What untackled set theme would you wish to see the most tackled in magic?
There are many awesome themes the game hasn't tackled yet.
India theme-Chandra Nalaar is an Indian name, I don't see why she was drawn as a white woman lol, but there is some prophecy about the plane that Chandra will shape. Chance can be a big theme of this block
Aztec type theme-think of the sacrificing goodness that can happen, Altars can be a new card type.
Ancient Greek mythology type
Norse mythology
flavor wise Arabian Nights is the greatest set ever in magic. To me it seems like Magic is running out of ideas for flavor, zendikar doesnt really have any, so I think established mythologies are the way to go
Egyptian I think would be pretty cool. Also I think if it were Egyptian themed I think there would be a lot of graveyard matters stuff. Just my opinion.
I have been dying for an Egyptian set for a long while now. I agree that Aztec would be yummy flavored as well. Norse could be cool if done right. Gogo, Vyrkul....
I would really love a Victorian Fantasy set. But I'm not sure if there's any hope of they ever doing something like that (even though Future Sight does have a few cards with this feeling).
An Egyptian themed set or another Arabian themed set would be interesting too, though. So would be an set based around Medieval Eastern Europe.
First Nations of the NorthWest Coast of Canada. They have some of the most awesome mythology ever...
In my eyes it could be a set a little like Kamigawa except with much faster and direct mechanics.
ug i have a feeling if they ever did a native american block it would just be another tribal block-they already did about 5, Lorwyn, Onslaught, Ravnica- NO MORE TRIBE BLOCKS PLEASE, NOT FOR AWHILE
And an imaginative, distinct art style too. This gets my vote.
Yeah, I completely forgot about the art. I think it would be really interesting, especially with all the Native talent that's out there for this art style.
for me, Ravnica kind of seemed like that, lots of the guilds seemed to have pretty good tech judging by the art
Ravnica got some Renaissance elements, indeed, which I find really interesting. But the Guilds kinda of removed the focus from the world per see.
I would really love to see a more focused setting based on Modern times, with primitive dirigibles (maybe based on Da Vinci's flying machines) and things like Patrician's Scorn, Street Wraith and maybe Steamflogger Boss (I'm talking about flavor/art only, not mechanics).
But yeah, maybe a return to Ravnica (now without the Guilds) would be close enough for me.
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I rolled 5 D6's and got 3 fours. They must have changed the odds of getting a 4!
Oh man, I would love some sort of steam/clockpunk themed set. The Alaborn came sort of close, but yeah, that'd be awesome.
Yeah. And Magic needs more Musketeers in my opinion. However, for some reason, dismembering people with swords is ok, while shooting at people with primitives guns is too violent. So I guess we won't be seeing those ever again.
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Quote from parinoid »
I rolled 5 D6's and got 3 fours. They must have changed the odds of getting a 4!
"Indian" in the "indigenous American" sense of the term might be hard to do without offending people, and there are a bazillion widely divergent tribes/groups to choose from (this may or may not be related to the first issue.) Whether/how to portray the European arrivals would also be a hornets' nest, though if that was presented, it would be a good way to have MtG refer to a somewhat-more-modern tech level (1500s-1700s is quite modern compared to what we usually see)
i once designed a set based on the silk road and the real world cultures it linked.
white was Romans (focus on control)
black was Egyptian (culture based on death and afterlife)
red was Chinese (gun powered and fireworks were a theme)
green was Indians (focused on tribal aspects)
blue was ideas and knowledge, flavor wise this was to represent how the silk road brought ideas and inventions from place to place. each of the other colors has cards that interacted with the blue cards.
Id like to go to wild fire and explore the planes they have shown but never developed. tie them together over the next few years and then do a huge multi-block story merging or relating the cosmetology together as Barron singir attacks and attemps to control the multiverse. it would be an epic battle of all the good guys vs all the bad guys and would allow a return to every plane !
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Current Fallen Angel (Anson Maddocks art) Count:449!!!
