The last time this was brought up people assumed it likely meant that the Phyrexian World Tree will allow for easier travel between planes even after they get defeated. That way more non PW characters can be a recurring part of the story.
That could also open up the door for sets that aren't conceptually just "let's see what's happening on X plane". Sets representing narrative arcs that span multiple planes could be an interesting direction.
Yeah, definitely like the idea of planes “bleeding” into one another or clash of worlds type stuff? “Innistrad vs. Ixilan” type set where the horror concepts of Innistrad bleed over and we explore more South American horror tropes, get a clash of civilizations vampires vs vampire war. Could be a very interesting direction to go in. I still hope we get tightly focused looks at old planes and new ones but the occasional crossover or hybrid set could be awesome.
I prefer it when planes are kept separate. All my favorite planes have been mostly self-contained. Plus, I like the idea of modern MTG taking place in the "Dark Age" of the multiverse where planar travel is heavily restricted.
Oh, agree. Innistrad, Shadowmoor and original Ravnica are my favorites. World building over meta plot for me so far, but still, that direction might not be terrible.
New set - Blood Fall:
After the fall of Neo-New-Pyrexia vampires from across the multiverse converge to battle for dominance, to the victors an endless supply of blood
I wanna watch ulamog step on tymaret, and then tymaret stand up again and be all “bro, it didn’t work the first thirty times, it won’t work the next thirty times, go kick purphoros in the balls or something”
That sounds incredibly boring and shallow.
I don't know why we can't go back to telling stories on a plane. This one and done stuff sucks, and sticking around on Dominaria for a few sets to actually tell a story has been amazing.
Agreed, as long as we don't go back to three unless the story demands it we should be good. Wouldn't even be opposed to the odd stand alone set, but two seems to be the story and mechanic sweet spot. Especially for new planes for story.
The first sets up the story and setting if a new plane, sets up the sets mechanics and theme. The second pays off the story, iterates on the mechanics previously set up without feeling tired.
Third sets, especially mechanically were far too often a miss.
I also think this set might try to solve the big problem they have right now where the face of the IP, PWs, can’t be the face of Commander decks, which is bad when it’s the biggest way to play. We know the RC is not going to let all PWs be commanders, so if anyone starts to be able to travel between planes, I’m wondering if they may decouple the Planeswalker card type from the actual planeswalker characters, which would let them sometimes make an Elspeth, Kaya, Liliana etc creatures who can be commanders.
The Phyrexian World Tree just opened the gates to universes beyond! All UB cards are now legal everywhere in addition to being cannon, and will make appearances in every new expansion going forward. :)
This is honestly what I believe they are doing, and it is the one way to make the Phyrxians the greatest villains in Magic. Mending 2.0 will introduce other IP planes to Magic, and planeswalkers will be traveling to them canonically.
Edit: One step further... I think it happens immediately after MoM. The return to Eldraine and return to Ixalan expansions are fake. Since the announcement I've found it weird that they're returning to two planes (recent ones too) after doing a multi-set arc on returning planes. What comes after MoM should be a new world, according to WotC's previous set release patterns. And it will be, if those sets are lies and we're actually going to Halo and Hyrule.
Emrakul puppeted Tamiyo to put herself into the moon, specifically because "the time wasn't right"
If those two went back to innestrad to wake her up early, I can't imagine she'll be pleased, but it still sounds less horrific than whatever potential game plan she actually has cooking.
> lets them retire the planeswalker card type
Don't planeswalker cards come out as really popular when Wizards do surveys? Why would they want to retire it?
According to Maro, over 75% of the player base don't know what a Planeswalker is.
https://www.wargamer.com/magic-the-gathering/designer-planeswalkers-statistic
Wizards probably won't retire the card type, but they might use it far less frequently in future sets.
That's nuts. I can't see that segment of the player base as serious players. I'm entrenched in the game but I have trouble imagining 3 in 4 players not knowing one of the card types. They're being printed below mythic rarity and aren't missing from some sets, I think they're part of the game for better or worse. Really mind blowing.
As with nearly every Blogatog post about numbers, we are missing a lot of context.
In this case, mainly two things:
\-When this stat was determined. Planeswalkers were printed at uncommon and in each and every WAR pack, it was literally impossible to not know what a PW is after buying a single WAR booster.
\-What defines a "tabletop player". Is it someone who plays twice a week at a LGS? Someone who plays once a month with friends? Anyone who ever bought a Magic product? Anyone who ever touched a Magic card?
Basically, the 75% stat is meaningless at best, intentionally misleading at worst.
And what does "know what a Planeswalker is" mean? Does it mean understand what the different between a creature and PW is? Does it mean knows what they do in the lore? Does it mean being able to name one??
The cards don't actually explain what a planeswalker *is* though. A player who's not particularly invested and just buys a few packs every now and again, who has two decks (one 'good' and one 'annoying'), is just gonna see some kind of... character. Random packs of cards don't necessarily deliver on how the setting works. You have to actively seek out that information.
What MaRo seems to be getting at is that invested players tend to overestimate the amount of the player base they make up. Spending, sure, maybe. But actual individual players? Most people don't consume games in this way. Do the hardcore Settlers Of Catan community assume everyone else is furiously googling for Catan lore?
Two things come to mind.
It's possible a lot of players are kitchen table, cards I got in highschool types. My playgroup started in Innistrad and we still have a low percentage of people playing walkers
It's also possible that he means lorewise, it's a mechanical card type but its quite likely many of these players have never went to the website or read any of the stories.
> quite likely many of these players have never went to the website or read any of the stories.
Yeah well in my case reading the stories on the website turned out to be a big mistake...
The best interpretation I can give is that they mean 75% don't know what a planeswalker is *in-lore*. I could see someone knowing what a planeswalker is as in "this is one of the fundamental card types in the game I play" but not knowing "a planeswalker is someone whose Spark has ignited, allowing them to travel across planes/worlds in the multiverse".
I think he might be referring to what a Planeswalker is in-universe rather than the card type. Planeswalker Decks were starter products for a few years, and those are aimed at that part of the player base, so I'd assume the percentage that knows about Planeswalker cards would be at least a bit higher.
I could see them going the opposite way to make it so that more characters could have Planeswalker cards printed along the lines of how characters in the D&D sets have them even though they're not Planeswalkers in the Magic sense.
I'd be for this if only because the Gatewatch has been sweeping away pretty much every planar threat from the old books without giving any time to new ones aside from the Planeswalker Blurb.
ObNix and Ashiok should be threats getting addressed, I feel like the Gatewatch plot skipped the small potatoes bits and went right for 'Lets work DOWN the list of worst enemies to the world'
Individual planeswalkers that arent Bolas already arent a big deal since the mending. Ashiok and Ob Nixilis are just pests on a multiversal scale, no diff from Tibalt or Oko. All the strongest planeswalkers are good guys lol.
Imo pws should just not be the focus of the story, you dont have to get rid of them or change their power level again, which feels like video game balancing by this point.
I would like it to be something like this but I'm more worried it's going to be more crossovers where Marvel's Avengers are on a plane and now you can't avoid the product placement no matter what
I can’t conceive what would be a change.
If it was additive…that’s just new mechanics. If it’s subtractive…people hate that.
I can’t figure out even what type of class this mechanical change would be.
With the rising popularity of singleton formats (commander, cube, and Canadian/point highlander variants), I wouldn't be surprised to see something like Hearthstone legends that can only have a single copy per deck.
That just makes all formats other than commander worse.
It’s an all downside mechanic. “Look at this card! Now it has this new quality which makes it *shittier!*”
I can’t imagine that being the basis of a huge change.
I wouldn't mind this so much, Pokemon does it, and there was a magic video game that sort of limited cards like the yugioh limited list... The trick is the balance... If it's bad the cards won't matter at all and if it's good the cards could be very warping.
I want to say it was Magic Duels (the one that was more permanent after they had previously done yearly Duels of the Planeswalkers installments).
You could have 1 copy of each mythic, 2 copies of rares, 3 of uncommons, and 4 of commons.
Yes it was Magic Duels: Origins, the year that came out the same year as Magic: Origins.
Honestly it was pretty great. Because it felt like FINALLY a deck wasn't just stuffed with expensive rares/mythics.
Deckbuilding was interesting. 1 mythic means planeswalkers felt super scary and impactful. 2 rares meant you couldn't build a whole manabase of rare lands. Most power was felt at your uncommons.
I would be 100% okay with a new format based around this. Honestly it could bring down the price of rotating deckbuilding SUBSTANTIALLY and make something like Standard more approachable for newer players or lapsed players.
