I was prepared for a righteous rant about how most players don't live in the US or Japan, how he has no idea the ethnic background of those US players (yo), or their sexual orientation, or how high school clique doesn't matter worth a lick in the real world but if we must go that route, Bob Maher (yes, that Bob) started playing after a sports injury, so, fractal wrongness ahoy!, but I think it'll be easier to just remember that the general response to this attitude among gaming companies is #ByeFelicia and leave it at that.
Yeah, for good reason. Having bigoted grognards be the audience for your game is poisonous. For a PC game dev, you're looking at the segment of the audience that supports key resellers, refunds games after beating them, and will harass you if a youtuber tells them the game doesn't run at 60fps. Catering to people who have naked contempt for game devs isn't very attractive to the vast majority of people in the industry.
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On average, Magic players are worse at new card evaluation than almost every other skill, except perhaps sideboarding.
Its not "bye" anything if the product stops selling. We discussed this Benalish nonsense already. Even if there were Jamuuran immigrants into such a tightly-knit society, the chances of them matriculating to Marshall is unlikely. Do we have any black 3 or 4 star generals? And we actively integrate, and are far from feudal.
No, most of Europe was white. Your lack of proof is not because there was a lack of evidence back then. There was evidence, it just does not favor you. Let me guess, Abraham was black too? As were the pharaohs?
The issue is not even than Lyria or Benalish Marshal is black; its that this is an ACTIVE attempt to force-feed a certain worldview. It's not natural diversity, like "hey draw some guy on a horse." The instructions are "black man on a horse."
I think Ravnica is a wonderful plane. I think 3 sets blocks are great as well, I think that paradigm worked. I am puzzled why we abandoned it for a 2-set paradigm, and then abandoned that for a large sets only, and then did this, which would have worked best as a small-small-big block.
are you seriously coming to a magic the gathering website and arguing that Abraham and ancient egyptian pharaohs were fair-skinned like modern Europeans
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On average, Magic players are worse at new card evaluation than almost every other skill, except perhaps sideboarding.
If we're being scientific about this we have to recognize that the modern cultural concept of race is considered invalid when discussing human biology, because biologically speaking separate races don't exist, and is hard to map to history because the modern cultural concept of race first shows up a few hundred years back as a justification for imperialism and other *****.
With that said, by modern standards ancient Egyptians would likely be considered black, according to the general consensus of Egyptologists.
The Roman empire also didn't really have a concept of race as we'd understand it, but had a concept of Foreign, Allied and Roman culture. Because the Roman Empire was an expansionist imperial society, if a person learned Latin, joined the roman military, and served in loyal fashion, then they could become a member of the roman political and social elite (or, at the very least, gain the rights extended to full citizens) within a relatively short time. This path of advancement was extended both to individuals born to current Roman citizens, and to members of allied and defeated foreign nations.
One of the side effects of this integration of people is that there have been black people (or at least, those we would consider black according to modern definitions etc) in the UK since around the time of the construction of Hadrian's Wall, with supporting data for this including a cache of letters from a unit of formerly North African (modern definitions etc) Roman soldiers and their families, which were discovered in the area. There have also been central and eastern European people in the area for about as long for similar reasons, those reasons being Roman soldiers got sent were the empire needed them.
Going back to the topic of New Benalia, they're a white-magic based society dealing with an influx of refugees from a vanished continent and the side effects of several apocalypses, so it doesn't seem odd to me that there would be black people (you know the drill by now) among the populace of New Benalia.
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“Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are.” Esmeralda Santiago Art is life itself.
Actually, scientists have proven that the ancient egyptians were Eastern Mediterranean, which means they likely had the same skin tones and features of those found in Turkey, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. So basically, they were neither fair skinned nor deeply hued like those found in the African tribes of the time. I think modern egyptians share around 8-10% of their genome with the neighboring African tribes, but it wasn't always that way. Also, this is actually a recent thing since doing genetic testing on mummies was nearly impossible.
...
What were we talking about again?
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Actually, scientists have proven that the ancient egyptians were Eastern Mediterranean, which means they likely had the same skin tones and features of those found in Turkey, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. So basically, they were neither fair skinned nor deeply hued like those found in the African tribes of the time. I think modern egyptians share around 8-10% of their genome with the neighboring African tribes, but it wasn't always that way.
Is that from the site in middle Egypt, oldest record about 1400BC?
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“Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are.” Esmeralda Santiago Art is life itself.
Actually, scientists have proven that the ancient egyptians were Eastern Mediterranean, which means they likely had the same skin tones and features of those found in Turkey, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. So basically, they were neither fair skinned nor deeply hued like those found in the African tribes of the time. I think modern egyptians share around 8-10% of their genome with the neighboring African tribes, but it wasn't always that way.
Is that from the site in middle Egypt, oldest record about 1400BC?
The mummies were taken from Abusir el-Meleq and there were 90 or so mummies used in the study. The oldest was from 1,388 BCE, the youngest was from 426 CE. I found it kind of interesting when I read it.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Its not "bye" anything if the product stops selling. We discussed this Benalish nonsense already. Even if there were Jamuuran immigrants into such a tightly-knit society, the chances of them matriculating to Marshall is unlikely. Do we have any black 3 or 4 star generals? And we actively integrate, and are far from feudal.
No, most of Europe was white. Your lack of proof is not because there was a lack of evidence back then. There was evidence, it just does not favor you. Let me guess, Abraham was black too? As were the pharaohs?
The issue is not even than Lyria or Benalish Marshal is black; its that this is an ACTIVE attempt to force-feed a certain worldview. It's not natural diversity, like "hey draw some guy on a horse." The instructions are "black man on a horse."
I think Ravnica is a wonderful plane. I think 3 sets blocks are great as well, I think that paradigm worked. I am puzzled why we abandoned it for a 2-set paradigm, and then abandoned that for a large sets only, and then did this, which would have worked best as a small-small-big block.
1. You’ve presented no solid evidence that Magic is not selling.
2. You have definitely failed to present that Magic is failing because it isn’t catering to racists and misogynists.
3. You yourself said if customers don’t agree with a company they can just leave.
4. A Black Marshall is somehow reality breaking, but things that don’t exist in reality at all are fine? Yeah, that’s on you, not Wizards.
5. Let me know when Europe has hard evidence of angels descending in the Middle Ages. When you can present that maybe you’ll be avoiding a false equivalency.
