It seems no one who regularly throws around the terms mary sue, deus ex machina or various other terms actually understand what those terms mean.
I was grumpy about this the other day.
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To me it isn't that MTG has become filled with "Worlds of Hats." Its that Mtg has stopped using high fantasy settings like Dominaria. Ahmonket doesn't feel like a fantasy world, it just feels like ancient egypt with dragons. Same for Ktk (still really enjoyed that block) and Innistrad. The worlds felt more like alternate earths than unique fantasy settings. Kaladesh and Ravnica felt more like fantasy and while I did enjoy Ravnica Kaladesh was not very fleshed out. Hopefully returning to Dominaria brings back the high fantasy look and feel because thats what MTG world have been missing for me. I suspect that the change I'm describing is due to wanting to make the worlds more accessible but its a shame that a game that was supposed to appeal to a niche fantasy audience has moved pretty far from that.
At any rate, I wish they would put some more 'world-' into their '-building' [...]
That puts it pretty well. Worlds that focus on one aspect/culture/whatever are fine as long as you still make them feel large. That was where Lorwyn/Shadowmoor performed great imo. It felt like a pretty small/limited/focused world, yet at the same time you had stuff like Primal Beyond, Recross the Paths and the Elementals; then there were these strangecreatures that showed up in Shadowmoor and then even more of them appeared on cards in Eventide (Selkies, Duergar and Noggles)...
It made the world feel like a place they couldn't fully explore even though they tried to.
In comparison, sets like Kaladesh or even Amonkhet feel like every "superfluous" thing has been cut out and you basically know everything about the plane after having looked through all the cards once. The concept "less is more" is detrimental here.
But seriously. For a game whose most fundamental moment in the lore is "Magic comes from the Lands", like, land doesn't matter ANYWHERE except Dominaria. The very magic system is portrayed incredibly vaguely and inconsistently in the books. They don't even -want- to clean up spell casting and mana tapping and creature summoning as much as they should.....questions as old as the game itself they have still refused to answer, like whether a creature summons is a creation, or a teleport. When is it which.
I can answer some of these, most planes (Kamigawa and Maybe Theroes exampted) all magic works through using memories, that is how Mana and Tapping fundamentally works, it is just that most people may not know how it really works..and going through the steps that casters do every spell cast gets repetitive. It would be nice if they explained it in like..the Intro packs and stuff though.
As for summoning, back when..erhem. "We were gods once." as Bolas* puts it, Creation would be the answer for it. Now who knows..Kiora seemed to teleport things in BFZ the one time when she summoned Lorthos.
In comparison, sets like Kaladesh or even Amonkhet feel like every "superfluous" thing has been cut out and you basically know everything about the plane after having looked through all the cards once. The concept "less is more" is detrimental here.
The thing is sets like Kaladesh and Amonkhet are small, they are specifically only showing us one city, one because that is where the interesting stuff is happening and the other because it's the only one left. In Lorwyn the cards show a broader world because they aren't telling a story, they are simply windows into the world.
They could probably due a better job of showing how vast their worlds are even when focusing on a single place. For Kaladesh, none of the basic lands show the main city but nearly every card shows something within the city so the world feels small. The flavor text has the same problem essentially nowhere outside the city is mentioned, it does a great job of showing the expansive and diverse city but shrinks the world to that scale.
Something to keep in mind with the new set format, they can and will be able to stay on a world for more than one set, or jump around to different planes, if the the story warrants it. So we could be on Dominaria for 3-4 sets before going off to Viking World, then jump from there back to Kaladesh, then to Ravinca and stay there for 2 sets. Also the sets are going to be much bigger, with fewer mechanics overall to allow for them to world build more. I personally think this is a good thing for them and the story.
In comparison, sets like Kaladesh or even Amonkhet feel like every "superfluous" thing has been cut out and you basically know everything about the plane after having looked through all the cards once. The concept "less is more" is detrimental here.
The thing is sets like Kaladesh and Amonkhet are small, they are specifically only showing us one city, one because that is where the interesting stuff is happening and the other because it's the only one left. In Lorwyn the cards show a broader world because they aren't telling a story, they are simply windows into the world.
They could probably due a better job of showing how vast their worlds are even when focusing on a single place. For Kaladesh, none of the basic lands show the main city but nearly every card shows something within the city so the world feels small. The flavor text has the same problem essentially nowhere outside the city is mentioned, it does a great job of showing the expansive and diverse city but shrinks the world to that scale.
Yeah planeswalker guides and the art books all show tons of world-build for all the planes that we don't see in the cards, like the poison green house of Kaladesh, the organic wolves on Mirrodin and owl aven on Ravnica.
I'd also like to add compare how many sets, and thus time send working on the world building on, Dominaria has gotten to what the more planes recents have gotten.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
In comparison, sets like Kaladesh or even Amonkhet feel like every "superfluous" thing has been cut out and you basically know everything about the plane after having looked through all the cards once. The concept "less is more" is detrimental here.
The thing is sets like Kaladesh and Amonkhet are small, they are specifically only showing us one city, one because that is where the interesting stuff is happening and the other because it's the only one left. In Lorwyn the cards show a broader world because they aren't telling a story, they are simply windows into the world.
The last sentence. That is the key. The recent sets have been so tunnel visioned on the dumba** Gatewatch that we don't get an opportunity to experience the rest of the plane that the gatewatch hasn't experienced. It annoys me to no end and i think it's part of why the Gatewatch needs to go. The obsession with telling this story through the cards is destructive to the nature of the game - it makes the cards feel repetitive and bland. What's worse is that the story isn't even strong enough to warrant this kind of devotion.
If WOTC wants to tell the silly story - do so with your half-hearted Wednesday story pieces and let the cards do the world building. Give me those windows into the plane, its denizens, and it's culture via the cards like they used to. Give me back the flavor text that was actually interesting and about the world - not about the planeswalkers. I'm sick of being bombarded with them and being choked out of rich world building content because of them
I think it's fair to say that more planes need more 'world' to them. As returns come faster, it's likely we'll see existing planes expand. Most of them have hinted at what else is out there but haven't covered it yet.
Honestly, I'm hoping we get back the locations that were permanently phased out by Teferi. Nicol Bolas demonstrated to Teferi that his skills with time far exceed the temporal mage. Seeing how that segment of the world was phased out prior to the mending, Dominaria's role as a nexus plane, and Nicol Bolas's desire to return to his god-like self, I am hoping that is part of the plot and the phased out lands hold a key to Bolas's plot.
