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Magic: the Gathering |OT9| Kaladesh - Cruisin' Down the Street in my 6/4
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
- Start date
- Status
Yeah it was the Masterpieces, for Christmas Eve.
Last year was supposed to be Kozilek and the Wingdings mana symbol but they fucked that up
SigmasonicX
Member
Happy holidays!
And thread title suggestion:
Magic: the Gathering |OT10| Aether Revolt - Many Bothans died to bring us this set
And thread title suggestion:
Magic: the Gathering |OT10| Aether Revolt - Many Bothans died to bring us this set
Infinite Stars
Member
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and all that jazz Magic-GAF
Thread title suggestion:
Aether Revolt- Grand Admiral Baan vs. The Rebel Alliance
Thread title suggestion:
Aether Revolt- Grand Admiral Baan vs. The Rebel Alliance
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Happy Holidays 25thers.
If the Masterpieces were supposed to be the christmas reveal they should have included the Aether Revolt cards.
If the Masterpieces were supposed to be the christmas reveal they should have included the Aether Revolt cards.
SigmasonicX
Member
Aether Revolt draft.
Official page
Aether Revolt set information
Previous topic: Kaladesh (OT9)
Next block: Amonkhet
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Intro
--Getting Started
--Prerelease
--Changes
Set Details
--Story
--Characters
--Card Themes
Resources
Previous Threads
Schedule
Highlights
INTRO
Welcome to the Multiverse! Multiple worlds exist side by side in different dimensions, known as planes, and they are as different as night and day. All of them, however, have a form of magical energy known as mana, which can be channeled into powerful spells. Residents of these planes are usually unaware of other worlds, but there are some special beings with the ability to safely travel between them, known as Planeswalkers.
Magic: the Gathering is a Trading Card Game, the first of its kind, developed by Richard Garfield and his playtesters for the gaming company Wizards of the Coast in 1993. The game quickly became a hit, and it is currently bigger than it has ever been. In the standard game, you and your opponent play the role of dueling Planeswalkers, using customized 60-card decks made up of your spells, the creatures you can summon, your mana bonds with lands, and even other Planeswalkers you can call in to help out. Whoever can get his or her opponent down from 20 to 0 life, wins.
In Aether Revolt, the bright world of Kaladesh has fallen into chaos, as the governing Consulate has established marshal law and the rebelling Renegades are fighting back harder than ever. The elegant artifacts of peacetime have been converted to weapons of war.
Due to holiday conflicts, we're only getting four days of previews before the full set reveal. Yes, really.
One thing to note about discussion in this thread is that a lot of us are specifically looking for cards that will change up Standard, a playing format made up of the past several sets. Wizards has been trying out a philosophy where set themes don't have strong "answer" cards that shut them down, but for many players, this has backfired and made certain decks too strong. Wizards has acknowledged this, but they work too far ahead to make quick changes. Thus, people here are hoping for cards that exile cards from graveyards and destroy artifacts, and a lot of discussion will likely revolve around that.
GETTING STARTED
If you're a beginner, feel free to come in--that's why this is in OT, after all. Spoiler season is one of the most exciting times for a Magic player, and it would be great for more to join in. Us regulars can get a bit technical with card evaluations and use a lot of jargon, and many of us will loudly proclaim that a cool-looking card is junk, or say that a lame-looking card is really powerful, but feel free to ask us if you want an explanation.
To see what a game is like, check out Geek and Sundry's Spellslinger series (now discontinued), where Day[9] battled various geek celebrities, often losing, using simple and easy to follow decks.
To get started, check out the official page. Basically:
* It's recommended that new players play Magic Duels (thread). It's a great way to learn the game on your own, and it's free!
* After that point, the act of deck building can be intimidating, so it's recommended that you try out a preconstructed deck and customize it with other cards you get, before you start making your own from scratch.
* Before you start entering any tournaments, or building decks for tournament formats like Standard, it's strongly recommended you stick to playing casually against friends for a while. Not only will you have an easier time with deck building, since you don't have additional constraints, but it will usually be much cheaper.
* For your first deck, starting with Kaladesh, you can buy a Planeswalker Deck, These preconstructed decks come with four new cards unique to the decks, including a new Planeswalker card. If you have a friend to play with, there are also Duel Decks that provide two decks for a game right out of the box, but are a bit more complicated. Third-party company Card Kingdom also releases Battle Decks, at a similar level of complexity to Duel Decks, but at a higher level of power and consistency. Note that those last two aren't built for the Standard format, but are good for casual play.
