What I was suggesting was that we could return to a ravaged plane that has been consumed by the eldrazi. Basically, colorless would be a big theme.
Hmm...a colorless theme would be interesting. It would be like the Eldrazi sucked all the colored mana out of the plane. They could handle this by hating on colored cards in a similar way as All is Dust does. Cards such as, non-colorless creatures get -1/-1, all basic lands tap for colorless mana, etc...They could potentially have a few colorless spells that do things that are normally reserved for specific colors. This of course would lead to color pie bleeding, but Wizards has already shown a willingness to do this by releasing sets such as Planar Chaos.
I think Wizards has learned to have blocks follow each other compatibly quite well.
I think it's more likely we'll see the wedge block next. At least more likely than Zendikar.
I think I may agree with the idea of the wedge block coming out before Return to Zendikar (similar to how Zendikar followed Shards the first time). I could see a wedge block coming out in 2016 and RtZ coming out in 2017. As far as the compatibility issue, Wizards has proven that they are just as likely to come out with a block that hates on some of the basic premises of the block before it, as they are one that is compatible with it. RTR was a multi-color themed block, but Theros pushes mono-colored hard, just as an example.
Edit: The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of a Shards-like, wedge block that cares about multi-colored being followed by a colorless themed, colored-spell hating block.
Since Wizards may not want to revisit Annihilator, they could make the Eldrazi have color hating abilities tacked onto them. Something like:
Eldrazi Lord 6
Trample
Colorless spells cost 1 less to play
Non-colorless spells cost 1 more to play for each color in their mana cost.
7/6
Add to this a Planeswalker sub-theme, and I'm now excited about a Zendikar that will never happen.
I can't see Wizards returning to Zendikar before 2016. That would mean we have at least two more blocks before we return. Personally, I enjoyed both Shards and Innistrad more than Zendikar, but I'd be excited to return to Zendikar if that means we get reprints of all 10 Fetchlands.
As far as Zendikar is concerned, I think it would be interesting/cool if they made it the first ever Planeswalker themed set. It could have more than your average amount of Planeswalkers per block (lets say 15 or so), and have more cards that interact with Planeswalkers. These cards could include the type of Planeswalker hate we've seen on cards such as Hero's Demise, as well as exploring new designs such as cards that add or remove counters from Planeswalkers or maybe even extinguish their spark.
Something like this:
Extinguish the Spark
Enchant Planeswalker W
Enchanted Planeswalker loses all abilities and is a creature with power and toughness equal to the number of loyalty counters on it. It is no longer a Planeswalker.
Perhaps the examples I've given are a bit narrow, but I think there is a lot of design space in a Planeswalker theme. They could even have a creature that becomes a Planeswalker if the right conditions are met. I don't know how they'd represent this though, maybe with the first ever Planeswalker token?
Just as a hypothetical, what if Chromanticore WAS Legendary... How would a bestow creature function as a commander in EDH? The bestow cost wouldn't be subject to the incrimentally increasing casting costs from the command zone, would it? So you could just keep casting it for its bestow cost over and over? Or would the extra 2 per cast apply to the Bestow cost as well?
I see no reason you would have to pay an additional 2 for each time you pay it's Bestow cost from the command zone. It should work in the same way as Derevi, Empyrial Tactician's ability does, except no flash. This is the reason it would've been an interesting general, and it should've been a legend. But, woulda shoulda....
Yeah. I agree, something like Scornful Egotist seems to be the only route they might take for something like this. Something like:
Dumb Beast GGG
1/1 Trample
Bestow G
They could potentially have a cycle, B - 1/1 death touch, W - 1/1 lifelink, U - 1/1 draw when deals combat damage, R - 1/1 haste.
Not the best cards, but you get the idea.
I've got to go with Innistrad on this one. Everybody I know dislikes the functionality of transform, but still loves the Innistrad block. Most of the decks from that era were a lot of fun to play, and I feel like the Innistrad/RTR standard was one of the most diverse of all time. I mean, what was the dominant deck of that standard? In a lot of ways, I feel the success of RTR block is partly attributable to the popularity of Innistrad (along with the popularity of the original Ravnica block of course). It's like if George Costanza got his own show and it debuted in the time slot following Big Bang Theory, everybody's going to check it out because they're already watching that station and of course George Costanza.
