One of my big issues with this set from a narrative perspective is that we seem to have completely glossed over the initial culture shock that would/should be taking place as this new status quo takes hold of regular interplanar travel. It is honestly a missed opportunity to not feature several instances of flavour text that are just variants of "What the hell is that!?" emphasizing things like someone from Kaladesh seeing a minotaur for the first time.
There's nothing stopping them from having settings span multiple sets, if they so choose. They just choose not to, for better or worse. Whereas with the block model we were almost always stuck in one world for a whole year, and if you didn't like that world, you were fucked for 365 days. I have no idea how abandoning the block model became the scapegoat for every single thing wrong with Magic, but good lord it's silly.
well thats cause they're one and done for whatever thing is. Dominaria had different cultures and biomes and peoples strewn about it. Sets explored a problem and a people and what not now its here is a plane here is a story then we plane hop out. Rinse repeat, i honestly wish planeswalkers weren't "planeswalkers" like deathrite shaman could be in the planeswalker format. hinging everything on planeswalkers and legendary critters(For EDH) has really made it much harder design from a story standpoint.
@@andrewbrock3675 It’s fine in my book, it could be “great” in someone else. Focusing on one World for way too much time is also not always good, because enduring a world which you dislike for half a year would suck a lot.
@@edmundtetch3357 I’m a new player so I have no idea there even was a story. Were previous sets more story focused and cohesive? Which should I check out?
The Gitrog is the perfect example of MTG’s modern storytelling. It went from an eldritch monster in one of Magic’s best horror one-shots, to a recurring meme that just pops up every couple of sets for the sake of reference.
I hated the Mashup in the phyrexian set. It's telling that almost every time I remotely knew who the characters were the teamup made no sense to me. Bring back Sorin and Naahiri fighting each other in the middle of War of the Spark.
@@mangodude6790The nonsensical teamups make Gitrog showing up yet again in this set funnier in a way since even with its now-watered down nature, it's easier to just assume it ate Thalia after their teamup was done looking at those two cards alone.
@@smtykeI'd argue it's worse than that. Super Smash Bros was always Super Smash Bros, even if it was borrowing characters; imagine if, after Super Smash Bros Ultimate, every Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Fire Emblem, Metal Gear, and Pokemon game ALSO had to be Super Smash Bros instead of its own unique thing. That's really what has me worried. Not that Thunder Junction or any one set has dumb lore (though March of the Machine was pretty egregious as a payoff for a multi-year arc), but that within a few years, every plane is just going to be a silly mashup of old (in many cases stale) Magic in-jokes. That it's all going to turn into black-bordered Un-sets.
Also I love that we just dump the entirety of people being Compleated. God forbid we have to deal with the consequences of our writing instead of just hitting the reset button every set.
Yep. We certanly hit that reset button because no Planeswalkers lost their sparks. There were absolutely no consequences to the Phyrexian Invasion that resulted in the death of the Theros Gods, the Court of Locthwain on Eldraine being Phyrexianized and wiped out, or even Boseiju getting destroyed on Kamigawa. Rakdos must still be sleeping on Ravnica because he certainly can't travel to Thunder Junction thanks to the holes ripped in the multiverse by the Invasion Tree that got immediately closed up thanks to that vaunted reset button. Jace and Vraska are certainly not covered in horrible scars after having their Phyrexian implants removed, either.
You see, I would have loved it if marchesa's flavor text suggested that she had been overthrown in the chaos that followed the invasion of Fiore. It would even fit the flavor and themes of an old west set: a disgraced woman of means moving to the frontier to escape her past. There are so many missed opportunities here that could have been avoided with just a little bit of world building.
It's actually even better/nicer because she could have gone from queen to manager of a brothel as that allowed lower class women to rise up the ranks of society but that would be too risque for magic
I think that there’s a real problem in “nerd media” with them treating “western” settings as nothing more than rootin and tootin and fun cow wrangling, with no engagement with the actual depth or canon of the genre. I’m running Outlaws of Alkenstar for Pathfinder 2e right now and it has the exact same problem - it’s about guns and cowboy hats, not the struggle and demise of the promise of the frontier.
Thunder Junction had done one thing that i find HILARIOUS. "Outlaws" as a mechanic is a bundle of creature types including Warlock. As such Strixhaven is a school full of outlaws now! 😂😂😂
@@mr.mammuthusafricanavus8299Given all the "boomer" (ugh) jokes about how horrible marriage is, Wedding Ring being a "crime" actually fits honestly. Being able to technically use multiples of them at once with different people also makes it fitting since bigamy is an actual crime. If anything, then it's a bit funny how many actually evil artifacts *can't* trigger the "commit a crime" clause, like the Eye and Hand of Vecna or The One Ring.
I didn't much care for either of them given the Gatewatch focus despite overall liking both planes (poor Amonkhet), but I would *gladly* go back to that compared to current trends. Hasbro won't though.
@@dotmp3883 Thats a bad example tho Amonkhet litteraly encountered the end of the world at the second set. Of course it would’ve been weird if you introduced the plane and destroyed it in the same set
One of my favorite pieces of quiet worldbuilding we got on a card is actually Smuggler's Surprise. It got a lot of flack for being "a Trojan horse in the cowboy set". It's actually really funny to me. A bunch of Therosian settlers using a trick from their home plane to fool a bunch of people who've never seen this before. That rules, that shows us a world where people from entirely different dimensions and cultures are interacting. It's awesome. EDIT - Vince brought this up exactly. I think reading into it is all you're really able to do without flavor text to work with.
There is no need for trojan horses to come from Theros imo. I mean yes, it's from a story that originates in the area surrounding Troy which ties it to Theros, fine, but really, can we not have wooden horses with smugglers in them in a cowboy set as part of the local cowboy culture? Why not?
Do you realize this is just headcanon at this point? If the figures coming out of the horse had spears and helmets I could understand, but no, they are just generic cowboys.
@IAmebAdger Well sure, it could be a Thunder Junction original. But there is precedent in Magic for this being a Theros thing - Akroan Horse is a Trojan Horse reference from Theros (I don't remember which set)
@enricomassignani Yeah I guess it's just headcannon. But if reading additional context into art based on previous, cannon Magic art and card design doesn't matter, why are we even here talking about it? Maybe Therosians ditched their armor for cowboy outfits because they're more practical for living in a massive desert (a good enough reason for most of these characters to be wearing cowboy outfits), and ditched their spears and swords in favor of guns? Or Thunder blasters. or whatever they're called.
I really agree with you. I actually love westerns too, and seeing how we're getting just the jokes from the plane with none of the world building it feels like why even bother with the western stuff
A content creator dad who’s sick all the time is the representation I crave. Hang in there, man. The little one’s immune system will kick in eventually. The first year is rough.
I think my issues with the set are that it’s another “big event” only a year after March of the Machines (which also felt like it was rushed at the end?). “Big events” have the potential to be cool every few years with build up…but we literally just had “Everyone is here!” Less than a year ago?
This is the norm, mark rosewater said this is the first real "showcase" set they will do each year. With tons of returning characters from different areas, but you act like all of these characters were ones from that phyrexia block. Anywho, sometime next year its all about some race that spans planes as that showcase set of the year
@@cockman8437I mean, Marchesa, Fblthp, Gitrog Monster, that's already 3 characters that were in MOM already, and that's just because I don't know who else is in the set.
That actually sounds like of cool. I don't want to dismiss all of people's concerns but I do think some of it is just growing pains from the new status quo of people being able to travel with the Omenpaths. And like mentioned in the video, it does feel like it would have been better if that had more time to breathe instead of just immediately becoming the new normal.@@cockman8437
@@drakegrandx5914 thats how it has ALWAYS been, with teferi and the oathwatch, being in the same sets back to back because those are named figures with fans who want to know what they are up to. And because of the story now allowing for non planeswalkers to be on different planes, people want to know what they're up to
WOTC via MaRo did say that Thunder Junction was uninhabited until very recently. So it doesn't *have* any characters of its own, technically. Which feels really poorly thought out.
I think this has less to do with being poorly thought out, and more so them realising too late how messy the story set up would be. Just think about it: It's a plane which was never visited before by any planeswalker or the like before, and suddenly a bunch of people with weird tech/magic show up and take over the place which forces the native population to flee. would be a really cool story idea to flesh out if done right, but my guess is this was too hot of a topic for WotC, hence why this planes lore is basically not existing.
Which doesn’t even seem to make sense with the lore. The cactusfolk are indigenous to Thunder Junction, and even if they only appeared after the emergence of the Omenpaths it’s still literally their home plane. And then there’s whoever is responsible for the vault and stuff. Someone or a group of someone’s would’ve been there to create it at some point. Like it’s a half-hearted attempt to downplay how nakedly colonialist this setting is, and it fails miserably with the slightest scrutiny
@@EnerKaizer Not even including that the normal 10 chapters per set is not nearly enough to flesh that kind of story out properly ☠ Sadly they've killed the 3-set block structure, at least could have helped us with Thunder Junction, if not other planes...
Imagine how interesting it would have been to thematize what was going on with indigenous people and animals during the wild west era. But yea this would have required a lot of effort and dedication instead of just handing out cowboy hats and call it a day
They were trying so hard to include all their outlaws and other roguish types on this plane that they forgot who is what in the context of their own worlds, and Marchesa is the exact perfect example here. It's like they included her because of her story of assassinating Brago to ascend to the throne of her world.... but then forget that in the context of Fiora, some might have opposed her, but ultimately now, she's the law. If anyone from Fiora should have shown up here, it should have been Adriana. And on that note, if you want a world where villains can all come to and plot, and they wanted to show Marchesa... Fiora would have been a decent plane to set this on. But I am biased of just wanting a proper set on the plane
It's not like fitting Marchesa into a cowboy setting more naturally would've even been that hard. All it would've taken was cutting any deeper than an inch into western tropes. Like, right behind outlaws, bounty hunters and natives, what's the easiest thing you can do with a western? Business tycoon. The Once Upon a Time in the West routine. Some posh fuck sends hired guns to drive the locals away and claim their homes, because he wants to get gold or oil or make a railway or whatever. For a royal, it'd be a sensible role to fill, maybe seeing this as an expansionistic opportunity. Really simple, just following the tropes and so much of the writing would fall into place right there. It'd give a reason for the involvement of some named outlaws as guns for hire, add a bit of autheticity to the bit with more tropes than guns and hats, set up a conflict between the planeswalkers and the locals, build a backbone to the proceedings, when you're working with genres this tread and worn, half of the writing ought to already be there when you start. The fact that they seem to be pulling at so little of it kinda speaks to me to an outright disinterest in the idea as a whole from WoTC.
One of the bigger problems is if you want to design a top-down version of the old west into magic you'd have to engage with the ideas surrounding things like the pinkertons. railroad brawler is hired security that's a Pinkerton and companies like Wizards who are still hiring the pinkertons to break labor today aren't really equipped to handle those conversations
Tbh, I think that although this is a funny way to throw Wizards being shit in their face, it’s not the actual reason. The Pinkertons and the labor movement in general barely come up in Western stories - almost all of that stuff came after the demise of the frontier.
There is a card literally called Holy Cow, a Willi E. Coyote and Roadrunner set, and every "evil" legendary creature here. It's seems like a unset and like a fanfiction.
I said Murders felt like a murder mystery "un set" - Feels like this might be the direction of MTG, make everything a joke and memes, and I really don't like it.
Just to be clear, cards of that nature have existed since the 90s. I picked Tempest at random because it's old and in that "revered" era people seem to talk about. Just scrolling thru scryfall I'm going to look for art, flavor text, or names that seem humorous to me. Just off the top we've got Auratog with punny flavor text, Humility, really just all the Foglio art, both Armor and Talon sliver have quippy flavor text, the noted joke Clergy En-vec, and more than a few other ones that are at least ironically funny like Soltari Emmesary. And that's just white Also since this set is neck deep in the Weatherlight saga, nearly everything focuses on the same characters and will for the next... four years. But seriously, I keep scrolling and there's humorous Folgio and D'Terlizzi art, quippy flavor text from Gerrad, Ertai, Volrath, Tangarth, everything with Squee. We've got Mogg Fanatic jumping off a cliff to catch something with the text "I've got it, I've got it. I--". Souldrinker says "Don't drink and thrive". Hell Recycle. While conversely, nothing about the Coyote or Roadrunner is "silly" besides you knowing that it's a reference. It's played straighter than most of the cards I mentioned. Hell the Roadrunner's flavor text is *peak* classic Magic Flavor Text.
