MTG was about 15 at the time of the old article. So, Xth Edition or so. I can't believe we are actually in post-20th Anniversary land.....
The timeline of the writing of the articles is MUCH easier to trace than the timeline of the actual frikkin story, so that's what I'm clarifying instead.
But, these economics problems prove that not everything is as rosy-looking as that.
In all likelihood, Magic killed itself 15-odd years ago with the Reserved List. That's the only reason I can think of that any of the Modern Legal cards are even worth anything:
That Reserved List is the basis for the Black Lotus and its fellows to have *real, serious* value. That Value in turn is the reason why tournaments can run real cash prizes. Because they hope to buy Reserved Listed Rares that are good in Vintage and Legacy.
Each tier down, the value is less and less, until Precon Duel Decks today very rarely rise above MSRP by a % that compensates for cost of resale.
Obviously, it's a CCG. A Collectible Card Game. And no matter what, that means the Rare cards will be worth more than the Commons, the Foil cards will be worth more, and the best cards that win tournaments will be worth even more.
Pokémon started pretty close to the same time as Magic, and I'm pretty sure there aren't any Pokémon cards that can rival they're MTG 'collector's rarity' equivalents. Don't know about the Yu-Gi-Oh! Market, but last I heard, they have chase crazy money cards doing things to the tournament scene like Jace, the Mind Sculptor, but I'm pretty sure that Exodia the Forbidden, from Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon, hasn't inflated much over time: He's always been something like $25-30 for a piece, +$100 for the Five. That's the effect of being a CCG/or TCG *at all*----
but when you get to MAGIC, we have this RESERVED List and you can compare Black Lotus to Flying Jennies-- incidentally, they actually reprinted the Inverted Jenny recently! And Vintage and Legacy and Commander suffer partially for it. WOTC itself wants the Reserved List to die, but they aren't sure how to kill it yet-- just ignoring it obtusely and Reprinting tons of sheets of Alpha, they clearly think would blow up in their face and possibly crash the entire secondary market for every card in the game....maybe. At least, that must be what they are afraid of and why they haven't taken that approach.
I am certain, from what I see, that nothing can kill MTG except maybe the Reserved List, and it begins to play out in incidents like the Elspeth v. Tezzeret Duel Decks; the Commander 2011 product, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and Modern Masters.
MAGIC cards aren't *just* a TCG- they're clearly far and away the most valuable one, and the distinction that Magic has compared to other TCGs is it's Reserved List. We see these Commander products getting only small inflation and we don't immediately think of the Reserved list because it's not that much different from Standard Inflation-- but Standard is nuts. Standard has been nutser than it used to be since Jace, although it looks like the Jace-effect has been reduced.
If I'm completely wrong that Magic is crazily more valuable than YGO or Pokémon, then ranting about the Reserved List is completely invalid and this just the nature of any TCG to do this with any special product that's pretty in-demand. But if the Reserved List really is making Magic crazy more profitable to flip than Pokémon and YGO, then I suspect that it will come to the List or the game:
one of them must die.
And I think actually fine evidence to show that Love is more Red-White, and soemtimes Red-White-Blue, and that Green actually doesn't make sense for Love.
they will inevitably create Gods that have strong resemblences to a multitude of culture's Gods.
Magic itself is very Northern European flavor (Norse and English), just *by being Magic* and staying anywhere near true to the Color Wheel.
Magic and DnD both come from Wizards of the Coast. And Wizards of the Coast and TSR derived practically all their stuff from "Lord of the Rings plus some stuff"--
so saying that Keranos is going to bear a strong resemblance to THOR-- it's not that they're doing that on purpose at all-- it's that ZEUS *himself* bears a strong resemblance to Thor, Lightning Bolt has been part of Magic for freaking ever, and The Color Red has always had a bit of it's Thor-thang goin' on for 20 years.
Heliod bears a LOT of resemblance to Zeus-- he's got a Special Weapon, which for the most part calls back to Zeus' Thunderbolts, Hades' Invisibility Cap, and Poseidon's Trident. And of course the Norse Gods and practically all Gods in Myths eventually get Magic Items attached to their lore and whatnot.
But The Big Three of Olympus are Standouts for most famous examples of that, so the whole Spear of Heliod cycle, we have Zeus to thank for. I see more Odin in him than Hera, just because he's got a very much "Trust me, I'm Wise" attitude (Gandalf-y) and ....no I seriously don't see any Hera in him at all.
If you want to get right down to it, if a card feels like Thor, it's going to unavoidably feel like Zeus, if a card feels like Zeus, it's going to unavoidably feel like Ra.
Please consult Marvel Comics and Joseph Campbell for why it is so. Skyfathers are similar. Any God related to the sky is going to be like many other Sky Gods.
....
Phenax is probably going to feel more Egyptian than Greek. I can't be positively sure why, and I *am* *not* *saying* that Wizards is doing this any kind of *deliberately*....
I'm just saying that crossing MTG with Greek Myth is going to ironically get some mixed results, and some things will accidentally come out a little more Norse or Egyptian looking, because that's just how it'll come out.
Also, "Love" is pretty much completely absent from MTG.
Look up every female character, and the number of them that are the more conservative, motherly or damsel-in-distressy or princess, even battle-princessy.....
honestly Cymede is the most Pink I have ever seen in the whole of MTG put together that's not Unhinged or Vizzerdrix.
like.....they just don't really have room for a Tender Passion figure when they're busy trying to make everyone either at least a Warrior or a Free Spirit.
Basically Cymede is the only female character in Magic that strikes me as being potentially good at actually being a wifely character. the rest of them....might make girlfriends? but in general, none of these High Fantasy Warriors, male or female, seem suited to the lifestyle of being tied down by marriage.
MTG is very liberal. Not making a qualititative statement on whether being liberal is good or bad-- just saying it's liberal. Heck, they claim Setessans don't even practice marriage at all.....which...makes my brain hurt as I just don't see how that society would really work. feels way too much like alien sci-fi that claims to have ideal Progressive views....but.....I don't think humans are wired to be happy being that progressive.
