Gahhhh! It was a pyramid scheme all along!
(Yes, I've been waiting since Amonkhet was released to make this joke)
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- DarthParallax
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-not an enchantment. no starry background.
-not an 'invoked' creature from a different state. always a creature.
-not indestructible.
what are we left it?
it's curvy. a 5 mana 6/5 with no drawbacks is....well, it's close to what Green gets for Common, frankly! (a LOT has changed to Craw Wurm's space on the limited curve over the years.) but not Red-Black I guess. OK, I'll admit that's not only solid grounds for an uncommon, it squeaks as a rare Just for the 6/5 for 5 mana.
it's Legendary. this hurts it's 6/5 for 5 status. but hey, fun Commander possibilities for themes and colors. Anytime you give Commander a new Creature type Color combination, there's going to be someone that wants to build it. Before, we only had Mogis for Rakdos colored Gods. This is a new face for that set of players. there's only one problem: he's not really much of a God, so the flavor falls flat.
-he's got an activated ability, but so what? lots of creatures have activated abilities.
A Creature Design like this is like a Demigod of Revenge given the Legendary Creature type (forget for a moment that Demigod happens to be one of the only ones from that 10-card megacycle that really didn't want to be legendary). It puts even more spotlight on proofing that Shadowmoor basically gave us more Nephilim-- "forgetting to put 'Legendary' on cards that felt Legendary"-- (another Cycle that is sort of like that is the Titans. But the Titans kind of created their own new Trope as ''if you're not going to do Legendary, this is how to do Non-Legendary Epic RIGHT.'' Most people I think would say the Titans are cooler and more fun as Non-Legends. But the Ghastlord of Fugue, Nobilis of War, Demigod of Revenge and friends really look like they share with Nephilim the flaw of not being Legendary as a flaw. They should have been.
The fact that this Scorpion God can exist, pass itself off as a kind of bland, slightly curvy legendary, with a Mythic Rarity slapped on it, and represents a minor role from the lore that will be easily forgotten given a year, and people are still at least somewhat excited to at least get a card for the character, really shows that those Shadowmoor cards could have been Legendaries and nobody would have doubted their Legendary status as legit and earned.
This card isn't exactly bad or boring, I'm having a hard time believing it's Mythic Rare and Legendary, but it does dodge the graveyard, it does use -1/-1 counters for a flavorful Scorpion's Sting, and it does remind me in a lot of ways of Olivia Voldaren just based on what a Mythic Rare Legendary card gets you in Red and Black with fairly modern R&D sensibilities about Power.
I'm not irritated about the power level of the card here, but it looks a lot more to me like a Mythic Scorpion Horror than a Mythic God. The flavor is very distorted and diluted for two major, major, reasons, and one minor reason.
1. Gods need names. Every God so far has had a name. While it can work to have flavor texts refer to ''the Scorpion God'' ''the God-Pharoah'' ''the Serpent God'' or ''the Jackal God'', on the cards themselves, you want the character to know it's own true real name for a figure as high-profile as a God. it's fine if the denizens of Amonkhet don't know this guy very well at all. Let his epithet title be ''(God's Name Here), the Scorpion God'', and let the other two Secret Gods all be ''the Something God'', but give them names too! Nicol Bolas ought to know their names! This is pretty lazy. The biggest excuse for allowing laziness here is I don't expect them to ever return to Amonkhet. It's a pretty fun world, but they deliberately drained it of having much to tell about it and destroyed it on their way out. We're probably done with Amonkhet and will never see this one again. But......if he ever gets a reprint anywhere for some reason, like a reprint set, well.....''The Scorpion God'' with no other name is in my opinion lame.
2. He's not Indestructible. Look at Progenitus, the Eldrazi, the Theros Gods, and even the Amonkhet Gods. Graveyard-dodging has taken on a life of its own with these Super-Mythic monstrosity creatures, and we expect them all to be able to do it by now, but there's also an issue of flavor at stake. Some shuffle into the library, some are indestructible. it matters which is doing what. It's become part of their identities as their creature types to have the same methods of graveyard dodging consistently. If Emrakul, the Promised End had returned to your hand, that would have felt wrong, for more reasons than just power balance. Eldrazi-undeathing is iconically shuffling your whole graveyard into your library. They decided to not give any graveyard dodging to the 2.0 Eldrazi from what I remember, but if they had given a power like that to any of them, they would have given the SAME one to ALL THREE OF THEM.
