Dunno if this would be useful, but Maro has confirmed there will be at least 18 mythics here. Specifically, mythics on the DFC sheet will not count towards the usual 15, so there will be 15 plus at least the 3 DFC mythics we already know about, plus room for 1 more if the red card on the CH2 checklist is mythic.
Shouldn't Wizards already have the trademark for the fall set in place by now? Nothing came up when I did a trademark search for "Sivagat". We use to have members that were super diligent about keeping track of what Wizards' & Hasbro registered. Are they getting better at keeping that from prying eyes?
Once they register the trademark, it's public information. I wish I was more familiar with the USPTO's search functions so that I could find any recent registrations by Wizards
I gave it a whirl on the USPTO website, but the most recent Magic-related thing that gets returned is actually Battle for Zendikar. IIRC the Tarkir block names were found on another country's patent office website, I think it was Australia?
This seems to be taking up the FTV release slot for this year; wonder if they figured Eternal Masters was effectively like having an FTV because it would be reprinting old-old cards and selling for (well) above MSRP too. Anyway, pumped for more multiplayer political shenanigans! No mention of how many new cards vs. reprints in this announcement though.
we could expect something like 13 mythic, 41 rare (add 3 to the 10 mythics and 3*2=6 to the 35 rares), 60 uncommon, 70 common, which adds up to 184 exactly. We know there are no basics given the numbering of Wastes A and B.
Interesting, you're the first to come up with numbers that fit. But how would this be distributed on the 121 card printsheets?
And then there are also to non-full art versions of the wastes. I don't know where they fit in or where they will appear ....
If BFZ is any indication, the non-full art Wastes will just have the same numbers as the full-art versions, so 184a would be a full-art Wastes, and 184b would be the non-full art. As for distribution on the print sheets? I have no idea, and when I asked on the other thread (the "Extra rares and mythics" one), the response was :crickets:, so
DKA: 158 cards; 12 mythic, 38 rare, 44 uncommon, 64 common (thrown off by DFC's)
Given this, I think we could expect something like 13 mythic, 41 rare (add 3 to the 10 mythics and 3*2=6 to the 35 rares), 60 uncommon, 70 common, which adds up to 184 exactly. We know there are no basics given the numbering of Wastes A and B.
Good looking out for this, I suppose more rares and mythics are better for power level? One question: can we use the size of prints and/or sheets to deduce how many more rares and mythics there will be, or what the possibilities are? I assume for production reasons they can't simply just pick an arbitrary number of mythics, like 11?
Oh it won't be, don't worry. Nothing will stop Wizards from keeping BG at the top of the color-pair food chain. Just look at the Commander 2015 decks, RTR block, Sultai etc etc.
How are you so sure that the enemy battle lands won't be in Oath? Was it explicitly stated that they wouldn't be in Oath and I just missed it?
No, it hasn't been explicitly stated, but it seems so exceedingly unlikely to happen. We already know that the three remaining enemy manlands are in the set, and we know that there is a mythic Eldrazi land. Putting enemy battle lands in the set would do three things that WotC likely wants to avoid:
1. Give a small set at least 9 rare/mythic lands.
2. Imbalance the mana fixing in standard (we'd have 15 enemy rare dual lands and 10 allied rare dual lands)
3. Give an already insanely good mana base even better fixing. Fetchlands would suddenly be able to retrieve any color of mana.
Also, MaRo stated that they were going to stop doing 10-land rare cycles within a single block. I wouldn't be surprised to see the other 5 battle lands in Inn, but I'm not holding my breath.
I'm not disputing this, but I am curious where he said it? I feel like it wasn't that long ago, that they pledged to always complete allied land cycles by printing their enemy pairs. RTR and Theros block were very good about this, and I think it was a big factor in why there was so much expectation of enemy fetches in Tarkir block. It seems like a very abrupt 180, but they've made so many unintuitive design decisions lately that it's not surprising.
After some thought, I'm pretty sure that <> is a new colorless mana-type. Kozilek will require two sources of <> to cast and can't just be tron/posted out. The restriction could allow for some pretty powerful colorless spells/creatures at a lower cost as well.
It does seem parasitic, but since we now have a basic that taps for colorless it is a huge positive. Also it helps differentiate Eldrazi from being just non-artifact colorless creatures.
The only thing is that wastes will be desirable, so linking them to Eldrazi does seem to limit options for reprinting.
Edit: Additionally, this makes more sense in the context of "Let's not let every Eldrazi Titan become a staple in Green decks." Because how many G decks do you know that generate colorless mana?
But green can also tutor up basic lands easily too.
