MTG Salvation

Quote from 5colors »

The artist put up the full art of all six arts together;
https://twitter.com/vproceart/status/884617537358635008

It is indeed Bolas carving his victory over the gatewatch.

The full picture really shows off how awesome the artist made these, I think the way they frame them in the cards really takes away from this original art piece.

The best thing about cards like this is if in game 1 you get them with a card like this they play around it in game 2 and game 3 in nearly every case. Nothing like side-boarding these out for other cards after your opponent is likely to be so damn careful about having one untapped land for every spell they cast in the subsequent games.

This is definitely a tad overpriced, but i do like that it is far easier to cycle in most cases than Miscalculation.

Keep in mind that the Never/Return is card advantage it is slow but in a control deck having the option to eventually make a 2/2 down the line is a big bonus. Ruinous Path can make a land into a 4/4 but that has a huge initial cost of 7 mana in one turn this card gives you more flexibility, with getting that 2/2 whenever its convenient.

Quote from Nayenyezgani »

A white zombie... What's next, green vampires and black angels?

There has been 3 completely black angels printed in magic before so yeah, already that has happend. White has had a couple multi-color zombies with black and Stillmoon Cavalier can be cast with just white mana.

Quote from AnImAr_ »

Quote from leslak »

Drake Haven is busted in limited

I just hate that this is the reason why it's rare. I just want them to not care about limited so much.

The card is likely a bulk rare, so you are looking at 50 cents per copy after a month or so. Also its pretty selfish to say, they shouldn't care about limited because your statement is like care about my format more than a format I don't care about.

Annihilator is a ridiculously swingy ability and it's led to a lot of ridiculous blowouts. I will say though old Kozilek had no form of protection he would die to any number of removal spells. Pretending that the old Titans were all notoriously hard to kill is completely ridiculous. Newlamog is easier to kill but it has double the ability when you cast it to make up for that. You also have trouble comparing Emrakul to Emrakul sure if your cheating one into play the old one is still the king, but when cast from hand I have rarely if ever seen someone pay the full 15 for Emrakul, meanwhile i think I will see New Emrakul cast a lot more often since it will cast 8-9 very often in the late game. New Emrakul is the best in the late game anyways, casting him on turn 3-4 or something is usually less impressive with the turn stealing effect.

I have a friend that absolutely loves the color purple, I'm sure he will be very excited about the color of these booster boxes.

I think this is what people wanted...

20 Emrakul, the Game Ends
Legendary Creature - Eldrazi
When you cast Emrakul target player loses the game.
Flying, Indestructible, Hexproof, Trample.
When Emrakul deals damage to a player that player loses the game.
When Emrakul is put into a graveyard from anywhere, its owner shuffles his or her graveyard into his or her library.
20/20


There ya go a really "fun" and interactive card to play with folks. So much fun and interactivity had from this version!!!!

This card will cost 8-9 mana on a regular basis unless you are ramping up a storm with things that don't hit the graveyard. At 8-9 mana it is cheaper than Mindslaver if you are casting Mindslaver and activating it the same turn.

Quote from Northjayhawk »

Might not be standard playable, but it could be something in modern, since they would have an easier time casting it.

The effect is worse than mindslaver, but mindslaver doesn't give you a 13/13. They will be up a card, but they couldn't do anything about it on your turn if it resolves, and on their mindslaver turn you can throw their whole team away on a terrible attack.

It also has the benefit of being pro all the removal in modern, since in modern sorcery speed removal is a rarity. 99% of all removal in modern is instant speed...

This thing is MUCH harder to kill in modern, without a doubt.

Quote from Tolarian PC Principal »

Quote from Yatsufusa »

Return Demonic Tutor to your hand with a boatload of other cards, than search for Seasons Past right back.

Sure, you'll turn the Tutor into Buyback 1B, discard Demonic Tutor, but still worth it in almost any capacity.

I think Reid Duke might have read this comment, lol. Good job predicting the combo that fuels the best standard deck, even if you were talking about EDH

What's really entertaining is that Dark Petition is basically the cost of a Demonic Tutor assuming you have 5 mana in play since you get the 3 mana back with spell mastery which the deck that runs this combo can pull off easily. Obviously Demonic Tutor is far more powerful because it truly costs 2 mana but they both have some similiarity, I would much rather play Dark Petition over say Diabolic Tutor.

That's assuming both cards were in standard....

