Magic The Gathering

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Flexo said:
The bolas box was HEAVY on the theme. Be Bolas etc.
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I disagree on that one, the Bolas one felt very lazy to me. A lot of the cards just feel like vaguely evil shit that's in his color scheme. They'd just done a set on a world where the whole religion was worshipping Bolas and his Archenemy deck features like one card from it. Most of it is just random, vaguely evil shit in his colors. Even with them including cards from Alara, none of them are the guys who canonically worked for him. Not even a Disciple of Bolas. I would wager any Vorthos could make a better Bolas theme deck in an afternoon.

Compare that with something like the WoW Raid decks. You open up the Molten Core box? You're getting custom-made cards for every boss in the Molten Core raid, cards for the standout enemies, cards that reference their abilities and well-known memes, and even loot cards to give to the players when they beat you. If you want to make challenge decks/alternative game modes like that it needs to be a whole production.
 
Reminds me of a format I used to play back when called Emperor (I think), which consisted of a 3v3 with an Emperor on each side protected by 2 princes. It worked back then because it was kitchen-table magic. If I were to play it today it would need a ton of rules for balance, since I don't think it accounted for things like burn. Probably why any casual format needs deckbuilding restrictions these days or an insane rulebook.
 
Oh damm talking about archenemy!

My playgroup occasionally likes to play it but we have made custom schemes akin to stuff you would find in an Unset. For example we have one where "Archenemy draws a card from each opponent deck" and my personal favorite "making the opponents sing baka mitai, for each that dont get hit with 10 damage and the archenemy heals for 10 for each player that didnt sing" just dumb shit but fun.
 
Very Professional said:
I disagree on that one, the Bolas one felt very lazy to me. A lot of the cards just feel like vaguely evil shit that's in his color scheme. They'd just done a set on a world where the whole religion was worshipping Bolas and his Archenemy deck features like one card from it. Most of it is just random, vaguely evil shit in his colors. Even with them including cards from Alara, none of them are the guys who canonically worked for him. Not even a Disciple of Bolas. I would wager any Vorthos could make a better Bolas theme deck in an afternoon.
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If you do a search for every card with "bolas" in the title you get a grand total of... 14. 6 of those being versions of Nicol Bolas himself (leaving you 8 cards not him to build around). The Vorthos are going to be cheating their asses off to make a theme deck with those numbers. Even the hour of devastation Bolas planeswalker deck came with about the same number as the archenemy one.

But at that point, do we want theme or do we want playability? I suppose the Vorthos could always build a great theme deck that can't possibly win any 3 v 1 games to save their lives.

Very Professional said:
Compare that with something like the WoW Raid decks. You open up the Molten Core box? You're getting custom-made cards for every boss in the Molten Core raid, cards for the standout enemies, cards that reference their abilities and well-known memes, and even loot cards to give to the players when they beat you. If you want to make challenge decks/alternative game modes like that it needs to be a whole production.
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As someone that owned every WoW Raid deck (even some of the later ones that weren't auto-pilots), yeah, I'm aware of how cool they were. The closest WOTC has done would have been the 3 challenge decks for the original Theros block. Heck in the murders set they did a whole "clue" thing and I question how sales of that were considering I can still find them in stores in our area.

WOTC has tried alternate modes for years, and it seems pretty clear the market and interest just isn't there.
 
Flexo said:
As someone that owned every WoW Raid deck (even some of the later ones that weren't auto-pilots), yeah, I'm aware of how cool they were. The closest WOTC has done would have been the 3 challenge decks for the original Theros block.
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Those things were amazing and no game has really captured it since.

Flexo said:
Heck in the murders set they did a whole "clue" thing and I question how sales of that were considering I can still find them in stores in our area.
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I remember it being somewhat popular on release but I also remember reading the back and it felt like they didn't really port Clue to Magic but stapled the two together half assed so that it felt like you were playing Magic with extra steps you can just ignore.

Flexo said:
WOTC has tried alternate modes for years, and it seems pretty clear the market and interest just isn't there.
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They've never really committed, they left it too open so it always devolves into just Magic due to how messy the game is. They should limit some of these alternate products to be set specific so they can better calibrate the power level and builds while actually making the play pattern distinct.
 
Flexo said:
If you do a search for every card with "bolas" in the title you get a grand total of... 14. 6 of those being versions of Nicol Bolas himself (leaving you 8 cards not him to build around). The Vorthos are going to be cheating their asses off to make a theme deck with those numbers. Even the hour of devastation Bolas planeswalker deck came with about the same number as the archenemy one.

But at that point, do we want theme or do we want playability? I suppose the Vorthos could always build a great theme deck that can't possibly win any 3 v 1 games to save their lives.
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If you search by name and flavor text, excluding sets that came out post-Amonkhet, that nets you 25 cards. To say nothing of the fact that Bolas is worshipped on a not-Egypt world, so any of the black guys from Mirage would do; anything even remotely desert-related would do. This is all foreshadowing for Hour of Devastation, so you could do zombies. He used to run an empire in Dominaria based on Japan, so you could include cards from Kamigawa. Tezzeret is his top guy so you have artifacts at your disposal. And he's an Elder Dragon that modern dragons can trace their lineage to, so dragons are also on the table. There are a million angles for a Bolas theme deck that aren't just "pile of Grixis spells".

