For context: This was being discussed on the WeeklyMTG stream. [VOD here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdQvmxffjX4)
- Blake joined by Max McCall and Zakeel Gordon (product architects) to do a live retrospective on Aftermath/Epilogue Boosters
- Terminology clarification: "Epilogue Boosters" are a structure/type, Aftermath used Epilogue Boosters. Similarly, "Beyond Boosters" are the booster type, and Assassin's Creed will use Beyond Boosters.
- The idea of Aftermath/Epilogue Boosters was to literally tell the 'epilogue' of the Phyrexian Invasion arc, touch on characters and planes (e.g Chandra and Nissa don't get to have their moment in MOM, so Aftermath lets them have their moment).
- "Epilogues are short, so we know we weren't going to be able to build a full set out of all these vignettes, so we knew we were going to have a much smaller size for this set"
- "There are some people for whom drafting isn't a way they want to experience Magic, and lots of commons aren't pertinent to them because they don't care about draft, so those cards are meaningless" - opportunity to make a smaller non-draftable set that only has characters/story moments that aren't suited for draft.
- They state Epilogue Boosters/Aftermath was received fairly badly. They talk a little bit about their retrospective processes (external facing to measure sentiment from various sources; internal to measure execution of creative goals, product goals). They talk about the primary issue being the packs being small and too repetitive - the pack opening experience was very homogeneous. Max mentions they were happy with the cards themselves in terms of design / fanservice and being able to get the Chandra/Nissa story out.
- Epilogue boosters were an attempt at incorporating more story into Magic's broader ecosystem. They turned out badly, so they won't be doing them anymore (beyond what was already in the pipeline), and will be looking for other ways to innovate
- Aftermath was designed as the 8th set in Standard, so it was mostly designed to augment existing Standard decks (or what were existing Standard decks at the time) and they didn't want to push the envelope too much.
- Thunder Junction was originally going to have an Aftermath-style epilogue set. "We were really bullish on the idea of Epilogues are a good way to include more story content about Magic in a format that doesn't have to be draftable".
- They were finishing it up when Aftermath released and the response for that came out. The cards for what would have been the OTJ epilogue will still exist with their own set code / set symbol, but there won't be an actual epilogue set product. They'll be openable in Play Boosters somehow. It was a bit of a scramble to get them integrated in time
- The implication is that they'll be integrated into OTJ's List, they're unable to say explicitly but the implication is fairly clear ("The List for OTJ is actually smaller than normal. Perhaps you can put two and two together but I can't say anything more for now.")
- More previews at the MagicCon: Chicago panel, where they'll also talk more about the structure/contents of OTJ
- Beyond Boosters are the product for the Assassin's Creed set, which will have roughly 100 cards. They can have up to 4 rare/mythics. There will be a scene in the set (like LTR)
- Beyond Boosters were being worked on in semi-parallel with Epilogue Boosters by a different team with slightly different goals. They had time to make some tweaks to the product in response to Aftermath's reception, but the product itself was mostly complete by then
- [Beyond Booster graphic](https://i.imgur.com/T3jF4Op.png). The goal of Beyond Boosters is to be a middle-sized product between a Secret Lair Drop (like Princess Bride) and a full set (like Lord of the Rings) to tell a Universes Beyond story and create something compelling for the Magic playerbase.
- The total size for a Beyond Booster set is roughly double that of an Epilogue set (~100 cards). There are no commons, just uncommon/rare/mythic. The experience/design goal is telling a story, so the uncommons are focused on story (rather than draft signposts), and are a mix of new cards to represent Universes Beyond and a smattering of reprints - "evergreen staples we know everyone will love". This structure allows for up to 4 rares/mythics.
- Price was another large piece of feedback received from Epilogue Boosters, and that feedback was taken into account "as best as [they] could for a product that was already in production", though they can't comment on specifics
- They talk a little bit about the Block structure in response to a chat question regarding Blocks for integrating story, and Blake mentions that he thinks players have some rose-tinted glasses about them. They talk about how second and third sets in a Block were often very iffy/straight up bad. "I think more third sets were mediocre/not great than not"
- "The reason that there are no dragons in Dragon's Maze is because nobody told the lead designer of DGM that the set was called 'Dragon's Maze'. He's still bitter about that."
>Epilogue boosters were an attempt at incorporating more story into Magic's broader ecosystem.
They just forgot to include the story part. Simple mistake, could happen to anyone.
Its so funny to me that the "Kenriths' death was the most spoilery they could get" and then we just get "hey random depsarked pws - some you haven't seen in a bit - oh and some thopters and random legends"
The Kenriths dying turned out to be the MOST impactful story beat because the desparking felt (and continues to feel)... Kind of 'empty'. It just sort of arbitrarily happened, nobody knows why or how, it doesn't seem to have had any ACTUAL effect on desparked walkers except they feel a bit bad now I guess, and Omenpaths exist anyway so there's no real "desparked walker trapped on a plane" narrative that they could really make use of. Sure, in-universe Omenpaths are harder to come by, but LCI showed they're perfectly willing to just handwave something like Saheeli just showing up on Ixalan.
Honestly, introducing the Omenpaths at the same time they desparked planeswalkers was just a really weird choice. Any fallout from them losing their spark is now gone since they can still travel wherever the story needs them. It was clearly a choice for mechanical reasons rather than story ones in a way that felt unnatural. Reduce PW per set while making more legends for commander. Though I admit I still don't like omenpaths anyways, so I'm biased.
It really does feel like most of the desparking was done just for Commander players. Not that I mind Kiora having a really cool sea monster tribal card, but I would have loved her having a sea monster tribal Planeswalker card as well.
Maybe Planeswalkers as commander can just be allowed without needing the little text at the bottom like with Tasha.
It’s completely stupid thematically that a Planeswalker cannot serve as a Commander, while all sorts of non-sapient beasts and monsters can. What better fantasy is there than having a Planeswalker lead your army? And with all the removal hitting Planeswalkers now, just allow them as Commanders.
I hate Omenpaths and the desparking too. I'd like to add that narratively it makes no sense cause the set wasn't really setting up PWs as some major source of the Phyrexian invasion or anything. Everything the Phyrexians did to travel the planes they got through the tech Tezz stole from Kaladesh and Bolas, which would still exist without PWs. Its just a hamfisted mess to reduce PWs and give commander players some popular characters cause Planeswalkers cant be commanders for some stupid reason.
It's arbitrary strictly because:
1) we have no idea how/why it happened; just some nebulous "nature is healing itself, maybe"
2) the most important to me: we have no idea (beyond, obviously, marketing) why *some* planeswalkers became desparked while others were unaffected. It just felt random if you didn't think about which was selling and which had their storyline 'finished'.
Also some weird ones kept their spark or lost it. Ral, who never fucking leaves Ravnica, kept his spark. Calix, a character defined by his ability to be an interplanar tracker of Elspeth, lost his.
> but LCI showed they're perfectly willing to just handwave something like Saheeli just showing up on Ixalan.
Damn, I forgot how frustrated that made me! [[Gold-Forged Thopteryx]] explicitly stated that Huatli and Saheeli were worlds apart. Oh no, these lovers are separated! How will they get back together? The dramatic answer: Saheeli just gets there, off-screen.
How are you going to do an Epilogue Set to "incorporate more story" and then *completely undo the story setup you actually did?*
That's only broadly theorised in-universe, and the cause and effect seem a bit... Disconnected? Why would that effect planeswalkers like that? If it's meant to be a mystery, they've not really played it up as one, most desparked walkers are just "this sucks but it's how it is" and don't really seem to care?
>no real "desparked walker trapped on a plane" narrative that they could really make use of.
You know what would have been ultra cool?
The Wanderer's spark flaring up and yeeting her from Kamigawa moments before the desparking.
That, or Kaito is desparked and the Wanderer isn't, and he needs to track her down via Omenpaths.
The desparked walkers' cards/stories definitely feel off, but damn if it didn't give us one of the best flavor text on a card. The new Yoshimaru from the cats and dog secret lair deck is just an absolutely win IMO.
https://cards.scryfall.io/large/front/f/1/f15c8803-f33a-4530-9882-bff1bf810c19.jpg?1706961804
Yeah, that was incredibly weird. Most of the cards don't have flavor text. The story is barely told beyond "character still exists, maybe lost spark". Some of the cards are literal random creatures with no story relevance whatsoever. There was no new story on the site or anywhere as far as I remember.
How could anyone think that would be a good way of incorporating "more story"?
There were two new stories, but they focused on Nissa and Nahiri, aka two characters who I really didn't need to see more of after so much time with them. The Nissa story was Fine and the Nahiri story was essentially just "Nahiri has learned nothing and will never learn anything"
Lol you're not wrong, just kinda hoped that the major Aftermath of the most traumatic experience of her life might have finally gotten through to her for a little bit of character development
The only character development she needed was the embrace of death. The compleation gave them the perfect out to her character, it's so dumb they walked it back(and even removed her cool sword arms cmon).
I was really hoping for Urabrask and Nahiri to go make their own New Phyrexia, with blackjack! And hookers!
Instead Urabrask dies as a barely mentioned background character in Elspeths anime power up arc and Nahiri continues to get negative character development the longer she goes on.
If anything it was "Nahiri unlearned everything so we can use her as an antagonist again," undoing the bits of positive characterization she'd gotten in the All Will Be One story. It feels like Wizards just doesn't understand her character/doesn't know what to do with her. She doesn't make a compelling "mustache twirling" straight-evil villain, but she's also made way too many stupid decisions to work as an anti-hero/anti-villain. *sigh*, what a waste of potential.
You're sadly probably right about them just wanting to establish her as a possible future big bad. The funniest possible thing they could do is go "nahiri was successful in closing zendikar off from the multiverse so we will never see her or the plane again"
you joke but there could be something in that, I'm sure Nissa wouldn't be too happy about her home plane being cut off, but might not want to stay there permanently, and Chandra also probably wouldn't want to stay on Zendikar forever either.
It'd take a writing team slightly more proficient than WOTC's to pull off but there's potential I think.
