I think it's the Richard Garfield + what appears to be Gothic horror themed block. I hated Shards, loved Zendikar and was apathetic about Scars (didn't really enjoy it). I think I'm going to enjoy Innistrad a lot.
I didn't get airy fairy out of Zendikar. I got "worlds exploding and lovecraftian horrors erupting". Lots of action and madness in Zendikar. One of the most fun and exciting worlds they have visited in a while.
me neither. i really liked the flavor but ultimately i feel like the first two sets didn't deliver. i am still disappointed that the "lands" block was so light on actual lands doing anything except tapping for mana. landfall is fine but it's really "the creatures block, also with lands kind of mattering but you were already going to play them anyway." one measly cycle of man lands in the lands block? barely any rare lands to speak of? kamigawa was more of a lands block than zendikar.
rise i thought was done very well but concentrated its theme too hard into mythic rarity (not even just rare). the invention of mythic rare harmed the set more than usual, i think. but great ideas, lots of variety, awesome flavor.
the last block i really liked was lorwyn/shadowmoor double block. the ones since then have been alright at best. i'll always have a soft spot for alara since i started really collecting then but it wasn't that great when it comes down to it. alara, zendikar, and scars blocks have been inferior to ravnica, time spiral, and coldsnap in my opinion. i know coldsnap doesn't get much love but it's one of my favorite sets.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
I didn't get airy fairy out of Zendikar. I got "worlds exploding and lovecraftian horrors erupting". Lots of action and madness in Zendikar. One of the most fun and exciting worlds they have visited in a while.
I really liked the setting of Zendikar, too. Like quitequieter pointed out, they could have made a little bit more lands though.
Let's not act like it's pure coincidence that vamps are now a major tribe in Magic and that it has nothing to do with giving the teenie fanbois what they want.
oh, i'm not. as i said in another thread, the decision to make them the main tribe was definitely opportunistic.
I remember a time where i'd open a booster that had a vampire in it. And that vampire was actually cool and flavorful. There shouldn't be vampires in common. They should have the same status that angels have for white.
this isn't the first time i've heard this, but to me it isn't inherent to vampire flavor. vampires throughout other media have a range: some are super powerful, some are weaker. plenty of vampires are just somewhat stronger-than-average bloodsuckers. for magic to only depict the super powerful ones doesn't make much sense. having both the big guys and the average joe vampires makes a lot more sense to me. i understand being nostalgic for how magic used to depict them, but i don't think it's objectively better to only have big vampires.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
There have always been broods of vampires throughout fantasy fiction. Typically those aren't the big strong ones but the packs. They are your common vampires.
Yeah, he's a shark, a shark like the best of them, but that doesn't mean he's evil. He just enjoys the game of it all.
i don't really understand the logic here. the fact that he enjoys ripping people off doesn't really demonstrate anything positive to me.
if the two parties agree to the trade and both are happy with it, it is equal.
that depends on a number of factors. someone brings in 10 black lotuses and i buy them off him for $1. we're both happy. then he finds out what they were worth. is he still happy? is the trade still equal? when both parties are well informed, the trade is equal. if i decide to trade down in value because it's cheaper than buying or trading into a shop or because i just don't care that much, that trade is a good trade. if i knowingly trade up on someone who honestly doesn't know the value of either card (and would be upset to find out they got ripped off) that's not a good trade. and importantly, it's bad for the community as a whole.
obviously some of the burden is on both traders. you should know your stuff before you trade. to be totally honest, i have little sympathy for players who get ripped off in trades because everyone has access to the internet (go to the library) and most trading happens in stores and conventions, where it's easy to find out the worth of something (usually someone even has the internet at these places!). if you're not comfortable with a trade, don't go through with it until you know what you're getting.
but that isn't an excuse to ignore your own responsibility. the other person may be assuming you're a good person (which is naive, but wouldn't it be nice if the community was such that we could do this?) rather than just a lazy idiot. i don't really see how you can justify taking advantage of anyone when there are very objective numbers involved and it's not hard to explain that during the trade. how hard is it to say "your card is worth about 3 bucks, mine is worth about 2." plenty of people will trade anyway, isn't that the argument for this in the first place? so why not be honest about the value upfront? then everyone really is happy, no one can get mad about it later without being kind of a douche. and people can trust each other. wouldn't that be nice?
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
and then he ponders whether he needs to rip a second guy off so bad that he can risk letting the first guy know how much he got ripped off. and yes, he does need to. his need to steal from people is that strong. luckily it works out for him. when you're worrying about whether a guy you just traded with hears the value of the cards you got from him, that's a pretty good sign you're doing something unethical. lying to the other guy is the key to his game plan. i don't really understand how anyone can defend that.
