Overall thoughts are that these look like a neat way to get a little extra fun out of opening packs, maybe even encourage people to come up with their own ideas. I look forward to seeing what new ones pop up in the future. As for the individual games...
Base Race - This one seems a little overly complicated for a simple pack-cracking minigame. I imagine people will typically play these mostly as a way to make opening packs a little more fun, so they'll probably favour the easier to set up single pack games.
Booster Blitz - A hybrid of pack wars and the "beat your opponent's three cards" game? Seems like a fun thought exercise, at the very least.
Booster Sleuth - A Magic take on the classic Mastermind puzzle? That's always fun.
Roil Royale - Probably the biggest miss, as a completely random guessing game. I guess some people like this kinda thing, but I prefer a bit more than rolling the dice and hoping I randomly chose correctly, even for a simple minigame.
Strictly Better - Magic's take on Every Party Card Game Ever? I mean, these kinds of games are always good for a bit of a laugh, and I actually quite like this idea.
I get the same sense, maybe it's because the marketing department browbeat us with that trailer. "What this set needs is an unambiguous villain in the trailer. Yes, they have to do something real evil, for practically no reason. We can make a grand story arc out of her being real evil for no good reason! That's what sells."
Maybe it depends a little bit on our reception of Nahiri. I mean, she's always been crazy so at least it's consistent. But as much as I thought Bolas was a shallow, clichéd villain who I genuinely wish to never see again, at least he made sense. Pushing Akiri off the edge of the precipice in cold blood just kind of makes her uninteresting as a villain to begin with, and also feels inappropriate for a RW character. She'd be vastly more compelling if, alternatively, she and Akiri were struggling and Akiri fell by accident... Nahiri is shown grief stricken but, hardened, proceeds as planned. It would show Nahiri is ultimately willing to make sacrifices for her goals that are morally questionable yet actually be conflicted about those sacrifices such that they have dramatic stakes. We're supposed to pay attention to this story about Nahiri because we know who she is, but the other characters who are her victims are much less prominent and so less likely to have meaningful impact. All the more if they don't have a meaningful impact on Nahiri herself, in which case, she doesn't meaningfully impact us either. That might be different if her goal, eliminating the Roil, felt a bit more justified or held more personal significance to her. But instead I just feel like she's shoe-horned into this Roil-eliminating plot because they need some source of conflict in the absence of the Eldrazi. Which is of course literally the reason for the plot, but in this case it's so glaring. An anti-villain who clearly only cares about their ideals right from the get-go might have the potential for character development but there's little the hook the audience as to this possibility, in which case you need other characters to shore up that front. With Nissa as the counterpoint... well this is par for the course for Magic storylines.
All that said, if they add even a little bit of depth to the character (which will be hard to do but not impossible), I'm excited to think about the possibilities of a new story arc. The sooner I can completely forget Bolas was ever a thing, the better.
Forgetting everything previously established so that characters can become whatever they need to be in order for the plot to work, continuity be damned? Eschewing any hint of nuance or compelling narrative possibilities in favour of shallow, by the book formulas? Yup, that's Magic.
"Liliana found herself driven to do the right thing"
Uuuuuuuh no, she made yet another completely self-motivated decision, it just so happened to conveniently align with what the heroes needed. 'Driven to do the right thing' my eye.
"This should have cost Liliana her life"
Yes. Yes it should have. But nah, I'm glad they tossed in a dumbass heroic sacrifice trope instead. For a second there the story almost had some emotional satisfaction.
So I guess to sum up feel free to feel how you want but also realize your feeling don't quite match up with what being presented.
Which, I mean...yeah. Literally all I'm trying to do is spell out my own feelings and make it clear why. Again, I know full well I'm not in the majority and I know full well why Wizards do what they do. All I'm saying is why it isn't exactly satisfying (again, despite being completely aware of why it is the way it is).
How does that math even make sense? Most planeswalker characters are human or transhuman.
Thank for asking I realized I counted wrong so here is my recount. I'm going by what Wizards comments seem to indicate what they consider non-human walkers. Personally I'd go by what a walkers creature card type they most likely have/what their DnD character profile would be. Also not counting Ashiok or Wanderer since we don't know what they are. Wanderer most likely is human but creative might try to pull a twist or something so I personally don't count them in either totals.
Currently there are 55 walkers on cards (not counting Urza in the unset) with Calix as the newest. For the hair splitter we have the naturally non human walkers with Bolas, Ugin, Ajani, Nissa, Karn, Tamiyo, Dovin, Angrath, Vraska, Nahiri, Kiora, Daretti, Wrenn, Windgrace, Freyalsie, Xenagos and Oko with totals 17 which ~ 30% of walkers on their own.
And sadly of those, Ugin and Bolas are out of commission and Xenagos, Freyalise and Windgrace are all dead.
:/
I also don't know anyone who actively wants nonhumans who would be honestly satisfied with someone like Nissa or Nahiri. Call them what you want, I'm never going to look at a human with off-colour skin or a mild prosthetic and think "Yes, this is exactly what I was after". If your character can disguise themselves as a human by putting on a hat, they're not nonhuman.