Comment Hidden

You seem to overlook that Oketra is easily a 4 Mana 6/6 Indestructable Beat-machine. Would you play that ?
Activated ability is overpriced, but a nice bonus on top of her body, which you should focus on !
Shes easier to activate than Heliod & & doesnt limit you to monocolor
Great with Nissa d:)

Quote from Magicman657 »

It's not like anyone here could ever have had prior experience / precedent to temper their opinions with. How many sets have come out that looked poor to middling during spoiler season and ended up being spectacular?

Every single set had people claiming that it's "the worst set since Homelands" at first. Even beloved sets like Ravnica, Zendikar, or Innistrad. Most people on MTGS don't actually know what a good block/set/card looks like just by eyeballing it.

Quote from Magicman657 »

Every single spoiler season there are people like you that insist we all stay hyped and hopeful about the new set, and when it inevitably turns out to NOT be all that was promised, I don't ever see anyone step up and say "Well, looks like the naysayers weren't without merit after all."

"People like me"? Since when did I say that you should be hyped about this set? I said you shouldn't draw conclusions before you have all the information. Raising your hopes really high and calling this set amazing at this point is just as bad; you're still jumping to conclusions.

Quote from Magicman657 »

Typical WotC apologist BS.

Oh, so because I think that people should hold off judgement until they have all the information, I'm an apologist? Good to know.

The MTGS community is pretty consistent about completely misjudging cards and sets at first, so I think it's pretty reasonable to say that you guys should play first, form opinions second.

Well, the old Eldrazi Titans, albeit very well designed from the flavor standpoint, were way too opressive.
Annihilator was pretty nice from flavor standpoint... you could interpret it as "when the Eldrazi gets near something, that something is simply destroyed" and it's certainly fitting for a entity that eats whole planes of existence.

that being said, if you look at it from the gameplay standpoint, it gets REALLY ugly.

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is so stupid powerful that he rendered almost all other fatties in magic useless.

Will I cheat something in? Yes.
Is it Emrakul? No.
then it's worse than it could be.

Even if the game suffers in the flavor standpoint, having the eldrazi titans as powerful as they were in the first iteration makes more harm than good for the game as a whole.
Cards, no matter how powerful, should always have direct and common answers, and there's no reason from a mechanic standpoint to make Emrakul harder to answer to than Worldspine Wurm for example.

the new Eldrazi Titans still feel wacky and powerful, but one swing with Annihilator 6 simply ends the game on the spot, that couldn't happen again, really.

Quote from Fiveod »

Quote from veritoanimus »

Meh, that's the point of packs. There need to be duds. If there weren't then either the value of the set as a whole would tank, or packs would start selling at $50 each instead of $10. Just think about it for a minute. The value of the pack and the set as a whole are tightly linked based on the EV that you can expect to get from opening a large amount of product. If the EV goes too high, pack prices go up. if EV goes too low, they stop selling and pack prices go down. If WOTC wants to see things move at MSRP while maintaining powerful cards in a set. It just means that the cooler the things they want to print either: the more, and worse duds they have to throw in. to balance it out; They raise MSRP to match; or a combination of the 2.

Except the EV of Eternal Masters is already well below MSRP. MTGGoldfish puts the EV of a pack at $8.34 based on SCG singles prices and the SCG price of an EMA booster is $15. Not only that, but this is heavily weighted toward a small handful of very valuable rares and mythics. Clearly many factors go in to the price of a booster, and not just robotic assessment of expected values (which is pretty stupid to begin with, since you'd be better off just buying what you need in the first place rather than gambling and wasting your time selling/trading if your "expected value" is less than or equal to the pack price)

The goldfish article mentioned has an EV of $8.34 IF you tried to immediately turn around and sell everything for buylist prices.

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/the-expected-value-of-eternal-masters

If you're going by retail pricing, it's closer to $260 / box, or almost $11. Plus you can easily find boxes online for $260-$270, or about $11 / pack.

Your argument about the value being weighted toward a small handful of rares/mythics is simply incorrect. The very same Goldfish article you reference applauds Wizards for spreading the value out.

You are right about buying boxes is a losing proposition in the long run. You're far better off just buying singles and pinpointing exactly what you want/need. Personally, I like doing sealed and draft, so there is an intangible value I gain from packs that you cannot get from buying singles.

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/modeling-eternal-masters-future-with-modern-masters

Its interesting to see what SaffronOlive predicts card pricing to do here. I'd bet he's closer to being right on the money.

