Well, I don't think Time Spiral took place all *that* long ago by Magic standards. t's only been, what, eighty or so years? It's entirely possible for Radha to still be alive if Wizards wants her to be. Jhoira and Teferi certainly are, through their stockpile of slow-time water. Jodah most likely is, considering he's the Archmage Eternal (and it's about time he got a card). Squee too, since he's completely immortal.
Depending on whether the time/plane/future-shifted legends are meant to be taken literally, any or all of them might still be kicking. I personally think it'd be both hilarious and funny to have old characters who died thousands of years ago suddenly be given a second chance at life. I don't recall any of them being involved in the story, but I think there's a lot of potential there. What would happen when the two versions of Akroma meet? How would Crovax, Ascendant Hero react when he learns his alternate self was responsible for Dominaria's destruction evincar of Rath? If Mishra, Artificer Prodigy finds out what happened to him before, would he abandon his research or think he can avoid the fate that already befell him? Plus, it's implied Chandra has heard legends of Jaya's exploits - imagine how awesome it would be to see them team up!
Xantcha, Phyrexian Reject
Jodah, Archmage Eternal
Tovolar, Howlpack Alpha
Pivlic, Orzhov Informant
Crixizix, Master Engineer
Feather, Boros Peacekeeper
Marisi Coilbreaker
O-Kagachi
Gix, Phyrexian Praetor
Karn, Father of Machines
Yawgmoth, Father of Machines
Serra, Mother of All Angels
Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools
Leshrac the Nightwalker
Jeska, the Thrice-Touched
Elspeth Returned
Crucius the Mad
Taysir the Infinite
Urza's Head (Unglued!)
Yes, and they finally worked that detail into the story of Amonkhet with Nissa realizing that about "three generations" have lived and died since Bolas took over the plane. A generation on Amonkhet is roughly twenty years, and Bolas was still at the peak of his power, so that's roughly 60 years since the Mending. Give or take.
Jhoira and Jodah are almost certainly still alive, although Jhoira was last seen in possession of a working Phyrexian planehopping device. So for all we know she is enjoying a vacation on Ixalan or something. 60 years is long enough that without magical intervention, Teferi is going to look like an old man, but he could still be alive. Really, with just a 60 year time gap everyone we saw in Time Spiral could still be alive, and if they are going to re-introduce Jaya Ballard this would be as good a time as any. And of course there is still the mystery of how Venser looked like he was in his twenties if almost 60 years had passed, so who knows? Maybe there is still some slow-time water left on Tolaria West.
My fingers are crossed for Karn showing up, though. I'm tired of this Nicol Bolas garbage, give me a real villain! Give me New Phyrexia!
I didn't notice some of the earlier posts. It HAS been about 60 years. Teferi, Jhoira, Jodah, Radha, and Squee are all potentially still around. I'm looking back at a lot of books to see who else.
I'm pretty sure Reya Dawnbringer is still alive, who led the serra angels during the phyrexian invasion (according to PW guide info at the time or some such). So maybe she's around still, despite not ever appearing in the story as far as I know.
And that land does read more white than blue, blue would have much more activity and be less tranquil.
That looks similar to Serra's Realm, but also to Tolaria. Both have that spire-like architecture. The color pallet is a bit dark to confirm either. Still, you can clearly see the ground below the floating islands as well as what looks like a river estuary opening up into an ocean. Clearly these buildings are floating above a coastline somewhere, suggesting a place associated with both White and Blue.
Edit: also, are those floating portals in the background?
That looks similar to Serra's Realm, but also to Tolaria. Both have that spire-like architecture. The color pallet is a bit dark to confirm either. Still, you can clearly see the ground below the floating islands as well as what looks like a river estuary opening up into an ocean. Clearly these buildings are floating above a coastline somewhere, suggesting a place associated with both White and Blue.
Edit: also, are those floating portals in the background?
They do look a lot like portals, but then the question would be "portals for what?" They can't be for land based beings/vehicles, so if they are portals that'd mean they were only useful for fliers/airships.
