#/ i reference so many events and planeswalkers in this post...... so many..........

[missallanea-a]

While it's no secret that Ashiok has spent much of their time in Theros, they remain a Planeswalker and as such have explored the far reaches of the multiverse. Here's a quick run-down of their thoughts on the Planes they've visited :

ALARA : was unfortunately not able to visit this Plane prior to the Sundering. Delights in Grixis but has otherwise spent little time here.

AMONKHET : visited some time before the War of the Spark. Was intrigued by the potential of the Trials, but this turned out to just be another colosseum of men killing men. No inspiration to be found.

ARCAVIOS : attempted to reach Strixhaven, but found that it was not quite so easy to breech. Children are full of potential in so many ways, but it seemed Vess was not so foolish as to let the school exist without her personal breed of protection. Disappointing.

CAPENNA : oh, Capenna. Homeplane of their dearest Elspeth, but beyond such a promising ingenue, has little to offer them. The invasion of the Phyrexians is distant memory ( prior, of course, to the Invasion of the Multiverse ) and many citizens are too busy chasing Halo to really have much to play with. Still, they find themself here now and again.

DIRADEN : a plane of eternal twilight, ruins, rot, and fog. If Ashiok didn't know better, they might have believed this to be their homeland. Far less intruiging now that the dark shroud has been destroyed by Chandra Nalaar. Tsk, tsk. Pesky firebug.

DOMINARIA : come now: every Planeswalker worth their spark has made their way to Dominaria at some point. They only wish they could have seen it before the Mending era.

ELDRAINE : a more recent delight of theirs, Ashiok was pulled to this realm by the whispers of the Wicked Slumber. Such noble intentions... such foolish aspirations. Of course, with the spell lifted, they've since withdrawn from Eldraine... but that isn't to say they will never return.

GARGANTIKAR : what can really be said about it? Everything is large. Purely a scientific visit with nothing to be gained.

INNISTRAD : one would think that a nightmare would find more delight in a plane that seems solely inhabitited by werewolves, vampires, and other horrors. But what things do the dead really fear? Of course, they would still love the chance to... pick Sorin Markov's mind.

KALDHEIM : really just a brief blip on their radar. It's much the same to Theros, in that there's something purely human about their warriors. They could certainly play around here for some time, but nothing has intruiged them enough to keep them here.

KAMIGAWA : ever since Kamigawa entered the Neon Dynasty, Ashiok has had little interest in visiting. Perhaps androids do dream of robot sheep, but what fun is there to be made with bits and bytes? Of course, Tamiyo would certainly have made an interesting plaything... shame.

MEDITATION PLANE : also known as Bolas' Meditation Realm and the Prison Realm. Ashiok has been here. When, why, and for what remains a mystery... but given who is housed in this eternal prison, we can assume it wasn't anything good.

NEW PHYREXIA : previously known as both Argentum and Mirrodin. What fun they had here, twisting the nightmares of the Grand Praetor herself. And they didn't even know if Phyrexians were capable of nightmares. Of course, this nightmare may have given Elesh Norn a particular hatred of Elspeth Tirel... but that need for vengeance? What a human desire for a Phyrexian to have.

RAVNICA : Ashiok was, in fact, present in Ravnica during the War of the Spark... although what role they ultimately played, they've thus far shown no interest in revealing. Not their favorite plane to visit, due to the density of the population.

ZENDIKAR : much like Dominaria, this is considered something of a mecca for Planeswalkers. A plane that is home to large sources of mana, now healing from the devistation left in the wake of the Eldrazi titans. Rarely visited these days, in hopes of avoiding running into any of the Gatewatch.

[vorthosjay]

The Elder Dragon Cold War

Among the oldest beings in the Multiverse are the elder dragons. A race of dragons with vast magical powers and supreme intelligence to go along with it, they existed before recorded history on Dominaria, and across the multiverse (also known as Dominia). But dragons aren’t the sharing type, and something happened to make the elder dragons turn on their peers. Thus we enter, the Elder Dragon War.

