MTG Salvation

Quote from Slio9

Fun fact: There were those at WotC that actually believed Baneslayer wouldn't see any Competitive Standard play.

Another fun fact: About half of these forums said the same thing.

Who at WOTC didn't think it would see play? They might've thought it wasn't as good as it was, but not constructed worthy at all?

I know people on this forum said that because there are people who say that about every single card, but unlike this forum the people at wizards are pro players who spent 6 months testing the card.

I guess people who do understand that level up is not the same as "a 9/9 for 15 mana" should be glad that no one else does. The comments on every one of these creatures have been the same.

For players whose casual meta is jank combo decks with no responses trying to race each other:

It makes sense that green would finally have its day in a set built around fatties and mana ramp.

Quote from False God

Yes, of course, because blowing up your opponent's lands, milling half or all of their library, or Overrun are completely useless abilities that never see play.

A 10/10 with pro everything is pretty useful too. How often do people hardcast Progenitus competitively?

That's really not true but I think if you want to write I win the game on all your cards you should go ahead and do it and see how long you actually enjoy playing with those rules.

Quote from herbalT

i believe the fact that Ravnica was a multicolor block probably had quite a bit to do with it's inclusion in the set, as well. it's not like it's absence destroyed the game or green's viability or anything.

Well that would be hard to because green has never been viable hur-hur-hur.

Just a joke, of course.

What? It's not futureshifted. The logic of the first post is that Annihilator becomes something that helps you meet your wincon (which isnt really how Barren Glory decks work, btw, they don't need the help), having been printed in future sight has nothing to do with whether or not it would be reprinted.

Quote from dracomageat

So it becomes self contradictory in that case then as that is clearly also part of the written text?

No it doesn't. According to what your saying, the griefer Ashnod's Coupon "combo" would be a huge paradox because its errata is written on the card.

Their Ultimates are practically just flavor text for Timmys, though.

Fun trivia, btdub: If you add up the decklists for all Worlds Top 8s, Llanowar Elves has seen more play than Birds of Paradise among them. This fact is made less significant by the fact that Elves was the most played creature and Birds was the second, beating every other creature by a wide wide margin (which is mostly because they're utility cards that have each been in every standard except 2).

Quote from Annorax

That was a conscious decision made by R&D to see if there was design space that could be opened by removing it from the Core, leaving Llanowar Elves in, and coming up with other cards to take its place. They failed miserably, as evidenced by BoP coming back in Ravnica and every core set since. While I could have seen dropping it from M10 to replace it with Noble Hierarch in Conflux, there's really no reason to do that now.

I'll be holding onto my 4 7th foil BoPs, eagerly awaiting the day when Shards leaves Standard and I can play them again.

That's just not true. Ravnica was the next set after Ninth. Where do you think they attempted to replace birds when they took it out?

They took it out because they felt there was only room in core for one 1-cmc mana produced in green and decided that Elves was more iconic. Because they realized that Birds was an integral part of the game, they included it in Ravnica, the next set, so it would only leave standard for 3 months. They even announced that Birds would be in Ravnica at the same time they announced it wouldn't be in Ninth, way before Ravnica spoiler season just because they knew players love their Birds.

In Eighth edition, they felt the same way but let the players decide between Elves and Birds, and Birds won, which is why Elves wasn't in it. By Tenth they apparently had decided there was room for both creatures.

Aaron Forsythe wrote an article about this.

EDIT: As a side note, there's absolutely no chance they would have ever included a card with Exalted in a core set.

Forsythe mentioned once that he doesn't like seeing guns in magic and thought their inclusion in Portal was a mistake. I don't think that has anything to do with victorian magic, because that can be done without guns, but the level of steampunk I think some people are thinking wouldn't really be possible.

Not that Aaron Forsythe is Wizard's Creative department, but I think R&D has a limit on how modern things should be and that's about it.

Alara's symbols were abstract. Zendikar's? Not really. They were storyline elements, just like Mirrodin's.

I don't really have an opinion on it, but what exactly would you have Zendikar's symbol be? It's not like Kamigawa where they can just pick three recognizably Asian things and slap them on the cards.

The Reserved List is meaningless. Any hand-wringing about breaking promises is a lie, they already did it eight years ago.

I think some corporate element of WOTC wants to keep the price of Legacy staples high by emphatically assuring players they won't be reprinted, hoping that the barrier to entry will be high enough to stunt it because they perceive it to be a threat to non-eternal formats, which make more money. The Phyrexian and FTV exemptions brought the issue out within WOTC and the bean counters won. That's just baseless speculation though.