What FE card do I miss the most? It would be Orgg, but it's hard to miss him when he just got reprinted... so it would have to be either Seasinger or Homarid Spawning Bed. But then I still have several copies of each, so it's not like I'm really missing them. I mean, it's been awhile since I've thrown any Seasingers into a deck, but I could do it. HSB is the perfect card for randomly bad blue decks, to turn bad huge creatures into an army of bad little creatures.
I don't think this would be a card you'd ever want to play in limited, but as a timeshifted common if you're looking for it, it'll come up fairly often.
I've always been a fan of Force Spike, but I can't say that I've ever used it much outside of extremely dedicated UW control decks. I'm not entirely sure you want these in mono white without some other counters to back it up. It may have a place in UW though, but it'll have to compete with Spell Snare then, so I'm not sure.
I won't complain though. Like I said, it's Force Spike. A good choice to timeshift, regardless of whether it sees competitive play or not it's at least interesting.
It won't happen. They've already tried twice now. The first time was way back in the day, with former toy company Resaurus. They had a few figures planned, the ones that stand out in my mind in particular were Juzam Djinn, and also an Orgg boxset that also included a Goblin Grenade. But while those figures prototypes were shown a few different times, they never actually got produced. They tried again a few years later, but a number of things stopped Resaurus from ever producing any M:tG action figures.
The second time a company tried to make Magic action figures was just after Hasbro took over. As you may have guessed, the fact that it was Hasbro producing the figures meant they were no where near as good as the ones Resaurus showed. These were shown at Toy Fair, but I can't remember which year that was(if I can find pictures somewhere, I'll post a link). The Hasbro figures were, IIRC, Serra Angel, Kamahl Pit Fighter, Ehrnam Djinn, Lord of Atlantis, and .... I can't remember the last one but it was a black creature. It may have been Cataran Overlord, but I'm not certain. Anyway, the choice of characters wasn't so good that time, and neither was the execution. I would've bought them regardless, but as it turns out the reaction at Toy Fair wasn't good enough, and they never got released.
As it is Hasbro that owns WotC now, I can't imagine they'd let anyone else produce Magic action figures. And given that Hasbro failed once already, I can't imagine that Hasbro would try again.
EDIT: Just remembered. The last Hasbro figure was slated to be Sengir Vampire, based on the new(at the time) artwork from Torment. There was a Cataran Overlord figure planned though, but it was one of Resaurus' efforts. IIRC, the reason that attempt at figures from Resaurus didn't go through was the Hasbro buyout.
I especially like the Hammer of Bogardan and Grinning Totem accessories. It's a real shame these were never released. I'd love to own that Orgg just as much now as I would have back when I first saw it years ago.
Resaurus had others planned and sculpted too... let me see if I can dig anything else up.
While that glowing thing is definitely the creature on Guided Strike, I would definitely say it's a timeshifted Spinal Villain. And if it's not, that's a big mistake, since that thing looks way too much like Spinal Villain to be some other timeshifted card.
My guess? It's a black Spinal Villain that taps to kill white creatures. It could be green instead, but I'd lean towards white just because of Guided Strike.
I would certainly miss Dominaria if this were the last block to use that setting. Not that I am opposed to visiting other planes, sometimes you get good ones like Ravnica or Homelands(the setting & storyline was great, even if the cards were not). But every few years they need to go back and see what's going on in Dominaria IMO, Magic just isn't Magic without Bogardan, Llanowar, Urborg, etc.
The vindication? Did you read the article? Sure, I'll have to wait till summer until it rotates into X (hee hee) but come on...just about everything me and Solace said in all the threads and post was said almost word for word by Maro.
I hate this even being brought up again....
Did you read the article? It certainly didn't suggest that Damnation would be replacing ***. What was said was that it could fit black because black is the creature killing color. No one ever denied that, only that *** specifically is not the type of mass creature kill that black gets. Yes it gets in PC, but only as a 'what if' card, specifically "What if black got straight up destroy all creatures effects instead of white?". Yes, it fits in black, but in a way that black usually doesn't get. The same can be said of Groundbreaker, he fits into green. Does that mean Groundbreaker is going to be in 10th edition also? Of course not. But Damnation certainly will not be in there either.
Neither of the preview cards are really surprising. Thankfully Akroma is better than the guess that was listed on here. The green Ball Lightning was obvious as soon as we knew what the timeshifted cards were and had orb results, so that one wasn't a shock. I don't really think it's that good, as there is plenty of cheap removal to keep Groundbreaker from hitting.