The other issue is how background they are. Ajani is one of their premiere nonhuman characters (or so they tell us), and yet he spent most of the Bolas arc completely absent and WotS relegated to cheerleading from the sidelines, despite being the one with the most direct, hands-on Bolas experience. Then Theros came around, where he had several good story hooks, and he gets completely ignored, even when Elspeth starts doing the exact thing he was doing when last we left. Again - this is one of their main nonhuman characters.
This is the issue with arguing against the request for more nonhumans by just presenting "the list" - it assumes all we're asking for are useless background faces who do nothing but wave every now and then to let us know they're still there. If they're really lucky they'll get a line of dialogue or two to support the great and amazing human heroes.
If you don't understand the complaint, that's fine. I know that it's weird, I know that it goes against all common knowledge, I know that it's hard to grasp for someone who doesn't share it. If you want to understand it, great. Try to talk out your points properly, we'll do the same, and we'll all be better off for it. If you don't want to understand, that's okay too. No one cares about absolutely everything, and I know you can't force yourself to care about something that's just not that big a deal to you. I'm the same way (I just do not care who Chandra wants to smooch). But you can't have it both ways. If you don't want to understand the complaint (and again, it's fine if that's the case, honestly not trying to be passive aggressive here), don't try telling us why it's actually wrong and they actually are giving us what we want, it's just our fault for not seeing it.
This isn't really important, tho, since we like only human planeswalkers. Can't wait to see Ikoria, the so-called plane of monsters, where we are gonna have our umpteenth human PW.
A totally reasonable request right there right? Not even factoring in that walkers races need to be intelligent enough to forms a society which monsters don't normally tend to do (see why no hydra walker (yet)).
Again, I must point out that I am not the one who said this. Pay attention to who you're quoting before you try to pin someone else's words on me.
I do understand however while feelings do have a place in a discussion people are confusing feelings for facts and running with that instead of looking what been going on. The whole non-human thing has several part all related but different so I'll address them;
1) "All the walkers are mostly human or where human" mostly where my list comes from and to point out, while subjective on how many should be there ~ 30-40% of the current walkers on cards are non-human.
2) "Wizard doesn't make any new non-human walkers" again not true looking over the new walker they made such as Angrath and Dovin.
I agree, there do exist a good chunk of nonhuman planeswalker cards. This is fact, no one can argue it. That's why the complaint is less about existence and more about relevance - it's real hard to be excited about the umpteen billionth human-centric story just because we had that one minotaur on that one card.
3) "Non-Humans are sidelined in the story" Thats a different topic and somewhat true to a degree IMO. As said the main 5 gatewatch got overwhelming spotlight and we have now seen them trying to expand outside of them. However you could said this for many of the other non- gatewatch 5 members. And of note Bolas, Vraska and Nissa have had major story arcs and/or been featured. And while related the walker characters on the story aren't tied to the cards fully anymore. Shouldn't matter if most walkers are human if the non-humans are getting featured in story.
I guess this is where our main source of disagreement comes from, because it's not a different topic - it is the topic I argue.
This is a gross-overly simplify version of whats their reasoning. Humans have harder time empathizing with things that we deem the "other" or what ever we don't see as the "norm". This is't something Maro is making up this is a theory that been seen in media design and psychology. With non-human designs the farther away from human feature (eyes and other facial ones being big), body types (four limbs, bipedal) and even with taxonomy with us favoring mammals over lizard and bird and those over bugs, fish, squids, ect. Add on human features and traits to a being and its easier for humans to empathize with it, remove human traits and features and it makes it seem more monstrous and harder to empathize with. Alien movies have been doing this with years with its designs. This why humans have been irrationally afraid of things like spiders over a bear or a snake over a mountain lion. Add in magic lore is primly told through static art and and written mediums. This makes it harder to communicate the character to the average player. Given we are getting netflix shows and arena gives the walkers voices lines (helping humanizing the non-humans) this might lead to non-human getting moe popular.
Aside from, again, this is not something I said, I feel like I must correct something else here, because it's another very common misconception. I do not deny, nor have I ever denied, that those who prefer nonhumans are in the minority. Trust me, that could not possibly be more clear. I started playing Magic back in 2000 - Prophecy was my first set - and even before that point, I was already fully aware of the fact that I was in the minority here. You don't need to say it, because the world itself makes it entirely clear. There is absolutely nothing that you, Maro, or anyone else can say, in the clearest and most specific language on Earth, that could possibly make that clearer. I do not claim otherwise, never have, and never will.
What I do claim is that the human bias is not nearly as all-consuming as it's made out to be. Pop culture is absolutely rife with examples of nonhuman characters that appeal to all sorts of different people (to quote a wise philosopher, "No one would like Mickey Mouse if he was Mickey Dude"). Even though I am fully aware that people, in general, prefer humans, I don't believe for a second that that means they're against nonhumans. I fully believe that the overwhelmingly vast majority of the audience would be absolutely fine with seeing a nonhuman protagonist every once in a while. Keywords there being "every once in a while" - I do not expect to be catered to all the time. Once every few years, especially when combined with some more relevant side-characters in the meantime, would do absolute wonders, while, again, the human-loving majority would still be perfectly fine with it. I believe this is even more true when you consider that Magic fans are in all likelihood fantasy fans in general, who are even more accepting of such "weird" things. You can prefer chocolate while still liking vanilla.
