I've been talking about their poor company direction for a while. It's so clear to anyone playing the game that the player community is tired of their bad products. They have too many products and they failed miserably to work on their money making standard product. Like other posters I'm tired of their enormous creatures in every color and no easy way to deal with them in a standard meta game. From a game design standpoint they have only focused on creatures and planeswalkers. He are in kaledesh but the best artifacts that you want to play are still creature based. The whole game has become too swingy and it's boring because of it. There are some strategies that take advantage of that. Such as during return to ravnica turbo fog and getting ten gates into play was a fun way to win the game. Alternate ways to win the game still exist but the creature damage is just so massive that the other strategies don't have a chance. Anyone looking at kaledesh can see that the block is pushed to such a massive power level for creatures. You have every kind of value driven creature imaginable. Built in effects that can just replace older sorcery's. The game just hasn't worked for me for a long time. It's left a bad feeling when ever I attend a live event. What am I paying for? Open three booster packs during a draft and get garbage. Even if I won the draft and I get more booster packs as my prize. I could get all garbage again. The lottery aspect is just too high. Yet they continue to just increase that lottery. It's nuts. These standard bannings should have never been done.
Quick run down.
1. They had to reverse their decision to increase standard rotation. (No one was going to throw away even more money.)
2. Master Pieces became a main stay. (Clearly standard is failing.)
3. More new promos to get people playing standard. (Sales must be horrible.)
You can't print a luxury product at ever increasing amounts of luxury. Mythic rares were a mistake and they really need to fix that. They cut off the extremely desirable promos for regular release events years ago now. They cut off prize support to store owners. They are only recently restarting prize support because it's desperately needed. In the short term what they are doing to prop up their product just isn't good enough. Standard used to keep people in the game because they would reprint cards to a certain extent. They no longer do that in any meaningful way. We are always in awe when they finally decide to reprint something. They took away one mana green mana ramp because their massive creature design way messing with a old game mechanic that worked even though their game design didn't.
Here's how you generate equity with the community and fix the game.
1. Start doing reprints again. I'm pretty sure as this point one high end reprint per set would be good. damnation
2. Eliminate mythic rares. That fact that you are telling us what is very rare destroys the games trading card aspect.
3. Fix the release promos. I got four Emrakul, the Aeons Torn on release day way back when. One from playing and 3 from trading for them.
4. Stop lying to us and saying you don't consider the secondary market price of cards. No one believes you. Putting old cards in standard sells booster packs. It's equity that you need to use because your product is bombing.
5. Get some different game designers. Your massive creatures and lack of answers makes no sense.
6. You need to revisit old game design. Red needs land destruction. Discard needs to be viable. The people you are pandering to with your massive creatures clearly aren't buying your booster packs. Megrim , black vise,with howling mineunderworld dreams, stone rain. I can even make a two mana RR land destruction spell that's fair. Could be Red/black, or red/green too. R/black sorcery destroy target land exile the top five cards of your library. It you want to take it a step further because you think it's too powerful. Exile the card itself too when it goes to the graveyard. There is plenty of alternate game design space available but wizards you just aren't using it.
7. Booster pack redesign. People aren't getting enough for the money they are spending. Experiment with this.
8. Eliminate special products. Put those special cards into standard sets. No more EDH support unless you buy a standard booster pack. This idea that sets can't be big is dumb. Add every new card only in standard products.
I don't like these new land promos and it's just not going to help enough.
2018 idea
Half grand prixs for 2018 are booster draft or sealed. Other half are standard. Everyone gets a promo tarmogoyf. At least then you get your admission price. Even if the price drops, I'm very sure people will still be happy with themselves. You're paying at least $60 for the promo.
This man speaks the truth.
Praise the Sun brother. \o/
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Cult of the Succubi Eating Kitten and Brotherhood of Hamsters - Zombie One/Hulking One - Brotherhood of Hamsters disapproves of Damage on the Stack amputation, the corruption of Mythics, and the "Major changes to Extended" in July 2010. You aborted our cards., but we approve of the Modern format. Even if it doesn't ha ve Carrion Feeder or Caller of the Claw in it.
Dex: http://deckbox.org/users/Egementium_instructoid
Are these in the wild yet? I would love to actually talk about this and hear less complaining about free stuff. I have a new FLGS that started about a year ago and all of this promotion has done a great thing for stirring up interest. Even the bannings brought more people out to FNM.
