MTG Salvation

Quote from cyberium_neo »

(Ironic how Sheoldred accused Norn of being selfish, when that's a core characteristic of black.)

I don't think Sheoldred was castigating Elesh Norn for being selfish so much as she was accusing her of being a hypocrite. Sheoldred was open about her selfishness and always had been, and she had long seen straight through Norn's self-righteous facade. Her final accusation of "You only care about yourself" would hardly be a biting condemnation of her fellow Thanes, who have always been as shamelessly selfish and treacherous as she was. Against holier-than-thou Norn, however, the accusation was a well-aimed (and truthful) dart.

For the first time, Urabrask has the best praetor art of the bunch. I'm in love with this new design; he seems to have upgraded since returning from New Capenna.

I like Norn's art, but it's a little bit understated. It hits the elegant and regal notes, but I was also hoping for something visceral and hard-hitting like her original art, which still has never been surpassed.

Sheoldred's art is disgusting. I approve.

Oh damn.

They're continuing that silly owl watermark into 2022?

Why, Wizards? I might have wanted these.

Small quibble with the recap: Konda was not killed. He was turned to stone and smashed to shards, but he is still alive, immortal, and growing over with moss in the depths of Jukai Forest. It was a truly horrific fate.

The bit on avoiding Okinawan references is ridiculous. Okinawa is Japan. Many cultural / historical developments viewed as quintessentially Japanese come from Okinawa (the shamisen, the sai, karate etc.) Any messy politics between Okinawa and the rest of Japan largely revolve around the unwanted presence of the U.S. Military base (which takes up a large portion of the main island) and the way the Imperial Japanese government treated Okinawans like cannon fodder and sacrifices at the end of WW2, in large part due to this very tendency to see Okinawans as "separate" from the rest of Japan.

WOTC's exclusion of Okinawan cultural contributions only plays into the poisonous notion that Okinawa is not really Japan. Japan and Japanese culture owe a lot to Okinawa.

Is this a reference to Runo Stromkirk's mysterious, pre-Avacynian sea god?

I remember many fans speculated about the sea god being behind the events of the previous Innistrad block, before Emrakul showed up. I would love for it to become relevant to the story someday.

While on one hand I'm thrilled to see Kamigawa back... what really frustrates and angers me is the way they botched the writing system.

In the Kamigawa novels and official Wizards fictions, the writing system on Kamigawa used, as far as we can discern, actual kanji. This was even a significant plot point in one of the tales, where the written character for nin (as in "ninja") depicts the brushstrokes for "heart" below the brushstrokes for "blade" -- just as it does in the real world. This also makes collecting the Kamigawa cards in Japanese especially rewarding, as you can see how the names are written in kanji and, if you know Japanese, what those names actually signify. One beautiful wordbuilding touch is that on the Japanese cards and in the novel, the Soratami have all their names written in katakana, signifying their apartness from the rest of the world.

Kamigawa was full of these cool linguistic touches like that. The idea that Kamigawa mortals read and wrote in a script mirroring actual Japanese gave the world a whole extra dimension, a second lens through which it could be understood, experienced, and appreciated.

But these new neon signs don't say anything. This is just another generic made-up fantasy script like Magic has on all its other worlds. To be sure, some of the old Kamigawa cards also featured art with purely-fictional script, but those always appeared to be arcane runes associated with the spirit world. These are city signs, trying to evoke the general shapes of kanji and kana, but failing to be anything but ugly and meaningless.

At least the Neon Dynasty logo did it right.

It doesn't even need to be the original Kaldra - the card is literally just all of Kaldra's artifacts on a germ. Instead of the old Kaldra having been compleated, it could just be a new, compleat Kaldra.

Or maybe Kaldra, even if destroyed, is simply reborn every time his artifacts are united, and this time they've compleated him.

Let's be real - even if it's a retcon, it would far the worst or most ridiculous Mirrodin retcon ever. The entire original Mirrodin canon is already in tatters.

I love how they just gave up on fitting in the mana cost altogether, and decided to just roll with it mechanically. Beautiful.

Quote from Caranthir »

Poor Gix :-)))

When they printed Yawgmoth in Modern Horizons I was confident we were going to get Gix in Commander 2019. Instead, we got K'rrik.

When Commander Legends was announced, I was 100% certain we would get Gix. I counted down the months, unable to believe that of the dozens of legends we were getting, Gix wouldn't be one of them. But no. We got Sengir and Szat - but no Gix. (At least we also got Glacian and Rebbec, which wasn't nothing.)

When I first learned about Modern Horizons 2, I was full-on hyped. Surely, THIS would be the set where we finally see Gix.


