One to three per store, depending on its size. Multiply that by the number of shops that sell MTG, and you get "not enough," or "very few".
Good lord. I almost wish they'd have just cut to the chase and mailed them directly to select individuals as a kind of "You're awesome!" reward. I totally understand doing low print run specials for collector sets like FTV, but I disagree that Commander's Arsenal should be one of them, especially due to the popularity of the previous Commander product. Its a bit of a kick to the groin there.
I remember being here for the transition from MTGNews and the years previous as part of that site. It was sad to see the civil war at the time, and though I haven't looked back on the site very much over the years, it still had an impact and I am sad to see that the time has probably come to let those years rest.
Wow. Words can't express my surprise there. TSG seems like a really cool guy and I've greatly appreciated his role in MagicTV. I never would have suspected he would do something like that, as he seems pretty likable, but I guess that tends to be the case. Very unfortunate. Honestly, its out of character enough (at least from my very limited perspective) that I can only assume he was desperate for some form of deep trouble reason.
That's unfortunate. Its not a lack of interest, which they are interpreting it as, but rather a lack of quality. The recent block novels have more or less been underwhelming.
The really unfortunate part is also a lack of availability. Every time I'm in my local Barnes & Nobles, I look through the section. Every time, I only see two books. Agents of Artifice and the Chandra book, one of which I've already bought. I am specifically looking for Test of Metal after reading the preview for it, which got my hyped up. At this point, I'm under the impression that that book never actually got published, because I haven't seen it in a single brick and mortar store that I've looked in (multiple).
If they hire more writers like the ones that did the Jace and Tez books, or the Time Spiral books, Ice Age trilogy, etc. It seems they didn't want to put much budget into the books though, and were always seeking different writers.
Yeah, I'm tired of checking this site to find out what cool new things have been brought to us and seeing multiple topics beginning with "No more _____" or ending with "____ canceled". They are supposed to have been bringing in record profits from sales and events recently, so its a very confusing message to keep dropping support for things. Top 8 pins, Pre-release Drafting, Player Rewards, no more announced books, etc. The new things they are bringing us to make up for it? Double Faced Cards and Mythics. If the game could include DLC at this point, it would.
I constantly defend their actions but the last few years have really made me question how much I care to support this game. I really do love the Commander products and will probably love the Cube stuff, but its very unfortunate that those are more or less the pinnacle of what they've done for us lately.
People who post on forums seem to a lot from what Ive seen since paying attention to online forums. Its part annoying, part amusing at the same time. But you learn to expect/deal with it quickly enough. (Thankfully most people arent like that, but there are still quite a few that are.)
Reread his post in a different tone. He was agreeing with you.
Seconded. There are no stability issues, or at least its more of a once in a blue moon sort of thing where the game might need to be shut down for an emergency fix, or something. All in all MTGO is stable 99.999% of the time.
That's very good to hear. I haven't had the finances to play regularly for the past three/four expansions, so I shouldn't really comment on current stability. I know for years going into this, however, the server stability was a widely argued topic with "FIX THIS CRAP WIZARDS" being about the only suggestions you'd see on how to do so. Its relieving to hear they've gotten that stuff sorted out, though, because I really hated when you'd have entire drafts fire off but not actually load the draft pool, or crashes happening and whatnot.
Couldnt say what hasbro is doing specifically, but there are an aweful lot of businesses these days that are hoarding cash to help cover things if we go back into a full-fledged recession or worse. Add into that the posibility that taxes could go back up the beginning of the year and that inflation could lead to rising costs of materials, and its simply a measure to make sure that the businesses continue to remain healthy and can react easily to whatever is going to happen. If not for all the uncertainty from every conceivable angle, businesses wouldnt need to worry about hoarding cash and would continue on with more typical business practices of trying to maximize their return on the money they have rather than saving it for a "rainy day".
