Anyone else really sick of the neowalkers personality cult that currently monopolizes mtg lore?

Jaya wasn't given nearly as much spotlight as Chandra. If you're going to give that much of a fuck about a character it's better if she's not completely shallow, like most neowalkers are.

This one sounds like a quote from He-Man.

Will we ever get a new garruk?
Will he be perma-banned because of the "rape" card?
Find out next episode of "damn it maro!"!

I unironically believe they'll eventually make Jace their leader and he'll become king faggot of all neowalkers. Not in a de facto sense as he currently is, but in actual, cerimonial fashion.

I admit that's pretty bad, but still.

They're doing The Avengers wrong.
The MCU gave us 3 Iron Man appereances in 5+ years, they're printing 3 Chandras this year.

As usual, trens are set, and riders at the coat tails will look ridiculous by following them.

People always say this, but Garruk was the face of a core set years after Triumph of Ferocity was a thing.

>Jaycetes league is the face of magic
Sure, but that doesn't mean we have to like it. I think all of the Jacycetes league has been printed too much and shouldn't be taking center stage. They aren't very interesting characters, not all grouped together like this.
If they each had their own separate arches I think I'd enjoy them more. I liked the character development Lili got in Eldritch. It was entertaining to see her struggle with the chain veil and see her aragent, shallow, fight with Emmy.
I think they'd all be more interesting on their own instead of clumped together. I'd love to see Jayce try to deal with Ravnika political bull shit.
I also just want new walkers to be a bigger focus in new planes.

pyrogenius

really?

Also does Kaladesh actually have a plot or is it just Indian Steampunk

Indian steampunk fair, with filigree retard and revolution.

Tezzeret's around as one of the head judges of the fair, apparently, and we know that there's some sort of rebellion brewing against the ruling class.

Plot is only just beginning to get underway. It seems there's a rebellion lead by Chandra's mother, who turns out to be alive after all, and they're opposing Tezzeret who turns out to be one of the officials during a Kaladeshi event.

Remember Ertai?

This block is literally going to be Occupy Kaladesh with a side order of TERRRISM. The good guys are all female, the bad guys are all male, and the side characters have lesbian marriages. This block could not left-wing any harder if it tried.

>They aren't very interesting characters
are you talking about the Gatewatch, or MtG characters in general
>not all grouped together like this.
only actually happened in the set about forming the Gatewatch.
Innistrad was 95% only Jace and Lilliana. This suggest that it's more likely Kaladesh with be only the 3 members we've seen, or the others only show up at the very end, not that all 5 will be present all the time.

Liliana doesn't seem even mildly interested about what she saw.
What boring thing is she actually pointing at?

Being all grouped together is a great chance for character development or just character dynamic between them in general. If your concern is how good the characters are, they definitely have more potential together than alone. The characters are also deceptively deep. Chandra is genuinely one note as as Nissa even though she did technically have an interesting arc. Even Liliana who is notoriously badly written and portrayed in flavor text actually is a great idea for a character at least. Jace is a generally good character as well that often gets misconstrued because of shitty flavor text but he has great motivations and the way his character has developed and acts makes perfect sense even if it's never actually written well. Gideon is kind of the same issue as liliana and nissa, interesting idea for a character and great back story but their identifying personality trait and role in the five man band is often played up so hard that it doesn't really matter or inform the things they do, though I believe Liliana is above all the worst for this.

It's not terrorism if you win
T. Nelson Mandela

At that exact moment, she's casually pointing the hooded figure (Tezzeret) out to Chandra.
Exact line is
>"Conspicuously inconspicuous, don't you think?"
They then accost him and learn he is Tezzeret and the scene ends on a cliffhanger.

>play game
>ignore lore
Problem Solved.

>Gatewatch decides to go to one of the more stable planes and cause trouble because of a tiny bit of oppression
>Meanwhile, there is a plane of literal cancer trying to infect everything in the multiverse

Bullshit it's not as bad. Even if you want to argue that it's just as bad, it's fucking worse because they haven't improved in the years since weatherlight. They're still doing the same shit, it's just now they've said "Oh yeah we're doing this formula for every set from now on." They have failed to learn from the mistakes they not only made but admitted to making. It's like watching a kid burn his hand on the stove, say "Oh shit, better not do that again," and proceed to sit on top of the fucking burner with a smile on his face like "You like this, right?"