We have our humanity which often consists of Selfishness, the desire to Own things, and Capitalist economies are more fun for people than communist ones. It almost doesn't matter if you think that's a bad thing, because people *like* this Owning/Selfishness stuff, people *like* jealousy and possessiveness in relationships, and......yeah.
I really don't think anyone can look Setessa straight in the face and think 'let's get rid of marriage! that sounds like a good idea!'
sorry, got off on a bit of a tangent, but it's somewhat related to the whole "Why is the Goddess of Love/God of Love missing?" thing.
I guess I'm saying that Karametra is the God of Communism, and Communism is apparently Love. Either that or there's no love on Theros.
Seriously.
We don't get a Goddess of Love because we get a Goddess of Kindness instead.
That's actually the only way to interpret the Style Guide xP
funny thing. Religon by nature is Conservative. Again, not trying to make qualitative assessment-- but it is about Belief that some things are actually Solid and Real, that some Good things Matter and oppose Evil.....
and really....I've never gotten a strong enough feeling since Apocalypse that any of Magic's colors stood for any of that. White used to, up until Apocalypse, but now MTG is pretty much all about Holistically accepting every color as legitimate.
If Theros ever cosmically collided with Ravnica, I take back everything else I said, um the Therans, all of them, even the 'enlightened' Meletans, would be so Conservative that they would just say "um? excuse me? what is this Rakdos BS? no., you do not need Rakdos to have a stable civilization, our God Heliod is here to take the Defiler's head off and hang it in the heavens as a warning to not be like that any more.
The Setessans would be regarded by the rest of civilization as insane.
I am not saying that they actually are insane. I am just saying that they would definitely be called insane.
"Idealistic Fools" perfectly describes them to a T -_-
Moderator Action: Posts Merged
Please don't double (or in this case, quadruple) post. You can edit your own posts if you need to clarify or elaborate.
~kaburi
Event Decks (used to be like 10 a year, now it's like 4- one per set instead of 2)
Promo Foils (and they can basically print anything they want that's not reserved if they think the occasion is special)
From the Vault (would be a good place for one or two Fetches?)
Commander (5 decks a year maybe? could change to 4. Commander 2014 will be exciting)
Duel Decks (4 decks a year, 2 pair)
Premium Decks* (discontinued, but restartable if the demand arose)
Planechase (not likely discontinued, however might not see another til 2016)
Archenemy (we're due for Archenemy II because we *know* we're getting a third Commander set and Planechase has had its #2)
Modern Masters- Not putting a Rare Cycle of Lands in this feels wrong in the same year that the Core Set loses it's land cycle. Yea, they want to balance MMA to be great for draft, but these Rare lands need reprinting somehow. It was a good decision to include the Vivids and City of Brass of course. I'm putting in my two bits that increasing the set size by 5 and throwing in M10 or Innistrad Check Lands would not in fact have been the end of the universe, and could have been a large boon to the singles market at least.
Finally, let it be said that, freaking seriously, the Shock Lands have gotten the most lavish reprint-treatment this year Wizards has ever given....well....anything. bringing all 10 back for Dragon's Maze in addition to having them in RTR and GTC, on *top* of putting Temple Garden and Godless Shrine in Event Decks?
If they start putting Blue Shocks into the Theros Event Decks, then they will honestly have given us as many Shocks as we could ever reasonably hope for.
-Power Creep. It's a thing, it happens, it's everywhere. for many research reasons, I find myself looking back to Old Sets: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?sort=color+&output=spoiler&method=visual&action=advanced&set=|["Arabian%20Nights"]|["Legends"]|["The%20Dark"]|["Fallen%20Empires"]
Now, what one will notice is that even these 'bad' Uncommon and Common lands are actually somewhat Great by Ancient mana standards.
of course, that's not the best argument because we are now in an age where every block has Duals, right? bear in mind still that this wasn't always the case, buuuuttt...
-I do think the Ice Age and Apocalypse/Xth Edition Painlands are just about due. If we are getting Shock Lands in Event Decks, then we should be able to expect the very best Common and Uncommons of Ever, pretty much, and rares as outdated as these would be boons.
-Comparing Shard Lands to everything that came before them, only Fetch, Shock, and Beta Duals really compare. Filters do not, Imo, but people are welcome to disagree. Shard Lands and Gatelands between them are actually amazing levels of Fixing compared to both previous blocks (Ice Age - Kamigawa, really) and previous Duel Decks and Premium Decks, which gave us.....basically cycling and not much else?
-Although these Pre-Con boxes *are* limited, yes, you will find that at Common and Uncommon actually exist plenty of powerful fixers so it's not NEEDED to immediately crash the market on Filters or Shocks or Fetches...yet.
I would say that we could hope that in some Pre-con and Special Decks, we see more Painlands. I don't know how people rate Temples and Fastlands, but I rate them lower than lots of the Top Gun of Lands, and they might become very easy to acquire if the right products reprinted them one at a time.
-I think if you want M10/Innistrad Duals, you're going to have to wait for a slow leak one or three at a time, over 5+ years
-I think if you want all 10 Xth Duals, well, you know you're actually right. We're just about there, a cycle of decks that included these would be quite welcome, or fast-release them in Duel Decks across 2 years?
LoL-- Control wants an opponent. It does not care one way or the other if that opponent has fun. This often causes Control to take away other people's fun, but really, Control is just fine with its opponent's having Fun. Control also doesn't care about whether itself has Fun. Of course, it's possible to have Fun playing Control, but Control is not out trying to have Fun-- Fun is a bonus.
Control knows it's playing a Game, AND Control knows the natures of Games and Wars. There are opponents. There are winners and there are losers. Control wants to engage the Opponent and the Game and Try To Win.
Control is Spike. Of course, this does not make either Spike or Control evil persay-- they just Know What Is Really Happening.