* To get your physical collection started, buy a Deck Builder's Toolkit, which includes not just a starting collection of cards (including a lot of lands), but also some booster packs and a good box to store cards in. The Holiday Gift Box provides an even larger starting collection and better storage.
* The different play formats can be found here. The most popular formats where you start out with no deck and have to make them from scratch (Limited) are Draft and Sealed. The most popular formats where you bring a 60-card deck ahead of time (Constructed) are Standard, Modern, and Legacy. Casual play has no restrictions other than what your friends decide.
* To learn about the theories behind deckbuilding and gameplay, check out Level One.
* Once your skill advances, another popular way to play Magic casually is Commander. Wizards provides prebuilt decks for this format too.
* While game stores will often hold Magic events at other times, every store that has Magic events will have Friday Night Magic. There, you will be able to find other players in your area to both have matches with and trade with. Find game stores here. And to get started participating in your local game store (LGS) scene, attend a prerelease!
PRERELEASE
While the set won't officially be sold until the release date, that isn't the first time you can get your hands on the new cards. Game stores hold prerelease events for every set in the Sealed format, where every player is given a box with six booster packs and a random additional rare card. From this pool of cards, all of which you keep, each player builds a deck of 40 cards and participates in a Swiss-system tournament. This is a fun and casual event, where everyone is still trying to figure out the set, so don't worry about messing up. In addition to normal duels, there are also Two-Headed Giant events, where you pair up with another player and face off against another team.
Prerelease events will be held on January 1415, 2017. Call your local game store a few days ahead of time to register, or they might just run out of room. Find local game stores here.
CHANGES
Magic now has a rarity even rarer than mythic rare! Sort of. The Masterpiece Series is a "set within the set" made up entirely of reprints or cards printed at a lower rarity in the normal set. These cards won't be in Standard, unless they're also printed in the normal set, but you can play them in Limited. Masterpiece cards are always premium (with foil) and have a special frame treatment and set symbol. There are around 50 cards each block, spread across the two sets, with more in the large set. You can find a Masterpiece card in roughly 1 out of every 144 booster packs, which is slightly more often than opening a premium mythic rare. They'll be available on Magic Online, but not Magic Duels.
This is completely opt-in. You don't have to get any of these cards for tournaments, and they are simply a way to bling up your deck.
Every block from now on will have a Masterpiece Series, after the success of the wallet-sculpting Zendikar Expeditions in Battle for Zendikar. They will be thematically tied into the block they are attached to. For example, Kaladesh's Masterpiece Series, Kaladesh Inventions, will be made up of artifacts that flavorfully seem like they could be made on Kaladesh.
In addition, Standard rotations have changed--in some ways, a shift back. There will still be two blocks released a year, but Standard will only rotate with the start of the second block of the year (the fall set). This means that after the release of Amonkhet this spring, Standard will not rotate. The blocks in Standard will be Battle for Zendikar, Shadows over Innistrad, Kaladesh, and Amonkhet. When the "Ham" block releases in fall, BFZ and SOI will leave Standard. Standard will then be made up of Kaladesh, Amonkhet, and "Ham".
Old image (REMOVE FROM FINAL)
STORY
Trailer
Lore introduction
Guide to Kaladesh
Aether is the raw energy that exists between planes, and while it's present on many worlds, it is available in vast quantities on Kaladesh. The environment itself curves and flows in reaction to streams of the energy, forming delicate twisting patterns in everything. Some time ago, a genius inventor discovered a way to process this aether into fuel that could run automatons and other mechanical devices, launching an age of innovation and progress.
Kaladesh is ruled by the Consulate, a nominally pure meritocracy, and it provides aether to all to promote invention and artistry. However, during this time of apparent prosperity, there is a faction of renegades who feel that they have been left behind. They disagree with the strict rules and regulations the Consulate places on the people, and know the government isn't as benevolent as it presents itself.
When we arrived there, the plane was running the extravagant Inventors' Fair, where people from all over came together to pit their creations against each other. At the end of the Inventors' Fair, the Consulate seized all inventions, and captured several inventors, claiming they are protecting them from the Renegades. An evil Planeswalker named Tezzeret has become an influential part of the government, and is taking advantage of this to perfect his own creations. The heroic Gatewatch have joined the Renegades, and are preparing for a final confrontation with the Consulate.
Aether Revolt story
Story archive
CHARACTERS
Planeswalkers:
Chandra Nalaar - Red - A chaotic human pyromancer Planeswalker who does what she wants, damn the consequences. Given that her parents were killed by them, she has no love for the Kaladesh government.