(2.b Likely, because Wizards isn't totally stupid, (only partly stupid), they'll give this grave-bouncing to the other two Secret Gods.)
3. (Minor) No flavor text. It would have taken fewer words to give him Indestructible than to give him Graveyard bouncing, and they could have used a quote to really increase the flavor lore of these Secret 3 Gods, who are still pretty giant mysteries. Now it looks like the only things we'll be learning about them is that they aren't indestructible and they have 3 animal heads. We have little idea what they really care about as Gods because this one doesn't have any flavor except -1/-1 counters and a possible connection to Scorpions. out of 26 Gods with Creature Type-God this one is easily the stupidest which is a little sad, because Theros pumped out so many God creatures that it should have been easy to be better than the 3-5 worst of them by just being Very Amonkhetlike and Very Godlike.
Sadly, Amonkhet has stripped the God Type of most of its Divinity piece by piece, taking away everything that made Theros Gods special. Each time having less and less reason to do so.
There were good and necessary reasons for Enchantment to be taken away, but considering that these cards are supposed to be the highest of high profiles short of Planeswalkers-- "Mythic Rare Legendary Creature- God"-- each of the Gods ever needs to stand on nearly even footing with a Titan for coolness. They don't have to match the Titans for Raw Power, especially as you add more colors to them, but they do at least have to feel Iconic and Mythic. And 25 cards have set up the expectation that this creature type is Defined more than anything else by its Indestructibility.
All this guy is is an activated ability dealing with -1/-1'ing stuff. I'm sure there are better ways to -1/-1 in not just other cards, but Standard, heck even this set. If he'd been the God of -1/-1, the God of Stingers or whatever, he could have had extra mana in his mana cost and a crazy powerful machine gun ability, but instead they played him down so safe that I'd much prefer him to lose the God type and Mythic Rarity, and be a Rare Scorpion Horror instead. He looks nasty for Limited I guess. Still doesn't feel at all like a God, in a game where everything is Magical and there's all kinds of other cards feeling more Magical than this one.
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I saw a someone compare Ugin to Galactus to which another commenter immediately followed up "No no he's more like the Watcher".
Magic is predominantly High Fantasy but Sci Fi, Horror, Pirates, Ninjas, and other genres have been creeping in since all the way back to
Antiquities putting the whole Phyrexian Problem Thing on a more Star Warsy Trekky path than a Lord of the Rings path.
One of the options Wizards could do is to try to keep each setting, each plane, specific and centered around established Genres.
"This is the Metal Plane"
"This is the Indiana Jones Plane"
"This is the Trantor/Coruscant Plane"
"This is the Drive-In Movie Monsters Plane"
"This is the Dragon Plane"
"This is the Nicolas Cage Plane"
But. Well. See.
Planeswalkers.
And Eldrazi.
Marvel has war heroes, super heroes, gods, spies, mutants, aliens, cosmic beings, magic beings, and horror stories kind of all happening in
"The Multiverse of New York City"
And I'm wondering--- when will the Planes start to feel like a Multiverse of interacting and diverse characters with shared stories repeatedly
interacting with each other to solve problems, learn life lessons, and keep on living and enjoying Magic? And Dance Offs?
The fact that some beings can Planeswalk and others cannot is something that.....just....doesn't make sense anymore.
The Weatherlight could Planeswalk. The Phyrexians could Planeswalk. Many beings on Ravnica and Zendikar know what Planeswalkers are.
How long can the planes keep going their independent ways without curious inventors cropping up on different worlds and eventually inventing Portals?
Why wouldn't the Planeswalkers overtly help this enterprise? Do Planeswalkers tend to think themselves high and mighty and assume nobody on their native world
could possibly be smart enough to understand the Multiverse because they aren't a Planeswalker? Where are the Jane Fosters?
Further, it seems like a very good way to tell the Battle of Zendikar story would be to have the Planeswalkers form a New Coalition and enlist the aide of all the Planes
they know that might be important enough to be able to help.
I would really like to see an Actual Block set not on a Plane, but in the Multiverse. Does anyone think this is a thing that could happen?
