Of course! I should have been searching for the Magic Cards that weren't "Card"!
General [TLA/TLE] [UB] Avatar: The Last Airbender
- Thread starter Seeker
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So, you claim to define "true old school fans"? And if someone would be playing for 25+ years, be well versed in old mtg lore, loves playing old school cards from pre modern area etc. but doesn't hate UB in general, they wouldn't be a "true old school fan"?
I usually don’t read what you write after you get personal when I make an objective statement about the entire game as a whole. And I also haven’t made any of those claims. But you are appearently, according to yourself, not part of the fans that want the game to stay the way the game was when you fell in love with it. This game is no longer for the fans but for the next fans. The Transformers fans. The Marvel fans. The anime fans. And you.
UB will outnumber Magic sets in 2026. And UB will be a part of Magic at least for the next five years according to Wizards.
Let's be real though, even without UB, the game still wouldn't be the one most of us fell in love with when we first started playing. Heck, it stopped being the game that I fell in love with on October 2, 2015 when Battle for Zendikar was printed and Theros block rotated out of Standard. But then, on October 5, 2018, it became a game I loved even more than the one I fell in love with when Guilds of Ravnica was released.
Magic changes. That's actually one of the big appeals of it, in my opinon. While I think it's fair to argue that they're doing a little bit too much universes beyond stuff at the moment, I don't think that this is going to be a permanent change. Remember when Standard was only going to last 18 months? Or when we were getting two Masters sets per year? Or when FNM promo cards were replaced with tokens? All of these changes were quickly reverted because they just weren't sustainable. I suspect something similar is going to happen with Universes Beyond and we're going to start seeing fewer full sets again.
Talk about "no true Scotsman". Now, I'm relatively new to these forums. Lurked for a while. I don't know y'all as well as you presumably do. But even I can tell you Ravnic is a true "old school" fan of the game. We all are, otherwise we wouldn't be here on an MtG Cube forum. Cube is the ultimate way to express that. People's opinion of UB doesn't change that.
Now, obviously, the game has changed a lot over the last thirty years. The core rules have changed, multiple times in fact. New card types have been introduced. Old favourites have been power crept. I haven't been playing as long as you guys as I only got into the game as an adult; my first booster packs were Core 2019 and Guilds of Ravnica, and the game has changed substantially even since then, both positively and negatively. We got thematically strong crossover sets like D&D, and thematically abhorrent sets like Spiderman. Throne of Eldraine broke the game in half, and so did Ikoria. Strixhaven gave us a new popular cube mechanic in Lessons. March of the Machine: Aftermath is a set that exists. We got the long awaited return to Kamigawa, and it kicked ass. We're getting way too many UB sets, but we're also getting a return to Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, and another novel. There have been ups, and there have been downs, and we've stuck with the game through it all. I much prefer that to the game being stagnant, relentlessly unchanging. As my first set I have a great affection for Guilds of Ravnica, but I'm glad the game isn't just Guilds of Ravnica repeated ad nauseum.
Ultimately, people can like more than one thing. I like the old frame Demonic Tutor and the new frame Demonic Tutor, for different reasons. Some versions look cool but are ultimately impractical, some I'm not really a fan of but I'm sure there's an audience for it. Similarly, people can geek out over Balduvian Hydra and jam it into every deck regardless of theme or format because they just love the card, while also being excited to build a The Tenth Doctor Commander deck because they're a fan of Doctor Who. That doesn't make them less of a fan, "old-school" or otherwise, than somebody who is into Balduvian Hydra but hates the idea of a The Tenth Doctor deck even being possible outside of alters and custom cards.
You're only getting back what you're handing out. You have a strong opinion, and that's fine, laudable even. But ease things up a little.
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Yeah, of course the cards that aren't Cards are the cards that you want! This makes total sense.
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If we must give our grand opinions... I think Avatar was a good choice as the setting for a Magic set, but feel like the implementation got hurt by how WotC designs UB sets (unlike Spiderman, which was just a straight-up bad fit).
