Creedmor pretty much took the words out of my mouth here, but I do want to add somethings.
I have to say is that Selesnya really needed to have 1/1 saprolings again, because it does not matter how fancy you make the token creatures when there is so much token hate in the room. Throw quality out the window and just use quantity already! I mean that seems to be Wizard's modus operandi at present anyway.
It also feels way too soon to have come back to Ravnica. Don't get me wrong, Ravnica is literally my childhood and I love it to death and this is probably true for a large portion of people in this forum. But this is what is making me concerned, we have come back to this plane three times now while other planes have not been seen for over a decade now. To me it feels less like this choice to return is less about story and more about the development team becoming more reliant on past success stories to stay alive. The set feels unbalanced to the point is feels a touch rushed with how pushed Dimir is and the other guilds feel under developed to the point they would need to bleed in Dimir mechanics just to feel competitive. It might have been better for this set to stay in development for a couple more years to balance out and for us the players to have more time to build anticipation for its eventual return.
Honestly it might have to do with how Hasbro's financial report for the first quarter of 2018 shows about a 20% drop in Magic sales, roughly a fifty million dollar drop. So there is a chance that the reason for this feeling of being rushed is because they felt some pressure to get results and they felt that Ravnica's pedigree might be the saving grace. Link is here for that report on the 20% drop in Magic sales: "Link".
Pretty sure that link never says Magic sales dropped 20%.
Just that their category was down 20%. Other games could have been the main driver of the decrease.
Creedmor pretty much took the words out of my mouth here, but I do want to add somethings.
I have to say is that Selesnya really needed to have 1/1 saprolings again, because it does not matter how fancy you make the token creatures when there is so much token hate in the room. Throw quality out the window and just use quantity already! I mean that seems to be Wizard's modus operandi at present anyway.
It also feels way too soon to have come back to Ravnica. Don't get me wrong, Ravnica is literally my childhood and I love it to death and this is probably true for a large portion of people in this forum. But this is what is making me concerned, we have come back to this plane three times now while other planes have not been seen for over a decade now. To me it feels less like this choice to return is less about story and more about the development team becoming more reliant on past success stories to stay alive. The set feels unbalanced to the point is feels a touch rushed with how pushed Dimir is and the other guilds feel under developed to the point they would need to bleed in Dimir mechanics just to feel competitive. It might have been better for this set to stay in development for a couple more years to balance out and for us the players to have more time to build anticipation for its eventual return.
Honestly it might have to do with how Hasbro's financial report for the first quarter of 2018 shows about a 20% drop in Magic sales, roughly a fifty million dollar drop. So there is a chance that the reason for this feeling of being rushed is because they felt some pressure to get results and they felt that Ravnica's pedigree might be the saving grace. Link is here for that report on the 20% drop in Magic sales: "Link".
Pretty sure that link never says Magic sales dropped 20%.
Just that their category was down 20%. Other games could have been the main driver of the decrease.
They mentioned Magic specifically first followed by Monopoly. Chances are those are the two biggest sellers of that catagory. I do not think Monopoly sells as much as Magic, when was the last time you saw someone even buy that board game? Chances are that that percentage is mainly Magic.
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Never forget whose grace and favor led to your success and always give your thanks, otherwise you might be doomed to loose it.
Creedmor pretty much took the words out of my mouth here, but I do want to add somethings.
I have to say is that Selesnya really needed to have 1/1 saprolings again, because it does not matter how fancy you make the token creatures when there is so much token hate in the room. Throw quality out the window and just use quantity already! I mean that seems to be Wizard's modus operandi at present anyway.
It also feels way too soon to have come back to Ravnica. Don't get me wrong, Ravnica is literally my childhood and I love it to death and this is probably true for a large portion of people in this forum. But this is what is making me concerned, we have come back to this plane three times now while other planes have not been seen for over a decade now. To me it feels less like this choice to return is less about story and more about the development team becoming more reliant on past success stories to stay alive. The set feels unbalanced to the point is feels a touch rushed with how pushed Dimir is and the other guilds feel under developed to the point they would need to bleed in Dimir mechanics just to feel competitive. It might have been better for this set to stay in development for a couple more years to balance out and for us the players to have more time to build anticipation for its eventual return.
Honestly it might have to do with how Hasbro's financial report for the first quarter of 2018 shows about a 20% drop in Magic sales, roughly a fifty million dollar drop. So there is a chance that the reason for this feeling of being rushed is because they felt some pressure to get results and they felt that Ravnica's pedigree might be the saving grace. Link is here for that report on the 20% drop in Magic sales: "Link".
Pretty sure that link never says Magic sales dropped 20%.
Just that their category was down 20%. Other games could have been the main driver of the decrease.
They mentioned Magic specifically first followed by Monopoly. Chances are those are the two biggest sellers of that catagory. I do not think Monopoly sells as much as Magic, when was the last time you saw someone even buy that board game? Chances are that that percentage is mainly Magic.
They refer to Magic and Monopoly together with that exact same terminology in every earnings report. I'm not saying you're definitely wrong. Just that you can rarely determine exact product performance from their reports because they tend to report products in groups. Additionally, Monopoly is grouped with Magic specifically because it makes way more money than either of us would reasonably expect such an old franchise to make (probably from brand licensing and not simple sales of the actual game itself - but that's just me guessing).
That said, I think we might be able to read between the lines with a couple of paragraphs:
*Hasbro’s total gaming category, including all gaming revenue, most notably MAGIC: THE GATHERING and MONOPOLY, which are included in Franchise Brands in the table above, totaled $203.5 million for the first quarter 2018, down 20%, versus $253.3 million for the first quarter 2017. Hasbro believes its gaming portfolio is a competitive differentiator and views it in its entirety.
First quarter 2018 revenues were negatively impacted across all Brand Portfolio categories by the liquidation of Toys“R”Us in the U.S. and U.K., along with uncertainty in its other operations, as well as retail inventory overhang, primarily in Europe.
First quarter 2018 Franchise Brand revenues decreased 19% to $361.7 million. Growth in MONOPOLY was offset by declines in all other Franchise Brands in the quarter. Franchise Brand revenues grew in the Entertainment and Licensing segment and declined in the U.S. and Canada and International segments.
So Franchise Brands, which include Monopoly and Magic, had a down quarter - and that's in spite of growth in Monopoly. So it is probably safe to say that Magic had a down quarter (though the exact extent of how down is unknowable). Based on the middle sentence, it seems that they put a fair share of the blame on the Toys R Us closing, which is interesting and might explain their slight shift away from LGS distribution over the last couple months as they look for a new retail-sized purchasing medium to help buoy their revenue.
Its Franchise Brands are LITTLEST PET SHOP, MAGIC: THE GATHERING, MONOPOLY, MY LITTLE PONY, NERF, PLAY-DOH and TRANSFORMERS.
...
Under its Game category, its Franchise Brands, MAGIC: THE GATHERING and MONOPOLY, headline its portfolio...
I've pulled up a handful of simulated sealed pools on DraftSim and haven't been terribly impressed with this limited environment from that point of view. Draftsim isn't generating seeded packs, so that may up the power level, but it feels like there's not a lot of top end stuff in this limited format. Fairly good removal, though. Seems like a lot of limited battles will be attrition or tempo based.
Willing to admit that sample sizes are skewing my perspective so far.
I wonder what compelled them to give us the full spoiler a few days earlier than they tend to do. We usually get it by the Friday of the week prior to the prerelease.
It's great we got it earlier and gives us a chance to really digest it prior to the PR. Draft/limited simulators are only as good as they are programmed to be, so I'll save my full judgement until the actual prerelease.
'buster
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'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset. Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
So, okay, decent set. I'm not as wowed by this set as I have been by the past two Ravnica blocks. Maybe it's just been too soon since the last Ravnica. Maybe this set is actually just less interesting. Maybe I'm just disappointed that Dominaria didn't get more sets. But for whatever reason, I feel like this set is more of a supplemental Ravnica product than an actual standard expansion. It's a fairly competent remix of old Ravnica themes, which is different than how I felt about RTR. RTR felt like a "legitimate" continuation of Ravnica.
Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike the set, it seems fun, and I'm certainly going to be drafting it and stuff. But there's something missing. Maybe I'm just getting too old and nothing excites me anymore. (Okay, that's not true, Dominaria was awesome.)
I think it has something to do with relative lack of coherence and innovation. The first two Ravnica blocks had mechanics that were either build-around or did things no other mechanic had done before. This gave the guilds a distinct personality either through gameplay or splashiness.