Liliana Vess - Black - A ruthless human necromancer Planeswalker who only looks out for herself. Despite her youthful appearance, she is hundreds of years old.
Nissa Revane - Green - A spiritual elf druid Planeswalker. She used to be a racist elf supremacist, but Wizards of the Coast wants you to forget that. Her magic allows her to control plants, summon nature elementals, and channel mana.
Ajani Goldmane - White/Green - A leonin (cat person) Planeswalker who lost his friends and is now righting wrongs where he finds them. He is skilled at both healing and physical combat.
Saheeli Rai - Blue/Red - A renowned human inventor Planeswalker who can skillfully manipulate metal into the lifelike animal shapes that do her bidding. Though fiercely competitive, she is kind to her friends and fans.
Dovin Baan - Blue - A member of Kaladesh's government, this cold and calculating vedalken Planeswalker can instantly determine the weaknesses of any machine, and he believes living things are no different.
Tezzeret - Blue/Black - A human artificer Planeswalker bound into the service of the evil Nicol Bolas, but he is trying to find a way out. Even on his own, he's dangerous and ruthless. He has somehow embedded himself into Kaladesh as Head Judge.
Non-Planeswalkers:
Rashimi - Green/Blue - A friend of Saheeli who believes that the mystical Great Conduit guides everything, this elf inventor developed a way to teleport an inorganic object to another location, but this creation could lead to disaster.
Pia Nalaar - Red - Chandra's mother, who is actually still alive. She's a skilled inventor and the leader of the Renegade movement on Kaladesh.
Oviya Pashiri - Green - An old woman who plays an important role in the Renegades. She is an old friend of the Nalaar family, and is helping Chandra.
CARD THEMES
Official card list (alternate, includes leaks)
RESOURCES
Official articles - Nicknamed the Mothership, these articles are the primary source of news. Recommended columns are Making Magic, written by the head designer, Mark Rosewater (aka MaRo); Magic Story, which tells the story, written by various authors; and Latest Developments, written by various Magic developers. The other articles generally discuss deck building. For older articles before the site changed, go here.
Official card list - Best way to see all of the spoiled cards together, but only updates once a day.
Blogatog - Tumblr ran by Mark Rosewater where he answers questions, updates very frequently.
Drive to Work - Mark Rosewater's weekly podcast about Magic that he literally records as he drives to work. Two episodes are released every Friday.
MTG Salvation's Rumor Mill - The best place to get new card information. The community sucks, though.
Mythic Spoiler - A good way to see what cards have been spoiled, updates throughout the day.
Gatherer - The official method of searching through released cards. Has autocomplete.
magiccards.info - The better search method, with bigger cards, but it doesn't have autocomplete.
Magidex - Another search method of similar quality, updates more frequently than above.
Game store locator
PREVIOUS THREADS
Kaladesh (OT9)
Eldritch Moon (OT8)
Shadows over Innistrad (OT7)
Oath of the Gatewatch OT (OT6)
Battle for Zendikar OT (OT5)
OT4
OT3
OT2
OT1
(schedule, highlights)
SCHEDULE
Aether Revolt
Start of spoilers - January 2, 2017
Full reveal - January 6, 2017
Prerelease - January 14-15, 2017
Magic Duels Update - ?
Release - January 20, 2017
Magic Online Prerelease - January 27, 2017
Magic Online Release - January 30, 2017
Grand Prix Louisville (Legacy) - January 6-8, 2017
Grand Prix San Jose, Grand Prix Prague (Sealed) - January 27-29, 2016
Pro Tour Aether Revolt (Draft, Standard) - February 3-5, 2017
Grand Prix Pittsburgh (Standard) - February 10-12, 2017
Grand Prix Vancouver, Grand Prix Brisbane (Modern) - February 17-19, 2017
Grand Prix Utrecht (Standard) - February 24-26, 2017
Modern Masters 2017
Start of spoilers - February 27, 2017
Full reveal - March 3, 2017
Release - March 17, 2017
Grand Prix New Jersey, Grand Prix Barcelona (Standard) - March 10-12, 2017
Grand Prix Shizuoka, Grand Prix Porto Alegre (Standard) - March 17-19, 2017
Grand Prix Orlando (Limited) - March 24-26, 2017
Grand Prix San Antonio (Team Unified Modern) - March 31 - April 2, 2017
Duel Decks: Mind vs. Might - March 31, 2017
Amonkhet
Start of spoilers - April 3, 2017
Prerelease - April 22-23, 2017
HIGHLIGHTS
Previous thread
November 29
Ajani playmat, Yahenni's Expertise, Trophy Mage, Scrap Trawler, Quicksmith Rebel
December 4
Ajani Unyielding
Ajani, Valorous Protector; Tezzeret, Master of Metal; Heart of Kiran
Quicksmith Rebel, Pia's Revolution, Disallow, Battle at the Bridge, Dark Intimations
December 8
Atlazan and other booster pack art leak(?)
