249 cards? Wish they had made it 336 and printed each card only once, making a true singleton cube experience that spans 25 years of magic history. They could still package boosters as a random assortment with a bonus foil included. They could easily price something like that at $250 and sell a boatload of them.
Just wanted to chime in and say thanks to the OP for this article/thread. I built a powered Cube a couple of years back but my group consistently drafts midrange decks. To break them out of their shells and get them drafting in different directions I plan to give them cards with details from this article on them. That way, they can try and draft a particular archetype if the cards are there. This article was the catalyst for this idea, so thanks go to the OP!
I wonder if this could be Wizard's "test" into seeing the secondary market's reaction and the collectors who are very vocal about the reserve list before doing something about the reserve list.
Would all the ABUR duals reprinted as snow covered Legendary lands break the Reserve List rules? And would they be enough for people to play Legacy?
Putting Snow on them would be enough to differentiate them from Alpha duals.
I can't see this happening, even in a supplemental product like Commander. The original duals are essentially better than a basic land. WotC has consistently stated that they don't want lands with basic land types in the game that are straight up better than a basic land. This is why all lands with more than one basic land type ETB tapped (and also why shock lands are likely the best "fixed" version of duals we will ever see).
That the blue confluence is an instant while the others are sorceries is pretty crap design, IMO. Most of the spoilers for C15 have been good, but this one I don't like at all in terms of cycle balance.
Edit: don't get me wrong, it is a powerful card. I just think it is out of line with the rest of the cycle.
Skeleton Ship! Awesome! I love that card so much but it doesn't really cut it in commander, unfortunately. Wrexial is my favorite effective dimir general.
On the topic of the boros general, the use of an "experience counter" has me turned off already. There is already a lot to track in a game of commander. Not only does this card seem uninspired and sucky, we now have to remember something else that is tracked somewhere else but has an effect on a card on the battlefield. This might be the first set of commander decks I don't buy but we shall wait for the rest of the spoilers to pass final judgment...
As there is 25 of these instead of 15 maro said you are slightly more likely to open these then mythic rares there is 66% more of these then there is mythic rares im going to guestimate that these are 1 in 130 packs not 1 in 216 packs seeing 216 * 0.6 = 130 ?
it depends on if these are bonus foil mythics (meaning there are more total foil mythics than other big sets), or more options for foil mythics (meaning there are the same number of total foil mythics split 40 ways instead of 15). if they are just more options, then they're ~1/350 ( (216)*(25+15)/25 )
Basing my assumptions on them using full sheets to insert foils, this is the math I have worked out. If I am missing something or my assumption is incorrect, please feel free to point it out.
Having said that, they appear to be slightly more frequent than mythics, making the full mythic slot land at around 2 per case (which is a nice upgrade).
These are great. They will make sitting on boxes of this expansion very worthwhile. So everyone is talking about the odds and I feel like the numbers are way off. Correct me if I am wrong, but cards are printed in the following manner. Rares are printed twice on the sheet to once for every Mythic rare. So in my experience I either get 2 foil rares or 1 foil mythic and sometimes a rare per box. So that would mean foil mythics show up at an average frequency of 3 per case. These will be equal to a foil mythic in rarity, but show up slightly more as there are more of them compared to the set mythics. So we could expect 2 of these and 1 regular set mythic per case. Though I also wonder if they will just juice the packs slightly as that would make the regular set mythic foils also be very scarce and valuable.
Still, I imagine that opening a random Expedition is about 1.6 times as likely as opening a random mythic foil (Due to a base assumption that they are printed on the same sheet at the same frequency).
Food for thought, at least.
They won't change the sheet arrangement for Rares/mythics (53x2 and 15x1). What they will probably do is have a fourth sheet with these 25 lands on them, 4x25 with the remaining 21 slots being discard cards. For each foil sheet set (c/u/r&m) they will add 25 of these to the mix and randomly insert foils, approximately 1 in 8, as usual. This does increase your odds of getting a mythic somewhat, as they become a larger part of the equation.
Buying 20 of each on Ebay is going to be absolute chump change. Bookmark it.