There is no card you can show me that would convince me it is that bad yet.
You simply don't adequately remember or know how awful Weatherlight saga was.

the first UR for Kaladesh literally had Jace stating outright that they don't roll out for non-Planeswalker problems. The gals are just there because Chandra's having a big emotional moment.

Except that making having characters make snarky quips on flavor text hasn't and isn't going to have the same kind of effects, neither short nor long, as a kid sticking his hand and then his ass on a hot burner. Not even in a general sense. Jace feigning interest for the billionth time on the flavor text of a magic card isn't going to irrevocably hurt the game. Why do people even bother making analogies.

Analogies aren't equation, and the flavor text isn't what I'm talking about. It's the fucking story, the characters coming back every set, every set having the same tired "then the same good guys show up and beat the bad people." Every character introduced will play second fiddle to or join the jacetice league, every major problem will be solved by them, and we'll wallow in jace and Chandra cards forever. They went the marvel route.

> They went the marvel route.
so the route of a successful company that's making a lot of money.

Would you prefer they went the DC route where they tried to be dark and serious and made film after film that people hated till they finally decided they needed to make one fun fill, but by that point were on fucking Suicide Squad, the film that actually could have been justified being dark.

I thought Bolas zapped Tezzeret?

>and the flavor text isn't what I'm talking about
>
>Bullshit it's not as bad.
>>flavor text is often some snarky irrelevant comment they made
>It's still not as bad as Weatherlight saga.

>Analogies aren't equation
No, but it doesn't take a genius to know that a kid intentionally burning themselves on a stovetop is not even close to some card game suits making flavor text they think is clever and hilarious but not really for an analogy.

Bring back Urza

That book has been ejected from canon for introducing bullshit time travel.

I'd prefer they went the route they were on between weatherlight and the open acknowledgment and choice to create the jacetice league.

I understand it makes money, I'm saying it's not good for the people playing the game.

How is someone making a mistake, acknowledging it, and then doing the same mistake but worse not EXACTLY what's happened? They said they focused too much on a core cast of characters and story with Weatherlight and now they've said every block for the foreseeable future will involve the Gatewatch. My analogy wasn't made to be clever, it was made to illustrate a point. A point that stands regardless of your feelings about said analogy, though why you feel strongly about it either way is beyond me.

That dress makes you look fat, Lili.

Why I "feel strongly" about it (which I wouldn't say that I do) is because the point its meant to illustrate isn't whats happening. Wizards isnt painfully and irrevocably hurting themselves by doing this, getting told not to do it by someone (which doesn't work because wizards gets feedback in a very rough and nonspecific way that it's hard to only recieve one message), and then continue doing it out of sheer spite which I'm sure is many realms removed from whatever reason it is they keep having bad writing despite however victimized you may feel. I didn't say you made it to be clever, but I am saying it is both extremely hyperbolic and also doesn't even work for the comparison it was made for it.

LOOKING PRETTY CONSPICUOUSLY INCONSPICUOUS THERE, TEZZERET

>I'd prefer they went the route they were on between weatherlight and the open acknowledgment and choice to create the jacetice league.
You do remember what that was actually like right?
I mean there were moments of good like Chainers Torment, but most of it was bleh or wtf with characters we didn't give a shit about because they had no time to develop and they were more interested in getting the story forward than spending time to develop them.

>They said they focused too much on a core cast of characters and story with Weatherlight and now they've said every block for the foreseeable future will involve the Gatewatch.
because you are confusing, "will involve" with "will be focused around".
The only set completely focused around the Gatewatch characters was the set they established the damn gatewatch.

SoI was mainly the story of Sorin and Nihari, with Jace trying to figure out what was going on. Gatewatch didn't do anything big until the very fucking end.

