Is it worth it to buy a Kaladesh Planeswalker Deck?

Of course it's not worth it.
It's never worth it to buy any sealed product, constructed or otherwise.

I'd still consider Jank Nissa in certain EDH decks

I have no problem with new blood, scrubs like big numbers and timmy shit and can't evaluate cards, so I trade my ten cent rares for their value

>>49538912

>i dont care for the "value". are they fun to play so i can use them to introduce magic to my friends?

Are Magic customers actually retarded?

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>Improving and learning is the bread and butter of new player experience. Holding a game changing planeswalker in hand is exciting for a beginner even if it is overcosted. The thing being sold is the experience.

>>49538912
>I can't believe there are people vigorously defending this product.

Probably shills. I suspect they're advertising on /tg/ now.

>>49538912
>I can't believe there are people vigorously defending this product.

I can't believe you give enough of a shit to clutter up the board with yet another mtg thread bitching about how a product made without you in mind is ruining your life.

>>49538912
I got back into the game with M10 and remember teaching my bro the game with Elspeth vs Tezzeret, a $90 value deck at the time containing two of the best planeswalkers ever, multiple copies of cards like Swords to Plowshares and Mishra's Factory and as you can probably guess, a blast to play with days worth of fun as we swapped decks and learned all the tricks they offered. All for $20.

We bought Nissa vs Ob Nixilis because he wanted Nissa, I wanted Ob and the art is neat. We couldn't keep playing past the 3rd game if you'd pay us to. Zero shit to do with these decks but flip creatures sideways.

Magic is not a game anymore, they don't want us to play, they want us to consume like retard addicts and forget about playability and fun.

>>49539980
>ruining your life

That's some pretty strong rhetoric, Anon. OP doesn't seem that distraught - he's just questioning why people keep buying shitty products.

>>49540110
So what did you do once you got tired of your Elspeth vs Tezzeret decks and your StP and Mishra's Factories? Jump straight into legacy?

These are intro packs, not duel decks. We just had a duel deck that came with Collected Company and Windswept Heath. These are just meant for people brand spanking new to the game to pick up from Wal Mart and play with.

>>49540318
Elspeth and the StP are in fact in my Stoneblade deck. Tezzeret is in my bro's Sydri EDH, Steel Overseer and Master of Etherium are in his Affinity deck.

These planeswalker decks will be 99% in the trash can immediately if any player who started with them actually sticks to playing magic and decides to "improve" their deck which will mean replacing practically everything. But what's more likely to happen, as I have seen happen time and time again, is they'll go to FNM with their fool's gold and get so beaten up they'll quit Magic right there.

I paid $12 for mine. Two boosters plus some paper to look at, why not.

>>49538912

Why are you so insistent that people are having fun wrong?

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>>49538912
I bought the nissa one because of the exlusives, mainly pic related because pauper stompy powercreep.

>>49538912
If newer players wanted bad decks, they shouldn't needed to remove the intro packs. this is a bad move and the only reason it works is because new players don't know shit about what they are getting

No.
Delibrately designed to be weak and will only frustrate new players with their abysmal power level unless they are also playing against someone who is using one of the decks.

Wizards is going to eventually realized they went into making planeswalkers the face of magic too hard and they'll run out of design space forcing them to make overpowered and underpowered planeswalkers. It seems like they realized this and are putting all the underpowered ones in these precons and making the overpowered ones into mythic slots.

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You need the Chandra pack for the best burn spell in standard

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Why are there only two?

Where is the Saheeli deck? Where's the vedalken guy's deck?

Are they releasing more for revolt?

Is it possible for ajani to get a card in one on these decks and not be in the main set?

>>49542044
>1 damage per mana
>when phyrexian mana stablished 1 mana=2 life
Standard makes me cry

>>49542154
New phyrexia is literally cancer

>>49539931
I will say this: As someone that is incredibly impatient, it did give me an early chance to get some cards I wanted, even if I look back on it and know that it wasn't logistically worth it. Besides, the green deck is lots of fun

>>49542154
shock is too strong for standard

>>49542350

Somebody forgot to tell WotC. They just printed Galvanic Bombardment last set.

>>49542139
>Is it possible for ajani to get a card in one on these decks and not be in the main set?
That would have been the sensible course of action.
We used to have 10-11 walkers per Block+Core Set. 5 Block walkers + 4 Planeswalker Deck walkers = 9 Planeswalkers per Block.
They could have given us Chandra, Nissa, Tezzeret, Dovin and Saheeli with Liliana, Ajani, Gideon and Jace in the PW Decks without having to create weaker versions of walkers already on the Block.

But that would imply giving players access to 4 powerful cards every block without forcing someone to open aprox 110 booster packs for each copy.

>>49542400
GB can't hit face.

How do I into vampire cunts?

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>>49543136

Well are you a virgin? Otherwise you'll end up a ghoul, and that's no fun.

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>>49542169
>Phyrecian mana was a mistake
Fuck off Maro.

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>>49543199
>Practically Zero mana costs at times
>Literally laughs at the idea of a color pie

>>49539740
honestly man if i thought buying one of these types of decks and giving it to a friend would get them into the game i like even enough for them to want to look through my old cards and build a casual deck it would be worth the money

>>49540318
>We just had a duel deck that came with Collected Company and Windswept Heath
Those were clash packs, which were alternates for event decks and we're never getting one of either again. Because for some reason someone said event decks were selling too much because they had good cards in them or something.

>>49538912
What a fucking idiot.
>We want these walkers to be splashy but not tournament staples
somehow translates into "We want these walkers to be awful".

>Wizards wanted to make these planeswalkers bad on purpose to avoid people buying a million copies of the deck.
>But WHAT IF they print a super strong walker by mistake, then the deck would get price gouged!
What a fucking idiot. He acknowledges that Wizards does something to purposefully avoid price gouging and then ignores that. Does he want these cards to not be exclusive? Because that doesn't stop price gouging at all.

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>>49541360
>pauper stompy powercreep.
>Worse version of a flex slot creature printed 5 years ago

>>49542044
That's not Collective Defiance

I like this Chandra
I'm pretty sure she would be played in constructed as is if she costed 2RR

But Nissa is shit all around

>>49545060
>I'm pretty sure she would be played in constructed as is if she costed 2RR
But she doesn't cost 2RR. She costs 4RR. Even of she cost less, her loyalty would not be five loyalty counters, making her even less good.

>>49544920

why are the walkers and the walker-deck only cards standard legal if the idea is to make cards that are so awful they can never be viable for standard?

>>49539300
I'd have a jank Nissa in my side if some sort of burn strategy was prevalent in the format.

>comes down with 5 loyalty
>gets Karn levels fuckhuge while gaining life
>it never gets killed and you never die

it's a pretty shit walker but it has applications

>>49540110
these are meant to replace intro decks. they will probably release something similar to clahs packs or duels decks later on

What's stopping them from just making a good deck based on commons and uncommons, with a few crux rare bombs?

Yes, it might be harder to actually make a good deck out of commons and uncommons, but at least then putting bulk in a box would make sense, right?

>>49542139

They only want to show the "premier" type characters in the planeswalkers decks.

Basically, you should only expect shitty versions of the jacetice league, and maybe some of the villains to be in the planeswalker packs.

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>>49545127
So that new players can add cards to their shitty planeswalker pack deck and play it at FNM. He's luring in those helpless little lambs as a sacrifice to you. Kill them Anonymous, kill them all! Spill their wallets and bathe in their prize packs. Paint the multiverse red in the blood of casuals.

And don't forget to check out our new line of Commander products coming this Fall!

>>49539300
>what is the modern event deck

the only good card from both decks is the nissa elemental, shit will be dank in my omnath edh deck

>>49545381
Flame Lash actually isn't abysmal

4 instant speed damage anywhere for 4 is actually decently versatile and nothing else in the format does the job it can do. If we're comparing it to lightning bolt like we do everything else then yes it's trash but it's fine for standard play

>>49545422
Not when Grasp of Darkness exists. Sure it doesn't hit face but 2 mana is much easier to pay than 3R, even if it is BB.

>>49545501
>Grasp
>creatures only
>Flame Lash
>creatures, players, planeswalkers

Come on anon. I know this is /tg/ but you don't have to write off absolutely everything

>>49545521
Look, Lightning Blast is solid, but people don't want to play solid cards, they want to play superpowerful cards. At some point you have to accept that.

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>>49542044
>could've just reprinted Lightning Blast so I could use my old cards
>now I am literally forced to buy the planeswalker deck if I want to run that spell in standard

Good fucking job Wizards

>>49545554
Why are you typing all this retarded shit at me. Do you even know what the fuck you're trying to tell me? Why is my saying that Flame Lash is fine triggering you into typing out some autistic shit from your ass? What the fuck is wrong with you? Jesus you people are unbearable

>>49545599
Chandra doesn't use lightning silly :^)

>>49545554
What the fuck are you talking about. Lightning Blast is considered good shit now. It's been that way for the past couple years. Grasp is fine for control decks, Blast is good for both control and aggressive decks.

If you want to cast fucking Lightning Bolts just go playing ANYTHING but Standard.

I don't understand you fuckers who bitch and moan about no longer having Doom Blade or Mana Leak. Wizards can't sell cards to dumb children if their angels and dragons get wrecked by efficient cards.

>>49545624

I wish that instead of lesbo bait Chandra, we got a red walker that is just Tim the Enchanter from Monty Python's Holy Grail

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>>49545651
>If you want to cast fucking Lightning Bolts just go playing ANYTHING but Standard.
>Implying

>>49541871
Looking back to all the fuck ups with Mythics, I am actually happy about them fucking up one thing - they had no idea how to balance power level with Mythics initially.

For the period between Alara and Innistrad, we got the strongest cards ever printed in the game. And they're not going to be usurped ever.

We got Jace, Emrakul, Iona, Elesh Norn, Feast and Famine, Gristlebrand.

Nothing is going to top those guys. Ever. So for the purposes of older formats once you get them (if you got them cheap) you will never ever have to buy new chase Mythics again. There's some outliers like Ugin. But you can be confidant knowing those are the best and that there ever will be.

Great job Wizards, printing broken shit like that.

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>>49545651

I pulled the best bolt from kaladesh

>>49545733

>we're never getting utility mythics
>prints lotus cobra like a month afte

>>49545721
4 damage tends to be the magic number when dealing with walkers

>>49545651
This pandering to the lowest common denominator will be the death of MTG. Big Timmy creatures will keep getting bigger and bigger, removal and counters will become worse and worse, and WoTC will completely stop printing cards that are viable outside of Standard.

It's not long before we get to the point where the best card in Standard is a 3RRR 9/9 Dragon with Flying, haste, and trample with some gimmicky block-specific ability stapled on, while the best removal spell is a Doom Blade for BBBB.

>>49545733
Since BFZ, they seem to have gone back to printing OP Mythics

-Ulamog 2.0
-Kalitas 2.0
-Nahiri 2.0
-Grim Flayer
-Chandra ToD

>>49545798
those aren't quite the powerlevel of the cards he listed anon

>>49545798
The only one of those that's viable in Legacy is Ulamog, and only in Cloudpost; a very fringe deck.

>>49545798
Flayer seems like the biggest culprit.

Here's your powerfully pushed 2drop creature that you will no doubt want a full playset of, considering he's basically just Sylvan Advocate printed at mythic instead of rare. The BGx tax is real.

