these all sound like fun sets, im pleasantly surprised
General CBS
- Thread starter James Stevenson
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oh snap I didn't even click the pictures in the tweets from people there, that IS oko, okay yeah that's excellentYou left out the most interesting one!
Cowboy Oko on a set named after something Train related? That’s pretty damn cool!
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Tinybones and Vraska on the left, and Ob Nixilis on the right, I believe?
Personally, I am stoked for Ravnica Remastered, Bloomburrow (mouse knights and squirrel wizards!) and MH3 for the next year. That "Murders at Karlov Manor" mystery murder set also sounds interesting. I'm lukewarm on all the UB products. Also, not sure about that cowboy villan set yet. And I'm somewhat certain, that I will skip Mournwillow, that modern horror set from late '24. People wearing modern clothes on my magic cards feels offputting.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Gavin has now posted a video about the cards from the Gencon and Barcelona events:
Chris Taylor
Contributor
While personally I'm more of a Canlander enjoyer, starting at 20 and removing multiplayer goes a long way to making me feel welcome in a format.
If you haven't tried Canlander or Duel Commander, give it a shot. I know we frown on Oko and Minsc and Boo and The initiative, but I think it's nice to have a format where you can play with all the broken shit you exclude from your cube, and it's also really nice to have a non-draft way to interact with magic.
Drafting is amazing, I wouldn't give it up for the world, but it does take a few hours
If you haven't tried Canlander or Duel Commander, give it a shot. I know we frown on Oko and Minsc and Boo and The initiative, but I think it's nice to have a format where you can play with all the broken shit you exclude from your cube, and it's also really nice to have a non-draft way to interact with magic.
Drafting is amazing, I wouldn't give it up for the world, but it does take a few hours
While personally I'm more of a Canlander enjoyer, starting at 20 and removing multiplayer goes a long way to making me feel welcome in a format.
If you haven't tried Canlander or Duel Commander, give it a shot. I know we frown on Oko and Minsc and Boo and The initiative, but I think it's nice to have a format where you can play with all the broken shit you exclude from your cube, and it's also really nice to have a non-draft way to interact with magic.
Drafting is amazing, I wouldn't give it up for the world, but it does take a few hours
I really like Canadian Highlander also! We started out playing Highlander many, many years ago before there was anything called EDH. But about 10 years ago we switched to Duel Commander also called French Commander because we liked the whole general (now called Commander) idea and we haven’t looked back. Canadian is an interesting variant to the original Highlander that I also believe everyone should give a go.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Purely Academic Thoughts Incoming:
I go back and forth over weather the whole "no banlist, only points" is a good or a bad idea. (Certainly fine in small/medium doses)
Like moxen being legal def makes a ton of non-games, but there's also decks that are possible with lotus that aren't otherwise. I kinda like that some number of blue decks have devolved into "Time walk + as many pointed tutors to let me find time walk", but mostly because they aren't turns decks, they're just blue decks committing to the board, which is worth celebrating if anything else.
I'm mostly against commander because I've found the appeal of a build around 8th card mostly gets optimized out of in favor of a consistent good 8th card, but if my group had decided that 1v1 commander was the way to go over canlander, I don't think it would make a big difference to me.
TLDR: Both formats have their upsides and downsides, and I think both are pretty great for the same reasons.
I go back and forth over weather the whole "no banlist, only points" is a good or a bad idea. (Certainly fine in small/medium doses)
Like moxen being legal def makes a ton of non-games, but there's also decks that are possible with lotus that aren't otherwise. I kinda like that some number of blue decks have devolved into "Time walk + as many pointed tutors to let me find time walk", but mostly because they aren't turns decks, they're just blue decks committing to the board, which is worth celebrating if anything else.
I'm mostly against commander because I've found the appeal of a build around 8th card mostly gets optimized out of in favor of a consistent good 8th card, but if my group had decided that 1v1 commander was the way to go over canlander, I don't think it would make a big difference to me.
TLDR: Both formats have their upsides and downsides, and I think both are pretty great for the same reasons.
This seems to be a pattern started in cyberpunk NEO and art deco SNC. I suspect WotC are moving away from more traditional fantasy settings to make their Universes Beyond sets seem less anomalous.
