Whenever I leave the theater and I see how much mess people leave behind after staying so long that they stole cleanup time, I feel guilty on their behalf. Respect for doing it
I like staying for a while when a movie was great… It’s a moment of reflection and leaving an immersive experience gradually before moving on. I‘d put the blame more on the need to get ready for the next showing as quickly as possible but then again, I never worked in a movie theater.
@bTarczy just don't leave your trash when you leave and it's not much of an issue. The issue is the theaters are left an absolute disgrace and the time to clean is shortened by the end-credit culture. The film crew deserve to be known for their efforts as much as the cast, so I believe it's on us as the audience to do a better job of self-regulating. That way, the ushers can reasonably complete their task in the time they have between films. And frankly, it's just polite. Someone being paid to clean doesn't mean you should disregard the mess you leave behind
@Tommaso Chiesa and Jace tms, liliana of the veil, wrenn and six, Nissa worldwreaker, elspeth knight errant, nicol bolas ravager, flip Jace, all of war of the spark. The lorwyn 5 and shards bolas were great. Anything other than those 6 has pushed the game too far
You actually got BOTH predictions right: The planes are more interconnected, AND planeswalkers have been greatly reduced in number and in focus. Impressive guesswork!
think the most flavorful card for Innistrad in the aftermath of what they went through is Avacyn's Memorial, which only appeared in set and collecter boosters. It's flavor text is, "They had no marble, so the faithful repaired her likeness with wood, straw, twine, and clay." It was also a way worse version of Avacyn, Angel of Hope which also felt like a way to acknowledge what was lost... and make you feel way worse if you pulled one.
@@Spice8Rack It took me a solid 15 minutes and finally typing "straw" into scryfall's advanced search feature to remember it's name. Don't think it helps that it was locked behind premium products.
I think the most significant result of the events on Innistrad is the rise of the "pagan" witches compared to the previous angel cult, even without outright stating so on every witch card.
I know everyone has said they'd like less planeswalker centric stories, but personally I think a healthy mix could be quite nice. Back in ice age, for example, there was a lot of non planeswalking plot around lim dul making an army, and disease outbreak and the baluvians and the rhymewind and the phyrexian beasts being unearthed. But there was also a bunch of planeswalkers deciding to go to the null moon to have a meeting, and eventually cast the world spell.
Mmmm I would agree. I think, regardless of how involved planeswalkers are in the story *something* has to shift in terms of their place in the narrative to keep things fresh.
I think Planeswalker centered narratives can be good. Children of the Nameless revolves significantly around Davriel and its scope is exclusively in a small corner of Innistrad far away from any of the important politics. It doesn't even span the entire plane. That said, I love small stories on the sidelines a lot far away from the central world shaking action. Funnily enough, I predominantly get my fix with TTRPGs. A short campaign in Ravnica following rando guild members. My friend is about to run an Avatar game that's off to the side of the Korra narrative. One of my favorite campaigns I ever played was one that followed a Noble House in the Mistborn setting that dealt with its own bullshit outside of the eye of the protagonists. These sorts of stories are what truly makes a universe feel alive
@@U.Inferno Yes, of course, I just think it's a lot easier to have those types of stories when you don't have the ability to teleport out of any situation unless you don't want to.
@@user-yw6fb8us7j you have a point. The only reason why Davriel sticks around is because he's already set up all of his demon contracts that he'd rather deal with the plot than uproot everything.
I love your long video essays but this made me realise again that I also love (and missed a little bit) your "image over image while you deliver punchline after punchline"-videos. Love it, thanks!
The thing for me that made the 2015-2017 Gatewatch era of the Magic storyline my favorite was that, despite it all building up to a confrontation with Nicol Bolas, there was an extensive focus on personal character motivations and interactions, and even a few domestic scenes of the planeswalker protagonists in their downtime. It was a much more personal and character-driven approach to MtG's narrative than anything that came before or since, and it feels like that was lost after War of the Spark went and fucked everything up.
I felt that we got a taste of this with New Capenna. As much as that story posed itself as being about finding a weapon against Phyrexia, it was really about Elspeth finding about where she came from, and fighting for her child self through fighting for Giada's freedom. I wish they had committed to it more, but it is there and not enough people talk about it.
11:50 I think they could do something like what Araki did with JoJo. The story moved from the world-wide existential threats of the first three parts to a very localized and small-scale mystery in a small town. It worked wonderfully, and Diamond Is Unbreakable is one of the most beloved parts of JoJo to this day.
It is also worth noting that despite the fact that everyone is in a small town, Diamond is Unbreakable hosts the largest amount of stands able to punch up, such as The Lock eventually causing suicide by causing guilt, Surface locking people in place to kill themselves by forcing that, Yukako’s powerful hair, the ultimate trap stand called Superfly, another instakill stand in Cheap Trick, a stand that will guarantee killing by relentless chasing called Highway Star, possibly Earth Wind And Fire, a fast long-range stand that can power up in Red Hot Chili Pepper, and the ability to capture anything within paper with Enigma. That is just the minor antagonists. On the protagonists side, restoration basically allows for almost anything with Crazy Diamond, Heaven’s Door is the ultimate information stand, Koichi’s Echoes Act 2 basically has far too many long-range effects, and despite himself Okuyasu still uses the swiping of The Hand well twice. Despite all of these, Killer Queen, Sheer Heart Attack, and Bites the Dust are all the more terrifying because Kira expects the world will indulge him his hand fetish.
@@iantaakalla8180 I may not get all of the music references you just made, but I know enough to figure that you're not making any of that up. Jojo truly is bizarre.
Ever since Emma (aka Emrakul) has locked herself in the moon, saying that the plane wasn't ready, I've been waiting for the Eldrazi to be the good guys, cleaning up the mess that some other villain made. Would fit very well with the next commander set including a colorless precon
I can see the Drowned eldritch creature(god according to Lier) or creatures of Innistrad waking by the Phyrexian invasion and giving Emrakul a new friend
What if the Edlrazi are not meaingfully changed by compleation. They don't respond to the oil like other creatures do, can't be meaningfully controlled and so forth.They just continue doing thier own Eldrazi things while completely ignoring what Phyrexia tries to do to them. Which could then result in half the Phyrexians concluding that they are a error in reality that needs to be stomped out and the other deciding that Eldrazi are even more perfect then Phyrexia and therefor try to transform themselves into Eldrazi (which either fails becouse it's not possible to transform things into Eldrazi, or severly hampers the invasion becouse the newly Eldrazi-ed Phyrexians suddenly don't have any more intrest in conquest). The resulting infighting gives Mirridains and the inhabitants of other planes the oppertunity to drive Phyrexia out. This would result in a state where Phyrexians are still around, but in a scattered and weakened form. Hiding in the crevices of the multiverse, licking it's wounds and having an existensial crisis.
@@HiddenDragon555 I love this! I was already theorizing that Emrakul and the Eldrazi would be responsible for the downfall of Phyrexia directly, but this is an awesome direction to take it. One way I could see this working is that Emrakul, once Phyrexia gets to Innistrad, sees Realmbreaker doing weird stuff in the blind eternities, says "enough of that" and goes straight to New Phyrexia to sort this out herself, which could lead to what you theorized while also either leaving tunnels which people can just go through or closing them as Realmbreaker's roots are destroyed
Definitely thought we were getting this to deal with the Phyrexians, I expected some new titans worked in after the announcement that one of the commander precons was Eldrazi.
In defense of Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow the entire story is about fixing the day night cycle. A cycle messed up because of the Emrakul being sealed within the moon.
In attack of Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow, I played a lot of standard when those sets were current, and I had no idea that was even part of the story. The story that comes across through the actual card game in those sets is the vampire wedding and the werewolf infighting.
The one other thing is also at least the whole coven stuff is meant to be a response to Avavyn being gone and angels, other than sigarda, failing to protect them. Turning to old belief systems for hope. Just poorly handled overall
It feels like the same problem as the dceu movies. Like there's a complex world/setting/character Lore document that the behind the scenes crew have access to, but it's not making it to "the screen" somehow...
A few things i would say: Concerning Innistrad, i like Graham Stark's narrative of the eldrazi come in and the humans go 'Ah, Judith has become a spaghetti monster, Martha get me the sharp axe.' So the idea of Innistradian's not talking too much about it doesn't feel as weird as Zendikar. In terms of where its going, I feel it can truly go either way but i think the idea of legendary creatures from multiple places going across planes would be fascinating. Especially Niv-Mizzet who has wanted to learn about Planeswalkers for so long, him dealing with the Dragons of Strixhaven sounds wonderful to me.
With Thunder Junction, we’ve started to get a little bit of the “cultures of the multiverse crossing and interacting”. Course, they kinda fucked it up by throwing cowboy hats on almost everyone, but the tech interactions between Kaladesh, Ravnica, and Kamigawa are pretty cool to see. Also quite enjoy seeing that Innistradi Stitching has become supercharged thanks to angel blood becoming insanely easier due to Halo becoming a multiversal product. Like, in the side story that focused on Geralf and Gisa, there was a woman who happened to have Halo on her, and it just left Geralf happily confused.
Fantastic stuff, this is an eventual problem for any media franchise that wants to go one forever while also continually raising the stakes every installment.
It is also worth noting that after the Tournament of Power, the Dragon Ball multiverse was basically scrapped. The next two are musings on how power is gained in Dragon Ball and Goku’s past and motivations, respectively. And somehow, the second one is a far more compelling story despite a competition over being the strongest in the world being a plot point.
