Magic The Gathering

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Billy the Adult said:
We will see, but I think Jace might be a representation of the old magic fanbase who wish things would go back to how they were. Thus they'll shove him into the dirt
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Nah the oldies hate all planeswalkers because planeswalkers are "thing that ruined the game" and hate him for Cawblade.

Remember when "a 1/1 that gets other 1/1s" was the most broken thing in standard?
 
Very Professional said:
Then we got the War of the Spark novels and all that organic hype pretty much died overnight. The Chandra/Nissa shippers quit in disgust and the people that actually cared about more than mashing their dolls together were disgusted by how anticlimactic it all was
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I remember writing a bit on this thread about the WotS novel when it came out, but at risk of repeating myself FUCK ME was that a bad book. Not just bad but dissonant, full of shit that wasnt on the cards (and the cards full of shit that wasnt in it.)

I will admit, though, tricking Dovaan into thinking he was facing Chandra by subbing in Lazav with a flamethrower was clever.

AnotherPleb said:
It's pretty striking how hard they worked to kill Gideon too. I know Design probably didn't like how they shoehorned his design space, but DEI also fucking hated how he was a love interest for Chandra and Liliana.
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I imagined at the time that they killed off Gideon to swap in Teyo Verada as a guy with a similar power that allowed for more creativity- a character whose ability is "be fucking invincible" is very hard to write around. Turns out, once again, I gave WotC's creative department way too much credit.

Flexo said:
Yeah in my whole life I've encountered... maybe 1 person who liked Jace. And that's a big maybe. I keep wondering where or who they are finding that supposedly likes Jace.
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The thing about Jace is that hes fine. Nobody's idea of Dio Brando or some other riveting personality, but hes good enough (especially post-Ixalan) to serve as a decent audience surrogate for whatever story they want to tell this week. And he began to stand out as they got into a streak of introducing another vaguely brown human woman PW per set (you guys know this is a fantasy setting, right?) making him remarkable for how relatively normal he was.
 
Krokodil Overdose said:
I remember writing a bit on this thread about the WotS novel when it came out, but at risk of repeating myself FUCK ME was that a bad book. Not just bad but dissonant, full of shit that wasnt on the cards (and the cards full of shit that wasnt in it.)

I will admit, though, tricking Dovaan into thinking he was facing Chandra by subbing in Lazav with a flamethrower was clever.



I imagined at the time that they killed off Gideon to swap in Teyo Verada as a guy with a similar power that allowed for more creativity- a character whose ability is "be fucking invincible" is very hard to write around. Turns out, once again, I gave WotC's creative department way too much credit.



The thing about Jace is that hes fine. Nobody's idea of Dio Brando or some other riveting personality, but hes good enough (especially post-Ixalan) to serve as a decent audience surrogate for whatever story they want to tell this week. And he began to stand out as they got into a streak of introducing another vaguely brown human woman PW per set (you guys know this is a fantasy setting, right?) making him remarkable for how relatively normal he was.
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If they had just finished Jace's storyline with

"I have my memories back, I am now no longer a weirdly lobotomized half retard psychic..while I was that person I ended up with responsibilities that I have been negligent in so now I am going to go fix that and GUILDPACT THE FUCK OUT OF THE GUILDS and fuck my Gorgon GF. Jace would have probably ended great, but they did him dirty post War of the Spark.
 
Honka Honka Burning Love said:
Nah the oldies hate all planeswalkers because planeswalkers are "thing that ruined the game" and hate him for Cawblade.

Remember when "a 1/1 that gets other 1/1s" was the most broken thing in standard?
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I guess old playerbase as in before crossovers, which has been sorta a thing for about 5 years, though obviously went into overdrive recently. I will say I think the "old" playerbase is a bit broad now, considering the intro of planeswalkers was about 18 years ago and cawblade about 14. Although I'm sure plenty newer players hate planeswalkers as well, just more likely due to superfriends or Oko.

It could also just be the whole multiverses thing that franchises are into since WotC is normally late to the party with these things.
 
Flexo said:
What do you mean? Ain't no hate for the short stacks here.
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She looks like she survived a hydraulic press

Billy the Adult said:
I'm sure plenty newer players hate planeswalkers as well, just more likely due to superfriends or Oko.
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I’m no new player, but Oko being birthed into this godforsaken world was still a traumatic event that I don’t think I’ve ever recovered from :(
 
alogatog said:
I’m no new player, but Oko being birthed into this godforsaken world was still a traumatic event that I don’t think I’ve ever recovered from
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Honestly Oko is kind of quant compared to the bullshit that came later.

