MTG Salvation

I still use the 2013 Holiday Gift Box with the dividers, plus one Fat Pack Box with the basic lands and the tokens.
I carry everything, including a dice bag, in a National Guard Backpack - can also fit in a standard Swiss gear back PacK I use for work.

I use Ultra Pro Matte Sleeves, nothing too fancy.

Quote from MoonliteKnight »

What data leads you to believe that Hasbro is prepping to sell Wizard's of the Coast?

It's fairly obvious Hasbro is forcing WotC to produce more types of products in order to artificially elevate sales number growth:
Secret lairs, premium boosters, signature spell-books, duel decks, planeswalker decks, commander decks, a ton of auxiliary 'experimental' sets (such as Conspirac, Battlebond, Jump Start, masters sets, Mystery Booster Boxes, etc) sets each year now instead of just 1 each summer.
This leads to two results: it keeps earnings growth estimates up to keep stock holders an inverters happy, and secondly (and perhaps more importantly but certainly more relevant here) gives the illusion of elevated value through sales numbers growth instead of declining value if/when Hasbro decides WotC has peaked and it's time to sell them for maximum profits.

We can agree to disagree on a few points. I'm basing my information from Hasbro investor calls and their SEC filings. I'd be surprised they sell such a profitable asset. I agree they have turned up the production, but have you noticed the limited quantity, high price, and specifically targeted consumer (high income)?
Also, you are correct that the IP is used to generate revenue, I believe it is one of the top 7

Again, if you have a moment, check their recent SEC filing, Wizards is a mega money generator, and their balance sheet, while not specific shows, a mega jump in GoodWill, which can be a number of things. However more specifically falls under acquisitions and investments.

Will Wizards adapt the game to be more digital and more specialty print product, and less print run set product? That could be definitely what shapes up, especially post COVID.

Quote from Card Slinger J »

Quote from the n00b king »

It's only a matter of time before the game goes fully digital. Maybe Covid will have sped up this process. Might explain the plethora of products WotC is releasing this year. Just to get that stuff out of the way before they focus on the digital aspect.

That would fit in line with Hasbro "prepping" Wizards of the Coast as a company to be sold next year. The weird thing is that Rudy from Alpha Investments predicted this 2 years before COVID-19 occurred. Coincidence? Well I guess we're all going to have to find out now won't we?

What data leads you to believe that Hasbro is prepping to sell Wizard's of the Coast? I'd argue its quite the opposite as Hasbro has taken on a considerable amount of Goodwill in its most recent SEC Filing (which can include acquisitions and investments as minority/majority stakeholders and R&D), and Magic is mentioned several times as a high performer and major revenue contributor and profit center.

I left this on Tolarion Academy wall awhile back, but the recent offerings of the premium high dollar, yet limited product, is an excellent example of this kind of "fundraising"

@wtwlf123 So I cut him about a year ago.
His pump is nice, but as a 2/2, he's too fragile, and at 3 mana. Most of the tribes already have some sort of anthem effect, and those cards with the anthem effect have more versatility typically, example being an enchantment.

I ended up replacing him with the Sword of Sinew, because I preferred that pump, and harder to remove, personally.

I literally thought this card followed up by an armageddon = play of the decade

@wtwlf123 always a great write up, and that is exactly what I saw in Dovin.

I love your analysis on a few of the card 15 to 20 which I hadnt even really considered. Thank you again

Now that is how you write reminder text!

This shoots 96% of creatures in my cube. Seems great.

Looking back, I'm amazed at the neagtive evaluation of this card. Either time's have changed a lot and the nature of the format, or it was herendously underrated. (I'm guessing it's more than former).

When I first saw the card I barely looked twice, but I've been so impressed with it in the cubes I've been playing it in (MTGO vintage cube and alphafrog's vintage cube). Medium sample.
With burn on the decline, cheap creatures on the rise and one sided wraths getting better (plays well in creature decks),
I have this as my current #4 rakdos card.

Reminds me a little of parallax wave, which I always thought was super under-rated. In mine and other cubes I play, I have wave as a high-mid pick.

Quote from Breathe1234 »

I still see a lot of people running her - Does she work>

Well, if the card didn't perform, people wouldn't run it. As always, if your group doesn't like it, cut it.

It hits hard for a 4-drop, and also helps to support a token/anthem deck if you support that package. Despite its vulnerabilities, if it isn't answered immediately, it pressures like few other 4cc cards can, and leaves something behind if it gets a couple of chances to crash in.

It's not a must-include card, but it's good at its job if you want that kind of effect.

I also love me some Psychatog.

You seem to have ignored everyone else in this thread to promote some weird conspiracy theory that obviously has no basis in fact. There is no requirement like you are describing. I played in the prerelease for MID and I brought a credit card; no Companion Mobile App or scanning a QR code required.

Maybe your LGS *is* mandating that but the experience thus far says that they are the outlier and not following any sort of directive from Wizards to do that.