Or do they see no signs of the Planehopping leading to this?
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The romance in MTG rarely is harder core than Lord of the Rings-- a couple of instances notwithstanding.
War is a theme that it's a matter of philosophical debate whether it's appropriate for children or not, and every single Magic story is going to be about War.
To corrupt their innocence at too young an age, or to delay preparing them for the world, which is the greater evil?
Technology, Nature, and Magic are all big themes too, and there's no telling what your kid will make of which is 'right' or 'wrong' or if they're all 'neutral'.
The choices and attitudes of Planeswalkers are not like the choices and attitudes of Barney and Friends. They get into very real deep issues and will be a big part of how
you end up understanding issues like abortion, eugenics, global warming, the works.
Is it more important to be part of a Coalition? To be one of Nine Titans? Or is it more important to follow your own Spark and seek life, liberty, and happiness wherever it takes you?
Is it ok to kill evil? Is it ok to kill for fun and profit? Does anyone have the right to force sacrifice from another instead of or in addition to personal sacrifice?
Is religion too tyrannical or does it protect people from terrible horrors? All these cans of worms and more will be opened if you try to share Magic: the Gathering stories with your kids.
And don't even get started on just the terrifyingness of Eldrazi or the confusing mystery of who or what Ashiok, the Nightmare Weaver is.
Should you leave a child unattended with science fiction and fantasy themes? Never. It's all to one degree or another 'Dangerous Knowledge', and your child at any age, 4, 14, or 40 will probably want and need their parent's help with the big tough scary stuff as it can get hardcore. But it's all absolutely as fascinating as it can be mind-torturing. Figuring out how to tell such stories to a 4-year old without making yourself laugh at yourself because of how much you're oversimplifying it would be a challenge. Telling the straight truth with nothing withheld will probably make sharing real world history and current events and explaining lots of things a lot easier.
For a 4 year old, I wouldn't be concerned with moral appropriateness as much as I would be about simplicity, making sure they understand who is who. I would also recommend not looking for the simplest, 'meant for children' stories. Instead I would go straight to the heart of hell, to Phyrexia, to Yawgmoth, to Test of Metal, to Tezzeret, to the streets of Tidehollow. I would read the stories yourself, and figure out what you want to say to your kid about them, and don't put off the most unpleasant ones for last. Instead start with the middling horrific stuff, then go to the worst stuff, then more middling horrific stuff, then end on the lightest note you can find, then wait for the inevitable time when they rediscover the absolute worst and it starts to hit them harder. I would look for card arts to help illustrate your story.
The Comics about Ice Age and Fallen Empires are good, I just picked them up last week at a comic store (you might need to look for them online).
There's no point in showing your kid science fiction and fantasy anything if you're going to try to turn it into Candyland. It's not Candyland, and that's kind of the point. It's way better than Candyland, and after they've had a taste of Magic: the Gathering, they'll want Candyland to be more like Magic.
I also recommend Jazz music. Lots and lots of Jazz music can help you get through it all when the really epic ***** goes down.
I would say the Real World isn't all that Suitable for Children and that's why Magic isn't all that Suitable for Children. You might end up with a very bright Young Adult if you feed it all the right books.
I can't think of anything off the top of my head in Magic Lore anywhere that isn't all hardercore than Pokemon. If Lord of the Rings and Star Wars is intense for you and you don't want it to get too much more intense, maybe stay away. Those are just par for the course and almost required to understand what's going on here.
Try watching Star Wars and Star Trek movies with them, and reading outloud from Lord of the Rings and maybe Narnia, or if not Narnia, maybe the trilogy of "Out of the Silent Planet", "Perelandra", and "That Hideous Strength". The Man of Steel is a good modern sci-fi movie that has some of the themes in Magic.
Stuff like Maelstrom Nexus, Knowledge Pool, the Blind Eternities....that kind of stuff might make your kid want to listen to the Dark Side of the Moon with the Wizard of Oz.
I don't really know what's "Suitable for Children" though, I just know if you give kids tons of awesome ***** at whatever age they tend to figure out how to like it eventually at some point. When I was little my parents dragged me around to boring old museum-y type places from colonial days and me back then wouldn't have called it Child Friendly but I'm glad they did that now. Even though old colonial museum-y places are still kinda dusty and boring compared to the frakkin Interwebs.
