There's an Omnispell Adept in the Izzet one. Nothing of note in the Golgari deck. Wouldn't that have been nice for them to include an Assassin's Trophy? Haha
I know they're for beginners, but if this is the quality newbies are going to start with, I'd much rather they just not play at all. These decks are just sloppy, cobbled together garbage. It makes me angry that anyone, ANYONE would spend $15 on these.
Like clockwork. You can count on the usual garbage in these.
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
The walkers themselves are typically worth something, so it's not throwing away money as much as most of the intro packs were back in the day.
Honestly, I don't mind paying $15 for one of these if the walker is at least playable in EDH (e.g. Nissa, Nature's Artisan, Tezzeret, Master of Metal, etc), and to be honest, I run one Nissa, Nature's Artisan in my Standard deck because BR/mono-R aggro is so prevalent (your opponent is tripping over themselves to get rid of Nissa when you start +3'ing every turn). But it seems like Wizards has been toning down the power level of these walkers even more in recent sets, so I don't know if it's really worth picking these up anymore.
One thing not to miss is that there is an open house this week-end.
As sad as it is, I find the free decks they give away better than the average PW deck. Not power-wise, you don't get PW nor many rares, but more coherent.
Now given this, it's easy to get these free deck and combine them with the PW decks. In fact, at the last open house, my son and his friend picked up a PW deck. (The store also gave TWO free decks. So we got 6 in all, counting me. Add to this that the green elephant rares was worth something and the llanowar elves were chased after, it was a good deal overall.)
So grab G and B free deck for you golgari and R/U for your izzet.
(Note that these cards will not display correctly below until they've been added to Gatherer, our card database, on September 25.)
I am perfectly aware why this is the case, but this is another example of their failure to present their information in a useful manner - the lazy way out. Since this reveal is timed to happen after the full set is revealed, they should find a solution to provide access to the full card set info in time (for the cards right there in the deck at least) - even before the Gatherer update; the card image gallery does exist and all they have to do is change their template for deck lists so it is linked to these card images rather than Gatherer for any point in time before that date (that way they can use the template even with cards which are actually not yet revealed at all as well).
This is like printing business cards that lack a phone number but have the line "Look up or number online once or home page goes up!" - that's a real good way to show that you're not putting in the effort. If you make a site that is supposed to showcase the deck contents, making sure it actually does so as it goes live somehow feels like it should be a requirement.
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
Gravitic Punch: Why would you want double colored costs for Electromancer and Jumpstart synergy? Also better Dragonaut/Piston/Urchin synergy. Piston-Fist Cyclops: Better body for basically the same cost and rarity also has synergy with the deck to remove "drawback". Wee Dragonauts: Better than frog, has innate flying, synergy with Electromancer, capitalizes off multiple spells a turn, aerial finisher. Goblin Electromancer: Arguably the best card of the deck. Fire Urchin: Much cheaper cost, synergy with deck, has trample, can make excellent use of Gravitic Punch like Ral's Staticaster. Firemind's Research: Isn't a useless winmore card in the deck, actually provides synergy and the ability to close a game.
Ugh, who designs and playtests these things? Seriously. How about instead:
Because the point of these decks isn't to be "functional" decks, as weird as that is to say. The goal isn't to build the best possible deck out of a bunch of commons/uncommons. The actual goals are A) get people with no previous knowledge of MTG to try the game, and B) demonstrate the types of things the color(s) are capable of. That's why, for example, there are so many 1-ofs or 2-ofs instead of 4-ofs. It is more important to show new players the different effects these colors can do so that they can go toward whatever they like the most. That's why, for example, there are singletons of Muse Drake, Passwall Adept, and Vedalken Mesmerist. They demonstrate to new players -- who have no concept of the color pie -- the kinds of abilities they can expect from Blue.
Similarly, by building the deck this way it allows new players the ability to modify the deck as they see fit with some easy upgrades. Remember that these products come with 2 booster packs (assuming I'm remembering correctly myself), and a new player is likely to open at least some of these cards from the common slot. It demonstrates an easy way for a new player to tweak the deck and make it their own, which will also make them more invested because it is something they (partially) made by themselves.
Gravitic Punch: Why would you want double colored costs for Electromancer and Jumpstart synergy? Also better Dragonaut/Piston/Urchin synergy. Piston-Fist Cyclops: Better body for basically the same cost and rarity also has synergy with the deck to remove "drawback". Wee Dragonauts: Better than frog, has innate flying, synergy with Electromancer, capitalizes off multiple spells a turn, aerial finisher. Goblin Electromancer: Arguably the best card of the deck. Fire Urchin: Much cheaper cost, synergy with deck, has trample, can make excellent use of Gravitic Punch like Ral's Staticaster. Firemind's Research: Isn't a useless winmore card in the deck, actually provides synergy and the ability to close a game.
