How do you interact with MtGs flavor?

[onering]

Yeah, centering the traditional/modern conflict would have done a lot to make it fit it's aesthetic better.

Again, so much of this can be attributed to the decision to only spend one set on most planes. That just means that everything needs to be rushed out the door, and there's no time for Creative to actually develop the story and its themes. I mean this both in terms of the finished product (the story speeds by and the exploration of the world is often shallow because there are simply too few cards and too little space to allow it to develop), but also behind the scenes. Creative is on a tight schedule and has to push the stories out the door too quickly. That quite honestly promotes leaning on gimmicky themes because they are easier to push out quickly and require less work to make "work" than stories and themes that have to actually be developed. They also provide an easier guide for Creative to churn out the story and world building, they can just latch onto the gimmick and ask "ok, what are the tropes associated with this genre and how can we use those to do most of the worldbuilding quick and easy?"

[5colorsrainbow]

Again, so much of this can be attributed to the decision to only spend one set on most planes. That just means that everything needs to be rushed out the door, and there's no time for Creative to actually develop the story and its themes. I mean this both in terms of the finished product (the story speeds by and the exploration of the world is often shallow because there are simply too few cards and too little space to allow it to develop), but also behind the scenes. Creative is on a tight schedule and has to push the stories out the door too quickly. That quite honestly promotes leaning on gimmicky themes because they are easier to push out quickly and require less work to make "work" than stories and themes that have to actually be developed. They also provide an easier guide for Creative to churn out the story and world building, they can just latch onto the gimmick and ask "ok, what are the tropes associated with this genre and how can we use those to do most of the worldbuilding quick and easy?"

I said more details in own thread but TLDR: I think this was an issues wizards always gonna face due to 30+ years they have used up a lot of the high /traditional fantasy and in order to keep making more planes and more kinds of sets to play they have to explore more subgenres of fantasy. The one set structure put gas on this but we already saw them needing to do "gimmicks" sets in blocks in order to make them stand out.

[Jemolk]

Again, so much of this can be attributed to the decision to only spend one set on most planes. That just means that everything needs to be rushed out the door, and there's no time for Creative to actually develop the story and its themes. I mean this both in terms of the finished product (the story speeds by and the exploration of the world is often shallow because there are simply too few cards and too little space to allow it to develop), but also behind the scenes. Creative is on a tight schedule and has to push the stories out the door too quickly. That quite honestly promotes leaning on gimmicky themes because they are easier to push out quickly and require less work to make "work" than stories and themes that have to actually be developed. They also provide an easier guide for Creative to churn out the story and world building, they can just latch onto the gimmick and ask "ok, what are the tropes associated with this genre and how can we use those to do most of the worldbuilding quick and easy?"

I said more details in own thread but TLDR: I think this was an issues wizards always gonna face due to 30+ years they have used up a lot of the high /traditional fantasy and in order to keep making more planes and more kinds of sets to play they have to explore more subgenres of fantasy. The one set structure put gas on this but we already saw them needing to do "gimmicks" sets in blocks in order to make them stand out.

I disagree with this. WotC may not be interested in hiring good enough writers to pull it off, but 30 years isn't even close to enough to truly drain that well. It is more difficult, certainly, but the real problem is the lack of ability to actually explore much of anything with a single set. The good ideas don't get a chance to shine, for one, but also, all the ideas too shallow to work if you had to explore it for an entire block start to seem like they could work well enough for a single set -- and they don't. If a story doesn't have enough depth for three sets, it probably isn't worth telling. And if it does, then forcing it all into one is just wasted potential.

[onering]

Again, so much of this can be attributed to the decision to only spend one set on most planes. That just means that everything needs to be rushed out the door, and there's no time for Creative to actually develop the story and its themes. I mean this both in terms of the finished product (the story speeds by and the exploration of the world is often shallow because there are simply too few cards and too little space to allow it to develop), but also behind the scenes. Creative is on a tight schedule and has to push the stories out the door too quickly. That quite honestly promotes leaning on gimmicky themes because they are easier to push out quickly and require less work to make "work" than stories and themes that have to actually be developed. They also provide an easier guide for Creative to churn out the story and world building, they can just latch onto the gimmick and ask "ok, what are the tropes associated with this genre and how can we use those to do most of the worldbuilding quick and easy?"

I said more details in own thread but TLDR: I think this was an issues wizards always gonna face due to 30+ years they have used up a lot of the high /traditional fantasy and in order to keep making more planes and more kinds of sets to play they have to explore more subgenres of fantasy. The one set structure put gas on this but we already saw them needing to do "gimmicks" sets in blocks in order to make them stand out.

Branching out beyond traditional high fantasy was never the problem, and at no point did I imply it was. Further, I didn't say the gimmicks alone were the problem, but the reliance on them as a crutch. Again, in my posts I pointed to Ravnica, a plane with the city world gimmick, and how they gave it a lot more depth and variety instead of just leaning hard into that sole gimmick. Compare that to Duskmourne, or Thunder Junction, which are JUST the gimmick and associated tropes. Or OG Kaladesh, where instead of just doing Steam Punk and going hard on tropes, they used Steam Punk as inspiration and heavily modified it to fit Magic, to the point where the Magic side of it was far stronger than the Steam Punk side of it.

Hell, Aether Drift is a great example of how Wizards shouldn't be anywhere near running out of ideas. Muraganda really should have gotten its own set (Wizards excuse about vanilla matters rings hollow, just a tad more than we see in this very set would be all that is needed to check that box, and no settings are ever about one single mechanic). Amonkhet should have gotten its own stand alone sequel. Avishkar should have gotten a standalone sequel (They changed the government, the system of government, and the damn name of the plane, maybe there's a story to explore there that's a lot more interesting than the Wacky Races?). If they were still sticking to one plane for three sets, that would be THREE YEARS worth of Magic story. Even sticking to 2 sets, that's a year and a half. Just make the sets be drafted separately, like the Ravnica "block" that ended in War of the Spark.

I'll concede that eventually they would still run out of ideas, but sticking to that model would have meant that time would not have arrived until the game is old enough to collect social security. Quite likely, the game would die off before the point was reached. This is an entirely self inflicted problem, one that could have been easily avoided and can still be rectified.

And that doesn't even address the fact that with more sets for a story to cover, the story gets more time to be developed and explored, leading to a better story overall. It's much easier to world build for one world a year than 3 minimum, and you can do a better job at it.

[aliciaofthevast]

I guess I balance the favor but I'm still not gonna play garbage cards in the name of flavor, something has to give (ignore that I still keep Aron, Benalia's Ruin around like that big stupid guy is gonna do something). So, I guess balance between flavor + effect and I just play your cards.

Except Loot, the Pathfinder. It's just cuuuuuttttteeeee and it deserves a deck!! 😍😍

[DirkGently]

Blurg, why did this get moved to magic general discussion? That completely ruins the data tbh. Obviously a standard player isn't going to build from flavor (I mean probably not, I assume).