In the past Magic was about Blocks , 1 big set, then 2 smaller expansions to that set.

That way you had a story over 9 months, much more cards, much more time to play and collect these cards and everything was slower and cleaner.


Today, every set (with exceptions) is just 1 set, then you hop to another set, another story, the story itself is much less fleshed out, theres more product and variations of everything, so its much more of a "rush".

And WotC is chasing that "high" on full force, with their screwed idea of pleasing everyone a little bit, its easily overkill if you commit to much to all of it.
I personally resort to playing just on Fridays (and PreReleases on the weekend) very regularly, so its more of a constant and less too much of Magic (as you can totally burn out).


Current set designs follow somewhat of a checkbox sheet.
They very much tend to have at least 5 color combinations per set and often all 10 2-color pairs in some kind of theme for a set.
Thats super cramped up for a single set, to have basically 10-factions in some kind or another.

Planeswalker for a long time had the issue that they also followed some kind of template , 4-5 mana, +1 had to either make tokens or draw a card, -2 had to be some kind fo removal or produce some bigger card advantage, and the ultimate had to somehow win the game.
For the first bunch of planeswalkers thats cool new stuff, but when you get the 20th planeswalker with that design template, well, it gets super boring.

The planeswalkers that break out of these templates are either super bad, or pretty broken (playable 3 mana planeswalkers tend to be pretty overpowered).


Most set mechanics are mainly done for Limited play. Almost all cards in a set are just useful for Limited, draft, or sealed format, all the "bad" commons and fringe uncommons and otherwise unplayable rares.

In constructed just a subset of a set actually can be relevant, as so many cards are just flat out worse than the "mythic" in the set.
And the way WotC designs sets, they have a metagame in mind they are planning to see, so they are aware what cards are pushed in powerlevel and they basically pre-build some decks with the cards to guess what the metagame of standard might be.
A even smaller subset of cards is designed to be powerful or specific enough for other formats, like Modern.
And of course theres Commander / EDH format of people that want their fix too, so each set has to have some legendary creatures for them and some toys to play with.

That way sets can quite easily feel more and more the same, as they follow the same check boxes of card design variations.

Lately especially WotC resorted to "gameplay gimmicks" , like Dungeons, the Day/Night mechanic and stuff like that, which are much less card-design and put some element in the game that is alien and they design it in powerlevel much more conservative, so it wont completely shake up a format ... exception to that are the "Modern Horizon" and the other super premium products, as they push powerlevel of cards intentionally to guarantee the cards will influence a existing constructed format.


Sets are designed by teams self-contained , just a little bit of leeway between the sets and some "bridge" cards that combo with something from the new set (like you get a bunch of vampires in the werewolf set, "teasing" the upcoming vampire set).

With the old set design of 3 sets per block, interaction between the sets in a block was given by design, today thats not the case anymore.
That has the advantage, that if someone really does not like a sets mechanic, they will get a fresh one in a shorter time period.
On the same coin, if someone really likes a sets mechanic, they are basically guaranteed to not get more of it for the foreseeable future.


Especially during Covid i resorted to just buying the bunch of interesting singles of a set i wanted and nothing else.
Normally i play a lot more Limited, so you get to play a lot more of the cards in a set, not just the tiny subset of pushed constructed cards.

Quote from IMorphling89 »

Significantly underplayed cards (in my opinion):

Very Low cube cobra %:
Lutri, the Spellchaser
City of Ass
Jack-in-the-Mox
Omnath, Locus of Creation
Dragon's Rage Channeler
Archon of Cruelty
Hullbreacher
True-Name Nemesis

Cubecobra % in low teens (should be 20%+):
Lurrus of the Dream-Den
Force of Negation
Skyclave Apparition

Here are my comments:
1. Silver border is generally a no-go for a lot of people.
2. Lutri and Lurrus are both very good - I would like to have them in my cube, but I'm just not sure who the cut.
3. Dragon's Rage looks good - but I've been putting her on my watch list.
4. Hullbreacher/ True-Name is cut more for fun/ play pattern reasons, rather than power level - feels very feast or famine.
5. Skyclave and Archon I agree with 100% - no reason why they should be this low.
6. Force of Negation is strong, but blue is a stacked color and its not odd for some good spells to miss the final list. I will say this - I don't have Vedalken Shackles in my cube and this may be a mistake, but I've found blue cards to be over drafted (especially in my playgroup) that getting that many islands is difficult at best. For similar reasons, I could see Force of Negation missing the list because a lot of decks lack the blue spell density. I've kept it in my cube because i have a stronger archetype focus.
7. Omnath was a wait and see - my cube is a bit too full right now for addition but 4 colors feels a bit too much ... (I did like Siege Rhino while it lasted)

I think this card is awesome, and we've had continued success with it since it was originally spoiled.

She's fantastic, and even in decks without Batterskull she's still great. Probably one of white's better and more interesting cards.