[Off-Topic] Community Chat Thread

[Hermes_]

not sure how to feel about this
TCGplayer and eBay: An Exciting New Chapter for the Collectibles Community

Today, we announced that TCGplayer has signed a definitive agreement to join forces with eBay. You may read media headlines over the next few weeks that say "eBay to Acquire TCGplayer".

https://infinite.tcgplayer.com/article/ ... d0f8ecb48d

[Lifeless]

What could possibly go wrong?

[DirkGently]

How did I not know that we got an actual MtG song out of that Kaldheim metal marketing?



It actually kinda slaps too. Certainly better than I would have expected considering the ineptitude of WotC marketing.

[RxPhantom]

Things are feeling weird with MTG right now. I find that I'm into Secret Lairs more than ever, eBay is eating TCGplayer, and the story is becoming a bloodbath. Assuming that compleation is irreversible, the death toll since War of the Spark is:

Gideon
Dack
Tamiyo
Ajani
Jaya

On one hand, I kind of like that the story has stakes and even the most popular of walkers aren't safe. Jaya, though, kinda sticks in my craw. They could have told a few good stories from the perspective of an elderly woman, or maybe we could've seen what happened to her while she was off-screen so long. Instead, they killed her. I'd like them to kill the ones I don't like -OR- the ones that have nowhere to go storewise. Teyo and Sarkhan spring to mind.

[tstorm823]

Things are feeling weird with MTG right now. I find that I'm into Secret Lairs more than ever, eBay is eating TCGplayer, and the story is becoming a bloodbath. Assuming that compleation is irreversible, the death toll since War of the Spark is:

Gideon
Dack
Tamiyo
Ajani
Jaya

On one hand, I kind of like that the story has stakes and even the most popular of walkers aren't safe. Jaya, though, kinda sticks in my craw. They could have told a few good stories from the perspective of an elderly woman, or maybe we could've seen what happened to her while she was off-screen so long. Instead, they killed her. I'd like them to kill the ones I don't like -OR- the ones that have nowhere to go storewise. Teyo and Sarkhan spring to mind.

Ahhh, but if you kill off the popular characters, you get to make new characters popular, which sells more merchandise. It's the Transformers: The Movie special, courtesy of Hasbro.

[kirkusjones]

Kill 'em all. As much as universal resets ala Blackest Night annoy me, a fresh start without the Jacetice League would be a welcome one. Hopefully the D&D movie is good and then maybe Wizards will smarten up and put more money and effort into Magic's story.

EDIT FOR SHAMELESS PLUG - if anyone at Wizards ever visits this site, I'd be happy to share my writing portfolio. HIRE ME, DAMMIT!

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Kill 'em all. As much as universal resets ala Blackest Night annoy me, a fresh start without the Jacetice League would be a welcome one. Hopefully the D&D movie is good and then maybe Wizards will smarten up and put more money and effort into Magic's story.

EDIT FOR SHAMELESS PLUG - if anyone at Wizards ever visits this site, I'd be happy to share my writing portfolio. HIRE ME, DAMMIT!

This × 1000. Seriously WotC, you're losing money every second Kirkus is off your payroll. Go ahead and staunch that bleeding, it's unbecoming of a fortune 500 subsidiary.

[benjameenbear]

Things are feeling weird with MTG right now. I find that I'm into Secret Lairs more than ever, eBay is eating TCGplayer, and the story is becoming a bloodbath. Assuming that compleation is irreversible, the death toll since War of the Spark is:

Gideon
Dack
Tamiyo
Ajani
Jaya

On one hand, I kind of like that the story has stakes and even the most popular of walkers aren't safe. Jaya, though, kinda sticks in my craw. They could have told a few good stories from the perspective of an elderly woman, or maybe we could've seen what happened to her while she was off-screen so long. Instead, they killed her. I'd like them to kill the ones I don't like -OR- the ones that have nowhere to go storewise. Teyo and Sarkhan spring to mind.

I won't comment on the quality of the writing itself re: the new MTG storyline. To do so would be to open up the floodgates of massive, negative criticism that would probably get ME a warning from another mod (although that'd be interesting to see lol).

