So now that the full set is out, counting the DFCs, what is the final count of Eldrazi in the set?
There are 12 actual, fully colorless Eldrazi, 14 DFCs that turn into Eldrazi, and 3 Meld pairs. That makes for 27 nontoken Eldrazi on 30 cards. There are 7 non-DFC cards that make 3/2 Eldrazi Horror tokens, plus 3 non-DFC cards designed to interact with Eldrazi. That makes 40 cards out of 205 all told, nothing compared to the Eldrazi presence in BFZ and OGW.
But considering that those were 100% Eldrazi focused sets/blocks.
I think 1/5 of the set being Eldrazi is a pretty big number for a set that is supposed to be "not full of" Eldrazi.
And it's more than the original Eldrazi set had, Rise of the Eldrazi.
I still don't know where this whole "EMN shouldn't have been full of Eldrazi" came from anyway. Maro said nothing of that sort. And nearly every Eldrazi in this Set (except for 2) is another creature type in addition to that, which makes it clear that the Eldrazi type on those cards is more for flavor and mechanical overlap with BFZ reasons than anything else. Maro said that the set is about the impact that Emrakul has on the plane. That's why so much of the art shows mutations. I understand not liking Eldrazi, but this whole "EMN should have had only miniscule amounts of Eldrazi" is really strange to me. Especially now that we know that Emrakul on Innistrad was the plan since the original block.
I rounded a bit at various points in the middle of things, so it's just a rough estimation, but when I ran the numbers I came out with an as-fan of ~2.3 for cards that either are Eldrazi or have the word 'Eldrazi' somewhere in their mechanical text (the token makers and anti-Eldrazi cards - I didn't count Foul Emissary even though only Eldrazi cards have emerge, but it wouldn't have shifted the numbers significantly): about 2/3 of a common per pack, about 1/3 of an uncommon, about 1/5 of a rare mythic, and about 1 and 1/8 DFCs per pack. Basically, however many DFCs you get per pack are (almost always) Eldrazi, and then there's one other Eldrazi-related card in that pack on average. (Which I honestly think was a pretty good way to show how the Eldrazi are around and a thing without actually giving them a very large pack presence: you're guaranteed at least one in the standard DFC slot, but very little outside of that slot.)
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I rounded a bit at various points in the middle of things, so it's just a rough estimation, but when I ran the numbers I came out with an as-fan of ~2.3 for cards that either are Eldrazi or have the word 'Eldrazi' somewhere in their mechanical text (the token makers and anti-Eldrazi cards - I didn't count Foul Emissary even though only Eldrazi cards have emerge, but it wouldn't have shifted the numbers significantly): about 2/3 of a common per pack, about 1/3 of an uncommon, about 1/5 of a rare mythic, and about 1 and 1/8 DFCs per pack. Basically, however many DFCs you get per pack are (almost always) Eldrazi, and then there's one other Eldrazi-related card in that pack on average. (Which I honestly think was a pretty good way to show how the Eldrazi are around and a thing without actually giving them a very large pack presence: you're guaranteed at least one in the standard DFC slot, but very little outside of that slot.)
You are right that it isnt that bad, not nearly what I thought, but i can help but be sad that so many of the DFCs are not werewolves... i was really hoping that werewolves would make it out of limited a be a tribe in constructed. Guess i will need to wait another 4 years ubtil innstrad is returned to
Maybe it's just typical Magic players complaining about everything, but I don't get the overwhelmingly negative reaction to Emrakul/Eldrazi in this set.
Maybe it's just typical Magic players complaining about everything, but I don't get the overwhelmingly negative reaction to Emrakul/Eldrazi in this set.
It wasn't done right, to make a long point short.
It's not the fact that there are Eldrazi, it's the fact that there are Eldrazi at the exclusion of others. Case in point? Double-Faced Cards. We get one werewolf who couldn't fit in SOI, but other than that, every DFC is Eldrazi. Why? We were just getting to the interesting uses of it in SOI, with DFC non-permanents and creative transformation triggers, and now it's "Nope, throw that out, Eldrazi!"
As I've said before in this thread, if the Eldrazi subtype was just thrown out in favor of Horror, there would be half as much complaining as there is now. DFC is a great platform on showcasing eldritch/cosmic horror. The fact that the cards have the subtype of Eldrazi did not mean they couldn't have made more interesting DFC's, that's just a logical fallacy.
