Lore After Hours: My Duskmourn review

[@gigaherzi]

Missed opportunity indeed for Ashiok lore.

[@danielkubicek1323]

So they had the unlikable characters that many slasher movies have, but forgot to make them killable? Did they even watch one horror movie? Ever?

[@Shawn-f3x]

The thing that bugs me about the premise here is that Valgoth is apparently pretty aware of what’s going on on other planes. I mean, ancient knowledge that Fomori are born possessing mental Multiverse Maps? Sure. Old Angels and Demons just know stuff like that. Loot’s been on ice until super-recently, and was immediately taken elsewhere by planeswalkers, though. *Randomly* lucking into snagging Vraska and Loot is just bad storytelling. Otherwise, he’s preposterously lucky with getting *specific* people to enter his doors. It doesn’t feel like an awareness a being magically bound inside a structure he had to grow as his only workaround to the binding should have. How does he know who to fish for on what plane? If he was naturally aware of happenings on other planes even pre-binding, that gives him capacities Nicol Bolas would have ended planes to possess. (And enslaving Elder Demons wasn’t exactly hard for him.) Remember him, the ancient Elder Dragon with a villainous sub-lieutenant spy on every plane to keep him abreast of recently located/unearthed shinies on his Amazon wish list?

[@The_Loreseeker]

I feel like I'm constantly being reminded of how much better things used to be.

[@obsidianthurisaz5106]

I really thought Duskmourn was gonna be Urborg. That would have made too much sense though.

[@G0ibniu]

Truly the 'Metal Pipe Falling Sound Effect' of Magic stories.

[@marcoottina654]

The new "I can use Omenpath to go anywhere" could have been with drawbacks. Like: "it's not teleporting, it's __leaking yourself into another plane__ , which means part of your essence is **still** in the starting plane, fragmented and diluted, susceptible to any malignant force". That character could have discovered it in (lucid?) dreams about the starting plane (Duskmourn's horror house) and having mental crisis / physical marks / magic powers' weaknesses. You know, a plot device to create some "tension" that the characters have to solve.

[@khristian625]

They missed the opportunity to have an Innistrad native like Thalia or Odric have a sort of clash of horror subgenres.

[@Rucarlos]

After the Phyrexia and WAR debacles I've come to despise stories that focus on the same old characters instead of focusing on the plane and it's inhabitants, and stories that pretend that everything is an Avengers level threat, but nobody ever dies.

[@shrouded8797]

Yeah, I read the Duskmourn story and I felt like there were too many characters and not nearly enough time for any of them. I also think it would have been scarier to focus on a group of survivors, instead of these previously known characters we know have plot armor through the roof. Winter and his actions could have been way more interesting, given more time and focus.

[@HealedCoyote997]

like the obvious play for the fate coins, is have the first couple show how they could have died, and then have one show the carrier how they could have lived before cutting to them dying by a horror monster or whatever.

[@Will_Morand]

My favorite bit was Kaito repeatedly offering to break Jace’s nose

[@pastellandscape4286]

You also gotta love that none of the cards evoke terror like we were promised and the fact that all of the flavor text so far is the cringiest most embarrassing "flavor text" ever, it's starting to feel like they gave up on world building and lore awhile ago

[@GM-lx7ji]

WOTC can’t write a good MTG story to save their lives.

[@AnonymousAnonposter]

People being hired to be devs and writers for the most part are the worst people for it, but they continue to be hired for nepotism and other vile reasons.

[@eightywight]

Writing a good story would require that Wotc and the writer hired actually like Magic and don't view it as a cashgrab, a place to inject diversity sludge, and a new way to hate its majority White player base...

[@goldcreeper7376]

Animatou being involved with the plot of Magic is a mistake no matter how you slice it

[@Machiroable]

Nah, I think with decent writing you could have her be a decent character, a watered down and "diversified" version of Commodore Guff, if you will, but you can't really expect "decent writing" from WoTC these days.

[@codysing1223]

Where was this girl during the Phyrexia raid? She would have trivialized it.

[@MrCenturion13]

But... but... muh diversity!!!

[@eightywight]

Aminatou isn't a character. It's a Mary Sue. It's a fanfic Totally-Original OC for a magical negro/super special magical girl that got printed into magic lore for diversity points. She doesn't have a character, just a list of OP abilities. She has no relevance to the plot, she just exists... like a lot of these new characters.

[@MrCenturion13]

@eightywight : I concur. There's no 'there', there.