Back on topic though; mythic rares are what is destroying Standard, ever so slowly. If you look at a common and a mythic rare, the fundamental power level difference in the 2 cards is determined by a tiny rarity symbol. Mythic rare is giving WOTC this area to create cards that cause imbalance card vs card. They feel they can push a cards power level if they make it a Mythic Rare...thinking it wont cause problems...thats the reason the "legendary rule" exists for cards. Imagine being able to have 4 eye of ugin? There is no restriction on Mythic Rares so all Wizards is doing is taking a Hill Giant creature, and turning it into Verdurous Gearhulk just because its "rarer." Well, that doesnt stop a person from playing 4 of them in their deck.
I agree with this. A small fraction of cards are simply way more powerful for their cost than other cards. This severely restricts deckbuilding and results in far too many "goodstuff" decks.
Players like themes, synergies, and linear strategies. Maybe not all the time, but they should be an option at least.
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If the Vikings were around today, they would probably be amazed at how much glow-in-the-dark stuff we have, and how we take it for granted.
The weirdest, funniest thing about this programme is that the original art is better than the expedition art on all five cards. It`s subjective, of course, but I don`t think it`s particularly close on any of them.
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When I hit my 3000 post mark, I'm gone for good.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
I've been talking about their poor company direction for a while. It's so clear to anyone playing the game that the player community is tired of their bad products. They have too many products and they failed miserably to work on their money making standard product. Like other posters I'm tired of their enormous creatures in every color and no easy way to deal with them in a standard meta game. From a game design standpoint they have only focused on creatures and planeswalkers. He are in kaledesh but the best artifacts that you want to play are still creature based. The whole game has become too swingy and it's boring because of it. There are some strategies that take advantage of that. Such as during return to ravnica turbo fog and getting ten gates into play was a fun way to win the game. Alternate ways to win the game still exist but the creature damage is just so massive that the other strategies don't have a chance. Anyone looking at kaledesh can see that the block is pushed to such a massive power level for creatures. You have every kind of value driven creature imaginable. Built in effects that can just replace older sorcery's. The game just hasn't worked for me for a long time. It's left a bad feeling when ever I attend a live event. What am I paying for? Open three booster packs during a draft and get garbage. Even if I won the draft and I get more booster packs as my prize. I could get all garbage again. The lottery aspect is just too high. Yet they continue to just increase that lottery. It's nuts. These standard bannings should have never been done.
Quick run down.
1. They had to reverse their decision to increase standard rotation. (No one was going to throw away even more money.)
2. Master Pieces became a main stay. (Clearly standard is failing.)
3. More new promos to get people playing standard. (Sales must be horrible.)
You can't print a luxury product at ever increasing amounts of luxury. Mythic rares were a mistake and they really need to fix that. They cut off the extremely desirable promos for regular release events years ago now. They cut off prize support to store owners. They are only recently restarting prize support because it's desperately needed. In the short term what they are doing to prop up their product just isn't good enough. Standard used to keep people in the game because they would reprint cards to a certain extent. They no longer do that in any meaningful way. We are always in awe when they finally decide to reprint something. They took away one mana green mana ramp because their massive creature design way messing with a old game mechanic that worked even though their game design didn't.
Here's how you generate equity with the community and fix the game.
1. Start doing reprints again. I'm pretty sure as this point one high end reprint per set would be good. damnation
2. Eliminate mythic rares. That fact that you are telling us what is very rare destroys the games trading card aspect.
3. Fix the release promos. I got four Emrakul, the Aeons Torn on release day way back when. One from playing and 3 from trading for them.
4. Stop lying to us and saying you don't consider the secondary market price of cards. No one believes you. Putting old cards in standard sells booster packs. It's equity that you need to use because your product is bombing.
5. Get some different game designers. Your massive creatures and lack of answers makes no sense.
6. You need to revisit old game design. Red needs land destruction. Discard needs to be viable. The people you are pandering to with your massive creatures clearly aren't buying your booster packs. Megrim , black vise,with howling mineunderworld dreams, stone rain. I can even make a two mana RR land destruction spell that's fair. Could be Red/black, or red/green too. R/black sorcery destroy target land exile the top five cards of your library. It you want to take it a step further because you think it's too powerful. Exile the card itself too when it goes to the graveyard. There is plenty of alternate game design space available but wizards you just aren't using it.