I think Professor Xavier is a Spike when he plays Chess-- he's a Good guy, and obviously he wants to Have Fun, but He wants to Win, he wants Magneto to Lose. He does not Hate Magneto. He even wants Magneto to have Fun, so long as Magneto's Fun doesn't interfere with Professor Xavier achieving all of his own goals:
-Winning
-Safety of Civilians
-Improving the Relations between Humans and Mutants
Magneto can argue that Charles Hates Fun and Hates Him all he wants, all day long, but Xavier would tell him he can always choose to have fun Reading a Book, or Watching Butterflies.
And Control HONESTLY thinks this is COMPLETELY FAIR :S
and like, that's just how things....are.
Further, I think a Mod could have quickly delivered a good set of arguments and given a better Face to Control players than some of the early posters did?
"new players suck" <-- true or not, this can't be helpful to persuading new players that Control is ok
I feel like people making Bad arguments in Control's favor opened this thread up to going a lot longer than it needed to be.
The Good arguments in favor of Control's *freaking existence*, which is what was being brought up by the OP, can be summarized in I think, 5 Cards or Less:
Counterspell => Now Cancel
Terror => Now Doom Blade
Swords to Plowshares => Now...? (Path to Exile never made it to the Core)
Pacify => Now Oblivion Ring (the most significant Enchantment Removals. happens
to be more points for White)
Lightning Bolt => Now Shock
Forget Prey Upon because in the Very Biggest Picture, that looks at Macrocosm and Microcosm at the same time, Prey Upon is just a much, much bigger player in Limited than Vintage.
We can say the Green one should be Naturalize.
The rest of these cards I think are Vintage Playable, and there's a very duh-obvious reason for that. They are good at Answering and Stopping things.
And by "These" I mean "yes, Shock and Cancel too. Really". Of course your deck will be weaker, but to choose that you can do it if you want, you can 1-of either Shock or Cancel, and if you play Vintage enough you will certainly find opportunities to cast either for profit. After all, what do Pact of Negation and Force of Will say about countering, if not, "If it's worth stopping, it's worth STOPPING?", and what does Fireblast say if not "if it's their last points of life, what else matters?" (Note to New Players: just because you can definitely run Shock and Cancel, at least as 1-ofs, in Vintage, and totally prove my point by winning a game sometimes with them.....doesn't mean that you can't....uhh...buy better cards. If you want. Increase your odds of winning and all
No, they are Really Good at it. Answering and Stopping things is What Control is about.
Imagine if Magic didn't have any of these cards.
Then you wouldn't have Control. And very soon, you wouldn't be able to tell Aggro apart from Combo.
The Original Poster simply needed to have explained that what enables Control Decks to exist is actually the same thing that enables Aggro Decks to exist at more of a 'fun' level and less of a 'degenerate' level--- even Combo Decks are most fun when they are the kind of Combo that interacts as it is supposed against Aggro and Control-- not the 'Inevitable Instant Combo', but instead one that is Counterable at direst need, or hoardable by those Goblins a page 1 poster mentioned.
This, as far as I can see, is the end of the discussion? The Original Poster asked a question, and it was answered repeatedly, can Thread be closed and people stop asking for the End of the Universe by throwing the Colors and Archetypes out of balance?
Nerfing Blue or Nerfing Control as a habit regardless of context won't make your problems go away. Swinging a Pendulum around the Triangle of Archetypes or the 5-pointed Color Wheel will.
This is something that takes a while to learn but has never been less true than it always was. So like....we're all beating a dead horse here
The link to Mike Flores' article was a good one. Someone should find a good MaRo article and a good Latest Developments article to match to the Flores one, and like, sticky them to The Forums somewhere with the Heading:
"Welcome to the Universe. This is how Things work."
Control is not bad for the game. There's no way that's up for debate. A different thread, asking whether Control was too strong at a particular time? Now that's something people can be encouraged to talk about, that doesn't make me want to beg people to not let MaRo see their conversation.
Because if MaRo saw this conversation, I don't think we'd ever see another counter spell again -_-
I think that for the Allied Gods, we will have closer resemblance to the picture the Greeks had than the Enemy Gods. Strike, that, for the Non-Black ones? Maybe just for the Bant and Naya ones -_-
Bant/Naya Gods:
KARAMETRA- feels kinda Demeter-ish.....but more like Really Ancient Demeter. Way, way, way long ago, the Only/First Olympians were just Hades, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Vesta, and Zeus. Those were the only Gods that actually fought against Chronos and the Titans. Almost all the image of Demeter we get is a pretty kind loving Garden-Goddess of the Harvest and stuff, with, if I looked hard for it, at least one story about Demeter having outright vengeance against mortals for some thing or other-- but comparatively, she has fewer Raging Badass moments. Karametra feels ruff n' tuff enough to evoke more of a Chronos-War Era Demeter, which people don't often see much of even if Post-Olympus Demeter does kind of have these qualities still? Also speaking of Ye Olde Chronos War, Karametra is Very Likely a fusion of both Demeter and Vesta. Goddess of the Hearth, Goddess of things that Grow, in general she's the Shire Goddess?
EPHARA feels to me all around VERY Athena-like, and will be extremely recognizable as this. Patron of Meletis and everything. Like, so Athena-like there will be little that looks specially changed to make it more "Theran" and not just "Plain Greek".
IROAS, not Mogis, is your man for Ares. He's got Sparta (sorry, Akros), and he's both Pro-War, and Pro-Civilization. Very much like how Ares was Pro-War, but also Pro-Olympus; he's the type to Conquer the World sure, but he isn't a Mad God out for Chaos and Destruction of humanity. He's just violent.
XENAGOS is going to be an extremely overt and obvious cross between the Greek Pan and the Christian Satan. Like, it's going to be so dripping with Duh-sauce that nobody will be able to miss it a thousand miles away. Paradise Lost meets Greek Mythology, all the way- or at least to some extent. (Not sure how the humans factor into Xenagos' plot at all, but he's at the least after Olympus)
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Weirder/Enemy God Colors:
KERANOS + Heliod = Odin + Zeus? Like- I mean neither Keranos nor Heliod seems *exactly* Zeus-like to me....very much more an "MTG-ified"/artistic license type of Zeus that definitely has Odin-like qualities too.