...

But Garth One-Eye? From the HarperPrism novels?

Really?

Year after year, I'm just Charlie Brown having another go at the football.

Whatever.


------------------



Edit: I realize the above post must come across as extremely petulant and petty. It is, I grant you. But it feels good to vent, as I've had this constantly-foiled expectation bottled up for the past two years, and not without reason: Gix has long been on Maro's list of most requested legends for Wizards to print, and Phyrexia has been peaking again around the corners of the lore, and it's been nearly 23 years without one of Magic's most classic villains ever getting a card. At this rate, we'll get Croag before we get Gix.

Oh, hi Tourach.

Quote from TheMartianGeek »

Phyrexians are just written to be too OP. Unless I'm greatly misunderstanding them, literally all they need to do is put one drop of oil on a plane, and it will eventually turn into another Phyrexia. And their only weakness is supposed to be that they can't planeswalk, but now that's out the window too. They basically can neither be reasoned with nor destroyed.

(Incidentally, one thing I've never been sure about...is the first syllable pronounced with a schwa, or does it rhyme with "high"?)

Phyrexia doesn't necessarily dominate every world it infects. Mirrodin had a perfect storm of qualities that made it particularly susceptible to complete Phyrexian takeover. To start, it was an all-metal world contaminated by Karn right from its creation; the oil mixed with the metal to create the mycosynth, which affected all life on the plane, causing metal and flesh to blend in Mirrodin's organisms. After centuries, the mycosynth infection reached the plane's manacore and the Phyrexians finally burst forth to take over. Mirrodin succumbed to a cancer that was baked into its very DNA.

Other worlds, by their very nature, are more resistant to Phyrexian corruption. They have immune systems to fight it. In fact, this was a source of frustration to Yawgmoth in the early stages of the Phyrexian Invasion of Dominaria, when Yavamaya and Lanowar Forests shrugged off Phyrexia's initial assaults. The world itself raised up armies, champions, and new magics to fight back, so much so that Yawgmoth became convinced that his true opponent wasn't even Urza, but the worldsoul Gaea herself.

Phyrexia eventually regained the upper hand and nearly attained total victory, but this required both the overlay of the plane of Rath onto Dominaria, and Yawgmoth himself crossing over to annihilate the world. Until those things happened, the Phyrexian Invasion was a bloody meat-grinder that cost millions of lives on both sides, but failed to break Dominaria's defenses.

I think they still can write a decent stories (books) even nowadays, but better no be tied to actual card set.

Examples:
Django Wrexler: The Gathering Storm (prequel for War of the Spark) - the Niv-Mizzet vs Bolas fight is brilliant
Kate Elliott: Chronicles of Bolas (loosely tied to Core Set 2019)
Kate Elliott: The Wildered Quest (Eldraine book)
Brandon Sanderson: Children of the Nameless (Innistrad spinoff book)

I think when authors have greater freedom, they could make a nice piece. However, when they have strict boundaries of action, heroes, and quota of 5 chapters, it usually goes wrong...

As far as the released novels go, the Highlights to me have always been:

- Thran
- Artifacts Cycle (Brothers War, Planeswalker, Time Streams, Bloodlines)
- Ice Age Cycle (Gathering Dark, Eternal Ice, Shattered Alliance)
- Nemesis
- Invasion Cycle (I know they're not great but they were the first ones I read as a kid and I've always had a soft spot for them)
- Chainer's Torment
- Kamigawa Cycle
- Ravnica Cyle

As far as I'm concerned, the quality dropped off a cliff after Ravnica, even though there had previously been some definite lowlights like the Mirrodin and Onslaught block books. But even those lowlights beat the hell out of the mishmash we are given now.

Barring a few questionable decisions, I largely enjoyed the story of All Will be One and March of the Machine. However, it’s clear that they have wasted Urabrask as a character. First introduced way back in Scars of Mirrodin, Urbrask and his red-aligned faction offered something remarkable: empathy, due to their unique mana alignment. Later in Theros we learn that Norn subjugated his layer precisely due to him allowing rebels to survive there, and New Capenna seemed to go in the direction of outright making him a rebellion against Phyrexia. Then All Will Be One that not only refuses to give him a POV despiste being an important player, we only hear about him from biased characters like Koth, who naturally want him dead. Then the Planeswalker’s Guide for the setting implies that, despiste preffering willing conversions, he’s still pro-Phyrexia, and the side stories have his underling Slobad using shady tactics for “willing conversions”. This effectively killed off all that was built in Scars, and it’s a damn shame. His whole contribution in March is an assist to Chandra – once again a biased character – and then dying via torture device. We could have had not only an unique character but an actual moral quandry on whereas it is possible to co-exist with some form of Phyrexia. Instead, we have the definition of wasted potential.

