He's a pillar of the community and very good for said community. He's not afraid to point out mistakes on wotc's or deck product companies regardless of blowback.That being said I feel he tends to talk over his guests and overexagerates listening to them to the point that it often seems disingenuous and like he doesn't care much for their point. Just a few pro's and con's in my opinion.
Whenever I hear Ixalan being mentioned I always feel disappointed that Jace never stayed a pirate. The mental picture of Jace appearing in a tri-corner hat on an illusionary boat laden with booty and working only for the gold. This notion upsets me as we could have been meme-ing Jace and Step Brothers.
"Keep going, I ******* bleep you, get on with your ******* story". I was super impressed by the quick reaction to help Spice8Rack feel comfortable after they thought they messed up. You're an incredible host.
Right. Seriously, how much did it really cost them to provide the story of say Amohnket block? It was purely digital on their website...and yet it was amazing to read for those that cared.
I'm in the middle of preparing for a second job interview right now, applying to a smallish (around 100 employees) company. At my last job, I worked for a company of 20 people, which got bought by a company of 250 people, which in turn was bought by a company with 200,000 employees. The changes I experienced at each stage were disheartening to say the least, and watching this video and remembering some of that made me update my preparation notes for the upcoming interview. There are absolutely things that small companies do MUCH better than larger companies. I remember when WotC bought TSR, and I worried about it, but IMHO it turned out fine. When WotC was purchased by Hasbro, I worried a lot more, and I feel like those worries are, over time, all being proven justified.
I never thought I would see the day my boy spice was on Tolarian Community College. Congrats man you've come so far from ranting about the interplanar connections between species of goblins.
I may delete this if they cover it (I’m only 30min in) but I feel like weekly stories are beneficial for another reason which is it maintains interest BETWEEN sets. 2020 has certainly been a year of “product fatigue” which honestly started last year. By decreasing the amount of unique product each year (decreasing production costs) you can have better quality products (rather than four different booster types) and still keep interest with stories that players become invested in.
I started playing when M21 was released and I’ve already got this “product fatigue” you mention! I can’t imagine what it’s like for those who’ve been around longer than a month.
I think part of the product fatigue though is that it's JUST the game coming out. The surrounding stuff means very little. The only reason to be excited for new sets is for new cards, it's not for how the story is going. If they tied some of the ancillary product into story, and had an actual story going it might make a difference. It might make you excited for a new set because of how the cards will link in, and not just because there might be a counter for Uro.
Honestly 6 products a year is plenty if they fill the time. 4 regular set, 1 commander product and 1 premium set (Masters/Horizons/Battlebond/Conspiracy) a year is more than enough product
The last one on Spotify is the one about bannings, it's quite a bit behind. Maybe it's not profitable or feasable enough to put it there, but I do hope it gets the rest soon.
This and Dies to Removal take far too long to come out on podcast services. Id be fine if they put a raycon ad before it if the reason is not wanting to compete with their own yt channel revenue.
Losing the episodic story made me really sad. I haven’t been interested the story since and looking back it’s probably the reason why I stoped building my collection.
@@Katerspacedopwater It's from Spice8Rack's channel. In one of his early videos he jokingly mentioned about making a video about Mill vs Discard, but he never did. We like to tease him about it :D
I complain about what they've done with the story every time they do a survey regardless of what the topic is. it's the single most frustrating thing they managed to screw up
I do the same. Like even if they just print the story in Book form. E-Books aren’t my thing. Like cool, the good stories are locked in an E-Book, and then we get War of the Spark and the sequel China Pandering I mean Forsaken as thé paper books.
That would really incentivize people buying fat packs. I was just go get a box because of the fat packs aren't usually the best deal. But if there was something cool like that in there I think a lot of people would pick one up with every set
@@sethhale8828 I used to buy tons of seal product to sell. After tracking 100s of fats packs those boosters were loaded. The mythic count was much higher than a box of equal cost.
Ugh man when the professor mentioned medical benefits (and other such protections) being why they stopped having an in-house team, I felt that. Really these corporations will be making stupid levels of profit but then the shareholders or the parent company will demand more profits and a more “efficient and streamlined” system, by which they always mean “a system where I’m paying fewer people to do more work and workers don’t talk back about how the company’s being run”
Well, they are run by Hasbro, the company who actively sabotaged their own kids' show (MLP) in order to milk Bronies for all they were worth. It's a bunch of old white dudes ruled by the dollar bill... what's new.
It's still painful to see how hard the story fell from the highs of Ixalan to the lows of War of the Spark. War of the Spark should have been a crescendo and instead it was a cacophony.
Thankfully, being out of the loop since basically Eldritch Moon spared me from this and now all I think of War of the Spark for is Huatli and High Alert decks because they printed a buttload of walkers.
Ixalan justified my love for Jace. I’ve always loved him but it was beautiful to see him and Vraska together. That trauma angle was beautifully thought out and it was very cathartic to see Jace and Vraska heal together. I want the story to be in-house. Please bring back the story team. Please! Novels like Foresaken have sunk the story. Bring them back wizards, please.
Suggestion: stop talking about planeswalkers and go back to having each plane have their own self-contained and interesting story. Players are the planeswalkers experiencing these massive cultures and planes but ultimately visitors with no real significance in those worlds or the goings on within.
I think instead of doing away with Planeswalkers entirely, we have a cataclysmic event that takes away every single spark. This could create some interesting narratives for Ex-Walkers now trapped in a Plane that is potentially not their own as well as fulfilling the goal of no more Planeswalkers, if it fails the Walkers still exist and could get their sparks back.
But then WOTC can't LARP as having their own Marvel Cinematic Universe and bait Disney into buying them. "Look daddy hasbro, it's just like the Avengers, just the trend your marketing experts told us to chase!"
If it helps: We've been here before. Magic Story has gone down in the sewers a couple time. The weekly short stories were a golden age, but there was a dark time between that golden age and the one before. These past two years were a dark time, but with a bit of luck, things will pick back up as the Gatewatch returns in Zendikar.
@GamerBear I imagine he is referring to the pre-8th editions stories. I.e. ice aga saga, invasion saga, odyssey saga, onslaught saga. Basically dominaria pre mending
"Not all aspects of a product or a game or a company needs to be necessarily for direct profit" You sir, definitely isn't fit to work at wizards / papa hasbro
Time was when business schools taught the value of long-term goodwill and the profitability of loyalty. Thanks to globalism and international corporatism, customers are nomore valuable than citizens are to communist regimens. They are tools "in the system" and if they complain, they are the problem. modern business is more short-sighted than a mouse with his nose stuck up a rat's ass. The "endless customers" trend, which is the fuel begind the theory that customer loyalty/retention has no value since they're all replaceable, will come to an end like any economic bubble. a true sign of lack of competition. when the bubble pops, though, it'll be a glorious day
I truly believe that WoTC is intentionally making the story disappointing, inconsistent and confusing so that they can have an excuse to stop doing it and just do what they really want to do: print money.
Honestly, it's crazy how they're literally sitting on an untapped goldmine and not treating it as such with Magic story- and the craziest thing about it they've had their sights on the answer for what to do with it all along! They've clearly been trying to ape superhero fiction for a while now with the Gatewatch & War of the Spark, so why not try to do it the way superhero comics companies like DC & Marvel have been doing? I mean, they're the best examples of how to work with fiction involving multitudes of creators, worlds, timelines, and a gazillion characters. (Heck, I'm even sure Magic has more to work with on the worlds and characters part.) Take a fan-favorite Commander or anyone not a planeswalker and give them their own story like the way B-list superheroes get their own series- people who are already fans will latch on to it, and if they just happen to strike gold, they've got a wealth of stories they could adapt to other forms of media to reach a whole new audience, which is exactly what happened with characters like Deadpool. Or in Magic's case, they could just like, you know, makes Secret Lair drops related to that character! It's literally free money for WotC! It's just baffling that they're clearly trying to copy that model of success but ignoring what makes it work, by having a large enough editorial/story team that's dedicated to keeping the story & narrative all together. War of the Spark was atrocious precisely because it had all the makings of a comic book crossover event yet none of the logistics needed to make that work. It was like if comic book crossovers only had 2 issues to tell the story, no one keeping track of who, what, where the characters are and what they were doing, and there were no tie-in issues focusing on key characters to further flesh out the story. They don't just have to focus on a few characters! You can still have the main story spotlight be on the Jaces and the Chandras on the featured plane in the newest set and have smaller creative teams work on side stories in Kamigawa or some other setting, just like how you can have the Superman titles & Batman titles & the annual crossovers but still have a miniseries featuring Mister Terrific. You just need enough people to do that. Because yeah, managing those many characters and creating beloved (and profitable) characters & IP's isn't impossible, and superhero comics are exactly proof of that. But you just can't cheat your way out of that with say, I dunno staking it on a Netflix series or a potential video game or a potential movie hoping to score a hit without actually investing the needed people & resources to lay the groundworks to do so. This got a little bit too lengthy and rant-y, but I'm really just... frustrated with how they've handled it. I've been reading superhero comics all my life, and I love it when they've got worlds upon worlds rich with history & story & narrative & characters that are all interlocking and bounce of each other that I could just endlessly dig into. So when I first got into Magic and learning about how it had potentially even more of that, I was super stoked to read every story, every wiki entry, look at every card and figure out their deal! But even with such an endless wealth of narrative to dig from, there's just so. few. content. (Not to mention they're not so readily available). If I just learned about Spider-Man and wanted to know everything there is about him immediately, there's a plethora of media I can choose from that's readily available like the comics, animated series, movies, all-ages books, etc. It's exactly because the comic books and cards themselves can only tell a piece of the story to an extent that there's the opportunity to branch it out to other media. And with cards that can fit so few flavor texts, there's arguably an even bigger opportunity to fill that need for more story, more content. If I wanted to consume every media about Jace, who's arguably been one of the faces of Magic for some time, all I can do is... I guess look at some cards? And read the wiki entry on him which isn't even on Wizard's site? And then try to navigate my way at Wizard's actual byzantine site to try and find the related story articles, read them, only to find that the newest story is paywalled in a novel that doesn't feature him as much, then find out that he's going to be featured in the newest Magic set, but that set probably won't have any story content about him besides an image and summary text of what he's doing? It's ridiculous!
You are so passionate for the story. A vorthos indeed. It can happen again. We used to have uncharted realms. We have loose ends to work on. Like the Church of Serra and Benalia policing the Cabal. Or the new Weatherlight crew. "Slice of Life" stories with notable Ravnicans. Chandra performing her duties as Abbott of Keral Keep. I know it's hard work. Why pay for writers and illustrators? But we used to have it.
