Hopefully Luna's doing alright.

I mean, hopefully everyone is, but since you brought up Luna, Luna in particular.

Heard back from Luna. He's doing okay, it's just that he's having a house guest that is taking up a substantial amount of his spoons lately and otherwise it's just that he's been utterly wiped out by work (which we knew he'd been having a lot of problems with)
But, all the same, thought I'd report back that our buddy is still upright in the land of the living.

Thanks for letting us know, Barinellos. Hopefully work clears up for Luna soonish.

Happy birthday, TPmanW! I hope everything is going well/has gone well/will go well with the move!

A fine perennial celebration to you!

In other news, I finally got to just throw myself at it and finish painting my most recent project.

And a front view

Very nice. Really good shading on the arms.

Hey, that looks so cool! Playing with this kind of miniatures would be very fun

I'm kind of amused.
Wizards revealed a ton of information for the next two years or so, but I've seen nobody show any interest at all.

So, are we going to sit around and make fun of how much better Jakkard is than their lame wild west plane when it comes out?

You know they're just going to steal our ideas. You just watch, one of their characters will be someone with a normal first name and a time unit as the last.

If they're doing a Wild West one, though, it might prove interesting to see if they go with guns or wands, harkening back to M:EM's discussions from over a decade ago.

For real though, it wouldn't be the first time I would feel that sinking suspicion.
Kaya... Cara...
Both of them white aligned exorcists with spirit powers...
And honestly, I think maybe one or two other times that I had to tilt my head and go "waitaminute..."

Though... Good lords above, the slate on what's coming up the next 2 years feels like absolute PANIK.
Even ignoring the Universes Beyond stuff, of which I am all over the place in my opinion about, we have:
Wilds of Eldraine
Caverns of Ixalan
Ravnica Remastered
Murder at Karlov Manor
Outlaws of Thunder Junction (Which we will mercilessly mock)
Bloomburrow (Essentially Magic ripping off Redwall)
Duskmourne (Which is... I honestly genuinely can't tell. Someone floated the idea it was horror inspired again?)
Innistrad Remastered
Then... and I kid you not:
A Death Race across 3 different worlds with essentially Modern vehicles
Return to Tarkir
An out and out SPACE OPERA, full blown Space: The Convergence sci fi with aliens and power armor and terraforming
Then... a return to Lorwyn.

They also did planeswalking twins long after the Dual-Walkers. I feel like there were a few others I've noticed, but honestly, it's been so long since I followed the canon stuff, that they could have literally published one of my stories and I wouldn't know about it.



Wow. I genuinely want to see none of that. Well, "Duskmourne" might be interesting, depending on what it actually is. Provided it's not just a Morvata reskin, that is...

Oh, and then to top it off, 2026, we return to Strixhaven...
Because that was so popular?

Out of everything, what I'm actually most surprised about isn't Space: The Convergence, it's actually going back to Lorwyn.

The Death Race stuff I've seen looks cool as hell. If it had nothing to do with Magic.
But then, again, I started having a discussion with Szat over where the real degradation of the aesthetic identity started with Magic and when the last time Magic looked like it should was.
It's been a HORRIFICALLY long time.

I mean, I'm curious about some of the new stuff, but I admit that not even my beloved Ravnica gets much hype from me anymore. The art I saw about knockoff-Jakkard looks a bit too... clean and bright to me? Gimme some grit, y'all.

(After they managed a prohibition-era setting without a single gun, I don't have much hope for the western one getting firearms)


When do you think that time was? Having encountered MtG way later than y'all, my PoV is pretty different.

My argument was that the rot ironically began with the first Kamigawa. Now, I love Kamigawa, but it was the first time (bar early installment weirdness of Arabian Nights, which was put out before any storyline was decided) that Magic did a setting that was "Magic's version of _____" rather than original fantasy. Like, the story was way better than Mirrodin or Otaria, but the plane itself was "Let's do Japanese Mythology", which could be considered a forerunner of the other theme park setups that themselves set the groundwork for Universes Beyond. In my mind, the argument against is that Kamigawa wasn't considered successful and Wizards didn't try to REALLY do that again until either Lorwyn (which is freaky enough to not count to me, even if it was billed as "fairy tale plane") or more properly Innistrad (another set that was quite good in abstract), and if it's Innistrad that's later enough that you can't really say Kamigawa paved the way for it.

Barinellos had his own thoughts on the matter which I'll let him share.

