dead but still here edition >Banshttps://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/august-26-2024-banned-and-restricted-announcement>NewsThe 2025 MagicCon and Pro Tour Schedule:https://www.magic.gg/news/the-2025-magiccon-and-pro-tour-scheduleMetagame Mentor: The Scariest Standard Strategies in Duskmourn:https://www.magic.gg/news/metagame-mentor-the-scariest-standard-strategies-in-duskmourn>Spoilershttp://www.magicspoiler.com/https://mythicspoiler.com/CONSTRUCTED RESOURCES>Current meta, complete with deck listshttps://www.mtgtop8.com/https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/>Build and share casual deckshttps://deckstats.net/https://tappedout.net/CUBE RESOURCES>Build and share Cubeshttps://cubecobra.com/landingCARD RESOURCES>Search engineshttps://scryfall.com/https://mtg.wtf/>Proxy a deck or a cube for cheaphttps://www.makeplayingcards.com/https://pastebin.com/9Xj1xLdM>Play online for freehttps://untap.in/https://dr4ft.info/>What is EDH?https://vocaroo.com/1ihc21gJLBh1>Previously:>>94310047>TQpost your favorite deck of all time (any format)
dead game
>>94314947What you expect of this set?
>>94314964Shallow and trope-filled like Murders and Outlaws and Duskmourn because they'd already finished the set and can't adjust to what they learned from the previous ones.Also at least one totally busted Vehicle.
>>94314964unending dogshit
>>94314964Nothing except disappointment
>>94314964Muraganda to be even less interesting that I think.
>>94314964a vehicle that will break this card somehow
>>94314964Well I hope it's decent in general, because it will be the last Magic set before the break.
>>94315038It's already really fun with this card
I didn't really follow the duskmourn story, is jace's furbaby imprisoned by valgavoth now? did valg die or something?
>>94314964>What you expect of this set?A handful of plastic-looking car designs for important characters, with a bunch of generic identical fodder for everyone else in the race.Everyone in the multiverse will invent tires in the span of one week and then forget about tires just as quickly.
>>94315117YesNo
>>94315117Furbaby is the map to the multiverse, key to all, and Valgavoth just likes to eat planes. It means this is your endgame scenario.
>>94315126There's not quite tires in the set, but it does seem like the Brood, the insect team or whatever, does have insect shells in the shape of tires.
>>94315134More likely Valgavoth is being set up to be knocked down to establish a proper threat (Jace or Tezzeret most likely). He's too basic a character to be THE big bad.
>>94315126I like Kaladesh aesthetics. I like the Gearhulks. I like this one.
>>94314964A lot of garbage unplayable vehicles with the exception of one game winning powerful overcosted one that completely breaks greasefang pioneer decks, and one 1 drop copter tier that gets banned in multiple formats within 4 months.
>>94315154Guessing we'll get an ally pair cycle of new hulks. What'll the others do?
>>94315141Pretty sure Daretti's new card had tires, so that's certainly out of place either way.But sure, that card has big round insects that look like tires despite the fact that apparently nobody knows what tires are. That's the most natural way for an insect to move, rather than some sort of dragonfly chariot.Also, perfect example of what I was talking about with generic background fodder cars. Those four hovercars have two designs between them, and also seem to all have robot pilots and the same robot logo. So instead of any actual death in this death race, we're just going to see these generic robot hovercraft getting used for cannon fodder.
>>94315051Return to Tarkir will be the last Magic set in a very long time.
>>94315154Kaladesh is my favourite plane aesthetic. I think it's one of the most beautiful worlds they've made and I'm sad that it's going to get fucked by being in this set. I fucking hate wizards so bad.
>>94315154I really love Artifact sets but damn.. I dont see any good use for this big chunky faggot.
>>94315193Ah I forgot the ordering. Short break after Tarkir, Eternities, and then long Winter break.
>>94315200It can fetch you Moxen, Thopters, artifact lands.
>>94315193>>94315203Sadly Tarkir is too far away and the moment FF hits all formats it will truly be over.Coonsomers will lose their shit wasting insane amounts of money on Chocobs and Sephirot and Magic will never be Magic again.
>>94315200Not amazing in Standard, but there's a lot of good targets in eternal formats.
>>94314964a themepark
>>94314964Endless trash!
hehe I'm playing with all bear cards on arena :)
>>94315165white blue will be flash flying bounce something
How this could achieve 5 place at China bros?Looks like pseudo commander slop...https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/6735618#paper
>>94315279probably a deck registration error, it's literally a 60 card DSK limited deck
>>94315279>dimir flash>it's jund>one (1) flash cardholy moly
>>94315279>one leyline of the voidJesus Christ, it's Jason Bourne
>>94315279he found it...the way garfield intended....
>>94315279>>94315339Richard is proud. This is how your decks should look like fags, instead of jamming Annexs and Wraths.
>>94315154I like that card a lot
>>94315365I like the direction you're going with this anon, I thought of scales but this is much more explosive
>>94315193Can’t wait for the transgender queer stop Asian hate neurodivergent setting to come back bros…
>>94315446I don't know what that means.
>>94315462Tarkir was the first set to feature a transgender character and a neurodivergent character. You’re rooting for, longing for, celebrating poz.
>>94315446>>94315462>Narset>Alesha
RATE MY COMBOITS MINE AND NOBODY ELSES
>>94315475>First neurodivergent characterThat's just Urza.
>>94315543Doesn’t count, he’s an incel. You love poz.
>>94315475>You’re rooting for, longing for, celebrating pozI don't.
>>94315532bro is cooking fr
>>94315279>1 altanak>0 say its namenutz
>>94315558Tarkir is the Kamala voter’s set.
>>94315532so you make X rats for X+1 mana, they give you back X mana, so each one costs 1 manaand you can recur it for 4 mana a few times so its 5 mana per castbut tree city suddenly makes +33 mana? yeah I can see it
>>94315548Urza literally had a wife, anon. The incel is Yawgmoth.
How long are they going to wait to bring:>Tamiyo>Nicol Bolas>Urabrask>Emrakul back?
>>94315627>TamiyoProbably unironically not coming back. They went out of their way to rub it in our faces twice over that she was dead and not coming back ever.>Nicol BolasUgin is in the Tarkir set so who the fuck is driving the prison.>Urabrask Honestly surprised it hasn't happened already.>EmrakulNext year for sure.
>>94315627>TamiyoDead, replaced by an AI construct of her in that scroll Nashi had, which then got raped by Valgavoth for its memories and was let free.>Nicol BolasUgin is coming back soon and we are entering The Dragonstorm Arc so we might get more info eventually.>UrabraskMIA until they want to take New Phyrexia off standby again. It took us a decade the first time so expect some wait.>EmrakulIn the moon still. The Eldrazi are a big hit so I don't think she will be kept there forever but Magic still has The Dragonstorm Arc to go through.
>>94315687>then got raped by Valgavoth for its memoriesso Tamiyo got raped twice already?
>>94315262Is it fun or is it unbearable?
>>94315627>TamiyoShe's double dead, completed, turned into a construct ghost, raped by Valgavoth, then thrown into the Blind Eternaties by her son.>Nicol BolasNext set>UrabraskFlavor text has him losing his limbs and story text has Elesh Norn telling her servants to finish a captured Urabrask off but Elesh Norn and her daughter Atraxa are dead and new Phyrexia is phased out so it's unclear if he's alive. It's a long wait.>EmrakulJace and Vraska are already planning for a multiversal reset and that may have been the ecological role of the Eldrazi, combined with their popularity I can see her coming back relatively soon.
>>94315715>>94315728Clearly the fact that she was thrown into the Blind Eternities means she'll get raped by the Eldrazi next.
>>94314964>Muldrotha, Swamp Racer>Korvold, Pit Boss>Squee, Tire Thumper>Chulane, Race Announcer>Niko, Gird “Girl”>Chandra, Burning Rubber>Liliana Vess, Dead Heat>Gitrog Monster, Hood Ornament And finally…>Kellen, The Driver
>>94315715Yep, she never get a break.
>>94315755Don't forget Tezzeret in his Dick Dastardly era.
Infect/Poison is a really nice mechanic those incompetent devs underused.
>erm uh cool is a she rather than an itJust because he's a voreloli or is this actually canon lore somehow?
>>94315755I think you mean>The Gitrog Monster Truck
>>94315768No the fuck it isn't. It's uninteractive as all hell and probably the worst alt win condition they've made so far.
>>94315627>TamiyoHopefully never.>Gay BolasHe is already coming back.>UrabraskPlot arc after next.>EmrakulNext plot arc.
>>94315782fpbp
>>94314964I'm curious. NEO was the first set I drafted and it was a horrible experience since I had next to no idea what I was doing. It'll be interesting to see how I feel about another vehicle/artifact set now.
>>94315762He's too busy being Palpatine.
If Kamala wins, will WoTC finally make orange man bad the Magic card?
>>94315198What's funny is that kaladesh is vaguely meant to be "tomorrow town" in indian because it was meant to be their plane with the most tech but someone got assmad over it and read it as backwards shithole or somethingI don't know if wotc actually cares about this but seeing as this is the same guy who got them to retcon rakshasa I'd be wary of them suddenly deciding to all rename the plane to something else.
>>94315755squee would have been fitting given the immortality but he lost that in dmu
>>94315879wouldn't be much of a leap
>>94315755If we just get a card named "Driver" and it's not a nigger I will buy an entire case as thanks.
>>94315881>RakshasaCompletely forgot about this change, probably my least favorite of the 2023 errata as it actually affects card functionality negatively. We still haven't had all of the Totem, Tribal, Rakshasa, and Naga cards reprinted yet.This also almost grantees that Wizards will have to reprint lots of Naga and Rakchasa when we return to Tarkir even if they're on the list.None of the changes make much sense to me anyways, Tribal is a Arcane tier mechanics they shouldn't have brought back, there's nothing offensive about Totem Armor, and who cares if Rakshasa aren't cats in Indian folk lore. The Rakshasa of DnD and MTG use that as a differentiating factor so it's clear they're a separate species of demon.
>>94316007Tribal is based and it's good they brought it back, I hope return to lorwyn has a lot of it.Totem there's probably some retarded reason in the background but literally every card with it has umbra in the name so it's probably just that more than anything.>Who caresimpotent prajeets who have tiny amounts of power and want to swing it aroundfunnily the same guy who said kaladesh was badthink wrongdoing named his twitter after the plane lmao
>>94316007Tribal should be a deciduous mechanic used in every set that cares about creature types.
>>94316041>Tribal is based and it's good they brought it back, I hope return to lorwyn has a lot of it.It's just another annoying parasitic mechanic, it's better than Arcane marginally since creature types do matter and it's significantly better than Energy.But it acts mostly so cards which call for a specific creature type have even more synergy, which I don't like. Cards should have downsides and I like having to include non-synergistic cards with downsides especially when power creep leans more towards there being no downsides at all and everything just being a value pile.
Let's talk about Star Wars being the last universe beyond for 2025 before anybody
>>94316163Right after the official not-star wars set? Unlikely.
>>94316208Also Star Wars has a fairly up-and-coming card game right now doesn't it? Like, yeah, FF and Marvel have card games but those're really quite minor (and Snap doesn't compete nearly as directly anyway), so I can't see it happening.
>>94316213Star wars has had like a dozen tcgs in the pastexisting tcgs are not a competition no matter how many times you people say this
>>94316213FFG has killed every game they've ever made and they'll kill this one too
>>94316163it's a marvel setback in the last marvel announcement they said there would be multiple setS (with an S) in 2025, we already know one (spider-man) so the other has to be marvel too
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1giomfy/prominent_former_professional_magic_artist/
>>94316041Tribal is something that would have worked a lot better with hindsight. If a card that made two Soldier tokens had always been treated as a Soldier spell, and other spells that cared about creature type had been given that type, it would have worked.Stuff like Tarfire are where it breaks down, where the card doesn't actually do anything related to Goblins. If it dealt more damage while you controlled a goblin, or had some other goblin-centric effect, then it would work. As it stands, there are a bunch of Tribal cards that shouldn't be Tribal and a bunch of non-Tribal cards that should be Tribal. Changing the name to Kindred doesn't actually address anything about it.
>>94316424Changing the name to kindred was partially at least I know it's because jotc are pozzed because people would confuse tribal the mechanic and tribal the playstyle.Of course because people are jokes they then immediately started calling the playstyle kindred too (or worse yet, typal, which even wotc said is retarded to use)
>>94316420While I appreciate Donato's stance, unless other artists follow suit it isn't going to make any difference (even though it should).
