2019 Holiday Exchange!
 
A New and Exciting Beginning
 
The End of an Era
  • posted a message on D&D forgotten realm confirmed to get commander decks
    Quote from FlossedBeaver »
    Quote from signofzeta »
    My point was that the set associated Commander decks should not be set associated. For a deck to be set associated, it must mostly have cards drawn from the set, is themed after set, or is plane neutral. For a card to be themed from the set or is plane neutral, the name must not reference anything from any other plane, and the art must not feature anything from any other plane. If a deck has basic lands from a different plane, then those lands are not themed from the set or is plane neutral.

    I picked 90 out of 100 cards because you are more likely to draw the cards themed from the set than you are not, and I want that likelihood to be very high, and I picked 90 out of 100 to argue that Commander decks should not be set associated.


    I honestly don't judge you for wanting this, but at the same time it's not a very realistic expectation.

    Quote from signofzeta »
    Commander is an eternal format. I do not see a point in tying it to the newest sets. It would make just as much sense to have the Strixhaven Commander decks be released a decade from now as it is to be released this year. I'd rather have it so that the set associated precons are your 60 card regular (I don't use the term standard because you would assume standard competitive) decks while the Commander decks, which don't have to be tied to a set, and is not branded to be set associated, has a loose theme around a plane we visited before. The way WOTC are doing things now, the Commander decks are guaranteed to have your commander be from the newest sets.

    Not only have I lost my precious Theme Decks and Intro Packs, although I do wish that the power levels and complexities of those decks were a bit higher, we will never ever get to see the main Commander in Commander Decks from planes that we have visited before, but won't re-visit in a Standard set.


    It would not make sense, from a marketing a point of view, to do that at all. I don't approve of every decision that Wizards makes in the pursuit of profit, but I still want them to stay in business. That said, they will certainly go back to revising characters from previous planes.

    Quote from signofzeta »
    It's not that I dislike the Commander format. It's more like, in terms of precons this year and possibly going forward, why is almost everything Commander? Commander this, Commander that. During the years where we only got the one Commander release with the 5, sometimes 4, decks, I mentioned that there should be two of these releases per year. I didn't mean it for them to tie the Commander decks to the Standard sets. It used to be that you only got 5 Commander decks per year while every other precon was 60 card. Now the balance of power has switched. We get 4 (9 if there is a Core set that year) 60 card decks while everything else is Commander.


    Because it's the year of commander! It only started just last May, with the release of Ikoria. Would you be less upset to know that it should now effectively be over?



    Year of Commander, more like an eternity of Commander until we screw up the product line so much that nobody buys our product. If Ikoria was the start of "year of commander", then Strixhaven wouldn't have commander decks. Even the upcoming D&D set has commander decks and by that time, it has been past that year.

    It is not that difficult to not slap the word Ikoria or Strixhaven into the annual commander deck release.

    As for set associated precons must mostly having cards related to the set or is plane neutral, it had nothing to do with me being biased against commander. I mentioned that event decks should not be set associated because they contain a mixture of cards from all standard legal sets. There was one event deck from Innistrad block that had more cards from Scars of Mirrodin block.
    Quote from signofzeta »
    Quote from ZasZ234 »
    Quote from signofzeta »
    All I will suspect is that these decks will have nothing to do with D&D except for a few cards and some D&D branding slapped all over the packaging. If they were your Theme Decks or Intro Packs, each deck will actually be D&D themed as most of the cards will be sourced from the set itself.

    Just curious. What would the criteria/threshold be for a deck to be satisfyingly D&D themed?


    I'd say 90 cards being D&D related or any plane neutral cards.


    I seriously don't get how you got 80 cards from the set of 5 decks when Zasz234 was asking for a deck, and a D&D deck, not Strixhaven. D&D commander decks will most likely be built like the Kaldheim and Zendikar Rising commander decks.