>it was always bad
and how is this a good defense?

how about wondering if wotc can make it not bad

They may not have done much that block, but the point is they will be in every single block from here on out, and their numbers will grow every block. They will inevitably be the focus of blocks.
I already explained what elements of my analogy compare to my point. The rest is you interpreting it incorrectly and continuing to argue against a vehicle for my point, and not my point itself. I'm not interested.

Torment was my first book and one of my first sets. I was pretty disappointed when I found out how much of a shitshow everything else was.

Personally I am just glad that the conflict of this set is more personal and character focused. I'm getting pretty bored of giant space monsters.

I wasn't arguing your point, fair enough (that writing hasn't improved). If you had good reading comprehension you'd have seen that
>whatever reason it is they keep having bad writing.
But I made what I was taking issue with very clear from the start so if you weren't interested you should have said that up front instead of waiting until told exactly how your analogy falls apart. I'm also pretty sure I'm not "interpreting it incorrectly".

I comprehend what you're saying, I just question why you're saying it when it has no relevance to the discussion or thread. It honestly baffles me.
> I'm also pretty sure I'm not "interpreting it incorrectly".
My analogy is shit, fine, but the point it conveys stands, regardless of how well you feel it communicates it. Can we talk about something that matters now?

Remember my first post was just an offhand comment at hwo shit the analogy was. You just felt like you had to go on and defend it and that lead to this. I neither wanted nor felt like it was necessary for it to go on more than my initial post

That's not really any different than any of the dozens of Jaya Ballard, Task Mage flavor texts.

>I neither wanted nor felt like it was necessary for it to go on more than my initial post
Then why have you replied to every post I've made about it?

All mtg needs is a good writer.

Countless properties were considered sub tier until some talent injected fresh breath and life into it

Swamp Thing, Animal Man, The Justice Society,Flash,Green Lantern,(multiple times for those last two), Sandman, Animal Man, The Seven Soldiers,Daredevil,Batman, The Avengers, The X-Men, Doom Patrol,Teen Titans,Transformers, Flintstones,Omega Men,Marvelman/Miracle Batgirl, Justice Leauge, Shade the Changing Man, Starman,Blue Beetle, Dick Grayson and many more all of them were total shit/d list at some point before a new team revived them.

All it takes is a strong creative vision and great art can be made from even the weakest source.

Flowers from manure .

You listed Animal Man twice, and based on your list I sincerely hope that you don't mean Morrison's run when you refer to Batman

like pottery

Also
>Frank Quitely
>Great art
Pick one and only one

If flavor text is the reason you're leaving then fine by me. It's not bad for there to be consistent characters in a game franchise.

>Who are you?!
>Excuse me?
>YOU! WHO ARE YOU?!
>I am none of your concern. Let me be.
>LIAR! GRAB HIS CLOAK!
>Unhand me!
>Crowd gasps
>I am Tezzeret... I am judging the fair and I had HOPED to be able to spend some time about the city without being gawked at.
>HEY I BET YOU'RE UP TO SOMETHING! THE REBELS SAID BAD THINGS ABOUT STUFF AND REBELS ARE ALWAYS TRUSTWORTHY HEROES!
>I should have never left my workshop this morning.

>Consistent
Then why are flavor text Jace and story Jace two completely different characters? Why did one of the more recent story articles have all of the Gatewatch members acting inconsistently with pretty much any other appearance they've ever made? I agree that flavor text is a silly reason to leave the game but if you're going to try to defend the writing as anything other than z-list dreck you're wrong

What I mean is that the Canon states that planeswalkers, you know, walk between planes. Each block is usually set in its own little bit of the planeverse (or whatever it's called) cut away from anything else. It's nice having one or two familiar planeswalkers in every block sprinkled in with new ones.

>I think they'd all be more interesting on their own instead of clumped together. I'd love to see Jayce try to deal with Ravnika political bull shit.
They're following the Marvel Model. Eventually, yes, they're going to pump the breaks on the main5 a little, but until then, you're just going to have to put up with ensemble casts. Heck it wasn't even that bad in SOI, pretty much just Jace, Tammy, Sorin, Nahiri, and Avacyn n Friends.

story Jace has about 1000% more words used to describe his character. Card Jace is the 'face' of blue and as such really isn't allowed to look weak or uncool in his depictions of cards.