Yes, doing a soft landing and also pushing the boundaries of normal MTG to make it less obviously weird.
I think that may be a little bit of an overly-cynical take. WOTC usually plays things pretty safe as a company, so the idea that they would make a bunch of risky sets in short succession just to push other people's IP that is in no way guaranteed to succeed seems a bit far-fetched.
What seems to be going on instead is something akin to the "worlds diversification" that happened after the end of Onslaught block. Before the Phyrexian Invasion, basically every Magic set was either on a Western high fantasy or techno-fantasy setting either on Dominaria or a related Plane. Mercadia, Rath, Ulgrotha, and so on were all pretty similar to Dominaria. However, following the end of Onslaught block wrapping up the content related to the aftermath of the Phyrexian invasion of Dominaria, we spent most of the next decade visiting new planes with wildly different styles from what had been seen previously. We mostly went to new worlds that didn't tie in too much to previous content. We visited a world of Metal, Feudal Japan, a City world, a Celtic world without Humans, and more! Obviously, there were a couple of exceptions (Time Spiral block, Karn creating Mirrodin, and the Umezawa family hailing from Kamigawa being the three primary examples), but as a whole, the idea of what a Magic set could be grew.
That changed for a few years, starting with Khans of Tarkir. Although we visited plenty of new worlds, they all tied in with the ongoing story in some capacity. Tarkir was the battleground between Bolas and Ugin, Kaladesh was Chandra's home plane, Ixalan was a prison that trapped the Azorius guild parun Azor, New Capenna only exists because of the Phyrexians... everything tied into the Phyrexian arc or the Bolas arc in some way or another. While this synergy was important for the stories that were being told at the time, it also meant that the multiverse started to feel smaller. Everything was related to people we already knew and stories that had already been told. Additionally, the ongoing arcs defeated most of Magic's major ongoing villains. Bolas? Sent to Australia. The Phyrexians? Defeated and swapped places with Zhalfir. Even the Eldrazi were either burnt to a crisp or sent on a vacation to the moon. The previous decade of story work has paid off, and now a new direction is needed.
As such, I think Wizards is repeating what they did following the original Phyrexian invasion and introducing us to new characters and new worlds to set up future stories. We're getting a couple of sets dealing with the aftermath of the Invasion (in this case, Wilds of Eldraine and Lost Caverns of Ixalan instead of Odyssey and Onslaught blocks), and then we're off to some strange new settings unlike what we've seen previously. We're going to meet new characters, be introduced to new Magic concepts, and tell new stories. And just like with the last Phyrexian invasion, we're going to go to settings that push the boundaries of what the multiverse can contain. The big difference is that we are going to be going at a faster pace because blocks don't exist anymore.
I might not be 100% correct about this, but I feel like the Multiverse has been fundamentally changed as a result of the Phyrexian invasion. I don't see any benefit in going back to the status quo after something like that. Now really is the time to push boundaries, because this is essentially the first opportunity we've had for a soft reset of the Multiverse since 2006.
They're actively talking about how the Omenpaths (which let you move between planes, even if you're not a planeswalker) will be an important story element going forward - it's definitely not status quo in terms of "every world is disconnected" which means setup now will pay even more dividends later for story people, in options if nothing else.
Exactly! I think the Omenpaths represent the opening of the multiverse and the broadening of horizons for its inhabitants (both literally and metaphorically). I think that's part of the reason why we're going to so many weird settings: Omenpaths are letting everything feel more connected even without many explicit ties to existing settings, so some of the more "out there" ideas like Bloomburrow are not as risky to attempt.
Yes. Australia was a penal colony for Great Britain during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Instead of throwing people in jail, they just sent them to Australia instead.
Yeah it was a metaphor. Australia was basically Britain’s Prison Realm.
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I realized this after gushing so much about Syr Ginger in the Eldraine thread, but holy heck, I've played or tested all the 2-MV 3-power artifact creatures without downsides. These are all great cards and I love having artifact creatures in my Cube that go into every deck, it makes for a lot more games of magic and manageable curves.
Very happy WotC is pursuing this direction recently.
Very happy WotC is pursuing this direction recently.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I bought it for my maybe binder, at least! I think it's pretty easy to build around and has a reasonable floor, even if the payoff isn't extreme.