Not sure if this is the best place to post this or not.
Went into work today and not only do we still have a bunch of these floating around the store but the 4 deck $30 clear plastic things are back as well. I looked all of them over and all I saw were RTR block and M14 decks and I think one or two land packs (they had land on top). Didn't pick any of them up but as an interesting change they also have the promo Genesis Hydra in them as well.
It's better in the sense that a checklist card doesn't show anything about the card you're casting other than it's casting cost. You'd have to keep referencing the card you've checklisted to make sure you strategize correctly if you don't have it memorized. A proxied version would tell you what the card does and would also be clearly labeled as a proxy. To JohnnyDegenerate's point, it may be confusing to new players, but DFCs are somewhat confusing in general, especially with Morph/Manifest/Megamorph in at the same time. Case in point, you tell a new player that a DFC always has a face-up, never a face-down, and cannot be flipped down by anything (like Ixidron)... yet they can Manifest it "face-down." I don't see how a proxied version of the upside face-up is more confusing than that, but it could definitely be an additional source of confusion if not handled properly.
Back when I played my Werewolf deck a lot I had actually printed out the back side of my wolves and would just place it on top of it's card whenever I needed to flip it. It worked out quite well and the token backs got wrecked by play and not the actual card.
Everyone from Wizards who has said something about the yearly Commander products.
Commander's Arsenal was something rushed up when they realized "holy crap, people are buying the Commander decks so much, let's make more!". Arsenal was probably a repurposed From the Vault set or something similar. If they had anticipated such success sooner, they'd make another set of five decks that year instead.
They could do something different once? Maybe, but with each release of decks being successful while Arsenal was very criticized, I'd guess they would like to just play safe and keep releasing what they know people want, until perhaps it starts losing steam.
Was not aware that anything official had been said about them actually being decks.Last I had seen it was just a yearly product.
What I think Wizards needs to realize is WHY people were upset about Aresnal. They were upset because an "elite" product was brought to a largely casual format. It contained cards that many people wanted to play with but not nearly enough of them were made.
Oh well, it was an idea.
As for what we are getting, it's probably going to be 2 color decks then and hopefully not just ally colors.
If you'll allow me the pleasure I'd like to play just a bit of devil's advocate here and suggest something that nobody has brought up yet. Who says we're getting decks next year?
How quickly did we forget that The Commander Arsenal was also a summer commander release. I've been saying for a long time that something half way between the Arsenal and a Deck builder's Toolkit would be a really awesome product. Each box could contain say 80-100 cards with old staples like Command Tower, Opal Palace, Sol Ring, and that bunch. But it could also have a cycle of 4 color legendaries and other goodies that the community has been asking for but that have been very difficult to build decks around. They could even throw in another colorless legend.
I had the decks in front of me and were flipping over the tokens in my hand as I was making this list, so I'm 99.9% sure it's accurate. The only way it's not is if I got a faulty copy. I wasn't missing any cards that I could tell though.
I just cracked all five of my decks excited to see double sided tokens and mine all line up with what you posted so I think we can call that list 100%.
I think it was an ace idea to do double sided for the decks, it makes it easier to have proper tokens (reef worm I'm looking at you), and should keep the board state much cleaner.
I haven't opened any of my decks yet (waiting to get the other 2) but the store I work at has a green deck with the oversized card upside down in the box.
At first I was very confused by the art because I thought I was looking up through a portal of somekind. The horns started to look like all kinds of pointy arms and I started to wonder "slivers" or "Eldrazi" depending on the scale.
Now that I see the wings and that they are horns (not arms) then Yes we are looking at Ugin, why else would he be getting mentioned in card names and flavor texts if he wasn't coming back.
Personally I don't care if Ugin is a planeswalker card (red could use some diversity) or a Legendary Creature (Yea! new dragon Commander) part of me wants him already.
It depends on Sarkhan... whether he is RB Sarkhan the mad or RG Sarkhan Vol. His clothes suggest he is RB but story hints suggest he is aligned with Temur which is Green Red Blue suggesting he will be RG.
Really looking forward to learning more about this plane.
Naga are a part of the Sultai.
We are also getting Rakasha that are said to be "at home in a cat or demon deck" (paraphrased from watching the panel last night).
It's funny, I told my boyfriend that I wondered if this set would have nagas as soon as it was announced. I'll be so happy if one of my favorite fantasy races finally makes it to Magic. <3
Also, is the Sultai khan male or female? I originally thought female, but it seemed more male in the trailer.
"Maybe :)" means "yes, they will be coming out at some point in the future." Khans seems like as good a plane as any to introduce the allied-colored swords.
It's also Maro and the swords could just as easily be in Commander 2014, Commander 2015, or next year's summer release and he would give the same answer. Heck the swords could be nothing more then scribble's on a notepad in The Pit which means we won't see them for 2 years.
All "Maybe :)" means is that they haven't forgotten about those cards and they are something that a set or product could use sometime in the future.