My gut tells me return to Dominaria should help reintroduce Teferi to the storyline, possibly as a planeswalker providing outside assistance to the Gatewatch. Getting his spark back might not be that big of a stretch since Ob Nixilis got his back. Some other things I'd like to see story-wise:
- Restoration of Zhalfir
- Multani
- Joshua Vess
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In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
My gut tells me return to Dominaria should help reintroduce Teferi to the storyline, possibly as a planeswalker providing outside assistance to the Gatewatch. Getting his spark back might not be that big of a stretch since Ob Nixilis got his back. Some other things I'd like to see story-wise:
Tarkir actually didn't focus on one specific place, because the clans were all equally important to the story. Factions seem to enable vast worldbuilding within the story if those factions are spread out across the plane.
Fiora is focused primarily on Paliano, but Trest and other city-states do exist, and wild areas also exist based on cards featuring Selvala.
Kaladesh had locations like Lathnu and Peema, which were featured on a few of the cards, but they were never the focus in the story. Chandra's origin story also took place in locations outside Ghirapur.
Even Amonkhet had more to see than just the wastelands and Naktamun, since Unesh and his crew and the Crested Sunmare all came from somewhere outside Naktamun.
The planes are generally way bigger than what we see, but as said, those areas aren't often shown because they aren't important to the story.
The planes are generally way bigger than what we see, but as said, those areas aren't often shown because they aren't important to the story.
More or less this, we get nothing but short stories now so the plot has to travel at the speed of light sometimes, so instead of the minor details we got in the books like Kahmahl actually traveling from Cabal City to The Order Citadel..we just skip to "arrive at the citadel."
The planes are generally way bigger than what we see, but as said, those areas aren't often shown because they aren't important to the story.
More or less this, we get nothing but short stories now so the plot has to travel at the speed of light sometimes, so instead of the minor details we got in the books like Kahmahl actually traveling from Cabal City to The Order Citadel..we just skip to "arrive at the citadel."
I'm inclined to think it's a consequence of changing the blocks from 3 sets to 2.
If Kaladesh had 3 sets to work with, it'd have a higher chance of pushing the story outside of Ghirapur before returning there for the climax. Maybe have the Gatewatch travel to Peema and other locations to touch base with guys like Rishkar for the cause, or to Lathnu to thwart Consulate-owned mines to weaken the Consulate's position and bolster their own, or even to Vahd to build Heart of Kiran, since that place is the heart (no pun intended) of the aerowright industry. All of this would be in prep to take the Aether Hub and the Spire and stop Tezzeret's scheme.
Since Dominaria will be the first set to not be forced into the current block structure, they should have more flexibility in how they map the story to the world it's set in, at least in theory.
The planes are generally way bigger than what we see, but as said, those areas aren't often shown because they aren't important to the story.
More or less this, we get nothing but short stories now so the plot has to travel at the speed of light sometimes, so instead of the minor details we got in the books like Kahmahl actually traveling from Cabal City to The Order Citadel..we just skip to "arrive at the citadel."
I'm inclined to think it's a consequence of changing the blocks from 3 sets to 2.
If Kaladesh had 3 sets to work with, it'd have a higher chance of pushing the story outside of Ghirapur before returning there for the climax. Maybe have the Gatewatch travel to Peema and other locations to touch base with guys like Rishkar for the cause, or to Lathnu to thwart Consulate-owned mines to weaken the Consulate's position and bolster their own, or even to Vahd to build Heart of Kiran, since that place is the heart (no pun intended) of the aerowright industry. All of this would be in prep to take the Aether Hub and the Spire and stop Tezzeret's scheme.
Since Dominaria will be the first set to not be forced into the current block structure, they should have more flexibility in how they map the story to the world it's set in, at least in theory.
I doubt it, we aren't going to be getting two sets of stories all the time under the new block structure. Unless Return to Dominaria will likely be a single set block we will get one set of 8-10 stories. That isn't a lot of time for backround building. I am hoping that they are using these weeks where we are getting nothing to get a backlog of stories together so things don't seem quite as rushed and cobbled together.
The planes are generally way bigger than what we see, but as said, those areas aren't often shown because they aren't important to the story.
More or less this, we get nothing but short stories now so the plot has to travel at the speed of light sometimes, so instead of the minor details we got in the books like Kahmahl actually traveling from Cabal City to The Order Citadel..we just skip to "arrive at the citadel."
I'm inclined to think it's a consequence of changing the blocks from 3 sets to 2.
If Kaladesh had 3 sets to work with, it'd have a higher chance of pushing the story outside of Ghirapur before returning there for the climax. Maybe have the Gatewatch travel to Peema and other locations to touch base with guys like Rishkar for the cause, or to Lathnu to thwart Consulate-owned mines to weaken the Consulate's position and bolster their own, or even to Vahd to build Heart of Kiran, since that place is the heart (no pun intended) of the aerowright industry. All of this would be in prep to take the Aether Hub and the Spire and stop Tezzeret's scheme.
Since Dominaria will be the first set to not be forced into the current block structure, they should have more flexibility in how they map the story to the world it's set in, at least in theory.
I doubt it, we aren't going to be getting two sets of stories all the time under the new block structure. Unless Return to Dominaria will likely be a single set block we will get one set of 8-10 stories. That isn't a lot of time for backround building. I am hoping that they are using these weeks where we are getting nothing to get a backlog of stories together so things don't seem quite as rushed and cobbled together.
Depends on if we are getting a stories for the core set as well. Core sets will have some story elements but we don't know if it enough to fill up ~8 stories. Personally I think we will see a few origin stories (or some other such character set up) which would fill up 5 stories or so max, which gives the spring set a bit more story to breath.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Tarkir actually didn't focus on one specific place, because the clans were all equally important to the story. Factions seem to enable vast worldbuilding within the story if those factions are spread out across the plane.
In my opinion, Tarkir and Alara are the two planes that strike the perfect balance of not being too large/diverse/random but not too one-dimensional either. As someone who started playing long after we had sets on Dominaria, all the sets and story and general information about Dominaria was just too much for me, so I tried to ignore it for awhile. There was just too much information about it. The fact that completely different and unconnected continents all existed there for some reason didn't help.
On the other hand, Kaladesh and Amonkhet definitely were way too small and one-dimensional. They had the "planet of hats" feel more so than any other plane in my opinion, and the huge focus on a single city with only the smallest amount of attention to other locations was really unappealing. Some of that might have been because of the Gatewatch focus, but that's a different topic entirely.
Planes like Zendikar, Innistrad, Theros, and other planes definitely have multiple locations, which is a good start, but they each have an overarching theme that made the whole plane feel kind of all the same. Planets of hats, if you will. Not as badly as Kaladesh or Amonkhet, mind you, but still not quite ideal.
