Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty

 I am actually pretty pumped about Kamigawa:Neon Dynasty.

In a way it seems to be going towards everything magic should be.

New, innovating and having a tension with old and new.

Magic at its heart has always been about innovation and change.

At its heart magic is kinda the ultimate geekdom.

Remember instants and interrupts. Interrupts are what triggers an Operating System to intervene.

Yes thats why interrupts have priority over instants.

And the stack? Hoo boy. Loops? Infinite loops. Yep.

So at its heart magic has been a very systems context. Its kinda like watching Matrix and nodding your head in understanding when the agent assimilate people, or when Agent Smith goes loco with the clones.

In terms of innovation, Magic was always exploratory. The fatasy aspect was the loose duct tape.

First it was permanents versus temporal spells.

Different axis of attacks. The hand, the library, types of permanents. Discard, direct damage, counterspells, land destruction,

poison, mass creature destruction, mass LD, targeted LD,mill, all magic. all flavours.

Thats why I hate the whiners who hate on one aspect, whether it be poison, counterspells or LD or discard.

Its all magic. Deal with it. Man up. Or we could just ban everything :)

Oh well. Magic mirrors life, life mirrors magic.

Anyway Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty looks really really slick. Ninjas, techno spirits, ghost in the shellish tropes. I like it so far.

And in a way NEO (the abbreviation for the SET), is a fitting set to mirror WOTC's current state. Magic is having a very teneous relationship with its past.

Even draft boosters are being question and shaken. Pro play has been largely forsaken. Magic is now pandering to whales annd the boutique customers.

Its all change and we do not know how its all gonna shake out.

But it all looks awesome and pretty, much like the neon lights in NEO.

But would the reality be like?

Hopefully NEO will be a labor of love that bears fruit.

MID and VOW both felt very templated (though the Dracula series art was quite nice). 

NEO feels like there is potential to do so much more.

I would like to be surprised WOTC :)

[20211219 11:22]

Seems like the phyrexians may be involved!!

Summary of what we know so far:

Keyworded Counters will be in

Kyodai, the thingie that got stolen is in

Flip cards, the original dragons( insome form) + other old aspects (like Horobi's Death Wail), enchantment creatures)

Ninjas, Demons (Hidetsugu! Heartless fellow, never called) and funky new full art lands yowza!

 

2021 where hast thee been? vart hav they bean feedin ya!

 Wow.

I just realised this is thhe first and possibly last post for 2021

2021 has been a mostly disappointing year. For stuff going on IRL work that kind of thing.

But nothing we can't rectify. 

Just like we rectify in magic with BANS BANS BANS!!

kidding. Well not really.

WOTC now has this habit of printing over powered cards and then dragging their feet when it needs to be banned.

At least until they have bled the set dry.

Exaamples would Oko (rest in peace :p) and I am sure quite a few more, but the current elephant, no correction monkey in

the room is Ragavan.

Now it is debatable should Ragavan be the one to take the hit.

I like Ragavan. I like it alot. When I like them. They are usually bannable :p.

Ragavan, Murktide Regent, Oko, Uro, Wrenn.

So many. So bannable.

Now thing is, if you are already banning cards for power, it needs to be consistent, to mantain a power level.

If you do not wish to ban, then really you should let the format go to hell and let it burn. 

...

clue: it won't.

 it WILL balance itself out ... Just that not everyone will like the outcome.

Remember when I said the Eldrazi and Hoogak (oki maybe not the hoogak, I was mostly absent for Hoogak, saw a few matches, "I like it :D", and it was banned... ermmm... oki...) bans were nonsense.

Well what do you know? With MH1 and MH2, the meta and decks became unrecognisable.

It was mostly becos the power level for modern was low, it was'nt that Eldrazi or Hoogak was too strong (oki they were pretty good), but it was that modern was insipidly weak. Further, the last major tournament before Eldrazi got banned was won by

a coco combo deck. In a field of Eldrazi. That, my friend is the power and prize of innovation. Free RL lesson there (cos in real life things don't just get banned when you cannot take the heat :p).

So what happen with Modern was with the influx of MH1 and MH2, the power levels shot up. Just read the reviews, people love it! At least, people who bought into MHX.

So modern, many seem to like it. I can tell you why, cos the decks are way closer in power level to legacy :)

Welcome to legacy bois and gals.

For Legacy however, the power got ratcheted up. Again.

Usually thats not a problem. Since the problem kinda sits there till it got solved. See Necro Summer, Tolarian Winter?Spring? I dunno, and even Eldrazi Winter, but that got cut short.

But well Legacy got ALOT of interest and you can see dual lands being bought out et cetera. Modern players are shifting over...

and we start to see bans.

It started with Oko.

Then we saw a few more.

And now currently its Ragavan.

I am oki with Ragavan going actually, its just another one to go, possible for the better since we ARE already banning stuff.

The problem as always is too much product, creating a huge churn and influx of cards. And no magic players are not particularly smart, you can tell from the way they rather whine than find solutions. But to be fair, time is not given to solve the problem. Seriously give it a few months, Ragavan will be still powerful but irrelevant. Not because it is not powerful but some other powerful card is revealed and interest waned (or people stop playing hoho).

Thing is if we want to stop banning cards. We need to f**king STOP banning cards. No excuses. No exceptions.

Ditto if we take te BAN path.

Else we get a nonsensical meta that is curated to some rando's whim. That is a meta I have no wish to be a part of.

chill people, have a good rest of the year :)