Not to be a jerk, but the "strictly better" term isn't fundamentally flawed...some cards really are better than some other cards in any situation. Example: Ashcoat Bear is strictly better than Grizzly Bears. If you can think of a situation in which you'd rather use Grizzly Bears over Ashcoat Bear, you get a cookie.
Granted, the term is used rather liberally at times, but that doesn't make it flawed; it just means people need to think before they apply it, as has been pointed out in this thread.
A lot of cards, I agree is good , but have you heard the expression "Too much of a good thing is a bad thing". I believe that is the case here. With so many cards, it's so hard to know what to expect a tournament. What deck is the best is completely out in the open.
Could you please clarify this? It sounds like you'd prefer an environment thats dominated by a particular archetype to one in which many different styles of decks have a chance at winning. If that's the case, so be it; just seems to be an odd sentiment from someone who enjoys chess.
I really don't have much to add outside of whats already been said. I'd agree with the argument of losing a new common to an old rare if I planned on buying 4 or 5 packs; however, if I planned on buying enough of this set to try to be competitive, I'd much rather see any purple rather than my 20th Looter il-dal. Granted, one could argue that "enough to be competitive" just became more difficult, but it's a trade-off I don't mind making.
I love the nostalgia feel, and since that particular opinion is one that can't be argued into submission, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Time Spiral is going to change things, that much is certain. Whether one fears or embraces that change is up to the individual.
As there are 1 of them per Booster, they are in Fact about as rare as the rares *g* Even a bit rarer than the rares, as there are less rares in TS then Purples
Quoted for truth man. Just because it takes up the same slot as a common card doesn't make it common. One could argue that a booster pack comes standard with 15 common cards and the three uncommmons and the rare merely take up four common slots.
And, man, these particular batch of bonus cards are fantastic. I don't care if nor want the bonus cards to be bombtastic...I just want them to be "cool". These five are all cool in my book. ('specially Madam Angel :-D)
I guess I'm just skeptical, you're right about the number, I didn't look that one up. But I have a hard time believing something anyone says just because "they say it's true." It would be interesting to see old faces, but I don't think Wizards is going to do something that drastic "just because it looks cool." I don't think I stated my point clear enough in my last post; nostalgia or coolness isn't enough to print two different faces. The new set may be weird, but I'm not going to be convinced they're real until I open packs on Sept. 22nd. Those photos are uber-grainy; they smack of forgery.
My friend, if a WotC sanctioned image of an old bordered, purple-iconed Akroma complete with */121 collector's number released during an Adult Swim bump isn't enough evidence for you, then I don't know what will be. At this point, I'm not entirely sure you'll be convinced when you're holding the actual cards in your hands; remember, your dealer could insert his own forgeries into the packs the night before they go on sale with you being none the wiser.
Skepticism was for when there was the "422 set size" recall, or when we first got the image of the purple icon before the Wrath of WotC was unleashed. I can understand being skeptical six, four, three weeks ago. Now you're just sounding silly.
Good points both of you. To be fair and counter(spell), if it was from a deck box then do you really think the seller would want to keep the land if they're willing to give away the rest of these cards?
Taking the frame-of-mind of the typical Ebay seller who wants to SELL stuff on Ebay: If I have foils, I'm really going to want to sell them because they will likely reach a high demand value simply b/c of the "ohh shiny" factor and the "premium cards from a set not out yet!" factor.
And one thing that keeps annoying me, those of you who are saying "BUT EVERYTHING CHECKS OUT IN THE ORB!!!"- imagine you're creating a fake card. You have this nice little program provided by WOTC's site that is called the Orb, and in there you can find words to put on your cards that will make them much more believable. Any smart faker who has passed high school will be smart enough to check their fakes in the Orb and replace any words that don't fit til they get a nice match. Its simple trial and error process. Using this as an argument is moot.
Having said all that, I'm still leaning towards the cards being real. But I can't simply let myself "overlook" certain tidbits that seem out of place, don't you feel the same way?
Not at all. Your argument might have merit if this supposed auctioneer had posted his cards on Salvation; however, there's no evidence to prove that he even knew this site existed when he put his auction up on eBay. It's an awfully contrived way to fool this community to put an auction containing fake cards up on site thats already filled to the gills with Time Spiral preorders. What would make such a person sure that his incredibly time-consuming and well-crafted fakes would even be noticed?
And the emphasis is on fakes. Sure, fine, if I wanted to create a fake card I'd limit myself to only vocabulary defined in the Orb of Insight (not exactly an easy endeavour), but a dozen cards? Cards that need fake art, templating, the works? I'm not even sure a hoax of that magnitude has even been attempted on this site. What's more, the auctioneer provided high-quality scans when asked. Note that he didn't come here and post them himself; no, he gave them to a prospective buyer.
Also, if you want to sell stuff on eBay, what does every prospective buyer check when they consider buying your merchandise? Your rating...something that, if you want to continue to sell stuff on eBay, you don't want to jeopardize. This topic has been discussed to death, so thats all I'm going to say on it.
You're arguing that its difficult to make a fake foil, yet you seem to have no problem believing that 20+ cards were dreamt up, created, cross-checked, and posted on an entirely unrelated website in the hopes of fooling someone. I just don't understand it. Hopefully MaRo's article (due in just a few short hours!) will clarify this issue once and for all.
I only skimmed half of this forum so I might be repeating something here, but I feel inclined to point out that no foil card scans were provided (unless I missed them?),
And that fact alone goes far in supporting those who are still arguing that the cards are fakes; it would be very hard to make a fake foil, and it looks like these cards were popped from boosters, and with that many cards it is almost garunteed there will be at least one foil. Assuming the cards are fakes, we of course would see no foil cards. So I find that odd, don't you?
Now they look *very* believeable, but then again we haven't had any really great fake attempts for a while from misetings or whoever goes out of their way to trick us, so the time is indeed "ripe"...
It's also conceivable that the cards were popped from a starter deck, or that if these are boosters that there just weren't any foils. 71 cards is five boosters. Your argument is that since a foil card wasn't revealed in five boosters worth of cards (and we don't even have the rare count to believe that), and you're saying that this "evidence" goes far in supporting those STILL arguing for fakes? I'm not even sure there are straws left to grasp at this late in the game.
What's more, not only do they "look very believable" but every single word on the non-purple cards is accounted for in the Orb of Insight. We have other sources (i.e. magazines) to collaborate some of the other cards (Coral Trickster, for one). We have every single moderator on this site saying unequivocally that these are the real deal. How much more do you want?
Question: This block is about time and planes mixing together right? Well where is the kamigawa and ravnica time and planes? Give us the sweet characters from ravnica and kamigawa that did not see print in thier respective blocks. This has been bugging me for a while and if anyone has an answer it would be great.
It's theorized that Ravnica, Kamigawa, and Mirrodin will be brought together in Planar Chaos, the set due out in Winter 2007
To those who still want to keep their heads in the sand, lets look at some things that we know to be true:
1) WotC is "mining" nostalgia in order to sell this block. Seems a pretty safe move, heck, who wouldn't want to relive their happy memories? So, how do to they go about doing this? Bringing back old mechanics, bringing back old characters, and bringing back old artists (how long has it been since anyone's seen Richard-Kane Ferguson?).
2) MaRo among many others have stated that things in this block will be done that will knock our socks off, things that we'd think they'd never do ever.
3) The secrecy surrounding this block, from waaaay back with R_E's playtest cards to the near-instantaneous crackdown on the purple set icon. If, in fact, there is a whole "set-within-a-set" of cards here (something thats never been done) which consists entirely of reprints (mining nostalgia), they'd do everything in their power in order to keep us from finding out about it. This would include keeping words that are in the reprints from the Time Spiral orb. And, actually, if these cards are considered to be "outside" of Time Spiral, there's no reason they'd be in the orb anyway.
So lets think about it. Rather than just sit there at home in front of your computer muttering to yourself "those darned fakers aren't gonna get me this time, no way, uh-huh" and offering every emotional-driven argument under the sun to "prove" that these reprints are fake, how about we use our heads?
It's even within the flavor of the set to keep the old frames: the barrier that separates "now" time from "then" time is shot. You, as a 'walker, are able to not only pull characters from previous times, but THE VERY SPELLS THEMSELVES. Spells that were lost to the ages can now be "borrowed" for use in your duel. Thus, the old frames, old art, old everything...these spells have their own native time, and it most certainly isn't one hundred years after Karona came by and said hullo. Personally, I think it's very flavorful, and love WotC for doing it.
So come on. If our mods, who have considerable experience in debunking stuff just like this, sign off on it, we can.
Granted, the term is used rather liberally at times, but that doesn't make it flawed; it just means people need to think before they apply it, as has been pointed out in this thread.
Could you please clarify this? It sounds like you'd prefer an environment thats dominated by a particular archetype to one in which many different styles of decks have a chance at winning. If that's the case, so be it; just seems to be an odd sentiment from someone who enjoys chess.
I really don't have much to add outside of whats already been said. I'd agree with the argument of losing a new common to an old rare if I planned on buying 4 or 5 packs; however, if I planned on buying enough of this set to try to be competitive, I'd much rather see any purple rather than my 20th Looter il-dal. Granted, one could argue that "enough to be competitive" just became more difficult, but it's a trade-off I don't mind making.
I love the nostalgia feel, and since that particular opinion is one that can't be argued into submission, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Time Spiral is going to change things, that much is certain. Whether one fears or embraces that change is up to the individual.
Quoted for truth man. Just because it takes up the same slot as a common card doesn't make it common. One could argue that a booster pack comes standard with 15 common cards and the three uncommmons and the rare merely take up four common slots.
And, man, these particular batch of bonus cards are fantastic. I don't care if nor want the bonus cards to be bombtastic...I just want them to be "cool". These five are all cool in my book. ('specially Madam Angel :-D)
My friend, if a WotC sanctioned image of an old bordered, purple-iconed Akroma complete with */121 collector's number released during an Adult Swim bump isn't enough evidence for you, then I don't know what will be. At this point, I'm not entirely sure you'll be convinced when you're holding the actual cards in your hands; remember, your dealer could insert his own forgeries into the packs the night before they go on sale with you being none the wiser.
Skepticism was for when there was the "422 set size" recall, or when we first got the image of the purple icon before the Wrath of WotC was unleashed. I can understand being skeptical six, four, three weeks ago. Now you're just sounding silly.
Not at all. Your argument might have merit if this supposed auctioneer had posted his cards on Salvation; however, there's no evidence to prove that he even knew this site existed when he put his auction up on eBay. It's an awfully contrived way to fool this community to put an auction containing fake cards up on site thats already filled to the gills with Time Spiral preorders. What would make such a person sure that his incredibly time-consuming and well-crafted fakes would even be noticed?
And the emphasis is on fakes. Sure, fine, if I wanted to create a fake card I'd limit myself to only vocabulary defined in the Orb of Insight (not exactly an easy endeavour), but a dozen cards? Cards that need fake art, templating, the works? I'm not even sure a hoax of that magnitude has even been attempted on this site. What's more, the auctioneer provided high-quality scans when asked. Note that he didn't come here and post them himself; no, he gave them to a prospective buyer.
Also, if you want to sell stuff on eBay, what does every prospective buyer check when they consider buying your merchandise? Your rating...something that, if you want to continue to sell stuff on eBay, you don't want to jeopardize. This topic has been discussed to death, so thats all I'm going to say on it.
You're arguing that its difficult to make a fake foil, yet you seem to have no problem believing that 20+ cards were dreamt up, created, cross-checked, and posted on an entirely unrelated website in the hopes of fooling someone. I just don't understand it. Hopefully MaRo's article (due in just a few short hours!) will clarify this issue once and for all.
It's also conceivable that the cards were popped from a starter deck, or that if these are boosters that there just weren't any foils. 71 cards is five boosters. Your argument is that since a foil card wasn't revealed in five boosters worth of cards (and we don't even have the rare count to believe that), and you're saying that this "evidence" goes far in supporting those STILL arguing for fakes? I'm not even sure there are straws left to grasp at this late in the game.
What's more, not only do they "look very believable" but every single word on the non-purple cards is accounted for in the Orb of Insight. We have other sources (i.e. magazines) to collaborate some of the other cards (Coral Trickster, for one). We have every single moderator on this site saying unequivocally that these are the real deal. How much more do you want?
It's theorized that Ravnica, Kamigawa, and Mirrodin will be brought together in Planar Chaos, the set due out in Winter 2007
1) WotC is "mining" nostalgia in order to sell this block. Seems a pretty safe move, heck, who wouldn't want to relive their happy memories? So, how do to they go about doing this? Bringing back old mechanics, bringing back old characters, and bringing back old artists (how long has it been since anyone's seen Richard-Kane Ferguson?).
2) MaRo among many others have stated that things in this block will be done that will knock our socks off, things that we'd think they'd never do ever.
3) The secrecy surrounding this block, from waaaay back with R_E's playtest cards to the near-instantaneous crackdown on the purple set icon. If, in fact, there is a whole "set-within-a-set" of cards here (something thats never been done) which consists entirely of reprints (mining nostalgia), they'd do everything in their power in order to keep us from finding out about it. This would include keeping words that are in the reprints from the Time Spiral orb. And, actually, if these cards are considered to be "outside" of Time Spiral, there's no reason they'd be in the orb anyway.
So lets think about it. Rather than just sit there at home in front of your computer muttering to yourself "those darned fakers aren't gonna get me this time, no way, uh-huh" and offering every emotional-driven argument under the sun to "prove" that these reprints are fake, how about we use our heads?
It's even within the flavor of the set to keep the old frames: the barrier that separates "now" time from "then" time is shot. You, as a 'walker, are able to not only pull characters from previous times, but THE VERY SPELLS THEMSELVES. Spells that were lost to the ages can now be "borrowed" for use in your duel. Thus, the old frames, old art, old everything...these spells have their own native time, and it most certainly isn't one hundred years after Karona came by and said hullo. Personally, I think it's very flavorful, and love WotC for doing it.
So come on. If our mods, who have considerable experience in debunking stuff just like this, sign off on it, we can.
The thought of a text box being completely overrun by hoardes of "Soulshift X" makes me smile. Go Betrayers!