Alara and Tarkir are a happy medium between those. They have very distinctive geographic regions and cultures, each of which could probably be made into its own plane with just slightly more development, but they all exist on the same plane. Tarkir's combination of Middle Eastern, Chinese, Southeast Asian, Mongolian, and Russian influences makes Kaladesh's "India + Steampunk" and Amonkhet's "Egypt + Bolas" (as if a single made-up character is enough to constitute half the entire theme for a world) look lazy and oversimplified by comparison. Alara's shards also felt very distinctive and unique. And yet, unlike Dominaria's continents, the shards and clans actually had flavorful and mechanical overlap with each other so that they felt connected.
So there you have it. Dominaria is too much diversity/large size for one world, most worlds are too little, and Kaladesh and Amonkhet are WAY to little, but Alara and Tarkir are a perfect balance in my opinion. Ixalan actually looks like it might be more comparable to Alara and Tarkir in that respect than Kaladesh or Amonkhet, and hopefully it will be.
Tarkir actually didn't focus on one specific place, because the clans were all equally important to the story. Factions seem to enable vast worldbuilding within the story if those factions are spread out across the plane.
In my opinion, Tarkir and Alara are the two planes that strike the perfect balance of not being too large/diverse/random but not too one-dimensional either. As someone who started playing long after we had sets on Dominaria, all the sets and story and general information about Dominaria was just too much for me, so I tried to ignore it for awhile. There was just too much information about it. The fact that completely different and unconnected continents all existed there for some reason didn't help.
On the other hand, Kaladesh and Amonkhet definitely were way too small and one-dimensional. They had the "planet of hats" feel more so than any other plane in my opinion, and the huge focus on a single city with only the smallest amount of attention to other locations was really unappealing. Some of that might have been because of the Gatewatch focus, but that's a different topic entirely.
Planes like Zendikar, Innistrad, Theros, and other planes definitely have multiple locations, which is a good start, but they each have an overarching theme that made the whole plane feel kind of all the same. Planets of hats, if you will. Not as badly as Kaladesh or Amonkhet, mind you, but still not quite ideal.
Alara and Tarkir are a happy medium between those. They have very distinctive geographic regions and cultures, each of which could probably be made into its own plane with just slightly more development, but they all exist on the same plane. Tarkir's combination of Middle Eastern, Chinese, Southeast Asian, Mongolian, and Russian influences makes Kaladesh's "India + Steampunk" and Amonkhet's "Egypt + Bolas" (as if a single made-up character is enough to constitute half the entire theme for a world) look lazy and oversimplified by comparison. Alara's shards also felt very distinctive and unique. And yet, unlike Dominaria's continents, the shards and clans actually had flavorful and mechanical overlap with each other so that they felt connected.
So there you have it. Dominaria is too much diversity/large size for one world, most worlds are too little, and Kaladesh and Amonkhet are WAY to little, but Alara and Tarkir are a perfect balance in my opinion. Ixalan actually looks like it might be more comparable to Alara and Tarkir in that respect than Kaladesh or Amonkhet, and hopefully it will be.
I have to disagree nearly completely with you here (aside from Tarkir being a good balance, although I'll have to say something about that as well and Dominaria being WAY to big): Neither Tarkir nor Alara were really that diverse. Tarkir was seperated in five groups according to clan (as is Alara with its five shards) and while it therefore isn't a planet of hats per se, both worlds actually could be described as consisting of five planets of hats that intermingle in limited manners. The argument isn't very strong anyway. Would you describe our present day earth as "planet of humans (during the information era)"? I mean you could, but you would just reduce all diversity by focussing on one aspect. Amonkhet and Kaladesh were very focussed on one single place on their respective plane (both times justifiably so). That doesn't make them any "less" than other worlds. It's just that we haven't seen everything of the plane, don't know it's history (necessary for the story), don't know how it looked like before Bolas (aside from being obviously still egypt-based, which is fine by me). There is obviously much more behind Amonkhet than we have seen (hopefully because they already think about a return there).
Calling this "lazy" or "oversimplified" is lazy and oversimplified in itself in my opinion. It's a small, backwater world after the apocalypse, there just isn't much to go around. But it had a very distinct culture (even distinct from its source material), interesting gods and background. You can make a small world interesting and complex is what I'm saying. Same goes for Kaladesh, which also only focussed on Ghirapur but obviously is much more complex than that. Tarkir and Alara on the other hand, as much as I like them, felt kind of flat in their single "biomes". Esper for example was never really developed, neither in stories, nor on cards (beyond their need for more etherium); all clans were described in interesting ways, but if I had to explain where exactly they live and what they do there, I would probably have to say something like "Abzan live in the desert, revere their ancestors spirits and family is very important to them". There is more, I know, but those are the details you brush off in regards to Kaladesh and Amonkhet.
I loved Amonkhet, both the story (which was in my opinion the best of the Gatewatch storyline) and the world (which kind of felt like post-apocalyptic Theros to be honest, but in my opinion this thematic connection was a good thing). I dare say that there was not a single world in MtG I found utterly boring, ESPECIALLY since they aren't just the standard high-fantasy fair (which gets really repetitive most of the time). It will always have to have some kind of "theme" because otherwise the worlds will begin to blur into each other (which was the main problem of Dominaria to begin with). And I for one favor a distinct, small plane with a connecting theme that plays out interestingly over a huge but boring and forgettable world where nothing really connects and the story just shifts from random place A to random place B (actually, that was my problem with Zendikar, my least favorite world: It just felt like random places that don't really connect to each other at all and could be placed on any other random plane without sacrificing any detail aside from the hedrons. BFZ didn't help in that regard, neither the adventure nor the Eldrazi theme were strong enough in my opinion to bind this place together. And yes, I know that I'm in the minority on this one. ).
On the other hand, Kaladesh and Amonkhet definitely were way too small and one-dimensional. They had the "planet of hats" feel more so than any other plane in my opinion, and the huge focus on a single city with only the smallest amount of attention to other locations was really unappealing. Some of that might have been because of the Gatewatch focus, but that's a different topic entirely.
In regards to Amonkhet, this doesn't make a lick of sense. Amonkhet was supposed to be tiny. It was the last remaining city against an endless sea of consuming sand. To say it was "too small" especially in a discussion about the quality of worldbuilding is absurd. Doing a large Amonkhet would have been anathema to the world's premise.
Kaladesh and Innistrad however are supposed to be "healthy" worlds. Kaladesh is actually implied to be very advanced and the point of the Inventor's Fair was supposedly to get people from "all over the world". Except "All over the world" was apparently just three suburbs of Ghirapur.