It seems to me, if there were a poll, and this thread is any indication, the results thus far would be the following:
1 Fetchlands
2 Enemy Manlands
3 Enemy Fastlands
4 Horizon Canopy Cycle
I have to say, this would be just about the order I'd go with myself. I'd throw the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor filters in there too, just because they cost too much.
In regards to the "problem" of Goyf+Confidant rising in price. I also am not seeing the prices you are quoting, you can still pick up Goyfs for just over 110 which is a slight increase since before I was finding them as low as 95, Confidant also has gone up for about 50ish to 60 so again a minor price increase. I will say though It's not really the fault of Modern Masters Wizards said they would reprint those cards and they did.
What happened was everyone was waiting to pick up Confidants and Goyfs later because they knew they would be in Modern Masters. This caused a delay in the pricing as prices held or dropped slightly leading up to Modern Masters. Prices also did dip for a very brief period just after the set came out. Not a huge drop like after Thoughtseize got reprinted in Theros. It was a minor dip as the reprint versions were worth a chunk less then the older versions. Retailers were charging that much based on the fact that people were paying it. Even so I was able to pick up a box at MSRP from my LGS and a box at around 1.4x MSRP via pre-order.
I doubt we will ever see a market crash like Baseball cards or comics the problem with those commodities vs. magic, is that magic cards have inherent value you can play a card game with them and surprise surprise some of the most expensive cards are the most powerful. Meanwhile if I go out and buy a 75 thousand dollar Mickey Mantle baseball card all it does is sit on a shelf and collect dust.
Obviously, there are collectors that buy power 9 and never intend to play with them. But the majority of people that have mtg collections seem to want to play with their cards. This makes it so that while the game will have times when the game is not as popular, overall until people start to shift attention completely to another Tcg for good. (Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon, took massive attention away from the game for a period of time, but it was temporary as both goes ended up playing second fiddle.) Magic will continue to be extremely dominant, if people were not willing to pay the prices you talk about the cards would drop in price period. That is the reason why tons of cards go down in value, because all of a sudden no one is buying any copies at price xyz.
I also want to point out that playing this game at a competitive level is probably cheaper then playing golf at a competitive level. I mean when you calculate the price of keeping a year long membership at a club, having to constantly get new clubs, and pay for lessons. I think mtg can be quite a bit cheaper especially if you are good at predicting market trends and know when to sell cards off to help keep some money rolling in. In a time when we are seeing the biggest turnout for tournaments ever, we could be on a slight bubble, but unlike other markets I doubt this one will crash. It may decline in popularity, but a crash is completely unlikely in my opinion.
Sorry, "crash" may be too strong a word, but I stand by my thought about prices decreasing, and the current "bubble" bursting at some point in the not too distant future.
As far as the prices of Goyf and Bob, etc go...As I said, I have stopped playing 60 card Magic formats and now play strictly EDH, therefor I hadn't checked these prices in a bit. A quick visit to TrollandToad shows that they are charging $130 for Goyf and $75 for Bob, but I see no need to quibble about exact pricing. The point is, I was excited about the possibility of acquiring these cards, either by opening them in packs that cost MSRP (I couldn't find them for less than $15 when they came out), or buying them when the price of singles dropped (many actually went up). Neither of these two scenarios came to be for me. Perhaps my expectations were unrealistic sure, but I can only be disappointed by something so many times before I give up on it. The same thing happened when they first announced the Modern format. As someone that hasn't been playing since '93, I was unable to play competitive legacy due to the high costs. I also didn't find the idea of trying to keep up with standard appealing. That being said, when Wizards announced the Modern format, I thought they were reading my mind. Unfortunately, the Modern format caused many of the important cards that were legal in the format to skyrocket in price, the shocklands are excellent examples of this (they are also the best example of Wizards fixing the cost problem). Needless to say, I never really ended up getting into competitive Modern too much and Modern Masters caused me to give up on trying. These days I'm sticking to tabletop EDH, I don't really need to keep buying more ridiculously expensive cards in order to play it.