Some of these are just putting in more copies of cards that are already in there. And I think as an end goal this is fine, but I think this is an example where they want to give the player the ability to improve the deck by going through these steps - adding redundant Wee Dragonauts is a good idea. I haven't had a manual for a preconstructed theme-deck/planeswalker-deck in my hands in a while, but back in... Nemesis -I think?- they had an insert that gave you just such a list of "suggested upgrades". Do they still have those inserts? I think, they really help to explain the idea behind the decks being less streamlined (2-ofs of cards that you would want to be 4-ofs in your FNM deck - encourage both the act of deckbuilding as well as just plain buying additional cards: whether as singles/boosters both WotC and the LGS don't want these decks to be complete, because the player who turns around and buys stuff to get the 3rd or 4th copy of obviously strong cards is a player that buys more merchandise).
I think, it is unrealistic to expect of Wizards to provide 4-ofs of cards that they actually want the players to spend their money on - this deck is supposed to be your entrance into becoming a repeat customer, so leaving you wanting those additional carsd for a playset is part of the strategy. Remember the business side involves selling product that wants the customer coming back for more.
Other suggestions like replacing Direct Current with Gravitic Punch hit closer to actually realistic suggestions to improve the deck without straight up hurting their business model.
I can only hope that people complaining about the quality of these decks aren't thinking along your lines of "turn all good 2-ofs into 4-ofs" and more along the lines of "make important 1-of commons 2-ofs or 3-ofs and switch around commons for more synergistic effects", because expecting the first is setting yourself up for disappointment and about as likely as having the put a transparent window on their booster packs and the rare in front, so you can make your buying decision more informed: It's straight going against the purpose of the product. It would be intersting to know what people think about that though. I'd really like to see some more people go through the effort you did here and actually suggest a straight solution.
I know a lot of suggestions sound reasonable, but I'd like to collect the community suggestions e. g. over the course of a block and then review the ideas so people can decide whether the community actually can make "better" Planeswalker decks/theme decks (to me there is no reason to not consider a Planeswalker deck a theme deck that just happens to contain a planeswalker and some cards that follow some mechanical guidelines while still being part of a theme deck). That could be a nice learning experience and put some perspective on the question whether WotC is actually bad at making these, or whether the structure of these decks inherently makes them undesirable even as an entry-level product.
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
Ugh, who designs and playtests these things? Seriously. How about instead:
Because the point of these decks isn't to be "functional" decks, as weird as that is to say. The goal isn't to build the best possible deck out of a bunch of commons/uncommons. The actual goals are A) get people with no previous knowledge of MTG to try the game, and B) demonstrate the types of things the color(s) are capable of.
Then it fails as a product.
That's why, for example, there are so many 1-ofs or 2-ofs instead of 4-ofs.
Scattershot is a poor teacher. Most players I taught toss out the irrelevant cards anyway on their own, they tend to be smart for what works and doesn't work.
It is more important to show new players the different effects these colors can do so that they can go toward whatever they like the most. That's why, for example, there are singletons of Muse Drake, Passwall Adept, and Vedalken Mesmerist. They demonstrate to new players -- who have no concept of the color pie -- the kinds of abilities they can expect from Blue.
Or you know, why not go full ham with the izzet themeing and show off just a few facets of blue and red's color pie while emphazing those strengths? Its a deck after all about synergizing with your instants and sorceries.
Similarly, by building the deck this way it allows new players the ability to modify the deck as they see fit with some easy upgrades.
or you know, put actually relevant cards into the deck so they know what to upgrade from instead of misleading them with jank like the 3x Fearless Halberdier? Like if its meant to showoff easy upgrades, wheres the 2x Crackling Drake that could easily take the place of the 2x Hellkite Whelp?
Remember that these products come with 2 booster packs (assuming I'm remembering correctly myself), and a new player is likely to open at least some of these cards from the common slot. It demonstrates an easy way for a new player to tweak the deck and make it their own, which will also make them more invested because it is something they (partially) made by themselves.
While the two-packs are quaint, they more likely have off-color / off-guild cards that provide a more subpar experience with it. How about instead, if a new player is meant to go form a Welcome Deck to a Planeswalker Deck, showoff a more cohesive and functional deck in order to get the player more interested.
Planeswalker Decks will end up discontinued like Intro Decks if they don't step up their deck building when trying to appeal to new or old customers.
While the two-packs are quaint, they more likely have off-color / off-guild cards that provide a more subpar experience with it. How about instead, if a new player is meant to go form a Welcome Deck to a Planeswalker Deck, showoff a more cohesive and functional deck in order to get the player more interested.
Planeswalker Decks will end up discontinued like Intro Decks if they don't step up their deck building when trying to appeal to new or old customers.
The whole plan is actually to get the new player interested in booster packs, not the deck.