I think Kellan having to be a prominent character in each set without having a very memorable personality makes every set feel like a fanfiction with a self insert character.
They heard all the Universes Beyond defenders saying that nobody cares about Magic lore anyway and decided to just turn in universe sets into themed seasons like Overwatch.
the ruining of pro tours led to players moving to commander and that led to the desparking of planeswalkers so we can have them as legendary creatures, and all of this has to be crammed into the story which warps it into just a marvel story with no weight. jace was compleated what two sets ago and now hes back as a 2 mana planeswalker so all 3 paper modern players left are forced to buy the newest commander legends set that they slapped the "standard set" title into
Honestly with all the times players get screwed over at a pro tour and then the rules of the game get changed after, it's a wonder 60-card 1v1 tournament magic hadn't collapsed sooner. It may be just me, but once I played Commander I eventually abandoned most 60 card magic altogether. It just isn't fun. And this was in 2018, before Modern Horizons "ruined" Modern (tbh I felt Modern was about as fun as pulling out my own teeth with a pair of pliers even before MH1)
@@williamdrum9899Personally I find commander to be the worst format imo. There's no point to it for me, at least in 60 card constructed I can play in events to win and possibly get prizes. Plus I find 60 card players don't get as offended or salty as EDH players when they lose or you disrupt their gameplan.
@@FaithlessLooter It´s one of the few multiplayer formats out there and there are some cards that are bad in one vs one, but they are fun to play in multiplayer.
I still remember when I was a kid and reading the cards I would find in Weatherlight/Tempest/Stronghold/Exodus, I knew that there were actual books written for them, but it always fascinated me reading the bits in the flavor text where you'd get snippets of the story even from unrelated commons, or even just scenes in the art, where you could see a glimpse into the journey they were taking through multiple sets. Each set wasn't even taking place over that long of an event, like Stronghold was just a crew storming a stronghold, not something so grand like a phyrexian multiversal invasion ending in basically a single set, or things like this pack where a bunch of the cards seem forgettably irrelevant.
I think it's actually a brilliant tactical move from WOTC. Mark Rosewater has talked a lot about how much they didn't want to do a wild west plane, and I think only a bunch of demand combined with the bean counters sensing the potential money pushed it into production. But if they don't really want to do the set, they can just do this: make it as obnoxious as an Un-Set, shlock it up as hard as possible, monetize the crap out of it. No need to spend any time really developing the design, just throw some new cards and chase reprints in the Super Mythic slot that's standard legal but also a different printing collection for... reasons... and boom! They get to poison the well of this idea permanently and still make money off it. I'm sure the oft-requested Prison Plane is gonna be right around the corner, I'm just wondering if they'll print a card like "Soap on a rope". The contempt is so obvious.
It was so weird seeing rakdos or gisa outside of their plane. It would be nice if it was a more sparce thing they did. It's like they are eroding what made the magic world such a weird place, aka a lot of places being cut of completely from one another and having such wildly different populations. But thunder junctions plane feels.... It feels like big sandbox pit where toys are smashed together
I’ve been boycotting Hasbro since Lord of the rings dropped. They’ve made it easy on me by laying off tons of their workers and releasing average at best content.
I unfortunately reached that just before ixalan. Which sucks because I love dinosaurs. But I couldn't bring myself to care anymore. I have 20 decks I can't bring myself to print off because they'll be outdated in a month. Because everything loops into everything. You can't tune a set out, it'll have 1 bomb or utility card you want. without fail. I have to mentally tune everything out now.
As a magic boomer I think there were some great three set blocks. The last years of them seem a bit mixed though. All stand-alone sets feels like so much of the overload problem right now since mechanics come and go so fast now that it feels overwhelming to keep up. At least when you had 2-3 sets to get used to a mechanic you stopped forgetting what the difference between Foretell and Plot is because they just came from a very small pool in a single set.
This set is a skip for me. Buy 0 packs or decks. Get 0 singles. Just skip. Gotta do stuff like this now a days. Wizards won’t slow down, but I can slow down. I’m hibernating until BloomBurrow!
Mark said this is a "showcase set" and they're going to do this once a year with all your favorite legends visiting a new plane. Thanks to the Omenpaths.
Thank you for acknowledging that the storytelling and world-building can (and should) be done through cards. I feel like I'm losing my mind with how much pushback I've seen lately to that idea, when it's such a core part of why I love this game. OTJ feels so shallow relative to previous top-down sets like this one, and it's now the 2nd standard set in a row that I've decided to skip. I didn't like the "hat world" vibes of MKM either, and it's here again, except it's kind of worse because they're using card slots they could have used to flesh out the setting of Thunder Junction on what amounts to a marketing gimmick (getting lots of known villains on one set). At least MKM was in a setting we were familiar with I also agree that it's kind of a shame they botched the execution of Aftermath so badly. They could have used them to fill in those gaps left by the abandonment of the block model over time, and instead they just completely gave up on the idea because they created a bad version of it that no one wanted
Your point was proven when I saw Vadmir spoiled and immediately went to see his old card because I assumed he was just a character I hadn't heard of before
And they’ve all conveniently coordinated their outfits and weapon loadouts too. Pretty impressive given how disparate every plane’s fashion and technology is
I mean they didn't all show up simultaneously but it makes sense that people who committed crimes might jump into an omenpath to evade the law and keep doing so until they reach a lawless plain. It's possible there are just a ton of omenpaths to TJ
@@cockman8437ya which is weird because there are no native peoples and it was supposedly an empty plane but is now being filled with travellers in th last year or so and it has ancient treasure but no clue to how that's done so quickly
My sons and I used to buy a lot of sealed cases of boxes. These past two years we have only bought Commander Decks and some prerelease kits for drafting from our LGS. We did not buy the overpriced Ravnica Remastered boxes and the same goes for Murders at Thunder Junction Manor. We will wait to buy some singles. Thank you for the video.
If Tarkir was designed like Thunder Junction, the entire block would just be Mardu Mongolian-esque raiders on horseback and every character would have Genghis Khan facial hair.
There's just like, negative world building. Why are there all these abandoned mine shafts in the story if theyve only been here for like 3 years? Who built the trains? Why are there all these towns spread out if it seems like nothing is there except for abandoned mines and omenpaths? I'm sure some of this will be answered in the Planeswalker's Guide but I feel like they shouldve put some of it into the story or the cards.
Honestly though. The more you look into the worldbuilding the flatter it is. “Thunder Junction wasn’t inhabited until the Omenpaths opened”, yeah right.
They should have made thunder junction the first ravnica outpost of niv mizzet's project, with ravnica people going around planes inviting people to the plane to show what omenpaths can do
@@AlessandroAltosoleChannelIt's pretty "funny" (read: sad) that just having made this the 5th Ravnica set right after set _Ravnica IV: Quick, Get a Clue!_ honestly does feel like the superior option. This even though it's already somewhat that in the superficial "now almost everyone has a similar hat" way.
There's a lot wrong about this set. But my main gripe (besides ward still being a thing) is that Spree obviously should have been entwine. Most of the spree cards ARE entwine cards, and the 3 option ones could also be balanced to be entwine, rather than modal. "Everything is kicker," is a common problem with magic, but "entwine" sounds cowboy enough, and it's not too difficult to do a cycle of (C)s that reward you for entwining a spell. "1B Zombie 2/1 Whenever you entwine a spell, return ~ from your graveyard to the battlefield."; etc.
Ward is the best mechanic Wizards came up with in the last few years. It lets permanents be difficult to deal with but doesn't completely shut off certain interactions the way hexproof does.
@@flaetsbnortIt depends on the Ward cost, honestly. Yeah, it's not as obnoxious as Hexproof in theory and often in practice, but some of the Ward costs are so high or relatively costly that they might as well be Hexproof unless all of your removal can't be countered or is a wrath. I do agree overall that Ward is easily one of the better mechanics they've done overall as late, especially as an in theory always more fair version of Hexproof. It's just that they've also been going (way) overboard with it as of late like they have Treasures unfortunately, especially when more and more creatures both with it and in general are powercrept must-answer threats and/or runaway value engines.
I really hope that this set gets the "Look at all the characters you know from MTG Lore in this new plane with cowboy hats on." out of their system. I am over all these named legendary characters from other sets in this one with 30 from my count of named characters from past sets.
So far (with ~50 spoilers to go and not including commander decks) Outlaws has 34 legendary creatures. Dominaria, a set that was supposed to be about legends, had 44 (between a set with 9 and a set with 8). The original Kamigawa blocks which were supposed to be about legends had 56/33/29. Im sick of legendary creatures everywhere in the hopes it'll snag more commander players. I love commander. But legendary doesnt mean anything anymore. What's legendary about Bristly Bill? Fortune, the weird white dog-deer mount? Who's Jasper Flint or Miriam? None of these "legends" matter, because they're filler around all the other legends we forced in from previous planes. I remember the five Khans. I remember the 10 guildleaders and their 10 champions. Even on Dominaria, I knew how these people were related to the deep lore of Dominaria. Now it's just...as many legends as we can stuff in the set.
@@TheKingNaesalaI get that, it does bug me as well how WOTC design is so hyper focused on Commander with legendary creatures, everything makes treasures, and everything draws cards. I get Commander is their biggest money maker but I wish they would tone down how much they pander to it.
Thunder junction feels far more like a setting than a world with its own character. Players look back fondly at Ravnica (not Karlov manor) because of the wonder behind a seemingly infinite city that houses people from all walks of life and ideologies that clash violently when cramped together. Zendikar is literally charscterised as a world that itself is alive, commanding respect from those who live and visit it, and it reacts to threats to its existence with the unstopable force (and spirit) of the natural, of life. Lorwyn is a faithful iteration of the fey, with its fickle nature - the threat that in a second it can change from benevolent and whimsical to malicious and violent. These locations have character. Thunder junction is the place where everyone dons a stetson, boots and a six shooter. Its hollow.
I agree that forcing everything to be a single set makes for worse storytelling. You mention 3 block sets not being great, but I do believe there were some great ones. I don't think Scars of Mirrodin block or original Zendikar block would have been better as 2 set blocks for example. I feel like the story would have suffered. But I agree there are a lot of stories that could just be two blocks. It is annoying having worldbuilding, conflict, and resolution all going on at the same time. They don't necessarily all need their own set, but resolution should at least be partitioned from the other two.
We joked about New Capenna having a Tommy gun card but at least that had the demon-families Vs dead angels motif to give it its own flavour. But now after three recent sets that feel like "insert hat here," it does feel a bit shallow. HARD agree on bringing back 2-block structure, especially for new worlds and also for exploring new story spaces rather than falling into "the Dalek problem" of endlessly recycling: Bolas, Eldrazi, Phyrexians.
it just kind of feels like we havent been to a new plane since ixalan, we didnt spend enough time with kaldheim or ikoria or strixhaven to get a feel for its unigue characters or world, and everything else since has been ravnica, dominaria/phyrexians again or universes beyond
About Railway Brawler's flavor, he's a Rhino from New Capenna, specifically a Riveteer since they have rhinos and construction workers, the effect also ties in with: Freelance Muscle, Mr. Orfeo the Boulder and Perrie, the Pulverizer; seemingly connecting surge of power to rhinos As for the Plotting part... probably cause he's a Mythic yeah, can't really excuse that haha
Taking some time to go out of town and see the sights is fine and all, but the Omenpaths aren't 100% reliable: there is a chance that the Omenpath Marchesa needs, just fucking closes. Sucks to suck. Why would you EVER take that risk?!
Apparently that's part of the story. Niv Mizzet has been working on creating stable paths between planes in order to make Ravnica the center of the multiverse, and the path to and from here is stable... now who knows if the one coming in and out of Firoa is.... and why Marchesa is the one deciding to leave the plane, and not Adriana who has an actaul reason to leave and go into hiding.
We live in the timeline where Wotc care about other IP world more than their own IP. People said "oh player don't care about the lore and flavor text" don't realize how a good lore, theme create a good set mechanic. This is why a lot of set like MH always good back to a good old lore and mechanic. They not only sell you a nostalgic but the mechanic during that time way more creative and fun than those Morph 2.3, Cascade 2.0 that we got lately.
Mythology of the "new world" is so much more than ten gallon hats, saloons, and the good, bad, and the ugly. This is such a frustrating set that had no anthropologist consultants or respect for the origin of these myths.
