Ruin of Seffala – U/R Djinni Tribal

We've seen Shamans as the white/blue tribe, and Witherkin as the black/red/green tribe, and now the final tribal option is blue/red Djinni. There are other kinds of decks that can be made, of course, that don't utilize tribal synergies (white/green tokens, for example, the green half forthcoming), but I figured for Seffala some tribal options would be good for players who want to draft something somewhat simple. I liked how in Ixalan you could basically just try to draft every Vampire, or every Merfolk, and you'd come up with something good, without thinking too hard, because the tribe types were enough to get you started. Advanced players can try for other kinds of decks to draft, but I wanted new players to be able to open up pack one and say "oh, a bomb rare of tribe X, that's easy."

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Apart from standard tribal payoff that you see in Bloodkin Dimmer and Wishborn here (Wishborn conveniently also a Shaman tribal payoff), one of the bigger themes of the Djinni are choices, or 'granting wishes'. Often on enter-the-battlefield, a Djinn will give you a choice. The Growing Dimmer and Growing Brighter are a pair of opposites (perhaps a mini-cycle of sorts) that give just such a choice.

In Seffala, Djinni classify themselves into two kinds: Brighters and Dimmers. Mechanically, Brighters are usually the ones that give the interesting choices, while Dimmers offer fewer options. This is not a hard and fast rule, but just a rule of thumb that allows for some good puns. In the case of the Growing Brighter and Growing Dimmer, the two both offer two choices, because flavor-wise the Growing Brighter will 'grow' into three, while the Growing Dimmer will 'grow' down to one (like the Bloodkin Dimmer).

Another magical theme of the set is the idea of wishes, but not just of the Djinn-granting variety. Some Shamans have learned to control their powers to grant their own wishes, so they have some of the power that Djinni have, which is here evidenced by Wishborn.

The aesthetic I was going for with Djinni is something close to the classic Aladdin-and-the-lamp look, but darker in tone. These Djinni have no arms, for instance (which incidentally will make expressive art a little harder), but who needs arms when you can wish everything into existence?