As I've said before in this thread, if the Eldrazi subtype was just thrown out in favor of Horror, there would be half as much complaining as there is now. DFC is a great platform on showcasing eldritch/cosmic horror. The fact that the cards have the subtype of Eldrazi did not mean they couldn't have made more interesting DFC's, that's just a logical fallacy.
Continue to ignore my point at your leisure, I'll just be asking a few questions:
How many creature DFCs did SOI have?
Of them, how many were Werewolves?
How many creature DFCs did EMN have?
Of them, how many were Werewolves?
Of those (and this is because some people don't like Eldrazi at all), how many aren't Eldrazi?
Werewolves are worse off. Non-creature DFCs are worse off. Of the 15 DFCs, 14 are Eldrazi. That's no longer a thematic mechanic of the plane, that's an Eldrazi mechanic.
By all means, they can showcase the horrid transformations, but not at the expense of everything else. We know uninfected werewolves still wander the plane, but do we see any of them? With one exception, no! We know there are vampires with mysterious other forms that aren't corrupted, but do we get to see them? No!
Well, first of all: The SOI block was supposed to be at least partially about Eldrazi and especially Emrakul since the last Innistrad block. That in mind there were not that many ways in which this could have been shown. They obviously didn't intend to make the SOI block another BFZ block, therefore they couldn't do many colorless Eldrazi cards. As was said before, this is not supposed to be an Eldrazi set like BFZ mostly was. So the only other option (and a quite flavorful too) was using the transform mechanic for the Eldrazi. Transform cards can't make up more than a minority of a set and the number of Eldrazi had to be large enough to justify their inclusion (which as I said was decided upon very early). The option they took was to show werewolves (and others) mutating further and becoming Eldrazi AND their old creature type. With only limited space in the set (and this being the possibly ONLY set with eldrazification) they had to make every transform card into an Eldrazi one. The new dronepack werewolves work really good mechanically with the old transform mechanic. They ARE werewolves and not only Eldrazi. You can argue about their strength all day, but this was the best compromise they could achieve in this situation in my opinion.
And set space is always limited. I didn't get Jenrik, Ludevic and another spirit lord either, but that happens because they can't put everything into a block. Innistrad 3 will come and then werewolves (most likely the old ones) will return.
As I've said before in this thread, if the Eldrazi subtype was just thrown out in favor of Horror, there would be half as much complaining as there is now. DFC is a great platform on showcasing eldritch/cosmic horror. The fact that the cards have the subtype of Eldrazi did not mean they couldn't have made more interesting DFC's, that's just a logical fallacy.
Continue to ignore my point at your leisure, I'll just be asking a few questions:
How many creature DFCs did SOI have?
Of them, how many were Werewolves?
How many creature DFCs did EMN have?
Of them, how many were Werewolves?
Of those (and this is because some people don't like Eldrazi at all), how many aren't Eldrazi?
Werewolves are worse off. Non-creature DFCs are worse off. Of the 15 DFCs, 14 are Eldrazi. That's no longer a thematic mechanic of the plane, that's an Eldrazi mechanic.
By all means, they can showcase the horrid transformations, but not at the expense of everything else. We know uninfected werewolves still wander the plane, but do we see any of them? With one exception, no! We know there are vampires with mysterious other forms that aren't corrupted, but do we get to see them? No!
I never ignored your point, I addressed it fully, but I'll play along here.
How many creature DFCs did SOI have? (I'm counting all DFCs)
33 Of them, how many were Werewolves?
12 How many creature DFCs did EMN have? (I'm counting all DFCs)
15 Of them, how many were Werewolves?
8
What's your point? Percentage wise, we see more Werewolf creatures here than we did with the DFCs in SoI. All of these Werewolf creatures play really well with the SoI ones, giving you mana sinks in order to do something meaningful with your turn and still flip your werewolves. Hell all of the werewolf tech in SoI plays brilliantly with the EMN ones, and I think the limited environment is going to be pretty fun because of it (this is the most important thing to me).
Of those (and this is because some people don't like Eldrazi at all), how many aren't Eldrazi?
Wizards had no way of the knowing that there would be a backlash against the Eldrazi due to BfZ because most market research at the time probably said that the Eldrazi were liked by most players. Do realize that SoI and EMN were probably already on the printing presses before any meaningful statistics/market research could have been done to rectify the amount of Eldrazi in the set.