7. Booster pack redesign. People aren't getting enough for the money they are spending. Experiment with this.
8. Eliminate special products. Put those special cards into standard sets. No more EDH support unless you buy a standard booster pack. This idea that sets can't be big is dumb. Add every new card only in standard products.
I don't like these new land promos and it's just not going to help enough.
2018 idea
Half grand prixs for 2018 are booster draft or sealed. Other half are standard. Everyone gets a promo tarmogoyf. At least then you get your admission price. Even if the price drops, I'm very sure people will still be happy with themselves. You're paying at least $60 for the promo.
I love everything in this post, it pretty much sums up my opinion as well, except for #8. In my opinion, the EDH products are the coolest thing that Wizards has been doing for a while.
I would also add that they need to get rid of NWO and the dumbing down of the game. It's really frustrating that 95% of the uncommons and 99% of the commons are limited garbage, unplayable in any format, even EDH.
to respond specifically to your first sentence though, I see what you are saying, but there is a flaw in the logic. High priced mythics only help the secondary market make money beyond the initial release. If all the 'best cards' were rare, which I take to mean the most competitive cards, then more people will be able to compete by just cracking packs then buying singles, which would increase profits for wizards because they would spark more interest in a greater number of people. Then mythics will drop in price on the secondary market, while rares rise to a point that its more advantageous to crack packs. mythics would then become a niche market type of card.
I disagree with this assessment. The premise that people can "crack packs" to be competitive vs. buying singles will never be the case. If all the best cards were rares, there will still be a spectrum. It is impossible for every rare to be equally powerful. Invariably, some of the rares will be more played, and the more powerful ones will be 4-of in the top tier decks. This will lead to their prices being higher than the bulk rares. Let's look at Kaladesh rares, for example. The most expensive rare is Spirebluff Canal, at a "super expensive" 8 dollars. Decks that want to play Spirebluff Canal want to play 4 of them (typically). There were a total of 55 rares in Kaladesh. How many packs do you need to crack to get 4, assuming we exclude mythics and foils as a possibility of being in the pack? Each pack has a 1/55 chance, so theoretically cracking 220 packs should do it, assuming an even distribution. Of course, the more logical approach is to crack fewer packs and trade for Spirebluff Canals you don't get with the value from the rares you do get. Rares in Kaladesh average at $1.36/rare with a standard deviation of $1.79...! A single standard deviation exceeds the average value of the rares from the set! That tells you the bell curve for pricing is highly skewed, with there being a few peak rares and a large number of cheap rares. This will be exacerbated without mythics, because the cost of rares are kept down by the cost of mythics. So you will still end up with highly priced rares based on their playability in Constructed and a lot of less than valuable bulk rares. So you crack packs and open mostly bulk rares with the occasional semi-value rare and that 1 or 2 expensive rare, and now you "should" have enough value to trade for your needed Spirebluff Canals. Now you need to find people who want to trade for your less expensive cards and also have (and don't want) Spirebluffs. You could also trade in for them at your LGS, taking a loss on the value of the cards. More than likely, though, you would just buy 4 Spirebluff Canals to avoid the loss of money and the hassle of making trades.
The only way this analysis will not be the case if the set is so well balanced that the mean value of rares is equal to the value of a pack. Even then, you're cracking packs in hoping to open a slightly higher EV (your distribution skewed more to the high end rares than the low end rares) rather than just buying what you need. I don't know if you keep up with the EV of a Kaladesh/AER box, but the value of your box being good is determined by if you get a decent Masterpiece of not. If the Masterpiece series weren't there, the EV of a box plummets, which means no one would ever crack packs for value. Rares by themselves don't hold value unless they are ubiquitous in the format or older format playable. So why would a rare ever hold a $4 price tag if it sees no play? Supply and demand drive all of this, so there's just no way people will crack packs to be competitive because they're just losing money.