December 12
Consulate Crackdown
December 15
Oath of Ajani
December 18
Tezzeret the Schemer, Quicksmith Spy
December 24
Masterpieces
December 28
Planar Bridge, Paradox Engine
Official page
Aether Revolt set information
Previous topic: Kaladesh (OT9)
Next block: Amonkhet
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Intro
--Getting Started
--Prerelease
--Changes
Set Details
--Story
--Characters
--Card Themes
Resources
Previous Threads
Schedule
Highlights
INTRO
Welcome to the Multiverse! Multiple worlds exist side by side in different dimensions, known as planes, and they are as different as night and day. All of them, however, have a form of magical energy known as mana, which can be channeled into powerful spells. Residents of these planes are usually unaware of other worlds, but there are some special beings with the ability to safely travel between them, known as Planeswalkers.
Magic: the Gathering is a Trading Card Game, the first of its kind, developed by Richard Garfield and his playtesters for the gaming company Wizards of the Coast in 1993. The game quickly became a hit, and it is currently bigger than it has ever been. In the standard game, you and your opponent play the role of dueling Planeswalkers, using customized 60-card decks made up of your spells, the creatures you can summon, your mana bonds with lands, and even other Planeswalkers you can call in to help out. Whoever can get his or her opponent down from 20 to 0 life, wins.
In Aether Revolt, the bright world of Kaladesh has fallen into chaos, as the governing Consulate has established marshal law and the rebelling Renegades are fighting back harder than ever. The elegant artifacts of peacetime have been converted to weapons of war.
Due to holiday conflicts, we're only getting four days of previews before the full set reveal. Yes, really.
One thing to note about discussion in this thread is that a lot of us are specifically looking for cards that will change up Standard, a playing format made up of the past several sets. Wizards has been trying out a philosophy where set themes don't have strong "answer" cards that shut them down, but for many players, this has backfired and made certain decks too strong. Wizards has acknowledged this, but they work too far ahead to make quick changes. Thus, people here are hoping for cards that exile cards from graveyards and destroy artifacts, and a lot of discussion will likely revolve around that.
GETTING STARTED
If you're a beginner, feel free to come in--that's why this is in OT, after all. Spoiler season is one of the most exciting times for a Magic player, and it would be great for more to join in. Us regulars can get a bit technical with card evaluations and use a lot of jargon, and many of us will loudly proclaim that a cool-looking card is junk, or say that a lame-looking card is really powerful, but feel free to ask us if you want an explanation.
To see what a game is like, check out Geek and Sundry's Spellslinger series (now discontinued), where Day[9] battled various geek celebrities, often losing, using simple and easy to follow decks.
To get started, check out the official page. Basically:
* It's recommended that new players play Magic Duels (thread). It's a great way to learn the game on your own, and it's free!
* After that point, the act of deck building can be intimidating, so it's recommended that you try out a preconstructed deck and customize it with other cards you get, before you start making your own from scratch.
* Before you start entering any tournaments, or building decks for tournament formats like Standard, it's strongly recommended you stick to playing casually against friends for a while. Not only will you have an easier time with deck building, since you don't have additional constraints, but it will usually be much cheaper.
* For your first deck, starting with Kaladesh, you can buy a Planeswalker Deck, These preconstructed decks come with four new cards unique to the decks, including a new Planeswalker card. If you have a friend to play with, there are also Duel Decks that provide two decks for a game right out of the box, but are a bit more complicated. Third-party company Card Kingdom also releases Battle Decks, at a similar level of complexity to Duel Decks, but at a higher level of power and consistency. Note that those last two aren't built for the Standard format, but are good for casual play.
* To get your physical collection started, buy a Deck Builder's Toolkit, which includes not just a starting collection of cards (including a lot of lands), but also some booster packs and a good box to store cards in. The Holiday Gift Box provides an even larger starting collection and better storage.
