If any store is charging more for the Helvault pre-release, they're probably in violation of organized play rules. Send a tweet @helenebergeot if your local store's doing this, she's really good about reading and replying on Twitter.
As far as people being disappointed with the contents, what did you actually expect?
Your opponent may pay 4 life to Time Walk you on turn 1.
If he or she does not, put a 4/3 into play. This 4/3 may be countered by Lightning Bolt.
Yeah, this card's clearly amped up, but hardly unfair considering the choice is granted to the opponent. In Legacy Burn, this is going to be a Lava Spike+1 about 80% of the time, and complete poop the other 20%.
We've seen this before. There's a strong possibility that they encouraged him to make a different card entirely, rather than riffing off the counterspell land. For one thing, it's hard to put a person's face on a land card.
I've noticed a lot of people getting excited about using this against Tendrils decks. They all seem to forget that a Duress, Thoughtseize, or Silence is going to clear the way before the combo happens.
This spell's cute, but it's just not as good as Daze, Spell Pierce, Mental Misstep, Spell Snare, Counterspell and FoW. That's a lot of competition for deck slots.
It's legal in Vintage. And you can't play with proxies in sanctionned tournaments anyway.
US Vintage tournaments are 99% unsanctioned. There are only 1-2 major sanctioned tournaments per year, the rest are 5/10/15 proxy tournaments that are unsanctioned. Vintage is already a faltering format. Make people have to dish out an extra $2000 for power, and it's dead.
They may have done it, but I'm pretty sure they weren't supposed to if they did. I know my local store used to do a "Midnight" release event on Saturday, and then a normal time one later in the day, but they had to stop doing that because it was two events the same day.
There was a change a couple of sets ago that limited stores to 2 "Main Events" plus side events. Stupid store owners took that to mean that they're limited to what they could do. Smart store owners carefully structured their events so that Saturday's and Sunday's first wave was the "Main Event" while midnight events and other waves of sealed or draft were all reported as "Side Events."
You've got to keep in mind that WotC only cares that the product is being used correctly, they don't care how. The limitation was only to prevent stores from scheduling excessive "main events" and then having tons of excess to crack (or sell!) in advance of the street date.
I'm psyched about the GP increase. GPs are awesome, probably the best tournaments possible.
I don't care much either way about the PT change. I've been to one (PT San Juan), and there weren't that many people showing up from the public. Maybe they were having trouble balancing the "come in, it's public!" with the "stay out of this area, serious Magic is being played"? Regardless, it's not a huge deal.
I'm disappointed with regard to regional pre-releases. In Boston, the local gaming store (yes, only 1 in the metro area!) sucks, and there's just the one. There's capacity for maybe 80 people, and they're too disorganized to possibly run their pre-release elsewhere. Rob Dougherty (YMG) runs local PTQs and the regional pre-releases, but his physical store no longer exists. I'm hoping he finds a loophole or way to keep this going, because this announcement cuts out better-run pre-releases, and hacks capacity from 200+ to under 100.
Scars of Mirrodin's Box art is a mashup evoking Massacre Wurm and True Conviction.
The piece of art we're debating now has a Phyrexian, clearly not just "some guy" given that he's manipulating 5 colors of magic in such a flashy manner. It's in the portrait layout, and the focus is only on him and the magic he's manipulating.
I'd be quite surprised if this piece of art wasn't used on a card in some manner. We already know it's the box art, but it seems too focused to be only for the boxes. Besides, if you look at the booster display, the entire "spell" portion's cut off. They're using this for more than just the booster boxes.
Normally, as the last part of resolving an instant or sorcery, you put the spell into the graveyard, which is when Leyline's replacement effect would take place. As part of the effect of the Zeniths (as well as the Beacons), you shuffle the card into your library. When the spell is done resolving, it is no longer on the stack to be placed in the graveyard, so Leyline cannot affect it.
If a Zenith (or Beacon) is countered, it would still go to the graveyard, and Leyline can grab it.
Acceptable and commonly acknowledged shortcuts are a part of tournament Magic, and a failure to use them will probably result in penalties if a judge catches you. The clock is not a resource, and Saito got suspended for 18 months for treating it as such.
If you were allowed to do everything "by the books," you could slow the game down to a crawl:
Turn:
Staller: "Untap, Upkeep. I pass priority."
*wait for opponent to respond*
Opponent: "Why are you looking at me?"
Staller: "I passed priority, I'm waiting on you."
Opponent: "Oh, weird. OK, go to draw step."
Staller: "Draw. I pass priority."
Opponent: "Really? Are you going to do this every step?"
Staller: "It's in the rules!"
Opponent: "OK, go to main phase."
Staller: "I play Island as my land for the turn. Retaining priority, I'll announce Preordain, and tap my Island to produce 1 blue mana, which I will use to pay for the cost of Preordain. Preordain is now on the stack, pass priority."
Opponent: "JUDGE!"
Makes it fair for TOs. If SCG gets to give their judges foils, what about TCGPlayer? What about ChannelFireball? Eventually any TO that's running big events wants them, and they stop being special.
Limiting them to PTs and GPs makes them special and worthwhile, and is fair to tournament organizers.
The Phyrexian/Mirran split tracks theory seems sound. It would be the easiest way for them to make the pre-release packs without having to change layouts for later printings.
As of now, I'm going to assume that there are 6 tracks -- 3 Mirran, 3 Phyrexian. Work on the Sword of Feast and Famine tracks have proved it's more than 2, and it leads to a nice round number to fit onto 2 sheets of 121. This may actually prove somewhat helpful in solving; though we've got to do 6 tracks, having isolated 21/40 on a track is more complete than 21/80.
