General (CMM) Commander Masters 2023 Previews

TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

Finally seen some more previews for this set. There are some new full-art versions of a few popular Cube cards:
grandabolisherp2.jpg
finaleofdevastation.jpg
urzalordhighartificerp.jpg

(Grand Abolisher, Finale of Devastation, Urza, Lord High Artificer).

There are also reprints with the Etched Foil treatment:
theimmortalsunp.jpg
mysticconfluencep.jpg
heroicintervention.jpg


And some good rarity downshifts:
rishkarpeemarenegade.jpg
torrentialgearhulk1.jpg
battlescreech.jpg

(Rishkar, Peema Renegade at Uncommon, Torrential Gearhulk at Rare, Battle Screech at Common for the first time in paper).

I don't think this set is as good as previous masters sets yet, but there is some cool stuff here.
 
Brad

Brad

Velrun said:
How’s it going with your project? :)
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I have a like 520 card list imported into MPC. It needs me to make a handful of the LOTR cards and upload them, as they weren't on MPCFill yet. After I see previews for this set, I'll get it printed.

I'm also working on a side project that's kind of weird, but it's very easily maintained from a design perspective. It's pauper, but there's 1 card per color per set, with a few multicolor/artifact exceptions. Makes it so that new set releases can't shake up the whole cube and it's easy to add 5 cards. Less thinking involved and very budget. It's kind of a back up plan if I don't like how the MPC experience goes.

I'm hopeful that the MPC experience goes well. Yu-Gi-Oh is so screwed up by Konami that I feel like a custom cube is the only way to play it at this point.
 
MilesOfficial

MilesOfficial

This set's not for me so far, but that's ok. Excited for the small hit of new cards we're getting next week (one deck spoiled per day starting Tuesday).

Do people here like the etched foil format? I've occasionally liked the white-text promos/alternative frames (especially the Planar Chaos ones) but even ignoring the fact that they're exclusive to foils (objectively negative feature imo) I'm pretty mild on them.

The profile alt art legends are also of little interest to me, personally. Never will complain about them trying new alt formats at this point though, they jumped the shark in terms of "how to identify a card as a Magic card" long enough ago that I'm happy folks get options that may suit them at this point.

Speaking of which....there is something in this expansion I'm a big fan of:

IMG_0637.jpegIMG_0636.jpegIMG_0635.jpeg
*More* old-bordered basics??? I'm in heaven! They look like they fixed the too-dark frame from DMU and BRC, and could hardly have picked better options - these three from commander sets are amongst the best basic cycles they've ever done.

Excited to change these out in my cube's land box, but more than that, if we keep going at this rate, we'll have more old-bordered basics printed in the 2020s than we did in the 90s. Please keep up this trend, WotC!
 
ravnic

ravnic

As soon as I habe confirmation that they fixed the too dark proble, I'll get one of each of them as well for my basic land box. K might even go for all old border all different art basics, at least if they ever reprint Ravnica and old Kamigawa basics in old borders.
 
Velrun

Velrun

Brad said:
I'm also working on a side project that's kind of weird, but it's very easily maintained from a design perspective. It's pauper, but there's 1 card per color per set, with a few multicolor/artifact exceptions. Makes it so that new set releases can't shake up the whole cube and it's easy to add 5 cards. Less thinking involved and very budget.
Click to expand...

This sounds refreshing from a designer point of view
 
Velrun

Velrun

Nice!

Kaladesh invention with following lens:
New Capenna - Kaldheim - Zendikar

Extraplanar Lens.jpg

@Onderzeeboot
How do I put this into a spoiler?

When I upload the picture I get the option to click on "Thumbnail" or "Full image".
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Velrun said:
Nice!

Kaladesh invention with following lens:
New Capenna - Kaldheim - Zendikar

View attachment 8464

@Onderzeeboot
How do I put this into a spoiler?

When I upload the picture I get the option to click on "Thumbnail" or "Full image".
Click to expand...
You can start a spoiler with "[ spoiler ]" (removing the spaces) and end it with "[ /spoiler ]" (again, removing the spaces). Alternatively you can select the image (or text) you want to put in a spoiler, then click on the three dots to the right of the text color icon, which opens a menu with additional options. To the far right of these options is a mask, which is the spoiler option.
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

The more we see of this set the more I think it should not be called "Commander Masters" and instead should be called "Timmy Card Masters." It feels like the design goal of this set is to make everyone draft decks that feel like EDH circa 2009. This is funny because most of the reprints are cards from made-for-Commander products.

I guess this makes sense on some degree, I was just expecting more tutors and fewer Lorthos, Tidemakers.
 
Rusje

Rusje

TrainmasterGT said:
The more we see of this set the more I think it should not be called "Commander Masters" and instead should be called "Timmy Card Masters." It feels like the design goal of this set is to make everyone draft decks that feel like EDH circa 2009. This is funny because most of the reprints are cards from made-for-Commander products.

I guess this makes sense on some degree, I was just expecting more tutors and fewer Lorthos, Tidemakers.
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Tutors are violating the spirit of single card philosophy.
At the same time tutors make certain deck styles possible.
 
Velrun

Velrun

Rusje said:
Tutors are violating the spirit of single card philosophy.
At the same time tutors make certain deck styles possible.
Click to expand...

You can argue tutor spells are violating the spirit of any format.

“Tutors are violating the spirit of a single card philosophy because you are supposed to only draw the specific card once each game. And it should have about a 1 % chance of drawing each turn.”

