I'm all for WotC creating unique, hard-to-find versions of cards, so long as they ALSO create normal versions of those exact same cards that can be pulled from normal, non-Collector boosters. If they want to make a full-art, alternate-art, super-exclusive card, sure, but make sure it's a card that's currently being printed as a normal, nonfoil, pack card.
The special edition, limited print cards give collectors something to chase. SDCC Planeswalkers, that are special versions of 'walkers already in print? Absolutely, go for it. Not my thing personally, but still interesting to have in the community. Nexus of Fate that can ONLY be gotten by preordering, or the secondary market, and can never be opened in a pack? Terrible idea.
Masterpieces were a great idea. I don't think I heard an argument against masterpieces as a whole that didn't boil down to "I don't want the game to be so affordable." The implementation wasn't great for the last set, but the IDEA, that you had super-special versions, in packs, that were super-rare? Great! it sold packs, and also helped keep the price of normal, playable versions of those same cards down. Everybody won, so of course WotC cut them.
Veil of Summer again taking an undeserved ban over cards that are far more damaging to the game. Can't ban Teferi, can't ban narset, but Veil is breaking the game enough to deserve a ban!
The absolute minimum they could do? Sounds about right. I think the logistics reasons, combined with the optics on Twitch, should have been enough to ban it in Standard completely, but they don't want to ban a high-priced a card that sells boxes, same reason Teferi won't get the banhammer. Both of those, along with Wilderness Reclamation, are poor design that leads to solitaire games as the entire win condition of the decks that run them.
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. I always loved just how strange this card was, but I still just can't bring myself to buy a copy. Time Walk. I regret selling mine way back in '99 or so. It was so beat up you'd think someone put it through the washing machine on their extra turns, but it was still a Time Walk.
I never got the chance to play with a lot of the Legends cards, having started about 6 months too late, there are a lot of cards there that I would have liked to try.
It's great if you want to pay cash. If you want to be F2P, then there's a LOT of variance, and if you're unlucky, you're going to be miserable. New sets every 3 months means that even as F2P, unless you're amazingly good, you're gong to fall behind and always be playing sub-par lists against the people who spent the money and have the wildcards and collections to build any deck day 1.
Working exactly like all the Beta players told them it would work: great for people who spend money, hostile to F2P players. Who would have guessed that?
Mono-Blue needs more efficient creatures? OK, I'm all for that, when every other color gets Blue's incredibly diverse bag of tricks. Pongify, Disallow, Snapcaster Mage, Serum Visions, and especially the 4-mana toolbox of a card named Cryptic Command. Since you want Blue to have no weaknesses at all, might as well take the same weaknesses from every other color at the same time.
I think Delver of Secrets would qualify as a viable Modern 1-drop, but in general blue is not supposed to have efficient creatures as part of its slice of the color pie.
MaRo vehemently disagrees. For Reasons.
Blue is, after all, primary in using flavor to justify color pie bends, breaks, and bleeds.
I asked on the podcast, but there are a few problems with the legal arguments:
1: Wizards of the Coast does not sell single cards. They sell lottery packs. Any single card anyone has ever bought has been through a third party, and WotC was not involved in that transaction in any way.
2: The Reprint Policy has already ben changed, with 2 significant revisions and at least one minor one, since its inception. None of those revisions were challenged, implying that the Reprint Policy is just that: a company policy, and subject to change with or without notice.
3: Cards formerly on the Reserve List have in fact already been reprinted, and again this went unchallenged. If it went unchallenged 15 years ago, trying to claim now that the promise is intact is rather sketchy.
I love the YouTuber law channel, but I think he missed some important points in his breakdown, specifically that single card sales are completely out of WotC's control. WotC simply can't be held responsible, legally, for what third-party sellers do, or for what someone using a third-party service pays for.
There is actually a very simple and effective way to deal with ID's if they are unwanted: make draws worth 0 points. If you can't finish a best-of-3 match within the time limit, you don't get any match points for failing to do so. Will this hurt some players who are up against slow players? Sure, but it might also encourage them to call a Judge instead of letting it happen. Will this hurt slower control matchups? Sure, but certain decks are already discouraged by the structure of a tournament to begin with, and a deck that cannot possibly win 2 games in 50 minutes? I don't see losing those as a loss to the tournament experience.
We've got all the streamers who got free packs saying the economy is fine, and everyone who got all the playsets of Mythics like Gearhulk saying everything is fine. Once they do the Open Beta wipe and everyone remembers exactly how terrible the economy is without the boatload of bandages and misdirection, the response will be exactly what it was several months ago.
The economy of MTGA is one of the harshest of any digital CCG. It won't attract any players from established brands, and the extreme P2W aspect of it means that anyone who wants to play Magic online might as well just play MTGO, it will be cheaper in the long run.
Fatal Push was great to keep the RDW meta in check a bit. Torrential Gearhulk should never have been made int he first place. Now every other deck, even in the lower ranks, is made by people who don't want to play Magic, they want to fumigate, counter, play Teferi, and goldfish a win.