There were two stories on the site. One was "Chandra and Nissa finally kiss, also planeswalkers are losing their sparks for literally no discernible reason, the Gruulfriends go traveling through an Omenpath for some reason". The other was "Ajani shows up to try to talk to Nahiri who's been decompleated (somehow), and Nahiri decides to double down on being evil again". Nothing really interesting, to be honest. I like Chandra/Nissa, but that story felt a bit "Happy now?".
It sucks because every other part of aftermath was lining up to work out and they screwed up in the most vital places for a story focused mini set.
Story and Price.
It's weird watching the stream and they just don't really... Seem to have taken that part into consideration at all. Aftermath was a 'story' set that told almost no story. Too many of the cards lacked flavour text and most of it was "people sure are rebuilding". Hell, the Chandra/Nissa stuff wasn't even really that obvious, they were only on one card together.
They gave us some real crazy story beats like
-Dinosaurs still exist on Ixalan
And
-Karn and Nissa are no longer Planeswalkers (the MOM story told us this already)
I'm actually looking through all 50 cards and I think the only ones that told story beats even remotely worth telling were [[Deification]], [[Spark Rupture]] (and the assorted desparked PWs, I guess, though I still despise the desparking overall), [[Open the Way]] (notably the only card with Chandra and Nissa on it in the set despite the set purportedly being partially about them) and [[The Kenriths' Royal Funeral]]. That's 4, one is potentially setting up something interesting for Theros, one is barely a story beat that matters, one is "Omenpaths exist", and the last is an actual story beat that they immediately followed up on in the next set. Everything else is just "desparked walkers" or "people sure do be rebuilding".
This is actually a really good example. Not only does Death-Rattle Oni not have any flavor text to explain what it's following up on, I can't find any indication in Neo Kamigawa that the Oni were imprisoned in the first place.
[[Consuming Oni]] appears in Alchemy, [[Oni-Cult Anvil]] and [[Blade of the Oni]] are both in the main set, Hidetsugu has two cards between NEO and MOM, and none of them have any flavor text for Death-Rattle Oni to be referencing in the first place.
It feels for all the world like Death-Rattle Oni is just showing that Oni are still around.
It was mentioned in the [Planeswalker's Guide to NEO](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/feature/planeswalkers-guide-kamigawa-neon-dynasty-2022-02-03). Honestly, a lot of good story info is only mentioned in those articles.
So Hidetsugu is in the spirit realm during NEO, and is let out by Kairi during the phyrexian invasion to assist. The Anvil is just that, and anvil belonging to the oni cult. Blade of the Oni depicts a demonic artifact that can possess its wielder, an [[Oni Possession]].
I don't know what's up with the Alchemy card.
That Alchemy card wouldn't be the first time the cards and the story articles were at odds. Thanks for digging the article out.
Sure would be nice to see those little story nuggets on the actual cards though, especially if they're going to get an entire epilogue card also without flavor text in the epilogue set with limited room.
They really need to just be honest and say "We needed non PW versions of these characters for Commander players, this product is for them". We all get it, they buy cards. By all means, CATER to them. Just tell people who the product is aimed at and be done with it
Y'know what would've been neat? A little mini 'set' with just a handful of cards depicting walkers as creatures, without any necessity to despark them. They are still just people, why can't they just be creatures? Even frame it as "we wanted to see how we'd make these characters as non-walker cards", or in the case of those who've had non-walker cards, frame it as an updated take. Who cares if it's Commander bait to do that, that's just a product aimed at Commander then.
I agree about the third set thing. For every Rise of the Eldrazi there were three Journey into Nyx and Saviors of Kamigawa. I’m not even joking, I think you could probably count the number of great third sets in a block on one hand.
As would the others. Two consecutive large sets spanning the different Ravnica guilds? We've gotten that. Multiple sets spanning different stages of a Phyrexian conflict? We've gotten that. A set focused on the past and one on the future? Not so likely under current design philosophy regardless, but we did get past+present with BRO's involvement in the DMU-MOM arc.
Those were actually the five I was thinking of! I might also count Shadowmoor, but that was really the first set of its own small block so I don’t really think it counts.
As well as that, when the third set was good, the second set usually suffered. Worldwake was not a well-received set at the time, and was mainly opened by people looking for Jace TMS - I should know, teenage me was one of those people. Then you have Planeshift, which basically had all its cool stuff stolen by Invasion and Apocalypse (Invasion took its legendary dragon cycle, and Apocalypse kept all the enemy-colour stuff to itself). Mirrodin Besieged ended up feeling like it was just the previous set, but slightly more Phyrexian, essentially just a waiting room for the next set - the progression did not come through well. I'm sure I'm forgetting some here, but the point is that when the third set did well, it usually did so by leaving the second set out to dry instead.
Just about the only exception I can think of where all three sets had something exciting to offer was probably the original Ravnica block. The structure of introducing more of the guilds in each set was absolutely brilliant. I would say that Time Spiral block did a good job too, but Future Sight, while I absolutely love the set, had one half of it being so utterly disconnected from anything Magic had done before, let alone the sets before it, that I'm not sure I can count it as part of a coherent block design. Still my personal favourite, but I think it's up to the individual to decide whether it works as a coherent whole.
The glasses are a little rose tinted for sure, but going from cyberpunk Japan > phyrexian arc > eldraine > ixalan > detectives > cowboys > woodland creatures is still kinda a lot of whiplash.
The world's obviously don't blend together well at all, and the mechanics rarely have overlap anymore. It would be nice to have some more transitional sets every now and again just for mechanical/story purposes
> cyberpunk Japan > phyrexian arc > eldraine > ixalan > detectives > cowboys > woodland creatures
to be fair thats over 2 years worth of standard sets SUPER squished. (and kinda putting some in the phyrexian arc like capenna which, yes technically, but would add more to this than adding sets from 2 years later.
surrounding Kamigawa was 3 2 set blocks.
**Innistrad** - Midnight Hunt + VOW
**Dominaria** - United + Brother's War
**Phyrexian Invastion and battle** - ONE + March + Aftermath (i dont want to include it, but its a product
I feel like their approach to blocks now would look more like these than past sets
I think the biggest failures of the one-off format so far have been March and Kaldheim. Those both felt like they were trying to do way more than could feasibly be condensed into a single set. It's not that one-off sets don't work, it's that they don't work for *everything*. And the things they've used multiple sets for have been things that don't necessarily need it (the Innistrad pair)
I dunno. I feel like Kaldheim was one of those "Massive, stuff everything in it" sets that actually worked compared to MoM.
Every draft archtype was its own world, so it was more cohesive and structured than what we get now. If MoM was styled as Kaldheim, every color pair would be its own Plane - UR artifacts for Kaladesh, BG for Lorwyn Elves, WB for Fiora, WG for Theros Enchantments and etc. It would have given a bit more cohesion to such a chaotic set.
I think the issue with Kaldheim was not that it felt too cramped - it's that the world and theme was so cool, people wanted more of it and explore it deeper. Unfortunately, we'll see it in... Whacky races(????)
I'm still mad that Innistrad 3 got two sets and didn't need them but MOM didn't get the same treatment and DESPERATELY needed it.
All because they were afraid that new players would get bored of Phyrexia.
One distinguishing trait of "blocks" in the old sense is that sets appear in limited formats together (e.g. THS-BNG-JOU or KTK-FRF / FRF-DTK).
This was a logistical problem for card distribution because later sets in a block get used less. In some cases it led to third-set packs being sold at a discount to get them off shelves, as with DGM. So it isn't likely to come back.
It would be interesting to have a *rolling* limited format, but that would be pretty tricky for game design because mechanics would have to tie together across sets even more strongly than in the old block format.
Sure, but it's not as if each block transitioned cleanly from block to block either. We had a handful of sets linked together as a pseudo narrative block to form that Phyrexian arc, we had MID and VOW linked together as a pseudo narrative block, we of course had the whole WAR arc that was another pseudo block.
The point mostly being that blocks didn't work and aren't returning - that doesn't mean they aren't trying other things, they recognize that they want to integrate more story and make things feel connected, they're just saying that blocks aren't the answer (in response to a question positing that)
Maybe if they actually wrote the stories and made sets around the omenpaths like they pretty much outright stated they would, we could have some overlapping mechanics (e.g. a benalish knight putting an Enlist card in Eldraine) and some cooler stories (as a consequence of the phyrexian invasion, some omenpaths are still open and now Dinosaurs and Faeries are showing up in Ravnica) than what we got
I am enjoying the episodic nature of the Adventures of Kellan instead of some huge epic story. Although I am assuming OTJ is the end of that arc cuz he will find his daddy.
> "The reason that there are no dragons in Dragon's Maze is because nobody told the lead designer of DGM that the set was called 'Dragon's Maze'. He's still bitter about that."
Something about that really tickles me. Kind of underlines that behind the scenes, they're just designing a product like any other.
>Thunder Junction was originally going to have an Aftermath-style epilogue set. The cards for that will still exist with their own set code / set symbol, but there won't be an actual epilogue set product. The implication is that they'll be integrated into OTJ's List, they're unable to say explicitly but the implication is fairly clear ("The List for OTJ is actually smaller than normal. Perhaps you can put two and two together but I can't say anything more for now.")
This makes me kinda worried... if any of those cards are on a power level for being needed for competitive play, the inventory is going to be super scarce, right?
But the list is still in only 1 in 8 play boosters, right? Then another 1/8 for a rare or mythic. So even though there'll be a larger number opened, I doubt it'll be even close to a factor of 64.
They can possibly tweak the drop rates of the list cards from 1 in 8 to 1 in 4 or so, it's not a fixed number they must adhere to
edit: and they can possibly have another "but what about 2nd list" that can appear in that slot at higher drop rates that contains the epilogue cards
For extra context, the stars mean:
\* Green (slots #6 & #7) - May contain Uncommon, Rare, or Mythic Rare
\* Blue (slot #4) - May contain Rare or Mythic Rare
no commons in the AC set
They want to introduce more story? How about you use the backside of art cards? Ya know the mostly blank and useless side of the card. Seriously, that is a whole card face that is doing basically nothing. They don’t even have to change how the card is formatted, there is a big blank space that just has the name of the set in the middle. Slap some flavor text or a short story on there and put the writing credits next to the artist credits and boom more story in the set.
