Yes I think they are getting a bit lazy at a greater pace. With double the products coming out it was bound to happen. Ignoble Hierarch is a perfect example. Its name is not "cutesy" its lazy, slapdash and uninspired. The squirrel thing is out of control as well. Those belong in un-sets not black bordered ones.
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: โThe problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.โ
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Yea, they produce more "master" products with no real story on its own, its packed with reprints and leeching on nostalgia (which isnt bad, but its also fairly lazy).
Commander products and the like also have no actual story and just pick a theme and build a deck for it (with again, a ton of reprints).
A lot of flavor cards are just word-puns now, and not just subtle, but incredible obvious and in your face, nobody can feel "smart" to find an easter-egg on a card anymore, as its all so blatantly obvious.
And with all the sets that are "Return to X" , we get a ton of sets that just continue a story, and with the 1set design they cramp a story of "beginning, middle and end" into just 1 deal and that simply turns out horrible bad, as so often the "big bad evil" of a story is defeated before it even starts, in the same set, and nobody knows who they are, suddenly they are already dead anyway.
Without (good) books and proper stories behind a set it lost almost all its charm and its just the same recipe over and over again in minor color differences.
They could very well expand a set and explore mechanics much more broadly , but they rush everything and it even gets difficult to remember the last bunch of sets and what the story was, as non of it has any actual meaning for the greater story-arc, as there is no greater story-arc anymore.
Also, they produce a set more like an excel spreadsheet and check-boxes to include.
The entire multicolor-ample uncommon in each set are so borderline in your face with the mechanics, and they make everything spiral around that.
Its themes, themes, themes, that bleeds heavily into constructed, where they produce combos in design and ensure these combos are tuned that they are guaranteed to see play, instead of producing flavorful cards and let players find great combinations and instead of ensuring cards are overall of a somewhat equal powerlevel, a bunch of mythics just dictate what decks are good and theres no way to really avoid them, as they are the absolute best of the cards and you have to build around them (thats always the case to some degree, but now its just so much more in your face with the mythic rarity itself it points to that cards more aggressively, if all cards are "rare" , you still have to figure out which cards are more relevant, instead of presorting them into mythics).
And that spread-sheet powerlevel-creep problem manifests itself in an increasingly lazy approach to fan-service.
Instead of having a world that makes sense and is interesting to explore, you get a fast-food pack of tiny bits of everything, which still leave you hungry for something worthwhile to chew on.
Names want to hold force precedent in their context and presentation.
Bake into a Pie = Bake into Pie
Names and concepts want to hold fast to their arcane roots.
The Underworld Cookbook = Ur Reciprimore
The Underworld Cookbook is a reference to the flavor text of Granite Gargoyle, from Alpha. That's a flavor win.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: โThe problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.โ
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Commander products and the like also have no actual story and just pick a theme and build a deck for it (with again, a ton of reprints).
A lot of flavor cards are just word-puns now, and not just subtle, but incredible obvious and in your face, nobody can feel "smart" to find an easter-egg on a card anymore, as its all so blatantly obvious.
And with all the sets that are "Return to X" , we get a ton of sets that just continue a story, and with the 1set design they cramp a story of "beginning, middle and end" into just 1 deal and that simply turns out horrible bad, as so often the "big bad evil" of a story is defeated before it even starts, in the same set, and nobody knows who they are, suddenly they are already dead anyway.
Without (good) books and proper stories behind a set it lost almost all its charm and its just the same recipe over and over again in minor color differences.
They could very well expand a set and explore mechanics much more broadly , but they rush everything and it even gets difficult to remember the last bunch of sets and what the story was, as non of it has any actual meaning for the greater story-arc, as there is no greater story-arc anymore.
Also, they produce a set more like an excel spreadsheet and check-boxes to include.
The entire multicolor-ample uncommon in each set are so borderline in your face with the mechanics, and they make everything spiral around that.
Its themes, themes, themes, that bleeds heavily into constructed, where they produce combos in design and ensure these combos are tuned that they are guaranteed to see play, instead of producing flavorful cards and let players find great combinations and instead of ensuring cards are overall of a somewhat equal powerlevel, a bunch of mythics just dictate what decks are good and theres no way to really avoid them, as they are the absolute best of the cards and you have to build around them (thats always the case to some degree, but now its just so much more in your face with the mythic rarity itself it points to that cards more aggressively, if all cards are "rare" , you still have to figure out which cards are more relevant, instead of presorting them into mythics).
And that spread-sheet powerlevel-creep problem manifests itself in an increasingly lazy approach to fan-service.
Instead of having a world that makes sense and is interesting to explore, you get a fast-food pack of tiny bits of everything, which still leave you hungry for something worthwhile to chew on.
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