Edit: One last thing...As far as MTG cards being different from Baseball cards, I don't disagree at all, but, as far as people not leaving them on the shelf to collect dust, I have to somewhat disagree. I've been having difficulty finding the Grixsis Commander deck for MSRP, this is partially because of the fact that I know people that are buying out the Walmarts and Targets, opening one, and shelving the rest to make a profit. I can't even blame them, it'll help them feed the fire later down the road, but that is the sort of thing that is driving me away from MTG and its caused by the crazy secondary market. I've got too may other responsibilities in life (like kids) to be staking out Target like that.
It hasn't been easy but, I have managed to obtain all but the Grixsis so far at MSRP. I have done this by stopping at Walmarts, Targets and LGS's almost everyday for the last week and finding them 1 at a time. It has been a pain. I will probably continue to do this until I find the Grixsis deck at MSRP. Where I live we have 1 large LGS and 2 smaller ones, both of the smaller ones have been selling them at MSRP but sell out immediately, making their selection sparse (no Grixsis). The larger one is selling them for anywhere from $40 (Naya) to $70 (Grixsis), and consistently have them all in stock from what I'm told, but I have boycotted them since Modern Masters. To be honest with you, between being cut out of Modern Masters completely because of price gouging , and now having this much difficulty obtaining one of each of the Commander decks, I have been thinking more and more about quitting the game entirely. Starting with the Modern Masters debacle, I have already switched to EDH full time, and, for the first time in a long time, have ignored the last two sets completely (M14 and Theros). Sorry if that makes some people angry (which I'm sure it will for some reason), but that's just where I'm at right now.
I'm pretty sure Wizards has no intention of releasing Modern Masters annually. It is far more likely to show up every 3 years or so.
...it didn't destroy prices across the board, but it did reduce several of them, and prevented others from continuing the rapid growth they were experiencing.
This brings me to my other point, and I know I'm going to get a lot of haters but, from my standpoint Modern Masters was a complete failure. While it did bring down the prices of a few cards such as Spell Snare, for many others, the price actually rose considerably. Goyf went from $100ish to $150ish, Bob went from $50ish to $90ish, etc. This combined with retailers selling the product for triple MSRP as soon as it was released has actually caused me to pretty much quit playing all 60 card formats completely. This is also the case for most of my playgroup, we now play strictly EDH. Now my LGS is selling Commander 2013 decks for anywhere from $40 to $70. If it weren't for the fact that these can be found at Target and Walmart for MSRP, I would have quit playing MTG all together. More and more, I'm thinking that right now would be a great time to sell my collection. I can't see the current market sustaining itself for too much longer, the prices have to drop. They are pricing the average player out of the market entirely. It reminds me of what happened in the 90's to baseball cards. With the invention of Upperdeck and other new brands, baseball card collecting saw a spike in popularity and value, when too many cards flooded the market and their values began intimidating the average collector, the market crashed and all the cards from that era lost significant value. I can see this happening to MTG. I know this thought will bring me a lot of heat but, its where myself and a lot of friends are at this moment.
Hmm.. there is some interesting discussion going on here. Here's my 20 cents.
First: I firmly believe the next few Commander Deck products will be; enemy dual colors (Boros, Simic, etc), then friendly dual colors (Dimir, Selesnya, etc), then mono-colored.
Second: I could see them making the mono-colored decks also have a tribal theme. White: Humans and/or Angels, Blue: Merfolk and/or Sphinxes, Black: Zombies and/or Vampires, Red: Goblins and/or Dragons and Green: Elves and/or Beasts.
Third: I have no idea how they could release a colorless and a 5 color Commander Deck. What would the other 3 decks be? I do however believe there wouldn't be a huge problem with them making a new basic land that taps for colorless to include in the colorless deck to fix the mana-base. Perhaps I'm missing something though?