>>94316378It was explicitly said to not be a Marvel set.
>>94316420>Wotc keeps either outright cutting out or soft-harassing their actually good artists because they know they actually cost money>The ones they don't just leave to work for marvel
>>94316420>undercuts his entire point by whining about AIGuess what you're actually bitter about is not having marketable skills, afterall
>>94314964No fewer than ten ways to turn a vehicle into a creature without using a crew ability
>>94316466Yeah, there wasn't any reason to bring up AI at all - the entire point was WotC's practices with him in the past / present. The AI stuff had nothing to do with his experience at all. I am aware that prominent artists "feel the need" to mention AI every 10 seconds but it feels very out of place in this situation.
>>94316439I don't believe that for a second, because there's plenty of things in the game that share wording overlap. Counter can either be a thing that goes on a permanent or a thing that cancels a spell on the stack. And referring to a Tribal deck as Tribal is at least referring to the same thing as the card type. It all cares about creature type. It'd be like worrying about people calling pic related a mill card even though mill as the defined game action doesn't actually appear on the card. A new player might need it explained, but the association is obvious.
>>94316489>It'd be like worrying about people calling pic related a mill card even though mill as the defined game action doesn't actually appear on the card. A new player might need it explained, but the association is obvious.You mean that thing that wotc famously did for like 28 years until they finally stopped being retarded very recently?I'm telling you the explicit reason they gave, not to mention the 'secret' reason everyone already knew, this isn't exactly rocket science.
>>94316489Whenever nosewater would say "Oh we're doing a tribal set!" (because they do a lot of tribal sets) he'd be inundated with thousands of people saying "RETURN OF TRIBAL?!?!?!?" and have to say "No you fucking retards I mean the playstyle".This isn't even a secret, wotc does enough retarded shit that it's amazing that people here still go out of their way to make up stuff they don't do.
>>94315203>back-to-back UB sets in place of regular releasesAnd one of them is going to be Spider-Man themed. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Peter Parker fan, I just don't think he can carry an entire set. Not even with help from Gwen, Miles, and the entire Spider-Verse. I think that especially without a normal release, the tail end of 2025 is going to be fucking dire for M:tG
>>94315154fucking hell that set symbol looks terrible, /ccg/ did better
>>94316501Yeah, and I'm telling you the explicit reason they gave isn't true, for the reason that it's the exact opposite of what they did with mill. >>94316513That's what I was saying here >>94316424The problem with Tribal as a card type is that it's inconsistently applied. It'd be as if only sets where creature types mattered had creature types at all. Imagine if Niv-Mizzet just wasn't a Dragon because Ravnica wasn't a tribal set. That'd be silly, but that's exactly what they did in Tarkir by having non-creature spells that have tribal interactions with Dragons, but aren't Tribal X - Dragon. That's why I say it only really works with hindsight, because it requires realizing that if non-creature spells having creature types was a possibility in order to enable tribal synergy, then it should have been done consistently across all sets, including non-tribal ones.
>>94315154>Even if one random card from the set is cool>EVERY one of them is going to have that god awful fucking set symbol stapled to it
>>94316420damn, people really got paid 1k for 1 pic?
>>94316574Industry standard for custom, professional quality art is a day rate of ~550-700 dollars.
>>94316569I'm getting used to it in a masochistic way
>>94316483>Yeah, there wasn't any reason to bring up AI at all - the entire point was WotC's practices with him in the past / present.WotC didn't even do anything wrong in his story. He's whining about not getting a pay raise he never implies he asked for. Clearly he was fine with it at the time and the only reason (besides his political whining) that he's complaining is that his percieved ability to profit of his seniority is drying up with the change to the UB contracts. If he actually thought his art was worth anything in an open market or to the game he'd just ask for more or a different contract, but clearly he knows as well as I do that he isn't capable of anything that a fresh graduate art student who does oil isn't.>generic human-with-an-oilify-filter pseudorealismwoahGroundbreaking stuff.Literally the only reason this faggot has any sort of clout and had any sort of abiltiy to monetize his name wrt the game was because he was an early artist and had brand recognition on his name from that alone.I phrased it in perhaps an overly glib tone but unironically the reason he's bringing up AI is the same reason he doesn't just ask for more money. He knows that he doesn't have the ability to compete on the open market at the prices that he expects to ask for his work, and the only value to anything he does beyond the entry level is as a piece of nostalgia. Now that the bottom is falling out of entry level the fact that after 27 years he hasn't improved even one lick is staring him in the face and he's literally only got the goodwill of nostalgics (and his fortune, obviously, but that's besides the point) between him and the average burger flipper. Afterall, he's clearly not willing to learn or improve himself.
>>94316588same but with mtg as a whole for the past two decades
>>94316567>Yeah, and I'm telling you the explicit reason they gave isn't true, for the reason that it's the exact opposite of what they did with mill.They wanted to not use a "fan name" (even though it never was, I'm not calling them smart) despite the fact that literally everyone, inside mtg and out, used that name.The Tribal/Kindred thing had two reasons, the autism with nosewater and his blog, and jotc being pozzed enough to think "tribal" is an offensive word.What other possible reason do you think they could have had to change the name? Because those are the two reasons.>That'd be silly, but that's exactly what they did in Tarkir by having non-creature spells that have tribal interactions with Dragons, but aren't Tribal X - Dragon.Because they intentionally got rid of tribal and didn't want to use it for a very long time, and are (maybe) now going to use it again.The dumbness with snake/naga and co are inconsistent, them choosing to not do it after doing it for a little bit is the exact opposite. It WOULD be inconsistent if they at random did tribal spells...but they don't, they purposefully stopped using them (a bad idea, I think).
>>94316574amateur comm artists can get a few hundred for a spicy fetish picturereal industry professionals should be getting at least that much
>>94315947Universes Beyond: Ryan Gosling
>>94316594shalom
>>94316594You're so retarded I'd expect you work for wotc themselvesPeople complaining about AI are mostly retardeds but donato's one of the very few good artists they have left (or well, not anymore)Seriously who the hell do they have left? Everyone good has left or been cancelled, I think baga is the only one I know offhand that's still aroundIs boros still around? I think he is.
>>94316420Giancola is an absolute fucking legend, and the fact that WotC stooped so low as to disrespect a man with so much status and respect in the industry is one of the worst things they have ever done.And that's saying a lot, considering how much shit they've done.
>>94316582considering how shoddy some of the really old art is it just surprised me>>94316606yeah I never really got that. it feels way too high for digital art
>>94316646>considering how shoddy some of the really old art is it just surprised mePre-VISIONS, all people who worked on MTG art were friends or close associates of the designers. They likely got very low rates for their work, like in the low 100s.Visions/Mirage was when MTG started paying full commercial rates for professional out-of-house artwork.
>>94316646>considering how shoddy some of the really old art is it just surprised mea lot of the old art is literally stuff garfield picked up at a garage sale and used in the game because he now owned that art
>>94316652there are some good pieces but shiee. this kind of work should get paid by quality, not quantity
>>94315755>Krenko, Dastardly Hijacker
>>94316594>If he actually thought his art was worth anything in an open market or to the game he'd just ask for more or a different contractHe quit working for Wizards specifically because they won't let him sell his art on the open market. He's now doing other work under different contracts.Or did you think he's just unemployed? Idiot.
>>94316594
>>94314964More trash.
>>94316753>Krenko, Husband of Aureliaftfy
>>94316938You just know
>>94316938not>Krenko, Aurelia's BeardDo you even LGBT?
>>94316966There's nothing gay about a wholesome marriage between Anon, don't be crass.
Maybe you dont like it but i'm kinda hoping for tons of references and a good set from Aetherdrift.
>>94317198My expectations for muraganda are low
>>94317209What expectations even ARE there for the plane? It has precisely three things about it: Vaguely prehistoric world, dinosaurs and vanilla-matters.
>>94317234It doesn't really fit with modern set design but in the past they used to do sets that overwhelmingly favored one type or color, could possibly do something where all/most of the creatures are just fatties or some tribal shit and have all the non-creatures do stuff
>>94317244Muraganda feels like it could have worked as the concept for a Foundations-style set (basic cards meant to be legal perpetually in standard) if it had been printed a decade ago.Basically just a core set with an excess of vanilla creatures and vanilla-matters and other extremely basic cards designed as a baseline. But now the statlines on vanilla creatures are just ridiculous, so making a set around them seems like even more of a headache.
>>94317319I wouldn't be surprised if there's only a smattering of vanilla-matters stuff in the Muraganda portion of Aetherdrift. It's just not very 'interesting' for a set design.
>>94317329I'm not even sure if there will be any vanilla matters, or if it'll just be a cycle of vanilla creatures and maybe some cards that make 3/2 dinosaur tokens. Having some vanilla creatures in the Vehicle set does help make the vehicles themselves more appealing to attack with, in theory. Since if your options are either >>94315141 or some 5 cmc vanilla dino, then jumping through the extra hoops for Vigilance and Trample comes across as a better deal. And in theory some 1W 3/1 caveman is pretty good just for crewing.
Foundations looks alright. I'd like to see what a format consisting of just Foundations would look like.
>>94317319>Muraganda feels like it could have worked as the concept for a Foundations-style set (basic cards meant to be legal perpetually in standard) if it had been printed a decade ago.a decade ago would have been 2014, vanilla creatures weren't good even then
WOHOHOHOAH THAT'S A BIG BOY
>>94317517They weren't, but they'd be less hopelessly outclassed, to the extent that serving as a floor for power level in what amounts to a Core set would be functional enough. Muraganda is the vanilla plane, so you can't really sell it on power level. So the answer is to use it for an introductory product where simplicity is the selling point rather than power level.
>>94317517Two decades ago would've been 2004, vanilla creatures were just alright even then.
>>94317566Even if we go back 20 years ago I don't think a set, even a core set, would have done well with all vanilla creatures.How they (seem to be) doing it, that is as a small part of a set that's intentionally multi-planar, seems like the best best for it so you can have the small pocket of vanilla/vanilla matters cards without trying to fill an entire 250ish card set with them.>>94317554They really need to pick characters for planeswalkers before they exist because both nissa and vivien have had this problem since their inception
>>94317580All vanilla creatures? No, I don't think that'd work regardless. You need at least some creatures with abilities here and there, especially in the context of giving boosts to some of the vanilla creatures. Not to mention all the non-creature cards. But a core set is an environment where you can get away with a sufficient volume of vanilla creatures to make vanilla-matters work.
>>94317580They can't seem to decide if Vivien is sombre "nature's vengeance" or "wow nature is cool, look at these animals". Not that either is much, but they're not even consistent on her one character trait.
>>94317595She was introduced as "bolas killed my plane and I need REVENGE"She was steve irwin in the gigantosaur flavor textEvery other time she's just been garruk liteand getting into nissa's lack of character would be a much longer discussion
would you put grievous wound in your draft deck if you had an unstoppable slasher
>>94317566What if they took the Yugioh approach and gave vanilla creatures enough good support cards that they're playable just because they enable your other cards?of course the other possible solution is to see how HUUUUGE they need to get before not having abilities isn't an issue. >>94317554 Gigantosaurus was somewhat playable for a while.
>>94317623don't they have that skeleton guy who they just kept printing retroactive support for until he was a decent deck?
>>94317623Is explicit vanilla support like "If target creature has no abilities, give it [ability]" a thing?
>>94317623I wouldn't be surprised if they introduce a player weapon mechanic a la hearthstone for a muraganda set or themeI suspect that since they can't make vanillas good they might explore the space of "creature things on noncreature stuff"
>>94317632That doesn't quite work, because giving a 'creature with no abilities' an ability makes it no longer a 'creature with no abilities'.Best case, you can word it in a way that turns off the creature's other support. >>94317623As it so happens, I run a vanilla deck in Yugioh (vanilla dinosaurs, coincidentally enough). And while there are powerful effects you can give (doubling power, free summons, free searches, free destruction) it would likely end up being fairly parasitic, since you've just got a deck full of cards that don't do anything if you can't stick a vanilla creature to the board.Having it as a major theme could work, but it can't be the entirety of a set. And trying to push the power level too hard probably isn't going to work out. It's better to just accept that vanillas are low power, and use Muraganda for a product that is normally low-power anyway.
>>94317632More like "If you control Isamaru, do X effect"
>>94317672I think WoTC would care more about it seeming lame rather than parasitic, this is the same company that like mechanics like Energy because they are parasitic.But I think a evergreen keyword focused set and supporting cards are more likely, thats almost what core sets were minus the explicitly printing parasitic cards made only to work with vanilla or evergreen keyword cards.
