Now I'm not one to bemoan "the downfall of Magic" of badger players about how "the old days were better". Heck, I was a child in " the old days" and I wasn't even aware of Magic. But I am noticing something about Magic's setting and characters that worries me.
Magic's Multiverse has vast breadth. There are a nigh infinite number of possible planes, all with diverse life and unique cultures. But what do we know about them? What do we really know about them? For most planes that we've visited, not very much in respect to what should really be out there. We take a quick trip to a plane, find a problem and fix it (or maybe not) and then planeswalker to the next plane because we only have three sets worth (and now only two sets worth) of time to spend there.
My thesis is this: Magic's setting has the seeds of depth. The potential to make its vast array of worlds that much more enthralling. But its potential depth has gown unexplored on the majority of its settings and one of the root causes of this is time constraints.
Now you may say "Our lead characters are planeswalkers, isn't the point of having such characters to explore the Multiverse?" and you would be correct. Having characters who can go to any world at will is a great asset and allows for much variety and, as stated, exploration. However, in my view, we are currently not exploring the planes we visit, we are sight-seeing. We follow a planeswalker character (the fact that Magic only seems to care about Planeswalkers is another big issue), we see certain key locations and get the names and short explanations of certain key characters as they relate to whatever massive threat is looming over the plane. We essentially see all of the important monuments and pretty buildings but we don't look at the alleys and backroads where the people of those planes really live and we rarely learn all the history behind the monuments.
Contast this with Magic's eldest stories of Dominaria. We know the names of all the continents on the plane (which are very different from one another), we are introduced to a very large web of interconnected characters (a huge number of which aren't even planeswalkers)and are told stories that span ages. I am.by no means stating that Magic's old storytelling was perfect however I am stating that the way in which it presented its world is something that gives the reader a deeper look at the setting that we haven't seen save for possibly planes like Kamigawa, Mirrodin and Lorwyn. Why? Because we don't have the time
Quite simply, I believe Magic needs to sit down, slow it's roll and take the time to get fans really invested in the worlds it wants us to like. For the sake of world building and character development, I'm promoting that the new schedule of two set blocks be changed. Two sets is not nearly enough time, each block feels like a one two punch of conflict to resolution when that is not how a story should flow. We've seen that three is barely enough as it was. I enjoy the concepts of the Multiverse Magic presents us with, I simply enjoy having something to chew on. My only issue is that I find when I take a bite, the dish was a bit thinner than I had hoped (but still quite tasty).
Perhaps we should have a series of side stories that all take place on the same plane that have nothing to do with the main storyline, possibly with a large supplemental set each year to allow players to play with cards from this deeper world. Similar to Conspiracy but truly ongoing throughout the year with a real yearly set and the storybtold through complete novels rather than (or along with) short stories.
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"Pop in, find a dragon, roast a dragon."
-Chandra Nalaar
They are kind of doing this with Ravnica. They've said a couple times that it's the most popular plane with the playerbase and have done a lot of backstory with it. Tying it to Jace helps keep it relevant in the future even if it's not the main focus.
For the sake of world building and character development, I'm promoting that the new schedule of two set blocks be changed.
I'd disagree a bit. You can get a lot of world building and story done in two sets as long as you keep a consistent release schedule of the story material, like Uncharted Realms. The 3 set block was actually bad for the story because it kept the story held back on one world without really diving into it much more than they're doing now.
I think what they're doing right now is a good compromise. We get two worlds per year, but roughly half the time we return to known settings, possibly fleshing them out and adding a bit of lore. This way we will both get to see new places and also get more worldbuilding for existing planes.
Also Dominaria is mostly a deep setting, because it did get a lot of exposure, having later blocks reference things and places that happened in past blocks. This gives it the appearance of interconnectedness. We already see the beginnings of the same with Ravnica, where we have references to Utvara, in Innistrad, where the second block directly referenced events from first time around and the next time we go back, there will be references to the church of Avacyn, even if it doesn't exist anymore as such. Also Zendikar, where two continents from its past history were referenced, even though they were destroyed by the time we returned to the world. The best example is New Phyrexia, which is connected to Mirrodin and all the places still exist, though in a vastly twisted form. Give it some time and the new planes will also become as "deep" and "broad" as Dominaria.
I don't ever think decisions regarding the game should be done with reference to story-telling, the game should be about the game and the various formats. I admit that I have no interest in the story, and short of them doing Austen world I doubt I ever would (not that I am a fan of Austen, but frankly nearly all genre stories Mtg could do are going to be dull and derivative unless they really go out on a limb). If people enjoy the story, great, but making decisions on set frequency and sizes should have nothing to do with the story. That said I 100% agree that one of the most irritating features of the game is the obsession with planeswalkers, which for me constrains designs elsewhere in the game. From a game POV and no doubt a story POV too, from what people here seem to think, planeswalkers are not as interesting as Wizards think they are, despite a huge and loyal following a sizeable, or at least vocal minority are bored by them. They lost their shine a while back for me, and its time to do a block with zero planeswalkers, and I do not mean a bunch of former planeswalkers who have lost their mojo or some other generic guff, I mean zero planeswalkers full stop. I doubt it would ever happen, but hey ho.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
As someone who has been playing since Beta, I think the OP may be missing something. Yes, we know all the continents on Dominaria, we know the people, the cities, yup; who cares? The reason we know that is magic was VERY different then, and if it was the same game then as now there most likely wouldn't be a game now. Back then, for the first 10 years, we only had Dominaria, cause they were still building the player base, and were spending their time more on that than on the 'multiverse' aspect.
