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Werd!  You guys can repackage dragon products all day and I will buy.  Twice. 

Knights v Dragons makes sense, even if knights have been underwhelming to this point, and of course I also expect to see Hunted Dragon in there.  They could make knights fly and/or give them reach with equipment and not have to splash blue.

I have high expectations, having purchased and played with Elspeth vs Tezzert duel decks, which I found it to be very entertaining and balanced.  Quite a lot of fun.  Also a big fan of Archenemy and Planechase.

Thanks for the announcement!  Something to look forward to for sure!

After this announcement, Pirates vs. Ninja is becomming more and more possible...

Initial response to Knights vs. Dragons is "Dragons?".

I am slightly intrigued at what sounds like a pair of decks with red as the control.

Oct 11, 2010 -- 1:13PM, Two_Headed_Dragon wrote:

Knights v Dragons makes sense, even if knights have been underwhelming to this point, and of course I also expect to see Hunted Dragon in there.  They could make knights fly and/or give them reach with equipment and not have to splash blue.!

I'm not sure why you find Knights to be underwhelming.  Maybe in Standard, but there are some good Knights outside of Standard.   Haakon, Stromgald Scourge comes to mind.

The Black Knight always triumphs!

community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...

"If blue/white won't be used, then that makes room for one rivalry that makes absolute perfect sense, the classic fantasy battle of Knights vs. Dragons. The first problem that comes up is that dragons have Flying and knights generally don't. There's ways around that and I'm sure that two decks can be made to play amazingly."

CALLED IT!!! A year ago no less.

I actually had been thinking about this deck idea again right around the release of Elspeth vs. Tezzeret, and had thought about using some goblins as fodder, tapping out opponent's dragons, a theme of having knights each with their own abilities like first strike, vigilance, and flying, and then powering these knights up with enchanments like Daybreak Coronet, Knighthood, Serra's Embrace, Unquestioned Authority, Entangler, and Inviolability, so that while white may not have beaters quite as large as Dragons they can still hang. I'm honestly not sure if white will have removal, I thought that was where Elspeth overpowered the Tezzeret deck because anything blue would bring out white would just exile. That was a lame feeling in the last duel decks so I'm hoping they won't make the same mistake.

 And of course, Hunted Dragon is definitely going to be in the deck.

OH. MY. GOD. okay, so nwo that we have the faction packs comfirmed, there is one thing. There were TWO names copyrighted for the last set, New Phyrexia and Mirrodin Pure. WHat does this mean? Well my guess-

THE SPECIAL PRERELEASE EVENT WILL DETERMINE THE OUTCOME OF THE MIRRAN-PHYREXIAN WAR, AND DETERMINE THE THIRD SET.

dear mark rosewater, i love you

sincerely,
kevin

Oct 11, 2010 -- 9:33PM, Omenchild wrote:

THE SPECIAL PRERELEASE EVENT WILL DETERMINE THE OUTCOME OF THE MIRRAN-PHYREXIAN WAR, AND DETERMINE THE THIRD SET.

Impossible.
There is no way Wizards can get a set through design, development, manufacturing, and shipping in four months.  The usual lead time is about two years.

Oct 11, 2010 -- 9:33PM, Omenchild wrote:

OH. MY. GOD. okay, so nwo that we have the faction packs comfirmed, there is one thing. There were TWO names copyrighted for the last set, New Phyrexia and Mirrodin Pure. WHat does this mean? Well my guess-

THE SPECIAL PRERELEASE EVENT WILL DETERMINE THE OUTCOME OF THE MIRRAN-PHYREXIAN WAR, AND DETERMINE THE THIRD SET.

dear mark rosewater, i love you

sincerely,
kevin

As cool as that might be, I think it far more likely they simply don't want to give away the result of the war before the time is up. They simply wouldn't design two entire sets, and then scrap one entirely.

well by determine i more meant like thats the story. haha sorry im a vorthos at heart.
perhaps they are just similar sets, and plan on cutting about 40 cards depending on who wins?

Oh good, the split boosters will only be for the prerelease. That means it will be cool without being stupid always a plus.

Plus it avoids the obvious problem of one faction's packs stagnating on the shelves when the set's Golden Ticket ends up in the other faction.
Chances are pretty good that you (yes, you, the person reading this) can quickly name a shop that still has plenty of Betrayers of Kamigawa preconstructed decks - but not the one with the Jitte in it.

Oct 11, 2010 -- 10:04PM, Qmark wrote:

Plus it avoids the obvious problem of one faction's packs stagnating on the shelves when the set's Golden Ticket ends up in the other faction.
Chances are pretty good that you (yes, you, the person reading this) can quickly name a shop that still has plenty of Betrayers of Kamigawa preconstructed decks - but not the one with the Jitte in it.

I'm betting they considered faction packs for the entire set, and downgraded them to release gimmick for just this reason.  PR nightmare, that.

Based on the fact that they will have the two factions I think it is pretty sure that in this set the mirrans and the phyrexians will have the same ammount of cards each (unlike Scars that had more mirrans).
I also think that we will see phyrexians in all colors and not only black, probably evenly placed. Because if we have more black phyrexians it will break the balance of the event. Players who would choose the phyrexians boosters would have 30 black cards to built a nice monoblack deck and the mirrans would struggle with the other colors.

Go phyrexian and get poison. Win pre-release?

The Mirrans may get a new ability that can help them combat poison.

@ Oneiromantis

I doubt we will see Phyrexians in all colors.  There is no way that we will run into a white Phyrexian card, it is completely against the flavor of the Phyrexians.  What is more likely is that Phyrexians will be entirely in green and black while the Mirrans are only in white and red.  Both factions are likely to be in blue.

The news about faction packs at the Prerelease will, of course, be very interesting.

