Magic The Gathering

[Logistical Nightmare]

It won't matter where you put it if the person writing the mystery is so retarded they made the culprit someone who is part of a Hive-Mind, also you can't have a Plane's plot actually Advancing, like Capenna has to be the Demon Ruled world we aren't allowed to let the angels set up shop because that will actually change the setting from it being the Demon Ruled world...

They already started it in motion in Aftermath that the Angels are back and they're starting to hunt and fight the demons. Metropolis Reformer's flavor text is the only card with exploratory concepts, but we've gotten more from less. They wrote a retarded set premise for MKM, and anything would have been better.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

The set did fine by my memory

For whatever reason, it was overprinted to hell and back - and it didn't sell particularly well alongside that. If you look through scryfall, the most-expensive card in the set, among all printings, if we exclude the gala greeters that you ain't going to be pulling... is worth $30. There is a shitton of Commander product also lying around, to the point where you'll still now and then see them firesale-ing SNC commander decks on Amazon for $15. I picked up the Cabaretti one at that price-point a year ago or so.

I think WOTC clearly expected the furries to buy in big on this set, but it didn't hit. Bloomburrow was clearly another crack at it, which was much more successful (helped by an abundance of good cards at all rarity slots, too). SNC also had one of the worst limited formats in modern memory, because of this fucking card. This is arguably the strongest non-horizons-set common that's ever been printed, if we exclude old sets made before they considered rarity / limited.

 

[Noebel]

There was no law on the plane

That statement is stupid. As long as there are factions that coexist, there will be some sort of law. What he was trying to say that as long as there are no centralized government, there won't be a regular police force, which I can agree with. But, at some point of crime family being in charge protection money become taxes.
All that detective shit would've looked much better on Capena, since no central authority means there would be demand for private investigators, not on Ravnika, where there's an entire guild which supposed to do exactly this.

 

[Logistical Nightmare]

For whatever reason, it was overprinted to hell and back - and it didn't sell particularly well alongside that. If you look through scryfall, the most-expensive card in the set, among all printings, if we exclude the gala greeters that you ain't going to be pulling... is worth $30. There is a shitton of Commander product also lying around, to the point where you'll still now and then see them firesale-ing SNC commander decks on Amazon for $15. I picked up the Cabaretti one at that price-point a year ago or so.

I guess my memory of the set is a bit off. I do think that was during WOTC's over printing period, I'm just surprised at how much of it there is. I may need to see about getting full playsets of the gilded cards with how cheap they are. I still think that WOTC would have been better off using a set that had been poorly received as an attempt to fix their misstep of one hat set with a more interesting and flavorful hat set.

 

[Flexo]

For once I think this entire board is in 100% agreement. I knew you all would feel the same about that podcast as I did.

@Flexo cant quote the post but it pisses me off to no end the justification he gives for why it wasn’t Capenna.

“Oh, the set didn’t perform well, so we wanted to give people more time to come to like the set…”

The set did fine by my memory, with the only major gripe I remember being why is the set ONLY mobsters, no back and forth. This would have been a great chance to make people realize how much they actually likes the set and…

Yeah, that's about the only excuse I find somewhat legitimate is his point that they want to space out visits to planes and not do them too close together. BUT that just means they could have pushed back the murder mystery set to give them more time to work on it.

“There was no law on the plane, so it didn’t really make sense.”

YOU. LITERALLY. CAN FIX THAT. THATS THE WHOLE POINT. Angels have been brought back to the plane!!! That would have fixed the issue!!

Would not have mattered.

It won't matter where you put it if the person writing the mystery is so retarded they made the culprit someone who is part of a Hive-Mind, also you can't have a Plane's plot actually Advancing, like Capenna has to be the Demon Ruled world we aren't allowed to let the angels set up shop because that will actually change the setting from it being the Demon Ruled world...

Yeah I do not understand why every time MaRo has brought this up he has this "there is no law" there and apparently does not think about advancing the story of the plane. Especially when Kamigawa2 happened so close to it which proved you can advance the story of a plane. But as we'll see below, Noebel will have a great counter point to this as well.