>>94317554>herbivore>attack greater than defenseUhm, flavor fail?
>>94317704Energy cards can at least self-enable by giving you a pittance of energy when played and then having a better payoff if you have other energy stockpiled.Vanilla is even worse than that. Imagine if all Energy cards were just pic related, and didn't do anything unless you played another card to turn them on. That's not to say it couldn't work, but it's not going to be strong. It's fundamentally less interesting, so pitching it as a 'simple' product for beginners is the way to do it.
>>94317632It exists, though I only remember this one card. I don't know if there are others.
>>94317632Yeah, there's some of those. Although in Yugioh vanillas have their own card type so the wording is less complicated. Even if you have another card giving them an ability on the field they're still considered vanillas.>>94317630That's the other kind of vanilla support that Yugioh has, cards that name a specific monster. A lot of old ace monsters from the show are big vanilla monsters like Blue-Eyes White Dragon, so they occasionally get support cards of that variety to keep them relevant.
Just print ability hate, not a hard problem to solve.There's no reason to do vanilla matters though it's a shit idea
>>94317736You do know herbivores are stronger the predators which is why predators hunt in packs.
>>94317783I mean, Muraganda's whole identity of "caring about vanillas" came from this one.
>>94317819Ability hate cards are going to feel very situational against anything less common than Flying. Flying hate cards themselves tend to be unplayable unless they're modal cards. Chaosphere has great art though.
>>94317819Parque Los dos>for each keyword ability on creatures opponents control, creatures you control without abilities get +1/+1
>>94317863I feel like basic land matters would be an easier theme.
>>94317896>creatures with abilities get -2/-2 until end of turnwow that was so hard, crazy anon, who could have come up with that?>implying they won't do ETBs that strip themselves of abilities after they trigger
>>94317925...That's just most ETBs, functionally speaking.
>>94317925If they wanted to do that, they could just include spells that do an effect and create a vanilla token in the process. >>94317914Basic lands matter is probably a better theme overall, but people are probably expecting vanilla support out of Muraganda. None of these are necessarily difficult themes. They're just difficult to make FIRE.
>>94317993>creatures that create vanilla tokens and then buff vanilla creatures
>>94318021Tokens are where most vanillas are nowadays, anyway. And creatures with ETBs but nothing else are 'vanillas' after they enter, so.
>>94317925That sounds like it'd be awful to play against desu.
>>94318039Yeah but they aren't real vanillas so they catch hate from all the new cards, see, so we can push them out of the format and make everyone buy new decks
>>94317808>A lot of old ace monsters from the show are big vanilla monsters like Blue-Eyes White Dragon, so they occasionally get support cards of that variety to keep them relevant.they kind of make llanowar elves decent half the time (it being a dork is also more generally playable) but it'd be nice if they had stuff like that for things like shivan and serra
>>94317993I hope we get more nonbasic land hate as well as more basic land synergy, seeing Destructive Flow and Price of Progress reprinted into Modern and Standard would be nice. Give all those decks running a bunch of nonbasics something to fear.They did make adamant a while back as a mechanic to encourage mono-colored decks, but I think a cares about basics theme would help with that as well.
serious question: why cant we have plow in pioneer? alternatively: why do I take 9 damage when I fatal push a one drop?
>>94318132>why do I take 9 damage when I fatal push a one drop?Skill issue.
>>94318132>why cant we have plow in pioneer?because Plow is the greatest removal ever made and outcompetes every single other removal card ever printed.
Tarkir will be shitTezzeret is looking white again (and now is a big bad villain in a end game scenario).Damn you, maro!
>>94318171I can assure you they'll just end up sanding all of the rough edges off of the clans and ruining them.
>>94318178>they'll just end up sanding all of the rough edges off of the clans and ruining thembut they already did that before
>>94318171What is Tezzeret even doing? He got everything he wanted from the Phyrexians already, what's he even trying to do now?
>>94318178Remember when they decided that Rakshasa being tiger demons was racist and retconered all of the Rakshasa from Tarkir to be normal looking demons (without the cat type)?
>>94318184he's evil because there is no villains left.probably down the line he will be involved in the creation of a new new phyrexia or something
>>94318184He's always wanted more power basically for the broader purpose of never being under anybody's thumb ever again. And also probably to fuck with Jace.
Basic Bitch CounterU InstantCounter target spell that was not cast with mana exclusively produced by basic lands."Probably some stupid quip" -A legendary creature you've never heard ofComing soon
>>94318233Punishment For Being A Basic BitchU InstantCounter target spell if its controller does not own at least two nonbasic lands.
>>94318187The left most picture already looks like a mobile add and the bottom right isn't promising either.They also won't have a good explanation for how the Dragons became three colors, although I suppose Ugin was mad at his shitty kids for mistreating the non-dragons anyways so he probably just forced them too.But having all of that squeezed into one block is shit and unsatisfying, if Ugin is going to force the dragons to not be total shitters they should fight a war over it.
Volgavoth wants to eat planes.He has the map to the planes in the form of the Loot.Tezzeret has the history of siding with the bad guys.Tezzeret has the planar bridge.??Story arc
>>94318171>Tezzeret is looking white again (and now is a big bad villain in a end game scenario).what are you talking abouttezzeret was brown for the entire time he was a villain and now this is the first time in like 16 years that he's been white
>>94318178>I can assure you they'll just end up sanding all of the rough edges off of the clans and ruining them.That reminds me of something.....
>>94318252It seems more like there's just new dragons instead of them becoming three colours.
Tezzeret, the mind over matterHow shit this new villain arc will be?
>>94318171Did they forget that the timeline for the plane was changed and that the clans are ally colored now?
>>94318266Tezzeret's melanin has been incredibly variable for the longest time. The comic about his backstory has him looking SO white for example.
>>94318252Yeah, it's like they heard all the criticisms about how the original block should have had wedge dragons, so they're just adding wedge dragons in the laziest possible way. And it's not going to have what people liked from Khans, because it's going to look like a mobile game ad with retconned lore that was approved by 12 different cultural consultants to be as bland and inoffensive as possible.WotC already ruined Tarkir once. A return set with the same designers is just going to ruin it again, because they've only gotten worse.
>>94318295exactly my pointhe was white when they introduced him, then they made him ambigiously brown when he was evilnow he's white again (probably not a good guy though)
>>94318283So, like, I know Tezzeret doesn't have lungs or anything anymore, but how's his head still alive in space? That's still fleshy.
>>94318310darksteel, son
>>94318310It's darksteel I don't have to explain shitalso there's probably something in the space plane that lets people breathe
>>94318303Some of it is just lighting, he's still 'dark' in the Edge of Eternities image, just has a lot of light shining on his face. He's usually in shadow a lot of the time in art. There's been similarly-toned Tezz arts before.
>>94318283darth tezzeret lmao
>>94318269That was them accidentally removing the best part of the setting, not a culturally consulted mess that tries to be as bland and inoffensive as possible.Fuck Yasova, fuck Bolas, fuck Ugin and fuck Sarkhan.>>94318301>Sarkhan goes back in time again off screen to kill Yasova before she can stop him from saving Ugin.Laziest retcon I can think off the top of my head but they probably won't even put that much effort in.
>>94318333>That was them accidentally removing the best part of the setting, not a culturally consulted mess that tries to be as bland and inoffensive as possible.Does it really matter whether it was intentional or not? It still fucked over the plane.And if the stories from DTK are anything to go by they were at least originally intending to make the plane even WORSE.I'm not expecting much from the set but it's hard to be worse than dtk+the original follow up to DTK.
>>94318333It seems to be more, to my guess, the Tarkirans have learned of the older clans (via Narset, I suppose) and realising they DON'T have to serve shitty dragonlords, they've tapped into other Tarkir magic fuckery to try and throw them off. I don't think they're gonna time travel it AGAIN, though time travel MIGHT still factor into the grander plot.
modo froze while i was drafting on a machine that can max out cyberpunk 2077. how are the fucks at wotc not in prison
>>94318341the clans always hated eachother though, that was the point of the plane even well before FRF/DTKKTK was great but then they nuked that for dragons, and while the dragons were ok KTK is infinitely better than DTK.Whatever plot bullshit they pull the ideal situation is just KTK but add dragons.
>>94318341All of their stuff still looks pretty draconic, only enhanced by the shitty mobile game aesthetic. Either way having a story about the clans throwing off the dragon lords stuffed into a single set is shit. All the clans hated each other anyways so it's take a lot of work for it to be believable that they'd work together.Something a single set block doesn't have time to acomplish.>>94318279I guess Ugin could've popped some more kids out and have them kill his other kids, but it's almost as anti-climatic as more time travel.
>>94318354>>94318369Not necessarily the clans working together, more just transformations to something resembling the older clans. Possibly not all of them are throwing off their rulers, I can see Ojutai being generally okay with the Jeskai re-appearing.Silumgar is absolutely dying though.
>>94318369All of the actual plot events in the ktk block could probably be told in 5 stories, just a lot of it was "Oh sorin's here, cool" since ktk was the first time that they actually had the real story in uncharted realms (back when it was called uncharted realms)
does modo have a doom/boomswitch? this is fucking ridiculous. i can run a two-color GX limited deck with 2 dual lands, spineseeker centipede and one keys to the house with 17 lands and STILL be unable to cast spells, what the fuck
>>94318382I keep forgetting Sorin was in that block because all he did was show up, go "oh, fuck, Ugin's dead" and leave.
>>94318381>Ojutai being generally okay with the Jeskai re-appearingHe didn't kill Narset but he still kicked her out, forbade any knowledge of the Jeskai, and tried his best to genocide the Djin that started the Jeskai way.It would be funny if he was okay with it, in a clown world sort of way.
>>94318381>Silumgar is absolutely dying though.TasiGAR is going to wake up from that dumbass necklace and strangle that fat crocodile and give us a "Tasigur Lich Lord" creature that Digs Through Time on cast
bolas butt babies bully bicolor brothers
>>94318171How many non asians will be in the explicitly asian set this time
>>94318384>you just don't know how to draft! get good
>>94318341Even if they rebel and overthrow the dragons, it basically just puts them centuries behind where they were in KTK. You're not really gonna get Sultai back. You're going to get Silumgar rebels using Green magic larping as a culture that's they're centuries removed from. Same with every other clan. It's not quite the same.
>>94318406This is the one cool thing I've heard here, Tasigur reviving himself as a lich and Sidisi backing him.Anafenza is still in tree spirit form so she could do something similar, it could be cool but I have zero faith in Wizards to execute on it well.
>>94318394He didn't kick her out, he let Narset leave which is a significant if subtitle difference that will likely be lost on the modern writers.
>>94318452He still exiled her and committed genocide, if Ugin forced him I could see him rolling over, but I don't think him or the Djinn would be happy about it.
>>94318381If I had to write it, I'd make them into something that wasn't quite the old clans, but not quite the new ones either. They'd be working together, sharing the color of focus for each clan.>abzanWG dragons + WB soldiers>jeskaiWU dragons + UR monks>sultaiUB dragons + BG naga (couldn't think of a fitting class)>marduRB dragons + RW warriors>temurRG dragons + GU shaman
>>94318448Zurgo starts eating dragons and the protein causes him to rapidly build mass and become Helmsmasher again
>>94318455The Dijin are still members of the clan though?Also he was the dragon that let Zurgo ride him during the invasion, so if wizards wasn't cowards we could get Dragon-Riders of Tarkir.
>>94318465Sultai would have wizards, evil wizards was their whole thing
>>94318479Only the ones that give up on being the Jeskai, and the Jeskai are still out there and probably still being hunted and killed when they do appear.
>>94318487>and the Jeskai are still out there and probably still being hunted and killed when they do appear.Was this stated in one of the stories for ikoria or somthing?Because from my recollection it was nowhere in the Planeswalkers Guide nor in any of the Uncharted Realms that take place during Dragons. Only the hidden Abzan ancestor worship and that secret Temur sect remain to my understanding.
>>94318483That was my first impression too, but when I checked, there's actually only three wizards with the sultai watermark. They have way more shaman than wizards, but temur needed something and they're all warriors or shaman.
>>94318479Dragon-riders of Tarkir feels like its what the original DTK should have been. I doubt people would have complained nearly as much it DTK was just KTK but with dragons not being extinct.
