Magic The Gathering

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Whipping this out during sealed is just mean.

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I think I like the concept of Amonkhet Remastered more than I like playing Amonkhet. Hopefully its popular enough that they keep releasing these remastered sets on a regular basis.

Also, I bought a single pack of Double Masters and opened a Mana Crypt. Pretty sure that's God telling me to stop gambling on cardboard.
 
yes! Mark released his state of design today! Let's see what he ends up contradicting himself on...

LESSONS​
We had balance issues.​
Let me start by stressing that this isn't my area, so I'm not going to dig into the why of what happened. (As I do touch upon below, there are things that vision design did that made balance particularly challenging this year.) Obviously, any year where we have the number of bannings that we've had this year isn't ideal. All I can really say to this lesson is that we're working hard to correct the issues that led to this year's mistakes.​

This paragraph is too damn short he absolutely needed to go into exactly how they are working hard "to correct" the issue. Magic had gone from solid, playable states, to a toxic mess. If we all assumed the entire playtesting theme had been fired, I doubt the last year would have looked much different. Did anybody even try or did you all stop listening to them? You should really explain that, Mark.

The year could have been more mechanically cohesive.​
We're still adapting to a blockless world. Having a year where every set occurs on a different plane and has a unique set of mechanics is a challenge to creating mechanical flow throughout the year. That is, we want you to have the ability to build decks that can evolve as new sets come out. We experimented with having a couple of themes (monocolor and enchantments, for instance) weaved in through the various sets, but it's still something that I acknowledge needs more work. There are a lot of advantages to not having blocks, but there are also a number of challenges, and this has been the biggest one for me. While we're slowly improving, I feel we still have a long way to go.​

This is really where Mark starts to sound like a monkey in a cocaine study. Let's look at what Mark said way back in 2017...
One of the most eye-opening things about the Two-Block Model was realizing that some of the problems we attributed to the third set were in fact about small sets. Giving a small set its own identity that also plays well with the large set is problematic. Change too much and the sets feel disconnected; don't change enough and the new set isn't exciting. The third set hid this problem by making the second set seem better in comparison. By removing it, the second set got more focus.
Oh, so small sets had to be gotten rid of because "they weren't exciting enough" but now you're complaining that there's not enough cohesion through the year. Well what did you expect when you insisted on every set being as "exciting" as possible? Literally everyone could see this coming, Mark.

Too many elk​
It's hard to talk about Throne of Eldraine without talking about Oko. One of the challenges of making a planeswalker card is designing something that is exciting and evocative without becoming overbearing in gameplay. Oko obviously failed in that regard. The big takeaway from Oko's design is the need to be careful with what kind of effects we do with a positive loyalty cost. We can limit negative loyalty effects, but positive ones can just be done turn after turn. Making things into Elk, for example, needed to be a negative loyalty.​

I really wish I could buy a pile of Oko's and rub your nose in it until you learned.

Adamant was forgetful.​
If you ask players to list the mechanics of Throne of Eldraine, everyone will list Adventures, but a lot of people will forget adamant. It's not that it was bad or didn't have a use, but it just wasn't something that inspired any kind of excitement. Looking back, I wonder if we could have found a mechanic for the Camelot side that helped the monocolor theme, but possibly in a slightly more flavorful way.​

Considering that the very next set had devotion in it, you had 2 monocolored themes stretched across 2 sets. In a year you broke everything, how did you not set up the two mechanics to feed into each other? Maybe you all have gotten a little too obsessed with "power" cards instead of thinking big picture and planning things out better?

The story was underwhelming.​
When we announced that we were returning to Theros, there were a number of players very happy because it meant the return of Elspeth. When the Theros block ended, Elspeth was killed by Heliod and sent to the Underworld. A return would mean the continuation of her story. Everyone kind of knew she'd get out of the Underworld, but how? That they wanted to see. No book was released, so the weight of the storytelling fell to the cards, and while the story was reflected in the set, it just wasn't a compelling presentation for the audience that had waited so long for the story.​

I will block the sperging for those who don't care about lore.
I read the original Theros ebooks. I LOVED a lot of the work they put in flavor wise and story wise into the original block both in books and on cards. True, it wasn't the greatest - even among magic stories - but it wasn't the worst either.

One of the key points about the story, was Elspeth finding love with Daxos and a chance at peace & happiness. (Wasn't sold well, but it was there.) In true greek tragedy fashion, she wishes for his return, and after she dies, we see Daxos wandering about like a zombie.