Exactly. I wouldn't state one way or the other in terms of "this is how it is" but we all have an opinion on "this is what we assume is happening". From the information we have access to, I would say they are displaying signs of weakness if I were to look for someone to invest into. They are showing signs of not only struggling to stay afloat, but actually receding a lot in order to do so. Now, do I believe they are going to crash, go out of business, etc.? I don't currently get that impression, but I do feel if things continue this direction that you wouldn't want to put much faith on them until they actually DO stabilize (after regressing some more), which we'd then expect growth from.
At this current juncture, they aren't growing (from our limited information). As a few have pointed out, they are dropping program after program in the name of resource management, using the claim that they need to free up the resources in order to better promote other Magic related programs. Except we aren't seeing these promotions, we are instead seeing more programs, tournaments, and rewards all cut. We are seeing more special high cost limited edition products and hearing a lot about how they are "at an all time high" right now in terms of health, which from my perspective appears to be talking big to keep stock holders (if they are public, I don't actually know one way or the other) from considering otherwise. Its not what they are saying so much as what they are doing, though.
Sometimes, even to a doctor, a series of sneezes are nothing more than a coincidental series of getting a chill, something brushing past your nose, etc. That headache might be a coincidental soreness from lack of sleep. But sometimes the symptoms come together and the doctor feels you are showing signs of something greater that they need to be on watch for. Would they look at these starting signs and immediately state "We believe you are dying"? No, but they'd say "Hey, this could be completely harmless or this could be bad, let's keep an eye on that." And yeah, sometimes its just a sneeze, and nothing more.
Normally, I am totally against doomsaying to the point of being accused of "fanboi"ism regarding every company and situation, but I just can't help it here. To me, I see a trend with the pushing of more and more FTV (stated to help the stores), the complete drop of independent organizer support in favor of only stores, the push to having Pre-Releases (and possibly other, haven't kept up) only available at local stores, this specific drop of player support given that its a free, no direct profit return resource investment, the new charge for land packs for TOs for the same reason, and just other general aspects of the companies direction as a pretty bad thing. They are honestly seeming like they are regressing a lot back to the 90s sales model of "Depend entirely on the stores to keep us up, all hands on deck, every single person is either sales or marketing, disregard rewarding current players, acquire new players" mode. Honestly, its probably better short term business to shave off every unnecessary cost and penny pinch and someone up there is doing this right. The downside is that you are sacrificing some reliability in the long term due to reduction of PR and just player trust in general - the current players are beginning to feel unwanted and uncared about in favor of "new player incentive packets", we are beginning to feel the "Bobby Kotick/Activision" nickel and dime techniques all around us, and there's now a reduced amount of incentive for those wanting to join the judging/TO staffs (which are already short half the time), which in some situations actually eliminates the ability for some players to even participate in local events. The short term answer is "Those players will need to reinvest in MTGO if they wish to continue playing" which would appear as a good burst win for them due to the reinvestment cost but a decent number would just as likely drop the game entirely or get onto MTGO and encounter the wonderful stability issues and then leave as well.
because us Paper Pushers have something referred to as "The Reserved List" to struggle with when it comes to reprints of any given classic card.
Yep. Sadly, when this was up for discussion, a very, very vocal group made an enormous scene (despite most stating they don't actually play this game anymore nor put further money into it) and even threatened to create a mass lawsuit if the Reserved List was abolished. Thus leaving MTGO as the only source for the older play now.
It sucks, but it is unfortunately something that we, the player base, insisted on (even if the numbers appeared that those for abolishment were the massive majority, WotC apparently got a much larger amount of complaints/threats through e-mail, ultimately leaving them to decide that the better decision for their business would be to "stick to their promise" for the sake of their threatened reputation) and we'll have to see it through, since its been stated that it absolutely will not be up for discussion again in the future. Its one of the few times where a company will (instead of leaving open a possibility with "We do not foresee", "We don't intend", "We have no plans", etc) absolutely put their foot down and say "We promise that we will NEVER".
