he said it’s a dinosaur plane so we finally after all these years going to muraganda, but this is spooky to me why do a prehistoric plane debut visit for a race set I don’t think cars are prehistoric
I don't think you've driven enough cars... If cars aren't prehistoric, why are they powered by prehistoric animals?
I feel like making universes beyond standard legal was inevitable, probably bc people are bringing the cards to stores and finding out that the brand new set they just bought in pack form isn't allowed in fnm.
I'm not entirely sure their calculation will actually work out though. I have a strong feeling that when Wizards talks about broadening the player base and "new players" they really (at least to a good amount) mean "young players" as from what i hear the average Magic player is 30+ these days and i have quite a bit of doubt adding a bunch of random IPs will change that much (well outside maybe driving out enough of the 30+ players to skew the average...). Lets face it playing Magic on a somewhat serious level is (outside maybe limited and budget standard) simply to expensive for kids. OK, it likely doesn't need the income of a 30 year old to buy a couple cards here or there, so there's probably at least a bit of room but as far as an actual "young" audience is concerned it's either the parents dropping 3 figure sums or it's not happening, which a lot of parents likely won't/can't.
Kids themselves aren't going to randomly spend $90 or by now $130 let alone $200+ on boxes and the odd booster here or there isn't going to get them far. While they might be kids a lot of them probably aren't stupid and will notice quite quickly that they are simply being outprized. If engaging new players would be actually such a main priority Wizards could have that pretty easily but it would hurt their bottom line so they won't do it.
Well I say fnm bc I am old, but realistically it's because folks are playing mtg arena and being like "why do they keep releasing these sets I can't play on ranked standard wtf is the point"
The man also has exactly one metal arm, and it's his right arm.
Admittedly, this man's hair is unusually white...
His hair is going white. I don't know when exactly it happened, but they foreshadowed it on FTV: ExiledTinker.
I never noticed how consistently Tezzeret has lighting conditions in the card art that makes it really hard to tell what the hair color is. Is it white or is it over-saturated by the nearby lightning?
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
he said it’s a dinosaur plane so we finally after all these years going to muraganda, but this is spooky to me why do a prehistoric plane debut visit for a race set I don’t think cars are prehistoric
I don't think you've driven enough cars... If cars aren't prehistoric, why are they powered by prehistoric animals?
1) they are not
2) I drive a Tesla
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
I don't think you've driven enough cars... If cars aren't prehistoric, why are they powered by prehistoric animals?
1) they are not
2) I drive a Tesla
It was a bit tongue in cheek and pedantic, but unless your location's power grid is entirely provided by non-oil, non-natural gas, not-coal based power plants, even electric cars are powered by coal, natural gas and petroleum, all of which is prehistoric organic matter including animals. Even California, the US darling of green energy, has a power grid that consisted of 45.77% of thermal fuel.
TL;DR: All cars run on prehistoric animals to some degree.
Crude oil does not come from the remains of long-dead animals; instead, it is formed via geological processes. If you disagree with that assessment, I'll be certain to let my old chemistry professor (who worked as a petrochemical engineer before moving back to being a professor) and my friend whose job it was to analyze the survey data locating and identifying crude oil deposits that they are both incorrect.
Now...back to Foundations...set looks pretty good. I am not completely pleased that they are going to ramp up the Universes Beyond sets, but they are in the business of "making money" not "pleasing a subset of MtG fans" so it is what it is.
It was a bit tongue in cheek and pedantic, but unless your location's power grid is entirely provided by non-oil, non-natural gas, not-coal based power plants, even electric cars are powered by coal, natural gas and petroleum, all of which is prehistoric organic matter including animals. Even California, the US darling of green energy, has a power grid that consisted of 45.77% of thermal fuel.
TL;DR: All cars run on prehistoric animals to some degree.
Mine was a joke too. If I wanted to be pedantic, I'd say that fossil fuel comes from plants and not animals.
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
So it's gonna be equal parts Magic and Universes Beyond. Is this game even Magic anymore?
This is pretty horrifying. Just look at that miserable product line up. Tarkir and maybe Edge of Eternities are literally the only ones to look forward to. 2025 is going to be majority bad sets. I already knew I wasn't gonna like the death race set, but I didn't know the future after would be so bleak.
They really don't care about us, do they?
Feels like Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro is taking a huge gamble here expecting that the mechanical identity of Magic: The Gathering will outlast the original Magic: The Gathering story and lore. But at what cost in the effort to bring in new players into the game? All it's doing is adding more confusion while "disenfranchising" veteran players and collectors who are passionate about Magic: The Gathering's high fantasy setting to venture toward other Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games that honors it more like Flesh and Blood, Grand Archive, and Sorcery: Contested Realm. Flesh and Blood and Sorcery: Contested Realm I feel is the most popular out of these but we'll see.
Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro shows little to no interest in having Universes Within compete against Universes Beyond because at the end of the day the game still prints money so why would they? I think they teased Universes Within as a concept but unfortunately didn't go all in with it and there's only so much Wizards of the Coast can do with Magic: The Gathering that Hasbro Corporate will allow them to get away with. The fact that they never got the budget for a Magic: The Gathering animated series on Netflix due to lack of interest shows how little Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro cares about the game's own story and lore. They even tried a comic book series and sadly it never really took off.
Jesus Christ, Who Is God Revealed In The Flesh, Bless America.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Sometimes I think it's a sin when I feel like I'm winning but I'm losing again." - Gordon Lightfoot
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I saw a couple of folks running around saying that the existing magic IP was already a cheap poorly written knockoff of other IPs, that earlier weatherlight stuff was just star trek (phyrexians are just borg, etc) or more recent gatewatch stuff was just avengers (nicol bolas just thanos) and therefore formalizing the use of the IP magic is ripping off just means returning to the source. Annoying mindset.
I keep thinking about how this is it tho like the genie is out of the bottle and the next twenty or so years of magic is gonna be collab after collab. It will probably be just fine and healthy and make a ton of money but as far as I'm concerned it's cooked. It's not magic anymore, it's just a flexible ruleset that can be applied to any franchise it needs to be. I abhor like, genwunner bull***** and I've been here on this forum for every time folks got really weird and racist about new changes, but this doesn't feel the same. It's like if pokemon launched a whole new game where it was a pokemon CSI crossover where you can collect all the different CSI characters.
It was fine when it was sort of ignorable and frankly I think it just makes sense to do a lord of the rings collab, but now every other pokemon video game is "pokemon: Law and Order?" (I'm buying pokemon law bc it's got casey novak exclusive)
I saw a couple of folks running around saying that the existing magic IP was already a cheap poorly written knockoff of other IPs, that earlier weatherlight stuff was just star trek (phyrexians are just borg, etc) or more recent gatewatch stuff was just avengers (nicol bolas just thanos) and therefore formalizing the use of the IP magic is ripping off just means returning to the source. Annoying mindset.
I keep thinking about how this is it tho like the genie is out of the bottle and the next twenty or so years of magic is gonna be collab after collab. It will probably be just fine and healthy and make a ton of money but as far as I'm concerned it's cooked. It's not magic anymore, it's just a flexible ruleset that can be applied to any franchise it needs to be. I abhor like, genwunner bull***** and I've been here on this forum for every time folks got really weird and racist about new changes, but this doesn't feel the same. It's like if pokemon launched a whole new game where it was a pokemon CSI crossover where you can collect all the different CSI characters.
It was fine when it was sort of ignorable and frankly I think it just makes sense to do a lord of the rings collab, but now every other pokemon video game is "pokemon: Law and Order?" (I'm buying pokemon law bc it's got casey novak exclusive)
Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro thinks that If IP Crossovers can work for Dungeons & Dragons then it could work for Magic: The Gathering. Except in Dungeons & Dragons you can still set up a campaign for your playgroup that traditionally follows the story and lore of Dungeons & Dragons. With Magic: The Gathering on the other hand, what applied to the Silver-Bordered Project by the former Rules Committee in Commander should also apply to Universes Beyond cards as well. I don't know If this is something that the new Commander Rules Committee with Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro will establish for the Commander format going forward but it's definitely something worth looking into If there's enough people interested. I figured Universes Beyond cards could be treated the same as silver-bordered cards, gold-bordered cards, and acorn-shaped security stamped cards.
As for solving the issue with Universes Beyond in Paper Standard and other competitive non-Singleton formats. I think there should be a new format that's basically Paper Standard but only allows the use of Universes Beyond cards including another Paper Standard format that doesn't allow the use of Universes Beyond cards. Aside from regular Paper Standard, Foundations would only be legal for the Paper Standard format that doesn't allow the use of Universes Beyond cards where as set rotation would still apply to both formats as it normally does for Paper Standard. Modern, Legacy, and Vintage I think is where this gets tricky. These formats will have no choice but to play with both Universes Beyond and Universes Within in the same format as there's no real shortcuts to circumvent this like in Commander and Paper Standard. I think Arena can have a Standard format without Universes Beyond cards.
Jesus Christ, Who Is God Revealed In The Flesh, Bless America.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Sometimes I think it's a sin when I feel like I'm winning but I'm losing again." - Gordon Lightfoot
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
The Ub haters only hope is if the market research indicates reduce UB set comes up in it after this.
That's the hope, yes, but it's not going to happen. UB will be successful and WotC will reduce actual Magic sets. Congrats, UB lovers, you won. It's a shame you don't see the future awaiting you.
