The MageLaughlin Group, s2e1

Yoohoo.

No copyright infringement intended, I suppose...well, I guess being pacted (if it's even that) with a...whatever this is-

Hey, I have a NAME, you know. All those previous suckers had to know who they were signing up with.

Oh yeah? Then are you going to tell me it?

Nope.

Dick.

Anyway, since we're all going full Folie à deux here, I'l start by saying I think that WoTC as usual has good ideas and (mostly) poor execution of them. Urabrask got like 5 lines of screentime despite being a praetor, Lukka was a waste of a character, and everything else kind of just...happened all at once. WoTC fixing Chandra and Nissa's relationship status is definitely a good thing to have happened but beyond that I already feel like I've forgotten the majority of the story and cards. A lot of PWs have been conveniently implied to have functionally lost their sparks (nothing at all to do with selling them in Commander, no) and Zhalfir's back, but overall the whole thing just lacked the delivery I needed to care about it.

Trying to think of something good besides the obvious... good on them for getting the Ixalan writer back just for Vraska and Jace, I guess? I think that dynamic of glimpsing into their characters has been interesting when pulled off right and it's shame next time we see them they'll probably just be bungled again.

Frankly, knowing the questions ahead of time, this is probably going to be a pretty grouchy panel from my end of the ice-cold table - I didn't have much love for the story and you'll probably be immediately able to tell which question I wrote in even if sdj hid all the names for some reason.

Editor's note: Angery rant incoming!



She recorded herself as a data-kami of sorts that somehow isn't a ghost according to Kaya. Despite, you know, the type for Kami being spirit. So basically no one important died, yayyyyy!!!!!!! That second sentence is sarcasm in case it wasn't clear.

One thing I do think I want to bring up though is that Aftermath's packaging implies that we'll be seeing a lot of desparked Planeswalkers - Karn and Tamiyo, for example, but at least one leak implies this will also happen to Nissa. I think this is worth bringing up because it's been pointed out that WoTC seems to be doing this to try and bring "iconic" Planeswalkers down to Legendary Creature level because it's an easy to way to bridge the divide between Commanders being the 'face' of casual and Planeswalkers being currently marketed as the "main characters".

I don't think we'll end up in a bizarro Time-Spiral future where PW cards disappear entirely - they've become a core part of the game to represent characters to pay attention to - but it is something worth paying attention to as things go forward.



It pretty much boils down to "killing characters prevents you from using them in the future". This is bad from a company perspective because it means one less character to sell. You can observe the same problem in comic books.

Editor's note: And now, for some insightful rambling commentary!

To try and not beat a dead horse with this point, though - I think this is where certain long running series like Kamen Rider and Yugioh can be interesting, because they constantly rotate casts every year or season. This allows them to get a lot more risky with permanent consequences or killing characters off, because a new cast is expected to come in anyway next year and give a pseudo-clean slate. Of course, since these products are targeted primarily at kids, they usually revive or undo it by the end of the show, but even then it's at least more interesting than what Magic is currently doing.

Perhaps a better example now that I think of it would be things like:
- The Yugioh cardgame - where the characters aren't as high profile as the anime, so iconic characters die/turn evil and have it stick much more regularly than the Yugioh anime.
- Series like Heroes of Might and Magic, where the timeline is allowed to progress over centuries (and thus characters can grow old, die, get corrupted, etc...)
- Darkest Dungeon - I bring this one up specifically because II recently came out, but the series is willing to experiment with its roster and not have everyone directly carry over like you might expect. Some of the player characters from the first game simply aren't playable anymore, but instead return in unexpected ways as friends or foes, showing that nothing is the same after the original Darkest Dungeon. (This in particular is a good example of how to do "stakes without death", which people often use to criticize those that say the problem with MOM is that no one of importance died.)

I think Magic would benefit from this acceptance if they were willing to risk the growing pains of having some kind of permanent impact that actually matters rather than sealing away or just desparking characters so that they'll inevitably be back for the next Commander precon.

One last thing I want to bring up is that I think it also raises the question of "Why even follow Magic story?" I've found two answers so far:
- Magic is a good card game, just with a story on the side. It's easy to get attached to one when it's linked with the other.
- It is interesting to see the world change and develop, even if it often has the emotional weight of a paper bag on execution. It was well received back in Time Spiral, it was well received back in Scars block, and it was well received in the Dominara and Brother's War sets. WoTC does know how to do callbacks well, and has really built on the formula of "every set is someone's first set" with the step of "Do you remember your first set? Here's a card you might like!"

Ok, looks like neither of them are coming, so we're gonna hafta drop them permanently.  I'm also running a bit late (sorry), as I was in Walnut Creek, seeing my new niece!  I'm an uncle!  Still getting used to the idea.  I left mylaptop at home, as it was only a 3 day/2-night trip, and I wanted to be completely present.  Dad was moved to tears when he laid eyes on little Katrina for the first time in person.

Anyway, our next Question comes from ZephyrPhantom : What does everyone think of Battles?

I like them! I don't really have a lot of stuff to say about them, but I'm looking forward to playing with them.