Some of these cards there no saving them, but others actually see fringe play because of unique mechanics and will never be valuable and thats great you should have those cards.. At least 10 of these though could have been slightly modified so that they wouldn't be overpowered or even format warping but just constructed playable and worthy of brewing potential. Here's what i would have done and see if they would be OVERPOWERED - ijust did the bottom 10
Some of these cards there no saving them, but others actually see fringe play because of unique mechanics and will never be valuable and thats great you should have those cards.. At least 10 of these though could have been slightly modified so that they wouldn't be overpowered or even format warping but just constructed playable and worthy of brewing potential. Here's what i would have done and see if they would be OVERPOWERED - ijust did the bottom 10
Trying to make a card more "brew worthy" does not mean that it becomes more expensive. What makes a card expensive is how in demand the card is. Fatal Push is an uncommon yet is the 10th most expensive card in Aether Revolt because of its demand, ahead of 9 mythic rares. Demand is almost exclusively linked to playability in a competitive format. When has a Commander playable (new) card been in high demand and caused a price spike? Never, because there's no competitive environment, and Commander is so diverse, there's rarely any ubiquitous new cards. No matter if there are mythics or not, the heavy hitters in Standard will be more expensive, and the people that want it will spend money buying those singles rather than cracking packs. I agree that the rares could be more pushed individually, which could lead to some very interesting Standard environments if done properly. Doing so may help level out some of the price demand overall, but there will always be Tier 1 dominate decks that drive the secondary market prices.
to respond specifically to your first sentence though, I see what you are saying, but there is a flaw in the logic. High priced mythics only help the secondary market make money beyond the initial release. If all the 'best cards' were rare, which I take to mean the most competitive cards, then more people will be able to compete by just cracking packs then buying singles, which would increase profits for wizards because they would spark more interest in a greater number of people. Then mythics will drop in price on the secondary market, while rares rise to a point that its more advantageous to crack packs. mythics would then become a niche market type of card.
I disagree with this assessment. The premise that people can "crack packs" to be competitive vs. buying singles will never be the case. If all the best cards were rares, there will still be a spectrum. It is impossible for every rare to be equally powerful. Invariably, some of the rares will be more played, and the more powerful ones will be 4-of in the top tier decks. This will lead to their prices being higher than the bulk rares. Let's look at Kaladesh rares, for example. The most expensive rare is Spirebluff Canal, at a "super expensive" 8 dollars. Decks that want to play Spirebluff Canal want to play 4 of them (typically). There were a total of 55 rares in Kaladesh. How many packs do you need to crack to get 4, assuming we exclude mythics and foils as a possibility of being in the pack? Each pack has a 1/55 chance, so theoretically cracking 220 packs should do it, assuming an even distribution. Of course, the more logical approach is to crack fewer packs and trade for Spirebluff Canals you don't get with the value from the rares you do get. Rares in Kaladesh average at $1.36/rare with a standard deviation of $1.79...! A single standard deviation exceeds the average value of the rares from the set! That tells you the bell curve for pricing is highly skewed, with there being a few peak rares and a large number of cheap rares. This will be exacerbated without mythics, because the cost of rares are kept down by the cost of mythics. So you will still end up with highly priced rares based on their playability in Constructed and a lot of less than valuable bulk rares. So you crack packs and open mostly bulk rares with the occasional semi-value rare and that 1 or 2 expensive rare, and now you "should" have enough value to trade for your needed Spirebluff Canals. Now you need to find people who want to trade for your less expensive cards and also have (and don't want) Spirebluffs. You could also trade in for them at your LGS, taking a loss on the value of the cards. More than likely, though, you would just buy 4 Spirebluff Canals to avoid the loss of money and the hassle of making trades.
The only way this analysis will not be the case if the set is so well balanced that the mean value of rares is equal to the value of a pack. Even then, you're cracking packs in hoping to open a slightly higher EV (your distribution skewed more to the high end rares than the low end rares) rather than just buying what you need. I don't know if you keep up with the EV of a Kaladesh/AER box, but the value of your box being good is determined by if you get a decent Masterpiece of not. If the Masterpiece series weren't there, the EV of a box plummets, which means no one would ever crack packs for value. Rares by themselves don't hold value unless they are ubiquitous in the format or older format playable. So why would a rare ever hold a $4 price tag if it sees no play? Supply and demand drive all of this, so there's just no way people will crack packs to be competitive because they're just losing money.