I use to be able to name exactly where each walker was. You could pinpoint them based on the lore. Lilli was on innistrad, Jace ravnica, garruk was hunting Jace. Now it takes hours of research to figure out if a plane walker is even in a story
@@crazypistachios at least we know what bolas is up to... 🕶️Chilling in the shadow realm🕶️ And credit where credit is due, Baseri is wandering aimlessly, making friends. And I think Ikoria takes place after war? But does anyone know why Vivian was on Ikoria?
@@randomdogdog I think in Sundered Bond it says she was just studying the monsters? I think? Also Narset was just on Ikoria for essentially no reason. I think a big detriment to current magic story is that almost none of the characters have concrete motivations. Wizards probably does this so they can just drop them anywhere but it also makes them feel like cardboard cut outs. What does Chandra want at the end of the day? Jace? They just feel like they exist in a vacuum until Wizards needs them for marketing.
His flowing locks, gone! NOOOOOOOOOO! I was devastated when Prof cut his hair, but this is even worse. It's like seeing your Dad without his mustache or William Ozman with glasses
I don't understand why we aren't naming names when we say "it was a higher-up decision." There are three names that we have to say: - Chris Cocks, the CEO of Wizards; - Rachel Agnes, the Brand Manager of Magic, who makes all the decisions about every new product they could make that is not directly a Standard-Legal paper card set; and - Nic Kelman, who is in charge of all the story of Magic. When bad things happen in the story of Magic, it's these people's fault. When someone says it's a "higher-up decision" it's Chris Cocks and Rachel Agnes's fault. When there's terrible writing and no editing in a Magic story, it's Nic Kelman's fault. Don't let these real people hide behind corporate anonymity. These people are the ones in charge and it's their responsibility when things fail. Let everyone know who bears the responsibility and who should be mentioned when things go wrong. We blame Chris Cocks, we blame Rachel Agnes and we blame Nic Kelman, because they're making the decisions that hurt Magic for the sake of profit.
I'm Surprised mtg hasn't learnt from the 'Black Library' of 40k. That has been hugely succesful, and is run by people who love and care about the lore and the story and who promote the brand.
I am dyslexic and at times its a struggle for me to read. That being said...When I got back into MTG. I read the episodes released on the WotC page. I ate up everything I could. I freaking READ anything I could on MTG lore. It caught me, it captivated me. I adored it. It made the struggle for me to read worth it. I feel in love with the lore and it made the game even richer for me. And as the dynamic changes. I've become so sad. I'm not longer wanting to read the story or lore. I only watch summaries now. Its not worth the struggle for me anymore. And that makes me sad....
This makes me miss the old days of the good story, to the point where I'm going to reread all the old stories on the Wizards website. Personal favorite of mine: I am Avacyn by Doug Beyer at the end of the Shadows over Innistrad story an incredibly powerful piece with amazing writing and really makes me feel bad for both sides. If you haven't read it, give the whole Shadows/Eldritch Moon story line a read. It's one of my personal favorites.
I used to love the weekly articles. To see what was clearly meant to be a full story in Theros reduced to a single article was really heartbreaking, specially after years waiting for the return of Elspeth. Nowadays I get my game fiction fix from League of Legends. They have been keeping a steady stream of stories with pretty consistent quality. In many ways, reminds me of the golden days of Uncharted Realms.
I started playing back in Amonkhet. My first ever deck had *God-Pharaoh’s Faithful* in it as a star player, and learning she had a short story entry on the official website was super exciting. Turns out her name is Nylah.
Bring back weekly magic stories Put a pay wall. Put codes into preview pack, booster box, arena gems or any product as an incentive to buy cards. We buy cards, we read stories. You sell cards and things. Everyone happy.
I still think the best way to monetize mtg story is to publish collector's anthologies, or graphic novels of the existing story. Don't keep people out of the story because they don't have money, but for god's sake let people buy hard copies of things, expand the merchandising, etc. ...But ideally not Funk Pops.
They make enough money as it is. I have never seen a company that is as greedy as this one. Short term profit is there only motivation, it's just like a Timmy.
4U - Legendary Creature - Human (2/5) Defender Any spell that would cost any player more than 5 converted mana cost costs 3 less. All lands become fetch lands. Merfolk you control become good. If a shitty Secret Lair is released, The Professor may attack this turn as if it didn't have Defender.
I have a theory. What if Lukka's inconsistent story are actually two separate points of views. In the written material He's a villain in the making but in the cards he deluded and see's himself as the good guy?
I remember when my friends were just getting started with magic they would ask me about the story. I would tell them about jace´s amazing adventures in ixalan. About the gatewatch's defeat at the hands of Nicol Bolas in amonkhet. About Nissa and Chandra's relationship growing in kaladesh. Everytime they had a question about the lore they would come to me and i would awnser with joy and passion, wich is what i had for the characters and their stories. At the war of the spark pre-release my friends asked me what the story was like. My awnser was that i didn't know. I had looked at the spoiler so i knew the basic plot points but the story was elusive. By the time Eldraine came along, not only did none of my friends have any interest in asking me about the story, but I had no interest in buying the Magic ebook and reading about the story. Removing the freedom of enjoying the story of the game through the cards themselves and then being able to read about what was happening in depth for free might have been one of the stupidest decisions Wotc has ever made. Hopefully this video helps illustrate the community's general lack of interest in current magic story. Sorry for the long comment, just needed to let this out.
The "I first started playing Magic at around M24" sentence came out too natural to be untrue, so I'm here below my tinfoil hat thinking -well, the good news is apparently we survived the quarantine (and the virus), and 3 years from now we'll have some sort of time-traveling method/device, probably not readily available to the public though but that's a start, magic seems to be not yet dead in that future so that's also good news (right?), I should carefully monitor which cards Spice8Rack buys online...
Prof, thank you for introducing me to tons of content creators lately. You are doing an amazing job and all these people are interesting and passionate and I’ve been subscribing to them to help the cause.
I would like stories about specific cards. For example "Judge's Familiar" Just a simple story in the world of Ravnica showing this bird and hinting at the ability it has. Bring cards to life.
I got back into Magic after a 20 year hiatus, partly due to TCC, but also to discovering some lore videos from TH-cam content creators. I loved the Antiques War and the fallout through The Dark, Fallen Empires, and Ice Age. When I came back, I decided to catch up on all I had missed and it seems like there are some great stories out there. I came back just after Dominaria and went to go read the Guilds of Ravinica story and felt myself saying, “Who are these people and why should I care?” That did not instill in me a lot of hope for the eventual War of the Spark novel and I’m glad I skipped it after seeing some passages from it. I feel it and the follow up, Forsaken, highlight the cognitive dissonance regarding the current Magic storyline. Firstly, there’s no singular voice. That’s not to say that all stories need to be written by the same person, but there needs to be some kind of universal direction. Feige makes sure that, aside from a few inconsistencies, all Marvel stories fit together in the same universe. It still allows directors to make their films, giving different feels to movies like The Winter Soldier and Thor Ragnarok. The latest Star Wars movies suffered from this. Abrams set up a bunch of loose ends, Johnson answers some of them in an unsatisfying way, which forces Abrams to come back and throw as much fan service at the screen as he could to quell the masses. All of that could have been avoided by having someone in charge of the narrative and story direction. The next pitfall of the MTG storyline is the quality. It’s one thing to not like how the story unfolded but the quality of the narrative was, to put it kindly, lackluster. I’m no author, but even I know not to write how the WotS novels were written. It felt very much like a “throw crap against a wall and see what sticks” kind of story in the end. I’m not against monetization of the story, so long as the story is of the quality so that we get our money’s worth. If it feels like a cash grab, you’re doing it wrong. People are willing to shell out a lot of money, but it’s got to be for a quality product. Unfortunately it seems like they put whoever was in charge of card quality in charge of the story as well and they only see things as a P&L sheet. Lastly, the main problem is the lack of respect to its audience. I don’t mind bold decisions that I don’t agree with narratively, but I won’t stand for being insulted. When I read a story, watch a TV series, pick up a comic book, or spend my hard earned money in a theater, I expect a certain effort to be paid to character development and plot. It doesn’t matter who decided to break Chandra and Nissa apart, how it was done was the slap in the face. You’re supposed to feel for these characters, their hopes and dreams, their fears and despair, their disappointments and their sacrifices. None of that came through, just archaic overused tropes. So how do we fix all of this? Well first off, pressure need to be put on Hasbro. They are not doing so hot atm and they really should be leaning into MTG as being the profitable IP it is to help them out, but they’re thinking too small. This is a company that developed shows to sell toys in the 80’s and it’s like they don’t even do that anymore. The stories are what established an emotional connection to the products that they were actually trying to sell. This generation might not be into physical toys as much as my and the Prof’s generation was, but a 5¢ piece of cardboard with someone’s favorite planeswalker or legendary creature is always going to be profitable. WotC might not listen to us, but they’ll sure as hell listen to Hasbro if we demand these things so that we can give them our money. Hasbro will make WotC listen. Honestly, I’m still holding out hope on the Netflix series. I want to see a live action movie and to be able to buy action figures like I can with Star Wars, GI Joe, and Transformers so I can set up my favorite scenes. Hasbro is leaving money on the table and we can help them see that. Story-wise, there should be an ongoing series that constitutes the main storyline. This main storyline can be monetized, but again it need to be something of quality and should be developed, written, and polished alongside the set it is supposed to accompany. Between these major releases, a monthly series of companion stories should be released and these can be free. They’ll go into further details and greater depth that predates, occurs in conjunction, or deals with the fallout of the main storyline, but whose details are not important to overall narrative of the set story. They can be written by WotC staff or by guest writers who are given plot points and story arcs to work with. As for plot and character development, the story needs a new “Big Bad.” Now that doesn’t mean we need to go back to “a multiverse in peril” necessarily, but it needs to be someone who represents a major threat to our protagonists. There’s lots of hanging threads that could be tied up. Who broke Alara? Where did the Eldrazi come from? Did someone make them? What’s going on with New Phyrexia? What is the story with the chainveil? Who is the Ravenman really? Trying to answer some of these questions easily lends themselves to more creativity, new planeswalkers to meet, and new mechanics to explore.
“Who are these people and why should I care?” - EXACTLY. These characters are nothing compared to the Brothers' War, Dominaria vs Phyrexia, The Weatherlight & Rath series and the Ice Age/Homelands characters. WotC just made hollow characters that would reflect their own egos which is why the only good one they couldn't identify with, they buried for a long time (Garruk).