I can't think of a Greek analogy for Keranos. Unless you count Hephaestus as Zeus' lightning-forger. the connections are looser here- which is GOOD because it lets THEROS have more of it's own, Therian identity apart from any previous world mythology
KRUPHIX this guy's flavor looks to be kind of "Theranized", but with two primary, distinctly Greek sources, and no weird semi-Norseness about it:
Hermes and the Oracle of Delphi. He's the Prophecy God. He might give a tiny bit of Morpheus vibes or other Gods that you might associate with Nyx/Night/Dreams/Sleep, and he's going to be all around Very Wizardy. The Gandalf the Grey Wanderer of the Pantheon, but it will feel pretty plausible.
ATHREOS either Charon or Styx could be inspirations for this God, and probably both are. And the Grim Reaper, and Hecate/Hel (sic, with only 1 ''l'', and pretty much anything Underworld-y you can think of in Greek or Norse Mythology. Most likely God to scare the crap out of people besides Erebos himself. I think we know what to expect just from Scholar of Athreos' flavor text, and if we didn't get it the Zombie Griffin drove the point home. Davy Jones, blah blah blah The Fates blah blah blah. He'll sort of feel almost as closely connected to Prophecy and Wisdom and Perception as Kruphix, except, you know, more Life and Death. Mostly Death.
Like Keranos, even with a distinctly Greek origin source for the main stuff: Charon, in this case; Athreos has potential to have pretty strongly distinctly THERAN flavor.
(Iroas and Ephara are the very farthest from being able to claim this, as Arkos and Meletis are blatant deliberate lifts of Sparta and Athens with as little changed as possible to make them work as an MTG setting- the Epharans are even sea-farers and the city probably has almost-mirror-myths about Thassa wanting to claim it and losing a contest or something. Akros looks exactly like Zack Snyder's 300 meets God of War. It's exactly what we think Sparta wants the rest of history to think Sparta was, whether they actually completely were or not. Extremely, Uber-tastically, GREEK for both Iroas and Ephara.)
MOGIS: Minotaurs are just plain completely different in MTG than in Original Greek Mythology. Expect this to look like a Gamer's God: at home in MTG, WoW, or DnD if you like, but really not actually very close to Greek Roots. Just....*strongly inspired*. Really more of a Monster than a God. This is the Rakdos God. PHENAX may or may not have someone that I'm forgetting that he's supposed to remind us of......or more likely he's the Dimir God with a similar deal.
PHARIKA- considering "Ascalos" was mentioned as a person, I think that guy is your actualy Asclepius connection. Second, Asclepius I think was only a God in Rome, but more of a Son of Zeus, not a god, in Greece? Not completely sure. Ascelpius IS the Healer-figure of Hellenic Myth though, but I think he was also actually a real mortal guy in history that later got deified-- much like Caesars did? A miraculous Cure-person would get worshipped, probably. MTG has Gorgon-ified it and it's going to be a very same deal as MOGIS and PHENAX. These particularly three Gods are going to be as much homages to what Games have done to and with the Greek Myths as they are to the Source Material themselves, which will set them somewhat differently apart from IROAS, KARAMETRA, and EPHARA, the three "Poleis" Gods that will bear the sharpest (I think) resemblance to how the Gods look in the original Homer and Hesiod.
Keranos, on reflection, even has some Stormy Sea God-ness to him, so he borrows some of Thassa's Poseidon. Really Thassa is an interesting cross between Ariel and Ursula. Picture King Triton married to Ursula, now picture Ariel as their kid, NOW picture what kind of Queen of the Sea she would make. Like,....that's kind of Thassa. With Keranos being slightly more Poseidon-y than that.
Order of "GREEK-Factor" of the Minor Gods:
1. Ephara- Most Greek
2. Karametra- Most Greek
3. Iroas- Still Greek
4. Athreos- Greek & Theran
*5. Keranos- Greek, Theran, and unavoidably Norse Vibe
*6. Xenagos- Least Greek that can still Fake it?
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*7. Pharika- Very Half-Breed Flavor
*8. Kruphix- Still Theran
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9. Phenax- Still MTG
10. Mogis- Gamer Monster-God
I'm open to putting Kruphix higher up than Pharika and Xenagos higher up than Keranos, but other than that, I think this is pretty accurate.
Athreos is the only Black God that really feels close enough to Greek Myth to actually fit as an analogy to a God of their pantheon.
Phenax and Mogis, to be perfectly honest, do not even feel like Gods though. They feel like either Enemy (Mogis) or Neutral (Phenax)
Cosmically Powerful beings that may attract the Fear of Humans or the Worship of Monsters, but I just can't seem them having Palaces in Nyx with the
rest of the Pantheon. Just doesn't quite fit. I could maybe see Pharika living in Nyx, but I'm also a bit sketchy on her:
She might be Divine and really very much on the side of Heliod, Erebos, and the rest (when it comes to Xenagos' War), but Nyx doesn't fit my picture of her home; she feels like the kind of Goddess that would bring herself down to live on the Earth/in caves on Theros. That's more than just because of the Elspeth flavor article, that's also the inescapable Golgari Vibes she puts off.
This is MTG, I think it's fine and appropriate for the Color Wheel to have a significant impact to the point where 3 of the Gods feel unmistakably Guild-Aligned. I can't be sure that the others would actually really align with the Guilds bc Theros and Ravnica are just DIFFERENT (Meletis might find Azorius cold and unjust, Akros might find Boros in no mood for Games of Championship, Keranos, being extremely Natural and Elemental, would probably love to Wreck the Izzet Experiments, actually),
but I feel safe in saying that Rakdos, Golgari, and Dimir really do have kindred spirits in the Theran Pantheon. They still differ culturally, but if the Theran Gods could planeswalk, those three Gods would find the Ravnica Culture ....interesting....and might actually want to start Cults there.