Nicol Bolas by D. Alexander Gregory

Most of what we know (officially) about the Elder Dragon War is what’s included in Nicol Bolas’ Profile: 

Witness to countless wars, cataclysms, and rivalries, Bolas is one of only five elder dragons to survive the Dragon War.

Those five elders saw print waaay back in Legends. Those five survivors we not necessarily friends, however (although they refer to each other as siblings or cousins). Palladia-Mors became jealous of Chromium’s friendship with a young human girl, and went on a rampage that forced Chromium to put her to sleep for 80 years. She was awoken, in part, by the machinations of Vaevictis Asmadi (who had been transformed into a dragon whelp). But she and Vaevictis came to blows and she slew her cousin. Chromium was forced to kill his sister to protect the people of Mors Ridge, but he was later killed trying to avenge the death of Arcades Sabboth (who we never even see on-screen). That left Bolas as the sole elder Dragon.

But… was that really the end of it?

What was the Elder Dragon War?

Alternatively called the Dragon War or the Great War of the Dragons, there’s actually almost nothing officially published about it. The line I quoted above, in Bolas’ profile? That’s the only official word we have on it. Unpublished materials exist in the wild, but what’s been pieced together may not be all that reliable, especially twenty years and several creative teams later.

One such piece of lore is on the elder wurms. Vorthos extraordinaire @thesquirle posted on Twitter a while back that he’d found the origin of the idea that the elder wurms were the losers of the Elder Dragon War, in a reference to a rejected flavor text from the Card of the Day - April, 2003:

“Once there were multitudes of Elder Dragons in Dominia. After the Great War of the dragons, many were beaten to the ground, stripped of their title, never to fly again.”

Elder Land Wurm by Quinton Hoover

This version of events, however, seems to have been confirmed by Alison Luhrs in the Magic Story Podcast: Dragons, when she talks about the background for Magic’s wurms:

They were the real losers of the Elder Dragon Wars. So wurms used to have limbs and wings, but when they didn’t do so hot in the wars, their limbs and wings were torn off. So all wurms, many, many, many generations removed, are from those elder wurms who fought in the Elder Dragon Wars back in the day.

Not much else is known about the war, other than the five elders from Legends were the only survivors. Doug Beyer seems to indicate that the Elder Dragon War might have been exclusive to Dominaria, but it’s not clear if it was a phrasing issue or deliberate. 

Conflicts Known and Unknown

That leads me to the possibility that maybe the Elder Dragon War isn’t as settled as we think. The complicated history of just the five known survivors could mean there are corner cases out there, old conflicts just waiting to reignite.

Doug Beyer’s response to a question about Bolas and Niv-Mizzet had a nugget that’s probably important:

My sense is that Nicol Bolas does keep an eye on, and is likely not overly fond of, other powerful and intelligent dragons.

He also comments on the use of the Elder creature type in conjunction with the Tarkir broodlords. While we may not see true elders outside of Nicol Bolas again, there are dragons old enough and powerful enough that Bolas might consider a threat in the same vein.

Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

The obvious one is, of course, Ugin. Referring back to Doug’s comments on Ugin, it’s important to note that as of Fate Reforged:

We haven’t talked internally about whether Ugin was involved in that particular war that killed lots and lots of dragons on Dominaria long ago, so I would hesitate to either confirm it or rule it out here.

So at the very least the whole elder thing hadn’t been decided yet during Khans of Tarkir block. But he is old and powerful.

Ugin is ancient. We already know that Ugin was around at least 6000 years ago to trap the Eldrazi, and was already a “spirit dragon” by then, which to me means he had already transcended color in his magic. So he’s many millennia old.

It seems that he’s older and more powerful than Sorin, at least, when the Eldrazi were sealed (I can’t see Sorin deferring to someone younger and weaker). It’s worth mentioning, however, that because Ugin’s broodlords become elders after 1,200 years, it might indicate that they’re all, in fact, lesser elder dragons. Which is a whole can of wurms in and of itself. But why would 1,000 year old rando dragons be elders because they’re ‘old’, and yet two printings of the 10,000+ year old Niv-Mizzet aren’t?