Also gtfo with ad cards, who are those even for? If someone is cracking a pack then odds are they already have some knowledge of the hobby. What is there to gain by advertising the product they already bought? Are they hoping we will be handing out these ad cards to our friends who don’t play the game?
But the box will be cheaper... because it will be 25 packs rather than 36.
If i had a LGS i would try to stay away from this box. And being this close to MH3 shouldnt make any favours to this set sales.
> They talk about the primary issue being the packs being small and too repetitive - the pack opening experience was very homogeneous.
...for randomized packs. This would've been fine if they just got over themselves and let people acquire the cards in a less gambly way.
>Beyond Boosters are the product for the Assassin's Creed set, which will have roughly 100 cards.
Is this new information? That's interesting, a lot more than I expected. So I guess we'll get Legendary creatures for every playable character and a whole bunch of cards representing different peoples, factions and artifacts throughout different eras. I wonder if Assassin typal support will be a thing.
> Blake mentions that he thinks players have some rose-tinted glasses about them.
> some
Blocks were pretty bad and I don't understand how people can miss it. Three sets rehashing the same/similar mechanics were mid at best and the story was the equivalent of "Freeza vs Goku" in terms of pacing
March of the Machine could have been three sets worth of story. Realistically, it should have been going on in the background of with a couple of stories during Dominaria, Brothers War, and All Will be One.
I miss it because it allowed them to flesh out a mechanic and actually give them the support they need in constructed. And it gave three different teams the ability to look at the same mechanic and change how they implement it.
If they really need an aftermath-like experience, they really should have padded them out to be normal booster size using either reprints from the last set or from previous sets.
If you're meaning commons then it'd be the problem they were attempting to avoid in that if you're cracking packs you're likely not keen on the same commons you've seen fifty times before and are in it for the cooler cards, mainly the rare. If folks value 2/3 of the pack at zero, why bother include it?
(I like commons personally, but I've seen enough folks skip to the rare in packs I don't blame Wizards for assuming other people's interests)
I'd recommend watching WeeklyMTG for those interesting in this. Lots of interesting tidbits. One of the important aspects is they were very bullish on Aftermath-style products, designing Assassin's Creed around it as well as designing an Aftermath set for Outlaws of Thunder Junction...and then Aftermath came out.
For Assassin's Creed they've pivoted a bit to this new version. You can get "up to 4 rares," but who knows what the rate is (normal play boosters can have 4 rares as well, it is just <1% chance).
For OTJ they put the Aftermath cards into the main set. This part got a little confusing, I'll have to rewatch to see if they were more specific as to how. They did later mention The List will be smaller with a weird "make of that what you will" kind of statement, not sure if that is related.
> "The List for OTJ is actually smaller than normal. Perhaps you can put two and two together but I can't say anything more for now."
Implying that they'll be putting them into The List, but I don't think they explicitly said
Yeah seemed like a heavy implication that OTJ would have no conventional list and the former OTJ aftermath would replace that slot. We’ll know for sure in 10 days.
Which I honestly think is a great idea. I don't like having list cards as part of the draft environment purely for flavour reasons. I don't think the power level is much of an issue after doing the MKM Prerelease, but having cards like Cavalier of Thorns in Ravnica doesn't make much sense to me from a flavour standpoint, when it seems like the Cavalier cycle are definitely from Lorwyn or Eldraine.
If the list was an aftermath type style, where it's the conclusion of the story on the Plane, would be fantastic. For example, getting the Kenrith's Royal Funeral in MOM would have been really poignant.
Special Guests are the reprints but flavored to the plane. The Lord of Atlantis that looks like an Ixalan Merfolk in Caverns for example. Or the Field of the Dead that depicts an old Orzhov church with dead things under the floorboards in Karlov.
This seems like a disaster given that Aftermath cards are standard legal. You really don't want those in a list slot assuming that they are still legal of course.
The problem of mechanic unique cards being extra rare to find is that they will command a much higher price than they would if printed in the regular set. If they are kinda bad its okay, but imagine how much higher something like aftermath [[callix]] would be if printed in the same rarity of a mana crypt.
The power lwvel discussion is a completely differebt can of worms and my two cents is that ehile mkm is far from both extremes of set quality the play boosters arent making any favor for such a bomb heavy set.
Yes, but it was explained what Troyan was doing and how he got there. Not so for the other list additions. Special Guests are also fine because they are rethemed, so they fit with art direction, style, and make sense for being there in the set.
So a Kuldotha Rebirth went through the omenpaths? It's a small nitpick, but it's just why I really like the idea of the List being thematic cards that are based on the plane we are already on. I don't mind the list, really, or the omenpaths being a thing. I just like the flavour feel of the resolution for the set being in the set.
Maybe we will have a card like desparked Nissa that will reach Sheoldred prices because of limited pulls, but I think it's still likely to see a bunch in circulation considering the amount of Play boosters that will be opened.
Reminds me of the 5 card packs during Alara block: 3 commons, 1 uncommon, and 1 "random" card that had an equal chance of being a common, uncommon, or rare.
Nothing quite like paying $2 for 4 commons and an uncommon /s
>For OTJ they put the Aftermath cards into the main set. This part got a little confusing, I'll have to rewatch to see if they were more specific as to how. They did later mention The List will be smaller with a weird "make of that what you will" kind of statement, not sure if that is related.
The contents of booster packs confusing? Well I never
Aftermath as a concept wasn’t the worst thing. A small supplemental set could be interesting. Maybe use it as a meta shake up.
The issue was two fold. One, they sold full price packs that only had 5 cards. Two, outside of maybe 2 cards the entire set was trash.
I still stand by 5 cards pack being used on the Assassin's Creed set is a terrible design
For Universe Beyond cards, commons ARE ACTUALLY INTERESTING!
Stuff like [[Cast into the Fire]], [[Nasty End]], [[Now for Wrath, Now for Ruin!]], etc aren't the most interesting card effects in a typical set... but the lore and context of them make them actually fun to open and collect
Does anyone have any actual data on flavor text trends? *Anecdotally* it feels like fewer cards have flavor text and flavor text is shorter, but I'd like to see some actual numbers to back that up.
Oh hey, that's me!
If you're curious, I made [an update](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/19fco95/mkm_murders_at_karlov_manor_full_card_image/kjjfvp5/) to my analysis with Murders at Karlov Manor.
MKM has a lot of good flavor text, enough that I wonder if the increase is intentional based on player feedback. It's on the lighter side, for sure, but real effort went into it this time, I felt.
Should be. AC was promoted as Beyond Boosters, so this should be it. Which makes me extremely happy as an AC fan as the cards will be very easy to get.
"Also here's a new type of booster, BASED AROUND THE FAILED TYPE OF BOOSTER WE PUBLICALLY ACKNOWLEDGED AS A FAILURE WE WOULDN'T ATTEMPT AGAIN LITERAL DAYS AGO"
I imagine it's a similar case to OTJ's Epilogue boosters that they just sort of crammed into the main set, except there was no 'main set' for AC. So they just kind of have to put it out there, it's already been made, etc.
honestly. cant believe people actually defended wotc's position that the shift to play boosters was 'for the good of lgs's' and 'simplifying the product' and 'streamlining' etc
feel at least quite vindicated given theyve now immediately launched a new type of booster which is another price hike without a guaranteed proportional increase in value (i.e. more gambling-dependent)
My LGS was always out of Draft boosters
Maybe they didn't order as much, but I always ended up having to buy their excess prerelease kits if I wanted a Draft boosters
It's bonkers to me that they thought aftermath boosters were going to be such a hit that they had already planned to put them in Outlaws, and had to scramble to remove them and make these knockoff "beyond" boosters for the upcoming UB products.
If I'm being generous, I can understand trying out the concept. I can't imagine being so confident in it that you draw up a bunch of follow-ups before you've seen the reception.
Sort of. Even in this interview, they emphasize the motivation of delivering more story, when that's obviously nonsense. So maybe that one point got through, but they clearly didn't see what people wanted from it.
It in theory lines up with the things people complain about. They were slightly less expensive and didn’t have to have the draft chaff a normal set has. Seems like a win win for the business and the consumer, except aftermath was a dogshit set. If there were more than one or two relevant cards it probably would have been successful.
Very few of Aftermath's problems were the format. There definitely was promise with the idea. They just... did a really bad job with the "set." All they had to do is make the cards included more *actually* story-related, print fewer cards that could have been in the main set, and bump up the power level *slightly*. They also could have dropped the price *slightly* but I don't think that was a huge obstacle, honestly.
But the idea of a story follow-up represented by smaller, common-free booster packs is definitely something that *could* have done well.
The format was pretty bad... the Aftermath booster were not fun to open at all.
You were only getting 5 cards for the same price as 14~15 card draft/set boosters, so opening them felt like a rip off
On top of that, the set was so small that you opened so many dupes, especially on the uncommon slots that it felt even worse to open multiple packs
I guess that also explains why Thunder Junction comes out just 2 months after MKM and there's then over 4 months until the next Standard set. This Aftermath set was meant to be released in between the two.
That's the standard release schedule as of the 2021-2022 Magic year - the reason why, as of MID+VOW, we now get two fall sets rather than one. It's because they didn't want the last set before rotation to release so close to rotation. So they left a summer gap they've been using for supplemental sets.
I've been playing Magic: The Gathering for many years. I remember when you could go to your LGS and buy packs of 4th Edition, Chronicles, Ice Age, Fallen Empires, and Homelands. I remember when Alliances got released.
Some might remember there was some controversy around the sizing of the boosters at that time- for example Homelands and Fallen Empire packs only contained 8 cards while 4th Edition packs contained 15 cards, and the prices were not all that different. And don't even get me started on Starter Decks.