One of the few ongoing narratives that I've found doesn't do that is Nobuyuki Fukumoto's Kaiji. We're 27 years deep and the current arc has Kaiji trying to smooth things over with a local granny who doesn't like him. Another one worth reading is Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo. 40 years in and, yes, there have been huge scale conflicts, but the story by and large is still grounded in a simple wanderer's journey. The key is writing interesting conflicts that are worth engaging with not just because the stakes are greater. This can be kind of hard to think up so, yeah, it's pretty common for mid authors to take easy ways out because it is commercially viable.
It is worth noting that MTG's 'multiverse' is more like a large galaxy with elitist infrastructure than the multiverses that comics often employ. I think this great because I actually could not be more bored by the idea of sets in which Jace gets to meet Jace from Vryn 616 to fight Jace from Vryn 47.
I think youre forgetting that Avacyn died in the events of SOI block, and the entire point of Katildas conclave and the weird, Wickerman aethetic that Midnight Hunt takes on is because the humans are trying to find a way to not die because their saviors are gone. Otherwise, great video
They're also turning to different cults now that their religion has been destroyed - literally, god is dead and Emrakul killed her. Not just the witch cult, though that seems to be the most popular - the cards show us a demon cult, a giant frog cult (no, not the gitrog) and a giant slug cult (which wants their god to do a pokemon battle with the not-gitrog).
Spice is such an unapologetic nerd I love it. Additionally, I cannot tell if it is legitimately allergic to beer, or if that was just a joke cause it rhymed nice.
I always thought that the best way to tell a story in magic and showcase the world would be to basically have a bunch of anthology stories that all take place in the same plane I think it would help you explore more perspectives of the citizens of the plane and be more interesting overall
Some of my favourite magic stories was the anthologies of guilds of ravnica and ravnica alligance, having a single story focusing on each guild was great
Isn’t this what the side stories do in modern magic story? Granted, there have been quite a few side stories that were just extensions of the main story in the last year or so (Kaito’s Origin in NEO, The Side of Freedom in SNC, etc.), but it’s much better than the alternative of having novels if the writers didn’t want to try to shoehorn everything into one story (no major appearance from Embereth in The Wildered Quest means no story for it at all, same with Narset and the other cities in Ikoria for The Sundered Bond).
@@aLukepop Narset has no meaningful knowledge of the Jeskai. As far as her current self's experiences go, she's very interested in the Jeskai as a piece of history, but she has little emotional attachment to her save for the implications about her present. More resonant to her lived experience is that Sarkhan's actions saved Ojutai, who has been her teacher and mentor for most of her life. Also, their personal quirks are cute together.
I hope the phyrexians will not be fully defeated, because they are such interesting villains. I think having a phyrexian presence hidden in the shadows on multiple planes offers a lot of potential for future storry telling.
Honestly, I'm just kinda done with the Phyrexians. Sure, they have a distinct aesthetic, but they're just... so in-your-face about everything that they kinda get stale. Nicol Bolas worked because he wasn't so blatant about everything, and his evil villain plots were able to change significantly while remaining in service to his overarching goal.
I could see March of the Machine ending with world breaker destroyed and Norn dead, but the phyrexians as a whole survive under another Praetor's rule. Maybe with smaller encampments hiding on other planes that will decide to go subtle for a while.
I mean, you would literally need something like the weapon on Dakara in SG1 that literally completely disabled each and every replicator block to completely remove phyrexia from everything.
Also can I just mention how much I adore that you sing the praises of Shadowmoor/Lorwyn and such, easily my favourite setting/plane. Right up there with early Innistrad, even higher than Ravnica, so that says a lot! But it was absolutely fantastic.
I was not expecting a Game Changer meme in my Spice8Rack video but it just perfectly mixed two of my absolute favourite things! So thanks Spice for making me literally have to pause the video and laugh for a solid thirty seconds! Big love!
To be fair, Magic has already done the sealing of realms previously, such as Ulgrotha, the beacon on whatever the sparkstealing arc is on, or even the shard of the twelve world situation.
your joke about magic’s narrative competence hit extra hard for me because i got into magic at the tail end of the theros block and stopped playing around when amonkhet released
As a writer, I haven't seen this but the fact chapter one is called 'Marvelisation of all Media' has to mean this video is SPICY. We need more genre anarchy. Something like One Piece, or 40k or yes, even Magic. I want to be in a multiverse that feels like it is actually infinite. In fact, the only thing I have seen that fits the bill and it isn't even a franchise is Everything Everywhere All At Once. AKA: As Wisecrack put it, "Michelle Yeoh and the Multiverse of Sadness."
Errant Signal did a video about how companies are copying the marvel intro logo. If we're talking about how marvel has influenced other media, this is probably the least important facet of that conversation, but it's still a fascinating and niche topic.
When I was chatting about the multiversal change for the MTG universe after March of the Machines (This was a few months ago now), one weird idea I had that I just love the idea of but know would probably not work would be planes healing from the damage by kinda joining together. The breach in the multiverse allowing some planes to meld into one or even eat others. Its a weird concept but I always enjoyed the idea for the different weird combos you could do
It's nice in that it creates a more controlled application where you can make more contained planar bubbles, and still keep open the possibility of huge clusters or hidden tunnels beyond a bubble.
i really really want eldraine to focus on jace and vraska again with the focus being on their coming to terms with both the physical and psychological horrors they endured under the rule of phyrexia. It needs a lot of specific things to happen to be able to get to that point but if its possible it really seems like an excellent chance to explore broad concepts that parallel back to the struggles we face daily as well as shedding insight into the workings of things related to magic itself.
Considering how Vraska recognised Jace when she was being phyrexianised, there is good reason to believe their minds are still there, and it will simply take someone severing their connection to the Phyrexian hivemind to restore it, even if only partially. This could very well be the culmination of an arc for Tezzeret, the former puppet of Bolas, innoculated against Phyrexian oil, making a sacrifice to ensure that those twisted by Phyrexia (that don't habe contingencies of their own) are saved
What I really want is for magic to go back to 3-set blocks. But instead of the multiverse-ending threat taking the spotlight in every set, the 3 sets of a block would follow a structure: Set 1: What is this plane like? What are the people here like? What kind of animals live here? Set 1 would be like Guilds of Ravnica or Ravnica Allegiance, setting the stage for the conflict to come. Set 2: This would be similar to how sets work nowadays in terms of story. Some planeswalkers show up, maybe a world-ending threat attacks, and then the planeswalkers leave. Set 3: The aftermath. After the threat is defeated, how are things going now? How has this plane changed? How are the peoples affected? I think that this is a similar structure to Alara block, but I’m not quite sure. I’m very curious about what Ravnica looks like after War of the Spark. How are the guilds faring? What’s Niv-Mizzet doing now that he’s the living guildpact? But that’s just one example. How’s Kaldheim doing now that Esika and Valki have been attacked? How’s New Capenna after one of the five guys that runs the city is murdered? How did Zendikar look immediately after the Eldrazi were defeated? How about Ixalan when the Immortal Sun gets yoinked into another dimension? The story needs time to breath, is what I’m saying. Edit: Also, I think that Kaldheim is a model of how the multiverse will function after the Phyresis nation attacks. There’s a vast cosmos between the planes that can’t be traversed by most beings, but certain beasts like Koma or vehicles like the Omenkeel could travel between worlds. Maybe planeswalkers would be able to cross this new cosmos using their spark, maybe not. It’s said in the Kaldheim lore that planeswalkers can’t cross the Cosmos. Additionally, Omenpaths and Doomskars could be rare ways for travelers to find new world. There could be experts who can track down Omenpaths and scholars who map different worlds. Tyrite weapons that slice through the veil could be there too. It could be like before the mending, where extraplanar travel was achievable by non-spark means. Edit 2: I fucking called it! I called the omenpath thing!
Another fantastic video~ I would say that given what Wrenn has in mind, it's very possible that the worlds will stay interconnected. I'm very hopeful to see where it's going. Looking forward to what you have next for us~ Whenever it comes~
Love the VERY RECENT Game Changer episode clip that you meme'd. That in itself felt so specifically made for me, haha. Incredible work, Spice! You've done wonderfully.
I think it's really funny that Wizards basically did the coward version of both your proposals. Non-planeswalkers can get into other planes, but it's not enough for any real interaction between planes, and lots of planeswalkers stopped being planeswalkers without interplanar travel itself being affected in any way
Your writing and delivery is absolutely delicious Spice! I somehow find myself WANTING to pay attention more than NEEDING to. Some of the best most nourishing content on RUclips. Enjoying my subscription thoroughly. G'day from Down Under!
Such an incredible video about the narrative difficulties of properly making a multiversal story feel coherent and interesting. On another note I can't wait for the next installment of the Spice Cinematic Universe in which we explore a wacky new universe where spice doesn't love goblins, they love gremlins instead, such a bold narrative choice
I'm surprised you had such a positive take on this ... I'm sadly expecting MoM to be infinity war part 2, then we're gonna do a few sets where we see how people cope in a multiverse without the people who died Then we're gonna have a set that's Teferi going back in time and revisiting One but changing things so the scylex works and we come back to the status quo
A variation of your idea that the planes will become linked and interplanar travel being more accessible is that the planes are linked but in very specific ways. For example, you might be able to travel from Eldrain to Ixalan using a specific portal in a forest however you could not travel from Eldrain to Ravnica without going through Ixalan and then Ikoria. In essence there would be specific "paths" you have to take to get from one plane to another and some could even be one way or something. This could also at least partially address the potential problem of say, Innistrad suddenly having an influx of angels from other planes rendering the horror aspects mute since they would be connected to a specific set or web of planes. Preventing something like an Alaran angel from just hopping over with ease or the inhabitants of Innistrad from just being able to run away. As they may have travel a massive distance or through even more dangerous planes to get there. It may also be that planes have very specific areas you need to go to or things you need to do to even travel to another plane on top of that unless you are a planeswalker.
