Community

This thread is for discussion of this weeks's Feature Article, which goes live Monday morning on magicthegathering.com.

Are you freakin serious?

That's right, the fight between the various creatures of the night and the forces of the humans will be amped up at your local Prerelease in a whole new way, thanks to the monster hunts running throughout the main event. Every Prerelease will have some number of people designated as a vampire, werewolf, zombie, or spirit at the start of the event.

I was seriously considering going to this one, but you've now convinced me otherwise.  Looks like now all I have to do after My Little Pony this weekend is to go back to bed.

Heh. They're trying to give the small-set prereleases something quirky to do, after the success of Mirrodin Besieged's faction wars. This time we have faction wars again, but with factions who convert opposing humans into their own kind... just like Phyrexia do. Um.

Anyway, I wouldn't particularly mind being turned into a vampire or a spirit, but I really don't want to be a zombie. I suppose i could bring along my pirate costume from last week's fancy dress party so that if I get zombified, I can become a zombie pirate. 

What's the point of this monsters vs humans business? Are there special prizes that everybody gets if they're on the "winning side" or something? I'm still going to the prerelease, cause I promised my nephew I'd take him, but I'm not looking forward to the shenanigans of this event.

You guys are silly. You play like normal. At the end of the day you might get something extra. /endtopic

Jan 23, 2012 -- 3:19AM, Edacade wrote:

What's the point of this monsters vs humans business? Are there special prizes that everybody gets if they're on the "winning side" or something?

Apparently so.  The article states:  "At the end of each Prerelease, though, there will be one team with the most players—either monster or human. Whichever has the greatest population at the end of the event wins, and organizers will surely make certain that to the winning team go the spoils."

I think it sounds silly but hey, I'll give it a try.  Doing new things keeps you young. 

My friend is going to his first Pre-Release. While I'm unable to go with him, I'm wondering if it will be diffrent from a typical one becasue of this "Humans vs Monsters" theme, as I'm still not really sure what it's about.

Why are people confused about this? It makes virtually no difference whatsoever to what you actually do - it's purely a feeling/rewards thing. If you want to do a bit of light roleplaying you can I guess,... but there's no implication any is required and there's no actual teamwork of any kind.

Jan 23, 2012 -- 9:47AM, Baconradar wrote:

Why are people confused about this?

What's to be confused about?
it's just another asinine gimmick to distract everyone from the abysmal overall card-quality or the set.

Jan 23, 2012 -- 11:16AM, Qmark wrote:

Jan 23, 2012 -- 9:47AM, Baconradar wrote:

Why are people confused about this?

What's to be confused about?
it's just another asinine gimmick to distract everyone from the abysmal overall card-quality or the set.

Why are you asking me? I'm not confused.

Oh it's so you can complain some more. Cool. But if you think the overall quality of the set is abysmal why were you considering going to the prerelease? I mean I like the set and I won't be going to a prerelease.

Jan 23, 2012 -- 11:29AM, Baconradar wrote:

But if you think the overall quality of the set is abysmal why were you considering going to the prerelease?

Nothing really to do next Saturday after Ponies, and the full gallery wasn't out there yet.


Also to pick up Lootings.

Anyone else see a general increase in the casting cost of the high-end spells this time around?

Jan 23, 2012 -- 11:16AM, Qmark wrote:

What's to be confused about?
it's just another asinine gimmick to distract everyone from the abysmal overall card-quality or the set.

What in the world are you talking about? Dark Ascension is cool and objectively very powerful.

I'm ambivalent about the gimmick; it definitely feels like a last-minute addition since this is the first we're hearing of it, but I'm open to being pleasantly surprised. And I expect a good day of fun from the prerelease, even though mine will be Sealed Luck.

Jan 23, 2012 -- 7:53AM, Ange-Gardien wrote:

Jan 23, 2012 -- 3:19AM, Edacade wrote:

What's the point of this monsters vs humans business? Are there special prizes that everybody gets if they're on the "winning side" or something?

Apparently so.  The article states:  "At the end of each Prerelease, though, there will be one team with the most players—either monster or human. Whichever has the greatest population at the end of the event wins, and organizers will surely make certain that to the winning team go the spoils."

I think it sounds silly but hey, I'll give it a try.  Doing new things keeps you young. 

Weird, it looks like they made a change to the article. It now states:

"At the end of each Prerelease, the remaining humans and the largest monster tribe or tribes will be the winners and the organizers will surely make certain that they get the spoils."

So this would mean that if all the monsters go 0-2 drop, everyone else automatically "wins."

I actually really like the gimmick!  It kind of encourages people at the small events to keep playing.  Unfortunately, this feels like a limited set to me.  Doesn't really get my mind thinking anything other than how cards should cost less, be an instant, just be a completely different card, not have a 'creature spell.  Draw a card.'  attached to it, so on so forth.

3.5/5 

What about the "spoils"? Will these be included in the prerelease kits?

EDIT: there's nothing (except for the stickers) in the kits. That's kinda lame...

Jan 23, 2012 -- 6:00PM, tcg_researcher wrote:

Weird, it looks like they made a change to the article. It now states:

"At the end of each Prerelease, the remaining humans and the largest monster tribe or tribes will be the winners and the organizers will surely make certain that they get the spoils."

Well its good that they made this change, because the previous iteration (Monsters v. Humans, whichever side has more wins) was ridiculous. Someone who actually understands mathematics over there finally realized that under that scheme, the Humans had about a 5% chance of outnumbering the monsters at the end of 5 rounds, and thats with the max number of starting humans lol.

Is anyone else skipping the prerelease like my buddy and I because there are no booster drafts anymore? We aren't looking for any Innistrad stuff, just Dark Ascension...