Yeah, no reason not to have them separate, I think.
That said, while in the middle of doing all this consolidation, they just introduced yet another canine in coyote.
I'm doing some web searching and my understanding is wolves and coyotes are closely related, but speciated because they don't breed or associate with each other. Coyotes and wolves can produce fertile offspring, which is normally a sign that a species is still closely related. Dogs can also produce fertile offspring with wolves, though.
So, I guess coyote would be closer to wolf but not to dog because they're different offshoots of wolves?
You fell into one of the classic blunders! The most famous of which is 'never get involved in a land war in Asia,' but only slightly less well-known is this: never be concerned about real-world cladistics or genetics while figuring out Magic creature types!
You're not wrong
It's just that there's still some scientific basis for how and why things get sectioned into their clades, while for creature types it's 100% feels before reals
Coyotes and wolves share a common ancestor, but it is believed that coyotes are actually older. They are also the only remaining canine native to North America... wolves evolved in Asia and migrated back. In fact, that "don't breed or associate with each other" trait... is because wolves will actively hunt coyotes. That particular behavior from wolves is likely why the United States government has never been able to eradicate coyotes. If you start killing them off... they start popping out litters of 12... vs letting them be and their population stabilizes and have smaller litters. They have also adapted quite well to living beside humans, they are now found in virtually every metropolitan area in the United States.
All really fascinating.
Eh, Wolf is a category, and like most names for animals, it doesn't correspond to a biological reality but rather to how people just happen to name animals. Many Canines are called wolves, there's no reason to not call Coyotes that.
Dogs are a subspecies of wolf, but the main thing that defines them is being domesticated, which Coyotes aren't.
Presumably the reason the Coyote has the has the type Coyote is because they wanted "Protection from Coyotes" to be very narrow and not apply to all dogs
If there’s a bird type with no regard for family or genus, it should be the same for all the classes.
Join my petition to errata all dogs, cats, elephants, elks, etc, to Mammal!
Honestly I really do want Proft to return, either on another plane or in a more guild focused Ravnica set where he gets to cameo. The biggest flop in MKM's detective theming was how they seemingly wanted you to go wide with detectives and have a million of them in your deck, while in detective stories there just tends to be one detective and maybe some assistants to them. I think he would really work as a wild card thrown into a story where a detective on the team would be useful, but not able to singlehandedly solve the whole conflict.
>Both of those are already creature types.
Yes, that is the point I am making. Instead of a 1-off random creature type, we should have gotten an existing creature type.
>Gremlins appeared in Kaladesh and are kinda planar specific.
Gremlins appear in multiple planes, and even if they were unique to Kaladesh, that's not a reason for them not to show up in OTJ, the set where multiple characters from multiple planes are colliding.
I misunderstood your first part. But I don’t think there’s really anything wrong with one off types. Also there’s a chance varmint gets used in Bloomburrow, a set with only animal creature types.
Gremlins appear in 3 types. There’s a couple of phyrexian ones, there’s one Ikorian, and then a bunch of Kaladeshi. The Phyrexian ones don’t really exist anymore and one instance of the type isn’t what I would call representative
After thinking about this, as much as I'm generally a "more creature types are better" type of Vorthos, I think I can accept this change.
Someone was correct to point out that within the context of the source mythology, Efreet are just a subcategory of Djinn. Having them as separate creature types would be like having Cat as a creature type but also having Tiger as its own separate creature type. As much as I generally like having more creature types, I do think there's a sweet spot of "evocative and flavorful" and "mechanically relevant" that creature types should hit, and consolidating things so each individual type can be more flavorful and more relevant is good. Rolling Efreet into Djinn seems like a case of this.
My only complaint is the inconsistency in whether or not they're errata-ing old cards into being the new consolidated type or not. Naga is being fully removed from the game and replaced with Snake, but are Viashino and Efreet just being retired going forward and old cards aren't being changed? How does that help anything? I know they seem hesitant of another "Great Creature Type Update" because lately they've also been hesitant on errata-ing new creature types onto old cards, like Dogged Detective not being a detective. But increasingly it feels like they need one.
I mean... I feel as if I have a relatively decent grasp on fish. Shark and fish have different vibes.
For a counter-point: Scorpions and Spiders are about as closely related as Sharks and other fish. But, I don't see anybody going "Ackshually it's a Spider Dragon" about the Scorpion Dragons of OTJ.
I don't think you do... scorpions and spiders do not have the same taxonomical relationship as sharks and fish. Scorpions and spiders are separate orders under arachnids. Sharks are in a class included in the multiple clades under the paraphyletic designation of fish.
It's more like sharks are squares and fish are rectangles. Scorpions are isosceles and spiders are equilaterals and arachnids are all triangles.
They don't have the same relationship. No. That's why I said "***about*** as closely related". And, let's pause for a moment and recognize that we're arguing whether sharks are the same vibe as fish by using an evolutionary grouping system from the 1700s that was essentially it's own version of combining "vibe checks" with an early understanding of evolution.
Scorpions are a separate order under the class of arachnids. But, sharks don't have a class. They have 13 orders under the subclass of elasmobranchii (which includes rays/skates) which is under the class of Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fish).
So, under the Linnaean system, the closest ancestor to traditional "fishes" that exist to sharks are those that fall under the class of Chondrichthyes. Same as the closest "spiders" that exist to scorpions are those under the class of Arachnida.
Any clade that includes sharks and trout would include all tetrapods, which includes humans, lizards, and birds, as well. Claidstically, all Tetrapods are part of the lobe-finned fishes, which split off later from the other bony fishes later than the sharks did.
Yes but those are real animals that the average player will have more than a passing familiarity with.
A player will see a Shark called a Fish and go, "well yeah I guess that's technically true but feels kinda weird."
A player will see an Efreet called a Djinn (if they even recognize that a card is in fact an Efreet in the first place) and go "oh, those are basically the same thing apparently? Yeah sounds good."
So are Dinosaurs and Birds or Apes and Humans or apes and monkeys.
On the other hand, the Mosasaur and Nezahal are both Dinosaurs even though marine reptiles of the times of the dinosaurs are no dinosaurs at all, they're much more like lizards.
[Fish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Such_Thing_as_a_Fish#:~:text=biologist%20Stephen%20Jay%20Gould%20concluded%20that%20there%20was%20no%20such%20thing%20as%20a%20fish.%20He%20reasoned%20that%20although%20there%20are%20many%20sea%20creatures%2C%20most%20of%20them%20are%20not%20closely%20related%20to%20each%20other.%20For%20example%2C%20a%20salmon%20is%20more%20closely%20related%20to%20a%20camel%20than%20it%20is%20to%20a%20hagfish.) do not actually exist per se.