For Universes Beyond haters, I think a Universes Within set is within the realm of possibility for Magic: The Gathering, the only problem I see with it is If there's enough mechanically unique cards from Universes Beyond to turn into Universes Within cards via set release instead of as a Secret Lair drop. The One Ring and Orcish Bowmasters will probably stay the same since this could exclude cards that share the same high fantasy theme that Magic: The Gathering has in terms of story and lore. It does seem as though Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro have been distancing themselves from reprints in Universes Beyond to designing mechanically unique cards which they said they weren't going to do after the whole Walking Dead fiasco years ago. Doctor Who has mechanically unique cards, same with Assassin's Creed, Jurassic Park, Tomb Raider, etc.
The Professor of Tolarian Community College actually mentioned about the idea of Universes Within awhile back that's more relevant now:
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Jesus Christ, Who Is God Revealed In The Flesh, Bless America.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Sometimes I think it's a sin when I feel like I'm winning but I'm losing again." - Gordon Lightfoot
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
For Universes Beyond haters, I think a Universes Within set is within the realm of possibility for Magic: The Gathering, the only problem I see with it is If there's enough mechanically unique cards from Universes Beyond to turn into Universes Within cards via set release instead of as a Secret Lair drop.
The problem with this is that too many people are focusing on what is right for the state of the game VS what's gonna sell.
Sure, you make a "Universe Within" set, reprint many UB cards, reprint the expensive, commission new arts for them and so on. Who's gonna buy it?
If it's a set, it needs to be draftable or no one is going to buy it.
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
After a week of thinking about it since the announcement, it really feels like Magic's fat lady has sung.
Got my first cards back when Tempest came out, so it's been a good run. Just sad to see it go like this now. Yeah they'll sell packs because those modern nerd types, who's entire personality is consuming products and supporting mega corporations, will eat it all up while mocking fans of the original. They'll also attract what I think will be one-time-buyers, fans of whatever IP they bring in who just want a neat souvenir. But really at what cost?
I've said it before, but it's only a matter of time before they change the back of the card too, like they did with the logo "to make it better represent what Magic is now"
What a load of *****
With Magic: The Gathering on the other hand, what applied to the Silver-Bordered Project by the former Rules Committee in Commander should also apply to Universes Beyond cards as well. I don't know If this is something that the new Commander Rules Committee with Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro will establish for the Commander format going forward but it's definitely something worth looking into If there's enough people interested. I figured Universes Beyond cards could be treated the same as silver-bordered cards, gold-bordered cards, and acorn-shaped security stamped cards.
While things might change in the future i don't see the slightest chance of this happening currently since Wizards is basically moving in the opposite direction by trying to push unsets into general play and pretty much embracing some kind of everything everywhere philosophy.
As for solving the issue with Universes Beyond in Paper Standard and other competitive non-Singleton formats. I think there should be a new format that's basically Paper Standard but only allows the use of Universes Beyond cards including another Paper Standard format that doesn't allow the use of Universes Beyond cards. Aside from regular Paper Standard, Foundations would only be legal for the Paper Standard format that doesn't allow the use of Universes Beyond cards where as set rotation would still apply to both formats as it normally does for Paper Standard. Modern, Legacy, and Vintage I think is where this gets tricky. These formats will have no choice but to play with both Universes Beyond and Universes Within in the same format as there's no real shortcuts to circumvent this like in Commander and Paper Standard. I think Arena can have a Standard format without Universes Beyond cards.
Yeah, the initiative would have to come from interested players themselves though as waiting for Wizards to dedicate resources to something like this is pretty much hopeless. I'm estimating that there'd likely be more than enough of a target audience for this but people actually willing to invest time into formalizing things and spreading the idea to give it a chance to catch on is an entirely different topic though.
I don't care about Marvel at all but the idea of people who hate UB having to deal with it in Standard is pretty amusing to me.
Well, for people playing online/random strangers that might be the case. Elsewhere things will likely get dealt with according to the tastes of people involved. For example where i am the announcement was uniformly interpreted as "From now on Wizards is only printing 3 sets per year."
Cost to whom? For me personally it'll become even harder to explain to people that i play Magic (let alone get them to try it) when it's the game where you play with Spiderman, Tinkiwinki and Spongebob even if i'm unlikely to actually see those cards all to often. It'll suck for the people that don't like it and are faced with a decision of either quitting or tolerating those cards.
Beyond that i highly doubt anyone (even inside Wizards/Hasbro) can really predict what the long term consequences will be. Looking at it objectively i'd say it's a gamble. People in power are betting that the portion of the audience they are pissing off can either be replaced by whatever their target group is (likely those juicy <30 demographics) or simply grudgingly takes it (noone at Hasbro/Wizards cares if the money they are getting comes from someone clenching a fist in the pocket). I'm not entirely convinced that this will work out but then it's pretty much impossible to gather how the sympathies/antipathies are distributed on this (let alone the weight of the persons taking this or that stance) and betting on people's passiveness (+ fruit fly attention spans...) is sadly usually a pretty good bet.