Why Fearless Halberdiers instead of Piston-Fist Cyclops? It's so the new player can open said Cyclops from boosters and figure it out him/herself. They don't want to spoon-feed "easy upgrades" into the deck, they want to associate it with booster packs to the new player. You know how we (jaded) experienced players can immediately identify "Intro Pack Rares" from a mile away? Well, there's also the concept of "Intro Pack Commons" like Halberdier existing solely because a new player is way more likely to open the Cyclops than the likes of Firemind's Research to replace the Omnispell Adept. But of course, WotC will just run it in all rarity levels (Whelp to Drake for uncommon) to maximize the overall possibility regardless.
Sure, literally anybody with enough experience with similar tactics (including mobile games) would see through the whole scheme pretty quickly, let alone already-invested players like us and chances are any new player brought directly in by another player had our disclaimers pasted right in front of them before they even began, but there will always exist a group of new "naive" players that WotC wants to maximize profit out of out there.
Long story cut short, these are deliberately made bad to make boosters look good (to new players) and when I say that I mean "even the commons in the booster pack".
Some of these are just putting in more copies of cards that are already in there. And I think as an end goal this is fine, but I think this is an example where they want to give the player the ability to improve the deck by going through these steps - adding redundant Wee Dragonauts is a good idea. I haven't had a manual for a preconstructed theme-deck/planeswalker-deck in my hands in a while, but back in... Nemesis -I think?- they had an insert that gave you just such a list of "suggested upgrades". Do they still have those inserts?
Oh I've seen those manuals, they are a single double-sided page. They are really minimalistic on how to play and what to upgrade.
I think, they really help to explain the idea behind the decks being less streamlined (2-ofs of cards that you would want to be 4-ofs in your FNM deck - encourage both the act of deckbuilding as well as just plain buying additional cards: whether as singles/boosters both WotC and the LGS don't want these decks to be complete, because the player who turns around and buys stuff to get the 3rd or 4th copy of obviously strong cards is a player that buys more merchandise).
Which is a nice sentiment, but they could do with less jank and 1-off cards. They would probably sell more if the deck, aside from rares, were 2-3x if they are aiming to get people to buy the same product multiple times.
I think, it is unrealistic to expect of Wizards to provide 4-ofs of cards that they actually want the players to spend their money on - this deck is supposed to be your entrance into becoming a repeat customer, so leaving you wanting those additional carsd for a playset is part of the strategy. Remember the business side involves selling product that wants the customer coming back for more.
maybe not 4x, but definitely 2-3x of.
Other suggestions like replacing Direct Current with Gravitic Punch hit closer to actually realistic suggestions to improve the deck without straight up hurting their business model.
Like just replace the 1x Direct Current and 1x Sonic Assault with 2x Gravitic Punch to showoff a unique combat trick that red can do. It would even make Ral's Staticaster better as with Ral out you could punch a big threat and then swing into your opponent for (3+X) damage. That would be a cool thing to teach new players.
I can only hope that people complaining about the quality of these decks aren't thinking along your lines of "turn all good 2-ofs into 4-ofs" and more along the lines of "make important 1-of commons 2-ofs or 3-ofs and switch around commons for more synergistic effects"
I would say its a mix of both.
It would be intersting to know what people think about that though. I'd really like to see some more people go through the effort you did here and actually suggest a straight solution.
I know a lot of suggestions sound reasonable, but I'd like to collect the community suggestions e. g. over the course of a block and then review the ideas so people can decide whether the community actually can make "better" Planeswalker decks/theme decks (to me there is no reason to not consider a Planeswalker deck a theme deck that just happens to contain a planeswalker and some cards that follow some mechanical guidelines while still being part of a theme deck). That could be a nice learning experience and put some perspective on the question whether WotC is actually bad at making these, or whether the structure of these decks inherently makes them undesirable even as an entry-level product.
I wish they were better, I usually see them collect dust in the LGS. I don't say anything but I tend to see other experienced players at the shop steer new players away from Planeswalker Decks since they tend to be bad value and poor teaching tools. If the products were better built, they may not have gained the stigma they have inherited from Intro Decks.
I build custom welcome decks like, for example, like this one I handed out did during Hour of Devastation:
While the two-packs are quaint, they more likely have off-color / off-guild cards that provide a more subpar experience with it. How about instead, if a new player is meant to go form a Welcome Deck to a Planeswalker Deck, showoff a more cohesive and functional deck in order to get the player more interested.
Planeswalker Decks will end up discontinued like Intro Decks if they don't step up their deck building when trying to appeal to new or old customers.
The whole plan is actually to get the new player interested in booster packs, not the deck.
