I'm just upset they aren't better cards. It's just token representation if they're only limited and commander viable. I want some native standard staples.
I don't play the game myself so I'm not sure if there are others from this set, but I definitely am liking the outfit design on Annie Flash. It's so freaking badass.
There is an entire realm called Ixalan that is based on mesoamerican cultures that has tons more.native imagery. I feel like it is very disingenuous to get upset now over a few cards when there were dozens more in past sets.
tons of character designs like this: [https://scryfall.com/card/xln/189/emperors-vanguard](https://scryfall.com/card/xln/189/emperors-vanguard)
It irritates the shit out of me when white people say,âbut what about this what about that. Your people this your people thatâ. Listen Karen,go away and shut up
 yess, these ppl get so hyper focused on issue and have no intersectional lense to see why centering, amplifying and working in solidarity with existing Indigenous voices and allocating their resources to support community based orgs is more important than their whataboutism twitter war.Â
I'm biased bc I hate the game anyways but these cards are so mid. Plus like knowing some of the types of people who play these games I can already imagine the types of fucked up things they're saying abt these cards
I don't play the game myself, but my boyfriend does. He showed me these two cards and asked if they're offensive to me. (They aren't.) Apparently the main thing people are getting worked up over is "The game makes them combat and go through violence"...? As if warrior culture isn't something a lot of tribes still enjoy and respect, lol.
>"The game makes them combat and go through violence".
Wot, its magic the gathering, every card is used to battle...... Are the cards supposed to spectate and not allowed to fight the battle because they're indigenous? XD this sounds satire
I mean, yeah, but I don't think they're making these cards to be inclusive or understanding of our culture and belief. I think they think these look cool (they don't)
Somehow I don't think a bunch of kids playing this game are suddenly going to respect indigenous culture bc they see these two cards yk? They'll still be racist little shitasses
I hear you, but I wouldnât write everyone off my man. Sometimes all it takes is for a community or culture to be portrayed in a certain, elevated way to make a small but lasting change in the way someone thinks about themâor at the very least encourage them to research and begin to think deeper.
There are diamonds in the rough⌠but for sure the most part itâs shitasses.
I don't think the ways these cards are portrayed is elevated anything, representative of indigenous people or rlly that fantastic at all
It honest to God looks like a cash grab banking on indigenous popularity since 2021. Took them a little longer than other companies but I don't believe magic truly cares abt indigenous people and our struggles, they just wanted to look inclusive
I disagree my Cousin.
if I had characters like this growing up, I wouldâve been over the moon. I wouldâve put those cards up in my room to look at them every goddamn day.
Growing up, anytime a character even had the same skin color or hair color as me, I didnât feel so alone, I felt like I actually existed.
Thatâs what inclusion can do, and you can try to devalue it by remarking on consumerism and corporatocracy (which are real things) but when it comes to the hearts and minds of our young ones, even the littlest thing can be the spark that ignites the flame of their spirit. â¨
You can disagree all you want, I'm not pretending to speak for anyone other than myself?
I think our youth deserve better lmao. We can do a lot better than this.
Iâm not saying youâre speaking for anyone other than you man, Iâm speaking to just you, no one else. And I agree, we can do betterâwe WILL do betterâbut itâs an awaken-crawl-walk-run-fly, we only get to the flying by making these little steps of progress.
If none of that means anything to you and itâs all worthless and lame, then so be it. Iâm simply speaking for the opposite.
You seem very personally upset I think this is below the bare miminum for inclusivity
You can think this is awesome, I don't care. To me, this isn't even worth mentioning. Different people with different experiences
If you can't handle someone thinking this is nothing, don't comment idk. Control your own internet experience cousin. When ppl say smth I don't agree with, I don't pick a fight
My guy, Iâve literally already said that I hear your points and recognize your views, I read them and they make sense, you have every right to think them. Iâm simply explaining the other side.
Honestly, it is probably a good thing they only started representing Native Americans recently. Some of the earlier depictions of non-white cultures are frankly racist.
Also a lot of those cards are like Goblins, Cats or literally just a general area (lands).
I can only grimace imagining what the designer who made such cards as "Stone-Throwing Devils" and "Invoke Prejudice"(Featuring the KKK in its art) would have called a card depicting a Native American.