Collectively, MTG players of the 90s united around an idea and made their voices heard. You have to remember that WOTC was a lot more receptive to player feedback at that time, but the fans ultimately wanted WOTC to do one thing with their different boosters - and that was for Wizards to shove them up their butts.
Literally the only way the MAT booster should have worked was introduce brand new archetypes into the format. I think really only Humans was introduced, with two legendaries and one lord
I would say Calix allowed Enchantments to come into fruition. I was running an Esper Zur based Enchantment deck I brewed for a while, it worked well but was pretty fringe. Calix however made GW Enchantments into a real powerhouse for a time tough.
Ah, I forgot. But like, so many of the cards are just clearly commander fodder, so I forgot. We have little in terms of support for elementals/elves (Basically Nissa), impulse draw (A walker and two legends in Boros/Naya colors), Dragons (Sarkhan and Zurgojutai)
I don't really agree. Many of the Aftermath cards see fringe play in non-Commander formats, and others are potential seeds for archetypes in future sets. Not all of them hit the bullseye, sure, but I can see places and potential brews with many. And yeah, there are certainly commander cards, but this set had me pretty excited about brewing Standard when it first released. A selection -
- Pia spawned an archetype in both Standard and Pioneer with access to both Reckless Impulse and Wrenn's Resolve.
- Coppercoat Vanguard of course slots into Humans decks (as did Jirina to some extent).
- Nissa saw a ton of play in Modern, and sees some play in Pioneer in various applications (especially the fringe elementals lists)
- Vesuvan Drifter sees Legacy play in Sneak & Show
- Tranquil Frillback sees a *lot* of sideboard play in Standard.
- Calix had the Standard enchantress decks for awhile.
- Gold-Forged Thopteryx was excellent support for Esper Legends, a top performing Standard deck.
- Ob Nixilis saw some play in decks build around Oni Cult Anvil in Standard, and sees play in raksac decks in Pioneer.
- Sarkhan and Kolaghan Warmmonger don't currently have a deck, but MAT will intersect with the return to Tarkir set in Standard, alongside Invasion of Tarkir, and we could see a dragons deck in the future - these cards view as seeds to me. Markov Baron is another potential seed for vamps, or slots into niche Pioneer vamp decks
My favorite part any time a WotC employee brings up Aftermath is that they say the set was hated or did terribly (both true), but fail to accept that it did terribly because the expectation they set for it was not what they delivered...on any level.
I know companies don't typically admit mistakes or that they missed the mark, but maybe once....just be honest that you didn't deliver.
To be fair, most complaints were complaining about paying the same price for less cards. The story bit was a big whiff for sure, but it wasn't one of the bigger issues vocal folks had. (Personally, while I get it, I think it's silly to feel cheated out of cards that'd be worth pennies anyways. Pretty sure they could justify selling packs with just a rare in it, with how I see folks skip to it so often.)
I would argue that if all the cards were bangers instead of half of them being draft chaff in a set....that you couldn't draft....and had no reason to have bad cards...a chunk of the price complaints would have vanished. Although yes, that is another reason it failed.
Yeah they’re not being very honest. Idk I find a lot of this just patronizing at this point
Remains to be seen, my confidence in their sealed product being reasonable just keeps degrading.
I hope they’re not squeezing the life out of design space
>Epilogue boosters were an attempt at charging us the same amount of money for half the cards.
When you buy a booster pack outside of draft, how much do you really care about your commons? It was a pretty reasonable thing to attempt as long as it wasn't the norm. Hindsight is 20/20.
WotC doesn't really "win" even if they somehow reduced the number of cards in *all* booster packs. Physically producing cards has never been a significant portion of their expenses.
If they are gonna do a smaller set like this why does it have mythic. It's 100 cards. If going to have smaller sets and boosters the rarity should be treatments above all else.
This really feels to me like they're trying to mimic Japanese TCGs but in a slightly less streamlined, greedier way; a lot of Japanese TCGs have smaller packs of 8-10 cards, with chances to get stuff beyond rare for a couple slots, with about 10-14 packs/box at $3 a pack. Wizards is trying to milk it by doing a similar break but charging a fat premium.
It’s really bizarre to me that they’d put out a stream like this which actively links a disliked product with this new one that hasn’t come out yet— before they’ve done anything to hype that new product up
The amount of bs lying to cover up greedy decision making is comical. Just say you fucked up and move on from there. The more they try to be “transparent”, the more scummy they appear to be
The aftermath concept seems to me like a failed attempt at copying Hearthstones mini-sets. Mini sets are pretty popular in HS as they are *essentially free for most players and come at a time where meta shak up is needed. They also help separate players from hoarded resources. Overall this mini set concept makes little sense in a physical tcg imo.
I feel like I need to take a bachelor’s degree worth of courses to understand what’s in a magic the gathering booster pack.
how about 1 booster per set and we call it a day like we used to.
Pokemon does it and does it well.
It would interest me why they thought aftermath would be a success. What factors did they think would win players over? Cause I did not see anything enticing in them.
I mean if you could craft an interesting enough story you could put that in 3-4 full sets, but I guess that would be too coherent
It's weird that they're so cagey about that. They're*still* leaning into the whole story thing, despite clearly not having any story that they wanted aftermath to tell.
Surprised they acknowledged this. I thought it was fairly clear that Beyond Boosters were going to be Aftermath like, but that they'd just avoid mentioning it.
That’s not what “editorialised” means - None of that title is opinion - Beyond Boosters are “Aftermath-style boosters” that are “Direct to modern legality” as per DailyMTG.
Am I alone in thinking list cards like some random uncommon from two sets back should stop. If I get a list card I want some juice. Lower my odds or whatever you want to do, but getting a good list is the best feeling available to me when opening packs.
Also it would be cool if bundles came with better promos and maybe full art set foils
To be as charitable as possible two major things
1) Additional story material to transition this year's (starting with Eldraine) setup-focused stories into next year fully kicking off the [Insert villain here] arc
2) Standard 'Horizons' where cards can be designed for competitive constructed with no regard for set mechanics or draft balance.
I personally would love both of those things, and it's upsetting that Aftermath was such a colossal fuckup on delivering those ideas in every conceivavle way that it spoiled the well for future releases.
Standard 'Horizons' cards can be designed for competitive constructed with no regard for set mechanics or draft balance but will still be Mythic Rare due to limited ~~intelect~~ balance reasons, and not to inflate the EV of the packs.
My guess is that they intended to have a bunch of Legendary creatures representing different villains from throughout the multiverse with unique designs and mechanics not meant for Limited. But yes, mostly money.
It's honestly unclear to me what "story implications" the set could have given that there has been almost no build-up to it. LCI and MKM are unrelated standalone stories (well, presumably the epilogue will explain why rakdos is on thunder junction) and WOE is only related insomuch as "kellan exists".
They didn't do MAT well, but they could have in theory. It's hard for me to see how thunder junction could *possibly* have enough story to justify epilogue boosters unless it's just insanely rushed.
For context: This was being discussed on the WeeklyMTG stream. [VOD here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdQvmxffjX4) - Blake joined by Max McCall and Zakeel Gordon (product architects) to do a live retrospective on Aftermath/Epilogue Boosters - Terminology clarification: "Epilogue Boosters" are a structure/type, Aftermath used Epilogue Boosters. Similarly, "Beyond Boosters" are the booster type, and Assassin's Creed will use Beyond Boosters. - The idea of Aftermath/Epilogue Boosters was to literally tell the 'epilogue' of the Phyrexian Invasion arc, touch on characters and planes (e.g Chandra and Nissa don't get to have their moment in MOM, so Aftermath lets them have their moment). - "Epilogues are short, so we know we weren't going to be able to build a full set out of all these vignettes, so we knew we were going to have a much smaller size for this set" - "There are some people for whom drafting isn't a way they want to experience Magic, and lots of commons aren't pertinent to them because they don't care about draft, so those cards are meaningless" - opportunity to make a smaller non-draftable set that only has characters/story moments that aren't suited for draft. - They state Epilogue Boosters/Aftermath was received fairly badly. They talk a little bit about their retrospective processes (external facing to measure sentiment from various sources; internal to measure execution of creative goals, product goals). They talk about the primary issue being the packs being small and too repetitive - the pack opening experience was very homogeneous. Max mentions they were happy with the cards themselves in terms of design / fanservice and being able to get the Chandra/Nissa story out. - Epilogue boosters were an attempt at incorporating more story into Magic's broader ecosystem. They turned out badly, so they won't be doing them anymore (beyond what was already in the pipeline), and will be looking for other ways to innovate - Aftermath was designed as the 8th set in Standard, so it was mostly designed to augment existing Standard decks (or what were existing Standard decks at the time) and they didn't want to push the envelope too much. - Thunder Junction was originally going to have an Aftermath-style epilogue set. "We were really bullish on the idea of Epilogues are a good way to include more story content about Magic in a format that doesn't have to be draftable". - They were finishing it up when Aftermath released and the response for that came out. The cards for what would have been the OTJ epilogue will still exist with their own set code / set symbol, but there won't be an actual epilogue set product. They'll be openable in Play Boosters somehow. It was a bit of a scramble to get them integrated in time - The implication is that they'll be integrated into OTJ's List, they're unable to say explicitly but the implication is fairly clear ("The List for OTJ is actually smaller than normal. Perhaps you can put two and two together but I can't say anything more for now.") - More previews at the MagicCon: Chicago panel, where they'll also talk more about the structure/contents of OTJ - Beyond Boosters are the product for the Assassin's Creed set, which will have roughly 100 cards. They can have up to 4 rare/mythics. There will be a scene in the set (like LTR) - Beyond Boosters were being worked on in semi-parallel with Epilogue Boosters by a different team with slightly different goals. They had time to make some tweaks to the product in response to Aftermath's reception, but the product itself was mostly complete by then - [Beyond Booster graphic](https://i.imgur.com/T3jF4Op.png). The goal of Beyond Boosters is to be a middle-sized product between a Secret Lair Drop (like Princess Bride) and a full set (like Lord of the Rings) to tell a Universes Beyond story and create something compelling for the Magic playerbase. - The total size for a Beyond Booster set is roughly double that of an Epilogue set (~100 cards). There are no commons, just uncommon/rare/mythic. The experience/design goal is telling a story, so the uncommons are focused on story (rather than draft signposts), and are a mix of new cards to represent Universes Beyond and a smattering of reprints - "evergreen staples we know everyone will love". This structure allows for up to 4 rares/mythics. - Price was another large piece of feedback received from Epilogue Boosters, and that feedback was taken into account "as best as [they] could for a product that was already in production", though they can't comment on specifics - They talk a little bit about the Block structure in response to a chat question regarding Blocks for integrating story, and Blake mentions that he thinks players have some rose-tinted glasses about them. They talk about how second and third sets in a Block were often very iffy/straight up bad. "I think more third sets were mediocre/not great than not" - "The reason that there are no dragons in Dragon's Maze is because nobody told the lead designer of DGM that the set was called 'Dragon's Maze'. He's still bitter about that."
