Well, now that the full set is out it looks pretty good from a gameplay standpoint. I still have some issues with almost every part of the flavor here. I know "omenpaths" and whatever but I feel like they shouldn't have gone with "unpopulated plane" as an explanation/excuse for the colonization narrative (god forbid they think cactusfolk, a bunch of freshly grown plantfolk depicted in the cards as people who the settlers have to raise, are the indigenous stand-ins). The guns are silly and the trains feel unnecessarily "look they're made of magic" with the floating tracks and there's too much electricity stuff in here somehow.
The american west as a fictional setting is intrinsically tied to its political context. A lot of stuff happened between 1820 and 1880 or so. There's the conquest of indigenous lands and all the associated reservation systems and various massacres and settlement raids and so on. There's the collapse of chattel slavery with all the associated drama regarding slavery/free states/territories and then post-war disgruntled confederates fleeing the occupied south. There were the mexican and texas wars and the mexican revolution, which generated plenty of refugees and realigned a lot of political and military power in the region as vaquero culture formed. There was brigham young's cult claiming most of the american west and indiscriminately killing non-mormon settlers. The one context they get closest to but don't do much with is the increasing immigration to America from war-torn Europe (particularly France and Germany) and war-torn China. They could do an interesting story there where various peoples were pushed out of their planes due to poverty or shifting government priorities, but instead they all seem to just be random settlers from random places or tremendously famous spellcasters who put on a hat.
Basically this set has nothing that would actually inform the theme of any real life cowboy movie. The bandits aren't bandits due to any particular circumstance, they're just bandits for the sake of banditry. The settlers are settling just to get paid money but there's no conversation about what that means in this complex magical realm. I'm not saying it needs to include specifics of history but without it it just feels like this plane could have been anywhere and only accidentally got an American southwest theme. I'm reading the story and you could pretty much just plop the whole thing back in ravnica or innistrad or capenna. Pretty much just a straightforward heist movie. It's a fast and furious spinoff. The whole setting just feels underbaked and pointless, they're just checking off an item on the list of planes that people have been demanding.
That's all, I said my piece. Looking forward to playing snakeskin veil a lot during bloomburrow standard.
Dust Animus is a really cool design that I'm a big fan of. Standard control decks could definitely be interested in this card. Taking your second turn off in order to have a free 4/5 flying lifelinker later on after you've stabilized a bit seems pretty good, honestly.
Meanwhile, the Card Image Gallery has given us the last 39 commons of the main set.
First off, the last of the reprints to pour through the Omenpaths.
Let's bring to light the last of the crimes...
...trudge through the rest of the desert...
...wrangle the rest of the mounts...
...round up every mercenary...
...and the rest of the outlaws...
...unravel the last of the plots...
... end the last of the sprees...
...and wrap up the main set of Outlaws of Thunder Junction.
The american west as a fictional setting is intrinsically tied to its political context. A lot of stuff happened between 1820 and 1880 or so. There's the conquest of indigenous lands and all the associated reservation systems and various massacres and settlement raids and so on. There's the collapse of chattel slavery with all the associated drama regarding slavery/free states/territories and then post-war disgruntled confederates fleeing the occupied south. There were the mexican and texas wars and the mexican revolution, which generated plenty of refugees and realigned a lot of political and military power in the region as vaquero culture formed. There was brigham young's cult claiming most of the american west and indiscriminately killing non-mormon settlers. The one context they get closest to but don't do much with is the increasing immigration to America from war-torn Europe (particularly France and Germany) and war-torn China. They could do an interesting story there where various peoples were pushed out of their planes due to poverty or shifting government priorities, but instead they all seem to just be random settlers from random places or tremendously famous spellcasters who put on a hat.
Basically this set has nothing that would actually inform the theme of any real life cowboy movie. The bandits aren't bandits due to any particular circumstance, they're just bandits for the sake of banditry. The settlers are settling just to get paid money but there's no conversation about what that means in this complex magical realm. I'm not saying it needs to include specifics of history but without it it just feels like this plane could have been anywhere and only accidentally got an American southwest theme. I'm reading the story and you could pretty much just plop the whole thing back in ravnica or innistrad or capenna. Pretty much just a straightforward heist movie. It's a fast and furious spinoff. The whole setting just feels underbaked and pointless, they're just checking off an item on the list of planes that people have been demanding.
That's all, I said my piece. Looking forward to playing snakeskin veil a lot during bloomburrow standard.