This is a small set, they weren't going to make half the set DFC, and DFC was the best way to show Emrakul's presence on the plane, seeing as her signature ability is warping biology. Yes, DFC became the Eldrazi mechanic in a way, but that's not a bad thing! It's just a different thing, one that certain players may not like, while others might.
Besides, this just means there is more design for regulars werewolves when we come back to Innistrad!
Maybe it's just typical Magic players complaining about everything, but I don't get the overwhelmingly negative reaction to Emrakul/Eldrazi in this set.
Two consecutive blocks of tentacle monsters, two consecutive blocks of Gatewatch, two consecutive blocks of last-minute heroism, two consecutive blocks of beloved planes whose original themes were somewhat displaced by said tentacle monsters.
In my view, Battle for Zendikar is the predominant problem in that it's the lesser of the two Eldrazi-focused blocks. In Shadows Over Innistrad, Creative finally nailed eldritch horror in both flavor and mechanics (madness, emerge, meld), but at the expense of what many players already liked about Innistrad.
The pacing of the current block is also problematic; Emrakul appears in the same set in which she's thwarted and both sets (much more so Eldritch Moon) feel cramped. I never thought that I'd miss the three-set block structure, but I think that Shadows Over Innistrad would've benefited from it, if only so some fan-favorite tropes, characters, and creature types could reappear in set 3 to make Emrakul's imprisonment and Innistrad's salvation feel more satisfying (and also could've hinted better at the assumed upcoming war between vampire bloodlines). Creative stuffed too much into too little space.
The pacing of the current block is also problematic; Emrakul appears in the same set in which she's thwarted and both sets (much more so Eldritch Moon) feel cramped. I never thought that I'd miss the three-set block structure, but I think that Shadows Over Innistrad would've benefited from it, if only so some fan-favorite tropes, characters, and creature types could reappear in set 3 to make Emrakul's imprisonment and Innistrad's salvation feel more satisfying (and also could've hinted better at the assumed upcoming war between vampire bloodlines). Creative stuffed too much into too little space.
I agree that design is still not used to matching cards and story to the new 2 set format. Kaladesh might be the first okay block in regards to the new block structure, given a new plane and new story (the story will be most likely be contained on the one plane). If they had waited until after these two "return" blocks then I think the overall sets, cards, and story would have been much better received, but instead design has to get used to the constraints that only 2 sets force on story and mechanics during two very beloved planes.
Maybe it's just typical Magic players complaining about everything, but I don't get the overwhelmingly negative reaction to Emrakul/Eldrazi in this set.
two consecutive blocks of Gatewatch, two consecutive blocks of last-minute heroism
I'm sorry to say, friend, but all blocks from here on out are going to be GW blocks and probably with last minute heroics too. D=
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While a big part of me does like Emrakul, and I think Promised End is a cool card with amazing art, and I like aspects of the story, how much cooler would it have been if they had brought in Ashiok and had it be the cause of the madness, possibly even the corruption and horrors? That would have been far more interesting I feel.
Edit: Hell, the whole dream/nightmare motif would have tied it even more into being "Bloodborne: The Block" since it is oh so very clear that was a huge part of their inspiration here.
I think the main problem is the two set block instead of three. It seems they boxed them selves in with cramming the whole story into two. The twist will be at the very end of first set or beginning of second and then some resolution by the end of the second as well. Not enough time and space for character or plane development
We shall see, but next we get
Kaladesh
A ether revolt
Seems to set up the same way....
Unless they continue stories through 2 blocks making an essential 4 set block. But that didn't turn out quite right with BFZ-OGW-SOI-EMN
While a big part of me does like Emrakul, and I think Promised End is a cool card with amazing art, and I like aspects of the story, how much cooler would it have been if they had brought in Ashiok and had it be the cause of the madness, possibly even the corruption and horrors? That would have been far more interesting I feel.
Edit: Hell, the whole dream/nightmare motif would have tied it even more into being "Bloodborne: The Block" since it is oh so very clear that was a huge part of their inspiration here.
Pretty sure Bloodborne was released far too late to have any real influence. It was just released last year, by then they were probably wrapped up with most key design elements.
While a big part of me does like Emrakul, and I think Promised End is a cool card with amazing art, and I like aspects of the story, how much cooler would it have been if they had brought in Ashiok and had it be the cause of the madness, possibly even the corruption and horrors? That would have been far more interesting I feel.
Idk, I think what Ashiok is doing on Theros is more interesting, with Ashiok trying to make a god and is on a world where belif and dreams (aka nightmares) are able to influence reality.
