Aaron's Random Card Comment of the Day #4, 9/30/10
This card felt weird to me when it came out in the Urza’s Saga set.
Prior to this little beater, haste on black creatures has been confined to dudes that repeatedly came back from the dead (Nether Shadow, Ashen Ghoul) and the intentionally overdone proto-Akroma, Spirit of the Night.
The along came this guy--uncommon, 2/2, flying, haste. Black. Weird.
I understand the desire to make flying creatures with haste, as the abilities go so well together. I also understand that it’s hard to make them--the “flying” colors do not have access to haste normally, and the “haste” color should only get flying at rare, specifically on very non-2/2-sized Dragons. So if one wanted to make a monocolored smallish hasty flier at a lower rarity, what color could it go in? Black’s the only reasonable choice.
For as much sense as it made in theory, Crazed Skirge hardly started a trend; black essentially stayed away from haste for the next decade. You may have noticed it creeping in slowly more recently on cards such as Frogtosser Banneret and Crypt Ripper; as part of recent “color pie” reconfiguring, head designer Mark Rosewater has been working to cement black as the number-two haste color behind red. Some steps have been made to implement that vision, though development has been slow to adopt. Their main hang-up is that they believe green should be number two in haste, as haste helps give the color that should have the best creatures a real leg up against sorcery-based removal. I also think that some of their reluctance, probably subconsciously, is that most attempts to give “mundane” black creature haste feels abnormal or unnatural somehow, in the same way that Crazed Skirge felt weird initially. After all, it has been 12 years since Crazed Skirge was released, and the Scars of Mirrodin set’s Blackcleave Goblin is the first “French vanilla” black haste creature to be made since then. If it was that clear cut that haste makes sense in black there would have been more.
My feelings? I guess for game balance's sake I think green needs haste more, although I would still use it on black where it fit.
MaRo
★★★★☆ (4.2/5.0)(24 votes)
Here's what's going on. Black needs haste for purposes of limited. Black is very restricted in creature keywords and to make sure there is diversity in commons and uncommon black creatures, black needs haste. Green needs haste for constructed. There are many things that development needs green creatures to do for constructed that haste helps. The compromise reached was to make haste a secondary ability in black allowing it to be more frequent and lower rarity. The ability is tertiary in green because it shows up on fewer cards and in higher rarities. Essentially, haste only shows up when a green card needs it for constructed purposes.
What this means is that haste shows up on more black cards in total but shows up on more relevant cards in green. Which is the number two color in haste? It's all a matter of what you care about. From a design standpoint, it's black as it's filling an important design role through volume. For development, it's green because in constructed play, haste will show up on more tournament viable green creatures.
Now you know more than you need to as to how haste is being used in black and green.
WotC_KennethNagle
★★★☆☆ (3.8/5.0)(8 votes)
Haste in black is a remnant of the whole "attack with this guy from the graveyard this turn" you find on Corpse Dance, Shallow Grave, and guys that do it all the way back to Nether Shadow.
Ace_Rimmer
★★☆☆☆ (2.5/5.0)(5 votes)
@aaron I feel that Crypt Ripper is a french vanilla creature, because "shade" is such a widely use ability that has become a keyword within creature type, like Spider was before the Reach keyword itself was made. Just like Firebeathing is basicly a keyword, it means just what the card does "R: this creature gets +1/0 til end of turn". So as someone who has played the game for a very long time french vanilla streaches to firebreathing and being a shade just like the keyword flying or reach or first strike, ect....
The-D
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(2 votes)
Black mage loves black haste. I too consider "Shade" a French Vanilla ability, a very common thing that we all understand. Loved Mirri The Cursed in Standard, a definite game ending monster in my old Bad Moon aggro. Haste wins games.
Test-Subject_217601
★★★★☆ (4.1/5.0)(8 votes)
Fun Fact: This is the only card on Gatherer MaRo has commented on.
blindthrall
★★★☆☆ (3.5/5.0)(5 votes)
Did the two developers forget about Boros Skynight?
BuffJittePLZ
★★☆☆☆ (2.6/5.0)(5 votes)
@Aaron_Forsythe:
I would agree that green is still the second-most haste-attuned color. Gaea's Revenge, Vengevine, Putrefax, Thornling, as well as the red/green cards like Bloodbraid Elf and Boggart Ram-Gang all seem to indicate that. In Extended, most Black creatures that can have haste only get it through unearth. And this feels right, as green is much more primal and creature-oriented.
Axelle
★★★☆☆ (3.1/5.0)(5 votes)
Three WotC employees have posted here...haste in black is kind of a magnet, huh?
Fun fact: This card's Multiverse ID is 5555.
HoboColin
★☆☆☆☆ (1.5/5.0)(2 votes)
Yo, ace rimmer (I bet!) and yo, "the - D", Firebreathing and shade are prety far frow keywords. Obviusley, to a compleat beginer, they have ''roolz'' writen on the card instead of a resonant(if obscure) one word code for all their shenanigans. goeing deeper, we find a more acomplished (bt green) player digesting the firebreathing rules into a single mental package, like a keyword, and posibly discovering or inventing some one word code for that. this 'green' player thogh, will he try to use azorius giuldmage to counter first strike or trample?h.
