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Magic: the Gathering - Battle for Zendikar |OT| Lands matter (but nothing else does)
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
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victreeb3l
Member
Wait, wait wait
Zendikar is coming back?
Are we gonna have Landfall back?
Oh my God I really loved the Zendikar / Worldwake / Eldrazi set but stopped playing again after that block ended. I am kind of hyped right now.
Zendikar is coming back?
Are we gonna have Landfall back?
Oh my God I really loved the Zendikar / Worldwake / Eldrazi set but stopped playing again after that block ended. I am kind of hyped right now.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
How do you mean? I'm not sure what rule you're referring to
MaRo slipped up and kept saying Dinosaurs during a DtW or something I think, it made it obvious that it's on his mind.
Doing a Set OT a la the VG releases was a great idea judging by the thread activity, btw.
The Expeditions.
The 5 full art lands from BFZ are legal in standard and in limited play. The 20 Fetches/Shocks are legal only in Limited and everything that's not Standard.
"God's Beard!"
Member
MTG straight up dominates the fantasy illustration world when it comes to awards, etc.
If you flip through a spectrum book it's like half MTG art.
Zendikar and landfall are both coming back. They said that since they are switching to 2-set blocks, they are more willing to revisit old settings.
Even the guy who wasn't happy with them because of the payouts was specifically unhappy in part because the game can be a massive career boost that puts your outside WotC's pay grade.
victreeb3l
Member
This is fantastic news. I guess I'm getting back in MTG again!
I don't know how I didn't realize that they did this in the first place.
No biggie, but it seems like something that should've stood out. Weird.
So basic lands. Got it. Thanks
"God's Beard!"
Member
Yeah, he even won a major industry award for his Pharika illustration.
To be honest, I'm on his(Peter Mohrbacher) side for the most part. His major complaint isn't that 1k per illustration isn't fair, it's that he's not allowed to reproduce his art for MTG in his personal business. He's not allowed to sell mats, etc, and he's not even allowed to compete for the rights to use the art on his products because of WotC's deals with UltraPro. I don't think he should get a percentage of the set's sales or anything, but he should at least be able to negotiate for the rights to make his own mats.
Especially in Peter's case it's a little unfortunate because he's not just some random commission artist, he helped concept the Theros gods and everything, he's a big part of the design of that world and he doesn't have the chance to reap a major part of the benefits.
There are other major artists like Karla Ortiz are more enthusiastic, but she's already so successful that stuff like MTG and TOR books are basically hobbies she takes up to kill her extra time outside her real work.
Noah Bradley is a good example of how to use your MTG work as a professional illustrator. He markets himself in the community and uses his MTG art to leverage his other stuff like classes and original art auctions.
Do you know which DtW? I haven't listened to one in ages so that would be as good as any an excuse to listen to one. They better use the Dinosaur creature-type and not Lizard
I agree with you on the last sentence
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";177805526]Yeah, he even won a major industry award for his Pharika illustration.
[/QUOTE]
Huh, really? That sort of surprises me, I don't think Pharika is even the best looking card in Theros
[/QUOTE]
Huh, really? That sort of surprises me, I don't think Pharika is even the best looking card in Theros
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
All of the Theros gods cards looked the same to me tbh
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";177805526]Yeah, he even won a major industry award for his Pharika illustration.
To be honest, I'm on his(Peter Mohrbacher) side for the most part. His major complaint isn't that 1k per illustration isn't fair, it's that he's not allowed to reproduce his art for MTG in his personal business. He's not allowed to sell mats, etc, and he's not even allowed to compete for the rights to use the art on his products because of WotC's deals with UltraPro. I don't think he should get a percentage of the set's sales or anything, but he should at least be able to negotiate for the rights to make his own mats.
Especially in Peter's case it's a little unfortunate because he's not just some random commission artist, he helped concept the Theros gods and everything, he's a big part of the design of that world and he doesn't have the chance to reap a major part of the benefits.
There are other major artists like Karla Ortiz are more enthusiastic, but she's already so successful that stuff like MTG and TOR books are basically hobbies she takes up to kill her extra time outside her real work.
Noah Bradley is a good example of how to use your MTG work as a professional illustrator. He markets himself in the community and uses his MTG art to leverage his other stuff like classes and original art auctions.[/QUOTE]
Avon was actually taken aback when he signed my RoE plains playmat because he didn't realize it had even been licensed for that.