Personally i'll stick around and see how this actually looks in reality. Maybe the end result will not be as obnoxious as it could be or it's somehow possible to sidestep it. I'm watching quite closely though. Everyone has their limits after all and when you need to twist and turn something just to get at least a bit of enjoyment out of it (kinda crazy with a hobby that regularly needs to have 100's of $/€ poured into it, isn't it?) it's probably time to look for greener pastures. In the end money votes are the only votes that Hasbro/Wizards understand anyways. At the point they'd actually notice some kind of downward trend damage control will be pretty hard (and likely for a good part ineffective) though. I kind of wonder if Wizards would also make that bet if it weren't for Hasbro's constant pressure to increase profits.
I've said it before, but it's only a matter of time before they change the back of the card too, like they did with the logo "to make it better represent what Magic is now"
I'm actually surprised they didn't do it yet (Wizards likely hates the dated looking design) but would changing the back really be such a big deal? Noone in their right mind is playing without sleeves these days anyways, so the back could pretty much be full art goatse and noone would notice much.
I fully agree it would likely come with some form of said PR gibberish calling it "new and exiting" or something along those lines though with Rosewater babbling on about how you are wrong if you don't feel that way. This tendency of telling people how they should feel about something is one of the big mysteries of Magic to me. Is it the actual personality of the people involved that drives them to do this or do they simply know that it's a sufficiently effective communication tactic and go by this? I'll probably never know but i'm curious and until i figure it out i'll just assume they are simply ********s by virtue. In any case i'll certainly never take anyone trying to compare dislike for UB to dislike for specific cards serious as whoever doesn't see the problems with this is either dumb as a brick or doing so on purpose to manipulate it's discussion partner.
@random player: I don't like using terms like this because I think it's overused, but changing the back of the card would kill the very soul of Magic. The back of the card IS Magic. The new black anemic one they use on MTGO and the "new" logo (is it really new when it's six or seven years old now?.. but you know what I mean)is so terribly generic it could be any other game. I'm sure the higher ups who changed the logo have been drooling over changing the back design for ages too. Full art goatse has more character than the new black design, so I'd prefer that if they did change it.
I don't think it's dated, it's become classic at this point. Fantasy evergreen. I mean the back of a magic card, not goatse (though that's pretty much a classic now too) I want sleeves with the original back design.
And yeah, I agree with what you said about how a lot of people usually talk about stuff like this too. It's just ****ed up and sad all around
For Universes Beyond haters, I think a Universes Within set is within the realm of possibility for Magic: The Gathering, the only problem I see with it is If there's enough mechanically unique cards from Universes Beyond to turn into Universes Within cards via set release instead of as a Secret Lair drop. The One Ring and Orcish Bowmasters will probably stay the same since this could exclude cards that share the same high fantasy theme that Magic: The Gathering has in terms of story and lore. It does seem as though Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro have been distancing themselves from reprints in Universes Beyond to designing mechanically unique cards which they said they weren't going to do after the whole Walking Dead fiasco years ago. Doctor Who has mechanically unique cards, same with Assassin's Creed, Jurassic Park, Tomb Raider, etc.
The Professor of Tolarian Community College actually mentioned about the idea of Universes Within awhile back that's more relevant now:
[youtube]QQHBjE-9WuY[/youtbe]
There was a time I said that a UW set would happen. After all, they literally can't reprint any UB card (and I mean the actual card) without getting their license renewed, and that can be expensive. They said even with LotR selling so well the fees to do it ate into the profits a lot. Practically every single UB card is on the Reserved List, and with Walking Dead it was.
Unfortunately, with UB taking over half of all Magic, and soon to be the majority of it, cause let's face it that is going to happen, I doubt it will. Will we get a UW One Ring soon? Quite likely, but I doubt we'll be getting a full on set at this point. WotC has recently stated that even SL UB will not be getting UW versions and we know Dr. Who, LotR, 40k, and more will not get them any time soon.
@random player: I don't like using terms like this because I think it's overused, but changing the back of the card would kill the very soul of Magic. The back of the card IS Magic. The new black anemic one they use on MTGO and the "new" logo (is it really new when it's six or seven years old now?.. but you know what I mean)is so terribly generic it could be any other game. I'm sure the higher ups who changed the logo have been drooling over changing the back design for ages too. Full art goatse has more character than the new black design, so I'd prefer that if they did change it.
I don't think it's dated, it's become classic at this point. Fantasy evergreen. I mean the back of a magic card, not goatse (though that's pretty much a classic now too)
Well, can't it be both? Personally i'd call the back iconic. Looking a bit dated doesn't take anything away from that and as you say a somewhat archaic feel isn't a bad fit at all for a game involving tons and tons of knights, swords, mythical creatures and whatnot. It's not like changing the back for something that can with absolute certainty be assumed to be 150% soulless no matter how "polished" it might be wouldn't bug me all. It's just that i already feel the same way about quite a bit of modern Magic artwork (even some of the really gorgeous pieces simply feel sterile - my favorite art period is actually around Mirage but even something as crude as the original Sacrifice - not the linked one but the ABU version - does more for me than a lot of the hyperpolished art used these days) or the (in my opinion) scifi looking borders and being on the backside + hidden by a sleeve it at least wouldn't jump in my face all the time while playing.