There would also be the question of "portals to where?" Since I highly doubt they'd be planar portals, they'd have to be intra-planar. Which, I mean, if your population lives on floating islands in the sky, linking them with portals would make sense, but having those portals floating independently from those islands wouldn't. If you're able to fly TO the portals, you wouldn't NEED the portals.
I'm inclined to think that they're just artistic flare (look cool) and don't really serve any actual function.
As a note, we might expect to see Teferi, Jhoira, Jodah, Squee, or Radha still kicking around.
I personally would be unironically into a still-living Squee, having gone crazy, being the Big Bad with delusions of being Evincar of Dominaria.
Yes yes yes.. the idea that Squee is the next big bad (and if only becuase he still thinks he is fighting the war agains phydextria so is ramping up all war efforts/taking control of things urza style to "kick all their butts" I would love this SO very much.
That art is so gorgeous. I'm a major fan of Serra and her Realm of course. I wonder if it'll be a Legendary Land or the Plains art? Either way, feeling a lot more hyped for this set.
Definitely a Serran vibe here, and the New Order of Serra is a good guess. After all, Serran populace used to live in Benalia. But given the time that has passed, and that Serra's Realm collapsed so long ago, it is interesting to find out that there is someone who remembered how it looked like, and in addition, undertook the effort actually to recreate it. On the other hands, angels are effectivaly immortal, so why not...
And I would be mildly disappointed if there is a "hey, there were Serrans in Benalia, so they just built a piece of old home" "explanation", for reasons stated above.
This, however, begs a question: Are we therefore doing a Dominarian nostalgia set again? And would it work this time, with lessons learned from Time Spiral? Shall we expect the most known visual motifs (for example the typical Llanowar attire, etc.) to return as well?
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Squee. Ugh. Please do not include Magic's Jar Jar. I beg of you.
Jodah and Jhoira? I guess it'd be fun to see them. I feel like we gotta get Jodah as a commander set card, though.
What I would really like to see is a lot of Time Spiralesque callbacks. I'd like to see all the old stomping grounds.
I know Jamuraa got the bad end of a lot of things, but I would really like to see Teferi undo what he did and possibly irrevocably screwed up in Invasion block. I'd like to see Zhalfir again.
We had two full blocks of story for Otaria, too, and I still didn't feel we know enough about it. More on Otaria, I'd like to see where it is, now.
I know Jamuraa got the bad end of a lot of things, but I would really like to see Teferi undo what he did and possibly irrevocably screwed up in Invasion block. I'd like to see Zhalfir again.
Unless they retcon it, Zhalfir is lost forever.
The Zhalfirin rift suffered a different fate. Jeska, manipulated by Leshrac, used Radha as a mana lens, forcefully closing the Zhalfirin rift without consequence of her actions. Without precise timing, the phased lands of Zhalfir were lost seemingly forever, cast into oblivion, although Teferi said that he could probably save it if he was still a planeswalker. The legacy of the Zhalfirin culture partially lives on in the nations of Femeref and Suq'Ata.
As there is no possibility for Teferi to become an oldwalker again...
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I know Jamuraa got the bad end of a lot of things, but I would really like to see Teferi undo what he did and possibly irrevocably screwed up in Invasion block. I'd like to see Zhalfir again.
Unless they retcon it, Zhalfir is lost forever.
I know, that's why I said 'possibly irrevocably.' And I hasten to point out that the current story team plays fast and loose with rules anyway...new planeswalkers are supposed to be weaker and mortal, as opposed to the old planeswalkers, yet they all appear to be able to cast the spell 'Infinite Plot Armor' and use it to punch out Cthulhu-level beings on the reg.
I know Jamuraa got the bad end of a lot of things, but I would really like to see Teferi undo what he did and possibly irrevocably screwed up in Invasion block. I'd like to see Zhalfir again.
Unless they retcon it, Zhalfir is lost forever.
I know, that's why I said 'possibly irrevocably.' And I hasten to point out that the current story team plays fast and loose with rules anyway...new planeswalkers are supposed to be weaker and mortal, as opposed to the old planeswalkers, yet they all appear to be able to cast the spell 'Infinite Plot Armor' and use it to punch out Cthulhu-level beings on the reg.