Antero Colon I actually think they could still do the same thing with these characters, but there’s got to be some kind of consistency and they should be aiming higher than they currently are. It’s possible to have amazing stories and still be mass consumed, but it’s like they sacrificed the former for more of the latter and, like a lot of things recently tbh, it’s blown up in their faces spectacularly.
Sees professor has uploaded a new video: "yes" Sees that said video features Spice8Rack: "Yes!" Sees that said video is an hour and a half long: "YES!!!"
I’m sure I’m in the minority here but I don’t like that there is one story. I wish we had different worlds with different characters, kind of like back in the earlier years of magic.
@@toamatau8785 Well you got me there Toa! You’re right, all the early sets took place on Dominaria, like Arabian nights, Homelands, Tempest, multiple urza block sets, and mercardian masks! I’m only kidding, I get your point. You’re right a looot of early sets were on dominaria. I suppose I equate the early years to my early years which obviously I shouldn’t do. The 2000s were more of the birth of consistent new planes, and i loved those days. So I will amend my comment and say I miss the 2000s-2010s blocks. Don’t you agree though anyways?? I don’t personally know anyone that loves the gatewatch. I’d love to hear your thoughts
@@-RTC- oh i absolutely agree with you, Gatewatch cast is super boring and I'm tired of just following in their wake as they go to different planes. Was just being pedantic about your all different planes comment. I do miss the 2000s variety. Kamigawa-Ravnica-Dominaria-Lorwyn-Alara-Mirrodin-Innistrad was a pretty great run.
So what I'm hearing is that Magic the Gathering stories are best written when they are short, powerful, punchy, and self contained but add up to something which is greater than the sum of their parts... like a collectible card.
Before watching the video my opinion on the subject is this: 1 - Last few years MtG story became a bland MtG universe Marvel type story. Maybe it would be better if other heroes/foes, other than planeswalkers, would be introduced. Remember when Planeswalkers were gods? Mortals and non-planeswalker- immortals were important and powerful enough to make an impact. Maybe if they go down that road again, it gets a bit more interesting. 2 - The investement on story creation seem to have dropped, a long time ago. Short stories were cool, during the weekly Magic Story-Era, but they lacked the novel like immersion. When they brought back novels, it seemed like they didn't direct the writers so the "present" story was in line with the "past" story. Many times, the heores seemed bland and out of personality. I do miss The Thran times. So what do they have to do to save mtg story? They need to have a good creative team, directing a good writer. Without this, it's all way worse than fanbased story, which in many cases is great, making it irrelevant. WotC has a past with this, they had great writers writting for Forgotten Realms (Paul S. Kemp, Troy Denning, Richard Lee Byers, et al), they just need to understand that there are many magic players who are also fantasy fiction fans! As it is right now, although I miss MtG novels, I don't care if they don't release them if they don't do it right. I'm tired of all the crap that has been released in the last year.
I think the big thing missing from the story lately is that wotc has been focused on generating as many products per year as possible, and one book or a satisfying story for a major set takes a lot longer to work on than churning out a core set, 3 other standard sets, a signature spellbook, a masters set, a commander draftable set, a pile of commander decks, jumpstart, a new kind of booster pack with every set, challenger decks, mystery boosters, game night box set, unsanctioned, 10+ secret lairs, a pile of planeswalker decks, and whatever else they churn out before january.
"Man, this group of Planeswalkers and friends saving almost everything they see sure is bland, WotC should look to the past, back when the story was about a group of Planeswalkers and friends saving almost everything they see except dragged out for an even longer period of time. This won't be bland at all."
did you read "the thran"? it was an amazing book, really dark and towards the end completely horrifying. i was fascinated with phyrexia before, but after reading how they originated, i was theirs compleately. if i dont count the fighting scenes it is one of the best stories i have ever read in fiction, and whenever i hear the possibilities of phyrexia returning i get excited. similar story for "the brothers war", though this had way too much fighting which i dont find interesting at all. but it expanded nicely upon what phyrxia and yawghmoth truly had become. what made these books so good was the characters, and their flaws. like urza, glacian, yawghmoth, rebbec. an awakened planeswalker was like a god, rare and powerful. unlike those others we have nowadays. later on, i liked kamahls journey that was about the mirari. chainer, aboshan, laquatus, the way nightmare magic worked was really interesting, ixidor, akroma, jeska.. remember? as for today? innistrad might have been interesting, but i never read into it. how are the books? but thats about it for me. wotc seems to be completely on money nowadays, and as you said, a good book takes time to write. this doesnt fit with their product release schedule, which is basically to never let the printers cool down. i dont think we will have gems like "the thran" ever again in the mtg universe, but i hope im wrong.
When I started playing, coming into contact with the story and flavor element of the game was what kept me into Magic in the first place. But recently, oh boy has the quality of mtg stories plummeted. The inconsistencies between story and cards and the Theros Beyond Death debacle are also brutal reminders that Wizzy cares almost nothing about story anymore. This is also why I started writing my own fanfictions.
The idea that magic has to have this huge overarching story has always been to it's detriment. I think they should make sets that are totally unrelated to their established characters and tell good and local stories.
A hundred times this. The worlds they make would be great settings for individual stories. And on the other hand, the Gatewatch and stuff was amateurish and contrived, taking over tales from each individual world.
I agree, but the caveat is that they need to do it right. I mean, that's basically what they tried to do with Eldraine, Theros, and Ikoria, but they screwed up on multiple levels.
I agree with you on this. With the marketing focus on planeswalkers, it is harder to make worlds players will love. Maybe we wont have to travel to Ravnica for a 4th time if WOTC can recreate the "magic" of worldbuilding. Put more focus on worldbuilding.
How to fix Magic’s story: 1. Reprint Cathartic Reunion in Zendikar 3 with art of Nissa and Chandra. Not a secret lair, just how the art normally is. 2. Make a Changeling Planeswalker, can be included with 3 3. Return to Lorwyn 4. Bring back an in-house writing team to make weekly short stories to flesh out the world rather than leaving it entirely in the hands of various outsourced authors who aren’t named Brandon Sanderson 5. Decanonize Dragons of Tarkir and return the world to the Khans timeline, slap Sarkhan Vol as it happens
The Dragons timeline is important to the overall story. Without it, Ugin stays dead and the Multiverse loses a huge ally against Bolas and the Eldrazi. Also Narset's spark never ignites and Sharkan never finds peace.
I am late to the party, but I think this idea that you can't achieve proper storytelling with novels is basically ignoring many books from the game's legendarium that, in fact, managed to generate brilliant stories. From things as old as the thran to children of the nameless, these are excellent pieces of work! This is not a question of the format of the writings, it's a question of what is being written, and how, regardless of the format! This is DANGEROUS. Do not blame the format of a novel for the issues with creative! EDIT: Have you considered analyzing the impact of removing creative as an independent subsection of the game, and instead being absorbed into R&D? EDIT2: Descriptive style narrative is not just late 90s/early 2000s, unless you think Jules Verne and J.R.R. Tolkien lived in that period.
“Why didn’t the eagles take them to the Lonely Mountain?” The Eagles initially helped the party by saving them from goblins and worgs. That was more to upset their enemy the goblins and curiosity of all the commotion than charity. Once they got them to safety the Eagles realized they knew Gandalf but didn’t really want to stick their necks out for the whole party. The Lord of the Eagles wanted to keep their existence secret from man as to not be hunted to extinction. Gandalf understood this request and had them dropped off in an uninhabited location. The Eagles didn’t take them to the lonely mountain because they where sentient lords of wind that wanted to keep their existence secret and not big dumb birds that show up when Gandalf whispers to a moth.
Best interview I've seen in a while. I could see the light in Prof's eyes being able to talk literature with another literaturephile. And I'm not sure I've ever seen an interview where Prof talked so little due to the guest exploding with ideas. I really agree regarding the loss of moments within moments. It's something I've noticed in TV as well where seasons used to be 20-something episodes long and now are lucky to go longer than 10. Every minute matters and we lose character-defining moments in the slow and less exciting episodes. Recently been noticing it with newer Star Trek as well as one of my favorite shows, Community, where it happens in the span of the series.
Zendikar Rising better have a good story because oh boy do I love this plane, and having it without Eldrazi has the potential to be very interesting, I'm really putting my hopes into it. Also, there will be Jace ! And I love Jace ! He's the best boy of the Multiverse !
I started in 1993/94 school year. The story and idea of a story was huge to me. The original vampire family decks back in the mid 90s were so great that created visions of what the story could be. The different artifacts Mishra this Mishra that had so much good going on. Then when the books started to release in consumer them, I still have the first book in my garage in a trunk, paper back. It was all so good and built up over the years. The current situation is very poor and definitely disconnects players and story. It's not just a game, it's a mythology of sorts. Similar to digital format magic in arena vs mtgo. The difference is vast and disconnected. Almost like there are opposing factions at war in the WotC house.
Thinking of how often these should be done, having a biweekly story to start would be good to start, and each year release a compilation of all the stories in a book with illustrations, either that or each main series set if the stories are done weekly. You’d have 12 chapter novels with art already done able to be sold and consumed in written form.
GREAT interview!!! Well worth watching all the way through, with good points made up till the very end (when Spice8 notes that, once fans have moved beyond anger to apathy, your art is in critical danger). The only thing I would add is that I think another dimension to the problem with Magic's story is that WotC (with or without pressure from Hasbro, who knows) is getting too big for its breeches by trying to expand into a media empire. The stated reason they gave for moving Magic's story away from what used to be known as the "creative team" in R&D into its own division of the company was that they were planning to have simultaneous products across multiple media (the TV show, maybe a movie, maybe an MMO, plus the card game, Arena, MTGO, etc.) and they wanted a centralized place to tell the story. I think the Prof and Spice8 are right that this was also a cynical cost-cutting measure by the suits, but I also think there's truth to the idea that WotC believed in putting the overarching Magic narrative in its own space. On paper this makes sense, and perhaps it could've worked if it had been done differently. Unfortunately, the actual implementation has been a colossal failure. Magic's story went from its all-time high point to arguably its all-time low point in just one year; Vorthos fans are disengaging from the brand in droves; the fandom is way less active. In many ways Wizards just doesn't seem to be in control of the ship anymore. The delays and weirdness surrounding Zendikar Rising previews smell of chaos and last-minute course changes behind the scenes. They need to revert some of these organizational changes, and go back to stable ground for a few years. In addition to all the things you said in this video about treating the story as a marketing strategy and treating their employees well.