6. It is not “forcing” anything. It’s representing that the world is diverse, and Magic worlds should be at least as diverse if not more.
7. Because forcing yourself to stay on a Plane longer than you need to is silly. Many third blocks were not liked. Or they wound up having to overhaul things. They explained the reasoning before, it’s pretty easy to grasp. This gives them the most flexibility for design and stories. It also gives them freedom to do more risky sets that may flop without over committing to the concept. A lot of neat ideas almost didn’t happen (Zendikar and Innistrad for example) because committing to three sets was seen as too risky.
Yes, those wound up working out, but in another time line they just don’t exist. Now? They have the option to just do one set there, and if it works they go back. If it fails they didn’t spend a year there; a year players hate.
8. Ravnica does not work well with two Smalls and a Large. Three guilds was tight in the original Ravnica, let alone five. Starting with two smalls is bad for draft purposes as well. You need to kick off with a large.
Plain and simple, the logistics don’t work. If you think you do you’re vastly underestimating or overestimating things, not viewing them accurately.
9. You do realize Egypt and Judaism and such are in the Middle East, right? Geography is important if you think they’re in Europe.
1. This is yet another flip-flop on the blocks versus single large sets change. Yes, each is a large set, but they are basically 3 sets conjoined by setting, theme (two-color combos) and plot (Bolas, again). In essence, this is a three-large-set block released over a full year.
You need to go back and re-read the announcement of the end of block. They specifically said they now have the freedom to spend the correct amount of time on a plane as the story dictates. If that is one set, good. If that is three sets, then that is also fine.
2. This suggests that they do not have any new ideas. They stated that they want to layer new and old settings like bacon, 1 new, 1 old. This is a breaking of that promise. Ixalan was for children. Dominaria was fun but watered down power-wise. Surely they have a Viking world or Western world or post-apocalyptic world they can use in the next 12 months?
They never said it was going to be old-new-old-new-etc. They said they want to visit old and new planes. They just wanted to keep them roughly equal. 2 Zendikar sets, 2 Innistrad sets, Dominaria and 3 Ravnica sets is 8 sets. 2 Kaladesh sets, 2 Amonkhet sets and 2 Ixalan sets. Thats 6. There is rough parity there. I am sure after Ravnica we are going to hit up some brand new planes to kick off a new over arching story.
Also, FYI, we have done post-Apoc world before, it was called Time Spiral.
3. Each set will be drafted separately, as they are large sets. This leads to the stupidity of unevenly-colored limited play. This is why I did not enjoy Ixalan draft: the color combos are not balanced. Now, each of the first two large sets will have only have the guilds. Dragon's Maze was the most fun Ravnica to play in limited, and that will not happen this time around.
I think your opinion of Dragon's Maze being the best limited format in the RTR era is very much in the minority.
4. The beauty of Ravnica is that it never needed a top-down plot of theme; the color pie, and the two-color guilds were the plot, and their identity and interrelationship was what made it fun. It was world-view tribal, rather than race type tribal. Now, it will be overshadowed by the serialized cartoon style of Gatewatch v Bolas, and only two years after Amonkhet (less really), which already did this.
We are getting 2 Guild focused sets specifically to avoid the Battle for Zendikar problem where we did not get to go back to that plane and instead were confronted by an over arching war.
However, there is a larger problem. The Battlebond set disclosure released with this makes me wonder what direction WOTC is moving with the game. They are trying to market to a casual audience, but if that is there focus (rather than being like Dota, and building around a popular professional scene with millionaire players), why invest so many resources into pro points, e-celebrity, and perks for Magic's "elite"? There is a lack of focus. They are releasing too much supplemental product, and the main product is suffering, Dominaria aside.
Battlebond is a product meant to let people have some fun drafts. It is no worse or better than an Un-set. There is a hole in the early summer, made mor glaring by the return of Core Sets, that needs to be routinely filled. I imagine a fun draft set is going to become a staple of early summer (just as late summer will be dominated by Commander).
What is hurting Magic is the way they have mucked with Standard over the last 4 years. We went from 3 set blocks and a core set, to 2 set blocks, to 3 independent sets and a core set. This is going to cause havoc within design and development, especially when WotC alters course before the new dynamic really found its legs. They also imposed sever restrictions on the power level of standard at the same time that they eliminated the back bone of the Standard environment - Core Sets. Then the bannings... WotC had a wake up call over the last two years. They have radically changed their design and development process, which can clearly be seen with the best set we have seen in the last few years (Domianria) and the Challenger Decks (a product meant to bridge people from casual to competitive play).
Until Arena is released and proves itself, Magic cannot compete with e-sports. No one likes watching MTGO (it is old and clunky) and watching paper matches is fun but ultimately less enjoyable than watching Arena.
[quote]What makes this more disturbing is that Ravnica is a precious resource that should be tended to with care. It's a setting that is always going to be enjoyable, unless its milked to exhaustion. This, combined with the casual-and-pro-at-once shotgun approach, makes me feel almost like WOTC is strip-mining its own IP for short-term gain.[/quote[
Going to Ravnica 3 times in a row is not really different than what they would have done 4 years ago. You trusted them with RTR, trust them now.
are you seriously coming to a magic the gathering website and arguing that Abraham and ancient egyptian pharaohs were fair-skinned like modern Europeans
No, they were almond-skinned like many Mediterannean peoples, such as the Jews(Israelites/Canaanites), Carthaginians, Phoenicians, etc. They were certainly not North African or Arab as we think of it now.
I was prepared for a righteous rant about how most players don't live in the US or Japan, how he has no idea the ethnic background of those US players (yo), or their sexual orientation, or how high school clique doesn't matter worth a lick in the real world but if we must go that route, Bob Maher (yes, that Bob) started playing after a sports injury, so, fractal wrongness ahoy!, but I think it'll be easier to just remember that the general response to this attitude among gaming companies is #ByeFelicia and leave it at that.
Yeah, for good reason. Having bigoted grognards be the audience for your game is poisonous. For a PC game dev, you're looking at the segment of the audience that supports key resellers, refunds games after beating them, and will harass you if a youtuber tells them the game doesn't run at 60fps. Catering to people who have naked contempt for game devs isn't very attractive to the vast majority of people in the industry.
