At any rate, I think the modern event deck will end up being seen as a failure internally within WotC if not outside. They already cut the standard event decks from two per set to one. Another bust will hopefully be the impetus they need to focus on making a booster reprint set yearly fair rather than cranking out more high end fixed product (Premium Deck Series, Event Decks) that isn't aimed at "casual" players (Archenemy, Planechase, Duel Decks, Commander).
Not remotely frivolous. It's not a surefire win for anyone bringing it, but there is a strong argument for promissory estoppel to get passed a Motion to Dismiss.
I'm not convinced, but it's possible. But calling it "not a surefire win" is being very generous. I take it you're assuming a genuinely impartial judge and a somewhat impartial jury, which is seldom the case. Most likely scenario I see is those persons seeing someone suing over what they perceive as a child's game and one or both getting pissed for having their time wasted.
[quote from="ulater6000" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/the-rumor-mill/536444-announcing-modern-event-deck?comment=463"]WotC can't do anything about the reserved list anymore because of a lawsuit I guess from said hoarders.
If Hasbro hired decent lawyers any lawsuit would get dismissed. Excellent lawyers should be able to get one dismissed with prejudice. Such a lawsuit would be frivolous.
Any threat of a lawsuit is either coming from a blowhard nerdraging or if from a WotC/Hasbro employee is being used as a scapegoat to avoid the issue.
How would not posting a picture of oneself on the internet be snubbing anyone? Or even not taking the photo in the first place? Shaking hands and greeting someone isn't the same thing, which refusing to do would be undiplomatic.
And I agree the standards set forth by some are silly and unrealistic, but they're there. Until someone convinces those holding such views otherwise, they'll remain.
Alternatively, the Olympics and/or the athletes performing in it could seek to cut ties with government funding and the strings that always come attached with it.
That's just the reality of the situation. It is what it is at the present time.
If I was to tell you that you're clueless for not knowing things in Korea, would you agree with it?
If it was because of something that was done while on vacation or private business - absolutely not. But we're talking about an Olympic athlete, not someone on vacation or private business. They represent their nations in a very public way and their activities are funded with public tax money.
Student athletes aren't allowed to play sports without maintaining passing grades, and they're only representing a single college. Someone who is representing an entire nation can take the time to familiarize themselves with current events. If they don't want the responsibility of meeting the standards of the people they're representing, however stringent and/or ridiculous, then they should stay home.
One cannot assume that she is in any way supportive of Putin just on the basis that she had a selfie taken with him.
Which is why I wouldn't react in an infantile way that Mitchell or others did, but it's not an unreasonable suspicion. Because it's either that or she's clueless. Hearing others' input on the issue, I strongly lean towards the latter. Neither raising the suspicion of supporting Putin nor being utterly clueless are very self-flattering, though.
At any rate, unless I'm mistaken, I get the impression we all agree the turds in a bucket here are the folks in the media surrounding the story.
As has been said by others, if the promos are provided for prize support they are required to be given away as prizes.
If the cards are purchased, whether from the initial prize winner or someone else, it's not a problem. However, if I were running a store I wouldn't risk selling such cards until a few months after their release just in case there was somebody who wanted to be an ass and report it to WotC for whatever reason.
Gotcha. That's quite a happenstance meeting they had. Somehow I never encounter famous people, but rather someone who is mentally unhinged (for real, it's uncanny). Maybe someday I'll have the opposite happen after I hear enough stories of other people randomly meeting high ranking politicians.
I hadn't considered that possibility. My assumption the other way was based more upon Putin's penchant for young women. I wouldn't want a photo of him (creepy), but perhaps she isn't/wasn't aware of that particular trait of his.
A) Chaos. Like teleporting onto the battlefield and using my ability to psionically disintegrate the matter constituting the bodies of enemies into raw energy.
B) Either My Apocalypse by Arch Enemy or Hourglass by Lamb of God, it's a tight call. If for no other reason because both could play back on the nightly news without having to be censored.
Being an American, surely you recognize everything is politicized here. If you drive a Chevy Suburban you get accused of hating the environment. If you wear a leather jacket you hate animals. If you don't eat "organic" food you're a corporatist pig. If you don't support every military action and department of defense expenditure you're an anti-American pinko. And on and on and on.
I didn't say it wasn't stupid, just predictable and the reality of the way the media and an extremely vocal, influential minority of blowhards operate.
In my original post I should have rephrased "being "star-struck" doesn't excuse someone fawning over a tin-pot tyrant" with "she shouldn't be surprised when she gets her head bitten off for being star-struck and fawning over a tin-pot tyrant."
Ignoring that what happened was going to be the inevitable response is naive. She should have expected it. If she did expect it, then she was just baiting the media trolls to what end?
An additional note on the Olympics and politics: if people don't want it to be politicized, then they should fund it themselves with private donations rather than having governments pay for it with tax revenue.
And that minority are the ones who fund the Olympics and control the media attention around it. Hence political.
And maybe it's different in Suriname. If you guys are more relaxed about it, then that's great. As you point out it's just a series of games.
