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1 year ago ::
Apr 26, 2012 - 4:29PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2008
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This thread is for discussion of this week's Latest Developments, which goes live Friday morning on magicthegathering.com.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 26, 2012 - 9:08PM
#2
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I fully expect to see a 1-set block at some point soon.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 26, 2012 - 9:14PM
#3
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I appreciated where you came from even if I didn't agree until this article. WOTC rewrote draft and the definition of Magic cards for werewolves and now you claim they are too boring to support 3 sets? They were boring because you crammed them into red/green when that was too narrow. If you can't make DFCs interesting for all of 3 sets, you suck at your job. This is as big a lie as glossing over you all rubber stamped Snapcaster without knowing it interacted with mana leak. You like Big/small/big because it forces people to buy more cards not because you care about us. (content removed) (ORC_Chaos: Edited-Personal Attacks are against the Code of Conduct)
Moderated by
ORC_Chaos
on Apr 26, 2012 - 11:31PM
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1 year ago ::
Apr 26, 2012 - 9:21PM
#4
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Date Joined:
May 18, 2002
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I fully expect to see a 1-set block at some point soon.
Homelands?
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1 year ago ::
Apr 26, 2012 - 9:29PM
#5
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It's not that you can't display a fundamental transformation without adding cards to a set. It's just that doing so makes it feel a lot more like an afterthought, rather than a wholly-realized evolution.
I assure you, Avacyn Restored feels more like an afterthought than any Magic set I've ever seen, both mechanically and story-wise. "Monsters vs. humans... scarier monsters vs. fewer humans... Oh look, now it's angels vs. demons". Changing the theme of a block like that is not a good thing, guys. Not to mention the fact that the story's such a mess that it feels like you slapped it together in ten minutes.
Yes, we need to debut more mechanics, but we get to eliminate most of the residue of the previous two sets.
That "residue" is what makes the third set feel like it belongs in the block at all. Also, eliminating it really upsets the people who liked that stuff.
Look, I like the fact that you're designing more cards than your baseline, but making the third set of a block nearly completely disconnected is not cool. If you want to make a two-set block and a separate one-set block, more power to you, but the way you're currently doing large-small-large is in some kind of limbo between a cohesive block and two separate blocks.
Taking Avacyn Restored for example: The only connection with the previous two sets is Undying and a handful of creatures that have a tribal creature type. That's not enough. It feels like you established a cool block with a cool theme, and then yanked the rug out from under your fans. "Are you enjoying this horror world block? Too bad, now you get angels."
The story is no better. I'm not saying a third-set-twist is impossible, but it has to be more complicated than a sudden Deus Ex Machina like Avacyn's return was. Had her return given humankind a fighting chance once more, allowing them to begin to turn the tides slowly back in their favor, that could have made an interesting plot event and a good third block. Instead, you simply use her return to sweep everything from the first two thirds of the story under the rug. That's lazy, shoddy work and does not make for an exciting tale.
So going forward, if you're going to make a Large-Small-Large structure, please make sure that A) the set still feels like it belongs in the block and fits in the established world; and B) the twist enhances the story rather than detracts from it.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 26, 2012 - 9:33PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Aug 25, 2010
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Perhaps the cards are too interconnected within any given block. Ice Age good, Kamigawa bad.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 26, 2012 - 9:37PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2010
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It seems to me you could create more of an evolving play experience across a block by rolling the sets into each other more.
Taking this block as an example, you could start with Innistrad / Innistrad / Innistrad, move into Dark Ascension / Dark Ascension / Innistrad and finally Avacyn Restored / Avacyn Restored / Dark Ascension.
This makes the new set the focus of each draft experience whilst retaining the link. Alternatively, the composition of the second draft environment could be tweaked based on the story. If the change was gradual, this could be reinforced by running only one pack of the new set, if the change occuring in the story was meant to be more quickly approaching, or the changes between sets more stark, you could run two packs of the new set. You could even go to the extreme and have the story be about a cataclysmic event at the end of the first set so the second draft environment is just three packs of the new set to hammer home the sudden change.