I regularly host a small prerelease (12-16 people) and I'm not associated with a store.  This gimmick will likely ensure that I do not host a prerelease for this set.  There is no way the players will know what faction they want until just before the cards are released.  This means that I either order enough of both factions so everyone gets their choice, or order equal amounts of each faction and just force the players to take what I have.  Either I have unhappy players or I have an extra box of product that I don't want and can't afford. 

I don't see how the players will be happy about this.  Hopefully Wizards has a solution to this or I can see many small prereleases getting canceled because of this.   

Yeah, that issue bothered me too. And I would guess that all prereleases would be affected - it doesn't matter if you are small or large, there's not really going to be a way to predict demand ahead of the event.  Maybe WotC have got some extra plans for this that they haven't yet mentioned.

In principle it does sound like a really cool idea though, as it will make the prerelease feel just a bit different.

Oct 12, 2010 -- 3:43AM, GreenBuster wrote:

@ Oneiromantis

I doubt we will see Phyrexians in all colors.  There is no way that we will run into a white Phyrexian card, it is completely against the flavor of the Phyrexians.  What is more likely is that Phyrexians will be entirely in green and black while the Mirrans are only in white and red.  Both factions are likely to be in blue.

I know it's derailing the point of the thread, but I think Phyrexians really are a 5-color race/civilization, and I actually believe they fit into white incredibly well. If it weren't for the Phyrexians' traditional association with black, their whole "take this entire plane and all its inhabitants and craft them into a more perfect form whether they like it or not" philosophy they've been exhibiting in Scars (mostly through flavor text) is a very strongly white trait. I think many Phyrexians, especially the leaders and higher-ups, would actually be better as white cards, even though they'll probably be black because of tradition. Having the Phyrexians branch out would not only make a lot of flavor sense, but stop the color imbalance that might otherwise cause problems at events. If Phyrexians aren't white at all, any white cards you got in your three normal packs would be nearly dead to you for deckbuilding. Not generally ideal.

That said, I think the split Prerelease packs are pretty cool. There may be logistical problems, but it's much better than if they tried to sell the entire set that way.

I'm not very enthusiastic about this split packs idea for the prerelease.  Does this mean I'll be pulling from only half the new set for my sealed pool?  That doesn't strike me as fun.

Furthermore, the Mirrodin/Phyrexian split in Scars is heavily tilted towards Mirrans.  So if I want to choose Phyrexian for my Besieged packs, I'd expect to have very few Phyrexian cards from Scars that will interact well with my Besieged cards.

I was sad to miss the Scars prerelease, but this announcement is making me reconsider whether I actually want to go to the Besieged prerelease.

I'm I just taking crazy pills here?

It seems extremely obvious that the contents of the "faction" packs will be identical to any other pack containing "Mirrodin Beseiged".  The only difference is the packaging.  I'm sure this is going towards whatever they're building to with the whole faction war thing.  (I kind of like the theory that the 3rd set will be dependant on which faction wins from what the playerbase does)

I can't beleive people are getting upset about this...I'm seeing it everywhere.  No, the phyrexian packs aren't going to give you access to the phyrexian half of the set.  It's the same pool of cards for both. 

Why would there be "regular" mirrodin beseiged packs if they were splitting it out like this?

@SirJarlsburg

I doubt that they would do just a regular packing in the faction packs.  I think that they would have only Phyrexian cards in Phyrexian packs and Mirran cards in Mirran packs.  It would defeat the whole point of faction packs to have the normal random split in the packs.  Wouldn't it be sad if you buy a Phyrexian pack and get all Mirran cards or vice versa?

I understand what you are trying to say, but I doubt that it would work out that way.

@ TranscientMaster

While Phyrexians may have been all colors at one time, they were corrupted.  Every Phyrexian card printed until now has been either black or artifact.  Also, the assimilation of species has always been a "black" trait.  The Phyrexians may see themselves as doing other races a favor, but the people they are "perfecting" don't seem too thrilled.

The Phyrexians in Mirrodin this time around are definitely very similar to the Borg.  The Borg try to bring all species to perfection, that is their goal.  However, most species want to keep their individuality so the Borg have to assimilate them.  The Phyrexians are operating the same way (though not as bluntly).  And you would call this "white"?  The only part of white that this falls under is "order".  It doesn't fall under "good" or "life".  While they don't intend to "kill" people during their transformations, the people become warped, twisted, and practically zombie-like.  Also, Phyrexians are considered a "corrupting" force.  Since when is "corrupting" a good "white" thing.

I can never see Phyrexians in their current state and the state that they have been all throughout Magic as EVER being white.  It makes zero flavor sense for the Phyrexians to ever be white.  They are the essence of EVIL in this game, and evil isn't "white".

As for color imbalance in limited deckbuilding, there already was a color imbalance in SoM.  Each faction has specific colors that it is in (although there are a number of black  Mirran cards).  Does an infect deck usually run white (except as a splash)?  If there happen to be white Phyrexian cards, they are not going to help you much because there are zero white Phyrexian cards in SoM.

I really should start a new topic about this in Flavor or something rather than continue the discussion here, but Phyrexia is very white. You seem to have fallen prey to the common mosconception that "black is evil, white is good". It's just not true. White can be evil just like black can. Granted, I do not think the Phyrexians are pure white, or even more white than black, but they absolutely have a white element to them.

Stealing from from MaRo's color articles, look at some of the traits of Phyrexia. They have very strong concepts of order, civilization, cooperation, community, sacrificing individuals for the greater good, military aspects, cooperation, construction, and many other white traits. They do not show many of the aspects one would associate with a purely black group, like individualism, or sacrificing others for personal power. The organized, cooperative nature of the Phyrexians on Mirrodin is a very strange trait for such an individualistic color as black is.

