Just so everyone who reads this thread knows, WOTC is a slave to Hasbro. Hasbro has not done that well lately, OUTSIDE of mtg. So the positive for us is the game is growing, and more sets will likely be printed going forward including masters sets. The downside is that more cards will get trashed due to reprintts and expensive masters products WILL be the norm. They have a higher gross margin and help hasbro/its shareholders.
Basically everything about masters sets will be a compromise because Hasbro has insisted WOTC do what it takes to move large amounts of product. Don't blame them directly... they have no choice.
That article links to a Toys R Us article that mentions that Hasbro pulled in double digits. So uh....
This is the same company that gave us Weebles and killed Kenner. Doesn't bolster my hope for WotC or my love for Hasbro.
Not sure what article you're talking about, but the linked page is Hasbro's stock history.
Saying "Hasbro has not done well lately" isn't entirely accurate, though. They're down 18% from their highest point in the past year, but up 24% from their lowest point in the same period.
It's simple - they have set design down to a science. I bet these sets practically build themselves - let's throw the dragon package in there, let's use these mythics and the commons/uncommons build themselves. I bet R&D on these sets is a fraction of new sets.
These are fancier FTV's. It's a cheap way to leverage cards that are expensive on the secondary market while at the same time getting value for their limited game design and making people rip packs. This whole set made me yawn except for Mana Drain.
Toy and novelty companies are seasonal businesses, it's part of the nature of "the game" as it were.
As for having set design down to a science, i'd have to disagree. I would say that the Masters Sets are an exception, but then i'd point at Splinter Twin, Jace, The Mind Sculptor, Sensei's Divining Top, and though it didn't appear in s Masters set, Preordain appeared in both a duel deck and a Commander release shortly before being banned; also Golgari Grave-Troll appeared in a duel deck before being banned.
And as for set design as a science in Standard... Emrakul, the Promised End, Sumggler's Copter, Felidar Guardian, and Reflector Mage. Now i realize that the Mage was more collateral damage due to WotC's extraordinary shenanigans with print runs and changing the Standard format every six months, but still, every card i've listed here except Grave-Troll was still in print when banned.
If anything, set design should have been getting easier, as we were told that Standard would be entering an era of smaller card pools but faster rotation, but it sure looks like that concept failed hard. It worked at first, BFZ/OGW was a great block that impacted every format it could, and a case could be made that Origins was the best core set to date, but man how that mighty concept has fallen.
Maybe WotC thinned their development herd just a little too much based on the idea that set design would now be easier. Perhaps the geniuses as HASBRO forgot to take into account that new products need to be tested for more formats than just Limited and Standard. I don't know exactly what went wrong, but whatever it was, it was big.
As for IMA specifically, it does feel a little formulaic, but there are some ticking time bombs in there as far as drafting goes. Personally i don't plan on buying into it.
Just so everyone who reads this thread knows, WOTC is a slave to Hasbro. Hasbro has not done that well lately, OUTSIDE of mtg. So the positive for us is the game is growing, and more sets will likely be printed going forward including masters sets. The downside is that more cards will get trashed due to reprintts and expensive masters products WILL be the norm. They have a higher gross margin and help hasbro/its shareholders.
Basically everything about masters sets will be a compromise because Hasbro has insisted WOTC do what it takes to move large amounts of product. Don't blame them directly... they have no choice.
That article links to a Toys R Us article that mentions that Hasbro pulled in double digits. So uh....
This is the same company that gave us Weebles and killed Kenner. Doesn't bolster my hope for WotC or my love for Hasbro.
Not sure what article you're talking about, but the linked page is Hasbro's stock history.
Saying "Hasbro has not done well lately" isn't entirely accurate, though. They're down 18% from their highest point in the past year, but up 24% from their lowest point in the same period.
Sorry, reading my post now, it is confusing.
What I meant to say was...
There is a link to an article inside that link about Hasbros earnings that talks about Toys R Us potentially going through bankruptcy protection. Within that article, it states that Hasbro is in the best position yet.
Toy and novelty companies are seasonal businesses, it's part of the nature of "the game" as it were.
As for having set design down to a science, i'd have to disagree. I would say that the Masters Sets are an exception, but then i'd point at Splinter Twin, Jace, The Mind Sculptor, Sensei's Divining Top, and though it didn't appear in s Masters set, Preordain appeared in both a duel deck and a Commander release shortly before being banned; also Golgari Grave-Troll appeared in a duel deck before being banned.
