I'm not a fan. With madness still in standard, this may help opponents and it seems pushed as far as flavor. It's like wotc HAVE to have a demon and angel in every single block, which I don't understand much.
Looking back at the past five blocks:
- Kaladesh has both. This is a bit odd, there's not much context, especially for demons.
- Innistrad has both, of course. They make perfect flavorful sense.
- Battle for Zendikar has a couple angels, which makes sense. No demons besides Ob.
- Tarkir block has a couple demons, which makes sense, but no angels.
- Theros block has a few demons, which makes sense, but no angels.
So only one recent block has angels or demons that don't make flavorful sense, and less than half of recent blocks have both an angel and a demon.
Also, since demons and angels are the direct incarnations of black and white mana respectively as living beings, they make some sense on any plane with those colors of mana.
What if you kept the goal of a 100-card deck, but added/cut cards of each color to reach 45, cut lands to 75, and cut multicolored to 90 (by cutting cards of colors that have too many, and maybe cutting and adding a few extra for color balance)? That leaves you with a cube of 450 cards that's pretty much even in colors and could be singleton but still 75%-80% of it would be from C16.
Had to do a quick vote change after I found out 1 was best Interesting Zendikar is as low as it is. Is that just the bitter taste leftover from BFZ block I guess?
I like to call it the Kamigawa effect. Where a plane with a promising theme was ruined by circumstance. Kamigawa was low power after broken sets, and had the wrong focus overall. BFZ design was horrible following interesting sets and had an entirely wrong focus. And this resentment happened to Zendikar, among the most loved planes, let alone the one first subjected to market research.
So really, it comes down to - don't trash loved planes. And don't run with the wrong focus. What's left to love about Zendikar, honestly? Its charm was being a massive plane of discovery and adventure. A sizable portion of it is literally dust now.
If you're going to do it, at least do it with an interesting conflict and not faceless, emotionless, thoughtless eating machines that all look essentially the same and have no discernable goal other than munching on Zendikar. If the BFZ story had to involve the Eldrazi at all, it should have been centered around Ob Nixilis manipulating the Titans in a plot to regain his spark.
Don't make the "villain" the natural disaster itself. Make the villain the man behind the doomsday machine. Sigh
I agree, current Zendikar isn't an interesting setting. Since most of my players probably won't be that familiar with the MtG storyline, the planes I'm using aren't necessarily at the same point in their timelines. Here's what I'm thinking:
Ravnica: Either post-DGM or original Ravnica, but not sure. What do you think would be better?
Theros: Current, with the gods still not communicating with humans except Kruphix.
Alara: Post-Conflux, but only by a few months.
Innistrad: During Dark Ascension — it seems like most people don't like Avacyn Restored's setting, and while SoI was a good setting mostly, original Innistrad is just so much better.
Shards: N/A, because Alara beat out every individual shard by a lot.
Tarkir: I think I'm gonna go with FRF Tarkir, but not sure about this one. What do you think?
Kamigawa: Pre-Kamigawa block, with Konda's empire rising rapidly.
Lorwyn: Pre-Great Aurora, the Aurora will likely occur during the game at some point.
Kaladesh: Current.
Fiora: Current.
New Phyrexia/Mirrodin: During Mirrodin Beseiged, before the outcome of the battle for Mirrodin becomes clear.
Shadowmoor: Lorwyn
Zendikar: The Eldrazi have been imprisoned on the plane, but will not be released for hundreds of years - so hedrons, the Roil, and the Kor and Merfolk religions exist, but Eldrazi have had no other impact on the plane.
Dominaria: Post-apocalyptic, and a minor campaign setting.
Vryn: Current, and a minor campaign setting.
Shandalar: Current, with a focus on slivers.
Muraganda: We don't really have a timeline here, but as best as we know current.
Mercadia: Probably not even included.
Feel free to keep voting, but I think I have a good enough idea now of which planes people like/don't like to start working on my RPG. If anyone's interested in playing, I'll be posting it over at mythweavers in a couple weeks.
If I may make a suggestion?
