Quote from Gerrard"s Mom »hyalapterouslemur broke the mechanics down well, but interestingly, the flaws we might find with Legends are almost all due to the incredible shifts in game literacy and game design theory that we have seen in the decades since this set came out. There are many cards here that are not fun because they slow down play, hose really specific strategies, or seem cool but are not efficient enough to play in most formats. Many cards break the current color pie and there are not really any cohesive themes that make the cards play together in fun ways as a set. Sure it's a bit of a fallacy, but it's totally valid to look back and say this set was all over the place if we accept a modern design standpoint.
Nobody is denying that there are powerful cards, flavorful cards, or design innovations that had a big impact on sets to come - this article is talking about what is good about the set, after all. In the spirit of this article series, please feel free to share what you love about Legends, but recognize that the article's point is not to say that Legends is "bad".
Anyway, I'd say Born of the Gods is probably your next best bet for sets people like to dump on. Maybe Dragon's Maze.
Dragons Maze for sure. Born of the Gods as well. Avacyn Restored gets some guff, but a few key cards keep it from getting trashed outside of its limited format. And, of course, Homelands and Fallen Empires. Was Battle for Zendikar poorly received, or was that just me?
And yes, I think we are all well aware that this isn't a series meant to argue that sets are bad. The "all sets are good" premise, however, works much better when focused on sets that were considered outright bad or at least underwhelming. Legends is, well, a legendary set known mostly for its flavor hits, its introduction of two of the most popular game mechanics, and several powerful, and $$$, cards (and eventually spawning EDH). Talking about Legends is less about saying "Oh, by the way, here are some neat things it did well mixed in with its missteps" and more about saying "Oh, by the way, here are some wacky mistakes the set made while printing all that gold."
Yeah. And it's neat to see him change from that guy into the guy he's been since getting owned by Bolas on Amonkhet. Willing to hold back, let others take the lead, and having the humility to realize that someone else is the key to victory and that he can rest. His arrogance was always coming from a good place though, the idea that he had to right obvious wrongs, that he had great power and thus a responsibility to use it.
Well, LotR has plenty of grey characters running about, and once you expand beyond that to the Hobbit and the Silmarillion there are plenty of grey characters. The universe has a clear demarcation between good and evil, but individuals don't always share that. The ending of LotR is also more bittersweet than happy. Sauron is defeated, as is Saruman the world is saved, orcs are driven off, and Aragorn becomes Elessar expanding Gondor to reclaim Arnor. But all this comes at a great price: magic will leave the world. Rivendell, Lorien, the Grey Havens, will all come to an end, their splendor fading with the destruction of the One Ring and the subsequent deactivation of the Three that maintained the works of the Noldor. Even Greenwood, nee Mirkwood, will fade, as all the elves of middle earth are doomed to leave or fade, taking all their works with them. The Dwarves, too, will dwindle, their great halls and treasures being lost to time. The Ents are without Entwives and will become Huorns in time, little more than great old trees. Everything that makes Middle Earth special, everything that makes it magical, fades away, even the Shire. Only Man will be left in the end, with all our petty squabbles and faults, a mundane world, stripped of its splendor and wonder.
1. No, I'm saying that you are conveniently only telling people they are wrong without saying why you are right. That's not an argument for you being wrong, as I specifically said it only applies to you and not anyone else in the thread that likes the plot and has actually backed up why. It has no bearing on the merits of your position. Its an argument that your discussion style is frustrating because its hollow, and an expression of frustration that you have taken on an argument style that allows you to be dismissive of other people's reasoning without having the fortitude to defend your own position.
2. Bull*****. People are saying that the story is bad and why. If you want to say it isn't, you need to give reasons why it isn't, as in reasons its actually good. So far all you've offered is that stories don't have to have death to be good (and you haven't even touched on all the other reasons people are griping about the plot). Making broad statements that don't actually address the material being discussed is useless, which is what you have done.
3. You really haven't. You've given broad reasons why you disagree with others, but you haven't actually given reasons why the plot choices are good for the story. Strawman arguments aren't reasons. Quoting authors without understanding what they are talking about isn't a reason. You've made no attempt to explain why, say, Nicol Bolas not dying is a good choice, while others have explained why it isn't. You haven't explained why making the Vraska sleeper agent plot point irrelevant was a good choice, while others have given reasons why they thought it wasn't. You haven't explained why you think minimal character deaths in a war story is a good choice beyond saying you think characters dying isn't good story telling (which, again, is a broad statement that doesn't reflect the material being discussed) while others have explained, at length, why minimal character deaths in a story hyped up to be a bloody war is a cop out.
