This is most definitely worth it seeing as the current eBay value of the sealed decks is well over the $100 MSRP. Hell, Jace vs Chandra alone sells for ~$80.
Huh?? does not compute. A playmat the gets given out to two people per store does not equate to some kind of marketing scheme. Stop being an idiot.
I think he meant that they are using to attract people to Game Day, seeing as this would be part of the prize you are going for. And it definitely IS part of a marketing scheme - if you go to your LGS, you are more likely to buy packs. The more players, the higher chance of sealed product sales.
Te lands would still be basic land types as far as fetch lands are concerned, just like how gods are creatures when they're not on the battlefield, regardless of your devotion.
This all begs the question though, why do these need to be fetch-able?
If you need a land cycle with basic land types, you need to find ways to balance it while knowing that it can always tap for those colors of mana. There are a lot of ways of doing this and it will turn out better anyway, so there is no reason to have to resort to awkward mechanics like this.
I don't really see the inelegance of such a design, especially if reminder text is on the card. Is it really that confusing to say that "this can't tap for X" under certain circumstances? I'm not trying to be combative, but maybe I would understand a bit better if an explanation as to why such a solution isn't elegant were provided.
Mutating Dryad 1g
Creature - Dryad
Forestwalk
3ub: Mutating Dryad becomes a 5/3 blue and black horror creature with trample. (This effect does not end at the end of turn.)
2/1
I like the concept of upgrading it, though I think this would still be reasonable if the ability costed 2UB.
Toron the Unseen 1BB
+1: Creatures you control gain deathtouch until the end of the turn.
-2: Destroy target creature.
-5: Toron the Unseen becomes a 5/1 Human Assassin creature that’s still a planeswalker and gains indestructible.
Starting Loyalty: 2
Be sure to add artist credit to the image at the bottom of the card!
As for the wording, I'm not sure whether I like the existing one more or the following:
"If ~ would produce G, if you don't control a basic Plains, it produces 1 instead.
"If ~ would produce W, if you don't control a basic Forest, it produces 1 instead."
I think the wording of "If ~ would produce W, if you don't control a basic Forest, it produces 1 instead." makes a lot of logical sense, but feels syntactically clunky and causes a lot more required reading text, which is probably the same problem the original wording had.
The "You may only tap ~ for W if you control a basic Forest." template feels a lot cleaner and breaks the card nicely into three very readable lines. Perhaps I am being biased, however. I'll have to show both wordings to the people I'm building the cube for to see which they prefer.
PS: Thanks for reminding me about the artist credit! I didn't have it added because I didn't really intended to post this publicly. -_-
This is Nimbus Maze only the templating is a little odd. The activation restrictions on the inherent land abilities are very weird.
I understand that it is functionally similar to Nimbus Maze, but the template is the way it is because of the basic land types. The idea was to have something you can find with a fetchland but that wouldn't encourage people to just play all dual lands.
Perhaps if the wording was broken into two lines, as such?
You may only tap ~ for G if you control a basic plains.
You may only tap ~ for W if you control a basic forest.
I've been designing a set of dual lands for a custom card cube I'm working on. What do you think of these in terms of balance?
Sunwashed Shrine
Land - Forest Plains T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
You may only tap Sunwashed Shrine for G if you control a basic plains and for W if you control a basic forest.
Alright i see. The enchantment change only takes place after it's already on the field. So they can still play permanents as they aren't enchantments til it resolves. Not as broken as I thought it was. Thanks
It is worth noting the grammar used to denote the difference - take, for instance, Painter's Servant. Any card is referred to as 'card' when not on the battlefield or stack, 'spell' when on the stack, and 'permanent' if it is a permanent that remains in play. A card is not considered a permanent unless it is physically on the battlefield, so to speak.
Play with the French banlist if you are going to do 1v1. It is much more balanced, and designed specifically for that purpose. I'd read this thread to read up on the rules differences.
Agreed! I actually wanted to let you know specifically, if your LGS will allow it: I've gotten together with the store owners, and we've been doing a random door prize pool. We do a $5 EDH staple card for each pod(Also tradeable in for one booster if they didn't like the card they "won"), randomly distributed, then one $10-$15 card randomly as well. It's been working really nicely. It keeps players from feeling they have to play the absolute best deck ever, but still gives people an icentive to show up. Just something to consider.
My LGS does leagues somewhat similar to this, but instead of $5 cards, he gives away much better prizes. We do 6 weeks, each week consisting of 3 games of 3-5 man pods. It is free to enter and you can jump in at any time - the prize and point structure is based on creating a fun game environment that brings new players to the store. After the 6 weeks, the points are broken into brackets and the top people get $25-35 staples of their choice, going down from there (Survival, a Fat Pack, Remand, and Sol Ring are some random examples of the higher prizes, with the prizes going down to $5 in value).
My philosophy is that any event with prizes and entry fee is inherently competitive, and that if that isn't what you want you should play outside of said tournament. In the tournament, you shouldn't feel bad about playing what you want to win. It isn't your fault the system is set up to reward competitive decks, and if you want to play fun casual games of EDH you should set something up for that with your LGS.
Looks less impressive than last year's but I like the sleek look. Rather annoying that they only creature one card as opposed to the trio of cards that are new.
I think they just showcase a single card to make the packaging more compact. It still comes with three foil legends.
