I mentioned this in another thread (which I asked to be deleted), but I think this thread is the better place to ask:
What planes came from where? specifically the planes that haven't been used in blocks. Shandalar came from the vthat old MTG Playstation game, right? and I think one of them is from the webcomics. can anyone tell me where they all came from, and which ones are brand new?
Shandalar is actually from the old MicroProse game. Past that, the planes I recognize from the new batch:
Kephalai (Aretopolis): Appeared in the webcomics. The scroll Chandra was after was found on this plane.
Equilor (Bloodhill Bastion): Urza went there during the events of the novel Planeswalker for reasons I don't now remember. It was described as a very distant, difficult to get to plane that was "finished."
Regatha (Mt. Keralia): As stated earlier in the thread, this is the site where Chandra's home monastery is located.
Ergamon (Truga Jungle): In the original rulebook for the game, there was a short story about a pair of mages written by Richard Garfield. IIRC it either took place on, or mentioned, Ergamon.
As far as I know, the other planes are either known locations from the game or new stuff altogether.
I understand your point about some of the deck but could it be argued that the decks are designed to be slightly substandard to give players room, clear room even to modify and personalize their deck without making it straight worse thats a trap alot of new or casual players fall into trying to change a deck but making it worse instead
Also while I agree some of choices are weird can we agree some of the stuff is pretty cool, I would say 75% of the new cards seem really awesome to me, sure not Legacy playables but think I could have fun with most of them
There's also the problem that, if these decks were filled with tournament-caliber reprints, they would be snatched up in droves by tournament players looking to get good cards on the cheap; alternately, LGSs would break them open early and ebay off the good cards and planes. Either way, the product never makes it into the hands of its intended audience.
By not making these Modern_Staples_Reprint_Extravaganza.decks, Wizards ensures that the casual players who like Planechase will be the primary purchasers of the product.
So I guess I'm the only person in the world who actually likes Glen Elendra's art (and Omar Rayyan's work in general)?
His style is too busy. It's difficult to make out fine details because they get lost in the background noise of, well, all the other fine details. It also doesn't help that a lot of his pieces have a limited color palette, with different objects situated closely to each other in space being rendered in similar colors (like, say, Glen Elendra Pranksters). It's a similar problem to Raymond Swanland's pieces (although that guy has other issues on top of all his art being monochrome pieces in every shade of brown and orange).
I agree that Guay or Nielsen would have been more appropriate for Glen Elendra. I didn't read the Lorwyn novel, but I got the impression from the cards that it was a dreamy sort of place more suited to their styles.
EDIT: Maybe the Bloodhill is Equilor in the distant past? Still doesn't excuse it, but it's not totally out of the question.
Mount Keralia! Not exactly how I'd pictured it, but I guess I'd pictured it as a generic-looking mountain, so this is an improvement over my own imagination.
Where was this place first talked about? I've never heard of it before, but people seem to be familiar with it.
I, too, would love to see Noble Hierarch back in Standard again.
This is pretty cool. Exalted lends itself to a different form of play style, for sure. It will be interesting to see which colours get the lion's share of it.
This is the problem I have with the mechanic. Outside of white, it never really made a lot of sense, at least not with the name it had. The green and blue portions of Bant felt very white-ish anyway; the shard was all about white and the traits from its allied colors that made it into the shard were designed to overlap with white's stuff. But normally, green doesn't care for teamwork - community, sure, but a community themed around nature, not around the sort of divine blessings "Exalted" brings to mind. And blue...blue isn't much for fighting, except in recent blocks, where apparently it is all about big brawly guys.
Black doesn't really care about teamwork or helping power up one guy, unless you want to flavor it as some sort of demon worship-type thing. And that does not sound like something I'd describe as "exalted."
I can't see red getting any of the mechanic because it really doesn't want to hold back its guys - when red wants to attack, it wants to attack.
So yeah, the flavor seems pretty off here, but I guess they can make it work.
Yeah, if they can reflavor something nonspecific, that isn't too bad...
but I'm talking about putting in anything from another world without reflavoring it.
Fair enough. I was just thinking of foil mythics since those always get new art and (potentially) reflavoring.
