Magic The Gathering

[macrodegenerate]

oh wow, did you not see his video on the War of the Spark book? Take a drink every time he says "words matter."

I had an audio book of war of the spark. Not even Nicol Bolas empowered with the elder spell, had the power to produce such cringe.

You know it's bad when wizards has to retcon the whole novel in one of their free story articles.

 

[Polock]

I had an audio book of war of the spark. Not even Nicol Bolas empowered with the elder spell, had the power to produce such cringe.

You know it's bad when wizards has to retcon the whole novel in one of their free story articles.

I played MtG as a kid from like Onslaught to 8th edition. After taking a long break, I came back during the Return to Return to Ravnica block. War of the Spark was the first new set that was going to be released while I was re-learning everything.

"Oh boy! A Magic the Gathering(tm) book! I'll be able to immerse myself in the lore, I remember the lore being really interesting and the books were pretty good back in the day!"

So I bought the audiobook, because it is the superior way to consume casual reading material.

I've used Audible for years. I've literally never refunded a purchase until that day. What a fucking piece of shit.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

Old magic lore - and books - were offshoots of more 'classic' fantasy and sci-fi, and so they have those trademarks: weird names, tons of characters, attention to autistic levels of detail about plot-irrelevant points that nevertheless build out the world.

New magic lore - and books - are offshoots of Marvel. It's just Marvel shit. It's influenced primarily by pop-culture. They're shallow, boring, vapid, and suck all of the life out of earlier iterations of the plane. Everything revolves around the most boring fucking cast of characters possible, and what efforts at worldbuilding exist are primarily just flanderizations of either the inspiration or earlier visits to the plane.

Brother's War is like the sole exception to this, and the only reason I can think as to why that happened was that the gist of the story itself had almost nothing to do with the fucking capeshit superhero gang. Who likes these fucking characters?

 

[TVB]

Old magic lore - and books - were offshoots of more 'classic' fantasy and sci-fi, and so they have those trademarks: weird names, tons of characters, attention to autistic levels of detail about plot-irrelevant points that nevertheless build out the world.

New magic lore - and books - are offshoots of Marvel. It's just Marvel shit. It's influenced primarily by pop-culture. They're shallow, boring, vapid, and suck all of the life out of earlier iterations of the plane. Everything revolves around the most boring fucking cast of characters possible, and what efforts at worldbuilding exist are primarily just flanderizations of either the inspiration or earlier visits to the plane.

Brother's War is like the sole exception to this, and the only reason I can think as to why that happened was that the gist of the story itself had almost nothing to do with the fucking capeshit superhero gang. Who likes these fucking characters?

Everything these days is trying too hard to ape the success of capeshit to stay the IP alive. Either try something original while offering fans what the franchise used to mean, or just throw away the towel.

 

[Noebel]

I played MtG as a kid from like Onslaught to 8th edition. After taking a long break, I came back during the Return to Return to Ravnica block. War of the Spark was the first new set that was going to be released while I was re-learning everything.

"Oh boy! A Magic the Gathering(tm) book! I'll be able to immerse myself in the lore, I remember the lore being really interesting and the books were pretty good back in the day!"

So I bought the audiobook, because it is the superior way to consume casual reading material.

I've used Audible for years. I've literally never refunded a purchase until that day. What a fucking piece of shit.

I think, Brandon Sanderson once wrote an MTG book for free. That one was good. And the Eldraine one was fine.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Old magic lore - and books - were offshoots of more 'classic' fantasy and sci-fi, and so they have those trademarks: weird names, tons of characters, attention to autistic levels of detail about plot-irrelevant points that nevertheless build out the world.

New magic lore - and books - are offshoots of Marvel. It's just Marvel shit. It's influenced primarily by pop-culture. They're shallow, boring, vapid, and suck all of the life out of earlier iterations of the plane. Everything revolves around the most boring fucking cast of characters possible, and what efforts at worldbuilding exist are primarily just flanderizations of either the inspiration or earlier visits to the plane.