The Sanderson story remind me a lot about Robin Williams in Aladdin. The Genie was originally animated to match one of his stand-up routines and when they showed him the animatic he was so in love with it that he decided to do it for SAG salary (the least amount of money he could charge without breaking union policy). The one condition was that the movie he was already signed on, Ferngully, was his priority because he loved the environmental message, and that they wouldn't merchandise his face. Disney proceeded to harass him and the studio, to the point of buying out where they were working days before production started, all because they wanted him to quit the project and put his full attention on Aladdin. He wouldn't work with Disney again until their entire management changed and they apologized. And even then this time he charge them his actual salary for a movie that wasn't even a theatrical release.
With the one caveat that Disney screwing over Robin Williams played a large part in making Aladdin one of their best sellers. At least they were smart greedy bastards. WOTC are just greedy bastards. Screwing over Brandon Sanderson does next to nothing for them - how many people who would be interested in buying Children of the Nameless haven't heard about the drama, do you think? How many people who might've bought it to support Magic and to own a hard copy are going to be put off now? And even setting that aside, how much money can a Magic novel have possibly made them?
i saw spice and knew this would be a spicy one. on free art/stories League of Legends took a leaf out of Wotc's old playbook for story and its all free and its engaging stuff ever, yes there's comics you can buy and a book that is loaded with lore, but the vast majority of the lore and story is free and on their website.
I’m an “oldie”, playing the same since Revised, The Thran was my favorite Magic literature by far 😊 makes me very very sad to see how much the story aspect has fallen in quality. I bought War of the Spark novel and was incredulous at how terribly written, disappointing and anticlimactic it was 🤦♂️ With how so many aspects of the game on decline (story, card design, card quality, format balance, etc), makes me so sad to see my favorite game/hobby of all time in this sorry state. I’ve stopped buying and playing recently (Eldraine was the last time I actually bought cards) 😢
I have no words to describe how amazing it is to open a video and see how something that saddens me so much like the current status of MTG story is been discussed and openly called out by Magic community. Professor, you're the heart of the community right now, and as such, you've been doing an incredible job at representing us. Mr.Spice, you fill mt heart with joy with your videos, not only by how good they are, but also for how you represent us flavor lovers, keep up the good work, it has been an honour to see you grow.
I think the most beneficial thing Wizards can do to start is to shift back to 2 or 3 set blocks, so that at the very least there's a solid narrative in the cards themselves. When all story points have to be introduced and resolved in a single release makes it a disjointed mess at best
Oh Lore, what have they done to you? I haven't been able to enjoy you since Dominaria. Someone give me a reboot please. On a side note: I love the banter
I miss the in-house episodic stories SO DAMN MUCH. As a person who doesn't read anything for fun, I was committed and enthralled by stories about characters and worlds from a game I love. These recent years have felt moreso than anything like a WASTE of potential. What a shame.
"So definitely, definitely, go check it out" "Which video was it that you recommended?" "I can't remember, it came out so long ago" What a way to end the video
I have always known of Magic and been interested in it, but boy from what I am hearing it really sounds like Wizards of the Coast is really incompetent and doesn't take their own product seriously.... Magic is a multiverse making it INSANELY easy to write good stories I feel like. They literally have the perfect platform and excuse to have SELF CONTAINED STORIES, also with all the money they make they can have a system which makes sure that major stories are consistent. Look at Warhammer 40k.... There are like what 1 million different stories all written by different people yet it all works out because WH40ks universe is so vast and over the top that these writers have the freedom to have their OWN stories in the WH40k universe and it allows authors to have their own freedom and tell amazing stories in that universe. I also look at games like League of Legends, LoL has had to retcon its story, but here's the thing, Riot HEAVILY invested into its story, characters, and it's art department and I am POSITIVE that it's paid for them in dividends. They make music videos for their characters, they make stories, games, art, Netflix series, on and on, and it leads to people becoming invested into the characters and stories. It sounds like Wizards of the Coast or whatever, just didn't want to invest into their product which is really weird, because I thought Magic and DND is like their bread and butter.... A good story and characters is WHAT SELLS. That's what advertising is ALL ABOUT, that's why you get Brad Pitt selling espresso machines, that's why you get hot models showing off clothes, cars, whatever. The reason why people get invested in products is from characters and story of some sort. People are going to buy the cards because they want to see awesome art, flavor text, they are going to want to see their favorite characters doing something cool, or how a story progresses. Not investing into your story as a card game sounds so insane to me. Kids went crazy for Pokemon and YuGiOh in huge part because of the cartoons!!!! Many kids grew up with Kaiba, or Yugi, or Ash/Pikachu........ It's so common sense lol. The thing is with Magic that I bet you don't even NEED super complicated story lines, that's the beauty of a multiverse lol. You can literally have self contained stories in sets lol, and have overarching stories when it's convenient. You can have different versions of the SAME story if you wanted too lol. It's like comic books or anything else. To have books that contradict the flavor text at all is a huge embarrassment IMO, because it seems so easy to avoid.... It really sounds like the story of Magic is an afterthought, which seems so BIZARRE to me when it's the most logical way to get more people into your product!!!! You would think the story would be like one of the MAIN focuses of the company! When I first heard of MTG and Planes walkers, I thought the story of Magic was that we play as planes walkers, and we summon creatures from different planes to fight for us, so naturally I thought each expansion would simply be a showcase of a different plane... Which sounds awesome, you literally summon the aid of different worlds and different times to fight for you! It makes it super easy to just have a self contained story for each expansion as it showcases a different world with it's own problems and stories.
![Limits of a [CARDNAME] | The Story of Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/pukpaxSBeAE/mqdefault.jpg)
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH THIS IS SO COOL AAAAAH
❤
ITTT ISSSS
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH SUCH COOL
You made it dude!!!
My reaction
The professor really is the heart of this community. He is so good at connecting every part of it.
So that is why the instructor from tolaria state University hired that vraska deathtouch assassin.
And DesolatorMagic is the bitter angry bile of the community that rises after WOTC shits all over everything
We just need a podcast with Rudy to connect the financial side of magic
He's a pillar of the community and very good for said community. He's not afraid to point out mistakes on wotc's or deck product companies regardless of blowback.That being said I feel he tends to talk over his guests and overexagerates listening to them to the point that it often seems disingenuous and like he doesn't care much for their point. Just a few pro's and con's in my opinion.
It makes sense because the only thing binding the entire community is card sleeves, and the professor is their elemental.
Whenever I hear Ixalan being mentioned I always feel disappointed that Jace never stayed a pirate.
The mental picture of Jace appearing in a tri-corner hat on an illusionary boat laden with booty and working only for the gold. This notion upsets me as we could have been meme-ing Jace and Step Brothers.
Judging by the art they previewed, we might get more Pirate-y Jace in Zendikar, which would be SWEET. Pirate Jace hoo rah!
plus the pw card for Pirate Jace was umm
I’d be totally cool for adventurer archeologist pirate Jace! I like library Jace as well.
James Trevelyan good news though!
Also: shirtless Jace
"Keep going, I ******* bleep you, get on with your ******* story".
I was super impressed by the quick reaction to help Spice8Rack feel comfortable after they thought they messed up. You're an incredible host.
Absolutely loved it exactly what I was hoping for
I mean he has said several times that he was professor f word. Now he proves it.
That was some good, wholesome content. Put a huge grin on my face.
Just curious as to your wording, does Spice use they/them pronouns?
@@kiranm8569 I'm not 100% but I'm pretty sure he uses he/him
Just clone Brandon Sanderson and let him do all the writing
+15 points
"Available in print soon!"
At the rate Brandon writes, there is no need to clone him...
@@robertbryce3225 for real that man enjoys his job and loves his fans. He dosent keep us waiting for 5-7 years for the next book.
We also need a Vin card. (UB) Human Spirit Wizard. 3/3. Flying, hexproof, protection from artifacts.
The moral of this story is if you’re working for a large, soulless, comically stupid conglomerate, hide your story budget in the advertising ledgers.
This is hilarious and sad
This!
Right. Seriously, how much did it really cost them to provide the story of say Amohnket block? It was purely digital on their website...and yet it was amazing to read for those that cared.
I'm in the middle of preparing for a second job interview right now, applying to a smallish (around 100 employees) company. At my last job, I worked for a company of 20 people, which got bought by a company of 250 people, which in turn was bought by a company with 200,000 employees. The changes I experienced at each stage were disheartening to say the least, and watching this video and remembering some of that made me update my preparation notes for the upcoming interview.
There are absolutely things that small companies do MUCH better than larger companies. I remember when WotC bought TSR, and I worried about it, but IMHO it turned out fine. When WotC was purchased by Hasbro, I worried a lot more, and I feel like those worries are, over time, all being proven justified.
You forgot to mention WotC "fake leftism" part
Tolarian and Spice8Rack? Never have i ever clicked like faster
Same
And Vince and the trinity is complete
Actually same
Literally the same
I never thought I would see the day my boy spice was on Tolarian Community College. Congrats man you've come so far from ranting about the interplanar connections between species of goblins.
Or why a pig can defeat a fully trained soldier
Bro that half hour of godless goblin analysis is one of the best videos.
@@pureevil6047 oh i know I've watched it like 4 times
Come far from it? That's why he's here.
I may delete this if they cover it (I’m only 30min in) but I feel like weekly stories are beneficial for another reason which is it maintains interest BETWEEN sets. 2020 has certainly been a year of “product fatigue” which honestly started last year. By decreasing the amount of unique product each year (decreasing production costs) you can have better quality products (rather than four different booster types) and still keep interest with stories that players become invested in.
I started playing when M21 was released and I’ve already got this “product fatigue” you mention! I can’t imagine what it’s like for those who’ve been around longer than a month.
Remember when there were two/three set releases each year? Pepperidge farm remembers
Totally agree, rather than overwhelm players with a toxic deluge of previews, engage them with the lore between sets.
I think part of the product fatigue though is that it's JUST the game coming out. The surrounding stuff means very little. The only reason to be excited for new sets is for new cards, it's not for how the story is going. If they tied some of the ancillary product into story, and had an actual story going it might make a difference. It might make you excited for a new set because of how the cards will link in, and not just because there might be a counter for Uro.
Honestly 6 products a year is plenty if they fill the time. 4 regular set, 1 commander product and 1 premium set (Masters/Horizons/Battlebond/Conspiracy) a year is more than enough product
I miss the comics they were doing around the scars of mirrodin era.
YES!
@@TolarianCommunityCollege or the even older ones around ice age this was some vintage comicbook-art
I have one from arabian nights. I thought it was cool that there is an article in the back that explains the card references in the story
Sure don't miss the BOOK from that time...