First things first, I think it's safe to assume compleation is irreversible BARRING SOME SORT OF STUPID TIME-TRAVELING MACGUFFIN. (Oh, hello there Teferi. Your specialty is time-travel? You don't say...) Seriously, the potential plotline is so obviously reminiscent of Avengers Part 4 that I can't roll my eyes hard enough to convey my skepticism. Not only is the writing tired, watered down, abrupt, and missing any real vibrancy imo, it's like they're also copping out on creating any really compelling and unique storyline for Phyrexians. "Hey, that was a blockbuster plotline Marvel did, let's do that" is the real feel I'm getting from the overall plotline.

he random allusion to a Phyrexianized version of the Tree of Life at the end of the most recent story could be interesting. But at this point I'm just waiting to see how badly they botch up what could be a powerfully unique plotline (seriously, the idea of a Phyrexian Tree of Life is actually kind of cool).

So for me personally, I'm glad some of these characters are getting killed off and/or compleated. It actually makes the stakes, as you mention, marginally more compelling to me as a reader and dedicated Vorthos fan. But it's still just a marginal increase on my overall scale of caring.

My unsolicited thoughts on the character deaths:

• Dack's death I haven't read about (or did it happen during the awfulness of Bolas' final Avengers battle? I can't remember. I block out that storyline for my sanity).
• Gideon's ABSOLUTELY ABSURD ARBITRARY sacrifice magic stupidness to save Liliana was stupid and breaks all the rules surrounding his special Planeswalker magic (SO STUPID).
• Tamiyo's compleation actually has stakes since it's constantly reinforced that she was a plane-ending spell in her satchel that the Phyrexians now have access to. I'm interested to see how she develops as a Phyrexian walker who is EXTREMELY familiar with multiple different planes.
• Ajani being a sleeper agent was actually a pretty cool surprise, even if the plot action immediately surrounding this reveal was lame. He's also one of the more badass physical fighters from the Gatewatch, so there's now a mildly interesting gap in the Gatewatch's physical prowess (what with Gideon having martyred himself).
• And Jaya's death was utterly lacking in any emotional vibrance. The relationship between her and Jodah could have been developed faster, more deeply, and more poignantly if the writing team had cared. Her potential melancholy of reminiscing on the past was so underutilized. So it's kind of sad to see Chandra 2.0 die, but it just feels like a hollow death relative to what happened.

Seriously, I should create a separate rant about the diminishing quality of the MTG storyline so I can safely rant there instead of here...

Edit: I bet ANY one of the dedicated Vorthos fans with even a smidgeon of writing talent could do better than what's been put out lately. I vote "Hire @kirkusjones!" FOR SURE.

[benjameenbear]

Things are feeling weird with MTG right now. I find that I'm into Secret Lairs more than ever, eBay is eating TCGplayer, and the story is becoming a bloodbath. Assuming that compleation is irreversible, the death toll since War of the Spark is:

Gideon
Dack
Tamiyo
Ajani
Jaya

On one hand, I kind of like that the story has stakes and even the most popular of walkers aren't safe. Jaya, though, kinda sticks in my craw. They could have told a few good stories from the perspective of an elderly woman, or maybe we could've seen what happened to her while she was off-screen so long. Instead, they killed her. I'd like them to kill the ones I don't like -OR- the ones that have nowhere to go storewise. Teyo and Sarkhan spring to mind.

Ahhh, but if you kill off the popular characters, you get to make new characters popular, which sells more merchandise. It's the Transformers: The Movie special, courtesy of Hasbro.

No... NO.... NOOOOO! The corporate soul-crushing wheel of storyline monetization grinds on!!!

Wait. I just had a thought. What if the Phyrexians are ACTUALLY a representation of the authors fighting against the WOTC corporate machine? And their stories are actually cries for help or depictions of what life is like in their corporate offices? WE MUST SAVE THEM!

[Guardman]

My unsolicited thoughts on the character deaths:

• Dack's death I haven't read about (or did it happen during the awfulness of Bolas' final Avengers battle? I can't remember. I block out that storyline for my sanity).

To give you an idea of just how bad and pointless Dack's death was, I can sum it up thusly:

I don't want to be here.
Oh hey, there is this big battle.
I am fighting and actually feel pretty good about it.
Oh, I just got touched by an eternal... and I'm dead.

His death was literally pointless. It didn't serve the story. It didn't serve the character. It didn't do anything. It felt tacked on like the author decided he needed to kill someone to show "stakes" and picked a name out of a hat. And you know what the sad part is... I'm not even sure if Dack's death makes the top 5 worst things about the book. I mean, number one has to be the action scenes where you can't follow what is going on half the time. Number two is the plot. Number three is pacing. Number four is how all of the payoffs just sort of fall flat. Number five is the ending, which is basically, well Bolas can't die, what if we need him for a big bad later. Number six is the characterizations. So yeah... Honestly I feel like I deserve a gold star for even finishing the book in the first place. Though even I was not brave enough to even attempt the sequel which was somehow much, much worse.

