You cannot lore wise argue that in a multiverse where mana has a huge passive influence that hybrids-natural or otherwise-are rarer than rare. You are the one who told me that in the first place. Maybe somewhere between uncommon and rare with leaning towards rare but not legendary. We honestly would not be losing anything if this was the case.

It's not just magic though, there's all sorts of social parts to play as well, not to mention biological aspects to consider. The aforementioned viashino/human, for example, makes no sense from a natural standpoint. You can argue over certain magics altering mating compatibility, but really, do the Gruul seem like the type to know or care about such things? And quite frankly, what's the narrative advantage of exploring such things? What's gained?

The Simic have a history of splicing, and straight up, I've never been arguing that point. I'm arguing over the absurdity of natural birth with these WILDLY different races. If someone told me half-elf, I could believe it. Some of the others as well, but there's a threshold that the absurdity of the claim outweighs other aspects. Leonin/human? Merfolk/human? Sphinx/human?!
(just pulling random ideas in)

I get what your saying, I really do. But while most of us won't gain anything with the idea of passive mana-within reason in terms of the sheer size of partners-allowing for the natural births between say leonin and giants (I'm assuming the father or mother enlarged themselves with magic), we won't lose anything either. Besides, the races have in-universe reasons why any natural births between races are rare. There is official text saying that the ONLY reasons why say a merfolk and a human might **** is if they love each other or if they are very kinky; Old Ravnica books have viashino prostitutes for example. The races are otherwise not biologically attracted to each other, as Gerald's relationship with Mirri tragically show.

Jareth is an animated stone construct of the Northern Order. Just clarifying.

Even elves and humans, as similar as they are, cause a surprising amount of squick between the hypothetical partners.

But yeah, kink probably overweighs love a LOT.

Probably because elves live for like a 1000 years before they die. Humans if they lucky live to be 100. The problem with this pairing is sheer time discrepancy. Elves feel like humans are children, humans feel like elves are ancient. And of course there is the alien aspect too like how elves can drink methanol.

Probably not as much you think. As a side note, I heavily suspect that if Ajani and Elspeth were some form of a thing or if he was around her a lot more she would still be alive.

Huh. Okay, thanks.
Is the relevant info from those deck inserts and fatpack booklets etc. archived somewhere? I'm just asking because Kamigawa in particular seems to have a lot of scattered material with relevant story and worldbuilding info (inserts, booklets, vignettes etc.) that make the plane a lot richer, and the thought that some of it might be lost to obscurity eventually makes me nervous. Someone posted a full scan of the fatpack booklet on MtG Sally yesterday, which is a start, but Soramaro doesn't even have a wiki page for example. I actually plan to join MtG Sally to contribute to the wiki and do something about gaps like that, but not before I've graduated from my main subjects this year.

It doesn't do anything to determine their current policy, but from a purely theoretical in-universe perspective, it tells us that ogre-giant hybrids are a thing, even if it never comes up again. And I think ogres and giants having offspring together sounds pretty believable, so it's not like it will cause any headaches. Oh, and there's also Marhault Elsdragon, who's another half elf, and Orggs are said to be orc-ogre hybrids, or at least that's the possibly unsourced piece of info that always gets thrown around about them. Part of me finds it odd that they look pretty different from either race (mostly the four arms), but in a way it's also kinda cool. It's like Gaea's Skyfolk having wings, which is a bit absurd, but in a fun and intriguing kind of way.

Looks like we have some common ground there, because I'm arguaing for it, but not that hard . I definitely think there's a line beyond which it doesn't add anything anymore, and another line beyond which it just gets silly. I think I get what you say about the special snowflake concern, too. I just think the possibility of hybrids is something they shouldn't generally shy away from, and I think there would be some space for that in the card game itself (mostly at rare), but not every instance of a hybrid on a card would need to come up in the story. They could just sprinkle it in once in a while (definitely not in every block) as an interesting quirk and in a way that makes sense, so, ogre-giants would be in, viashino-leonin would be out. I liked how the hybrid identity was handled with both Radha and Immugio, for example, and it felt like it was relevant to the character. Man, Immugio is a character that would never ever see the light of day in Magic in 2017, which is a bit of a shame. A guy who tears off his rapist father's face, dries it and wears it around his neck is almost certainly against 'Magic's values' in a world where we can't even have forced marriage and elvish chauvinism. Sometimes, just sometimes, I miss the lepers and whores and handless beggars and torture scenes from early Magic. But I digress.

