Magic The Gathering

[alogatog]

When in doubt, throw more evil steel and dark magic at it to get it to how magic should feel.

I never really thought about it but this really is all it takes. I've debated with myself and others about how "magic" something is, but it really does just boil down to this.
There really are some standout cards in the set I can totally fuck with because they could plausibly exist.
Honestly, I'd love to see how a space set would've been handled like a decade ago- it would honestly be sick as fuck to have warhammer-esque space stations built like buildings rather than spaceships, and legitimately I think if it was done back then under the guise of "phyrexians in space" (which were originally inspired by HR Geiger anywho) we'd look back on it positively. Give me lunacy stickers. IDGAF

I like EoE because the space theme and the planet cards. Lore wise i think this will be disastrous but then again i havent touched lore since War of the spark

> gundam profile
checks out

 

[00R-Gundam]

So decided to get the sonic secret lair thingy and even though i went in late, i could still get the shit i wanted. Guess that the restrictions for product buying(2 per product) really made things flow better. Looking forward to play with shadow and just laugh at people as they cant do shit to respond to my spells.

 

[Kier]

I got my secret lair order earlier today

 

[Onepumpplumpchump]

Ended up buying a bundle for myself took three fucking hours of waiting in queue though.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Of course the secret lair you autists buy is the Sonic one.

You are all Altering Sonic to Sonichu Right?

 

[Kier]

Of course the secret lair you autists buy is the Sonic one.

You are all Altering Sonic to Sonichu Right?

No I made my custom Sonichu card a long time ago. It’s Zeduruu the Gearhearted but with Black instead of white.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

Of course the secret lair you autists buy is the Sonic one.

You are all Altering Sonic to Sonichu Right?

If I did the only thing I would alter is to make Sonic's arms blue

 

[Stab You in the Back]

There really are some standout cards in the set I can totally fuck with because they could plausibly exist.

Agreed. There are some really standout cards in EoE, aesthetics-wise.

Then there's the absolute bullshit art that looks like inventory art of black knights, but altered with AI to look "futuristic." Not to mention art with the same 50s sci-fi pastiche they used with Unfinity. Its the failure of all modern hat sets (compared to old hat sets like Arabian Nights) that even though the flavor is the whole selling point of the set, there's this weird Disney-fication in design that prevents them from nailing it.

You can easily make a space set which fits the "feel" of MtG. This isn't it.

 

[Very Professional]

I think if it was done back then under the guise of "phyrexians in space" (which were originally inspired by HR Geiger anywho) we'd look back on it positively. Give me lunacy stickers. IDGAF

You'll get no such stickers because you're 100% correct. Magic was originally "fantasy, but slightly edgier, cooler, and weirder" and it could incorporate basically any idea or premise into that aesthetic. For whatever reason, likely incompetence, they failed to expand the brand off of what should've been an easy home run. Now they've 180ed into the Hearthstone/League splash art style, which makes Magic indistinguishable from any other slop fantasy franchise.

Magic used to take other things and make them Magic; now it takes itself and makes it into other things. You used to know Magic when you saw it; now it just looks like everything else.

I would also note this is clearly an issue with management/art directors. You can see in the concept art for more recent sets that they're toning down ideas that could have merit. Compare these phyrexians to the ones we actually got on the cards in ONE. No red licorice, actual tattered skin and sinew and meat.



Even Ikoria looked cooler before it made it to the printers.

 

[Maratus volans]

Man, Ikoria was such a shitshow of a setting.

They had some solid foundations: what if we did Attack on Titan x Monster Hunter with a little bit of wedge colored flavor rolled in? If they'd kept it as that, with a darker tone and a focus on survival in a hostile world, it would have been at least okay, a decent successor to the spirit of the OG Zendikar before it became wrapped up with the Eldrazi.

But then they shit the bed with the Bonder faction and the set itself was a wildly undercooked nightmare of complexity and power creep and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

[Billy the Adult]

there's this weird Disney-fication in design that prevents them from nailing it.

My first thought when reading through some of the flavor text was that the story (at least presented in the cards) felt like Star Wars, what with "the light" and the Faller cult, so I guess that fits.

I believe that EoE is also supposed to be a plane without magic, which you can't really tell unless you read the story. Same sorta thing as OTJ being on an uninhabited plane.

You'll get no such stickers because you're 100% correct. Magic was originally "fantasy, but slightly edgier, cooler, and weirder" and it could incorporate basically any idea or premise into that aesthetic. For whatever reason, likely incompetence, they failed to expand the brand off of what should've been an easy home run. Now they've 180ed into the Hearthstone/League splash art style, which makes Magic indistinguishable from any other slop fantasy franchise.

Magic used to take other things and make them Magic; now it takes itself and makes it into other things. You used to know Magic when you saw it; now it just looks like everything else.