4. You tried to play this off as an excuse for named characters not dying.
5. Fair
You know what I've noticed? All of your posts are about telling everyone that they are wrong, but none of your posts are about why you are right. The conversation has been like this: A bunch of people complain about the low number of deaths, a low number that was contradictory to the tone and concept of the story and which was pretty clearly and cynically dictated not by what was right for the story but by marketing (as evidenced by MARO's response, and he knows better), and they give reasons why they feel like that, and then you, telling them they are wrong, without actually giving reasons as to why you approve of the choices made. Your arguments have been hollow. "Not everybody has to die" is a strawman. "Killing characters doesn't make a story good" is so broad as to be meaningless. Killing characters just to kill them and be edgy doesn't make a story better, but killing characters when the story calls for it DOES. Killing characters when there is narrative reason to do so DOES. Bolas' plan revolved around killing walkers and draining sparks, and he only nails 2 walkers that we know of, one of which he only nailed because Bolas betrayed him (Domri). He literally only got Dack. Gideon doesn't even count as a get for Bolas. He was dogpiled by eternals and it literally didn't matter because he's invulnerable. He only died because Lili betrayed Bolas and then Gideon took her contract.
"But a bunch of no name walkers we never meet die offscreen!" So? You've never bothered to make an argument as to why this is a good narrative choice, because it clearly isn't. We aren't invested at all in these walkers. Because they are fictional, they literally never existed. Their deaths are literally a number pulled out of Creative's ass, completely meaningless, lazy, and cheap. It also violates the basic tenet of show don't tell. We see very few consequences as a result of this invasion that was 14 years in the making. Gideon is it. Lets compare it to Marvel, because its clear that Creative just tries to copy whatever is popular at the moment. Gideon dying is like Captain America dying: a major hit. Domri dying is like Squidworth from the Black Hand dying in Infinity War: he was the villain's mook, and he died like a mook. Dack dying would be like Happy dying, a minor character that has some minor resonance but who most people forgot existed. That was Bolas' get, Happy Hogan. That's part of why Bolas comes out of this looking like a putz.
People have posted, repeatedly, characters that could have died and made narrative sense to die, whose deaths would have not only added gravitas to the story, but moved the plot forward and added to the quality of the work. All you've been able to add as a retort is "nuh uh" and "your all just bloodthirsty jeez." Those aren't arguments. And that is what has been frustrating in trying to talk to you, you don't actually make arguments, you just tell people that they are wrong and make no attempt at all to explain your position. You haven't given a single reason why the low number of deaths is good, only stated that you don't like a lot of death. You haven't given any reasons why you think the recent story has been good, you just say anyone who disagrees is wrong. You never gave any reasons why you think Urza's saga is bad, you just said you didn't like it without any explanation and then invited people to give you reasons why its good, before dismissing them in advance as unlikely to convince you because you've heard it all. What results is a bunch of posters responding to you with their opinions and reasons for those opinions, and you denigrating those opinions out of hand without any attempt to defend your own opinions. That puts you in a position where you are free to critique the opinions of others, but you don't open your own opinions up to the same critique, because you don't ever actually try to give reasons for them. Its a terrible style of argument. I'm not going to say you are trolling, but that is a style of argument that trolls love to employ.
And I want to be very clear, this only applies to you, not to other posters who are arguing in favor of the plot choices, because they actually have explained what about the plot choices appeal to them and why.
And one last thing about Lord of the Rings: it didn't kill off many characters because it didn't have many characters to begin with.
I count Gandalf as both dead and alive, as he does legit die, and is resurrected as Gandalf the White. His nature changes as a result of this process.
The rest of the Fellowship, except Boromir, lives. so 7 alive 1 dead.
Elrond and Arwen live: 9 to 1
Eomer and Eowyn live, but Theoden dies (nobody gives a ***** about his son, he doesn't count): 11 to 2
All the villains die, Sauron, Saruman, The Witch King (I won't count the other Nazghul, only the Witch King is a real character), Gollum,Grima Wormtounge, all dead: 11 to 7
Denethor dies, but Faramir lives: 12 to 8.
Maybe count Shelob? 13 to 8.
Galadriel lives. 14 to 8
That's a lot of dead characters considering how few characters there are to begin with. Even if you reach for some of the more obscure characters, your only getting to about 20 to 8, a little more than a 2 to 1 ratio of living to dead.
Here's the thing: lots of those deaths were villains. But that's OK! Villain deaths count! Of course, they don't count as much as hero deaths unless they are major villains. But compare it to WAR, and only 1 villain dies. Domri was Wormtounge level.
Comparing WAR to LotR is laughable. If LotR went like WAR, Wormtounge and Theodan would have died, and maybe Prince Imrahil. Sauron wouldn't have died (or totally lost his form and became a weak ass spirit which is as close to death as his kind get), he would have instead been trapped in Mirkwood with Gandalf watching over him. Saruman wouldn't have died ("died" like Sauron), he'd have gotten away to start just as much trouble somewhere else (not putz around the Shire before getting stabbed like a bitch).
