1) Well if you consider that the fluff/flavor side of Kamigawa strong armed everything mechanically...
2) Yes those are references to those characters and events. There were also going to be the characters that those cards reference.
3) Theros and Amonkhet (Minus HOU atm) are regarded as partial-flops. They are both very low powered blocks that while have some gems (Read: Kamigawa) they are arguably not commercially good blocks (Read: Kamigawa).
4) Go play Yugioh. Seriously it has those elements you speak of.
5)
Quote from MTGSalvation Wiki »
"Kappa were mysterious, goblin-like, water-dwelling creatures that once had lived on Kamigawa, but have since become extinct. Little is known about them, but kappa resembled a cross between a goblin and a turtle, and probably looked similar to their relatives, the Akki. The Shell of the Last Kappa was a relic of considerable magical power, and was kept at some location in a shrine."
3) Theros and Amonkhet (Minus HOU atm) are regarded as partial-flops. They are both very low powered blocks that while have some gems (Read: Kamigawa) they are arguably not commercially good blocks (Read: Kamigawa).
Power level has little to do with trope resonance. Theros and Amonkhet both are far more successful than Kamigawa in this regard. And low-powered compared to what? Affinity Mirrodin? Cawblade Zendikar-Scars?
"Kappa were mysterious, goblin-like, water-dwelling creatures that once had lived on Kamigawa, but have since become extinct. Little is known about them, but kappa resembled a cross between a goblin and a turtle, and probably looked similar to their relatives, the Akki. The Shell of the Last Kappa was a relic of considerable magical power, and was kept at some location in a shrine."
I'm well aware of the Akki Goblins' Kappa influences. That doesn't mean they were the best possible interpretation. They could have dropped their four-limbed Snake people and vaguely bunny-like Moonfolk to make room for green and blue Kappa. Tengu, depending on depiction, should be Aven moreso than Goblin. Considering Goblins often have long noses anyway, I think Japan-influenced Goblins actually should have resembled the "red face, long nose" Tengu.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
Honesty I think Kamigawa has too much baggage to be a standard legal set, but I think it would be great to be used as a commander supplement set like Fiora has been used or could be used as a focus of a coreset (Maybe an origins corset about Tamiyo?).
2) Yes those are references to those characters and events. There were also going to be the characters that those cards reference.
So? They can't fit everything and the point was they wanted to put in the cards but card get cut for number of reasons (doesn't fit right with the set, can't tact down its design, creative/development has issues with it, last minutiae changes etc). The biggest thing I honesty think Theros lacked was an "Aphrodite" but creative at least used the lack of a love god to show a major aspect of the world building.
3) Theros and Amonkhet (Minus HOU atm) are regarded as partial-flops. They are both very low powered blocks that while have some gems (Read: Kamigawa) they are arguably not commercially good blocks (Read: Kamigawa).
I'd like to point out that Innistrad (with SoI doing alright) which was top-down.
Also Theros as a world was popular enough that its now a 3 on Maros Rabiah Scale, with only Ravnica, Innistrad and Zendikar more likely to return. Its also been set up for a few sets worth of stories as well.
Slightly off topic but now with the new blockless plan they can fit all both mono-white walkers (Gideon and Elspeth) since they can put them in separate sets.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I'm well aware of the Akki Goblins' Kappa influences. That doesn't mean they were the best possible interpretation. They could have dropped their four-limbed Snake people and vaguely bunny-like Moonfolk to make room for green and blue Kappa. Tengu, depending on depiction, should be Aven moreso than Goblin. Considering Goblins often have long noses anyway, I think Japan-influenced Goblins actually should have resembled the "red face, long nose" Tengu.
Honesty I think Kamigawa has too much baggage to be a standard legal set, but I think it would be great to be used as a commander supplement set like Fiora has been used or could be used as a focus of a coreset (Maybe an origins corset about Tamiyo?).
Yes. I've stated it as well. A conspiracy set like Fiora would work for Kamigawa.
