I still think Huatli's characterization doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I could see her submissiveness to the Emperor being a result of loyalty -- but then how does that make sense with abandoning the whole empire for a week at its most critical juncture? What exactly does she think is going to happen while she's gone? Because I can tell you: the emperor is going to completely ignore her advice and kick the war against the River Heralds into high gear. So much for her new-found respect for Tishana. Don't worry about how a foolish and unnecessary war is going to affect all of those family members of hers, I guess they all cares more about...collecting stories? So they encourage her to just bail on their planet for a week?
It would have been very easy to write this better. Have her be much more visibly torn between her loyalty to the Emperor and her new-found pro-peace perspective. Have her family divided as well, so she doesn't have any clear guidance from them (maybe there are three factions in the family: pro-duty, pro-peace, and pro-running-away-from-problems), and have her be troubled by how these changes are disrupting the community she relies upon. Then give her a big scene at the Warrior-Poet ceremony where she has to deliberately choose which path to follow. And in her moment of crisis, she panics and planeswalks away, leaving the empire without her. As an inexperienced planeswalker, she has trouble figuring out how to get back (heck, she could end up on Kaladesh, and have a whole very interesting side-story of trying to find somebody who could help her understand how to get home).
Boom, there's an interesting story with real character development and sensible conflict, and with the same plot result as the story we got. Took me ten minutes to come up with.
It really troubles me that without the strength of the Jace-Vraska storyline, this is what we're left with. They need to hire more writers now.
I really liked Saint Elenda, though. Vampire heresy wars would be a great thing for Return to Ixalan.
Zacama was incredibly disappointing. Why would the emperor have zero interest in probably the best weapon for the upcoming war waltzing up to the city. It's literally the biggest and baddest Dino anyone living in the town has ever seen and the warrior poet is riding it...
Elenda was okay and I'm glad she's not getting beat to a pulp with the villain bat like vona is at literally every chance of dialogue she gets. Vona has been frustratingly shallow and watching her get wrecked by a) a goblin and b) a small statutes vampire who has been sleeping for who o wow how long just cheapens her character imo.
hautli feels like they took everything about narset that I liked and just ruined it. Historically our "story tellers" have been primarily blue. I get that orators have been white, and the Dino thing pushes her to green...but narsets pursuit of knowledge felt blue white. Hautlis pursuit feels like a rehash and she's just going to be weaker than tamiyo (who can recall these stories and invoke really powerful spells) and less focused then narset (who had two versions of her character that were both fleshed out in the story). Leaving on the brink of war is just even more asinine. With her promising not to be gone for more than a week mentioned more than once I have a feeling she's going to get stuck away longer then intended eventually.
Story just felt weak and not very engaging. The story didn't progress in any meaningful way besides the vampires pulling out and potentially being on the brink of internal conflict - which does fit the dual nature of tribe. White follows elenda and black follows vona/whoever opposes elenda.
Wow. They really treated seemingly important legendaries like trash. Zacama reduced to a freaking Uber. Huatli is still boring as dirt, even riding a gargantuan three headed dinosaur.
I was really hoping that removing the Immortal Sun was going to result in the "Primal" elder dragons being unleashed on Ixalan to cause terror and destruction, because they don't particularly look timid in their cards. As it is, the elder dragos are pretty lame from a vorthos perspective. It's like they just sort of walked out of the jungle and were like ...
Big fan of Elenda here. Glad she's still alive and can't wait to see her back on Torrezon, but I have to say I'm a little bothered by this recent Wizards' trend of printing cards illustrating history's moments that turn out not to have really happened (vamps on Elenda's tomb, Zacama irrupting in the Sun's room, Nissaandherdisciples reviving deserts on Amonkhet etc.). This depends perhaps on the fact that these pictures are commissioned to the artists time before the creators define the story, but I guess that from now on it will be better to take for granted only story spotlights cards.
Slightly Mundane but there are some things to gleen from the story.
- Azor was just a lazy disgusting cat whose litter box hadnt been changed.
- Elendra again is seen as disgusted at the current state of the Vampires and will meet the Queen on Torrezon to discuss
- The Elder Dinosaurs have yet to still be delivered upon. So far one flew overhead and the Biggest Master Dino was nothing but a taxi.
- The Emperor of the Sun empire is just a jerk bent on conquest like its predecessors that itself decried
- Angrath is AWESOME as ever
- Huatli is planning a one week vaca (agreed that was suspiciously denoted multiple times basically implying She wont be back in a week), instead of confronting the Emperor when needed most and informing her people of the TRUTH
How is it that Huatli, Angrath, Vona and Tishana were literally standing on the Immortal Sun when it was portalled away and dont get portalled along with it and just fall.
Tezzeret is very precise with his calaculations apparently. Vona and Tishana should have been vaporized and Angrath and Huatli would have went to the same place as the Sun or just transported into the Blind Eternities
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Been a member here for over a dozen years. Playing since '95 just got lost in the twitch shuffle.
Zacama was incredibly disappointing. Why would the emperor have zero interest in probably the best weapon for the upcoming war waltzing up to the city. It's literally the biggest and baddest Dino anyone living in the town has ever seen and the warrior poet is riding it...
