Can we just get back to the topic at hand? I’m confused as to how we even got here. The connections seem...lacking.
I mean they have little bearing in reality so that’s to be expected.
And I’m liking the new Golgari design. I’m hoping that I can click with them better this time.
The more time goes on I suppose the more accepting of it all I am. I want other returns, and more new planes, but I’ll deal. Honestly I wish we didn’t return to old planes as often as we went to new ones, a different ratio would be better. Hoping the separate large sets means a return to more risky places at least.
Sorry, didn't want to derail this any further, just wanted the discussion to get to the point (which I feel was still missing, but let's just drop the issue). From what I can tell WotC still wants to push a 50/50 ratio in the long run. I mean, before Dominaria we went to three (more like 2.5 because Kaladesh was also in Origins) new worlds, so a return was pretty much a given. Now it's four return sets, so I guess after Ravnica we'll get to a new plane. No worries. Something that is kind of unfortunate though is the fact that IF they return to a world they'll always go with the least risky options (i.e. very popular planes). They even had to compromise on Dominaria (one set there, then popular "safe" option Ravnica next and if Dominaria succeeds a return in the not too distant future instead of two Dominaria sets) because they feared that many people, especially newer players, didn't even have a connection to the plane. Whether you agree with them on this or not, it's very probable that if they experiment again it will be at best like Dominaria, one odd set with a faster return later on or a new world.
I know it’s still meant to be 50:50. I wish it was more like 25:75 in favor of new planes. Alternatively the returns could be to places I like more, of the return sets they’ve done the only one I really liked was RtR. But it’s fine, it’ll change as it does. Curious what the new place will be after RtR though. I hope they go to a slightly more even ratio after this too.
I agree that there are a few low hanging tropes that they haven’t reached for yet that I’d be eager to see, like an Underground World, messed up Fairy tale (with humans) world, prison world, Nordic world, etc
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Wizards. listen. The Vorthos community will await the consequences of the Eldrazi Titans' deaths/sealing. We will keep the watch.
“The wind whispers, ‘come home,’ but I cannot.”
— Teferi
What would prison world mean? I’m not sure I really get it.
As far as places I’d like to see... underwater world sounds nice. Fairytale world too. Norse is a must. I’d like to see the place Mu is from, the presumably Chinese Mythology world. I’d like to see them go more into Mythology worlds personally, I think they’re great. Vryn, Elsepth’s homeworld, basically every Planeswalker we haven’t visited the home plane of. Regatha, Shandalar, likely places in Planechase but I don’t want to look it up. As far as more mechanical themes, enemy colors, another enchantment plane, Instants/Sorceries plane, somewhere they could do the “requires colorless mana” thing Kozilek did (though not an Eldrazi). Lots really.
Prison world is what it sounds like, a world that's a giant prison and that plays to "prison break" tropes. It's one of the more out-there ideas that people have floated in asks on MaRo's blog.
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On average, Magic players are worse at new card evaluation than almost every other skill, except perhaps sideboarding.
Prison world is what it sounds like, a world that's a giant prison and that plays to "prison break" tropes. It's one of the more out-there ideas that people have floated in asks on MaRo's blog.
Exactly.
Imagine a world, that was composed entirely of ‘cell blocks’. Large or small, artificial or biological, where the plane’s very mana and spirit seems bent on keeping its inmates controlled and segregated, with some cells nicer and less ‘high security’ than others. Forests would resemble living, natural cage barriers, Islands and swamps like artificial or natural holding tanks, sewage and aqueducts, mountains = stone cages and vaults, etc
A place where anciently people of other planes could and would send people and monsters, BEFORE the Mending made this impossible. Now forgotten, decrepit, with inmates great and minor, some who’ve escaped and settled the wreckage.
...sorry. I couldn’t help myself.
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Wizards. listen. The Vorthos community will await the consequences of the Eldrazi Titans' deaths/sealing. We will keep the watch.
“The wind whispers, ‘come home,’ but I cannot.”
— Teferi
It really would be nice to not to have this conversation every month or so. If you want to discuss the cringe worthy aspects of the video that's fine, but complaining about wizards being more inclusive and the idea that SJW is some sort of pejorative, is not on topic. Nor is is welcome as one.
