Seal and Arcane
4/6/07
The purpose of my emphasis on subtypes in Conquest is to expand differences in cards in a less obvious or important way. For all the same reasons creature types can matter, enchantment types and instant or sorcery types can also matter. I have codified the Seal enchantment type. We always knew seals came into play and could be sacrificed for a spell effect, but now, as Prosperity of Faith shows, you can search up your Seals if you need to in a pinch. In fact, the Wake mechanic would have been a lot narrower if I hadn’t expanded subtypes. Arcane is an existing type that basically serves to allow for Instants and Sorceries with Wake.
75% of the cards in the set have at least one subtype. I may have overloaded the set with subtypes, so much so that I needed to differentiate between type and subtype on many of the cards just to be sure players would be confused by what I meant. The rules state that creature subtypes are also called creature types. Sorcery subtypes are also called sorcery types. Instant subtypes are also called instant types. Artifact subtypes are also called artifact types. Land subtypes are also called land types. And enchantment subtypes are called enchantment types. But if I wanted to generally reference permanent types (artifact, creature, enchantment or land) and permanent type types (goblins, shrines, arcane, loci etc) on the same card it seems silly to not just say subtype. So that’s what I did in the set.