As for off-world cards that make sense with a new art treatment, Consume Strength works for the Golgari. Brainstorm with a new art (or perhaps the promo art they've shown) would make sense for the Izzet. I suspect they'd throw Fire//Ice in there too because it's an iconic UR spell.
Man, I really really really hope they don't put too many nonravnican cards in. Core set cards I'm fine with, but if they shove in a very very obvious otherwordly card it's a major flavor fail.
It was awful enough when they broke flavor in the PvsC decks with Mirrodin junk.
Lord of Extinction doesn't seem like too egregious a violation, particularly when getting new art and flavor text. But if the mythic is a Ravnica card, it pretty much has to be Golgari Grave-Troll. There just isn't much else that's exciting.
I'll admit, though, that it's hard to come up with a different Golgari frontrunner.
Phyrexia vs. the Coalition had a creature on one side and a spell on the other, and Divine vs. Demonic had a legend on one side and a non-legend on the other, so they don't necessarily have to be symmetrical. Assuming, however, that they want a multicolored card as the headliner (to pair up well with Niv-Mizzet, who is almost certain the Izzet deck's mythic), the best I can come up with is Pernicious Deed. The problem with Deed is that the Izzet deck is likely to be mostly spell-based (like the Izzet precon in Guildpact), which makes Deed noticeably worse in actual game play. Unfortunately, the second most exciting card I can come up with is Lord of Extinction, who I guess fits well with dredge and is large and everything but certainly isn't as sexy as Niv-Mizzet.
Then again, I guess you don't have to have an exciting card in the Golgari slot when plenty of people are already going to buy it for the Niv.
So its most likely Niv will be the foiled "mythic" for the izzet side. What do you think the chances are the RtR spoiled card will be a foil Jarad? Its never happened but what would be the face of the golgari side otherwise?
Was Elspeth vs. Tezzeret the only Duel Deck with preview cards in it? One of them was a common and the other an uncommon. I guess previewing a mythic wouldn't be out of the question, but it seems like they'd want to save the flagship cards for spoiler season rather than teasing one out early for this.
Also, the marketing blurbs for these things can be misleading. For Phyrexia vs. the Coalition, the blurb stated that the Coalition had united under Gerrard's leadership, which wasn't the case - Gerrard was captain of the Weatherlight, to be sure, but Grizzelgom (or however you spell it), Agnate, and Dralnu were commanders of the ground assault in Urborg while Multani had a role with Yavimaya. Lin-Sivvi and Eladamri also played commanding roles.
So it's quite possible Jarad isn't actually in the product while Niv is. I have no idea what they would do for the Golgari mythic, though. Pernicious Deed, maybe?
What's interesting to me is that they explicitly mention Jarad, but he has no card. It seems odd to call out by name a character most people won't recognize, and then not include him in the deck...but on the other hand, we've had Entity vs. Entity duel decks before wherein one side had a legend and the other didn't (Phyrexia vs. the Coalition).
I wonder if mentioning him here hints at a card for him somewhere in the RTR block? He should still be around.
I dunno. I don't like her too much. She is too... "hipster" to me. A character that just planeswalk just for the sake of planeswalking to study moons? She doesn't really add anything to the plot of Innistrad. It just feels like a cop out instead of making an interesting planeswalker from the plane itself. I'm hoping the Devil Planeswalker makes up for it or whatever it is going to be. Almost all of the previous blocks, the third set has had their plane ruined [Eldrazi and Phyrexia] so I don't see how her cheery attitude can be so great to see those planes ravaged.
I wouldn't mind her as a minor legendary creature card but as a planeswalker... meh.
She's on Innistrad to study Innistrad's moon. From her description, she goes to planes to learn anything and everything about them - on Innistrad, it just so happens that the most interesting things she can learn are related to the moon.
She's a traveling scholar, in the vein of the natural philosophers of the 1700s or maybe a modern sociologist.