>>94318294>WotC>Keep track of their own lorepick one, anon.>>94318295In alara until like m13 he was white tanned (california tan) then he became black after that "realistic" art featuring all planeswalkers that he became more black (and liliana was black/pajeet), after that he went different ethnic types of black with some times being portraited as tanned white.The dreadlocks and lack of clear art direction was his doom.
>>94318498The initial purge still happened though I won't deny that
>>94318499Do any of the other clans even have wizards though?
>>94318498They have exactly one card in MH3 that alludes to Narset finding them, Pinnacle Monk/Mystic Peak.
>>94318505I still find this art hilarious, literally nobody looks like themselves in this except like Koth. What the fuck is with Kiora's head fins? Why does Sarkhan look like that? Why is Elspeth's hair in a bun?
>>94315619>the chad planeswalker>the virgin physician>>94317822if they werent supposed to get eaten then why are they made of meat being huge just means more meat DUNKASS
>>94318503its a shame, if you look back on the initial development for the block the idea was that Tarkir in the Khans timeline was slowly dying because Ugin and his Dragons were a core part of the Plane and without them the vitality had been slowly fading.So that when Dragons of Tarkir came around the tradeoff was that the peoples of Tarkir were oppressed and enslaved but instead of living in a dying world, the land itself was supercharged by the dragons overabundance.Then they backed out and retconned the concept during M19.
>>94318529Ugin not being a native also makes Tarkir feel hilariously weird, that him just being there caused these Dragonstorms which FEEL so integral to the world now, but are actually just Ugin's fault.
>>94317736Herbivores are violent cunts through and through. The kind of animal that will stomp you to death for no reason the second they see you and leave your corpse there? All herbivores.
>>94318524Sorin looks good though his design was pretty set in stone (heh) Romani Leliana can get it
>>94318520>That's fair, I personally understood it as Narset seeking out Djinn (I still want to call them Efreet on impulse) and teaching them herself. Not the existence of a hidden sect, although I can see the interpretation now.
>>94318512Jeskai have a bunch, yeah. To be fair, the Sultai under Silumgar do have a lot more wizards, it's probably the best fit.
>>94318529>peoples of Tarkir were oppressed and enslavedIt didn't even have to be that way, Ugin was trying to help the non-dragons out since all his kids were so shit. But then Bolas attacked him and tricked Yasova into fighting Sarkhan for him.Then all Sarkhan could do was put Ugin into stasis to prevent him from dying, meaning he was still creating Dragonstorms but unable to help the non-dragons unite and fight against his shitty kids.
>>94318550I think I remember somebody who worked for Wizards once saying that if you equated the Gatewatch to real world nationalities, Liliana would be Eastern European of some sort (Polish, maybe?), so it DOES sort of check out.
Reminder that Murtide Regent is a Silumgar dragon so I'm personally expecting it to be cycled into standard and pioneer come Tarkir
So apparently all the announced stuff for next year is all the stuff for next year, there'll be nothing else (not counting Secret Lairs and such I assume).
>>94318572Yeah that's the last UB set >>94315203Still too much product, those six new sets are all full sized, and have commander decks. Plus Foundations will still be in print and going out to stores until at minimum 2025.Aside from the spongebob secret lair we'll probably also get another one, but I don't know if Secret Lairs impact retailers that much.
>>94318529I mean, that's fine in concept. But it's the question of why it has to be a tradeoff. Dragons not going extinct is better, both for the health of the plane and because it adds to the variety of creatures they could have one the plane.Having the dragons enslave everyone just makes me not want the dragons back, regardless of the justification.
>>94318567you know what? I actually agree with that, I would've called it bullshit on them reprinting a MH2 card into standard but pic related just proved me wrong a few days ago
>>94318595I mean that's very probably what'll happen now, is dragons + clans together.
I just want more Rakdos. I want my dude to actually do cool shit. WHY didn't he get to do cool shit during the invasion.
>>94318602That's the thing though. It's not dragons + clans. It's dragons + historical larpers. The fact the dragons took over at all and oppressed the cultures for centuries, even if they were to ease up now, just means that there were dozens of generations that grew up only knowing the dragonlords and being completely ignorant to their original history. Like, take Amonkhet as an example. Are the people living on Amonkhet, now that they're free from Bolas, returned to the planes original culture? Of course not. Every document and writing about how the world was before Bolas arrived has probably been burned or buried. All they know is fighting because mummies took care of any menial labor. Amonkhet isn't in a position to ever truly be restored, and the same is true of the clans. The clans we knew were destroyed and taken over by Elder Dragons, and anything that arises from them is going to be a pale imitation at best.
FREE MY NIGGA SKOTHA PUT HIM IN A CORESET OR SOMETHINGWAITING UNTIL THE NEXT THEROS SET WILL TAKE TOO LONG
>>94318572>6 standard setsAnd they want standard to be played locally... >>94318595The justification was good but wotc retconnered all of it.Basically the world was dying. The Khans went into a battle for survival mode, lots of wars happening all the time. The Sultai and the Temur and the Jeskai basically had good shit while the Mardu and the Abzan had to secure their shit and try to take new shit to survive. The Temur shaman could see the past and an alternate timeline where everything was fine but Dragons ruled. The Sultai was ruled by the Naga and the humans and few other races where just trash waiting to be reanimated by the Rakshasa and Naga overlords (it all started with Tasigur getting help from a naga, I think Sidisi, to kill Silungar in his cave, and then getting betrayed by her). The Jeskai were just a bunch of monks that either seeked battles or believed they knew all the shit. The Mardu were in a streak of wars and wins with Zurgo trying to conquer shit.When Sarkhan time traveled to the past the Tarkir of the Khans was fucked the the status quo had been broken.
>>94318653Why is the Uro statue pogging
>>94318664he just gained 3 life and drew a card while ramping
>>94318572Hope you retarded niggers are happy, you cried about too many products and now they did it.
>>94318661Except retroactively, there wasn't anything to worry about. Because they were only a few years away from the Phyrexian invasion flopping and omenpaths opening up all across the plane and allowing them to either leave for a plane that wasn't dying or at the very least import supplies. I can see why they retconned it, because 'the world would have died if we didn't go back in time to save dragon-Hitler' is a pretty iffy justification. And beyond that, it's not like the abundance of resources has resulted in peace on the DTK timeline. Instead of fighting wars of survival, the clans are stuck fighting wars of petty ego. And that's assuming they stay human. Instead of humans being second class citizens to Naga within the Sultai, 90% of them just get turned into zombies instead. But again, I'm not really arguing against the justification of 'the plane will die without dragons', because that gives a pretty strong reason to bring dragons back even if they're dangerous flying apex predators. There's a lot of room between 'extinct dragons' and 'elder dragon lords enslave everyone'
Whats the best way to play magic online with built in rules enforcement for free nowadays? Cockatrice? Xmage? Something else I havent heard of?
>>94318714anything with built in rules is gonna be shitplay tabletop sim
>>94318719Why do you say that? Id like to host a tournament, and integrated rules enforcement seems like the easiest way to accomplish that.
>>94318742because I've played cockatrice and xmage and they're both shittabletop sim is just a digital version of paper (plus a few extra conveniences for tutors and stuff) and unless you expect people to cheat and need to watch them or something that'd be the 'best'of course tabletop sim is technically a paid game, but all the cards etc aren't
>>94318714>CockatriceFree, easy to set up and navigate but no rules engine>XmageFree, difficult to set up and navigate but has a rules engine>WebcamFree, easy to set up but no rules engine BUT people can use their physical cards
>>94318752>Xmage>difficult to set up
>>94318749>>94318752Anyone tried Forge?https://draftsim.com/forge-mtg/
>>94314964Hotwheels :tm: alternate art
>>94318701>we reduced the number of products by increasing the number of Standard releases, but cutting direct-to-Modern/EDH releasesYeah, this is what people were asking for when they wanted fewer products
>>94318798yes, I explicitly say tons of people, including this board and mr. yells at clouds himself ask for this
saw, whatever
>>94318802No one wanted 6 fucking Standard sets in a year
Does anyone else imagine themselves as a mage actually casting spells when they play? It's why I can't use decks with themes or mechanics I don't personally think I'd use. I had a big grudge against artifacts for a long time because I didn't think I would bring a Pithing Needle or build an Ensnaring Bridge
>>94318823No, I just play role playing games for that autism.
>>94314964nothing, why play sets i don't care about?
>>94317822solitary predators exist though
>>94318171>tarkir ended on a 2 color set>we return to the clans>set is called dragonstormhow the fuck are they gonna justify this flavor/lore wise?also they are only returning to tarkir because there's a trans character there now
>>94318823I used to do that when I was new to the game, but I'd theme it around the deck itself. Like a bizarro me who lived and got those life experiences instead of who I am in reality. Came to an end once the playgroup started the meta arms race, but I still think back on my first decks fondly because of that.
>>94318814its better than rotating ub and horizons every few months injecting meta-defining bullshit into modern without legacy-tier answers.standard turns into a dumpster fire, pioneer maybe gets some neat stuff, modern and legacy get some chemotherapy.
>>94318900We're returning to Tarkir since people like it, no idea how they're going to justify it but Ugin didn't like the dragons oppressing the non-dragons so maybe he plays a part.
>>94318900>also they are only returning to tarkir because there's a trans character there nowyep.>how the fuck are they gonna justify this flavor/lore wise?They could just say that the omenpath things opened a portal to alternate tarkir (khans of tarkir) and the Khans are invading now-Canon Tarkir.(If they are doing it you can bet there will be cards that the art is just two of the same guy doing those soijacks faces to one another)
>>94318900>how the fuck are they gonna justify this flavor/lore wise?The same way they justify Sigarda being a suitable replacement for Avacyn despite how useless she was in the first Innistrad set. They'll just do whatever the fuck they want and people will eat it up.
>>94318937Pioneer is dead, it was cut from the tournament cycle and everyone joined the format to escape UB in modern anyways.
>>94318917Even when my LGS became super meta I would only build decks and take liberties with lists to better accommodate my themes. It made me lose occasionally but for the most part I had more fun, I was a Martyr Proc player who imagined myself as a life mage fighting against the Hogaak zombie menace that had taken over Modern at the time I did pretty well desu
>>94318917I imagined myself as a UW walker so that worked out as I just gravitate towards AZ control or its closet equilvalent (Jeskai is fine also) anyways.
>>94318900The same way they justify Zhalfir taking the place of New Phyrexia in the multiverse.
how tf is ocelot pride a card
RDW is the single greatest name for anything in a card game, maybe ever
>>94318971I always thought of Jeskai mages as people who are normally pretty calm and collected (UW) but have extreme anger issues once you crack them even a little bit (R)
>>94319021For me its because I have the 'tism and so just have big emotions, good and bad, in general when like you said, am cracked, but am otherwise distant and cold while trying to exert immense amounts of self control.
>>94319008Whiteschizo got a job at WOTC
>>94318959>>94318971My brews were completely independent of what was meta so the jarring shift to what was good just made it too detached for me in the end. I wasn't building on a personal level anymore (but I did still have a lot of fun learning the new skill ceiling). I tell you what though, you guys got me thinking about exploring that side of the game again through Forge's adventure mode, so thank you for that.
>>94319008$$ Buy $$ Modern Horizons 3 $$
>wizards makes a print to demand product>remove the print to demand part for le fomo (probably preprinted a lot of absolute ass secret lairs that nobody bought because they're ass)>have an upcoming capeshit one tomorrow that will sell out because capeshit and they actually have great value for the first time in a long time plus mechanically unique coommanders>don't make it print to demand so it'll hard cap the possible salesIsn't this a bad thing for them?
>>94316594Good post.Also his art was better 10 years ago. He's only gotten worse with age.
>>94318953Was Sigarda really a suitable replacement? Most of the green/white humans turned to witchcraft.
>>94318937>pioneer maybe gets some neat stuff, modern and legacy get some chemotherapy.How fucking naive are you? Do you seriously think this is gonna be good for Pioneer? And the damage is already done to Modern and Legacy. That shit isn't miraculously recovering just because MH4 isn't looming over it. There is no chemo here.
>>94319078No idea what anon is talking about, the whole point was that Sigarda wasn't good enough to do it herself. Hell, there were even people turning to Liesa over her.
>>94319053companies have got it into their head that selling out, even if it's at a VASTLY lower number, is good somehow because fomo drives people to buy more of them...that they can't buy because of the limited stockdon't question it
>>94319105It's moreso that Avacyn was WAY TOO GOOD at it, because she's running off a good chunk of an oldwalker's magic. The other Archangels are just native to the plane and are 'just' strong.
