MTG Salvation

Why call it a temptation if there's no downside to it

I'm a big fan of these one-off Planechase cards that show unknown planes. It would be neat if Wizards could use supplemental sets etc. to slowly flesh some of them out over time. I guess the "new lore" here is that Belenon has Loxodon, Aven and Rhox.

Quote from rowanalpha »

Mario has confirmed that Commander Masters will draft/play with the same structure as Commander Legends, meaning Draft Boosters wil have 20 cards and potentially multiple races.

TIL Mario was a WtoC employee. After all those years in the pumbling business! I guess he got tired of it. I wonder if Yoshi works there too

Quote from Caranthir »

If Theros seas turned to oil, the world will be a lifeless husk after the Invasion II ends. An immensely popular world, lost.

You're reading too much into the flavor text of a single card (Tranquil Cove). Just think of Dominaria post-Time Spiral. All the plains were salt-filled wastes, all the islands slag heaps - but upon the next visit, Wizard went "well, there was some damage, but with the Mending mana flowed back into the land and everything healed pretty fast. Anyway... remember the old Dominaria you know and love?" (I'm still a bit bumed out by that)

The same thing happened with Innistrad, were apparently everyone and their mother (and even whole towns) turned into Eldrazi monstrosities, but then everything turned back to regular old spoopy land for the next return. They'll find a way to minimize/trivialize the effects to protect their future products planes, you can be sure.

I don't think it has to be time travel, because Elspeth/halo wouldn't really be needed for that one. I like 5colors' theory that Elspeth will weaponize halo as "anti-glistening oil" (they are both liquids, after all) and Zhalfir will help out somehow.

Yeah, my main Vorthos area of interest has always been art and worldbuilding, and it's the main thing that keeps me coming back to online communities and keeps me low-key engaged with MtG even though I've stopped playing the game after the whole UB nonsense started.

I've read some of the stories and books, and sure, some of them are fine ... but especially with the modern story, you're simply setting yourself up for disappointment if you're expecting genuinely good fantasy stories. Wizards have said themselves that what they're aiming for is Marvel comics level storytelling, so that's the best you're going to get.

I really wish they'd step up their worldbuilding game though. New planes in 202X aren't being allowed to develop complexities, because "the average person wouldn't get it" or "why go into this much detail when it could make it difficult to revisit the plane later." There's too much marketing, risk-hedging and trope-flinging and not enough interesting substance/texture.

Quote from Flisch »

Still a lot of the things that come out (like the planeswalkers guide to New Phyrexia) come across as "we can't be bothered" which may (or may not) come as a result of an understaffed creative team.

Yesterday, I read through some of the old Planeswalker's Guide to Innistrad because of a Reddit thread I saw ... and I was really taken aback by how much material there was. All this info on random locations and people, lots of concept art, explanations of concepts and local culture that show up on 1-2 cards from the sets at best... And there's multiple parts, one for each major region on the plane, each at least as long as the recent PW guide on ONE. When people talk about the old lore being better, they usually refer to the Brother's War and other stuff mostly from the 90's - but OG Innistrad was 2011. It's painfully clear that the concepting/worldbuilding time new planes get nowadays has gone down significantly, and it shows.

Yeah, although both of the Mite tokens look good in their own right, it's a bit disappointing that neither of them resemble the mites depicted on the cards from the set.

This one's body plan is pure style over substance. It can't even cross the road properly

Cool art on Hexgold Slash! It's a style that almost never makes it onto regular MtG cards without some sort of showcase treatment.

I saw "auntie" and was hoping for a new Lorwyn goblin

I mean, I'm not a fan either, but this art is hardly sexual.

Let's be honest, Magic story was never great. Enjoyable, sure, but not great.

What I did find great was the world building though. Sure, the worlds weren't as deep as singular settings, because it's pretty much impossible given the scope, but they were at least fun and interesting. There were multiple things going on, factions, locations, all of that. Especially with Zendikar when they started to do away with "this is the blue location, this is the red location, this is the green lcoation, ...) which really plagued early Magic, worlds became so much more enjoyable.

And then they switched to the one-set-per-world model and I was sceptical at first if their creative team can create worlds as interesting as they used to when they had only two or three months for each world, as opposed to a whole year.

Turns out they couldn't. So the worlds we got so far, even the interesting ones like Kaldheim are utterly flat. Many creative elements are so disjointed and in conflict with each other that it just becomes a weird slurry. (Monsters and their bonders are hated on Ikoria but apparently there's """poachers""" and people hate those too???) There is no substance and what little substance there is is completely and utterly glossed over in planeswalkers guides like "Eh, who cares".

I have to admit, ONE is a set that actually made me excited for Magic again, because the phyrexians are inherently cool. I actually was on the verge of losing interest in Magic myself, because yeah, there's so little interesting stuff going on in Magic as a Vorthos currently.

I also want to end this post by saying that I don't particularly blame the creative team. They're probably under a lot of time and resource pressure. I have no doubt that they are passionate about what they're doing. Still a lot of the things that come out (like the planeswalkers guide to New Phyrexia) come across as "we can't be bothered" which may (or may not) come as a result of an understaffed creative team.

Quote from soramaro »

Bummer. I really wanted some info on Ovika, Enigma Goliath (one of my favorite cards from the set art-wise) and they even had her (?) picture under "unaligned Phyrexians," but then ... nothing. I'm not getting my hopes up, but maybe we get a "Legends of ONE" article later? I remember there being articles like this for other sets.

