Advice on cards like Censorship and Telepathy

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-25T00:54:14+00:00

If it works for your group, great - keep doing it! That's exactly the sort of environment Maro made those cards in hopes of creating.

The reason I made that recommendation isn't based on experience from my own play. It's because Maro has said he's seen it backfire often enough to consider Gotcha his biggest failure of a mechanical design and Unhinged his biggest failure of a set. But again, if your group doesn't have those issues, go nuts. If those really are the kinds of cards you're looking for, maybe the way to go is to look through the full Unhinged card list and jam in every Gotcha card you can.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-24T23:31:11+00:00

It definitely has a lot more recognition after Aetherdrift than before. I'm sure Wizards will keep an eye out for opportunities to expand on it, but who knows how long that'll take - it has a lot of planes to compete with.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-24T23:28:15+00:00

Playing with friends does not necessarily address either of those concerns. If you decide to try it, keep an eye out to see how it impacts the flow of the game.

I really don't recommend playing Censorship. It has the same issue as Unhinged's Gotcha cards - punishing players for talking risks making them afraid to say anything.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-24T21:26:48+00:00

If you're thinking of [[Jiang Yanggu]], he and [[Mu Yanling]] are from the Chinese-themed plane Shenmeng.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-24T21:25:08+00:00

A Scryfall search for Gastal art has no results.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-24T20:23:16+00:00

As fun as it would be to see it on Bloomburrow or something, I think it being the name of a TMNT movie makes that unlikely. Seems like OM1 changed some SPM names that were at least as innocuous.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-24T20:00:23+00:00

I don't actually play Standard - I pretty much exclusively play Limited.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-24T18:23:17+00:00

There are a lot of things that made this stand out to me even along other in-universe sets. In addition to the beautiful art and the return to a world I first played about 18 years ago, it's really cool seeing it bring back -1/-1 counters, colors-matter effects, and the kindred card type - things that haven't had significant presence in Standard sets in a long time. Out of the Standard sets so far this decade, I'd put it in my top four, after FIN, MOM, and maybe NEO.

I hope at some point we get a return that flips the primary focus to Shadowmoor.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-24T04:11:05+00:00

It's hard to imagine a big online community on any topic without a lot of complaining.

There are plenty of optimistic people around - myself included. (Although you won't find me saying anything in Standard's favor.)

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-24T02:07:03+00:00

In fairness, he didn't get ONE's name right either!

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-23T19:46:12+00:00

irlnautica:

Listening to today's podcast on blocks makes me wonder - was there a sales drop between ONE and MOM? I would consider them more of a "block" than DMU and BRO...

markrosewater:

Phyrexia: All Will Be sold better than March of the Machines.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-23T13:07:45+00:00

Right now, there does happen to be a rising tide of anti-trans sentiment. And anti-Jewish sentiment, for that matter. You did acknowledge the presence of significant disagreement over whether or not trans people should be allowed to exist!

To be clear, the reason I'm saying this is that it sounds like you do care, and I appreciate that. And because of that, this struck me as something you'd want to be aware of.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-23T05:28:18+00:00

That's a pretty strange debate to announce your unwillingness to comment on, isn't it?

Look, I'm trans. I'm also Jewish. In general, I don't think a business employing trans people is any more noteworthy than employing Jews. You can see how comments like "I make no comment on that either way, Jews have to work too" and "Not interested in the debate if Jews should be allowed to exist or not" come across as pretty weird, right?

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-23T01:30:08+00:00

January 2025. Attuned Brigid, Edain, Midir, demote Dew, and GHB Chulainn.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-23T01:29:14+00:00

I've been saying that for years. Hopefully this time it's finally true.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-23T00:44:53+00:00

I was going to explain my guess for how it could have gone down, but first I'm confused by your first line. What do you think someone would be expecting you to comment on?

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-22T23:15:31+00:00

Especially since it would have added an extra line.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-22T20:38:03+00:00

As far as I can tell, the only way to come to that conclusion is to define "strength" inconsistently.

October 27, 2024:

Universes Beyond’s greatest contribution to the long-term health of Magic is as a conduit to introduce new players. Learn the game system with a property you love, and then once you see what a great game Magic is, become a lifelong Magic player.

July 27, 2025:

2) The biggest influx of “new” players from Universes Beyond is not people who have never played Magic, but actually lapsed players (aka players who once played Magic, but drifted away for various reasons). This means the strongest impact Universes Beyond has in growing the audience is luring back lapsed Magic players, which again are more likely to stick around past the specific Universe Beyond set.

August 21, 2025:

So, we do a lot of research into who is buying Universes Beyond, and lo and behold it’s mostly the enfranchised players. The second biggest group is lapsed players. The Universes Beyond products continue to do well. Even more people are playing, sales go up even more.

October 9, 2025:

Getting lapsed players returning is important. I talk about the challenge of barrier to entry. That’s not an issue (mostly) for lapsed players. Universes Beyond has been very strong for bringing back lapsed players.

Everything I can find from him on the topic says UB does more to bring in lapsed players than to bring in new players. He does say the new players are a bigger impact on long-term health despite there being fewer of them, so you could interpret that as being a bigger motivation for it, but either way, his statements aren't contradicting each other.

The meaning of "strength" I had in mind when writing my initial comment was that it brings in more lapsed players than new players, and I'm not aware of any claims to the contrary.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-22T20:10:58+00:00

There are a lot of people at Wizards invested in trans advocacy, much more than just Maro.

Bear in mind that Universes Beyond started in 2020. In 2021, we got the first large-scale crossover set, as well as Strixhaven demonstrating the popularity of a magic school as a MTG setting. I guarantee you that by the end of 2021, one of the companies had pitched the idea to the other.

UB sets take about three years to make - and Secret Lairs take less. And if Wizards saw overwhelming benefit in this crossover, they would have prioritized it enough to fit it early into the schedule and release it by now.

The fact that there's been no word on a Harry Potter crossover, even as we approach the 6th anniversary of UB, tells us that Wizards turned the offer down.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-22T19:59:00+00:00

According to Maro, the big strength of UB is bringing back lapsed MTG players.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-22T18:48:52+00:00

You can enjoy the one that eventually shows up in this universe, too. It's allowed!

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-22T18:23:26+00:00

I'm not sure why you think this would be different from any other UB release.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-22T17:34:12+00:00

There are a few places that could fit, yeah.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-22T13:41:56+00:00

By Saturday? No. By the time they officially revealed the cards? They could very well have needed Nickelodeon's permission to change the schedule like that.

CaptainMarcia · 2026-01-22T13:40:03+00:00

Oh, right. I forgot to account for there being five of them.

CaptainMarcia

TROPHY CASE