Edit: Hell, the whole dream/nightmare motif would have tied it even more into being "Bloodborne: The Block" since it is oh so very clear that was a huge part of their inspiration here.
I'd argue that. Wizards works years in advanced so by the time Bloodborne (2015) came out SoI would already have been through a good deal of design, development and creative, if not "finished" (all this being around around 2014). Wizards works ~2 years a head of time so by the time Bloodborne ( Spring 2015) came out they most likely working on Aether Revolt or the first set of the block after Kaladesh (Which will be out spring 2017).
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Everytime someone says Wizards works 2 years in advance, I cringe. I mean, these guys up there control all the information. It's up to anyone to believe it or not. But whether whatever they say is true or false, is another thing all together. And that's because no one else is privy to their works.
When you control info, you control what the media gets to present. I dunno about anybody else, I know I'm not gonna treat everything they say as kosher.
Especially with regards to creative and creative-design elements.
Everytime someone says Wizards works 2 years in advance, I cringe. I mean, these guys up there control all the information. It's up to anyone to believe it or not. But whether whatever they say is true or false, is another thing all together. And that's because no one else is privy to their works.
When you control info, you control what the media gets to present. I dunno about anybody else, I know I'm not gonna treat everything they say as kosher.
Especially with regards to creative and creative-design elements.
Conspiracy theories are worse than just using simple logic.
Wizards needs the time after finishing a set to produce it, package it, ship it thousands of areas for distribution, and then make sure every single one of their constituents has access to product. This can't be done in a day and probably has to be done a long time in advance considering they have to also print/distribute supplemental products. Remember just these last few months we've had SoI, EMA, EMM, and soon conspiracy, and another following conspiracy in a couple months in Kaladesh. I'd say EMN was already being printed/packaged by the time SoI came out, maybe even before.
Also factor that wizards has at most 1-2 design teams that has to work on each set, and the fact that they work on a 7 year timeframe, I can see no reason to doubt them, or to suspect them to lie about this. The critique that they should change thing in response to feedback is ludicrous. We're already on the next block by the time they can get any sort of meaningful population/market data that they could apply to design/development.
Two consecutive blocks of tentacle monsters, two consecutive blocks of Gatewatch, two consecutive blocks of last-minute heroism, two consecutive blocks of beloved planes whose original themes were somewhat displaced by said tentacle monsters.
In my view, Battle for Zendikar is the predominant problem in that it's the lesser of the two Eldrazi-focused blocks. In Shadows Over Innistrad, Creative finally nailed eldritch horror in both flavor and mechanics (madness, emerge, meld), but at the expense of what many players already liked about Innistrad.
The pacing of the current block is also problematic; Emrakul appears in the same set in which she's thwarted and both sets (much more so Eldritch Moon) feel cramped. I never thought that I'd miss the three-set block structure, but I think that Shadows Over Innistrad would've benefited from it, if only so some fan-favorite tropes, characters, and creature types could reappear in set 3 to make Emrakul's imprisonment and Innistrad's salvation feel more satisfying (and also could've hinted better at the assumed upcoming war between vampire bloodlines). Creative stuffed too much into too little space.
Actually, two consecutive blocks aren't the issue for the Eldrazi. Considering they've already failed their "World-Destroying" nature/purpose twice in a row, I'll say it'll be more of a disgrace to their inter-planar status if they didn't show up in two consecutive blocks, especially when planeswalkers (similar inter-planar beings) have shown up for 10 consecutive blocks and counting...
The problem is the way they're written - they're essentially written as oldwalkers (in terms of power) but with none of the "humanity-sapience" (they probably have alien sapience of some sort) that allows us to relate to the newer planeswalkers (oldwalkers were admittedly, all over the spectrum)... but because of the demands of the game, they end up as 1-dimensional flat "antagonists" for the heroes to defeat/seal instead of the fourth dimensional beings that transcend human understanding. Even the "too powerful to understand and kill" argument was thrown out by Ulamog and Kozilek's departure, so sad to say, the Eldrazi were just wasted potential.
All the Eldrazi mimic now is the artistic license of the Elder Ones, but none of the actual depth. "Beyond understanding" is a point that doesn't hold any water when the heroes are capable of defeating it or sealing it without any personal repercussions (no, the loss of the planes don't count, the repercussions must be to the planeswalkers themselves, but the two planes are related to Sorin and Nahiri, all morally ambiguous oldwalkers instead of the Gatewatch). Nissa is the closest character to suffering such repercussions, but no story article touches on that much once Ulamog and Kozilek left the field.