Or you know, remove the three Halberdier, include 1x Piston-Fist Cyclops, 1x Crackling Drake, 1x Beamsplitter Mage . You will have now just shown off to the new player a few cards they will want to buy more of by introducing it to them in the first place instead of a janky vanilla that has the only purpose to be removed.
They don't want to spoon-feed "easy upgrades" into the deck, they want to associate it with booster packs to the new player.
Which can be accomplished with what I said before.
You know how we (jaded) experienced players can immediately identify "Intro Pack Rares" from a mile away? Well, there's also the concept of "Intro Pack Commons" like Halberdier existing solely because a new player is way more likely to open the Cyclops than the likes of Firemind's Research to replace the Omnispell Adept.
That wouldn't stop them from buying packs, it just means they need more copies. Also those cards tend to go south really fast in price value espeically for new players who show up later for that set.
But of course, WotC will just run it in all rarity levels (Whelp to Drake for uncommon) to maximize the overall possibility regardless.
Or you know, not include that sort of off-theme jank in the first place.
Sure, literally anybody with enough experience with similar tactics (including mobile games) would see through the whole scheme pretty quickly, let alone already-invested players like us and chances are any new player brought directly in by another player had our disclaimers pasted right in front of them before they even began, but there will always exist a group of new "naive" players that WotC wants to maximize profit out of out there.
Which is still skeezy.
Long story cut short, these are deliberately made bad to make boosters look good (to new players) and when I say that I mean "even the commons in the booster pack".
Which is why they have a bad rap and are considered bad products. They are going to go the way of the Intro Deck because of that very shoddy design.
I’ll take a Ral deck for the Ral Planeswalker and I’ll add some of the cards out of the deck to help build me Izzet deck (sonic assault, frantic cyclops, and fire urchin). Other than that you’re usual garbage.
I wouldn’t even talk about the Vraska one. I consider it a slap in the face to the Golgari swarm.
The strategy inserts in the Planeswalker decks starting with Ixalan are a joke. I am assuming these decks will have these same strategy inserts too. Compared to the strategy inserts from the original Ravnica theme decks, these strategy inserts, based on the ones from Ixalan up to Core 2019, they do not have a decklist, they do not have a strategy, and they do not have tips to improve on the deck.
You know what's even more stupid about these strategy inserts? The theme deck strategy inserts have a full strategy, a decklist, a storyline blurb, and some other stuff in a smaller surface area than the strategy inserts from more recent planeswalker decks. The ad for FNM would take up a small percentage of the strategy insert, while in the current ones, it takes up the entire back side of the strategy insert. The picture of the planeswalker on the strategy insert could have been best used for a decklist, or an actual strategy.
The strategy inserts in the Planeswalker decks starting with Ixalan are a joke. I am assuming these decks will have these same strategy inserts too. Compared to the strategy inserts from the original Ravnica theme decks, these strategy inserts, based on the ones from Ixalan up to Core 2019, they do not have a decklist, they do not have a strategy, and they do not have tips to improve on the deck.
You know what's even more stupid about these strategy inserts? The theme deck strategy inserts have a full strategy, a decklist, a storyline blurb, and some other stuff in a smaller surface area than the strategy inserts from more recent planeswalker decks. The ad for FNM would take up a small percentage of the strategy insert, while in the current ones, it takes up the entire back side of the strategy insert. The picture of the planeswalker on the strategy insert could have been best used for a decklist, or an actual strategy.
Reeks of greed on WotC's part unfortunately. I still have the book from the beatdown box, its like a treasure trove of information in comparison. I can only guess that the reasoning was something along the lines of: Charts, focus groups, poll numbers, and a means to shave off 10c from the cost.
The walkers themselves are typically worth something, so it's not throwing away money as much as most of the intro packs were back in the day.
Honestly, I don't mind paying $15 for one of these if the walker is at least playable in EDH (e.g. Nissa, Nature's Artisan, Tezzeret, Master of Metal, etc), and to be honest, I run one Nissa, Nature's Artisan in my Standard deck because BR/mono-R aggro is so prevalent (your opponent is tripping over themselves to get rid of Nissa when you start +3'ing every turn). But it seems like Wizards has been toning down the power level of these walkers even more in recent sets, so I don't know if it's really worth picking these up anymore.
Intro packs were bad but at least Intro packs and starter deck tended to follow some theme. I've always felt like these planeswalker decks have done a bad job on having some kind of theme.
The strategy inserts in the Planeswalker decks starting with Ixalan are a joke. I am assuming these decks will have these same strategy inserts too. Compared to the strategy inserts from the original Ravnica theme decks, these strategy inserts, based on the ones from Ixalan up to Core 2019, they do not have a decklist, they do not have a strategy, and they do not have tips to improve on the deck.