ANYONE who mentions SJW in this thread after this post will receive an infraction. Stick to the topic people
If you want to see a great announcement reaction, watch the video at PAX where they announced the first return to ravnica. It was genuine excitement. A lot tells me they didn't want to announce this at this time, if that was the case they should have waited. I am excited. Patrick Sullivan made a great point over the weekend, "wizards took a softball lob by going back to Ravnica, Wizards must hit it out of the park". I agree, must be a home run here. I expect it to be taken up a notch.
Prison world is what it sounds like, a world that's a giant prison and that plays to "prison break" tropes. It's one of the more out-there ideas that people have floated in asks on MaRo's blog.
Exactly.
Imagine a world, that was composed entirely of ‘cell blocks’. Large or small, artificial or biological, where the plane’s very mana and spirit seems bent on keeping its inmates controlled and segregated, with some cells nicer and less ‘high security’ than others. Forests would resemble living, natural cage barriers, Islands and swamps like artificial or natural holding tanks, sewage and aqueducts, mountains = stone cages and vaults, etc
A place where anciently people of other planes could and would send people and monsters, BEFORE the Mending made this impossible. Now forgotten, decrepit, with inmates great and minor, some who’ve escaped and settled the wreckage.
...sorry. I couldn’t help myself.
Nah, that's much better, as when people say "prison world" I can't really get what's all that exciting about it. A place that amounts to the inside of the Helvault or the like sounds potentially interesting. I think it would need to be more of a mechanical theme than top down, but I could be interested in that potentially.
I mean there are lots of planes I'd like to see, I'm just not sure I get the appeal of some of the themes that I've seen tossed around. But that idea for a prison world works for me. Wonder how the wardens would work for that kind of place though.
They had so little to show but somehow managed to drag on the cringe for 10 mins.
I think an actual interview with normal people asking normal questions in a normal tone would be super interesting. But at the same time, the timing seems off. Why talk about Ravnica now? Shouldn't they be hyping up the core set, commander products and the planeswalker spellbooks?
It's like trying to hype the 4th season of Stranger Things when people just want to know more about season 3.
They had so little to show but somehow managed to drag on the cringe for 10 mins.
I think an actual interview with normal people asking normal questions in a normal tone would be super interesting. But at the same time, the timing seems off. Why talk about Ravnica now? Shouldn't they be hyping up the core set, commander products and the planeswalker spellbooks?
It's like trying to hype the 4th season of Stranger Things when people just want to know more about season 3.
I mean, the point of announcement day is to announce things coming out between announcement days. I'm not sure the Core set is really worth hyping, it's more a necessity. And it's already announced, so not really much to do there. Commander should be out after the fall block so it's not like Ravnica is out of place in comparison, though I wish they had talked about it too. And not sure there is much to hype about the spellbooks, we already know about them.
I'm actually very curious about the core set right now. They are effectively sandwiching it between two really popular standard sets and it's hitting right in the middle of the summer when they go heavy into commander. In the case of sealed product, the big thing is to make the product attractive enough and affordable enough that they will open packs of it for draft. If it isn't heavily drafted than what will happen is the cards that get reprinted will spike and the new cards that are playable will also become expensive quickly. Basically, it's going to be like the Rekindling Phoenix from Rivals or The Scarab God from Hour of Devastation.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Returning to a plane (other than Dominaria) kind of opened this can of worms where Magic is creating new settings at a faster rate than it can return to them, so people will never be happy. And if R&D is doing its job right, then for every one of these settings there'll be a contingent of people who want a return to them. I don't know that Amonkhet or Ixalan are ultra-popular but there are definitely people who'll be clamoring for a return to those planes in a few years and getting super-disappointed by Kaladesh 2: Aetheric Boogaloo or something.
Heck, there's a vocal subsection of the MtG community that's been begging for years for a return to, of all places, Ulgrotha. Every plane has its fans.
I think an actual interview with normal people asking normal questions in a normal tone would be super interesting. But at the same time, the timing seems off. Why talk about Ravnica now? Shouldn't they be hyping up the core set, commander products and the planeswalker spellbooks?
It's like trying to hype the 4th season of Stranger Things when people just want to know more about season 3.
