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The old thread title change was so bad we had to leave? Anyways, might be good to have a note on sleeves in the OP as questions about those pop up often enough: Best Sleeves as of Summer 2019 (make sure to buy "Standard" and not "Japanese" sizes): Ultimate Guard Katana Dragon Shield Matte For inner sleeves, KMC Perfect Fits are the de facto standard. Dragon Shield perfect fits are also fine. Don't buy sideloader perfect fits. Also, the Tolarian Community College playlist of sleeve reviews is pretty well respected. Watch the newest videos first as quality of brands that were previously good have later become suspect.
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Aug 28, 2019 23:47
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AlternateNu posted:I usually wait a few weeks for Commander product cards to drop a bit as more get opened/put into circulation. Glad I fought that instinct this time. >_> Is there a story on what is going on with Commander 2019? Did they just not release enough of it? It's been out for a week and somehow a sealed set of 4 is $25+ above the retail preorder price (roughly $135 pre-order, now $160 from SCG).
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Aug 30, 2019 21:43
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RIP to Legacy. No show of support for it in the Pioneer announcement, unlike Modern, so it probably just gets forgotten like Vintage. With it goes the last credible reasoning I think you could have for why they would break the RL (to stoke support for a format). The current and past employees of the company will just let their personal holdings of those cards climb in value for the foreseeable future, as they have up to this point. BaronVonVaderham might be correct about Black being heavily represented in the meta. Seems like it has the highest density of answers at the start of the CMC curve. Over/Under on how long Emrakul, The Promised End stays legal? 3 weeks?
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Oct 21, 2019 23:54
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Along with all of the other financial/liability/internal politics reasons not to touch the RL, the way internet people turn into petulant babies at the slightest mention of it is another strong reason to let sleeping dogs lie. ... Assuming they don't want the format to be mostly seeing who's turn 3/4 combo goes off, Emrakul+Marvel can't last in the format for long. If someone made a set of bingo cards out of the 35ish cards that might get a ban, one of those two would be my choice for the free space. Presuming some kind of increased velocity over the Standard format where it was legal, perhaps there is a Approach+Nexus deck waiting to be played out there? Maybe in Esper instead of Bant for better interaction?
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Oct 23, 2019 02:44
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On the topic of early pioneer decks, Gabriel Nassif is playing a UW deck with a few planeswalkers in it. edit: Appears to be 3-1 so far, with only losing to Jeskai Copy Cat apparently.
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Oct 24, 2019 00:24
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Fabled Passage took quite a price jump since Monday. Depending on how the popularity of Pioneer holds it might not come very far back down? Tracking close to T3feri right now near $18. Related: https://twitter.com/TolarianCollege/status/1187134408836276224
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Oct 24, 2019 01:54
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Oko, Thief of Crowns will be banned: A) At the B&R announcement on November 18 B) At a B&R announcement in January before Return to Theros C) Sometime later in 2020-2021 D) Never Matt Sperling is calling for a ban like it is a Memory Jar type threat to the health of the game, but that seems unlikely. People do seem quite upset about it though, so my guess is the answer is C, around when Ikoria releases in April? But on the other hand: https://twitter.com/lsv/status/1188160890886950912 edit: ^^^ beat me by a few seconds lol
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Oct 26, 2019 19:33
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Did he cut Black Lotus for the second Oko? I realize there is probably some kind of logical explanation on why you wouldn't play Lotus in this meta, but that is a really funny look.
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Oct 27, 2019 02:22
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I'm not sure I understand how Oko, Royal Scions, and then Cursed Huntsman Garruk came out in the same set. Royal Scions might also turn out to be pretty silly with 3 cost/5 loyalty once Oko stops eclipsing the sun across multiple formats. Is there some kind of Jund/Junk ramp/reanimator deck waiting to emerge that makes Garruk near par with the other two? Seems like a big ask.
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Nov 2, 2019 14:53
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GP Nagoya (Standard) Top 8 is 7 Oko decks and one UW Control Oko metagame appears to be nearly 60% of day 2. https://mtgazone.com/magicfest-nagoya-2019-top-8-decklists-and-metagame-breakdown/ Honk. EDIT: Slightly less dreadful from GP Lyon, where food decks are only about 42% of Day 2. https://twitter.com/ChannelFireball/status/1190695675136266242 Good news, though! It appears the Wilderness Explosion decks are making a comeback. Major Operation fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Nov 3, 2019 |
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Nov 3, 2019 17:32
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Would be interesting if they tried to get an Oko ban out the door but got overruled from above. I wouldn't bet on Oko making it past November 18th though. This gives any stores/retailers still sitting on Oko singles a few more weeks to try to get out from under them, and a few more weeks of the sealed product near current EV. There was a fun 4-color superfriends deck in the era of Oath of Nissa/Attune with Aether that I really liked. Bant Tamiyo or Kaladesh Chandra on turn 3 was sweet. Not sure I see how this makes any sense, unless they're getting a hedge in against planeswalkers before people have months to dwell on it between ban announcements.