    Explain to me why is it so important for the Commander decks to be tied to the Standard sets? Too bad we will never see something like Commander 2019 where we had a Morph Commander Deck and Flashback Commander deck. Each of the 4 having the main Commander being from totally different planes. Tell me. Why would it not make sense to have Commander not tied to a Standard set, like it used to be?
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • posted a message on D&D forgotten realm confirmed to get commander decks
    My point was that the set associated Commander decks should not be set associated. For a deck to be set associated, it must mostly have cards drawn from the set, is themed after set, or is plane neutral. For a card to be themed from the set or is plane neutral, the name must not reference anything from any other plane, and the art must not feature anything from any other plane. If a deck has basic lands from a different plane, then those lands are not themed from the set or is plane neutral.

    I picked 90 out of 100 cards because you are more likely to draw the cards themed from the set than you are not, and I want that likelihood to be very high, and I picked 90 out of 100 to argue that Commander decks should not be set associated.

    Commander is an eternal format. I do not see a point in tying it to the newest sets. It would make just as much sense to have the Strixhaven Commander decks be released a decade from now as it is to be released this year. I'd rather have it so that the set associated precons are your 60 card regular (I don't use the term standard because you would assume standard competitive) decks while the Commander decks, which don't have to be tied to a set, and is not branded to be set associated, has a loose theme around a plane we visited before. The way WOTC are doing things now, the Commander decks are guaranteed to have your commander be from the newest sets.

    Not only have I lost my precious Theme Decks and Intro Packs, although I do wish that the power levels and complexities of those decks were a bit higher, we will never ever get to see the main Commander in Commander Decks from planes that we have visited before, but won't re-visit in a Standard set.

    It's not that I dislike the Commander format. It's more like, in terms of precons this year and possibly going forward, why is almost everything Commander? Commander this, Commander that. During the years where we only got the one Commander release with the 5, sometimes 4, decks, I mentioned that there should be two of these releases per year. I didn't mean it for them to tie the Commander decks to the Standard sets. It used to be that you only got 5 Commander decks per year while every other precon was 60 card. Now the balance of power has switched. We get 4 (9 if there is a Core set that year) 60 card decks while everything else is Commander.

    The set associated precons should be nothing more than a sampler of that set. The Commander decks do not serve that purpose. I could also say that the Planeswalker Decks don't do that either. I'll take Kaldheim Commander Decks for example. What are the themes of the two decks? Elves and uh, Foretell? With the Foretell deck, the odds of drawing a Foretell card is low that you don't even get to get a feeling of that mechanic.

    If Kaldheim were released in the Theme Deck era, the 4 decks would've been Elves, Foretell, Snow, and some other Tribal theme.

    Since this is about the D&D Commander decks, the D&D set would have so many awesome themes that don't get a deck, because there is most likely going to be two choices, and we probably get, aside from basic lands, 20 out of 100 cards be related to that theme, and thus your chances to experience that theme is low.

    It's pretty funny how the set that has the main Commander decks tied to it has a "5" theme. You know, in Ikoria, they have the five locales in the plane that is your wedge colors, and now we have your 5 colleges in Strixhaven.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • posted a message on D&D forgotten realm confirmed to get commander decks
    Quote from FlossedBeaver »
    Quote from signofzeta »


    Quote from ZasZ234 »
    Just curious. What would the criteria/threshold be for a deck to be satisfyingly D&D themed?


    I'd say 90 cards being D&D related or any plane neutral cards.


    There are over 80 new cards in Strixhaven Commander / 2021. XD XD XD


    I'd like you to list me the 80 new cards in one Strixhaven Commander deck. Even if that was the case, Strixhaven and Ikoria is your annual commander series. D&D, Kaldheim, and Zendikar Rising is a different story.

    I can bet you that a Strixhaven Commander deck does NOT have 80 new cards, and I can safely say those are facts.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • posted a message on D&D forgotten realm confirmed to get commander decks
    Quote from ZasZ234 »
    Quote from signofzeta »
    All I will suspect is that these decks will have nothing to do with D&D except for a few cards and some D&D branding slapped all over the packaging. If they were your Theme Decks or Intro Packs, each deck will actually be D&D themed as most of the cards will be sourced from the set itself.