Quite honestly, going through the trouble to make an official report is exactly what you should do. Print out all the evidence you have, including PMs and emails, take it to the police, and let that person get hammered for mail fraud. Warning a very small percentage of a very small percentage of Magic players doesn't do anything, but an official investigation will almost certainly stop such behavior in the future.
The claims that the dual lands aren't "necessary' is sophistry, plain and simple. You're playing word games. How about this, take your Commander deck, the one you've worked so hard to put together, and replace every card you can with one that's ALMOST as good. Replace your fetchlands with Evolving Wilds, replace Lightning Bolt with Lightning Strike, you don't NEED a Sol Ring, you can play just fine with Sisay's Ring, right?
If you don't care at all about winning or improving your game, you don't need the very best cards ever printed is what you're saying. The fact is, though, that the kind of people who actually join a Magic website and post here? We're interested in several things. Improving our game, improving our play, winning, designing new strategies... But nobody here believes they can't improve their experience somehow. In Commander, you can get a noticeable improvement in how your deck performs, for only several thousand dollars!
The biggest reason people are against the RL? Without a doubt, it's the original dual lands. They're far and away the most useful and versatile cards that most people will never be able to play with. Will you LOSE a game of Commander if you play Breeding Pool instead of [c]Tropical Island[/c} Maybe, maybe not, but it increases your odds a bit. I have 4-color Atraxa deck, and being able to include 6 shocklands, 6 original duals, and fetchlands means that that deck is FAR more consistent than if I only had the shocks/fetches.
The RL is 905 garbage, cards that nobody cares about at all. The remaining 10%, though are cards that are literally irreplacable. They're unique in what they do or how they do it. Sure, you can play Magus of the Tabernacle, but it's in almost every way worse than The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. You CAN play a worse alternative in almost every case, but it's a worse alternative. That's not being contrary, it's wanting to play the game.
My favorite card is Library of Lat-Nam. It's always fun to watch newer players have to read the card 3-4 times, then try to decide what to do about it.
The special edition, limited print cards give collectors something to chase. SDCC Planeswalkers, that are special versions of 'walkers already in print? Absolutely, go for it. Not my thing personally, but still interesting to have in the community. Nexus of Fate that can ONLY be gotten by preordering, or the secondary market, and can never be opened in a pack? Terrible idea.
Masterpieces were a great idea. I don't think I heard an argument against masterpieces as a whole that didn't boil down to "I don't want the game to be so affordable." The implementation wasn't great for the last set, but the IDEA, that you had super-special versions, in packs, that were super-rare? Great! it sold packs, and also helped keep the price of normal, playable versions of those same cards down. Everybody won, so of course WotC cut them.
Time Walk. I regret selling mine way back in '99 or so. It was so beat up you'd think someone put it through the washing machine on their extra turns, but it was still a Time Walk.
I never got the chance to play with a lot of the Legends cards, having started about 6 months too late, there are a lot of cards there that I would have liked to try.
Working exactly like all the Beta players told them it would work: great for people who spend money, hostile to F2P players. Who would have guessed that?
MaRo vehemently disagrees. For Reasons.
Blue is, after all, primary in using flavor to justify color pie bends, breaks, and bleeds.
1: Wizards of the Coast does not sell single cards. They sell lottery packs. Any single card anyone has ever bought has been through a third party, and WotC was not involved in that transaction in any way.
2: The Reprint Policy has already ben changed, with 2 significant revisions and at least one minor one, since its inception. None of those revisions were challenged, implying that the Reprint Policy is just that: a company policy, and subject to change with or without notice.
3: Cards formerly on the Reserve List have in fact already been reprinted, and again this went unchallenged. If it went unchallenged 15 years ago, trying to claim now that the promise is intact is rather sketchy.
I love the YouTuber law channel, but I think he missed some important points in his breakdown, specifically that single card sales are completely out of WotC's control. WotC simply can't be held responsible, legally, for what third-party sellers do, or for what someone using a third-party service pays for.
The economy of MTGA is one of the harshest of any digital CCG. It won't attract any players from established brands, and the extreme P2W aspect of it means that anyone who wants to play Magic online might as well just play MTGO, it will be cheaper in the long run.
If you don't care at all about winning or improving your game, you don't need the very best cards ever printed is what you're saying. The fact is, though, that the kind of people who actually join a Magic website and post here? We're interested in several things. Improving our game, improving our play, winning, designing new strategies... But nobody here believes they can't improve their experience somehow. In Commander, you can get a noticeable improvement in how your deck performs, for only several thousand dollars!
The RL is 905 garbage, cards that nobody cares about at all. The remaining 10%, though are cards that are literally irreplacable. They're unique in what they do or how they do it. Sure, you can play Magus of the Tabernacle, but it's in almost every way worse than The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. You CAN play a worse alternative in almost every case, but it's a worse alternative. That's not being contrary, it's wanting to play the game.