One of the later posters made a comment about decisions in the game based on story. I agree. The game is what is important, the story helps it make sense, but that isn't the point; the point is to play a game. If you are truly interested in the story, where you should go, is a place called a 'library'. They have lots of stories, and you don't have to worry about broken combos ruining your day.
This is a game. It has a story, but the story is secondary to the game.
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I basically only play EDH:
Damia, Jenara, Xiahou Dun, Mareth, Nekusar, Oloro, Kresh, Deretti
Going off what you said in the spoiler tag, I think it would be best for Magic to have two weekly story columns. One called Magic Story or whatever that follows the Gatewatch and whatever they're doing, the main storyline - like what we've been getting recently. The other column, call it Uncharted Realms, could be something secondary, that explores the world we are visiting and maybe only tangentially/not at all, relates to the main storyline. Maybe it could be biweekly rather than weekly, or something. A couple vignettes about interesting characters around the world (like the story about The Gitrog Monster) or a small side series about some legendary creature dealing with a problem or whatever (like expanding upon Hal and Alana and Arlin Kord that we got in the very first SOI story), because I agree with you: the story feels like it is lacking depth. I feel like huge failings of these last two worlds is that I didn't really feel connected to the loss - personally I didn't care about the Zendikari, I didn't care about Avacyn very much because I felt like the roles in the story were glossed over, and I think partially this is because they didn't have enough words to tell us about them. I think that it might help with the official story's pacing because that often feels rushed in the end, but I'm a little more skeptical because the early parts of the story feels extremely slow.
I don't know how logistically and financially feasible this is, and I don't want the quality of the story to suffer for this, but I think it would go a long way to help out magics story problems.
I understand OP's point and was sometimes on the bigoted end of the "Dominaria was cool, the rest is crap".
The thing is I moved on and like, I don't know, The Sopranos or Breaking Bad, I prefer to leave Dominaria behind as a figure of its time than rambling constantly about how good everything was about it.
Dominaria is anyway so tied to the Weatherlight saga that anything else, and especially the Gatewatch, would seem trivial if they'd come back to it.
I agree that the cycle of visiting planes and returning to them creates a tangible universe in the long term so I'm fine with that for now.
I'd love to see more of Dominaria, especially past Time-Spiral, but in supplemental sets.
Dominaria is only rosy through the Nostalgia Glasses of Urza.
First of all, half the stories on it are basically impossible to follow. Outside of the novels, lore materials are so scattershot that without a lot of digging around or Squirle's blog, I couldn't even tell you where it came from. And even with the novels, there are only a small handful I'd actually recommend anyone read.
A lot of Dominaria's world building is just generic fantasy. It's easy to identify because I've seen it a million times before. Oh, the Keldons? Definitely haven't seen the warrior-society-somehow-able-to-function-despite-being-a-fightocracy before. The same goes for a lot of Dominaria's cultures, when Magic's worldbuilding had yet to have a real unique spin to it outside of the Phyrexians. People remember Urza fondly, but he was a hack. All he did, his entire life, was make bootleg copies of Thran/Phyrexian devices. The only original thing he ever invented were the spiders. People remember him as brilliant and powerful, but he basically loses at every single opportunity. Don't even get me started on the Armada comics. Despite old timer's opinions, the story is more popular than ever and people are more invested than ever. Locking the story behind novels just isn't the way to go for a card game like this - especially not these days. The novels failed, and they failed for a reason. How much of the Invasion Cycle is wasted on a Primeval Plot that comes out of nowhere and is largely pointless padding?
I'm not saying the new approach is gold, but it works much better for people than ever before. And if you honestly think Dominaria was 'deeper' than the current planes, pick up an artbook.
/rant
More seriously, it'd be nice to have more stories, but that's not realistic with the creative team's workload and budget.
A lot of Dominaria's world building is just generic fantasy. It's easy to identify because I've seen it a million times before. Oh, the Keldons? Definitely haven't seen the warrior-society-somehow-able-to-function-despite-being-a-fightocracy before. The same goes for a lot of Dominaria's cultures, when Magic's worldbuilding had yet to have a real unique spin to it outside of the Phyrexians. People remember Urza fondly, but he was a hack. All he did, his entire life, was make bootleg copies of Thran/Phyrexian devices. The only original thing he ever invented were the spiders. People remember him as brilliant and powerful, but he basically loses at every single opportunity. Don't even get me started on the Armada comics. Despite old timer's opinions, the story is more popular than ever and people are more invested than ever. Locking the story behind novels just isn't the way to go for a card game like this - especially not these days. The novels failed, and they failed for a reason. How much of the Invasion Cycle is wasted on a Primeval Plot that comes out of nowhere and is largely pointless padding?
Well the Primeval stories were probably there to push the "World at War" spirit over the top. How does Urza lose all the time when we see that at the end his long-time plans succeeded (yes, at the cost of countless deaths and cataclysms)? But let's not re-discuss the Weatherlight endlessly.
