Mind I ask, what makes Mind Seize deck so desirable? I know there's True-Name Nemesis, but what else?
It was just True-Name Nemesis, which was going for $30+ for a few months.
Scavenging Ooze did the same thing before they reprinted it.
I sold my TNN for more than I payed for the deck (in store credit). Bought a bunch of goodies for a Melek deck, including Scroll Rack and Sensei's Top. I'm rather glad they didn't print any cards like that this time because they make decks unnecessarily difficult to obtain, at least early on.
Not super excited by these decks. Some cool new cards, and some decent reprints. My biggest problem is that I only really wanted the UR deck, and almost every exciting reprint I already own and don't need another copy of. Oh well.
Is it sad that the reprint that I got most excited about is a black bordered Ambition's Cost?
I think WotC missed a big opportunity to reprint Nin, the Pain Artist and Skullbriar, the Walking Grave as the "reprint" generals in their respective decks. Both of them are reasonably expensive in the secondary market, and both have obvious synergy with some of the new cards, namely Illusory Abusher and Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest. Two of their Commander 2012 counterparts have already seen reprint in Conspiracy to boot.
Anybody who has played commander for any reasonable length of time will already have most, if not all, of these reprints. I usually don't like to get down on WotC for their products and I prefer to cultivate a glass-half-full mentality, but I think this year's offering is a tremendous miss. I think they need to up their game to encourage entrenched commander players to purchase this product, not solely market to new players as they so clearly have done here. I'm sad to say that I will probably only be picking up singles as well. At least I won't have to worry about struggling to find these at my local big box stores if I change my mind and decide to pick one up down the road.
These decks are fine, but I don't think they were made for me. In the past I have bought them all to get the new cards as well as improving my list of older cards to use for EDH, but I just don't see enough reprints for that to make sense anymore.
The UG deck looks kinda fun to play as is, so I will be getting it, but I might just buy all the new cards as singles. I've never done that with a commander product before.
What I really don't need are more Sol rings- I have more than I can use and have a hard time unloading my extras. Lightning Greaves too.
Is it sad that the reprint that I got most excited about is a black bordered Ambition's Cost?
I think WotC missed a big opportunity to reprint Nin, the Pain Artist and Skullbriar, the Walking Grave as the "reprint" generals in their respective decks. Both of them are reasonably expensive in the secondary market, and both have obvious synergy with some of the new cards, namely Illusory Abusher and Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest. Two of their Commander 2012 counterparts have already seen reprint in Conspiracy to boot.
Anybody who has played commander for any reasonable length of time will already have most, if not all, of these reprints. I usually don't like to get down on WotC for their products and I prefer to cultivate a glass-half-full mentality, but I think this year's offering is a tremendous miss. I think they need to up their game to encourage entrenched commander players to purchase this product, not solely market to new players as they so clearly have done here. I'm sad to say that I will probably only be picking up singles as well.
The U/R deck has very few creatures, so Nin isn't an ideal commander for it.
Skullbriar does fit the B/G deck so that was a missed opportunity. Specially because Jarad was already in a duel deck.
After reading some comments here, honestly, this year's decks emit a very strong feeling of "laziness".
1) Butcher of Malakir, Terastodon and Verdant Force must be on some sort of "default supplemental product reprint list". All 3 of them appeared in the BG deck and the latter 2 appeared in Graveborn together as well.
2) No new art for reprinted cards at all - we had the Medallion Cycle at least last year.
3) The uncommon Myriad cycle... it felt like it was initially a UB mechanic (plus an equipment) and the rest were just there to fill in slots. Even if the red one only had "When ~ deals combat damage to a player, it deals 1 damage to target creature", it would have felt better than haste, design-wise.
It's all these small details that show the effort placed in the final product - now it feels like the design process was as factory-processed like the actual product is.
I think I'm most disappointed by the fact that they didn't include Path of Bravery in the BW deck. I mean, it's not like it's an amazing card in and of itself, but damn it, it fits both of the new generals (is an enchantment and encourages the token spam that daxos does and does a lot of repeated life gain for karlov while also making it easier to swing in with him when he's smaller) so freaking well! How the hell did they miss that one?
The one release I was anticipating all year and it falls flat. No matter how much I'd like to support WotC directly they keep pushing me to buy or trade for singles.
Grow a pair WotC and start taking some risks again!
It's an instant speed 5/5 trampler for 4. Wtf do you people want seriously? It has applications in populate/ above the curve beats decks, or in Bant control/ flash. I seriously think anyone mad at this card for any reason other than losing an attacker to instant speed wurm, should go home and make their own awesome card game and leave the rest of us alone.
No new artwork for old cards would be a legitimate let down, the MSRP increased (marginally) so to get no new art work is lame.