Fourth: I agree, a 4 color Commander deck would be difficult to design. If they did decide to do it though, they'd probably have to design 10 new 4 color generals and errat the Nephilims to be legends. The idea for their identity I like best is, make the deck HATE on the missing color. Include every possible card that hates on the missing color you can find. These could include things like; protection from the color, hating on things the color likes to do (exiling the grave in the one missing B for example), landwalk, etc. One of the generals in each deck could have: protection from the missing color, spells of the missing color cost 1 (2?) colorless more to play, and I hate something that color does ("players can't gain life" for example on the one missing white). The decks could also include cards that manipulate colors to avoid times when certain abilities would be irrelevant. They could potentially make the ability to manipulate colors a subtheme for 4 color decks to help differentiate them from 5 color decks which have a subtheme of caring about having all five colors. Lastly, I don't see any reason why a 4 color deck would have any more difficulty with its mana-base than a 5 color deck would, except perhaps for the one missing green.
Edit: The other cycle of four color commanders could be versions of the card Eight-and-a-Half-Tails , but hating on the missing color. This may be somewhat repetitive though. You'd have to give them some other ability to differentiate them, perhaps one that shows up in the color they are not would be interesting ("Creatures you control get deathtouch" for instance on the one missing black).
Edit 2: I just realized that what I describe above is basically one 4 color deck copied 5 times. What I was thinking in my head is, each 4 color combo differentiates itself by its ability to completely stop key elements found in its missing color. The idea is, each four color combo tries to simulate what the game would be like if the missing color never existed in the first place. No mana ramp without green (including mana rocks?), no lifegain without white, etc. This would give each combo a pseudo-identity since the other colors in the deck sometimes like to use those missing abilities, such as lifegain for black or green, and it punishes other decks for running abilities/colors that "don't exist". I realize what I'm describing may not be realistic, but it's a fun and challenging thing to think about.
They're two color. It's likely they're something closer to the Volvers, where they have one Devotion Effect from one color, and one from the other.
So... "+2/+2 and trample if your devotion to Green is ~, and +1/+1 and Flying if your devotion to Blue is ~'.
I like this idea a lot. How about something like this...
W/R/1 ~ Creature/Enchantment
If your devotion to white is 2 or greater, creatures you control get +1/+1
If your devotion to red is 2 or greater, creatures you control have haste
If both ~ becomes a creature
Indestructible 2/2
I can't tell if this is good or bad. It does nothing on its own, but with a Legion's Initiative out it comes down as a third turn 4/4 indestructible, haste. Maybe up the devotion/mana cost? Anyway, I like the idea of devotion to one color gives one ability, devotion to the other gives another ability, then devotion to both makes him a creature. The W/B one could be Soul Warden and Deathgreeter rolled into one.
If they continue to follow the trend they've established recently, the planeswalkers will be from RTR. I don't think they are going to make a repeat deck for any of the planeswalkers, so that rules out Jace. Considering Gideon has been around for while now, I think Wizards will want to give him his own deck, which I assume will have red in it for Boros. I don't think they are going to want both decks to have red in them, therefore, my guess is Gideon Vs. Vraska. The only monkeywrench I see in this scenario is that they just printed a Golgari deck last year. If were up to me, it would be Domri Vs. Ral.
Hmm...a colorless theme would be interesting. It would be like the Eldrazi sucked all the colored mana out of the plane. They could handle this by hating on colored cards in a similar way as All is Dust does. Cards such as, non-colorless creatures get -1/-1, all basic lands tap for colorless mana, etc...They could potentially have a few colorless spells that do things that are normally reserved for specific colors. This of course would lead to color pie bleeding, but Wizards has already shown a willingness to do this by releasing sets such as Planar Chaos.
I think I may agree with the idea of the wedge block coming out before Return to Zendikar (similar to how Zendikar followed Shards the first time). I could see a wedge block coming out in 2016 and RtZ coming out in 2017. As far as the compatibility issue, Wizards has proven that they are just as likely to come out with a block that hates on some of the basic premises of the block before it, as they are one that is compatible with it. RTR was a multi-color themed block, but Theros pushes mono-colored hard, just as an example.
Edit: The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of a Shards-like, wedge block that cares about multi-colored being followed by a colorless themed, colored-spell hating block.
Since Wizards may not want to revisit Annihilator, they could make the Eldrazi have color hating abilities tacked onto them. Something like:
Eldrazi Lord 6
Trample
Colorless spells cost 1 less to play
Non-colorless spells cost 1 more to play for each color in their mana cost.