I see what you are saying, and I would agree with you, except that my argument hinges on rares being the most competitive cards and mythics being splashy. right now in standard, there are 3 main archetypes that are tier 1, and all of them are highly dependent on having 3-4 of very specific mythics, that if removed, don't just hurt the deck badly enough to make it far less competitive, but would completely end the deck like copycat. I actually think your assessment only confirms what I was putting across. Yes there will be some rares that are definitely better than the others, but right now you have cards like walking ballista and dubious challenge which aren't even close to being close in power. They make jank rares to increase your want for the 'better' cards, but it's pointless, as it has people like yourself just dismissing buying packs all together and instead going to the secondary market. it makes perfect sense to, but only because the disparity between rares is crazy, and mythics are 'must play' to be competitive. This makes them less money than they would make if the rares truly were more balanced and the mythics meant to be more splashy. Even if what you said is true about the spectrum, which I believe it is, it would still allow far more people to compete through cracking packs than they can now, which just makes obvious business sense to do. right now people don't want to play standard because its either invest in expensive deck A,B, or C or just flat out lose; oh and don't waste your time on packs. That's horrible business sense.
to respond specifically to your first sentence though, I see what you are saying, but there is a flaw in the logic. High priced mythics only help the secondary market make money beyond the initial release. If all the 'best cards' were rare, which I take to mean the most competitive cards, then more people will be able to compete by just cracking packs then buying singles, which would increase profits for wizards because they would spark more interest in a greater number of people. Then mythics will drop in price on the secondary market, while rares rise to a point that its more advantageous to crack packs. mythics would then become a niche market type of card.
I disagree with this assessment. The premise that people can "crack packs" to be competitive vs. buying singles will never be the case. If all the best cards were rares, there will still be a spectrum. It is impossible for every rare to be equally powerful. Invariably, some of the rares will be more played, and the more powerful ones will be 4-of in the top tier decks. This will lead to their prices being higher than the bulk rares. Let's look at Kaladesh rares, for example. The most expensive rare is Spirebluff Canal, at a "super expensive" 8 dollars. Decks that want to play Spirebluff Canal want to play 4 of them (typically). There were a total of 55 rares in Kaladesh. How many packs do you need to crack to get 4, assuming we exclude mythics and foils as a possibility of being in the pack? Each pack has a 1/55 chance, so theoretically cracking 220 packs should do it, assuming an even distribution. Of course, the more logical approach is to crack fewer packs and trade for Spirebluff Canals you don't get with the value from the rares you do get. Rares in Kaladesh average at $1.36/rare with a standard deviation of $1.79...! A single standard deviation exceeds the average value of the rares from the set! That tells you the bell curve for pricing is highly skewed, with there being a few peak rares and a large number of cheap rares. This will be exacerbated without mythics, because the cost of rares are kept down by the cost of mythics. So you will still end up with highly priced rares based on their playability in Constructed and a lot of less than valuable bulk rares. So you crack packs and open mostly bulk rares with the occasional semi-value rare and that 1 or 2 expensive rare, and now you "should" have enough value to trade for your needed Spirebluff Canals. Now you need to find people who want to trade for your less expensive cards and also have (and don't want) Spirebluffs. You could also trade in for them at your LGS, taking a loss on the value of the cards. More than likely, though, you would just buy 4 Spirebluff Canals to avoid the loss of money and the hassle of making trades.
The only way this analysis will not be the case if the set is so well balanced that the mean value of rares is equal to the value of a pack. Even then, you're cracking packs in hoping to open a slightly higher EV (your distribution skewed more to the high end rares than the low end rares) rather than just buying what you need. I don't know if you keep up with the EV of a Kaladesh/AER box, but the value of your box being good is determined by if you get a decent Masterpiece of not. If the Masterpiece series weren't there, the EV of a box plummets, which means no one would ever crack packs for value. Rares by themselves don't hold value unless they are ubiquitous in the format or older format playable. So why would a rare ever hold a $4 price tag if it sees no play? Supply and demand drive all of this, so there's just no way people will crack packs to be competitive because they're just losing money.