Yes, some people say that the world may be bigger than what we have seen but A) I don't want to be told, I want to be shown. Magic is a visual medium. Know your medium and all that. And B) We've had three revisits so far and none of them have expanded on the world. Especially Innistrad which was rumored to be more than just the four provinces didn't get anything new. Infact, they retroactively had to retcon the level of impact of the cursemute to still have werewolves, rather than just say that werewolves were fleeing from elsewhere due to Emrakul's influence. So three-times was there a possibility to expand on existing worlds, two-times of which during a time when block still occupied an entire year. If it hadn't happened then, it will not work now, with the one-set model. Sorry but "Maybe next time" doesn't work after a while. And this is why I really wish planes would be done better the first time we see them, because every return will be done to return the familiar rather than to introduce something new. (Which technically makes sense. That's the whole point of a return after all.)
actually, that was my problem with Zendikar, my least favorite world: It just felt like random places that don't really connect to each other at all and could be placed on any other random plane without sacrificing any detail aside from the hedrons
This is actually a point. I never understood back when Zendikar was new why some people were all like "Wow, look at generic named ruin #23, there are so many generic named places on Zendikar. This setting is so DEEP" No it's not deep. It just has a bunch of names all over the map. A deep setting is something like Mass Effect (1) where you have an entire chain of events going back in history for centuries and are a direct cause for the current dynamics in the world. THAT is a deep setting. Not just slapping a one-liner of flavour text next to a proper name.
Then again, Zendikar had this DnD-styled "choose your own adventure" vibe, so it was kind of fitting.
On the other hand, Kaladesh and Amonkhet definitely were way too small and one-dimensional. They had the "planet of hats" feel more so than any other plane in my opinion, and the huge focus on a single city with only the smallest amount of attention to other locations was really unappealing. Some of that might have been because of the Gatewatch focus, but that's a different topic entirely.
In regards to Amonkhet, this doesn't make a lick of sense. Amonkhet was supposed to be tiny. It was the last remaining city against an endless sea of consuming sand. To say it was "too small" especially in a discussion about the quality of worldbuilding is absurd. Doing a large Amonkhet would have been anathema to the world's premise.
Kaladesh and Innistrad however are supposed to be "healthy" worlds. Kaladesh is actually implied to be very advanced and the point of the Inventor's Fair was supposedly to get people from "all over the world". Except "All over the world" was apparently just three suburbs of Ghirapur.
Yes, some people say that the world may be bigger than what we have seen but A) I don't want to be told, I want to be shown. Magic is a visual medium. Know your medium and all that. And B) We've had three revisits so far and none of them have expanded on the world. Especially Innistrad which was rumored to be more than just the four provinces didn't get anything new. Infact, they retroactively had to retcon the level of impact of the cursemute to still have werewolves, rather than just say that werewolves were fleeing from elsewhere due to Emrakul's influence. So three-times was there a possibility to expand on existing worlds, two-times of which during a time when block still occupied an entire year. If it hadn't happened then, it will not work now, with the one-set model. Sorry but "Maybe next time" doesn't work after a while. And this is why I really wish planes would be done better the first time we see them, because every return will be done to return the familiar rather than to introduce something new. (Which technically makes sense. That's the whole point of a return after all.)
actually, that was my problem with Zendikar, my least favorite world: It just felt like random places that don't really connect to each other at all and could be placed on any other random plane without sacrificing any detail aside from the hedrons
This is actually a point. I never understood back when Zendikar was new why some people were all like "Wow, look at generic named ruin #23, there are so many generic named places on Zendikar. This setting is so DEEP" No it's not deep. It just has a bunch of names all over the map. A deep setting is something like Mass Effect (1) where you have an entire chain of events going back in history for centuries and are a direct cause for the current dynamics in the world. THAT is a deep setting. Not just slapping a one-liner of flavour text next to a proper name.
Then again, Zendikar had this DnD-styled "choose your own adventure" vibe, so it was kind of fitting.
You might have a point with Kaladesh, although it didn't really bother me. In some worlds the small details and characters (the inventions, the people) are more important than the outside world (and at least on Kaladesh we got a rough sense of the ecosystem at work there with all the animal/aether-related cards). Granted though, it would have been better if we got a bit more than just Ghirapur and hints at two other cities somewhere else.
Innistrad on the other hand... well, I don't know. It was a return set with no exploration subthemes and since the inhabitants of the four provinces don't seem particularly interested in traveling to other continents (and don't seem to get any immigrants, judging from the first Innistrad) to show those continents would have clearly split the focus. Since a return set (in many peoples eyes) should bring back stuff we loved from the first set I'm not sure whether such a split focus would have been advisable. Many people were already angry that Emrakul and her mutations got such attention in the second set. Amonkhet on the other hand... if there is a return set they would have no choice but to expand the world obviously. That's why I hope for a return there.
EDIT: Ah, skipped a bit of your first paragraph. You already stated that. Well, Innistrad already feels pretty "big" for me, even though it plays only on a single continent. Each province has many sights, each connected to the overall flavor. Perhabs that's the reason I didn't mind it in the first Innistrad set.
Problem with Zendikar is that it isn't a D&D campaign map. The flavor therefore doesn't do anything to help connecting these places. Perhabs that's why I wasn't as angry about the Eldrazi being released upon it and destroying so much of it. I wouldn't have minded Zendikar to be utterly annihilated to be honest (I would have thought of it as tragic, but not more so than the destruction of the random plane by Ulamog in Nahiris backstory).
Tarkir actually didn't focus on one specific place, because the clans were all equally important to the story. Factions seem to enable vast worldbuilding within the story if those factions are spread out across the plane.
In my opinion, Tarkir and Alara are the two planes that strike the perfect balance of not being too large/diverse/random but not too one-dimensional either. As someone who started playing long after we had sets on Dominaria, all the sets and story and general information about Dominaria was just too much for me, so I tried to ignore it for awhile. There was just too much information about it. The fact that completely different and unconnected continents all existed there for some reason didn't help. On the other hand, Kaladesh and Amonkhet definitely were way too small and one-dimensional. They had the "planet of hats" feel more so than any other plane in my opinion, and the huge focus on a single city with only the smallest amount of attention to other locations was really unappealing. Some of that might have been because of the Gatewatch focus, but that's a different topic entirely. Planes like Zendikar, Innistrad, Theros, and other planes definitely have multiple locations, which is a good start, but they each have an overarching theme that made the whole plane feel kind of all the same. Planets of hats, if you will. Not as badly as Kaladesh or Amonkhet, mind you, but still not quite ideal. Alara and Tarkir are a happy medium between those. They have very distinctive geographic regions and cultures, each of which could probably be made into its own plane with just slightly more development, but they all exist on the same plane. Tarkir's combination of Middle Eastern, Chinese, Southeast Asian, Mongolian, and Russian influences makes Kaladesh's "India + Steampunk" and Amonkhet's "Egypt + Bolas" (as if a single made-up character is enough to constitute half the entire theme for a world) look lazy and oversimplified by comparison. Alara's shards also felt very distinctive and unique. And yet, unlike Dominaria's continents, the shards and clans actually had flavorful and mechanical overlap with each other so that they felt connected. So there you have it. Dominaria is too much diversity/large size for one world, most worlds are too little, and Kaladesh and Amonkhet are WAY to little, but Alara and Tarkir are a perfect balance in my opinion. Ixalan actually looks like it might be more comparable to Alara and Tarkir in that respect than Kaladesh or Amonkhet, and hopefully it will be.
