DTK will be wedge focused. Atleast it better be!
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation forum
Posted on Feb. 20, 2015, 7:49 p.m. by lothshteth
There has been a lot of speculation surrounding this matter recently in regards to whether DTK will be shard, wedge, dual, or mono color focused. And, after reading the recent Uncharted Realms articles it has finally come in to focus.
It dawned on me after reading the articles that the dragonlords were ally colored, and when lined up with the clans they fight the lone color is the true focus of the clan's wedge: the "enemy" color. So in DTK the dragonlords will have spent years ruling over the clans and learning the missing color of magic that they lacked in the past.
Finally it makes sense because WotC stated that the odd wedge focus would work itself out in the future and that they want to print full cycles of lands in a single block. So, get ready for fixed wedges, enemy fetchlands, and legendary wedge dragonlords!
NobodyPicksBulbasaur says... #3
It's much more likely that the dragonlords will impose their wills upon the remnants of the clans. Without a will of their own, the identity of the clans will become the identity of the dragonlords (i.e. 2-colors, matching the dragons).
February 20, 2015 8:20 p.m.
Maro has said that DTK is NOT a Wedge set. Sorry to burst your bubble.
February 20, 2015 8:34 p.m.
lothshteth says... #5
JWiley129, please provide link. That certainly kills my theory if so.
I hear you guys that the dragons could totally force them to abandon the enemy color, but telling the Abzan to get rid of necromancy doesn't mean they will drop 
. There is a lot more to than the undead such as Siege Rhino.
I just don't see how WotC could possibly in their right mind leave the wedges' color focus off kilter.
February 20, 2015 11:12 p.m.
I don't have a link, but I too read that Maro has said it will definitely not be wedge themed. Let me check google.
February 21, 2015 12:58 a.m.
So this is pretty succinct. lol
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/103862613163/so-there-wont-be-any-wedges-present-in-dragons-of
February 21, 2015 1 a.m.
Hjaltrohir says... #8
I thought that the clans were going to shift their focus like Jeskai goes from 
in FRF to 
, Abzan goes from 
to etc. THats what I was thinking.
February 21, 2015 2:22 a.m.
lothshteth says... #9
Thanks DrFunk27, that certainly proves my assumption is correct then, unless MaRo doesn't understand the English language. Definitely a terribly phrased question because it allows MaRo to answer truthfully while making the vast majority of people believe that he answered as if there won't be wedges. Now, if he didn't understand the question then I don't know what is worse him not grasping the question or that he thinks its okay to screw with the color pie and allow the last set using wedges to be a mockery of said pie.
February 21, 2015 2:28 a.m.
lothshteth - Go watch this video and you'll hear Maro say that "Khans of Tarkir is a wedge set....Dragons of Tarkir is not." There are NO WEDGES in Dragons of Tarkir, there will be Dragons, but not wedges.
February 21, 2015 4:56 a.m.
MaRo has made it explicit multiple times that this won't be a wedge set. I'm still hoping that the broods add a color and become shard colors, but allied pairs is the best bet.
February 21, 2015 9:26 a.m.
lothshteth says... #12
Well looks like bubble is burst then. Thanks JWiley129 for the link.
I still hold out hope for a small group of cards to be of the fixed wedge color scheme. They would be like a splinter cell that holds onto the old beliefs and focuses on the color the clans gave up. Like followers of Reyhan and followers of the hidden scroll that Shu Yun hid.
February 21, 2015 1:33 p.m.
BlastercoolWeird says... #13
ugh. how disappointing.
When they talked about how they exhausted a lot of design space with the shard combinations in Shards of Alara and would tone it down in Khans block I thought that was reasonable; Alara Reborn went so nuts on Multicolor that there wasn't a single mono-colored card in the whole set. So I thought we'd get two full sets of wedge theming, it would be awesome, Wedge Ultimatums, Splashy Commander Mythics, plenty of material to finally shore up the DIRTH of wedge cards in Magic the Gathering. It'd be beautiful.
