“Listen: David Smith has come unstuck in time.” — Kurt Vonnegut, probably

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I think the thing that frustrates me the most about modern MtG game flavor (as opposed to metagame health, or set release pace, or sending Pinkerton thugs after people) is that they started trying to tell an ongoing narrative, rather than hint that one exists. Specifically, cards stopped being able to stand on their own.

I'm going to do the usual unfair thing and compare one of my favorite old cards to an arbitrary semi-recent one I don't like; consider Thran Turbine vs Drownyard Temple.

Thran Turbine name: it's a machine, associated with ???

Thran Turbine art: It's a mysterious machine, maybe it could be very powerful with creativity and research

Thran Turbine flavor text:

When Urza asked the viashino what it did, they answered: “It hums.”
So it's a mysterious machine, maybe it could be very powerful with creativity and research

Thran Turbine rules text:

At the beginning of your upkeep, you may add 2 colorless mana.
You can’t spend this mana to cast spells.
It's an engine that isn't usable in any of the obvious ways, so will require some creativity

It mentions Urza, it mentions the Thran, it mentions the Viashino, but it doesn't rely on any of these things existing to convey its compelling core message of "it's a mysterious machine, maybe it could be very powerful with creativity and research".

Now let's look at Drownyard Temple

Drownyard Temple name: it's a temple… probably underwater

Drownyard Temple art: honestly not super clear, but there's a shipwreck and a circle of something? That looks powered up in some way?

Drownyard Temple flavor text:

“This is it! All the cryptoliths point here!”
—Jace Beleren
"it"? "cryptoliths"? Jace? I actually somewhat follow Magic's storyline and I still have no real idea what's going on here. Without context this is basically meaningless aside from "it's important".

Drownyard Temple rules text:

{T}: Add {C}.
{3}: Return Drownyard Temple from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.
So it's not connected to blue despite being underwater, it doesn't interact with cryptoliths, it's not important, it's literally just a self-resurrecting Desert.

Am I cherrypicking examples? Yeah, absolutely. But I do think the trend I noticed is real; older cards might be weird, poorly designed mechanically, inconsistent, and so on, but they're individually compelling in a way that many newer cards aren't. My first taste of Magic was going through someone else's deck in 1996ish and being so enthralled that I memorized all of them immediately. Illusionary Wall, Ghost Ship, Dragon Whelp, Lightning Bolt, Unholy Strength, Craw Wurm, I had no idea what was going on, or how to play, or any of that, I just knew that there was something mysterious and fascinating here.

Perhaps I'm just getting old and these kids should get off my lawn, who knows.


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