They couldn't have done a single Ravnica set and jammed all ten guilds into it, and they have stated and reinstated that the third set will be different. I expect it to not feel like Ravnica at all. So it's pretty much how it has to be.
I do feel you about Dominaria only getting one set. The set is the best since, what, Khans? Original Innistrad? I wish all sets could be this good. But there is no guarantee that a second Dominaria set would be as good as the current. Story location doesn't correlate with set awesomeness, as they painfully proved when they managed to screw up Zendikar. I'll take a good Ravnica set (or even three) over a mediocre Dominaria set.
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When I hit my 3000 post mark, I'm gone for good.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
I do hope they bring the A Game...Battle of Zendikar was disappointing on all fronts Game Wise and Story Wise.
So even though they are rushing the Bolas Arc in my book...lets hope they stick the landing. Card wise it should be easier then story I would assume. Story wise is going to have so many characters some characters are going to get under served and I am sure the word jobbed will come frequently from my mouth and others.
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.
What? Your point makes no sense. Dominaria and Ravnica are not tied together any more thanany two other sets/blocks. There are story threads connecting Dominaria and Ravnica but those are no different than the story threads connecting Amonkhet and Dominaria or Ixalan and Dominaria.
WotC designs sets two years in advance. Standard's lows really only became self evident after Kaladesh came out, which is less than 2 years ago. Dominaria is not a response to the lows of Standard, so much as simply being a well designed set. Well designed sets have always helped end the woes of a poor Standard meta.
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.
Kaladesh, Amonkhet and Ixalan. We had 6 sets, in a row, that dealt with brand new planes. Now we are getting 4 sets in a row that return to previous planes. I'd argue that, given that the third Ravnica set is likely far more like a Bolas themed set that happens to be on Ravnica.
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.
...I'm not sure you actually understand how the Reserved List works...
All the great fantasy "monsters" were either killed, hunted down or extremely powerful.
This part we forgot right?
One of the card you listed literally has HUNTED in the name. One is already dead. Other ones are really weak and a shadow of their former self. rakdos pit dragon is an enslaved beast. It's just a 3/3 that can't even fly properly. You think it's comparable to utvara hellkite? moroii isn't even a "real" vampire. It's not a cursed human that drink blood. It grows things old instead of drinking blood. It doesn0t share any facial feature with human vampires like Szadek or tithe drinker. An extremely rarely and weird beast with a weird ability. Do you think it's comparable to necropolis regent?
Not much lore behind woebringer demon, but still it's just a 4/4. Do you think it's comparable to lord of the void?
You just roved my point.
Little details that show how much effort they put into first Ravnica and how much lazier they were during RtR, choosing big dragons and demons as a blockbuster way to promote the plane instead of using details.
I guess? I mean, it's not like original Ravnica block showed us everything the plane had to offer. It was already clear that it was a small cross section we were looking at. We didn't see any Kraul the first time around, but, then, we didn't see any Zeppelids the second time around. Ravnica is vast and very population dense; we're never going to see the whole picture. So Seeing more varieties of vampires or dragons or whatever doesn't bother me much. The only one that feels off to me is Utvara Hellkite, since it implies that dragons are more numerous on Ravnica than we know them to be.
You said, "All the great fantasy "monsters" were either killed, hunted down or extremely powerful." How does Lord of the Void not fall into that last category?
Not that power and toughness are the best ways to tell how strong something is in-lore. We are talking about the block that gave us a crippled lawyer who's a 4/4, and a healer who's a 5/7. P/T is like power levels in DBZ; they're loose guidelines, to be taken with several grains of salt.
The set is the best since, what, Khans? Original Innistrad? I wish all sets could be this good. But there is no guarantee that a second Dominaria set would be as good as the current. Story location doesn't correlate with set awesomeness, as they painfully proved when they managed to screw up Zendikar. I'll take a good Ravnica set (or even three) over a mediocre Dominaria set.
I think with how positively Dominaria has been received (as far as I can tell), it's only a matter of time before we return there for at least two sets in a row.
The set is the best since, what, Khans? Original Innistrad? I wish all sets could be this good. But there is no guarantee that a second Dominaria set would be as good as the current. Story location doesn't correlate with set awesomeness, as they painfully proved when they managed to screw up Zendikar. I'll take a good Ravnica set (or even three) over a mediocre Dominaria set.
I think with how positively Dominaria has been received (as far as I can tell), it's only a matter of time before we return there for at least two sets in a row.
