MTG Salvation

It could be a change to the current version of the client. I played against someone who got to something like 2000 life a couple of years back.

Quote from Colt47 »

Quote from rubiera »

That's a really good question. Don't get me wrong, I like the fantasy lore and read some of the text that comes with it. It just isn't my thing. I love Magic because of the infinite intellectual challenge that is deckbuilding. I love the artwork too, and I am cool with it having a story. I just think that when Wizards thought they could wrap how they issue the sets around the story, they came up empty as far as story and the Vorthos thing directly increasing sales. It just didn't happen.

My own opinion is that wizards actually did something right with making the story of the game world easier to understand. The only problem was the story they had when they did this was awful. If this movement was done during the Brothers War, or maybe Urza's Saga times things probably would have been a bit different. Mercadian Masques had a pretty decent story as well. In any case, I feel the planeswalkers are the main issue and that the entire game world got hurt when walkers became too commonplace. It was much better when the players were implied to be the planeswalkers and the heroes of each world were the focus.

Sure, I agree with you on all counts. Wizards needs to come up with stories that are really compelling, and when you have too many planeswalkers, that's a problem. The Gatewatch could have been done differently, maybe add one walker per set. The too-many-Guideons problem sure didn't help!

That's a really good question. Don't get me wrong, I like the fantasy lore and read some of the text that comes with it. It just isn't my thing. I love Magic because of the infinite intellectual challenge that is deckbuilding. I love the artwork too, and I am cool with it having a story. I just think that when Wizards thought they could wrap how they issue the sets around the story, they came up empty as far as story and the Vorthos thing directly increasing sales. It just didn't happen.

I may be a less-representative voice, but I think the answer to the question 'What's Wrong With Today's Magic?' is 'almost nothing.'

The point of a for-profit game is to maximize profits, while keeping other metrics healthy. Wizards continues to maximize profits while steadily increasing the size of the player base and expanding the number of products it publishes for the game. The overall TCG market is doing great. The Big Three paper TCGs are doing great: Pokemon and Yugioh. All three companies are very responsive, and turn their focus on a dime when they encounter a rough spot. Each company focuses on a specific demographic, and Magic has the most to gain when expanding their audience demographic. Magic still has room to grow by appealing more to young women, and also by appealing more to the 30+ demographic.

The biggest threats to paper Magic are digital TCGs and other games. Hearthstone came on the scene very strong, but has plateaued. I think the biggest threat to Magic (paper and digital) is the move away from TCGs, whenever it happens. I hope this move happens many decades from now, and if that's the case, there's a whole-lot-of-Magic left for us to enjoy.

At the tactical level, the small things that are wrong with Magic, IMHO are:

1. A close relationship between Wizards and some of the secondary market companies that can blowback against Wizards. I would call this one the 'insider threat' to the game.

2. Paper forgers for out-of-print cards continue to improve the quality of their forgeries.

3. Vorthos is not the fourth type of player, just deal with it. We are here to play Magic, and fantasy fiction is a small side show.

4. The obsession with value is a distraction. Magic is a game with collectible pieces, and the vast majority of these pieces have no economic value now and forever. 'Magic Finance' is really a benign ponzi scheme. Baseball cards, comic books and stamps have been where Magic Finance will be.

5. The obsession with the Reserved List going away is another distraction to the game. The reserved list cards will only be reprinted after Wizards ceases to be a company and by some other company, and what would be the point of that, since by that time all TCGs will be out of fashion anyways.

6. Reddit is a troll echo chamber where alters are more important than deckbuilding. Reddit is where I practice my eye rolls.

What's RIght with Magic? A lot, almost everything. Standard is going to be in a much better place next summer. That's all I really need to stay in this game.

Yeah, and by adding one mana to every major effect, nothing but land drops happen in some games for the first two turns. The biggest annoyance by far is the two drop mana dork. The point of a mana dork is to come in on turn one. I don't need a two drop mana dork. For that, I will use some ability two drop.

I like that they are bringing back the core set, that was a huge mistake.
We will have five two-set blocks are barely interactive blocks.

Wow, this is the best news from WOTC in some time. An artifacts-matter block (my favorite type) followed by an Ancient Egypt block (awesome, awesome flavor, incredible source of art), that's just great!

Like someone said earlier, Theros had some hits and some misses. For me the hits are fewer than the misses.

Hits:

1. Devotion is awesome. I can't get enough of it, especially green devotion. I have been playing it as green-blue in Legacy with JTMS, and in modern in several variants, including Proliferate shenanigans and it has IMHO a lot of unexplored potential. Nykthos is by far my favorite dual land.
2. Strive is also awesome, and also has IMHO a lot of unexplored potential. NYX is a great set, not New Phyrexia great, but going that way. With a few new cards in the coming sets I believe Nyx can be a close second to New Phyrexia. Just like Kicker, Strive gets better in the late game, and sometimes insanely better.
3. Here and there cards that have a home in the eternal formats in the three sets.
4. The quality of some of the art, of course, is amazing.

