both Pakistani and Korean people would be defined as Asian anyway, so not a strong argument there), it's recognizing that despite his artistic inconsistencies, he has been consistently depicted as African throughout (which you corroborate). So not transracial. Maybe shifting nationalities or ethnicities or both, and lots of people around the world have trouble defining that, but a very weak argument for transracial.

Do you think someone from Egypt would be flawless at knowing which nation some European is from? Could a European even do that flawlessly? And again, that's not even talking about race, just geographically disparate nationalities. Your example wasn't about race either.

 

[Laz]

I gotta chime in, cause I happen to be non-white and I find this hilarious.

He obviously went from being west African to east African. I don't blame non Africans for not noticing, but when people say they don't see a difference I imagine someone taking a picture of a Pakistani and a Korean and going "WHAT DO YOU FUCKING MEAN, THEY'RE BOTH ASIAN!!!!".

Hey, that is pretty cool. Thanks for sharing, as I certainly wouldn't have picked it up otherwise.

 

[CaptnIrony]

Lazy isn't the right word, simply conversationally efficient. In the vast majority of accepted definitions of race, African and other African-descended peoples all fall under one race of 'african' or 'black' etc. This isn't confusing Koreans with some other nation (both Pakistani and Korean people would be defined as Asian anyway, so not a strong argument there), it's recognizing that despite his artistic inconsistencies, he has been consistently depicted as African throughout (which you corroborate). So not transracial. Maybe shifting nationalities or ethnicities or both, and lots of people around the world have trouble defining that, but a very weak argument for transracial.

Do you think someone from Egypt would be flawless at knowing which nation some European is from? Could a European even do that flawlessly? And again, that's not even talking about race, just geographically disparate nationalities. Your example wasn't about race either.

I think we both agree.

 

[anotak]

I gotta chime in, cause I happen to be non-white and I find this hilarious.

He obviously went from being west African to east African. I don't blame non Africans for not noticing, but when people say they don't see a difference I imagine someone taking a picture of a Pakistani and a Korean and going "WHAT DO YOU FUCKING MEAN, THEY'RE BOTH ASIAN!!!!".

For the record:
East: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/6d/49/d0/6d49d0e34097e1ade1c3211650044ba6.jpg
West: https://78.media.tumblr.com/19fc98382162ad55ba3cd92536f67b67/tumblr_onwdnwAsh21qlh187o1_500.jpg
I guess I can kind of see why people joke that white people think all black people all look the same (I know you might not be white).

EDIT: I feel like might sound a bit harsh. It's more about the artist than anything else. I mean, mtg has always had a problem making the person look the same despite changing artists, so I think this is a more a problem of the artist drawing him differently than a change of mind on wizard's part. The funny thing to me is more that the only thing looked at was "Is skin darker than X? -> He's the same as before."

Look at Liliana for example: https://magiccards.info/query?q=liliana+t:planeswalker&v=card&s=cname

Often looks like different people cosplaying as her, but I see the same in teferi:
https://magiccards.info/query?q=teferi+t:planeswalker&v=card&s=cname

Looks like three different dudes.

no, you're right, he clearly doesn't look the same, and has been drawn very differently (to the point of looking like a downright different person). i never *said* he looked the same.
they changed his appearance several times, most jarringly between his premodern depictions and his time spiral depiction from 2007. but even the current depiction does not look like the same dude as his time spiral depiction. however, this is consistent with pretty much every other character in MTG.

i don't know where you're from, but in my part of the united states, the word "race" never refers to distinctions like east vs west african (notably, those two groups also have tons of variation within them, so they aren't really appropriate descriptors either). this might suck, and the social construct of race just sort of sucks in general, but we live with the historical and societal baggage.

so when i see a right wing american white woman on a youtube video being mad about "transracial teferi". i don't think it is remotely reasonable to expect she understands the difference between east africa and west africa. i don't think it's remotely reasonable to expect that that is what anyone is referring to.

