In regards to the references being a bit too on the nose in Eldraine compared to Innistrad, I don’t think that’s entirely fair. innistrad had PLENTY of incredibly specific, blatant references. Delver is The Fly, there’s that Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde guy, there’s literally an entire faction of Frankenstein-alikes, etc. Eldraine just FEELS more obvious because the general population is much, much more familiar with the source material.
I’m on Team Vince with this whole thing. Like I’ve never watched Monty Python but I’ve seen the memes, I know the black knight gag. Oathsworn knight yes, it leans on that as a reference but it’s so much more than that. Oathsworn Knight is actually the most flavourful black card I’ve seen in this set. The whole point of lochwain court and Black in the set revolves around Perseverance. The lore has the court constantly looking for the cauldron and now for the King and that perseverance extends beyond life an into undeath with all the zombie knights creatures continuing their mission even beyond the grave. When I see this card, I don’t see a joke like the Monty python black knight, I see an undead being embodying what Lockwain stands for in its rules text and art. It’s not just a funny haha remember Monty python? Remember Elderberries or rabid rabbits? I do agree there’s more on the nose stuff and I’ll easily say I”d roll my eyes with the professor at stuff like Cinderella’s slipper or Beauty and the Beast but I genuinely believe that the set overall has a lot of care put into it and just visually looks fantastic.
I feel like there’s two things going on here. First, since the references in Innistrad were generally to older or more niche things, saying “I get it” feels more fulfilling , where saying “I get it” to the fairytale references is makes you feel more common, since it doesn’t have that same required sophistication (even though they aren’t THAT obscure) The second I think is just time. Innistrad is already a cornerstone of the Multiverse, so it feels like it belongs. When it first came out, it was similarly out of place. If Eldraine proves popular and has a return set in a few years, I imagine people who had an issue this time around will find it feeling much more natural once its had time to become established in the universe
Sure Prof, you know it from Fantasia, but the Sorcerer's Apprentice is a poem by Goethe that every German kid learns in school. And in no way can that broom *only* be seen a reference to the Disney movie. Actually here's my German perspective: Most of the fairy tale elements don't feel _too_ disneyfied, except the pumpkin carriage. It's authentic enough.
Yeah after the Snow Queen card “rant” on twitter I just feel like Prof’s flavor critique (and many others, tbqh) for ELD is almost basic, maybe ignorant? I see this set as a lovely call back to the 80s and 90s fairytale children’s illustrated book boom, in the same way Lorywn-Shadowmoor was a lover letter to Golden Age Illustrators like Arthur Rackham and John Bauer. Disney (and Shrek) don’t have a monopoly on fairytales; It’s not really the set’s fault if someone is ONLY going to look at these cards and go “lol shrek.” This could Maybe be solved if they put in some more obscure references (like, idk, Bear Skin, Hans My Hedgehog, etc), but I feel like they’re playing mostly safe in fear of this being a single set (at the moment, I’m hoping...). IDK, I just wish that the folks who didn’t care for ELD’s flavor could just state that, as is, when it’s obvious they really only have an incredibly shallow awareness of the source material anyway.. or because its from a more “feminine” side of fantasy that they’re not used to. >>
He literally mentions that he's aware that most stuff had pre-disney background and that his issue is with too on the nose references. Had they made a different animated object and/or had art direction push for a different design it would distance it from Fantasia, but they clearly wanted people to get the reference...
Honestly, I'm really liking the direction of Eldraine. Are some of the cards a little on the nose? Perhaps, but at the same time, there's value to the references. I find it fun to look at the cards in a draft and be able to go, "Hey, I recognize that fable!" That said, it helps that I was getting tired of Ravnica as a setting and Eldraine looks fun and distinct from the last couple sets.
Lucas The designs for the broom card in ELD has it so that they’ve anthropormorphisized the thistles of the brooms to be the “heads” and not have it be the handles as in the 40s film. The original poem uses broom, so removing that and the reference might not be as on the nose, but it isnt as special. There’s only so many ways you can design a broom to “look” alive, yeah? Let’s just agree to disagree about the flavor of ELD, because it’s not for you, and that’s okay.
Agreed. References to comic book source material already are commonly being judged by their similarity to the MCU movies. This was true before Marvel's Disney era, but is cemented now. It may be a lack of familiarity with the source material when there's a popular retelling, especially if you were exposed to the new one early in childhood. And even more so for longer stories, which are less likely for a kid to read or have read to them, contrasting to ones too short to naturally turn into a movie. Random thoughts, while waiting on a download at work.
I think you're onto something. I grew up in the German speaking part of Europe, where a lot of these fairy tales originated. My first connection for a lot of these references is made to the old story books I got read from as a kid, not Disney films.
@@PleasantKenobi Request for an honest opinion: I'd love to visit Stonehenge, but also wonder if it's much of a tourist trap? I've only been to the UK once, for a few days during University, and we never made it out of London.
I think it's OK to have a plane that we might not come back to. Not every book or movie needs a sequel or remake, we get enough of that. Sometimes it's nice to have something different that just stands by itself and is a fun detour before going back to the same old planes we keep seeing over and over, as good as those planes may be.
yeah no ones clamoring to return to Ulgrotha(Homelands plane), Rabiah (Arabian Nights), Mercadia, . kamigawa is probably a long ways off if we ever do return same with Lorwynn/Shadowmoor, Alara, and Amonkhet.
Wow, this is actually a huge surprise. I did not expect the Professor to have this kind of reaction to the Eldraine theme. As a former English professor, he should've studied Old English literature at some point, so I thought he would be more understanding of the actual fairy tales theme. I'm a creative writing major and everyone I've talked to about the set that isn't in the same field of me only saw the Disney references, while other English majors were knowledgeable about the original tales and saw through the pop-culture references. I absolutely love Eldraine, and it's actually bypassed Ravnica as my favorite plane. The Improbable Alliance combo and Royal Scions have been a nice complement to my Izzet deck, and after the sets leave Standard I may just have to adapt the deck for Modern to keep going with it.
I think Eldraine being overly whimsical, or cutesy-poo as you said, was a great idea as a palette cleanser. This is because the last few sets have been heavier and more grim in narrative, and WAR was a fairly grim set. Now, you don't need a cutesy palette cleanser just because WAR was grim, but next set is Theros underworld. The next set is going to have to be dark, grim, and gritty because it's a set based in Hell. Going from a set that was almost all inside references (Ravnica) to a set that was grim and inside references (WAR) to a srt that is also inside references and dark (Theros underworld) is a rough idea especially for new players. Having a whimsical set that a new player can grab and immediately know the references is a great way to break up and refresh before diving back into internal references and a grim setting.
I actually really love the cards and designs on Throne of Eldraine. There is a certain wonderful feeling I get when I understand the reference a card is making, and even though the references are pretty obvious in Throne of Eldraine, that feeling is still amazing. For example, when I saw that Gingerbrute couldn't be blocked by creatures unless they had haste, I felt so happy that they nailed the flavor because obviously you can't catch the Gingerbread man unless you are fast (and therefore have haste). The whole Cinderella cycle of cards is amazing as well and really brings me good and positive emotions. I'm a huge fan of this set and think Wizards crushed it!
yeah, I LOVED The Monty Python Reference. I don't see the issue with a set being on the nose, that's the point. This set was never meant to be subtle like Innistrad or Lorwyn. It's campy and that's okay.
Id love to get a dev to comment on glass slipper myself. Is it a red artifact just for haste or because the original cinderella where the step sisters cut off their toes to try to fit in it and leave the slipper a red mess.
@@micheal5973 I think the crystal slipper is as much a reference to the Red Shoes as it is to Cinderella; the flavour text is definitely way more Red Shoes than Cinderella.
You know, everybody doesn't like vampires. Some like dinosaurs, pirates and gingerbread men. I personally like that Wizards takes chances with set themes.
13:06 - I get where you're going with the tone discussion here Prof, but we did just have Dominaria, Ravnica, Ravnica, Ravnica + Planeswalkers, & Modern Horizons (Time Spiral 2) to do just that. Dominaria helped bring all the old timers out & get them on Arena & 3 Ravnica sets got all the modern-era players engaged, War of the Spark + Arena drew in tons of new players, & then Modern Horizons + the Pauper overhaul gave everyone of every format tons of throwbacks to engage with. So, I think, this is actually a great time for a New Tone / IP since the playerbase is high & they do have that Theros / Zendikar / etc sets to look forward to to help keep them around.
I'm glad Kenobi is also concerned about the homogenization of commander. Signet is strictly better than the amulets and the diamonds, and it feels like it's taking away a lot of deckbuilding decisions.
It’s a really bad pickle though. If you take away the Sol rings and Command towers, people are going to scream bloody murder over their mana bases and cry about green ramp or their carefully tailored jank no longer works (just look at the people that bitch about Paradox engine) . Wotc clearly thinks generic staples is the only way to keep things safe and even but it’s just a slow death instead of instantaneously becoming a broken mess in the more competitive formats like Modern with insane efficient mana bases and faster pace gameplay that incentives linear and uninteractive gameplay that just goes with 4 colours.
@@vinnythewebsurfer I thought it wasn't WotC that was in charge of Commander anyway ? (Maybe Brawl, though they are likely to follow Commander, rather than lead ?)
I'm a new player as of core set 2020 and Eldraine is incredibly exciting to me, 100% because of the fairy tale cards. The "Arthurian" cards like Emry are also good, but the ones that are just "it a knight" do not interest me at all.
@PleasantKenobi The person who told us about white getting a new mechanic to help it out in commander was Mark Rosewater himself. markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/186774318273/is-white-getting-any-new-effect-or-ability-that-it I also dont see anything which could be this mechanic... maybe it was dropped somewhere on the way...