>>49545798
a. Ulamog is a big Eldrazi. Cut it some slack, its not broken like Emrakul, just strong.

b. Kalitas isn't an issue. He's just a meta call in a format with lots of decks that are heavily reliant on the graveyard, much like Scooze.

c. Nahiri was an accident, it was actually supposed to be a casual walker that ended up getting exploited. Mistakes happen.

b. Flayer is a pushed 2 drop value creature at mythic, I can definitely see a problem here.

e. Chandra is just hype at this point. We've yet to see how good she actually is in Standard, let alone other formats.

>>49545761
Wizards has just traded a community with deep roots for a community that cycles every couple years.

You hook a kid and keep them around for maybe 5 or so years until they get bored because you've recycled things and they've seen everything. But in the meanwhile you have a fresh crop where everything seems bright and new and STILL doesn't know how to use Gatherer.

Just wait, in 5 years the number of people who have been playing longer than 5 years will be proportionally much smaller in Magic. All the players in the current pro circuit, those are the last generation of "ancient" players.

I feel like Noxious Gearhulk is on the level of creature you're talking about. Nekrataal with life gain and a massive fucking body. Not Titan-level of power, but certainly up there in terms of Limited-ruining bullshit.

>>49545798
No.

Nahiri is just another win condition in a deck that's been around in Modern since forever. In that way she's no different than Ajani Vengeant. And the deck still kills people with Collonades, AND she's using Emrakul to do it.

Look at Emrakul 1.0. Just fucking look at it. It actually says, "Destroy six permanents" OR "Win the game". Gristlebrand says, "If your life total is >8, draw 7 cards". Iona actually just reads "Win the game."

Never again will we have something that scrapes close to Mind Sculptor - the ONLY Eternal playable Planeswalker.

Jund-creatures will slip by sure. But they've just been one-upping Jund creatures for years and I feel really sorry for the poor fuckers who chase that deck. First you needed Deathrites, then Goyfs, then Liliana, then Bob, then Kolaghan's Command, then P&K, then Kalitas, and finally, Grim Flayer. Every year Jund players get to spend a sweet couple hundred dollars to improve their deck - fucking not the greatest situation to be in.

>>49545919
a)Agreed on Nahiri.

b)Your point on Chandra has yet to be proven. Only time will tell whether or not she's on Jace TMS's level.

c) Agreed on the "Jund Tax"

>>49545798
Kalitas is an elf slayer, it just in legacy elves hes too slow. Im sure he can do the same against merfolk but is once again too slow. I just wish they would redo or finish the _scape familiar cycle. I want my battleship enabling efficient dorks.

>>49545963
I will wait on Chandra as well.

I actually want her to be Modern/Legacy playable. Like $100/piece playable.

I want to see the price jump just to see the community shit itself. The community is too amnesiac and never addresses the price of cards for any longer than a day at a time. But having Chandra around as a must-play in three formats would be a wonderful disaster to behold.

>>49538912
Hell no, those Planeswalkers are weak as shit, and the rest of the cards are crap, or at least not worth buying except as singles.

>>49545919
>Mind Sculptor - the ONLY Eternal playable Planeswalker

Fayden?

>>49545236
If they try to make "FNM Decks" of commons and uncommons plus the average 2 rares on Intro Packs they would betray their post-NWO design philosophy of making every Standard staple a rare or mythic so that people are forced to open more boosters if they want to play competitively.

>>49546137
Not Legacy playable, only Vintage.

>>49546137

No.

It's good only in Vintage because it steals Moxen. In Legacy, it's usually just a once per turn Faithless Looting. I'd rather play Nahiri or Daretti in Legacy than Dack, and those aren't good either.

>>49539300
>Rat's Nest

>>49546117
lol someone's buttblasted that he bought a bulk of chandra's at $50 ea.

some people just make poor life decisions

>>49546137
Lilly of the Veil sees more play than Jace in Legacy. Ashiok, Fayden, Daretti 2 and Tezzeret 1 have all seen Vintage play.

But MUH JACE is THE OP because Stoneforge, Batterskull, Swords and Squadron Hawk got it banned in T2.

>>49546210
That is what you thought I implied in that post?

Other people can make shit life decisions. You're in the wrong Magic community if you think anybody here is stupid enough to do that and admit to it.

You're mistaking people here for the crybabies at MTGSalvation Trading Post.

>>49546216
As have Nahiri 2.0, Narset, and Tamiyo 2.0 in Vintage. All have their niches in the format and are very good.

Also, Jace only sees significant Legacy play in 2 decks; Stoneblade and Miracles.

>>49545919
>just
You weren't around for the Mirropocalypse, I take it?

>>49546216
>Lilly of the Veil sees more play than Jace in Legacy
Nope.
http://mtgtop8.com/topcards

Jace 21.9%
Liliana 9.8%

As for Vintage, I think we can only agree that Jace, Dack, and Tezzeret see any real play.

>>49546253

what deck plays Narset?

>>49546264
Citing the development clusterfuck that was Mirrodin as having any remote resemblance to the development style today is as useless as citing Chronicles as an excuse for Wizards' faggot behavior with limited Modern/Eternal Masters printings.

>>49546304
>More decks play Liliana than Jace
>But more fags play Miracles so Jace is better
Lilly is the best walker right now and i wouldn't be surprised to see Ashiok, Dack and Nahiri become more played than him either with minimal support.
Mind Sculptor really isn't all it's claimed to be, and I say that after playing him in every format he's been legal in.

>>49541115
>Why are you so insistent that people are having fun wrong?

Nobody can possibly have fun with an Intro Pack. Here's what they do to Magic:

1. New player buys intro pack
2. New player takes intro pack to FNM
3. New player gets his asshole torn to shreds by absolutely anybody with even a halfway real deck, even if he's the best player ever he will lose 100% because only thing Intro packs don't lose against is other Intro packs
4. Player gets rightfully butthurt and quits Magic

There is no reason in the world why a product like this has to be deliberately so fucking weak. What, are they fucking worried that people would have too much fun if they could actually win with their 15 dollar deck? That they would stop buying cards? Who the fuck has ever done that? Only reasons people stop is because they can't win, or can't afford to play, or the card border looks wrong. Intro packs should be the level of Event decks, both in power and in value, and yes, they should only cost $14.99 still.

>>49546737
>yes, they should only cost $14.99 still.

Hey man, Wizards needs more money than that for a deck that contain 4-ofs, it's expensive to make quality control to count cards that well.

Just see how they missed the energy token off the Kaladesh sheet, they are obviously hurting for money.

In seriousness, teaching new players to play 4 copies of important cards is the most useful thing to do. Whether it's ramp, aggro, combo or control having a focused deck with 4-of's makes each game you play with it consistent and new players need to be guided in that direction.

>>49546737
I don't know which is better/worse.

The thing is that people just throw people at things without putting any effort into making sure they learn correctly. Like, nobody actually teaches anybody anything for free. Parents just throw their video games at kids and wonder why they have nothing in common - you have nothing in common because you didn't spend any fucking time with your kid.

But then there's also making sure people can swim on their own. You throw them in the deep end and they overcome their challenges.

In Magic, obviously, it usually turns out that most players become shit and stay shit because of all the other people who don't know what they're doing. I sometimes wish I could spend time with each person so they could learn the game properly but everyone else is feeding them disinformation or rules shortcuts and it undermines all the effort.

Sometimes I wish I could tell people to not buy those fucking Intro Decks, but I'm loyal to my store owner and I'm not about to take a sale away from them by saying something intelligent. The store owner has to make a sale, but what pisses me off the most is when experienced players tell their friends starting off to buy that useless Deckbuilder's Toolkit or Intro Deck.

God those things are useless. Every player has enough cards to cobble together a Deckbuilder's Toolkit from their scraps.

Anyways, like you say, it shouldn't matter to Wizards. It's paper all the same. They could just as easily fill those decks so that they have a cohesive operation. How the fuck can anybody learn if they only draw that singleton once every ten games.

>>49545721
I can't get why people dislike card value Bolt. It's like people like to not have cards in their hands.

>>49546915

DBTK is secretly the most useful product Wizards sells, because you can buy two, shuffle everything together, and you have created a 360-card draft cube for forty dollars, lands and storage included, with all colors in mostly correct proportion and cards designed for the same format. All you need is to sleeve it.

>>49546952
Okay, one, that's a brilliant idea. Two, nobody fucking does that or would do that.

Getting a draft together is the hardest thing on the planet, Cube or with sealed product. I've never had a draft go off without a hitch, sanctioned or not.

>>49546795

There's a pretty good reason, psychology-wise, why WotC doesn't put full sets of four into, well, almost any fucking product they make. It's because four is the cap, and when you hit the cap, you're supposed to stop. People who only buy singles don't know this, but it feels _incredibly bad_ to get your 5th and 6th copies of any card, even a common. Every cell in your brain tells you that you're wasting your money at that point (which you totally are). That's why WotC doesn't want to just give the person who buys his cards in packs four of anything - he's going to stop buying, not because he already has everything he needs (he's likely missing almost everything he'd need) but because he doesn't want to end up buying unusable fifth and sixth cards.

>>49546978
I think it's a good reason too.

That being said, I wish that it wouldn't be an issue if players just gave away their extras for free. Because players are miserly shits and the culture of "value" means they don't give away anything for free.

>>49546978
>implying anyone buys more than one copy of an intro deck

>>49546978
Easy solution is to have 4-ofs for all the cheap setting up cards (ramp cantrips etc) and the remaining cards all be 2-3 ofs , that way the deck has more variation than being only 4-ofs and allows the new layer to see more different cards, but makes it easier to allow the player to complete the 4-ofs they enjoy the most with the cards from pre-release/drafts they go to. The only 1-ofs ever should be the rares.

>>49546915
The Deck Builders Tool Kit is actually the CORRECT starter for a new player though.

Unlike the intro decks that force you into a mindset of whatever you bought, limits your choices and offers no real diversity the DBTK is great as players learn the basics and build their own deck and can find mechanics they like and explore them.

Who cares about how "good" the cards are, that's not the point with new players. Let them play and explore the fucking game.

My local store runs a "Deck Escalation league" twice a year in which players, new and old, all buy DBTKs, open them and build decks to play one night a week. You can use whatever came out of your box and players can trade starting the second league night, but only what was in their toolkits and every week they get a couple more packs and once a month they draft and add those cards to their pool. Then at the end the Store owner usually gifts the players a cool rare from the case for their decks. Its incredibly successful and over the past 2 years the store saw its Magic population swell immensely.

Since the meta is slow and progressively upping in cards available players they can learn to play without the insane unbalance that can happen in standard or other formats as your beginning.

DBTKs are awesome products in that regard.

>>49546978

I wonder if anything would be seriously broken if the 4-card limit was lifted for commons.

>burn with 40 Lighting Bolts

Eh, just reprint problem cards at uncommon.

>>49547119
In the earliest days they didn't have a 4-of limit because they though no one would be able to get more than a few copies of a card. Of course they were wrong and for a short time a legitimate deck for rich (since you had to travel to get all the copies) people was 45 lightning bolts+15 mountains

>>49546978
>I do consumer behavior researcher
>See a comment that is spot on
Holy shit, I wasn't expecting this kind of spot on comment on /tg/ but Anon is pretty much on the money.

The perception of not wanting to get wasted chaff is important in the eyes of a new player, who wants their money to not be wasted. Especially in Magic where its viewed as an expensive hobby... Its not actually expensive, my wife's hobby of gardening is FAR more expensive then my Magic gaming, but to the average consumer it IS perceptually. That's all that matters.