 

[CaptnIrony]

so when i see a right wing american white woman on a youtube video being mad about "transracial teferi". i don't think it is remotely reasonable to expect she understands the difference between east africa and west africa. i don't think it's remotely reasonable to expect that that is what anyone is referring to.

I think don't see it being anything else though. It makes more sense to me that she happens to know more about different "races" than one might expect, or that she's parroting something she's read/seen somewhere (this could be for a multitude of reasons) than that she thinks Teferi is somehow white now (ignoring mana cost).

I'm actually wondering. Is the Transracial Teferi argument due to his shift from Mono U to WU?

Where was this first mentioned?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I think don't see it being anything else though. It makes more sense to me that she happens to know more about different "races" than one might expect, or that she's parroting something she's read/seen somewhere (this could be for a multitude of reasons) than that she thinks Teferi is somehow white now (ignoring mana cost).

I'm actually wondering. Is the Transracial Teferi argument due to his shift from Mono U to WU?

Where was this first mentioned?

I just presumed she was exaggerating for effect, but I've found what you're describing pretty common in the States, so who knows. People tend to mix and match race, ethnicity, nationality, and religion quite a bit here to meet their own definitions, and the more diverse the area the more confusing it can get.

I enjoyed your art commentary, as thats kind of funny. Is it kind of an uncanny valley moment for you? I'm kind of imagining it something like seeing Jace going from being North European one moment, to being Southern European, for me.

 

[CaptnIrony]

I enjoyed your art commentary, as thats kind of funny. Is it kind of an uncanny valley moment for you? I'm kind of imagining it something like seeing Jace going from being North European one moment, to being Southern European, for me.

Not really. I didn't super notice. I knew that between Disruptive Student and his next printing he changed quite a bit, but that's still the artist. I don't usually pay attention to this stuff, so I didn't know until my friend commented that people have been talking about it. For funzies in our fb group I posted a "Which Teferi are you today" which involved all his pictures released until that point, and one of me in a blue shirt. But apart from that, I'm not super into art nor politics, so stuff like this flies by me. The "He's always been black" comment stood out quite a bit to me, as I assumed it was quite obvious he had changed. I guess the biggest surprise here (as I mentioned in the post) was that people seemed to think he looked similar. It did quite feel like Pakistani = Korean, or if someone confused the two women whose pictures I've linked in the post.

EDIT: I didn't even know what transracial was.

 

[vennythekid]

Stumbled across this format today... has anyone here tried it? It looks like fun!
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/pai-gow-magic/

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It does look like fun!

 

[Aston]

I have tried it and it is fun! When I play with cube packs I let people redraw lands if they want, because there's so many. It's a nice quick way to pass 5 minutes or so.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Stumbled across this format today... has anyone here tried it? It looks like fun!
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/pai-gow-magic/

Me and my buddies do this while waiting for matches to finish, great fun!

 

[Chris Taylor]

https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/dear-maro-heres-what-wizards-can-do-for-pauper/

A lot of people here have a great deal of respect for pauper, as it doesn't have a lot of the frustrations other constructed formats bring with them (even if it brings a few of it's own)
But apparently MaRo recently asked The Professor at a GP: "What kind of cards do you want made for pauper?" (Quote in the top of that article)

There's some interesting discussion here. One of the big recurring things is that pauper is defined as much by what it has as by what it doesn't, so while noticing that there's a definite lack of Sweepers, cheap 2-for-1s and aggro fixing is easy, would printing commons that do these things even improve the format?

Now I'm certainly of the opinion that yes, yes you should. In fact my cube is half dedicated to "Shit WotC should have printed years ago and wont", but there's a lot of opposition to that. Many of the comments worry about this format being "curated" like commander has been having a negative effect on it, and that any intentionality on WotC's part is to be met with suspicion.

Given how similar some of are cubes are to pauper, what do you think about this? Are there holes you'd like wotc to fill?