But now we're going back to Ravnica-esque two-color combos after ONE wedge set and a small set with the faintest dustings of wedge theme. losing the third color is such a mistake, because that contrarian element gave the clans something interesting. The Jeskai are just boring buzzkill monks without the cunning of red, The Sultai are just generic backstabbing necromancers without the decadence that Green magic's bountifulness provides. Mardu are just an angry horde of unwashed barbarians without the loyalty and unity of white. etc. etc. I feel like this is going to just suck the soul out of these factions, making them boring stereotypes of their current incarnations.
I'm not very happy with this development. I think I might've been happier when Ugin was dead, These dragons had better be the sickest shit since sliced salami >:T
February 21, 2015 6:41 p.m.
Dragons? Wizards is going to win troll of the year when they only print 5 dragons in the entire set at the mythic slot so no one gets any.
February 21, 2015 7:42 p.m.
lothshteth says... #15
BlastercoolWeird, my sentiments exactly. I understand story-wise why they are doing it and I do read the books so I can appreciate it, but in the end we all really just play the game so we deserved the fixed color scheme and continuation of wedge mechanics.
It's just so hard to believe that they would swing and miss like this. WotC has been streamlining rules and game mechanics as of late which shows a pride in one's work. But, after this y'all should just go back to using terms like "BUG" and "UWR" to refer to the wedges. The dragonlords want to strike the khans and clans from the records, so too should we from our memory.
February 22, 2015 12:17 p.m.
BlastercoolWeird says... #16
I think this set emphasizes why third sets are actually kind of crap, Dragons looks to be in mechanics and identity a different block than Khans of Tarkir, and as a result Fate Reforged had to pull double-duty blending Wedge theming into Dragon theming.
What this block should have been was Khans and Fate were just two Wedge-Theme sets, it would've been cool, I think that's all we really wanted tbh.
When they were talking about Fate Reforged and hinting at Dragons of Tarkir WOTC was talking about how in Dragons the world Sarkhan would be returning to may not be the dragon utopia he was hoping for.
So I guess WOTC gets a pat on the back for conveying the disappointment of trying to fix a timeline and getting an unexpected result :/
Overall the announcement of no wedges has cut my hype for this set to maybe 40% of what it was at announcement; I hate the allied color combinations and I already miss having wedge stuff, if the set's really strong card-wise it might be saved in my opinion.
February 22, 2015 6:35 p.m.
NobodyPicksBulbasaur says... #17
All I'm hearing is that everyone created their own little Magic utopia in their heads, and are pissed off that WotC didn't produce exactly what each individual person envisioned.
We don't even know what the hell DKT looks like yet. Can we hold off on the trashfest until there's at least something real to complain about?
February 22, 2015 8:35 p.m.
lothshteth says... #18
That's what speculation is all about. And people are entitled to their opinions, as are you. I just feel they flopped on this one. All we really want are new cards for our decks, so it really doesn't matter in that sense. It's just some of us care about tradition and it "appears" they are getting off track. But, you are right that its not out yet and maybe they will surprise with a single cycle of fixed wedge cards. Hell, even if its at common I'll be satisfied and shut up!
February 22, 2015 9:57 p.m.
What exactly are you defining "fixed wedge" as exactly? The KTK wedges were wedges. That's what wedges are. A colour and its two enemies. The only other 3-colour combos are a colour and its two allies. Which are shards.
Also, I'm quite happy to see the ally colour pairs be the focus of the set. The idea that "going back to Ravnica-style" anything is somehow bad, when RAV and RTR blocks were the most popular and bestselling sets of all time when each came out, and are pretty well regarded by most long-time players is pretty absurd.
Besides, they printed the allied fetches in KTK, fetches which couldn't have both halves benefit more than one clan. By going to allied colour pairs, they create a situation where they can print the enemy fetches without a clan getting to benefit from both halves of one again. Balance in limited!
February 22, 2015 11:30 p.m.
lothshteth says... #20
The color focus for the clans was off. For instance Abzan was focused on when it should have been .
There's only so much they can do, so I got nothing wrong with guild colors. I understand it makes sense storywise with the dragonlords taking over, but they decided to use wedges, screw up the color wheel, and leave it messed up because oh its just a different timeline don't worry about it.
I'm all for balance and storylines, I just don't like messing with tradition unless they fix it at some point. And, it just doesn't look like its going to happen.
February 23, 2015 12:35 a.m.
