Simple, what do you think of the lore quality since BFZ? I personally think it has steadily improved, with BFZ being terrible, Oath being bad, Shadows and EDM being ok, a bit boring at times but interesting, and Kaladesh block being an enjoyable read. The quality of the writing has improved, as has the characterization of the members of the Gatewatch. The action scenes have, in my opinion, become more varied and more engaging (no more whipping surals back and forth and Nissa hits something with wood, repeat). Finally, the plots have become more layered and just generally more interesting. I went from rooting for the Eldrazi to just put the whole thing out of its misery in BFZ because of how little the writers made me care about the Gatewatch (and actively turn against a plane that was one of my favorites due to making it so bland), to actually caring about Kaladesh and its inhabitants.
What's your opinion on the direction the story has taken? Do you think that they just sucked at introducing the concept and adjusting to the 2 act format and are now finding their feet, or do you think they've been doing a good job all along, or something in between?
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I think that overall the stories in SoI and EMD were better than the BFZ ones, but that while some of the Kaladesh and Aether Revolt stories have been okay, some of them have been pretty dreadful. Today's story, for example, was extremely weak, with important story events being presented with no drama whatsoever, not to mention uninspired-to-dreadful characterization, while the one which introduced Ajani to the storyline, and which also presented his backstory with Tamiyo and her story circle, was excellent. Overall the quality has been extremely uneven.
I think that overall the stories in SoI and EMD were better than the BFZ ones, but that while some of the Kaladesh and Aether Revolt stories have been okay, some of them have been pretty dreadful. Today's story, for example, was extremely weak, with important story events being presented with no drama whatsoever, not to mention uninspired-to-dreadful characterization, while the one which introduced Ajani to the storyline, and which also presented his backstory with Tamiyo and her story circle, was excellent. Overall the quality has been extremely uneven.
I would have to agree. BFZ didn't seem bad at the time, but looking back, especially when comparing it to newer stories, it was pretty weak. I found SOI and EMD very interesting, although they lacked enough connection with the rest the action on Innistrad to be as awesome as I would have liked. Kaladesh and Aether Revolt have been mostly good. Some stories were pretty meh, but there are a few that were just extremely well written.
BFZ was absolutely horrible. There were a couple of good individual stories but in general it was painful read.
SOI was actually pretty good. Again, this is generalizing. Some stories were weak, but others were great.
Kaladesh is better than BFZ but that's not saying much. There were a couple of good stories (just like BFZ) but overall it wasn't great. SOI was better in my opinion. I do not like the trend of virtually every story being Gatewatch-related, as the vast majority of SOI's and BFZ's best stories were unrelated to the Gatewatch.
It really depends on the individual writers, so it's difficult to make a real comparison. Kaladesh is better than BFZ, but The Blight We Were Born For was better than most Kaladesh stories (all but two or three, I would guess).
I just wish that they would actually hire real authors instead of just making do with their current employees, who are primarily just world-builders. Having L'Etoile write was a step in the right direction, but they've only had him write two stories, with amateurs writing most of the rest.
I would have to agree that the stories which have less to do with the Gatewatch, or in which they play only peripheral roles, tend to be the better ones. The story that introduced Arlinn Kord, for example, was great... and then she played essentially no role in the SoI storyline. Similarly, the Gitrog Monster story. Honestly, the Gitrog Monster - a malevolent, inhuman force of darkness - was more interesting and intriguing than any of the Gatewatch members have been in the vast majority of the Kaladesh stories. The characters in the less Gatewatch-oriented stories tend to be written more as actual characters, while the stories dealing with the Gatewatch seem to serve little purpose beyond moving the story forward by checking off plot points referred to in cards, with the depictions in the stories often bearing only minimal resemblance to what is suggested on the cards. In the latest story, for example, the Battle for the Bridge was a lot less dramatic than the card bearing that name would seem to have suggested. The card suggested a tense, climactic face-off between Tezzeret and the Gatewatch, while what we got in the story was Tez and Liliana half-heartedly tossing generic spells and snide remarks at each other.
I find myself mostly agreeing with you all. SOI had the best non gatewatch stories, but Innistrad is also one of the best planes for that sort of thing, a top down atmospheric world that showcased short stories exclusively the first time around. I feel that the Gatewatch is the main story line, and believe that it has improved considerably and consistently since BFZ. The world building stories, and those focused on side characters, have been of more uneven quality. Some are great, some are bad, and their quality during BFZ was generally superior to the Gatewatch stories. SOI had the best, and Kaladesh has been less interesting but still good (Yahenni's were good, for instance).