First off, there are too many legendary creatures. And sure, it makes sense why - EDH drives a bunch of WotC's decision making, and part of the theoretical appeal of UB sets is that you get to play with your favorite guy as the commander. And in that context, giving players options for what version of that character they get to play means its more likely that someone will find a version they like (see also: @MilesOfficial being pumped that there was a version of Toph he actually wanted to cube with).
This is a laudable goal, but it leads to Mown's problem where the setting feels flat if you don't have existing experience with the source material. I feel like it would've been a much stronger showing if the 28(!) slots used on characters with multiple cards were spent on cards showing off the broader worldbuilding/character arcs/etc. And even then, you'd probably have too many legendary creatures (the ratio is about 1-in-4 cards with the redundant cards and 1-in-7 cards if you remove them), and could move some characters from having their own cards to flavor-text or fun easter eggs in the art.
It'd also let things be more focused. Like, it's baffling to me that the very important character dynamics between Zuko and both Ozai (his dad) and Iroh (his uncle) basically got nothing? In the main set we have Ozai's Cruelty (where it isn't obvious that the kneeling figure is Zuko or that it's portraying him begging his father not to publicly maim him), three cards of Iroh and Zuko working at a tea shop (which probably makes no sense if you don't know the source material), and Iroh standing in the background of Obsessive Pursuit and Zuko, Exiled Prince. No wonder Mown doesn't give a shit about the guy, none of the reasons to give a shit are in the set!
Paired with this, however, was the decision to also have TLE and the scene cards all get spoiled at once, all mixed together. Since TLE also includes legendary creatures (because of fucking course it does, this is 2025 Magic we're talking about), you get even more versions of the same damn character. And of course some of the character stuff that would make the legendary creatures in the main set more resonant got shoved off into TLE (The Art of Tea should've been in the main set with Uncle Iroh!), so now you have even less of a chance to figure out why so-and-so matters.
Avatar has the right kind of bones for a magic set, but I think they let the fan-bait carry things a bit too much.
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Oh, and like... I recommend watching the original Avatar series if you haven't and it seems even vaguely interesting to you. Yes, it is a children's show, but it's a children's show in the same way that The Little Prince is a children's book.
Interestingly, MaRo recently published an article on exactly this scenario, getting a UB design to resonate with people not familiar with the source material, as apparently he wasn't at all familiar with Avatar before going into playtests for the set. It's a good read and I recommend it if you're at all interested in Magic design, but notably it never actually touches on the issue of characters with multiple cards from this perspective, or potentially missing pieces of the puzzle.
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lolOh shiz more people commenting. You love these kinds of topics!
The truth is that you can vote with your words and your wallet. If you don’t fight back then you are part of the problem.
Clearly, you're being outvoted on both fronts. For my part, I did the LotR prerelease, and had a good time, but haven't actually bought any sealed UB product otherwise, unless you count the Transformers stuff that I ended up acquiring via BRO. I've bought singles from a few other UB sets like Fallout, FF and 40k. I couldn't care less about Marvel so even if the Spiderman set wasn't shit I'd probably still be skipping it. I might pick up some Avatar, haven't decided yet.
That's what "voting with your wallet" means. You cast your vote and everybody else casts theirs. There's nothing to "fight" here.
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Well, I did read those too, and I'm able to gather that Iroh is some kind of mentor figure to Zuko that cares about him, about tea I guess although I don't see what's especially noteworthy about that, and can seemingly be quite a badass. My issue is that I mostly just get a highlight reel of things that happen, like Zuko seems like a very developed characters who experiences a fairly involved character arc (as seen in the very confusing Fire Lord Zuko card having three different art treatments that I would guess span three seasons of the show), but I don't really know the order in which they happen and why they play out the way they do. I love the "I have changed." That's great buddy, what changed? Why did you disobey in the first place, and how did your mission pan out? What are you conflicted about? Who is brainwashing Jet and why? Why is Aang visiting the Realm of Koh?
