MTG Salvation

Hmm, it is a big upgrade to the lynx. I wouldn't have minded if it were a 2/1 for 1UU, though I don't think it's so powerful that there's an issue obsoleting old cards.

I like this card a lot. Not only can it help you cast big bomb spells, it can also help you squeeze extra spells in a turn. It's just versatile enough to interest me.

Quote from Ernart »

That's definitely Mephisto in disguise

Hahahaha, welcome back to New Rockstars, I guess.

I like the utility of being able to swing en masse with a game-winning boost or being able to eliminate a threat. In Limited, I think this will be quite useful. Though I think it's funny that it can't actually destroy a Mage Hunter so I guess the professors didn't think that through. They must've picked the first mode.

Quote from lookingupanddown »

Sorry, it's not Ancient Stirrings.

I don't get that reference?

I think this card is deceptively useful. It'll likely get the equivalent of a free swing to the dome in in the average game, and it obviously does a lot more damage against magecrafty decks. And its larger butt keeps it relatively safe from damage. Certainly not an all star card, but it'll help win games especially in Limited formats.

I really, really like that art. Tanazir's wings are really interesting.

Don't forget Farfinder! Despite it being completely forgettable.

I really love the Archaic, it's well costed and the effect is potent. It either slows an opponent or you get bonus spells that will probably help you out a lot (and if not, the trigger is optional), and bonus magecraft triggers. Nifty, in this environment. But even if you just get copies of simple utility things like ramp, you're pressuring your opponent by keeping pace (or taxing them, making them lose tempo).

Explore the Vastlands looks okay, obviously better in instant/sorcery heavy builds.

Quote from Iceheart_Omnis »

Wow, Environmental Sciences is really good for Limited, you're almost guaranteed to break out of a color screw if you draw it, if you get it late by the point you know you're probably not going to play Learn it's still very handy in your starting 40, either way, it's my favorite Lesson card so far.

Absolutely. For me, it's a highly likely include in virtually every non-green deck I run. It's kinda like casting and activating Traveler's Amulet at the same time and instead of a handy cheap artifact in the graveyard, you get a Sorcery cast (not insignificant given Magecraft) and 2 life which is incidental but not unwelcome. When I first saw the card, I thought that if the rest of the set disappoints, at least Environmental Sciences is decent utility for some colors that need it.

I still can't figure out if the flavor direction for card names is really clever or really groan-worthy. I think it might be both? Study Break made me smile and Field Trip made me chuckle and roll my eyes, but I can appreciate what they're going for, they certainly committed.

The art on the basics is really great. That one Forest art with that funky tree is really, really cool. I'm not sold on some of the art direction for the set, but a lot of the individual pieces are really well done.

Quote from 5colors »

Point is its happened before (likely twice though not sure if werewolves where much of a thing during Innistrad 2) and people seemed to be able to get along just fine then.

Well, no. The complaints people have about DFCs have been consistent since they were first introduced a decade ago. Certainly some players took to them then and now, but it's not like the complaints about them are new.

And if you don't want sleeves, just use the checklist/blank card they now have are just as easy as lands to get a hold of.

Fair point. I'll admit that it's mostly obstinacy, but I'm not going to go out of my way to make clunky cards play slightly less clunkily, I'll just not play them and let others have their fun.

Quote from 5colors »

Quote from user-100026896 »

Quote from Creedmoor »

I'm sick and tired of the DFCs...

They certainly turn the game more and more online, as DFC's are fiddly to play with in person. Like can you imagine if you had a deck with like 20 of these in, which could be very possible in upcoming Standard.

Hi, I play werewolves during Innistrad 1 standard. Just get sleeves -shrug-.

1) The game is already fairly costly, requiring additional accessories to play with your cards can leave a bad taste in one's mouth.
2) Having to take cards in and out of sleeves to play them is, as the OP said, fiddly.

DFCs are the game mechanic where I have the most wildly disparate opinions about. I think the design space it opens is clever and quite flavorful and accurate, but the actual playing with them physically is irritating. I've been thankful to not be playing in person this year because the year of DFCs was not something I was looking forward to.