Alternatively, you could ignore absolutely everything I've said and don't help your kid go insane any faster than they already will at their own pace, and like, only show them The Brady Bunch or Leave it To Beaver. That sounds Safe.
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Ugin being saved on Tarkir might well cause retconning to the history we think we know. We currently aren't sure that Ugin won't actually be there in Zendikar Block to help Sorin.
There is the little issue of the Time Paradox he might cause, where actions of his on Zendikar may prevent Sarkhan from revisiting Tarkir to save him in the first place.....for one as Powerful as Ugin, (I rate him above Bolas and With Karn-- Bolas simply specializes in Destroying his Enemies whereas Ugin is more Dalai Llama. The reason he lost to Bolas is the same reason Yoda lost to Palpatine), such a concern that makes us wonder urgently, is of little consequence to him. He can solve any discrepancy. If that's the direction WOTC decides they want to go.
Nothing preventing Ugin from being a massive Deus Ex Machina to just outright FIX everything we've ever heard about Zendikar Block.
Reason why that probably won't be what they choose to do: Karn, Liberated didn't outright FIX New Phyrexia. Far from it. These writers prefer as much horror and desolation as possible,
instead of happy endings of any kind in the remotest sense.
On Nahiri:
She doesn't HAVE to be alive, because Ugin learned Lithomancy, and because her appearance in Commander 2014 is Weak Evidence that
she's considered to be "a cool character from the overall Magic Story that we aren't going to get to see anywhere else."
She COULD be alive, because there's a lot of things we don't know about what exactly the effects on the Overall Timeline Tarkir Block will have,
and among many things, Ugin and Sorin could seek her out and are motivated to do so.
Everything about Nahiri is up for grabs. She could just as easily come back as not come back, and both would be easy to logically explain.
If you are a cynic, you believe that WOTC has lost its touch on the Vorthos side of things, because it can manage to advertise Blocks and Pre-Releases OK,
but it's really waning on being able to tell the Block Story through anything *other* than the Pre-Release, the Web Comics are Gone, the Planeswalker Novels are Gone,
the Block Novels have been gone forever and the Zendikar one really sucked even compared to other sucky ones because Nissa was just so clip. Therefore, Nahiri being such
a cool character with so much promise and power and elegance and being generally awesome......is going to be underused in an epic fail kind of way.
If you have Faith that Magic can still be Awesome, then Nahiri's 2.0 Card is Confirmed for Zendikar 2.0 Block.
On Ob Nixilis:
He's a Bad Guy. He's like Tevesh Szat. Any attempt to get Ugin and Sorin to work with him will turn out as well as the Null Moon Summit.
Ugin may be frustratingly neutral when it comes to some kinds of moral judgments, and I could see Ugin allowing the destruction of Zendikar or
the destruction of the Eldrazi (I say ALLOWING, in the most passive way possible, probably not totally Approving, but Choosing Not To Interfere).
But, even if Ugin is willing to be so-detached-he-seems-crazy, Sorin just ain't.
In EITHER the world where Nahiri is shown again or the one where she's left in the attic, Ob Nixilis gets his Planeswalker Spark.
Zendikar is going down no matter what. It's been doomed for a long time. It was particularly doomed when Nissa let the Eldrazi out. There's not going to
be any Saving Zendikar, and I don't know what's going to happen to the Eldrazi.
Because when you get right down to it-- you can't save the Multiverse the Same Way Twice without Consequences. Even if Sorin, Nahiri, and Ugin stood in the Eye of Ugin,
this particularly genie isn't going back into that particular bottle. The Eye was Broken. The Hedrons have been co-opted by the Eldrazi. We still NEED the 'Walkers that trapped
'em in the first place, but they need to think of another trap, or do outright battle.
On Nissa, Kiora, and any future Zendikar-born Walker we meet:
These people can generally suck it. Any one of these might rise to Jace/Chandra/Garruk levels of Prominence
and Encore, and any one of them may eclipse Nahiri's or Ob Nixilis' importance.
But what I've seen of them so far, makes me Hope Wizards doesn't do it. And yet, some part of me
is already resigned to somebody like this taking Nahiri's place.