I spitballed the name "Shadow over Innistrad" as a theoretical return to Innistrad set many years before it became a real thing -- on the mothership forums actually. Of course, that might be obvious convergent evolution from "Innistrad, leaning more Lovecraftian"

Also the Raven Man is Lim-Dûl, but again that's plausibly just convergent matter from looking at the same "clues" (or a case where I literally just guessed right)

That said if we get a dying plane of eternal night with strong inspiration from "The Night Land", I'm gonna claim credit down here

Yeah, having been a fan and actually somewhat invested in both the game and the story at that point, I would say Kamigawa was sort of a dry run of direction it would go. The fact that they did Time Spiral, Ravnica, Lorwyn, and Alara after it, though, would proclude me from saying that Kamigawa is where is went off the rails. I think Innistrad is nearer the mark, but again, I think Innistrad was a test run, and one that went far better than Kamigawa did in terms of commercial success. Zendikar, for instance, still feels "Magic" to me.

I think, if I were to pick a time when everything really starts to fall apart, it would be Return to Ravnica and Theros. Return to Ravnica as a setting is fine. It's pretty much just Ravnica, after all. But the set begins paving the way for the Gatewatch, which really hurt the overall feel of the Magic in general. Theros, to me, is the set that basically throws away the "Magic" part of "Magic does ____." It's the block that, to me, stops asking the question of "What would the Magic version of ______ be?" and starts asking "How can we put ______ in Magic?", which is a very different sort of philosophy. For example, to Tevish's point, I think Lorwyn is "What would the Magic version of a Fairytale world be?" Contrast that with Eldraine, which to me is "How can we put Fairytales in Magic?" Theros, to me, is a mix. There are some elements of "What would the Magic version of Greek Mythology be?" in Theros. But there are also some cards (and worldbuilding) in Theros that is more, "hey, remember this actual Greek myth? Here's a representation of it! Aren't we clever?"

And that, to me, is the problem. So much of their current philosophy seems to be "How can we represent things we didn't create in this game that we did?" Naturally, I would have to spend a lot more time and effort researching things to see if there are other instances earlier that I would point to, which I am not really interested in doing. So my answer is Theros.

This I can really get behind, and the Lorwyn-Eldraine comparison is very fitting. As Tevish points out, Eldraine-type settings feel like theme parks more than living places. Granted, that's not to say I didn't enjoy some of the settings or the storylines - I had a good time following the Kaladesh-Amonkhet-Ixalan bit, I enjoyed playing the RtRtR-WotS part on Arena (probably dodging a bullet by not reading the novel, from what I gather) and I think Kaldheim (name aside, but knowing the straight translation it is takes some of the sting away) and Neon Kamigawa looked cool as sets/art direction, at least.

...why did it took me until now to notice the similarities between the first Avengers movie and Battle for Zendikar?

(I love the Eldrazi, but Zendikar looks so uninteresting to me for some reason - it might be the Avatar Pandora vibes)

Hey there everyone. Don't worry, I live.
I just... hate my job right now. Boss just got back from vacation and there are aspects of waiting for the other shoe to drop or if he finally chilled the **** out.

So... picking up on my opinion on where the aesthetic identity went amiss requires a larger look at the context of what I consider the primary visual cohesion to be and then zeroing in on the moment they changed that. However, where I ultimately depart from my thoughts on the matters is that I want to pop the hood and actually see behind the curtain for what DROVE those departures as the factors that lead to the aesthetic collapse.

First off, establishing identity:
Naturally, this is going to be just spread ALL through the early years, but the point at which I feel like it started to key in to some visual language was with Ice Age. That's no big surprise, of course, and then the refinement throughout the Urza's Saga and Weatherlight materials, but I actually think the entire aesthetic truly and genuinely peaked during Tempest, waning into the Invasion. (I would have included Weatherlight in that, but the rest of the Mirage block was visually different) During this period, I would also include the Portal: Second Age as well as 6th-8th edition as being the most Magic tm as it would ever get.
Yet, in a VERY weird way, the one card that my brain provides me, in the weirdest of ways, when I think what is Magic's aesthetic, is a random ass card they used for advertising during that period: Avizoa is, to me, the singularly most Magic card in visual identity. There are a few that end up in the top end jumble as well: Abyssal Gatekeeper, Vizzerdrix, the Weatherlight Timid Drake, Scapegoat, Reckless Abandon and I could keep going on, I'm sure.
Overall, in terms of stylism, there is a very odd blend of specific locations that I think became the most distilled concept of how I thought of the visuals of the game. Dakmor and Norwood for Black and Green (Llanowar stands out more, but left less an immediate association), Sapprazo for Blue, Benalia for white, and Mercadia City for Red.

I suppose part of what also stuck in my mind, beyond the fashion present, was also the locales, as blue was, at the time, always represented in a very swashbuckling and tropical manner, and since is... a lot less interesting.
Then there's the contributing factors of the artists that I think characterized the style most prominently. Kev Walker and DiTerlizzi jump immediately to mind, with Rebecca Guay shortly behind.