Telling them that once they buy the intro they now don't need any more of the 4-ofs included, only to have them then pull these, now pointless, extras from the packs included would be a negative experience for a new player, a wasted card. That would introduce a single small downside to the product, a small disappointment, something Wizards would never want with the product they designed to be the "first touch point" with a new customer, to them the entire opening should be something new and exciting.

Wizards is smart enough to understand that, for a new player, they don't want a SINGLE negative experience generated. Its WHY there are usually two-ofs in the intro decks, that way pulling additional versions is a positive experience for the player, a way to add and improve the deck not a negative.

>>49538912
The Professor IS right, these are awful for the current player, but the flaws he calls these out on are perfectly explained by marketing.

Personally, I would just throw the planeswalkers into the Deck Builders Tool Kits as I like the diversity of exploring every color instead of being shoehorned into a single one, but that is me. I PERSONALLY don't like the idea of intro decks over the Tool Kit but as a marketing kind of guy... I totally would get it from a design aspect.

>>49539300

>It's never worth it to buy any sealed product, constructed or otherwise.

Except when it is.

See: Commander decks

>>49547195
This^ The mono red Precon for Commander is actually a good deck right out of the box...

Even now its still worth way more then the going price for it.

>>49546737
Pokemon and Yugioh precon decks are filled with good cards, and people still buy those.

Why the hell would it be any different with MTG?

>>49547186

>but the flaws he calls these out on are perfectly explained by marketing.

That's not really a defense though, and he even addresses that point at the end.

Like he says, selling people a heap of shit with a flashy coat of paint just because you know you can get away with it is the height of cynicism and not something a company should be able to escape criticism for.

It's blatant exploitation of ignorant newer players and small children.

>>49547195
Yes, the commander decks are one of the best products Wizards sell as the main hurdle to commander is building a 100 card deck with 60 or so unique cards, which for new players is very difficult as they will end up having to run very bad cards in the deck to make it to size, never mind the construction time for new players compared to just spending $30 on a full complete deck.

You place a new player in front of 15,000 cards, with stranger requirements for playability (creatures usually must have a etb effect or be hard to kill or hard to block) you end up with a format that a precon deck is the best thing for it

>>49546978
>>49547186

Since WotC has already showed that they're willing to put cards into Standard that can only be gotten from intro packs, the problem of "extras" is easy enough to solve: simply do what the good professor asked, put full playsets of strong staples in the intro packs - and then DON'T put those cards in booster packs, so that people can't open any unwanted extra copies.

Yes, that will mean that everybody who doesn't have those cards from older sets will have to buy an intro pack to participate in standard, but who gives a shit? It's such a small cost compared to what standard already costs, and mostly illusory since that person would have had to buy those cards as singles anyway.

>>49547398
Standard does cost way too much for what it is.

A set of Chandra+A set of Lili costs almost FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS ALONE, AND EVERY SINGLE RED OR BLACK DECK, RESPECTIVELY, NEEDS A FULL PLAYSET!!

>>49547839
This was bad during the Cawblade Era, so it's certainly an issue now in a less gameplay-oriented, more investor-oriented era of Magic.

>>49547218
Because Pokemon and YuGiOh are good card games?

>>49547863
Magic WAS a better TCG for a while imo, but the "investor-focused era" of MTG that started with MM15 and Origins needs to die in a fire. Go back to actually promoting the actual game, WoTC.

>>49547910
WoTC would rather suck the speculators' dicks and pander to the little kids and autistic retards than pander to the TCG gaming community.

>>49538912
Do you want the power of a Planeswalker in your hand? or some shitty entry pack deck that only has Basic Creatures, Sorceries, Instants, and Artifacts?

You just can't win anymore without a Planeswalker in your deck, all the top decks have Planeswalker cards and you'd be stupid to not use one.

>>49547940
YOU are the ones killing tne GAME of Magic, MTGFinance community. I hope you're proud of yourselves, your relentless buyouts and bullying have ushered in the worst era of MTG since Kamigawa.

>>49547963

But these planes walkers suck dick though?

>>49547910
Yugioh sells better then Magic does entirely because they understand that more access to good cards means more people playing those cards.

Yugioh purposely kills the secondary market to allow players access to the good shit and thus more players are willing to invest. Sure decks cycle out but since the cards are cheap no one gives a damn.

In mtg you have shit like modern banning twin and pod, royally fucking those that invested, because they had to pay to invest in those decks and their values plummeted.

The secondary market is the ONLY reason why magic is still in the game, because it has a niche with being a game with cards having real world value. And half of this "value" comes from Wizard's purposely weakening new cards to keep the old ones expensive.

They will never print a force of will style counter card, or a better equipment then Jitte and the swords, or even more efficient lands simply because it would piss off the secondary market.

Yugioh doesn't give a shit and tries everything, because its secondary market is cheap, they can use the ban list when they need to, and the culture of the game has developed such that it takes something REALLY crazy to cause a ruckus.

Granted I play mtg more but still... $100 barely gets you anywhere in standard, nowhere in modern outside of gimmicks and laughable in legacy. $100 is two starter decks of Yugioh and all the important staples to make a perfectly competitive deck.

>>49548078
Its better than not having any walkers at all

>>49548157
No it isn't, at 6 mana there are so many bombs worth far more then these two.

Ok so I haven't played since Dragon's Maze, don't have any of my old shit and have a mad hard on for Chandra. Is it worth jumping back in this block?

>>49548171

No?

A shit card is a shit card, regardless of card type.

>>49548181

If your primary reason for wanting back in is getting to play with chandra I would say no.

The good chandra card is like 200 bucks for a playset, not worth the investment desu.

>>49547976
are you kidding me? kamigawa was some of the best times in magic history, there was nothing like the excitement of opening a pack hoping for a Jitte.

Players were rich and the game was full of Wealth. Card value was through the roof and hasnt' recovered since

>>49548181
>Is it worth jumping back in this block?

It is never "worth it" to start or re-start playing Magic. This game costs a hundred times more than it should. If you're out, stay out.

>>49548157
Ok then, Inafune.

>>49548271
It was pretty high during the Jace the Mind Sculptor times. But i agree lately Wizards has not been looking out for the Secondary Market, which keeps their game alive. They have been doing a lot of stupid things and making powerful cards accessible to players without paying a large amount of money

>>49548235
>>49548280
Has it really gotten so bad? I had some good times with the Dragon's Maze block.

guys

GUYS

is there a way to shuffle cards back into your deck in standard?

Im trying to break standard at the moment and found a combo that doesnt allow your opponent to react and ends the game on turn 6 (hopefully)

File: haha.png (157KB, 265x370px) Image search: [Google]

157KB, 265x370px

>>49548387
Combo dismissed, next.

>>49548373
>They have been doing a lot of stupid things and making powerful cards accessible to players without paying a large amount of money
Good.

>>49547976
The problem isn't speculators, nor is it card prices. The problem is Mythic Rares, Planeswalkers in particular.

Back in the day, while cards were expensive even back then, the value was spread out among the various rares in the set, so buying a pack didn't feel like buying a lottery ticket. Mythics changed this, and the introduction of the "Gatewatch" era made Mythic Rare Planeswalkers absolutely necessary for every single viable Standard deck.

>>49548382
Game is as fun as ever. And every format costs way too fucking much. Especially the hopeless moneypit that is Standard. It's just too expensive to recommend to anybody. You spend an amount of money that would buy you ten other games and aren't even halfway towards building one deck that you'll get tired of in one evening.

>>49548373
I can't tell if you're retarded, joking or trolling.

>>49548535
^This. I enjoyed the era where the average rare value was the cost of the pack (around $4), made people feel safer when opening packs. These days, the average rare value is around $1, while most of the value in each set gets sucked up by either 1 $40+ Mythic (Origins, Eldricth Moon, Kaldesh) or 2 $20 Mythics (BFZ, SOI)

>>49548577
What if Wizards doubled the chance of getting a Mythic ? One in 4 packs ?

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21KB, 243x450px

>>49548577

I enjoyed the era when the literal most expensive card in the game was $20.

>>49548373
How is it more accessible? Buying a set of Lili and a set of Chandra now will cost you the same amount of money as a set of Jace did back in Cawblade Era.

>>49548597
It would be the worst thing ever

>>49548597
Might be a good idea. Yugioh and Pokemon did something similar with their Secret Rares and Pokemon-EX, so I don't understand why WoTC didn't follow suit.

>>49548535
>The problem isn't speculators, nor is it card prices. The problem is Mythic Rares, Planeswalkers in particular. ... the introduction of the "Gatewatch" era made Mythic Rare Planeswalkers absolutely necessary for every single viable Standard deck.

Remember how back when Mythic was invented, MaRo said it would only contain flashy, dumb cards that are not tournament relevant? That was a funny joke.

>>49548642
>It would be the worst thing ever
Why ?

>>49548664
Yugioh also has the Gold Pack series, in which they reprint only staples with a special foiling species
Their pack foils (Ultimate Rares) are also much rarer than MtG's pack foils

Today I bought a monopoly board and discovered that the resale value of the game pieces I bought was less than I paid for it. Fucking bullshit, do these greedy companies really expect me to play with their products?

My coworker told me that the vast majority of monopoly board games are bought at retail outlets to be played once or twice in a blue moon and sit in a cupboard. That idiot didn't realize that every single monopoly player plays in organized events. Source: all of my social interactions are in a store where organized events are held.

It's not like WotC is any better. The way they put simple non-competitive garbage out there. It's almost like they are stupid enough to believe that most of the players they acquire start out buying whatever box of cards looks the coolest to them off of a target or wal-mart shelf. How can a single game company be so deluded?

>>49548597

What they should do is make it so that you can only have one copy of any given Planeswalker in your deck.

Card limits staggered by rarity like in Duels would also be a solution, but IMO Duels doesn't go far enough. They should also lower deck sizes to 40 cards. That way an optimal deck's price would go down from 600-700 dollars to 55-65, which is what it should be.

>>49548554
Oh well. Back to blowing money on Warmachine/Malifaux/Infinity then. Just had this Maic itch like a relapsing junkie

>>49548597
No. WoTC should just get rid of Mythics entirely. Fuck this lottery ticket garbage. The reason why "Secret Rares" work in other card games is because those other games have a rarity in between the lowest rare and the highest rare. Yugioh's Rarity chain, for example, goes Common, Rare (which is essentially their version of uncommon), Super Rare (their version of Rare), with Ultra Rare being the "middle rare" that comes before Secret Rare. And Pokemon has Holo Rare in between Rare and EX.

>>49548674
It takes longer to reply to bullshit than it does to post bullshit, so trying to fight misinformation like this is a losing battle, but I'll bite anyway.

* MaRo said no such thing.
* Mythic-level rarity has been in the game since 1995. Today's "rare" is a level of scarcity between a 1995 rare and a 1995 uncommon. WotC didn't introduce a rarity above rare, they introduced one between uncommon and rare.
* MaRo isn't the king of magic, he just designs cards.

Before you ask, I'm not an angry 14-year-old that gets angry about things that don't matter much in the big picture, so you can automatically assume I'm a paid WotC shill.

>>49548693

I actually hate what the existence of singles market has done to my perception of card value. It used to be (and still is in games like HS without a singles market) that I was happy for any card I hadn't seen before. Now if I open a 50 cent rare, even if I like the card, I feel cheated because I could have bought a set for less than what I paid for the pack.