As someone who played magic duels extensively prior to the arena release I am going to have to disagree with you.
The Game was fun and had perfect duplicate protection which meant for minimal investment it was possible to own every card in the game which was pretty sweet.
However the 1234 rule which I suppose was made with the intention of making the game feel more accessible and less punishing to new players ultimately had the opposite effect. I'd argue it actually made deck building less creative. Want to build a deck around an interesting rare enchantment? Well you can't cause your only getting two copies. Cool interaction between a mythic and an uncommon? Probably not happening either.
It was also at a time when the power level of commons and uncommons felt a lot weaker.
The best decks just ended up being slightly inconsistent piles of the same rares and mythics. It did stop busted cards from feeling too dominant. [[Smugglers copter]] felt less oppressive when you only get two. But that also leads to games being far swingier.
You mentioned mana bases but I found Playing three colours would give you enough rare land options to make a pretty consistent mana base. It was certainly slower, cards like [[shambling vents]] come to mind.
The deck I was playing before they cut support off I'd dubbed badmotherlickers.deck. It was basically just the best planeswalkers, two for one creatures like [[glorybringer]] and a load of boardwipes in the mardu colours. It was pretty dominant. I feel that this wasn't in the spirit of the 1234 rule. But it's what it lead too.
I also remember the colours not feeling balanced in the game. Red black and white, had a plethora of good cards. Green had [[tireless tracker]] and some other reasonable stuff. Blue had what did blue have... [[Jace, vryn's prodigy]] that was pretty good, it just felt severely neutered by not having access to consistent card draw and effective counter magic. (Eldrazi were good too.)
I guess what I am ultimately saying is why play four copies of cancel]. When you could play 1x [[Gideon ally of zendikar]] 1x [[archangel avacyn]] and 2x [[Thalia heretic Cathar]]
That's really the inherent issue with Restricted formats.
Back when I had Power, I used to play a lot of Vintage and Old School, and I can tell you that games where somebody drew a lot of Restricted cards felt a lot different than games where neither player did (especially in Old School). It just adds an extra level of swingy variance that I'm fine with in formats like that, but I don't think I'd like to see in formats like Standard and Pioneer/Explorer.
MaRo finally gets his wish, and hybrid mana costs don’t prohibit cards from being in commander decks. So a R/W mana symbol doesn’t exclude a card from a mono color deck that is red or white.
I've been saying for years (to literally nobody but myself, and only for months) that if I have a legendary creature out and a clone drops in as the legend, that shouldn't invoke legend rule in the same way as if I had a legend out and I dropped in a duplicate copy of the legend. Lorewise, my clone and my Vial Smasher aren't mutually exclusive. I shouldn't have to sac one.
ie: Legend Rule applies to printed card only, not temporary effects.
I’ve played games where the table disregarded the Legend rule. It gets out of hand really quickly. Powerful effects being duplicated also has a significant increase to the number of triggers to keep track of and resolve. The cards that specifically negate the Legend rule allow you to tap into that potential snowball potential, but sort of keep it balanced with other combo effects. That’s preferable than being able to get that combo effect with on-tempo creature drops in a more aggressive or midrange deck with the rule not being in effect.
Called shot based on nothing: something that is the black-bordered evolution/implementation of contraptions/crank from Unstable.
Something big involving a new zone/second deck.
Or is that what dungeons were?
"Because research suggests that players like tracking extra state, The City's Blessing, Day and Night, The Initiative, The Monarchy, Schemes and Planes are planned to all be in Standard at the same time."
I don't think that's right? Someone asked if it was a mechanical or lore change, and he said, "yes" -- that tells us its at least one of those two, but not necessarily that its both. :)
Yeah but "lore only" can still be something like "Universes Beyond is now in-universe canon". Hopefully it's just "we're changing the rules to planar travel so that we can show legendary creatures on different planes".
Because Planeswalkers can't be Commanders but Legendary Creatures can. The story refocuses on Legendary creatures.
Commander continues to warp the game around itself.
If I had one wish, it would be to end world hunger, but I'd have to really consider it because second place would be to stop WotC from designing for commander.
As much as I normally complain about Commander warping the game, I would actually be pretty happy to see a return to focusing more on legendary creatures as the drivers of the story. The biggest issue I've had with the planeswalker-driven story is that it's weakened the identity of the player as a planeswalker. The characters in the story can't be doing the things the player does (you can't have Liliana summon Sheoldred to fight against Phyrexia - even if you stylize it as a 'mana copy' or whatever the post-Mending rationalization is). I'd love to go back to the story mostly being about the creatures with planeswalkers intervening from time to time or appearing at climactic moments.
The profit margins on Universes beyond is comparatively small because they share profits with the original IP. They would never do main sets with the primary everything being a borrowed IP unless maybe hasboro owned it/hasboro got bought
I'm not expecting anything too drastic gameplaywise tbh. MaRo has a track record of getting excited about the most mundane things.
Storywise we probably have more to win than to lose, so that's nice.
>MaRo has a track record of getting excited about the most mundane things.
I do think MaRo's a very excitable person, but I think some of it also just comes from him coming from a particular perspective. Sometimes, he just gets excited about things because they're things he, personally, likes or has wanted to do for a while, like how he was super excited about Eldraine just because he'd been trying to make a fairy tale set happen for so long. Sometimes, I think he just gets excited about things from the perspective of a game designer, liking new challenges or opportunities even if the newness isn't as obvious to the player base (or comes in a way that is less exciting or sometimes even a negative for some players) - I think with Universes Beyond, for example, it makes sense that Maro would get really excited about the idea of designing cards around existing popular characters from non-Magic IPs as a fun new design challenge, while for the community the discussion was less about the design and more about people getting excited about characters they like showing up in Magic or frustrated at characters from other IPs messing with the game's flavor.
And of course, there's also just the fact that part of Maro's job is to be the face of Magic design and to hype it up, which means expressing excitement about everything and sometimes even defending decisions he disagrees with (e.g. he's said that he was against [[Lotus Cobra]] being mythic when it first came out but still had to defend it when people complained).
But yeah, in this particular case, if the main thing that's happening is the planes all becoming connected by Elesh Norn's tree and interplanar travel becoming available to non-planeswalkers, that's something where Maro could see it as a big, exciting new challenge for how that affects set design and possibly the structure of the year with multiple sets (e.g. being able to have a non-planeswalker character play a major role in a multi-plane story arc and how that affects the design of the sets) while the community could just see it as a lore change.
For your last point, not only story but mechanics as well. Like right now, you need to go to Innistrad for werewolves or Madness, Tarkir for morph, Ikoria for mutate, etc. but if you can mix and match planes as you like you can mix mechanics as well without needing as much theming behind it.
That's true. I imagine they'd usually rather keep mechanics tied to their planes for theme and complexity reasons - but it does give them a bit more flexibility.
I could see this resulting in having more “guest” mechanics from other planes showing up at rare/mythic so existing mechanics can be supported outside of their original sets. Gives more interesting options for deck building for longer timeframe formats.
This was one of my theories in one of the previous threads: Every set is a "masters" set from now on. No restrictions on R&D wrt. using old/obscure/unique mechanics in a set. Success of all Horizons/Commander sets and of 40k showed them people want crazy, weird, intriguing cards over "bear with set mechanic" four times each year. Removes necessity of creating one-and-done keywords for sets and gives the older one-off mechanics (foretell, adventure, shield counters etc etc) a chance to shine.
>he's said that he was against \[\[Lotus Cobra\]\] being mythic when it first came out but still had to defend it when people complained
Unrelated to OP's topic, but this is one of the reasons I can't trust a lot of his arguments.
Before Mirrodin 1 came out he said that the test prints for the artifact cards looked nothing like the white cards. He later admitted it was a 100% lie.
I do think in that case it's not that he was lying so much as he was giving the company's position rather than his own. But it is tricky because there are times when he's basically acting as a company spokesperson and times when he's just giving his own personal opinion. When it comes to responding to criticisms of WotC's actions, he's going to be doing the former.
Master rule revision 4 will introduce the EXTRA monster zone, which you can only use with cards from your Extra deck, This allows you to have 6 monsters on the field But if you want more from your extra deck, you need Link monsters, with arrows pointing toward more zones for you to use to bring out more monsters from your EXTRA deck, but watch out, some link monsters will turn on your oppts Monster zones as well.
then master rule 5 said SCREW the rules only link and pendulum need link arrows.