This all seems pretty reasonable to me but the replies to this either are "Thats just made up marketing talk" or "I'm not the average person and thus don't feel what the average player wants" or rants each time a human walker is shown instead. And those are the remarks I tend to reply not those saying in general wanting more non-humans Big difference between;
This isn't really important, tho, since we like only human planeswalkers. Can't wait to see Ikoria, the so-called plane of monsters, where we are gonna have our umpteenth human PW.
and not "Well I love angels and would like to see one even thought non-humans aren't as popular and an angel would need a lore hoop to jump through".
Same points as above.
And related but more so personal to you;
5) "Elves, Kor, Vampiren ect aren't non-human enough" well agree to disagree I feel like appearances since the only thing to show if something is human. While I see your point with Nahiri and kor and other magic original races, I've said before things like elves, vampires and dwarfs have mythological, pop cultural and genre related bias on not being human or being a perversion of humans traits. Not saying you can't ask for "monstrous" but understand this your personal line of non-human isn't not only not just what magic goes by but the genre and human folklore. Funny this thing also started over talks of an angel walker which you wound't have been thrilled with for non-humans walker.
I agree that it's a personal line, but my point is that it's a line that is likely shared by many who want to see more nonhumans, which is why pointing out things like that is not nearly as helpful as you think. Even if you disagree, surely it's not hard to see where someone's coming from when they say that "human with funny ears" isn't exactly satisfying their desire for nonhumans.
And by the by, I'm not saying that they can't have elf, dwarf, kor, vampire, or whatever else. Of course they can. I'm saying that this "variety" of "it's basically just a human except for one very minor detail" is not satisfying to someone who actively wants more nonhumans. I wouldn't mind these "basically human" races if they were mixed in with more actual nonhumans.
I'm also not saying that they need to be completely monstrous. I mean, I wouldn't mind a few more monstrous ones, but yeah, I know the difficulty. But there's a happy medium in between "basically human" and "alien jellyfish". More Ajani, less Nahiri. More viashino, less dwarf.
I also hear people say, in defence of the basically-humans, "Well it's their unique mindsets/experiences/lifestyles/whatever which make them interestingly nonhuman". I know you didn't say this, but it is something I want to address. First of all, it often isn't actually the case. MtG elves (and Magic is far from the only property to do this, and elves are far from the only race to do this, but we're using it as an example) aren't typically "uniquely elven" - they often take a mindset which could be entirely applicable to a regular human, but decide that's just how elves feel. No, I don't believe that Nissa's mindset couldn't apply to any old human. I don't expect them to create a completely nonhuman and alien mindset for them - that's basically impossible after all - but it doesn't make it any less true that this "uniquely elven mindset" is typically anything but.
The second point is that physical appearance does matter. After all, if it didn't, then where's the problem in making more obviously nonhuman-looking characters in the first place?
Personally I just like seeing fun new walkers human or non-human but imo human representing and demographics are more important (and to wizards more sellable) than non-humans and wizard need to still work on how they are representing human demographics.
I mean, yeah, I see that. I'm not saying representing human diversity isn't important. I think the bigger problem is their seeming complete reluctance to give our crowd what we're asking for. Whenever they're asked for some sort of human representation, they say "Absolutely" - as very well they should, I'm not at all implying it should be otherwise - although I do think there's a lot more to it than Wizards says, but that's a whole other topic entirely (fantasy uses allegory and metaphor all the time, even when it isn't intentional - if someone finds themselves relating to a particular nonhuman character, or even a whole race, who never gets to be in the spotlight because only the preferred majority are allowed to be heroes, you can see how that could cause issues). But whenever someone asks for nonhumans, we're met with "Nah nobody wants to see that" or "There are already plenty, see -points to The List-". If we were at least allowed to have some hope - something a bit more than the vaguest possible "Maybe at some distance point in the future if all the planets align but really no" - it would go a long way.
How does that math even make sense? Most planeswalker characters are human or transhuman.
Thank for asking I realized I counted wrong so here is my recount. I'm going by what Wizards comments seem to indicate what they consider non-human walkers. Personally I'd go by what a walkers creature card type they most likely have/what their DnD character profile would be. Also not counting Ashiok or Wanderer since we don't know what they are. Wanderer most likely is human but creative might try to pull a twist or something so I personally don't count them in either totals.
Currently there are 55 walkers on cards (not counting Urza in the unset) with Calix as the newest. For the hair splitter we have the naturally non human walkers with Bolas, Ugin, Ajani, Nissa, Karn, Tamiyo, Dovin, Angrath, Vraska, Nahiri, Kiora, Daretti, Wrenn, Windgrace, Freyalsie, Xenagos and Oko with totals 17 which ~ 30% of walkers on their own.
And sadly of those, Ugin and Bolas are out of commission and Xenagos, Freyalise and Windgrace are all dead.