Kruphix and the Simic have so little in common it's amusing.....and....Selesnya....probably would not like Karametra and much as Karametra likes them.
I only actually used Gatherer to pick my Ice Age guy. which is why I left so many blanks.
Alpha: Two-Headed Giant of Foryis. I'm not thinking this guy has a snow-balls's chance in hell of carrying this, but I thought I'd mention him. I think he's better than White and Black Knight.
Arabian Nights: I do not know of Arabian Nights' best swordsman, but
I ask people who might know-- who do you think wields the scimitar of the
Set Symbol?
Antiquities: I don't think this set has any notable swordsmen
LEGENDS: DAKKON BLACKBLADE and TETSUO UMEZAWA are candidates for carrying this entire set. I know this set has all the Best Swordsmen of this Era, but I think these two are the best of those best.
The Dark:
Fallen Empires:
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To get a good comparison, I'd say get a list of 10 swordsmen from those sets,
and ask which is the best of them. That ^ is Round One.
Round Two: Good Old Fashioned Broken Magic:
Ice Age*: Balduvian Warlord. Other leaders were in this block, but I'm not sure about their single fencing combat prowess.
Homelands: Baron Sengir. Come on, he's a Baron, he's gotta be pretty good with a blade, right?
Mirage: Kaervek the Merciless. Underhanded Tactics go a long way. the fewer restraints you have, the more people you can kill. Dark Side wins battles.
Tempest: ?
Urza's Saga: Radiant, Archangel (do I have her in the wrong set?)
Mercadian Masques: ?
*(counting Coldsnap, let's keep it simple)
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Again, pick Top 10 out of those sets, and let the best advance.
Round 3: the Pre-Mending Modern Age.
Invasion: Gerrard Capashen. come on? who else?
Odyssey: Kamahl, Pit Fighter
Onslaught: Akroma, Angel of Wrath (SHE's going to destroy rather a lot of the competitors XD)
Mirrodin: Kaldra- no arguments here, I think? Although I admit I didn't waste 1000 hours on Gatherer to be sure of these by looking up every freaking card that shows a sword-wielder. I picked Kaldra for Power, but if there is a really noteworthy Skilled Champion of Bladework, then they should get this slot.
Kamigawa: Konda, Lord of Eiganjo
Ravnica: Razia, Boros Archangel (?) possibly Argus Kos, Wojek Veteran? could any other guild besides Boros produce excellent Swordfighters?
Time Spiral: I don't feel like trying to go through that many good cards, but someone should.
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OK, now Round 3 is full of interesting fights to determine who actually goes on. The Angels are really powerful, Kamahl and Gerrard are both epic Sword-wielding Heroes as well, and Konda is the undisputed Master of Bushido. Not to mention, there MUST be a really important character I'm leaving out from Time Spiral.
I tentatively say that Konda could beat Razia and Gerrard, but not Kamahl or Akroma.
Akroma I think would beat Kamahl, but if you're willing to suspend disbelief about card mechanics (Tsabo Tavoc dies to Gerrard after all), then I would say that just about anyone here has a really strong chance of doing something Epic to get the nomination.
Fighter A: From Ancient Time: Dakkon Blackblade?
Fighter B: From Broken Times: Baron Sengir?
Fighter C: From Pre-Mending: ????
Post-Mending, whether I completely think it's right or fair or not, I don't think there's anyone remotely in Sorin's league. It's a combination of him being Ancient, Sword-focused, and being able to back his fight-game with both Skill AND Power. He's a Planeswalker, and whether he's out of practice or not, he can juice his Swordplay with stupidly overpowering Magic.
Although the Mending DID bring Planeswalkers supposedly down to human levels, what turning Planeswalkers into cards has done is provided a prestige class of characters that are such Ultra Badasses that I don't see anyone but another Planeswalker actually being a threat to a Planeswalker. I mean, for the most part, almost none of the denizens of the Multiverse know how to fight Planeswalkers at all.
Sorin's only real competition is Elspeth therefore......and come on -_-
Fighter D: From the Present: Sorin Markov, Lord of Innistrad, Noob-Pwner of Tibalt, Jailer of the Eldrazi, etc, etc, and so forth.
X*X*X*X*X**X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X**X*X*X*XX**XX*X*X*X*X*X*X
Alright, the Finals!!!
Match 1: Sorin, Lord of Innistrad VS Baron Sengir-- come on. you KNOW you want to see THIS one x3 Baron Sengir is a Vampire, just like Sorin, and royalty, and he's got his own plane. I know what I said about Sorin being a Planeswalker, but I think an old-card-frame Legendary Vampire can be a challenge to him. What do you think?
Match 2: Dakkon Blackblade VS R3 ???
Match 3: R2 ??? VS R3 (Konda)
I've decided that there are so many people in my defined "Pre-Mending Era", that TWO of them should be selected for the Finals instead of Three: one chosen for Power, the other for Skill. And I've also decided that the Skill Master is Konda.
THE CONCLUSION:
The winners of Match 1, 2, and 3 should have a 3-way Sword Fight, Pirates of the Caribbean 2-style, to determine Who is the Ultimate Bad Ass of Swordfightery in the Entire Multiverse.
I know I left some holes in my chart, and people can argue over different point in the way I did things, but I do think this is a pretty good set up of Brackets.
Wow. A single post and you've completely re-ignited my desire to Design a Pokémon Generation o.O I cannot believe I honestly never considered changing the types of the Starters!
there are many many things involved with why Pokémon has gotten a bit lame:
the first is that the cosmology is way too inconsistent because they're making it up as they go along. Kind of the same problem Magic has. When you make up continually Older and Ancienter and More Powerfuller stuff from only as you go farther and farther along, it messes up Fantasy Worlds pretty heavily, and your BEST case scenario is it looks like DC and Marvel Comics, and your worst case scenario is it looks like....well....Pokémon itself is quite honestly the worst world I have ever seen.