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It seems consensus is the story is slowly getting better, which I think is true - especially now that we're past the initial chaos caused by the paradigm shift. Chris L'Etoile in particular seems to be a great influence on the story, and his pieces tend to stand out.
BFZ was downright terrible, honestly. However, SOI was a huge improvement, and even though the whole Emrakul thing was obvious, I feel like they handled it pretty well (The Promised End is one of my favorite Magic Story articles). So yes, I think it's overall improved since BFZ...most of the story articles are at least average and a few are above average.
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BFZ was probably one of the worst sets IMO. The story writing was miserable, and the Gatewatch makes no sense. I do think the story's have improved but, I'm still unimpressed with the huge focus on the Gatewatch instead of the people of the planes, although they've improved a bit since BFZ (not by enough, I think)
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Gatewatch is something that can work, if it wouldnt be that big of a deal, even gameplay wise.
Its cool to have some form of alliance between planeswalkers to fight together, that is fine and all of them have a background story, which intervine, thats also fine.
However, how they worked the Eldrazi threat out was a gigantic slap in the face.
The Eldrazi are introduced as "unstoppable" World eating interplanar super monsters, like the manifestation of Destruction and the first zendikar did a fantastic job to show the power of them , planeswalkers, especially Gideon was struggling to just "defend" against them, and rescue people, but it was very clear that he was completly unable to beat the Titans and so the threat was real, the enemie felt powerful as it WAS powerful.
The inherent ability of a planeswalker to simply leave a plane is exactly what makes this work, as the "heroes" can just "flee" from the fight they cannot win and having that threat was a real big deal, as you always had to keep them in mind.
Then they build the story up to imprison them again, which would have been a reasonable solution, if Zendikar would turn into a giant "prison" for them and stay destroyed, as a permanent mark for what the Eldrazi are capable of.
The fact that a bunch of planeswalkers can beat not even just a single, but TWO Titan Eldrazi in a fist-fight was just completely stupid. These are so HUGE and the powers they have warp the surrounding so much, that fighting them head on was just plain ridiculous.
It would be like a Hero just walks in the big Boss base and simply shoots him ; thats silly, i mean how can anybody even accept that ?
The Eldrazi where not supposed to ever be "defeated", they represented a powerful enemy that makes any other enemy look like a joke from now on ; the Eldrazi story made Tezzeret look like an idiot, if they wanted they could just fly in and beat him to death, so that hurt the Kaladesh story even more (even in the story, Liliana can just "beat" Tezzeret, just like that, and didnt even use the possible power of the chain vail to make a Zombie Army, she refuses to use the power she has, its silly ... ).
For me the Eldrazi story as they made it probably permanently hurt the story, which is extremly sad, as i very much liked how they worked out Theros (and killing Elspeth was a big deal, that hit the heart of many and it was a very big surprise that they go that far to kill a planeswalker in such a direct way).
Innistrad had at least Sorin and Nahiri to work with, which had their own conflict , then Emrakul pops up and the story is again WAY too quickly solved in just 1 set, the all powerful super omnipotent mega Eldrazi is just beaten , cmon, whats your problem ? How can they just beat that world ending monster ?
I can see that they badly wanted to keep Innistrad, but in the end, the Eldrazi are extremly poor enemies, they are so HUGE and powerful that you cannot fight them directly (at least in a believable reasonable way, the "fight" they made up was downright stupid).
And the Eldrazi even IF they somehow get killed had the power of the Blind Eternities to recover and the Eldrazi Titan Avatars would just be reborn on some other plane and keep the flow of destruction.
It would be a very perfect means to destroy planes, a nice cycle of new planes and destroying them ; but thats not a thing anymore, we are left with the Gatewatch, that operate on a powerlevel that is simply WAY too high, as they dont struggle enough, they can beat anything way too quickly and easily (if something is solved in a set and the story spans a bunch of days, its just way too fast, big conflicts have to unfold, they need time to sink in, make the reader of a story feel with the characters, care for them, and if such a big threat is beaten, you have to have a lot of losses too, to make it significant to archive that victory.
But we didnt get that. We just have a super hero team that is an unstoppable force of good and theres simply nothing to stand up against them that could be any reasonable threat.
----
Ofcourse theres still Nicol Bolas, our last "hope" of any evil planeswalker that CAN at least piss them off a little, unless they completly fark that up too and defeat Nicol Bolas in the next set (and god, please dont do that ...).
Then theres Phyrexia, another "real" threat, that might proof stronger and more persistent than the Eldrazi, unless they pull another Gatewatch stunt and just wipe the entire plane of Mirrodin with some "planar bomb" (looking at you Pernicious Deed that already accomplished that goal in the past).
----
If they had Liliana fight the Gatewatch and at least have them struggle more, even with each other ; but as it is, we have a little love story with Jace and Liliana, and another love story of Chandra and Gideon, i mean, wtf ... Nissa will probably marry Ugin or something ridiculous ...
The story lost so much believable impact, i am very very unsure how they can ever fix that with the current lineup of super heroes that simply dont face any opposition that lasts longer than 1 set ...
Gatewatch is something that can work, if it wouldnt be that big of a deal, even gameplay wise.
Its cool to have some form of alliance between planeswalkers to fight together, that is fine and all of them have a background story, which intervine, thats also fine.
However, how they worked the Eldrazi threat out was a gigantic slap in the face.
The Eldrazi are introduced as "unstoppable" World eating interplanar super monsters, like the manifestation of Destruction and the first zendikar did a fantastic job to show the power of them , planeswalkers, especially Gideon was struggling to just "defend" against them, and rescue people, but it was very clear that he was completly unable to beat the Titans and so the threat was real, the enemie felt powerful as it WAS powerful.
The inherent ability of a planeswalker to simply leave a plane is exactly what makes this work, as the "heroes" can just "flee" from the fight they cannot win and having that threat was a real big deal, as you always had to keep them in mind.
Then they build the story up to imprison them again, which would have been a reasonable solution, if Zendikar would turn into a giant "prison" for them and stay destroyed, as a permanent mark for what the Eldrazi are capable of.
The fact that a bunch of planeswalkers can beat not even just a single, but TWO Titan Eldrazi in a fist-fight was just completely stupid. These are so HUGE and the powers they have warp the surrounding so much, that fighting them head on was just plain ridiculous.
It would be like a Hero just walks in the big Boss base and simply shoots him ; thats silly, i mean how can anybody even accept that ?
The Eldrazi where not supposed to ever be "defeated", they represented a powerful enemy that makes any other enemy look like a joke from now on ; the Eldrazi story made Tezzeret look like an idiot, if they wanted they could just fly in and beat him to death, so that hurt the Kaladesh story even more (even in the story, Liliana can just "beat" Tezzeret, just like that, and didnt even use the possible power of the chain vail to make a Zombie Army, she refuses to use the power she has, its silly ... ).
For me the Eldrazi story as they made it probably permanently hurt the story, which is extremly sad, as i very much liked how they worked out Theros (and killing Elspeth was a big deal, that hit the heart of many and it was a very big surprise that they go that far to kill a planeswalker in such a direct way).
Innistrad had at least Sorin and Nahiri to work with, which had their own conflict , then Emrakul pops up and the story is again WAY too quickly solved in just 1 set, the all powerful super omnipotent mega Eldrazi is just beaten , cmon, whats your problem ? How can they just beat that world ending monster ?
I can see that they badly wanted to keep Innistrad, but in the end, the Eldrazi are extremly poor enemies, they are so HUGE and powerful that you cannot fight them directly (at least in a believable reasonable way, the "fight" they made up was downright stupid).
And the Eldrazi even IF they somehow get killed had the power of the Blind Eternities to recover and the Eldrazi Titan Avatars would just be reborn on some other plane and keep the flow of destruction.
It would be a very perfect means to destroy planes, a nice cycle of new planes and destroying them ; but thats not a thing anymore, we are left with the Gatewatch, that operate on a powerlevel that is simply WAY too high, as they dont struggle enough, they can beat anything way too quickly and easily (if something is solved in a set and the story spans a bunch of days, its just way too fast, big conflicts have to unfold, they need time to sink in, make the reader of a story feel with the characters, care for them, and if such a big threat is beaten, you have to have a lot of losses too, to make it significant to archive that victory.
But we didnt get that. We just have a super hero team that is an unstoppable force of good and theres simply nothing to stand up against them that could be any reasonable threat.
----
Ofcourse theres still Nicol Bolas, our last "hope" of any evil planeswalker that CAN at least piss them off a little, unless they completly fark that up too and defeat Nicol Bolas in the next set (and god, please dont do that ...).
Then theres Phyrexia, another "real" threat, that might proof stronger and more persistent than the Eldrazi, unless they pull another Gatewatch stunt and just wipe the entire plane of Mirrodin with some "planar bomb" (looking at you Pernicious Deed that already accomplished that goal in the past).