I'm very sure we're getting that, yes. We got it for every recent set afaik.

Quote from Mullerornis »

I mean, the fact that we get lore that the Surgical Bays and the Dross Pits started as Kraynox's and Roxith's layers respectively is kinda cool

Yeah, but like... *gestures wildly* more of that?!

The guide leaves out some other interesting things, like the meldweb. There's some information in other materials that are not included like the fact that the Monumental Facade is fairly brittle, etc. I would hope/expect the planeswalkers guide to be a bit more detailed than just have three sentences on each layer.

What even are aspirants? What is the internal structure of each faction? How are the mirrans holding up and how are they surviving (look, I've given up on the "what do they eat" but is it too much to ask for to get some information over the biggest/most important resistance cells and how they deal with a world that is drenched in glistening oil?)? What happened to bladehold and the other mirran holdouts? The whole thing with the phoenixes is completely absent, even though that's such a cool detail. The list goes on.

Also, I'd love to see some concept art. I don't know why they completely stopped with that.

Battle-Chair?

Overall, the story is what it is, just a barebones guide to get us from point A to point B without much meat and left me wishing there were side stories to flesh things out. We've waited 10 years for a return to New Phyrexia and the most we get for it is when Nahiri makes the scale model of the plane's spheres. No details on just how the Mirrans survived/continue to survive this long. No deeper look at the tensions between the praetors and their factions. No real sense as to why the walkers chosen were needed (Lukka especially). There were some moments that were ok, mostly in the face commander stories, but for the mainline, I think I enjoyed Nahiri a bit more than most and that was just because there was a bit of respect for former oldwalker status.

I think my main issue is similar to one already voiced: New Phyrexia and the glistening oil being too virulent. I can get behind Gin refining the oil to better potency, and can totally see the actual plane of NP being more concentrated than other worlds for the oil. Walkers getting so easily compleated like other beings from scratches/splashes/inhaling is where things get so meh. I would rather have walkers need either Gin or another high ranking Phyrexian to finish the process than just a walker succumbing to phyresis so quickly and easily. Gin *just* cracked the code to keeping the spark intact; we're supposed to believe he was able to perfect that method so quickly he could upload the process into just the oil alone? I am with others in being lost on as to how Creative can solve this potency in a believable manner.

Wait so do you think this set is about Elesh Norn?

Ok, Hermetic Study is actually pretty funny.

I hope its something manageable like simply connecting the planes via Realmbreaker. To completely reboot would negate all the vorthos-goodwill they're trying to raise.

Quote from caulkwrangler »

I'm not angry, I just think you're silly. Spend your money how you want but find some happiness while you're at it.

What does that even mean in response to me not wanting to buy something? You believe me not liking this product means I have no joy in life? I don't, but it's not because of this product.

WotC calling more spoilers "special" is funny when we barely leave spoiler season for more than two days before the next set/product is being hyped up.

Quote from Dragoon91 »

Quote from soramaro »

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.

That's a very valid opinion and I can understand your point of view, you just ended up in the minority this time, which sucks but c'est la vie.
You can always ask the people you're playing with to use decks without UB cards if possible, it's not like they represent the majority of the game.

this will probably end up being more of a thing for me as we move further into UB.

when someone sits down with a UB themed deck it puts me in a situation where i'm really not enjoying the experience because to me it just isn't magic.

yeah, people alter cards all the time, but it was a rare and fringe thing - that made it cool - by emphasizing UB that makes it more accessible and more abundant. that means at the end of the day the only uniqueness to magic is the card mechanics. magic has spent 30 years world building and for me its as much a part of the game as playing the game.

while i can ask someone to play something else because my experience will be hindered by facing off against space marines and gandalf, they'll end up having a bad experience too because i'm trying to get them to experience the game a different way - yet both ways are now part of the game. if i'm at an event and someone doesn't have a different deck, i have no choice, i play with a diminished less immersive experience, or i choose not to play at all.

i do foresee sitting down at edh pods and someone busting out the necrons precon, not having anything else, and me simply saying 'great okay, i'm going to sit this one out then' which should be a valid choice - but it won't be because of how feels bad and petty that will be for everyone else involved. its not quite like saying i don't want to play your stax deck, because here this is purely aesthetic.

really though, i've already noticed instead of putting people through that, or myself through that, i just you know... don't go to events any more. if i'm going to be forced to experience UB polluting the core experience that is 30 years of magic worldbuilding, game design, and experience... i kind of just, won't bother to be in that situation at all.

here think of it this way: the thomas the tank engine mod for skyrim is fun, once or twice. every single time you turn the game on and without any choice to turn it off? that stops being skyrim, and it stops being an enjoyable experience.

yeah, there are a lot of people who are for this UB stuff, but there are a lot who aren't and the ones who aren't just end up walking away feeling trampled and ignored. frustrated that the game is evolving into a novelty without an identity of its own after having established one for decades. UB would've been fine as silver border optional content.

UB plus all the absurd variants you can open in packs now really does make it feel as if the game is transition to be more of a collectors piece like sports cards than an interactive, immersive, gaming experience.

there's a lot more to magic than just the card back and card mechanics. its not like monopoly where that doesn't play into some greater story/world building experience. this won't be healthy but it's going to take time to really rot from the inside out.