Ugin is from Tarkir. We have consistently thought of Ugin’s homeworld as being Tarkir, so he would have had to planeswalk to be involved in a war on Dominaria. That’s a wrinkle, but doesn’t make it impossible to my mind.

This is that interesting line I mentioned earlier, where Doug implies the Elder Dragon War took place on Dominaria. If Ugin was an elder dragon, some aspects of his story makes sense. His morphology mimics Bolas’, as do his card abilities, but it’s possible that’s simply because he’s designed as the anti-Bolas.

Ugin had a rivalry with Bolas. Certainly we think of Bolas and Ugin’s rivalry as going back quite a while — Bolas is just not a big fan of sharing the Multiverse with other ancient, powerful, planeswalking dragons, see, which seems very “him.” Anyway, that rivalry must have gone a bit farther back than 1280 years ago. It might have gone much farther back, but it also could have been a separate, much more recent conflict.

Crux of Fate by Michael Komarck

But I also want to take a moment to examine Ugin as a spirit dragon. We see from O-Kagachi and others that being a spirit dragon is nothing to scoff, at either. Even if Ugin isn’t an ‘elder’ in the same sense that Bolas is, he’s powerful.

Bolas would not have come after Ugin, on Ugin’s home turf, unless he though Ugin was a serious threat. And he didn’t show up and chew the scenery, either. He went straight in for the kill, and might have lost if he hadn’t already co-opted Yasova to his side. From Sorin’s Restoration:

“He thought me his rival for power, and attacked me. Used my own dragons against me. But someone intervened on my behalf.”

But why did he think Ugin his rival? Well, we just don’t know yet, but I suspect we’ll find out more on Ixalan. There must be a reason Bolas waited 5,000 years from the only event we know Ugin participated in - the sealing of the Eldrazi - to show up and gank him.

I’ve mentioned before that Ugin’s feathery wings only showed up in Tarkir, around the time they would have known they’re heading to a Mesoamerican block. It seems to me Ugin might be the Quetzcoatl analogue on Ixalan, And given the portrait in the Rival of Ixalan Key Art (below), It seems there was an epic conflict between beings there as well.

I talked last week about how this draconic figure might represent Ugin

Further, the new Dragonskull Summit has some pretty interesting flavor text:

When the Planeswalker Angrath called dinosaurs “dragons,” the name stuck in certain pirate circles.

Given the dragon banner and the huge, glaring hint from Dragonskull Summit, I’m convinced dragons have larger role to play on Ixalan. My deepest hope is that we won’t just being seeing Ugin on Ixalan, we’ll be seeing another force on the plane. Maybe even a new ancient dragon (although I’m hesitant to use ‘elder’. After all, the banner doesn’t look like Ugin, and wouldn’t the Empire of the Sun be carrying banners that looks like Gishath, Sun’s Avatar? Even if it isn’t related to Ugin, it might be another ancient dragon entity.

Might the long-simmering conflict between ancient dragons be heating up again?

Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind

One last, quick note. Niv-Mizzet got mentioned here a couple times, and I should be clear that I don’t think Niv is an Elder Dragon. Given that he’s the Izzet Parun, an original signatory of the Guildpact, this ancient Guild Lord would have to be over 10,000 years old. That - potentially - makes him older than Ugin. Old enough to remember a time when there was more than one Elder Dragon. And he’s up to something.

Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind by Todd Lockwood

I’ll have another piece talking about Ral Zarek, but for now I should note that I think Niv-Mizzet is aware of far more than he lets on. He would likely already know of the existence of planeswalkers, and for him Project Lightning Bug might have meant a defense against some like Nicol Bolas showing up. Niv himself jealously guards his supremacy as the only intelligent dragon on the plane, snuffing out rivals to avoid a great dragon war of Ravnica’s own.

With Nicol Bolas having co-opted one of his chief guildmages in Ral Zarek, it’s unclear where Bolas’ story will go. But I wouldn’t count the Firemind out.

[not-another-mtg-fanblog]

Why Aren’t There More Women Magic Players?