Yeah, I am with you on this one. The player base is so much larger now than when ZEN was originally printed, and it isn't like the ZEN basics are hard to find. BFZ basics are going to be absolutely everywhere and it will be years before they gain any value on the secondary market, if at all (this excludes foil basics, which could be worth something out of the gate depending on demand).
It might also be worth mentioning that the land packs that came in Zendikar fat packs contained fewer lands than current fat packs do--I have some that are still sealed and don't remember how many lands are in each, but it definitely isn't 40. The new fat packs could allow for faster deck completion (for those who enjoy their lands being uniform), since you'd likely get more of each art.
Origins fat pack comes with 80 lands (seems they changed fat packs somewhere in Scars block). ZEN and WWK fat packs both came with 40. If the BFZ packs come with 80 full art lands these things will fly off the shelf.
edit: Too bad they don't make them in foreign languages. I would love to have a bunch of Russian full art basics :).
Tracking is SO cheap for you Yanks. I'm in Canada and it's brutal.
I never send cards outside of Canada/US/UK. Sorry, been burned by both South American trades, and both Italian trades. Thank goodness for the Puca Admins!
Basically anything north of Italy and west of Russia will be safe
Not entirely true. Spain has its fair share of postal issues. But the rest of Europe should be OK.
The mothership archives are basically broken. Apprently they are working on a fix, but it is taking forever...point is, the 404 is a red herring here.
I still can't see the RL going anywhere. As good for the game as it would be, it just isn't happening.
I can't see this happening, even in a supplemental product like Commander. The original duals are essentially better than a basic land. WotC has consistently stated that they don't want lands with basic land types in the game that are straight up better than a basic land. This is why all lands with more than one basic land type ETB tapped (and also why shock lands are likely the best "fixed" version of duals we will ever see).
Edit: don't get me wrong, it is a powerful card. I just think it is out of line with the rest of the cycle.
Skeleton Ship! Awesome! I love that card so much but it doesn't really cut it in commander, unfortunately. Wrexial is my favorite effective dimir general.
On the topic of the boros general, the use of an "experience counter" has me turned off already. There is already a lot to track in a game of commander. Not only does this card seem uninspired and sucky, we now have to remember something else that is tracked somewhere else but has an effect on a card on the battlefield. This might be the first set of commander decks I don't buy but we shall wait for the rest of the spoilers to pass final judgment...
Source:http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/announcing-oath-gatewatch-2015-09-01
Basing my assumptions on them using full sheets to insert foils, this is the math I have worked out. If I am missing something or my assumption is incorrect, please feel free to point it out.
Having said that, they appear to be slightly more frequent than mythics, making the full mythic slot land at around 2 per case (which is a nice upgrade).
They won't change the sheet arrangement for Rares/mythics (53x2 and 15x1). What they will probably do is have a fourth sheet with these 25 lands on them, 4x25 with the remaining 21 slots being discard cards. For each foil sheet set (c/u/r&m) they will add 25 of these to the mix and randomly insert foils, approximately 1 in 8, as usual. This does increase your odds of getting a mythic somewhat, as they become a larger part of the equation.
The Reserve List doesn't allow them to reprint anything on it in paper ever. Full art Tundra on MTGO? Possible. In paper? Never going to happen.
Yeah, I am with you on this one. The player base is so much larger now than when ZEN was originally printed, and it isn't like the ZEN basics are hard to find. BFZ basics are going to be absolutely everywhere and it will be years before they gain any value on the secondary market, if at all (this excludes foil basics, which could be worth something out of the gate depending on demand).
I am seeing plenty on MKM for 9 Euros and TCGplayer has them for $13 to $14 + shipping. Not seeing anything out of control...
Origins fat pack comes with 80 lands (seems they changed fat packs somewhere in Scars block). ZEN and WWK fat packs both came with 40. If the BFZ packs come with 80 full art lands these things will fly off the shelf.
edit: Too bad they don't make them in foreign languages. I would love to have a bunch of Russian full art basics :).
Not entirely true. Spain has its fair share of postal issues. But the rest of Europe should be OK.