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But I agree, novels aren't fit for Modern magic anymore, especially with the high rate of plane-hopping we're seeing now.
Another positive aspect of the new storytelling is that you don't have to care about continuity as there's no end in sight. For instance I didn't care much about the SOI stories while I read the BFZ ones (until they spoiled it all, unluckily). If a storyline doesn't suit you, just skip it and wait for the next one without being completely lost.
Well the Primeval stories were probably there to push the "World at War" spirit over the top. How does Urza lose all the time when we see that at the end his long-time plans succeeded (yes, at the cost of countless deaths and cataclysms)? But let's not re-discuss the Weatherlight endlessly.
Without getting too deeply into it, Urza wins mostly through sheer luck, and usually as a result of other people's actions and not his own plan (he didn't build Karn to save him from the fast-time Phyrexians, for instance, but that's the only reason he escaped them).
As someone who has been playing since Beta, I think the OP may be missing something. Yes, we know all the continents on Dominaria, we know the people, the cities, yup; who cares? The reason we know that is magic was VERY different then, and if it was the same game then as now there most likely wouldn't be a game now. Back then, for the first 10 years, we only had Dominaria, cause they were still building the player base, and were spending their time more on that than on the 'multiverse' aspect.
One of the later posters made a comment about decisions in the game based on story. I agree. The game is what is important, the story helps it make sense, but that isn't the point; the point is to play a game. If you are truly interested in the story, where you should go, is a place called a 'library'. They have lots of stories, and you don't have to worry about broken combos ruining your day.
This is a game. It has a story, but the story is secondary to the game.
There was literally no need for a condescending tone but okay.
An engaging story and a fun game are not mutually exclusive.
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"Pop in, find a dragon, roast a dragon."
-Chandra Nalaar
Going off what you said in the spoiler tag, I think it would be best for Magic to have two weekly story columns. One called Magic Story or whatever that follows the Gatewatch and whatever they're doing, the main storyline - like what we've been getting recently. The other column, call it Uncharted Realms, could be something secondary, that explores the world we are visiting and maybe only tangentially/not at all, relates to the main storyline. Maybe it could be biweekly rather than weekly, or something. A couple vignettes about interesting characters around the world (like the story about The Gitrog Monster) or a small side series about some legendary creature dealing with a problem or whatever (like expanding upon Hal and Alana and Arlin Kord that we got in the very first SOI story), because I agree with you: the story feels like it is lacking depth. I feel like huge failings of these last two worlds is that I didn't really feel connected to the loss - personally I didn't care about the Zendikari, I didn't care about Avacyn very much because I felt like the roles in the story were glossed over, and I think partially this is because they didn't have enough words to tell us about them. I think that it might help with the official story's pacing because that often feels rushed in the end, but I'm a little more skeptical because the early parts of the story feels extremely slow.
I don't know how logistically and financially feasible this is, and I don't want the quality of the story to suffer for this, but I think it would go a long way to help out magics story problems.
I really like this idea. The smaller stories are some of the best parts. But it also disrupts the flow of the main plot to have the smaller stories interspersed in them. I think it is just a matter of budget and resources. Creative seems to be expanding significantly even now. I imagine they could eventually do it, but I don't think they have the manpower at the moment.
Have the Uncharted realms be standalone stories following characters on the plane we are visiting. You could have a 2 or 3 part story following Arlinn for example that occurs over 2/3 weeks. Then also have the smaller horror tales, and side stories. It gives more time to develop sideplot, like Thalia's march on Thraben.
Then have the Magic Story follow the Gatewatch/Planeswalkers. Continuing to use SOI, Follow Jace and his investigations. Without the side-stories clogging it up, there is time to have a red herring. Once he comes across the drownyard and suspects Liliana, shift to Sorin's plot for a couple weeks. Build up the conflict with Nahiri and interact with the rest of the Vampires. Then return to Jace and he deals with Lili, then goes to Thraben. There he meets Tamiyo and Sorin's plot intersects with Jace's.
Eldrich Moon: Emrakul shows up. Jace leaves to find the Gatewatch. Now we shift to Liliana as our POV. First week is setting the broad conflict with various perspectives of Emrakul appearing, then second week is Liliana beginning her zombie horde. Then we return to Sorin's plot and resolve his conflict with Nahiri. This ends with Olivia abandoning Sorin so she can go fight Emrakul. While this is happening, Thalia is marching on Thraben. Have stories of the march and them encountering the horrors along the way. A few side characters as well with a few references to Thalia's march and Liliana's horde. Perhaps Arlinn gathers the Werewolf packs to go and deals with the Were-drazis. This culminates in the battle with Brisela. At this point concurrently Jace and the Gatewatch make their appearance. They fight Emrakul while the side stories continue to show how side characters fight the Eldrazi and show them slowly losing. Then Emrakul does her thing. Now we get a small epilogue. If the Magic Story comes before the Uncharted Realms we get 1 week of epilogue for the Gatewatch with some bits from each of their perspective like in Oath of the Gatewatch; and 2 weeks of Uncharted Epilogue. Perhaps 1 dealing with Thalia's Order of St. Traft and Sigarda's new church establishing themselves, and the other devoted to Arlinn with some payoff of her story that has been sprinkled in the Uncharted Realms.