Wizards also has an unhealthy boner for "snarky remark - important character to rando he just buttfucked with magic" as oppose to describing the planeswalker doing something cool or impressive.

NOW WITH MORE QUIPS

Oh boy are we talking about flavour text?

As a psycho monster villain you were literally meant to beat up. The pre-release gimmick was the equivalent of a Garruk piñata.

The king

>Sorin is finally gone for an extended amount of time

Feels good man, sometimes WOTC really does get it right

How about following their own route?
Hasbro hasn't had a single success by following trends, all their successes are from setting trends themselves.
They need to fire everyone who wish they were at Marvel and start hiring people who want to be at WotC.

Yes, the dress needs to go, then again Chandra put on pants so Kaladesh may be the retrograde sex-negative shithole full of minorities that SJWs have wet dreams about.

Actually it's more that Tezz was doing shady things to find the the renegade leader. Then there's an explosion, which Chandra and Lili investigate because they want to help the renegades. Lili points out the cloaked dude, the cloaked dude calls out the renegade leader, the renegade calls out the cloaked figure as the head judge, Lili calls out the judge as being Tezz, and Chandra calls out the leader as her mom.

I'm willing to put down a decent bet that a couple years down the line, Wizards will announce a new non-rotating format starting at Battle for Zendikar, ie. the start of the Gatewatch. It'll basically be Modern, but really fucking slow and boring. They won't start at the M15 border change for multiple reasons, namely 1) it excludes fetchlands, 2) it excludes Delve, 3) it means there's a random 3 set block when the rest are 2, and 4) they have a raging erection over the Gatewatch. The format will probably be named "Gatewatch Era" or something stupid like that.

I want it badly to be the rebels and mom are just being anarchistic twats
mostly because I want the gatewatch to continue fucking everything up for everyone and still parade like they're the biggest heroes to ever exist

Well so far their only achievement is ruining the multiverse's cycle of rebirth because of "muh fee-fees".

>BFZ
>Not Origins
They literally named it for you.

As a denizen of /co/, some of those you listed weren't actually things that got ressurected by a good writer (Shade, Marvelman. Seven Soldiers) but instead just created whole cloth. Most of the rest were Z-list characters, the kind no one cares what happens with, so the writers threw out literally everything and started over, and a great many of them are arguable as to if they can even be considered good, like Dick Grayson or Batgirl.

It's not flowers from manure, it's flowers from a corpse. If you want to apply the same logic to the Jacetice League, you basically have to throw out everything, and start it over. Jacetice League goes up Bolas and he wrecks them, as he does, begins doing evil stuff. Ugin mobilizes the other "good" planeswalkers to stop him, and have each block be about one of his plots and one of the neowalkers, Like Kiora vs. a new Riptide project, with a slightly bigger monster than Slivers to clone, or Domri Rade stopping Bolas from sending dinosaurs from Mugarandu to other planes. Throw in a few other villains now and then for shits and giggles, like Emrakul, or Niv Mizzzet.

...but Gideon is the leader

Sorin was one of the only good things about the lore and they've shoved him in a closet to focus on the Jacetice league because we can't have anything cool or interesting stealing the spotlight. Expect Tezzeret to be similarly put on a bus

I like the guilds and stuff but I couldn't care less about planeswalkers.
They're not fun to play with or against imo.

So how long until Karn comes calling to let them know the multiverse has a bit of an oil leak going on

He and Gideon are already the leaders. In the sense each of them thinks they are in charge

Is not a 1:1.

Star Trek was used as a better analogy of the structure of a single crew world hopping.

None of the Gatewatch are aware of New Phyrexia.

Come on, that's actually pretty funny.

>But the point is a...
A bunch of bullshit you have Zero evidence for.
You don't know that they will be the focus for every block, rather than the interlocutors who present us our insight into the block from a well know perspective.
You don't know they are going to keep adding members.