* The different play formats can be found here. The most popular formats where you start out with no deck and have to make them from scratch (Limited) are Draft and Sealed. The most popular formats where you bring a 60-card deck ahead of time (Constructed) are Standard, Modern, and Legacy. Casual play has no restrictions other than what your friends decide.
* To learn about the theories behind deckbuilding and gameplay, check out Level One.
* Once your skill advances, another popular way to play Magic casually is Commander. Wizards provides prebuilt decks for this format too.
* While game stores will often hold Magic events at other times, every store that has Magic events will have Friday Night Magic. There, you will be able to find other players in your area to both have matches with and trade with. Find game stores here. And to get started participating in your local game store (LGS) scene, attend a prerelease!
PRERELEASE
While the set won't officially be sold until the release date, that isn't the first time you can get your hands on the new cards. Game stores hold prerelease events for every set in the Sealed format, where every player is given a box with six booster packs and a random additional rare card. From this pool of cards, all of which you keep, each player builds a deck of 40 cards and participates in a Swiss-system tournament. This is a fun and casual event, where everyone is still trying to figure out the set, so don't worry about messing up. In addition to normal duels, there are also Two-Headed Giant events, where you pair up with another player and face off against another team.
Prerelease events will be held on January 1415, 2017. Call your local game store a few days ahead of time to register, or they might just run out of room. Find local game stores here.
CHANGES
Magic now has a rarity even rarer than mythic rare! Sort of. The Masterpiece Series is a "set within the set" made up entirely of reprints or cards printed at a lower rarity in the normal set. These cards won't be in Standard, unless they're also printed in the normal set, but you can play them in Limited. Masterpiece cards are always premium (with foil) and have a special frame treatment and set symbol. There are around 50 cards each block, spread across the two sets, with more in the large set. You can find a Masterpiece card in roughly 1 out of every 144 booster packs, which is slightly more often than opening a premium mythic rare. They'll be available on Magic Online, but not Magic Duels.
This is completely opt-in. You don't have to get any of these cards for tournaments, and they are simply a way to bling up your deck.
Every block from now on will have a Masterpiece Series, after the success of the wallet-sculpting Zendikar Expeditions in Battle for Zendikar. They will be thematically tied into the block they are attached to. For example, Kaladesh's Masterpiece Series, Kaladesh Inventions, will be made up of artifacts that flavorfully seem like they could be made on Kaladesh.
In addition, Standard rotations have changed--in some ways, a shift back. There will still be two blocks released a year, but Standard will only rotate with the start of the second block of the year (the fall set). This means that after the release of Amonkhet this spring, Standard will not rotate. The blocks in Standard will be Battle for Zendikar, Shadows over Innistrad, Kaladesh, and Amonkhet. When the "Ham" block releases in fall, BFZ and SOI will leave Standard. Standard will then be made up of Kaladesh, Amonkhet, and "Ham".
Old image (REMOVE FROM FINAL)
STORY
Trailer
Lore introduction
Guide to Kaladesh
Aether is the raw energy that exists between planes, and while it's present on many worlds, it is available in vast quantities on Kaladesh. The environment itself curves and flows in reaction to streams of the energy, forming delicate twisting patterns in everything. Some time ago, a genius inventor discovered a way to process this aether into fuel that could run automatons and other mechanical devices, launching an age of innovation and progress.
Kaladesh is ruled by the Consulate, a nominally pure meritocracy, and it provides aether to all to promote invention and artistry. However, during this time of apparent prosperity, there is a faction of renegades who feel that they have been left behind. They disagree with the strict rules and regulations the Consulate places on the people, and know the government isn't as benevolent as it presents itself.
When we arrived there, the plane was running the extravagant Inventors' Fair, where people from all over came together to pit their creations against each other. At the end of the Inventors' Fair, the Consulate seized all inventions, and captured several inventors, claiming they are protecting them from the Renegades. An evil Planeswalker named Tezzeret has become an influential part of the government, and is taking advantage of this to perfect his own creations. The heroic Gatewatch have joined the Renegades, and are preparing for a final confrontation with the Consulate.
Aether Revolt story
Story archive
CHARACTERS
Planeswalkers:
Chandra Nalaar - Red - A chaotic human pyromancer Planeswalker who does what she wants, damn the consequences. Given that her parents were killed by them, she has no love for the Kaladesh government.
Liliana Vess - Black - A ruthless human necromancer Planeswalker who only looks out for herself. Despite her youthful appearance, she is hundreds of years old.