I could go on, and maybe I should properly plan out how I would do it. But the general outline is: Magic Story; follows main Gatewatch(Jace+Liliana) plot with intersecting secondary 'walker plot(Sorin vs Nahiri). Uncharted Realms; side stories, establishing the setting and tone, and a couple plot threads that carry through (Arlinn gets 2/3 part story in SOI, 1 story in EMN, participates in climax and gets 1 epilogue; Thalia gets large part of EMN). This way you have one exploring the interplanar plot, while the other stays plane-bound with some intersections. Inbetween sets you can have stuff like the Conspiracy story, while Magic Story could have a 2/3 part story following a walker we haven't seen in a while or the going-ons of Ravnica. Perhaps see how Ajani is doing on Theros, what Garruk is hunting, or Narset on Alara for a bit.
Okay, I didn't mean to turn this into an old versus new lore thing. I LIKE the old lore. I spent the summer tracking down Ice Age materials and wrote like, 15,000 words on everything from the Dark, to Fallen Empires, to the Ice and and the Thaw.
What I don't like is that nostalgia-tinted idea that the old lore is better than the new lore. My point wasn't meant to bash it entirely, but point out there are just as many glaring problems with the old lore as there are with the new. I'm always amused when people cling to the voyages of the Starship Enterprise fighting the Borg Weatherlight Saga while deriding the Avengers assembling against Galactus the Gatewatch struggling against the Eldrazi.
There's a lot of good stuff pre-mending.
Now, as to the connectivity, I'm not sure it's there as much as you think. The Ice Age might as well be an entirely different setting than the Brother's War, which is an entirely different setting from Invasion-era Dominaria, which is entirely different from post-invasion Otaria. They all take place on one world, sure, but outside of side stories and references they could be completely different places. And Wizards has a point when they say that it doesn't make much sense for a story featuring planeswalkers to focus so heavily on one plane.
I think the new block structure will allow for the interconnected, layered stories to come back. When you take 'The Gatewatch' stories, from the beginning, they really do have the feel of a slow, inevitable crawl back to Zendikar, and they do build in the direction, the problem is we only got one at most every other year, and the other year's stories followed Elspeth.
My opinion is that magic tells a better story when it's trying to be sci-fi/fantasy (Weatherlight) than Comic book (Gatewatch). From my experiences that is the major issue people have regarding "old vs new". The current story while in magic universe feels woefully unmagic.
Note: this is about the content, not the writing itself.
and people really think Dominaria was bad? Look at the images of the Brother's War and see how much they were evocative. Meanwhile, our power rangers planeswalker snap their fingers, cast their global deus-ex-machina spell and completly destroy/seal the most powerful entities of the multiverse
returning to old planes a lot just means more retcons. Look what they did to Ravnica, which lost a lot of uniqueness even from an art standpoint
Really had a lot of nostalgia feel from seeing the Urza and Mishra fanart. Thanks for sharing that.
In those days things were simple for me.. Urza the wizard and Gerrard the leader of the weatherlight crew are the heroes fighting against the super villains - the phyrexian monster robots. Then mtg has cards depicting the story. Good memories from years ago.
Silver, I was not being condescending. But maybe I should be for you. If you are going to assume someone who has been playing this game from the beginning, trying to show that the game was different, because I'd assume no one else on this post has been playing as long, you just don ' tknow.
Sorry if trying to educate people about what magic was actually like to be played, instead of just looking back on a time you didn't play in and didn't understand is condescending... that is your issue. Most people here never played during the days of Dominaria, so I am not sure exactly what kind of expertise you bring to the discussion.
Having young players try and tell us old players what the game was like before those young players were playing is rather obnoxious.
It would be a lot like you reading a history book, and then calling a grandparent condescending for telling you their stories from the same time.You read it, they (and I) lived it.
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I basically only play EDH:
Damia, Jenara, Xiahou Dun, Mareth, Nekusar, Oloro, Kresh, Deretti
Look what they did to Ravnica, which lost a lot of uniqueness even from an art standpoint
It did?
A plane where 99% of gorgons, dragons, vampires and other dangerous beasts where killed to make space for the city suddenly has dragons, vampires and gorgons like Theros or Innistrad.
Also, suddenly merfolks.
Also, suddenly angels lost their particular 4 wings, all clones appearance to become Innistrad copy pasta.
For the first part, that's more of a worldbuilding issue and less one of art. (I partially agree though, those things were handled poorly.)
For your second part you have a point, though I'd say that the number of wings on angels is such a minor detail that I didn't even notice that until you pointed it out. I think the other improvements they did to Ravnica (giving the gateless a distinct look, refining the aesthetics of the guilds etc.) more than makes up for it in my opinion though.
Look what they did to Ravnica, which lost a lot of uniqueness even from an art standpoint
It did?
A plane where 99% of gorgons, dragons, vampires and other dangerous beasts where killed to make space for the city suddenly has dragons, vampires and gorgons like Theros or Innistrad.
Also, suddenly merfolks.
