The danger of many of the previous cards allowing you to sacrifice creatures to reanimate others was that this was used as a drawback, making the card cost less mana. As it turns out, having an inexpensive spell like this can set the scene for powerful reanimator decks, despite any drawbacks the card may have. Champion of Stray Souls dodges this issue by simply going bigger. It costs more mana than its predecessors, but also has a significantly larger effect. This makes it less appealing for Standard and Modern, but significantly more appealing for Commander and other casual formats.
Why make it mythic if they know it's unplayable?
Fair enough have filler, whatever. You can't have 150 good cards in every set but it seems to me like they are intentionally printing bad mythic rares which increases the value of the good ones.
First they show you all the crap cards you'll get if you do the right thing and purchase some sealed product then they expect you to go and take your chances.
I know most of the time I feel cheated when I buy loose boosters. Perhaps I'm not that lucky but whenever I crack a mythic and it's worth less than the price of the pack I feel a bit cheated. The chances of cracking a mythic are so low that you deserve to get an instant reward with a $10-$20 card.
Perhaps this is an unpopular opinon. Perhaps there are other threads about this sort of thing. Go easy on me, I just needed to rant and let it all out.
1/8 isn't that low... If they were $15 on average, then it would mean that the mythic rares alone take up 50% of all card values in the set.
That's BAD. A couple cards soaking up all the value leaves no room for other interesting stuff. That's exactly what encourages them to make horrible sets like Dragon's Maze, with 2 useful cards or whatever, and just barrels of fluff.
Any rarity schedule at all leads to a greater amount of jank and wasted cardboard and proverbial god-smitten kittens.
And the more extreme you make the rarity schedule (more heavily value weighted on the rare end / inequal distributions of goodness, like you are asking), the worse that gets.
In terms of creative satisfying product,
mythics being even splashier < status quo < mythic not existing at all < rares not existing < no rarity existing
(except for limited, which could always just have their own side product with "rarities" whatever, that's a minor side topic)
They seem to be packing quite a bit of value into the uncommon/rare slots for this set. I imagine that will actually sell more boxes as the chance of getting a valuable uncommon/rare is far better than the chance of getting a valuable mythic.
I'd rather have cool edh mythics than clearly made for constructed mythics like Master of Waves or Voice. I think deathrite shaman is a good example of a very powerful card that was totally fine and retained value at rare because it wasn't some crazy splashy card. Like is a merfolk that makes water horses mythic? No and it would still be roughly 5-7 dollars at rare, if not more.
And here are the relevant quotes from the article:
"This now leads us to the next question: How are cards split between rare and mythic rare? Or more to the point, what kind of cards are going to become mythic rares? We want the flavor of mythic rare to be something that feels very special and unique. Generally speaking we expect that to mean cards like Planeswalkers, most legends, and epic-feeling creatures and spells. They will not just be a list of each set's most powerful tournament-level cards.
We've also decided that there are certain things we specifically do not want to be mythic rares. The largest category is utility cards, what I'll define as cards that fill a universal function. Some examples of this category would be cycles of dual lands and cards like Mutavault or Char. That also addresses a long-standing issue that some players have had with certain rares like dual lands. Because we're making fewer cards per set, in the new world individual rares will be easier to acquire because each rare in a large set now appears 25% more often."
The above quotes and article linking aside... It should be noted that 50% or greater of the magic customer base is casual players, so creating cards at a variety of rarities (including mythics) for such players makes perfect sense. Every set has some mythics and other cards that are more built towards the casual crowd than to the tournament magic crowd. Just as it makes sense that some mythics will be tournament playable. The quoted paragraphs above make it fairly clear what they didn't want to be mythic and what sorts of utility cards were under that category that shouldn't be. Any other interpretations are simply created generally from others who have differing beliefs over what mythics should and should not be.
This is what a mythic should be. Big, splashy, and fringe playable in constructed. I like my powerful utility cards at rare and uncommon, thank you very much. The only mythics that should see a ton of standard play by design are planeswalkers IMO, because I understand why they have to be mythic.
Honestly, I dont have any problem with the rarity issue, the only part of the article I found funny was:
"The danger of many of the previous cards allowing you to sacrifice creatures to reanimate others was that this was used as a drawback, making the card cost less mana. As it turns out, having an inexpensive spell like this can set the scene for powerful reanimator decks, despite any drawbacks the card may have."