Finally posting my article! It’s really long and I don’t want to clutter people’s dashboards with the full thing, so please click Keep Reading to read it. Thank you to everyone who responded to my “interview” questions! It was so helpful, and it certainly gave me a good look at what’s going on in the community. 

Special thank you to @gaytog and @ally-encampment, who are most heavily featured in the piece. Your responses were phenomenal and I’m grateful for your help on this. 

Secondary shout out to @chelsea-beleren-vess and @zoe-of-the-veil, neither of whom I interviewed but who both have been outspoken about this issue and thus who I mention in the article for their public posts.

Again, thank you, and enjoy the article!

Full Text:

It’s a Friday night, and Topp’s Trade Center, in Benton Harbor, Michigan, is, to say the least, packed. At the counter to check out, five or six men and teen boys stand in line to pay to play Magic: The Gathering in the weekly Friday Night Magic (FNM) bracket. All who play will get a small discount later in the evening on packs of cards, and one lucky winner will get a mythic rare card for free.

Meanwhile, in the gaming room, two college-aged men are deep in a heated Magic: The Gathering match, while a half dozen other men look on. Two women of about the same age walk in and sit down by themselves across the room from the others, and begin to play their own match, completely ignored. Of the 30 or so people that have come in for FNM, they are the only women in the store.

“There still is a low percentage of women at FNMs and such I go to—often I’m the only one there, or just one of two,” says Lily Haaron, a woman player from Seattle.

According to Wizards of the Coast, the company that owns Magic: The Gathering, over 12 million people worldwide play Magic. Of that, somewhere between 60 and 90 percent of players are male. The women who do play frequently state that they feel unwelcome in game stores that host Magic events. They cite instances when they were not taken seriously, were the butt of hurtful and often discriminatory jokes, or were even harassed by other players because of their gender. However, many women in the community have started clubs and social media groups specifically for women, in order to create safer spaces for women to play.

“Many male players see the community as of and for primarily other male players,” says a female Magic player going only by the name Joy, who began playing around 2013 but has only been heavily involved in the community in the past year.

Joy says that she initially felt drawn to the complexity and depth of the game’s lore, which follows the story of several different characters that are also printed as playing cards in the game. She says, “I read the entire story of Khans of Tarkir block and loved it, and have been keeping up since,” referring to the story published in once-a-week chapters prior to the release of “blocks” of new cards.

Many players enjoy the social aspect of the game. After all, it is called Magic: The Gathering, which refers to how people must gather together in order to play. “I enjoy that Magic gets me out of the house every day,” Joy says, “On weekdays, my job gets me out of the house. On weekends, Magic does.”

But the social aspect can be rougher for some than for others. Ally Robertson, a trans woman and regional Magic judge from Maine says that, while she has never experienced harassment herself, she has friends who have. “When [one of my good friends] was still new to Magic, [she] had a store owner tell her that if she went out back and gave him oral sex, he would concede to her,” she says. “The local judge at the time just laughed, like most of the store.”

The game was invented in 1993 by a white man, and for many years it appealed only to white men, to the exclusion of women and non-whites alike. “What I have experienced, both at my LGS (local game store) and online, is a male-dominated culture that manifests in subtle and not-so-subtle ways,” says Joy.

The creators of Magic have since attempted to increase the number of woman players, though the demographic statistics vary depending on who you ask. For example, Mark Rosewater, the lead designer for Magic, said on his blog, “market research shows the gender breakdown of male to female is 62% to 38%.”

Jesse Reynolds, a former store owner from Evanston, Illinois has an even more stark view of the demographic differences. He says, “If [other store owners] say that more than 5% of their players are female, they are lying.”

Participation in competitive events, such as the professional tours and even FNM, closely resembles what Mr. Reynolds says, which suggests that while women are attracted to the game itself, there is a significant barrier keeping them from playing competitively.

“I’ve been treated like crap by guys when I go play Magic,” writes a Tumblr user going by the URL chelsea-beleren-vess. “Or ignored when I’m like ‘hi how are you?’ Or asked if I’m here with my boyfriend. They don’t take me seriously.”

