I like how there's apparently no middle ground between "change" = get every IP under the sun with enough brand recognition among nerds to put on cards to sell and "no change." I'm pretty sure they could've kept profits rising even without crossovers. Pressure from Hasbro just didn't allow it, they were forced to "grow" faster and this is the result.
It's fine. I know that me having this disucssion here will not amount to anything. I've already moved on to other hobbies, it will just take a bit more time until I can reach true indifference towards MtG as a game again.
Honestly the arguments against this stuff just break down to "Change is scary and I don't like it." Tough tootin! We live mortal lives on a planet that is hurtling through the universe at insane speeds, at no point is anything not changing. You either learn to roll with it or it breaks you. Pick one!
It's precisely this attitude that I can't stand about this stuff. Instead of acknowledging that a product, brand, whatever can choose to move into multiple directions at any point, you act like there is a single linear path of "change" and a single linear path of "non-change." This of course is a very comfortable position to hold if you happen to be OK with the change that is happening.
When I look at the DND cards that are coming out now, I feel nothing. They're not new additions to Magic's multiverse. They're all just goofy fantasy characters that get put on Magic cards because people already like them in another product that is otherwise completely separate. Aside from very pragmatic reasons like the product making money, I still fail to see the creative through-line that had to lead here.
I'm OK with Magic changing - I just would have preferred it to change in another way than it currently is. In an of itself, that position is not more or less valid than your position. The difference is really just that your position results in more STONKS for Wizards/Hasbro, and sadly, that's all that matters.
In that case I think I'm just going to agree with your previous point (might have been someone else's) that the attempt at identifying Magic's true "essence" is futile because it's entirely subjective. :^) To me, Magic being contained in its own universe was part of the essence, which is now being eroded, which is why I am no longer interested in the game and hate the direction it's moving in. I think we have talked long enough about this, there's really no way to "win" here.
Until UB, Magic was, for the most part, a single connected universe both gameplay- and flavor-wise
To be fair, if we you use that parameter, not even the Unsets fits your personal criterias. (they also take place in they own multiverse and even the rules and mechanics are they own thing not working within our rule system). And one could argue that the flavor behind them it's so silly, being a parody of Magic, that also that could "ruin" the experience.
Yes, Un-Sets fall into that same realm, for me. However, until quite recently, I didn't have any problem with them. They used the Magic template, they were their own thing, and some of them were pretty funny in-jokes. But then Wizards made them black-border, and came up with the acorn stamp stuff. Maro will tell you his heart-wrenching story about how he was always so sad that Un-Cards weren't seen as real Magic cards and how the company was driven by the noble goal of increasing the amount of happiness in the world to make that change. But the real main reason is that some suits saw an opportunity to wrench even more money out of a niche product that hadn't reached its full monetization potential yet.
This is also how UB came about. They looked at Commander and saw a very popular, conveniently unofficial format that allowed them to profit off off stuff they had previously actively ruled out. They also saw that they could circumvent a lot of the hard work that comes with making such a hard turn in the game's identity by leaving it to the players to sort things out. Just point to Commander's (and other types of casual play's) status as an unofficial format and say "it's for everyone" - work done. And when they saw that it worked and they could make easy money by activating people's "I recognize, I like, I buy" neanderthal instincts, they doubled down on it real quick.
MaRo also explain this wonderfully with this post (that basically just confirm what I am saying here all the time):
The part that you highlighted is the marketing equivalent of a joker card. Someone doesn't like what your brand is doing? Just talk vaguely about how you're "always evolving" and "pushing boundaries" and pepper it with a bit of "people who dislike this are just too stupid to understand" and "this is not for you." It simply allows you to do anything. I find it amazing that people actually choose to believe insipid drivel like this - literally any company that is forced to make more money every quarter would come up with some contrived reason to claim "always evolving" as part of its "DNA" to weasel themselves out of self-dug holes.
I get it - I'm in the minority, and as a result, I'm left behind. I can accept that. But what this is not is Wizards taking the objectively right path that they were always destined to walk; and UB was not something that "organically evolved" as a result of a creative process that didn't only include but actively avoided 3rd party IPs for 20+ years before Wizards became Hasbro's cash cow. I will not concede the point that my opinion is valid and that people who happen to be OK with UB aren't just simply "right."
