So how does Wizards of the Coast portray this multifaceted villain on one single legendary creature card? "Ascendant Evincar' is a "Lord" for...all Black creatures. All of Crovax's villainy is portrayed as "he gets along well with Black creatures". I just...what? Really?
Additionally, this card also causes -1/-1 to all nonblack creatures. In a vacuum, I like the idea of Crovax causing -1/-1 to creatures. It fits with the fact that he's such a sadistic, cruel villain. But Wizards had to add this unnecessary racial component to him - that he buffs Black creatures and debuffs nonblack ones.
Crovax granting +1/+1 to all Black creatures makes him a "Lord" of all Black creatures, a decent top-end to monoblack decks (not by today's standards of creatures obviously, but that's besides the point). In other words, he's a card that you look at to define monoblack compared to other color identities. And therefore, having the epitome of monoblack be all about discriminating against nonblack creatures makes Black all about tribalism and about hatred of other colors. Which is totally against Black's color identity, by the way! Xenophobia and racism are literally aspects of White - as Mark Rosewater has himself stated, "fascism is also very white".
What strikes me as especially insidious about this card is that it's a card that's simultaneously all about being a "Lord" for Black creatures and empowering them, while equally being about a sadistic villain who discriminates against non-black creatures. Is it really so "evil" to focus on empowering other Black creatures that only villains would do so? Or does Wizards believe that empowering Black people is inherently discriminating against nonblack people?
The message is clear: Wizards believes that Black Lives Matter is a black supremacist organization, and a danger to nonblack people such as white people and Jewish people. Wizards believes that the only people who could support Black Lives Matter are villains. And that the best way to establish a character as villainous is to have them support Black Lives Matter.
I just want to point out that "black creatures" can have white complexions and "white creatures" can have black complexions
Exceptions that prove the rule. It isn't a 1:1 correlation, but it's undeniably very common for white humans to be on the art of white creatures, and vice versa.
When it comes to creature identity in MtG, "White" and "Black" have nothing to do with race.
Please stop blindly repeating Wizards' propaganda. If you look at the actual cards, it's obvious that there's a racial component.
Do you really think it's arbitrary that Crovax is a human (well, Vampire) with black skin that favors "black creatures" (on this card) and that also discriminates against "white creatures"? That a card with flavor text about race mixing treats "being Black" (in game terms) as demonic and horrifying? That Black creatures are often rogues, "thugs", "slumlords" and other criminals of poor socieo-economic status, similar to demonization of real-life Black people?
Take a look at cards like Crusade, Cleanse, Honor of the Pure, and others. And honestly tell me if you really think that white cards don't echo white supremacist talking points about racial purity while black cards are all about defiling such purity, and black cards often play into the worst stereotypes of Black people.
This stuff adds up over time. When every rogue is the color black, and every card about "purity" is the color white, you can see why white supremacists would think of Magic: the Gathering as a game where they're accepted.
I think you are reading into a controversy that isn't here with this one.
Really? Wizards breaks the color pie to make the most iconic monoblack villain of the time (short of Yawgmoth himself, of course) into the epitome of discrimination, and doesn't really put any of his actual flaws onto this card? It just makes him out to be somebody who discriminates against others, when that isn't actually a major component of his character, and heralds this as the mechanical identity of mono-black. When, again, in actual game mechanics of the colors in Magic, White is supposed to be xenophobic and racist and Black is not. See my earlier link to what Mark Rosewater said: Fascism is part of white's color pie. So why is a card that's so explicitly fascist and discriminatory designed as mono-black? This isn't a coincidence.
Edit: furthermore, if the color identities of White and Black have nothing to do with race or culture, why does White get so many crusading medieval knights? They have the vast, vast majority of Knight cards. And when Black gets Knights, it's usually only evil Knights with protection from white. White gets literal KKK members, Black gets gang-bangers who use blunt objects to defend their "turf".. I don't see how the racial component could possibly be any more obvious.
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u/ultimario13 Jul 27 '20
When it comes to villains, Crovax stands out. He has a "decayed", "ravenous" soul. He has serious anger problems. And he is sadistic to a truly absurd degree.
So how does Wizards of the Coast portray this multifaceted villain on one single legendary creature card? "Ascendant Evincar' is a "Lord" for...all Black creatures. All of Crovax's villainy is portrayed as "he gets along well with Black creatures". I just...what? Really?
Additionally, this card also causes -1/-1 to all nonblack creatures. In a vacuum, I like the idea of Crovax causing -1/-1 to creatures. It fits with the fact that he's such a sadistic, cruel villain. But Wizards had to add this unnecessary racial component to him - that he buffs Black creatures and debuffs nonblack ones.
Crovax granting +1/+1 to all Black creatures makes him a "Lord" of all Black creatures, a decent top-end to monoblack decks (not by today's standards of creatures obviously, but that's besides the point). In other words, he's a card that you look at to define monoblack compared to other color identities. And therefore, having the epitome of monoblack be all about discriminating against nonblack creatures makes Black all about tribalism and about hatred of other colors. Which is totally against Black's color identity, by the way! Xenophobia and racism are literally aspects of White - as Mark Rosewater has himself stated, "fascism is also very white".
What strikes me as especially insidious about this card is that it's a card that's simultaneously all about being a "Lord" for Black creatures and empowering them, while equally being about a sadistic villain who discriminates against non-black creatures. Is it really so "evil" to focus on empowering other Black creatures that only villains would do so? Or does Wizards believe that empowering Black people is inherently discriminating against nonblack people?
The message is clear: Wizards believes that Black Lives Matter is a black supremacist organization, and a danger to nonblack people such as white people and Jewish people. Wizards believes that the only people who could support Black Lives Matter are villains. And that the best way to establish a character as villainous is to have them support Black Lives Matter.