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Magic: the Gathering |OT12| Hour of Devastation - Hour of Jace getting dunked on
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
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Thanks, and could you guys explain what you are talking about with the conversation for held back cards?
Also, the art on those cards is great. I assume "P" means prerelease?
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Wotc keeps a bunch of their own stock for various reasons, card archives essentially, but they also have to pretend any card in a booster pack is worth nothing more than a fraction of said boosters price.
Something to do with gambling laws.
Couple years ago Wizards had a promotion going that they put cards from their own stock that they had pledged not to reprint into a few Zendikar boosters.
"P" means promo and are usually for pre-release and in store tournaments. They are usually have either alternate or full card art.
ewww, sorcery speed
Imperfected
Member
I don't know how people expect to see a functional reprint of the Titan cycle anyway. Those cards are pretty not-okay to have around.
I'd say Skysovereign came rather close to Inferno Titan
they'd probably want to avoid making another Grave, Sun, and especially Primeval Titan
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
They made a fixed Prime Titan too, in Shadows.
Imperfected
Member
Yeah, the Red and Blue Titans were the most "fair", which I guess is why they decided Torrential Gearhulk needs to be the least fair of the Hulks. (Of course the Red one is still underwhelming and the Green one is still problematic, because that's their color identities.)
Hour of Promise kinda feels closer to it than Ulvenwald Hydra.
There are no problematic gearhulks
divisionbyzorro
Member
I'm not going to pretend Primeval Titan isn't powerful in the abstract, but the fact that it could fetch creature lands and Kessig Wolf Run and life gain lands had a lot to do with how ridiculous it was. And we had access to two-mana non-creature ramp at the time. Geez that Standard feels closer to Modern powerful than Standard in hindsight.
Kessig Wolf Run didn't exist when Primeval Titan was printed. It was the "best" because it was fetching up Eldrazi Temple/Eye of Ugin in Eldrazi ramp decks, and Valakut/Mountains in Valakut decks.
divisionbyzorro
Member
You're absolutely right - I'm only thinking of the second coming.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Always getting a laugh at how terrible frost titan is by comparison.
I was going by ramp on a stick.
Imperfected
Member
Ahaha, I somehow managed to forget about Frost Titan's ghetto-ass Hexproof.
charlequin
Banned
WotC basically has a ton of old cards from most older sets sitting around for various reasons. They don't as I understand it keep like a really thorough and well-organized archive, but it's still something that would be staggering compared to most individual people's collections.
I mean you could play Lightning Bolt!
What? Wolf Run Blue was certainly a deck that used both Wolf Run and Titan.
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=48345
divisionbyzorro
Member
I think he's thinking of when it was first printed. I'm assuming he's not forgetting Kibler's glorious PT win with Prime Times and Wolf Runs.
Doom Blade.
Imperfected
Member
It really makes Frost Titan even more hilarious.
Oh gosh do I want to pay 2 extra mana to Doom Blade this 6 CMC creature gee I don't know I'd better just let it swing I guess.
Suggested replacement text for Frost Titan:
"When Frost Titan becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, try not to cry.
When Frost Titan leaves the battlefield, cry a lot."
Yes, I'm aware that Primeval could get Kessig Wolf Run.... 16 months after Titans were first printed, and Grave Titan was a $30 card that everyone assumed was the most busted creature printed since Baneslayer Angel
Dies to Doom Blade!
Dies to Doom Blade!
Blightning
Destroy target Planeswalker. Owner discards two cards.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
They should bring back good removal and 4 mana wraths.
They should also just bring back Baneslayer for kicks
They should also just bring back Baneslayer for kicks
Standard Jund was sweet. Even cascading into Putrid Leech felt great.
Back when Planeswalkers were terrible.
Back when Planeswalkers were terrible.
SigmasonicX
Member
I mean, you do have to take the time to get them and tie them up, and it just isn't worthwhile unless you have them walk off slowly.
Yeah, pushing people off the ship is probably more efficient and effective.
So the fear is they could release them and tank the market? But if they put them in boosters it's not "gambling."
Thanks.
I played my first live game today with a Welcome Deck of Black/Green. It becomes obvious pretty quickly that if you don't know how the cards interact, you are at an instant disadvantage. The other player was really patient and explained some of the things I missed/what would have been better to play.
There were also two tourney players there testing their Aggro and Control decks for a GP in Washington D.C. Cool to see, but fuck if I knew what was going on. lol
Keep at it and it will come in time. Keep an eye on your local game stores schedule for September because the Open House is the event they hold for new players so there will be a bunch of new people to play against and also long time players looking to help new players learn. That is also where they will be handing out those awesome full art Walk the Plank cards. It should be around September 15th or 16th. Then of course you have the pre-release on September 23rd and 24th which you dont want to miss.
Joe Molotov
Member
the sad part is that you can't make everybody walk the dinosaur
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
you must have misunderstood something, there is no fear. Especially with Magic depending a great deal on the secondary market. The thing is Wotc participating in it would be unethical considering they directly control supply.
Putting a select few of reserve list cards in boosters was just a one time gimmick years ago.
MtG is a product also intended for kids something gambling laws do a great deal to protect for and as such Wizards in general tries their hardest not to acknowledge anything that could associate the two.
charlequin
Banned
They assuredly don't have remotely enough of anything* to actually make a dent in the market. There isn't much in terms of normal sets where there's enough that plausibly exists for it to majorly swing prices.
In terms of acknowledging the secondary market it's not as simple as "gambling laws." Most statutes covering gambling are reasonably specific about what qualifies and you're not going to stumble into one by talking about your product a specific way. Most of the things people are typically hoping for when they want WotC employees to discuss the secondary market are also probably, on their own, fine for them to do.
The best guess for the real underlying reason here is that while it's okay for WotC to acknowledge that a secondary market exists and what trends are present in it, they want to avoid anything that could be taken as guaranteeing prices, which talking about the monetary value of different cards could do unintentionally. If they block almost all discussion of secondary market issues, they avoid anyone going too far in this way.
Please note that WotC is ludicrously, notoriously conservative from a legal standpoint. One of their other oft-repeated rules is that designers can never see custom cards on the off chance someone sues them for stealing an idea, when over in Hearthstone land designers openly admit to looking at custom designs.
*The possible exception is stuff that's not for public consumption -- for example, there was a test print run called "Summer Magic" that was never supposed to be publicly released but accidentally shipped a few cases out, but currently people think more than half the supply came from WotC employees.
SigmasonicX
Member
Never heard of this. What happened there?
https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Revised_Edition#Summer_Magic
They made a version of revised to fix some issues (like Senerb Efreet having the wrong art), but it ended up having more issues- like the infamous Blue Hurricane- and was supposed to be destroyed, but a small amount ended up getting shipped out
charlequin
Banned
Scryfall has images of the set so you can actually do a search that puts every card up next to its Revised version to compare the differences: https://scryfall.com/search?q=+++e:sum+or+e:3ed
I was talking to the employee about the prerelease, but now I gotta go back and discuss the open house. Thanks!
Fear was the wrong word. And thanks for the explanations.
charlequin
Banned
that's a good contender for the next thread title, btw
It's really deeply unfortunate that GP Denver was last weekend so we couldn't do a Denver the Last Dinosaur riff.
keeblerdrow
Member
I think a planking reference is just old enough to be ironically funny in the thread title, right?
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