And do I even want to know these answers? If you're a fan then you already recognize the thing, and if this set makes you curious, would it cheapen the watching experience if the set told you all these things that are probably emotional climaxes and sources of intrigue? I'm always going to compartmentalize the world as "not magic" anyway, I only did this exercise because I enjoy disagreeing with people on the internet and wanted to explore the veracity of a random statement. Although my thesis is that I want less plot and more world building anyway, so in that sense I'm not actually in favor of including all that, I'm just tangentially also criticizing the way wotc decided to focus on the events of the story given the fact that they did.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
The truth is that if someone doesn’t fight back, they like different things than you. It might not align with your ideals, but it’s not inherently wrong to like UB. I don’t like that you call people who like UB a problem Velrun. I too wish UB didn’t exist, but that doesn’t give us the right to act morally superior to those who do like it.
Nope, because they messed up and gave the emotional climaxes equal billing to random side characters that only show up in a couple episodes!
I agree with you on worldbuilding > plot for Magic, for the record - it plays to the strengths of the medium better. I just think that if you're going to do something, you should commit.
Also, as a side note, I think it's kinda funny that you mention 40k as one of the three UBs that feel Magic-y to you, when to me it really sticks out. I think it's the guns and the absolutely horrible frame? Meanwhile stuff like Benevolent River Spirit or Firebending Student have a very Magic-y vibe to me.
If I had to put UB sets in some kind of order from most Magic-y to least Magic-y for me, I'd probably go with something like D&D -> LotR/Baldur's Gate -> the non-directly-character-focused parts of Avatar -> Aetherdrift -> Final Fantasy/40k -> the character-focused parts of Avatar -> Dr. Who/Assassin's Creed -> Spiderman/Turtles.
One person's problem is another person's pleasure!
I have some news for you.
Nah it is wrong because they’ve changed the product away from what it was to what it is. Not small micro changes that we can discard as growing or evolving. But literally changing the whole product. So now they don’t cater to their fans who made the company what it is and made them all this money. They literally wouldn’t be able to do all this crap if they hadn’t sold Magic products in the past. Now they cater to the NEXT fans. Wizards don’t care about you anymore. They care about Fortnite fans. For a brief moment. Then Naruto fans. For a brief moment. Then Super Mario fans. For a brief moment. If you don’t understand that they have changed who they want to please then I cannot help you because you get spiteful and have stopped learning from the one who has the knowledge. The majority on this website isn’t right just because you are the majority. Vote with your words and your wallet. If you say ‘Ash fans are eating good this set then they’ve got you!’
Give it a rest, man. That's, what, the third time you've spouted this exact line? People are doing this. You just don't like the result.
God forbid people like different things to you. Spiderman and Walking Dead notwithstanding, UB has proven exceptionally popular by all metrics. Sales, player engagement, what-have-you. Sure, it's undoubtably popular with a somewhat different demographic to the people who were cracking boxes of Revised and are still somewhat salty that artifacts don't have a brown frame anymore. Sure, it's what you personally hate about the direction the game has taken. But it is not inherently wrong to have a different opinion to you, or to enjoy a different subset of Magic products to you.
The target market has changed somewhat ("changed who they want to please", as you put it), but I'd say it's more accurate to say it's expanded. I've seen a huge number of people say that they got into the game because of Doctor Who, or Lord of the Rings, or whatever. Some of them will just stick to that aspect, but others enjoy the core gameplay of Magic, try out Magic IP sets and get hooked that way. Maybe they play Standard on Arena. Maybe they build a Modern deck and start trying to do well at FNM. Go to prereleases. Build a cube. Buy an Unlimited Black Lotus. Who knows? We won't, if they never get introduced to the game in the first place.
Gatekeeping people out of Magic - calling them problematic, their presence and opinions something to fight against - is ultimately far more harmful to the game's long-term health than any UB set.
Yes, we're the ones who are getting spiteful
do you not realise how nuts it sounds, saying we've "stopped learning from the one who has the knowledge"? Like you're some kind of Magic: the Gathering oracle? You're not an oracle, you're the guy with a sandwich board and a megaphone shouting about the end times at anybody passing them in the street.I am not going to give it a rest. If people keep the conversation going then I am not going to be the one to leave you hanging.
