Keep in mind that MTG isn't intended to teach players about what ancient Egyptians/Greeks/Japanese actually believe so much as to tap into cultural resonance.
So much this. Too many people seem to forget that Magic is not intended to be an educational game. Not that you can't learn things from it, but that is not its primary goal, and decisions made in its design will not, and should not, be made with that at the forefront.
Also keep in mind that you can hit the expected notes while still putting a unique spin on it. Matching pop culture expectations doesn't mean always doing the same thing.
Maro just clarified that he meant fewer Gatewatch Planeswalkers cards, not fewer Gatewatch driven stories.
This is what I figured, but I feel that what I said earlier still applies - giving more exposure to non-Gatewatch characters on the cards could lead to increased demand for them - and therefore less Gatewatch - in the stories. That's my current hope.
Excellent news. From a gameplay perspective, we start getting a bit more variety in our Walkers. It's so hard to get excited for a new Nissa when it'll be the fifth one in less than two years.
Also, giving more exposure to different characters as actual cards could lead to increased demand for them in the story, which hopefully could lead to less Gatewatch story and more variety there.
I want to weigh in on the whole "humans are everywhere" thing. Now call me weird, but I like my fantasy to have some more...you know, fantastical elements. I don't care to read about how humans think. I know how humans think. I can look literally anywhere and see humans doing human things. I can look all over any fictional medium and see how humans react to stuff. The beautiful thing about fantasy - one could argue the whole point of it - is that it can transport you to different worlds and let you experience things you otherwise couldn't. Show me a different point of view. Let me experience a different mindset. It doesn't have to be completely alien, blue and orange morality. It's not hard to tweak familiar things to show them from a different perspective. And not just as a token "Human main character visits the apparently only existing City of (Nonhuman Race) and compares them to humans".
Not to say that humans can't be around, or even feature as main characters. I just wish they weren't always at the center of everything that's going on, no matter how many (literal) worlds apart they are, or make up the entirety of the cast save for one or two token nonhumans, because of "something something relatability". Because yeah, we all know that relatability has nothing to do with things like "experience" and "feelings", "thoughts" and "character". Nah, physical shape is where it's all at.
/rant
More to the point, I was never a big fan of Goblins, so I welcome the break. That said, they are super popular, so even if they're not in Amonkhet (which seems likely at this point), chances are that after a three-block run without them, they'll be back sooner rather than later. Keep in mind that Wizards has mentioned that about half the worlds we go to will be returns, and many popular worlds have Goblins. About the only one I can think of off the top of my head that doesn't is Theros (incidentally one of my personal favourites) - not counting Kaladesh, as that's just a tad too recent to consider a return to just yet.
The original functionality always made perfect sense to me, but I'm that kind of person. As a judge, I received so many questions about split card CMCs, even from experienced players, so I fully understand and support the change.
As for the cries of "dumbing down the game", exploiting weird rules loopholes doesn't make you a good player, sorry.
Im not sure it has anything to do with people thinking they are good players. I think people are tired of being told one thing just to have it change because wotc panders to new players/potential customers.
People are complaining about "catering to newbies/casuals". That kind of implies "screwing over skilled players" (as a side note, people who think this, casual does not equal unskilled), as though skill equates to knowing weird rules interactions.
I started playing in 96. I played through 2004. Came back to the game in 08-13. Took another break. I started getting back into it 15.
It is less fun, the cards are lame, the ones that aren't lame get nerfed or banned.
I've been playing practically nonstop since 2000, and...well, to be completely honest, I too feel like it's been going downhill. But for reasons completely unrelated to changes like this.
The original functionality always made perfect sense to me, but I'm that kind of person. As a judge, I received so many questions about split card CMCs, even from experienced players, so I fully understand and support the change.
As for the cries of "dumbing down the game", exploiting weird rules loopholes doesn't make you a good player, sorry.
And then the Gatewatch...didn't really change anything short of giving them a team name and connecting the plots more thoroughly.
Like, if you go back further, to the stories that only dedicated/interested people read, research, or examine you start getting stories with more intraplanar focus, more akin to what you described, but we haven't had a block with a story not focused on a Planeswalker since Lorwyn.
I dunno. I get the issue, but I don't think the Gatewatch has changed as much as people think in regards to the story.
I didn't say the stories had to fundamentally change everything. Look at my given example - it's still the same basic storyline of "Bolas doing some shady nonsense on the plane where he's worshiped as a god, let's get to the bottom of it" (we don't really know much more than that). All it does is shift the spotlight onto a different set of characters, ones who have much more reason to be invested in the conflict and therefore would be easier for the audience to get invested in (I know it would for me, at least).