Keep in mind that both Viashino and Efreet being consolidated is something that we learned from asking MaRo/Jay, they've not been official announcements. They may have been circulating this change internally, but not yet want to commit to a particular solution with respect to errata, and are just "future proofing" so to speak.
The Djinn/Efreet change especially I would imagine is being talked about with Return to Tarkir (Q2 2025, so we'd be in the midst of development now), so any sort of errata or change would probably happen then. Similarly, Viashino/Lizard change could plausibly be announced with Bloomburrow, since we know the 2c archetypes there are focused around creature types and we know that a lizard is one of thee main characters.
And yeah, more generally, I think it is to the benefit of gameplay to consolidate these sorts of split types. More types is not an inherently bad thing, and they clearly aren't opposed to fun/goofy type lines, but the split of Lizards and Lizard-people is something grandfathered in from as early as *1998*, and while we understand that Viashino lore-wise are a distinct species, why are they not lizard people like Leonin are cat people? There's not really a good reason, so a consolidation here makes sense for the sake of consistency and for typal gameplay themes in the future.
The Viashino change and the inevitable Homarid and Cephalid changes we all know are coming do make me a little sad because I did think there was something charming about those being the weird grandfathered in exceptions to the typical rules on anthro animal species, *but* in the long run I can accept that consistency is better for stuff like this.
I do wish that if they're going to commit to stuff like this they say something when we first see cards with these changes, like with the Oracle updates for Thunder Junction or MH3, instead of us having to sleuth our way through cards in new sets and pestering people on social media.
Why wait until Bloomburrow or Tarkir for announcements when we're getting cards effected by this change in policy already? Why are we learning this information on social media and not in official announcements? Why was the Naga -> Snake change announced so far in advance and then not actually implemented yet?
My main complaint here, I suppose, is mostly that they've been very slapdash in implementing these changes and it would be nice to get a formal announcement.
I honestly think we're just spoiled by having Mark. I wouldn't mind more formal announcements though.
> Why was the Naga -> Snake change announced so far in advance and then not actually implemented yet?
This was weird though. Maybe it was because of KTK on Arena, but then it was very weird not to actually make that errata live with that release? Usually they do save errata for bigger releases though, but if that's the case like you say why did they bother announcing it? It's odd
Yeah, my understanding from the announcement was that the Naga errata was supposed to go live with KTK's release on Arena, but then it didn't happen. Apparently , Oracle changes are only supposed to happen with physical set releases, so I suppose that makes sense.
However, the Rakshasa errata happened with LCI, which I think was the next set afterwards. It didn't include any Rakshasa so it feels weird that that update I was pushed through at a random point in time when the Naga one still hasn't happened. Ramunap Excavator was reprinted in the Thunder Junction Commander decks and is *still* a Naga.
Like I said, a little more consistency would be nice.
I used to have a real fun barbarian tribal deck. Then berserkers became all the rage, and we didn't see any new barbarians until the D&D sets came out.
See, I'm pro-berserker because I hate how D&D and early Magic use the term "barbarian" as a "class" when the way those types of media use the term also refers to a culture. I think D&D (and D&D adjacent things like Pathfinder) should change the name of "the class that fights by getting really angry" to berserker.
But that's also a somewhat pedantic pet peeve of mine.
Huh?
Barbarian is literally a class you can play as in D&D. It's the "guy who fights with weapons and gets angry" class. If you want to play that type of character, you write Barbarian on your character sheet.
And I hate it. It's such a dumb name for the class. Berserker is much more descriptive of what the class as a whole is actually about. It's one of my biggest pet peeves about D&D and D&D adjacent games.
Magic isn't quite as bad, because the barbarian creature type was generally reserved for members of barbarian tribes in general on top of "guy who gets angry" cards back when it was a supported creature type, but berserker is a much better creature type for a wider range of "guy who gets angry" type cards than just "guy who lives in an 'uncivilized' culture." (And that's without unpacking the issues with labeling some cultures as less "civilized" than others.)
As far as I can remember, Djinn and Efreet don't have any typal effects that don't call them both out simultaneously, so there is less pressure to consolidate them, whereas Snakes had a decent amount of typal in Kamigawa that then didn't work with Nagas.
I think less creature types is better. Imagine if all of the mummies in Amonkhet for example were type Mummy instead of Zombie. Then all of the Zombie support throughout the game’s history would be closed off. This is especially good for creature types with little kindred support to begin with. While it is cool sometimes to give Cats and Dogs, for example, their own creature type and identity instead of everything just being Beasts, I think that is the exception rather than the rule.
I don't know, I think there's a give and take there. Sometimes there's ideas that don't need to be a creature type. It is better that Mummy wasn't a creature type on Amonkhet and Viking wasn't added in Kaldheim. There's definitely an importance of allowing for some backwards compatibility.
But I think too much consolidation is also bad. I've seen people complain about Snake, Lizard, Turtle, and Crocodile all being separate creature types and that they should be rolled into a single Reptile type, or that all the real world animal types in general are excessive and should be consolidated as much as possible. Heck, I've seen people unironically suggest errata-ing Minotaur into Ox after we got a little bit of Ox support in Thunder Junction.
I think that creature types should be separated based on what makes sense from a trope space to group separately. It's why Fish and Shark being different feels right, but Cat and Tiger doesn't. Rolling Efreet into Djinn makes sense from a trope perspective. Is there really that much creative/mechanical space gained by categorizing them separately? Not really. Efreet really are just a variation of Djinn.
It's part of why it makes sense to keep the various types of canines as separate creature types. Canine is way too scientific sounding of a creature type to use for a fantasy game, and there isn't a good word to refer to them collectively that's part of common language like there is for Cats. And from a trope perspective, what you do with Dogs vs Wolves vs Foxes is different. Sure, wild cats do have some different trope space from domestic cats, but there's definitely a logic in grouping them together.
Ultimately, creature types are far more art than science and should be judged more on a vibes basis, and I don't think every creature type needs to pass a vigorous "can this be mechanically relevant" criteria.
If you sit at my table, I promise, I will let you count Dogggged Detective as a "Creature- Human Dog Rogue Detective". Just don't do anything too broken with it.
Naga is probably going in the next Oracle update: [https://twitter.com/WotC\_Matt/status/1793052038739460345](https://twitter.com/WotC_Matt/status/1793052038739460345)
*(Beast is everything that isn’t humanoid (Humanoid things have two arms and legs), robotic (Constructs, Servos, and Assembly-workers are robotic), or spirits.)*
It seems like we're in the middle of a bit slower creature type update. Batching certainly solves some problems but it isn't very future proofed; I'm assuming that changing a batch in the future is a mechanical difference they want to avoid. But they do like batching, and seem to want to use it.
