[Off-Topic] Community Chat Thread

[duducrash]

I feel how the story is told is of much more value than overall plot points. That said it isnt like overly solid or anything, afterall its still a card game lore made to help sell cardboard. But I definitely enjoyed a bit

[Venedrex]

OK, just had some soda and two oranges, got a little bit of energy.

Look, take this with a grain of salt, but I'll be the first to admit that things take inspiration from other things all the time. Do I think Endgame is some great work of art, or that it was brilliant and original. No, I get it. I knew before the movie even came out that it would be a time travel plot and that the good guys would win, and some people would die. Do I hate all the Magic stories? No of course not. I liked a lot of the stories that came out these last weeks. My issue is that when it came for the climax, we could have had countless different moments to make the end result so much more meaningful.

And perhaps more will be revealed in aftermath.

But Vorinclex got beheaded, yeah OK sure, his character never had much depth to begin with, but couldn't he have had a death that felt like it actually a challenge to bring him down? Sure he might not be getting invitations to Mensa, but he's pretty beefy.

Jin-Gitaxias, the supposedly brilliant mind of phyrexia got eaten by his own newts. OK sure, haha mad scientists dies by his own experiments ok nice, but it would have been real satisfying for someone like Kaito to be the one to do it.

And Elesh Norn got crunched by Angel Elspeth. OK, sure hero gonna hero.

Why couldn't we have seen more moments that are cool and unique?

AHEM:

Tezzeret secretly constructs a bomb *maybe with Kaito's help* and blows the everliving crap out of Jin-Gitiaxias. That feels a whole lot more of a satisifying conclusion for a big bad then:

OH NO NOT MY NEWTS, HELP ME!

Maybe Koth and Urabrask fight side by side and double team Vorinclex, ye old hammer and anvil.

Maybe Sheoldred leads her treacherous forces against Norn instead of just getting chopped for her insolence.

That's just off the top of my head. Was the story good, sure. But it feels like just this once we could have put some real bona fide effort into it. I mean, you read Alision Luhrs story and compare it to the rest. No contest.

All that would have still led to the same, good guys win in the end, just like endgame, and a million other stories, which is totally fine. As Endgame mentions repeatedly, it's derivative of a million other stories. It's not exactly a brilliant work of art, it's a blockbuster hollywood superhero movie that is very unoriginal. And I know that this is a story about the guys in the children's card game.

But it would've a heck of a lot more enjoyable for me personally to see a climax where the big bads other than norn get some airtime and the heroes have some teamups other than just Wrenn and Teferi pulling Zhalfir. Which, I get it, Zhalfir was always coming back, regardless of Endgame or anything. I just wish the story had more time to breathe, and I think in doing so, it would have been a lot more original in the process.

I mean, MTG has awesome characters, and dope abilities. WE HAVE A GUY WHO LOBOTOMIZE PEOPLE WITH A WINK, (not saying that is morally good, but its freakin awesome from a story standpoint. Urabrask was the main praetor who I found interesting because of his voluntary phyrexiansim and general freedom loving ways. But all he does is say. "My people bad, you must stop them" and "Ow, stop tearing me apart." Maybe he will be a jailor or something in aftermath if he's still alive but couldn't he have gotten a fight scene with Norn at the very least?

I mean, Lukka got double teamed by Vivien and Vadrok. Nice! That's cool! That's the kind of thing that we could have seen with all the Praetors. Maybe Vorinclex almost kills Koth, but then Urabrask jumps in and starts going to work and Koth survives but he's missing an arm afterwards. Or some other walker who was on the plane teams up with someone like Chandra to generate a massive inferno to split the enemy ranks.

To be derivative myself, of Parks and Rec. Something something, If I come on strong, its because I care. I've enjoyed following the lore, and feel like this climax was fine. I don't ACTUALLY think Wotc all rubbed their hands together and said, "MWAHAHA, time to plagiarize endgame." But I do think they took the easy way out and went with short choppy resolutions and a rushed storyline rather than just saying, you know what, this is a culmination of a decade(s?) long arc, let's take it slow and actually flesh out this climax and give every character a chance to show how cool they are.