Regardless of how big the Commander release is, you can only ride the wave of a 4 pre-packed decks for a few weeks. It really is not comparable to a normal set's release. This goes for side products like Battlebond as well. The products just do not have enough meat on their bones to sustain several months worth of momentum. This is partly due to their smaller size and scale, and also due to the fact that they are not standard products. They are sideshows - popular and beloved though they may be - but side shows they remain. They are tasty deserts compared to normal sets, which are more akin to a steak dinner.
Core Sets are not "real" sets either. They exist somewhere between a supplementary product (like the Battlebond or Unstable) and a real expansion set (like Dominaria or Ixalan). The cards are all standard legal but the focus of the set is squarely on new players. Core Sets are introductory products which WotC leverages to include cards that will help support the themes they want to push in the real expansion sets, as well as introducing usable answer cards to the standard environment (and thus avoiding any potential problems people may have drafting the regular expansion sets). Additionally, WotC has already stated that drafting Core Sets will be fun and engaging but they do not expect experienced to draft them for as long as they draft regular expansion sets.
A lot of people don't seem to get that these videos have an interview format to give them a throughline but they're not interviews in the journalistic sense. If it was someone asking non-scripted questions, the answers would be a lot of "we're not ready to talk about that yet."
They should probably drop that format for announcements like this exactly because it seems to confuse people this way, and go with a more traditional sort of presentation. Just put Doug there and have him get in and give his pitch. Everyone loves Doug.
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On average, Magic players are worse at new card evaluation than almost every other skill, except perhaps sideboarding.
Speaking of Commander Decks...I wonder when they reveal the first Face Card. Last time they did Walker Commander Decks, I remember Teferi was revealed quite early to hype the release so this time I expect Serra.
Speaking of Commander Decks...I wonder win they reveal the first Face Card. Last time they did Walker Commander Decks, I remember Teferi was revealed quite early to hype the release so this time I expect Serra.
Soon I hope. It's apparently coming out sooner than I thought, though I'm glad for that.
I think If WotC wanted to go back to Ravnica again just so they could tie it in with Dominaria, then they should've already done it when Return to Ravnica was first released in 2012. By personally reserving Dominaria for the 25th Anniversary of the game, they ended up writing themselves into a corner when trying to tie in MTG lore with set production due to being lazy with Masters set products.
As Rudy from Alpha Investments pointed out in his latest YouTube video, this ends up creating diminishing returns due to lack of creativity by going with what's already been established instead of willing to take risks. How many times are we going to have to go back to a certain plane within the MTG Multiverse or keep releasing a new line of product for Commander and Modern formats to the point where enough is enough? We're already at that point.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I think If WotC wanted to go back to Ravnica again just so they could tie it in with Dominaria, then they should've already done it when Return to Ravnica was first released in 2012. By trying to save Dominaria for the 25th Anniversary of the game, they ended up writing themselves into a corner when trying to tie in MTG lore with set production due to being lazy with Masters set products.
As Rudy from Alpha Investments pointed out in his latest YouTube video, this ends up creating diminishing returns due to lack of creativity by going with what's already been established instead of willing to take risks. How many times are we going to have to go back to a certain plane within the MTG Multiverse or keep releasing a new line of product for Commander and Modern formats to the point where enough is enough? We're already at that point.
I want to see more Commander products. There the perfect place to release oddball designs that wouldn't fit in your average set. Especially multiplayer focused cards.
And I really don't get the rest of your comments. They went back to Dominaria for the 25th anniversary, and then followed up with Ravnica. Ravnica is already exceptionally popular, what possible reason would there be to try to tie it in to Dominaria when there are good odds Ravnica is more popular than it, and if not it's certainly right behind it. As far as "how many times", we spent umpteen years on Dominaria, I think three times for Ravnica, or more, is fine really. Blame the general Magic community that Ravnica is as popular as it is, not WotC.
I want to see more Commander products. There the perfect place to release oddball designs that wouldn't fit in your average set. Especially multiplayer focused cards.