@@lVideoWatcherlI feel like "don't put a wendigo" might be the bare minimum of advice that WotC's cultural consultants have given, seen as their track record is much more interested in "let's not offend the Twitter crowd" and way less more in the actual "let's help represent cultures we've been consulted for" part. And in the case of the wendigo specifically, those two things actually overlap.
Nah. Just nah. Wild west with wild west tropes is fine its a whole damn genre. If we wanna do horse nomad druids to make your inner comanche happy they'll do that later. I dont see people crying about how mummies arent accurate to egyptian funeral rites and etc etc so just knock it off no one cares stop finding reasons to be offended about nonesense. Ps: If we have to accept black aragorn and other random ass changes to an authors IP for your virtue signalling then ya can do the same and accept wild west with insufficient sweatlodges.
@@drakegrandx5914 I don't see how choosing to represent a creature of fable and of cultural significance to a certain subgroup of the relevant real-world counterpart would be anything to be criticized for? What would that criticism amount to, that it might be 'tacky'? If anything, the entire set is already. Not saying that your argument isn't their rationale, it's just that I seriously don't understand why.
I love the new gitrog I think it’s cool. I never felt it was a rideable thing so when Thalia showed up riding it, it felt weird and out of place. Now that it has saddle 1 and I see it’s something actually rideable it feels more at home with Thalia riding it, almost like it should have been in the set before Thalia and gitrog. Sort of feels like an afterthought now but still adds something to a previous card for me. The rest though feels like someone at a meeting was put on the spot and was like “crap… um… let’s put them in cowboy hats and make a western set… yea we’ll call it lightning road or… no… thunder junction yea that’s it.”
Well Railway Brawler is cheaper if you plot it, and it doesn't do anything the turn in comes into play unless you cast another creature.. which is more possible if you plot out the brawler. Also if you've got the board locked up, you can plot out the brawler as a backup in case of a boardwipe rather than overcommitting or wasting mana (though any plot does that last one)
As other people in this comments section have said, Thunder Junction is more of a "Magic All-Stars" set with a cowboy theme, rather than something building it's own lore. But here's the thing: Why is that a problem? I understand being mad at them doing the half-and-half thing that they're doing, where there is some lore important parts, but I think it's fine if WotC just decides "We want to have a set where we get to bring back a bunch of characters and have fun with it." They just finished the massive Phyrexia storyline, so we can let them take a break from the massive lore sets, and just have fun with an All-Star Cast Western Set.
I don't think people are wrong with thier complaints about this set. But I do think the problem is less the plan of Thunder Junction not having an identity as it is a plane with a bad identity. Its Identity is it is a cross roads of the omen paths. So the fact that we have just a bunch of people from other planes is its identity. Now as for the lack of any indigenous people and glossing over that part of the western genre. I think that is a good thing. I would rather have a magic set devoted to Indigenous culture than in the wild west set cause of the problems with cultural sensitivities.
Something I think isn't mentioned enough.. If Thunder Junction is supposed to be the great crossroads of omenpaths, the ne center for planar travel, a single point through which all must traverse in they journey across the multiverse.. We actually had something like that before... In fact, the entirety of early magic lore took place upon that plane. Dominaria was supposed to be a nexus point at the center of the multiverse, with a long a storied history, and wild unpredictable magic because of it. A single world upon which countless stories could take place, on account of it being the center of everything. This junction of omenpaths could have been that, a new world at the center of all others.. This could have been the next dominaria, a world where the greatest question is what it might become. Instead.. It's a rogues gallery in cowboy hats.
@@ospero7681 yeah and Ral doesn't seem to have a significant role in the story so far which are the cute forest critters fighting giant calamity beasts.
Ngl, plotting Railway Brawler in my Yargle and Multani deck looks fun. Cast Brawler just before commander for a quick 36 power. Maybe even some fun lines with cards like Life's Legacy and Malakir Rebirth etc
Magic's characters aren't really characters - they're actors. Wizards pulls a name out of a hat, throws that character into whatever mould they need for the current set, then expect us to cheer and applaud just because we recognise the face. This has been going on for a long time, and Thunder Junction is just that taken to the extremest of extremes.
The in-universe justification for having so many returning characters seems to be that the plane was uninhabited until the Omenpaths opened up.. but even then they're the writers, they chose that. They could have given us a cowboy plane with a long history and long-standing factions and that would have worked perfectly fine, probably better.
But that's how westerns and to some extent the actual West played out. They ran off all the indigenous people fairly quickly and as they expanded there was no history. Everything was new except for a few random Spanish settlements.
@@usof75756 Of course, but that didn't have to be the whole plane was my thought. There's a lot they could have done with a new frontier within a populated plane. I can see the direction they went, I csn sort of respect it the more I think about it, but it isn't to my taste I guess.
@@usof75756right but the settlers encountering that new land could have been unique to the plane and not "your friends from Ravnica are here to play dress up".
One of the things that they did right with the last two large arcs is that they culminated in fights taking place in familiar settings, so that the focus was on the narrative and less so on trying to establish a new world. It would have been more elegant imo if this set had followed LCI directly and taken place on Ixalan for example. The idea could be that Ashiok had, behind the scenes, set Vito and Aclazotz into motion as distractions from a greater scheme. The events of the LCI story would then be revealed to have greater, hidden significance.
"Too harsh"? No, quite the contrary. Read the story to the end and check how it "makes sense" (or fails miserably at that). It is a bad set, just got tons of power-crept cards shoved in, plus all the extra stuff like Mana Drain, Swords etc. to "help sell".
It had already worn thin halfway through the often cringeworthy Gatewatch arc. Now it's just an undead horse the likes of which Gisa would dig up and send at Geralf out of spite.
5:16 I mean... I would argue Magic hasn't cared about it's own canon long before "universes beyond" was even a thing, but then, I'm a GG, 7/7 Dinosaur with Phasing, Cumulative Upkeep (1), echo, fading 3, bands with other dinosaurs, snow covered plainswalk, flanking, and rampage 2. I would contend that they stopped caring about canon in 2014, 6 years before Universes Beyond was even a thing (with The Walking Dead being 2020)
yeah this set is bordering on feeling like an unset. This all feels very unearned, hollow, and frankly disposable. I'm not usually this down or negative but like... this just feels like they brought back characters and slapped a cowboy aesthetic on and called it a day. I really really dont like how it all feels. The way they use the genre is everything I was worried they would do. The designs mechanically are cool, and there are individual cards I really like, but I have no interest in 99% of these legends because I dont want to use my favorite characters playing cowboy dress up. It feels extra stupid.
I remember looking through the previews, seeing the new characters and thinking “oh what set were they in before”. I was conditioned for the old characters at that point that I legitimately didn’t think they would add anyone new and if that’s not an omen I don’t know what is.
I am so torn on this set, because I love the western aesthetic, and I think seeing all these different characters with their cowboy hats is hilarious, but the set's ludonarrative is just way too big, we care about these characters because of what their other cards do, or a wacky new commander option, neither of which have any relevance to thunder junction, the setting and the story is supposed to make us care about the characters, not the other way around
Peak MTG storytelling will always be 3 set blocks and novels in fat packs for me. Those are the characters I got attached to, not this jaunt through various themed amusement parks with mascots running about in costumes. It's way too shallow to be engaging, it's more expensive than it has ever been, and physical quality has continued to decline. I hope they turn things around eventually.
I think it says something interesting that the set about westerns has almost no natives and is all about other known characters cluttering the place and making a mess. Clearly an accident, but still...
I'm not even sure that's an accident. Playing in to the myth of "free, open land for the taking" was obviously a part of this sets story. Removing native inhabitants from the ONE SET that could feature Native North Americans sure seems intentionally done.
100% !! Imagine if they had taken the opportunity to explore the wild west setting from the point of view of the native inhabitants for example, and brought on a team of creatives from First Nations and American Indian backgrounds to lead the design of the legendary creatures in the set. That would have been so much more compelling imo.
God there is so much that can be said about this. Like I feel they were trying to avoid the unfortunate implications of a Wild West set, but they honestly just made it worse by refusing to engage with it. The whole set just feels like nakedly going-ho land grabbing colonialism with the whole “murdering indigenous people” aspect conveniently removed from the equation. And the set doesn’t really seem to acknowledge that the unexplored cactusfolk or the mysterious precursor civilization are essentially the stand-in for indigenous cultures, and what it means that all these outsiders have shown up en masse to stake claims, exploit the natural resources, and run off with whatever precursor relics they can find.
@@bdellovibrioo5242100% this sir. It's absolutely genious. Imagine full art official prints with real indigenous art from real indigenous people. That would have been real culture forever... Edit actually both of the above are great comments. This comment section has way more depth than even a single card of this set
8:16 mechanically you wanna plot it then cast it later so you can play other creatures in same turn as it, you plot it for 4 mana then following turn cast it for free then play like 2 creatures and get the triggers right away
Magic's biggest problem in recent years in terms of cohesion of lore, worldbuilding, setting etc. is that there are no more blocks, not even 2 set blocks. Therefore, nothing has time to breath. Every powerful mythic and known character has be crammed into a single set if it's meant for a specific setting because we'll be somewhere completely different before we can even blink. You like cyberpunk ninjas and want to learn more about the heart-warming relationship between Kaito and the Emperor and how Jhin-Gitaxias fits into all of this ? Too bad because we're already on the mean streets of New Capenna with Elspeth, Urabrask and Ob-Nixilis. You would have liked to learn more about these crime families before everything gets torn down according to Ob-Nixilis' plan ? Too bad because we're already delving in the Brothers' War. It makes it tiresome and players feel restless to even try to keep up with the story and settings. The ultra-fast release cadence with new spoilers seemingly every week doesn't help, either. I really wish 2 set blocks would become the norm. Give us time to actually meet the cyberpunk ninjas or crime families before the status quo gets destroyed. Let a bit more of the setting and lore reveal itself before diving into the main parts of the story. This would greatly help with the flavor and support of certain mechanics aswell. Because, without a second set, when are we going to see "Blitz" again, or "Disguise" for that matter (I mechanic I somewhat enjoy despite being an avid Morph-hater) ? A second set could have helped support those mechanics more.
As a proud citizen of the Crown (well adjacent, I'm in Australia anyway) - that 'queen Lizzie is taking one right now' quip was masterful. Take your like and enjoy it, sir.
I think wizards just made a big mistake with the omenpaths. Out of 186 cards spoiled so far 36! of them are from another plane (that i recognized from scrolling quickly through scryfall). And even half of the commanders from the commander decks are from other planes. And in the group of main characters (Seen in the art of "Rakish Crew") there is only 1 new character, AND SHE ISN'T EVEN FROM THUNDER JUNCTION! And the characters there doesn't make sense and doesn't fit in with the worldbuilding. For example Rakdos. Why is he there. He is the leader of a demon cult on Ravnica, and doesn't make sense there. One of the reasons characters are good, is that they fit in with their enviroment. And giving them a cOwBoY hAt doesn't change that!
I just love how many legends have no reason to be here. Geralf and Gisa who only care about their zombie war and methods? Here to futz around, nd why not bring Kraum too. Rakdos, parun of a guild with his name? "Hired Muscle". Fellow guild leader Lazav? He's here too! Marchesa, queen of a city plane who just fought off an extraplanar invasion? Here to gamble. Kaervek, a powerful warlock and enemy of teferi? Oko hired him. The Gitrog Monster? A horse. Plus a dozen new legends and a dozen returning legends with barely any lore and a desparked planeswalker and her still-planeswalker boyfriend who both just noped out of being compleated, oh and Kellam cuz this is all his story to find his dad. Like. If it were just the legends who are new, and a small crew of Oko, Tinybones, and two-three of the other lesser legends of old that have some neat heist-specific helper power I'd get it. But this set is just...fortnite skins.
@@TheKingNaesala The omenpaths are not just a problem with known characters. Thunder Junction has no prior worldbuilding, and when half the set is people from omenpaths, we dont know what is worldbuilding anymore. If everyone can use interplanar travel you cant tell if the card depicts a person from the plane the set is on, or if the person is from any other of the INFINITE NUMBER OF PLANES in the multiverse.
