Magic The Gathering Discussion (and a little of how it relates to Sentinels)

<Split off from MagisterCrow’s post on the “OblivAeon Kickstarter Update #35” thread>

You, sir, were the bane of my entire existence back in my MtG days. Don't even tell me if you threw in a little UW control, I don't wanna know. I'll lose my S***.

You're now a SotM fan so you can't be that bad of a person so I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. :sunglasses:

Welcome to the forums. Hope you stick around!

I noted the other day on Reddit that Parse's deck feels a lot like a Blue Control deck. Of course, it's a lot less frustrating when it's aimed at the villain you're both beating up and not at you personally.

(I then also started trying to figure out which Magic colors the SotM characters would fit under, and also realizing that you could likely feasibly make a Gideon variant for Legacy's deck, a Chandra variant for Ra's deck, and a Jace variant for Visionary's deck. I am a terrible person.)

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Idk what any of that means. Are those names for newer deck arctypes? We used colors over names in my day. The last time I played magic seriously, the Urza's block was just wrapping up and 6th Edition was that good new new jawn. I'm old.

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Gideon, Chandra, and Jace are all characters from the latter "half" of Magic's history, after a big event that stripped a lot of the more mythical beings in Magic history of their powers and changed how Planeswalking works. This is coming from someone who isn't deeply enriched in Magic lore, so apologies if I botched any of that up. :)

 

Would that make Mr. Fixer "Jeskai Wins"?

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That sounds about right. Then again, I'm new to the, uh, new lore too.

@Foote: If it makes you feel any better, Seventh Edition is the last time I played Magic before getting back into it recently. (And I started out with Fifth Edition.) Ironically it was playing SotM that made me actually pay more attention to the lore this time around.

It's kind of amazing when you consider that Magic has a whole fleet of writers and artists for its cards, while SotM has one writer and one artist for its thousands of cards. To give a comparison, according to Wikipedia, apparently the most prolific Magic artist has 400 cards to their name.

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Magic has been going on for a few decades, so I think it's pretty expected and honestly a better idea that they have so many different art styles. I know I'd want some variety from my cards if I've been playing the same massive TCG for years.

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@Phantom5613: My comment was less a knock against Magic and more just awe at realizing the sheer scale of work that Christopher and Adam have put in, since the comparison puts it in more perspective.

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I didn't take it as a 'knock', no worries. Just giving my 2 cents. :)

To be fair with Magic, it's a very different process. Once the cards start getting settled play-design-wise, the lore team drafts what they want on the card, send to the artist, who does a draft of the art and send it back for review. This happens a few times until WotC (makers of MtG) are happy with the art.

In comparison, Adam conceptualizes and draws the art himself. This makes the process a lot more streamlined. Still, I'm really curious what the unique art count for OblivAeon has to be, that's a ton of art. I'm surprised he managed to get all the alternate art done for all the heroes in time.

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The art on M:tG cards is usually incredibly detailed and painstaking.  Many of them used to do full-size canvas paintings, even.  The comic-book style art is much simpler and less time-consuming.  If Adam had to produce M:tG-style art for every card in SotM all by himself, he'd still be working on the first or second set.

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That too. But even if it weren't so detailed, the back and forth of edits would take a lot of time, especially when the the company commissions a few hundred different pieces of art a quarter.

I'm the guy who's old with respect to Magic - the last set I played before stepping away for good was Fallen Empires. I'm still trying to mentor my 11-year-old into financial & temporally reponsible play of the game.

Relevant to a question that came up with him recently: When I left, your draw phase was the only draw you got during a turn, unless triggered by a card you played. Has that changed?  (He and his friends are drawing back up to 7 at the end of a turn, he says - they haven't played when I've been around, though.)

Yeah. Good luck with that lol. MtG is a big ol' money sink.

Exactly why neither my ex-wife nor I was crazy about letting him start.