This set has little to nothing of either. Only Convoke really fits the mold but it's a returning mechanic and WotC hasn't played up the token aspect of Selesnya this time for some reason, possibly because that might have broken limited with Mentor around, dunno. This is a problem with all the guilds though. Traditionally each guild had a mechanic or a theme to build around. This time they seem all over the place. What exactly IS Dimir doing this time apart from vague control strategies? Not even Boros, the absolute easiest guild to create a distinct feeling for seems very coherent this time with its focus on both large and small creatures due to its keyword.
All that isn't to say that Guilds of Ravnica is a bad set.* Ixalan wasn't much better from a design standpoint, but we're a bit spoiled from the first two iterations of Ravnica, so we judge it less favourably than we would otherwise.
*Compared to the baseline, not people's personal opinions.
Just from a brief keyword count:
[...]
[3]Surveil - Highest with 21
[...]
I assume you counted just cards the term appears on and include all the cards that just trigger on surveil? I'd make that two separate counts. The truth is the B cards of this A/B mechanic do not actually let you surveil.
If this is only A cards though that's surprisingly high.
Just did a quick count myself. There are indeed 21 cards that surveil, not counting cards that care about when you surveil.
So that includes instants, sorceries which have it tacked on and creatures that either surveil on etb, attack, dies or as an activated ability.
That is quite a lot. And yeah am surprised this is so high when Jump-Start is so much lower.
Its Franchise Brands are LITTLEST PET SHOP, MAGIC: THE GATHERING, MONOPOLY, MY LITTLE PONY, NERF, PLAY-DOH and TRANSFORMERS.
...
Under its Game category, its Franchise Brands, MAGIC: THE GATHERING and MONOPOLY, headline its portfolio...
Forgive me but I cannot open the link from my phone.
I will agree that the loss of ToysRus played a part. But would it be a 50 million part? I would say no, that store had lost popularity some time ago so it's ability to move product would be small at best. As for the brands in the same catagory, with the exception of the petshop one since I have no clue about it, they are childhood staples that parents buy so I see them changing very little in sales. Monopoly is weird though, not sure why it is going up in sales.
But non the less I still say the pressure is still there from Hasbro (whether it is wizard's fault or not). And if Magic had been doing well, they would have stated it like they did with Monopoly. So at least we know Magic took a hit, we just don't know the numbers. But by going by how this set feels rushed and a bit too early for a return, I would still argue that there is some heat on the Dev team to pick up the lost revenue. And I just don't see this set doing that.
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Never forget whose grace and favor led to your success and always give your thanks, otherwise you might be doomed to loose it.
Every person who replies to this question will have a different answer for it. Their answer depends upon how they view cards and what format is their preference.
For Standard? The shocklands, because we will have access to all 10 checklands. If I have to pick a single card, though, it would probably be Experimental Frenzy. In a mono-red or blue/red wizard build it turns the top of your library into your hand and you can keep casting spells as long as you have mana. If you do find yourself with cards in hand and a land on top which you can't play, well, we do have access to Rummaging Goblin from Ixalan--discard something dead, draw the land, then keep firing.
We'll just have to see what bubbles to the surface, though.
*************
Almost half the creatures from GRN are x/2 or less (49%)--even the smaller burn spells become more useful and Lava Coil becomes even better than I originally thought, killing/exiling 86% of creatures (not counting the hexproof ones).
Price should drop after release. It's way too high right now. Walking Ballista sees legacy play and modern play, yet only has a price tag around 11-14 dollars.
Walking ballista was a $4 card after release, tho
Also it got reprinted on those standard show down. It is cheap now (but wait 1 year...)
The golgari chase card will be high and will stay for long and only drop around the rotation. Look at it like a “new teferi”.
Worse, because it's really the *only* chase card in the set.
The Dimir Demon will also be expensive, but aside from those two, this set is looking about as valuable and enduring as a dumpster fire.
Isn't that sort of typical for Ravnica sets? It seemed that way with RTR.
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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!
Just from a brief keyword count:
[...]
[3]Surveil - Highest with 21
[...]
I assume you counted just cards the term appears on and include all the cards that just trigger on surveil? I'd make that two separate counts. The truth is the B cards of this A/B mechanic do not actually let you surveil.
If this is only A cards though that's surprisingly high.
Just did a quick count myself. There are indeed 21 cards that surveil, not counting cards that care about when you surveil.
So that includes instants, sorceries which have it tacked on and creatures that either surveil on etb, attack, dies or as an activated ability.
