Retrospectives, part 10: Time Spiral
October 10th 2011 23:55
Two and two are four. Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.
-- George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
You, dear readers, surely knew this day was coming. I’ve only mentioned Time Spiral a hundred times in articles past. You already know that it's by far my favorite block of Magic's history. I’ve written about flavor-based design, and how our views of the past have been skewed both by other players and by some things Wizards of the Coast’s people wrote. This day was inevitable. But what, exactly, is left to write about Time Spiral?
I could write about how it combined with first Ravnica and then Lorwyn-Shadowmoor to create Standard scenes which some people consider the best ever. I could write about how it was a celebration of Magic’s history that drew countless veterans back to the game. I could write about how it would have been much more of a gateway to that history for new players, if people at Wizards and other online writers hadn’t shaken their virtual heads at it and proclaimed, “The color pie was a total mess in the 1990s.” I could write about how the “timeshifted” subset foreshadowed Zendikar’s priceless treasures and Innistrad’s “double-faced card in every booster” practice. I could write about how Time Spiral’s use of older color pie interpretations, Planar Chaos’ alternate color pie, and Future Sight’s speculative keywords were a breath of fresh air in a conservative era of design.
But instead, I think I’ll write about the similarities between the era of top-down conceptualization and the “does this individual card make sense?” test that Time Spiral references and the way Innistrad was designed. Oh noes – Slayer of the Wicked is a white card that has the word “destroy” on it, and Desperate Ravings is a red card that tells you to “draw two cards!” But you notice how you like those cards? And how much more fun it is this way?
But I shouldn’t write about that, because that might imply that Time Spiral was influential. And we know that can’t possibly be true, because Mark Rosewater says that design philosophies are different and more sophisticated now, where we can put “destroy” on a white card and “draw two cards” on a red card because it makes sense for the individual card.
. . . Wait, what?
If you’re interested in Magic’s past, you might like to check out the other Retrospectives articles under Spotlight Posts in the sidebar on the left. Don’t forget the Headless Horseman, either!
The Orb of Insight now has a Twitter account! Follow me for condensed insight and bad jokes!
-- George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
You, dear readers, surely knew this day was coming. I’ve only mentioned Time Spiral a hundred times in articles past. You already know that it's by far my favorite block of Magic's history. I’ve written about flavor-based design, and how our views of the past have been skewed both by other players and by some things Wizards of the Coast’s people wrote. This day was inevitable. But what, exactly, is left to write about Time Spiral?
I could write about how it combined with first Ravnica and then Lorwyn-Shadowmoor to create Standard scenes which some people consider the best ever. I could write about how it was a celebration of Magic’s history that drew countless veterans back to the game. I could write about how it would have been much more of a gateway to that history for new players, if people at Wizards and other online writers hadn’t shaken their virtual heads at it and proclaimed, “The color pie was a total mess in the 1990s.” I could write about how the “timeshifted” subset foreshadowed Zendikar’s priceless treasures and Innistrad’s “double-faced card in every booster” practice. I could write about how Time Spiral’s use of older color pie interpretations, Planar Chaos’ alternate color pie, and Future Sight’s speculative keywords were a breath of fresh air in a conservative era of design.
But instead, I think I’ll write about the similarities between the era of top-down conceptualization and the “does this individual card make sense?” test that Time Spiral references and the way Innistrad was designed. Oh noes – Slayer of the Wicked is a white card that has the word “destroy” on it, and Desperate Ravings is a red card that tells you to “draw two cards!” But you notice how you like those cards? And how much more fun it is this way?
But I shouldn’t write about that, because that might imply that Time Spiral was influential. And we know that can’t possibly be true, because Mark Rosewater says that design philosophies are different and more sophisticated now, where we can put “destroy” on a white card and “draw two cards” on a red card because it makes sense for the individual card.
. . . Wait, what?
If you’re interested in Magic’s past, you might like to check out the other Retrospectives articles under Spotlight Posts in the sidebar on the left. Don’t forget the Headless Horseman, either!
The Orb of Insight now has a Twitter account! Follow me for condensed insight and bad jokes!
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