“Well, people didn’t know anyone from the plane”

Ob nixlus is RIGHT THERE!!!! You desparked him!! Have him get killed or FAKE HIS DEATH and pin it on the new leader of the angel detective faction! If a retard on the KIWI FARMS can write this shit you can too MARO!!

Can anyone name who was the actual victim in Murder? (besides Honka) Was it our waifu Teysa or someone else? I mean he acknowledges that murder mysteries only work when people care about the characters. Which is true, and after Dominaria, Ravnica is probably the plane/story with the most characters people know and care about (it and Innistrad I would estimate as top). Yet as I recall, Murders introduced a bunch of new characters anyway. If you're going to have a mystery on Ravnica, give us our boy Argus as the detective!

The best tidbits are MaRo admitting that they had been trying to do this set concept for years and his acknowledgement that not every genre/trope really lends itself to a magic set. (That seems like something they should have figured out over those years.)

I will also say I think his ranking of the set mechanics is spot on though, the only mechanics that really were any good were the returning/fixed mechanics. The fact he couldn’t remember what Cloak was is also very funny to me.

I love how schizo wizards is.

On the one hand, we're going to start trimming down the races to allow more tribal in commander. So no more viashano, they're "lizards." No more "cellaphids" they're now "octopus."

But we are going to list every single damn job in the world on the typeline. And then introduce "batching" to combine them all. (what was mercenary, warlock, etc? "outlaw"?) Was anybody really clamoring for a detective tribe?

That statement is stupid. As long as there are factions that coexist, there will be some sort of law. What he was trying to say that as long as there are no centralized government, there won't be a regular police force, which I can agree with. But, at some point of crime family being in charge protection money become taxes.
All that detective shit would've looked much better on Capena, since no central authority means there would be demand for private investigators, not on Ravnika, where there's an entire guild which supposed to do exactly this.

Another great point! THAT could have also been an interesting story avenue, where the 5 mobs can't trust one another or something so they all come together to "hire" a neutral 3rd party to do the investigating, and that's where we get our main character. It would even explain the "I'm going to reveal the murderer" now trope because obviously the character would want to do it in a room full of the people who hired him so the guilty party won't try to kill him and escape.

At some point I wonder if anybody at WOTC really understood mob films OR murder mystery stories. I'm not saying I do (the most I'm familiar with is watching some episodes of Monk) but I feel like I grasp it better than these folks.

 

[SIMON THE PIEMAN]

we are going to list every single damn job in the world on the typeline. And then introduce "batching" to combine them all. (what was mercenary, warlock, etc? "outlaw"?)

I am sure they wanted "outlaw" as a separate type but then they realized they'd have to create a shitton of new creatures for the commander precon to work, so instead they opted for a path of least resistance which resulted in this precon being a nonsensical bundle of random cards with zero actual strategy or synergy. I could make a precon like this in about an hour.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Can anyone name who was the actual victim in Murder?

I am not going to say how or why or answer it, but this is a trick question folks so if you try to answer it beware.

give us our boy Argus as the detective!

Imagine a Story where we had Argus with Kellen as his sidekick learning off him.

Imagine a mystery where the Solution made sense, because there is somebody who has motive to fuck around with the guild leaders, whose existence was left on a cliffhanger who also has motive to want to frame Etrada because it weakens the Dimir...AND has a personal history with Agrus Kos.

A little ghost vampire called Syzdek, imagine if we had many of the same beats with people doing Murders then not remembering it but instead of "Dryad was mind controlling them with magical drug plants" it was "Syzdek wants his guild back from Lazav and has learned to possess people" you can even use it to kind of build up Duskmourn and say that after the Omenpaths opened Syzdek went to Duskmourne and learned how to possess people from the ghosts there.

 

[Flexo]

I am sure they wanted "outlaw" as a separate type but then they realized they'd have to create a shitton of new creatures for the commander precon to work, so instead they opted for a path of least resistance which resulted in this precon being a nonsensical bundle of random cards with zero actual strategy or synergy. I could make a precon like this in about an hour.

I was about to say I thought they created mercenary for the set but a check reveals to me that mercenaries were apparently a card type MANY years ago (before the modern card frame) so it was more of a type that was brought back.

