The Magic release schedule for 2022 has been revealed and I've linked to the relevant part here.
So let's talk about these!
The big turn is clearly Kamigawa: Neon Destiny. The artwork suggests a sci-fi vibe, Blade Runner-ish aesthetic and...well, despite MaRo's assurances, I wonder.
The things people liked about Kamigawa block were the flavor and setting. We got these very cool legends, more than ever, that weren't like anything we'd ever seen before. The deep dive into Japanese mythology that incorporated naming conventions and imagery helped give players a real sense of place. It was, if I recall (but might be quite wrong!) the first time WotC worked with a lot of artists from another country-Japan in this case-to help reflect a world that hadn't been 'westernized'.
Turning Kamigawa into a world of science fiction (or science magic?) is...well, it's a bold choice. Will it allow for samurai, for rat ninjas, for the world that people gravitated to? Because as someone who lives in a future where samurais and ninjas once existed and don't now, this is a honest question.
It might-they're clearly trying for it, since the first character reveal was a 'cyber-ninja' and a planeswalker to boot. But will it feel like Kamigawa?
What I will give credit for is this: it's bold as hell and I admire that.
Next up is Streets of New Capenna and of the pitches I heard, that is the one that has me most excited. I'd bet this is a 'shard' set (one about the friendly colors, vs 'wedge' where colors are paired with their enemies-for example, Red-Black-Green instead of Red-Blue-White) because we haven't had one in awhile and both Ikoria and Khans block were 'wedge' sets. The last shard set we had that I can think of is the Shards of Alara block-from 2008! So we're overdue.
In addition, I'm a sucker for the setting: noir gangsters + magic is one I'm in for. "The real world, but" has always been a fun setting for me in fiction I like to read. This also takes Magic to a different place as the five factions in New Capenna are all gangsters. People have been hoping to see more villains in White and Green and this gives WotC a chance to indulge fans of the game who wanted these takes.
The Third Quarter offering will be Dominaria United and as a 30th Anniversary set I can't object to the setting. Of course you return to a place that everyone knows. But the last Dominaria set felt really safe. It wasn't bad and the introduction of the Saga card type has been a great thing for Magic but it felt like a collection of greatest hits. As though I was being taken on a tour bus through Dominaria "hey, everyone on your right you can see the Mirari Conjecture, which everyone remembers as the time Kamahl used the Mirari to rejuvenate the forest and-"
Hey. HEY. Wake up!
So, nothing objectionable here, but it doesn't excite me as much as if they'd been more specific by going back to Rath, or Otaria, or putting everything in Shiv.
Don't know Rath, Otaria or Shiv? Well here's a chance to explore! But no, they're going to play it safe. Maybe a setting that people dig will encourage some unusual mechanics! Call it cautious optimism.
Finally, we get to The Brothers War and this is where the red flags go up. I'm predicting that is going to be an artifact focused set, because Urza and Mishra were artificers, so it would follow that a set about their conflict would have a heavy artifact presence.
Here are the other sets they've done with a heavy artifact presence: Mirrodin block, Scars of Mirrodin block, Kaladesh block and despite their best intentions, Urza's block.
All three of those blocks represent huge gameplay problems in Magic's history: Urza's block had cards like Tolarian Academy, Memory Jar, Metalworker, Smokestack, Gaea's Cradle, Serra's Sanctuary-for a time, it was the most powerful set in Magic. Many of these cards still have an impact on eternal formats.
Mirrodin block introduced Affinity, and is the first block that I'm aware of where they had to ban common lands, because the Affinity deck warped the metagame so badly. Even then Affinity as a deck was so powerful it ran the tables in Standard, and was still a tier 2 deck in eternal formats-until the boost it got from Modern Horizons 2. But the foundation was all laid here.
The Scars of Mirrodin block almost pulls it off, until you get to New Phyrexia where they introduced the Phyrexian mana mechanic and once again, a common had to be banned.
Kaladesh's problems center more around the Energy mechanic than they do around artifacts, but it still had some problematic artifacts-Aetherworks Marvel and Smuggler's Copter among them.
What I'm getting at is that WotC's track record for artifact-oriented blocks is not great. For some reason, whenever artifacts get the spotlight, something in the set breaks the game in a bad way.
Now, The Brothers War is a year away and you'd be right to say that I know nothing about this set whatsoever. On the other hand, I don't believe I'm drawing the conclusions from nowhere. Very much a 'we shall see' here. I don't have high hopes, but I'm not about to tell you it's awful.
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