Slightly related: It's certainly not like Wizards doesn't know anymore what nice art looks like. We finally got around to draft Dominaria Remastered this weekend and while we aren't really sure about the overall draft quality of the set yet (it's massive fun the build play but it seems have a lot of "dud" cards even if being spammed with damage prevention cards sure felt fittingly nostalgic) i haven't been drooling over a bunch of basics like this for ages (at least some are obviously reprints - one of the mountains is actually from Mirage - but even then it's an awesome collection of beautiful art). I'll definitely stack up on some of those while it's still easy to get them in bulk amounts.
I think at least some point those were available. Maybe it's time to stock up if they are still around to have an emergency stopgap if Wizards ever pulls through with changing the back
I would really like to see a full on universes within set. As stated above, it's challenging to reprint UB cards for logistical reasons, so doing UW solves a lot of problems for them. Especially as more UB sets file in, I see no reason not to do it.
It's essentially a functional reprint. Something like "the ring tempts you" isn't really gonna work in a different context (I really hate that mechanic), but most things work fine.
Of course some cards could actually just be reprinted with MtG art: cards like Stern Scolding, Orcish Bowmasters, and Blight Grenade have names that could appear in MtG Foundations. The Jumpstart Deadly Dispute is set in Thunder Junction rather than the Forgotten Realms, so we can already see hints of that happening. But creature types like Tyranid and Time Lord challenge the idea of Universes Within as a viable way to get reprints. It's a morass.
I think at least some point those were available. Maybe it's time to stock up if they are still around to have an emergency stopgap if Wizards ever pulls through with changing the back
I used to use clear sleeves before I started going to fnm because I like the back better hehe. I never play in stores anymore and my friends won't care if I start using clear ones again
For Universes Beyond haters, I think a Universes Within set is within the realm of possibility for Magic: The Gathering, the only problem I see with it is If there's enough mechanically unique cards from Universes Beyond to turn into Universes Within cards via set release instead of as a Secret Lair drop. The One Ring and Orcish Bowmasters will probably stay the same since this could exclude cards that share the same high fantasy theme that Magic: The Gathering has in terms of story and lore. It does seem as though Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro have been distancing themselves from reprints in Universes Beyond to designing mechanically unique cards which they said they weren't going to do after the whole Walking Dead fiasco years ago. Doctor Who has mechanically unique cards, same with Assassin's Creed, Jurassic Park, Tomb Raider, etc.
The Professor of Tolarian Community College actually mentioned about the idea of Universes Within awhile back that's more relevant now:
[youtube]QQHBjE-9WuY[/youtbe]
There was a time I said that a UW set would happen. After all, they literally can't reprint any UB card (and I mean the actual card) without getting their license renewed, and that can be expensive. They said even with LotR selling so well the fees to do it ate into the profits a lot. Practically every single UB card is on the Reserved List, and with Walking Dead it was.
Unfortunately, with UB taking over half of all Magic, and soon to be the majority of it, cause let's face it that is going to happen, I doubt it will. Will we get a UW One Ring soon? Quite likely, but I doubt we'll be getting a full on set at this point. WotC has recently stated that even SL UB will not be getting UW versions and we know Dr. Who, LotR, 40k, and more will not get them any time soon.
What looked inevitable is now improbable.
Did Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro know ahead of time that these Universes Beyond cards would essentially be another Reserved List thinking that there wouldn't be any backlash from the Magic Community for reprinted versions of these cards reflecting the Magic: The Gathering story and lore more? Did they really think that those within the Magic Community who genuinely care about the story and lore of the game itself were a niche demographic and that the majority cared more about the games' mechanical identity instead? If they had given the Magic story and lore enough time for the novelty to set in then they probably could've profited off of it. Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro could've done a much better job at conveying the story and lore of Magic: The Gathering better than what they're doing now. Whose going to read a web series to keep up with what's going on unless they advertised it in a manner that gets everyone's attention more? But no, Wizards of the Coast doesn't have the budget for it because Hasbro won't give it to them.
I'm going to be honest, back when I first got into Magic: The Gathering 20+ years ago I was more in love with the mechanical identity of the game rather than the story and lore (still am). What really got me into the story and lore of the game was the introduction of Planeswalkers in Lorwyn as it was setting the stage for the Gatewatch a.k.a. MCU Avengers. I used to think that Urza was the hero of the storyline he was a part of only to find out that he was his own worst enemy. I thought Akroma was cool before Avacyn came onto the scene as a lot of players' favorite Angel Waifu. Shortly after the War of the Spark ended and the Planeswalkers lost their spark, my interest in the story and lore waned. The storytellers of the game have become so creatively bankrupt that they're relying more and more on other Intellectual Properties (IP's) to sell a game that it's own story and lore couldn't hold together. I also have my suspicions of Magic's story and lore that has contested my own faith and beliefs in which I'm personally not allowed to share on these forums.
