A Magical Gathering

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Büge
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A Magical Gathering

Postby Büge » Tue Jan 21, 2014 12:20 am

So how excited are you for Born of the Gods?

I like Chromanticore.
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Grath
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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby Grath » Tue Jan 21, 2014 12:38 am

I've already taken February 1st off from work.

The Archetypes seem like slam dunk stupidness. Xenagos seems amazingly stupid and I want five to put in all of my Commander decks that run RG.

... Aaaand now that you've mentioned Chromaticore's existence, I need one for my Progenitus deck. To go with other such things that I need to put in, like Quicksilver Elemental + (Liquimetal Coating OR Mycosynth Lattice) + (March of the Machines OR Tezzeret the Seeker OR Xenic Poltergeist) + planeswalkers. Because infinite use of instant-speed planeswalker abilities isn't broken at all.

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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby Newbie » Tue Jan 21, 2014 2:00 am

Phenax got spoiled! He lets your creatures tap to mill equal to their toughness. People are sooooo angry right now! It's wonderful.
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zaratustra
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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby zaratustra » Tue Jan 21, 2014 9:39 am

Seems like it's supposed to help Inspired decks as well? Either way, Blue has 6 and 7-toughness walls for 3 mana.

And now Blue has a Wrath of God what the fuck.

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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby Mongrel » Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:16 am

zaratustra wrote:Seems like it's supposed to help Inspired decks as well? Either way, Blue has 6 and 7-toughness walls for 3 mana.

And now Blue has a Wrath of God what the pineapple.

Huh? Nah, it's just a mass-bounce spell. Blue's had those before.
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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby Z%rø » Mon Jan 27, 2014 12:16 am

Oh. Didn't realize we had this. Welp.

Mongrel wrote:stuff about counterfeiting


Thanks for the summary. It's an interesting situation that I'm surprised took this long to get into motion, considering it's "just printing" yet getting the quality to mostly match is still difficult?

As someone not currently in the magic loop, let me tell you what I would do with the ability to have 99% decent looking cards printed on command: Nicely framed power nine for my wall.
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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby Mongrel » Mon Jan 27, 2014 12:32 am

The issues weren't so much technological ones as they were basic missteps. Now, the English was good - we're not talking Nigerian letters here (and they just copy the original printed text anyway) - but the text kerning was so off that it's obvious to an English-speaker. And the text box fonts were totally wrong, even though the type-bar and text box fonts are common and widely available. They didn't realize this because most of them are used to reading in Chinese.

Those are extremely fixable issues. The round corners are probably not much more difficult to fix. Once they've got those down they're 99% of the way there because the only other obvious differences were that the cards felt "slightly flimsier" to some people, the copyright tag line was brighter (who the fuck is gonna notice or care about that?), and that they were slightly glossier (but many foreign printings are slightly glossier anyway!).
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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby Büge » Mon Jan 27, 2014 9:57 am

Mongrel wrote:My own views are that Wizards have brought this on themselves by being so stingy with their ridiculously tight-fisted reprint policies, which have resulted in all-time highs for average singles prices. I understand that there are decent reasons for it, such as to support retailers and drive new product sales when they do offer drips and drabs, but that's essentially short-term thinking. If undetectable counterfeiting ever takes off, there's no going back. They will be flat-out screwed with no real defence. They needed to disincentivize counterfeiting in as many ways as possible and removing or reducing the financial incentive is the single biggest tool they have to do so.


I feel the need to lay some blame at the feet of StarCityGames. As one of the largest retailers of cards, they have a great deal of influence on secondary market prices. SCG is part of the reason prices are so high, since they have a vested interest in it.
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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby Mongrel » Mon Jan 27, 2014 10:18 am

I think that's too easy. SCG is only the default option for lazy people. Actual market prices are much lower than SCG and it's never hard to beat SCG prices.

Ultimate responsibility rests with Wizards, since MTG is a production monopoly. While Wizards does not really control the secondary market (which is somewhat competitive), they have far more influence on it than any other party.
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zaratustra
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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby zaratustra » Mon Jan 27, 2014 10:40 am

I wonder if I can get custom cards at near-official quality.

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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby Lyrai » Mon Jan 27, 2014 9:09 pm

Hey Mongrel, I had to explain someone about the reserved list and I wondered, anything new on that? Your post from 2011 ended with "and nobody knows why, the end."