“Tutors are violating the spirit of a 4-copy 60 card Standard philosophy because you are supposed to only draw of the specific card four times each game. And it should have about 7 % chance of each turn.”

Etc.
 
Velrun

Velrun

TrainmasterGT said:
The more we see of this set the more I think it should not be called "Commander Masters" and instead should be called "Timmy Card Masters." It feels like the design goal of this set is to make everyone draft decks that feel like EDH circa 2009. This is funny because most of the reprints are cards from made-for-Commander products.

I guess this makes sense on some degree, I was just expecting more tutors and fewer Lorthos, Tidemakers.
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I am not talking specifically to you Train. You just made me think about things.

There must be buyers for this product. Otherwise they would stop them. For me this is one of those products they should terminate. It doesn't give anything to the game except it makes money because Wizards get to sell packs without designing new cards. We have some new skins. And some cards get cheaper because they are reprinted. All this is great for the consumers.

But it also gives set release fatigue. I cherish the creative sets that bring new cards to the game. I don't mind getting my fatigue barrier attacked by these sets.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Velrun said:
I am not talking specifically to you Train. You just made me think about things.

There must be buyers for this product. Otherwise they would stop them. For me this is one of those products they should terminate. It doesn't give anything to the game except it makes money because Wizards get to sell packs without designing new cards. We have some new skins. And some cards get cheaper because they are reprinted. All this is great for the consumers.

But it also gives set release fatigue. I cherish the creative sets that bring new cards to the game. I don't mind getting my fatigue barrier attacked by these sets.
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I think Masters sets are great, because reprints make cards more affordable. In addition, reprint sets don't really contribute to set release fatigue, because there is nothing new to explore. Though maybe that's a personal thing? Anyway, cheaper cards are great, keep tanking the secondary market to make Magic more affordable please!
 
Velrun

Velrun

That's a very good point @Onderzeeboot
You are close to changing my mind :) In fact my mental fatigue from these sets are probably on 20 % of normal sets because I just look at all the cards for less than 5 seconds each. Just to be reminded of old cards and to see if there are new skins I would like. And the affordability of the cards cannot be argued with. This is trictly a good thing.
 
LadyMapi

LadyMapi

Velrun said:
You can argue tutor spells are violating the spirit of any format.

“Tutors are violating the spirit of a single card philosophy because you are supposed to only draw the specific card once each game. And it should have about a 1 % chance of drawing each turn.”

“Tutors are violating the spirit of a 4-copy 60 card Standard philosophy because you are supposed to only draw of the specific card four times each game. And it should have about 7 % chance of each turn.”

Etc.
Click to expand...

The issue with that argument is that singleton formats are singleton because it cuts down on consistency, in order to avoid the play pattern you see in 60-card formats where your deck does the same thing every single game. As far as I can tell, the original idea behind Commander was that having a legendary creature in your command zone lent your deck enough consistency that the rest of it could just be a pile of cards you like.

But it turns out that people actually kinda like having their deck Do The Cool Thing every game, so... tutors.
 
Velrun

Velrun

LadyMapi said:
The issue with that argument is that singleton formats are singleton because it cuts down on consistency, in order to avoid the play pattern you see in 60-card formats where your deck does the same thing every single game. As far as I can tell, the original idea behind Commander was that having a legendary creature in your command zone lent your deck enough consistency that the rest of it could just be a pile of cards you like.

But it turns out that people actually kinda like having their deck Do The Cool Thing every game, so... tutors.
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That's actually not true.

First there was a format called Highlander. The idea was singleton and 100 cards. Commander (formerly known as EDH) was a variant to Highlander where you had a general.

Your idea about the format should be singleton in order to cut down on consistancy is your own made up idea or interpretation. It's more accurate to say that the cards should be drawn about 1 % of the time with each card draw. Exactly like I wrote earlier. Tutors change this math. Same with 4-copies 60-cards deck where tutors also change the math.
 
Velrun

Velrun

ravnic said:
I feel like you guys actually say the same thing just with slightly different words
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No need to correct me then :p
I was very strictly accurate the first time around. Singleton formats are not against tutors more than other formats. There is a certain % you want your players to draw the cards. Tutors change this math in every format.
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

Velrun said:
You can argue tutor spells are violating the spirit of any format.

“Tutors are violating the spirit of a single card philosophy because you are supposed to only draw the specific card once each game. And it should have about a 1 % chance of drawing each turn.”

“Tutors are violating the spirit of a 4-copy 60 card Standard philosophy because you are supposed to only draw of the specific card four times each game. And it should have about 7 % chance of each turn.”
Click to expand...
The funny thing is, Magic didn't initially have the 4 cards to a deck rule. In fact, decks didn't even need 60 cards at the time: the minimum was 40! It wasn't until people started playing decks consisting of 20 Mountains and 20 Lightning Bolts that the "4 cards to a deck" rule was added and the minimum deck size was increased to 60.
 
Velrun

Velrun

TrainmasterGT said:
The funny thing is, Magic didn't initially have the 4 cards to a deck rule. In fact, decks didn't even need 60 cards at the time: the minimum was 40! It wasn't until people started playing decks consisting of 20 Mountains and 20 Lightning Bolts that the "4 cards to a deck" rule was added and the minimum deck size was increased to 60.
Click to expand...

Yes I know and it is funny :)
 
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