I would also note this is clearly an issue with management/art directors. You can see in the concept art for more recent sets that they're toning down ideas that could have merit. Compare these phyrexians to the ones we actually got on the cards in ONE. No red licorice, actual tattered skin and sinew and meat.

Not what I'd expect considering the output. I was pretty sad with modern Phyrexia, in part due to worse designs but also since I felt they could've gone down a more interesting path. I really liked the idea of "what if we took a group that was based around one guy and quite uniform, and split it into each color?" Its almost impressive how they haven't thought to have a callback at all to these major events (like a destroyed city), which makes them feel even more pointless. Although, with how bad the Phyrexia arc (and honestly all the major story arcs since gatewatch) have been, maybe its for the best that they are completely forgotten.

Man, Ikoria was such a shitshow of a setting.

They had some solid foundations: what if we did Attack on Titan x Monster Hunter with a little bit of wedge colored flavor rolled in? If they'd kept it as that, with a darker tone and a focus on survival in a hostile world, it would have been at least okay, a decent successor to the spirit of the OG Zendikar before it became wrapped up with the Eldrazi.

But then they shit the bed with the Bonder faction and the set itself was a wildly undercooked nightmare of complexity and power creep and the rest, as they say, is history.

I could tell Ikoria was going to have issues when I saw the bonders. I'm sure it could have been pulled off well, but it was pretty obvious they were gonna pull the "humans and beasts should just get along!!!" card. The problem is that it's trying to have real-world allusions while not considering how that doesn't really work in the setting they created. There's nightmares and such, and trusting a bonder to keep their dinowsaur in check seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Doesn't help that they also gave the Triomes specific names, so they are permanently leashed to Ikoria, though it at least fits magic better that whatever Capenna is supposed to be.

 

[Maratus volans]

I could tell Ikoria was going to have issues when I saw the bonders. I'm sure it could have been pulled off well, but it was pretty obvious they were gonna pull the "humans and beasts should just get along!!!" card. The problem is that it's trying to have real-world allusions while not considering how that doesn't really work in the setting they created. There's nightmares and such, and trusting a bonder to keep their dinowsaur in check seems like a disaster waiting to happen

I think you want the Bonder faction, it covers your bases: you have a group who view the monsters as threats and defend against them (the city dwellers), a group who view the monsters as dumb beasts and hunt them (the bounty hunters), and a group who views the monsters as natural and interacts with them on their own terms (the bonders).

The problem is how to implement it. You could have the Bonders be an ancient order of druids, say, whose bonds are a result of their magic. They would oppose the hunters for obvious reasons and could oppose the city dwellers as tamers or desecrators of nature. Alternately, you could keep bonding as a natural - though rare - phenomenon and make the Bonders a group of people whose connection to the beasts of the plane, as well as the fear and hatred they face from their fellow humans, has made them radical environmentalists, perhaps even eco-terrorists. This group would argue that the monsters attack the cities in self-defense and that it's the humans who are wrong and who deserve destruction.

Instead, we got the Bonders as Pokémon trainers who go traipsing through the wilderness in dumb little cosplays of their pets. It's probably the most asinine interpretation of the faction and was completely tonally dissonant with the man-vs-nature setting.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

Compare these phyrexians to the ones we actually got on the cards in ONE.

This was the set that made me completely check out of "in-universe" magic, because it was the most glaring and obvious showcase of just how bad their art director is. The Scars block had some of the most awesome art in the damn game, which is both endlessly iconic and establishes an incredible tone. Each of the colors had distinct identity and details which identified the art as belonging to that color.

Things get gradually more gruesome as the blocks progress - but it also becomes clear that, as the artists get used to the style, they begin to play and experiment more with what they're working with. The phyrexians have defining features and traits based on their color-identity, and yet they are still full of variety and creativity. And then you look at ONE. It's flanderized to hell and back, and the main 'tell' of what color a card is... is that all cards in that color share an identical visual gimmick.

Without block-sets, you can't trust your artists to grow and evolve and explore, because it's one-and-done. There's also such a clear and heightened influence on repeated visual motifs: blue has the stupid eye-stalks, white has the red-white color-contrast, black has extra limbs and unordered sinew, red has 'magma' billowing out from threaded torsos, green has massive headpieces and lots of pointy bits. The art director specified: this is how it looks. This is how I want it to look. This is how it needs to look, and your artists churn out sludge. When we move into the hat-sets era, this becomes even more apparent -- but so too is it apparent in "authentic" magic sets like Tarkir, where the factions have all had dramatic reworks to be more generic, less offensive, and way more uniform (and uninteresting) than the original block.