The trick is finding a good mechanical concept for a few sets. You only get to pull off history as a theme so many times before it begins to feel trite.
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.
It probably has more to do with pushing Standard set design for Brawl with Pauper being an added bonus especially with Legendary Creatures in Dominaria being printed at Uncommon. I don't know If that trend will continue in future Standard sets especially in Core sets which have recently fallen out of favor due to oversaturation of Masters and Commander products. I get what you're saying in regards to how certain cards don't fit the theme of the lore that the actual Standard sets expect for them with Planeswalkers being the obvious exception.
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?
That the cards they currently print for Standard legal sets aren't as powerful as they once were? I know it's hard to please both casual and competitive players especially when the Secondary Market on Mythic Rares make it increasingly difficult to keep up with. Perhaps If the Secondary Market was more forgiving then Magic players wouldn't be obligated to spend less money on Singleton formats compared to having to pay extra on playsets of cards in Standard and Modern. Legacy and Vintage are too far gone to be redeemed due to the Reserve List.
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 remember hearing awhile back that MaRo initially didn't want to go back to Dominaria, maybe because the opportunity in regards to what was going on in MTG's lore wasn't present at the time and that they needed to build up towards it before they felt the time was right. But If they were going to tie in Dominaria with Ravnica solely as a means of keeping up with MTG lore and not just for pleasing audiences, then why go through the trouble of releasing 3 new Ravnica sets when they could've released Dominaria before Return to Ravnica in 2012?
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.
They release new expansions and products two years in advance as we don't have much of a say in the matter as a community until after they're released where WotC expects us to pretend like nothing's happened If anything goes wrong. Whenever they do acknowledge that there's an actual problem it usually seems to be only for their benefit while ignoring the main complaints from the actual Magic community from message board forums, listening solely to users on social media with Facebook, Twitter, and reddit as they seem to be actively ignoring YouTube apparently (Gee, why am I not surprised?).
"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 remember hearing awhile back that MaRo initially didn't want to go back to Dominaria, maybe because the opportunity in regards to what was going on in MTG's lore wasn't present at the time and that they needed to build up towards it before they felt the time was right. But If they were going to tie in Dominaria with Ravnica solely as a means of keeping up with MTG lore and not just for pleasing audiences, then why go through the trouble of releasing 3 new Ravnica sets when they could've released Dominaria before Return to Ravnica in 2012?
I do not know where you are getting the idea that Dominaria is linked to Ravnica. It is not. It just happens to be the set that came out before a Ravnica set. It is no different than Amonkhet's story influencing the events of Ixalan.
Going to Dominaria before Return to Ravnica makes no story sense. There was nothing happening on Dominaria that the core characters would have cared about or had an interest in (besides Lilyana but she was not going to go back until after she had killed a few more Demons).
I wonder if they're wrapping up (seemingly) the Gatewatch story arc in order to put emphasis on Jhoira and the Weatherlight as she and her new crew traverse the multiverse and with occasional interactions with post-Bolas Gatewatch members.
That'd be a nice homage to the big storyline that propelled Magic to where it is today.
'buster
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'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset. Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
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.
It probably has more to do with pushing Standard set design for Brawl with Pauper being an added bonus especially with Legendary Creatures in Dominaria being printed at Uncommon. I don't know If that trend will continue in future Standard sets especially in Core sets which have recently fallen out of favor due to oversaturation of Masters and Commander products. I get what you're saying in regards to how certain cards don't fit the theme of the lore that the actual Standard sets expect for them with Planeswalkers being the obvious exception.
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?
That the cards they currently print for Standard legal sets aren't as powerful as they once were? I know it's hard to please both casual and competitive players especially when the Secondary Market on Mythic Rares make it increasingly difficult to keep up with. Perhaps If the Secondary Market was more forgiving then Magic players wouldn't be obligated to spend less money on Singleton formats compared to having to pay extra on playsets of cards in Standard and Modern. Legacy and Vintage are too far gone to be redeemed due to the Reserve List.
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 remember hearing awhile back that MaRo initially didn't want to go back to Dominaria, maybe because the opportunity in regards to what was going on in MTG's lore wasn't present at the time and that they needed to build up towards it before they felt the time was right. But If they were going to tie in Dominaria with Ravnica solely as a means of keeping up with MTG lore and not just for pleasing audiences, then why go through the trouble of releasing 3 new Ravnica sets when they could've released Dominaria before Return to Ravnica in 2012?
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.