I see what you are saying, and I would agree with you, except that my argument hinges on rares being the most competitive cards and mythics being splashy. right now in standard, there are 3 main archetypes that are tier 1, and all of them are highly dependent on having 3-4 of very specific mythics, that if removed, don't just hurt the deck badly enough to make it far less competitive, but would completely end the deck like copycat. I actually think your assessment only confirms what I was putting across. Yes there will be some rares that are definitely better than the others, but right now you have cards like walking ballista and dubious challenge which aren't even close to being close in power. They make jank rares to increase your want for the 'better' cards, but it's pointless, as it has people like yourself just dismissing buying packs all together and instead going to the secondary market. it makes perfect sense to, but only because the disparity between rares is crazy, and mythics are 'must play' to be competitive. This makes them less money than they would make if the rares truly were more balanced and the mythics meant to be more splashy. Even if what you said is true about the spectrum, which I believe it is, it would still allow far more people to compete through cracking packs than they can now, which just makes obvious business sense to do. right now people don't want to play standard because its either invest in expensive deck A,B, or C or just flat out lose; oh and don't waste your time on packs. That's horrible business sense.
I agree with this.. That was what my whole post was about. Showing that if they made better rares, they would at least make cards which are playable, and possibly create more then 3 viable decks in standard. just making dubious challenge a 3cmc and instant
I don't know if I really buy into the logic of more powerful rares translating to increased value. Unless higher quality rares DIRECTLY equates to greater diversity among decks in standard (which is not a guarantee, though I'd expect a strong correlation), only the top cards of the set would see play and cheap bulk would be replaced by... more cheap bulk of higher quality. Even so, better bulk may also make it harder to "solve" a standard environment, allowing for more sales and price fluctuations around a larger selection of cards in the first few weeks after release.
With that said, I am aware that I am more likely to pull a must-have card from a pack if those must-haves are rare instead of mythic. If I'm more likely to pull a key card from a cracked pack, I am somewhat more likely to go for the pack (though I'm admittedly burned out on packs in general)... though this comes at an odd cost.
While better odds may encourage more players may open packs to fill out playsets, doing so will take fewer packs. As such, the few obsessive players who LOVE playing the Magic Lottery will crack fewer packs on whole. If Wizards makes money through sealed products, it wants to cater its goods towards the people who crack the most packs and DOES NOT want them opening less to get what they want (IMO, Masterpiece cards were designed specifically to keep this demographic cracking packs even after they get 'the good cards' from a set). While all of us know that this is economically inefficient for those players, not all players are as savvy regarding statistics (and some might just enjoy the rush).
If we're seeing a slowdown in magic, however... I might see that as a good thing. If a larger number of players prefer to buy in singles, that might mean that more players are getting on board with the economic realities of this card game... unless this game is just scaring away old players and leaving a solid core of savvy buyers. Either way, Wizards may have to adjust its pack model if the obsessive work of a few players fails to keep the product afloat.
did someone have a pic of this special basic land ?
We have seen pictures of the promotional rare lands (there's a link in the OP, and the picture is right up top). As far as the Amonkhet basic promos (the topic of another thread, but I believe that's what you're asking?), we have no pictures yet.
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I'm calling it right now- worst rare in the set. Even good limited players will find better bombs at common and uncommon no sweat. Worst. Episode. Ever.
I really do predict this to be our worst rare in set award winner. I'd be happier opening a jar of eyeballs, so I think anything worse is highly unlikely. This card wont just have zero constructed potential, but not be significantly better than a mass of ghouls in a draft.
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This man speaks the truth.
Praise the Sun brother. \o/
Cult of the Succubi Eating Kitten and Brotherhood of Hamsters - Zombie One/Hulking One - Brotherhood of Hamsters disapproves of Damage on the Stack amputation, the corruption of Mythics,
and the "Major changes to Extended" in July 2010. You aborted our cards., but we approve of the Modern format. Even if it doesn't ha ve Carrion Feeder or Caller of the Claw in it.Dex: http://deckbox.org/users/Egementium_instructoid
I agree with this. A small fraction of cards are simply way more powerful for their cost than other cards. This severely restricts deckbuilding and results in far too many "goodstuff" decks.
Players like themes, synergies, and linear strategies. Maybe not all the time, but they should be an option at least.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
I love everything in this post, it pretty much sums up my opinion as well, except for #8. In my opinion, the EDH products are the coolest thing that Wizards has been doing for a while.
I would also add that they need to get rid of NWO and the dumbing down of the game. It's really frustrating that 95% of the uncommons and 99% of the commons are limited garbage, unplayable in any format, even EDH.