:/
I also don't know anyone who actively wants nonhumans who would be honestly satisfied with someone like Nissa or Nahiri. Call them what you want, I'm never going to look at a human with off-colour skin or a mild prosthetic and think "Yes, this is exactly what I was after". If your character can disguise themselves as a human by putting on a hat, they're not nonhuman.
The other issue is how background they are. Ajani is one of their premiere nonhuman characters (or so they tell us), and yet he spent most of the Bolas arc completely absent and WotS relegated to cheerleading from the sidelines, despite being the one with the most direct, hands-on Bolas experience. Then Theros came around, where he had several good story hooks, and he gets completely ignored, even when Elspeth starts doing the exact thing he was doing when last we left. Again - this is one of their main nonhuman characters.
This is the issue with arguing against the request for more nonhumans by just presenting "the list" - it assumes all we're asking for are useless background faces who do nothing but wave every now and then to let us know they're still there. If they're really lucky they'll get a line of dialogue or two to support the great and amazing human heroes.
If you don't understand the complaint, that's fine. I know that it's weird, I know that it goes against all common knowledge, I know that it's hard to grasp for someone who doesn't share it. If you want to understand it, great. Try to talk out your points properly, we'll do the same, and we'll all be better off for it. If you don't want to understand, that's okay too. No one cares about absolutely everything, and I know you can't force yourself to care about something that's just not that big a deal to you. I'm the same way (I just do not care who Chandra wants to smooch). But you can't have it both ways. If you don't want to understand the complaint (and again, it's fine if that's the case, honestly not trying to be passive aggressive here), don't try telling us why it's actually wrong and they actually are giving us what we want, it's just our fault for not seeing it.
They have also said a few times they rules isn't hard rule and they are willing to break them. An angel walker is a when and most likely hone they can figure out a story they like (and thats markable) to introduce one. Karn, Ob and Tibalt are examples of this.
Also where are you getting sphinx can't be walkers? Its just angels and demons typically (dragons and hydras are held back some by being unintelligent).
This isn't really important, tho, since we like only human planeswalkers. Can't wait to see Ikoria, the so-called plane of monsters, where we are gonna have our umpteenth human PW.
20/54 current walkers with cards are non-human. Thats 37% of all walkers...yeah so little.
I don't want to completely derail things, but this is the classic "technically true but misses the whole point of the complaint" argument. It's meaningless and dismissive, please don't be doing it.
Then don't bring up the topic with a troll version of what the facts are.
They have also said a few times they rules isn't hard rule and they are willing to break them. An angel walker is a when and most likely hone they can figure out a story they like (and thats markable) to introduce one. Karn, Ob and Tibalt are examples of this.
Also where are you getting sphinx can't be walkers? Its just angels and demons typically (dragons and hydras are held back some by being unintelligent).
This isn't really important, tho, since we like only human planeswalkers. Can't wait to see Ikoria, the so-called plane of monsters, where we are gonna have our umpteenth human PW.
20/54 current walkers with cards are non-human. Thats 37% of all walkers...yeah so little.
I don't want to completely derail things, but this is the classic "technically true but misses the whole point of the complaint" argument. It's meaningless and dismissive, please don't be doing it.
If the rules of the mending become so screwed up that it effectively undoes it, I'm all for that. The mending was always a mistake, from the start, it ruined Magic story's most unique facet, the Planeswalkers. Instead of focusing on plane bound characters that could only go to other planes with help from magical machines and planeswalkers, with those planeswalkers being larger than life demi gods looming over the story and occasionally interacting in cool ways, we've gone to focusing on planeswalkers all the time but taking away most of what made them a cool concept. When most planeswalkers are no different than any other regular character then they just aren't any more interesting than any other regular character, because being able to hop planes was never the interesting thing about planeswalkers (especially when the planes are usually just worlds of hats). In fact, it makes them LESS interesting than other characters, because they have an innate bug out button they can push when ***** goes sideways, whereas plane bound characters are much more invested in and connected to their planes, and thus face higher stakes and more compelling motivations.
As a side note, the world of hats model combined with following neowalkers around everywhere has had the effect of making the multiverse seem much smaller. When the world of hats model started pre mending, each world was occupied by unique characters you were just meeting and would leave when you left the world. There could be some connections to other worlds via planeswalkers, like Karn on Mirrodin or Bolas being involved with Kamigawa, but again those connections involved god like figures who were for the most part in the background. The result was that the worlds felt truly cut off from each other, even when we had the Weatherlight and planar portals, because without those contrivances we weren't following characters from plane to plane (Weatherlight again is the major exception, but that was basically putting a crew on the Enterprise). With neowalkers, you just have superheros that you follow from story to story, so when they hop from Ixalan to Innistrad to Kaladesh you don't get the feel that they are going to different universes, but just different continents on the same world that have different kinds of magic. Typing it out right now, I realize that the only difference between a story where Ixalan, Kaladesh, Tarkir, Theros and Innistrad are different worlds vs one where they are distant continents on the same world is that the former actually has LESS potential, because if they were on the same world you'd be able to set up a story where all those places find each other and interact.