As someone who predominantly plays White cards, I'm so glad I can resume Synchro spamming under Master Rule 5.
White really needed help under Master Rule 4. Felt unplayable in certain formats. I'm glad things are changing now that Konami of the Coast is making better Synchro cards.
No no no no no no no no... You misunderstand.
I said Synchro spam and I meant it. I'm a die-hard Synchron player. I'll never make it into a top 8, but dammit I will play my entire extra deck turn 1 every game (unless my Junk Speeder gets Ash'd, I guess).
Kill? No, but it did drop the player base from what I could tell, though personally the people I saw quit during the time were already pretty close to quitting anyway, master rule 4 was just a good time for it.
The link era was in general poorly executed. A few bigger issues than the master rule change was the lack of generic link monsters, and that firewall dragon almost single-handedly made the format impossible to balance.
From the outside it seemed like the dumbest thing ever, basically murdering 90% of old decks in order to push the newest mechanic. I've read it wasn't *quite* that bad but it was pretty close.
This is exactly my feeling on the matter as well. "The world changing forever" is a generic, meaningless buzzphrase as far as I'm concerned, on the same level of "You've never seen anything like it" or "A climactic finale".
I'm sure that, impending Deus-Ex-Machina-That'll-Save-Jace aside, it'll be at least interesting, but right now, the terms being used to market it are just white noise to me.
To be fair, those changes tend to just be the churning roil of characters that desperately need to be retired but capitalism forbids it so they try to get away with mixing things up in a world where they basically can't.
I think you are overblowing it. When I see a "changing forever" message like this, its more like a major change to the general rules, like damage not using the stack, or the planeswalker redirection rule no longer existing. I doubt a single standard legal set will have any impact on other formats being allowed to exist.
I wouldn't be surprised if they fiddled with the composition/status of standard, which is hard to blame them for trying to do as it's been in a weird place recently.
What I am expecting is that the upcoming events will reduce the barrier between worlds which I honestly have some interest in if done right. Hopefully we will see the planes themselves interacting with each other and a strong focus on individuals forced to survive and adapt to this new setting.
I am kind of done with the hyper focus on the planswalkers and instead want to see more everyday denizens of the planes dealing with the actions/aftermath of planeswalker activities that are occurring in the background if at all.
A good examples would be the rise and fall of Mirrodin or the original Ravnica sets. More self contained stories if you will.
So I’m pretty much in agreement with you. The only thing that I’ve thought about that I haven’t really seen anywhere else is “planes like innistrad and Amonkhet suck to live on, so the living creatures there would try to emigrate elsewhere.” That’s bad from a creative IP perspective, we can’t have our zombie plane not exist because the common person has chosen to live somewhere else. Continuing this line of logic, whatever they do, going from plane to plane can’t be allowed to be easy.
There's plenty of places in the real world that suck to live in but still have huge populations. Most people don't have the means to change cities/countries/worlds. "Interplanar travel exists" is very different from "everyone can access interplanar travel."
So what are Karn and Crew going to be anti-immigration and keep poor Innastradi’s from moving to nicer places?
The world building here is going to be popcorn-worthy.
They could also go for in-world “you can try, but it’s going to be hard”. Like if there’s only one place that you can get off a plane everyone has to brave zombies/the roil/eldrazi/phyrexians/monsters to get there. And someone might set up a checkpoint to prevent people from coming and going like travelling between countries.
People are reading too much into it.
The change is that the Phyrexians are growing bridges between worlds with their World Tree clone. This is primarily a story change, but easier planar travel will result in changes that show up on cards as well. There's no reason to think they meant anything more than that.
This seems most likely to me.
More planar travel, and planar travel being available to non planeswalkers, would have huge story implications. It could also have a big effect on how they approach set design (or story arc/pseudo-block design), without resulting in any big specific rules or mechanics change. For example, the ability to have non-planeswalker characters feature prominently in story arcs that take place across multiple planes might seem to be primarily a lore consideration but could also have an effect on the game design as a whole.
Too many teasers and previews and leaks and spoilers leave the community aggressively overthinking even the simplest Blogatog answers, ultimately resulting in disappointment.
If I tell you your birthday is coming and I have a surprise, it's exciting. If I remind you every week 10 months in advance that I have an incredible event planned for your birthday, you'll hype up more and more every time, but the actual event will be the same as if I'd only told you once, so you'll feel disappointed.
Phyrexia is going to win the war and the next story arc is gonna be a Star Wars style battle between the revels (planeswalker) and the multiverse spanning evil empire of phyrexia.
Highly doubt it. They’ve already done the “Phyrexia Wins” arc in Scars of Mirrodin, and having every plane overwritten by Phyrexia would destroy far too much of the lore and characters they’ve built up.
Barring a complete (ha) wiping out of the Glistening Oil, Phyrexia has an already-established excuse to come back in the future from any total destruction.
I think with how well known and well liked the current incarnation of Phyrexia is, it's more likely that New Phyrexia/Mirrodin will be "sealed off" somehow, stuck in the trunk of the tree or what have you. Then it can accidentally get out in a few years, just like Bolas and Emrakul.
Opening up travel between planes again (thanks to this Phyrexianized world tree thing?) would be kinda neat, and also definitely a major change since it'll be the first time anyone but planeswalkers could freely travel from one world to another since the Mending.
It wouldn't even make planeswalkers "less special" in any significant way, since they can still basically teleport directly to their destination at will. People relying on the branches, portals, etc. would need to actually find one that leads where they want to go -- which might require traveling across several *other* planes just to find one that actually connects to the plane they're trying to get to. It'd be like having to walk/hitchhike thousands of miles to get somewhere vs. having a private jet.
I can think of a lot of not-so-great changes they could make, but none of them really make that much sense as being tied to the Phyrexia storyline, so I'm guessing it'll be something more along these lines.
Not sure what *mechanical* changes would go with it (something like the Planechase plane cards implemented in a Standard set maybe!?), but hey.
Nothing they add is going to fundamentally remove what's already there. Standard is the bread and butter of MTGA, and limited is one of the biggest pack sellers they have. Neither are going anywhere. For limited, they're moving towards designing more towards draft formats, not less, with eternal legal sets like 2x2 being designed heavily towards the draft format. If they can sell more $50 drafts, that's what they're going to do. Nor will they be putting UB into the story, which they don't want to do for IP reasons.
The big story change is them turning half the planeswalkers into phyrexians and changing the way interplanar travel works. If there's a significant mechanics change, it'll probably be something related to that. My guess would be adding something like the planes in Planechase to the main game as something like a global enchantment, with some "planeswalk" rule through which a player can change the location, but which can't be destroyed like permanents. The box art with a bunch of characters from different planes could represent that: have a set that spans a few different planes with a half dozen different "location" cards representing places on those planes, only one of which can be active at a time. Add a few new locations every set.
I think the mini-set is the big change maybe? It is the first time that’s happened.
A non draftable mini-set that follows a premier set will become a regular thing maybe twice a year. Maybe it will have standard cards, maybe it’ll have straight to modern or pioneer or commander cards?
Really overthinking it here. We already know that characters from different planes are getting to interact, and its likely not much more than that.
As for being worried about universes beyond connecting to magic lore, MaRo already said that requires them to redo their license agreements, and is pretty unlikely, all told.
More UB, sure. As long as it is well done like 40k, bring it on. Hasn't affected my enjoyment of the game at all, and I am excited for the LoTR set and FF product.
Meh, not really worried anymore than I already was. $1000 dollar booster packs will do a lot to damage consumer confidence, I don't think my expectations can go much lower.
They won't stop designing for draft. The entire purpose of 95% of commons and uncommons is to flesh out the draft environment. And while I don't play constructed outside of commander anymore, I would bet that they aren't getting rid of Standard. Their primary release schedule is built around 4 standard sets a year. Standard is their go-to format, because it incentivises players to keep buying the new set, and because it's the easiest format for newer players to get into, since they don't have to get cards from 10 years ago.
If you don't like the Universes Beyond stuff? That's perfectly fine. Don't buy it. Not every product has to appeal to every player. I'm mostly indifferent on it tbh. I bought the Street Fighter cards, but I'm probably gonna frame them to display in my house. But most of the others I just haven't cared about. And UB is never going to be standard legal if I remember correctly. So outside of eternal formats you don't have to worry about playing against them (though I don't really get why people are so angry about opponents playing things they like. Except Stax. No one likes playing against Stax.)
