Retrospectives, part 2 - Future Sight
October 10th 2008 06:26
"O brave new world,
That has such people in't!"
-- William Shakespeare, The Tempest
One of the reasons I love Magic so much is that you can follow the threads that give rise to new cards and end up in completely unexpected places. The entire Time Spiral block would never have existed without Niels Bohr and his colleagues in the field of quantum physics who showed us that the universe is not all straight lines and neat cause-effect relationships. The eponymous set that began the block focused on nostalgia and the game’s past, complete with cards that quantum-tunneled their way from the 1990s into modern booster packs. Planar Chaos gave us a glimpse of an alternate present, complete with a different color pie and distribution of game abilities, that split from our world at one of the many design decisions somewhere in the last decade. And Future Sight brought a tantalizing vision of what was to come, hot off a shortcut through time’s second dimension. Its “futureshifted” subset showcased, in a unique border and card layout, some places, people, and things that could one day be part of Magic. This was arguably the most exciting part of the entire block. The past is written, and the present can feel heavy and immovable, but the future is an open book, a place where dreams come true.
The futureshifted cards were the most misunderstood part of the set when it was released; some observers were blinkered by their mechanical side. Yes, part of the point was to show that there will be new card designs, new keyword abilities, and twists on old keyword abilities. But some of us noticed immediately that much of the futureshifted art was in a style wildly different from anything we’d seen before. Some of us noticed that it depicted places that had never been shown before. Some of us noticed that a lot of the contributing artists had never done any other cards – and that some of them, like Michael Komarck and Jean-Sebastien Rossbach, returned in Shards of Alara to rock our world.
But perhaps the biggest misconception was that every single one of them was scheduled for a reprint, even an imminent reprint. Remember your quantum physics: just as there is more than one present, there is more than one future. Just as not every design decision that Wizards of the Coast could have made in the past was actually made, not every one in the future will be made either. Only one future will come to pass in this universe, but all of them exist somewhere. Suspending temporarily our knowledge that the set was printed on a press made of real particles in the real Seattle, WA, the point of the Future Sight set is to be a nexus where we can interact with other points on the probability distribution – and even attack our opponents with creatures from them.
Ironically, with the competitive world’s focus on Standard and Block Constructed, the set that represented the future of Magic has now passed out of its “present,” and will soon be somewhat forgotten by its collective consciousness. But there are still those who remember the day in May 2007 when everything seemed possible even in the midst of a block depicting a post-apocalyptic wasteland; who scan every new card list looking for the names of old friends, and who are now more interested in the future than in the past, thanks to one of the more unique marketing gimmicks there have been.
Appendix: List of reprinted cards that originally appeared in Future Sight by set
Tenth Edition: Mass of Ghouls
Lorwyn: Goldmeadow Harrier
Morningtide: Boldwyr Intimidator
Shadowmoor: Graven Cairns, Mistmeadow Skulk
Eventide: Phosphorescent Feast
Shards of Alara: None!
That has such people in't!"
-- William Shakespeare, The Tempest
One of the reasons I love Magic so much is that you can follow the threads that give rise to new cards and end up in completely unexpected places. The entire Time Spiral block would never have existed without Niels Bohr and his colleagues in the field of quantum physics who showed us that the universe is not all straight lines and neat cause-effect relationships. The eponymous set that began the block focused on nostalgia and the game’s past, complete with cards that quantum-tunneled their way from the 1990s into modern booster packs. Planar Chaos gave us a glimpse of an alternate present, complete with a different color pie and distribution of game abilities, that split from our world at one of the many design decisions somewhere in the last decade. And Future Sight brought a tantalizing vision of what was to come, hot off a shortcut through time’s second dimension. Its “futureshifted” subset showcased, in a unique border and card layout, some places, people, and things that could one day be part of Magic. This was arguably the most exciting part of the entire block. The past is written, and the present can feel heavy and immovable, but the future is an open book, a place where dreams come true.
Yes, there will be Slivers in the future. Deal with it.
The futureshifted cards were the most misunderstood part of the set when it was released; some observers were blinkered by their mechanical side. Yes, part of the point was to show that there will be new card designs, new keyword abilities, and twists on old keyword abilities. But some of us noticed immediately that much of the futureshifted art was in a style wildly different from anything we’d seen before. Some of us noticed that it depicted places that had never been shown before. Some of us noticed that a lot of the contributing artists had never done any other cards – and that some of them, like Michael Komarck and Jean-Sebastien Rossbach, returned in Shards of Alara to rock our world.
But perhaps the biggest misconception was that every single one of them was scheduled for a reprint, even an imminent reprint. Remember your quantum physics: just as there is more than one present, there is more than one future. Just as not every design decision that Wizards of the Coast could have made in the past was actually made, not every one in the future will be made either. Only one future will come to pass in this universe, but all of them exist somewhere. Suspending temporarily our knowledge that the set was printed on a press made of real particles in the real Seattle, WA, the point of the Future Sight set is to be a nexus where we can interact with other points on the probability distribution – and even attack our opponents with creatures from them.
Ironically, with the competitive world’s focus on Standard and Block Constructed, the set that represented the future of Magic has now passed out of its “present,” and will soon be somewhat forgotten by its collective consciousness. But there are still those who remember the day in May 2007 when everything seemed possible even in the midst of a block depicting a post-apocalyptic wasteland; who scan every new card list looking for the names of old friends, and who are now more interested in the future than in the past, thanks to one of the more unique marketing gimmicks there have been.
Appendix: List of reprinted cards that originally appeared in Future Sight by set
Tenth Edition: Mass of Ghouls
Lorwyn: Goldmeadow Harrier
Morningtide: Boldwyr Intimidator
Shadowmoor: Graven Cairns, Mistmeadow Skulk
Eventide: Phosphorescent Feast
Shards of Alara: None!
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