Come this set and... what? I see Daxos is on a card. He's a "demigod" now. How? Look HERE IS THE ENTIRE STORY SUMMARY:
Let's see what's up with Daxos...
" To that end, he pulled the soul of the oracle Daxos and transformed him into his champion in the mortal realm. Now a demigod, Daxos was instructed to remove all trace of the other gods from the great city of Meletis. . . . After a brief reunion with Daxos, Elspeth planeswalked away. "

Wow that's... that's it? There's no drama about his reunion with her? Did Heliod compel him to fight his lover? Did they have to work together to both be freed? Does he have any emotions over what Elspeth is? What's been going on?

NOPE.

And that's just ONE aspect of the first story. Another was that at the end of the story, Ajani resolved to fight the gods with tvtropes. There's no mention of him in the above link. No mention even if any of the cat people in Theros listened to him.

Gee, you leave a dozen loose ends from the last block and tie NONE of them up in the sequel, and you wonder why nobody liked the story? You don't even get an F on this assignment, you get a "not complete."

Players embraced higher complexity.​
We used Ikoria to run an experiment where we ramped up the complexity to a higher level than we'd done in many years. Would players embrace it, or would they reject it? The answer is, for the most part, they embraced it. Mutate, for instance, was complicated, but it was flavorful and it was fun, and the feedback was that while we shouldn't do this type of thing all the time, if we did it on occasion, and tied it strongly to an enjoyable flavor, it was something they'd want to see again.​

I was ambivalent on mutate originally. Then i realized it was a mechanic you were ripping off one of WotC's failed card games for - and now I'm REALLY disappointed in you.

Companions​
This wasn't just the biggest mistake of the set, this was the biggest mistake of the year. We made something that was so environment warping (and not just in one format, but in almost all formats), that we had to errata how the mechanic worked. That's a pretty big mistake. The big lesson here is that while I do want to make sure design has the opportunity to try new and bold things, we have to think about the scope of what we're asking the rest of R&D to sign up for. For example, I think both mutate and companions are things we should have done, but in hindsight, it shouldn't have been in the same set. Part of the job of design is not overtaxing play design, and I believe in Ikoria, that's what we did. We were experimenting with raising complexity for our players. I think we didn't realize we were also raising the complexity for ourselves. While the first was successful, the latter was not.​

Just... just letting that sit there.

Unhappiness about the disconnect with the story​
Another common complaint I got was that the cards and the book contradicted one another on several occasions. In the past, we'd had elements in the book missing in the card set, or vice versa, but this was the first set in a while where the book said one thing and the cards said the opposite. We are looking into ways to help avoid disconnects like this happening in the future.​

That seriously does make me laugh. No joke, with everything else they have done wrong in Ikoria, magic went and made a continuity snarl IN THE LORE. If you want the details, magic historian got ya covered.

Finally, for comparison, MaRo always does a "closing paragraph" at the end of these things. Let's compare what last year's looked like, to this year's side by side...
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Hmm.... pretty short and doesn't say much does it? Makes one think he knows how badly he f** up and is really restraining himself from an apology tour.
 
Let me start by stressing that this isn't my area, so I'm not going to dig into the why of what happened.
Because you are a shit leader and should be fired Maro.

You hired a bunch of diversity hires who don't know how to actually play the game as the Play League and they completely fucked everything like they have done for the past 5 years.

The year could have been more mechanically cohesive.
Wait what is that you say? when you have 4 different blocks on 4 different worlds with 4 different stories you end up with no Cohesive mechanics? FUCKING AMAZING DISCOVERY HERE FOLKS.

Oh, so small sets had to be gotten rid of because "they weren't exciting enough"
No smalls sets had to be gotten rid of because the design team is too lazy and ADD Riddled to make 1 large set and 2 smalls sets these days, however you dumb faggots can still find all the time in the world to make supplemental products that you can sell for 5 times as much as a normal pack.

Considering that the very next set had devotion in it, you had 2 monocolored themes stretched across 2 sets. In a year you broke everything, how did you not set up the two mechanics to feed into each other? Maybe you all have gotten a little too obsessed with "power" cards instead of thinking big picture and planning things out better?
You missed one problem.

They did 2 super Mono colored focused sets..after we spent a year on the Multi-Color theme plane, This is not a new god damn problem either. Decades ago you had the following line of blocks.

