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Magic: the Gathering |OT8| Eldritch Moon - It's only a paper (and digital) moon
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
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Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Not that there's anything I can even say in response since you straight up wrote in the post that any disagreement in opinion is just being easily offended and close-minded, but this post is really fucking uncool, dude. You didn't even provide a counter-argument or some kind of other discussion, its just saying "well your opinion sucks."
SigmasonicX
Member
OK, this has to be a joke, right?
They printed a card worse than Fiery Impulse?
And intro pack promos make the rest of the day feel meh.
Well, it's Kindle minus the face burning for one less mana (and only looking in your graveyard). It will be great in Limited, especially if you get more than four somehow.
charlequin
Banned
Yes, I'd say that the issue is that a) past formats haven't always had a good matchup between threats and removal and b) what constitutes a "good matchup" changes depending on overall power level.
In terms of a), AVR is terrible because there's no good removal at all but tons of brutal bombs that you have no answer to. The ideal is probably to have most removal be conditional, have some that can deal with bombs, and then keep the bomb volume and power low enough that they don't represent 100% wins.
In terms of b), it's much more reasonable for removal to blank opposing cards in a cube environment because of the overall value you get from each card played.
I think the fact that every one of the EMN eldrazi is the result of native stuff morphing into eldrazi is very different from a storytelling perspective and also from how it'll play out in games; I think the issue is just that it doesn't overcome any entirely legit eldrazi fatigue BFZ block produced.
This (or variants thereof) is basically how I've built commander decks since picking the format up too.
I mean, it's a weakness for you if you get super angry about the Origins 5 characters showing up in lots of sets or having an ongoing storyline connecting disparate planes. I can't really emphasize enough how much, if more people are following the story (and basically all indications are that this is true), R&D isn't going to care much about this demographic, though.
I'm not saying your opinion sucks. I'm saying your opinion is most likely not going to change based on the arguments I've seen thus far.
That being said, it's not a widely-held opinion, at least as far as this thread goes. So I commend you for defending it.
charlequin
Banned
Yes, this is the succinct tl;dr version of my thesis, lol. This is the best realization of eldrazi since ROE because if you can't do mass destruction, internal body horror is a good substitute -- and just like gothic horror transitions naturally to cosmic horror, the body horror of unwanted eldrazi transformation is a natural extension of the body horror already present in all of Innistrad's existing horror tropes.
Nothing to do with moe. The point is that storytelling is restrained by genre and medium. In this case, we're telling a fantasy adventure story (this is Magic's native genre and it only shades into others, never moves altogether) and through the medium of card games (where storytelling has to emphasize environment, be functionally non-linear, and focus primarily on "wow" moments rather than quiet subtleties.)
Fantasy adventure stories don't have protagonists like Tamiyo, because the story parameters of such a protagonist produce a different type of story. In this genre, characters like her are supporting cast -- they provide a resource for the generally-appealing, enthusiastic protagonists to draw on in the course of engaging the primary plot. That's just how writing in this genre works.
In a fully linear, print or visual medium, you have some room to subvert this -- you can take a character and put them in a mismatched genre story, then examine the results of that. But that requires a) a long-term emphasis and b) a lot of subtle construction to make it work. In this case we're talking about the protagonist of one block, in a medium that doesn't do subtle construction well.
In Magic, the only dissonance they do here is to tie the main genre to the protagonists and use that as the unifying factor -- the Gatewatch are fantasy adventure heroes so that gives them a starting point to visit horror world but still keep the underlying genre intact. Trying to layer that one deeper (this cerebral mystery protagonist filling the shoes of an adventure hero visiting a horror world) is just going to be muddled and nonsensical in, again, the medium and context under discussion.
We don't really have room for "what's happening," we have two sets to work with and SOI has to already be well into the process; we get maybe 4 stories on the website and those are split between multiple characters and aspects of the setting. This type of approach never worked great in Magic and it became basically impossible when story acts 1 and 2 got jammed together into the big sets.
I mean, the Eldrazi hybrids are cool in theory, but in practice they don't feel any different than the last blocks - weird fatties that are colorless-but-not-really-colorless.
