Music. From dubstep to doo-wop, and from alternative to world, music is our life. It refines it—defines it.

I hope you’ve been following Ant Tessitore’s We Make the Plane feature here at Gathering Magic. The community is collectively making decisions about the nature of a plane with all of the suggestions coming from us.

The original successful idea was one that married a dreaming Planeswalker with music and song. Eventually, the community decided to focus on the dreaming ’Walker and reduce the emphasis of the musical aspect. As a result, we’ve a different spin on the plane than what was voted for. That’s fine—that’s the community’s vote!

But I miss the music. Sure, musical elements could come in later. But it was nice to see music take center stage, especially given how important it has been in many different human cultures for years.

The musical nature of Magic reminded me of a deck project I created long ago . . . 

There are two arguments—gripes really—I’m asked at every Grand Prix:

• Why is all the art digital?
• Why don’t we see fun art anymore?

The first relates to the shifts that sway back and forth in Magic. Digital art was, roughly around the time of New Phyrexia, so dominant that only a handful of traditional artists were used. This was a full pendulum swing from the Lorwyn block, with a ton of traditional artists. We are now seeing traditional artists again, and with original art fetching potentially thousands of dollars, artists are dabbling in traditional painting.

The other is bit more complex. What players mean in wanting “fun” art is the whimsy.

Tens of thousands of players have been coming back from the 1990s and early 2000s, a time when the game’s visual style was quite literally all over the damn place. It had space for digital works, comic line-work experts, and even photographed still lifes! They’re coming back to the game, and it just looks so different. The percentages of serious works are clear, and most importantly, the art on lands and environments are very mechanical; they looked manicured like a Bonsai tree: too perfect and obvious. While conceptual spells still exist, lands simply no longer are able to portray a conceptual environment. They’re obvious as hell.

The Legacy Banned Series started on the idea that some of the cards have been banned so long that time has passed them by. Rather than theorycraft the pros and cons of unbanning, we went the extra mile and did some testing, brewing decks in an attempt to fight through current disruption and race modern combo.

In that context, there was less reason to do a Modern series. The cards are all newer, and most players remember playing with them in other formats. While a small percentage of the Magic community were around to experience Worldgorger Dragon in Vintage, many more have played with Jace, the Mind Sculptor because it wasn't that long ago when it was in Standard.

Modern is so young that many of the bannings are fresh on our minds. We remember when Rite of Flame, Blazing Shoal, and Punishing Fire got banned, and we remember why.

That said, there were a few great reasons to do a series:

Creatures suck.

It's a controversial claim that has drawn a lot of debate over the years. Generally speaking, you'd get different responses depending on who you asked, and when you asked them.

Personally, I've never before subscribed to such a claim. I love to attack, I love to block, and I've done well for myself by attacking and blocking in a wide range of formats. But today I have to change my tune. Creatures suck.

Sometimes I can be a slow learner. It took hundreds and hundreds of sound beatings across a huge range of matchups, but I finally understand why trying to win with creatures is a flawed strategy in Standard. I understand why Jund Monsters has evolved into Jund Planeswalkers and I see why Burn and control players choose to sidestep creature battles altogether.