[@alexcruz3043]

God bless you man. started the channel to tell lore only to have Wizards suddenly take a nose dive in that department and STILL manage to push though the the disappointment to keep making videos about the lore to express how disappointed you are. Hats off sir

[@AnonymousAnonposter]

This channel is the only thing still keeping me connected to MtG on some level.

[@GozMaster]

6:22 Cmon... that was funny. lol. I enjoy a good math punch.... but I also enjoy Meshuggah, so... maybe that's just me.

[@bahamut5935]

I will admit behold the power of math and then punching in the face was funny reminds me of a warrior trying to learn magic and how he does his "magic " is throwing the literal magic book at the opponent to damage them

[@GrugGangGrugGang]

A story didn't contain MTG Pikachu? Better throw him in at the end. Gotta build that brand recognition. Between Loot and the very pg-13 feel of Duskmourn and Thunder Junction, I wonder if Wizards is trying to age down their target audience. It's not like 10 year olds have a TCG actively marketed to them anymore. Yugioh and Pokemon have settled in to their 20+ audience, and as far as I am aware, Minecraft doesn't have a TCG yet.

[@eightywight]

Marketing at kids would require Wotc to drop its prices on all its products across the board...

[@bahamut5935]

I want to know who the gremlin tamer is they never go into that one card she's being nice to goblins the next card she's in she's turned into a doll like we don't even know his/her name. So honestly instead of abunch of random planeswalkers they could've had like I don't know one enter and then receiving help from the survivors and inhabitants with the ones that lived getting to escape to a new home away from the house I kinda feel like that would've probably went over better ( and would have been a better excuse for the artificial omenpath cause the demon would not only lose some new residents who just got there but lost some already existing ones thus slightly weakening him ). Also the whole Jace lupe and vraska thing 100% needs to be explained cause last time we saw them they were on a different plane entirely so ya there's that .

[@lunareclipse1882]

The concept i find interesting was he converted a whole plane into a house of unspeakable horrors that reminded me of a short story from junji ito

[@davidbrasher3595]

I hate time travel. Some of the stories with Teferi, Karn, and Urza are a mess. Time travel creates horrible paradoxes. Like Sarkhan managed to mess up his plane so bad that his parents were never born and yet he himself still existed. So I was not real thrilled about Aminatou being in this story. It also struck me that the danger level of this plane was unbelievably high for several main characters to get killed, and only survive by magic that manipulated fate. We can normally go entire story arcs without having a main character die. I think that the terror factor could have been much better served by not sending a huge team of planeswalkers and former planeswalkers to Duskmourn. Such characters survive almost any danger. It would have been better if there were a bunch of scared, comparatively weak characters fighting to survive against horrific odds. Having to use their wits, their will, and their endurance to compensate for their lack of martial skill and strength. But I love the artwork on the cards of this set.

[@TrentOrTreat]

They have those “Fear of” cards which would have been great for character development. Like the character’s fears came and attacked them. Just make it basically Hell filled with fear. But it’s a relatively safe area. Just some traps and monsters but Innistrad would kill you faster and worse.

[@shrouded8797]

You know, for a horror-themed set, the story they gave really didn't feel like a horror story.

[@somerando86]

The part that disappoints me most is that Aminatou isn't used at all. The fact the writer seemed too PC to use black magic also tells a lot about their writing competency; if you're afraid of words, you can't be trusted to use them properly. I'm just getting Aminatou's deck because I like her as a cards and I thought her character concept was pretty cool. It's a shame. Also, thought I'd share; I pulled Cruelclaw and the trash general for my Bloomburrow pre-release. It was wonderfully adorable chaos.

[@lenski8306]

wow, i didn't even understood that Loot was under the evil demon hands. I believed the antagonist had his hand on the empress glimmer ghost as it is noted to somehow be a link to kamigawa. About the characters it makes me think about dustborn. Modern kind of character who try to be "strong" and everything else but just feels like insufferable adolescent or adult child. And i can't stand seeing Jace name coming However the side story taking place during the house eating the plane was a very nice one !

[@MT_LeagueGaming7896]

In the process of selling off my collection bc after thunder junctions legendary character mess ( um...why was Queen marchessa on thunder junction? Doesnt she have a country to rule?) This shows me they are putting characters in a set and then wrapping a story around a grab bag of effects that the designers think "we need a new leyline of void effect, how do we do it? Oh oh oh make it a huge demon!" Kind of makes me upset that we went from gatewatch to guildpact then to Nicol bolas taking over a plane to a race track set? Next is Jace taking Vraska and loot in his cannonball run car vs hot wheels racers???... ugh no thanks...