Also, suddenly angels lost their particular 4 wings, all clones appearance to become Innistrad copy pasta.
Completely agree. Ravnica suffered an insane level homogenization at the absolute cost of uniqueness. Now I don't have a huge problem with the merfolk, but the Angel's wings and sudden number of giant things really killed a lot of why Rav had some flavor.
For awhile I thought Ravnica was going to be the new Dominaria. A central hub where most of our central planeswalkers either are from or reside. But I don't think Wizards wants any central location anymore, which is sad.
As already said, I would really love to see Dominaria in a complementary product like Conspiracy because it means no damn Gatewatch.
No Gatewatch means that anything can happen to "protagonists". I mean, Brago damn DIED... Definitively I suppose... And he was arguably one of the most important characters in the entire setting.
Or at least there is the illusion of characters not being saved by the plot-armour.
Something that is really lacking with the Gatewatch narrative, where characters dying or suffering the consequences of their actions seems to be secondary characters only.
Characters don't need to die for a good story. And the reason the Gatewatch hasn't received consequences yet is because their story is just beginning. Most of the Weatherlight crew lasted throughout the Saga until Invasion.
You are over estimating how much story each of the members of the gatewatch have had so far. You say Jace featured in all of the main sets which is the most absurd claim possible, unless you mean coresets which while less absurd but means just as little because of the lack of story. While he hasn't evolved s much as he could, partially from a terrible character trait of wiping his mind every time hes about to experience personal growth(RTR, hey I just realized my actions could cause harm to others, well better erase the last 6 months of my life). Liliana is the same problem, appearance on card is not appearance in story. Before EDM she didn't even get a proper story to herself, because the last block she headed was the one where they axed the story. Chandra has had like 4 lines sense she went through what was supposed to be a life changing moment, and most of it was forced bravado, so it seems unfair to say there was no change. Gideon had significant character development during BFZ where he accepts the vampires help and learns to lead an army not just a charge. This is a problem but it is not the problem most people complain about. Jace has been far to central to the last two story arcs and has pushed the other gatewatch to the side mostly Chandra and Nissa. But this is a trend we are fairly certain is coming to an end, with no reason for Jace to go to Kaladesh it seems unlikely he will make any kind of appearance allowing others, assumed Chandra, to shine.
Dominaria didn't exactly have depth post Invasion, though. This is as much an issue with story telling and block formation as it is anything else. Wizards has spent more than a decade approaching worldbuilding primarily from a "Each culture has a color, we'll visit them briefly" perspective.
If you want a world with depth, you need more depth than just "These guys are blue and these guys are red."
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Cyme we inne frið, fram the grip of deaþ to lif inne ðis smylte land.
There has also been a lot of technological innovation over the last few decades. Magic came out of 1994 and the last age whenever print media was still popular. So the issue was the transition and integration of the new media with the old media. Originally they tried to turn Magic comic books over the years, but it has failed repeatedly and now we have Dack still on Theros.
Amazon Ebooks have revolutionized media. So having serials now makes more sense, it's episodic and quick term base. Liliana's in her 30's (minus being a century old). Chandra is early 20's, Gideon is late 20's early 30's. Jace is early 20's. Nissa is probably 20's as well. So for the most part the Gatewatch is still rather young. The oldest planeswalkers in terms of actual real age are Sarkhan Vol in his early 40's.
In the older Magic worlds there were hundreds of years of time skips that allowed change to occur with each Magic set. Between Invasion Block and Odyssey was about 300 years. Then over the last few years since we no longer have godwalkers anymore, the game has shifted towards lower power levels for planeswalkers. That means slowing down time.
The planeswalkers were too powerful to begin with, it's basically like being Super Sayain Blue. Liliana showed that a planeswalker can over time begin to approach some of their old power level, but it has a higher price and cost. Bolas similar has showed this to approach his old power level would require a massive power up.
Considering the age of the current planesewalkers, we'll probably eventually see different precepts. Urza had a son in the original storyline, but there wasn't any other planeswalker abilities about his son and it was hinted that his son might have been Urza's as well.
So thus far we can explore:
1. Planeswalker families
2. Children of planeswalkers
3. Marriage
Those are three things that only someone like Urza and Nahiri really had any patience for, and even then only Urza's wife was explored. Nahiri's husband was never explored, nor was it explained whether she bore any children. Since her going insane, we're not going to see any of that.
Concurrently, I think the movement towards having LilianaXJace ship is a good start. Especially whenever Liliana "grows up" and moves beyond being too selfish and embraces other aspects of black's emotional spectrum. But we're not at that level, yet.
Personally, Urza at his best was his relationship with his brother that defined him during The Brother's War. His blatant opportunism combined with his tendency to overplan made a more interesting character. A person who tried to change the world to be around his own expectations, rather than being passive like Jace. Tolarian Community College did a good job in looking at Jace vs. Urza dichotomy. Urza represents an old character doing what we try to accomplish as a teenager, while Jace is a young man living out what a middle aged person would with life events defining them.
To be honest, Chandra having a mother-daughter relationship in this new set returns to some of the better aspects of what made Urza a great character. In the end we have Karn as the culmination of the Legacy and truly one of his Urza's children. So we do have Urza 2.0. Wizards just needs to be more comfortable with using Karn more.