Small dude -> bigger dude is the easiest way to represent scary changes, but I don't think it's the only one. And from the (admittedly small) sample of the set we have it seems to be the route they're taking.
Like, the payoff for playing "Ulamog on Zendikar" and "Emrakul on Innistrad" is the same thing - smash smash smash, big Eldrazi! The aesthetic is different, but aesthetic can only do so much.
Small dude -> bigger dude is the easiest way to represent scary changes, but I don't think it's the only one. And from the (admittedly small) sample of the set we have it seems to be the route they're taking.
Like, the payoff for playing "Ulamog on Zendikar" and "Emrakul on Innistrad" is the same thing - smash smash smash, big Eldrazi! The aesthetic is different, but aesthetic can only do so much.
Cosmo Clock 21
Banned
They have a pretty bad batting average with the past two blocks in terms of storyline featuring the Origins 5. Imagine if they felt the need to shoehorn them into the THR/KTK storylines back then. Note the distinction between "brand engagement is at an all-time high" and "magic storytelling hasn't been good in years"
I don't necessarily agree on the cube point. The problem with high-power cubes and powered cubes, in my experience, is that they can increase the effects of variance. Variance is always going to happen, but while missing your 5th land drop and losing in a normal booster draft is always a feel-bad moment, you'll generally have a few turns to find an answer after your opponent makes a big play.
In high-powered cubes, you don't really have that luxury. Losing to a turn one Blightsteel Colossus or getting comboed out when you have a favorable board position because you didn't have the right answer in hand is a much worse feel-bad moment, in my opinion, than getting stuck on 4 lands in a booster draft. Cube tends to have higher highs and lower lows.
Personally, the horror comes through fine in the story. I feel like the lack of horror comes through in the gameplay. The gameplay is rewarding my creatures turning into these monsters. How is this:
scary? I get that it's potentially scary for my opponent, but I feel like with the kind of horror they're going for here -- psychological, deeply internal and inevitable insanity -- they should be making the player feel uneasy about the decisions they're making or cards they're playing. I kind of wish there was a way that the creatures, when transformed into the eldrazi, hurt you in some way. The phyrexians did this to some degree (eg: Phyrexian Rager and phyrexian mana in general). The card above has no down side and almost romanticizes the eldrazi from a gameplay perspective.
However, I wonder if that card would be good in Soul Sisters?
scary? I get that it's potentially scary for my opponent, but I feel like with the kind of horror they're going for here -- psychological, deeply internal and inevitable insanity -- they should be making the player feel uneasy about the decisions they're making or cards they're playing. I kind of wish there was a way that the creatures, when transformed into the eldrazi, hurt you in some way. The phyrexians did this to some degree (eg: Phyrexian Rager and phyrexian mana in general). The card above has no down side and almost romanticizes the eldrazi from a gameplay perspective.
However, I wonder if that card would be good in Soul Sisters?
SigmasonicX
Member
Part of the problem is that players don't like their cards having downsides. Even something like "You lose 1 life" reads badly, and could make players dislike the cards. And if they dislike the cards, that will make them dislike the theme. You can't really expect players to make the connection that the downside reflects the horrifying transformation. Instead, they'll go, "You lose life? Wow, this card sucks."
Plus, if you make part of the theme that these transformations hurt you, you're in danger of going into Prophecy's, "Oh, sacrificing lands is a great mechanic, I'm sure players will love it!" territory.
charlequin
Banned
They're gonna feel pretty different in play. There's really only so many ways a big monster body can look in Magic terms but how you actually get it out makes a big difference to its vibe.
BFZ is a clusterfuck on pretty much every level, but the idea that the SOI-the-set storytelling is poor or that Jace doesn't work as part of it is an extreme minority opinion. Like look at this thread or typical reddit or twitter discussions at the time -- SOI was pretty widely held even by the internet crew to be well-done storywise (and all these groups are much more negative about that in general than the broader audience.)
