MTG Salvation

Quote from Tiro of Meletis »

Quote from DJK3654 »

Quote from Tiro of Meletis »

Lame. Another Planeswalker killing a flavorful legend on their own turf just to become the set's Mary Sue again

and just as we're introduced to them no less

What are you talking about?

Ob Nixlis killing the mafia boss demon

This has to be a new "being salty about the set before anything is known about it" record

I don't play the game anymore, and at this point I've stopped caring about what feels and doesn't feel like Magic. Looking forward to this for some cool worldbuilding and art, and so far it looks interesting.

I wonder how they're going to flavor the Bant faction. It seems like they're going for a Wall Street kind of vibe.

Nice little Spirited Away reference on Smoke Spirits Aid.

Quote from MoonliteKnight »

I just want to make sure, now that shrines are creature types, that means changeling creatures would count towards shrine counts?

Shrine is an enchantment subtype. Changelings aren't shrines, just like they aren't food or clues.

Now that Seb McKinnon has sided with the anti-vax crowd, I'll have to find new artists whose works I can anticipate. Besides Wylie Beckett, Iris Compiet is another promising new-ish MtG artist.

The card itself looks powerful too. In the best case scenario, this protects one or more of your creatures from removal while ruining the opponent's plans for their turn and gaining tempo.

The flavor text on the backside of the Seshiro saga says something along the lines of

"Amidst strife, fools throw their fists, and the wise cultivate friendships." - Excerpt from the first speech of Seshiro, the Anointed leader of the Orochi collective

Not related to the card at all, but I love how you can't write a regular Japanese name like Mori*****a without it getting censored, haha

I'm all for more enchantment creatures, but I think they should still look like they'd be enchantment creatures ... this is just a snake with a bow. There are also a lot of random artifact creatures in this set, but those at least have some cyborg-esque metal enhancements.

Quote from Rainbow Sun »

The further more irritating element to me is that it they really wanted IMPACT, they could have hit Jace, or Liliana, or Chandra or Ajani, but that would mean MASSIVE changes for what is basically less of a character and more of a product. Tamiyo was picked because she's important enough to matter, but not important enough to make a real impact on the story. Which again, goes back to my point about bad writing. This is a product decision and nothing more.

Which is, again, why I'm not terribly irritated over the choice. Its not bad for story reasons, current MTG story is the pits. It's just kinda lame for marketing reasons. Like when Gideon sacrified himself for Lilly. The MTG marketing guys know Lilly has more marketing sway, so she lived. Ultimately Tamiyo getting compleated isn't really going to make a difference one way or the other.

Pretty much my thoughts right here. If they really wanted a big twist with a lot of impact, they should have chosen Jace or any other of the "main cast" PWs and maybe build it up over a longer period of time. But that would've meant losing one of their marketing poster characters - so they went with the niche character beloved by a small minority of players to make it feel like they just did something big. It's a cop-out, really.

Pretty much the only meaning Tamiyo's compleation has is that other, more important characters are now at risk of becoming phyrexianized as well - but they won't. This story development lacks impact beyond the initial shock value, bascially just functioning as an in-universe "Phyrexia is coming back, yo" teaser.

Quote from ChrisBP7 »

Quote from soramaro »

On the one hand, another story arc with a new big bad is kind of neat. On the other, I hate the "oh, this character you loved? They're brainwashed and evil now" thing. I honestly would've preferred Tamiyo to die. WotC's anti-human bias also continues to show - why not have one of the random human planeswalkers suffer this fate, I'm sure we have over a dozen of them at this point.

The boring part about an established character (human or not) becoming compleated is that it basically removes all nuance from them. Once they're Phyrexian, they are nothing more than a "doing evil things for the sake of being evil" type of caricature.

I don't know, the story depicted quite well that Tamiyo, even compleated, isn't just evil for evil's sake now, her love for her family was warped to a love for Phyrexia. She wants to protect and nurture it, which seems like a very different kind of motivation. Also I bet we will get quite a few more compleated planeswalkers, and certainly many human ones at that.

OK, so maybe she still has some semblance of a personality. The thing is though...

A character in a story switching sides is most impactful when you get to see the development that got them there. Maybe there was always something that was pulling them in that direction, and then some turn of events led them further down that path.

But with completion, the development basically amounts to "oh no! they got the 'Phyrexia is awesome' germ!" Their previous motivations etc. play no part, the characters are simply set on a one-way track of helping the evil robot regime. They cared about family before? Well, now the evil robots have become their family! Mwahahaha! Something something Phyrexian oil!

It's ... really boring.

