MTG Salvation

I have a feeling these will mostly appeal to tattoo aficionados, and not so much your average Magic player. That said, I really dig the Inkmoth Nexus art.

Is that a hunch you have, or do you have some hard data to support the notion that the majority of SL sales are due to FOMO? My own personal hunch is that most people buy one or two of these, at most, because the specific cards or the art really clicks with them, and everyone else passes. It’s pretty hard to get fatigued by things we’re not actually buying.

Quote from Magiqmaster »

Quote from WarMachinePrime »

HARDEST OF HARD PASSES. Pass me some eye bleach.

ROFL... Can't agree more... Do we really need crap like this???

Excellent question! The answer is no, no you don’t. I can tell you that, from personal experience, when a company makes something I don’t want or need, I simply don’t buy it. Not getting worked up about things I have no intention of buying makes me overall a much happier and satisfied human being.

Quote from WarMachinePrime »

HARDEST OF HARD PASSES. Pass me some eye bleach.

I don’t think that’s where you put it. According to our president, anyway.

Yeah, more options are always just so frustrating. I hate it when companies make things I totally don’t have to buy.

Magus of the Hurricane.

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Quote from Rosy Dumplings »

Personally, I feel that booster packs can only exist as they do because of limited formats. Seriously, the excuse that booster pack randomness powers limited is arguably a major part of what makes booster packs “not gambling”.

The fact that they are not gambling is a major part of what makes them not gambling.

A randomized product is still a product. In order for it to be gambling there would have to be a lose state. Not getting the specific item you want from a group of randomized items is not losing.

Source: I am licensed by the DoJ and literally work in the gambling industry.

I suppose the law can be black and white sometimes... right up until the point that it changes. The whole advent of loot boxes has been blurring the lines as to what constitutes gambling for nigh on a decade, and the only reason they’re not (at the moment) is because virtual items don’t have any tradable value. Magic cards do, which begs the question: if you pay $4 for a lottery pack with the expectation that your ROI might be upwards of 700%, and you get less than $0.50 in value instead, how is that not a lose state? It’s effectively the same risk/reward model as a scratch card, which is most definitely gambling.

Except hat when you but a lottery ticket the expectation/hope is to win from a prize pool. It can be argued, legally, that MTG is a game, and the value on the secondary market is arbitrary to the intended purpose of the product.
In other words, if your buying unregulated assets such as collectables for investment purposes, you are not protected under the law.
Randomness alone is not the definition of gambling.

Right, and that was kind of Rosy’s point in the first place: it isn’t because it doesn’t meet the form, practice, or legal definition of gambling that it’s not gambling, it’s because it’s ostensibly also a card game - though whether that’s a primary or secondary consideration may be rather moot. Just because you can convince me that’s it’s a paperweight doesn’t mean it’s not also a set of brass knuckles.

Quote from NGW »

Quote from Rosy Dumplings »

Personally, I feel that booster packs can only exist as they do because of limited formats. Seriously, the excuse that booster pack randomness powers limited is arguably a major part of what makes booster packs “not gambling”.

The fact that they are not gambling is a major part of what makes them not gambling.

A randomized product is still a product. In order for it to be gambling there would have to be a lose state. Not getting the specific item you want from a group of randomized items is not losing.

Source: I am licensed by the DoJ and literally work in the gambling industry.

I suppose the law can be black and white sometimes... right up until the point that it changes. The whole advent of loot boxes has been blurring the lines as to what constitutes gambling for nigh on a decade, and the only reason they’re not (at the moment) is because virtual items don’t have any tradable value. Magic cards do, which begs the question: if you pay $4 for a lottery pack with the expectation that your ROI might be upwards of 700%, and you get less than $0.50 in value instead, how is that not a lose state? It’s effectively the same risk/reward model as a scratch card, which is most definitely gambling.

Quote from Fallback2analog »

We are fatigued with...

