This may be fairly meta of a question, but when was the point where all things magic, especially lore, had to pivot away from having a gritty tone? Like I read hatreds flavor text the other day, and I feel that would not be on a card today. This shift seems to be apparent as well in the more recent story lines.The short answer is: it didn’t. I’m genuinely baffled here because we just had the Phyrexian arc which was one of the most brutal in a long time. And there is lots of goofy stuff in early Magic, in and around the Weatherlight saga.
I’m curious, have you read the story over the last few years, or is this based on what you’ve been told or impressions you’ve gotten from card sets? Because we had constant complaints that it was too dark in tone. Some of ONE and MOM’s stories were the most brutal things Magic has ever done. And I’m including the Weatherlight Saga.
The long answer is: Magic does a better job of balancing a range of tones today. Not everyone loves grimdark all the time, and so most sets balance the tone and when Magic goes very dark, it lightens up again for a while before going dark again. But the idea that Hatred couldn’t be flavor text today simply isn’t true. Although I do envy the ability to have five lines of flavor text on a rare card.