Named_Tawyny says... #21
What are you basing the statement that the 'colour focus was off'? Wedges haven't been a focused thing before - it seems kinda odd to claim that they did this new thing 'wrong' - other than your own desires, what were you comparing it to? You can't have 'tradition' with a new thing.
The enemy colour in the wedges was the minor point of all of the clans - Abzan just splashed black, Jeskai splashed red, etc. Seems fairly reasonable to not make it the 'focus' when it's just a splash.
Also, Maro has said that there are different was of expressing the colour pairs. So just because G/W will be a thing in DTK (the Dromoka brood), it doesn't mean that it's going to be philosophically Selesnya. There's a lot of room for other interpretation.
February 23, 2015 9:10 a.m.
NobodyPicksBulbasaur says... #22
I'm also confused about the "tradition" that's being ruined. Can you elaborate?
February 23, 2015 9:30 a.m.
He's apparently decided that because a wedge is 1 enemy and 2 allies, that the focus "is supposed to be" on the enemy colour. Which makes no real sense except visually on the mana circle.
But yes, philosophically there are so many ways to render a given colour pair that are not "just" the Ravnica ones (And the Ravnica ones are awesome, so I wouldn't be at all upset if that's what they did)
February 23, 2015 11:03 a.m.
lothshteth says... #24
What I mean is what they did in the Apocalypse set with the disciples and volvers, such as Raka Disciple and Necravolver.
But, you guys are right. There is only so much they can do with the color wheel. If they don't change things up like they did in KTK then they are just rehashing old shit. I just feel they did such a great job with the color focus and identity of the shards that they should have done the same with the wedges. Then in later blocks you can play with the focus all you want, have fun.
It is what it is. I'm disappointed but I'm not boycotting the block or anything. Just venting frustration and bantering with y'all.
February 23, 2015 2:35 p.m.
Apocalypse barely had any Wedge -flavour- though. The Volvers and the Disciples, and later the Shard stuff in Planeshift like the Battlemages were just a random body with entirely disconnected "something that colour can do" abilities tacked on.
"A colour and its two enemies" is thematically distinct from "A colour, one ally and their mutual enemy" in the same way that "5 sets of allied colour pairs" is different from "every 2-colour pair" like in Ravnica.
To not even wait to see how the flavour plays out before thinking it's a wasted chance seems a little silly.
February 23, 2015 3:20 p.m.
lothshteth says... #26
I love the story and I understand why it is what it is. Time travel stories always mess stuff up so I've accepted it. My beef is really with how they started it to begin with. I wish they would have done it as "A color and its two enemies," like Alara Block was "A color and its two allies." Solidify it like Alara, then fuck with different focuses in the future. Take MTG to another level.
February 24, 2015 1:34 a.m.
mathimus55 says... #27
So what you're really saying this whole thread is that Wizards didn't do the block design how YOU wanted it done and therefore it is a failure?
Wizards has gotten so much better at their jobs since Invasion. Their goal is to express the character of the clans through the colors, and having the focus on the outlying color makes it so much harder because then you're not getting enough from the design space. It's much easier to focus on a main color(abzan with white, jeskai with blue etc) and an ally, then show what that splash adds then to focus on a main color with nothing to amplify what it naturally does. You should listen to Maro's drive to work podcast and his color pie theories. It's pretty awesome the thought and care to make sure what they're doing fits the whole game, not just what one set would try to do. There is so much more space for exploring the wedges when you make the enemy color the final addition instead of trying to milk one color for all its worth.
With that said I could see story wise a disciple/Volver type cycle fitting for Dtk as a sort of "we are all that remains of the old ways" type situation. I think we need to just let Wizards do their thing bc they know so much more about designing a game in a vacuum of one block/set and in the grand scheme of things. People were upset bc Theros was "enchantments matter" theme but people went in expecting it to be like Mirodin. Well, Mirodin was stupid broken and they knew it. So they learned from their mistakes and made a much better x-matters block. They same can be said for Khans block with the wedges: it's there just not as people would expect/want it
February 24, 2015 7:14 a.m.
lothshteth says... #28
Of course its easier doing allies first then a dash of the enemy. But they shouldn't shy away from what is perceived to be harder; doing the enemy focus. I don't see what's so hard about taking Abzan for instance breaking it down into a combo of Golgari and Orzhov and having the focus be what in ties the two together. Abzan should have focused on the necromancy since both guilds have a life/death focus, not just have a splash they eventually abandon.