Nissa Revane - Green - A spiritual elf druid Planeswalker. She used to be a racist elf supremacist, but Wizards of the Coast wants you to forget that. Her magic allows her to control plants, summon nature elementals, and channel mana.
Ajani Goldmane - White/Green - A leonin (cat person) Planeswalker who lost his friends and is now righting wrongs where he finds them. He is skilled at both healing and physical combat.
Saheeli Rai - Blue/Red - A renowned human inventor Planeswalker who can skillfully manipulate metal into the lifelike animal shapes that do her bidding. Though fiercely competitive, she is kind to her friends and fans.
Dovin Baan - Blue - A member of Kaladesh's government, this cold and calculating vedalken Planeswalker can instantly determine the weaknesses of any machine, and he believes living things are no different.
Tezzeret - Blue/Black - A human artificer Planeswalker bound into the service of the evil Nicol Bolas, but he is trying to find a way out. Even on his own, he's dangerous and ruthless. He has somehow embedded himself into Kaladesh as Head Judge.
Non-Planeswalkers:
Rashimi - Green/Blue - A friend of Saheeli who believes that the mystical Great Conduit guides everything, this elf inventor developed a way to teleport an inorganic object to another location, but this creation could lead to disaster.
Pia Nalaar - Red - Chandra's mother, who is actually still alive. She's a skilled inventor and the leader of the Renegade movement on Kaladesh.
Oviya Pashiri - Green - An old woman who plays an important role in the Renegades. She is an old friend of the Nalaar family, and is helping Chandra.
CARD THEMES
Official card list (alternate, includes leaks)
RESOURCES
Official articles - Nicknamed the Mothership, these articles are the primary source of news. Recommended columns are Making Magic, written by the head designer, Mark Rosewater (aka MaRo); Magic Story, which tells the story, written by various authors; and Latest Developments, written by various Magic developers. The other articles generally discuss deck building. For older articles before the site changed, go here.
Official card list - Best way to see all of the spoiled cards together, but only updates once a day.
Blogatog - Tumblr ran by Mark Rosewater where he answers questions, updates very frequently.
Drive to Work - Mark Rosewater's weekly podcast about Magic that he literally records as he drives to work. Two episodes are released every Friday.
MTG Salvation's Rumor Mill - The best place to get new card information. The community sucks, though.
Mythic Spoiler - A good way to see what cards have been spoiled, updates throughout the day.
Gatherer - The official method of searching through released cards. Has autocomplete.
magiccards.info - The better search method, with bigger cards, but it doesn't have autocomplete.
Magidex - Another search method of similar quality, updates more frequently than above.
Game store locator
PREVIOUS THREADS
Kaladesh (OT9)
Eldritch Moon (OT8)
Shadows over Innistrad (OT7)
Oath of the Gatewatch OT (OT6)
Battle for Zendikar OT (OT5)
OT4
OT3
OT2
OT1
(schedule, highlights)
SCHEDULE
Aether Revolt
Start of spoilers - January 2, 2017
Full reveal - January 6, 2017
Prerelease - January 14-15, 2017
Magic Duels Update - ?
Release - January 20, 2017
Magic Online Prerelease - January 27, 2017
Magic Online Release - January 30, 2017
Grand Prix Louisville (Legacy) - January 6-8, 2017
Grand Prix San Jose, Grand Prix Prague (Sealed) - January 27-29, 2016
Pro Tour Aether Revolt (Draft, Standard) - February 3-5, 2017
Grand Prix Pittsburgh (Standard) - February 10-12, 2017
Grand Prix Vancouver, Grand Prix Brisbane (Modern) - February 17-19, 2017
Grand Prix Utrecht (Standard) - February 24-26, 2017
Modern Masters 2017
Start of spoilers - February 27, 2017
Full reveal - March 3, 2017
Release - March 17, 2017
Grand Prix New Jersey, Grand Prix Barcelona (Standard) - March 10-12, 2017
Grand Prix Shizuoka, Grand Prix Porto Alegre (Standard) - March 17-19, 2017
Grand Prix Orlando (Limited) - March 24-26, 2017
Grand Prix San Antonio (Team Unified Modern) - March 31 - April 2, 2017
Duel Decks: Mind vs. Might - March 31, 2017
Amonkhet
Start of spoilers - April 3, 2017
Prerelease - April 22-23, 2017
HIGHLIGHTS
Previous thread
November 29
Ajani playmat, Yahenni's Expertise, Trophy Mage, Scrap Trawler, Quicksmith Rebel
December 4
Ajani Unyielding
Ajani, Valorous Protector; Tezzeret, Master of Metal; Heart of Kiran
Quicksmith Rebel, Pia's Revolution, Disallow, Battle at the Bridge, Dark Intimations
December 8
Atlazan and other booster pack art leak(?)