I get why they do it the way the do, but it definitely seems like they might be selling themselves short by not adjusting something in order to retain some of their better artists for a while longer.
To be honest, I'm on his(Peter Mohrbacher) side for the most part. His major complaint isn't that 1k per illustration isn't fair, it's that he's not allowed to reproduce his art for MTG in his personal business. He's not allowed to sell mats, etc, and he's not even allowed to compete for the rights to use the art on his products because of WotC's deals with UltraPro. I don't think he should get a percentage of the set's sales or anything, but he should at least be able to negotiate for the rights to make his own mats.
Especially in Peter's case it's a little unfortunate because he's not just some random commission artist, he helped concept the Theros gods and everything, he's a big part of the design of that world and he doesn't have the chance to reap a major part of the benefits.
There are other major artists like Karla Ortiz are more enthusiastic, but she's already so successful that stuff like MTG and TOR books are basically hobbies she takes up to kill her extra time outside her real work.
Noah Bradley is a good example of how to use your MTG work as a professional illustrator. He markets himself in the community and uses his MTG art to leverage his other stuff like classes and original art auctions.[/QUOTE]
Avon was actually taken aback when he signed my RoE plains playmat because he didn't realize it had even been licensed for that.
I get why they do it the way the do, but it definitely seems like they might be selling themselves short by not adjusting something in order to retain some of their better artists for a while longer.
EYEL1NER
Member
Damn, I get back to the country at release, which means I will miss prerelease. For my first prerelease and organized event, Origins wasn't a bad time. The store might still have prerelease kits left at regular price though if Origins is anything to go by in regards to this store's turnout and the amount they order. I will go and see if I can pick some up I guess when I get back.
charlequin
Banned
Ah, that's a shame. I remember loving everything about Kamigawa (except the actual cards
Creatively the big problems with Kamigawa were that it came at the absolute worst point of their "people from under the WHITE sun are like THIS" era of worldbuilding, and that the concept of the legend block was maybe the worst possible match for a setting where almost every legend was either a samurai or an incomprehensible spirit monster thing. Both of these are things they know how to fix now, but they were a big drag on all the really cool stuff (kitsune, moonfolk, the spirit mythology, etc.) in the setting.
My hope is just that when they go back to a Japanese-themed setting, they keep some stuff that worked from Kamigawa. Much like how they didn't set Innistrad on Ulgrotha to avoid some of the goofy setting implications, they'll want a new plane for this, but if they can incorporate some of the unique elements it'd be helpful.
They tacitly acknowledged in one of the PAX panels that, much as we suspected, they were given a big pile of random CG art from the Duels bumpers and asked to find places to use it if they could.
So almost all these guesses come from putting together clues from previous set themes and reading two levels deep into stuff Rosewater says. Like, people (correctly) predicted a return to Zendikar for this slot because of the storyline direction and the hinting at a colorless theme in Khans (plus it being about the right amount of time now.)
For fairy-tale world it's because both Rosewater and Beyer started answering a lot of questions about things like "how do you show off red's persuasive side without getting creepy" differently than they had been previously, which pointed to having had that crop up as an actual design/creative issue recently, plus Rosewater getting more specific in distinguishing how a "Fairy Tale world" (i.e. Once Upon A Time/Fables/Disney) was distinct from Lorwyn (Celtic mythology that includes faeries.)
For New New Phyrexia it was noticing that infect suddenly jumped from 3 to 6-7 on the Storm Scale, as if development had recently tried and failed (or tried and succeeded but only after a huge struggle) to get it into workable shape for a future block. Plus the first New Phyrexia was the climactic block in Rosewater's first X-year plan (which turned out to be 6), and next fall's block is the climactic block in his second X-year plan (7 this time) so it seems like the sort of thing he'd do. (And it means it's 7 blocks after the first, and 7 is the magic number for returns.)
For Kaladesh it was the unusually detailed and diverse style guide compared to other new planes in Origins (lol Vryn, rings amirite?!?!!) plus a jump in how much explanation we were getting about how really when you get down to it steampunk can still be fantasy because.... (yadda yadda yadda)
Muraganda's probably the weakest case of the four but it's mostly down to Rosewater talking about dinosaurs.
I kind of expect them to do this block eventually, I just don't remember anything to suggest specifically it's in the next, say, four or five.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
The gold ones blended together quite a bit, but you can't say that's not a sweet piece of art on Thassa
With FTW, Beyer went into surprisingly great detail on the difficulties with "Love Portions" for AoT effects in-game due to some of their more problematic modern connotations, it was clearly something they had been talking about internally, and that's definitely the world that wants them.