    Just curious. What would the criteria/threshold be for a deck to be satisfyingly D&D themed?


    I'd say 90 cards being D&D related or any plane neutral cards.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • posted a message on D&D forgotten realm confirmed to get commander decks
    All I will suspect is that these decks will have nothing to do with D&D except for a few cards and some D&D branding slapped all over the packaging. If they were your Theme Decks or Intro Packs, each deck will actually be D&D themed as most of the cards will be sourced from the set itself.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • posted a message on D&D forgotten realm confirmed to get commander decks
    Quote from FlossedBeaver »
    Do the Strixhaven decks not feel like Strixhaven?


    Less than a quarter of the deck contents have cards that feel like strixhaven. I can take every white black theme deck and intro pack, make a commander deck and slap Silverquill as its name, and the deck would still have nothing to do with strixhaven.

    The deck has strixhaven sprinkled on top rather than the deck being made of strixhaven. At least Theme decks, Intro packs, and Planeswalker decks made sense to be set associated because the contents of the deck draw from the set itself.

    There is a huge difference in flavor between the Elvish Rage theme deck from Legions and the Elvish Predation theme deck from Lorwyn.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • posted a message on D&D forgotten realm confirmed to get commander decks
    Quote from signofzeta »
    Speaking of boring, Theme Decks were the best, until they became intro packs and became boring to play with. WOTC does this all the time. They start up a new product line. The product is good at first, and over the years, they get worse and worse, or people are just bored of it, and then they cancel it, rather than just make the same product good again. I actually liked the premium deck series. Duel decks are another product. There's the masters series, but I don't buy those things. They used to experiment with multiplayer formats. It's now Commander, Commander, more Commander, always Commander.


    I used to like it when WOTC made block constructed decks with the constraints of only having 2 rares, 12 uncommons, it must have a minimum of 24 lands, and there must be at least over 20 different cards. I'd like to see someone critical of intro packs do any better.
    Has it always been "good"? My first deck was an upgraded (read: more 4-ofs) version of the Mirrodin Affinity theme deck, and even then it was the only one that was remotely playable of the set, and it's more because of the mechanic than it is of deck construction. Most of them are Limited decks with more copies in it, which doesn't really translate well into Constructed. The Intro Packs got rares designed for them thrown into the main set, to the detriment of said main set, to help focus the decks, and they still suck.

    Premium Deck Series are worse. You'd think something filled to the brim with foiled-out good reprints coalesced into a working deck would be well-loved, but it sputtered out after the first one. The Slivers one is worth up to hundreds of dollars online, while the other two range from $40 to $150 and are just everywhere.

    Wizards gambled with the original Commander precons, thinking it's going to be a one-time thing. Nope, it exploded in popularity, so much so that they tried to follow up on it as fast as possible, leading to whatever the hell Commander's Arsenal was supposed to be. However, the sticking point were the next Commander precons, which sold just as well as the original decks, if not better. It kept going, with a small decrease in sales with the C19 precons. These precons are one of the few things they've made that only required minor changes for a maintenance on sales. Heck, their power level has gone up unlike every other precon.


    How many of those sales come from people who actually buy the commander deck, and not buy 100 singles packaged in a box? Don't you think that sales are going to be better anyway if a deck had more "rares" in them?

    I liked intro packs because not only did it focus on the 60 card game, they are cheap. Once you make the deck have value or is competitive, the decks will no longer become cheap, and that has happened to some Theme Decks in the past. It's as if they don't want the deck to attract those who already know how to play the game looking for that chase card, or they aren't looking to build a deck for new players that would give them no incentive to either fix or build their own deck.

