New World Order hit more than just the complexity of the game mechanics. It dumbed down the stories, as well. The Planeswalker cards were the beginning of the end of decent storytelling. They decided to take these mortal, flawed, often desperate characters that made for interesting stories and replace them with Power Rangers. Now the Jacetice League never loses, never has to make that big sacrifice, and rarely deal with consequences. It's just off to the next plane.
Urza and Mishra were very interesting characters. They were powerful, but not strong enough to defeat Yawgmoth. Mishra fell, and even Urza couldn't save Serra's artificial plane, instead compressing it into a power stone. The Weatherlight crew were great, too. Mirri's story was heartbreaking. Starke was a sympathetic bastard. Karn was easy to love. Even Squee had appeal. Squee!
People don't feel the same way about the Planeswalkers. Jace is just a prick. Liliana tries to be sassy and tough, but can't come close to Jaya Ballard. It's just like bad fan fiction. Mary Sues everywhere.
I know with the glasses on that was a great time in the story, but go back and read those books, they are not the high water mark in MTG storytelling. The ideas a good, the plot was interesting, but the books themselves sucked.
I actually think that the high point of MTG storytelling was Kamigawa. The ever driving force of a Black aligned protagonist who was not at all the most powerful force in the story. His Jitte, the center of his blood magic was the only reason he made it to the end of the books and not because of its magic, but because when he would reach for it people would note he had pulled a defencive weapon and would then be less likely to attack. At one point he got jumped by a bunch of Samurai who did not kill him because of his own intelligence and quick thinking. Not because he was the best at anything.
The only good thing about the way the stories work now is that they do not stand alone on one plain like they use to in those days. They are kind of back to the Weatherlight way of doing things, but I agree, Weatherlight did it better. I mean, crash though the Silver Moon, overcharge the ship on White Mana and drive into into your enemy only to have it NOT kill him. Better than the Eldrazi titans.
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
Originally Posted by Spam
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
Well, Elspeth and Venser died ... not that anybody cares. My personal issue is that the Walkers are not only plain boring, but that I have troubles seeing their motivation. This pairs pretty well with WotC presenting the same walkers over and over and over again. Heck, Jace seems to be involved in at least 50% of Storylines/Expansions
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Elspeth "died" in a place that has an afterlife... She will be back.
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
The last story seemed alright. Emrakul basically manipulating the entire cast of walkers and imprisoning herself for...unknown reasons. I'm really hoping that Ugin will be revealed to be right, that killing the Ulamog and Kozilek titans was a giant mistake, and that Jace and the team will have to do something horrible to bring them back. Might bring some small satisfaction.
Maybe someday we will learn something about the eldrazi and they will stop being a generic unknown antagonistic force (yay more eldrazi stuff...), maybe we will learn wtf nicol bolas has been doing on his vacation. Until then, its just scooby doo and his crew going around solving the mystery of the week all over the place.
I stopped caring about the story after saga.
I want good cards cheap, I think I will be using hq fakes from now on.
What? The Thran and Brothers war were pretty good books. Not sure what you're reading.
Chandra is Jaya Ballard Light, not Liliana.
The Jacetice League and the higher rate of Return blocks bring another problem to the storytelling: Lots of loose ends. What the Jacetice League achieves are flawed victories at best to keep the option of future stories open. BBQ'ed Eldrazi might be a giant mistake according to Ugin and Emrakul imprisoned herself in Innistrad's moon for whatever reason. Not to mention the giant asspulls they require. That's probably the direction we're going to take.
And Nicol Bolas? Fuck him and his saturday morning cartoon villain machinations. If it wasn't for the Jacetice League, he would take the cake for the shittiest writing. So much build up going nowhere.
The Eldrazi titans are Marit Lage's kids. And momma's not happy. Mark my words, that's where all this is going.
Interesting read - thanks for sharing.
Take it easy,
Jared
"You consider me the young apprentice,
Caught between the Scylla and Charibdes,
Hypnotized by you if I should linger,
Staring at the ring around your finger" - Sting
Ray Thiel (1964-2007) - the man who showed me more wonderful games & gaming sessions than I ever dreamed possible... you ran out of hit points too young, my friend.