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Nov 5, 2019 00:35
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If there is any upside to Oko, it might be that its dominance coincides with the price of a lot of MH singles coming down. Can't imagine it will still be in print next year. Getting near time to watch if things bottom out on whatever cards you might want for EDH/Cube/whatever. I wouldn't buy any MH sealed, though. Box EV (<$120) is way below what they've been selling for on Ebay (~$170), and that is well below what the big storefronts are trying to sell boxes at ($200+).
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Nov 17, 2019 04:20
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BizarroAzrael posted:Some synapses in my brain fired at the same time and I had this idea for a Pioneer deck, first pass at Vampire Hardened Scales, or I suppose Hardened Fangs. My recollection of Metallic Mimic when it was in standard was that it was pretty underwhelming, and I expect Pioneer to have a higher bar than that. It's a 2/1 vampire for 2 that doesn't pump the existing board, has no keywords on its own, and also gets taken out by any removal package an opponent may be carrying. I won't pretend to have a solid answer for what to play instead. Vicious Conquistador? Drana? Yahenni? Blossoming Defense? Walking Ballista? I'm also not very excited by Champion of Dusk as the top end If you can give up your dream of playing vampires I expect there are probably better decks out there for Hardened Scales in BG (Tireless Tracker, Bristling Hydra, snek, Rishkar, etc). If you still want to be tribal there might even be a better deck in the Ixalan Merfolk instead of vampires, with many fish/scales puns for the taking.
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Nov 18, 2019 01:50
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Might be some bugs in the arena client related to companions? In game one of a traditional draft, cast my Lutri (out of the companion zone) to double a Rumbling Rockslide and clear my opponents board. Opponent still has 11 life and Lutri is my biggest creature, so I assume one of the 7 cards in their hand will be coming down next (they are on UG). But no, they concede? Went to sideboarding, submitted my deck, then proceeded to wait on the ready screen for 15 minutes for nothing to happen. Took a screencap before I Alt+F4. Now when I restart Arena I'm back in time in game 1 right before my opponent conceded. It's opponent's turn, but they aren't timing out. Filed a bug report, logs and all. Haven't conceded the match but I'm basically stuck for now.
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Apr 19, 2020 03:53
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The vibe right now of "every other set contains busted cards" reminds me of Decipher's Star Wars CCG in the late 90s. The tournament scene became notorious for bursting into flames whenever a new set came out. It wouldn't get fixed until they could get around to publishing errata to fix/unmake the busted cards and mechanics. The most notorious occurrence was at the 1998 SWCCG World Championships. Somebody made a not-great decision to run the biggest tournament right as a new set was delivered. https://iquotemyself.wordpress.com/2007/02/28/it-was-the-worst-of-times-period/ Looking forward to a few more weeks/months of "this is worse than cawblade/well actually cawblade was good" before they neutralize companions in every format.
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May 12, 2020 23:16
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When this thread gets moved into C-SPAM for punishment, perhaps the people there will like the cool art they're putting on the cat forest: https://twitter.com/wizards_magic/status/1273718705290047489 I think it's a jaguar.
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Jun 18, 2020 22:39
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I can't tell how effectively rare the new art lands are going to be in paper. It seems like the answer is "very" based on rarity, product popularity, and pandemic factors. Rarity for a given land art from a standard set would fall in the 1:15 to 1:25 per pack range, right? Depending on how the land slot in a pack is laid out. If my math checks out that is 300 to 500 packs opened (on average) to get 20 of one of the arts. A common pack land looks like 4:121 (1:30.25) here, which is 605 packs to get to 20. Rare and mythic would be x2 and x4 number of packs, which checks out with whoever posted 2420 packs for the phyrexian swamp earlier. So you'd only get a set of 20 doggo plains every 50 boxes opened (1210 packs / 24 packs per box). By comparison, I think the HOU swamp I really liked would average 20 openings in just over 11 boxes (400 packs / 36 packs per box). In reality, that HOU swamp is even more common because of inclusion in land packs from bundles. I guess I'm gonna try to talk myself into liking lands from the common packs the best.