I don't mind more Commander products either but If WotC is going to change their design philosophy with Commander in mind when it comes to releasing Standard sets like Dominaria (Kamigawa block doesn't count due to being released before the format itself was conceived) then more power to them I guess? I see where they're going but why not reserve those oddball designs for annual Core Sets instead of releasing Commander (insert year # here) or Battlebond which is replacing Conspiracy?
And I really don't get the rest of your comments. They went back to Dominaria for the 25th anniversary, and then followed up with Ravnica. Ravnica is already exceptionally popular, what possible reason would there be to try to tie it in to Dominaria when there are good odds Ravnica is more popular than it, and if not it's certainly right behind it. As far as "how many times", we spent umpteen years on Dominaria, I think three times for Ravnica, or more, is fine really. Blame the general Magic community that Ravnica is as popular as it is, not WotC.
You're missing the point, instead of following up Dominaria with Ravnica they should've released Dominaria before Return to Ravnica in 2012 but chose not to because they were wanting to save it for MTG's 25th Anniversary. If that had happened then we wouldn't have had a successful Standard set to help break the current cycle of terrible Standard sets and Masters product. WotC could've easily avoided that kind of situation by being more creative in their R&D Department unless the Reserve List is actually holding them back from the creative freedom they need to design good cards for newer sets.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I can't believe this rudy guy needed fifteen minutes to make a pretty trite point about how he thinks the return sets aren't as good as the original ones. Well I mean I do, Youtube's algorithms reward that kind of padded out format. Of course, he's also arguing from his myopic mtg finance bro viewpoint of complaining about secondary market box prices.
And this complaint about return sets comes in the wake of... Dominaria, a return set that was incredibly successful. Uh huh. This totally isn't an entire video of nonstop screaming about something that he knows nothing about in order to draw views from other pissy grognards.
I gotta get me a youtube channel, people will swallow any old nonsense if a dude shouts it into a camera on the internet apparently.
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On average, Magic players are worse at new card evaluation than almost every other skill, except perhaps sideboarding.
I want to see more Commander products. There the perfect place to release oddball designs that wouldn't fit in your average set. Especially multiplayer focused cards.
I don't mind more Commander products either but If WotC is going to change their design philosophy with Commander in mind when it comes to releasing Standard sets like Dominaria (Kamigawa block doesn't count due to being released before the format itself was conceived) then more power to them I guess? I see where they're going but why not reserve those oddball designs for annual Core Sets instead of releasing Commander (insert year # here) or Battlebond which is replacing Conspiracy?
And I really don't get the rest of your comments. They went back to Dominaria for the 25th anniversary, and then followed up with Ravnica. Ravnica is already exceptionally popular, what possible reason would there be to try to tie it in to Dominaria when there are good odds Ravnica is more popular than it, and if not it's certainly right behind it. As far as "how many times", we spent umpteen years on Dominaria, I think three times for Ravnica, or more, is fine really. Blame the general Magic community that Ravnica is as popular as it is, not WotC.
You're missing the point, instead of following up Dominaria with Ravnica they should've released Dominaria before Return to Ravnica in 2012 but chose not to because they were wanting to save it for MTG's 25th Anniversary. If that had happened then we wouldn't have had a successful Standard set to help break the current cycle of terrible Standard sets and Masters product. WotC could've easily avoided that kind of situation by being more creative in their R&D Department unless the Reserve List is actually holding them back from the creative freedom they need to design good cards for newer sets.
To the first point: Because quite honestly? Releasing Commander cards in Standard is giving cards the majority of people don't want, that are effectively useless outside of Commander. How many people who aren't playing Commander are going to want... I don't know, any of the faces for the sets? Barring the Planeswalkers I suppose, but most of the Legendaries are fairly niche designs that don't make sense to just stuff into a Core set, especially when the Core sets purpose is to try and give Standard cards that it needs. Standard doesn't need Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis (as a random example). Most players aren't going to be happy getting them. They don't even fit the time period of the current story. There are many issues with that idea.
As far as Wizards is being controlled by Commander, not really. Being aware of Commander when designing Legendary creatures didn't stop them from releasing Dragonlord Kolaghan, a card that is literally useless for Commander (well, maybe there is some niche use for her, but I would be very surprised). Exactly what are you trying to pin on Commander players with regards to recent cards?