>>94318953>The same way they justify Sigarda being a suitable replacement for Avacyn despite how useless she was in the first Innistrad set. They'll just do whatever the fuck they want and people will eat it up.the retarded nature of return to return to innistrad was "magic clock out of nowhere that always existed trust us, also this super ancient witch cult also always existed, for real."It's probably the second stupidest thing after rtr introducing merfolk
Seems like XMage is the only viable option with rules enforcement, so thats what Ive put in the poll. Id like to celebrate the continuing downward spiral of Magic with a community Premodern tournament. Here's what I have in mind - starting after Thanksgiving I will accept registrations for the event. Registration will close right after Christmas, and the event will be held early January. This is still a long way away, but my hope is to give anyone interested plenty of time to assemble and familiarize themselves with their decks. Competitors would submit a decklist as part of their registration and be locked into that for the duration of the event. The event would be split into 2 days to provide a buffer for technical difficulties in getting into games and so on. Day 1 Swiss, Day 2 Top 8 single bracket. For prize support Ill put up $200. $100 to 1st place, $40 to 2nd, and $10 each to the rest that make top 8. To incentivize everyone to complete their games, I could draw on a basic land or order custom proxies as a commemorative thing to send to everyone that finishes their games. Tournament structure might change depending on how many register.I dont want cost to be a limiting factor for anyone, so this would be held on either a free 3rd party client or via webcam (with proxies allowed). If youd be interested in participating, please vote on this poll.https://strawpoll.com/40Zm411Gkga
>>94319131I wish the next Innistrad return explored just... Other parts of the world. Like Innistrad isn't the only continent there is.
>>94319138To bad anon that applies to literally every single plane in existence (besides a tiny amount of Ixalan, but even then we only ever hear about the vampire homeland and never see anyone from it).MTG is a game of hats and even when the story was """""good""""" it was islands within islands within islands.You'd have to go back to the weatherlight saga to get anything approaching actual worldbuilding.
>>94319124Yeah, fair enough. I don't remember all the details of the story but if I recall, Olivia basically trapped Sigarda herself, whereas Avacyn would've bitchslapped her into the ground. The Helvault only held Avacyn because Sorin made it, and she only got put in there because of her own magic and Griselbrand twisting her spell a desperate last resort.
too, eventhis is the entire reason UB exists in the first placemtg's worlds are a joke and while they have technically gotten worse over the past few years they were never anything to write home about, or draw anyone into the game
can we come up with a different abbreviation of Universes Beyond, I keep thinking you guys are talking about Dimir
>>94319138They'll never do that. They'll never elaborate on what Emrakul is doing in the moon either. She's in the moon in case they want to bring Eldrazi back as the villains again. They trapped Bolas in the meditation plane instead of killing him off in case they want to bring him back as the villain again. They can probably cobble together some way to bring back the praetors as well.
>>94319166at least Urza and Yawgmoth are never coming back
Embrace Premodern, /tg/.Let's go back to when MTG was fun!Do you remember having fun? I do...
>>94319159>they were never anything to write home about, or draw anyone into the gameYou can't say that anon, now the nostagiaboomers will screech about how you're a shill who loves UB.
>>94319166killing urabrask was retardedwhat was the fucking point of him being the secret traitor for like 1.5 years if we just gets killed with no impact on the plot at all?he was already pro-resistance back in original scars, he just wanted to be left alone in his autism forge, he didn't care about what the mirrans or even the other praetors did
>>94319172I can't claim I'm a boomer or anything but I have been playing since 2009 and the game's story has gotten worse significantly more than a few times even in my tenure.The two most notable were origins and war, with mom as a distant third with how horrible the actual payoff was.wotc killing off the weatherlight saga was the end of the story truly mattering, but even then you had people who were diehard pre-revisionists who swore that only generic nonsense was good and anything with characters was gay
>>94319172I'd rather see MTG get better than have it's corpse defiled by UB
I suppose calling pre-revisionist stories "generic nonsense" isn't giving them a fair assessment but I also wouldn't call them that good either.
>>94319180>I'd rather see MTG get betteryou and I both know that is never happeningwhenever it's gotten close to happening they immediately fire the person responsible and hire someone to make it twice as bad
>>94319173It seems like they keep switching out writers, and that the new guys always immediately throw in the garbage whatever the previous guys were doing. Emrakul became Innistrad's version of Cthulu, but the next Innistrad block basically pretends she never existed, and then introduces some random kraken guy who's also not-Cthulu.
>>94319187So? I'd rather like to see MTG get better than worse.
>>94319177>started playing after the game died>it still got worseThat's grim
The 1-2 of half of every MTG set going forward being UB and Tarkir's MMO art along with diversity consultant announcements making one of my favorite planes effectively DoA is enough for me to tap out. I remember watching IIRC a tolarian community college collab with yugioh players who all had different IPs and one of them said "Oh it's like the fortnite of trading card games" and I died a bit inside, and this was a year+ ago when that shit was still contained to commander.
>>94319164See like I read this post >>94319180and I immediately think that Blue and Black are defiling MTG
>>94314947>dead but still here editionYOU FOOL! UB is actually saving magic. compared to the "lore" we got from our in universe GOY SLOP final fantasy and spiderman have ACTUAL stories. maybe not EVEN good ones, but certainly better than: oko wears a cowboy hat, vraska wears a detective hat, kaito wears a spooky hat, chandra wears a racey hat...
>>94319195tarkir has been dead since it was brought into existence anonfew if anyone had hope for a return, especially given how bad those last few DTK stories wereif you were someone who still had hope for it then sorry I guess but this was expected
>>94319207the written stories (not the garbage shit on the cards) were pretty good on thunder junction, mkm, and duskmornnot amazing, and not even the "best" mtg has had in a while, but a lot better than we were getting in the negro balls arc
>>94319208>if you were someone who still had hope for itI did>but this was expectedI didn't want to believe it.
>>94319207THEN THE ANSWER SHOULD BE TO MAKE MAGIC'S STORY BETTER AND NOT JUST LEGENDARY CREATURE IN UNIQUE OUTFIT
>>94319190Emrakul's presence not really 'mattering' to MID/VOW was more to do with the really odd notion that every set needs to be accessible as a new player to everybody (except finale sets I guess, they get to actually pretend prior sets happened), so Zendikar and Innistrad just get reset to their most base state, etc.
>>94319217I'd say individual story writing has generally been among the highest Magic's ever had, it's just in service of a grander story that has to be constrained SOLELY to set stories, so nothing ever feels like it has any time at all. External novels or simply stories that are set-agnostic would do a LOT to help the Magic story out. Last story we got that wasn't strictly tied to a set was... I think "Ashiok decides to fuck with Elesh Norn".
>>94319217do you really feel like thats the direction they should be going though? small meaningless problems on random planes with nothing major overarching or connecting? like even amonkhet and kaladesh and war of the spark was bolas chasing shit. the tone was actually serious. now we get haha were silly billy sets. were essentially at marvel phase 4 slop waiting and hoping for teen gatewatch to be good.
>>94319228Why would a new player be less comfortable with Emrakul and more comfortable with a random kraken with zero lore? They start off being equally as unfamiliar either way, but with Emrakul there's some history that they can learn about.
>>94319248>small meaningless problems on random planes with nothing major overarching or connecting?Given that one of the most common complaints about the story since the removal of blocks is the ADHD plane hopping where nothing on the actual plane matters because we're just getting the next mcguffin, yes.
>>94319248>do you really feel like thats the direction they should be going though? small meaningless problems on random planes with nothing major overarching or connecting?is this a joke? absolutely that's what we should havethat's what we had for 90% of the game's history and the story was significantly better when it wasn't "Here's 3 years of marvel buildup and then a disappointing payoff that no one cares about, right back into another 3 years of marvel buildup and then a disappointing payoff".I actually had (some) hope for both war and I THOUGHT mom would be better and it technically was, but not by much.The jacetice league was the worst thing to happen to the story in ages and it would absolutely be a horrible thing to go back to that era of the story.
>>94319225>THEN THE ANSWER SHOULD BE TO MAKE MAGIC'S STORY BETTER AND NOT JUST LEGENDARY CREATURE IN UNIQUE OUTFITmodern wotc is incapable of good stories. its just maro pitching garbage. the future sets of our once high fantasy card game are RACE CARS and SPACE. wotc writing is a lost cause.
>>94319248It's interesting actually, because despite the CARDS being a lot more overtly trope-y than usual, the STORIES take themselves relatively seriously. It's why MKM felt so jarring because the actual story spotlights take everything as-is, it plays the detective story idea straight, and then EVERYTHING ELSE about the set felt like it was lampooning its own genre.
>>94319248>small meaningless problems on random planes with nothing major overarching or connecting?yes you retarded zoomerneo kamigawa actually had a cool story in the background but we just ignored literally all of it for jin being a funny weeb in hammer pants
>>94319259>and it would absolutely be a horrible thing to go back to that era of the storywe already have
>>94319195I recognise this image from a video. Can someone remind me what it is
>>94319170>Somehow...Yawgmoth has returned
>>94319277I still remember some people being CONVINCED Valgavoth was gonna be secretly Yawgmoth somehow, for... No reason besides "Valgavoth is a moth, Yawg-moth".
>>94319271anon the biggest narrative conceit bloomburrow has is ral being a pissed off otter and I guess valgavoth having loot matters? probably? but it's a really last second kind of thing
>>94319274https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m7ewouLQXA
>>94319278>No reason besides "Valgavoth is a moth, Yawg-moth".oh man that's a really funny schizo theory, I should have popped in around then
>>94319279I wonder, will we ever learn why Vraska was a lizard instead of a snake?
>>94319292Probably because lizards are a society, while snakes are calamity beasts.
>>94319292probably because lizards are one of the human races and the only snake we see is a minor deity
>ITT people unironically defending WOTC story tellingkek see you in elf space cowboy
>>94319308I'm not defending anything, it's pretty atrocious.It's just always been this way, since like 2002 or whenever they force abandoned the weatherlight
>>94319308I like the short stories actually. The beastie one from Duskmourne was solid, if bleak.
>>94319317I liked that story a lot more when I thought they were kind of fucked up spider things and not big dogs wearing a mask.The idea is still ok I guess but I thought it'd sell it a lot better if they were more explicitly horror-y.Maybe that first one will get a card in mh4 and it'll be more fucked up.
>>94319323They're big dogs wearing a mask who will brutally murder you if you ever see their face. I think that's explicitly horror.
>>94319166>>94319170teferi can time-travel.>jacetice league, we have to go back!>oh no im getting compleated by all this oil in yawgmoth times!>i used the oil on urza and then yawgmoth melded with him to make Ultra Instinct Yawgmoth Rosé!>the only thing that can stop yawgmoth now is an Eldrazi Titan, which totally still exist because it's the past, so I'll go to Innistrad's moon and compleat the biggest, baddest one of all to stop the 6000 years in the past versions!>haha now i have compleated Emrakul and i can go back to Yawgmoth times to totally pwn the stupid jacetice league that i used to be in AND kill the other eldrazis BUT FIRST...>...i'll stop off in Ikoria and let compleated Emrakul absorb all the godzillas there to make her into Perfect Cell Emrakul!>its War of the Spark 2: Emrakul Boogaloo!
>>94319337>>94319337>They're big dogs wearing a mask who will brutally murder you if you ever see their face. I think that's explicitly horror.>average pit bull
>>94319347>War of the Spark 2: Emrakul Boogaloo!Lmao
>>94319337I thought they only killed you if you freaked out over them (because they presumably have some scary face that'd scare a kid or something)
>>94319347>>the only thing that can stop yawgmoth now is an Eldrazi Titan, which totally still exist because it's the pastI don't remember the exact time frame they give but yea nahiri, ugin, and sorin sealed them a long time ago, well pre-mending.Though technically pre-mending only ended ~65 years ago.
>>94319347Yawgmoth Rosé solos Perfect Emrakul it's not even close.Yawg Rosé's powerlevel is 9 quintillion at base and Perfect Emrakul's is only 2.5 billion, barely topping out at twice that.Fucking WotC hack writers can't even get this right.
>>94319362The article doesn't say anything about the human's reaction. Too lazy to look up and read through the story again, but I don't remember anything about it there either. I think there was some implication that their faces were cursed to make people freak out upon seeing them, which again I would consider a type of horror.
