#mtg meta

I don't have any inside information that allows me to say FOR SURE what is behind the format change, but I can make some educated guesses.

I think the main thing that it comes down to is corporate politics. Specifically, Hasbro executives don't really "get" Magic: the Gathering on the whole, and that's a problem for the people at @wizardsmagic who make the game.

Like, I think Hasbro execs recognize that MtG makes them money. They like that. They certainly want to see more of that. But they don't really understand what it is and why people like it. So for years, they've been content to just quietly ignore it and let it do its own thing, and that's worked out pretty well for everybody involved.

So what changed this? I'm guessing two things, mainly. One is a change in leadership when Wizards of the Coast got a new CEO. (But honestly, changes like that aren't that uncommon, and I haven't heard any stories that Chris Cox has brought all that many changes to the company.) I think the bigger factor is most people's least likely suspect: The Magic: the Gathering Movie.

*crickets*

OK, let me explain. In January 2014, it was announced that Hasbro and Fox Studios had reached a deal for Fox to produce a Magic: the Gathering major motion picture. This got a LOT of hype, and then it got NO hype, because it seemed like nothing was really happening for a long time.

No big deal, movies take a long time to go from concept to screen, right? Sure. So everybody is just kind of quietly waiting for any updates, and REALLY hoping it doesn't end up as crappy as the Dungeons & Dragons movie.

But as the years roll on, there are ZERO updates. And for a movie deal that got so much hype early on, this is... odd. Like something is stuck in the pipes behind a wall that we can't see.

On the bright side, Magic's story team is absolutely NAILING IT for fans during this time. They've switched from kind of cluncky novels that only a handful of people ever read, and switched to short stories published online called "Unchated Realms." These short stories keep getting better and better, and get more and more interconnected so they become more episodic than standalone.

They become so popular that they drop the name "Uncharted Realms," and just call it "Magic Story."

Now let's take a moment and turn our attention back to that theoretical clogged pipe behind the wall. Maybe it's not so much "clogged" as much as it lacks any water pressure.

You know what movies require a lot of to make? Money. You know what the annual operating costs for Magic: the Gathering are? I certainly don't, but I'm betting it's nowhere near cinematic financing levels. You know who does probably have that kind of budget? Big Papa Hasbro.

So now we come back to that old "We ignore you, you ignore us" arrangement that seems to have worked between Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro for so long. If this movie is going to happen, WotC probably needs Hasbro to use its money (or at least its corporate clout) to move things along. But Papa Hasbro isn't just going to hand over the keys to the NICE car to Quirky Teenager WotC without supervision. (Most of the time they don't understand half the things the kid is saying!)

And thus begins the process of proving to Papa Hasbro that they CAN be trusted with this, and they CAN speak the same language, and gosh golly look at THIS dad are you proud of me yet?

Because here's the thing. Transformers movies are crappy, but Hasbro keeps greenlighting them. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is NOT crappy, and Hasbro is happy to keep greenlighting new content for them too. Know why? Because they're considered "mainstream" and "popular culture" intellectual properties.

In contrast Magic: the Gathering is considered "counterculture." And that's not too bad. Hasbro owns LOTS of counterculture IPs. And they love them too, in their own special way. They just don't get the keys to the nice car and other privileges like the mainstream kids get.

So now Wizards of the Coast REALLY needs to shift it's gears to make Magic: the Gathering "mainstream" if it ever wants to get this movie made.

So now let's pump the brakes for just a minute and ask WHY people at WotC really want this movie to be made so badly. Why? Well first off, I don't think all of them do. I think plenty of people at WotC would be perfectly content to just keep designing the game and writing stories and making other MtG products to sell.

But who do they sell them to? Well, existing Magic players for starters. That's their most stable customer base. But it's also a very finite pool of consumers. And people get out of that pool all the time. So how do they get more people IN that pool?

Traditionally, new players have been introduced to the game either through friends who already play, or through events at local game stores and other venues. But that kind of growth is gradual. WotC has certainly tried various marketing campaigns in the past to accelerate that growth, but few of them have seemed to be all that effective in the long-run.

But a MOVIE on the other hand... Even a movie that doesn't do great at the box office can still do a great job of increasing marketing exposure and media attention. THAT could be the marketing bomb that finally causes a sudden BOOM in customers and sales!

(Not to mention the fact that if the movie IS a hit at the box office, that further solidifies Magic's status as "mainstream.")

OK, let's un-pump the breaks now and see if we can start wrapping this up.

So in order for WotC to get Papa Hasbro's respect (and money) they need to show how "legitimate" they are as a mainstream pop-culture product. So they need to show them evidence Hasbro execs can actually recognize.

They need NAME RECOGNITION. But how? Invite famous game designers to design a few cards in a core set? (No, Papa Hasbro thinks "famous game designers" is an oxymoron, and looked at us funny because they think we said "corset.") They can't use famous actors, because THAT would require a MOVIE which is what they're trying to make happen already!

So WHO will Hasbro execs recognize as legitimately famous, who has some reason to work with us? Famous authors? "I mean, we DO have stories that need to be written, right? Of course we already have a story team who writes those, but we could just fire them or move them to different teams. Yeah, that could work..."

But again, there's a problem. "Famous authors" may not be interested in writing web fiction instead of books. Also, it's not really cost-effective. Also, Papa Hasbro still doesn't understand what "web fiction" even is, and asks us if it's anything like those forums with Optimus Prime and Rainbow Dash getting pregnant all the time.

OK then, books it is!

Now how much of this is accurate? In all honesty, I have no idea. Like I said, it's all just a series of educated guesses.

Having said that... I think they are at least PLAUSIBLE educated guesses.

Gideon Jura just can’t seem to help himself: he keeps getting suckered in by nefarious beings eager to give him orders under the pretext of peace and justice, or law and order. On Amonkhet he managed to go through that cycle in record time, joining the Trials at the behest of the apparently noble Gods, only to quickly discover that they’re actually a bloodbath designed to kill as many of Amonkhet’s people as possible.

This storyline makes some sense. Gideon’s whole character conflict seems to be driven by his need for something to believe in on the one hand, and his need to see clearly the nature of the beings he follows on the other.

But is the repetition of this storyline as intentional as it seems, or is it the product of the long, strange history of Magic’s storyline, that saw the novel line cancelled--twice!--and major business model shifts that demanded new story directions?