Honesty I think Kamigawa has too much baggage to be a standard legal set, but I think it would be great to be used as a commander supplement set like Fiora has been used or could be used as a focus of a coreset (Maybe an origins corset about Tamiyo?).
Yes. I've stated it as well. A conspiracy set like Fiora would work for Kamigawa.
No more like set that caters for commander. Idk if/how it could be drafted, but it could have the over-abunce of legendary, the races, the wonkey mechanics, a fixed Splice ect.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Honesty I think Kamigawa has too much baggage to be a standard legal set, but I think it would be great to be used as a commander supplement set like Fiora has been used or could be used as a focus of a coreset (Maybe an origins corset about Tamiyo?).
Yes. I've stated it as well. A conspiracy set like Fiora would work for Kamigawa.
No more like set that caters for commander. Idk if/how it could be drafted, but it could have the over-abunce of legendary, the races, the wonkey mechanics, a fixed Splice ect.
Well you said "like Fiora" and Fiora is the plane for drafting. But yes it could totally have an overabundance of legendaries and that is indeed what makes Kamigawa unique for itself. As it s a very storied plane.
How is Kamigawa a flop on trope resonance when it was built around Japanese Mythology? It lacking kaijuu and mechas doesn't make it a flop, because those aren't remotely elements of Japanese Mythology. Well, mostly the mecha, kaijuu is a bit more arguable. It wasn't built as an anime plane built on anime tropes though, I sincerely hope that never happens.
I'd be interested in a supplemental product that uses Kamigawa as the setting though, that sounds like it might be best. Or just pushing it a bit more in Commander. There seems to be a decent overlap between Commander players and Kamigawa lovers, probably wouldn't hurt unless they pushed it too much.
Well, I do feel something is in the works for Kamigawa. I actually think it'll be an actual large set (but only one).
That said, I am willing to compromise on Kamigawa if we get the remaining book characters (check my signature) on cards in a supplemental commander product sooner than later (in a reasonable time frame).
Hi, old school (1997) L5R player here: L5R persisted for a number of reasons, but largest amongst them was the sports-team clanning vibe that goes with the game. L5R came preinstalled with clubs to be a part of, and that tickled the right motivators to keep a lot of players through thick and thin. That and going straight for the hard R with the sex and violence and cosmic horror in the first two storylines.
Kamigawa was the first attempt, creatively speaking, to find why one of Magic's most enduring remoras managed to keep on keeping on. First supposition was 'Is it Japan? Is fantasy Japan the key?' And the answer was a resounding 'No.' Ravnica was the next sally, to see if having prepackaged themes that were easy to see and build around was the key. And I think we can all agree, based on Ravnica's reception, that the answer was a resounding 'yes.'
TBH, I was fully expecting, after there was no appearance of Emrakul in B4Z, that she was going to obliterate Kamigawa, based on how MaRo can't stop talking ***** about how awful Kamigawa block was, design-wise. I was amused at guessing Godzilla disaster movie rather than heading back to Innistrad for Shadow over Innsmouth.
I hope we do go back. Kamigawa needs some more TLC from a modern perspective. Magic does the Sengoku Jidai would get me to pony up the big dough.
As a huge japanophile myself, I don't care about Kamigawa being "too specific" for players who doesn't know much about Japanese culture. Though alternative Japanese world would be totally fine for me (bring tengu, tanuki, kappa, nekomata and so on and I'll still be happy about it).
One thing I would like to see in a return to Kamigawa is the peace between spirits and mortals and a mechanic that makes the alusion to great spirits and mortals getting fussed/getting together (like the Sisters of Flesh and spirit and Hidetsugo and the all consuming oni) .
Something like Bestow could be nice for the set. (With a cycle of the most powerful fusions on MR slot and in rare and uncommon slots with lesser spirits that try those bonds, thus having bestow)
Ninjas and Samurais would be good to see again.
For the Nezumi a castle, make them look more important in the arts, instead of just a bunch of thiefs and assasins, where are the rats generals, rats emperors and masters splinters?