One time, I was digging through his “Junk” box and I took some Mana Bonds at like .50 each. Keep in mind this was when I was selling them at $3. A few weeks later they spiked and ever since then he never wants to trade with me. If we ever do get to opening binders, it’s just a non-stop fight on the value of every single card.
i like how he pretends he traded fair and then it just so happened that the card spiked in value later. as if he doesn't openly rip a dude off to the tune of $40+ a few trades above. gee, i wonder why some people might not want to trade with you?
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
Wow, I never heard of the guy before, but the trade look harsh. I actually just keep looking at the articles so I can see which trade he lose on so I can laugh a little.
What he does is unethical. I had someone that tends to buy rare card for cheap and not many people like him. I think he once offered a booster pack for Bitterblossom because a pack is 15 cards, with 1 rare!, while Bitterblossom is only one rare. I was not there at the store at that time to help the poor guy. I heard he's young too. It's because of people like this that some people that want to learn magic just stop learning.
I'm pretty sure I got tricked off something similar losing pretty nice foil card when I was young too. Young people tends to not check a price on the internet. At least many of the people I know don't. They just play and have fun. Sometimes finding out later and just get a little angry.
I have no problem trading to my advantage, so long as the person I'm trading with knows that that they're getting the short end of the trading stick. Something like: "Ya, I know these are worth like $5 more than what I'm getting from you, but I really want them so it's worth it to me". That's the validation I'd be looking for to make sure I'm not doing anything unethical.
But to be afraid that the other party might find out how much you've just ripped them off for? That's about as plain-and-simple wrong as you can get. That's straight dishonesty.
the fact of the matter is, trading for exact worth is pretty close to impossible without resorting to token trades of jank that you don't want just to even the numbers. so someone is almost always trading up or trading down and it's usually no big deal.
But to be afraid that the other party might find out how much you've just ripped them off for? That's about as plain-and-simple wrong as you can get. That's straight dishonesty.
he actually gives advice on what to do in this situation because he's been there so often!
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
Vampires are the only mythical being that I do not like, even before Twilight. I however do think that the logo, name, and only picture look promising.
I didn't get airy fairy out of Zendikar. I got "worlds exploding and lovecraftian horrors erupting". Lots of action and madness in Zendikar. One of the most fun and exciting worlds they have visited in a while.
I liked the flavor of Zendikar well enough, just not the mechanics. But of course I liked the actual airy fairy Lorwyn flavor as well.
Let's not act like it's pure coincidence that vamps are now a major tribe in Magic and that it has nothing to do with giving the teenie fanbois what they want.
This was actually my first thought when I saw the picture. Actually, it was more like, "Vampires? Again? Really?" It's not surprising, I don't guess. I mean, throw a stick and you'll hit something that's exploiting the current popularity of vampires. Sometimes it's really well done, (True Blood, Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) and sometimes it's not (Twilight, Vampire Diaries).
Click the link above, scroll down to Trade 59 and 60, read them and you know everything you need to know about Pack to Power.
Wow. I'd love to be the guy that's watching the trade and then tells the guy getting ripped off just how badly he's getting ripped off right before he agrees to the trade. As a matter of fact, if I were independently wealthy and didn't have to spend my time earning a paycheck, I'd now love to make it my current mission in life to just follow Medina around at tournaments and conventions and be honest to his partners. That might ruin his current article series, but it'd make the Magic scene a better place with one less douche running around.
i don't know if reaper goes to a liberal arts college or not, but the concept is that regardless of whether you're going to be in a certain field you should be a well rounded person no matter what.
like when the scientists create a bunch of dinosaurs and make a theme park with them and everyone dies, maybe if they had taken some ethics and history classes instead of just biology and chemistry they would have thought twice and it could have been avoided.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
i don't know if reaper goes to a liberal arts college or not, but the concept is that regardless of whether you're going to be in a certain field you should be a well rounded person no matter what.
like when the scientists create a bunch of dinosaurs and make a theme park with them and everyone dies, maybe if they had taken some ethics and history classes instead of just biology and chemistry they would have thought twice and it could have been avoided.
We don't like to bring up the Isla Nublar incident.
Ethics are a massively important part of any science study. The 'research at all costs' mentality that seems to be depicted by Hollywood just doesn't exist. Funding just won't be even considered if there's not a real benefit to the customer or to the public. That said, I can't see being forced to analyse fiction being of any great help to a scientist or engineer, for example. Not knocking fiction as I'm an occasional reader myself, but many won't benefit.
This is why American universities confuse me. If I want to study (read/major in) engineering, why should my qualifications as an engineer depend on something completely unrelated to engineering?
I feel bad because I didn't reveal that I took the class to get into San Diego but since I got into Cal Poly SLO it did not matter. Eng 2 (the class I'm taking) does not count in SLO as far as I know but it was too late to drop it. Interesting class, nice teacher, but I hate English papers.