"Bigoted": White males with money to spend on hobbies and a lack of better, more social things to do. You are now bullying the bullied because they do not agree with your worldview.
And your cancerous "we don't need those fans!" view is sick for many reasons, but particularly because it is NOT YOUR HOBBY! See, you are proving my point by stating that "you" don't need "them" in your hobby. The only way this is possible is if you are in the driver's seat, which you actually almost are, because people with your worldview work at Wizards. So you admit then that you will keep pushing your worldview, and "they" (meaning me) can leave. There is a reason Dominaria has been the most flavorful and well-designed block in a while: "we/you" did not lead the design exclusively, Richard Garfield was involved. He tried to, dare we say, Make Magic Great Again?
And the argument that AlphaInvestment's Rudy knows nothing because he is in a basement is moronic. They guy makes quite a bit of money on the game, meaning he both knows quite a bit, and also has a bit to lose if the game tanks. So maybe, on this one, lend him your ear?
You guys focused on the wrong critique. My concern is largely two-fold. First, the large-scale recycling. 3 in a row of Ravnica, after having shifted to a system where one set tells the entire flavor of the block rather than 3, is disturbing. Second, the fact that Ravnica is not color-balanced makes a large set that is not color balanced extremely visually displeasing (for me at least). I have always loved the color-balance of Magic, I thought that aesthetic is very satisfying on multiple levels. Singleton Ravnica blocks do not do that. Why not at least to a small-small-big block, if you will do it this way?
And I actually have presented evidence of decline. Hasbro's own numbers for one. The amount of loud discontent another. The rising cost of product (which is not a product that has actual rarity like diamonds) a third. $80 for a Grand Prix as an amateur? Come on!
"Bigoted": White males with money to spend on hobbies and a lack of better, more social things to do. You are now bullying the bullied because they do not agree with your worldview.
And your cancerous "we don't need those fans!" view is sick for many reasons, but particularly because it is NOT YOUR HOBBY! See, you are proving my point by stating that "you" don't need "them" in your hobby. The only way this is possible is if you are in the driver's seat, which you actually almost are, because people with your worldview work at Wizards. So you admit then that you will keep pushing your worldview, and "they" (meaning me) can leave. There is a reason Dominaria has been the most flavorful and well-designed block in a while: "we/you" did not lead the design exclusively, Richard Garfield was involved. He tried to, dare we say, Make Magic Great Again?
This post is a just a who's who of dishonest angry gamer arguments, huh?
Conflating bigoted people with "white males with money to spend on hobbies" is a classic. I know it's comforting for you to think that everyone else has your regressive beliefs but... we don't. I'm a white guy who plays Magic; somehow I have avoided being angry that Wizards put black people on card art. No, I do mean specifically the people who, the moment they see a black person in a fantasy setting, instantly become experts on history and start demanding accuracy from their games with dragons in them. And of course you follow it up with the "bullying" accusations, which is rich coming from someone who repeatedly posts right-wing diatribes.
And then you pull out another canard that's common in this kind of discourse: claiming that the anyone who doesn't agree with you is an outsider coming in to ruin the game. But, uh, I've been playing Magic since 1997. It absolutely is my hobby, which is why I care that people feel comfortable entering it. Representation on cards helps that. You know what doesn't help? An angry loud minority of grognards constantly spewing negativity about the game that's based mostly on their own bigotry.
If you're annoyed that nobody takes your arguments seriously it's because you made it clear they don't come from a place of honest criticism but because you view Magic as just another battleground for pushing political resentments that people are tired and sick of.
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On average, Magic players are worse at new card evaluation than almost every other skill, except perhaps sideboarding.
And then you pull out another canard that's common in this kind of discourse: claiming that the anyone who doesn't agree with you is an outsider coming in to ruin the game.
This is true for everyone on an extreme side. Doesnt matter which side, anybody else is an outsider to that kind of extremist.
But, uh, I've been playing Magic since 1997. It absolutely is my hobby, which is why I care that people feel comfortable entering it.
Even the people you blame do, they just have a different focus on what accomplishes that ; making the game good, vs forcing ideology into the game.
Representation on cards helps that.
That doesnt change a bit. There are people that like some cards and dislike others. Representation is a hoax they put into peoples minds, but its utter bogus in terms of magic and fantasy games. If you print regular human beings, classic artwork, people will put their own image into them. Some people might like Angels, Dragons, Demons, Wizards, its such a basic fantasy setting and diversity in THIS area is a win for everyone, as it broadens the universe without making it silly and lose context.
You know what doesn't help? An angry loud minority of grognards constantly spewing negativity about the game that's based mostly on their own bigotry.
Every change means someone will like it, and others wont.
Neither helps, it just drives in a direction and everyone that disagrees is left behind.
However, like always, if enough dislike a direction, it can be changed. Thats the entire point of critique, if you dislike it, and you are in the minority, you just dislike it, but if more and more think the same, it will impact the decision making unless the "captain" lost his mind, in which case it means violent mutiny or uprising ; either way, somebody will bleed for it, or leave the sinking ship and the more people care, the less likely they are to abandon a sinking ship, as they so badly want to hope it will make it.
If you're annoyed that nobody takes your arguments seriously it's because you made it clear they don't come from a place of honest criticism but because you view Magic as just another battleground for pushing political resentments that people are tired and sick of.
Its important to notice who you speak with. In an big echo-camber you will only hear your own voice and the voices of others that just think the same as you ; so you will live in ignorance of other opinions.
The moment you leave into the world and discuss, or even openly search discussion with different opinions, it becomes actually interesting.
But these potentially heated and often emotional discussions are also taxing and if you stand to discuss it further, you have to leave if you are tired of it ; its not the goal of a discussion to scream around till somebody is tired of it, they simply did a poor job explaining themselves and/or the other just wants to rant and blow some steam (which also helps and has to be identified as that, otherwise you only troll each other into submission).
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Plenty of points in this thread show WotC is just stupidly unable to set rules and follow them for even a bunch of years. They are in a "lets change stuff" mentality and just slay everything and anything.
They see games like Heartstone have success and opt in to steal some artstyle ideas and try to appeal to a much younger audience ; which is extra odd, as there are not that many kids under 12 that would start playing magic at all in todays time and age (the ones i know are all children of veteran players, they started 20 years ago and the children play it now with them ; thats very nice to see, but its also not a "new" customer).