You appearently don’t know me very well. I have experience enough to know better.
No. It is pushing out the players that made the game what it is. Without those players the game would have died out in the 90th. Expanding is the wrong word to use. Now they cater to new fans and screw the existing ones.
Gatekeeping, no.
Calling people out for creating problems, yes!
I am not trying to keep people from playing Magic. I am trying to make people vote with their wallet. Proxy so Wizards learn the hard way that the existing fans don’t like children’s anime shows. So play the Magic you want. Just make sure Wizards see 0 Dollars. And get your voice out there. So we can get back our game before they have ruined too much and Wizards can get back into making be big bucks creating their own game again.
You appearently don’t know me very well. I have experience enough to know better.
No. It is pushing out the players that made the game what it is. Without those players the game would have died out in the 90th. Expanding is the wrong word to use. Now they cater to new fans and screw the existing ones.
Gatekeeping, no.
Calling people out for creating problems, yes!
I am not trying to keep people from playing Magic. I am trying to make people vote with their wallet. Proxy so Wizards learn the hard way that the existing fans don’t like children’s anime shows. So play the Magic you want. Just make sure Wizards see 0 Dollars. And get your voice out there. So we can get back our game before they have ruined too much and Wizards can get back into making be big bucks creating their own game again.
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rofl
Nah, I think I've seen enough to know you very well indeed. Enough to know it's not worth engaging with you any further.
Moving swiftly onwards... I actually had something I wanted to ask folks about. Do you have some kind of threshold of card quantity you aim to reach for a new mechanic that you want to include in your cubes? Or are you happy to have a one-off use if it's otherwise a good fit? The question feels particularly relevant for Avatar with its four bending mechanics that are unlikely to see any usage outside of these two sets. Like, maybe you really like Firebending Student and Foggy Swamp Visions but don't really see including any other Firebending or Waterbending cards. Is it worth the extra comprehension complexity?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I like mechanics to pop up a minimum of three times (only counting instances with reminder text) in the cube, but I’ll allow singletons if the card is really making an archetype hum
I personally have no problem with isolated mechanics as long as there's reminder text and the mechanic itself isn't too annoying/complicated, but I know it really bugs some people on here.
Like, Firebending Student specifically is super straightforward conceptually (and pushes you towards combat tricks in your Prowess deck instead of just loading up on cantrips, which is neat), so the extra "cost" of having to read some italics doesn't matter a lot to me.
Like, Firebending Student specifically is super straightforward conceptually (and pushes you towards combat tricks in your Prowess deck instead of just loading up on cantrips, which is neat), so the extra "cost" of having to read some italics doesn't matter a lot to me.
I'm honestly pretty convinced by this. I was struck by what you said, and on reflecting on this, I was more impressed with individual card designs from Avatar and Final Fantasy (and UB more generally) than with individual card designs from in-universe sets. I think they're more flavorful and creative card-by-card still, but the "world building" element is not as consistent of a through line, particularly in Avatar.
Still, when I do the same exercise as you with Bloomburrow or Duskmourn, I'm left wanting. I don't feel as though I understand these worlds at all, even though I've devoured the Planeswalker guides and online stories. I feel like they're second or third drafts, inconsistent and unfocused visions of possible worlds that could be, forced to fit within Magic's five colors. They don't feel "fleshed out", they feel intriguing, sure, but also deeply unsatisfying and amateurish. This is really where my criticism comes from.
That said, I think Bloomburrow does more to capture the imagination than Avatar, which is what I really want from the overall storytelling on a card game like Magic. And to be clear, I've experienced two Final Fantasy games and the first two seasons of Avatar, but I wouldn't say I'm a "fan" of either of these franchises. But my familiarity does change the way I perceive it. Once I was able to engage with the card list as a whole critically, I arrived at a similar conclusion to yours.