But yeah, rambling aside, the god like immortal shapeshifting (often mad) beings that were oldwalkers were always more interesting than the superhero neowalkers. We already had superhero type characters in the old story, they were just plane bound characters. Oldwalkers were something that tied Magic closer to fantasy and gave Magic something that other properties didn't have. Neowalkers just don't stand out from the crowd, which is why the Gatewatch was immediately, derisively, and correctly labeled the Jacetus League. And all this was supposedly done so that the story could focus on the characters and spin better stories than in the past. Well, after almost 15 years I'd say that's failed miserably. Nothing that's been put out since then has been as good as the Thran, Kamigawa, Urza's Saga, or even the pretty paint by numbers Weatherlight saga or the intentionally pulpy Ravnica block. There's been a few great web stories, but overall the arcs have been pretty meh. And that's just quality, the creativity has been way down as well. The most outside the box flat out awesome thing has been Bolas' eternals plot, which can be described as a dragon wizard enslaves an Egypt plane to farm warriors to turn into zombies with which to attack a city world via stargate. Unfortunately, it falls apart for being a letdown in practice and serving the ultimate and tired motivation of Bolas wants to nom nom nom sparks so he can become a god like being again, which is honestly why I was rooting for him to succeed because its almost like meta commentary that Bolas realized how much neowalkers sucked and wanted to kill them off as a concept so Oldwalkers could come back. Compare that to the insanity of Invasion, which featured as a subplot 9 insane god wizards strapping into mechs to nuke Robot Hell with a bomb powered by the souls of gods. That's so over the top 90's metal its a statue of Jack Black made out of 70's vans with murals painted on their sides. I'd rather see confusing cluster****s that shred the continuity like Scourge than confusing cluster****s that shred the continuity like Scars of Mirrodin, because at least the former is a weird mescaline trip while the latter is some banal nonsense.
I could not possibly agree more with literally everything here.
I was speaking to a friend about this the other day, and he mentioned something - one very small change - which would have made WotS infinitely more compelling. What if, instead of being a spell to grant Bolas UNLIMITED POWAH or whatever, the Elderspell was instead a spell to reverse the Mending? Think of how much would change about the story if that were the case. It would grant a bit of nuance and depth to what Bolas was trying to accomplish, rather than just having him stand as the one-dimensional big bad evil guy. It would give other planeswalkers actual, legitimate reason to join with him, regardless of their own morality or characteristics. There'd be some awesome opportunity for studying characters even with nothing more to go by than which side they join and why. How much more compelling would Liliana's arc had been if, instead of serving Bolas because boo hoo he made me do it, she instead remembered what it was like being an oldwalker and gave in to the temptation to have that kind of power again? What if Nissa was tempted by the power to be able to truly heal Zendikar? I believe Chandra had headed off to train some more after Amonkhet - wouldn't an impulsive red-aligned character love the opportunity to shortcut the hard work to get immediate results? Even minor characters - Davriel gets the opportunity to create his own little hammerspace where he can be left alone as long as he wants. How does Jaya react to Chandra's decision, whatever it may be? What about Sorin and Nahiri - neither of them want to help Bolas, but can't help but think what if the other one does? And most of all, what is Bolas's thought process behind all this? After undoing the Mending and supercharging not just himself but other planeswalkers again, what does he do next? Does he care that other planeswalkers are supercharged as well, and what does he plan to do about it? Or does he just want his own power back, and if so, what does he want to do with it?
And that's all just spewed forth from the top of my head as someone who's only tangentially familiar with the whole thing. Goodness knows what a team of experienced professionals whose job it is to know and create this stuff could come up with. The end result is that War of the Spark ends up being an actual war, with legitimate justifications on each side as opposed to "Generic big bad evil guy" and "Generic big good hero folks". It would give us a real chance to see how the characters all react to each other doing whatever they do. Because that's what makes crossovers cool - not just seeing characters standing next to each other, but seeing how they play off each other. WotS was billed as a big old planeswalker crossover, but given how the vast majority of them other than the Goatwatch were just background faces who were just there to fill in numbers, it might as well have been just another GW story, the whole "crossover" aspect completely wasted.
Even if it didn't actually succeed in reversing the Mending and Bolas was defeated and hurrah big happy status quo celebration yay, it would at least have provided for a decently compelling story. It would have helped War of the Spark feel like an actual war, as opposed to just another excruciatingly generic "defeat the big bad evil guy" story.
Elspeth spreading propaganda against Heliod to empower her own spear and depower his through devotion.
Interesting
Yeah, because it's not like there was some other character who was doing that exact thing when we left Theros last time.
She and Ajani must have learned that little Theros metaphysical fact from our friend Xenagos. And now she’s employing it against another god. So cool
I'm just being salty that they seem to have completely forgotten about the one character I'm legitimately interested in and who would have fit perfectly into this set.
"Hey, they have a G/W planeswalker slot? Man, maybe it's finally time for Ajani to step out of the sidelines, given his strong ties to both the plane and the main(?) character of this story, and all the important things he was doing last time..."