Heaven forbid! A playable reanimator deck? We cant have that!!!
Every card is printed for every format and that means that not every card is made for every format. That being said the janky mythic rare is auctually better off as a mythic as you are less likely to get them out of a pack. Also the few playable mythics in the set are just as unlikely to be pulled so there is some balance to it. Something like Hellkite Tyrant is pretty bad as not every deck you play against is artifact based but it is still a 6/6 flyer with trample and maybe you can steal a couple things while your at it which makes it amazing in limited.
The Janky Skeleton is all in all terrible but evey set has something like this and who knows maybe someone will find a use for it. m14 has a mono black sacrfice archtype in it so maybe someone will build it for a fmn with support from thoughtsieze and duress
I know most of the time I feel cheated when I buy loose boosters. Perhaps I'm not that lucky but whenever I crack a mythic and it's worth less than the price of the pack I feel a bit cheated. The chances of cracking a mythic are so low that you deserve to get an instant reward with a $10-$20 card.
You seem like the guy who opens a thoughtseize and thinks to himself, "aww, what a waste, there's no mythic in this pack"
I have the opposite sentiment.
I feel cheated when I buy loose boosters and open a bunch of commons and un-commons that aren't worth putting in a constructed deck. When you put all the "play" in mythics and rares, than the price of those playable cards is higher.
Actually, currently there are no mythics in the top 10 of most played cards in standard. There are 8 mythics in the top 50, so 16% of the top 50 is mythic. There are now 70 standard mythics, so 11% of the mythics appears in the top 50. The mythic playability is actually lower than I thought (although Modern's top 50 contains only 5 mythics even when counting Tarmogoyf, Cryptic Command and Dark Confidant as mythic).
they print voice of resurgence, people complain that mythic cards should be so competitive because they are too expensive
they print Champion of Stray Souls, people complain that mythic aren't competitive enough. dafuq?
i'd like to remember you all that mythic started as big, non-competitive cards like godsire in Alara. it was in Zendikar that they have the brilliant to make mythics tournament staples to make more money and sell a lot even meh sets like worldwake
Your first two points are spot on, and an example of the ridiculousness of the Magic community. We attract a lot of irrationally whiny people. I have a feeling it's mostly kids, but who knows.
But your second point is not correct. The shards Mythics contained Elspteh 1, Ajani Vengeant, and Tezzeret 1, cards that were clearly going to be tournament staples (as well as Sarkhan Vol which was probably designed to be a tournament staple but didn't end up being one).
Mythics were introduced solely to sell more packs without increasing set size. They also were never intended to all be good, because they didn' tneed to all be good to sell packs.
And here are the relevant quotes from the article:
"This now leads us to the next question: How are cards split between rare and mythic rare? Or more to the point, what kind of cards are going to become mythic rares? We want the flavor of mythic rare to be something that feels very special and unique. Generally speaking we expect that to mean cards like Planeswalkers, most legends, and epic-feeling creatures and spells. They will not just be a list of each set's most powerful tournament-level cards.
We've also decided that there are certain things we specifically do not want to be mythic rares. The largest category is utility cards, what I'll define as cards that fill a universal function. Some examples of this category would be cycles of dual lands and cards like Mutavault or Char. That also addresses a long-standing issue that some players have had with certain rares like dual lands. Because we're making fewer cards per set, in the new world individual rares will be easier to acquire because each rare in a large set now appears 25% more often."
The above quotes and article linking aside... It should be noted that 50% or greater of the magic customer base is casual players, so creating cards at a variety of rarities (including mythics) for such players makes perfect sense. Every set has some mythics and other cards that are more built towards the casual crowd than to the tournament magic crowd. Just as it makes sense that some mythics will be tournament playable. The quoted paragraphs above make it fairly clear what they didn't want to be mythic and what sorts of utility cards were under that category that shouldn't be. Any other interpretations are simply created generally from others who have differing beliefs over what mythics should and should not be.
Honestly, I dont have any problem with the rarity issue, the only part of the article I found funny was:
"The danger of many of the previous cards allowing you to sacrifice creatures to reanimate others was that this was used as a drawback, making the card cost less mana. As it turns out, having an inexpensive spell like this can set the scene for powerful reanimator decks, despite any drawbacks the card may have."