LOL: so many deconstructionists figuring out that people EAT Pokémon being one of the SMALLEST plot holes?? :/
Pokémon actually needs a Mending, of Sorts. A New Beginning. A Retcon/StartOver.
I actually like/love the parts of it that are pretty heavily influenced by Japanese folklore-- like the way all Pokémon are basically Nature Spirits, and how some Pokémon in the Dark, Psychic, and Ghost categories can get downright Creepy-- that's Features, not Bugs, to me, although Creepypasters are usually strongly put off by Hypno and the thing that used to be a human and wears it's own face like a Freaking Returned Zombie from Theros o.o
I think the Best Way to change Pokémon in a way that would enable a Restart would be, obviously, to plan out your actual Origin Story in a type of plot that consistently and coherently gets told across 3-5 Generations, (rather than each generation after 2 close to Retconning the previous ones with its Legendaries). You make Creative work WAY far ahead of what you actual reveal in the game plot. That's key. That's super essential. But that's also 'hidden'. Your players won't get to appreciate til at least New Generation 3.
So how to make New Generation cool and stand-outish and make the Restart of Pokémon Exciting?
Change the Starter situation completely. Changing Types is a good move...but...
I am strongly considering that taking a leaf out of "Avatar" and Classical Elements:
"Ancient[edit]
In classical thought, the four elements Earth, Water, Air, and Fire frequently occur; sometimes including a fifth element or quintessence (after "quint" meaning "fifth") called aether in ancient Greece and akasha in India. The concept of the five elements formed a basis of analysis in both Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, particularly in an esoteric context, the four states-of-matter describe matter, and a fifth element describes that which was beyond the material world. Similar lists existed in ancient China and Japan. In Buddhism the four great elements, to which two others are sometimes added, are not viewed as substances, but as categories of sensory experience.
Classical elements in Babylonia[edit]
The concept of the five classical elements in the Western tradition may originate from Babylonian mythology. The Enûma Eliš, a text written between the 18th and 16th centuries BC, describes five personified cosmic elements: the sea, earth, sky, fire, and wind.[1]
Greece[edit]
Aristotelian elements and qualities
Four Classical Elements
Empedoclean elements
Alchemy fire symbol.svg fire · Alchemy earth symbol.svg earth · Alchemy air symbol.svg air · Alchemy water symbol.svg water
The Greek classical elements (Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Aether) date from pre-Socratic times and persisted throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, deeply influencing European thought and culture. The Greek five elements are sometimes associated with the five platonic solids." From Wikipedia.
You could have this tie into how you change your cosmology. Pokémon has so long been associated with "3 games come out per Generation, 2 main characters, you and your rival drive the plot" that it's been ingrained into how the Starters are presented every time. But you could change that. Steven (was it Steven that had the Kirlia in Gen. III?), Lance (who ends up being the League Champion in Gen. II, though he is not your Rival), and many other characters that kind of get tacked on LEGO style to the original way that R/B/Y were built, offer enough differences of plot story-telling to the old "Ash and Gary are the only two important people in the world" way of doing things, that if we took Pokémon all the way back down to the ground, but drew on the best from Old Pokémon to help make Revamp Pokémon awesome, you could design a plot where it makes sense to release 4 Games, have 4 Main Characters right from the beginning of Each Game, and you could use these plot devices to justify having FOUR STARTERS.
And then you can base your 4 Starters on whichever Square of Elements you like. 4 seems a better number to work with than 3 for this, precisely because it can be more interesting, and the need to be perfect isn't there- you can have an All-Around balanced Whole Game even if the Starters themselves aren't Perfectly Balanced--
Charizard has pretty much the worst time of the Early Gyms in Pokémon R/B/Y. You do something cool like that-- after you'd decided on which Starters you wanted for your Four Elements (which, you would still want to keep with the same Four Elements for each Generation-- but you COULD make interesting by adding Dual Types however you want.)-- whichever Starter has the best game advantages against the other Starters, make it harder for that one to get through the Pokémon League by messing with the order of Gyms/Towns.
For the Story/Cosmology, you would REALLY want to decide on your Legendary Pokémon-- at least as far as Names and Types-- in advance, for EVERY GENERATION, before messing around with anything else. True, you will eventually be, as you Game Program and Develop, adding who knows what kinds of features (Breeding, Internet Trading, new Island Locations in some regions that could change the 'uniqueness' or canon-'homeland' of some Legendaries, Special Events) - but the point is, none of the Gameplay Features that the Advancement from Game Boy Advance, to SP, to Nintendo DS, to 3DS, actually need to affect any thing about the larger Legendary Plot/Storyline in a significant way-- it would only really affect Collectability and the Gotta Catch Em All Pokedex Quest. In other words, there's nothing strictly stopping one from planning out a Consistent Mythology for the Pokémon Universe other than:: "Are the returns worth it? Do people....care? It would cost the investment of time and effort, it would delay some things like being able to release a first game by *a lot*" --- but, it would also allow you to more quickly make future games.
The only thing that having a Set, Defined, Consistent Cosmology really does, is that it pretty Heavily puts a BOUNDARY on whatever fictional World you want to make-- which means that your Story can practically be guaranteed to be known to have only a certain number of *possible* Chapters. Which would go against the idea of "Every Year we can Add More of whatever we want, and keep doing this ad infinitum, allowing us to Print Money."
Because the Cosmology and Story of Pokémon is one of the Least Important things to most players and the game makers themselves, they're free to unleash whatever God-Awful Monsters they want on the universe EVERY STINKING YEAR, until they eventually reach such a huge Critical Mass of Legendary Monsters whose entire existence seems to be "I am a Force of Nature, I was asleep, Humans and their Technology woke me up. Now I shall DESTROY EVERYTHING"......rendering every Pokémon game into an ever more contrived Godzilla Plot, as of Gen. II.