As for adding anything to Innistrad's story: Innistrad's story is essentially done, as far as we know. Avacyn has been released and things are once again as right with the world as they can be. It makes sense to have a positive, almost naively curious planeswalker in an ending that is pretty uplifting. Yes, she may not have driven the plot of Innistrad, but then neither did Garruk - aside from stalking Lili, he hasn't had any impact on the plane that we can see, and Lili successfully evaded him this time. Tamiyo is actually more connected to the plane of Innistrad than he is, mostly because she's there to learn about it, while he's just there to chase Lili (who has since moved on, having accomplished what she came for - and without Garruk really doing anything to her or the plot).
EDIT: My one gripe is that her abilities feel only loosely connected to what her guide description says about her. Her -2 feels like she's studying the creatures in question, but her +1 feels like someone who's captured a specific specimen and is keeping it caged up for observation, which doesn't seem like her at all. As for her ultimate, no maximum hand size makes sense for someone pursuing knowledge for knowledge's sake, but getting cards back? Is it meant to show she never forgets things she's seen or cast?
As I've been saying, I'd love it if she simply shows up on various planes from time to time without being involved in the block's plot. Maybe she bumps into another planeswalker and helps them find something they're looking for if it coincides with whatever she's researching at the time. But other than that I don't really want her getting involved. I just want at least *one* character who isn't tangled up in plots and schemes and agendas.
How does she develop, though? Or is her job to remain a static character?
Shandalar is actually from the old MicroProse game. Past that, the planes I recognize from the new batch:
Kephalai (Aretopolis): Appeared in the webcomics. The scroll Chandra was after was found on this plane.
Equilor (Bloodhill Bastion): Urza went there during the events of the novel Planeswalker for reasons I don't now remember. It was described as a very distant, difficult to get to plane that was "finished."
Regatha (Mt. Keralia): As stated earlier in the thread, this is the site where Chandra's home monastery is located.
Ergamon (Truga Jungle): In the original rulebook for the game, there was a short story about a pair of mages written by Richard Garfield. IIRC it either took place on, or mentioned, Ergamon.
As far as I know, the other planes are either known locations from the game or new stuff altogether.
There's also the problem that, if these decks were filled with tournament-caliber reprints, they would be snatched up in droves by tournament players looking to get good cards on the cheap; alternately, LGSs would break them open early and ebay off the good cards and planes. Either way, the product never makes it into the hands of its intended audience.
By not making these Modern_Staples_Reprint_Extravaganza.decks, Wizards ensures that the casual players who like Planechase will be the primary purchasers of the product.
His style is too busy. It's difficult to make out fine details because they get lost in the background noise of, well, all the other fine details. It also doesn't help that a lot of his pieces have a limited color palette, with different objects situated closely to each other in space being rendered in similar colors (like, say, Glen Elendra Pranksters). It's a similar problem to Raymond Swanland's pieces (although that guy has other issues on top of all his art being monochrome pieces in every shade of brown and orange).
I agree that Guay or Nielsen would have been more appropriate for Glen Elendra. I didn't read the Lorwyn novel, but I got the impression from the cards that it was a dreamy sort of place more suited to their styles.
EDIT: Maybe the Bloodhill is Equilor in the distant past? Still doesn't excuse it, but it's not totally out of the question.
Where was this place first talked about? I've never heard of it before, but people seem to be familiar with it.
This is the problem I have with the mechanic. Outside of white, it never really made a lot of sense, at least not with the name it had. The green and blue portions of Bant felt very white-ish anyway; the shard was all about white and the traits from its allied colors that made it into the shard were designed to overlap with white's stuff. But normally, green doesn't care for teamwork - community, sure, but a community themed around nature, not around the sort of divine blessings "Exalted" brings to mind. And blue...blue isn't much for fighting, except in recent blocks, where apparently it is all about big brawly guys.
Black doesn't really care about teamwork or helping power up one guy, unless you want to flavor it as some sort of demon worship-type thing. And that does not sound like something I'd describe as "exalted."
I can't see red getting any of the mechanic because it really doesn't want to hold back its guys - when red wants to attack, it wants to attack.
So yeah, the flavor seems pretty off here, but I guess they can make it work.
...because Magic is a card game?
Fair enough. I was just thinking of foil mythics since those always get new art and (potentially) reflavoring.