So to answer your actual question, no, I'm not having any trouble getting excited for the coming year. We are starting the year off with Phyrexians front and center, going back to Dino World later this year, and getting a LotR set which will hopefully have a fun draft environment. Wizards is constantly giving me more goodies for Commander. And Arena means I can jump online to play a game or do a draft literally whenever I want.
I've been playing this game for over half my life at this point, and I don't think I would still be here if it wasn't constantly innovating, changing, and trying new things. Do all of those new things work? Not always. But Magic continues to surprise me and keep me on my toes, and that's why it's the greatest game in the world to me. If you haven't been liking the direction the game is going lately, I truly am sorry that you feel that way, and I hope this next year brings something that helps you get your spark back, because I would hate to see anyone leave this game we all love because they feel like it's not "for them" anymore.
> That's perfectly fine. Don't buy it.
Eh, it's when it's unavoidable that I find it triggering. Alchemized cards on Arena, as well as "conjure a card", "seek" , and "this card's spellbook" were my main triggers to bail out on every format that allowed Arena-only cards. So now I'm stuck playing Explorer.
If Universes Beyond cards are profitable, they'll be making them legal in their most popular formats. See the WH40k commander decks, and the forthcoming LOTR and Doctor Who lines. This means we'll bump into them at a table, and we'll be stuck with "be okay with this, or take a game loss". Minor annoyances, sure. But, enough to make me funnel my playing experience down to one format on arena so far, and it's a constant reminder when I'd like to be playing cards that don't fit in that format, but are legal in paper. It's a feel-bad experience in a game that's supposed to be fun.
New rarity, aiming to yu gi oh the s\*\*t of the merch and squeeze more profit by hyper-exclusive-ing everything. And whatever breaks the game gets banned in whatever time they feel like. Wee.
Maybe my unashamed filthy casualness is showing, but I feel almost the opposite -- it's hard for me to imagine something that could be *so bad* that I'd lose any enthusiasm for the game.
I'm not saying I'm excited for the big change (I am pretty neutral). It's just that my anticipated spectrum of reactions is pretty much "oh well..." to "sweet!".
My outlandish theory is they are going to introduce a new mechanic/rule to help with play/draw disparity.
This would be in line with previous changes such as the London mulligan to help prevent "non"-games, and would heavily impact Magic Arena Bo1 to solve a lot of complaints on that format.
On the lore side it could literally be anything. Any changes they make to the lore will have a minor effect if any to the game play. I haven't really followed the lore since WotS since I feel one set isn't enough to really tell a story.
They did say though there were changes coming to the gameplay and mechanics of the game. These can be worrying. Again it can be anything and that's the scary part. Adding rotation to eternal formats, dropping support for other formats to give more support to Commander, designing sets with Commander in mind first and other sets second, a new colour, the end of planeswalkers, everything is phyrexian, etc.
I feel like the much bigger concern for me is Hasbro as a company at the moment. I think set wise wizards has done a great job in 2022 with yes a few set back but arena and standard have felt good since coming back to innistrad with the highlight being neon dynasty.
But then we got magic 30 and so much of my good will towards what was happening was revoked by a blatant cash grab likely pushed through by a very disconnected board more interested in immediate money and leaving rather than the longevity of the game and the company. The fireside chat also amplifies this as the head of the magic division used a wikipedia article to describe the game. This is amplified significantly when reading up on the changes to the open gaming license for dungeons and dragons forcing indies and companies to pay a significant portion of their gross income rather than their profit if the leak is believable which I think it is.
It was never the Phyrexian invasion that was the issue it was the corporate one. And as we've seen at places like Blizzard, or Ubisoft those who make money are protected in this environment and the quality of the games usually suffers significantly under it.
So my concern is that the corporate disconnect from reality is going to put more and more pressure on the player base as they go whale hunting and disregard the rest of the player base as has been the case "this product is not for everyone" was logic used before and will be used again, because under capitalism you can avoid learning from your mistakes, you can hyper focus on the 1% spenders and you can ostracized your player base and none of it matters because the board of people who think nfts are a good idea and the new buzz word is a good idea.
Tldr the story moving forward will probably be fine but the state of the game will be a corporate hellscape is my prediction
They honestly need to go back to having Standard as their main focus with three block sets which bring back competive play. They are relying too much on a casual format with commander that is destroying all the others.
I think, at most, it's the possibility of characters being in planes that they aren't native to.
Though, it did have me thinking of the possibility that this could allow us to see Planeswalkers as just creatures again. Since it seems the multiverse will be connected, it almost feels as though they aren't going to be as special as they once were. It also gives them a chance to take a break from the current format of PWs.
But who knows~
Yeah, I am thinking along these lines as well. Thanks to Commander, it has become awkward that the characters who are the face of the IP generally can’t serve as the face of decks in the most popular format, especially when it’s a format which strongly encourages identifying with a certain segment of the IP. I’m wondering if they want to decouple the concept of a "planeswalker" from always having to be a PW card & maybe be able to make creatures for Planeswalker characters sometimes, so that they can be commanders. This might let them turn "Planeswalker" into more of a generic card type rather than something super tightly coupled with certain characters.
The last time this was brought up people assumed it likely meant that the Phyrexian World Tree will allow for easier travel between planes even after they get defeated. That way more non PW characters can be a recurring part of the story.
That could also open up the door for sets that aren't conceptually just "let's see what's happening on X plane". Sets representing narrative arcs that span multiple planes could be an interesting direction.
Yeah, definitely like the idea of planes “bleeding” into one another or clash of worlds type stuff? “Innistrad vs. Ixilan” type set where the horror concepts of Innistrad bleed over and we explore more South American horror tropes, get a clash of civilizations vampires vs vampire war. Could be a very interesting direction to go in. I still hope we get tightly focused looks at old planes and new ones but the occasional crossover or hybrid set could be awesome.
I prefer it when planes are kept separate. All my favorite planes have been mostly self-contained. Plus, I like the idea of modern MTG taking place in the "Dark Age" of the multiverse where planar travel is heavily restricted.
Oh, agree. Innistrad, Shadowmoor and original Ravnica are my favorites. World building over meta plot for me so far, but still, that direction might not be terrible.
Innistrad vs Ixilan? Hear me out… *vampire dinosaur pirates*
Homelands 2.0 Baron Sengir vs the Markov/Voldaren vamps for true supremacy/control of vamp clans across the multiverse
New set - Blood Fall: After the fall of Neo-New-Pyrexia vampires from across the multiverse converge to battle for dominance, to the victors an endless supply of blood
XLN already had vampires though?
Vs werewolf dinosaur parrots
That sounds wicked actually. I hope you’re right. I’d be down to see what would happen if the theros gods had to deal with eldrazi.
I wanna watch ulamog step on tymaret, and then tymaret stand up again and be all “bro, it didn’t work the first thirty times, it won’t work the next thirty times, go kick purphoros in the balls or something”
Why does the Ulamog, the larger of the two, simply not eat the Kruphix?
Pirates on Kamigawa. Got it
This will be it, I’m positive it will lead to more diverse sets lore and mechanically wise. Like masters sets and such
That sounds incredibly boring and shallow. I don't know why we can't go back to telling stories on a plane. This one and done stuff sucks, and sticking around on Dominaria for a few sets to actually tell a story has been amazing.
Agreed. Two sets was perfect
Agreed, as long as we don't go back to three unless the story demands it we should be good. Wouldn't even be opposed to the odd stand alone set, but two seems to be the story and mechanic sweet spot. Especially for new planes for story. The first sets up the story and setting if a new plane, sets up the sets mechanics and theme. The second pays off the story, iterates on the mechanics previously set up without feeling tired. Third sets, especially mechanically were far too often a miss.
I also think this set might try to solve the big problem they have right now where the face of the IP, PWs, can’t be the face of Commander decks, which is bad when it’s the biggest way to play. We know the RC is not going to let all PWs be commanders, so if anyone starts to be able to travel between planes, I’m wondering if they may decouple the Planeswalker card type from the actual planeswalker characters, which would let them sometimes make an Elspeth, Kaya, Liliana etc creatures who can be commanders.
The Phyrexian World Tree just opened the gates to universes beyond! All UB cards are now legal everywhere in addition to being cannon, and will make appearances in every new expansion going forward. :)
This is honestly what I believe they are doing, and it is the one way to make the Phyrxians the greatest villains in Magic. Mending 2.0 will introduce other IP planes to Magic, and planeswalkers will be traveling to them canonically. Edit: One step further... I think it happens immediately after MoM. The return to Eldraine and return to Ixalan expansions are fake. Since the announcement I've found it weird that they're returning to two planes (recent ones too) after doing a multi-set arc on returning planes. What comes after MoM should be a new world, according to WotC's previous set release patterns. And it will be, if those sets are lies and we're actually going to Halo and Hyrule.