Yeah, that was pretty weak. Oh hey, it's the Ultimate Dinosaur, and apparently nobody cares.
hautli feels like they took everything about narset that I liked and just ruined it. Historically our "story tellers" have been primarily blue. I get that orators have been white, and the Dino thing pushes her to green...but narsets pursuit of knowledge felt blue white. Hautlis pursuit feels like a rehash and she's just going to be weaker than tamiyo (who can recall these stories and invoke really powerful spells) and less focused then narset (who had two versions of her character that were both fleshed out in the story). Leaving on the brink of war is just even more asinine. With her promising not to be gone for more than a week mentioned more than once I have a feeling she's going to get stuck away longer then intended eventually.
Yep. Especially since Huatli knows -- she really knows -- that sometimes planeswalkers get accidentally stuck on foreign planes for decades at a time. Apparently she's not worried about that at all now, huh? It'll serve her right if she ends up just like Angrath.
This is easily the worst story we've had in months. Granted, some of those months had no stories at all, but it's still most certainly the worst story for this set (so far) and quite possibly the entire block. It's clear that this was intended to be part of a longer story and was written to condense several large events into a relatively short span. Eventually, the decision was made to split up the last story into two, so one would think that they would add more detail to the rushed first half. But they didn't. The solution was so blindingly obvious and they still just left it the way it was. And as a result, things like Huatli calling Zacama - which should have been one of the most epic moments in the story - is instead reduced to a few lines the have no relevance to anything else except for calling out a card in the set. It was absolutely pathetic. The exchange with the emperor could have been longer as well. And, of course, there's the fact that Huatli gets visibly upset about the emperor' revisionist history... and then proceeds to leave the plane for a week instead of doing something about it. What? They had more than enough time to have her give a speech telling what actually happened and THEN planeswalk away. But they didn't, and the story - as well the character of Huatli - suffers.
And the fact that Huatli's cousin survived adds insult to injury: we already - in this exact same set - had them try to make us think that Vona and Kumena had died. They kind of did it with Tishana in the previous set as well. They pulled this FOUR times in one block. Why would they do that? It's so obvious what they're doing. We know not to consider a character dead until we see the body. We're not idiots. They've pulled this stunt so many times recently that not only will we never fall for it again, but that it causes more irritation than suspense. And they really could have used an actual death too. This whole storyline stinks of Kaladesh and Aether Revolt's constant death-teasing with no actual death (except Yahenni, but that was related to the conflict). At least Kaladesh block had the excuse of the revolution being somewhat civil with neither side wanting to completely destroy the other. Ixalan is about four very different cultures that hate each other and are at actual war with one another. They can't kill off a single named character in the conflict? Seriously? They've passed up so many chances to kill characters and have teased us to the point where it's become annoying. Amonkhet block, to its credit, was not afraid to kill off relatively major characters. What happened to that mindset? Why does everyone have to start constantly surviving near-death experiences again?
There was also, of course, plenty of awful dialogue. Vona is still the most aggressively terrible and Bond villain-esque character we've had in a while. Mavren yelling an extended "no" was almost a funny way to mock a cliche, but kind of undermined by how the rest of the dialogue uses tons of cliches without any irony or self-awareness. People seem to truly enjoy Breeches but his outbursts seem like comedic low-hanging fruit to me, and it hasn't been very funny since the first time they used it. Angrath's all-caps dialogue has also gotten old and seems to undermine their attempt at making a more sympathetic and less stereotypical BR character. When we see Angrath actually talking normally, it shows us an insightful and reasonable version of the BR philosophy (even if he does repeat the word "freedom" way to much). But that's only 10% of his dialogue. The other 90% is just YELLING ANGRY THINGS IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE IT'S FUNNY. It's such a waste of what could and should be an amazing character. I really did enjoy the unexpected yet perfectly in-character timing of Angrath's exit. I just don't like the way most of his dialogue has been.
This storyline had the potential to be really great. It had everything it needed for me to like it: only one Gatewatch member instead of five, another returning character who I actually like getting an equal role to said Gatewatch member, well-conceived new characters like Angrath and Kumena, a morally grey conflict between factions for the first time in years, exploration of the plane itself instead of just the main plot, etc. But the writers seem to have really stumbled in resolving the story. I could have thought of a dozen better ways to end the story than this. Part of the issue is writing quality. You would think that they would have figured out who should be writing which types of stories (and who shouldn't be writing any at all) by this point, especially since they seem to be losing creative team members rather than gaining them. They have a few writers who can actually write, so give them the reigns and stop letting the weaker ones keep writing to spare their feelings. I thought that the writing quality was significantly better throughout Hour of Devastation and Ixalan, but in parts of previous stories for Rivals and the entirety of this one, the writing simply hasn't been that good.
