No, seriously, the fact that people expectedInquisition of Kozilek to be reprinted here baffles me completly. It was a thing you could deduce yourself
Well expectations are hard to temper, especially when the expectation so closely fits with reality. They're doing Eldrazi vs Zendikari, high cmc vs low cmc, so it's a pretty logical conclusion to draw that they'd reprint it. You know, even more so with this being "the kozilek" set. The only real hamper on this that doesn't require following MaRo on his social media is the fact that Inqui doesn't have devoid.
Grasp of Darkness, Hedron Alignment and Spatial Contortion are the only cards in this set I have any interest in.
I do, however, appreciate how well the Eldrazi seemingly came together mechanically. Then again, that's to be expected from pretty much every Magic set. Hopefully they have an actual presence in Standard going forward.
DC is not willing to put this work in. They had to reboot the Nolanverse movies because that trilogy has a definite end, and the Green Lantern was crap from what I've heard, but they're still making their ensemble movie for the Justice League even though only one of them - Superman - has been established in a leadup movie, and even that one is pretty crap.
But that's not true lol.
There's 5 movies before Avengers. There'll be 4 DC movies before Justice League.
Here's the sad truth: when DC announced they'd be doing a movie verse, everyone said they were copying Marvel. When they announced that they would not follow "the marvel method" and build their shared universe their own way, they got accused of doing it wrong. There's literally no winning. The Magic movie would have it the same if they're just bootleg Avengers, but worse because nobody knows who these weird 20somethings are.
Oldwalkers probably could have if they tried. Ugin didn't want them destroyed because he didn't know what their purpose was is in the grand scheme of things. And I have a feeling that whatever that purpose is will come back to bite our heroes in the posterior in a few more blocks.
Why? It makes perfect sense from a business perspective.
No, it doesn't. Have you seen the flak DC is getting for daring to create its shared universe? "TOO MUCH LIKE MARVEL!" And mind you, Justice League came way before Avengers. The Avengers are Marvel's version of the Justice League, and the public knows this, but still give DC crap for doing it after Marvel. This brand that nobody really knows anything about coming out of the woodwork with its own teamup movie would get even worse treatment. None of these characters are in the zeitgeist, so there's literally no logic to copying a huge movie franchise's story beats instead of coming up with a unique story that Marvel would never tell.
Essentially, why go see the Magic movie try to be the avengers when you can go watch the real thing in Infinity War or the original in Justice League?
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In other news, Hedron Alignment has me all hot and bothered. Can't wait to start fudging with it.
Give me good old fashioned hand drawn western fantasy grinning demons and nantuko husks and annex any day before I ever have to see another angelic destiny. Thats a matter of taste. But cards like biorhythm or goblin piledriver being well drawn- thats objective. Sure, its not like its innistrad, its got aven brigadier and blackmail and circle of solace. But at least when they had bad art, it was one-offs, rather than repetitive. And some of it verged on self-parody
The game is mostly creatures. Creature cards depict what you're summoning. Digital rendering depicts creatures far better than hand-drawn work because you can see the creature interact fairly realistically in its environment. Obviously, this lends better to imagining how the battles with the cards play out. Further, realistic paintings evoke certain emotions better than "cartoony" hand-paintings. Brad Rigney's Dark Hatchling and Numbing Dose, for example, are so offputting only because they look so realistic. This type of art is even better with the Eldrazi because seeing these strange, multi-appendaged creatures in realistic environments is a bizarre juxtaposition that punctuates the unnaturalness of the Eldrazi.
Now where you have a point is that you might want more esoteric art on instants, sorceries and enchantments. Maybe.
@Blinking Spirit
Again, what I am saying is either perfection only exists as a form of maximum value for a specific characteristic, or it's subjective. The point of this thread is to argue whether perfection, in a more general form, is truly possible.
I pretty much gave you the answer to that in my first post. Perfection as a concept has no strictly-defined value because it's an abstract construct of the human mind. Depending on what you value, its definition changes. The only way to achieve perfection to clearly define goals. It's like how Magic couldn't have face-down creatures without them being defined by the rules first (as 2/2 creatures).
It's Treshold 2.0 or Tarmogoyf. They've liked Threshold for quite a while, but never felt that number 7 was ideal for them. This is the first true graveyard block in a while.
Preferably, I hate Threshold. It was one of the areas for Odyssey I disliked the most.
Threshold's problem is supposedly the book-keeping, but I feel this requires just as much, if not more.
With Threshold, once your cards are turned on because you have 7 cards, that's it. They're turned on forever.
With "Spiritual," you have to check your graveyard constantly.
"Spiritual" can, however, lead to more dynamic gameplay in two ways:
1. If all of them come with a negative if you don't have Spiritual turned on, then that adds a new pressure to your gaming decisions where you have to fill up your graveyard, or weigh keeping the card in your hand vs playing it and living with the downside. Theoretically, you could add this to Threshold cards as well, but that boat's probably sailed.
