I meant the environment in general, so it would appear the Kamigawa-Rav era was the first with this many playable high-cost creatures. Thanks for letting me know!
The thing is that I only started paying attention to competitive Magic sometime during Kamigawa block, so for all I know there were earlier ones that were similar. IIRC Onslaught Block Constructed was fatty-dominated, but I don't think that translated to Standard.
I am very much in favor of making good dual lands easy to acquire: replacing them each core set would make it impossible for non-wealthy players to acquire them.
And I think I like the idea of each color having a powerful finisher: it keeps the balance a little bit. It's also nice when the "best" of a cycle is green and enables complex and sublte strategies, given that green usually gets either weak or painfully simplistic cards. Green SHOULD get strong, interesting creatures that have utility outside of the lower right-hand corner.
1. Buying a booster box and demanding that it pay for itself is silly, and shouldn't be the reason anyone buys a box. The cards are randomized, and that's kind of the point. In my opinion, WotC should be looking after players first and collectors...very far from first. Side note: I bought a box and it could pay for about 75% of itself should I decide to sell any of it.
2. If you're buying boosters from a core set, you can't really be surprised when you pull some rares that you already have four of. If you have a respectable card pool and wish to avoid this, then I suggest pursuing singles and prize packs, and save most of your money on future expansions.
3. My only real complaint about this set are similar to one others have stated before: there is way too much crap taking up precious uncommon slots. Greatsword and Kite Shield, as well as the life-gain artifacts...it just irritates me when I see any of them. These cards are nowhere near good enough to take up an uncommon slot. Hell, they may not be good enough for the cardboard they're printed on. I understand that the development team wants to cater to beginners too, but that doesn't mean that the cards should just be pure crap, right?
4. WotC, please give us enemy-colored duals!!
5. Chipotle rules.
University of Charleston School of Pharmacy, Class of 2016
Finally, the coup de grace for m12's value is best illustrated by none other than the Titan Promos. Be honest with yourself. You either get $1.00 for your $3-$4, maybe a substandard planeswalker OR a Titan. Or you could just pay $10 for titan promos. That's right, their geniuses syphoned even more value away from this set by flooding the market with thousands and thousands of titans, permanently sealing their price ceiling and ultimately the fate of m12's value.
Oh, give me a break. Yeah, damn them for making mythics that see heavy tournament play readily available! What a bunch of fools! I'm sure we all remember how much fun it was when Jace TMS was 80$ a pop, thank god they didn't do anything to increase his availability!
See, you're confusing availability and flooding. I'm fine with either so long as there's SOME chance of my recouping my investment. If you buy a box you have almost NO chance of recouping your investment. 95% of the rare cards in the set can be had for literally $1.00 or less. Inferno, Frost and Sun titan are only $4.00. Grave is $8-10 and primeval is $12-15.
Garruk, Chandra and Jace are all @ 25 and are going to either settle or continue to go down. Gideon is a shaky $15 and Sorrin is $6 now. Every other mythic is unequivocal bulk or will be shortly.
I'll tell you what, if you spend $100 and don't get cards worth close to that, you'll be upset. If you're not upset, you'd be a fool, right? I mean, because if you were really 'happy' or content, you'd have just bought those singles and used the other $40 for something else.
I didn't make that mistake because it was evident as soon as the spoiler was filled out. It sickens me to see 20 people in my local store groaning about how they feel fleeced after buying a box becuase no one recouped their cost. That's bad for magic whether you're a pauper or a prince.
That's a fair point, thanks for clarifying. I can see how that would be frustrating for those who usually spend that much on a new set.
However, that closing anecdote sickens me as well, for a different reason. It's not as though the cards in the set are kept hidden from consumers prior to purchase; how can you complain about not making your money back when you know the contents of what you're purchasing beforehand?
You'll forget you ever read this the minute you look away.
there is nothing "epic" about a turn one victory. ever.
or really any magic game, for that matter.
