Image courtesy of Scryfall.com

Using Embeddings to Group Similar MTG Cards

In the world of Magic: The Gathering, the art of clustering cards by likeness isn’t just a nerdy curiosity—it’s a practical tool for deck builders, archivists, and data scientists alike. Embeddings let us map the vast tapestry of card design into a multidimensional space where proximity signals similarity. Color identity, mana cost, card type, rarity, keywords, and even flavor text can all live as coordinates, helping us answer questions like “Which cards feel like Arbaaz Mir in terms of triggering events?” or “What other Historic permanents share a battlefield-enter theme with him?” 🧙‍♂️🔥💎 Whether you’re crafting a competitive RW Historic shell or simply pondering how universes beyond shape our card-design vocabulary, embeddings illuminate the relationships that aren’t obvious at first glance. And yes, we’ll sprinkle in a dash of nostalgia and a sprinkle of strategy as we go. ⚔️🎲

Arbaaz Mir: a quick profile

• Name: Arbaaz Mir
• Mana cost: {R}{W} (color identity: red and white)
• Converted mana cost: 2
• Type: Legendary Creature — Human Assassin
• Rarity: Uncommon
• Set: Assassin's Creed (Universes Beyond)
• Flavor text: "Until you have found a cause worth fighting for, you cannot know what you will sacrifice for it."
• Oracle text: Whenever Arbaaz Mir or another non-token historic permanent you control enters the battlefield, Arbaaz Mir deals 1 damage to each opponent and you gain 1 life.

Arbaaz Mir is a compact 2/2 that thrives on battlefield arrivals—specifically, those of historic permanents. The historic keyword groups artifacts, legendaries, and Sagas, giving him a built-in affinity for a particular class of permanents you play and replay. The enter-the-battlefield trigger is modest in power by itself, but it scales with your board: the more historic elements you bring down, the more pressure you apply to opponents and the more life you collect for yourself. In a multi-player setting, his ability scales impressively, sending a volley of damage around the table while nudging your life total upward. This dual impact—offense plus life gain—becomes a strong embedding signal when we compare him to other red-white or Historic-focused cards that reward entering permanents. 🧙‍♂️⚡

What makes Arbaaz Mir a natural anchor for embedding groups

• Color identity and cost: The RW pairing plus a low CMC makes him a gateway pivot for deck builders exploring linear, aggressive lines that still respect history-based synergies. In embedding space, he clusters with other two-color, low-cost legendaries that reward ETB triggers.
• Historic emphasis: The trigger references “historic permanents you control,” which ties Arbaaz Mir to a family of cards that care about artifacts, legendaries, and Sagas—an especially rich embedding space for archived Historic decks and Universe Beyond crossovers.
• Enter-the-battlefield tempo: The damage-and-life swing seen on every historic entry creates a predictable cadence. Embeddings that account for ETB-based strategies will likely place Arbaaz alongside other cards that reward enter events, even if their colors or exact effects differ.
• Flavorful design and lore signals: The Assassin’s Creed crossover carries a narrative flavor that often appears in embeddings as a link between story-driven cards and the mechanical emphasis on timing and cause-effect—helpful when you’re clustering cards by theme as well as by mechanics.
• Commander-legal and design signals: With EDH/Commander-legal status, Arbaaz Mir sits in a robust space for long-term play and diverse deckbuilding—an important distribution signal for embeddings that map popular, multi-format cards.

When you push embeddings to consider not just raw power but also narrative and timing, Arbaaz Mir clusters with a surprisingly cohesive set of peers: other two-color, history-aware entrants, plus a few rogue red-white derivatives that love to punish opponents as the board evolves. The result is a tidy neighborhood in the embedding space where you can locate “neighbors” that share the same tempo and strategic bones. 🧭🎨

From Theory to Practice: Building with Arbaaz Mir

If you’re experimenting with embeddings to craft a curated knowledge graph of MTG cards, Arbaaz Mir is a perfect test case for a few reasons. First, his trigger is event-driven rather than a one-shot effect. That means your embedding model should reward cards that also care about ETB events, such as other historic permanents entering or even different types of permanents with ETB triggers. Second, the color pairing encourages a synergy that’s both thematic and mechanical: red for aggression and haste-like pressure, white for lifegain and resilience. The combination invites a deck archetype that leans into aggressive board presence while weaving in life swing to smooth out combat twists. 🧨🧊

Practically, you might design a RW Historic deck that leans on artifacts and legendaries entering the battlefield—think synergistic permanents that proliferate triggers, damage to opponents, and life gain. In an embedding-based analysis, you’d expect Arbaaz Mir’s neighborhood to include cards with similar ETB rhythms, as well as other legendary humans who can anchor a cohesive tribes-based strategy. The art and flavor support a storytelling angle too: a cause worth fighting for, the tension of sacrifice, and the sense of consequences that ripple across a battlefield full of history. This is the kind of multi-faceted signal embedding models love to capture. ⚔️💎

“Until you have found a cause worth fighting for, you cannot know what you will sacrifice for it.”

Flavor, Art, and Collectibility

Arbaaz Mir’s artistry by Wangjie Li presents a character who looks ready to redefine a skirmish through cunning and precision. The frame, stamped with the Universes Beyond collaboration, marks a moment in MTG’s art and lore where crossover storytelling meets strategic depth. Collectors care not only about the card’s play patterns but also about its rarity and foil treatments; Arbaaz Mir is listed as uncommon with foil and nonfoil options, making it a neat splash in both casual and collector circles. The mix of red and white, the relief of the vintaged 2015 frame, and the flavor text all combine to give the card a strong identity within the broader roster of Historic and RW two-color halves. 🎨🧱

From a design perspective, Arbaaz Mir embodies a compact, efficient engine piece—the kind of card embedding researchers love because it’s both elegant and a little mischievous. It’s not a game-wrecker, but it consistently rewards players who build around historic permanents and the rhythm of ETB triggers. The result is a memorable card that lives at the intersection of strategy, lore, and hobbyist bragging rights. 💎⚡

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