I would love to see more ninja's and arcane spells. The lore the themes this would be a great set to go back to. You could even reprint good dual land of the enemy fetch lands to help boost sells.
As if WOTC has ever struggled to satisfy every single metric on a Return set before? BFZ took one of the most popular planes in MTG and made everyone cringe at the mention of it or the Eldrazi with BFZ. Instead of delivering ZEN, we got ROE. Innistrad was Cosmic Horror on the return. Let's please not pretend they've set out to cover all their bases, which is impossible anyway.
MaRo should look at the actual trends. The requests can all be summed up by this list:
Kamigawa's original geography
Characteristic races (Moonfolk etc.)
Legendary
Callback cards
Samurai, Ninjas
Popular Mechanics (Bushido, Ninjitsu)
All of which are entirely reasonable expectations. Oh look, I just made a Legendary Creature - Soratami Ninja with the Ninjitsu and flavor text referencing Higure the Still Wind with Minamo in the background of its art. This one card literally just hit every single metric on the above list alone.
Just as an example.
what's hilarious is on Tarkir, they literally took the popular Wedge Factions and ended up with a far less popular world that now they need to bend over backwards to justify returning to the former. But with Kamigawa, the Kami War ended, and it can be the Japan World which delivers what was popular before with Japan World tropes. It's a blank slate.
I think Mark Rosewater personally just dislikes Kamigawa.
As I've read the blogatog thing for awhile and multiple users have suggested ways to make Kamigawa 2.0 more appealing while not exactly losing what makes Kamigawa... Kamigawa. Yet they mostly hide behind 12 year survey data, sales figures and an unwillingness to return and instead jump to other planes.
In 1995 there was a card game called Legend of the Five Rings. It persisted for twenty years. It was Kamigawa with a dash of the guilds in Ravnica. It told twenty years worth of stories on a single "plane". It had sets of varying power levels where are some are like the equivalent of Ravnica and others more like Mercadian Masques.
In fact the majority of the stories for L5R are on 1/5th of this super-continent, the other 4/5ths is this massive desert/jungle hybrid that plays out more like Tarkir as you got Egyptians, Romans, Turkish, Mongolians, Eastern Indians, etc. Also by-the-by the Desert/Jungle section is from mostly a card game created by WOTC called "Legend of the Burning Sands". Its only briefly used in L5R, like a single set and many 1-of cards that reference it.
I mean Mark Rosewater goes on and on with Dominaria about the "Their is a saying in writing: If you are everything, you are nothing".
Do you know which card game did better in the same universe between Five Rings and Burning Sands? Five Rings. That is because Five Rings told a story from a view of xenophobic Japanese people. Burning Sands went for the approach like Tarkir or Alara would. Did I mention that Burning Sands was made by the same people who make MTG?
Mark is neutral towards the world of Kamigawa, it is the people making the final decision that dislike it, because it sold poorly, very, very poorly. It nearly killed M:TG after the division that was Mirrodin (whose incredibly overpoweredness caused a lot of players to stop playing). Kamigawa block was terribly designed and most of the mechanics were incredibly poor. The block only really had two good mechanics (Bushido and Ninjutsu), the rest were mediocre to just plain bad. Most of the blocks cards cost 1 to 2 mana to much to be playable, and the sets main selling point (legends) had nearly no support outside of Rare. There were extremely few commons and uncommons that cared about the legendary supertype. Which is kinda bad when your theme is Legendary. It did not help that the few standard playable cards in the block were severely undercosted (Jitte and Divining Top) for their abilities. Commander has redeemed the block somewhat as higher casting cost isn't that big of a deal in the format, but that doesn't change that it was horribly designed.
And we are talking about barely more than a hundred fans out of millions. Blogatog is not a good source of statistics for determining demographics. Again, I'll trust Maro's word supported by a corporation's worth of resources, personnel, and 25 years of experience over a group of people who happened to like Kamigawa.