The biggest problem with the new customers is that it will always clash with the opinions of oldschool players, even more so if they play for a very VERY long time , 10 years, 20 years, its dramatic how the game changed since then (and how powerful nostalgia is shows in Dominaria, some players returned and bought booster packs, just because they had such good memories of the past ; its a driving factor that cannot be ignored).
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Magic really needs to find a much better balance between caress to the oldschool players and at the same time provide product for NEW players.
In the past they had that idea with the different product types (Expert level product Boosterpack-Sets, Beginner level product Core sets).
They just didnt work with it well, like with almost any idea they have that might even be good, they just dont execute it well and leave ship to hunt for the next "good" idea.
Ravnica as a world is great. Could have taken like 2 more sets in between to build a better floor for it.
Dual lands are somewhat tied to the plane and its pretty much a given to see them.
It will sell easy.
Ravnica promises easy money, as they sell packs on the promise of dual lands already, anything else is just "extra" and even if it should disappoint, theres still dual lands to soften the fall.
I can kind of understand that cards like Benalish Marshal seem weird at first glance. After all, it is true that Benalia was depicted as a mainly white society before, so black people suddenly appearing there (without any explanation at that) can be a bit jarring. But then again ... it's not that big of a deal. If you really care about the creative consistence of Dominaria and want an in-universe explanation (because you can't tolerate the representation argument for some reason), you'd have to come up with some sort of headcanon, but honestly that's a pretty easy task. Dominaria has just come out of a plane-wide apocalypse, so it's not hard to imagine that people focused less on skin-color-based discrimination and instead concentrated on rebuilding a strong new kingdom/countries/whatever. This is a fantasy world after all; while there has to be some consistence, it doesn't have to portray the real middle ages (or what you believe them to have been) exactly 1:1.
However, most people complaining at length about stuff like this that I've seen don't seem like they actually care about creative consistence or what have you. To me it always looks like they just see black people (or women, or "uggos") where there were previously none in "their" game, immediately get a biting reflex and start throwing around buzzwords like "agenda" and "SJW". I really can't imagine enough people get upsetting and quitting over minuscule things like this in such large numbers that the overall sales go down. It's not like the entire main character cast is being purged of white characters or something, we're talking about side characters or less here. The average customer doesn't care about the percentage of female characters with big boobs or what skin color their knight has when it comes to their card game. "Anti-agenda people" are grossly overestimating the importance of the things they care about.
...that may have gotten a little off topic, so let me just add that I don't really get the "WotC is becoming lazy/uncreative" argument either. The same people who make that argument praise Dominaria as being the most well-designed set in recent history - so obviously there's a lot of creativity left (and please don't say "Richard Garfield" now, or do you realy think he almost singlehandedly designed the whole thing? There were a lot of people involved). Depending on your point of view, it may be a bit unfortunate that they decided to do Ravnica 3 under the new set design principles (and maybe so soon), but if you think about it, the structure is only logical. Two sets to have a look at all 10 guilds, and then the "fight with Bolas" set which has to immediately follow because going back to Ravnica another time for only a single set without having enough room for the guilds would be super weird.
Its not "bye" anything if the product stops selling. We discussed this Benalish nonsense already. Even if there were Jamuuran immigrants into such a tightly-knit society, the chances of them matriculating to Marshall is unlikely.
I'll reiterate that I don't think you have a clear grasp of Benalian society.
Old Benalia wasn't white because of the caste system they had, it was white because it was full of white people. Further, the caste system they had was structured such that every caste had its time at the top; the castes rotated in standing on a regular basis. The only people whose standing didn't rotate were Heroes like Gerrard, who achieved their status based entirely on personal merit.
New Benalia is a different society. One of the most important aspects of New Benalian society is which constellation you were born under, and birthday has no relation to skin tone.
That doesnt change a bit. There are people that like some cards and dislike others. Representation is a hoax they put into peoples minds, but its utter bogus in terms of magic and fantasy games. If you print regular human beings, classic artwork, people will put their own image into them. Some people might like Angels, Dragons, Demons, Wizards, its such a basic fantasy setting and diversity in THIS area is a win for everyone, as it broadens the universe without making it silly and lose context.
...? what? Are you saying black people in card art aren't "regular human beings"? Do you think black people in card art "make it silly and lose context"?
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On average, Magic players are worse at new card evaluation than almost every other skill, except perhaps sideboarding.
Until Arena is released and proves itself, Magic cannot compete with e-sports. No one likes watching MTGO (it is old and clunky) and watching paper matches is fun but ultimately less enjoyable than watching Arena.
I actually prefer watching MTGO to paper, but I don't mind watching paper as long as it isn't hours long.
...? what? Are you saying black people in card art aren't "regular human beings"? Do you think black people in card art "make it silly and lose context"?
Actually you just said that, and you alone.
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Regardless, it has to have context.
If you want to make a set like Kamigawa with asian people just randomly changing a person to a black african would be completely out of place and serves no purpose. In a setting like the Weatherlight set black people arent out of place at all.
Forcing a strict 50/50 split of male/female characters is overdoing it drastically, as it puts more bounds on design and storytelling just to full fill some quota, it ultimately hurts the story and hinders creativity as the story teller is forced to change the story to meat this quotas.
It all depends what is more important to you.
Either a believable setting
or
just putting randomly everything everywhere without context
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Simply put, exceptions are fine, as long as they are actual exceptions and not the rule.
Designing magic cards in a manner of "We need a female pansexual cat planeswalker that is 12 years old" is a terrible approach.
Its not "bye" anything if the product stops selling. We discussed this Benalish nonsense already. Even if there were Jamuuran immigrants into such a tightly-knit society, the chances of them matriculating to Marshall is unlikely.
I'll reiterate that I don't think you have a clear grasp of Benalian society.
Old Benalia wasn't white because of the caste system they had, it was white because it was full of white people. Further, the caste system they had was structured such that every caste had its time at the top; the castes rotated in standing on a regular basis. The only people whose standing didn't rotate were Heroes like Gerrard, who achieved their status based entirely on personal merit.
New Benalia is a different society. One of the most important aspects of New Benalian society is which constellation you were born under, and birthday has no relation to skin tone.
Yep. The caste system of New Benalia is just astrology.