You could also mess around with having some "paths" just being dead ends that drop you off into the blind eternities. Adding a level of risk to taking new pathways unless you are a planeswalker.
I really like the idea of everything being breached, and I think having a recurring zendikar adventuring team showing up in the background of lots of different planes, the way the wanderer did
I really loved both your ideas of a superconnected multiverse and a multiverse with no planeswalking at all! I'm excited to see how wotc will manage to botch it
Spice, the content is very good. With every video your writing is sharper, the gags land better and the pacing/structure is tighter. Feels like with this one you've drawn abreast with Rhystic Studies, Bravo!
Wow, I just rewatched the Lorwyn video the other day, what good timing. While I can't say I was a monstrously huge fan of Lorwyn as a whole, one thing I do absolutely appreciate about it was that the story focused on the natives of the plane. The conflict focused on and was resolved by the people who it actually affected and who had the most personal stakes - what a novel idea that is! By contrast, it's real hard for me to care about the plight of the Mirrans when the story puts all the focus on some random nobodies who just showed up and declared themselves the heroes because Reasons. If that's the way to story goes from here, putting the focus on the people who are closest to the conflict instead of making them props for the wacky adventures of some dude who just turned up the other day, I might actually be able to get invested in the story for the first time in a looooooooong time. While I can't say I've much liked the Phyrexian arc for various reasons, it's certainly been a massive improvement over the Bolas arc, which I have basically nothing good to say about. So if things continue to improve in the future, awesome.
This is one of the greatest videos I’ve ever seen about two things I love while being the perfect constructive criticism of the flaws that frustrate me about those two things that have filled my time since they began. Oh mama. You’ve had me since your goblin video way back when, now I’m gonna force feed this video down my friends throats lols. Nice work.
Oh my god I am SO hype for a Tarkir retrospective!! Tarkir was my first big release set after picking up the hobby, and it was huge for broadening my perspective on deck-building. I had just learned about all the two-color groupings you could use and was getting comfortable with them thanks to a deckbuilder's toolkit I bought, when suddenly I was learning that, actually, you were allowed to have THREE colors?? AND there were new lands that tapped for all three of them?? I was stoked! I proceeded to buy all five of the structure decks over the course of a couple months (I was a broke high schooler) and got to know each Clan mechanically. The Jeskai were interesting, but they didn't really connect with me. I wasn't comfortable with the game at the time and didn't want to hold up a bunch of interaction because I didn't realize that was a good thing to do sometimes. Likewise, the Sultai put me off a little because I didn't like milling the cards I wanted to play. I did like the idea of Delve overall though, just not the part where my cool cards would get removed. The Abzan were the ones that my friend at school got really into, as well as my sister for a brief period, so I didn't mess with them too much. Besides, their cards didn't connect well in my eyes. I mean, what does this rhinoceros with the life gain even have to do with counters?? Bad card, won't get very far. The Temur were also just kinda there? Nothing really special about them, but the colors were neat. But the Mardu? Boy, did I love the Mardu. Tokens and damage and big combat steps and wide boards and Zurgo was an absolute beast! Ankle Shanker is still one of my favorite cards for its overall design! And the Ascendancy was obviously the best of the five Ascendancies, it kept making you tokens! I had found the Clan for me. Then Fate Reforged happened, and I was excited to see the history of the Clans, how they got to where they were, and I also kinda saw the set as a setup for an alternate future? I clearly wasn't paying attention to the set title. I thought the Siege cards were neat, and I also liked that there were dragons now, but I was also dabbling in my own deck-building at the time for Modern, but like, only in name. I didn't look at ANY of the deck lists out there and made my own, terrible stuff. My focus was a little divided, but looking at the set list now, SO many cards that I think of as being iconic Khans cards are actually Fate cards. I even remember opening an Ugin, though I did eventually trade it away because I was an idiot. It was a great set, and I was so excited to see what would happen next. This was also the time when I learned what Magic story was and read up on some of the Clans. I IMMEDIATELY fell in love with Alesha. She is and will always be my favorite character in Magic. Her story is beautiful, I still think about it to this day, and mechanically she's a really cool card! She doesn't hold up to modern Commander standards nearly as well as I'd like, but she does her best and I appreciate her for it. I would later discover more about myself that made me feel even more similar to Alesha, firmly cementing her in my heart as the greatest character ever. (I re-read the story after being inspired by writing this and it moved me to tears, just like it did when I first read it. I cannot recommend it enough.) Then Dragons of Tarkir happened and I was disappointed. There were just dragons everywhere now. The Clans, the original things that inspired me in this world, were no more, instead replaced by boring two-color facsimiles of what they once were. I did not like this set nearly as much as the prior two. What's worse is that I realized that this was what Tarkir would be from now on. There ARE no more Clans, no more Khans. There is only Dragon. Everything that made this plane unique (barring the existence of Alara, but I didn't know much about that at the time) had been stripped away in favor of the dragons. I didn't get it. But now I do, and you mentioned it in this video with Eldraine: Tarkir was only ever meant to be a backdrop. The world I fell in love with was not intended to last; it was created to be disrupted, to be a mere footnote in the battle between Bolas and Ugin. Fate Reforged was not a choose-your-own-path story like I had once thought, but was rather a linear story about time travel that makes less and less sense the more you look at it. And worst of all, the Khan timeline can never return. The Khanline only existed because Ugin died, so to return to that point would mean that history itself would have to be rewritten. Bolas would have to win. Now, yes, there are time travel shenanigans that can happen even now, but considering how important Ugin is to WAR, I don't think we'll ever see this changed. And as if to add insult to injury, the worst part of all of this to me is the fact that Alesha, as an ancestor, is over a thousand years dead at this point. There is no coming back for her. She does not get a retrain to modernize her ability. She is gone, well and truly. And I grieve for her. I purchased the Secret Lair that featured Alesha's alternative art because it meant a lot to me. I usually hate SLs as a concept, and I still do, but I was happy to see some LGBT recognition in any form, and a lot of the art was pretty great. This was before the issues WotC has had, before I decided to stop giving them money. But it dawned on me that this was probably it. Alesha would not be likely to receive much more attention. As cards get more pushed, more powerful, more targeted at Commander, she sits back, eyeing an ever-worsening battlefield. Perhaps it reminds her of her battles from home, with an ever-increasing number of dragons to fight. I cannot know what she would think about this, but I do know one thing with absolute certainty: no matter the odds, no matter how hostile the battlefield gets, no matter how certain her defeat, she will always charge headlong into battle, swords raised high, with a smile on her face. This is way, way longer than I expected it to be, apologies for that, it's just that Tarkir is as special to me as Lorwyn is for you. Would this have made more sense to make as a video? Perhaps, but I doubt it would ever be seen in that case. I will be watching for the retrospective closely, you're my favorite Magic content creator and I know you're going to do the plane justice!
So small detail you got wrong. Karn is powered by a thran powerstone. The Phyrexian Heartstone which was originally Xantcha's is a personality matrix. Then Venser swaps his biological heart with Karn's machine heart and Karn still maintains his personality for absolutely no reason.
The section about the predictions for the future and seeing how we could see new rules for multiversal travel sure hits more hollow after seeing the omenpaths in Thunder Junction.... And how they just used that to do a hollow cowboy costume set :/
Speaking from lore perspective, god I hope we get a return to Ulgrotha. Mark Rosewater may not agree, but I think it has a lot of potential as a plane to revisit. One of the original planes to be ravished by the Planeswalkers warring, draining the world of all its mana save for a single rift that managed to stay open after the Apocalypse Chime was rung? Grandmother Sengir, a former Planeswalker who spent so long in a stasis coffin she went insane? Not one, but TWO immortal beings, one incapable of being killed in any way (literally chopped himself up to escape prison) and the other Baron Sengir, who just wants to meet Eron despite Eron's hatred of him? The plane Serra spent much of her life on? The plane Feroz cast a spell on to entirely hide its presence from all other Planeswalkers, a spell that in-set was already established to possibly be starting to fail? Chandler and Joven, the constant thorns in Eron's sides? (god i hope the supposed leaked Chandler and Joven card for MOM is real) I doubt it's gonna happen, but with MOM having cards acknowledging Mercadia and SHANDALAR of all places, I really hope they use this event as an excuse to finally, properly revisit (or formally visit in the case of Shandalar) older planes that they just refuse to go to.
Both of those ideas are pretty dope, I feel like Magic kind of took a lame middle road and halfway did both?? Un-planeswalker-ifying people and making omenpaths at the same time
The bit about Bank of America being like Hannibal Lecter is close but misses the mark. It is more like Lecter being shown the work of another cannibal murderer and saying it is sloppy. Bank of America wants Hasbro to be just as greedy, (maybe more) but not be apparent about it. I'm betting WotC took it that way.