I have to disagree nearly completely with you here (aside from Tarkir being a good balance, although I'll have to say something about that as well and Dominaria being WAY to big): Neither Tarkir nor Alara were really that diverse. Tarkir was seperated in five groups according to clan (as is Alara with its five shards) and while it therefore isn't a planet of hats per se, both worlds actually could be described as consisting of five planets of hats that intermingle in limited manners.
By definition, a planet of hats is a world where everyone and everything is defined by a single theme. If you combine five planets of hats together, it's no longer a planet of hats. You have actual variety and diversity.
The argument isn't very strong anyway. Would you describe our present day earth as "planet of humans (during the information era)"? I mean you could, but you would just reduce all diversity by focussing on one aspect.
What? How? Earth isn't a planet of hats. The term exists to describe worlds that are too narrow and one-dimensional to feel realistic. Our world, being, you know, reality, doesn't have any issue feeling realistic or being diverse by our standards.
Obviously Alara and Tarkir are much narrower in theme than the real world, but most other worlds (save Dominaria) are quite a bit narrower than Alara and Tarkir.
Amonkhet and Kaladesh were very focussed on one single place on their respective plane (both times justifiably so). That doesn't make them any "less" than other worlds. It's just that we haven't seen everything of the plane, don't know it's history (necessary for the story), don't know how it looked like before Bolas (aside from being obviously still egypt-based, which is fine by me). There is obviously much more behind Amonkhet than we have seen (hopefully because they already think about a return there).
Ok, let me elaborate on my problem with Amonkhet: the worldbuilding felt like the absolute bare minimum. They made one city. ONE. There's no reason why Bolas couldn't have taken control of a much larger civilization than that if they wanted him too. Virtually all of the worldbuilding for said city was just to set up their endgame for the block. With other worlds, we get lots of minor details that aren't relevant to the main plot, if for no other reason than to make the world feel complex and believable. With Amonkhet, they made no such effort. The worldbuilding was there to enable the main plot and nothing more.
The few interesting things the world had they were extremely vague about and made no effort to elaborate on. "Even before Bolas, there was an apocalypse that destroyed everything but Naktamun." What type of apocalypse? How long ago? What did the workd look like before it? "The insect gods were normal gods before." Gods of what? What species were they? What colors? "There might be (and by that they mean definitely is) somewhere else in the world where people can survive." What type of place? Are there intelligent races already there? How did it survive the apocalypse? Maybe they plan to answer these questions in the future, but I don't like the "we'll figure it out in a few years" attitude they've had with things (the Eldrazi being released, the effects of the two titans dying, Bolas's plans, etc.) and it would have been nice to get some more details on the relatively light lore we have on Amonkhet. I really, really dislike this minimalistic, main plot-centric worldbuilding they have been doing. Kaladesh had issues but wasn't too bad while Amonkhet was very lackluster and underdeveloped.
Calling this "lazy" or "oversimplified" is lazy and oversimplified in itself in my opinion.
See above for why calling Amonkhet's (and to a significantly lesser extent, Kaladesh's) worldbuilding lazy is actually pretty spot-on.
It's a small, backwater world after the apocalypse, there just isn't much to go around. But it had a very distinct culture (even distinct from its source material), interesting gods and background.
But there's no reason that it had to be that way. Like I said, Bolas could have conquered a much larger civilization if they had wanted him to. The size of the civilization on the plane was completely arbitrary.
You can make a small world interesting and complex is what I'm saying. Same goes for Kaladesh, which also only focussed on Ghirapur but obviously is much more complex than that.
Kaladesh, I admit, was a lot better than Amonkhet at showing other locations but that's a low bar. BFZ, for all its faults, showed us what was happening all over the plane even though the main story was on Tazeem. Similarly, in SOI, the main plot involved mainly Thraben with a little bit of Stensia and Nephalia early on, yet they did good job showing what was happening on other parts of the plane during both SOI and EMN. Kaladesh, on the other hand, was more like "they're rebelling in other places too, I guess, idk, who cares" while with Amonkhet they didn't even bother to come up with other places.
Tarkir and Alara on the other hand, as much as I like them, felt kind of flat in their single "biomes".
Wait, what? Tarkir and Alara each had five distinct biomes, and that distinction was extremely important to both the plot and the overall flavor of the worlds. Kaladesh and Amonkhet, on the other hand, are very much single-biome worlds.
Esper for example was never really developed, neither in stories, nor on cards (beyond their need for more etherium); all clans were described in interesting ways, but if I had to explain where exactly they live and what they do there, I would probably have to say something like "Abzan live in the desert, revere their ancestors spirits and family is very important to them". There is more, I know, but those are the details you brush off in regards to Kaladesh and Amonkhet.
I honestly believe that if you were to list all the "details" of Kaladesh and Amonkher, it would be much, much shorter than the list of the details for Alara and Tarkir. That's not to say that there weren't any details for Kaladesh or Amonkhet, but Kaladesh and especially Amonkhet were nowhere close to being developed in the way that Tarkir and Alara were.
I loved Amonkhet, both the story (which was in my opinion the best of the Gatewatch storyline) and the world (which kind of felt like post-apocalyptic Theros to be honest, but in my opinion this thematic connection was a good thing). I dare say that there was not a single world in MtG I found utterly boring, ESPECIALLY since they aren't just the standard high-fantasy fair (which gets really repetitive most of the time).
I agree. None of the worlds are truly boring. And none of them are generic fantasy (except maybe Shandalar, which I hope we never visit in a standard-legal sets). None of the worlds are truly bad, but some are definitely better than others. I don't feel like Kaladesh and Amonkhet really lived up to the standards set by previous worlds.
It will always have to have some kind of "theme" because otherwise the worlds will begin to blur into each other (which was the main problem of Dominaria to begin with).
Having a theme is fine, but having one or two super forced and obvious themes that dominate everything is not ideal. That's how you get the planet of hats feel that people complain about. Having a several related themes that overlap and work both as individual parts and as part of the whole is much better. Tarkur and Alara embody this concept perfectly
And I for one favor a distinct, small plane with a connecting theme that plays out interestingly over a huge but boring and forgettable world where nothing really connects and the story just shifts from random place A to random place B
Keep in mind that I'm not defending worlds like that. I'm not advocating another Dominaria. As I said, a world like Dominaria that's way too large and has so many unrelated themes that it really has no theme is not at all ideal. But neither is a tiny world with an extremely narrow focus. If your world can be accurately summed up in two words ("Steampunk India", "Bolas Egypt"), then its focus is too narrow. But if it takes a college thesis to explaim the world to someone (Dominaria), then it's too broad. Dominaria and Kaladesh/Amonkhet are at the two extreme ends of the scale. Tarkir and Alara are in a very nice area between them that I would argue should be the default for any new world.