Can I just say that I actually love every bit of flavor they threw into this set. As stated, the Realms (the Authurian side of the story) were brilliantly applied into the Magic setting while still holding the flavor and tone of the legends. The Wilds (the Fairy Tale side) took themselves less seriously by allowing "one-off" cards to represent the stories and be more humorous. I think this set balanced these both perfectly. Magic tends to take itself to seriously sometimes I think, and this set did a good job at riding the lines between silly and believable while still paying proper homage to the sources of inspiration. I hope we get more "direct reference" cards like the "Shrek" card and the "Black Knight". When people think of Authurian stories or Fairy Tales, they also think of those things, and Magic should be able to represent those things and take itself less seriously. Basically, more squirrels in Magic!
For the 7 dwarves, I would have done something like "Prisoner of castle lochtwain", it's still a red dwarf, and you can have 7 of them. Can even keep the same ability, and the flavour text is something like "To the last, the brothers stood together, refusing all of Ayara demands. They would never give her up to the queen". It's still the 7 dwarves, but this time the wicked queen just locked them up, it works with Ayara personality and the setting.
I never thought of "Delver of Secrets" as a reference to "The Fly" before watching this video. Now I see Eldrazi Horrors as a nod to "The Thing." (The one with Kurt Russell.)
you can't do fairy tales without SOMEONE thinking about the Disney version. A whole generation (the largest generation to date btw) of people grew up on/with Disney fairy tale films
several generations have since a generation is 11 years up and down. your in the same generation as someone 11 years older or younger then you so a generation is recognized generally as a 20 year period. snow white was from 38 so 4 generations have grown up with disney.
Honestly I really like the lighter tone. Magic is a serious setting and all but endlessly dreary and grim cards and settings gets boring after a while.
I think when it came to the flavour of Throne of Eldraine it got split down the middle. Sometimes it was wonderfully crafted and illustrated a world that felt as natural as Magic's all-star fan favourite settings which paid homage to the "source material" while adding its own twist (Gingerbrute, Piper of the Swarm, Wishful Merfolk, Clackbridge Troll were standouts) The other times it just felt like a box was being ticked and like nothing unique was being done (most of the Beanstalk-related cards, Lovestruck Beast, Enchanted Carriage). It felt very much "here's the thing from the piece of media you like!" instead of "here's our take on a popular image". This is why Innistrad was so beloved: it paid homage to the vampires and werewolves and things that went bump in the night, but they were Magic's own things that went bump in the night. Yes, Delver of Secrets was a reference to The Fly, but the setting and flavour text made it feel distinctly different. They didn't have a card for Count Dracula or Van Helsing or Nosferatu: they had their own takes on them with the rival vampire bloodlines and the Lunarch Council. Eldraine doesn't make that distinction anywhere near as well a lot of the time.
I think for me, as both a long time player and a lover of Disney, this sort of set makes me very happy. Yes, it's rather on the nose and there are quite few pop culture references, but it feels like a love letter to that.
Man I thought the intro with you two playing magic and he keeps infinite combining you out was perfect, but idk this might tie for a close second, god I couldn’t stop laughing haha
Wait. Is that John Wick by Bryan Lee O'Malley? I agree with your Ready Player One analogy. There was a long-running DC comic called Fables that did a really good job of not reminding you of Disney. Or Shrek. And they had the sort of dark angle you'd expect in MTG as well. I get the feeling that no one on the development team was familiar with it.
See Vince brings up a good point about how unfair it is to compare sets like innistrad and lorwyn. They’re going for radicals different concepts than what Eldraine is up to. Disney hasn’t corner the market and embed alien/fantasy horror stories into us like they’ve done with other fairy tales and so were not looking so cynically at just as beaten down tropes.
Ok... the flavour is based on the Brothers Grimm Tales and I totally love this, the Grimms were there before Disney...here in Germany wem love the flavour because it reminds us on the times as we were children and got to read the original storys. And rest of this flavour is influanced by nordic folklore, Shakespeare, and Knight stories of the 50s. I personally like the flavour very very much. on my second or third place after Innistrad. Lorwyn even was based after Gaelic Storys from Ireland and Scottland.
Great content as usual with you two; keep on being great! That said, since this is episode 17 and the issue still remains, I'll voice my one complaint: RAISE YOUR AUDIO LEVELS! I have to put my volume at max to hear you guys, and the moment a commercial comes on I'm deafened. Please, please, PLEASE increase the base volume of your audio mix. Thanks in advance (hopefully)!
Coming back after 2 years… I still love this set. Everything about it was just a perfect callback to the two worlds I grew up with being German and English growing up in the US.
I'm a brand new player and this set is what brought me to the game. The lighter theme made me feel more comfortable learning the game and even made losing early on not as hard to take because the theme was funny. I even bought me first boxes to build some of my own silly decks and see what they can do. I love it. As a new player, I don't really know the previous themes or the backstories, but knowing a decent amount about fairy tales and the like has made it easy for me to learn the cards as well. I know what enchanted sleep does right away and can recognize it immediately as a new player. The same goes for frogify, seven dwarves, the gingerbrute, etc; all of them are things I'm familiar with from fairytales and knowing what their tales are has helped me greatly to remember what the cards do. I tried playing some of the War of the Spark decks and, while I was able to play them, the learning curve did seem a little steeper just because of how much I had to read and re-read the cards.
I'm a relatively new magic player, and I love all the references. I know next to nothing about the lore of any other sets, so I don't really have something to compare it to, but as a very casual player I can definitely say that the reference stuff makes me more excited about this set
I came into magic at Theros and so maybe I'm biased since Theros is so similar to Eldraine (IMO) but Eldraine is my absolute favorite set since Theros (I had such hope for Amonkhet but I feel it missed the mark) They keep talking about Zendikar being the "adventure plane" and a d&d campaign and I am sad that to me Zendikar is an uninteresting war-plane wherein wizards were too chicken to go full lovecraft. My D&D campaigns are Arthurian legends and greek myth and fae and hags and gods, I'm the most excited I have ever been for the history of (my stent) in magic for the upcoming standard environment just for the flavor of it all. Thank you so much Wizards, next on my wishlist for new planes: Atlantis the Plane. And please keep Adventure and similar versitile mechanics, it's the best.
Ah yes, the perfect morning includes coffee and watching a new episode of Dies to Removal. Thanks, Prof for the amazing videos! Keep up the amazing work!
I severely doubt we're getting the "good" fetches in zendikar. R&d has stated over and over that they were a mistake in modern and that 1-2 okay fetches are about as far as they're willing to go in standard.
I love all the references/flavor, and it does not bother me one bit. I like that they went the extra mile in this set, I mean it def is the place to do it. I'm sure the next sets will not have so many references to pop culture/ famous stories, so hang in there.
I don't get how throne of eldraine is different to innistrad. The only difference is the source material for eldraine is WAY more well known. Yes the set has a Monty Python card, Innistrad has a "The Fly" card. I don't see a difference in those references. Every card in Innistrad is based on horror media, every card in Throne of Eldraine is based on Fairytale media. It's not the design teams fault that Disney has such a monopoly on fairytales that their versions are indistinguishable from the Grimm originals.
Jarrod Oathsworn knight. Oathsworn Knight enters the battlefield with four +1/+1 counters on it. Oathsworn Knight attacks each combat if able. If damage would be dealt to Oathsworn Knight while it has a +1/+1 counter on it, prevent that damage and remove a +1/+1 counter from it. it's a reference to the black knight from Holy Grail
The set is like old Grimm Brothers fairy tales, but it’s Magic the Gathering! Such a breakthrough for R&D and I really hope they continue with these mind blowing innovations! Loveeeeee it! So fun!
I love Brazen Borrower, but it shouldn't be mythic. Is there any good reason for this to be mythic? The fae that counters spells cmc 3 or less is really good.
usually R&D makes cards mythic due to "not wanting this card to be seen very much in limited", so that could be the case. However, most likely they had a busted adventure on a 3/1 body, and had to tune it down due to problems with it being too powerful for standard, but still remained a mythic.
"We want the flavor of mythic rare to be something that feels very special and unique. Generally speaking we expect that to mean cards like Planeswalkers, most legends, and epic-feeling creatures and spells. They will not just be a list of each set's most powerful tournament-level cards. We've also decided that there are certain things we specifically do not want to be mythic rares. The largest category is utility cards, what I'll define as cards that fill a universal function. Some examples of this category would be cycles of dual lands and cards like Mutavault or Char." MaRo 2008 magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/year-living-changerously-2008-06-02
It's the Flash. Play the bounce half and then on your next turn you can threaten with a counterspell or a 3/1 flyer. It has the potential to be unbelievable tempo.
I'm relatively very very new to magic and this is my absolute favorite set that I have seen so far. I think the flavor/art etc. is incredible. I don't think it's to appeal to kids either really.
@@jonathanrobinson8926 i genuinely don't get the kid Disney vibe they're describing. Like I get a lot of the references are Disney, but they all seem like cool, sometimes dark, twists.
Honestly, this whole Disney thing makes me extremely mad. I really like the original Grimm's fairy tales. I'm german, I grew up with them - and I generally dislike the Disney versions, since they tend to remove a lot of the original themes to make the stories more kid friendly. That being said, I don't think the fairy tale cards look too Disney-ish. With some, I feel like extra care went into avoiding the Disney look (like for example the Lovestruck Beast having antlers, I really enjoyed that detail). With others, I feel like WotC purposefully tried to go for a darker route than the popular, child-friendly versions. My personal favorite flavor-wiser is Piper of the Swarm. Not only does it tell the entire story of the Pied Piper in one card, but it also doesn't shy away from the really dark and morbid parts of that story. I honestly was really afraid that this set would feel very Disney- or Shrek-ish, as someone who dislikes these versions of fairy tales, and I don't think it's that. I think WotC hit the sweet spot with a lot of these cards, although some of them do feel like they were g oing off a checklist "ok, we need the cinderella cards, the snow white cards, the rapunzel card..." - I kinda feel like especially these typical "princess in peril" fairytales could have been handled with a little more generic magic flavor rather than copying the story 1:1. Glass Slipper really feels like a weird card, for example.
