神河当時 - 忍者のカラーホイール

昨日の記事の続きです。

And now it’s time for the latest installment of “Ninjas and the Color Wheel”:

It’s ironical that ninjas should be restricted to only black and blue, since ninja strategies are based on five different element, which include certain characteristics which could be related to the colors in Magic.

*Dresses as a teacher and starts lecturing*

The escape strategies utilized by ninjas are traditionally called Gotonpo (five elements conceaing and escaping methods). These five elements included fire, wood, water, metal, and earth.

Wood represents rising, growing, swelling energy. This element can be expressed by the statement "my forces marshal more troops and move against you with growing intensity as your forces attempt to hold onto your own territory". (green)

Earth represents gathering, condensing and stabilizing energy, represented by the statement "my forces draw together and intensify their hold on the territory as your forces attempt to slip in easily and surreptitiously" (white)

Metal represents hard, edged, unbreakable energy, represented by the statement "My forces launch an immediate and decisive attack against your forces as they attempt to build strength and move into an advantegous position" (red)

It would’ve been nice to have green, white, and red ninjas. It would have been great to have a gold ninja with all colors! Maybe some ninjas will have slightly off color abilities, but probably not.

This makes you wonder: did Wizards perform any research for Kamigawa, involving ninjas, samurai and the sort?

-Velessar

I thought part of red’s new image was "the trickster". Ninja don’t fall too far from that: Ninja make traps for people to fall into, and do all kinds of unsavory things that more noble people wouldn’t consider.

Ninja seemed to work in red; sure, not green or white, but in red it works.

Any small wonder that if being smart and tricky are black and blue traits, that only black and blue are going to get more of the pie? (Oh, starting a riot, mentioning the color pie again). Red isn’t stupid, just straitfoward.... normally. The whole "temporary stealing" and "redirection" add tricky to it’s character.

I wanna know why Ninja aren’t red! (Red has a serious shortage of mechanics too; this one seemed to fit).

- Dragon Bloodthirsty

Velessar & Dragon Bloodthirsty,

Could we have put Ninjas in all five colors? Possibly. Could they have been in red? Almost certainly. Should we have? This goes to the root of another big R&D conundrum – how much access should each color have to a mechanic? If we always segregate mechanics (meaning we specifically do not put them in every color) we miss interesting opportunities to make cool cards. If we never segregate then we start nibbling away at the unique feel we’ve established for each color. The answer is that R&D tries to strike a balance. Sometimes we limit a mechanic and sometimes we spread it across all five colors.

With Ninjas in particular I think we made the right choice. Kamigawa block has a flavor theme that the designers tried hard to imbue throughout the design. Ninjas were designed to be as cool and flavorful as possible. Inventing reasons to have white, green and red Ninjas seemed to take away from the core of what the Ninjas wanted. Our Ninjas aren’t tricksters. They’re mean, sneaky underhanded assassins and spies. And to us, that was black and blue. To quote The Incredibles: “If everyone’s special then no one’s special.”

引用元
THREAD ROVER Posted in Making Magic on February 7, 2005
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/thread-rover-2005-02-07

どの記事への反応という訳ではありませんが、以前（※１）取り上げた、忍者が赤で作られたという嘘エピソードに関係のある話です。忍者の色を拡張できないか？という声を紹介しています。１人は五行思想（木・火・土・金・水）に絡めて５色すべてに、もう１人は赤を加えた３色に、という要望です。

マロー曰く、５色全てに忍者を作ることは可能だし、特に赤にも作れる可能性は高い、とのことです。これは中々興味深い言及ではないでしょうか。

一方で、結局そうしなかった理由も述べています。まず、メカニズムを５色すべてに作ることのメリットは、カードデザインの幅を広げることです。デメリットは各色や勢力の特徴づけがしにくくなることです。また、神河における忍者に求められていたものは、トリックスターではなく、暗殺者やスパイだということです。それに相応しいのは、青と黒以外にはありません。

こうしたことを踏まえると、神河とは別の次元、あるいは変化の起きた神河で忍者を作る場合に、青黒以外の忍者を作る可能性は決してゼロではないと考えています。

オリジナルエキスパンションを作るときの参考になる、面白い話でした。


※１
神河当時 - おまけのエピソード
https://researchofkamigawa.diarynote.jp/202102082019017422/
神河当時 - おまけのエピソードの真偽
https://researchofkamigawa.diarynote.jp/202103182134409876/