I think I am coming around to your interpretation here too; thanks for a cogent argument. Essentially <> is its own distinct thing, you will need land or something that produces <> to pay <>, you cannot use 1 to pay for <>, but you can use <> to pay for anything with a 1 in the cost. They are going to have to redefine "Basic Land" to include a land that produces <> and does nothing else, because its current description explicitly limits it to lands that produce one of W, U, B, R, G and nothing else. But that's a lot less bad than errata-ing hundreds of lands and mana rocks that currently produce 1. And as long as Wastes doesn't have a basic land TYPE it doesn't break Domain and other things. So it's all good, just a bit parasitic, but a lot of stuff in this block has been guilty of that already so
It also runs into logical problems, like X or effects that cost or add large amounts of colorless mana. How would they template with this design? How would Kyren Toy be retemplated for oracle? Add X plus one amount of <> to your mana pool? Yikes
T, Remove any number of charge counters from Kyren Toy: Add to your mana pool an amount of <> equal to the number of charge counters removed plus 1.
Yep, and all the storage lands from Fallen Empires and Time Spiral. I absolutely agree it's a huge change to make (especially with the reminder about every colorless mana rock ever too), and that alone should be a deal-breaker, but even that seems more logical than anything else.
OR a crackpot theory of mine, that while the new Kozilek and Waste are legit, Mirrorpool is fake! Waste happens to add <> and not 1 just as a reminder on the full art lands, but that is the only place <> appears as mana production and not a cost -- lands, mana rocks, etc will still say "Add 1..." I mean, the first two were actual images, while Mirrorpool is a picture of a screen. Stranger things have happened, why couldn't the first two be legit leaks, and the third one a follow-on fake?
I still don't get what the idea would be for why wastes and mirrorpool would tap for <>, if the <> in a casting cost means "Can only be paid with colorless". What we've seen on the mana producing lands makes sense if its a variant like snow mana where you must pay eldrazi mana costs with eldrazi mana, but its still colorless, hence being a pseudo-sixth-color produced by a basic land, that works mechanically. But if <> is "only payable with colorless", then it makes no sense for lands to produce <> instead of 1, and I'm not hearing many ideas as to why. The next most logical concept being "<> can't pay for colored spells", but thats getting contrived and esoteric and weird compared to how much more elegant (and precedented) the snow-esque mana would be.
Logically, this mechanic is going to be snow 2.0, and then you have to ask yourself what implications that has, since it will necessarily be parasitic and only available in a single set
Just want to seize on this. I agree with all of what you're saying, but think the solution is to consider that lands producing 1 in the past was the weird part. In other words, historically, 1 as a cost means "pay this using any color or colorless mana", but "Add 1 to your mana pool" means only colorless mana.
So for costs, by replacing 1 with <>, it specifies that <> can only be paid with colorless, while 1 is still any color or colorless. In order to keep the consistency, the lands that formerly produced 1 will now produce <> to represent colorless mana. The only downside is lots of changes to Oracle text of every land that has ever produced 1 (or 2 or 3) to clarify and/or change them to <>, but the issue there is just convenience and semantics, not something that will create huge rules conflicts everywhere.
Not that it matters too much in this "set," but why is this uncommon?!?!?!
With the Commander decks, new cards are rare if they appear in only one deck, uncommon in more than one but not all (it might be a more precise number), and common if they appear in all five decks. So Mirror Match should appear in both blue decks (UR and UG).
A return to a fan-favorite plane that will probably sell exceptionally well based on nostalgia alone? I can't possibly imagine how this could fail; there's no way they would make a half-assed set devoid of needed reprints and expect it to sell itself....
To be fair, they were probably expecting the Expeditions and battle lands to do most of the heavy lifting. So at this rate we can expect Shadows over Innistrad to have SDCC-blackout-style Liliana of the Veil, Sorin, and Nahiri in one per every 400 packs or something, and no other reprints or tournament staples.
People who care about the game know that BFZ is fine because they draft and look at more than just the top 8 of the PT. It isn't the greatest set for value this is true but not every set can be a homerun on that count.
I'd wager a strong plurality of posters on this subforum are netdeckers-only so I enjoy seeing them rage. People who only netdeck are far worse for the game than collectors or the reserve list, we should all revel in their misfortune.
I care about the game, and I don't find BFZ fine. The drafting is about average, but I find the deck themes too be a little too restrictive. Very few of the Eldrazi are limited decent on their own and require a large amount of other Eldrazi to function properly; allowing for some crippling hate drafting. As for value, my LGS's drafting has slowly been shrinking more and more and I myself am no longer going to draft. The card value in the set is so abysmal you rarely even break even on the draft with the prize support included.
