Reception
Odyssey was a poorly received set. Mark Rosewater, the lead designer for Odyssey, claimed that the set was the one from which he learnt the most as a designer, as it was the set in which he made his biggest mistakes. Rosewater went into the Odyssey design deciding he wanted to challenge notions of card advantage. Looking back on this he states that he was doing this for himself at the expense of the audience at large. Other design mistakes highlighted by Rosewater included the Threshold mechanic. The mechanic forced players to keep track of the number of cards in their opponent's graveyard and which cards could put cards into the graveyard. It was found that this was largely not enjoyable for players.
Another problem with Odyssey that Rosewater has discussed is that the storyline and flavor of the set did not match its graveyard-focused mechanics. He explains that this was because there used to be little interaction between the development team and the creative team. Rosewater recalls talking with Brady Dommermuth, an editor for the game at the time, who suggested that a gothic horror theme would have better suited the set's design. Rosewater would later become the head designer of Magic and Dommermuth the creative director. This would lead to the Innistrad set, released in 2011, that returned to the graveyard themes explored in Odyssey but this time with a gothic horror theme. The Flashback mechanic would also return in Innistrad.
Read more about this topic: Odyssey (Magic: The Gathering)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)