You know what's even more stupid about these strategy inserts? The theme deck strategy inserts have a full strategy, a decklist, a storyline blurb, and some other stuff in a smaller surface area than the strategy inserts from more recent planeswalker decks. The ad for FNM would take up a small percentage of the strategy insert, while in the current ones, it takes up the entire back side of the strategy insert. The picture of the planeswalker on the strategy insert could have been best used for a decklist, or an actual strategy.
Reeks of greed on WotC's part unfortunately. I still have the book from the beatdown box, its like a treasure trove of information in comparison. I can only guess that the reasoning was something along the lines of: Charts, focus groups, poll numbers, and a means to shave off 10c from the cost.
Do you know what I think? There is a reason why we have Planeswalker decks now. Remember names like Pressure Cooker, or maybe Bait and Switch, or perhaps Sliver Evolution, or maybe Grave Power. We also had things like Armada, Sky Slam, Dead Again, and Molimo's Might. By changing them to planeswalker decks, they could just make a piece of crap look good by adding a cherry on top. The planeswalker means that each set cannot have more than 2 decks, whereas before, there were 4 theme decks per set, or 5 intro packs per set. Planeswalker decks mean that they do not have to pay someone to come up with cool deck names, so they can skimp on the cost right there. Why call it Izzet Ingenuity when you call it the Ral Zarek deck.
I've said this as a youtube comment when someone opened an Ixalan Planeswalker deck. Whoever had the bright idea to omit the decklist from the strategy insert needs to be fired. If they can't come up with a strategy for the deck, at least they should just include the decklist. That isn't hard to do, and the whole, look it up online doesn't cut it, considering all that wasted space that the current strategy inserts have.
I don't see you having to look online for a parts list to check if you are missing any parts when you are building furniture.
The strategy inserts in the Planeswalker decks starting with Ixalan are a joke. I am assuming these decks will have these same strategy inserts too. Compared to the strategy inserts from the original Ravnica theme decks, these strategy inserts, based on the ones from Ixalan up to Core 2019, they do not have a decklist, they do not have a strategy, and they do not have tips to improve on the deck.
You know what's even more stupid about these strategy inserts? The theme deck strategy inserts have a full strategy, a decklist, a storyline blurb, and some other stuff in a smaller surface area than the strategy inserts from more recent planeswalker decks. The ad for FNM would take up a small percentage of the strategy insert, while in the current ones, it takes up the entire back side of the strategy insert. The picture of the planeswalker on the strategy insert could have been best used for a decklist, or an actual strategy.
Reeks of greed on WotC's part unfortunately. I still have the book from the beatdown box, its like a treasure trove of information in comparison. I can only guess that the reasoning was something along the lines of: Charts, focus groups, poll numbers, and a means to shave off 10c from the cost.
Do you know what I think? There is a reason why we have Planeswalker decks now. Remember names like Pressure Cooker, or maybe Bait and Switch, or perhaps Sliver Evolution, or maybe Grave Power. We also had things like Armada, Sky Slam, Dead Again, and Molimo's Might. By changing them to planeswalker decks, they could just make a piece of crap look good by adding a cherry on top. The planeswalker means that each set cannot have more than 2 decks, whereas before, there were 4 theme decks per set, or 5 intro packs per set. Planeswalker decks mean that they do not have to pay someone to come up with cool deck names, so they can skimp on the cost right there. Why call it Izzet Ingenuity when you call it the Ral Zarek deck.
I've said this as a youtube comment when someone opened an Ixalan Planeswalker deck. Whoever had the bright idea to omit the decklist from the strategy insert needs to be fired. If they can't come up with a strategy for the deck, at least they should just include the decklist. That isn't hard to do, and the whole, look it up online doesn't cut it, considering all that wasted space that the current strategy inserts have.
I don't see you having to look online for a parts list to check if you are missing any parts when you are building furniture.
Aside from the Core Set 2019 which had more than 2 PW decks.
They used to have those types of names for the PW decks by just using the planeswalker's title as the equivalent. Like the first Nissa one for Kaladesh was "NISSA: Nature's Artisan". Now even that is gone from more recent products where even Ral Zarek's isn't: "RAL: Caller of Storms" its "RAL: Planeswalker Deck"
Also Whose bright idea it was not even to include a list of upgrades for the deck. Like it really sounds self-defeating if you ask me. "We want players to buy our products, but we won't include what those upgrades for this product are. They should just go look it up themselves."
Step 1) Remove the booster packs. Step 2) Lower the MSRP to $9.99. Step 3) Less plastic and cardboard for exterior. Step 4) No 1-of or 4-of copies. Step 5) Use 3-of copies to subtly emphasize more desirable parts of the deck. Step 5) No non-synergestic cards (Example: Vedalken Mesmerist in Ral Zarek deck) Step 6) Instead of the current insert provide a booklet that provides: a decklist, strategy and tips, scans of suitable cards for the deck. (Example: Niv-Mizzet, Parun, Steam Vents, League Guildmage, Quasiduplicate, Risk Factor, etc) Step 7) Barcode in the booklet to be scanned so the cards can be sent digitally to this player's MTG Arena account while briefly advertising MTG Arena in order to provide an incentive to play both paper and digital magic. Step 8) Provide five decks instead of two. (Example: Guilds of Ravnica has five planeswalker decks focused on the five guilds) Step 9) Provide a fun and thematic name for each of the five decks instead of just the planeswalker's name.