I am not going to say how or why or answer it, but this is a trick question folks so if you try to answer it beware.

Not intentionally a trick question, @Honka Honka Burning Love, I've seriously forgotten. All I remember about the story is that it was revealed the 1 of the 3 dyrads leading Selesnya was behind it by controlling people with spores.

 

[Noebel]

mercenaries were apparently a card type MANY years ago

If memory serves me right, first massive implementation of mercenaries was around Masques block, where they had a gimmic of being able to search for other mercenaries in the deck and put them in play. Same as rebels in this set. But mercenaries searched for creature 1 cheaper, and rebels for creature costing 1 more. You can guess which gimmic was better and why wizards never did this again.

 

[Logistical Nightmare]

I've seriously forgotten. All I remember about the story is that it was revealed the 1 of the 3 dyrads leading Selesnya was behind it by controlling people with spores.

It was indeed Teysa that died, and they then summoned her ghost to tell them who done it.
That was one of the dumber points of the story (not quite it was 1/3rd of Trostani that did it dumb but it’s up there).

 

[Very Professional]

That statement is stupid. As long as there are factions that coexist, there will be some sort of law. What he was trying to say that as long as there are no centralized government, there won't be a regular police force, which I can agree with. But, at some point of crime family being in charge protection money become taxes.
All that detective shit would've looked much better on Capena, since no central authority means there would be demand for private investigators, not on Ravnika, where there's an entire guild which supposed to do exactly this.

The problem is that Capenna just wasn't written with anything in mind beyond "demon mob families" so the world doesn't really make any sense. There is ostensibly a city government that ensures necessities like utilities and infrastructure are maintained, but explicitly no functional police force or governing body. I'm not sure if they collect taxes or what, but somehow the lights stay on. When you get to the families themselves I'm not really sure what the conflicts even are beyond isolated personal disputes, despite how much the branding and narrative of the set plays up the families "battling for supremacy". The only reason anyone's even fighting in SNC is because Ob Nixilis showed up.

The Maestros are traditional protection racketeers, "Dial M for Murder" assassins, and money launderers via their art dealing. Unless they're actively keeping other people from buying art they shouldn't have any interest in "supremacy" because the other four families presumably pay them to kill people (or would if they didn't all have their own gangs of murderers that do the same thing). The Brokers are literally just security guards, I don't know why they even tried the whole lawyer angle when the plane explicitly doesn't have laws. The Cabaretti and Obscura are less actual factions and more just "things rich people did in the 20s" ie. entertainment and occultism. And then Riveteers are raging union thugs but I don't know who's paying them unfair wages or who the scabs are in this scenario.

To me Capenna feels like they wanted the popularity of another Ravnica and to get some mileage out of the shards of Alara (without actually going back to Alara because it's too edgy for modern tastes) but they didn't understand what made Ravnica work. Ravnica generates conflict so well because the ten guilds all have radically different philosophies that put them into conflict but at the end of the day they all make the average person's life miserable and they're all more-or-less important to the city's maintenance and upkeep so none of them can ever decisively lose. Capenna, on the other hand, has no reason for the families to fight in normal circumstances because doing palmistry and crystal balls doesn't mean you have any inherent reason to hate welders, and even if that were the case it wouldn't matter if, say, the Maestros lost because it would just mean the plane no longer has a centralized cabal of art dealers and murderers.

tl;dr Capenna doesn't work because it's all vibes, the setting has no meat.

 

[Yamaha YM2612]

without actually going back to Alara because it's too edgy for modern tastes

Explain?

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

It was indeed Teysa that died, and they then summoned her ghost to tell them who done it.
That was one of the dumber points of the story (not quite it was 1/3rd of Trostani that did it dumb but it’s up there).

You get a partial point but this is not a complete answer.

 

[Very Professional]

Explain?

Old Alara, particularly Grixis, has some of the most intense art direction in the game's history, comparable to New Phyrexia. I can't say with any certainty, I don't work for WotC, but I'm of the opinion Alara is on the pay-no-mind list because it's not an especially popular plane, it's not a legacy plane like Dominaria with a lot of crucial lore, and it's visually incongruous with the League splash art direction they've moved to over the past few years. Compare this to something like Duskmourn where most of the horror is bloodless, implied, or outright goofy.