Except for the Kaladesh stuff which I thought was great.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
If Vryn was a place they were going, I think we would have gotten a more compelling story out of Jace.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Really it was the Gideon stuff and some of the Nissa stuff that stood out as shocking.
Also while we're certainly not going back to Kamigawa, the appearance of one of Liliana's demons certainly looks more eastern than we've had in quite a while
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Weird card. The drawback is positive if you're paying the kicker but it's just worse than Languish so much of the time and especially so if Awaken is a legit thing which I think it is with Ruinous Path being a card.
I hate that my friends stopped playing
Same. They all jumped ship to Cardfight Vanguard some time ago :|
I skipped out on Theros and most of Khans due to that, but I really want to get back into MTG somehow.
FreedomFrisbee
Member
The Muraganda hype, for me, comes from Rosewater talking about how they've come up with a solution for Basic stuff. Which I take to mean they will eventually change things so that anything can be Basic. In Muraganda they could have full art vanilla Basic creatures. Simple matters theme. Encourage/reward mono colored play. And ya, the dinosaur thing.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I haven't played MTG in about 10 years so there might have been a massive power creep since then, but this seems horribly overpowered holy shit:
The thing about this card and every other OP card is: think about this card the way you would if you cast it and your opponent immediately had a way to remove it. You can't attack with it because it has summoning sickness, and the 2/2 guy has summoning sickness as well.
If you haven't been playing in a long time, the thing that's important is to realize this is a real card that in Standard right now (and it is dominant):
Easily one of my favorite blocks, in part, because of the art.
charlequin
Banned
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";177805526]
To be honest, I'm on his(Peter Mohrbacher) side for the most part. His major complaint isn't that 1k per illustration isn't fair, it's that he's not allowed to reproduce his art for MTG in his personal business. He's not allowed to sell mats, etc, and he's not even allowed to compete for the rights to use the art on his products because of WotC's deals with UltraPro. I don't think he should get a percentage of the set's sales or anything, but he should at least be able to negotiate for the rights to make his own mats.
[/QUOTE]
I suspect this is a manifestation of Hasbro stinginess, unfortunately. Their original model (infinite royalties) was obviously not going to be sustainable, so moving to work-for-hire made sense (and is more in line with how other fantasy illustration gigs work.)
However! There's no reason for Hasbro to keep exclusive merchandising rights to every single painting, because they only use a few of them and they stop being valuable to Hasbro almost immediately, but remain valuable to the artists basically forever.
What they should do is give the artists merchandising rights, either shared with WotC, or reverting to the artist eighteen months after publication (so they can get it once it leaves standard.) If something's going to be a face card and they need exclusive or longer-term rights, pay extra upfront in recompense. That'd make their artists more money and give them a greater feeling of control, without actually giving up anything valuable to WotC most of the time.
To be honest, I'm on his(Peter Mohrbacher) side for the most part. His major complaint isn't that 1k per illustration isn't fair, it's that he's not allowed to reproduce his art for MTG in his personal business. He's not allowed to sell mats, etc, and he's not even allowed to compete for the rights to use the art on his products because of WotC's deals with UltraPro. I don't think he should get a percentage of the set's sales or anything, but he should at least be able to negotiate for the rights to make his own mats.
[/QUOTE]
I suspect this is a manifestation of Hasbro stinginess, unfortunately. Their original model (infinite royalties) was obviously not going to be sustainable, so moving to work-for-hire made sense (and is more in line with how other fantasy illustration gigs work.)
However! There's no reason for Hasbro to keep exclusive merchandising rights to every single painting, because they only use a few of them and they stop being valuable to Hasbro almost immediately, but remain valuable to the artists basically forever.
What they should do is give the artists merchandising rights, either shared with WotC, or reverting to the artist eighteen months after publication (so they can get it once it leaves standard.) If something's going to be a face card and they need exclusive or longer-term rights, pay extra upfront in recompense. That'd make their artists more money and give them a greater feeling of control, without actually giving up anything valuable to WotC most of the time.
I recall rather leading questions about Annihilator a while back being a pretty big tip off to for Zendikar II. The Fairy Tale World vs. Lorwyn is also a discussion I remember but I don't recall exactly how Maro distinguished them. Anyway, the only plane that really confused me was Muraganda as I was either there for all those conversations previously mentioned or pieced together the clues myself independently. I guess my confusion is understandable if that is the plane with the weakest support right now though.
Still this is a good summary for newer folks to these threads
charlequin
Banned
Because it's using the design material from an upcoming block.
Yes, Rosewater's hinted at it too many times for them not to, but it's never seemed like it was a huge priority.
Still this is a good summary for newer folks to these threads
kirblar is the maro-whisperer on this stuff, but someone's gotta be the kirblar-whisperer.
This will be the first non core set I'm able to play in three years.
Makes sense it's BFZ, last time I had a three year gap I came back to the zendikar set and blew an astronomical amount on it.
Still remember opening my first rise pack ever and getting a foil emrakul.
Makes sense it's BFZ, last time I had a three year gap I came back to the zendikar set and blew an astronomical amount on it.
Still remember opening my first rise pack ever and getting a foil emrakul.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
For the record, don't get too upset if you think a card is good and bunch of people in here say it isn't, because you can just look at the old thread and notice how wrong we consistently are at card evaluation.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
If the rumors are true and Kozilek is still on Zendikar maybe they use him in Oathwatch? I can't see Return to Return to Zendikar in 6 years being "hey there are Eldrazi here again!"
I'm still holding out hope that Emrakul is going to face off against the Phyrexians
I'm still holding out hope that Emrakul is going to face off against the Phyrexians
So I have a wedding to go to at the end of the month and see no way that I can get into prereleases as I'm driving there Thursday , going out with the family drinking on Friday night , Saturday is the wedding , and then I'm going to Cedar Point on Sunday.
The thing that pisses me off is that I NEVER have plans on the weekend, and the last time I went to Ohio was the Fate reforged weekend, why does life have bad timing !!
I'm actually considering a midnight pre release and just bouncing out if I lose in the first few rounds, or just paying and dropping.
Damn you responsibilities
The thing that pisses me off is that I NEVER have plans on the weekend, and the last time I went to Ohio was the Fate reforged weekend, why does life have bad timing !!
I'm actually considering a midnight pre release and just bouncing out if I lose in the first few rounds, or just paying and dropping.
Damn you responsibilities
SigmasonicX
Member
This is pretty neat. Considering all of the white/black sweepers that actually see play are still sticking around after rotation, I'm not sure how much impact this will have, but I still think it's cool.
Concerning future sets, I expect it will be:
1. "Tears"/"Fears" block - Fairy Tale world with Liliana as the headliner, due to the fairy tale questions being answered on blogs, and the fact that Liliana is likely to be the focus of the next block due to not appearing in Battle for Zendikar.
2. "Lock"/"Stock" block - Kaladesh with Chandra as the headliner, due to the unusual amount of detail the world got in Magic Origins, and the artifacts in this block would play well with the colorless theme of Battle for Zendikar.
3. "Barrel"/"Laughs" block - Well, if Kaladesh is the previous block, then this probably wouldn't be Return to New Phyrexia, due to the shared artifact focus. Given that, I'll just guess Return to Dominaria, with Karn as the headliner.
4. "Ham"/"Eggs" block - Return to New Phyrexia.
I have a playset of Emrakuls, but I only remember getting one (prerelease?). Fuckin' Eldrazi, man.
Everything about this set is looking good to me except the Eldrazi, who are concerning me greatly. This is for a few reasons:
a) They're described as "Alien and Weird" instead of "F-ing TERRIFYING." In Attack on Titan, the giants are incredibly unsettling and make you uncomfortable- this is a good thing. The things they describe (8-sided die) are entirely off, and I fear they took the complete wrong lessons from "negative" feedback to Annihilator. (Keep in mind this is a MaRo designed set, so of course he likes his own approach.)
b) The mechanic was still in flux a decent chunk of time into development. They're a central cornerstone of the set, yet aren't in a good spot after the design hand-off? Thats not good.
c) All the gold cheap Eldrazi so far are absurdly underwhelming. They have moved the "Eldrazi Drone" style Eldrazi (aka those with Ingest) up into the rare slot where previously this was the realm of the giant inflatable wacky tube men, and it feels completely off - these are the cards you want at common/uncommon supporting the big guys.
And I think that gold Cycle may be the point where we hit the "good lord, stop forcing gold cards into every set" point, because man do they feel forced. It feels like they commisioned art for a gold cycle, had it pencilled in, and then had to quickly come up with some not-broken designs late in the process to go alongside the really cool GW ally card they had.
