That bit with the Grand Calcutron just reinforces my belief that WOTC needs to come up with a symbol that means "this card can be your commander". Would also help for planeswalkers who don't otherwise have the space.
So tonight I grabbed the white theme booster (because I like them) and besides the 5 copies of the common white non-basic land, all the cards were the regular frame.
Is this a known thing that the theme boosters are only regular frame? I thought maybe since the draft boosters had a chance of showcase frames, the theme boosters might also.
Has this been discussed?
I wonder if WotC has market research that indicates legendary lands are unpopular for some reason because these absolutely should have been. This oddly happens in cycles. I remember the Kamigawa block having many legendary lands and the Ravnica came with lands having legendary names depicting specific places (Sunhome, Duskmantle, etc) that weren't legendary. We recently had Ixalan which had several legendary lands and now these specific castles that aren't legendary. Why?
At least the cards are useful. We're clearly getting a larger mono-color focus soon with all these goodies.
Maro has said they don't want multiple copies being dead in your hand. He's wanted to separate the legendary rule from the flavor for years, but it's not happening.
Personally, I'm ok with that.
I'm really fed up by the idea that in many decks (and all multi-color decks) the manabase is one of the most expensive parts while at the same time being the most important part of the deck if you don't want your chance to win to go down the drain.
When you can reliably pull off 3 and 4 color decks with almost every multi-color land coming into the battlefield UNTAPPED, then there is something wrong with the balancing (personal opinion, obviously).
But the thing about printing some kind of rare dual land cycle in every set is that it means they're more accessible, particularly when they reprint older ones (I just bought a 9th ed Caves of Koilos for 83¢ this weekend).
Fantastic trailer. I don't know if it was completely outsourced or if WOTC had input into the story, but that's the kind of feel I want my sets to have.
I'm pretty sure Maro admitted on one of his somewhat recent podcasts that certain cards are printed in certain frequencies for draft purposes. I think it was the one about boosters.
Is there a possibility that they could do the same thing they did for Dragon's Maze and include the shocklands from GRN and RNA in the boosters? For DGM they had the RTR or Gatecrash expansions symbols so they weren't considered part of the set proper.
I know WAR doesn't have quite the multicolor demand as a regular Ravnica set, but I'm actually going to be a bit disappointed if the shocks ( or some kind of duals) aren't included.
So what was the last large set not to have a 5-cycle of two-color-supporting rare lands?
I'm wondering about that too. Seems odd to be a Ravnica based set and not have the shocklands. Haven't there been sets in the past where they did a thing in the third set of the block where they just put the previous two sets' dual lands in the basic land slot but it had the previous sets' expansion symbol and collector's number? Is that what we're going to see here too?
I love it.
Is this a known thing that the theme boosters are only regular frame? I thought maybe since the draft boosters had a chance of showcase frames, the theme boosters might also.
Has this been discussed?
Preconstructed decks mean that the cards are specifically chosen for that deck and will have some purpose, even if only for that deck.
If the price is cheap enough, I might get two sets - one to keep intact and one to strip for parts.
Maro has said they don't want multiple copies being dead in your hand. He's wanted to separate the legendary rule from the flavor for years, but it's not happening.
They sell packs, Maro admits it on his blog and podcasts all the time, and a lot of players like opening them (like me).
But the thing about printing some kind of rare dual land cycle in every set is that it means they're more accessible, particularly when they reprint older ones (I just bought a 9th ed Caves of Koilos for 83¢ this weekend).
I think Maro has already pushed back on the idea of this being a wedge set, so I wouldn't expect a full cycle of these lands.
Sometimes I feel like too many MTG players over-analyze things like this, but in reality, this is all we need to know:
Sometimes the game just needs a weird creature type combination, to help remind us we're in an extremely weird fantasy setting.
I know WAR doesn't have quite the multicolor demand as a regular Ravnica set, but I'm actually going to be a bit disappointed if the shocks ( or some kind of duals) aren't included.
I'm wondering about that too. Seems odd to be a Ravnica based set and not have the shocklands. Haven't there been sets in the past where they did a thing in the third set of the block where they just put the previous two sets' dual lands in the basic land slot but it had the previous sets' expansion symbol and collector's number? Is that what we're going to see here too?