Vanishing was a mistake. They should've just used Fading, and if they wanted they could've changed Fading to use time counters. I don't recall anyone ever claiming at the time that it was counter intuitive or having problems with it.
Honestly, Fading was always a pretty big mess thanks to timing issues with the Paralax enchantments. Even trying to "fix" those to also work with Vanishing would be more trouble than it's worth.
I know my color bias is showing, but Red Morphling gets me way more excited for PC than Black Wrath of God does. Pretty much 90% of the decks I play are R/U anyway, so if this is a 'planeshifted' Morphling I'll be very happy.
To be fair, it probably won't be as good now that split second is around. But regardless, I want a playset as soon as possible.
Yes, I'm fairly certain that Red will get Armageddon in this set. It's a white ability, but mass land destruction shows up in red from time to time as well. Ball Lightning seems like it's definitely in for green, since there is a GGG cost in the orb, and also a 6/1.
I'm clueless as to what type of timeshifted rares blue will get. To follow the pattern of the rest of them, they would have to be well known rares that are off color, but not so far off as to seem too wierd. Maybe Persecute or Cranial Extraction? There are U/B effects that do these sorts of things, like Lobotomy, so it wouldn't feel too far off for blue, but at the same time you'd have a hard time arguing that it's a mono blue ability.
I don't think it'll have a drawback, it'll be a planeshifted card for sure. And given the other planeshifted rares we know about, it seems to be at about the right power level:
And those are all great cards I'd love opening in PC. I would also speculate that red will get Armageddon, since it fits so well with the other planeshifted rares.
So what we've seen so far is that planeshifted rares are powerful cards that were already printed in another color, but aren't too far off from their new color. *** wouldn't be printed as a black card in a normal set, but it's not so far off as to be weird. The same goes for the others up there. Ball Lightning obviously fits more in red than green, and would normally be printed in red. But it's fine for a PC card because it's something that green gets rarely and could possibly show up in green(as Solifuge has shown, even though they even admitted they just kind of ignored the color pie for that one).
The big question on my mind though is: how many planeshifted rares are there? And what does blue get, since I think we at least have ideas for the other colors planeshifted rares?
Yeah, I think it's likely. I'm not sure how good it'll be anyway, there's lots of removal played these days compared to the days when I use to play 4x Ball Lightning in Sligh decks. Not to mention that without red's removal, you can't really clear a path for your Lightning to strike.
If there is a green Ball Lightning, it'll be interesting to see if anything developes from the fact that mono green can play it alongside Giant Solifuge and Uktabi Drake...
Now... why would they go through all this trouble, even possibly multiblock preparations for this one card? Because it's not a one time deal. If this was just some random thing to do once, they just wouldn't care this much.
Because it was the first of the year, and they wanted an exciting preview card to show off what PC was all about until MtG.com came back for real? And what better way to do it than to show a card that, outside of PC, would never see print?
There is no way Damnation will be reprinted in a regular set, and definitely not in a base set. They've spent way too much time giving black & white removal specific flavors and styles to set them apart to just throw it all out now.
I figure, well, they knew how big a deal many people would find this, and wanted to give the most hardcore magic fans, the ones that would be the most against change, the time to acclimate it in their heads. They took special care that at least as many people would welcome it as would oppose it, even going back to the last block if you believe they intended the shortage in black mass removal for this.
I don't get this. How could anyone not be excited about this card? Black has needed a mass removal spell for some time now to be viable, and this one certainly fufills that need. I don't get the whole thing about being against change though, I for one am happy to see a set that shifts the color pie. When I started, any color could do anything. Unyaro Bee Sting didn't seem out of place, it was just inefficient and bad burn because it was green. It certainly won't hurt to have a black *** available. It's off color a bit, but this is PC, so who cares?
Damnation will probably start out at $20 or so. I expect it to drop to around $10-$12.
Nodes of Porphyry, or whatever it ends up being, should be at least $10, but I think it'll start out lower than that at around $6.
That's all I've seen that will be chase rares so far, though obvisously there are still 141 cards missing. If they make a red Armageddon, which I'm expecting they will, it'll be up there as well.
How is Black not able to get a Wrath?
They have Plague Wind, which is supposedly very in pie.
They have Mutilate, and other similar sweepers...
It is just that WoTC never gave Black (or anyone else for that matter) such an effective sweeper. White (and red) historically get all the board sweeping cards.
