Quote from Teia Rabishu »There's a lot about the pro scene that really trickles some bad values down through the playerbase when you get right down to it. Problem is I can only antagonize so many people in one article, you know?
True that.
There's only so many times I can handle people questioning why I mainboard Duress instead of Thoughtseize or inquisition of Kozilek, when those cards are outrageously priced and someone would have to have either gotten lucky with their drafts or have a lot of disposable income devoted to magic just to have them. But yeah, it goes back to the whole deal of Wizards needing to print something like Vingolf Engage Knights each rotation that contains all the dominant main deck cards found in top pro-tour decks that are rotating out. Just slap two of each in there and sell them at msrp 35 usd to all major retailers.
The thing is people can argue all they want on the side of justifying the lack of proper value cards. There has to be value based cards in the set that are a known quantity for a commander product to be successful. Commander 2015 and 2016 were excellent sets and they kept selling to the point of being very scarce late season. Commander 2018 was stuck on the shelves for up to probably 2 months ago. Think about that before stepping into buying a commander 2019 deck at inflated prices because WoTC and distributors screwed up.
This really is complete crap. Sorry, but WoTC basically carted Gavin out to showcase Seedborn Muse, knowing that people would then assume they would have at least something on par with commander 2017 this season, and then they gave us absolute garbage after pre-orders were already done. No one should trust Wizards of the Coast on anything they say about a product after this point. They've done this way too much and they do know about the secondary market and the value the cards have on a product. Otherwise, they wouldn't have ever made the Modern Masters series and created the concept that "modern" means "premium" as a product.
They are examples, not hardline includes in the decks, of what constitutes a good reprint.
The issue is that the game has enough cards as is that people need for commander decks and reprinting cards that are basically replaceable bulk is not helping the commander community. Commander players love new cards, but they also want old cards that are not readily available. Every single blasted reprint in this set felt like it was from some massively opened set in the last two years, when the cards people need are things like Cyclonic Rift, Chromatic Lantern, allied pain lands, Mana Echoes, Sylvan Tutor, Cruel Tutor, etc.
Basically, they are saving anything with even the smell of a high secondary market price now for premium products. That is what is killing everything else.
The situation is like pre 2013 magic singles, which just cant hold. Either the box price goes up or the cards come down from mass opening.
The box EV is 20 dollars below ultimate masters without the box topper.
Well, yeah. The choice would ultimately come down to either banning the brand new card or banning the older one. It makes no sense to ban the new card that just got released into modern as it would hurt the bottom line of the sealed product sales such as with what happened during Kaladesh Era. They even pulled out a new PR figure to take peoples attention away from Maro with Gavin, so you know it was a big deal internally as well.
The thing is that isn't something to demonize, though. That's literally someone making the right decision so that they still have a job and money on the table. The kind of thing to really grill them on is not banning Faithless looting. Yes, they don't want to kill graveyard decks in modern, but I just have to ask why? I just don't get the reasoning.
To put this in perspective, there was a card in unstable that splits the main deck into four parts. I think bridge is weirder than that.
I know this is not the popular opinion around here, but as much as I loved the idea of an eternal paradise where all my cards are playable, modern and legacy have proven that such a thing is not viable. Even if someone were to buy all the top tier cards now, that desire to not be held to the past will eventually mean a rotation will happen, and that rotation can cost someone hundreds of dollars if they follow the competitive scene.
Spoilers came out, people saw Hogaak, and even though the market didn't really react right away to it even I could see it would be broken with bridge from below as a component to some shell. If someone like me can see that, I don't know how a game developer couldn't, so most likely it got printed because of the marketing side and not the design side.
The big problem is the company went full EA on the community post modern masters 2 and decided they can create artificially high prices by setting a high box price, and now they are going into making special mythic edition super limited print run boxes. I'm genuinely afraid of where the game is going.
They even introduced an arena season pass now to get the hooks in deeper on arena.
The answer is both. We have to look at the floor and the ceiling with the card and I feel it can replace a djinn turn 3 or 4 depending on what you are doing. Personally, I like her in simic because she benefits a lot from the proliferate mechanic, hence why she has the two loyalty.
Is it a 15 dollar tier 1 Walker in standard this summer before rotation? No, go put money down on leylines you crazy person. That price is from FOMO and preorder hype. But if someone played this on the field on curve I have to deal with it and it can tick up to four, meaning you are burning at least a fight with fire. Turn 4 kefnet afterwards? Ouch.