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Jun 20, 2020 14:43
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If true (although I don't know why we would doubt Tainen at this point), having fetches only as expeditions or in the collectors packs of a standard set is a wild thing to do right after a masters set comes out. I know when it comes to eternal format support we should "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity," but the coincidences are piling up. It's hard to believe they aren't letting the barrier to entry for modern/legacy go higher on purpose. I wonder if anyone internally at WotC has used the phrase "boiling frogs" in reference to people trying to hang on. At the same time, after Double Masters, if you were hoping they'd ban out some pieces for Tron in modern, lmao.
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Jul 25, 2020 18:22
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Some Goon posted:Maro straight up said they aren't going to print high value cards at a level that will meaningfully impact the price. It's in my post history in this thread if you want to see for yourself. I think you're referencing that gobbledygook Tumblr post about the "collectible aspect" and "realities of the business", and yeah he said that generally about cards in eternal formats. The point I'm making is their reluctance on reprinting fetchlands specifically is pushing those formats (really just modern) off the table more than just high prices generally. Fetchlands are just 10 cards out of hundreds or thousands that have high values, but they are also the most foundational cards. There aren't many monocolor decks that are competitive in modern (last I knew), and you need fetchlands to be fast enough in a multicolor deck. You have to put in hundreds of dollars before you even get to cards with casting costs. I may be wrong in thinking this is even an issue anymore. I might just be listening to PleasantKenobi too much. Enemy fetchland prices have been on a slide since last year so maybe enough people have already dropped modern/legacy. Another reprint on enemy fetches in a non-SL product might bring down enemy fetches in line with the allied ones.
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Jul 25, 2020 19:57
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Captain Invictus posted:edit: gently caress yes. love these bad boys. <----- What uuuuuuuuup BTW, up thread where someone said to donate your commons to Commons4Kids, you may want to ask them first before sending. Sounds like they'll take them but they often can't actually donate them to the preferred places, so they might just be getting dumped on goodwill or sold somewhere else. "99% of the agencies we work with are religious based and will not accept Magic cards- we are currently learning this." https://commons4kids.org/newblog/?page_id=14
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Jul 29, 2020 23:00
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Wait, was there supposed to be a B&R update today?
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Aug 3, 2020 15:39
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Silhouette posted:aggro deck's are back baby! awoouu (wolf howl) I don’t know that this is a thread title upgrade over Guy Teferi, but I liked it. Good timing with Halloween coming up though.
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Oct 12, 2020 17:57
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I was worried I paid too much for my impulse preorder of a couple of Commander Legends boxes from CSI, even after my whale discount a week ago. Not quite as worried anymore. I keep being surprised that people get mad over sets having pushed cards in them, even after the last 4 or so years. I guess that makes me the real smoothbrain, but even I can see that WotC's customers for paper product are distributors and stores, not individuals. The exception is Secret Lairs, where they seem to charge you $6-$8 a card that will become unplayable due to curling as soon as it contacts atmosphere. A better thing to worry about would be if they are actually going to print enough of this set. Arcane Signets were hard to come by for a while.
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Oct 30, 2020 02:17
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I would love to get 25 of the swamps from the brutal lands drop for when we can play in person again. Not sure if there will ever be a sensible way to do that. I can’t see buying 25 sets of this (if they even allow that), and then trying to flip the rest of the lands to avoid going down nearly a grand on some basics. I think I’d rather try to pay aftermarket but I’d imagine those swamps probably start at  per single and just increase over time.
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Feb 10, 2021 17:16
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Boco_T posted:We need to start a campaign I do not think Wizards could be trusted with this idea. We know they are overwhelmingly white dudes and have recently made a variety of questionable choices when it comes to card designs. For color identity I'm guessing they would make a Tupac card either white or Azorious, and I wouldn't be that surprised if they made him a cop, too. Tupac, the Constable Poet, or something.
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Feb 13, 2021 22:32
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The change to make Wizards a division of Hasbro instead of a subsidiary and "moving beyond" game stores could be a big change to the relationships with hobby distributors. The sales relationship for paper cards is primarily WotC to distributors (or really big game stores) from the beginning up to now. That relationship could be changing to be primarily Hasbro Inc. to a different set of distributors and/or consumers. My speculative argument here is that neither side of the old sales relationship was very interested in dealing with modifying the reserve list situation. Presumably big game stores and distributors were/are actively against any modification. Tough to say how much actual appetite there will be to do something different with the new relationships. That could be your monkey's paw moment though: you get a functional reprint of some of those cards but they're only released through brand crossovers now that its all interior to Hasbro.