Heaven forbid! A playable reanimator deck? We cant have that!!!
I found it half funny and half saddening. Reanimator is one of the single funnest archetypes, and yet they've labeled it combo of a nature, so by extension it can't be good. That, or people are STILL butthurt about standard fRites being played to great success.
For what it's worth, the opposite of evergreen is "deciduous" so I suggest we start using that from now on to refer to shroud, banding, islandhome, etc.
But your second point is not correct. The shards Mythics contained Elspteh 1, Ajani Vengeant, and Tezzeret 1, cards that were clearly going to be tournament staples (as well as Sarkhan Vol which was probably designed to be a tournament staple but didn't end up being one).
Actually, his second point is correct. Planeswalkers were deemed mythic-only because they were unique effects, but the other (non-pw) mythics in Shards of Alara?
Most of those are just splashy, but not really tournament viable.
Just go through the mythics by set for the first few sets and see how many of them fit "t1 tournament staples" as opposed to "unique/splashy/epic effects".
Did you whine about Unburial Rites being overcosted too?
Is this comment supposed to seriously suggest that an 11 mana investment + summoning sickness + sacing a creature just to reanimate something is a playable effect?
Youre comparing that to 4cmc flashback. Seriously.
At the point that you could actually use this, you might as well cast whatever fatty you want from your hand. The ability to get more than one creature at a time by sacing more creatures is just win-more.
How is this fair to the people that purchase cards to play competitive magic with?
Buying singles is, on average, more efficient for acquiring cards for competitive magic. So for those that purchase singles it is actually quite a boon.
If you don't like it, don't buy boosters and boxes? You don't deserve a thing other than a few dollars worth of cardboard.
Do you want a deck full of mythics to be required for a competative deck rather than the handful needed now? Are you aware of the consequences of how much decks would then cost?
My argument is that buying packs isn't worth it. If all mythics are of high value suddenly opening packs becomes more viable.
If I want to build a competitive deck I'm best buying singles because I'm just not getting trade value by buying packs which actually sets me back and makes it harder to build a good deck.
Actually, his second point is correct. Planeswalkers were deemed mythic-only because they were unique effects, but the other (non-pw) mythics in Shards of Alara?
Most of those are just splashy, but not really tournament viable.
Just go through the mythics by set for the first few sets and see how many of them fit "t1 tournament staples" as opposed to "unique/splashy/epic effects".
The PW may have been "unique and splashy", but they were clearly designed to be tournament staples.
Each of the other alara sets has mythics that were designed to be tournament playable. (Thornling, Jenara Asura of War, Sphinx of the Steel Wind). By M10 had the Lorwyn 5, Baneslayer Angel, Master of the Wild Hunt, Time Warp, etc.
My argument is that buying packs isn't worth it. If all mythics are of high value suddenly opening packs becomes more viable.
If I want to build a competitive deck I'm best buying singles because I'm just not getting trade value by buying packs which actually sets me back and makes it harder to build a good deck.
Your argument is that buying packs isn't worth it, so making all Mythics better will fix this problem? Let's say suddenly all Mythics are $25 or more. And they are all tournament playable. Just like you wanted. Now what?
Hope you like paying more for Standard because now all Mythics are must-haves. You playing mono-green? You'll probably need a playset of the new Green Mythics, and thats probably close to a couple hundred bucks just buying singles.
Ok so I'll buy a box. Well boxes will probably have to cost more because the "value" inside the box has gone up. I mean, 1 foil mythic will basically pay for your box, so people will sell boxes for more. I could go on.
Making all mythics better will have the opposite effect of what you intend, not to mention all the other unintended consequences I won't even go into.
My argument is that buying packs isn't worth it. If all mythics are of high value suddenly opening packs becomes more viable.
If I want to build a competitive deck I'm best buying singles because I'm just not getting trade value by buying packs which actually sets me back and makes it harder to build a good deck.
Mythics are so rare that their value has very little effect on whether or not buying packs is worth it. In a set packed full of $2 commons and $5 rares I want, I'll feel far better buying packs since I'm almost guaranteed to get a decent card out of it.
