General [M25]Masters 25

[sigh]

9.99 MSRP and it can quickly escalate from there.

One of the hopes with masters sets is that there is a lot more value hidden into the commons/uncommons.

Will be sweet to get non-FTV Living Death foils

 

[whydirt]

I don't see WotC making their reprint policy any more aggressive unless/until counterfeiting becomes a large problem or overall sales start to dive and Hasbro issues some commands to attempt to right the ship.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

There's the Ensnaring Bridge I was expecting! It's a mythic though o_O

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Ok, Rishadan Port at rare... The value is all over the place. You are either going to be very, very happy opening boosters of this, or very sad

 

[whydirt]

Obviously you should just draft enough to hit the law of averages and be neither happy nor sad. Just an emotionless husk of a Magic player.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Just the way I like it

 

[Kirblinx]

I'm just here for the pauper spoilers.
So far the downshifts are:


I mean the rats is cool, but it is way off the curve in pauper.
Another 1 mana 2/1 to die to Electrickery doesn't do to much for me.
The Horde is interesting, but it feels like an almost strictly worse Gathan Raiders, which makes me a bit sad.
Pillage is cool, and might be alright, but I would rather they take two damage I think.

I hope it brings another Seeker of the Way, but my wishes could be too strong.

 

[Suicufnoc]

Lol I wanna build a rats deck.

28 Relentless Rats
4 Dark Ritual
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel

4 Sign in Blood
2 Victim of Night

18 Swamp

idk. Maybe Relentless Ramp with 12ish signets?

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Doesn't rats have the drawback of being a fairly small body for the investment?

 

[inscho]

Nah

 

[Suicufnoc]

Dude, it's a 29/29. For 3.

 

[whydirt]

Not just that but it's twenty-eight 29/29s, which is like 812 damage!

 

[Suicufnoc]

And for just 84 mana! Thats 9.66 power on the board per mana, not to mention its already 29 power per card. Gurmag Angler, a multi-flormat staple, is just a measly 5 power per card, and .71 power per mana.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Goodness gracious, they picked Tree of Redemption as the "exciting" green mythic. That card "definitely" "needed" a reprint Like I said, their picks are all over the place. Coalition Relic and Courser of Kruphix also got revealed last night (well, night for me), and those are great choices. I'm baffled at how they can pick great cards from one set, and utter thrash from others. They don't seriously believe anyone was wanting for a Tree of Redemption, right?

 

[Velrun]

But isn't the point of booster packs to have some good and some trash cards in the packs?

If they all were good, they would not be able to sell any future sets.

Unless they decide that now ALL future packs will also only ever have good cards in there and then suddenly we have an issue with inflation where nothing really matters anymore.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Oh sure, there's no need for all the cards to be valuable, but at least give me an exciting card when the whole purpose of M25 is reprinting iconic cards / cards that are very representative of their set. How does Tree of Redemption fit in there?

 

[Velrun]

Oh sure, there's no need for all the cards to be valuable, but at least give me an exciting card when the whole purpose of M25 is reprinting iconic cards / cards that are very representative of their set. How does Tree of Redemption fit in there?

I think you misunderstood what Masters 25 is about. It is not about iconic cards that are very representative of their set. That was (somewhat) what Iconic Masters was for. This is a common mistake I've seen many places.

The official announcement:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/25th-anniversary-announcement-day-2017-06-14

They've never said anything about the cards should either be Iconic or be representative of their original set. It is 'just' a celebration of 25 years of Magic all in one set.

It is important not to jump to conclusions based on false criterias. There is no way Wizards can keep us happy if we blame them for stuff they didn't do.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

There tagline for Masters 25 is (emphasis mine):

Celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Magic: the Gathering with a journey through the history of the world's first trading card game. In Masters 25, you'll find lands or spells from every Vintage-legal Magic set that introduced original cards. Whether you've been casting Lightning Bolts since Alpha or just started playing with Rivals of Ixalan, this set has something exciting to rediscover during your next draft night.

From MaRo's article from last Monday:

Ethan proposed Masters 25.

It was a set made up of all reprinted cards, but with a twist. To celebrate Magic's first 25 years, the product had a goal to have a reprint from every tournament-legal Magic set. (Sorry, Un- sets.) Then, to highlight where all the cards came from, each card had a watermark from the set it premiered in. Finally, rather than focus on mechanics or archetypes as most Masters products do, he focused more on cool combos and iconic cards from the past to make the gameplay as high on nostalgia as possible.

My point is that Tree of Redemption is neither exciting to rediscover nor iconic. It's a jank mythic. From a set with a bunch of exciting cards to rediscover.

Iconic Masters, on the other hand, wasn't about iconic cards. MaRo has pointed out repeatedly that the name Iconic Masters was misleading/regrettable in hindsight. He even said that people expecting iconic cards should be looking out for Masters 25 (first url below).

http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/165279600033/why-is-the-single-most-iconic-red-spell-lightning
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/165668366038/so-looking-back-do-you-feel-you-should-have
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/167037470023/is-lightning-bolt-iconic-that-is-a-dumb-question

 

[Velrun]

Can we at least agree that not all cards has to be ‘exciting’ for a set to have something ‘exciting’ to rediscover’?

MARO does not say Master 25 is suppose to be 100 % iconic cards. At least not in those three links. He says that there is a possibility of finding the iconic Lightning Bolt in Masters 25. He also says Iconic Masters should have been named something else because it had its focus on iconic creatures. Just like I stated above in my original post.

You are clearly misunderstanding Wizards’ intentions if you believe each card should either be iconic or ‘exciting’ in Masters 25 and in there roots your sadness and anger towards the green mythic rare’s inclusion in the set that is suppose to have at least one card from each expansion.

Let’s see what Wizards intended Master 25 to be about:
“Celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Magic: the Gathering with a journey through the history of the world's first trading card game. In Masters 25, you'll find lands or spells from every Vintage-legal Magic set that introduced original cards. Whether you've been casting Lightning Bolts since Alpha or just started playing with Rivals of Ixalan, this set has something exciting to rediscover during your next draft night.”

So including Tree of Redemption is fair game.

 

[sigh]

Well, it's a Mythic. There are only like 15 of those slots. If there are going to be some "non-exciting/iconic" cards, why on earth would you make it a mythic?? In Tree's defense, it is unique, and decently "cool"

Overall I'm not a big fan of the Green mythics. Master is a nifty card, and a cool ability, but like... I dunno.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

So including Tree of Redemption is fair game.

Of course it is. They designed the fricking set, they can bloody well do with it what they want. That doesn't mean I have to like it though.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Wizard's intention behind the set is to induce me, the consumer, to spend money on it.

Punishing me with opening Tree of Redemption as a mythic does not make me want to purchase packs.

 

[Aston]

Tree of Redemption may not be iconic, but putting counters on it so it constantly gains life is kind of a cool combo which was the other criteria.

I mean, I would have preferred another mythic (a planeswalker in each colour maybe? Something like Ajani Goldmane/Jace TMS/Liliana the Last Hope/Chandra Pyromaster/Garruk Primal Hunter so we've got the original Lorwyn five through the ages?) and the fact that Green's other mythic is Master of the Wild Hunt seems particularly unimpressive, but there's not zero reason to have the tree.

Something they could have done was knock it down to rare and have Tree of Perdition in the set as well.

 

[Tzenmoroth]

If you're concerned about EV, isn't it better to have interesting but bulk cards at mythic rather than rare? If Tree was rare, you'd open even more trees.

 

[Velrun]

People are allowed to be unhappy obviously As long as we agree on the fact that the Tree is meeting the requirements for the set.

And obviously they would sell the pants off the set if ALL the cards were above booster pack prices but that would simply leave us with a situation of 99 % unhappy customers in the future when future sets hit the stores.