As a roleplayer myself, I wouldn't let the poll be the final word on what the RPG focuses on. Just because a Plane is highly rated doesn't mean it will be a good campaign setting for adventures, and just because a plane is lowly rated here doesn't mean it will be similarly received by players used to the kind of settings offered by games like D&D. So for instance, Bant might be in the top five, but what kind of adventure hooks would actually work there? Its supposed to be a paradise, after all. Alara, which is also in the top five, would be far better for adventuring assuming that the adventures take place after the conflux. That opens the door for all sorts of conflicts and allows the players to make characters from a wider diversity of backgrounds. Similarly, just because Dominaria is lowly rated here doesn't mean that its a bad setting for an RPG. My experience is that among Magic players, its only disliked because older sets tended to have a more generic fantasy feel (which does not, of course, actually define Dominaria), but role players are far less bothered by a setting being generic. If anything, its seen as an opportunity for customization and homebrewing. Role players are motivated by different things than people who play Magic and other card games, and nostalgia tends to be bigger among people who stopped playing Magic at some point. And Dominaria has potential as an RPG setting due to its scale: there are numerous nations that the players could hail from or even claim to hail from (you can just make up island nations at will and it can't really be questioned), almost every Magic race exists there (everything except the kamigawa exclusive races and the Vedalkin), and its history is an asset when trying to come up with adventure hooks.
Same logic could be applied to Zendikar (which is actually quite popular among many role players I've met, who frequently rip it off), or to Mirrodin/New Phyrexia. The top four are fine for role playing, but don't think that they are the "best" simply because of their popularity here.
Quote from "SubZeroFireCG" »
I find it really strange how low Dominaria is. I wonder how much the possible confusion at the start altered the results?
I think the poll is influenced more by recent events than by anything else. Zendikar by all means is a good plane, and like I said a lot of roleplayers I've met love the place, but the horrible BFZ story arc probably soured opinions towards the setting itself. Likewise, the artwork of Magic Origins did a really poor job of depicting the uniqueness of Dominaria (we don't even know what nation Lilliana comes from! I like to think New Argive), and it seems to have given a lot of people the false impression that its just a generic fantasy setting. Had this poll come out near the release of Time Spiral block, you would expect completely different results, and not just because there were fewer known planes. If it had been released nearer to Mirrodin Besieged, it would also likely do better (or perhaps New Phyrexia would have). The more recent something is in people's memories, the stronger the opinions people tend to have on it. Its a well known psychological bias.
This makes sense, I'm not going to go directly with the top few results probably. I also posted the same poll on Mythweavers with descriptions of planes instead of names, and Innistrad won by a landslide. Between the two polls and my own personal biases (I've DMed in Zendikar before and enjoy it a lot), I'm going to focus on Innistrad, Zendikar, Theros, and Ravnica as the primary worlds (the game is set in the multiverse as a whole, but players will start on those four worlds).
Okay, after about a week of voting, here are the results:
Ravnica
Theros
Alara
Innistrad
Bant
Tarkir
Kamigawa
Lorwyn
Kaladesh
Fiora
New Phyrexia
Naya
Mirrodin
Shadowmoor
Zendikar
Jund
Dominaria
Vryn
Esper
Shandalar
Muraganda
Grixis
Mercadia
Feel free to keep voting, but I think I have a good enough idea now of which planes people like/don't like to start working on my RPG. If anyone's interested in playing, I'll be posting it over at mythweavers in a couple weeks.
Had to do a quick vote change after I found out 1 was best Interesting Zendikar is as low as it is. Is that just the bitter taste leftover from BFZ block I guess?
Tibalt, Grand Nemesis5BR
Planeswalker — Tibalt (M)
Undaunted
+1: Each opponent loses 1 life. You may discard cards equal to the life lost this way. If you do, draw that many cards.
-X: For each opponent, you may put up to one target creature card with converted mana cost X or less from that player's graveyard onto the battlefield under your control, then Tibalt deals X damage to you, where X is the total converted mana cost of those creatures.
-7: Each opponent discards his or her hand, then Tibalt deals damage equal to the number of cards in each opponent's graveyard to that player.
3
Aetherhub Mox0
Artifact
Aetherhub Mox (enters the battlefield tapped and?) doesn't untap during your untap step. T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
Remove a counter from you or a permanent you control (wording?): Untap Aetherhub Mox.
