"Waaah there's a few cards I don't like in the latest set! This game sucks now! Everything should just always stay the same because I'm threatened by change! I'm going to quit! I'm quitting! SOMEONE PAY ATTENTION TO MEEEE" - approximately 10% of MtG players on all forums, ever.
I like the Planeswalker signature spells and would like to see a bit more. Perhaps two commons, an uncommon, and a rare. It's fun to having them working together.
I like the planeswalker cards with the amount there currently are. 2 per color (10 per set) feels right, I think if you put to much more they show up to much and the game becomes less about "magic" and more about "planeswalkers" who are not you, the player. I like the sense that these other planeswalkers exist and have an impact in this world, but they are not the only thing or even a very prominent thing that exists in this world.
More importantly though, WHERE CAN WE GET THIS EPIC x3 PLANESWALKER ART FROM BRAD RIGNEY!? :D
Increasingly, we're doing this sort of speculative commissioning for illustrations we know will find homes in time... Because they're commissioned "out of context," they tend to be destined for core sets.
Aegis Angel having no context makes me wonder about the non-existent context of Core Sets :P.
I understand the imagination it takes to think of how I, as a planeswalker, got from Zendikar to Mirrodin. I use Elf spells from (the Eldrazi overran) Zendikar because maybe I befriended a tribe there and gained copies of them into my spellbook/library of memories. I then got out of there and hopped to Mirrodin for refuge. There I sympathized with Ezuri, Renegade Leader and gained his caricature and put into spell form on my travels as the land corroded.
However, I don't understand how I went to an imaginary fantasy land the core set represents, and how I took an imaginary Dungrove Elder from there and now suddenly know as a spell. Any thoughts?
We've been doing "Planeswalker signature" spells and creatures such as Garruk's Companion and Jace's Erasure. What do you think of these cards?
I like the Planeswalker signature's. People argue it's boring or unflavorful, but the PWers are the most interesting characters of the series. They're protagonists, and their friends/spell are iconic. They automatically have flavor (and the artist realizes this) due to their associated PWer. You don't have think up new flavor, but it's still flavorful.
Core set PWers still need more story, though. All of them, not just most.
You know in Personal Sanctuary she is content and completely unworried not because of reading and food, but because she's practically lost in meditation!
The new Fog no combat damage is dealt because your forces have already attacked and suddenly been emersed in pace-stopping fog. But they're just stopped, and that doesn't feel realistic to me. I get it, but the old version works better.
In the last version, they are assaulting and hit into fog, and they keep assaulting! They are wildly flailing hopelessly through a reddish, confused color of fog that shows reckless abandon. That's why they don't deal damage, because they don't even know what they're doing anymore! The new version makes them seem cautious and systematic, as if there's a chance they'll deal some combat damage this turn if they keep the move on, but this is hopeless as the fog is like being trapped in a labyrinth. I get it.
The World War reference struck me, because the new Fog has soldiers on it with helmets that remind me of the Nazis for some reason :P.
Goblin Grenade is too realistic to be funny, ever, for me. Maybe if he had a confused look and a backpack of TNT instead— Crazy, like Mudbutton Torchrunner . Instead he seems like a guy who got into some trouble with loansharks and the mob got ahold of him.
Dungrove Elder is awesome. It perfectly embodies this idea of the more forest it has, the more it can borrow from it and grow. Not sure about Hexproof, though.
I was going to email you this, but I got an "unknown author" error. I'll post it here instead, buried alive in the mess of the forums.
Dear Brady Dommermuth,
Regarding your article "Eleventeen M12 Art Tidbits. Also, Plants":
You asked about Planeswalker named cards in your article, and I wanted to chime in. One of my friends told me about this "cool card" that gave you unlimited hand size, and it was named "Jace's Journal" or something like that -- you know, Spellbook with a different name. If you're going to make the planeswalkers have unique, named spells, then they really ought to be fairly unique in their function. It isn't fun for "Chandra's Mild Annoyance" to be functionally identical to Lightning Bolt, even if it does make justifiable sense. In the other direction, Soul's Fire could have been Ajani's, because it was designed to demonstrate how he enhances other people.
I expect it's a fine line to tread, but please try to make sure the planeswalker's spells are unique and distinct -- both distinct from the rest of Magic, and distinctive of them. That's more important to me than "how many" of them I like or don't like. How many will just be dictated by how involved the planeswalkers are in the events in a block.
I also wanted to say that I liked how Jace vs. Chandra handled the old cards. Seal of Fire isn't "Chandra's Burning Seal", but she does feature prominently in the art. I'm completely happy with that -- I'd be surprised if the planeswalkers didn't know some staple spells.
Goblin Grenade is too realistic to be funny, ever, for me. Maybe if he had a confused look and a backpack of TNT instead— Crazy, like Mudbutton Torchrunner . Instead he seems like a guy who got into some trouble with loansharks and the mob got ahold of him.
I agree! The art for the new Goblin Grenade just seems all wrong. Take away the disturbing, "this is your punishment for crossing the Ghost Council of Orzhova " feel of it, it also just doesn't make any sense. The earlier versions of the card depicted it as a sort of goblin suicide bombing--the kind of sneak attack that you just can't acheive with your standard Goblin Cannon or Grapeshot Catapult . If you're just going to tie him up, stuff him full of TNT, and throw him at your enemy, why bother with the goblin at all?
