As you may have noticed, I'm no longer describing myself as really being part of this fandom. That's largely because I had I guess kind of a psychological crisis after looking through so much material while I was helping with the Motherboard salvage efforts.

Basically I realized that while there's a few things that have been really great about being in this fandom, for the most part the storyline has consistently been a source of disappointment, frustration, irritation, and yet more disappointment again. Realizing that something I've spent unimaginable time with over the course of more than half my life has actually mostly been... well, pretty bad was a bit of a blow--I mean that's a lot of my identity called into question you know?

It's been good in the sense that it's allowed me to reprioritize and figure out what actually WAS valuable to me: primarily the creative engagement in this community, the story contests, the character contests, the anthologies, watching people work together to create a shared storyline... all that stuff has always been great and a consistent source of happiness for me even as the main storyline failed to live up to its potential over and over again.

It's left me with a question though, I suppose:

Why did I stick around so long? And why are so many others sticking around now? I mean, the level of frustration right now is pretty remarkable--it kind of seems like as far as this community is concerned Wizards can do no right, and that's more in line with the late planehopping and immediate post-Mending era than the period after the truce agreement. But people are still sticking with the storyline... and, yeah, I guess I'm interested in hearing why exactly that's the case.

In essence, if you don't like it, why not leave? I mean that's often used in a reductive and dismissive way to shut down arguments but it's maybe worth actually trying to grapple with a bit... and it might be worth grappling with the inverses as well: why stick with the storyline when it seems like there's basic structural issues with the way it's carried out that aren't going to change for several years at the very least?

There's a few differences with the Mending that make a full scale exodus less likely I think and I can go into some theories on that but this is something that's been on my mind for a while so what the heck, let's throw this out there in the open.

Why bother with Magic's storyline?

Optimism, I guess. I mean, I know how much potential the MTG Multiverse has. We've seen it in the past with their storylines, and we've seen it in the M:EM. The system of magic is has makes a lot of internal sense, there is 20+ years of history to draw from and cards to take inspiration from, and there's a lot of good work that has been done, and might yet be done in the future.

It is frustrating to me, as someone who considers himself at least tangentially an artist or sorts, to see what Richard Garfield created turned into a corporate profit center run by board-thought decision making and projected marketing ploys, many of which I feel end up off the mark, anyway. It's disappointing to me to see such potential squandered on nonsensical gimmicks like pointless, illogical time travel stories. But the fact that they can still craft a world like the original Tarkir is heartening to me, and tells me that there is still hope that they can put together evocative worlds and (potentially) fascinating characters that are more than one note superheroes.

The potential is still there. Without the infuriating time travel fluff, Tarkir would have been my favorite set in years. If they had just gone a different direction, they would have knocked it out of the park, which tells me they still CAN knock it out of the park. They just need to get there...

I don't think I've ever really been involved in the storyline of Magic so much as I enjoyed the overall aesthetic of it. I mentally make the distinction between "flavor" and "story", with the former being small, often self-contained story elements such as a singular well-conveyed card, and the former being the more obvious traditional storytelling that Magic does not do so well. I've always been in it for the flavor and not the story.

While recent returns to worlds like and not-quite-so-fantastical new planes have ultimately been a letdown for me, I still generally enjoy the worlds that are created and presented in Magic. Return to Ravnica was great for me until Dragon's Maze, and the first Tarkir set was extremely intriguing, but a lot lately has been "too little, too late."

That's why I don't follow the story or buy the cards.

As for why I stick around: For one, I'm too entrenched in the community (most specifically the M:EM community) to just up and leave. There's way too much that interests me from the folks around here to ever truly go.

Secondly, this is honestly the only social media platform I use in any real extent. I'm not a twit, I say NO to Facebook, have never truly used googlebook and have not met anyone through there I didn't already know, I don't visit tumblr except when I'm directed there (usually for art or comics), I dislike reddit's UI and mostly use it for *ahem*, and youtube doesn't have a community to speak of (even if I've managed to have small discussions with authors and youtubers). If I left I'd have to find and learn an entirely different forum or social platform in which to interact with people. (I suppose I should mention things like Steam and DeviantArt but those are social platforms secondly to whatever their main purpose is.)

Lastly, although this probably should have been higher up the list, is that this is only the second fandom I've ever been a part of and the only one I'm engaged in at all. At one point a dozen years ago or more I was briefly a part of the Pokémon fandom, but I was young and didn't understand the adult side of the fandom (by which I mean the more competitive side). I didn't stick around. I've said before that I don't exactly consider myself a part of the MLP fandom because I have contributed nothing to it even though I've consumed a lot of fan media (although I recently talked with an author over youtube and kind of promised to give his story a more thorough critique at some point). I'm making a token effort to break into the Awesomenauts community both because I realize that this place is my only community at the moment and also because it being a MOBA game makes that probably necessary if I ever want to fight more than computers, but I'm not even experienced enough yet to make comments beyond some non-game related ones.

For me, while there are parts of the storyline that I disagree with, or think were mishandled, I have found just as many other parts that I found enjoyable. Unlike some on the board, I'm actually okay with how Tarkir fell together, and while there were some pretty egregious errors in some of the Origins stories, they were mostly for characters that I never cared about to begin with. I thought the Mending was kinda dumb, but that's mostly because of all the deaths that were necessary for Wizards to clean house to make room for the new crop of characters.

Over all I still like reading many of the URs that come out and I like being up to date to help explain the story nuances to the other players at my local store, who consider me their defacto Magic Storyline Source. Also being able to put story changes into perspective when compared to the past.

I am with Raven that for some part there is some optimism, as much as I can be seen as utterly negative at times (as I mentioned before, I use it to lessen disappointment) what I find the thing making me stay in Magic is more of the artworks. Also in the back of mind, it's that waiting if they're gonna use something pre-Mending (even tho it has been stated that it is unlikely to be on the main product) that's keeping me with the storyline. Then the angels... and then the shallow part, which is beefcake.

Maybe if they totally jumped away and wiped all pre-Mending stuff out after the Mending I might've drifted away faster.

I am not even that invested with the current storyline unlike before, I may read Uncharted Realms but I do not put any faith in it. I've learned it the hard way with the pre-Origins retcon... I was starting to care then it could all go in a snap like that.

I yearn for a semblance of stability, I mean at least just that for the continuity... for Creative to "work around" the stuff they establish instead of retconning it in a jiffy.

This, plus the URs lately have been decent if you don't count those involving Nissa (which are pretty bad). Like, I kinda enjoy Ugin. Kiora is pretty cool. Gideon is... well, he's not the black hole from which nothing of value can escape that I was expecting him to be post-retcon. Ob is a saturday morning cartoon villain, but at least he's entertaining. The natives can have their moments. Even Jace, for all that he's a horrible brat and I want him to go away at least for a while, at least is written OK. As of BfZ, we'd be in a surprising high-point if not for two facts: it's tainted by the Retcons, and Nissa exists.

And to the first... I'm coming around to the point of view that many of them (AKA all but Nissa) are only problems because they were Retcons. If my first interface with Chandra was Origins Chandra, I think I'd really like her and that version of her history. It's independently pretty good. Origins Jace, similarly, is an interesting figure held back by the fact that he's tied to the insufferably omnipresent PW we've barely tolerated since about Lorwyn.

I mean, we are nowhere near the level of the Artifacts Cycle, but IMO that's asking a lot. They're not going to top Brothers' War and Planeswalker and probably can't even match it. But that's OK. It's a really high bar to meet. And the worldbuilding of the "modern" team (not just the latest Retcon team, whose body of work is yet to come, but the post-mending teams) is frankly stronger than some other eras. They gave us Innistrad, New Phyrexia, and Khans-era Tarkir which are all beautiful in their own ways. To a lesser extent we got Fiora, Kaladesh, and Vryn. Alara, Zendikar (which improved the second time around IMO), and Theros were somewhat lesser efforts, but only really Dragons-era Tarkir falls flat the way that Otaria and Old Mirrodin did.

Yeah, the state of the storyline isn't in its happiest place right now. I miss the days of the old comics line, the Artifacts Cycle, and Tempest (oh wait...). But at the same time, I'm not sure it's as bad as all that for a fantasy property. And if things are falling to shambles around this 'Gatewatch', well I'm more invested in exploring planes and savoring Dominia as a whole anyway (that and the M:EM), so I can look in and kinda have fun giving it the MST3K treatment until its worthy of better. Maybe I just don't get that serious about fandom? For all that I grump, I think it's in part because I know it can be better and in part because I just enjoy grumping. In the meantime, there are the bits I enjoy ironically, the bits I enjoy unironically, and the stupid elf bits I largely ignore.

It was purely personal preference that kept me from liking both Innistrad and Theros, but I loved the aesthetics of both New Phyrexia and Khans. I like to think Alara was a good effort because it gave us five completely new worlds, which meant that most people would find one they liked (even if they all had their problems), but I have to disagree with you on Zendikar. Before the Eldrazi were freed, Zendikar was a really interesting world with a lot of potential for smaller stories; something that would have been right at home in the M:EM. The living land idea and the vague yet menacing government agency zendicons were great concepts, but then Zendikar became "Eldrazi land" and hasn't recovered and likely never will recover.

I love the basic concept and worldbuilding a lot. Even the **** new Tarkir is very creative.

Plus, I enjoy reminding newcomers of a glorious past they've missed out on.

A) the community
B) I've got nothing else going on
C) I actually build decks and play some form of the game
D) the community (I you guys)

Partly, I suppose is also the fact that I collected the cards way before I did anything even related to any other part of the game. It started with these windows into other worlds, and so long as I can continue getting some of that, I'll stick with it. Although all this focus testing and style guiding is maiming some of that.

I think the distinction between story and flavor makes a lot of sense. I mean I still found on the whole that finding good individual cards in Origins, Theros, and Tarkir to build contests around or that I could use in my own stories was... tricky, but on the other hand there's a huge amount of stuff in Alara, Innistrad, Mirrodin II/New Phyrexia, and even some cool stuff in Zendikar I that is great.

The community is a big deal too. I mean obviously I'm starting all this contest stuff despite basically loudly proclaiming that I'm done with the storyline and that's because the community, when it sets its mind to it, is consistently inspiring and amazing creatively.

Sometimes I wonder if books like Planeswalker almost set too high a bar. I mean, like Szat says, that's a hard thing to match. That's not just one of my favorite Magic books it's one of my favorite fantasy novels period.

At the same time though I think one of the things that's been a consistent source of frustration for me is that those older books are super meaningful to me but they seem to be... not something the creative team cares about? I mean I'm still angry about their suggestion that Mirrodin's corruption came from Xantcha's heart. That was just... appallingly disrespectful to the entire purpose of her character and smacked of a cavalier attitude towards the past as just something to be mined for Cool Epic Events rather than something that had its own message or meaning beyond Cool Fantasy Card Games.

So I look at the instances of that kind of attitude and come to the conclusion that while looking at new cards might be useful as a source for stories here, ultimately there's no point in following the storyline because no element is going to be respected as anything other than a Big Event to lead to other Big Events.

Most things I wanted to say, but this is the sort of thread were saying what someone else has said isn't terrible.

1) The community. I've taken breaks from the storyline and from you guys and, well, that sucked.
2) I still really enjoy the flavor and worldbuilding that Wizards puts out. This is different from the story and there have been some recent misses, but flavor has a lot more leeway. Just because one card or concept doesn't work, doesn't mean the rest is terrible (unlike with the storyline, where one flaw can drag down everything).
3) Magic offers things that no other property offers, with the possible exception of the Expanded Multiverse and following both is entertaining. The ability to switch settings and genres completely isn't something that can be found somewhere else. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is another property, but that doesn't have the robust history and diversity of settings and characters Magic offers. I mean, how many other properties can introduce a completely new sapient race (Ainok), redesign another completely (Djinn and Efreet) and still end up with a world that feels complete, understandable and believable, while still following the established rules of worldbuilding and the power system.
4) Related to the previous one: I often "like" stuff that doesn't quite work, but at least does something interesting/no-one else is doing. I like Brütal Legend a lot more than it deserves because of that and I loathe the Assassin's Creed series and GTA V for the opposite reason.
5) Sunk Cost Fallacy.
6) I like the domain-specific knowledge I've build over the years and can share with others.
7) Faint hope.

I like the distinction made above by Lord Luna. I also enjoy the flavour of somewhere even if the plot was a flop for me. For instance, even though I found RtR's plot a disappointing let down, I still liked a lot of the world building and the guilds. This time around is actually what made me fall in love with the NuSimic and their sort of New Age philosophy.

Ultimately, I think what's happening in Magic is a paradigm shift that's alienating a smaller, older playerbase in favour of trying to reach a newer, bigger market. I feel like the same thing happened with World of Warcraft. In short, for those not familiar with the game, the original endgame revolved around getting 40 people together and spending literally 5+ hours trying to tear through a dungeon. Usually you wouldn't even finish the whole thing in those 5 hours until everyone got better geared. Later expansions made the game much more casual friendly and made the endgame revolve around groups of 10 or 25 people and the game was less punishing about failure. The older players were upset over this because they felt that a good thing had been going and now it was being subverted.

I don't think that the hardcore flavour and storyline fans are the target audience for the story any more. The players they want to attract will buy cards for the cool, photorealistic art, the Epic Events, and the simple to understand characters. As someone who got into Magic's storyline around Old Mirrodin, I don't have a strong connection to the earliest and, according to many on this forum, greatest time of Magic's story. I don't honestly care about Urza, Mishra, and Gerrard because I never got to experience their stories. I'm sure their stories were amazing, but I never got to partake in them.

