So you can use it to fetch a weapon from one of two possible futures? Excellent flavor. Also an acceptable, if unexciting, body for limited, and it will go in almost any blue artifact EDH deck just for the mana ability? Pretty solid card for an uncommon, and I do love cards that reference other cards that haven't even come out yet.
We can do the math here, it's not that hard. 1 in 8 packs has a mythic, so that's an 87.5% of opening a rare. 5 in 53 rares are fetches, so that's a 9.4% chance. Multiply those two together, and there's a 8.25% chance any given pack has a fetch in it. Multiply that by 36, and on average each bock should have 2.97 fetchlands. However, we're interested in the boxes with none, how likely is that? Well, each pack has a 91.7% chance of not having a fetch. 0.917^36 (multiplying the odds of each successive pack not having a fetch) gives us 0.045, or a 4.5% chance that a box has no fetchlands at all. In other words, about one in every 22 boxes will have none.*
Given the massive numbers of boxes being opened there are going to be plenty of stories exactly like this. Yes, it's unfortunate for whomever it happens to, but it's hardly out of the ordinary, and certainly nothing to be surprised about when it happens. Disappointing, certainly, but having it never happen would be far, far more surprising.
TL:DR- this will happen to 1 in every 22 boxes on average.
*This does not take into account the very slim odds of opening a foil fetchland. Because a) They're tiny and b) I don't know exact numbers on distribution for sure.
I know a lot of people evaluate cards based on their stats and abilities but I'd like to suggest that the art alone qualifies this for Modern play. Possibly Legacy.
As someone with an all-Raymond-Swanland art EDH deck (Devour/Kresh, it works surprisingly well), I could definitely see this going into a Jenara/Chris Rahn art deck. It even synergizes with her ability!
Another uncommon at rare. This literally should have been putrid leech with the regen clause. Get it together wizards.
When most of the time you post (well, 5 of the last 9 skimming back) are complaining that rares should be uncommons, maybe that's a sign it's not them, it's you.
Sweet this card actually just yells play right into their wrath effect why don't you. And mythic? 3/4 flier for 3WW is not a mythic. Tacking on that lifegain thing doesn't make it mythic same with the raid ability. Screams normal rare. Also screams cash grab from WotC. At least it isn't a good card/who cares.
So this is somehow both terrible (i.e. cheap) and a cash grab by WoTC, which would mean people are opening more packs in the hopes of getting one? How exactly does that work, now?
[Edit: looks like people posted the video in the meantime] Doesn't look like it's been noted here yet, but here's the video where Loading Ready Run spoil the card.
Nice. Solves the biggest gripe I had about the M14 slivers, which was that they almost all were boring combat abilities. These ones, though, much more interesting.
Yay! MaRo finally answered one of my questions. Look at how he deftly avoids the issue of dragons while saying that blocks can have any kind of theme if they believe it will work. Has anyone found out how he answers questions when he is trying to not give away information?
MaRo's normal answer to "could this theme support a block" is usually "it's not as deep as you think" or "that's frequently requested and on the short list". I'd say you're in good shape for that "maybe" to be a hint at yes, with MaRo moving towards hedging because of the proximity of Khan's block.
Sorry but MaRo didn't invent the terms Top down and bottom up. He said that just so the design team didn't sound like they were getting lazy. I'm not saying that they were but RtR was literally the definition of Top-down design regardless of what MaRo says.
I had meant invented in its "used in regards to magic" terminology, rather than "first person to ever use the phrase in any context", but that's still mostly irrelevant here. If you're going to insist that the Head Designer of Magic either doesn't know what his terms mean, or is blatantly lying to everyone, then there's really no point in trying to have a discussion. You're clearly so cemented in your opinions that no evidence to the contrary could possibly sway you.
Regardless of what MaRo said it is impossible for RtR to be considered a bottom up set because Ravnica (the SET ON WHICH RTR IS BASED) already existed.
So now you know more about design terminology than the Head Designer? Bold claim. I'll let the man who literally invented the terms defend himself.
vaultboyzk asked: If original Ravnica block was bottom-up then wasn't Return to Ravnica top-down? You already had the world, guilds, etc to build sets around.
Nope, still bottom-up. The design is based on how two-color plays with the color pie. It’s quite mechanical. The set still has plenty top-down cards, as all sets nowadays do, but the structure is not remotely top-down.
Given the massive numbers of boxes being opened there are going to be plenty of stories exactly like this. Yes, it's unfortunate for whomever it happens to, but it's hardly out of the ordinary, and certainly nothing to be surprised about when it happens. Disappointing, certainly, but having it never happen would be far, far more surprising.
TL:DR- this will happen to 1 in every 22 boxes on average.
*This does not take into account the very slim odds of opening a foil fetchland. Because a) They're tiny and b) I don't know exact numbers on distribution for sure.
As someone with an all-Raymond-Swanland art EDH deck (Devour/Kresh, it works surprisingly well), I could definitely see this going into a Jenara/Chris Rahn art deck. It even synergizes with her ability!
When most of the time you post (well, 5 of the last 9 skimming back) are complaining that rares should be uncommons, maybe that's a sign it's not them, it's you.
https://twitter.com/mtgaaron/status/507657133031034880/photo/1
So this is somehow both terrible (i.e. cheap) and a cash grab by WoTC, which would mean people are opening more packs in the hopes of getting one? How exactly does that work, now?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pmpfv-UmuM&feature=youtu.be
Yes, the helm attacks when it should have summoning sickness. As they say "spoiler cards break all the rules."
MaRo's normal answer to "could this theme support a block" is usually "it's not as deep as you think" or "that's frequently requested and on the short list". I'd say you're in good shape for that "maybe" to be a hint at yes, with MaRo moving towards hedging because of the proximity of Khan's block.
I had meant invented in its "used in regards to magic" terminology, rather than "first person to ever use the phrase in any context", but that's still mostly irrelevant here. If you're going to insist that the Head Designer of Magic either doesn't know what his terms mean, or is blatantly lying to everyone, then there's really no point in trying to have a discussion. You're clearly so cemented in your opinions that no evidence to the contrary could possibly sway you.
So now you know more about design terminology than the Head Designer? Bold claim. I'll let the man who literally invented the terms defend himself.
You're really striking out here. MaRo has explicitly said RTR was bottom up.