"MeEt CaLiX"
"...I mean that's cool too I guess"
One staff members commented on why they made Calix. They wanted an enchantment walker themed walker for the enchantment set. Ajani was kinda the aura/enchantment walker but they realzied the original 5 walkers was eating a lot of space and cut back what they could do to focus them more and how Ajani is fully on healing/support magic. Estrid was considered but they wanted someone more dynamic powered (i.e. animation/video game suited) and decided to make a new enchainment walker, citing that artifacts have four (five RIP Dack) walkers based on them.
This changes nothing for me. Like I say, Ajani is the only character I even kind of care about right now, and he's constantly getting shoved into the sidelines, seemingly never getting any real focus of his own. They often state "story reasons" as to why certain planeswalkers can't go in certain places, but here we had the absolute perfect story reason for him to finally have a chance at the spotlight, and instead we get Generic Face #817. This card just feels like another slap in the face, since it takes a legitimately interesting and compelling thing which was tying Ajani to the plane and actually giving him a chance to shine, and just hands it on over to someone else instead. I'm one of the minority who would kill to see some more nonhumans taking more central roles in the story - Ajani being the seemingly best hope for that - and he gets shafted so much it just feels like he exists as nothing more than a face for them to point at and see "See? See? Nonhuman main character!". Oh, you mean that guy who constantly stands in the background, every now and then waving to let us know he's still there, occasionally getting a line of dialogue purely to support the human protagonist of the day? We may have different ideas of what constitutes a "main" character.
Yes, I'm sure there are other reasons behind the scenes why it "couldn't" happen, but let's be honest, it totally could if they wanted to.
This my speculation and such but with how the color balance out and making an enchainment theme walker I think Calix ended up GW after the fact more so then them having a GW slot open
I doubt that. They keep a very close eye on colour balance for planeswalkers, keeping track of it on a grid or board or something along those lines. There's no way they created a character who just coincidentally happened to fill neatly into an open slot for the set.
and the seemingly lack of any of the gatewatch I think might purposely done. Its looking Elspeth doesn't meet up with the gatewatch and this might have something to do with how the "story" ends up.
oh look another reason the whole concept of the gatewatch was terrible weird huh
Elspeth spreading propaganda against Heliod to empower her own spear and depower his through devotion.
Interesting
Yeah, because it's not like there was some other character who was doing that exact thing when we left Theros last time.
She and Ajani must have learned that little Theros metaphysical fact from our friend Xenagos. And now she’s employing it against another god. So cool
I'm just being salty that they seem to have completely forgotten about the one character I'm legitimately interested in and who would have fit perfectly into this set.
"Hey, they have a G/W planeswalker slot? Man, maybe it's finally time for Ajani to step out of the sidelines, given his strong ties to both the plane and the main(?) character of this story, and all the important things he was doing last time..."
"MeEt CaLiX"
"...I mean that's cool too I guess"
Here's what it boils down to. Is WotC's reaction understandable, if unfortunate for those of us who were looking forward to Theros? Yes, it is. But if we were to just shut up and silently accept it, what does that show them? "Oh, we don't actually need to worry about story, because no one actually cares/everyone will just take whatever half-baked garbage we give them". If we don't want this to be the standard, then we need them to know we don't like it, however understandable the reason for it this time may be.
Is whinging on a forum going to do that? Hell no. But the whole purpose of a forum is to discuss thoughts and opinions, and that's exactly what we're doing.
a wee bit of spellslinging (Izzet definitely has the monopoly here, but Boros is slowly developing a strength in caring about casting noncreature spells, particularly combat tricks)
This is actually something I've been thinking of lately, feeding more into this idea. I had a thought for a Boros commander looking something like -
Dudeface McCombattricks2RW
Legendary Creature
Haste, vigilance
Whenever ~ attacks, look at the top four cards of your library, exile one face down, and put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. You can look at that card.
Each combat step, you can cast one instant card exiled with ~. When you do, copy it and you may choose new targets for the copy.
4/4
That said. I’ve likely had too much of that for MTG and with the loss of Theros, I’m retiring as a Vorthos. To the relief and pleasure of some I’m sure.
This is exactly how I have felt for a while now. I've always been a big flavour/story guy, not just in Magic but in general. And I would love to be able to be invested in Magic story, but over recent years they've made it completely impossible to do so.
I mean, nothing is stopping you from making your own content related to it. If you aren't getting enough of a media there are other options than stop liking it.
I'm still invested in the game in other ways. I like custom card design, for one. And I still attend prereleases. I'm just frustrated that one of my favourite aspects of the game - one of my favourite things in general - has been set on copious amounts of fire lately.
Base Race - This one seems a little overly complicated for a simple pack-cracking minigame. I imagine people will typically play these mostly as a way to make opening packs a little more fun, so they'll probably favour the easier to set up single pack games.
Booster Blitz - A hybrid of pack wars and the "beat your opponent's three cards" game? Seems like a fun thought exercise, at the very least.
Booster Sleuth - A Magic take on the classic Mastermind puzzle? That's always fun.
Roil Royale - Probably the biggest miss, as a completely random guessing game. I guess some people like this kinda thing, but I prefer a bit more than rolling the dice and hoping I randomly chose correctly, even for a simple minigame.
