They aren't going to print stuff like Top or Idyllic Tutor because stores will just spike the prices. They also learned from printing "good for Legacy" stuff like True-Name Nemesis that people will just storm onto that deck and leave the rest on the shelves, forcing vendors to buy more sets of the things, since they can't buy them individually.
Now, there is no excuse for the manabases. There are literally dozens of lands that are better than the ones provided. The "gain 1 life" tapduals, Reflecting Pool, Gemstone Mine, City of Brass, cycle-duals, etc. I really, honestly believe that no one in their group actually plays Commander as it's played outside, because even non cEDH people have at least a stable manabase that far surpasses these pre-cons. This is what they need to work on for next year, and going forward after that.
Yeah but theres hardly any even 2-5$ goodies that were usually all over in the decks before... not to mention the horrid manabases. They could have thrown some of the cheapest dual lands in the decks? Come on Wizards....
This set reminds me of iconic masters and M25. After the success of Modern Masters 2017, Wizards was hoping to capitalize on a more expensive product but didn’t give us enough quality to warrant the increased price.
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Modern
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
New cards: Some really cool cards that I need to get
Reprints: Nothing I want that I don't already have
Manabases: Trash
Final verdict: Looks like I'm buying the new cards as singles because I just don't see the rest of the deck being worth anything. Unless the singles add up to the price of the deck they come in.
These are terrible. Why were they so safe with these? I mean, they literally made that GW Cats deck be better than all of these. At least sneak a PW in these or something interesting. The manabases are hot garbage and the card selections are terrible. I'm going to buy singles from this and that's it.
My exact feelings and exactly what I did. I spent a single one of these deck's value on singles and that'll do for this year's Commander product. Get your singles while you can, as there will be many like minded people. I got mine yesterday morning after the last of the 56 new card spoilers
They aren't going to print stuff like Top or Idyllic Tutor because stores will just spike the prices. They also learned from printing "good for Legacy" stuff like True-Name Nemesis that people will just storm onto that deck and leave the rest on the shelves, forcing vendors to buy more sets of the things, since they can't buy them individually.
If they learned all of these lessons then why are they going so far the other direction after years of doing it right after learning those lessons?
There can definitely high end reprints in these, they showed this with Wurmcoil Engine, Chromatic Lantern, Urza's Incubator, Phyrexian Arena, Cyclonic Rift, and many others. There's no excuse to charge an extra $5 for decks that would only be okay for the original $30 price they started out at. Plus, that whole "people will charge more" is a crock when they can print more of the decks AND you can find them at Wal-Mart and Target. They can't be afraid to print things people want.
I think these decks would've been fine if the mana base were at least above average. Lands are reusable and have always been vital for people who want to try out different decks, hence the success of 4-color decks in 2016, people could just dissect and rebuild from ground up.
Again, I think WotC wants to introduce Commander format to new players, hence their Brawl approach.
I was stoked when I read that the design was bottom-up. Giving the people what they want - yay! Some of the new cards are interesting, but the reprints are a Los Angeles riot-level dumpster fire. Another release to be forgotten.
I'm afraid these decks are the byproduct of a certain design philosopher WOTC has had of late - what we might call the Test 20% Philosophy: For any given set, only 20% of the cards should require playtesting in constructed formats.
The reason we only have 1 new miracle card, and it costs so much, and is practically useless, is because miracle cards see constructed play in eternal formats. Printing 5 miracle cards would require a lot of playtesting and a lot of work.
It's the same with landfall, repeatable scry, etc. It's a lot easier to slap a block of text on a 2/1 flyer for 2W than it is to playtest a Miracle Murder variant or Magus of the Top.
It's easy to see the 20% philosophy in action - the sheer number of mediocre (C) and (U) reprints, the hesitation to reprint simple constructed playable cards the moment they appear in a single modern deck (despite reprinting it not making it any less legal in modern), the adding of 1 to (C) that have ever been constructed playable, such as Pacifism, and - most egregious, many of the banned cards - from felidar guardian to ramunap ruins to whatever the giant 15 mana monster of the set is. These are cards sloppily thrown together that see play not due to their inherent power, but due to other cards in the set they haven't bothered to playtest them with.
Magic has been around for 25 years. I wish the designers would have learned concrete lessons about design that would let them print simpler, more flavorful, more fun cards. Instead, it seems they've learned the lesson "slap another mana on it and lets go home."
I'm building a Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain Historic Commander deck, and I get more cards I want to play in it from the Inventors deck in Elves vs Inventors than in this "artifacts matter" Commander precon.
These are utter *****. I almost expect them to be this bad on purpose because they for whatever ridiculous reason want to discontinue the product line and need an excuse not to anger the stockholders by canning one of their best sellers.
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
That there is no Greater Auramancy is perhaps the greatest disappointment for me-
-as well as the fat that two of the 4 planeswalkers are a bit bland with a very difficult power-suite for audiences to grasp.
What does ‘shifting Fate’ even mean? It sounds overpowering at worst and difficult to grok at best.
As for the enchantress, I’m confused as to why she revolves around the least popular type of enchantment- auras
You are complaining about no Greater Auramancy. My friend, we didn't even get past Rhystic Study. This is literally the worst commander set I've seen in three or four years. I maybe cancelling another pre-order. Case in point, I think the set needed at least a few good reprints like Chromatic Lantern, Enchanted Evening, some of the legendary lands from old Kamigawa, etc.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'm normally on here arguing for the product. "There is value" I usually say, "Even if it isn't value for you."
I honestly cannot say it this year. These decks are astoundingly bad. There are barely any decent reprints.
This is easily the worst Commander product they have ever released, barring Commander's Arsenal. How did they mess this up?
At least Arsenal had Rhystic Study ,and it was the most last-minute job to get a "Commander 2012" out, so I think the printing shortage was bluntly put, the most-extreme logistic issue due to timeframe... and they still managed to put good value into that set despite having way less preparation time...
You know, the Jund deck (admittedly deservingly) gets a lot of flak for not being "on-theme" (I'm more inclined to believe marketing just didn't get the right memo at all at this point of the list), but with the full decklist, every list feels so clunky it feels like the entire set plays so bad that it doesn't matter if the Jund deck isn't on theme, if it gets its beatsticks on curve it'll still win because everyone is just that slow.
These decks feel like they're worse than the C11 ones. The only part they excel at is that the non-face new cards of the set are much better than C11's generally (but honestly I feel C11 main Commanders > C18 main Commanders).
These decks are suppose to be more expensive so WOTC could put in more power? Would these decks beat any of the recent decks out of the box? I doubt it considering the same crappy mana base and lack of quality reprints.
Honestly, I could play the Markov Mardu Vampire Deck out of the box and probably beat the crap out of any 3 of the decks basically pretending its Archenemy.
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
I'm not hopping on the complaint bandwagon in this topic because I tire of negativity, though $40 is a bit steep for a casual precon product. I'm sure there will be enough bellyaching this year that next year they'll shove more value into the decklists (kinda like how now they have to have one deck deviate from the theme each year because apparently some people didn't like tribal last year), though hopefully not at the cost of turning next year's decks into goodstuff grab-bags. But something tells me that would attract fewer complaints around here.
They aren't going to print stuff like Top or Idyllic Tutor because stores will just spike the prices. They also learned from printing "good for Legacy" stuff like True-Name Nemesis that people will just storm onto that deck and leave the rest on the shelves, forcing vendors to buy more sets of the things, since they can't buy them individually.
Now, there is no excuse for the manabases. There are literally dozens of lands that are better than the ones provided. The "gain 1 life" tapduals, Reflecting Pool, Gemstone Mine, City of Brass, cycle-duals, etc. I really, honestly believe that no one in their group actually plays Commander as it's played outside, because even non cEDH people have at least a stable manabase that far surpasses these pre-cons. This is what they need to work on for next year, and going forward after that.
Subjective Reality got more than the other three, but that might have to do with Exquisite Invention only getting one, so they printed a couple extra in Subjective Reality to balance it out. They rarely ever print rare duals in Commander; C16 was a special case because they had four-color decks to provide for, thus a bunch of checklands, filterlands, and trilands. Bouncelands, Guildgates, and Refuges are the standard, though thankfully they also print Trilands in decks with 3+ colors.
My only real disappointment with the land base is no Inventors' Fair in Exquisite Invention, though I am baffled by the lack of creaturelands in the land-focused deck. I'm sure Raging Ravine alone would have "redeemed" it in the eyes of this forum, though Lavaclaw Reaches and Hissing Quagmire would have been nice bonuses.
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MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
What is Serra Avatar doing in the library manipulation deck? At least they included the two most obvious strictly betters (besides Ancestral Recall, but that hardly counts) in that deck before Portent. (This is actually something you'll find yourself doing in Commander a lot. More on that in a bit.)
I actually don't complain too much about Seer's Sundial. I mean, yeah, the deck has black, so you have better, but I see Seer's Sundial as "good" in Boros, and also a "weak maybe" Tireless Tracker #2 in green ramp, though again, if you have blue or black, you have better.
Spawning Grounds is an odd choice for an enchantress deck. It's an enchantment, but it costs eight mana, and I can see it more in the land deck, with druids and other ways to untap your lands.
The manabases aren't bad, for precons. You're not going to get a mix of shocks, fetches (maybe Mirage fetches), buddies, and filters in a precon. The best you'll get is a tri-land, a pain land, or Shimmering Grotto and similar, and I don't even see the pain lands that much in precons. You might get something absurdly powerful due to synergy every now and then, like vivid lands in Atraxa, but that's about it. Five-color lands in precons are vivids, grotto lands (as I've started calling them), or Rupture Spire.
Seriously, you guys act like you've never seen precon filler before.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I think it's laughable that the rules committee had a say in these decks, had input on what went in them, and this is what we got. They're supposed to be the "be all end all" when it comes to Commander and the rules and they should know what we want and what should be reprinted in these, and they obviously didn't fight too hard to try and get a better product.
Pretty sure that whole concept was there to paper over the fact that Eminence was probably too good of an ability.
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Yeah but theres hardly any even 2-5$ goodies that were usually all over in the decks before... not to mention the horrid manabases. They could have thrown some of the cheapest dual lands in the decks? Come on Wizards....
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
Reprints: Nothing I want that I don't already have
Manabases: Trash
Final verdict: Looks like I'm buying the new cards as singles because I just don't see the rest of the deck being worth anything. Unless the singles add up to the price of the deck they come in.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
Useful Resources:
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ManabaseCrafter
My exact feelings and exactly what I did. I spent a single one of these deck's value on singles and that'll do for this year's Commander product. Get your singles while you can, as there will be many like minded people. I got mine yesterday morning after the last of the 56 new card spoilers
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-general/334931-what-is-the-most-pimp-card-deck-youve-seen-or?comment=5361
Commander
RGOmnath, Locus of Rage Grenades! EDHGR
UWSygg's Defense, EDH - Voltron & ControlWU
BUGMimeoplasm EDH ft. Ifnir Cycling-discard comboBUG
WBTeysa, Connoisseur of CullingBW
BWSelenia & Recruiter of the Guard suicice combo EDHWB
UBRWGO-Kagachi - 5 Color Enchantments - EDHUBRWG
If they learned all of these lessons then why are they going so far the other direction after years of doing it right after learning those lessons?
There can definitely high end reprints in these, they showed this with Wurmcoil Engine, Chromatic Lantern, Urza's Incubator, Phyrexian Arena, Cyclonic Rift, and many others. There's no excuse to charge an extra $5 for decks that would only be okay for the original $30 price they started out at. Plus, that whole "people will charge more" is a crock when they can print more of the decks AND you can find them at Wal-Mart and Target. They can't be afraid to print things people want.
Other (17)
1 Varina, Lich Queen
1 Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign
1 Boreas Charger
1 Magus of the Balance
1 Aminatou's Augury
1 Primordial Mist
1 Entreat the Dead
1 Night Incarnate
1 Skull Storm
1 Sower of Discord
1 Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
1 Isolated Watchtower
1 Aethermage's Touch
1 Loyal Unicorn
1 Loyal Subordinate
1 Geode Golem
1 Forge of Heroes
Just Entreat the Dead?
Thread | Draft
Again, I think WotC wants to introduce Commander format to new players, hence their Brawl approach.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
The reason we only have 1 new miracle card, and it costs so much, and is practically useless, is because miracle cards see constructed play in eternal formats. Printing 5 miracle cards would require a lot of playtesting and a lot of work.
It's the same with landfall, repeatable scry, etc. It's a lot easier to slap a block of text on a 2/1 flyer for 2W than it is to playtest a Miracle Murder variant or Magus of the Top.
It's easy to see the 20% philosophy in action - the sheer number of mediocre (C) and (U) reprints, the hesitation to reprint simple constructed playable cards the moment they appear in a single modern deck (despite reprinting it not making it any less legal in modern), the adding of 1 to (C) that have ever been constructed playable, such as Pacifism, and - most egregious, many of the banned cards - from felidar guardian to ramunap ruins to whatever the giant 15 mana monster of the set is. These are cards sloppily thrown together that see play not due to their inherent power, but due to other cards in the set they haven't bothered to playtest them with.