Something based off a Mapuche/Inca/Spanish dispute, with internal conflicts as well, like:
For the Mapuche
Kalku/Machi disputes
maybe whether or not to form an alliance with the Tehuelches
For the Incas
War of the two brothers
Slave revolts?
For the Spaniards
Foreign diseases
Noticeable problems of long distance invasions (must make a home base, for that time period, few if any women, etc.)
I want to see...
1.Rabiah...tons of worlds in one set, all similar to one another, and yet different. If wizards ever want to do a "legendary permanents block" that really explore the theme, Rabiah would be just about the best place to do that flavorfully. Powerful legends, running into and either allying with or fighting their alternative world selves...not to mention that multiple versions of the same characters could be printed in the block (providing redundancy, many people's problem with Kamigawa is that the majority of the legends didn't feel special because they were not involved in the story at all and were not even mentioned in the flavor text of one other card.) The middle eastern world hasn't really been explored since Arabian Nights that was only retconned into cannon anyway.
Equilor-An ancient world of silence and stillness, and yet not a dead post-apoc world. This could imho, be a place to really explore longer games focused on high cmc cards. Reward playing them, provide each color with effects that slow (but to not outright kill) fast aggro.
Segovia- Minus abilities everywhere. -1/-1 counters for black, temporary power reduction for blue, red destroys small stuff, green pumps little guys, white sweeps large things aside.
Iquatana- Wierd aether world with Narcomaebas. The block could be done as an expansion of the 'meba's mechanics;the library matters block. Mill, shuffling (Psychogenic Probe reprint?), library manipulation, knowledge of cards position in libraries (looking without having to shuffle afterward).
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"But then are we most in order when we are most out of order."-Jack Cade
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die."
- H.P. Lovecraft
"Indian" in the "indigenous American" sense of the term might be hard to do without offending people, and there are a bazillion widely divergent tribes/groups to choose from (this may or may not be related to the first issue.) Whether/how to portray the European arrivals would also be a hornets' nest, though if that was presented, it would be a good way to have MtG refer to a somewhat-more-modern tech level (1500s-1700s is quite modern compared to what we usually see)
I meant Indian as in India:) a completely unexplored fantasy mythology in MTG
Also I think it would be incredibly interesting if magic went with more experimental illustration for a set or block, for example mayan heiroglyphics style for every card, or Pacific Northwest american art for every single card of the set. It would be incredibly flavorful and some people might hate it but I'm sure even more will love it. Art wise there is SO MUCH UNTAPPED POTENTIAL for example cards like Stasis are awesome simply because they stand out more experimentation like that should be done
Yeah. And Magic needs more Musketeers in my opinion. However, for some reason, dismembering people with swords is ok, while shooting at people with primitives guns is too violent. So I guess we won't be seeing those ever again.
No one ever said guns were absent from Magci because of violence. It's just that guns don't really fit with the established mythos of Magic, in my opinion. I'm all for a steampunk setting, but guns would be too much.
No one ever said guns were absent from Magci because of violence. It's just that guns don't really fit with the established mythos of Magic, in my opinion. I'm all for a steampunk setting, but guns would be too much.
I actually remember reading something along the lines of violence (due to firearms being closer to "real world" and all), but I can't really remember if it was an official source. Probably not then.
Personally, I don't think muskets are really too much. They historically coexisted side by side with swords, spears, crossbows and many other classical fantasy weapons. And when you think about it, a musketeer isn't that much different from a wizard that can shoot fire out of his staff.
Well, I guess they wouldn't be essential anyway.
Are you serious? The adventure-world, Indiana Jones/Tomb raider feel is one of the most awesome we've seen in a while, in my humble opinion.
I completely agree with this, Zendikar is one of the most interesting settings I've seem in MtG. Easily the best one from recent years.
(By the way, all this talk about Steampunk settings, Aztec settings and Arabian settings remembered me about a RTS called Rise of Legends, with three factions, each one based on each of those three settings. I never played it, though.)