See, I like Toph and I'm glad I get a version of her I'm happy to play, but that's 1/10th the joy I got by them printing 5 versions of Urza in My Favorite Set of the Decade The Brother's War. I think the habit of having multiple versions of a creature at different stages works just fine for how Magic storytelling works. I still play Bitter Reunion even though @Seeker is right that Cubes in our vein are much better off with an artifact version of this effect. I'm delighted to have Yawgmoth and Loran represented in my Cube, and Phyrexian Fleshgorger feels like the war beasts I've read of in the most satisfying way.
To me, it's much better than having 30 underdeveloped characters like we saw in DMU, even if that did mean I got my boy Hazezon back in the form of Hazezon, Shaper of Sand.
Yeah, this is the thing. I'm sure it's somewhat intentional (i.e. EOE was done in part to ease in Star Trek), but there is no longer a visual identity to Magic cards. Statistically, only a very small % of the audience is actually buying Secret Lairs (insert joke here about print runs), but even when I play Commander with my more casual friends at someone's house, it's hard to have a single game without a piece of cardboard that looks nothing like a Magic card getting thrown down. I just simply feel like anime won the culture war (sorrynotsorry, it's been my job for nearly 15 years to make this happen), and it's less egregious than half of the "variant" styles we get. I think the Magic version of anime, though, is reasonably well-suited to the game (...most of the time).
Personally, I'd put Aetherdrift below FF/40k. I don't know what a Tyranid is but they feel right at home next to Space Kavu, tbh. Necrons look like "what if Esper was mono-black?" and I mean that as a compliment. It's really only the Space Nazis that feel discordant IMO, which % wise puts it over Aetherdrift. I'd also put EOE and most of the "hat" sets below the "non-directly-character-focused parts of Avatar" section. But yes, I think splitting Avatar out like this is right.
But here's another thing: if you like "classic fantasy" like I do, which sets made in the last few years are the closest to that swords and sorcery environment? Wilds of Eldraine and Tarkir Dragonstorm are the only in-universe sets since The Brother's War in 2022 that, to me, feel like fantasy even with so many sets printed a year. I'll take LotR and Avatar (and even parts of FF) if only to get that setting back in the game at the forefront, to be honest.
There's also the stupid practice of passing on the licensing fees to the customers. Why are these more expensive?? WotC, your margins are absurd already, why are we paying to give you the benefit of forcing someone else to develop your IP?
You always had that option. But you choose to have this conversation. That’s entirely on you. My bet is that you haven’t been around very long and therefore don’t remember how Wizards used to treat their game. What made Magic one of the biggest games in the world. I am happy to get rid of your rofl and your eye rolls and other foolishness. Let the adults do the talking.
I've also been thinking the same thing since FIN. I think WOTC is at its best when they're designing for flavor first like Innistrad / Theros / Kamigawa / Amonket / etc rather than sets that were designed around their mechanics first like Ravnica / Zendikar. Universes Beyond essentially forces R&D into top down design mode (flavor first) rather than bottoms up mode (mechanics first).
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Yeah, makes sense. I suppose it also depends on who's playing your cube; if you're always playing with the same group of experienced players, it'll be easier to justify a one-off compared to relatively new players or a rotating crowd at the LGS.
Reminder text is a big deal for cube IMO, as it just slows down the draft massively if somebody has to look up what Explore does. I try to avoid DFCs for the same reason. I'm not really a stickler for "draft purity" but it does also risk breaking that if somebody instead asks the table what Explore does and now you know their pack contains Sentinel of the Nameless City because that's the only card in the cube that could provoke that question.
I suspect top-down is better at producing resonant individual cards while bottom-up is better at producing a cohesive gameplay experience, and the lightning-in-the-bottle hits when they manage to achieve both, OG Innistrad probably being the most popular example. I know Maro has said in the past that the best sets are those where you can't tell whether it began life as a top-down or bottom-up design, and that's something that UB sets by definition cannot achieve.
Bloomburrow felt really like normal fantasy to me... because I read a lot of Redwall as a child. "The characters are talking animals that do human stuff" is basically free as far as my suspension of disbelief is concerned.