I don't know. When you deal with people who are established in a plane, you end up in this weird scenario where they're explaining things they grew up with or understand, yet feel the need to elaborate on by themselves so that the audience isn't completely lost
That's the way it is in every fantasy story. It's not a difficult trap to avoid with some level of decent writing ("show, don't tell" is like, Storytelling 101). If nothing else, the Gatewatch can be around to be the main characters' Watsons.
So I've done a bit of thinking on what I want of the Gatewatch (apart from "to go away", because I know and accept that's not going to happen). And I think a lot of my problems would be solved, or at least lessened, if they were made side or supporting characters. They can be the thread that connects the block stories together, but not the main focus. Instead, the main characters of each block story should be inhabitants of the plane. After all, they're the ones who are suffering from the problems and conflicts of the new setting. They're the ones with investment, and with something at stake. They're the ones who should guide the change, because they're the ones who have actual, real reason to care about the conflict, and the ones who have to live - or die - with the consequences. I want to see how the conflicts of the world affect the inhabitants and how those characters solve their problems, not watch these random outsiders who have no reason to care ponce onto the plane, solve everyone's problems for them, then fart off to do it all over again. I'd be more invested in the people who have to live with it, not the people who literally just got here and can leap off the world any time they want.
For example, the Amonkhet story. The main character could be a priest of the God-Pharoah Bolas. Perhaps she's been experiencing some sort of doubt towards her god, or sees something that makes her question her belief. Jace, reading her mind and realising this, can use that to further the doubt in her mind. Maybe she says the wrong thing to higher priests, or the public, and she's ostracised, maybe even sentenced to death, but Nissa can pull some weird nature/land-hoodoo to give her sanctuary in the wild deserts. Perhaps this priest can have a friend in a young Aven warrior who's keen to try the trials, and she can confide in him. Though he has questions and doubts, he puts trust in his friend, and he and Gideon together can fight their way through the trials to find some truth to what's going on.
That was cooked up really quickly, but I think it gets my point across - the Gatewatch are there, doing their thing, but the spotlight is on the outcast priest and the Aven warrior. The Gatewatch are supporting them and helping them out, but the ones we follow are the ones who are actually invested in the conflicts of the plane. That would go a long way towards solving a lot of my problems with the Gatewatch.
I dislike the Gatewatch for many reasons already stated, but unlike others, I have a big issue with the core concept. The SOI storyline did such a good job exemplifying exactly what my problem is, so I'll use it as an example.
So before Eldritch Moon, many people asked about Tamiyo. And afterwards, they asked "Why Bant". The answer given was "Colour balance - Jace was the protagonist, so he needed to be there. Nahiri was the big villain, so she needed to be there. Sorin and Liliana were major characters, so they needed to be there. Arlinn had to be there for colour balance reasons." My question here is - why did Jace need to be there? And this isn't even mindless Jace bashing, this is a legitimate question I have. What purpose did Jace serve in the story? You could easily snip Jace (and by extension, the Gatewatch) out of that story entirely and still tell the story perfectly well. But because they needed to push the Gatewatch, they just had to cram Jace in there, screwing over other potential characters in the process.
"But a cosmic horror story needs a core detective! That's the role Jace filled!"
My answer to this is, it didn't have to be Jace. In fact, it shouldn't have been Jace. It should have been someone with a real connection to Innistrad. If the main "detective" character of the story was, say, Sorin, Thalia, Arlinn, or some other denizen of Innistrad, then there would have been real purpose behind the whole thing. They would have to get to the bottom of what was going on. They would have to solve the mystery, because everything is at stake for them. If they fail, they lose everything. Their home, their family and friends, everything they know and love. Even if it was a planeswalker who could go to another plane to escape, losing their entire home world would be a huge deal to them. Jace, on the other hand, could just fart off back to Ravnica and who would care? He would lose nothing. He had no stakes. Nothing was on the line for him. Jace had no reason to be invested (beside this ham-fisted "I'm the hero now!" mentality), which made it all but impossible for me to get invested in anything he was doing.
And that's the core issue I have with the Gatewatch as a concept. They shove out characters and ideas that have more potential. Jace shoved out Tamiyo mechanically because he apparently "had" to be the blue walker of the block, and he shoved out other characters story-wise because he "had" to be the main character because Gatewatch. I'm not interested in these jerks who jaunt all around the Multiverse solving people's problems because "Oh, we're the only ones who can!". I'm interested in the people of the planes, the ones who actually have the problems. I'm interested in seeing those people figure out and solve their own problems, not leave it up to these buttheads. I had the same issue in BFZ block - who cares about the struggles of the Zendikari people when these four randos can just waltz in, effortlessly annihilate two of the most powerful beings in the multiverse, and peace out? My problem with the concept of the Gatewatch is that they trivialise the problems of the actual people of the plane.