 

[Yamaha YM2612]

Old Alara, particularly Grixis, has some of the most intense art direction in the game's history, comparable to New Phyrexia. I can't say with any certainty, I don't work for WotC, but I'm of the opinion Alara is on the pay-no-mind list because it's not an especially popular plane, it's not a legacy plane like Dominaria with a lot of crucial lore, and it's visually incongruous with the League splash art direction they've moved to over the past few years. Compare this to something like Duskmourn where most of the horror is bloodless, implied, or outright goofy.

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Good point. Though I would say in the "should we revisit this plane?" question, art style is pretty low on the decision....I mean, they could revisit and just use shitty art, just like they did with dominaria lol

 

[Very Professional]

Good point. Though I would say in the "should we revisit this plane?" question, art style is pretty low on the decision....I mean, they could revisit and just use shitty art, just like they did with dominaria lol

I think it definitely plays a role. MaRo is on record that they were trepidatious about doing another Phyrexia-focused set because of how intense the art direction in the original was, and even with the shitty licorice suit redesign they gave the Phyrexians, Redditors still complained it was too edgy. You can only water down a design so much before it's unrecognizable. It might be the general atmosphere more so than the art direction itself, but they surely ask themselves "Is this world marketable to the modern Magic audience?" when scheduling Return sets, and I don't think Alara has what they're looking for despite how much potential the setting has. Hell, even with Dominaria I think the main thing that saved it was that it was, for a good ten years, Magic's "default" setting.

 

[Logistical Nightmare]

You get a partial point but this is not a complete answer.

I did forget that prime speaker zegana was killed first and that’s what kicked it all off, but she hasn’t mattered since gatecrash so… (they literally fucked up by putting this info on literal MURDER that no one cares about and not it’s own cards like Deadly Complication)

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I did forget that prime speaker zegana was killed first and that’s what kicked it all off, but she hasn’t mattered since gatecrash so… (they literally fucked up by putting this info on literal MURDER that no one cares about and not it’s own cards like Deadly Complication)

There is one more crime you can name for full credit

 

[Logistical Nightmare]

There is one more crime you can name for full credit

had to go hunting for the actual answer because it was a LITERALLY WHO made for the FUCKING SET that they killed off. Who the fuck cares about Kylox??? I fucking hate the WORC story team. Does make Ill-timed explosion make more sense but still. Car-bombing on Ravnica was not on my bingo card, so I’ll take my partial credit.

 

[Billy the Adult]

Old Alara, particularly Grixis, has some of the most intense art direction in the game's history, comparable to New Phyrexia. I can't say with any certainty, I don't work for WotC, but I'm of the opinion Alara is on the pay-no-mind list because it's not an especially popular plane, it's not a legacy plane like Dominaria with a lot of crucial lore, and it's visually incongruous with the League splash art direction they've moved to over the past few years. Compare this to something like Duskmourn where most of the horror is bloodless, implied, or outright goofy.

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You say that, but they sanitized Phyrexians. I think they could figure something out. I think its just a lack of popularity, on top of the next set needing to be a shift unless they retcon like the newest Khans set.

had to go hunting for the actual answer because it was a LITERALLY WHO made for the FUCKING SET that they killed off. Who the fuck cares about Kylox??? I fucking hate the WORC story team. Does make Ill-timed explosion make more sense but still. Car-bombing on Ravnica was not on my bingo card, so I’ll take my partial credit.

That's hilarious. Orzhov, Simic, and Izzet had a person murdered, yet the countdown was because of Boros giving an ultimatum against Rakdos. I'm sure there's justification, but on paper its a little funny.

For the Capenna discussion, you'd think it'd be easy - one faction is declaring war on another unless the killer is brought to justice. I guess the issue is that its hard to have a twist villain on the "everyone's a demon" plane, on top of if there's shifts in the whole plane due to angels or whatever. Also, if it is so lawless, why the hell did they make a lawyer faction?