December 12
Consulate Crackdown
December 15
Oath of Ajani
December 18
Tezzeret the Schemer, Quicksmith Spy
December 24
Masterpieces
December 28
Planar Bridge, Paradox Engine
It's way worse than tibalt
Nice and ouch! Hearing these stories I don't know what possesses people to keep their MTG decks and collections worth thousands of dollars in their cars...Happy holidays Magic GAF! May your vintage cube pulls lead to 3-0.
Good: Opened a Jace from the EMA pack in my stocking.
Bad: Someone broke my passenger window and stole my TI-84.
Hell yes it is. I sent a toned down version of my thoughts on this to Maro but I doubt he'll address it haha
SigmasonicX
Member
Well, I mean, you're complaining to him about a card from years ago that wasn't even made by Design, and every Gideon card since has been pretty good, so...
It's not like I went in guns blazing and said "this is terrible!" I asked if there was any trivia or behind the scenes stuff as to why he's so far removed from the usual quality we get from Gideon. I was in no way rude or blunt about it.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
He like wanted an anti eldrazi weapon but thought Boros was pretty fly and joined them, of course completely ignoring his distaste of pyromancy in the process.
Turns out he knew the anti eldrazi weapon all along that was chandra.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Owen playing cube just got done in by a monored deck playing black lotus, mox ruby and mox emerald.
Turn 2 BBE into Eidolon.
Turn 2 BBE into Eidolon.
It lets you do things like drag Search for Tomorrow to the 1 CMC slot instead of the 3, ect
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Money issues aside I prefer regular border foils.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I don't like how Masterpieces look. Opened one and promptly lost it somewhere.
I would gladly make trades with you if you open anymore
Wulfric
Member
Ouch, you're right. The regular foil is only $10 on TCG. What a bummer. I used to dislike foils, but seeing a playset of Judge foil FoW at a GP changed my mind. They can be quite lovely at times.
If it makes you feel any better, I opened a foil Empty the Pits once. I traded it for a sandwich. /chublife
Can you believe they hyped this as the second coming of Sphinxs Rev? Like all they had to do was just make it XBBBB and it would have been good, maybe even legacy playable with their graveyards full in 2-3 turns.
Joe Molotov
Member
"Let's see, a Blue card that draws 3 cards for 1 mana, that sounds like a decent common. A green card that effectively gives a creature +12/+12 for 1 mana, that's probably an uncommon. Wait what's this, a black card that gives you 3 or 4 zombies for 4 mana, holy shit, Mythic Rare!"
"What about this red delve card that does 3 damage to a target creature or player?"
"Clean out your desk, Steve, you're fired."
Its like they are so risk averse at printing strong playable cards that they go out of there way to print crap
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
The Packers and the Lions are guaranteed playoff spots if they tie but otherwise the loser will miss the playoffs.
I wonder if they considered writing "ID" on their match slips and handing them to Roger Goodell.
I wonder if they considered writing "ID" on their match slips and handing them to Roger Goodell.
But if both teams decide to score zero, is it really cheating?
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Yes, it's called match fixing. If I had to guess, if they somehow managed to score a suspicious tie on Sunday they would both be considered forfeit and get hugely penalized by the league.
It's not unheard of in competitions where you can get away with it, but its considered highly unethical, e.g. in 1982 West Germany needed to beat Austria by 2 or less goals for both teams to be guaranteed a slot in the next round, so West Germany immediately scored a goal and then they just passed the ball for 80 minutes.
I wasn't really asking that. Sorry my sarcasm wasn't more evident.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I mean, I knew you were being sarcastic, but I liked the obvious difference in tone between the terms "intentional draw" and "match fixing," despite them being the same thing.
But hey, the Giants won their win-and-in last week, so its possible they could just scoop to their division-mates Washington into the playoffs if the Packers and Lions decide to play it out.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I would have costed it XXXBB I think. XXBB w/Delve would probably be a little too strong.
It's not the double X, it's the BBBB part.
So what do you make it then? If we're married to the XX, I honestly make it a sorcery, remove the tap clause, and make it XXBB or XXBBB.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
The problem is that Delve is a bullshit mechanic. In a universe where mono-black devotion was still alive, it might have been stronger combo'd with Nykthos.
