The mana symbols, tap symbol and Magic: the Gathering logo are all proprietary to Wizards of the Coast. Additionally, all individual cards are protected under trademark and copyright laws, including art elements and the card backs. Making reproductions of the art images and card faces of Magic cards is an infringement of our rights and is prohibited. The use of this art and images requires the express permission from Wizards of the Coast. Without this permission, scanning and posting and otherwise distributing these images violates the law. Even photocopying them to use as a “proxy” for personal use is illegal and violates our intellectual property rights.[/i] http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/feature/209
Note how they phrase this, and it's clear that they'll never go after home use proxy makers. They say that "scanning, posting, and otherwise distributing" violates copyright law (and isn't what the OP is asking about - this would probably enable them to go after magiccards.info though if they really wanted), and then say that printing for personal use only "violates our intellectual property rights" - which would result in a civil claim, where, again, they have to show damages which would be impossible. It's like it's technically "illegal" to print out a piece of art or a copyrighted photograph and hang it on the wall at my house - does it violate a copyright? Sure, but there's no damage to the entity that holds the copyright so they can never sue you. Anyone telling you that you can get in trouble for home use, or even non-sanctioned event use proxies is misinformed or actively misleading you - the legal bill wizards would incur from going after an individual home proxy user would be orders of magnitude greater than any damage they could show assuming they could even show any.
Of course wizards is going to use language on their website that discourages people from printing proxies and encourages them to buy real cards. Wizards wants to sell cards. Its pretty telling, however, that they don't cite to any of these supposed national and international laws wed be violating by printing homemade proxies for non-sanctioned events. Also, magiccards.info is a well-known, widely used site with an obvious print proxy feature. If home printing was actually illegal, why wouldn't wizards send them a cease and desist? Because home printing proxies is not illegal.
Even if it were "illegal," it would be illegal in the way that opens you up to getting sued, not that gets you fined or sent to jail, and for that wizards would have to show damages. Good luck proving damages when someone prints four copies of a card that wizards doesn't even produce anymore and is only available on the secondary market. Those wizards employees who told you otherwise were either just blindly following the company line or being willfully misleading.
TL;DR - printing proxies for home or casual use is fine, just don't sell/trade them and you can't use them in sanctioned events. Proxying for casual use and testing is hugely widespread, and no one has ever gotten in trouble for it.
Did that to some extent, the only other singles that I need/want are pricey (30-150ish per) but I figure that I might peel one or 2 in the right box and get some new things to build other decks with.
You almost never get your money back in a box, and buying a booster box looking for a particular rare or mythic is almost always a recipe for disappointment. Your odds of getting a particular rare in a single booster pack in RTR, for instance, is 1:88. So, your odds of getting a particular rare in a booster box is 1-(1(1/88))^36=~.338, or a 33.8% chance in the entire box. And that's just of getting a single of that rare, which is worthless if you want a playset. If you want particular commons and uncommons, they can be had on the cheap from any online retailer.
In short, you aren't gonna save any money on cards buying booster boxes. If you love cracking packs, or want to draft with your friends, go for it, but otherwise buy singles.
Edit - Accidentally used the numbers from OLD ravnica instead of return in my math. Odds of pulling a specific rare in a box of return is closer to 45% (thanks to hoffmkr for the calculation for new ravnica) , while the chance of pulling a specific mythic is substantially lower (1/8 then 1/15, or 1/120, meaning you have about a 26% chance to hit).
This game is too close to Magic, I hope WoTC wins. Although, I also believe that Hearthstone is too close to Magic, so I guess I am not the right person to ask... As for preferring competition, I actually wouldn't. It might lower prices slightly, but it would also divide the community. I don't get to play Magic as often as I'd like to, and having half of our players leave to go to another game doesn't sound appealing to me.
I don't really see how you could think hearthstone is too close to magic (is it much worse than magic as a game, and a million times better as a program, but that's an argument for a different time.) All it has that is similar to magic is health, creatures, and spells. There is no stack, no instants, no lands, it uses the warcraft universe so no lore overlap, heroes having different abilities is completely different than magic, being able to attack creatures directly is completely different, the resource system is completely different, and there aren't really many creature abilities that are similar to magic abilities. The games are only similar in that they are both fantasy card games where the goal is to kill the other player. That covers a lot of games.
How does shutting down a rip-off stifle creativity?
Not that I agree with this, but I assume the argument would go that this could paint WOTC as a litigious company, and that would have a chilling effect on new TCG's entering the market (well, I was gonna make a new game but I don't want to get sued) even if they aren't similar enough to magic to be open to a viable lawsuit.
However, on a practical level I agree with you. The only people who would be discouraged by this case are those who want to hop on the magic success train with as little work as possible.
And the tokens have deathtouch, so they'll also immediately kill a player if they deal damage. Good point to bring up.
You're thinking of the other GB walker.
Lol, no, I was just running the whole "can he destroy a player with his +1 since the magic literature says you are a planeswalker" joke into the ground.
Although maybe you were just extending it to. I have no way of knowing at this point.
Back to the actual card, has anyone run him yet, and if so, what were your results? It's pretty obvious that I don't think he's nearly good enough, but it is a very cool card so I wouldn't mind being proven wrong.
I was hoping to see changes to the Organized play system to bring Magic more in line with other competitive gaming "sports", and this is basically the opposite of that.
DotA2 just had its International tournament with a prize pool of $10M.
And that's for a game that's free to play.