 

[ravnic]

The reason I play cube is, that I can chose what to add to crrate a balanced and tun meta. They print creatures more pushes than I want? I don't add them. They print colorless cards/effects, that are too poweeful imo to be colorless? I don't add them. They print an annoying, game warping new card type like Planeswalkers? I don't add them.

I'm not a slave of card quality like the power max guys

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

That whole discussion is a little weird. The professor's response seems indicative of a problem with the framing of the question.

The question should probably be something like: "how would you like the pauper format to play." Once you have some design goals, it makes sense to start talking about card designs.

Personally, I would like to see them move away from blue having such a monopoly on effective smoothing. I would want to trim some of the dominating blue cards, establish a base smoothing powerline, and shift some of that focus to other colors. They've been kind of doing this already with some of the new mechanics, but more in that direction, and I'm not sure you can ever really compete with the power of the blue cantrips.

Than the next question is fixing for aggro, which is going to be a thorny topic.

Finally, you have pushed commons to sort of take the place of rares or mythics in other formats, which would be another really complicated (but interesting) topic.

 

[Chris Taylor]

While probably a bad idea, I wonder what a common wrath costs in mana

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Probably tack on a condition?

There is some red card like that, which is triggered by threshold, but just sees fringe play.

Its hard evaluating pauper card designs when you are coming from outside that world. Cloud of faeries was a hyper-powerful card from the pre-NWO era, but its hard to just see it as such from a normal format perspective. I certaintly couldn't at first.

One of the odd things about the format is that its bannable cards tend to violate the NWO design norms. Powerful but elegent cards like lightning bolt seem tame compared to the untappers.

Maybe thats because increased complexity create more opportunities for unanticipated abuse. Bolt might provide form and structure to a format (which might become stiffling at a certain point) but its fairly clear and unambigious. Maybe the danger of a pauper wrath is in trying to find the right limiting condition, much like what happened with treasure cruise.

Though maybe the harder thing about the design is having it fit within pauper itself. Part of the charm of the format is that it presents magic from a different perspective.

Thats actually a really interesting question.

 

[Velrun]

So does anyone have a good place where I can buy some customized stickers?

Also: Is this the right thread to ask such a question?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

So does anyone have a good place where I can buy some customized stickers?

Also: Is this the right thread to ask such a question?

Isn't any thread here the right thread to ask a semi-random question?
Anyway, I have tried to find a place in the past for this, but I could never find something that entirely satisfied me in print quality and thickness (or thin-ness, I guess?) of the stickers. Assuming you want to print proxies / customs. I switched to a double sleeved card with a paper cutout.

 

[Velrun]

Isn't any thread here the right thread to ask a semi-random question?
Anyway, I have tried to find a place in the past for this, but I could never find something that entirely satisfied me in print quality and thickness (or thin-ness, I guess?) of the stickers. Assuming you want to print proxies / customs. I switched to a double sleeved card with a paper cutout.

I might misunderstand but I have a perfect way to do custom cards. Thank you though!

I am looking for a company that want to sell me some super thin stickers with the word ‘Scroll’ on it so I can sticker them on real MtG and foil MtG cards. I want the stickers to be shaped in a non-squared, non-circular way. Maybe like the template found on the Ixalan transform lands as seen below:



(Look at the area right around the ‘Legendary Land’.

Or it could be shaped in many other ways. Just something that looks cool.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Ah, I see. Well, sorry I can't really help you with that then, but if you find something, let us know!

 

[Velrun]

I will!

 

[vennythekid]

You know what Wizards could do to support pauper? Those Intro Decks/Welcome Decks that are chock full of commons and usually suck? Print pauper decks in those slots every so often! If I could just go to my FLGS with some friends and pick up ready-to-go pauper decks easily, we'd be playing pauper very frequently. But its so hard to find some of the old, obscure commons and I have yet to see a store have a deep selection of useful, pauper-meta level commons.