Believe it or not, I actually dislike Kamigawa. I dislike the race selection (Four-armed snake people? Moonfolk? Where are the Tanuki and the Tengu? Where's our trio of Susanoo, Kushinada, and Orochi? How about Amaterasu and Tuskiyomi? Red oni and blue oni?), I dislike certain aesthetics (like how the Oni Demons barely resemble the curvy-toothed, spiral-horned ogres we know from pop culture), I dislike most of the mechanics (Bushido and Ninjutsu are alright, Soulshift and Channel are okay, Splice is parasitic, Sweep didn't warrant an ability word). If they revisit Japanese culture, I want a new world that isn't Kamigawa, a world they can rebuild from scratch with more resonant tropes.
Moonfolk are a part of Japanese folklore. Orochi was referenced twice (the name of the snake people, and in O-Kagachi, the leader of the spirits). The other gods/spirits of Japanese folklore was referenced as well, but given new names, and sometimes combined. Just like they did with the Olympian gods in Theros and the Pharaonic Gods in Amonkhet. Myojin of Night's Reach for example, is a reference of Amaterasu. They can not call them by their actual names due to respecting the culture the set is based on. Now, don't get me wrong, WotC did a lot of things wrong when building the sets and missed a lot of very obvious references by ignoring pop-culture entirely and deep diving into folk-lore, a mistake they learned from and avoided when building Innistrad (but not until after they made the same mistake with Lorwyn/Shadowmoor), but you can not claim they did not reference the gods and major spirits of Japanese folklore/mythology, when they very clearly and obviously did.
That said, I would not mind a modern return to Kamigawa, as someone pointed out to MaRo a couple of weeks ago, it has been several thousand years since the Kami War, and a world can change a lot over the intervening centuries. Tamiyo is already pretty popular after all, and building on an existing world instead of creating a new one from scratch would save some resources and time. Fix what is broken instead of abandoning it.
Now after all this I have written above, I still think it unlikely that we will get a "Return to Kamigawa" set, but with the new 3 and 1 system, I find it far from impossible to happen. And until such a time we will continue to work on the WotC representatives with logic and reasonable arguments to support our cause.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
It's about time for the reserved list to die, for the sake of Vintage and Legacy (And Commander).
If they had a mechanic that interacted and/or cared about legendary types like Grandeur, or go along the lines of what they did for historic spells in Dominaria, then the legendary theme might be more tolerable. Having multiple copies of a legendary permanent in hand is frustrating and doesn't lend itself to optimized game play based on that. (Kokusho notwithstanding).
If they had done that or if they would do that then I think it would('ve) be(en) better received.
As for having it mimic anime...pretty much everything that's in pop culture has been watered down to the point of being over-the-top in terms of tropes, so it wouldn't make a difference in that sense, other than branding it to Magic's style sheet and flavour. I'd prefer it to be designed in the way that they designed the African/Middle Eastern themes for Mirage and Visions: nothing too over the top, still identifiable, and doesn't saturate the concept too much.
Who's ready for a Magic-themed Sailor Moon?
'buster
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset. Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
While there are elements of Kamigawa I like, I fear that too many here on this forum lack the emotional objectivity to give a balanced, hard and objective look at the real likelihood of a return to Kamigawa.
To put it mildly, some of ya’ll are borderline obsessed.
We all see what we want to see to some degree. I find that usually when I’ve been wrong in a fan theory or speculation it was because my desire for it to be true was greater than my evidence for it being so.
‘Hope springs Eternal’ as they say.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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
This thread may be a recent necro, but Yuriko actually provides us with a new talking point. She is the most valuable card from Commander 2018 for three reasons - 1) she's a good, aggressive card with built-in card advantage and life drain, 2) she's the two-color legendary ninja we've wanted for years, and 3) she's well costed and aggressive enough to potentially see play in other formats. Had she been clunky and unwieldy, only one of those points would stand, but she's actually pretty great. And that give me hope that we can see more Kamigawa cards in the future. A full set? I hope so, though I kinda doubt it. But at least more cards (like, maybe ninjas #12-15? - it really is a small tribe).
