Guess it depends on how many spirits we expect in boros I suppose? Maybe there's a mechanic about creating spirits, like how we had that one from ravnica for orzhov.
General [STX] Strixhaven Spoilers
- Thread starter Jason Waddell
- Start date
I was going to say, Lorehold Command did spoil a 3/2 Spirit for us as well. It would also seem a little weird to me if we got different power/toughness Spirit tokens in one set for complexity reasons, but it's a big enough token where it's tough seeing wotc sprinkling many of them in those colors. This is going to bug for the next few days...
Arcbound Worker, eat your heart out. Although I do wish this lad was randomly an artifact, even if he has two relevant creature types...
This stuff all feels so out of place.
First Day of Class? What class? My 6/6 demon and 4/4 Elemental have never even heard of a class. What the fuck? You're giving them a Pop Quiz? You block with your Star Pupil? Star of what? He's a 1/1...
That said, I like a lot of the non-school cards.
For contrast, I happen to really like the flavor and I'm really glad that WotC is both pushing the envelope and that they're pushing it in this direction.
Specifically, I appreciate how they're explicitly calling out a lot of different magical academy tropes AND addressing school-based tropes in general. Remember, the Tolarian Academy was a bit part of earlier sets! I'm willing to bet that one could make an entire set out of Tolarian Academy-themed cards if one is willing to ignore color balance/playability. Magic schools are actually a very diverse bunch (Faerun and D&D's schools of magic, Brakebills from The Magicians, the school from A Wizard of Earthsea, the University from The Name of the Wind, and lots more--this is just what comes to mind.) and I'm seeing elements of all these and more, so I think it's not really fair to call it 'just Harry Potter Universes Beyond a year early.'
In terms of tone, I appreciate that WotC is willing to explore sets that are location-based, not crisis-based. It gets really tiring to have Our Favorite Planeswalkers Save The Day In An Exotic Location all the time. This is one of the reasons why I've soured a bit on Marvel movies, but maybe WotC is conscious that people get tired of this? I never want to give them too much credit. I'd love to see them continue to explore more personal crises, like how Liliana deals with guilt, an emotion she thought could never affect her again after her brother's gruesome fate.
Sizing of creatures has never been a big issue for me personally (Squirrels, Emrakul, etc.), but I totally see how that would be incongruous for other people.
I do have an issue with this set so far, and it's that the cards are incredibly wordy. It's not the sort of wordy that's just legalese to describe an intuitive effect, either. The Deans in particular are especially offensive to me--part of my attraction to MDFCs is that they should be easy to parse on both sides.
Specifically, I appreciate how they're explicitly calling out a lot of different magical academy tropes AND addressing school-based tropes in general. Remember, the Tolarian Academy was a bit part of earlier sets! I'm willing to bet that one could make an entire set out of Tolarian Academy-themed cards if one is willing to ignore color balance/playability. Magic schools are actually a very diverse bunch (Faerun and D&D's schools of magic, Brakebills from The Magicians, the school from A Wizard of Earthsea, the University from The Name of the Wind, and lots more--this is just what comes to mind.) and I'm seeing elements of all these and more, so I think it's not really fair to call it 'just Harry Potter Universes Beyond a year early.'
In terms of tone, I appreciate that WotC is willing to explore sets that are location-based, not crisis-based. It gets really tiring to have Our Favorite Planeswalkers Save The Day In An Exotic Location all the time. This is one of the reasons why I've soured a bit on Marvel movies, but maybe WotC is conscious that people get tired of this? I never want to give them too much credit. I'd love to see them continue to explore more personal crises, like how Liliana deals with guilt, an emotion she thought could never affect her again after her brother's gruesome fate.
Sizing of creatures has never been a big issue for me personally (Squirrels, Emrakul, etc.), but I totally see how that would be incongruous for other people.
I do have an issue with this set so far, and it's that the cards are incredibly wordy. It's not the sort of wordy that's just legalese to describe an intuitive effect, either. The Deans in particular are especially offensive to me--part of my attraction to MDFCs is that they should be easy to parse on both sides.
I'm not understanding the contempt for the lore elements of this set so far. It doesn't feel like a copy of any "Magical School" stories I've been exposed to over the years. The cards with school-related names and flavor are mostly draft commons, so they won't impact constructed. However, they will make playing this set's limited really immersive compared to most sets.
I'm in College and thematically this set is very on the nose (in a good way). Strixhaven feels like a fantasy version of a real University, which I think is really cool. It's really easy to imagine a world where this set was just a bad clone of Harry Potter or The Magicians, just with a vainer of the multiverse tacked on. WOTC really hit it out of the park making something which is entirely unique but feels very resonant in a way most other sets are not.