If you could find a way to stop the endless cycle of making Legendaries whose only purpose seems to be "Destroy the World", by *actually* having some Significant Legendary Pokémon play a role in the plotline of *multiple consecutive games*, then you would be able to tell something similar to the Plots Pokémon games already do-- except with some actual room for....a continuity.
Mew in Left Out of Pokémon Yellow, Lugia in Pokémon 2000, Celebi in Left Almost Out of Pokémon G/S/C, Rayquaza in Pokémon Emerald, Arceus in Pokémon Platinum, the Yin-Yang Dragons in Pokémon Black/White--- every Pokémon that has supposedly stood for or been needed for "Balance" has been superceded by an ever greater threat.....And ALSO replaced by some bigger, badder-asser "Balance" Pokémon because the New Destructive problems in Poke-Japa-Merica (or wherever it takes place) are Power Creeped so that the Saviors of the Previous Games are rendered pretty Obsolete and are of no help. (I don't remember when I stopped believing in God, but it MAY have been when I found out that as recently as Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire, pretty much nobody in the world had any respect for Mewtwo as 'the most powerful Pokemon'-- he'd been nerfed the hell out of for what I considered no good reason. This was probably my first outrage as a Vorthos. Of many)
Now, WHAT if, instead, the Destruction and Balance themes of Pokémon Legendary Quests, featured the Main Characters from Gen. I, II, III, etc. -meeting- each other, and like, previous games' plots really MATTERED-?
what if you had to call on the same Balance Beast to put Zapdos, Moltres, and Articuno to rest, as you did to quell the fighting between Groudon and Kyogre?
I think Rayquaza is probably Obsolete, and I think Lugia and Ho-Oh don't need to be a pair of Yet More Destroyers and you could have "The Beast of the Sea" and "The Rainbow Bird" be the same Pokémon.
These are my ruminations on some changes you could make if you wanted to Retcon and Revamp the entire Pokémon Franchise:
1. Release 4 games per Gen instead of 3, make starters revolve around 4 Elements, Avatar-Style.
2. Fix up the MESS of Legendary Pokémon to plan out a cohesive, 4 or 5 Generation Long Super Quest Plot that makes some kind of Sense and Actually Restores Peace and Balance to the World.
This would mean you would *technically* be putting a cap on the number of Pokémon and money you could make as a company. But WAIT! Because people will need Old Games brought back to New Platforms all the time, (look at how many editions of VHSs, DVDs, and Blu-Rays STAR WARS fans need to own!) you could ACTUALLY......
still make as much freaking money and add any number of new Non-Legendary Pokémon you ever wanted....>.> FOREVER.
3. FINALLY release the 20-year-long awaited "Pokémon: Team Rocket Version" where the starters are a Poison, a Rock, and a Ground Pokémon, and basically definitely have it be a "Godfather" game, only with Pokémon.
OK-- I am technically interested in Pokémon again.....but only loosely. I couldn't care what they do with the Non-Legendaries....that will always be doomed to getting a bit stupider as they make billions and billions of them.
However, I do care a lot about how feasible would it be to Restructure the Plot of Pokémon and re-write the Story of Each Generation.
Assume that Red, Blue, and Yellow were going to get fully Top-Down and Bottom-Up R-E-M-A-D-E-
for the 3DS-squared or whatever game system of the future you imagine it for. Not "Fire Red and Leaf Green", which were really more "ports to a new system" with actually as little changed as they could bear-- I mean actually Completely Re-Done.
Put yourselves in the shoes of Nintendo-- how many things would you change, what, and why?
Would you make travelling to other regions possible?
*I know this thread was originally just for X and Y.
my knowledge only goes very faintly up to Platinum.
How much does anyone know about X and Y that would have a serious impact on what I described?
(By- 'serious impact'-- just because you CAN throw out everything people know about in a ReMake, doesn't mean you should-- what do you think are the most Awesome Parts of X and Y that people would *Want* to see, that could some how be made to *Fit* better in a ReMade Pokémon Universe that Made A Bit Of Actual Sense?)
Also......I bet 400 million Rocket Game Corner Coins that the next Pokémon Game to be announced will be called "Pokémon Z"....or "Pokémon X-squared and Y squared".
Chain Lightning as an actual still-a-common would be great for that
actually we might even see Chain Lightning *take the place* of Lightning Bolt o.O it could seriously theoretically happen because they wouldn't want to make Red too powerful but they obviously have to give each color some of its Best Cards In Freaking Forever.
Chain Lightning is a really strong candidate for that description, and it would be slightly weird to have Chain Lightning and Lightning Bolt in the same set.
Not weird at all really to have Chain Lightning OR Lightning Bolt, AND Fireblast either way, in the same set.
Do we know how many cards in the set yet?
Like, for example, there are certain effects that feel very non-creature spell-like and also have long been prevalent Core Set mainstays.
I would like to see Wrath of God in this definitely,
probably Control Magic, and maybe even Threaten?
I don't know whether Hymn to Tourach is a good fit or not,
Giant Growth, Lightning Bolt, Counterspell, and Dark Ritual could all be seen at either common or uncommon.
I know that the Rares and Mythics are going to be the most interesting, but really, I'm VERY interested in seeing what they decide to put at Common. It would have to be a cross between 'what feels absurdly Alpha', 'what is good for Limited', and 'what is relevant for the Archetypes'.
anything less than paying attention to all three of those categories of potential commons would be a mistake, I think.
The Power 9 being "Above Mythic Rare" is appropriate. Whatever effect it has on things, in reality it would feel wrong if they were not above Mythic Rare, because there have been so many Mythic Rares that they just have way more class than.
I hope you do so soon and let us know how it looks.
my favorite thing said so far: "Two planeswalkers in the midst of a heated battle on a bright, sunny morning. But if they just stopped to listen to each other, see things through a different lens, perhaps Jace and Vraska could instead share a table at a Rakdos living-puppet theater, throwing back glasses of thrull milk and laughing at life's little mishaps."