Like, what if we got five extra stories?
Urabrask
Elesh Norn
Jin-Gitaxias
Sheoldred
Vorinclex

Each one told from the perspective of the eponymous Praetor. How cool would that be? They don't even have to be that long, just a short glimpse into the five major bad guys mindsets right before they get got.
And you cannot say that Wotc couldn't afford it either, as they singlehandedly keep Hasbro afloat with their record profits.

It's not like MTG is an IP with zero interesting features. It just feels to me as a fan, when the rubber meets the road, Wotc could do so many cool things for very little effort, but they don't. That's all.

I've enjoyed the stories being back on the mothership instead in Ebooks. I think I've read every Magic story since Ixalan. I like the story quite a bit. Should I have ranted as much?
Probably not. I just got frustrated that we will have to wait another decade for a climax of this scale, and it felt like it could have been way cooler with just an extra ounce of effort put in.

Look, I'm glad ya'll enjoyed the story. I wasn't trying to yuck your yum. I just wanted MORE! MORE I SAY MORE! The more story we get, the more fun it is, and the crazier it gets. This a game with all kinds of neato things, and I'm just a big kid who wants all the toy soldiers a chance to shine, and I felt like Wotc whiffed a lot of easy opportunities to distinguish this story and show what makes MTG unique and fun.

[BeneTleilax]

The Phyrexians were always my favorite faction, I love their style of body horror and the creeping dread of assimilation, and I cannot help but feel this story has comprehensively destroyed their status as a threat. I cannot otherwise understand why they needed to make them both incredibly brittle, and also defeated constantly, in parallel. Where Scars previously established that "So long as one drop of the oil exists, the joyous work continues.", now they all become inert when their home base is destroyed, like videogame mooks. At the same time, when a singular defeat is all that is needed to neutralize them, Creative still saw fit to make almost all of their invasions fail even before then, often pathetically. Speaking of which, it all culminates in Elesh breaking both character and color to have a flailing tantrum more befitting a children's' cartoon.

In doing so, they have not merely told a bad story, but made any future story using Phyrexia worse. In the same way BFZ soured future stories with the Eldrazi, this has undercut another of the game's iconic antagonists.

[toctheyounger]

Everything in the story met my expectations for better or worse. Some bits were great, some not.
Honestly I think they resolved it mostly within an acceptable limit of stupidity and made most of it fairly credible.

The only thing that really rips my undies: KILL SOMEONE! LET A WALKER %$#% DIE! WHY???? IS AJANI THAT IMPORTANT??!?

I get that wanted to walk back the shade towards the rainbow community with a Nissa Chandra romance but it's still pretty transparent. You could see it coming 3 short stories in.

[folding_music]

i am 100% not reading any of the story lol
I was convinced by Ice Age that flavour text by itself is enough to flesh out the world, with its little reports on the war from all sides, smart observations paired with evocative art and nothing really pertaining to a main plot, cos, until you establish a main character, everyone's position on the world is worth a mention and the metaphorical camera doesn't really need to be on anyone in particular. maybe Jaya Ballard turned out to be a bad idea with her teehee snark in an otherwise believable and non-buffyized setting? that's a small thing though. i didn't read the Ice Age novels they put out five years later cos the set was already a complete package imho
ffwd to Invasion block, where you got the novels as part of the fat pack releases and everyone knew THE story, and everyone knew it was about a handful of archetype heroes and the borg, with no copy space for observations from various artificers unless they were the most powerful people on the planet, and so I've never been receptive to the plot since. it's strange cos I love comic book stuff (although I prefer grim anti-hero 2000AD stuff to the big US comics) but, no matter the strength of writer they bring in, planeswalkers-as-people to me will only ever be worth thinking about if they are cute fish people =P the end

[cheonice]

Everything in the story met my expectations for better or worse. Some bits were great, some not.
Honestly I think they resolved it mostly within an acceptable limit of stupidity and made most of it fairly credible.

The only thing that really rips my undies: KILL SOMEONE! LET A WALKER %$#% DIE! WHY???? IS AJANI THAT IMPORTANT??!?

I get that wanted to walk back the shade towards the rainbow community with a Nissa Chandra romance but it's still pretty transparent. You could see it coming 3 short stories in.

Yep. Nothing feels, like it matters. There are no consequences to a multiverse spanning conflict... wow, the stakes are really high this time. I mean, I really like Ajani, but come on, let that cat die allready. Nothing matteres after all, if everyone can be cured within the blink of an eye.

