MTG Salvation

This will forever be known to my playgroup as......

FTV: Dr. Jeebus.

Contrats my man! It is all yours!

Quote from Dr. Jeebus

Again: they are making ONE product for us. In 19 years this is the first time they have EVER done this. Quit being a whiny little ***** and let us have our toys. You guys get 10 releases a year.

Flaming Infraction

Dude. Really? You are going to be like that? I don't think that I was being whiny at all. I thought I was being quite rational.

Maybe tone it down a little, eh?

Quote from sonofstev

No need for conspiracy theories. Add a : after the http to see the page.

It isn't a conspiracy if it is damage control. We have seen it from them before. The question is how much does this concern them?


And thank you for the correction to the link. I assumed the URL was correct. My bad, should have read it more closely.

Quote from JonathanSpx

FTV is for you guys (both as a seller that sells for over the MRSP and as a collector that doesn't seem to care about the actual natural collectability of the cards.) Can I point out you vested interest in this now. The shops around here do not charge over the MSRP (they play fair).

Here's another anoying tidbit from FTV for the sake of honesty. Here's the info page for sellers. "How much is it?

The MSRP for From the Vault: Realms is $34.99. Because of its extremely limited print run the product is often highly sought after. As always, it's up to individual retailers to determine what pricing is in their retail location."

<crawls out from under the lurking log>

Huh.... I just thought I should say that the link you provided doesn't seem to be working. Can I get confirmation of this? Does anyone have this page cached? I would love to see if WotC removed this page in response to the link. I do believe that this situation is turning out to be a black eye for WotC where a product missed the mark and disappointed so many people.

Finally, I need to say something clearly here. The idea that somehow a product "isn't for you" or "you are not the target consumer" gives WotC a free pass to do whatever they want is really a short sighted perspective. As an extreme and obviously unrealistic example lets say that WotC decided to only sell certain cards to people over the age of 18 for whatever reason (maybe they have graphic images on them). You would easily say sorry 16 year olds, but these products are not for you. This runs the risk of alienating a large section of the player base.

My counter point is that having a good business brand is making the products accessible and desirable in line with the market value. Restricting a product that lots of people want by sanctioned mark-ups or restriction of distribution really irks people. Enough to make people stop playing? Maybe not, but it can over time tarnish the brand. (Look no further than what happened to NetFlix) I think the response from the community here is evidence enough that what many people were hoping for and what we got here do not match. If WotC is smart they should think long and hard about how this was received by the community. I would argue that this set, if it comes off as some people speculate, could very well end up tarnishing the brand rather than helping. I could even speculate that it would have been better for them to skip releasing a product instead of what this may turn out to be. Ultimately, we will have to see how the dust settles.

Anyhow, lets see if they pulled that page down as I suspect they did in response to this thread. They do watch this board and a sudden removal (and maybe even a reappearance in response to my post) could be evidence that this topic is being watched.

::::I see you WotC::::

(As an aside I think the exiting of Mr. Tom LaPille from the WotC community regardless of what the official explanation is precisely for this reason. Many of his articles were viewed as antagonistic and condescending. I think that WotC listened to those opinions and as a move to protect the brand he was relocated to work on D&D instead. Go read some of the comments on this some of which, mine included, were quite scathing.)

Quote from luminum can

A silver-bordered Black Lotus would be the most massive trolling imaginable.

Grey. Not silver.

I'm calling it. There will be grey bordered alpha/beta reprints in the set similar to the time shifted or the hidden treasures. Wizards learned really fast from the whole lottery thing. Imagine opening a grey border Lotus. Good way to celebrate the anniversary, maintain the Reserve list, and get important old cards out there especially for the casual crowd.

Ok. After reading page after page of trolling, miscommunication, defense of the choices, etc etc etc. I only have one thing to add here that I don't think has really had specific attention paid to it.


WotC is trying things out to see how it alters the metagame. Nacatl could be added back in the next B&R update very easily. I don't really understand the tone of some of the people that are apparently "angry" with WotC. I think the most healthy way to view this is it is a revisional process and is subject to change in response to both WotC's vision of the format and the response of the player base.

I, for one, am enjoying watching how they are sculpting the format even-though I don't play it.

Dear Mods at MTGS,

I am not complaining or am I attempting to be a troll in this regard. I am just bringing this to your attention. It looks a little bit strange to have a post about MTGCast from August on the main page especially considering that they were banned from posting updates on your site. I know that it is unlikely that MTGS will allow MTGCast to post future episodes on the site; however, I think that maybe setting this section to key off of other content might make it look a bit less "stagnant".

Just a suggestion as I have seen this every day since the "break-up" between MTGS and MTGCast.

Quote from Goryus

I don't really understand the complaints about his tone. I never thought there were any problems with his attitude, at least not that were exhibited by his articles.

Goryus I felt that I might chime in and maybe help out a little bit why I had such an issue with Mr. LaPille. The article that really did it for me was his article titled "The Play's the Thing". Here is a small excerpt from the beginning of the article.

Quote from Tom LaPille »

From an internal perspective, the Innistrad preview season was a fascinating exercise in restraint. Magic players are full of opinions, and every time a new card is revealed, players share their opinions enthusiastically. A few of the things people said were interesting. Some seemed accurate. More did not. Most were fascinating. All, however, were uninformed.

