Has Something Gone Wrong With Murders At Karlov Manor? | Magic: The Gathering 

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My issue, is always, I could buy 2 AAA games or a booster box. I could buy 6 to 12 indie games for the price of a booster box. I could have a pretty nice date night with my wife for a booster box. I could invite 10 friends over and host a party for a booster box. I just can't for the life of me justify that amount of money for a box of cardboard, cardboard which seems to being made with worse and worse materials.

This amount of frustration is the culmination of product fatigue. Hard not to feel like we are being taken for a ride when everything feels the same.

"I hope you're saying 'Prof I love ya.'" Prof, I love ya

It really feels like everyone in Ravnica got into a themed party and are roleplaying things they've heard from New Capenna

This set should of been an Interplanar set using both New Capenna and Ravnica, with a murder mystery spanning both planes.

I think Prof made a valid point about the Plane this was set on. It should had been on New Capenna. There could have been so much more done with this set.

*New set comes out* Professor: "oh, that's gore of my comfort character."

I like that Raucous Theater's artwork has a large blue portion so when you quickly look at it you know it taps for blue and red.

2x Delney and 3x archdruids charm as well as a leyline covered like half of the cost

i absolutely love these types of videos. hearing the Professor voice his opinions rather than only music is perfect.

I can’t believe the one time prof does not want to do a booster box game is the one that actually succeeded

@29:35 Yes, the extended art Surveil Lands do form a panorama, they used it to hide one of the clues.

Prof, I hope you get around to reading this. I am a newer player to Magic (mostly Commander), and your video made me realize two things: 1) Your videos are great, and I really enjoy them. They helped me gain a sense of how to build my first Commander deck, and hearing your opinions on the newest products is always worthwhile. 2) I think I know one reason why you (and older, established Magic players in general) might not have liked the goofier tone this set brought. For you guys, there was a big storytelling letdown in March of the Machine (+ Aftermath), and really spanning the last 2 or so years of Magic's grand story. The more serious sets as of late have either failed financially, story-wise, or both. For you guys maybe the light-hearted Ravnican Clue set, because the current Magic story isn't interesting/good, doesn't feel earned. Instead of operating as a fun break between serious sets, the non-narratively focused sets of MKM, Fallout, LotR, Dr. Who, etc feel like just yet another example of WotC wandering further away from the stories, characters, and tone that you love. The non-serious sets are starting to outnumber the serious sets, and the serious sets are not gripping enough to provide sufficient contrast to the goofy sets. It makes the overarching narrative of Magic get lost in the shuffle of new, but less interesting cards for players who DO care about these characters and stories.

To me the issue is that ironicly the setting really contradicts my suspension of disbelief. I cannot in good sense believe that a plane that has the radkos and golgari would ever bother investigating a murder!

I used to enjoy going on mythic spoiler after a set was spoiled and slowly reading through the whole set in small moments like when I'm in the bathroom or on break at work. Helped me learn the set, its mechanics, and themes in time for pre-release. The last few sets have been so wordy and complex that I never retain any of the card effects. There used to be a chunk of cards in a set you could kind of write off. "its a 2/2 for 2. thats it" I don't need to think about that anymore. Now every card is a novel and set specific keywords have reminder text on less cards than ever because they don't have room! I'll be reading through a spoiler and need to go find a card with the reminder text because I can't parse what the card does with its new keyword amidst the novel of other ability text. Its made limited more annoying too. Trying to build a decent deck actually takes me the full hour now. It used to take 30 minutes on average since I'd find the core "must include" cards pretty quickly and the rest was filled in with simple, efficient creatures. Now there are no simple, efficient creatures, so all the space fillers take way longer to pick from. Also I extra hate the "case file" border from this set, cause I already didn't like it, but I've found I tend to like the art on those versions, so I have to choose between "art I like better" and "frame I like better" Also, I guess I'm in the extreme minority but I love the art cards. They were one of the reasons I always got set boosters and I was disappointed when they switched to play boosters that art cards would become harder to get.