It's also, of course, run by valve, a company with substantially, exponentially deeper pockets than Wizards.
This also makes it harder for vendors to bulk buy and sell singles. PTQ's provided an inexpensive chance for smaller vendors to get face-to-face time with customers. Now they can only do that at GP's, Invitationals, and Opens, where the cost and availability are significantly higher.
Translation: singles may become less available and more expensive as a collateral effect from this change.
While there are lots of issues with this change, I don't think this is one of them. The lion's share of all of these companies' sales were either online or through their brick and mortar store (if they had one), not at these events. I doubt this will have any appreciable impact on singles prices, except that people won't see the occasional great sales that vendors sometimes had at these events.
I like that version of the cryptologist a lot more.
I dunno how I feel about the Raiders. That's pretty darn close to just "Draw a card", which is fine except it probably shouldn't come on a body that's already slightly pushed, especially when you look at Elvish Visionary
I agree that Red should get the ability to interact with exile, as its biggest enemies are the ones most likely to do it (Swords to Plowshares, Dissipate), but the head designer of Magic has some issues with that (namely, let's not turn Exile into just a second graveyard), so we'll likely never see it.
Maybe make mogg raiders "you may cast that card" so that it can whiff (but still provide value by eliminating an unneeded land draw)?
Note how they phrase this, and it's clear that they'll never go after home use proxy makers. They say that "scanning, posting, and otherwise distributing" violates copyright law (and isn't what the OP is asking about - this would probably enable them to go after magiccards.info though if they really wanted), and then say that printing for personal use only "violates our intellectual property rights" - which would result in a civil claim, where, again, they have to show damages which would be impossible. It's like it's technically "illegal" to print out a piece of art or a copyrighted photograph and hang it on the wall at my house - does it violate a copyright? Sure, but there's no damage to the entity that holds the copyright so they can never sue you. Anyone telling you that you can get in trouble for home use, or even non-sanctioned event use proxies is misinformed or actively misleading you - the legal bill wizards would incur from going after an individual home proxy user would be orders of magnitude greater than any damage they could show assuming they could even show any.
Even if it were "illegal," it would be illegal in the way that opens you up to getting sued, not that gets you fined or sent to jail, and for that wizards would have to show damages. Good luck proving damages when someone prints four copies of a card that wizards doesn't even produce anymore and is only available on the secondary market. Those wizards employees who told you otherwise were either just blindly following the company line or being willfully misleading.
TL;DR - printing proxies for home or casual use is fine, just don't sell/trade them and you can't use them in sanctioned events. Proxying for casual use and testing is hugely widespread, and no one has ever gotten in trouble for it.
You almost never get your money back in a box, and buying a booster box looking for a particular rare or mythic is almost always a recipe for disappointment. Your odds of getting a particular rare in a single booster pack in RTR, for instance, is 1:88. So, your odds of getting a particular rare in a booster box is 1-(1(1/88))^36=~.338, or a 33.8% chance in the entire box. And that's just of getting a single of that rare, which is worthless if you want a playset. If you want particular commons and uncommons, they can be had on the cheap from any online retailer.
In short, you aren't gonna save any money on cards buying booster boxes. If you love cracking packs, or want to draft with your friends, go for it, but otherwise buy singles.
Edit - Accidentally used the numbers from OLD ravnica instead of return in my math. Odds of pulling a specific rare in a box of return is closer to 45% (thanks to hoffmkr for the calculation for new ravnica) , while the chance of pulling a specific mythic is substantially lower (1/8 then 1/15, or 1/120, meaning you have about a 26% chance to hit).
I don't really see how you could think hearthstone is too close to magic (is it much worse than magic as a game, and a million times better as a program, but that's an argument for a different time.) All it has that is similar to magic is health, creatures, and spells. There is no stack, no instants, no lands, it uses the warcraft universe so no lore overlap, heroes having different abilities is completely different than magic, being able to attack creatures directly is completely different, the resource system is completely different, and there aren't really many creature abilities that are similar to magic abilities. The games are only similar in that they are both fantasy card games where the goal is to kill the other player. That covers a lot of games.
Not that I agree with this, but I assume the argument would go that this could paint WOTC as a litigious company, and that would have a chilling effect on new TCG's entering the market (well, I was gonna make a new game but I don't want to get sued) even if they aren't similar enough to magic to be open to a viable lawsuit.
However, on a practical level I agree with you. The only people who would be discouraged by this case are those who want to hop on the magic success train with as little work as possible.
Lol, no, I was just running the whole "can he destroy a player with his +1 since the magic literature says you are a planeswalker" joke into the ground.
Although maybe you were just extending it to. I have no way of knowing at this point.
Back to the actual card, has anyone run him yet, and if so, what were your results? It's pretty obvious that I don't think he's nearly good enough, but it is a very cool card so I wouldn't mind being proven wrong.
And the tokens have deathtouch, so they'll also immediately kill a player if they deal damage. Good point to bring up.
Sure, but dreadbore is way more efficient.
It's also, of course, run by valve, a company with substantially, exponentially deeper pockets than Wizards.
While there are lots of issues with this change, I don't think this is one of them. The lion's share of all of these companies' sales were either online or through their brick and mortar store (if they had one), not at these events. I doubt this will have any appreciable impact on singles prices, except that people won't see the occasional great sales that vendors sometimes had at these events.
Maybe make mogg raiders "you may cast that card" so that it can whiff (but still provide value by eliminating an unneeded land draw)?