44:30 - You say you'd be disappointed, but no lie, if the new Zendikar comes with a common cycle of mono-color fetches I'd be so happy. Like, one that just fetches "an island" and that's it (maybe it comes in tapped unless you pay 1 life, just for some slight differentiation). It would be better for Standard imo too, since it wouldn't make color fixing an absolute non-issue like dual fetches with shocks would, but would still provide a lot of versitility. (also, I really want an island with a force spike on it)
I personally LOVED throne of eldraine. Huge fan of Grimm brothers and fairy tales. Didnt get shrek at all from it. I bought all the play mats and the entire set so, it's a winner in my book!
Wow! This episode is a masterpiece! Amazing content and great takes while staying relevant to full playerbase (and great intro). Well done, guys! Looking forward to the next episodes :)
Damn, you and Vince always kill it with the intros. Awesome stuff. On top of the entertainment value, I love the frank and reasonable discussion between two adult human beings that don't always agree.
While the set’s flavour hasn’t really struck with me as much as other sets - the quality of the cards for cube due to the new adventure mechanic (at least at uncommon, rare/mythic level) - it’s really opened up how we can build and utilise these cards to improve the overall power level. I guess the hardest question to answer is how on earth we are supposed to afford the alternate artwork to “pimp” them out!
In response to the point about accessibility to new players: isn't the recognizable touchstone of pop culture fairy tale MORE likely to draw new players to Magic? More people know Disney than know Ulamog, mind you.
@@LordXypherious I think you'll gain far more than you lose in the long-term. New players may get excited over things they recognize, and even if long-term fans don't care for it, the upcoming Zendikar and Theros blocks will likely draw them right back in- into a pool of players that is likely considerably larger than when they left it. This is a gateway set, something Magic and its story haven't had for some time. Savvy doesn't always equal soulless.
@@megabubfish Not true, unfortunately. I don't mean mass-appeal solely in terms of flavor, but in gameplay. Magic has become quite a different game than when I first discovered it. Yes it is more popular than ever, but the gameplay has become much simpler, more shallow, and the "curated experience" philosophy micromanages how we are allowed to enjoy the game. Contrast this with being new during original Ravnica, Time Spiral and Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, playing Magic was a far richer experience. I have left many games behind because they have become dumbed-down shadows of their former selves. WOTC is swiftly casting aside much of what made Magic so great in the first place, solely to make more money. Gaming today is money first, money second, money third, and somewhere far down in double digits is "make a game people love to play."
@@LordXypherious I understand that concern, but I feel that view is hard for me to take seriously at a time when WotC seems to push the design envelope more and more. Between Dominaria, War of the Spark, and Eldraine, we've seen more risky designs and out-there concepts than we have since I started playing. Is it all a ploy to make money? Yes, but if that allows them to continue making and expanding the game, more power to them. No one's to say that a person who misses the olden days can't play Magic in exactly the way they choose, because Magic isn't one game- it's many, with WotC powerless to keep you from enjoying it in your own way.
I absolutely love the references and "shrek-ness" of the set, I honestly think it's going to quickly become one of my favorite sets - though that's probably because I started in Theros (Return to Theros when? I need more enchantment creatures). It could also act as a bridge for the less nerdy population, because it's a familiar popular-culture world and doesn't require any time investment to understand the general lore.
12:00 That's not mickey mouse! it's the sorcerers apprentice by Goethe. Also it's not "There's this old thing" it's the national poet of the largest country in Europe and it's one of his top five works. And you yankees can only ever see Mickey Mouse whenever it comes up.
I would also have an Interesting suggestion for MTG development, We seen how Ravnica could be brought into the D&D universe so for what could technically be called a Block lets introduce a little D&D into Magic the Gathering. Think about it. Commander Card = Your character Class - Instead of a legendary card you have class cards Nemesis Player = DM - If playing group that can be allowed in a party mode to explore areas and dungeons and such. Planechase/Land Card = Dungeon Tiles sets/World cards- Each player builds the world and landscape as they go with legendary locations like lets say Baulder's Gate having the requirements of having specific lands - It would be nice if these could be double used to create a battlemap for regular D&D as well. Spells are able to be cast for Land costs with Dice roll modifiers aka Fireball = Roll a coin(1-2)-D20 depending on mana spent for damage you can expend you can divide up the damage any way you choose spending 1 point of damage per target. Creatures you can summon would be similar with a roll mechanic for hit points or damage attribute so you are no longer bound to paying 2 mana for a 2/2 instead you might end up with a 1/4, it introduces a mechanic that allows a little luck and a small amount of unpredictability to be present so you can do a few more wild things. Its a little restrictive due to Dice being available, Coin for 1-2, D4, D6, D8, D10, D20 but it also allows for limitations as well, Counterspells would be fun as hell rolling D20's to see if a spell is countered or not or stronger counterspells allow a disadvantage for the opponent.
Good discussion. On the one hand I agree that some of the cards are a little on the nose. On the other hand, the flavor is perfectly seasoned to tap into the Disney market. Literally just describing it to my ex had her asking "Why are you telling me about this awesome thing right after I quit my job to go back to school?" when previously she had no interest in magic at all.
Hey, about the brawl decks, although rarity doesnt really matter for brawl and commander decks in paper, the rairities are super relevant for arena, the arcane sig and command tower are both common so they are basically free, the commanders are gona be rare wildcards only so that will hurt though.
@13:29 and the question of does eldraine appeal to new players: I can only talk for myself ofc but Eldrain 100% pulled me into magic. A lot of my friends had been trying to get me into mtg for a long time but all the lore and characters seemed really foreign and like i was missing out on so much stuff that it was a lot to process. With Eldraine being a lot more obvious in its references (doesn't hurt that i love arthurian legend and fairy tales) I found it a lot easier to process the Magic parts of it when I had something familiar to go with it.
I think Eldraine is defiantly going to appeal to new players, it's got a broad appeal that will catch the eye of people that haven't jumped in yet. I've explained the set to a few non-magic players and they've been interested. If you tell someone they're bringing back the eldrazi they won't know what you're taking about but if you tell someone there's a Monty Python reference they get it.
I just got my girlfriend to start playing magic after 6 or 7 years and this past weekend while at the Atlanta GP i mentioned the new set coming out. She looked it up and i have never seen her this excited and its about magic. If this set brings more people to magic and gets more girls excited about this game I am for it.
I like the format of chatting about interesting cards, letting things kinda flow naturally rather than stepping from card to card. As far as the intro discussion about the set themeing and tie-ins to Disney. I feel like the biggest shortfall is that there isn't as obvious a cohesive story running through Eldraine as there was with Innestrad, War of the Spark, etc. It feels like some kinda spoof movie of a compilation of references, rather than stuff that fits into a distinct setting based on fairy tales and chivalric and courtly legends. That said, spoof movies are popular, and I agree with Kenobi here in that because of how broadly integrated these are, they're some of the must accessible jokes you could possibly make.
I think what separates Eldraine from Zendikar and Innistrad is that Adventure and Horror themes are more generic and lend themselves to being portable into the world of Magic. But if you're going to port fairy tales into magic, you're going to see Disney similarities. It's unavoidable which is fine, unless you make new fairy tales, and if you're making "new" fairy tales, then it's essentially just a generic magic set that isn't based on anything.
Thank you Kenobi for helping me work out the words for why Arcane Signet and Prismatic Vista are problematic to me. Said that to my playgroup and they all just looked at me funny saying "It's just another staple."...
Re: Spyglass - I would have much preferred Pithing Needle + Trinket Mage in M20 to this here; Trinket Mage is such a fun build-around card that can spawn an archetype if things go well, or just let you put some silver bullets in if things go poorly. Besides, the core set is the place for cards you want to have some reasonable expectation of not rotating from... though sadly M20 didn't quite live up to this standard, replacing most of the cards from M19 for little benefit to standard.
My favorite MTG set has to be Innistrad. The gothic horror setting, the art, and the story of the place was amazing! As far as the references of Eldraine, I absolutely love them! It made me smile going through the cards trying to remember the legends of each one. Plus the new mechanics will be fun. Oh, and the art is some of my favorite to date!
I feel the same about ELD flavor, although my beef tends towards the sillier cards like gingerbrute or the pumpkin carriage (although I'm all for those cute white mice tokens) and I'm not super bothered by the Monty Python reference. The Arthurian part with the courts was really well executed and compelling to me and I really hope we get to see more of the Wilds in the next visit. I just can't help but imagine how out of place Will and Rowan will feel in other planes. "Do you not have gingerbread houses and sentient candy??". I wish stuff like that would be saved for Un-sets.
this show in it's current form should be called "Talks in socks" or something like that. Really both Prof and Ken are swinging their socks like crazy and I cannot unsee it ever while watching the show :P
Dear Tolarian Professor, I started playing Magic the Gathering in 1994. I played Everquest, and sold items on Playerauctions.com, to purchase my MTG. I made so much money off of Fungi Tunics, that I was able to buy out our B Dalton bookstore each time they restocked. Nobody at the time seemed to care. I didn't have to rush to get the product. This continued for quite some time until the start of the Urza's Block. This was when I went to college, and I decided "Hey, I won't play this game again, let's sell." And so, I did. I made a huge sum of money; I was never ready to really "part" with this collection unless I got somewhere near what it was worth. Guess the joke was on me, as I had a full 9 sleeve, both sides, of Lions Eye Diamonds. Plus some were behind them, at the time I just didn't deem it as being *good* (I still don't). I had pages of unlimited, two full sets of tempest, a lot of moderate play beta, unlimited, and a bunch of randoms. I also competed in a local tournament of 6 packs sealed Tempest / Stronghold for a heavy play Unlimited Black Lotus. This had a huge following of about 185 entrants, unheard of at the time. People drove up from Downstate Michigan, Ohio, Canada, and elsewhere, to compete. I opened my packs, and saw a strong white/red weenie deck that I had to play. I made it to the final table, after so many rounds. I talked to my opponent and he seemed ready to go, mentioning his lucky pulls. My opponent got two Scroll Racks, two Sliver Queens and two time warps. I had him to 5 life in our first match and then he exploded with a back to back time warp. Our second game, he go the Queens out early and a bunch of little slivers. I did what I could but at this point realized I was done for. I hope that he still has that beautiful Lotus in his collection. I put all that money into a hollowed out book when I went to college, knowing that the money would still be there. I didn't want to squander the money on liquor, girls, gambling and other fun things that don't let you retire. Well, I found out about two years after this fact that the book was put in a garage sale or something, and no longer existed. So, somebody profited about $20,000 not including signed baseball cards by Mickey Mantle and other craziness. I was bitter for a little bit, but the more I thought about it, maybe I helped somebody else get their shit started.' The morale of my story is; everyone has an introductory point to everything. MTG helped me a lot, by giving me an escape when I needed it and he huge serotonin boost when you need it. Long Live Magic the Gathering! IN CARDBOARD RECTANGLES!!!!!! We as players cannot showcase our foils or get the same boost otherwise.