I would say that the use of Liliana comports also a return to some of the older aspects of the game, as well as a push to use Nicol Bolas. Characters like Sorin, Ugin, and Nahiri are also older 'walkers. A good move would also be returning Teferi to the multiverse once more to drum up better support for the past.
But I think Dominaria will be revisited but it is better off done with looking at a specific continent rather than the big world of Dominaria.
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Life is a beautiful engineer, yet a brutal scientist.
Magic's Multiverse has vast breadth. There are a nigh infinite number of possible planes, all with diverse life and unique cultures. But what do we know about them? What do we really know about them? For most planes that we've visited, not very much in respect to what should really be out there. We take a quick trip to a plane, find a problem and fix it (or maybe not) and then planeswalker to the next plane because we only have three sets worth (and now only two sets worth) of time to spend there.
My thesis is this: Magic's setting has the seeds of depth. The potential to make its vast array of worlds that much more enthralling. But its potential depth has gown unexplored on the majority of its settings and one of the root causes of this is time constraints.
Now you may say "Our lead characters are planeswalkers, isn't the point of having such characters to explore the Multiverse?" and you would be correct. Having characters who can go to any world at will is a great asset and allows for much variety and, as stated, exploration. However, in my view, we are currently not exploring the planes we visit, we are sight-seeing. We follow a planeswalker character (the fact that Magic only seems to care about Planeswalkers is another big issue), we see certain key locations and get the names and short explanations of certain key characters as they relate to whatever massive threat is looming over the plane. We essentially see all of the important monuments and pretty buildings but we don't look at the alleys and backroads where the people of those planes really live and we rarely learn all the history behind the monuments.
Contast this with Magic's eldest stories of Dominaria. We know the names of all the continents on the plane (which are very different from one another), we are introduced to a very large web of interconnected characters (a huge number of which aren't even planeswalkers)and are told stories that span ages. I am.by no means stating that Magic's old storytelling was perfect however I am stating that the way in which it presented its world is something that gives the reader a deeper look at the setting that we haven't seen save for possibly planes like Kamigawa, Mirrodin and Lorwyn. Why? Because we don't have the time
Quite simply, I believe Magic needs to sit down, slow it's roll and take the time to get fans really invested in the worlds it wants us to like. For the sake of world building and character development, I'm promoting that the new schedule of two set blocks be changed. Two sets is not nearly enough time, each block feels like a one two punch of conflict to resolution when that is not how a story should flow. We've seen that three is barely enough as it was. I enjoy the concepts of the Multiverse Magic presents us with, I simply enjoy having something to chew on. My only issue is that I find when I take a bite, the dish was a bit thinner than I had hoped (but still quite tasty).
-Chandra Nalaar
I'd disagree a bit. You can get a lot of world building and story done in two sets as long as you keep a consistent release schedule of the story material, like Uncharted Realms. The 3 set block was actually bad for the story because it kept the story held back on one world without really diving into it much more than they're doing now.
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Also Dominaria is mostly a deep setting, because it did get a lot of exposure, having later blocks reference things and places that happened in past blocks. This gives it the appearance of interconnectedness. We already see the beginnings of the same with Ravnica, where we have references to Utvara, in Innistrad, where the second block directly referenced events from first time around and the next time we go back, there will be references to the church of Avacyn, even if it doesn't exist anymore as such. Also Zendikar, where two continents from its past history were referenced, even though they were destroyed by the time we returned to the world. The best example is New Phyrexia, which is connected to Mirrodin and all the places still exist, though in a vastly twisted form. Give it some time and the new planes will also become as "deep" and "broad" as Dominaria.
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One of the later posters made a comment about decisions in the game based on story. I agree. The game is what is important, the story helps it make sense, but that isn't the point; the point is to play a game. If you are truly interested in the story, where you should go, is a place called a 'library'. They have lots of stories, and you don't have to worry about broken combos ruining your day.
This is a game. It has a story, but the story is secondary to the game.
Damia, Jenara, Xiahou Dun, Mareth, Nekusar, Oloro, Kresh, Deretti
I don't know how logistically and financially feasible this is, and I don't want the quality of the story to suffer for this, but I think it would go a long way to help out magics story problems.
The thing is I moved on and like, I don't know, The Sopranos or Breaking Bad, I prefer to leave Dominaria behind as a figure of its time than rambling constantly about how good everything was about it.
Dominaria is anyway so tied to the Weatherlight saga that anything else, and especially the Gatewatch, would seem trivial if they'd come back to it.
I agree that the cycle of visiting planes and returning to them creates a tangible universe in the long term so I'm fine with that for now.
I'd love to see more of Dominaria, especially past Time-Spiral, but in supplemental sets.
First of all, half the stories on it are basically impossible to follow. Outside of the novels, lore materials are so scattershot that without a lot of digging around or Squirle's blog, I couldn't even tell you where it came from. And even with the novels, there are only a small handful I'd actually recommend anyone read.