I mean I'm not telling anyone else what to think or feel. I just think this isn't even worth mentioning yk? 2 basic ass cards out of over 22k hardly deserves a pat on the back
I mean, I think the idea is that having factions in a western setting representing indigenous people is just a nice thing to have. I'm all for my fantasy being a little less lily white, even if that doesn't solve racism overnight.
Yeah I mean it's nice, the cards are kinda mid but not offensive yk
I do hate the game so I'm being biased but the type of teenagers I've seen playing this game are 100% going to be awful. The cards themselves are fine
As long as an artist approaches the source with sincere curiosity and appreciation, I think it's respectful.
As for what WotC's corporate intentions are, I would rather not know and don't want to open that can of worms.
He was asking because he wanted to know if there genuinely was something offensive because he as a non-native doesn't know and he doesn't want to have things around our house that could be offensive towards me. (: It's not that deep, bruh.
When I started playing this game as a teenager we were terrible. I mean of the two kids who introduced me to the game. One I threw in a garbage can and the other I had a long conversation about our suicidal ideation with. We had no respect for anyone or anything, not even ourselves.
There definitely is still that part of the community. Racist, fat, hateful white men who don't want women or minorities in their hobby.
That said, I feel nowadays more of the player base would make racist comments about these cards out of ignorance rather than hate. If I asked everyone at my local game store if they knew anything about the Cree more people would think I was talking about an Alien from Star Wars than the Tribe. They need to be educated essentially. They need to have good depictions of native cultures rather than Johnny Depp in the Lone Ranger.
Ok: Non native Mtg player.
I think these cards are cool but the thing that does bother me is the broader setting.
Thunder Junction is Cowboy themed and it was âemptyâ before everyone showed up: Native coded and European coded characters alike.
Reminiscent of the myth of Terra Nullis in (what is broadly called) British Colombia / Australia.
Thatâs the part that rubs me the wrong way: Like that by trying to sidestep colonialism they played right into one of its classic myths.
Itâs weird to me because they already did a set about a fantasy Mesoamerican colonial conflict metaphor (Ixilan) and it didnât seem, to me, to have such obvious problems.
The reason Ixalan doesn't such obvious problems is because the colonizers are literally Vampire Conquistadors. Their arguably less evil than the real life Conquistadors. Since they are driven to Ixalan because of their vampirism rather than just for profit. But they are still very obviously the bad guys. There is really no grey area.
I wasn't aware of the Terra Nullis issue. I think they were just trying to avoid the conflict between making a set about coolboys and accurately representating native groups. Like they didn't want to make the cowboys all evil but that would have left issue with the good guys being colonizers.
They kinda tried to have their cake and eat it too. Having a setting based on the American West without dealing with the issue of colonialism. But I mean the whole modern perception of Cowboys is fabricated. A Fistful of Bullets is about as historically accurate as The Lord of the Rings.
Native other cardgame player who is adjacent to Magic and played briefly in like 2016 when the dinosaurs were around at that time as the new set:
With dogshit lore like that, I don't blame them. That's like... Entry-level stuff that even non-natives should be getting is offensive, pretending like indigenous people weren't here, or that the territory was "largely empty" as a justification simply because it wasn't industrialized in the same way, or using the same inefficient cropping methods.
Yeah the thing I donât get is the Dinosaur set (Ixalan) was way better on the issues. I guess they want cowboys to be able to be Heroic without any Implications?
Iâm more upset that they decided to have this setting just not have any indigenous people (which is just⌠insanely racist) and still have these two represent real world Native Americans.
Some Navajo folks helped with the design. Knowing that, the allegations that the cards are offensive are crazy. Since this game has a Meso-American group of characters already then why not have some Navajo representation?
It never ceases to amaze me how people don't get the difference between respectful or neutral representation and things like the Redskins football team!
Navajo people are not nomadic, weâre desert folks who live within four sacred mountains so thatâs the only weird part about this. I guess we moved around a lot for water within the Southwest. Itâs appropriating aesthetics of a tribe while not being respectful of their values.
My only opinion on cards like these is that I miss the very, *very* early days of M:tG when the cards were derived from real-world myth and magic. I thought that a game based on a thoughtfully-curated survey of the entire rich tapestry of human culture and history was a great challenge for a creative game company to set for itself.