@@TheKingNaesala Do keep in mind that at least the characters who actually appear in the story are given reasons on being there - admittedly with varying quality. Rakdos for example is stated to pretty much have agreed to go on the mission because "Ravnica's been boring lately, I wanna get in a fight" what's at least something even if not great. Breeches & Malcolm are here because Vraska's here (who is in turn here for SPOILERS). Geralf and do a lesser extent Gisa actually probably get among the best reasons given seeing they actually got their own side story, with Geralf's reason being "doing a scientific study across the planes to try and figure out how they work (and of course how to use that)" and Gisa's being "Why confine myself to just trying to fill Innistrad with zombies when I could instead go out and try to swarm the multiverse?"
@@zachariahmerry2396 I mean, fair, those are reasons but they're barely reasons. "I'm going to throw my current base/studies/life/duties in the trash for a high-risk excursion elsewhere cuz it's new and shiny" is just kinda flimsy reasoning that at most pays lip service to getting them off the plane, even for chaotic beings like Rakdos and Gisa.
There are so many different prominent leaders just hanging out in the wild west set. Like a few if them I get, but it feels like every other creature is, more than just a named character, a leader of a major faction on another plane.
8:01 The rhino represents unstoppable progress. US railroad companies were known to force their way through, for big profits. Trains can deliver heavy stuff like tanks much more efficiently than planes can, and much quicker than ships. 12:40 Because this plane is based on the old west. The Djinn represents Asian immigrants. This story follows the omenpaths being left behind by Realmbreaker, allowing non-planeswalkers to travel to new frontiers. Armored Armadillo probably can be mounted using an equipment. Cows are a major food source in the US. They probably have the biggest cow farms and cowboy history. Buffalo used to be before them, but were nearly wiped out to starve the natives.
My only complaint is that it seems like there is an omen path around every corner and every and all people from every plane can just go anywhere anytime... They had specifically said that they were supposed to be rare and hard to find etc
my wife is a big fan of the old lore and thinks that thunder junction might be a trap set by Serra. the only being we know of powerful enough to create their own plane. All these singular villains being trapped there would be cool for the implications on the other planes.
I am a casual dabbler who's only decks are Jumpstart decks since Guilds of Ravnica and this set has me exited as Vraska is back again! I know that one!
I love Spaghetti Westerns and Modern Westerns and Comedy Westerns (blazing saddles) and I have to tell you, This totally feels shallow like a window dressing for sure.
disapointed rly ? honestly from flavor and fun this is the most hype i have for a game since ... a very long time. i cant wait for prerelease, this set for me seems so cool
My head cannon is that after last set of everyone you know in a detective hat, this set as everyone you know in a cowboy hat, and next sets everyone you know as an animal, that eventually some like Jace or Gideon or Nicol bolas will wake finding out the last several years of sets have just been a dream
Its almost like releasing a million sets a year while also reducing the amount of people working on the sets is leading to huge degradation of everything about the sets. Who could have seen that coming? Fuck it! Just put Spiderman on a card!
I saw the opening animated trailer thing and I thought it was pretty awesome. And then they kept spoiling cards and I just hated it. I do not like the direction of the story with omenpaths just making every single plane a mishmash of every legendary they can fit in one place. I thought travelling omenpaths was a risky thing to do, with a chance of being unable to go back, or the chance to get thrown to a plane with no active omenpaths. But naw, every fucking legendary and their mother all went to the cowboy plane to hang out and play cowboy. Ugh.
I don't think you understand the plot mechanic if you can't figure out the rhino. Under normal circumstances, playing a card like that is just a recipe to eat removal before it's ability can ever become relevant. Plot allows you to play the rhino AND additional threats in the same turn taking advantage of the rhino's ability. The way you need to think about plot... imagine a Guy Ritchie movie, there's usually a montage where "the whole plan comes together". You're planning for one big turn, one big score.
This set makes me angry. The ONE SET that might feature Native North American representation somehow miraculously has no native inhabitants. Which plays directly into the myth of Manifest Destiny and the idea that the American West was just "free land" and open for the taking. So fucking insulting.
Tbf, Ixalan did heavily feature indigenous Mexican cultures (And they brought on actual indigenous cultural consultants for Caverns unlike OG Ixalan, which made Caverns’s story and worldbuilding so much stronger than OG Ixalan). But yeah, Thunder Junction feels like WotC is trying to have their cake and eat it too. They want the fun Wild West cowboy/outlaw shootout plane, but don’t want to deal with all the historical baggage that entails so they just try and remove indigenous inhabitants from the equation entirely which was objectively an even worse choice. And this ignoring of unfortunate implications led to things like the writers not recognizing that this is still a racist land grabbing/exploitation colonialist narrative regardless of whether or not indigenous people are present (As you pointed out). Or the writers somehow forgetting the fact that the cactusfolk are actually from Thunder Junction or logically that someone at some point had to have build the fancy Vault that everyone’s so obsessed with in the story-so there actually are people who are native to plane who might have opinions about all these outsiders showing up and claiming land. Or that while it’s nice they brought on indigenous cultural consultants to create Annie Flash and her nomadic planes-hopping culture (He mentioned the culture’s name in the video but I didn’t catch it, I think it started with an “A”?) to serve as stand-ins for Indigenous Americans from the West/Southwest USA in this West/Southwest USA inspired set, but by making her and her people not be from Thunder Junction it makes them colonists coming to claim and exploit the land and resources of Thunder Junction-just like everyone else moving onto the plane. Like did no one think that particular design decision through??? Had they just had Annie Flash and her people be from Thunder Junction, been willing to properly engage with the indigenous elements of a Wild West story and factor that into the worldbuilding and story it wouldn’t have been half as tone-deaf as this mess of unfortunate implications they created from trying to ignore the issue entirely. Maybe they were worried it’d end up too similar to Caverns of Ixalan? (Odd how both sets already feature high tech ancient machinery and dinosaurs hidden underground) Or maybe they were worried that it’d distract too much from the cowboy/outlaw story the writers wanted the narrative to revolve around?
@@SWAT6809 Mexico *is* part of Mesoamerica as well as being part of North America. Mexico is named for Mexica people, also known as the Nahuatl--which is also the name of the language (Some famous Mexica civilizations include the Aztecs, Toltecs, and Zapotecs). Literally everything from the art and architecture, to the names of characters from the Sun Empire are meant to be evocative of Nahautl language and culture (Huatli for instance; "hua" and "tl" occur often in many Nahuatl words and names like Huitzilopochtli or Xochihuah). Ixalan's whole original concept is its a retelling of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire with added vampires, dinosaurs, merfolk, and pirates. Which took place in Mexico.
@@davidmaxwell4696 I am aware that mexico is part of mesoamerica. In the new set I was often reminded of the Inca and their predecessors, hence why the limit to specifically mexico seemed weird to me, since there is clearly an influence of Andean cultures, be it the Nazca or others.
@@SWAT6809Mesoamerica doesn't include Andean cultures, it just encompasses Mexico and Central America (The meso- prefix means "middle", so "Middle America"). That said, you are right and there are a few nods to both the Inca and the Nazca in Lost Caverns of Ixalan that I missed. But the influences for the set are still overwhelming drawn from Mexica and Maya cultures (Which *are* part of Mesoamerica).
Hodgepodge, silly, "OMG SO RANDOM!" seems to be the prevailing tone behind the game now. It is incredibly disappointing that this game treated me more like I had a grown-up brain when I was twelve, and now its trying so hard to be so many things that it falls flat in every way.
The problem with Thunder Junction is NOT its wild west theme. The issue is WotC using omen paths as an excuse to havs a large cast of recurring characters across tons of worlds, and their overly hyper cutesy, pun filled, quippy art and flavour design. When I heard "MtG cowboy set", I want a fully realized world of western tropes and a traditionally wild west story arc. I don't want "all your friends from Ravnica are wearing funny hats!"
One of my big issues with this set from a narrative perspective is that we seem to have completely glossed over the initial culture shock that would/should be taking place as this new status quo takes hold of regular interplanar travel. It is honestly a missed opportunity to not feature several instances of flavour text that are just variants of "What the hell is that!?" emphasizing things like someone from Kaladesh seeing a minotaur for the first time.
'You can accept an energy vampire but a cow-person is too much for you?!'
Says the squid to the hairless ape
I guess after seeing phyrexians everything else seems mild.
That's not what flavor text is supposed to do.. but that would be funny
The abandonment of blocks has been disastrous for the storytelling capacity of Magic. Settings and stories dont have room to breathe
There's nothing stopping them from having settings span multiple sets, if they so choose. They just choose not to, for better or worse.
Whereas with the block model we were almost always stuck in one world for a whole year, and if you didn't like that world, you were fucked for 365 days.
I have no idea how abandoning the block model became the scapegoat for every single thing wrong with Magic, but good lord it's silly.
well thats cause they're one and done for whatever thing is. Dominaria had different cultures and biomes and peoples strewn about it. Sets explored a problem and a people and what not now its here is a plane here is a story then we plane hop out. Rinse repeat, i honestly wish planeswalkers weren't "planeswalkers" like deathrite shaman could be in the planeswalker format. hinging everything on planeswalkers and legendary critters(For EDH) has really made it much harder design from a story standpoint.
Strixhaven was fine
Kaldheim was fine
New Capenna was fine
Block’s aint the issue, Fortnit’y marketing is
@@Uefeti"fine" is the best they've been capable of for a while. And "fine" isn't good enough.
@@andrewbrock3675
It’s fine in my book, it could be “great” in someone else.
Focusing on one World for way too much time is also not always good, because enduring a world which you dislike for half a year would suck a lot.
Thunder Junction feels less like a world with its own stories and more like an excuse to have all these characters show up together.
Yup
It's a trash set plain and simple. WotC has jumped the shark and there is no turning back, this game will be yugioh by the end of the year.
Wasn't that the whole pitch when they were first talking about this set?
Just wait until the Wacky Racers set next year...
@@edmundtetch3357 I’m a new player so I have no idea there even was a story. Were previous sets more story focused and cohesive? Which should I check out?
The Gitrog is the perfect example of MTG’s modern storytelling.
It went from an eldritch monster in one of Magic’s best horror one-shots, to a recurring meme that just pops up every couple of sets for the sake of reference.
I hated the Mashup in the phyrexian set. It's telling that almost every time I remotely knew who the characters were the teamup made no sense to me. Bring back Sorin and Naahiri fighting each other in the middle of War of the Spark.
@@mangodude6790The nonsensical teamups make Gitrog showing up yet again in this set funnier in a way since even with its now-watered down nature, it's easier to just assume it ate Thalia after their teamup was done looking at those two cards alone.
It all reeks of “Look how fun and silly this is! You love this character! LOL”
Oh god this comment hit home for me. MtG is truly becoming Super Smash Bros.
@@smtykeI'd argue it's worse than that. Super Smash Bros was always Super Smash Bros, even if it was borrowing characters; imagine if, after Super Smash Bros Ultimate, every Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Fire Emblem, Metal Gear, and Pokemon game ALSO had to be Super Smash Bros instead of its own unique thing.
That's really what has me worried. Not that Thunder Junction or any one set has dumb lore (though March of the Machine was pretty egregious as a payoff for a multi-year arc), but that within a few years, every plane is just going to be a silly mashup of old (in many cases stale) Magic in-jokes. That it's all going to turn into black-bordered Un-sets.
Also I love that we just dump the entirety of people being Compleated. God forbid we have to deal with the consequences of our writing instead of just hitting the reset button every set.
We be Marvel Comics now boys
Yep. We certanly hit that reset button because no Planeswalkers lost their sparks. There were absolutely no consequences to the Phyrexian Invasion that resulted in the death of the Theros Gods, the Court of Locthwain on Eldraine being Phyrexianized and wiped out, or even Boseiju getting destroyed on Kamigawa. Rakdos must still be sleeping on Ravnica because he certainly can't travel to Thunder Junction thanks to the holes ripped in the multiverse by the Invasion Tree that got immediately closed up thanks to that vaunted reset button. Jace and Vraska are certainly not covered in horrible scars after having their Phyrexian implants removed, either.
the "entirety" ? so far it seems onlyy jayce and we dont know why yet lol
@@TechnomagusNone of what you said is of consequence, yes. Especially finding the "Jace has scars now" hilarious.
Lack of consequences is how they practice for their future collab with Marvel
You see, I would have loved it if marchesa's flavor text suggested that she had been overthrown in the chaos that followed the invasion of Fiore. It would even fit the flavor and themes of an old west set: a disgraced woman of means moving to the frontier to escape her past.
There are so many missed opportunities here that could have been avoided with just a little bit of world building.