There's an Omnispell Adept in the Izzet one. Nothing of note in the Golgari deck. Wouldn't that have been nice for them to include an Assassin's Trophy? Haha
Ral's deck has 3 Fearless Halberdiers instead of Piston-Fist Cyclops, no Crackling Drakes, and most importantly, no Firemind's Research.
Oh, and here's some other cards that would've worked well that aren't in there:
Lava Coil
Smelt-Ward Minotaur
Murmuring Mystic
Radical Idea
I'm not even going to go into Vraska's deck.
I know they're for beginners, but if this is the quality newbies are going to start with, I'd much rather they just not play at all. These decks are just sloppy, cobbled together garbage. It makes me angry that anyone, ANYONE would spend $15 on these.
(W/U)(B/R)GForm of Progenitus, Shape of a Scrubland
BRGJund Tokens with Prossh, the Magic Dragon Foil
URGAnimar, the RUG CleanerFoil
RRRFeldon of the Third Path 2.0 Foil
BG(B/G)Not Another Meren DeckFoil
UR(U/R)Mizzix, Y Control and X Burn Spells
(W/U)(B/R)GHarold Ramos - The 35 Foot Long Twinkie (In +1/+1 counters)
UB(U/B)Dragonlord Silumgar
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Honestly, I don't mind paying $15 for one of these if the walker is at least playable in EDH (e.g. Nissa, Nature's Artisan, Tezzeret, Master of Metal, etc), and to be honest, I run one Nissa, Nature's Artisan in my Standard deck because BR/mono-R aggro is so prevalent (your opponent is tripping over themselves to get rid of Nissa when you start +3'ing every turn). But it seems like Wizards has been toning down the power level of these walkers even more in recent sets, so I don't know if it's really worth picking these up anymore.
As sad as it is, I find the free decks they give away better than the average PW deck. Not power-wise, you don't get PW nor many rares, but more coherent.
Now given this, it's easy to get these free deck and combine them with the PW decks. In fact, at the last open house, my son and his friend picked up a PW deck. (The store also gave TWO free decks. So we got 6 in all, counting me. Add to this that the green elephant rares was worth something and the llanowar elves were chased after, it was a good deal overall.)
So grab G and B free deck for you golgari and R/U for your izzet.
I am perfectly aware why this is the case, but this is another example of their failure to present their information in a useful manner - the lazy way out. Since this reveal is timed to happen after the full set is revealed, they should find a solution to provide access to the full card set info in time (for the cards right there in the deck at least) - even before the Gatherer update; the card image gallery does exist and all they have to do is change their template for deck lists so it is linked to these card images rather than Gatherer for any point in time before that date (that way they can use the template even with cards which are actually not yet revealed at all as well).
This is like printing business cards that lack a phone number but have the line "Look up or number online once or home page goes up!" - that's a real good way to show that you're not putting in the effort. If you make a site that is supposed to showcase the deck contents, making sure it actually does so as it goes live somehow feels like it should be a requirement.
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."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
-1 Direct Current
-1 Maximize Altitude
+3 Gravitic Punch
-1 Leapfrog
-3 Fearless Halberdier
+4 Piston-Fist Cyclops
-1 Rubblebelt Boar
-1 Muse Drake
+2 Wee Dragonauts
-1 Passwall Adept
-1 Vedalken Mesmerist
+2 Goblin Electromancer
-2 Hellkite Whelp
+2 Fire Urchin
-1 Omnispell Adept
+1 Firemind's Research
Gravitic Punch: Why would you want double colored costs for Electromancer and Jumpstart synergy? Also better Dragonaut/Piston/Urchin synergy.
Piston-Fist Cyclops: Better body for basically the same cost and rarity also has synergy with the deck to remove "drawback".
Wee Dragonauts: Better than frog, has innate flying, synergy with Electromancer, capitalizes off multiple spells a turn, aerial finisher.
Goblin Electromancer: Arguably the best card of the deck.
Fire Urchin: Much cheaper cost, synergy with deck, has trample, can make excellent use of Gravitic Punch like Ral's Staticaster.
Firemind's Research: Isn't a useless winmore card in the deck, actually provides synergy and the ability to close a game.