On the other hand, Kaladesh and Amonkhet definitely were way too small and one-dimensional. They had the "planet of hats" feel more so than any other plane in my opinion, and the huge focus on a single city with only the smallest amount of attention to other locations was really unappealing. Some of that might have been because of the Gatewatch focus, but that's a different topic entirely.
In regards to Amonkhet, this doesn't make a lick of sense. Amonkhet was supposed to be tiny. It was the last remaining city against an endless sea of consuming sand. To say it was "too small" especially in a discussion about the quality of worldbuilding is absurd. Doing a large Amonkhet would have been anathema to the world's premise.
So just because it's part of the world's premise it's a good idea? The premise of Kamigawa was "Japanese mythology world", and we all know how that turned out. Now, that's not to say that Amonkhet was as conceptually flawed as Kamigawa, but trying to make a world that's one single city with just sand around it is destined to feel extremely underwhelming compared to all the extremely elaborate, well-developed, and diverse worlds that came before it. Amonkhet's worldbuilding was nowhere near the level of many of the worlds that preceded it. Creative doesn't have to completely outdo the previous world with each new world but I would appreciate it if they at least tried to get new worlds in the ballpark of their preexisting ones.
This thread is for discussion Dominaria. Some drift is fine, but we've veered to the point where we're talking about everything but Dominaria. Please bring it back on track. World of hats discussions can become it's own thread.
Hope this isn't still considered off-topic, but I'm happy to have a variety of different "sizes" of worlds with different scopes. I don't mind Amonkhet being small, or Dominaria being huge, or Tarkir being medium-sized, or whatever, if those differences highlight important things about the plane and lead to interesting set design. "Size" should be an important quality of every plane, and it ought to vary as much as the planes themselves do.
Which brings me back to what I've been saying about Dominaria: its most wonderful distinguishing quality is that it *is* larger, more varied, and more deeply-developed than any other plane. That's what makes it stand out. Of all the planes, Dominaria is the most "kitchen sink" fantasy setting, not limited by any one particular focus. That's something I love about it. And that's why I hope that diversity and scope are a major theme of the Return set.
I was grumpy about this the other day.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
It made the world feel like a place they couldn't fully explore even though they tried to.
In comparison, sets like Kaladesh or even Amonkhet feel like every "superfluous" thing has been cut out and you basically know everything about the plane after having looked through all the cards once. The concept "less is more" is detrimental here.
I can answer some of these, most planes (Kamigawa and Maybe Theroes exampted) all magic works through using memories, that is how Mana and Tapping fundamentally works, it is just that most people may not know how it really works..and going through the steps that casters do every spell cast gets repetitive. It would be nice if they explained it in like..the Intro packs and stuff though.
As for summoning, back when..erhem. "We were gods once." as Bolas* puts it, Creation would be the answer for it. Now who knows..Kiora seemed to teleport things in BFZ the one time when she summoned Lorthos.
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They could probably due a better job of showing how vast their worlds are even when focusing on a single place. For Kaladesh, none of the basic lands show the main city but nearly every card shows something within the city so the world feels small. The flavor text has the same problem essentially nowhere outside the city is mentioned, it does a great job of showing the expansive and diverse city but shrinks the world to that scale.
Yeah planeswalker guides and the art books all show tons of world-build for all the planes that we don't see in the cards, like the poison green house of Kaladesh, the organic wolves on Mirrodin and owl aven on Ravnica.
I'd also like to add compare how many sets, and thus time send working on the world building on, Dominaria has gotten to what the more planes recents have gotten.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
The last sentence. That is the key. The recent sets have been so tunnel visioned on the dumba** Gatewatch that we don't get an opportunity to experience the rest of the plane that the gatewatch hasn't experienced. It annoys me to no end and i think it's part of why the Gatewatch needs to go. The obsession with telling this story through the cards is destructive to the nature of the game - it makes the cards feel repetitive and bland. What's worse is that the story isn't even strong enough to warrant this kind of devotion.
If WOTC wants to tell the silly story - do so with your half-hearted Wednesday story pieces and let the cards do the world building. Give me those windows into the plane, its denizens, and it's culture via the cards like they used to. Give me back the flavor text that was actually interesting and about the world - not about the planeswalkers. I'm sick of being bombarded with them and being choked out of rich world building content because of them
This entire post is an incoherent, self-contradictory mess.
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Fiora is focused primarily on Paliano, but Trest and other city-states do exist, and wild areas also exist based on cards featuring Selvala.
Kaladesh had locations like Lathnu and Peema, which were featured on a few of the cards, but they were never the focus in the story. Chandra's origin story also took place in locations outside Ghirapur.
Even Amonkhet had more to see than just the wastelands and Naktamun, since Unesh and his crew and the Crested Sunmare all came from somewhere outside Naktamun.
The planes are generally way bigger than what we see, but as said, those areas aren't often shown because they aren't important to the story.
More or less this, we get nothing but short stories now so the plot has to travel at the speed of light sometimes, so instead of the minor details we got in the books like Kahmahl actually traveling from Cabal City to The Order Citadel..we just skip to "arrive at the citadel."
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I'm inclined to think it's a consequence of changing the blocks from 3 sets to 2.
If Kaladesh had 3 sets to work with, it'd have a higher chance of pushing the story outside of Ghirapur before returning there for the climax. Maybe have the Gatewatch travel to Peema and other locations to touch base with guys like Rishkar for the cause, or to Lathnu to thwart Consulate-owned mines to weaken the Consulate's position and bolster their own, or even to Vahd to build Heart of Kiran, since that place is the heart (no pun intended) of the aerowright industry. All of this would be in prep to take the Aether Hub and the Spire and stop Tezzeret's scheme.
Since Dominaria will be the first set to not be forced into the current block structure, they should have more flexibility in how they map the story to the world it's set in, at least in theory.
I doubt it, we aren't going to be getting two sets of stories all the time under the new block structure. Unless Return to Dominaria will likely be a single set block we will get one set of 8-10 stories. That isn't a lot of time for backround building. I am hoping that they are using these weeks where we are getting nothing to get a backlog of stories together so things don't seem quite as rushed and cobbled together.