The pot told the kettle.
Theres a pattern of cop outs, lazy retcons, and overall bad plotting that has been plaguing magic story for over a decade. It's like it's been plotted by a 13 year old with add. It wavers between subpar fanfiction and subpar fanfiction rewritten by competent authors.
You don't build up a final confrontation like this and then just do almost nothing with it. And compared to Amonkhet, it was almost nothing. Gideon was a meaningful casualty, and Domri and Dack sort of, but Amonkhet was the destruction of a civilization and the gatewatch getting handled. That sets up major expectations for WAR, expectations that Bolas is going to top himself before going down. He didnt.
I didn't want half the pws dead. I didn't want Ravnica destroyed. But what we got was part of the central city sort of damaged (but mostly evacuated!), one major character dead, one character they forgot about dead, and Domri dead. Oh, and a handful of paruns killed off screen well before Bolas arrived. That's less than Ravnica did to itself in it's debut block!
Bolas loses because he employs a preposterously stupid plan that seems designed to fail. I called it that he was a goddamn moron for putting Lili in charge of the eternals before her betrayal was confirmed. The whole invasion was sloppy. I get arrogance, but he meticulously planned Amonkhet, and it worked! He was arrogant as hell the whole time, but it went smoothly. But the invasion of Ravnica? He left tons of ways for things to go wrong, some by not covering his butt from things outside his control, others by actually creating the problems himself. That's lazy writing.
And this is before all the other issues with the story. Ixalan block is meaningless now. And for what? The Vraska as a sleeper agent sub plot was well received and made narrative sense. It was something that would explain Bolas'plan going awry without him looking like a dip*****. The Golgari swarm is one of the largest forces on Ravnica and one that grows it's ranks as it kills it's enemies. Bolas relying on them to tie up say the Boros, would have made sense, and their sudden betrayal would have left him facing two new large threats that he didn't account for. Best of all, they set it up so that he'd have no way of knowing it was coming, as he didn't know Jace was on Ixalan! That would have at least set things up so that the eternals were actually a threat on their own due to a divided Ravnica until Vraskas turn, rather than the defenders of Ravnica handling them pretty easily from the start until he brought in the God's. The former would mean that Bolas had a sound plan that would have worked and was only undone by the ingenuity of our hero's, the latter (what actually happened) makes him look like an idiot who rushed headlong into a hornet's nest and had to put all his cards on the table just to have a chance at winning.
Jesus Christ dude, that strawman is just a pile of straw now, you can stop beating it.
There is middle ground between "half the cast dies" and "the climactic battle actually leaves us with more characters."
Yes, a couple more planeswalkers that have run out of story could have kicked the bucket. Maybe Gideon still would have been the only Gatewatch member, maybe he'd have been joined by Nissa, but there were plenty of good choices beyond Domri and Dack, who were both good choices, that could have died and made story sense. Viv, Samut (though I think Samut may be needed for return to Amonkhet), Ral, Sarkhan (I forgot he was in the set), Kiora, Jaya (though I like subverting the mentor dies trope). Then maybe one of the noobs, or not. Still, 5 or 6 would have felt more meaningful, like the battle had more consequences, and all the ones I mentioned would have made story sense and had some impact (even Sarkhan, as at least it would wrap up his story quite nicely as the former servant driven mad helps end his master). And of course, the big missing death, BOLAS, who should not have survived this. Yeah, they are probably going to free him to help against some future threat or some bull *****, but this should have been it. Also a problem is the handling of Parun deaths off screen. At least Isperia and the Obzedat got killed on a card, but Jarad? And Niv getting killed was so mishandled that we got Niv resurrected before we knew he was dead, and lots of people assumed he just powered up. They really, really, should have given us more web stories, especially dealing with the deaths of the Paruns. The slice of life stories were great, but we should have had five actual storyline stories in there. Things we missed that are inexcusable: Vraska overthrowing Jarad, Isperia calling the Paruns together and getting killed, Domri uniting the Gruul under his banner, Teysa and Kaya working together to take down the Obzedat, and then, right before spoiler season, the planar bridge opening and Niv fighting Bolas and getting killed.
BFZ absolutely could have had more deaths to make us care more. As it stands, we got the widespread destruction, which is fine, but like the old saw "a death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." We had a few legends on that plane that could have died and had some impact. Noyan Dar and Drana would have had some impact, and I don't even know if Ayli or Kalitas died. Off screen maybe?