----
If they had Liliana fight the Gatewatch and at least have them struggle more, even with each other ; but as it is, we have a little love story with Jace and Liliana, and another love story of Chandra and Gideon, i mean, wtf ... Nissa will probably marry Ugin or something ridiculous ...
The story lost so much believable impact, i am very very unsure how they can ever fix that with the current lineup of super heroes that simply dont face any opposition that lasts longer than 1 set ...
To be fair, they didn't beat Emrakul, she used them to accomplish something she could not do on her own. She held Jace's hand and led him to the actions she wanted him to take, namely waking up the walkers and implanting the changed spell in Tamiyo's mind in the process that let her lock Emrakul in the moon instead of casting Planar Collapse. Emrakul wanted to wait until the time was right, which many interpret as the absence of Ulamog and Kozilek preventing Emrakul from fulfilling her objectives or purpose correctly, and her knowing that at some point they will return, yet being unable to stop herself without help.
The Eldrazi sucked on Zendikar because they were faceless mooks led by a titan that eats everything and has no personality and faceless mooks led by a titan that screws with space-time and thinks repeatedly killing Gideon for a thousand years is amusing. They were better on Innistrad because they were corruptions of the familiar denizens of the plane who serve a being with some hint of self awareness and motivation, as inscrutable as it may be.
The Gatewatch didn't win on Innistrad, they just saw Emrakul voluntarily take a break when she was about to win because reasons, with the promise that she will return when she feels like it and they won't be able to stop her, at least not as they are. That doesn't make BFZ block's ending any less garbage.
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Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
It seems consensus is the story is slowly getting better, which I think is true - especially now that we're past the initial chaos caused by the paradigm shift. Chris L'Etoile in particular seems to be a great influence on the story, and his pieces tend to stand out.
I agree wit this as well as creative seeming finding where it wants the story to go and knowing what they want the characters to be like as well.
The story lost so much believable impact, i am very very unsure how they can ever fix that with the current lineup of super heroes that simply dont face any opposition that lasts longer than 1 set ...
Nahiri and Ob seem like they will be pretty rough to deal with.
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BFZ was quite all over the place. There were two or three great pieces (Noyan Dar or Tazri's story), the rest was average, and chaff. Especially the unending sural-whipping and Nissa-crying-for-Ashaya was bad. They also needed to establish the Gatewatch, but the stage and enemies they chose for it were...well...unlucky choices, to put it politely.
SoI was far better, with some really outstanding stories (Rise of Emrakul, The Promised End, and the worldbuilding ones), and a nice twist on the end.
Kaladesh kept the general quality, with almost all stories average or higher, and masterpieces by Chris L'Etoile. Too bad that the story climax was written quite blandly.
So, they are getting the grip, and I am sure it would be better over time.
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Well I'm glad they at least warned us that this was gonna happen, instead of what happened in-between Kaladesh and Aether Revolt. And while it might not be a new story we might get some new plot threads or questions answered. And wit the way it is worried we might get a new (or a reprint of a story) during Modern Masters previews.
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"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
This is an unfortunate choice. I suppose in the long run it might result in the stories for the next block being better-written or more consistent, as the writers will have more lead time, but I'd very much have preferred to get some stand-alone stories from the MtG Multiverse during this time. Maybe a tale of one or more of the new Legendaries from the Commander 2016 set, or checking in on Arlinn Kord or Sigarda or someone else from Innistrad, or a story of Domri Rade or Tibalt's planeswalking adventures, or, well, practically anything so long a it doesn't involve Eldrazi this time around.
BFZ was downright terrible, honestly. (The Promised End is one of my favorite Magic Story articles). So yes, I think it's overall improved since BFZ...
Agree completely, the end of the Innistrad cycle was - in my opinion - the single best story article in the Gatewatch era. I have enjoyed Kaladesh less than the SOI stories. While I was initially hyped about the setting it ended up very flat to me. And I have a major hOrror bias. Yet, I still think the story improved in general since BFZ, and I hope they continue the trend in Amonkhet. In general, the plane seems to affect my perception of the stories, which isn't too surprising I guess.
The individual stories are mostly fine, some even pretty good. That said, the overall arcs are predictable and boring. Every single block under the new structure: Gatewatch assembles, defeats the villain, saves the plane.
Zendikar? All 4 members of the Gatewatch team up, destroy Ula and Cosi, and Zendikar is saved!
Innistrad? All 5(!) members of the Gatewatch team up, exile Ema, and Innistrad is saved!