In the case of Zhalfirins in particular, we know why they live in New Benalia: Zhalfir didn't exist from the Phyrexian invasion all the way to Teferi's atonement. (And you can see how cutting Dominaria down to one set affected it. You'd expect a Mageta card because they explicitly mentioned Mageta being in Zhalfir at the time Teferi phased the country out.)
[quote from="Negator_402 »" url="/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-general/793389-ravnica-block-and-why-i-do-not-like-it?comment=53"]Do we have any black 3 or 4 star generals?
Lloyd Austin: 4 stars (Army)
Larry Spencer: 4 stars (Air Force)
Cecil Haney: 4 stars (Navy)
Dennis Via: 4 stars (Army)
Gwen Bingham: 3 stars (Army)
Edward Rice Jr.: 4 stars (Air Force)
Manson Brown: 3 stars (Navy)
Vincent Brooks: 4 stars (Army)
Michelle Howard: 4 stars (Navy)
Thomas Bostick: 3 stars (Army)
Ronald Bailey: 3 stars (Marines)
Darren McDew: 4 stars (Air Force)
John Smith Jr.: 4 stars (Navy)
Nadja West: 3 stars (Army)
From the first result of a single Google search.
Colin Powell as well. Retired, but a blindingly obvious example.
As BonSequitur said, most game companies don't want their product associated with people who get triggered over a black knight. (And I don't mean mono-white players.) TBH, if black people make a few morans lose their ***** and leave, good. It'll make FNM a more pleasant experience for all.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Either a believable setting
or
just putting randomly everything everywhere without context
You think your unbelievable is everyone's unbelievable. But it's not.
There's nothing unbelievable to me about equal male and female representation.
There's nothing unbelievable to me about black people and white people coexisting as part of one culture - regardless of how that culture was previously portrayed.
There's nothing unbelievable to me about a transgender hero. Or a pansexual hero. Or any other thing you might think is "unbelievable".
Because of how you think about the world, you think that these things need to be forced on a storyteller. You think they're external forces that intrude on the story. This is not an objective fact; it's a consequence of your worldview.
Storytellers don't need to be forced to represent men and women equally. Storytellers don't need to be forced to include gender-stereotype-breaking characters. Some storytellers just want to do that.
Because of your worldview, you think these things are random and without context. But for others, these are naturally part of a rich context and a rich world - both speaking of the context of the real world that the game is embedded in, and the story world that we explore.
Wizards is telling a beautiful story. You're trying to say the story is bad, that the story is damaged, but that's not what your complaints reveal; they show that it's just a story you don't like.
Well, that's unfortunate for you. Wizards gets to tell the story they want to tell. Those who like it will partake of it. I like the stories Wizards are telling now. I like them more than the ones Wizards used to tell. So I'm going to support it.
Benalish Marshal only makes the setting "unbelievable" if you're uncomfortable seeing nonwhite people in positions of authority. Which explains the previous "there's never been a Black 3/4 star general in the US" post.
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On average, Magic players are worse at new card evaluation than almost every other skill, except perhaps sideboarding.
You think your unbelievable is everyone's unbelievable. But it's not.
There's nothing unbelievable to me about equal male and female representation.
There's nothing unbelievable to me about black people and white people coexisting as part of one culture - regardless of how that culture was previously portrayed.
There's nothing unbelievable to me about a transgender hero. Or a pansexual hero. Or any other thing you might think is "unbelievable".
Because of how you think about the world, you think that these things need to be forced on a storyteller. You think they're external forces that intrude on the story. This is not an objective fact; it's a consequence of your worldview.
Storytellers don't need to be forced to represent men and women equally. Storytellers don't need to be forced to include gender-stereotype-breaking characters. Some storytellers just want to do that.
Because of your worldview, you think these things are random and without context. But for others, these are naturally part of a rich context and a rich world - both speaking of the context of the real world that the game is embedded in, and the story world that we explore.
Wizards is telling a beautiful story. You're trying to say the story is bad, that the story is damaged, but that's not what your complaints reveal; they show that it's just a story you don't like.
Well, that's unfortunate for you. Wizards gets to tell the story they want to tell. Those who like it will partake of it. I like the stories Wizards are telling now. I like them more than the ones Wizards used to tell. So I'm going to support it.
Great for you, consider you a minority to agree to absolutely "everything" WotC does right now.
Benalish Marshal only makes the setting "unbelievable" if you're uncomfortable seeing nonwhite people in positions of authority.
The posters standpoint or motivations of the general question is one thing on its own.
However, there is no denial they changed the world of Dominaria to fit more different looks into a smaller amount of cards ; all for the "representation" nonsense.
The card itself doesnt bother me, but doing that stuff by a pattern of "Lets change that art to a black skin color" just to forcefully push pseudo diversity in a fantasy world does INDEED make it unbelievable, as its forced to do so.
Some people might not care at all, or are just naturally way too agreeable for their own good.
Others acknowledge its an unnecessary push of ideology that annoys a very real percentage of players (to very varying degrees and reasons), which only fuels the fire of any issue existing.
I mean, before it wasnt a topic at all, this way its forced upon the players and it forces players to take a side in a political discussion that shouldnt have a place in a fantasy game to begin with ; simply put, its only actual reason to exist is to annoy people and knowingly do so.
I wouldnt go as far to say its a complete shift , but there simply is no denial that it absolutely does influence artwork and puts topics into the game that simply shouldnt matter at all (like the sexuality of a character, which is utterly meaningless in terms of the game, but only exists to provoke people).
Maro especially takes a super extreme position in this context as he truly believes the card games fantasy world has even remotely any impact on the "real" world and how people perceive themselves , which is just laughable moronic, as this world has dragons, swords and magic, it has nothing to do at all with the real world and the players involved in it).
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Even in this thread here it easily shows how easily a discussion about "Ravnica" and why people dont like it, just shifts into a political slur and extremist taking sides on why and why not the other is a terrible human being.
Its a pointless topic and it shouldnt exist in a card game to begin with (or to such a small degree that its simply not as pervasive and forced as it is right now).
However, there is no denial they changed the world of Dominaria to fit more different looks into a smaller amount of cards ; all for the "representation" nonsense.
Dominaria already had a diverse population across the plane, and as you've said, this time around they're using a lot fewer cards to show us the world. Why is it nonsense to condense the state of a nostalgic setting during the year of a milestone anniversary? Wizards is attempting to give us a ton of different stuff this year in celebration, so they can't exactly spread their representation of Dominaria across 28 different sets as they did before.