1) The modern analysis might be correct. I can see Wotc lopping off older cards for newer ones over time just to make money. Greedy corporations!
2) I don't think that Wotc can eliminate some but not all of the cards even if they did it in 2002. The reserve list does protect collections. And speculators do take advantage of this. Some cards even if they are cheap today, might be worth something in the future as new cards get printed.That being said I am for abolishing the reserved list for the sake of legacy. But if you are going to abolish, you should scrap the whole thing. I don't agree with doing only part of it.
3) One idea that would in theory both protect collections and allow newer players to buy old cards would be to print all reserved list cards at foil expedition rarity or some other agreed upon rarity. You could even select cards at random from each new set to be added to this expedition list never to be reprinted except at expedition rarity as a trade-off for tweaking the reserve list. ie you give collectors something new to collect. First you are increasing the supply of cards slowly, and second you give new players a chance to collect old cards by buying packs. Every new set or even new product could contain these expedition cards.
MTG as both a game and a collectable is hard to balance and keep everyone happy.
The article is useless because it suggests removing cards from the reserve list. Even the article itself acknowledges that the List will NOT be abolished, and removing most of the cards on it is the same thing. The author also fails to emphasize that Wizards tried messing with the list in recent memory and had to backpedal, hard, and double-down in the List.
The cards in the List that are eternal staples have achromed mythological status. People act like those specific cards simply must be reprinted to solve the List problem.
No.
Theres nothing special about the old cards except, in some cases, power level. Wizards can (and does) print new cards that compete with, displace, or stand in for List cards.
The only real barrier is WIzard choice not to print cards on the same level as older staples. There are good reasons for this, sure. But it could be done, and choosing not to is what is making older formats so exclusive.
I tend to agree.
I personally have not a single dual and was longing so long for RL removal and reprints. I can play legacy only thanks to my friends (willing to lend duals).
But after some time, I realized that it would feel strange to have the duals reprinted. Admit it :)
What could happen (I hope it will) is that we get new dual lands that are maybe not so good overall but maybe better in some context. Imagine how broken Grove of Burnwillows would be if it had the basic land types.
I feel like this will happen. WOTC continues to put out dual land variants in almost every set. Eventually there will be something that's accidentally good, although lands are the most unlikely candidate for something slipping by. If a new dual was situationally better, such as Grove in Punishing Fire decks or pain lands in Eldrazi, then that would ease pressure on the duals.
Given enough time, I can totally see them reprinting actual duals with only 1 tutor-able basic type affixed.
The Reserve List allows this, but I think you won't see something that close. They did this with Reverberate, and have since said it was a mistake. Specifically, Reverberate is just Fork, but it doesn't make the spell Red. That is a mechanical change so it doesn't violate the Reserve List, but it's such a minor, almost universally irrelevant change that they came up with a new notion: the "Spirit" of the Reserve List. I don't think you'll see new cards that have almost irrelevant differences again. Instead, they will print replacement cards that are situationally better or worse that Reserved cards, in RELEVANT circumstances.
For example: Stony Silence = Null Rod. Silence is worse if you don't want to play White. It is better if you want to avoid artifact removal.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. They can ease the pressure to get duals and shake up the format with one easy to introduce cycle. Imagine shocklands which don't give you the option to not pay the life, but with shroud. Neither strictly better nor strictly worse than original duals or current generation shocks. Print a set of those, and together with that reprint Wasteland in a type 2 set at rare, or even better uncommon. You'll crash the value of Wasteland, but every n00b who gets into eternal will have a playset of them. In such a metagame, it becomes tempting to switch out your duals for 'shroudshocks'. At least you won't look like a cheapskate budgetplaying n00b.
Wizard just doesn't give a fuck about eternal formats.
The reserved list is just an excuse.
That's hyperbole. I agree that the Reserve List is a red herring, but Wizards is actively printing new cards to fix the problem. Stony Silence (Null Rod?) Spirit of the Labyrinth (Chains of Meph)? The list goes on and on. They are even releasing multiple sets a year designed to plug cards directly into legacy - Commander and Conspiracy.
They're not fixing the problem swiftly: could you imagine the MSRP of a set where they printed situationally better/worse duals AND power nine in a single expansion?! But they ARE fixing the problem!
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