Pattern Recognition #303 - Allies of Convenience

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

2 November 2023

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Hello Everyone! My name is berryjon, and I welcome you all to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.Net's longest running article series. Also the only one. I am a well deserved Old Fogey having started the game back in 1996. My experience in both Magic and Gaming is quite extensive, and I use this series to try and bring some of that to you. I dabble in deck construction, mechanics design, Magic's story and characters, as well as more abstract concepts. Or whatever happens to catch my fancy that week. Please, feel free to talk about each week's subject in the comments section at the bottom of the page, from corrections to suggested improvements or your own anecdotes. I won't bite. :) Now, on with the show!

And welcome back everyone. It's coming up on Christmas soon, and so I'll be taking my light hiatus soon. For those of you joining me since last year, I work retail. That's all you need to know.

So with that in mind, let me tell you about a curious tribe/type that I recalled while wandering the 'Random Card' button on Gatherer. I saw it and thought about it, and I decided that it was worth talking about. So let me tell you about Allies.

Ally as a creature type first appeared in the original Zendikar block, and is described not as part of the classic "Species Job" methodology for creatures - such as with "Elf Druid", but was rather a supplement to them both, an Elf Druid Ally. Allies were conceived of as groups of people who were disparate in nature, but still coming together to find common cause. And in Zendikar, this was because the set was designed with an eye toward becoming a Dungeons and Dragons setting. Which in turn meant that Allies are the distant precursor to the notion of the Party. Distant, but still related.

Allies appear in all colours, including multicolored and colourless. They are attached to every creature and job subtype in the relevant sets, as their position as an 'add-on' meant that they didn't take up much in the way of design space. All the relevant information was in the text box.

In Zendikar itself, Allies were a vertical cycle in each color, with two commons, one uncommon and one rare - and only had one common though. These creatures all had abilities that checked for other Allies when they entered the battlefield, or counted allies for their ability. In fact, a horizontal cycle across all five colours at common was that whenever $CARDNAME or another Ally entered the battlefield, you would put a +1/+1 counter on $CARDNAME. Look at Nimana Sell-Sword as an example. At Uncommon, the Allies started to count other Allies directly, as Tajuru Archer does damage equal to the Allies you control. While at Rare, the abilities diverge a little bit. makes a creature token to go with your Ally, hands out Protection from a color of your choice to your team of Allies until the end of the turn, and can draw cards equal to your allies.

Allies returned in Worldwake, but as it was a small set designed to supplement the main set of Zendikar, the abilities also reflected that state of being supplemental. Vastwood Animist animates a land for example, that scales off the number of Allies you control.

However, the last set in the Zendikar Block, Rise of the Eldrazi, had no Allies. Instead, the space occupied by them in a conceptual manner was taken up by the Eldrazi themselves. It was a deliberate choice, one that helped make the block feel more like a 2+1 Block, rather than a proper 3 block set.

But Allies were actually pretty well received. They weren't spectacular, but they were a tribe that worked across all colours, no matter what you chose to draft or build around. They showed up and because they didn't take away space from other tribes, they could provide an additional level of synergy to already existing archetypes. In fact, as the game has advanced, if you look at the 5 Colour Humans deck, you can see a very large swathe of Allies right through it thanks to the internal synergy provided.

Allies returned to the game with Battle for Zendikar, and this time they were a massive part of the set as there were enough creatures with that Creature type here to exceed the numbers in the two previous sets. Which is to say that, for example, went from 6 examples across two sets to 12 in a single set.

The BFZ Allies had their traditional ability - that triggers whenever they or another ally enters the battlefield - turned into a keyworded ability. Rally (really? R+Ally?) became the word used to denote that this creature paid attention to other Allies when they entered the battlefield.

However, I say these things and yet I'm not being completely honest. Allies were, in this set, primarily the domain of , thanks to their Signpost Uncommon of Resolute Blademaster. While Allies were found in all colors, you were intended to play them in those two colours primarily. And honestly, having played Standard and Limited at that time, it was actually pretty solid a choice.

Once we moved into Oath of the Gatewatch, the emphasis of Allies was reinforced, as those two colours got the majority of them, while all the other colours still had a few to liven things up. Of interest, the Allies got an alternate mechanic in this set, called Cohort. Which also appeared in not just the primary ones. This ability word indicated that if you tapped the Ally with the ability and another Ally, you could perform an action. Drana's Chosen essentially let you tap two Allies to create a 2/2 Zombie. This was an interesting effect to try and put in, but outside of major effects like Munda's Vanguard, most of them were very underwhelming for needing two creatures to activate, even at instant speed.

But for the majority format, we were introduced to General Tazri, a cornerstone of 5 Colour Humans and Allies in a couple of formats, not just Commander. She was also the 5C Commander of choice for a short while - until Kenrith and Golos did the job, but much more effectively. She, along with Najeela, the Blade-Blossom, really kicked off the whole "Single Colour Creature with 5 Colour Ability For Commander" theme that we're still getting today - and I should really put that on the list of things to talk about.

After that, Allies showed up on occasion in supplementary products, like Kasla, the Broken Halo from the recent March of the Machines Commander deck that focused on Convoke. The Ally subtype was an addition and flavor more than anything else, and not mechanically relevant to the set.

Mark Rosewater likes Allies in general because of how they cross all colour boundaries, and as said on his blog that if and when they return to Zendikar.

Which is where we got Party in Zendikar Rising. This Ally variant was an attempt to be more specific about your adventuring group, being less an eclectic group of people bound together by their goal, and a more traditional D&Dish Adventuring Party. It was an alternate way to look at things, and while there is plenty of overlap between the two, they do different things and look at creature types differently, so there is still room for both. But Ally is something that works for the adhoc nature of alliances in Zendikar, while Party is something that should have been in the first D&D Set, but wasn't. And was in the second one. Which is good! I don't mind thematic separation like that at all.

Allies do have a future. While they are Zendikar focused, there's nothing stopping them from showing up in any other Standard legal set, or even as part of a supplemental set, like a Battlebond styled one - hell, Allies would make perfect sense for a Two Headed Giant set because you're allied with your partner already!

That this subtype exists in parallel to other types, and is a short enough word that it doesn't really affect the text density on the type line. This opens up a lot of opportunities to pre-seed Ally into cards before an Ally focused set comes out. Yes, Wizards would be waving a giant flag about what a future set is going to be about well ahead of time, but Spoilers Season for new sets is getting more and more ridiculous anyway, so I wouldn't be surprised.

I look forward to seeing more Allies in the future, and how Wizards decides to advance them as their own thing or as a supplement to the themes of the set. Any set where people need to come together against a greater foe, even if only for just that one time could easily accommodate allies (of convenience) without trouble. But of course, like all good(ish) things, you can't just shove them in all willy-nilly and expect the players to pick up the pieces. Allies don't have to be the glue to hold things together, but they can make that glue better.

As long as it doesn't lead back to 5 Colour Humans/Goodstuff, I'll be fine.

Thank you all for sticking with me this week! Join me next week when I talk about something different. What it is, I don't know yet.

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job (now), but more income is always better, and I can use it to buy cards! I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!