Yeah, for good reason. Having bigoted grognards be the audience for your game is poisonous. For a PC game dev, you're looking at the segment of the audience that supports key resellers, refunds games after beating them, and will harass you if a youtuber tells them the game doesn't run at 60fps. Catering to people who have naked contempt for game devs isn't very attractive to the vast majority of people in the industry.
No, most of Europe was white. Your lack of proof is not because there was a lack of evidence back then. There was evidence, it just does not favor you. Let me guess, Abraham was black too? As were the pharaohs?
The issue is not even than Lyria or Benalish Marshal is black; its that this is an ACTIVE attempt to force-feed a certain worldview. It's not natural diversity, like "hey draw some guy on a horse." The instructions are "black man on a horse."
I think Ravnica is a wonderful plane. I think 3 sets blocks are great as well, I think that paradigm worked. I am puzzled why we abandoned it for a 2-set paradigm, and then abandoned that for a large sets only, and then did this, which would have worked best as a small-small-big block.
With that said, by modern standards ancient Egyptians would likely be considered black, according to the general consensus of Egyptologists.
The Roman empire also didn't really have a concept of race as we'd understand it, but had a concept of Foreign, Allied and Roman culture. Because the Roman Empire was an expansionist imperial society, if a person learned Latin, joined the roman military, and served in loyal fashion, then they could become a member of the roman political and social elite (or, at the very least, gain the rights extended to full citizens) within a relatively short time. This path of advancement was extended both to individuals born to current Roman citizens, and to members of allied and defeated foreign nations.
One of the side effects of this integration of people is that there have been black people (or at least, those we would consider black according to modern definitions etc) in the UK since around the time of the construction of Hadrian's Wall, with supporting data for this including a cache of letters from a unit of formerly North African (modern definitions etc) Roman soldiers and their families, which were discovered in the area. There have also been central and eastern European people in the area for about as long for similar reasons, those reasons being Roman soldiers got sent were the empire needed them.
Going back to the topic of New Benalia, they're a white-magic based society dealing with an influx of refugees from a vanished continent and the side effects of several apocalypses, so it doesn't seem odd to me that there would be black people (you know the drill by now) among the populace of New Benalia.
Art is life itself.
...
What were we talking about again?
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Art is life itself.
http://bigthink.com/philip-perry/were-the-ancient-egyptians-black-or-white-scientists-now-know
The mummies were taken from Abusir el-Meleq and there were 90 or so mummies used in the study. The oldest was from 1,388 BCE, the youngest was from 426 CE. I found it kind of interesting when I read it.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
1. You’ve presented no solid evidence that Magic is not selling.
2. You have definitely failed to present that Magic is failing because it isn’t catering to racists and misogynists.
3. You yourself said if customers don’t agree with a company they can just leave.
4. A Black Marshall is somehow reality breaking, but things that don’t exist in reality at all are fine? Yeah, that’s on you, not Wizards.
5. Let me know when Europe has hard evidence of angels descending in the Middle Ages. When you can present that maybe you’ll be avoiding a false equivalency.
6. It is not “forcing” anything. It’s representing that the world is diverse, and Magic worlds should be at least as diverse if not more.
7. Because forcing yourself to stay on a Plane longer than you need to is silly. Many third blocks were not liked. Or they wound up having to overhaul things. They explained the reasoning before, it’s pretty easy to grasp. This gives them the most flexibility for design and stories. It also gives them freedom to do more risky sets that may flop without over committing to the concept. A lot of neat ideas almost didn’t happen (Zendikar and Innistrad for example) because committing to three sets was seen as too risky.
Yes, those wound up working out, but in another time line they just don’t exist. Now? They have the option to just do one set there, and if it works they go back. If it fails they didn’t spend a year there; a year players hate.
8. Ravnica does not work well with two Smalls and a Large. Three guilds was tight in the original Ravnica, let alone five. Starting with two smalls is bad for draft purposes as well. You need to kick off with a large.
Plain and simple, the logistics don’t work. If you think you do you’re vastly underestimating or overestimating things, not viewing them accurately.
9. You do realize Egypt and Judaism and such are in the Middle East, right? Geography is important if you think they’re in Europe.
You need to go back and re-read the announcement of the end of block. They specifically said they now have the freedom to spend the correct amount of time on a plane as the story dictates. If that is one set, good. If that is three sets, then that is also fine.
They never said it was going to be old-new-old-new-etc. They said they want to visit old and new planes. They just wanted to keep them roughly equal. 2 Zendikar sets, 2 Innistrad sets, Dominaria and 3 Ravnica sets is 8 sets. 2 Kaladesh sets, 2 Amonkhet sets and 2 Ixalan sets. Thats 6. There is rough parity there. I am sure after Ravnica we are going to hit up some brand new planes to kick off a new over arching story.
Also, FYI, we have done post-Apoc world before, it was called Time Spiral.
I think your opinion of Dragon's Maze being the best limited format in the RTR era is very much in the minority.
We are getting 2 Guild focused sets specifically to avoid the Battle for Zendikar problem where we did not get to go back to that plane and instead were confronted by an over arching war.
Battlebond is a product meant to let people have some fun drafts. It is no worse or better than an Un-set. There is a hole in the early summer, made mor glaring by the return of Core Sets, that needs to be routinely filled. I imagine a fun draft set is going to become a staple of early summer (just as late summer will be dominated by Commander).
What is hurting Magic is the way they have mucked with Standard over the last 4 years. We went from 3 set blocks and a core set, to 2 set blocks, to 3 independent sets and a core set. This is going to cause havoc within design and development, especially when WotC alters course before the new dynamic really found its legs. They also imposed sever restrictions on the power level of standard at the same time that they eliminated the back bone of the Standard environment - Core Sets. Then the bannings... WotC had a wake up call over the last two years. They have radically changed their design and development process, which can clearly be seen with the best set we have seen in the last few years (Domianria) and the Challenger Decks (a product meant to bridge people from casual to competitive play).
Until Arena is released and proves itself, Magic cannot compete with e-sports. No one likes watching MTGO (it is old and clunky) and watching paper matches is fun but ultimately less enjoyable than watching Arena.
