Hi guys, long-time lurker, first-time poster here I tried to check if there were any discussions opened up regarding this matter, but after going back five pages, I stopped after not finding any, so I just brought it up myself.
Sure, we won't be hearing from this for months (probably February next year, at least), but I think it's worthwhile to speculate about this now, since there are so many choices that they are worthy of discussion.
The idea came to me when MTG finally introduced the game term "fight". This, combined with the apparent progression of card types that FTV series has been going through lately (first artifacts, then creatures, then ???) I think it would be highly likely that they'd be doing lands next year.
Now, this is not an easy task, since most remarkable lands come in cycles (some in 5, some in 10, and some in 8, like the "clan-homes" in Lorwyn) and there are only 15 slots vailable in a batch of FTV. If you count the preview card (which they always do, except for the FTV: Exiled, since all of the cards there were supposed to be banned/restricted cards from the past) that leaves us with 14.
Going back to the point I made earlier, the introduction of the word "fight" makes Arena as the top candidate for this reprinting, as the new game term cleans up its rules text very, very nicely. I'm sure the more intelligent folks here at the forums have thought the same as well. And who wouldn't want THAT with new art? Incidentally, it's not off-limits in their reprint policy (I double-checked as I write this). If we are willing to accept that card as included, what could the other 13 be?
One lazy Sunday afternoon, I decided to hazard a guess on that myself. I have a few personal favorites, but to make the set appeal to more players, I had to set my biases aside and make guesses using more objective methods. Afterall, a set with nothing but static objects such as lands might pose a challenge to sell.
I allowed myself a few rules:
1. Of course, all cards should be printable in Wizard's reprint policy. This means that cards like Library of Alexandria and Gaea's Cradle are out.
2. The set needs to include only rares and mythic rares. Because of the premium pricing of FTV, I bet players will expect to get the most value from their money. So perhaps, no Ancient Tomb, or even Cloudpost.
3. The set should not include a member of a known cycle. This can be very controversial, as all of us favor a color/set of colors over the others. Again, this is due to the limited slots in FTV, and to include just one member of a cycle would disenfranchise the others. Besides, there are tons of other cards that produce any color of mana that can easily make up for this. This removes lands like Valakut and Academy Ruins, as they're also part of a cycle.
Amazingly, even with these rules, I ended up with 40+ candidates. To narrow them down further, I devised a scoring system based on the following:
1. User rating - This is how popular it is in the MTG community based on the Gatherer. Happily for a set this special, junk rares like Untaidake, the Cloud Keeper are off-limits.
2. Antiquity - This is the number of years since the LAST printing of the card. Stripmine and Mishra's Factory will have pretty much the same score as Inkmoth Nexus in this category, compared to cards like Thran Quarry. This, I think, will factor highly, as FTV is Wizard's chance of showcasing old, old cards in new frames.
3. Ability uniqueness - One of the last things that I'd like to see in an FTV is a big group of cards that practically do the same thing, and with lands, there are just a lot of "add any color of mana to your pool" to choose from. This means that in this category, a land like Arena (which is the only land aside from Contested Cliffs that makes creatures fight) will score higher than Glimmervoid.
Scoring can be very subjective at this point, but the final list that I came up with looks decent enough, with a few exceptions. For these outliers, I had one last thing to consider: since this set is featuring "locales" it ought to span as many planes/settings as possible. Because of this, all of the lands should at least come from different blocks of Magic expansions.
With all these in mind, I have these as my final 14:
I thought you were trying to avoid cards that did similar things? Thran Quarry and Glimmervoid?
I really doubt they'll do lands. They can't ridiculously stack it with expensive cards or it wouldn't make monetary sense, and otherwise you just get sets being bought for the 2 or 3 EDH staples they'd reprint. Honestly, I don't think this'd pan out.
Wasteland is an uncommon, but I don't think it's unfair to ignore the "rare/mythic only" rule for this one. Exiled had Div Top and Mystic Tutor, neither is which is rare or mythic but are both easily valued cards. Wasteland is the same.
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Wasteland is uncommon in tempest block so using your rules you cannot have it in.
In saying that wasteland is a great candidate, and so would ancient tomb.
Lotus vale would be a shoe-in.
Oh yeah, tsk. I didn't catch that. I was actually trying to decide either that over Dust Bowl, but I already had the Port in from Masques. I agree that Lotus Vale would be a shoe-in for this, as it would represent the Mirage block.
(edit: Lotus Vale is also on the reserved list? Aww damn... I didn't realize this whole thing could be hard...)
I'm not totally sure why you think it would be lands. It seems to me they go by what's popular and what would sell. Timmy doesn't want lands - he wants big nasty things or very notorious things, like Dragons, or Relics, or Legends.
I think the next FTV will be, "FTV: Definitions" and have cards which were format-defining cards. now THAT would sell.
I'm not totally sure why you think it would be lands. It seems to me they go by what's popular and what would sell. Timmy doesn't want lands - he wants big nasty things or very notorious things, like Dragons, or Relics, or Legends.