I can easily see going back to Eldraine. We had no problem going back to Innistrad, which was super ultra hyper blatant in how it was ripping off shit in the exact same way Eldraine is.
The discussion of reprints in core sets: I like that they put Opt and Sorcerous Spyglass in Eldraine rather than M20 simply because it's the first set after rotation, it means that these cards (which probably don't need to be reprinted every year for financial reasons but do want to always be in Standard) can be reprinted once every two years and still always be in Standard. Maybe what this really says is that the Core Set should be the first one after rotation, but I think there may be other reasons that doesn't really work (perhaps they really want the set after rotation to be splashy rather than "all my old cards are rotating *and* it's just a boring core set coming out, I don't care about Standard enough to rebuild my collection right now). Regardless, the point stands, I'd rather have the key "always in Standard" reprints be, as much as possible, right after rotation so that you only have to reprint them once every two years and they're not taking up as much space in the drafts and boosters, on average, as they would otherwise. I think there are a number of other cards that follow this same idea and model even if they're not direct reprints. Hushbringer being printed right when Tocatli Honor Guard rotates out is no coincidence. I think it is for Standard, I think that's a matter of Magic R&D saying that Standard always needs a safety valve for certain strategies (in this case, right after printing a number of cards that could make Aristocrats real and right after printing Yarok, they might have been worried about ETB and death triggers, hence Hushbringer) and, just like reprinting a Pithing Needle effect right when the old one rotated out to keep Planeswalkers in check (especially after WAR), they're printing a new ETB hoser right when the old one rotates out. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more hosers in Zendikar next year to replace something rotating out (which, admittedly, I can't think of the example right now) from Guilds of Ravnica.
28:10 I love that card I cast golden egg out of the graveyard something like 15 times in a single game in my first ELD draft. I get card drawing life and so on from it. Unfortunately the rest of my deck kind of sucked so...
I’m here in 2023, three years later getting hyped for Wilds of Eldraine. It’s so interesting to see how scandalous Throne of Eldraine was. I was on hiatus when it released, but absolutely loved it when I came back. If they though Throne of Eldraine was watered down to appease the masses, man, if only they knew about Strixhaven at the time.
Finaly there are Knights that look like Knights. Im very pleased about that. There is also a strong germanic part of the Cardbackround i also liked a lot in the Innistrad setting.
I feel like the professor has it backwards in stating that Eldraine is going to struggle to capture new players. I can't tell you the exact number of poeple I know who are nerdy for fantasy, tertiarily know about magic, and it took this overt fairy tale set to get them to say "I think I'm going to try magic." The number is at least 7, and I know that's a mostly unhelpful anecdote, but it has to be indicative of some kind of trend, whether it's a tiny one centered around me or something much larger.
Count me in 7 and maybe more + 1, I was having my eyes on Magic for a Long time but never spoke to me from a Design stand Point. I just realy didn't like the Artwork Style of different sets, still want to build a Mill Deck but for now faires it is cause I Just enjoy the eldraine Artwork.
I feel like the issue with the Eldraine flavor vs. Innistraad flavor is one of coherence and world building. The references in Innistraad all feel like they belong in the world, whereas a lot of the references in Eldraine just feel like references that happen to be printed in the same set as the Authurian plane.
I literally didn't give a fuck about any magic sets for 4 years, then I saw the first adventure sorcery-Creature and was immediately convinced to buy this set. It's so intensely flavorful, the card art is beautiful and fun, and we get Garruk back. The embodiment of Green planeswalker.
Re: Zendikar - I'd like Fetchlands here, as they alone would sell the (2?) sets. I wouldn't mind Prismatic Vista in a 3rd Zendikar set for a pseudo-block, as well as a cycle of fetchable (CIPT) legendary lands.
I feel like TED fell just short of going too far. A few of the reference cards are a bit too on the nose, but theres more than enough unrelated cards that it feels fine. Personally I like the lighter tone, though I wouldn't want it all the time. I feel like the lighter tone really helps with the comfy vibes of most of the food and, like, the innkeeper card.
I share the prof's opinion of, "I could see Jace walking around on Innistrad but not Eldraine", in terms of tone and theme. Looking at the showcase cards Im reminded of Rhystic Studies card frame video, mainly the feeling of, "This is not a Magic card."
The changing of names for special edition prints or sets reminds me of preordering a video game. The size of the chart needed to decide where to pre-order the next call of duty game, what store has what bonuses and when. It's all an attempt to confuse the customer pieces, to make people more susceptible to purchasing products they don't want by mistake
I have the disagree with Prof on the flavor. The Arthurian half carries the bulk of the set, that is true. However, I think you are downplaying the impact Disney had on our childhoods. They have adapted almost all the fairytales, and it's probably correct to say that the average player is much more familiar with the Disney version, rather than the original, so they default to that.
I kinda agree about the references things. I feel like in many cases, Eldraine isn't like "here's a thinly veiled reference." It's "here's this thing straight out of a fairy tale." Which is fine, maybe people wouldn't get the joke if it was The Seven Goblins rather than The Seven Dwarves, but it does feel a little on the nose. I guess maybe they were afraid that veiling some of the references would make them too hard to notice. The Trojan Horse problem from Theros, as Maro has discussed before, where people didn't get the card when it was divorced too much from its inspiration. I'm actually okay with the Monty Python card, cuz at least that is veiled and not immediately apparent. Actually, all of the Arthurian stuff is a lot better, as they did 'Magic-ify' it. King Arthur isn't called King Aaarthuuur of the Roundish Table but yet it's obvious that Kenrith is Arthur.
These intro skits are consistently excellent.
No, they're totally unrealistic. Who the hell would turn down a biscuit?
They're ruthlessly mocking the old Skype podcasts.
Isn't the constant flying getting a bit expensive?
@@florianw116 I don't think Vince flyes because of podcast, I think is a 2 birds kinda thing.
I feel so mocked.
@@gzzuss The Prof should just adopt Vince at this point.
@@florianw116 It's actually movie magic. Green screen stuff is available to anyone these days.
To be fair Disney/Shrek just ripped off every fairy tail ever so trying to avoid some similarities to these tropes is nearly impossible.
I'm gonna be honest I saw it as a Witcher setting dialed down a bit in certain places and dialed up in more.
I believe it’s a case of “you can’t make a parody of a parody”
@@vinnythewebsurfer Fairy tales are parodies?
poluicionador they’re family friendly reimaginings. Shrek is taking the piss out not merely Fairy tales but especially Disney itself
@@vinnythewebsurfer I don't follow, you see Throne of Eldraine as a parody of Shrek?
"We lost Rosewater" I just died there XD.
In regards to the references being a bit too on the nose in Eldraine compared to Innistrad, I don’t think that’s entirely fair. innistrad had PLENTY of incredibly specific, blatant references. Delver is The Fly, there’s that Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde guy, there’s literally an entire faction of Frankenstein-alikes, etc. Eldraine just FEELS more obvious because the general population is much, much more familiar with the source material.
Don't forget the Pale Rider/Slenderman
I’m on Team Vince with this whole thing. Like I’ve never watched Monty Python but I’ve seen the memes, I know the black knight gag. Oathsworn knight yes, it leans on that as a reference but it’s so much more than that. Oathsworn Knight is actually the most flavourful black card I’ve seen in this set. The whole point of lochwain court and Black in the set revolves around
Perseverance. The lore has the court constantly looking for the cauldron and now for the King and that perseverance extends beyond life an into undeath with all the zombie knights creatures continuing their mission even beyond the grave. When I see this card, I don’t see a joke like the Monty python black knight, I see an undead being embodying what Lockwain stands for in its rules text and art. It’s not just a funny haha remember Monty python? Remember Elderberries or rabid rabbits?
I do agree there’s more on the nose stuff and I’ll easily say I”d roll my eyes with the professor at stuff like Cinderella’s slipper or Beauty and the Beast but I genuinely believe that the set overall has a lot of care put into it and just visually looks fantastic.
I feel like there’s two things going on here. First, since the references in Innistrad were generally to older or more niche things, saying “I get it” feels more fulfilling , where saying “I get it” to the fairytale references is makes you feel more common, since it doesn’t have that same required sophistication (even though they aren’t THAT obscure)
The second I think is just time. Innistrad is already a cornerstone of the Multiverse, so it feels like it belongs. When it first came out, it was similarly out of place. If Eldraine proves popular and has a return set in a few years, I imagine people who had an issue this time around will find it feeling much more natural once its had time to become established in the universe
&t=7m7s - heh, looks like Garfield *did* get his chainsaw (with implied massacre ?) in the latest return to Innistrad with Spiked Ripsaw ?
