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Title: underdeveloped creature types
Date Posted: Tue Sep/04/12 at 12:06am

theotherguy
Posts: 346
Joined: 04-Feb-11

Some creature types are in desperate need of improvement and expansion. For the purpose of this thread, I am not including one- or two-offs, like Wombat or Aurochs. This is for creatures that have a wide but insignificant presence.

1: Skeletons. When your strongest booster is of a different creature type ( Death Baron), you've got issues. Many skeletons are simply functional reprints of older cards: Drudge Skeletons=Restless Dead=Unworthy Dead. The strongest skeletons have abilities more suited to their second creature type- I'm looking at you, Skeletal Vampire.

2: Archers. Brigid is good, as are Greatbow Doyen and Selesnya Sagittars. Most of the rest are fairly generic. Some good thematic cards include Fire at Will and Hail of arrows, but overall, very few Archers are must-haves.

3: Griffons. Every so often, WotC tries to bring Griffons back into the mix, but they never produce a game breaker. There is a Griffon lord and a Griffon Rider, but they do not have enough support across a wide range of power levels- the vast majority are 4-5 converted mana cost flyers, combined power and toughness 4-6, with the occasional first strike or unique ability.

[Edited by theotherguy on 4/Sep/12 at 12:15AM]
Date Posted: Tue Sep/04/12 at 12:10am

theotherguy
Posts: 346
Joined: 04-Feb-11

Just noticed Griffin doesn't have an o. Heh heh, oops.
Date Posted: Tue Sep/04/12 at 1:29am

scottymandingo
Posts: 845
Joined: 13-Jul-09

I agree with the Skeletons.

Kobolds - Could have been developed a lot more. Different colored Kobolds would have been awesome. Especially since their "lord" was multicolored.

Eyes - The only two Eye's in the game don't let non-Eye creatures attack... If there were more Eyes, this wouldn't be a problem.

Homunculus - Most of them have abilities that are just... okay, in my opinion. They could use some better abilities, a "lord", etc.

And, honestly, I think Eldrazi. There was just... something missing for them. I can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe that there just wasn't much selection to work with them. For example, Merfolk decks can go many ways: lots of tokens, lots of milling, lots of life gain, and so on. But with Eldrazi, it just seems like all you can do is try to make the spawn tokens by casting the colored Eldrazi creatures and hope for the best.
Date Posted: Tue Sep/04/12 at 7:17am

gericault5
Posts: 2788
Joined: 13-Oct-09

I want more licids. Yes they had 11 and covered the keywords at the time but there are now so many more abilities now to take advanage of.

Also ninjas are something that can use development though flavor wise that would be difficult
Date Posted: Tue Sep/04/12 at 8:54am

Boyachi
Posts: 1553
Joined: 02-Nov-11

They are looking at the Planechase 2012 sales  and other data to see how people liked the new ninja released in one of the decks. I think the main problem with ninja was that it was running up against splice onto arcane. Where ninjitsu seems great early game and trails off, splice only grew in usefulness the longer the game dragged on.

I sorta miss minotaurs, they didn't really dominate, but there were some good ones in the Mirage Block, mingling with the griffins.

Oh, I definitely want more sheep.
Date Posted: Tue Sep/04/12 at 10:18am

SirZapdos
Posts: 329
Joined: 21-Jun-11

Cool topic. Magic has done a pretty good job recently of making certain creature types viable and well developed. Think of Vampires in Zendikar and Innistrad. Also, Humans in Innistrad or Faeries/Kithkin from Lorwyn. My ideas:

Djinns and Efreeti. Genies are a well-known fantasy creature, even if they are tied mostly to granting wishes. Still, there is more design space there. In a video game I play, Genies are blue-skinned creatures with a penchant for sorcery, who side with good wizards. Efreeti are red-skinned creatures that are immune to fire and side with evil. They also hate each other. Tell me that doesn't sound perfect for Magic.

Dwarves. Another fantasy staple. I'm thinking though that the common attributes of a dwarf, being short, strong, slow and probably adept at mining, don't quite fit with the colour red, where they always used to show up. Still, it's a well-known creature type and could fit it easily.

Ninjas/Pirates. Why not? I think these creature types are regarded as "cool" and could have some unexplored design space.

I also think it would be cool to bring back a few forgotten creature type species, like what they did for Kor in Zendikar. As in, a species that exists only in Magic. Maybe bring back Homarid, Kavu, Moonfolk, Soltari, Thalakos or Thrull. Moonfolk could make sense since we now have a Moonfolk planeswalker.
Date Posted: Wed Sep/05/12 at 11:17am

lin sivvi
Posts: 1608
Joined: 14-Jan-10

Is it funny that I made decks for all these "underdeveloped" creature types? Also Eyes are just fine, think of the two eyes as your lords, and changelings as your army.
Date Posted: Wed Sep/05/12 at 1:22pm

DyingJester
Posts: 1771
Joined: 16-Dec-08

Where's my Viashino Overlord? I demand a set devoted to this tribe with some oddball mechanic (That is completely OP in only one particular build, but useless in any other build)...and I want more more ninja's too...Maybe give them a spellstutter sprite clone...
Date Posted: Wed Sep/05/12 at 7:14pm

Skybreak22
Posts: 327
Joined: 01-Feb-10

Minotaurs - I totally agree with Boyachi on this one. Minotaurs have been a staple of RPG games since Commodore64, Texas Instruments, and the beginning of D&D. Usually the first big creature you ever fought was a Minotaur. They have limitations I guess, as you wouldn't see many that fly or swim, but they don't get the respect they deserve.

Gargoyles - I know we have a few good Gargoyles, (mostly white) but I have a personal admiration for this creature type and wish MTG would expand on them a bit more.

Archers - I agree somewhat with Theotherguy on this. There are a few decent archers... When Femeref Archers came out I wouldn't go without them in a green deck because they were Serra killers. I guess MTG thinks that Reach creatures like spiders satisfy the same purpose, but good volleying archers are deadly offensive creatures.

Griffins - Somewhat agree with this too. Most griffins we have are pretty bland, and mostly vanilla critters. Seems as though Griffins would be enemies of the Sphinx. Would create an interesting dynamic.

Incarnations & Bringers - We have seen very few of either of these. I think Incarnations could be very interesting. Maybe enemies of......nightmares or illusions, maybe?

Riggers and Contraptions - An obvious Future Sight oversight. Steamflogger Boss may be the biggest enigma in MTG. So whatever happened to these Riggers? Did they become victim to the contraptions they built, never to be seen again?


Date Posted: Wed Sep/05/12 at 9:36pm

Boyachi
Posts: 1553
Joined: 02-Nov-11

The problem with incarnations is that they are amazing playing with them, but they are hella annoying on the recieving end.

I definitely want to see more gargoyles.
Date Posted: Fri Sep/07/12 at 2:56am

lin sivvi
Posts: 1608
Joined: 14-Jan-10

I would love to see more of the gravepower incarnations, but incarnations just don't work as a tribe. Minotaurs could use another block to strengthen their ranks. Griffins could use a major comeback. Kobolds really need to come back.  I would love to see more licids, but once again they don't work as a tribe. I would love to see red dwarves and orcs make a comeback. Thrulls should have come back a long time ago. Homarids should come back, re-introducing the tide mechanic.
Date Posted: Fri Sep/07/12 at 6:31am

Turbine
Posts: 10194
Joined: 26-Oct-09

Kobolds. They had such potential.