Hey spice you lovely precious baby! Wonderful video!!! I was told to stop watching by the Mr. after a certain point because he previews everything so I can walk through life fairly free of spoilers. He's an angel. But what I did watch was absolutely delightful! I hope you're having a wonderful day!❤❤❤ #allwillbespiceeeee
As someone who actually did know who Taskmaster was in the nineties (although I can't say I was a huge fan of him), let me say thank you for keeping this free from spoilers for Marvel content I have not seen! Also, you're welcome for watching right to the end of the video - I enjoy reading the creative names your patrons come up with, and listening to you read out those who have pledged the appropriate amount. I enjoy it every time!
I do wish the Zendicar set had a greater focus on the reconstruction. But I hard disagree on the Innistrad point. Life moving on and people mostly shrugging off the horrifying eldritch/unknowable invasion/corruption of their world to the Eldrazi is brilliantly _on point_ for the horror set. Sure, your neighbor turned into a wriggling tentacle horror for pearing into the unknown; but Jim had never really been the same since his extended family was harvested to make a monster made of hands anyway.
I have no dollars to give but here is our love!!! My wife and I love your stuff!! Wev been magic fans for like 3 or 5 years and we looooove your stuff!!! #allwillbespiceeeee
Also, my crapshoot theory on how multiplanar travel may work after MOM: omenpaths. It makes sense in-universe as there is a World Tree connecting the planes now, but also from a narrative standpoint they: 1) usually open at random and connect two unsuspecting planes, or 2) can also be forced to open by a given McGuffin (such as the tyrite sword) Which makes them an almost universally convenient plot device for wherever the story is headed
Golly Gee! That's a decent compromise for blocks. As someone who really missed blocks, I would be stoked to see them come back in a form similar to your suggestion.
Thank you Spice for informing me that magics story is actually good again! I haven’t been following it for a while but now I really want to get back into it 😄
I’m excited to hear you’re gonna make a video on Tarkir. I loved that set, and it was the first set I properly got into the game for, and I have good memories of playing it during lunch in school.
Something I've talked about in the past is there are only three levels of supernatural threat: Me and people I know, where I live (typically the city for superheroes) and everything everywhere. There is no functional difference between Lex Luthor wiping out everything near the Atlantic and Nicol Bolas or Elesh Norn getting what they want. You can keep one-upping the one before, but increasing scope will not increase impact. I think "where I live" is the ideal scope, since it gives a balance of protecting the innocent and allowing the audience to become invested in a place. Who cares about Eldraine the way someone might care about Gotham City? For Magic, "where I live" would probably be the old way of one-plane blocks (many planes we only visit one city anyway) but that's incompatible with Magic being forced by capitalism to change setting every two to five months. Sadly I don't see the locked down multiverse described here coming to pass, for those doylist reasons.
Realmbreaker tapped into that realm where Bolas is and he jumped into New Phyrexia when no one was looking and is currently making it amonkhet 2 because why not!
I get the feeling the big change is just going to be the aftermath stuff, and enabling planar portals/ships again I'd really love to see more stories focused on worlds and planebound characters as the main focus. Even when connected we used to see that more and it was so much more interesting.
18:46 actually Spice I think it's even worse: The travails was the crisis in the *first* Innistrad block IIRC. Literally only Unruly Mob references Emrakul as a result.
Thinking about Emrakul instantly makes you forget. Jace thought of Emrakul when he was dueling Bolas and that’s what caused his amnesia. The only ones that remember are Jace, Tamiyo and the mad and the dead
Not quite? Ugin planted that amnesia in Jace as a defense mechanism in case his mind was breached so Bolas couldn't find out Ugin was still alive. It's also why it sent him to Ixalan specifically as Ugin's plan with Azor and the immortal Sun lay there. Ugin basically planted a memory bomb in Jace's mind against his will and without his knowledge.
That's very much not the case - in Eldritch Moon, Nissa very much remembers about Emrakul, and a lot of other people very clearly remember her as well. The reason Emeria is a thing isn't bc people forgot about Emrakul, but is rather the mind taking short cuts to attempt to process the trauma and horror of seeing that which cannot be, something so fundamentally incomprehensible it warps all understanding of the known.
I worked in a cinema in the very early 2000s - people sat through credits back then too for reasons I do not know. That "please goddammit let me sweep the popcorn before midnight, this job does not pay me enough" feeling hit me right in the memories! :)
Hey, Spice, great video! And I've really enjoyed everything else that you've put out (The Mill vs Discard & Lorwyn are particularly fantastic), and I just wanted to thank you for making so much magic content, it really makes my day watching one of your videos!
Great video as usual! Gotta say, beyond all the amazing points and perspectives, my favorite part was your use of a clip from a recent episode of Game Changer. With that, I'd just like to say - DROPOUT, GET THIS LOVELY RACK OF SPICE ON THERE!~
I was not expecting the Lou Wilson "Baba booey baba booey" clip to show up here, and now I'm more enticed to sign up for their thing just so I can watch that episode, as I feel like you memeing it is the highest praise they can achieve
And now we know that all this travels beetween worlds will bring us.... ... A need for speed set, a cluedo set, a haunted mansion set and a western set... We needed a huge multiversal war to play a need for speed set... No vampire or elves discovering new way of life in another world. No meeting of factions discovering what they could be or become. No rebirth of innistrad with the help of the capennan angels or a Zalfir centered set...
Spice I applaud your optimism for the narrative future of MTG. Your suggestions are lovely and I would honestly be happy if Wizards did an exploration on any of them. Sadly, though, I do not share your optimism. I don't know what Wizards will do after the Phyrexians are inevitably dealt with or how they plan to do even that, but I do believe they are going to drop the ball on the aftermath of it all. We're going to get a 50 card mini set on how the various worlds of MTG are affected by the phyrexian invasion, and then it will have little to no narrative consequences after, despite it being the oldest and most sinister of all of MTGs big bads that were dealing with here. Hell, New Capenna apparently dealt with a Phyrexian invasion in the past, off screen of course, and there are presumably still some Phyrexians from that invasion kicking about outside of the city limits! We didn't get a single card hinting at this in the set, and these are supposed to be Phyrexians from Yawgmoth's era! First gen Phyrexians on New Capenna, and we learn about it through supplemental material at best! It sucks, but no, I don't think they're going to handle the story well at all. Hopefully they'll get someone more competent in charge before long who doesn't just copy paste plot points from Marvel and we actually return to MTG stories being good and compelling with lasting consequences. I'm not holding my breath, though.
As someone who also works at a theater, the bit about people staying after every movie could not be more infuriating and right.
Oh god solidarity x
Whenever I leave the theater and I see how much mess people leave behind after staying so long that they stole cleanup time, I feel guilty on their behalf. Respect for doing it
I like staying for a while when a movie was great… It’s a moment of reflection and leaving an immersive experience gradually before moving on.
I‘d put the blame more on the need to get ready for the next showing as quickly as possible but then again, I never worked in a movie theater.
@bTarczy just don't leave your trash when you leave and it's not much of an issue. The issue is the theaters are left an absolute disgrace and the time to clean is shortened by the end-credit culture.
The film crew deserve to be known for their efforts as much as the cast, so I believe it's on us as the audience to do a better job of self-regulating. That way, the ushers can reasonably complete their task in the time they have between films. And frankly, it's just polite. Someone being paid to clean doesn't mean you should disregard the mess you leave behind
I am a big filmmusic nerd so I love to watch the full credits. I couldn't care less about post credit scenes
I'd love a focus on one world without planewalkers or overly arching story line. Great video and great insight, loved it!
Agree. Planeswalkers are just glorified enchantments that have powecrept this game to the moon
Maybe a return to lorwyn
Yes! Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
@@ZackeroniAndCheese the last impactfull pw was Oko.
@Tommaso Chiesa and Jace tms, liliana of the veil, wrenn and six, Nissa worldwreaker, elspeth knight errant, nicol bolas ravager, flip Jace, all of war of the spark. The lorwyn 5 and shards bolas were great. Anything other than those 6 has pushed the game too far
You actually got BOTH predictions right: The planes are more interconnected, AND planeswalkers have been greatly reduced in number and in focus. Impressive guesswork!
think the most flavorful card for Innistrad in the aftermath of what they went through is Avacyn's Memorial, which only appeared in set and collecter boosters. It's flavor text is, "They had no marble, so the faithful repaired her likeness with wood, straw, twine, and clay." It was also a way worse version of Avacyn, Angel of Hope which also felt like a way to acknowledge what was lost... and make you feel way worse if you pulled one.
Holy crap I forgot that card even existed lmao
@@Spice8Rack It took me a solid 15 minutes and finally typing "straw" into scryfall's advanced search feature to remember it's name. Don't think it helps that it was locked behind premium products.
@@Spice8Rack so would you say it wasn’t very _memorable_ ?
@@CunningLingu1st it's a better memorial than it is an Avacyn.
I think the most significant result of the events on Innistrad is the rise of the "pagan" witches compared to the previous angel cult, even without outright stating so on every witch card.
Man that post-credits scene you did was so good spice, definately worth watching the entire credits!
Oh you're a stinker ;)
I can't believe I got ironically baited by this comment
I know everyone has said they'd like less planeswalker centric stories, but personally I think a healthy mix could be quite nice. Back in ice age, for example, there was a lot of non planeswalking plot around lim dul making an army, and disease outbreak and the baluvians and the rhymewind and the phyrexian beasts being unearthed.
But there was also a bunch of planeswalkers deciding to go to the null moon to have a meeting, and eventually cast the world spell.
Mmmm I would agree. I think, regardless of how involved planeswalkers are in the story *something* has to shift in terms of their place in the narrative to keep things fresh.