This thread may be a recent necro, but Yuriko actually provides us with a new talking point. She is the most valuable card from Commander 2018 for three reasons - 1) she's a good, aggressive card with built-in card advantage and life drain, 2) she's the two-color legendary ninja we've wanted for years, and 3) she's well costed and aggressive enough to potentially see play in other formats. Had she been clunky and unwieldy, only one of those points would stand, but she's actually pretty great. And that give me hope that we can see more Kamigawa cards in the future. A full set? I hope so, though I kinda doubt it. But at least more cards (like, maybe ninjas #12-15? - it really is a small tribe).
Go figure that designing a good card, focusing on a popular aspect of Kamigawa that resonated well and listening to the desires of the player base ended up creating the most popular card in the C18 line, despite the fact it was Kamigawa themed (if not in part because it was Kamigawa themed) It's almost as if adopting the same approach for a Kamigawa set would accomplish the same result as a whole. All it takes is the right focus.
As I said to MaRo. Retain Kamigawa's geography and popular characteristic races and let the rest be Japan World. Why have "Ninja of New Japan World Location" when we an have, for example, "Ninja of Minamo" ? Both hit a popular Japan World trope that resonates well, but it's on Neo-Kamigawa, thousands of years after the Kami War where it's expected to have changed, but is still the same plane, drawing from what's best of both the original plane and desired Japan elements.
I don't know whether this is a minority opinion or not, but I have fond memories of Kamigawa in Standard. I usually just splashed green in most decks decks I had at the time to include a split of main deck/sideboard split of Oxidize, Viridian Zealot, and Viridian Shaman, depending on my color requirements. The rest of my decks were mostly Kamigawa cards, and I love'd them. I had a lot of fun with Spirit shenanigans, ninjas, and everything in between. At one point my TnN deck had main deck Kokusho, the Evening Stars in it, and sometimes in decks that couldn't interact with creatures much, I would side in Phage the Untouchable and Platinum Angel. I had a lot of fun during Kamigawa standard despite Affinity and Belcher being all over my local meta. Meloku the Clouded Mirror brings back some good memories, as well. Gifts Ungiven in Standard.
I had grown some hope after reading the first post. Well, just to be safe... they could make it a short "visit" to Kamigawa. I mean just one set like Return to Dominaria. This short visit would please many fans, and even if it bombs on sales... it's just one set anyway. ^__^
I think this is a pretty good summary of the issue.
The date stamp on that article is 2015 when we still had somewhat of a block structure to work with.
Now that we're going on an individualized expansion basis (multiple where storyline permits), we can go to Kamigawa for at least one set to let every Kamigawaphile drizzle in their pants and then be done with it.
But if they go to Kamigawa they HAVE to go to Ulgrotha at least once too. Else I will call shenanigans.
'buster
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset. Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
I think it would be better to revisit Kamigawa as part of a core set, much like how Origins revisited Lorwyn as one of its ten planes. Imagine getting new UB Ninja and RW Samurai, though they wouldn't have Ninjutsu or Bushido since core sets going forward aren't going to be using nonevergreen keywords. But we could get exotic versions of Rogues and Knights like Stealer of Secrets and Gallant Cavalry, and I could see gold uncommons with simple tribal effects like "Samurai you control get +1/+1 and have first strike", not to mention rare legendary creatures for the commander players. Obviously Tamiyo would be the blue PW in that set.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
If they go that route, i.e. having Kamigawa as a Core Set setting, I really would like for them to bring class-based mechanics into the fray. Knights ought to get Flanking
Maybe Battalion for soldiers.
Prowl for rogues and maybe scouts
I think spirits should have a static mechanic that represents their inherent metaphysical nature. This can be left up to imagination and negotiation.
Just a thought.
'buster
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset. Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
1) Well if you consider that the fluff/flavor side of Kamigawa strong armed everything mechanically...
2) Yes those are references to those characters and events. There were also going to be the characters that those cards reference.
3) Theros and Amonkhet (Minus HOU atm) are regarded as partial-flops. They are both very low powered blocks that while have some gems (Read: Kamigawa) they are arguably not commercially good blocks (Read: Kamigawa).