As to the Elf Humans, though, only giving them one type just doesn't make sense when they're equal parts both. Fonn, for instance, should have both types if she ever gets a card (and they should juts errata the other ones like Radha and Marhault), but I'd say her son Myc should just be an Elf as he's 3/4 elvish. Half elves have the advantage of being a resonant and well known fantasy trope, so a typeline with both types would easily convey that information about a character in a way that people would immediately understand. It's often the only means to get that across on a card at all. And I'm not really buying space concerns as a reason to not do it. The printed version of Jedit Ojanen of Efrava has a pretty long typeline that still fits, and I once owned that card in German where the typeline is even a few characters longer (because it says 'Legendäre Kreatur - Katze, Krieger, Herrscher'), and despite the longer words and the colons between the different types, it still fits. 'Elf' is a three letter creature type, so it doesn't take a lot of space on its own. Yeah, it may look crowded, especially in the typeline of a legend, but I think the benefit of having a more logical and accurate type outweighs that.

I... kinda doubt that? What would them being in a romantic relationship have done about a god impaling her with a magic spear?

Generally speaking, I don't think mana has anything to do with naturally occuring hybrids.

There are three things that go into a biracial relationship between one species and another: Personality Match, Proximity, and the Circumstances of their past. Elspeth needed someone in her life, that is clear to everybody. Ajani wanted to help and did. They get along pretty damn well too. However, had Ajani stayed by Elspeth's side or offered her the choice to come with him on his journeys things would most certainly not have gone down they way it did in theros. Much of the plot would have been different simply because he was there to guide and protect her. Also, I doubt she would have gotten involved with whatever his name was which caused everything to go to ****.

He kinda did offer her that. At least he asked her to accompany him back to Alara and get involved in saving it rather than running away. It was her who didn't want to. If she had listened to him, then sure, she wouldn't have got involved with Venser and Koth and probably wouldn't have returned to Theros either. Ajani wanted to keep her around more than she did vice versa and even ended up looking for her on Theros. I see your point in that she probably would have come with him if she had been in love with him, but honestly, that's not a direction I would have liked their story to take.

They also met on dominaria as well.

They did, that was the scene that I meant. Ajani tells her that there's still hope for Bant when they meet in Urborg. If she had come with him then, she wouldn't have run into Koth.

Then I believe he should have went with them. Though this is my opinion.

As a completely unrelated note, I remember in legends cycle 1, probably uncanonical, that jedit seemed to attract some human female attention from both major and minor characters. There was this scene where jedit and some female were hiding in a hole and they were pressed up against each other. The female seemed to be both platonically and non-platonically attracted to him though this never touched upon as she died later.

To answer your previous statement on mana, arguing whether or not mana allows for natural births between races is redundant as they have plenty of in-universe reasons not to **** to begin with. Whether mana allows it or not some active magic would still be required to make hybrids. Humans and any creature significantly bigger than them are where I draw the line for example. Any mammalian pairing while plausible would also require active magic depending on the species.

P.S. Can Orcs and Humans do it? I would assume so, though they may be more related to goblins.

@Pavor:
For the record, the you're line concern is just the excuse they used for Radha, but with how you'd want to approach it, Radha wouldn't qualify anyways. Her grandfather was Keldon after all, not her father.

@Aion:
In other fantasy properties orcs and humans have offspring.
A lot of that traces back to Tolkien convention though, with Orcs and Elves sharing ancestry.
There's no way to know for certain in magic since they shelved orcs for nigh on two decades...

What I'm arguing is that there are naturally born hybrids between certain races like elves and humans or ogres and giants that don't require magic. For all we know, half-elves just happen when humans mate with elves. And the ogre-giant hybrid from the Greensleeves trilogy that I mentioned was the product of rape, so his parents definitely didn't use magic to have a baby. The seemingly impossible pairings probably wouldn't work without magic, but I don't think there is any precedence in the canon where magic was used to make weird mixed species children anyway. The closest thing would be the Simic, but even they probably just alter existing individuals.

Are you sure? I thought she was an actual half-elf, but if not, I stand corrected. If her ancestry is more elven than human, then yes, just giving her the Elf type should be fine.

I understand what you are trying to say. You make a sound argument though I want to clarify on what I'm trying to argue. I believe that due to many similarities between humanoid races, I believe any mammalian race could plausibly have kids. Some pairings more than others of course. For example, humans and dwarves could most likely produce offspring while a elf and a leonine while plausible-due to many similarities(hands, chest etc.)-is less likely. Your right in that there is no real clear information to go either way on the subject of hybrids just statistical data, confusing lore, and precious few instances of anything approaching biracial romance on screen (Jace/Emmara, Glissa/Slobad, Ajani/Elspeth which is Platonic Life Partners at most, Ashling/Rhys which was moderately implied by the plot).

P.S. Goblin kingdoms must produce something as they have bombs named after them.

Genetics get all confusing when you learn that there are examples of demon rape-babies in canon. can have children somehow

Jace/Emmara is already an absolute trainwreck. We've conflicting information about the so called "romance".


We've very little data about it, but it appears to be substantially more magical than genetic. It's seemingly more a corruption of the soul than a biological aspect. But that's only one data point we have.