Oct 12, 2010 -- 1:42PM, TranscientMaster wrote:

I really should start a new topic about this in Flavor or something rather than continue the discussion here, but Phyrexia is very white. You seem to have fallen prey to the common mosconception that "black is evil, white is good". It's just not true. White can be evil just like black can. Granted, I do not think the Phyrexians are pure white, or even more white than black, but they absolutely have a white element to them.

Stealing from from MaRo's color articles, look at some of the traits of Phyrexia. They have very strong concepts of order, civilization, cooperation, community, sacrificing individuals for the greater good, military aspects, cooperation, construction, and many other white traits. They do not show many of the aspects one would associate with a purely black group, like individualism, or sacrificing others for personal power. The organized, cooperative nature of the Phyrexians on Mirrodin is a very strange trait for such an individualistic color as black is.

I see your point for the "good vs evil" argument.  Even the color information on this site doesn't use "good vs evil" when comparing black and white.  For that I stand corrected.

Also, I do agree that Phyrexians do share many of the characteristics that define white.  They may even have been white at one time.  But the fact remains that they are corrupted.  They embrace undeath.  They twist and warp the creatures around them.  They even infest other worlds.

Simply look at all of the Phyrexian cards ever made.  Do they look like creatures you would want to meet?  Do they look like creatures that would selflessly help and defend you?  The Phyrexians may be "white" to themselves, but all other races see their methods as a spreading of corruption (a black characteristic).

If you disagree with this, then we are just going to have to agree to disagree. 

I am really ticked about the faction packs being prerelease-only.  I've been waiting for them to make less random boosters for years; this is them finally giving me the pony I wished for only to tell me it goes to the glue factory tomorrow morning.

I'm going to skip this prerelease because there's no way I can make it two days in a row (even to the same venue, which may not count), and it'd drive my OCD nuts to only ever own one FP and not the other.

Why don't you just do two sealed flights on the same day? Problem solved.

This is such a good idea in theory and such a terrible idea in practice.
a) Mirran is way stronger than phyrexian in Scars for sealed.  So if you pick phyrexian, you basically are using a third of your scars packs vs 2/3rd if you picked mirran.
b) There's gonna be one card that's worth more than all the other cards in the set.  There always is. Whichever faction this card falls in will be picked way more than the other, leaving the TO with a shortage of one faction and a suprlus of the other.

What SirJarlsburg said seems  quite right. Nowhere in the article claimed that the packs would contain  different sets of cards. Only that different prerelease cards will be  given according to the faction. The fact that we want the two sets of  packs to actually mean more for the batte doesn'e make it true. It will  also solve the problem of the color unbalances.

About the white  Phyrexians argue: If you told me before Scars that I will have green or  blue Phyrexians I wouldn't believe it. Every Phyrexian that where ever  printed where either black or artifacts. Sure we had the occasional  legend that where multicolored (Ertai, the Corrupted = WUB, Vhatti  il-Dal = GB etc.) but not a solely not-black colored card. Since we have  green and blue Phyrexians why not having white? Anyway, the phyrexians  of Scars aren't actually full phyrexians , they are mostly creatures  that are a bit affected by phyrexian corruption but aren't still  completely phyrexianized, so we could see a white, slightly corrupted  creature that is of the phyrexian faction.

P.S.: I have no idea what I clicked and my post is that way, I tried to edit it but had no luck.

Today's Arcana:
Oh yey, another 'hey, Ogre's Cleaver belongs to Kazuul just like it says in the flavour text!' article. You can't be stuck for things to do yet, Scars has only just come out.

@GreenBuster
The original Phyrexians were pretty black, it was all machine cults and zombies which Yawgmoth was using to further his goal of invading Dominaria. The new Phyrexians seem to be a bit more equal, and could be said to be white/black (doing things for the good of a small group and not caring about others - www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.a...).

It's worth noting that Phyrexian cards have appeared in red and blue before, just not in monocolored.  Green is an interesting, but fitting addition and they certainly could expand to white as the set build requires them to take on more of the cards.  Amusingly, this is sort of turning Phyrexia into an all-color villian to mirror the Eldrazi colorlessness.

Oct 13, 2010 -- 4:14AM, Oneiromantis wrote:

What SirJarlsburg said seems  quite right. Nowhere in the article claimed that the packs would contain  different sets of cards. Only that different prerelease cards will be  given according to the faction. The fact that we want the two sets of  packs to actually mean more for the batte doesn'e make it true. It will  also solve the problem of the color unbalances.

I agree with GreenBuster.  If the faction packs don't contain different sets of cards, then what's the point of making the different packs, requiring each player to choose one or the other for the prerelease, not doing faction packs after the prerelease ("This is something we’re doing especially for the Mirrodin Besieged prerelease; regular Mirrodin Besieged boosters will be, well, regular."), and making a big deal of it in an Arcana?  I suppose that could be the way Wizards is doing it, but it seems very unlikely to me.

Oct 12, 2010 -- 2:27PM, GreenBuster wrote:

Also, I do agree that Phyrexians do share many of the characteristics that define white.  They may even have been white at one time.  But the fact remains that they are corrupted.  They embrace undeath.  They twist and warp the creatures around them.  They even infest other worlds.

Simply look at all of the Phyrexian cards ever made.  Do they look like creatures you would want to meet?  Do they look like creatures that would selflessly help and defend you?  The Phyrexians may be "white" to themselves, but all other races see their methods as a spreading of corruption (a black characteristic).

If you disagree with this, then we are just going to have to agree to disagree. 

