wtf is wizards doing?

gypsy · Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 860

wtf, mystic rare, printing less cards each year? they totally fucked up blue in vintage, what do you guys think about what wizards is doing?

Mastikor · Joined: 09 Jul 2005 Posts: 7

Mystic Rare is exciting but I saw putting planeswalkers as mystic rares is a stupid idea where you'll only have 1/8 chance of getting it if you're buying boosters. Printing less cards is good to avoid wallpaper cards (aka Crap Cards).

Eldariel · Joined: 15 Jun 2006 Posts: 195

Mark Rosewater finally got his way. They basically want Vintage to be Highlander where you can play 1-ofs of all the relevant spells with 4-ofs of duals. As far as mythic rares go, I'm damn glad I'm not playing offline, 'cause having only half of the numbers previously available is going to be stupid, especially once they print another Goyf. 80 dollar Goyfs, anyone? Vintage staple prices.

Printing less cards I can see, but it's totally gonna fuck up all kinds of variety in smaller formats (just even less reason to play Block or Standard), it'll make Limited more boring (especially since they still insist on bad cards), it'll make core set a worthless pile and it'll make me even happier I'm playing Legacy.

Basically, it looks like they're making every effort they can to drive people towards Eternal formats.

gypsy · Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 860

after a few months of workshop decks dominating vintage i hope they realise they need blue decks in the format

Eldariel · Joined: 15 Jun 2006 Posts: 195

Nah, September announcement:
-Bazaar of Baghdad and Mishra's Workshop are restricted.

gypsy · Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 860

after this one i wouldnt be surprised if they do that.

Orlandu · Joined: 25 Sep 2004 Posts: 186

Like the smaller set size, but that's about it. The basic land in a pack idea seems retarded. Even if someone buys a whole box they're unlikely to get more than 8 or 9 of a single land, and no one that's just getting started is gonna buy multiple boxes. If they're worried about basic land they should just print a basic land pack (Which I've always wondered why they havn't..) containing 25 of each basic land or what not. Besides, most stores have land boxes at 5 cents a piece or what have you. This is gonna hurt limited, as you're seeing 24 less commons in the draft. Why is this a big deal? In LLM, at common: Lash out, oblivion ring, tarfire, nameless inversion, weed strangle, consuming bonfire, shard volley, etc etc etc. Even seeing 1 less removal spell in a draft pool is kind've a big deal, and this is the sort of shortsighted thinking I've come to expect from WotC lately.

Another thing, apparently wizards has no problem with 50 dollar cards in standard, and this is exactly what "mythic rares" are going to do. Think Garruk was expensive at rare? Just wait til it becomes THAT MUCH HARDER to get. Just wait til they screw up again and print a tarmogoyf or bitterblossom type power level card at mythic. Think goyf is expensive? What if only 1 in 8 future sight packs even had a chance of giving you him?

Careful WotC, or you're going to have a ton of new players, while you lose a lot of experienced players that buy ALOT of product. Personally, I buy 2-4 boxes every set, draft em, and draft hundreds of times on MTGO.

And if they wanted to nerf blue, jesus christ did they ever. I can most certainly see the restriction of flash and gush, and I can even see merchant scroll (it's just the nuts), but brainstorm AND ponder? Seriously? Why?! What possible reason do you have to get rid of them? I don't understand it at all. Not that I'm a huge vintage player, mostly because I'm still doing undergraduate crap and can't afford to, but damn. I mean.. damn. Brainstorm? Damn.

Eldariel · Joined: 15 Jun 2006 Posts: 195

Hah. I don't buy any products, but I may start once Wizards stops doing retarded stuff. Which means I probably won't be touching any Magic packs any time soon.

Balthazar88 · Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 59

I'm actuly glad they are decreasing the card pool in Standard and such, but I think they messed up with the basic land in boosters and with "Mythic Rares". The basic lands are going to make limited... more limited (no pun intended) and the new rarity is going to make it more expensive to play competative decks and likes.

The changes in Vintage doesn't bother me really, since I don't play type 1. That Flash, Merchant Scroll (aka Demonic Tutor) and Gush getting the hammer makes perfect sense. I don't know what they were thinking when they decided to let the cantrips the hammer thou'.

gypsy · Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 860

if they restrict gush and flash they dont need to restrict scroll as its power level goes way down as you cant chain scroll into gushes.

Ggerg · Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 422

everything makes sense to me except the basic land in the packs and restricting ponder. like, while a little unnecessary from my point of view, u can make an argument for all the cards except for ponder. like...brainstorm is still one of the best card draw spells of all time, so sure....but ponder? seriously?

as for the whole mythic rare thing...i'm not sure it'll make a significant difference in the total price you pay because of the small number of different mythic rares...but i guess we'll see...i definitely would not blame any long-time player for being upset, or for not buying product entirely.

TugaChampion · Joined: 26 Jan 2006 Posts: 369

The mystic rare is stupid. While it will make kids buy more boosters and get a "YAY I GOT AN ULTRA RARE!!!", it will also make any good cards in that slot be worth way more. Unless they choose to put there limited cards only and cards that appeal to kids I don't think it would make much sense when you got a mystic rare having it fringe at best for constructed.

The basic land there obviously hurts limited but maybe since the set is smaller it might actually make sense as there would be too many multiple commons. The sets being smaller I think it's good but it seems strange that after the 2 biggest blocks ever (I'm counting Lorwyn and Shadowmoor the same block) they suddenly go lower than before Timespiral. Also after Eventide we'll have the biggest T2 because TimeSpiral has the extra Purple cards, Lorwyn/Shadowmoor it's 2 big sets and 2 small sets and we even have Coldsnap. So once the next big set after shards is released we'll have a very small T2. I don't think reducing the size is bad but it's just strange that after beating the biggest blocks and T2s ever records twice each they start shrinking the sets to less than before Timespiral.

I can't really comment on Vintage changes but I can still say WTF? ponder restricted?

AF79 · Joined: 31 May 2008 Posts: 3

@TugaChampion: About the sudden change from huge to really small, I think they've just burned their fingers, and that going into the completely opposite direction is only a natural reaction.

As for mythical rares - won't it take away some of that 'originality' that draws a lot of players towards magic from other tcg's? Like "So you think Yugioh is cool, huh? Well, just try the real deal, the original stuff, the biggest tcg there is... which is hardly conforming to the standards of all the new tcg's... mostly."

Oh, and 80$ Goyfs are gonna suck soooo much. And everyone knows it's gonna happen too. Damn...

And like Orlandu said, if they're worried about newbies not having enough basic lands, why not just make a land pack? They could make it really cheap too, to make the game more accesible - they won't amass enough basics through boosters anyway.

Anyone up for writing letters to MaRo?

Stucco · Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 548

I understand trying to market magic. I would prefer a company to constantly try to improve itself than one which goes stagnut.

However, I hate the new vintage changes...

BusDriver · Joined: 28 Jan 2006 Posts: 132

The mystic rares thing is quite smart
You know already for sure they will print some universal, very good rare in that slot that goes into almost every competitive deck (think masticore, mutavault, rishadan port, to a lesser extent goyf).
Because of the mystic thing, they will be even 3 times or so (someone do the math) as rare as regular rares. As a result booster purchases will have to be 3 times as high to supply every tournament player with a set of 4.
Since most of those will be stupid enough not to care about money and they just want their set of the card : $$$$$$$$ for the wizz.

The cost of boosters is already insane compared to the cost to make them. And to the contrary of what you might think, wizards does not have high R&D costs on magic.