At this point, apparently the players ("planeswalkers" with moot creative influence) are more invested to the planes than the actual planeswalkers in the lore... but the players are also customers and business sense also tells one not to "anger" them too much... which is what they might have done here. But what makes it more glaringly obvious was they didn't just risk this "anger", but they risked it for literally nothing, since the planeswalkers supposed to be invested in the plane (Sorin), turned out to be less invested than the players themselves are. So, bluntly put, it's a double fail right there. Had it being some tragedy inflicted on a planeswalker people can relate to, people might take the Eldrazification with some stride, but as it stands, it just fell flat one way and in response, the other as well.
The Eldrazi are at this point of time, almost a parody of their inspirations because they only took the artistic flair of those sources... but what makes it worse is that they are also a shadow of their former purpose - beings supposed to inflict unrecoverable scars onto the main planeswalkers of the story at the very least... and they failed that as well (remember, the destruction they cause is only a means to this end, so it doesn't count as a success, it's nearer to aesthetics than purpose). Bluntly put, the Time Rifts from Time Spiral probably did a better job than them. Don't hate the Eldrazi, pity them instead.
Long story short: The Eldrazi Titans are reduced to merely titanic punching bags for the Gatewatch.
Magic fiction has been serialized for kids under 10.
"Gatewatch always wins!"
I fear for the futures of the other magic supervillains...
That said, I do feel that Development played a huge role in making Eldrazi stink. They wanted cheaper critters. And because they wanted cheap critters, there's a conscious effort to produce a plethora of them, doing things that mere vanilla creature types like vampires, humans, insert_any, etc can do. Instead of doing something alien, unfathomable.
When there's so much of these smallish eldrazi running around, the big ones don't look so special anymore. The "scare" (of horror) factor is gone. Compare the first Independence Day (a few aliens) to its rubbish sequel (an army of aliens), too much of anything can ruin the show.
Outside of Rise of the Eldrazi, this is the best use of the Eldrazi to date. We get to see their horrors more among the common folk, rather than in great hordes and stuff like Zendikar 2.
I just view the last year as having a single 4-set block that happens to span two planes. Hopefully we get out of this circus in Kaladesh.
That's probably a good way to approach it. They purposely wanted BFZ/SOI to connect very strongly, very obviously. Kaladesh will tie into Shadows Block some, but it shouldn't be as overt, which is what people have been complaining about.
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I still don't know where this whole "EMN shouldn't have been full of Eldrazi" came from anyway. Maro said nothing of that sort. And nearly every Eldrazi in this Set (except for 2) is another creature type in addition to that, which makes it clear that the Eldrazi type on those cards is more for flavor and mechanical overlap with BFZ reasons than anything else. Maro said that the set is about the impact that Emrakul has on the plane. That's why so much of the art shows mutations. I understand not liking Eldrazi, but this whole "EMN should have had only miniscule amounts of Eldrazi" is really strange to me. Especially now that we know that Emrakul on Innistrad was the plan since the original block.
You are right that it isnt that bad, not nearly what I thought, but i can help but be sad that so many of the DFCs are not werewolves... i was really hoping that werewolves would make it out of limited a be a tribe in constructed. Guess i will need to wait another 4 years ubtil innstrad is returned to
As I've said before in this thread, if the Eldrazi subtype was just thrown out in favor of Horror, there would be half as much complaining as there is now. DFC is a great platform on showcasing eldritch/cosmic horror. The fact that the cards have the subtype of Eldrazi did not mean they couldn't have made more interesting DFC's, that's just a logical fallacy.
Well, first of all: The SOI block was supposed to be at least partially about Eldrazi and especially Emrakul since the last Innistrad block. That in mind there were not that many ways in which this could have been shown. They obviously didn't intend to make the SOI block another BFZ block, therefore they couldn't do many colorless Eldrazi cards. As was said before, this is not supposed to be an Eldrazi set like BFZ mostly was. So the only other option (and a quite flavorful too) was using the transform mechanic for the Eldrazi. Transform cards can't make up more than a minority of a set and the number of Eldrazi had to be large enough to justify their inclusion (which as I said was decided upon very early). The option they took was to show werewolves (and others) mutating further and becoming Eldrazi AND their old creature type. With only limited space in the set (and this being the possibly ONLY set with eldrazification) they had to make every transform card into an Eldrazi one. The new dronepack werewolves work really good mechanically with the old transform mechanic. They ARE werewolves and not only Eldrazi. You can argue about their strength all day, but this was the best compromise they could achieve in this situation in my opinion.