I work on the comic book industry. I've been thinking of making mtg comics for a while now. but work's always in the way :/
Next up: Spice8Rack on Game Knights
Please let this happen
Can i get an amen
@@rodolfoc.8027 amen
Hell yeah!
YES, PLEASE
This is the collab I didn’t know I needed.
Also, it’s so weird to hear Spice being called Connor.
I didnt even know that was his name
I didn't even know he had a name
Spice LARPS as a "normal bloke" named Connor from time to time. It's just a character he plays.
@@felixmortem1177 - I thought his name was Spicy Goblin
it's connor macleod. he is the highlander!
You know random thought, but this guy would be cool to have on gameknights....
Vorthos themed decks please
On his channle he talked about that for a couple minutes. Not as a stand alone video he did a q and a
He’s been on with merchant
yeeees
Put this man on Gameknights!!
My only criticism is that these podcasts need to be on places like Spotify and other podcast apps cause these are amazing
They do end up in the dies to removal feed, but that takes a while.
The last one on Spotify is the one about bannings, it's quite a bit behind. Maybe it's not profitable or feasable enough to put it there, but I do hope it gets the rest soon.
This and Dies to Removal take far too long to come out on podcast services. Id be fine if they put a raycon ad before it if the reason is not wanting to compete with their own yt channel revenue.
Losing the episodic story made me really sad. I haven’t been interested the story since and looking back it’s probably the reason why I stoped building my collection.
BUT WHAT ABOUT MILL VS DISCARD
Asking the real questions here
Poor Connor. XD
Where does this meme exactly come from?
@@Katerspacedopwater It's from Spice8Rack's channel. In one of his early videos he jokingly mentioned about making a video about Mill vs Discard, but he never did. We like to tease him about it :D
Specifically, the ethics of milling vs discarding in universe
I complain about what they've done with the story every time they do a survey regardless of what the topic is. it's the single most frustrating thing they managed to screw up
I voice all my frustrations with the game on those. And always try to tell them to go back to Kamigawa.
same. arent there enough of us or are they not listening?
I do the same.
Like even if they just print the story in Book form.
E-Books aren’t my thing.
Like cool, the good stories are locked in an E-Book, and then we get War of the Spark and the sequel China Pandering I mean Forsaken as thé paper books.
This tiger remembers when the books were included with the fat packs... 😔
That would really incentivize people buying fat packs. I was just go get a box because of the fat packs aren't usually the best deal. But if there was something cool like that in there I think a lot of people would pick one up with every set
That was a big selling point for me plus the two boxes instead of one. I stopped buying fat packs after they discontinued including the novels.
@@sethhale8828 I used to buy tons of seal product to sell. After tracking 100s of fats packs those boosters were loaded. The mythic count was much higher than a box of equal cost.
@@herpderp66 well that is good to know. To what extent is the pull rate better do you think?
I don't think that was a good decision at all. The people that want the novel and the people who want a fat pack don't have a big overlap.
spiceracks clothing makes me think of a fast talking monk lol
PSA kids, if you see a fast talking monk they might be a warlock.
@@Knave676 Spice8Rack radiates warlock energy.
AANG INTENSIFIES
Ugh man when the professor mentioned medical benefits (and other such protections) being why they stopped having an in-house team, I felt that. Really these corporations will be making stupid levels of profit but then the shareholders or the parent company will demand more profits and a more “efficient and streamlined” system, by which they always mean “a system where I’m paying fewer people to do more work and workers don’t talk back about how the company’s being run”
Well, they are run by Hasbro, the company who actively sabotaged their own kids' show (MLP) in order to milk Bronies for all they were worth. It's a bunch of old white dudes ruled by the dollar bill... what's new.
Das capitalism babeyyy
Elijah Davila 😢
It's still painful to see how hard the story fell from the highs of Ixalan to the lows of War of the Spark. War of the Spark should have been a crescendo and instead it was a cacophony.
Thankfully, being out of the loop since basically Eldritch Moon spared me from this and now all I think of War of the Spark for is Huatli and High Alert decks because they printed a buttload of walkers.
Ixalan justified my love for Jace. I’ve always loved him but it was beautiful to see him and Vraska together. That trauma angle was beautifully thought out and it was very cathartic to see Jace and Vraska heal together.
I want the story to be in-house. Please bring back the story team. Please! Novels like Foresaken have sunk the story. Bring them back wizards, please.
Suggestion: stop talking about planeswalkers and go back to having each plane have their own self-contained and interesting story.
Players are the planeswalkers experiencing these massive cultures and planes but ultimately visitors with no real significance in those worlds or the goings on within.
Hmm. Not a terrible idea. But I still like the idea of the planeswalkers pulling the threads of each planes story together.
I think instead of doing away with Planeswalkers entirely, we have a cataclysmic event that takes away every single spark.
This could create some interesting narratives for Ex-Walkers now trapped in a Plane that is potentially not their own as well as fulfilling the goal of no more Planeswalkers, if it fails the Walkers still exist and could get their sparks back.
Hey, 2006 me is here to remind you, "We told you so." Let that sink in: we have been saying this for over a decade!
But then WOTC can't LARP as having their own Marvel Cinematic Universe and bait Disney into buying them. "Look daddy hasbro, it's just like the Avengers, just the trend your marketing experts told us to chase!"
Still remembet the weatherlight vs the predator; and the order vs the cabal... good times
"Is it really unsustainable to maximise profit at the expense of customer goodwill? No, it's the community who is wrong."
"Can Magic's story be saved?"
Me, crying, having used the old Magic story as an escape from my problems: Dear God in Heaven I hope so
If it helps: We've been here before. Magic Story has gone down in the sewers a couple time. The weekly short stories were a golden age, but there was a dark time between that golden age and the one before. These past two years were a dark time, but with a bit of luck, things will pick back up as the Gatewatch returns in Zendikar.
We can only hope and pray
Perhaps the gods of Magic Story will here us
@GamerBear I imagine he is referring to the pre-8th editions stories. I.e. ice aga saga, invasion saga, odyssey saga, onslaught saga. Basically dominaria pre mending
"Not all aspects of a product or a game or a company needs to be necessarily for direct profit"
You sir, definitely isn't fit to work at wizards / papa hasbro
They never heard of a loss leader, that much is certain.
BUT IT'S SO TRUE! LIKE ACTUALLY!
Time was when business schools taught the value of long-term goodwill and the profitability of loyalty. Thanks to globalism and international corporatism, customers are nomore valuable than citizens are to communist regimens. They are tools "in the system" and if they complain, they are the problem. modern business is more short-sighted than a mouse with his nose stuck up a rat's ass. The "endless customers" trend, which is the fuel begind the theory that customer loyalty/retention has no value since they're all replaceable, will come to an end like any economic bubble. a true sign of lack of competition. when the bubble pops, though, it'll be a glorious day
Never clicked an UMTGP so fast in my life
kaveh forootan First UMTGP for me too. Felt good, though.
"What about all the murders?!" Lmao
I truly believe that WoTC is intentionally making the story disappointing, inconsistent and confusing so that they can have an excuse to stop doing it and just do what they really want to do: print money.
"overburdened with indifference" is what I feel about mtg right about now.
Random People: Avengers End Game is the most ambitious cross-over in history
Professor: HOLD MY BEER
so true damn
*HOLD MY TCC™ COFFEE CUP
I litterly thought of the exakt same thing 😂😂😂
And apparently, he makes people hold it quite often
Honestly, it's crazy how they're literally sitting on an untapped goldmine and not treating it as such with Magic story- and the craziest thing about it they've had their sights on the answer for what to do with it all along! They've clearly been trying to ape superhero fiction for a while now with the Gatewatch & War of the Spark, so why not try to do it the way superhero comics companies like DC & Marvel have been doing? I mean, they're the best examples of how to work with fiction involving multitudes of creators, worlds, timelines, and a gazillion characters. (Heck, I'm even sure Magic has more to work with on the worlds and characters part.) Take a fan-favorite Commander or anyone not a planeswalker and give them their own story like the way B-list superheroes get their own series- people who are already fans will latch on to it, and if they just happen to strike gold, they've got a wealth of stories they could adapt to other forms of media to reach a whole new audience, which is exactly what happened with characters like Deadpool. Or in Magic's case, they could just like, you know, makes Secret Lair drops related to that character! It's literally free money for WotC!
It's just baffling that they're clearly trying to copy that model of success but ignoring what makes it work, by having a large enough editorial/story team that's dedicated to keeping the story & narrative all together. War of the Spark was atrocious precisely because it had all the makings of a comic book crossover event yet none of the logistics needed to make that work. It was like if comic book crossovers only had 2 issues to tell the story, no one keeping track of who, what, where the characters are and what they were doing, and there were no tie-in issues focusing on key characters to further flesh out the story. They don't just have to focus on a few characters! You can still have the main story spotlight be on the Jaces and the Chandras on the featured plane in the newest set and have smaller creative teams work on side stories in Kamigawa or some other setting, just like how you can have the Superman titles & Batman titles & the annual crossovers but still have a miniseries featuring Mister Terrific. You just need enough people to do that.
Because yeah, managing those many characters and creating beloved (and profitable) characters & IP's isn't impossible, and superhero comics are exactly proof of that. But you just can't cheat your way out of that with say, I dunno staking it on a Netflix series or a potential video game or a potential movie hoping to score a hit without actually investing the needed people & resources to lay the groundworks to do so.
This got a little bit too lengthy and rant-y, but I'm really just... frustrated with how they've handled it. I've been reading superhero comics all my life, and I love it when they've got worlds upon worlds rich with history & story & narrative & characters that are all interlocking and bounce of each other that I could just endlessly dig into. So when I first got into Magic and learning about how it had potentially even more of that, I was super stoked to read every story, every wiki entry, look at every card and figure out their deal! But even with such an endless wealth of narrative to dig from, there's just so. few. content. (Not to mention they're not so readily available). If I just learned about Spider-Man and wanted to know everything there is about him immediately, there's a plethora of media I can choose from that's readily available like the comics, animated series, movies, all-ages books, etc. It's exactly because the comic books and cards themselves can only tell a piece of the story to an extent that there's the opportunity to branch it out to other media. And with cards that can fit so few flavor texts, there's arguably an even bigger opportunity to fill that need for more story, more content.
If I wanted to consume every media about Jace, who's arguably been one of the faces of Magic for some time, all I can do is... I guess look at some cards? And read the wiki entry on him which isn't even on Wizard's site? And then try to navigate my way at Wizard's actual byzantine site to try and find the related story articles, read them, only to find that the newest story is paywalled in a novel that doesn't feature him as much, then find out that he's going to be featured in the newest Magic set, but that set probably won't have any story content about him besides an image and summary text of what he's doing? It's ridiculous!