That's the thing though - even the new players I know hated index because when they got the T1 index, no lands scenario in limited, they basically knew that their opponent was going to be playing solitaire for the next 5 turns. It basically showed you that you were screwed but didn't give you an out to it. The number of players I heard who said that they'd much rather Ponder without the card draw (so just look at the top 3, you may shuffle for U) than index was incredible, I can't recall many scenarios where it was that universal from new players to experienced, casual to tourney spike.
When I first started playing I thought that cards like index were actually good. Those cards exist to show players why straight-up lifegain/library manipulation/overpriced fatties are bad.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
It's already becoming unappealing to buy boxes does this just push competitive players further into the singles market?
Is it the singles market that Wizards intends to support with these sort of cards?
I'm of course referring to this article.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ftl/282
Why make it mythic if they know it's unplayable?
Fair enough have filler, whatever. You can't have 150 good cards in every set but it seems to me like they are intentionally printing bad mythic rares which increases the value of the good ones.
First they show you all the crap cards you'll get if you do the right thing and purchase some sealed product then they expect you to go and take your chances.
I know most of the time I feel cheated when I buy loose boosters. Perhaps I'm not that lucky but whenever I crack a mythic and it's worth less than the price of the pack I feel a bit cheated. The chances of cracking a mythic are so low that you deserve to get an instant reward with a $10-$20 card.
Perhaps this is an unpopular opinon. Perhaps there are other threads about this sort of thing. Go easy on me, I just needed to rant and let it all out.
1/8 isn't that low... If they were $15 on average, then it would mean that the mythic rares alone take up 50% of all card values in the set.
That's BAD. A couple cards soaking up all the value leaves no room for other interesting stuff. That's exactly what encourages them to make horrible sets like Dragon's Maze, with 2 useful cards or whatever, and just barrels of fluff.
Any rarity schedule at all leads to a greater amount of jank and wasted cardboard and proverbial god-smitten kittens.
And the more extreme you make the rarity schedule (more heavily value weighted on the rare end / inequal distributions of goodness, like you are asking), the worse that gets.
In terms of creative satisfying product,
mythics being even splashier < status quo < mythic not existing at all < rares not existing < no rarity existing
(except for limited, which could always just have their own side product with "rarities" whatever, that's a minor side topic)
1) Because standard isn't the only format that matters.
2) Because if all the mythics were good in standard people would complain about that.
Here is a link to the article about the introduction of mythics:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr334
And here are the relevant quotes from the article:
"This now leads us to the next question: How are cards split between rare and mythic rare? Or more to the point, what kind of cards are going to become mythic rares? We want the flavor of mythic rare to be something that feels very special and unique. Generally speaking we expect that to mean cards like Planeswalkers, most legends, and epic-feeling creatures and spells. They will not just be a list of each set's most powerful tournament-level cards.
We've also decided that there are certain things we specifically do not want to be mythic rares. The largest category is utility cards, what I'll define as cards that fill a universal function. Some examples of this category would be cycles of dual lands and cards like Mutavault or Char. That also addresses a long-standing issue that some players have had with certain rares like dual lands. Because we're making fewer cards per set, in the new world individual rares will be easier to acquire because each rare in a large set now appears 25% more often."
The above quotes and article linking aside... It should be noted that 50% or greater of the magic customer base is casual players, so creating cards at a variety of rarities (including mythics) for such players makes perfect sense. Every set has some mythics and other cards that are more built towards the casual crowd than to the tournament magic crowd. Just as it makes sense that some mythics will be tournament playable. The quoted paragraphs above make it fairly clear what they didn't want to be mythic and what sorts of utility cards were under that category that shouldn't be. Any other interpretations are simply created generally from others who have differing beliefs over what mythics should and should not be.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
I think thats an EDH card.
Big effect, never-ending, high casting cost.
Reference to Worldfire, Wotc usually gives all formats and players' favorites a card or two each block.
"The danger of many of the previous cards allowing you to sacrifice creatures to reanimate others was that this was used as a drawback, making the card cost less mana. As it turns out, having an inexpensive spell like this can set the scene for powerful reanimator decks, despite any drawbacks the card may have."
Heaven forbid! A playable reanimator deck? We cant have that!!!