Onslaught - Creature/Tribal Focused
Mirrodin - Artifact Focused
Kamigawa - Legendary/Tribal Focused
Ravnica - Multicolor Focused.

They bounced between themes like fucking morons. Even ignoring the massive power downshift in Kamigawa..how was it supposed to shine as a set when put between two blocks that actively fought against using Mono-colored Tribal decks? How the hell was Adamant and Devotion shine when you have Shock Lands, Triomes, Temples and Fabled Passage to make it super easy to play 2 and 3 colors.

Oh hey and lets not forget they made that exact same mistake with Kaladesh/Amonkhet/Ixalan/Dominaria where they put The Artifact set..as far as humanly possible from the Historic (ARTIFACTS YOU DUMB FAGGOT MARO) Matters?

Also before I forget.

Making things into Elk, for example, needed to be a negative loyalty.
You mean that you shouldn't be able to use the second most played (I am counting Cultivate and Kodama's reach as the same card here) Green Card in the most popular format for free every turn? NO FUCKING SHIT and don't forget it was your broken ass play test group that missed being able to do it to other people's permanents.

I will admit the community missed Oko as well, when he was spoiled everyone was "Oh hey this will be good in EDH and that is about it."

I will block the sperging for those who don't care about lore.
Hey lets not forget..that They killed of Gideon the literal set before Theros 2.

Hmm.... pretty short and doesn't say much does it? Makes one think he knows how badly he f** up and is really restraining himself from an apology tour.

I would agree except he left out some of the biggest recent fuck ups.

1. The timing of effects

Hydroid Krasis, Explosion, Nightpack Ambusher, Briarborn Cutthroat, Teferi Master of Time.

Krasis and Teferi are almost impossible to interact with.

Ambusher and Cuttthroat you can't interact with in any meaningful way.

Threats you can't easily interact with are a motherfucking major god damn problem. Removal right now is stronger than it has been in years (possibly ever, I can't remember when we have had 5 good removal spells in standard.)

2. Mana costs becoming largely irrelevant

Nissa, Fires of Invention, Wilderness Reclamation, Winota, Luka.

All things that very much circumvent Mana cost.

3. Consistency in card templates.

Everyone acknowledges that Uro is powerful, but why is it so much more powerful than Kroxia who is effectively the same thing in reverse. Well it is because of one minor difference between the 2, you will almost always get all 3 parts of Uro. If Kroxia said "Opponent Discards a card and loses 3 life" it would be just as powerful as Uro is.

But that isn't the worst example of this. The worst example is Gyruda/Obosh vs Lurrus. Why is it that Gyruda and Obosh specify that every card has to qualify for the companion rule and Lurrus only specifies "permanents"

4. Product Bloat.

There are way too many god damn products released now, it is something new every other month. I am tired of spoilers, I am tired of releases I am tired of having to constantly find time to dig through my commander decks to keep them up to date because as soon as I get through updating my decks I have to start the process over again.
 
Wait what is that you say? when you have 4 different blocks on 4 different worlds with 4 different stories you end up with no Cohesive mechanics? FUCKING AMAZING DISCOVERY HERE FOLKS.


No smalls sets had to be gotten rid of because the design team is too lazy and ADD Riddled to make 1 large set and 2 smalls sets these days, however you dumb faggots can still find all the time in the world to make supplemental products that you can sell for 5 times as much as a normal pack.

Exactly. I could understand that maybe a full 3 set block is a little much, 2 sets seemed about what they wanted. It looks like part of the issue Mark kept bring up was drafting. So part of me wonders... what if they just focused on drafting for the big set, and then ignored drafting on the little set? Just let it be another product that added to the world and constructed.

Since it looks like they work around 4-6 sets a year (either 3 paired blocks, or the 3-and-1 model of now) that they should just do large-small, large-small, supplemental, core - then repeat.

You missed one problem.

They did 2 super Mono colored focused sets..after we spent a year on the Multi-Color theme plane, This is not a new god damn problem either. Decades ago you had the following line of blocks.

Onslaught - Creature/Tribal Focused
Mirrodin - Artifact Focused
Kamigawa - Legendary/Tribal Focused
Ravnica - Multicolor Focused.