You are so passionate for the story. A vorthos indeed. It can happen again. We used to have uncharted realms. We have loose ends to work on. Like the Church of Serra and Benalia policing the Cabal. Or the new Weatherlight crew. "Slice of Life" stories with notable Ravnicans. Chandra performing her duties as Abbott of Keral Keep.
I know it's hard work. Why pay for writers and illustrators? But we used to have it.
THIS.
I use to be able to name exactly where each walker was. You could pinpoint them based on the lore. Lilli was on innistrad, Jace ravnica, garruk was hunting Jace. Now it takes hours of research to figure out if a plane walker is even in a story
What you are describing is perhaps the eaziest thing to do right nkw what are you talking about
@@DimT670
Where is Teferi?
Where is Vivian?
Where is Elspeth?
Where is Garruk?
Where is Yangu?
@@randomdogdog nicol bolas👀
Just kidding
@@crazypistachios at least we know what bolas is up to...
🕶️Chilling in the shadow realm🕶️
And credit where credit is due, Baseri is wandering aimlessly, making friends. And I think Ikoria takes place after war? But does anyone know why Vivian was on Ikoria?
@@randomdogdog I think in Sundered Bond it says she was just studying the monsters? I think? Also Narset was just on Ikoria for essentially no reason.
I think a big detriment to current magic story is that almost none of the characters have concrete motivations. Wizards probably does this so they can just drop them anywhere but it also makes them feel like cardboard cut outs. What does Chandra want at the end of the day? Jace? They just feel like they exist in a vacuum until Wizards needs them for marketing.
His flowing locks, gone! NOOOOOOOOOO!
I was devastated when Prof cut his hair, but this is even worse. It's like seeing your Dad without his mustache or William Ozman with glasses
Ikr! I was so saaaddd. But he does look just as fabulous
Dude, it looks so good though
@@ms.aelanwyr.ilaicos I know but it's just so sad seeing it gone
I don't understand why we aren't naming names when we say "it was a higher-up decision."
There are three names that we have to say:
- Chris Cocks, the CEO of Wizards;
- Rachel Agnes, the Brand Manager of Magic, who makes all the decisions about every new product they could make that is not directly a Standard-Legal paper card set; and
- Nic Kelman, who is in charge of all the story of Magic.
When bad things happen in the story of Magic, it's these people's fault. When someone says it's a "higher-up decision" it's Chris Cocks and Rachel Agnes's fault. When there's terrible writing and no editing in a Magic story, it's Nic Kelman's fault.
Don't let these real people hide behind corporate anonymity. These people are the ones in charge and it's their responsibility when things fail. Let everyone know who bears the responsibility and who should be mentioned when things go wrong.
We blame Chris Cocks, we blame Rachel Agnes and we blame Nic Kelman, because they're making the decisions that hurt Magic for the sake of profit.
Im sitting over here like “what story?”
I'm Surprised mtg hasn't learnt from the 'Black Library' of 40k.
That has been hugely succesful, and is run by people who love and care about the lore and the story and who promote the brand.
I am dyslexic and at times its a struggle for me to read. That being said...When I got back into MTG. I read the episodes released on the WotC page. I ate up everything I could. I freaking READ anything I could on MTG lore. It caught me, it captivated me. I adored it. It made the struggle for me to read worth it. I feel in love with the lore and it made the game even richer for me. And as the dynamic changes. I've become so sad. I'm not longer wanting to read the story or lore. I only watch summaries now. Its not worth the struggle for me anymore. And that makes me sad....
Oh yeah! Spice8rack, the best Yawgmoth cosplay / ideological critique on the internet!
I think Garruk being healed by the almost literal Holy Grail is about the right amount of power required to break the veil curse
This makes me miss the old days of the good story, to the point where I'm going to reread all the old stories on the Wizards website.
Personal favorite of mine:
I am Avacyn by Doug Beyer at the end of the Shadows over Innistrad story
an incredibly powerful piece with amazing writing and really makes me feel bad for both sides.
If you haven't read it, give the whole Shadows/Eldritch Moon story line a read. It's one of my personal favorites.
I used to love the weekly articles. To see what was clearly meant to be a full story in Theros reduced to a single article was really heartbreaking, specially after years waiting for the return of Elspeth.
Nowadays I get my game fiction fix from League of Legends. They have been keeping a steady stream of stories with pretty consistent quality. In many ways, reminds me of the golden days of Uncharted Realms.
I started playing back in Amonkhet. My first ever deck had *God-Pharaoh’s Faithful* in it as a star player, and learning she had a short story entry on the official website was super exciting. Turns out her name is Nylah.
Bring back weekly magic stories
Put a pay wall.
Put codes into preview pack, booster box, arena gems or any product as an incentive to buy cards.
We buy cards, we read stories.
You sell cards and things.
Everyone happy.
I still think the best way to monetize mtg story is to publish collector's anthologies, or graphic novels of the existing story. Don't keep people out of the story because they don't have money, but for god's sake let people buy hard copies of things, expand the merchandising, etc.
...But ideally not Funk Pops.
wow...you're actually advocating for a pay wall?....from this company?...
They make enough money as it is. I have never seen a company that is as greedy as this one. Short term profit is there only motivation, it's just like a Timmy.
@@thecardboardpirate3417 Isn't exploiting a broken system then blaming others for not "getting with the program" more of a Spike thing?
They should make the prof into a magic card.
AVATAR OF THE COMMUNITY
And please make it a given away card, at every lgs for any buy you make. Because Prof's all about the community
4U - Legendary Creature - Human (2/5)
Defender
Any spell that would cost any player more than 5 converted mana cost costs 3 less.
All lands become fetch lands.
Merfolk you control become good.
If a shitty Secret Lair is released, The Professor may attack this turn as if it didn't have Defender.
I have a theory. What if Lukka's inconsistent story are actually two separate points of views. In the written material He's a villain in the making but in the cards he deluded and see's himself as the good guy?
The ludonarrative dissonance reflects Lukka's cognitive dissonance, thereby making the ludonarrative not dissonant at all? Brilliant!
While a cool idea as a concept I highly doubt WotC gave it that much thought tbh.... : /
didn't he became a villain because his companion got executed by Kudro?
I remember when my friends were just getting started with magic they would ask me about the story. I would tell them about jace´s amazing adventures in ixalan. About the gatewatch's defeat at the hands of Nicol Bolas in amonkhet. About Nissa and Chandra's relationship growing in kaladesh. Everytime they had a question about the lore they would come to me and i would awnser with joy and passion, wich is what i had for the characters and their stories.
At the war of the spark pre-release my friends asked me what the story was like. My awnser was that i didn't know. I had looked at the spoiler so i knew the basic plot points but the story was elusive. By the time Eldraine came along, not only did none of my friends have any interest in asking me about the story, but I had no interest in buying the Magic ebook and reading about the story. Removing the freedom of enjoying the story of the game through the cards themselves and then being able to read about what was happening in depth for free might have been one of the stupidest decisions Wotc has ever made. Hopefully this video helps illustrate the community's general lack of interest in current magic story.
Sorry for the long comment, just needed to let this out.
I only came here to say: Remember when the set novel was included in the Fat Pack?
The "I first started playing Magic at around M24" sentence came out too natural to be untrue, so I'm here below my tinfoil hat thinking -well, the good news is apparently we survived the quarantine (and the virus), and 3 years from now we'll have some sort of time-traveling method/device, probably not readily available to the public though but that's a start, magic seems to be not yet dead in that future so that's also good news (right?), I should carefully monitor which cards Spice8Rack buys online...
Prof, thank you for introducing me to tons of content creators lately. You are doing an amazing job and all these people are interesting and passionate and I’ve been subscribing to them to help the cause.
I would like stories about specific cards. For example "Judge's Familiar" Just a simple story in the world of Ravnica showing this bird and hinting at the ability it has. Bring cards to life.
Oh, like Uncharted Realms?
I got back into Magic after a 20 year hiatus, partly due to TCC, but also to discovering some lore videos from TH-cam content creators. I loved the Antiques War and the fallout through The Dark, Fallen Empires, and Ice Age. When I came back, I decided to catch up on all I had missed and it seems like there are some great stories out there. I came back just after Dominaria and went to go read the Guilds of Ravinica story and felt myself saying, “Who are these people and why should I care?” That did not instill in me a lot of hope for the eventual War of the Spark novel and I’m glad I skipped it after seeing some passages from it. I feel it and the follow up, Forsaken, highlight the cognitive dissonance regarding the current Magic storyline.
Firstly, there’s no singular voice. That’s not to say that all stories need to be written by the same person, but there needs to be some kind of universal direction. Feige makes sure that, aside from a few inconsistencies, all Marvel stories fit together in the same universe. It still allows directors to make their films, giving different feels to movies like The Winter Soldier and Thor Ragnarok. The latest Star Wars movies suffered from this. Abrams set up a bunch of loose ends, Johnson answers some of them in an unsatisfying way, which forces Abrams to come back and throw as much fan service at the screen as he could to quell the masses. All of that could have been avoided by having someone in charge of the narrative and story direction.
The next pitfall of the MTG storyline is the quality. It’s one thing to not like how the story unfolded but the quality of the narrative was, to put it kindly, lackluster. I’m no author, but even I know not to write how the WotS novels were written. It felt very much like a “throw crap against a wall and see what sticks” kind of story in the end. I’m not against monetization of the story, so long as the story is of the quality so that we get our money’s worth. If it feels like a cash grab, you’re doing it wrong. People are willing to shell out a lot of money, but it’s got to be for a quality product. Unfortunately it seems like they put whoever was in charge of card quality in charge of the story as well and they only see things as a P&L sheet.
Lastly, the main problem is the lack of respect to its audience. I don’t mind bold decisions that I don’t agree with narratively, but I won’t stand for being insulted. When I read a story, watch a TV series, pick up a comic book, or spend my hard earned money in a theater, I expect a certain effort to be paid to character development and plot. It doesn’t matter who decided to break Chandra and Nissa apart, how it was done was the slap in the face. You’re supposed to feel for these characters, their hopes and dreams, their fears and despair, their disappointments and their sacrifices. None of that came through, just archaic overused tropes.