But I think that the greater issue is disorganization. Let us not forget that they took two months off from writing stories. Two months. And yet still we see tons of issues. There have been huge disconnects between the story and the cards. At least three cards show characters doing things that they never actually did in the story. There are also inconsistencies between the fat back booklet and the actual stories (like the former saying that Huatli and Angrath leave Ixalan together), and the art book, while not technically incorrect, leaves out major details of the story. Several missed legendary creature cards, which I thought might be a thing of the past after Amonkhet and was proven overwhelmingly wrong. Malcolm, Breeches, Inti, and the emperor all play significant roles in the story but don't have cards; while Arguel, Captain Vance, Hadana, and the "Grim Captain" are all called out on cards in such a way that would likely make players want to see cards for them. Instead, we get five dinosaur legends that do nothing in the story and one that was a glorified taxi. Then, of course, there's the last minute change from five stories to six that gave us this absolute gem of a story: short, poorly-written, and in desperate need of details that they could have easily added. This, of course, is the result of the tribe poll, which in itself has been a dumpster fire: complete inconsistencies in scoring up to this point and a horribly designed poll on the mothership released today that accidentally made everyone vote for vampires. As a result, many people have lost faith in the poll and believe that it was rigged from the start (personally, I think that their intention was to have an actual vote and simply managed it horribly, but I don't know for sure that it wasn't rigged).
I would like to think that most if not all of this storyline's issues were caused by the polling experiment. Writing four stories instead of one would have to take a long time, plus planning out how to poll people on social media, distribute and track geocaching materials, etc. This probably took up a lot of the time on their two month story break that could have otherwise been devoted to actually giving us stories during that time or having better quality control for this set's story. Hopefully the realize that the poll was a failed experiment that only distracted them from more important things, and as a result, we see the quality increase significantly for Dominaria since it has no such poll. I just wish that they had realized from the start that the voting was a bad idea. Why they thought that devoting time to an arbitrary gimmick instead of more important things was a good idea is beyond me. And I don't know why they would think we would rather have them write four stories and release one than just write four stories and release all of them. But if the polling was the main cause of some of these issues and we see far fewer issues in Dominaria as a result, I'll be relieved. The resolution of Ixalan left a lot to be desired, but I'll call myself cautiously optimistic for Dominaria.
It takes three seconds to write "the minotaur's voice came in a deafening roar".
It takes miliseconds to hit capslock. That tells us all we need to know about how much Creative cares.
And yes the polls and geocaching were rigged. It's almost like WotC takes vampires being popular as a personal offense.
You're right, Sultai, but still I thought this was passable. Which is sort of sad. But it's simply what I've come to expect of them.
I've been cautiosuly optimistic since BFZ. I'm glad we got what we did with Vraska x Jace.
I do think that what makes them look really bad is how all their different media tell different stories. The cards vs the stories vs the fatpack vs the artbook. It's been like that for ages yet it just doesn't get any better. To me it's honestly just a sign that the story takes a backseat and isn't a priority. I'm not blaming creative for this, I'm sure they're doing their best and given different conditions things would be better.
All I can do at this point is hope that Dominaria is handled with respect for the older lore. I've read the old books, I loved the old flavour, concept and ideas. It'd be a shame to see that rich history be discarded. I won't say goodbye to magic if that ends up happening, but I will lose all interest in the story again. This happened during New Phyrexia for me and I picked things up again when they decided to reboot things with origins. I've kept hoping things would get better, but it's been a very mixed bag.
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Angrath was intriguing as always, slight disappointment that he only got one line and didn't mentor Huatli as hoped for in the artbook. I agree with others that this story, like all the non-Jace/Vraska stories in this set, are not enough, vague and hastily done.
I think Elenda + Torrezon would make an amazing political set. The saint versus the church under her name. It'd bring about clash of personality and ambitions, and will the true teaching shine or will it falter under corruption like present day Christianity?
Angrath was intriguing as always, slight disappointment that he only got one line
He only needed one line, and it was perfectly in line with what we know about the guy, he hates Ixalan and everyone on it and he just saw the thing keeping him on it go bye bye it would be vastly out of character for him to not tell everyone how he feels and GTFO.
So I was on the voting page, scrolling down to find where I cached my vote at and because of the ridiculous way it's laid out as I was scrolling(on my phone) I dragged on the vampire part and it took that as my vote. Well done, Wizards. Well done.
[Update: Due to unintended functionality in the original poll, we have modified the submission form and reset the tallies. If you voted prior to 3:00 pm PT on February 7, 2018, please vote again.]
Still sensitive but it now has a bubble area where you vote.
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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"
I'm just stunned. Stunned that they could make such a rich, vibrant world full of compelling tribes and mysteries, and then fritter it away so casually and completely. There is no excitement here, no sense of mystery, wonder, or meaningful drama. Reading through the art book, looking through the cards, you can see all the inspiration, effort, and frankly joyful creativity that went into shaping such a colorful world--a world full of dinosaurs, pirates, exploration, and adventure. But the online story--both in its content and its writing--throws away all of that promise. Not just once, not just twice, but again and again, week after week. Each time I keep telling myself it will get better, but it’s like watching the slow, steady defacement of a beloved painting. Aside from the scenes centered on Jace and Vraska, there is no sense that the writers are taking pride in their work, no sense that they even really care about this story at all. There’s not even a sense that they care about the craft of writing itself--setting scenes, staging compelling action, taking the time to paint complex characters, and composing meaningful dialogue. The writing is often stilted and juvenile, and it’s frankly depressing to read. The characters are trite, barely-living clichés. When it comes to storytelling, competent writing is the bare minimum of acceptability, but this isn’t even competent. Not only doesn’t it achieve its main objective (to present an immersive and compelling narrative for the world depicted on the cards), it actually achieves its opposite, decreasing the stature of this plane and it’s characters. It's relentlessly and heartbreakingly disappointing, and I’m just exhausted. Exhausted from caring so much and investing so much excitement in a world whose own writers just can’t seem to make a real effort.