Strictly Better - Magic's take on Every Party Card Game Ever? I mean, these kinds of games are always good for a bit of a laugh, and I actually quite like this idea.
Uuuuuuuh no, she made yet another completely self-motivated decision, it just so happened to conveniently align with what the heroes needed. 'Driven to do the right thing' my eye.
"This should have cost Liliana her life"
Yes. Yes it should have. But nah, I'm glad they tossed in a dumbass heroic sacrifice trope instead. For a second there the story almost had some emotional satisfaction.
Which, I mean...yeah. Literally all I'm trying to do is spell out my own feelings and make it clear why. Again, I know full well I'm not in the majority and I know full well why Wizards do what they do. All I'm saying is why it isn't exactly satisfying (again, despite being completely aware of why it is the way it is).
I agree, there do exist a good chunk of nonhuman planeswalker cards. This is fact, no one can argue it. That's why the complaint is less about existence and more about relevance - it's real hard to be excited about the umpteen billionth human-centric story just because we had that one minotaur on that one card.
I guess this is where our main source of disagreement comes from, because it's not a different topic - it is the topic I argue.
Aside from, again, this is not something I said, I feel like I must correct something else here, because it's another very common misconception. I do not deny, nor have I ever denied, that those who prefer nonhumans are in the minority. Trust me, that could not possibly be more clear. I started playing Magic back in 2000 - Prophecy was my first set - and even before that point, I was already fully aware of the fact that I was in the minority here. You don't need to say it, because the world itself makes it entirely clear. There is absolutely nothing that you, Maro, or anyone else can say, in the clearest and most specific language on Earth, that could possibly make that clearer. I do not claim otherwise, never have, and never will.
What I do claim is that the human bias is not nearly as all-consuming as it's made out to be. Pop culture is absolutely rife with examples of nonhuman characters that appeal to all sorts of different people (to quote a wise philosopher, "No one would like Mickey Mouse if he was Mickey Dude"). Even though I am fully aware that people, in general, prefer humans, I don't believe for a second that that means they're against nonhumans. I fully believe that the overwhelmingly vast majority of the audience would be absolutely fine with seeing a nonhuman protagonist every once in a while. Keywords there being "every once in a while" - I do not expect to be catered to all the time. Once every few years, especially when combined with some more relevant side-characters in the meantime, would do absolute wonders, while, again, the human-loving majority would still be perfectly fine with it. I believe this is even more true when you consider that Magic fans are in all likelihood fantasy fans in general, who are even more accepting of such "weird" things. You can prefer chocolate while still liking vanilla.
Same points as above.
I agree that it's a personal line, but my point is that it's a line that is likely shared by many who want to see more nonhumans, which is why pointing out things like that is not nearly as helpful as you think. Even if you disagree, surely it's not hard to see where someone's coming from when they say that "human with funny ears" isn't exactly satisfying their desire for nonhumans.
And by the by, I'm not saying that they can't have elf, dwarf, kor, vampire, or whatever else. Of course they can. I'm saying that this "variety" of "it's basically just a human except for one very minor detail" is not satisfying to someone who actively wants more nonhumans. I wouldn't mind these "basically human" races if they were mixed in with more actual nonhumans.
I'm also not saying that they need to be completely monstrous. I mean, I wouldn't mind a few more monstrous ones, but yeah, I know the difficulty. But there's a happy medium in between "basically human" and "alien jellyfish". More Ajani, less Nahiri. More viashino, less dwarf.
I also hear people say, in defence of the basically-humans, "Well it's their unique mindsets/experiences/lifestyles/whatever which make them interestingly nonhuman". I know you didn't say this, but it is something I want to address. First of all, it often isn't actually the case. MtG elves (and Magic is far from the only property to do this, and elves are far from the only race to do this, but we're using it as an example) aren't typically "uniquely elven" - they often take a mindset which could be entirely applicable to a regular human, but decide that's just how elves feel. No, I don't believe that Nissa's mindset couldn't apply to any old human. I don't expect them to create a completely nonhuman and alien mindset for them - that's basically impossible after all - but it doesn't make it any less true that this "uniquely elven mindset" is typically anything but.
The second point is that physical appearance does matter. After all, if it didn't, then where's the problem in making more obviously nonhuman-looking characters in the first place?
I mean, yeah, I see that. I'm not saying representing human diversity isn't important. I think the bigger problem is their seeming complete reluctance to give our crowd what we're asking for. Whenever they're asked for some sort of human representation, they say "Absolutely" - as very well they should, I'm not at all implying it should be otherwise - although I do think there's a lot more to it than Wizards says, but that's a whole other topic entirely (fantasy uses allegory and metaphor all the time, even when it isn't intentional - if someone finds themselves relating to a particular nonhuman character, or even a whole race, who never gets to be in the spotlight because only the preferred majority are allowed to be heroes, you can see how that could cause issues). But whenever someone asks for nonhumans, we're met with "Nah nobody wants to see that" or "There are already plenty, see -points to The List-". If we were at least allowed to have some hope - something a bit more than the vaguest possible "Maybe at some distance point in the future if all the planets align but really no" - it would go a long way.