Of course, I have problems with the execution as well, but a bunch of people have already gone over those so I won't bother repeating them.
Some rarities should be shifted. For example, Screeching Dragon and Griffineer General are some busted commons that should be at least uncommons.
I'm going to replace Screeching Dragon entirely. First to down the number of blue breath weapon cards to two, but also because I've found there isn't enough good cheap combat tricks to be satisfactory, so it will become a cheap instant rather than a Dragon. I'm not sure I agree on Griffineer General needing to go up, though. Common has granted mass flying in the past. In addition, stalls happen quite a bit (this is one reason I wanted to up the number of combat tricks), so I like it as a way to break through. I'd rather shift the stats around than bump up the rarity for that reason.
A few more observations from testing:
5/5 is too big for the standard Dragon token. I made it that because I wanted them to stand out a bit more than the usual 4/4 Dragon token we've seen more recently - well, mission accomplished on that part. I'm bumping the Dragon token down to 4/4, letting the quantity set it apart rather than the size. The affected cards are Illusion of Glory, Mating Call, Scourge of Dragons, Tasty Goblin, Ascendant of Dragons, Sacrificial Stone, and Udiil, Dragoncaller.
Mating Call looks really fun and cool - but waiting for eight mana to get a single token of it was always disappointing. The cost is dropping to 2RR, allowing you to curve into a timely 5-mana Dragon and bring along a mate (now 4/4, remember). This way a single Dragon off of it pays for it, and every subsequent one is gravy.
Scourge of Dragons was cool when it made X 5/5s, but with the tokens dropping to 4/4, it's thoroughly unexciting. Mythic Air Elemental isn't where I want it to be. That said, dropping the cost isn't a great solution, because it just makes it incredibly swingy. To that end, I'm slightly altering the card - same XXXRR cost, but now it makes X 4/4 Dragons, and puts X +1/+1 counters on all your Dragons.
Sworn Defenders was god damn obnoxious. That said, I like the basic design. I'm tearing off the damage redirection and instead giving it the ability to block any number of creatures. This still lets you punch through with evasive creatures - like big flying Dragons - while still capturing the main intent of the original design.
I'm going to shift around some power and toughness, mostly in lowering the latter. There are two reasons for this. The first is to make breath weapon more relevant more often, as a lot of the time it didn't do anything relevant. The second is because blocking was often too difficult, as too many attackers survived too often.
There wasn't enough flying defence to contend with all the attacking Dragons. I already upped it from a normal set, but I'm going to up it some more. As a part of this, the Knight tokens will now have reach, so that they can more often actually fight the Dragons like they're supposed to.
As I said earlier, I'm going to up the number of cheap combat tricks to make combat a little more difficult. Previously, it was too easy to attack without fear of what your opponent might be holding.
Chances are, hoard will return to its original incarnation of sacrificing for mana and usually coming in larger numbers than 1. This lets the hoard cards be costed to look sexier, and also helps make the archetype more relevant in limited.
I still think having them stick around is fine, but I'm not really sure it's better. I may yet go back to the original version, that sacrifice and have a number attached to the ability (hoard 3 and so on). A lot of people seem to be thinking that way, and it would certainly make development easier and allow for cards with it to look better, which is a definite bonus.
Having the Treasure do nothing on their own is something I know for sure I don't want to do. If I up the amount of other cards that do things with Treasures, I'd rather change to the "sac for mana" version rather than having them do nothing.
I was fully aware of the original Lairs, yes. I considered them a bonus, actually.
Idk what you want Lair to do, but since it already does something in Magic, you might want to clarify.
"Lairs", like most other subtypes, don't actually do anything. They have no intrinsic rules meaning, and the word is just there as a marker for other effects to refer to. The originals just used them to refer to themselves for the bounce ability, but I use them in a wider variety of ways. I don't feel like I need to be shackled by one random, kinda weak cycle from fifteen years ago.
Also keep in mind that you can hit the expected notes while still putting a unique spin on it. Matching pop culture expectations doesn't mean always doing the same thing.
Also, giving more exposure to different characters as actual cards could lead to increased demand for them in the story, which hopefully could lead to less Gatewatch story and more variety there.
Not to say that humans can't be around, or even feature as main characters. I just wish they weren't always at the center of everything that's going on, no matter how many (literal) worlds apart they are, or make up the entirety of the cast save for one or two token nonhumans, because of "something something relatability". Because yeah, we all know that relatability has nothing to do with things like "experience" and "feelings", "thoughts" and "character". Nah, physical shape is where it's all at.
/rant
More to the point, I was never a big fan of Goblins, so I welcome the break. That said, they are super popular, so even if they're not in Amonkhet (which seems likely at this point), chances are that after a three-block run without them, they'll be back sooner rather than later. Keep in mind that Wizards has mentioned that about half the worlds we go to will be returns, and many popular worlds have Goblins. About the only one I can think of off the top of my head that doesn't is Theros (incidentally one of my personal favourites) - not counting Kaladesh, as that's just a tad too recent to consider a return to just yet.