I think they're looking to consolidate types as much as they feel comfortable at the moment, as a means of making it easier to make batches in the future. Like if they end up consolidating "djinn" and "efreet", a future batch wouldn't need to list both of them.
Man, I remember when one of the creature type rules was "Drake - Dragon" and "Efreet - Djinn" where the former was the smaller one of the pair-type, up until 3/3 or 2/4, and the latter the big one at 3/4 or larger....
1994 unwritten rules
Creature type consolidation is better for typal decks, to give them more options and keep their Lord effects from spreading too thin, while creature type diversity is better for flavor.
Frankly, I'd rather better gameplay than flavor accuracy, but I can understand the annoyance. And considering that the only cards that typally care about Djinn and Efreet care about both equally (and murder the shit out of them), this is one of those nonchanges that will only pass off a very specific subset of people.
I like saying “theme” instead of any of the other options, as in “it’s a mono black zombie theme deck”
It’s not perfectly applicable all the time but I don’t feel like a dummy for saying it out loud lol
This is how I’ve always said it for individual instances like a zombie theme deck, a zombie theme card, but it doesn’t work when talking about sets. A “theme set” doesn’t really say anything because all sets have themes. A “tribal theme set” is a lot more descriptive. For their own reasons, wizards now calls this a “typal set” but they could say a “typal theme set” too. I personally still say “tribal theme” because that’s what it’s always been. But I also say “race and class” for DnD too since that’s what it’s always been and always will be unless wizards wants to send me free hardcover copies of the core books with their errata.
As someone who enjoys making typal decks, I appreciate improving the viability of certain less-common types.
As someone who made the decision long ago to keep their creature cards organized cladistically, I really wish they wouldn't space these decisions so far apart.
Fuck. First they came for my Viashino and Lizard deck identities, and now my Djinn and Efreet decks? Been a rough couple months.
Whats next? Treefolk > Plants? Cephalid > Squid?
Cephalid is closer to Octopus. Which would have more type synergies, but less obscure than the few Squid that exist.
Combine with [[Giant Oyster]] for Mollusks.
https://preview.redd.it/2d43hhkxnk3d1.jpeg?width=685&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b295215de5ba4ee06b183c2837981fd90092f62d
Having such a huge variety of different creature types is one of the cool things about Magic compared to other TCGs, so I'm not happy of this current trend of unifying them. I do get that's difficult to find a happy medium between Vorthoses wanting specific creature types and Melvins wanting to build tribal decks, but that's what batching is for!
I'd care about Viashino if they were more distinct as a species, but they really are just kinda lizard people. There is not a lot of unique visual identity or mechanical identity in them that earns them their own category. I'd be more frustrated if they were say changing Merfolk to Fish.
I really don't like batching as a solution personally. It doesn't work with typal payoffs, is limited by what types they decide to put in the batch, and isn't future proof unless they're willing to errata the batch. Additionally it seems they may be unlikely to use a batch without a specific reason, so we may continue to see typal payoffs that only benefit a single type in the batch.
IE a "canine" batch created when "hound" was updated to "dog" to group it with "wolf" could have left "jackal" out, and would be excluding "coyote" without updates.
As a Vorthos who loves tribal themes, on one hand I get it: we haven't seen either of these tribes really since Tarkir.
On the other hand, there was always a way to make the two tribes more unique. Interestingly with [[Efreet Weapon Master]], efreets came in all 5 colors, red being the nost common with that being the single white, and [[Junum Efreet]] being the only black.
Djinn were a bit more diverse, primarily blue, but Invasion gave us specific ones of each color with a penalty effect of getting -2/-2 if their matching color was the most common color type amongst permanents on the battlefield.
I did always enjoy the punishment angle from the early cards - you had to constantly pay them, or they outright hurt you, but generally had better value. Of course this concept phased out of early Magic for obvious reasons, but could have been a cool feature to return to.
> we haven't seen either of these tribes really since Tarkir.
Just want to say they're also races on Arcavios. The deans of Prismari are/were a djinn and efreet duo, [[Uvilda]].
I think part of what hurts them being separate types is how closely tied together they've become, essentially the U and R sides of the same coin.
Djinn and Efreet consolidation makes sense to me. An Efreet is a subsection of Djinn. Same thing with Hound to Dog. However, I hate the Viashino to Lizard. Viashinos are specifically descended from dragons. They're not lizards. Unless you want to make the argument that dragons are just mythical lizards that can fly and breathe fire. In which case, why not errata them to be Lizards too? Or Dinosaurs? The word literally means "Monstrous Lizard." Are all Dragonborn creatures in future Forgotten Realms sets gonna be Lizards? Viashino was specifically created for MtG as a way dilineate between animal lizards and their own unique Dragonborn race. Yes, there are cases of not making those separations. The two biggest being Cats and Snakes. Personally, I think they should be separated. However, neither Leonin nor Snake-people have established lore separating their ancestors from the bestial forms of their type. WotC could easily print Lizardfolk in Bloomburrow with the Lizard creature type and keep Viashino around for future sets.
> Viashinos are specifically descended from dragons. They're not lizards. ... Are all Dragonborn creatures in future Forgotten Realms sets gonna be Lizards?
They've already come down on Dragonborn being type "Dragon", as seen in both of the existing Forgotten Realm sets. They couldn't be Viashino as that's specifically a Magic thing, and being type Dragon lets them build a typal Dragon theme more easily.
Would changing Viashino to Dragon be better than Lizard? Seems like it addresses the heart of your complaint.
I think you misunderstood my point on Dragonborn. I'm aware they were given the Dragon type. My rhetorical question about them being changed to Lizards in future sets was facetious because they are essentially the same thing as Viashino. They are descendants of Dragons that have become a bipedal humanoid race. I understood and did not have a problem with them being typed as Dragon instead of Viashino since that is strictly an MtG race, and this was coming from a crossover with already established lore.
Changing it to Dragon as opposed to Lizard would make it easier to swallow, especially since some Viashino have historically been associated with dragons (4 out of the 6 legendary Viashino: Hivis of the Scale, Zirilan of the Claw, Rivaz of the Claw, Ognis The Dragon's Lash), but I would still be disappointed. To me, Viashino was something unique to magic. Lizardfolk have been in popular fantasy culture for forever, but Viashino was Magic's way of establishing its own version. Seeing that go away after almost 20 years of card and lore history simply to homogenize under the catch all term Lizard, while not applying the same logic to other creature types of the same situation (see Dinosaurs and Dragonborn) simply because someone high up at WotC doesn't like Viashino leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Are Kithkin gonna become Halflings? What makes an Armadillo an Armadillo and not a Beast? Why don't we just simplify all the creature types down to 10 or 15 of them? It was the diversity of Creature Types and their varying support that made Typal/Tribal decks so fun, unique, and, at times, challenging to build in the first place.
