The book was an utter disaster. Who thought it was a good idea to spoil the story on cards and then start the novel halfway through the story?
The writer was left in a difficult spot. But his writing was also just awful. The biggest issue, by far, was pacing. The emergence of the God-Eternals was treated with less emphasis than the characters’ descent to Rix Maadi. In fact, more words were dedicated to the THIRD time that Rat’s dad struggled to see her than to the emergence of the gods.
Here’s a gem: “Bolas barely managed to obliterate Oketra, but...” This is the main villain OBLITERATING a freaking GOD (arguably the most significant god because of Gideon) and it gets half a sentence. Half a sentence. Less time than Chandra thinks about Gideon’s abs. Less time than a description of one of Teo’s shields.
Vitu-Ghazi’s rise, fighting, and defeat lasts just a few paragraphs. Tezzeret’s defeat just a few sentences. But we certainly got a good description of the Demon’s Vestibule.
WotC are just very lucky that a majority of players don’t care about the lore beyond the major story points and the major characters. The major plot points we see on the cards and the major characters are all good. In fact, the author’s new characters, Teo and Rat, are actually pretty good. I thought at first that Rat would be really cringey but by the end I liked her. And the author did a great job with Dack. Clearly characterization is his strength and clearly pacing is not.
In terms of the broad story, it is mostly good. Although I don’t think Bolas’ downfall was totally satisfying. I wish the causes of his defeat were more deserved. I feel like his downfall should be caused by a combination of overconfidence in his intellect and overreliance on minions that aren’t truly loyal. I wish there was more outsmarting going on between Ugin, Niv, and Bolas. Bolas is selfish and doesn’t work well with others, and though he may have millennia of planning, he’s not smarter than Niv and Ugin put together, and I wish there was more with them outsmarting him and unraveling his plans, aside from Ugin imprisoning him after he had already lost. Liliana’s turning on Bolas was good, but I wish Dovin and Tezzeret would have as well. All three minions had the tools to screw over Bolas, and that’s why I expected them to turn on him but they really don’t. Dovin’s Veto flavor text set up a good story but they didn’t follow through. There could have been a moment where Chandra is fighting Dovin and realizes that he sees Bolas as a force of destruction and chaos and he has been planning on betraying him ever since he saw Tezzeret’s true personality and his true master, and Chandra struggles to have the self-control to let him live despite his crimes. Bolas gives Dovin the signal to turn off the Sun when Bolas needs to flee when he is going to lose his spark, and Dovin just refuses and that’s all he would have to do. Meanwhile Ugin could send Sarkhan to bring a message to Tezzeret, and when Bolas’ defeat is at hand and he tries to flee through the bridge to Amonkhet, Tezzeret just shuts it off. Tezz already hates Bolas so it fits.
That is a good idea because being able to reuse spells helps artificially inflate the number of spells you have. Which, now that I think about it, is why they used Jumpstart for izzet.
So maybe I should try to create a version of flashback/jumpstart that is somehow tied to wizard creatures.
I’m working on a class tribal set based in Lorwyn with five primary classes, one of which is wizards.
I’m having trouble with the mechanic for wizards. They are in blue/red, and they are mostly merfolk, faeries, and elementals (flamekin).
I want the wizards play style to be focused on instant/sorceries but with plenty of wizard creatures as well, preferably they can be built (in both limited and constructed) to be control or tempo.
One of the main mechanics of the set is Kindred, which is a pseudo-keyword. It is an additional cost that requires you to control a permanent of the appropriate type or reveal a card of the appropriate type from your hand (like the Silumgar’s Scorn cycle from Dragons of Tarkir). Successfully fulfilling the Kindred cost means the spell is amplified or it means you don’t have to pay an additional mana cost (like Silvergill Adept).
Because of Kindred, wizard decks will need a relatively high volume of wizard cards. But if the wizard theme is spells, which is almost a requirement based on precedent for wizards in mtg, then wizard decks will also require a relatively high volume of instants/sorceries.
I have dedicated the wizards’ mechanic to solving this problem, but I haven’t found the right mechanic. I considered just doing Tribal Instant - Wizard, which counts for both, but that’s not really a new mechanic and also it would not work with abilities but that enhance wizard creatures in play. I considered using Evoke, which is a great mechanic from original Lorwyn and is an elegant way of making creature+sorceries, but it doesn’t have the instant/sorcery type so it wouldn’t work with spell-matters abilities.
I also considered an alternate version of Evoke, which is an instant/sorcery that has an optional additional cost that, if paid, the spell transforms after it resolves and enters play, with the back side being a wizard creature. This mechanic idea is really cool but it has some issues. One being that players would often need to check the back side of their card to see if they should pay the extra cost or not, and checking the back side of a card in your hand is obviously a big tell and will probably end up revealing the card to the opponent especially if it’s in a sleeve. Another problem with this mechanic is that the flavor of it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
For context, the other blue tribe, Rogues, uses Prowl and the other red tribe, Shamans, uses Elemental tokens and goes wide (no named mechanic).
