If we excuse the digital vs manual painting, Hushbringer's art is easily on par with Stasis.
Forget the art, I miss the good quotes on flavor text. Like the Shakespeare on OG Frozen Shade.
Well, he should have qualified the statement, a large part of magic's art is crap as art goes. Some of it is still quite good. But that is not a new thing, it was always like this. Let's not even try to make a serious case about any of the art in magic being something that will redefine new aesthetic paradigms, it won't. But it never intend to, so that's ok. At least they are moving a bit from the archetypical fantasy illustration buxom ladies.
You guys know what’s really dying? Forums about Magic.
Well there have been a couple of threads on that topic, like this one from 2018: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...iscord-threads
https://twitter.com/Jonnymagic00/sta...18066824011782
intersting view on how planeswalkers destroyed the game.
I actually like Planeswalkers, as a way to break up the Creature//Removal paradigm (or whatever Permanent type you like), especially in places where efficient (and hyper-efficient) sweepers/removal exist.
If Planeswalkers didn't exist, the creature power-creep would likely be something like Pokemon level stuff, or something like it. Now, that doesn't mean Planeswalkers need to be busted, of course. Still though, mistakes are mistakes. Pushing to sell product is marketing. Problem is, of course, when you make a mistake pushing, it's bad marketing.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Wow, I didn't know you guys read me with such tone. I wasn't being sarcastic about liking Stasis. It's some of the most art for art the game has. It's great. I mean, most other art was just illustrative there wasn't much difficulty in composition. Need art for Lightning Bolt? Draw a picture of a lightning bolt. Need art for Serra Angel? Draw a picture of an angel holding a sword. Direction is easy when the subject is nounal.
It seemed perfect for abstract art to be paired with abstract concepts. Double so for a children's card game. After all, how do you convey the idea of flight? I mean sure, you could just draw a zebra in the sky. But is that what flight is?
Still even then, opportunities to even demonstrate are all gone, card names are just snippets of a larger passage that is also the art direction. Like some bizzaro word-of-the-day calendar.
"Syr Damon looked at the dragon and saw the faces of every innocent it had devoured. Suddenly, his sword blazed like the sun. For he knew in himself he had RIGHTEOUSNESS"
"Remember all the great heroes who were careful and never did anything risky? Me neither. That's why I live for the THRILL OF POSSIBILITY"
"At least up here I have some peace and quiet. What with being TRAPPED IN THE TOWER and all"
The art all seems uninspired because you can't be inspired when you're basically doing children's learn to read illustrations. Which is a shame really, because at then end of it all, the art doesn't even matter. Getting bent over the most superfluous part of the game only serves to expose one's level on whatever Maslow analog this is. I say fuck it, make the art nonsense, mix abstract with photorealistic, because at the end of the day this is just as valid a game piece as whatever the nicest Guru/APAC/Euro land you can think of.
And so with that in mind, I enjoy Stasis
No more winning legacy at SCG. Ben’s announcement puts a lot of strength to the omnious feeling I already had about magic’s future. Maybe you’ve ‘heard the death of magic before’, but with SCG ceasing legacy support, this is not the same as those other times.
The canary in the coal mine is long dead, if SCG has given up hope that means a lot given that they have much more information than we do
I 100% agree. I tell my customers and friends all the time about how ridiculous the product release schedule is. I feel like they're actively trying to ruin the game (I know this isn't likely true) but it feels that way. I think for a couple months ago every magic format was in bad shape and now it's mostly legacy and modern; the two formats other than Vintage with the largest carpool, therefore the most interesting (for me that it is). Now we're getting 'Mystery Packs' with exact replicas of old cards... seems to me they're seeing how far they can push it until they finally violate the Reserve List promissory estoppel... The game is in real bad shape... we have the most qualified R&D team in history and have in one year printed more busted cards than in the entire Urza's Block... That says to me that R&D doesn't have enough time to do their jobs. I'd be happier with half the sets per year... all of Modern Horizons feels like "just wait until someone breaks another card" now that format bannings will allow for more experimentation. I'd be happy if WotC would just announce, "We messed up this year, we messed up bad. We pushed every set and the cards break all the power level standards... we're just going to forget these cards were ever printed and move on." Before this year the product releases were still a little much, but Magic as a whole felt like it was in a better place... As a veteran of Magic for 20 something years I've never been more concerned or as displeased by WotC.