Sorry for the delay - it's been a busy week. Did my usual Monday stuff today, will answer tomorrow, promised

So, for me, Battles feel a little flash-in-the-pan.  Sure, there's new design space, and that's always kew when it happens, but the initial execution feels a little lackluster.  Admittedly, the track record for wholly new design paradigms has usually been overshooting the hoped for power level by about an order of magnitude, leading to broken cards, then broken hearts when those broken cards can't ever be reprinted, so it's nice (or at the very least, uncomfortably novel) to see that WotC's actually learning from their mistakes for once.

I mean, sure, some of the designs are interesting, but they really don't grab me as much as, say, Classes do.  Frankly, in terms of Sieges, I'd rather have more of these.



Ok, our next Question also comes from ZephyrPhantom: How does everyone feel about the compleated Planeswalkers getting ripped apart like redshirts?

If I'm allowed to be brutally honest here, I say good riddance. We've had some of these characters since the planeswalker type was introduced, so it'll be nice to clear up the roster a bit. *Shrugs*

But the fan favorites! What about Jace! Or Nahiri! How-

Look, I wouldn't have as many problems with them if they didn't show up so much. I would be fine with some of them just retiring to some to some minor plane, but if mass slaughter is WOTC's solution, that works too. Besides, we can always bring them back for core sets and the like.

I do agree ZephyrPhantom though, I think it could have been handled better. 

Yeah, as pretty much already mentioned, I would have hoped for even more consequences than what we got in the end. One minor character, plus an even minor one died – and one got turned into a memory or whatever..

Honestly what interests me more is how they'll apparently handle planeswalker from now on since it seems like some / many / most / lost their spark – but definitely not all of them, apparently?



Please believe me when I'm saying I'm not making this up: As some of you know I've pondered about designing a set based on the plane of Luvion, which I chose to portrait as an island filled water world? The set's story was supposed to be about following the route of the Istia, a long lost famous ship. The two most important characters were supposed to by my faerie planeswalker Ssthyn messing and playing games with with the navigator Aila, famous for being able to find a route to every location you'd name – ending with the latter indeed finding the ship and then as a final bet with the faerie looking for a route into and throuh the blind eternities towards another plane.. I get the feeling this character concept won't be as interesting anymore in the near future..

Do you remember Delkor and how I made cards that gave players storm counters for doing various actions? You wouldn't bElieve what set came out sometime after it finished.

I think at least one set in MSE's history has also called the Gatewatch's existence well in advance, as well as the fact it'd fight Bolas at some point.

It seems kind of like a monkeys with typewriters situation overall - with enough monkeys typing, generating anything is possible. Even the things WoTC will eventually decide on years later.



Initially I was with the crowd that said yes, because that logically makes sense. After thinking about it? No. It's not even the writers, really, the problem starts at the top with the people giving these tight deadlines and weird decisions like influencing pretty much everything that happened in the War of the Spark novel. I'm sure with the right conditions the writers might've been able to focus on smaller stories while still conveying the same tension, but it's the combined demand of writing a story where every character is mandated to appear and doing so in a short time that ruined the story. The writers needed some kind of IRL out, and they weren't given it.

tl;dr I think it's less of a writer problem and more of a management problem.

Two years ago? This storyline started That recently? I thought it was three years ago at least!

Well shit. That- That explains a lot.

Two years though? They couldn't have given it another year or two?

Huh.

All excellent points.  The biggest problem with this style of storytelling, where there's a huge buildup, then an almost complete and total release of tension (like a right triangle) is that it only really happens in storytelling.  Take, for instance, WWII--

Ral: Way to show your Jewish roots there, boychik.

Shutup.  How long ago did it end?  September 2nd, 1945.  That's almost 78 years ago, and geopolitics & culture is STILL dealing with the fallout of that (not to mention the literal fallout of the existence of nuclear weapons).  And most of that geopolitical snarl is from the Cold War, which was fallout from WWII, so we're also dealing with fallout from fallout.  Fallout², if you like.  As long as people baselessly hate with a seething passion, no sense, and even less intelligence (or as I like to say "Your hate makes you stupid"), we'll prolly always be dealing with the fallout of that damn war of one man's madness.

So you see, the denoument, if we want even a jot of more reality, should take longer than the buildup, by a factor of possible a couple decimal places.  And frankly, "Oh noes, they're no longer planeswalkers!  But oh look, Omenpaths!  So they can still travel between planes!" reeks of clichéd writing.

OTOH, if we get two weddings (#GruulFriends #SultaiHospital), I'll be happy.

Ral: Dang, schizophrenic much?



And finally, our Fifth Question, from me: How would you handle bringing Teferi out of his coma? (Wrong answers only.)

Ummm...could we get some context, or are we just supposed to file this under Noodle Implements, and leave our imaginations to wander in horror?

Well, obviously Teferi will awaken after Dominaria^tm is being devoured by the new eldrazi titan, hitherto unmentioned but totally existent, Zhulodok^tm! His presence will cause a cascade of time anomalies that miraculously pull a younger Nicol Bolas^tm, freshly sparked, who picks up where old Bolas left of. His machinations shall stir Emrakul^tm, who breaks free and has an eldritch slappy fight with Zhulodok^tm and cause the both of them to teleport away. Zhulodok will fall backwards in time and be shattered into the original three titans, and Teferi shall rise only to get possessed by Future!Teferi who is evil and stuff.

Or he just wakes up, looks around, and decides that a coma is way safer than fighting whatever the latest multiversal Villain Of The Week is.