>>94319190One of the reasons why the weatherlight saga was so cohesive is that it was made from the ground up by the same group of people in design the whole way through and all the books for it came out in 4 years, regardless of their actual quality that's 11 books in 4 years for just the Urza/Weatherlight saga.The biggest shame is that of the two best writers Jeff Grubb (Yes the 90s D&D setting manager/Spelljammer creator) was taken off of the main books after The Brothers War and placed on the Jodah trilogy, and J. Robert King only did The Thran and the Invasion block novels.Also looking at it the MTG novel writers I noticed two things1. Most of the early writers were former Dragonlance alumni 2. Regardless of quality, Scott McGough and Cory Herndon were fucking workhorses in the early 2000s and are responsible for the majority of MTG novels from Fifth Dawn up through Eveningtide. For reference Scott did Legends 2, Kamigawa, and Time Spiral, Cory did Fifth Dawn and Ravnica Block, and both bid Lorwyn block.
>>94319386fair enough
>>94319386I feel like they shouldn't have described their faces (admittedly that's a pretty vague description as-is), fits the horror more to have it be an unknown thing.
>>94319317People will cope, but I agree. The individual stories are usually fine. It's when they try to weave them together into a larger plot that they fuck up. My guess is that their hires are capable writers, but whoever is in charge of lore is bad at communication and/or management and can't coordinate or plan to create a good long term plot line. Or maybe it's the higher level execs who force them to do certain things for sales and other considerations outside of narrative, who knows.
>>94319347>>94319383but what about inverse-compleated darksteel sliver-tezzeret?
>>94319406I think Kelman got fired a few years ago didn't he? Someone is being a retard there at least.
>>94319406>>94319411>>94319317They never should have taken doug off of the story, he was at least competent.
>>94315617Nice Steve Smith reference there, King.
>>94319394Absolutely agree. Even if they have a concrete idea for what the faces look like, they should've saved it for a reveal in a story. Even better would be never revealing it. Even better than that would be revealing it and it turns out their faces are completely normal.
>>94319414Doug was one of the primary people in charge of making Alara which has my respect.
>>94316620Basedfacing, as we speak.
>>94319406I think it largely comes down to writers not being able to work together all that well so, for example, Kellan, he'll be set up as one character type in his first outing in WOE, and the gist of his character was probably something told to each author in the little Kellan arc, such as it was, but the specifics of what he's like weren't carried over because the writer for LCI didn't read the WOE story (because they weren't allowed to), and the MKM writer didn't read the LCI story and the OTJ writer didn't read the MKM story. Occasionally they do some very obviously last-minute things like inserting Amalia into OTJ's story at the end after LCI's story had her be a friend of Kellan's going with him (which was something the author did, not a planned thing), but you can tell how jarring it is to suddenly have her just not matter, for example.Add on to all that the ridiculously constrained amount they're made to write in, while still hitting all the requisite plot beats that they're told to, as created by the in-house story team, and you get high-quality writing in service of a very disjointed-feeling plot. It's why the side stories are so often much more interesting because they're a lot less beholden to external demands. The OTJ epilogues weren't a side story but were also really good for similar reasons, there was way less needed to be 'done' for those (show how Jace and Vraska survived, detail them getting Loot and imply nefarious stuff). Like, apparently, the idea of Jace taking them to his mom to get healed was entirely something the author came up with (and the story team were like "Oh fuck how did we not think of that") but it flows very well because it's given room for follow-up and finishing. Even if we don't see Ranna for a while, it feels like the author did what was needed for her, etc.
>>94319441That was way ramblier than I intended it to be but suffice to say: The story team either doesn't or can't do enough to make sure each hired author understands how to connect to the prior set story author's work.
>>94319453I mean it's accurate, the story is always the last thing that gets written, because the cards have to be set in stone for like a year.Story is usually written like within a week of it coming out.There was also the really funny occurence where they had the "big reveal" that niv mizzet was alive...despite no one knowing he was dead, because every card that referenced him being dead had been removed from the set and the story that was SUPPOSED to come out before the set ended up coming out like, 9 months later.
>>94319383that WOULD be true, except for compleat teferi's ultimate trump card:BOLAS! due to time fuckery in the Hyperbolic Meditation Chamber his power is MAXIMUM!
>>94319462To my understanding the story is written a good few months before the set's released. For example, Alison Luhrs wrote the Vraska side-story for MOM before she left WotC and she left late 2022 (September I wanna say), and that story released in March 2023.
>>94319441>the writer for LCI didn't read the WOE story (because they weren't allowed to)>which was something the author did, not a planned thing>Like, apparently, the idea of Jace taking them to his mom to get healed was entirely something the author came up withYeah, that's exactly what I mean. The writers seem to be competent enough and they have good ideas, but when you make them work blind there's only so much they can do. Sometimes a writer might have great idea and take the story in one direction, but another writer has their own great idea and tries to take the story in another direction. The issue isn't that one is better or worse than the other, it's that they're going for different goals, and that rarely works out. Everything I see indicates that it's a communication issue, and that responsibility is on management.
>>94319484Well, I would not be surprised if the story team gets relatively minimal budget, because... Higher-ups don't see any purpose for it. It's not selling anything, at best it's tangentially considered marketing.
>>94319486A good story though, can sell you anything
>>94319486It was (going) to be another small revenue stream but then they had the stupidest idea ever to hire Kelman and Weissman and burned any possible goodwill they had towards the story immediately.>>94319489Which is, again, unfortunately, why the game is fortnite now.You think little kids got into the pokemon and yugioh tcg because of its mechanics?
>>94319495You know, idk. I've never played those games so I don't have a clue about them. I'll assume no?
>>94319495Is Weisman, like, actually a bad writer? I know so little about his other work, I just know he did Gargoyles (or at least some of it?) and some Marvel writing or whatever. And I wonder if it's just that they handed a big finale story to a writer completely unfamiliar with the characters involved and all the moving parts, but then you've got, like, the Magic comics by Boom which, while not the best comics out there, are very charmingly done and were written by Jed MacKay who basically played Magic a few times in the 90s to my understanding, but he wrote some real good stuff, gave Ral, Vraska and Kaya a good friendship dynamic, etc. Maybe it's just Weisman was more constrained or maybe he's genuinely just not a good writer, I dunno.
>>94319486Higher ups are retarded, more news at 9. Yugioh and Pokemon became what they are today because of their shows, people fucking love good stories. Hell, 40k is managed like shit but it still gets people lining up to pay hundreds for pieces of plastic because they like HFY or slutty space elves or murder demons or whatever.
Hey. just posting the pastebin for my custom set right now. It's the one based on cartoons. https://pastebin.com/wqBZkEW3 this document outlines the theorised Draft Archetypes. https://pastebin.com/u/MTG_InktropolisSet This link is for the major outlines and the Signpost legendaries for every color pair.I'm working on 3 planeswalkers, 3-ish desparked planeswalkers, some mythics, and possible a "Commander set"
>>9431950440k is often something people point to when talking about Magic story and going "why don't we have that" and I think 40k is just a REALLY weird exception to be honest. YGO and Pokemon were animes first (well Pokemon was a video game first but still), they had clearer on-ramps to get into the card games from. Magic hasn't ever really had anything to pull external audiences in, and books alone can't really do that. Maybe the Netflix show will do that. I dunno. It could be good. It could be bad. It could just not fucking exist again. Apparently the showrunner did the one good season of the Picard show, so that's a plus?
>>94319441>>94319453>>94319477>>94319484Its also of note that the person who wrote the OTJ Epilogue was Alison Luhrs who was a part of the offical and close knit MTG story team for most of the Gatewatch arc but got burned out after having to most all of Ixalan's story herself at a death march pace (Also widely considered to be the best storyline in the entire Gatewatch Arc) and stepped mostly away to write for Destiny.If anyone is going to know the Intricacies of Jace and Vraska its going to be her.
>>94318333Alesha is tranny and the webstories were overtly progressive. So yes it was a culturally consulted mess just not in the same way.
>>94319501As the other anon just said, pokemon and yugioh were made because of their anime (the yugioh card game is literally a spinoff of the manga, if you didn't know)Hell while some people DO actually play pokemon, the actual tcg is much more of a collector's thing than an actual game. "Oh here's some cute art of my favorite pokemon", "Here's charizard #923", few people care about the actual mechanics of the cards.Yugioh is mostly just people with nostalgia for it or otherwise just "card game that isn't mtg".>>94319518>Magic hasn't ever really had anything to pull external audiences in, and books alone can't really do that.tell that to 40k, they've got fucking dozens and dozens of extensive autistic lore books going into details about their thingsare they all great? probably not, but I know way more people that care about the lore/story of 40k then buying a bunch of figurines and bringing them to an lgsthere's also video games, 40k is now a major name in gaming whereas mtg has...that diablo game that died in a few days?
>>94319518Well, tell a lie I suppose, because one thing that HAS pulled external audiences in is Universes Beyond. The most anecdotal thing I can see is that Final Fantasy video they showed off got SO many people going "oh fuck I gotta play Magic now I guess" just because Emet-Selch was in it. UB unfortunately works VERY well as advertising for Magic, even if only a fraction of people stick around.
>>94319533>and stepped mostly away to write for Destiny.man she just keeps getting the short end of the stick huh
>>94319534okay, shut the fuck up.
>>94319503The Wiseman situation comes mostly down to him not knowing the material during the climax, the abrupt transition back to novels for the climax killing the momentum gained from having the story be free, and making Chandra go "no homo" and pissing off the tumblr and redditors.
>>94319535Again, I think 40k is just a VERY weird exception. It almost sort of created and then subsequently carved out a space in its own sub-genre. It doesn't help that Magic's sets are so varied in tone and genre, whereas 40k, while you do get variance, they're all set in the same setting and feel broadly connected. Magic's main connective tissue are characters, and people can really like characters, but it's hard to sell people on a character alone. 40k's got a real good sell for its setting with the tagline alone. How do you sell Magic as a setting? The IDEA of the Multiverse is intriguing, but it doesn't really grip people until you see something done well with it.
>>94319518Its been said in other threads but Wizards hoarding of the Magic IP meant that they never got their Dawn of War or Space Marine, built on top of the remains of dozens of other licensed out failed projects.
>>94319538I haven't heard anything about Destiny's story because it's just not in my sphere at all but I feel like I'd have heard if people started to hate it at least so she's probably doing fine there?
>>94319503I haven't read any of his other stuff but even ignoring all of the random shit twitter got upset over the book itself is also just really, really badly written.There's also the bold-faced lie they had him give of "Yea I know these characters" which dropped immediately when they threw him under the bus (to be honest they probably both deserve being under the bus)
>>94319503>Is Weisman, like, actually a bad writer? These days? Yes, absolutely. He's legitimately massively autistic, and crafts every speck of dust in any universe he writes, he has a great mind for worldbuilding, but his actual writing and plotting leaves a lot to be desired. Gargoyles was a weird outlier that, because it died early, ended before he could introduce a million more elements and plot twists and overcomplicate everything
>>94319553It is strange how little they've tried to make Magic video games or anything. Like... The Diablo-esque one was just meh. I think an MMO could work, but I honestly think they need to stop making the games so card-y. Just say fuck it and make it its own thing using Magic's settings and broad magic mechanics and whatnot.
>>94319559I'm somewhat unfortunately friends with a bunch of people who play destiny and they've been doomposting harder than we have for several months or longer now.Game's not looking good and they've fired like half the company or something and renamed it from Bungie to Sony Game Studios or some nonsense.
>>94319559Its more the Bungie has been collapsing in on itself and doing mass layoffs while its CEO buys vintage cars.
>>94319568>>94319570Oh, right, that part. I mean, is WotC that better off?
>>94319576I think wotc (or at least someone in hasbro corporate) told the bg3 people to fuck off which was absolutely their most successful game ever, but I don't think they've fired half the company so, probably.
>>94319565Its part of the viscous cycle of lack of faith in their own IP. Wizards conception of Magic's setting is so dependent on the Mechanics of MTG that its the reason they are favoring UB these days, Magic as a system and be wrapped around any IP.
>>94319579Apparently Alison Luhrs was the Creative Lead on the WotC side of things for BG3, even. Lady really went out of the frying pan and into the fire, huh.
>>94319533>>94319538>>94319586Holy Fuck she cannot catch a break.
>>94319579>I think wotc (or at least someone in hasbro corporate) told the bg3 people to fuck offThey did this because Larian didn't want to budge on some things. Knowing WotC, they probably wanted something really annoying or bad narratively or exploitive attempts to squeeze more money out of players somehow
>>94319592I THINK she quit WotC instead of being fired, but yeah.
>>94319600At least she is willing to come back and do writing work for Jace.
>>94319467>Bolas was a hero just like Broly the whole timeStill no idea why dudes called him evil when all he does is give presents and let people have it their way.