No, odric only triggers if you attack with two other creatures and in magic when we say attack we mean declared as an attacker and whatever you bring it isn't declared as an attacker.
Short version, ya too late.
Okay, Odric could be worded clearer but that's why I double checked.
I thought maybe I could stack the Captain's ability above Odric but was fairly sure it was too late.
So I attack with Odric, the Captain, and one other creature. I use the Captain to put a forth attacker out, do I get to use Odric's ability, or is Odric an attack trigger and thus too late?
One box with all four decks contained within it.
Print numbers much like what we see for DD now.
Distribution to the big box stores just like the first time around for each of the decks.
The reasoning being that I'm sure these are being printed to help bring down the cost not only of the first dual decks but also of the cards contained within them. Sending these to only card shops wouldn't do that.
I'm also hoping that it being 1 box and that these decks were already created and would thus require much less work to create a second time that we could see a price point more like $60.
I'm like a lot of you. I have a ton of money cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and the book insert Jace Beleren but if I were keeping one card at this point it would still be my 8th ed. Beast of Burden because he was my first rare ever.
I've had a few Magic dreams but the one that sticks out in my mind was one in which my girlfriend was a full on pyromancer (Jaya and chandra mixed kind of get up) and I was a Necromancer running zombies. The two of us dueled like you would if Magic duals were actually turn based. I'm not exactly sure how I won but I do remember having a few gravecrawlers out and Dark Ritual was involved.
Went into work today and not only do we still have a bunch of these floating around the store but the 4 deck $30 clear plastic things are back as well. I looked all of them over and all I saw were RTR block and M14 decks and I think one or two land packs (they had land on top). Didn't pick any of them up but as an interesting change they also have the promo Genesis Hydra in them as well.
Back when I played my Werewolf deck a lot I had actually printed out the back side of my wolves and would just place it on top of it's card whenever I needed to flip it. It worked out quite well and the token backs got wrecked by play and not the actual card.
Was not aware that anything official had been said about them actually being decks.Last I had seen it was just a yearly product.
What I think Wizards needs to realize is WHY people were upset about Aresnal. They were upset because an "elite" product was brought to a largely casual format. It contained cards that many people wanted to play with but not nearly enough of them were made.
Oh well, it was an idea.
As for what we are getting, it's probably going to be 2 color decks then and hopefully not just ally colors.
If you'll allow me the pleasure I'd like to play just a bit of devil's advocate here and suggest something that nobody has brought up yet. Who says we're getting decks next year?
How quickly did we forget that The Commander Arsenal was also a summer commander release. I've been saying for a long time that something half way between the Arsenal and a Deck builder's Toolkit would be a really awesome product. Each box could contain say 80-100 cards with old staples like Command Tower, Opal Palace, Sol Ring, and that bunch. But it could also have a cycle of 4 color legendaries and other goodies that the community has been asking for but that have been very difficult to build decks around. They could even throw in another colorless legend.
I just cracked all five of my decks excited to see double sided tokens and mine all line up with what you posted so I think we can call that list 100%.
I think it was an ace idea to do double sided for the decks, it makes it easier to have proper tokens (reef worm I'm looking at you), and should keep the board state much cleaner.
Now that I see the wings and that they are horns (not arms) then Yes we are looking at Ugin, why else would he be getting mentioned in card names and flavor texts if he wasn't coming back.
Personally I don't care if Ugin is a planeswalker card (red could use some diversity) or a Legendary Creature (Yea! new dragon Commander) part of me wants him already.
We were told at the SDCC panel that Sarkan was a part of the Mardu before leaving.
Best info is in this thread but as for the Khan colors for reference.
Abzan WBR
Jeskai URW
Sultai BGU
Mardu RWB
Temur GUR
Naga are a part of the Sultai.
We are also getting Rakasha that are said to be "at home in a cat or demon deck" (paraphrased from watching the panel last night).
The Sultai Khan is FEmale.
It's also Maro and the swords could just as easily be in Commander 2014, Commander 2015, or next year's summer release and he would give the same answer. Heck the swords could be nothing more then scribble's on a notepad in The Pit which means we won't see them for 2 years.
All "Maybe :)" means is that they haven't forgotten about those cards and they are something that a set or product could use sometime in the future.
Okay, Odric could be worded clearer but that's why I double checked.
I thought maybe I could stack the Captain's ability above Odric but was fairly sure it was too late.
Odric, Master Tactician
So I attack with Odric, the Captain, and one other creature. I use the Captain to put a forth attacker out, do I get to use Odric's ability, or is Odric an attack trigger and thus too late?
One box with all four decks contained within it.
Print numbers much like what we see for DD now.
Distribution to the big box stores just like the first time around for each of the decks.
The reasoning being that I'm sure these are being printed to help bring down the cost not only of the first dual decks but also of the cards contained within them. Sending these to only card shops wouldn't do that.
I'm also hoping that it being 1 box and that these decks were already created and would thus require much less work to create a second time that we could see a price point more like $60.