The other issue is how background they are. Ajani is one of their premiere nonhuman characters (or so they tell us), and yet he spent most of the Bolas arc completely absent and WotS relegated to cheerleading from the sidelines, despite being the one with the most direct, hands-on Bolas experience. Then Theros came around, where he had several good story hooks, and he gets completely ignored, even when Elspeth starts doing the exact thing he was doing when last we left. Again - this is one of their main nonhuman characters.
This is the issue with arguing against the request for more nonhumans by just presenting "the list" - it assumes all we're asking for are useless background faces who do nothing but wave every now and then to let us know they're still there. If they're really lucky they'll get a line of dialogue or two to support the great and amazing human heroes.
If you don't understand the complaint, that's fine. I know that it's weird, I know that it goes against all common knowledge, I know that it's hard to grasp for someone who doesn't share it. If you want to understand it, great. Try to talk out your points properly, we'll do the same, and we'll all be better off for it. If you don't want to understand, that's okay too. No one cares about absolutely everything, and I know you can't force yourself to care about something that's just not that big a deal to you. I'm the same way (I just do not care who Chandra wants to smooch). But you can't have it both ways. If you don't want to understand the complaint (and again, it's fine if that's the case, honestly not trying to be passive aggressive here), don't try telling us why it's actually wrong and they actually are giving us what we want, it's just our fault for not seeing it.
I was speaking to a friend about this the other day, and he mentioned something - one very small change - which would have made WotS infinitely more compelling. What if, instead of being a spell to grant Bolas UNLIMITED POWAH or whatever, the Elderspell was instead a spell to reverse the Mending? Think of how much would change about the story if that were the case. It would grant a bit of nuance and depth to what Bolas was trying to accomplish, rather than just having him stand as the one-dimensional big bad evil guy. It would give other planeswalkers actual, legitimate reason to join with him, regardless of their own morality or characteristics. There'd be some awesome opportunity for studying characters even with nothing more to go by than which side they join and why. How much more compelling would Liliana's arc had been if, instead of serving Bolas because boo hoo he made me do it, she instead remembered what it was like being an oldwalker and gave in to the temptation to have that kind of power again? What if Nissa was tempted by the power to be able to truly heal Zendikar? I believe Chandra had headed off to train some more after Amonkhet - wouldn't an impulsive red-aligned character love the opportunity to shortcut the hard work to get immediate results? Even minor characters - Davriel gets the opportunity to create his own little hammerspace where he can be left alone as long as he wants. How does Jaya react to Chandra's decision, whatever it may be? What about Sorin and Nahiri - neither of them want to help Bolas, but can't help but think what if the other one does? And most of all, what is Bolas's thought process behind all this? After undoing the Mending and supercharging not just himself but other planeswalkers again, what does he do next? Does he care that other planeswalkers are supercharged as well, and what does he plan to do about it? Or does he just want his own power back, and if so, what does he want to do with it?
And that's all just spewed forth from the top of my head as someone who's only tangentially familiar with the whole thing. Goodness knows what a team of experienced professionals whose job it is to know and create this stuff could come up with. The end result is that War of the Spark ends up being an actual war, with legitimate justifications on each side as opposed to "Generic big bad evil guy" and "Generic big good hero folks". It would give us a real chance to see how the characters all react to each other doing whatever they do. Because that's what makes crossovers cool - not just seeing characters standing next to each other, but seeing how they play off each other. WotS was billed as a big old planeswalker crossover, but given how the vast majority of them other than the Goatwatch were just background faces who were just there to fill in numbers, it might as well have been just another GW story, the whole "crossover" aspect completely wasted.
Even if it didn't actually succeed in reversing the Mending and Bolas was defeated and hurrah big happy status quo celebration yay, it would at least have provided for a decently compelling story. It would have helped War of the Spark feel like an actual war, as opposed to just another excruciatingly generic "defeat the big bad evil guy" story.
Yes, I'm sure there are other reasons behind the scenes why it "couldn't" happen, but let's be honest, it totally could if they wanted to.
I doubt that. They keep a very close eye on colour balance for planeswalkers, keeping track of it on a grid or board or something along those lines. There's no way they created a character who just coincidentally happened to fill neatly into an open slot for the set.
oh look another reason the whole concept of the gatewatch was terrible weird huh
"Hey, they have a G/W planeswalker slot? Man, maybe it's finally time for Ajani to step out of the sidelines, given his strong ties to both the plane and the main(?) character of this story, and all the important things he was doing last time..."
"MeEt CaLiX"
"...I mean that's cool too I guess"
Is whinging on a forum going to do that? Hell no. But the whole purpose of a forum is to discuss thoughts and opinions, and that's exactly what we're doing.
Dudeface McCombattricks 2RW
Legendary Creature
Haste, vigilance
Whenever ~ attacks, look at the top four cards of your library, exile one face down, and put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. You can look at that card.
Each combat step, you can cast one instant card exiled with ~. When you do, copy it and you may choose new targets for the copy.
4/4