And set space is always limited. I didn't get Jenrik, Ludevic and another spirit lord either, but that happens because they can't put everything into a block. Innistrad 3 will come and then werewolves (most likely the old ones) will return.
How many creature DFCs did SOI have? (I'm counting all DFCs)
33
Of them, how many were Werewolves?
12
How many creature DFCs did EMN have? (I'm counting all DFCs)
15
Of them, how many were Werewolves?
8
What's your point? Percentage wise, we see more Werewolf creatures here than we did with the DFCs in SoI. All of these Werewolf creatures play really well with the SoI ones, giving you mana sinks in order to do something meaningful with your turn and still flip your werewolves. Hell all of the werewolf tech in SoI plays brilliantly with the EMN ones, and I think the limited environment is going to be pretty fun because of it (this is the most important thing to me).
Of those (and this is because some people don't like Eldrazi at all), how many aren't Eldrazi?
Wizards had no way of the knowing that there would be a backlash against the Eldrazi due to BfZ because most market research at the time probably said that the Eldrazi were liked by most players. Do realize that SoI and EMN were probably already on the printing presses before any meaningful statistics/market research could have been done to rectify the amount of Eldrazi in the set.
This is a small set, they weren't going to make half the set DFC, and DFC was the best way to show Emrakul's presence on the plane, seeing as her signature ability is warping biology. Yes, DFC became the Eldrazi mechanic in a way, but that's not a bad thing! It's just a different thing, one that certain players may not like, while others might.
Besides, this just means there is more design for regulars werewolves when we come back to Innistrad!
Two consecutive blocks of tentacle monsters, two consecutive blocks of Gatewatch, two consecutive blocks of last-minute heroism, two consecutive blocks of beloved planes whose original themes were somewhat displaced by said tentacle monsters.
In my view, Battle for Zendikar is the predominant problem in that it's the lesser of the two Eldrazi-focused blocks. In Shadows Over Innistrad, Creative finally nailed eldritch horror in both flavor and mechanics (madness, emerge, meld), but at the expense of what many players already liked about Innistrad.
The pacing of the current block is also problematic; Emrakul appears in the same set in which she's thwarted and both sets (much more so Eldritch Moon) feel cramped. I never thought that I'd miss the three-set block structure, but I think that Shadows Over Innistrad would've benefited from it, if only so some fan-favorite tropes, characters, and creature types could reappear in set 3 to make Emrakul's imprisonment and Innistrad's salvation feel more satisfying (and also could've hinted better at the assumed upcoming war between vampire bloodlines). Creative stuffed too much into too little space.
I agree that design is still not used to matching cards and story to the new 2 set format. Kaladesh might be the first okay block in regards to the new block structure, given a new plane and new story (the story will be most likely be contained on the one plane). If they had waited until after these two "return" blocks then I think the overall sets, cards, and story would have been much better received, but instead design has to get used to the constraints that only 2 sets force on story and mechanics during two very beloved planes.
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I'm sorry to say, friend, but all blocks from here on out are going to be GW blocks and probably with last minute heroics too. D=
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Edit: Hell, the whole dream/nightmare motif would have tied it even more into being "Bloodborne: The Block" since it is oh so very clear that was a huge part of their inspiration here.
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We shall see, but next we get
Kaladesh
A ether revolt
Seems to set up the same way....
Unless they continue stories through 2 blocks making an essential 4 set block. But that didn't turn out quite right with BFZ-OGW-SOI-EMN
Pretty sure Bloodborne was released far too late to have any real influence. It was just released last year, by then they were probably wrapped up with most key design elements.
Idk, I think what Ashiok is doing on Theros is more interesting, with Ashiok trying to make a god and is on a world where belif and dreams (aka nightmares) are able to influence reality.
I'd argue that. Wizards works years in advanced so by the time Bloodborne (2015) came out SoI would already have been through a good deal of design, development and creative, if not "finished" (all this being around around 2014). Wizards works ~2 years a head of time so by the time Bloodborne ( Spring 2015) came out they most likely working on Aether Revolt or the first set of the block after Kaladesh (Which will be out spring 2017).