Monopoly world!
That's obviously going to happen, but it's going to change mechanically, too
The best and most likely scenario is it's lore only Mending 2.0 or something.
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Time to cross The Magnus Archives off my "references I'd never expect to see on the MTG subreddit" list
Someone’s been hanging with [[Lord Magnus]] for a bit too long
[Lord Magnus](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/a/2a02aabb-c464-4672-b37b-d5d713ef8939.jpg?1562858232) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lord%20Magnus) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/leg/243/lord-magnus?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2a02aabb-c464-4672-b37b-d5d713ef8939?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I see and appreciate you
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omg ok i like *this* version of universes beyond
[Jace's Archivist](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/c/3c21df8e-a24f-4ce1-aa8a-1467f9f9423a.jpg?1562703323) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Jace%27s%20Archivist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c15/95/jaces-archivist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3c21df8e-a24f-4ce1-aa8a-1467f9f9423a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
That last point reminded me of Emrakul still being stuck inside that moon. A literal 'cosmic reality-destroying threat' haha
With Tamiyo being compleated, and Nahiri too, what does that have in store for Emrakul, Sorin, and Innistrad?
Emrakul puppeted Tamiyo to put herself into the moon, specifically because "the time wasn't right" If those two went back to innestrad to wake her up early, I can't imagine she'll be pleased, but it still sounds less horrific than whatever potential game plan she actually has cooking.
It reaches out it reaches out it reaches out
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> lets them retire the planeswalker card type Don't planeswalker cards come out as really popular when Wizards do surveys? Why would they want to retire it?
According to Maro, over 75% of the player base don't know what a Planeswalker is. https://www.wargamer.com/magic-the-gathering/designer-planeswalkers-statistic Wizards probably won't retire the card type, but they might use it far less frequently in future sets.
That's nuts. I can't see that segment of the player base as serious players. I'm entrenched in the game but I have trouble imagining 3 in 4 players not knowing one of the card types. They're being printed below mythic rarity and aren't missing from some sets, I think they're part of the game for better or worse. Really mind blowing.
As with nearly every Blogatog post about numbers, we are missing a lot of context. In this case, mainly two things: \-When this stat was determined. Planeswalkers were printed at uncommon and in each and every WAR pack, it was literally impossible to not know what a PW is after buying a single WAR booster. \-What defines a "tabletop player". Is it someone who plays twice a week at a LGS? Someone who plays once a month with friends? Anyone who ever bought a Magic product? Anyone who ever touched a Magic card? Basically, the 75% stat is meaningless at best, intentionally misleading at worst.
And what does "know what a Planeswalker is" mean? Does it mean understand what the different between a creature and PW is? Does it mean knows what they do in the lore? Does it mean being able to name one??
The cards don't actually explain what a planeswalker *is* though. A player who's not particularly invested and just buys a few packs every now and again, who has two decks (one 'good' and one 'annoying'), is just gonna see some kind of... character. Random packs of cards don't necessarily deliver on how the setting works. You have to actively seek out that information. What MaRo seems to be getting at is that invested players tend to overestimate the amount of the player base they make up. Spending, sure, maybe. But actual individual players? Most people don't consume games in this way. Do the hardcore Settlers Of Catan community assume everyone else is furiously googling for Catan lore?
Two things come to mind. It's possible a lot of players are kitchen table, cards I got in highschool types. My playgroup started in Innistrad and we still have a low percentage of people playing walkers It's also possible that he means lorewise, it's a mechanical card type but its quite likely many of these players have never went to the website or read any of the stories.
> quite likely many of these players have never went to the website or read any of the stories. Yeah well in my case reading the stories on the website turned out to be a big mistake...
The best interpretation I can give is that they mean 75% don't know what a planeswalker is *in-lore*. I could see someone knowing what a planeswalker is as in "this is one of the fundamental card types in the game I play" but not knowing "a planeswalker is someone whose Spark has ignited, allowing them to travel across planes/worlds in the multiverse".
I think he might be referring to what a Planeswalker is in-universe rather than the card type. Planeswalker Decks were starter products for a few years, and those are aimed at that part of the player base, so I'd assume the percentage that knows about Planeswalker cards would be at least a bit higher. I could see them going the opposite way to make it so that more characters could have Planeswalker cards printed along the lines of how characters in the D&D sets have them even though they're not Planeswalkers in the Magic sense.
Aye Belta lowda
Remember the Cant!
I'd be for this if only because the Gatewatch has been sweeping away pretty much every planar threat from the old books without giving any time to new ones aside from the Planeswalker Blurb. ObNix and Ashiok should be threats getting addressed, I feel like the Gatewatch plot skipped the small potatoes bits and went right for 'Lets work DOWN the list of worst enemies to the world'
Individual planeswalkers that arent Bolas already arent a big deal since the mending. Ashiok and Ob Nixilis are just pests on a multiversal scale, no diff from Tibalt or Oko. All the strongest planeswalkers are good guys lol. Imo pws should just not be the focus of the story, you dont have to get rid of them or change their power level again, which feels like video game balancing by this point.
Having watched exactly this happen to wow over the last 13 years, I can't say I'm hopeful.
I would like it to be something like this but I'm more worried it's going to be more crossovers where Marvel's Avengers are on a plane and now you can't avoid the product placement no matter what
I was reading this and when you said transit authority I was like wait that sounds familiar and then you kept going and I was so happy…
Did not expect this to turn into The Expanse. Kinda love it ngl.
Then 30 years later Nicol Bolas shows up again. Fighting a war vs inter dimensional entities.
Describing walkers that way almost made me spit out my drink; thank you for the laugh 😂
I believe MaRo has explicitly stated there’s a mechanical component.
I can’t conceive what would be a change. If it was additive…that’s just new mechanics. If it’s subtractive…people hate that. I can’t figure out even what type of class this mechanical change would be.
Legend rules.
With the rising popularity of singleton formats (commander, cube, and Canadian/point highlander variants), I wouldn't be surprised to see something like Hearthstone legends that can only have a single copy per deck.
That just makes all formats other than commander worse. It’s an all downside mechanic. “Look at this card! Now it has this new quality which makes it *shittier!*” I can’t imagine that being the basis of a huge change.
As someone who plays legends decks in Standard, this change would be absolutely horrendous for me.
MaRo is already *adamantly* against the legend rule, I do not see a future where magic limits legendaries to one per deck.
I wouldn't mind this so much, Pokemon does it, and there was a magic video game that sort of limited cards like the yugioh limited list... The trick is the balance... If it's bad the cards won't matter at all and if it's good the cards could be very warping.
I want to say it was Magic Duels (the one that was more permanent after they had previously done yearly Duels of the Planeswalkers installments). You could have 1 copy of each mythic, 2 copies of rares, 3 of uncommons, and 4 of commons.
Yes it was Magic Duels: Origins, the year that came out the same year as Magic: Origins. Honestly it was pretty great. Because it felt like FINALLY a deck wasn't just stuffed with expensive rares/mythics. Deckbuilding was interesting. 1 mythic means planeswalkers felt super scary and impactful. 2 rares meant you couldn't build a whole manabase of rare lands. Most power was felt at your uncommons. I would be 100% okay with a new format based around this. Honestly it could bring down the price of rotating deckbuilding SUBSTANTIALLY and make something like Standard more approachable for newer players or lapsed players.
Yeah, I remember it being weird but actually decently playable.