I'm in College and thematically this set is very on the nose (in a good way). Strixhaven feels like a fantasy version of a real University, which I think is really cool. It's really easy to imagine a world where this set was just a bad clone of Harry Potter or The Magicians, just with a vainer of the multiverse tacked on. WOTC really hit it out of the park making something which is entirely unique but feels very resonant in a way most other sets are not.
Have you actually seen the Marvel movies?
Congratulations!
This is from page 4.You were right on the nose with that guess and that wish.
What in the world was this set trailer? Felt like a parody video, had to double check it was actually from WotC
I have been debating internally if I should do the honorable thing of adding it to the lore thread or do us all the favor of excluding it so that it hopefully will all into oblivion.
I liked the Day 9 arena video though. What a role model!
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Day9 is a gem
Yeah, really happy he's become an ambassador for the game! He seems like a genuinely sweet person
Day[9] is the best person in the world. I honestly believe this and my evidence is 11,5 years of streams <3
Please check in to his What the Deck episodes if you're in for having a laugh and challenge the Arena client's maximum process power He frequence between inviting Noxious and Brian Kibler.
Please check in to his What the Deck episodes if you're in for having a laugh and challenge the Arena client's maximum process power
He frequence between inviting Noxious and Brian Kibler.
Inquisition of Kozilek finally has Kozilek on it.
Yup. I wish they'd spend more of the movies getting at the heart of who the characters are and why they do what they do in the way that Thor: Ragnarok breaks down both Thor and Hulk. Contrast that with Iron Man 3 and how clumsily they handle the emotional storyline of Tony Stark dealing with various conflicts. Unfortunately, I think most of the Marvel movies are more like the latter than the former and that while they superficially attempt to engage with their characters' emotional lives these decisions are ultimately of little to no consequence, getting fixed or re-broken with few ramifications, leaving the bulk of the movie free to deal with the boring supervillain of choice. Oddly enough, I think that Endgame was one of the better movies in this regard.
To expand on the "supervillains boring" point, I may be in the minority here, but the majority of big-budget action sequences to little to nothing for me. Throw a car? Sure. Throw the Evergreen*? Fine. Some movies salvage these things by way of either setting up consequences earlier in the film or by giving the actions a 'heft' to them (looking at you for both of these, Pacific Rim), but the majority of action sequences have little to make us care about the action sequences. If all the cool of a supervillain is in their fighting it saps the enjoyment out of the film for me. Magic's story, at least in the macro scale evident on the cards, tends to emphasize the action sequences. When people delve into the lore like you do, Velrun, of course you're going to have a richer experience! However, the thing about Magic is that the creators have explicitly stated with the introduction of Story Spotlight cards that they want to convey a story through the action of opening packs of cards and flipping through them. If the story doesn't work on that level, it's a fair criticism to say that the story doesn't work--to contest that would be like saying that Star Wars is excellent, emotional, moving storytelling. This is true of the smaller stuff, but most people have only seen the mainline films which just aren't as good.
*edit: Sigh is right, it's the Ever Given. Historical accuracy, eat your heart out.
Lol. Common misconception, but it's not Evergreen, it's Evergreen's Monster.
The ship is the Evergreen Shipping Agency Corporation's Ever Given
Yeah, but Kaldheim was spoiled across more than an entire month with a break for the Christmas-New Year's holiday week-and-a-half. (December 15-January 19!! https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/where-find-kaldheim-previews-2020-12-15)
I'm much happier having the spoilers take only a week, even if it means we don't have anything over the weekend. Of course, I'd rather have it be a week with NO break, but that's clearly too much to ask from WotC...
I'm much happier having the spoilers take only a week, even if it means we don't have anything over the weekend. Of course, I'd rather have it be a week with NO break, but that's clearly too much to ask from WotC...
Spoilers are only taking a week? What happened to two weeks of spoilers?
Also, just looking through what We've got now, I haven't seen this MDFC mentioned. I really love this pairing! A spell-first front side (my preferred spells-matter method), and a rummaging burn spell. Neat! Also apparently "ward" is a mechanic, which is interesting.
I also really love this apprentice. A sweet bridge between lands-tempo and spellcasting.
For people that like creature-first spells decks, this is a very straightforward and powerful option:
Also, just looking through what We've got now, I haven't seen this MDFC mentioned. I really love this pairing! A spell-first front side (my preferred spells-matter method), and a rummaging burn spell. Neat! Also apparently "ward" is a mechanic, which is interesting.
I also really love this apprentice. A sweet bridge between lands-tempo and spellcasting.
For people that like creature-first spells decks, this is a very straightforward and powerful option: