https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2021-11-12

Olivia lives rent free on Timothar's head.

I absolutely LOATH the bio for Timothar, and i already hated his name. That bio is just garbage....and badly written garbage at that. In fact, that must be one of the worst character backgrounds in magic ever

Not only lives but has a sold out tap show in there 4 nights a week.

Agreed, that one is terrible. On the other hand, I like the rival slug and frog cults making theme park monsters of their gods for the express purpose of having them duke it out.

Yes this is now one of my favourite parts of magic lore ever, it's hilarious

Overal a great article. I like our two new progenitors.
Henrika is a nice 'hunted by her ow kind' type of character.
Strefan is just a very interesting character as a downtrodden lesser vampire progenitor and i can't wait for his story.

Strefan first appeared in the Innistrad DnD mini-cross over so its neat to see he getting card.

I do hope we do get legendary cards for the other minor 3 families leaders/progenitors at some point.

I know, it was a Magic'ed version of a Strahd campaign. It didn't tell us much about Strephan though. His bio says his story is coming soon and I'm ery interested.

Yes i also hope that, though we know 2 family names and one progenitor name!
We now know:

Bloodline-----------------Progenitor
Markov‐--‐----------------Edgar Markov
Falkenrath --------------a falconer/name unknown (currently mostly led by Anje)
Voldaren-----------------Olivia Voldaren
Stromkirk----------------Runo Stromkirk
Maurer--------------------Strefan Maurer
Domnathi----------------Henrika Domnathi
Dusken--------------------Irska Dusken (recently deceased)
Nusfar---------------------???
Ninth bloodline-------???
Three extinct
Bloodlines---------------???

All the names laid out like that actually just makes me realize one of the major issues I have with this entire affair. I'm sick to death of Innistrad. Like Ravnica before it, there can be upheaval, but there is going to be a perpetual status quo so long as they can wring another dollar out of it. I honestly don't begrudge them that, they're a corporation, it's the entire point.

But I'm so damn bored of stories with no stakes... Vampire pun aside.

So what's my point? Change. And particularly, the progenitors offer a snapshot that would be fascinating to see: Ancient Innistrad. What kind of different world was it thousands of years ago? Before vampires, before the advancements of the stitchers, when angels were wild and capricious in their zeal?
I guess we'll never know. Time to just retread Innistrad yet again.

The dawnhart did offer glimpses. And we'll probably get more flashbacks.

Emrakul shall return and wipe it clean with an army of eldrazi angels

Or just go full Majora's Mask. now THAT would give a reason to involve Teferi in Innistrad.

Kinda contradictory to suggest a story set in the past while claiming to want stake isn't it?

And Idk Innistrad seems pretty changed after Shadows Over Innistrad with the cometic horror elements more pronounced and this set expand some on the "pagan" side of Innistrad we seen hinted at. The fact they said Innistrad is now a horror plane with a gothic lens vs a gothic horror plane opens them up to a lot of story options as seen with the folk, slasher, and internet/cryptid horror stuff they had in these two sets.

But it's not in any meaningful way different. The pagan addition was a novelty, I'll grant you, but it only adds a drop in the bucket.

It's still a plane with the same tribes in the same conflict with an angelic protector. It's the exact same dynamic we've seen. It doesn't feel as if any progress or meaningful change has occurred. It's a pantomime of conflict because we're going to always maintain the status quo.

To each their own i guess. We've been to Innistrad three times in 10 years and it could be said that Shadows block was quite different from the other two blocks. I love Innistrad and i think (different from Zendikar and, to an extent, Ravnica) it has a lot of room to grow as a setting.

I agree that Ravnica and Innistrad need some shaking up, but I much prefer returning to Dominaria, Innistrad and Ravnica to getting 'spectacular' new planes like Ikoria and Strixhaven....which are just so darn shallow.

You'd have the same issues with the past Innistrad set you suggested, it just be humans being attacked on all side by monsters, only we know the ending will be Sorin will make Avacyn.

And there is the trading card game aspect of it, what would be the mechanical base in you didn't have the 5 tribes and graveyard theme?

With as far back as it is, there would be a real chance to do something different with the tribes at least. Additionally, I wouldn't see it ending with Avacyn's creation since I'm talking so far back wed be witnessing the genesis of the vampires.
That far back, there are theoretically different things you could do, lean more heavily into the sea monsters, make the spirits in different colors, have alchemists be prominent instead of stitchers (since that was Edgar's thing in the first place), hell, there was even that old joke about elves once being on Innistrad but they were eaten into oblivion for being too delicious.
We're talking about a snapshot of a world 6000 years ago. There had to be differences that would be more meaningful than the retread we see here.

We have seen the tribes used mechanically differently nearly each visit though, while they all have similar wider tribal themes they have had different tribal decks each time. Like spirit decks have always had control elements but first time was more flying and tapping, second trip was more blink and now we got the disturb and aura stuff.



Point remains, the conflict would still be humans being hunted by monster only vampires are the new kids on the block, only we know Sorin at some point later will make Avacyn and have balance.



I mean we seen stuff like this in this "block", the alchemists and necromancers are more well liked after Emrakul and we see them prominent in the spell slinger theme in UR cards, vampires and werewolves got colors outside of their default, all the different horror sub genres they added in and at it base a lot of Innistrad is now changed due to Emrakul.

And a big thing is returns sets are meant to give more of what people liked. While they should be evolving and expanding on them, it does need to have some core identity that otherwise you could just make a new plane.

The big problem with the mechanics being used to define tribal aspects is largely that they're interchangable. You could drop in the limited strategies in any of the given Innistrad blocks and it doesn't actually say anything about the flavor.

Next, you have a point, but it really made me stop and wonder why I'm opposed to the set now versus If it had been set in the past, and I think the idea of the status quo is the key. If it had been set in the past, we'd be seeing things as they evolved into the Innistrad we started as, but we're past that point and it feels regressive to fall back into that. It doesn't feel as if the plane is changing, it feels safe and unwilling to evolve the world or story.

As for bleeding vampires and werewolves into other colors, that's just the trick they use to feign danger. They did it to the phyrexians before, but unlike them, when it worked, adding colors doesn't actually mean anything. There's nothing distinct about being a white or blue werewolf compared to anything else, there's no identity to it.

Despite saying Innistrad has changed, it really isn't far enough removed from the original (no complaints about how ... Unique shadows was, it stands on it's own) but this block and the original aren't really that distinct. The biggest change is Thraben fell. Sigarda and Avacyn serve essentially identical purposes and that weakens a lot of what should have been a major upheaval. Hell, people still worship Avacyn even.

As for the point of return sets, like I mentioned before, I can't fault them for doing it. Familiar things are cash cows, but after the debacle that was Return to Ravnica and how little anything matters that happens there, it leaves a bad taste any time they don't experiment.

Which, in fairness, is probably one major reason I'm all on board for neon dynasty.

I believe I misread your previous post and I have been thinking of things from both a mechanical and a flavor stand point and it seem you just at a flavor.

Anyways I'm gonna say agree to disagree on the amount of changes, I feel Innistrad has been changed up after Emrakul (I now can't unsee her silhouette with the star rain and the moon as her eye), been evolved by the events in this block and has left itself lots of room to expand. That said I understand wanting more of difference from feeling similar to the first Innistrad and how you can feel its retreading.