[@AnthonyDaFox]

The Duskmourn story feels like it was Written by Committee and thats the worst way you can write a story, Its Disjointed, All Over the Place, and makes you feel lost with no set path to go down.

[@TrentOrTreat]

At times I couldn’t keep up with where the characters were in the plot. I also expected more death and fear, which the fateshifter tokens could have been used for story development or make it where there were stakes. I see where they are going with the villain planning to expand. But no idea about Jace or why Loot is there. The side story was better

[@MeldrickCz]

Tbh I was excited about the idea of all plane Horror House theme and it was holding whole storyline for me however to spoil the beans with all the mystery behind the House was big oof for me. It wasn´t neccessary we could think that it was some ancient mad planeswalker doing. Maybe my standarts plummeted but it was overall digestable for me (on basis of cool idea) however mostly that non-main storyline that had no conclusion btw.

[@MagicApocalypseTCG]

I was excepting not a good story, but a bit decent story at the same time to be honest the concept of a powerful horror demon that control a hunted house that delve on your fears even though there are safe places in the house makes little no sense does have interesting concept but everything has a dead line now so the story has to be rush. A hunted house that delve on your fears and I am surprised Ashiok was there to witness how frighting the demon then become a love interest for this demon it would have be a awesome plot twist if the demon was lonely the whole delve in fear thing is insecurity his fear is that he is lonely and he will be forever lonely. I am not a amazing writer family think I am amazing but there not such as amazing every story has flaws it how we fix it what makes the story good and it is still bad well practice makes perfect. I can't focus on my tcg as much because I am babysitting my neice right now if anyone wonder where I have been?

[@MagicApocalypseTCG]

At the end I got sloppy.

[@helxeen2607]

Best way to have a horror story the people you care about do have to die or if not die they have to be broken.

[@maciekwilkosz6377]

When I saw the underwhelming cast I hoped at least they choose them so they could kill some off to show the stakes or make a noble sacrifice, but no... Niko lives... I also have no idea how they choose who to despark. The Wanderer is one of the coolest new walkers, while Kaito is a vanilla ninja and they choose him?

[@casually_lurking]

The problem with reading Magic since novels since high school since (late 2000's) is being aware how a** their modern writers are. It's (hopefully) not their fault; they "lost" the entirety of the base to the lore at the beginning of the Fire Design era and have been flapping along without it for about 6 years-ish now. It worked 'til it didn't and it ran out when the only storyline (War of the Spark) that was framed for them beforehand ended. They absolutely borked the Phyrexian War, gutted any running stories with that resolution since, and gods be if it doesn't depress me more than a little to read any of this. I know Magic (and D&D) are just "Fortnight adjacent" design spaces now but seriously people, expect SOMETHING from your content or it will give you NOTHING. Also, Prof' & his detectives killed Azorius the guild; Prof's appearance again pretty much seals that s***** fact for the long haul to me.

[@Battleguild]

Going from Outlaws of Thunder Junction: Epilogue Jace to Duskmourn Jace was a bit jarring. You'd think a Master Telepath and Illusionist would know better than to get within arm's reach of someone that already holds a grudge against him. (He already learned that lesson against Garruk) Kaito even having the opportunity to punch Jace at all felt like nothing more than a writer self-insert moment, especially since it was already established that a nearly compleated half-dead Jace who was barely keeping himself together was intentionally holding back when he previously handled both Kaito and Kaya simultaneously on New Phyrexia. Alison Lhurs seems to be the only writer WotC has that gives Jace a level of consistency for storytelling.

[@whydoesthisexistpod]

They built the plane ok but I agree, I have no idea what actually happened

[@zuniversegaming3431]

This is why I stopped caring about the new lore. I personally feel it should have stuck with the base characters and focused more on the Planeswalkers. There are the originals and such, or at least the gate watch. You got a raid of Planeswalkers, and the focus is around just redoing it again, but in the wrong way and took away one of the most remarkable features you made for the game

[@pokemonred7365]