Also, I have to say that while New Phyrexia is more diverse, their ultimate goal isn't all that deep or interesting. It's a "turn everyone into scary robots because we think that's what perfect life looks like" kind of deal with a bit of makeup on top. There's no deeper conflict or drama here, the praetors are still just the typical cackling villains who want to do bad because they think bad is neat.

Well this seems utterly crap for the game as a whole. But at least unlike the crossovers, I can just ignore these and pretend they don't exist. It's not like I'll ever see one.

Quote from DJK3654 »

I imagine two of the main reasons they only made three dungeons are because it's harder to balance the more dungeons you add both in terms of the power level of venture cards and the dungeons themselves relative to each other, and secondly because the more dungeons you add the more complex all the venture cards become with different possible choices and outcomes.

The first mistake was not limiting the number of dungeons "in your deck". They should at least have made the dungeons take up a sideboard card slot.

Honestly, these should've just worked similar to sagas: Cards with a mana cost that you cast and go into your deck. If it was me I would've made them double-faced to represent the reward or loot on the backside, similar to the Ixalan DFCs.

This mechanic feels very undeveloped front, back and center. And I cannot wrap my head around why they thought it was a good idea and exciting for the players to only print three dungeons. It boggles my mind.

Quote from LeyShade »

And that's fine, I can appreciate that view. But it's a string that works both ways. For many other players, Magic is ancillary, it's a part of their world but doesn't define it.

What an odd thing to say, it's not my assumption that many people in this thread have their world defined by MtG.

This is a thing that's already been discussed and put to bed.

These cards are not Magic canon cards, hence their dissimilar holo stamps.

I'm not mistaking them for canon in the story, and they don't need to be for me to feel they're out of place in the game.

Also, two Kingdom Hearts characters are the most requested DLC characters for FF7 Remake PT2.

My ever-increasing dislike for FF and its fans continues unabated.

I wouldn't include you in that subset of players Mikey - you've actually got reasons for your disagreements with this.

So does everyone involved in this conversation. Whether or not they're understood or validated by others.

And I honestly Mikey wish that both sides would take a more reasoned and responsible attitude to the whole thing because you are right, people are losing their minds over something they could just as easily choose not to buy or not to personally play with. But if they're allowed to be bombastic, surely the most enigmatic villain of MTGS should get to play, si?

Your last sentence is a sentiment that I can share. My claws need sharpening once in a while too.

Oh honey. No to all of this, but especially that bolded part.

Perception doesn't matter in regards to facts. I can perceive the sky as red and green, but that matters little if one has damaged eyes or is looking through a filter. Perception is relative, essentially, as you know.

And the facts you're presenting are irrelevant to why people play the game. People play games because of the way they feel when they do and they view the game through the lens of that experience - not patent documents. I think arguing for UB using patent documents misses the forest for the trees and probably wouldn't be a compelling pitch for most players. Players are going to form an attachment to a game based on their perception of it, I don't think that includes investigating the patent documents of the game to understand the intent of its creators in the early 90s.

I want to thank you for your effort to further explain yourself, though you should know that your misfired tags made replying to you next to impossible (when quoting, the format goes wonky and I lost most of the content of your posts forcing me to do a ramshackle copy/paste job) so if you don't see much response, that could be a reason why. I think you speak well to your points, but I can't say that anything you've argued has been compelling for me in regards to this product. It's actually had the opposite effect, I'm even less warm to UB than I was before and I have even less desire to interact with people who are excited by it because everything has gotten so pedantic and far afield of the fun spirit of the game. I used to sideeye and tolerate the cynical corporate crap WotC did, but now the players themselves are trying to browbeat others into liking the cynical corporate crap with arguments about patents and metaphysics.

What even if this conversation anymore?

Quote from Cranky »

I don't understand this position. These new toys take ABSOLUTELY NOTHING away from existing players.

It takes away from Magic about as much as canonizing the Star Trek universe into Star Wars takes away from Star Wars fans. So yeah, it can totally have a negative impact on someone's enjoyment of the game depending on what they enjoy about the game. You don't get to tell people what to enjoy.

Conversely, these IPs already exist. There is nothing that takes away from those players if these crossovers would not be made. You want to play a LOTR card game? Great, there's actually two made already. You even get to choose. The "taking away" argument makes no sense especially when those IPs already exist.

I would also posit that even if you do like these crossovers, that they are still hurtful for the game in the long run, as I already mentioned. This has the potential power to actually damage the brand, which directly influences Magic players joining and staying in the game, and that can build up. So yeah, I think even people who do like the crossovers in theory should be wary of the longterm effects in practise.

Quote from Cranky »

This adds something new and nice for crossover fans and fans of the other IPs, attracting new blood to the game (which is an objectively good thing).