Oh, I didn't realize none had any new artwork. Figured they're not in Gatherer yet so the lists used default old images. That would be very lame if true. It's already lame enough that so few old border cards were reprinted. I mean this is something simple that could be done in place of getting the same pool of cards again and again.
As someone pointed out earlier, no Plea For Guidance and no Idyllic Tutor in Daxos (or in any CMD products) is odd as well.
I am on my phone so everytime I look up cards on the Mothership I go to gatherer and that show old printings.
There is none. The Card Image Gallery has the official printings, and the only new arts are the signets getting the MTGO arts. Izzet Signet and Golgari Signet used that art in the Duel Decks, so that leaves us with three two "new" arts.
The one release I was anticipating all year and it falls flat. No matter how much I'd like to support WotC directly they keep pushing me to buy or trade for singles.
Grow a pair WotC and start taking some risks again!
Hey, those little shiny foils on the rares are super expensive to add onto the print run. That's why they opted for so many *****ty uncommons.
While I am kidding, I sort of wonder if it's true. Having worked in printing for a few years I know that those little things are a pain to get lined up.
EDIT: so everybody seemed generally happy with the spoilers and now that we have the decklists the typical "waaaaah, I'm not getting 60$ of cards for my 35$" mtgs bullcrap. Entitlement central, we ha e arrived!
More like I'm not getting $35 worth of singles for my $35, probably not even $25. There's absolutely no entitlement here, just capitalism at work. I see a product that doesn't live up to expectations and I'm not buying it.
I can't really calculate how much the decks would be worth on the secondary market today but I am comfortable in claiming they are very likely to hit the 35$ threshold.
Hmmm is the dislike for these the small price hike? They dont really seem much worse than the 2014 ones *which were quite good*. I mean sure they could be better but what product couldnt? The only thing I am dissapointed in is that there are no portal/ 3 kingdoms cards.
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SonofaBith - Wizards was so excited about making the packaging for Modern Masters 2 recyclable, they decided to make most of the rares and all but 1 of the UC's recycle-bin ready too. Convenient!
Hmmm is the dislike for these the small price hike? They dont really seem much worse than the 2014 ones *which were quite good*. I mean sure they could be better but what product couldnt? The only thing I am dissapointed in is that there are no portal/ 3 kingdoms cards.
As far as I'm concerned the small price hike is not an issue but these decks being more expensive and having no new art outside of the MTGO art for the signets is a bummer.
As far as the majority of whiners, well it's the typical entitled MTGS attitude: "man these spoilers are great! No wonder BFZ is so bad herpaderpa!" *decks are spoiled* "they took our value! Durkadurkaduuu".
I love the Sol Ring treatment. The little bugger is as broken as the Moxen, but happily managed to slip through the Restricted List and now he's being printed into oblivion. Thank god at least a FEW exciting cards from Magic's broken past are still happily active to show us that, on the whole, they're actually quite balanced in modern Magic.
Anyway, here's my take on these decks:
Buy all the R/U and G/B ones. They have great cards with tons of value and some of the most broken new cards. (Sneak Attack for your spells -- ok seems good. 6/6 flyer for BB with the additional cost that I have to be making creatures in my zombie deck -- ok seems good.)
Buy single playsets of Karlov of the Ghost Council to upgrade Soul Sisters.dec. This guy has the potential to be a 4/4 for 2 mana in decks that have incidental life gain. (P.S. We have lands that do this). He grows VERY FAST and his optional ability removes a whole category of ways you would normally try to trump or stop him once he gets going. And, the rest of his deck is boring. Value town!
Buy single playsets of Fiery Confluence because a modular spell that's either 3 to the board, 6 to the dome, or kill artifacts -- or a mixture of the two -- is actually quite good in an aggressive red deck. As with Karlov, the rest of this deck seems very dull.
Ignore the rest of this printing unless you need the old reprints, and pick up the other new marginal cards for cheap bux later.
Hmmm is the dislike for these the small price hike? They dont really seem much worse than the 2014 ones *which were quite good*. I mean sure they could be better but what product couldnt? The only thing I am dissapointed in is that there are no portal/ 3 kingdoms cards.
As far as I'm concerned the small price hike is not an issue but these decks being more expensive and having no new art outside of the MTGO art for the signets is a bummer.
As far as the majority of whiners, well it's the typical entitled MTGS attitude: "man these spoilers are great! No wonder BFZ is so bad herpaderpa!" *decks are spoiled* "they took our value! Durkadurkaduuu".
It is a little about value but also just reprinting cards that they consistantly reprint is a problem. I literally don't want a sixth printing of Butcher of Malakir and many cards being printed here within the last two years. I skipped Theros block for a reason and there are far to many bad cards from there here. There is expectations here because the past have been decently good for many different players. these are obviously for people getting into commander at a lower level. So of coarse more people won't like it because it isn't for as many people as they have been for in the past. No Legacy cards, no portal reprints poor choices on reprints like the dragonmaze legends being reprinted when there are more needed different reprints. This all adds up to many "entitled" people being upset with a product that wizards has done a good job with in the past. You blame it on the player base when really Wizards has given the expectations and then undermined their own settings.
