General Other News

Velrun

Velrun

I am creating this thread so that we can have a place to announce all other Magic: The Gathering-related news that aren't expansions.

First up, the announcements from today.

We are now entering the 'Fourth Era' of Mtg history according to Wizards of the Coast.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/new-era-2018-05-03

Second up, the announcement from the day before yesterday.

These five beautiful Basic lands will be handed out to players who participate in side events during the Grand Prix's of 2018 (Not only for Vegas):

https://www.grandprixvegas.com/land-promos

DcEP4KLWkAAl8ZX.jpg

Question to you all: Do you think it is a good idea to collect all non-essentiel announcements in a thread like this or would you prefer to let each announcement have its own thread to sort of 'shine brighter'? Or would you actually rather never see non-essentiel announcements on a cube-related forum? :)
 
Velrun

Velrun

So the first Battle Bond spoilers was..well..spoiled.
And they are interesting yet useless in regular Riptide cube formats.

671DE856-E558-4E6D-9E91-7F6EFD0BB67A.jpeg
 
frostymoose

frostymoose

It just feels so painfully obvious they are only rare to push pack sales. They're not legal for modern or standard, not going to get played in Legacy. Two color fixing is not so oppressively powerful that they couldn't be uncommon in a draft format. They're just rare so that commander players have a harder time getting them. It feels a lot nicer when wizards puts in bonuses (like they've done with full art lands and masterpieces) to push pack sales rather than being stingy.

Aether Hub was a great uncommon fixing land that showcased the mechanics of Kaladesh! It feels like that could have done the same thing here.

Am I just jaded? Masters 25 really did a number on my already waning faith in Wizards...
 
Velrun

Velrun

Maybe it’s just me but I feel like actual dual lands that have a “I have the opportunity to enter the battlefield untapped” should be rare. Not mythic, not uncommon.

When the game begins and you have several opponents, this is going to be an always untapped Glacial Fortress which is rare. They are actually strickly stronger than most rare dual lands IF the game begins and it is a multiopponent game.
 
sigh

sigh

And uncommon in only some, and rare in just one of them, I think.

Just highlights how silly rarity is in the grand scheme of things. And, with maybe a few exceptions, I don't think 'rare' lands should be rare. Lands don't do much but enable you to play your deck. At the very least the threshold to being rare should be a little higher. (the SOI 'rare' dual lands are great example)
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
From a historical point of view, it's understandable that they print dual lands at rare. They always have, and it has probably served them well. Good duals sell sets. From a player's perspective, however, the mana base is a restrictive entry barrier to constructed Magic, and I believe the tournament scene would be better off with good duals at uncommon. Let's hope their design sensibilities on this topic change in the near future. Maybe someone can drop MaRo a hint on blogatog: "The mana base seems to be an expensive entry barrier to constructed Magic. Have you even considered changing the default rarity of good dual lands to uncommon?"
 
anotak

anotak

it's downright impossible that someone like maro hasn't given it serious thought already.

they know what they are doing.

and they are choosing to do it.

on purpose.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
anotak said:
it's downright impossible that someone like maro hasn't given it serious thought already.

they know what they are doing.

and they are choosing to do it.

on purpose.
Click to expand...
Of course they are, but it'ld be interesting to see what his answer is. Really, the only two legitimate reasons he can give are "because we always have printed them at rare" and "because it's a good way to sell packs". I don't think he'ld be that honest, but still :)
 
Gozmit97

Gozmit97

There is always the limited argument, of not wanting to power up fixing and amount of lands in limited too much.
 
sigh

sigh

Gozmit97 said:
There is always the limited argument, of not wanting to power up fixing and amount of lands in limited too much.
Click to expand...
There's almost never a situation where powering up the fixing is a bad thing. Removing them from rare slots I'd thunk would give you more opportunities to get useful and powerful things, rather than probably pulling the wrong 2 color land in your rare slot.
 
Golvin

Golvin

In multicolored sets having stronger uncommon fixing would be phenominal from a draft perspective. Ditto to varying degrees for other sets (Innistrad, Ixilan, or Lorwyn could use some), but I agree with Gozmit97 that there is a very real draft perspective to be taken into account. When printing a land at uncommon the general practice is to make them a cycle of monocolored land or multicolored lands. Said differently, Wizards would have to eat up 10 uncommon slots for cards that come out to being meh in most draft formats, but are needed for standard, instead of cards that would actively make draft more interesting and different from set to set.

