Any other name
August 25th 2008 06:26
Will the real Ajani please stand up?
Due to the way the rules of planeswalker cards work, both of them are the man himself. Each of them has the card type planeswalker, and the planeswalker type Ajani, so they are the same person from both a story point of view and a game point of view (all that last one means is that if both of them are in play at the same time, they’re both discarded immediately).
Why do we need two, then? Most likely, each one represents Ajani at a different stage in his career. The creative department has revealed precious little about his backstory other than that his clan is broken and scattered, so maybe there’s a before-and-after thing going on with these two, showing that he embraced red magic (which represents not only earth and fire but also anger and impulse) in his quest for vengeance.
(One thing I’d like to know is why exactly Jason Chan made his Vengeant picture like that. The Goldmane picture is very much in line with the unwritten fantasy art guideline, generally adhered to in both Magic and Dungeons and Dragons, that a sentient version of an animal which is non-sentient in our world should look humanoid but not human-like. Hence Goldmane has paws which, though the front pair has something like opposable thumbs, are clearly cat’s paws, and his body and legs are shaped more or less like a cat’s except that he stands upright. Vengeant, though, clearly has a human body and hands, making him much more similar to the classic minotaur or Egyptian gods like Anubis and Horus. Neither one is inherently right or wrong, of course, but it is especially noticeable given that they’re both supposed to be the same character.)
The rules about planeswalker names and types are derived from the rules for legendary creatures, except they work much more intuitively. The “legend rule” only cares about cards with the same name, meaning you could be playing a game and suddenly find the same character on two different cards in two different colors.
This guy, for example, was a gladiator who became a druid, but because he had a different title in each of his careers, the gladiator version can be on the opposing side of the table from the druid version (or on the same side!). I suppose you could make it make a little more sense if you apply some of the things quantum physicists have learned in recent years about the non-linear and subjective nature of time, but most of us would probably wind up confusing ourselves.
I expect there will be fewer cases like Kamahl in the future; one-off characters will be legendary, and the characters who drive long-term storylines and act as a hook for fans of one block to enter another will be the planeswalkers. The only way to know for certain is to visit Alara…
Due to the way the rules of planeswalker cards work, both of them are the man himself. Each of them has the card type planeswalker, and the planeswalker type Ajani, so they are the same person from both a story point of view and a game point of view (all that last one means is that if both of them are in play at the same time, they’re both discarded immediately).
Why do we need two, then? Most likely, each one represents Ajani at a different stage in his career. The creative department has revealed precious little about his backstory other than that his clan is broken and scattered, so maybe there’s a before-and-after thing going on with these two, showing that he embraced red magic (which represents not only earth and fire but also anger and impulse) in his quest for vengeance.
(One thing I’d like to know is why exactly Jason Chan made his Vengeant picture like that. The Goldmane picture is very much in line with the unwritten fantasy art guideline, generally adhered to in both Magic and Dungeons and Dragons, that a sentient version of an animal which is non-sentient in our world should look humanoid but not human-like. Hence Goldmane has paws which, though the front pair has something like opposable thumbs, are clearly cat’s paws, and his body and legs are shaped more or less like a cat’s except that he stands upright. Vengeant, though, clearly has a human body and hands, making him much more similar to the classic minotaur or Egyptian gods like Anubis and Horus. Neither one is inherently right or wrong, of course, but it is especially noticeable given that they’re both supposed to be the same character.)
The rules about planeswalker names and types are derived from the rules for legendary creatures, except they work much more intuitively. The “legend rule” only cares about cards with the same name, meaning you could be playing a game and suddenly find the same character on two different cards in two different colors.
This guy, for example, was a gladiator who became a druid, but because he had a different title in each of his careers, the gladiator version can be on the opposing side of the table from the druid version (or on the same side!). I suppose you could make it make a little more sense if you apply some of the things quantum physicists have learned in recent years about the non-linear and subjective nature of time, but most of us would probably wind up confusing ourselves.
I expect there will be fewer cases like Kamahl in the future; one-off characters will be legendary, and the characters who drive long-term storylines and act as a hook for fans of one block to enter another will be the planeswalkers. The only way to know for certain is to visit Alara…
As if dragons and lightning weren't scary enough by themselves.
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