All that's happening here is players vs collectors. The players believe card price should be determined by demand (how good the card is, the formats it's viable in). Collectors want price to be a function of supply (i.e. only 100 of these exist and I own 12). No side is ever going to be swayed by the other side because they are fundamentally different. Sure collectors can play (usually Legacy or Vintage) and players still collect, but one is almost always dominant. This entire argument is pointless. It's not getting us anywhere. Can we please just accept that the two sides will never agree, and as long as one is happy the other one will whine. This is a fact. So let's give up on the fight, shall we?
Ok im confused, how come people say it wont be worth the price tag.
The Rares are just insane
You'd still need to get pretty lucky to "break even" (since we all know that cards never actually equal money) when you're paying $300 for a box that only had 24 packs. Not that you should be thinking about that when buying this product anyways, in my opinion that's the wrong mindset to have.
Played 4 games of EDH last night and decided to test out these rules. It was...interesting. Wasn't really game breaking or anything. But it did get annoying at times. 3 Lazav's on board at once was pretty stupid. Same with 2 Taimayo's. But nothing that made us all rage or flip any tables. Just another dynamic to play around. Of course this was a very limited test, 4 games in one meta.
I really like the idea of Battalion, but I don't see it doing much more than running headfirst into a turn 4 Supreme Verdict. Maybe Lingering Souls or Thatcher's Revolt, something that you won't mind if it gets wrathed away. I just don't like strategies like this that encourage, or even require, overextending when there are two boardwipes that see plenty of play.
They all look real, and obviously for the mods to put them on the spoiler page they must be convinced. The only thing that sketches me out is that it's 5 foil mythics. That's so weird. Like, Rootborn Defenses, fine, that was a common. But holy hell, how did some random guy get his hands on 5 foil mythics from a set that's not gonna be out for almost 3 months?!
The announcement for Modern Masters said it would have a conservative print run. So people are assuming the worst and thinking they'll be super limited.
Great, as if standard wasn't expensive enough. If this catches on at my LGS it just might convince me to stop playing all together.
Not sure if you can really complain about Standard being expensive if you're playing "5 color best cards in Standard" lol. That means lots of shocklands and expensive cards.
It would be strange to have "dragon" in the set name and to not have a dragon theme. Of course, with 10 guilds also fighting for space, where does the space for the theme come from? If there is a dragon theme, the most likely place for that theme is within the guilds.
Mark Rosewater has also strongly hinted at the existence of "guild champions" (legendary guild multicolor creatures that flavor-wise are not the guild leaders) in the third set of the block.
It is possible that the "guild champions" are dragons. That is to say, each guild gets a two-color legendary dragon creature. Legendary dragons exist for every three-color combination; they could plausibly exist in two-color combinations as well.
Having "guild champions" at all seems difficult, since most legendary creatures are mythic rare. If guild champions are printed at mythic it means that every mythic is a guild champion, since most small expansions have only 10 mythics. The other two options are: they are rare or they don't exist.
I am curious to see.
I'm guessing Guild Champions will be rare. We had legendaries at rare in M13, so it's plausible that we could have them here too. No way the Champions take up all 10 Mythic spots, as that would mean no Planeswalkers.
I've got 3 stores in my area, each of them got 4 Arsenal's. Two of the stores are selling these for $80, with a raffle to determine who has the chance to buy them. The third store set up preorders for $400, first come first serve. Just wanted to throw out a couple of examples of how stores are getting it done here.
First thing that comes to my mind is Damia, Sage of Stone. Draw up to 7 then draw 1 more. Doesn't seem too bad, it's the most reliable way I can think of to make sure you have exactly 7 cards in hand.
Edit: Haha, posted this when it was just Magus of the Library. So that's what I was referring to.
In regards to the 2 people defending Izzet as strong, take in mind that BOTH opened Niv-Mizzet, whom most consider the biggest bomb in the set. Not trying to doubt anyone's ability as a player but just to clarify an on topic issue, given we are mostly talking about guild strength. So, I guess you could say, Izzet still seems to be the consensus weakest of the guilds on it's own... unless you get the single best mythic in the set which happens to be in those colors.
pulled Niv Mizzet from my guild pack (only got to play him 3 times, and 2 out of the three my opponent was already at 3 or less life...)
So yes. Izzet is the weakest guild. You definitely need a few lucky pulls. The only way to make them work is to build around synergies and card advantage, and even then you're just a slower Rakdos or a less controlling Azorious.
