@
Tai-Pan , I've never played magic the gathering(Card Game), I picked up innistrad and it really adds to the previous sets. I'm not biased to being a magic fan, I judge on content alone. I find that it really adds quite a bit more deckbuilding and allows a bit of custom army building with the dual colored planeswalkers and extra units. I have all three boxes of AOTP, and its finally starting to excite me. Hope my un-magickie opinion helps. Not sure if you have amazon prime, but that may help with shipping
I am absolutely sure that what you say is true. I have AotP and hope my parents are bringing Zendikar with them. I was worried AotP would go the way of Battleship Galaxies (which I also, sadly, have with no expansions), but it looks like enough is already there to mix and match and more seems to be in the works. I don't doubt that Innistrad is a huge contribution and expansion for the game.
I was just thinking as a HeroScaper and along the lines that some people thought when DnDScape came out. HeroScape was originally the Battle of all (mainstream) Genres (Agents, Soldiers, Samurai, Robots) with iconic hero clones (Syvarris as Legolas, Carr as Morpheus), but also some original spin-offs (blue orcs riding dinosaurs). I just looked through the list of classic figures, and there's really not much there that isn't "mainstream" enough to make sense when Average Joe comes.
When DnD came out, it got more confusing for the casual observer. Why is there a half-elf? What are those black guys with white hair? What do you mean those guys aren't robots? Why aren't those orcs blue? And then a handful of fantasy human types that are mainstream fantasy gamer, but not mainstream fantasy.
I had a similar feeling with AotP. In the base set, you've got your ghosts, your four-armed monsters, your zombies, your beefy zombies, your rhino warriors, your mini-ents, your elves, your fire cats and phoenixes and then some weird white-haired people. Pretty cool, not too many questions from the casual observer. Move on to Zendikar with Goblins, more Elves, vampires, a merperson, a flying white-haired guy and then a really big attack-of-the-blob type monster. Still pretty mainstream. Innistrad makes the big jump away from mainstream, easily identifiable miniatures that even casual observers will be able to see from afar and say "I want to be Legolas!" Now there are vampires of another alignment, inquisitors, cultists, a mad prophet, and a ghostbuster. This is the part where the mainstream appeal tips and turns into nerd/gamer appeal. I can't excite my mother by offering to let her play cultists. Werewolves or the Angel or the Phantom Lanterns, possibly.
That's all I meant. I have Innistrad on my wish list, but I also wish it had a little more mainstream appeal for non-Magicers, HeroScapers and casual observers. I feel like the awesome game engine shouldn't be hindered by being too "nerdy" (and for some people, the boundary is exactly between playing with Lord of the Rings and Matrix figures and having to read up on what a cultist or necro-alchemist is).