I disagree with this assessment. The premise that people can "crack packs" to be competitive vs. buying singles will never be the case. If all the best cards were rares, there will still be a spectrum. It is impossible for every rare to be equally powerful. Invariably, some of the rares will be more played, and the more powerful ones will be 4-of in the top tier decks. This will lead to their prices being higher than the bulk rares. Let's look at Kaladesh rares, for example. The most expensive rare is Spirebluff Canal, at a "super expensive" 8 dollars. Decks that want to play Spirebluff Canal want to play 4 of them (typically). There were a total of 55 rares in Kaladesh. How many packs do you need to crack to get 4, assuming we exclude mythics and foils as a possibility of being in the pack? Each pack has a 1/55 chance, so theoretically cracking 220 packs should do it, assuming an even distribution. Of course, the more logical approach is to crack fewer packs and trade for Spirebluff Canals you don't get with the value from the rares you do get. Rares in Kaladesh average at $1.36/rare with a standard deviation of $1.79...! A single standard deviation exceeds the average value of the rares from the set! That tells you the bell curve for pricing is highly skewed, with there being a few peak rares and a large number of cheap rares. This will be exacerbated without mythics, because the cost of rares are kept down by the cost of mythics. So you will still end up with highly priced rares based on their playability in Constructed and a lot of less than valuable bulk rares. So you crack packs and open mostly bulk rares with the occasional semi-value rare and that 1 or 2 expensive rare, and now you "should" have enough value to trade for your needed Spirebluff Canals. Now you need to find people who want to trade for your less expensive cards and also have (and don't want) Spirebluffs. You could also trade in for them at your LGS, taking a loss on the value of the cards. More than likely, though, you would just buy 4 Spirebluff Canals to avoid the loss of money and the hassle of making trades.
The only way this analysis will not be the case if the set is so well balanced that the mean value of rares is equal to the value of a pack. Even then, you're cracking packs in hoping to open a slightly higher EV (your distribution skewed more to the high end rares than the low end rares) rather than just buying what you need. I don't know if you keep up with the EV of a Kaladesh/AER box, but the value of your box being good is determined by if you get a decent Masterpiece of not. If the Masterpiece series weren't there, the EV of a box plummets, which means no one would ever crack packs for value. Rares by themselves don't hold value unless they are ubiquitous in the format or older format playable. So why would a rare ever hold a $4 price tag if it sees no play? Supply and demand drive all of this, so there's just no way people will crack packs to be competitive because they're just losing money.
Cultivator of Blades 0.26
Eliminate the Competition 0.26
Skyship Stalker 0.27
Midnight Oil 0.27
Captured by the Consulate 0.27
Aethersquall Ancient 0.28
Aetherstorm Roc 0.29
Architect of the Untamed 0.34
Confiscation Coup0.29
Deadlock Trap 0.34
Dubious Challenge 0.28
Fateful Showdown 0.31
Ghirapur Orrery 0.34
Insidious Will 0.29
Liberating Combustion 0.3
Madcap Experiment 0.35
Multiform Wonder 0.28
Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter 0.29
Padeem, Consul of Innovation 0.38
Saheeli's Artistry 0.3
Territorial Gorger 0.29
Wildest Dreams0.31
Some of these cards there no saving them, but others actually see fringe play because of unique mechanics and will never be valuable and thats great you should have those cards.. At least 10 of these though could have been slightly modified so that they wouldn't be overpowered or even format warping but just constructed playable and worthy of brewing potential. Here's what i would have done and see if they would be OVERPOWERED - ijust did the bottom 10
Cultivator of Blades 0.26
Eliminate the Competition 0.26
Skyship Stalker 0.27
Midnight Oil 0.27
Captured by the Consulate 0.27
Aethersquall Ancient 0.28
Aetherstorm Roc 0.29
Architect of the Untamed 0.34
Confiscation Coup0.29
Deadlock Trap 0.34
Dubious Challenge This piece of crap is a feel bad everytime you open it. should have made it 3cmc at least then maybe it would see something brewing it.
Fateful Showdown Like as is ---
Ghirapur Orrery Like as is ---
Insidious Will make it UUU or 2UU exile a card from your hand do one or both - dont want to overpower the world with this so careful testing
Liberating Combustion make this 6 damage divided as you choose among any number of creatures and or players
Madcap Experiment - Like it as is
Multiform Wonder make him cmc 4 or 4 energey at 5
Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter make her a 2/2 (thats pushing it) more like 1/3 and see if it stands up
Padeem, Consul of Innovation i like this one as is.. hard to make better without it warping
Saheeli's Artistry nothing to save this one...maybe give it a thrid option and choose two or 5cmc and 4 blue?