Similarly, by building the deck this way it allows new players the ability to modify the deck as they see fit with some easy upgrades. Remember that these products come with 2 booster packs (assuming I'm remembering correctly myself), and a new player is likely to open at least some of these cards from the common slot. It demonstrates an easy way for a new player to tweak the deck and make it their own, which will also make them more invested because it is something they (partially) made by themselves.
Some of these are just putting in more copies of cards that are already in there. And I think as an end goal this is fine, but I think this is an example where they want to give the player the ability to improve the deck by going through these steps - adding redundant Wee Dragonauts is a good idea. I haven't had a manual for a preconstructed theme-deck/planeswalker-deck in my hands in a while, but back in... Nemesis -I think?- they had an insert that gave you just such a list of "suggested upgrades". Do they still have those inserts? I think, they really help to explain the idea behind the decks being less streamlined (2-ofs of cards that you would want to be 4-ofs in your FNM deck - encourage both the act of deckbuilding as well as just plain buying additional cards: whether as singles/boosters both WotC and the LGS don't want these decks to be complete, because the player who turns around and buys stuff to get the 3rd or 4th copy of obviously strong cards is a player that buys more merchandise).
I think, it is unrealistic to expect of Wizards to provide 4-ofs of cards that they actually want the players to spend their money on - this deck is supposed to be your entrance into becoming a repeat customer, so leaving you wanting those additional carsd for a playset is part of the strategy. Remember the business side involves selling product that wants the customer coming back for more.
Other suggestions like replacing Direct Current with Gravitic Punch hit closer to actually realistic suggestions to improve the deck without straight up hurting their business model.
I can only hope that people complaining about the quality of these decks aren't thinking along your lines of "turn all good 2-ofs into 4-ofs" and more along the lines of "make important 1-of commons 2-ofs or 3-ofs and switch around commons for more synergistic effects", because expecting the first is setting yourself up for disappointment and about as likely as having the put a transparent window on their booster packs and the rare in front, so you can make your buying decision more informed: It's straight going against the purpose of the product. It would be intersting to know what people think about that though. I'd really like to see some more people go through the effort you did here and actually suggest a straight solution.
I know a lot of suggestions sound reasonable, but I'd like to collect the community suggestions e. g. over the course of a block and then review the ideas so people can decide whether the community actually can make "better" Planeswalker decks/theme decks (to me there is no reason to not consider a Planeswalker deck a theme deck that just happens to contain a planeswalker and some cards that follow some mechanical guidelines while still being part of a theme deck). That could be a nice learning experience and put some perspective on the question whether WotC is actually bad at making these, or whether the structure of these decks inherently makes them undesirable even as an entry-level product.
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."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
Scattershot is a poor teacher. Most players I taught toss out the irrelevant cards anyway on their own, they tend to be smart for what works and doesn't work.
Or you know, why not go full ham with the izzet themeing and show off just a few facets of blue and red's color pie while emphazing those strengths? Its a deck after all about synergizing with your instants and sorceries.
or you know, put actually relevant cards into the deck so they know what to upgrade from instead of misleading them with jank like the 3x Fearless Halberdier? Like if its meant to showoff easy upgrades, wheres the 2x Crackling Drake that could easily take the place of the 2x Hellkite Whelp?
While the two-packs are quaint, they more likely have off-color / off-guild cards that provide a more subpar experience with it. How about instead, if a new player is meant to go form a Welcome Deck to a Planeswalker Deck, showoff a more cohesive and functional deck in order to get the player more interested.
Planeswalker Decks will end up discontinued like Intro Decks if they don't step up their deck building when trying to appeal to new or old customers.
The whole plan is actually to get the new player interested in booster packs, not the deck.
Why Fearless Halberdiers instead of Piston-Fist Cyclops? It's so the new player can open said Cyclops from boosters and figure it out him/herself. They don't want to spoon-feed "easy upgrades" into the deck, they want to associate it with booster packs to the new player. You know how we (jaded) experienced players can immediately identify "Intro Pack Rares" from a mile away? Well, there's also the concept of "Intro Pack Commons" like Halberdier existing solely because a new player is way more likely to open the Cyclops than the likes of Firemind's Research to replace the Omnispell Adept. But of course, WotC will just run it in all rarity levels (Whelp to Drake for uncommon) to maximize the overall possibility regardless.
Sure, literally anybody with enough experience with similar tactics (including mobile games) would see through the whole scheme pretty quickly, let alone already-invested players like us and chances are any new player brought directly in by another player had our disclaimers pasted right in front of them before they even began, but there will always exist a group of new "naive" players that WotC wants to maximize profit out of out there.
Long story cut short, these are deliberately made bad to make boosters look good (to new players) and when I say that I mean "even the commons in the booster pack".
Which is a nice sentiment, but they could do with less jank and 1-off cards. They would probably sell more if the deck, aside from rares, were 2-3x if they are aiming to get people to buy the same product multiple times.
maybe not 4x, but definitely 2-3x of.