I'm honestly kinda pumped. Set gives me Time Spiral vibes with the whole drawing from all of Magic history, except this time it's mainly flavour and not mechanics.

Seeing old planes again is a treat. The legends I'm more lukewarm about than I feel I should, haha. I think the inflation of legends being printed with WotC focus on commander kinda devalued the legendary status. Who was Lier again? That one ninja teaming up with that one goblin on Kamigawa? Yeah.

Curious if the set will live up to the hype. And the increased number of stories is very welcome.

I think you are projecting too much. The "MARVEL ENDGAME Trope" was alive BEFORE it was made obnoxious by MCU. You could retroactively say The Nine Titans was an Endgame. Chill. It's a not-enfranchised trope. You don't need to "brand it" to fabricate a reason why you don't like it, you simply don't like it and it's okay.

Did anyone catch the final image of the redesign of Urabrask?

I really, really hope the spatio-temporal shenigans are reduced to Teferi unphasing Zhalfir. Creative should have learned from Dragons of Tarkir how fans dislike that short of thing.

Can we get a compleated Miku planeswalker card please?

I don't remember - was it ever stated that Toshiro was the "last of his line" or something? Otherwise, I don't really get why people are being all surprised at the fact that there are more Umezawas...

I'm fine with most of the changes. It always felt weird to me that the old Kitsune didn't really look like actual foxes, and Orochi getting snake tails is fine I guess. I wonder if they'll be turned into Naga - the creature type doesn't fit the Japanese theme, but at this point it would be best to just to do anything about the snake-naga tribal divide.

I like ogres in other colours. The art of the meditating ogre in front of the temple is one of my favourite pieces spoiled so far, looking forward to seeing more.

Quote from Chalsis »

The bit on avoiding Okinawan references is ridiculous.

Yeah, that part made me roll my eyes. It almost makes it seem like there's some sort of Taiwan-Mainland China-type conflict between Okinawa and the rest of Japan, which simply isn't the case. Even if they included the references, you could've probably counted the people who cared on two hands. They mightve as well said that they didn't include any Ainu references, or pictures of toasted bread.

Same thing with the "only Japanese weapons allowed" part - I really wonder where they drew the line, because you can trace back most cultural things in Japan back to the Korean peninsula or China. This is the type of modern-day cultural purism that I don't care for - as it hilariously amplifies nationalistic tendencies that are supposed to be quelled...

Hide your chips
They are coming.

Quote from TwinfrodoPhoenix »

I know people think it'll lessen the impact of the SOI story but I found the deaths of Avacyn, Gisela, and Bruna as kind of insulting and pointless but I think that's more of a me thing.

Insulting and pointless? I don't get why some people take the deaths of fictional characters so personally.

Personally I believe that you can't have a (good) story with stakes but without consequences, a game wizards wants to play too often. The guildpact got dissolved and most of the guilds dismantled by civilian uprisings? Whoops it's all back! Zendikar got almost destroyed by the Eldrazi? Well, it's entirely undone on the next revisit. The only plane that didn't get a get-out-of-jail-for-free ticket was Mirrodin, but to be fair that's because the plane was concepted as a return to phyrexia, something that simply wasn't realized on the first visit.

Nahiri summoned the most powerful of the eldrazi titan trio to Innistrad, because she wanted to lay the plane to waste and get at Sorin. Considering it all, the death of most of the archangels and the destruction of the plane's capital, the consequences to Innistrad are okay. Lasting, noticeable damage without completely disfiguring the plane beyond recognition. All things considered, I think it's in a good spot, narratively speaking. Shadows over Innistrad feels like it happened. Battle for Zendikar didn't.

Really, the problem isn't Wizards being too destructive or not destructive enough. The problem is that they want to have their cake and eat it too. Have epic storylines with the stakiest of stakes, but none of the consequences. We got a total killcount of 3 during War of the Spark, one of which happened offscreen (I'm not considering the trailers on-screen), one of which was a villain (does that even count as a killcount then?) and one of which sacrificed himself and wasn't, yknow, killed. What a narrative disaster. Now people are quick to jump to "you're just bloodthirsty, you monster", but the point is that it wasn't me who forced Wizards to have an epic war of planeswalkers. But if they want to do that, and don't do it right, then I am going to call them out on that.

TL;DR: The deaths of the archangels wasn't pointless and insulting. In fact, Innistrad was one of the better handled "staked" storylines in Magic's history, a balanced compromise between lasting damage and keeping the plane intact for future visits.