What a disappointing year… it’s so sad to see magic just become an advertising platform for other franchises. Maybe bloomburrow will be interesting, as it’s the only original thought in the line-up?
Redwall, Guardians of Gahoole, Warrior Cats, Secrets of Nimh, An American Tale, Zootopia Rango...
The "Talking Animal setting" has been done a bunch.
Which is fine. There hasn't been a single "original" set concept in magic. Even the most out there settings like Mercadia or Phyrexia are made by mixing other pre existing tropes and concepts. Same as all art.
I dunno, aside from the UB stuff, everything seems pretty interesting to me. I'm a bit wary of the murder mystery set, but I'm not gonna judge anything without knowing more.
And Magic has been "MTG set in X theme" for a long time now. If that's your bar, I'm not sure what you have to enjoy about the game, tbh. Heck, even Bloomburrow is parallel to Redwall, and I don't see that as a bad thing, imo.
Everyone is different I guess. The modern era of MTG is clearly popular among some types of players, they are making record profit. However success measured by ‘packs sold’, and success measured by ‘unique and interesting game” are two different things, despite what WotC execs say.
My lament I guess is that magic used to be a game which wasn’t afraid of creating new and interesting creative ideas, and making them uniquely their own. While there is still an element of that in some sets, they are taking a back seat to the current stale design model of “A trope + B gimmick”. It just feels lazy and inspired, and who wants to play a game that is now just a platform for pop culture references?