WotC: “Kirk is Bant Because We Say So, Shut Up”
Today, in an unprompted statement, Wizards of the Coast announced the following: “Captain Kirk is Bant because we say so. Shut up.”
This bizarre and unexpected statement was made presumably to follow up on the recent bout of online discourse caused by a leak of the supposed card, “Captain Kirk, Boldly Going,” which you can cast for 1WUG, and which buffs Spacecraft or whatever, who cares. Much of the online discourse immediately centered on Kirk’s Bant color identity, with several players of varying online prominence commenting that he “should” have had red in his color identity, due to Kirk’s more spontaneous and rebellious nature.
Sidenote: I personally believe that they made him Bant because Bant is traditionally the “good guy” colors and Kirk is “the good guy,” and it is entirely possible that that is literally all the thinking that was done about it. Either that or he’s meant to be a Commander and they wanted the Enterprise that he tutors to have Bant as a color identity, instead of colorless like one might assume. It’s almost like Universes Beyond can never and will never represent every character from every media property well or accurately while also being an even slightly draftable or even Standard-playable set, and maybe that’s why we shouldn’t be fucking having all these goddamn Universes Beyond Standard sets, but what do I know? I’m just some girl on the internet who has hated the very idea of Universes Beyond ever since the fucking Walking Dead and have only been proven more and more correct ever since.
Regardless, WotC’s bizarre statement caused many of us in the assembled press to follow up, and fortunately, the company’s spokesperson was happy to clarify.
“Ever since the stupid card preview leaked, people have been arguing online about it,” he said, with a tone that seemed more appropriate for a therapist’s couch than a press event. “We don’t care! Stop thinking so much! Stop engaging with our products as the result of artistic design and craft! We make products, okay? Not art. Products! Stop looking at and talking about our ‘art’ and just buy our fucking products!”
He took the next question, which was fortunately mine: “Do you not think that it would be beneficial for your company–and the health of the Magic brand as a whole–if people do continue to view the game as art? Art prompts discussion, consideration, history–”
“Shut up, nerd,” he interrupted me. “I don’t care about the health of the brand, I care only about shit that annoys me because I’m a deeply miserable person.” The spokesperson, who seemed to increasingly resemble Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks in an ill-fitting wig and Groucho Marx glasses, continued, “I am literally incapable of conceiving of anything longer than six months in the future. There is no future at all, okay? We have killed the future. Instead, we at Hasbro have created an eternal present where there is no past, no future, and nothing beyond the ceaseless stream of product. You and I live an empty, soulless hell from which we can never and will never escape, and even though it is a hell that is unquestionably of my own making into which I have dragged you, unwilling… I yet rejoice. For when the void consumes us all, I will have perished with a number that was higher than your number. The phrase ‘you can’t take it with you’ is the motto of fools and cowards–I will take my stock portfolio to the afterlife, and I will laugh maniacally as the Devil drags me into the eternal agony that awaits us all!”
No one spoke for at least a few minutes. Then, a hand went up.
“Is there gonna be a Spock in monoblue?”
“I mean yeah, probably,” the spokesman said with a shrug. “We’d be fucking crazy if we didn’t print a Spock in monoblue.”