Quote from Fiveod »

Quote from veritoanimus »

A lot of that also has to do with temporary value loss because the market is full of the cards right now though. I'm still perfectly happy to open vindicates, argothian enchantresses, sinkholes, enlightened tutors, deathrite shamans... etc. Their value will increase again quick enough. EV on pack is generally stable at 20% under the pack price. When EV is at pack price or over is when things get crazy. Worldgorger is even playable, which is pretty cool. Even the non-value card in the set are fun and playable, so I'll always call that a win.

a) None of those cards you listed lost significant value since EMA. A couple bucks for Sinkhole, otherwise they're all pretty stable.
b) The EV is currently 55% of the going rate for packs, and 83% of MSRP. Clearly EV isn't as important as you think it is. That so many people give so much credence to this silly concept of EV is some Microeconomics 101, fantasyland, simpleminded, Grade-A BS.
c) Worldgorger is not playable. It is part of a single easily disrupted degenerate all-or-nothing combo, otherwise it's a pretty awful card.

Give VeritoAnimus a break. He's happy with what he got. There is no need to anger and frustrate him for your agenda.

You should go back and recheck your calculations on EV. You are basing it on data points that you have put together that are deliberately misleading. You are using $8.34 EV even though that is specifically buylist pricing. $15 / pack is ridiculous as you can find it for $100 / box less in several other places. On your second point of EV - it is important. We've seen it time and again with these limited run sets. If the EV is significantly higher than MSRP, what do the retailers do? They jack up the price. We saw it clearly with MM1 where MSRP was $7 and they were quickly being sold for $10/$11 pack. We're seeing it a bit here with EMA - EV is about $260 and it's being sold for about $260. Clearly EV isn't the fantasyland economics you make it out to be, otherwise EVERY RETAILER SELLING THIS SET IS WRONG! So which is more likely?

Worldgorger dragon is iconic as it was part of a popular infinite combo that was format defining and memorable. The deck was VERY strong in 1.5, resilient to hate (as graveyard hate wasn't as strong back then), very consistent and stable. Saying it's awful and part of an easily disruptable combo means little - Dredge is still alive and fights through similar hate as do many other graveyard based strategies. That argument holds about as much water as "dies to removal". Similar to Balance and Necropotence, they are just broken cards in the right decks.

This seems like a card that was made into a Mythic because it's miserable in limited.

That's just the Innistrad art. They would use different art if it's reprinted (Thoughtseize, Dispel, Cancel etc).

Ancient Grudge is one of the most brutal hate cards ever printed in the modern era. Against Affinity, the card is often a double Vindicate for 1RG, except even better: the fact that you can force the Ravager trigger to resolve before declaring a second target is just incredibly good.

Quote from remathilis »

Quote from BauerBoss »

You may think you know what is best for their game, but they support the tournaments. Why you think you know better than them, but also think that $2000 is a lot of money baffles me. If your life is in a direction where $2000 is too much money, but you think you have time for an intensive hobby, your judgment is probably a bit skewed.

If $2000 isn't a lot of money, surely you won't mind writing me a check for that amount. I'll pm you with my contact info.

Really? $2000 doesn't go very far these days when you consider just basic household expenses. Depending on where you live, $2000 might only last you a month, maybe two. Sure, it sounds like a lot but when you consider all the little things you pay a couple hundred bucks for each month, it's not all that much. Same goes with Magic. You don't have to buy a competitive Legacy deck all in one go, and you shouldn't expect to unless you have that large of a recreation budget. If you want the shock value, you can say "$2000 is too much for a deck, damn you Wizards!" but in reality, Magic decks are made of Magic cards. Is $20 too much for a Flooded Strand? I certainly don't think so. When you look at the price history of that card and its utility among formats, I'd say it's a bargain. And if you think $20 is too much, it doesn't really take a crystal ball to realize you should have bought it this summer when it was $15. Is $100 for a Scalding Tarn too much? Yeah, probably. But I wouldn't worry too much about that, and certainly wouldn't buy that piece myself right now, because it will probably go down again after Modern season and will most likely be reprinted in the longrun. I certainly hope you're not saying $1 is too much for a Brainstorm, because that is an amazingly handy card played in multiple archetypes. There are things like Force of Will and Underground Sea where you just have to bite the bullet and fork up the dough, but are you telling me you've never been on a road trip or other big event where you set aside large amounts of money to pay for gas, food, lodging, souvenirs and unexpected expenses? It might take a few months of pinching pennies for some families, but a lot of people go on vacation and spend more than you would on a playset of duals -- without the added benefit that they can sell their memories to other vacationers if they want their money back.