I'm saying it now. I already suspected the 3/1 Rebel Cat Warrior guy from Future Sight to be reprinted in Scars block (Blade of the Sixth Pride I think its called?) but shied away remembering that it was a rebel. Now we have the Renegade Leader (who I figure is fighting against the Phyrexian invasion) which really sets a scene for rebels to come out and play. Its definitely a consideration for me.
Ran into something interesting on MTGO last night and was wondering if it was a bug, as I can't seem to find anything in the comprehensive rules that answers my question.
I had Cloned an opponents creature. He cast fling and was able to sacrifice my clone as the target for his fling.. Anyone know if this is indeed a bug or know the section of the comprehensive rules that covers this..?
Thanks
I think its worth pointing out that if his creature that you were going to cl0ne was the only creature on the board, then he could have sacrificed the creature for the cost of Fling, throwing it at you, and then your Clone would have come into play as a 0/0 and immediately died from State Based Effects. Which would look almost the same as him just Flinging the Clone itself (only he'd now be down a creature himself).
Absolutely read Arena, and people are mentioning Whispering Woods and Shattered Chains but forgetting the third book of that trilogy, Final Sacrifice, which are all equally good. I still sometimes pull all four of these books from the bookshelf and reread them, because they are hands down my favorite books from the series. I have most of the Harper Prism books, and the rest are still good (though some require some mental adjustment) but outside of those, my favs have been all of the Ice Age trilogy, The Thran (probably the best post revisionist book), Brother's War, Time Streams (prob my second fav behind Thran), and so far, I'm nearly done with and really enjoying Agents of Artifice. Also, the Time Spiral trilogy was very nostalgic and impressive to me.
The opponent can't select you to play zero cards. You're reading the card wrong. All the opponent can do is divide the 5 cards into two groups. You then pick which group you will play. If he took 5 and zero, that would be letting you play all five - not to mention, is probably not a choice as that's not dividing the cards into two groups, that's leaving them in one.
10/1/2008: One of the piles may have zero cards in it if the opponent wishes.
That's in the card popup under rulings. I don't know of it being outdated but its possible, I suppose.
Good lord. I almost wish they'd have just cut to the chase and mailed them directly to select individuals as a kind of "You're awesome!" reward. I totally understand doing low print run specials for collector sets like FTV, but I disagree that Commander's Arsenal should be one of them, especially due to the popularity of the previous Commander product. Its a bit of a kick to the groin there.
The really unfortunate part is also a lack of availability. Every time I'm in my local Barnes & Nobles, I look through the section. Every time, I only see two books. Agents of Artifice and the Chandra book, one of which I've already bought. I am specifically looking for Test of Metal after reading the preview for it, which got my hyped up. At this point, I'm under the impression that that book never actually got published, because I haven't seen it in a single brick and mortar store that I've looked in (multiple).
If they hire more writers like the ones that did the Jace and Tez books, or the Time Spiral books, Ice Age trilogy, etc. It seems they didn't want to put much budget into the books though, and were always seeking different writers.
I constantly defend their actions but the last few years have really made me question how much I care to support this game. I really do love the Commander products and will probably love the Cube stuff, but its very unfortunate that those are more or less the pinnacle of what they've done for us lately.
Reread his post in a different tone. He was agreeing with you.
That's very good to hear. I haven't had the finances to play regularly for the past three/four expansions, so I shouldn't really comment on current stability. I know for years going into this, however, the server stability was a widely argued topic with "FIX THIS CRAP WIZARDS" being about the only suggestions you'd see on how to do so. Its relieving to hear they've gotten that stuff sorted out, though, because I really hated when you'd have entire drafts fire off but not actually load the draft pool, or crashes happening and whatnot.
Exactly. I wouldn't state one way or the other in terms of "this is how it is" but we all have an opinion on "this is what we assume is happening". From the information we have access to, I would say they are displaying signs of weakness if I were to look for someone to invest into. They are showing signs of not only struggling to stay afloat, but actually receding a lot in order to do so. Now, do I believe they are going to crash, go out of business, etc.? I don't currently get that impression, but I do feel if things continue this direction that you wouldn't want to put much faith on them until they actually DO stabilize (after regressing some more), which we'd then expect growth from.
At this current juncture, they aren't growing (from our limited information). As a few have pointed out, they are dropping program after program in the name of resource management, using the claim that they need to free up the resources in order to better promote other Magic related programs. Except we aren't seeing these promotions, we are instead seeing more programs, tournaments, and rewards all cut. We are seeing more special high cost limited edition products and hearing a lot about how they are "at an all time high" right now in terms of health, which from my perspective appears to be talking big to keep stock holders (if they are public, I don't actually know one way or the other) from considering otherwise. Its not what they are saying so much as what they are doing, though.
Sometimes, even to a doctor, a series of sneezes are nothing more than a coincidental series of getting a chill, something brushing past your nose, etc. That headache might be a coincidental soreness from lack of sleep. But sometimes the symptoms come together and the doctor feels you are showing signs of something greater that they need to be on watch for. Would they look at these starting signs and immediately state "We believe you are dying"? No, but they'd say "Hey, this could be completely harmless or this could be bad, let's keep an eye on that." And yeah, sometimes its just a sneeze, and nothing more.
Normally, I am totally against doomsaying to the point of being accused of "fanboi"ism regarding every company and situation, but I just can't help it here. To me, I see a trend with the pushing of more and more FTV (stated to help the stores), the complete drop of independent organizer support in favor of only stores, the push to having Pre-Releases (and possibly other, haven't kept up) only available at local stores, this specific drop of player support given that its a free, no direct profit return resource investment, the new charge for land packs for TOs for the same reason, and just other general aspects of the companies direction as a pretty bad thing. They are honestly seeming like they are regressing a lot back to the 90s sales model of "Depend entirely on the stores to keep us up, all hands on deck, every single person is either sales or marketing, disregard rewarding current players, acquire new players" mode. Honestly, its probably better short term business to shave off every unnecessary cost and penny pinch and someone up there is doing this right. The downside is that you are sacrificing some reliability in the long term due to reduction of PR and just player trust in general - the current players are beginning to feel unwanted and uncared about in favor of "new player incentive packets", we are beginning to feel the "Bobby Kotick/Activision" nickel and dime techniques all around us, and there's now a reduced amount of incentive for those wanting to join the judging/TO staffs (which are already short half the time), which in some situations actually eliminates the ability for some players to even participate in local events. The short term answer is "Those players will need to reinvest in MTGO if they wish to continue playing" which would appear as a good burst win for them due to the reinvestment cost but a decent number would just as likely drop the game entirely or get onto MTGO and encounter the wonderful stability issues and then leave as well.
Yep. Sadly, when this was up for discussion, a very, very vocal group made an enormous scene (despite most stating they don't actually play this game anymore nor put further money into it) and even threatened to create a mass lawsuit if the Reserved List was abolished. Thus leaving MTGO as the only source for the older play now.
It sucks, but it is unfortunately something that we, the player base, insisted on (even if the numbers appeared that those for abolishment were the massive majority, WotC apparently got a much larger amount of complaints/threats through e-mail, ultimately leaving them to decide that the better decision for their business would be to "stick to their promise" for the sake of their threatened reputation) and we'll have to see it through, since its been stated that it absolutely will not be up for discussion again in the future. Its one of the few times where a company will (instead of leaving open a possibility with "We do not foresee", "We don't intend", "We have no plans", etc) absolutely put their foot down and say "We promise that we will NEVER".
I think its worth pointing out that if his creature that you were going to cl0ne was the only creature on the board, then he could have sacrificed the creature for the cost of Fling, throwing it at you, and then your Clone would have come into play as a 0/0 and immediately died from State Based Effects. Which would look almost the same as him just Flinging the Clone itself (only he'd now be down a creature himself).
That's in the card popup under rulings. I don't know of it being outdated but its possible, I suppose.