I really feel like this set was initially supposed to be set on New Capenna

My "favourite" thing about the set is that the murderer was a character I had never heard of before. Really drew me into the story

Rhystic Thuggies (Trouble in Pairs) was such a good pull

I agree so much, the tonal disconnection is so strong... I was a super Teysa fan and they way the whole set story is conducted is, as you said perfectly, "too goofy" and in turn it made Teysa death really depreciated. The limited experience is fun, but really fedora hats on Ravnica which we never saw felt like superimposed and flavorless.

I really like these full art lands. I think they capture an idea of chasing clues through the confusion of a mystery. Where the world is circling in on itself, and all the pieces don’t seem to fit, but there is something at the center of it all. I also think Ravnica as a setting was a mistake, and unnecessary. Great mystery stories aren’t great because we know all the characters. They’re great because of the main character, the atmosphere and the mystery itself. That’s why I can read Murder on the Orient Express and come away happy with the mystery even though I didn’t know any of the characters. I think too many characters we know actually distracts from the mystery.

I don't think prof got all the way to the end of Delney's text cause $5 is a steal haha.

I am building a vanilla commander deck and I would love some new vanilla cards that are better value mana wise instead of 3 mana for a 2/1. I also feel like they could let the artists go ham with full art features bringing back no text box creatures and the flavor text would be so cool and give us a bunch more iconic phrases. When the whole card has rules there’s no room for flavor text

I'm glad you brought up the complexity creep because that's one of the things that turned me off to this set. I love Morph, I've had a Morph deck for years, but I don't care at all about Disguise because just the idea of having multiple face down cards but I have to keep track of which one is Morphed and which one is Disguised just doesn't feel fun.

That is by far the best collector box of MKM I've seen that didn't hit a serialized. Two copies of Delney, trouble in pairs, leyline. Yea, you got lucky.

Agreed that it doesn't feel like Ravnica. I definitely think a lot of the creative was done before they decided to put it on Ravnica. Also, I think a 2/2 morph for 3 is just too bad for Magic of today. The ward 2 was kinda needed.

Yes, move the art card to collector boosters. Put a token in there or something. Or a code for arena. Anything useful.

I actually like the difference of tone in these videos you're way more chill it's more cosy

The Professor joins Josh Strife Hayes as official 2nd monitor content

The full art surveil lands have the same art because they are a panorama across all 10. Play boosters were ok. Feels like more a cost thing than a design issue. But the pre release was an issue with some people hitting 14 or 15 rares and others getting 7. Oh and Prof, I love ya ❤

These are on sale in Canada for $279. I know people who bought them release weekend and pulled less than $90 in value at $329 sticker price. Were being priced out of the game and given poor product

Prof saying Pompous Gadabout is his vanity card means he needs to cosplay as it; hopefully at Magiccon Chicago (but I'll settle for any upcoming Shuffle Up & Play).

The bit about the Wrench was absolutely hilarious!

Shock you though this may, I AM actually really stoked for the old western set. But I was also pretty excited for the murder mystery set, (which really hasn’t been doing it for me) so maybe I’m just an idiot with too much faith in WotC

Just saying love ya prof Haha, got in to magic on m20, and your videos showed me how to play and understand the game. I'm not from the USA, and your passion can be telled from anywhere your videos are seen. Loved the "magic saved my life" one. Keep it up! Hope you are the first channel to get the 1 million subscribers Everyone at tolarian community college rock!

Watching this I had a thought: many people have discussed how the detectives/trenchcoats/fedoras aesthetic is so much more New Capenna. Wouldnt we have solved the want for notable characters being threatened issue and the New Capenna-esque issue by having the detective agency be founded by people coming from New Capenna through the Omenpaths instead of disallusioned Azorius guildmembers. The Plot of MoM even centred around Capennan angels SAVING the universe, surely that gives Capenna major positive recognition.