Territorial Gorger Cost it at 1RR or give it haste and first strike at 4cmc
Wildest Dreams make it an instant
Trying to make a card more "brew worthy" does not mean that it becomes more expensive. What makes a card expensive is how in demand the card is. Fatal Push is an uncommon yet is the 10th most expensive card in Aether Revolt because of its demand, ahead of 9 mythic rares. Demand is almost exclusively linked to playability in a competitive format. When has a Commander playable (new) card been in high demand and caused a price spike? Never, because there's no competitive environment, and Commander is so diverse, there's rarely any ubiquitous new cards. No matter if there are mythics or not, the heavy hitters in Standard will be more expensive, and the people that want it will spend money buying those singles rather than cracking packs. I agree that the rares could be more pushed individually, which could lead to some very interesting Standard environments if done properly. Doing so may help level out some of the price demand overall, but there will always be Tier 1 dominate decks that drive the secondary market prices.
I see what you are saying, and I would agree with you, except that my argument hinges on rares being the most competitive cards and mythics being splashy. right now in standard, there are 3 main archetypes that are tier 1, and all of them are highly dependent on having 3-4 of very specific mythics, that if removed, don't just hurt the deck badly enough to make it far less competitive, but would completely end the deck like copycat. I actually think your assessment only confirms what I was putting across. Yes there will be some rares that are definitely better than the others, but right now you have cards like walking ballista and dubious challenge which aren't even close to being close in power. They make jank rares to increase your want for the 'better' cards, but it's pointless, as it has people like yourself just dismissing buying packs all together and instead going to the secondary market. it makes perfect sense to, but only because the disparity between rares is crazy, and mythics are 'must play' to be competitive. This makes them less money than they would make if the rares truly were more balanced and the mythics meant to be more splashy. Even if what you said is true about the spectrum, which I believe it is, it would still allow far more people to compete through cracking packs than they can now, which just makes obvious business sense to do. right now people don't want to play standard because its either invest in expensive deck A,B, or C or just flat out lose; oh and don't waste your time on packs. That's horrible business sense.
I agree with this.. That was what my whole post was about. Showing that if they made better rares, they would at least make cards which are playable, and possibly create more then 3 viable decks in standard. just making dubious challenge a 3cmc and instant
I don't know if I really buy into the logic of more powerful rares translating to increased value. Unless higher quality rares DIRECTLY equates to greater diversity among decks in standard (which is not a guarantee, though I'd expect a strong correlation), only the top cards of the set would see play and cheap bulk would be replaced by... more cheap bulk of higher quality. Even so, better bulk may also make it harder to "solve" a standard environment, allowing for more sales and price fluctuations around a larger selection of cards in the first few weeks after release.
With that said, I am aware that I am more likely to pull a must-have card from a pack if those must-haves are rare instead of mythic. If I'm more likely to pull a key card from a cracked pack, I am somewhat more likely to go for the pack (though I'm admittedly burned out on packs in general)... though this comes at an odd cost.
While better odds may encourage more players may open packs to fill out playsets, doing so will take fewer packs. As such, the few obsessive players who LOVE playing the Magic Lottery will crack fewer packs on whole. If Wizards makes money through sealed products, it wants to cater its goods towards the people who crack the most packs and DOES NOT want them opening less to get what they want (IMO, Masterpiece cards were designed specifically to keep this demographic cracking packs even after they get 'the good cards' from a set). While all of us know that this is economically inefficient for those players, not all players are as savvy regarding statistics (and some might just enjoy the rush).
If we're seeing a slowdown in magic, however... I might see that as a good thing. If a larger number of players prefer to buy in singles, that might mean that more players are getting on board with the economic realities of this card game... unless this game is just scaring away old players and leaving a solid core of savvy buyers. Either way, Wizards may have to adjust its pack model if the obsessive work of a few players fails to keep the product afloat.
We have seen pictures of the promotional rare lands (there's a link in the OP, and the picture is right up top). As far as the Amonkhet basic promos (the topic of another thread, but I believe that's what you're asking?), we have no pictures yet.