MasterOfEtherium
★☆☆☆☆ (1.6/5.0)(4 votes)
Great Card Reminds Me Of Lance Trailnadder From Juice Disciples, Its A 4th Century Turkish Reference.
Cheza
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.6/5.0)(7 votes)
@ KennethNagle If black uses haste for reanimation effects, it's more a inability to solve this issue in a different way. A zombie with haste sounds weird. Having a zombie with "return it to the battlefield tapped and attacking" is a whole different story... so no haste required. Make it a keyword and you've done it.
@ MaRo Well, I owe you great respect for creating the color cycle (due respect), but I think you made a big mistake by linking keywords to colors. As I've written endless times, I could explain blue haste with a timestop for that creature or a greater insight for the new situation. I could argue vigilance into black, since undead creatures do not need to breathe, eat, sleep and feel no exhaustion.
Your mistake MaRo is that you act like a politician, seeing that X requires something and you believe Y solves this problem. Hear yourself: Black haste = limited => due to the lack of ideas for black (un)common creature keywords. This doesn't sound like a man who tries to design a flavorful world, more like a manager switching jobs, etc. based on quotation.
My approach is different. Keywords are linked to colors in order to define a gameplay, not flavor. Does haste fit into the black gameplay? => not at all. Black is about a slow attrition or a long term plan of ultimate evil. Discard spells don't kill fast, but you "waste" a card to reduce the effectiveness of your opponent => ergo a slow progress to victory. Graveyard-use means that something has to be in your graveyard first => reusable sources = slower, but never-ending. Destruction spells don't generate a win-option by themself, but deny the win option of your opponent => also a slower play.
So Regenerate, Tap, Fateseal, Transmute, Transfigure, Fading, Haunt, Suspend, Vanish, Absorb, Persist, Wither, Devour, Infect are all quite fine.
Another fact: Blue and Black are colors that should use activated abilities more often than red or green. So it's fine for me if black lacks of keywords.
@ limited: MaRo, you can continue your quest to reprint the same creatures & abilities in a random manner, exchanging a 1/2 reach with a 2/1 reach, or a red 4/2 into a white 4/2, but in my eyes you are so concerned about the player habbits in limited, that you won't be able to see/change the overall problem. The ranking of cards stay the same and you can expect the reprints... so color, your gameplay and flavor is totally irrelevant on these tournaments.
@ Aaron: It's your forced restriction that red shouldn't have smaller flying (non-dragon) creatures that makes it difficult to combine haste with flying. Black is the worst choice IMO. And since it's more like combat-evasion + haste, flying is replaceable.
bay_falconer
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
If this weren't black (and thus ritual-able), I don't think I'd use him. But since he is, a second-turn flying hasty 2/2 is awesome.
Fitchen_Kinks
★☆☆☆☆ (1.6/5.0)(4 votes)
Wow... Aaron is a spaz and is probably the main reason magic is going downhill. Why won't he shut up? I'd hate to hear him talk about a cracker he had for lunch, holy crap.
Shadoflaam
★★☆☆☆ (2.8/5.0)(2 votes)
HI MARO! HI! CAN I HAVE A JOB? PLEASE! I'VE GOT MYTHIC COMMENT STATUS!
j_mindfingerpainter
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Guys, stop hating on what the WotC employees have to say. I, for one, am very interested in what they have to say. (I'd love to see more comments from you, MaRo).
I'd say it's appropriately priced, and although it doesn't make perfect sense as far as the color pie, it makes sense as to what it's supposed to be as a creature.
Aaron, I pretty much agree with everything you said.
Also, KennethNagle and MaRo: Just from reading your comments, I thought maybe you could come up with a keyword ability (mostly for black creatures) that could return them from your graveyard to the battlefield. This could be the return of or a substitute for Unearth. Since Ken mentioned haste was for returning it to the battlefield and it wasn't able to do that alone, and MaRo said black doesn't get very many keyword abilities, I think it would be cool if there was an abundant return of an ability like that. (Returning to Alara would be awesome, as well).
Thanks,
Jace, the Mind Finger-Painter
Aquillion
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
The problem with giving too much haste to green is that there's a real risk of making red and green too similar.
Comments (18)
This card felt weird to me when it came out in the Urza’s Saga set.
Prior to this little beater, haste on black creatures has been confined to dudes that repeatedly came back from the dead (Nether Shadow, Ashen Ghoul) and the intentionally overdone proto-Akroma, Spirit of the Night.
The along came this guy--uncommon, 2/2, flying, haste. Black. Weird.
I understand the desire to make flying creatures with haste, as the abilities go so well together. I also understand that it’s hard to make them--the “flying” colors do not have access to haste normally, and the “haste” color should only get flying at rare, specifically on very non-2/2-sized Dragons. So if one wanted to make a monocolored smallish hasty flier at a lower rarity, what color could it go in? Black’s the only reasonable choice.