I like Nahiri. Probably specifically because
she is a character who has evolved from the Broken Ass concept of White Tinker. I like White Tinker. It's Stupid
Busted Powerful and really makes me think of the Good Old Days in the Brothers' War when obscenely powerful Planeswalkers
pulled Massive BS on the Multiverse, and all the Mortals around them kept getting Fed Up. (Jodah in particular was awesome) I would love to build a Fanfiction-y
Duel Deck pair where Nahiri gives the Swords of X and Y to the Primordial Dragons to kick some Yawgmoth Tail way back in old Dominaria.
Also, Nahiri's character quality is impeccable, and truly reminds me of what makes the Broken Godly Planeswalkers so awesome. You can't tell whether a particular one of them
is more like Batman, or more like Superman, but you know they're GOING to WIN, no matter the cost to the Universe or to Their Friends or to Themselves. They may wreck the laws of physics and the geologic balance of Life On Earth As We Know It, but they don't mess around. Good Ol' Days Planeswalkers, Heroes and Villains alike, were always Winning Massive Battles against either Innocent Civilians or against the Worst Monsters Ever. They didn't care about measly things like Development or the B&R List of Spells. It's that kind of "Go Badass or Go Home" Attitude that Nahiri reminds me of, and Wizards is doing everything they can to move as far away from that as possible, which makes it harder to take their heroes and their villains seriously.
The Eldrazi are Broken Villains. They need to be stopped by Broken Heroes. Wizards just isn't going to willingly and on purpose print the kind of Amazing Epic BS, either in Comics or in Cards, that they used to. Karn, Liberated isn't going to save against New Phyrexia, and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon isn't going to save us against the Eldrazi, and everyone else is useless against Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker.
None of the Intended and Designed characters by Wizards, not Kiora, not Nissa, and not even Ob Nixilis, are going to be as deliciously awesome Broken as Fork
as Stoneforge Mystic was, because Stoneforge Mystic was an accident. And thanks to Stoneforge Mystic, we have Nahiri.
Nahiri, having such a Broken Heritage, DESERVES to get to fight the only Designed-to-Be-Stupid-Broken cards, the Eldrazi, specifically Emrakul.
But it will probably be someone else. And probably Zendikar 2.0 Block will happen in such a way that Ob Nixilis gets his Spark back, so there's going to be no winning.
If they do anything on Purpose, they're going to Balance the Crap out of it remove all the Awesome. So I'm just waiting for the next Big Huge Mistake to be made.
Innistrad Block, Tarkir Block, Return to Ravnica Block, and Theros Block have all been quite tame in comparison to almost any given Dominaria Block.
Zendikar Block and Scars of Mirrodin Block have given us hope that Truly Epic Things might still happen in Magic, but I'm just not getting my hopes up.
What Ugin and Karn TRULY need is to talk to EACH OTHER, and REALLY bring in some Big Ass Guns to the fights where they're needed. Ugin against New Phyrexians. Karn against Eldrazi because he still has the Legacy, and that's still the Biggest Gun There Is. But Wizards is going to be Stubborn and say that Karn and Ugin can't be friends because it would be too broken to have them both in the same story. Too Epic.
Sadface
Mod Note: Removed inappropriate language.
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that anything short of a "Only Planeswalkers Are Mythics" Rule is undermined by some example that ends up restarting the Lotus Cobra Wars.
Planeswalkers are totally completely frakking Mythic, and in comparison to other cards, there just isn't any. Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded just MIGHT be closer to
a Bad Rare, but the fact that he's totally got a Planeswalker Spark means he can plane-hop, improve his arts, and become a 4-ability Red Monster Pain Pirate at literally any time.
Even though it -Probably- won't happen, there is just that lingering possibility behind every Planeswalker, even the least of them. So Planeswalkers are absolutely Mythic.
As for the rest of the game.....uhh......screw Mythic Rarity?
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Look at what they put out about the Bolas-related cards in M13: they're there to show Bolas is still around, still plotting, still a character. He's getting CORE set treatment because he has the Status of the Lorwyn Five as a Major Player in the Multiverse. This is a guy they want to keep around for a WHILE, and while they may think years ahead, they may talk amongst themselves in the Pit "who could kill Bolas in a fight?", for now they don't even have the guts to kill off Garruk, who really should have, story-wise, died on Innistrad.