    I've mentioned this when Event Decks were a thing. I said that event decks need to not be set associated because the decks contained cards from different sets and the majority of cards weren't from that particular set. The same is happening with the Commander precons. The Kaldheim Commander precons don't feel like Kaldheim. If there were Kaldheim intro packs, at least one of them would have focused on the snow mechanic, much so that almost the entire deck has snow cards. All the Commander decks had is one or two snow cards in one of the decks.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • posted a message on D&D forgotten realm confirmed to get commander decks
    Draft still use the regular gameplay rules of magic though. I played with those 40 card theme decks from old core sets, and I still view it as regular magic.

    The thing with infect or milling is that the cards alter the rules of the game. Isn't that what Magic is? You have the rules, and the cards you play change those rules.

    With commander, you are basically playing with a different set of rules. In regular magic, you don't lose if a specific legendary creature deals you 20 damage, and you don't get to keep on playing that legendary creature with increasing mana costs.

    Maybe at some point, Commander is regular magic. It just means your 20 starting life, no commander, ruleset used in almost every format is no longer regular magic.

    Have any of you played Magic when Commander wasn't a thing? I could extend it to when EDH wasn't a thing? I use the term regular because back then, you only had the one ruleset. So how can I differentiate the status quo from the newcomer than to say the status quo is the regular kind? I would also say the 4 standard sets are regular sets, with everything else being special sets.

    Here's one thing to think about in regards to anything not regular having negative connotations.

    Regular season. So what is the alternative to a regular season? Playoffs or Postseason. There is also Offseason. You are basically saying that players should feel bad for making the Playoffs, or after they win that championship, they should feel bad because the offseason is coming. You can have a weird guy who likes regular things. You can have a normal person who likes anything not labeled regular. Just because you don't like regular things does not make you an abnormal person. Would it have been better if I just said plain Magic? When I say plain, I am thinking boring.

    Speaking of boring, Theme Decks were the best, until they became intro packs and became boring to play with. WOTC does this all the time. They start up a new product line. The product is good at first, and over the years, they get worse and worse, or people are just bored of it, and then they cancel it, rather than just make the same product good again. I actually liked the premium deck series. Duel decks are another product. There's the masters series, but I don't buy those things. They used to experiment with multiplayer formats. It's now Commander, Commander, more Commander, always Commander.

    I used to like it when WOTC made block constructed decks with the constraints of only having 2 rares, 12 uncommons, it must have a minimum of 24 lands, and there must be at least over 20 different cards. I'd like to see someone critical of intro packs do any better.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • posted a message on D&D forgotten realm confirmed to get commander decks
    Quote from ZasZ234 »
    Quote from FlossedBeaver »
    I’m saying I don’t agree with your phraseology; it’s imprecise and has negative connotations.

    For what it's worth: I think you have a point. The exact problem you were addressing wasn't originally apparent. Unfortunately it sounded snarky and hence mildly hostile, which is probably why it resulted in this big pointless discussion.

    Many terms can be construed to have negative connotations though, whether it's "default" or "Core Game" and it's hard to understand which would be acceptable.

    Quote from signofzeta »
    The regular rules of magic has no command zone. You start at 20 life. There is no Archenemy. There are no Planechase cards.

    The Comprehensive Rules of Magic are an actual document that contains counterpoints to all of this. I am not aware of a document called the Regular Rules of Magic, but there ARE the "Basic Rules", so I assume we have our winner: You were referring to Basic Magic with terminology that implies the advanced variants are not regular, despite being featured not only in rules, but in the official published rules. Your choice of words delegitimatized valid supported variants/formats.
    If Commander is the regular rules of Magic, I can just make up a rule where the opponent gets a charlie horse every time they gets damaged, and that too, is the regular rules of Magic. See how dumb that sounds?

    Sounding dumb probably will prevent it from making it into the official rules, which Commander managed.

    Take note: In the inciting post the question raised is not whether the base game of Magic is the default version of the game, or the basic rules are the default rules. It's just you seem really hung up on using the term "regular" without reflecting about it.

    I'd bet if you had used the word "basic" instead of "regular" there would be no issue, because both terms casually refer to a "classic" "unmodified" state, but taking into account the full breadth of connotations one of them sounds less dismissive.