You have Zero evidence and are complaining about shit that is likely not even true.

The problem with the Neowalker Five is that they are all incredibly bland. They are very obviously meant to be caricatures of the colors they represent, and so they come off as stiff and wooden mockeries of a fleshed out character. That their appearance comes across as vaguely similar to the Power Rangers (just because you are a blue mage, do you really need to wear blue head to toe?), adds to this.

WotC has added interesting planeswalkers before. The problem is, they chose the safest and blandest characters to represent the game, and I've never seen anyone actively praise WotC for these characters.

At best, players are apathetic. At worst, you get the Gerrard Syndrome going, and everything will need to end in an Invasion-styled mass-character death scenario.

markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/146514271673/blocks-will-involve-anywhere-from-one-to-all-of#notes
markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/146512253968/will-the-full-gateway-be-appearing-in-every-block

markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/146514271673/blocks-will-involve-anywhere-from-one-to-all-of#notes
markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/146512253968/will-the-full-gateway-be-appearing-in-every-block
markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/146634949913/should-we-expect-to-see-at-least-one-member-of-the
markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/148204461613/im-really-sorry-for-double-asking-but-i-meant-as
markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/147522200228/when-it-comes-to-the-gatewatch-my-main-concern-is
markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/147505699158/i-think-the-main-complaint-on-the-whole-nothing
markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/136973929583/so-the-gatewatch-is-magics-avengers-or-justice

Admittedly I can't find the thing about a new member every block, so I probably got that wrong, but tumblr's search function is borked so who knows.

>tfw I wish the story would wind up with the Jacetice league about to lose to Nical Bolas when suddenly Karn, Freyalise, Teferi, Jhoira and the rest of Urza's mates would show up and be the cool OG planeswalker Avengers.

>Jhoira
>Planeswalker

I love ol Jhoira, but she's never been a Walker, just nearly immortal.

I don't know man, this one is awful.
I really enjoy the edge level on some cards vs how unbelievably underwhelming the actual card is.

Pretty sure Freyalise is dead. Jhoira was a normal human, so she's probably dead by now. Teferi lost his spark some time ago, so he could be dead too, but he has time magic, so who the fuck knows?

Freyalise indeed died during the Time Spiral Crisis.
Jhoira is a nonwalker, but is functionally unaging due to Tolarian Bullshit. She could well be around still, hanging around with the sparkless Teferi.
Besides, you forgot one other detail about 's post that is wrong. Urza didn't have 'mates'. He had resources that happened to be sapient, most of whom hated his guts for that very fact.
I think the only one who had a positive opinion of Urza in any way shape or form from Invasion onwards is Karn.

Urza did nothing wrong and did what he had to do to rid the multiverse of the greatest threat it had ever seen.

Yeah, I blame the influence of anime. It sucks.

>anime
>not capeshit
lol

>Everyone leaves Kaladesh after this set
>Run into Karn
>Tells them a list of planes he's been on
>Kaladesh is one of them
>everyones face when

Actually to go full co again this is less like Avengers and more like Batman the Brave and The Bold . You have you main a list guy(Batman/Gatewatch member) then they team up with a special guest star to deal with that planes specific threat .

BFZ/OGZ was the team origin so we got everyone but Kiora still was the guest star.

Soi/EMN settled more into the formula with a select few Gatewatchers starring (Lilli and Jace) and then a guest star related to the Plane story (Tamiyo)

Kaladesh follows the same formula, with Chandra and Nissa as the Gatewatch with Saheeli as the guest

And Amonkhet seems the follow the pattern with Ajani.

In fact if you look at block ratios of walkers it's pretty even.

BFZ block was 4:2
Soi was 2:4
Kaladesh looks to be 2:4 as well.

The Gatewatch tend to be the minority characters.

Three relevant watchers for this block and only two for the last one.

Even Justice Lesuge knew you could rarely focus on EVERY member EVERY episode .

Hell, the story we just came off of had the Gatewatch be next to incidental.

And in the process, also got rid of the SECOND greatest threat the multiverse had ever seen!