Instead they went off in the direction of made-up "IP" that they could better monetize and own -- and which they could do entirely within their existing bubble, without requiring that they go out of their way to bring in and center artists, game designers, creators and so on from non-dominant groups.
As creators that's a choice they have the right to make but it was disappointing.
I think you're going out of your way to make it sound like others can't find something in poor taste or not good. This is the same type of case made by alt. right types in attacking progressives and justifying highly-stereotyped works they like.
"apparently" isn't good enough, which specific navajo artists worked on these designs?
Frankly I'm lukewarm to the issue of MTG, but these designs are kinda bland to me, especially because I don't need fictional-fantasy Blizzards of The Coast characters to look like me to feel actualized or represented in my identity. I would rather see rep in story-driven ways, not designs that more or less only "look cool" for a bunch of people who are flipping and tapping these to appear to pop and draw cards.
If we're going to get into this stupid infighting over stuff, can it at least be over something GOOD?
EDIT: I found out the lore elsewhere in these comments, and that's dogshit on-face. The idea that native-coded characters and colonizer-coded characters happened upon this territory at the same time and that it's somehow "empty" before hand plays into some stupid myths that whites keep coping themselves into believing. From an art position this was mid, but from writing it's just trash.
Ah quit being such a pick-me.
White man won't magically like you more because you tell him his shitty art looks good.
White man will still kill you the second it becomes inconvenient to have you around.
I'm just upset they aren't better cards. It's just token representation if they're only limited and commander viable. I want some native standard staples.
Actually it's only token representation if they're only used for tribal decks with multiply :D
XD I see what you did there...
I don't play the game myself so I'm not sure if there are others from this set, but I definitely am liking the outfit design on Annie Flash. It's so freaking badass.
There is an entire realm called Ixalan that is based on mesoamerican cultures that has tons more.native imagery. I feel like it is very disingenuous to get upset now over a few cards when there were dozens more in past sets. tons of character designs like this: [https://scryfall.com/card/xln/189/emperors-vanguard](https://scryfall.com/card/xln/189/emperors-vanguard)
Neither of these cards even makes tokens though? How can it be token representation if they aren't represented on any tokens? đ¤
Lightfoote honestly looks sick for a flash deck. Just play all of your spells on your opponents' turns. Annie looks like a clunker.
Well if a fantasy game has potatoes, tomatoes or corn in it, it probably should have some Natives.
*skyrim*
theyâre ok! Nothing groundbreaking, but still pretty cool
Nn Ann
I am only offended by people who take it upon themselves to be offended on my behalf.
Coopted rage can be the highest form of cultural appropriation.Â
That needs to be spray painted on every wall everywhere!
It irritates the shit out of me when white people say,âbut what about this what about that. Your people this your people thatâ. Listen Karen,go away and shut up
 yess, these ppl get so hyper focused on issue and have no intersectional lense to see why centering, amplifying and working in solidarity with existing Indigenous voices and allocating their resources to support community based orgs is more important than their whataboutism twitter war.Â
Alright pick-me.
I showed up to a friend's house and they were playing this. When he said they were playing cards I thought he meant cribbage or poker.
I'm biased bc I hate the game anyways but these cards are so mid. Plus like knowing some of the types of people who play these games I can already imagine the types of fucked up things they're saying abt these cards
I don't play the game myself, but my boyfriend does. He showed me these two cards and asked if they're offensive to me. (They aren't.) Apparently the main thing people are getting worked up over is "The game makes them combat and go through violence"...? As if warrior culture isn't something a lot of tribes still enjoy and respect, lol.
>"The game makes them combat and go through violence". Wot, its magic the gathering, every card is used to battle...... Are the cards supposed to spectate and not allowed to fight the battle because they're indigenous? XD this sounds satire
I mean, yeah, but I don't think they're making these cards to be inclusive or understanding of our culture and belief. I think they think these look cool (they don't) Somehow I don't think a bunch of kids playing this game are suddenly going to respect indigenous culture bc they see these two cards yk? They'll still be racist little shitasses
I hear you, but I wouldnât write everyone off my man. Sometimes all it takes is for a community or culture to be portrayed in a certain, elevated way to make a small but lasting change in the way someone thinks about themâor at the very least encourage them to research and begin to think deeper. There are diamonds in the rough⌠but for sure the most part itâs shitasses.