So this one time, I wanted to play a game of Magic with my friend, but he was in another country and neither of us had Magic Online. I hitchhiked my way to the coast, barely fending off hungry wildlife when I couldn't get a ride, nearly dying of thirst crossing deserts, and posoning myself half to death foraging for food. At one point, I was taken hostage by a group of kidnappers, only managing to escape after a week of careful planning thanks to careful application of a rusty spoon.
Once I reached the coast, I had no money to buy a ticket across the ocean, so I built a boat using my own two hands, and spent months sailing across the waves, nearly losing my deck as I swam to the shore of a desert island in a storm after being capsized by an enormous wave. Nearly delusional after so long with no human contact (the notches I cut in the single tree to tell time had long since felled the thing) I was eventually rescued by a passing ship, where I was taken aboard as a crew member.
We sailed around the world, seeing many exotic places and having great adventures, before we finally arrived at my friend's country. Once more I stumbled across a desolate landscape, riding on train or car when I could, and going on foot when I could not. Eventually, weary to the bone, seven years after I started my journey, I arrived at my friend's house, clutching my well-worn and weathered deck to my chest. We shuffled up our decks, I won the roll. Gleefully, I laid down my cards.
Black Lotus . My friend looked quizzically at me, wondering what I was about to do. After so long, he no longer knew what deck I had brought with me to this game.
Flash . A knowing smile appears on my friend's face as the knowledge slowly returns to him.
So no one else is upset with the stunt Wizards just pulled to drive sales?
Drive sales of what? Non-Jace, non-Mystic cards? I'm pretty sure people already own more than eight Magic cards. If you don't, I feel for you. Maybe you can trade those Stoneforge Mystics, which are still quite valuable, for some.
Finally, the coup de grace for m12's value is best illustrated by none other than the Titan Promos. Be honest with yourself. You either get $1.00 for your $3-$4, maybe a substandard planeswalker OR a Titan. Or you could just pay $10 for titan promos. That's right, their geniuses syphoned even more value away from this set by flooding the market with thousands and thousands of titans, permanently sealing their price ceiling and ultimately the fate of m12's value.
Oh, give me a break. Yeah, damn them for making mythics that see heavy tournament play readily available! What a bunch of fools! I'm sure we all remember how much fun it was when Jace TMS was 80$ a pop, thank god they didn't do anything to increase his availability!
I think Jace was a mistake in one direction, and M12 represents a mistake in the other. M12 is about as exciting to open as 9th edition, which is why they revamped core sets to begin with. The cost of packs and boxes has to be justified. I am not sure how they deal with the 1-year standard legal nature of this product and manage supply/usage issues. Maybe keep them legal 2 years and tie them to the fall block?
Finally, the coup de grace for m12's value is best illustrated by none other than the Titan Promos. Be honest with yourself. You either get $1.00 for your $3-$4, maybe a substandard planeswalker OR a Titan. Or you could just pay $10 for titan promos. That's right, their geniuses syphoned even more value away from this set by flooding the market with thousands and thousands of titans, permanently sealing their price ceiling and ultimately the fate of m12's value.
Oh, give me a break. Yeah, damn them for making mythics that see heavy tournament play readily available! What a bunch of fools! I'm sure we all remember how much fun it was when Jace TMS was 80$ a pop, thank god they didn't do anything to increase his availability!
See, you're confusing availability and flooding. I'm fine with either so long as there's SOME chance of my recouping my investment. If you buy a box you have almost NO chance of recouping your investment. 95% of the rare cards in the set can be had for literally $1.00 or less. Inferno, Frost and Sun titan are only $4.00. Grave is $8-10 and primeval is $12-15.
Garruk, Chandra and Jace are all @ 25 and are going to either settle or continue to go down. Gideon is a shaky $15 and Sorrin is $6 now. Every other mythic is unequivocal bulk or will be shortly.
I'll tell you what, if you spend $100 and don't get cards worth close to that, you'll be upset. If you're not upset, you'd be a fool, right? I mean, because if you were really 'happy' or content, you'd have just bought those singles and used the other $40 for something else.