And really, almost any "well the storytelling is worse than {historical period X}" statement about MTG is deeply unjustifiable. The Weatherlight Saga is composed entirely of actively poor storytelling -- like, literally executive meddling turning a story with tropey but coherent character arcs into an incoherent and grimdark story about One Perfect All-Encompassing Cool Guy winning against another one.
darkside31337
Tomodachi wa Mahou
The card is really good, I think its going to see play in constructed. Goes nicely with Ojutai's Command
I get what you're saying, but there's a huge difference between "During your upkeep, lose 1 life" and Prophecy's land sacking mechanics. It's certainly a tough line to walk.
charlequin
Banned
How is this:
scary?
That card is gonna be supporting a broader horror theme in the set. Some things are gonna communicate it more viscerally: meld, emerge, the cards that specifically tweak recognizable things (like, there's gonna be a werewolf that becomes an eldrazi.) Brisela is viscerally upsetting to anyone who was invested in the angel characters because of how awfully it fucks them up, so an uncommon card like this is really just second-tier support for marquee horrific cards like that.
All that said, a lot of it just comes down to how much a card game can really express horror. I've seen multiple people on twitter say they don't really want to play with the set because all the crawly body horror stuff makes them uncomfortable, but some people just aren't gonna respond as much to it.
The closest they've gotten to this working was NPH and even then the insult-to-injury cards made a lot of people unhappy. ROE massively overdid it. It's a hard line to walk mechanically.
Yeah sometimes they come up with a flavorful mechanic that really surprises me and this is a great one. This guy's just doing his job, fishing as normal, when he catches an eldrazi and it turns him into a giant fish monster. So awesome.
Life loss is a resource smarter Magic players manage throughout their gameplay, but land loss is an entirely different story. If there were some sort of auto-land generate mechanic (similar to mana in HS) it would be easier to use and manipulate.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I agree with charlequin to the extent a lot of it is just Eldrazi fatigue. The payoff to the cool stuff in SOI being "lots of Eldrazis, but different from the last set of Eldrazi!" just feels similar to how OGW played out, where the payoff was Kozilek and his supposedly-different feeling Eldrazi.
SigmasonicX
Member
Besides the mess with Crovax, I recently read MTG Salvation's summary of the Weatherlight Saga, and I love how they handled Ertai. They made a big story out of Ertai being captured by the Phyrexians and he valiantly tries to keep his mind and stay alive, while also managing to make some friends. Jump cut to later, he has become the irredeemably evil Ertai the Corrupted and Squee the goblin kills him by accident. I don't think anyone even acknowledges that he died.
I never played during OG Zendikar - so BFZ/OGW/SOI/EMN is my first up and close look at the Eldrazi as they emerge.
Speaking of that, I generally like tentacle-y noodle-y things so body horror and stuff like that doesn't disturb me - rather, I get excited about building a deck to beat them, as if I was the hero in the story.
And to be fair, I think the coolest Eldrazi we got so far is from OGW. Matter Reshaper for lyfe!
Speaking of that, I generally like tentacle-y noodle-y things so body horror and stuff like that doesn't disturb me - rather, I get excited about building a deck to beat them, as if I was the hero in the story.
And to be fair, I think the coolest Eldrazi we got so far is from OGW. Matter Reshaper for lyfe!
Cosmo Clock 21
Banned
We must be reading different threads, because my impression of the critical internet is that while the world building for the return to Innistrad was well done, the storyline proceedings re: how they tie into The Greater Planeswalker Canon are still as bad as it's been in recent years. I also never stated that Magic storytelling was universally good until some arbitrary point in time.
Brothers' War is still the best MtG book I've read.
The Kamigawa online vignettes also have some great stories; Eight-and-a-half-Tails is one of my favorites.
Right, but I'm not advocating for that, and in fact, wasn't even the person who first brought it up. I'm saying that on a scale from 1 - 10, lose one life is at 1 and Prophecy's stuff is at the 10 side, and that there's plenty of space to explore in-between.
Loved Brothers' War. Also loved The Thran. Really cool stuff in that one.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
I remember everyone making fun of the story about Jace becoming insane, for instance.
The stories considered good where usually the ones with Innistrad creatures.
The stories considered good where usually the ones with Innistrad creatures.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
When I was a kid, I read a series of MTG novels that involved some druid kid turning into a Planeswalker and her brother shacking up with a Benalish Hero.
