#mtgarticles

I come to you from the old days.

The good old when magicians didn’t have ANY platform to play magic online. When there wasn’t gatherer or one of the many better options for card browsing. We used text files and carried then on floppy disks. testing

But the was some cool stuff, that is non-existing today.

INQUEST

I wanted to write a little bit about this article. 

I will be honest, I do (for the most part) enjoy the articles PucaTrade provides and genuinely enjoy using the site. I’ve written -many- emails to PT hoping that they would write articles about something other than deck building and this is what I’m assuming is the result. 

Let me start off by saying, I’m glad they’ve finally got some variety in their articles. Hopefully, this column will continue.

But now I have to complain. This article is terrible. Really, horrible. 

I have to start off with the obvious: Why on Earth are we calling foil cards “bling”? What have we done to deserve such a childish and informal title? I can honestly say that if I ever start referring to my cards as “bling” I will give you all the right to end my misery right there and sell my collection to the nearest LGS. I forced myself to read the rest of this article, but I really can’t get past the headliner here.

The headline aside, the truth is that this article has very little to brag about. As an “inaugural” article the writer chose to explore the newly introduced world of Zendikar Expeditions. I think this was a great place to start: It’s new enough where all players can recognize them from a price and rarity perspective. In essence, it creates a relatable standard. However, this article has very little depth to it. The article is poorly structured and feels like there was absolutely no thought given the the content. Here’s a thought: I didn’t need a whole paragraph describing what the card looks like, a picture would have sufficed. The only part of this article that had potential was the discussion on the foiling technique which was sub-par at best. And the “meat” of the article? A discussion on whether the art of the new Expeditions are either “good” or “bad”. Not to get all artsy fartsy here but art is pretty relative, and all the art the author labeled as “just bad” I personally like. And yes, I’m in the minority of people who enjoy hedrons, thanks for assuming. Along those lines, need I mention that Zendikar Expeditions takes place on... oh right, Zendikar. A place where the hedrons play a fairly important role. Artists for WoTC produce cards that are meant to be both visually stunning as well as canonically relevant. (Should we bring up the original shock lands as an example, perhaps?)

 After reading through the ridiculous discussion about which art doesn’t meet the authors inconsistent “criteria” we finally get the art that is acceptable, followed by a paragraph which can only be described as a paragraph sized raging hard on for the artist Rob Alexander. Aside from the fact that I can’t take the article seriously because of the title (revisiting the “bling” comment), now I suddenly can’t take this article seriously -AT ALL-. 

In the final paragraph there is a possible diamond in the rough. Around three sentences discussing the new battle lands and their expedition counterparts. Only to lose it again by having a “financial” discussion, which left much to be desired. 

Content aside, the article is also poorly written. The headings are vague and irrelevant and it reads as though there was no review at all.