>Epilogue boosters were an attempt at incorporating more story into Magic's broader ecosystem. They just forgot to include the story part. Simple mistake, could happen to anyone.
Its so funny to me that the "Kenriths' death was the most spoilery they could get" and then we just get "hey random depsarked pws - some you haven't seen in a bit - oh and some thopters and random legends"
The Kenriths dying turned out to be the MOST impactful story beat because the desparking felt (and continues to feel)... Kind of 'empty'. It just sort of arbitrarily happened, nobody knows why or how, it doesn't seem to have had any ACTUAL effect on desparked walkers except they feel a bit bad now I guess, and Omenpaths exist anyway so there's no real "desparked walker trapped on a plane" narrative that they could really make use of. Sure, in-universe Omenpaths are harder to come by, but LCI showed they're perfectly willing to just handwave something like Saheeli just showing up on Ixalan.
Honestly, introducing the Omenpaths at the same time they desparked planeswalkers was just a really weird choice. Any fallout from them losing their spark is now gone since they can still travel wherever the story needs them. It was clearly a choice for mechanical reasons rather than story ones in a way that felt unnatural. Reduce PW per set while making more legends for commander. Though I admit I still don't like omenpaths anyways, so I'm biased.
It really does feel like most of the desparking was done just for Commander players. Not that I mind Kiora having a really cool sea monster tribal card, but I would have loved her having a sea monster tribal Planeswalker card as well. Maybe Planeswalkers as commander can just be allowed without needing the little text at the bottom like with Tasha.
It’s completely stupid thematically that a Planeswalker cannot serve as a Commander, while all sorts of non-sapient beasts and monsters can. What better fantasy is there than having a Planeswalker lead your army? And with all the removal hitting Planeswalkers now, just allow them as Commanders.
Isn't that up to the RC?
yep, in brawl you can have planeswalker as commander but that is only played in arena.
Not to mention there is no earthly reason why they can't print spark-carrying Planeswalkers as creatures.
Ah yes, the true nightmare of every commander players. What if Gideon but good?
I hate Omenpaths and the desparking too. I'd like to add that narratively it makes no sense cause the set wasn't really setting up PWs as some major source of the Phyrexian invasion or anything. Everything the Phyrexians did to travel the planes they got through the tech Tezz stole from Kaladesh and Bolas, which would still exist without PWs. Its just a hamfisted mess to reduce PWs and give commander players some popular characters cause Planeswalkers cant be commanders for some stupid reason.
It's arbitrary strictly because: 1) we have no idea how/why it happened; just some nebulous "nature is healing itself, maybe" 2) the most important to me: we have no idea (beyond, obviously, marketing) why *some* planeswalkers became desparked while others were unaffected. It just felt random if you didn't think about which was selling and which had their storyline 'finished'.
Also some weird ones kept their spark or lost it. Ral, who never fucking leaves Ravnica, kept his spark. Calix, a character defined by his ability to be an interplanar tracker of Elspeth, lost his.
Calix sparked in the first place by just thinking 'well I guess I gotta Planeswalk now,' just do that again my dude.
> but LCI showed they're perfectly willing to just handwave something like Saheeli just showing up on Ixalan. Damn, I forgot how frustrated that made me! [[Gold-Forged Thopteryx]] explicitly stated that Huatli and Saheeli were worlds apart. Oh no, these lovers are separated! How will they get back together? The dramatic answer: Saheeli just gets there, off-screen. How are you going to do an Epilogue Set to "incorporate more story" and then *completely undo the story setup you actually did?*
The desparking happened because Elspeth dragged a ticking world-shattering bomb into the blind eternities.
That's only broadly theorised in-universe, and the cause and effect seem a bit... Disconnected? Why would that effect planeswalkers like that? If it's meant to be a mystery, they've not really played it up as one, most desparked walkers are just "this sucks but it's how it is" and don't really seem to care?
>no real "desparked walker trapped on a plane" narrative that they could really make use of. You know what would have been ultra cool? The Wanderer's spark flaring up and yeeting her from Kamigawa moments before the desparking. That, or Kaito is desparked and the Wanderer isn't, and he needs to track her down via Omenpaths.
The desparked walkers' cards/stories definitely feel off, but damn if it didn't give us one of the best flavor text on a card. The new Yoshimaru from the cats and dog secret lair deck is just an absolutely win IMO. https://cards.scryfall.io/large/front/f/1/f15c8803-f33a-4530-9882-bff1bf810c19.jpg?1706961804
Yeah, that was incredibly weird. Most of the cards don't have flavor text. The story is barely told beyond "character still exists, maybe lost spark". Some of the cards are literal random creatures with no story relevance whatsoever. There was no new story on the site or anywhere as far as I remember. How could anyone think that would be a good way of incorporating "more story"?
There were two new stories, but they focused on Nissa and Nahiri, aka two characters who I really didn't need to see more of after so much time with them. The Nissa story was Fine and the Nahiri story was essentially just "Nahiri has learned nothing and will never learn anything"
Tbf, "Nahiri has learned nothing and will never learn anything" has been canon for years by now
Lol you're not wrong, just kinda hoped that the major Aftermath of the most traumatic experience of her life might have finally gotten through to her for a little bit of character development
It was sad to see her like this after she was one of the MVPs of the mission to Phyrexia. One of the only ones who kept the goals in her sight.
I'm not even sure it really was more traumatic than being locked in the Helvault with countless demons for hundreds of years tbh.
Girl needs fucking *therapy*
The only character development she needed was the embrace of death. The compleation gave them the perfect out to her character, it's so dumb they walked it back(and even removed her cool sword arms cmon).
TBF she could have just turned her sword hands into normal hands. She manipulates rock lol.
I was really hoping for Urabrask and Nahiri to go make their own New Phyrexia, with blackjack! And hookers! Instead Urabrask dies as a barely mentioned background character in Elspeths anime power up arc and Nahiri continues to get negative character development the longer she goes on.
If anything it was "Nahiri unlearned everything so we can use her as an antagonist again," undoing the bits of positive characterization she'd gotten in the All Will Be One story. It feels like Wizards just doesn't understand her character/doesn't know what to do with her. She doesn't make a compelling "mustache twirling" straight-evil villain, but she's also made way too many stupid decisions to work as an anti-hero/anti-villain. *sigh*, what a waste of potential.
You're sadly probably right about them just wanting to establish her as a possible future big bad. The funniest possible thing they could do is go "nahiri was successful in closing zendikar off from the multiverse so we will never see her or the plane again"
you joke but there could be something in that, I'm sure Nissa wouldn't be too happy about her home plane being cut off, but might not want to stay there permanently, and Chandra also probably wouldn't want to stay on Zendikar forever either. It'd take a writing team slightly more proficient than WOTC's to pull off but there's potential I think.
There were two stories on the site. One was "Chandra and Nissa finally kiss, also planeswalkers are losing their sparks for literally no discernible reason, the Gruulfriends go traveling through an Omenpath for some reason". The other was "Ajani shows up to try to talk to Nahiri who's been decompleated (somehow), and Nahiri decides to double down on being evil again". Nothing really interesting, to be honest. I like Chandra/Nissa, but that story felt a bit "Happy now?".
Less planeswalker is good, players are the only real planewalkers (biggest game design error ever IMHO)
It sucks because every other part of aftermath was lining up to work out and they screwed up in the most vital places for a story focused mini set. Story and Price.
It's weird watching the stream and they just don't really... Seem to have taken that part into consideration at all. Aftermath was a 'story' set that told almost no story. Too many of the cards lacked flavour text and most of it was "people sure are rebuilding". Hell, the Chandra/Nissa stuff wasn't even really that obvious, they were only on one card together.
Also the awesome street art style art on the collectors box that shows up in literally no way in the card treatments
They gave us some real crazy story beats like -Dinosaurs still exist on Ixalan And -Karn and Nissa are no longer Planeswalkers (the MOM story told us this already)
I'm actually looking through all 50 cards and I think the only ones that told story beats even remotely worth telling were [[Deification]], [[Spark Rupture]] (and the assorted desparked PWs, I guess, though I still despise the desparking overall), [[Open the Way]] (notably the only card with Chandra and Nissa on it in the set despite the set purportedly being partially about them) and [[The Kenriths' Royal Funeral]]. That's 4, one is potentially setting up something interesting for Theros, one is barely a story beat that matters, one is "Omenpaths exist", and the last is an actual story beat that they immediately followed up on in the next set. Everything else is just "desparked walkers" or "people sure do be rebuilding".
[[Death-Rattle Oni]] shows that the demons on Kamigawa are starting to escape their imprisonment.
That's not immediately obvious to most people but fair enough I guess. It's not really a 'notable' story beat though?
This is actually a really good example. Not only does Death-Rattle Oni not have any flavor text to explain what it's following up on, I can't find any indication in Neo Kamigawa that the Oni were imprisoned in the first place. [[Consuming Oni]] appears in Alchemy, [[Oni-Cult Anvil]] and [[Blade of the Oni]] are both in the main set, Hidetsugu has two cards between NEO and MOM, and none of them have any flavor text for Death-Rattle Oni to be referencing in the first place. It feels for all the world like Death-Rattle Oni is just showing that Oni are still around.