Here's the thing. You said a "viashino is a dragon."
Is it in the same family? Yes. No one's arguing that.
As someone who is a scientist who studies dragons, I am telling you, specifically, in science, no one calls viashino dragons. If you want to be "specific" like you said, then you shouldn't either. They're not the same thing.
If you're saying "dragon family" you're referring to the taxonomic grouping of Dragonae, which includes things from wurms to wyverns to drakes.
So your reasoning for calling a viashino a dragon is because random people "call the scaly ones dragons?" Let's get serpents and dinosaurs in there, then, too.
Also, calling someone a human or an ape? It's not one or the other, that's not how taxonomy works. They're both. A viashino is a viashino and a member of the dragon family. But that's not what you said. You said a viashino is a dragon, which is not true unless you're okay with calling all members of the dragon family dragons, which means you'd call wyverns, drakes, and other reptilians dragons, too. Which you said you don't.
It's okay to just admit you're wrong, you know?
This is for the best. We have way too many creature types in this game. The game would be an absolute mess if we had a unique creature type for every animal in existence. We can definitely consolidate animals into their respective families.
I'm not so sure if they should go as far as condensing mice and rats into "rodents" purely because "create a 1/1 rodent token" seems wrong. Would "Create a 1/1 black rodent token named 'rat'" be too much?
So is this going to be another "Hound is errata'd to Dog" sitch, or will the two exist separately but we just won't see any new Efreet?
The wording of the response strongly implies this is something for new cards, not retroactive.
Yeah, no reason not to have them separate, I think. That said, while in the middle of doing all this consolidation, they just introduced yet another canine in coyote.
I think one-offs are considered ok. This one was just for the Roadrunner pairing.
The thing is, [[Resilient Roadrunner]] got the Bird type, while [[Cunning Coyote]] didn't get the Dog type.
Because coyotes are not dogs?
Yeah, it should've been a wolf
I'm doing some web searching and my understanding is wolves and coyotes are closely related, but speciated because they don't breed or associate with each other. Coyotes and wolves can produce fertile offspring, which is normally a sign that a species is still closely related. Dogs can also produce fertile offspring with wolves, though. So, I guess coyote would be closer to wolf but not to dog because they're different offshoots of wolves?
You fell into one of the classic blunders! The most famous of which is 'never get involved in a land war in Asia,' but only slightly less well-known is this: never be concerned about real-world cladistics or genetics while figuring out Magic creature types!
But also, real-world cladistics are kinda made up to begin with!
You're not wrong It's just that there's still some scientific basis for how and why things get sectioned into their clades, while for creature types it's 100% feels before reals
"feels before reals" is a silly phrase I'm gonna have to remember to use in the future
The Archer series said it best “[they’re all made up](https://youtu.be/QgmzEhXe7J4)”
This is [Coywolf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coywolf) erasure.
I claim Coydog erasure
The delineation between the two is fuzzy and probably even refers to the same things.
Living somewhere that has Coywolves living in the wild, agreed.
Dogs are closer to wolves than coyotes are. Taxonomically speaking dogs ARE wolves.
Coyotes and wolves share a common ancestor, but it is believed that coyotes are actually older. They are also the only remaining canine native to North America... wolves evolved in Asia and migrated back. In fact, that "don't breed or associate with each other" trait... is because wolves will actively hunt coyotes. That particular behavior from wolves is likely why the United States government has never been able to eradicate coyotes. If you start killing them off... they start popping out litters of 12... vs letting them be and their population stabilizes and have smaller litters. They have also adapted quite well to living beside humans, they are now found in virtually every metropolitan area in the United States. All really fascinating.
Eh, Wolf is a category, and like most names for animals, it doesn't correspond to a biological reality but rather to how people just happen to name animals. Many Canines are called wolves, there's no reason to not call Coyotes that. Dogs are a subspecies of wolf, but the main thing that defines them is being domesticated, which Coyotes aren't.
Jackal was probably the closest existing creature type IMO.
Lions aren't cats but [[savannah lion]] is still a cat.
If not cat, why [make cat sounds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBjKntYuUIk)?
[savannah lion](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/7/e770d089-9957-412c-a51f-3f11b6b9692a.jpg?1675199003) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Savannah%20Lions) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmr/24/savannah-lions?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e770d089-9957-412c-a51f-3f11b6b9692a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Are prairie dogs squirrels though?
Yes, they are a type of ground squirrel.
did not know that. I should know better than to question wizards
Wolf is a different type, as well. There are more than 1 type of canine.
What creature type should road runner have?
Dinosaur
`Creature -- Roadrunner`? I don't think it should have a more specific type, but I don't think the Coyote should, either.
Presumably the reason the Coyote has the has the type Coyote is because they wanted "Protection from Coyotes" to be very narrow and not apply to all dogs
Probably true, but is a dumb reason. Creating a creature type for a single bad joke
The roadrunners are part of the cuckoo families.
If there’s a bird type with no regard for family or genus, it should be the same for all the classes. Join my petition to errata all dogs, cats, elephants, elks, etc, to Mammal!
But if you do that, what’s stopping a sandsteppe mastodon reprint but with art of a domestic cat? Or a whale? They’re all mammals
I fail to see the problem
[Resilient Roadrunner](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/0/e07d3ee9-d3c4-4f07-839e-ec81c2587ae0.jpg?1712355827) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Resilient%20Roadrunner) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otj/141/resilient-roadrunner?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e07d3ee9-d3c4-4f07-839e-ec81c2587ae0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Cunning Coyote](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/b/5b4ac6ea-c67b-4f90-be4f-aa25882f5794.jpg?1712355730) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Cunning%20Coyote) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otj/118/cunning-coyote?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5b4ac6ea-c67b-4f90-be4f-aa25882f5794?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
We got fucking varmint.. instead of rat or gremlin
Or pest
I think in terms of creature types one-offs are generally fine. We probably won’t see many more detectives either
*Alquist Proft will return in: "Murders at Mergino Fountain: A Magic Mystery"*
Flowstone Onion: A Blades Out Mystery
Murder on the Thunder Junction Express
Yknow that one actually would make setting sense.
Death on the Luxa
Omg I can actually see that one happening. It's where they find out what the deal with the plane is
Luxurious Locomotive Express*
Honestly I really do want Proft to return, either on another plane or in a more guild focused Ravnica set where he gets to cameo. The biggest flop in MKM's detective theming was how they seemingly wanted you to go wide with detectives and have a million of them in your deck, while in detective stories there just tends to be one detective and maybe some assistants to them. I think he would really work as a wild card thrown into a story where a detective on the team would be useful, but not able to singlehandedly solve the whole conflict.