This is such a great idea! Makes me sad it was just a cliche, wink to the camera line of flavor text we got instead of this
That would have been perfect.
It's actually even better/nicer because she could have gone from queen to manager of a brothel as that allowed lower class women to rise up the ranks of society but that would be too risque for magic
This would have been such a great idea to make it make sense for Marchesa to be there, and it would have been so easy to do.
I think that there’s a real problem in “nerd media” with them treating “western” settings as nothing more than rootin and tootin and fun cow wrangling, with no engagement with the actual depth or canon of the genre. I’m running Outlaws of Alkenstar for Pathfinder 2e right now and it has the exact same problem - it’s about guns and cowboy hats, not the struggle and demise of the promise of the frontier.
"you should've folded when you had the chance" she said to optimus prime
*chi-kuh-kh-ka* said Optimus Prime as he literally folded into a truck
@@DefconLives Thank you both for my hardest laugh of the day 😃
@@DefconLives OK, that was good.
I immediately thought of foiled cards when I read your post. LMAO
Thunder Junction had done one thing that i find HILARIOUS. "Outlaws" as a mechanic is a bundle of creature types including Warlock. As such Strixhaven is a school full of outlaws now! 😂😂😂
Wedding ring is now a crime, because it targets an opponent
@@cockman8437 Love that one! Oh in MTG it is a crime to get married! ;p LOL
@@mr.mammuthusafricanavus8299 Given what ha$bro is doing and supporting, I am not surprised.
@@mr.mammuthusafricanavus8299Given all the "boomer" (ugh) jokes about how horrible marriage is, Wedding Ring being a "crime" actually fits honestly. Being able to technically use multiples of them at once with different people also makes it fitting since bigamy is an actual crime.
If anything, then it's a bit funny how many actually evil artifacts *can't* trigger the "commit a crime" clause, like the Eye and Hand of Vecna or The One Ring.
What does this even mean@@crapparc
Kaladesh and Amonkhet had such neat introductions and stories because of that 2 block structure, even if they were around the same Planeswalker group
That wasn’t the same Planeswalker group tho
Gatewatch arc ended at war of the Spark
Those were in the gatewatch arc. They were between oath of the gatewatch and WAR.
I didn't much care for either of them given the Gatewatch focus despite overall liking both planes (poor Amonkhet), but I would *gladly* go back to that compared to current trends. Hasbro won't though.
I can’t imagine amonkhet in one set it just wouldn’t have worked at all
@@dotmp3883
Thats a bad example tho
Amonkhet litteraly encountered the end of the world at the second set.
Of course it would’ve been weird if you introduced the plane and destroyed it in the same set
One of my favorite pieces of quiet worldbuilding we got on a card is actually Smuggler's Surprise. It got a lot of flack for being "a Trojan horse in the cowboy set".
It's actually really funny to me. A bunch of Therosian settlers using a trick from their home plane to fool a bunch of people who've never seen this before. That rules, that shows us a world where people from entirely different dimensions and cultures are interacting. It's awesome.
EDIT - Vince brought this up exactly. I think reading into it is all you're really able to do without flavor text to work with.
There is no need for trojan horses to come from Theros imo. I mean yes, it's from a story that originates in the area surrounding Troy which ties it to Theros, fine, but really, can we not have wooden horses with smugglers in them in a cowboy set as part of the local cowboy culture? Why not?
Do you realize this is just headcanon at this point?
If the figures coming out of the horse had spears and helmets I could understand, but no, they are just generic cowboys.
@IAmebAdger Well sure, it could be a Thunder Junction original. But there is precedent in Magic for this being a Theros thing - Akroan Horse is a Trojan Horse reference from Theros (I don't remember which set)
@enricomassignani Yeah I guess it's just headcannon. But if reading additional context into art based on previous, cannon Magic art and card design doesn't matter, why are we even here talking about it? Maybe Therosians ditched their armor for cowboy outfits because they're more practical for living in a massive desert (a good enough reason for most of these characters to be wearing cowboy outfits), and ditched their spears and swords in favor of guns? Or Thunder blasters. or whatever they're called.
I really agree with you. I actually love westerns too, and seeing how we're getting just the jokes from the plane with none of the world building it feels like why even bother with the western stuff
the way we constantly see Rakdos in sets reminds me of Ob Nixilis being everywhere at one point
A content creator dad who’s sick all the time is the representation I crave. Hang in there, man. The little one’s immune system will kick in eventually. The first year is rough.
I think my issues with the set are that it’s another “big event” only a year after March of the Machines (which also felt like it was rushed at the end?). “Big events” have the potential to be cool every few years with build up…but we literally just had “Everyone is here!” Less than a year ago?
This is the norm, mark rosewater said this is the first real "showcase" set they will do each year. With tons of returning characters from different areas, but you act like all of these characters were ones from that phyrexia block.
Anywho, sometime next year its all about some race that spans planes as that showcase set of the year
@@cockman8437I mean, Marchesa, Fblthp, Gitrog Monster, that's already 3 characters that were in MOM already, and that's just because I don't know who else is in the set.
That actually sounds like of cool. I don't want to dismiss all of people's concerns but I do think some of it is just growing pains from the new status quo of people being able to travel with the Omenpaths.
And like mentioned in the video, it does feel like it would have been better if that had more time to breathe instead of just immediately becoming the new normal.@@cockman8437
@@drakegrandx5914 thats how it has ALWAYS been, with teferi and the oathwatch, being in the same sets back to back because those are named figures with fans who want to know what they are up to.
And because of the story now allowing for non planeswalkers to be on different planes, people want to know what they're up to
Comic book energy
WOTC via MaRo did say that Thunder Junction was uninhabited until very recently. So it doesn't *have* any characters of its own, technically. Which feels really poorly thought out.
I think this has less to do with being poorly thought out, and more so them realising too late how messy the story set up would be.
Just think about it:
It's a plane which was never visited before by any planeswalker or the like before, and suddenly a bunch of people with weird tech/magic show up and take over the place which forces the native population to flee.
would be a really cool story idea to flesh out if done right, but my guess is this was too hot of a topic for WotC, hence why this planes lore is basically not existing.
Which doesn’t even seem to make sense with the lore. The cactusfolk are indigenous to Thunder Junction, and even if they only appeared after the emergence of the Omenpaths it’s still literally their home plane.
And then there’s whoever is responsible for the vault and stuff. Someone or a group of someone’s would’ve been there to create it at some point.
Like it’s a half-hearted attempt to downplay how nakedly colonialist this setting is, and it fails miserably with the slightest scrutiny
@@EnerKaizer Not even including that the normal 10 chapters per set is not nearly enough to flesh that kind of story out properly ☠
Sadly they've killed the 3-set block structure, at least could have helped us with Thunder Junction, if not other planes...
Imagine how interesting it would have been to thematize what was going on with indigenous people and animals during the wild west era. But yea this would have required a lot of effort and dedication instead of just handing out cowboy hats and call it a day
He did say that... Yet the cactusfolk are clearly native to Thunder Junction.
They were trying so hard to include all their outlaws and other roguish types on this plane that they forgot who is what in the context of their own worlds, and Marchesa is the exact perfect example here. It's like they included her because of her story of assassinating Brago to ascend to the throne of her world.... but then forget that in the context of Fiora, some might have opposed her, but ultimately now, she's the law. If anyone from Fiora should have shown up here, it should have been Adriana.
And on that note, if you want a world where villains can all come to and plot, and they wanted to show Marchesa... Fiora would have been a decent plane to set this on. But I am biased of just wanting a proper set on the plane
It's not like fitting Marchesa into a cowboy setting more naturally would've even been that hard. All it would've taken was cutting any deeper than an inch into western tropes. Like, right behind outlaws, bounty hunters and natives, what's the easiest thing you can do with a western? Business tycoon. The Once Upon a Time in the West routine. Some posh fuck sends hired guns to drive the locals away and claim their homes, because he wants to get gold or oil or make a railway or whatever. For a royal, it'd be a sensible role to fill, maybe seeing this as an expansionistic opportunity. Really simple, just following the tropes and so much of the writing would fall into place right there. It'd give a reason for the involvement of some named outlaws as guns for hire, add a bit of autheticity to the bit with more tropes than guns and hats, set up a conflict between the planeswalkers and the locals, build a backbone to the proceedings, when you're working with genres this tread and worn, half of the writing ought to already be there when you start. The fact that they seem to be pulling at so little of it kinda speaks to me to an outright disinterest in the idea as a whole from WoTC.
One of the bigger problems is if you want to design a top-down version of the old west into magic you'd have to engage with the ideas surrounding things like the pinkertons. railroad brawler is hired security that's a Pinkerton and companies like Wizards who are still hiring the pinkertons to break labor today aren't really equipped to handle those conversations
See Spice 8 Rack's 4 hour diatribe on Khans block for another example.
Ah fuck it's the whole "Disney tastelessly depicting Bobby Driscoll (Sweet Pete)" situation all over again.
@@origaminosferatu3357 As he's a card-carrying commie, I think you can probably disregard that.
@SirGrimLockSmithVIII I'm not familiar you have recommended reading?
Tbh, I think that although this is a funny way to throw Wizards being shit in their face, it’s not the actual reason. The Pinkertons and the labor movement in general barely come up in Western stories - almost all of that stuff came after the demise of the frontier.
There is a card literally called Holy Cow, a Willi E. Coyote and Roadrunner set, and every "evil" legendary creature here. It's seems like a unset and like a fanfiction.
People who have never read fanfiction talking like they have is one of my favorite things.
I said Murders felt like a murder mystery "un set" - Feels like this might be the direction of MTG, make everything a joke and memes, and I really don't like it.
That's not a bug, that's a feature.
Just to be clear, cards of that nature have existed since the 90s. I picked Tempest at random because it's old and in that "revered" era people seem to talk about.
Just scrolling thru scryfall I'm going to look for art, flavor text, or names that seem humorous to me. Just off the top we've got Auratog with punny flavor text, Humility, really just all the Foglio art, both Armor and Talon sliver have quippy flavor text, the noted joke Clergy En-vec, and more than a few other ones that are at least ironically funny like Soltari Emmesary. And that's just white
Also since this set is neck deep in the Weatherlight saga, nearly everything focuses on the same characters and will for the next... four years.
But seriously, I keep scrolling and there's humorous Folgio and D'Terlizzi art, quippy flavor text from Gerrad, Ertai, Volrath, Tangarth, everything with Squee. We've got Mogg Fanatic jumping off a cliff to catch something with the text "I've got it, I've got it. I--". Souldrinker says "Don't drink and thrive". Hell Recycle.
While conversely, nothing about the Coyote or Roadrunner is "silly" besides you knowing that it's a reference. It's played straighter than most of the cards I mentioned. Hell the Roadrunner's flavor text is *peak* classic Magic Flavor Text.
I think Kellan having to be a prominent character in each set without having a very memorable personality makes every set feel like a fanfiction with a self insert character.
They heard all the Universes Beyond defenders saying that nobody cares about Magic lore anyway and decided to just turn in universe sets into themed seasons like Overwatch.
And the trailer looked like Overwatch/Fornite season trailers. War of the Spark had a freaking beautiful cinematic, but I guess that's past, now.
Man, I miss the days of the Scars bloc, those had great trailers.
The "Queen is on vacation (she's dead)" joke alone made it worth you making this video. Keep up the good work!
the ruining of pro tours led to players moving to commander and that led to the desparking of planeswalkers so we can have them as legendary creatures, and all of this has to be crammed into the story which warps it into just a marvel story with no weight. jace was compleated what two sets ago and now hes back as a 2 mana planeswalker so all 3 paper modern players left are forced to buy the newest commander legends set that they slapped the "standard set" title into
Honestly with all the times players get screwed over at a pro tour and then the rules of the game get changed after, it's a wonder 60-card 1v1 tournament magic hadn't collapsed sooner. It may be just me, but once I played Commander I eventually abandoned most 60 card magic altogether. It just isn't fun. And this was in 2018, before Modern Horizons "ruined" Modern (tbh I felt Modern was about as fun as pulling out my own teeth with a pair of pliers even before MH1)
@williamdrum9899 wow, that fun?
Find this so curious cause i cant imagine anything more boring then commander and fallen in love with modern the last 1-2 years
@@williamdrum9899Personally I find commander to be the worst format imo. There's no point to it for me, at least in 60 card constructed I can play in events to win and possibly get prizes. Plus I find 60 card players don't get as offended or salty as EDH players when they lose or you disrupt their gameplan.