Some players say that, although the community as a whole has a long way to go, the company itself is inclusive in a way that its consumers are not. “Wizards of the Coast has demonstrated a commitment to making Magic a more inclusive gaming experience, and so far, I think they’ve done well,” says Joy.

Indeed, Wizards is unlike other media in its representations of women and non-binary individuals. The company has actively remade edited versions of card art that previously objectified female characters, even after having received backlash from male players that saw nothing wrong with the original art. Wizards also wrote new female characters into the story, some of whom are lesbian or bisexual. Two years ago, the company released Alesha, Who Smiles At Death, a card based on the company’s first openly transgender character, and in the past year it introduced an entire race of people, called the Aetherborn (pronounced EE-ther-born), that are non-binary, using they/them pronouns.

“I love that they have characters like Alesha, or the Aetherborn. It definitely adds to mine and my partner’s experience of playing the game and it also makes conversations about inclusivity easier,” says Ms. Robertson. “On the flip side, though, it’s frustrating when people on coverage misgender the Aetherborn or assume their next coverage pair consists of two men. As a whole, Magic is still a ‘boys club’ and any attempts to expend that mentality usually end in backlash.”

So what might improve the gender disparity at Magic events? What might draw more women to Magic? Some say that it is the responsibility of Wizards of the Coast. Others say that the privileged majority in the community need to step up and be more inclusive. Yet others argue that those who have been harassed or discriminated against need to report their experiences. No surefire consensus has been made, though perhaps all suggestions have their merit.

“I feel on a local level stores need to do more to try and get women into the game, and support women communities with it,” says Ms. Haaron.

Ms. Haaron wants to see more groups like the Lady Planeswalkers Society, a women-led group of Magic players that hosts events specifically to draw women into the game and create a more welcoming and inclusive environment for women players. The society has had moderate success, purporting to have over 80 active chapters throughout the world and more than 1600 followers on Facebook. However, 1600 followers out of the 12 million that Wizards claims play is not even a dent in the community.

Some argue that Wizards of the Coast hasn’t done enough to create an inclusive community. “I think Wizards needs to take more direct action against stores that have unwelcoming environments,” says Ms. Robertson. “If a store gets repeatedly reported for an environment where players are degrading women, or making rape jokes, Wizards should step in and tell that store to keep their player base in line or lose DCI sanctioning.”

DCI sanctioning refers to the ability of a store to host official Magic: The Gathering events. Many stores make their money by hosting such events, so being sanctioned is good for both the store and for Wizards. Furthermore, participating in sanctioned events helps competitive players advance to the next level of competition, so it’s good for the players as well.

When players are repeatedly harassed or made uncomfortable during the events, things get a little complicated. Wizards has rules put in place to punish players that make the environment uncomfortable for others, but those rules are just not strict enough for some.

Ms. Robertson says, “I think jokes that promote violence or jokes that use minorities as a…punching bag should warrant an immediate disqualification, or at least match losses.”

For now, many women players are creating their own safe spaces to play. Tumblr user zoe-of-the-veil has created a server on the Discord app, which is a group chat app specifically for gamers. She says, “Basically, this will be a place for women magic players will be able to connect and support one another.”

[vorthosjay]

Magic Story 2016 in Review

I don’t usually do reviews, as most of you know. At most, I tend to recommend or not recommend certain novels and stories as worth someone’s time versus reading a summary. I try to avoid them because Magic’s story is inextricably tied to the process of developing the card game itself. It’s a rather unique situation even for properties with established lore (like D&D or Warhammer) which also tell stories about the universe (more like a video game than a table top game’s story). I’m also just generally not a fan of literary reviews, as I find Tolkien unreadable but unabashedly love trashy Sci-Fi novels.

So instead, I’m going to tackle 2016 as a SWOT Analysis for the state of Magic’s Story overall, not really for individual stories or writing quality. Don’t know what a SWOT Analysis is? Basically, it’s just a method of dividing feedback into four areas: Strengths (things that are being done well), Weaknesses (thing that could be improved), Opportunities (things that could enhance the overall experience), and threats (things that could hurt the overall experience).