Mirrodin mixed with Little shop of Horrors and other horror movies is how I would describe the story Valgavoth is discount Memnarch mixed with a moth version of Aubrey II and I was expecting him to say Feeeeeeed Me. I think the prof having planar magic is a good way to set up the story of the next set as you said magic in MtG is easy to replicate so a Wacky Races set where everyone and anyone can go to anywhere anytime would make sense cause everyone have the means to do so you don't need to be a plains walker or navigate the blind eternity to travel to different plains if a character wanted to go somewhere that character simply goes there and by doing that they can normalize putting popular (commanders) legendary characters in any set without the need to rationalize how that character got there Thunder Junction was a testing ground for that experiment now we can have Valgavoth as Dick Dastardly and Loot as Muttley in the next set

[@Caseyuptobat]

"What if we Stranger Things'd House of Leaves?" Bad story, bad art, bad worldbuilding. It feels like 80s horror nostalgia without the willingness to commit to the gratuitous carnage and viscera that era of campy slasher schlock was famous for. I really hope we get back to Magic someday.

[@panchotheman4603]

I will admit i enjoyed the premise, the 'plan' (i.e. haunted house that ate the plane itself, and the heroes need to rescue someone from said evil living house) but the execution of the aforementioned 'plan' was not great...to say the least.

[@MrCenturion13]

It's a tale told by Wokists. Of course it's gnostic. Of course it makes little sense. It's not supposed to.

[@ulfrsatyr642]

Leave Gnosticism outta this mess

[@MrCenturion13]

@@ulfrsatyr642 : Why? It's the core luxury belief of the Woke.

[@ulfrsatyr642]

@@MrCenturion13 Gnosticism as Woke or left is a platform I’ve first seen presented by Rudyard of Whatifalthist. But if you listen to him talk about Gnosticism it’s abundantly clear he has no idea what it really is. Woke is better tagged as Nominalism, Nihilism, or Machiavellianism. On the contrary, Plato’s Cave and other Gnostic thought experiments on epistemology are actually wonderful models for dismantling the Woke, who are almost picture perfect representations of Hylics.

[@eightywight]

​@@MrCenturion13This man speaks the truth. Where and how do you see Gnosticism in the set, Centurion? The lie of Gnosticism is at the heart of Evolution, Big Bang, and other great and subtle lies.

[@SymmetricalDocking]

I'm most disappointed by the cards. Vulvagagoth using 999 instead of 666 especially.

[@gallowsspecter]

Doomsday Excruciator is fulfilling that need for you.

[@aquablue3dsi]

I miss Agents of Artifice

[@The_Loreseeker]

As do I, buddy. As do I...

[@demdemons5472]

The lore of magic died with War of the Spark...

[@ofrund]

Bro War of the Spark was crap, the lore was dead way before that

[@demdemons5472]

@@ofrund I agree that WotS was shit, and I didn't say otherwise, but the story itself beforethen was really good, I mean RtD was great, everything in SoI was great the story of Amonkhet was cool, Ixelan was amazing imo at least. When you really look back at it WotS was when the shit really started to hit the fan.

[@demdemons5472]

@@ofrund I mean the cult shit in eldritch moon was soooooo fucking good. I remember when we didn't know Emrakul was going to be there and the amount of speculation of whats coming. Fuck I miss those days

[@MagicApocalypseTCG]

@@ofrund I believe War of the Spark was a good lore but it has some crappie fillers that make it somewhat crap.

[@juliandacosta6841]

​@@demdemons5472the world buildingin amonkhet was good but the story was awful. And for some reason that was when the writers decided to delete gideon's sural without any explanation. Everyone turns off their brain and any sense of self-preservation on what they know is home territory of someone stronger and more powerful than them. And when they all fail to learn anything useful or prepare for when bolas returns for the Hours', they all want to stay to save lives, but proceed to do nothing to save any lives. Especially the literal gods who might actually be helpful in a fight against bolas.

[@Y00bi]

Maybe we can't say 'black magic' because uh, MTG colours.

[@Is-si9if]

Tf you mean niv mizzet. How?

[@The_Loreseeker]

The magic of bad writing

[@jinxx9515]

As bad as it is, still not half as bad as thunder junction

[@evezina96]

I enjoyed Duskmourn's story tremendously. I think it mixed the tone of magic with classic horror tropes quite well, and it gives credence to the danger of the Omenpaths that Jace was talking about. All a matter of taste i guess

[@noradi123]

Same!

[@Pimpulus]

say what you will, but few things in life are as unchanging and reliable as WotC creating a MtG setting thats interesting, inspiring, flavorful and allround well designed, and then releasing stories within that setting that are... well... bad. is it because (for some reason) the approach seems to always be a very childlike structure of "heroes go here, fight, then they go there, and fight, now they go over here, and fight", that feels like utter denial of the fact that the audience is overwhelmingly adults? or does WotC refuse to put any ressources towards the writing? but then, why release stories at all? i have no idea what is going on, but i know that it was like this back when they released books for the OG kamigawa block also.