Sure Prof, you know it from Fantasia, but the Sorcerer's Apprentice is a poem by Goethe that every German kid learns in school. And in no way can that broom *only* be seen a reference to the Disney movie.
Actually here's my German perspective: Most of the fairy tale elements don't feel _too_ disneyfied, except the pumpkin carriage. It's authentic enough.
Yeah after the Snow Queen card “rant” on twitter I just feel like Prof’s flavor critique (and many others, tbqh) for ELD is almost basic, maybe ignorant? I see this set as a lovely call back to the 80s and 90s fairytale children’s illustrated book boom, in the same way Lorywn-Shadowmoor was a lover letter to Golden Age Illustrators like Arthur Rackham and John Bauer. Disney (and Shrek) don’t have a monopoly on fairytales; It’s not really the set’s fault if someone is ONLY going to look at these cards and go “lol shrek.”
This could Maybe be solved if they put in some more obscure references (like, idk, Bear Skin, Hans My Hedgehog, etc), but I feel like they’re playing mostly safe in fear of this being a single set (at the moment, I’m hoping...).
IDK, I just wish that the folks who didn’t care for ELD’s flavor could just state that, as is, when it’s obvious they really only have an incredibly shallow awareness of the source material anyway.. or because its from a more “feminine” side of fantasy that they’re not used to. >>
Really? Goethe? The same one who wrote Faust?
Wow! Didn't know that.
He literally mentions that he's aware that most stuff had pre-disney background and that his issue is with too on the nose references.
Had they made a different animated object and/or had art direction push for a different design it would distance it from Fantasia, but they clearly wanted people to get the reference...
Honestly, I'm really liking the direction of Eldraine. Are some of the cards a little on the nose? Perhaps, but at the same time, there's value to the references. I find it fun to look at the cards in a draft and be able to go, "Hey, I recognize that fable!"
That said, it helps that I was getting tired of Ravnica as a setting and Eldraine looks fun and distinct from the last couple sets.
Lucas The designs for the broom card in ELD has it so that they’ve anthropormorphisized the thistles of the brooms to be the “heads” and not have it be the handles as in the 40s film. The original poem uses broom, so removing that and the reference might not be as on the nose, but it isnt as special. There’s only so many ways you can design a broom to “look” alive, yeah?
Let’s just agree to disagree about the flavor of ELD, because it’s not for you, and that’s okay.
I think the issue is Disney's monopoly on our perceptions of fairy tales in America.
Disney's monopoly on everything at this point
Agreed.
References to comic book source material already are commonly being judged by their similarity to the MCU movies. This was true before Marvel's Disney era, but is cemented now.
It may be a lack of familiarity with the source material when there's a popular retelling, especially if you were exposed to the new one early in childhood. And even more so for longer stories, which are less likely for a kid to read or have read to them, contrasting to ones too short to naturally turn into a movie.
Random thoughts, while waiting on a download at work.
I think you're onto something. I grew up in the German speaking part of Europe, where a lot of these fairy tales originated. My first connection for a lot of these references is made to the old story books I got read from as a kid, not Disney films.
imagine unironically being american
Hard agree.
Planes don’t fly that fast. Clearly, Kenobi took the Great Henge.
Are you implying Vince lives in Garenbrig and Prof in the heart of The Wilds, or vice versa?
@@erfunk I actually live right next to Stone Henge, no joke.
@@PleasantKenobi Apparently by proxy I live in The Wilds of Portland as well. Make comparisons as appropriate (we do like our food here).
@@PleasantKenobi Request for an honest opinion: I'd love to visit Stonehenge, but also wonder if it's much of a tourist trap? I've only been to the UK once, for a few days during University, and we never made it out of London.
I think it's OK to have a plane that we might not come back to. Not every book or movie needs a sequel or remake, we get enough of that. Sometimes it's nice to have something different that just stands by itself and is a fun detour before going back to the same old planes we keep seeing over and over, as good as those planes may be.
yeah no ones clamoring to return to Ulgrotha(Homelands plane), Rabiah (Arabian Nights), Mercadia, . kamigawa is probably a long ways off if we ever do return same with Lorwynn/Shadowmoor, Alara, and Amonkhet.
How will I get more knight tribal without eldraine😥
@@kyleellis9177 I would very much like a return to Rabiah and Kamigawa, and they both inherently lend themselves to be revisited quite easily.
@@WayoftheFerret I guess you got half of that wish fulfilled
@@sosukelele Except I didn't. Outside of name-drops and call-backs to Kamigawa, Neon Dynasty is some weird not-Magic cyberpunk setting.
“That card sucks, it dies to removal, Brian.”
Well played.
Wow, this is actually a huge surprise. I did not expect the Professor to have this kind of reaction to the Eldraine theme. As a former English professor, he should've studied Old English literature at some point, so I thought he would be more understanding of the actual fairy tales theme. I'm a creative writing major and everyone I've talked to about the set that isn't in the same field of me only saw the Disney references, while other English majors were knowledgeable about the original tales and saw through the pop-culture references. I absolutely love Eldraine, and it's actually bypassed Ravnica as my favorite plane. The Improbable Alliance combo and Royal Scions have been a nice complement to my Izzet deck, and after the sets leave Standard I may just have to adapt the deck for Modern to keep going with it.
That Rosewater article was a nightmare to figure out how everything actually works, to be sure.
I think Eldraine being overly whimsical, or cutesy-poo as you said, was a great idea as a palette cleanser. This is because the last few sets have been heavier and more grim in narrative, and WAR was a fairly grim set. Now, you don't need a cutesy palette cleanser just because WAR was grim, but next set is Theros underworld. The next set is going to have to be dark, grim, and gritty because it's a set based in Hell. Going from a set that was almost all inside references (Ravnica) to a set that was grim and inside references (WAR) to a srt that is also inside references and dark (Theros underworld) is a rough idea especially for new players. Having a whimsical set that a new player can grab and immediately know the references is a great way to break up and refresh before diving back into internal references and a grim setting.
Also, the lighting and audio levels on these videos are perfect. Kudos to the production team, whoever you may be!
I actually really love the cards and designs on Throne of Eldraine. There is a certain wonderful feeling I get when I understand the reference a card is making, and even though the references are pretty obvious in Throne of Eldraine, that feeling is still amazing. For example, when I saw that Gingerbrute couldn't be blocked by creatures unless they had haste, I felt so happy that they nailed the flavor because obviously you can't catch the Gingerbread man unless you are fast (and therefore have haste). The whole Cinderella cycle of cards is amazing as well and really brings me good and positive emotions. I'm a huge fan of this set and think Wizards crushed it!
yeah, I LOVED The Monty Python Reference. I don't see the issue with a set being on the nose, that's the point. This set was never meant to be subtle like Innistrad or Lorwyn. It's campy and that's okay.
Id love to get a dev to comment on glass slipper myself. Is it a red artifact just for haste or because the original cinderella where the step sisters cut off their toes to try to fit in it and leave the slipper a red mess.
@@micheal5973 I think the crystal slipper is as much a reference to the Red Shoes as it is to Cinderella; the flavour text is definitely way more Red Shoes than Cinderella.
@@micheal5973 if it was, you'd have to pay life to equip (unless you're equipping a 1/1 or something...)
Whoohoo! A whole hour's worth of content from two of my favorite mtg creators, The Professor and the poor man's Saffron Olive.
It's prof and friend
Mustakrakish16
mtgaids and the professor...the kings
the BETTER saffron olive.....
I prefer pk's normal pace of talking since I perceive sound at the rate of the average human
You know, everybody doesn't like vampires. Some like dinosaurs, pirates and gingerbread men. I personally like that Wizards takes chances with set themes.
vampires are just gay zombies and the demand for green vampires is stupid and unflavorful
@@ichiel1898 But, vampires are usually a shade of green, so it seems flavorful.
Agreed. I'm glad that WotC tries to stretch their designs more than so, so many IPs nowadays.
In the grim darkness of the future, there is only Ginger Brutes.
13:06 - I get where you're going with the tone discussion here Prof, but we did just have Dominaria, Ravnica, Ravnica, Ravnica + Planeswalkers, & Modern Horizons (Time Spiral 2) to do just that. Dominaria helped bring all the old timers out & get them on Arena & 3 Ravnica sets got all the modern-era players engaged, War of the Spark + Arena drew in tons of new players, & then Modern Horizons + the Pauper overhaul gave everyone of every format tons of throwbacks to engage with. So, I think, this is actually a great time for a New Tone / IP since the playerbase is high & they do have that Theros / Zendikar / etc sets to look forward to to help keep them around.
I'm glad Kenobi is also concerned about the homogenization of commander. Signet is strictly better than the amulets and the diamonds, and it feels like it's taking away a lot of deckbuilding decisions.
from 98 card format to 97 cards :/
I'm happy with it.
It’s a really bad pickle though. If you take away the Sol rings and Command towers, people are going to scream bloody murder over their mana bases and cry about green ramp or their carefully tailored jank no longer works (just look at the people that bitch about Paradox engine) . Wotc clearly thinks generic staples is the only way to keep things safe and even but it’s just a slow death instead of instantaneously becoming a broken mess in the more competitive formats like Modern with insane efficient mana bases and faster pace gameplay that incentives linear and uninteractive gameplay that just goes with 4 colours.
@@vinnythewebsurfer I thought it wasn't WotC that was in charge of Commander anyway ? (Maybe Brawl, though they are likely to follow Commander, rather than lead ?)
“I don’t feel like Jace could walk around Eldraine.”
Gooooooooooooood.
Good riddance
I'm a new player as of core set 2020 and Eldraine is incredibly exciting to me, 100% because of the fairy tale cards. The "Arthurian" cards like Emry are also good, but the ones that are just "it a knight" do not interest me at all.
@PleasantKenobi The person who told us about white getting a new mechanic to help it out in commander was Mark Rosewater himself. markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/186774318273/is-white-getting-any-new-effect-or-ability-that-it
I also dont see anything which could be this mechanic... maybe it was dropped somewhere on the way...
Can I just say that I actually love every bit of flavor they threw into this set. As stated, the Realms (the Authurian side of the story) were brilliantly applied into the Magic setting while still holding the flavor and tone of the legends. The Wilds (the Fairy Tale side) took themselves less seriously by allowing "one-off" cards to represent the stories and be more humorous. I think this set balanced these both perfectly. Magic tends to take itself to seriously sometimes I think, and this set did a good job at riding the lines between silly and believable while still paying proper homage to the sources of inspiration. I hope we get more "direct reference" cards like the "Shrek" card and the "Black Knight". When people think of Authurian stories or Fairy Tales, they also think of those things, and Magic should be able to represent those things and take itself less seriously. Basically, more squirrels in Magic!
Wizards have no excuse to not print good lands in commander precons, especially when they printed shock lands in the brawl decks
For the 7 dwarves, I would have done something like "Prisoner of castle lochtwain", it's still a red dwarf, and you can have 7 of them. Can even keep the same ability, and the flavour text is something like "To the last, the brothers stood together, refusing all of Ayara demands. They would never give her up to the queen". It's still the 7 dwarves, but this time the wicked queen just locked them up, it works with Ayara personality and the setting.
I never thought of "Delver of Secrets" as a reference to "The Fly" before watching this video. Now I see Eldrazi Horrors as a nod to "The Thing." (The one with Kurt Russell.)
you can't do fairy tales without SOMEONE thinking about the Disney version. A whole generation (the largest generation to date btw) of people grew up on/with Disney fairy tale films
several generations have since a generation is 11 years up and down. your in the same generation as someone 11 years older or younger then you so a generation is recognized generally as a 20 year period. snow white was from 38 so 4 generations have grown up with disney.
Honestly I really like the lighter tone. Magic is a serious setting and all but endlessly dreary and grim cards and settings gets boring after a while.
Slwesttsew my thoughts exactly, I love the darkness surrounding magic, but the shift of tone was super necessary. Something had to give
It's funny you say that because Grimm has a lot of influence in this set! My attempt at a pun take it or leave it lol
I think when it came to the flavour of Throne of Eldraine it got split down the middle.
Sometimes it was wonderfully crafted and illustrated a world that felt as natural as Magic's all-star fan favourite settings which paid homage to the "source material" while adding its own twist (Gingerbrute, Piper of the Swarm, Wishful Merfolk, Clackbridge Troll were standouts)
The other times it just felt like a box was being ticked and like nothing unique was being done (most of the Beanstalk-related cards, Lovestruck Beast, Enchanted Carriage). It felt very much "here's the thing from the piece of media you like!" instead of "here's our take on a popular image". This is why Innistrad was so beloved: it paid homage to the vampires and werewolves and things that went bump in the night, but they were Magic's own things that went bump in the night. Yes, Delver of Secrets was a reference to The Fly, but the setting and flavour text made it feel distinctly different. They didn't have a card for Count Dracula or Van Helsing or Nosferatu: they had their own takes on them with the rival vampire bloodlines and the Lunarch Council. Eldraine doesn't make that distinction anywhere near as well a lot of the time.
I think for me, as both a long time player and a lover of Disney, this sort of set makes me very happy. Yes, it's rather on the nose and there are quite few pop culture references, but it feels like a love letter to that.
Man I thought the intro with you two playing magic and he keeps infinite combining you out was perfect, but idk this might tie for a close second, god I couldn’t stop laughing haha
I died when he started to describe Realm-Cloaked Giant to the Professor. XD
Wait. Is that John Wick by Bryan Lee O'Malley?
I agree with your Ready Player One analogy.
There was a long-running DC comic called Fables that did a really good job of not reminding you of Disney. Or Shrek. And they had the sort of dark angle you'd expect in MTG as well. I get the feeling that no one on the development team was familiar with it.
See Vince brings up a good point about how unfair it is to compare sets like innistrad and lorwyn. They’re going for radicals different concepts than what Eldraine is up to. Disney hasn’t corner the market and embed alien/fantasy horror stories into us like they’ve done with other fairy tales and so were not looking so cynically at just as beaten down tropes.
Ok... the flavour is based on the Brothers Grimm Tales and I totally love this, the Grimms were there before Disney...here in Germany wem love the flavour because it reminds us on the times as we were children and got to read the original storys. And rest of this flavour is influanced by nordic folklore, Shakespeare, and Knight stories of the 50s.
I personally like the flavour very very much. on my second or third place after Innistrad. Lorwyn even was based after Gaelic Storys from Ireland and Scottland.
Great content as usual with you two; keep on being great!
That said, since this is episode 17 and the issue still remains, I'll voice my one complaint: RAISE YOUR AUDIO LEVELS! I have to put my volume at max to hear you guys, and the moment a commercial comes on I'm deafened. Please, please, PLEASE increase the base volume of your audio mix. Thanks in advance (hopefully)!
Lorwyn/Shadowmoor best magic set for me. Going back is long overdue!
Coming back after 2 years… I still love this set. Everything about it was just a perfect callback to the two worlds I grew up with being German and English growing up in the US.
I'm a brand new player and this set is what brought me to the game. The lighter theme made me feel more comfortable learning the game and even made losing early on not as hard to take because the theme was funny. I even bought me first boxes to build some of my own silly decks and see what they can do. I love it. As a new player, I don't really know the previous themes or the backstories, but knowing a decent amount about fairy tales and the like has made it easy for me to learn the cards as well. I know what enchanted sleep does right away and can recognize it immediately as a new player. The same goes for frogify, seven dwarves, the gingerbrute, etc; all of them are things I'm familiar with from fairytales and knowing what their tales are has helped me greatly to remember what the cards do. I tried playing some of the War of the Spark decks and, while I was able to play them, the learning curve did seem a little steeper just because of how much I had to read and re-read the cards.
We likely have no idea what goes into getting these two lads in the same room together to bring us this incredible show. Long live DTR!
I found that the fairy tell reference and whimsical fun helps make the plain feel unique.
I'm a relatively new magic player, and I love all the references. I know next to nothing about the lore of any other sets, so I don't really have something to compare it to, but as a very casual player I can definitely say that the reference stuff makes me more excited about this set
I came into magic at Theros and so maybe I'm biased since Theros is so similar to Eldraine (IMO) but Eldraine is my absolute favorite set since Theros (I had such hope for Amonkhet but I feel it missed the mark) They keep talking about Zendikar being the "adventure plane" and a d&d campaign and I am sad that to me Zendikar is an uninteresting war-plane wherein wizards were too chicken to go full lovecraft.
My D&D campaigns are Arthurian legends and greek myth and fae and hags and gods, I'm the most excited I have ever been for the history of (my stent) in magic for the upcoming standard environment just for the flavor of it all.
Thank you so much Wizards, next on my wishlist for new planes: Atlantis the Plane.
And please keep Adventure and similar versitile mechanics, it's the best.
Ah yes, the perfect morning includes coffee and watching a new episode of Dies to Removal. Thanks, Prof for the amazing videos! Keep up the amazing work!
I severely doubt we're getting the "good" fetches in zendikar. R&d has stated over and over that they were a mistake in modern and that 1-2 okay fetches are about as far as they're willing to go in standard.
I love all the references/flavor, and it does not bother me one bit. I like that they went the extra mile in this set, I mean it def is the place to do it. I'm sure the next sets will not have so many references to pop culture/ famous stories, so hang in there.
I don't get how throne of eldraine is different to innistrad. The only difference is the source material for eldraine is WAY more well known. Yes the set has a Monty Python card, Innistrad has a "The Fly" card. I don't see a difference in those references. Every card in Innistrad is based on horror media, every card in Throne of Eldraine is based on Fairytale media. It's not the design teams fault that Disney has such a monopoly on fairytales that their versions are indistinguishable from the Grimm originals.
Im more hype that daddy Garruk is back
Ob and Nissa were nowhere near as awesome as Liliana and Garruk
What's the Monty Python card he is referring to?
Jarrod Oathsworn knight.
Oathsworn Knight enters the battlefield with four +1/+1 counters on it.
Oathsworn Knight attacks each combat if able.
If damage would be dealt to Oathsworn Knight while it has a +1/+1 counter on it, prevent that damage and remove a +1/+1 counter from it.
it's a reference to the black knight from Holy Grail
Lol, just noticed the propeller sounds on your jet plane, nice touch :P
The set is like old Grimm Brothers fairy tales, but it’s Magic the Gathering! Such a breakthrough for R&D and I really hope they continue with these mind blowing innovations! Loveeeeee it! So fun!
I love Brazen Borrower, but it shouldn't be mythic. Is there any good reason for this to be mythic?
The fae that counters spells cmc 3 or less is really good.
If that fairy had the reverse costs (adventure counter costing UU and the creature for 2U) it would be so much better and actually playable, though...
Its mythic because of its super high power level. I do agree they could have printed it as low as uncommon however.
usually R&D makes cards mythic due to "not wanting this card to be seen very much in limited", so that could be the case.
However, most likely they had a busted adventure on a 3/1 body, and had to tune it down due to problems with it being too powerful for standard, but still remained a mythic.
"We want the flavor of mythic rare to be something that feels very special and unique. Generally speaking we expect that to mean cards like Planeswalkers, most legends, and epic-feeling creatures and spells. They will not just be a list of each set's most powerful tournament-level cards.
We've also decided that there are certain things we specifically do not want to be mythic rares. The largest category is utility cards, what I'll define as cards that fill a universal function. Some examples of this category would be cycles of dual lands and cards like Mutavault or Char."