But we're talking about Canada, and the United States and for the most part Western Europe are the same regarding these matters. There have been times when a game stops and crowds boo prominent people out of a stadium they don't like.
Perhaps athletes in Suriname are more fortunate than those here?
Your parents were out for drinks, not publicly representing their nation. That's completely different.
As for the Olympics, it doesn't matter that it is supposed to be apolitical - it's not. For good or ill, it's barely less political than an assembly at the United Nations. Wishing or believing otherwise isn't going to change the reality of that situation.
[quote from="Cortar" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-general/545324-do-you-have-to-be-a-bad-player-to-win-a-gp?comment=1"]To be quite honest, it isn't the people making mistakes who are bad at magic, it is the people on the other side of the table that are not catching mistakes that are bad at magic. I can't say how many game wins I have gotten because my opponent did not present his sideboard, presented a 17 card sideboard, drew an extra card from x draw effect, presented a 59 card deck (usually post sideboard), or other things. However, if an opponent plays a shock land untapped, or thoughtsieze, or whatever, I always tell them "take 2 damage" and annotate on my score sheet. (-2 SL) (-2 TS) (-2 ComDam) etc. On the same token, if I were to play divination, ask my opponent "drawing 3?" and they say "go ahead" then they failed to catch my mistake, and a turn or 2 later is to late for them to call the judge. If they do, I just claim to have forgotten that it was 2 instead of 3, and that I ask the opponent to confirm my draw, and he said fine to draw 3. It was on him.
These GP and PT players that don't catch mistakes are handing the opponent the game. It is no longer cheating once your opponent lets you continue the game. It is cheating if they catch with 5 cards hidden under your leg or up your sleeve, or a 20 card sideboard. Or intentionally putting a permanent into play without paying mana cost when the opponent is looking through his hand. That is cheating, making a mistake your opponent should be able to correct you on and return the game to a proper legal play state is not cheating.
If it was intentional and not an honest mistake, it's still cheating. Saying otherwise is like saying a pickpocket isn't a thief just because his target didn't notice his wallet was missing until he got home. The pickpocket is a thief one way or the other. Anyone intending to get away with making a bad play is cheating.
Now if it was an honest mistake and the opponent didn't catch it, then yeah, he's just kind of SOL.
To entertain a challenge to everyone. No matter what is your stand on the current price situation: Come up with a mechanic to meaningfully reduce the price of modern staples w/o causing any doomsday scenarios.
Here's an idea I posted in a different thread, modified to fit your challenge:
Every expansion has a subset - "From the Aether" (FtA)
It'd function a bit like "From the Vault" (FtV) and be composed entirely of reprints. Each subset would consist of 36 cards each. If creative at WotC wants to, they could make up some silly tidbit to add into the storyline like they did with the "treasures" in Zendikar.
FtA would be 1:36 packs (1 per box) with those cards replacing the tip/token card. If the print run of a set is 500,000,000 (my best guess for a large set), this would limit the FtA reprints to approximately 25,000 copies of each of the 36 cards. That's a relatively small fraction of what a standard rare or even mythic gets printed at. If small sets have print runs in the neighborhood of 200,000,000 (again, my best wild guess), that figure would be ~10,000.
This would have two benefits. The first would be to stabilize the prices (or at least flatten out their parabolic price curves). The second is it would boost sealed product values. This would cushion distributors and retailers from losing money in the event of a crappy, under performing set.
A few guidelines I would follow:
--Give cards a grace period after they rotate out of standard. Two years, or four years after initial printing, would be sufficient I think.
--If there aren't enough suitable candidates in the Modern format, fill it in with Legacy cards that aren't on the reserved list (there's plenty to work with).
This would allow WotC to be highly responsive to demand as there would be four sets per year that could have FtA inclusions (3 expansions and the summer base set). It wouldn't screw with draft; in fact, if the subsets had their own unique expansion symbol, they could be excluded from drafting easily as they would replace the tip/token card and wouldn't cause card disadvantage or people getting upset because they had to choose between passing a high value card or choosing a relevant pick.
No doomsday market crash, WotC makes more money, and players get a larger supply of the cards they want. Everybody wins.
Lol, yeah my bad for derailing the thread.
At any rate, I think the modern event deck will end up being seen as a failure internally within WotC if not outside. They already cut the standard event decks from two per set to one. Another bust will hopefully be the impetus they need to focus on making a booster reprint set yearly fair rather than cranking out more high end fixed product (Premium Deck Series, Event Decks) that isn't aimed at "casual" players (Archenemy, Planechase, Duel Decks, Commander).
I'm not convinced, but it's possible. But calling it "not a surefire win" is being very generous. I take it you're assuming a genuinely impartial judge and a somewhat impartial jury, which is seldom the case. Most likely scenario I see is those persons seeing someone suing over what they perceive as a child's game and one or both getting pissed for having their time wasted.
If Hasbro hired decent lawyers any lawsuit would get dismissed. Excellent lawyers should be able to get one dismissed with prejudice. Such a lawsuit would be frivolous.
Any threat of a lawsuit is either coming from a blowhard nerdraging or if from a WotC/Hasbro employee is being used as a scapegoat to avoid the issue.