>>49548777
>* Mythic-level rarity has been in the game since 1995. Today's "rare" is a level of scarcity between a 1995 rare and a 1995 uncommon.

Are you seriously acting like the card distribution in Fallen Empires packs is relevant in any fucking way at all? For over 20 years, rares have been a guaranteed deal. You get one in every pack. Done. No randomness involved.

>>49548771
MtG has Common/Uncommon/Rare/Mythic Rare and now Masterpiece Rare
The problem is that Mythic Rare are YGO's Secret Rarer power level and Masterpieces are just fancy reprint, more like Gold Rares than an actual rarity

The rarity isn't the only problem, power level is

>>49548777

>They will not just be a list of each set's most powerful tournament-level cards. — Mark Rosewater, The Year of Living Dangerously, June 2008 (emphasis mine).

Part of communication is understanding that the message you intend isn't the message people can interpret. When people first heard this, they thought this statement meant that Mythics would not have a significant impact on decks, which was good because they would be incredibly difficult to get.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that MaRo merely meant that all mythics wouldn't be playable. There would be trash mythics just like there are trash rares.

With regards to the "rarity" of rares, if I remember correctly that changed at least by the time Ice Age rolled around, so you were guaranteed to get a set amount of Commons, Uncommons, and a single Rare in every booster pack. So they took something that was broke, fixed it, and now broke it again. That doesn't seem to be something consumers should stand for.

Most people know MaRo isn't the king of magic, but he is its most public "face," hence why the criticism is lobbed at him.

>>49548819

There's so many problems that reinforce themselves: Mythics being so rare, mythics being so far more powerful than even rares, let alone commons and uncommons, the fact that you need four copies of each mythic you play, functionally complete lack of reprints in the game, and the fast rotation in Standard. These all boil down to even Standard decks being more expensive than Vintage decks used to be. It's really quite ridiculous. I wonder how long WotC can sustain it before the bubble bursts.

>>49548890

Sorry, I forgot to source the quote I green-texted.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/the-changing-definition-of-mythic-rare

>>49548792

You buy a $5 sandwich and enjoy it without a second thought, then move on with your life.
You might spend $5 on a suit and tie for your MMO of legends character or something just to feel like it looks neat, then that high and enjoyment is over.

How the fuck does a small percentage of the M:tG community get off thinking that the purpose of sealed product is to sell cash value vouchers?

I've been playing this game for 16 years now. The majority of players are not like me. They spend $40 on product to bullshit a few games with friends and then they move on with their life. Odds are, almost every single person on this thread went threw that stage before they moved on to organized play, if at all.

Magic players are really spoiled in a way. The rest of the people that play board games and RPGs know that they are purchasing an experience. WotC have succeeded in making a product that potentially has such a massive collectors value that people forget that buying things is a leisure activity first and a lifestyle as a distant second.

>>49548890
>With regards to the "rarity" of rares, if I remember correctly that changed at least by the time Ice Age rolled around, so you were guaranteed to get a set amount of Commons, Uncommons, and a single Rare in every booster pack. So they took something that was broke, fixed it, and now broke it again. That doesn't seem to be something consumers should stand for.
All hail the 7 commons, 4 uncommons, 2 rares and 1 mythic boosters !

>>49548909
When it costs $600 to build a competitive deck for a fucking FNM, people will obviously get hung up on the value. $600 to actually play Magic. $600. It doesn't cost $600 to play League, nor does it cost $600 to eat a sandwich unless there's solid fucking gold in there.

>>49548813
You got A rare in every pack, but specific rares where more rare than other rares, they appeared on the printing sheet less often than other rares. This was not specifically published but was noticed as certain rares were opened less than others.

>>49548938

Why so stingy? Make it a nice 8-4-2-1 sequence. Anyway, this would actually solve the problem, or a huge part of it at least, but it is effectively the removal of Mythic (Mythic becomes the new rare, rare becomes the new uncommon, uncommon becomes the new common, and common becomes the new toilet paper).

>>49548909
>You might spend $5 on a suit and tie for your MMO of legends character or something just to feel like it looks neat
>buying mmo clothes
>playing MMOs

Not all of us enjoy skinner boxes

>>49548938
Now introducing, the super-duper-hyper rare! After we ran out of cards to reprint as part of the masterpieces series, we just made up new ones! Only one in ten packs will have one of these cards, but we promise you they won't all be tournament-viable. But they will include the most powerful cards in the game, so when you factor in the chance of getting a good SDHR into the 1/10 your average SDHR card will be somewhere around $250.
Making standard better for everyone!

>>49546915

Eh, the idea of having two pre-cons as a learner tool for the basic game which highlights a bunch of core mechanics and play well against each other is a decent product.

Expecting players to figure out deck construction before playing the game is expecting alot from people.

>>49548909
>The rest of the people that play board games and RPGs know that they are purchasing an experience.

You might have a point if almost all board games and RPGs didn't cost like ONE FUCKING PERCENT of what Magic costs.

Fuck, for most board games you buy one $60 box and you're done. Forever. You have all the components to play that game for all eternity. You don't have to keep buying $60 boxes to stay current. You might buy like one expansion after a year, two if you're crazy into it, but mostly you're done.

>>49549041
>One in ten packs

You mean BOXES, right?

>>49549033
>Why so stingy? Make it a nice 8-4-2-1 sequence.
Because currently, packs contains 16 cards : 1 marketing card, 1 basic land, 10 commons, 3 uncommons and 1 rare
That makes it only 14 actual cards

>>49549107

Packs used to have 15 real cards in them. 1 rare, 3 uncs, 11 commons.

I don't even know why the fuck the marketing card is there. I guess WotC believes that people who buy Magic boosters haven't heard of Magic boosters.

>>49549082

Surely you mean ten cases. We need to think of the investors here.

>>49549138
Wizards says the extra business the marketing card generates pays for the fact the token now exists in the booster pack.

The marketing card advertises FNM, tournaments etc for players who may not know about them. They say there are a lot of players of Magic who just know about draft or play on the kitchen table and never actively research anything else about the game so the marketing card is aimed at those players

>>49549138
>I don't even know why the fuck the marketing card is there. I guess WotC believes that people who buy Magic boosters haven't heard of Magic boosters.
Agree
"Marketing cards" should always be a token with the "marketing" part on the other side
Then we'll get 1 token/emblem AND 1 land per pack

>>49549004
It doesn't cost $600 to play Magic either. It costs about $15. Most Magic product doesn't get opened for the sake of competitive play. The primary demographic for magic gets their start on the schoolbus, and most players don't move on from that stage.

It costs over $200 if you want to buy all the books and minis for D&D, but for the vast majority of players, it's $90 of books divided among six people and it's enjoyed as an ephemeral activity for the weekend or something. Outside of the very narrow world of organized play, Magic is the same way.

Besides, $600 Standard decks are an abberation due to recent development mistakes. Before the rotation rework fucked up the development of the Standard format, decks could be much cheaper. The damage is already starting to heal if you check the market value of kaladesh cards. The recent set isn't trash, yet the prices are stabilizing rapidly. Chandra is the chase mythic of the set, and she will not stay $45 for very long. The market just hasn't adjusted yet, and venders don't want to miss an opportunity to upsell the star planeswalker before people realize that they are overpaying.

>>49549204
>The recent set isn't trash, yet the prices are stabilizing rapidly.
Don't forget the masterpieces, cracking more packs just to get one will probably help lower the prices even more (of the actual Kaladesh cards, not of the masterpieces themselves)

>>49549077
Most Magic players don't spend more than $60.

If you want some perspective on what Magic means for the majority that lives outside of the grinder microcosm, go people watching at wal-mart. Believe it or not, Magic usually isn't a lifestyle.

>>49549204
>It doesn't cost $600 to play Magic either.

No, it costs more like $6000-$12000 actually. All six hundo gives you is one deck in one format, and frankly, you'd have to be some kind of an autist to willingly play the same fucking deck more than a couple times.

>>49549258
>Most Magic players don't spend more than $60.

Of course not. Because anyone who spends more than $60 on a game of any kind is insane, and most people aren't. But to have true FUN with Magic, genuinely play the game and not just fuck around with the game a little bit, you need to sell your car and buy some cards. That $60 is only going to buy you one deck at best, and that one deck will be weak and shitty and you'll be sick and tired of it by the end of the day. And that's not cool. This game is great when it's great. But to have fun with it at all, somebody needs to have put about ten thousand dollars into a trashcan and set the trashcan on fire.

>>49546159
Who was running magic during the Mirrodin -> Lorwyn era? Because NWO was definitely not around then.

>>49545733
>Alara and Innistrad
>Strongest cards ever printed in the game.
Anon. I'm not sure how to tell you this, but you are so wrong it hurts.

>>49549300
>But to have true FUN with Magic, genuinely play the game and not just fuck around with the game a little bit, you need to sell your car and buy some cards.

This where your perspective bottlenecks. Apparently the demographic that acquires the most players, people who have no desire to go to tournaments or learn what a format is, aren't having "true" fun. This is a sort of a paradox because you wouldn't learn what a format is unless you enjoyed playing the game enough to learn more about it. Why do you think Pokemon and Yugioh are still killing in retail sales? It's not organized play, that's for sure.

Buying an Xbox and five games a year is $700. At two blocks a year, $350 gives you a lot of leeway to compete in Standard. That's more than the value of the decks I typically run, even though I usually end up spending much more than that.

>>49549407
NWO is only concerned with the gameplay created by commons. It was created to remedy the overwhelmingly negative response casual players had to games using time spiral and lorwyn cards. NWO means nothing more and nothing less than that.

A thing people need to consider about these decks is that WotC is being cautious about this product for a few reasons.

* These are the first introductory products that inherently feature repeatable tutoring and recursion. These are dangerous mechanics to push even slightly, especially for new players.
* The beginning player doesn't benefit at all from these decks being tournament-viable, but secondary market scalpers can make life more difficult for these players if the intro pack exclusives turn out to be staples.

This is a radical new product, and it will take time to make improvements. Look at the commander products to see how a product line can improve over time.

>>49549607

>The beginning player doesn't benefit at all from these decks being tournament-viable

Yeah, why would a new player want to be able to sit down at a table and have a reasonably competitive game with people at the game store they bought the fucking deck in, ammirite?

Clearly new players benefit far more by having the ONLY POSSIBLE WAY to use the deck they just bought be making a friend buy one as well.

>>49549607
>This is a radical new product, and it will take time to make improvements.
This
I have good hopes for it, looking at the first two
We'll see in 4 months

>>49549568

oh shit, it's almost time for me to buy my yearly xbox

>>49549607

If these decks aren't supposed to be tournament-viable then do not make their exclusive cards standard-legal. Let them be legacy legal, like how the exclusive Commander cards are. But there is no reason cards printed like this and not available in regular sets should be legal in the rotating format that already being crushed under its own weight of card prices.

>>49545761
And yet mtg's numbers skyrocketed when they started doing this.

Selling out worked.

>>49546737
But if they decks are good wont established players buy them all thus locking them out from actually new players?

>>49549727

Surprisingly, businesses are often rewarded by customers for exhibiting the most reprehensible anti-consumer practices. I have no earthly idea why.

>>49539300
>It's never worth it to buy any sealed product

Remember event decks?

>>49547011
He doesn't remember the intro deck with Jitte

>>49549756
Because what the average consumer wants isn't the same as what us "hardcore gamers" want.

>>49545798
Lotus Cobra is still stronger than all of those.