Like just replace the 1x Direct Current and 1x Sonic Assault with 2x Gravitic Punch to showoff a unique combat trick that red can do. It would even make Ral's Staticaster better as with Ral out you could punch a big threat and then swing into your opponent for (3+X) damage. That would be a cool thing to teach new players.
I would say its a mix of both.
Like if you want more straight solutions, lets remove those 2x Hellkite Whelp and replace it with 2x Crackling Drake. Color intensive yet more rewarding overall. Also how about -1 Passwall Adept and -1 Vedalken Mesmerist for 2x Murmuring Mystic?
I wish they were better, I usually see them collect dust in the LGS. I don't say anything but I tend to see other experienced players at the shop steer new players away from Planeswalker Decks since they tend to be bad value and poor teaching tools. If the products were better built, they may not have gained the stigma they have inherited from Intro Decks.
I build custom welcome decks like, for example, like this one I handed out did during Hour of Devastation:
3x Fan Bearer
3x Binding Mummy
3x Mummy Paramount
3x Sacred Cat
2x Those Who Serve
3x Time to Reflect
1x Unconventional Tactics
12x Plains
Which can be accomplished with what I said before.
That wouldn't stop them from buying packs, it just means they need more copies. Also those cards tend to go south really fast in price value espeically for new players who show up later for that set.
Or you know, not include that sort of off-theme jank in the first place.
Which is still skeezy.
Which is why they have a bad rap and are considered bad products. They are going to go the way of the Intro Deck because of that very shoddy design.
I wouldn’t even talk about the Vraska one. I consider it a slap in the face to the Golgari swarm.
You know what's even more stupid about these strategy inserts? The theme deck strategy inserts have a full strategy, a decklist, a storyline blurb, and some other stuff in a smaller surface area than the strategy inserts from more recent planeswalker decks. The ad for FNM would take up a small percentage of the strategy insert, while in the current ones, it takes up the entire back side of the strategy insert. The picture of the planeswalker on the strategy insert could have been best used for a decklist, or an actual strategy.
Intro packs were bad but at least Intro packs and starter deck tended to follow some theme. I've always felt like these planeswalker decks have done a bad job on having some kind of theme.
Do you know what I think? There is a reason why we have Planeswalker decks now. Remember names like Pressure Cooker, or maybe Bait and Switch, or perhaps Sliver Evolution, or maybe Grave Power. We also had things like Armada, Sky Slam, Dead Again, and Molimo's Might. By changing them to planeswalker decks, they could just make a piece of crap look good by adding a cherry on top. The planeswalker means that each set cannot have more than 2 decks, whereas before, there were 4 theme decks per set, or 5 intro packs per set. Planeswalker decks mean that they do not have to pay someone to come up with cool deck names, so they can skimp on the cost right there. Why call it Izzet Ingenuity when you call it the Ral Zarek deck.
I've said this as a youtube comment when someone opened an Ixalan Planeswalker deck. Whoever had the bright idea to omit the decklist from the strategy insert needs to be fired. If they can't come up with a strategy for the deck, at least they should just include the decklist. That isn't hard to do, and the whole, look it up online doesn't cut it, considering all that wasted space that the current strategy inserts have.
I don't see you having to look online for a parts list to check if you are missing any parts when you are building furniture.
They used to have those types of names for the PW decks by just using the planeswalker's title as the equivalent. Like the first Nissa one for Kaladesh was "NISSA: Nature's Artisan". Now even that is gone from more recent products where even Ral Zarek's isn't: "RAL: Caller of Storms" its "RAL: Planeswalker Deck"
Also Whose bright idea it was not even to include a list of upgrades for the deck. Like it really sounds self-defeating if you ask me. "We want players to buy our products, but we won't include what those upgrades for this product are. They should just go look it up themselves."
Step 2) Lower the MSRP to $9.99.
Step 3) Less plastic and cardboard for exterior.
Step 4) No 1-of or 4-of copies.
Step 5) Use 3-of copies to subtly emphasize more desirable parts of the deck.
Step 5) No non-synergestic cards (Example: Vedalken Mesmerist in Ral Zarek deck)
Step 6) Instead of the current insert provide a booklet that provides: a decklist, strategy and tips, scans of suitable cards for the deck. (Example: Niv-Mizzet, Parun, Steam Vents, League Guildmage, Quasiduplicate, Risk Factor, etc)
Step 7) Barcode in the booklet to be scanned so the cards can be sent digitally to this player's MTG Arena account while briefly advertising MTG Arena in order to provide an incentive to play both paper and digital magic.
Step 8) Provide five decks instead of two. (Example: Guilds of Ravnica has five planeswalker decks focused on the five guilds)
Step 9) Provide a fun and thematic name for each of the five decks instead of just the planeswalker's name.