That was just the Gatewatch, and they significantly toned them down in Hour of Devastation. Even then, they didn't punch out any of the Eldrazi titans just like that. Nissa and Chandra cast Channel + Fireball using the mana of an entire plane while keeping Ulamog and Kozilek fully pulled into Zendikar's 3D reality using information given to them by Ugin (a former oldwalker), and while there was a massive hedron network created by oldwalkers that already primed the titans for this strategy. Emrakul had them down for the count on Innistrad, but essentially locked herself up in Innistrad's moon for reasons we have yet to fully know or understand. That might still be considered to be plot armour, but they at least had help.
That was just the Gatewatch, and they significantly toned them down in Hour of Devastation. Even then, they didn't punch out any of the Eldrazi titans just like that. Nissa and Chandra cast Channel + Fireball using the mana of an entire plane while keeping Ulamog and Kozilek fully pulled into Zendikar's 3D reality using information given to them by Ugin (a former oldwalker), and while there was a massive hedron network created by oldwalkers that already primed the titans for this strategy. Emrakul had them down for the count on Innistrad, but essentially locked herself up in Innistrad's moon for reasons we have yet to fully know or understand. That might still be considered to be plot armour, but they at least had help.
If the point was to make the Eldrazi seem like timeless infinite unstoppable monsters, then I conceded such a plan should have worked, because I imagine the front and center story goal was probably 'good guys and Liliana win,' but the price should have been everyone but Jace dead, and Jace a babbling lunatic carving Eldrazi heiroglyphs into every flat surface he can find, and even that's pushing it. If you want to have the Gatewatch fight Godzilla and win, great, but don't tell me they can Forest Gump their way into defeating two Great Old Ones that eat gods for breakfast.
But we're getting off track. This is a thread about the Dominaria return.
Definitely a Serran vibe here, and the New Order of Serra is a good guess. After all, Serran populace used to live in Benalia. But given the time that has passed, and that Serra's Realm collapsed so long ago, it is interesting to find out that there is someone who remembered how it looked like, and in addition, undertook the effort actually to recreate it. On the other hands, angels are effectivaly immortal, so why not...
And I would be mildly disappointed if there is a "hey, there were Serrans in Benalia, so they just built a piece of old home" "explanation", for reasons stated above.
This, however, begs a question: Are we therefore doing a Dominarian nostalgia set again? And would it work this time, with lessons learned from Time Spiral? Shall we expect the most known visual motifs (for example the typical Llanowar attire, etc.) to return as well?
Well, isn't 11 years a long enough gap between nostalgia sets?
And seeing as the Time Spiral block is my all-time favorite Magic block, I hope the biggest lesson they learn from it is, "More of that."
Definitely a Serran vibe here, and the New Order of Serra is a good guess. After all, Serran populace used to live in Benalia. But given the time that has passed, and that Serra's Realm collapsed so long ago, it is interesting to find out that there is someone who remembered how it looked like, and in addition, undertook the effort actually to recreate it. On the other hands, angels are effectivaly immortal, so why not...
And I would be mildly disappointed if there is a "hey, there were Serrans in Benalia, so they just built a piece of old home" "explanation", for reasons stated above.
This, however, begs a question: Are we therefore doing a Dominarian nostalgia set again? And would it work this time, with lessons learned from Time Spiral? Shall we expect the most known visual motifs (for example the typical Llanowar attire, etc.) to return as well?
Well, isn't 11 years a long enough gap between nostalgia sets?
And seeing as the Time Spiral block is my all-time favorite Magic block, I hope the biggest lesson they learn from it is, "More of that."
Actually, not quite. I liked TS block very much, as a hardcore Vorthos, and loved both the subtle and obvious references. But it actually did not work as well as intended, as there was too much focus on the nostalgia, and broader audience missed a lot of references. In retrospect, they realized they made it too much for the veterans, and in doing so, they underestimated making it attractive enough for less enfranchised or new players.
The reason why is that MaRo said himself that having Ice Age and Mirage on the same plane was a mistake. What makes Dominaria stand out more than the other planes, is that I don't actually care about having maps of the other planes. Not relevant enough to the world. Dominaria has REAL continents. Worlds within Worlds. Ice Age, Mirage, Freaking Corondor--- THEY'RE ALL Dominaria. And they're gonna homogenize it.