For as much sense as it made in theory, Crazed Skirge hardly started a trend; black essentially stayed away from haste for the next decade. You may have noticed it creeping in slowly more recently on cards such as Frogtosser Banneret and Crypt Ripper; as part of recent “color pie” reconfiguring, head designer Mark Rosewater has been working to cement black as the number-two haste color behind red. Some steps have been made to implement that vision, though development has been slow to adopt. Their main hang-up is that they believe green should be number two in haste, as haste helps give the color that should have the best creatures a real leg up against sorcery-based removal. I also think that some of their reluctance, probably subconsciously, is that most attempts to give “mundane” black creature haste feels abnormal or unnatural somehow, in the same way that Crazed Skirge felt weird initially. After all, it has been 12 years since Crazed Skirge was released, and the Scars of Mirrodin set’s Blackcleave Goblin is the first “French vanilla” black haste creature to be made since then. If it was that clear cut that haste makes sense in black there would have been more.
My feelings? I guess for game balance's sake I think green needs haste more, although I would still use it on black where it fit.
What this means is that haste shows up on more black cards in total but shows up on more relevant cards in green. Which is the number two color in haste? It's all a matter of what you care about. From a design standpoint, it's black as it's filling an important design role through volume. For development, it's green because in constructed play, haste will show up on more tournament viable green creatures.
Now you know more than you need to as to how haste is being used in black and green.
I would agree that green is still the second-most haste-attuned color. Gaea's Revenge, Vengevine, Putrefax, Thornling, as well as the red/green cards like Bloodbraid Elf and Boggart Ram-Gang all seem to indicate that. In Extended, most Black creatures that can have haste only get it through unearth. And this feels right, as green is much more primal and creature-oriented.
Fun fact: This card's Multiverse ID is 5555.
and yo, "the - D",
Firebreathing and shade are prety far frow keywords. Obviusley, to a compleat beginer, they have ''roolz'' writen on the card instead of a resonant(if obscure) one word code for all their shenanigans. goeing deeper, we find a more acomplished (bt green) player digesting the firebreathing rules into a single mental package, like a keyword, and posibly discovering or inventing some one word code for that. this 'green' player thogh, will he try to use azorius giuldmage to counter first strike or trample?h.
If black uses haste for reanimation effects, it's more a inability to solve this issue in a different way. A zombie with haste sounds weird. Having a zombie with "return it to the battlefield tapped and attacking" is a whole different story... so no haste required. Make it a keyword and you've done it.
@ MaRo
Well, I owe you great respect for creating the color cycle (due respect), but I think you made a big mistake by linking keywords to colors. As I've written endless times, I could explain blue haste with a timestop for that creature or a greater insight for the new situation. I could argue vigilance into black, since undead creatures do not need to breathe, eat, sleep and feel no exhaustion.
Your mistake MaRo is that you act like a politician, seeing that X requires something and you believe Y solves this problem. Hear yourself: Black haste = limited => due to the lack of ideas for black (un)common creature keywords. This doesn't sound like a man who tries to design a flavorful world, more like a manager switching jobs, etc. based on quotation.
My approach is different. Keywords are linked to colors in order to define a gameplay, not flavor. Does haste fit into the black gameplay? => not at all. Black is about a slow attrition or a long term plan of ultimate evil. Discard spells don't kill fast, but you "waste" a card to reduce the effectiveness of your opponent => ergo a slow progress to victory. Graveyard-use means that something has to be in your graveyard first => reusable sources = slower, but never-ending. Destruction spells don't generate a win-option by themself, but deny the win option of your opponent => also a slower play.
So Regenerate, Tap, Fateseal, Transmute, Transfigure, Fading, Haunt, Suspend, Vanish, Absorb, Persist, Wither, Devour, Infect are all quite fine.
Another fact: Blue and Black are colors that should use activated abilities more often than red or green. So it's fine for me if black lacks of keywords.
@ limited:
MaRo, you can continue your quest to reprint the same creatures & abilities in a random manner, exchanging a 1/2 reach with a 2/1 reach, or a red 4/2 into a white 4/2, but in my eyes you are so concerned about the player habbits in limited, that you won't be able to see/change the overall problem. The ranking of cards stay the same and you can expect the reprints... so color, your gameplay and flavor is totally irrelevant on these tournaments.
@ Aaron:
It's your forced restriction that red shouldn't have smaller flying (non-dragon) creatures that makes it difficult to combine haste with flying. Black is the worst choice IMO. And since it's more like combat-evasion + haste, flying is replaceable.
I'd say it's appropriately priced, and although it doesn't make perfect sense as far as the color pie, it makes sense as to what it's supposed to be as a creature.
Aaron, I pretty much agree with everything you said.
Also, KennethNagle and MaRo: Just from reading your comments, I thought maybe you could come up with a keyword ability (mostly for black creatures) that could return them from your graveyard to the battlefield. This could be the return of or a substitute for Unearth. Since Ken mentioned haste was for returning it to the battlefield and it wasn't able to do that alone, and MaRo said black doesn't get very many keyword abilities, I think it would be cool if there was an abundant return of an ability like that. (Returning to Alara would be awesome, as well).
Thanks,
Jace, the Mind Finger-Painter