Black, not so much.
It's not that black can't. Black has plenty of board sweepers. *** is not horribly out of the pie in the same way that a black Disenchant would be, but it is just slightly off color, in the same way that a white Terror would be. An important thing to keep in mind, more so than any other enemy color pair, white & black are very, very similar. They are two sides of the same coin, so to speak.
The difference is, white & black both get plenty of removal, but they get different types of removal. This goes for both point removal, and the issue at hand, board sweepers. I'd continue, explaining why *** is white and not black, and cards like Mutilate are black but not white, but I've already done that twice in this thread so I'd just be repeating myself.
And no, there is no way that Damnation will be replacing *** in 10th. There's as much chance of that happening as there is Psionic Blast making it in over Char. The whole point of PC is to give us cards which are out of color from an alternate reality, and that's specifically what the 'planeshifted' cards are. If that's not enough proof that *** is white and not black, I don't know what is. I mean, are we going to go through this with every planeshifted card? Where are the people claiming Drop of Honey is actually a white effect(it should be black)?
I will say that 8 Wraths in a format will make it harder for aggro, but not really. What deck will run 8 ***s anyway? You'll lose to any Martyr based deck and Dragonstorm, and last I checked they were a huge part of the metagame. Not to mention UW control just got a huge boost with the previously mentioned Drop, which acts as mass removal and buys you several turns in the early game against aggro.
I've always been a fan of Force Spike, but I can't say that I've ever used it much outside of extremely dedicated UW control decks. I'm not entirely sure you want these in mono white without some other counters to back it up. It may have a place in UW though, but it'll have to compete with Spell Snare then, so I'm not sure.
I won't complain though. Like I said, it's Force Spike. A good choice to timeshift, regardless of whether it sees competitive play or not it's at least interesting.
The second time a company tried to make Magic action figures was just after Hasbro took over. As you may have guessed, the fact that it was Hasbro producing the figures meant they were no where near as good as the ones Resaurus showed. These were shown at Toy Fair, but I can't remember which year that was(if I can find pictures somewhere, I'll post a link). The Hasbro figures were, IIRC, Serra Angel, Kamahl Pit Fighter, Ehrnam Djinn, Lord of Atlantis, and .... I can't remember the last one but it was a black creature. It may have been Cataran Overlord, but I'm not certain. Anyway, the choice of characters wasn't so good that time, and neither was the execution. I would've bought them regardless, but as it turns out the reaction at Toy Fair wasn't good enough, and they never got released.
As it is Hasbro that owns WotC now, I can't imagine they'd let anyone else produce Magic action figures. And given that Hasbro failed once already, I can't imagine that Hasbro would try again.
EDIT: Just remembered. The last Hasbro figure was slated to be Sengir Vampire, based on the new(at the time) artwork from Torment. There was a Cataran Overlord figure planned though, but it was one of Resaurus' efforts. IIRC, the reason that attempt at figures from Resaurus didn't go through was the Hasbro buyout.
EDIT 2:
Found the unreleased Hasbro ones: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/arcana/26
http://www.starstore.com/acatalog/Starstore_Catalogue_MAGIC_THE_GATHERING_ACTION_FIGURES_1762.html
Tracking down the much older Resaurus pictures will be a challenge though, especially Resaurus hasn't actually existed for about 6 years now...
EDIT:
Check it out, the Resaurus figures in all their glory: http://www.toymania.com/news/toyfair99/resaurus/0209_001.jpg
http://www.toymania.com/news/toyfair99/resaurus/0209_002.jpg
I especially like the Hammer of Bogardan and Grinning Totem accessories. It's a real shame these were never released. I'd love to own that Orgg just as much now as I would have back when I first saw it years ago.
Resaurus had others planned and sculpted too... let me see if I can dig anything else up.
My guess? It's a black Spinal Villain that taps to kill white creatures. It could be green instead, but I'd lean towards white just because of Guided Strike.
I hate this even being brought up again....
Did you read the article? It certainly didn't suggest that Damnation would be replacing ***. What was said was that it could fit black because black is the creature killing color. No one ever denied that, only that *** specifically is not the type of mass creature kill that black gets. Yes it gets in PC, but only as a 'what if' card, specifically "What if black got straight up destroy all creatures effects instead of white?". Yes, it fits in black, but in a way that black usually doesn't get. The same can be said of Groundbreaker, he fits into green. Does that mean Groundbreaker is going to be in 10th edition also? Of course not. But Damnation certainly will not be in there either.