Jace and Vraska were well written, and whoever composed their scenes should be congratulated on making this unlikely pair work. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to elevate the rest of the story with it, and nearly everything else is left in a baffling, frustrating slurry of wasted potential. Angrath deserved better than this. So did Elenda, Mavren Fein, Zacama, and especially Kumena. More painful than anything is to see such characters set up, bursting with promise, only to have them treated with such frivolity, such disregard.
I don’t think it’s at all hyperbole to say that the Ixalan story would have been better had it just been left to the cards, the art book, and the fat pack summaries. Aside from a select few installments of the online fiction (specifically Jace Alone, The Shapers, and Something Else Entirely—all back from the previous set), the story as portrayed on the website has only served to cheapen, demean, and suck all the joy from the beautiful world that is Ixalan.
It seems we’ll have another haitus before Dominaria, and that’s just as well. I just hope the story team can get its act together in the interim.
I'm not asking for Jeff Grubb. I’m not asking for Scott McGough. I’m just asking for something that does justice to the game, and doesn’t feel like it’s scraping by on minimal effort. Again, something that indicates that its writer's care.
That hiatus isn’t coming a moment too soon. I'm out of energy, out of enthusiasm, and I need a break from Magic’s story for a while.
I have to agree that the story constructed in my mind through the card art and flavor text (at least this time we didn't have non-intentional Emperor's New Gove tier incidents) felt much more genuine, like the flavor of the set was designed by someone who cared and then lent to someone who doesn't. And after almost every story I feel like I just can't keep caring because WotC doesn't seem to. 8-12 3k word sketches can't develop a world worth caring for, much less when Jace and friends take up more than half the avaliable space.
The books were never high literature, but compared to what they have been doing since Battle for Zendikar, the Lorwyn-Shadowmoor cycle and the Ravnica block novels desserve Hugo awards.
If the issue is translation taking too much time, they need to outsource or hire a better team.
If the issue is staff, this is something that is worth putting money into. Magic is 3 things. It's a game, it's collectible, and it's immersive fantasy. Creative does a great job a plot ideas and plane settings. The artists do an over the top job of breathing life into a world via art. Those art descriptions show an incredible amount of work into building out the world in small details. Why can't they get writers to back it up.
Discrepancies from medium to medium in major story plot pieces is sloppy and bad. Honestly I would have to let someone go if they do to continuously missed the mark THIS bad project after project in every other job. If you can't even sync broad brushstroke ideas accross a few written mediums, how can you deliver a short story.
I know creative works well in advance of the story, and so I kinda get the recons from that perspective as they maybe go back and pepper in seeds for future story hooks. Is proof reading for continuity too much to ask for? Who doesn't go back and check their work?
Ive said it before in prior blocks and I'll say it again. If a series of short stories isn't sufficient, don't do them. I'd rather have quality over this. If you can't tell a story in 6 short stories, make it 10 or 15 or whatever you need to do to fix the issue.
Just because the game is targeted at an age spectrum of varying reading levels doesn't mean that this is okay. Freaking clear and concise plot isn't a luxury for avid and experienced readers only.
You're charging me $10-15 a pack for masters sets that have the same print cost as a $4 pack...put that money to good use.
I concur that the storyline took a nose dive this last week. But, I don't know that I care much about a bunch of locals getting shown to be petty and expendable. If anything, Creative made a mistake in delving too deeply into the motivations and heads of some of the characters who are now just getting tossed around like rag dolls. We have to remember this has ALWAYS been a thing about Planeswalkers. They're the Ricks of the Magic universe, and they're traditionally seen as callously tossing non-walkers aside like they're worthless. So, why focus so much on them?
Anyway, Angrath was done fine here. His motivation is simple. His actions make sense. What was atrocious was Jace and Vraska. What was the dilemma, again? Bolas is bad and now Vraska knows it, and knows his plan? Okay, great, so now Vraska can send off the artifact and she can run off with Jace and join his clubhouse or whatever and fight against Bolas. Wait, no, we can come up with something much more complicated instead. Instead, we're gonna (1) wipe her memories; (2) send her back to Bolas and trust he doesn't notice because Jace said he won't; (3) hope Jace gets to give her back her memories; and (4) hope she believes that those memories coming from a man who messes up peoples' heads for a living are real when they come back in some high-stress situation? These characters are dumb as a bag of rocks.
Something just occurred to me: Huatli just did exactly what Jace told Azor off for doing, what Ral nagged Jace for doing, and what Oldwalkers in general are maligned for. She acquired a position of power on her plane, and instead of using her authority to try and change the Sun Empire for the better when the emperor started doing scummy *****, she literally 'walked away from her problems. It's this tempting freedom that leads to disregard for any given plane. It's an interesting facet of walkers, and I like Huatli much less for it.
