Magic: The Gathering (Spoiler-free)

I think Maro has said that another stab at a far east fantasy world is almost inevitable, but it most likely won't be Kamigawa.

This is one of the points that I disagree with MaRo on. If I remember correctly, one of the reasons Kamigawa block was poorly received was because Reality Is Unrealistic (well, as much as reality can apply to a fantasy card game). They went for an accurate portrayal of the culture, but most westerners were so familiar with The Theme Park Version that Kamigawa block just confused them. But I think scrapping Kamigawa for a theme-park Japan block would be a bit disrespectful of actual Japanese culture. Then again, Kamigawa block was years before I started playing (though I do have a Ninja deck and an Arcane deck) and most of my knowledge of Japan comes from anime, manga, and video games (especially Touhou, the greatest game series I've never played), so I'm probably not in the best position to judge.

edited 26th Jan '15 3:46:04 PM by Lightblade

I just want to see ones other then European fantasy, soooo...

I need more Asian themed cards in my life. Some sort of return to Portal Three Kingdoms would be delightful, but I doubt that will happen (especially anytime in the near future).

I just bought the "Stampeding Hoard" intro pack. I like the pack itself, but the real winner was the the two booster packs, I got Dromoka, the Eternal (my first Green/White Legendary), Flooded Strand, Monastery Mentor, and a foil Ghastly Conscription.

Having looked into much of Kamigawa out of interest despite not playing at the time, I think the strange and/or foreign concepts in it are surely some of the least reasons why it wasn't popular. It has a ton of interesting things flavorwise, even if some of them are not clear to western audiances, and there are lots of samurai and ninjas and such to appeal to mainstream-hollywood views of Japanes-style things. I think the big problems were that the set as a whole had only a few very powerful cards outside of the set itself, and most of the rest were awful and insular, the themes such as spirit tribal vs. everything else and arcane made little sense, especially outside of the block, the land sacrificing was usually bad, and generally it was an overcosted mess mechanically. All of which wouldn't be that hard to remedy, as it did have some nice mechanical things like bushido and ninjutsu that could return to tie it back while otherwise doing new things (the kami war being over can explain a lot of that). But I agree to some level with Maro that Kamigawa's lack of popularity and general reputation makes it a difficult return block to justify, even if I think a return could work if done well. I think the best case scenario really would be to use it as the setting for a "the eldrazi are an actual threat guys" block, or something similar, by having them eat it, as it eliminates the problem of it existing without just pretending it doesn't exist. Otherwise, I don't see a return happening.

Isn't Tarkir Asian-themed to some degree?

Also; Rimshot

Yep. Mardu are Mongolian, Jeskai are Tibetan/Shaolin, Abzan are a bunch of things, but mostly Persian/Ottoman/Chinese-ish, Temur are... hard to place, but probably Slavic kinda?, Sultai are Vietnamese/Southeast Asia-ish. But not really as much Japanese, more continental Asia.

edited 26th Jan '15 9:03:12 PM by ImperialSunlight

Temur looks to be based off of Samoyedic people (indigenous Siberians). All the cool outfits that the Temur are wearing is their traditional clothing. Also they move their houses by reindeer sled, which is badass.

Word of wotc is that Abzan are Turkish but this connection seems much looser to me. Other than the whole "orphaned children of our enemies fight for us" thing, of course.

edited 26th Jan '15 9:22:11 PM by MrShine

Unfortunately, that is exactly why nobody liked Kamigawa. Ma Ro has said that the world scored very low on both flavor and mechanics.

Edit: source.

edited 27th Jan '15 7:26:01 AM by Funden

I think most people's dislike for the world probably spawned from their dislike of the mechanics, especially since some of the most important flavor things about the block tied into the worst mechanics, and the mechanics are actually clearly very bad when objectively compared to other blocks (especially Mirrodin), unlike the flavor, which seems like it was just a bit weird to most people, but otherwise seems interesting imo, but fair enough.

edited 27th Jan '15 1:24:11 PM by ImperialSunlight

The spirits looked like something you'd need to be on drugs to properly appreciate and the other creature types of Kamigawa were probably ahead of their time. Perhaps these days a furry-themed set would be better received.

I disagree. I personally hated the flavor. The world felt alien and unapproachable, everything had weird names and I didn't feel involved in the story. I've never studied Japanese mythology nor seriously consumed any Japanese media (besides watching Soul Eater, I suppose), like a lot of westerners.

A lot of my friends feel the same way about Kamigawa (a couple of them make no secret of their disdain for the world, which has earned them the hatred of the local EDH group, which is funny as hell).

I can't imagine that I'm in the minority here, as Japanese history/mythology is often glossed over in American schools and most people's introduction to it is through anime (which is not the best way to learn).

Well, Japanese mythology does have some strange creatures among the ranks of its Youkai.

Also, while I do have that Arcane deck, I was pretty disappointed with the selection of "arcane matters" creatures that showed up on Gatherer when I searched for them. I didn't really see anything that was enough of an improvement over the "instants and sorceries matter" creatures I have in the deck now. They didn't really compare at all to stuff like Delver of Secrets, that's for sure.

I like the idea of Splice into Arcane (it's kinda like D&D meta-magic), what it really needs is a fixed version that isn't parasitic and could work with either instants or sorcerys depending on the card.

Would Splice onto Instant or Splice onto Sorcery work or would that be too powerful?

Frankly, I've never really understood Splice that well to get what the point of the mechanic was.

Splice onto Storm!

Basically, it tied into Kamigawa's "full hand" subtheme while making the Arcane subtype - representing spirit-tied magic - more than just a fluff subtype that triggered a half-dozen creatures, by allowing you to weld spells onto other spells.

The drawback, of course, being that spending a ton of mana nailing together minor effects rarely went well.

I remember Nykthos once came up with a deck based around welding the arcane burn instant to the arcane mana ritual, targeting it at yourself, then using Mirror Sheen to copy it aimed at the opponent's face, use the mana from that to activate Mirror Sheen again, and repeat until the opponent is dead.

The only time I've ever had splice be relevant is when I'm playing Storm and I have enough mana to splice a Desperate Ritual onto a Desperate Ritual with an active Pyromancer Ascension on the table. 12 mana, ahoy!

So, this is rather notable.

One of the better Uncharted Realms pieces not only because of its content but also because they didnt awkwardly try to force card mechanics into the story.

Well, that brawler seems to do better with his mates around. That sort of counts.

So I added Ugin to the characters page. His entry could use a bit more love.

Great job! We kinda need more Ugin stories as well, I am really curious where this story is going.

While I looooooooved Kamigawa's flavor, aesthetics and theme I'm with Funden in this. If you aren't a Japanese mythology nerd (as I was) and you're facing Kamigawa you are in for an overwhelmingly confusing experience. And if they ever did a "pop culture Japan-inspired" world, I wouldn't want it to be Kamigawa rebooted. I liked Kamigawa for what it was, not because it was named Kamigawa.

PS: Japanese mythology is alien, bro. They have raccoons with giant scrotums.

PPS: Funnily enough, what they did with Eventide's non-cinder Elementals (Crackleburr, etc) and the Spirit Avatars (Overbeing of Myth, etc) was pretty similar to what Kami are supposed to be. I think if they were less faithful with the Kami names and used Elemental as their subtype people would have grokked Kamigawa more easily.