It seems okay. Like, not particularly thrilling, but alright. In theory I like what it does: 45 card deck out of essentially a small set worth of cards that creates a unique experience for each box, bridging the gap between MtG’s original starter decks and Keyforge insofar as limited product range meets a standardized set.
This is the exact opposite of what board gamers want. No one wants to buy a board game that has random parts in it like a MTG card pack. And now you need to open four more copies of the board game or buy individual parts online to actually complete the set. It's a terrible model. This game will fail in the short and long run.
He's also being credited as the head MTG designer in lots of promotional material in a way that implies he created MTG. But people are already correcting in the comments that it was Richard Garfield who actually designed the game. And this game is being promoted like it's part of the MTG including using the same fonts. This is probably what Mark Rosewater is really capable of on his own when he's not getting credit for the designs of the MTG team.
This is the exact opposite of what board gamers want. No one wants to buy a board game that has random parts in it like a MTG card pack. And now you need to open four more copies of the board game or buy individual parts online to actually complete the set. It's a terrible model. This game will fail in the short and long run.
He's also being credited as the head MTG designer in lots of promotional material in a way that implies he created MTG. But people are already correcting in the comments that it was Richard Garfield who actually designed the game. And this game is being promoted like it's part of the MTG including using the same fonts. This is probably what Mark Rosewater is really capable of on his own when he's not getting credit for the designs of the MTG team.
Trust me, I understand. The average board gamer spends just as much time collecting every expansion as they do playing the game; sometimes that’s even more interesting than playing the game itself (KD:M comes to mind). Opening a new game, only to discover you’re missing like 1/5th of the total collection without clear ways to obtain the rest beyond buying singles is ironically retreading the sins of the past. That’s why Dr. Garfield made KeyForge algorithmic rather than set-based; he knew if there was a high theoretical ceiling and an unquantifiable number of cards it reduces completionism. (Plus it gave us Titanflayer, Farmer of Racism.)
I understand MaRo’s vision; he built the game intentionally to have a set number of rarities, presumably with color collation, and made in a way that retains a high balance, high-variance, low-skill ceiling. From a technical standpoint I can see how it works, and I assume it works well. It’s just ironic that a game about emotions will put board gamers into a sour mood over not owning everything (even if it is unnecessary for gameplay).
It should be noted WotC owned this the moment MaRo worked on it after signing his contract. Even if he did it at home, it immediately became a company asset. Although marketing it as Magic-adjacent is certainly a stretch. It’s only reusing company assets (artwork, fonts) that likely wouldn’t be used anyway, alongside what appears to be a very loose interpretation of the color pie philosophies.
As for the framing of MaRo as creator; he is, at least publicly, the 2nd most important person in Magic. Arguably he has had his hand in a lot of what we consider Magic today (for good and bad). He’s obviously not the creator, but head designer for this long is no joke. The only issue is he seems to be growing more and more disconnected from the average player’s perspective and deeper entrenched into the “metrics”. Add in that he’s always had a flair for un-sets (or what he now retardedly calls “acorn” cards, because his dumb ass couldn’t keep un-cards out of black border), and yeah, this kind of “therapy in a box” game is right up his alley.
If/when we get the card effects I may reskin them into something actually interesting.
I'm glad they're reprinting the One Ring, the price on that is like 80-90 dollars for a regular one right now. Like the leaks out of the Hobbit set so far, Arkenstone is a very underwhelming card. Smaug is pretty good but could be better. Thorin is really good, I see him getting banned in standard.
I'm not paying a dime for any of these cards but...
I half want to have colossus hammer on the field and a bunch of rocks from Toggo all set to go when Thorin drops onto the battlefield. Just for the meme.
Bit of an odd request, but... what's the consensus on Bloomburrow? A friend of mine that's a lot more involved with MTG mentioned it; looks like a rather lighterhearted Redwall story, but how is it lore and gameplay-wise? Given that it's fairly modern, I imagine that it's fagged up the ass somehow...
Problem is that he's a 4 drop and there's no existing deck that he slots in and there's no obviously good equipment begging to be played and I think pretty much all of the times they've tried an Equipment Matters theme for limited have rotated out too (last time was boros living steel equipment rebels in one of the nuPhyrexias, yeah?) so it's not obvious where he would fit.