@biglow - What you're saying is all true, but remember, new blood enters Magic on a regular basis. There are people for whom Rise of the Eldrazi feels as far in the past as Arabian Nights. It's really nice of Wizards to keep printing iconic and useful cards from those sets. It means those of us who have them get cheaper singles from the new stuff.
And as far as "No Legacy cards," I quibble with you. I think there are five cards that have legacy potential:
Karlov of the Ghost Council
Oreskos Explorer
Magus of the Wheel
Mystic Confluence
Mizzx Mastery (seriously, this card is basically Show and Tell for spells)
And, admittedly more remote possibilities:
Scourge of Nel Toth
Firey Confluence
Centaur Vinecrasher
And I think that the BG and RU decks actually have a ton of value. They have some critical cards that don't take much to be broken, as well as lots of very useful staples and fun new EDH cards. The other decks leave much to be desired, however.
I don't understand why Enlightened Tutor has not been reprinted in commander.
WotC has consistently shown itself to be Pro-variance and anti-consistency. Introductory decks are better (in their minds) if each game is as wild and different as possible, especially with Commander. Additionally, shuffling is a major time suck especially in a format with 100 card decks, and for newbies the sheer amount of choice that comes with tutoring is overwhelming and grinds games to a halt. As a result, they almost never include even fairly narrow tutors: you'll notice that there's no Giant Harbinger in Kalemne's deck and no Heliod's Pilgrim or anything like that for Daxos, and last year Nahiri not only was missing Stoneforge Mystic which seems like a lock, it was also missing Steelshaper's Gift, Taj-nar Swordsmith, and Stonehewer Giant. So with this in mind, it's not at all surprising to me that they've never reprinted Worldly Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Idyllic Tutor, Gamble, Eladamri's Call, Fauna Shaman, Tooth and Nail, or Merchant Scroll in the Commander series, and they likely never will.
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Sufferer of EDHD
Commander - Currently Playing: RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G) RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B) WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
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I sold my TNN for more than I payed for the deck (in store credit). Bought a bunch of goodies for a Melek deck, including Scroll Rack and Sensei's Top. I'm rather glad they didn't print any cards like that this time because they make decks unnecessarily difficult to obtain, at least early on.
Not super excited by these decks. Some cool new cards, and some decent reprints. My biggest problem is that I only really wanted the UR deck, and almost every exciting reprint I already own and don't need another copy of. Oh well.
Baleful Strix was in there too - went for $15-$20 at the time.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
I think WotC missed a big opportunity to reprint Nin, the Pain Artist and Skullbriar, the Walking Grave as the "reprint" generals in their respective decks. Both of them are reasonably expensive in the secondary market, and both have obvious synergy with some of the new cards, namely Illusory Abusher and Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest. Two of their Commander 2012 counterparts have already seen reprint in Conspiracy to boot.
Anybody who has played commander for any reasonable length of time will already have most, if not all, of these reprints. I usually don't like to get down on WotC for their products and I prefer to cultivate a glass-half-full mentality, but I think this year's offering is a tremendous miss. I think they need to up their game to encourage entrenched commander players to purchase this product, not solely market to new players as they so clearly have done here. I'm sad to say that I will probably only be picking up singles as well. At least I won't have to worry about struggling to find these at my local big box stores if I change my mind and decide to pick one up down the road.
Current EDH Decks:
G Multani, Maro-Sorcerer
B Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
GU Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Ah, true, I forgot about Baleful Strix.
The UG deck looks kinda fun to play as is, so I will be getting it, but I might just buy all the new cards as singles. I've never done that with a commander product before.
What I really don't need are more Sol rings- I have more than I can use and have a hard time unloading my extras. Lightning Greaves too.
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
The U/R deck has very few creatures, so Nin isn't an ideal commander for it.
Skullbriar does fit the B/G deck so that was a missed opportunity. Specially because Jarad was already in a duel deck.
URArjun, the Shifting FlameRU
1) Butcher of Malakir, Terastodon and Verdant Force must be on some sort of "default supplemental product reprint list". All 3 of them appeared in the BG deck and the latter 2 appeared in Graveborn together as well.
2) No new art for reprinted cards at all - we had the Medallion Cycle at least last year.
3) The uncommon Myriad cycle... it felt like it was initially a UB mechanic (plus an equipment) and the rest were just there to fill in slots. Even if the red one only had "When ~ deals combat damage to a player, it deals 1 damage to target creature", it would have felt better than haste, design-wise.
It's all these small details that show the effort placed in the final product - now it feels like the design process was as factory-processed like the actual product is.