If I may continue to chime in on Phyrexians, they are undoubtedly corrupted, corrupting, and many other things that are obviously black. However, their antagonism toward other races to help their own is still a white trait rather than a black. Look at Shadowmoor's Kithkin. You wouldn't want to meet up with any of them, either. They are fiercely loyal to their own, xenophobic to the outside world... and yet this is a white characteristic. The fact that Phyrexians happen to look more hideous doesn't change that. They are fiercely loyal to the Phyrexian cause, and will gladly die to further it if other races object violently to their advances.

Oct 13, 2010 -- 1:26PM, TranscientMaster wrote:

Oct 12, 2010 -- 2:27PM, GreenBuster wrote:

Also, I do agree that Phyrexians do share many of the characteristics that define white.  They may even have been white at one time.  But the fact remains that they are corrupted.  They embrace undeath.  They twist and warp the creatures around them.  They even infest other worlds.

Simply look at all of the Phyrexian cards ever made.  Do they look like creatures you would want to meet?  Do they look like creatures that would selflessly help and defend you?  The Phyrexians may be "white" to themselves, but all other races see their methods as a spreading of corruption (a black characteristic).

If you disagree with this, then we are just going to have to agree to disagree. 

If I may continue to chime in on Phyrexians, they are undoubtedly corrupted, corrupting, and many other things that are obviously black. However, their antagonism toward other races to help their own is still a white trait rather than a black. Look at Shadowmoor's Kithkin. You wouldn't want to meet up with any of them, either. They are fiercely loyal to their own, xenophobic to the outside world... and yet this is a white characteristic. The fact that Phyrexians happen to look more hideous doesn't change that. They are fiercely loyal to the Phyrexian cause, and will gladly die to further it if other races object violently to their advances.

There's a pretty big difference between sacrificing yourself for others because you are loyal and sacrificing yourself for others because you are controlled (i.e., corrupted) by those "others".  The first one is white (kithkins as you pointed out), the second one is black (zombies, squeleton and phyrexian).  There's no real loyalty in phyrexians.  There's only an ooze who corrupts (and that ooze certainly doesn't have loyalty for the crap it corrupts) and corrupted things that are controlled by the ooze and are no more loyal to the ooze than a puppet to its puppeteer.
Similar behavior will have totally different flavor, depending on the reason for that behavior, hence why different colors sometimes have similar mechanics.

After reading the Magic Arcana on Soliton I'm left wondering when Soliton became a trickshot with the Arbalest.

Oct 13, 2010 -- 5:51PM, Athinor wrote:

After reading the Magic Arcana on Soliton I'm left wondering when Soliton became a trickshot with the Arbalest.

When you feel lonely after a break up, you pick up a past time.  Some make model planes, others shoot arbalest.

Putrefax looks great especially in sketch form, but I still don't think the Ball Lightning "ability" ought to be green, ever.  I said this back in Planar Chaos when they made Groundbreaker , and I say it now: green is about nature, it is about the long term, it is about balance and sustainable growth.  Born-to-die creatures are red or black, occasionally even white if it's about a "noble" sacrifice, but not green or blue; the Simic colors are about planning for a future that you expect to survive to see.

Groundbreaker is one of my favorite Green cards and I think it fits just fine in Green.

Got a problem with Timbermare ?

Oct 13, 2010 -- 4:14AM, Oneiromantis wrote:

What SirJarlsburg said seems  quite right. Nowhere in the article claimed that the packs would contain  different sets of cards. Only that different prerelease cards will be  given according to the faction. The fact that we want the two sets of  packs to actually mean more for the batte doesn'e make it true. It will  also solve the problem of the color unbalances.

Because I feel it bears pointing out (albeit a couple of days late)...

For these boosters, Mirrodin Besieged was divided into two  halves. Cards with the Mirran watermarks appear only in Mirran boosters,  and cards with Phyrexian watermarks appear only in Phyrexian boosters.

The set is divided based on watermarks, as specifically stated in the article. Phyrexian packs will only get phyrexian cards, and vice versa

Oct 13, 2010 -- 11:29PM, willpell wrote:

Putrefax looks great especially in sketch form, but I still don't think the Ball Lightning "ability" ought to be green, ever.  I said this back in Planar Chaos when they made Groundbreaker , and I say it now: green is about nature, it is about the long term, it is about balance and sustainable growth.  Born-to-die creatures are red or black, occasionally even white if it's about a "noble" sacrifice, but not green or blue; the Simic colors are about planning for a future that you expect to survive to see.

While it is true that "sacrifice at the end of turn" isn't an ability that occurs very often in green, it can happen on very few occasions.  This is a decayed and rotten creature that looks like it can fall apart at any moment and leave nothing but a metal skeleton behind.  Also, it is tainted by the Phyrexians so some "black" qualities are going to start developing in this creature.

I love these pencil sketches (see avatar).

If anyone at Wizards is reading this, please please please PLEASE can we get some alternate art promos that use pencil sketches of the normal artwork? IMO they would look amazing.

Please consider this.

~ Tim

While I enjoy the artwork for the Putrefax I find it wanting..  This is the premier Infect creature in Green (not necessarily the best!) and dropping up to 5 poison in one unaided swipe exceeds even the premier mythic in Black - therefore I'm picturing something a bit larger for a Putrefax. As it is the Putrefax looks only slightly larger, albeit far more degenerate, than a Cystbearer.

I don't fault the artist, but either the Putrefax should have been less powerful given its artist description or the artist description should better match the stats of the card.  Perhaps just adding that the Putrefax operates in a pack (via others lurking in the background) would have been enough for me as strength in numbers often translates into the trample ability.



 

Oct 14, 2010 -- 7:28AM, Athinor wrote:

Perhaps just adding that the Putrefax operates in a pack (via others lurking in the background) would have been enough for me as strength in numbers often translates into the trample ability.