I also think his ideal play pattern is too slow for standard since you can't really count on his play pattern delivering you much. His curve is like Turn 1 drop queer for the gear > Turn 2 equipment/another guy > Turn 3 equipment/another guy > Turn 4 Thorin cast throw gear on one guy remove one blocker and swing and it's a plan that gets disrupted by pretty much everything just to do a bolt and some equip tax evasion (once).
Bit of an odd request, but... what's the consensus on Bloomburrow? A friend of mine that's a lot more involved with MTG mentioned it; looks like a rather lighterhearted Redwall story, but how is it lore and gameplay-wise? Given that it's fairly modern, I imagine that it's fagged up the ass somehow...
Bit of an odd request, but... what's the consensus on Bloomburrow? A friend of mine that's a lot more involved with MTG mentioned it; looks like a rather lighterhearted Redwall story, but how is it lore and gameplay-wise? Given that it's fairly modern, I imagine that it's fagged up the ass somehow...
It's...fine? The Lore was basically Ral chasing Jace after Jace revealed he was behind Oko's plan to crack open the vault from Thunder Junction then runs into the Locals who might have seen Jace and gets sucked into their quest to make The Giant Evil Bird Maha from killing everyone and then find out that Maha's egg was stolen and he helps unsteal it.
It is very basic but non offensive.
Gameplay wise..its a Tribal set so it has the problem that the tribes are poorly balanced.
Problem is that he's a 4 drop and there's no existing deck that he slots in and there's no obviously good equipment begging to be played and I think pretty much all of the times they've tried an Equipment Matters theme for limited have rotated out too (last time was boros living steel equipment rebels in one of the nuPhyrexias, yeah?) so it's not obvious where he would fit.
Bit of an odd request, but... what's the consensus on Bloomburrow? A friend of mine that's a lot more involved with MTG mentioned it; looks like a rather lighterhearted Redwall story, but how is it lore and gameplay-wise? Given that it's fairly modern, I imagine that it's fagged up the ass somehow...
I'm glad they're reprinting the One Ring, the price on that is like 80-90 dollars for a regular one right now. Like the leaks out of the Hobbit set so far, Arkenstone is a very underwhelming card. Smaug is pretty good but could be better. Thorin is really good, I see him getting banned in standard.
The reprint of TOR is already paying dividends. There's been a very weird controversy happening recently, specifically with claims of stolen art.
See, so at the start of MagicCon: Las Vegas, we got TOR reprint for the new set. Seems pretty standard, right? Seems a bit familiar though, it's almost like... *Uh Oh*:
So, it seems WotC copied and pasted Marta Nael's art, right? Except *Dan Frazier*, one of the most legendary artists in MtG, is credited with it. Donato Giancola originally called this out on FB, where he assumes that WotC edited the piece before pushing it out:
In the comments of this post, we actually hear from Dan Frazier's agent, Mark Aronowitz, who claims Dan did *not* create this final version of the piece:
And yet, later that same day, we get this joint press release from WotC and Dan Frazier, where Dan claims he "didn't make it his own" by "painting over [Marta's ring]":
Naturally, this has sparked a lot of whining from Redditards about "muh integrity", but that kind of spergery meant to be laughed at in the other thread. I'm not sure about you guys, but my neurons are activated.
This entire situation is truly emblematic of WotC's current inability to hold the firehose. There is no good way out for them: either they, as Mark claimed, edited the art (which to me seems quite likely) or they failed to catch one of the "Original Five" committing one of the most blatant plagiarism attempts I've ever seen. Dan is 81; I don't even know if he can use Photoshop. Dan just doesn't work digitally. He's a traditional artist in every piece (that I know of) except this. It's not unreasonable to me that, behind the scenes, WotC has paid Dan off to take the fall so they can avoid responsibility for altering the work, while attributing it to both Dan (who likely made the background) and Marta. This is why Mark said Dan didn't do it, and why WotC hasn't banned him like they did Jason Felix, Fay Dalton, or David Sondered. I bet this looks great to UWOTC and CWA.
