Yes, I know it sounds like the beginning of a Seinfeld skit, but I've seriously wanted to know for awhile what's up with the shortage of emblems in distribution.
I realize that very few cards produce emblems, but apparently there's only one emblem per case (six booster boxes), and this really irks me because there could be up to a half a dozen or so emblem producing planeswalkers (ie: Tamiyo, Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, etc) in that same case. What gives?
Does Wizards only want one out of every several customers who get a particular planeswalker to potentially have access to the emblem card it produces (albeit rarely)? Do they expect everyone to buy an entire case of a sets with such planeswalkers in order to ensure they get an emblem? Do they want to discourage players without the associated emblems from using particular planeswalkers in decks? I just don't understand why we're being shortchanged in the emblem department. Wouldn't it make more sense to make emblems a buy-a-box, prerelease, FNM, or gameday promo instead of redundantly giving out alternate art versions of cards which already have a much higher distribution rate, so that more people might have access to them?
We get flooded with boosters containing lots of fodder like excessive ruling cards, basic lands, and tokens, but when we need an emblem for a deck that might sue one, we're often forced to go out and buy it separately or represent it with dice. I'm just frustrated because I've probably cracked open about fives boxes worth of DKA boosters, and I still don't have a single Sorin emblem for my BW token deck which runs four Sorins. Trading for them is seemingly impossible since barely anyone has them (and those who do are reluctant to get rid of them), and I refuse to buy emblem cards purely on principle.
Does anyone else share my opinion and want to start a petition to increase the Emblem distribution? Even the Wurmcoil Engine tokens were/are extremely hard to come by. Why is this? People are running these engines left right and center, but 99% of the time when I see one die and its LTB trigger goes off, its controller won't have the token cards for it. On the plus side, I cracked open a pack last night which ironically had a Tibalt, a Tamiyo emblem, and some foil junk common, so that shocked me and made me happy, but I'm still confused as to why they're so much rarer than mythics to begin with. Insights and explanations would be appreciated. Thanks
Anyhow, the best I can come up with myself is a game in the top 8 of a PTQ back during Urza block in which we were starting game 3 with time already expired, so the tiebreaker rule was that whoever had more life after 3 turns would win. And I lost to... healing salve.
I honestly don't think it's worth getting worked up over. Players often use dice, face-down cards, and other objects to represent emblems and tokens and it works well enough. Perhaps they should put a token or emblem in every pack rather than the useless insert cards, but so it goes.
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Yeah, wow. Chill out. To suggest that playable promos should be replaced with essentially useless emblems is outright absurd. You can use anything as an emblem. Make your own. Use a unique bauble. Be creative. But don't get so ridiculous as suggesting that they should replace my Restoration Angels, Silverblade Paladins, and the admittedly less exciting Moonsilver Spears with Emblems that aren't even technically cards, and which most will find no use for whatsoever. Also, I prefer basic lands to Emblems. Tokens have their uses. But Emblems are just too rare of an occurrence in-game, especially since the game will rarely last once a given Emblem is created, Sorin 2 notwithstanding.
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the only problem with urza is that he is an oldwalker, so its abilities would be like:
+3: remove up to ten target permanents from the play
-2: win the game
-8: kick your opponents in the face, then win the game
starting loyalty: 100
I don't see what the big deal is. Cracking packs sucks for getting what you want. Just spend the $2 for an emblem and sleep easier at night, instead of wasting time writing forum posts, gnashing your teeth, and threatening to start petitions.
Tokens created by rare and mythic cards show up less frequently than ones created by common and uncommon cards. They're inevitably going to be even rarer because you only get one token per pack, and that's not a guarantee.
I would assume the reasoning behind this is because you'll get more nonrare, token-creating cards from boosters, and thus need more of the tokens they produce.
Opening a booster, hoping to scoring an emblem of all things is not going to meet with much success. They're not very expensive if you buy them online, but they would be if your idea of making them promotional was implemented.
You do bring up a good point about Wurmcoil Engine. They probably should've also given away the token cards at that Prerelease. I think people would've appreciated that.
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I don't see what the big deal is. Cracking packs sucks for getting what you want. Just spend the $2 for an emblem and sleep easier at night, instead of wasting time writing forum posts, gnashing your teeth, and threatening to start petitions.
First off, it's the principle, not the cost of the emblem discouraging me from going out and buying them. I just find it ironic that "mythic rarity" is supposed to be the rarest degree of rarity for cards, and yet most of us will open a playset of any given mythic much more often than we open a single emblem.