My solution would be to print them in supplemental products (Commander, Challenger Decks, etc.), flood core sets with lands (Sell packs of a product they expect to sell and be drafted less anyways), and/or place them in sets that really want rare multicolored lands (Fetches on Zendikar or Shocks on Ravnica). That said, most of what I am suggesting is unlikely to happen as Wizards will continue to make additional revenue when possible. (I really feel that the masters sets have been going the way of master pieces wherein there is only so any you can do before running out of interesting idea. At least they're legible.;))
 
anotak

anotak

there's plenty of easy solutions to that

they could put them in the land slot for example

they could change the distribution probabilities some other way

it's not as if they've never introduced a rarity
 
Velrun

Velrun

Onderzeeboot said:
How about common?

Click to expand...

Command Tower is not a dual land because it is not restricted to only producing two different colors of mana.

Also Command Tower was never possible to open in Booster Packs therefore the rarity was measured different in the Commander products unlike these new Battlebond dual lands that is opened from Booster Packs. Command Tower was in 100 % of all Commander products and was, by definition, at common rarity. Because it was impossible NOT to open a Command Tower.

Also also I 100 % agree with you. The only two answers from MARO must be cultural habbits and money-making machine :p Maybe he’ll say that the entry-barrier to Magic is not dependent on the rare lands because there are plenty of fine mana-fixing lands at common rarity.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
anotak said:
there's plenty of easy solutions to that

they could put them in the land slot for example

they could change the distribution probabilities some other way

it's not as if they've never introduced a rarity
Click to expand...
They actually did this for... Fates Reforged I think? Every booster had a guaranteed dual, which was a common (Thornwood Falls and friends), with a chance for a rare (Breeding Pool and friends).

Golvin said:
Said differently, Wizards would have to eat up 10 uncommon slots for cards that come out to being meh in most draft formats, but are needed for standard, instead of cards that would actively make draft more interesting and different from set to set.
Click to expand...
I have to disagree here. Great fixing is great for every draft format, even those not focused on multicolor, but more importantly, they don't actually need to print duals in every set. If they did, you would have 5-8 duals in Standard at all times, which is a bit too much for their tastes (I still remember that Lorwyn-era deck that played Wrath of God, Cruel Ultimatum, and Cloudthresher in the same deck). So, you can save your duals for the sets where they matter the most. Also, you have a lot more slots at uncommon, which means they could actually print the full cycle of ten lands every time instead of just the 5 allied (which is really annoying). You can even do cute stuff like print a City of Brass at uncommon and make that the sole fixing in the set. It doesn't really impact the as fan of archetypes in limited, but you've got an additional fixing option for standard!
 
Golvin

Golvin

I have to disagree here. Great fixing is great for every draft format, even those not focused on multicolor, but more importantly, they don't actually need to print duals in every set. If they did, you would have 5-8 duals in Standard at all times, which is a bit too much for their tastes (I still remember that Lorwyn-era deck that played Wrath of God, Cruel Ultimatum, and Cloudthresher in the same deck). So, you can save your duals for the sets where they matter the most. Also, you have a lot more slots at uncommon, which means they could actually print the full cycle of ten lands every time instead of just the 5 allied (which is really annoying). You can even do cute stuff like print a City of Brass at uncommon and make that the sole fixing in the set. It doesn't really impact the as fan of archetypes in limited, but you've got an additional fixing option for standard![/quote]

Clearly I did a crumy job of expressing my opinion. We are on the same page about mana fixing and dual land usage - it's a tool. Most of the time, Wizards will add a filter artifact and/or land at common and call it a day. Usually that is sufficient to enable all of my bad ideas and prevent the 5 color good stuff deck for the most part.

Yes, it was Fate Reforged that replaced the basic with a full cycle of dual land because they were not putting them at common like with Khans. (Man they wrecked that world.) It was also possible to open a fetch instead of a basic, too. They did the same thing in Dragon's Maze with Shocks. Wish I thought of this.
 
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