[@eightywight]

Diversity. Wotc Hating its White player base. West coast liberals. Lack of talent. Mary Sues.

[@zaqwsx41375]

Duskmorn is Mirrodin ripoff, like Blum burrow is for Kamigawa

[@eightywight]

Don't you mean Lorwyn for Bloomburrow? Loren also had no humans, it was very creature tribal.

[@pierluigiadreani2159]

I never liked mtg for the story, I like it for the flavour. I mostly enjoy a fantasy setting and I don't like modern technology in it. However I like the vibes of this set, I guess it is an exception

[@ryanchatel3675]

The aesthetics of this set suck too, the tech and 80s look will date this set so fast. I hate how it looks

[@gallowsspecter]

I agree that the story wasn’t all that it could be, but I think because you’re clearly approaching it it in bad faith with preconceived notions and hate already in your heart against it either because of your real-world political opinions, or because you don’t want to like anything new, you can’t enjoy the parts that were good. Abysmal, terrible, worst ever, I don’t think that it was that bad. Sure, some of the dialogue was cringey, what 80’s flicks didn’t have their cheesy one liners. I enjoyed the dynamic of Tyvar and Zimone, him shouting “Behold the power of math!” I took it as a way to show those two unlikely friends bonded in a way beyond just fighting together. About the “black magic” critique…it seemed a bit of a reach. I think maybe you had already tuned out by that point due to disinterest so wouldn’t blame you, however the reason it was termed “academically unsound” magic was because it was uttered by Zimone, a college bookworm nerd from Strixhaven, she goes on to call it “dark magic” and the “kind that professor Vess would suggest you rethink your academic interests about.” I’m not going to pretend that story was great, it wasn’t. There were plot holes and silliness, the comment about why Valgavoth (Vaginavoth wasn’t funny the first time) needed Loot and Tamiyo’s scroll, it seemed to me Tamiyo’s scroll was the “compass” to Loot’s map. Sure he knew how to get to the planes with Loot, but to know what scared the denizens of those planes most as well as its history to plan around, he’d need the stories of Tamiyo, however the authors could’ve done a better job at explaining that (that is just my conjecture as well). Anyways, the directors of the set got interviewed and said a quote from the recent AMA by Osgood Perkins that was relevant too, “there are some stories people want to beat, and some people want to eat, I make stories for the latter.” I can accept a few plot holes just for some good fun or silly dialogue, it doesn’t make me care about the story less, however, I’m saddened by the increasing lethargy and unwillingness of the older players to like anything new. The fact of the matter is, Magic (like anything) is an ever-evolving story with time. We’re not getting any older stories about Urza or Nicol Bolas or War of the Spark (even that kinda sucked or unless the writers do some kind of shenanigans again). We gotta move on and try to enjoy what we do have and give feedback that isn’t so based on hate and instead constructive feedback that lets them know what they did wrong as well as where to improve. I had a hard time listening to a lot of your video just because it seemed you were set against it before you even started.

[@The_Loreseeker]

It's important to remember that the past isn't dead - while not every existing piece of Magic lore has been amazing, the last 30 years are filled with excellent stories that new entries will constantly be tasked with living up to or surpassing. And in the last 5 years especially, WotC has shown us an increasing lack of quality, leading to some of the worst storylines in any media - my expectations for new Magic story are so low in part because of this. As for why the older fans don't enjoy the newer stuff - it's easy. Even disregarding the topic of quality, new WotC has shown themselves to be fully willing to either ignore or besmirch their past stories, showing a desire to cover up or destroy the past to try and push their new present. Why should veteran Vorthoses (Vorthosi?) care about a company's work when that company hates what _they_ love? And that's really what this comes down to - the new stories do not exist in a vacuum. They are competing against what already exists for my time and affection. And the old stuff? It's winning.

[@tgatt5759]

I think the problem with mtg lore at the moment is they have no end goal anymore, and they keep contracting woke morons to write the story. "You've never played or heard of magic before? Perfect." The writers also never learned the Five W's of storytelling either with answering Who, What, When, Where, and Why which is just basic elementary school principles of writing. It's super frustrating. This episodic storytelling is just bad.

[@alexholker1309]

Duskmourn just sounds lazy. It's like the old "Points of Light" world in D&D 4th edition - a non-setting setting.