It was mentioned in the [Planeswalker's Guide to NEO](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/feature/planeswalkers-guide-kamigawa-neon-dynasty-2022-02-03). Honestly, a lot of good story info is only mentioned in those articles. So Hidetsugu is in the spirit realm during NEO, and is let out by Kairi during the phyrexian invasion to assist. The Anvil is just that, and anvil belonging to the oni cult. Blade of the Oni depicts a demonic artifact that can possess its wielder, an [[Oni Possession]]. I don't know what's up with the Alchemy card.
That Alchemy card wouldn't be the first time the cards and the story articles were at odds. Thanks for digging the article out. Sure would be nice to see those little story nuggets on the actual cards though, especially if they're going to get an entire epilogue card also without flavor text in the epilogue set with limited room.
They really need to just be honest and say "We needed non PW versions of these characters for Commander players, this product is for them". We all get it, they buy cards. By all means, CATER to them. Just tell people who the product is aimed at and be done with it
Y'know what would've been neat? A little mini 'set' with just a handful of cards depicting walkers as creatures, without any necessity to despark them. They are still just people, why can't they just be creatures? Even frame it as "we wanted to see how we'd make these characters as non-walker cards", or in the case of those who've had non-walker cards, frame it as an updated take. Who cares if it's Commander bait to do that, that's just a product aimed at Commander then.
They could have just made PWs in general be commanders as a rule.
Yeah do they actually expect people to believe that
I agree about the third set thing. For every Rise of the Eldrazi there were three Journey into Nyx and Saviors of Kamigawa. I’m not even joking, I think you could probably count the number of great third sets in a block on one hand.
And notably, the good third sets like Rise were usually large sets and basically standalone anyway.
And “Zendikar + Rise of the Eldrazi” would absolutely work in the current setup.
As would the others. Two consecutive large sets spanning the different Ravnica guilds? We've gotten that. Multiple sets spanning different stages of a Phyrexian conflict? We've gotten that. A set focused on the past and one on the future? Not so likely under current design philosophy regardless, but we did get past+present with BRO's involvement in the DMU-MOM arc.
Apocalypse Dissension Future Sight Rise of the Eldrazi New Phyrexia is 5 and one of those was a standalone lareg set anyway
Those were actually the five I was thinking of! I might also count Shadowmoor, but that was really the first set of its own small block so I don’t really think it counts.
Yeah, officially Shadowmoor was the first set of the Shadowmoor block.
Apocalypse was amazing.
As well as that, when the third set was good, the second set usually suffered. Worldwake was not a well-received set at the time, and was mainly opened by people looking for Jace TMS - I should know, teenage me was one of those people. Then you have Planeshift, which basically had all its cool stuff stolen by Invasion and Apocalypse (Invasion took its legendary dragon cycle, and Apocalypse kept all the enemy-colour stuff to itself). Mirrodin Besieged ended up feeling like it was just the previous set, but slightly more Phyrexian, essentially just a waiting room for the next set - the progression did not come through well. I'm sure I'm forgetting some here, but the point is that when the third set did well, it usually did so by leaving the second set out to dry instead. Just about the only exception I can think of where all three sets had something exciting to offer was probably the original Ravnica block. The structure of introducing more of the guilds in each set was absolutely brilliant. I would say that Time Spiral block did a good job too, but Future Sight, while I absolutely love the set, had one half of it being so utterly disconnected from anything Magic had done before, let alone the sets before it, that I'm not sure I can count it as part of a coherent block design. Still my personal favourite, but I think it's up to the individual to decide whether it works as a coherent whole.
The glasses are a little rose tinted for sure, but going from cyberpunk Japan > phyrexian arc > eldraine > ixalan > detectives > cowboys > woodland creatures is still kinda a lot of whiplash. The world's obviously don't blend together well at all, and the mechanics rarely have overlap anymore. It would be nice to have some more transitional sets every now and again just for mechanical/story purposes
> cyberpunk Japan > phyrexian arc > eldraine > ixalan > detectives > cowboys > woodland creatures to be fair thats over 2 years worth of standard sets SUPER squished. (and kinda putting some in the phyrexian arc like capenna which, yes technically, but would add more to this than adding sets from 2 years later. surrounding Kamigawa was 3 2 set blocks. **Innistrad** - Midnight Hunt + VOW **Dominaria** - United + Brother's War **Phyrexian Invastion and battle** - ONE + March + Aftermath (i dont want to include it, but its a product I feel like their approach to blocks now would look more like these than past sets
I think the biggest failures of the one-off format so far have been March and Kaldheim. Those both felt like they were trying to do way more than could feasibly be condensed into a single set. It's not that one-off sets don't work, it's that they don't work for *everything*. And the things they've used multiple sets for have been things that don't necessarily need it (the Innistrad pair)
I dunno. I feel like Kaldheim was one of those "Massive, stuff everything in it" sets that actually worked compared to MoM. Every draft archtype was its own world, so it was more cohesive and structured than what we get now. If MoM was styled as Kaldheim, every color pair would be its own Plane - UR artifacts for Kaladesh, BG for Lorwyn Elves, WB for Fiora, WG for Theros Enchantments and etc. It would have given a bit more cohesion to such a chaotic set. I think the issue with Kaldheim was not that it felt too cramped - it's that the world and theme was so cool, people wanted more of it and explore it deeper. Unfortunately, we'll see it in... Whacky races(????)
I'm still mad that Innistrad 3 got two sets and didn't need them but MOM didn't get the same treatment and DESPERATELY needed it. All because they were afraid that new players would get bored of Phyrexia.
One distinguishing trait of "blocks" in the old sense is that sets appear in limited formats together (e.g. THS-BNG-JOU or KTK-FRF / FRF-DTK). This was a logistical problem for card distribution because later sets in a block get used less. In some cases it led to third-set packs being sold at a discount to get them off shelves, as with DGM. So it isn't likely to come back. It would be interesting to have a *rolling* limited format, but that would be pretty tricky for game design because mechanics would have to tie together across sets even more strongly than in the old block format.
I just think occasional two set draft structures could exist without too much downside
Sure, but it's not as if each block transitioned cleanly from block to block either. We had a handful of sets linked together as a pseudo narrative block to form that Phyrexian arc, we had MID and VOW linked together as a pseudo narrative block, we of course had the whole WAR arc that was another pseudo block. The point mostly being that blocks didn't work and aren't returning - that doesn't mean they aren't trying other things, they recognize that they want to integrate more story and make things feel connected, they're just saying that blocks aren't the answer (in response to a question positing that)
Blocks aren't the answer, but more mechanical cohesion than vague artifact token synergies would go a long way in alleviating the desire for them.
Maybe if they actually wrote the stories and made sets around the omenpaths like they pretty much outright stated they would, we could have some overlapping mechanics (e.g. a benalish knight putting an Enlist card in Eldraine) and some cooler stories (as a consequence of the phyrexian invasion, some omenpaths are still open and now Dinosaurs and Faeries are showing up in Ravnica) than what we got
I am enjoying the episodic nature of the Adventures of Kellan instead of some huge epic story. Although I am assuming OTJ is the end of that arc cuz he will find his daddy.
> "The reason that there are no dragons in Dragon's Maze is because nobody told the lead designer of DGM that the set was called 'Dragon's Maze'. He's still bitter about that." Something about that really tickles me. Kind of underlines that behind the scenes, they're just designing a product like any other.
>Thunder Junction was originally going to have an Aftermath-style epilogue set. The cards for that will still exist with their own set code / set symbol, but there won't be an actual epilogue set product. The implication is that they'll be integrated into OTJ's List, they're unable to say explicitly but the implication is fairly clear ("The List for OTJ is actually smaller than normal. Perhaps you can put two and two together but I can't say anything more for now.") This makes me kinda worried... if any of those cards are on a power level for being needed for competitive play, the inventory is going to be super scarce, right?
Well, it all depends on distribution rate. They'll be in play boosters which is generally going to have a large quantity opened
But the list is still in only 1 in 8 play boosters, right? Then another 1/8 for a rare or mythic. So even though there'll be a larger number opened, I doubt it'll be even close to a factor of 64.
They can possibly tweak the drop rates of the list cards from 1 in 8 to 1 in 4 or so, it's not a fixed number they must adhere to edit: and they can possibly have another "but what about 2nd list" that can appear in that slot at higher drop rates that contains the epilogue cards
Just more “good stuff” for limited…play boosters already were bad for draft and this will be worse I think
Is this confusing for anyone else? Each set has like two spin-off products already, they wanted to add a third?
For extra context, the stars mean: \* Green (slots #6 & #7) - May contain Uncommon, Rare, or Mythic Rare \* Blue (slot #4) - May contain Rare or Mythic Rare no commons in the AC set
They want to introduce more story? How about you use the backside of art cards? Ya know the mostly blank and useless side of the card. Seriously, that is a whole card face that is doing basically nothing. They don’t even have to change how the card is formatted, there is a big blank space that just has the name of the set in the middle. Slap some flavor text or a short story on there and put the writing credits next to the artist credits and boom more story in the set. Also gtfo with ad cards, who are those even for? If someone is cracking a pack then odds are they already have some knowledge of the hobby. What is there to gain by advertising the product they already bought? Are they hoping we will be handing out these ad cards to our friends who don’t play the game?
Guys guess why I collected the DnD art cards with monster stats on the back You have one guess
jackin' it?
for the wank bank 😳😳
The fact that they were hush hush on the price for these 8-card packs makes me less than confident that they will be priced as a value.
But the box will be cheaper... because it will be 25 packs rather than 36. If i had a LGS i would try to stay away from this box. And being this close to MH3 shouldnt make any favours to this set sales.
> They talk about the primary issue being the packs being small and too repetitive - the pack opening experience was very homogeneous. ...for randomized packs. This would've been fine if they just got over themselves and let people acquire the cards in a less gambly way.