Prof. You are 100% correct regarding wording on cards became too long and complex. It's becoming more like yugioh way too many words on cards and way too many abilities 1 card may have.

The whole disguise/morph fiasco word creep really hammers home to me that keywords are now flavor text and not a rules shortcut.

Can u imagine this set made in a manor, a magical manor where some characters were kidnaped by a powerful entity (call him the prankster, or else) just to make them solve a mystery (maybe not a murder), the manor has an anti-spark spell that avoids them use their powers, or something more imaginative. And the next coyboys set will be same or even worst.

Thank you for this video. I normally do not watch booster box games as it is just booster ripping to some random music and I watch youtube on my second monitor while playing, so not really watching but more listening to you. This video with you talking all the time was really refreshing. Thank you.

I like the full art lands 😅

Prof I love ya. Detectives on Capenna make a lot of sense, yeah. Detectives on a twice war torn plane to help find missing citizens also makes sense.

Excellent job on the editing during the sponsored segment!

I’m so glad you shouted out how you resolved Killer Among Us in paper. It’s been bothering me for a while

Hope you're doin well prof!

Always a good day when the professor pos upp on my screen ❤

These are my fav videos, I'm always glad you get a sponsorship (usually) so things don't bite into your budget much (I hope). But its so relaxing and chill, like lofi professor.

I love these free flowing podcast-esque episodes

I never felt so called out by an ad.

I love this type of video professor! Just unedited opinions about the latest set. You’ve done this long enough to be the voice for a lot of us! I don’t speak for everyone, but more of this please!

I think the best way to express the mixed feelings on the lore is, we want Ravnica to be more than this Warhammer-adjacent setting all about these incredible guilds, and to give depth to the characters. But, Clue and Agatha Christie parodies aren't the way to get there. We can even have a set that's a Poirot/Sherlock parody. There are good cards to make out of that, probably in Capenna. But its incompatible with making people like Teysa and Aurelia more robust from a writing perspective.

Everytime I get to hear the Tolarian Community College theme at the start of a new video, it feels like I'm taking in a fresh breath of air. Thank you for defining my TCG experience, Prof!

Some stuff to mention: - The set is great to play in limited as you said prof - The altern file art style makes you feel all those cards are white due to the frame (sucks) - Even you missed most of the prices and were sceptical, There were great singles opened there. I guess a regular box will not show that much juice TBH - Over here in Mexico, collector boxes are sold around $250 usd avg. So not worth it I guess - I also do agree that it feels so less Ravnica and could have been in Capena (or a mix between the planes as some guys over here said👌) - Deception on the full art Lands indeed - And yes I love you professor, love the content you create over here. Keep it on Thank you!

I hear you on the complexity of the set, and I don’t really care much for the disguise mechanic, but the ward is an important design decision as it allows shock to be printed in the set without being a 1 mana answer to the mechanic. It seems like an overly specific case but I think the ward and inclusion of shock helps to keeps the set at a high enough power level to not be completely underpowered in the current environment. I don’t think the set is super powerful as a whole but it could be worse if they had to design a large part around protecting 2/2s to make morph work.

Face down cards/creatures are the foundation, cloak and manifest are the specific versions of related foundation. Same with disguise/morph being specific versions of the foundation of face down cards/creatures.

I think you’re spot on with the idea that this should have been set in new capenna. I think it would have fit much better flavor wise. I’m also similarly frustrated by the sameness of a lot of land art recently. That said I did have a lot of fun drafting this and some of the silliness was great fun. I’m hoping that in future wizards puts more time into making a coherent and well fleshed out story and art rather than the gimmick route they seem to be heading down this year with their sets.

Kellan being that cheap is kinda wild, 40 cents for it in borderless is really low, the card is definitely playable in Standard

I really like these videos where you open packs and just speak off the cuff.

I like the art cards because I take old sleeves and magnet tape to make a fridge magnet. Then I can also switch out cards when I like new art cards.

