Board 8 > Magic the Gathering topic: How did that purge before Prerelease

(+) Yeah! (+)

also wendys skip the dishes shaw hasbro

Got to draft Cube again for a while. I'm feeling like Red might be too good...
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Ah hell, I need to find a 2HG partner. I totally blanked on that.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

Magic sales down 35%. I recall telling people Magic lost 12 million players and was mocked, but give me a long enough time line and my claims will always be proven right. Its death by a million papercuts.

The #1 reason cited for players quitting? The community is terrible.

[citation needed]
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Please don't. Just don't.
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I've been feeling that Magic itch for the first time in about ~15 years, good time to jump back on board?
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Hell yeah man. Dominaria is amazing, especially if you're part of the old guard. You're going to see a lot of old and new faces.

Something of note: Spells have gotten worse and creatures have gotten a LOT better.
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trdl23 posted...

Please don't. Just don't.

Yeah, we went through this with Ulti in another thread yesterday.

Also, Battlebond is going to be freaking amazing.
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Something of note: Spells have gotten worse and creatures have gotten a LOT better.

Nice, was always much more of a creatures kind of guy! Looks like I'll be grabbing a fat pack next time I go out.

Just did a little looking into Battlebond and holy shit some of these cards make this seem like it'll be a pretty fun set/play mode.
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Underleveled posted...

Man, I miss that. The jurors actually getting to speak their peace about the game instead of having to follow a game script.

I'm sure they're allowed to if they go "hold up jeff", jeff likes tv moments of him being interrupted

All the pros are hailing Dominaria as one of the best Limited formats ever. I think its very good, but part of the impact is a contrast to just how bad the sets have been these past few years.
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Yeah I don't really get that. It's a totally fine serviceable draft format, but one of the best ever? No way.

Then again I also don't think original Innistrad is as great as people claim either so maybe I'm not the best judge.
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Nah, original Innistrad was as good as advertised. All the mechanics and flavor just worked. Then they borked it with one of the worst formats ever in Avacyn Restored.

Nothing will beat Rise of the Eldrazi draft though. So many amazing and creative synergies you could build in any colors.
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Dominaria story concluded today.

Thank goodness. I thought Martha's writing was a mess.
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It started off strong with the new Weatherlight crew but man did it fall off a cliff once the Gatewatch guys got introduced. Its like she ignored all the Ixalan character development that Jace so desperately needed after a decade. It felt like the only new character she got right was Lili, but Lili is hard to get wrong.
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Admittedly, I haven't kept up with the magic story since Tarkir and the start of BFZ, but I enjoyed the Dominaria story. I agree it was unfocused, but I don't think you can blame the author for that. It's a Legendary-themed set, so the cast has to be enormous, AND the Gatewatch needs to be involved, AND gotta namedrop as many as the unimportant Legendaries from the set as possible, AND put Karn in there too so we can heavy-handedly foreshadow Phyrexia coming back, and shit this is a lot of characters, make sure you find a way to """tactfully""" write off Ajani and Jace who are supposed to be here too. Given all those requirements, I thought she did a great job. Though you can tell she only wanted to focus on a subset of characters (Lili, Gideon, Weatherlight crew, Teferi) and the rest suffer for it (Chandra especially is god awful).

But the writing really shines at points and she made me give a shit about Lili and Gideon, which I didn't think was possible.

Did they announce who the next author is yet?
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I liked how they didn't have Bolas show up and grab her in front of everyone else. It's a bit more subtle this way.
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I thought it was mostly good. It only got bad when they arrived at the cabal stronghold as it seemed like all the different characters were a bit much to keep track of.
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it was a really crowded side quest with a lot of pointless characters

don't know if the author was allowed to deviate at all
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The only person who didnt do all that much was Shanna. I actually liked Raff for some reason. Couldnt tell you why objectively.
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Picked up a Fifth Edition tournament deck for old time's sake and a Dominaria fat pack!

Haven't ever kept up with the story but looking for something to read, any particular books good to start off with for Magic backstory?
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Honestly the books are obsolete at this point. The current story is all hosted on Magic's website

The books are great and I can recommend some, but if you want current stuff it won't be there.
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Awesome, guess I'll do some browsing around there later.