2. Your opponent has more chances to interact with you. With Threshold, once you get to 7 cards in your graveyard your opponent trying to get over you only keeps your graveyard full, but with "Spiritual" they can just remove a land from your Graveyard and you're dead in the water. I mean, getting a land into the graveyard is by definition harder than getting any card into the graveyard.
This mechanic is certainly interesting and I'm eager to see how it plays out. If there's one thing about this franchise I have unshakable faith in, it's Design and Development.
I know wizards is trying its best to tell stories as toothless, derivative, repetitive and escapist as Marvel, but don't you think dividing this article into "Phases" is a bit too on the nose?
It felt like nobody was trying, as if they did this movie on a bet. You know, like a rib.
Strange, I think the problem is there's too much new blood.
Well expectations are hard to temper, especially when the expectation so closely fits with reality. They're doing Eldrazi vs Zendikari, high cmc vs low cmc, so it's a pretty logical conclusion to draw that they'd reprint it. You know, even more so with this being "the kozilek" set. The only real hamper on this that doesn't require following MaRo on his social media is the fact that Inqui doesn't have devoid.
Good thing I threw this into my sig. It fits!
I do, however, appreciate how well the Eldrazi seemingly came together mechanically. Then again, that's to be expected from pretty much every Magic set. Hopefully they have an actual presence in Standard going forward.
But that's not true lol.
There's 5 movies before Avengers. There'll be 4 DC movies before Justice League.
Here's the sad truth: when DC announced they'd be doing a movie verse, everyone said they were copying Marvel. When they announced that they would not follow "the marvel method" and build their shared universe their own way, they got accused of doing it wrong. There's literally no winning. The Magic movie would have it the same if they're just bootleg Avengers, but worse because nobody knows who these weird 20somethings are.
The story it depicts is quite literally metaphorically feces.
No, they literally did try. Several times. They couldn't.
As TFS Vegeta said, "POWER LEVELS ARE BULLSH--!"
No, it doesn't. Have you seen the flak DC is getting for daring to create its shared universe? "TOO MUCH LIKE MARVEL!" And mind you, Justice League came way before Avengers. The Avengers are Marvel's version of the Justice League, and the public knows this, but still give DC crap for doing it after Marvel. This brand that nobody really knows anything about coming out of the woodwork with its own teamup movie would get even worse treatment. None of these characters are in the zeitgeist, so there's literally no logic to copying a huge movie franchise's story beats instead of coming up with a unique story that Marvel would never tell.
Essentially, why go see the Magic movie try to be the avengers when you can go watch the real thing in Infinity War or the original in Justice League?
In other news, Hedron Alignment has me all hot and bothered. Can't wait to start fudging with it.
Oh come on. If you apply this kind of thinking, everything in the fantasy genre is dumb. EVERYTHING.
The game is mostly creatures. Creature cards depict what you're summoning. Digital rendering depicts creatures far better than hand-drawn work because you can see the creature interact fairly realistically in its environment. Obviously, this lends better to imagining how the battles with the cards play out. Further, realistic paintings evoke certain emotions better than "cartoony" hand-paintings. Brad Rigney's Dark Hatchling and Numbing Dose, for example, are so offputting only because they look so realistic. This type of art is even better with the Eldrazi because seeing these strange, multi-appendaged creatures in realistic environments is a bizarre juxtaposition that punctuates the unnaturalness of the Eldrazi.
Now where you have a point is that you might want more esoteric art on instants, sorceries and enchantments. Maybe.
I pretty much gave you the answer to that in my first post. Perfection as a concept has no strictly-defined value because it's an abstract construct of the human mind. Depending on what you value, its definition changes. The only way to achieve perfection to clearly define goals. It's like how Magic couldn't have face-down creatures without them being defined by the rules first (as 2/2 creatures).
I hate plugging stuff, but you should try DDP Yoga, man. It's easy and manly, so you don't have to feel like a yutz while doing it.
Threshold's problem is supposedly the book-keeping, but I feel this requires just as much, if not more.
With Threshold, once your cards are turned on because you have 7 cards, that's it. They're turned on forever.
With "Spiritual," you have to check your graveyard constantly.
"Spiritual" can, however, lead to more dynamic gameplay in two ways:
1. If all of them come with a negative if you don't have Spiritual turned on, then that adds a new pressure to your gaming decisions where you have to fill up your graveyard, or weigh keeping the card in your hand vs playing it and living with the downside. Theoretically, you could add this to Threshold cards as well, but that boat's probably sailed.
2. Your opponent has more chances to interact with you. With Threshold, once you get to 7 cards in your graveyard your opponent trying to get over you only keeps your graveyard full, but with "Spiritual" they can just remove a land from your Graveyard and you're dead in the water. I mean, getting a land into the graveyard is by definition harder than getting any card into the graveyard.
This mechanic is certainly interesting and I'm eager to see how it plays out. If there's one thing about this franchise I have unshakable faith in, it's Design and Development.