And as for set design as a science in Standard... Emrakul, the Promised End, Sumggler's Copter, Felidar Guardian, and Reflector Mage. Now i realize that the Mage was more collateral damage due to WotC's extraordinary shenanigans with print runs and changing the Standard format every six months, but still, every card i've listed here except Grave-Troll was still in print when banned.
If anything, set design should have been getting easier, as we were told that Standard would be entering an era of smaller card pools but faster rotation, but it sure looks like that concept failed hard. It worked at first, BFZ/OGW was a great block that impacted every format it could, and a case could be made that Origins was the best core set to date, but man how that mighty concept has fallen.
Maybe WotC thinned their development herd just a little too much based on the idea that set design would now be easier. Perhaps the geniuses as HASBRO forgot to take into account that new products need to be tested for more formats than just Limited and Standard. I don't know exactly what went wrong, but whatever it was, it was big.
As for IMA specifically, it does feel a little formulaic, but there are some ticking time bombs in there as far as drafting goes. Personally i don't plan on buying into it.
Actually, I'm more worried right now about the backlash from printing those few very dominating cards. I saw this happen before when playing Urza's Saga, and while that set was broken as heck, Mercadian Masques was just abyssmal in power level by comparison because of it. Rebels were nerfed into the floor and I can't even recall one card from back then outside of Rishadan Port that still stands from that set.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
[/quote] The full name of IMA should be "Iconic to players from 2009 through 2015 Masters". Wizards didn't bother catering to players from the first half of Magic because they're likely not playing anymore.[/quote]
I wonder what the actual percentage of players who played then are still playing today. About a third of the customers that I have are older (40-50) and played from 1993 on. Some have taken breaks, some not. Many of them play with their kids, or come in with their kids to play too. I think that overall, most of the newer players don't know anything about the older cards or what was iconic pre-Ravnica. 24 years is a long time, iconic will mean different things to each generation of player.
Personally, I think this set is less focused on iconic, and more focused on reprinting value cards and selling packs. Which is fine. There IS some good stuff in the set, cards that people want. WOTC needs to stay in business. This is how they do it.
Toy and novelty companies are seasonal businesses, it's part of the nature of "the game" as it were.
As for having set design down to a science, i'd have to disagree. I would say that the Masters Sets are an exception, but then i'd point at Splinter Twin, Jace, The Mind Sculptor, Sensei's Divining Top, and though it didn't appear in s Masters set, Preordain appeared in both a duel deck and a Commander release shortly before being banned; also Golgari Grave-Troll appeared in a duel deck before being banned.
And as for set design as a science in Standard... Emrakul, the Promised End, Sumggler's Copter, Felidar Guardian, and Reflector Mage. Now i realize that the Mage was more collateral damage due to WotC's extraordinary shenanigans with print runs and changing the Standard format every six months, but still, every card i've listed here except Grave-Troll was still in print when banned.
If anything, set design should have been getting easier, as we were told that Standard would be entering an era of smaller card pools but faster rotation, but it sure looks like that concept failed hard. It worked at first, BFZ/OGW was a great block that impacted every format it could, and a case could be made that Origins was the best core set to date, but man how that mighty concept has fallen.
Maybe WotC thinned their development herd just a little too much based on the idea that set design would now be easier. Perhaps the geniuses as HASBRO forgot to take into account that new products need to be tested for more formats than just Limited and Standard. I don't know exactly what went wrong, but whatever it was, it was big.
As for IMA specifically, it does feel a little formulaic, but there are some ticking time bombs in there as far as drafting goes. Personally i don't plan on buying into it.
Actually, I'm more worried right now about the backlash from printing those few very dominating cards. I saw this happen before when playing Urza's Saga, and while that set was broken as heck, Mercadian Masques was just abyssmal in power level by comparison because of it. Rebels were nerfed into the floor and I can't even recall one card from back then outside of Rishadan Port that still stands from that set.