Card draw has not changed substantially, drawing up to seven at the end of each turn is not official play, or even a variant I’ve ever heard of.

They have messed with combat damage, Legendary rules, and mulligans, though.

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Then since I suspect they're teaching each other by word of mouth, I'm guessing this is something they have decided to do to make it "more fun" (my words, not theirs). They are 11-12, after all.

Wow, I have no idea what most of these are.  I stopped playing M:TG when Ice Age came out.

I feel weird, I'm used to assuming everyone is always way more up on everything geeky than I am.

Usually I'm that person who discovers things several years after everybody else already knew about them.

Fallen Empires was maybe 2 or 3 sets after Ice Age. I remember The Dark and the "loss of life" mechanic between them, but can't swear as to whether there were more.

This was also before there were 3 themed and 1 core set every year…

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I'm used to considering myself a veteren because I started playing during Time Spiral Block.  You guys started way back in the day!  I was only a little baby!  (I mean that literally, by the way.  I'm 24 as of 2 days ago)

 

A brief history of Magic by set (blatantly stolen from Wikipedia).  Core sets are italicized, Blocks alternate being bold (i.e. one block is bold, next block is not, etc):  For most of Magic history, Blocks followed a 3 set structure of large set/ small set/ small set, although they start playing with that from Lorwyn onwards.

 

1993: Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, Arabian Nights
1994: Revised, Antiquities, Legends, The Dark, Fallen Empires
1995: Fourth Edition, Ice Age, Homelands
1996: Alliances, Mirage
1997: Visions, Fifth Edition, Weatherlight, Tempest
1998: Stronghold, Exodus, Urza's Saga
1999: Urza's Legacy, Sixth Edition (major rules restructuring), Urza's Destiny, Mercadian Masques
2000: Nemesis, Prophecy, Invasion
2001: Planeshift, Seventh Edition, Apocalypse, Odyssey
2002: Torment, Judgement, Onslaught,
2003: Legions, Scourge, Eighth Edition (new card frames), Mirrodin
2004: Darksteel, Fifth Dawn, Champions of Kamigawa
2005: Betrayers of Kamigawa, Ninth Edition, Saviors of Kamigawa, Ravnica
2006: Guildpact, Dissension, Coldsnap (Coldsnap was nominally part of the Ice Age block, although Ice Age predated blocks), Time Spiral
2007: Planar Chaos, Future Sight (major storyline restructuring), Tenth Edition, Lorwyn (Introduced Planeswalkers as cards)
2008: Morningtide, Shadowmoor, Eventide (Lorwyn/Shadowmoor was a split block, in the format large/small/large/small, Shards of Alara
2009: Conflux, Alara Reborn, Magic 2010 (rules update, core set restructure), Zendikar
2010: Worldwake, Rise of the Eldrazi , Magic 2011, Scars of Mirrodin
2011: Mirrodin Besieged, New Phyrexia, Magic 2012, Innistrad
2012: Dark Ascension, Acacyn Restored, Magic 2013, Return to Ravnica
2013: Gatecrash, Dragon's Maze, Magic 2014, Theros
2014: Born of the Gods, Journey into Nyx, Magic 2015, Khans of Tarkir
2015: Fate Reforged, Dragons of Tarkir, Magic Origins (last core set, end of the three block structure), Battle for Zendicar
2016: Oath of the Gatewatch, Shadows over Innistrad, Eldritch Moon, Kaladesh
2017: Aether Revolt, Amonkhet, (coming soon: Hour of Devastation, Ixalan)

There are also a variety of special sets (Unglued and Unhinged, Modern Masters x3, and Conspiracy x2, but you can look them up yourself.

 

I joined Magic half way through Time Spiral block (which was a very strange place to start.  Imagine you're a middleschooler who's never played before, and someone hands you Argent Adept and tells you to go have fun.  I loved it.)  I was never really a serious player.  Nowdays I show up for about half the prereleases, and that's good enough for me.

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