Killing off Bolas is to Wizards like killing off Lex Luthor is to DC: The Company doesn't value the character as much as the fans do, but they're sure as hell going to keep doing things that make the company money. They have the perfect villainous Evil to keep bringing back every now and then.
Bet you anything Khans of Tarkir is what they were getting at: less than what we expect, but Wizards hasn't told us any lies and it fits: Bolas is "back" in the story, once again, being reused, just like Ajani was reused in Theros, but not particularly central or important and didn't do much.
We're looking at it from the point of view of spectators and they're looking at it from the point of view of directors. They're thinking not about the sequels to the story as -the point-, they're thinking 'how do we keep making more sequels ad infinitum', or 'how do we entertain the people who want the sequels to be the point or to have meaning.'
Currently Wizards has zero plans to tell what would be a satisfactory End to a Story, or a Completion of a Story. That would leave the audience --too-- Satisfied, -too- content, ready to move on. Wizards doesn't want us to move on from Magic. Wizards wants our money. Wizards wants us always wondering what's going to happen.
We have been given no signs of Bolas being replaced or supplanted as a feature villain. IF (and that's a big if) we EVER start to see Bolas' overall importance completely diminish, which would take the form of, rather than making him the Big Bad of a Core Set, simply Not Ever Mentioning Him Again, (the way they've treated Urza's Spark in Karn's Body- they could any day of the week bring back Urza Planeswalker through Writing Magic, but they have decided to set themselves against doing that until further notice. Same way Barry Allen was brought back through Writing Magic to the DC Universe after Decades of being 'dead'.)
LONG STORY SHORT:
Magic needs a Main, Talking, Villain Planeswalker to be written about, printed, and featured in, I think, at least Two Blocks, probably 3, before they'll consider axing Bolas. And I mean someone hyped up at LEAST as much as Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Sorin, Lord of Innistrad =combined=. Sorin is a badass in the Magic World, Jace is a Badass in the Real World of Finance. We'd need them to somehow decide to deliberately overpower a card, have it actually be overpowered in the real world, and have Another Jace Problem be Wizards' Actual Intent for showcasing off the New Horrible Uba Evil.
Because I'm fairly confidant that not even in the secret Pit Meetings are they seriously discussing "when is Bolas going to die", I can safely assume there is no WAY they are ''teasing'' it. If I start to see a villainous character take prominence, and it looks like they're building him up to Replace Bolas as the Big Bad, (currently Garruk is the closest candidate, and even that's quite a bit of a stretch. Claiming Garruk is going to replace Bolas as the main villain is like claiming Jason Todd's Red Hood is going to replace the Joker because we see this new villain. Nah. Just Nah. They'll write about a confrontation maybe, but the Established Arch Enemy is far from being Dethroned as such.)
As I write all this, there remains, in fact, one distinct possibility:
Currently, The Eldrazi themselves fit almost all of the descriptions I setup as requirements for ''conditions under which Wizards would be willing for Bolas to die"
Except.
They're not Sentient. Not a Single Eldrazi has gotten a Single piece of Dialogue so far. New Phyrexia is the other possibility, but as far as I can tell, Bolas is More Powerful than New Phyrexia and New Phyrexia has no Planeswalkers.
M13 was about simply reminding us that Bolas was a member of the house's cast of characters. If they want to hit at Bolas possibly dying, they -will- do something more spectacular than that.
Pretty much, in fact, the only conditions under which I'd actually believe Bolas was dead, is if they made that the plot of an MTG Movie. Wizards might do anything, they could go bat***** insane, but if they go too far away from audience expectations, they'll lose money and have to reverse their decision.
Right now nobody expects Bolas to die. They THINK they want to see a CLASH between all the Major Characters of Magic up until now, but nobody is looking at what Wizards is doing and actually thinking ''yeah, they will follow through with what they've given us so for.''. Wizards is still Plane-hopping making a ton of episodes without advancing the Plot very much every year.
Once they stop Plane-hopping, maybe we'll see some actual Plot Development.
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But, these economics problems prove that not everything is as rosy-looking as that.
