This apparently very common desire to avoid the Nicol Bolas spoiler is completely mystifying me. It's not like it's the twist ending of a movie or something, it's just a Magic card! I'd be happy to have the entire set spoiler right now, let alone Nicol Bolas.
I mean, if you're going to go for spoilers at all you might as well go the whole hog.
I've already pretty much quit because I only played on MTGO in recent years, and the already clunky MTGO program devolved even further with MTGO 3 to the point where it's stunningly terrible (it seriously reminds me of low-budget mid 90s software) and isn't showing much sign of getting better any time soon.
Hmm, I'm surprised at the overwhelming result in favour of the guilds. I did quite like the guilds, but I've found the shards to be even more flavourful and cool, possibly as a result of having a whole world to work with each rather than just a part of one. 3-color combos are also more unusual than 2-color ones, making for some interesting flavour and Melvinny structure.
I was wondering which kind of faction structure people think is cooler overall: the Guilds of Ravnica or the Shards of Alara. By "coolness" I'm talking about flavour and gameplay themes, but not pure power level.
I'll post my opinion a little later to avoid biasing the poll.
Wow, the forests and the plains are both awesome (though with rather clashing styles, the plains being a lot more realistic looking), and the "space island" is very intriguing.
Can anyone bring up any non-pathological scenario in which one can choose between both and will choose the scarecrow?
Like said above, a 5 colour Reaper King deck is a simple example, but an environment with a lot of colourless mana accel where you're building a RG deck and therefore want a lot of colourless costs and costs with only a single coloured mana symbol might be another - an unusual example perhaps, but not a crazily contrived one. A similar scenario might be one with a lot of good colourless-producing lands (ie Strip Mine and so forth) where a CCC cost is prohibitive if you want to include those lands.
Anyway this is missing the point, which is that you can't directly compare cards costing different colours (or lack thereof) since they don't necessarily go in the same decks and therefore it's often not a matter of deciding between one and the other.
Awwww. You started the post so well, and ended it so poorly. The Lions vs. Pup example is unapplicable because they go in different decks. They do not compete for the same deck slot.
Well, that was actually my point with that example - that you can't really make "strictly better" comparisons with cards of qualitatively different mana costs because they aren't necessarily going to be considered by the same decks.
I propose a new, more practical definition of "strictly better": One card is strictly better than another if, forced to make a choice, you would always include it rather than the "worse" one in a (intended-to-be) competitive deck of the appropriate colors in a non-pathological metagame (ie in a metagame not specifically built to make the worse card better).
I like this definition better because it preserves the intended meaning of "strictly better". Defining it as "better in every conceivable situation" as some people do is silly because no card is better in *every conceivable situation*.
The case in this thread probably still wouldn't quite qualify though - being an artifact is a different enough property from being (and costing) red-green that it's possible to conceive of a reasonable meta-game where the scarecrow might be better. It's similar to how Savannah Lions isn't strictly better than Jackal Pup because costing red rather than white can be a significant advantage.
Nobody's said slivers are "hard". Plenty of people have said slvevrs are "pointless". And they are. Why the hell should any edition have to devote 10+ card slots to a tired old gimmick?
Plenty of people said (wrongly) that they're too complex for the core set. Also, just because *you* don't like them doesn't make them "pointless" or "tired". They're one of the most popular mechanics among newer players and therefore are perfect for the core set.
I wish people wouldn't buy into the idea that the Core Set has to be designed for total retards. Basic Slivers are not hard to understand if you have half a brain. If I could understand learn Magic from the Fourth Edition rulebook, then modern kids can handle Slivers. Besides, I think new players would find them interesting. They're definitely "teaser" cards in that seeing one or two makes you think "what other Slivers are out there?".
I wish they would focus on practical features like better trading and better matchmaking (both of which could be *vastly* improved) rather than wasting time on silly 3D that I'm going to turn off as much as possible anyway. Though I'll appreciate higher-res card graphics.
edit: I suppose in a way it's actually beneficial to Wizards to have a bad trading system, as that means more cards rot away in binders because trading them is too difficult, and therefore more packs need to be bought, resulting in more profit. That doesn't mean I have to like it though.
I mean, if you're going to go for spoilers at all you might as well go the whole hog.
I'll post my opinion a little later to avoid biasing the poll.
edit: heck, all the lands are pretty amazing.
Like said above, a 5 colour Reaper King deck is a simple example, but an environment with a lot of colourless mana accel where you're building a RG deck and therefore want a lot of colourless costs and costs with only a single coloured mana symbol might be another - an unusual example perhaps, but not a crazily contrived one. A similar scenario might be one with a lot of good colourless-producing lands (ie Strip Mine and so forth) where a CCC cost is prohibitive if you want to include those lands.
Anyway this is missing the point, which is that you can't directly compare cards costing different colours (or lack thereof) since they don't necessarily go in the same decks and therefore it's often not a matter of deciding between one and the other.
Well, that was actually my point with that example - that you can't really make "strictly better" comparisons with cards of qualitatively different mana costs because they aren't necessarily going to be considered by the same decks.
I like this definition better because it preserves the intended meaning of "strictly better". Defining it as "better in every conceivable situation" as some people do is silly because no card is better in *every conceivable situation*.
The case in this thread probably still wouldn't quite qualify though - being an artifact is a different enough property from being (and costing) red-green that it's possible to conceive of a reasonable meta-game where the scarecrow might be better. It's similar to how Savannah Lions isn't strictly better than Jackal Pup because costing red rather than white can be a significant advantage.
Plenty of people said (wrongly) that they're too complex for the core set. Also, just because *you* don't like them doesn't make them "pointless" or "tired". They're one of the most popular mechanics among newer players and therefore are perfect for the core set.
edit: I suppose in a way it's actually beneficial to Wizards to have a bad trading system, as that means more cards rot away in binders because trading them is too difficult, and therefore more packs need to be bought, resulting in more profit. That doesn't mean I have to like it though.
I guess they're working then :p.