Jesus Christ, Who Is God Revealed In The Flesh, Bless America.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Sometimes I think it's a sin when I feel like I'm winning but I'm losing again." - Gordon Lightfoot
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Did Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro know ahead of time that these Universes Beyond cards would essentially be another Reserved List thinking that there wouldn't be any backlash from the Magic Community for reprinted versions of these cards reflecting the Magic: The Gathering story and lore more?
Oh, they've already faced that "backlash," but it was by people that didn't enjoy UB and those people are supposedly "gatekeepers," and they don't like anyone that criticizes obvious problems. UB supporters always went "tHeY'lL mAkE uW vErSiOnS!!!!" and here we are once again with them being wrong as WotC doesn't want to UW versions of nearly all of them.
I'm sure WotC sees the issue with half of their cards being un-reprintable (new UB Un-set title!) and likely worked on licensing deals to better facilitate it, but it also wouldn't surprise me if we're three years into this Fortnite Foundations and every card in Marvel Masters 3 needs a reprint while each Infinity Stone and Gauntlet (all with One of One versions for that extra whale revenue) are sitting at $80+ each thanks to all being must play cards in every format.
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I don't think you've driven enough cars... If cars aren't prehistoric, why are they powered by prehistoric animals?
Well I say fnm bc I am old, but realistically it's because folks are playing mtg arena and being like "why do they keep releasing these sets I can't play on ranked standard wtf is the point"
https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/765822212094754817/out-of-curiosity-were-the-spiderman-and-final#notes
The Spider-Man and final fantasy sets were gonna be standard legal from the very start/beginning of development of the UB sets.
His hair is going white. I don't know when exactly it happened, but they foreshadowed it on FTV: Exiled Tinker.
I never noticed how consistently Tezzeret has lighting conditions in the card art that makes it really hard to tell what the hair color is. Is it white or is it over-saturated by the nearby lightning?
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
1) they are not
2) I drive a Tesla
It was a bit tongue in cheek and pedantic, but unless your location's power grid is entirely provided by non-oil, non-natural gas, not-coal based power plants, even electric cars are powered by coal, natural gas and petroleum, all of which is prehistoric organic matter including animals. Even California, the US darling of green energy, has a power grid that consisted of 45.77% of thermal fuel.
TL;DR: All cars run on prehistoric animals to some degree.
Now...back to Foundations...set looks pretty good. I am not completely pleased that they are going to ramp up the Universes Beyond sets, but they are in the business of "making money" not "pleasing a subset of MtG fans" so it is what it is.
Mine was a joke too. If I wanted to be pedantic, I'd say that fossil fuel comes from plants and not animals.
Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro shows little to no interest in having Universes Within compete against Universes Beyond because at the end of the day the game still prints money so why would they? I think they teased Universes Within as a concept but unfortunately didn't go all in with it and there's only so much Wizards of the Coast can do with Magic: The Gathering that Hasbro Corporate will allow them to get away with. The fact that they never got the budget for a Magic: The Gathering animated series on Netflix due to lack of interest shows how little Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro cares about the game's own story and lore. They even tried a comic book series and sadly it never really took off.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Sometimes I think it's a sin when I feel like I'm winning but I'm losing again." - Gordon Lightfoot
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I keep thinking about how this is it tho like the genie is out of the bottle and the next twenty or so years of magic is gonna be collab after collab. It will probably be just fine and healthy and make a ton of money but as far as I'm concerned it's cooked. It's not magic anymore, it's just a flexible ruleset that can be applied to any franchise it needs to be. I abhor like, genwunner bull***** and I've been here on this forum for every time folks got really weird and racist about new changes, but this doesn't feel the same. It's like if pokemon launched a whole new game where it was a pokemon CSI crossover where you can collect all the different CSI characters.
It was fine when it was sort of ignorable and frankly I think it just makes sense to do a lord of the rings collab, but now every other pokemon video game is "pokemon: Law and Order?" (I'm buying pokemon law bc it's got casey novak exclusive)
As for solving the issue with Universes Beyond in Paper Standard and other competitive non-Singleton formats. I think there should be a new format that's basically Paper Standard but only allows the use of Universes Beyond cards including another Paper Standard format that doesn't allow the use of Universes Beyond cards. Aside from regular Paper Standard, Foundations would only be legal for the Paper Standard format that doesn't allow the use of Universes Beyond cards where as set rotation would still apply to both formats as it normally does for Paper Standard. Modern, Legacy, and Vintage I think is where this gets tricky. These formats will have no choice but to play with both Universes Beyond and Universes Within in the same format as there's no real shortcuts to circumvent this like in Commander and Paper Standard. I think Arena can have a Standard format without Universes Beyond cards.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Sometimes I think it's a sin when I feel like I'm winning but I'm losing again." - Gordon Lightfoot
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
That's the hope, yes, but it's not going to happen. UB will be successful and WotC will reduce actual Magic sets. Congrats, UB lovers, you won. It's a shame you don't see the future awaiting you.