I think Planeswalker centered narratives can be good. Children of the Nameless revolves significantly around Davriel and its scope is exclusively in a small corner of Innistrad far away from any of the important politics. It doesn't even span the entire plane.
That said, I love small stories on the sidelines a lot far away from the central world shaking action. Funnily enough, I predominantly get my fix with TTRPGs. A short campaign in Ravnica following rando guild members. My friend is about to run an Avatar game that's off to the side of the Korra narrative. One of my favorite campaigns I ever played was one that followed a Noble House in the Mistborn setting that dealt with its own bullshit outside of the eye of the protagonists. These sorts of stories are what truly makes a universe feel alive
@@U.Inferno Yes, of course, I just think it's a lot easier to have those types of stories when you don't have the ability to teleport out of any situation unless you don't want to.
@@user-yw6fb8us7j you have a point. The only reason why Davriel sticks around is because he's already set up all of his demon contracts that he'd rather deal with the plot than uproot everything.
I love your long video essays but this made me realise again that I also love (and missed a little bit) your "image over image while you deliver punchline after punchline"-videos. Love it, thanks!
Oh thank you! I'm glad to have made one of these again & for it to have been missed
The thing for me that made the 2015-2017 Gatewatch era of the Magic storyline my favorite was that, despite it all building up to a confrontation with Nicol Bolas, there was an extensive focus on personal character motivations and interactions, and even a few domestic scenes of the planeswalker protagonists in their downtime. It was a much more personal and character-driven approach to MtG's narrative than anything that came before or since, and it feels like that was lost after War of the Spark went and fucked everything up.
I felt that we got a taste of this with New Capenna. As much as that story posed itself as being about finding a weapon against Phyrexia, it was really about Elspeth finding about where she came from, and fighting for her child self through fighting for Giada's freedom. I wish they had committed to it more, but it is there and not enough people talk about it.
11:50 I think they could do something like what Araki did with JoJo. The story moved from the world-wide existential threats of the first three parts to a very localized and small-scale mystery in a small town. It worked wonderfully, and Diamond Is Unbreakable is one of the most beloved parts of JoJo to this day.
It is also worth noting that despite the fact that everyone is in a small town, Diamond is Unbreakable hosts the largest amount of stands able to punch up, such as The Lock eventually causing suicide by causing guilt, Surface locking people in place to kill themselves by forcing that, Yukako’s powerful hair, the ultimate trap stand called Superfly, another instakill stand in Cheap Trick, a stand that will guarantee killing by relentless chasing called Highway Star, possibly Earth Wind And Fire, a fast long-range stand that can power up in Red Hot Chili Pepper, and the ability to capture anything within paper with Enigma. That is just the minor antagonists. On the protagonists side, restoration basically allows for almost anything with Crazy Diamond, Heaven’s Door is the ultimate information stand, Koichi’s Echoes Act 2 basically has far too many long-range effects, and despite himself Okuyasu still uses the swiping of The Hand well twice. Despite all of these, Killer Queen, Sheer Heart Attack, and Bites the Dust are all the more terrifying because Kira expects the world will indulge him his hand fetish.
@@iantaakalla8180 I may not get all of the music references you just made, but I know enough to figure that you're not making any of that up. Jojo truly is bizarre.
Ever since Emma (aka Emrakul) has locked herself in the moon, saying that the plane wasn't ready, I've been waiting for the Eldrazi to be the good guys, cleaning up the mess that some other villain made.
Would fit very well with the next commander set including a colorless precon
I can see the Drowned eldritch creature(god according to Lier) or creatures of Innistrad waking by the Phyrexian invasion and giving Emrakul a new friend
What if the Edlrazi are not meaingfully changed by compleation. They don't respond to the oil like other creatures do, can't be meaningfully controlled and so forth.They just continue doing thier own Eldrazi things while completely ignoring what Phyrexia tries to do to them. Which could then result in half the Phyrexians concluding that they are a error in reality that needs to be stomped out and the other deciding that Eldrazi are even more perfect then Phyrexia and therefor try to transform themselves into Eldrazi (which either fails becouse it's not possible to transform things into Eldrazi, or severly hampers the invasion becouse the newly Eldrazi-ed Phyrexians suddenly don't have any more intrest in conquest). The resulting infighting gives Mirridains and the inhabitants of other planes the oppertunity to drive Phyrexia out.
This would result in a state where Phyrexians are still around, but in a scattered and weakened form. Hiding in the crevices of the multiverse, licking it's wounds and having an existensial crisis.
@@HiddenDragon555 I love this! I was already theorizing that Emrakul and the Eldrazi would be responsible for the downfall of Phyrexia directly, but this is an awesome direction to take it.
One way I could see this working is that Emrakul, once Phyrexia gets to Innistrad, sees Realmbreaker doing weird stuff in the blind eternities, says "enough of that" and goes straight to New Phyrexia to sort this out herself, which could lead to what you theorized while also either leaving tunnels which people can just go through or closing them as Realmbreaker's roots are destroyed
Definitely thought we were getting this to deal with the Phyrexians, I expected some new titans worked in after the announcement that one of the commander precons was Eldrazi.
Time to once again indulge in my tradition of listening to a Spice video while at work before watching it properly once I return home~✨
The only acceptable way to experience my """"art"""" imo
What's up spice at work buddy
If nothing else, we must use up the company resources in 8rack's name
In defense of Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow the entire story is about fixing the day night cycle. A cycle messed up because of the Emrakul being sealed within the moon.
In attack of Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow, I played a lot of standard when those sets were current, and I had no idea that was even part of the story. The story that comes across through the actual card game in those sets is the vampire wedding and the werewolf infighting.
@@hoodiegal Fair Wizards could have done a better job telling this within the cards. It was still there however for those who sought it out.
The one other thing is also at least the whole coven stuff is meant to be a response to Avavyn being gone and angels, other than sigarda, failing to protect them. Turning to old belief systems for hope.
Just poorly handled overall
It feels like the same problem as the dceu movies. Like there's a complex world/setting/character Lore document that the behind the scenes crew have access to, but it's not making it to "the screen" somehow...
A few things i would say:
Concerning Innistrad, i like Graham Stark's narrative of the eldrazi come in and the humans go 'Ah, Judith has become a spaghetti monster, Martha get me the sharp axe.' So the idea of Innistradian's not talking too much about it doesn't feel as weird as Zendikar.
In terms of where its going, I feel it can truly go either way but i think the idea of legendary creatures from multiple places going across planes would be fascinating. Especially Niv-Mizzet who has wanted to learn about Planeswalkers for so long, him dealing with the Dragons of Strixhaven sounds wonderful to me.
He'd never do it because he loves his current job, but I would love it if Graham became the Narrative Director for Wizards.
screw strix heaven. he goes to takir and gets knocked out by sharkhan
With Thunder Junction, we’ve started to get a little bit of the “cultures of the multiverse crossing and interacting”. Course, they kinda fucked it up by throwing cowboy hats on almost everyone, but the tech interactions between Kaladesh, Ravnica, and Kamigawa are pretty cool to see.
Also quite enjoy seeing that Innistradi Stitching has become supercharged thanks to angel blood becoming insanely easier due to Halo becoming a multiversal product. Like, in the side story that focused on Geralf and Gisa, there was a woman who happened to have Halo on her, and it just left Geralf happily confused.
Fantastic stuff, this is an eventual problem for any media franchise that wants to go one forever while also continually raising the stakes every installment.
Case in point: Dragon Ball
It is also worth noting that after the Tournament of Power, the Dragon Ball multiverse was basically scrapped. The next two are musings on how power is gained in Dragon Ball and Goku’s past and motivations, respectively. And somehow, the second one is a far more compelling story despite a competition over being the strongest in the world being a plot point.
One of the few ongoing narratives that I've found doesn't do that is Nobuyuki Fukumoto's Kaiji.
We're 27 years deep and the current arc has Kaiji trying to smooth things over with a local granny who doesn't like him.
Another one worth reading is Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo.
40 years in and, yes, there have been huge scale conflicts, but the story by and large is still grounded in a simple wanderer's journey.
The key is writing interesting conflicts that are worth engaging with not just because the stakes are greater.
This can be kind of hard to think up so, yeah, it's pretty common for mid authors to take easy ways out because it is commercially viable.
It is worth noting that MTG's 'multiverse' is more like a large galaxy with elitist infrastructure than the multiverses that comics often employ. I think this great because I actually could not be more bored by the idea of sets in which Jace gets to meet Jace from Vryn 616 to fight Jace from Vryn 47.
Watching this after March of the Machine is... An experience...
Especially knowing what Spice thought about how the aftermath set went...
Naaauur the marvelification of mtg's story and wider pop culture franchises is 100% worth examining and im so delighted to have your take on it!
I think youre forgetting that Avacyn died in the events of SOI block, and the entire point of Katildas conclave and the weird, Wickerman aethetic that Midnight Hunt takes on is because the humans are trying to find a way to not die because their saviors are gone. Otherwise, great video
They're also turning to different cults now that their religion has been destroyed - literally, god is dead and Emrakul killed her. Not just the witch cult, though that seems to be the most popular - the cards show us a demon cult, a giant frog cult (no, not the gitrog) and a giant slug cult (which wants their god to do a pokemon battle with the not-gitrog).
So excited for the retrospective on tarkir, it has to be my favorite plane and block to ever come out.
You don't understand how hype I get when I see you posted a new video, it literally made my afternoon at work tolerable! Thanks!