A long-term trend has been "one card = one thing".
Creature cards have, for quite some time, represented exactly one creature.  A notable exception are cards R&D cannot or do not want to simply copy/paste (such as Llanowar Elves ), while other cards representing a multiple of something (such as Grizzly Bear s < /strong> < /em> ) have been replaced by cards representing one of something ( Runeclaw Bear < /em> ).

Very rarely anymore do we see creature cards with more than one of that creature in the art, and/or a plural in the card name.

Oct 14, 2010 -- 12:31AM, Raedien wrote:

Groundbreaker is one of my favorite Green cards and I think it fits just fine in Green.

Got a problem with Timbermare ?

It's an incredibly beautiful picture, but yeah I have the same problem with it as I do with Groundbreaker and Uktabi Drake - their temporariness doesn't make them feel Green at all to me.  (Groundbreaker's art doesn't work for me at all, it doesn't look like anything that I can make sense of, just weird squiggly lines.)  I might be able to wrap my head around it if they'd been concepted as living storm fronts, but that would require flying (entirely redundantly in the Timbermare-storm's case).  Even there it'd be dubious.  It kinda works, but I'd much rather see this effect in black where it's extremely fitting.

@ GreenBuster:  If they were going to say every Phyrexian green creature has "black qualities" it should have just stayed a black Phyrexian, and Phyrexia itself stayed black.  Not that I don't like the current version, but as I've said before, pretty much the definitional trait which distinguishes black's "Being selfish is only natural and so I'm going to kill you" from green's "Being anything other than natural is nothing but selfishness and I'll kill you if you do it" is that green has this giant hippie-spirituality trip where everyone is to regard themselves as a cog in the great machine of nature.  Phrexia's philosophy can be reconciled with this, particularly via the perception that Phyrexia is a disease - the sentient green Phyrexians can see themselves as viruses dedicated to replicating in order to conquer the host organism.  Divide and grow, divide and grow.  But the Putrefax, at end of turn, he just....divides.  Again, if they were going to use the idea of a green temp-critter, something gaseous might have worked, like a living chlorine cloud that pours itself into one victim's lungs and then just stays there.  I dunno, it's not bad the way it is, and I love the art in general.  If it were up to me, I might have ditched Cystbearer's art (which would make the letter-writer from Doug's column unhappy, I know), put this picture on that so the card was less boring, and commished a new piece along the disease-cloud lines for Putrefax.  But then again, maybe not.

Growth normally implies a certain degree of permanence (Giant Growth notwithstanding), and so while I can squint and see this card working, it's not what I consider ideal.

shambling, decaying, plodding...  hastey dude?

That Tokens deck is pretty cool, allot of singletons though, I think there should have een more Elspeths in there.

Oct 14, 2010 -- 9:57PM, TensaZangetsu22 wrote:

That Tokens deck is pretty cool, allot of singletons though, I think there should have een more Elspeths in there.

I agree, what's with all the singletons?

Also, not a huge fan of the Sol Ring's art (feels too CG to me), but I just realized how awesome its new flavor text is.

..."OpenTip(event, "Black Carriage")" class="nodec">Black Carriage – Homelands rare. On the discussion page for ..."OpenTip(event, "Black Carriage")" class="nodec">Black Carriage, ainsi_la_nuit Leshrac_Nightwalker says: "Thank you, Grand Creature Type Update, for allowing me to write that WOTC really put the carriage before the horse on this card." Nice work!

Fixed.

Oct 14, 2010 -- 10:22PM, bioporn wrote:

Also, not a huge fan of the Sol Ring's art (feels too CG to me), but I just realized how awesome its new flavor text is.

It's a shame, since the art is astounding at card size, but the CG aspect is pretty clear at desktop size. Still making it my background for a while though, heh.

Thanks for putting it up, Wizards!

(We have a user named "bioporn"?  I'm amazed the ORCs haven't nuked that.)

I don't have a problem with CG art, although I think a non-fiery Sol Ring is extremely odd, especially given the way it floats above a techy-looking platform much as if there was an antigravity device rather than a magic spell at work.  (Magic spells are glowier.  Serious science fiction involves a minimum of pyrotechnics being displayed, since a device that shoots colored light everywhere is wasting energy and should be redesigned for greater efficiency; being able to make things look cool without Fridge Logic is one of the reasons I like fantasy more.)

Oct 14, 2010 -- 6:17AM, LMTRK wrote:

I love these pencil sketches (see avatar).

If anyone at Wizards is reading this, please please please PLEASE can we get some alternate art promos that use pencil sketches of the normal artwork? IMO they would look amazing.

Please consider this.

~ Tim

I have to second this, especially in foil...

I didn't even think of how hot they would be until you mentioned it.

Knights v Dragons

Am I the only person who read the whole release more than once?

"Enraged goblin minions pour from the mountain crags to repel the  intruders, but that’s only to give the majestic hellkites time to take  to the skies and unleash a firestorm that no knight could hope to  survive."

The point of the red deck is the be slower and develop into a fearsome flying force. Which means white weenie versus mid-range red... LOL, kind of like white weenie versus mid-range blue/artifact... but subbing blue for red.

I love the new Sol Ring art.  It's a completely different take on the concept, which is cool.  You can either take the raw, fiery one, or the refined starlight-powered one.

Choice is good!  (I use the original in my EDH, and the Relics in my Cube )

That said, I can still only think of one thing when I see it.

My precious...

This week's wallpaper is really cool, gives a different perspective on a busted card.
That being said, I would love to see a Kemba art along the way before long -- please and thanks. 

Today's card of the day (Friday, October 15, 2010) references the discussion page of Black Carriage. Just wanted to point out that it credits the quote to the wrong person.

ansi_la_nuit said "Worst card ever?"