I didn't make that mistake because it was evident as soon as the spoiler was filled out. It sickens me to see 20 people in my local store groaning about how they feel fleeced after buying a box becuase no one recouped their cost. That's bad for magic whether you're a pauper or a prince.
That's a fair point, thanks for clarifying. I can see how that would be frustrating for those who usually spend that much on a new set.
However, that closing anecdote sickens me as well, for a different reason. It's not as though the cards in the set are kept hidden from consumers prior to purchase; how can you complain about not making your money back when you know the contents of what you're purchasing beforehand?
Veslfen,
I think it's fair to say that they might have been naive. From past experiences like m10 and m11, they've seen great value. They made the mistake of thinking that same value would be there, and it is their fault. I'm certainly glad I didn't get hoodwinked, but their crime of being so naive as to think WotC wouldn't let them down in the name of 'stability' isn't so bad. Really, for a company that has a policy so backwards as the reserved list, yet sometimes offers so little value, it's perplexing. In any case, here's hoping that set's like besieged are the norm in the future, where even when you miss, there might be a 5-8 dollar rare as your consolation prize, rather than bulk as in m12.
~To echo someone above, mythic cycles really back you into corners when choosing what stays. I also think a lot of the aggravation with the Titans is that they're so similar. Give mythics a different feel even if they are of similar power level.
As far as this goes, I think it just means that Wizards shouldn't put mythic cycles (other than the Planeswalkers) in the Core Set. Mythic cycles in non-core sets is not an issue because everybody expects for those to go away after 2 years. And plain old mythics that are not part of a cycle (as well as planeswalkers) can be added or removed ala carte from the core set without causing a fuss that only part of a cycle is left.
Titans were fair at ALA-ZEN-M11 Standard. Valakut was only another deck of the bunch and the others weren't even staples. What really happened is that the power of the 3-4 drops plummeted brutally with Scars block. Cards like Bloodbraid elf, Knight of the reliquary and Sprouting Thrinax weren't replaced, so there was nothing useful for midrange to do on early turns. Currently, there seems to be a fix with cards like Blade Splicer and Hero of Bladehold, but they aren't enough. Restore the power of the middle drops and Titans are fair.
'Restore'? Bloodbraid Elf was part of the unhealthy power pendulum swing that started with faeries and ended with banning Jace, the Mind Sculptor . Scars block brought back the balance. If the answer to the Titans is to go to Bloodbraid Elf power levels, that isn't restoring, that is power creep =p
The point being made was that the Titans would have been in balance if the mid-range cards were more powerful. Scaling back the power curve mid-range, then leaving Titans in the Core set is a big reason why the Titans are so dominant.
All other cards are viewed as wasted right out of the gate, as per the LSV attitude, and that isn't very fun.
This is just a truth of the game, and Wizards is doing it intentionally.
See also: Glory Seeker vs. Knight of Cliffhaven as well as Kite Shield vs Accorder's Shield . The only real difference is, nobody seems to care when a bad card is compared to an underwhelming card, but holy crap it's a goddamn travesty when a good card brutally points out how bad a bad card had been all along. The only real travesty is printing something good, then intentionally following it with junk.
In fact, the existence of Kite Shield and Greatsword provide a bigger disencentive to buying packs than the Titans and new Planeswalkers can offset. Having cards fall out of the wrapper already obsolete (with a "strictly" better card still in Standard most of the time) is not going to drive repeat sales at all.
I 100% agree with this. There is so much JUNK in Core 2012 that I will not buy another pack, ever. Titans and Dual Lands will come down in price, so if I feel the need to add some Titans or need to flesh out my dual lands, the 2012 Core set will make those purchases cheaper. I have my full sets of commons, 2-4 of each uncommon. There is nothing else in the set I'm going to play the "Booster Pack Lottery" to obtain.
BTW, I arranged my 2012 Uncommons to be on facing pages with the 2011 Uncommons in my folder. A lot of playable uncommons from 2011 got replaced with JUNK in 2012. So much so that it's depressing.