I agree. There are less than a handful of other MM cards (and i had to look this up, the Port was all i could think of off-hand too) that are worth more than us$10 ( Food Chain, Unmask (which took a hit from the FTV reprint), Dust Bowl (which also took a hit from a "premium" (expeditions) reprint), and Bribery ) today. Once i thought of it, i expected Magistrate's Scepter to be on there in these days where mana is rampant in Legacy and there are so many ways to untap artifacts, but no dice. Perhaps people have forgotten it. Maybe i'll try to brew something up myself (probably not).
The backlash from the Standard bans has been far worse than the Modern and Legacy bans, and the cards banned in Standard have yet to make their presence felt in the non-rotating formats. I wouldn't worry too much about [c[Reflector Mage[/c], and while Smuggler's Copter may have been a bit too good for Standard, i doubt that the larger formats have much to fear. The other two worry me, though. Felidar Guardian on its own isn't OP by any means, but its combo potential can be ugly. I might not be surprised to see Saheeli Rai get the hammer instead; on the other hand it's a three color-combo that can't realistically be done before T3, they might let it stand.
Emrakul, the Promised End, though, has got to go. When Mindslaver rotated out of Standard, i wasn't sure which way it would go, but back then it didn't have a 13/13 Flying Pro-Instants body attatched to it. Delirium makes this cheaper than Mindslaver, and its casting cost can go as low as 7. I understand that Urza's Block was broken, but Newmakrul is beyond broken, it's just flat-out wrong.
A bigger problem might not even be the cards that got banned in Standard, but the ones that didn't. Saheeli Rai is a strong example, but so is Kokzilek, the Great Distortion - there are a lot of great Madness cards out there that can feed into his counter ability, and i personally doubt that much if any playtesting was done on his potential impact in Legacy, and there are Modern Madness cards in the Time Spiral block as well. Those are only a couple examples. Nahiri, the Harbinger, Heart of Kiran, and many other threaten to wreak havoc as they find new applications in broader card pools.
But to bring this thread back on topic, i don't think WotC ignored the first half of the game, though it certainly would've been nice to see more reprints from P3K, Legends, and a few others. I'm still hung up on seeing both Channel and Fireball in a set that's purportedly intended for drafting. Furthermore, cool as it would be to draft a Channel, what am i supposed to do with it afterwards, pick my teeth with it? They might as well have reprinted Chaos Orb. Am i the only one here bothered by this?
I didn't fully understand this sentiment until I opened my box. One of my first rares was Malfegor. After looking it up, turns out it's a worthless rare from Conflux I'd never heard of. I found myself thinking "I wish I had opened a Shivan Dragon in this $10 pack," which is kind of indicative of a problem.
True. I've been playing since 98. My favorite card from Iconic Masters? Cephalid Broker.
Would it really have been so horrible and anti-investor/collector to have Psychatog, Cephalid Looter, Cephalid Illusionist and Organ Grinder in there instead of the prowress commons/uncommons from KTK block? The cards are worth the same economically, but we can't get true NM Torment commons anymore.
Couldn't it have been fun to introduce people who weren't playing during the Odyssey megablock to these characters and mechanics instead of forcing us to act like just a couple Standards ago is "the ancient history of Magic"?
Iconic Masters is not the first to do this, MM3 and MM2 were also filled with too much RTR/ISD and MBS/ZEN. It's like the current crew is jealous of the Magic-makers of old and don't want anyone to compare their mediocre current work with past sets.
I didn't fully understand this sentiment until I opened my box. One of my first rares was Malfegor. After looking it up, turns out it's a worthless rare from Conflux I'd never heard of. I found myself thinking "I wish I had opened a Shivan Dragon in this $10 pack," which is kind of indicative of a problem.
Malfegor was a key player in the Alara block story, but you'd probably have to be interested in Alara's story to know that.
Iconic Masters is not the first to do this, MM3 and MM2 were also filled with too much RTR/ISD and MBS/ZEN. It's like the current crew is jealous of the Magic-makers of old and don't want anyone to compare their mediocre current work with past sets.
I wouldn't be surprised if the set was named/renamed by the Marketing department after it was mostly designed, to be honest. It's just another Masters set, they're all basically the same.
I didn't fully understand this sentiment until I opened my box. One of my first rares was Malfegor. After looking it up, turns out it's a worthless rare from Conflux I'd never heard of. I found myself thinking "I wish I had opened a Shivan Dragon in this $10 pack," which is kind of indicative of a problem.
Malfegor was a key player in the Alara block story, but you'd probably have to be interested in Alara's story to know that.