And look at the antagonists! They are just waiting for the next time they're needed -.-

• Bolas is in his happy place with his beloved brother, ready to escpape one day.
• Emrakul is sitting in the moon, a prison she chose for herself, sooooo she owns the key to be free again?
• Phyrexia is blipped out of existence just to come back in a few years.

Comic book galore...

[materpillar]

I've literally never been invested in any Magic the Gathering story content outside of flavor text. I started playing around when Gerrard Capashen was the main man. I rather recall some people telling me that Magic the Gathering books were awful then and every time I check back in to see if Magic storylines are awful, they still are. Thus concludes my bi-annual check-in on Magic storylines.

Magic is good at really neat world building and character design. They get some cool broad strokes narrative ideas too but they don't write compelling stories like ever. It's kinda like the manga Bleach.

Anywho, I heard the Innistrad short story was good though. So I'll give that a read some time or another.

[5colorsrainbow]

Consequences =/= death. I've said since Tamiyo I wouldn't mind if the compleated planeswalkers where cured if we could see our version of Seven of Nine* arcs for them. For example (and it's even been hinted at) if they follow through how will Ajani the kind hearted healer and mentor figure react to everything he did as a Phyrexian? Does try to atone or does he see himself as unforgivable? Does he continue to try to be part of the gatewatch to make up for what he did or does he think he no longer deserves to be a part of it? If they follow through with stuff like this I'll be satisfied..

[DirkGently]

@DirkGently, you fancy a go? Of course you might agree with pokken but maybe you want to play devil's advocate... I'd do this myself but I have a nasty cold and I can barely muster the energy to type let alone form coherent thoughts.

My point initially wasn't "this story is similar to Endgame (or anything else) and that's what makes it bad". But "This story is bad by its own merits...my hypothesis for why it is bad is because I suspect it's trying to emulate Endgame".

I just finished watching season 2 of Shadow and Bone and....ugh, idk man. Nobody took the right lessons from Game of Thrones. Or maybe they got skittish after the last season bombed (which failed partly because they didn't learn the lessons from their own %$#%$#% show). But dammit, they were supposed to realize that having characters die is important to give a story weight. When the mega-apocalypse happens and the only meaningful cost it exerts on the heroes is that a few minor characters die, the story feels fake. It's a children's carnival ride with lots of scary looking things but no actual threats. It's boring.

spoiler for season 2 of shadow and bone

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So the main character has to kill and absorb the power from her best friend in order to get the strength to defeat the bad guy and save the day. Classic dilemma. Of course it's treated in the most irritating possible way, where they whine and moan about it for multiple episodes while presumably people are being eviscerated by the thousands somewhere offscreen where we don't have to care. But finally, while fighting the big bad, her friend ends up taking a mortal-ish wound anyway...thank jeebus, we can finally get it over with. He dies, she takes his power, she tells the bad guy how she sacrificed EVERYTHING, then beats the bad guy. Yay hooray we did it. We had actual stakes. And then 5 minutes later she effortlessly resurrects him. Whew, we almost had some actual %$#% drama for a second there! Good thing we dodged that bullet!

But either way, I've really gotta agree with @toctheyounger - they really need to kill some damn characters. So many media franchises have become absolute wimps these days. Characters aren't real people. They are tools to use in order to tell an effective story, and if you want to have a story that deals with apocalyptic-scale disasters, you'd better have some actual consequences or it feels fake and toothless and lame. When Marvel snapped half the characters out of existence, it was probably the most interested I've ever been in the franchise - only for that interest to be destroyed in Endgame, which pretty much ended my hope of ever really caring about any Marvel movie ever again. And I was really hopeful that WotC wouldn't take the coward's way out with the compleation and actually kill off some major characters, but of course not. I'm disappointed but I'm not surprised.

@5colorsrainbow Sorry, but if you introduce a multiverse-threatening enemy and they fail to kill a single important planeswalker, my immersion is destroyed. Having PTSD arcs for the remaining characters is all good and well, but first the villains have to actually do something that justifies their title. Having a PTSD arc might seem significant to the writer, but was Elesh Norn's goal merely to give Ajani PTSD?

If you introduce a universe-ending threat, there must be blood. Or your story is trash and I do not care.