Kaladesh is the most boring plane ever, because they did a really old card that all on it's own did everything the flavor of Kaladesh did. Bazaar of Baghdad. There. There's your Kaladesh-in-a-Card. Want one less broken? High Market.
Now, Innistrad, Zendikar, Lorwyn, for a brief time, I had hopes, dreams, that I would want to have all the maps of all the planes in the multiverse. But as they kept on RETURNING to Planes and the geography -still- didn't seem to matter so much......not like DOMINARIA, where you could have a whole book about one region......You can't have a whole book about Havengul, or a whole book about the 9th District, or a whole book about.....well, ok, you Can have a whole book about the Black Portion of Mirrodin/New Phyrexia whose name I wish I could remember.
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.
For the people who like what Dominaria is as a whole, prepare to be the ones making sacrifices. For the people who will be satisfied if you get something that is an overcompromise but they can legally prove they kept true to the easiest parts to keep true to and have unceremoniously ditched the rest......well, you're easily pleased and probably don't remember, or didn't appreciate, what they're dropping.
I'm the sort of guy who loves both the Silmarillion, and the Clockworking from Test of Metal. I like my worlds bigger and harder and more complex and more actually realistic even at the price of believability because it doesn't matter how unbelievable it starts out as if experience teaches you it's actually true.
Dominaria was the ONLY setting in the history of Magic the Gathering that had educational, valuable, lessons to learn. Because it was, frankly, a mess. But a beautiful mess. They're going to clean it up to make it ''fun''....and making it too fun will make it too uneducational and it will be a brief blip and forgettable.......but we've seen them abandon some of their new ideas before, so likely we'll get some reversal on this when it blows up in their face. They listened to us when we made them give us Real Slivers instead of that cheap mutant trash that could have been just ''Mutant'' but not ''Sliver''. They'll find to their shock once again that they aren't as smart as they think are, that people want Dominaria for exactly the reasons R&D thinks Dominaria needs to stop being, that we want a return to all the deep lovely lore of Ulgrotha, the kazillion and three mechanics of Time Spiral, and the Block That Doesn't End from Antiquities to The Dark to Ice Age because so much happens just on Terisiare.
I'll believe that this will be good when I hear that they flat out kick out MaRo off of Dominaria, give his job to Richard Garfield, despite all of the changes that would involve, that would be what people WANT because what's the POINT of going back to Dominaria unless we are going Back to Pre-Modern Magic? honestly? except for how Time Spiral and Coldsnap was Pre-Modern in Modern Card Frames?
I've been listening to MaRo's talk about his plans for the future, the way he envisions what Magic is, and his problem is he wants to meddle with everything to keep it changing and some things -just- -don't- -need- -to- -be- -changed-. the stuff at the bottom of the pyramid is a longer wider base of bricks that shouldn't be moved than MaRo really acknowledges, and Magic is.....DIFFERENT now, than it used to be. And that.......Can be fine. It can be accepted but it needs to be said that it's Different. And it's practically deception to pretend that "We're Going Back" when what they -MEAN- is "We're Going Forward, and to Go Forward, We'll even Trample the Past".
MaRo is like Tony Stark. OK OK he's an Avenger and he even is frequently the one 'saving the day'-- but how many of the problems he solves are ones he caused? I am going to be as pessimist as possible. that way, the only surprises can be good ones.
And Jace is a Mary Sue. In the case of Jace, I LIKE that he's a Mary Sue, but omigosh he so is one, and that's part of why MaRo is just ignorant about what it's like to be someone other than the Head of R&D.
they do need to increase how to introduce to newer players. but taking away the depth for older players, and you basically give older players no reason to be interested because it will just be too below their level for a plane like Dominaria. I consider that the authors of Agents of Artifice and Test of Metal did a fantastic job with the worldbuilding lore in the way they used Ravnica, much better than any recent novels. I started Magic books on the best of them: the Artifacts cycle, and then I read Agents of Artifice, and almost everything since has been.....lower quality than their Platinum Hits.
