MTG Salvation

Quote from Mishotem »

Quote from DJK3654 »

Quote from Mishotem »

And considering Sagas fall under the "Historic" banner and Eldraine is a new-to-us plane, it's unlikely the set will include much of its' history on the first go-round.

There's no reason sagas have to appear alongside Historic.

That's not what I said. They may not have to appear alongside Historic, but they will still trigger Historic effects on existing cards, which means flavor-wise the cards have to explore historical events and people on Eldraine. Unless the set is going to have a deep focus on the history of Eldraine while also advancing the story of whatever Rowan and Will are up to in the (possibly) present day, Sagas are unlikely.

Triggering historic cards from other sets that won't even be in standard at the time doesn't mean Sagas need to be particularly historic. It would be very counterproductive to set such a significant bar on a mechanic that we already know WotC is keen to use multiple times.

Quote from Mishotem »

Quote from Mishotem »

Also, it's probably also unlikely they'd do two different alternate-layout cards in the same set.

I don't see why.

One takes design space away from the other? Their low bar of what it takes to confuse magic players?

Having an alternate frame doesn't have anything to do with design space. Level up and Split cards both use alternate frame but they don't really share any design space. At best, alternate frames are correlated with certain design space as they tend to be used most often for some form of modal cards that may operate similarly, say Level Up and Transform, but even then, not that similarly.
The complexity cost is more of a reason, but that's not really any different from putting any other two complex mechanics together, which is happened plenty before, and Sagas, despite the special frame, aren't really very complicated.

Quote from Shea_0 »

Quote from Obazervazi »

Quote from Carthage »

I do welcome the ability to answer other permanent types in the colors that can't, that's an outdated color pie ideal that makes the game worse.

I just wish they would add it for red, the color they seem to hate the most.

haphazard bombardment remains one of the worst designs they've ever printed, they went out of their way to NOT give red a flavorful way to destroy enchantments.

You do realize that black still cannot deal with artifacts, right? Put simply, Naturalize will never be printed in black for the same reason it will never be printed in red. Each color needs to have strengths and weaknesses, or there's no point in having colors at all.

Can't deal with artifacts? Heresy! There are some options available, albeit older than most of the people I play against

Phyrexian Tribute
Gate to Phyrexia

There are color pie breaks in existence, yes.

Quote from lukey52 »

I get the idea of the colour pie but certain things should be possible in any colour just for fairness sake. It sucks hard to play a monno black deck and someone plays an enchantment (edh/standard/modern/whatever) and you're like well I have 0 outs to this.

Which is why there should be in-colourpie alternative answers like Enchanter's Bane, in a similar manner to green getting fight cards and flying removal instead of unconditional creature removal. Black has had for a long time possible answers to enchantments and artifacts in cards like Thoughtseize and Stain the Mind and through volume of untargeted discard.
Black should not get artifact removal now as well, and red should not get enchantment removal, because they provide appropriate weaknesses to those colours and appropriate strengths to green and white in turn.

Quote from netn10 »

So Mortify can now be a mono black card... That's pretty interesting!

No.
https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/186875073178/can-i-request-a-br-naturalize-that-cant-target

We haven’t let black have targeted enchantment removal yet.

That is... wacky.

Removal-saur.
That's a powerful removal effect in green, yet one that fits very well in green. Nice.

Quote from Mishotem »

Quote from DJK3654 »

MaRo specifically just said 'they will return'. He has also said 'maybe' about sagas specifically returning in ELD. It's not at all off the table.

Mark says maybe to a lot of things, mainly because the asker specifically asks for a maybe. I wouldn't read too much into it, as the alternative is probably Mark saying no to a lot of things.

But he definitely didn't say no. @fettpett was making it out like they had been confirmed not to be in ELD.

Quote from Mishotem »

And considering Sagas fall under the "Historic" banner and Eldraine is a new-to-us plane, it's unlikely the set will include much of its' history on the first go-round.

There's no reason sagas have to appear alongside Historic.

Quote from Mishotem »

Also, it's probably also unlikely they'd do two different alternate-layout cards in the same set.

I don't see why.

Quote from fettpett »

Sagas won’t be returning with this set. Mark said that they will return in the future

MaRo specifically just said 'they will return'. He has also said 'maybe' about sagas specifically returning in ELD. It's not at all off the table.

Quote from Ryperior74 »

how can we get monstrosity adapt is essential the fixed version of it?

Monstrosity does have certain advantages. I would argue the flavor is slightly more potent and exciting than adapt. But yes, adapt does get in the way, if for no other reason than it has used up some of the potential design space for monstrosity with its printing. And if we are indeed getting Theros shortly, adapt was also used a bit recently to want to return.

How I see the chances of the original mechanics returning:
-Devotion
Almost certain. One of the signature mechanics of Theros. Flavourful, interesting, popular. Tied to the the gods- one of the most popular and distinctive parts of Theros. Around a solid 4 on MaRo's storm scale. The bigger question to me is not whether devotion will return but whether there will be very much of it.
-Heroic
Good chances. Similar things to be said as with Devotion. Plays nicely with multiple Theros themes, so that helps. Around a 5 on MaRo's storm scale. More replaceable though, I think, than devotion. Especially if you want to play up how the heroes are in a different place, say because of the whole mortals vs the gods thing that developed later in the original block.
-Monstrosity
Some chance. A good mechanic overall, but I think the biggest strike against it is that it's not as unique and distinctly Theros as Devotion or Heroic, so it's a better candidate to be replaced by new mechanics.
-Bestow
Some chance. More problematic than Monstrosity (7 on the storm scale), but also slightly less replaceable I think. Still, likely to be cut.
-Constellation
Decent chances. A good mechanic that fills the very necessary slot of making enchantments matter, something that, given the reception of original Theros, we can expect even more of. Main problem is it's kind of generic and more easily replaced with some exciting new enchantment mechanic than other potential returns.
-Inspired and Tribute
Do I even really need to say?

