MTG Aetherdrift is the latest in a line of Magic: The Gathering sets that have challenged and upset the tastes of the game's fantasy purists. I can't say I didn't see this coming. After all, it makes total sense that one of the best card games, with a legacy that spans over two decades, would have its share of players who feel fiercely protective of what they feel to be the 'true' spirit of the game world.
Yet that notion of Magic's lore being one founded in High Fantasy is being continually put at odds with the actual content of recent sets, which levies tropes not typically found within the genre. Be it neo-noir detectives, cowboys, or speed racers, MTG's designers have been utterly devoted to bold, genre-mashing experimentation – but as a result, the Magic multiverse is moving forward at pace that has left some sections of the player base behind.
Call these folks nostalgics. Call them cynics. Either way, they are all largely caught up with the same things: the many ways in which Magic: The Gathering's world no longer feels like that of a Tolkien or a Le Guin. For some, there's something almost painfully irreverent about the introduction of symbols of our modern world into MTG. A jumping of the shark, a burning of the history books, whatever phraseology they adopt, the sentiment is the same: screw this.