Secondly, I'm not losing sleep over anything, just curious to know why the distribution isn't slightly higher (ie: 1 emblem per booster box which is much more reasonable).
Third, I'll spend my time doing whatever I want. Contrary to what you may believe, I'm actually paid for the most of the time I spend posting and reading posts here. (It's one of the benefits of working a desk job with net access).
Lastly, I wasn't "threatening" anything nor threatening to do anything, I was merely suggesting an idea and asking if there were other like-minded individuals here who agreed with my opinion and wanted to see a higher emblem-per-box ratio in the future.
Anyhow, the best I can come up with myself is a game in the top 8 of a PTQ back during Urza block in which we were starting game 3 with time already expired, so the tiebreaker rule was that whoever had more life after 3 turns would win. And I lost to... healing salve.
Tokens created by rare and mythic cards show up less frequently than ones created by common and uncommon cards. They're inevitably going to be even rarer because you only get one token per pack, and that's not a guarantee.
I would assume the reasoning behind this is because you'll get more nonrare, token-creating cards from boosters, and thus need more of the tokens they produce.
Normally I would fully agree that what you're saying is perfectly valid, however, taking into account that so many promo wurmcoil engines were given out, and also taking into account that WOTC should've assumed that it would see a lot of play (because it's a good colorless card that could fit into almost any deck at the time of it's release), it would have been logical to increase the relative ratio distribution of it's tokens. That being said, I honesty think whoever was responsible for determining a relatively accurate wurm token-to-pack ratio was slightly negligent and dropped the ball. That's all.
Anyhow, the best I can come up with myself is a game in the top 8 of a PTQ back during Urza block in which we were starting game 3 with time already expired, so the tiebreaker rule was that whoever had more life after 3 turns would win. And I lost to... healing salve.
First off, it's the principle, not the cost of the emblem discouraging me from going out and buying them. I just find it ironic that "mythic rarity" is supposed to be the rarest degree of rarity for cards, and yet most of us will open a playset of any given mythic much more often than we open a single emblem.
Secondly, I'm not losing sleep over anything, just curious to know why the distribution isn't slightly higher (ie: 1 emblem per booster box which is much more reasonable).
Third, I'll spend my time doing whatever I want. Contrary to what you may believe, I'm actually paid for the most of the time I spend posting and reading posts here. (It's one of the benefits of working a desk job with net access).
Lastly, I wasn't "threatening" anything nor threatening to do anything, I was merely suggesting an idea and asking if there were other like-minded individuals here who agreed with my opinion and wanted to see a higher emblem-per-box ratio in the future.
That's just it, though...you only ever need 1x Emblem. I think the average player will use more copies of a Planeswalker than its Emblem, so this makes sense. I'd hate to open a specific Emblem as much as a Beast or Golem token, for example.
That's just it, though...you only ever need 1x Emblem. I think the average player will use more copies of a Planeswalker than its Emblem, so this makes sense. I'd hate to open a specific Emblem as much as a Beast or Golem token, for example.
That all depends on how you define "need".
If you mean "to play with in a deck", then yes...you're correct. Chances are you'll never require more than one at a time. However, if you're a collector who wants to complete entire mint sets, your sets will technically be incomplete without all the tokens, emblems, ruling cards, promos, and spindown dice for those sets. Emblems and tokens may not have "X/Y" at the bottom indicating it's card number, but they still have the set symbol which by my interpretation makes such cards part of that set. Granted, other opinions may easily vary.
Anyhow, the best I can come up with myself is a game in the top 8 of a PTQ back during Urza block in which we were starting game 3 with time already expired, so the tiebreaker rule was that whoever had more life after 3 turns would win. And I lost to... healing salve.
Normally I would fully agree that what you're saying is perfectly valid, however, taking into account that so many promo wurmcoil engines were given out, and also taking into account that WOTC should've assumed that it would see a lot of play (because it's a good colorless card that could fit into almost any deck at the time of it's release), it would have been logical to increase the relative ratio distribution of it's tokens. That being said, I honesty think whoever was responsible for determining a relatively accurate wurm token-to-pack ratio was slightly negligent and dropped the ball. That's all.