It took pretty high word and page counts, but in the thick books, you get what you need to take a new player deep, wide, and far in the world to bring them up to speed and interested in all the stuff the old player is.
Much of Modern Lore just doesn't do that kind of plot hooks anymore, except, almost, the way that Liliana's Demon Pact Arc has consistently been hovering in the background actually interesting, even sometimes more interesting than the ''Plane of the Week'' part of the story. Bolas as a Character? Interesting. Amonkhet as a Plane? Had high hopes, turned out to be boring. Hour of Devastation as an epic battle moment? A hell of a lot better payoff than the Helvault at the endd of first Innistrad.d
I am probably every color-combination it is possible to be, though it's really hard to figure out what it would mean to be 4-colored....it doesn't seem logical to be 4-colored without being 5-colored.
[...] MaRo is just ignorant about what it's like to be someone other than the Head of R&D.
After reading your entire post, I simply lost it at this line.
...
As for your point about planes being too small nowadays, I... kind of agree? I think that was the reason why I didn't really care for Kaladesh or even Innistrad, two planes a lot of people love for some, for me, inexplicable reason. Kaladesh was literally just a city with some outskirts while Innistrad felt like the size of a suburb while in reality it wanted to be roughly the size of central europe, at least.
Amonkhet has an excuse and Lorwyn is supposed to feel cozy, so those two get off the hook.
So I'd love to have bigger planes, but I don't think that the solution is to mash up, say, Kamigawa with Kaladesh and Theros. Having more pieces on a world that don't interact don't make for a larger setting. Plus, I think spending the majority of Magic story on one plane kind of undermines its setting, you know, the Multiverse?
At any rate, I wish they would put some more 'world-' into their '-building', but I don't see that increasing soon, unless they ramp up their creative department. And seeing how they will put out roughly one and a half new worlds per year (three sets, 50% revisits to old worlds) instead of one world per year without having to creatively work on the story of revisits of the same year, I actually fear it might get worse. Still, I'd rather wait and see how the future shapes up than to yell "Omg, Magic is ruining Magic!".
Now, Innistrad, Zendikar, Lorwyn, for a brief time, I had hopes, dreams, that I would want to have all the maps of all the planes in the multiverse. But as they kept on RETURNING to Planes and the geography -still- didn't seem to matter so much......not like DOMINARIA, where you could have a whole book about one region......You can't have a whole book about Havengul, or a whole book about the 9th District, or a whole book about.....well, ok, you Can have a whole book about the Black Portion of Mirrodin/New Phyrexia whose name I wish I could remember.
I assume you are talking about Ravnica with this part, in which case are you aware that of the 10 districts of the main city, the entirety of the books(I think all 6) take place in only one district and one far flung outpost.
And Jace is a Mary Sue. In the case of Jace, I LIKE that he's a Mary Sue, but omigosh he so is one, and that's part of why MaRo is just ignorant about what it's like to be someone other than the Head of R&D.
Its fine that you like Jace, but either you have no idea of what Jace's character is or you have no idea what a Mary Sue is, my guess would be the mary sue part. 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.
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Depending on whether the time/plane/future-shifted legends are meant to be taken literally, any or all of them might still be kicking. I personally think it'd be both hilarious and funny to have old characters who died thousands of years ago suddenly be given a second chance at life. I don't recall any of them being involved in the story, but I think there's a lot of potential there. What would happen when the two versions of Akroma meet? How would Crovax, Ascendant Hero react when he learns his alternate self was responsible for Dominaria's destruction evincar of Rath? If Mishra, Artificer Prodigy finds out what happened to him before, would he abandon his research or think he can avoid the fate that already befell him? Plus, it's implied Chandra has heard legends of Jaya's exploits - imagine how awesome it would be to see them team up!
Xantcha, Phyrexian Reject
Jodah, Archmage Eternal
Tovolar, Howlpack Alpha
Pivlic, Orzhov Informant
Crixizix, Master Engineer
Feather, Boros Peacekeeper
Marisi Coilbreaker
O-Kagachi
Gix, Phyrexian Praetor
Karn, Father of Machines
Yawgmoth, Father of Machines
Serra, Mother of All Angels
Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools
Leshrac the Nightwalker
Jeska, the Thrice-Touched
Elspeth Returned
Crucius the Mad
Taysir the Infinite
Urza's Head (Unglued!)