Kaladesh? All 6(!!) members of the Gatewatch team up, defeat Tezz and destroy his portal, and Kaladesh is saved!
and if this holds:
Amonkhet? All 7(!!!) members of the Gatewatch team up, defeat Bolas, and Amonkhet is saved!
I don't know if they will or not, and I know a lot of people are saying that Bolas is too powerful to be defeated, but it's not really hard to imagine Ugin becoming a 7th member evening the odds and giving the Gatewatch ample means to overpower Bolas. Who, after all, hasn't been impressive for years and hasn't looked all that unbeatable when facing off against Ajani/Ugin/Tetsuo.
The closest parallel, and where it draws a lot of inspiration from, is undoubtedly MCU's Avengers. So far, they have also came out on top in every movie they've been in. However, not every movie features all of the Avengers. Falcon featured in Ant Man, Hulk in the next Thor movie, but they are not bringing in every single member of the Avengers in every single movie. I really don't understand why Magic feels the need to do that. Why couldn't Innistrad just be Jace/Lili teaming up with Tamiyo? Why couldn't Kaladesh just be Chandra/Nissa teaming up with Ajani to take out Tezz? Why did everyone have to be there every single time?
I enjoyed Lilliana in Kaladesh though. Especially her facing off against Tezz, although the scene was written poorly. I think all of them there so far has been alright, to have them grow as a team. But Ajani won't be in Amonkhet so there's that. I don't like that he's part of the GW though, I preferred him being a member of Tamiyo's informal story circle only. Both makes the latter lose value as oh, how about we have everyone who is linked to a PW group join the GW? IDK.
The stories have been slowly getting not better but more consistently better. There are always some quality stories but the important thing we're seeing is less outright chaff.
Note: Chandra talking like a Pengu1n of D00m 13 year old and everyone talking about how special Nissa is are issues beyond bad story writing. They show that creative still needs to work on their characters. It's concerning that the "important" members of the Gatewatch are far more poorly written than side characters like Dovin.
As always I'm hopeful and enjoy reading the stories every week. I am pretty upset that somehow meh quality poscasts somehow take up too much time for Creative to write stories and that none of the members of creative can spend the time to speak with the community on a consistent basis. Without a doubt it comes off as the laziest dept in WotC.
Some stories they knock it out of the park, and others they fumble with one-dimensional fireballs and poor creative decisions.
The worst creative decision, is not showing the outcome of the planes and where they stand before the Gatewatch departs on a new adventure. Innistrad just lost it's Church, it's angels turned on humanity, civilians and creatures were transformed into monstrosities and chaos overcame the plane. The last story we get it Emrakul imprisoning itself in the moon, the Gatewatch realizing it trapped itself intentionally which was an exceptional story. The next story we get is The Real World: Jace's Sanctum. We see non of their physical and mental distress of what Emrakul did to them, nor do we know how Innistrad is recovering or rebuilding.
Honestly though, how bad can the planning be that you bring the audience back to a beloved plane, mess it up in unfathomable ways, and than leave without seeing the mess after you just crunched up the cookie. Why couldn't there be one more set from the eyes of Ludovic, Arlinn, the zombie siblings, Tibalt, on the end result of everything, which can also work to tease the future etc.
Some stories they knock it out of the park, and others they fumble with one-dimensional fireballs and poor creative decisions.
The worst creative decision, is not showing the outcome of the planes and where they stand before the Gatewatch departs on a new adventure. Innistrad just lost it's Church, it's angels turned on humanity, civilians and creatures were transformed into monstrosities and chaos overcame the plane. The last story we get it Emrakul imprisoning itself in the moon, the Gatewatch realizing it trapped itself intentionally which was an exceptional story. The next story we get is The Real World: Jace's Sanctum. We see non of their physical and mental distress of what Emrakul did to them, nor do we know how Innistrad is recovering or rebuilding.
Honestly though, how bad can the planning be that you bring the audience back to a beloved plane, mess it up in unfathomable ways, and than leave without seeing the mess after you just crunched up the cookie. Why couldn't there be one more set from the eyes of Ludovic, Arlinn, the zombie siblings, Tibalt, on the end result of everything, which can also work to tease the future etc.
More than likely they have done this to purposefully leave it vague so any return can have more freedom to deal with all of the loose ends. Imagine that they wrapped up SOI with mentions of a new church being built around Sigarda but when they come back they don't want church elements and then people are all WTF?!?!?!, now imagine the exact opposite. They have Sigarda say that a church built around her is a bad idea but when they go back they want the church motifs. How do they reconcile this without the the much hated retcon? So they leave the ending just vague enough that they can do almost anything on the return. Is this good? Maybe not, but it shows forethought as opposed to when they just threw the planes away when they were done and then have awkward returns, anyone remember Ravnica's guilds dissolving? Cause RTR doesn't.