@@FaithlessLooter It´s one of the few multiplayer formats out there and there are some cards that are bad in one vs one, but they are fun to play in multiplayer.
I still remember when I was a kid and reading the cards I would find in Weatherlight/Tempest/Stronghold/Exodus, I knew that there were actual books written for them, but it always fascinated me reading the bits in the flavor text where you'd get snippets of the story even from unrelated commons, or even just scenes in the art, where you could see a glimpse into the journey they were taking through multiple sets. Each set wasn't even taking place over that long of an event, like Stronghold was just a crew storming a stronghold, not something so grand like a phyrexian multiversal invasion ending in basically a single set, or things like this pack where a bunch of the cards seem forgettably irrelevant.
It feels like thunder junction is a wild west expansion of the unfinity amusement
I think it's actually a brilliant tactical move from WOTC. Mark Rosewater has talked a lot about how much they didn't want to do a wild west plane, and I think only a bunch of demand combined with the bean counters sensing the potential money pushed it into production. But if they don't really want to do the set, they can just do this: make it as obnoxious as an Un-Set, shlock it up as hard as possible, monetize the crap out of it. No need to spend any time really developing the design, just throw some new cards and chase reprints in the Super Mythic slot that's standard legal but also a different printing collection for... reasons... and boom! They get to poison the well of this idea permanently and still make money off it.
I'm sure the oft-requested Prison Plane is gonna be right around the corner, I'm just wondering if they'll print a card like "Soap on a rope". The contempt is so obvious.
Squee, Booty Warrior
It was so weird seeing rakdos or gisa outside of their plane. It would be nice if it was a more sparce thing they did. It's like they are eroding what made the magic world such a weird place, aka a lot of places being cut of completely from one another and having such wildly different populations. But thunder junctions plane feels.... It feels like big sandbox pit where toys are smashed together
TJ looks like an MMOs main hub city during a theme event.
Honestly I feel burned out for this set. I no longer feel like I want to follow up the cards or the story 🫤
I’ve been boycotting Hasbro since Lord of the rings dropped. They’ve made it easy on me by laying off tons of their workers and releasing average at best content.
Two of the side stories are good, one following Nashi and the other Gisa and Geralf. Other than that...eh
I unfortunately reached that just before ixalan. Which sucks because I love dinosaurs. But I couldn't bring myself to care anymore. I have 20 decks I can't bring myself to print off because they'll be outdated in a month. Because everything loops into everything. You can't tune a set out, it'll have 1 bomb or utility card you want. without fail. I have to mentally tune everything out now.
Lol that happened to me 15 years ago
As a magic boomer I think there were some great three set blocks. The last years of them seem a bit mixed though.
All stand-alone sets feels like so much of the overload problem right now since mechanics come and go so fast now that it feels overwhelming to keep up. At least when you had 2-3 sets to get used to a mechanic you stopped forgetting what the difference between Foretell and Plot is because they just came from a very small pool in a single set.
This set is a skip for me. Buy 0 packs or decks. Get 0 singles. Just skip. Gotta do stuff like this now a days. Wizards won’t slow down, but I can slow down. I’m hibernating until BloomBurrow!
Personally I’m getting my hands on the new Kellan card but besides that nothing
I have skipped several sets and I think this one is fun
i skipped the last sets this i will go all in its so nice
Until Bloomburrow comes and you say the same thing because "the set looks boring"
i just want all the meme card, crafty coyote, resilient roadrunner, loan shrk and holly cow
Mark said this is a "showcase set" and they're going to do this once a year with all your favorite legends visiting a new plane. Thanks to the Omenpaths.
Thanks I hate it.
If that’s the case, then this first shot missed the target big time!
I’m assuming the next set like this is the death race one, which could actually work well if it’s this big event that people everywhere are attending.
Awesome. More playable versions of well know legends will please the Commander crowd.
@@auraaetherbladesigma6939Maro considers MOM to be the first “showcase set” actually, which makes some sense
Thank you for acknowledging that the storytelling and world-building can (and should) be done through cards. I feel like I'm losing my mind with how much pushback I've seen lately to that idea, when it's such a core part of why I love this game. OTJ feels so shallow relative to previous top-down sets like this one, and it's now the 2nd standard set in a row that I've decided to skip. I didn't like the "hat world" vibes of MKM either, and it's here again, except it's kind of worse because they're using card slots they could have used to flesh out the setting of Thunder Junction on what amounts to a marketing gimmick (getting lots of known villains on one set). At least MKM was in a setting we were familiar with
I also agree that it's kind of a shame they botched the execution of Aftermath so badly. They could have used them to fill in those gaps left by the abandonment of the block model over time, and instead they just completely gave up on the idea because they created a bad version of it that no one wanted
Have you considered THIS IS A FUCKING CARD GAME?!
@@nilessebek4255 Have you considered that other people like different aspects of things than you? Calm the fuck down dude
@@nilessebek4255 Why even bother with card names and pictures at that point, just waste of ink. Can fit more card mechanics on them then.
Your point was proven when I saw Vadmir spoiled and immediately went to see his old card because I assumed he was just a character I hadn't heard of before
Just all the villainous characters showed up simultaneously, on the same plane, by coincidence. Millions of planes to go, yet there they all are.
And they’ve all conveniently coordinated their outfits and weapon loadouts too. Pretty impressive given how disparate every plane’s fashion and technology is
@@davidmaxwell4696 I wonder where Rakdos got his clothes. Like imagine him entering a mall and shopping for cowboy clothes.
I mean they didn't all show up simultaneously but it makes sense that people who committed crimes might jump into an omenpath to evade the law and keep doing so until they reach a lawless plain. It's possible there are just a ton of omenpaths to TJ
They are there because there are rumors of some vault, treasure planet style, that has tons of riches or something
@@cockman8437ya which is weird because there are no native peoples and it was supposedly an empty plane but is now being filled with travellers in th last year or so and it has ancient treasure but no clue to how that's done so quickly
My sons and I used to buy a lot of sealed cases of boxes. These past two years we have only bought Commander Decks and some prerelease kits for drafting from our LGS. We did not buy the overpriced Ravnica Remastered boxes and the same goes for Murders at Thunder Junction Manor. We will wait to buy some singles. Thank you for the video.
If Tarkir was designed like Thunder Junction, the entire block would just be Mardu Mongolian-esque raiders on horseback and every character would have Genghis Khan facial hair.
Khans of Tarkir....when MTG was good.
Honestly, from Ravnica/Time Spiral up to Khans was the best era of MTG.
Tarkir was full of orientalism, so I wouldn't throw it up as a poster child of good new worldbuilding.
@@Awes0m3n3s5 It wasn't especially true to life, but at least it had worldbuilding beyond costumes.
I think they should have gone full-bore and just called it Commander Legends With Hats. The world's first official Hat Draft set.
Unfinity hat shenanigans are going off the rails with this set
Also of note: *Armored Armadillo* was early in design an artifact, due to the whole _Mega Man X_ origin.
There's just like, negative world building. Why are there all these abandoned mine shafts in the story if theyve only been here for like 3 years? Who built the trains? Why are there all these towns spread out if it seems like nothing is there except for abandoned mines and omenpaths? I'm sure some of this will be answered in the Planeswalker's Guide but I feel like they shouldve put some of it into the story or the cards.
Honestly though. The more you look into the worldbuilding the flatter it is. “Thunder Junction wasn’t inhabited until the Omenpaths opened”, yeah right.
They should have made thunder junction the first ravnica outpost of niv mizzet's project, with ravnica people going around planes inviting people to the plane to show what omenpaths can do
@@AlessandroAltosoleChannelIt's pretty "funny" (read: sad) that just having made this the 5th Ravnica set right after set _Ravnica IV: Quick, Get a Clue!_ honestly does feel like the superior option. This even though it's already somewhat that in the superficial "now almost everyone has a similar hat" way.
Bloomburrow is going to have a thing where visiting planeswalkers get turned into animals. So yes, we are definitely getting Fox Jace.
It really feels like each set is just "what hat will our legendary creatures be wearing this time?"
And Jace is MTG´s Pikachu.
well they have all those Unfinity cards that they have to keep supporting with Hat Tribal
There's a lot wrong about this set. But my main gripe (besides ward still being a thing) is that Spree obviously should have been entwine. Most of the spree cards ARE entwine cards, and the 3 option ones could also be balanced to be entwine, rather than modal. "Everything is kicker," is a common problem with magic, but "entwine" sounds cowboy enough, and it's not too difficult to do a cycle of (C)s that reward you for entwining a spell. "1B Zombie 2/1 Whenever you entwine a spell, return ~ from your graveyard to the battlefield."; etc.
Ward is the best mechanic Wizards came up with in the last few years. It lets permanents be difficult to deal with but doesn't completely shut off certain interactions the way hexproof does.
@@flaetsbnortIt depends on the Ward cost, honestly. Yeah, it's not as obnoxious as Hexproof in theory and often in practice, but some of the Ward costs are so high or relatively costly that they might as well be Hexproof unless all of your removal can't be countered or is a wrath.
I do agree overall that Ward is easily one of the better mechanics they've done overall as late, especially as an in theory always more fair version of Hexproof. It's just that they've also been going (way) overboard with it as of late like they have Treasures unfortunately, especially when more and more creatures both with it and in general are powercrept must-answer threats and/or runaway value engines.
I really hope that this set gets the "Look at all the characters you know from MTG Lore in this new plane with cowboy hats on." out of their system. I am over all these named legendary characters from other sets in this one with 30 from my count of named characters from past sets.
So far (with ~50 spoilers to go and not including commander decks) Outlaws has 34 legendary creatures. Dominaria, a set that was supposed to be about legends, had 44 (between a set with 9 and a set with 8). The original Kamigawa blocks which were supposed to be about legends had 56/33/29.
Im sick of legendary creatures everywhere in the hopes it'll snag more commander players. I love commander. But legendary doesnt mean anything anymore. What's legendary about Bristly Bill? Fortune, the weird white dog-deer mount? Who's Jasper Flint or Miriam? None of these "legends" matter, because they're filler around all the other legends we forced in from previous planes. I remember the five Khans. I remember the 10 guildleaders and their 10 champions. Even on Dominaria, I knew how these people were related to the deep lore of Dominaria. Now it's just...as many legends as we can stuff in the set.
@@TheKingNaesalaI get that, it does bug me as well how WOTC design is so hyper focused on Commander with legendary creatures, everything makes treasures, and everything draws cards. I get Commander is their biggest money maker but I wish they would tone down how much they pander to it.
I was amazed of how they hinted Emrakul in Shaows over Innistrad illustrations
can we fast forward to autumn and enjoy an actually cool looking, reasonably novel and just plain nice set in Bloomburrow?
Yes plz. Really looking forward to that.
That one looks nice minus the usual vomit of commander trash
Fingers crossed they can let Bloomburrow be it's own thing and create an interesting, standalone MTG set. 🤞
No, because Fox Jace remember? :^)
@@Adrianovaz2007 Plz, don't remind me ... 😭
Thunder junction feels far more like a setting than a world with its own character. Players look back fondly at Ravnica (not Karlov manor) because of the wonder behind a seemingly infinite city that houses people from all walks of life and ideologies that clash violently when cramped together. Zendikar is literally charscterised as a world that itself is alive, commanding respect from those who live and visit it, and it reacts to threats to its existence with the unstopable force (and spirit) of the natural, of life. Lorwyn is a faithful iteration of the fey, with its fickle nature - the threat that in a second it can change from benevolent and whimsical to malicious and violent. These locations have character. Thunder junction is the place where everyone dons a stetson, boots and a six shooter. Its hollow.
I agree that forcing everything to be a single set makes for worse storytelling. You mention 3 block sets not being great, but I do believe there were some great ones. I don't think Scars of Mirrodin block or original Zendikar block would have been better as 2 set blocks for example. I feel like the story would have suffered. But I agree there are a lot of stories that could just be two blocks. It is annoying having worldbuilding, conflict, and resolution all going on at the same time. They don't necessarily all need their own set, but resolution should at least be partitioned from the other two.
Welcome to Thunder Junction, here is your cowboy hat.
We joked about New Capenna having a Tommy gun card but at least that had the demon-families Vs dead angels motif to give it its own flavour. But now after three recent sets that feel like "insert hat here," it does feel a bit shallow.