First Nations of the NorthWest Coast of Canada. They have some of the most awesome mythology ever...
In my eyes it could be a set a little like Kamigawa except with much faster and direct mechanics.
The only problem with a northwest set is all the lands would be Islands, Forests, or Mountains.
On a more serious note, Northwest native groups may consider their mythology "off-limits" for exploitation by a card game. That said, one of the ways they found to shape the Kamigawa universe with a respectful nod to Japanese Shinto, was they hired one or more cultural historians and experts to help.
The payoff was to see how well received the set was overall and specifically by Japanese players. As it turned out, most Japanese marketers, sellers, and players found it inoffensive and fun to play.
The same went for Ravnica. Magic is growing in eastern Europe, and a set full of loosely borrowed themes from Old Prague is nonthreatening and likable. Nobody's saints got stepped on, racial or ethnic hackles up, etc.
The big difference is that Japan is already a sizable market for CCGs and Magic in particular. Haida Gwaii, not so much. Japanese history and culture is already a huge area of interest for the developed world through manga, anime, music, films, and a huge body of literature. Northwest coastal history and culture - unless you live in WA/BC/AK, you're mostly drawing a blank, until someone points out that these are the "totem pole" guys.
Then what?
Well, for one thing, many native groups are fighting in court to limit outside entities' using and adopting their cultural icons out of context, or using disparaging distortions and caricatures as mascots and trademarks. Even if it is NOT stolen or distorted, cultural material used in a card game marketed mostly to Europeans and Asians might be seen as misused. It might be seen as a precedent going against what many groups have been fighting for, whether this is an accurate way of seeing it or not.
Someday I'd like to see a set based around the Northwest - but I'm not holding my breath. Same as an Inca/Mapuche/general Andean world setting. Given the recent human rights and cultural problems currently in those countries, that theme would likely blow up in Wizards' faces. (Mitos y Legendas was a card game featuring Inca-flavoured heroes and cultural themes, it was very popular for a little while, but now seems to have fallen out of print.) Maybe if more was known about pre-Columbian historical events in the Andes, but then there are probably still Andean mountain villages who resented their former Inca overlords, just as there are Persian villages who still collectively spit on the name of Iskandar (Alexander the Great).
Naya seems about as close as Wizards wants to get to a Mesoamerican theme. Again, Magic's past includes lots of flak from conservative Christian groups for portraying themes suggesting witchcraft and rituals and black arts, and it impacted creative directions for a while (pentagrams got removed from art, certain creature types disappeared). It seems like they are purposefully steering clear of the Aztec/Maya question so as not to rub Mexican players and their Catholic parents the wrong way. Or draw attention to ongoing conflicts between ethnic Mayas and the government, or between Mexico and the US, or between one social/ethnic class of Mexicans and another.
Eh, I think they did a fine job with Rav block, considering recent ethnic bloodshed between the Izzet Bosnian Muslims and Simic Serbs andSelesnya Croatians.
Basically the recurring theme is, you have to choose wisely which world cultures you use. Sometimes the obvious choice is not that great, either because it will piss off a lot of otherwise promising gamers, or it just plain isn't that original or special. As excited as I was for a Celtic lore block, when Lorwyn came along, the way it presented the material was bland and generic - more familiar than not, different words for the same stock Euro fantasy concepts.
i dunno it doesnt feel like indiana jones to me, it just seems same-old, same-old as onslaught block, similar looking settings in the card art, only way Zendikar stands out flavorwise is all the lands are floating in the air
^^ And wow how did you figure out each guild is supposed to represent a balkan ethnic group?
If they did make Kamigawa to try to grow the game in Japan, I really think it makes sense to make an Indian style block to try to grow the game in India, 1/7 of the worlds population
i dunno it doesnt feel like indiana jones to me, it just seems same-old, same-old as onslaught block, similar looking settings in the card art, only way Zendikar stands out flavorwise is all the lands are floating in the air
^^ And wow how did you figure out each guild is supposed to represent a balkan ethnic group?