They bounced between themes like fucking morons. Even ignoring the massive power downshift in Kamigawa..how was it supposed to shine as a set when put between two blocks that actively fought against using Mono-colored Tribal decks? How the hell was Adamant and Devotion shine when you have Shock Lands, Triomes, Temples and Fabled Passage to make it super easy to play 2 and 3 colors.

Oh hey and lets not forget they made that exact same mistake with Kaladesh/Amonkhet/Ixalan/Dominaria where they put The Artifact set..as far as humanly possible from the Historic (ARTIFACTS YOU DUMB FAGGOT MARO) Matters?

Good example. At least under the old block model it kept them focused on tasks for a year. They could do a 3-1 model, but they need to think of it a bit more like a block, even as they jump around. Like what's a theme to unite the 3 separate blocks around before you do core and then start a new unified theme. (like they did with ravinca awhile back) For an example - why not monocolor focus? Eldraine starts off with adamant. Theros 2 shows up with devotion. then you have a third set arrive with a different mechanic that likes color focus? Maybe Zendikar 3 and you get like a typed landfall. Landfall-Island for example (bonus effect when an island enters the battlefield). Then you have the core set kind of act as a soft "reset" and you could start with Ikoria for "year of the tri-color" or something.


Hey lets not forget..that They killed of Gideon the literal set before Theros 2.

Oh yeah... shame the guy couldn't get any passing tributes.

Oh HERE'S AN IDEA: You have Ajani go there to pay his respects after War, then he looks into how his trope war is going and learns about Elspeth possibly escaping and you have a story hook.

4. Product Bloat.

There are way too many god damn products released now, it is something new every other month. I am tired of spoilers, I am tired of releases I am tired of having to constantly find time to dig through my commander decks to keep them up to date because as soon as I get through updating my decks I have to start the process over again.
Word.
 
As someone who abandoned Magic years ago, is that for real?

Yes, they are doing limited run, print to order, mail directly to purchaser runs on alternate art cards.


There's all of them to date. They're kind of a mixed bag in my opinion. I got a couple theros stargazing and the Godzilla lands. Prime Slime is terrible art on meh cards. Summerdrop series was mostly shit, but considered the bolts. I liked the constellation gods, and was indifferent on most of the rest.

They range 30-50 bucks, though they did a super premium $150, one per LGS, of 5 of the fetchlands.
 
Exactly. I could understand that maybe a full 3 set block is a little much, 2 sets seemed about what they wanted. It looks like part of the issue Mark kept bring up was drafting. So part of me wonders... what if they just focused on drafting for the big set, and then ignored drafting on the little set? Just let it be another product that added to the world and constructed.
Well they abandoned Drafting in the Pro-Tour/Mythic Championship/Players Tour entirely because Maro wants to jerk off to Arena, however the MTG community are autistic as all hell and want to be able to draft every god damn thing under the sun, which is why Masters sets are such fucking piles of garbage because they have to be "draftable"

Since it looks like they work around 4-6 sets a year (either 3 paired blocks, or the 3-and-1 model of now) that they should just do large-small, large-small, supplemental, core - then repeat.
Given that Standard has been largely absolute trash since they shifted away from the Large-Small-Small model I think they should just go back to that, Fire Maro's dumb ass and give us back the year in one plane model, fucking with the block format has completely destroyed the premier format of the game and that rests on Maro's god damn shoulders.

Or are we all just going to think it is complete coincidence that the only really good standard that everybody didn't get tired of after a week was Ixalan Block-Dominaria-2 Ravnica.

Fuck Ixalan haters, the power was absolutely fine, Golgari Explore Midrange was the last good, powerful standard deck that wasn't miserable to play against.

Oh HERE'S AN IDEA: You have Ajani go there to pay his respects after War, then he looks into how his trope war is going and learns about Elspeth possibly escaping and you have a story hook.
Or..how about..you don't fucking throw Gideon under the bus to save Liliana.

You let Liliana die, she was a bad guy, she shouldn't have been in the Gatewatch to start with given that her first major act in the lore is to invade a town with a zombie army, threaten to murder everyone and raise them into undeath unless the local government allows her to shatter an artifact that has an untold amount of Demons, Devils..and god knows what else in there.

Nahiri is in there, Shadows over Innistrad happened purely because Liliana was fucking evil. Liliana caused Shadows over Innistrad, if she hadn't been fucking around like an entitled snank all 3 Eldrazi would be dead now and she got off SCOTT FUCKING FREE.