That is quite a lot. And yeah am surprised this is so high when Jump-Start is so much lower.
I expect that's because surveil does much less per instance.
Selesnya feels very shafted because of convoke too. They told us "we'll use convoke in an innovative way"
... we got 14 cards, 6 of them are french vanilla (7 if you count worldsoul colossus)
the only cards that were really innovative are venerated loxodon and i guess sprouting renewal, since it's modal
Selesnya has more cards that interact with convoke without using its mechanic name. Emmara, Soul of the Accord (likes being tapped). Join Shields (more powerful when you have many tapped creatures). Ledev Champion (you "convoke" its attacks). It's not a radical reimagining, but it does seem like more variety than the first time we saw Convoke.
Worse, because it's really the *only* chase card in the set.
The Dimir Demon will also be expensive, but aside from those two, this set is looking about as valuable and enduring as a dumpster fire.
most sets have a mechanic to smooth out draws. like cycling and scry. in this set it's surveil. since it's a multicolor set, other guilds that share a color with UB will also benefit from surveil. which is apparent when other guild mechanics even combo well with surveil. hence it's not surprising to see so many cards with surveil.
That sort of respect is way more overdue for GU than WB.
Not really. They were both meaningless in RAV block but RTR block gave simic Zegana and Vorel who are both very good and popular in Commander, and Evolve which saw Standard and even brief Modern play. Really other than Dimir the most shafted guild is the Orzhov. And they desserve better.
Orzhov had one of the most overpowered keywords during RTR - playing a control shell with Extort as a backup was very difficult to win against.
I'd love for more Extort (no Haunt, though, it's the Cipher problem all over again), but I doubt we'll get it.
Selesnya has more cards that interact with convoke without using its mechanic name. Emmara, Soul of the Accord (likes being tapped). Join Shields (more powerful when you have many tapped creatures). Ledev Champion (you "convoke" its attacks). It's not a radical reimagining, but it does seem like more variety than the first time we saw Convoke.
Honestly those were around in the first ravnica too
ledev champion is root-kin ally
join shield is dryad's caress
i can agree on Emmara, but still, feel like no innovation
That said, I am disappointed in the lack of variety in convoke as well. I'd wish to see more cards like Venerated Loxodon that maybe encouraged you to pay with your creatures rather then lands, more cards like Emmara that would want you to convoke them or cards that could have given your spells (or more probable creatures) convoke. Hopefully next time we see the mechanic?
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"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
That sort of respect is way more overdue for GU than WB.
Evolve was linear and quite powerful. I still get nice enough mileage out of it, bloodrush and unleash in commander and pauper.
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"Masques Block is the worst block ever! There's not one decent card in there! The whole internet say's so, you're literally the only person who ever said it was good!" - random noob in a conversation with an Eldrazi.
Pretty sure that link never says Magic sales dropped 20%.
Just that their category was down 20%. Other games could have been the main driver of the decrease.
They mentioned Magic specifically first followed by Monopoly. Chances are those are the two biggest sellers of that catagory. I do not think Monopoly sells as much as Magic, when was the last time you saw someone even buy that board game? Chances are that that percentage is mainly Magic.
They refer to Magic and Monopoly together with that exact same terminology in every earnings report. I'm not saying you're definitely wrong. Just that you can rarely determine exact product performance from their reports because they tend to report products in groups. Additionally, Monopoly is grouped with Magic specifically because it makes way more money than either of us would reasonably expect such an old franchise to make (probably from brand licensing and not simple sales of the actual game itself - but that's just me guessing).
That said, I think we might be able to read between the lines with a couple of paragraphs:
So Franchise Brands, which include Monopoly and Magic, had a down quarter - and that's in spite of growth in Monopoly. So it is probably safe to say that Magic had a down quarter (though the exact extent of how down is unknowable). Based on the middle sentence, it seems that they put a fair share of the blame on the Toys R Us closing, which is interesting and might explain their slight shift away from LGS distribution over the last couple months as they look for a new retail-sized purchasing medium to help buoy their revenue.
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
Willing to admit that sample sizes are skewing my perspective so far.
It's great we got it earlier and gives us a chance to really digest it prior to the PR. Draft/limited simulators are only as good as they are programmed to be, so I'll save my full judgement until the actual prerelease.
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset.
Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
I think it has something to do with relative lack of coherence and innovation. The first two Ravnica blocks had mechanics that were either build-around or did things no other mechanic had done before. This gave the guilds a distinct personality either through gameplay or splashiness.