As for standard and other formats, the value is lacking, even Commander didn't get many decent cards. Overall Wizards KNEW the set wasn't going to sell on its own cards and threw in the Expeditions to move boxes. So given all of that, yes I am worried about Innistrad and any sensible person who wants some value for their money is going to be concerned as well.
Look at recent sets:
RtR was okay, not as great as the original, but not as terrible as the follow-up set
Theros was bad, boring and weak
KoT was above average
BfZ is bad, weak and boring again
Not the best recent track record, so I can see people being worried(as I am). Just passing us off as net-decking whiners is stupid. I guarantee you if sets lost enough value and people stopped playing standard, the whole game would be affected. With no one to sell/trade their cards too, drafters would stop paying to draft 1-2 times a week.The cards would be worthless and paying $15 for something you throw in the trash after a few hours, doesn't sound like something I want to spend money on.
So go ahead and keep buying whatever Wizards puts out, if you have that much disposible income then fine, but as for me I want to make a decent investment and won't spend money on sets that continue along the lines of BfZ.
Magic is a game not the stock market. If you want to play stock market then go ahead and invest in actual stocks, complaining that Magic isn't a stock market is silly: I pay 15$ to have fun and a shot at making my money back through opening value in my draft packs or winning packs which I can trade-in for more drafts.
It's beyond ridiculous that people ***** and moan about card prices but as soon as a set has value more evenly spread out (my buddy opened a box and got 190$ value without an expedition or a Gideon) people **** and moan about the lack of value which is exactly what needs to happen for deck prices to be reasonable and a meta to be diverse.
The very same "netdeckers" are a major part of the reason you have a chance at "opening value" in your draft packs to begin with. If the only way Magic could be played was Limited, which you seem to be OK with given your disdain for the opinions of people who don't draft, the cards would be valueless once the pack was opened. Without Constructed players to shaft, who would the #mtgfinance speculators sell to? Collectors alone couldn't possibly drive prices of anything outside of the Reserved List, not at present-day print run sizes.
There are plenty of people who might not draft but are stakeholders of the game...collectors, speculators, casuals of all stripes, Constructed players, and yes, netdeckers. Heck, Wizards even markets to some of them directly! I think there are plenty of issues with BFZ design beyond just power level or value, like parasitism and lack of originality. Just because those issues might not affect draft, doesn't make them any less valid. And I think it's perfectly reasonable that people who have those issues with BFZ would be afraid of more of the same for Shadows over Innistrad; I certainly am.
Netdecking is part of the game, nothing wrong with it at a conceptual level. If you take the time to read my posts you'll see that I made a specification "people who only netdeck" because those people are the ones who complain about pulling a 4 dollar rare (of which there are plenty in this set) because what they want are the cards that made the PT top 8.
As far as complaining about lack of originality that is complete hogwash: please point out to me the last set that had an exile zone matters theme (suspend doesn't count), go right ahead. That ingest is parasitic (and to a lesser degree Devoid but it's not really a mechanic) is unfortunately a side effect of the fact that no set has ever cared about the exile zone so while the idea that the set has parasitic mechanics is certainly valid that you could leverage it as criticism in the same sentence as complaining about lack of originality (which is complete bogus) means you don't understand what you are talking about.
Hell the set barely has any +1/+1 counters and that was the flavour of month from the "herpasherpa I complain about stuff I don't have a grasp on" crowd.
For some reason you always make things ad hominem instead of just addressing the arguments themselves; it's not enough for you that yours is the correct opinion (itself an invalid concept), but those who disagree with you are not only wrong but also incapable of intelligent thought.
Please explain why Suspend doesn't count as an "exile zone matters" mechanic, because in terms of putting cards in the exile zone where they generally can't be interacted with until they do something that benefits you, it seems to have quite a few parallels with Ingest, and Ingest can actually interact with Suspended cards.
Ingest is plenty original, but it is parasitic. Of the 227 non-land cards in BFZ, a grand total of 11 give you some benefit to having cards in your opponent's exile zone, and another 34 (including 10 Ingest cards) support them by exiling things.
I also know that Magic designers are capable of making original mechanics that are not parasitic: Suspend, Haunt, Evoke, Fateful hour, arguably Delve, etc. There are also plenty of cards in BFZ that are not parasitic but also unoriginal, and some of them have lower-costed options in the same Standard: Planar Outburst, Stasis Snare, just about every Devoid card has a colored analogue, just about every Awaken card has a lower-costed non-Awaken version.
I gave it a whirl on the USPTO website, but the most recent Magic-related thing that gets returned is actually Battle for Zendikar. IIRC the Tarkir block names were found on another country's patent office website, I think it was Australia?
Thank you! Anything you know of that's in the new frame for the first time? Appreciate it!