Like Uro, Scam, Nexus, Cori steel cutter.

"Oh the magic the gathering creators have apparently never seen the best green removal spell in edh" is kinda adorable
 
Krokodil Overdose said:
I imagined at the time that they killed off Gideon to swap in Teyo Verada as a guy with a similar power that allowed for more creativity- a character whose ability is "be fucking invincible" is very hard to write around. Turns out, once again, I gave WotC's creative department way too much credit.
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Alright you set me off now (as I may or may not have a few gatewatch fan fics floating around...)

Because it's not just the WOTC writers, but like... almost all writers nowadays that get so focused on how limitations "hinder their creativity" instead of looking at them as challenges to encourage it. MTG has a super simple solution to their stories that is built right into the game: the damn MANA SYSTEM!

So like a planeswalker shows up? Well they can't just leave right away, they had to spend out their mana reserves to planeswalk and now have to take some "time" to adjust to the new location, draw mana from it, to then planeswalk again. (you know, like how you play 1 land a turn in the game?) Bam! You got a ready made excuse for why PWers can't just ditch out of every possible situation they find themselves in or use their planeswalking to "hop" in and out of planes to teleport all over the maps.

And same thing with Gideon - yeah he can be invulnerable, but only after he has drawn in some white mana to fuel it...
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So then you have ready plot hooks! Gideon wears armor because he has periods of vulnerability when he first shows up to a plane. Or if he gets too drained his protection wears off. Or if he has a fight too deep into a swamp or mountain so he can only get a trickle of white mana...

You can even play into him picking up "mana rocks" to store on his person to fuel his unbreakable state in an emergency.

Yeah, it's hard to write things when your ass is lazy and more focused on "what would be cool" than on any kind of consistency or logic or worldbuilding. The MTG stories should almost literally write themselves because the very game engine gives you everything you need to write literally anything competently and with tension. But they are lazy with it like every other storyteller nowadays. (Yes I'm still bitter about Oath of the Gatewatch - that could have been sooooo much better.)

(obviously this is not aimed at Krokodil, but the WTOC writers)
 
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Flexo said:
So like a planeswalker shows up? Well they can't just leave right away, they had to spend out their mana reserves to planeswalk and has to take some "time" to adjust to the new location, draw mana from it, to then planeswalk again. Bam!
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When I was a kid in 2001 me and my buddy used to play pretend with mtg like this. We couldn't really afford cards but I had a book that had a bunch of cards around tempest era sow e would play mtg that way

We were 11 and we knew how to incorporate mana into our stories and pretend play

This was the book
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Yamaha YM2612 said:
When I was a kid in 2001 me and my buddy used to play pretend with mtg like this. We couldn't really afford cards but I had a book that had a bunch of cards around tempest era sow e would play mtg that way

We were 11 and we knew how to incorporate mana into our stories and pretend play

This was the book
View attachment 8303140
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My meagga*!

I remember seeing that book. I didn't have particular one, but I had some for other games. Probably still do somewhere in my library....

*meatbag + nigga
 
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Flexo said:
So like a planeswalker shows up? Well they can't just leave right away, they had to spend out their mana reserves to planeswalk and has to take some "time" to adjust to the new location, draw mana from it, to then planeswalk again. Bam! You got a ready made excuse for why PWers can't just ditch out of every possible situation they find themselves in or use their planeswalking to "hop" in and out of planes to teleport all over the maps.
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So this is actually brought up in Battle for Zendikar, The Zendikarians specifically call out Gideon for being able to leave because the Eldrazi are destroying the plane and eventually it is decided that yes he -can- leave but the fact that he does not and is willing to stay until the last is what makes him different. You don't even need to set up planeswalking being difficult because It would not be very heroic if our Heroes fucking ditch when things get dangerous.

yeah he can be invulnerable, but only after he has drawn in some white mana to fuel it...
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There is also the fact that his barrier can be overwhelmed.

Bolas did it without effort, Ulamog probably didn't because Ulamog wasn't really trying because The Eldrazi Titans really aren't there or sentient except for Emrakul. Gideon stopping the titan is no different from when a Human encounters a bit of gristle.

(Yes I'm still bitter about Oath of the Gatewatch - that could have been sooooo much better.)
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At least Oath of the Gatewatch kind of worked with what was set up before, my biggest complaint about how BFZ went down is that Ugin's description of the Eldrazi is straight up wrong. The Planes being Ponds and Eldrazi Titans being giant hands reaching in for a Fish is really bad at describing what the Titans and Eldrazi actually are.

