Why is Rimescale Dragon Red and Not Blue?
General forum
Posted on Nov. 22, 2018, 8:57 a.m. by DemonDragonJ
Rimescale Dragon is a red card, despite the fact that it has a very blue ability and that both its name and artwork are highly evocative of blue.
Why is that? It certainly cannot be because dragons are the most iconic red creatures in the game, since WotC has printed plenty of non-red dragons before they printed that card, and it cannot be because the color pie was not well-defined at that time, because it was. What does everyone else say about this? Why is rimescale dragon red and not blue?
SynergyBuild says... #3
After looking through the cards, I didn't actually find many, but there are green, blue, white, and red tapping cards with snow. No black tapping, kind of sad.
November 22, 2018 9:24 a.m.
Red also has some connection with the harmful aspects of ice and cold. This was mostly shown in Coldsnap and Kamigawa, with cards like Skred, Icefall, and Frostwielder. The tap effect, as SynergyBuild mentions, is based off snow, not blue, for this set.
It probably could have been printed as blue, but I'm glad it wasn't. It develops dragons in a new direction while keeping their feel. Most non-red dragons are part of a five-card cycle, and most of the rest are from Dragons of Tarkir.
November 22, 2018 11:06 a.m.
Let’s not forget the Colour Pie was not as sacrosanct in old sets as it is today.
November 22, 2018 11:18 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #7
cdkime, Coldsnap is hardly an "old set," as it was printed after Eighth Edition, which WotC regards as the beginning of the "modern" era; if rimescale dragon had been printed before then, it could be excused, but not after it.
November 22, 2018 8:39 p.m.
If you were talking about most post-8th Edition sets, you might have a point - Coldsnap, however, is an oddity. It was designed to be a part of the Ice Age block, and thus the mentality of older sets likely permitted design. Snow, and it’s inherent bending of the Colour Pie, was treated much the same as it had been when first released.
Further, Coldsnap is twelve years old - it might be in Modern, but it’s still from an era where bends and breaks were more common than today.
SynergyBuild says... #2
Snow cards commonly had abilities that could tap other things down, 'Icing' them over for some time. It was just something that wasn't blue for Snow mana. Because of that, and the big dragon the ability was strapped onto, it was red.
November 22, 2018 9:19 a.m.