I am trying to have a little outline of the War of the Spark story, by following the "story scenes".
I'm a little frustrated that this set, probably one of the most story driven sets in a long time is also the set where they decided to keep the story out of their website. So if anyone could check or improve this outline, I would be thankful.
Act 1
The planar bridge is ready, with Tezzeret, and the Interplanar Beacon is unveiled. I'm not really sure what's Vraska doing here.
The planar bridge opens over the Chamber of the Guildpact. The invasion begins, with Liliana commanding the Dreadhorde.
The beacon is ignited (by Ajani?) calling a bunch of Planeswalkers, and the Immortal Sun prevents anyone who arrives to leave Ravnica.
Act 2
A first batch of planeswalkers arrive to fight in the war.
Champions of the Dreadhorde also arrives.
Sorin and Nahiri come to Ravnica but they start fighting their own fight.
The guils of Ravnica take part on the war.
The guildless also take part in the war. I'm not sure if Massacre Girl is helping, though.
The sky of Ravnica become the stage of the war, with Flying Eternals fighting angels, leaded by Feather and the Parhelion II
Another batch of planeswalkers arrive. Although is not in the scene, I think here Chandra binds Dovin.
Nissa awakes Vitu-Ghazi and crashes Bolas' statue. There's a rise in the moral of the good guys.
I haven't, but I did now. Thanks for the link
It's nice to see a different opinion on the subject, although he seems to be focusing more on the aesthetics then on its game design impact. I'll try reaching to him.
When Amonkhet was released, I started getting worried about the visual design of Magic card frames.With the aftermath cards and, specially, the invocations being too much different from what is expected from traditionally a "normal" card, it made me realize how complex the visual design of the game was getting. Looking back, they were experimenting with the frame almost every year since 2010. After Amonkhet, Ixalan also introduced a totally unique card frame. Dominaria follows up changing it again.
I'm not arguing here if the frames are beautiful or not. Neither I am against changing the frame. But I do think the graphic design in Magic is going against its game design principles: creating complexity instead of fighting it.
Thinking of this, I wrote an article on the subject, and I would like to hear your opinions.
I will bet on the "regeneration rewording" option. We already saw that direct damage is changing soon (removing the damage redirection rule), so I think there will be some other rules changing to ease both the readability and easy understanding of some mechanics. Legendary, while not liked by Maro, is not something difficult to understand and I don't think they will change anytime soon.
By the way, as the Legend "Uniqueness" rule, I do think it would be easier if they somehow templated the Brothers Yamazaki mechanic (but for up to 4 cards). Almost the contrary of what Maro tells he would like to do if the "Unique" keyword.
Now I wish the invocations were designed to be this, and called Prophecies instead. And the flavor will be the prophecies of Amonkhet written on walls.
Yeah. Looking at these arts, it just makes the Invocations' art and design choices poorer. These felt Egyptian AND like Magic cards. It would be really nice if all invocations were Hieroglyphs from the same painting. Oh well [2].
Is there a card list with all the spolied cards that could have been read, in text format? I tried browsing 4Chan but I can't folloe their posts/comments orders.
I am trying to have a little outline of the War of the Spark story, by following the "story scenes".
I'm a little frustrated that this set, probably one of the most story driven sets in a long time is also the set where they decided to keep the story out of their website. So if anyone could check or improve this outline, I would be thankful.
Act 1
I haven't, but I did now. Thanks for the link
It's nice to see a different opinion on the subject, although he seems to be focusing more on the aesthetics then on its game design impact. I'll try reaching to him.
I'm not arguing here if the frames are beautiful or not. Neither I am against changing the frame. But I do think the graphic design in Magic is going against its game design principles: creating complexity instead of fighting it.
Thinking of this, I wrote an article on the subject, and I would like to hear your opinions.
https://medium.com/@raphaelaleixo/the-graphic-design-for-magic-the-gathering-card-frames-b3b6da4cd003
Thanks a lot,
By the way, as the Legend "Uniqueness" rule, I do think it would be easier if they somehow templated the Brothers Yamazaki mechanic (but for up to 4 cards). Almost the contrary of what Maro tells he would like to do if the "Unique" keyword.
Yeah. Looking at these arts, it just makes the Invocations' art and design choices poorer. These felt Egyptian AND like Magic cards. It would be really nice if all invocations were Hieroglyphs from the same painting. Oh well [2].