Okay, sure. But is it actually iconic? Or even more memorable than the myriad of other "key players" from the game's various storylines with bulk cards?
I didn't fully understand this sentiment until I opened my box. One of my first rares was Malfegor. After looking it up, turns out it's a worthless rare from Conflux I'd never heard of. I found myself thinking "I wish I had opened a Shivan Dragon in this $10 pack," which is kind of indicative of a problem.
Malfegor was a key player in the Alara block story, but you'd probably have to be interested in Alara's story to know that.
Okay, sure. But is it actually iconic? Or even more memorable than the myriad of other "key players" from the game's various storylines with bulk cards?
It depends on who you ask. If, like me, you have a keen interest in Alara, Malfegor would feel more important as a story figure. In the grand scheme of things though, not really. I actually don't know if that was their reasoning for it, but it's possible.
To be frank, a lot of the cards in the common slots are quite playable, just they don't hold a lot of worth. Ajani's Pridemate and Jace's Phantasm are both constructed playable cards, and Rift Bolt is still heavily played. Seeker of the Way is great for pauper now that it's at common, and Search for Tomorrow is still a fine card. The main thing that hurts the set is that Search for tomorrow could have been Rampant growth. Prey's Vengeance should have been Giant Growth, etc. They basically reprinted some cards for the sake of getting more copies out there and others are sort of anyones guess. The biggest omissions in the world are probably Sol Ring, Hymn To Tourach, and probably a toss up between Preordain or Ponder. Lightning bolt should have been in the set as well.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'm not sure how they expected people not to interpret it the way it has been.
That statement reveals a greater truth than just misnaming Iconic Masters. It reveals that there's a bit of a disjoint with the player base and WotC's perception of those players.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Saying "Hasbro has not done well lately" isn't entirely accurate, though. They're down 18% from their highest point in the past year, but up 24% from their lowest point in the same period.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
These are fancier FTV's. It's a cheap way to leverage cards that are expensive on the secondary market while at the same time getting value for their limited game design and making people rip packs. This whole set made me yawn except for Mana Drain.
As for having set design down to a science, i'd have to disagree. I would say that the Masters Sets are an exception, but then i'd point at Splinter Twin, Jace, The Mind Sculptor, Sensei's Divining Top, and though it didn't appear in s Masters set, Preordain appeared in both a duel deck and a Commander release shortly before being banned; also Golgari Grave-Troll appeared in a duel deck before being banned.
And as for set design as a science in Standard... Emrakul, the Promised End, Sumggler's Copter, Felidar Guardian, and Reflector Mage. Now i realize that the Mage was more collateral damage due to WotC's extraordinary shenanigans with print runs and changing the Standard format every six months, but still, every card i've listed here except Grave-Troll was still in print when banned.
If anything, set design should have been getting easier, as we were told that Standard would be entering an era of smaller card pools but faster rotation, but it sure looks like that concept failed hard. It worked at first, BFZ/OGW was a great block that impacted every format it could, and a case could be made that Origins was the best core set to date, but man how that mighty concept has fallen.
Maybe WotC thinned their development herd just a little too much based on the idea that set design would now be easier. Perhaps the geniuses as HASBRO forgot to take into account that new products need to be tested for more formats than just Limited and Standard. I don't know exactly what went wrong, but whatever it was, it was big.
As for IMA specifically, it does feel a little formulaic, but there are some ticking time bombs in there as far as drafting goes. Personally i don't plan on buying into it.
**Legacy**
Grixis Delver
16post
**Standard**
I'll let you know if/when i go back to Standard. I hate pulling cards i can't use.
Sorry, reading my post now, it is confusing.
What I meant to say was...
There is a link to an article inside that link about Hasbros earnings that talks about Toys R Us potentially going through bankruptcy protection. Within that article, it states that Hasbro is in the best position yet.
Actually, I'm more worried right now about the backlash from printing those few very dominating cards. I saw this happen before when playing Urza's Saga, and while that set was broken as heck, Mercadian Masques was just abyssmal in power level by comparison because of it. Rebels were nerfed into the floor and I can't even recall one card from back then outside of Rishadan Port that still stands from that set.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I wonder what the actual percentage of players who played then are still playing today. About a third of the customers that I have are older (40-50) and played from 1993 on. Some have taken breaks, some not. Many of them play with their kids, or come in with their kids to play too. I think that overall, most of the newer players don't know anything about the older cards or what was iconic pre-Ravnica. 24 years is a long time, iconic will mean different things to each generation of player.