Is it though? There are two factors that determine the health/growth of a game: New User Acquisition and Retention. (Forgive me if I use those terms if they feel a little unpersonal and dehumanizing to the player, but it's the terms used in the video game industry so I am using them out of familiarity. Tells you a bit how the video game industry sees players, I guess... )

New User Acquisition is basically new players entering the game. Due to players leaving due to various reasons (let's call it entropy) you basically need a constant flow of fresh blood. Retention is the ability of a game to keep players in the game.

Now the thing is, crossovers may help with acquisition, maybe. Let's assume that someone who likes LOTR feels like committing to an entire game just because they saw Gandalf on the box. (I personally find it unlikely and I doubt that's the real goal of the product, the real goal being to increase sales with already enfranchised players by selling them two things they already like, at once. But whatever. Sake of argument.) But okay, we may get some additional players. But what about the retention. This hypothetical player most likely only got into it because of LOTR. But UB won't be able to spit out a LOTR set every quarter of the year, or even every year. Maybe we get one every decade, if we're lucky and it was received well. (Kamigawa fans are still waiting...) The player will likely end up not buying future product and drop out again entirely. Some of these players may convert to regular Magic players, but the rate is probably really low. People you draw in under 'false pretenses' ("Look, we have LOTR!" and then not delivering more afterwards) does not result in loyal players usually.

But then you may alienate already enfranchised players. You may also "reactivate" dropped out players (probably the secondary goal of this product). So who knows what's going to be stronger, but I just don't think this will have any real impact on getting new players in. At least not longterm.

The way I see it it's chiefly a way for players already in the game to spend more. Which... Is kind of on par with all the flood of recent products they spit out, like the secret drops and the double set Innistrad. It feels like Hasbro is losing faith in the brand and they pressure Wizards to produce as much revenue as they can before the game dies. Maybe Hasbro knows more than we do. Maybe they are paranoid. Maybe it's a battle of egos among Hasbro executives. Maybe I'm full of crap. Who knows.

So...I'm done, at least for now.

I've thought it through and I'm taking a break from the game and from the lore for a while.

We'll see how long it lasts as my investment in the game is pretty ingrained by now, but I can't help thinking that I possibly care about and prioritize Magic's setting and storyline at a deeper level than the staff (or at least the upper management) at WotC.

And that's not healthy.

There are loads of other franchises, series, and fandoms that do just as good, if not better jobs at developing engaging and consistent narratives.

Simply put: This game is not for me.

Here’s to hoping that these decks will have more universally good EDH cards like the Ikoria precons did, rather than the ZNR and KHM ones.

Quote from Ryperior74 »

i totally called this one so part two of my prediction is each one is to a house and the face legends are their leaders

Congrats, you are the king of low-hanging-fruit predictions

I enjoyed the Kay and Niko articles, though admittedly in the Niko article it was difficult to keep track of everyone's names at times.

Edit: is it just me or is it weird that there is made no mention of Rat nor Teyo?

As much as I'd like some elements of the War of the Spark Novels retconned, I feel as though the sudden shift here into the new story feels a little jarring. While I'm glad that Rat is not on the plane with Kaya I think the story could have explained better how the trio parted ways for a time, and acknowledged that the three of them still had a close working relationship.

I like Rat as a planebound resident of Ravnica, and as a character I like Teyo even more and would prefer they remain in the lore somehow, and in Teyo's case become even more active. I however suspect that WotC are still trying to figure out how what elements to keep or throw away from the Novels.

I'm kind of tired of this shaved hair parted to one side look they put on so many characters. It makes them feel like they're all coming from Seattle or something.

Players have repeatedly requested a Land, Landfall and Adventure World (Quests, Traps, Expeditions, etc.)

I think you can probably relax here, friend.

There were reasons for it. MaRo has talked a lot about it.

First block, they literally HAD no plans back then. They had to come up with a 3rd set and RoE was what they (Shawn Main,really) came up with. It wasn't the plan--they had no plan. Think Fifth Dawn in Mirrodin Block or Saviors in Kamigawa block. (Yes, WTF indeed.)

Second block, they had a cliffhanger to resolve and (real reason) unfortunately, BFZ block was merely "connective tissue" for the much larger Gatewatch storyline concerns which spanned multiple years and were planned quite a bit in advance (and revised a few times as well). In short, it wasn't the real plan for Zendikar anyway as soon as Gatewatch became a thing.

You can certainly get frustrated they didn't do Adventure world but you can't say they just avoided doing it for no comprehensible reason and call them idiots for doing it that way. I think that is a little unfair and ignores alot of the facts that drove these decisions at the time. Please do not take this reply as a personal attack, not intended as such.

I think D&D world will be cool but I also don't hate that we got Eldrazi as well. It is what it is.