7/6
Add to this a Planeswalker sub-theme, and I'm now excited about a Zendikar that will never happen.
As far as Zendikar is concerned, I think it would be interesting/cool if they made it the first ever Planeswalker themed set. It could have more than your average amount of Planeswalkers per block (lets say 15 or so), and have more cards that interact with Planeswalkers. These cards could include the type of Planeswalker hate we've seen on cards such as Hero's Demise, as well as exploring new designs such as cards that add or remove counters from Planeswalkers or maybe even extinguish their spark.
Something like this:
Extinguish the Spark
Enchant Planeswalker W
Enchanted Planeswalker loses all abilities and is a creature with power and toughness equal to the number of loyalty counters on it. It is no longer a Planeswalker.
Perhaps the examples I've given are a bit narrow, but I think there is a lot of design space in a Planeswalker theme. They could even have a creature that becomes a Planeswalker if the right conditions are met. I don't know how they'd represent this though, maybe with the first ever Planeswalker token?
I see no reason you would have to pay an additional 2 for each time you pay it's Bestow cost from the command zone. It should work in the same way as Derevi, Empyrial Tactician's ability does, except no flash. This is the reason it would've been an interesting general, and it should've been a legend. But, woulda shoulda....
Dumb Beast GGG
1/1 Trample
Bestow G
They could potentially have a cycle, B - 1/1 death touch, W - 1/1 lifelink, U - 1/1 draw when deals combat damage, R - 1/1 haste.
Not the best cards, but you get the idea.
1 Fetchlands
2 Enemy Manlands
3 Enemy Fastlands
4 Horizon Canopy Cycle
I have to say, this would be just about the order I'd go with myself. I'd throw the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor filters in there too, just because they cost too much.
Me too!
Sorry, "crash" may be too strong a word, but I stand by my thought about prices decreasing, and the current "bubble" bursting at some point in the not too distant future.
As far as the prices of Goyf and Bob, etc go...As I said, I have stopped playing 60 card Magic formats and now play strictly EDH, therefor I hadn't checked these prices in a bit. A quick visit to TrollandToad shows that they are charging $130 for Goyf and $75 for Bob, but I see no need to quibble about exact pricing. The point is, I was excited about the possibility of acquiring these cards, either by opening them in packs that cost MSRP (I couldn't find them for less than $15 when they came out), or buying them when the price of singles dropped (many actually went up). Neither of these two scenarios came to be for me. Perhaps my expectations were unrealistic sure, but I can only be disappointed by something so many times before I give up on it. The same thing happened when they first announced the Modern format. As someone that hasn't been playing since '93, I was unable to play competitive legacy due to the high costs. I also didn't find the idea of trying to keep up with standard appealing. That being said, when Wizards announced the Modern format, I thought they were reading my mind. Unfortunately, the Modern format caused many of the important cards that were legal in the format to skyrocket in price, the shocklands are excellent examples of this (they are also the best example of Wizards fixing the cost problem). Needless to say, I never really ended up getting into competitive Modern too much and Modern Masters caused me to give up on trying. These days I'm sticking to tabletop EDH, I don't really need to keep buying more ridiculously expensive cards in order to play it.
Edit: One last thing...As far as MTG cards being different from Baseball cards, I don't disagree at all, but, as far as people not leaving them on the shelf to collect dust, I have to somewhat disagree. I've been having difficulty finding the Grixsis Commander deck for MSRP, this is partially because of the fact that I know people that are buying out the Walmarts and Targets, opening one, and shelving the rest to make a profit. I can't even blame them, it'll help them feed the fire later down the road, but that is the sort of thing that is driving me away from MTG and its caused by the crazy secondary market. I've got too may other responsibilities in life (like kids) to be staking out Target like that.