Something just occurred to me: Huatli just did exactly what Jace told Azor off for doing, what Ral nagged Jace for doing, and what Oldwalkers in general are maligned for. She acquired a position of power on her plane, and instead of using her authority to try and change the Sun Empire for the better when the emperor started doing scummy *****, she literally 'walked away from her problems. It's this tempting freedom that leads to disregard for any given plane. It's an interesting facet of walkers, and I like Huatli much less for it.
It's interesting, because Gideon, Nissa, and Ajani are the only ones who actively contemplated PW's effect on multiverse and "chooses to stay" and do good, perhaps it's the sense of unity both colors share.
Though with Huatli, I don't blame her for leaving, because it's only been days since she learned her power and she has lived her life knowing only authority, her disdain towards the emperor was already a great stride. She will grow in the background, and she probably will join Tamiyo's story circle to add some red into it.
I think people are right in their analysis of Huatli. I was so glad to see her progress from being bland and naive to being somewhat understanding of things and seeing them from another perspective that the horrible idea of her simply running away from everything didn't really sink in at first.
She really has no real reason to leave...right? She clearly has very strong ties to her home.
Her not standing up to the emperor makes her a coward. I'm not saying a lot of people would actually have the mental fortitude to do so, but I doubt they intended her character to come across this way. That said though, looking at the way she's been portrayed I sadly buy that she would act in this way.
Ok, she's young, but she's supposed to be an elite warrior with a prominent role in her society. Furthermore, riding into the city on Taxi Zacama (her having the power to command her at all is ludicrously impressive enough that it should have gotten more attention) should have given her more leverage than it did.
Hasty writing?
Thing is, like many have pointed out, the cards and other media actually manage to tell a much better story. Looking back over the past couple of sets and imagining not having read the stories but piecing things together from the art, flavour, inserts, etc. things actually pan out better. (With one major exception being Emrakul's sealing, I absolutely love that story's ending.)
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They really do need to streamline creative. I think the best way to go abiut things would be to write the story, or at least a somewhat detailed outline, then go into doing the art and flavor text.
"We've been listening to fan feedback about the way we tell the Magic Story and we're proud to announce the return of Magic Story in novel form, written by our talented panel of writers here at Wizards, starting with Dominaria by Doug Beyer!!"
"We've been listening to fan feedback about the way we tell the Magic Story and we're proud to announce the return of Magic Story in novel form, written by our talented panel of writers here at Wizards, starting with Dominaria by Doug Beyer!!"
careful what y'all wish for.
yeah I guess this story wasn't anymore of a dumpster fire then test of metal. Fair enough...
Not that Doug wrote test of metal, but I wouldn't trust them with novels either.
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It would have been very easy to write this better. Have her be much more visibly torn between her loyalty to the Emperor and her new-found pro-peace perspective. Have her family divided as well, so she doesn't have any clear guidance from them (maybe there are three factions in the family: pro-duty, pro-peace, and pro-running-away-from-problems), and have her be troubled by how these changes are disrupting the community she relies upon. Then give her a big scene at the Warrior-Poet ceremony where she has to deliberately choose which path to follow. And in her moment of crisis, she panics and planeswalks away, leaving the empire without her. As an inexperienced planeswalker, she has trouble figuring out how to get back (heck, she could end up on Kaladesh, and have a whole very interesting side-story of trying to find somebody who could help her understand how to get home).
Boom, there's an interesting story with real character development and sensible conflict, and with the same plot result as the story we got. Took me ten minutes to come up with.
It really troubles me that without the strength of the Jace-Vraska storyline, this is what we're left with. They need to hire more writers now.
I really liked Saint Elenda, though. Vampire heresy wars would be a great thing for Return to Ixalan.
Elenda was okay and I'm glad she's not getting beat to a pulp with the villain bat like vona is at literally every chance of dialogue she gets. Vona has been frustratingly shallow and watching her get wrecked by a) a goblin and b) a small statutes vampire who has been sleeping for who o wow how long just cheapens her character imo.
hautli feels like they took everything about narset that I liked and just ruined it. Historically our "story tellers" have been primarily blue. I get that orators have been white, and the Dino thing pushes her to green...but narsets pursuit of knowledge felt blue white. Hautlis pursuit feels like a rehash and she's just going to be weaker than tamiyo (who can recall these stories and invoke really powerful spells) and less focused then narset (who had two versions of her character that were both fleshed out in the story). Leaving on the brink of war is just even more asinine. With her promising not to be gone for more than a week mentioned more than once I have a feeling she's going to get stuck away longer then intended eventually.
Story just felt weak and not very engaging. The story didn't progress in any meaningful way besides the vampires pulling out and potentially being on the brink of internal conflict - which does fit the dual nature of tribe. White follows elenda and black follows vona/whoever opposes elenda.
I was really hoping that removing the Immortal Sun was going to result in the "Primal" elder dragons being unleashed on Ixalan to cause terror and destruction, because they don't particularly look timid in their cards. As it is, the elder dragos are pretty lame from a vorthos perspective. It's like they just sort of walked out of the jungle and were like ...
My favorite part of his departure was the timing in the story.
We rejoin our embattled heroes after they have just fallen through a hole where the Immortal Sun had been only moments before...
Angrath: "BYE, SUCKERS!"
- Azor was just a lazy disgusting cat whose litter box hadnt been changed.