I've been a Vorthos in terms of following the storyline for as long as I've been a player of MTG (I'm PUMPED for Brother's War), but I've never had that same Vorthos feel while actually playing the game. I guess for me, seeing 40K characters randomly showing up in decks doesn't really seem all that different than, say, old school Phyrexians and Innistrad zombies in the same deck. I don't lose my immersion seeing Elves from Lorwyn and Elves from New Capenna in the same deck. The stuff from OG Mirrodin couldn't be any more different than the stuff from OG Kamigawa, but they were in Standard together without breaking the world thematically. What makes Gandalf stand out more than The Reaper King or the Patron of the Akki?
To me, the difference is the surrounding framework. When I used to play, it was not like I actively imagined every turn and every spell cast as a moment in a duel between two planeswalkers. But there was still some sense of "I cast this spell from Kamigawa", "now they summon that creature from Mirrodin" etc. The multiverse is diverse, but all planes still share the mana system etc. and are loosely connected through the general planeswalker lore. Glacial Ray and Light 'Em Up have very different aesthetics but they have the same foundation, and a planeswalker could travel from plane to plane and learn both.
The same thing simply doesn't work with UB - "they summon ... Gandalf? I guess they went to Middle Earth??" But Middle Earth is not part of the MtG universe. It's not just about aesthetics, its about a wider sense of cohesion and (I'm going to use a pretentious word now) ludonarrative.
Until UB, Magic was, for the most part, a single connected universe both gameplay- and flavor-wise (yes, Arabian Nights and P3K happened, but that was very early on, and similar things didn't happen again for 20+ years - clearly showing that WotC wanted to move away from them). I understand that some people enjoy Magic first and foremost as a game, with the cards being nothing more than game pieces that could have any kind of art on them. But I for once was very fond of the unity of gameplay and flavor, a once central part of the game's identity that is now being torn down.
Idk, it's like a Jazz club that suddenly starts playing Top 40 to get more customers. I get why the owners do it, but I just can't approve of it. Pretty much my only choice is to leave the club.
(Not quoting because it's both an answer to you and Dragoon91)
While I might not like it as a Vorthos, I can see how gameplay trump's flavor in MtG.
I guess in terms of flavor, UB is more like a strong color pie bend instead of a break. White can technically do tax counter spells, yet Wizards has decided to not print them simply because a lot of people don't like counterspells. UB has the same kind of thing going for it, except that Wizards decided that they actually do want to move into that space ... because there are more people who like it than those who don't. I belong to the latter group though.
UB occupies this weird overlapping region between flavor and gameplay. For me, even in terms of gameplay the creative cohesion of Magic as its own universe has always been a big thing. I guess I really bought into the "you are a planeswalker" thing. And that illusion is simply shattered when my opponent can cast Gandalf or a Space Marine at any time. But I guess a lot of people just don't care about that? The point is that if you do, there are now only a few ways left to avoid this kind of experience, like exclusively drafting premier sets.
When I look at UB stuff, I feel what I feel when I look at those *****ty live action remakes that Disney has been putting out. Just take some recognizable faces and characters, slap them on a product, and watch the people come in hordes and rip it from your hands. Very clever from a business standpoint, very sad from a creative standpoint.
For me UB is a box of pandora that I wish Wizards would never have opened. Non-premier sets have been used as loopholes in the past, and maybe at one point, after flooding MtG with too many 3rd party IP products, they will decide that it's better to close it. But for me, it's too late. People will buy the cards because they can't live their lives without having Gandalf on Magic card. Whatever. I'll just never return to the game.
As for the "It's always been a part of Magic." That's a weak argument, just like similar arguments regarding the color pie. "A card 30 years ago did this in alpha, therefore it's completely within this color's pie.
Equiparating Arabian Nights and P3K as color pie breaks in Magic it's the point you have to prove, not to assume. I don't recall WotC ever said Arabian Nights or P3K are errors that should had never existed in the game, like they say that green can't straight up kill creatures or red deal with enchantments. So, until you are able to prove otherwise [...]