So how do we fix all of this? Well first off, pressure need to be put on Hasbro. They are not doing so hot atm and they really should be leaning into MTG as being the profitable IP it is to help them out, but they’re thinking too small. This is a company that developed shows to sell toys in the 80’s and it’s like they don’t even do that anymore. The stories are what established an emotional connection to the products that they were actually trying to sell. This generation might not be into physical toys as much as my and the Prof’s generation was, but a 5¢ piece of cardboard with someone’s favorite planeswalker or legendary creature is always going to be profitable. WotC might not listen to us, but they’ll sure as hell listen to Hasbro if we demand these things so that we can give them our money. Hasbro will make WotC listen. Honestly, I’m still holding out hope on the Netflix series. I want to see a live action movie and to be able to buy action figures like I can with Star Wars, GI Joe, and Transformers so I can set up my favorite scenes. Hasbro is leaving money on the table and we can help them see that.
Story-wise, there should be an ongoing series that constitutes the main storyline. This main storyline can be monetized, but again it need to be something of quality and should be developed, written, and polished alongside the set it is supposed to accompany. Between these major releases, a monthly series of companion stories should be released and these can be free. They’ll go into further details and greater depth that predates, occurs in conjunction, or deals with the fallout of the main storyline, but whose details are not important to overall narrative of the set story. They can be written by WotC staff or by guest writers who are given plot points and story arcs to work with.
As for plot and character development, the story needs a new “Big Bad.” Now that doesn’t mean we need to go back to “a multiverse in peril” necessarily, but it needs to be someone who represents a major threat to our protagonists. There’s lots of hanging threads that could be tied up. Who broke Alara? Where did the Eldrazi come from? Did someone make them? What’s going on with New Phyrexia? What is the story with the chainveil? Who is the Ravenman really? Trying to answer some of these questions easily lends themselves to more creativity, new planeswalkers to meet, and new mechanics to explore.
“Who are these people and why should I care?” - EXACTLY. These characters are nothing compared to the Brothers' War, Dominaria vs Phyrexia, The Weatherlight & Rath series and the Ice Age/Homelands characters. WotC just made hollow characters that would reflect their own egos which is why the only good one they couldn't identify with, they buried for a long time (Garruk).
Antero Colon I actually think they could still do the same thing with these characters, but there’s got to be some kind of consistency and they should be aiming higher than they currently are. It’s possible to have amazing stories and still be mass consumed, but it’s like they sacrificed the former for more of the latter and, like a lot of things recently tbh, it’s blown up in their faces spectacularly.
Well said. Bring back the Phyrexians!
@Paul Byersmith you know they’re on the horizon.
Sees professor has uploaded a new video: "yes"
Sees that said video features Spice8Rack: "Yes!"
Sees that said video is an hour and a half long: "YES!!!"
You have to appreciate that Connor's nails match his headphones
I am such a lore fan that when I was notified of this video, I left in the middle of the latest Command Zone video to click over.
Lol same
Ha! I literally did the exact same thing.
man.. i miss the days ive been looking forward to Wednesdays to get my fill of magic lore...
Same
I’m sure I’m in the minority here but I don’t like that there is one story. I wish we had different worlds with different characters, kind of like back in the earlier years of magic.
You mean different worlds like visiting a new plane every set, as opposed to every set in the 90s being on Dominaria?
@@toamatau8785 Well you got me there Toa! You’re right, all the early sets took place on Dominaria, like Arabian nights, Homelands, Tempest, multiple urza block sets, and mercardian masks! I’m only kidding, I get your point. You’re right a looot of early sets were on dominaria. I suppose I equate the early years to my early years which obviously I shouldn’t do. The 2000s were more of the birth of consistent new planes, and i loved those days. So I will amend my comment and say I miss the 2000s-2010s blocks.
Don’t you agree though anyways?? I don’t personally know anyone that loves the gatewatch. I’d love to hear your thoughts
@@-RTC- oh i absolutely agree with you, Gatewatch cast is super boring and I'm tired of just following in their wake as they go to different planes. Was just being pedantic about your all different planes comment.
I do miss the 2000s variety. Kamigawa-Ravnica-Dominaria-Lorwyn-Alara-Mirrodin-Innistrad was a pretty great run.
Oh boi... with the secret lair WD out and possible future Harry Potter / Skyrim / Vikings secret lairs, I'd love to see a part 2 of this.
This is one of my favorite videos that both of you have ever created.
So what I'm hearing is that Magic the Gathering stories are best written when they are short, powerful, punchy, and self contained but add up to something which is greater than the sum of their parts... like a collectible card.
In other news I love the thumbnail. Connor looks like a Bhuddist monk offering hidden wisdom to the western scholar.
Wait "failed novelist"? What is your novel called? I'll buy a copy.
Before watching the video my opinion on the subject is this:
1 - Last few years MtG story became a bland MtG universe Marvel type story. Maybe it would be better if other heroes/foes, other than planeswalkers, would be introduced. Remember when Planeswalkers were gods? Mortals and non-planeswalker- immortals were important and powerful enough to make an impact. Maybe if they go down that road again, it gets a bit more interesting.
2 - The investement on story creation seem to have dropped, a long time ago. Short stories were cool, during the weekly Magic Story-Era, but they lacked the novel like immersion. When they brought back novels, it seemed like they didn't direct the writers so the "present" story was in line with the "past" story. Many times, the heores seemed bland and out of personality. I do miss The Thran times.
So what do they have to do to save mtg story? They need to have a good creative team, directing a good writer. Without this, it's all way worse than fanbased story, which in many cases is great, making it irrelevant. WotC has a past with this, they had great writers writting for Forgotten Realms (Paul S. Kemp, Troy Denning, Richard Lee Byers, et al), they just need to understand that there are many magic players who are also fantasy fiction fans!
As it is right now, although I miss MtG novels, I don't care if they don't release them if they don't do it right. I'm tired of all the crap that has been released in the last year.
I think the big thing missing from the story lately is that wotc has been focused on generating as many products per year as possible, and one book or a satisfying story for a major set takes a lot longer to work on than churning out a core set, 3 other standard sets, a signature spellbook, a masters set, a commander draftable set, a pile of commander decks, jumpstart, a new kind of booster pack with every set, challenger decks, mystery boosters, game night box set, unsanctioned, 10+ secret lairs, a pile of planeswalker decks, and whatever else they churn out before january.
"Man, this group of Planeswalkers and friends saving almost everything they see sure is bland, WotC should look to the past, back when the story was about a group of Planeswalkers and friends saving almost everything they see except dragged out for an even longer period of time. This won't be bland at all."
did you read "the thran"? it was an amazing book, really dark and towards the end completely horrifying. i was fascinated with phyrexia before, but after reading how they originated, i was theirs compleately. if i dont count the fighting scenes it is one of the best stories i have ever read in fiction, and whenever i hear the possibilities of phyrexia returning i get excited.
similar story for "the brothers war", though this had way too much fighting which i dont find interesting at all. but it expanded nicely upon what phyrxia and yawghmoth truly had become.
what made these books so good was the characters, and their flaws. like urza, glacian, yawghmoth, rebbec. an awakened planeswalker was like a god, rare and powerful. unlike those others we have nowadays.
later on, i liked kamahls journey that was about the mirari. chainer, aboshan, laquatus, the way nightmare magic worked was really interesting, ixidor, akroma, jeska.. remember?
as for today? innistrad might have been interesting, but i never read into it. how are the books?
but thats about it for me. wotc seems to be completely on money nowadays, and as you said, a good book takes time to write. this doesnt fit with their product release schedule, which is basically to never let the printers cool down. i dont think we will have gems like "the thran" ever again in the mtg universe, but i hope im wrong.
@@raze956 It is not a coincidence that the best MTG novels are considered The Thran, Brother's War, Nemesis and Torment aka the darkest ones.
@@JustAnotherPest That... isn't even an accurate description of old lore as a whole.
Nobody:
Ajani: *smiles in leonin*
I love that meme
hahahah what?
"It all started with that damn smile."
Who knows the Netflix magic show might be decent
Given Netflix's track record for only greenlighting shit, I highly doubt it.
Chandra and Liliana will be blackwashed, and even though Kaya is interesting she will be ignored. Edit: Teferi will also be ignored.
The Russo brothers are Magic players so maybe they will do a good job.
It's a fifty shot at this point
@Norman Bergmaier Damn bro.
That racist statement was nice.
I miss MtG lore. From Shadowmoor to Origins and Ixalan to now. Gives us the precious!
When I started playing, coming into contact with the story and flavor element of the game was what kept me into Magic in the first place. But recently, oh boy has the quality of mtg stories plummeted. The inconsistencies between story and cards and the Theros Beyond Death debacle are also brutal reminders that Wizzy cares almost nothing about story anymore.
This is also why I started writing my own fanfictions.
The Weatherlight/Tempest era is the closest I've come to enjoying the story naturally without seeking a story at all.
And then we remember that era was 20 years ago.
The idea that magic has to have this huge overarching story has always been to it's detriment. I think they should make sets that are totally unrelated to their established characters and tell good and local stories.
A hundred times this. The worlds they make would be great settings for individual stories. And on the other hand, the Gatewatch and stuff was amateurish and contrived, taking over tales from each individual world.
I agree, but the caveat is that they need to do it right. I mean, that's basically what they tried to do with Eldraine, Theros, and Ikoria, but they screwed up on multiple levels.
I agree with you on this. With the marketing focus on planeswalkers, it is harder to make worlds players will love. Maybe we wont have to travel to Ravnica for a 4th time if WOTC can recreate the "magic" of worldbuilding.
Put more focus on worldbuilding.
It’s sad to see that the mtg story/lore has slowly declined the last few years
I love how Spice can't stay still on that chair. Mood, dude.
How to fix Magic’s story:
1. Reprint Cathartic Reunion in Zendikar 3 with art of Nissa and Chandra. Not a secret lair, just how the art normally is.
2. Make a Changeling Planeswalker, can be included with 3
3. Return to Lorwyn
4. Bring back an in-house writing team to make weekly short stories to flesh out the world rather than leaving it entirely in the hands of various outsourced authors who aren’t named Brandon Sanderson
5. Decanonize Dragons of Tarkir and return the world to the Khans timeline, slap Sarkhan Vol as it happens
I don’t agree with number 1 and I’m eh with number 5 but I agree with you... and bring back BRANDON SANDERSON
I definitely agree with 1 at least. I would by a few playsets, and I play commander.
Also I'd love a new Ashling. :D
The Dragons timeline is important to the overall story. Without it, Ugin stays dead and the Multiverse loses a huge ally against Bolas and the Eldrazi. Also Narset's spark never ignites and Sharkan never finds peace.
I am late to the party, but I think this idea that you can't achieve proper storytelling with novels is basically ignoring many books from the game's legendarium that, in fact, managed to generate brilliant stories. From things as old as the thran to children of the nameless, these are excellent pieces of work! This is not a question of the format of the writings, it's a question of what is being written, and how, regardless of the format! This is DANGEROUS. Do not blame the format of a novel for the issues with creative!