- Elendra again is seen as disgusted at the current state of the Vampires and will meet the Queen on Torrezon to discuss
- The Elder Dinosaurs have yet to still be delivered upon. So far one flew overhead and the Biggest Master Dino was nothing but a taxi.
- The Emperor of the Sun empire is just a jerk bent on conquest like its predecessors that itself decried
- Angrath is AWESOME as ever
- Huatli is planning a one week vaca (agreed that was suspiciously denoted multiple times basically implying She wont be back in a week), instead of confronting the Emperor when needed most and informing her people of the TRUTH
How is it that Huatli, Angrath, Vona and Tishana were literally standing on the Immortal Sun when it was portalled away and dont get portalled along with it and just fall.
Tezzeret is very precise with his calaculations apparently. Vona and Tishana should have been vaporized and Angrath and Huatli would have went to the same place as the Sun or just transported into the Blind Eternities
Yep. Especially since Huatli knows -- she really knows -- that sometimes planeswalkers get accidentally stuck on foreign planes for decades at a time. Apparently she's not worried about that at all now, huh? It'll serve her right if she ends up just like Angrath.
This is easily the worst story we've had in months. Granted, some of those months had no stories at all, but it's still most certainly the worst story for this set (so far) and quite possibly the entire block. It's clear that this was intended to be part of a longer story and was written to condense several large events into a relatively short span. Eventually, the decision was made to split up the last story into two, so one would think that they would add more detail to the rushed first half. But they didn't. The solution was so blindingly obvious and they still just left it the way it was. And as a result, things like Huatli calling Zacama - which should have been one of the most epic moments in the story - is instead reduced to a few lines the have no relevance to anything else except for calling out a card in the set. It was absolutely pathetic. The exchange with the emperor could have been longer as well. And, of course, there's the fact that Huatli gets visibly upset about the emperor' revisionist history... and then proceeds to leave the plane for a week instead of doing something about it. What? They had more than enough time to have her give a speech telling what actually happened and THEN planeswalk away. But they didn't, and the story - as well the character of Huatli - suffers.
And the fact that Huatli's cousin survived adds insult to injury: we already - in this exact same set - had them try to make us think that Vona and Kumena had died. They kind of did it with Tishana in the previous set as well. They pulled this FOUR times in one block. Why would they do that? It's so obvious what they're doing. We know not to consider a character dead until we see the body. We're not idiots. They've pulled this stunt so many times recently that not only will we never fall for it again, but that it causes more irritation than suspense. And they really could have used an actual death too. This whole storyline stinks of Kaladesh and Aether Revolt's constant death-teasing with no actual death (except Yahenni, but that was related to the conflict). At least Kaladesh block had the excuse of the revolution being somewhat civil with neither side wanting to completely destroy the other. Ixalan is about four very different cultures that hate each other and are at actual war with one another. They can't kill off a single named character in the conflict? Seriously? They've passed up so many chances to kill characters and have teased us to the point where it's become annoying. Amonkhet block, to its credit, was not afraid to kill off relatively major characters. What happened to that mindset? Why does everyone have to start constantly surviving near-death experiences again?
There was also, of course, plenty of awful dialogue. Vona is still the most aggressively terrible and Bond villain-esque character we've had in a while. Mavren yelling an extended "no" was almost a funny way to mock a cliche, but kind of undermined by how the rest of the dialogue uses tons of cliches without any irony or self-awareness. People seem to truly enjoy Breeches but his outbursts seem like comedic low-hanging fruit to me, and it hasn't been very funny since the first time they used it. Angrath's all-caps dialogue has also gotten old and seems to undermine their attempt at making a more sympathetic and less stereotypical BR character. When we see Angrath actually talking normally, it shows us an insightful and reasonable version of the BR philosophy (even if he does repeat the word "freedom" way to much). But that's only 10% of his dialogue. The other 90% is just YELLING ANGRY THINGS IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE IT'S FUNNY. It's such a waste of what could and should be an amazing character. I really did enjoy the unexpected yet perfectly in-character timing of Angrath's exit. I just don't like the way most of his dialogue has been.
This storyline had the potential to be really great. It had everything it needed for me to like it: only one Gatewatch member instead of five, another returning character who I actually like getting an equal role to said Gatewatch member, well-conceived new characters like Angrath and Kumena, a morally grey conflict between factions for the first time in years, exploration of the plane itself instead of just the main plot, etc. But the writers seem to have really stumbled in resolving the story. I could have thought of a dozen better ways to end the story than this. Part of the issue is writing quality. You would think that they would have figured out who should be writing which types of stories (and who shouldn't be writing any at all) by this point, especially since they seem to be losing creative team members rather than gaining them. They have a few writers who can actually write, so give them the reigns and stop letting the weaker ones keep writing to spare their feelings. I thought that the writing quality was significantly better throughout Hour of Devastation and Ixalan, but in parts of previous stories for Rivals and the entirety of this one, the writing simply hasn't been that good.