Just Google "Rabiah scale" to find out why that plane is the least likely to return in all of Magic. Hint: Yes, it has to do with the fact that its not a Wizards IP, and that stance was maintained for at least a decade. I don't know if you actually didn't know this or just pretended to not know (both are really not all that good).
But I'm not going to bother any longer because regardless of what I write here, people are just going to handwave it all with "the game changes, deal with it."
You say that doing 3rd party IPs and allowing color pie breaks are very different, but they're really not. They're arbitrary things that Wizards has decided on. If everything goes, why don't allow enchantment destruction in red? After all, there would be people who would like it, and buy the cards! From what I've gathered in these threads, those two things alone are enough to justify everything and anything and label people who disagree as gatekeepers.
I hate that people will gobble up all these garbage DND, 40K and LotR sets.
Nom,nom,nom.
Also, why do you care what other people like?
Because they're being big mad children and if they can't like it, neither can we!
You (and many others) completely fail to see why people dislike this. Magic has always been a fantasy game. Boltguns, tanks, spaceships and the likes have no place getting mixed into a fantasy game. UB is an escalation of crossing a very undesirable line that started with SL. Since it’s a Commander product you could potentially be forced to deal with these themed cards whether you wist to or not because an opponent could plop them on the table at any given moment.
So this is not a matter of you not being allowed to like something. It is a matter of everybody being forced to like it or having to deal with it. If this was a stand-alone product not mixed into the rest of the game nobody would mind.
I'm sorry but nowhere Magic has ever promised to be a game limited exclusively on traditional fantasy setting. Never. Since the very early inception of Magic lore, sci-fi stuff was always a core element in both story and cards (all the Urza and Thran Empire and Skyships with laser beams etc.). [...]
P.S: and to to be really fair, even the whole "use other IP" stuff had always been part of the game, like the very first expansion of the game made by the creator of this card game itself, Arabian Nights and also Portal Three Kingdoms (which is setted in our real world with no magic of supernatural elements at all). So, yeah, WotC is simply doing what has just already did in the past multiple times and are already part of the game forever, whetever you like it or not.
I'm so tired of people bringing up the "but Urza had mechs and laser guns!" point and acting they've just invalidated all UB criticism. Yes, MtG is not limited to traditional fantasy. I actually welcome Magic pushing its boundaries - concept wise, I am very much a fan of Mirrodin, Kaladesh, (New) Kamigawa, New Capenna etc.
It's not an issue of setting, it's an issue of creative control. Wizards has full control over worlds like New Capenna and Kaladesh, and they can shape them according to what they feel is "in line" with Magic. As Maro loves to say, restrictions breed crativity. Wanting to make a set that feels kind of like a gangster movie without just taking characters from a popular gangster film and slapping them on cards is a huge part of what makes Magic appealing. For the longest time, they have forced themselves to do their own thing, and it has lead to the creation of a lot of really cool worlds.
People say that UB doesn't matter in the big picture because Magic is already full of wildly different universes. But those people are missing that despite Magic's worlds being so different from another there's still creative "glue" that holds them together, like the mana system and arbitrary rules like "no straight-up guns." UB takes a big dump on this whole concept. On Maro's blog, the reason given for why 40K "only" got commander precons was because the 40K universe doesn't really mesh with Magic concepts like the color pie etc. So they are able to correctly identify the problem - but instead of going "OK, so maybe we should scrap this idea then" they chose to go ahead with it anyway. Why? Easy $$$, that's why.(*) Wizards is not doing UB to expand the scope of what Magic can do, they're just doing it to activate people's lizard brains. "I like X, and I like Magic. Now they put X on a Magic card. Must consume!!!!!"
It saddens me that people fall for this god-awful scheme. Are they really not able to enjoy two things separately from another, or see why keeping things separate can be beneficial? I like ATLA, and I like MtG. But should there be ATLA Commander precons? No! Why would anyone want that? It's like putting sushi on chocolate cake because you like both things individually.