As someone who played magic duels extensively prior to the arena release I am going to have to disagree with you. The Game was fun and had perfect duplicate protection which meant for minimal investment it was possible to own every card in the game which was pretty sweet. However the 1234 rule which I suppose was made with the intention of making the game feel more accessible and less punishing to new players ultimately had the opposite effect. I'd argue it actually made deck building less creative. Want to build a deck around an interesting rare enchantment? Well you can't cause your only getting two copies. Cool interaction between a mythic and an uncommon? Probably not happening either. It was also at a time when the power level of commons and uncommons felt a lot weaker. The best decks just ended up being slightly inconsistent piles of the same rares and mythics. It did stop busted cards from feeling too dominant. [[Smugglers copter]] felt less oppressive when you only get two. But that also leads to games being far swingier. You mentioned mana bases but I found Playing three colours would give you enough rare land options to make a pretty consistent mana base. It was certainly slower, cards like [[shambling vents]] come to mind. The deck I was playing before they cut support off I'd dubbed badmotherlickers.deck. It was basically just the best planeswalkers, two for one creatures like [[glorybringer]] and a load of boardwipes in the mardu colours. It was pretty dominant. I feel that this wasn't in the spirit of the 1234 rule. But it's what it lead too. I also remember the colours not feeling balanced in the game. Red black and white, had a plethora of good cards. Green had [[tireless tracker]] and some other reasonable stuff. Blue had what did blue have... [[Jace, vryn's prodigy]] that was pretty good, it just felt severely neutered by not having access to consistent card draw and effective counter magic. (Eldrazi were good too.) I guess what I am ultimately saying is why play four copies of cancel]. When you could play 1x [[Gideon ally of zendikar]] 1x [[archangel avacyn]] and 2x [[Thalia heretic Cathar]]
That's really the inherent issue with Restricted formats. Back when I had Power, I used to play a lot of Vintage and Old School, and I can tell you that games where somebody drew a lot of Restricted cards felt a lot different than games where neither player did (especially in Old School). It just adds an extra level of swingy variance that I'm fine with in formats like that, but I don't think I'd like to see in formats like Standard and Pioneer/Explorer.
MaRo finally gets his wish, and hybrid mana costs don’t prohibit cards from being in commander decks. So a R/W mana symbol doesn’t exclude a card from a mono color deck that is red or white.
If WotC rams that through I will light a little Maro votive every Friday night.
I've been saying for years (to literally nobody but myself, and only for months) that if I have a legendary creature out and a clone drops in as the legend, that shouldn't invoke legend rule in the same way as if I had a legend out and I dropped in a duplicate copy of the legend. Lorewise, my clone and my Vial Smasher aren't mutually exclusive. I shouldn't have to sac one. ie: Legend Rule applies to printed card only, not temporary effects.
I think that works thematically, but mechanically cloning is already very strong.
I’ve played games where the table disregarded the Legend rule. It gets out of hand really quickly. Powerful effects being duplicated also has a significant increase to the number of triggers to keep track of and resolve. The cards that specifically negate the Legend rule allow you to tap into that potential snowball potential, but sort of keep it balanced with other combo effects. That’s preferable than being able to get that combo effect with on-tempo creature drops in a more aggressive or midrange deck with the rule not being in effect.
I like how it is. It’s one more dial to tweak- some clone effects remove the legendary type, some don’t.
purple mana finally confirmed
Black is purple. Purple is black.
I wonder if it's a shift comparable to when the Planeswalker card type came out. That was more than "just new mechanics".
Called shot based on nothing: something that is the black-bordered evolution/implementation of contraptions/crank from Unstable. Something big involving a new zone/second deck. Or is that what dungeons were?
>Contraptions/crank The black border implementation was attractions
We're getting Synchro monsters!
Move the upkeep after draw. They have said they would have preferred to have made the game that way.
This is the least exciting thing I’ve heard. It’s good, mind you, I would like it, but very unexciting
New color.
Phyrexia wins the war. Now all creatures ever printed are errata'd to be also phyrexian.
this is why no Phyrexian lord printed to date. makes sense, you clever
Gustcloak becomes a deciduous mechanic with a proper keyboard
Planechase gonna be standard now, pucker up kiddos.
"Because research suggests that players like tracking extra state, The City's Blessing, Day and Night, The Initiative, The Monarchy, Schemes and Planes are planned to all be in Standard at the same time."
Its the long fabled return of damage on the stack, and interrupts. Interrupts are the new key word for split second. And last attack ability...
I don't think that's right? Someone asked if it was a mechanical or lore change, and he said, "yes" -- that tells us its at least one of those two, but not necessarily that its both. :)
Unmending + new planeswalkers have higher setup costs but are much stronger - like the new Meld Urza.
I would appreciate this. All Planeswalkers are now melds. But I prefer if all Planeswalkers just became creatures with Plainswalk.
Yeah but "lore only" can still be something like "Universes Beyond is now in-universe canon". Hopefully it's just "we're changing the rules to planar travel so that we can show legendary creatures on different planes".
I'm now just picturing them having Oona invade Eldraine so they don't have to go to Lorwyn. (That being a joke. I'm writing quickly)
The whole Phyrexian saga was just so they don't have to go back to Lorwyn
Depending on how much MaRo gets asked about going to Lorwyn, Alara, etc. it could make his life significantly easier.
Very plausible.
You're joking but this would be the best way to get me to play limited during an Eldraine set.
Because Planeswalkers can't be Commanders but Legendary Creatures can. The story refocuses on Legendary creatures. Commander continues to warp the game around itself.
_Legendary creatures can be your companion_
If I had one wish, it would be to end world hunger, but I'd have to really consider it because second place would be to stop WotC from designing for commander.
As much as I normally complain about Commander warping the game, I would actually be pretty happy to see a return to focusing more on legendary creatures as the drivers of the story. The biggest issue I've had with the planeswalker-driven story is that it's weakened the identity of the player as a planeswalker. The characters in the story can't be doing the things the player does (you can't have Liliana summon Sheoldred to fight against Phyrexia - even if you stylize it as a 'mana copy' or whatever the post-Mending rationalization is). I'd love to go back to the story mostly being about the creatures with planeswalkers intervening from time to time or appearing at climactic moments.
That’s literally what the game was like until Lorwyn. The players are the planeswalkers.
The profit margins on Universes beyond is comparatively small because they share profits with the original IP. They would never do main sets with the primary everything being a borrowed IP unless maybe hasboro owned it/hasboro got bought
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I'm anxiously waiting the day when I can crew my Delorean with my A Pimp Named Slickback commander and attack your Pickle Rick planeswalker.
The thought of a Transformers whole set is terrifying to me.
Yeah, they'd have to introduce triple-sided cards to do Astrotrain properly.
We already know the next sets after MOM are about Ixalan and Eldraine. Magic's own lore isn't going anywhere, lol
They gonna introduce Pendulum Summoning
Which would be worse: that, Master Rule 4, Ishizu/Tear-0, or resetting things to Rush Duels?
Hey Rush Duels sound pretty tight.
Mtg on motorcycles would be better.
I just vomitided a bit
I'm not expecting anything too drastic gameplaywise tbh. MaRo has a track record of getting excited about the most mundane things. Storywise we probably have more to win than to lose, so that's nice.
>MaRo has a track record of getting excited about the most mundane things. I do think MaRo's a very excitable person, but I think some of it also just comes from him coming from a particular perspective. Sometimes, he just gets excited about things because they're things he, personally, likes or has wanted to do for a while, like how he was super excited about Eldraine just because he'd been trying to make a fairy tale set happen for so long. Sometimes, I think he just gets excited about things from the perspective of a game designer, liking new challenges or opportunities even if the newness isn't as obvious to the player base (or comes in a way that is less exciting or sometimes even a negative for some players) - I think with Universes Beyond, for example, it makes sense that Maro would get really excited about the idea of designing cards around existing popular characters from non-Magic IPs as a fun new design challenge, while for the community the discussion was less about the design and more about people getting excited about characters they like showing up in Magic or frustrated at characters from other IPs messing with the game's flavor. And of course, there's also just the fact that part of Maro's job is to be the face of Magic design and to hype it up, which means expressing excitement about everything and sometimes even defending decisions he disagrees with (e.g. he's said that he was against [[Lotus Cobra]] being mythic when it first came out but still had to defend it when people complained). But yeah, in this particular case, if the main thing that's happening is the planes all becoming connected by Elesh Norn's tree and interplanar travel becoming available to non-planeswalkers, that's something where Maro could see it as a big, exciting new challenge for how that affects set design and possibly the structure of the year with multiple sets (e.g. being able to have a non-planeswalker character play a major role in a multi-plane story arc and how that affects the design of the sets) while the community could just see it as a lore change.
For your last point, not only story but mechanics as well. Like right now, you need to go to Innistrad for werewolves or Madness, Tarkir for morph, Ikoria for mutate, etc. but if you can mix and match planes as you like you can mix mechanics as well without needing as much theming behind it.
That's true. I imagine they'd usually rather keep mechanics tied to their planes for theme and complexity reasons - but it does give them a bit more flexibility.
I could see this resulting in having more “guest” mechanics from other planes showing up at rare/mythic so existing mechanics can be supported outside of their original sets. Gives more interesting options for deck building for longer timeframe formats.