This brings me to my other point, and I know I'm going to get a lot of haters but, from my standpoint Modern Masters was a complete failure. While it did bring down the prices of a few cards such as Spell Snare, for many others, the price actually rose considerably. Goyf went from $100ish to $150ish, Bob went from $50ish to $90ish, etc. This combined with retailers selling the product for triple MSRP as soon as it was released has actually caused me to pretty much quit playing all 60 card formats completely. This is also the case for most of my playgroup, we now play strictly EDH. Now my LGS is selling Commander 2013 decks for anywhere from $40 to $70. If it weren't for the fact that these can be found at Target and Walmart for MSRP, I would have quit playing MTG all together. More and more, I'm thinking that right now would be a great time to sell my collection. I can't see the current market sustaining itself for too much longer, the prices have to drop. They are pricing the average player out of the market entirely. It reminds me of what happened in the 90's to baseball cards. With the invention of Upperdeck and other new brands, baseball card collecting saw a spike in popularity and value, when too many cards flooded the market and their values began intimidating the average collector, the market crashed and all the cards from that era lost significant value. I can see this happening to MTG. I know this thought will bring me a lot of heat but, its where myself and a lot of friends are at this moment.
First: I firmly believe the next few Commander Deck products will be; enemy dual colors (Boros, Simic, etc), then friendly dual colors (Dimir, Selesnya, etc), then mono-colored.
Second: I could see them making the mono-colored decks also have a tribal theme. White: Humans and/or Angels, Blue: Merfolk and/or Sphinxes, Black: Zombies and/or Vampires, Red: Goblins and/or Dragons and Green: Elves and/or Beasts.
Third: I have no idea how they could release a colorless and a 5 color Commander Deck. What would the other 3 decks be? I do however believe there wouldn't be a huge problem with them making a new basic land that taps for colorless to include in the colorless deck to fix the mana-base. Perhaps I'm missing something though?
Fourth: I agree, a 4 color Commander deck would be difficult to design. If they did decide to do it though, they'd probably have to design 10 new 4 color generals and errat the Nephilims to be legends. The idea for their identity I like best is, make the deck HATE on the missing color. Include every possible card that hates on the missing color you can find. These could include things like; protection from the color, hating on things the color likes to do (exiling the grave in the one missing B for example), landwalk, etc. One of the generals in each deck could have: protection from the missing color, spells of the missing color cost 1 (2?) colorless more to play, and I hate something that color does ("players can't gain life" for example on the one missing white). The decks could also include cards that manipulate colors to avoid times when certain abilities would be irrelevant. They could potentially make the ability to manipulate colors a subtheme for 4 color decks to help differentiate them from 5 color decks which have a subtheme of caring about having all five colors. Lastly, I don't see any reason why a 4 color deck would have any more difficulty with its mana-base than a 5 color deck would, except perhaps for the one missing green.
Edit: The other cycle of four color commanders could be versions of the card Eight-and-a-Half-Tails , but hating on the missing color. This may be somewhat repetitive though. You'd have to give them some other ability to differentiate them, perhaps one that shows up in the color they are not would be interesting ("Creatures you control get deathtouch" for instance on the one missing black).
Edit 2: I just realized that what I describe above is basically one 4 color deck copied 5 times. What I was thinking in my head is, each 4 color combo differentiates itself by its ability to completely stop key elements found in its missing color. The idea is, each four color combo tries to simulate what the game would be like if the missing color never existed in the first place. No mana ramp without green (including mana rocks?), no lifegain without white, etc. This would give each combo a pseudo-identity since the other colors in the deck sometimes like to use those missing abilities, such as lifegain for black or green, and it punishes other decks for running abilities/colors that "don't exist". I realize what I'm describing may not be realistic, but it's a fun and challenging thing to think about.
If you're talking about 2 colored gods, we will definitely see them:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/263
I like this idea a lot. How about something like this...
W/R/1 ~ Creature/Enchantment
If your devotion to white is 2 or greater, creatures you control get +1/+1
If your devotion to red is 2 or greater, creatures you control have haste
If both ~ becomes a creature
Indestructible 2/2
I can't tell if this is good or bad. It does nothing on its own, but with a Legion's Initiative out it comes down as a third turn 4/4 indestructible, haste. Maybe up the devotion/mana cost? Anyway, I like the idea of devotion to one color gives one ability, devotion to the other gives another ability, then devotion to both makes him a creature. The W/B one could be Soul Warden and Deathgreeter rolled into one.