[quote]What makes this more disturbing is that Ravnica is a precious resource that should be tended to with care. It's a setting that is always going to be enjoyable, unless its milked to exhaustion. This, combined with the casual-and-pro-at-once shotgun approach, makes me feel almost like WOTC is strip-mining its own IP for short-term gain.[/quote[
Going to Ravnica 3 times in a row is not really different than what they would have done 4 years ago. You trusted them with RTR, trust them now.
And your cancerous "we don't need those fans!" view is sick for many reasons, but particularly because it is NOT YOUR HOBBY! See, you are proving my point by stating that "you" don't need "them" in your hobby. The only way this is possible is if you are in the driver's seat, which you actually almost are, because people with your worldview work at Wizards. So you admit then that you will keep pushing your worldview, and "they" (meaning me) can leave. There is a reason Dominaria has been the most flavorful and well-designed block in a while: "we/you" did not lead the design exclusively, Richard Garfield was involved. He tried to, dare we say, Make Magic Great Again?
And the argument that AlphaInvestment's Rudy knows nothing because he is in a basement is moronic. They guy makes quite a bit of money on the game, meaning he both knows quite a bit, and also has a bit to lose if the game tanks. So maybe, on this one, lend him your ear?
And I actually have presented evidence of decline. Hasbro's own numbers for one. The amount of loud discontent another. The rising cost of product (which is not a product that has actual rarity like diamonds) a third. $80 for a Grand Prix as an amateur? Come on!
This post is a just a who's who of dishonest angry gamer arguments, huh?
Conflating bigoted people with "white males with money to spend on hobbies" is a classic. I know it's comforting for you to think that everyone else has your regressive beliefs but... we don't. I'm a white guy who plays Magic; somehow I have avoided being angry that Wizards put black people on card art. No, I do mean specifically the people who, the moment they see a black person in a fantasy setting, instantly become experts on history and start demanding accuracy from their games with dragons in them. And of course you follow it up with the "bullying" accusations, which is rich coming from someone who repeatedly posts right-wing diatribes.
And then you pull out another canard that's common in this kind of discourse: claiming that the anyone who doesn't agree with you is an outsider coming in to ruin the game. But, uh, I've been playing Magic since 1997. It absolutely is my hobby, which is why I care that people feel comfortable entering it. Representation on cards helps that. You know what doesn't help? An angry loud minority of grognards constantly spewing negativity about the game that's based mostly on their own bigotry.
If you're annoyed that nobody takes your arguments seriously it's because you made it clear they don't come from a place of honest criticism but because you view Magic as just another battleground for pushing political resentments that people are tired and sick of.
This is true for everyone on an extreme side. Doesnt matter which side, anybody else is an outsider to that kind of extremist.
Even the people you blame do, they just have a different focus on what accomplishes that ; making the game good, vs forcing ideology into the game.
That doesnt change a bit. There are people that like some cards and dislike others. Representation is a hoax they put into peoples minds, but its utter bogus in terms of magic and fantasy games. If you print regular human beings, classic artwork, people will put their own image into them. Some people might like Angels, Dragons, Demons, Wizards, its such a basic fantasy setting and diversity in THIS area is a win for everyone, as it broadens the universe without making it silly and lose context.
Every change means someone will like it, and others wont.
Neither helps, it just drives in a direction and everyone that disagrees is left behind.
However, like always, if enough dislike a direction, it can be changed. Thats the entire point of critique, if you dislike it, and you are in the minority, you just dislike it, but if more and more think the same, it will impact the decision making unless the "captain" lost his mind, in which case it means violent mutiny or uprising ; either way, somebody will bleed for it, or leave the sinking ship and the more people care, the less likely they are to abandon a sinking ship, as they so badly want to hope it will make it.
Its important to notice who you speak with. In an big echo-camber you will only hear your own voice and the voices of others that just think the same as you ; so you will live in ignorance of other opinions.
The moment you leave into the world and discuss, or even openly search discussion with different opinions, it becomes actually interesting.
But these potentially heated and often emotional discussions are also taxing and if you stand to discuss it further, you have to leave if you are tired of it ; its not the goal of a discussion to scream around till somebody is tired of it, they simply did a poor job explaining themselves and/or the other just wants to rant and blow some steam (which also helps and has to be identified as that, otherwise you only troll each other into submission).
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On-Topic:
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Plenty of points in this thread show WotC is just stupidly unable to set rules and follow them for even a bunch of years. They are in a "lets change stuff" mentality and just slay everything and anything.
They see games like Heartstone have success and opt in to steal some artstyle ideas and try to appeal to a much younger audience ; which is extra odd, as there are not that many kids under 12 that would start playing magic at all in todays time and age (the ones i know are all children of veteran players, they started 20 years ago and the children play it now with them ; thats very nice to see, but its also not a "new" customer).
The biggest problem with the new customers is that it will always clash with the opinions of oldschool players, even more so if they play for a very VERY long time , 10 years, 20 years, its dramatic how the game changed since then (and how powerful nostalgia is shows in Dominaria, some players returned and bought booster packs, just because they had such good memories of the past ; its a driving factor that cannot be ignored).
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Magic really needs to find a much better balance between caress to the oldschool players and at the same time provide product for NEW players.
In the past they had that idea with the different product types (Expert level product Boosterpack-Sets, Beginner level product Core sets).
They just didnt work with it well, like with almost any idea they have that might even be good, they just dont execute it well and leave ship to hunt for the next "good" idea.
Ravnica as a world is great. Could have taken like 2 more sets in between to build a better floor for it.
Dual lands are somewhat tied to the plane and its pretty much a given to see them.
It will sell easy.
Ravnica promises easy money, as they sell packs on the promise of dual lands already, anything else is just "extra" and even if it should disappoint, theres still dual lands to soften the fall.
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However, most people complaining at length about stuff like this that I've seen don't seem like they actually care about creative consistence or what have you. To me it always looks like they just see black people (or women, or "uggos") where there were previously none in "their" game, immediately get a biting reflex and start throwing around buzzwords like "agenda" and "SJW". I really can't imagine enough people get upsetting and quitting over minuscule things like this in such large numbers that the overall sales go down. It's not like the entire main character cast is being purged of white characters or something, we're talking about side characters or less here. The average customer doesn't care about the percentage of female characters with big boobs or what skin color their knight has when it comes to their card game. "Anti-agenda people" are grossly overestimating the importance of the things they care about.