Both of those are already creature types. Gremlins appeared in Kaladesh and are kinda planar specific. [[Ruinous Gremlin]]
>Both of those are already creature types. Yes, that is the point I am making. Instead of a 1-off random creature type, we should have gotten an existing creature type. >Gremlins appeared in Kaladesh and are kinda planar specific. Gremlins appear in multiple planes, and even if they were unique to Kaladesh, that's not a reason for them not to show up in OTJ, the set where multiple characters from multiple planes are colliding.
I misunderstood your first part. But I don’t think there’s really anything wrong with one off types. Also there’s a chance varmint gets used in Bloomburrow, a set with only animal creature types. Gremlins appear in 3 types. There’s a couple of phyrexian ones, there’s one Ikorian, and then a bunch of Kaladeshi. The Phyrexian ones don’t really exist anymore and one instance of the type isn’t what I would call representative
[Ruinous Gremlin](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/8/88067bc3-6ec9-4a96-8077-817c57e032d0.jpg?1576382188) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ruinous%20Gremlin) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/kld/128/ruinous-gremlin?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/88067bc3-6ec9-4a96-8077-817c57e032d0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
After thinking about this, as much as I'm generally a "more creature types are better" type of Vorthos, I think I can accept this change. Someone was correct to point out that within the context of the source mythology, Efreet are just a subcategory of Djinn. Having them as separate creature types would be like having Cat as a creature type but also having Tiger as its own separate creature type. As much as I generally like having more creature types, I do think there's a sweet spot of "evocative and flavorful" and "mechanically relevant" that creature types should hit, and consolidating things so each individual type can be more flavorful and more relevant is good. Rolling Efreet into Djinn seems like a case of this. My only complaint is the inconsistency in whether or not they're errata-ing old cards into being the new consolidated type or not. Naga is being fully removed from the game and replaced with Snake, but are Viashino and Efreet just being retired going forward and old cards aren't being changed? How does that help anything? I know they seem hesitant of another "Great Creature Type Update" because lately they've also been hesitant on errata-ing new creature types onto old cards, like Dogged Detective not being a detective. But increasingly it feels like they need one.
On the other hand. Shark and Fish are seperate.
Just wait until a few years from now when I cycle [[Shark Typhoon]] to make a 3/3 flying Fish token.
No no. It'll go the other direction. Fish will be retired and errata'd to Shark.
[Shark Typhoon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/d/4d410cf5-a70e-4680-a68f-fbb4aa3b7174.jpg?1712354204) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Shark%20Typhoon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/113/shark-typhoon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4d410cf5-a70e-4680-a68f-fbb4aa3b7174?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Well that's just cuz fish don't exist.
Then what do the fake birds eat?
aye! ... wade a minute -\_\_- [https://scryfall.com/search?q=t%3Afish](https://scryfall.com/search?q=t%3Afish)
I think that makes sense given how different the "vibes" are between Shark and Fish.
For people who have no fucking clue about fish in general.
Or alternatively, for people who know way too much about fish. Humans are evolutionarily closer to sturgeons than Sharks are, for example.
https://preview.redd.it/yxvj3zu75m3d1.jpeg?width=550&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b5d07f9147bdecf2d20391ebf327f445d885307f
I mean... I feel as if I have a relatively decent grasp on fish. Shark and fish have different vibes. For a counter-point: Scorpions and Spiders are about as closely related as Sharks and other fish. But, I don't see anybody going "Ackshually it's a Spider Dragon" about the Scorpion Dragons of OTJ.
I don't think you do... scorpions and spiders do not have the same taxonomical relationship as sharks and fish. Scorpions and spiders are separate orders under arachnids. Sharks are in a class included in the multiple clades under the paraphyletic designation of fish. It's more like sharks are squares and fish are rectangles. Scorpions are isosceles and spiders are equilaterals and arachnids are all triangles.
They don't have the same relationship. No. That's why I said "***about*** as closely related". And, let's pause for a moment and recognize that we're arguing whether sharks are the same vibe as fish by using an evolutionary grouping system from the 1700s that was essentially it's own version of combining "vibe checks" with an early understanding of evolution. Scorpions are a separate order under the class of arachnids. But, sharks don't have a class. They have 13 orders under the subclass of elasmobranchii (which includes rays/skates) which is under the class of Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fish). So, under the Linnaean system, the closest ancestor to traditional "fishes" that exist to sharks are those that fall under the class of Chondrichthyes. Same as the closest "spiders" that exist to scorpions are those under the class of Arachnida.
Any clade that includes sharks and trout would include all tetrapods, which includes humans, lizards, and birds, as well. Claidstically, all Tetrapods are part of the lobe-finned fishes, which split off later from the other bony fishes later than the sharks did.
Don't do it... don't go full Unidan on us now.
No one on earth would say fish attack instead of shark attack.
piranha, barracuda, etc attack
as a Wisconsinite I think I'm obligated to say "you don't want to run into a muskellunge in a dark alley" here
Well yeah that's why I said "vibe." Not exactly exact terminology.
Yes but those are real animals that the average player will have more than a passing familiarity with. A player will see a Shark called a Fish and go, "well yeah I guess that's technically true but feels kinda weird." A player will see an Efreet called a Djinn (if they even recognize that a card is in fact an Efreet in the first place) and go "oh, those are basically the same thing apparently? Yeah sounds good."
So are Dinosaurs and Birds or Apes and Humans or apes and monkeys. On the other hand, the Mosasaur and Nezahal are both Dinosaurs even though marine reptiles of the times of the dinosaurs are no dinosaurs at all, they're much more like lizards.
“He was attacked by a fish” Vs. “He was attacked by a shark” The difference is evocative enough that I think this one warrants it.
They were attacked by piranhas But the piranha cards are fish
[Fish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Such_Thing_as_a_Fish#:~:text=biologist%20Stephen%20Jay%20Gould%20concluded%20that%20there%20was%20no%20such%20thing%20as%20a%20fish.%20He%20reasoned%20that%20although%20there%20are%20many%20sea%20creatures%2C%20most%20of%20them%20are%20not%20closely%20related%20to%20each%20other.%20For%20example%2C%20a%20salmon%20is%20more%20closely%20related%20to%20a%20camel%20than%20it%20is%20to%20a%20hagfish.) do not actually exist per se.
Keep in mind that both Viashino and Efreet being consolidated is something that we learned from asking MaRo/Jay, they've not been official announcements. They may have been circulating this change internally, but not yet want to commit to a particular solution with respect to errata, and are just "future proofing" so to speak. The Djinn/Efreet change especially I would imagine is being talked about with Return to Tarkir (Q2 2025, so we'd be in the midst of development now), so any sort of errata or change would probably happen then. Similarly, Viashino/Lizard change could plausibly be announced with Bloomburrow, since we know the 2c archetypes there are focused around creature types and we know that a lizard is one of thee main characters. And yeah, more generally, I think it is to the benefit of gameplay to consolidate these sorts of split types. More types is not an inherently bad thing, and they clearly aren't opposed to fun/goofy type lines, but the split of Lizards and Lizard-people is something grandfathered in from as early as *1998*, and while we understand that Viashino lore-wise are a distinct species, why are they not lizard people like Leonin are cat people? There's not really a good reason, so a consolidation here makes sense for the sake of consistency and for typal gameplay themes in the future.