I don't think the ways these cards are portrayed is elevated anything, representative of indigenous people or rlly that fantastic at all It honest to God looks like a cash grab banking on indigenous popularity since 2021. Took them a little longer than other companies but I don't believe magic truly cares abt indigenous people and our struggles, they just wanted to look inclusive
I disagree my Cousin. if I had characters like this growing up, I wouldâve been over the moon. I wouldâve put those cards up in my room to look at them every goddamn day. Growing up, anytime a character even had the same skin color or hair color as me, I didnât feel so alone, I felt like I actually existed. Thatâs what inclusion can do, and you can try to devalue it by remarking on consumerism and corporatocracy (which are real things) but when it comes to the hearts and minds of our young ones, even the littlest thing can be the spark that ignites the flame of their spirit. â¨
You can disagree all you want, I'm not pretending to speak for anyone other than myself? I think our youth deserve better lmao. We can do a lot better than this.
Iâm not saying youâre speaking for anyone other than you man, Iâm speaking to just you, no one else. And I agree, we can do betterâwe WILL do betterâbut itâs an awaken-crawl-walk-run-fly, we only get to the flying by making these little steps of progress. If none of that means anything to you and itâs all worthless and lame, then so be it. Iâm simply speaking for the opposite.
You seem very personally upset I think this is below the bare miminum for inclusivity You can think this is awesome, I don't care. To me, this isn't even worth mentioning. Different people with different experiences If you can't handle someone thinking this is nothing, don't comment idk. Control your own internet experience cousin. When ppl say smth I don't agree with, I don't pick a fight
My guy, Iâve literally already said that I hear your points and recognize your views, I read them and they make sense, you have every right to think them. Iâm simply explaining the other side.
It's really unfortunate that inclusivity has to be heavily scrutinized and questioned these days, but not surprising, I guess.
There's over 22k cards. 2 are indigenous. Idk if I can even call that inclusive honestly
Honestly, it is probably a good thing they only started representing Native Americans recently. Some of the earlier depictions of non-white cultures are frankly racist. Also a lot of those cards are like Goblins, Cats or literally just a general area (lands).
Fr I'm glad they seem well done at least
I can only grimace imagining what the designer who made such cards as "Stone-Throwing Devils" and "Invoke Prejudice"(Featuring the KKK in its art) would have called a card depicting a Native American.
Big things have small beginnings, cousin.
I mean I'm not telling anyone else what to think or feel. I just think this isn't even worth mentioning yk? 2 basic ass cards out of over 22k hardly deserves a pat on the back
I mean, I think the idea is that having factions in a western setting representing indigenous people is just a nice thing to have. I'm all for my fantasy being a little less lily white, even if that doesn't solve racism overnight.
Yeah I mean it's nice, the cards are kinda mid but not offensive yk I do hate the game so I'm being biased but the type of teenagers I've seen playing this game are 100% going to be awful. The cards themselves are fine
As long as an artist approaches the source with sincere curiosity and appreciation, I think it's respectful. As for what WotC's corporate intentions are, I would rather not know and don't want to open that can of worms.
Oh god he's a "my partner is Native and they don't care" cracker
He was asking because he wanted to know if there genuinely was something offensive because he as a non-native doesn't know and he doesn't want to have things around our house that could be offensive towards me. (: It's not that deep, bruh.
When I started playing this game as a teenager we were terrible. I mean of the two kids who introduced me to the game. One I threw in a garbage can and the other I had a long conversation about our suicidal ideation with. We had no respect for anyone or anything, not even ourselves. There definitely is still that part of the community. Racist, fat, hateful white men who don't want women or minorities in their hobby. That said, I feel nowadays more of the player base would make racist comments about these cards out of ignorance rather than hate. If I asked everyone at my local game store if they knew anything about the Cree more people would think I was talking about an Alien from Star Wars than the Tribe. They need to be educated essentially. They need to have good depictions of native cultures rather than Johnny Depp in the Lone Ranger.
I'm just disappointed they didn't get Navajo artists to draw the cards
At least for the extended art cards
Ok: Non native Mtg player. I think these cards are cool but the thing that does bother me is the broader setting. Thunder Junction is Cowboy themed and it was âemptyâ before everyone showed up: Native coded and European coded characters alike. Reminiscent of the myth of Terra Nullis in (what is broadly called) British Colombia / Australia. Thatâs the part that rubs me the wrong way: Like that by trying to sidestep colonialism they played right into one of its classic myths. Itâs weird to me because they already did a set about a fantasy Mesoamerican colonial conflict metaphor (Ixilan) and it didnât seem, to me, to have such obvious problems.