The Professor of Tolarian Community College actually mentioned about the idea of Universes Within awhile back that's more relevant now:
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Sometimes I think it's a sin when I feel like I'm winning but I'm losing again." - Gordon Lightfoot
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
The problem with this is that too many people are focusing on what is right for the state of the game VS what's gonna sell.
Sure, you make a "Universe Within" set, reprint many UB cards, reprint the expensive, commission new arts for them and so on. Who's gonna buy it?
If it's a set, it needs to be draftable or no one is going to buy it.
Got my first cards back when Tempest came out, so it's been a good run. Just sad to see it go like this now. Yeah they'll sell packs because those modern nerd types, who's entire personality is consuming products and supporting mega corporations, will eat it all up while mocking fans of the original. They'll also attract what I think will be one-time-buyers, fans of whatever IP they bring in who just want a neat souvenir. But really at what cost?
I've said it before, but it's only a matter of time before they change the back of the card too, like they did with the logo "to make it better represent what Magic is now"
What a load of *****
While things might change in the future i don't see the slightest chance of this happening currently since Wizards is basically moving in the opposite direction by trying to push unsets into general play and pretty much embracing some kind of everything everywhere philosophy.
Yeah, the initiative would have to come from interested players themselves though as waiting for Wizards to dedicate resources to something like this is pretty much hopeless. I'm estimating that there'd likely be more than enough of a target audience for this but people actually willing to invest time into formalizing things and spreading the idea to give it a chance to catch on is an entirely different topic though.
Well, for people playing online/random strangers that might be the case. Elsewhere things will likely get dealt with according to the tastes of people involved. For example where i am the announcement was uniformly interpreted as "From now on Wizards is only printing 3 sets per year."
Cost to whom? For me personally it'll become even harder to explain to people that i play Magic (let alone get them to try it) when it's the game where you play with Spiderman, Tinkiwinki and Spongebob even if i'm unlikely to actually see those cards all to often. It'll suck for the people that don't like it and are faced with a decision of either quitting or tolerating those cards.
Beyond that i highly doubt anyone (even inside Wizards/Hasbro) can really predict what the long term consequences will be. Looking at it objectively i'd say it's a gamble. People in power are betting that the portion of the audience they are pissing off can either be replaced by whatever their target group is (likely those juicy <30 demographics) or simply grudgingly takes it (noone at Hasbro/Wizards cares if the money they are getting comes from someone clenching a fist in the pocket). I'm not entirely convinced that this will work out but then it's pretty much impossible to gather how the sympathies/antipathies are distributed on this (let alone the weight of the persons taking this or that stance) and betting on people's passiveness (+ fruit fly attention spans...) is sadly usually a pretty good bet.
Personally i'll stick around and see how this actually looks in reality. Maybe the end result will not be as obnoxious as it could be or it's somehow possible to sidestep it. I'm watching quite closely though. Everyone has their limits after all and when you need to twist and turn something just to get at least a bit of enjoyment out of it (kinda crazy with a hobby that regularly needs to have 100's of $/€ poured into it, isn't it?) it's probably time to look for greener pastures. In the end money votes are the only votes that Hasbro/Wizards understand anyways. At the point they'd actually notice some kind of downward trend damage control will be pretty hard (and likely for a good part ineffective) though. I kind of wonder if Wizards would also make that bet if it weren't for Hasbro's constant pressure to increase profits.
I'm actually surprised they didn't do it yet (Wizards likely hates the dated looking design) but would changing the back really be such a big deal? Noone in their right mind is playing without sleeves these days anyways, so the back could pretty much be full art goatse and noone would notice much.
I fully agree it would likely come with some form of said PR gibberish calling it "new and exiting" or something along those lines though with Rosewater babbling on about how you are wrong if you don't feel that way. This tendency of telling people how they should feel about something is one of the big mysteries of Magic to me. Is it the actual personality of the people involved that drives them to do this or do they simply know that it's a sufficiently effective communication tactic and go by this? I'll probably never know but i'm curious and until i figure it out i'll just assume they are simply ********s by virtue. In any case i'll certainly never take anyone trying to compare dislike for UB to dislike for specific cards serious as whoever doesn't see the problems with this is either dumb as a brick or doing so on purpose to manipulate it's discussion partner.
I don't think it's dated, it's become classic at this point. Fantasy evergreen. I mean the back of a magic card, not goatse (though that's pretty much a classic now too) I want sleeves with the original back design.