And if you want to talk playability, of those cards with Bolas in the name, we have Augur of Bolas and Disciple of Bolas. A card that remains a Pauper staple to this day and a card that was an EDH staple for years, respectively. To say nothing of the fact that the default Archenemy deck has an 8-mana payoff with a few substandard mana rocks and two admittedly decent cost reducers. You are wholly at the mercy of whether or not you topdeck the right schemes, which feels less like being the main villain and more like being the random mobster that accidentally shoots and kills Batman.

But this all belies my actual point, which is that they could commission new art, new flavor text. Hell they could just print new fucking cards. Like they do with EDH. This isn't your friend coming up with a cool fan format, they make the fucking game.

Flexo said:
WOTC has tried alternate modes for years, and it seems pretty clear the market and interest just isn't there.
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No, WotC has done what WotC always does. Dip their toes in, fail to commit, and then back off when it doesn't produce immediate results. Like I said above, if you want to make something like this work it needs to be a production. It needs the bells and whistles. It needs the "cool" factor. Unfortunately Wizards has been allergic to "cool" for a long time.
 
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I love these kinds of legendary creatures: some keywords, one or two lines defining what they do and some flavor text to spice things up. Super simple and yet entirely open up to interpretation.
Most people are going to build this guy as some sort of group slug commander which either pings people to death or utilizes infect to do the job but the beauty of it is that you can make it work with anything that isn't a creature or a land. Some people suggested an equip theme but I'm going to make it into a deck centered around discard/curses and then make the people in the LGS absolutely miserable by not only having them lose their commander to Oubliette or getting rid of their combo pieces with Thoughtseize and friends but also making them set -2 HP in that shitty mobile app everyone seems to use instead of dice every time I get rid of their game pieces. Did I mention I don't even like Final Fantasy that much?
 
SIMON THE PIEMAN said:
I love these kinds of legendary creatures: some keywords, one or two lines defining what they do and some flavor text to spice things up. Super simple and yet entirely open up to interpretation.
Most people are going to build this guy as some sort of group slug commander which either pings people to death or utilizes infect to do the job but the beauty of it is that you can make it work with anything that isn't a creature or a land. Some people suggested an equip theme but I'm going to make it into a deck centered around discard/curses and then make the people in the LGS absolutely miserable by not only having them lose their commander to Oubliette or getting rid of their combo pieces with Thoughtseize and friends but also making them set -2 HP in that shitty mobile app everyone seems to use instead of dice every time I get rid of their game pieces. Did I mention I don't even like Final Fantasy that much?
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I run him in Kuja and despite being a shitty uncommon he's always cause for concern whenever he hits the table. No lowly black mage soldier indeed.
 
Every copy of Hero's Retreat should be ripped up and burned. I don't get why we need a card literally supporting interspecies relationships.
 
I'mma real anime gurl said:
You mean Heroes Hangout?
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Yes,, sorry I was thinking of something else. They could have at least used the Parker family from Earth 18119 where Peter and Mary Jane are still together and have a daughter and fight crime as a family, even though it could get Peter killed since Mary Janes suit saps his powers. They have the Spider-Streetshitter from Earth 50101 in card form (which is equally disgusting), so why not have the whole Parker family on that card? Stop supporting interspecies couples. Woke shit like this is why comics are dead and why Disney wants to stop making them and give out the licenses to other companies to waste their money on making them. It's also hurting MTG sales along with the amount of products being made. I can't for the life of me remember the last good character they had let alone the last good story.
 
Retink Retunk said:
They've never really committed, they left it too open so it always devolves into just Magic due to how messy the game is. They should limit some of these alternate products to be set specific so they can better calibrate the power level and builds while actually making the play pattern distinct.
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Very Professional said:
No, WotC has done what WotC always does. Dip their toes in, fail to commit, and then back off when it doesn't produce immediate results. Like I said above, if you want to make something like this work it needs to be a production. It needs the bells and whistles. It needs the "cool" factor. Unfortunately Wizards has been allergic to "cool" for a long time.
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I mean that's just pretty much Hasboro's MO. How many versions of Monopoly and Clue are we up to now and each of those with barely any rules adjustments to them. (I mean they released Godzilla monopoly and I can't find yet if there's any rules that allows you to knock down your opponents' houses and hotels.)

And WOTC is based in Seattle Washington. Forget allergic, they haven't even been near a zip code of "cool" for decades.

I was listening to maRo's podcast on some stuff and it did get me thinking...

You know what would have improved Duskmourn? Revealing that it was Ulgrotha all along. And the house was like the House of Sengir or something. As someone else pointed out, Innistrad has 100% taken over as the "gothic" plane from Ulgrotha so what else are they going to do with it?
 