The Janky Skeleton is all in all terrible but evey set has something like this and who knows maybe someone will find a use for it. m14 has a mono black sacrfice archtype in it so maybe someone will build it for a fmn with support from thoughtsieze and duress
BWTeysa, Orzhov Scion Combo
GUEzuri, Claw of progress Morph
GUBSidisi, Brood tyrant
RWGisela, Blade of Goldnight Random red white cards i dont use.dec
GBLoam Pox
Modern
UBFaeries
GBWGoyfless Abzan
On Squirrels
On Risen Executioner
You seem like the guy who opens a thoughtseize and thinks to himself, "aww, what a waste, there's no mythic in this pack"
I have the opposite sentiment.
I feel cheated when I buy loose boosters and open a bunch of commons and un-commons that aren't worth putting in a constructed deck. When you put all the "play" in mythics and rares, than the price of those playable cards is higher.
It doesn't take that many mythics to make a deck and helps keep the prices of rares high.
I know something like Thoughtseize would make my pack worth it but I've never opened one.
I still like drafting so I guess I'll get to play with some of the janky cards at some point.
Cryptic Command was never mythic.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Your first two points are spot on, and an example of the ridiculousness of the Magic community. We attract a lot of irrationally whiny people. I have a feeling it's mostly kids, but who knows.
But your second point is not correct. The shards Mythics contained Elspteh 1, Ajani Vengeant, and Tezzeret 1, cards that were clearly going to be tournament staples (as well as Sarkhan Vol which was probably designed to be a tournament staple but didn't end up being one).
Mythics were introduced solely to sell more packs without increasing set size. They also were never intended to all be good, because they didn' tneed to all be good to sell packs.
There's your answer.
I found it half funny and half saddening. Reanimator is one of the single funnest archetypes, and yet they've labeled it combo of a nature, so by extension it can't be good. That, or people are STILL butthurt about standard fRites being played to great success.
Quotes:
Actually, his second point is correct. Planeswalkers were deemed mythic-only because they were unique effects, but the other (non-pw) mythics in Shards of Alara?
Most of those are just splashy, but not really tournament viable.
Just go through the mythics by set for the first few sets and see how many of them fit "t1 tournament staples" as opposed to "unique/splashy/epic effects".
Draft my cube! (630 cards)
Is this comment supposed to seriously suggest that an 11 mana investment + summoning sickness + sacing a creature just to reanimate something is a playable effect?
Youre comparing that to 4cmc flashback. Seriously.
At the point that you could actually use this, you might as well cast whatever fatty you want from your hand. The ability to get more than one creature at a time by sacing more creatures is just win-more.
Buying singles is, on average, more efficient for acquiring cards for competitive magic. So for those that purchase singles it is actually quite a boon.
My argument is that buying packs isn't worth it. If all mythics are of high value suddenly opening packs becomes more viable.
If I want to build a competitive deck I'm best buying singles because I'm just not getting trade value by buying packs which actually sets me back and makes it harder to build a good deck.
The PW may have been "unique and splashy", but they were clearly designed to be tournament staples.
Each of the other alara sets has mythics that were designed to be tournament playable. (Thornling, Jenara Asura of War, Sphinx of the Steel Wind). By M10 had the Lorwyn 5, Baneslayer Angel, Master of the Wild Hunt, Time Warp, etc.
Your argument is that buying packs isn't worth it, so making all Mythics better will fix this problem? Let's say suddenly all Mythics are $25 or more. And they are all tournament playable. Just like you wanted. Now what?
Hope you like paying more for Standard because now all Mythics are must-haves. You playing mono-green? You'll probably need a playset of the new Green Mythics, and thats probably close to a couple hundred bucks just buying singles.
Ok so I'll buy a box. Well boxes will probably have to cost more because the "value" inside the box has gone up. I mean, 1 foil mythic will basically pay for your box, so people will sell boxes for more. I could go on.
Making all mythics better will have the opposite effect of what you intend, not to mention all the other unintended consequences I won't even go into.
Mythics are so rare that their value has very little effect on whether or not buying packs is worth it. In a set packed full of $2 commons and $5 rares I want, I'll feel far better buying packs since I'm almost guaranteed to get a decent card out of it.
When I first started playing I thought that cards like index were actually good. Those cards exist to show players why straight-up lifegain/library manipulation/overpriced fatties are bad.