But I think that the greater issue is disorganization. Let us not forget that they took two months off from writing stories. Two months. And yet still we see tons of issues. There have been huge disconnects between the story and the cards. At least three cards show characters doing things that they never actually did in the story. There are also inconsistencies between the fat back booklet and the actual stories (like the former saying that Huatli and Angrath leave Ixalan together), and the art book, while not technically incorrect, leaves out major details of the story. Several missed legendary creature cards, which I thought might be a thing of the past after Amonkhet and was proven overwhelmingly wrong. Malcolm, Breeches, Inti, and the emperor all play significant roles in the story but don't have cards; while Arguel, Captain Vance, Hadana, and the "Grim Captain" are all called out on cards in such a way that would likely make players want to see cards for them. Instead, we get five dinosaur legends that do nothing in the story and one that was a glorified taxi. Then, of course, there's the last minute change from five stories to six that gave us this absolute gem of a story: short, poorly-written, and in desperate need of details that they could have easily added. This, of course, is the result of the tribe poll, which in itself has been a dumpster fire: complete inconsistencies in scoring up to this point and a horribly designed poll on the mothership released today that accidentally made everyone vote for vampires. As a result, many people have lost faith in the poll and believe that it was rigged from the start (personally, I think that their intention was to have an actual vote and simply managed it horribly, but I don't know for sure that it wasn't rigged).
I would like to think that most if not all of this storyline's issues were caused by the polling experiment. Writing four stories instead of one would have to take a long time, plus planning out how to poll people on social media, distribute and track geocaching materials, etc. This probably took up a lot of the time on their two month story break that could have otherwise been devoted to actually giving us stories during that time or having better quality control for this set's story. Hopefully the realize that the poll was a failed experiment that only distracted them from more important things, and as a result, we see the quality increase significantly for Dominaria since it has no such poll. I just wish that they had realized from the start that the voting was a bad idea. Why they thought that devoting time to an arbitrary gimmick instead of more important things was a good idea is beyond me. And I don't know why they would think we would rather have them write four stories and release one than just write four stories and release all of them. But if the polling was the main cause of some of these issues and we see far fewer issues in Dominaria as a result, I'll be relieved. The resolution of Ixalan left a lot to be desired, but I'll call myself cautiously optimistic for Dominaria.
It takes miliseconds to hit capslock. That tells us all we need to know about how much Creative cares.
And yes the polls and geocaching were rigged. It's almost like WotC takes vampires being popular as a personal offense.
I've been cautiosuly optimistic since BFZ. I'm glad we got what we did with Vraska x Jace.
I do think that what makes them look really bad is how all their different media tell different stories. The cards vs the stories vs the fatpack vs the artbook. It's been like that for ages yet it just doesn't get any better. To me it's honestly just a sign that the story takes a backseat and isn't a priority. I'm not blaming creative for this, I'm sure they're doing their best and given different conditions things would be better.
All I can do at this point is hope that Dominaria is handled with respect for the older lore. I've read the old books, I loved the old flavour, concept and ideas. It'd be a shame to see that rich history be discarded. I won't say goodbye to magic if that ends up happening, but I will lose all interest in the story again. This happened during New Phyrexia for me and I picked things up again when they decided to reboot things with origins. I've kept hoping things would get better, but it's been a very mixed bag.
Affinity
UW Control
Commander
Sidisi, Undead Vizier
Purphoros, God of the Forge
Dragonlord Ojutai
Gishath, Sun's Avatar
The Ur-Dragon
The Vampires having an entirely slanted and evil culture, the Sun Empire having a single evil ruler, total shades of grey here folks.
I am with Angrath, I hate this plane, I hate the people in it and I hope it never comes back unless it is to see the Phyrexians or the Eldrazi eat it.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
I think Elenda + Torrezon would make an amazing political set. The saint versus the church under her name. It'd bring about clash of personality and ambitions, and will the true teaching shine or will it falter under corruption like present day Christianity?
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
He only needed one line, and it was perfectly in line with what we know about the guy, he hates Ixalan and everyone on it and he just saw the thing keeping him on it go bye bye it would be vastly out of character for him to not tell everyone how he feels and GTFO.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
Bloop;
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/vote-control-golden-city-2018-02-07
Still sensitive but it now has a bubble area where you vote.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I'm just stunned. Stunned that they could make such a rich, vibrant world full of compelling tribes and mysteries, and then fritter it away so casually and completely. There is no excitement here, no sense of mystery, wonder, or meaningful drama. Reading through the art book, looking through the cards, you can see all the inspiration, effort, and frankly joyful creativity that went into shaping such a colorful world--a world full of dinosaurs, pirates, exploration, and adventure. But the online story--both in its content and its writing--throws away all of that promise. Not just once, not just twice, but again and again, week after week. Each time I keep telling myself it will get better, but it’s like watching the slow, steady defacement of a beloved painting. Aside from the scenes centered on Jace and Vraska, there is no sense that the writers are taking pride in their work, no sense that they even really care about this story at all. There’s not even a sense that they care about the craft of writing itself--setting scenes, staging compelling action, taking the time to paint complex characters, and composing meaningful dialogue. The writing is often stilted and juvenile, and it’s frankly depressing to read. The characters are trite, barely-living clichés. When it comes to storytelling, competent writing is the bare minimum of acceptability, but this isn’t even competent. Not only doesn’t it achieve its main objective (to present an immersive and compelling narrative for the world depicted on the cards), it actually achieves its opposite, decreasing the stature of this plane and it’s characters. It's relentlessly and heartbreakingly disappointing, and I’m just exhausted. Exhausted from caring so much and investing so much excitement in a world whose own writers just can’t seem to make a real effort.