Ethics are a massively important part of any science study. The 'research at all costs' mentality that seems to be depicted by Hollywood just doesn't exist. Funding just won't be even considered if there's not a real benefit to the customer or to the public. That said, I can't see being forced to analyse fiction being of any great help to a scientist or engineer, for example. Not knocking fiction as I'm an occasional reader myself, but many won't benefit.
i understand this and was making a joke. that said i think you're being a little naive about things. unethical research and research that is purely for profit, beneficial to the public or not, definitely goes on. it's how our economy is designed: profit first. usually profit requires you don't screw over the customer. but not always.
regarding the value of liberal arts, studying literature (and other subjects outside your field) can give you different perspectives which can be of value when you're forced to interact with non-scientists. you can argue against stereotypes all you want, but we've all seen or met the scientist who has trouble relating to non-scientists, or getting non-scientists to relate to their subject matter. i'm not arguing this because i'm a big literature fan or anything (english was easily my least favorite class) but i think there's some value to the liberal arts concept in theory. i'm not so sure about the execution most of the time, though. usually the student fumbles through their non-major classes because they have to and then forgets everything immediately.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
Ethics are a massively important part of any science study. The 'research at all costs' mentality that seems to be depicted by Hollywood just doesn't exist. Funding just won't be even considered if there's not a real benefit to the customer or to the public. That said, I can't see being forced to analyse fiction being of any great help to a scientist or engineer, for example. Not knocking fiction as I'm an occasional reader myself, but many won't benefit.
I think I'm with QQ on this one. I disliked most of my basic humanities classes and I majored in a social science, so I'm not even that far off from them. But that doesn't mean they don't have value. Even if they are 0% valuable as a scientist that doesn't mean they don't have value to you as a human being.
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me neither. i really liked the flavor but ultimately i feel like the first two sets didn't deliver. i am still disappointed that the "lands" block was so light on actual lands doing anything except tapping for mana. landfall is fine but it's really "the creatures block, also with lands kind of mattering but you were already going to play them anyway." one measly cycle of man lands in the lands block? barely any rare lands to speak of? kamigawa was more of a lands block than zendikar.
rise i thought was done very well but concentrated its theme too hard into mythic rarity (not even just rare). the invention of mythic rare harmed the set more than usual, i think. but great ideas, lots of variety, awesome flavor.
the last block i really liked was lorwyn/shadowmoor double block. the ones since then have been alright at best. i'll always have a soft spot for alara since i started really collecting then but it wasn't that great when it comes down to it. alara, zendikar, and scars blocks have been inferior to ravnica, time spiral, and coldsnap in my opinion. i know coldsnap doesn't get much love but it's one of my favorite sets.
vampires existed before twilight, you know. cool ones.
I really liked the setting of Zendikar, too. Like quitequieter pointed out, they could have made a little bit more lands though.
This. Don't hate on vampires because of this
shadytwilighty vampire teen romance garbage.Uril, the Miststalker RGW -- Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre C -- Vhati il-Dal BG -- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer RW -- Animar, Soul of Elements URG
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker R -- Maga, Traitor to Mortals B -- Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW -- Sliver Hivelord WUBRG
That space is already occupied by demons. And why shouldn't there be vampires at common? There are common elves, too.
Uril, the Miststalker RGW -- Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre C -- Vhati il-Dal BG -- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer RW -- Animar, Soul of Elements URG
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker R -- Maga, Traitor to Mortals B -- Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW -- Sliver Hivelord WUBRG
oh, i'm not. as i said in another thread, the decision to make them the main tribe was definitely opportunistic.
this isn't the first time i've heard this, but to me it isn't inherent to vampire flavor. vampires throughout other media have a range: some are super powerful, some are weaker. plenty of vampires are just somewhat stronger-than-average bloodsuckers. for magic to only depict the super powerful ones doesn't make much sense. having both the big guys and the average joe vampires makes a lot more sense to me. i understand being nostalgic for how magic used to depict them, but i don't think it's objectively better to only have big vampires.