Are we, though? I know I’m not averse to a little extra trading value in my box/packs, especially if they’re cards I’d rather sell than own. And so far as cards I do want to own are concerned, if they keep churning out alternate arts they might eventually land on something I care about. The only way I can imagine being fatigued is if I felt compelled to own each and every one of them, which I haven’t and very likely never will.


When WotC starts offering less choices rather than more, perhaps I’ll join in the chorus of frustration. Until then maybe we all just buy what we want to, yeah?

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Quote from NGW »

The fact that they come in normal Japanese boosters but not English (or other) is already bull, I cannot begin to tell you how much that pisses me off as a lifelong Godzilla fan.

They did the same bull*****tery with the "anime" style planeswalkers.

Japan gets all the goodies and the rest has to pay premium to get them.

At this point you could very well argue its intrinsic racism.

That’s really not how racism works, so no, we very well could not.

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Quote from Ryperior74 »

Hard to tell if it’s due to Covid 19 or not

Is it?

A three month delay on something that's also not supposed to be out for 3 months as it is does make it kinda hard to say.

Even when you consider the fact that the pandemic is going to have lasting, worldwide consequences for at least the next 12-18 months?

Quote from Xcric »

okay right, except flavor also matters...

Is it really flavor, or just a deliberate opportunity cost?

Quote from Flisch »

Why is it silly to make cards in commander actually work the way they are designed and work in literally every other format?

Because Commander literally isn't every other format, nor has it been since its inception. The exceptions to the core rules we adhere to just to play a game of EDH is not justification to change those core rules that otherwise function perfectly fine in each of those other formats. Fixing something that isn't broken is silly.

Similarly (if we're still talking silly), arguing design or intent is always a trap. You may as well try to pin down every other decision the RC has made in order to make Commander function as a format.

Quote from Flisch »

This does not really apply. There is no fundamental distinction between different creature types. You can mutate a beast. You can't mutate a human. You can mutate an elf. You can't mutate a changeling. Yes, it's somewhat arbitrary flavour-wise, the same way a wurm can wear Lightning Greaves, but there is no way for the rules to make a distinction the way Magic is set up.

However, there is a fundamental distinction between hybrid and mono-coloured mana, and as such rules are able to treat them differently.

You really missed the point there, friend. The comparison between hybrid and mutate, as a set of rules, is less important than how we naturally intuit multiple states. If the justification for changing hybrid is that it's more intuitive, then again I would ask, are too many people having problems figuring out how mutate works when a creature is both human and non-human? What about when two different cards say that you may both do and not-do something at the same time, are the core rules governing that interaction also not intuitive? Should we reverse those rules if they aren't? "I want it and it could be done" is, ultimately, an uninspiring argument for changing what ain't broken - and if it is broken, I'd like to see the data.

I use Gatherer routinely for researching cards for my EDH decks. Did you know that when you search for Kitchen Finks by name, check the boxes for both White (or Green) and 'Exclude Unselected Colors,' the search returns zero results? There are no options for color identity in the Advanced Search, and changing the Basic Search to Commander only doesn't change anything. I'd say that's pretty telling.

Quote from user_938036 »

On the topic of what is an isn’t intuitive. I can’t say much. I’ve taught the commander format to only three people and each of them understood that hybrid was both. If people are teaching the format in such a way that makes people confused on this subject I question how people are teaching. Is the normal method to say “This Isamaru deck is a white deck so you can run any white cards.” Because my method is “This Isamaru deck is white. You can’t run any cards that are colors other than white.” Which is more intuitive I won’t argue.

The latter is more intuitive for most people, I'd wager. A big part of that probably has less to do with the actual rules governing deck construction than how we mentally associate the mana symbols on cards with their color: if the rules were reversed, a majority of people would probably understand the inclusion of hybrid cards in a mono white deck, but still be left scratching their heads as to why that should be permissible in the first place, since hybrid = gold.

If the current rules really aren't that intuitive for some people, are those people also confused as to whether you can mutate onto a Changeling?

Quote from Ryperior74 »

Hard to tell if it’s due to Covid 19 or not

Is it?