Another thing I noticed that I didn't mention in my other post. The 2 strongest decks I saw were WGB. I believe both of them picked Selesnya, then splashed black for removal (one of them also had Vraska...that worked out well). If the mana in your pool supported it, this really seemed like the way to go. They both gained a huge board presence while killing off their opponents biggest threats, it was really solid. If I did another Prerelease I would probably try to pull this off.
I must have gotten super lucky or something, because Izzet did great for me. Went 5-1, 4th out of 52 people. Only round I lost was against a Rakdos aggro deck, got mana screwed game 3. Pool was great, pulled Niv Mizzet from my guild pack (only got to play him 3 times, and 2 out of the three my opponent was already at 3 or less life...). Had quite a bit of removal, some good Detain stuff, and lots of draw. Mostly got there with 2-4 power fliers.
My thoughts for the Prerelease. Izzet needs a good pool to work with, I was the only one who went those colors that got Top 8. Rakdos was super fast, but if you could hold out long enough to stabilize then you could get it. Golgari was weird, Scavenge was pretty irrelevant in most of my games because I could chump them out or kill in response. I only faced one Azorious deck, but he didn't do much. Just kinda durdled with a couple Detain cards and didn't play much, probably just got unlucky. Didn't play anyone who was Selesnya, but I watched a couple games and Populate seemed super strong. Unless you had some kind of boardwipe it was tough to deal with. And Trostani was a bomb, saw one guy go from 2 life to 18 in two turns. Overall I was impressed with how balanced the guilds were. Yes Selesnya was the strongest and Izzet the weakest, but with a good pool you could be competitive regardless.
Anyone have any suggestions for a slightly more budget friendly replacement for Arcbound Ravager? I'm going to build the Tezzy version (I already had 3 Tezzy's from a former Standard deck), but I'm not sure yet how much Modern is going to take off in our playgroup so I don't feel like spending 80 bucks for a playset quite yet. I was thinking something that costs 2 or less with evasion of some sort. Maybe Arcbound Stinger or Trespassing Souleater (which seems good with Cranial Plating). Or even main boarding a couple Spellskites. I'm not completely sure, what do you guys think?
You'd still need to get pretty lucky to "break even" (since we all know that cards never actually equal money) when you're paying $300 for a box that only had 24 packs. Not that you should be thinking about that when buying this product anyways, in my opinion that's the wrong mindset to have.
Not sure if you can really complain about Standard being expensive if you're playing "5 color best cards in Standard" lol. That means lots of shocklands and expensive cards.
I'm guessing Guild Champions will be rare. We had legendaries at rare in M13, so it's plausible that we could have them here too. No way the Champions take up all 10 Mythic spots, as that would mean no Planeswalkers.
Edit: Haha, posted this when it was just Magus of the Library. So that's what I was referring to.
Umm, did you actually read my post?
Also, Niv didn't really do anything for me. By the time he came down the game was already mine.
So yes. Izzet is the weakest guild. You definitely need a few lucky pulls. The only way to make them work is to build around synergies and card advantage, and even then you're just a slower Rakdos or a less controlling Azorious.
Another thing I noticed that I didn't mention in my other post. The 2 strongest decks I saw were WGB. I believe both of them picked Selesnya, then splashed black for removal (one of them also had Vraska...that worked out well). If the mana in your pool supported it, this really seemed like the way to go. They both gained a huge board presence while killing off their opponents biggest threats, it was really solid. If I did another Prerelease I would probably try to pull this off.
My thoughts for the Prerelease. Izzet needs a good pool to work with, I was the only one who went those colors that got Top 8. Rakdos was super fast, but if you could hold out long enough to stabilize then you could get it. Golgari was weird, Scavenge was pretty irrelevant in most of my games because I could chump them out or kill in response. I only faced one Azorious deck, but he didn't do much. Just kinda durdled with a couple Detain cards and didn't play much, probably just got unlucky. Didn't play anyone who was Selesnya, but I watched a couple games and Populate seemed super strong. Unless you had some kind of boardwipe it was tough to deal with. And Trostani was a bomb, saw one guy go from 2 life to 18 in two turns. Overall I was impressed with how balanced the guilds were. Yes Selesnya was the strongest and Izzet the weakest, but with a good pool you could be competitive regardless.