    Communication is complicated.


    Think of these items.

    Coke
    Gas
    Coffee
    Cheerios

    I have never heard anyone say basic Coke, basic gas, basic coffee, basic cheerios. It's always regular. So if I want to describe something that isn't the variant of something, wouldn't I then say that that something is the regular kind? I am also separating deck construction rules from the gameplay rules, kind of like how a sport has a specific set of rules, and some leagues have specific roster rules.

    Just think about it. Cherry coke is still coke, it just isn't regular coke. The problem is that some of you are associating the the word "regular" to describe an item with the user of that item being "regular" or "normal". That isn't true. Normal people drink decaf coffee. They use supreme gas. They play on hard, not normal, difficulty. There are no negative connotations. Stop feeling bad for using something that isn't labeled as "regular" because people who eat cool ranch chips sure don't get offended by it.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • posted a message on D&D forgotten realm confirmed to get commander decks
    Quote from caulkwrangler »
    Quote from signofzeta »
    Quote from FlossedBeaver »
    Quote from signofzeta »
    Commander isn't regular magic.



    Strong disagree.


    You're disagreeing with facts.


    No, they're disagreeing with you. Now excuse me, I'm going to play football, not play football.


    Nope, it's fact. If Commander was regular Magic, Commander products don't need to say Commander. After all, it is regular Magic. If you want to play Commander, the person you want to play with would immediately know you want to play Commander if you said "Do you want to play Magic the Gathering" Does that happen? No.

    Ask anyone to teach you MTG. They will not teach you how to play Commander unless you specifically told them you wanted to learn Commander.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • posted a message on D&D forgotten realm confirmed to get commander decks
    Quote from FlossedBeaver »
    Quote from signofzeta »
    Commander isn't regular magic.



    Strong disagree.


    You're disagreeing with facts.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • posted a message on D&D forgotten realm confirmed to get commander decks
    You are saying you are abnormal for liking things that aren't labeled "regular". You being normal or not has nothing to do with you liking irregular things. Stop linking the two. Commander isn't regular magic. You are not abnormal for liking Commander.

    Quote from signofzeta »
    The regular rules of magic has no command zone. You start at 20 life.
    Small nitpick: due to emblems, every format of Magic uses the command zone.


    In regular magic, you still don't get to cast a legendary creature unless you play it from your hand or use card effects.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • posted a message on D&D forgotten realm confirmed to get commander decks
    So Cherry Coke is as regular as regular coke?

    How about decaf coffee? What do you call the other coffee? Regular coffee.

    You basically think cherry coke, decaf coffee, mid-grade or supreme fuel have negative connotations.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • posted a message on D&D forgotten realm confirmed to get commander decks
    The regular rules of magic has no command zone. You start at 20 life. There is no Archenemy. There are no Planechase cards.

    If Commander is the regular rules of Magic, I can just make up a rule where the opponent gets a charlie horse every time they gets damaged, and that too, is the regular rules of Magic. See how dumb that sounds?

    Pokemon is 60 cards, 6 prizes. There is a 30 card variant with 3 prizes. That is NOT the regular rules of Pokemon TCG, nor are Speed Duels the regular rules of Yugioh.

    There are so many games and sports with a specific sets of rules. Just because you like to touch the ball with your hands while not being the goalkeeper does not make it that you are following the rules of soccer, no matter what house rules you are changing to the game of soccer in your rec league. It's like saying Gaelic football is football(soccer) when it's not. There is nothing wrong with saying a fact like Commander isn't regular Magic. Commander is Commander. There are probably so many games that use regular playing cards, you know, red black spades diamonds clubs hearts. Now you are saying I'm entitled by saying regular playing cards when we have cards like Magic and Uno.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • posted a message on D&D forgotten realm confirmed to get commander decks
    There are 5 sets released in 2021, and assuming both Innistrad sets will have Commander decks, none of them have precons that focus on the regular rules.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • To post a comment, please or register a new account.