Keep in mind that I don’t know anything about the inner working of creative, and there may be perfectly good reasons for the weaknesses I describe, and plans in place to address the threats I identify. This is just, like, my opinion.

Side Note: I realize that I teased this piece after the 2016 story summary. Sorry, I forgot about it and it sat in my draft folder for the last couple weeks.

Unholy Strength by Terese Nielsen

Strengths

Expanding the Roster While the core writing team has largely remained the same, bringing in Alison Luhrs, Mel Li, and Michael Yichao for more stories has been a welcome addition to the rotation. Alison and Michael both previously wrote Commander 2015 stories, Mel previously wrote the BFZ story summary and one of the Checking In articles. Whether they’re members of creative moved into a slightly different role or members of other teams brought in for their skills, it’s been a good thing.

Hiring Veteran Talent Bringing on Chris L’Etoile, an industry veteran who was not previous involved with Wizards of the Coast in another capacity (as much of the creative team was), signals a pretty strong commitment to continuing to improve the story with the new paradigm. Chris hit the ground running with Homesick, which along with another story I’ll mention in a moment was one of my two favorites this year. I believe we’ve started to see his influence with Kaladesh, and I hope we continue to see plenty of it going forward - word counts be damned.

Hiring Consultants It means a lot when we see outside consultants for expertise in areas the creative team lacks. Reading between the lines of some comments that have been made after Conspiracy: Take the Crown and Kaladesh were revealed to have used consultants, I think we’re likely to see more of this going forward. While it’s not always going to be perfect (Kaladesh had some major flavor misses), it’s a huge step in the right direction, and for that deserves real credit.

Ken Troop’s Blackmail I don’t know what he has on the rest of the team that they let him get the good stuff, but Ken consistently steals the show. He’s only got three stories in 2016, but they’re all fantastic and big story tentpoles. The Promised End is my second favorite story from last year, and The Blight We Were Born For is a close third.

This piece goes on a bit yet, so I’m putting the rest behind a keep reading line.

Hunt the Weak by Raoul Vitale

Weaknesses

Characterization The biggest part of the story that suffered in the new two block paradigm is characterization. Now, to be fair, character complexity is something hard to get across when you’ve only got about 5,000 words a week and a very broad focus. Stories like Homesick helped establish the characters better, but going forward I think it’ll be important to show more sides to the different characters. For instance, if someone hadn’t read Agents of Artifice, they might think Tezzeret is a rather one dimensional character because of his portrayal in Kaladesh. Chandra has seemed to regress as a character, feeling more like an ADHD caricature than the young woman we’d gotten to see grow through The Purifying Fire and her various other appearances. I don’t know entirely how to fix it, but I think taking more moments for the characters to breath and interact will be helpful.

Pacing Given the new serialized structure, it’s harder to get a sense of the timing of events. In Shadows Over Innistrad, was Jace on Innistrad for days? Weeks? Months? It’s not clear, but the story did a whole lot of hopping around with him to different locations all over the plane. Finding a balance between how Magic Story used to be (a series of relatively unconnected vignettes with the occasional important story piece) and the new serialized structure is going to be a major hurdle in 2017. We also got a number of stories unconnected to the main stories this year (or no stories at all), which can be jarring to the pace of events. Now that the team has a few blocks behind them, I think they’re starting to find the right pace.

Community Outreach Last year was weakest in terms of the accessibility of the creative team that I can remember. There was a big call on Tumblr for question for the creative team that have never been answered (at least, not in any venue that I’ve seen). Doug Beyer’s blog has been mostly abandoned, and interaction with the team has largely been limited to official events and Twitter (where 140 characters isn’t a whole lot of room for lore talk - but shout-out to Kelly Digges and others for trying). This was the first year I can remember where a well-known member of the creative team wasn’t hugely visible in responding to the community, as before we’d had Ask Brady or A Voice for Vorthos. These outlets were immensely popular, and I’m hoping the new podcast idea that Blake Rasmussen mentioned on twitter turns out to be a good new successor to that legacy. This criticism comes with the caveat that I’m not sure the creative team’s workload has ever been higher, and I’m sure they’re still trying to find a groove in the new paradigm.

