I don't know, like, maybe we (and I am putting myself in the "we" as well) are starting to be overly critique with Wizards because of all the UB stuff. Okay, MKM was not the usual Ravnica setting but... the gameplay was fun! At least for me. I always love draft environment with morph, because they really reward the experience of the player (towards the end of the format, I almost always had a good guess about which disguised creatures my opponent was playing). Having clues in the set was great because obviously late-game issues with flood, and so on, I really had fun playing that expansion. The only thing that maybe could have been better was suspect, that was a bit of a mess to track and didn't resonate as well as flavour with gameplay. But I think they did a good job in transposing the idea of a "murder investigation" into the expansion gameplay. For this set, we only saw three preview cards. I want to see more commons and uncommons, and play a couple of drafts, before saying anything too bad about the expansion. For now, I will just comment about things that are already out and say: how bad was OTJ?! Decks with 5-6 mythic cards, four colours, not an identity, greedy piles, I am so happy that expansion ended and I hope to not have to draft it again in my life.
General [DFT] Aetherdrift
- Thread starter Nanonox
- Start date
But this wasn't really about the gameplay not being fun, it certainly might be. I just don't like how gameplay and flavor are less and less intertwined logically. Magic is a game about two (or more) wizards battling each other. You can have this premise in a lot of different worlds and flavors but it can't lose it's core or things start to become akward once you think about it
I tend to agree with ravnic that racing and murder mystery are awkward flavor combos with MtG. If the cards would fit nicely into my cube I wouldn't care, but it actually does bother me when the pictures have funny hats and the creature types and names are detectives on cards that I might otherwise be interested in, like this:
I could run that, but it would bug me. The card flavor just feels stupid to me.
I do see why they want to mix things up with different worlds and themes. It would be hard to sell the same dragons and knights and zombies over and over.
There's a double flavor dissonance when they characters are doing a thing that isn't the regular wizard duels thing at the same time that the setting and art look like cowboys or horror movie Chuckie or whatever instead of wizards and warriors and demons.
They're gonna keep doing stuff like this, and I just won't cube the stuff I don't like.
I could run that, but it would bug me. The card flavor just feels stupid to me.
I do see why they want to mix things up with different worlds and themes. It would be hard to sell the same dragons and knights and zombies over and over.
There's a double flavor dissonance when they characters are doing a thing that isn't the regular wizard duels thing at the same time that the setting and art look like cowboys or horror movie Chuckie or whatever instead of wizards and warriors and demons.
They're gonna keep doing stuff like this, and I just won't cube the stuff I don't like.
@TrainmasterGT
Do your thing <3
Do your thing <3
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Heh. Even the set symbol is an eyesore XD I would be happy to get a few sweet vehicles though!
I'm starting to get excited about this set after Maro's teaser. Items of particular note:
-Cycle of multicolored Gearhulks! (Dare I hope for a whole 10-card cycle? I think it's more likely to be allied-color only, but as long as I get one in Gruul I'll be happy.)
-A new Vehicle artifact token! (I hope this plays well with things like Tough Cookie or Alloy Animist.)
-Cycle of multicolored Gearhulks! (Dare I hope for a whole 10-card cycle? I think it's more likely to be allied-color only, but as long as I get one in Gruul I'll be happy.)
-A new Vehicle artifact token! (I hope this plays well with things like Tough Cookie or Alloy Animist.)
Chris Taylor
Contributor
This thing has been super sweet BTW, having run it for a while now
Really neat dimension for GW, and also finding artifacts/enchantments means you can find stuff like Bind the Monster or Wild Growth or Portable Hole or Retrofitter Foundry or Dead Weight or Seal of Fire or Executioner's Capsule
I was reminded of this recently because this thread popped up recently, and I feel like the reason why it kinda-sorta works thematically is that the sweet wizard duel that's "portrayed" by Magic is usually really zoomed out. We're talking "Urza vs. Yawgmoth was a single Bo3 match of Magic" levels of zoomed out. In that context, the idea that one player went dungeon-delving to get an advantage in their grand duel isn't too weird.