>>49549752
They don't have to be tier 1, they can be tier 2/3 or at least have a focused plan. A deck of 1-2-ofs is not a focused deck, there is no unified game-plan (unless you talk about vintage or decks like kiki-chord).

I built a UW heroic deck in the early days of Theros, it was not even tier 2, but it focused on sticking a single creature and using heroic triggers + protection and Aqueous Form to beat the enemy. I had fun with that deck because I knew what I needed to do and could learn how to play this plan against other decks.

>>49549568
>Buying an Xbox and five games a year is $700.

WAY better value than Magic. Not even factoring in the detail that nobody re-buys their consoles yearly, or buys games at full retail price, you're still getting five full games, not a meaninglessly tiny fraction of one game.

Because that's what a Magic deck is. A meaninglessly tiny fraction of the game "Magic the Gathering". It's like one level in a game.

>>49549607
>The beginning player doesn't benefit at all from these decks being tournament-viable

Complete nonsense. On what world do new players not benefit from winning games? The whole reason Intro Packs have been such an absolute failure is that you can't play against real decks with them and hope to win. Their power level is so low that they can only beat other intro packs, but nobody else at the store is going to be playing with an intro pack.

>but secondary market scalpers can make life more difficult for these players if the intro pack exclusives turn out to be staples.

Scalpers are a real problem, like the skyrocketing prices of the few intro packs with playables in them has shown, but you can fight scalpers by printing to demand. Eventually, scalpers will run out of money and will have to give up their scheme.

>>49549756
>Surprisingly, businesses are often rewarded by customers for exhibiting the most reprehensible anti-consumer practices. I have no earthly idea why.

It's because most people are fucking clueless and the few that get it don't make enough noise. Applies to everything, not just games.

>>49549752
>But if they decks are good wont established players buy them all thus locking them out from actually new players?

How the fuck is that a problem? Print as many as people are willing to buy. Inform people in advance that the intro decks are not a "collectible" product and will be printed to match demand, whether that demand is a thousand copies or a billion.

And if every player buys the deck, great. Mission accomplished. It's not like it's going to be the only deck around unless something went seriously wrong in the balancing stage, it's just going to be a deck that you're guaranteed to run into, so people will make decks that counter it, and then decks that counter the counter.

>>49550133
The problem is that WoTC literally sucks the scalpers' dicks. Look at the BFZ fat pack. From the Vault sets. Modern Masters. Eternal Masters. The discontinuation of Clash Packs and Event Decks because they were actually quality products. The downgrading of Duel Decks over the years (As a previous comment stated, just compare Elspeth vs Tezzeret to Nissa vs Ob Nixilis and you'll experience a HUGE difference in power level)

>>49550246

BFZ Fat Pack is actually the one case where I'm kind of sympathetic to the scalpers, because let's be real here, only reason people wanted it at all was the full art lands. And you don't need to have full art lands. They have no gameplay function that a regular basic land doesn't have. Pure pimp factor. So as far as I care, the scalpers can scalp them all they fucking want. What I have an issue with, and what damages the game so much, is when scalpers scalp cards that people NEED to play the game. Cards that DO things.

>>49539300
Not true, loads of the event decks have had excellent EV, as well as being legitimately playable deck foundations in some cases.

Also the Commander decks are frequently excellent value.

>>49541115
Oh man this thing again. Look, you know what separates Magic from practically every wargame in existence? The contents of a Magic intro product are an absolute waste of money you'll never use later whilst wargame starter sets tend to include core units that actually go towards a proper army.

If you buy 40K, AoS, Firestorm Armada, Planetfall, Star Wars Armada, Dropzone Commander, probably Dropfleet and so on you get the core of an army that you can build on later and in a lot of cases can even have an interesting initial game with. Hell, Battlefleet Gothic had 4 cruisers a side, that was enough to have genuinely interesting battles with and if you kitted one out as a heavy cruiser there was legitimately enough in the box to mean you never had to buy more, those 4 cruisers were enough to play small but deep games with.

If you buy a Magic intro pack you learn very quickly that almost every card you really want is at Uncommon through Mythic and that most of what you bought is worthless to you.

>>49546737
Objectively wrong. Good news, you can go on not giving a shit about players that had fun with intro packs and moved on to real Magic

>>49550459
Guess you aren't that guy in my FLGS that bought a EMN Intro Pack to get in the Modern event 30 minutes later

>>49548577
I agree. I used to buy packs pretty consistently when I made my money back. I remember cracking so many of the various commands from Dragons packs and feeling like I've got my money back. Even MM15 had a reasonable chance of getting your money back if you bought 3 packs.

Eternal masters, by comparison, cost the same as MM15, if not a little more money, and realistically only 5 or 6 cards are worth the price of the pack. Sure, foil brainstorm and whatnot, but in the end you wind up spending $16 per pack to crack a $10 mythic, if you`re lucky. You could wind up with a $0.50 rare, which is the overwhelmingly more likely situation. EM was particularly bad in this regard. There are only two cards worth cracking, and it`s logistically better to wait until they rotate out of standard and plummet in value, like every set since Theros.

>>49547006
This is why I IRON CUBELET.
Store every card in alphabetical order. Anything left over that's not worth trading goes into The Box Of Iron.
100 cards come out of The Box Of Iron. (20 of each colour, probably.)

Shuffle them up. Play Cubelet.
Anything left in the graveyard at the end of the game gets torn up (or can be claimed by anyone in the store).
What's left goes back in the Box Of Iron to await its DESTINY.

>>49547186
>>49547398
They put playsets of the commons into the intro packs.
Flame Lash is pretty cool.

>>49547208
I bought 2 for exactly this reason: strip 1 for parts, sleeve up the second with almost no changes to play.
(Adding Mindslaver and Inventor's Fair, of course.)

>>49545919
>Never again will we have something that scrapes close to Mind Sculptor - the ONLY Eternal playable Planeswalker.
Dack Fayden and Liliana of the Veil would like a chat

>>49549716
Tournament viability =/= Standard legality.

The new cards are Standard legal so that new players don't buy them and immediately have to take out 7 of the best cards in the deck and replace them to play Standard.
Remember when Stoneforge Mystic got banned and it was in an Intro Pack?
That list was entirely Standard legal if you played it completely unchanged, Stoneforge and all, for the same reason. Of course if you wanted to change the deck, the first thing you had to do was take out Stoneforge, but that's not nearly as tough as the cuts you're suggesting be mandatory for Standard play.

>>49550479
Nope. I'm the guy who bought an Intro Pack three years ago and a single booster of Shards of Alara I impulse bought 2 years before that.

Guess which of these products made Magic accessible when I found it huge and intimidating?

>>49548597
1 in 8 packs is just what it tends to be. The real rarity distribution is 2 of each rare per each 1 of a mythic. This change eliminates the rarity difference.

>>49550699
>The new cards are Standard legal so that new players don't buy them and immediately have to take out 7 of the best cards in the deck and replace them to play Standard.

This is the premise that you are taking these decks to Friday Night Magic, in which case these products are unacceptable because they are so bad and so inconsistent that the only chance they have is against other intro pack decks.

Guys guys guys, what if we put alternate art promo rares in intro packs that way people who like particular card have to buy the intro pack for the particular art, and noobs wind up getting one or two cards worth $5 in addition to a deck worth $5 and two packs.

>>49550823
Except that they're never gonna know in advance which rares will be worth anything, and anytime they get it right, it'll be mostly through luck, like the Courser of Kruphix clash pack, meanwhile the Intro Pack alternate rares had shitty foiling and were garbage 50 cent rares anyway

>>49550758

"Neither" is the only plausible answer.

>>49550906
The only exception being Pia and Kiran Nalaar is an Intro Pack rare and is seeing play in eternal formats so the alt foil is worth $6.50

>>49550699
>The new cards are Standard legal so that new players don't buy them and immediately have to take out 7 of the best cards in the deck and replace them to play Standard.

Yeah, instead you only have to FUCKING. LOSE. EVERY. FUCKING. GAME.

It doesn't fucking matter if it's "standard legal" because you can't fucking win against a standard deck with it.

>>49550772
No, the premise is that you CAN take them to FNM, not that they're FOR taking to FNM. The Standard legality of those cards lets Planeswalker packs work on multiple axes at the same time. An introductory product you can modify and change to your own liking? Sure!
A deck that you can use out of the box in Standard in case you have no friends or want a different environment? Okay!
A deck that lets you play the game casually with your mates without playing sanctioned Magic? Sure!

Don't pretend that there isn't a difference between "possible" and "strong for".
Don't pretend the difference is meaningless either.
If you see someone buying a Planeswalker deck, you're seeing someone on a learning curve. You can shit on their choices, or you can help. Up to you.

>>49550823

That seems like it would do nothing to address the central problem that intro packs are not a good introduction to Magic because they're too weak.

>>49550988
>No, the premise is that you CAN take them to FNM, not that they're FOR taking to FNM.

Do you seriously think the distinction matters? At all? That it's important that the deck is standard legal, even if it loses against literally any standard-legal deck?

Why the fuck do you think a new player should care about formats and rotations more than about fucking winning? Genuinely curious here, because in my experience winning is kind of the point of the game. And if you're going to tell me that the real point is fun, let me pre-emptively counter by saying that losing 0-100 because you're handicapped by your shitty deck is not "fun" to most people.

>>49550931
And yet here I am, talking about Magic at 5 AM on 4chan.
Gee, I wonder if the introductory product for brand new players had anything to do with it?
>>49550939
Yup. And how many other alt foil rares came out of Origins?
Annnd how many of those are worth shit?
Blind luck, I tell you.
>>49550965
See >>49550988

>>49550988
>If you see someone buying a Planeswalker deck, you're seeing someone on a learning curve. You can shit on their choices, or you can help. Up to you.

The best help I can offer them is to slap the Planeswalker deck out of their hands before they can buy it. It is not a good buy for a new player. Or an old player. Or anyone anywhere.

>>49550988
>Don't pretend that there isn't a difference between "possible" and "strong for".

Not in any way that fucking matters, there isn't. There is no point whatsoever in having a deck that's "legal in Vintage" unless it can beat Grixis control with the full Power 9, and the same principle applies to Standard. There is no reason to have any kind of a """"""standard legal""""" deck if it can't steal at least some rounds off of whatever is the best deck in Kaladesh Standard. Fuck, it would be better to play some blatantly illegal shit with Unglued cards and cards you made up yourself if it was closer to the power level of your opponent's deck.

>>49551042
>Do you seriously think the distinction matters?
I absolutely do.
I also think that there's something more important than winning to a new player of a game, or even than being capable of winning, and that's that the game itself be an enjoyable experience. If they can't win, they might not come back. If they can't even have fun without having to take out a bunch of cool cards - one of which is the reason they bought the damn deck - they almost certainly won't.

>>49551057
Or you could not shit on their choice as a new player to a game with (and think how intimidating this sounds) over two decades of shit you've missed, and HELP.

>>49551120
Standard is where you start, Vintage is where you retire and live with your 72 cats.
You're comparing a 16-year-old's first beater to an F1 car, and missing the point hugely of the entire product.
Planeswalker decks aren't supposed to steal games off tournament calibre lists, that's not what they're designed for, even if it is technically possible.
What they're for is to demonstrate that the game is FUN.
The reason Standard legality is important for that is it lets you immediately try out that fun and see how other people also have fun and how differently they play.

>>49551135
>Or you could not shit on their choice as a new player to a game with (and think how intimidating this sounds) over two decades of shit you've missed, and HELP.

You don't get it.