I would love to be wrong on all of this, but I have a bad feeling about this. I'm writing this not to shit on the parade and be an Eeyore, but because I want my thoughts in writing in public so I actually have something to hold my opinion accountable.
a) They're described as "Alien and Weird" instead of "F-ing TERRIFYING." In Attack on Titan, the giants are incredibly unsettling and make you uncomfortable- this is a good thing. The things they describe (8-sided die) are entirely off, and I fear they took the complete wrong lessons from "negative" feedback to Annihilator. (Keep in mind this is a MaRo designed set, so of course he likes his own approach.)
b) The mechanic was still in flux a decent chunk of time into development. They're a central cornerstone of the set, yet aren't in a good spot after the design hand-off? Thats not good.
c) All the gold cheap Eldrazi so far are absurdly underwhelming. They have moved the "Eldrazi Drone" style Eldrazi (aka those with Ingest) up into the rare slot where previously this was the realm of the giant inflatable wacky tube men, and it feels completely off - these are the cards you want at common/uncommon supporting the big guys.
And I think that gold Cycle may be the point where we hit the "good lord, stop forcing gold cards into every set" point, because man do they feel forced. It feels like they commisioned art for a gold cycle, had it pencilled in, and then had to quickly come up with some not-broken designs late in the process to go alongside the really cool GW ally card they had.
I would love to be wrong on all of this, but I have a bad feeling about this. I'm writing this not to shit on the parade and be an Eeyore, but because I want my thoughts in writing in public so I actually have something to hold my opinion accountable.
charlequin
Banned
It'd be weird to se two but not all three of the titans in this block. It'd make more sense to me to set up Kozilek for a few blocks down the road, on some other non-Zendikar plane.
It is inevitable.
I don't think "terrifying" is exactly the right adjective, but they should feel brutal and inevitable, certainly.
Personally, I love gold cards and would be hugely disappointed with a set that didn't have any.
GoutPatrol
Forgotten in his cell
Yeah but they have retconned stuff before (most recently with Nissa's backstory.) If they want to go back to Kamigawa, they can stuff lose some weird stuff and keep the cool stuff. Though I'm afraid when they go back the art style will be changed to fit whatever style guide they have now where everything looks the same and crappy 3D renders show up. I was really sad when they were reprinting lands in Origins from the blocks they used in the set, and while they reused Innistrad and Zendikar arts, they instead had someone redo Lorwyn forests (like, just copying the originals and making them darker.)
I didn't start playing Magic until Innistrad but I would kill to have more sets with Lorwyn/Kamigawa style art, but because they didn't sell well (due to gameplay mechanics much more than flavor) so if they go back to them, they will not be the same.
charlequin
Banned
I don't think this will never happen again, but it's not gonna be the default anymore.
New Eldrazi are pretty underwhelming atm , and I really hope this changes. Ulamog , and Kozilek are some of the scariest creatures that can hit the battfield in EDH , and being swung at takes a real toll on your board and makes you have to think about what outs you have , and is an extremely tactical decision.
Making me exile 20 cards is nowhere near as skill challenging or terrifying
Making me exile 20 cards is nowhere near as skill challenging or terrifying
charlequin
Banned
Oh, I'm entirely confident that they could fix it up; they've just been pretty clear that they don't want to.
"God's Beard!"
Member
My understanding is that the contracts don't actually set out the terms of how WotC is going to license their artwork out very clearly. Avon isn't the first person to be surprised or disappointed by his artwork appearing on merchandise he didn't believe he gave Wizards the rights for.
Remember that Theros and Journey weren't released in the same year so they didn't qualify for the same awards. That said, Pharika is doing interesting things artistically that other artists specifically would love. The way the smoke in her bowl contrasts with the rest of the painting is fascinating to me and something that takes a real appreciation for color to pull off.
This would be huge for WotC's goodwill among artists if they got the rights after a while.
charlequin
Banned
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";177812423]
This would be huge for WotC's goodwill among artists if they got the rights after a while.[/QUOTE]
I think there's a lot of things WotC could probably do to improve their reputation without Hasbro's boot on their neck, sadly.
This would be huge for WotC's goodwill among artists if they got the rights after a while.[/QUOTE]
I think there's a lot of things WotC could probably do to improve their reputation without Hasbro's boot on their neck, sadly.
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