I also don't think any of the past blocks have been "terrible", and I don't think Dominaria is really better than anything that came before it. I also think that you're incredibly underestimating the amount of change that likely would have occurred with releasing a set years ago, it's not like they'd just pluck Dominaria whole-cloth from the here and now and just plop it in. Do you even have anything to suggest that Dominaria was purposely held back for the 25th as opposed to doing it in the 20th or whatever arbitrary time frame they could have done? I imagine the reason they held back so long is to actually give us some other Planes to play in, instead of going right back to the same old generic stuff.
I can't believe this rudy guy needed fifteen minutes to make a pretty trite point about how he thinks the return sets aren't as good as the original ones. Well I mean I do, Youtube's algorithms reward that kind of padded out format. Of course, he's also arguing from his myopic mtg finance bro viewpoint of complaining about secondary market box prices.
And this complaint about return sets comes in the wake of... Dominaria, a return set that was incredibly successful. Uh huh. This totally isn't an entire video of nonstop screaming about something that he knows nothing about in order to draw views from other pissy grognards.
I gotta get me a youtube channel, people will swallow any old nonsense if a dude shouts it into a camera on the internet apparently.
He's not complaining about how the Return sets aren't as good as the originals when it's got more to do with a lack of creativity in recent set quality that's pushed WotC in a position where they feel safer making more money on Return sets rather than coming up with Original sets that are unique, fun, and well designed. Perhaps MTG's success on a corporate level has gotten so big to the point where they don't make the game to make anyone happy except for themselves, it's one thing to relive the past when it's usually better to try new ideas. Ironically enough it's always backfired on WotC in recent years.
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America Bless Christ Jesus
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Let's all remember that complaining and criticizing and being abrasive is what gets people engaged, which in turn is what drives up views. Look at Purp, Jeremy and Rudy, look at Bad Boy, hell it even works for Des. Even Trav, with all his encouraging speeches and positive vibes, has a habit of trolling for views. You can love or hate either of these channels, but please remember that stirring stuff up and talking crap about WotC is kind of their role, their job. It's simply the easiest, most effective way to run a successful Magic related channel on YouTube, it's how the format works. So please don't fall into the habit of thinking the game is terrible and WotC is a bunch of morons because some talking head tells you to. Take those videos for what they are and make up your own mind.
People are different and I can only speak for my own personal experiences, but I can tell you that my enjoyment of the game increased greatly as soon as I eliminated certain content creators from my media input. My advise to all of you is to turn those channels off instead of having all that negativity rub off on you. If something about the game or the way WotC runs the company sucks, you can figure it out for your damn self.
I can't believe this rudy guy needed fifteen minutes to make a pretty trite point about how he thinks the return sets aren't as good as the original ones. Well I mean I do, Youtube's algorithms reward that kind of padded out format. Of course, he's also arguing from his myopic mtg finance bro viewpoint of complaining about secondary market box prices.
And this complaint about return sets comes in the wake of... Dominaria, a return set that was incredibly successful. Uh huh. This totally isn't an entire video of nonstop screaming about something that he knows nothing about in order to draw views from other pissy grognards.
I gotta get me a youtube channel, people will swallow any old nonsense if a dude shouts it into a camera on the internet apparently.
He's not complaining about how the Return sets aren't as good as the originals when it's got more to do with a lack of creativity in recent set quality that's pushed WotC in a position where they feel safer making more money on Return sets rather than coming up with Original sets that are unique, fun, and well designed. Perhaps MTG's success on a corporate level has gotten so big to the point where they don't make the game to make anyone happy except for themselves, it's one thing to relive the past when it's usually better to try new ideas. Ironically enough it's always backfired on WotC in recent years.
Except they make plenty of new places and there are countless people asking for returns to old sets. If no one was happy with Magic they'd be out of business, so quite clearly you're not looking at what's going on really.
It also takes time to make new sets. With the new format for sets there is only so fast they can churn out new sets. If they were constantly releasing new sets you'd just be griping that they aren't good enough, but then you complain about them taking time to work on and release new planes. There isn't any pleasing that kind of person really.