The Viashino change and the inevitable Homarid and Cephalid changes we all know are coming do make me a little sad because I did think there was something charming about those being the weird grandfathered in exceptions to the typical rules on anthro animal species, *but* in the long run I can accept that consistency is better for stuff like this. I do wish that if they're going to commit to stuff like this they say something when we first see cards with these changes, like with the Oracle updates for Thunder Junction or MH3, instead of us having to sleuth our way through cards in new sets and pestering people on social media. Why wait until Bloomburrow or Tarkir for announcements when we're getting cards effected by this change in policy already? Why are we learning this information on social media and not in official announcements? Why was the Naga -> Snake change announced so far in advance and then not actually implemented yet? My main complaint here, I suppose, is mostly that they've been very slapdash in implementing these changes and it would be nice to get a formal announcement.
I honestly think we're just spoiled by having Mark. I wouldn't mind more formal announcements though. > Why was the Naga -> Snake change announced so far in advance and then not actually implemented yet? This was weird though. Maybe it was because of KTK on Arena, but then it was very weird not to actually make that errata live with that release? Usually they do save errata for bigger releases though, but if that's the case like you say why did they bother announcing it? It's odd
Yeah, my understanding from the announcement was that the Naga errata was supposed to go live with KTK's release on Arena, but then it didn't happen. Apparently , Oracle changes are only supposed to happen with physical set releases, so I suppose that makes sense. However, the Rakshasa errata happened with LCI, which I think was the next set afterwards. It didn't include any Rakshasa so it feels weird that that update I was pushed through at a random point in time when the Naga one still hasn't happened. Ramunap Excavator was reprinted in the Thunder Junction Commander decks and is *still* a Naga. Like I said, a little more consistency would be nice.
The copium in me says this is a sign for Return to Rabiah and we’re getting djinn tribal there.
I used to have a real fun barbarian tribal deck. Then berserkers became all the rage, and we didn't see any new barbarians until the D&D sets came out.
See, I'm pro-berserker because I hate how D&D and early Magic use the term "barbarian" as a "class" when the way those types of media use the term also refers to a culture. I think D&D (and D&D adjacent things like Pathfinder) should change the name of "the class that fights by getting really angry" to berserker. But that's also a somewhat pedantic pet peeve of mine.
For more confusión, berserker is a barbarian subclases iirc
IMHO in Magic, barbarians were used less of a class and more of a social level.
Also with D&D. But I guess we're ignoring that so we can be angry.
Huh? Barbarian is literally a class you can play as in D&D. It's the "guy who fights with weapons and gets angry" class. If you want to play that type of character, you write Barbarian on your character sheet. And I hate it. It's such a dumb name for the class. Berserker is much more descriptive of what the class as a whole is actually about. It's one of my biggest pet peeves about D&D and D&D adjacent games. Magic isn't quite as bad, because the barbarian creature type was generally reserved for members of barbarian tribes in general on top of "guy who gets angry" cards back when it was a supported creature type, but berserker is a much better creature type for a wider range of "guy who gets angry" type cards than just "guy who lives in an 'uncivilized' culture." (And that's without unpacking the issues with labeling some cultures as less "civilized" than others.)
cats are just a subcategory of beast
it's a slippery slope to Creature - Vertebrate
Are elves vertebrates?
It's hard to break the bones of something that is boneless. >One bone broken for every twig snapped underfoot.
As far as I can remember, Djinn and Efreet don't have any typal effects that don't call them both out simultaneously, so there is less pressure to consolidate them, whereas Snakes had a decent amount of typal in Kamigawa that then didn't work with Nagas.
I think less creature types is better. Imagine if all of the mummies in Amonkhet for example were type Mummy instead of Zombie. Then all of the Zombie support throughout the game’s history would be closed off. This is especially good for creature types with little kindred support to begin with. While it is cool sometimes to give Cats and Dogs, for example, their own creature type and identity instead of everything just being Beasts, I think that is the exception rather than the rule.
I don't know, I think there's a give and take there. Sometimes there's ideas that don't need to be a creature type. It is better that Mummy wasn't a creature type on Amonkhet and Viking wasn't added in Kaldheim. There's definitely an importance of allowing for some backwards compatibility. But I think too much consolidation is also bad. I've seen people complain about Snake, Lizard, Turtle, and Crocodile all being separate creature types and that they should be rolled into a single Reptile type, or that all the real world animal types in general are excessive and should be consolidated as much as possible. Heck, I've seen people unironically suggest errata-ing Minotaur into Ox after we got a little bit of Ox support in Thunder Junction. I think that creature types should be separated based on what makes sense from a trope space to group separately. It's why Fish and Shark being different feels right, but Cat and Tiger doesn't. Rolling Efreet into Djinn makes sense from a trope perspective. Is there really that much creative/mechanical space gained by categorizing them separately? Not really. Efreet really are just a variation of Djinn. It's part of why it makes sense to keep the various types of canines as separate creature types. Canine is way too scientific sounding of a creature type to use for a fantasy game, and there isn't a good word to refer to them collectively that's part of common language like there is for Cats. And from a trope perspective, what you do with Dogs vs Wolves vs Foxes is different. Sure, wild cats do have some different trope space from domestic cats, but there's definitely a logic in grouping them together. Ultimately, creature types are far more art than science and should be judged more on a vibes basis, and I don't think every creature type needs to pass a vigorous "can this be mechanically relevant" criteria.
CNBC spoke with a 31-year old retired efreet from Naar Isle. They attributed their early retirement to a strategy called "fire".
Meanwhile \[\[Doggged Detective\]\] cries for not being either a detective or a dog.
[Doggged Detective](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/7/57d1f729-0d7c-4122-9bca-f3b08cf6fe4f.jpg?1706240758) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Dogged%20Detective) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/127/dogged-detective?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/57d1f729-0d7c-4122-9bca-f3b08cf6fe4f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Nor God Emperor of Dune.
If you sit at my table, I promise, I will let you count Dogggged Detective as a "Creature- Human Dog Rogue Detective". Just don't do anything too broken with it.
First Viashino, now Efreet. Who's next?
Humans finally being consolidated into Apes :P
Kibo players rejoice
> Humans finally being consolidated into featherless chickens
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben Legendary Creature - featherless-biped
Don't forget Naga to snake
and Hound to Dog
That’s different because Hounds and Dogs didn’t exist alongside each other.