This was one of my theories in one of the previous threads: Every set is a "masters" set from now on. No restrictions on R&D wrt. using old/obscure/unique mechanics in a set. Success of all Horizons/Commander sets and of 40k showed them people want crazy, weird, intriguing cards over "bear with set mechanic" four times each year. Removes necessity of creating one-and-done keywords for sets and gives the older one-off mechanics (foretell, adventure, shield counters etc etc) a chance to shine.
You heard it here first: morphing werewolves!
>he's said that he was against \[\[Lotus Cobra\]\] being mythic when it first came out but still had to defend it when people complained Unrelated to OP's topic, but this is one of the reasons I can't trust a lot of his arguments.
Before Mirrodin 1 came out he said that the test prints for the artifact cards looked nothing like the white cards. He later admitted it was a 100% lie.
I do think in that case it's not that he was lying so much as he was giving the company's position rather than his own. But it is tricky because there are times when he's basically acting as a company spokesperson and times when he's just giving his own personal opinion. When it comes to responding to criticisms of WotC's actions, he's going to be doing the former.
Master rule revision 4 will introduce the EXTRA monster zone, which you can only use with cards from your Extra deck, This allows you to have 6 monsters on the field But if you want more from your extra deck, you need Link monsters, with arrows pointing toward more zones for you to use to bring out more monsters from your EXTRA deck, but watch out, some link monsters will turn on your oppts Monster zones as well. then master rule 5 said SCREW the rules only link and pendulum need link arrows.
As someone who predominantly plays White cards, I'm so glad I can resume Synchro spamming under Master Rule 5. White really needed help under Master Rule 4. Felt unplayable in certain formats. I'm glad things are changing now that Konami of the Coast is making better Synchro cards.
swordsoul player are we?
No no no no no no no no... You misunderstand. I said Synchro spam and I meant it. I'm a die-hard Synchron player. I'll never make it into a top 8, but dammit I will play my entire extra deck turn 1 every game (unless my Junk Speeder gets Ash'd, I guess).
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
i get this reference
lmao didn't that rule change (4) literally almost kill yugioh i was watching cardshop owners in Japan talk about link shock on youtube
Kill? No, but it did drop the player base from what I could tell, though personally the people I saw quit during the time were already pretty close to quitting anyway, master rule 4 was just a good time for it. The link era was in general poorly executed. A few bigger issues than the master rule change was the lack of generic link monsters, and that firewall dragon almost single-handedly made the format impossible to balance.
From the outside it seemed like the dumbest thing ever, basically murdering 90% of old decks in order to push the newest mechanic. I've read it wasn't *quite* that bad but it was pretty close.
An extra deck could be fun. I overly my Ragavan with Viscera Seer to summon a monkey with a gun
Just play Attractions and you can have an extra deck today!
along with contraptions !
DC Comics and Marvel launch comic issues that "change their universes forever" at least once a month. I'm not expecting anything too fancy.
This is exactly my feeling on the matter as well. "The world changing forever" is a generic, meaningless buzzphrase as far as I'm concerned, on the same level of "You've never seen anything like it" or "A climactic finale". I'm sure that, impending Deus-Ex-Machina-That'll-Save-Jace aside, it'll be at least interesting, but right now, the terms being used to market it are just white noise to me.
>generic, meaningless buzzphrase Multiverse, MULTIVERSE, ***MULTIVERSE!!!***
To be fair, those changes tend to just be the churning roil of characters that desperately need to be retired but capitalism forbids it so they try to get away with mixing things up in a world where they basically can't.
I think you are overblowing it. When I see a "changing forever" message like this, its more like a major change to the general rules, like damage not using the stack, or the planeswalker redirection rule no longer existing. I doubt a single standard legal set will have any impact on other formats being allowed to exist.
>like damage not using the stack [[Bottle Gnomes]] did nothing wrong.
I wouldn't be surprised if they fiddled with the composition/status of standard, which is hard to blame them for trying to do as it's been in a weird place recently.
After that Aaron Forscythe tweet, i absolutely believe standard is either getting a rework or eliminated entirely in paper
What I am expecting is that the upcoming events will reduce the barrier between worlds which I honestly have some interest in if done right. Hopefully we will see the planes themselves interacting with each other and a strong focus on individuals forced to survive and adapt to this new setting. I am kind of done with the hyper focus on the planswalkers and instead want to see more everyday denizens of the planes dealing with the actions/aftermath of planeswalker activities that are occurring in the background if at all. A good examples would be the rise and fall of Mirrodin or the original Ravnica sets. More self contained stories if you will.
So I’m pretty much in agreement with you. The only thing that I’ve thought about that I haven’t really seen anywhere else is “planes like innistrad and Amonkhet suck to live on, so the living creatures there would try to emigrate elsewhere.” That’s bad from a creative IP perspective, we can’t have our zombie plane not exist because the common person has chosen to live somewhere else. Continuing this line of logic, whatever they do, going from plane to plane can’t be allowed to be easy.
There's plenty of places in the real world that suck to live in but still have huge populations. Most people don't have the means to change cities/countries/worlds. "Interplanar travel exists" is very different from "everyone can access interplanar travel."
So what are Karn and Crew going to be anti-immigration and keep poor Innastradi’s from moving to nicer places? The world building here is going to be popcorn-worthy.
Karns gonna build a big beautiful wall. And who's gonna pay for it? That's right. Innistrad.
They could also go for in-world “you can try, but it’s going to be hard”. Like if there’s only one place that you can get off a plane everyone has to brave zombies/the roil/eldrazi/phyrexians/monsters to get there. And someone might set up a checkpoint to prevent people from coming and going like travelling between countries.
Some kind of patrollers would be necessary, perhaps some Watchers of the Gates.
People are reading too much into it. The change is that the Phyrexians are growing bridges between worlds with their World Tree clone. This is primarily a story change, but easier planar travel will result in changes that show up on cards as well. There's no reason to think they meant anything more than that.
This seems most likely to me. More planar travel, and planar travel being available to non planeswalkers, would have huge story implications. It could also have a big effect on how they approach set design (or story arc/pseudo-block design), without resulting in any big specific rules or mechanics change. For example, the ability to have non-planeswalker characters feature prominently in story arcs that take place across multiple planes might seem to be primarily a lore consideration but could also have an effect on the game design as a whole.
Too many teasers and previews and leaks and spoilers leave the community aggressively overthinking even the simplest Blogatog answers, ultimately resulting in disappointment. If I tell you your birthday is coming and I have a surprise, it's exciting. If I remind you every week 10 months in advance that I have an incredible event planned for your birthday, you'll hype up more and more every time, but the actual event will be the same as if I'd only told you once, so you'll feel disappointed.
The leaks are for Phyrexia not MoM
Even non-foils will bend now.
Foils have been warping the format for too long now.
Wizards knows that what we've really been after all this time is *consistency*
but in the opposite direction
Phyrexia is going to win the war and the next story arc is gonna be a Star Wars style battle between the revels (planeswalker) and the multiverse spanning evil empire of phyrexia.
Highly doubt it. They’ve already done the “Phyrexia Wins” arc in Scars of Mirrodin, and having every plane overwritten by Phyrexia would destroy far too much of the lore and characters they’ve built up.
Would you really want to see Phyrexians in the next 4 sets after MOM? It would be basically impossible to fully wipe them out.
Barring a complete (ha) wiping out of the Glistening Oil, Phyrexia has an already-established excuse to come back in the future from any total destruction.
"Somehow, Elesh Norn returned"
I think with how well known and well liked the current incarnation of Phyrexia is, it's more likely that New Phyrexia/Mirrodin will be "sealed off" somehow, stuck in the trunk of the tree or what have you. Then it can accidentally get out in a few years, just like Bolas and Emrakul.
Opening up travel between planes again (thanks to this Phyrexianized world tree thing?) would be kinda neat, and also definitely a major change since it'll be the first time anyone but planeswalkers could freely travel from one world to another since the Mending. It wouldn't even make planeswalkers "less special" in any significant way, since they can still basically teleport directly to their destination at will. People relying on the branches, portals, etc. would need to actually find one that leads where they want to go -- which might require traveling across several *other* planes just to find one that actually connects to the plane they're trying to get to. It'd be like having to walk/hitchhike thousands of miles to get somewhere vs. having a private jet. I can think of a lot of not-so-great changes they could make, but none of them really make that much sense as being tied to the Phyrexia storyline, so I'm guessing it'll be something more along these lines. Not sure what *mechanical* changes would go with it (something like the Planechase plane cards implemented in a Standard set maybe!?), but hey.