Jhoira and Jodah are almost certainly still alive, although Jhoira was last seen in possession of a working Phyrexian planehopping device. So for all we know she is enjoying a vacation on Ixalan or something. 60 years is long enough that without magical intervention, Teferi is going to look like an old man, but he could still be alive. Really, with just a 60 year time gap everyone we saw in Time Spiral could still be alive, and if they are going to re-introduce Jaya Ballard this would be as good a time as any. And of course there is still the mystery of how Venser looked like he was in his twenties if almost 60 years had passed, so who knows? Maybe there is still some slow-time water left on Tolaria West.
My fingers are crossed for Karn showing up, though. I'm tired of this Nicol Bolas garbage, give me a real villain! Give me New Phyrexia!
1. New Tolaria has grown a lot.
2. As told in the flavor text of Serra's Boon, this is the New Order of Serra, perhaps floating above New Benalia?
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It also gives me thoughts about Elysium type settings, utopian society suspended high above a post-apocalyptic world...
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And that land does read more white than blue, blue would have much more activity and be less tranquil.
Also, it'd probably be bluish instead of off-white.
Edit: also, are those floating portals in the background?
They do look a lot like portals, but then the question would be "portals for what?" They can't be for land based beings/vehicles, so if they are portals that'd mean they were only useful for fliers/airships.
There would also be the question of "portals to where?" Since I highly doubt they'd be planar portals, they'd have to be intra-planar. Which, I mean, if your population lives on floating islands in the sky, linking them with portals would make sense, but having those portals floating independently from those islands wouldn't. If you're able to fly TO the portals, you wouldn't NEED the portals.
I'm inclined to think that they're just artistic flare (look cool) and don't really serve any actual function.
Yes yes yes.. the idea that Squee is the next big bad (and if only becuase he still thinks he is fighting the war agains phydextria so is ramping up all war efforts/taking control of things urza style to "kick all their butts" I would love this SO very much.
|| 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 ||
Definitely a Serran vibe here, and the New Order of Serra is a good guess. After all, Serran populace used to live in Benalia. But given the time that has passed, and that Serra's Realm collapsed so long ago, it is interesting to find out that there is someone who remembered how it looked like, and in addition, undertook the effort actually to recreate it. On the other hands, angels are effectivaly immortal, so why not...
And I would be mildly disappointed if there is a "hey, there were Serrans in Benalia, so they just built a piece of old home" "explanation", for reasons stated above.
This, however, begs a question: Are we therefore doing a Dominarian nostalgia set again? And would it work this time, with lessons learned from Time Spiral? Shall we expect the most known visual motifs (for example the typical Llanowar attire, etc.) to return as well?
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
Jodah and Jhoira? I guess it'd be fun to see them. I feel like we gotta get Jodah as a commander set card, though.
What I would really like to see is a lot of Time Spiralesque callbacks. I'd like to see all the old stomping grounds.
I know Jamuraa got the bad end of a lot of things, but I would really like to see Teferi undo what he did and possibly irrevocably screwed up in Invasion block. I'd like to see Zhalfir again.
We had two full blocks of story for Otaria, too, and I still didn't feel we know enough about it. More on Otaria, I'd like to see where it is, now.
Unless they retcon it, Zhalfir is lost forever.
As there is no possibility for Teferi to become an oldwalker again...
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
I know, that's why I said 'possibly irrevocably.' And I hasten to point out that the current story team plays fast and loose with rules anyway...new planeswalkers are supposed to be weaker and mortal, as opposed to the old planeswalkers, yet they all appear to be able to cast the spell 'Infinite Plot Armor' and use it to punch out Cthulhu-level beings on the reg.