Magic has been around for 25 years. I wish the designers would have learned concrete lessons about design that would let them print simpler, more flavorful, more fun cards. Instead, it seems they've learned the lesson "slap another mana on it and lets go home."
These are utter *****. I almost expect them to be this bad on purpose because they for whatever ridiculous reason want to discontinue the product line and need an excuse not to anger the stockholders by canning one of their best sellers.
I honestly cannot say it this year. These decks are astoundingly bad. There are barely any decent reprints.
This is easily the worst Commander product they have ever released, barring Commander's Arsenal. How did they mess this up?
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You are complaining about no Greater Auramancy. My friend, we didn't even get past Rhystic Study. This is literally the worst commander set I've seen in three or four years. I maybe cancelling another pre-order. Case in point, I think the set needed at least a few good reprints like Chromatic Lantern, Enchanted Evening, some of the legendary lands from old Kamigawa, etc.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
At least Arsenal had Rhystic Study ,and it was the most last-minute job to get a "Commander 2012" out, so I think the printing shortage was bluntly put, the most-extreme logistic issue due to timeframe... and they still managed to put good value into that set despite having way less preparation time...
You know, the Jund deck (admittedly deservingly) gets a lot of flak for not being "on-theme" (I'm more inclined to believe marketing just didn't get the right memo at all at this point of the list), but with the full decklist, every list feels so clunky it feels like the entire set plays so bad that it doesn't matter if the Jund deck isn't on theme, if it gets its beatsticks on curve it'll still win because everyone is just that slow.
These decks feel like they're worse than the C11 ones. The only part they excel at is that the non-face new cards of the set are much better than C11's generally (but honestly I feel C11 main Commanders > C18 main Commanders).
Honestly, I could play the Markov Mardu Vampire Deck out of the box and probably beat the crap out of any 3 of the decks basically pretending its Archenemy.
Battlebond stole the All the Value.
Yet it is totally something I could see Hasbro/Wizards doing...
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
Um, they do have lifegain taps?
Swiftwater Cliffs in Exquisite Invention
Dismal Backwater, Jwar Isle Refuge, Scoured Barrens, Sejiri Refuge, and Tranquil Cove in Subjective Reality
Akoum Refuge, Kazandu Refuge, and Jungle Hollow in Nature's Vengeance
Blossoming Sands, Thornwood Falls, and Tranquil Cove in Adaptive Enchantment
Subjective Reality got more than the other three, but that might have to do with Exquisite Invention only getting one, so they printed a couple extra in Subjective Reality to balance it out. They rarely ever print rare duals in Commander; C16 was a special case because they had four-color decks to provide for, thus a bunch of checklands, filterlands, and trilands. Bouncelands, Guildgates, and Refuges are the standard, though thankfully they also print Trilands in decks with 3+ colors.
My only real disappointment with the land base is no Inventors' Fair in Exquisite Invention, though I am baffled by the lack of creaturelands in the land-focused deck. I'm sure Raging Ravine alone would have "redeemed" it in the eyes of this forum, though Lavaclaw Reaches and Hissing Quagmire would have been nice bonuses.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
That doesn't make any sense. I can't play Commander in Arena. Or Pauper. Or any format that interest me.
Hands to the sky
Give a round of applause
For the great Miss Y!
I actually don't complain too much about Seer's Sundial. I mean, yeah, the deck has black, so you have better, but I see Seer's Sundial as "good" in Boros, and also a "weak maybe" Tireless Tracker #2 in green ramp, though again, if you have blue or black, you have better.
Spawning Grounds is an odd choice for an enchantress deck. It's an enchantment, but it costs eight mana, and I can see it more in the land deck, with druids and other ways to untap your lands.
The manabases aren't bad, for precons. You're not going to get a mix of shocks, fetches (maybe Mirage fetches), buddies, and filters in a precon. The best you'll get is a tri-land, a pain land, or Shimmering Grotto and similar, and I don't even see the pain lands that much in precons. You might get something absurdly powerful due to synergy every now and then, like vivid lands in Atraxa, but that's about it. Five-color lands in precons are vivids, grotto lands (as I've started calling them), or Rupture Spire.
Seriously, you guys act like you've never seen precon filler before.
On phasing:
Pretty sure that whole concept was there to paper over the fact that Eminence was probably too good of an ability.