>>94319586lmao, being a writer is sufferinghope she finds something good that lasts a while
>>94319550>but it's hard to sell people on a character aloneYeah, and even if you could, was there ever a character in MTG that could hard carry the whole multiverse shitshow? Seems like the game has always tried to establish a cast of not-Marvel-superheroes and failed miserably at that, from the Titans to the Jacetice League. Imagine trying to tell your high school friends all about how cool this "Oor-zuh" guy is when they're jacking off to the God-Emperor and his Space Marines.
>>94319602She's basically openly been asking to do writing for Magic whenever, to my understanding (she'd really like to write Yahenni again, even though Yahenni's long-dead). She does LIKE writing for Magic, I just think she didn't like working at Wizards.I think that's actually something that recent writers are better at, they seem to at least care for who they're writing. Seanan MacGuire cares about Nahiri and Tyvar, for example, Valerie Valdes cares about Amalia, etc.Honestly, that's been true for a while, it does feel like the authors generally do 'care'. The last time it felt like the author didn't care was Zendikar Rising and that's a story where literally nothing of consequence happens at all, so hey.
You guys think I could write for Wizards
>>94319617Honestly the best outcome would be to keep the sets stories coming as usual but to let Alison write a proper novel depicting Jace and Vraska's adventures in the background as a lead up to the climax of their arc.But that's a massive pipe dream.
>>94319613Even though the titans were not too far off from their own superfriends league of wonder they were significantly better written than anyone in the jacetice league
>>94319629Are you good at navigating modern PR and can you write a competently put together story about whatever magic setting your given while also giving a shit, under a strict deadline.
>>94319613It's why they're clearly going for what seems to be an ensemble cast for the Netflix show at least, which is a good call. What little we know of it is Chandra, Ajani and, as the showrunner revealed recently, Jace too, and probably others besides (could just straight-up be the Lorwyn 5 but I'm not getting my hopes up for Garruk). And, like, enfranchised players and Vorthos-types DO have their favourites. I like Jace quite a lot, for example, and I've surprisingly turned around a fair bit on Kaya as of MKM's story. Chandra I still find it hard to care about, but hey, other people love her I'm sure.One single character cannot carry all of Magic's setting. Maybe Bolas could come close, he's definitely got a lot of villain panache, but a good number of people don't want to root for villains, unsurprisingly, so he'd be a decent draw, but not much else. Ajani draws in the furry crowd and those who like calm fatherly wise mentor-types, Chandra draws in those who like shonen protagonists, Jace draws in the introverts, etc.I hope the show at least EXISTS, though, because goddamn how long has it been in the making?
>>94319636>Are you good at navigating modern PRGranted I haven't looked at the bylines of stories in a while but can't you mostly just be a no-show? I couldn't tell you who wrote any of the stories in the past few years besides allison came back for that one story with jace/vraskaDoug still doesn't write anything, does he?
>>94319641Sorry not PR, I meant HR and HR adjacent culture.
>>94319645Wouldn't that be even less of an issue? It's not like most of these people are in wotc HQ.
>>94319647True but due to where we are I need to ask, can you resist calling a character a tranny when interaction with other employees.
>>94319641They've generally had main stories for each set all done by one author and side-stories usually done by a handful of others (though Duskmourn had them all by the same as the main author because I guess they realised they had a good thing going with her).Also, no, Doug doesn't do stories anymore. Last he did was one in Amonkhet, I think, and that was with Alison Luhrs.Also I'm pretty sure you have to be an established author for WotC to wanna hire you at this point.
>>94319636>Are you good at navigating modern PR Yes actually>and can you write a competently put together story about whatever magic setting your givenProbably not I've never written anything>while also giving a shit, under a strict deadline.I can finish things under a strict deadline with flying colors
>>94319629Doubt they'll take someone with no writing experience or past works out there.
>>94319664idk look at how the current story is going and tell me that.
>>94319539Autumn we never forgot those s&m pics.
>>94319664Just reminds me of them burning the bridge with Brandon Sanderson, though he's apparently been in talks with them to do some sort of Cosmere 'thing' with Magic, though according to him they basically said "sorry, we're kind of full up with Marvel and all that for now, but we're definitely interested".
Magic's lore could use a hard reset. Start with the base concepts and work your way up from there. Players are planeswalkers, spells are cast using mana from leylines, each plane has leylines, what are planes anyways? Does each plane contain just one planet? A solar system? An entire universe? Maybe less than a planet? (as it often seems.) Maybe it varies? Hell is supposed to be a plane right? Why do so many planes have humans on them? Should different planes share species between them? What if all goblins originated from one plane, but they were gradually spread around by planeswalkers summoning them on other planes? Maybe the same thing happened with humans, elves, and merfolk at some point?
>>94319670>though he's apparently been in talks with them to do some sort of Cosmere 'thing' with Magic,really? any source on that or jus whispers
>>94319678I can't remember exactly, I think he talked about it on some podcast or whatever, and he basically said "yeah I have talked to some people at Wizards and they were totally open to doing some kind of Cosmere Universes Beyond thing, but they were already full up with Marvel and Final Fantasy and everything so it was put on hold".
>>94319676most planes are assumed to have full worlds (and at least a solar system, given sun/moon) unless explicitly stated otherwisetheros, for example, is a literal flat earth held up by not-atlas and Nyx isn't really space it's just like, sort of high up and ethereal, like in greek mythosAs someone earlier mentioned, Innistrad is only one of like four(?) I think major continents on the planet and we've heard almost nothing from the othersNew Capenna is a post-apocalyptic world that got ravaged by old phyrexia but halo drove them out or something
>>94319676>Why do so many planes have humans on them? Should different planes share species between them?This is loosely answered by the existence of Avatars such as Arahbo and the Ur-Dragon. Many creatures in Magic have a sort of "quintessential" version of that creature that exists in the Multiverse itself. The Ur-Dragon and presumably Arahbo and others like them are basically responsible for the originations of many recurring species throughout the Multiverse. The first dragons on any plane were created by the Ur-Dragon or a descendant thereof, same for the first cats and Arahbo, etc.
>>94319694>All cats in the multiverse trace their lineage back to him>Would lose a 1v1 against Fleecemane Lion
>>94319701OG Arahbo is a lot more 'yeah this is a big fucking cat'. P/T scaling has always been fucked though, so.
>>94319668Again, I'm of the opinion the actual writers are fine. It's their managers who are shit at their job.
>>94319694Who's the quintessential human, then?
What set was worse? Murders at Karlov Manor or Duskmourn?
>>94319190Emrakul wasn't mentioned because players hated the Eldrazi and didn't want cosmic horror in the gothic horror plane. Players feedback is why the clans are returning to Tarkir.
>>94319717me
>>94319717Saitama
What card does the enemy play that makes you do this?
>>94319718MKM, without question.
>>94319728What was in this set that made it bad compared to all the other sets this year?
>>94319727SheoldredThe One RingBlowmastersThat stupid fucking counter your spell I flip a coin to see if I cast it card
>>94319720players hated bfz, not the eldrazithe eldrazi being a major part of both bfz AND shadows is why they came back, but nosewater is a retarded faggot
>>94319717I mean there presumably is one (or maybe one just for broadly all sentient beings), but we've never seen them and likely never will.That said, clearly it's Autumn Willow for no reason.
>>94319535Than you for the explaining, anon
>>94319732A general over-use of tropeyness while simultaneously not feeling like it actually cared about the genre it was pulling from, along with just a relatively mediocre set of cards and mechanics. Duskmourn had some good worldbuilding and story-telling, even if it was also just thrown full of tropes and references (not quite to the same extent at least) and it had good mechanics and a good limited environment.
>>94319717Tom Bombadil
>>94319602No, pls and ty
So far for Duskmourn, most unique deck I've seen someone built is with Twitching Doll and pic related.
>>94319746but he's not a human
>>94319669Huh....
>>94319744mkm's story (not the detective bullshit the actual story) was pretty nice and even somewhat undid the mass flanderization that ravnica has gone through
>>94319762Humans are made in God's image
>>94319768I wish
>>94319746Based
>>94319762He should have been Avatar or Spirit.
>>94319762so is there anything in the silmarillion or adventures of tom bombadil that explain why he would be 5c instead of mono green
>>94319767Oh, I agree, I liked MKM's story a lot too (same author as Duskmourn in fact), Proft was a surprising hit for me, but it's a story surrounded by a set that feels like it's mocking the genre of its own story. As cheap as some of DSK's references feel, they at least feel like they're done with a bit of love for the genre.
>>94319717my headcanon is picrel
>>94319778He should've just been a Bard and nothing else.
Ok wtf have I missed since the Baldur's Gate letdown, it seems everything is fucked rn
>>94319781Not really
>>94319772It's still fucking weird that they confirmed multiple times the the golden masks weren't their faces and were were just weird hypno helmets he put on all the godsbut we have never once seen hazoret without the helmet, even though bolas is long dead
>>94319781His forest of faggotry requires all colors
>>94319694So how exactly does Arahbo spread cats to other planes? Are they literal descendants of Arahbo? Can Arahbo planeswalk? Or do powerful planeswalkers summon Arahbo to planes occasionally, inadvertently causing cats to become a thing that exists on that plane? Or does the presence of Arahbo on one plane simply cause cats to exist on other nearby planes?>>94319707This art does a much better job at making him look like a primordial god of cats rather than just a big cat. Speaking of which I much prefer the "avatar" type over the "god" type, it implies that the being is too powerful to actually be summoned, so the most any planeswalker can muster is an avatar of it. Theros gods were a mistake.
>>94319781most non-descript and powerful beings get hit with the "eh fuck it they're WUBRG"like child of alar
>>94319762Lame
>>94319787Wizards increased UB to half of the 6 standard sets we are getting per year now.
>>94319802>So how exactly does Arahbo spread cats to other planes? Are they literal descendants of Arahbo? Can Arahbo planeswalk? Or do powerful planeswalkers summon Arahbo to planes occasionally, inadvertently causing cats to become a thing that exists on that plane? Or does the presence of Arahbo on one plane simply cause cats to exist on other nearby planes?In the bolas backstory it's said (I think, not 100% sure) that the ur-dragon kind of hangs out inbetween the plane and the blind eternities and it drops off eggs at some intervalI would assume most of the random progenitor creatures do something similar, if not literally than in some similar presence
>>94319798Gee, maybe if they had writers that actually knew the characters, they'd remember to take her mask off, and a million other retarded loopholes that pop up when you INSIST on hiring writers that DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE STORY
>>94319805I ain't even mad about that and not sure why I would be
>>94319802>So how exactly does Arahbo spread cats to other planes? Are they literal descendants of Arahbo? Can Arahbo planeswalk? Or do powerful planeswalkers summon Arahbo to planes occasionally, inadvertently causing cats to become a thing that exists on that plane? Or does the presence of Arahbo on one plane simply cause cats to exist on other nearby planes?There's no actual real concrete story there, but going by what we know of the Ur-Dragon and how it led to the creation of Dominaria's Elder Dragons, we can presume he's not planebound and he basically spawns other cats from his essence as he travels. Probably he travels differently from the Ur-Dragon who literally flies across the Blind Eternities, so the propagation methods are likely different (for the Ur-Dragon, the Elder Dragon eggs fell from its wings for example), but it's likely largely similar.
>>94319798>were just weird hypno helmets he put on all the godshaha imagine having a mind controlled dog girl who would keep putting herself under your spell even after you're gone... wouldn't that be funny?
>>94319802If the M19 Elder Dragon stories are anything to go by then an Avatar travels through the Blind Eternities and in the process leaves behind beings like itself on planes it comes near.Most Planes come from the big Kaldhime World Tree, and eventually mature enough and break away to be their own things like fruit.The only exceptions are the artificial planes built by Oldwalkers by manipulating Mana and Lorwyn which was made by whatever godlike entity The Overbeing of Myth is the Avatar of.
>>94319825Trust me when I say I'm probably the biggest degenerate hypnoslut in this general if not this board.But even then it's fucking retarded they haven't talked about (or the thousand other lore inconsistencies like that other guy said).
>>94319828>Most Planes come from the big Kaldhime World Tree, and eventually mature enough and break away to be their own things like fruit.Huh? I don't remember them saying that, the realms of the world tree are similar to planes but are definitely not the same thing
>>94319828>Most Planes come from the big Kaldhime World TreeThis part is less clear. Jace said he saw that when he looked into Loot's mind, but that seemed to be more of a conceptualisation of it, not them literally coming from the actual World Tree on Kaldheim. There's likely some Multiversal mechanism that creates new planes in a similar way, though.