For comparison, I think Wither and Infect are both great mechanical adaptations of their own particular brand of horror/spookiness. The life being drained from your creatures (or even, permanently, yourself!) is really resonant. Annihilator and, to a lesser extent, Ingest do a good job of showing off the "utter devastation and ruin" of the Eldrazi.
The difference, I think, is dividing the players. If you're running Infect/Annihilator, you FEEL like you're infecting/annihilating the enemy. If you're on the receiving end, you feel the oppressive weight of that mechanic.
Emerge and Meld, on the other hand, have you playing both roles. You're the poor weak humans, but you're also the big spooky monster that crawls out of them. It'd be more appropriate if you could Emerge from an OPPONENT'S creature. Though obviously that'd be a completely different mechanic.
I like the set in general but I don't think it captures eldritch horror as well as Shadows, which was more subdued. To spitball, I feel like emphasizing milling - both as a win condition and a cost for using the Eldrazi - would have been an interesting direction.
The difference, I think, is dividing the players. If you're running Infect/Annihilator, you FEEL like you're infecting/annihilating the enemy. If you're on the receiving end, you feel the oppressive weight of that mechanic.
Emerge and Meld, on the other hand, have you playing both roles. You're the poor weak humans, but you're also the big spooky monster that crawls out of them. It'd be more appropriate if you could Emerge from an OPPONENT'S creature. Though obviously that'd be a completely different mechanic.
I like the set in general but I don't think it captures eldritch horror as well as Shadows, which was more subdued. To spitball, I feel like emphasizing milling - both as a win condition and a cost for using the Eldrazi - would have been an interesting direction.
Wasn't that The Whispiring Woods trilogy? And I think they loosely tied them in with the main character in The Dark, or at least A character in The Dark, if I recall correctly.
I think I remember that one as well, probably still have all the old books lying around somewhere, at least those that came to Germany. The stories didn't necessarily stick close to the source material, but they were quite a bit of fun, at least some of them.
Oh definitely. I hope someday they can make the land-sac stuff worth it. Like, trade a land into exile, then get it back on your next turn or something. They could make it work.
We got some connoisseurs of MTG fiction I see *brofist*
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I don't remember. There was a Fungusaur at some point.
It's too bad since Drownyard Temple would work awesomely with this.
It's pretty much been literal decades at this point since I read them, but hell yeah.
Cosmo Clock 21
Banned
Generally speaking the best Magic storylines post 8ed were the ones that didn't involve WoTC's attempts to cash in on the popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Brothers War by Jeff Grubb is the god tier of Magic novels.
Keru_Shiri
Member
I read Jeff Grub's trilogy set in the Dark/IA/Alliances a looong time ago, don't remember what it was called or how well it aged, but it was about the Archmage Jodah and his struggles against Marsil and Lim-Dul. I remember the last book also featuring Jaya Ballard and her spark being awakened.
True. I wouldn't file it as a standalone novel though, since it's (part of) the main story. Arena? That book has it all, including someone getting killed by his own Lord of the Pit.
Jeff Grubb has written a ton of awesome shit, and was working on Guild Wars 2 for the longest time until he left this year.
It's no surprise I've followed him to wherever he works on next because his writing style is very very good.
I'm telling you, Momma's being held on Kaladesh and Chandra was adopted.
It's no surprise I've followed him to wherever he works on next because his writing style is very very good.
I'm telling you, Momma's being held on Kaladesh and Chandra was adopted.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Magic novels I've read:
The first two original Mirrodin books
The first Ravnica book
Magic novels I own:
Some book about Jace they were literally giving away for free at GenCon
The first two original Mirrodin books
The first Ravnica book
Magic novels I own:
Some book about Jace they were literally giving away for free at GenCon
Mirrodin books rocked. The depiction of the plane was ace.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
At least its highly unlikely you'll ever have to try and fight through a dude with all of the uncommon investigate enchantments in EES.
Keru_Shiri
Member
I would so totally welcome a true planewalker card for Jaya. Unlikely though, if Chandra is going to be the face of Kaladesh. Maybe if they do another round of Planeswalker Commanders.
Unless Jaya has been changed. She could be Blue/Red now, or Black/Red. We don't know anything about her recently.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Jaya should probably be dead now even though we all know she isn't through some kind of shenanigans.
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