The Eldrazi are Spiders..and the Titans are the spider's fangs that inject digestive juices into a plane, Chandra's fireball worked because the Hedron's locked the fangs into a plane..and let Chandra send fire directly into their throats.
 
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Honka Honka Burning Love said:
So this is actually brought up in Battle for Zendikar, The Zendikarians specifically call out Gideon for being able to leave because the Eldrazi are destroying the plane and eventually it is decided that yes he -can- leave but the fact that he does not and is willing to stay until the last is what makes him different. You don't even need to set up planeswalking being difficult because It would not be very heroic if our Heroes fucking ditch when things get dangerous.
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Yeah I remember that. (I think I still have the ebook on my phone.) One of their best moments of writing.

The problem is for everyone but Gideon. Like back when they did the webcomics (which were really cool) - why didn't Chandra just planeswalk away as soon as she grabbed the scroll during her and Jace's first encounter? Why did she "stay" on the plane and have a whole duel with him? At the time I thought it was implied that planeswalkers had to charge up the mana to escape. I could swear that was definitely stated in their early books of the neo-walkers. (unfortunately it seems these webcomics have disappeared from the Internet... oh hey! pirates to the rescue!)

Honka Honka Burning Love said:
At least Oath of the Gatewatch kind of worked with what was set up before, my biggest complaint about how BFZ went down is that Ugin's description of the Eldrazi is straight up wrong. The Planes being Ponds and Eldrazi Titans being giant hands reaching in for a Fish is really bad at describing what the Titans and Eldrazi actually are.

The Eldrazi are Spiders..and the Titans are the spider's fangs that inject digestive juices into a plane, Chandra's fireball worked because the Hedron's locked the fangs into a plane..and let Chandra send fire directly into their throats.
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There were some good parts I'll grant but the climax was just... disappointing.

Which is another big issue with modern writing. (Not even just WOTC - a lot of things.) People are all about the build ups but can't seem to figure out how to do payoffs. It's like the writers are so autistic they can't think "well I want them to win, so they just do." Say whatever else you want, one of the reasons Tolkien endures is he absolutely had a perfect payoff to LotR. Heck call Brandon Sanderson "anime-like" all you want, but Mistborn book 1 was really solid in its payoff and conclusion where all these threads come together (I was a bit unclear on a technical aspect of it and had to look up some fan info).

But here they literally have an argument between the planeswalkers instead of just a straight up clash against the Eldrazi.

It's just... so flat as a payoff. Why even have Kiora there?
 
Flexo said:
(obviously this is not aimed at Krokodil, but the WTOC writers)
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Not quoting the entire post for brevity's sake but the unfortunate truth is WotC's current crop of writers just aren't very good at their jobs. Like a lot of modern C-list millennial writers, they come across as very uncreative, incurious people. I'm not going to harp on the obvious politics involved but I do think they play a role in it. If you ever read any of the early novels from the 90s, a lot of what you're talking about is there, the lore is informed by the gameplay itself, sometimes to an autistic and slightly retarded degree.

Honka Honka Burning Love said:
There is also the fact that his barrier can be overwhelmed.
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I'm pretty sure Ob Nixilis does it twice during the BFZ block. The first time he circumvents Gideon entirely and attacks civilians to make a point, the second he just holds Gideon's head underwater like he's the school bully because being impervious to harm doesn't mean you A) don't need to breathe and B) can't be overpowered.
 
Yamaha YM2612 said:
When I was a kid in 2001 me and my buddy used to play pretend with mtg like this. We couldn't really afford cards but I had a book that had a bunch of cards around tempest era sow e would play mtg that way

We were 11 and we knew how to incorporate mana into our stories and pretend play

This was the book
View attachment 8303140
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Might be the new hit format. Maybe if we all just play Encyclopedia, we will truly be happy again.

Free from shitty writing, power creep, complexity creep, from social contracts in pods of four and five hour games; free from meta decks and bannings and standard rotation
It’s heaven. Makes a grown man cry. There’s potential bros. I’m calling MaRo as we speak
 
Honka Honka Burning Love said:
Again you can't even goon to Liliana
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Not with your attitude
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Very Professional said:
The first time he circumvents Gideon entirely and attacks civilians to make a point
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That's Gideons thing. He can not transfer his invulnerability to others. If it wasn't retconned, he sparked after a titan of Erebos threw some shit at him and his gang, and everybody besides him fucking died on the spot.
 
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