If BFZ is any indication, the non-full art Wastes will just have the same numbers as the full-art versions, so 184a would be a full-art Wastes, and 184b would be the non-full art. As for distribution on the print sheets? I have no idea, and when I asked on the other thread (the "Extra rares and mythics" one), the response was :crickets:, so
Given this, I think we could expect something like 13 mythic, 41 rare (add 3 to the 10 mythics and 3*2=6 to the 35 rares), 60 uncommon, 70 common, which adds up to 184 exactly. We know there are no basics given the numbering of Wastes A and B.
Oh it won't be, don't worry. Nothing will stop Wizards from keeping BG at the top of the color-pair food chain. Just look at the Commander 2015 decks, RTR block, Sultai etc etc.
I'm not disputing this, but I am curious where he said it? I feel like it wasn't that long ago, that they pledged to always complete allied land cycles by printing their enemy pairs. RTR and Theros block were very good about this, and I think it was a big factor in why there was so much expectation of enemy fetches in Tarkir block. It seems like a very abrupt 180, but they've made so many unintuitive design decisions lately that it's not surprising.
I think I am coming around to your interpretation here too; thanks for a cogent argument. Essentially <> is its own distinct thing, you will need land or something that produces <> to pay <>, you cannot use 1 to pay for <>, but you can use <> to pay for anything with a 1 in the cost. They are going to have to redefine "Basic Land" to include a land that produces <> and does nothing else, because its current description explicitly limits it to lands that produce one of W, U, B, R, G and nothing else. But that's a lot less bad than errata-ing hundreds of lands and mana rocks that currently produce 1. And as long as Wastes doesn't have a basic land TYPE it doesn't break Domain and other things. So it's all good, just a bit parasitic, but a lot of stuff in this block has been guilty of that already so
Yep, and all the storage lands from Fallen Empires and Time Spiral. I absolutely agree it's a huge change to make (especially with the reminder about every colorless mana rock ever too), and that alone should be a deal-breaker, but even that seems more logical than anything else.
OR a crackpot theory of mine, that while the new Kozilek and Waste are legit, Mirrorpool is fake! Waste happens to add <> and not 1 just as a reminder on the full art lands, but that is the only place <> appears as mana production and not a cost -- lands, mana rocks, etc will still say "Add 1..." I mean, the first two were actual images, while Mirrorpool is a picture of a screen. Stranger things have happened, why couldn't the first two be legit leaks, and the third one a follow-on fake?
Just want to seize on this. I agree with all of what you're saying, but think the solution is to consider that lands producing 1 in the past was the weird part. In other words, historically, 1 as a cost means "pay this using any color or colorless mana", but "Add 1 to your mana pool" means only colorless mana.
So for costs, by replacing 1 with <>, it specifies that <> can only be paid with colorless, while 1 is still any color or colorless. In order to keep the consistency, the lands that formerly produced 1 will now produce <> to represent colorless mana. The only downside is lots of changes to Oracle text of every land that has ever produced 1 (or 2 or 3) to clarify and/or change them to <>, but the issue there is just convenience and semantics, not something that will create huge rules conflicts everywhere.
With the Commander decks, new cards are rare if they appear in only one deck, uncommon in more than one but not all (it might be a more precise number), and common if they appear in all five decks. So Mirror Match should appear in both blue decks (UR and UG).
To be fair, they were probably expecting the Expeditions and battle lands to do most of the heavy lifting. So at this rate we can expect Shadows over Innistrad to have SDCC-blackout-style Liliana of the Veil, Sorin, and Nahiri in one per every 400 packs or something, and no other reprints or tournament staples.
For some reason you always make things ad hominem instead of just addressing the arguments themselves; it's not enough for you that yours is the correct opinion (itself an invalid concept), but those who disagree with you are not only wrong but also incapable of intelligent thought.
Please explain why Suspend doesn't count as an "exile zone matters" mechanic, because in terms of putting cards in the exile zone where they generally can't be interacted with until they do something that benefits you, it seems to have quite a few parallels with Ingest, and Ingest can actually interact with Suspended cards.
Ingest is plenty original, but it is parasitic. Of the 227 non-land cards in BFZ, a grand total of 11 give you some benefit to having cards in your opponent's exile zone, and another 34 (including 10 Ingest cards) support them by exiling things.
I also know that Magic designers are capable of making original mechanics that are not parasitic: Suspend, Haunt, Evoke, Fateful hour, arguably Delve, etc. There are also plenty of cards in BFZ that are not parasitic but also unoriginal, and some of them have lower-costed options in the same Standard: Planar Outburst, Stasis Snare, just about every Devoid card has a colored analogue, just about every Awaken card has a lower-costed non-Awaken version.