MaRo 2008
magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/year-living-changerously-2008-06-02
It's the Flash. Play the bounce half and then on your next turn you can threaten with a counterspell or a 3/1 flyer. It has the potential to be unbelievable tempo.
I'm relatively very very new to magic and this is my absolute favorite set that I have seen so far. I think the flavor/art etc. is incredible. I don't think it's to appeal to kids either really.
Same on every aspect. This really draws me as a new player.
@@jonathanrobinson8926 i genuinely don't get the kid Disney vibe they're describing. Like I get a lot of the references are Disney, but they all seem like cool, sometimes dark, twists.
I mean to me nothing will ever beat Theros but Eldrain looks like fun...also FAERIES
Honestly, this whole Disney thing makes me extremely mad.
I really like the original Grimm's fairy tales. I'm german, I grew up with them - and I generally dislike the Disney versions, since they tend to remove a lot of the original themes to make the stories more kid friendly.
That being said, I don't think the fairy tale cards look too Disney-ish. With some, I feel like extra care went into avoiding the Disney look (like for example the Lovestruck Beast having antlers, I really enjoyed that detail). With others, I feel like WotC purposefully tried to go for a darker route than the popular, child-friendly versions.
My personal favorite flavor-wiser is Piper of the Swarm. Not only does it tell the entire story of the Pied Piper in one card, but it also doesn't shy away from the really dark and morbid parts of that story.
I honestly was really afraid that this set would feel very Disney- or Shrek-ish, as someone who dislikes these versions of fairy tales, and I don't think it's that. I think WotC hit the sweet spot with a lot of these cards, although some of them do feel like they were g oing off a checklist "ok, we need the cinderella cards, the snow white cards, the rapunzel card..." - I kinda feel like especially these typical "princess in peril" fairytales could have been handled with a little more generic magic flavor rather than copying the story 1:1. Glass Slipper really feels like a weird card, for example.
44:30 - You say you'd be disappointed, but no lie, if the new Zendikar comes with a common cycle of mono-color fetches I'd be so happy. Like, one that just fetches "an island" and that's it (maybe it comes in tapped unless you pay 1 life, just for some slight differentiation).
It would be better for Standard imo too, since it wouldn't make color fixing an absolute non-issue like dual fetches with shocks would, but would still provide a lot of versitility.
(also, I really want an island with a force spike on it)
Start - Eldraine's resemblance to Disney or other pop culture.
18:56 - Notable card reviews.
49:35 - Brawl specifics in other products.
I personally LOVED throne of eldraine. Huge fan of Grimm brothers and fairy tales. Didnt get shrek at all from it. I bought all the play mats and the entire set so, it's a winner in my book!
Wow! This episode is a masterpiece! Amazing content and great takes while staying relevant to full playerbase (and great intro). Well done, guys! Looking forward to the next episodes :)
loving the propeller sound at the jet plane already.
Damn, you and Vince always kill it with the intros. Awesome stuff.
On top of the entertainment value, I love the frank and reasonable discussion between two adult human beings that don't always agree.
While the set’s flavour hasn’t really struck with me as much as other sets - the quality of the cards for cube due to the new adventure mechanic (at least at uncommon, rare/mythic level) - it’s really opened up how we can build and utilise these cards to improve the overall power level. I guess the hardest question to answer is how on earth we are supposed to afford the alternate artwork to “pimp” them out!
In response to the point about accessibility to new players: isn't the recognizable touchstone of pop culture fairy tale MORE likely to draw new players to Magic? More people know Disney than know Ulamog, mind you.
Going for mass appeal has a cost, though. Often of sacrificing what the original audience loved about the thing, its soul- just to make more $$$$$.
I certainly think so. Having a set with this lovely art and fun allusions to stories people are familiar with seems pretty resonant and cool!
@@LordXypherious I think you'll gain far more than you lose in the long-term. New players may get excited over things they recognize, and even if long-term fans don't care for it, the upcoming Zendikar and Theros blocks will likely draw them right back in- into a pool of players that is likely considerably larger than when they left it. This is a gateway set, something Magic and its story haven't had for some time.
Savvy doesn't always equal soulless.
@@megabubfish Not true, unfortunately. I don't mean mass-appeal solely in terms of flavor, but in gameplay. Magic has become quite a different game than when I first discovered it. Yes it is more popular than ever, but the gameplay has become much simpler, more shallow, and the "curated experience" philosophy micromanages how we are allowed to enjoy the game. Contrast this with being new during original Ravnica, Time Spiral and Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, playing Magic was a far richer experience. I have left many games behind because they have become dumbed-down shadows of their former selves. WOTC is swiftly casting aside much of what made Magic so great in the first place, solely to make more money. Gaming today is money first, money second, money third, and somewhere far down in double digits is "make a game people love to play."
@@LordXypherious I understand that concern, but I feel that view is hard for me to take seriously at a time when WotC seems to push the design envelope more and more. Between Dominaria, War of the Spark, and Eldraine, we've seen more risky designs and out-there concepts than we have since I started playing. Is it all a ploy to make money? Yes, but if that allows them to continue making and expanding the game, more power to them. No one's to say that a person who misses the olden days can't play Magic in exactly the way they choose, because Magic isn't one game- it's many, with WotC powerless to keep you from enjoying it in your own way.
I absolutely love the references and "shrek-ness" of the set, I honestly think it's going to quickly become one of my favorite sets - though that's probably because I started in Theros (Return to Theros when? I need more enchantment creatures). It could also act as a bridge for the less nerdy population, because it's a familiar popular-culture world and doesn't require any time investment to understand the general lore.
There should have been a coconut equipment that gave equipped creature horsemanship.
Can you do a "Is it worth it to buy a Brawl deck" video.
he will
You've actually found them for sale in person?
12:00 That's not mickey mouse! it's the sorcerers apprentice by Goethe.
Also it's not "There's this old thing" it's the national poet of the largest country in Europe and it's one of his top five works. And you yankees can only ever see Mickey Mouse whenever it comes up.
I would also have an Interesting suggestion for MTG development, We seen how Ravnica could be brought into the D&D universe so for what could technically be called a Block lets introduce a little D&D into Magic the Gathering.
Think about it.
Commander Card = Your character Class - Instead of a legendary card you have class cards
Nemesis Player = DM - If playing group that can be allowed in a party mode to explore areas and dungeons and such.
Planechase/Land Card = Dungeon Tiles sets/World cards- Each player builds the world and landscape as they go with legendary locations like lets say Baulder's Gate having the requirements of having specific lands - It would be nice if these could be double used to create a battlemap for regular D&D as well.
Spells are able to be cast for Land costs with Dice roll modifiers aka Fireball = Roll a coin(1-2)-D20 depending on mana spent for damage you can expend you can divide up the damage any way you choose spending 1 point of damage per target. Creatures you can summon would be similar with a roll mechanic for hit points or damage attribute so you are no longer bound to paying 2 mana for a 2/2 instead you might end up with a 1/4, it introduces a mechanic that allows a little luck and a small amount of unpredictability to be present so you can do a few more wild things.
Its a little restrictive due to Dice being available, Coin for 1-2, D4, D6, D8, D10, D20 but it also allows for limitations as well, Counterspells would be fun as hell rolling D20's to see if a spell is countered or not or stronger counterspells allow a disadvantage for the opponent.
"Reading is for nerds" says the man debating the competitive impact of new cards in Magic lol
Good discussion. On the one hand I agree that some of the cards are a little on the nose. On the other hand, the flavor is perfectly seasoned to tap into the Disney market. Literally just describing it to my ex had her asking "Why are you telling me about this awesome thing right after I quit my job to go back to school?" when previously she had no interest in magic at all.
Hey, about the brawl decks, although rarity doesnt really matter for brawl and commander decks in paper, the rairities are super relevant for arena, the arcane sig and command tower are both common so they are basically free, the commanders are gona be rare wildcards only so that will hurt though.
@13:29 and the question of does eldraine appeal to new players: I can only talk for myself ofc but Eldrain 100% pulled me into magic. A lot of my friends had been trying to get me into mtg for a long time but all the lore and characters seemed really foreign and like i was missing out on so much stuff that it was a lot to process. With Eldraine being a lot more obvious in its references (doesn't hurt that i love arthurian legend and fairy tales) I found it a lot easier to process the Magic parts of it when I had something familiar to go with it.
A arcane signet is in fact in the collectors boosters I saw someone open open one last night at our lgs
I think Eldraine is defiantly going to appeal to new players, it's got a broad appeal that will catch the eye of people that haven't jumped in yet. I've explained the set to a few non-magic players and they've been interested. If you tell someone they're bringing back the eldrazi they won't know what you're taking about but if you tell someone there's a Monty Python reference they get it.
I just got my girlfriend to start playing magic after 6 or 7 years and this past weekend while at the Atlanta GP i mentioned the new set coming out. She looked it up and i have never seen her this excited and its about magic. If this set brings more people to magic and gets more girls excited about this game I am for it.
I like the format of chatting about interesting cards, letting things kinda flow naturally rather than stepping from card to card.
As far as the intro discussion about the set themeing and tie-ins to Disney. I feel like the biggest shortfall is that there isn't as obvious a cohesive story running through Eldraine as there was with Innestrad, War of the Spark, etc. It feels like some kinda spoof movie of a compilation of references, rather than stuff that fits into a distinct setting based on fairy tales and chivalric and courtly legends. That said, spoof movies are popular, and I agree with Kenobi here in that because of how broadly integrated these are, they're some of the must accessible jokes you could possibly make.
This set is just beautiful, even was gifted some collectors boosters, beautiful cards with the alt art borders!
Great review so far. Just wanted to comment - those chairs look super comfy.
I think what separates Eldraine from Zendikar and Innistrad is that Adventure and Horror themes are more generic and lend themselves to being portable into the world of Magic. But if you're going to port fairy tales into magic, you're going to see Disney similarities. It's unavoidable which is fine, unless you make new fairy tales, and if you're making "new" fairy tales, then it's essentially just a generic magic set that isn't based on anything.