That was just the Gatewatch, and they significantly toned them down in Hour of Devastation. Even then, they didn't punch out any of the Eldrazi titans just like that. Nissa and Chandra cast Channel + Fireball using the mana of an entire plane while keeping Ulamog and Kozilek fully pulled into Zendikar's 3D reality using information given to them by Ugin (a former oldwalker), and while there was a massive hedron network created by oldwalkers that already primed the titans for this strategy. Emrakul had them down for the count on Innistrad, but essentially locked herself up in Innistrad's moon for reasons we have yet to fully know or understand. That might still be considered to be plot armour, but they at least had help.
If the point was to make the Eldrazi seem like timeless infinite unstoppable monsters, then I conceded such a plan should have worked, because I imagine the front and center story goal was probably 'good guys and Liliana win,' but the price should have been everyone but Jace dead, and Jace a babbling lunatic carving Eldrazi heiroglyphs into every flat surface he can find, and even that's pushing it. If you want to have the Gatewatch fight Godzilla and win, great, but don't tell me they can Forest Gump their way into defeating two Great Old Ones that eat gods for breakfast.
But we're getting off track. This is a thread about the Dominaria return.
Well, isn't 11 years a long enough gap between nostalgia sets?
And seeing as the Time Spiral block is my all-time favorite Magic block, I hope the biggest lesson they learn from it is, "More of that."
Actually, not quite. I liked TS block very much, as a hardcore Vorthos, and loved both the subtle and obvious references. But it actually did not work as well as intended, as there was too much focus on the nostalgia, and broader audience missed a lot of references. In retrospect, they realized they made it too much for the veterans, and in doing so, they underestimated making it attractive enough for less enfranchised or new players.
Basically, read this: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/state-design-2007-2007-08-13
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
The reason why is that MaRo said himself that having Ice Age and Mirage on the same plane was a mistake. What makes Dominaria stand out more than the other planes, is that I don't actually care about having maps of the other planes. Not relevant enough to the world. Dominaria has REAL continents. Worlds within Worlds. Ice Age, Mirage, Freaking Corondor--- THEY'RE ALL Dominaria. And they're gonna homogenize it.
Kaladesh is the most boring plane ever, because they did a really old card that all on it's own did everything the flavor of Kaladesh did. Bazaar of Baghdad. There. There's your Kaladesh-in-a-Card. Want one less broken? High Market.
Now, Innistrad, Zendikar, Lorwyn, for a brief time, I had hopes, dreams, that I would want to have all the maps of all the planes in the multiverse. But as they kept on RETURNING to Planes and the geography -still- didn't seem to matter so much......not like DOMINARIA, where you could have a whole book about one region......You can't have a whole book about Havengul, or a whole book about the 9th District, or a whole book about.....well, ok, you Can have a whole book about the Black Portion of Mirrodin/New Phyrexia whose name I wish I could remember.
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.
For the people who like what Dominaria is as a whole, prepare to be the ones making sacrifices. For the people who will be satisfied if you get something that is an overcompromise but they can legally prove they kept true to the easiest parts to keep true to and have unceremoniously ditched the rest......well, you're easily pleased and probably don't remember, or didn't appreciate, what they're dropping.
I'm the sort of guy who loves both the Silmarillion, and the Clockworking from Test of Metal. I like my worlds bigger and harder and more complex and more actually realistic even at the price of believability because it doesn't matter how unbelievable it starts out as if experience teaches you it's actually true.
Dominaria was the ONLY setting in the history of Magic the Gathering that had educational, valuable, lessons to learn. Because it was, frankly, a mess. But a beautiful mess. They're going to clean it up to make it ''fun''....and making it too fun will make it too uneducational and it will be a brief blip and forgettable.......but we've seen them abandon some of their new ideas before, so likely we'll get some reversal on this when it blows up in their face. They listened to us when we made them give us Real Slivers instead of that cheap mutant trash that could have been just ''Mutant'' but not ''Sliver''. They'll find to their shock once again that they aren't as smart as they think are, that people want Dominaria for exactly the reasons R&D thinks Dominaria needs to stop being, that we want a return to all the deep lovely lore of Ulgrotha, the kazillion and three mechanics of Time Spiral, and the Block That Doesn't End from Antiquities to The Dark to Ice Age because so much happens just on Terisiare.