>>94319814People are mad about wizards eitherGoing even more souless corpo slop machineAre mad because it represents the continued cucking of Magics own storyBecause combined with the extended rotation standard it going to have over 3000 card in it at any give time and each set is only going to have like 2 months before a new one comes out.
>>94319798Where was this confirmed? I don't remember that ever being a thing. That seems to just be their heads.
>>94319832No, Kaldheim's 10 realms are actually just distinct planes connected by the World Tree.
>>94319844But more cards=good, right? I don't follow
>>94319848>Where was this confirmed? I don't remember that ever being a thing. That seems to just be their heads.where the hell were you during HOUdid you never wonder why bontu didn't have a hypno helmet?Or that she was pissed that she would be turned into a zombie like the rest?Or that she was the only one who actually knew bolas was evil (because she was willingly working for him because evil)?I can fo and find a direct source for you if you want, but it was incredibly explicit.
>>94319812So maybe the true forms of ur-creatures are somewhat close to eldrazi, godlike beings that exist between planes and influence them, and the creature versions of them are just their avatars, as implied by having the avatar type? And I guess they can also create even smaller versions of themselves, which aren't avatars, but just normal cats? (or dragons etc)>>94319828I guess we came to a similar conclusion.
>>94319863I saw no such thing in the story, they were just mind-controlled by Bolas corrupting the leylines of the plane.
>>94319854>>94319828where was the world tree ever important past its mcguffin usage for the phyrexians
>>94319860Wizards can been continually amping up its production to the point where More Cards=Product Fatigue.Its not just standard its also, 4-6 Commander decks for each set release, Remastered versions of previous popular sets, and direct to modern releases.Its so much that there is no time to savor the shit were getting and even the most massive whales I know are getting sick of it.Like people used to be hyped for Spoiler Season because it let them analyze and build anticipation for new cards, now Spoiler Season is basically a constant thing with a week or two break so nobody cares.
>>94319868I literally just showed you the two cards that show bontu without her hypno helmet...because she wasn't mind controlled.She was working with bolas from the start, she was effectively tezzeret.>The voice caught the dragon's attention and took Hazoret completely by surprise. Bontu strode forward and knelt in supplication to the God-Pharaoh. Hazoret clutched her head, trying to shake clear her thoughts. The name Bontu had uttered—Nicol Bolas—had sent another searing pain through Hazoret's head, and she was now certain: some magic was suppressing her memories.>"I have served faithfully in your absence, oh God-Pharaoh." Bontu's rasping voice cut through the din. "I have harvested only the most ambitious and powerful to be your worthy dead. I have culled dissenters from all the crops, ridding Naktamun of those who would derail your work. And I have maintained the threads you wove into the fabric of my siblings." Bontu bowed her head low. "I am yours, Nicol Bolas. I live to serve. Speak, and I shall do.">As Bontu spoke, Hazoret's hands clutched her spear harder and harder. Finally, she could take no more.>"Sister!" she cried. "What are you talking about?">Dragon and god turned to look at her, and for the first time in her existence, Hazoret felt small.>The God-Pharaoh turned his gaze back to Bontu and spoke.>"Kill your sister.">Without hesitation, Bontu raised her hand and sent a dark blast of energy at Hazoret.All the other gods were hypno'd, including hazoret, which is why the name of balls fucks with her memory. Bontu was serving for her own personal gain, hence no hypno helmet.Did you even read any of the story?
>>94319869>>94319832>>94319833>>94319854
My theory on the future sets plotline.Aetherdrift: While the race is going on people realise many dragons are infiltrating the planes all coming from Tarkir.Tarkir: The conclusions of the Dragonstorm arc and the beginning of the Fomori arc.Edge of Eternity: We meet the space empires at war with the Fomori.Lorwyn: Since the Fomori are are Giants in Irish mythology the Fomori either colonized Lorwyn in the past or will fight the inhabitants.Return to Arcavios: Kasmina is preparing for the war against the Fomori and reveals they control multiple planes which they will use to control the multiverse. Zimone will become a planeswalker and Valgavoth, the Mycotyrant, & Niv-Mizzet will join the war in a free.-for-all.Next Set: There will be a war in Thunder Junction since there is nothing there. This will lead Kaladesh and Innistrad to also join the war.
>>94319881>[...] so nobody cares. I can't be bothered to keep up with but I cherry pick my cards, anyway. I didn't know customer fatigue was happening
>>94319887so the world tree has nothing to do with it, as I saidstarnheim and co are explicitly not planes that exist within the plane of kaldehimthey even say this during the set and later when they talk about its usage to make the realmbreaker
>>94319891If only it would be this cohesive
>>94319854They're specifically not, it's kind of an Alara situation.
>>94319898>"It's … It's the entire Multiverse. I can see every plane as a point of light, and within each point, more in turn where those connect with other places … They're Omenpaths. Vraska, it's in real time. I can see planes being born from the World Tree, planes dissolving into black holes of aether. It's the way to get from every point to every point. Vraska … you can use this to travel the Multiverse again."https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/magic-story/epilogue-2-bring-the-end-part-2
>>94319895*I can't be bothered to keep up it with it allFuck, sorry
>>94319906>>94319833
>>94319914>He can feel her tense. "It maps the end point of every Omenpath?">"Every one." He squeezes her hand with his free one. He shivers.>"What is it like?" Vraska asks.>A soft and delicate smile breaches his face. He huffs a laugh and doesn't bother to hide his veneration. When he replies, his gaze almost looks through her. "It's like looking at eternity."Buddy that's a fucking cope it says what it is plain as day Vraska asking him what it feels like is a separate question from him describing the map in Loot's head.
>>94319891How will Spiderman and Spongebob fit into all this
>>94319891I have a feeling that our current writers will completely forget that we already have two cards and a token that depict fomori. Their current depiction as some ancient technologically advanced race already clashes with their established mechanical identity as big stompy creatures that are either vanilla or have downsides that make them hard to control. (The token is created by Pact of the Titan.)
>>94319923I'm just telling you don't get upset when your retarded theory gets ignored in 5 years.
>>94319947Sure, they already retconned Tarkir back in M19, so minor changes like that happen in magic. But until that I have it written in text.
>>94319941I think the goto for that is that their big civ went into decline and all that was left post-coin empire were those formori.but who knows
>>94319924Spiderman set - standard legal but non-canon.Final Fantasy set - ditto.Spongebob secret lair - entirely non-serious silver-bordered cards that aren't legal anywhere, like the MLP cards. You can untap spongebob by saying "i'm ready."(hopefully)
>>94319868Oketra, Kefnet, Hazoret, and Rhonas were mind controlled and had their hypno helmets put onBontu just swore up proactively because they're black so they're evilThe Locust God and The Scarab God were also apparently some other older gods that were once a part of the amonkhet pantheon but Bolas super-corrupted them into what they are now instead of whatever they were originally.
>>94319968If only
>>94319961I don't even mind the idea of intelligent nomadic giants that used to have a technologically advanced civilization. Could be cool if executed well. (They will not execute it well.)
>>94319968Anon...
>>94320006The godzilla treatment is even worse. If Spongebob is going to be standard legal the typeline should at least say "sponge," not "human wizard."
>>94320016Is this better?Also its Jumpstart so its not standard legal
>>94320023>Starfishthat's obviously patrick
>>94320023That is absolutely, 100% better
>>94319924Instead of answering your post lets discuss Kaldheim races.6 of the realms types are split into two races.The Valkyrie are split into White Shepherds that lead the dead into Starheim and Black Reapers which guide the dead into Istfell.The Giants are split into the Blue Frost Giants and the Red Fire Giants that are at war with each other. There is a third extinct giant type in Gnottvold possibly the Fomori.The Elves are split into the Shadow Elves and Wood Elves that were at war with each other until Tyvar's brother united the clans.The Shapeshifter are split into the Gladewalkers and the Covewalkers.The Trolls such as yourself are split into the Hagi Trolls and the Torga Trolls. The Hagi trolls like to harass th Torga trolls so which one are you?The only Kaldheim races not on Lorwyn are the humans, zombies, and demons. All black creatures.
>>94320024No I'm Patrick
>>94320026Hagi, ofc
Man the Sunday Night lore thread had a lot of traction.
>>94320026>The only Kaldheim races not on Lorwyn are the humans, zombies, and demons. All black creatures.did you forget the kithkinand the elementalsand the faeand the treefolkand most of the races on lorwyn
>>94320023For Patrick, marginally. I'd still prefer if it wasn't a wizard.>the Jumpstart spinoff set isn't standard legalSucks for new players getting introduced to the game via jumpstart.
>>94320076it really doesn'tstandard is a dead format at this point
>>94320058>The only Kaldheim races not on Lorwynnot>The only Lorwyn races not on KaldheimThese are two logically distinct statements. Kithkin, elementals, fae, and treefolk are not Kaldheim races. Therefore they cannot be "Kaldheim races on Lorwyn," nor can they be "Kaldheim races not on lorwyn." Visualize a Venn diagram, where "Kaldheim race" is one circle and "not on Lorwyn" is the other circle. They aren't in either circle, they're outside the diagram. Dumbass. Learn basic logic.
>>94319828If overbeing made lorwyn are the other lorwyn avatars just jobbers then?
>>94320099suck my cock nigger i read your post wrong
>>94320113Well, I imagine that the Demigod of Revenge is like a demigod of revenge or something.
>>94320113Myth (G/U) made the Plane and Observes Revenge (R/B) Was a spiteful shithead who was so mad he couldn't make other suffer he tore himself apart and when regenerated become two of himself. He then repeated the process to make a hole in the sky bigger and let darkness in. Myth was fine with this because it made her observation more interesting.Calamity (R/G) Is the slumbering bringer of Ruin who upon his awakening will raze all people to the ground and when done will go back to sleep, let the world recover and do it all again.Scars (G/B) Was a Alpha Wolf who was so mad at dying when he still wanted to live that another unnamed being transformed him into the being which gives creatures the will to strive on and survive at any cost.War (W/R) Just fucking loves war and wants to fight all day every day in whatever big army he choses that time and in turn spurs on war.Fealty (U/R) A greedy monster that is the cause for beings on the plane to distrust each otherFugu (U/B) An asshole who takes pleasure in ending lifeAwe (W/U) A outside observer who is fascinated by the world for reasons known only to her and is embodied by her eye which is also The Moon. Her gaze in the form of moonlight brings creatures to their knees due to the fact that no part of themselves can hide in the dark.Dusk (W/G) Is the protector of beauty when the plane turns into Shadowmoor and is either protecting or Seeking the Sun. She is also the source of the Shadowmoor Elves power to hope despite how fucked things are.And Pride (W/B) Wishes to inflict the truth of the world onto those who find her and is the Titular Seer from the Parables.
>>94320168where is this lore from? None of these guys have wiki pages.
>>94320184It was on the old magic site and was killed with the server transfer.Luckily a user on the MTG Salvation board copied it downhttps://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-storyline/335515-the-seers-parables
>>94320189welp... another reminder that WotC has ZERO love for their own IPs...
>>94320193All the 3.5e pages that now 404...
If all cards were allowed in Srandard and not banned, what would be the strongest deck? And when I mean all cards, I mean ALL cards that has ever released in MtG.
>>94320262>SrandardStandard*
>>94320262So, vintage but without banned and restricted AND with silver-bordered cards? Can't really analyze it because of ante and skill-based cards.
>>94320262Probably something like Flash Hulk or Belcher where every deck looks something like this4 Black Lotus4 Ancestral Recall4 Mental Misstep4 Goblin Charbelcher4 of each Mox4 Leyline of Anticipation4 Simian Spirit Guide4 Elvish Spirit Guide4 Borne Upon a Wind4 Manamorphose4 Force of WillMaybe 4 Dark Ritual replacing something, I'm not sure
>>94320439>>94320439>>94320439
>>94319718MKM easily. DSK is at least a solid set from a gameplay side with a pretty good limited environment and is also its own thing rather than shitting up a previously established plane
>>94318187what! real shit? HOW
>>94316213>>94316222>>94316275Star Wars cards will be like those promo transformers insert "shattered glass" cards we had in Dominaria United alongside a secret lair series with uniquely designed cards.
>>94319891I'm reasonably certain the finale set will take place on Vryn or the Fomori home-plane, personally.
>>94320016Spongebob is more likely to get a Rocco reskin if anybody, anyway.
>>94319717Richard Garfield