As far as people being disappointed with the contents, what did you actually expect?
Creature
Your opponent may pay 4 life to Time Walk you on turn 1.
If he or she does not, put a 4/3 into play. This 4/3 may be countered by Lightning Bolt.
Yeah, this card's clearly amped up, but hardly unfair considering the choice is granted to the opponent. In Legacy Burn, this is going to be a Lava Spike+1 about 80% of the time, and complete poop the other 20%.
We've seen this before. There's a strong possibility that they encouraged him to make a different card entirely, rather than riffing off the counterspell land. For one thing, it's hard to put a person's face on a land card.
Yes, yes it does. It does fly.
But seriously, drawing 2 cards on your opponent's draw step is nearly equivalent to drawing them on the opponent's upkeep.
This spell's cute, but it's just not as good as Daze, Spell Pierce, Mental Misstep, Spell Snare, Counterspell and FoW. That's a lot of competition for deck slots.
US Vintage tournaments are 99% unsanctioned. There are only 1-2 major sanctioned tournaments per year, the rest are 5/10/15 proxy tournaments that are unsanctioned. Vintage is already a faltering format. Make people have to dish out an extra $2000 for power, and it's dead.
There was a change a couple of sets ago that limited stores to 2 "Main Events" plus side events. Stupid store owners took that to mean that they're limited to what they could do. Smart store owners carefully structured their events so that Saturday's and Sunday's first wave was the "Main Event" while midnight events and other waves of sealed or draft were all reported as "Side Events."
You've got to keep in mind that WotC only cares that the product is being used correctly, they don't care how. The limitation was only to prevent stores from scheduling excessive "main events" and then having tons of excess to crack (or sell!) in advance of the street date.
I don't care much either way about the PT change. I've been to one (PT San Juan), and there weren't that many people showing up from the public. Maybe they were having trouble balancing the "come in, it's public!" with the "stay out of this area, serious Magic is being played"? Regardless, it's not a huge deal.
I'm disappointed with regard to regional pre-releases. In Boston, the local gaming store (yes, only 1 in the metro area!) sucks, and there's just the one. There's capacity for maybe 80 people, and they're too disorganized to possibly run their pre-release elsewhere. Rob Dougherty (YMG) runs local PTQs and the regional pre-releases, but his physical store no longer exists. I'm hoping he finds a loophole or way to keep this going, because this announcement cuts out better-run pre-releases, and hacks capacity from 200+ to under 100.
Scars of Mirrodin's Box art is a mashup evoking Massacre Wurm and True Conviction.
The piece of art we're debating now has a Phyrexian, clearly not just "some guy" given that he's manipulating 5 colors of magic in such a flashy manner. It's in the portrait layout, and the focus is only on him and the magic he's manipulating.
I'd be quite surprised if this piece of art wasn't used on a card in some manner. We already know it's the box art, but it seems too focused to be only for the boxes. Besides, if you look at the booster display, the entire "spell" portion's cut off. They're using this for more than just the booster boxes.
If a Zenith (or Beacon) is countered, it would still go to the graveyard, and Leyline can grab it.
If you were allowed to do everything "by the books," you could slow the game down to a crawl:
Turn:
Staller: "Untap, Upkeep. I pass priority."
*wait for opponent to respond*
Opponent: "Why are you looking at me?"
Staller: "I passed priority, I'm waiting on you."
Opponent: "Oh, weird. OK, go to draw step."
Staller: "Draw. I pass priority."
Opponent: "Really? Are you going to do this every step?"
Staller: "It's in the rules!"
Opponent: "OK, go to main phase."
Staller: "I play Island as my land for the turn. Retaining priority, I'll announce Preordain, and tap my Island to produce 1 blue mana, which I will use to pay for the cost of Preordain. Preordain is now on the stack, pass priority."
Opponent: "JUDGE!"
Limiting them to PTs and GPs makes them special and worthwhile, and is fair to tournament organizers.
Seems like an unkind comparison. Unless you're really trying to start rumors that Brad's a rapist.
Glissa
Phyrexian Crusader
Massacre Wurm
Phyrexian Rebirth
Spine of Ish Sah
Mirror Works
Phyrexian Revoker
Phyrexian Hydra
Creeping Corrosion
Magnetic Mine
Distant Memories
Phyrexian Vatmother
Psychosis Crawler
Praetor's Counsel
Phyrexian Crusader
Bonehoard
Inkmoth Nexus
Mirror Works
Psychosis Crawler
Mitotic Manipulation
Green Sun's Zenith
Tezzeret
Phyrexian Hydra
Phyrexian Rebirth
Magnetic Mine
Consecrated Sphinx
Spine of Ish Sah
Phyrexian Revoker
Black Sun's Zenith
Creeping Corrosion
Decimator Web
Distant Memories
Bonehoard
Phyrexian Hydra
Magnetic Mine
Decimator Web
Mitotic Manipulation
Phyrexian Hydra
Phyrexian Vatmother
Bonehoard
As of now, I'm going to assume that there are 6 tracks -- 3 Mirran, 3 Phyrexian. Work on the Sword of Feast and Famine tracks have proved it's more than 2, and it leads to a nice round number to fit onto 2 sheets of 121. This may actually prove somewhat helpful in solving; though we've got to do 6 tracks, having isolated 21/40 on a track is more complete than 21/80.