Yeah I don't think 6 year gap from Ravnica counts as over milking Ravnica. My problem is more we just left the block format for Dominaria to get screwed with one set only while Ravnica gets 3 whole sets. That and them not pushing the power enough to my mind are the game complaints. Story complaints are a whole different matter of which I have plenty.
As for Commander Product over saturation what? Commander gets two products a year. Commander Decks and some random set like Conspiracy or Battlebond. Anthology does not come out every year.
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I agree that there are a few low hanging tropes that they haven’t reached for yet that I’d be eager to see, like an Underground World, messed up Fairy tale (with humans) world, prison world, Nordic world, etc
The Vorthos community will await the consequences of the Eldrazi Titans' deaths/sealing. We will keep the watch.
“The wind whispers, ‘come home,’ but I cannot.”
— Teferi
As far as places I’d like to see... underwater world sounds nice. Fairytale world too. Norse is a must. I’d like to see the place Mu is from, the presumably Chinese Mythology world. I’d like to see them go more into Mythology worlds personally, I think they’re great. Vryn, Elsepth’s homeworld, basically every Planeswalker we haven’t visited the home plane of. Regatha, Shandalar, likely places in Planechase but I don’t want to look it up. As far as more mechanical themes, enemy colors, another enchantment plane, Instants/Sorceries plane, somewhere they could do the “requires colorless mana” thing Kozilek did (though not an Eldrazi). Lots really.
Exactly.
Imagine a world, that was composed entirely of ‘cell blocks’. Large or small, artificial or biological, where the plane’s very mana and spirit seems bent on keeping its inmates controlled and segregated, with some cells nicer and less ‘high security’ than others. Forests would resemble living, natural cage barriers, Islands and swamps like artificial or natural holding tanks, sewage and aqueducts, mountains = stone cages and vaults, etc
A place where anciently people of other planes could and would send people and monsters, BEFORE the Mending made this impossible. Now forgotten, decrepit, with inmates great and minor, some who’ve escaped and settled the wreckage.
...sorry. I couldn’t help myself.
The Vorthos community will await the consequences of the Eldrazi Titans' deaths/sealing. We will keep the watch.
“The wind whispers, ‘come home,’ but I cannot.”
— Teferi
ANYONE who mentions SJW in this thread after this post will receive an infraction. Stick to the topic people
Nah, that's much better, as when people say "prison world" I can't really get what's all that exciting about it. A place that amounts to the inside of the Helvault or the like sounds potentially interesting. I think it would need to be more of a mechanical theme than top down, but I could be interested in that potentially.
I mean there are lots of planes I'd like to see, I'm just not sure I get the appeal of some of the themes that I've seen tossed around. But that idea for a prison world works for me. Wonder how the wardens would work for that kind of place though.
I think an actual interview with normal people asking normal questions in a normal tone would be super interesting. But at the same time, the timing seems off. Why talk about Ravnica now? Shouldn't they be hyping up the core set, commander products and the planeswalker spellbooks?
It's like trying to hype the 4th season of Stranger Things when people just want to know more about season 3.
I mean, the point of announcement day is to announce things coming out between announcement days. I'm not sure the Core set is really worth hyping, it's more a necessity. And it's already announced, so not really much to do there. Commander should be out after the fall block so it's not like Ravnica is out of place in comparison, though I wish they had talked about it too. And not sure there is much to hype about the spellbooks, we already know about them.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Sure, there was an uptick in the numbers of those creature types, but going from 1-2 to 2-3 isn't really something worth getting upset over.
Heck, there's a vocal subsection of the MtG community that's been begging for years for a return to, of all places, Ulgrotha. Every plane has its fans.
Regardless of how big the Commander release is, you can only ride the wave of a 4 pre-packed decks for a few weeks. It really is not comparable to a normal set's release. This goes for side products like Battlebond as well. The products just do not have enough meat on their bones to sustain several months worth of momentum. This is partly due to their smaller size and scale, and also due to the fact that they are not standard products. They are sideshows - popular and beloved though they may be - but side shows they remain. They are tasty deserts compared to normal sets, which are more akin to a steak dinner.