People are complaining about "catering to newbies/casuals". That kind of implies "screwing over skilled players" (as a side note, people who think this, casual does not equal unskilled), as though skill equates to knowing weird rules interactions.
I've been playing practically nonstop since 2000, and...well, to be completely honest, I too feel like it's been going downhill. But for reasons completely unrelated to changes like this.
As for the cries of "dumbing down the game", exploiting weird rules loopholes doesn't make you a good player, sorry.
That's the way it is in every fantasy story. It's not a difficult trap to avoid with some level of decent writing ("show, don't tell" is like, Storytelling 101). If nothing else, the Gatewatch can be around to be the main characters' Watsons.
For example, the Amonkhet story. The main character could be a priest of the God-Pharoah Bolas. Perhaps she's been experiencing some sort of doubt towards her god, or sees something that makes her question her belief. Jace, reading her mind and realising this, can use that to further the doubt in her mind. Maybe she says the wrong thing to higher priests, or the public, and she's ostracised, maybe even sentenced to death, but Nissa can pull some weird nature/land-hoodoo to give her sanctuary in the wild deserts. Perhaps this priest can have a friend in a young Aven warrior who's keen to try the trials, and she can confide in him. Though he has questions and doubts, he puts trust in his friend, and he and Gideon together can fight their way through the trials to find some truth to what's going on.
That was cooked up really quickly, but I think it gets my point across - the Gatewatch are there, doing their thing, but the spotlight is on the outcast priest and the Aven warrior. The Gatewatch are supporting them and helping them out, but the ones we follow are the ones who are actually invested in the conflicts of the plane. That would go a long way towards solving a lot of my problems with the Gatewatch.
So before Eldritch Moon, many people asked about Tamiyo. And afterwards, they asked "Why Bant". The answer given was "Colour balance - Jace was the protagonist, so he needed to be there. Nahiri was the big villain, so she needed to be there. Sorin and Liliana were major characters, so they needed to be there. Arlinn had to be there for colour balance reasons." My question here is - why did Jace need to be there? And this isn't even mindless Jace bashing, this is a legitimate question I have. What purpose did Jace serve in the story? You could easily snip Jace (and by extension, the Gatewatch) out of that story entirely and still tell the story perfectly well. But because they needed to push the Gatewatch, they just had to cram Jace in there, screwing over other potential characters in the process.
"But a cosmic horror story needs a core detective! That's the role Jace filled!"
My answer to this is, it didn't have to be Jace. In fact, it shouldn't have been Jace. It should have been someone with a real connection to Innistrad. If the main "detective" character of the story was, say, Sorin, Thalia, Arlinn, or some other denizen of Innistrad, then there would have been real purpose behind the whole thing. They would have to get to the bottom of what was going on. They would have to solve the mystery, because everything is at stake for them. If they fail, they lose everything. Their home, their family and friends, everything they know and love. Even if it was a planeswalker who could go to another plane to escape, losing their entire home world would be a huge deal to them. Jace, on the other hand, could just fart off back to Ravnica and who would care? He would lose nothing. He had no stakes. Nothing was on the line for him. Jace had no reason to be invested (beside this ham-fisted "I'm the hero now!" mentality), which made it all but impossible for me to get invested in anything he was doing.
And that's the core issue I have with the Gatewatch as a concept. They shove out characters and ideas that have more potential. Jace shoved out Tamiyo mechanically because he apparently "had" to be the blue walker of the block, and he shoved out other characters story-wise because he "had" to be the main character because Gatewatch. I'm not interested in these jerks who jaunt all around the Multiverse solving people's problems because "Oh, we're the only ones who can!". I'm interested in the people of the planes, the ones who actually have the problems. I'm interested in seeing those people figure out and solve their own problems, not leave it up to these buttheads. I had the same issue in BFZ block - who cares about the struggles of the Zendikari people when these four randos can just waltz in, effortlessly annihilate two of the most powerful beings in the multiverse, and peace out? My problem with the concept of the Gatewatch is that they trivialise the problems of the actual people of the plane.
Of course, I have problems with the execution as well, but a bunch of people have already gone over those so I won't bother repeating them.
A few more observations from testing:
This changes will be posted up soon.
"Lairs", like most other subtypes, don't actually do anything. They have no intrinsic rules meaning, and the word is just there as a marker for other effects to refer to. The originals just used them to refer to themselves for the bounce ability, but I use them in a wider variety of ways. I don't feel like I need to be shackled by one random, kinda weak cycle from fifteen years ago.