DC rebooted all of their comics because the plots were getting too long for new readers to pick up and I think Magic has sort of done a similar action. I'm trying to imagine what the plot would look like if Urza was still kicking around and there'd be just way too much backreading for me to do to easily just into the story. I feel like a general power level decrease had to happen to make the Planeswalkers somewhat more relate-able, especially since they're now the binding thread in many of the narratives. Just try to imagine how Theros would've gone if Heliod had tried to kill Elspeth who was an infinitely bigger, stronger, and more powerful god than him. Xenagos likely wouldn't have just introduced discord into the pantheon - as an Oldwalker I'd be surprised if he didn't cast down the entire pantheon. The heroes are scaled down and the threats are scaled down.

Sorry for the rant. I didn't intend for it to turn out like this.

When DID the storyline cater to storyline fans though?

And I don't think the threats have been scaled down at all. If anything they've been scaled UP over time. The invasion of Dominaria took centuries of build up in world and years of storyline. The takeover of Mirrodin took one block. The destruction of Zendikar took one block. The total rewriting of Tarkir's entire timeline took one block.

I mean I don't think you're wrong that they're trying to appeal to casuals.

I just don't see why they've decided "appealing to casuals" means "writing lousy storylines and trashing everything more than a couple years old."

I'm not sure the comparison with World of Warcraft holds up. The biggest challenge of 40-man raids was logistics. Getting 40 players together, coordinating them, making sure you had a good ratio of healers and tanks and forcing this one priest into Shadow so your healers wouldn't run out of mana, etc. The raid designs of classic WoW weren't really more interesting than more recent ones and neither was the class design. The smaller raid-groups resulted in more interesting battles and raids in general and while I don't agree with all decisions Blizzard ever made they did improve in their class design. They also became better at telling stories through the dungeons and raids.

This doesn't compare with the Magic: the Gathering storyline. The comparison just breaks apart once you go beyond "more appealing to casuals." WoW changed to appeal more to casual players, but in doing so they created better encounters and eventually added in a Heroic Mode for the more hard-core player. The Magic storyline also changed, but didn't actually use the changes to improve in any meaningful area apart from mass appeal. I wasn't around during the Mending, but I don't agree with people here that the Mending would necessarily be a terrible thing. It was just handled very poorly.

And also unlike World of Warcraft, there isn't additional depth/challenge for die-hard Vorthos to dive into, apart from the never-referenced old stuff.

Also the comparison to DC works but only because everything DC does is a disaster.

I feel like the threats have scaled down in that they're more localized, primarily. The invasion of Dominaria felt like a bigger event then the takeover of Mirrodin. The destruction of Zendikar feels less dramatic than what I've read about Serra's Realm. Then there are blocks like Innistrad where the stakes don't feel that high (yeah they're the last white aligned humans on the continent, possibly the plane, but between the cultists, stitchers, necromancers, and vampires, I didn't feel like the world would be over without them). Also, if I'm not mistaken didn't the plot for the Weatherlight or another early story play out over quite a few blocks? I could totally be mistaken with that though. I feel like the longer plot will naturally drive up the epic feel in some regards, while the shorter plots they're pushing now will make things feel a little smaller scale since they're not going to be as visible as long.

When I meant writing to casuals, I was looking more towards how the blocks are typically more self-contained which makes them more like a series of short stories rather than a novel. If I were a casual player/reader, I can more easily pick up on the themes of BfZ without necessarily needing to know the backstories of the characters. I agree that the writing is generally shallower in terms of plot though.

Edit: Avoiding double posting. Sorry!


The WoW comparison was more focused towards a shift in the market they were trying to capture which was loudly abused on the forums as the FPS market. Personally, I liked how the raids got easier to get into but I remember a lot of the more hardcore players felt a little alienated.

I'm sorry the WoW example didn't work out as well as I had planned. I just get a similar vibe of feeling left out that I originally got when the changes went through in that game.

I've never been more than casually involved in the storyline. I'm here for the M:EM mainly, and only keep up with canon for the sake of being involved in the community.

At the moment it begins and ends with my interest in the plane rather than the planeswalkers.

I think the comparison to WoW (or Warcraft in general) is a good one. Anyone who has played WC3 and Frozen Throne know that the universe has huge potential, interesting characters, and a great story to tell. The problem is a simple quick easy story sells better. At the end of the day Magic like Warcraft is designed for sales and those sales cannot survive on deep content alone because the VAST majority of people simply don't care/lack the patience/are incompetent mongoloids/whatever.

I don't agree with what happens, but I understand it.

What Magic's story was for the 15+ years I've played keeps me involved. Glimmers of what was always seem to shine through the chaff. And for me that's enough.

Comparing an RTS to an MMORPG just doesn't seem fair, in terms of how the story is told. And WoW did an increasingly good job telling the story Wrath of the Lich King onwards. It's probably the only thing WotLK was praised on.