Jace and Vraska were well written, and whoever composed their scenes should be congratulated on making this unlikely pair work. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to elevate the rest of the story with it, and nearly everything else is left in a baffling, frustrating slurry of wasted potential. Angrath deserved better than this. So did Elenda, Mavren Fein, Zacama, and especially Kumena. More painful than anything is to see such characters set up, bursting with promise, only to have them treated with such frivolity, such disregard.
I don’t think it’s at all hyperbole to say that the Ixalan story would have been better had it just been left to the cards, the art book, and the fat pack summaries. Aside from a select few installments of the online fiction (specifically Jace Alone, The Shapers, and Something Else Entirely—all back from the previous set), the story as portrayed on the website has only served to cheapen, demean, and suck all the joy from the beautiful world that is Ixalan.
It seems we’ll have another haitus before Dominaria, and that’s just as well. I just hope the story team can get its act together in the interim.
I'm not asking for Jeff Grubb. I’m not asking for Scott McGough. I’m just asking for something that does justice to the game, and doesn’t feel like it’s scraping by on minimal effort. Again, something that indicates that its writer's care.
That hiatus isn’t coming a moment too soon. I'm out of energy, out of enthusiasm, and I need a break from Magic’s story for a while.
The books were never high literature, but compared to what they have been doing since Battle for Zendikar, the Lorwyn-Shadowmoor cycle and the Ravnica block novels desserve Hugo awards.
If the issue is staff, this is something that is worth putting money into. Magic is 3 things. It's a game, it's collectible, and it's immersive fantasy. Creative does a great job a plot ideas and plane settings. The artists do an over the top job of breathing life into a world via art. Those art descriptions show an incredible amount of work into building out the world in small details. Why can't they get writers to back it up.
Discrepancies from medium to medium in major story plot pieces is sloppy and bad. Honestly I would have to let someone go if they do to continuously missed the mark THIS bad project after project in every other job. If you can't even sync broad brushstroke ideas accross a few written mediums, how can you deliver a short story.
I know creative works well in advance of the story, and so I kinda get the recons from that perspective as they maybe go back and pepper in seeds for future story hooks. Is proof reading for continuity too much to ask for? Who doesn't go back and check their work?
Ive said it before in prior blocks and I'll say it again. If a series of short stories isn't sufficient, don't do them. I'd rather have quality over this. If you can't tell a story in 6 short stories, make it 10 or 15 or whatever you need to do to fix the issue.
Just because the game is targeted at an age spectrum of varying reading levels doesn't mean that this is okay. Freaking clear and concise plot isn't a luxury for avid and experienced readers only.
You're charging me $10-15 a pack for masters sets that have the same print cost as a $4 pack...put that money to good use.
Anyway, Angrath was done fine here. His motivation is simple. His actions make sense. What was atrocious was Jace and Vraska. What was the dilemma, again? Bolas is bad and now Vraska knows it, and knows his plan? Okay, great, so now Vraska can send off the artifact and she can run off with Jace and join his clubhouse or whatever and fight against Bolas. Wait, no, we can come up with something much more complicated instead. Instead, we're gonna (1) wipe her memories; (2) send her back to Bolas and trust he doesn't notice because Jace said he won't; (3) hope Jace gets to give her back her memories; and (4) hope she believes that those memories coming from a man who messes up peoples' heads for a living are real when they come back in some high-stress situation? These characters are dumb as a bag of rocks.
It's interesting, because Gideon, Nissa, and Ajani are the only ones who actively contemplated PW's effect on multiverse and "chooses to stay" and do good, perhaps it's the sense of unity both colors share.
Though with Huatli, I don't blame her for leaving, because it's only been days since she learned her power and she has lived her life knowing only authority, her disdain towards the emperor was already a great stride. She will grow in the background, and she probably will join Tamiyo's story circle to add some red into it.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
She really has no real reason to leave...right? She clearly has very strong ties to her home.
Her not standing up to the emperor makes her a coward. I'm not saying a lot of people would actually have the mental fortitude to do so, but I doubt they intended her character to come across this way. That said though, looking at the way she's been portrayed I sadly buy that she would act in this way.
Ok, she's young, but she's supposed to be an elite warrior with a prominent role in her society. Furthermore, riding into the city on Taxi Zacama (her having the power to command her at all is ludicrously impressive enough that it should have gotten more attention) should have given her more leverage than it did.
Hasty writing?
Thing is, like many have pointed out, the cards and other media actually manage to tell a much better story. Looking back over the past couple of sets and imagining not having read the stories but piecing things together from the art, flavour, inserts, etc. things actually pan out better. (With one major exception being Emrakul's sealing, I absolutely love that story's ending.)
Affinity
UW Control
Commander
Sidisi, Undead Vizier
Purphoros, God of the Forge
Dragonlord Ojutai
Gishath, Sun's Avatar
The Ur-Dragon
careful what y'all wish for.
yeah I guess this story wasn't anymore of a dumpster fire then test of metal. Fair enough...
Not that Doug wrote test of metal, but I wouldn't trust them with novels either.