Brother's War is like the sole exception to this, and the only reason I can think as to why that happened was that the gist of the story itself had almost nothing to do with the fucking capeshit superhero gang. Who likes these fucking characters?

Hilariously the only good storyline since...uhhh..Theros? RTR was War of the Spark bad and was before Theros...was the first Ixalan Set's story (the Second one was fucking ruined by the end being done by "VOTING" and being absolutely Rigged)

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

Hilariously the only good storyline since...uhhh..Theros? RTR was War of the Spark bad and was before Theros...was the first Ixalan Set's story (the Second one was fucking ruined by the end being done by "VOTING" and being absolutely Rigged)

See, I think the RTR story sucks but the RTR atmosphere on all the guilds and the world was just right. More defined than the original visit while still staying true to their overall theming, drawing a lot from the same polish influences that hit up the nomenclature and the architecture, so-on.

Whereas with Ixalan 1, I like the adventurous attitude of Jace and Vraska goofing around on the search for treasure, but hate the actual plane and theming. Honestly, Tarkir's story was also pretty stupid but again the theming knocked it out of the park - which I really can't say for anything after Khans. I get it, Ikoria is Monster Hunter, but... so? A lot of "I get it, you referenced this thing... but, so?" for me.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

More defined than the original visit while still staying true to their overall theming,

Except the whole thing where they had the Guildpact fall apart offscreen because it wasn't "MAGIC" despite the person who wrote it being a Law Mage...so that they could have their stupid ass race bullshit, and the Retcon that the "majority" of the plane is Guildless..despite the second book explicitly showing that even someone in the most Boondock of Boondock having a guild, and you almost specifically don't want to have a guild to not be in one.

The Lore has always been uneven, Ravnica 1 ended kind of Horribly (not the new Guildpact, but the plot of the third book made no god damn sense), Mirrodin has a metric Ton of issues in the details. The Majority of Onslaught probably doesn't stand up, especially the 3 brother mages coming back.

Honestly if I ever dug them out, I would probably re-read all those books just to see how badly they aged, I think there is a non zero chance of the "It's always been" Meme applying to "The Majority of Magic Lore is badly written"

 

[Flexo]

I had an audio book of war of the spark. Not even Nicol Bolas empowered with the elder spell, had the power to produce such cringe.

You know it's bad when wizards has to retcon the whole novel in one of their free story articles.

SO imagine the cringe when a chief export of cringe has a cringe about it...

Watch it. WATCH. IT.

(the Second one was fucking ruined by the end being done by "VOTING" and being absolutely Rigged)

Wait... what? I totally missed that.

 

[macrodegenerate]

Hilariously the only good storyline since...uhhh..Theros? RTR was War of the Spark bad and was before Theros...was the first Ixalan Set's story (the Second one was fucking ruined by the end being done by "VOTING" and being absolutely Rigged)

I've been playing since Mirrodin Pure and I have never seen rigging like that before.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I've been playing since Mirrodin Pure and I have never seen rigging like that before.

I mean Mirrodin Pure was never going to be a thing, they were just trying to hide the twist, the Ixalan thing was complete rigging because we saw vampires win the twitter poll by a large margin..and the 3 other "winner plots" had the Dinosaurs take over the city anyways.

 

[AnotherPleb]

I mean Mirrodin Pure was never going to be a thing, they were just trying to hide the twist, the Ixalan thing was complete rigging because we saw vampires win the twitter poll by a large margin..and the 3 other "winner plots" had the Dinosaurs take over the city anyways.

They couldn't have those damn evil colonizers win anything. The native planeswalker (who they clearly want to make a lesbian) was from the dino empire and they clearly expected everyone to love the dino aztec empire.

On a side note, they were way too on the nose with the European inserts being literal bloodsucking vampires.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

Except the whole thing where they had the Guildpact fall apart offscreen because it wasn't "MAGIC" despite the person who wrote it being a Law Mage...so that they could have their stupid ass race bullshit, and the Retcon that the "majority" of the plane is Guildless..despite the second book explicitly showing that even someone in the most Boondock of Boondock having a guild, and you almost specifically don't want to have a guild to not be in one.