I think a lot of people have looked at Avacyn Restored and bemoaned the lack of opportunity to play with various block interactions within a limited environment. The current Eldrazi style approach being repeated with Avacyn Restored creates such a weird disconnect with the rest of the set. Its pretty safe to say you could easily create, for example, an Avacyn Restored / Avacyn Restored / Dark Ascension limited environment that played totally differently to the first two limited environments which gives you a fresher experience without the disconnect.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 26, 2012 - 9:54PM
#8
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Date Joined:
Jan 20, 2004
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It's not that you can't display a fundamental transformation without adding cards to a set. It's just that doing so makes it feel a lot more like an afterthought, rather than a wholly-realized evolution.
I assure you, Avacyn Restored feels more like an afterthought than any Magic set I've ever seen, both mechanically and story-wise. "Monsters vs. humans... scarier monsters vs. fewer humans... Oh look, now it's angels vs. demons". Changing the theme of a block like that is not a good thing, guys. Not to mention the fact that the story's such a mess that it feels like you slapped it together in ten minutes.
Yes, we need to debut more mechanics, but we get to eliminate most of the residue of the previous two sets.
That "residue" is what makes the third set feel like it belongs in the block at all. Also, eliminating it really upsets the people who liked that stuff.
Look, I like the fact that you're designing more cards than your baseline, but making the third set of a block nearly completely disconnected is not cool. If you want to make a two-set block and a separate one-set block, more power to you, but the way you're currently doing large-small-large is in some kind of limbo between a cohesive block and two separate blocks.
Taking Avacyn Restored for example: The only connection with the previous two sets is Undying and a handful of creatures that have a tribal creature type. That's not enough. It feels like you established a cool block with a cool theme, and then yanked the rug out from under your fans. "Are you enjoying this horror world block? Too bad, now you get angels."
The story is no better. I'm not saying a third-set-twist is impossible, but it has to be more complicated than a sudden Deus Ex Machina like Avacyn's return was. Had her return given humankind a fighting chance once more, allowing them to begin to turn the tides slowly back in their favor, that could have made an interesting plot event and a good third block. Instead, you simply use her return to sweep everything from the first two thirds of the story under the rug. That's lazy, shoddy work and does not make for an exciting tale.
So going forward, if you're going to make a Large-Small-Large structure, please make sure that A) the set still feels like it belongs in the block and fits in the established world; and B) the twist enhances the story rather than detracts from it. Stop patting yourselves on the back and learn from this mistake.
Basically this. RoE was cool because ZEN and WWK were all about "LET'S MAKE ALL THE LAND DROPS" and then RoE was about "HEY WE HAVE LOTS OF MANA LET'S CAST BIG DUDES". That makes sense. Also, the storyline worked quite well. The whole "Ula/Cosi/Emeria" thing going on throughout the block made it feel right. AVR doesn't have any of that. We know who Avacyn is. We know her origin story. We know about the humans of Gavony and the monsters and the conflict between them. On the storyline side, it just falls flat. It's just like retelling Pandora's Box again. We all know the story of Pandora's Box, and we've grown tired of it by now.
Mechanically, WTF? I mean, seriously, WTF? You come off a Graveyard block, and what do you go into? Uh...creatures with flying? Angel-tribal? I don't know if this made sense to you guys, but it doesn't make sense to us.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 26, 2012 - 10:03PM
#9
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Date Joined:
Apr 26, 2012
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I have to agree with what everyone has said. Innistrad has been my favourite block up until avacyn restored because all the good mechanics were taken out. Even undying is only on like 7 or 8 out of 144 creatures and none of them are even any good (in fact one of the demons is better for your oppenent and it is a rare!), there is something a miss when the last set has nothing to do with the block. Not even the new loner mechanic is very good. The lone revenenant isn't bad but the rest are horrible.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 26, 2012 - 10:06PM
#10
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I certainly am hoping to find a few players who are willing to boldly go and set up a draft with a pack of Innistrad, Dark Ascension, Avacyn Restored. Is it the way Wizards wants us to do it? Apparently not. But we were doing double Dark with Innistrad. Heck, we even did Triple Pherexia. It was weird, but weird is good sometimes.
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