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Depends on if we are getting a stories for the core set as well. Core sets will have some story elements but we don't know if it enough to fill up ~8 stories. Personally I think we will see a few origin stories (or some other such character set up) which would fill up 5 stories or so max, which gives the spring set a bit more story to breath.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
In my opinion, Tarkir and Alara are the two planes that strike the perfect balance of not being too large/diverse/random but not too one-dimensional either. As someone who started playing long after we had sets on Dominaria, all the sets and story and general information about Dominaria was just too much for me, so I tried to ignore it for awhile. There was just too much information about it. The fact that completely different and unconnected continents all existed there for some reason didn't help.
On the other hand, Kaladesh and Amonkhet definitely were way too small and one-dimensional. They had the "planet of hats" feel more so than any other plane in my opinion, and the huge focus on a single city with only the smallest amount of attention to other locations was really unappealing. Some of that might have been because of the Gatewatch focus, but that's a different topic entirely.
Planes like Zendikar, Innistrad, Theros, and other planes definitely have multiple locations, which is a good start, but they each have an overarching theme that made the whole plane feel kind of all the same. Planets of hats, if you will. Not as badly as Kaladesh or Amonkhet, mind you, but still not quite ideal.
Alara and Tarkir are a happy medium between those. They have very distinctive geographic regions and cultures, each of which could probably be made into its own plane with just slightly more development, but they all exist on the same plane. Tarkir's combination of Middle Eastern, Chinese, Southeast Asian, Mongolian, and Russian influences makes Kaladesh's "India + Steampunk" and Amonkhet's "Egypt + Bolas" (as if a single made-up character is enough to constitute half the entire theme for a world) look lazy and oversimplified by comparison. Alara's shards also felt very distinctive and unique. And yet, unlike Dominaria's continents, the shards and clans actually had flavorful and mechanical overlap with each other so that they felt connected.
So there you have it. Dominaria is too much diversity/large size for one world, most worlds are too little, and Kaladesh and Amonkhet are WAY to little, but Alara and Tarkir are a perfect balance in my opinion. Ixalan actually looks like it might be more comparable to Alara and Tarkir in that respect than Kaladesh or Amonkhet, and hopefully it will be.
I have to disagree nearly completely with you here (aside from Tarkir being a good balance, although I'll have to say something about that as well and Dominaria being WAY to big): Neither Tarkir nor Alara were really that diverse. Tarkir was seperated in five groups according to clan (as is Alara with its five shards) and while it therefore isn't a planet of hats per se, both worlds actually could be described as consisting of five planets of hats that intermingle in limited manners. The argument isn't very strong anyway. Would you describe our present day earth as "planet of humans (during the information era)"? I mean you could, but you would just reduce all diversity by focussing on one aspect. Amonkhet and Kaladesh were very focussed on one single place on their respective plane (both times justifiably so). That doesn't make them any "less" than other worlds. It's just that we haven't seen everything of the plane, don't know it's history (necessary for the story), don't know how it looked like before Bolas (aside from being obviously still egypt-based, which is fine by me). There is obviously much more behind Amonkhet than we have seen (hopefully because they already think about a return there).
Calling this "lazy" or "oversimplified" is lazy and oversimplified in itself in my opinion. It's a small, backwater world after the apocalypse, there just isn't much to go around. But it had a very distinct culture (even distinct from its source material), interesting gods and background. You can make a small world interesting and complex is what I'm saying. Same goes for Kaladesh, which also only focussed on Ghirapur but obviously is much more complex than that. Tarkir and Alara on the other hand, as much as I like them, felt kind of flat in their single "biomes". Esper for example was never really developed, neither in stories, nor on cards (beyond their need for more etherium); all clans were described in interesting ways, but if I had to explain where exactly they live and what they do there, I would probably have to say something like "Abzan live in the desert, revere their ancestors spirits and family is very important to them". There is more, I know, but those are the details you brush off in regards to Kaladesh and Amonkhet.
I loved Amonkhet, both the story (which was in my opinion the best of the Gatewatch storyline) and the world (which kind of felt like post-apocalyptic Theros to be honest, but in my opinion this thematic connection was a good thing). I dare say that there was not a single world in MtG I found utterly boring, ESPECIALLY since they aren't just the standard high-fantasy fair (which gets really repetitive most of the time). It will always have to have some kind of "theme" because otherwise the worlds will begin to blur into each other (which was the main problem of Dominaria to begin with). And I for one favor a distinct, small plane with a connecting theme that plays out interestingly over a huge but boring and forgettable world where nothing really connects and the story just shifts from random place A to random place B (actually, that was my problem with Zendikar, my least favorite world: It just felt like random places that don't really connect to each other at all and could be placed on any other random plane without sacrificing any detail aside from the hedrons. BFZ didn't help in that regard, neither the adventure nor the Eldrazi theme were strong enough in my opinion to bind this place together. And yes, I know that I'm in the minority on this one. ).
In regards to Amonkhet, this doesn't make a lick of sense. Amonkhet was supposed to be tiny. It was the last remaining city against an endless sea of consuming sand. To say it was "too small" especially in a discussion about the quality of worldbuilding is absurd. Doing a large Amonkhet would have been anathema to the world's premise.
Kaladesh and Innistrad however are supposed to be "healthy" worlds. Kaladesh is actually implied to be very advanced and the point of the Inventor's Fair was supposedly to get people from "all over the world". Except "All over the world" was apparently just three suburbs of Ghirapur.
Yes, some people say that the world may be bigger than what we have seen but A) I don't want to be told, I want to be shown. Magic is a visual medium. Know your medium and all that. And B) We've had three revisits so far and none of them have expanded on the world. Especially Innistrad which was rumored to be more than just the four provinces didn't get anything new. Infact, they retroactively had to retcon the level of impact of the cursemute to still have werewolves, rather than just say that werewolves were fleeing from elsewhere due to Emrakul's influence. So three-times was there a possibility to expand on existing worlds, two-times of which during a time when block still occupied an entire year. If it hadn't happened then, it will not work now, with the one-set model. Sorry but "Maybe next time" doesn't work after a while. And this is why I really wish planes would be done better the first time we see them, because every return will be done to return the familiar rather than to introduce something new. (Which technically makes sense. That's the whole point of a return after all.)
This is actually a point. I never understood back when Zendikar was new why some people were all like "Wow, look at generic named ruin #23, there are so many generic named places on Zendikar. This setting is so DEEP" No it's not deep. It just has a bunch of names all over the map. A deep setting is something like Mass Effect (1) where you have an entire chain of events going back in history for centuries and are a direct cause for the current dynamics in the world. THAT is a deep setting. Not just slapping a one-liner of flavour text next to a proper name.
Then again, Zendikar had this DnD-styled "choose your own adventure" vibe, so it was kind of fitting.
You might have a point with Kaladesh, although it didn't really bother me. In some worlds the small details and characters (the inventions, the people) are more important than the outside world (and at least on Kaladesh we got a rough sense of the ecosystem at work there with all the animal/aether-related cards). Granted though, it would have been better if we got a bit more than just Ghirapur and hints at two other cities somewhere else.