I do agree that "participating in a murder investigation" or "doing some Wacky Races" aren't a great thematic match - I feel like they would've been pretty good themes for draft innovation sets (kinda like Battlebond). There's probably some marketing-related reason why they decided that these needed to be Standard-legal sets.
Duskmourn was both cool and a mess, to be honest. On the one hand, the Haunted House Plane was a return to the kind of weirdness that I associated with Magic's planes when I first started, which is something I've been missing for a while. On the other hand, it felt like a lot of the retro horror references were kinda forced in because "this is the Haunted House Plane, right?"
Looking back over the set, a lot of the cards portraying survivors would make more sense if the en-housening was recent (hence references to having childhood pets or cheer practice), but the rest of the set is built around the idea that Valgavoth's transcendance was generations ago.
We're apparently getting a cycle of vanilla legendary creatures, per Mark's seasonal teaser post.
To be honest, I would've been excited for one!
Over-statted vanilla creatures have always proved extremely compelling to me. Some feel like puzzle pieces you're meant to solve. Others make you feel like you've found a way to break the conversion rules of mana to power-and-toughness. Random commons from 2016 demanded a second look, and got me interested in making a lower-power Cube. Even in 2024, WotC showed us that they know how to make a really cool vanilla creature.
The earliest iterations of my Cube were obsessed with mana-efficient creatures:
Isamaru remains, but mostly now because of my legendary-matters sub-theme than its own merit. I love these cards, though.
I am hoping for silliness. Yargle and Multani was in my Cube for about a year, and while it never worked out, people were always delighted to open it up and I'm happy it exists.
Is it finally time to get a 3/1 for 1? I hope so. I'd prefer it in red but will happily take it in white.
Still hate the aesthetic of this set and think most of the art looks awful, but maybe these will be cool.
To be honest, I would've been excited for one!
Over-statted vanilla creatures have always proved extremely compelling to me. Some feel like puzzle pieces you're meant to solve. Others make you feel like you've found a way to break the conversion rules of mana to power-and-toughness. Random commons from 2016 demanded a second look, and got me interested in making a lower-power Cube. Even in 2024, WotC showed us that they know how to make a really cool vanilla creature.
The earliest iterations of my Cube were obsessed with mana-efficient creatures:
Isamaru remains, but mostly now because of my legendary-matters sub-theme than its own merit. I love these cards, though.
I am hoping for silliness. Yargle and Multani was in my Cube for about a year, and while it never worked out, people were always delighted to open it up and I'm happy it exists.
Is it finally time to get a 3/1 for 1? I hope so. I'd prefer it in red but will happily take it in white.
Still hate the aesthetic of this set and think most of the art looks awful, but maybe these will be cool.
This is really cool. Multiplayer formats always suffer from "what if one dude dies immediately and has to sit there for an hour?" This fixes that by having the game end at the same time for everyone.
I've often considered trying a "punching bag" where the winner is declared after X damage to it, but I play multiplayer pretty rarely.
What is Mapi on about?
Sorry this took me a couple of days!
Phyrexian Dreadnaught reference. It would be cool if this was flavored as a dreadnaught skeleton that has been turned into a car.MaRo said:
I think this will either be some sort of "Vehiclefall" mechanic, or something that cares about when you crew a vehicle. Perhaps it will be an ability word for "whenever you crew this vehicle?" I would say it's for "whenever you crew a vehicle," but I think that is less likely because there are also Mounts in the set. Either way, I think this is a fun space to explore in the Vehicle set!MaRo said:
We know for a fact that Basri Ket and Daretti, Rocketeer Engineer are in the set, so I guess the other two desparked Walkers will be Amonkheti? Samut, the Tested is the only other native Planeswalker we know of, so maybe this hint was poorly worded and was including Kaladesh natives as well.MaRo said:
This has either the potential to be really cool or extremely boring. On one hand, they could be giving us the next generation of Watchwolf-style cheap undercosted vanilla threats. On the other hand, they may just be giving us funny number bad cards like Yargle, Glutton of Urborg. If they go the latter route, which I fear they might, I hope they at least give us a vanilla 6/9. Although honestly the ideal outcome here would be getting something like a vanilla 3/1 forMaRo said:
, a vanilla 4/4 or 5/4 for or , and so on.I was under the impression that we would be seeing Hazoret, the two new Gods, and the two remaining Bug Gods of the Chitin Court, but it looks like we'll only be seeing Hazoret and her new friends. Oh well!MaRo said:
Thank you MaRo, very cool. This card is good:MaRo said:
...so I'm excited to see the rest.