To help that player is to prevent them from making bad choices.

Buying a fucking Intro deck is a Bad Choice.

They should be getting one of those FREE sample decks, from places that still have those, and learning to play from those. They have the same value as an Intro pack, none, but they cost less. Another way to learn the game: Duels, the F2P online magic. Play that for a while. Costs nothing. Then they should be looking up a decklist of some $20 budget standard deck that beats that Intro deck 10-0 and buying it as singles. Or buying a Commander deck, if there's an EDH scene in the place. Or getting into drafts maybe, sanctioned if they're feeling brave or cube if not. All of these are good ideas. Paying 15 dollars for a shitty Intro pack with purposefully bad cards is not.

>>49551225
>Standard is where you start

Yes, cause people learning the game should buy a 200$ decks. Makes the hobby inclusive.

If there weren't things like intro packs, most of mtg's players wouldn't have started playing.

>>49551225
>What they're for is to demonstrate that the game is FUN.
>The reason Standard legality is important for that is it lets you immediately try out that fun

Are you using the Dwarf Fortress definition of "fun"? As in, "Losing is fun"? Hope you are, because that's what you're going to do with your intro pack: lose. Hopelessly. Over and over and over, not necessarily because you're bad at the game (though a new player usually is) but because you're running with cement shoes on. If that's fun for you, fuck, you're going to have a lot of fun. Enjoy your fun.

Me, I believe that losing because of unfair bullshit is the opposite of fun, and WotC are insane to create a product designed to make new players lose unfairly to everybody else.

>>49551225
>Standard is where you start

No. Playing no-format casual with whatever cards you can get your hands on is where you start. Caring about standard legality and formats in general already means you're pretty serious about the game.

>>49551349
Well, it's where you start when you don't have no-format casual-playing friends.
>>49551321
The game itself is fundamentally interesting and engaging, win or lose, and losing might not be fun, but it doesn't stop playing the game from being fun (maybe for you it does, and if so I pity you).
That's why intro decks existed and why planeswalker decks exist. If you get hung up on the fact that they're bad decks, congrats, you are no longer the target market.

Maybe it's me, and the fact that I spent probably hundreds of hours playing real time strategy games online against opponents who vastly outclassed me and would crush me without mercy... But I still had fun playing the game, despite how consistently I lost. PLAYING was fun. That's what these decks are meant to teach.

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Reading his thread makes me understand how far removed from reality some of you people are. These products aren't for you.

Intro packs/planeswalker decks are super important because most of the playerbase aren't autists who spend days researching cards before they buy their first deck. Most people go into a store and see a deck with a cool dragon on the pack and buy one. Then they get their friends to buy one as well. It is much easier to get someone to buy a ready 15$ deck than to make them read hundreds of format legal cards. FFS, what 10 year old will get his mom to buy him into standard?!

Sure these decks aren't FMN viable. Only a small part of mtg players go to FNM, because standard decks are too expensive. Most people buy some intro pack when a new set comes out and play with their friends on a kitchen table. Maybe they buy 1 or 2 boosters a month and get some cool rare. It doesn't matter, if the Nissa deck doesn't have 4 Verdurous Gearhulks because the guy across the table also have an intro pack. And, if the decks had cards that you nerds wanted, the price would skyrocket - the players who the decks are meant for wouldn't be able to afford them.

In addition, you can't learn deck building, if you already get a great deck. Part of the fun, when I started magic, was figuring out what works and what doesn't - why a ninja deck doesn't need a 1/4 vanilla spirit.

>>49551451
FUCKING.
THANK.
YOU.

>>49550906
I don't know about that. My alternate art archfiend of depravity is pretty sexy.

And wizards isn't dumb, they could release intro packs after a sealed test-group plays and after a pseudo-standard test group plays. It's pretty intuitive what's going to have value, particularly if they talk to someone like Star City before game.

The point is, if you make attractive alternate art cards in into packs, some of them are bound to be worth money simply by putting out such a high volume of limited run products, the same way they made all the gearhulks masterpeices because they knew they would be fairly popular and at least one would be good for formats outside of standard.

>>49551451
This is the correct answer.

>>49551622
They already have the Future Future League, and they completely whiffed on Collected Company.
After the New Phyrexia Godbook fiasco they're never letting anyone external have access to a set before release again either.
Their development and design teams are too small and too close to the process to gauge accurately which rares are gonna be $5 roughly and they're not going to let some outside pros handle it either.

Sorry.

>>49549262
>you'd have to be some kind of an autist to willingly play the same fucking deck more than a couple times.
Haha, nigga what?

>>49551451
FUCKIN G THIS

Its incredible /tg/ hardcore players believe they are the only people who plays magic.

The mtg community i not only the competitive or tryhards ones, the vast mayority of people that plays mtg are fucking casuals.

Yesterday at my lgs a guy with his son bought 2 intro packs because the lil boy wanted to play with his brother a card game. Simple as that.

The owner have no more intro packs because casuals bought them from time to time (tryhards bought the SoI intro packs because it had Tracker on it).
Thats how things work with intro/planeswalker packs. Its not for us, competitive players, but for casual that got interested in the game.

>>49551728
>Future Future League
>New Phyrexia Godbook
I have no idea what either of these things are, and I guess you're right. The problem is that people creating the cards are too invested in their arbitrary nonsense and generally miss the big picture. I was thinking you could just print EDH designed cards in standard that don't really synergize with the set, but completely fit an EDH archetype. I don't think opening up the design space like that would be inherently detrimental, particularly if there are cost-effective fringe decks that could use it, a la brain in a jar.

>>49551790
Future Future League is a standard format involving the next few sets that Wizards internally use to test cards to filter out broken cards (skullclamp, jitte etc). They obviously missed collected company.

New Phyrexia Godbook references the fact the entire New Phyrexia set was leaked way before it's release date completely undoing the marketing plan Wizards had to lead the release of the set. Wizards now have much tighter restrictions on who knows about cards.

>>49551856
That's a shame, New Phyrexia was one of the best designed sets in my opinion. Now they've got this giant "Oh maybe it's emrakul, you`ll only know if you can follow these blatantly obvious clues, like Forsaken Shrine" circle jerk thing going on and it's just so... deflating. I mean I'm an adult who plays magic, and it feels like I`m getting phased out in favor of neo-walkers and teenage girls.

>>49551790
>I have no idea what the New Phyrexia godbook is
Oh boy, I am going to take you on a wild wild ride.
So, back in the days of yore, when there was still print media covering Magic releases, a Big Thing happened.
Remember the shitstorm that was Kozilek and Wastes getting leaked?
Hold on to your hat my friend, because this was a whole lot bigger.
So it starts with the review process for cards back in print media days.
Guillaume Matignon was a writer for Lotus Noir, a French publication, who was given by Wizards a "godbook" containing the entire set of New Phyrexia. The purpose was that Matignon and Lotus Noir should have content ready to go, so on release, the next issue of the magazine would have up to date information to cover the printing and release delay and so readers wouldn't have to wait until the following month to find out about the set they had started playing with already.
Matignon though, he made a mistake. A big one.
He shared the book - not bits of it, not a few morsels, the whole damn thing.
With Magic pro and personal friend Guillaume Wafo-Tapa.
(Now in the Hall of Fame!)
Weeks before spoilers were set to begin.
From there, copies went around the high level Magic community, and then hit the broader internet.
The entire set was out there, before official spoilers had even begun.
Both Matignon, Wafo-Tapa and a few other French players ate lengthy bans for this leak, Godbooks died instantly, and Wizards was FURIOUS.

>>49551856
Aw man...

>>49551984
Don't sweat it anon, I appreciate the indepth knowledge you shared.

>>49551790
There are plenty of cards in every set that will only ever see play in EDH. Just look at any high CMC mythic enchantment, most legendary creatures, equipment, specific creature types, take an extra turn cards, cards above 6cmc. None of these really see play in standard.

e.g. the pay 50 life deal 50 damage artifact.

Actually really strong cards for commander are also too strong for standard; decent cantrips, True-name-nemesis, council;s judgement, decent tutors, <4cmc boardwipes.

Although Fumigate is a very good 5cmc boardwipe for both standard and EDH.

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>>49551960

But anon, spoiling cards too early is bad. I like to get wrapped up in the manufactured hype and be a part of Wizards' unpaid advertisement department!

>>49551244
>free sample decks

At PAX, wizards was handing out free decks like fucking candy, each deck had 30 cards of a color you chose and 30 cards of another random color.

I was the only person in my PAX group that actually played magic and it was an awesome way to introduce them (even though G and R were far too strong). By the end people were actually trading cards.

No way I could have convinced people to buy $15 packs to buy the same level of shit cards.

>>49552225
Those should be the free sample decks.

Five ish years ago my freshman dorm floor had a tournament using those. Everyone chose two and played the tourny.

That was back when each color had two actual decks though. That was a bit surprising.

>>49552139
Apparently some pro was speculating that artifact is going to see play in some kind of modern egg.

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>>49551899
You are, and WotC doesn't even care. They think that we all buy the secondary market. They are hard core marketing to:
>SJW
>Casuals
>Feminist
>People of Color
>Vorthos players

Now I used to be a vorthos player, but they just fucked the story up origins forward. I miss old magic. Why can't they just create a new game for these trumblr teens. We are watching the death of mtg.

>>49552298
That or as a sideboard for a Pyromancer's Ascension-like deck.

>>49538912

Personally, I just don't like the way they do intro decks anymore, and frankly they were never particularly good to begin with. I bought my last intro deck during Odyssey and I ain't ever buying another one.

If your sister just wants Chandra and doesn't actually give a fuck about playing the game, it might be a good buy, but I'd at least try to be a "super awesome big brother" and throw in at least a couple of extra boosters.

>>49552303
Spikes are the only real Magic players.

>>49552303

Adding more people that aren't white male power fantasies triggers you, anon?

The story is shit; it has always been shit.

>>49552303
Ow the edgehog

>>49552303
>we are watching the death of MTG
They said the same thing about:
Urza block.
The Sixth Ed rule changes.
The mana burn rule change.
The M10 rule changes.
Mythic rarity.
Etc.
Etc.

>>49552225
Stores still get those. Walk into any store you've never been to before and tell them you're interested in learning to play, they should be able to offer you a demonstration game, then both 30-card decks used to play it, free of charge.
(Don't do this they're not worth your time).
>>49552191
The biggest problem was access to the godbook at the competitive level, not for the average Joe.

>>49552320
>I bought my last intro deck in Odyssey and I ain't ever buying another one.
Good - that means it worked.

>>49538912
It's a lot easier for retailers. I mean, seriously. No more need to stock up on an entire set's worth of intro packs just because 1-2 are popular. No more need to update the names for the intro packs, since they're named after the planeswalkers themselves. Only 2 products to keep track of. Oh, and when newer players ask for planeswalkers, we can point them to this product and it will have a beginner's guide as well.

Even if the walkers themselves are pretty crappy, they don't pollute the card pool of the set itself, and they're not really any worse than the usual intro pack rares (neither Chandra nor Nissa has a cmc of 7, and both have tutor/recur effects included on other cards). New players can learn how planeswalkers work from the beginning, instead of being unpleasantly surprised when playing against other people that have more expensive decks.

As another plus, it gives WotC an opportunity to create a bigger variety of planeswalkers (even if they aren't all Standard-worthy), which is great for formats like EDH. I mean, that Nissa is bulky as fuck.