This. This is so perfect.
Because this is Jace out in the streets on a normal day, you make Jace more real and accessible to me, and this actually augments and adds to Jace as we see him in the Mind Sculptor art. It's like how they could have kept making Jace look like Batman or Anakin Skywalker for as long as they want to, but your Jace-on-a-sunny-day REALLY does hit me with Batman-on-a-sunny-day vibes, and Batman was in the sun like, all the time on the JLU cartoon. And that was actually really sweet and awesome to see him get out of his cave and hang out with Superman, Green Lantern, and even Flash.
If I wanted to build a Justice League of Planeswalkers for Super Friends. dec, I'd rather used this Jace now than Jace TMS, unless I was playing at the Pro Tour.
Seriously your Jace and Elspeth arts make me want to play them over more powerful cards, and that's the best review an art can get.
First, I am very glad that you have done a second Duel Decks, and I hope you continue to do them--
Elspeth vs. Tezzeret is a set of arts I'd almost forgotten until today, and your name being in the news and all brought me back to attention.
Your Tezzeret is more than the best Tezzeret art we have, it's the best Blue Planeswalker art we have, and I would love to see your take on Mishra.
Tezzeret has been as influential a part of my growth with the game as Jace, and I would say your Tezzeret is a match for the Book Promo of Jace from Agents of Artifice. He looks like Tezz looked in my mind's eye in AOA
Your Elspeth has grown much better on me with age.
Now that we have 2 more Elspeths, I can say firmly that your Elspeth looks more like a knight or shieldmaiden than the two newer Elspeths do, and she's in the most Action Pose. I honestly really like the tilt of her sword. Duel Decks Elspeth looks better next to Duel Decks Ajani Vengeant and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. She's a bit more dark, a bit less Bant, and in general looks more like a fencing fighter than some kind of captain or leader, but it *works* for me now. I guess Shards of Alara is "Elspeth as Wonder Woman" to me, and Duel Decks has come to be "Elspeth as Hawkgirl" or something...
Next, onto this Art: You will notice that among the trolls (who just sound like Art Critics who judge this art very hard because it didn't match their expectations-- instead of looked for what it might be trying to do.), there have been repeated references to how, given a second look, it actually makes plenty of sense for Jace to look just like this.
My only real regrets are that I wish more of Vraska's mechanics were visible (namely, her Assassins).
Please keep doing Duel Decks, because this art is *both* Very Different and Very Tasteful Jace work. Which we have not had in all of Jace's Existence.
Jace Mind Sculptor was simply *amped up Beleren*. We've had more Jaces than any other Planeswalker in Magic, but he's never been shaken up. Ajani got shook up in ONE Block, with Vengeant, Liliana- like Bolas- never really *needed* changing because she's a hardened madwoman, and Garruk has gotten more development and change than anyone. Chandra.....has the issue of being a Red Planeswalker. She's just hard to give character development too, sadly. :/ Jace, though, deserved as much Interestingness as his Frequency of Appearance suggest he should have. He's finally got it.
AOA Book Promo sort of almost breaks Jace's mold, a *little*, because of all the colors used? But really, This....what is it, second Duel Deck....4.0 Mechanic-wise....counting Book Promo....7th? Yeah.
This is our SEVENTH Jace in Magic and you are the first one since the Lorwyn 5 Artist to really make Jace actually look New, and pull it off/make it work. Return to Ravnica I don't know what's going on, but he looks.....like a White Mage killed Jace and stole his cape because capes are fun? But I can definitely see how what happened to Jace in the events of "The Secretist" have led Jace, the Mind Sculptor from the Infinite Consortium days, to become Jace, Architect of the Living Guildpact.
I have strongly based my Gatherer persona on a combination of Tezzeret (as inspired by Ari Marmell and yourself) and Jace (as inspired by ...many sources). For the most part, Jace has always come across pretty heavily Skywalker-y. But this is finally a Jace that seems to have something, I dunno, almost Kenobi about him. And really, Jace HONESTLY needed that.
In fact your Tezzeret was the first card I made sure to own 4 of, and it was my first rare playset, and my first foil playset, and I ended up choosing between getting the whole deck or getting 4 Tezzerets, 4 Crusades, and 4 Triskelion. And that's why I still don't have your Elspeth, and now I've decided I need to fill that hole.
I like your Elspeth for multiple reasons of affordability and she happens to look really good in my favorite archetype for her: Super Friends.
I like your Jace because he's really Fresh.
I like your Tezzeret because I feel it's the only accurate Tezzeret that matches well with AOA and Test of Metal, as the next in the line of Brilliant Artificer Planeswalkers that might either save the Multiverse or Destroy it, but either way will have Homerian Hubris like Odysseus.
I like your Vraska because, specifically for this piece, this premise, this Duel Decks, the art on your website shows it DOES work, though probably I will play more with the Vraska I already have.
I actually really think you do a lot better job on Duel Decks than you give yourself credit for, and everyone already knows you can do normal Magic.
I would go so far as to say that you deserve comparing with Jason Chan, Eric Deschamps, and Izzy, who between just three of them did some of my favoritist, highest profile work. I mean I like Liliana of the Veil too, by Steve Argyle, and I'm saying I like you as much as that, because you aren't Steve or Eric or Izzy or Therese Nielson. Your Igor Kieryluk, and this thread has called your distinctive style to my attention and now I have a name for it.
I don't have a name for every artists' style in Magic (there's sadly too many for me to keep track of), but I want to see more work from you in the future,
*and* I want to see more Duel Decks from you in the future, because you have Therese Nielson beat way out of the park on Duel Decks. Her Garruk and Liliana are good, and from THIS outspoken opinion, your Tezzeret and Jace are a match for them, plus you have 2 more arts on her.
I wanted to make sure I actually said a lot because I'm not sure if I'll ever meet you and I noticed you're actually here and reading this thread.