Professor, I greatly enjoyed this video. Playing it in the background while working, without feeling like I missed anything or fast forwarding to the “hits” because I was lacking the time to watch it. We like hearing your thoughts when we can. The booster box game itself is just number crunching, this keeps it personal.

I think it's a little early to judge on Play Boosters with only one set under our belt. As a limited player, they don't bother me terribly during draft (although I wish the List cards got a different treatment to make them match the set a bit better). Cracking them definitely feels a little worse than cracking set boosters did, but maybe that's just because this set has a lot of dud rares. There's room for them to tweak things with the boosters in future sets, but I think the first, most immediate change they need to make is to the price. It's clear that players aren't willing to pay set booster prices for play boosters - if they're supposed to be a mix of set and draft boosters, then that's where the price needs to land, too.

While the set's cards may feel goofy, I thought the story itself (aside from a few moments) was actually great and had me invested. Granted, they messed up when they revealed the "culprit" before we even finished to the final chapter. Also, those extended art lands being "samey" is actually intentional as they indeed form a panorama that was used to solve puzzles leading to the story's epilogue.

I absolutely lost it when you went into the 'Wrench' bit, oh my goodness, thank you so much for the laughs, you are delightful!!

I enjoyed the commentary over the opening! Much more entertaining to watch than other booster box games imo

Love these casual videos where you are working with a loose script - thanks!

Love your sharp analys of this Set! 😁

I really kept thinking that this set was based on Innistrad, not Ravnica, during the promotion of it, both because I was confusing "Karlov" and "Markov" and because I couldn't fathom why they'd put a murder-mystery set on Ravnica. Ravnica is the City of Guilds; if we're going there it should be to deal with something guild-related, not for a random game of Clue. New Capenna would've made a lot more sense, especially when you consider that Ravnica is stuffed to the brim with magic that should make solving a guild-related murder trivial.

It's actually a good thing for it to have been on Ravnica, showing us the plane is more than "here's the ten guilds and their set mechanics, we're just doing random guild conflict again, let's go"

What's your opinion on the card quality of the collector boosters? I was pretty disappointed with the standard boosters...

Enjoyed this great episode. As a newer player who joined in forgotten realms, i think they don't push the theme hard enough for original sets. No other set has captured the flavor of a set like NEO for me. It's also funny that i think they do get the themes right in the precons. Maybe it's just easier designing around a commander than thinking about how a whole set will interact with the other standard sets.

I don't like the manilla folder frames either. It's very hard to visually parse them for color. The Play boosters were a bit disruptive at my Pre-release. Someone pulled a List Syr Konrad, and was a bit of a menace. They were a bit more exciting to open.

21:26 OMG 😂😂😂😂 I watched this like three or four times it was so funny

I like this type of video much more than the booster box game. I like hearing your thoughts on the cards. I really like the set and mechanics. It’s fun in limited which is my preferred way of playing next to commander. I still refuse to play paper magic as I don’t like the new prices for packs (I know people have pointed out that the packs are about the same price as set boosters but again I’m a limited player and much prefer draft boosters both for the price and contents). Prerelease is still my favorite magic format and I do miss it.

Disguise and Cloak seem like reasonably "fair" upgrades to Morph and Manifest when looking at limited. We have Shock, Galvanize, Murder, Lightning Helix, etc... It's a serious feel bad when you want your "cool card" to flip and do something to get blown out by paying 3 and they remove it by immediately paying less mana than you. And for new players who don't know the old mechanics it doesn't seem like they're "clunky", hard to explain/understand additions. It also makes it a bit more likely they make it to constructed. I pay three to play a face down thing. You pay three to remove it. It's net neutral at the very least that maybe I can get extra value out of by paying to flip the thing.