Any books you'd recommend to start off with? Don't really have a preference on era as I don't remember much of anything from Magic.
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Time Spiral is the best story era IMO, and its pretty important in the grand scheme of things, so I would recommend those three books (Time Spiral, Planar Chaos and Future Sight).

Especially relevant given the most recent set.
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Time Spiral isn't going to make any sense without background though... especially involving the winner of "worst character in Magic until they rebooted Nissa," Jeska.
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Is the whole storyline on the website, or do you need to get the books to fill in the old stuff?
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The website stories have only been a thing since... I think the end of Theros?
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They started doing the whole Gatewatch stuff with Magic Origins and since then the stories have been pretty tightly connected. That could be a good place to start if you wanna catch yourself up with the most recent sets.
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Theros has two ebooks. I only read the first one, it was pretty mediocre. Then for Khans they started the free website stories. If you really want to get caught up on the whole "current" storyline, start there. KTK block has a weird story but the Fate Reforged and Dragons stories set up some important things.
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I'd recommend starting with Origins. Each of the 5 new main characters has a story 'introducing' them (they've already been in the story before this, but there were some retcons and what not for them that start fresh here)

Gideon: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/limits-2015-07-15
Jace: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/catching-2015-07-22
Liliana: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/unkindness-ravens-2015-07-29
Chandra: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/offers-fire-2015-08-05
Nissa: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/zendikar-2015-08-12

Then would be Battle for Zendikar / Oath of the Gatewatch stories:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/content/battle-zendikar-saga

Shadows Over Innistrad / Eldrich Moon:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/content/shadows-over-innistrad-saga

Kaladesh / Aether Revolt:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/content/kaladesh-saga

Amonkhet / Hour of Devastation:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/content/amonkhet-saga

Ixalan / Rivals of Ixalan / Dominaria (Not sure why these don't have separate pages. Make sure you read in the order listed, not in the order they are on the page):
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/columns/magic-story

And then you're caught up on the new stuff.
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Avoid the eBooks / NeoWalker novels imo

For books, I'd start with the main series of Dominaria. The order for those are:

The Brothers' War
Planeswalker (one of my favorites)
Time Streams
Bloodlines

The Gathering Dark
The Eternal Ice
The Shattered Alliance

Mercadian Masques
Nemesis
Propehcy
(I hated this trilogy)

Invasion
Planeshift
Apocalpyse
(Great trilogy)

Odyssey
Chainer's Torment
Judgement

Onslaught
Legions
Scourge

Time Spiral
Planar Chaos
Future Sight
(The best trilogy but as stated above not a good one to start with since it's the conclusion of the story)

These stories all tie into each other. There are other good stories that would be more side books, but I'd read those all first.
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I wish I could recommend not reading Scourge, but as awful as that book is, its story has big ramifications throughout the rest of the plot. Stupid ramifications, but big nonetheless.

EDIT: Its important to realize that a few parts of that book may or may not have been retconned. Were still not even sure. Its a train wreck.
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Oh, make sure to read the Kamigawa books before Time Spiral. They may seem unrelated, but they actually do matter. (Theyre also some of the best around and are amazing even as stand-alone fantasy novels.)
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Do they matter? I don't think I ever read the Kamigawa books. How do they tie into Time Spiral?

My husband has told me they are great and I should read them, but I haven't gotten around to them yet.
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Big spoilers: In the end theyre revealed to be a massive prequel to old Magic lore, since the protagonist Toshiro Umezawa is transported to Dominaria. He founds the new Umezawa clan, and his descendant Tetsuo is the one who kills Nicol Bolas in Legends-era lore, setting up Bolass return in Time Spiral and his ascension as Magics new big bad.
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You ever gonna get back to your mega block rating? I'm sorry if you're pestered a lot about it.
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I think I said it a couple times, but I plan on doing that as a presentation at a convention. I'd rather B8 see the finished product!
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You could not pay me to watch a video with that slimeball.
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Rudy is effectively the Infowars of MtG, though he is somewhat more informed, partly because he uses his influence to manipulate the very market he purports to know so well. Not exactly a high bar. It is good that you recognize hes cancerous though.