[benjameenbear]

My unsolicited thoughts on the character deaths:

• Dack's death I haven't read about (or did it happen during the awfulness of Bolas' final Avengers battle? I can't remember. I block out that storyline for my sanity).

To give you an idea of just how bad and pointless Dack's death was, I can sum it up thusly:

I don't want to be here.
Oh hey, there is this big battle.
I am fighting and actually feel pretty good about it.
Oh, I just got touched by an eternal... and I'm dead.

His death was literally pointless. It didn't serve the story. It didn't serve the character. It didn't do anything. It felt tacked on like the author decided he needed to kill someone to show "stakes" and picked a name out of a hat. And you know what the sad part is... I'm not even sure if Dack's death makes the top 5 worst things about the book. I mean, number one has to be the action scenes where you can't follow what is going on half the time. Number two is the plot. Number three is pacing. Number four is how all of the payoffs just sort of fall flat. Number five is the ending, which is basically, well Bolas can't die, what if we need him for a big bad later. Number six is the characterizations. So yeah... Honestly I feel like I deserve a gold star for even finishing the book in the first place. Though even I was not brave enough to even attempt the sequel which was somehow much, much worse.

Yeah, that sounds about right for what the entire Bolas novel was about. Poor Dack. Could have been an awesome comic relief character (the accidental gentleman thief could have added some witty banter to the dialogue). Oh well. RIP Dack.

Ok, I think it's time to make that thread. Where we can critically pick apart the ABSOLUTELY AWFUL AWFULNESS that was the War of the Spark. Expect a ping from me soon. This is a topic I can argue and write about endlessly and I STILL feel passionately about.

Wait, there was a sequel? Good God, I can't believe they thought that was a good idea. You DO deserve a gold star for your literary sacrifice of reading the first book. I pulled it down from a book shelf at Barnes & Noble and read it to see if it would be worth my money after reading the free articles.

I couldn't even finish it. In fact, reading the free-to-read articles was literally THE single most damaging flash point for my attachment as a consumer to WOTC, since I'm primarily motivated by the storyline. They effing KILLED all the buildup that was so excellently done in the prior free-to-read articles on top of publishing garbage writing (I think Greg Weisman MUST have been handcuffed in some way, because his other writing is decent). I... I just can't fully communicate how massively disappointing WOTC's writing and storyline management is to me.

At this point, let the Phyrexian's Matrix-ify everything and start over. Give us new characters to follow that actually matter. Give us 5-star villains that don't just gloat from their magic phylactery until they get bit by one of the creatures they've wholly supplanted with their will. Give us actual plot consistency and emotional depth, so that the tragedy of Jace and Vraska is NEVER EVER repeated again.

Picture this, just for a minute: imagine whiny, lame Jace being compleated. Like, I get a chill just thinking about how absolutely powerful he'd be as a villain. They've already established the precedent of him being able to be beaten through all the previous canon, so his eventual fall wouldn't be terribly surprising. But HOLY HELL would he be absolutely terrifying to see opposed to MTG heros. A Phyrexian who can freaking mind-control you into becoming compleated? Or mind control the rulers of a plane to welcome compleation? Heck. EFFING. Yeah.

[Guardman]

Wait, there was a sequel? Good God, I can't believe they thought that was a good idea. You DO deserve a gold star for your literary sacrifice of reading the first book. I pulled it down from a book shelf at Barnes & Noble and read it to see if it would be worth my money after reading the free articles.

If you want a feel for how bad the sequel was, WotC had to pull a mea culpa article about it and even MaRo got involved (even though he has literally zero to do with story, but tis the curse of being the public face of the company).

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2019-11-22

[Rumpy5897]

As is often the case with things I'm not invested in, I think I'm a good village idiot to litmus test an outsider's perspective on certain happenings.

Around WAR was the only time I gave anything resembling half a damn about Magic story. After years of having the Jacetus League crammed down our throats, the threads finally came together. All the various artifacts from all those places we went to suddenly became relevant in unison, and there was a big battle, and of course the goods won, and of course the sacrificial beefcake sacrificed himself to try to dispel the illusion of plot armour, but it actually gave a sense of purpose to what came before. It also helped that this was aligned in time with a major Marvel moment, so not only did I kinda take note of Magic story, I watched a couple superhero flicks and even went to see the big one in the theatre to be part of the Zeitgeist.