A lot of Dominaria's world building is just generic fantasy. It's easy to identify because I've seen it a million times before. Oh, the Keldons? Definitely haven't seen the warrior-society-somehow-able-to-function-despite-being-a-fightocracy before. The same goes for a lot of Dominaria's cultures, when Magic's worldbuilding had yet to have a real unique spin to it outside of the Phyrexians. People remember Urza fondly, but he was a hack. All he did, his entire life, was make bootleg copies of Thran/Phyrexian devices. The only original thing he ever invented were the spiders. People remember him as brilliant and powerful, but he basically loses at every single opportunity. Don't even get me started on the Armada comics. Despite old timer's opinions, the story is more popular than ever and people are more invested than ever. Locking the story behind novels just isn't the way to go for a card game like this - especially not these days. The novels failed, and they failed for a reason. How much of the Invasion Cycle is wasted on a Primeval Plot that comes out of nowhere and is largely pointless padding?
I'm not saying the new approach is gold, but it works much better for people than ever before. And if you honestly think Dominaria was 'deeper' than the current planes, pick up an artbook.
/rant
More seriously, it'd be nice to have more stories, but that's not realistic with the creative team's workload and budget.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
Well the Primeval stories were probably there to push the "World at War" spirit over the top. How does Urza lose all the time when we see that at the end his long-time plans succeeded (yes, at the cost of countless deaths and cataclysms)? But let's not re-discuss the Weatherlight endlessly.
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But I agree, novels aren't fit for Modern magic anymore, especially with the high rate of plane-hopping we're seeing now.
Another positive aspect of the new storytelling is that you don't have to care about continuity as there's no end in sight. For instance I didn't care much about the SOI stories while I read the BFZ ones (until they spoiled it all, unluckily). If a storyline doesn't suit you, just skip it and wait for the next one without being completely lost.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
An engaging story and a fun game are not mutually exclusive.
-Chandra Nalaar
I really like this idea. The smaller stories are some of the best parts. But it also disrupts the flow of the main plot to have the smaller stories interspersed in them. I think it is just a matter of budget and resources. Creative seems to be expanding significantly even now. I imagine they could eventually do it, but I don't think they have the manpower at the moment.
Have the Uncharted realms be standalone stories following characters on the plane we are visiting. You could have a 2 or 3 part story following Arlinn for example that occurs over 2/3 weeks. Then also have the smaller horror tales, and side stories. It gives more time to develop sideplot, like Thalia's march on Thraben.
Then have the Magic Story follow the Gatewatch/Planeswalkers. Continuing to use SOI, Follow Jace and his investigations. Without the side-stories clogging it up, there is time to have a red herring. Once he comes across the drownyard and suspects Liliana, shift to Sorin's plot for a couple weeks. Build up the conflict with Nahiri and interact with the rest of the Vampires. Then return to Jace and he deals with Lili, then goes to Thraben. There he meets Tamiyo and Sorin's plot intersects with Jace's.
Eldrich Moon: Emrakul shows up. Jace leaves to find the Gatewatch. Now we shift to Liliana as our POV. First week is setting the broad conflict with various perspectives of Emrakul appearing, then second week is Liliana beginning her zombie horde. Then we return to Sorin's plot and resolve his conflict with Nahiri. This ends with Olivia abandoning Sorin so she can go fight Emrakul. While this is happening, Thalia is marching on Thraben. Have stories of the march and them encountering the horrors along the way. A few side characters as well with a few references to Thalia's march and Liliana's horde. Perhaps Arlinn gathers the Werewolf packs to go and deals with the Were-drazis. This culminates in the battle with Brisela. At this point concurrently Jace and the Gatewatch make their appearance. They fight Emrakul while the side stories continue to show how side characters fight the Eldrazi and show them slowly losing. Then Emrakul does her thing. Now we get a small epilogue. If the Magic Story comes before the Uncharted Realms we get 1 week of epilogue for the Gatewatch with some bits from each of their perspective like in Oath of the Gatewatch; and 2 weeks of Uncharted Epilogue. Perhaps 1 dealing with Thalia's Order of St. Traft and Sigarda's new church establishing themselves, and the other devoted to Arlinn with some payoff of her story that has been sprinkled in the Uncharted Realms.
I could go on, and maybe I should properly plan out how I would do it. But the general outline is: Magic Story; follows main Gatewatch(Jace+Liliana) plot with intersecting secondary 'walker plot(Sorin vs Nahiri). Uncharted Realms; side stories, establishing the setting and tone, and a couple plot threads that carry through (Arlinn gets 2/3 part story in SOI, 1 story in EMN, participates in climax and gets 1 epilogue; Thalia gets large part of EMN). This way you have one exploring the interplanar plot, while the other stays plane-bound with some intersections. Inbetween sets you can have stuff like the Conspiracy story, while Magic Story could have a 2/3 part story following a walker we haven't seen in a while or the going-ons of Ravnica. Perhaps see how Ajani is doing on Theros, what Garruk is hunting, or Narset on Alara for a bit.
It did?
What I don't like is that nostalgia-tinted idea that the old lore is better than the new lore. My point wasn't meant to bash it entirely, but point out there are just as many glaring problems with the old lore as there are with the new. I'm always amused when people cling to the
voyages of the Starship Enterprise fighting the BorgWeatherlight Saga while deridingthe Avengers assembling against Galactusthe Gatewatch struggling against the Eldrazi.There's a lot of good stuff pre-mending.