If they did make Kamigawa to try to grow the game in Japan, I really think it makes sense to make an Indian style block to try to grow the game in India, 1/7 of the worlds population
I just pulled it out of my hat, guilds are not meant to represent any exact nationality or ethnic group. As I hinted at above, the whole idea of how to represent a real-world entity such as ethnicity or colour alignment is up to much debate and foggy at best.
India is ethnically and culturally very heterogeneous. Not all of the parts of India agree what India should be all about, or even that it should exist as a unified nation. While it could be argued that Magic and other CCGs ought to sell well in India, given its economic growth and ready adoption of Western material, the reality is that making an Indian themed set might not have any impact whatsoever on sales in India. If the card game is widely viewed by local officials as a form of gambling, or a vice intended to make young people lazy and spendy, it will flop. Maybe it will increase sales to Indians living abroad? I don't know.
Just as making Arabian Nights did little to encourage parents and shop owners in the Arab world to see CCGs in a more favorable light.
even if Indians stay away from it like the plague I think Indian themed MTG set would be worth it just because it is such a unique culture and has so much cool unexplored mythology that alot of the western world doesnt know about. The cards wouldnt be named after gods or anything, just have indian style art, mass chaos abilities, and indian sounding names.
Also India is not the kind of country where card games get banned because the government or local officials are afraid it might make the youth lazy or whatever lol, ive been there for 2 months, you are confusing India for China, and there are many a Yu Gi Oh player in the big Indian cities.
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There are many awesome themes the game hasn't tackled yet.
India theme-Chandra Nalaar is an Indian name, I don't see why she was drawn as a white woman lol, but there is some prophecy about the plane that Chandra will shape. Chance can be a big theme of this block
Aztec type theme-think of the sacrificing goodness that can happen, Altars can be a new card type.
Ancient Greek mythology type
Norse mythology
flavor wise Arabian Nights is the greatest set ever in magic. To me it seems like Magic is running out of ideas for flavor, zendikar doesnt really have any, so I think established mythologies are the way to go
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By a different name,
Gave it all away for a memory and a quiet lie.
But I felt the face of a cold tonight,
Still don't know the score,
But I know the pain of leaving everything very far behind.
And if I could cry,
And if I could live,
What truth I did then take me there,
Heaven Goodbye."
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An Egyptian themed set or another Arabian themed set would be interesting too, though. So would be an set based around Medieval Eastern Europe.
for me, Ravnica kind of seemed like that, lots of the guilds seemed to have pretty good tech judging by the art
In my eyes it could be a set a little like Kamigawa except with much faster and direct mechanics.
ug i have a feeling if they ever did a native american block it would just be another tribal block-they already did about 5, Lorwyn, Onslaught, Ravnica- NO MORE TRIBE BLOCKS PLEASE, NOT FOR AWHILE
YGO ruined an egyptian based card game...
And an imaginative, distinct art style too. This gets my vote.
Yeah, I completely forgot about the art. I think it would be really interesting, especially with all the Native talent that's out there for this art style.
I would really love to see a more focused setting based on Modern times, with primitive dirigibles (maybe based on Da Vinci's flying machines) and things like Patrician's Scorn, Street Wraith and maybe Steamflogger Boss (I'm talking about flavor/art only, not mechanics).
But yeah, maybe a return to Ravnica (now without the Guilds) would be close enough for me.
Oh man, I would love some sort of steam/clockpunk themed set. The Alaborn came sort of close, but yeah, that'd be awesome.