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Feb 25, 2021 20:53
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The Lord of Hats posted:Nah, the big retailers like SCG have all said that they’d much rather have the reserve list gone, or at least cut down. More money to be made on formats that aren’t dying to price hikes. You could be right. Someone like Star City could prefer the end of the reserve list to boost sales for Vintage and Legacy by lowering those entry costs. I have no idea what internal projections they might have. Hypothetical question: if Star City wanted the reserve list to continue, for whatever reason, would they ever say so publicly? Is there any reason why they wouldn't lie about it when asked?
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Feb 25, 2021 21:18
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Saucer Crab posted:https://articles.starcitygames.com/premium/why-its-time-to-remove-the-reserved-list-and-how-id-do-it/ This does look a pretty definitive statement that Star City Games would prefer to end the reserve list. Ben Bleiweiss also gives a clear definition of why he thinks the reserve list is still in effect (threat of lawsuits) that I think has been assumed but maybe never mentioned officially by Wizards. I think my idea that the change to the sales relationships could affect reserved list reprints is still in play here. My hypothesis was that the threat of lawsuits must have included the largest direct customers of Wizards (distributors and stores) to give them a real expectation of risk. My thought was Hasbro probably frowned on the potential for risk and conflict with the direct customers while Wizards was just an owned subsidiary, and handed down instructions that were, in essence, "don't poke the bear". Going direct to consumers in a larger way would reduce some of the risk to revenue. I am skeptical that MTGFinance barons (that aren't store owners or distributors) trying to band together to sue Hasbro directly would have any lasting effect. What kind of relief would they be asking for? A continuing injunction against printing cards having text that are different from cards printed 25 years ago, but are functionally similar if you understand the implications of the rules of the card game Magic: the Gathering? Are there attorneys that are competent to argue opposite Hasbro that would take that case? Now other divisions within Hasbro can try to influence the stance on reprints as well, and it's not hard to imagine some real dumb ideas coming into play. Like an executive over the board games division asking when Wizards will help them out with a Secret Lair crossover with Clue? They've got some old cards people want named things like "Library of Alexandria" and, shucks, that sounds a lot like "The Library" already. I'm being facetious in this example, but it's hard to say what they wouldn't do considering the deals they've already done. I personally would like it if they trashed the reserve list and made every card have some version available that costs less than $150.
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Feb 26, 2021 04:17
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The Klowner posted:I like the new burgers. I just started playing fairly recently so I don't have any nostalgia for the old burgers so I can say objectively that they look lame Generally agree with this. The pre-modern frames only look good in a few instances (mostly artifacts, I think) but otherwise they look hokey in the way that all computer graphics circa 93-94 looked. The difference isn't as blatant but I prefer the modern card frame to the 2015 frames. I had been away from the game for a few years when someone asked me to ride along for the Mirrodin pre-release. I hadn't seen any 8th edition cards yet so it was wild to see those new frames. It was not easy to tell artifacts apart from white cards at first. I 100% saw a Skullclamp and thought "this seems bad" so I've truly always been an MTG thread poster.
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Feb 27, 2021 05:11
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That Lili seems like it was designed for EDH, as others have suggested. The triggered ability, the minus, and the ultimate are all "each opponent" effects that are stronger in multiplayer. It will go into every Kess EDH deck right away, and the incidental value beyond just the plus ability in GY recursion decks might give it a place in the 99. Seems like it needs a lot of help to be good in other constructed formats. At face value it doesn't seem like the game is immediately over if you get to untap with it in any 60 card formats.
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Mar 23, 2021 03:37
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The LRR video explainer on the deck is pretty good as long as you can withstand their style of humor. The cards in the deck might be a bit overcosted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85xLoNYxpz0
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Apr 10, 2021 02:02
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Sleeve chat, but unrelated to those fancy inner sleeves... I guess demand has been outstripping supply on penny sleeves? Penny sleeves are now .02-.05 a piece in the places I've seen, which is approaching the price of KMC/Dragon Shield perfect fits. Lots of non-Amazon places are out of packs of 100 for regular Ultra Pro or BCW soft sleeves. Two years ago I bought 10000 soft sleeves from Cardboard Gold for $45, so this is a huge amount of inflation. Cardboard Gold might have cases of those sleeves back in stock at 11 AM Eastern/8 AM Pacific on Friday. Price isn't announced yet though. I'm not trying to shill for them but they are easy to find in a Google search. There's never been a better time to organize a cardboard collection/fire hazard taking up space in your house. People are getting their shots and looking forward to playing in person again. It might be a good time to check if you're sitting on random uncommons from 3 years ago that are suddenly worth selling. I've been sleeving up all of my Netrunner cards recently as they are getting pretty rare. Popularity (and prices) of the later sets have spiked since the community org that took over releasing new cards has gained traction.