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What do we make of the new Secret Lair release? The main issue I see is that they are placing a certain value on certain cards. Why is the 3 card "pack" with Bloodghast the same price as the 5 cards packs of lands? Shouldn't the cost to produce the individual cards be the same? This is a tacit nod to the fact that their product pricing is linked to the secondary market.
Is this not an example of a company literally printing money?
Someone smarter than me can figure out how to use this against WoTC!!
Listen up shitizens! http://www.noagendashow.com/
Be a part of the magic! OBDM https://ourbigdumbmouth.com/
The price of the Bitterblossom aligns perfectly with its secondary market price. Expect many many releases like this. This is essentially the Nike SNKRS app, Nike saturated the market with limited edition sneakers and designer collabo's over the last few years with many of them dropping (no pun intended) rock bottom. "drops" is Sneaker lingo, and the 'Drops Series' features what are essentially artist collabos. The Japanese War of the Spark planeswalkers seem like they were a market test for Secret Lair.
Article that echoes the opening statement of this thread:
https://www.minmaxblog.com/magic/201...spoiler-season
"This year's cards have taken a stranglehold on every Magic format, repeatedly warping them into something that would have been completely unrecognizable a couple months prior. As engaged as I am, I can barely keep up. I'm burnt out and exhausted.
Theros: Beyond Death spoilers have started, and I'm already peeved. Not many cards have been spoiled, but some of these cards are just too strong, and WotC should know better. They have adopted what they're calling the F.I.R.E. philosophy for card design, which stands for fun, inviting, replayable, and exciting. This is great in theory. I like those words. In practice, however, it's been more of a garbage fire"
I really wish Patrick Sullivan's Deathrite Shaman rant hadn't disappeared from the Interwebs so rapidly. The "I just wanna play my 2/1s" is strong in this one.Originally Posted by bruizar quoting someone else
The same people complain about flaccid nothing-sets like Kaladesh and interesting sets with good cards like Modern Horizons. I don't get it. What makes matters worse is that there are clear answers for all the new cards people seem to hate so much, and a lot of them have been played in main decks in the not-at-all-distant past. Bruizar, I'm not castigating you for any of this. I just saw that article a while back and couldn't imagine on what planet the author resides.
All Spells Primer under construction: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e...Tl7utWpLo0/pub
PM me if you want to contribute!
It’s not my article, it merely reiterates the points I made. When keeping up with the game feels like a day job, there is simply too much of a good thing. If you combine that with power creep that means every 1 or 2 sets the entire make up of the game changes completely. The fact that so many cards enter formats like legacy and vintage and the fact that modern is dominated by modern horizons cards is very telling. Urza, emry, wrenn and six, astrolabe, coatl, etc etc. War of the spark and Eldraine have also been transformative: oko, karn, teferi, narset, once upon a time, brazen borrower.
Cards like liliana of the veil and jace the mind sculptor have largely been push out of the format. We used to consider Jace the standard of what a card needs to be able to do in terms of power level at 4 mana.
Magic will probably dial it down given enough community push back, but since eternal is such a small portion of the game I believe we don’t have as much of a voice as let’s say pioneer or standard.
I’ll nuance my comments: mtg isn’t dying, it is changing, and so will the players’ relationship to the game. I expect people to skip sets entirely and become much more selective in their engagement with the game, while others’ will become increasingly time trapped by overengaging with an endless stream of new product.
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