What really sticks in my craw is MARO's response that its hard to kill off characters and that some people are upset that their favorite walkers died. That right there is everything that is wrong with magic's story. Its focus grouped, overly cautious, doomed to fail bull*****. Their goal is to avoid making any story moves that may upset anyone, and the result is that they upset almost everyone that cares about the story. Instead of occasionally making a few stans butt hurt, they just churn out unsatisfying crap. It's lame, it's lazy, and it turns people off. Its why so many people post hate about the direction of the story, and why no matter where it looks like its headed people shrug and say it'll suck and nothing will matter, because wizards has proven that no matter the stakes in the end nothing will matter. This was the climax of a decade long story arc, and we got one major character and two side character deaths out of it.
Now I haven't read the novel yet, so I can't call the story crap, merely the plot. The novel might polish this turd of retcons and cop outs by being well written, with its characters well fleshed out. An author can do a lot to salvage a story from the failings of its plot, and the pedigree of this author leads me to believe he will. That might lead to this novel being like Test of Metal, a fun read that ultimately harms the larger story. But rest assured, the failing of the plot should not be laid at the feet of the author.
The shoestring I was referring to was the Gatewatch. It was a crazy plan. There is always a fair amount of arrogance in play when someone thinks they are so indespensible that they cannot rest. Gideon has grown since then, and especially since Amonkhet.
This is the first time I've ever seen someone compare Alien:Covenant favorably to Rouge One.
Yawgmoth should be the standard for a full on apocalypse. WAR wasn't, so it's not an apt comparison. BFZ was, and it's goose egg for named characters is part of what made it such a laughable ***** pile of a story. Amonkhet was, and it felt like it because Bolas killed 4 God's, in addition to the 3 he killed in the flashback, and destroyed it's civilization. Shadows/Eldritch moon Emrakul took out the lunarch council, Bruna, and Gisela via corruption, and Avacyn got killed. That's pretty huge considering that Emrakul was actively trying not to win.
That confused me for a hot minute as I wondered how Jigsaw was connected to the star wars universe
Lol what? Seriously dude, it was the Phyrexian Invasion, built up for years, a literal Doomsday scenario for Dominaria. Killing off a bunch of characters isn't doing so needlessly to be edgy, it's doing so because that's the sort of situation where lots of people end up dead, especially people on the front lines throwing themselves into danger. There were narrative reasons for why most of the characters who died did so.
Killing off so many characters isn't always necessary, but sometimes it is, and the Phyrexian frickin invasion is such a time. It's an apocalypse on par with the Others invading Westeros, and you can bet if they only kill of like, Tormund Cersei and Bronn this season it'll feel like a massive cop out.
For this story, I feel like Gideon is pretty big, especially how he went out, Dack is at least known, and Domri pretty much had to get offed. I'd have liked to see a couple more, maybe 5 or 6 (or a couple more no names like some of the randos just introduced). Nissa biting it would have been satisfying because she's a major character we're invested in but also super boring and someone whose reason for existing in the story really isn't there anymore. Killing off Vivien would have also been a good move considering the icy reception she got and that her story is basically entirely tied to Bolas (unless they position her as a mono green villain, but they seem to still be pushing her as a genocidal hero). No need to kill off half the pws, but a few more than we actually got would have done better to match the build up and the stakes.
His arrogance didn't dissipate after that either. It takes a fair amount of arrogance for him to believe he could shoe string together an effective resistance to the Eldrazi and win. Ditto vs Emrakul. Ditto vs Bolas on Amonkhet. Only recently has he shifted from always believing that he'll just succeed against all odds as long as he tries real hard because he's invincible and has moxie.
The difference here is that nightmare is always going to be good, even when you are just looping value creatures, and you can accidentally run into a combo. Food Chain is often just sort of ok. If you don't have a way to combo with it, it's often ramp that exacts a high price. I mean, casting acidic slime then next turn exiling it to casting Ulamog seems pretty fair to me, from a battle cruiser perspective, in the sort of way that entwining T&N to fetch a couple of eldrazi instead of a combo is fair. It's just a very, very spikey card that turns off a lot of players (why would I sac a creature to just get one more Mana than I paid for it?) who don't realize that it is as it's baseline a powerful ramp card, albeit a narrow one that opens you up to two for ones. So it's got a fair use (I'd argue that getting even more Mana by saccing a card that produces tokens plus the tokens is also fair), it's just that it's rarely used for that because it turns off a lot of players due to it's spikey nature and it's reputation from prossh. It accidentally combos with a few cards, but those combos are pretty good and for the most part well known and applied in cEDH. cEDH is the only place it caused "problems", though since cEDH is not a balanced format and more about just playing the most powerful things as tightly as possible it's difficult for me to see how problematic it is there, though of course it can be annoying seeing it over and over.