Misses:

1. Heroic is a card disadvantage mechanic. Poor Born of the Gods got hit with the Heroic stick.
2. Bestow, except for one or two creatures, is grossly over-costed; Saviors of Kamigawa over-costed.
3. The entire block is missing cards that would have made it a much more playable block. There is not a single card at common that even comes close to Delver, for example. I like slow games, but not boring and dumbed down slow games, and a lot of games with Theros in them are just dumb. I love mono-black, but Theros made me not want to play mono-black on account of the one-trick pony Gray Merchant of Asphodel.
4. I love Greek Mythology, but the coverage of ancient Greece in Theros felt 'high school.' Even though the Kamigawa block takes a lot of heat for playability, I feel that Kamigawa is more Japanese than Theros is Greek. I would have liked Theros to feel more Greek.

Thanks!

I kept the old thread because it does have some useful information, and its really the same topic with a small financial requirement as a twist.

Sure, sorry to be so general, $10-15 or less per booster pack.
Mirage, Invasion, and Mercadian Masques blocks qualitfy, just wanted to get more data from people who have played the old sets (I ceertainly haven't. I started with Avacyn Restored).

Can we have another round discussing this? I am interested in opening packs from old sets and I am looking for a block that has reasonably priced packs and great gameplay.

Quote from Crimson »

Without fetches this set would be as bad as Kamigawa

I second that.... at least the artwork is really awesome. Try playing a three color card in Modern....

Standard will get you in the quickest, and your timing couldn't be better (as previous poster mentioned). With rotation coming up, you will only need cards from five sets (theros block, M15, and Khans) to play.

Quote from DrWorm »

Quote from rubiera »

I agree that sleeves are terrible. They allow you to view the cards much more easily, but there is always a reason to take cards out and put cards in, and that nicks the cards in small ways, but that will be obvious after you have done it to the same card a dozen times. I sleeve all non-commons and keep all commons in small bunches separated by bunches of sleeved non-commons.

I sleeve all foils and all cards that are worth greater than or equal to $5 in KMC perfect fits. Not only is the plastic softer than regular sleeves (so they don't nick cards) but since they fit inside a regular sleeve there is almost no reason to ever take them out. I don't particularly like foils, but they are good for trades and selling if in good condition. They, however, are so easy to scratch that I keep them sleeved and the tight fit of perfect fits keeps them from warping.

I meant 3 by 3 sleeve sheets...not single sleeves, my bad.

Quote from Mongers "n Deeds »

I'm going to take the opposite position of most in this thread and say no.

Wait 4-6 weeks after the set has been released. There will be enough new fetch lands to bring the prices down to a reasonable $10-15 while they're in standard. Take your $600 and buy fetches directly. There's a strong chance that the bulk of the set will be worth absolutely nothing (most sets are), while those fetches are virtually guaranteed to make you money over the years to come.

The prices will increase long term, post-rotation. They always do for multi-format staples in high demand. This is a much safer route imo.

A lot of the set has not been spoiled and it is hard to tell if any other card than the fetches will be like a Snapcaster Mage
My hunch right now is that buying fetchland singles one month into the set, which is usually the point at which it has been drafted a lot, will be better than picking out fetches out of a case.

Case is $600, if fetches are, say $20 (a high estimate), you can get 30 singles instead of the case. If you get 4 fetches out of each box (a high estimate), you will only get 24 from the case.

KTK is a three color set... it will have to have some great gems in the mono-colored cards to come close to Innistrad in value out of the packs. Innistrad is the opposite to RTR (I will use RTR because we have no idea how the non-fetchland part of KTK will be): you can pull delvers at common and snapcasters at rare... a lot of value there.

I store mostly in fat pack boxes because the cards don't bend/warp as much as they do in the white cardboard boxes. I am a digital player and collect paper, and have collected stamps for a while. That means I care about keeping the cards at their highest quality. Paper needs to breathe and so I shy away from tight packaging. If you see how old books are kept, sometimes the books are facing with the pages out and the binding in, and that is done to let the paper breathe over the centuries. Magic is a really young hobby, and stamps can be from the 1840s. Also, I don't keep any sealed product. Open it all or risk the cardboard degrading a lot. We don't have 100 year old booster packs yet, but I bet you opening them will be as joyful as drinking from a 100 year old bottle of wine that is just pure vinegar.

I agree that sleeves are terrible. They allow you to view the cards much more easily, but there is always a reason to take cards out and put cards in, and that nicks the cards in small ways, but that will be obvious after you have done it to the same card a dozen times. I sleeve all non-commons and keep all commons in small bunches separated by bunches of sleeved non-commons. The deckbuilder toolkits are surprisingly good for storage, and I don't mind buying a few more than is reasonable for playing.

I stay away from foils as a collector. I don't even want to imagine what a 100 year old foil will look like if a three year old foil looks like crap almost 100 percent of the time.