All in all, I think it's great compared to the intro packs. Are they good for the even remotely advanced MTG player? Hell no. But that consumer segment never bought intro packs anyway unless one of the intro pack rares somehow went Standard playable (like the old Theros deck with Whip of Erebos).

Am I sad that they also removed Event Decks/Clash Packs for this? Yes. Planeswalker Decks should not have replaced those, and they also gave WotC the opportunity to increase access to viable strategies and cards for newer players.

>>49552382
I am still salty about the Legendary and Planeswalker rule changes.

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The card art is what got me into magic.

I understand that the art is technically more proficient, but it has no wonder, no mystery.

Look at the old grapeshot. Look at that mage, it's wearing armor, its it a human, an alien? The new grapeshot is so... obvious.

Don't even get me started on lands, although the new Kaladesh ones are nice.

>>49546978
I sure as hell wasn't mad at having 8 Puresteel Paladins, Kor Firewalkers and Journey to Nowhere when buying 2 War of Attrition decks for my playset of Stoneforge.
That just meant I could buy MORE cards because now I had the basis for a casual monowhite deck and a casual W/x deck when I wasn't raping people with CAW Blade.

>>49552579
Yeah but you were building CAW blade.
This means that you were past the "new player" point that post is talking about.

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>>49546978
Alright, so following that line of logic of wanting people not to feel bad about their pulls, why would they print cards like pic related?

This card just fucking sucks no matter. If you're experienced this card is just bad. If you're new this card is not only terrible, but also not even fun, big and stompy. This would be such a slap in the face to anyone excited about cracking their rare.

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>>49552555

But anon, people don't want weird art. They want humans and not-humans who looks like humans. That makes the cards more relatable because we are humans.

>>49547940
WotC would rather be a bank than a toy company.

>>49552665
Well, with goblins as an example Wizards have been certain to make it so each creature type looks consistently within each plane. I guess on Kaladesh Dwarfs look like humans but are Dwarves because the subtype says so.

>>49548157
You can buy an Ob Nixilis deck that would beat these two 20-0 with $10.
Half the walkers of every set have gone for less than $10 after presale-bullshit is done, WotC didn't need to print even worse walkers, all they needed to do was admit Ob Nixilis is designed to be a game piece and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar was designed to be an invaluable necessity for competitive play that will help sell aprox 110 boosters per copy needed by every spike in the world.

In short they need to admit they know about, pay attention to and design cards with the secondary market in mind.

>>49552699
>>49552665

It's not even really a question of non-human. Even compare the old ulamog to the new ulamog. I'd be surprised if anyone actually prefers the aesthetics and art direction of the new one. New ulamog is just such an obvious choice for a eldritch horror.

>>49552699

Why make a new race, if it looks like humans, acts like humans, is in traditionally human color, and there is only one card in the entire set that interacts with dwarfs (Depala)?

>>49552699
Fantasy Dwarves usually look like short humans because real dwarves are - surprise! - short, weird-looking humans.

>>49548792
>Liliana of the Veil is right now literally worth her weight in gold
Really makes you think.

>>49552750
Because Dwarves are a traditional fantasy race, Humans are in EVERY colour (and don't feel white anymore), and people like Dwarves and think they're cool.

>>49548120
You can collect investments
You can collect collectibles
But never invest in collectibles

>>49552329
>>49552360
Oh lets make more trans, crippled, feminsit, and LGBTBBQ characters, because that's what the fucking game needs. Also I wish all the Indian and muslim would stop talking about the young turks at FMN. I know you're not a nigger because they only play YuGiOh!

>>49552660
Cards p good in limited

>>49552746
I agree the clarification of the detail of what Ulamog looks like on the new art takes away some of the horror of it.

The stylised version of art on the original I definitely somewhat prefer.

>>49552750
Wizards have to make 5-10 or so archetypes for draft and sometimes the ideas for certain colour combinations are a bit uninspired.

>>49548900
WotC doesn't support Vintage or Legacy anymore, Modern is dead, the Commander comunity is fracturing and Standard tournament attendance is not only no longer growing but actually diminishing. A lot of people also report that getting a draft to run at smaller LGS is impossible.

I say, if this year's Commander Product is not a complete homerun, the company won't meet sales growth expectations this year compared to last year.

>>49552850
I'm not hip to limited but I can only see it as a side board choice there.

>>49552913
Unclogs the board and can go into any color deck that would want it

>>49547075
That sounds really fun actually

>>49552878
>the Commander comunity is fracturing

Explain, each commander set is more popular than the last.

>>49552814

Are dwarfs really dwarfs, if there is nothing "dwarf" about them?

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>>49545901
>a. b. c. b. e.

>>49552401

I hadn't really meant what I said as a compliment to pre-built decks. Although they are definitely for some people, I had been playing the game for some time before I ever felt the desire to buy this thing, and the deck itself (the blue/ white one) did not impress once I opened it, even at my young age. Considering that much, we can at least say that, among all the decks they've released, there are certainly a handful of decks they make that are so bad, they can't even keep a kid interested in the game.

>>49542139
They're really trying to brand MtG around the core Jacetice league. Don't expect non-league cards to get intro packs (unless they are the big bad, which I'm expecting for revolt).

I personally think this is shit, and haven't bought anything since Tarkir, but apparently other people like it. To each their own I guess.

There a couple assumptions people keep making:

>New players are retarded and should be ripped off.
No, they shouldn't Sure, they don't really understand what's going on, but I'm sure you could reprint an abandoned standard deck from long ago as casual kitchen table magic with a few useful cards and neat interactions that would appeal to casuals. It's pretty undignified to assume every new player is retarded simply because they've invested less time.

>Limited and Standard are important.
No. Sure they sell packs for WotC, but really, standard is pretty awful almost always, and while limited can be fun, it's generally fun without this retarded balancing prevalent in Eternal Masters. People will still by packs without micromanaging your distribution of playable cards like some kind of korean MMORPG played through an app.

>People like planeswalkers.
Again, no. New players like planeswalkers because they don't know any better and haven't interacted with them. Every player goes through a cycle of: "woah everything is cool" followed by "jesus that planeswalker is strong, I should get one" concluding with "godfucking damnit I'm sick of dealing with planeswalkers, I'm not going to play them out of spite." By focusing on planeswalkers, it's easier to design sets. What if the gatewatch went to neo-egypt? What if they went to some weird space colony? What about if they wound up in (insert aesthetic adjective at random) (insert random place with a visible minority)?

>>49553170
>New players are retarded and should be ripped off.

I agree, this is a weird thought process that only MTG players seem to have. It's okay for them to waste money early on because they don't know better. That's scamming, not introducing.

Malifaux is great for this, you can pretty much buy any master box and actually play a decent game of malifaux (except Hammelin, fuck that guy). You can make actual competitive boxes by buying two and mix and matching.

I know /tg/ is filled with autists that will argue about how I'm wrong and magic will be better off without me; however, I have not met a single person in real life that likes the jacetice league.

It's like reliving the Weatherlight days, and I guess it will take another Magic crash to make people remember how awful of an idea that was. Except every fucking card is so weak and neutered we'll never see another combo winter.

>>49549407
Mirrodin to Lorwyn was actually good and the problems that arose during that era were problems with the probability genius not being involved at all anymore rather than WotC purposedly designing only one good card each set and making it a Mythic Rare.

>>49553170
This post is in a weird state of "New players should be respected but also we should ignore what we know about them to make them like us, wise invested players".

>>49553231
What pisses me off even more is the concept of booster boxes. Realistically, you can buy a booster box and not be able to make a standard playable deck. As a collector, I buy a booster box because I generally get my money back. As an EDH player, I buy a box for the chase mythics, throw the chaff in a giant box, and wind up reselling everything I don't need and/or have extras of.

As a new player, what are you going to do? Buy a fat pack and wind up with a pile of unplayable garbage? Buy an intro pack actively ripping you off? Buy a box and wind up with a pile of unplayable garbage? Each of these options has one thing in common: spending money inefficiently in order to try and play the game. Buying singles is always more efficient, and is usually a direct result of Wizards packaging things inefficiently.

>>49553303
But that's the balance you need if you don't want a yugioh style powercreep.

>>49553252
I think most weatherlight crew members got a whole one card dedicated to them, and rarely warped the formats they were in.

Jacetice league members will get multiple cards, each warping the game like Lili and Chandra.

And that's ignoring how the weatherlight crew had actual narrative heft behind it (Barrin nuking everything for instance), while Jacetice league is a Saturday morning cartoon.

It's not so much the narrative bones of Jacetice league that make it bad, but it's focus and application.

>>49552878
Source:I'm 14 and doomsday predictions aren't trite to me yet.

>>49548120
sorry, according to /tg/ magic is doing better than it ever has in the history of time right now, hasbro is making money hand over fist, all the cards and sets are perfect and fantastic, the jacetice league is fun and interesting, and this will continue increasing, geometrically, forever

>>49553333
Well booster boxes only exist because autists wanted to buy packs for a bulk discount. But I agree, everyone I have watched start magic does so by getting free cards from more experience people.

Wizards is so bad a getting beginners the cards it needs, usually other players have to step in and help them. I was pretty much gifted my entire first edh deck: Vorel.

>>49553376
By contrast, the sealed commander products were some of the best intro-products ever released. They have the perfect power level: slightly above what you could build by cracking packs, but disntictly below mid-tier with a linear plan on how to make them high-tier without totally scraping the deck.

Why couldn't they use this same approach but make "Standard: The Deck" precons in a variety of colors with "Modern: The Deck" precons as well, but at a higher price point. You don't even need to include things to get your money back, just make the standard ones $50 with a few staples that are about to rotate out and the modern ones $100 with a few staples, but some key things obviously omitted?

>>49553348

Wedge? What are you doing on /tg/?

>>49553424
That's an interesting point. I wonder why they feel compelled to make standard entry such a miserable experience while getting into commander is not only easy, but a joy.

Would making standard intro good lower the incentive for people to current crack packs? A lot of their new efforts (expeditions) seems to be directed toward ensuring more cracked packs and I think competent standard intro decks would ruin that.

>>49549752
Elspeth vs Tezzeret was worth $90 on release with a $20 prize tag. it was never impossible to find at Wal Mart because they restocked.

You've just been drinking the Kool Aid too hard, the excuses they give as to why they don't want people to have easy access to good cards are just excuses and have been proven false by previous good products behaving differently than they say hypothetical new good products would.

They don't want to reprint good cards because the promise of a possible reprint is more valuable than an actual reprint. Cards like Damnation are not game pieces in their minds, they're stocks appreciating as scarcity increases and they don't need to sell until they peak. Damnation, LotV, Tarmogoyf and FoW are instant sold out cards they can use whenever they don't feel like actually working to design a set and won't be reprinted anywhere else ever.
As for new cards, every set from Origins onward has had 1-2 good mythics and a couple good rares with everything else being shit. Why? Because a specific Mythic Rare appears once every 110 boosters, that means somebody has to open 440 boosters for a playset of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. And so they design Standard so that everyone needs 4 Jace, 4 Gideon, 4 Liliana, 4 Chandra, and force stores to buy product in unsustainable qualities for the only single that's actually selling.

They don't avoid giving us access to good cards because it's good for gameplay, they do it because it's good for extorting LGS and therefore extorting the players that buy from them.

>>49553333
>>49553376
go back to your netrunner.
i swear to god, every thread and you fucks are here complaining about the devils of boosters.

>>49553468
Nice strawmanning, but I never said boosters were evil. Limited is a great time (conspiracy makes my dick hard) and only packs make that possible. There's also a great feeling to cracking packs.