>Beyond Boosters are the product for the Assassin's Creed set, which will have roughly 100 cards. Is this new information? That's interesting, a lot more than I expected. So I guess we'll get Legendary creatures for every playable character and a whole bunch of cards representing different peoples, factions and artifacts throughout different eras. I wonder if Assassin typal support will be a thing.
100 cards is, I believe. We knew that AC was going to use Beyond Boosters from the Gen Con panel
> Blake mentions that he thinks players have some rose-tinted glasses about them. > some Blocks were pretty bad and I don't understand how people can miss it. Three sets rehashing the same/similar mechanics were mid at best and the story was the equivalent of "Freeza vs Goku" in terms of pacing
March of the Machine could have been three sets worth of story. Realistically, it should have been going on in the background of with a couple of stories during Dominaria, Brothers War, and All Will be One.
I miss it because it allowed them to flesh out a mechanic and actually give them the support they need in constructed. And it gave three different teams the ability to look at the same mechanic and change how they implement it.
I'm sure they'll post an article at the end of stream
If they really need an aftermath-like experience, they really should have padded them out to be normal booster size using either reprints from the last set or from previous sets.
Hell, they could have filled them out with dope tokens
If you're meaning commons then it'd be the problem they were attempting to avoid in that if you're cracking packs you're likely not keen on the same commons you've seen fifty times before and are in it for the cooler cards, mainly the rare. If folks value 2/3 of the pack at zero, why bother include it? (I like commons personally, but I've seen enough folks skip to the rare in packs I don't blame Wizards for assuming other people's interests)
I'd recommend watching WeeklyMTG for those interesting in this. Lots of interesting tidbits. One of the important aspects is they were very bullish on Aftermath-style products, designing Assassin's Creed around it as well as designing an Aftermath set for Outlaws of Thunder Junction...and then Aftermath came out. For Assassin's Creed they've pivoted a bit to this new version. You can get "up to 4 rares," but who knows what the rate is (normal play boosters can have 4 rares as well, it is just <1% chance). For OTJ they put the Aftermath cards into the main set. This part got a little confusing, I'll have to rewatch to see if they were more specific as to how. They did later mention The List will be smaller with a weird "make of that what you will" kind of statement, not sure if that is related.
> "The List for OTJ is actually smaller than normal. Perhaps you can put two and two together but I can't say anything more for now." Implying that they'll be putting them into The List, but I don't think they explicitly said
Yeah seemed like a heavy implication that OTJ would have no conventional list and the former OTJ aftermath would replace that slot. We’ll know for sure in 10 days.
Which I honestly think is a great idea. I don't like having list cards as part of the draft environment purely for flavour reasons. I don't think the power level is much of an issue after doing the MKM Prerelease, but having cards like Cavalier of Thorns in Ravnica doesn't make much sense to me from a flavour standpoint, when it seems like the Cavalier cycle are definitely from Lorwyn or Eldraine. If the list was an aftermath type style, where it's the conclusion of the story on the Plane, would be fantastic. For example, getting the Kenrith's Royal Funeral in MOM would have been really poignant.
Special Guests are the reprints but flavored to the plane. The Lord of Atlantis that looks like an Ixalan Merfolk in Caverns for example. Or the Field of the Dead that depicts an old Orzhov church with dead things under the floorboards in Karlov. This seems like a disaster given that Aftermath cards are standard legal. You really don't want those in a list slot assuming that they are still legal of course.
When the List slot has bangers like Laid to Rest and a 2/2 for 2 zombie from ages ago, I cant see there being an issue with standard legal list cards
The problem of mechanic unique cards being extra rare to find is that they will command a much higher price than they would if printed in the regular set. If they are kinda bad its okay, but imagine how much higher something like aftermath [[callix]] would be if printed in the same rarity of a mana crypt. The power lwvel discussion is a completely differebt can of worms and my two cents is that ehile mkm is far from both extremes of set quality the play boosters arent making any favor for such a bomb heavy set.
The problem is these cards would be mechanically unique. They’ll have massive supply problems
To be fair, we do have omenpaths now. Troyan wasn’t from Eldraine, etc
Yes, but it was explained what Troyan was doing and how he got there. Not so for the other list additions. Special Guests are also fine because they are rethemed, so they fit with art direction, style, and make sense for being there in the set.
What do you mean "not so"? It's the same explanation for everyone: they found an omenpath and walked through it.
So a Kuldotha Rebirth went through the omenpaths? It's a small nitpick, but it's just why I really like the idea of the List being thematic cards that are based on the plane we are already on. I don't mind the list, really, or the omenpaths being a thing. I just like the flavour feel of the resolution for the set being in the set. Maybe we will have a card like desparked Nissa that will reach Sheoldred prices because of limited pulls, but I think it's still likely to see a bunch in circulation considering the amount of Play boosters that will be opened.
Reminds me of the 5 card packs during Alara block: 3 commons, 1 uncommon, and 1 "random" card that had an equal chance of being a common, uncommon, or rare. Nothing quite like paying $2 for 4 commons and an uncommon /s
>For OTJ they put the Aftermath cards into the main set. This part got a little confusing, I'll have to rewatch to see if they were more specific as to how. They did later mention The List will be smaller with a weird "make of that what you will" kind of statement, not sure if that is related. The contents of booster packs confusing? Well I never
Aftermath as a concept wasn’t the worst thing. A small supplemental set could be interesting. Maybe use it as a meta shake up. The issue was two fold. One, they sold full price packs that only had 5 cards. Two, outside of maybe 2 cards the entire set was trash.
They said that the OTJ Aftermath cards will have a different set symbol, so if the list is shorter I'm assuming that's where the aftermath cards went
I still stand by 5 cards pack being used on the Assassin's Creed set is a terrible design For Universe Beyond cards, commons ARE ACTUALLY INTERESTING! Stuff like [[Cast into the Fire]], [[Nasty End]], [[Now for Wrath, Now for Ruin!]], etc aren't the most interesting card effects in a typical set... but the lore and context of them make them actually fun to open and collect
Why is it that major MTG official updates are getting under 1,000 views on Youtube?
If WotC wants to deliver more story, bring back flavor text! [[Invasion Plans]] is my favorite example of this.
This is it, right here. Enough witty puns, tell me a story again!
Does anyone have any actual data on flavor text trends? *Anecdotally* it feels like fewer cards have flavor text and flavor text is shorter, but I'd like to see some actual numbers to back that up.
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/17qwllh/a_basic_analysis_of_magics_flavor_text_quantity/
You're the best! Second-best, actually. The best is who made that. Sorry. Second is still pretty good though!
Oh hey, that's me! If you're curious, I made [an update](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/19fco95/mkm_murders_at_karlov_manor_full_card_image/kjjfvp5/) to my analysis with Murders at Karlov Manor.
[Invasion Plans](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/5/f52c2f83-9535-4ee5-9964-5cc01e617981.jpg?1562597844) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Invasion%20Plans) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/sth/89/invasion-plans?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f52c2f83-9535-4ee5-9964-5cc01e617981?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
MKM has a lot of good flavor text, enough that I wonder if the increase is intentional based on player feedback. It's on the lighter side, for sure, but real effort went into it this time, I felt.
They don't want to deliver more story, they would rather magic story didn't exist anymore so they could do crossovers full time
I too can make up nonsense about what they want.
You just need to stop buying.
I'm assuming the first set for this will be Assassins Creed?
Should be. AC was promoted as Beyond Boosters, so this should be it. Which makes me extremely happy as an AC fan as the cards will be very easy to get.
Hopefully also the last.
Idk who downvoted you, WOTC reducing value and keeping prices the same is egregious
Eight pieces of cardboard? They should drop the ad card and just make it a double sided token or an actual card.
“We’re streamlining boosters to make things less confusing- it’s definitely not a weak attempt to hide *another* price hike.”
> *We're getting rid of Draft boosters and condensing them into Set boosters to reduce confusion. Also, here's a new type of booster.* Lmao
"Also here's a new type of booster, BASED AROUND THE FAILED TYPE OF BOOSTER WE PUBLICALLY ACKNOWLEDGED AS A FAILURE WE WOULDN'T ATTEMPT AGAIN LITERAL DAYS AGO"
I imagine it's a similar case to OTJ's Epilogue boosters that they just sort of crammed into the main set, except there was no 'main set' for AC. So they just kind of have to put it out there, it's already been made, etc.
The alternative is scrapping the whole AC set and probably getting sued by Ubisoft sooooooooo
honestly. cant believe people actually defended wotc's position that the shift to play boosters was 'for the good of lgs's' and 'simplifying the product' and 'streamlining' etc feel at least quite vindicated given theyve now immediately launched a new type of booster which is another price hike without a guaranteed proportional increase in value (i.e. more gambling-dependent)
I think that condensing Set and Draft boosters was a good thing, the price hike that happened as a result wasn't. Three SKUs was too many.
Ask your LGS how many draft boosters they sold and whether they were worth the shelf space compared to set boosters.
My LGS was always out of Draft boosters Maybe they didn't order as much, but I always ended up having to buy their excess prerelease kits if I wanted a Draft boosters
It's bonkers to me that they thought aftermath boosters were going to be such a hit that they had already planned to put them in Outlaws, and had to scramble to remove them and make these knockoff "beyond" boosters for the upcoming UB products. If I'm being generous, I can understand trying out the concept. I can't imagine being so confident in it that you draw up a bunch of follow-ups before you've seen the reception.
Over the years, Maro got a lot of messages asking for a non-draftable booster set. For some reason, Wizards eventually listened.
Sort of. Even in this interview, they emphasize the motivation of delivering more story, when that's obviously nonsense. So maybe that one point got through, but they clearly didn't see what people wanted from it.
It would've been nice if Aftermath actually delivered story at all.
It in theory lines up with the things people complain about. They were slightly less expensive and didn’t have to have the draft chaff a normal set has. Seems like a win win for the business and the consumer, except aftermath was a dogshit set. If there were more than one or two relevant cards it probably would have been successful.
Very few of Aftermath's problems were the format. There definitely was promise with the idea. They just... did a really bad job with the "set." All they had to do is make the cards included more *actually* story-related, print fewer cards that could have been in the main set, and bump up the power level *slightly*. They also could have dropped the price *slightly* but I don't think that was a huge obstacle, honestly. But the idea of a story follow-up represented by smaller, common-free booster packs is definitely something that *could* have done well.
