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like okay. the way you are introduced to any 'story' in magic the gathering is when you pick up a card. the card has a name, and rules, and maybe some flavor text, and some art. and so by looking at more and more cards from a set, you get to learn about a place (lands) and the people and animals who live there (creatures), and the things they have (artifacts) and the things they might do to each other (sorceries, instants). like, okay, let me show you some cards from the recent in-universe set tarkir: dragonstorm

so, y'know, just looking at these eight cards, we can understand what tarkir is about, right. there are different cultural groups, some of whom are nomadic, some of whom have fortifications, with names like Abzan and Mardu. people identify strongly with these groups: they build monuments and produce culture and history and legendary figures. the groups go to war with each other, and raise banners. there are dragons about, and sometimes they'll kill you, but they can be fought and taken down in turn

this, more than any nonsense about jace and loot and ugin on the meditation plane, is the narrative of the set of cards collectively referred to as 'tarkir: dragonstorm': the vast majroity of people who ever come to learn that such a place as 'tarkir' has been imagined are thsoe who have found these cards and played with them. and note that my selections are, like, arbitrary--and that the set of the whole collection of cards that someone comes into are also arbitrary. someone might never see 'dragon sniper', but there are other cards in the set which imply, through their names or flavor text or art or even rules alone (if you are fluent in the rules of magic: the gathering) the fact that the people of these factions fight dragons sometimes and have sometimes won. many cards all tell the same aspects of the story: there are different 'siege' cards for several potential combinations of the factions. this is good, necessary even, because--again--most players will only ever come into contact with a fraction of these cards. they are getting--not quite a random but an arbitrary snapshot of all this information about this fictional place and what happens there.

meanwhile, spiderman does not live in a fictional world in the same way that the subjects of all previous ub products have -- it's actually like, pretty core to the appeal of spiderman that he lives in ''real'' new york! "the world outside your window" used to be marvel's whole deal, & i think this makes it like critically ill-suited to being a magic the gathering set. because 'spiderman isn't showing up enough' is a genuine concern--because spider-man doesn't make sense without spider-man, in a way that hasn't been true of any individual character or element of any previous mtg set, ub or not.

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why is the flavor text for the final fantasy mtg set so weird and bad

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If or when: a card with three pips of each color as its casting cost?

If. I’m not even sure it would fit (along with a title).

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Starting preliminary brainstorming for a custom set taking place on Eldraine. Focus is on chivalric romance and courtly love with aspects of court politicking. I'd appreciate it if people filled out this survey to help out.

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if there's one commander-focused design trend in mtg i can't stand it's commanders that are both setup and payoff. they're just so boooring they mean you have to make absolutely no tradeoffs or choices in your 99

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i keep seeing people say that mkm was bad because it was 'tropey' or focused too hard on the genre stuff and honestly i think its problem was that it by far didn't commit to the (or even pick a) genre enough

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Good night, sweet princes.

Honestly? I'm not even mad. Jeweled Lotus is a bit of a surprise to me, but these are reasonable bans in my opinion.

In case you haven't heard, there's a new Commander banlist hot off the presses:

Dockside Extortionist is banned. Jeweled Lotus is banned. Mana Crypt is banned. Nadu is banned.

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I like the idea, I dislike some of the choices. I would've liked either Saheeli or Huatli to keep their spark but that's not s huge deal. My biggest gripes are with Calix and Aminatou. It just seems like a shame to despark characters who never really got to show up in story as planeswalkers, and who only got one card. (This also applies to characters like Niko to a lesser extent since they at least had a role in Kaldheim)

How has been the reception to the desparked planeswalkers so far?

Let's find out.

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i think people who think MKM was bad because it leaned too hard on the genre pastiche have the wrong end of the stick honestly. imo the biggest problem was that it missed the mark on the genre. like, take the thing everyone complains about, which is that there were a billion out-of-place detectives in similarly out-of-place 20s noir outfits. and, like--i mean, what murder mystery have you ever seen that has 40+ detectives? one detective is a classical murder mystery. two, even three detectives can still be a classical murder mystery. above that, you're getting into the, like, 'isolated country house where everyone is both a potential suspect and a detective in their own right' territory. by the time you're at double digit numbers of detectives, that's not a murder mystery anymore, that's a police procedural, a genre space in which the meaning of 'detective' is fundamentally different.

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God, what a cool fucking pair of cards. Especially these versions, with Kev Walker's art. Black and White getting the exact same effect, because the death of all fits both divine grace and unknowable horror.

And then Mr. Walker nails the fact that they're the same but different, with not just the inverted colors, but the way that Wrath of God explodes outwards, while Damnation draws all in.

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Flavor Text Highlights - Mirrodin Besieged

<- Previous Set | Next Set ->

Cool - Spread the Sickness

Life is ephemeral. Phyrexia is eternal.

Worldbuilding - Phyrexian Rager

“I believe many worlds will bow to Phyrexia. Mirrodin is merely the first.” —Sheoldred, Whispering One

Emotional - Ogre Resister

He didn’t have a word for “home,” but he knew it was something to be defended.

Emotional - Darksteel Plate

“If there can be no victory, then I will fight forever.” —Koth of the Hammer

<- Previous Set | Next Set ->

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Healing Grace

“Whatever faith you have in Serra, she has more in you.” —Lyra Dawnbringer

Artist: Magali Villeneuve TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

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Once again Healed is right. Venture is so purely unintuitive and just all around not fun to play with especially since none of the dungeons have any cool or meaningful choices outside of the tomb of annihilation (the only one that gets played on any sort of competitive level who knew?) Like I honestly thought after Ikoria's companion it could not get any worse for creating awful play patterns but I got proven wrong.

so true. someone in my notes brought up day/night which i think is really obnoxious to be sure but, like, the obnoxiousness comes from doing a lot of pointless bookkeeping that doesn't impact the game, it's in the execution rather than the concept -- it's very easy to conceptualize 'if a turn goes by where nobody plays a spell, the werewolf gets bigger' vs. venture the dungeon which is such a variable colleciton of slapdash unrelated bonuses that when you see a venture card on the battlefield all you really know is 'well. thats going to do Some Random Bullshit'

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With the full spoiler for OTJ out, I have to say: the choice of "non-Brushwagg" on Embiggen suddenly seems less random. Any comments?

The Brushwaggs know what they did.

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