HARD agree on bringing back 2-block structure, especially for new worlds and also for exploring new story spaces rather than falling into "the Dalek problem" of endlessly recycling: Bolas, Eldrazi, Phyrexians.
it just kind of feels like we havent been to a new plane since ixalan, we didnt spend enough time with kaldheim or ikoria or strixhaven to get a feel for its unigue characters or world, and everything else since has been ravnica, dominaria/phyrexians again or universes beyond
About Railway Brawler's flavor, he's a Rhino from New Capenna, specifically a Riveteer since they have rhinos and construction workers, the effect also ties in with: Freelance Muscle, Mr. Orfeo the Boulder and Perrie, the Pulverizer; seemingly connecting surge of power to rhinos
As for the Plotting part... probably cause he's a Mythic yeah, can't really excuse that haha
Taking some time to go out of town and see the sights is fine and all, but the Omenpaths aren't 100% reliable: there is a chance that the Omenpath Marchesa needs, just fucking closes. Sucks to suck. Why would you EVER take that risk?!
Apparently that's part of the story. Niv Mizzet has been working on creating stable paths between planes in order to make Ravnica the center of the multiverse, and the path to and from here is stable... now who knows if the one coming in and out of Firoa is.... and why Marchesa is the one deciding to leave the plane, and not Adriana who has an actaul reason to leave and go into hiding.
We live in the timeline where Wotc care about other IP world more than their own IP.
People said "oh player don't care about the lore and flavor text" don't realize how a good lore, theme create a good set mechanic.
This is why a lot of set like MH always good back to a good old lore and mechanic.
They not only sell you a nostalgic but the mechanic during that time way more creative and fun than those Morph 2.3, Cascade 2.0 that we got lately.
"This is not to sell people Clue, dont be ridiculous!" ... proceeds to show his 100$ MtG Cluedo tie in seconds later ...
Mythology of the "new world" is so much more than ten gallon hats, saloons, and the good, bad, and the ugly. This is such a frustrating set that had no anthropologist consultants or respect for the origin of these myths.
Wondering if there will be a Wendingo
@@lVideoWatcherlI feel like "don't put a wendigo" might be the bare minimum of advice that WotC's cultural consultants have given, seen as their track record is much more interested in "let's not offend the Twitter crowd" and way less more in the actual "let's help represent cultures we've been consulted for" part. And in the case of the wendigo specifically, those two things actually overlap.
Nah. Just nah. Wild west with wild west tropes is fine its a whole damn genre.
If we wanna do horse nomad druids to make your inner comanche happy they'll do that later.
I dont see people crying about how mummies arent accurate to egyptian funeral rites and etc etc so just knock it off no one cares stop finding reasons to be offended about nonesense.
Ps: If we have to accept black aragorn and other random ass changes to an authors IP for your virtue signalling then ya can do the same and accept wild west with insufficient sweatlodges.
@@drakegrandx5914 I don't see how choosing to represent a creature of fable and of cultural significance to a certain subgroup of the relevant real-world counterpart would be anything to be criticized for? What would that criticism amount to, that it might be 'tacky'? If anything, the entire set is already.
Not saying that your argument isn't their rationale, it's just that I seriously don't understand why.
@@drakegrandx5914 Good to know "cultural consultants" are utterly worthless, since their advice is "don't do cool stuff, just make the set slop dreck"
I love the new gitrog I think it’s cool. I never felt it was a rideable thing so when Thalia showed up riding it, it felt weird and out of place. Now that it has saddle 1 and I see it’s something actually rideable it feels more at home with Thalia riding it, almost like it should have been in the set before Thalia and gitrog. Sort of feels like an afterthought now but still adds something to a previous card for me. The rest though feels like someone at a meeting was put on the spot and was like “crap… um… let’s put them in cowboy hats and make a western set… yea we’ll call it lightning road or… no… thunder junction yea that’s it.”
Well Railway Brawler is cheaper if you plot it, and it doesn't do anything the turn in comes into play unless you cast another creature.. which is more possible if you plot out the brawler. Also if you've got the board locked up, you can plot out the brawler as a backup in case of a boardwipe rather than overcommitting or wasting mana (though any plot does that last one)
As other people in this comments section have said, Thunder Junction is more of a "Magic All-Stars" set with a cowboy theme, rather than something building it's own lore. But here's the thing: Why is that a problem? I understand being mad at them doing the half-and-half thing that they're doing, where there is some lore important parts, but I think it's fine if WotC just decides "We want to have a set where we get to bring back a bunch of characters and have fun with it." They just finished the massive Phyrexia storyline, so we can let them take a break from the massive lore sets, and just have fun with an All-Star Cast Western Set.
I don't think people are wrong with thier complaints about this set. But I do think the problem is less the plan of Thunder Junction not having an identity as it is a plane with a bad identity. Its Identity is it is a cross roads of the omen paths. So the fact that we have just a bunch of people from other planes is its identity. Now as for the lack of any indigenous people and glossing over that part of the western genre. I think that is a good thing. I would rather have a magic set devoted to Indigenous culture than in the wild west set cause of the problems with cultural sensitivities.
Something I think isn't mentioned enough.. If Thunder Junction is supposed to be the great crossroads of omenpaths, the ne center for planar travel, a single point through which all must traverse in they journey across the multiverse.. We actually had something like that before... In fact, the entirety of early magic lore took place upon that plane.
Dominaria was supposed to be a nexus point at the center of the multiverse, with a long a storied history, and wild unpredictable magic because of it. A single world upon which countless stories could take place, on account of it being the center of everything. This junction of omenpaths could have been that, a new world at the center of all others.. This could have been the next dominaria, a world where the greatest question is what it might become. Instead.. It's a rogues gallery in cowboy hats.
i would love another set where its a glimpse at the plain and has 0 to almost 0 established players in the story.
Get ready for Bloomburrow then
@@otterfire4712Isn't Jace already confirmed
@@Silvern7552 that's one character and he could just be one of the planeswalkers turned into critters in that side set
@@otterfire4712Jace is definitely in the side set. Ral is "the" planeswalker in the main set.
@@ospero7681 yeah and Ral doesn't seem to have a significant role in the story so far which are the cute forest critters fighting giant calamity beasts.
You fail to understand how this set is going to make my kitchen table unfinity “hats matters” deck unstoppable
Brimms Malone is about to pop the fuck off
Ngl, plotting Railway Brawler in my Yargle and Multani deck looks fun. Cast Brawler just before commander for a quick 36 power. Maybe even some fun lines with cards like Life's Legacy and Malakir Rebirth etc
Magic's characters aren't really characters - they're actors. Wizards pulls a name out of a hat, throws that character into whatever mould they need for the current set, then expect us to cheer and applaud just because we recognise the face. This has been going on for a long time, and Thunder Junction is just that taken to the extremest of extremes.
The in-universe justification for having so many returning characters seems to be that the plane was uninhabited until the Omenpaths opened up.. but even then they're the writers, they chose that. They could have given us a cowboy plane with a long history and long-standing factions and that would have worked perfectly fine, probably better.
But that's how westerns and to some extent the actual West played out. They ran off all the indigenous people fairly quickly and as they expanded there was no history. Everything was new except for a few random Spanish settlements.
@@usof75756 Of course, but that didn't have to be the whole plane was my thought. There's a lot they could have done with a new frontier within a populated plane. I can see the direction they went, I csn sort of respect it the more I think about it, but it isn't to my taste I guess.
@@cheesi that's entirely fair. I'm not going to ever suggest anyone has to like any part of magic.
@@usof75756right but the settlers encountering that new land could have been unique to the plane and not "your friends from Ravnica are here to play dress up".
One of the things that they did right with the last two large arcs is that they culminated in fights taking place in familiar settings, so that the focus was on the narrative and less so on trying to establish a new world. It would have been more elegant imo if this set had followed LCI directly and taken place on Ixalan for example. The idea could be that Ashiok had, behind the scenes, set Vito and Aclazotz into motion as distractions from a greater scheme. The events of the LCI story would then be revealed to have greater, hidden significance.
Or it would have been if the story wasn't shite
"Too harsh"? No, quite the contrary. Read the story to the end and check how it "makes sense" (or fails miserably at that). It is a bad set, just got tons of power-crept cards shoved in, plus all the extra stuff like Mana Drain, Swords etc. to "help sell".
The set definitely feels like "fan service" insert into the main stream.
Like one of those "holiday special" episodes in the series.
The avengers assemble effect is starting to wear a bit thin, true.
It had already worn thin halfway through the often cringeworthy Gatewatch arc. Now it's just an undead horse the likes of which Gisa would dig up and send at Geralf out of spite.
5:16
I mean... I would argue Magic hasn't cared about it's own canon long before "universes beyond" was even a thing, but then, I'm a GG, 7/7 Dinosaur with Phasing, Cumulative Upkeep (1), echo, fading 3, bands with other dinosaurs, snow covered plainswalk, flanking, and rampage 2.
I would contend that they stopped caring about canon in 2014, 6 years before Universes Beyond was even a thing (with The Walking Dead being 2020)
Well digested. Great points. Solid analysis mate.
yeah this set is bordering on feeling like an unset. This all feels very unearned, hollow, and frankly disposable.
I'm not usually this down or negative but like... this just feels like they brought back characters and slapped a cowboy aesthetic on and called it a day. I really really dont like how it all feels. The way they use the genre is everything I was worried they would do.
The designs mechanically are cool, and there are individual cards I really like, but I have no interest in 99% of these legends because I dont want to use my favorite characters playing cowboy dress up. It feels extra stupid.
I noticed I havent really picked up much from the latest sets. Bloomburrow has my interest though
I remember looking through the previews, seeing the new characters and thinking “oh what set were they in before”. I was conditioned for the old characters at that point that I legitimately didn’t think they would add anyone new and if that’s not an omen I don’t know what is.
I am so torn on this set, because I love the western aesthetic, and I think seeing all these different characters with their cowboy hats is hilarious, but the set's ludonarrative is just way too big, we care about these characters because of what their other cards do, or a wacky new commander option, neither of which have any relevance to thunder junction, the setting and the story is supposed to make us care about the characters, not the other way around
The smash cut to the headstone got a belly laugh from me
I'm surprised Ulamog isn't in here with a cowboy hat.
Peak MTG storytelling will always be 3 set blocks and novels in fat packs for me. Those are the characters I got attached to, not this jaunt through various themed amusement parks with mascots running about in costumes. It's way too shallow to be engaging, it's more expensive than it has ever been, and physical quality has continued to decline. I hope they turn things around eventually.
I think it says something interesting that the set about westerns has almost no natives and is all about other known characters cluttering the place and making a mess. Clearly an accident, but still...
I'm not even sure that's an accident. Playing in to the myth of "free, open land for the taking" was obviously a part of this sets story. Removing native inhabitants from the ONE SET that could feature Native North Americans sure seems intentionally done.
100% !! Imagine if they had taken the opportunity to explore the wild west setting from the point of view of the native inhabitants for example, and brought on a team of creatives from First Nations and American Indian backgrounds to lead the design of the legendary creatures in the set. That would have been so much more compelling imo.
God there is so much that can be said about this. Like I feel they were trying to avoid the unfortunate implications of a Wild West set, but they honestly just made it worse by refusing to engage with it. The whole set just feels like nakedly going-ho land grabbing colonialism with the whole “murdering indigenous people” aspect conveniently removed from the equation. And the set doesn’t really seem to acknowledge that the unexplored cactusfolk or the mysterious precursor civilization are essentially the stand-in for indigenous cultures, and what it means that all these outsiders have shown up en masse to stake claims, exploit the natural resources, and run off with whatever precursor relics they can find.
@@bdellovibrioo5242100% this sir. It's absolutely genious. Imagine full art official prints with real indigenous art from real indigenous people. That would have been real culture forever... Edit actually both of the above are great comments. This comment section has way more depth than even a single card of this set
The cactusfolk are native to the plane
8:16 mechanically you wanna plot it then cast it later so you can play other creatures in same turn as it, you plot it for 4 mana then following turn cast it for free then play like 2 creatures and get the triggers right away
Similar to how planeswalkers become furries when they go to Bloomborrow, when you appear here you get a cowboy hat.
Please, say it ain't so! 🤞🥺 I NEED Bloomburrow to be good... 😬
Magic's biggest problem in recent years in terms of cohesion of lore, worldbuilding, setting etc. is that there are no more blocks, not even 2 set blocks. Therefore, nothing has time to breath. Every powerful mythic and known character has be crammed into a single set if it's meant for a specific setting because we'll be somewhere completely different before we can even blink.