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Apr 28, 2021 03:49
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Rahu posted:My LGS that generally charges Reasonable prices has posted MH2 stuff. Seems like nearly everywhere is sold out of the draft booster boxes online right now. I preordered from Miniature Market today, before the Daily MTG stream went live and announced the 1 week delay, but they show sold out now as well. That seems pretty wild for a set that doesn't come out for 6 weeks. It could be that it's really that popular, or it could be that stores got a heads up that there's going to be stock limitations and has pulled them down. So $230 might be a competitive price or it might be other stores protecting themselves.
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May 7, 2021 01:10
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Interesting experiments with foil curling and humidity written up at MTGGoldfish: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/tawnos-s-toolbox-foil-curling Actually discusses the problems of humidification in both directions. It also indicates something seems different about Commander Legends foils. Foils still seem like an unnecessary poo poo show but it could give you some actionable information if you're trying to make ones you already have playable again. Major Operation fucked around with this message at 01:29 on May 9, 2021 |
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May 8, 2021 21:48
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Forsythe has an incredible blend of being tone deaf to customers, insisting on statements that are quickly proved wrong, and immunity to self awareness. I don't know if he's solely responsible for making the public side of WotC seem like a bunch of hapless rake-steppers, but he's definitely not helping.
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May 25, 2021 17:52
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BBD had a thread on how he worked on MH2 for a bit and where that card name may have come from. Aaron Forsythe's innate ability to appear/be dismissive of other people cannot be stopped, I guess. https://twitter.com/BraunDuinIt/status/1397273465502126080
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May 25, 2021 22:12
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I'm interested to hear how or why Braids needed to be brought into modern, or even the legacy-lite they're seemingly changing modern to be. Doesn't seem like the card needed a reprint either: it's under a dollar for the last reprint version and still banned in commander. It is a piece of some kind of reanimator deck in legacy?
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May 28, 2021 12:40
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Shrecknet posted:This led me to discover Asmor.... has actually been in the game since Alpha A color shift with adding the artifact type of a RL card. How often does that happen? Granted it’s a bad card in this case.
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Jun 2, 2021 16:30
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coelomate posted:end the reserved list you cowards Wizards/Hasbro might be somewhat closer now to ending their adherence to the reserved list than they have been for years, but that doesn't mean its likely. As far as I know, the people who really clamor for ending the reserved list want those cards for (c)EDH, Legacy, or Cube. Wizards might already have those players marked as whales that consume premium products of every shape and size, so why rock the boat with the other people that have threatened to hit them with lawsuits? If they do decide to reprint some of those cards, it may not be in a way that you want or that actually helps. There's the possibility for some real Monkey's Paw bullshit to take place if they decide to test the waters of "may print special versions of cards not meant for regular game play". Some kind of ridiculous non-fungible tokens offering that get you an RL card with a non-standard card back, maybe? What about a $200 limited collectors box edition of Magic-themed Guess Who with cards that are 2 mm smaller along both dimensions? Better to hope for color shifts and workarounds, IMO.
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Jun 4, 2021 02:30
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I have nothing to add to the existing arguments about whether or not the Reserved List is legally defensible. I think discussions in these threads and other places on the internet have left the topic sufficiently tenderized. Wizards have printed cards that were on the reserved list before. Two supplementary products in 2010 had reserved list cards reprinted as foils. The response they received, presumably some of which we didn't see, led Wizards to remove the loophole they had left themselves. My argument is just that they aren't likely to test those waters, and any associated risk, as long as they are making record profits from small cardboard rectangles already. There's no doubt that I could be wrong. We know they had a change of executive leadership a few years ago. They might foresee a need to take that risk to keep pushing profits higher. John Avon could be putting the finishing touches on the artwork for frameless versions of the original dual lands, to appear in Eternal Horizons collector's boosters, as we speak.
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Jun 4, 2021 12:35
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