Its not a failure. I like what MaRo is doing and how MTG is progressing. I just feel they missed on this one. Nail it now and do all your wonky exploration later.
February 24, 2015 1:32 p.m.
Named_Tawyny says... #29
I don't quite understand. First you say that they're shying away from what is percieved to be harder, and then you say that they should have saved the wonky exploration for later. You also say that you don't see what's so far about enemy focused wedges.
So are enemy focused wedges the hard route, or the easy one???
February 24, 2015 1:39 p.m.
mathimus55 says... #30
I agree, you're kind of all over the place. And by harder to fill the enemy color first I mean I don't know if there is enough there to actually produce something that Wizards would put their name on. There is only so much design space with that much limitation and any more and you're just selling the players short.
Plus, you can't really say they should just combine Ravnica guilds to make a clan, they are completely different personalities on a completely different plane. The Orzhov were greedy aristocrats who wanted to exploit the weak in a supremacist fashion where the Golgari were ok to live in solitude away from all the other guilds and take the underworld of Ravnica and prey on the living. The only thing they would have in common is the desire to abuse the weak, but that turns more into what the Sultai do with their greed because that is an inherently black trait. White and green as a color don't desire the same things black does as a color and it would end up pin holing the clan too much.
Flavorwise I don't think there is a better way they could have done the wedges. It becomes too narrow focusing on one color. Using the ally colors and building upon that gives you enough design space to create a clan, especially when you only have 5 clans and need to create an entire world with just 5 instead of the 10 they had on Ravnica
February 24, 2015 1:55 p.m.
BlastercoolWeird says... #31
@Devonin except they won't print the enemy fetches because the wedge decks are /still around/ in standard.
Also yeah I'm sorry for being unfair. how dare I be unhappy that we're only getting one set's worth of wedge cards given wedge cards have been almost nonexistant thus far in Magic's history and going back to ANOTHER two-color focused set, just like Lorwyn and Ravnica and Return to Ravnica and Innistrad.
Don't mistake me, if the set's really strong mechanically I'm still buying cards from it because I play standard but I'm not happy about Wizards giving us wedge for more-or-less the first time in a standard-legal set and then taking it away to focus on...dragons? because they arbitrarily decided they can't have wedge theming AND dragons.
My opinion is not an objective statement but I just don't care as much about allied color combinations as much as Wedge, Shard or even Enemy pairs. I don't care how they try to make Red-Black or Blue-White or whatever "interesting" lore-wise or mechanics-wide for Dragons of Tarkir, it will not interest me more than an enemy color group or the wedges. I've seen it enough times that I do not give a hoot that this time it's vaguely based off an Asian culture.
February 24, 2015 2:42 p.m.
JohnnyBaggins says... #32
I am strictly assuming that we'll have dual colors, the mana cost/water marks on the dragons that were in fate reformed already showing what new combinations we'll get, along with what the new clan signs will look like. The colors will still be such that no 'old' clan deck can pick up any card but the exact one that they were in, so no mardu deck will be able to pick up the "abzan refined" clan cards, since they have green.
Just look at the freaking watermarks on the cards.
February 24, 2015 2:51 p.m.
lothshteth says... #33
I don't mean combine the guilds. I mean the color combos. If you read the articles by MaRo describing the design of the guilds in RAV and RTR, it showed how they combined the colors and made their identity and focus on aspects that they shared and cared about. ALA was also done the same way, such as Esper being predominately and it focused on what it shares in common with and . KTK should have gone along those lines, such as Jeskai being predominately and it focused on what it shares in common with and . They had no problem accomplishing this in RAV and RTR with the enemy pairs, so it shouldn't be any harder then doing ALA. This is 20 years of MTG, they have more than enough design space.
February 24, 2015 8:36 p.m.
Maybe they didn't WANT TO?
Why is not doing exactly what you think they should do a sign that they are failing at their jobs? Mark Rosewater has forgotten more about design in general and the design of Magic than everybody on this site knows combined, and he's barely forgotten anything he's learned.
