Kaito Origin Stories: A Test of Loyalty & The Path Forward

I like Kaito, his care for the Emperor seems really sweet and while I won't mind if it is romantic, so far it seems platonic and thats just a nice thing we don't get a lot of in media.

Also neat to see a "good" UB character, looking back the only other one we have seen i believe is Zareth and the Dimir during War of the Spark.

This was a solid story. I'm cautiously excited. Kamigawa was my first real set (I came in at the tail end of Mirrodin technically) so I have a lot of nostalgia for the place.

It's a huge relief to see the kami are still weird, even if they are a bit less misshapen. Probably a result of apparently no longer living in the spirit world?
I have to see more of the cyberpunk aspects before I decide how I feel about it, but it's another relief to see that not everything is cyberpunk.

Excited for the reveal stream later today.

I feel like they are "grounding" them more in what kami/yokai are described in myths this time around. I know that was a criticism of the first block, a lot the kami felt designed more to look weird vs how they look in myth.

From the stream they have said half the set will be cyberpunk and half will be "traditional" Kamigawa.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/electrifying-first-look-kamigawa-neon-dynasty-2021-12-16

Lots of things to get excited about. I'm looking forward to the Creative Roundtable.

The basics. Praise the Kami-sama. Gorgeous.

So, I haven't read that story, but from everything I can gather, apparently this is supposed to be set on present day Kamigawa after all, huh? I just want to remind everyone that WotC is constantly lying to us and that we were promised in the official announcement that the set would take place in the future, namely 2000 years after the original Kamigawa block (this is being said at around 48:20): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPrq5jk5J04

I guess they didn't want people to know right out of the gate that they'd actually ruin Kamigawa for real instead of keeping the Neon Travesty crap in some hypothetical future we are never going to catch up with.

That's all I'm going to say about this for now, I'm really not ready to deal with this massacre of a set atm.

Nope they said from the start this was set in the present time, the 2000 was a mistake over estimate of the 1200 they are now going with. The Wanderer is in this set and was a sneak preview they added in for War of Spark.

How can they have said that "from the start" when the very first official announcement said 2000 years?

Timeline of Preview Season from that page:


So far, I'm actually pretty impressed. There's going to be two weeks of lore previews of the time in between the Kamigawa sets before we even get to the new set's story. Then the story's all going to be revealed before previews. I feel like they're going to aim for a twist that I'm not going to like, but the fact that they're going to spend that much time on showcasing how the plane's changed is very much appreciated. Even if I don't end up liking the end result, it'll at give a few more "ages" further in the world to appreciate before that.

That Q&A section on the long video was a bit sad. There's a bunch of "We can't talk about the cards" and "We can't talk too much about the story" there, and it really limits what questions can be asked. It's nice that they're up front about getting the time span wrong between visits to the plane.



As for Kamigawa in the story itself, I wasn't expecting it to fit in the old Kamigawa as well as it did. I expected a few surface level references (though not Azamuki). However, the way kami were integrated is an actually good evolution of what was seen in the original block. It does take some leeway from the whole Sisters-changing-the-way-magic-works, but it doesn't throw out the old. It is an actual evolution of the magic of the kami.

As for the cyberpunk tech... it works best it feels like something that developed in tandem with the evolution of the old. For example, the Reckoner's mark system or some of the gear other Reckoners had that enhanced their abilities felt good. When it's not, it can get a little exposition-y (like explaining why the gambler had cash instead of card), and it draws attention that WotC wants to use tropes for the sake of tropes. It's one of those things where not being more descriptive of a strange thing is better for immersion.

The worry is that trying to get the Japanese/Cyberpunk tropes in regardless if they contribute well to setting or not might actively bog down the setting. Most of the negative reactions I've seen so far with the story is solely on the cyberpunk tech side, and not the traditional side. From what's seen so far, it doesn't look like a "We're just adding Kamigawa just to say we did," but rather "This can't can't integrate into MtG settings without Kamigawa to ground it." The pop culture references can't stand on their own here and still feel Magic-y; they really need to feel like a Kamigawa version of that reference.




As for the story's story? Everyone's pretty likeable so far. People feel decently fleshed out with only Tameshi giving off feels of "You're somebody who going to do something weird that only makes sense in that the story needs it" feeling. Plot's being as blatant as possible without directly stating that Michiko Konda's the Wanderer.

Cause right afterward Maro clarified the set was in present time and that the 2000 years was rough estimate they used and after talking to creative them said its closer to 1200. Considering up until the gatewatch era they avoided doing any solid timelines or dates i can see why they over shot. And again the Wanderer is in the set, she was stated to be put into War of the Spark as since they didn't have another mono-white pw around and so to pick out a walker from the upcoming story drafts to "preview" the upcoming story so they always planned for the time frames to be close.

Beautiful story. I'm a bit disappointed the villains are going to be in fact but I guess the Reckoners as yakuza make sense.

The characters are all amazing.

My main impression is, "wow they're starting up the hype machine for the next set already?". I swear Crimson Vow just came out last week.

Yeah, and if shelves are any indication... It's not going over great, so a little fresh blood in the hype machine is much appreciated.

So far, I'm down for what they've done so far. I was already cautiously optimistic, but this has given me a taste of what I was actually hoping the set might provide. And anyone that wants to talk about the cyberpunk aspects not being magic enough can go suck a Mirrodin. That event horizon was crossed twenty bloody years ago.

My one quibble with this excellent story is that they said Kaito wanted to find the emperor like 6 or 7 times when we got it the first time. Otherwise it is fantastic. Although it's kind of funny that, although there are telephones and trains, they still have to fight with swords instead of guns. I agree that it's not any more futuristic than mirrodin though.

Personally I think they hit that point with the weatherlight saga (which itself was molded after Star Wars and Star Trek) ending with Urza bring mechas.

And thats something that helped magic stand out a bit, there is always this underlying sic-fi elements with a lot of planes (god knows how many planes with some sort of artifact themed we have now) and adds diversity to the idea of a near limitless multiverse.

While it's a valid feeling to have, weatherlight, in my opinion, still fell squarely in the magepunk aesthetics that things like the Shannara saga or Final Fantasy had legitimized. Mirrodin was a step beyond that aesthetic with the almost pure sci-fi aesthetic.

That is fair, just pointing out how magic has never been shy about having sci-fi stuff into its world building even far back as the Urza stories.

I think the complaints about the scifi aspects will probably die down once the full set is revealed. The issue seems to be WotC leaning too far on the cyberpunk side for the initial reveals. As long as there's some kind of fantasy flare in the setting, it tends to work out for MtG even when it goes 99% scifi. Two of Mirrodin's boosters are a Sword and a clockwork dragon, after all. I think WotC did a bit of a disservice to themselves with the packaging. Allotting one booster art for the Nils Hamm kami/"traditional side" would've gone a long way to give a more (hopefully) accurate feel of the setting.

PS: Is it kinda bad that I somewhat want WotC to get a decent amount of complaints about using Cyberpunk tropes where it appears they're just using them to have them in the setting? It's been my major gripe with planes like Theros, Eldraine and Innistrad; but it seems to be something they keep doubling down on (It's "important" for resonance to have Cinderella's shoe). I much rather have something completely made up that reflects a consequence of how you've structured your world with the way you've used tropes as tentpoles.