Opportunity by Patrick Faricy

Opportunities

Reconnecting to Older Lore Kaladesh has major story ties to older story lines, and with the Gatewatch established it’s probably time to return to more of the plot threads left dangling over the years. For perspective, it’s been eight real-world years since Liliana, Jace, and Tezzeret were all in Agents of Artifice together. It’s been almost as long since Chandra and Gideon’s story began back in The Purifying Fire. Continuing to connect back to older lore in a meaningful way will help keep older vorthos interested and invested.

New Mediums for Outreach I mentioned earlier that Blake (of Daily MTG fame) dropped the potential for a new story team podcast. This is an exciting opportunity and will go a long way to fixing that big gap I mentioned in weaknesses. Podcasts are the format of choice for many people online these days, and don’t require the same equipment and software intensive set-up as video formats do. Given the success of Maro’s Drive to Work, I don’t think this podcast would be lacking an audience. In this same vein, the recently announced initiative to move the Magic IP in different directions could be great for us Vorthos. I loved being able to experience the story through different media, and Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015 was a fun was to share the plot developments of Magic 2015 - and to get players interested in the story.

Official History With the plot moved to free serialized web stories, there’s a rather huge demand from new vorthos interested in what came before Magic Origins. The success of my own articles and those of my fellow vorthos out there is a testament to that demand, and while I’m certainly not going to complain, even the most popular among us don’t have the same reach among the community that the mothership does. In 2014 and 2015, we got “Checking In With the Planeswalkers” articles, which served as a sort of update and history for the uninitiated and invested vorthos alike. Prior to Scars of Mirrodin and Return to Ravnica we got brief histories to catch people up. Now I think we need those kind of background pieces more regularly, because as neat as it is to see Agents of Artifice and The Purifying Fire references in Kaladesh, most newer readers were scratching their heads about the various references.

Threaten by Pete Venters

Threats

Accessibility of Older Lore This runs parallel to some of my other comments. How well can a new reader inference what they need to know about Magic’s past for a story? The experience of Kaladesh is fairly different for someone who has read Agents of Artifice or The Purifying Fire. Chandra monastery at Keral Keep is heavily influenced by Jaya Ballard - an ice age character whose lore is entirely locked into two out-of-print novels... one of which goes for about $40! Making sure that new readers can access the older stories they want is going to be critical going forward, especially if you want to keep older fans invested, too. Granted, these novels are likely locked behind contracts with publishers, but as the story continues to expand and older lore continues to be referenced, there’s a risk of alienating new readers. In some cases, it’s as simple as continuing to post story summaries once a block concludes - we got them for BFZ but not for SOI. As the two-blocks a year structure continues to pile up, we’re going to find newer readers significantly less interested in reading every article between Magic Origins and the latest block.

Mismanagement of Expectations This happened a couple times last year, and I think it’s important to address because fans need to know what to expect. When things are going to deviate from the norm or when we have gaps between the different set stories, that should be made extremely clear to the audience. November 2016 is a good example, as we got no Commander 2016 stories and no catching-up article - both of which we’d gotten in that same slot in previous years. I don’t think these breaks are a problem - but fan expectations based on previous years resulted in disappointment and resentment.

The Expanding Multiverse While I mentioned that the newly announced IP initiative is a great opportunity, it’s also a threat if not managed properly. Non-canon lore from early Duels of the Planeswalker games are still problems to this day - especially the ‘racist Nissa’ misconception. Keeping up with an expanding universe is going to be a lot of work, and it also has the potential for alienating fans both new and old. The creative team will need to stay on top of everything to avoid problems that will haunt them for years to come.

That’s about it for today. I hope you enjoyed my perspective on what worked and didn’t work in 2016, and how I hope 2017 can improve on that. Overall I’m optimistic for the future!