FUR: Vision Design, Pt III: Archetypes

     Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! This week continues our series on FUR, the custom Magic set celebrating art, culture, and furries. In the last design article, our set skeleton(s) weren't up to snuff, so we brainstormed ways to improve. In the last Creative article we introduced five more tribes and associated them with mechanics and color pairs. In this week's article, we're going to analyze our archetypes and their game plans. Let's hop in!

 

Wolf Knights

    The White/Black archetype emphasizes Tradition with a grindy midrange plan that hopes to accrue incremental advantage over the course of a long game. Efficient creatures enable a sturdy defensive stance, while removal opens the path for attackers and dispatches evasive threats. Hand attack and grave retrieval add resilience against enemy removal. A tribal subtheme adds power and flavor.

 

Dancing Foxes

    The Blue/Red archetype bridges Vibrant and Crafting. Its tempo strategy relies on cheap red creatures and evasive blue creatures, paired with disruption effects like tapping and bounce to keep the enemy off balance. An artifacts-matter subtheme ties the two themes together, allowing the player to focus on artifacts that enable vibrant (like Treasure tokens) or on equipment tokens from Crafting.

 

Wild Dogs

    The Black/Red archetype utilizes Crafting offensively and defensively to create favorable combats with a few creatures, while red burn and black removal allow for control of the board. Sacrifice outlets convert creatures and artifact tokens into evasion, direct damage, or card draw to end games in the late stage.

 

Warrior Cats

    The Black/Green archetype is a graveyard-based strategy that relies on reusing creatures with Tradition triggers to out-value opponents. Black control spells keep the board clear for beefy green creatures to deal out heavy damage. Self-mill provides additional fuel, while sacrifice effects create an outlet for extra bodies.

Desert Scales

    The White/Red archetype leans into crafting for a fast, aggressive start. White removal clears a path, while multiple equipped creatures (or one, heavily armed) chip in for damage. Staying power comes from the leftover equipment, leaving permanent bonuses for future creatures. Lifelink helps Red/White stay alive while racing other aggressive decks, while red burn makes for a finisher when the board stalls.

Small but Mighty

     The Green/White archetype floods the board with cheap creatures and tokens to swarm the opponent. A subtheme focused on creatures with power 1 or less helps the deck win combats, while anthem effects provide game-ending power. Tradition provides incremental value, white removal handles defensive hurdles and evasive threats, and life gain keeps the deck afloat against other aggressive archetypes.

 

Far-flung Flock

    The White/blue deck combines Crafting bonuses with evasive creatures to overwhelm opponents in the air. High-toughness creatures and tokens clog up the board on the ground, while removal and disruption open up the skies for equipped flyers to get damage in. Card draw and life gain give the deck longevity, while counterspells protect important board pieces.

 

Ursine Celebrants

       The Red/Green archetype focuses on Vibrant, using green color fixing and red Treasure effects to consistently improve Vibrant spells. Cheap red creatures enable an aggressive start, backed by larger green creatures in the mid-to-late game. Useful effects include burn, combat tricks, ramp, creature disruption (removal or "stun" spells), and card draw/rummaging.

 

Antlered Sages

    The Green/Blue archetype leans on the Tradition mechanic to generate value, bolstered by blink/bounce effects to repeat enters-the-battlefield abilities. Blue disruption and green life gain keep the deck alive until the late game, when big green creatures and evasive blue ones can take over. 

 

Seafolk Craftspeople 

    The Blue/Black archetype parallels the White/Blue deck, combining crafting and evasive creatures; this deck, however, is slightly more controlling, utilizing black's removal and access to sacrifice effects to create an advantage in the late game. This archetype also share's Blue/Red's artifacts-matter subtheme.

 

Arche-times Up

      That's all for this week. What are thedraft archetypes that you find yourself drawn to again and again? What makes them so appealing to you? Let me know in the comments below!

 

Next week, we're going to get our math on and finally figure out what the structure of the set will look like. Until then, check out Van Canto, an acapella metal group that my wife showed me last over our last road trip.

 

See you soon!