MTG Salvation

If the desire is for people to judge that have passion for the game, and the desire to simply be a judge, they have the Rule Advisor tier. It costs $0.

As for the get woke, go broke argument... Well, there's this that leapt out at me:

Quote from SpeedGrapher »

But yeah when I'm selling a $3 booster pack and making less than .50 on the transaction

You're not going broke for being woke, you're going broke because you're losing money selling booster packs for $3. If the neon-haired girlfriend in your example dropped MTG from that store because of that, she did the store owner a favor. Their margins clearly sucked.

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.

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?

Quote from Card Slinger J »

Quote from NGW »

Quote from Igzex »

I see you being cute with the flavor text, Wizards of the Coast.

It's a time travel reference.

Well that and it's also a reference to Paradox Engine being recently banned in EDH / Commander.

Is that even possible without actual time travel?

Been wondering when they'd get to this particular design space.

My guess is Crovax for the madness deck. A new Starke would be neat though. And it's very unlikely to be, but Karn only has one creature card.

Quote from Gutterstorm »

Quote from NZB2323 »

Are all the planeswalkers going to be reprints?

They said there would be one reprint planeswalker in each deck.

Oh, I didn't know he said reprint. Darn.

Really hoping for some amazing stuff in those decklists.

Quote from Sexymsjackson23 »

We also get sol ring in every deck and 1 Planeswalker per deck. Hmmm if I had to guess on Planeswalker:

Populate - Garruk reprint (not sure which one)
Flashback- without a doubt Jace
Madness - Nahiri (the second one)
Morph - really don’t know who? Not many commanders do morph

Flashback could be Narset.

Quote from fettpett »

This is not much different than any other certification programs for other careers. Take for example Massage Therapy (mostly because I am familiar with it). There are two companies that provide certifications and insurance that several states require to practice. You have to pay for the membership it doesn’t get you a job, but helps to advance your career. If you think of this program in that same manor, this is a very good thing for the judging industry.

That's how I'm seeing it.

Quote from Xcric »

Quote from Mishotem »

Quote from Xcric »

when there's so many different websites, channels, and feeds getting previews that you need to publish an article to track them all, its time to rethink how you ******* preview things.

sweet ******* jesus. no one is going to go to all that ***** to see some damn spoilers. they're going to just go somewhere that shows them all at once.

their spoiler strategy sucks so much dick and is beyond obnoxious now.

You're right, they should just go back to their original system of not publishing a schedule and just having people scour the internet looking for the previews on their own. That's how it used to be. The current way is much better.

Or utilize their website? I mean, thats a novel idea. Using the mtg home page for... mtg

They do.

I mean, all of you saying dont bother just come here kind of prove the point that its really just a tedious and unnecessary way to spoil cards.

However, it IS a great way to acknowledge the community. I believe even MTGS got a spoiler for M20, didn't they? Or was it WAR/MH1?

Its also most likely a contributing factor to leaks and leak culture. Slow roll spoils over 30 websites and have to suffer through internet nonsense, or have one nice centralized official source. Theyre one of the only companies that does this to this capacity and it makes spoiler seasons a slog.

They're one of the only companies that has a game that allows them to do this to this capacity. And as others have pointed out, everything gets compiled on spoiler sites. Not sure how that makes things a slog.

OH GOD! You might get a spoiler hours after it comes out!!! (which is still weeks before release, generally) That's less hours you'd have to mock up the card and playtest it, or whatever it is that getting spoilers hours late is making you upset about. Geez.

People complain about it every season, so the solution was a guide? Dumb. But oh right xcric is criticizing it so magically the past 10 years of mtgs users saying the same things disappears and wotc can do no wrong because he was crass about it. got it. Business as usual.

We all go to mythic spoiler, or here, anyway so is there a point to this method?

If we all go here, then what's the issue?

And if you actually gave a damn about this issue instead of just wanting to vent, you'd complain to someone who could actually DO something about it. Hence, you don't care, you just want to whine. Congratulations. A winner is you.

The point is acknowledging the community. It'd be easy for them to just post all the spoilers on their site, but considering they don't tend to have too many regular columnists anymore other than Mark Rosewater, they'd have to get people to spend time writing things up, when instead they can just throw content creators, who are ALREADY doing content anyway, a bone. Everyone wins, well, except people who want to be miserable.

Quote from Xcric »

when there's so many different websites, channels, and feeds getting previews that you need to publish an article to track them all, its time to rethink how you ******* preview things.

sweet ******* jesus. no one is going to go to all that ***** to see some damn spoilers. they're going to just go somewhere that shows them all at once.

their spoiler strategy sucks so much dick and is beyond obnoxious now.

You're right, they should just go back to their original system of not publishing a schedule and just having people scour the internet looking for the previews on their own. That's how it used to be. The current way is much better.

Quote from Dragoon91 »

Quote from Mishotem »

This is honestly a much better way to get WotC (or other game companies) to pay their judges instead of just hoping they'll do it. It should also reduce any sort of favoritism or "Old Boys' Club" type of thing that might exist (not saying there is, I don't know enough about the current judge program to say one way or the other.) like it exists/existed in other games' judging programs.

To my understanding, judges will not be paid by this program. They have to pay fees (100$/year at L1, 200$/year at L2 and so forth) and they are only rewarded with foil promos. It is still up to the tournament organizer to pay their judges, and sometimes the pay is next to nothing. This doesn't really look like an improvement to me, at least at first glance.

And as I understand it, the current program is mostly L1s at the LGS level, with little opportunity to advance further because there aren't enough L2s to properly mentor them. Am I wrong? This might, hopefully, change that.

I'm not saying the judges will be paid by the program. Sorry if I implied that somehow. But a system like this should lead to alternative ways to improve your skills and become more valuable to your LGS or the judge program as a whole. Could lead to your LGS paying you for your time, at the very least.

Quote from DJK3654 »

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.

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. 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.

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

I do like the idea of the Storybook cards being a Monstrosity variant.

My speculation for the set is that the timeline is concurrent with GRN/RNA/WAR. Not too significant, but it might explain the sudden change of focus and the lack of Gatewatch.

Quote from Marl Karx »

Quote from cyberium_neo »

WotC ending judge program?

https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2019/07/judges-announce-new-judge-academy-will-organize-independent-from-wizards-of-the-coast/

Besat part, there will be yearly dues starting at $100 and going up from there.

This is honestly a much better way to get WotC (or other game companies) to pay their judges instead of just hoping they'll do it. It should also reduce any sort of favoritism or "Old Boys' Club" type of thing that might exist (not saying there is, I don't know enough about the current judge program to say one way or the other.) like it exists/existed in other games' judging programs.

I especially like that it won't just be WotC, currently they're trying to get Asmodee and Keyforge into this as well. That might lead to X-Wing and Destiny being included, and other companies getting on board as well, some of which could use a real judge program.

Regardless, it's not the "nightmare" that certain alarmists out there are painting it to be. This type of thing works for companies, and if you want an actual path towards judging becoming a career, this is better than just taking a bunch of online tests and hoping someone is around to train you further.

Per Gavin Verhey on twitter, the Yuriko will be foil with the original art, and the Chalice is Seb McKinnon's art. Pool is by Peter Mohrbacher. Both of those are from MTGO. Mentor is Anastasia Ovchinnikova, with completely new art, I believe.