In particular, people said all kinds of things about the Werewolves that I thought were wrong. Here is a sample:

The Werewolves will never transform.
The Werewolves will transform way too easily.
The Werewolves will make the format really fast.
Taking a turn off to transform a Werewolf will get you killed.
The Werewolves need more text to be interesting to play with.
This frustrated me, because I knew that none of those commenters had played a single game with the cards.

This smacks of condescension and the complete misunderstanding of why (at least in my opinion) why people didn't like Werewolves. (Side note: Most of the people that I know that don't like the Werewolves is simply because they are DFCs and and inelegant solution nothing to do with the reasons listed above.) Further in the article it basically says that you shouldn't judge until you play with it; however, WoTC makes a point of "showing off cards" before you get to play with them as part of the spoiler season. I dunno about anyone else, but that is just asking for us to judge the cards and get excited for the set. Furthermore, he pretty much implies that since he plays more magic than we do his opinion counts more. In a general way this is true and I won't fault him that from a technical sense the game may or may not be better; however, public reaction still matters more than all of the internal "correctness" in the world. The product of New Coke is a perfect example where market research said the public liked it by taste, but when the change happened the outcry was significant enough that they dropped the product even though it *should* have been better received.

Reread the first paragraph of what he said. Basically he is saying that he was frustrated that we didn't see how awesome the werewolves were going to be. Furthermore, all of our opinions were de facto incorrect. Really? The collective mind of every player, pro, or hyper-tester that prints proxies the second they are spoiled is uninformed? I will concede that this is mostly true, but the arrogance here just oozes off the page.

That is the reason why the guy was not liked.

Here is my post in response to his article.

Ok, so I know I run the risk of necro-ing this post here, but seriously what in the heck came of the Phyrexian language?!?!

It sure seemed like WotC went through a lot of trouble to create the language, create a version(s) of the cards using the phyrexian language and...... nothing?

Do we think that the fact that the god book was spoiled removed the utility of the constructed language as a spoiler device? Did they ever consider using the language beyond a single spoiler card and on some promo videos?

I honestly believed that they were going to put in Phyrexian language cards randomly into boosters (maybe in place of the land?) similar to the Timeshifted or hidden treasures thing. I felt it would have been a really sweet way to communicate the take over of the Phyrexians, however this never came about.

I waited for all of the New Phyrexia stuff to simmer down, but now I am sitting here scratching my head wondering what happened.

Anyway, I am not going to be satisfied until I have all 5 praetors in Phyrexian in my collection.

Wife just kicked me out of bed for laughing too much.

Well done.

Guys, guys, guys. Look this is really simple. By "better" they mean make it uncounterable, reduce the mana cost by a colorless and a U, give it split second, and make it mythic staple in all constructed formats and ban it a few months before it rotates. ***snicker***

Quote from jturphy

I'm a former World Champion in both Magic and Euchre, and I've played 25 years in the NFL. As I have now given just as much proof as you have about my experience all three games, I can be deemed an expert in each just like you.

Wow.... e-peen argument if I have ever heard one.

Quote from jmswaff

wow, what an absurd argument. he simply stated hes had actual success due to his skill,choices, deckbuilding, experience, whatever, but you have completely twisted his evidence into "my junk is bigger than yours" and followed it with "im a pompous tool shed". as per my understanding flaming is okay as long as it is warranted/necessary, and i feel im just doing my part in releasing humor among the interwebs

congrats

+1 loyalty to jmswaff

Yes, now to the discussion at hand. I have read through a large portion of these comments and I can only really say that Stoneforge and Jace 2.0 were huge mistakes and I fear that Wizards will suffer for it (if they have not done enough already). Keeping the game fun, accessible, and inviting is the first and only priority as it keeps them profitable. The argument really isn't about "they should have done this earlier" or they "shouldn't have printed X or Y" I really see this as a business trying to remain profitable with consumer loyalty. Nothing more or less. From there I feel the question is the damage done to consumer confidence having to live with Caw-blade for months and now the abrupt banning offset by the next few months of standard with out these cards? Will it restore attendance to FNM and other professional events? I don't know the answer to this, but Wizards apparently thinks so.

Hopefully JtMS will drop to $20 at some point so I might actually own some.

Looks like you can get them for $47.99. Hummmm....*Almost* affordable.

Quote from dachivale

lawl, what, working with spore counters is idiotic, no one plays spore counter decks I think... also adding white is a good idea, that way you get way more cards you can include, like Glare of Subdual..... just to name a bomb of a card in a token deck.... so realy.... I dont get why you say this.... its a statement that makes no sence... the card would not be better with spore counters... I am certain of that.... thelonid is not a good card for instance......

oh and also you cant play Kitchen Finks if he wasnt also white... wich makes it perfect..... unless you dont want to be able to go infinite life.....

First, grammar and 'engwish' is tech. Next, you obviously didn't read my post. I admitted that Ghave was good. I'm not arguing he isn't. I'm conveying my disappointment that he isn't what I expected. Again, reading comprehension = tech. The statement that "no one" plays with spore counters is false. I do and I know of other Thallid lovers who do. I suggest that you pull back a bit, chill out, and understand what I am saying. Not all of us play cards because they are "teh brokenxorz" or "da mostful powerfulnessz". In fact, I enjoy playing with bad cards because it is fun for *me*. Radical concept, eh? Hey, I might even build a separate commander deck around him, but it won't consist of my Thallids.

I think Ghave is good, but unfortunately he isn't what I had wanted. The type of deck that I would build around Ghave is quite different than the Thelon type deck (not just because of the W). I really wish he would have worked with the spore counters and I would gladly over look the icky inclusion of W.