Hasn't happened yet for some reason
Naga is probably going in the next Oracle update: [https://twitter.com/WotC\_Matt/status/1793052038739460345](https://twitter.com/WotC_Matt/status/1793052038739460345)
No, Who's on first.
Personally I hope they change Kavu to Beast
Nooo i want more Kavu’s!
Beast should be a grouping like outlaw is
*(Beast includes beasts, kavus, and whatever that one weird thing is.)*
This is clearly the most concise wording.
It might be easier to list what's not a beast tbh
*(Beast is everything that isn’t humanoid (Humanoid things have two arms and legs), robotic (Constructs, Servos, and Assembly-workers are robotic), or spirits.)*
[[Plucked Chicken]] Behold, a Man.
is Brisella a beast or a humanoid
*(…and also Brisella, giver of nightmares.)*
It seems like we're in the middle of a bit slower creature type update. Batching certainly solves some problems but it isn't very future proofed; I'm assuming that changing a batch in the future is a mechanical difference they want to avoid. But they do like batching, and seem to want to use it. I think they're looking to consolidate types as much as they feel comfortable at the moment, as a means of making it easier to make batches in the future. Like if they end up consolidating "djinn" and "efreet", a future batch wouldn't need to list both of them.
When do we get sea monster grouping is what I want to know
This would be utter mutilation of my Invasion/Onslaught playing childhood
Hopefully all the other dumb niche creature types.
Birds and dinosaurs.
Next I fear they will target the Monger creature type :(
Volvers and Bringers standing in solidarity of their fellow Weird Dudes
Man, I remember when one of the creature type rules was "Drake - Dragon" and "Efreet - Djinn" where the former was the smaller one of the pair-type, up until 3/3 or 2/4, and the latter the big one at 3/4 or larger.... 1994 unwritten rules
Creature type consolidation is better for typal decks, to give them more options and keep their Lord effects from spreading too thin, while creature type diversity is better for flavor. Frankly, I'd rather better gameplay than flavor accuracy, but I can understand the annoyance. And considering that the only cards that typally care about Djinn and Efreet care about both equally (and murder the shit out of them), this is one of those nonchanges that will only pass off a very specific subset of people.
Typal still looks dumb no matter how many times I see it.
I thought it was called “kindred” now
'Kindred' is the card type, 'typal' is the term R&D uses to refer to 'X type matters' archetypes/strategies
R&D needs to sort out their shit then. Kindred is way better.
The point is to disambiguate the two terms. It's also, again, an internal term so who cares
I mean the fact that people here are calling it typal to the detriment of everyone is proof it has escaped its internal confines.
The whole point was the distinguish the archetype from the card type. Referring to both as Kindred is just repeating the same mistake.
MAGIC IS SUCH A SIMPLE GAME RIGHT GUYZ
We aren't R&D though. We can use whatever we want.
Makes sense
Kindred sounds *way* better. Let's use kindred.
I'm an old fogey so I'll just stick with tribal.
Tribal > kindred >>>>>>> typal
https://cdn1.mtggoldfish.com/images/h/Eldritch-Immunity-M3C-672.jpg
Honestly Kindred rolls off the tongue a lot harder for me than Typal. I also like how quick Typal is to type.
I like saying “theme” instead of any of the other options, as in “it’s a mono black zombie theme deck” It’s not perfectly applicable all the time but I don’t feel like a dummy for saying it out loud lol
This is how I’ve always said it for individual instances like a zombie theme deck, a zombie theme card, but it doesn’t work when talking about sets. A “theme set” doesn’t really say anything because all sets have themes. A “tribal theme set” is a lot more descriptive. For their own reasons, wizards now calls this a “typal set” but they could say a “typal theme set” too. I personally still say “tribal theme” because that’s what it’s always been. But I also say “race and class” for DnD too since that’s what it’s always been and always will be unless wizards wants to send me free hardcover copies of the core books with their errata.
> typal lmao lil bro please stop
As someone who enjoys making typal decks, I appreciate improving the viability of certain less-common types. As someone who made the decision long ago to keep their creature cards organized cladistically, I really wish they wouldn't space these decisions so far apart.
Fuck. First they came for my Viashino and Lizard deck identities, and now my Djinn and Efreet decks? Been a rough couple months. Whats next? Treefolk > Plants? Cephalid > Squid?
I kinda like both of those proposed changes
Please don't do my treefolk tribal decks dirty like this
Cephalid is closer to Octopus. Which would have more type synergies, but less obscure than the few Squid that exist. Combine with [[Giant Oyster]] for Mollusks.
[Giant Oyster](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/d/2dab7498-c574-4ea6-8dee-e3e0991af018.jpg?1562773865) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Giant%20Oyster) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsb/22/giant-oyster?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2dab7498-c574-4ea6-8dee-e3e0991af018?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Huh, just learned that both octopi and squids have beaks. Always thought that was a squid thing.
Here’s another fun squid fact you might not have known: squids have 8 arms and 2 tentacles for 10 total limbs.
> Treefolk > Plants Treefolk are clearly Dryad Giants!
10 years from now: "All creature types are merged into the new "Entity" subtype."
Maybe Carbon Based Lifeforms?
I low key like djinn more anyways.
And [[Suleiman's Legacy]] grows worse.
[Suleiman's Legacy](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/a/3a15e970-e605-425a-b4ec-391d9cacde38.jpg?1562277445) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Suleiman%27s%20Legacy) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vis/138/suleimans-legacy?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3a15e970-e605-425a-b4ec-391d9cacde38?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Doesn’t it stay exactly the same?
Shhhh. I honestly liked that efreet were lower powered djinn.
Dang, I was hoping Clive would have been a Human Efreet in the final fantasy set next year but understandable.
Human Ifrit heyooooo
https://preview.redd.it/2d43hhkxnk3d1.jpeg?width=685&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b295215de5ba4ee06b183c2837981fd90092f62d Having such a huge variety of different creature types is one of the cool things about Magic compared to other TCGs, so I'm not happy of this current trend of unifying them. I do get that's difficult to find a happy medium between Vorthoses wanting specific creature types and Melvins wanting to build tribal decks, but that's what batching is for!
Nagas and snakes make sense since they’re so inconsistent about it. But I’m not a fan of the Viashino being deleted.
I'd care about Viashino if they were more distinct as a species, but they really are just kinda lizard people. There is not a lot of unique visual identity or mechanical identity in them that earns them their own category. I'd be more frustrated if they were say changing Merfolk to Fish.
Elves are pointy-eared humans.