On the disguise vs morph, i found the ward verry interestig as it changes limited by nerfing removal spell(usually limited stars) and powering up combat tricks, it also avoided the frustration of a 2/2 for 3 being easly killed. That being said i agree that the set is very complex

It is definitely important that we can mentally justify our expenditure on anything, at a time where everything seems to be pretty expensive. The level to which Prof's estimation on price/value was off here is probably a good indication that taking mental stock about how you feel about the contents of a box (rather than its real money value) is worth doing. This was a box where Prof felt like his money wasn't worth it, when by EV on today's prices it apparently was. Card prices change all the time. How you feel about them will likely take longer to devalue, especially if you mainly play more casual formats. Buy and play the cards that make you happy, and if you're happy with what you have, don't feel pressured to buy anything.

Completely agree on the complexity creep. I tried to get some friends into magic recently, but without making simplified decks (which in hindsight was a huge mistake) they all said it was fun, but way too confusing and too much reading. As someone playing off-on for 20+ years I have most common mechanics memorized, but from a new player's perspective I can totally understand how out of control all the rules must seem. I think in trying to appeal to enfranchised players, design has pushed complexity way too far.

You are kinda right about the surveil lands being a panorama. If you put all the full art surveil lands next to each other they reveal some hidden message where you gotta do maths

I really enjoyed this format, talking through the set

I am excited for thunder junction, but I'm really into the western motif.

On Play Boosters: I agree about replacing the art card with a common or token. I also wish they didn't contain any commander card or list card / special guest. Really not a fan of those and I'm not sure why they think it improves the draft experience. If anything it just makes it more chaotic and swingy. Next time you open a bulk card from the list, remember that could have been an extra surveil land instead.

100% agree about the token scarcity, too. I wouldn't mind it as much if more tokens were reprints - I've got plenty of 1/1 red goblins from past sets for Krenko, for instance - but I'm finding it really hard to find spider tokens for Izoni, and I've only got a handful of detective tokens even though a bunch of cards make those.

Got the thought vessel from the last whatnot stream. It looks really nice. Thank you.

Especially excited for more and more Ravnica-fication of mtg as it seems like Niv-Mizzets plane with the omenpaths is to turn the city plane into MtGs version of Sigil, the city of doors. Except I don’t think Ravnica is Torus shaped, but maybe it could be 😊

No special secret ink card? What do you buy the collector booster for?

The extended art surveil lands do become a panorama. It forms a clue that was meant for the ARG

I'm doing great in my game of Arknights Prof. Thanks for the message of encouragement during the ad!

Good ol' Prof's chat.. love it.

how did we get to the point where we have 3 different showcase frames on top of normal and borderless in a standard set?

I really like the detective token artwork. Artist did a great job

I'm pretty sure I'm now done with Murders at Karlov Manor. I grabbed the cards I wanted and it wasn't all that cheap (for me). I mean a got a full playset of each of the Surveil lands (amongst other cards) and I ain't made of money. Good luck to those that keep buying cause Ima save up a bit and wait for a release that's (to me) worthwhile.

love these types of videos from you :)

i like the big full art lands and i think that change in a plane makes sense. While of course this set isnt as dark as old ravnica i dont understand people saying that detectives feel unrealistic in a literal city

Yo bro what was that hair loss treatment you recommand to use?

Hey, gotta say I really enjoy these unscripted talking about whatever pack openings. More prof in content always good. Keep em coming!

I really like the full art basic lands :s

I think you nailed it, talking about morph vs disguise; this set just isn't *elegant*. It has interesting cards that are at least usable if not powerful, but also way too many words, or new words when old words would have sufficed. Morph is a disguise if the flavor makes it feel like a disguise. Detectives? A detective is defined more by what they do than by a creature type-line - and when and where are they ever going to use that type again? It doesn't have the ubiquity of soldier or warrior or similar. Unnecessary addition when simply designing flavorful cards would have done the same. And then big god things (the mole, the elk turtle whatever) just because...

Professor, you just built the panorama pieces together in 29:29 XD

@3:35 *GASP* Prof, you said the word! I enjoyed this set, but the majority of the cards have crashed so fast that I'm already in the red for what I spent. I'm sure I learned my lesson. Right? .....right? 🤔

Your rant about wrench cracked me tf up 😂😂😂😂