"Indian" in the "indigenous American" sense of the term might be hard to do without offending people, and there are a bazillion widely divergent tribes/groups to choose from (this may or may not be related to the first issue.) Whether/how to portray the European arrivals would also be a hornets' nest, though if that was presented, it would be a good way to have MtG refer to a somewhat-more-modern tech level (1500s-1700s is quite modern compared to what we usually see)
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white was Romans (focus on control)
black was Egyptian (culture based on death and afterlife)
red was Chinese (gun powered and fireworks were a theme)
green was Indians (focused on tribal aspects)
blue was ideas and knowledge, flavor wise this was to represent how the silk road brought ideas and inventions from place to place. each of the other colors has cards that interacted with the blue cards.
Id like to go to wild fire and explore the planes they have shown but never developed. tie them together over the next few years and then do a huge multi-block story merging or relating the cosmetology together as Barron singir attacks and attemps to control the multiverse. it would be an epic battle of all the good guys vs all the bad guys and would allow a return to every plane !
For the Mapuche
Kalku/Machi disputes
maybe whether or not to form an alliance with the Tehuelches
For the Incas
War of the two brothers
Slave revolts?
For the Spaniards
Foreign diseases
Noticeable problems of long distance invasions (must make a home base, for that time period, few if any women, etc.)
1.Rabiah...tons of worlds in one set, all similar to one another, and yet different. If wizards ever want to do a "legendary permanents block" that really explore the theme, Rabiah would be just about the best place to do that flavorfully. Powerful legends, running into and either allying with or fighting their alternative world selves...not to mention that multiple versions of the same characters could be printed in the block (providing redundancy, many people's problem with Kamigawa is that the majority of the legends didn't feel special because they were not involved in the story at all and were not even mentioned in the flavor text of one other card.) The middle eastern world hasn't really been explored since Arabian Nights that was only retconned into cannon anyway.
Equilor-An ancient world of silence and stillness, and yet not a dead post-apoc world. This could imho, be a place to really explore longer games focused on high cmc cards. Reward playing them, provide each color with effects that slow (but to not outright kill) fast aggro.
Segovia- Minus abilities everywhere. -1/-1 counters for black, temporary power reduction for blue, red destroys small stuff, green pumps little guys, white sweeps large things aside.
Iquatana- Wierd aether world with Narcomaebas. The block could be done as an expansion of the 'meba's mechanics;the library matters block. Mill, shuffling (Psychogenic Probe reprint?), library manipulation, knowledge of cards position in libraries (looking without having to shuffle afterward).
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die."
- H.P. Lovecraft
I meant Indian as in India:) a completely unexplored fantasy mythology in MTG
Also I think it would be incredibly interesting if magic went with more experimental illustration for a set or block, for example mayan heiroglyphics style for every card, or Pacific Northwest american art for every single card of the set. It would be incredibly flavorful and some people might hate it but I'm sure even more will love it. Art wise there is SO MUCH UNTAPPED POTENTIAL for example cards like Stasis are awesome simply because they stand out more experimentation like that should be done
Are you serious? The adventure-world, Indiana Jones/Tomb raider feel is one of the most awesome we've seen in a while, in my humble opinion.
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Personally, I don't think muskets are really too much. They historically coexisted side by side with swords, spears, crossbows and many other classical fantasy weapons. And when you think about it, a musketeer isn't that much different from a wizard that can shoot fire out of his staff.
Well, I guess they wouldn't be essential anyway.
I completely agree with this, Zendikar is one of the most interesting settings I've seem in MtG. Easily the best one from recent years.
(By the way, all this talk about Steampunk settings, Aztec settings and Arabian settings remembered me about a RTS called Rise of Legends, with three factions, each one based on each of those three settings. I never played it, though.)
The only problem with a northwest set is all the lands would be Islands, Forests, or Mountains.
On a more serious note, Northwest native groups may consider their mythology "off-limits" for exploitation by a card game. That said, one of the ways they found to shape the Kamigawa universe with a respectful nod to Japanese Shinto, was they hired one or more cultural historians and experts to help.
The payoff was to see how well received the set was overall and specifically by Japanese players. As it turned out, most Japanese marketers, sellers, and players found it inoffensive and fun to play.