In all likelihood, Magic killed itself 15-odd years ago with the Reserved List. That's the only reason I can think of that any of the Modern Legal cards are even worth anything:
That Reserved List is the basis for the Black Lotus and its fellows to have *real, serious* value. That Value in turn is the reason why tournaments can run real cash prizes. Because they hope to buy Reserved Listed Rares that are good in Vintage and Legacy.
Each tier down, the value is less and less, until Precon Duel Decks today very rarely rise above MSRP by a % that compensates for cost of resale.
Obviously, it's a CCG. A Collectible Card Game. And no matter what, that means the Rare cards will be worth more than the Commons, the Foil cards will be worth more, and the best cards that win tournaments will be worth even more.
Pokémon started pretty close to the same time as Magic, and I'm pretty sure there aren't any Pokémon cards that can rival they're MTG 'collector's rarity' equivalents. Don't know about the Yu-Gi-Oh! Market, but last I heard, they have chase crazy money cards doing things to the tournament scene like Jace, the Mind Sculptor, but I'm pretty sure that Exodia the Forbidden, from Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon, hasn't inflated much over time: He's always been something like $25-30 for a piece, +$100 for the Five. That's the effect of being a CCG/or TCG *at all*----
but when you get to MAGIC, we have this RESERVED List and you can compare Black Lotus to Flying Jennies-- incidentally, they actually reprinted the Inverted Jenny recently! And Vintage and Legacy and Commander suffer partially for it. WOTC itself wants the Reserved List to die, but they aren't sure how to kill it yet-- just ignoring it obtusely and Reprinting tons of sheets of Alpha, they clearly think would blow up in their face and possibly crash the entire secondary market for every card in the game....maybe. At least, that must be what they are afraid of and why they haven't taken that approach.
I am certain, from what I see, that nothing can kill MTG except maybe the Reserved List, and it begins to play out in incidents like the Elspeth v. Tezzeret Duel Decks; the Commander 2011 product, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and Modern Masters.
MAGIC cards aren't *just* a TCG- they're clearly far and away the most valuable one, and the distinction that Magic has compared to other TCGs is it's Reserved List. We see these Commander products getting only small inflation and we don't immediately think of the Reserved list because it's not that much different from Standard Inflation-- but Standard is nuts. Standard has been nutser than it used to be since Jace, although it looks like the Jace-effect has been reduced.
If I'm completely wrong that Magic is crazily more valuable than YGO or Pokémon, then ranting about the Reserved List is completely invalid and this just the nature of any TCG to do this with any special product that's pretty in-demand. But if the Reserved List really is making Magic crazy more profitable to flip than Pokémon and YGO, then I suspect that it will come to the List or the game:
one of them must die.
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My opinion is that there is more than one way to look at nearly every card, not just whether you find it attractive, but whether you think the artist meant to titillate or not-- and I think except for some examples where it seems like effort was made to deliberately Modest-ize artwork, then pretty much all the art in Magic is made to appeal to the fantasies of the players--
sometimes the fantasies are only meant to evoke thoughts of adventure (particularly spell effects and non-humanoid creatures- which even 'non-humanoid' is a subjective distinction when it comes to some creatures)-- but I would say that the artists are aware that the players look for fantasies, and any time there is an opportunity to bend lines and stretch things, they put more sexy in, because they can. I would argue the entire art style of "Bant" is similar to the "Beautification" philosophy of Lorwyn elves, and it's done in such a grandiose and opulent manner, that while MOST wouldn't find Bant "sexualized", at the same time if we look at the Orzhov-y richness of Teysa Karlov, we see that this kind of richness definitely -can- be sexualized, and the lines defining our topics seem very thin-- and I think are being deliberately made thin, so that to one person you can say: "this is just made to look beautiful" and to another person you can say "you know, this looks so heroic it's a bit glorious and that's kinda hot really xP "
I'm pretty sure that Bant Art Style is as far as I can stretch "how thin are the lines" and that anything less than that Fantastical, there's really no argument for sexualization that's not fairly overt/less subjective/clear, if measured.
I would say that a huge percent of depictions of females in general in the game are sexualized-
IRONICALLY, the sexualization of Olivia Voldaren *doesn't* come from the well known oddity about her.....dress, but from the fact that she's a vampire, and almost every single blood drinker is sexualized by virtue that they are a blood drinker, but particularly she has a smirk and a fine goblet of wine, so she's MUCH more sexualized than, say the Vampires on Feast of Blood.