That's more of the lore and less of the atmosphere, though. I guess what I mean by that is that in original Rav, the Rakdos cult feels primarily like a weird death cult. In RTR there's a bit more focus on this idea of them hosting carnivals and festivals and so-on, but the demon-worshipping death-cult aspect is still there. In Allegiance, the festival-entertainer aspect is essentially all that's left - there's so many more puns, almost every card references a stage, and even the demons are just presented as this part of the festivities.

It feels more and more reductive - like how the simic now all have to have 3 or 4 creature types because it's so epic funny haha, the Izzet are entirely mad scientists and not the plane's utility company, the Selesnya are just coexist hippies and not brainwashing nutzos trying to get everyone on the plane to join in the worldsoul worshipping, so-on.

Honestly if I ever dug them out, I would probably re-read all those books just to see how badly they aged, I think there is a non zero chance of the "It's always been" Meme applying to "The Majority of Magic Lore is badly written"

It's almost certainly the case, but I like how it used to be poorly-written as opposed to how it's currently poorly-written.

Kamigawa's storyline was a confused, weird mess - but I really enjoy it, and the flavor of that block is still absolutely off the charts. Neon Dynasty's story was... a complete fucking snorefest, with your attention locked on the most boring cast of characters doing the most boring things. While they didn't fuck up the aesthetic as much as I expected them to, I'll still take shinto-infused fantasy romp over generic cyberpunk with a japanese flair anyday.

 

[Polock]

there's so many more puns

If I may put my back on, can I complain about the absolutely Borderlands-tier flavor text we've been getting in the last couple of years? No, flavor text doesn't always have to be serious but its nice when the flavor text actually, y'know, contributes to the flavor. You don't have to put retarded goblin jokes on every goblin card. It feels like they had a room of like 3 people riffing over an afternoon or two and they just scooped up whatever mental diarrhea spewed forth.

 

[Retink Retunk]

Brother's War is like the sole exception to this, and the only reason I can think as to why that happened was that the gist of the story itself had almost nothing to do with the fucking capeshit superhero gang. Who likes these fucking characters?

Did they actually write a new story or just reprint the original Brother's War?

That was actually one of the better stories from the old lore, and actually introduced some good concepts about how the good guys can be rather shitty.

SO imagine the cringe when a chief export of cringe has a cringe about it...

Watch it. WATCH. IT.

Why did he shave his head? The dude just looks like a British blob.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

If I may put my back on, can I complain about the absolutely Borderlands-tier flavor text we've been getting in the last couple of years?

Yeah, the problem is less that the shit's jokey and more that the jokes are shitty. They don't really gel or blend with the world or its characters, and just seem waaaaaaacky.

Like, since I was blathering about RTR before, I stumbled across giant growth from it. I feel like this denigration also hits the Un-sets. Unstable was good fun, and I found a lot of designs in there enjoyably stupid. Unfinity... well, gee, I wonder why that product bombed as hard as it did. Could it be because it's not fucking funny and the designs are all yu-gi-oh cards that have less to do with making winks and nods to the mechanics or social interaction as HAAH! CLOWNS FUNNY and the breathtakingly retarded stickers shit.

Did they actually write a new story or just reprint the original Brother's War?

That was actually one of the better stories from the old lore, and actually introduced some good concepts about how the good guys can be rather shitty.

I think they wrote new short-stories about it, but in terms of creating new ideas from whole cloth, I don't think they did. But it captured the old aesthetic. Clunky, weird, alien looking robots that evoke less sleek cyberpunk and more kitschy fantasy, a story without a good guy (just one guy far worse than the others), and the novel mixture of magic and artifice alongside nature's disdain for both. The art series with schematics also looks killer and fits the theme of the set perfectly, which is hard to say about a lot of other art series.

Frankly, the set made me wish they'd go back to two or three-set blocks, because I'd gladly take it being split down the middle rather than fucking New Capenna or Neon Dynasty. Well, or ONE now.