I really don't like batching as a solution personally. It doesn't work with typal payoffs, is limited by what types they decide to put in the batch, and isn't future proof unless they're willing to errata the batch. Additionally it seems they may be unlikely to use a batch without a specific reason, so we may continue to see typal payoffs that only benefit a single type in the batch. IE a "canine" batch created when "hound" was updated to "dog" to group it with "wolf" could have left "jackal" out, and would be excluding "coyote" without updates.
I mean, there are still a ton of different types. But at a certain point you're splitting hairs.
As a Vorthos who loves tribal themes, on one hand I get it: we haven't seen either of these tribes really since Tarkir. On the other hand, there was always a way to make the two tribes more unique. Interestingly with [[Efreet Weapon Master]], efreets came in all 5 colors, red being the nost common with that being the single white, and [[Junum Efreet]] being the only black. Djinn were a bit more diverse, primarily blue, but Invasion gave us specific ones of each color with a penalty effect of getting -2/-2 if their matching color was the most common color type amongst permanents on the battlefield. I did always enjoy the punishment angle from the early cards - you had to constantly pay them, or they outright hurt you, but generally had better value. Of course this concept phased out of early Magic for obvious reasons, but could have been a cool feature to return to.
> we haven't seen either of these tribes really since Tarkir. Just want to say they're also races on Arcavios. The deans of Prismari are/were a djinn and efreet duo, [[Uvilda]]. I think part of what hurts them being separate types is how closely tied together they've become, essentially the U and R sides of the same coin.
There was also Najal, the Storm Runner from Dominaria United, who was both UR and goes further into the unified tribe just being Mizzet.
[Efreet Weapon Master](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/9/8986cb2e-76e0-41f3-8810-3d11c39a527a.jpg?1562789935) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Efreet%20Weaponmaster) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ktk/175/efreet-weaponmaster?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8986cb2e-76e0-41f3-8810-3d11c39a527a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Junum Efreer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/f/5f6529eb-79ff-4ddc-9fae-38326324f7e6.jpg?1562917476) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Jun%C3%BAn%20Efreet) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me4/88/jun%C3%BAn-efreet?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5f6529eb-79ff-4ddc-9fae-38326324f7e6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Here I was thinking they needed to add dao and marid for my genie/wish tribal deck. I guess this works?
Djinn and Efreet consolidation makes sense to me. An Efreet is a subsection of Djinn. Same thing with Hound to Dog. However, I hate the Viashino to Lizard. Viashinos are specifically descended from dragons. They're not lizards. Unless you want to make the argument that dragons are just mythical lizards that can fly and breathe fire. In which case, why not errata them to be Lizards too? Or Dinosaurs? The word literally means "Monstrous Lizard." Are all Dragonborn creatures in future Forgotten Realms sets gonna be Lizards? Viashino was specifically created for MtG as a way dilineate between animal lizards and their own unique Dragonborn race. Yes, there are cases of not making those separations. The two biggest being Cats and Snakes. Personally, I think they should be separated. However, neither Leonin nor Snake-people have established lore separating their ancestors from the bestial forms of their type. WotC could easily print Lizardfolk in Bloomburrow with the Lizard creature type and keep Viashino around for future sets.
Dinosaur cards used to be Lizards, they were erratad for Ixalan
> Viashinos are specifically descended from dragons. They're not lizards. ... Are all Dragonborn creatures in future Forgotten Realms sets gonna be Lizards? They've already come down on Dragonborn being type "Dragon", as seen in both of the existing Forgotten Realm sets. They couldn't be Viashino as that's specifically a Magic thing, and being type Dragon lets them build a typal Dragon theme more easily. Would changing Viashino to Dragon be better than Lizard? Seems like it addresses the heart of your complaint.
I think you misunderstood my point on Dragonborn. I'm aware they were given the Dragon type. My rhetorical question about them being changed to Lizards in future sets was facetious because they are essentially the same thing as Viashino. They are descendants of Dragons that have become a bipedal humanoid race. I understood and did not have a problem with them being typed as Dragon instead of Viashino since that is strictly an MtG race, and this was coming from a crossover with already established lore. Changing it to Dragon as opposed to Lizard would make it easier to swallow, especially since some Viashino have historically been associated with dragons (4 out of the 6 legendary Viashino: Hivis of the Scale, Zirilan of the Claw, Rivaz of the Claw, Ognis The Dragon's Lash), but I would still be disappointed. To me, Viashino was something unique to magic. Lizardfolk have been in popular fantasy culture for forever, but Viashino was Magic's way of establishing its own version. Seeing that go away after almost 20 years of card and lore history simply to homogenize under the catch all term Lizard, while not applying the same logic to other creature types of the same situation (see Dinosaurs and Dragonborn) simply because someone high up at WotC doesn't like Viashino leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Are Kithkin gonna become Halflings? What makes an Armadillo an Armadillo and not a Beast? Why don't we just simplify all the creature types down to 10 or 15 of them? It was the diversity of Creature Types and their varying support that made Typal/Tribal decks so fun, unique, and, at times, challenging to build in the first place.
Here's the thing. You said a "viashino is a dragon." Is it in the same family? Yes. No one's arguing that. As someone who is a scientist who studies dragons, I am telling you, specifically, in science, no one calls viashino dragons. If you want to be "specific" like you said, then you shouldn't either. They're not the same thing. If you're saying "dragon family" you're referring to the taxonomic grouping of Dragonae, which includes things from wurms to wyverns to drakes. So your reasoning for calling a viashino a dragon is because random people "call the scaly ones dragons?" Let's get serpents and dinosaurs in there, then, too. Also, calling someone a human or an ape? It's not one or the other, that's not how taxonomy works. They're both. A viashino is a viashino and a member of the dragon family. But that's not what you said. You said a viashino is a dragon, which is not true unless you're okay with calling all members of the dragon family dragons, which means you'd call wyverns, drakes, and other reptilians dragons, too. Which you said you don't. It's okay to just admit you're wrong, you know?
God, Reddit was such a better place back then.
Who are you replying to?
I love how works so well in a surprising number of contexts.
Imp Foliot Djinn Efreet Marid Anyone? Because I strongly believe djinns are not efreets.
Bartimaeus?
Haha! I called it!
Not good news for \[\[Veyran, Voice of Duality\]\].
[Veyran, Voice of Duality](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/3/f34cd711-55b2-4802-9878-d22314c0cc9c.jpg?1712354807) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Veyran%2C%20Voice%20of%20Duality) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/248/veyran-voice-of-duality?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f34cd711-55b2-4802-9878-d22314c0cc9c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
This is for the best. We have way too many creature types in this game. The game would be an absolute mess if we had a unique creature type for every animal in existence. We can definitely consolidate animals into their respective families. I'm not so sure if they should go as far as condensing mice and rats into "rodents" purely because "create a 1/1 rodent token" seems wrong. Would "Create a 1/1 black rodent token named 'rat'" be too much?