4) Go play Yugioh. Seriously it has those elements you speak of.
5) http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/series-fortunate-events-kamigawa-world-design-2004-10-18
And there was only so much room for legendary cards. They didn't want a repeat of Kamigawa's legend flood.
Power level has little to do with trope resonance. Theros and Amonkhet both are far more successful than Kamigawa in this regard. And low-powered compared to what? Affinity Mirrodin? Cawblade Zendikar-Scars?
Played it. I like Magic more, and that's why I want to see those tropes in a Magic world.
I'm well aware of the Akki Goblins' Kappa influences. That doesn't mean they were the best possible interpretation. They could have dropped their four-limbed Snake people and vaguely bunny-like Moonfolk to make room for green and blue Kappa. Tengu, depending on depiction, should be Aven moreso than Goblin. Considering Goblins often have long noses anyway, I think Japan-influenced Goblins actually should have resembled the "red face, long nose" Tengu.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
So? They can't fit everything and the point was they wanted to put in the cards but card get cut for number of reasons (doesn't fit right with the set, can't tact down its design, creative/development has issues with it, last minutiae changes etc). The biggest thing I honesty think Theros lacked was an "Aphrodite" but creative at least used the lack of a love god to show a major aspect of the world building.
I'd like to point out that Innistrad (with SoI doing alright) which was top-down.
Also Theros as a world was popular enough that its now a 3 on Maros Rabiah Scale, with only Ravnica, Innistrad and Zendikar more likely to return. Its also been set up for a few sets worth of stories as well.
Slightly off topic but now with the new blockless plan they can fit all both mono-white walkers (Gideon and Elspeth) since they can put them in separate sets.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Ninjas, Tengu trickery, etc? Draft-styled mechanics like Garbage Fire or Illusionary Informant.
No more like set that caters for commander. Idk if/how it could be drafted, but it could have the over-abunce of legendary, the races, the wonkey mechanics, a fixed Splice ect.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I'd be interested in a supplemental product that uses Kamigawa as the setting though, that sounds like it might be best. Or just pushing it a bit more in Commander. There seems to be a decent overlap between Commander players and Kamigawa lovers, probably wouldn't hurt unless they pushed it too much.
That said, I am willing to compromise on Kamigawa if we get the remaining book characters (check my signature) on cards in a supplemental commander product sooner than later (in a reasonable time frame).
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
Kamigawa was the first attempt, creatively speaking, to find why one of Magic's most enduring remoras managed to keep on keeping on. First supposition was 'Is it Japan? Is fantasy Japan the key?' And the answer was a resounding 'No.' Ravnica was the next sally, to see if having prepackaged themes that were easy to see and build around was the key. And I think we can all agree, based on Ravnica's reception, that the answer was a resounding 'yes.'
TBH, I was fully expecting, after there was no appearance of Emrakul in B4Z, that she was going to obliterate Kamigawa, based on how MaRo can't stop talking ***** about how awful Kamigawa block was, design-wise. I was amused at guessing Godzilla disaster movie rather than heading back to Innistrad for Shadow over Innsmouth.
I hope we do go back. Kamigawa needs some more TLC from a modern perspective. Magic does the Sengoku Jidai would get me to pony up the big dough.
Something like Bestow could be nice for the set. (With a cycle of the most powerful fusions on MR slot and in rare and uncommon slots with lesser spirits that try those bonds, thus having bestow)
Ninjas and Samurais would be good to see again.
For the Nezumi a castle, make them look more important in the arts, instead of just a bunch of thiefs and assasins, where are the rats generals, rats emperors and masters splinters?