Flexo said:
I mean that's just pretty much Hasboro's MO. How many versions of Monopoly and Clue are we up to now and each of those with barely any rules adjustments to them. (I mean they released Godzilla monopoly and I can't find yet if there's any rules that allows you to knock down your opponents' houses and hotels.)

And WOTC is based in Seattle Washington. Forget allergic, they haven't even been near a zip code of "cool" for decades.

I was listening to maRo's podcast on some stuff and it did get me thinking...

You know what would have improved Duskmourn? Revealing that it was Ulgrotha all along. And the house was like the House of Sengir or something. As someone else pointed out, Innistrad has 100% taken over as the "gothic" plane from Ulgrotha so what else are they going to do with it?
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I see the vision but I'd rather they just leave Ulgrotha in the past unmolested.
 
Flexo said:
Innistrad has 100% taken over as the "gothic" plane from Ulgrotha so what else are they going to do with it?
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If people stopped pestering MaRo about it, they'd leave it dead and buried, where it belongs. But people have this weird idea that we should rehabilitate Homelands, especially after they brought back Kamigawa (and basically made it a completely different plane).

In fact, Kamigawa gives them a perfect template here: bring back the plane mostly in name, maybe include a couple of things that people with a shallow knowledge of the lore would know about (Sengir, Feroz, Joven), maybe add some dumb retcons (Ulgrotha was actually Serra's home plane!), and then shove most of it into the background so you can dispense the latest installment of Jacetice League's Capeshit Punch-Up Adventures or whatever.

Honestly, if they have to give any plane the Neon Dynasty treatment, it should be Mercadia, that place is way closer to modern design sensibilities than Ulgrotha is.

EDIT: Also worth pointing out - Bloomburrow took over Lorwyn's role as 'sunny happy tribal plane' and they're still doing Lorwyn next year. However they butcher that setting will also be a template for how they can butcher Ulgrotha.
 
Flexo said:
I mean that's just pretty much Hasboro's MO. How many versions of Monopoly and Clue are we up to now and each of those with barely any rules adjustments to them. (I mean they released Godzilla monopoly and I can't find yet if there's any rules that allows you to knock down your opponents' houses and hotels.)

And WOTC is based in Seattle Washington. Forget allergic, they haven't even been near a zip code of "cool" for decades.

I was listening to maRo's podcast on some stuff and it did get me thinking...

You know what would have improved Duskmourn? Revealing that it was Ulgrotha all along. And the house was like the House of Sengir or something. As someone else pointed out, Innistrad has 100% taken over as the "gothic" plane from Ulgrotha so what else are they going to do with it?
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Disagree heavily. I believe what ruined Duskmourn was their execution, making a horror plane feel way too goofy. The idea of a plane that is entirely a mansion, no outside, is interesting and at least trying something new. I was really looking forward to that because it has interesting implications, but I guess it is hard to reflect into the cards. Taking that away and making out that Duskmourn is Ulgrotha would have both ruined Ulgrotha and not improved Duskmourn IMO. I'd also especially prefer to keep Sengir in only member-berries territory, considering just how badly Bolas and the Phyrexians got shafted.
Maratus volans said:
If people stopped pestering MaRo about it, they'd leave it dead and buried, where it belongs. But people have this weird idea that we should rehabilitate Homelands, especially after they brought back Kamigawa (and basically made it a completely different plane).

In fact, Kamigawa gives them a perfect template here: bring back the plane mostly in name, maybe include a couple of things that people with a shallow knowledge of the lore would know about (Sengir, Feroz, Joven), maybe add some dumb retcons (Ulgrotha was actually Serra's home plane!), and then shove most of it into the background so you can dispense the latest installment of Jacetice League's Capeshit Punch-Up Adventures or whatever.

Honestly, if they have to give any plane the Neon Dynasty treatment, it should be Mercadia, that place is way closer to modern design sensibilities than Ulgrotha is.

EDIT: Also worth pointing out - Bloomburrow took over Lorwyn's role as 'sunny happy tribal plane' and they're still doing Lorwyn next year. However they butcher that setting will also be a template for how they can butcher Ulgrotha.
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I actually like the idea behind Mercadia, a very corrupt plane, though I guess it somewhat overlaps with Fiora + has baggage from being a low power set. I guess that's especially why I wouldn't want it, they'd definitely complain about the current US government with the subtlety and tact of a baseball bat.

I'm quite worried about Lorwyn, especially since they took out any possible edge from Tarkir (by sanitizing the Sultai), how are they going to deal with Elves calling people eyeblights or xenophobic kithkin? Are we going to get daybound again? At least Bloomburrow was pretty good so it won't be the end of tribal planes, though I wish they were a bit more creative than "play just this creature type and jam the good cards in." I'm still mad one of the only multi-tribe cards is the Jurassic World card and the dogs and cats cute-bait.
 
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