Color Pie Issues- Blue Burn?
General forum
Posted on Jan. 17, 2016, 5:04 p.m. by DarkLaw
As a relatively new player, I was wondering why burn used to exist in blue (e.g. Psionic Blast, Prodigal Sorcerer). What was the general theme of such burn cards, and how was this justified in the color pie?
Thank you in advance.
The early colour pie wasn't as clearly divided in terms of what mechanics show up in what colours as it is today, the divisions were more along the lines of the flavour/theme that each colour was supposed to represent.
In the case of Psionic Blast, psychic power stuff was related to the mind, and thus identified as Blue. Typically the mind isn't isn't supposed to be able to attack directly, thus why it is rare to see a mono-blue spell that damages. They represent the effort it takes to actually attack with the mind by having the spell do damage to the caster as well.
As for pokers like Prodigal Sorcerer the theme is a little less clear I guess, but it was probably a case of the image of the studious wizard being considered blue. It was likely a case of "This creature is a wizard, so it's blue. It's also a wizard that uses magic to hurt things, so lets make it a blue wizard that can poke." Opposing colours tended to have some mirror cards in the early days to play up how the colours act against each other, like White Knight and Black Knight or Red Elemental Blast and Blue Elemental Blast. Because of this, you can see creatures that can poke pop up in both blue and red until WotC started working out more defined mechanical boundaries for the colours.
January 17, 2016 5:23 p.m.
There's also Psionic Sliver (no doubt based on Psionic Blast) and Marjhan. If I looked enough I'm sure I would find more. I'm just not sure as to why this was originally in blue's color pie but now isn't (I am aware of the Time Spiral makeover).
Necrotize says... #2
If I'm not mistaken, cards of this type are few and far between, with most of them being alternate versions(or very old versions) of other cards in different colors. Char is the red version of Psionic Blast(although, Psionic came way before), Prodigal Sorcerer became Prodigal Pyromancer. This kind of double nature happens pretty frequently in blue/red actually.
Guerrilla Tactics-Psychic Purge
Ray of Command-Threaten
Deflection-Shunt-Swerve
So I don't know if there were enough "burn" blue cards to say blue had a burn subtheme, but blue is the color of copying, misdirection and trickery. It is a pretty weak lore argument, but it makes a little sense, Blue always having the element of surprise with small pieces of spells you wouldn't expect them to have.
January 17, 2016 5:17 p.m.