Core Sets are not "real" sets either. They exist somewhere between a supplementary product (like the Battlebond or Unstable) and a real expansion set (like Dominaria or Ixalan). The cards are all standard legal but the focus of the set is squarely on new players. Core Sets are introductory products which WotC leverages to include cards that will help support the themes they want to push in the real expansion sets, as well as introducing usable answer cards to the standard environment (and thus avoiding any potential problems people may have drafting the regular expansion sets). Additionally, WotC has already stated that drafting Core Sets will be fun and engaging but they do not expect experienced to draft them for as long as they draft regular expansion sets.
They should probably drop that format for announcements like this exactly because it seems to confuse people this way, and go with a more traditional sort of presentation. Just put Doug there and have him get in and give his pitch. Everyone loves Doug.
Soon I hope. It's apparently coming out sooner than I thought, though I'm glad for that.
As Rudy from Alpha Investments pointed out in his latest YouTube video, this ends up creating diminishing returns due to lack of creativity by going with what's already been established instead of willing to take risks. How many times are we going to have to go back to a certain plane within the MTG Multiverse or keep releasing a new line of product for Commander and Modern formats to the point where enough is enough? We're already at that point.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I want to see more Commander products. There the perfect place to release oddball designs that wouldn't fit in your average set. Especially multiplayer focused cards.
And I really don't get the rest of your comments. They went back to Dominaria for the 25th anniversary, and then followed up with Ravnica. Ravnica is already exceptionally popular, what possible reason would there be to try to tie it in to Dominaria when there are good odds Ravnica is more popular than it, and if not it's certainly right behind it. As far as "how many times", we spent umpteen years on Dominaria, I think three times for Ravnica, or more, is fine really. Blame the general Magic community that Ravnica is as popular as it is, not WotC.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
And this complaint about return sets comes in the wake of... Dominaria, a return set that was incredibly successful. Uh huh. This totally isn't an entire video of nonstop screaming about something that he knows nothing about in order to draw views from other pissy grognards.
I gotta get me a youtube channel, people will swallow any old nonsense if a dude shouts it into a camera on the internet apparently.
To the first point: Because quite honestly? Releasing Commander cards in Standard is giving cards the majority of people don't want, that are effectively useless outside of Commander. How many people who aren't playing Commander are going to want... I don't know, any of the faces for the sets? Barring the Planeswalkers I suppose, but most of the Legendaries are fairly niche designs that don't make sense to just stuff into a Core set, especially when the Core sets purpose is to try and give Standard cards that it needs. Standard doesn't need Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis (as a random example). Most players aren't going to be happy getting them. They don't even fit the time period of the current story. There are many issues with that idea.
As far as Wizards is being controlled by Commander, not really. Being aware of Commander when designing Legendary creatures didn't stop them from releasing Dragonlord Kolaghan, a card that is literally useless for Commander (well, maybe there is some niche use for her, but I would be very surprised). Exactly what are you trying to pin on Commander players with regards to recent cards?
I also don't think any of the past blocks have been "terrible", and I don't think Dominaria is really better than anything that came before it. I also think that you're incredibly underestimating the amount of change that likely would have occurred with releasing a set years ago, it's not like they'd just pluck Dominaria whole-cloth from the here and now and just plop it in. Do you even have anything to suggest that Dominaria was purposely held back for the 25th as opposed to doing it in the 20th or whatever arbitrary time frame they could have done? I imagine the reason they held back so long is to actually give us some other Planes to play in, instead of going right back to the same old generic stuff.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
People are different and I can only speak for my own personal experiences, but I can tell you that my enjoyment of the game increased greatly as soon as I eliminated certain content creators from my media input. My advise to all of you is to turn those channels off instead of having all that negativity rub off on you. If something about the game or the way WotC runs the company sucks, you can figure it out for your damn self.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
Except they make plenty of new places and there are countless people asking for returns to old sets. If no one was happy with Magic they'd be out of business, so quite clearly you're not looking at what's going on really.
It also takes time to make new sets. With the new format for sets there is only so fast they can churn out new sets. If they were constantly releasing new sets you'd just be griping that they aren't good enough, but then you complain about them taking time to work on and release new planes. There isn't any pleasing that kind of person really.
As for Commander Product over saturation what? Commander gets two products a year. Commander Decks and some random set like Conspiracy or Battlebond. Anthology does not come out every year.