Over all, Green got the shaft with 2012 and Garruk, Primal Hunter and Primeval Titan don't make up for it. Also, don't get me started on Artifacts. I've never seen so many useless JUNK Artifacts in any set.
Wizards says things like "Core is a place for cards we want in the format, but don't seem to fit into the planned expansions for the next block". I don't see many cards like that here. It's more like "let's see how much Junk we can put in one set and still get people to buy them".
In contrast, the Scars block was pretty good, with many useful cards in all rarity levels. Are they trying to increase the value of expansions by making Core extremely underwhelming? (Maybe to ensure that just owning full playsets of the Core will NEVER allow you to be competative with out also investing in each new expansion)?
I occassionally bought new 2011 packs through out the year after release. As stated, I will NOT buy another pack of 2012 Core. There are a few cards I will grab as singles, but 2012 seems to have no real value beyond the Uber Card lottery aspect.
Unless they make some major changes in design philosophy for core 2013, I'm thinking it might be best to just skip that one entirely and rely on buying key singles; depending on cards from the expansions to provide the real meat.
I really do appreciate the move by wizards to allow casual gamers to get ahold of the titans. The reprint seems to me like reprinting the original planeswalkers in m10 and m11, and I was actually able to afford or draft my first planeswalker set from m11. I was able to play with a deck using them, finally, after all of the time the cardtype had been around.
I'm also with the crowd who wishes something else was done with the dual lands, however - but make no mistake, I love that these were reprinted so I can keep using them. What is the point again of reprinting the dual lands at rare, however? I think I'm just coming to accept that mythics are just going to be the most powerful cards in standard, so allowing everyone to access that power is a nice move by reprinting them. You can't move that power down to an easier-to-obtain rarity if you want to exploit the mythic rarity for chase card/overpowered card/limited card reasons. The dual lands, however, were also reprinted for everyone to get ahold of again, correct? It's not like they break limited in half like mythic rares, so the power reason is out. They're mostly just rare-drafted when other cards aren't as apealing, and rarely (pun, haha) fit the exact colors you're playing, making the "breaking limited" arguement weak. Many players already own a playset, so they're not really chase cards anymore as well. It's also becoming more and more of a disappointment to find one in the rare slot with each reprint. So with all of this in mind, why not just make them uncommon so everyone really can get ahold of them? If not that, then at least try a new cycle every few years to give us a reason to buy packs.
Speaking of cracking packs of m12, I think the core set really has lost its luster. When m10 and m11 came out, I remember talking about getting ahold of commons and uncommons like they were rares and mythics. This made me excited to go out there and play with the set. Lightning bolt , doom blade , mana leak , harm's way , etc. I like bloodthirst for limited, but as stated many times in this forum, the titans are going to crush any bloodthirst card out there since they're all inferior creatures, so I don't have any urge to collect them. Magic has so many exciting cards worthy of being reprinted or being created now that the core set does that, and you let the commons/uncommons stagnate with kite sheild and broadsword ? I'm sure rancor would have loved to take one of those card's spots, especially when you guys were talking about including it for m11. I'm sure the sales figures will reflect the disappointment over the bad filler commons and uncommons over the few new exciting planeswalkers and rares. The core set seems like it's in an identity crisis: they want older players to be excited, but they're not willing to budge on creating 'teaching' cards that are worthless to anyone who has played more than 3 games. These cards hide behind a facade of 'flavor' when in reality, it's really poo flavor. Give me exciting pistachio, cookie-dough, or chunky-monkey flavor!
I'm going to end with stating that I really hope that all of those planeswalkers aren't going to be tournament worthy cards. If people don't buy packs, and only a small amount of cards are floating around, can you imagine how expensive those mythics are going to be if they're any good? Sounds like a potential Jace 2.0 issue again (and maybe even a Gideon Jura due to the short RoE period - he did peak around $50). The worst part is - even if they get that expensive, no one will want to waste their money on packs because of the rest of the chaff in the packs!