I agree about some stories knocking it out of the park while others fall completely flat.
I really do believe the issue is truly BFZ. Things started off on such an awful foundation that we're all squeamish. SOI/EMN were brilliant, truly. But BFZ is just nauseating. I just can't forgive what was done with Ulamog and Kozilek at all. The scene of Gideon whipping back Ulamog's tendrils demonstrates to me every inconsistency, plot armor and Deus Ex Machina flaw that Creative could have demonstrated all in one sentence. It also reveals just how much advantage and favor Planeswalkers are given for the sake of marketing at the expense of Magic's creative material. When Theros gods and Lovecraftian monstrosity deities older than worlds are humbled for marketing, it makes taking anything seriously or worthwhile about any of these worlds or characters a waste.
Valid points, did not consider that is what they are trying to avoid. That still means though that it is bad writing as you are avoiding giving a proper conclusion to a plane because you do not wish to paint yourself into a corner later on. Maybe do not do anything substantial such as a new church forming, but simply showing a character recovering amidst the chaos which has ended could go a ways to show what the impact that Emrakul emerging and disappearing does to the citizens of Innistrad.
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What's your opinion on the direction the story has taken? Do you think that they just sucked at introducing the concept and adjusting to the 2 act format and are now finding their feet, or do you think they've been doing a good job all along, or something in between?
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
I would have to agree. BFZ didn't seem bad at the time, but looking back, especially when comparing it to newer stories, it was pretty weak. I found SOI and EMD very interesting, although they lacked enough connection with the rest the action on Innistrad to be as awesome as I would have liked. Kaladesh and Aether Revolt have been mostly good. Some stories were pretty meh, but there are a few that were just extremely well written.
SOI was actually pretty good. Again, this is generalizing. Some stories were weak, but others were great.
Kaladesh is better than BFZ but that's not saying much. There were a couple of good stories (just like BFZ) but overall it wasn't great. SOI was better in my opinion. I do not like the trend of virtually every story being Gatewatch-related, as the vast majority of SOI's and BFZ's best stories were unrelated to the Gatewatch.
It really depends on the individual writers, so it's difficult to make a real comparison. Kaladesh is better than BFZ, but The Blight We Were Born For was better than most Kaladesh stories (all but two or three, I would guess).
I just wish that they would actually hire real authors instead of just making do with their current employees, who are primarily just world-builders. Having L'Etoile write was a step in the right direction, but they've only had him write two stories, with amateurs writing most of the rest.
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Its cool to have some form of alliance between planeswalkers to fight together, that is fine and all of them have a background story, which intervine, thats also fine.
However, how they worked the Eldrazi threat out was a gigantic slap in the face.
The Eldrazi are introduced as "unstoppable" World eating interplanar super monsters, like the manifestation of Destruction and the first zendikar did a fantastic job to show the power of them , planeswalkers, especially Gideon was struggling to just "defend" against them, and rescue people, but it was very clear that he was completly unable to beat the Titans and so the threat was real, the enemie felt powerful as it WAS powerful.
The inherent ability of a planeswalker to simply leave a plane is exactly what makes this work, as the "heroes" can just "flee" from the fight they cannot win and having that threat was a real big deal, as you always had to keep them in mind.
Then they build the story up to imprison them again, which would have been a reasonable solution, if Zendikar would turn into a giant "prison" for them and stay destroyed, as a permanent mark for what the Eldrazi are capable of.
The fact that a bunch of planeswalkers can beat not even just a single, but TWO Titan Eldrazi in a fist-fight was just completely stupid. These are so HUGE and the powers they have warp the surrounding so much, that fighting them head on was just plain ridiculous.
It would be like a Hero just walks in the big Boss base and simply shoots him ; thats silly, i mean how can anybody even accept that ?
The Eldrazi where not supposed to ever be "defeated", they represented a powerful enemy that makes any other enemy look like a joke from now on ; the Eldrazi story made Tezzeret look like an idiot, if they wanted they could just fly in and beat him to death, so that hurt the Kaladesh story even more (even in the story, Liliana can just "beat" Tezzeret, just like that, and didnt even use the possible power of the chain vail to make a Zombie Army, she refuses to use the power she has, its silly ... ).