Explaining the story and reading the post again made me wonder if at the very least, someone figured out why they smacked the ball away so hard at the buzzer.

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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby Mongrel » Mon Jan 27, 2014 11:45 pm

The best guess has always been that the legal department shot them down, probably (but not for sure) over potential claims for something known as Promissory Estoppel, which relates to guarantees, etc.

Lawyers who have looked at the partial facts have generally stated that any case would be very weak but the potential liability would be high, maybe even nightmarish if they lost, or that their ability to print cards would be permanently impacted (since they would be forced to openly acknowledge the secondary market), so they simply don't think it's worth it for a few reprint dollars. In that case, complete silence is demanded so as to minimize risk, since talking about the issue could in theory provide ammunition for some sort of lawsuit at some future date.

What no one knows is whether this is a simple weighing of costs/benefits (low-ish risk, but very high, even fatal, penalties if they do get stung), or their legal team is made of idiots who are overreacting (it's possible! I seem to recall some unflattering things were said about some members of the Hasbro legal team when this came up for discussion back in 2011). We don't have access to the full info and possibly never will.
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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby Mongrel » Mon Jan 27, 2014 11:48 pm

zaratustra wrote:I wonder if I can get custom cards at near-official quality.

If you have templates, it can be done.

I have a legit copy of Space Cube.

Which none of the stupid assholes in Toronto ever wanted to play >:((((((
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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby Lyrai » Tue Jan 28, 2014 12:53 am

Mongrel wrote:
zaratustra wrote:I wonder if I can get custom cards at near-official quality.

If you have templates, it can be done.


I'm interested for a gift for someone.

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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby Mongrel » Tue Jan 28, 2014 1:04 am

I don't have the connections for the templates anymore and as for a printer, you have to find one who'll do small quantities (basically nobody - space cube was spread over 100 people).

There WERE guys doing custom prints on ebay, usually by reprinting over a real foil that blanked by peeling away the foil layer (netting you a non-foil blank) or stripped (netting you a foil blank), but they keep getting shut down, so unless you know a guy personally it's hard to track people down who're willing to admit they can do a print.

EDIT, wait, Starr might have the templates at least. I can ask her to look if you want. Printing you're still on your own though.
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zaratustra
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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby zaratustra » Tue Jan 28, 2014 8:13 am

Most of the Born of the Gods seems to have been designed by a computer. <STANDARD COLOR EFFECT>, then scry. When a spell targets card, <STANDARD COLOR EFFECT>. When card becomes untapped, <STANDARD COLOR EFFECT>. When Tribute is not paid, <STANDARD COLOR EFFECT>. The top-down flavor-oriented design from the first set all but vanished.

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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby Grath » Tue Jan 28, 2014 9:17 am

zaratustra wrote:Most of the Born of the Gods seems to have been designed by a computer. <STANDARD COLOR EFFECT>, then scry. When a spell targets card, <STANDARD COLOR EFFECT>. When card becomes untapped, <STANDARD COLOR EFFECT>. When Tribute is not paid, <STANDARD COLOR EFFECT>. The top-down flavor-oriented design from the first set all but vanished.


Whenever you complain about the set, <STANDARD COLOR EFFECT>.

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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby Mongrel » Tue Jan 28, 2014 10:28 am

Born of the Gods is one of the lamer sets in some time. Not only is it pretty damned boring, but the set's really been hobbled by a subpar collection of keyword mechanics. Bestow requires overcosting because of the strong advantage it generates, so there aren't many cheap, pushed bestow cards, Heroic still requires an overbearing investment and triggers too infrequently to really build around, Tribute is a punisher mechanic with some mitigation to make it not-completely-awful, and Inspired is... uninspired.

All of these mechanics really require a good deal of effort to properly maximize their value. They do offer great value if you pull it off, but that's almost bait more than anything. In most cases your return on investment will just not be worth it and playing other, more straightforward cards (i.e. from other sets) will be a better choice.

It's like a whole set of "Skill Tester" cards. (Skill Tester cards are bad cards).
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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby Newbie » Tue Jan 28, 2014 7:31 pm

Yeah, it's pretty weak for Standard, but I'm curious how it'll do for Limited.
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Re: A Magical Gathering

Postby Mongrel » Tue Jan 28, 2014 11:45 pm

Seems like it could be an okay limited set. I've heard people say they think it'll be awful for limited and others who think it'll be great, so DUNNO.
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