This was an absolute delight! Please take as much time as you need to make this amazing content.
Bless you, I will for the next one I promise!
Spice is such an unapologetic nerd I love it. Additionally, I cannot tell if it is legitimately allergic to beer, or if that was just a joke cause it rhymed nice.
Nope lol, actually allergic
I always thought that the best way to tell a story in magic and showcase the world would be to basically have a bunch of anthology stories that all take place in the same plane
I think it would help you explore more perspectives of the citizens of the plane and be more interesting overall
Some of my favourite magic stories was the anthologies of guilds of ravnica and ravnica alligance, having a single story focusing on each guild was great
Isn’t this what the side stories do in modern magic story? Granted, there have been quite a few side stories that were just extensions of the main story in the last year or so (Kaito’s Origin in NEO, The Side of Freedom in SNC, etc.), but it’s much better than the alternative of having novels if the writers didn’t want to try to shoehorn everything into one story (no major appearance from Embereth in The Wildered Quest means no story for it at all, same with Narset and the other cities in Ikoria for The Sundered Bond).
You'd probably enjoy the Shadowmoor novel. Also, the "Uncharted Realms" era of the online Magic storytelling did a lot of this.
Can’t wait for Tarkir. Sarkhan/Narset is one of my favorite romances (according to the headcanon I’ve mostly written for myself).
A truly based opinion. ❤
Sarkhan destroyed the Jeskai. I would personally hope that Narset of all people would have very little time for him.
@@aLukepop Narset has no meaningful knowledge of the Jeskai. As far as her current self's experiences go, she's very interested in the Jeskai as a piece of history, but she has little emotional attachment to her save for the implications about her present. More resonant to her lived experience is that Sarkhan's actions saved Ojutai, who has been her teacher and mentor for most of her life. Also, their personal quirks are cute together.
I hope the phyrexians will not be fully defeated, because they are such interesting villains. I think having a phyrexian presence hidden in the shadows on multiple planes offers a lot of potential for future storry telling.
Honestly, I'm just kinda done with the Phyrexians. Sure, they have a distinct aesthetic, but they're just... so in-your-face about everything that they kinda get stale. Nicol Bolas worked because he wasn't so blatant about everything, and his evil villain plots were able to change significantly while remaining in service to his overarching goal.
I just wish they hadn't made the oil so absurdly overpowered. Change that somehow and scattered survivors could be interesting
@@0th_LawSee, I find Nicol Bolas too campy, personally.
I could see March of the Machine ending with world breaker destroyed and Norn dead, but the phyrexians as a whole survive under another Praetor's rule. Maybe with smaller encampments hiding on other planes that will decide to go subtle for a while.
I mean, you would literally need something like the weapon on Dakara in SG1 that literally completely disabled each and every replicator block to completely remove phyrexia from everything.
Also can I just mention how much I adore that you sing the praises of Shadowmoor/Lorwyn and such, easily my favourite setting/plane. Right up there with early Innistrad, even higher than Ravnica, so that says a lot! But it was absolutely fantastic.
I was not expecting a Game Changer meme in my Spice8Rack video but it just perfectly mixed two of my absolute favourite things! So thanks Spice for making me literally have to pause the video and laugh for a solid thirty seconds! Big love!
They literally have the exact same aesthetic and target audience, so I have no idea why you would be surprised.
I've been here the whole time!
Your Lorwyn video was my favorite too! I've watched it many times!
I knew I loved spicerack a lot but the little clip from the newest game changer it used has taken this love to a new level!
I fucking love that you used such a recent Droupout clip with Lou yelling "baba booey." That really got me for some reason lmao
To be fair, Magic has already done the sealing of realms previously, such as Ulgrotha, the beacon on whatever the sparkstealing arc is on, or even the shard of the twelve world situation.
your joke about magic’s narrative competence hit extra hard for me because i got into magic at the tail end of the theros block and stopped playing around when amonkhet released
As a writer, I haven't seen this but the fact chapter one is called 'Marvelisation of all Media' has to mean this video is SPICY.
We need more genre anarchy. Something like One Piece, or 40k or yes, even Magic. I want to be in a multiverse that feels like it is actually infinite.
In fact, the only thing I have seen that fits the bill and it isn't even a franchise is Everything Everywhere All At Once.
AKA: As Wisecrack put it, "Michelle Yeoh and the Multiverse of Sadness."
Errant Signal did a video about how companies are copying the marvel intro logo. If we're talking about how marvel has influenced other media, this is probably the least important facet of that conversation, but it's still a fascinating and niche topic.
Oooh no you're right now you mention it. Even dreamworks' new logo is a bunch of IPs waving at the camera now, isn't it?
When I was chatting about the multiversal change for the MTG universe after March of the Machines (This was a few months ago now), one weird idea I had that I just love the idea of but know would probably not work would be planes healing from the damage by kinda joining together. The breach in the multiverse allowing some planes to meld into one or even eat others. Its a weird concept but I always enjoyed the idea for the different weird combos you could do
It could be interesting to see completely clashing themes try to survive in unison
like conflux but on crack its a neat idea.
It's nice in that it creates a more controlled application where you can make more contained planar bubbles, and still keep open the possibility of huge clusters or hidden tunnels beyond a bubble.
Doesn't sound any weirder than the concept of Rath "transposing" onto Dominaria. I say go for ti!
i really really want eldraine to focus on jace and vraska again with the focus being on their coming to terms with both the physical and psychological horrors they endured under the rule of phyrexia. It needs a lot of specific things to happen to be able to get to that point but if its possible it really seems like an excellent chance to explore broad concepts that parallel back to the struggles we face daily as well as shedding insight into the workings of things related to magic itself.
I’d rather have them do it on Ixalan bc a return to a familiar plane for them
@@l0u13__3 sorry that's my bad, I did mean ixalan, I got them mixed up
Considering how Vraska recognised Jace when she was being phyrexianised, there is good reason to believe their minds are still there, and it will simply take someone severing their connection to the Phyrexian hivemind to restore it, even if only partially.
This could very well be the culmination of an arc for Tezzeret, the former puppet of Bolas, innoculated against Phyrexian oil, making a sacrifice to ensure that those twisted by Phyrexia (that don't habe contingencies of their own) are saved
Dam you were right
This video really hammered home the irony that is Planeswalker cards first appearing in Lorwyn.
What I really want is for magic to go back to 3-set blocks. But instead of the multiverse-ending threat taking the spotlight in every set, the 3 sets of a block would follow a structure:
Set 1: What is this plane like? What are the people here like? What kind of animals live here? Set 1 would be like Guilds of Ravnica or Ravnica Allegiance, setting the stage for the conflict to come.
Set 2: This would be similar to how sets work nowadays in terms of story. Some planeswalkers show up, maybe a world-ending threat attacks, and then the planeswalkers leave.
Set 3: The aftermath. After the threat is defeated, how are things going now? How has this plane changed? How are the peoples affected?
I think that this is a similar structure to Alara block, but I’m not quite sure.
I’m very curious about what Ravnica looks like after War of the Spark. How are the guilds faring? What’s Niv-Mizzet doing now that he’s the living guildpact?
But that’s just one example. How’s Kaldheim doing now that Esika and Valki have been attacked? How’s New Capenna after one of the five guys that runs the city is murdered? How did Zendikar look immediately after the Eldrazi were defeated? How about Ixalan when the Immortal Sun gets yoinked into another dimension?
The story needs time to breath, is what I’m saying.
Edit: Also, I think that Kaldheim is a model of how the multiverse will function after the Phyresis nation attacks. There’s a vast cosmos between the planes that can’t be traversed by most beings, but certain beasts like Koma or vehicles like the Omenkeel could travel between worlds. Maybe planeswalkers would be able to cross this new cosmos using their spark, maybe not. It’s said in the Kaldheim lore that planeswalkers can’t cross the Cosmos.
Additionally, Omenpaths and Doomskars could be rare ways for travelers to find new world. There could be experts who can track down Omenpaths and scholars who map different worlds. Tyrite weapons that slice through the veil could be there too. It could be like before the mending, where extraplanar travel was achievable by non-spark means.
Edit 2: I fucking called it! I called the omenpath thing!
Another fantastic video~
I would say that given what Wrenn has in mind, it's very possible that the worlds will stay interconnected. I'm very hopeful to see where it's going.
Looking forward to what you have next for us~ Whenever it comes~
Love the VERY RECENT Game Changer episode clip that you meme'd. That in itself felt so specifically made for me, haha. Incredible work, Spice! You've done wonderfully.
I think it's really funny that Wizards basically did the coward version of both your proposals. Non-planeswalkers can get into other planes, but it's not enough for any real interaction between planes, and lots of planeswalkers stopped being planeswalkers without interplanar travel itself being affected in any way
It's my birthday today, and the first image made me gasp. A new Spice8Rack video is the best birthday gift i could have gotten.
Happy Birthday :D Have a great old day!
The greatest mother's day gift we could ask for
OH GOD, MUM! *sprints to the card shop*
That “you need to be better senator” bit needs to be uploaded as a separate clip, that shit is absolute gold
The speed with which you have implemented the Lou smashing things bit into a video makes me happy in my heart.
Your writing and delivery is absolutely delicious Spice! I somehow find myself WANTING to pay attention more than NEEDING to. Some of the best most nourishing content on RUclips. Enjoying my subscription thoroughly. G'day from Down Under!