I can confirm this is true! Tune in to The Pack One Slick Ones (the podcast @gaytransmulldrifter and I do with Usman Jamil, Jesseb34r, and Marmaras) on January 30th to find out more!MaRo said:
MaRo said:
There are Dinosaur people on Muraganda, and I think this may be their lord. Literally and Figuratively. Dinosaur King? Dinosaur King.MaRo said:
I wonder if Exhaust is a new take on Exert, just using Stun Counters instead of being an ambiguous tracker.MaRo said:
It's interesting to note that Pirates are a theme in this set. Hopefully it's just one card and not the whole set.MaRo said:
More weird Muraganda cards! Yay!MaRo said:
I think we've seen the art for this card! I think it's this thing:MaRo said:
Notice the cool Ankylosaurus people who appear to be riding it.
The one thing I was concerned about with this set was dumb card names. Stuff like Crumb and Get It, Sugar Rush, and Baseball Bat have all been devaluing otherwise good sets. However, I think these should be fine as long as they're contextualized correctly? For example, Gas Guzzler would be a cool name for a goblin or one of those mad max people who drinks gasoline for power.MaRo said:
MaRo said:
I'm very excited for this set at this point. If you had told me a year ago that the "dumb racecar set" would have awesome world-building and team concepts, I simply would not have believed you. But, here we are! I really hope this means the WOTC story team has gotten their footing again and we passed the era of lazy worldbuilding and bad storytelling. May there be many good sets in the future!
Thanks for reading!
–GT
Thank you @TrainmasterGT
I had not seen that art of the big dragon with the lizardfolk crew. I'm getting really excited now!
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Samut is just running this race on foot
Basri Ket is also from Amonkhet and already has a Ætherdrift entry on the wiki so I'm going to assume it's him.
The templating of "activate an exhaust ability" excludes it from being a modernized exert, it has to be something along the lines of boast or outlast. It's a very limited set of keywords that wording makes sense for.
The templating of "activate an exhaust ability" excludes it from being a modernized exert, it has to be something along the lines of boast or outlast. It's a very limited set of keywords that wording makes sense for.
Right, that's why I'm wondering if MaRo's comment was a typo. We know Basri is in the set already, but him and Samut are the only Amonkhet native Planeswalkers. Since Daretti is also in the set, the wording of the original hint doesn't make sense. He probably just meant "from the worlds visited" instead of "one of the worlds visited," but still.
The third 'Walker is probably Saheeli or someone else like that.
It could be playing in the same space as the exert cards from Hour of Devastation that used exert as a cost for activating an ability. The templating would obviously need to be different (at least, I thought that would be obvious given that the hint references "activating an exhaust ability), but I think there's a real chance it could be playing in a similar space to those HOU cards.
I don't know how my illiterate ass just glossed over the word "other" and Basri being mentioned in the first part of the sentence.
I wouldn't rule out some sort of mechanic dealing with stun counters, I just expect it to be pretty far from an updated version of exert. My assumption would be that it deals with vehicles in some form though, like maybe an alternate way to animate them, give them some sort of temporary boost, who knows.
I wouldn't rule out some sort of mechanic dealing with stun counters, I just expect it to be pretty far from an updated version of exert. My assumption would be that it deals with vehicles in some form though, like maybe an alternate way to animate them, give them some sort of temporary boost, who knows.
This is also a valid assumption. I'm just hoping they won't go the MKM route of making corny mechanics that aren't reusable outside of sets with a very specific flavor (i.e. Collect Evidence and Suspect not really working outside of some sort of mystery/investigation context).