Frontier is a format...
Lots of posts on the subreddit about how they're dissatisfied with the way how R&D works on standard (in the FFL). Basically, they need to hire JUST testers. People who's job it is to test things once they're stable out of dev.
The problem with that approach is that there would be people who would leak cards more (as the tester program would have high turnover). They probably foresaw this and kept things internal to the dev team which means they have tunnel vision a lot of the time and then think they can do no wrong.
Remember "Kaladesh is the best set ever since Innistrad you guys".
Do you all still think this now?
The problem with that approach is that there would be people who would leak cards more (as the tester program would have high turnover). They probably foresaw this and kept things internal to the dev team which means they have tunnel vision a lot of the time and then think they can do no wrong.
Remember "Kaladesh is the best set ever since Innistrad you guys".
Do you all still think this now?
SigmasonicX
Member
One way to have more testers while minimizing the possibility of leaks would be to intentionally send over a deprecated version of the card set. My company is doing this to evaluate a testing company for our app, and while they catch a lot of known issues, they also catch things our current testers hadn't noticed and thus we hadn't fixed. Plus, if they're just given the playtest cards that don't have final names or art, that could make leaks less appealing and also easier to declare fake. If different groups are given different card names (but with the same card code), that could also make it easy to track down who the leakers are.
Note, this still means there won't be many people testing the final final versions of cards.
Plus, no matter what, this is still going to be far fewer people playing the set before release than after release. I have to imagine that Wizards already calculated that the benefit of getting, say, 20 more people testing the set isn't really that great, especially with the additional costs and risks involved.
Note, this still means there won't be many people testing the final final versions of cards.
Plus, no matter what, this is still going to be far fewer people playing the set before release than after release. I have to imagine that Wizards already calculated that the benefit of getting, say, 20 more people testing the set isn't really that great, especially with the additional costs and risks involved.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I doubt Mono-Black is a deck in Frontier because Return to Ravnica isn't legal and all of the stuff that made Mono-Black Devotion good was stuff in RTR.
It's a good, if not exciting in any way limited format.
As far as I can tell, they let certain cards through even though they should be red-flagged because they want them to appear in Constructed. There's no fucking way that Aetherworks Marvel should have gotten out of Development with a 6 energy cost, coming into play untapped, not requiring that you sacrifice Aetherworks Marvel to use it, and with nothing at all that punishes Energy usage/gain or allows you to interact with it in any real way. Unless you're playing blue, your opponent frequently just gets a free shot to win the game in his top 6 even if you boarded in hate for the card. That should be the poster child for a stupid card - you can't actually answer it in any meaningful way unless you can counter it right when its cast.
It just gets compounded when there's cards you can cast with it that basically say "you win this game independent of anything that has happened or could happen" printed on it, and which also have no meaningful way to interact with that text. Printing Emrakul with "you win the game in a really un-fun way" as its primary ability, and then printing almost literally no way to hose its cost-reduction mechanic shouldn't have made it out of Development.
The problem is that these cards should be big fucking red flags, and I'm sure they were. The problem is that it doesn't seem like they spent enough time testing those BIG RED FLAG cards.
Infinite Stars
Member
Frontier doesn't have Nykthos.
To be fair to MaRo/R&D, Kaladesh is probably one of the best designed sets recently. In terms of flavor and actual design, it's pretty good.
MaRo said "Kaladesh is the set I'm most proud of as a design since Innistrad". That's not "Best set", and he's probably not wrong. As design goes, Kaladesh adds a bunch of new mechanics, Most of which are great(Fabricate is the only meh one, and it still is great flavored).
Basically, if you think of it as Large sets since Innistrad, we've got this list:
Innistrad(DFCs, Transform, effectively grafting Horror onto Magic and working really well)
Avacyn Restored(Ditches everything cool from Innistrad)
Return to Ravnica/Gatecrash(Nothing awesome was added, it was a return set)
Theros(Grafts Greek Myth onto Magic, Enchantment Creatures, Devotion, but never really makes itself stand out)
KtK(Makes a kickass world with a sweet new evergreen mechanic, but MaRo was less committed to this set as he had planned out the block as Time Travel)
Battle for Zendikar(Lol, I don't need to explain here)
Shadows over Innistrad(Return to Innistrad, the best mechanic was touched up by development)
Then we've got Kaladesh, a block that has 3 mechanics all built around the flavor of an inventor's fair, a world that's probably already on a shortlist for a return, etc. It's not hard to see why he likes Kaladesh so much.
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