However it is a shit way to starting a collection.

What's your stance, if you actually have one? Do you enjoy the artificial rarity of certain cards?

>>49553454
>Would making standard intro good lower the incentive for people to current crack packs?
I would argue absolutely not. You aren't including a playset of the new Chandra, you're going to get a playset of Dramoka's Command right before they rotated, or two of Nahri's Wrath, which is a good card, but not something game breaking. You could even throw in something that you know is going to dive-bomb in value once it rotates, like Grim Flayer and the new Emrakul, but only one of them with $10 in other cards. You still keep the chase rares in the boosters, and people will crack packs to try and get things that give them an edge, but instead of making people crack packs of older sets, you stick the some of the good things together from that set in a deck and sell it for a higher msrp. The biggest problem with this approach are two things:

1) You can't build these products super far in advance for fear that you'll release something substandard as the meta changed, or something overpowered that was printed in advance.
2) You can't just dump the decks that top tournaments, you need to take out some of the things that make them good and substitute them with jankier, but still functional alternatives. Again this takes time.

Just release one deck at the beginning of each set, or a few decks at the beginning of each cycle, and repackage old cards that didn't really have a place once standard rotates so that the value is generally lower, but there is the potential to hit a home run if you hold onto it for 5 years.

Modern is even easier: just release the bones of a deck with $1 rares in some slots and maybe one nice reprint, then sell them at $100 a pop. Stick $75 worth of cards in there, a few alternate art and/or shiny things, and I bet people would lap them up.

Why do mtg players have such a fetish for crying doom? You never hear a recovering alcoholic tell his friends "its over, booze is going to die out." This delusion appears to be unique to magic.

>>49553468
>implying
I have a gambling addiction, I love cracking packs, but right now it isn't worth my money to crack packs. Eternal Masters killed it for me. I cracked three mythics, which were Agothoian Enchantress, Sphinx of the Steel Wind and Worldgorger dragon out of the 20ish packs I opened. The only things I got of any value whatsoever were two tops, a sinkhole, a Maelstrom wanderer that I specifically bought as a single, a fuckload of counterspell/daze/hydroblast and a few niche foils. It wasn't worth my money whatsoever, unlike MM15 which had things like Elesh Norn, Kiki-Jiki and the Leylines. You could even luck into a Fulmator, Clique or Spellskite, unlike EM, where you hit one of the 6 good cards, got a fancy foil by luck, or had something worth less than the pack. I bought so many MM15 packs because the things I got were useful. 90% of my packs from EM pissed me off and made me regret my decision. It's awful when Rancor is worth $1 more than your rare.

>>49553630
EMA was always clearly designed to be bought by the box for drafting.

>>49553672
Of course it was, which shows two things:

1)Wizards knows they can tailor sets with less value for "limited playability", and print those on limited runs.
2) People expect less from a set if it's described as "draft playable".

A lot of people I know who bought boxes didn't make their money back, or at best cracked a single high price card which made their money back. Why would I buy sets by the pack like that? As standard sets consider limited construction more, this issue will become more and more prevelant. SoI was designed as a draft set and it worked nicely, but that was due to a niche 2 sided slot increasing the EV of the packs, whereas EM, which also had the flip slot has it's value tied up in a few top things, which decreased the chance of cracking something good, more along the lines of EM. This can be explained by Nahri. Nahri wasn't anticipated to be good, which made it a value crack as it was printed at a higher frequency, unlike Taymio, who was expected to be good then was underutilized outside of standard.

>>49551451
the point is that they could be that and still be slightly more playable.

if timmy wants to but a cool ass deck because he saw a dragon on the front cool for me.
but what if the deck also contained few good commons so that timmy will have good cards for his next deck? what if the deck is actually decently powered so timmy can actually play with his friends that are just 3 days of mtg experience ahead of him? what if the deck had been built with proper MTG deckbuilding tips such as " don't put motherfucking everything 1x"? what if the deck concept itself wasn't centered around 1 card, supported by few rare others that timmy would eventually have to abandon to become a player who is competitive at even fucking based kitchen magic?

>>49552660
Its a tumble magnet with added ability lockdown and floating counters. Mana creep too strong, pla nerf. But yeah, not really the bomb people hope to pull

>>49551451
>These products aren't for you.

These products aren't for anyone with a working brain. They're for people too stupid or too naive to know about better alternatives. The fact that you and your ilk will bend over fucking backwards to defend Wizards for shoveling this pile of horseshit product absolutely baffles me. They can do better, other games do these things better, hell certain online STORES make intro decks worth more of a damn than these that cost LESS and actually function like decks and sell them. Wizards has no excuse for this product, and by attempting to deflect it with a "it's not for youuuu I started with an intro deck!" bullshit you are perpetuating a bad fucking consumer practice.

>>49553747
>>49553672

See now I'm confused because conspiracy 2: electric bugaloo is 10/10 to play and rather valuable. Which means wizards doesn't always pick one or the other.

>>49553584
True, but a packs value isn't just all or nothing. There's a lot of middle cards that are $5 that make your pack worth cracking, but don't bring down the house. Having those cards in intro decks would make the less valuable, making the average pack be worth less, making it harder to get back your money's worth. This makes packs less bought and that makes Chandra even more expensive.

>>49553816
Tg is fucking bad bud. Im picking up my set of new tumble magnets just in case they find a deck.

>>49553896
>See now I'm confused because conspiracy 2: electric bugaloo is 10/10 to play and rather valuable. Which means wizards doesn't always pick one or the other.
Conspiracy 2 feels like a happy mistake

>>49549077
Most boardgames arent as modular and as long lived as magic. Magic is a tabletop game with infinate pieces and contains as many turns as there are people willing to try new things. some people are happy getting 20 dollars worth for a basic experience while others spend thousands to experience everything. It is the best board game up there amongst the great one like dnd.

>>49553896
Conspiracy has ultra super ghost rare Kaya: The Unplayable screwing things. Admittedly there are some neat things, but it's going to be printed into oblivion, much like the first conspiracy, which is going to make most of the cards worthless in a year's time. Right now is when they're at the peak of their value; right after they were released, but before the next set came out. I was pleasantly surprised with conspiracy 2, and I don't think, it was intentional.

Anyways with regard to pack value, it is all or nothing when you're paying $15 a pack. Getting a $5 card is a win when you spent $6 on a pack. When you spent $15 per pack, cracked three, and wound up with $8 worth of cards, with one of them being mythic, it leaves a pretty bad taste in your mouth.

With regard to those decks, notice how I specifically mentioned sets that were about to rotate? You don't print your home-run cards with the set as it comes out, you reprint them later with alternate art when they're already established as standard playable, which is why I thought you should release a new one or two every set.

It will still have valuable older cards, but they'll have less of a lifespan, which means you'll have to rotate these decks every set, while also lowering the barrier for entry into modern. As much as some of those standard staples wont be modern playable, over time if you bought one of these decks every set you're going to wind up with something somewhat modern playable. AND the best part is, it doesn't affect the most recent set whatsoever. You buy packs of the newest thing to get the newest things, you buy precons if you want to jump in with something somewhat relevant as an older player and/or are brand new.

>>49551451
Exactly this. I didn't get started with an intro pack, but was given a free fat pack. I picked a bunch of Returned Zombies because I thought they looked cool and tried to play with them.

It wasn't great, but I was playing with buddies who were equally new. Except the one guy who hit me with a turn 3 Jhoira+ Emrakrul combo. Fuck that guy. New kids and That Guy need to be kept separate, so having these operate on a wholly separate power level is fine.

>>49553581
I enjoy drafting. I don't care if they put in all chaff or all $100 cards in a booster as long as the draft is fun.

Newsflash: MTG is a giant scam.

>>49551451
And then pokemon tcg takes a fat shit all over your arguement by filling theirs with manditory staples and having better sales

>>49553917

Me too. Tumblr Magnet was great utility and is self sufficient in the same way through blinking. Im not to happy that its down to two counters though but that detain is great

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>>49548890

Behold a new brew. Mostly made of mythics and rares. This is how modern standard looks like.

>>49552878
Look up shareholder reports before you doomsay anon. Every format that is supported online is healthy, commander is growing bigger than its ever been and the only formats hurting are standard legacy and vintage because they need masters sets to live and those are limited to two a year. Standard is hurting from rotation and obvioisly not because it needs masters sets, but its offset by its limited environment.

>>49554174
>~$400

Jesus christ, I didn't realize it was that bad. You can build a Modern infect for only a little more if you switch misties for woodeds.

>>49548792
My real issue is that you cant play these fucking cards without spending 100 bucks, easy. Like, there are cards I cannot play because literally acquiring costs too much.

The community exacerbates this in two ways; by treating the whole enterprise as money vouchers, and acting anyone who doesn't want to spend that much is a pleb and a casual.

I'm mainly mad at masterpieces because WoTC approached this from the angle: These cards cost too much, and its killing formats. How can we solve this? Instead of reprinting them in a duel deck or modern masters 20XX or Conspiracy 2: Conspiracy harder or a gold box, they snuck them into regular sets at super mega rarity, which does nothing for the price of scalding tarn or Lotus petal or Goblin Guide, or whatever. They just made another racket for the "whales" to borrow a MMO play to pay term.

>>49554322
You should at least be happier that the whales will make kalade xxx h more affordable for you. It doesn't really make sense to be against masterpieces

>>49554381
And this is the attitude that's killing magic.

It does if you're against reprints only coming in super ghost rarity slots. It is if you actually want those staples to be affordable in the first place. It is for every format that's not standard and limited.

>>49554401
Youre making a false equivalence. Im not against available reprints, im FOR premium bonuses. And killing magic is just yourwishful thinking.

>>49554588
>replying to a post on page 5 in an autosaging thread just so you can have the last word
No. I'm also for premium bonuses, but it's naive to think any of those cards will be reprinted in non-impossible rarities if masterpieces are successful.

>>49554660
Just like sol ring never gets reprinted. Oh wait.

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>>49554693
No. If sol ring was banned in commander, it would never be reprinted outside of a masterpiece slot.

>>49554708
>sol ring
>banned in commander
wotc will disolve the rc before letting that happen

Lightning Greece's never reprint cuz masterpiece guiz

>>49554961

Shroud has been replaced with Hexproof.

>>49546137
fayden was viable when blue delve spells were a thing. '+dack, loot 2, dig through time' was brutal.

>>49546737
>can't afford to play
1. find a shop that runs limited events that pay out in store credit
2. ??????
3. legacy deck

if i can do it, so can you.

I've got a question and can't find anywhere good to ask.

If I put a +1/+1 counter on a vehicle while it's a creature, does it retain that counter through losing its "creature" type at the end of turn?

>>49556034
Yes, it retains the counter when it turns back into a non-creature artifact.

Generally speaking counters don't fall off. They stay on permanents even if the permanent changes types or doesn't even use them.

>>49554174
>All good decks are almost entirely made of mythics and rares
>NWO ISN'T ABOUT MAKING COMMONS UNPLAYABLE REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Fuck MaRo and Stoddard.

>>49554253
I did, Q1 and Q2 2016 were down from last year, they havent released Q3.
And Commander just pulled a hard pill to swallow, DC is now 20 life. Duel players may not be the ones who buy one of each precon every year, but they're at least half the people buying Duals from LGS. Stores don't want to lose this market and WotC doesn't want to lose stores even if they're not aware of it yet.

>>49554130
The Pokemon TCG has better sales?