To make this as clear as possible, you will need to look at the sequential order of the combat phase. Ordinary combat without first strike looks like this:
Enter Combat Step
Declare Attackers Step
Declare Blockers Step
Combat Damage Step
Combat Damage Resolution Step
In the order above, you see that there is only one combat damage step. First strike resolution uses an additional combat damage and resolution step, making combat look like this:
Enter Combat Step
Declare Attackers Step
Declare Blockers Step
First Strike Combat Damage Step
First Strike Combat Damage Resolution Step
Combat Damage Step
Combat Damage Resolution Step
In addition to this, a creature with double strike assigns and deals damage once during the First Strike Combat Damage sequence, and again during the ordinary Combat Damage sequence.
The progression of each step is as follows:
During the enter combat step, each player is given the opportunity to cast instants and activate abilities prior to attackers being declared. After priority is passed by the non-active player with an empty stack, this step ends.
During the declare attack step, the active player declares all creatures he is going to attack with and taps them if required. Then the non-active player is given an opportunity to cast instants or activate abilities. If he passes and the active player also has no effects, the declare block step begins.
During the declare block step, the defending player may assign any number of blocking creatures to a single attacker, but cannot assign a single blocker to many attackers unless an ability specifies otherwise. Each player is again given the opportunity to cast instants and activate abilities.
During the first strike damage assignment step, the attacking player decides which order he is going to deal damage to the defending player's blockers for each of his creatures. Each creature with first strike must assign at least lethal damage before assigning damage to a consecutive blocker. A creature with deathtouch only is required to deal a single damage to be considered lethal.
During the first strike damage resolution step, all creatures with first strike simultaneously deal damage. Any creatures without first or double strike removed from combat or killed before the regular combat step occurs deals no damage.
The regular combat damage and resolution steps occur identically to the first strike damage step, but creatures with first strike do not deal damage a second time unless they have double strike. Creatures that are still on the battlefield and are still part of combat now assign and deal damage.
I think he meant that they are using to attract people to Game Day, seeing as this would be part of the prize you are going for. And it definitely IS part of a marketing scheme - if you go to your LGS, you are more likely to buy packs. The more players, the higher chance of sealed product sales.
Just a requirement for the cube I'm building.
I don't really see the inelegance of such a design, especially if reminder text is on the card. Is it really that confusing to say that "this can't tap for X" under certain circumstances? I'm not trying to be combative, but maybe I would understand a bit better if an explanation as to why such a solution isn't elegant were provided.
That wouldn't work if I still wanted the lands to be able to be targeted by fetchlands.
I like the concept of upgrading it, though I think this would still be reasonable if the ability costed 2UB.
Toron the Unseen 1BB
+1: Creatures you control gain deathtouch until the end of the turn.
-2: Destroy target creature.
-5: Toron the Unseen becomes a 5/1 Human Assassin creature that’s still a planeswalker and gains indestructible.
Starting Loyalty: 2
Image:
I think the wording of "If ~ would produce W, if you don't control a basic Forest, it produces 1 instead." makes a lot of logical sense, but feels syntactically clunky and causes a lot more required reading text, which is probably the same problem the original wording had.
The "You may only tap ~ for W if you control a basic Forest." template feels a lot cleaner and breaks the card nicely into three very readable lines. Perhaps I am being biased, however. I'll have to show both wordings to the people I'm building the cube for to see which they prefer.
PS: Thanks for reminding me about the artist credit! I didn't have it added because I didn't really intended to post this publicly. -_-
I understand that it is functionally similar to Nimbus Maze, but the template is the way it is because of the basic land types. The idea was to have something you can find with a fetchland but that wouldn't encourage people to just play all dual lands.
Perhaps if the wording was broken into two lines, as such?
You may only tap ~ for G if you control a basic plains.
You may only tap ~ for W if you control a basic forest.
Sunwashed Shrine
Land - Forest Plains
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
You may only tap Sunwashed Shrine for G if you control a basic plains and for W if you control a basic forest.
It is worth noting the grammar used to denote the difference - take, for instance, Painter's Servant. Any card is referred to as 'card' when not on the battlefield or stack, 'spell' when on the stack, and 'permanent' if it is a permanent that remains in play. A card is not considered a permanent unless it is physically on the battlefield, so to speak.
My LGS does leagues somewhat similar to this, but instead of $5 cards, he gives away much better prizes. We do 6 weeks, each week consisting of 3 games of 3-5 man pods. It is free to enter and you can jump in at any time - the prize and point structure is based on creating a fun game environment that brings new players to the store. After the 6 weeks, the points are broken into brackets and the top people get $25-35 staples of their choice, going down from there (Survival, a Fat Pack, Remand, and Sol Ring are some random examples of the higher prizes, with the prizes going down to $5 in value).
My philosophy is that any event with prizes and entry fee is inherently competitive, and that if that isn't what you want you should play outside of said tournament. In the tournament, you shouldn't feel bad about playing what you want to win. It isn't your fault the system is set up to reward competitive decks, and if you want to play fun casual games of EDH you should set something up for that with your LGS.
I think they just showcase a single card to make the packaging more compact. It still comes with three foil legends.
In the order above, you see that there is only one combat damage step. First strike resolution uses an additional combat damage and resolution step, making combat look like this:
In addition to this, a creature with double strike assigns and deals damage once during the First Strike Combat Damage sequence, and again during the ordinary Combat Damage sequence.
The progression of each step is as follows:
This page also has additional, more in-depth information: http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Combat_phase