If you attended the event where Wurmcoil Engines were given out, sure. But how many people did that, compared to how many people buy boosters? How many people from thoses groups intersect? The number of people who received promotional Wurmcoil Engines doesn't justify putting more of them in packs, because the packs will still be produced and opened years after the promos have been distributed.
I wouldn't be against seeing a few random tokens in each Fat Pack, personally, but anything more dedicated than that defeats the purpose.
I realize that very few cards produce emblems, but apparently there's only one emblem per case (six booster boxes), and this really irks me because there could be up to a half a dozen or so emblem producing planeswalkers (ie: Tamiyo, Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, etc) in that same case. What gives?
If you can figure out how to buy a case with a half-dozen Tamiyos, could you please let me know? Thanks.
Aren't the mythic tokens about as common as the mythics that produce them? I would expect there to be one emblem on each token 'sheet', same as though it was a mythic on the matching set's rare sheet.
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Wizards should really get rid of the rules cards. They are really worthless.
Actually I was ok with the rules cards, it gave me something silly to collect. What they do NOW, with the stupid inserts, is really useless. I wish they'd change it to just tokens now, they'd lose little, if any, ad space.
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the general "rule" that my friends and I found out was that if you found the emblem in a booster pack then then the planeswalker it was paired with was generally also in the box as well (we bought around 5 boxes so our theory could be wrong)
Couple of points, mythic tokens show up about two per case....I believe mythic rares show up about 4 per case (not sure of this...I'm not usually sorting these)
And sometimes you may need more than one of an individual emblem. Sorin's emblems stack so you could use more than one
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Mythics replace rares 1/8 of the time. There are 216 packs (36 * 6) in a case, so an average case should have about 27 mythics. Are you sure you didn't mean box?
Regarding emblem cards, I think they're kind of a stupid thing to put in the packs. In addition to people who open the planeswalker but not the emblem, there'll be plenty of people who open emblems but never get the planeswalker they're paired with. If it was possible to ensure that a planeswalker's emblem is always in the same pack as the planeswalker then it might be nice, but if you don't open lots of packs then that emblem would have been better off being a token.
I agree with the OP, Emblems (in my opinion) are hard to get and they shouldn't be. I don't want to spend $X to buy one. Even at $3, I'd rather have another pack of cards. If they were like $0.25 then I wouldn't mind so much but they're not. It's like they have their own rarity level and are like chase cards in their own right. Anyone trying to find Wurmcoil Tokens these days can attest to that. 1-2 per case is ridiculous. At that rate, that would mean that they are much rarer than the actual Mythic Planeswalker they represent!
I use a pikachu as an emblem for everything. I really dont see why people need the actual card.
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For the collector aspect, sure...more Emblems should be printed. For the game play aspect, just write "It's over 9000!" on a piece of paper for the Emblem. For the majority of Emblems, if you get it you are winning.
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So if the Emblem token is only about 1/per Case, what were the odds of me opening up both Tamiyo and her emblem in the same pack at Pre-release? (Yes, that really did happen.;))
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you must be mistaken bc i got two emblems in my sealed pool at the avr prerelease and yes it was the same box i watched him open it and i got two sorin ones in a single draft of triple dka
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I realize that very few cards produce emblems, but apparently there's only one emblem per case (six booster boxes), and this really irks me because there could be up to a half a dozen or so emblem producing planeswalkers (ie: Tamiyo, Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, etc) in that same case. What gives?
Does Wizards only want one out of every several customers who get a particular planeswalker to potentially have access to the emblem card it produces (albeit rarely)? Do they expect everyone to buy an entire case of a sets with such planeswalkers in order to ensure they get an emblem? Do they want to discourage players without the associated emblems from using particular planeswalkers in decks? I just don't understand why we're being shortchanged in the emblem department. Wouldn't it make more sense to make emblems a buy-a-box, prerelease, FNM, or gameday promo instead of redundantly giving out alternate art versions of cards which already have a much higher distribution rate, so that more people might have access to them?
We get flooded with boosters containing lots of fodder like excessive ruling cards, basic lands, and tokens, but when we need an emblem for a deck that might sue one, we're often forced to go out and buy it separately or represent it with dice. I'm just frustrated because I've probably cracked open about fives boxes worth of DKA boosters, and I still don't have a single Sorin emblem for my BW token deck which runs four Sorins. Trading for them is seemingly impossible since barely anyone has them (and those who do are reluctant to get rid of them), and I refuse to buy emblem cards purely on principle.