Such an incredible video about the narrative difficulties of properly making a multiversal story feel coherent and interesting. On another note I can't wait for the next installment of the Spice Cinematic Universe in which we explore a wacky new universe where spice doesn't love goblins, they love gremlins instead, such a bold narrative choice
I'm surprised you had such a positive take on this ...
I'm sadly expecting MoM to be infinity war part 2, then we're gonna do a few sets where we see how people cope in a multiverse without the people who died
Then we're gonna have a set that's Teferi going back in time and revisiting One but changing things so the scylex works and we come back to the status quo
no
A variation of your idea that the planes will become linked and interplanar travel being more accessible is that the planes are linked but in very specific ways. For example, you might be able to travel from Eldrain to Ixalan using a specific portal in a forest however you could not travel from Eldrain to Ravnica without going through Ixalan and then Ikoria. In essence there would be specific "paths" you have to take to get from one plane to another and some could even be one way or something. This could also at least partially address the potential problem of say, Innistrad suddenly having an influx of angels from other planes rendering the horror aspects mute since they would be connected to a specific set or web of planes. Preventing something like an Alaran angel from just hopping over with ease or the inhabitants of Innistrad from just being able to run away. As they may have travel a massive distance or through even more dangerous planes to get there. It may also be that planes have very specific areas you need to go to or things you need to do to even travel to another plane on top of that unless you are a planeswalker.
You could also mess around with having some "paths" just being dead ends that drop you off into the blind eternities. Adding a level of risk to taking new pathways unless you are a planeswalker.
Nothing could ever be as excited as watching Spice slowly catch up with - then outpace - the credits. I honestly didn't think he'd make it.
I really like the idea of everything being breached, and I think having a recurring zendikar adventuring team showing up in the background of lots of different planes, the way the wanderer did
I really loved both your ideas of a superconnected multiverse and a multiverse with no planeswalking at all! I'm excited to see how wotc will manage to botch it
Spice, the content is very good. With every video your writing is sharper, the gags land better and the pacing/structure is tighter.
Feels like with this one you've drawn abreast with Rhystic Studies, Bravo!
Wow, I just rewatched the Lorwyn video the other day, what good timing. While I can't say I was a monstrously huge fan of Lorwyn as a whole, one thing I do absolutely appreciate about it was that the story focused on the natives of the plane. The conflict focused on and was resolved by the people who it actually affected and who had the most personal stakes - what a novel idea that is! By contrast, it's real hard for me to care about the plight of the Mirrans when the story puts all the focus on some random nobodies who just showed up and declared themselves the heroes because Reasons. If that's the way to story goes from here, putting the focus on the people who are closest to the conflict instead of making them props for the wacky adventures of some dude who just turned up the other day, I might actually be able to get invested in the story for the first time in a looooooooong time.
While I can't say I've much liked the Phyrexian arc for various reasons, it's certainly been a massive improvement over the Bolas arc, which I have basically nothing good to say about. So if things continue to improve in the future, awesome.
spice using a gamechanger clip has forever enhanced my perception of them in an overwhelmingly positive manner
Lou for president imo
This is one of the greatest videos I’ve ever seen about two things I love while being the perfect constructive criticism of the flaws that frustrate me about those two things that have filled my time since they began. Oh mama. You’ve had me since your goblin video way back when, now I’m gonna force feed this video down my friends throats lols. Nice work.
Oh my god I am SO hype for a Tarkir retrospective!! Tarkir was my first big release set after picking up the hobby, and it was huge for broadening my perspective on deck-building. I had just learned about all the two-color groupings you could use and was getting comfortable with them thanks to a deckbuilder's toolkit I bought, when suddenly I was learning that, actually, you were allowed to have THREE colors?? AND there were new lands that tapped for all three of them?? I was stoked! I proceeded to buy all five of the structure decks over the course of a couple months (I was a broke high schooler) and got to know each Clan mechanically.
The Jeskai were interesting, but they didn't really connect with me. I wasn't comfortable with the game at the time and didn't want to hold up a bunch of interaction because I didn't realize that was a good thing to do sometimes. Likewise, the Sultai put me off a little because I didn't like milling the cards I wanted to play. I did like the idea of Delve overall though, just not the part where my cool cards would get removed. The Abzan were the ones that my friend at school got really into, as well as my sister for a brief period, so I didn't mess with them too much. Besides, their cards didn't connect well in my eyes. I mean, what does this rhinoceros with the life gain even have to do with counters?? Bad card, won't get very far. The Temur were also just kinda there? Nothing really special about them, but the colors were neat.
But the Mardu? Boy, did I love the Mardu. Tokens and damage and big combat steps and wide boards and Zurgo was an absolute beast! Ankle Shanker is still one of my favorite cards for its overall design! And the Ascendancy was obviously the best of the five Ascendancies, it kept making you tokens! I had found the Clan for me.
Then Fate Reforged happened, and I was excited to see the history of the Clans, how they got to where they were, and I also kinda saw the set as a setup for an alternate future? I clearly wasn't paying attention to the set title. I thought the Siege cards were neat, and I also liked that there were dragons now, but I was also dabbling in my own deck-building at the time for Modern, but like, only in name. I didn't look at ANY of the deck lists out there and made my own, terrible stuff. My focus was a little divided, but looking at the set list now, SO many cards that I think of as being iconic Khans cards are actually Fate cards. I even remember opening an Ugin, though I did eventually trade it away because I was an idiot. It was a great set, and I was so excited to see what would happen next.
This was also the time when I learned what Magic story was and read up on some of the Clans. I IMMEDIATELY fell in love with Alesha. She is and will always be my favorite character in Magic. Her story is beautiful, I still think about it to this day, and mechanically she's a really cool card! She doesn't hold up to modern Commander standards nearly as well as I'd like, but she does her best and I appreciate her for it. I would later discover more about myself that made me feel even more similar to Alesha, firmly cementing her in my heart as the greatest character ever. (I re-read the story after being inspired by writing this and it moved me to tears, just like it did when I first read it. I cannot recommend it enough.)
Then Dragons of Tarkir happened and I was disappointed. There were just dragons everywhere now. The Clans, the original things that inspired me in this world, were no more, instead replaced by boring two-color facsimiles of what they once were. I did not like this set nearly as much as the prior two. What's worse is that I realized that this was what Tarkir would be from now on. There ARE no more Clans, no more Khans. There is only Dragon. Everything that made this plane unique (barring the existence of Alara, but I didn't know much about that at the time) had been stripped away in favor of the dragons. I didn't get it.
But now I do, and you mentioned it in this video with Eldraine: Tarkir was only ever meant to be a backdrop. The world I fell in love with was not intended to last; it was created to be disrupted, to be a mere footnote in the battle between Bolas and Ugin. Fate Reforged was not a choose-your-own-path story like I had once thought, but was rather a linear story about time travel that makes less and less sense the more you look at it. And worst of all, the Khan timeline can never return. The Khanline only existed because Ugin died, so to return to that point would mean that history itself would have to be rewritten. Bolas would have to win. Now, yes, there are time travel shenanigans that can happen even now, but considering how important Ugin is to WAR, I don't think we'll ever see this changed.
And as if to add insult to injury, the worst part of all of this to me is the fact that Alesha, as an ancestor, is over a thousand years dead at this point. There is no coming back for her. She does not get a retrain to modernize her ability. She is gone, well and truly. And I grieve for her.
I purchased the Secret Lair that featured Alesha's alternative art because it meant a lot to me. I usually hate SLs as a concept, and I still do, but I was happy to see some LGBT recognition in any form, and a lot of the art was pretty great. This was before the issues WotC has had, before I decided to stop giving them money. But it dawned on me that this was probably it. Alesha would not be likely to receive much more attention. As cards get more pushed, more powerful, more targeted at Commander, she sits back, eyeing an ever-worsening battlefield. Perhaps it reminds her of her battles from home, with an ever-increasing number of dragons to fight. I cannot know what she would think about this, but I do know one thing with absolute certainty: no matter the odds, no matter how hostile the battlefield gets, no matter how certain her defeat, she will always charge headlong into battle, swords raised high, with a smile on her face.
This is way, way longer than I expected it to be, apologies for that, it's just that Tarkir is as special to me as Lorwyn is for you. Would this have made more sense to make as a video? Perhaps, but I doubt it would ever be seen in that case. I will be watching for the retrospective closely, you're my favorite Magic content creator and I know you're going to do the plane justice!
So small detail you got wrong. Karn is powered by a thran powerstone. The Phyrexian Heartstone which was originally Xantcha's is a personality matrix.
Then Venser swaps his biological heart with Karn's machine heart and Karn still maintains his personality for absolutely no reason.
The section about the predictions for the future and seeing how we could see new rules for multiversal travel sure hits more hollow after seeing the omenpaths in Thunder Junction.... And how they just used that to do a hollow cowboy costume set :/
Speaking from lore perspective, god I hope we get a return to Ulgrotha. Mark Rosewater may not agree, but I think it has a lot of potential as a plane to revisit. One of the original planes to be ravished by the Planeswalkers warring, draining the world of all its mana save for a single rift that managed to stay open after the Apocalypse Chime was rung? Grandmother Sengir, a former Planeswalker who spent so long in a stasis coffin she went insane? Not one, but TWO immortal beings, one incapable of being killed in any way (literally chopped himself up to escape prison) and the other Baron Sengir, who just wants to meet Eron despite Eron's hatred of him? The plane Serra spent much of her life on? The plane Feroz cast a spell on to entirely hide its presence from all other Planeswalkers, a spell that in-set was already established to possibly be starting to fail? Chandler and Joven, the constant thorns in Eron's sides? (god i hope the supposed leaked Chandler and Joven card for MOM is real)
I doubt it's gonna happen, but with MOM having cards acknowledging Mercadia and SHANDALAR of all places, I really hope they use this event as an excuse to finally, properly revisit (or formally visit in the case of Shandalar) older planes that they just refuse to go to.