EDIT: Have you considered analyzing the impact of removing creative as an independent subsection of the game, and instead being absorbed into R&D?
EDIT2: Descriptive style narrative is not just late 90s/early 2000s, unless you think Jules Verne and J.R.R. Tolkien lived in that period.
Love the freeflowing ideas and conversation, one of my favorite Tolarian Academy videos!
“Why didn’t the eagles take them to the Lonely Mountain?”
The Eagles initially helped the party by saving them from goblins and worgs. That was more to upset their enemy the goblins and curiosity of all the commotion than charity. Once they got them to safety the Eagles realized they knew Gandalf but didn’t really want to stick their necks out for the whole party. The Lord of the Eagles wanted to keep their existence secret from man as to not be hunted to extinction. Gandalf understood this request and had them dropped off in an uninhabited location. The Eagles didn’t take them to the lonely mountain because they where sentient lords of wind that wanted to keep their existence secret and not big dumb birds that show up when Gandalf whispers to a moth.
One assumes that they also had no desire to be shot with arrows en route and/or tangle with a dragon, however small.
Alternate title: 2 english majors shit on a card game
Had no clue about Garrek until now...dropped the ball on that one wotc. Why wasn't 'the curse broken' a card?
I didn’t see this collab coming, but it is a welcome one.
To me, ounslaught was the pinnacle of mtg storytelling
Best interview I've seen in a while. I could see the light in Prof's eyes being able to talk literature with another literaturephile. And I'm not sure I've ever seen an interview where Prof talked so little due to the guest exploding with ideas.
I really agree regarding the loss of moments within moments. It's something I've noticed in TV as well where seasons used to be 20-something episodes long and now are lucky to go longer than 10. Every minute matters and we lose character-defining moments in the slow and less exciting episodes. Recently been noticing it with newer Star Trek as well as one of my favorite shows, Community, where it happens in the span of the series.
This makes me miss WotC's in-house stories.
Zendikar Rising better have a good story because oh boy do I love this plane, and having it without Eldrazi has the potential to be very interesting, I'm really putting my hopes into it.
Also, there will be Jace ! And I love Jace ! He's the best boy of the Multiverse !
True, Jace best boy.
(I'm just wants Jace x Lili things, let my ship survive the bombin....:S)
I know I am late but I am soooo angry that they screwd things up with Brandon Sanderson
I started in 1993/94 school year. The story and idea of a story was huge to me. The original vampire family decks back in the mid 90s were so great that created visions of what the story could be. The different artifacts Mishra this Mishra that had so much good going on. Then when the books started to release in consumer them, I still have the first book in my garage in a trunk, paper back. It was all so good and built up over the years. The current situation is very poor and definitely disconnects players and story. It's not just a game, it's a mythology of sorts. Similar to digital format magic in arena vs mtgo. The difference is vast and disconnected. Almost like there are opposing factions at war in the WotC house.
Thinking of how often these should be done, having a biweekly story to start would be good to start, and each year release a compilation of all the stories in a book with illustrations, either that or each main series set if the stories are done weekly. You’d have 12 chapter novels with art already done able to be sold and consumed in written form.
The golden nail polish kills me.
Perfect.
GREAT interview!!! Well worth watching all the way through, with good points made up till the very end (when Spice8 notes that, once fans have moved beyond anger to apathy, your art is in critical danger).
The only thing I would add is that I think another dimension to the problem with Magic's story is that WotC (with or without pressure from Hasbro, who knows) is getting too big for its breeches by trying to expand into a media empire. The stated reason they gave for moving Magic's story away from what used to be known as the "creative team" in R&D into its own division of the company was that they were planning to have simultaneous products across multiple media (the TV show, maybe a movie, maybe an MMO, plus the card game, Arena, MTGO, etc.) and they wanted a centralized place to tell the story. I think the Prof and Spice8 are right that this was also a cynical cost-cutting measure by the suits, but I also think there's truth to the idea that WotC believed in putting the overarching Magic narrative in its own space. On paper this makes sense, and perhaps it could've worked if it had been done differently. Unfortunately, the actual implementation has been a colossal failure. Magic's story went from its all-time high point to arguably its all-time low point in just one year; Vorthos fans are disengaging from the brand in droves; the fandom is way less active.
In many ways Wizards just doesn't seem to be in control of the ship anymore. The delays and weirdness surrounding Zendikar Rising previews smell of chaos and last-minute course changes behind the scenes. They need to revert some of these organizational changes, and go back to stable ground for a few years. In addition to all the things you said in this video about treating the story as a marketing strategy and treating their employees well.
Devastated to learn that Spice's legal name isn't Spice 8Rack
The Sanderson story remind me a lot about Robin Williams in Aladdin. The Genie was originally animated to match one of his stand-up routines and when they showed him the animatic he was so in love with it that he decided to do it for SAG salary (the least amount of money he could charge without breaking union policy). The one condition was that the movie he was already signed on, Ferngully, was his priority because he loved the environmental message, and that they wouldn't merchandise his face. Disney proceeded to harass him and the studio, to the point of buying out where they were working days before production started, all because they wanted him to quit the project and put his full attention on Aladdin. He wouldn't work with Disney again until their entire management changed and they apologized. And even then this time he charge them his actual salary for a movie that wasn't even a theatrical release.
With the one caveat that Disney screwing over Robin Williams played a large part in making Aladdin one of their best sellers. At least they were smart greedy bastards. WOTC are just greedy bastards. Screwing over Brandon Sanderson does next to nothing for them - how many people who would be interested in buying Children of the Nameless haven't heard about the drama, do you think? How many people who might've bought it to support Magic and to own a hard copy are going to be put off now? And even setting that aside, how much money can a Magic novel have possibly made them?
Is that why Robin Williams wasn't in Return of Jafar, but was in King of Thieves?
@@solemnsovereign758 Precisely.
Spiiiice what happened to your haaaair!?!?!
i saw spice and knew this would be a spicy one.
on free art/stories League of Legends took a leaf out of Wotc's old playbook for story and its all free and its engaging stuff ever, yes there's comics you can buy and a book that is loaded with lore, but the vast majority of the lore and story is free and on their website.
Fantastic! I've been waiting for this collab.
I’m an “oldie”, playing the same since Revised, The Thran was my favorite Magic literature by far 😊 makes me very very sad to see how much the story aspect has fallen in quality. I bought War of the Spark novel and was incredulous at how terribly written, disappointing and anticlimactic it was 🤦♂️
With how so many aspects of the game on decline (story, card design, card quality, format balance, etc), makes me so sad to see my favorite game/hobby of all time in this sorry state. I’ve stopped buying and playing recently (Eldraine was the last time I actually bought cards) 😢
I wasn't expecting the spiciest person on the internet
Great discussion here, gentlemen. This is very important to discuss as it is a vital part of the health of the game.
I have no words to describe how amazing it is to open a video and see how something that saddens me so much like the current status of MTG story is been discussed and openly called out by Magic community. Professor, you're the heart of the community right now, and as such, you've been doing an incredible job at representing us. Mr.Spice, you fill mt heart with joy with your videos, not only by how good they are, but also for how you represent us flavor lovers, keep up the good work, it has been an honour to see you grow.
I think the most beneficial thing Wizards can do to start is to shift back to 2 or 3 set blocks, so that at the very least there's a solid narrative in the cards themselves. When all story points have to be introduced and resolved in a single release makes it a disjointed mess at best
Oh Lore, what have they done to you? I haven't been able to enjoy you since Dominaria. Someone give me a reboot please.
On a side note: I love the banter
I miss the in-house episodic stories SO DAMN MUCH. As a person who doesn't read anything for fun, I was committed and enthralled by stories about characters and worlds from a game I love.
These recent years have felt moreso than anything like a WASTE of potential.
What a shame.
"So definitely, definitely, go check it out"
"Which video was it that you recommended?"
"I can't remember, it came out so long ago"
What a way to end the video
I have always known of Magic and been interested in it, but boy from what I am hearing it really sounds like Wizards of the Coast is really incompetent and doesn't take their own product seriously....
Magic is a multiverse making it INSANELY easy to write good stories I feel like. They literally have the perfect platform and excuse to have SELF CONTAINED STORIES, also with all the money they make they can have a system which makes sure that major stories are consistent.
Look at Warhammer 40k.... There are like what 1 million different stories all written by different people yet it all works out because WH40ks universe is so vast and over the top that these writers have the freedom to have their OWN stories in the WH40k universe and it allows authors to have their own freedom and tell amazing stories in that universe.
I also look at games like League of Legends, LoL has had to retcon its story, but here's the thing, Riot HEAVILY invested into its story, characters, and it's art department and I am POSITIVE that it's paid for them in dividends. They make music videos for their characters, they make stories, games, art, Netflix series, on and on, and it leads to people becoming invested into the characters and stories.
It sounds like Wizards of the Coast or whatever, just didn't want to invest into their product which is really weird, because I thought Magic and DND is like their bread and butter.... A good story and characters is WHAT SELLS. That's what advertising is ALL ABOUT, that's why you get Brad Pitt selling espresso machines, that's why you get hot models showing off clothes, cars, whatever. The reason why people get invested in products is from characters and story of some sort. People are going to buy the cards because they want to see awesome art, flavor text, they are going to want to see their favorite characters doing something cool, or how a story progresses. Not investing into your story as a card game sounds so insane to me. Kids went crazy for Pokemon and YuGiOh in huge part because of the cartoons!!!! Many kids grew up with Kaiba, or Yugi, or Ash/Pikachu........ It's so common sense lol.
The thing is with Magic that I bet you don't even NEED super complicated story lines, that's the beauty of a multiverse lol. You can literally have self contained stories in sets lol, and have overarching stories when it's convenient. You can have different versions of the SAME story if you wanted too lol. It's like comic books or anything else. To have books that contradict the flavor text at all is a huge embarrassment IMO, because it seems so easy to avoid....
It really sounds like the story of Magic is an afterthought, which seems so BIZARRE to me when it's the most logical way to get more people into your product!!!! You would think the story would be like one of the MAIN focuses of the company!
When I first heard of MTG and Planes walkers, I thought the story of Magic was that we play as planes walkers, and we summon creatures from different planes to fight for us, so naturally I thought each expansion would simply be a showcase of a different plane... Which sounds awesome, you literally summon the aid of different worlds and different times to fight for you! It makes it super easy to just have a self contained story for each expansion as it showcases a different world with it's own problems and stories.