And yeah, I agree with what you said about how a lot of people usually talk about stuff like this too. It's just ****ed up and sad all around
There was a time I said that a UW set would happen. After all, they literally can't reprint any UB card (and I mean the actual card) without getting their license renewed, and that can be expensive. They said even with LotR selling so well the fees to do it ate into the profits a lot. Practically every single UB card is on the Reserved List, and with Walking Dead it was.
Unfortunately, with UB taking over half of all Magic, and soon to be the majority of it, cause let's face it that is going to happen, I doubt it will. Will we get a UW One Ring soon? Quite likely, but I doubt we'll be getting a full on set at this point. WotC has recently stated that even SL UB will not be getting UW versions and we know Dr. Who, LotR, 40k, and more will not get them any time soon.
What looked inevitable is now improbable.
Well, can't it be both? Personally i'd call the back iconic. Looking a bit dated doesn't take anything away from that and as you say a somewhat archaic feel isn't a bad fit at all for a game involving tons and tons of knights, swords, mythical creatures and whatnot. It's not like changing the back for something that can with absolute certainty be assumed to be 150% soulless no matter how "polished" it might be wouldn't bug me all. It's just that i already feel the same way about quite a bit of modern Magic artwork (even some of the really gorgeous pieces simply feel sterile - my favorite art period is actually around Mirage but even something as crude as the original Sacrifice - not the linked one but the ABU version - does more for me than a lot of the hyperpolished art used these days) or the (in my opinion) scifi looking borders and being on the backside + hidden by a sleeve it at least wouldn't jump in my face all the time while playing.
Slightly related: It's certainly not like Wizards doesn't know anymore what nice art looks like. We finally got around to draft Dominaria Remastered this weekend and while we aren't really sure about the overall draft quality of the set yet (it's massive fun the build play but it seems have a lot of "dud" cards even if being spammed with damage prevention cards sure felt fittingly nostalgic) i haven't been drooling over a bunch of basics like this for ages (at least some are obviously reprints - one of the mountains is actually from Mirage - but even then it's an awesome collection of beautiful art). I'll definitely stack up on some of those while it's still easy to get them in bulk amounts.
I think at least some point those were available. Maybe it's time to stock up if they are still around to have an emergency stopgap if Wizards ever pulls through with changing the back
It's essentially a functional reprint. Something like "the ring tempts you" isn't really gonna work in a different context (I really hate that mechanic), but most things work fine.
I've been enjoying Tadeas, Juniper Ascendant in my cube, and it doesn't bother me one bit that it was originally Dhalsim, Pliable Pacifist.
Of course some cards could actually just be reprinted with MtG art: cards like Stern Scolding, Orcish Bowmasters, and Blight Grenade have names that could appear in MtG Foundations. The Jumpstart Deadly Dispute is set in Thunder Junction rather than the Forgotten Realms, so we can already see hints of that happening. But creature types like Tyranid and Time Lord challenge the idea of Universes Within as a viable way to get reprints. It's a morass.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
I used to use clear sleeves before I started going to fnm because I like the back better hehe. I never play in stores anymore and my friends won't care if I start using clear ones again
I'm going to be honest, back when I first got into Magic: The Gathering 20+ years ago I was more in love with the mechanical identity of the game rather than the story and lore (still am). What really got me into the story and lore of the game was the introduction of Planeswalkers in Lorwyn as it was setting the stage for the Gatewatch a.k.a. MCU Avengers. I used to think that Urza was the hero of the storyline he was a part of only to find out that he was his own worst enemy. I thought Akroma was cool before Avacyn came onto the scene as a lot of players' favorite Angel Waifu. Shortly after the War of the Spark ended and the Planeswalkers lost their spark, my interest in the story and lore waned. The storytellers of the game have become so creatively bankrupt that they're relying more and more on other Intellectual Properties (IP's) to sell a game that it's own story and lore couldn't hold together. I also have my suspicions of Magic's story and lore that has contested my own faith and beliefs in which I'm personally not allowed to share on these forums.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Sometimes I think it's a sin when I feel like I'm winning but I'm losing again." - Gordon Lightfoot
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Oh, they've already faced that "backlash," but it was by people that didn't enjoy UB and those people are supposedly "gatekeepers," and they don't like anyone that criticizes obvious problems. UB supporters always went "tHeY'lL mAkE uW vErSiOnS!!!!" and here we are once again with them being wrong as WotC doesn't want to UW versions of nearly all of them.
I'm sure WotC sees the issue with half of their cards being un-reprintable (new UB Un-set title!) and likely worked on licensing deals to better facilitate it, but it also wouldn't surprise me if we're three years into this Fortnite Foundations and every card in Marvel Masters 3 needs a reprint while each Infinity Stone and Gauntlet (all with One of One versions for that extra whale revenue) are sitting at $80+ each thanks to all being must play cards in every format.