;tldr I need a mechanic for u/r wizards that helps increase the density of both wizards and instant/sorceries
The writer was left in a difficult spot. But his writing was also just awful. The biggest issue, by far, was pacing. The emergence of the God-Eternals was treated with less emphasis than the characters’ descent to Rix Maadi. In fact, more words were dedicated to the THIRD time that Rat’s dad struggled to see her than to the emergence of the gods.
Here’s a gem: “Bolas barely managed to obliterate Oketra, but...” This is the main villain OBLITERATING a freaking GOD (arguably the most significant god because of Gideon) and it gets half a sentence. Half a sentence. Less time than Chandra thinks about Gideon’s abs. Less time than a description of one of Teo’s shields.
Vitu-Ghazi’s rise, fighting, and defeat lasts just a few paragraphs. Tezzeret’s defeat just a few sentences. But we certainly got a good description of the Demon’s Vestibule.
WotC are just very lucky that a majority of players don’t care about the lore beyond the major story points and the major characters. The major plot points we see on the cards and the major characters are all good. In fact, the author’s new characters, Teo and Rat, are actually pretty good. I thought at first that Rat would be really cringey but by the end I liked her. And the author did a great job with Dack. Clearly characterization is his strength and clearly pacing is not.
In terms of the broad story, it is mostly good. Although I don’t think Bolas’ downfall was totally satisfying. I wish the causes of his defeat were more deserved. I feel like his downfall should be caused by a combination of overconfidence in his intellect and overreliance on minions that aren’t truly loyal. I wish there was more outsmarting going on between Ugin, Niv, and Bolas. Bolas is selfish and doesn’t work well with others, and though he may have millennia of planning, he’s not smarter than Niv and Ugin put together, and I wish there was more with them outsmarting him and unraveling his plans, aside from Ugin imprisoning him after he had already lost. Liliana’s turning on Bolas was good, but I wish Dovin and Tezzeret would have as well. All three minions had the tools to screw over Bolas, and that’s why I expected them to turn on him but they really don’t. Dovin’s Veto flavor text set up a good story but they didn’t follow through. There could have been a moment where Chandra is fighting Dovin and realizes that he sees Bolas as a force of destruction and chaos and he has been planning on betraying him ever since he saw Tezzeret’s true personality and his true master, and Chandra struggles to have the self-control to let him live despite his crimes. Bolas gives Dovin the signal to turn off the Sun when Bolas needs to flee when he is going to lose his spark, and Dovin just refuses and that’s all he would have to do. Meanwhile Ugin could send Sarkhan to bring a message to Tezzeret, and when Bolas’ defeat is at hand and he tries to flee through the bridge to Amonkhet, Tezzeret just shuts it off. Tezz already hates Bolas so it fits.
So maybe I should try to create a version of flashback/jumpstart that is somehow tied to wizard creatures.
I’m having trouble with the mechanic for wizards. They are in blue/red, and they are mostly merfolk, faeries, and elementals (flamekin).
I want the wizards play style to be focused on instant/sorceries but with plenty of wizard creatures as well, preferably they can be built (in both limited and constructed) to be control or tempo.
One of the main mechanics of the set is Kindred, which is a pseudo-keyword. It is an additional cost that requires you to control a permanent of the appropriate type or reveal a card of the appropriate type from your hand (like the Silumgar’s Scorn cycle from Dragons of Tarkir). Successfully fulfilling the Kindred cost means the spell is amplified or it means you don’t have to pay an additional mana cost (like Silvergill Adept).
Because of Kindred, wizard decks will need a relatively high volume of wizard cards. But if the wizard theme is spells, which is almost a requirement based on precedent for wizards in mtg, then wizard decks will also require a relatively high volume of instants/sorceries.
I have dedicated the wizards’ mechanic to solving this problem, but I haven’t found the right mechanic. I considered just doing Tribal Instant - Wizard, which counts for both, but that’s not really a new mechanic and also it would not work with abilities but that enhance wizard creatures in play. I considered using Evoke, which is a great mechanic from original Lorwyn and is an elegant way of making creature+sorceries, but it doesn’t have the instant/sorcery type so it wouldn’t work with spell-matters abilities.
I also considered an alternate version of Evoke, which is an instant/sorcery that has an optional additional cost that, if paid, the spell transforms after it resolves and enters play, with the back side being a wizard creature. This mechanic idea is really cool but it has some issues. One being that players would often need to check the back side of their card to see if they should pay the extra cost or not, and checking the back side of a card in your hand is obviously a big tell and will probably end up revealing the card to the opponent especially if it’s in a sleeve. Another problem with this mechanic is that the flavor of it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
For context, the other blue tribe, Rogues, uses Prowl and the other red tribe, Shamans, uses Elemental tokens and goes wide (no named mechanic).
;tldr I need a mechanic for u/r wizards that helps increase the density of both wizards and instant/sorceries