There are multiple ways to focus a three-colour division. They chose one I thought was fantastic. It was one you thought was lacking. I have more faith in MaRo to know what he's doing than any designer or creator of literally anything else.
February 24, 2015 9:36 p.m.
lothshteth says... #35
Clearly they didn't want to and they certainly aren't failing at anything. MTG is more popular than ever before. I just wish they chose this iteration for a later block. It certainly opens up a lot of possibilities down the line, which I am excited about. I certainly didn't think of it. I just expected bizzaralara, and was sadly disappointed. And, now that they opened pandora's color pie box, it'll probably be longer before I and some others get what they want. Who knows what the future holds, we'll just have to wait and see.
February 24, 2015 11:40 p.m.
"Now, let's walk back and see how this decision affects the entire block. I wanted to have five clans. We were going to meet them in their three-color version and their two-color version as well as a proto-version that felt like the precursor to both. To help keep a through line and also to help us approach two-color pairs from a different vantage point, I decided that each clan would be centered on a color. Now, the obvious choice for the wedges was the enemy color. It was the clear focal point in the wedge. Here was the problem: If I wanted the wedges to turn into the two-color ally pairs, there was only one way to do itI had to drop the enemy color. For instance, if a clan was going to end up being the green-white clan, the only choice if you start with the wedges was Abzan.
This meant that I had to center each wedge on one of the ally colors. Now, I knew this was going to fight intuition and thus throw the audience a bit, but I had no choice. It was more important to me to keep the parallelism between the clans because that was the entire time-travel structure we were playing with. Each clan would evolve differently, but we wanted to see the connections. Having five wedges that turn into five allied-color pairs where there wasn't a one-for-one correspondence would contradict the entire alternative timeline feel. The two-color pairs had to be the same clans down a different path."
It's almost like MaRo knows what he's doing!
March 2, 2015 11:47 a.m.
lothshteth says... #37
Well sure, he's been doing it for a long time. Again, I understand why they did what they did. For some reason they wanted the third set to be allied color pairs. So, its the only logical way for them to accomplish turning wedges into allies. You can't focus on the enemy color and then jump to allied pair. That's too much of a leap. I have no problem with them coming up with a block like this. I just wanted the last three set block to be a true enemy color focused wedge block, just as ALA was an ally color focused wedge block. Maro knew he'd piss off a portion of the fanbase by doing what they did. We'll just have to wait for the true reverse ALA block. Sadly it'll have to be a two set block. Atleast KTK block has a great story.
March 2, 2015 3:06 p.m.
why would it being a 3-set block make a difference? KTK wasn't enemy-focused wedges, and it should have been abundantly clear from the way FRF was designed (including Maro stating before the set even came out, that it wasn't going to be wedges) that it was never going to be wedges.
Neither of the first two sets in the block were enemy-focus wedges, so what do you gain by DTK being enemy-focus wedges "as part of a 3-set block" that you lose by having an entire Large-Small block be that way?
He understood that it would be confusing to some people to see a wedge and have it not be focused around the enemy colour, but it's not like there's some rule that it should be that way. They're only actually -wedges- because the colour wheel is a wheel. if they were just a row of symbols, there'd be no such thing as wedges or shards, and you'd just think of WBG and WUG as three-colour combos with no additional baggage.
mathimus55 says... #2
The dragonlords also dispersed the clans and in the case of the Abzan, banned the "necromancy" they had been practicing. This would cut out the black color characteristics for the clan moving forward making any future would be Abzan members just G/W characters. Something tells me the dragonlords despised whatever traits the clans had from the enemy color.
Wizards also said that Khans was a wedge set, but it wouldn't be a wedge block. I think that enemy fetches will be printed in DTK just b/c Wizards doesn't like leaving cycles unfinished not b/c of what happens w/ the clans. They also more than likely would have written the story around whatever they were planning on putting in to make it fit the story.
It's still too early to tell what kind of color focus DTK will have. The most recent Uncharted Realms essentially banished the clans so it just seems unlikely that the dragons will be willing to learn from humans, plus dragons usually aren't keen on changing their ways, they're pretty stubborn
February 20, 2015 8:03 p.m.