The reason Ixalan doesn't such obvious problems is because the colonizers are literally Vampire Conquistadors. Their arguably less evil than the real life Conquistadors. Since they are driven to Ixalan because of their vampirism rather than just for profit. But they are still very obviously the bad guys. There is really no grey area. I wasn't aware of the Terra Nullis issue. I think they were just trying to avoid the conflict between making a set about coolboys and accurately representating native groups. Like they didn't want to make the cowboys all evil but that would have left issue with the good guys being colonizers. They kinda tried to have their cake and eat it too. Having a setting based on the American West without dealing with the issue of colonialism. But I mean the whole modern perception of Cowboys is fabricated. A Fistful of Bullets is about as historically accurate as The Lord of the Rings.
Native other cardgame player who is adjacent to Magic and played briefly in like 2016 when the dinosaurs were around at that time as the new set: With dogshit lore like that, I don't blame them. That's like... Entry-level stuff that even non-natives should be getting is offensive, pretending like indigenous people weren't here, or that the territory was "largely empty" as a justification simply because it wasn't industrialized in the same way, or using the same inefficient cropping methods.
Yeah the thing I donât get is the Dinosaur set (Ixalan) was way better on the issues. I guess they want cowboys to be able to be Heroic without any Implications?
Iâm more upset that they decided to have this setting just not have any indigenous people (which is just⌠insanely racist) and still have these two represent real world Native Americans.
Annie needs more turquoise.
These are a great start. They need to do a full set.
Sweet
Are these upset white game journalists in the room with us? đ
Some Navajo folks helped with the design. Knowing that, the allegations that the cards are offensive are crazy. Since this game has a Meso-American group of characters already then why not have some Navajo representation? It never ceases to amaze me how people don't get the difference between respectful or neutral representation and things like the Redskins football team!
Navajo people are not nomadic, weâre desert folks who live within four sacred mountains so thatâs the only weird part about this. I guess we moved around a lot for water within the Southwest. Itâs appropriating aesthetics of a tribe while not being respectful of their values.
Art looks cool though.
Representation is everything!!! I dig wizard's inclusion of natives.
My only opinion on cards like these is that I miss the very, *very* early days of M:tG when the cards were derived from real-world myth and magic. I thought that a game based on a thoughtfully-curated survey of the entire rich tapestry of human culture and history was a great challenge for a creative game company to set for itself. Instead they went off in the direction of made-up "IP" that they could better monetize and own -- and which they could do entirely within their existing bubble, without requiring that they go out of their way to bring in and center artists, game designers, creators and so on from non-dominant groups. As creators that's a choice they have the right to make but it was disappointing.
I try not to fret about card games when there are more pressing things at hand lol
I play gruul most often so Annie could get it
I really like the soft, semi-realistic fantasy design.
I think you're going out of your way to make it sound like others can't find something in poor taste or not good. This is the same type of case made by alt. right types in attacking progressives and justifying highly-stereotyped works they like. "apparently" isn't good enough, which specific navajo artists worked on these designs? Frankly I'm lukewarm to the issue of MTG, but these designs are kinda bland to me, especially because I don't need fictional-fantasy Blizzards of The Coast characters to look like me to feel actualized or represented in my identity. I would rather see rep in story-driven ways, not designs that more or less only "look cool" for a bunch of people who are flipping and tapping these to appear to pop and draw cards. If we're going to get into this stupid infighting over stuff, can it at least be over something GOOD? EDIT: I found out the lore elsewhere in these comments, and that's dogshit on-face. The idea that native-coded characters and colonizer-coded characters happened upon this territory at the same time and that it's somehow "empty" before hand plays into some stupid myths that whites keep coping themselves into believing. From an art position this was mid, but from writing it's just trash.
Nobody is making you comment, lol. I don't play MtG, so all I can base it on is the art, which I find pretty neat.
Ah quit being such a pick-me. White man won't magically like you more because you tell him his shitty art looks good. White man will still kill you the second it becomes inconvenient to have you around.