"Thank you, Grand Creature Type Update, for allowing me to write that WOTC really put the carriage before the horse on this card." was actually written by Leshrac_Nightwalker.

I'm a bad person because seeing the shirts, all I can think is:

"These will be available in male sizes XSm, Sm, 3XL, and 4XL."

Ewok and Hutt sizes, with nothing in between?

I have to say they are getting better at making Magic shirts that don't double as "kick me" signs. The art they use for Planeswalker, Mirran and Phyrexian are perfect for this sort of thing.

I am tempted to pick up a couple of these.

The shirts look nice, but are much too expensive.  Licenced merchandising is an acceptible cheat for things like football teams, which have to make immense amounts of money to pay player salaries and stadium costs and such, but Magic makes its money by selling booster packs, it should price merchandise which advertises it much more cheaply so that more players are able to afford to serve as living billboards.

Order of the Stick also sells their shirts at $25, and the only thing that ever made me buy any was when they offered a one-day 20% discount.  Think about it swagdog.

"By getting ..."OpenTip(event, "Phyrexian Devourer")" class="nodec">Phyrexian Devourer and ..."OpenTip(event, "Triskelion")" class="nodec">Triskelion into the graveyard, Rion gives his ..."OpenTip(event, "Necrotic Ooze")" class="nodec">Necrotic Oozes the ability to ping an opponent directly over and over again. Only a single player was able to survive the combo on the weekend!"

This combo really shouldn't work with any reliability; the current Oracle text of the Phyrexian Devourer allows it to by using +1/+1 counters, but the card as written only gets a +1/+1 counter when it removes a 1-cost card (and, hilariously, gets a +0/+0 counter when it removes an Ornithopter or something).  The policy of following the printed functionality as closely as possible should dictate that the Devourer does not get multiple +1/+1s off a high-cost card; it should continue to use anachronistic counters, even if that disables combos with modern cards, because the printed wording doesn't in any way suggest that the combo should work, and players should be able to play their cards as written whenever this isn't utterly impossible.  (Frankly I'd be in favor of saying that whether Kormus Bell creatures are black depends on which printing you use, but I don't blame Wizards for not taking it that far.  However the Devourer's only physical card is the Alliances original, and you can't Oracle the printed text of every card that someone is playing.  Being too lazy to add +2/+2 counter, +6/+6 counter, +16/+16 counter, and +0/+0 counter functionalities to MOL is no excuse for abandoning the very sensible policy that a physical card ought to do what it says.

Obviously the best Magic shirts I've ever seen.  Heck, if they weren't close to 40 bucks each (including shipping), I'd totally pick up the Phyrexian one.  Hopefully they drop down 10-15 bucks.

I don't suppose we'll be seeing any of those on shirts any time soon? Not to mention their six equally important friends.

Oct 19, 2010 -- 3:57AM, ZivilynBane wrote:

I don't suppose we'll be seeing any of those on shirts any time soon? Not to mention their six equally important friends.

I will wager that they are available somewhere.  If they aren't I don't know why they would make them several years after the set has been made.  Not that I would mind them being made.

Maybe when Shake / Rattle / Roll is revealed to be a return to Ravnica.

Shirts look nice, but I think I'd never wear them.

$25 is way too much for a t-shirt. $25 plus shipping is way, way too much for a t-shirt.

This arcana seems very lazy. Even for Arcana.

Ravnica guild shirts would definitely be awesome - unfortunately, even if Magic returns to Ravnica, it probably would return to either pre-Guildpact or post-Guildpact Ravnica, so the odds are that at least some of the guilds would not be a factor.  The odds of us getting all those shirts (in appropriate two-color combinations, natch) would be pretty slim.

Oct 19, 2010 -- 9:11PM, bob_the_wonder_Beeble wrote:

This arcana seems very lazy. Even for Arcana.

I dunno, while it didn't really reveal any information it did at least put it all in one place for easy comparison.  Big art is never a bad thing in my opinion (maybe not the best thing, but not bad).

Seeing them all lined up, I had to realize again why I don't like the new Spellbombs at all.

Even in Limited play, which they are primarily designed for, I would feel terrible putting them in my deck unless I'm in dire need of Metalcraft enablers (and even then I would feel bad).

Essentially they're just expensive cyclers with a mostly irrelevant effect attached - apart from the green one, but I'd rather have Wayfarer's Bauble back.

Big art is indeed always good. I hadn't realised that Origin Spellbomb has a little Myr head on it (the nice old idiosyncratic Myr design even, not the new boring one).

Seriously cool to see that the Horizon Spellbomb is in the form of two interlocking octahedra. There should be more cards with that kind of art.

I have a lot to say about spellbombs after reading this Arcana.  I don't usually reply to Arcana articles but this one got me thinking.

I'm a much bigger fan of the new spellbomb cycle, now that I've see the large art.  It would be neat to see the art description originally given for each of these - were these details all called out?

Origin Spellbomb - as alextfish noted, a little Myr head (it's like a Myr egg!)
Flight Spellbomb - looks like the tail end of a rocket plane or booster pack that's dissolving
Nihil Spellbomb - has a small face on the side we can see, where the cross-lacing is really fingers closed over the upper half of the face.
Panic Spellbomb - has a small "angry robot" face in the center
Horizon Spellbomb - has an icon of a "path to a destination" that zigzags up a little mountain.

I also like that the effect coming off of the new cycle of spellbombs is more unique and appropriate, not just "Look - it popped and smoke (blue/black/green) or fire or light came out!".
Origin - seems to be disintegrating, due to light pressure from within
Flight - dissolving into liquid and lightning
Nihil - seems to be giving off "erasing", if that makes any sense, or possibly sucking the surrounding blackness into it
Panic - definitely a fireworks display
Horizon - this one is the most interesting, it's not really impacting the local area, but instead sending out a vibration or pulse, that's summoning the new land for you.  It makes me think of a typical Leyline illustration, almost.