As someone who abandoned Magic years ago, is that for real?
Yes, they are part of a premium product.

Now I don't mind premium stuff, I even own the Nicol Bolas, God Dragon SDCC version for my EDH deck because I think that art is God damn kick ass, but the Premium products should have Premium art, not fucking Tatoo shit or fucking shit that looks like it is out of a bad children's book.
 
Well they abandoned Drafting in the Pro-Tour/Mythic Championship/Players Tour entirely because Maro wants to jerk off to Arena, however the MTG community are autistic as all hell and want to be able to draft every god damn thing under the sun, which is why Masters sets are such fucking piles of garbage because they have to be "draftable"

It probably didn't help that apparently the first masters set was hella fun to draft. (I didn't get the chance to, but it was highly praised.)

There is some irony in that they have now released TWO additional boosters in Zendi 3 which are NOT focused around drafting. Meaning 2/3rds of the product purchase options are not designed for drafting.

Which means it seems like they could actually go with selling a product with no draft design.

Given that Standard has been largely absolute trash since they shifted away from the Large-Small-Small model I think they should just go back to that, Fire Maro's dumb ass and give us back the year in one plane model, fucking with the block format has completely destroyed the premier format of the game and that rests on Maro's god damn shoulders.

Here's where we have a very minor disagreement. You believe it's the system, I think it's the people. I would bet that even if they went back to the classic block model, it wouldn't change much because they still have shit playtesters. F.I.R.E. has done far more to ruin standard than any block shenanigans.

Or..how about..you don't fucking throw Gideon under the bus to save Liliana.

Well someone had to die in War for it to be... you know a war... and you think Liliana is gonna get it? Not only is she a woman in 2019, not only did a major controversy get sparked the last time they threatened Liliana, but she was also one of the only spank banks left for the non-SJW players so you know they couldn't risk angering BOTH sides of the player split.

But then I was pretty on board with Gideon/Chandra and was annoyed with the Harley Quinn-esque/Mary Sue-esque figure they were turning Chandra into.
 
Which means it seems like they could actually go with selling a product with no draft design.
Oh they always could have, they could have released The masters reprints sets and say "Draft it if you want, but it probably won't be a fantastic experience, this really isn't designed around drafting..buyer beware"

Here's where we have a very minor disagreement. You believe it's the system, I think it's the people. I would bet that even if they went back to the classic block model, it wouldn't change much because they still have shit playtesters. F.I.R.E. has done far more to ruin standard than any block shenanigans.
I mean, the same people are the ones that discarded the Block System because it was "too hard"

Well someone had to die in War for it to be... you know a war... and you think Liliana is gonna get it? Not only is she a woman in 2019, not only did a major controversy get sparked the last time they threatened Liliana, but she was also one of the only spank banks left for the non-SJW players so you know they couldn't risk angering BOTH sides of the player split.

But then I was pretty on board with Gideon/Chandra and was annoyed with the Harley Quinn-esque/Mary Sue-esque figure they were turning Chandra into.
I don't give a shit about any of that.

Letting Liliana get away from WAR with zero repercussions for her pre-gatewatch actions was bullshit. She should never have been in the Gatewatch in the first place, she was a villain from her introduction the entire way until Magic Origins. Her joining the Gatewatch and going through that story arc without any comeuppance for her actions before that is inexcusable.

But then I was pretty on board with Gideon/Chandra and was annoyed with the Harley Quinn-esque/Mary Sue-esque figure they were turning Chandra into.
I mean Chandra is the only.."face" walker they have left.

Jace fucked off now that he isn't the Guildpact, Liliana got everything she wanted out of everyone and fucked off, Gideon is Dead..Nissa is a NEET who won't ever leave her Basement again.
 
It probably didn't help that apparently the first masters set was hella fun to draft. (I didn't get the chance to, but it was highly praised.)

There is some irony in that they have now released TWO additional boosters in Zendi 3 which are NOT focused around drafting. Meaning 2/3rds of the product purchase options are not designed for drafting.

Which means it seems like they could actually go with selling a product with no draft design.



Here's where we have a very minor disagreement. You believe it's the system, I think it's the people. I would bet that even if they went back to the classic block model, it wouldn't change much because they still have shit playtesters. F.I.R.E. has done far more to ruin standard than any block shenanigans.