Innistrad on the other hand... well, I don't know. It was a return set with no exploration subthemes and since the inhabitants of the four provinces don't seem particularly interested in traveling to other continents (and don't seem to get any immigrants, judging from the first Innistrad) to show those continents would have clearly split the focus. Since a return set (in many peoples eyes) should bring back stuff we loved from the first set I'm not sure whether such a split focus would have been advisable. Many people were already angry that Emrakul and her mutations got such attention in the second set. Amonkhet on the other hand... if there is a return set they would have no choice but to expand the world obviously. That's why I hope for a return there.
EDIT: Ah, skipped a bit of your first paragraph. You already stated that. Well, Innistrad already feels pretty "big" for me, even though it plays only on a single continent. Each province has many sights, each connected to the overall flavor. Perhabs that's the reason I didn't mind it in the first Innistrad set.
Problem with Zendikar is that it isn't a D&D campaign map. The flavor therefore doesn't do anything to help connecting these places. Perhabs that's why I wasn't as angry about the Eldrazi being released upon it and destroying so much of it. I wouldn't have minded Zendikar to be utterly annihilated to be honest (I would have thought of it as tragic, but not more so than the destruction of the random plane by Ulamog in Nahiris backstory).
By definition, a planet of hats is a world where everyone and everything is defined by a single theme. If you combine five planets of hats together, it's no longer a planet of hats. You have actual variety and diversity.
What? How? Earth isn't a planet of hats. The term exists to describe worlds that are too narrow and one-dimensional to feel realistic. Our world, being, you know, reality, doesn't have any issue feeling realistic or being diverse by our standards.
Obviously Alara and Tarkir are much narrower in theme than the real world, but most other worlds (save Dominaria) are quite a bit narrower than Alara and Tarkir.
Ok, let me elaborate on my problem with Amonkhet: the worldbuilding felt like the absolute bare minimum. They made one city. ONE. There's no reason why Bolas couldn't have taken control of a much larger civilization than that if they wanted him too. Virtually all of the worldbuilding for said city was just to set up their endgame for the block. With other worlds, we get lots of minor details that aren't relevant to the main plot, if for no other reason than to make the world feel complex and believable. With Amonkhet, they made no such effort. The worldbuilding was there to enable the main plot and nothing more.
The few interesting things the world had they were extremely vague about and made no effort to elaborate on. "Even before Bolas, there was an apocalypse that destroyed everything but Naktamun." What type of apocalypse? How long ago? What did the workd look like before it? "The insect gods were normal gods before." Gods of what? What species were they? What colors? "There might be (and by that they mean definitely is) somewhere else in the world where people can survive." What type of place? Are there intelligent races already there? How did it survive the apocalypse? Maybe they plan to answer these questions in the future, but I don't like the "we'll figure it out in a few years" attitude they've had with things (the Eldrazi being released, the effects of the two titans dying, Bolas's plans, etc.) and it would have been nice to get some more details on the relatively light lore we have on Amonkhet. I really, really dislike this minimalistic, main plot-centric worldbuilding they have been doing. Kaladesh had issues but wasn't too bad while Amonkhet was very lackluster and underdeveloped.
See above for why calling Amonkhet's (and to a significantly lesser extent, Kaladesh's) worldbuilding lazy is actually pretty spot-on.
But there's no reason that it had to be that way. Like I said, Bolas could have conquered a much larger civilization if they had wanted him to. The size of the civilization on the plane was completely arbitrary.
Kaladesh, I admit, was a lot better than Amonkhet at showing other locations but that's a low bar. BFZ, for all its faults, showed us what was happening all over the plane even though the main story was on Tazeem. Similarly, in SOI, the main plot involved mainly Thraben with a little bit of Stensia and Nephalia early on, yet they did good job showing what was happening on other parts of the plane during both SOI and EMN. Kaladesh, on the other hand, was more like "they're rebelling in other places too, I guess, idk, who cares" while with Amonkhet they didn't even bother to come up with other places.
Wait, what? Tarkir and Alara each had five distinct biomes, and that distinction was extremely important to both the plot and the overall flavor of the worlds. Kaladesh and Amonkhet, on the other hand, are very much single-biome worlds.
I honestly believe that if you were to list all the "details" of Kaladesh and Amonkher, it would be much, much shorter than the list of the details for Alara and Tarkir. That's not to say that there weren't any details for Kaladesh or Amonkhet, but Kaladesh and especially Amonkhet were nowhere close to being developed in the way that Tarkir and Alara were.
I agree. None of the worlds are truly boring. And none of them are generic fantasy (except maybe Shandalar, which I hope we never visit in a standard-legal sets). None of the worlds are truly bad, but some are definitely better than others. I don't feel like Kaladesh and Amonkhet really lived up to the standards set by previous worlds.
Having a theme is fine, but having one or two super forced and obvious themes that dominate everything is not ideal. That's how you get the planet of hats feel that people complain about. Having a several related themes that overlap and work both as individual parts and as part of the whole is much better. Tarkur and Alara embody this concept perfectly
Keep in mind that I'm not defending worlds like that. I'm not advocating another Dominaria. As I said, a world like Dominaria that's way too large and has so many unrelated themes that it really has no theme is not at all ideal. But neither is a tiny world with an extremely narrow focus. If your world can be accurately summed up in two words ("Steampunk India", "Bolas Egypt"), then its focus is too narrow. But if it takes a college thesis to explaim the world to someone (Dominaria), then it's too broad. Dominaria and Kaladesh/Amonkhet are at the two extreme ends of the scale. Tarkir and Alara are in a very nice area between them that I would argue should be the default for any new world.
So just because it's part of the world's premise it's a good idea? The premise of Kamigawa was "Japanese mythology world", and we all know how that turned out. Now, that's not to say that Amonkhet was as conceptually flawed as Kamigawa, but trying to make a world that's one single city with just sand around it is destined to feel extremely underwhelming compared to all the extremely elaborate, well-developed, and diverse worlds that came before it. Amonkhet's worldbuilding was nowhere near the level of many of the worlds that preceded it. Creative doesn't have to completely outdo the previous world with each new world but I would appreciate it if they at least tried to get new worlds in the ballpark of their preexisting ones.
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[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
Which brings me back to what I've been saying about Dominaria: its most wonderful distinguishing quality is that it *is* larger, more varied, and more deeply-developed than any other plane. That's what makes it stand out. Of all the planes, Dominaria is the most "kitchen sink" fantasy setting, not limited by any one particular focus. That's something I love about it. And that's why I hope that diversity and scope are a major theme of the Return set.
BTW this a picture from the PAX