...that may have gotten a little off topic, so let me just add that I don't really get the "WotC is becoming lazy/uncreative" argument either. The same people who make that argument praise Dominaria as being the most well-designed set in recent history - so obviously there's a lot of creativity left (and please don't say "Richard Garfield" now, or do you realy think he almost singlehandedly designed the whole thing? There were a lot of people involved). Depending on your point of view, it may be a bit unfortunate that they decided to do Ravnica 3 under the new set design principles (and maybe so soon), but if you think about it, the structure is only logical. Two sets to have a look at all 10 guilds, and then the "fight with Bolas" set which has to immediately follow because going back to Ravnica another time for only a single set without having enough room for the guilds would be super weird.
Old Benalia wasn't white because of the caste system they had, it was white because it was full of white people. Further, the caste system they had was structured such that every caste had its time at the top; the castes rotated in standing on a regular basis. The only people whose standing didn't rotate were Heroes like Gerrard, who achieved their status based entirely on personal merit.
New Benalia is a different society. One of the most important aspects of New Benalian society is which constellation you were born under, and birthday has no relation to skin tone.
Lloyd Austin: 4 stars (Army)
Larry Spencer: 4 stars (Air Force)
Cecil Haney: 4 stars (Navy)
Dennis Via: 4 stars (Army)
Gwen Bingham: 3 stars (Army)
Edward Rice Jr.: 4 stars (Air Force)
Manson Brown: 3 stars (Navy)
Vincent Brooks: 4 stars (Army)
Michelle Howard: 4 stars (Navy)
Thomas Bostick: 3 stars (Army)
Ronald Bailey: 3 stars (Marines)
Darren McDew: 4 stars (Air Force)
John Smith Jr.: 4 stars (Navy)
Nadja West: 3 stars (Army)
From the first result of a single Google search.
As already mentioned, neither Old Benalia nor New Benalia follow Feudalism.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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...? what? Are you saying black people in card art aren't "regular human beings"? Do you think black people in card art "make it silly and lose context"?
I actually prefer watching MTGO to paper, but I don't mind watching paper as long as it isn't hours long.
Actually you just said that, and you alone.
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Regardless, it has to have context.
If you want to make a set like Kamigawa with asian people just randomly changing a person to a black african would be completely out of place and serves no purpose. In a setting like the Weatherlight set black people arent out of place at all.
Forcing a strict 50/50 split of male/female characters is overdoing it drastically, as it puts more bounds on design and storytelling just to full fill some quota, it ultimately hurts the story and hinders creativity as the story teller is forced to change the story to meat this quotas.
It all depends what is more important to you.
Either a believable setting
or
just putting randomly everything everywhere without context
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Simply put, exceptions are fine, as long as they are actual exceptions and not the rule.
Designing magic cards in a manner of "We need a female pansexual cat planeswalker that is 12 years old" is a terrible approach.
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👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Yep. The caste system of New Benalia is just astrology.
In the case of Zhalfirins in particular, we know why they live in New Benalia: Zhalfir didn't exist from the Phyrexian invasion all the way to Teferi's atonement. (And you can see how cutting Dominaria down to one set affected it. You'd expect a Mageta card because they explicitly mentioned Mageta being in Zhalfir at the time Teferi phased the country out.)
Colin Powell as well. Retired, but a blindingly obvious example.
As BonSequitur said, most game companies don't want their product associated with people who get triggered over a black knight. (And I don't mean mono-white players.) TBH, if black people make a few morans lose their ***** and leave, good. It'll make FNM a more pleasant experience for all.
On phasing:
There's nothing unbelievable to me about equal male and female representation.
There's nothing unbelievable to me about black people and white people coexisting as part of one culture - regardless of how that culture was previously portrayed.
There's nothing unbelievable to me about a transgender hero. Or a pansexual hero. Or any other thing you might think is "unbelievable".
Because of how you think about the world, you think that these things need to be forced on a storyteller. You think they're external forces that intrude on the story. This is not an objective fact; it's a consequence of your worldview.
Storytellers don't need to be forced to represent men and women equally. Storytellers don't need to be forced to include gender-stereotype-breaking characters. Some storytellers just want to do that.
Because of your worldview, you think these things are random and without context. But for others, these are naturally part of a rich context and a rich world - both speaking of the context of the real world that the game is embedded in, and the story world that we explore.
Wizards is telling a beautiful story. You're trying to say the story is bad, that the story is damaged, but that's not what your complaints reveal; they show that it's just a story you don't like.
Well, that's unfortunate for you. Wizards gets to tell the story they want to tell. Those who like it will partake of it. I like the stories Wizards are telling now. I like them more than the ones Wizards used to tell. So I'm going to support it.
Great for you, consider you a minority to agree to absolutely "everything" WotC does right now.
The posters standpoint or motivations of the general question is one thing on its own.
However, there is no denial they changed the world of Dominaria to fit more different looks into a smaller amount of cards ; all for the "representation" nonsense.
The card itself doesnt bother me, but doing that stuff by a pattern of "Lets change that art to a black skin color" just to forcefully push pseudo diversity in a fantasy world does INDEED make it unbelievable, as its forced to do so.
Some people might not care at all, or are just naturally way too agreeable for their own good.
Others acknowledge its an unnecessary push of ideology that annoys a very real percentage of players (to very varying degrees and reasons), which only fuels the fire of any issue existing.
I mean, before it wasnt a topic at all, this way its forced upon the players and it forces players to take a side in a political discussion that shouldnt have a place in a fantasy game to begin with ; simply put, its only actual reason to exist is to annoy people and knowingly do so.
I wouldnt go as far to say its a complete shift , but there simply is no denial that it absolutely does influence artwork and puts topics into the game that simply shouldnt matter at all (like the sexuality of a character, which is utterly meaningless in terms of the game, but only exists to provoke people).
Maro especially takes a super extreme position in this context as he truly believes the card games fantasy world has even remotely any impact on the "real" world and how people perceive themselves , which is just laughable moronic, as this world has dragons, swords and magic, it has nothing to do at all with the real world and the players involved in it).
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Even in this thread here it easily shows how easily a discussion about "Ravnica" and why people dont like it, just shifts into a political slur and extremist taking sides on why and why not the other is a terrible human being.
Its a pointless topic and it shouldnt exist in a card game to begin with (or to such a small degree that its simply not as pervasive and forced as it is right now).
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