That being said, it isnt really the data I disagree with; Magic has definitely bled players. My issue is the hypothesis as to why it happened. The community is no worse than it has been before and is, in my observations, actually a significant improvement from even a few years back. (Remember, I was a TO and ran the gaming section of a comic store for a couple years in college.) The people who whine about the SJWness are just people who are mad they cant get away with their toxicity anymore and likely didnt contribute much to begin with.

The problem was honestly that Battle for Zendikar was so god-awful that it pulled a D&D 4th edition and opened the market up right as Hearthstone was ramping up. After that it was bust after bust and Standard, the most important format financially, was desiccated. I know two LGSs in my area closed because of it. The design was terrible, cards started getting banned for the first time in many years including Emrakul, the most iconic card and even the expansion symbol of the set. They accidentally introduced a turn-4 infinite combo without catching it in Kaladesh block, even though they could have drafted it in their testing.

The last few years of design and the two-set-block format sucked, and the removal of Core sets left new players without an on-ramp to the game. Thats why active players went down; nothing more, nothing less.

I feel confident that they are turning the corner now. Ixalan wasnt a great block, but it was perfectly fine and had some cool, novel tribal themes. Dominaria is amazing and breathed new life into Magic. Core sets are back. Precons are actually of high quality and affordable. A bunch of pros are now on R&D. Were getting more Ravnica next year (more Orzhov foils to send your way, Ulti). Were going places, and I cant wait.
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Yeah, the Standard rotation change and banning a ton of cards in Standard over the course of a year is a pretty easy culprit, I think. Whatever internal process they have to QC tournament power level during those sets clearly wasn't working right. They seem to have gotten better with Ixalan and Dominaria, so hopefully they're getting back on track.
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The Copycat miss was especially egregious, considering they just banned Splinter Twin in Modern at the time. It wasn't even an accident someone just tripped over; the moment Felidar Guardian was revealed, the immediate reaction was "Infinite Combo with Saheeli". WotC somehow missed in their hours of testing and development what the community discovered in about five minutes.

Speaking of bannings, an annoying side effect of them is now whenever a deck or card preforms well in a tournament, the immediate response is a bunch of idiots start calling for things to get the axe. Granted, most of it is trolling, but still. Annoying.
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https://78.media.tumblr.com/8bbafe37bb519a1cfd0424fe0e8d95e6/tumblr_okscgpNcew1s9rpajo1_500.gif
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Welcome to Yugioh lol
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Thanks for the book recs, gonna pick something up this weekend.

Any good YouTube channels to check out? I browsed a bit but haven't found anything too great yet. Watched a few with that Rudy and didn't pick up on anything too bad aside from being pretty annoying, whats the backstory with him?
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Hes a shark who really only cares about Magic financially. He gives zero craps about the game.

The Professor at Tolarian Community College is occasionally a bit preachy but makes excellent content overall and does good independent product reviews. If you want strategy, MTGGoldfish is good, as are Channel Fireball and Star City if you want to go tryhard.
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My Immortal posted...

Avoid the eBooks / NeoWalker novels imo

For books, I'd start with the main series of Dominaria. The order for those are:

The Brothers' War
Planeswalker (one of my favorites)
Time Streams
Bloodlines

The Gathering Dark
The Eternal Ice
The Shattered Alliance

Mercadian Masques
Nemesis
Propehcy
(I hated this trilogy)

Invasion
Planeshift
Apocalpyse
(Great trilogy)

Odyssey
Chainer's Torment
Judgement

Onslaught
Legions
Scourge

Time Spiral
Planar Chaos
Future Sight
(The best trilogy but as stated above not a good one to start with since it's the conclusion of the story)

These stories all tie into each other. There are other good stories that would be more side books, but I'd read those all first.

Is there a tl;dr summary of these stories on the site, or does it only cover later stuff?
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The mtgsalvation wiki (I think its named something different now?) has a lot of info on specific characters and sets, so you can piecemeal it together pretty easily.
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