The original cycle of cards had overall better gameplay effects, but the art was pretty vague and didn't really line up with what the card did.

My brain still belongs to Lifespark Spellbomb , because it was the only combo card in Pauper Magic for a long time.  But these new ones are my favorite art, hands down.

Oct 18, 2010 -- 11:00PM, willpell wrote:

The shirts look nice, but are much too expensive.  Licenced merchandising is an acceptible cheat for things like football teams, which have to make immense amounts of money to pay player salaries and stadium costs and such, but Magic makes its money by selling booster packs, it should price merchandise which advertises it much more cheaply so that more players are able to afford to serve as living billboards.

I was poking around the SwagDog site, and I noticed there are two cheaper Mirran and Phyrexian shirts there too... I'm wondering why they weren't mentioned in the article here, because they're quite pretty:

Phyrexian

Mirran

Personally, I'd absolutely love to get my mitts on the acid black Phyrexia shirt because it looks amazing, but the price is rather ridiculous.

It's probably less than what I paid for my last concert shirt. They're expensive if you are lining up your whole wardrobe with MTG shirts, but for 1 and 2 shirts, less of an issue.

Good call on the "remember it's 1996" tag for today's Arcana.  If you're "aggressive from the start" it will "last quite a long time", this 62-card Armageddon deck with 19 lands.

Particularly amusing since I was playing back then and my decks weren't even this good.

1996 is when the theory of "Tempo" began to become articulated.

Wait... Something about serra angel and nothing about the planeswalker Serra? That's from really really really long ago isn't it?

Oct 15, 2010 -- 9:47PM, JonHearn wrote:

Today's card of the day (Friday, October 15, 2010) references the discussion page of Black Carriage. Just wanted to point out that it credits the quote to the wrong person.

ansi_la_nuit said "Worst card ever?"

"Thank you, Grand Creature Type Update, for allowing me to write that WOTC really put the carriage before the horse on this card." was actually written by Leshrac_Nightwalker.

Curse that ainsi_la_nuit stealing my thunder!  (I admit freely enough that it was thunder of the "extremely strained joke" sort)

Today's Arcana:

NOTE: the channel is #r&dchat, not #mtgdevchat.

Why do they keep using Necrotic Ooze to represent Phyrexia? It's Mirran affiliated.

Yes, this arcana spotlights the issue of necrotic ooze 's questionable watermark. That watermark looks especially awkward in proximity with phyrexian ideology courtesy of Geth in the flavor text.

I also think mimic vat has the wrong watermark. Minions from vats is about as phyrexian as it gets.

Mimic Vat  probably has the Mirran watermark because of having Imprint.  However, I think that it is more of a neutral card rather than being Mirran or Phyrexian.  Same goes with the ooze.

Although if they persist on using Necrotic Ooze to represent Phyrexia, then they need to figure out why they gave it a Mirran watermark. 

Why is the red deck under daily decks today a "perfect example" of an aligned deck? I can only see 8 affiliated cards in the main. Am I missing something? Does Koth count as Mirran-aligned?

Oct 27, 2010 -- 5:04AM, Capt4in wrote:

Why is the red deck under daily decks today a "perfect example" of an aligned deck? I can only see 8 affiliated cards in the main. Am I missing something? Does Koth count as Mirran-aligned?

Planeswalkers are not alligned cards. And sideboard cards dont count towards allignment either (although they do count against it), so this deck is NOT alligned.

Explaining how allignment works is enough effort without decks like this confusing things...

We need an official statement on this. And while they are at it, could they also clarify whether older (pre-SOM) cards that were reprinted with a watermark count as having that mark or not.

Cheers

~ Tim

The Magic arcana on October 6 explained the definition for affiliated decks.  Under the rules listed by the arcana, the deck used today is not an affiliated deck.  However, it wouldn't take much to make it affiliated.  Just move a couple of Arc Trails mainboard and there you have it.

Oct 27, 2010 -- 5:58AM, LMTRK wrote:

Oct 27, 2010 -- 5:04AM, Capt4in wrote:

Why is the red deck under daily decks today a "perfect example" of an aligned deck? I can only see 8 affiliated cards in the main. Am I missing something? Does Koth count as Mirran-aligned?

Planeswalkers are not alligned cards. And sideboard cards dont count towards allignment either (although they do count against it), so this deck is NOT alligned.

Explaining how allignment works is enough effort without decks like this confusing things...

We need an official statement on this. And while they are at it, could they also clarify whether older (pre-SOM) cards that were reprinted with a watermark count as having that mark or not.

Cheers

~ Tim

This was an error, and it's now been corrected. Koth is from Mirrodin and fights on the Mirran side in the story, but planeswalkers don't have Mirran or Phyrexian watermarks (because they have the option of, you know, leaving). The deck would need two more main-deck Mirran cards in order to be Mirran-aligned.

I've also received a clarification on reprints. Watermarks are associated with card titles, and don't depend on the specific printing. So a Fifth Dawn Trinket Mage counts toward Mirran alignment for a Mirran deck, and would invalidate Phyrexian alignment in a Phyrexian deck.

The complete list of watermarked reprints in Scars of Mirrodin that have appeared in prior sets with no watermark is below. They are all Mirran aligned.

Arrest
Bloodshot Trainee
Copper Myr
Disperse
Gold Myr
Iron Myr
Leaden Myr
Mindslaver
Shatter
Silver Myr
Trinket Mage

Thanks Kelly!

I have passed this clarification on to my FLGS.

~ Tim

Corrupted Harvester sure changed a lot between the sketch and the final version.  I much prefer the sketch's vision, with the jaw hanging down instead of thrust forward and the "face" consisting of two sewn-together skull plates.