For me the Eldrazi story as they made it probably permanently hurt the story, which is extremly sad, as i very much liked how they worked out Theros (and killing Elspeth was a big deal, that hit the heart of many and it was a very big surprise that they go that far to kill a planeswalker in such a direct way).
Innistrad had at least Sorin and Nahiri to work with, which had their own conflict , then Emrakul pops up and the story is again WAY too quickly solved in just 1 set, the all powerful super omnipotent mega Eldrazi is just beaten , cmon, whats your problem ? How can they just beat that world ending monster ?
I can see that they badly wanted to keep Innistrad, but in the end, the Eldrazi are extremly poor enemies, they are so HUGE and powerful that you cannot fight them directly (at least in a believable reasonable way, the "fight" they made up was downright stupid).
And the Eldrazi even IF they somehow get killed had the power of the Blind Eternities to recover and the Eldrazi Titan Avatars would just be reborn on some other plane and keep the flow of destruction.
It would be a very perfect means to destroy planes, a nice cycle of new planes and destroying them ; but thats not a thing anymore, we are left with the Gatewatch, that operate on a powerlevel that is simply WAY too high, as they dont struggle enough, they can beat anything way too quickly and easily (if something is solved in a set and the story spans a bunch of days, its just way too fast, big conflicts have to unfold, they need time to sink in, make the reader of a story feel with the characters, care for them, and if such a big threat is beaten, you have to have a lot of losses too, to make it significant to archive that victory.
But we didnt get that. We just have a super hero team that is an unstoppable force of good and theres simply nothing to stand up against them that could be any reasonable threat.
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Ofcourse theres still Nicol Bolas, our last "hope" of any evil planeswalker that CAN at least piss them off a little, unless they completly fark that up too and defeat Nicol Bolas in the next set (and god, please dont do that ...).
Then theres Phyrexia, another "real" threat, that might proof stronger and more persistent than the Eldrazi, unless they pull another Gatewatch stunt and just wipe the entire plane of Mirrodin with some "planar bomb" (looking at you Pernicious Deed that already accomplished that goal in the past).
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If they had Liliana fight the Gatewatch and at least have them struggle more, even with each other ; but as it is, we have a little love story with Jace and Liliana, and another love story of Chandra and Gideon, i mean, wtf ... Nissa will probably marry Ugin or something ridiculous ...
The story lost so much believable impact, i am very very unsure how they can ever fix that with the current lineup of super heroes that simply dont face any opposition that lasts longer than 1 set ...
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To be fair, they didn't beat Emrakul, she used them to accomplish something she could not do on her own. She held Jace's hand and led him to the actions she wanted him to take, namely waking up the walkers and implanting the changed spell in Tamiyo's mind in the process that let her lock Emrakul in the moon instead of casting Planar Collapse. Emrakul wanted to wait until the time was right, which many interpret as the absence of Ulamog and Kozilek preventing Emrakul from fulfilling her objectives or purpose correctly, and her knowing that at some point they will return, yet being unable to stop herself without help.
The Eldrazi sucked on Zendikar because they were faceless mooks led by a titan that eats everything and has no personality and faceless mooks led by a titan that screws with space-time and thinks repeatedly killing Gideon for a thousand years is amusing. They were better on Innistrad because they were corruptions of the familiar denizens of the plane who serve a being with some hint of self awareness and motivation, as inscrutable as it may be.
The Gatewatch didn't win on Innistrad, they just saw Emrakul voluntarily take a break when she was about to win because reasons, with the promise that she will return when she feels like it and they won't be able to stop her, at least not as they are. That doesn't make BFZ block's ending any less garbage.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
I agree wit this as well as creative seeming finding where it wants the story to go and knowing what they want the characters to be like as well.
Nahiri and Ob seem like they will be pretty rough to deal with.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
BFZ was quite all over the place. There were two or three great pieces (Noyan Dar or Tazri's story), the rest was average, and chaff. Especially the unending sural-whipping and Nissa-crying-for-Ashaya was bad. They also needed to establish the Gatewatch, but the stage and enemies they chose for it were...well...unlucky choices, to put it politely.
SoI was far better, with some really outstanding stories (Rise of Emrakul, The Promised End, and the worldbuilding ones), and a nice twist on the end.
Kaladesh kept the general quality, with almost all stories average or higher, and masterpieces by Chris L'Etoile. Too bad that the story climax was written quite blandly.