Neither of the preview cards are really surprising. Thankfully Akroma is better than the guess that was listed on here. The green Ball Lightning was obvious as soon as we knew what the timeshifted cards were and had orb results, so that one wasn't a shock. I don't really think it's that good, as there is plenty of cheap removal to keep Groundbreaker from hitting.
Honestly, Fading was always a pretty big mess thanks to timing issues with the Paralax enchantments. Even trying to "fix" those to also work with Vanishing would be more trouble than it's worth.
To be fair, it probably won't be as good now that split second is around. But regardless, I want a playset as soon as possible.
I'm clueless as to what type of timeshifted rares blue will get. To follow the pattern of the rest of them, they would have to be well known rares that are off color, but not so far off as to seem too wierd. Maybe Persecute or Cranial Extraction? There are U/B effects that do these sorts of things, like Lobotomy, so it wouldn't feel too far off for blue, but at the same time you'd have a hard time arguing that it's a mono blue ability.
I'm surprised they didn't do it straight up as a planeshifted card, since the original is definitely popular enough.
White: Drop of Honey
Black: Wrath of God
Green: Ball Lightning
And those are all great cards I'd love opening in PC. I would also speculate that red will get Armageddon, since it fits so well with the other planeshifted rares.
So what we've seen so far is that planeshifted rares are powerful cards that were already printed in another color, but aren't too far off from their new color. *** wouldn't be printed as a black card in a normal set, but it's not so far off as to be weird. The same goes for the others up there. Ball Lightning obviously fits more in red than green, and would normally be printed in red. But it's fine for a PC card because it's something that green gets rarely and could possibly show up in green(as Solifuge has shown, even though they even admitted they just kind of ignored the color pie for that one).
The big question on my mind though is: how many planeshifted rares are there? And what does blue get, since I think we at least have ideas for the other colors planeshifted rares?
If there is a green Ball Lightning, it'll be interesting to see if anything developes from the fact that mono green can play it alongside Giant Solifuge and Uktabi Drake...
Because it was the first of the year, and they wanted an exciting preview card to show off what PC was all about until MtG.com came back for real? And what better way to do it than to show a card that, outside of PC, would never see print?
There is no way Damnation will be reprinted in a regular set, and definitely not in a base set. They've spent way too much time giving black & white removal specific flavors and styles to set them apart to just throw it all out now.
I don't get this. How could anyone not be excited about this card? Black has needed a mass removal spell for some time now to be viable, and this one certainly fufills that need. I don't get the whole thing about being against change though, I for one am happy to see a set that shifts the color pie. When I started, any color could do anything. Unyaro Bee Sting didn't seem out of place, it was just inefficient and bad burn because it was green. It certainly won't hurt to have a black *** available. It's off color a bit, but this is PC, so who cares?
Nodes of Porphyry, or whatever it ends up being, should be at least $10, but I think it'll start out lower than that at around $6.
That's all I've seen that will be chase rares so far, though obvisously there are still 141 cards missing. If they make a red Armageddon, which I'm expecting they will, it'll be up there as well.
It's not that black can't. Black has plenty of board sweepers. *** is not horribly out of the pie in the same way that a black Disenchant would be, but it is just slightly off color, in the same way that a white Terror would be. An important thing to keep in mind, more so than any other enemy color pair, white & black are very, very similar. They are two sides of the same coin, so to speak.
The difference is, white & black both get plenty of removal, but they get different types of removal. This goes for both point removal, and the issue at hand, board sweepers. I'd continue, explaining why *** is white and not black, and cards like Mutilate are black but not white, but I've already done that twice in this thread so I'd just be repeating myself.
And no, there is no way that Damnation will be replacing *** in 10th. There's as much chance of that happening as there is Psionic Blast making it in over Char. The whole point of PC is to give us cards which are out of color from an alternate reality, and that's specifically what the 'planeshifted' cards are. If that's not enough proof that *** is white and not black, I don't know what is. I mean, are we going to go through this with every planeshifted card? Where are the people claiming Drop of Honey is actually a white effect(it should be black)?
I will say that 8 Wraths in a format will make it harder for aggro, but not really. What deck will run 8 ***s anyway? You'll lose to any Martyr based deck and Dragonstorm, and last I checked they were a huge part of the metagame. Not to mention UW control just got a huge boost with the previously mentioned Drop, which acts as mass removal and buys you several turns in the early game against aggro.