(I also still think "Corrupted Harvester" is a hilarious name.  What, they weren't corrupt in the first place?)

I definitely prefer the sketch to the final version on Corrupted Harvester.  I especially wish that they had more of the second arm instead of it being submerged.

I like both versions of the harvester a lot.

The elf daily deck is not actually "affiliated" due to having only 8 mirran cards.

Sketch is way better than the final version.
I like Nils Hamm alot, but I think this one turned out rather bland, even ugly.

Which two languages became Su-Chi?

I prefer the face in the sketch as well. The finished art just looks too generic for me.

I too think that the initial head of the harvester looked better.

Oct 27, 2010 -- 10:00PM, willpell wrote:

(I also still think "Corrupted Harvester" is a hilarious name.  What, they weren't corrupt in the first place?)

I think it's supposed to mean that it used to do Mirran Black things and now it, uh, does... Phyrexian Black things? And this is... really different... somehow? Even though it... doesn't have infect?

OKAY, I ADMIT IT, I GOT NOTHIN'

You guys know the Rule of Thirds, right? This zoomed-in wallpaper is much less interesting than the full card's art. I'm pretty disappointed, since the whole picture is amazing.

Oct 28, 2010 -- 8:54AM, AlexaM wrote:

Oct 27, 2010 -- 10:00PM, willpell wrote:

(I also still think "Corrupted Harvester" is a hilarious name.  What, they weren't corrupt in the first place?)

I think it's supposed to mean that it used to do Mirran Black things and now it, uh, does... Phyrexian Black things? And this is... really different... somehow? Even though it... doesn't have infect?

OKAY, I ADMIT IT, I GOT NOTHIN'

Yeah, there's just no real reason it shouldn't have been called Phyrexian Harvester.

It is a Phyrexian card - it sacrifices creatures, rather than sacrificing artifacts as the Mirrans do.  Similarly, Necrogen Censer uses charge counters, so it's Mirran, and Necrotic Ooze uses the graveyard, which is a traditional Black thing that fits well with Phyrexia but isn't specific to it.  Granted, sacrificing creatures isn't exclusive to Phyrexia either, but for the purposes of this block they decided it was, probably because it would be too hard to fill 20% of the set with Phyrexian cards if they could only have infect or proliferate.

Oct 26, 2010 -- 10:11PM, metalevolence wrote:

Yes, this arcana spotlights the issue of necrotic ooze 's questionable watermark. That watermark looks especially awkward in proximity with phyrexian ideology courtesy of Geth in the flavor text.

I also think mimic vat has the wrong watermark. Minions from vats is about as phyrexian as it gets.

10. <+LaurieChe> Necrotic Ooze has a Mirran watermark, but its art is used to represent Phyrexia all over the website. What's going on there? Is the watermark a mistake?
<@MikeTurian> How very strange!
<@MikeTurian> Certainly not a mistake, the card was marked as Mirran intentionally
<@Maro> Design laid out some guidlelines for what was Phyrexian and what was not.
<@Maro> Remember that we allocated only 20% for the Phyrexian cards.
<@Maro> If the card didn't do one of the things we laid out, then it was Mirran.
<@MikeTurian> One of the challenges of artwork for Black Cards is it will always look extra dark and brooding
<@MikeTurian> Another card, Mimic Vat was clearly Mirran
<@MikeTurian> as it has Imprint, but the art does look dark and creepy
<@Maro> Remember, by the way, that Mirrodin did have some creepy stuff.
<@MikeTurian> Also, we did want to show some amount of Phyrexian infecting Mirrodin
<@MikeTurian> and that is how come we did a card like Tel-Jilad Fallen
<@MikeTurian> which draws from the Tel-Jilad of Mirrodin while being a Phyrexian card
<@Maro> In a perfect world, that art would not have shown up representing Phyrexia.
<+LaurieChe> so in summary: website editors don't read watermarks? Thanks.
<@MikeTurian> Well when they deal with a card, it isn't in card form

(from SOM chat transcript)

Oct 28, 2010 -- 10:17PM, yesnomu wrote:

You guys know the Rule of Thirds, right? This zoomed-in wallpaper is much less interesting than the full card's art. I'm pretty disappointed, since the whole picture is amazing.

Yeah, please post the real full version!  It looks sooooo much better.  I've been waiting for this wallpaper ever since it was teased on the product pages.  Best art of the set in my opinion.  But it definitly looks off balance all zoomed in and you lose most of the awesome majesty.  I know you probably can't re-crop and composite new wallpapers, Monty, but could you send it up the pipeline that we like the full frame art way better?  Thanks.

I finally got around to watching the Mirrodin and Phyrexia videos.  The Mirrodin one was rather nice and inspiring, but the Phyrexian was just epic; whoever came up with that monster voice gets the gold star.  I really wish the videos were perma-downloadable so I could save a copy of each.  The Phyrexia video also appeared to show some art that we haven't seen, like the tall guys with the kite-shaped heads; I'm excited to find out what they were all about.  Sadly I didn't see any such possible-Beseiged-teasers in the Mirrodin one, perhaps because they had four times as many cards in SOM to draw from and thus felt no need to go beyond that, further reinforcing the impression that Phyrexia has the "sexy" one.

EDIT - I watched the Mirrodin video once more and determined that it does have a couple pieces of art in it that we haven't seen before, but I still think it's shorter and a bit more bland than it should have been.  In particular I would have liked to see Vulshok Heartstoker in there, as he's one of the sorts of people who ought to be making a speech on this topic.  Meanwhile, I watched the Phyrexian video twice more, and am not tired of it yet.  Dear God, please someone make sure to archive that thing.

What a horrible idea. But that doesn't surprise me anymore..