The same went for Ravnica. Magic is growing in eastern Europe, and a set full of loosely borrowed themes from Old Prague is nonthreatening and likable. Nobody's saints got stepped on, racial or ethnic hackles up, etc.
The big difference is that Japan is already a sizable market for CCGs and Magic in particular. Haida Gwaii, not so much. Japanese history and culture is already a huge area of interest for the developed world through manga, anime, music, films, and a huge body of literature. Northwest coastal history and culture - unless you live in WA/BC/AK, you're mostly drawing a blank, until someone points out that these are the "totem pole" guys.
Then what?
Well, for one thing, many native groups are fighting in court to limit outside entities' using and adopting their cultural icons out of context, or using disparaging distortions and caricatures as mascots and trademarks. Even if it is NOT stolen or distorted, cultural material used in a card game marketed mostly to Europeans and Asians might be seen as misused. It might be seen as a precedent going against what many groups have been fighting for, whether this is an accurate way of seeing it or not.
Someday I'd like to see a set based around the Northwest - but I'm not holding my breath. Same as an Inca/Mapuche/general Andean world setting. Given the recent human rights and cultural problems currently in those countries, that theme would likely blow up in Wizards' faces. (Mitos y Legendas was a card game featuring Inca-flavoured heroes and cultural themes, it was very popular for a little while, but now seems to have fallen out of print.) Maybe if more was known about pre-Columbian historical events in the Andes, but then there are probably still Andean mountain villages who resented their former Inca overlords, just as there are Persian villages who still collectively spit on the name of Iskandar (Alexander the Great).
Naya seems about as close as Wizards wants to get to a Mesoamerican theme. Again, Magic's past includes lots of flak from conservative Christian groups for portraying themes suggesting witchcraft and rituals and black arts, and it impacted creative directions for a while (pentagrams got removed from art, certain creature types disappeared). It seems like they are purposefully steering clear of the Aztec/Maya question so as not to rub Mexican players and their Catholic parents the wrong way. Or draw attention to ongoing conflicts between ethnic Mayas and the government, or between Mexico and the US, or between one social/ethnic class of Mexicans and another.
Eh, I think they did a fine job with Rav block, considering recent ethnic bloodshed between the
IzzetBosnian Muslims andSimicSerbs andSelesnyaCroatians.Basically the recurring theme is, you have to choose wisely which world cultures you use. Sometimes the obvious choice is not that great, either because it will piss off a lot of otherwise promising gamers, or it just plain isn't that original or special. As excited as I was for a Celtic lore block, when Lorwyn came along, the way it presented the material was bland and generic - more familiar than not, different words for the same stock Euro fantasy concepts.
^^ And wow how did you figure out each guild is supposed to represent a balkan ethnic group?
If they did make Kamigawa to try to grow the game in Japan, I really think it makes sense to make an Indian style block to try to grow the game in India, 1/7 of the worlds population
I just pulled it out of my hat, guilds are not meant to represent any exact nationality or ethnic group. As I hinted at above, the whole idea of how to represent a real-world entity such as ethnicity or colour alignment is up to much debate and foggy at best.
India is ethnically and culturally very heterogeneous. Not all of the parts of India agree what India should be all about, or even that it should exist as a unified nation. While it could be argued that Magic and other CCGs ought to sell well in India, given its economic growth and ready adoption of Western material, the reality is that making an Indian themed set might not have any impact whatsoever on sales in India. If the card game is widely viewed by local officials as a form of gambling, or a vice intended to make young people lazy and spendy, it will flop. Maybe it will increase sales to Indians living abroad? I don't know.
Just as making Arabian Nights did little to encourage parents and shop owners in the Arab world to see CCGs in a more favorable light.
Also India is not the kind of country where card games get banned because the government or local officials are afraid it might make the youth lazy or whatever lol, ive been there for 2 months, you are confusing India for China, and there are many a Yu Gi Oh player in the big Indian cities.