Does anyone else share my opinion and want to start a petition to increase the Emblem distribution? Even the Wurmcoil Engine tokens were/are extremely hard to come by. Why is this? People are running these engines left right and center, but 99% of the time when I see one die and its LTB trigger goes off, its controller won't have the token cards for it. On the plus side, I cracked open a pack last night which ironically had a Tibalt, a Tamiyo emblem, and some foil junk common, so that shocked me and made me happy, but I'm still confused as to why they're so much rarer than mythics to begin with. Insights and explanations would be appreciated. Thanks
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I would assume the reasoning behind this is because you'll get more nonrare, token-creating cards from boosters, and thus need more of the tokens they produce.
Opening a booster, hoping to scoring an emblem of all things is not going to meet with much success. They're not very expensive if you buy them online, but they would be if your idea of making them promotional was implemented.
First off, it's the principle, not the cost of the emblem discouraging me from going out and buying them. I just find it ironic that "mythic rarity" is supposed to be the rarest degree of rarity for cards, and yet most of us will open a playset of any given mythic much more often than we open a single emblem.
Secondly, I'm not losing sleep over anything, just curious to know why the distribution isn't slightly higher (ie: 1 emblem per booster box which is much more reasonable).
Third, I'll spend my time doing whatever I want. Contrary to what you may believe, I'm actually paid for the most of the time I spend posting and reading posts here. (It's one of the benefits of working a desk job with net access).
Lastly, I wasn't "threatening" anything nor threatening to do anything, I was merely suggesting an idea and asking if there were other like-minded individuals here who agreed with my opinion and wanted to see a higher emblem-per-box ratio in the future.
Normally I would fully agree that what you're saying is perfectly valid, however, taking into account that so many promo wurmcoil engines were given out, and also taking into account that WOTC should've assumed that it would see a lot of play (because it's a good colorless card that could fit into almost any deck at the time of it's release), it would have been logical to increase the relative ratio distribution of it's tokens. That being said, I honesty think whoever was responsible for determining a relatively accurate wurm token-to-pack ratio was slightly negligent and dropped the ball. That's all.
That's just it, though...you only ever need 1x Emblem. I think the average player will use more copies of a Planeswalker than its Emblem, so this makes sense. I'd hate to open a specific Emblem as much as a Beast or Golem token, for example.
That all depends on how you define "need".
If you mean "to play with in a deck", then yes...you're correct. Chances are you'll never require more than one at a time. However, if you're a collector who wants to complete entire mint sets, your sets will technically be incomplete without all the tokens, emblems, ruling cards, promos, and spindown dice for those sets. Emblems and tokens may not have "X/Y" at the bottom indicating it's card number, but they still have the set symbol which by my interpretation makes such cards part of that set. Granted, other opinions may easily vary.
That said, I would probably just break down an buy one for 2.99$ or less on some website.
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If you attended the event where Wurmcoil Engines were given out, sure. But how many people did that, compared to how many people buy boosters? How many people from thoses groups intersect? The number of people who received promotional Wurmcoil Engines doesn't justify putting more of them in packs, because the packs will still be produced and opened years after the promos have been distributed.
I wouldn't be against seeing a few random tokens in each Fat Pack, personally, but anything more dedicated than that defeats the purpose.
If you can figure out how to buy a case with a half-dozen Tamiyos, could you please let me know? Thanks.
Aren't the mythic tokens about as common as the mythics that produce them? I would expect there to be one emblem on each token 'sheet', same as though it was a mythic on the matching set's rare sheet.
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Actually I was ok with the rules cards, it gave me something silly to collect. What they do NOW, with the stupid inserts, is really useless. I wish they'd change it to just tokens now, they'd lose little, if any, ad space.
Props to Theismisacrime for the sig! Click for Trade list!
Major EDH player! Current decks: UUBraids, Waifu | UGZegana | RGWEnchantress Uril, the Miststalker | WBTriad of Fates (new!) | RBGXira Arien Re-dredge-imator (unretired!)
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And sometimes you may need more than one of an individual emblem. Sorin's emblems stack so you could use more than one
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Regarding emblem cards, I think they're kind of a stupid thing to put in the packs. In addition to people who open the planeswalker but not the emblem, there'll be plenty of people who open emblems but never get the planeswalker they're paired with. If it was possible to ensure that a planeswalker's emblem is always in the same pack as the planeswalker then it might be nice, but if you don't open lots of packs then that emblem would have been better off being a token.
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