They release new expansions and products two years in advance as we don't have much of a say in the matter as a community until after they're released where WotC expects us to pretend like nothing's happened If anything goes wrong. Whenever they do acknowledge that there's an actual problem it usually seems to be only for their benefit while ignoring the main complaints from the actual Magic community from message board forums, listening solely to users on social media with Facebook, Twitter, and reddit as they seem to be actively ignoring YouTube apparently (Gee, why am I not surprised?).
Legendary Creatures were printed at Uncommon for the Historic theme, not to push Commander.
The cards they currently print not being as powerful as you feel they should be is not a Commander related thing either. Like... Commander is not this scapegoat that you can just pin things you dislike on. Put some thought into your complaints.
If you want to cite your sources then do so on the "Dominaria had to be tied to Ravnica". If not then you have no case.
If you'd like to cite proof that they're ignoring the majority of complaints feel free to cite it. You will fail to do so, but please feel free to try. Them not catering to your whims is not the same as them ignoring the majority of people.
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I do feel you about Dominaria only getting one set. The set is the best since, what, Khans? Original Innistrad? I wish all sets could be this good. But there is no guarantee that a second Dominaria set would be as good as the current. Story location doesn't correlate with set awesomeness, as they painfully proved when they managed to screw up Zendikar. I'll take a good Ravnica set (or even three) over a mediocre Dominaria set.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
So even though they are rushing the Bolas Arc in my book...lets hope they stick the landing. Card wise it should be easier then story I would assume. Story wise is going to have so many characters some characters are going to get under served and I am sure the word jobbed will come frequently from my mouth and others.
What? Your point makes no sense. Dominaria and Ravnica are not tied together any more thanany two other sets/blocks. There are story threads connecting Dominaria and Ravnica but those are no different than the story threads connecting Amonkhet and Dominaria or Ixalan and Dominaria.
WotC designs sets two years in advance. Standard's lows really only became self evident after Kaladesh came out, which is less than 2 years ago. Dominaria is not a response to the lows of Standard, so much as simply being a well designed set. Well designed sets have always helped end the woes of a poor Standard meta.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
Kaladesh, Amonkhet and Ixalan. We had 6 sets, in a row, that dealt with brand new planes. Now we are getting 4 sets in a row that return to previous planes. I'd argue that, given that the third Ravnica set is likely far more like a Bolas themed set that happens to be on Ravnica.
I guess? I mean, it's not like original Ravnica block showed us everything the plane had to offer. It was already clear that it was a small cross section we were looking at. We didn't see any Kraul the first time around, but, then, we didn't see any Zeppelids the second time around. Ravnica is vast and very population dense; we're never going to see the whole picture. So Seeing more varieties of vampires or dragons or whatever doesn't bother me much. The only one that feels off to me is Utvara Hellkite, since it implies that dragons are more numerous on Ravnica than we know them to be.
You said, "All the great fantasy "monsters" were either killed, hunted down or extremely powerful." How does Lord of the Void not fall into that last category?
Not that power and toughness are the best ways to tell how strong something is in-lore. We are talking about the block that gave us a crippled lawyer who's a 4/4, and a healer who's a 5/7. P/T is like power levels in DBZ; they're loose guidelines, to be taken with several grains of salt.
I think with how positively Dominaria has been received (as far as I can tell), it's only a matter of time before we return there for at least two sets in a row.
The trick is finding a good mechanical concept for a few sets. You only get to pull off history as a theme so many times before it begins to feel trite.
"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 do not know where you are getting the idea that Dominaria is linked to Ravnica. It is not. It just happens to be the set that came out before a Ravnica set. It is no different than Amonkhet's story influencing the events of Ixalan.
Going to Dominaria before Return to Ravnica makes no story sense. There was nothing happening on Dominaria that the core characters would have cared about or had an interest in (besides Lilyana but she was not going to go back until after she had killed a few more Demons).
That'd be a nice homage to the big storyline that propelled Magic to where it is today.
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset.
Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
Legendary Creatures were printed at Uncommon for the Historic theme, not to push Commander.
The cards they currently print not being as powerful as you feel they should be is not a Commander related thing either. Like... Commander is not this scapegoat that you can just pin things you dislike on. Put some thought into your complaints.
If you want to cite your sources then do so on the "Dominaria had to be tied to Ravnica". If not then you have no case.
If you'd like to cite proof that they're ignoring the majority of complaints feel free to cite it. You will fail to do so, but please feel free to try. Them not catering to your whims is not the same as them ignoring the majority of people.