This set has little to nothing of either. Only Convoke really fits the mold but it's a returning mechanic and WotC hasn't played up the token aspect of Selesnya this time for some reason, possibly because that might have broken limited with Mentor around, dunno. This is a problem with all the guilds though. Traditionally each guild had a mechanic or a theme to build around. This time they seem all over the place. What exactly IS Dimir doing this time apart from vague control strategies? Not even Boros, the absolute easiest guild to create a distinct feeling for seems very coherent this time with its focus on both large and small creatures due to its keyword.
All that isn't to say that Guilds of Ravnica is a bad set.* Ixalan wasn't much better from a design standpoint, but we're a bit spoiled from the first two iterations of Ravnica, so we judge it less favourably than we would otherwise.
*Compared to the baseline, not people's personal opinions.
District Guide
Guild Summit
Circuitous Route
Gatekeeper Gargoyle
Garrison Sergeant
Glaive of the Guildpact
Just did a quick count myself. There are indeed 21 cards that surveil, not counting cards that care about when you surveil.
So that includes instants, sorceries which have it tacked on and creatures that either surveil on etb, attack, dies or as an activated ability.
That is quite a lot. And yeah am surprised this is so high when Jump-Start is so much lower.
Forgive me but I cannot open the link from my phone.
I will agree that the loss of ToysRus played a part. But would it be a 50 million part? I would say no, that store had lost popularity some time ago so it's ability to move product would be small at best. As for the brands in the same catagory, with the exception of the petshop one since I have no clue about it, they are childhood staples that parents buy so I see them changing very little in sales. Monopoly is weird though, not sure why it is going up in sales.
But non the less I still say the pressure is still there from Hasbro (whether it is wizard's fault or not). And if Magic had been doing well, they would have stated it like they did with Monopoly. So at least we know Magic took a hit, we just don't know the numbers. But by going by how this set feels rushed and a bit too early for a return, I would still argue that there is some heat on the Dev team to pick up the lost revenue. And I just don't see this set doing that.
Every person who replies to this question will have a different answer for it. Their answer depends upon how they view cards and what format is their preference.
For Standard? The shocklands, because we will have access to all 10 checklands. If I have to pick a single card, though, it would probably be Experimental Frenzy. In a mono-red or blue/red wizard build it turns the top of your library into your hand and you can keep casting spells as long as you have mana. If you do find yourself with cards in hand and a land on top which you can't play, well, we do have access to Rummaging Goblin from Ixalan--discard something dead, draw the land, then keep firing.
We'll just have to see what bubbles to the surface, though.
*************
Almost half the creatures from GRN are x/2 or less (49%)--even the smaller burn spells become more useful and Lava Coil becomes even better than I originally thought, killing/exiling 86% of creatures (not counting the hexproof ones).
Ah, so I'm just blind then. Phew.
Isn't that sort of typical for Ravnica sets? It seemed that way with RTR.
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!
Selesnya has more cards that interact with convoke without using its mechanic name. Emmara, Soul of the Accord (likes being tapped). Join Shields (more powerful when you have many tapped creatures). Ledev Champion (you "convoke" its attacks). It's not a radical reimagining, but it does seem like more variety than the first time we saw Convoke.
What-the-heck-are-you-talking-about-and-isn't-it-early-to-tell. (TM)
We got for standard:
We got for modern:
........................
I'd love for more Extort (no Haunt, though, it's the Cipher problem all over again), but I doubt we'll get it.
I'd argue that Worldsoul Colossus and March of the Multitudes play in some newish space with convoke costing X. I know we had Chord of Calling but I think the choices between all three cards are different enough, with Worldsoul Colossus being a weenie early game or a beater late game, March of the Multitudes is able to replace your convoked creatures and is a pseudo-life gain spell and Chord of Calling being a tutor.
That said, I am disappointed in the lack of variety in convoke as well. I'd wish to see more cards like Venerated Loxodon that maybe encouraged you to pay with your creatures rather then lands, more cards like Emmara that would want you to convoke them or cards that could have given your spells (or more probable creatures) convoke. Hopefully next time we see the mechanic?
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Evolve was linear and quite powerful. I still get nice enough mileage out of it, bloodrush and unleash in commander and pauper.
Do Gates appear in the basic land slot?
On 7/14/10, broke 1900 mark! <3 ROE.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
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Yes.