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
When you control info, you control what the media gets to present. I dunno about anybody else, I know I'm not gonna treat everything they say as kosher.
Especially with regards to creative and creative-design elements.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
Conspiracy theories are worse than just using simple logic.
Wizards needs the time after finishing a set to produce it, package it, ship it thousands of areas for distribution, and then make sure every single one of their constituents has access to product. This can't be done in a day and probably has to be done a long time in advance considering they have to also print/distribute supplemental products. Remember just these last few months we've had SoI, EMA, EMM, and soon conspiracy, and another following conspiracy in a couple months in Kaladesh. I'd say EMN was already being printed/packaged by the time SoI came out, maybe even before.
Also factor that wizards has at most 1-2 design teams that has to work on each set, and the fact that they work on a 7 year timeframe, I can see no reason to doubt them, or to suspect them to lie about this. The critique that they should change thing in response to feedback is ludicrous. We're already on the next block by the time they can get any sort of meaningful population/market data that they could apply to design/development.
Actually, two consecutive blocks aren't the issue for the Eldrazi. Considering they've already failed their "World-Destroying" nature/purpose twice in a row, I'll say it'll be more of a disgrace to their inter-planar status if they didn't show up in two consecutive blocks, especially when planeswalkers (similar inter-planar beings) have shown up for 10 consecutive blocks and counting...
The problem is the way they're written - they're essentially written as oldwalkers (in terms of power) but with none of the "humanity-sapience" (they probably have alien sapience of some sort) that allows us to relate to the newer planeswalkers (oldwalkers were admittedly, all over the spectrum)... but because of the demands of the game, they end up as 1-dimensional flat "antagonists" for the heroes to defeat/seal instead of the fourth dimensional beings that transcend human understanding. Even the "too powerful to understand and kill" argument was thrown out by Ulamog and Kozilek's departure, so sad to say, the Eldrazi were just wasted potential.
All the Eldrazi mimic now is the artistic license of the Elder Ones, but none of the actual depth. "Beyond understanding" is a point that doesn't hold any water when the heroes are capable of defeating it or sealing it without any personal repercussions (no, the loss of the planes don't count, the repercussions must be to the planeswalkers themselves, but the two planes are related to Sorin and Nahiri, all morally ambiguous oldwalkers instead of the Gatewatch). Nissa is the closest character to suffering such repercussions, but no story article touches on that much once Ulamog and Kozilek left the field.
At this point, apparently the players ("planeswalkers" with moot creative influence) are more invested to the planes than the actual planeswalkers in the lore... but the players are also customers and business sense also tells one not to "anger" them too much... which is what they might have done here. But what makes it more glaringly obvious was they didn't just risk this "anger", but they risked it for literally nothing, since the planeswalkers supposed to be invested in the plane (Sorin), turned out to be less invested than the players themselves are. So, bluntly put, it's a double fail right there. Had it being some tragedy inflicted on a planeswalker people can relate to, people might take the Eldrazification with some stride, but as it stands, it just fell flat one way and in response, the other as well.
The Eldrazi are at this point of time, almost a parody of their inspirations because they only took the artistic flair of those sources... but what makes it worse is that they are also a shadow of their former purpose - beings supposed to inflict unrecoverable scars onto the main planeswalkers of the story at the very least... and they failed that as well (remember, the destruction they cause is only a means to this end, so it doesn't count as a success, it's nearer to aesthetics than purpose). Bluntly put, the Time Rifts from Time Spiral probably did a better job than them. Don't hate the Eldrazi, pity them instead.
Magic fiction has been serialized for kids under 10.
"Gatewatch always wins!"
I fear for the futures of the other magic supervillains...
That said, I do feel that Development played a huge role in making Eldrazi stink. They wanted cheaper critters. And because they wanted cheap critters, there's a conscious effort to produce a plethora of them, doing things that mere vanilla creature types like vampires, humans, insert_any, etc can do. Instead of doing something alien, unfathomable.
When there's so much of these smallish eldrazi running around, the big ones don't look so special anymore. The "scare" (of horror) factor is gone. Compare the first Independence Day (a few aliens) to its rubbish sequel (an army of aliens), too much of anything can ruin the show.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
That's probably a good way to approach it. They purposely wanted BFZ/SOI to connect very strongly, very obviously. Kaladesh will tie into Shadows Block some, but it shouldn't be as overt, which is what people have been complaining about.