So, they are getting the grip, and I am sure it would be better over time.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/daily-magic-update/update-2017-02-01
Well I'm glad they at least warned us that this was gonna happen, instead of what happened in-between Kaladesh and Aether Revolt. And while it might not be a new story we might get some new plot threads or questions answered. And wit the way it is worried we might get a new (or a reprint of a story) during Modern Masters previews.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
This is an unfortunate choice. I suppose in the long run it might result in the stories for the next block being better-written or more consistent, as the writers will have more lead time, but I'd very much have preferred to get some stand-alone stories from the MtG Multiverse during this time. Maybe a tale of one or more of the new Legendaries from the Commander 2016 set, or checking in on Arlinn Kord or Sigarda or someone else from Innistrad, or a story of Domri Rade or Tibalt's planeswalking adventures, or, well, practically anything so long a it doesn't involve Eldrazi this time around.
Agree completely, the end of the Innistrad cycle was - in my opinion - the single best story article in the Gatewatch era. I have enjoyed Kaladesh less than the SOI stories. While I was initially hyped about the setting it ended up very flat to me. And I have a major hOrror bias. Yet, I still think the story improved in general since BFZ, and I hope they continue the trend in Amonkhet. In general, the plane seems to affect my perception of the stories, which isn't too surprising I guess.
Zendikar? All 4 members of the Gatewatch team up, destroy Ula and Cosi, and Zendikar is saved!
Innistrad? All 5(!) members of the Gatewatch team up, exile Ema, and Innistrad is saved!
Kaladesh? All 6(!!) members of the Gatewatch team up, defeat Tezz and destroy his portal, and Kaladesh is saved!
and if this holds:
Amonkhet? All 7(!!!) members of the Gatewatch team up, defeat Bolas, and Amonkhet is saved!
I don't know if they will or not, and I know a lot of people are saying that Bolas is too powerful to be defeated, but it's not really hard to imagine Ugin becoming a 7th member evening the odds and giving the Gatewatch ample means to overpower Bolas. Who, after all, hasn't been impressive for years and hasn't looked all that unbeatable when facing off against Ajani/Ugin/Tetsuo.
The closest parallel, and where it draws a lot of inspiration from, is undoubtedly MCU's Avengers. So far, they have also came out on top in every movie they've been in. However, not every movie features all of the Avengers. Falcon featured in Ant Man, Hulk in the next Thor movie, but they are not bringing in every single member of the Avengers in every single movie. I really don't understand why Magic feels the need to do that. Why couldn't Innistrad just be Jace/Lili teaming up with Tamiyo? Why couldn't Kaladesh just be Chandra/Nissa teaming up with Ajani to take out Tezz? Why did everyone have to be there every single time?
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
Note: Chandra talking like a Pengu1n of D00m 13 year old and everyone talking about how special Nissa is are issues beyond bad story writing. They show that creative still needs to work on their characters. It's concerning that the "important" members of the Gatewatch are far more poorly written than side characters like Dovin.
As always I'm hopeful and enjoy reading the stories every week. I am pretty upset that somehow meh quality poscasts somehow take up too much time for Creative to write stories and that none of the members of creative can spend the time to speak with the community on a consistent basis. Without a doubt it comes off as the laziest dept in WotC.
The worst creative decision, is not showing the outcome of the planes and where they stand before the Gatewatch departs on a new adventure. Innistrad just lost it's Church, it's angels turned on humanity, civilians and creatures were transformed into monstrosities and chaos overcame the plane. The last story we get it Emrakul imprisoning itself in the moon, the Gatewatch realizing it trapped itself intentionally which was an exceptional story. The next story we get is The Real World: Jace's Sanctum. We see non of their physical and mental distress of what Emrakul did to them, nor do we know how Innistrad is recovering or rebuilding.
Honestly though, how bad can the planning be that you bring the audience back to a beloved plane, mess it up in unfathomable ways, and than leave without seeing the mess after you just crunched up the cookie. Why couldn't there be one more set from the eyes of Ludovic, Arlinn, the zombie siblings, Tibalt, on the end result of everything, which can also work to tease the future etc.
I really do believe the issue is truly BFZ. Things started off on such an awful foundation that we're all squeamish. SOI/EMN were brilliant, truly. But BFZ is just nauseating. I just can't forgive what was done with Ulamog and Kozilek at all. The scene of Gideon whipping back Ulamog's tendrils demonstrates to me every inconsistency, plot armor and Deus Ex Machina flaw that Creative could have demonstrated all in one sentence. It also reveals just how much advantage and favor Planeswalkers are given for the sake of marketing at the expense of Magic's creative material. When Theros gods and Lovecraftian monstrosity deities older than worlds are humbled for marketing, it makes taking anything seriously or worthwhile about any of these worlds or characters a waste.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||