And please stop with the Portal Three Kingdoms and Arabian Nights bull*****. Claiming that "Magic has always been X" because it did X a few time 20+ years ago simply doesn't hold up as an argument. It's like saying that artifact destruction has always been in blacks part of the color pie and pointing to Gate to Phyrexia.
(*) Note: Now I can already hear you going "it's every company's goal to make money..." It's amazing how people suddenly become the most staunch defenders of capitalism in arguments like this. The point is that how you make money is also important, and for WotC, UB is one of the most creatively lazy and greedy ways to make money there is.
You should be honest with yourselves now, and acknowledge how shameful it is to have a fixation of attempting such cheap passes—in professional settings—and on professional matters.
This is a forum where people post their custom card ideas for fun. It couldn't be further from a "professional setting," and posting ideas for single cards based on random ideas is not a "professional matter."
Meanwhile, you didn't address my main point (complexity being a thing that matters), instead focusing on the extraneous detail that I used Opt as a shorthand for what a part of your card does. I should have known better and not posted here - you clearly have no interest in having a legitimate discussion. Anyway, I hope you're having fun.
It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. This is called thinking ahead.
Just a heads up: Almost no one likes people who act like they have the biggest brains on planet earth and talk down to others like this.
Also, in terms of current Magic's design philosophy, the first half of your statement is not actually true. A major element of design your missing with your cards is complexity. Tacking on extra text to a card to make it marginally better in corner cases is fine in moderation, but if it becomes too much you just impede the game flow and make it harder to understand for very little gain. Aside from power level, a major reason for why Take into Custody and Opt are on different cards is that it would be quite a lot to take into consideration that your opponent could do both at the same time as long as they have a single blue mana open. Adding more text that attempts to balance out the effect's increased power just makes things worse.
WotC: "We believe LGBTQ young people deserve a welcoming, loving world. And we wake up every day dedicated to making that a reality."
Also WotC: Blocks pages related to this product even in countries where gay marriage is legal and/or LGBTQ topics are not subject to heavy regulation like China/Russia
"But in this case rainbow capitalism is fine because 50% of the profits go to charity!"
Just donate 100% of what you would've spent on this to the charity then. You like the art? You can look at it online for free. You don't need it printed on a small piece of cardboard.
Not sure I understand what that "Goaded" symbol is even supposed to represent. I would've chosen a stylized angry-looking face or two arrows pointing at eachother, joined in a collision. Like...something that references loss of control or just anger.
Feels like they had some options here but three random squiggles is what they chose to go with.
It's a heavily stylized depiction of pulsing veins on an angry person's head. It shows up a lot in anime. Google the Pokemon Primeape for an example
Lots of stuff we already know, and not much new info. If this is the level of information they're going to put in these, they should probably put them up before the stories.
On the plane's actual demons:
Eager to gain a slice of New Capenna before all wedges of power were claimed, these mortals gave themselves over to the archdemons, whose plot against the archangels could only be accomplished through the archdemons' own mutual sacrifice.
That's pretty much it. Boy would it be nice to know what the demons actually did, where they went, or how they sacrificed themselves...
The blurb on "Whatever happened to the rest of the plane?" doesn't really answer the question in its own headline. Also, why do they dance around naming the Phyrexians in this article? It's not a secret that they were here in the past...
I really like the idea of New Capenna, but they did a pretty bad job at making it feel like there's an actual history or background to the setting. It's like a video game where the main locations are rendered OKish but peeking around the next-best corner reveals the low-poly models that make up the rest of the scenery.
I'm sure people have been saying this already, but Wizards really needs to calm down with the Treasure tokens. Don't know what effect to tack onto a card? "Make a treasure" will do...
It's fine. I know that me having this disucssion here will not amount to anything. I've already moved on to other hobbies, it will just take a bit more time until I can reach true indifference towards MtG as a game again.
When I look at the DND cards that are coming out now, I feel nothing. They're not new additions to Magic's multiverse. They're all just goofy fantasy characters that get put on Magic cards because people already like them in another product that is otherwise completely separate. Aside from very pragmatic reasons like the product making money, I still fail to see the creative through-line that had to lead here.