I think the next FTV will be, "FTV: Definitions" and have cards which were format-defining cards. now THAT would sell.
I too have my own doubts whether or not an FTV based on lands would sell. Honestly, I might not even buy one if it comes out Thing is, the generic trait of lands means that it's playable in any color, without much commitment. Heck you can even built a deck if containing all of the members of this FTV if you're feeling like showing off. Not so with colored cards.
Besides, Wizards makes it a point to include "definition" cards in almost every FTV that they produce (they learned that the hard way when they didn't include a lot of goodies in FTV:Dragons).
I do agree that the list I brought up is a little too expensive for an FTV pricing. I guess I was just being hopeful that the price tag would be incentive enough for collectors to invest in it We could replace some of them to offset the price... say, remove Glimmervoid to include Ancient Coliseum
Just to point out. Library isn't on the reserved list. (It's only an uncommon) So technically Wotc could print it.
Actually, Library is on the Reserved List. So is Bazaar of Baghdad and Mishra's Workshop. They got "retconned" to rare when Wizards cleaned off the Reserved List around Odyssey and left only rares on the list.
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should have more legendary lands. Boseiju, who shelters all! Voltath's dungeon. Yavimaya hollow. Phyrexian tower. So many better lands to choose from. U got 2 man-lands, and 4 any color mana lands. Too much redundancy. Specially glimmervoid and thran quarry. But could definitely see this getting made. Tons of cool lands to showcase, even without the broken ones.
(Prices in parentheses are taken from the low price on TCGplayer, which tends to be about 80% of starcitygame's prices)
A FTV with Rishadan Port ($30), Wasteland ($42), AND Maze of Ith ($35) is already worth over $100 from those three cards, and unlike some of the "expensive" cards in other sets, these are highly-played staples. Throw in Dark Depths ($15), Mutavault ($24), and Vesuva ($12), and you've got the makings of a VERY expensive FTV, especially considering a number of those cards are highly played legacy staples.
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1. As others have said, I don't know why you would automatically dismiss value uncommons when they've printed them in FTV sets in the past. It wouldn't surprise me to see 1 or 2 uncommons in a list like this if they were valuable/interesting/sought after cards.
2. I wouldn't necessarily exclude cycles if they do more than just make mana. Especially in cases where one member of the cycle was far more played/famous than the others (ie Valakut). Again going by history, other FTV sets have included cards that were members of cycles (ie Kokusho).
3. Your list is too expensive. The set should be good value, but they don't want it to be *super* value or they'll never even make it to the store shelf. Wizards wants the sets to be good value, they don't want all the supply being bought up and torn apart to be sold as singles.
Sure, we won't be hearing from this for months (probably February next year, at least), but I think it's worthwhile to speculate about this now, since there are so many choices that they are worthy of discussion.
The idea came to me when MTG finally introduced the game term "fight". This, combined with the apparent progression of card types that FTV series has been going through lately (first artifacts, then creatures, then ???) I think it would be highly likely that they'd be doing lands next year.
Now, this is not an easy task, since most remarkable lands come in cycles (some in 5, some in 10, and some in 8, like the "clan-homes" in Lorwyn) and there are only 15 slots vailable in a batch of FTV. If you count the preview card (which they always do, except for the FTV: Exiled, since all of the cards there were supposed to be banned/restricted cards from the past) that leaves us with 14.
Going back to the point I made earlier, the introduction of the word "fight" makes Arena as the top candidate for this reprinting, as the new game term cleans up its rules text very, very nicely. I'm sure the more intelligent folks here at the forums have thought the same as well. And who wouldn't want THAT with new art? Incidentally, it's not off-limits in their reprint policy (I double-checked as I write this). If we are willing to accept that card as included, what could the other 13 be?
One lazy Sunday afternoon, I decided to hazard a guess on that myself. I have a few personal favorites, but to make the set appeal to more players, I had to set my biases aside and make guesses using more objective methods. Afterall, a set with nothing but static objects such as lands might pose a challenge to sell.
I allowed myself a few rules:
1. Of course, all cards should be printable in Wizard's reprint policy. This means that cards like Library of Alexandria and Gaea's Cradle are out.
2. The set needs to include only rares and mythic rares. Because of the premium pricing of FTV, I bet players will expect to get the most value from their money. So perhaps, no Ancient Tomb, or even Cloudpost.
3. The set should not include a member of a known cycle. This can be very controversial, as all of us favor a color/set of colors over the others. Again, this is due to the limited slots in FTV, and to include just one member of a cycle would disenfranchise the others. Besides, there are tons of other cards that produce any color of mana that can easily make up for this. This removes lands like Valakut and Academy Ruins, as they're also part of a cycle.
Amazingly, even with these rules, I ended up with 40+ candidates. To narrow them down further, I devised a scoring system based on the following:
1. User rating - This is how popular it is in the MTG community based on the Gatherer. Happily for a set this special, junk rares like Untaidake, the Cloud Keeper are off-limits.