Looking back at the past five blocks:
- Kaladesh has both. This is a bit odd, there's not much context, especially for demons.
- Innistrad has both, of course. They make perfect flavorful sense.
- Battle for Zendikar has a couple angels, which makes sense. No demons besides Ob.
- Tarkir block has a couple demons, which makes sense, but no angels.
- Theros block has a few demons, which makes sense, but no angels.
So only one recent block has angels or demons that don't make flavorful sense, and less than half of recent blocks have both an angel and a demon.
Also, since demons and angels are the direct incarnations of black and white mana respectively as living beings, they make some sense on any plane with those colors of mana.
...John Cage? Is that you?
- The river in Nephalia should be the Ospid, not the Opsid
- The pass near Markov Manor should be Kruin Pass, not Kurin Pass
EDIT: For Zendikar,
- Halimar Sea, not Hamilar Sea
- Oran-Rief, not Oran-Reif
I agree, current Zendikar isn't an interesting setting. Since most of my players probably won't be that familiar with the MtG storyline, the planes I'm using aren't necessarily at the same point in their timelines. Here's what I'm thinking:
Ravnica: Either post-DGM or original Ravnica, but not sure. What do you think would be better?
Theros: Current, with the gods still not communicating with humans except Kruphix.
Alara: Post-Conflux, but only by a few months.
Innistrad: During Dark Ascension — it seems like most people don't like Avacyn Restored's setting, and while SoI was a good setting mostly, original Innistrad is just so much better.
Shards: N/A, because Alara beat out every individual shard by a lot.
Tarkir: I think I'm gonna go with FRF Tarkir, but not sure about this one. What do you think?
Kamigawa: Pre-Kamigawa block, with Konda's empire rising rapidly.
Lorwyn: Pre-Great Aurora, the Aurora will likely occur during the game at some point.
Kaladesh: Current.
Fiora: Current.
New Phyrexia/Mirrodin: During Mirrodin Beseiged, before the outcome of the battle for Mirrodin becomes clear.
Shadowmoor: Lorwyn
Zendikar: The Eldrazi have been imprisoned on the plane, but will not be released for hundreds of years - so hedrons, the Roil, and the Kor and Merfolk religions exist, but Eldrazi have had no other impact on the plane.
Dominaria: Post-apocalyptic, and a minor campaign setting.
Vryn: Current, and a minor campaign setting.
Shandalar: Current, with a focus on slivers.
Muraganda: We don't really have a timeline here, but as best as we know current.
Mercadia: Probably not even included.
This makes sense, I'm not going to go directly with the top few results probably. I also posted the same poll on Mythweavers with descriptions of planes instead of names, and Innistrad won by a landslide. Between the two polls and my own personal biases (I've DMed in Zendikar before and enjoy it a lot), I'm going to focus on Innistrad, Zendikar, Theros, and Ravnica as the primary worlds (the game is set in the multiverse as a whole, but players will start on those four worlds).
Feel free to keep voting, but I think I have a good enough idea now of which planes people like/don't like to start working on my RPG. If anyone's interested in playing, I'll be posting it over at mythweavers in a couple weeks.
I think that we know enough generally from Origins and Planar Chaos respectively that the flavor of the planes is there.
I guess so, it seems odd to me too!
Fixed. Thanks!
EDIT: Wow. Mercadia didn't last long.
EDIT: 1 is highest, 5 is lowest.
Planeswalker — Tibalt (M)
Undaunted
+1: Each opponent loses 1 life. You may discard cards equal to the life lost this way. If you do, draw that many cards.
-X: For each opponent, you may put up to one target creature card with converted mana cost X or less from that player's graveyard onto the battlefield under your control, then Tibalt deals X damage to you, where X is the total converted mana cost of those creatures.
-7: Each opponent discards his or her hand, then Tibalt deals damage equal to the number of cards in each opponent's graveyard to that player.
3
Aetherhub Mox 0
Artifact
Aetherhub Mox (enters the battlefield tapped and?) doesn't untap during your untap step.
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
Remove a counter from you or a permanent you control (wording?): Untap Aetherhub Mox.