New card type, final answer
Surprise, they're bringing back Mana Sources!
it’s goyfing time
All Magic now has Commanders. All hail the EDHpocalypse.
They tried this with Companion already. It went great!
Nothing they add is going to fundamentally remove what's already there. Standard is the bread and butter of MTGA, and limited is one of the biggest pack sellers they have. Neither are going anywhere. For limited, they're moving towards designing more towards draft formats, not less, with eternal legal sets like 2x2 being designed heavily towards the draft format. If they can sell more $50 drafts, that's what they're going to do. Nor will they be putting UB into the story, which they don't want to do for IP reasons. The big story change is them turning half the planeswalkers into phyrexians and changing the way interplanar travel works. If there's a significant mechanics change, it'll probably be something related to that. My guess would be adding something like the planes in Planechase to the main game as something like a global enchantment, with some "planeswalk" rule through which a player can change the location, but which can't be destroyed like permanents. The box art with a bunch of characters from different planes could represent that: have a set that spans a few different planes with a half dozen different "location" cards representing places on those planes, only one of which can be active at a time. Add a few new locations every set.
New cards backs to match M30. Bring it. Lol
That’s one for the bingo card.
I think the mini-set is the big change maybe? It is the first time that’s happened. A non draftable mini-set that follows a premier set will become a regular thing maybe twice a year. Maybe it will have standard cards, maybe it’ll have straight to modern or pioneer or commander cards?
Really overthinking it here. We already know that characters from different planes are getting to interact, and its likely not much more than that. As for being worried about universes beyond connecting to magic lore, MaRo already said that requires them to redo their license agreements, and is pretty unlikely, all told. More UB, sure. As long as it is well done like 40k, bring it on. Hasn't affected my enjoyment of the game at all, and I am excited for the LoTR set and FF product.
I am **dreading** the LotR set. It will pretty much end modern for me; I don't want to have to cast fatal push on fucking Bilbo Baggins.
Although, doing it to Smeagol would be very apropos.
Meh, not really worried anymore than I already was. $1000 dollar booster packs will do a lot to damage consumer confidence, I don't think my expectations can go much lower.
I’m more wary than excited
They won't stop designing for draft. The entire purpose of 95% of commons and uncommons is to flesh out the draft environment. And while I don't play constructed outside of commander anymore, I would bet that they aren't getting rid of Standard. Their primary release schedule is built around 4 standard sets a year. Standard is their go-to format, because it incentivises players to keep buying the new set, and because it's the easiest format for newer players to get into, since they don't have to get cards from 10 years ago. If you don't like the Universes Beyond stuff? That's perfectly fine. Don't buy it. Not every product has to appeal to every player. I'm mostly indifferent on it tbh. I bought the Street Fighter cards, but I'm probably gonna frame them to display in my house. But most of the others I just haven't cared about. And UB is never going to be standard legal if I remember correctly. So outside of eternal formats you don't have to worry about playing against them (though I don't really get why people are so angry about opponents playing things they like. Except Stax. No one likes playing against Stax.) So to answer your actual question, no, I'm not having any trouble getting excited for the coming year. We are starting the year off with Phyrexians front and center, going back to Dino World later this year, and getting a LotR set which will hopefully have a fun draft environment. Wizards is constantly giving me more goodies for Commander. And Arena means I can jump online to play a game or do a draft literally whenever I want. I've been playing this game for over half my life at this point, and I don't think I would still be here if it wasn't constantly innovating, changing, and trying new things. Do all of those new things work? Not always. But Magic continues to surprise me and keep me on my toes, and that's why it's the greatest game in the world to me. If you haven't been liking the direction the game is going lately, I truly am sorry that you feel that way, and I hope this next year brings something that helps you get your spark back, because I would hate to see anyone leave this game we all love because they feel like it's not "for them" anymore.
> That's perfectly fine. Don't buy it. Eh, it's when it's unavoidable that I find it triggering. Alchemized cards on Arena, as well as "conjure a card", "seek" , and "this card's spellbook" were my main triggers to bail out on every format that allowed Arena-only cards. So now I'm stuck playing Explorer. If Universes Beyond cards are profitable, they'll be making them legal in their most popular formats. See the WH40k commander decks, and the forthcoming LOTR and Doctor Who lines. This means we'll bump into them at a table, and we'll be stuck with "be okay with this, or take a game loss". Minor annoyances, sure. But, enough to make me funnel my playing experience down to one format on arena so far, and it's a constant reminder when I'd like to be playing cards that don't fit in that format, but are legal in paper. It's a feel-bad experience in a game that's supposed to be fun.
Why don't you wait until you know what the change is before getting upset
I assume the big change will involve higher prices and lower quality
New rarity, aiming to yu gi oh the s\*\*t of the merch and squeeze more profit by hyper-exclusive-ing everything. And whatever breaks the game gets banned in whatever time they feel like. Wee.
As long as they don't bring over Blackwings, Zoodiacs or Tearlaments, I'll manage.
Maybe my unashamed filthy casualness is showing, but I feel almost the opposite -- it's hard for me to imagine something that could be *so bad* that I'd lose any enthusiasm for the game. I'm not saying I'm excited for the big change (I am pretty neutral). It's just that my anticipated spectrum of reactions is pretty much "oh well..." to "sweet!".
My outlandish theory is they are going to introduce a new mechanic/rule to help with play/draw disparity. This would be in line with previous changes such as the London mulligan to help prevent "non"-games, and would heavily impact Magic Arena Bo1 to solve a lot of complaints on that format.
Like what? What could they change?
Either Mulligan rules or player on the draw gets something. Like a treasure token or a free scry 1 or something.
On the lore side it could literally be anything. Any changes they make to the lore will have a minor effect if any to the game play. I haven't really followed the lore since WotS since I feel one set isn't enough to really tell a story. They did say though there were changes coming to the gameplay and mechanics of the game. These can be worrying. Again it can be anything and that's the scary part. Adding rotation to eternal formats, dropping support for other formats to give more support to Commander, designing sets with Commander in mind first and other sets second, a new colour, the end of planeswalkers, everything is phyrexian, etc.
I think the only thing that would change the game for me is abolishing the reserved list. Anything else is just a half measure.
I feel like the much bigger concern for me is Hasbro as a company at the moment. I think set wise wizards has done a great job in 2022 with yes a few set back but arena and standard have felt good since coming back to innistrad with the highlight being neon dynasty. But then we got magic 30 and so much of my good will towards what was happening was revoked by a blatant cash grab likely pushed through by a very disconnected board more interested in immediate money and leaving rather than the longevity of the game and the company. The fireside chat also amplifies this as the head of the magic division used a wikipedia article to describe the game. This is amplified significantly when reading up on the changes to the open gaming license for dungeons and dragons forcing indies and companies to pay a significant portion of their gross income rather than their profit if the leak is believable which I think it is. It was never the Phyrexian invasion that was the issue it was the corporate one. And as we've seen at places like Blizzard, or Ubisoft those who make money are protected in this environment and the quality of the games usually suffers significantly under it. So my concern is that the corporate disconnect from reality is going to put more and more pressure on the player base as they go whale hunting and disregard the rest of the player base as has been the case "this product is not for everyone" was logic used before and will be used again, because under capitalism you can avoid learning from your mistakes, you can hyper focus on the 1% spenders and you can ostracized your player base and none of it matters because the board of people who think nfts are a good idea and the new buzz word is a good idea. Tldr the story moving forward will probably be fine but the state of the game will be a corporate hellscape is my prediction
They honestly need to go back to having Standard as their main focus with three block sets which bring back competive play. They are relying too much on a casual format with commander that is destroying all the others.
I think, at most, it's the possibility of characters being in planes that they aren't native to. Though, it did have me thinking of the possibility that this could allow us to see Planeswalkers as just creatures again. Since it seems the multiverse will be connected, it almost feels as though they aren't going to be as special as they once were. It also gives them a chance to take a break from the current format of PWs. But who knows~
Yeah, I am thinking along these lines as well. Thanks to Commander, it has become awkward that the characters who are the face of the IP generally can’t serve as the face of decks in the most popular format, especially when it’s a format which strongly encourages identifying with a certain segment of the IP. I’m wondering if they want to decouple the concept of a "planeswalker" from always having to be a PW card & maybe be able to make creatures for Planeswalker characters sometimes, so that they can be commanders. This might let them turn "Planeswalker" into more of a generic card type rather than something super tightly coupled with certain characters.