Mark is neutral towards the world of Kamigawa, it is the people making the final decision that dislike it, because it sold poorly, very, very poorly. It nearly killed M:TG after the division that was Mirrodin (whose incredibly overpoweredness caused a lot of players to stop playing). Kamigawa block was terribly designed and most of the mechanics were incredibly poor. The block only really had two good mechanics (Bushido and Ninjutsu), the rest were mediocre to just plain bad. Most of the blocks cards cost 1 to 2 mana to much to be playable, and the sets main selling point (legends) had nearly no support outside of Rare. There were extremely few commons and uncommons that cared about the legendary supertype. Which is kinda bad when your theme is Legendary. It did not help that the few standard playable cards in the block were severely undercosted (Jitte and Divining Top) for their abilities. Commander has redeemed the block somewhat as higher casting cost isn't that big of a deal in the format, but that doesn't change that it was horribly designed.
Moonfolk are a part of Japanese folklore. Orochi was referenced twice (the name of the snake people, and in O-Kagachi, the leader of the spirits). The other gods/spirits of Japanese folklore was referenced as well, but given new names, and sometimes combined. Just like they did with the Olympian gods in Theros and the Pharaonic Gods in Amonkhet. Myojin of Night's Reach for example, is a reference of Amaterasu. They can not call them by their actual names due to respecting the culture the set is based on. Now, don't get me wrong, WotC did a lot of things wrong when building the sets and missed a lot of very obvious references by ignoring pop-culture entirely and deep diving into folk-lore, a mistake they learned from and avoided when building Innistrad (but not until after they made the same mistake with Lorwyn/Shadowmoor), but you can not claim they did not reference the gods and major spirits of Japanese folklore/mythology, when they very clearly and obviously did.
That said, I would not mind a modern return to Kamigawa, as someone pointed out to MaRo a couple of weeks ago, it has been several thousand years since the Kami War, and a world can change a lot over the intervening centuries. Tamiyo is already pretty popular after all, and building on an existing world instead of creating a new one from scratch would save some resources and time. Fix what is broken instead of abandoning it.
Now after all this I have written above, I still think it unlikely that we will get a "Return to Kamigawa" set, but with the new 3 and 1 system, I find it far from impossible to happen. And until such a time we will continue to work on the WotC representatives with logic and reasonable arguments to support our cause.
---
Numquam evolutioni obstes. Solum conculceris.
Pascite draconem, evolvite aut morimini.
If they had done that or if they would do that then I think it would('ve) be(en) better received.
As for having it mimic anime...pretty much everything that's in pop culture has been watered down to the point of being over-the-top in terms of tropes, so it wouldn't make a difference in that sense, other than branding it to Magic's style sheet and flavour. I'd prefer it to be designed in the way that they designed the African/Middle Eastern themes for Mirage and Visions: nothing too over the top, still identifiable, and doesn't saturate the concept too much.
Who's ready for a Magic-themed Sailor Moon?
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset.
Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
To put it mildly, some of ya’ll are borderline obsessed.
We all see what we want to see to some degree. I find that usually when I’ve been wrong in a fan theory or speculation it was because my desire for it to be true was greater than my evidence for it being so.
‘Hope springs Eternal’ as they say.
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
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
Useful Resources:
MTGSalvation tags
EDHREC
ManabaseCrafter
As I said to MaRo. Retain Kamigawa's geography and popular characteristic races and let the rest be Japan World. Why have "Ninja of New Japan World Location" when we an have, for example, "Ninja of Minamo" ? Both hit a popular Japan World trope that resonates well, but it's on Neo-Kamigawa, thousands of years after the Kami War where it's expected to have changed, but is still the same plane, drawing from what's best of both the original plane and desired Japan elements.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
The date stamp on that article is 2015 when we still had somewhat of a block structure to work with.
Now that we're going on an individualized expansion basis (multiple where storyline permits), we can go to Kamigawa for at least one set to let every Kamigawaphile drizzle in their pants and then be done with it.
But if they go to Kamigawa they HAVE to go to Ulgrotha at least once too. Else I will call shenanigans.
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset.
Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
Maybe Battalion for soldiers.
Prowl for rogues and maybe scouts
I think spirits should have a static mechanic that represents their inherent metaphysical nature. This can be left up to imagination and negotiation.
Just a thought.
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset.
Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.