Thank you Kenobi for helping me work out the words for why Arcane Signet and Prismatic Vista are problematic to me.
Said that to my playgroup and they all just looked at me funny saying "It's just another staple."...
Re: Spyglass - I would have much preferred Pithing Needle + Trinket Mage in M20 to this here; Trinket Mage is such a fun build-around card that can spawn an archetype if things go well, or just let you put some silver bullets in if things go poorly.
Besides, the core set is the place for cards you want to have some reasonable expectation of not rotating from... though sadly M20 didn't quite live up to this standard, replacing most of the cards from M19 for little benefit to standard.
My favorite MTG set has to be Innistrad. The gothic horror setting, the art, and the story of the place was amazing! As far as the references of Eldraine, I absolutely love them! It made me smile going through the cards trying to remember the legends of each one. Plus the new mechanics will be fun. Oh, and the art is some of my favorite to date!
I thoroughly appreciate how you're both comfy in your socks.
I feel the same about ELD flavor, although my beef tends towards the sillier cards like gingerbrute or the pumpkin carriage (although I'm all for those cute white mice tokens) and I'm not super bothered by the Monty Python reference. The Arthurian part with the courts was really well executed and compelling to me and I really hope we get to see more of the Wilds in the next visit.
I just can't help but imagine how out of place Will and Rowan will feel in other planes. "Do you not have gingerbread houses and sentient candy??". I wish stuff like that would be saved for Un-sets.
this show in it's current form should be called "Talks in socks" or something like that. Really both Prof and Ken are swinging their socks like crazy and I cannot unsee it ever while watching the show :P
Dear Tolarian Professor,
I started playing Magic the Gathering in 1994. I played Everquest, and sold items on Playerauctions.com, to purchase my MTG. I made so much money off of Fungi Tunics, that I was able to buy out our B Dalton bookstore each time they restocked. Nobody at the time seemed to care. I didn't have to rush to get the product. This continued for quite some time until the start of the Urza's Block. This was when I went to college, and I decided "Hey, I won't play this game again, let's sell." And so, I did. I made a huge sum of money; I was never ready to really "part" with this collection unless I got somewhere near what it was worth. Guess the joke was on me, as I had a full 9 sleeve, both sides, of Lions Eye Diamonds. Plus some were behind them, at the time I just didn't deem it as being *good* (I still don't). I had pages of unlimited, two full sets of tempest, a lot of moderate play beta, unlimited, and a bunch of randoms.
I also competed in a local tournament of 6 packs sealed Tempest / Stronghold for a heavy play Unlimited Black Lotus. This had a huge following of about 185 entrants, unheard of at the time. People drove up from Downstate Michigan, Ohio, Canada, and elsewhere, to compete. I opened my packs, and saw a strong white/red weenie deck that I had to play.
I made it to the final table, after so many rounds. I talked to my opponent and he seemed ready to go, mentioning his lucky pulls. My opponent got two Scroll Racks, two Sliver Queens and two time warps. I had him to 5 life in our first match and then he exploded with a back to back time warp. Our second game, he go the Queens out early and a bunch of little slivers. I did what I could but at this point realized I was done for. I hope that he still has that beautiful Lotus in his collection.
I put all that money into a hollowed out book when I went to college, knowing that the money would still be there. I didn't want to squander the money on liquor, girls, gambling and other fun things that don't let you retire. Well, I found out about two years after this fact that the book was put in a garage sale or something, and no longer existed. So, somebody profited about $20,000 not including signed baseball cards by Mickey Mantle and other craziness. I was bitter for a little bit, but the more I thought about it, maybe I helped somebody else get their shit started.'
The morale of my story is; everyone has an introductory point to everything. MTG helped me a lot, by giving me an escape when I needed it and he huge serotonin boost when you need it. Long Live Magic the Gathering! IN CARDBOARD RECTANGLES!!!!!! We as players cannot showcase our foils or get the same boost otherwise.
6:40 incredibly good point. Innistrad was much more restrained and as a result is incredibly well beloved.
I can easily see going back to Eldraine. We had no problem going back to Innistrad, which was super ultra hyper blatant in how it was ripping off shit in the exact same way Eldraine is.
The discussion of reprints in core sets: I like that they put Opt and Sorcerous Spyglass in Eldraine rather than M20 simply because it's the first set after rotation, it means that these cards (which probably don't need to be reprinted every year for financial reasons but do want to always be in Standard) can be reprinted once every two years and still always be in Standard. Maybe what this really says is that the Core Set should be the first one after rotation, but I think there may be other reasons that doesn't really work (perhaps they really want the set after rotation to be splashy rather than "all my old cards are rotating *and* it's just a boring core set coming out, I don't care about Standard enough to rebuild my collection right now). Regardless, the point stands, I'd rather have the key "always in Standard" reprints be, as much as possible, right after rotation so that you only have to reprint them once every two years and they're not taking up as much space in the drafts and boosters, on average, as they would otherwise.
I think there are a number of other cards that follow this same idea and model even if they're not direct reprints. Hushbringer being printed right when Tocatli Honor Guard rotates out is no coincidence. I think it is for Standard, I think that's a matter of Magic R&D saying that Standard always needs a safety valve for certain strategies (in this case, right after printing a number of cards that could make Aristocrats real and right after printing Yarok, they might have been worried about ETB and death triggers, hence Hushbringer) and, just like reprinting a Pithing Needle effect right when the old one rotated out to keep Planeswalkers in check (especially after WAR), they're printing a new ETB hoser right when the old one rotates out. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more hosers in Zendikar next year to replace something rotating out (which, admittedly, I can't think of the example right now) from Guilds of Ravnica.
28:10 I love that card I cast golden egg out of the graveyard something like 15 times in a single game in my first ELD draft. I get card drawing life and so on from it. Unfortunately the rest of my deck kind of sucked so...
I’m here in 2023, three years later getting hyped for Wilds of Eldraine. It’s so interesting to see how scandalous Throne of Eldraine was. I was on hiatus when it released, but absolutely loved it when I came back.
If they though Throne of Eldraine was watered down to appease the masses, man, if only they knew about Strixhaven at the time.
Brothers Grimm over Disney though. See no problem with Throne of Eldraine if you are familiar with stories other than Disney adaptations.
Finaly there are Knights that look like Knights. Im very pleased about that. There is also a strong germanic part of the Cardbackround i also liked a lot in the Innistrad setting.
I feel like the professor has it backwards in stating that Eldraine is going to struggle to capture new players. I can't tell you the exact number of poeple I know who are nerdy for fantasy, tertiarily know about magic, and it took this overt fairy tale set to get them to say "I think I'm going to try magic." The number is at least 7, and I know that's a mostly unhelpful anecdote, but it has to be indicative of some kind of trend, whether it's a tiny one centered around me or something much larger.
Count me in 7 and maybe more + 1, I was having my eyes on Magic for a Long time but never spoke to me from a Design stand Point. I just realy didn't like the Artwork Style of different sets, still want to build a Mill Deck but for now faires it is cause I Just enjoy the eldraine Artwork.
Eldraine got me into tabletop magic I played online for years but this awesome knight synergy fairy tales got me to go to my first prerelease
I feel like the issue with the Eldraine flavor vs. Innistraad flavor is one of coherence and world building. The references in Innistraad all feel like they belong in the world, whereas a lot of the references in Eldraine just feel like references that happen to be printed in the same set as the Authurian plane.
I literally didn't give a fuck about any magic sets for 4 years, then I saw the first adventure sorcery-Creature and was immediately convinced to buy this set. It's so intensely flavorful, the card art is beautiful and fun, and we get Garruk back. The embodiment of Green planeswalker.
Re: Zendikar - I'd like Fetchlands here, as they alone would sell the (2?) sets. I wouldn't mind Prismatic Vista in a 3rd Zendikar set for a pseudo-block, as well as a cycle of fetchable (CIPT) legendary lands.
I feel like TED fell just short of going too far. A few of the reference cards are a bit too on the nose, but theres more than enough unrelated cards that it feels fine. Personally I like the lighter tone, though I wouldn't want it all the time. I feel like the lighter tone really helps with the comfy vibes of most of the food and, like, the innkeeper card.
I share the prof's opinion of, "I could see Jace walking around on Innistrad but not Eldraine", in terms of tone and theme. Looking at the showcase cards Im reminded of Rhystic Studies card frame video, mainly the feeling of, "This is not a Magic card."
The changing of names for special edition prints or sets reminds me of preordering a video game. The size of the chart needed to decide where to pre-order the next call of duty game, what store has what bonuses and when. It's all an attempt to confuse the customer pieces, to make people more susceptible to purchasing products they don't want by mistake
Anthem in a nutshell
I have the disagree with Prof on the flavor. The Arthurian half carries the bulk of the set, that is true. However, I think you are downplaying the impact Disney had on our childhoods. They have adapted almost all the fairytales, and it's probably correct to say that the average player is much more familiar with the Disney version, rather than the original, so they default to that.
I kinda agree about the references things. I feel like in many cases, Eldraine isn't like "here's a thinly veiled reference." It's "here's this thing straight out of a fairy tale." Which is fine, maybe people wouldn't get the joke if it was The Seven Goblins rather than The Seven Dwarves, but it does feel a little on the nose. I guess maybe they were afraid that veiling some of the references would make them too hard to notice. The Trojan Horse problem from Theros, as Maro has discussed before, where people didn't get the card when it was divorced too much from its inspiration. I'm actually okay with the Monty Python card, cuz at least that is veiled and not immediately apparent. Actually, all of the Arthurian stuff is a lot better, as they did 'Magic-ify' it. King Arthur isn't called King Aaarthuuur of the Roundish Table but yet it's obvious that Kenrith is Arthur.