As for off-world cards that make sense with a new art treatment, Consume Strength works for the Golgari. Brainstorm with a new art (or perhaps the promo art they've shown) would make sense for the Izzet. I suspect they'd throw Fire//Ice in there too because it's an iconic UR spell.
Lord of Extinction doesn't seem like too egregious a violation, particularly when getting new art and flavor text. But if the mythic is a Ravnica card, it pretty much has to be Golgari Grave-Troll. There just isn't much else that's exciting.
Phyrexia vs. the Coalition had a creature on one side and a spell on the other, and Divine vs. Demonic had a legend on one side and a non-legend on the other, so they don't necessarily have to be symmetrical. Assuming, however, that they want a multicolored card as the headliner (to pair up well with Niv-Mizzet, who is almost certain the Izzet deck's mythic), the best I can come up with is Pernicious Deed. The problem with Deed is that the Izzet deck is likely to be mostly spell-based (like the Izzet precon in Guildpact), which makes Deed noticeably worse in actual game play. Unfortunately, the second most exciting card I can come up with is Lord of Extinction, who I guess fits well with dredge and is large and everything but certainly isn't as sexy as Niv-Mizzet.
Then again, I guess you don't have to have an exciting card in the Golgari slot when plenty of people are already going to buy it for the Niv.
Was Elspeth vs. Tezzeret the only Duel Deck with preview cards in it? One of them was a common and the other an uncommon. I guess previewing a mythic wouldn't be out of the question, but it seems like they'd want to save the flagship cards for spoiler season rather than teasing one out early for this.
Also, the marketing blurbs for these things can be misleading. For Phyrexia vs. the Coalition, the blurb stated that the Coalition had united under Gerrard's leadership, which wasn't the case - Gerrard was captain of the Weatherlight, to be sure, but Grizzelgom (or however you spell it), Agnate, and Dralnu were commanders of the ground assault in Urborg while Multani had a role with Yavimaya. Lin-Sivvi and Eladamri also played commanding roles.
So it's quite possible Jarad isn't actually in the product while Niv is. I have no idea what they would do for the Golgari mythic, though. Pernicious Deed, maybe?
I wonder if mentioning him here hints at a card for him somewhere in the RTR block? He should still be around.
EDIT: Oh, hmm, the release date is pre-RTR. I guess it's a historical thing a la Phyrexia vs. the Coalition.
His +1 represents a careless, haphazard acquisition of knowledge. You asked him to teach you something, but you didn't say how.
His -4 punishes people who think they know better than him.
His ultimate incites the rabble to fight for a cause while he slips away, laughing.
I feel like he's a cross between a master politician and an internet troll: he has massive charisma, but he really just wants to see the world burn.
She's on Innistrad to study Innistrad's moon. From her description, she goes to planes to learn anything and everything about them - on Innistrad, it just so happens that the most interesting things she can learn are related to the moon.
She's a traveling scholar, in the vein of the natural philosophers of the 1700s or maybe a modern sociologist.
As for adding anything to Innistrad's story: Innistrad's story is essentially done, as far as we know. Avacyn has been released and things are once again as right with the world as they can be. It makes sense to have a positive, almost naively curious planeswalker in an ending that is pretty uplifting. Yes, she may not have driven the plot of Innistrad, but then neither did Garruk - aside from stalking Lili, he hasn't had any impact on the plane that we can see, and Lili successfully evaded him this time. Tamiyo is actually more connected to the plane of Innistrad than he is, mostly because she's there to learn about it, while he's just there to chase Lili (who has since moved on, having accomplished what she came for - and without Garruk really doing anything to her or the plot).
EDIT: My one gripe is that her abilities feel only loosely connected to what her guide description says about her. Her -2 feels like she's studying the creatures in question, but her +1 feels like someone who's captured a specific specimen and is keeping it caged up for observation, which doesn't seem like her at all. As for her ultimate, no maximum hand size makes sense for someone pursuing knowledge for knowledge's sake, but getting cards back? Is it meant to show she never forgets things she's seen or cast?
How does she develop, though? Or is her job to remain a static character?