I imagine a lot of pro players don't really worry too much about the costs of cards, and, in my mind, they're the only people who really need Force of Wills. I don't know what a typical pro's budget spreadsheet looks like, but I imagine there are fewer lines for playable singles, which are one-time expenses and can be possibly be borrowed from other members of a team, vs. the expenses that repeatedly come up from travelling on a regular basis. I mean, once you've got your Force of Wills you've got your Force of Wills. But you can't show up at Best Western and say "No, I paid last year, remember?"

Plus if you're playing enough Magic you just end up getting a lot of cards, so you can trade for the things you want. I'm sitting on a prerelease promo of Kolaghan's Command right now, which MtGGoldfish tells me sells for $60. You know how much I paid for it? Not a penny. Because I consider the $25 entry fee more than fair for the entertainment value of attending prerelease, and if I open a tradable card it's just gravy. Almost any player who's been playing for long enough has a few gems like that, which can be leveraged if you're patient and know the value of your singles.

So, yeah, the "zOMG $2000!" rests on two faulty assumptions: it treats the pricetag of a deck as a lump sum, ignoring the fact that these are individual cards that can be bought individually and liquidised as needed, and it assumes that being able to participate in a small store-run event is somehow equivalent to needing a top-tier deck of the type that wins cash prizes on the national stage.

The price arguments that aren't acknowledged is you basically have a one time investment in one of these expensive decks. That is why people tend to acquire the pieces over time, and don't just drop a lump sum on a deck. Let alone do it every week.

People in the pro proxy camp basically make an argument that is ridiculous as though people are expected to drop $2000+ every Magic tournament they play in, or can't possibly move cards from one deck to another. When I built Death and Taxes, it took me 4 months to get the ports and Karakas along with the other pieces through trading. When I built Legacy Infect, it took me 2 months to find the Berserks and trops through trading. That is perfectly normal to have to spend time to acquire cards for decks, and what is abnormal is this assumption that the need has to be satisfied immediately. A friend of mine trade grinded for a year and a half, but he has a Sapphire, Jet and Ruby and a sleeve playable Lotus and Time Vault. It can be done, so, you know. Try.

Let me chime in to give some advice to people who want to play Magic on a budget.

So, you want to put the Power Nine in your cube. Or, you want to put a Candelabra or Cradle in your Commander deck. But, wait, who wants to spend $10,000.00 on a few old beat up cards? You sure don't. And, who wants to put an ugly sharpied land in your box? Ain't no one who likes that. The pretty pictures are part of the experience. We're not looking to grind for tournament data, we're looking to have a good time with our buddies!

I feel ya. You want a good-looking, good-feeling proxy. That's a fair thing to want.

But, hold on there, sport. There's absolutely no need for the proxies to be indistinguishable from real cards. It's the truth so nice I'll say it twice: There's absolutely no need for the proxies to be indistinguishable from real cards. If you want to pay a craftsman to make you up a cool looking proxy, then you're in luck: there are lots of people who do exactly this. Here, I'll even give you a link to a bunch of em: https://www.etsy.com/search?q=magic the gathering proxy You can go here and order some very good looking home-made versions of popular expensive cards at a very reasonable price. Stick em in your cube and watch your play-mates react with smiles and compliments about how much cooler these look than old beat-up versions of cards from 1994. Plus, if they spill beer or Mountain Dew on em... so much less the problem.

What you should not do -- what you should never do -- is give your money to someone who is trying to make near-perfect copies of actual cards. Why not? Remember that old saying: There's absolutely no need for the proxies to be indistinguishable from real cards. The only legitimate reason for wanting a carbon copy of a real card is to try and pass it off as real. In other words, to try and lie to someone. Sneak into a tournament and play the disqualification lottery. Trade them off for higher value. Whatever. Even if you're honest and you would never do that, by buying the cards you're financing the industry that allows this and putting cards into circulation that will some day be put to improper uses.

That's the bottom line, friends. If you want good-looking cards made in someone's basement, you can get those. But, as a player, I'm pleading with you that you draw the line at real-looking cards -- those are COUNTERFEITS, not PROXIES. You don't need em, and you're fueling a horrible problem in the trading and tournament community.

Footnote: I'm not suggesting the Etsy folks are not also violating WotC's copyright. They probably are, so you probably shouldn't support them, either. But, as a player, I would rather people bought those for their personal screwin' around time than they finance the Chinese and related creeps who are pumping fake cards into circulation.