Aazadan wrote: ↑4 years ago
Basically, the ID's went by set release, and number of cards in the set. While it wouldn't have been widespread public knowledge at the time, internally WotC would have definitely had the numbers on what card was going to be 1488 in the file. Someone on their team (or multiple people) would have ended up sneaking it past the rest of their team.
How they got the artwork in the first place is questionable, because there should have been feedback during the art development process. Once they had the artwork though, they probably templated that card, and then named it specifically to fit at card 1488. Additionally, this same artist did the card Circle of Protection: Black. The artist doesn't get that card specifically, and Invoke Prejudice, and having the template that it does without there being some sort of internal support there at that time.
In fairness, he did all the circles of protection in tempest, not just black. None of them (from my viewing) seem to have anything remotely racist about them, they're just swirly circles. I kinda doubt the CoP thing was intentional since, afaik, there's nothing offensive about it so idk what the point would be. The number thing is harder to say, but it would for sure be a weird coincidence if it wasn't intentional. I thought I might have heard that the multiverse id system was created sometime after legends went to print, which would probably exonerate that element, but I can't find any info on how the system started at all, so I remain unsure.
It's a bummer since I generally like his swirly dreamlike style, even if he's a garbage person. Reminds me of RKF, I like the more abstract art from the earlier sets.
Mostly I feel like, these cards got printed and sold, you can't really take them back now. WotC's move in particular does basically nothing since these cards weren't being played competitively anyway. The RC's move is much more impactful since a few of them are played, however rarely. And while I think if could reasonably be argued that wotc are attempting to deflect blame for more substantive problems onto something relatively trivial, the RC can't realistically be criticized for that. I think more likely it would just look kinda edgy to not ban them when they're banned in the main game, essentially condoning them by keeping them legal.
I don't like bans, though, especially bans that are unpredictable. There's a lot of potentially questionable stuff across magic's history, and I don't like the anxious feeling that some card I like might end up banned despite being mechanically safe. I'd rather the game just erased flavor entirely if we're going to have to go through these sorts of purges. It's the mechanics I enjoy first and foremost.