Now, as to the connectivity, I'm not sure it's there as much as you think. The Ice Age might as well be an entirely different setting than the Brother's War, which is an entirely different setting from Invasion-era Dominaria, which is entirely different from post-invasion Otaria. They all take place on one world, sure, but outside of side stories and references they could be completely different places. And Wizards has a point when they say that it doesn't make much sense for a story featuring planeswalkers to focus so heavily on one plane.
I think the new block structure will allow for the interconnected, layered stories to come back. When you take 'The Gatewatch' stories, from the beginning, they really do have the feel of a slow, inevitable crawl back to Zendikar, and they do build in the direction, the problem is we only got one at most every other year, and the other year's stories followed Elspeth.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
Note: this is about the content, not the writing itself.
Really had a lot of nostalgia feel from seeing the Urza and Mishra fanart. Thanks for sharing that.
In those days things were simple for me.. Urza the wizard and Gerrard the leader of the weatherlight crew are the heroes fighting against the super villains - the phyrexian monster robots. Then mtg has cards depicting the story. Good memories from years ago.
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Sorry if trying to educate people about what magic was actually like to be played, instead of just looking back on a time you didn't play in and didn't understand is condescending... that is your issue. Most people here never played during the days of Dominaria, so I am not sure exactly what kind of expertise you bring to the discussion.
Having young players try and tell us old players what the game was like before those young players were playing is rather obnoxious.
It would be a lot like you reading a history book, and then calling a grandparent condescending for telling you their stories from the same time.You read it, they (and I) lived it.
Damia, Jenara, Xiahou Dun, Mareth, Nekusar, Oloro, Kresh, Deretti
For the first part, that's more of a worldbuilding issue and less one of art. (I partially agree though, those things were handled poorly.)
For your second part you have a point, though I'd say that the number of wings on angels is such a minor detail that I didn't even notice that until you pointed it out. I think the other improvements they did to Ravnica (giving the gateless a distinct look, refining the aesthetics of the guilds etc.) more than makes up for it in my opinion though.
Completely agree. Ravnica suffered an insane level homogenization at the absolute cost of uniqueness. Now I don't have a huge problem with the merfolk, but the Angel's wings and sudden number of giant things really killed a lot of why Rav had some flavor.
Characters don't need to die for a good story. And the reason the Gatewatch hasn't received consequences yet is because their story is just beginning. Most of the Weatherlight crew lasted throughout the Saga until Invasion.
If you want a world with depth, you need more depth than just "These guys are blue and these guys are red."
Amazon Ebooks have revolutionized media. So having serials now makes more sense, it's episodic and quick term base. Liliana's in her 30's (minus being a century old). Chandra is early 20's, Gideon is late 20's early 30's. Jace is early 20's. Nissa is probably 20's as well. So for the most part the Gatewatch is still rather young. The oldest planeswalkers in terms of actual real age are Sarkhan Vol in his early 40's.
In the older Magic worlds there were hundreds of years of time skips that allowed change to occur with each Magic set. Between Invasion Block and Odyssey was about 300 years. Then over the last few years since we no longer have godwalkers anymore, the game has shifted towards lower power levels for planeswalkers. That means slowing down time.
The planeswalkers were too powerful to begin with, it's basically like being Super Sayain Blue. Liliana showed that a planeswalker can over time begin to approach some of their old power level, but it has a higher price and cost. Bolas similar has showed this to approach his old power level would require a massive power up.
Considering the age of the current planesewalkers, we'll probably eventually see different precepts. Urza had a son in the original storyline, but there wasn't any other planeswalker abilities about his son and it was hinted that his son might have been Urza's as well.
So thus far we can explore:
1. Planeswalker families
2. Children of planeswalkers
3. Marriage
Those are three things that only someone like Urza and Nahiri really had any patience for, and even then only Urza's wife was explored. Nahiri's husband was never explored, nor was it explained whether she bore any children. Since her going insane, we're not going to see any of that.
Concurrently, I think the movement towards having LilianaXJace ship is a good start. Especially whenever Liliana "grows up" and moves beyond being too selfish and embraces other aspects of black's emotional spectrum. But we're not at that level, yet.
Personally, Urza at his best was his relationship with his brother that defined him during The Brother's War. His blatant opportunism combined with his tendency to overplan made a more interesting character. A person who tried to change the world to be around his own expectations, rather than being passive like Jace. Tolarian Community College did a good job in looking at Jace vs. Urza dichotomy. Urza represents an old character doing what we try to accomplish as a teenager, while Jace is a young man living out what a middle aged person would with life events defining them.
To be honest, Chandra having a mother-daughter relationship in this new set returns to some of the better aspects of what made Urza a great character. In the end we have Karn as the culmination of the Legacy and truly one of his Urza's children. So we do have Urza 2.0. Wizards just needs to be more comfortable with using Karn more.
I would say that the use of Liliana comports also a return to some of the older aspects of the game, as well as a push to use Nicol Bolas. Characters like Sorin, Ugin, and Nahiri are also older 'walkers. A good move would also be returning Teferi to the multiverse once more to drum up better support for the past.
But I think Dominaria will be revisited but it is better off done with looking at a specific continent rather than the big world of Dominaria.
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