I do agree that I want some more interesting worlds though, Outlaws had an interesting plane, but I feel like it was bogged down by the fact that it felt like every single character from Magic's history showed up and took up card space. (
Over half of the legendary creatures in OTJ are from different planes, and only one of the "joins up" characters is original, which makes sense according to the lore, but it's weird because this is a plane that we really don't know much about yet). I think that the "everyone is here" aspect is what is also diluting the play experience. I love
Jaya she is an iconic character, but I wouldn't want to see her every other set, I preferred her staying on Dominaria. But everyone is hopping around and it's... a little weird. I never had that disconnect when I saw Garruk all over the place, but that's cuz he's a nomadic character, like Doctor Who. But now
everyone is Doctor Who. Which can work, but it needs to be done with care.
And I say all that and War of the Spark is one of my favorite sets flavorfully. But to me that set earned its "everyone is here" moment, (much like Avengers: infinity war and endgame) and had so many planeswalkers that the set felt and played differently than the rest.
I think that they are getting wise to this as well but I think that collapsing the planes into "one" was a big mistake. Just observing how every single time marvel gets into the multiverse the reader base (and now viewerbase) dips out eventually is pretty telling.
I'm fine with Universes Beyond, I feel like it might be a necessary evil, and many of my co-players are getting into magic because of it. UB honestly has some of my favorite and cleanest designs nowadays (like
resentful revelation and
Il Mheg Pixie).
I love (most of) final fantasy, but the final fantasy set has characters from sixteen whole games, and every single main protagonist in those series. They could have done sixteen sets for each of the games, I personally would have preferred that because seeing
guns next to my
final fantasy characters that didn't have guns is really off for me. Hey, wait a second...
I know that Cloud and Lightning are both Final Fantasy, but I don't play the tcg and (outside of Japan) I don't know anyone that does. So it's weird for me to see them together and to say stuff like, "I block
Lightning with my
Cloud"
(The double-entendres notwithstanding). And this cognitive dissonance is very similar to how it feels nowadays with every single set outside of Universes Beyond. I don't want every set to feel like a Universes Beyond set, even if technically they are all from the same universe.