Well someone had to die in War for it to be... you know a war... and you think Liliana is gonna get it? Not only is she a woman in 2019, not only did a major controversy get sparked the last time they threatened Liliana, but she was also one of the only spank banks left for the non-SJW players so you know they couldn't risk angering BOTH sides of the player split.

But then I was pretty on board with Gideon/Chandra and was annoyed with the Harley Quinn-esque/Mary Sue-esque figure they were turning Chandra into.

A lot more people should of fucking died in War. Except for Dack and Domri, that cascade of sparks flying into Bolas was from unnamed characters.
 
A lot more people should of fucking died in War. Except for Dack and Domri, that cascade of sparks flying into Bolas was from unnamed characters.

The entire WAR story was shit, How are there so many Planeswalkers in existence in the first place, they aren't immortal anymore and The Blind Eternities has "distance" as Urza had to take time to travel plane to plane to find Elquior, and Artificial Planes had a specific gap between them and the normal Multiverse, So many planeswalkers in instant jumping distance of Ravnica was bullshit.
 
Oh they always could have, they could have released The masters reprints sets and say "Draft it if you want, but it probably won't be a fantastic experience, this really isn't designed around drafting..buyer beware"
I dunno... considering how they were pitching the new booster in Zendikar as a major epiphany, I honestly wonder if they could have ever conceived of releasing a non-draft product. Corporate culture and all that.

I mean, the same people are the ones that discarded the Block System because it was "too hard"
So we do agree. Though with the way things sound, are we sure there wasn't a massive rotation of employees since then? Seems like there were rumors WotC is quite the charnel mill.

I don't give a shit about any of that.

Letting Liliana get away from WAR with zero repercussions for her pre-gatewatch actions was bullshit. She should never have been in the Gatewatch in the first place, she was a villain from her introduction the entire way until Magic Origins. Her joining the Gatewatch and going through that story arc without any comeuppance for her actions before that is inexcusable.
Oh I agree with you on the principles of what the story should have been - I'm just also cynical about what's going to happen. Especially in the modern era when there's a push to do more planeswalkers that aren't white males into the story - but then you can't ever have anything bad happen to characters that aren't white males. It's even ironic because in one of his long videos discussing the book, Spice Rack talks about how a lack of deaths really remove weight from the story - but then is also glad nothing happened to Ral or his boytoy because "bury your gays" is such an overused trope.

Heck they didn't even have to do deaths. It would have been interesting to see Saheeli get maimed and then make an artificial arm or leg to contrast with Tezzerat for example.

Really it's kind of funny that when their flagship product and format is built around rotation, they didn't bother setting up a rotating cast. You could have even done the gatewatch like the Justice League AND Avengers both have done and create more than one team that goes around on adventures, allowing you to rotate the cast and reduce burnout. It's rather embarrassing that comics have spent years mastering this method, and WotC can't figure out the basics.

I mean Chandra is the only.."face" walker they have left.

Jace fucked off now that he isn't the Guildpact, Liliana got everything she wanted out of everyone and fucked off, Gideon is Dead..Nissa is a NEET who won't ever leave her Basement again.
Oh Jace is going to be back - they admit repeatedly that he's the most popular planeswalker they have. It would be like saying Disney is going to retire Mickey.

Heh. Yeah with everything said - Liliana really does have no story left does she? Boy that would have been a good time to kill her.

OR maybe another idea - she goes to Theros to honor Gideon's sacrifice, and there she finds out her powers are screwy because of the underworld and gets involved with Elspeth's saga.

There's some irony that Mark "professional writer (who used to write for Rosanne)" Rosewater can't figure out basic story tricks or principles for the game story of late.

(Then in Eldraine we come to find out that the "aryan youth" planeswalkers are the product of rape & evil - who wants to have fun interpreting that imagery.)

The entire WAR story was shit, How are there so many Planeswalkers in existence in the first place, they aren't immortal anymore and The Blind Eternities has "distance" as Urza had to take time to travel plane to plane to find Elquior, and Artificial Planes had a specific gap between them and the normal Multiverse, So many planeswalkers in instant jumping distance of Ravnica was bullshit.
The one thing I will grant is that there is apparently a bit of time between them turning on the beacon, and when Bolas activates his spell. I don't think it's ever explicitly explained because I think they went half-cocked on Bolas' plan but conceptually Bolas was waiting for as many planeswalkers to show up as he could.

Man, remember when Weissman could write interesting, intelligent villains and do final showdowns?
 
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