You like cyberpunk ninjas and want to learn more about the heart-warming relationship between Kaito and the Emperor and how Jhin-Gitaxias fits into all of this ? Too bad because we're already on the mean streets of New Capenna with Elspeth, Urabrask and Ob-Nixilis. You would have liked to learn more about these crime families before everything gets torn down according to Ob-Nixilis' plan ? Too bad because we're already delving in the Brothers' War.
It makes it tiresome and players feel restless to even try to keep up with the story and settings. The ultra-fast release cadence with new spoilers seemingly every week doesn't help, either. I really wish 2 set blocks would become the norm. Give us time to actually meet the cyberpunk ninjas or crime families before the status quo gets destroyed. Let a bit more of the setting and lore reveal itself before diving into the main parts of the story.
This would greatly help with the flavor and support of certain mechanics aswell. Because, without a second set, when are we going to see "Blitz" again, or "Disguise" for that matter (I mechanic I somewhat enjoy despite being an avid Morph-hater) ? A second set could have helped support those mechanics more.
I wish WotC just stopped printing those sets like crazy. People don't have time to enjoy the sets.
I feel the same. There is no rest.
As a proud citizen of the Crown (well adjacent, I'm in Australia anyway) - that 'queen Lizzie is taking one right now' quip was masterful. Take your like and enjoy it, sir.
I think wizards just made a big mistake with the omenpaths. Out of 186 cards spoiled so far 36! of them are from another plane (that i recognized from scrolling quickly through scryfall). And even half of the commanders from the commander decks are from other planes. And in the group of main characters (Seen in the art of "Rakish Crew") there is only 1 new character, AND SHE ISN'T EVEN FROM THUNDER JUNCTION! And the characters there doesn't make sense and doesn't fit in with the worldbuilding. For example Rakdos. Why is he there. He is the leader of a demon cult on Ravnica, and doesn't make sense there. One of the reasons characters are good, is that they fit in with their enviroment. And giving them a cOwBoY hAt doesn't change that!
I just love how many legends have no reason to be here. Geralf and Gisa who only care about their zombie war and methods? Here to futz around, nd why not bring Kraum too. Rakdos, parun of a guild with his name? "Hired Muscle". Fellow guild leader Lazav? He's here too! Marchesa, queen of a city plane who just fought off an extraplanar invasion? Here to gamble. Kaervek, a powerful warlock and enemy of teferi? Oko hired him. The Gitrog Monster? A horse. Plus a dozen new legends and a dozen returning legends with barely any lore and a desparked planeswalker and her still-planeswalker boyfriend who both just noped out of being compleated, oh and Kellam cuz this is all his story to find his dad.
Like. If it were just the legends who are new, and a small crew of Oko, Tinybones, and two-three of the other lesser legends of old that have some neat heist-specific helper power I'd get it. But this set is just...fortnite skins.
@@TheKingNaesala The omenpaths are not just a problem with known characters. Thunder Junction has no prior worldbuilding, and when half the set is people from omenpaths, we dont know what is worldbuilding anymore. If everyone can use interplanar travel you cant tell if the card depicts a person from the plane the set is on, or if the person is from any other of the INFINITE NUMBER OF PLANES in the multiverse.
@@TheKingNaesala Do keep in mind that at least the characters who actually appear in the story are given reasons on being there - admittedly with varying quality. Rakdos for example is stated to pretty much have agreed to go on the mission because "Ravnica's been boring lately, I wanna get in a fight" what's at least something even if not great. Breeches & Malcolm are here because Vraska's here (who is in turn here for SPOILERS). Geralf and do a lesser extent Gisa actually probably get among the best reasons given seeing they actually got their own side story, with Geralf's reason being "doing a scientific study across the planes to try and figure out how they work (and of course how to use that)" and Gisa's being "Why confine myself to just trying to fill Innistrad with zombies when I could instead go out and try to swarm the multiverse?"
@@zachariahmerry2396 I mean, fair, those are reasons but they're barely reasons. "I'm going to throw my current base/studies/life/duties in the trash for a high-risk excursion elsewhere cuz it's new and shiny" is just kinda flimsy reasoning that at most pays lip service to getting them off the plane, even for chaotic beings like Rakdos and Gisa.
It's just a bastard throwaway plane, back to Ravnica and Zendikar for the twentieth time!
There are so many different prominent leaders just hanging out in the wild west set. Like a few if them I get, but it feels like every other creature is, more than just a named character, a leader of a major faction on another plane.
23:45 anyone else noticed that Marauding Sphynx is wearing f*cking SPURS??
That in itself is already absurd enough but they are even on the front legs??? Who designed this? An AI?
@@psnt_rlgn likely
@@psnt_rlgn also note that she's not wearing *boots that happen to have spurs attached to them*
She is wearing *just the spurs*
@@enricomassignani lol someone intentionally thought this was a cool idea
8:01 The rhino represents unstoppable progress. US railroad companies were known to force their way through, for big profits. Trains can deliver heavy stuff like tanks much more efficiently than planes can, and much quicker than ships.
12:40 Because this plane is based on the old west. The Djinn represents Asian immigrants.
This story follows the omenpaths being left behind by Realmbreaker, allowing non-planeswalkers to travel to new frontiers.
Armored Armadillo probably can be mounted using an equipment.
Cows are a major food source in the US. They probably have the biggest cow farms and cowboy history. Buffalo used to be before them, but were nearly wiped out to starve the natives.
My only complaint is that it seems like there is an omen path around every corner and every and all people from every plane can just go anywhere anytime... They had specifically said that they were supposed to be rare and hard to find etc
You step off the omenpath ...
"Welcome to Thunder Junction. Here's your complementary cowboy hat."
my wife is a big fan of the old lore and thinks that thunder junction might be a trap set by Serra. the only being we know of powerful enough to create their own plane. All these singular villains being trapped there would be cool for the implications on the other planes.
This is an awesome take! Too bad WoTC can't be bothered to actually put this level of thought and planning into their lore these days...
I think all of the OG planeswalkers could makes planes, Serra being around and still making them would be cool though
I am a casual dabbler who's only decks are Jumpstart decks since Guilds of Ravnica and this set has me exited as Vraska is back again! I know that one!
I love Spaghetti Westerns and Modern Westerns and Comedy Westerns (blazing saddles) and I have to tell you, This totally feels shallow like a window dressing for sure.
disapointed rly ?
honestly from flavor and fun this is the most hype i have for a game since ... a very long time.
i cant wait for prerelease, this set for me seems so cool
My head cannon is that after last set of everyone you know in a detective hat, this set as everyone you know in a cowboy hat, and next sets everyone you know as an animal, that eventually some like Jace or Gideon or Nicol bolas will wake finding out the last several years of sets have just been a dream
Its almost like releasing a million sets a year while also reducing the amount of people working on the sets is leading to huge degradation of everything about the sets. Who could have seen that coming? Fuck it! Just put Spiderman on a card!
I saw the opening animated trailer thing and I thought it was pretty awesome. And then they kept spoiling cards and I just hated it. I do not like the direction of the story with omenpaths just making every single plane a mishmash of every legendary they can fit in one place. I thought travelling omenpaths was a risky thing to do, with a chance of being unable to go back, or the chance to get thrown to a plane with no active omenpaths. But naw, every fucking legendary and their mother all went to the cowboy plane to hang out and play cowboy. Ugh.
I don't think you understand the plot mechanic if you can't figure out the rhino. Under normal circumstances, playing a card like that is just a recipe to eat removal before it's ability can ever become relevant. Plot allows you to play the rhino AND additional threats in the same turn taking advantage of the rhino's ability. The way you need to think about plot... imagine a Guy Ritchie movie, there's usually a montage where "the whole plan comes together". You're planning for one big turn, one big score.
This set makes me angry. The ONE SET that might feature Native North American representation somehow miraculously has no native inhabitants. Which plays directly into the myth of Manifest Destiny and the idea that the American West was just "free land" and open for the taking. So fucking insulting.
Tbf, Ixalan did heavily feature indigenous Mexican cultures (And they brought on actual indigenous cultural consultants for Caverns unlike OG Ixalan, which made Caverns’s story and worldbuilding so much stronger than OG Ixalan).
But yeah, Thunder Junction feels like WotC is trying to have their cake and eat it too. They want the fun Wild West cowboy/outlaw shootout plane, but don’t want to deal with all the historical baggage that entails so they just try and remove indigenous inhabitants from the equation entirely which was objectively an even worse choice.
And this ignoring of unfortunate implications led to things like the writers not recognizing that this is still a racist land grabbing/exploitation colonialist narrative regardless of whether or not indigenous people are present (As you pointed out). Or the writers somehow forgetting the fact that the cactusfolk are actually from Thunder Junction or logically that someone at some point had to have build the fancy Vault that everyone’s so obsessed with in the story-so there actually are people who are native to plane who might have opinions about all these outsiders showing up and claiming land. Or that while it’s nice they brought on indigenous cultural consultants to create Annie Flash and her nomadic planes-hopping culture (He mentioned the culture’s name in the video but I didn’t catch it, I think it started with an “A”?) to serve as stand-ins for Indigenous Americans from the West/Southwest USA in this West/Southwest USA inspired set, but by making her and her people not be from Thunder Junction it makes them colonists coming to claim and exploit the land and resources of Thunder Junction-just like everyone else moving onto the plane. Like did no one think that particular design decision through???
Had they just had Annie Flash and her people be from Thunder Junction, been willing to properly engage with the indigenous elements of a Wild West story and factor that into the worldbuilding and story it wouldn’t have been half as tone-deaf as this mess of unfortunate implications they created from trying to ignore the issue entirely. Maybe they were worried it’d end up too similar to Caverns of Ixalan? (Odd how both sets already feature high tech ancient machinery and dinosaurs hidden underground) Or maybe they were worried that it’d distract too much from the cowboy/outlaw story the writers wanted the narrative to revolve around?
@@davidmaxwell4696 ixalan wasnt mexican, it was mesoamerican
@@SWAT6809 Mexico *is* part of Mesoamerica as well as being part of North America. Mexico is named for Mexica people, also known as the Nahuatl--which is also the name of the language (Some famous Mexica civilizations include the Aztecs, Toltecs, and Zapotecs).
Literally everything from the art and architecture, to the names of characters from the Sun Empire are meant to be evocative of Nahautl language and culture (Huatli for instance; "hua" and "tl" occur often in many Nahuatl words and names like Huitzilopochtli or Xochihuah).
Ixalan's whole original concept is its a retelling of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire with added vampires, dinosaurs, merfolk, and pirates. Which took place in Mexico.
@@davidmaxwell4696 I am aware that mexico is part of mesoamerica. In the new set I was often reminded of the Inca and their predecessors, hence why the limit to specifically mexico seemed weird to me, since there is clearly an influence of Andean cultures, be it the Nazca or others.
@@SWAT6809Mesoamerica doesn't include Andean cultures, it just encompasses Mexico and Central America (The meso- prefix means "middle", so "Middle America").
That said, you are right and there are a few nods to both the Inca and the Nazca in Lost Caverns of Ixalan that I missed. But the influences for the set are still overwhelming drawn from Mexica and Maya cultures (Which *are* part of Mesoamerica).
Hodgepodge, silly, "OMG SO RANDOM!" seems to be the prevailing tone behind the game now. It is incredibly disappointing that this game treated me more like I had a grown-up brain when I was twelve, and now its trying so hard to be so many things that it falls flat in every way.
What’s going on with Colossal Rattlewurm!? A 4 mana 6/5 with 3 abilities !? How !?
It's called explicit powe creep in the face of a Sheoldred format. 🤣
I also paused the video and went what the hell is this
@@Adrianovaz2007 we’re so spoiled, I feel like a lot of players today look at Colossal Rattlewurm and shrug, “maybe if it had an ETB” 🤣
@@Zarbon000 it has some use after the opp removes it to make the next one better, an ETB on top of that would be astronomical levels of powercreep
@@Adrianovaz2007 How much standard play you predict the card will have?
The problem with Thunder Junction is NOT its wild west theme. The issue is WotC using omen paths as an excuse to havs a large cast of recurring characters across tons of worlds, and their overly hyper cutesy, pun filled, quippy art and flavour design.
When I heard "MtG cowboy set", I want a fully realized world of western tropes and a traditionally wild west story arc. I don't want "all your friends from Ravnica are wearing funny hats!"