Swapping Daxos for Karlov makes your commander nearly useless. That seems like bad design to me.
Grow a pair WotC and start taking some risks again!
I am on my phone so everytime I look up cards on the Mothership I go to gatherer and that show old printings.
There might still be hope for new art I suppose.
edit: Oh yeah, Simic Signet was used Commander 2013, so that leaves us with Boros Signet and Orzhov Signet.
Hey, those little shiny foils on the rares are super expensive to add onto the print run. That's why they opted for so many *****ty uncommons.
While I am kidding, I sort of wonder if it's true. Having worked in printing for a few years I know that those little things are a pain to get lined up.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
I can't really calculate how much the decks would be worth on the secondary market today but I am comfortable in claiming they are very likely to hit the 35$ threshold.
People expectations are the the problem.
GW Rhys the Redeemed EDH
RUGAnimar, Soul of Elements EDH
WBRAlesha, Who Smiles at Death EDH
As far as I'm concerned the small price hike is not an issue but these decks being more expensive and having no new art outside of the MTGO art for the signets is a bummer.
As far as the majority of whiners, well it's the typical entitled MTGS attitude: "man these spoilers are great! No wonder BFZ is so bad herpaderpa!" *decks are spoiled* "they took our value! Durkadurkaduuu".
Anyway, here's my take on these decks:
Buy all the R/U and G/B ones. They have great cards with tons of value and some of the most broken new cards. (Sneak Attack for your spells -- ok seems good. 6/6 flyer for BB with the additional cost that I have to be making creatures in my zombie deck -- ok seems good.)
Buy single playsets of Karlov of the Ghost Council to upgrade Soul Sisters.dec. This guy has the potential to be a 4/4 for 2 mana in decks that have incidental life gain. (P.S. We have lands that do this). He grows VERY FAST and his optional ability removes a whole category of ways you would normally try to trump or stop him once he gets going. And, the rest of his deck is boring. Value town!
Buy single playsets of Fiery Confluence because a modular spell that's either 3 to the board, 6 to the dome, or kill artifacts -- or a mixture of the two -- is actually quite good in an aggressive red deck. As with Karlov, the rest of this deck seems very dull.
Ignore the rest of this printing unless you need the old reprints, and pick up the other new marginal cards for cheap bux later.
My only conplaints are no new arts and the complete RTR legends reprint thingy.
“I once had an entire race killed just to listen to the rattling of their dried bones as I waded through them.”
—Volrath
Nah, probably because it is the kind of card that's more likely to be reprinted in a judge promo or From the Vault series.
It is a little about value but also just reprinting cards that they consistantly reprint is a problem. I literally don't want a sixth printing of Butcher of Malakir and many cards being printed here within the last two years. I skipped Theros block for a reason and there are far to many bad cards from there here. There is expectations here because the past have been decently good for many different players. these are obviously for people getting into commander at a lower level. So of coarse more people won't like it because it isn't for as many people as they have been for in the past. No Legacy cards, no portal reprints poor choices on reprints like the dragonmaze legends being reprinted when there are more needed different reprints. This all adds up to many "entitled" people being upset with a product that wizards has done a good job with in the past. You blame it on the player base when really Wizards has given the expectations and then undermined their own settings.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/trading-post/details/360-bitterblossom-and-mistbind-clique-looking-to-trade
And as far as "No Legacy cards," I quibble with you. I think there are five cards that have legacy potential:
Karlov of the Ghost Council
Oreskos Explorer
Magus of the Wheel
Mystic Confluence
Mizzx Mastery (seriously, this card is basically Show and Tell for spells)
And, admittedly more remote possibilities:
Scourge of Nel Toth
Firey Confluence
Centaur Vinecrasher
And I think that the BG and RU decks actually have a ton of value. They have some critical cards that don't take much to be broken, as well as lots of very useful staples and fun new EDH cards. The other decks leave much to be desired, however.
WotC has consistently shown itself to be Pro-variance and anti-consistency. Introductory decks are better (in their minds) if each game is as wild and different as possible, especially with Commander. Additionally, shuffling is a major time suck especially in a format with 100 card decks, and for newbies the sheer amount of choice that comes with tutoring is overwhelming and grinds games to a halt. As a result, they almost never include even fairly narrow tutors: you'll notice that there's no Giant Harbinger in Kalemne's deck and no Heliod's Pilgrim or anything like that for Daxos, and last year Nahiri not only was missing Stoneforge Mystic which seems like a lock, it was also missing Steelshaper's Gift, Taj-nar Swordsmith, and Stonehewer Giant. So with this in mind, it's not at all surprising to me that they've never reprinted Worldly Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Idyllic Tutor, Gamble, Eladamri's Call, Fauna Shaman, Tooth and Nail, or Merchant Scroll in the Commander series, and they likely never will.
RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR
WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG
GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG
GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G)
RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW
UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B)
WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG