MTG Salvation

I got a notice today from CoolstuffInc that Commander 2020 is limited/delayed and so my pre-order won't go out on the 15th. I don't know how far this is and haven't seen anything from WotC on the subject (recently), though the email indicates that WotC announced this delay.

Wizards of the Coast has announced that there have been delays in the manufacturing and delivery of these items, resulting in a massive reduction in our allocation of product.

I'm checking with my local FLGS who just re-opened online ordering, so I'll probably swap over to them. The only reason I went with CSI was price and the fact that they were taking orders when the FLGS was not.

I wonder if pre-orders of Unstable will include all the variant cards? (i.e. all 6 versions of Very Cryptic Command)

I suppose I ordered without knowing that they existed, but it would be cool if they were included.

Quote from JohnnyDegenerate »

Quote from mapccu »

For what's it's worth my local Walmart and Target have both had clear plastic hard case "grab bags" with extra in inventory they couldn't move that included heavily printed boosters and prior commander products. I saw this a bunch with the 2014-2015 decks, but it's declined. Small sample size but I don't see these as often as I use to. It was a good buy and I was picked up 1-2 just to get some good cards here and there.

Maybe the retailers just had too much product on hand after the rush and they leveled off printing accordingly?

Be careful with those repacks. I bought one recently for the hell of it, and the "deck" was actually a land pack. Caveat emptor.

I once got one of the repacks with a land pack in it. I called the company that produces the pack (I believe contact info was on the package somewhere, or I found it here, this was years ago), and they sent me another deck to make up for the land pack. It was a crappy one, as they typically are, and I can't complain because I once got the Divine and Demonic decks in a single repack.

They didn't ask for any proof when I called.

With respect to Commander, is she Naya or Boros? Based on the MTGCommander color identity description, only mana symbols count towards color identity. However the comprehensive rules also mention characteristic-defining abilities, and I just wasn't sure if the mere mention of a color in the text applies to the color identity.

I would say from a flavor perspective she is Naya.

Just not sure how she's defined by the rules.

Thanks.

I chose not to buy all of the planeswalker decks and regretted it ever since. Now I buy every deck when it comes out. I was disappointed in all but the dragon deck when I only knew the new cards. Even seeing the decklists didn't really change anything for me. But then I watched the Game Knights video and all four decks seem to be relatively on-par with each other.

https://youtu.be/n2vla4I0jCc

At first glance I see the issues that people have with the dragon mana-base, but bear in mind that the 36 land count in the deck list doesn't account for Path of Ancestry, and also consider that there are a ton of ramp cards and mana rocks in the deck. It's way more than I'd ever put in a deck.


After seeing the video I'm not that concerned, and the dragon deck is definitely my favorite.

Or I could go to the Target in Kent, WA and grab however many fat packs I want. I grabbed a couple, but there were a bunch still there. Have at it!

So far in my area, I have been to the local Target and Wal-Marts. Target has their BFZ with no fat packs in stock. Neither Wal-Mart has any stock of BFZ at all. Of the three FLGS I've been to, only Mox Boarding House (Card Kingdom sister-store) had any fat packs in stock, and they were charging $60. I will not pay inflated prices, so I go on the hunt to the big box stores. The stores I hit so far are all in Federal Way, WA. I'll hit some more that are further out tomorrow.

Quote from bLatch

Quote from hjerk

I will probably do what I did with MMA last year, which is scoop up 4 of each common, 2 of each uncommon and 1 of each rare/mythic to create a Cube. For MMA, this left me with a Cube just shy of 600 cards. For Conspiracy I crunched some numbers and it looked like the Cube would end up being just north of 500 cards. My playgroup has had a very postivie experience running the MMA Cube and I suspect this time around resources will be pooled for a Conspiracy Cube. The one real downside versus a regular Cube is that it takes a lot more time to create booster packs when you have to count out 24 piles of 10 commons, 24 piles of 3 uncommons and 24 rares/mythics to create the packs.

How much did that end up running you? I'm sure it would be less this time around (since no goyf/bob), but thta seems like an interesting idea. 4X common, 2X uncommon, 1X rare would be an intersting way to do it. Depending on how they "balance" the packs for this I could see doing a 2X everything cube. I only every play with a group of 45 players, so that would be sufficient cards for all the players I think.

This is an awesome idea. I don't know why I didn't think about this myself, but you could do this for every set as it comes out. I have a Commander Cube myself, started with 1 of each card in all ten Commander precon decks (removing duplicates of course), end added cards until I ended up with 800 cards. We draft six 15-card packs per player and build 60 card Commander decks. It's been a lot of fun so far! The opportunity to draft more and more using cubes is awesome, and building cubes out of each set seems like it would be a lot of fun, though sleeves for all those cards cost a fortune!

Quote from Powdered Blackblade

Anyone who doesn't instantly love this promo and desire the complete set is either lying or just escaped from a padded cell. I don't even like Garruk and I think it's gorgeous.

The "I think" is the key statement here. I think that it looks pretty cool. I want to get a set. I don't think it is amazing or anything, and unless I can get them at SDCC for whatever Wizards is selling them for, I do not see myself buying them from the collector's market.

In the end whether someone likes or dislikes... anything, is a matter of personal opinion. Calling someone a liar or insane based on a statement of opinion is pretty silly.

Quote from sonofstev

Now trying to call in favors to have someone pick me up a set of those at the SDCC Hasbro booth. They will be HOT.

That's exactly what I am doing. My sister-in-law is going and I sent her the link to the article the second that I saw it saying "I need a set of these!"

It is going to sell out incredibly fast, so I am not getting my hopes up, but it would be sweet to have these.

I can confirm that Wal-Mart dictates to it's suppliers, not the other way around. "You won't give me the price I want? Well, then come get your stuff out of my store, I don't need it." My wife works for a big company and this happens all the time. In fact, many times they will buy the product at $x/unit and when the product expires the company has to buy the product back at $y price... where $y is greater than $x... meaning the company lost money and Wal-Mart made money, even though they didn't sell the product!

Sadly my best moment was when I got a bye for the last round and got one pack for it.

My guild pack (Izzet) had all junk rares, but my friend got the Golgari pack and got a Vraska, Angel of Serenity, and a foil Hallowed Fountain! We found out that of the three people playing Golgari at our event, all three of them pulled Vraska!

Quote from Wildfire393

This does not actually work.

When Sharuum enters the battlefield, you have to put her ability on the stack (and the Aether's ability). This means you have to choose a target for it. THEN you sacrifice her, THEN you return the targeted thing to play.
The only reason Sculpting Steel works is because, whenever something happens, this is the order of events:
1) Check state-based effects (like lethal damage, legend rule, etc)
2) Stack triggers that trigger from that event (and from state-based effects)
3) active player gets priority.

So before you stack the trigger and choose your target, both Sharuum and the Steel are put into the yard due to SBE - legend rule. Then you stack the trigger, targeting Sharuum, then you resolve the trigger, returning her to play (returning the Steel, etc etc)

Oh well... not part of the combo then, but still a good control card in a creature-less deck. I might take it out for something else though since this doesn't work.

Quote from TheRealTibbs

I searched the 3 walmarts in my area, found nothing. Searched a target, found nothing, then finally today i went to the other target in my area and found the Counterpunch, Mirror mastery, and political puppets, along with a msomething flameblast dragon deck in a box for 30$. I was just beginning to think my area was barren of these.

There should be a sticker identifying the company that re-packaged and distributed these. Call them and say that you got land, not a deck, when the box clearly states that it has 4 decks in it. I did this with one of the ones that had 2 decks in it a year or so ago. I got one deck and a land pack, called and as soon as I said that they asked for my address. A deck showed up in my mailbox a few days later... not a good deck, but better than a land pack. They didn't ask for any confirmation.

Wizards would be stupid to keep product out of the stores. The demand is already there. My guess it was just an error. I could be wrong of course.

As for just turning on the machines and printing more... It doesn't really work like that. WotC doesn't actually print their own product. Even if they own the company that does, they don't just print Magic. Also that company is not in the US. Based on my very limited knowledge of how this system works, it probably takes somewhere between 4-6 weeks before we see a 2nd print run. If they really fast-track it, then maybe as little as 2 weeks, but I doubt it. The shipping is by boat unless they fork out some major cash to send it by air. Shipping by boat across an ocean takes a couple weeks I'm sure, then another week to get the stuff properly distributed across the country.