I'll believe that this will be good when I hear that they flat out kick out MaRo off of Dominaria, give his job to Richard Garfield, despite all of the changes that would involve, that would be what people WANT because what's the POINT of going back to Dominaria unless we are going Back to Pre-Modern Magic? honestly? except for how Time Spiral and Coldsnap was Pre-Modern in Modern Card Frames?
I've been listening to MaRo's talk about his plans for the future, the way he envisions what Magic is, and his problem is he wants to meddle with everything to keep it changing and some things -just- -don't- -need- -to- -be- -changed-. the stuff at the bottom of the pyramid is a longer wider base of bricks that shouldn't be moved than MaRo really acknowledges, and Magic is.....DIFFERENT now, than it used to be. And that.......Can be fine. It can be accepted but it needs to be said that it's Different. And it's practically deception to pretend that "We're Going Back" when what they -MEAN- is "We're Going Forward, and to Go Forward, We'll even Trample the Past".
MaRo is like Tony Stark. OK OK he's an Avenger and he even is frequently the one 'saving the day'-- but how many of the problems he solves are ones he caused? I am going to be as pessimist as possible. that way, the only surprises can be good ones.
And Jace is a Mary Sue. In the case of Jace, I LIKE that he's a Mary Sue, but omigosh he so is one, and that's part of why MaRo is just ignorant about what it's like to be someone other than the Head of R&D.
they do need to increase how to introduce to newer players. but taking away the depth for older players, and you basically give older players no reason to be interested because it will just be too below their level for a plane like Dominaria. I consider that the authors of Agents of Artifice and Test of Metal did a fantastic job with the worldbuilding lore in the way they used Ravnica, much better than any recent novels. I started Magic books on the best of them: the Artifacts cycle, and then I read Agents of Artifice, and almost everything since has been.....lower quality than their Platinum Hits.
It took pretty high word and page counts, but in the thick books, you get what you need to take a new player deep, wide, and far in the world to bring them up to speed and interested in all the stuff the old player is.
Much of Modern Lore just doesn't do that kind of plot hooks anymore, except, almost, the way that Liliana's Demon Pact Arc has consistently been hovering in the background actually interesting, even sometimes more interesting than the ''Plane of the Week'' part of the story. Bolas as a Character? Interesting. Amonkhet as a Plane? Had high hopes, turned out to be boring. Hour of Devastation as an epic battle moment? A hell of a lot better payoff than the Helvault at the endd of first Innistrad.d
People need to read this fanfiction, though:
www.hpmor.com
I am probably every color-combination it is possible to be, though it's really hard to figure out what it would mean to be 4-colored....it doesn't seem logical to be 4-colored without being 5-colored.
After reading your entire post, I simply lost it at this line.
...
As for your point about planes being too small nowadays, I... kind of agree? I think that was the reason why I didn't really care for Kaladesh or even Innistrad, two planes a lot of people love for some, for me, inexplicable reason. Kaladesh was literally just a city with some outskirts while Innistrad felt like the size of a suburb while in reality it wanted to be roughly the size of central europe, at least.
Amonkhet has an excuse and Lorwyn is supposed to feel cozy, so those two get off the hook.
So I'd love to have bigger planes, but I don't think that the solution is to mash up, say, Kamigawa with Kaladesh and Theros. Having more pieces on a world that don't interact don't make for a larger setting. Plus, I think spending the majority of Magic story on one plane kind of undermines its setting, you know, the Multiverse?
At any rate, I wish they would put some more 'world-' into their '-building', but I don't see that increasing soon, unless they ramp up their creative department. And seeing how they will put out roughly one and a half new worlds per year (three sets, 50% revisits to old worlds) instead of one world per year without having to creatively work on the story of revisits of the same year, I actually fear it might get worse. Still, I'd rather wait and see how the future shapes up than to yell "Omg, Magic is ruining Magic!".
I assume you are talking about Ravnica with this part, in which case are you aware that of the 10 districts of the main city, the entirety of the books(I think all 6) take place in only one district and one far flung outpost.
Its fine that you like Jace, but either you have no idea of what Jace's character is or you have no idea what a Mary Sue is, my guess would be the mary sue part. 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.