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i don't really understand the logic here. the fact that he enjoys ripping people off doesn't really demonstrate anything positive to me.
that depends on a number of factors. someone brings in 10 black lotuses and i buy them off him for $1. we're both happy. then he finds out what they were worth. is he still happy? is the trade still equal? when both parties are well informed, the trade is equal. if i decide to trade down in value because it's cheaper than buying or trading into a shop or because i just don't care that much, that trade is a good trade. if i knowingly trade up on someone who honestly doesn't know the value of either card (and would be upset to find out they got ripped off) that's not a good trade. and importantly, it's bad for the community as a whole.
obviously some of the burden is on both traders. you should know your stuff before you trade. to be totally honest, i have little sympathy for players who get ripped off in trades because everyone has access to the internet (go to the library) and most trading happens in stores and conventions, where it's easy to find out the worth of something (usually someone even has the internet at these places!). if you're not comfortable with a trade, don't go through with it until you know what you're getting.
but that isn't an excuse to ignore your own responsibility. the other person may be assuming you're a good person (which is naive, but wouldn't it be nice if the community was such that we could do this?) rather than just a lazy idiot. i don't really see how you can justify taking advantage of anyone when there are very objective numbers involved and it's not hard to explain that during the trade. how hard is it to say "your card is worth about 3 bucks, mine is worth about 2." plenty of people will trade anyway, isn't that the argument for this in the first place? so why not be honest about the value upfront? then everyone really is happy, no one can get mad about it later without being kind of a douche. and people can trust each other. wouldn't that be nice?
and then he ponders whether he needs to rip a second guy off so bad that he can risk letting the first guy know how much he got ripped off. and yes, he does need to. his need to steal from people is that strong. luckily it works out for him. when you're worrying about whether a guy you just traded with hears the value of the cards you got from him, that's a pretty good sign you're doing something unethical. lying to the other guy is the key to his game plan. i don't really understand how anyone can defend that.
i like how he pretends he traded fair and then it just so happened that the card spiked in value later. as if he doesn't openly rip a dude off to the tune of $40+ a few trades above. gee, i wonder why some people might not want to trade with you?
What he does is unethical. I had someone that tends to buy rare card for cheap and not many people like him. I think he once offered a booster pack for Bitterblossom because a pack is 15 cards, with 1 rare!, while Bitterblossom is only one rare. I was not there at the store at that time to help the poor guy. I heard he's young too. It's because of people like this that some people that want to learn magic just stop learning.
I'm pretty sure I got tricked off something similar losing pretty nice foil card when I was young too. Young people tends to not check a price on the internet. At least many of the people I know don't. They just play and have fun. Sometimes finding out later and just get a little angry.
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But to be afraid that the other party might find out how much you've just ripped them off for? That's about as plain-and-simple wrong as you can get. That's straight dishonesty.
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but $40?! seriously?!
he actually gives advice on what to do in this situation because he's been there so often!
I liked the flavor of Zendikar well enough, just not the mechanics. But of course I liked the actual airy fairy Lorwyn flavor as well.
This was actually my first thought when I saw the picture. Actually, it was more like, "Vampires? Again? Really?" It's not surprising, I don't guess. I mean, throw a stick and you'll hit something that's exploiting the current popularity of vampires. Sometimes it's really well done, (True Blood, Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) and sometimes it's not (Twilight, Vampire Diaries).
Wow. I'd love to be the guy that's watching the trade and then tells the guy getting ripped off just how badly he's getting ripped off right before he agrees to the trade. As a matter of fact, if I were independently wealthy and didn't have to spend my time earning a paycheck, I'd now love to make it my current mission in life to just follow Medina around at tournaments and conventions and be honest to his partners. That might ruin his current article series, but it'd make the Magic scene a better place with one less douche running around.
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Same here, engineering major doing a research paper on the criticism of Othello, very very indepth too. Hate English papers.
like when the scientists create a bunch of dinosaurs and make a theme park with them and everyone dies, maybe if they had taken some ethics and history classes instead of just biology and chemistry they would have thought twice and it could have been avoided.
We don't like to bring up the Isla Nublar incident.
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On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
I feel bad because I didn't reveal that I took the class to get into San Diego but since I got into Cal Poly SLO it did not matter. Eng 2 (the class I'm taking) does not count in SLO as far as I know but it was too late to drop it. Interesting class, nice teacher, but I hate English papers.
Right now at a community college.
i understand this and was making a joke. that said i think you're being a little naive about things. unethical research and research that is purely for profit, beneficial to the public or not, definitely goes on. it's how our economy is designed: profit first. usually profit requires you don't screw over the customer. but not always.
regarding the value of liberal arts, studying literature (and other subjects outside your field) can give you different perspectives which can be of value when you're forced to interact with non-scientists. you can argue against stereotypes all you want, but we've all seen or met the scientist who has trouble relating to non-scientists, or getting non-scientists to relate to their subject matter. i'm not arguing this because i'm a big literature fan or anything (english was easily my least favorite class) but i think there's some value to the liberal arts concept in theory. i'm not so sure about the execution most of the time, though. usually the student fumbles through their non-major classes because they have to and then forgets everything immediately.
I think I'm with QQ on this one. I disliked most of my basic humanities classes and I majored in a social science, so I'm not even that far off from them. But that doesn't mean they don't have value. Even if they are 0% valuable as a scientist that doesn't mean they don't have value to you as a human being.