I'm OK with Magic changing - I just would have preferred it to change in another way than it currently is. In an of itself, that position is not more or less valid than your position. The difference is really just that your position results in more STONKS for Wizards/Hasbro, and sadly, that's all that matters.
This is also how UB came about. They looked at Commander and saw a very popular, conveniently unofficial format that allowed them to profit off off stuff they had previously actively ruled out. They also saw that they could circumvent a lot of the hard work that comes with making such a hard turn in the game's identity by leaving it to the players to sort things out. Just point to Commander's (and other types of casual play's) status as an unofficial format and say "it's for everyone" - work done. And when they saw that it worked and they could make easy money by activating people's "I recognize, I like, I buy" neanderthal instincts, they doubled down on it real quick.
The part that you highlighted is the marketing equivalent of a joker card. Someone doesn't like what your brand is doing? Just talk vaguely about how you're "always evolving" and "pushing boundaries" and pepper it with a bit of "people who dislike this are just too stupid to understand" and "this is not for you." It simply allows you to do anything. I find it amazing that people actually choose to believe insipid drivel like this - literally any company that is forced to make more money every quarter would come up with some contrived reason to claim "always evolving" as part of its "DNA" to weasel themselves out of self-dug holes.
I get it - I'm in the minority, and as a result, I'm left behind. I can accept that. But what this is not is Wizards taking the objectively right path that they were always destined to walk; and UB was not something that "organically evolved" as a result of a creative process that didn't only include but actively avoided 3rd party IPs for 20+ years before Wizards became Hasbro's cash cow. I will not concede the point that my opinion is valid and that people who happen to be OK with UB aren't just simply "right."
The same thing simply doesn't work with UB - "they summon ... Gandalf? I guess they went to Middle Earth??" But Middle Earth is not part of the MtG universe. It's not just about aesthetics, its about a wider sense of cohesion and (I'm going to use a pretentious word now) ludonarrative.
Until UB, Magic was, for the most part, a single connected universe both gameplay- and flavor-wise (yes, Arabian Nights and P3K happened, but that was very early on, and similar things didn't happen again for 20+ years - clearly showing that WotC wanted to move away from them). I understand that some people enjoy Magic first and foremost as a game, with the cards being nothing more than game pieces that could have any kind of art on them. But I for once was very fond of the unity of gameplay and flavor, a once central part of the game's identity that is now being torn down.
Idk, it's like a Jazz club that suddenly starts playing Top 40 to get more customers. I get why the owners do it, but I just can't approve of it. Pretty much my only choice is to leave the club.
While I might not like it as a Vorthos, I can see how gameplay trump's flavor in MtG.
I guess in terms of flavor, UB is more like a strong color pie bend instead of a break. White can technically do tax counter spells, yet Wizards has decided to not print them simply because a lot of people don't like counterspells. UB has the same kind of thing going for it, except that Wizards decided that they actually do want to move into that space ... because there are more people who like it than those who don't. I belong to the latter group though.
UB occupies this weird overlapping region between flavor and gameplay. For me, even in terms of gameplay the creative cohesion of Magic as its own universe has always been a big thing. I guess I really bought into the "you are a planeswalker" thing. And that illusion is simply shattered when my opponent can cast Gandalf or a Space Marine at any time. But I guess a lot of people just don't care about that? The point is that if you do, there are now only a few ways left to avoid this kind of experience, like exclusively drafting premier sets.
When I look at UB stuff, I feel what I feel when I look at those *****ty live action remakes that Disney has been putting out. Just take some recognizable faces and characters, slap them on a product, and watch the people come in hordes and rip it from your hands. Very clever from a business standpoint, very sad from a creative standpoint.
For me UB is a box of pandora that I wish Wizards would never have opened. Non-premier sets have been used as loopholes in the past, and maybe at one point, after flooding MtG with too many 3rd party IP products, they will decide that it's better to close it. But for me, it's too late. People will buy the cards because they can't live their lives without having Gandalf on Magic card. Whatever. I'll just never return to the game.
But I'm not going to bother any longer because regardless of what I write here, people are just going to handwave it all with "the game changes, deal with it."