It's obvious that this guy got promoted into the art director role, and doesn't trust the artists. It's surprising to me that some legacy artists are still allowed to do their thing - but I would guess their seniority lets them say "I'm going to do this, or I'm not going to make a piece for you." You really could replace the mainset art with AI - which is what the "everything must match these specifications and prompts" approach does anyways - and no-one would notice, so long as you had someone catch hand hallucinations.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

Panty and Stocking season 2 did MtG/Yugioh, it was pretty unhinged but fun

 

[Polock]

Alternately, you could keep bonding as a natural - though rare - phenomenon

This would be an interesting angle for it - you could have all sorts of sub-factions/plots surrounding this. Lukka (in the story) was at least an interesting take on the bonder angle.

 

[Billy the Adult]

I think you want the Bonder faction, it covers your bases: you have a group who view the monsters as threats and defend against them (the city dwellers), a group who view the monsters as dumb beasts and hunt them (the bounty hunters), and a group who views the monsters as natural and interacts with them on their own terms (the bonders).

The problem is how to implement it. You could have the Bonders be an ancient order of druids, say, whose bonds are a result of their magic. They would oppose the hunters for obvious reasons and could oppose the city dwellers as tamers or desecrators of nature. Alternately, you could keep bonding as a natural - though rare - phenomenon and make the Bonders a group of people whose connection to the beasts of the plane, as well as the fear and hatred they face from their fellow humans, has made them radical environmentalists, perhaps even eco-terrorists. This group would argue that the monsters attack the cities in self-defense and that it's the humans who are wrong and who deserve destruction.

Instead, we got the Bonders as Pokémon trainers who go traipsing through the wilderness in dumb little cosplays of their pets. It's probably the most asinine interpretation of the faction and was completely tonally dissonant with the man-vs-nature setting.

Better implementation could've helped, IMO the bonders felt too much like the "good" faction, alongside being silly with cosplay. Coppercoats seemed to get a ton of flak for their zero tolerance, but then a card like this gets printed and it seems justified if even a small cat can become a threat. Poachers being the evil faction was fine enough though, killing for the thrill and all that.

I guess the set did come out as magic was getting more obviously "quirky". It had the last printed hound (in the commander deck) before the dog errata, and otters and a brushwagg in the main set. Between that, the Godzilla cards (though things got much worse), companions, and the rules nightmare of mutate, Ikoria did an impressive amount of damage.

 

[Flexo]

View attachment 7654761View attachment 7654786

Panty and Stocking season 2 did MtG/Yugioh, it was pretty unhinged but fun

So what are the odds we'll see those real cards in a secret lair?

 

[Markorian]

Magic used to take other things and make them Magic; now it takes itself and makes it into other things.

This is by far the worst part of the current game, aesthetically speaking.

 

[Very Professional]

I could tell Ikoria was going to have issues when I saw the bonders. I'm sure it could have been pulled off well, but it was pretty obvious they were gonna pull the "humans and beasts should just get along!!!" card.

Instead, we got the Bonders as Pokémon trainers who go traipsing through the wilderness in dumb little cosplays of their pets.

Better implementation could've helped, IMO the bonders felt too much like the "good" faction, alongside being silly with cosplay. Coppercoats seemed to get a ton of flak for their zero tolerance, but then a card like this gets printed and it seems justified if even a small cat can become a threat. Poachers being the evil faction was fine enough though, killing for the thrill and all that.

Ikoria is retarded on its face because on the one hand it's a man vs. nature set and on the other hand it's a man should get along with nature set. If the "bonding" magic is innate, something they don't take time to clarify, then you're basically calling for eugenics by wild animals. If it isn't, then you're asking people to just try really hard to like those monsters and if the monsters don't reciprocate they'll fucking kill you so you'd better try your best. To say nothing of the lore where certain bonders are just antisocial psychopaths that want to kill people, but they're the heckin' wholesome Pokemon trainer faction so it's okay. Taken at face value, Ikoria is basically the blueprint for Vorinclex's Phyrexia but you're meant to think it's quirky and fun because Jesper Ejsing made the art extra silly. Much like Ixalan, what is ostensibly supposed to be a multi-faction set is obviously not even-handed and it really comes across as "Let the beasts devour you and your children's entrails, white man." I'm sure the company's politics have nothing to do with that. Nevermind that the poachers are the coolest thing in the set by a mile.

It's obvious that this guy got promoted into the art director role, and doesn't trust the artists.

We are several Ships of Theseus away from that guy. Despite being a cunt he oversaw one of the most prolific and vibrant periods of Magic's art (ODY-TSP). The guy that replaced him oversaw another golden age—everything between then and the Gatewatch era. Then that guy got promoted up and replaced by multiple art directors of varying quality ranging from the talented Cynthia Sheppard to fat DEI sicko Dawn Murin, hence the inconsistency. Now we're at the point where most of those ADs are gone and we're in the post-Gatewatch era with even less qualified corporate yes-men who have miscellaneous graphic design backgrounds rather than anything to do with fantasy. Hence the loss of the fantasy in the game.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

So what are the odds we'll see those real cards in a secret lair?

>Getting around the Reserve list by Printing Black Dildo.