And I agree the standards set forth by some are silly and unrealistic, but they're there. Until someone convinces those holding such views otherwise, they'll remain.
Alternatively, the Olympics and/or the athletes performing in it could seek to cut ties with government funding and the strings that always come attached with it.
That's just the reality of the situation. It is what it is at the present time.
If it was because of something that was done while on vacation or private business - absolutely not. But we're talking about an Olympic athlete, not someone on vacation or private business. They represent their nations in a very public way and their activities are funded with public tax money.
Student athletes aren't allowed to play sports without maintaining passing grades, and they're only representing a single college. Someone who is representing an entire nation can take the time to familiarize themselves with current events. If they don't want the responsibility of meeting the standards of the people they're representing, however stringent and/or ridiculous, then they should stay home.
Which is why I wouldn't react in an infantile way that Mitchell or others did, but it's not an unreasonable suspicion. Because it's either that or she's clueless. Hearing others' input on the issue, I strongly lean towards the latter. Neither raising the suspicion of supporting Putin nor being utterly clueless are very self-flattering, though.
At any rate, unless I'm mistaken, I get the impression we all agree the turds in a bucket here are the folks in the media surrounding the story.
If the cards are purchased, whether from the initial prize winner or someone else, it's not a problem. However, if I were running a store I wouldn't risk selling such cards until a few months after their release just in case there was somebody who wanted to be an ass and report it to WotC for whatever reason.
I hadn't considered that possibility. My assumption the other way was based more upon Putin's penchant for young women. I wouldn't want a photo of him (creepy), but perhaps she isn't/wasn't aware of that particular trait of his.
Fair enough, that's an assumption on my part that is unvalidated.
Didn't notice you're in the Netherlands. Originally from Suriname or were your parents there on vacation?
B) Either My Apocalypse by Arch Enemy or Hourglass by Lamb of God, it's a tight call. If for no other reason because both could play back on the nightly news without having to be censored.
I didn't say it wasn't stupid, just predictable and the reality of the way the media and an extremely vocal, influential minority of blowhards operate.
In my original post I should have rephrased "being "star-struck" doesn't excuse someone fawning over a tin-pot tyrant" with "she shouldn't be surprised when she gets her head bitten off for being star-struck and fawning over a tin-pot tyrant."
Ignoring that what happened was going to be the inevitable response is naive. She should have expected it. If she did expect it, then she was just baiting the media trolls to what end?
An additional note on the Olympics and politics: if people don't want it to be politicized, then they should fund it themselves with private donations rather than having governments pay for it with tax revenue.
And maybe it's different in Suriname. If you guys are more relaxed about it, then that's great. As you point out it's just a series of games.
But we're talking about Canada, and the United States and for the most part Western Europe are the same regarding these matters. There have been times when a game stops and crowds boo prominent people out of a stadium they don't like.
Perhaps athletes in Suriname are more fortunate than those here?
As for the Olympics, it doesn't matter that it is supposed to be apolitical - it's not. For good or ill, it's barely less political than an assembly at the United Nations. Wishing or believing otherwise isn't going to change the reality of that situation.
If it was intentional and not an honest mistake, it's still cheating. Saying otherwise is like saying a pickpocket isn't a thief just because his target didn't notice his wallet was missing until he got home. The pickpocket is a thief one way or the other. Anyone intending to get away with making a bad play is cheating.
Now if it was an honest mistake and the opponent didn't catch it, then yeah, he's just kind of SOL.
Here's an idea I posted in a different thread, modified to fit your challenge:
Every expansion has a subset - "From the Aether" (FtA)
It'd function a bit like "From the Vault" (FtV) and be composed entirely of reprints. Each subset would consist of 36 cards each. If creative at WotC wants to, they could make up some silly tidbit to add into the storyline like they did with the "treasures" in Zendikar.
FtA would be 1:36 packs (1 per box) with those cards replacing the tip/token card. If the print run of a set is 500,000,000 (my best guess for a large set), this would limit the FtA reprints to approximately 25,000 copies of each of the 36 cards. That's a relatively small fraction of what a standard rare or even mythic gets printed at. If small sets have print runs in the neighborhood of 200,000,000 (again, my best wild guess), that figure would be ~10,000.
This would have two benefits. The first would be to stabilize the prices (or at least flatten out their parabolic price curves). The second is it would boost sealed product values. This would cushion distributors and retailers from losing money in the event of a crappy, under performing set.
A few guidelines I would follow:
--Give cards a grace period after they rotate out of standard. Two years, or four years after initial printing, would be sufficient I think.
--If there aren't enough suitable candidates in the Modern format, fill it in with Legacy cards that aren't on the reserved list (there's plenty to work with).
This would allow WotC to be highly responsive to demand as there would be four sets per year that could have FtA inclusions (3 expansions and the summer base set). It wouldn't screw with draft; in fact, if the subsets had their own unique expansion symbol, they could be excluded from drafting easily as they would replace the tip/token card and wouldn't cause card disadvantage or people getting upset because they had to choose between passing a high value card or choosing a relevant pick.
No doomsday market crash, WotC makes more money, and players get a larger supply of the cards they want. Everybody wins.