- - -

I think I like the new mechanics, but I don't really have a lot of love for these cards. Ward is a simple addition that makes sense, and it's interesting that it's across all colors, I guess I had assumed it would be mostly WU but the explanation about life loss being the cost in BR makes a lot of sense and I think really sells me on the mechanic. Learn is also very elegant, though the outside the game thing has never been something I've really loved even back to the Wishes. Magecraft, I think will be best evaluated by how it's employed on individual cards but so far I'm interested.

I don't really love the setting or aesthetic, but I think the mechanics of Strixhaven hold some promise. It should be an interesting spoiler season.

Quote from Dontrike »

The Professor puts some of the comments about this product in a much more eloquent way (in this video) and why many of us here, me included, do not look forward to these products or the direction the game is going.

It's a great video, and made me think a lot about the capitalistic angle. My main reason for not feeling UB was the immersion element, it just not 'feeling' right, but the closer examination of UB as a business practice really made me look at it in that light. We have heard "MtG is dead/dying" arguments for decades, though I can appreciate what makes this particular scenario different and why there's a lot of pessimism around UB's impact on the game.

Quote from Card Slinger J »

Don't really understand why Mark Rosewater is being hypocritical about this. Either he wants Magic to be Magic without being someone else's IP (Intellectual Property) or he's perfectly fine with these IP's diluting the Magic brand. He's saying this in a way that doesn't offend his co-workers at Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro which doesn't make sense to me.

That's really easy: $$$$$

A significant piece of MaRo's role as chief mouthpiece for the game is being the smiling face that sells all of the big decisions made for the game, and that sometimes includes decisions driven by market research and corporate strategy that the game design team would not want. So it's not really hypocrisy, he's just doing his job, and sometimes that means needing to pivot one's public statements to be celebratory of a move you once said you'd never want. I don't really blame MaRo, I'm not sure what else he could really say and at least this way he can save face with a "I never would have done this but the way it was proposed was really innovative and sold me on the concept in a way I never considered before" redemption moment.

So no, this has nothing to do with MaRo not wanting to offend others, he's just doing his job as the mouthpiece.

Quote from LeyShade »

And that's fine, I can appreciate that view. But it's a string that works both ways. For many other players, Magic is ancillary, it's a part of their world but doesn't define it.

What an odd thing to say, it's not my assumption that many people in this thread have their world defined by MtG.

This is a thing that's already been discussed and put to bed.

These cards are not Magic canon cards, hence their dissimilar holo stamps.

I'm not mistaking them for canon in the story, and they don't need to be for me to feel they're out of place in the game.

Also, two Kingdom Hearts characters are the most requested DLC characters for FF7 Remake PT2.

My ever-increasing dislike for FF and its fans continues unabated.

I wouldn't include you in that subset of players Mikey - you've actually got reasons for your disagreements with this.

So does everyone involved in this conversation. Whether or not they're understood or validated by others.

And I honestly Mikey wish that both sides would take a more reasoned and responsible attitude to the whole thing because you are right, people are losing their minds over something they could just as easily choose not to buy or not to personally play with. But if they're allowed to be bombastic, surely the most enigmatic villain of MTGS should get to play, si?

Your last sentence is a sentiment that I can share. My claws need sharpening once in a while too.

Oh honey. No to all of this, but especially that bolded part.

Perception doesn't matter in regards to facts. I can perceive the sky as red and green, but that matters little if one has damaged eyes or is looking through a filter. Perception is relative, essentially, as you know.

And the facts you're presenting are irrelevant to why people play the game. People play games because of the way they feel when they do and they view the game through the lens of that experience - not patent documents. I think arguing for UB using patent documents misses the forest for the trees and probably wouldn't be a compelling pitch for most players. Players are going to form an attachment to a game based on their perception of it, I don't think that includes investigating the patent documents of the game to understand the intent of its creators in the early 90s.

I want to thank you for your effort to further explain yourself, though you should know that your misfired tags made replying to you next to impossible (when quoting, the format goes wonky and I lost most of the content of your posts forcing me to do a ramshackle copy/paste job) so if you don't see much response, that could be a reason why. I think you speak well to your points, but I can't say that anything you've argued has been compelling for me in regards to this product. It's actually had the opposite effect, I'm even less warm to UB than I was before and I have even less desire to interact with people who are excited by it because everything has gotten so pedantic and far afield of the fun spirit of the game. I used to sideeye and tolerate the cynical corporate crap WotC did, but now the players themselves are trying to browbeat others into liking the cynical corporate crap with arguments about patents and metaphysics.