So... that is how I think of Magepunk as a visual identity, a coalescence of those factors.

Then, I present the conundrum: What happened?

Well, that answer is easy. The Invasion happened.

Now, before the Invasion, Odyssey was already in the works, and there wasn't anything wrong with the visuals there of, all the way through Onslaught. No... the problems that cropped up there were with the actual cards and a persistent nagging from the fanbase that they had seen the characters they'd been following too much over the past few years. That feedback would have been just in time for Mirrodin, which is why we got our first planar hop at all, as near as I can tell. Unfortunately, the CATASTROPHE that was Onslaught spooked the company and Mirrodin, as a continuation of the story all told, was sufficient that they began to look for loose threads that were... a lot looser. Which is my supposition of how we arrived at Kamigawa. Now, Kamigawa was a MAJOR departure, but it was still following some ideas that were left out in the cold during the grab bag that was Legends, and visually, while they saw a HUGE departure, there were enough visual cues still consistent that it was solidly a Magic project, just... with a different cultural skin. That ended up not being more than a hiccup when Ravnica came along and we got a LOT of visual diversity that ran the gamut of what was still definitely in the Mage punk vernacular as visual languages go.

Time Spiral, as a follow up, took dozens and dozens of cues from previous magic cards, so it still solidly knew what the visual identity was, but this is also the first time I think they probably lost just a touch of some of the weirdness that the artists got to bring to the table.

In the same vein as Kamigawa before it, while there was a MASSIVELY different visual look to Lorwyn, we still saw a good chunk of the visual concepts that Magic used as its identity. Chiefly, I think of Goldmeadow Stalwart as having that essential Magic look to him.

I will never say a negative word about Shards of Alara.

Then we come to the place where I actually think the degradation and loss of identity started: Zendikar.
Now, it still had a lot of the trappings of what I would deem the Magepunk aesthetic that was integral to Magic, but there's some indefinable change that happened here. For every Kazandu Blademaster or Turntimber Ranger there was one that missed the mark as well. I think, on top of that, the focus on having no settlements was a big part of the damage. There was ludonarrative disconnect between having somewhere named Zulaport and that not... MEANING anything because the wilderness was the setting.

Scars of Mirrodin then came along, and I think this is legitimately where the damage totally manifested and started to steamroll, because there had always been style guides before, but this is the first time the artists LOST a lot of the freedom to bring something of their own to the table. Instead, it started to be designs by committee and commissions dictating specific looks be used from the style guides exclusively, and this was absolutely more noticeable because of the redefinition of the Phyrexian looks and of course the disastrous step off the cliff of the Goblin redesigns. It was imitation of the Magic style, but it wasn't anymore.

Then Innistrad came in and we saw a legitimate and intentional change from the aesthetics that defined the art of the game. Tricorn Hats for as far as the eye can see and clothes cut in a particular way.

However, I think the real Nail in the coffin, and something I specifically called out at the time, was Return to Ravnica. There, we saw a homogenization of the visual aesthetic into a consistent and safe paste to be smeared over the cards. The weirdness and the actual contribution of the artists felt like they'd been reduced, and the change over into a Brand rather than an Identity was complete.

Good, in-depth analysis here, Barinellos. I find it interesting that you and I picked pretty much the same point, but for different reasons.

It's a difficult thing to pin-point, to be fair, though, because I think that someone could cherry-pick cards from almost any set to make the argument that it diverges. But I like your take that it relates to a fundamental shift in how the company approached their product, and I very much agree with that. For lack of a more scientific term, I feel like older Magic sets had some degree of "heart," and I think that comes from, as you pointed out, the artists' ability to take the style guides and push them in their own unique directions. But as the company itself moved more and more toward corporate America thinking of committees and focus groups, they started to lose that identity they had in the 90s and early 2000s. I know I have complained a lot about the Gatewatch over the years, but I really do think both the Gatewatch and this loss of their visual identity are both symptoms of the same illness: this belief that they can somehow please everyone by doing what others have done. And the problem with that is severalfold, but mostly it's that the imitation is pretty much never as good as the original. The Jacetice League was never going to be as good as the Avengers, and trying to do a little bit of everything with the art and the world design was always going to leave the fanbase with less to grasp on to.

Anyway, I'm clearly starting to rant, so I'll leave it off there. Thanks for your take on the aesthetic, Barinellos. I found it an interesting read!


Sorry to hear that, man. But I definitely feel that feel, as it were. I'm just coming back to work myself as the semester starts up, and I...don't have a good feeling about what's likely coming down the pipeline. It might be a rough year.