I'm kind of enjoying the catfighting here and it's making me more interested in the deck, honestly. I think earthair and Zephyros have excellent points both.
I'm a writer, and I absolutely get the urge to be many things at once, to display your ideas in all their dazzling complexity. I think this deck might be trying to be a few too many things at once, though.
I was about to buy it last night, because I like the art, I like the concept, I like the very reasonable price, and I think occultist infighting is practically a time honored tradition, so I'm into the MAT deck by now. But then I tried to read the on line book...and it's not that I don't understand. It's just that there's so...much...stuff.
Like, okay. As a first time novelist, in traditional publishing? Your novel MUST be about 80K words. Everyone always fights that. Everyone always wants to defend their ideas and their knowledge, and to do *more*. And it's in the nature of the artist to be ambitious in that sense, absolutely. That's fantastic. But in terms of selling a book, not just for profit, but just so that it's accessible to more people, who have no reason to trust an unknown author, it helps to trim. Editing down is irritating and time consuming for the writer and a boon for the reader. The MAT is a very ambitious project, and that's admirable and exciting. I just think it might benefit from being reigned in a little.
Who am I kidding, though? I'm going to cave and buy it by the end of the week.
I am part of the filthy unwashed masses re: the Thoth, though. I use several reference books, but ultimately I'm not too hung up on the decans or whatnot. So I *love* the Thoth, but I'm the kind of person most of this subforum rolls their eyes at.