Brontoforumus

I miss mana burn.

YARGLE BARGLE

dies to climate change

lol whoops art direction!

Based on the sheer number of Commander reprints, that's an unambiguous YES.

Also that guy having an actual Snidley Whiplash moustache is always the best thing.

M19 spoilers going up.

Of particular note, is this card, the first-ever instant Timewalk (and reusable!):



It's the buy-a-box promo.

Meaning you can't crack it.

Buy-a-box promos are Standard-legal.

Plus hey, I dunno, maybe a couple EDH players will be interested?



Also, there's this:



In the Welcome packs, which will also be quite difficult to obtain, and again, seems like an obvious EDH plant.

So if you want a playset of that card, you need to buy four boxes of boosters? Aren't those like a hundred dollars each?

TA wrote:So if you want a playset of that card, you need to buy four boxes of boosters? Aren't those like a hundred dollars each?

Yeah, but the card itself probably won't cost that. The buy-a-box promo for Dominaria goes for about 5 dollars. https://shop.tcgplayer.com/magic/buy-a- ... sunspeaker

Was the buy-a-box promo for Dominaria a standard-legal Time Walk, though

Standard-legal, instant speed, recyclable (first time walk in a while a time walk spell card hasn't self-exiled) Time Walk.

Also, it will technically be Modern and Legacy legal! All it's going to take is ONE DECK, SOMEWHERE. Or, hell, even just speculation without a deck at all.

Mongrel wrote:Standard-legal, instant speed, recyclable (first time walk in a while a time walk spell card hasn't self-exiled) Time Walk.

Also, it will technically be Modern and Legacy legal! All it's going to take is ONE DECK, SOMEWHERE. Or, hell, even just speculation without a deck at all.

The problem here is the mana cost. This is not a competitively costed spell. The instants which cost six or more mana that see competitive play all have some kind of cost-reduction clause attached (Dig Through Time, Fireblast, etc.). Maybe if there was a deck built around this spell with a bunch of cost reduction, it might see some kind of eternal play, but as it stands I doubt anyone would actually play this in anything but a Taking Turns shell and, even then, it still costs more than a miracle'd Temporal Mastery.

Büge wrote:

Mongrel wrote:Standard-legal, instant speed, recyclable (first time walk in a while a time walk spell card hasn't self-exiled) Time Walk.

Also, it will technically be Modern and Legacy legal! All it's going to take is ONE DECK, SOMEWHERE. Or, hell, even just speculation without a deck at all.

The problem here is the mana cost. This is not a competitively costed spell. The instants which cost six or more mana that see competitive play all have some kind of cost-reduction clause attached (Dig Through Time, Fireblast, etc.). Maybe if there was a deck built around this spell with a bunch of cost reduction, it might see some kind of eternal play, but as it stands I doubt anyone would actually play this in anything but a Taking Turns shell and, even then, it still costs more than a miracle'd Temporal Mastery.

I doubt it will be hot in Legacy, but lots of EDH decks will find the mana cost trivial. And yes, there's been some serious talk about it fitting into Taking Turns.

I mean, it doesn't have to be huge demand for this to turn into a big fuckup.

It's just stupid because we've never had an instant, reusable Time Walk before. Even if the risk of this blowing up is only 5%-10%, why risk it?

I read an article a while back that gave me new insight into card design, the gist was: It's better for the game, in the long term, to push card power.

In the short term, this often fucks with the game and makes certain seasons/pro tours/GPs really stupid. Skullclamp, Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, Eldrazi in Modern, etc.

But in the long term, it gives us really neat, cool cards like Rancor (which was supposed to be printed at either 1G or 2G, but some hilarious miscommunication/mistake actually got it pushed through at G) and the like. Powerful, beloved cards that actually improve the game in the long term.

So with that in mind, and because you can always ban cards that are too busted, I'm leaning toward saying that printing an instant speed reusable time walk (with a huge mana cost) might not be a bad thing.

And yeah, bans suck. Everyone hates bans because they make your cool card you paid 20 bucks (or much, much more) each for suddenly worth jack-all. In a perfect world cards would be pushed just enough to create new beloved cards without breaking anything. But if you're going to push cards, you have to accept that sometimes mistakes will happen.

The card itself isn't the problem; the card's fine. It's the distribution method - this card is ONLY obtainable by pre-ordering a box of M19, and then only if you're one of the first X at your LGS to do so.

... jesus, it's only for PRE-orders? Yeah this reeks of a gimmick to move unwanted boxes.

Huh.

I didn't realize it was only for pre-orders.

I guess WOTC wants in on that sweet, sweet pre-order DLC craze that's sweeping the video game industry.

TA wrote:... jesus, it's only for PRE-orders? Yeah this reeks of a gimmick to move unwanted boxes.

This crap started just one set ago (Dominaria) and it already made people nervous, even though the card was a niche legendary creature (currently selling for $8 and I bet it wouldn't break $2 if it was a normal rare).

On paper, buy-a-box promos are supposed to be for everyone. But store owners are expected to give out promos first-come, first-served until they run out and guess who comes first in that system?

So I guess my saying it's only for pre-orders is overstating things somewhat. But not much. I have never once ever heard of buy-a-box promos lasting until day two of a set's release and usually they're all gone in minutes to hours (even very small hole-in-the-wall stores can move 50-60+ boxes on release day, and average stores move 100-200 boxes easily). It's been a while since I got a buy-a box promo, so maybe they've bumped up the numbers, but given it used to be 20 per average-sized store and 40 for BIG stores, I wouldn't think the number being given out has been pumped up all THAT much.

Here's the Wizards update on the new system: https://wpn.wizards.com/en/article/new-rules-buy-box but it (of course) doesn't say how many promos are issued to stores.

I'm absolutely certain that it used to be 20 for regular WPN stores and 40 for Advanced WPN stores (I checked to be sure). I know some LGS owners/employees over on the Magic forums, so I will ask if quantities have been increased.