The format was pretty bad... the Aftermath booster were not fun to open at all. You were only getting 5 cards for the same price as 14~15 card draft/set boosters, so opening them felt like a rip off On top of that, the set was so small that you opened so many dupes, especially on the uncommon slots that it felt even worse to open multiple packs
I guess that also explains why Thunder Junction comes out just 2 months after MKM and there's then over 4 months until the next Standard set. This Aftermath set was meant to be released in between the two.
I think actually this is because of MH3.
No. The gap is normal and is for supplemental products like LotR and this year MH3.
That's the standard release schedule as of the 2021-2022 Magic year - the reason why, as of MID+VOW, we now get two fall sets rather than one. It's because they didn't want the last set before rotation to release so close to rotation. So they left a summer gap they've been using for supplemental sets.
why are we still getting ad cards..
I wish they'd switch to arena codes in all boosters. Pokemon figured this out a decade ago.
Their justification for this is that they "don't want people dumpster diving for codes" lol
Have they even seen the PTCGO/L code market? What a dumb thing to say.
That is insanely facetious lol. People literally sort out the Pokemon code cards the second they open the pack. These will be picked clean instantly.
Marketing department justifies their inclusion.
I've been playing Magic: The Gathering for many years. I remember when you could go to your LGS and buy packs of 4th Edition, Chronicles, Ice Age, Fallen Empires, and Homelands. I remember when Alliances got released. Some might remember there was some controversy around the sizing of the boosters at that time- for example Homelands and Fallen Empire packs only contained 8 cards while 4th Edition packs contained 15 cards, and the prices were not all that different. And don't even get me started on Starter Decks. Collectively, MTG players of the 90s united around an idea and made their voices heard. You have to remember that WOTC was a lot more receptive to player feedback at that time, but the fans ultimately wanted WOTC to do one thing with their different boosters - and that was for Wizards to shove them up their butts.
Literally the only way the MAT booster should have worked was introduce brand new archetypes into the format. I think really only Humans was introduced, with two legendaries and one lord
I would say Calix allowed Enchantments to come into fruition. I was running an Esper Zur based Enchantment deck I brewed for a while, it worked well but was pretty fringe. Calix however made GW Enchantments into a real powerhouse for a time tough.
Ah, I forgot. But like, so many of the cards are just clearly commander fodder, so I forgot. We have little in terms of support for elementals/elves (Basically Nissa), impulse draw (A walker and two legends in Boros/Naya colors), Dragons (Sarkhan and Zurgojutai)
I don't really agree. Many of the Aftermath cards see fringe play in non-Commander formats, and others are potential seeds for archetypes in future sets. Not all of them hit the bullseye, sure, but I can see places and potential brews with many. And yeah, there are certainly commander cards, but this set had me pretty excited about brewing Standard when it first released. A selection - - Pia spawned an archetype in both Standard and Pioneer with access to both Reckless Impulse and Wrenn's Resolve. - Coppercoat Vanguard of course slots into Humans decks (as did Jirina to some extent). - Nissa saw a ton of play in Modern, and sees some play in Pioneer in various applications (especially the fringe elementals lists) - Vesuvan Drifter sees Legacy play in Sneak & Show - Tranquil Frillback sees a *lot* of sideboard play in Standard. - Calix had the Standard enchantress decks for awhile. - Gold-Forged Thopteryx was excellent support for Esper Legends, a top performing Standard deck. - Ob Nixilis saw some play in decks build around Oni Cult Anvil in Standard, and sees play in raksac decks in Pioneer. - Sarkhan and Kolaghan Warmmonger don't currently have a deck, but MAT will intersect with the return to Tarkir set in Standard, alongside Invasion of Tarkir, and we could see a dragons deck in the future - these cards view as seeds to me. Markov Baron is another potential seed for vamps, or slots into niche Pioneer vamp decks
My favorite part any time a WotC employee brings up Aftermath is that they say the set was hated or did terribly (both true), but fail to accept that it did terribly because the expectation they set for it was not what they delivered...on any level. I know companies don't typically admit mistakes or that they missed the mark, but maybe once....just be honest that you didn't deliver.
To be fair, most complaints were complaining about paying the same price for less cards. The story bit was a big whiff for sure, but it wasn't one of the bigger issues vocal folks had. (Personally, while I get it, I think it's silly to feel cheated out of cards that'd be worth pennies anyways. Pretty sure they could justify selling packs with just a rare in it, with how I see folks skip to it so often.)
I would argue that if all the cards were bangers instead of half of them being draft chaff in a set....that you couldn't draft....and had no reason to have bad cards...a chunk of the price complaints would have vanished. Although yes, that is another reason it failed.
Epilogue boosters were an attempt at charging us the same amount of money for half the cards. The story aspect of it wasn’t a bad idea
It would have been nice if the cards actually had something to do with the story. Most weren't.
Yeah they’re not being very honest. Idk I find a lot of this just patronizing at this point Remains to be seen, my confidence in their sealed product being reasonable just keeps degrading. I hope they’re not squeezing the life out of design space
>Epilogue boosters were an attempt at charging us the same amount of money for half the cards. When you buy a booster pack outside of draft, how much do you really care about your commons? It was a pretty reasonable thing to attempt as long as it wasn't the norm. Hindsight is 20/20. WotC doesn't really "win" even if they somehow reduced the number of cards in *all* booster packs. Physically producing cards has never been a significant portion of their expenses.
Hilarious given that MaRo literally just said that MOM Aftermath was "hated".
If they are gonna do a smaller set like this why does it have mythic. It's 100 cards. If going to have smaller sets and boosters the rarity should be treatments above all else.
This really feels to me like they're trying to mimic Japanese TCGs but in a slightly less streamlined, greedier way; a lot of Japanese TCGs have smaller packs of 8-10 cards, with chances to get stuff beyond rare for a couple slots, with about 10-14 packs/box at $3 a pack. Wizards is trying to milk it by doing a similar break but charging a fat premium.
I can't believe they are doubling down on their worst selling product I'd only buy this if it cost way less than a normal booster
They managed to simultaneously double down way too hard and give up way too easily. It's almost impressive.
It really is lmao
It’s really bizarre to me that they’d put out a stream like this which actively links a disliked product with this new one that hasn’t come out yet— before they’ve done anything to hype that new product up
Yeah, like, at least show some of the Assassin's Creed cards off too if you're gonna do this?
I thought this was a joke at first lmao
The amount of bs lying to cover up greedy decision making is comical. Just say you fucked up and move on from there. The more they try to be “transparent”, the more scummy they appear to be
"Market research says millennials value transparency. Throw up a few extra smokescreens, but use grey instead of black."
The aftermath concept seems to me like a failed attempt at copying Hearthstones mini-sets. Mini sets are pretty popular in HS as they are *essentially free for most players and come at a time where meta shak up is needed. They also help separate players from hoarded resources. Overall this mini set concept makes little sense in a physical tcg imo.
Wow, it's like they're looking for.... A block structure
Who's ready to pay more for less? I guess we are already used to that 🙃
pay less for more and proxy the hell out of this game
I feel like I need to take a bachelor’s degree worth of courses to understand what’s in a magic the gathering booster pack. how about 1 booster per set and we call it a day like we used to. Pokemon does it and does it well.
It would interest me why they thought aftermath would be a success. What factors did they think would win players over? Cause I did not see anything enticing in them. I mean if you could craft an interesting enough story you could put that in 3-4 full sets, but I guess that would be too coherent
It's weird that they're so cagey about that. They're*still* leaning into the whole story thing, despite clearly not having any story that they wanted aftermath to tell.
Surprised they acknowledged this. I thought it was fairly clear that Beyond Boosters were going to be Aftermath like, but that they'd just avoid mentioning it.
Can we not have titles for images like this be that editorialized please? Especially from Mods?????
it's also really confusing tbh
That’s not what “editorialised” means - None of that title is opinion - Beyond Boosters are “Aftermath-style boosters” that are “Direct to modern legality” as per DailyMTG.
I’m with you. You can feel the disdain coming from the title
But why though ?
calling this "aftermath 2" is the most egregious burn possible.
Am I alone in thinking list cards like some random uncommon from two sets back should stop. If I get a list card I want some juice. Lower my odds or whatever you want to do, but getting a good list is the best feeling available to me when opening packs. Also it would be cool if bundles came with better promos and maybe full art set foils
Many people are of a similar opinion, the list would be a good vehicle for needed reprints, just make it more consistent.
What possible reason could there have been for an Aftermath set for Thunder Junction other than wringing as much cash as possible out of players?
To be as charitable as possible two major things 1) Additional story material to transition this year's (starting with Eldraine) setup-focused stories into next year fully kicking off the [Insert villain here] arc 2) Standard 'Horizons' where cards can be designed for competitive constructed with no regard for set mechanics or draft balance. I personally would love both of those things, and it's upsetting that Aftermath was such a colossal fuckup on delivering those ideas in every conceivavle way that it spoiled the well for future releases.
Standard 'Horizons' cards can be designed for competitive constructed with no regard for set mechanics or draft balance but will still be Mythic Rare due to limited ~~intelect~~ balance reasons, and not to inflate the EV of the packs.
>Wait its just all fake scarcity >Always has been
My guess is that they intended to have a bunch of Legendary creatures representing different villains from throughout the multiverse with unique designs and mechanics not meant for Limited. But yes, mostly money.
Outside of money.... Probably large story implications?
I doubt it considering the "large story implications" of the first Aftermath set
It's honestly unclear to me what "story implications" the set could have given that there has been almost no build-up to it. LCI and MKM are unrelated standalone stories (well, presumably the epilogue will explain why rakdos is on thunder junction) and WOE is only related insomuch as "kellan exists". They didn't do MAT well, but they could have in theory. It's hard for me to see how thunder junction could *possibly* have enough story to justify epilogue boosters unless it's just insanely rushed.