What even if this conversation anymore?

Quote from LeyShade »

Since those early sets, Magic has appeared in: Multiple tactics, strategy and hack n slash video games. A magazine only cross-promotion with Yu-Gi-Oh (A gold card Dark Magician, a 'dragon' 6 star Shivan Dragon monster). Official crossover material for D&D. A series of game books (published by company who produces Queens Blade books). A staff only UFS (now AniVersus) character card. Referenced/parodied in at least two anime. A proposed & developed, ultimately unreleased board game that crossed over with the Monster In My Pocket brand. A crossbrand drinks promotion with World of Warcraft. A white dwarf only army list for Slivers...

These are a handful of examples from around the world, across MTG's history. The only difference is this time those franchies appear in MTG card form.

I can't say that I'm particularly moved by the argument "MtG concepts/likenesses/settings have been used in promos of other IPs, so this is fine" because I don't play those games and never heard of the promos you're talking about. They aren't a part of my MtG experience and they have nothing to do with how I view the game. I have been involved with MtG in some form or another since 1998 and my perspective on what the game is was shaped by almost a quarter century of MtG cards, not cynical promotional stuff that exists outside the game.

It is like FF7. I don't particularly love that game, but it's fine enough and it's a good example of what I'm trying to express so let's just pretend I love that game. Cloud has appeared in a lot of other IPs, none of which I play, to me that is just tacky marketing from Square that I can and do safely ignore because they exist outside and apart from the game of FF7 that I enjoy. But if the Kingdom Hearts gang showed up in FF7 Remake Part Two, it would surely compromise my perception of the game.

Which is why I find it so amusing that a tiny subset of players who've proudly pushed their IP into the frames of others are now having a major backlash that those same IPs are appearing in theirs.

We did what now? What makes you think I'm proud that WotC pushed their IP elsewhere to market MtG and/or make a quick buck? At best, I accept that it's a thing WotC will do in their strategy to keep the market for the game healthy.

As well, since we're expressing what we're amused by, I'm amused by how posters here are characterizing the attitudes and behaviors of those who aren't liking the Universe Beyond concept. It's all getting the clickbait title treatment, overstating responses and emotionality to frame arguments and posters in a way that's easier to argue against or paint as dismissible. I'm not experiencing a major backlash, UB is a thing that doesn't vibe with my experience of the game, I'm unlikely to engage with it and I doubt I'll ever experience much if any of it so this isn't really a big deal to me. I just find the debate here fascinating and truth be told, I've got pandemic boredom amid chronic work stress and every cat benefits from a scratching post.

To say that MTG wasn't designed to facilitate crossover's is to literally ignore the patenting documents that force everyone else to pay Hasbro royalties (because most of it's mechanical fundamentals (like tapping a card to show it's used) are properiety).

What player constructs their perception of the game on patent documents?

As for what is original and divergent about lifting a picture of Christoper Lambert from the movie Merlin, making a set about a Magic School with a cross promotion for that other IP (promotion abandoned eleventh hour after other IP frontperson damaged said IP), or, Magic's most iconic villian being copied from an 80's sci-fi show villian. The whole thing was always designed to be a crossover of multiple IP's, it just wasn't considered big enough by the other IPs brand managers to make it a worthwhile investment for them to grant a license to use most of the time (as opposed to Games Workshop's recent scattershot approach of licenses for everyone).

Homage/Influence/Parody =/= Crossover

This is why the events of The Avengers XXX: A Porn Parody are not canon in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A little more seriously, though, there's a reason aspects of MtG being influenced by or homages to other works does not feel out of place where UB does. It's adaptation versus transplantation, and honestly it's been surreal for me to see so many posters not get that. To give credit to Tiro, he analogized the point well by saying the Theros gods might as well have been the actual Greek gods by the logic that homage/influence and crossovers are interchangeable.

Perhaps you're right, though, that MtG was always intended not to be a game of its own with its own independent identity but instead a multi-IP platform of crossovers only delayed by MtG not being big enough. But at the end of the day, that hasn't been my experience with the game for almost a quarter century and I don't intend for it to be part of my experience going forward.