 

[Polock]

I stumbled across giant growth from it.

Yeah that flavor text is a perfect example of decent flavor text. Its a common among commons - everyone has seen this card before. You probably have 50 copies from various sets, so there's no harm in having a bit of fun with the flavor text. The humor is dry, but that goes perfectly with how its related to the Azorious guild. I'm not saying that this is anything special but it all works together nicely.

Then you have something like

Its a mythic, so its supposed to be special. You should have your best, most impactful, or funniest flavor text on these.

What emotion is this supposed to convey? Horror? Black comedy? I can't tell. I'm not a writer (I fucking hated writing and grammar in school) so I probably couldn't do better, but I can tell when I step in horse shit despite the fact I'm not a horse.

It's not even like I cherry picked this card because it was an example of exceptionally bad flavor text. I was just looking at the set in order, and this was the first mythic rare. I skipped over some other gems like

“It would be folly to fight a dragon engine head-on. Let’s hit it from above.”

and

“One down, several thousand more to go.”

By the time I reached the 8th card in the set, I found
1 card without flavor text
4 cards with annoying flavor text
3 cards with unexceptional but inoffensive flavor text

Frankly, the set made me wish they'd go back to two or three-set blocks, because I'd gladly take it being split down the middle rather than fucking New Capenna or Neon Dynasty. Well, or ONE now.

I'd love a return to 3-set blocks, but I'd even settle for the Big Set-Supporting Set style blocks too. I hate jumping from setting to setting.

While I'm really interested in the cards from MAGIC THE GATHERING: INFINITY WAR: ENDGAME: REVENGENCE, I can't wait for us to be done with this lame ass Avengers copypasta.

 

[Flexo]

Like, since I was blathering about RTR before, I stumbled across giant growth from it. I feel like this denigration also hits the Un-sets. Unstable was good fun, and I found a lot of designs in there enjoyably stupid. Unfinity... well, gee, I wonder why that product bombed as hard as it did. Could it be because it's not fucking funny and the designs are all yu-gi-oh cards that have less to do with making winks and nods to the mechanics or social interaction as HAAH! CLOWNS FUNNY and the breathtakingly retarded stickers shit.

Probably doesn't help that they're also flooding the market with standard sets AND it hadn't been that long ago we had an UN set.

I mean if my wallet is getting pinched by... well everything but especially my hobby, and I have to make choices on what to buy, I'm not going to be shelling out $$ for a bunch of joke cards.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

I think standard is in a sort of decent place for once since rotation. I can play something other than aggro decks in Bo1 and still win. Before One I was playing an Izzet Ramp/Control deck that tried to turn the game around with Skitterbeam Battalion and Cityscape Leveler and it was pretty solid but after One I've been on a Rakdos reanimator deck that basically Rakdos midrange with most of the creatures shaved for nuGristlebrand Atraxa and reanimator spells. The amount of grind that deck has is unreal, I keep facing control decks and beating them through hands full of wraths.

My best gamer moment was facing an azorious toxic control deck and discarding their hullbreak horror, reanimating it, and then exiling their elspeth while bouncing three samurai tokens to their hand with the triggers from spells.

Best MtG:A moment was when I faced a boros reanimator deck and reanimated their Atraxa while they got stuck on lands and they salt roped. Imagine being mad in the dumb reanimator deck mirror, especially since his reanimation spell is much better then mine and makes atraxa an 11/11.

I've also played some monowhite control/midrange and it seems fine if not the meta destroyer I heard several people call it in preview season. I think of the 10ish games I've played of it I mana flooded like 5 of them in spite of the deck playing like 8 copies of plains tutors and a pretty high amount of draw for a white deck which is an awful lot of deck thinning. So maybe it's better and I'm just never lucky.

 

[Polock]

Rakdos reanimator

reanimating it

when I faced a boros reanimator deck and reanimated their Atraxa

the dumb reanimator deck mirror

I'm amazed that you're able to play reanimation decks while hearse is in standard. I put that thing in every single deck I make.