Image courtesy of Scryfall.com
Clustering MTG Cards with Embeddings: A Case Study with Bess, Soul Nourisher
In the ever-expanding multiverse of Magic: The Gathering, data nerds and deck builders alike are discovering that embeddings—those numerical vectors that capture the essence of a card’s features—can reveal surprising groupings. Think of it as mapping the thousands of tiny stories in MTG into a landscape where similar cards cluster like constellations. 🧙♂️ Each card is more than its mana cost or flavor text; it’s a bundle of mechanics, color identity, and strategic potential. Today we spotlight a stellar example from New Capenna Commander: Bess, Soul Nourisher. This legendary Human Creature from the NCC set embodies a flavor-forward, token-friendly design that also makes a nice riding path for embedding-driven clustering. 🔥
Meet the subject: Bess, Soul Nourisher
- Name: Bess, Soul Nourisher
- Mana cost: {1}{G}{W} (total converted mana cost 3)
- Color identity: Green and White (G/W)
- Type and rarity: Legendary Creature — Human Citizen; rare
- Set: New Capenna Commander (NCC); collector number 67
- Artist: Leonardo Santanna
- Text: Whenever one or more other creatures you control with base power and toughness 1/1 enter, put a +1/+1 counter on Bess. Whenever Bess attacks, each other creature you control with base power and toughness 1/1 gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of +1/+1 counters on Bess.
Bess is a purposeful weave of micro-ops and big-picture payoff. In the board state, she loves to see 1/1 creatures arrive—whether as tokens or base threats—and she grows subtly with each entry. When she swings, she weaponizes those counters to pump every 1/1 you’ve generated, turning a parade of tiny bodies into a coordinated blitz. It’s a design built for synergy, tempo, and a little bit of board dominance—perfect fodder for the kind of clustering that embeddings excel at: grouping cards by how they enable and amplify small creatures into big moments. ⚔️
What makes this card a natural clustering candidate
From an embeddings perspective, Bess sits at a crossroads of several influential features:
- Color pairing: The G/W identity signals a toolkit of +1/+1 counter themes, tokens, anthem effects, and resilient boards. Cards sharing this color blend often cluster around lifegain synergies and creature-rich strategies.
- Mana curve and type: A 3-mana, 1/1 baseline that scales with enter-the-battlefield sequences and attack-phase buffs. Cards with similar entry-impact and buff cycles often land in the same neighborhood of the embedding space.
- Trigger patterns: ETB triggers tied to 1/1 creatures, plus a strong attack trigger that scales with counters. These mechanics create predictable turn-by-turn curves that embeddings recognize as related movement.
- Counter-timing dynamics: The +1/+1 counters on Bess become a scalar for the rest of the board, mirroring other cards that convert counters into large tempo swings. That counter-for-counter growth is a signature pattern for clustering active in token-heavy builds.
- Flavor and lore cues: The card’s Santerran-esque vibe and bustling, “city-lattice” flavor from New Capenna resonates with other NCC legends who thrive on synergy-rich boards.
When systems map these features into a high-dimensional space, Bess often finds her neighbors among other 3-mana, green-white or white-green legends that reward token production, or cards that create a ramp-to-advance dynamic where small creatures accumulate value across turns. The result is a cluster that blends creature generation, conditional buffs, and attack-phase payoff—an almost epidemiological spread of synergy that players either chase or mitigate depending on the deck they’re piloting. 🧙♂️🎲
Deckbuilding and gameplay takeaways
For players exploring Bess in Commander or casual builds, the card invites a few concrete strategies:
- Token acceleration: Pair Bess with cards that create 1/1s or tokens with base 1/1 stats. The triggers become reliable fuel for +1/+1 counters and a robust attack buff in the airless blitz of a multiplayer game. 🎨
- Counter amplification: Include effects that increase or protect +1/+1 counters—counters that feed Bess’s own growth and extend her attack-time payoff to your entire squad.
- Tempo and protection: Since Bess’s value grows with the board, protect her while you flood the battlefield. Embedding this pattern alongside card draw and recursion creates a durable engine that outlasts opponents. 🔥
- Synergy with similar legends: Look for other NCC or green/white legends that reward token clusters or counter-based buffs. The embeddings lens will highlight the overlap in these archetypes, helping you design more cohesive decks. 💎
Art, flavor, and the design philosophy
Leonardo Santanna’s illustration brings Bess to life with a sense of crowded optimism—an aura of bustling craftsmen and council scenes that feels very NCC in spirit. The creature’s stance and the soft, almost heraldic lighting echo the idea of a communal, protective presence on the battlefield. It’s a fitting companion to the mechanics: a card that nudges a swarm into a chorus, then leads the finale with a rousing, counter-fueled crescendo. The visual language invites players to imagine the moment when a thousand little bodies finally click into a towering, unified force. ⚔️🎨
Collectibility and market note
As a rare in New Capenna Commander, Bess sits in a space where playability and collectibility intersect. The card is printed as nonfoil in NCC, with an approximate market price around 0.37 USD according to current price data—typical for well-loved niche commanders that reward specific synergy lines without breaking the bank. For collectors, it’s aDistinctive piece that signals a broader trend in the NCC era: strong, theme-forward legends that reward strategic layering over pure raw power. 🧙♂️
Closing thoughts
Embeddings don’t just reveal how cards perform; they illuminate why certain designs feel “in conversation” with one another. Bess, Soul Nourisher is a perfect microcosm of that idea: a small-but-mighty guild-hugger who turns simple 1/1s into a story of growth, momentum, and bravado on the attack. If you’re teaching a model to recognize MTG card similarity, Bess is the kind of anchor piece that helps tether token engines to counter-driven payoffs and legendary leadership to fun, flavorful synergy. And if you’re drafting a new deck inspired by this pattern, may your draws be bountiful and your opponents blink as your counters climb. 🧙♂️💎⚔️