And then I caught wind of that book, with its various mocked moments. With Ajani going "aye gurl" flashing a catlike grin. With Ugin sounding like a two inch tall trickster fairy. With Karn smacking zombies around in combat. With the whole Chandra-Nissa undo. And as I had a budding interest at best, I just laughed it off and went back to not caring.

If I'm representative, WAR was a great opportunity to get more people to pay attention to lore, which was then masterfully squandered.

[materpillar]

Things are feeling weird with MTG right now. I find that I'm into Secret Lairs more than ever, eBay is eating TCGplayer, and the story is becoming a bloodbath. Assuming that compleation is irreversible, the death toll since War of the Spark is:

Gideon
Dack
Tamiyo
Ajani
Jaya

On one hand, I kind of like that the story has stakes and even the most popular of walkers aren't safe. Jaya, though, kinda sticks in my craw. They could have told a few good stories from the perspective of an elderly woman, or maybe we could've seen what happened to her while she was off-screen so long. Instead, they killed her. I'd like them to kill the ones I don't like -OR- the ones that have nowhere to go storewise. Teyo and Sarkhan spring to mind.

I haven't been invested in the magic storyline since before Gerrard Capashen was a card.

Jaya died? That's... extremely lame?

[materpillar]

Double post but I had one of my favorite plays in quite a while last night and I'd like to share it...


I was at 6 life with three Changelings and Cryptic Gateway. My opponent has my Sliver Hivelord (that he got off an Etali, Primal Storm trigger) plus a Sword of Hearth and Home. My opponent casts damnation with the intent of killing me with my Sliver Hivelord. I responded by using with Gateway to play Graveshifter returning vedalken aethermage to my hand. Cast the Aethermage to bounce sliver hivelord to my hand before flashing it into play with the Gateway. He uses chaos warp on the Hivelord. I tap Aethermage and my last Changeling to put Linvala, Shield of Sea Gate into play to give my board hexproof and fizzle the chaos warp.

Pretty proud of myself for seeing that line since I wizard cycle Vedalken Aethermage 90% of the time. Especially because my graveyard was stock full of stuff (I'd popped The World Tree earlier and there was a bunch of other things that had died).

[Hermes_]

It came in!

[DirkGently]

So there's a new member to my playgroup, and he actually knows what he's doing. Game 1 he played Kaalia with Cataclysm. Rude. Also John has started working on a Tergrid, God of Fright deck.

So things are probably going to change a bit.

[TheGildedGoose]

So there's a new member to my playgroup, and he actually knows what he's doing. Game 1 he played Kaalia with Cataclysm. Rude. Also John has started working on a Tergrid, God of Fright deck.

So things are probably going to change a bit.

Send him my Erebos primer. Things will get infinitely more interesting.

[DirkGently]

Send him my Erebos primer. Things will get infinitely more interesting.

But then he might look elsewhere on the site and see me smack talking him lmao.

[pokken]

Send him my Erebos primer. Things will get infinitely more interesting.

But then he might look elsewhere on the site and see me smack talking him lmao.

Thought I was the only one who worried about that lol

[TheGildedGoose]

Send him my Erebos primer. Things will get infinitely more interesting.

But then he might look elsewhere on the site and see me smack talking him lmao.

Have you seen what they're doing with D2R in patch 2.5?

T E R R O R Z O N E S

[Hermes_]

So, i finally have an idea for a good Halloween/cosplay that I pull off due to my red hair: Genderflip Chandra

[DirkGently]

So, i finally have an idea for a good Halloween/cosplay that I pull off due to my red hair: Genderflip Chandra

Pics plz

[Hermes_]

So, i finally have an idea for a good Halloween/cosplay that I pull off due to my red hair: Genderflip Chandra

Pics plz

well yeah, I'm going to have SiL who takes photos professionally from time to time do it. The only thing I'm having an issue with is how to pull it off beyond the goggles and gloves it's going to be kind of steampunky. Goggles/gloves vest maybe

[5colorsrainbow]

So, i finally have an idea for a good Halloween/cosplay that I pull off due to my red hair: Genderflip Chandra

Pics plz

well yeah, I'm going to have SiL who takes photos professionally from time to time do it. The only thing I'm having an issue with is how to pull it off beyond the goggles and gloves it's going to be kind of steampunky. Goggles/gloves vest maybe

Of note Young Pyromancer and Seasoned Pyromancer are fans of Chandra and the original arts have them in some Chandra like clothing if your looking for some ideas.