I agree that Sagas make a lot of sense to see here, especially given MaRo has confirmed they *will* be returning, so that seems reasonably likely. I don't think they'll do both Curses and Sagas, though, and Sagas seem the more likely include.
Seeing somewhat more legends also seems likely, as you say.

As I mentioned in my thoughts on Heroic, I think a likely theme for the Theros return is to touch more upon the mortals vs gods conflict that was ignited in the later part of the original story. They even had a story released a few months after the release of Born of the Gods, at the end of the Theros storyline, where Ajani is rabble rousing about it.
Another possible focus would be the introduction of Theros's equivalent of the Titans as a new enemy. You could even combine with the first idea and have the gods and mortals put aside their differences to face the Titans à la the Wrath of the Titans movie.
Another story point we could see is Elspeth's long hinted and awaited return from the Underworld. Now that Gideon is dead, we don't have to worry about whether the return will focus on him going back to Theros, and therefore there's more room for Elspeth and Ajani as part of that. May well be played in an interesting cost of resurrection way with how the returned work in Theros, similar to Lady Stoneheart from A Song of Ice and Fire, and I could easily see Ajani then trying to save Elspeth from it all.

According to Mark Rosewater, Sagas *will* return
https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/186572902238/i-love-sagas-as-a-fun-take-on-enchantments-that
This makes me think, it could be in Eldraine. Sagas make sense for the fairy tale and arthurian story-telling theme. A larger enchantment theme, even, would make sense for this world.
Would it be a little too soon to see Sagas in ELD?

Quote from leslak »

Quote from LeoninKha »

Quote from NGW »

Quote from LeoninKha »

Fix Mana-Screw and Mana Flood for once... its been 25 years already. Dont tell me you can't come up with a solution. L5R made it look easy.

It's an intentional part of the game's design.

Have they actually said that?, because it makes no sense at all with their focus on tournaments.

What's the point of having tournaments if finals are gonna be decided by who flooded or got mana screwed?, there's no skill in that, and its happened countless times over the game's history.

I saw time and time again players winning games while holding 2-3 lands in hand...
Mana flood and mana screw is part of the game, get over it. There is a number of ways to make it have the less impact over a game than what you are giving credits. Mulligan and card draw and shuffle are important parts of competitive play also the deck building process also have a huge importance on it. With mulligan you can make sure you have plays to do in the early game (the most important turns for control and aggro decks) with shuffle and other library manipulation you make the odds more in your favor on not drawning lands, with card draw you have card advantage that means you have more chances on not drawning blanks (lands), in deck building you make sure your overall chance of drawning lands in your deck is high enough for the deck you are playing (agro plays about 20, midrange plays about 24, control plays about 25-26 depending on the format)(this on 60 cards decks). And over all those things we have luck as a huge factor over a game (but the above are ways to get around bad luck). If you think mana flood and screw is bad and you don’t want to play around it, teach people how to play around, then maybe you should play Hearthstone or adapt and make a format around its rules(in mtg). If you think the randomness of the game is not good there are a lot of non random games over there, or with less randomness on the mechanic, miniatures games should be the best for you, or maybe Anarchronism if you want to play with cards.

To fix mana screw on your games try something like Hearthstone and make decks without lands and give 1 land drop for every player every single turn, simple.

The problem with fixing mana flood and mana screw is that solutions come with their own problems. Mana flood and mana screw are part of the balancing force in that game. It's not easy to just get rid of them, and by this point, MtG has been built around them as part of the challenge of deck building. And still, we have the recent mulligan changes which somewhat help with consistency.

Quote from Jiyor »

Quote from DanzBorin »

People do realize foil prices will now be much lower now that the supply is higher, right?

No it won’t. The Collection boosters are a limited product run, like Masters sets were. WotC is still trying to get people to buy masters set except their charging even more and only putting stuff from the current set in it.

True.......If you ignore the fact that they also substantively increased the frequency of foils in all packs.
Also, technically the collector boosters also have other cards than the current set from the 'ancillary' products like planeswalker decks and buy-a-box promos. So that's something.

Quote from LuckyJoe1988 »

So, if that Arcane Signet comes in a collector's booster, you can pick one up in foil?

"For Throne of Eldraine, this will be the Buy-a-Box card, the new cards from the Planeswalker Decks, and the new cards from the Brawl Decks (more on this in a moment). This slot is going to be the catch-all for mechanically unique cards associated with the set, allowing collectors to get them here without having to purchase other products or participate in other promotions. These cards will be in non-foil."
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/project-booster-fun-2019-07-20

Quote from WarMachinePrime »

Quote from JaceBluesMaster »

At least everything in the Collector Boosters is foil.

From Wizards...

Collector Booster

Number of Cards: 15 cards and 1 foil token card
Number of Versions: 1
Contents:

1 rare/mythic rare with extended art
1 foil rare/mythic rare
9 foil commons/uncommons
3 special-frame cards (showcase or borderless planeswalkers)
1 ancillary card
1 foil token

Most are but a few are not according to this.

Five are not foil by my reckoning.

...Four of which have other premium frame treatments instead, which, given the increase in foil frequencies are going to be able more valuable. I'm guessing you have the chance of getting the foil version of those premium treatments as well.
So, expensive, yes. But I think these are probably going to roughly compare to regular boosters in expected value for money.