[pokken]

So I really don't care about the MTG story at all but what about the planes themselves? weren't there major impacts to the planes and the people that live there?

[Venedrex]

Well, at least we have aftermath to show some of what happened. I suspect aftermath was Wizard's response to all the complaints about ZNR not showing much from the Eldrazi wrecking the place.

[duducrash]

So I really don't care about the MTG story at all but what about the planes themselves? weren't there major impacts to the planes and the people that live there?

I think that will be in the aftermath. Its only 50 cards I think so I think its mostly flavour and some bombs.

Will it even be standard legal?

[toctheyounger]

So I really don't care about the MTG story at all but what about the planes themselves? weren't there major impacts to the planes and the people that live there?

"Get your head out of the clouds man, those characters don't sell packs! They're not even legendary!"

-WotC, probably.

[pokken]

I'm just glad Ephara didn't get compleated.

[TheGildedGoose]

me checking this thread expecting anything but lore talk

[Venedrex]

I'd post something wild and off topic but I don't have any ideas or cool pictures of old menus.

[Hermes_]

I'd post something wild and off topic but I don't have any ideas or cool pictures of old menus.

*sigh* EDIT: those prices INCLUDE tax

Restaurant or Venue Sky Room, Lockheed Air Terminal, 1950s

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some other stuff i pulled together using stable diffusion this itme i focused on messing with the background

SPOILER

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[Dunadain]

me checking this thread expecting anything but lore talk

Fine. I just watched Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

It was... fine. It's one of the most fine movies I've ever watched. People often accuse Marvel movies of being mindless action movies, but I've never thought that was a fair description. Iron Man and Captain America both have pretty interesting Character arcs IMO, Spider Man's Inferiority complex is also pretty good, and Civil War's handling of blind faith in the government is also decent. But regardless of whether or not the marvel movies do a good job handling these deeper topics, you can't deny that their was an attempt to include something of a bit more substance.

This movie does not, but does that necessarily make a movie bad? The acting was solid, the villains were the I-Love-to-Hate-Them kind, the fight scenes were creatively choreographed, and it didn't feel like the movie's only purpose in life was to flex their IPs (*ahem* Ralph breaks the Internet). On the flip side, I don't know if I can honestly call a movie good if it left no impact on me. I'm not likely to recommend this to anyone, and I'm not likely to ever watch it again, not because it was bad, but because their is nothing calling me back to it.

Spoilers below:

Spoilers for D&D: Honor Among Thieves

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I realize the characters have a little character development, but it's not much:

Edgin acknowledges that he's a screw-up, but he already knew that, he just grew comfortable enough with the rest of the party to admit it

Holga remains exactly the same

Simon learns to stand up for himself, probably the most interesting character development in the movie

Doric supposedly learn to trust humans, but it's so shallow, lol

One could also argue there is a bit of a theme about the double edged nature of trust. Edgin trusted Forge and Sophia, which led to him losing his daughter, Doric has stopped trusting humans because they chopped down her forest. Simon doesn't trust Edgin, because his last plan failed so spectacularly. But they all learn to trust each other. I feel like that's really reaching though.

[Hermes_]

It helps if you're into D&D a lot

SPOILER

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I honestly expected a mid or end credits reveling it was just some folks playing a session of D&D

[Dunadain]

It helps if you're into D&D a lot

I am, but I don't really agree, if all this movie had going for it was nostalgia or "in" jokes, then I'd call it a bad movie. Heck, my wife came with me to watch it, and while she hasn't played a game of dnd in her entire life, she actually liked it more than I did.

Though I haven't been in a dnd game in a fat while. Hopefully the group we are trying to get together atm will start next week

[DirkGently]

A succinct explanation for why being wimps with your IP renders your stories inert.

[Airi]

I'm in awe at how many people still have the same avatars after so many years ^.^

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I'm in awe at how many people still have the same avatars after so many years ^.^

If it isn't broken, why fix it?

[pokken]

I'm in awe at how many people still have the same avatars after so many years ^.^

The kitty in my pic passed away at 19 this year, doubt I ever change. RIP Yama!

[duducrash]

A succinct explanation for why being wimps with your IP renders your stories inert.

To be more accurate only if Maro's balloons were in all caps

Movies shouldn't be for enfranchised players, should he ads for new ones