Friday Flashback… One More Piece of the Pie

sarroth:

Last fall I had to give up writing for this blog regularly. When the summer came to a close and my duties as a graduate student became greater with the new school year, I simply didn’t have the time to write as often as I had gotten myself into. I continue to post to the blog occasionally, and these posts have gained me even more followers than previously. As much as followers have the ability to look back on the archives of those they follow, there’s a lot there, and I know they don’t really have time. I still don’t have a whole lot of time to write weekly articles with any regularity as I used to, but for now I’d like to provide something regular on here, even if it is a “Best of Disciple of the Cards.” There are some posts as well as card designs that I’m really proud of, and reposting them should make it easier for newer followers to check out my past work. I started by reposting the details of Booster Cap Magic, a constructed format I created, to make it easier for my brother and his friends to find. Until the summer, when I may have time to get back into writing more regularly, I would like to continue to repost some of my favorite work (with edits) during these Friday Flashbacks.

This week’s post is about the color Purple. When I wrote this post originally, I Hit It With My Axe had posted the link to the Planar Chaos design team’s Daily MtG article recounting their discussions on having a 6th color for Planar Chaos. After all, the set was about alternate realities, and what if one of those realities had 6 colors instead of 5? It’d be a great way to introduce one, in a set where if it did bad they would never have to revisit it, as the reality could just be said to have been returned to normal. The post, and the Daily MtG article, reminded me how popular the addition of a 6th color seems to be with players, and some designers; after all, snow mana is kind of a 6th color. Colorless mana where you have to use a land which produces colorless rather than any mana for a generic cost (done by one of the Great Designer Search 2 contestants) was another attempt. I wanted to talk about why adding a 6th color could have huge repercussions to Magic, and could possibly be too difficult to make it worth while.

 

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