There's in general a ton of sexualization in the cards though that most people miss- because they are designed to be missed by most, but the people it's directed to 'get it'--
all of the Black cards with females for example: Black is loosely the "evil" color. Evil Women are Sexy
most of the Red cards with females. Red = passionate. Enraged Women are sexy to a not-insignificant number. xP
many of the Green female cards. Not talking about JUST Eternal Witness- any of the ones that could subtley hint at what Eternal Witness looks overtly like-- more like any of the Green females that seem Pocahontas-y enough that, even though they have to be shown with clothes, you'd put a wager that they'd be comfortable in a hippie nudist camp.
many of the Blue females. Blue is the color of Manipulation and craftiness xP Check out Opportunity in M14 o.o
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IN DEFENSE of many cards though, especially the Green ones and cards like Opportunity, I would argue Both that "Sexualization is undoubtedly there", and yet also "artists work to do it as tastefully as possible". M14 Opportunity is definitely to me the perfect example of harmonizing Tastefulness with Sexualization. Some people won't even see it as sexualization, and that's half the point of how to do it well-- really tasteful sexualization is like the artist sharing a 'nudge-nudge, wink-wink' moment with the people that will find it really deliciously sexy, while also disguising it enough to both slip past the censors and even slip through the discussions specifically about whether it's sexualized or not.
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"Chosen of Markov" seems determined to attempt to push the line as hard as possible with 'how almost-super-overt can we make the sexualization while trying to keep it subtle and tasteful at the same, more like Opportunity'. I think it just about fails at subtle but it succeeds pretty well for 'overt sexualization that is as tasteful as overt sexualization can get'
Basically, only White Females get a ''benefit of the doubt'' pass in that 'it might not be sexualized just because it's female', because females in the color White are supposed to mildly hint at the idea of the Pure and Saintly.....not NECESSARILY unmarried, but even as far as that is probably the effect the artist is likely to want. However, there are some females in White that I think were drawn to be "Opportunity-sexualized"-- done in such a way that for the people that want to see it, they'll see it that way, but for those who don't, even after reading me point it out they'll insist that I'm reading too much into it---
Stoneforge Mystic, in particular, highly reminds me in appearance to Tinkerbell, and I think that female Kor on Zendikar in general are supposed to be "Eternal Witness/Pocahontas" sexualized. Wait, "supposed to" is a bad phrase---umm..."were open to that interpretation".
The TL:DR of what I have to say, is that "Sexualization doesn't automatically mean Not-Tasteful", and that's where I stake my claim that a LOT of art is sexualized that some might not think is, like the Original Serra Angel, which I think is almost as good as Opportunity for being "Sexualized but Tasteful".
All Rakdos cards I would say are meant to be as Sexualized as possible, and while they may be allowed to be Tasteful, they are not required to be.
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My real question is-- why not? That would be a fun, interesting ability to me. Yeah, so you would have to pack a bevy of Enchantment and Creature removal to keep it from being able to pump those tokens.....
Er....question: Given what is acceptable in many formats for just Rare cards, why is a Legendary Mythic Rare creature in 3 colors that is only legal in EDH and Legacy/Vintage NOT allowed to be that powerful?
The way I see it, it's barely different/more dangerous than Channel-Fireball.
IMO, it would give EDH a "Fast Deck to Beat", that could theoretically make the format very healthy because it's a Vulnerable strategy-- A Glass Cannon. Though Green, Red, and White can all boast SOME defensive cards, neither of them are Blue or Black, to put it simply. It would be a BIT of a challenge to protect your combo.
It would introduce a Deck against which it is socially acceptable to run large amounts of LD. In response to the LD and Fast Deck threats, more cards would have to be considered to keep them at bay.
I think the format would just be diversified, not ruined, because I think the answers for all these things already exist. Certainly you could even try running a simple Kaalia Deck to be "1 speed lower than your Wild Combo, plus removal to kill him."
I just want to know how many of you think I'm insane.....????
I think, really, the only thing I need is for somebody to show me the Best "worst" 99 they can come up with for me to be convinced it would be Entirely Not Kosher.