2. Antiquity - This is the number of years since the LAST printing of the card. Stripmine and Mishra's Factory will have pretty much the same score as Inkmoth Nexus in this category, compared to cards like Thran Quarry. This, I think, will factor highly, as FTV is Wizard's chance of showcasing old, old cards in new frames.
3. Ability uniqueness - One of the last things that I'd like to see in an FTV is a big group of cards that practically do the same thing, and with lands, there are just a lot of "add any color of mana to your pool" to choose from. This means that in this category, a land like Arena (which is the only land aside from Contested Cliffs that makes creatures fight) will score higher than Glimmervoid.
Scoring can be very subjective at this point, but the final list that I came up with looks decent enough, with a few exceptions. For these outliers, I had one last thing to consider: since this set is featuring "locales" it ought to span as many planes/settings as possible. Because of this, all of the lands should at least come from different blocks of Magic expansions.
With all these in mind, I have these as my final 14:
Arena (Promo, okay, also as Time Spiral time-shifted)
Maze of Ith (The Dark)
Rishadan Port (Masques Block)
Glimmervoid (Mirrodin Block)
Inkmoth Nexus (Scars of Mirrodin Block)
Dark Depths (Ice Age Block)
Vesuva (Time Spiral Block)
Mutavault (Lorwyn Block)
Pillar of the Paruns (Ravnica Block)
Forbidden Orchard (Kamigawa Block)
Wasteland (Tempest Block)
Thran Quarry (Urza's Block)
City of Ass (Unhinged)
kidding
City of Brass (Arabian Nights)
What do you guys think?
In saying that wasteland is a great candidate, and so would ancient tomb.
Lotus vale would be a shoe-in.
I really doubt they'll do lands. They can't ridiculously stack it with expensive cards or it wouldn't make monetary sense, and otherwise you just get sets being bought for the 2 or 3 EDH staples they'd reprint. Honestly, I don't think this'd pan out.
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But yeah, I think that if they were to do lands, they would have to have Wasteland in it.
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Lotus Vale is on the reserved list, so it's a no go.
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Oh yeah, tsk. I didn't catch that. I was actually trying to decide either that over Dust Bowl, but I already had the Port in from Masques. I agree that Lotus Vale would be a shoe-in for this, as it would represent the Mirage block.
(edit: Lotus Vale is also on the reserved list? Aww damn... I didn't realize this whole thing could be hard...)
I just think it is too much for a $100 box, you get Vesuva, Wasteland, Mutavault, Dark Depth ,maze, port? thats way too good
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I think the next FTV will be, "FTV: Definitions" and have cards which were format-defining cards. now THAT would sell.
examples:
Jace, the Mindsculptor
Baneslayer Angel
Tarmogoyf (hahahahahahahahaha probably not)
Arcbound Ravager
Bitterblossom
Bloodbraid Elf
Thopter Foundry
Umezawa's Jitte
Rishadan Port
Flametounge Kavu
Dark Ritual
I too have my own doubts whether or not an FTV based on lands would sell. Honestly, I might not even buy one if it comes out Thing is, the generic trait of lands means that it's playable in any color, without much commitment. Heck you can even built a deck if containing all of the members of this FTV if you're feeling like showing off. Not so with colored cards.
Besides, Wizards makes it a point to include "definition" cards in almost every FTV that they produce (they learned that the hard way when they didn't include a lot of goodies in FTV:Dragons).
I do agree that the list I brought up is a little too expensive for an FTV pricing. I guess I was just being hopeful that the price tag would be incentive enough for collectors to invest in it We could replace some of them to offset the price... say, remove Glimmervoid to include Ancient Coliseum
I like the list.
Actually, Library is on the Reserved List. So is Bazaar of Baghdad and Mishra's Workshop. They got "retconned" to rare when Wizards cleaned off the Reserved List around Odyssey and left only rares on the list.
A FTV with Rishadan Port ($30), Wasteland ($42), AND Maze of Ith ($35) is already worth over $100 from those three cards, and unlike some of the "expensive" cards in other sets, these are highly-played staples. Throw in Dark Depths ($15), Mutavault ($24), and Vesuva ($12), and you've got the makings of a VERY expensive FTV, especially considering a number of those cards are highly played legacy staples.
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1. As others have said, I don't know why you would automatically dismiss value uncommons when they've printed them in FTV sets in the past. It wouldn't surprise me to see 1 or 2 uncommons in a list like this if they were valuable/interesting/sought after cards.
2. I wouldn't necessarily exclude cycles if they do more than just make mana. Especially in cases where one member of the cycle was far more played/famous than the others (ie Valakut). Again going by history, other FTV sets have included cards that were members of cycles (ie Kokusho).
3. Your list is too expensive. The set should be good value, but they don't want it to be *super* value or they'll never even make it to the store shelf. Wizards wants the sets to be good value, they don't want all the supply being bought up and torn apart to be sold as singles.
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