Both of those ideas are pretty dope, I feel like Magic kind of took a lame middle road and halfway did both?? Un-planeswalker-ifying people and making omenpaths at the same time
The bit about Bank of America being like Hannibal Lecter is close but misses the mark. It is more like Lecter being shown the work of another cannibal murderer and saying it is sloppy. Bank of America wants Hasbro to be just as greedy, (maybe more) but not be apparent about it. I'm betting WotC took it that way.
I love listening to the sounds of you tumbling down the rabbit hole
Hey spice you lovely precious baby! Wonderful video!!! I was told to stop watching by the Mr. after a certain point because he previews everything so I can walk through life fairly free of spoilers. He's an angel. But what I did watch was absolutely delightful! I hope you're having a wonderful day!❤❤❤
#allwillbespiceeeee
Please take your time to make videos, these are always a blast. I'm super happy you get to speak about what you love.
As someone who actually did know who Taskmaster was in the nineties (although I can't say I was a huge fan of him), let me say thank you for keeping this free from spoilers for Marvel content I have not seen! Also, you're welcome for watching right to the end of the video - I enjoy reading the creative names your patrons come up with, and listening to you read out those who have pledged the appropriate amount. I enjoy it every time!
I do wish the Zendicar set had a greater focus on the reconstruction.
But I hard disagree on the Innistrad point.
Life moving on and people mostly shrugging off the horrifying eldritch/unknowable invasion/corruption of their world to the Eldrazi is brilliantly _on point_ for the horror set.
Sure, your neighbor turned into a wriggling tentacle horror for pearing into the unknown; but Jim had never really been the same since his extended family was harvested to make a monster made of hands anyway.
Gentrification of the multiverse as suddenly Bolas is no longer planelocked
So.
Turns out we got "It's cowboys yeehaw"
I have no dollars to give but here is our love!!! My wife and I love your stuff!! Wev been magic fans for like 3 or 5 years and we looooove your stuff!!! #allwillbespiceeeee
Oh bless you, what a lovely thing to read xxx
The wife will have a lovely comment once she's finished!
I'm so glad my GF got me back into MTG because it means I got to find this channel 🥰
Aww thanks to you! Give your GF $5 from me
@Spice8Rack I absolutely will! Legit has me wanting to get back to video making; keep it up! 🙏
@@Spice8Rack I sent her mill vs discard, and I found out later she watched through it three+ times. I'm very proud
Also, my crapshoot theory on how multiplanar travel may work after MOM: omenpaths. It makes sense in-universe as there is a World Tree connecting the planes now, but also from a narrative standpoint they:
1) usually open at random and connect two unsuspecting planes, or
2) can also be forced to open by a given McGuffin (such as the tyrite sword)
Which makes them an almost universally convenient plot device for wherever the story is headed
Golly Gee! That's a decent compromise for blocks. As someone who really missed blocks, I would be stoked to see them come back in a form similar to your suggestion.
Thank you Spice for informing me that magics story is actually good again! I haven’t been following it for a while but now I really want to get back into it 😄
I’m excited to hear you’re gonna make a video on Tarkir. I loved that set, and it was the first set I properly got into the game for, and I have good memories of playing it during lunch in school.
God bless you for including my favorite 2 seconds of any Game Changer episode ever
Those credits were so long, I only stuck around to see if there was a sneaky ironic post credit scene.
Something I've talked about in the past is there are only three levels of supernatural threat: Me and people I know, where I live (typically the city for superheroes) and everything everywhere. There is no functional difference between Lex Luthor wiping out everything near the Atlantic and Nicol Bolas or Elesh Norn getting what they want. You can keep one-upping the one before, but increasing scope will not increase impact. I think "where I live" is the ideal scope, since it gives a balance of protecting the innocent and allowing the audience to become invested in a place. Who cares about Eldraine the way someone might care about Gotham City? For Magic, "where I live" would probably be the old way of one-plane blocks (many planes we only visit one city anyway) but that's incompatible with Magic being forced by capitalism to change setting every two to five months. Sadly I don't see the locked down multiverse described here coming to pass, for those doylist reasons.
Realmbreaker tapped into that realm where Bolas is and he jumped into New Phyrexia when no one was looking and is currently making it amonkhet 2 because why not!
Hey spice! Thank you for the content! Can't wait for the tarkir retrospective!
Ok, the Lou Wilson clip took me by surprise. I'm dying.
I get the feeling the big change is just going to be the aftermath stuff, and enabling planar portals/ships again
I'd really love to see more stories focused on worlds and planebound characters as the main focus. Even when connected we used to see that more and it was so much more interesting.
18:46 actually Spice I think it's even worse: The travails was the crisis in the *first* Innistrad block IIRC. Literally only Unruly Mob references Emrakul as a result.
Thinking about Emrakul instantly makes you forget. Jace thought of Emrakul when he was dueling Bolas and that’s what caused his amnesia. The only ones that remember are Jace, Tamiyo and the mad and the dead
Not quite? Ugin planted that amnesia in Jace as a defense mechanism in case his mind was breached so Bolas couldn't find out Ugin was still alive. It's also why it sent him to Ixalan specifically as Ugin's plan with Azor and the immortal Sun lay there.
Ugin basically planted a memory bomb in Jace's mind against his will and without his knowledge.
That's very much not the case - in Eldritch Moon, Nissa very much remembers about Emrakul, and a lot of other people very clearly remember her as well. The reason Emeria is a thing isn't bc people forgot about Emrakul, but is rather the mind taking short cuts to attempt to process the trauma and horror of seeing that which cannot be, something so fundamentally incomprehensible it warps all understanding of the known.
the Phyrexians might now about Emrakul now as well thanks to compleating Jace
@@piralos1329In “The Hand that moves” was the Angel in Kefnet’s maze supposed to be her memory of Emrakul?
@@treyconover4107 I thought that the amnesia was tied to how Emrakul is sealed in the moon
In the first 4 minutes alone I've already tried to like this video on 5 separate occasions. Thank you, Spice
The elesh norn game changer bit was absolutely CHEF KISS
I worked in a cinema in the very early 2000s - people sat through credits back then too for reasons I do not know. That "please goddammit let me sweep the popcorn before midnight, this job does not pay me enough" feeling hit me right in the memories! :)
Hey, Spice, great video! And I've really enjoyed everything else that you've put out (The Mill vs Discard & Lorwyn are particularly fantastic), and I just wanted to thank you for making so much magic content, it really makes my day watching one of your videos!
Great video as usual!
Gotta say, beyond all the amazing points and perspectives, my favorite part was your use of a clip from a recent episode of Game Changer.
With that, I'd just like to say - DROPOUT, GET THIS LOVELY RACK OF SPICE ON THERE!~
Seems like they just went with the "bad guy lost, nothing happened, lol"
I was not expecting the Lou Wilson "Baba booey baba booey" clip to show up here, and now I'm more enticed to sign up for their thing just so I can watch that episode, as I feel like you memeing it is the highest praise they can achieve
8:20 I assumed it was the case, but im glad to know that Spice is a Dropout fan.
And now we know that all this travels beetween worlds will bring us.... ... A need for speed set, a cluedo set, a haunted mansion set and a western set...
We needed a huge multiversal war to play a need for speed set...
No vampire or elves discovering new way of life in another world. No meeting of factions discovering what they could be or become. No rebirth of innistrad with the help of the capennan angels or a Zalfir centered set...
"Standalone Blockbusters" *Picture of Catwoman* This is why I love Spice8Rack
It's the movie of the century what's the joke??
@@Spice8Rack Catwoman does teach us the value of accessorizing!
God the Dropout and specifically Lou Wilson love spice has brings me joy
Spice I applaud your optimism for the narrative future of MTG. Your suggestions are lovely and I would honestly be happy if Wizards did an exploration on any of them. Sadly, though, I do not share your optimism.
I don't know what Wizards will do after the Phyrexians are inevitably dealt with or how they plan to do even that, but I do believe they are going to drop the ball on the aftermath of it all. We're going to get a 50 card mini set on how the various worlds of MTG are affected by the phyrexian invasion, and then it will have little to no narrative consequences after, despite it being the oldest and most sinister of all of MTGs big bads that were dealing with here.
Hell, New Capenna apparently dealt with a Phyrexian invasion in the past, off screen of course, and there are presumably still some Phyrexians from that invasion kicking about outside of the city limits! We didn't get a single card hinting at this in the set, and these are supposed to be Phyrexians from Yawgmoth's era! First gen Phyrexians on New Capenna, and we learn about it through supplemental material at best!
It sucks, but no, I don't think they're going to handle the story well at all. Hopefully they'll get someone more competent in charge before long who doesn't just copy paste plot points from Marvel and we actually return to MTG stories being good and compelling with lasting consequences. I'm not holding my breath, though.
How dare you get me excited about the possibilities of magic's story again
I don’t think I can articulate how great it is to see some Lorwyn/Shadowmoor representation. Cheers Spice
I didn't expect Lou's BABABOOEY in a video from you, but it really shouldn't be a surprise when you put Murph's Kugrash dance in one a while ago.