Personally, I think this set is less focused on iconic, and more focused on reprinting value cards and selling packs. Which is fine. There IS some good stuff in the set, cards that people want. WOTC needs to stay in business. This is how they do it.
I agree. There are less than a handful of other MM cards (and i had to look this up, the Port was all i could think of off-hand too) that are worth more than us$10 ( Food Chain, Unmask (which took a hit from the FTV reprint), Dust Bowl (which also took a hit from a "premium" (expeditions) reprint), and Bribery ) today. Once i thought of it, i expected Magistrate's Scepter to be on there in these days where mana is rampant in Legacy and there are so many ways to untap artifacts, but no dice. Perhaps people have forgotten it. Maybe i'll try to brew something up myself (probably not).
The backlash from the Standard bans has been far worse than the Modern and Legacy bans, and the cards banned in Standard have yet to make their presence felt in the non-rotating formats. I wouldn't worry too much about [c[Reflector Mage[/c], and while Smuggler's Copter may have been a bit too good for Standard, i doubt that the larger formats have much to fear. The other two worry me, though. Felidar Guardian on its own isn't OP by any means, but its combo potential can be ugly. I might not be surprised to see Saheeli Rai get the hammer instead; on the other hand it's a three color-combo that can't realistically be done before T3, they might let it stand.
Emrakul, the Promised End, though, has got to go. When Mindslaver rotated out of Standard, i wasn't sure which way it would go, but back then it didn't have a 13/13 Flying Pro-Instants body attatched to it. Delirium makes this cheaper than Mindslaver, and its casting cost can go as low as 7. I understand that Urza's Block was broken, but Newmakrul is beyond broken, it's just flat-out wrong.
A bigger problem might not even be the cards that got banned in Standard, but the ones that didn't. Saheeli Rai is a strong example, but so is Kokzilek, the Great Distortion - there are a lot of great Madness cards out there that can feed into his counter ability, and i personally doubt that much if any playtesting was done on his potential impact in Legacy, and there are Modern Madness cards in the Time Spiral block as well. Those are only a couple examples. Nahiri, the Harbinger, Heart of Kiran, and many other threaten to wreak havoc as they find new applications in broader card pools.
But to bring this thread back on topic, i don't think WotC ignored the first half of the game, though it certainly would've been nice to see more reprints from P3K, Legends, and a few others. I'm still hung up on seeing both Channel and Fireball in a set that's purportedly intended for drafting. Furthermore, cool as it would be to draft a Channel, what am i supposed to do with it afterwards, pick my teeth with it? They might as well have reprinted Chaos Orb. Am i the only one here bothered by this?
**Legacy**
Grixis Delver
16post
**Standard**
I'll let you know if/when i go back to Standard. I hate pulling cards i can't use.
Would it really have been so horrible and anti-investor/collector to have Psychatog, Cephalid Looter, Cephalid Illusionist and Organ Grinder in there instead of the prowress commons/uncommons from KTK block? The cards are worth the same economically, but we can't get true NM Torment commons anymore.
Couldn't it have been fun to introduce people who weren't playing during the Odyssey megablock to these characters and mechanics instead of forcing us to act like just a couple Standards ago is "the ancient history of Magic"?
Iconic Masters is not the first to do this, MM3 and MM2 were also filled with too much RTR/ISD and MBS/ZEN. It's like the current crew is jealous of the Magic-makers of old and don't want anyone to compare their mediocre current work with past sets.
Malfegor was a key player in the Alara block story, but you'd probably have to be interested in Alara's story to know that.
That's a bit harsh.
Okay, sure. But is it actually iconic? Or even more memorable than the myriad of other "key players" from the game's various storylines with bulk cards?
It depends on who you ask. If, like me, you have a keen interest in Alara, Malfegor would feel more important as a story figure. In the grand scheme of things though, not really. I actually don't know if that was their reasoning for it, but it's possible.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'm not sure how they expected people not to interpret it the way it has been.
Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.
That statement reveals a greater truth than just misnaming Iconic Masters. It reveals that there's a bit of a disjoint with the player base and WotC's perception of those players.