You say that doing 3rd party IPs and allowing color pie breaks are very different, but they're really not. They're arbitrary things that Wizards has decided on. If everything goes, why don't allow enchantment destruction in red? After all, there would be people who would like it, and buy the cards! From what I've gathered in these threads, those two things alone are enough to justify everything and anything and label people who disagree as gatekeepers.
It's not an issue of setting, it's an issue of creative control. Wizards has full control over worlds like New Capenna and Kaladesh, and they can shape them according to what they feel is "in line" with Magic. As Maro loves to say, restrictions breed crativity. Wanting to make a set that feels kind of like a gangster movie without just taking characters from a popular gangster film and slapping them on cards is a huge part of what makes Magic appealing. For the longest time, they have forced themselves to do their own thing, and it has lead to the creation of a lot of really cool worlds.
People say that UB doesn't matter in the big picture because Magic is already full of wildly different universes. But those people are missing that despite Magic's worlds being so different from another there's still creative "glue" that holds them together, like the mana system and arbitrary rules like "no straight-up guns." UB takes a big dump on this whole concept. On Maro's blog, the reason given for why 40K "only" got commander precons was because the 40K universe doesn't really mesh with Magic concepts like the color pie etc. So they are able to correctly identify the problem - but instead of going "OK, so maybe we should scrap this idea then" they chose to go ahead with it anyway. Why? Easy $$$, that's why.(*) Wizards is not doing UB to expand the scope of what Magic can do, they're just doing it to activate people's lizard brains. "I like X, and I like Magic. Now they put X on a Magic card. Must consume!!!!!"
It saddens me that people fall for this god-awful scheme. Are they really not able to enjoy two things separately from another, or see why keeping things separate can be beneficial? I like ATLA, and I like MtG. But should there be ATLA Commander precons? No! Why would anyone want that? It's like putting sushi on chocolate cake because you like both things individually.
And please stop with the Portal Three Kingdoms and Arabian Nights bull*****. Claiming that "Magic has always been X" because it did X a few time 20+ years ago simply doesn't hold up as an argument. It's like saying that artifact destruction has always been in blacks part of the color pie and pointing to Gate to Phyrexia.
(*) Note: Now I can already hear you going "it's every company's goal to make money..." It's amazing how people suddenly become the most staunch defenders of capitalism in arguments like this. The point is that how you make money is also important, and for WotC, UB is one of the most creatively lazy and greedy ways to make money there is.
Meanwhile, you didn't address my main point (complexity being a thing that matters), instead focusing on the extraneous detail that I used Opt as a shorthand for what a part of your card does. I should have known better and not posted here - you clearly have no interest in having a legitimate discussion. Anyway, I hope you're having fun.
Also, in terms of current Magic's design philosophy, the first half of your statement is not actually true. A major element of design your missing with your cards is complexity. Tacking on extra text to a card to make it marginally better in corner cases is fine in moderation, but if it becomes too much you just impede the game flow and make it harder to understand for very little gain. Aside from power level, a major reason for why Take into Custody and Opt are on different cards is that it would be quite a lot to take into consideration that your opponent could do both at the same time as long as they have a single blue mana open. Adding more text that attempts to balance out the effect's increased power just makes things worse.
Also WotC: Blocks pages related to this product even in countries where gay marriage is legal and/or LGBTQ topics are not subject to heavy regulation like China/Russia
"But in this case rainbow capitalism is fine because 50% of the profits go to charity!"
Just donate 100% of what you would've spent on this to the charity then. You like the art? You can look at it online for free. You don't need it printed on a small piece of cardboard.
On the plane's actual demons:
That's pretty much it. Boy would it be nice to know what the demons actually did, where they went, or how they sacrificed themselves...
The blurb on "Whatever happened to the rest of the plane?" doesn't really answer the question in its own headline. Also, why do they dance around naming the Phyrexians in this article? It's not a secret that they were here in the past...
I really like the idea of New Capenna, but they did a pretty bad job at making it feel like there's an actual history or background to the setting. It's like a video game where the main locations are rendered OKish but peeking around the next-best corner reveals the low-poly models that make up the rest of the scenery.