And the mission was accomplished perfectly if you ask me. That's the best looking angel I've ever seen on a Magic card.
As for signature spells for Planeswalker, I like the cards but I deslike their flavors. Mostly because I htink the Planeswalker characters are boring, bland, and just a marketing way of selling more products to most of the new players.
For linking a card to Gatherer without writting the name of said card for readers, use the autocard brackets together with and equal sign and right the name of the real card. Then put the message you want inside the tags, like you would do with autocarding. Like this:
I like storm crow because I really like crows in real life, as an animal, and the card isn't terribly stupid, but packs a good deal of nostalgia and also a chunck of the game's history. So it's perhaps one of the cards I have most affection to, but not because "lol storm crow is bad hurr hurr durr".
Although I do assume you deliberately refer to them (DCI) as The Grand Imperial Convocation of Evil just for the purposes of making them sound like an ancient and terrible conspiracy.
Now, now. 1994 doesn't quite qualify as "ancient".
Oh, it's a brilliant plan. You see, Bolas was travelling through shadowmoor, causing trouble, when he saw a Wickerbough Elder with its stylin' dead scarecrow hat. Now, Bolas being Bolas took the awesome hat and he put it on his head, but even with all his titanic powers of magic he couldn't make it fit. He grabbed some more scarecrows, but then a little kithkin girl asked if he was trying to build a toupee. "BY ALL THE POWERS IN THE MULTIVERSE!" he roared, "I WILL HAVE A HAT WORTHY OF MY GLORY." and so he went through his Dark Lore of Doom (tm) looking for something he could make into a hat that would look as stylish on him as a scarecrow does on a treefolk. He thought about the Phyrexians, but they were covered in goopy oil that would make his nonexistant hair greasy. He Tried out angels for a while but they didn't sit quite right. Then, he looked under "e" (because in the Elder Draconic alphabet, "e" for Eldrazi is right next to "h" for Hat) in his Dark Lore of Doom and saw depictions of the Eldrazi, and all their forms. "THIS SHALL BE MY HAT!" he declared, poking a picture of Emrakul, "AND WITH IT I WILL USHER IN A NEW AGE OF DARKNESS -- ER, I MEAN A NEW AGE OF FASHION!"
And so Nicol Bolas masterminded the release of the Eldrazi.
The last couple days have been roughly every perverse fetish imaginable, but it only got "creepy" when speculation on Mother of Runes's mob affiliation came up?
I like to think up what I consider clever names for my decks, only later to be laughed at by my wife. It kills me a little on the inside, but thats what marriage is about.
Of course, the best use [of tolaria west ] is transmuting for the real Tolaria.
Absolutely. I used to loose to my buddy's Banding deck for ages, it was then that I found out about Tolaria , and I was finally able win my first game.
Browbeat is a card that is an appropriate deck choice when there's no better idea available. "No better idea available" was pretty much the running theme of Odyssey era.
Modern is like playing a new tournament every time : you build a deck, you win with it, don't bother keeping it. Just build another, its key pieces will get banned.
I always find it helpful when im angry to dress up in an owl costume and rub pennies all over my body in front of a full body mirror next to the window.
Dymecoar:
Playing Magic without Blue is like sleeping without any sheets or blankets. You can do it...but why?
Omega137:
Me: "I love the moment when a control deck stabilizes. It feels so... right." Omega137: "I like the life drop part until you get there, it's the MtG variant of bungee jumping"
Zigeif777:
Just do it like Yu-Gi-Oh or monkeys: throw all the crap you got at them and hope it works or else the by-standers (or opponents) just get dirty and pissed.
Normally it's difficult to pick up on your jokes/sarcasm. But this one's pretty much out there. Good progress. You have moved up to Humanoid. You'll be Human in no time.
I’m an old Beta era player, and I would like to say that I miss the days of simple oil, acrylic, and watercolor paint art in the MtG cards. The old cards (ex. Alpha, Arabian Nights, Legends, etc.) had a really warm feel to them and just felt classy. Furthermore, the objects were simply placed in the art like a museum gallery (ex. Feldon’s Cane).
I really don’t find the new computer spammed art to appealing. It just feels jumbled and too much is going on in the picture that obscures the name of the card, plus it looks faked. I guess a real world example of this would be to compare Van Gogh and Michelangelo to a painting made by a high school student.
Old Card Art: Black Lotus a card with a simple hand painted elegant example of Nelumbo nucifera.
New Card Art: A lotus made of digital laser beams crawling with chromatic ninja spiders with a fiery background and a skull watermark that looks like a trashy tattoo.
Also, I think it’s sad that in a lot of articles it’s referenced that the pictures have to be hardcore. What about cards with art that just make you smile (ex. Shahrazad)? Or a card that shows real emotion (ex. Miscalculation) not just “rawwr, I’m swinging an digitized battle axe as big as a dinosaur.”
I know that it’s all about the market, and that the young new players like violence and realistic blood, but come on people show some of the old taste and class.
